Saturday 25 January: HS2 will simply let London pull the life out of the fragmented North

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/01/25/lettershs2-will-simply-let-london-pull-life-fragmented-north/

756 thoughts on “Saturday 25 January: HS2 will simply let London pull the life out of the fragmented North”

    1. …and a Happy Burns Day to all haggis lovers. Tonight’s evening meal is haggis, neeps and tatties. And I shall spend the entire day making this year’s batch of marmalade with the Seville oranges and lemons I bought today! What fun, eh? Now I’m off for the rest of this busy day. I may be back later.

        2. You’re so right, Grizzly. After making around 16 jars of marmalade today (I only had 12 empty jars so I poured the balance into jugs, cereal bowls, etc. I prepared a meal of haggis, neeps and tatties, poured a wee dram over the haggis, then another dram for me to enjoy with the meal and finish off later.

        1. Drato et duo drato, Peddy. I shud know better than to attempt forrin’ languages when you are around.

          :-))

      1. Gosh is that the time? Looks like the morning has gone and it’s almost time for lunch. Must dash and get cracking with the marmalade. Bye all.

  3. Colourblind casting isn’t a distraction – it’s the future of cinema. 24 January 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/19bdcbe5f7ac648427d602dad1e30edfc463a2ba99d557a6de631040c6cf4d31.jpg

    A couple of years ago, when it was announced that Dev Patel would be playing the title role in a new adaptation of David Copperfield, I remember wondering what the sly, postmodern rationale behind that choice might be. After seeing the film, I realised it was this: he’d be really good at it.

    The real reason was that there were of course no White Actors available.

    BELOW THE LINE

    Oliver Twisted 25 Jan 2020 3:00AM

    Robbie Collin has done a puff piece on ‘colourblind casting’ with comments off.
    I wish to ask him: if Dev Patel can play David Copperfield, why is Hank Azaria no longer allowed to play Apu?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/colourblind-casting-isnt-distraction-future-cinema/

    1. It’s the way the world is going, Minty. For example the furniture store DFS used to have a black man and his white wife with a coffee coloured kid testing out their sofas in all of their adverts. Now they use a white man and his wife who self-identifies as a dog (Wallace & Gromit) in their advertising. :-))

      1. Morning Elsie. It is going in a direction that I don’t like but I doubt that I shall see its final destination thankfully!

      2. Morning Elsie. It is going in a direction that I don’t like but I doubt that I shall see its final destination thankfully!

      3. It makes me SICK to see black playing the roles of whites. Do whites play the roles of famous black people? No. I think it’s needs to change. This crap was started by the sex perverts and Commies in Hollywood.

    4. Racism, as we know, only works one way.

      Imagine the outrage if Tom Hanks played the part of Uncle Remus or if Richard Kay played the part of Lenny Henry.

      How about casting Abu Hamza as Shylock or Fagin?

    5. I posted this three days ago:

      Talking of Dickens I see that the new Charles Dickens film has an actor who is not ethic English playing David Copperfield. I must have missed this detail when I read the novel. So perhaps Mr Murdstone was a racist as well as a sadist.

    8. Whatever the shove happened to best man for the job? For authenticity? For reality?

      The disabled comments just proves the terror of reprisal, of mockery. They don’t like it up ’em.

  4. Since we feel educational this morning, some curiosities with English:

    Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning. A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

    You think English is easy? I think a retired English teacher was bored…THIS IS GREAT!

    It obviously took a lot of work to put together!

    1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

    2) The farm was used to produce produce.

    3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

    4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

    5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

    6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

    7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

    8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

    9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

    10) I did not object to the object.

    11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

    12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

    13) They were too close to the door to close it.

    14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

    15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer.

    16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

    17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

    18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

    19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

    20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

    1. A good and interesting post today, NtN. I had some reservations about blocking you last night, but am glad I have now unblocked you.

      1. I do apologise if my behaviour was not that expected of a gentleman but I confess to being goaded.

    2. The Chaos (Gerard Nolst Trenité)

      Dearest creature in creation
      Studying English pronunciation,
      I will teach you in my verse
      Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

      I will keep you, Susy, busy,
      Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

      Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
      Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
      Pray, console your loving poet,
      Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

      Just compare heart, beard and heard,
      Dies and diet, lord and word.

      Sword and sward, retain and Britain
      (Mind the latter, how it’s written).

      Made has not the sound of bade,
      Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
      Now I surely will not plague you
      With such words as plaque and ague,

      But be careful how you speak:
      Say break and steak, but bleak and streak.

      Previous, precious, fuchsia, via;
      Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;

      Cloven, oven, how and low,
      Script, receipt, show, poem, toe.
      Here me say, devoid of trickery:
      Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

      Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
      Exiles, similes, and reviles.

      Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
      Same, examining, but mining,

      Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
      Solar, mica, war and far.
      From desire: desirable; admirable from admire,
      Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,

      Topsham, Brougham, renown, but known,
      Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone.

      One, anemone, Balmoral,
      Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.

      Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
      Scene, Melopomene, mankind.
      Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
      Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

      This phonetic labyrinth
      Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth and plinth.

      Have you ever yet endeavoured
      To pronounce revered and severed,

      Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
      Peter, petrol and patrol?
      Billet does not rhyme with ballet;
      Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

      Blood and flood are not like food,
      Nor is mould like should and would.

      Banquet is not nearly parquet,
      Which exactly rhymes with khaki.

      Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
      Toward, to forward, to reward.
      Ricocheted, crocheting, and croquet?
      Your pronunciation is OK.

      Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
      Friend and fiend, alive and live.

      Is your r correct in higher?
      Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.

      Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
      Buoyant, minute, but minute.
      Say abscission with precision,
      Now: position and transition;

      Would it tally with my rhyme
      If I mentioned paradigm?

      Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
      But cease, crease, grease and greasy?

      Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
      Rabies, but lullabies.
      Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
      Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,

      You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
      In a linen envelope.

      Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
      Affidavit, David, davit.

      To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
      Does not sound like Czech but ache.
      Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
      Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

      We say hallowed, but allowed,
      People, leopard, towed but vowed.

      Mark the difference, moreover,
      Between mover, cover, Dover.
      
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
      Chalice, but police and lice.
      Camel, constable, unstable,
      Principle, disciple, label.
      
Petal, penal, panel, canal,
      Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal,

      Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
      Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”,
      
But it is not hard to tell
      Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
      Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
      Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

      Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
      Senator, spectator, mayor,

      Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
      And enamour rhyme with hammer.
      
Pussy, hussy and possess,
      Desert, but desert, address.
      Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
      Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
      
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
      Doll and roll and some and home.

      “Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker”,
      Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor”,

      Making, it is sad but true,
      In bravado, much ado.
      Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
      Neither does devour with clangour.

      Souls but foul, haunt, but aunt,
      Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

      Arsenic, specific, scenic,
      Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.

      Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
      Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
      Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
      Make the latter rhyme with eagle.

      Mind! Meandering but mean,
      Valentine and magazine.

      And I bet you, dear, a penny,
      You say mani-(fold) like many,

      Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
      Tier (one who ties), but tier.
      Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
      Rhyme with herring or with stirring?

      Prison, bison, treasure trove,
      Treason, hover, cover, cove,

      Perseverance, severance. Ribald
      Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
      
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
      Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
      Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
      And distinguish buffet, buffet;

      Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
      Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
      Say in sounds correct and sterling
      Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.

      Evil, devil, mezzotint,

      Mind the z! (A gentle hint).

      Now you need not pay attention
      To such sounds as I don’t mention,

      Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
      Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
      Nor are proper names included,
      Though I often heard, as you did,

      Funny rhymes to unicorn,
      Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

      No, my maiden, coy and comely,
      I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.

      No. Yet Froude compared with proud
      Is no better than McLeod.
      But mind trivial and vial,
      Tripod, menial, denial,

      Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
      Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

      Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
      May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,

      But you’re not supposed to say
      Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
      Had this invalid invalid
      Worthless documents? How pallid,

      How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
      When for Portsmouth I had booked!

      Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
      Paramour, enamoured, flighty,

      Episodes, antipodes,
      Acquiesce, and obsequies.
      Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
      Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,

      Rather say in accents pure:
      Nature, stature and mature.

      Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
      Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,

      Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
      Wan, sedan and artisan.
      The th will surely trouble you
      More than r, ch or w.
      
Say then these phonetic gems:
      Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

      Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
      There are more but I forget ’em-

      Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
      Lighten your anxiety.
      The archaic word albeit
      Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;

      With and forthwith, one has voice,
      One has not, you make your choice.

      Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
      Then say: singer, ginger, linger.

      Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
      Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
      Hero, heron, query, very,
      Parry, tarry fury, bury,

      Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
      Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.

      Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
      Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners

      Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
      Puisne, truism, use, to use?
      Though the difference seems little,
      We say actual, but victual,

      Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
      Put, nut, granite, and unite.

      Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
      Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

      Dull, bull, and George ate late.
      Mint, pint, senate, but sedate.
      Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
      Science, conscience, scientific;
      Tour, but our, and succour, four,
      Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

      Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
      Next omit, which differs from it
      
Bona fide, alibi
      Gyrate, dowry and awry.
      Sea, idea, Korea, area,
      Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

      Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
      Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

      Compare alien with Italian,
      Dandelion and battalion,

      Sally with ally; yea, ye,
      Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
      Say aver, but ever, fever,
      Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
      
Never guess-it is not safe,
      We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

      Starry, granary, canary,
      Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
      
Face, but preface, not efface
      Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
      Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
      Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
      
Ear, but earn; and wear and tear
      Do not rhyme with here but heir.

      Mind the o of off and often
      Which may be pronounced as orphan,

      With the sound of saw and sauce;
      Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
      Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
      Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
      

      Respite, spite, consent, resent.
      Liable, but Parliament.
      Seven is right, but so is even,
      Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

      Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
      Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

      A of valour, vapid vapour,
      S of news (compare newspaper),

      G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
      I of antichrist and grist.
      Differ like diverse and divers,
      Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.


      Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
      Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
      Pronunciation: think of Psyche!
      Is a paling, stout and spiky?

      Won’t it make you lose your wits
      Writing groats and saying “grits”?

      It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
      Strewn with stones, stowed solace, gunwale,
      
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
      Housewife, verdict and indict.
      Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
      Saying lather, bather, father?
      Query does not rhyme with very, 
Nor does fury sound like bury.

