Saturday 25 September: The Tories face self-inflicted defeat if the energy crisis deepens

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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669 thoughts on “Saturday 25 September: The Tories face self-inflicted defeat if the energy crisis deepens”

  2. Boy, 12, dies after suffering serious injuries at SnowDome. 25 September 2021.

    Police have urged people not to speculate about the incident or share images or footage.

    Morning everyone. So of course like being warned against stockpiling or not to listen we all immediately do so because that is human nature. There looks to be nothing in the report to suggest anything other than an accident so one suspects this to be another False Flag to undermine unwanted observations on other matters that the Wokeys consider sacrosanct!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/25/boy-12-dies-suffering-serious-injuries-snowdome/

    1. Morning Minty

      What the police are aiming for is to numb the population to the point where they can say “Police have forbidden people from speculating about the role of the police in this incident and will go to prison if they share images of the police doing something naughty.”

  6. Johnson’s carbon neutral policy getting a hammering in the DT Letters comments this morning. When will our PM get the message?

    1. He’s received the message and that’s why he continues to plough on regardless of the consequences.

    2. They may look cuddly but I still wouldn’t trust the Chinese one ruddy inch.
      We shouldn’t pander to the Chinese.

    4. Why has that one at the bottom of the picture got a definite seam where the fabric’s been stitched?

  8. Morning folks. Let there be light:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c83df2731f8b9652f8ac20db1702eb020ac159f9bdd4f81ef38f15412aa151f.jpg

    [The Bruce Tunnel is on the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon Canal between Wootton Top Lock and Crofton Locks in Wiltshire, England. The tunnel is 502 yards (459 m) long.]

    Harvested field near the pretty village of Wilton
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/194bc41df5bc59897ad61f7dc6a075499f0ecc04190ecaf756b523bae1d05f63.jpg

  9. Thousands more people than usual are dying … but it’s not from Covid

    Almost 18 months of delayed treatments, fewer consultations, and a lack of immunity may be starting to take their toll.

    Well after preventing the treatment of really serious conditions in the cause of protecting everyone from a virus that posed no threat, except to the advanced aged, the chooks are coming home to roost. This and the relentless doom mongering and fear inducing program must also have had an effect. One suspects that quite a few have expired from sheer hopelessness! This is Government with neither Reason nor Humanity!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/24/analysis-thousands-usual-dying-not-covid/

  10. Thousands more people than usual are dying … but it’s not from Covid

    Almost 18 months of delayed treatments, fewer consultations, and a lack of immunity may be starting to take their toll.

    Well after preventing the treatment of really serious conditions in the cause of protecting everyone from a virus that posed no threat, except to the advanced aged, the chooks are coming home to roost. This and the relentless doom mongering and fear inducing program must also have had an effect. One suspects that quite a few have expired from sheer hopelessness! This is Government with neither Reason nor Humanity!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/24/analysis-thousands-usual-dying-not-covid/

  11. Mutti has gorn

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d7d17d20e85824f89e83cd59da074dac8702a50d/0_0_2200_1338/master/2200.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=675fcd4ef90282337367c1c842d877ee

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8eb71712e54f525cad81ba002dcad322b289188f/0_0_4000_2653/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=e2a9bde4b40fcecf6b932483bd2fb6a9

    And this one is especially for B o B

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9bd053ad3511d2576de80c060c37e2919363dc21/0_0_2150_2200/master/2150.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=c22b7031b496381cf40de657e5f19635

    1. Michael in the second image Is she saying: “Ja, this much more than the British Standard Handful!”

  12. 339225+ up ticks,

    Saturday 25 September: The Tories face self-inflicted defeat if the energy crisis deepens

    Orchestrated, they are forever going forward the only ones facing self inflicted political mutilation are the electorate.

    They have been used & abused these last three plus decades quite openly, many knowingly don the martyr mantle, in this case for the good of the tory (ino) party.

    We could NEVER have reached this odious state of affairs without the majority of the electorate’s input.

    Just who is supporting this still ongoing ?

    https://twitter.com/Steve_Laws_/status/1441527890139484162

  15. Andrew Neil ‘almost had breakdown’ at GB News. 25 September 2021.

    Andrew Neil has revealed that he came close to having a breakdown while at GB News and believes “it would’ve killed me to carry on” due to the technical problems at the channel.

    Neil said he suffered stress and sleep deprivation due to technical issues in the early days. He told the newspaper: “It just went from bad to worse. There was one day we spent the whole day preparing the programme and fixing up a number of interviews down the line [remotely], because that was the business model.

    It has of course occurred to me that these “technical problems” were not the result of incompetence but deliberate. How likely is it that what are fundamental set ups are suddenly incapable of being attained? Sabotage is a much more likely explanation than inability! Of course as with UKIP and the English Defence League their leaders cannot voice such suspicions since they are essentially unprovable and would result in ridicule

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/24/andrew-neil-almost-had-breakdown-at-gb-news

    1. I tuned into GB on the first or second day and the problems were laughable. It appeared that little or no commissioning of the systems had taken place, it was a mess. As recently as a few weeks ago a weather forecast I tried to watch had video/sound sync problems. I can’t believe that such a set up was not fully commissioned and that sabotage was afoot.
      Only yesterday I was watching The Highwire and the link between an Australian activist husband and wife team and the studio in Texas was abandoned because, although the video was perfect, the sound channel could not be connected. The enemy do not like it up them and will stoop to any ruse to break the information links of those standing up to them.

      1. ‘They’ did the same to Tommy Robinson. They set him up on several occasions to give them an excuse to shut him away.

    4. When I wrote I’d joined UKIP after despairing of Carswell, Ndovu questioned that he’d joined UKIP. I couldn’t reply (thread closed), but my answer would have been that he was an infiltrator. He certainly did the party no good in my view.

  16. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – My heating runs on oil, so I’ve always had to pay what the market demands on the day of delivery. For electricity, I keep an eye on prices and switch suppliers when it is beneficial.

    This I last did in July. However, the new supplier recently emailed to announce that my daily standing charge is to more than double, and that the kWh rate will also increase substantially. The net result will be an increase in my bill of 70 per cent.

    The mystery is that both my current and previous supplier claim to use only renewable sources. To the best of my knowledge there has been no increase in the price of sunshine or wind, so why are my bills going up?

    Richard Taylor
    Alkborough, Lincolnshire

    That’s easy, Mr T. Licences stating ‘100% renewables’ are issued and money changes hands. It’s yet another green scam. You didn’t actually believe it…did you?

    1. Perhaps the amount of subsidy dropped? You do realise all renewables are propped up by taxpayers, don’t you Mr Taylor?

  17. SIR – It is a sad fact that this country, which launched the Industrial Revolution, has become a nation of objectors.

    We need coal, and a new coal mine, such as the one being proposed in Cumbria, would not only mitigate the need to import it, but also allow us to profit by selling the surplus.

    Shale oil and gas, which have been a huge success for America, sit underground here, while we import gas and electricity from unreliable countries in Europe.

    When will we face the facts, use common sense and make the right decisions?

    Colin Bower
    Nottingham

    Answer: When Johnson has gone and taken his greenie claptrap bollox with him.

    1. 339225+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Answer: When Johnson and his greenie bollox have gone.

      Out & out blaspheme, will never happen all the while
      the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella breaths vie the majority of the electorate.

      Tis a very sad state of affairs.

      2. How bad does it have to get before people stop repeating the mantra that it would be worse under Labour?
        The Cons have a track record that is just as bad as Labour’s since 2010.

        Marriage destroyed, our country signed up to invasion, net Zero, digital ids…what could Labour have made worse?

    5. Morning, HJ.

      It’s going to take a lot more than getting rid of Johnson, I’m afraid. The whole political class is infected with the ‘green virus’, and to remain in vogue, it’s endemic and refuses to mutate away to something more benign e.g. ensuring recycling means just that, and not exporting waste etc to the Third World.

  18. 339225+ up ticks,

    Boris Johnson relaxes rules for foreign lorry drivers
    Prime Minister grants 5,000 temporary visas to ease threat of fuel and food shortages

    IMO will shortly be extending that grant to,
    bricklayers,
    plumbers,
    sparks,
    ALL medical staff,
    etc,etc,
    and anyone else that knows him, & carrie.

  19. SIR – Forty-seven years ago, during the energy crisis under Ted Heath’s Conservative government, I found myself sitting at my desk at BBC Radio Carlisle in flickering candlelight as I manned a single turntable, one tape machine and a microphone, all powered by a small generator on the studio roof.

    The bulk of British and EU energy is gas-fuelled, but Russia controls most of Europe’s gas supplies. Come winter, should candles once again flicker across the land due to this Government’s idiotic energy policies, Boris Johnson should expect to suffer a defeat of its own making – just as Ted Heath did all those years ago.

    Patrick Tracey
    Carlisle, Cumbria

    And if the 1922 had anything resembling a spine he would be on his way right now.

      2. Angela Knight (remember her?) had some blistering comments on TV GB News about the government gas policy. If you can get

        it on catch up well worth twenty minutes of your time.

        She finished off by saying that Putin will cleverly play this situation for all it’s worth this winter.

        Anybody else other than us think that she’s dead right?

        1. Oh dear…here goes once again.
          There is no shortage of gas being pumped to Europe.Every contract that exists is being fulfilled.
          Not one European country has requested extra supplies…if they had this is how it works.You place an order with Gazprom,THEN they bring it to the surface and pump it to you.
          Gazprom don’t have gas sitting on the shelf to supply at a moment’s notice.
          I notice the US hasn’t come to the rescue…they’re selling all their LNG to Asia where the price is higher!

      1. Good morning J

        To Autumn
        Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
        Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
        To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
        To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
        With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
        And still more, later flowers for the bees,
        Until they think warm days will never cease,
        For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

        Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
        Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
        Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
        Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
        Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
        Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
        Spares the next swath and all its twinéd flowers:
        And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
        Steady thy laden head across a brook;
        Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
        Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

        Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
        Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
        While barréd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
        And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
        Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
        Among the river sallows, borne aloft
        Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
        And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
        Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
        The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
        And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

        John Keats

  21. SIR – I am staggered that Sarah Healey (report, September 24), the permanent secretary for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is able to boast about the benefits of working from home – including more time for riding her Peloton exercise bike – when my experience of the Civil Service has been one of inefficiency and incompetence.

    Since my father died in December 2020 I have been trying to get my mother reassessed for contributions to her care. The lady handling the case admitted she was working from home and couldn’t access the paperwork as it was at the office, even though I had originally sent it all digitally.

    Meanwhile, I am also awaiting probate. Papers submitted in January have still to be processed, despite the promise that probate takes only eight weeks. It is a similar story with HM Revenue and Customs and its slow processing of my parents’ tax affairs.

    It seems that the Government has no intention of requiring public servants to work efficiently or in the office. What will happen when they discover that this project does not work?

    Alison Thomas
    Leatherhead, Surrey

    SIR – Sarah Healey should get off her exercise bike, get on a real bike and go back into the office.

    Maintenance staff, postal staff and many others have long been back full-time but are now being made redundant because the buildings are being sold off due to lack of use.

    Cheryl Pope
    Felsted, Essex

    Well, after 4 months and endless emails my driving licence finally arrived yesterday. My MP happens to be chairman of the Transport Committee and things only started to move when he chased it up on my behalf. Others may not be so ‘lucky’.

    Edit: Oh yes, and having moved house a mere seven months ago, the Land Registry finally managed to issue the deeds. We are on a roll!!

    1. “.a mere seven months …the Land Registry finally managed to issue the deeds.” Whoop- De-Doo! Lucky you!
      In Scotland the Register of Sasines (land registry ) is over two years behind, with no sign of catching up.

    2. Good morning Hugh ,

      We appear to have a troughing idle government who lead by example .

      Local MP’s ignore all the letters written to them from consituents, have they sacked their staff as well?

      My dear late aunt once said that very wealthy people are not bothered with politics , they have no need to be , the same thought applies to very poor people , they are buoyed up the state ..

      I believe that our government cares not a jot for small business people and those who work hard for themselves and their families .

      The government is so wrapped up in its little squabbles, that all we hear about is who is entitled to reside at Chevening .. huh, what on earth is that all about ?

      They need to discard their pathetic Green ideas now before the UK collapses from their incompetance.

  23. The Word It Hinges Upon

    A blonde walks up to the clerk at a hardware store and says, “I would like to buy a set of hinges.”

    The clerk says, “Would you like a screw for these hinges?”

    “No,” replies the blonde, “but I’ll blow you for that toaster up there!“

  24. Good morning all.
    A grey start this morning with the slightly damp ground after a light drizzle and 12½°C on the thermometer.

  25. SIR – As Boris Johnson (aka Boros Lemming) travels the world seeking support for “net zero” and promising
    that Britain will “lead” in this endeavour how much will his grandstanding cost each family in Britain annually?

    In health, wealth, sanity, freedom of speech and of action, etc

    1. Boris Johnson, aka Boros Lemming, is so thick he is unable to do us all a favour and find a sufficiently high cliff to leap off.

    2. To take one very simple example of how these things are not thought through.
      Elderly people tend to need more warmth so the cost of providing care home heating is likely to skyrocket. The amount to be contributed by the patient is supposedly going to be capped, so the taxpayer will be hit twice, once for their own costs and then for the care homes.

    3. 339225+ up ticks,
      Morning OLT,
      A pretty penny, up until sanity “could” make a return at the next General Election.

      If the voting pattern is not radically changed then the fat turk will continue up until these Isles are only fit for an imam to take over.

  26. A letter and a BTL Comment:-

    SIR – In the 1960s most of us left school and went straight to work. Only the very brainy went to university. In my case I left grammar school with a handful of O-levels and went straight into the Ministry of Defence in Bath. I was a civil servant in old Admiralty hutments left over from the Second World War. What happy days they were, working with men and women considerably older than me. I learnt all the basics of office routine, which stood me in good stead in various positions until I retired at 65.

    I’ll always remember the humour and camaraderie, rubbing off any shyness I felt and teaching me to work alongside different age groups. The daily routine is often missed after retirement.

    Andrea West
    Wedmore, Somerset

    Robert Spowart
    25 Sep 2021 8:38AM
    “What happy days they were, working with men and women considerably older than me.”