      Finally, which rhymes with enough,
      Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough?
      Hiccough has the sound of cup
      My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

        1. Thanks, Hoppy.

          It was a nightmare posting it on here this morning (and a complete waste of time since no one appears to have the wish to read it!).

          Bloody Discurse spread every line of that poem wide pen and convoluted some of those lines to make it all appear unintelligible. It took me over half an hour to close it all up and appear as it should.

          Why Dis-bloody-qus can’t get its IT act together is a mystery!

          1. It’s not Disqus but the line feeds your copying is adding in.

            As the line character is read, Disqus adds a carriage return. Also, for some reason, it also adds in ten blank lines.

            I read the poem and thoroughly enjoyed it.

            I just wish the literacy of those I work with was slightly higher than year 3. Amongst the younger kids it’s barely that. Most would fail SAT exams. One said ‘oh god, it’s a *wall* of words when he was asked to read three paragraphs. Our oldest member cannot manage the basics of posessive apostrophes, contractions nor capitalising pronouns. Their grammar is embarrassing.

          2. As I shall keep repeating, ad nauseam, the intelligence level of those youngsters is more solid proof of the rapid deterioration of the species.

            With reference to the line breaks, is there any way I can prevent it happening?

          4. C’mon Grizzly, it took some time for some of us to get that far – and I didn’t see last night, but had a guess on the basis of the remaining posts…

            It’d brilliant – must have been someone’s painful brainstorm!

          5. I wished to read it, Grizzly, and got about two thirds through. But by then I lost the will to live.

  5. Adam Schiff is the one helping Vladimir Putin destabilize US democracy. CNN. 24 January 2020.

    But what’s more dangerous? Predicting what Trump may or may not do, or fulfilling Putin’s wish to project a belief that American democracy failed four years ago and is guaranteed to fail again? Putin won’t need a pittance of Facebook ads this time around; he’s got Schiff.
    If I were a vicious commentator, I’d now take the leap of labeling Schiff a Russian operative. But that’s not true, and we ought to take more care not to label our fellow Americans as such.

    He is, however, a “useful idiot” in this case, unwittingly doing Putin’s bidding.

    This is from CNN so I can only assume that it has slipped through the net somehow. I agree with the author [Jennings] about the Democratic Party trashing Democracy in the cause of bringing down Trump but he still clings to the idea that they are following some script laid out by Putin while still unwittingly perceiving the truth, “Putin won’t need a pittance of Facebook ads this time around,that Putin has played no significant role in the election of Trump. This falsehood perpetrated by the Democrats has doomed their own cause since it has prevented them taking the measures and finding a candidate that can beat the US President! They are responsible; not some Foreign Influence, for Trumps coming second term and for the damage wreaked on US Democracy!

    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/24/opinions/adam-schiff-is-the-one-helping-putin-destabilize-us-democracy-schiff/index.html

    1. ‘Morning, Minty,
      “…doomed their own cause since it has prevented them taking the measures and finding a candidate…”

      Sounds familiar, not unlike our own disorganised, finger-pointing lefties.

  6. I’d like to repost my question from late last night. It may seem a daft question and I know there’ll be an obvious answer, I just can’t work out what it is.

    If your reflection appears back to front in the mirror, why doesn’t it also appear upside down?

      1. This silly woman is talking rubbish. Mirrors do not “flip” anything (nor do puddles). They just reflect back anything that is directly opposite.

        I have never wondered why a mirror doesn’t “flip” objects up and down. The whole notion of that is absurd.

        1. And she must have a magic mirror if she writes an L on the palm of her hand and an R appears in the mirror image. And why can’t she pronounce Zed but has to call it Zee?

          :-))

      3. Minty, I think she is making the “problem” more complicated than it is. When we face a mirror and reach out our left hand to touch the mirror, what the mirror image shows is NOT the left hand of the “person” in the mirror; it’s just that we THINK that we are seeing a real person and so assume that a real person’s RIGHT hand is coming towards us. In fact it is merely the hand nearest to the left hand side of the mirror. Since our head is above our waist and nearest the top of the mirror, why would we expect the mirror image to be at the bottom of the mirror?

  7. In an article about surveying chthe Channel by aeoroplane

    But in a sprawling makeshift camp in a disused warehouse complex outside Dunkirk, the new measures are not deterring anyone.

    When The Telegraph visited this week, a fight broke out and one youth used a kitchen knife to attack another boy, slashing him across his right hand. Twelve people had to separate them.
    “This is no place for children,” said Omar, an Iraqi who has been in the camp with his wife and two young sons for eight months.
    “We have to go by boat. We cannot stay here any longer.”

    It may well be unsafe in these camps and the inhabitants have my every sympathy but why does Omar insist they have to get on a boat? There are about two hundred thousand square miles of France to the south of him he could move to. Much easief and safer than crossing the Channel.

    1. Morning Bsk,
      Both us & them have a shared interest
      & that is welfare, our welfare as individual indigenous does not enter the equation all the time the electorate
      support the mass uncontrolled immigration parties.
      Hence our welfare system is a strong magnet for their welfare in all departments ie education, accommodation, medication, incarceration.
      The governance parties rule, in the main, using submission, PCism, appeasement, as a guide, they still find support giving them carte blanch
      at every voting opportunity.

      2. Tia Maria Sokka, aka Tinze, is a Finnish dancer who teaches women to ‘twerk’.
        Shouldn’t be a problem getting her through UK Immigration.

      3. That wearer of pink knickers in the front row looks as though she has been sweating (one can’t describe it as glowing) a bit.

  9. EU upping the ‘Green’ debate by planning to spend and spend BIG. Are we leaving just in time or will Johnson, who has promised not to align with EU rules, renege on this promise where ‘Green’ is the magic word? We must not get drawn into funding any of this EU project. Our politicos are more than capable of wasting our money here on ‘Green’ issues without shovelling more to Brussels.

    Emphasis is mine.

    Green growth

    By JOHNREDWOOD | Published: JANUARY 25, 2020

    The EU tells us they are going to stimulate faster growth in the Euro area through commitment to faster decarbonisation.

    They have announced a “Green deal” with access to just Euro 7.5bn of transition funds to subsidise the losing areas that face closures of mines, coal power stations, gas plants, petro chemical plants and the rest. They hope to top these funds up through money already included in their budgets for regional development

    The big push comes from capital investment, where they suggest they might help foster a Euro 1 trillion investment programme across many industries and countries over the next five years. The EU itself will contribute to this investment through loans from the European Investment Bank…

    John Redwood’s Diary – Green Growth

    1. I’ll sing you one, O
      Green grow the rushes, O
      What is your one, O?
      One is debt from IB loans
      And evermore shall be so.

      I’ll sing you two, O
      Green grow the rushes, O
      What are your two, O?
      Two, two, little white lies,
      Clothed all in green, O
      One is debt from IB loans
      And evermore shall be so

    2. Morning KtK,
      What is a tory promise worth ? all together now.
      This green issue has been around for years supported by pro green politico’s
      of the governance parties, who in turn,
      as with mass uncontrolled immigration,
      are supported by the electorate.

    3. Why does government, or the public sector generally think that if it spends money, it can create wealth?

      If the service were wanted, it would already exist through demand.

      Equally why does the EU think that by spending vast amounts of public money it can create wealth? Decarbonisation is a waste of time and effort. There’s no value, no point. What people want is energy. Cheap energy at that. Massive state spending simply means that private money isn’t spent on things people want.

      It is not investment. It is simply spending.

  10. 2000 potential patients being traced in UK due to virus, has extra sea power been laid on to accommodate the channel crosser’s ?

    1. It’s probably well past that already. In China that’s probably the average size of a village!

      1. Morning Atg,
        Meaning many a village in the new UK could be in more jeopardy than they are currently.

        1. Some ugly women I’ve seen recently sporting tattoos and body piercings etc, this is preferable..

          7. I haven’t. I’ve always meant to get one, a tiny one, just to tick that of life’s boxes but have never got a round tuit.

        2. I am beginning to think that this illness is a lot worse than they have been letting on. There is a disparity between the given symptoms and the developing bureaucratic panic. As usual we start to gently push the stable door shut long after the horse has disappeared over the horizon.

          Edit: Insertion of bureaucratic.

        1. 0.01 of the world’s population; replaced in a year or two?
          And if current trends are representative then mostly older people at that.

  13. Michelin-starred chef refused permission to stay in UK after 23 years

    Probably a remainer. His application was rejected because he did not supply data to prove he had resided in the UK for the last 5 years. All he has go to do is to provided that information. It could be P60’s, Bank Statements, Council tax bills etc

      1. No, because that would be proof of only 3 years residence plus the time it took his offence to come to court.

        1. Morning B,
          That six was time served after the initial trial when the felon told the judge he could do six standing on his head so the judge
          being the last of the straight ones, & just prior to being sacked,
          gave the felon another six to get him back on his feet.
          My fault in my initial post not making it clear.

      1. Sorted out permanent residence in Norway, not through the EU scheme, a few years before the vote.

    3. On further investigation it turns out that the daft Frog applied for the wrong status. I did very much enjoy Sat Bains comment to him…”I told you years ago that nobody likes you!”. Lol.

    4. You’ve got to hand it to the Chinese for their dexterity. I could never eat a mouse with chopsticks.

    8. When the horrible British imperialists were in Hong Kong, they had the nerve to outlaw the chinese way of eating live chicks before they broke out their egg shells. And the round-table money brain dish was simply too cruel to believe. But very Chinese, at the time.

  16. Had this mass hysteria , colloquially known as “transgenderism”, occurred back in the reign of King Charles I, he would have deputed Matthew Hopkins to stamp it out.

    The ducking stool worked wonders, apparently.

    1. The cells at Colchester castle were stuffed full of alleged witches. Apparently the majority died before coming up for trial.
      Showed they were guilty!

          1. I’ve been to a lot of lovely Chesters: Chester, Chichester, Winchester and Dorchester are amongst the prettiest. Colchester doesn’t even rate in that company!

            Of course, the best Chesters have the word “Chester” at the beginning of their name: e.g. Chesterfield. Truly Odin’s country! 😘

          2. Dorchester and Winchester are still nice but Chichester is beginning to resemble Colchester. You wouldn’t want to be there on a Friday night.