    With that one sentence, Andrea West’s memories of beginning work at 16 are a reminder of how much we may be damaging our young people by insisting that the vast majority stay in full time education until their early 20s and thus lose out on learning to work with older people through a large chunk of their most impressionable years.

    1. How very true BoB.
      I left school aged 15 and by the age of 18 held a very responsible job but supervised by older men. I know it’s a glib phrase but I was genuinely educated at the University of Life.
      I received my monthly pay, paid my mum a percentage for my upkeep, understood that you need the co-operation of other people to make your job a success. Because my colleagues were older and wiser I learned quickly and there was no me, me, me.
      Oh happy days indeed.

  27. Charles Moore today:

    Many of our current problems will pass, but our energy crisis just gets worse

    As Boris Johnson tries to get the wind behind Cop26 at the UN, here at home we are all paying the price

    CHARLES MOORE
    24 September 2021 • 9:30pm

    Returning from a fortnight’s holiday, I find rising levels of discontent, especially among people who are Conservative or might sometimes vote Conservative. Complaints include National Insurance and other tax rises, public spending, public borrowing, commodity and labour shortages, a feeling that the country is being renationalised and too much interfered with by government, and resentment that the authorities are allowing the M25 to be blocked by idiots.

    These are legitimate concerns, but most of them can be put in some perspective by the fact that we are only just emerging from Covid. Broadly speaking, the Government had to spend and borrow more because of the plague. It had to interfere more, too. Tax rises are unwelcome, but hardly a surprise. On the whole, I feel unease, but not despair.

    This week, however, has brought out something serious – long-term serious. Our energy system is no longer reliable or rational. It is almost bound, barring some technological miracle, to grow more unreliable and more expensive for the foreseeable future. Which is another way of saying that we shall grow poorer.

    The latest rush to the petrol pumps may truly be the result of temporary shortage – the lack of HGV drivers – and therefore no more than irritating. But the relationship between our net-zero policies and power generation is another matter.

    In his exuberant speech to the UN general assembly this week, the Prime Minister renamed himself “Boreas” Johnson in honour of the North wind and the “great forests of beautiful wind turbines on the drowned prairies of Doggerland beneath the North Sea”. But he was speaking just after the first three weeks of our British September had produced the lowest wind in that month for five years – 1,082 GWh, compared with 2,652 GWh over the same period in 2020.

    It remains stubbornly the case that wind (and sun) varies. The resulting intermittency has to be made up by other means to keep electricity flowing – in our case, generation by gas. Otherwise we have no security of supply. Because we have allowed ourselves to be so exposed to short-term variations in gas prices, with so little storage, this is blindingly expensive, and we are nearly 50 per cent gas import-dependent. Britain has a policy of buying in distress and so is in no position to get a good price.

    The foolish energy price cap introduced by Theresa May was initially popular with voters, because it appeared to protect them, but it merely conceals the costs by hitting us with taxes instead. It also catches out small players prevented from recovering their sharply increased costs from customers. This leads to further distortion as the Government steps in to stave off bankruptcies.

    It is also not the case, as the Government claims, that the price of renewables is going down. Government subsidies to renewable energy generators via levies on consumers are currently £10 billion a year, rising to £12 billion by 2026.

    Boreas Johnson boasted to the UN that at November’s Cop26 in Glasgow we shall “blow out the candles of a world on fire”. More likely we shall throw the switch on the modern Western economy. He also blamed Britain specifically: we were first with the Industrial Revolution, and thus changed the world “on a scale to derange the natural order”.

    Most people want cleaner energy, and are at least moderately worried about climate change: it would be strange if this were not so. But if Western leaders express this, as Boris was doing, in the language of blame, they set up a dangerous antithesis between virtue and prosperity. Our history tells us that our prosperity was, broadly, virtuous. It made us freer: it gradually liberated the poor from menial labour, improving housing, transport, medicine, drains. Don’t trash it.

    Most of us can see that the XR/Insulate Britain people who try to lie down on motorways or glue themselves to public transport are committed opponents of our modern way of life. We may not yet be aware that many of our political leaders are quite like that, too. All main parties are committed, at least in their rhetoric, to an impossibilist timetable based on an unproved theory of catastrophe.

    Surely the political trick to play is to commit to greener technology rather than inflicting punishment. If consumers come to believe that net zero exposes them to punitive cost or insecurity of supply, they will rightly reject it. The mantra “If it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working” (first used by John Major about interest rates) is exactly wrong. If it hurts to any serious extent, it can’t work.

    That is the repeated warning from people worried about gas-boiler bans, expensive heat pumps with enormous radiators, charging points and vast batteries for electric cars, wood-burning stoves, and so on. They reject anything which produces immediate serious inconvenience with no discernible direct benefit. That is politics. If net zero starts to hurt badly while Boris is still prime minister, he will be – if such carbon production is still allowed – toast.

    It does feel as if we are getting uncomfortably close to that point. Prolonged blackouts probably will not occur this winter – although my own direct and anecdotal experience is that short local ones are becoming considerably more frequent. It is certain, however, that millions will soon be paying more for a service which is gradually deteriorating. We recently got a letter from EDF saying that our electricity bill will be £454 higher next year. Admittedly, we live in a detached, old, rural house, which consumes more energy than most; but millions will have received comparable correspondence.

    The alternative, surely – though certainly not cost-free – is to build a much safer supply onto which renewable developments can be safely added. Boris himself told the UN that the Government’s investment in hydrogen is “a huge bet”. Experiment, by all means, but energy security should never be a betting game. A secure system might involve smaller high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactors, a more planned commitment to gas, including fracking and a reform of fiscal incentives to revive extraction from the North Sea.

    Boris Johnson, of course, is only our latest prime minister to address the United Nations on climate change. The first was Mrs Thatcher. Taking some risk with her political career (it was November 1990, and the fatal rebellion was brewing), she left the country to address the UN’s Global Environment Conference in Geneva.

    Since 1988, she had been the first front-rank world leader to draw public attention to the threat of global warming, caused by too much carbon dioxide. She ranked the issue high: “Change … is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world’s climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all. That prospect is a new factor in human affairs. It is comparable in its implications to the discovery of how to split the atom. Indeed, its results could be even more far-reaching.”

    In addressing how to confront it, however, Mrs Thatcher made a suggestive comparison. It was like negotiating a “disbarment treaty”, she said. In other words, everyone had to be at the table and everyone had to leave that table feeling safe. So far, the ensuing process over the past 30 years has not achieved this mutual confidence – either between developed and developing nations, or between leaders and voters in the West.

    This BTL comment is typical:

    Graham Leighton
    24 Sep 2021 9:55PM
    Man made climate change is only found on man made modeling software on man made computers.

    Johnson and his aging hippy partner are engineering the biggest ever extension of the state with billions in subsidies for unreliable windmills Banning petrol cars loosing thousands of jobs so hundreds of millions in subsidies for battery cars and battery plants. The affects of the lunatic banning gas heating have not even started to kick in yet but no alternative is feasible. Carbon capture, carbon taxes, subsidies for low energy inefficient hydrogen.

    Fracking banned – we cannot even open a single coal mine for steel production.

    All for a climate emergency that does not exist so Johnson can be the biggest loon at COP26.

    1. I would be interested to know just how much pollution Britain actually produced during the industrial revolution per annum, compared with what is being produced today in China and India.

    2. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/aug/10/science.spain

      Whether you believe this Guardian article, it is a fact that this theory has been around for many years, and NO ONE HAS ATTEMPTED

      TO DISPROVE IT.

      This will happen sometime, and when it does we can guarantee that most windmills at sea will be swept away, or damaged beyond recovery.

      We suspect that Hinkley B and C will also be damaged beyond repair.

      The Greens will then have their wish of living without electricity.

      Enjoy !!

      1. And of course the volcano erupted a couple of days ago didn’t it. Not sure how big an eruption it was.

        1. Another eruption yesterday evening Mr vw..

          More apathy from the MSM…..which is curious remembering how much drama they made about Icelandic eruptions.

    3. Heaven preserve us. We have just bought a supply of candles. We always need some as power cuts are not unusual and may last for days.

    4. Could it be, that the energy “crisis” has been blown up by people who oppose Johnson’s green lunacy, and want to embarrass him as this wretched Glasgow event draws near?
      If so, then I am all for it!

      edit: the above article doesn’t question the fraud behind Net Zero, namely, the idea that CO2 heats the earth. As such, I can’t take it seriously. It’s only questioning how fast we should commit suicide, not the principle of whether we should or not.

    2. He must have a very thirsty ride-on mower…

      PS: At least he’s sticking to the laws on storing less than 30 litres of petrol at home.

    3. He must have a very thirsty ride-on mower…

      PS: At least he’s sticking to the laws on storing less than 30 litres of petrol at home.

    4. Embarrassing. Should at least drive round all the petrol stations in town filling up one can at each.
      I didn’t take the empty shelves last year too seriously, because there were plenty of alternative things to eat at all times. But there’s no alternative to petrol.
      Then again, he may live six miles from the nearest bus route, and have a job twenty miles away where he doesn’t get paid if he doesn’t turn up.

  30. Richard Taylor complains his electricity bill is going up by 70% in spite of his supplier only using renewable sources. Perhaps he thinks (or rather been conned into thinking) that the actual electricity he uses is from a renewable source – everyone gets the same mixed source of electricity, something these ‘renewable’ suppliers won’t say in their adverts. It’s the national grid that supplies the power not these ‘green’ (spit spit) con merchants

    1. Doesn’t the electricity travel through ‘smart’ cables, so just the green electricity can be collected by those who pay for green energy?

      1. Must do. Otherwise the advert would be banned by Advertising Standards for being flat out lies misleading.

    2. Good morning all.
      I have searched without success for any supplier whose electricity is generated from old car tyres and a touch of lignite.

      1. There are some generator plants that, having the necessary flue gas scrubbers, do burn used tyres.
        It’s also possible, using a pyrolysis system to produce bio diesel from tyres.

        1. When in the nuclear I remember being involved with the build of an electrostatic precipitator which took the carbon out of the flu gasses – I wonder why that system isn’t used more widely as a carbon capture device?

          3. Emmm! Isn’t that a means of filtering out unburnt particulate carbon, which, whilst a pollutant, is not the main problem that CO2 is alleged to be.

  31. Richard Taylor complains his electricity bill is going up by 70% in spite of his supplier only using renewable sources. Perhaps he thinks (or rather been conned into thinking) that the actual electricity he uses is from a renewable source – everyone gets the same mixed source of electricity, something these ‘renewable’ suppliers won’t say in their adverts. It’s the national grid that supplies the power not these ‘green’ (spit spit) con merchants

  33. Fuel shortages, food shortages, power shortages, medical services unreacahble:

    The above should be applied to the population in the following order

    No 11 Downing Street
    Cabinet ministers
    Members of Parliament
    Senior Civil Servants
    NHS Hierarchy
    Energy (gas, lekkie, oil, etc )bosses
    Asylum seeker refuges
    all before the

    NI and Tax paying Brits are hit

  34. A DT science reporter writing that there are thousands of excess of deaths this Summer not due to Covid. The neglect by the NHS, GPs and the government of diseases other than Covid is thought to be the main cause. This will continue into the Winter and beyond.
    I would say it is the obvious cause

    1. Will Johnson attempt to use these continuing deaths as his reason for a lockdown? This, rotten to the core, cabal posing as a Tory government has rebranded a vast array of deaths as CV-19 to start and then maintain the fear factor that is still a blight on the Country. Amoral politicians are capable of anything and this bunch are the acme of amorality.

    2. It would be nice to have an analysis of where NHS medicos spent their time over the last two years. Department by department, discipline by discipline with Covid-19 being treated as a separate discipline, by hospital, by NHS Trust. Work group by work group, nurses, assistants, doctors, porters, lab workers, consultants.
      The numbers will show who spent time where and on what. The numbers will give a comparison with the period prior to Covid.
      I would have thought that that would have been done as a matter of course, since it would give s picture of exactly how the pandemic was managed, for next time.

      1. You might have thought that, but nobody would dare do it as it would have shown up the fraud for what it is.

    2. When Wilson won one of the elctions in the 1960’s many cars had a sticker pasted on the back window: Don’t blame me, I voted Conservative! (at the same time many cars bore a sticker saying Support Ian Smith in Rhodesia)

      As Mr Blair disenfranchised me in 2004 I did not have the chance to vote for the Bumbling Bonker so you can’t blame me. Mind you, had I had the vote I probably would have voted Conservative if there was not a Brexit Party candidate standing and, like many of us here, I would now have a certain amount of egg on my face.

    1. Gosh, what fools the Lancet are. They’ve said a feminist statement in the language of the trans movement, thus managing to annoy about 99.9% of the population.

  37. Statement by President Donald J Trump. 45th President of the United States of America………..

    ”CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and other Lamestream Media are feeding large-scale misinformation to the public about the Arizona Audit. The Audit was a big win for democracy and a big win for us. Shows how corrupt the Election was. Arizona State Senate hearing going on now and the information about what took place is terrible—a bigger Scam even than anticipated!

    It is not even believable the dishonesty of the Fake News Media on the Arizona Audit results, which shows incomprehensible Fraud at an Election Changing level, many times more votes than is needed. The Fake News Media refuses to write the facts, thereby being complicit in the Crime of the Century. They are so dishonest, but Patriots know the truth! Arizona must immediately decertify their 2020 Presidential Election Results.

    I will be discussing the winning results of the Arizona Forensic Audit, which will show 44,000 possibly illegal ballots cast, tomorrow at the Great State of Georgia rally, which will be packed!”.

  38. Why we must be constantly grateful to Geoff Graham – this site is so much better that the DT’s comments section as it allows us to state different points of view, it does not censor us (unless we are exceptionally beastly to a fellow Nottler) and it allows us to disagree with each other.

    Andy Douglas in a BTL comment in the DT says what many of us here probably think:

    The three most contentious articles of the day.

    Non COVID excess deaths

    Chemotherapy cancelled

    Joining EU Covid pass

    And guess what? No comments. DT, stop hiding this lying government and its lying leader from reality.

    You are complicit.

    1. It’s the early bird that catches the worm. I got up at 6am this morning and went to Morrison’s. Straight in, filled up. Two hours later, there was a long queue, blocking the approach road.

          4. Someone would have unplugged it and plugged in their own car. Actually, I did once have petrol siphoned from my car – back in the 1970s when there was a fuel shortage. I bought a locking fuel cap after that.