          4. Oh, come on, Woman! I expected better from you than that feeble capitulation.

            I’ve paid for the full half-hour argument not the five-minute contradiction!

    1. Brilliant! I still have ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ on vinyl…not gathering dust in a sealed box in my shed with about 100 other albums.

    1. As a Londoner putting up with crap like this for years on end I think I deserve emotional support but not from the likes of Khan. As it is I’m self-medicating with Speyside….

    4. This tax payer funded jolly bit of virtue signalling is surely not aimed at intelligent ethnic Europeans? Can families affected by the stabfest turn up for a bit of emotional support?

    1. FFS Boris, show some backbone and tackle the BBC, your standing in the country would shoot up.

  21. M. Macron: “How can we get the Yellow Vests off the front pages?”

    ‘I know -” Boris Johnson signs the Withdrawal Agreement – but a battle looms as France demands EU fishing rights for 25 years”

    1. Without fish from our waters France wouldn’t have any at all. The Med has been completely overfished and the EU now pay fishermen to smash or burn their boats.

      1. Our fishermen were compelled to cut up their boats, in favour of the EU fishermen. We should not forget that, and should not give them a single sprat.

    1. Of course Ogga, the Lady Bountiful Left don’t want to kill their meal ticket. Socialism needs an underclass. The mistake they make is to attack those who pay for their vanity.

  24. “SIR—Academics from Portsmouth and Oregon have got it all wrong about grinding coffee more coarsely for a perfect espresso (report, January 23).

    I was a coffee merchant for 40 years and had an espresso test machine in my office. We checked all batches and the grind – fine but not pulverised – was critical to getting a strong coffee with a good “crema” on top.

    If the coffee is bitter then you are using the wrong blend.

    Duncan Rayner
    Sunningdale, Berkshire

    Well said, Dunc. The stultifying and mind-numbing arrogance of these “academics” is breathtaking. They presume to know more about extracting espresso coffee than Italian baristas, trained under the auspices of centuries’ old tradition in Milan.

    Whatever next? Will they then be telling us that Jensen made better quality sports cars than Ferrari? That BSA motorcycles were more æsthetically-pleasing than Ducatis? That Tesco’s pizzas are of a better quality than a Neapolitan Marguerita? That a Wall’s family brick is more delicious than a Genoese gelato? That Kate Moss was a more desirable woman than Sophia Loren?

    Academics? I’ve eaten them for brunch and spit them out again!

    2. I’ve a matt black Daviel and… I disagree.

      Never, ever thought Kate Moss remotely attractive.

          1. Happy Saturday Grizz, I do not favor tazoring armed criminals / terrorists, I favor a national police force with every policeman/woman carrying a side arm & having the authority to shoot dead on the spot an armed criminal / terrorist . Fill up the cemeteries with the armed & violent members of society not the prisons !

          2. Happy Saturday, Pud.

            When I was but a young boy-in-blue, I resisted all calls to arm the police as a matter of routine. There is no way that I could contemplate being in that uniform, today, with out a sidearm. All I would need was the 100% backing of my senior officers and the government to use it without the fear of losing my job (or my liberty) if I did use it.

          4. I see a recognition of how society has changed. Not for the better.

            I days gone by it was possible to approach a policeman and ask for help. Nowadays I would be cautious about approaching a heavily armed cop to simply ask directions.

          6. I find it simply insane that the UK clings to the notion of an unarmed police force when every other Western nation has armed police
            No policeman can face down an armed & violent criminal / terrorist effectively without a sidearm & for the UK to continue this policy is IMO to endanger the lives of both the police & public without any moral justification.

          7. I don’t believe being able to kill someone is a good deterrent.

            Rather a higher yield on the tasers.

          8. Tasers can be fatal. Police have been using tasers rather freely. Talking back to to some thug in uniform trying to push you around may get you killed.

          9. No no no. All easily solved. Have her patrol the same streets as the police, especially those lovely areas.

            Once she’s exposed to a few fanatics with knives and hopefully stabbed a few times by the people she’d so eagerly defend she can realise just how stupid her comment is.

          10. Are you sure? Most Lefties are beyond help. Their brains are hard-wired into Guardianista-thinking: no amount of exposure to common sense can breach those ramparts!

        2. Like I wtote & got suspended for on twitter: Officer should have blown the assailants sorry ass away.
          (Other beasts of burden are available).

  27. The figures for coronavirus look as if the disease is spreading out of control. Hardly surprising with Chinese people moving around the world in droves, and millions moving to home in China and back again for New Year.
    I cannot find any information on the figures reported day by day. However it looks as if the numbers maybe doubling every ten days or so. If that is the case, then calamity is not far off. There is no prevention and no cure, and the disease is mutating. (The disease appears to be so clever, it is almost as if it had been invented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak
    Keep in mind the story of the man who invented chess…
    https://www.wyzant.com/resources/answers/383599/a_king_in_ancient_times_agreed_to_reward_the_inventor_of_chess_with_one_grain_of_wheat_on_the_first_of_the_64_squares_of_a_chess_board_on_the_second_square_the

    1. There are two continents on this planet which produce a disproportionate number of deadly viruses – Africa & Asia because in both basic health and sanitation is well bellow Western standards & because the animals / insects they consume are disease carriers !

    2. Reminds me of that sequence in Visconti’s version of Mann’s Death in Venice. Eventually Aschenbach finds an honest Englishman in the hotel’s Thomas Cook : ‘There are no beds left in any of the hospitals, leave now before the blockade’ etc.

    3. Reminds me of that sequence in Visconti’s version of Mann’s Death in Venice. Eventually Aschenbach finds an honest Englishman in the hotel’s Thomas Cook : ‘There are no beds left in any of the hospitals, leave now before the blockade’ etc.

    3. Oh dear. Hopefully they’ll be done by 5pm. There’s Three Choirs Evensong at St Martin in the Fields tomorrow. Good singing, 1662 BCP service and no sermon from their Common Purpose vicar.

    5. Why the hell should I give a stuff if it’s the Chinese New Year or the Martian New Year?

      Nothing to do with me.

      If they want to do a conga in the street under a long blanket and set off some crackers, fine, but none of my business whatsoever.

      1. Yet more graphic evidence (presented daily) of the incremental and unstoppable rise in human stupidity.

        [There will be much more evidence tomorrow!]

  29. There an advert at the bottom of the page for a walk-in bath (the ablutions kind not the Tusk kind.)

    Has anyone ever seen or used one of these? I can’t see how they work. You’d have to get in and sit there while the bath fills up and worse, sit there wet while the bath empties, surely catching pneumonia in the process.

    1. They apparently work OK, but tend to become available second-hand, after the user has departed to that great bathroom in the sky. I know a lady who took a scarcely used sitting bath to the local tip.

    3. Off topic.

      Yesterday, you asked this question: “Why does your reflection look back to front in a mirror but not upside down?”

      Imagine that sticking directly out from every bit of your face are many pieces of straight wire, all parallel to each other. OK?
      Now, when you place a mirror directly in front of your face each of those wires will touch the exact part of the reflection of your face that it emerges from.
      Every bit of your face is reflected, directly opposite from where it actually is.

      For the image of your face to be presented upside down would be against the laws of physics since those wires would have to be moved to all manner of angles to achieve this and you would not get a true (and opposite) reflection.

      I hope this helps.

        2. The light travels in a straight line from left shoulder to mirror to eye, so the shoulder looks to be on the left if the image. But hecause you see your front, it looks like a right shoulder but it isn’t.
          A lens refracts / bends the light, so swapping left to right & top to bottom. Draw it out with a ruler.

    4. Morning to you, I agree with your thoughts regarding walk-in baths. When age started to make us think about these, we instead replaced our bath with a walk-in shower.
      Press the button, wait for the light to stop flashing to tell you the water is up to temperature, step in and shower, press the off button and step out. Only a small step to navigate in and out, much easier at my age than climbing into a bath.

    5. Elderly chum has one. Judging by the dust, I doubt she’s ever used it.
      I agree; looking at them, it would be easier to launch Apollo 13.

      1. Bob Monkhouse was flattered when his grandchildren called him Spiderman but was pissed off when he discovered that it was not because he was ‘cool’ but because he couldn’t get out of the bath

  30. “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”

    Nine different ways of pronouncing “ough” in English. Any advance on that?

    [My earlier (today) transcription of The Chaos by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité has been summarily ignored. I shan’t waste my time again.]

      2. You should hear the Yanks on YouTube with Worcestershire. “War-sester-shee-eye-err”. When I tell the thick twats that it is “Wuss-ter-shuh.” they troll me like mad and tell me that I can’t speak English.

    4. Your time hasn’t been wasted, Grizz. I went out of my way to scroll through seven hours of comments to find your transcript of The Chaos just so I could summarily ignore it.

      2. I am so relieved that you just summarily ignored it, Duncan. I couldn’t live with it if you had ignored it on indictment! :•)

  31. Good morning all.

    Late on today because I was reading up on last night’s slaughter.

      1. Go’morgon, Paul.

        Ich wäre gerne Eine Maus unter’m Tisch gewesen aber ich war früh ins Bett gegangen.

  32. Good Moaning:
    TCW links to while away a grey Saturday morning.

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/time-maam-for-a-word-in-charless-ear/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=b7e9611b7c-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-b7e9611b7c-559682581

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/the-tide-is-turning-against-the-wokesters/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=b7e9611b7c-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-b7e9611b7c-559682581

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/new-battle-lines-drawn-in-the-tory-civil-war/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=b7e9611b7c-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-b7e9611b7c-559682581

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/socialist-speak-election-drubbing-edition/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=b7e9611b7c-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-b7e9611b7c-559682581

    1. Morning Anne

      I will read the links properly later.
      Just skimmed them .

      I don’t rate Prince Charles very much… same category as many feeble minded Corbyn like characters .. Considering that Trump is the same age as those two, I will listen to Trump any day!

      1. Morning Belle!

        When HM passes away we should have a referendum on the succession. Charles shouldn’t automatically accede because he’s next in line. There are too many issues. I wonder, if he does become King, will Camilla be Queen or Princess Consort?