          5. Same for me; I bought a car without a locking petrol cap, ordered one and before it arrived, I had all the petrol siphoned out of the tank!

  41. A puzzled pensioner writes:

    Did 100,000 HGV drivers retire last week? Just like that. Pure coincidence….

        3. I use a great many Americanisms because I lived there for most of my life. But, apart from that, the innovators in English are not the Americans but the British. Many so called “Americanisms” are of older derivation from the UK and modern English terms in the UK are actually new, comparatively speaking. ‘Fall’ is an older English word than ‘Autumn’ and ‘Truck’ is 17 Century British English, originally the carriage for guns on a ship. Further more, King George would have found nothing peculiar about the American accent because it would have resembled his own. The King would have found, however, that the modern English accent bizarre, to say the least. Further more, such spelling such as “centre” rather than “center” are pretensions because Victorians thought it more sophisticated to imitate French spelling. A wonderful example of linguistic English snobbery. Criticism of people who use Americans is therefore unwarranted and a product of the linguistic delusion that British English is superior, when it is anything but.

  42. Bugger.
    Just went to put my boots on to start a bit of tidying up in the garden and, glancing out of the kitchen window, realised it was raining. So that knocks that idea on the head.

    However, I see my BTL comment on Andrea west’s letter has struck several sympathetic nerves:-

    Robert Spowart
    25 Sep 2021 8:38AM
    “What happy days they were, working with men and women considerably older than me.”

    With that one sentence, Andrea West’s memories of beginning work at 16 are a reminder of how much we may be damaging our young people by insisting that the vast majority stay in full time education until their early 20s and thus lose out on learning to work with older people through a large chunk of their most impressionable years.

    Delete36LikeReply

    Ng Ng
    25 Sep 2021 9:05AM
    Quite right. A good apprenticeship learning a trade will be worth a lot more to many than a 2:1 B(ugger)A(ll) in West Country Tourism from Cheltenham Spa “university”.

    Flag17UnlikeReply

    Margaret Robinson
    25 Sep 2021 9:18AM
    @Ng Ng

    Absolutely! My husband wasn’t in the least academic. He hated school and left as soon as he could, leaving on the last day of the summer term and starting his apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner the very next day.

    It’s served him, and us, very well and he retired on a very good salary as a senior contracts manager having been ‘head hunted’ by a large firm. He now volunteers for a charity for the homeless and uses his skills and his contacts to get their dilapidated premises brought up to date. He enjoys every minute of it and has made good friends.

    There was no way he would have taken on anything academic and, without that apprenticeship, could have ended up working in a menial job all his life

    Flag9UnlikeReply

    David Chandler
    25 Sep 2021 9:13AM
    @Robert Spowart Brilliant letter from Andrea West.

    Flag4UnlikeReply

    Jennifer Gordon
    25 Sep 2021 9:35AM
    @Robert Spowart and education seems to teach them nothing apart from bigotry and bias towards the old
    Flag

    1. As I have banged on about many times, I am thankful I went straight into articles (apprenticeship) at 18. Five brilliant years.

        1. Recalling a story told to me many years ago by a Scotsman.

          At a small school in the Highlands, the first lesson of the day was English Comprehension. The teacher asked the class to think of examples of usage of the terms Definitely and Indefinitely.

          A forest of small hands went up and she picked out Susan to give the class her example. “Well Miss, when I go home after school today I’ll definitely be having my tea.”

          “Very good, Susan. Now who would like to give the class an example of ‘indefinitely’?”

          [Jimmy was a bit of a laddie with a reputation for misdemeanours over many years but the teacher was forever giving him a second chance]

          “Alright, Jimmy; give us your example.”

          “Well, Miss. When I feel my balls up against Mary’s arse I know I’m indefinitely.”

      2. I wish these opportunities were still available to young people today, instead of the debt-ridden marxist brainwashing experience known as Yooniversity.

    1. The person who wrote that piece is part of the problem though. She thinks science ought to solve the problem – she fails to realise that it is the religion of science that is enabling it.
      No society run on Christian principles would allow gender theory. It is backed by junk science. Science does not have a reason to call BS on it.

      Ah, the scientific believers cry, but that’s bad science! Everything would be fine if we just stuck to good science!
      Like Marxism, that is never going to happen. The contradiction is built into the belief from the foundations upwards. Science has always been full of junk science, and always will be.

    1. If it rains – blame it on Brexit. If it doesn’t rain – blame it on Brexit. If it’s too hot – blame it on Brexit. If it snows – blame it on Brexit.

        1. I blame Brexit on the EUSSR in general and le Frogs in particular, who were after our sovereignty

          The will never let a good turn (or WW II) go unpunished

    2. These wanqueurs just never give up. The Grimes – both in the paper AND BTL – is stuffed full of Remainiacs.

    6. A pretend Tory described as leading liberal Zionist in the UK. A jew (sic) who sympathises with the Palestinians. Spent his gap year with a Socialist-Zionist cultural youth movement, and mentored Sacha Baron Cohen, before studying PPE at Wadham, Oxford. A BBC presenter (spit) and prominent Guardianista married to another BBC producer? . Could possibly be a ‘remainer’.

    7. The biggest problem with Brexit is that it is not Brexit in any meaningful sense of the word with the NI Protocol, the continuation of EU boats plundering UK fishing waters, still no proper control over our borders and no proper agreement on financial services.

  47. NHS Doctors BBC4 Today
    Listeners phone in relating their experience re. NHS GPs.
    Some were lucky to see a doctor in the flesh others quoted ‘Triage’ etc. and A&E
    as a last resort.

    I felt compelled to ask why become a GP if you don’t want to see patients?

  48. Son has just come round today in super smug mode.
    He has an EV for local trips charged off his roof panels and a diesel for longer ones and towing his caravan.
    He couldn’t get into Morrisons car park this morning because of the queue for fuel but managed to park in the industrial estate next door.
    I asked him what the shopping was like in the store.
    He said there were no empty shelves because there was nothing worth buying in there.
    We do like their salmon however.

      1. When Sizewell C is on line it’s output will depend on current demand rather than current demand.🤔

    2. They are my suppliers, Plum. I have no complaints so far. I was assigned to them a few years ago when my origonal supplier went bust. Apart from mouthing a lot of Green drivel, they seem to be fine. Did have an annoying episode that lasted for three months when they started sending demands for reading to my phone, I prefer emails. But after three or four complains they reverted back to sending me emails. So, a minor complaint really.

        1. In as much as I would recommend any of the energy vampires, I would recommend them. You might want to go and look at how they structure your rates, you have three choices that I recall. I chose the fixed rate for a year, for winter I am well in to credit and should be able to not burn it up, if I’m careful. I do close half the house up for winter, however, because I don’t really use a couple or rooms most of the time, let alone in winter. So wasteful to heat them and I would rather spend money protecting my plants in the greenhouses. Before you think I have some sort of splendid estate, I don’t. The greenhouses are two 20 footers and a standard 6 x 8. And only one of them is partially heated for the really fragile plants. The rest get frost cloth and luck!

    3. They’ll pay it when the French pay their fine for keeping the ban on British beef at the time of Mad Cow when it had been cleared by the EU! So we don’t need to hold our breath.