        1. The Anglo-Saxons did that.
          The Normans continued the practice, albeit treating England as a third prize for one of the monarch’s sons. A strict line of male succession first appeared when Henry III followed on from his father John.

        2. There is no doubt that Charles, should he outlive his mother (and he might not!), will become King. This is not something to be decided by any Referendum, regardless of the issues. Royal succession is by destiny or by battle. It’s presidents who are elected.

          As regards Camilla’s title, I think he will seek advice on this, not least from his Prime Minister. William might well have the final say, since it was his mother who, had she lived and not been divorced, might have been Queen.

          I hope that water-under-the-bridge, along with William’s blessing, will allow her to become Queen, but at the moment Princess Consort seems more likely.

          I see very few objections though to Kate becoming Queen in time.

        3. I read somewhere that Camilla didn’t want the title of Queen (Queen Camilla might evoke too many thoughts of Queen Diana), She does seem to be careful of people’s feelings.

      2. Good Morning, Maggiebelle

        He seems to be turning into a Jew hating, Greta Thunberg-loving woke w*nker. I find it very alarming that he is actually two years younger than I am as he strikes me as being completely senile. He is a doltish dud who must exasperate his father and his mother. The thought of his being king is horrific.

        1. Morning Richard

          He was always an old fool even when he was young , and very rude and dismissive , socially awkward I think and clingy .. maybe a bit on the autistic spectrum .

          I bet your bottom dollar that Charles gave approving Royal nods to the Megain woman .. and she then gathered enough Royal clout to manipulate Harry..

          1. We don’t agree over this.

            I get quite irritated when so many people who tell me they know better insist on lumping in environmental protection (which I have supported all my life) with the woke lunacy over gender and race “diversity” and its attendant assaults on free speech and democracy itself.

            I have long applauded the Prince of Wales for his work on the environment, on his endeavours to put architecture back on a human scale after the violations by the brutalists in the 1960s with their “comprehensive redevelopment”, and his work in the cities giving young people better things to do than drugs and stabbing one another. I also share his love of Parry’s music and his artistic temperament. It was Prince Charles that saved the internationally important Top Fruit Collection at Brogdale in Kent from being sold off to Thatcher’s cronies for executive housing. He strikes me as a thoughtful and conscientious man, and I think he would be an admirable king. I can understand though why Murdoch and Trump and the international financiers have got it in for him, treating him more as a meddlesome priest than a future king.

            As regards his choice of women, he got there in the end. He was always going to be happier with someone in green wellies spuddling around the country lanes than with a Knightsbridge deb in with the London celebs. It was just a pity that the Queen Mum pushed him into that disastrous marriage – those two never loved each other.

            Harry’s rather loony woke sympathies come from his mother, and in Meghan he found his lost mother. We forget that Harry’s father and his grandmother are not just royals, but also family who want him to be happy for once. Whether he will be with Meghan in the long run is questionable, but it’s for them to work out, not us.

          3. Lancelot Gobbo said:

            It is a wise father that knows his own son.

            (Launcelot Gobbo in: The Merchant of Venice),

            It is a wise child that knows his own father

            (Homer: The Odyssey)

          4. Lancelot Gobbo said:

            It is a wise father that knows his own son.

            (Launcelot Gobbo in: The Merchant of Venice),

            It is a wise child that knows his own father

            (Homer: The Odyssey)

          5. A DNA test would settle this once and for all.

            Some folk suggest that Harry takes after Prince Philip, but with the Spencer ginger hair. William takes after the Windsors though, and his daughter is the spitting image of the Queen with Kate’s hair.

    3. I took the plunge at the start of the month and upgraded to Win10. I used Microsoft’s own installation tool. Apart from needing to update my driver on my Ethernet, it has worked a treat.
      Family members took advantage of the previous free upgrade (2016 I think) but had lots of niggles, this seems better this time round.

      1. Thanks vvof….
        I’m still navigating windows 5. The security is proving a problem ….any help appreciated

        1. I use two at work, and am responsible for another sixty seven 🙁
          And I am by no means an IT ninja as I’m sure you have all surmised over the years, in fact, I can’t even seem to write two consecutive messages with the same account name.

    5. I have a portfolio of operating systems on my old mac, including Windows 7 and XP.

      I have been holding back on W7 for a while until I discover a way of tapping into the security patches Microsoft are selling to select customers, and they have worked through the Zero Day exploits that must be coming when W7 runs on a quarter of the world’s computers.

      I use XP for legacy software, which is actually much better than anything sold today, and it also has a better File Management interface.

      Both windows systems run ESET and Malwarebytes, which I keep updated constantly. I do not stay online any longer than I have to though. The real problems with security come with those who stay connected to the web constantly. I also prefer local offline backups to the Cloud.

      For security, I have managed to shoehorn Mint 19.3 onto my laptop. This is being supported and updated until 2023 and also supports the latest version of Firefox, so at least I have one system that can go online fully patched. Linux constantly nags me for my password whenever I want to do anything administratively. I am looking at whether Third Party security suites is necessary on Linux. There are so many variants of it and it is relatively little-used, much richer pickings for the villains come from Windows systems.

      I do not like the idea of Windows 10 installing malware automatically without my consent and do not like the iOS mail interface and Cloud dependency of later Mac operating systems.

      1. I’m running Windows 10 with Office 2013 and I am currently attempting to create a mail-merge to print address labels. Haven’t done this for decades so took it slow and steady. I successfully created the database file but, and its a BIG BUT, I am unable to preview the file – the preview icon is ‘greyed’ out i.e. inactive. Plenty of help for this problem from Microsoft on other versions of OS and Office but not my particular combination. Strangely, most people use an Excel spreadsheet for the source file and not the built-in process in Word. I’m going to use Excel later today and see if this cures the problem. If anyone here has experienced, and cured, this problem your advice will be gratefully received.

        1. I tend to use Excel for most things as it is so much more flexible than Word.
          Word is a p.i.t.a.

          1. I finally worked my way through Word to discover how to populate the label document from the data file. There are two icons on the ribbon that need to be enabled although, in typical Microsoft fashion, it isn’t clear that they are required. One possible problem remains, in label preview I can only see one page of the document, add a second page and it screws up. It’s possible to see the labels by using yet another icon on the ribbon and tabbing through the list. Once you know and use it regularly then the problems don’t really matter. It’s that first contact that requires tidying up.

      2. Upgraded years ago and absolutely no regrets. Cleared the carp off the harddisk, too, so all ran much faster.

        1. I think a clean install is always better than an upgrade. You just have to remember to back all your data up such as favorites, drivers, emails etc

          I find there is always some risk to upgrading from an old version plus it leaves the old version using up disk space

        2. A few years ago I purchased a new Acer laptop that had W8.1 as the OS. Slow wasn’t the word to describe the performance – 24 hours to run a McAfee anti-virus check and boot-up took forever. At the end of my tether I upgraded to W10 and noticed a small improvement in performance but inspecting task manager the computer appeared to be running any number of processes rather than what I wanted. In the end I had to strip off a number of Acer processes that appeared to duplicate Windows and this improved matters to a tolerable level. It’s still not great and I’m not sufficiently proficient to dig any deeper and so I live with it as it’s mainly used as my secure unit for banking etc.not browsing. W10 on my Lenovo is fine speed wise but that unit has a solid state memory, not a hard-disk.

    1. … four new species of spark…

      They were trying to plug the story but nobody would bite.

        1. They wouldn’t be able to pay me enough.

          Btw, further down in the text the writer wrote ‘pray’ for prey.

    3. Morning Plum

      They frequent the banks and financial institutions, they lurk in car parks, utility companies, driveway/ window replacement companies .. travel agents

      They are here already .. fleecing us all.

  37. The BBC is panicking at the public’s rejection of its arrogant Left-liberal worldview. JANET DALEY. 25 JANUARY 2020.

    This is nearly over – this weird disconnect between what most of us understand as reality and the world as seen through the eyes of an all pervasive Authority that was apparently appointed (although we never knew by whom) to establish the limits of public discourse. The crisis of confidence at the BBC – and make no mistake, it is a full blown, all alarm bells ringing, catastrophic crisis – is probably the most visible sign of the shift but it is much bigger than this.

    That there is an Authority seems undeniable, just to take one example the recent and now ubiquitous presence of mixed race couples on advertisements. This has not arisen spontaneously as a result of Freewill, someone has directed it. Like so much of what happens in the UK the perpetrators are hidden behind an impenetrable screen of obfuscation, lies and not forgetting of course the Official Secrecy that pervades every aspect of State Business. The only people capable of penetrating this Secret World are the Government of the day and they always refuse to do so for the simple reason that they are its major beneficiaries. Whoever the present puppeteers, Foreign actors or Domestic insurgents, it is impossible to guess their true motivations, Malign or Beneficial without knowing who they are.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/25/bbc-panicking-publics-rejection-arrogant-left-liberal-worldview/

    1. The use of non-white figures in broadcast and adverts in the US resulted from a fear of lawsuits and/or product boycotts. It’s been going on for so long that we take no notice. It’s a bit like the boiled frog analogy – you have all been fairly suddenly hit with this stuff and so it’s very visible to you.

    2. From previous research, there are three main advertising companies that produce most of the adverts. They clearly have an agenda.

    3. “…ubiquitous presence of mixed race couples on advertisements.”

      Followed closely by the number of same sex couples

    4. It’s good advertising that has saved me a lot of money.
      I now know I am too old and too white to afford furniture, cars, holidays, clothes, make-up and most foodstuffs.

  38. China coronavirus spread is accelerating, Xi Jinping warns. BBC. 25 January 020.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping has held a special government meeting on the Lunar New Year public holiday to warn that the spread of a deadly new virus is “accelerating”.

    The country is facing a “grave situation” Mr Xi told senior officials, according to state television.

    The coronavirus has killed at least 41 people and infected almost 1,300 since its discovery in the city of Wuhan.

    41 people do not a catastrophe make so the Chinese are either massively overreacting or lying.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51249208

    1. It’s the “accelerating” bit they are worried about. They probably have no real idea of how many are infected, just as we have no idea of how many people arriving from China are carriers.