  52. If people carry on, all the filling stations in England will be dry by tomorrow evening.

    Then what happens?

    1. a) There will a surge in demand for EVs and 13 Amp sockets.
      b) Kier’s support for Sizewell C starts to make sense
      c) Political meltdown.

  53. Covid vaccine has killed 150,000 in the USA . You can download PDF from Conservative woman in the story titled “The word for our leaders is ‘traitors’

  55. #CovidClownWorld

    Banning aerial filming and internet outages yet the truth still gets through…………

    https://t.me/davidkurten/100

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/085/487/775/original/6e0578db0fac063b.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd41ca25210a5a5d7a036c43926bba1f086b039b3ddc3250e72a883a66250a8e.jpg

    Did someone say camps????

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06d8a99d3d7968b57b3b4c408b317eb919a582c7673a6ec79c9526695b4ee4d8.jpg

  56. Part of the email i sent to Garlands this morning….

    People have been asking after you and wondered where you are and if you
    are alright.

    I told them that you had given up on the lot of them and that you
    thought they were all a bunch of big girls blouses…

    Not really lol.

    Conway, Ndovu, Nanny, OLT and others asked me to pass on their best
    wishes and look forward to the day you come back to us.

      1. Good afternoon, Clydesider. I miss Duncan’s humour. Don’t have a contact for him but Hertslass might.

  59. Daily Betrayal……….

    “Clearly, we plebs must be kept in a state of permanent anxiety.

    With ‘covid fear’ now having been sucked dry, we were bombarded with

    other fear items these last days, such as gas shortages, a huge rise in

    energy costs, food shortages and ‘empty shelves at Christmas’, petrol

    shortages and tax rises. This morning we’re treated to a pernicious

    piece of fear porn, namely that one NHS Trust is rationing chemotherapy

    for cancer sufferers because of staff shortages (link).

    We also learned that Johnson is now prepared to ‘relax visa rules’ to allow 5,000 EU HGV drivers to help ‘ease’ the threat of said shortages (paywalled link).

    And then we read that the EU Hauliers won’t come because of ‘working

    conditions’ here in the UK which Brussels graciously has been and will

    be ‘alleviating’ in the EU where they are also suffering from a shortage of HGV drivers (link).”

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-saturday-25th-september-2021-on-staff-shortages-brexit-and-covid/

    1. As Chaucer put it in the Knight’s Tale:

      “This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,
      And we been pilgrymes passynge to and fro.
      Deeth is an ende of every worldes soore.”

      Or as the Americans put it succinctly when we were sailing around the Caribbean in 1985 and before it became a cliché :

      “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

      1. …or, as the Germans put it,

        Warum ist das Leben wie eine Huhneleiter?
        Weil beide kurz & beschissen sind.

        1. Good afternoon Peter. Does your comment in German on Rastus’ post mean I’ve no idea what this Knight is saying, but it’s “is” not “nys”, “thoroughfare” not “thurghfare”, etc. etc. And I think by Chaucer” he means “Chancer”.

        2. Good afternoon Peter. Does your comment in German on Rastus’ post mean I’ve no idea what this Knight is saying, but it’s “is” not “nys”, “thoroughfare” not “thurghfare”, etc. etc. And I think by Chaucer” he means “Chancer”.

    2. As Chaucer put it in the Knight’s Tale:

      “This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,
      And we been pilgrymes passynge to and fro.
      Deeth is an ende of every worldes soore.”

      Or as the Americans put it succinctly when we were sailing around the Caribbean in 1985 and before it became a cliché :

      “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

    3. Well, as far as I know, Switzerland is not very keen on HGVs. A lot of Swiss goods are transported in vans, are they not? We could make some moves in that direction, although it may provoke a shortage of vans. If we did that an ordinary driving licence would be sufficient.

    1. Santa didn’t make it because:

      either a) he was not vaxed –
      or b) because he was double-vaxed and boosted!

    2. 339225+ up ticks,
      Afternoon CT,
      Health warning, the moving digit caught in transit to the nasal canal.

    1. You cannot get fuel from a filling station whilst stuck in a vehicle queue for the pumps but Jerry can.

  65. We were sorting stuff on the “downsize trail” and came across some posters issued by the Royal Mail sometime last century. Here is one celebrating the postal service in Southern Rhodesia. A smiling postman on a bicycle, with a nice uniform, a postbag and a rifle to protect himself and the post.
    What, exactly, was wrong with that and what it implies?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ad5d62e5dd86ad61b2560f4e7b424e1a27c3be7ddef51cffa4cdc548aea2717.jpg

          3. Little Cat: weighed last week, 7,5 kg. Big Gat, same vet session, 10,5 kg.
            I can lift them – musclebound furry buggers that they are!

          5. A new and very beautiful grey & while long-haired cat has apeared in the neighbourhood. Absolutely gorgeous, normal cat-sized (as opposed to out two bruisers), soft, cute and cuddly. Gets on with our two, they seem to have bonded.

    2. “Outposts of the Empire” – did the poor chap have to pedal all the way from the Mount Pleasant central Sorting Office?

  66. We were sorting stuff on the “downsize trail” and came across some posters issued by the Royal Mail sometime last century. Here is one celebrating the postal service in Southern Rhodesia. A smiling postman on a bicycle, with a nice uniform, a postbag and a rifle to protect himself and the post.
    What, exactly, was wrong with that and what it implies?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ad5d62e5dd86ad61b2560f4e7b424e1a27c3be7ddef51cffa4cdc548aea2717.jpg

  67. More towns evacuated as volcanic eruptions on La Palma intensify. 25 September 2021.

    Intensifying volcanic explosions on the Spanish island of La Palma have forced firefighters to retreat and authorities to evacuate three more towns, while airlines cancelled flights because of a cloud of gas and ash, the biggest since the volcano erupted.

    A witness saw a huge grey cloud billowing from the top of the volcano on Friday afternoon, the largest since the eruption began on Sunday.

    “The volcano is in a newly explosive phase … Firefighters will not operate anymore today,” tweeted the Tenerife fire service, which has been deployed to help on La Palma.

    This thing is probably going to blow up à la Krakatoa! With the dispersal of dust and gas into the atmosphere this will bring on a volcanic winter in the northern hemisphere. The present fake gas shortage will become real and people will freeze to death! Along with this we have the greatest collection of numpties in office there has ever been. We are heading for the Perfect Storm! All Nottlers should ignore anything the Government tells them and stock up with everything conceivable.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/24/more-towns-evacuated-as-volcanic-eruptions-on-la-palma-intensify

          1. Not necessarily; it might cause the darkies to scuttle off to warmer climes, allowing an age of enlightenment to return.

          4. Another pointless quibble from the master of the art of pedantry. Argument for the sake of it.

            Put it this way: it won’t matter much how cold the winter is if we run out of food.

          10. Look, Sunshine, just for the record: we were having a reasonable conversation about volcanic winters, but you’re the one who turned spiteful. Think about that.

          11. No. You engaged in a semantic quibble, a habit of yours which has for years riled members of this forum. It’s rare that it ever adds anything to the discussion.

          14. But… but… surely all the co2 in the atmosphere that’s making us all burn up tomorrow will save us?

        3. I thought that was the resulting winter-like condition as a result of a huge eruption, not the season in which it occurred.