    2. A world health organisation paper reports that deaths in China from flu are somewhere between 10 and 15 per week per 100,000 population.

      It makes you wonder why the panic over a mere 41 deaths.

    3. I think that they are beeing sensible, even if they may be over-cautious.
      First they wanted people not to have too many kids, then they changed their minds and started encouraging it, and now this.

    4. I remembered that big “Spanish flu” epidemic that spread around the world as the soldiers came home from World War 1, but couldn’t recall the numbers, so I looked them up for a comparison:

      “The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic. Probably 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million (three to five percent of Earth’s population at the time) died, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.

      A 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.”

      When the infection comes that kills 9 out of 10 people, then that will be very bad for those who lose relatives, but might be good for humankind as a whole to have a planetary population of 700 million instead of 7 billion. Unless it is the predicted Zombie Apocalypse, which will be no good for anyone.

      1. I believe the high death toll during the American Civil War owed far more to disease than enemy action.

        1. Often due to infection of the wounds received. It was grim. We live not far from the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields, and local towns had to turn almost every house over as “hospital space”. Huge numbers of amputations as well, from which many did not recover. Then the locals were left to bury the dead – and the dead horses.

      2. Afternoon Meredith. It is sobering thought that were 90% of the UK population to perish what would be left would still be larger than in Elizabethan times!

          1. I did find this graph about world population growth since 10,000 BC, which is not that helpful as the bit where it is 700 million is unclear as the lines cross over each other. It would appear to be around 1800AD which, with our current advances in technology, would not be that bad. I think the human race would be okay, although obviously our lot in life might be improved no end if many of the casualties were in parts of North Africa and certain parts of the Middle East.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9794b131ef23576a15247a6a3a4c2830995224f29afd8a54fa65bc4b3ad5015d.jpg

          2. I did read one book where the author thought the apogee of Human Culture was the New Stone Age!

          5. Whoever did that needs to have a lesson on graphs. The intervals on the x axis range from 8000yrs to 5 yrs, all with the same spacing.
            Completely worthless as a tool to demonstrate the rate at which the population has accelerated.

          6. I did read one book where the author thought the apogee of Human Culture was the New Stone Age!

          7. I would not doubt that fact.

            I watch Television adverts, in 2020, and see numerous commercials for “food” delivery services. Already people are not having kitchens in their homes; most cannot cook. They prefer to eat chemical-laden junk, from god-knows-where, delivered to their door. They then gorge on the crap whilst unblinkingly staring at their mobile phones.

            Their standard of communication is declining rapidly. Yes, those neolithic dudes had far more class.

          8. Very true.
            However, the DT & I have just enjoyed some Creamed Pheasant that I made a while ago and of which I put a couple of servings into the freezer, with fresh potatoes, turnip (or swede for the effete Southerners) and frozen garden peas.

            And very nice it was!

          9. I’ve been on a Keto diet since the beginning of the year and I’m enjoying it. The weight is dropping off, I’m sleeping like a log and feeling fighting fit. No carbs (i.e. no spuds, pasta, rice, pastry, bread, buns, cakes, or anything flour-based; and no root vegetables), no alcohol, or sugar. All these things cut out totally.

            I eat meat, fish, fats (butter, oils etc), leaf vegetables, salads, nuts (lots of nuts) seeds (chia seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds), eggs and cheese. The best bit is that I don’t feel hungry as you do on a protein/carbohydrate-mixed Frankenstein diet of cakes and ice-cream, or a carb-laden one.

            Tonight I cooked some 1¼” thick rib-eye steak for 1½ hours in a vacuum-packed bag in the sous vide bath at 55ºC (for medium rare); I then seared it in a blazing hot pan basted with butter. It was divine. I served it with steamed purple-sprouting broccoli, sautéed mushrooms and a fried egg.

            I could never be a vegan, me.

    5. 8,200 flu deaths in the USA.

      A bit of perspective lifted from Breitbart;

      By way of contrast, the U.S. Centre for Disease Control notes this winter, 15 million people in the United States were infected with flu, 140,000 of them hospitalised, and 8,200 deaths.

      The approximately 8,200 deaths in the U.S. linked to flu figure comes in a season where deaths have actually fallen, are below epidemic levels, and hospitalisations are at historically normal levels, putting the present spread of Coronavirus so far in areas like the U.S. and Europe into some perspective.

      .

      1. But a large percentage of people in the US and Europe are sensible enough to have had their flu jabs/shots. Ditto for pneumonia. The trouble with new viruses or strains is that all that can be done is to treat the symptoms.

        1. I don’t have flu shots. I felt so ill after both of the ones I had, and oddly enough haven’t had flu since. (Except the one I caught from someone in an aeroplane, a couple of years ago, flying back from Copenhagen via Oslo. If I knew who you were, I’d come and wreak my revenge.)

  40. A Spekkie read:

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/its-in-americas-interests-to-extradite-anne-sacoolas-but-its-also-in-hers/

    It’s in America’s interests to extradite Anne Sacoolas – but it’s also in hers
    Ross Clark

    “Hands up if you have ever heard of Brian Moles? No? Then what about Anne Sacoolas? Yep, I bet that is registering a bit more. Sacoolas, as pretty well the whole country now knows, was spirited out of the country by US authorities after allegedly causing the death of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn by driving on the wrong side of the road near an airbase in Northamptonshire last August. Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that he was rejecting a British demand for the extradition of Mrs Sacoolas, arguing that she had diplomatic immunity.

    And Mr Moles? Last year, Moles pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving at Southampton Crown Court after killing a motorcyclist while making an illegal turn. He was given a 22-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, ordered to undertake 300 hours of community service and told to pay £1,800 in court costs.

    If there ever was a moral tale as to why it is better to own up rather than try to escape justice, the tale of Anne Sacoolas is it. It was unlikely that Sacoolas was going to face years in jail.

    The manner in which Anne Sacoolas and US authorities have handled her case has catapulted her from being a suspect in a sad but humdrum driving case to being a fugitive from justice, who now risks arrest if she ever leaves the US. That is how she will remain until or unless she voluntarily returns to Britain to face the music. There is also the case of her husband, Jonathan Sacoolas, who was at first described as a ‘diplomat’ but who turned out to be based at RAF Croughton, which does intelligence work. Whatever his precise role, most of the world will now take him to be a spook, which might just limit his career and his family’s movements in future.

    Was it really worth risking all that in order to avoid a fine, perhaps a suspended jail sentence and a driving ban? Moreover, the US’s decision to ship her out of the country has hugely damaged diplomatic relations. Already, the extradition treaty between the US and the UK had been criticised as being lop-sided in the US’s favour. The inevitable result of this case will be to make it harder for the US to extradite fugitives from the UK in future. The first sniff of a story about the US trying to extradite a suspected criminal from Britain and the Sacoolas case will be dragged up and used as an argument as to why UK courts should be less co-operative with those in the US. ‘To do a Sacoolas’ threatens to enter the lexicon of international law. That, she will have to be aware, is the price of infamy.”

    1. Well, I don’t like the use of the word “alleged” also used by the BBC in this case. There is not the least shred of doubt that Mrs Sacoolas was driving and killed Harry Dunn. It probably was not intentional. Whether it was careless, reckless or a momentary lapse is another matter. If Mrs Sacoolas had arrived for a visit in the previous couple of days then forgetting which side the road to drive on is easy, and understandable.
      There are a number of crashes in Scotland every year, some fatal, because a tourist has left the lonely B&B and driven off on the empty road in the Highlands, on the wrong side.
      We had a French family staying with us, and we left with them in their minibus to drive to Edinburgh. When my French chum left our driveway he immediately drove on the right. The road was empty in both directions so there were no visible clues to drive on the left, such as other vehicles doing so.

      1. I can’t recall a time when I’ve ever driven on the wrong side of the road when abroad. Twice though, on returning from holiday, I have veered for a split second onto the right (i.e. wrong side) when back in yookay.

        2. Oh it happens. Over the last twenty years I have made many trips to the UK and although I adapt to wrong side driving easily, there are infrequent moments when I will drift back to my perceived correct side. It is always when there are no other vehicles around as a clue to help refresh the memory (just as Horace wrote).

          It doesn’t help that the UK hotel we use nowadays is on a one way street, I have several minutes of oblivious driving before needing to focus.

          2. There was one month when I commuted backwards and forwards between the UK and The Netherlands. That really confused me when I was switching sides between unfamiliar roads.

    2. On one hand I disagree with the US decision to shield Anne Sacoolas from justice in a UK court by refusing to extradite her but on the other hand I understand how the bad UK / US relationship came about & it is down to two factors – firstly under Obama for 8 years the US government , justice & policing authorities turned distinctly hard left globalist and Trump is now fighting this ( not too successfully BTW as the deep state is clinging on to power ) & unfortunately as a result he sees the UK still locked firmly in the grip of the globalist hard left ( which its civil service, judicial system & police still are ) despite the UK leaving the globalist super state EU in a weeks time . The second factor is that the UK is no longer the UK of pre-WW2, it is now a multicultural globalist state thanks to Communist infiltration post WW2 of the UK via its main stream politics, media, education, trade unions, health system, social welfare & disastrous immigration policies and as part of that significant change the UK has to a large extent fallen in line with the EU’s hard left anti-American bias . If the UK does not wise up & halt the continuation of the EU’s core anti-American policies and re-align itself with the US then a successful post-Brexit UK will IMO be in jeopardy both economically & defence and foreign policy wise .

      1. Anne Sacoolas probably made the mistake of driving on the wrong side of the road. Whenever I visited the UK I never drove, but if I’d visited alone I still never, ever, ever have rented a vehicle, because I’m used to driving on the opposite side of the road and would be terrified to make a mistake. However, ESCAPING from the country after hitting a teen, is unconscionable!

        It will not stand in the way of the US and the UK getting along, but I sincerely think she needs to get herself back to the UK and face the repercussions. I would wager to say that she is being spoken to about this, and that eventually she will return to face the facts. Perhaps not prison if she didn’t intentionally murder, but she certainly is responsible for the death of a young man, and she needs to be sued for damages, personally, and as the wife of someone who works for a US intelligence department.

  41. US evacuates consular staff from Wuhan as coronavirus outbreak ‘accelerates’. 25 January 2020.

    The US government is ordering the evacuation of consular personnel and their family members in Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the rapidly escalating coronavirus outbreak.

    The decision was made because of the circulating virus and “logistical disruption stemming from restricted transportation and overwhelmed hospitals in the city,” according to a US embassy spokesman in Beijing.

    This is either the biggest bullshitting exercise in history or the Apocalypse is upon us!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/us-evacuates-consular-staff-wuhan-coronavirus-outbreak-accelerates/

    1. If these US citizens are potential carriers and the disease is as contagious as is suggested, how does spreading them far and wide actually help?

      2. They are being escorted by Medics and if the authorities are sensible they should put them in quarantine when they arrive in the US

        1. Just like Pauline Cafferkey I suppose.

          More seriously, are they really going to keep them sealed from the outside world from the point of boarding until they can put them in isolation wards and does even the USA have sufficient such facilities?

          7. Well, FEMA have a load of coffins stacked and waiting. Save ferrying the bodies to and throw.

          10. Civilisation has not yet arrived. So long as wars continue, worrying about Global Warming is an insanity.

          11. I am reminded of the disaster movie/book?? where the passengers on a train all got a plague and the train was conveniently crashed so that all the passengers would die.

          13. I think so, but there were a few similar ones around at the time.
            If I recall correctly it ended with there being survivors and the rest was left to the reader’s/watcher’s imagination.

          14. As ‘Minty says, that sounds like the Cassandra Crossing and God what a damn awful book!
            The amount the author know about railway operations could have been written on a grain of rice in 16 point text!

          15. Indeed, but I’m not certain that that is the one I was thinking of as there were other similar tales.

            Experts in any field can pick huge holes in fictional tales, I enjoy the books for what they are.

          16. The US has designated hospitals equipped with the necessary isolation facilities for this sort of thing. That’s how the Ebola medics who got sick were treated.

            Or they could of course just send them to Gitmo, where any contagion could only spread to the current internees…

          17. Over 1,000 potential high dependency units?
            How many ebola cases did the USA handle at any one time?

            I can accept that they might keep them in “standard quarantine”; but for sake of argument, if this disease is as lethal as is being hinted at, and it can be transmitted through the air rather than direct contact, it suggests that it might be better not to transport any patients anywhere.

            Eyam, rather than flight, might be the way forward.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyam

          18. I thought I read somewhere recently that coronavirus does not seem to be as lethal as SARS or MERS.

          19. It isn’t.

            It is also contagious in the same way as any Flu virus.

            The old, the sick, the young, the immune deficient.

            What is of concern is its ability to mutate.

            The Labs have been working hard in that area.

          21. Will they have their own individual breathing apparatus for the flights? Or will the standard airline recirculation system spread whatever anyone has to all of them?

          22. Errr, what do you think?

            And just to rub salt in the wounds, all the aircraft might well have the virus lurking in their systems to infect everyone on the next few flights.

            OOOOPss!

            Apocalypso banana boat song.

          3. They’ll probably have to beat the Zombies off with their bats to get the last few runs!

    3. Would you want to stay if you knew there was no-one to treat you if you got ill? A very sane move, IMO.

      Knowing how our fearless leader reacts, it’s a wonder he has not banned anyone from China coming to the US. But if it continues to spread, that’s what he will do.

    1. How much time was allowed in 1973 for the EC countries to take their share of our fishing waters. I don’t think it was 25 years.

  43. Today’s Nomination for the Nottler Nig-Nog TV Representation Award goes to the RAF. An advert for recruit to the RAF had some 12 or more young women featured all of them non-white.

  44. After watching the video of the woman eating whole Bat with her Bat soup i have now watched a video of a man eating what is known as ‘three squeaks’. It shows a tastefully garnished plate of sliced tomatoes and small dish of sauce. You pick the delicacy up with chopsticks and dip in the sauce. The reason the dish is called ‘three squeaks’ is because the delicacy consists of live baby mice.

      2. Snopes say it is an urban myth. If that is the case why is it banned?

        I didn’t go looking for it. The video was playing as i scrolled down the DM.

    3. Bat soup, you say, Boy Wonder? Holy mulligatawny!

      ….. I’ll get me cookbook ……….

          1. And i claim a life of infamy and shame plus $100 dollars to clean a frock i will later auction. Apparently Hillary has chosen the buy it now option.

    5. Rumour has it that they’re also selling live koalas for meat in Wuhan.
      I haven’t heard any of the Green/Climate change lobby protesting, after claiming koalas are endangered because of the Australian Bush fires…

  45. The wife has just got back from her pilates class,
    She said half way through someone dropped a whole box a maltesers on the floor.
    Said it looked like a giant game of Hungry Hippos in there

  46. Looked out from the landing window & there is a single carmine rose on the west pergola. I think it’s one I call “The Slut” because of its garish colour.

    1. “Aha, I have been waiting for my salty rat.”

      I like the way the rat manoeuvres his way up the cats tail, so that it can get as close as possible to the cat. It has obviously done that several times before.

      1. It is nice, but not in Nice. There are a few around in this style. A particularly splendid one in Florence but it’s not it either.

        https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffromflorenceandback.weebly.com%2Fuploads%2F1%2F2%2F5%2F8%2F12582611%2F8831676_orig.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffromflorenceandback.weebly.com%2Fblog%2Fa-new-style-in-a-very-old-city&docid=2HrwAQB8dcxcyM&tbnid=vYIPaVdg2VQ93M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjTtaz1xZ_nAhWuQxUIHawYB7kQMwiFAihbMFs..i&w=240&h=320&client=safari&bih=1000&biw=1832&q=Russian%20Orthodox%20Church%20of%20the%20Nativity%20Florence&ved=0ahUKEwjTtaz1xZ_nAhWuQxUIHawYB7kQMwiFAihbMFs&iact=mrc&uact=8

        1. Our daughter is currently in Nice for a few days’ break. She does get around,but …..
          She just e-mailed me the photo with the cryptic question ” Where was I ? “.
          I’ve replied, asking her where it was ? St Peters’Square ? ?? No reply as yet.
          I’m interested in all your replies. Usually one of you comes with the answer pronto!!!

      5. I thought that those looked like crosses from the side, at the top of the minarets, but could not tell from the angle.

      1. It is quite a high-resolution image and if you click on it and look at motor scooter on the left, that does not look like a British number plate. Although the scooter might be from abroad. That might help someone identify the country if the recognise the colours on it.

          1. *Cough* Private referrals from trusted clients only *cough*.

            When you don’t even need to advertise, then you know that you are good.

    7. If you open the image in another window and magnify, you can get a good look at that red box to the left and also the badge on the back of that SUV. Looks like an Opel Meriva to me. One of them thar tiny european cars…

      Also take a look at the scooter/bike parked at the very far left. You can just see a blurry licence plate. And definitely some “warm weather” flora there.

  49. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/indiana-boy-4-dies-after-father-s-gun-discharged-they-n1122841

    How can any father be so completely dim-witted as to “play wrestle” his 4 year old son while having a loaded gun tucked into his belt? And guns don’t discharge unless the safety is off. I hope that law enforcement throws the book at him.

    It’s things like this that convince many people here that it’s time to rein in gun freedoms. Maybe restrict it to the sane amongst us.

          1. Yep, that’s what my Yorkshire Mum taught me. “All’t world’s queer but thee and me, lad, and thu’s a bit off at times”!

          3. No! That was the old saying. Sort of early version of gender neutral. It applied to everyone.

          1. Some years ago at the old house, I was “squirrel proofing” the attic vents as one had chewed its way through the aluminium grille at get in. Anyway, i found a discussion group where people were wondering whether a target shooting spec .22 pistol was the right weapon. Some wag posted that he preferred to use a .44 Magnum, as nothing was left to clean up.

    2. That rules out amuhricahns, then.

      Truly, that nation is gormless. ‘Ma Gauhn is to pro-tech ma from tha guvmunt!’

      Government points to a predator drone.

      Amuricahn says ‘Gu huh, I got ma guhnz!’

      Stupid people.

    1. Heh heh – I have just typed an invitation to you on the other channel, but it was removed because I am not cleared to post there. So here it is again:

      “Good evening. 🙂 (Well it is here in England at the moment.)

      It does have a lot of English people there, with some living in different countries, including America and Europe. I have been online for 30 years and it is a very good channel. There is the occasional troll that pops up, but ignore them and they are powerless.

      One of the best things about the channel is that the people are 55 – 85 (or more) and this means that they have life experience in many fields. Which is in itself quite interesting, and is one of the best reasons to come online in the first place – to meet interesting people.

      I am one of the younger ones at 50 5/12ths. You would certainly be welcome to come and have a look. :-)”

        1. No it isn’t.

          I’ve “known” SLC on other channels and he/she is good fun and posts similarly to Nottlers.

          6. Sounds like an Alison Moyet song.

            I did meet Dave Stewart at Five Dials once. Great bloke. Then i bumped into him at Neals Yard. I said to him ‘are you stalking me?’

            He used the f word…. :o(

          10. If it is Polly then we will know soon enough. Polly has the standard troll low-intellect and is out of her depth here. She would be out of her depth in a creche. You cannot hide that level of stupid.

          3. Good to see you. We re like a village, who mostly get on and banter together, but have squabbles too.

          10. As far as Hat is concerned she’s about as popular as a visit by Jeremy Corbyn to Tel Aviv.

          13. Sarita – I’m a male and Polly is a troll who uses many accounts. Polly has been banned now from here I think.

            Polly’s writing style is typical “left-wing mindless troll.”

        1. One of the ones that Mahatma invited me to. I’m trying to check which one it was, but I cannot open the comments tab at the moment. It was the one where you said “It looks like it is full of English people.”

          Unless I have mixed you up with someone else completely – in which case, please accept my apologies and ignore my comment. 🙂

          1. You mixed me up maybe! I love the UK! I usually spend time on Conservatively Speaking, Not the Jerusalem Post, The Bold Conservative, Breitbart, and some of Mahatma’s channels.