      2. Making growing anything an absolute night mare .. crops in the fields just won’t happen , the grass won’t grow , the animals won’t be able to feed , it will be a perfect storm!

  68. LABOUR’S CASHLESS CONFERENCE CONTRADICTS PARTY’S PRO-CASH STANCE

    Labour conference hasn’t even started yet and it’s already proving to be a cesspit of contradiction and infighting. According to an email sent to Labour members, the Brighton conference will be an entirely cashless event, and all attendees will need to bring “an alternative means of payment” – despite the fact that former Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds has railed against the “uncontrolled retreat of cash”, and even backed introducing laws that “protect access to cash.” This is the second time Labour’s actions have run entirely contrary to their words recently: earlier this week, Guido revealed the party are paying conference stewards £9.75 an hour, despite pledging to introduce a £10 minimum wage. As always, do as I say not as I do…

    1. The average Labourite probably thinks that ‘cashless’ means free of charge. Should be a vote-winner.

    2. …despite the fact that former Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds [now Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities] has railed against the “uncontrolled retreat of cash”, and even backed introducing laws that “protect access to cash.”

      Good God. A Labour front-bencher with some functioning brain cells.

    3. It’s odd, Labour put a lot of effort into breaking the market and trying to ignore it, but then htey participate in it fully when it suits them.

    4. I don’t imagine the Tory conference will b a bunch of larfs for the BPAPM and his gang….so long as REAL Tory supporters are allowed to attend, of course.

      1. Not so sure….many REAL Tories will give the conference a wide berth and it will be full of brown-nosers.

        1. True – I think they vet the applications and exclude normal folk; and also make it very expensive, too.

        2. Good point. They’re all Russian immigrants who paddled across the Bering Straits, about twice the width of the English Channel.

    5. Seems odd, that two ‘furriners’ can complain that an Illumination Tableau is Racist,
      but we Native Brits are deemed Racist just by breathing.

      Yet again, I say to myself thank (my) God, that I am not young.

      A non-British non-white criminal will have been responsible for undoing 1000 years of History.. I just hope France suffers as well

    6. Watch it you lot! I’m blood brother to the Blackfoot tribe of Alberta. I will have to sue you all for deforma.. difformat… defforma… money.

      Anyone know a good lawyer?

    7. Were they visiting to admire the 158 metre tower, or were they hoping to poison the B&B landlady before she got them first?

  70. Just back from a six mile bike ride. Almost still – perfect weather – and in the last mile or so, the sun came out as we passed a large field being prepared (harrowed) for ploughing.

    There is a “Norfolk Artists’ Open House Fortnight “, and at Kettlestone, one such was open. Simply awful “primitif” paintings. BUT – it was in the house where 32 years ago, the MR and I met for the very first time…!

    2. Disc harrow, chain harrow, tine harrow? Depending on the soil around your neighbourhood, it is possible these days that they will be drilling (i.e. seeding) it without ploughing. Requires more seed but saves the cost of another operation.

      We get “Wiltshire Artists’ Open House” events around here – to be avoided at all costs because if one says anything rude, one gets reported to and shunned by the beautiful people. Hope you and the MR didn’t show a furrowed brow. {:^))

    3. Disc harrow, chain harrow, tine harrow? Depending on the soil around your neighbourhood, it is possible these days that they will be drilling (i.e. seeding) it without ploughing. Requires more seed but saves the cost of another operation.

      We get “Wiltshire Artists’ Open House” events around here – to be avoided at all costs because if one says anything rude, one gets reported to and shunned by the beautiful people. Hope you and the MR didn’t show a furrowed brow. {:^))

    4. I never saw disc or chain harrowing before ploughing. Whats the need to break the soil surface when you’re going to turn it completely over?

      3. Next week all temperatures within 60 – 62f range with rain Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and next Sunday. West Sussex. Hardly a heat wave!

    8. Yeah, right. Yesterday, Accuweather’s forecast for here was “Sunny and beautiful” or some such nonsense. Today it has switched to “cloudy and damp”.

      If Britain turns red, it’s due to the socialist government.

  73. Some very minor assorted trivia from Wiltshire.

    a) Nagsman is p*ssed orff. Her ageing Saab is pulling to the left so she’s had to put it into the shop and is relying on her daughter for transportation to/from the horseys.

    b) Our mutual friend (‘OMF’), good for her, is in Lunnon today on her third Freedom March. Last time they started off at Hyde Park Corner….. the police escorted them to Clapham Common underground station so as to avoid any clash with the Extinction Rebellion Demo in Trafalgar and Parliament Squares. They don’t know where they’ll be sent today but are sure they won’t be on the telly news.

    c) Earlier today stephenroi posted a photograph of a field of stubble near Wilton, my local village. OMF”s ancestor held the living at St Mary’s [C12th/13th/14th], Great Bedwyn, the adjacent parish, in the time of Good Queen Bess.

    d) OMF’s 80 year-old 1st cousin has a substantial farm some dozen miles NE of here. For the first time in 50+ years he was heard to say “We had a good harvest this year”. Must be losing his marbles.

    1. d) is very worrying. After an outbreak of cheerful farmers, the next development could be competent politicians.
      (I Said COULD be)

    2. Point d.) resonates. It used to be said, that there was a Grumbling Room at the Farmers’ Club in London.

    3. Today’s march also went to Clapham Common. I didn’t stay for the speeches. Dragged myself off to Clapham Junction where I discovered all trains through Shepherds Bush were cancelled so took the 295 bus home. Exhausted but the demo was huge and well worth the effort.

      1. When Tesco said that Muslims avoid halal food where pork has been, I make sure to shift the sausages around to them.

        They’re guests – unwelcome ones. Fit in or feck off.

        1. In some places Islam is going badly. I mentioned a little while ago how in Iran, instead of going to the mosque on a Friday, people are pointedly going on picnic in droves. A quite protest. Thousands of them have turned to their ancestral religion, Zarathustrianism, and many have become closet Christians.
          In Libya too, it is not doing well. Exposure to the West and to Western progress is corrosive. Intelligent Muslims, of which there are plenty, look at their own cultures then look at the West and can’t help drawing conclusions that are of detriment to Islam. I mentioned in Libya the anti Arab movement and the insistence that their own culture and language by revived. In Libya the native language, Berber, now has equal status to Arabic. The same process is going on in much of North Africa. They have cottoned on to the fact that Arabic is the language of the conquerors and not theirs, especially since it is used to denigrate their own customs and traditions.

          2. Yes, I have also said that. It is Deobandi, which is a fundamentalist Islam responsible for the Taliban. It is also, due to historical reasons, explicitly anti-British in its ideology. It really is a complete disgrace that the government in this country tolerates it. In my opinion all Deobandi’s should be treated as hostiles, told to integrate or leave.

    10. Sarah, if that were to happen then Muslims would swiftly find that the Brits tolerate you killing us, but if you harm our animals we’ll skin you and hang you out to dry.

    1. I find it difficult to disagree with much of what Tucker Carlson says however I would like to see him debate his points face to face with a rational person who disagrees with him who can give a coherent explanation of why.
      If TC is actually misrepresenting the truth I should like to have a truthful and clear-cut account of how and where he is doing it.