          2. Aha – I just found it – “Shavua Tov, The Weekly Open Forum.”

            Although, I don’t know if that is one of his channels or not. This channel tends to take up far too much of my time as it is, enjoyable as that may be, and I don’t go to others very often on Disqus. 🙂

    2. A person of their word.
      Welcome.

      To those who have not visited any of “Hat’s” channels SLC is a “white hat” and respected moderator.
      After yesterday evening, and the various falling outs, SLC has come to see for themself what the fuss is about.

      Please be on good behaviour Nottlers!

        1. Gosh, yesterday evening on NOTTL must be famous! Anyway, if you are a friend of Mahatma’s, then welcome, as far as I’m concerned.

          4. You’re welcome. Just don’t talk to Avalon, DevonianinKent or Peddy. Dull, dull, dull. I got up this morning and had Muesli and the weather was…………………………………..er dull.

          6. Yes, that is the voluptuous blonde who is getting fatter by the day. I just can’t refuse her. Sad git that i am.

            The Kennel Club sez 4 kilo is okay if you are not showing. My Vet sez 3 kilo. Dolly is now 5 kilo. I think she is playing the numbers.

            Her sire was best puppy at Crufts. Veejim Deltaforce at Tarradonna. We know what spoilt Royals are like.

        2. Gosh, yesterday evening on NOTTL must be famous! Anyway, if you are a friend of Mahatma’s, then welcome, as far as I’m concerned.

  51. ‘Dogwatch’ schemes are replacing traditional neighbourhood watches, with police increasingly calling on Britain’s early risers to help solve burglary and theft cases.

    Dog walkers in Hampshire, Essex and Bedfordshire are being urged to report any suspicious behaviour they see while out with their pets.

    Forces say they are more likely to witness potentially criminal activity due to the unusual times they go out and the fact that they take similar routes every day, so will be able to recognise unfamiliar faces or behaviour.

    Hampshire Constabulary became the latest force to launch a dedicated scheme in the New Forest earlier this month.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/25/pet-owners-helping-solve-burglaries-thefts-dogwatch-schemes/

    Silly question , but many counties are rather short of police.. they are hard pushed for time and manpower as it is.

    3. We don’t have any. Even the central Police station is scheduled for closure and redevelopment into flats.

      I reported drug use and needles in our local park where they play rugby and football. Once a month children are coached in these sports. I never had a response.

      1. Evening J,

        But who do you report incidents to.. police don’t appreciate trivial concerns .. and the phone lines are always busy.

        Last night in the early hours , prob 2-3am we heard boy racers haring up and down a country lane near here in their cars… sounded terrible .. Reported many times by others , we just turned over and tried to get back to sleep .

        1. Make your own “stinger” mats.

          Stay up late one night, place said mats across the road, problem, if not solved, moved away from your area.

          2. Home-made ‘stinger’ mats, may not always prove to be an effective way of stopping a vehicle.

            IEDs are the way to go.

          3. You big softie you. Drop some daisy cutters from a drone tagged to their Iphone. Bloomin’ lightweight…

          1. You have to look at it as part of the social contract. I asked one of the scum to slow down and keep quiet.

            Their response was no, I’ll do what I want.

            So a few of us introduced his car to masonry. Sledgehammer on the window, acid on the wheels to melt them, bricks through the windows. Left a note – ‘We’ll do what we want.’

      1. We have had unexplained closures in the past. I looked for a note saying “closed due to.. ” and found none, so I assumed it was another mysterious event and reopened the site.
        Mea culpa, if I should not have.

        2. It was out for a little while. Enough time for me to scan down to see if I could see anything egregious enough for the mods to shut it down. By the time I had done that it had mysteriously re-opened. I recall at least one other event when no-one could work out what happened, but one of the mods got it back.

        3. Not to worry, Paul. But I’ve reinstated the old ‘house rules’ at the top of the page, and will continue to do so. Some of us are forgetting ourselves…

      3. It takes two to tango, so just Ignore or block.

        I think the mods do an excellent job. There are many posts here that I either don’t agree with, or are just plain factually incorrect. I just shake my head and move on.

      1. Geoff,

        I think all of us who want to have a civilized discourse support your actions.

        And thank your for all your hard work.

          2. On the plus side, the comment total topped a thousand yesterday.

            I was safely tucked up in the Wigmore Hall most of the evening and too tired to read much when I got home.

            It’s illogical but I find it embarrassing when people start being rude to one another on here.

          3. I was out for the evening, then went to bed. I caught up on the carnage this morning.

            I don’t know why people can’t disagree with each other without hurling insults. Meanwhile, we are still under siege by spammers.

          4. I went out fairly earlyish, got home about 22:30, put a post up on what I’d been doing and went to bed.
            Woke & did a tea for the DT & myself about 04:00ish and found yesterday’s page locked and guessed the usual suspects had been making idiots of themselves.
            If you are unwilling to say something face to face, then do not post it on line, it is my motto.

          5. Tempers do get a bit heated at night – possibly too much medication taken.

            I’m not usually up late these days, so didn’t see it till this morning. Usual suspects involved.

      3. You were quite right to be annoyed. I was not here after 09:00PM last night, but I did read the comments from some a few minutes ago, and they were not nice. It is good though that the channel was not “down” for long, as that would be punishing the majority of “good people” who had done nothing wrong.

        I have seen many channels on a lot of different systems, and I think the Mods here do a good job.

      4. Anyone who insults Geoff Graham, insults me!

        I’m not called Grizzly for nothing! Be afraid. Be very afraid! I do not take prisoners.

        [Well, not any more I don’t]

      5. I got there about 10PM last night (my time) and tried to close the page and was tempted to ban the main troublemakers, just to calm it down a bit.

        As Jackthelad wrote, it takes two to tango and several were intent on continuing their row.

        Add to that we are being swamped by spam at the moment, I have deleted well over a dozen love hungry messages in the last ten minutes.

          4. Polly’s revenge, I think – the spammers all have something in common – and all set up 9 or 10 days ago.

        2. Guido Fawkes was also infected today by ladies claiming to be luscious and looking for someone just like me. I was greatly flattered until it struck me that they might not mean it.

        3. I’ve banned dozens of those in the last couple of days, including the ones you’ve deleted. I suspect it stems from our banning of Polly and she’s wreaking revenge.

  53. Dutch and French authorities bust a people smuggling outfit that hs smuggled 10,000 Kurds into the UK

    1. I love the new logo. I cannot get enough of it. (No sarcasm intended – I really like it.)

      As a country, they might not be able to get into orbit anymore, but at least they have nice badges.

      1. The future in space is being viewed as being through the use of unmanned craft like the USAF X-37B, which can stay in orbit for a long time (last flight was 600+ days) and land autonomously on command. It could also presumably open its cargo doors and dump something on someone’s head, on demand as well. It would probably also make a good anti-satellite weapons platform if necessary.

        It was originally a NASA project that got taken over by the military who will say nothing about its various payloads.

      2. The future in space is being viewed as being through the use of unmanned craft like the USAF X-37B, which can stay in orbit for a long time (last flight was 600+ days) and land autonomously on command. It could also presumably open its cargo doors and dump something on someone’s head, on demand as well. It would probably also make a good anti-satellite weapons platform if necessary.

        It was originally a NASA project that got taken over by the military who will say nothing about its various payloads.

        2. Hmmm, a space-based weapons delivery platform that can strike 90% of the planets surface with no warning. They probably wouldn’t put up posters about that one. 🙂

      1. Conway – It is the Roman counting system to show the year, that you often see at the end of films and some TV programs. It is 2019.

        M = 1,000. X = 10. Finally I = 1.

        So that is 1,000 + 1,000 + 10 + (1 before 10 =) 9 = 2019.

        What a delightfully cumbersome and archaic way of numbering modern things. 🙂

  57. I am still hooked on that TV series “The Expanse” and am now on series 2. It is still very good and they are keeping the physics impressively realistic. So I am off now to watch more of them again, and will leave you with another handful of images.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bce6ca69149cf88c0c3ca899f176a16c6d7f31c2030a69456ce27b6578bfd67.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2597153e67f3dd9cc5cffb7bba6625d2184e509ba01102931573ed0459b9d00e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0b60f65053e3ea009806c03f67de84f3e8d6c190c4f41589c468ebdb1637e32.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/85d687f74bb1ed2d50911128c6bb6bb2e83ffabc0532ec15063b87b0b86408aa.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/544a76612da4a5d2b71fd75d0db3cf8313eaea1da260c6d312b0142189157c64.jpg

    1. Just watched the first episode of series 1 Meredith. Very intense! I think that I will watch an episode a night until I’ve finished!

      1. I think it is on one of those “streaming services” although I do not know which one. One company first made it then another took it over. I bought the 3 series boxed set instead and I chose blu-ray instead of dvd and it was worth it for the crystal clear details of the spaceships. That is 36 episodes for £42.34, or £1.18 per episode. Or you could wait for it to be shown on TV, although when I checked the price I noticed the 4th (latest) series is being shown on Amazon Prime, so it might be a few years before they let “normal” channels show it.

        Amazon are selling the High Definition episodes for £2.49 an episode, so it is massively cheaper just to buy the 3 series boxed sets, and you can watch them when you like without download stutter or bandwidth limitations. I don’t often buy series that I have not seen before, but this one was worth it. 🙂

        https://www.amazon.co.uk/Expanse-Season-Box-Set-Blu-ray/dp/B07TSK3XDJ/ref=tmm_blu_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1580038157&sr=1-1

    1. Just watched it, thanks.
      If she has to have those goons intimidating reporters then there’s something obviously dodgy about the whole thing. Good on Rebel Media for pursuing it.

    2. Just watched. Those security people were very aggressive about keeping their employer’s identity undisclosed. Well, not saying who your employer is can be understandable, for reasons of privacy etc. – but these were not polite “no comments” that would otherwise be reasonable in the circumstances, Especially given the number of them.

      And how stupid of Greta and her parents to be wearing Antifa shirts on camera.

    3. She only preaches and will not debate. Like the American Church pastor who charms his crowd before persuading them to give him their wealth. No reasoning just religious fervour and an act of faith in the leader. When you consider that St G is an uneducated individual with some serious mental issues, it is mind numbing to see the those who follow her without question.

      2. I’d trust an American Church Pastor far more than the current Archbishop of Canterbury, who might feel more at home with that cross turned upside down.

    4. “Where is the money coming from?” A key question, not only for the Greta circus, but also in respect of how many hundreds of thousand of penniless natives can afford to come to Europe illegally by paying criminal gangs of smugglers, and also own free to roam smartphones?

      1. ‘…….and also own free to roam smart phones.’

        Plus new:

        Expensive, branded trainers and track suits.
        Razors, shampoo, tooth cleaning, etc.

        All impeccably turned out, clean, well shaven, ……

        In fact ……….just the type of young man you
        would wish your Daughter to be raped by!!!

        [Sorry, I hate the way this Country is treating our own;
        there may well be family issues and those we need to
        sort out but to ALLOW these girls to be so abused……
        We should be, very, ashamed of ourselves, because we
        not only allowed it to happen…….we continue to allow it
        to happen!

    5. Started watching it this morning, but will have to finish watching later when I have the time. Still haven’t had time yet to watch Tommy Robinson’s speech on receiving the free speech award in Denmark.

  59. Evening, all. Just dipping in to reassure everyone I haven’t gone under with everything that’s been happening lately.

    1. Good evening Conners – you missed the spam bot attacks today and the fallings out last night.

      Are you getting things under control now?

      1. Seems like a plan! Thank you; I am resigned to living with a huge crater near my house (at least I’ve managed to fence it off with large flower pots to stop the aged hound from falling into it) for another ten days and gradually I am regaining my energy, although doing some shopping yesterday meant I had to go to bed to rest.

          1. Fine now, thank you. It was the lurgy that laid me low (rather like the ‘Allo ‘Allo alliteration).

          4. Miserable, isn’t it! I’ve been hacking away for about 10 days now, but most of the rest is better.

          5. I didn’t know you were still unwell. I’m sorry to hear that. Would it help if i gave you a rub down with furry gloves? :o)

            Now you must know i am joking and i do wish for your speedy recovery.

          6. Thanks – but I have my furry friend beside me. She’s called Lily.

            Anyway, I’m off to bed now so play nicely tonight.

      2. Tsk tsk !. There were no fallings out. We already despised each other. John hated my ketchup!!!

  60. Anyone know why Juliet Samuel is rubbishing Trump. She used to write sensibly albeit eclipsed by the more literate and gifted Sherelle Jacobs.

    I should have thought that all US politicians with family members chiselling away in Ukrainian and similar oil companies should be answerable to public scrutiny. This applies particularly to Joe Biden’s son who would appear unqualified to occupy any executive position in the oil industry.

    I have a notion that Nancy Pelosi has relatives involved in similar adventures or nepotism. I would also like to know how peasants like the Obamas are now rolling in fabulous wealth.

    1. Vast fees for speeches and appearances. Standard money raiser for ex-presidents. Business groups always think these guys have more influence than they do and so throw money at their “charities” and “foundations”. Bill Clinton was a master at it, that’s how the Clinton Foundation, also known here as Chelsea’s retirement fund, got so rich.

      GW Bush did almost none of this after his terms in office, but then he had become very rich by undefined means before he got elected. Pelosi comes from an old line political family so I have no doubt she has relatives cashing in somehow.

      p.s. if you are going to start worrying about whether people are “qualified” for the jobs they manage to get, I fear you will find most are not – especially in the topmost ranks. They usually get there through knowing the right people, or being someone’s “protégé” as against actually knowing how to do the job. I’ve seen that happen many times. Probably why so many firms get into disproportionate trouble when the economy slows down.

      1. My point was that Biden’s son is a very obvious example of nepotism, undue preference and corruption but involving supposedly holier than thou Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden himself, public servants.

  61. Well that’s it, I cannot spend all day deleting these spam messages, our banned user list is growing.

    1. I’m not seeing any spam. Well, one yesterday. I use ghostery and adblocker if that is any help.

      1. I use adblocker but it doesn’t have any effect against spammers. We just have to keep banning them

  63. Good morning –

    ”

    Senior royals are drawing up contingency plans to provide the Duke
    and Duchess of Sussex with a haven in the UK, amid fears that the
    intrusion of photographers in North America could force them to move
    back across the Atlantic.

    Sources close to the royal household say Prince Charles
    and Prince William have been “reaching out” to Harry and Meghan to say
    that if they wanted to return to the UK full-time they could do so
    without having to resume their official royal duties.”

    They made their bed. Let them lie on it.

    1. Their lack of foresight all along has been astounding. First, Meggie’s apparent naivety about what to expect in marrying into The Firm, second, their expectations to just choose to opt out without sacrificing any of the perks and third, their thinking that paparazzo exist only in the UK.

      Incredible

      1. Evening SLC,
        I have always maintained that the wretch cameron was the blast off first stage of a partial re-entry rocket, may the second
        stage, & the final stage falling to johnson, ” the deal” the umbilical cord, to be worked on.

          1. I did ask for their post to be given content but
            I wait, so in the nicest
            possible way your “Ah”
            could be a touch premature.

  65. Art of campanology in danger if church prevents use of lighter bells to encourage women and children

    Bell ringers have warned that the sound of peeling bells could become a lost art form after a church judge ruled against the installation of lighter ones at an ancient Lincolnshire church.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/25/art-campanology-danger-church-prevents-use-lighter-bells-encourage/

    Just wondering whether there are any foundries left anymore to create new bells.

    1. There was a discussion on here about church bells a few days ago, to do with Big Ben and the sound of the chime. But I cannot remember how the conversation ended. Someone here will know.

      1. Big Ben is cracked and was given a ‘temporary’ repair many years ago. It cannot be easily removed for retuning from the Elizabeth Tower. There are floors and staircases below it. The dull discordant sound is the result of the bell being out of tune.

      1. John Taylor & Co, commonly known as Taylor’s Bell Foundry, is the world’s largest working bell foundry. It is in Loughborough, in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England.
        Wikipedia

      3. You may be correct there , Sue.

        Bell ringing is very arduous.. They still have practise nights here . I tried bell ringing years ago .. but it wasn’t for me .

    4. Plink, plink, plink. Twang !

      Not where i live. We produced much metal from our local foundry which is now a failing Tesco supermarket. We also had a brickworks that built the Albert Hall.

      We do have lots of Turkish hair salons so not all bad…Erm.

      1. The channel may be narrow but it is pretty treacherous. I dont believe these people are getting across in dinghy’s . Even expert sailers woul struggle at this time of year and in the dark. They are being dropped off from larger boats near our shores

          5. Have you seen my latest temptation, Flower. I know you won’t be able to resist. I’m even buying new comfy dining chairs just for your bottom comfort. Truth be told…..mine !

      3. Evening N,
        The french won’t accept them
        potential corona carriers.
        The UK mass uncontrolled immigration parties have no such qualms.

        1. I’ve no interest in what the French will accept.

          They’ve come through France, therefore France – and other nations – haven’t properly carried out their duties under international law.

          Sue them and remind that country of international law.

          1. W,
            I agree, but first we must surely instill in a UK governance party
            the rules of international law, because the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party have only rubber stamped brussels law for decades.

          2. You’re forgetting the Dubs Law, which means they have to be sent back their initial EU point of entry, which is virtually impossible to enforce. Of course, come 1st Feb, Dubs will no longer apply.

  67. Dutch and French authorities bust a people smuggling outfit that hs smuggled 10,000 Kurds into the UK

    1. We’ll never stop them, they’re very determined people. The Kurds will always have their way.

      1. ‘The Kurds will always have their way.’

        Surely you mean:

        ‘The curds will always have their whey?’

        Good evening, HJ.

  68. Reading about HS2 I am struck by the comparisons with my last major government building contract. The building cost much more than the pre-tender estimates because the client employed comparatively useless pseudo project managers and a host of crap
    cap-doffing and subservient quantity surveyors.

    The project was a management contract and this involved the works being broken down into a hundred or so direct contracts with contractors and specialist suppliers. If a tender or tenders were returned above the quantity surveyors’ pre-tender estimate the fools insisted on calling for design changes (cost engineering) and re-tendering. This process required additional design time and additional time for re-tendering. Meanwhile the project at site level stalled because essential site work was necessarily delayed whilst the idiot management and servile quantity surveyors tried to cook the books for the next presentation to their masters (politicians).

    In summation, a project which might have cost shy of £30 million cost more than £40 million. This for a project completed in 1987.

    1. Evening Cori. I think most on here are now familiar with this scam. HS2 to get it approved at what £££ and then the cost eventually quadruples. Now it appears it may be 10 years late so if they go ahead with it it will end up costing 300 billion and they still haven’t laid a mile of track.

      1. At the other extreme is there any news of the weekend hospital build the Chinese are doing in Wuhan?

        1. Lots of activity with bulldozers and whatnot.

          There was a suggestion here recently that concrete takes 30 days to Set. I think they are going the prefab container route.

    1. Hi Geoff – having spent the last hour clearing out the spammers on Friday’s page – I’ve now closed it. I think we might have to close yesterday’s page too, if they comtinue.

      1. On the bright side, having been on a number of channels on Disqus in the past 2 and a bit years, I have seen these spam attacks on all of them, some more than others, and they do come in “waves.” Polly may well have logged a few recently, but it happens anyway.

        There was one that I was on called “The Sci-Fi Channel” which was quite an in-depth one with people who were smarter than the average bear. Every 2 or 3 months you would get get one of the Mods there saying that there were hundreds of spam posts that they were removing each day. Then it would go quiet for a while, then start up again.

        So it is widespread. The joys of the modern online world. 🙂

  70. I put this up in December:

    “I’m a loser!” says Heseltine.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-brexit-heseltine-remain-eu-rejoin-peoples-vote-referendum-a9246611.html

    Too right, Mikey! Enjoy your retirement – and pray that Boris doesn’t re-route the Farthinghoe bypass through your back garden.

    He’s back!

    Brexit celebrations ‘rub our noses in it’, says Heseltine

    “Brexit is the most divisive issue of modern times…it is unwise of the government to rub our noses in it by celebrating our defeat at this hour, whilst talking about unifying the country.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/25/heseltine-says-brexit-celebrations-rub-remainers-nose-in-it

    Dunderhead. Your side divided it.

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