      1. That you wont find happen Rastus. Not because of Tucker Carlson, he is always up for that. It is the Democrats, for those are the frauds perpetuating this joke, they will not debate him. He frequently asks the opposition to come on to his show and just as often they refuse because like most frauds there views will not stand scrutiny when vigorously questioned.

        1. Similarly, Richard and Jonathan, the same reason that Fattaturk wouldn’t engage with Andrew Neil over his Withdrawal agreement.

          See what that has led to.

  78. The Wire actor Michael K. Williams (who?) died after ingesting cocktail of fentanyl-laced heroin and cocaine, autopsy reveals
    The 54-year-old actor was discovered dead in his Brooklyn home September 6     D Fail

    Death in the Afternoon?

    3. I enjoyed ‘The Wire’. A good series about what really goes on in the slums/projects.

      In Mr Williams case it seems that his Life was imitating his Art.

      1. Never heard of The Wire. It seems this cocktail and others are doing a good job – More than 83,000 have lost their lives to drug-related overdoses in the year-long period ending July 2021, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention – (USA?)

        A comedienne called Kate Quigley survived partaking of it (unknowingly, wink, wink) but fellow comedians Fuquan Johnson and Enrico Colangeli (Rico Angeli), 48, and Natalie Williamson, 33, were found dead at a party after also overdosing.

        1. These substances are toxic in small amounts. Hence the amount of people overdosing.

          I don’t feel sorry for them.

          The Wire was on HBO. They made some very good series including Breaking Bad which as it happens was also about drugs. Good drama though.

  79. That’s me for today. Hoping to have a drink outside before the sun disappears.

    Have a jolly evening queuing at the empty filling station. Remember to take your plastic bags….

    A demain.

  80. First item on R4’s Money Box today is about the increases in domestic energy bills, and the sheer extent of the green subsidies may come as quite a surprise to many.

      2. I could not agree more. My wife born in May 1956 has to wait until next year for her state pension.

        I obtained my state pension at age 65 by a whisker.

        During lockdowns we were ineligible for furlough payments as we are both self employed. We watched those eligible for furlough skiving and using the excess income derived from not working undertaking home improvements. Some took furlough money and continued working for ‘cash in hand’.

        To add insult to injury our useless government have practically opened our borders to those seeking an easy life paid for by us taxpayers. A country such as the UK with a welfare system cannot sustain the numbers of imported people who will neither work nor integrate. The basic sums do not add up and we wind up in increasing debt because the books can no longer be balanced.

        As Enoch Powell so accurately predicted, our country (and its useless political class), have signed our collective death warrant.

        1. Enoch was a visionary, and his accurate predictions are what upset those who subsequently put so much time and effort in trying to denigrate him. Amongst those little people he is a giant.

      1. I’m looking to change too.
        Octopus is worth looking at…. mentioned last night on Martin Lewis.

        Will you stay with EDF?

        2. Hi Plum. My house is presently on the market so there is little advantage in my changing supplier.

          Something very weird is going on. It seems our useless government have lost the plot entirely. I could not believe the queues at our local petrol stations today. Thankfully I refuelled on a trip to a university reunion in Buckingham a week ago (51 years since our measured drawing trip to Stowe) and otherwise use the car very little in the present climate.

      2. We, in this area of rural Suffolk, are gearing up to oject to EDF’s proposal to cover 210 acres of prime arable farmland with Solar Panels, from China, constructed at a great cost of slave labour and (if it bothers you) with enormous CO2 emissions to (ha ha) save the planet.

        Hypocrites.

  82. Good evening; an observation on ‘green’ energy.
    Yesterday and today we passed 4 socking great wind turbines on Eye Industrial estate.
    On both days, only one was idly turning while the others were still; obviously there was a slight breeze, which concentrated itself around the one windmill. Of course, the other possibility, was that the moving blades were powered by electricity to stop the bearings from seizing.
    But surely, nobody would design a system as daft as that? Would they?

    2. Give me umpteen billions of taxpayers’ money and I’ll design you any system you want!
      After all, it’s not as though it’s got to be cost effective, is it.

  84. You wouldn’t catch an unvaccinated person panic buying, they never believe anything the mainstream media tells them.

    1. ‘The island of La Palma in the Canary Islands is at risk of undergoing a large landslide, which could cause a tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean. Volcanic islands and volcanoes on land frequently undergo large landslides/collapses, which have been documented in Hawaii for example. A recent example is Anak Krakatau, which collapsed to cause the 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami.

      Steven N. Ward and Simon Day in a 2001 research article proposed that a Holocene change in the eruptive activity of Cumbre Vieja volcano and a fracture on the volcano that formed during an eruption in 1949 may be the prelude to a giant collapse. They estimated that such a collapse could cause tsunamis across the entire North Atlantic and severely impact countries as far away as North America.‘.
      Whoops,
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbre_Vieja_tsunami_hazard

          1. There is a much larger hill behind me. Most of the ground in front of me (5 miles) gently slopes downwards. I’m looking forward to having a beach front property. At least it would give Gosport a good wash.

    1. That’s a Danish Leopard 2. Top panzer, but not relevant to UK gasoline issues.
      Just saying.

        1. I am that anal person… can’t read the registration plate, but the notice is in Danish, so a bit of a guess. Plus, Denmark tends to cammo like the UK used to.

    2. I do wonder if one day there’s an EU flag bearing such vehicle when the fuel does properly run out.

    3. I too, from the Mobile Bath Unit, expect to be deployed any day now to our local garage to restore law and order.

      Looking forward to kicking a few ar5es and deploying my loofah, foward units for the use of.

  88. Some of you may enjoy this article , I grabbed it from the Guardian , quite a lengthy piece so you will have to click on the link to continue to read it .
    I think it is really fascinating See what you think.

    Whistled languages exist on every inhabited continent – now some scientists think similar dialects could have preceded the spoken word

    Laura Spinney
    Sat 25 Sep 2021 17.00 BST
    38
    For centuries, shepherds from the small village of Aas in the French Pyrenees led their sheep and cattle up to mountain pastures for the summer months. To ease the solitude, they would communicate with each other or with the village below in a whistled form of the local Gascon dialect, transmitting and receiving information accurately over distances of up to 10 kilometres.

    They “spoke” in simple phrases – “What’s the time?”, “Come and eat,”, “Bring the sheep home” – but each word and syllable was articulated as in speech. Outsiders often mistook the whistling for simple signalling (“I’m over here!”), and the irony, says linguist and bioacoustician Julien Meyer of Grenoble Alpes University in France, is that the world of academia only realised its oversight around the middle of the 20th century, just as the whistled language of Aas was dying on the lips of its last speakers.

    Around 80 whistled languages have been reported around the world to date, of which roughly half have been recorded or studied, and Meyer says there are likely to be others that are either extant but unrecorded or that went extinct before any outsider logged them. As he explained in a recent review, they exist on every inhabited continent, usually where traditional rural lifestyles persist, and in places where the terrain makes long-distance communication both difficult and necessary – high mountains, for example, or dense forest.

    Meyer thinks that those interested in language evolution should pay more attention to whistled languages, since they might provide a glimpse of how our ancestors communicated before they had fully evolved into humans.

    Researchers have long debated the origins of human language. One prominent theory, first proposed by Charles Darwin, holds that speech evolved from a musical protolanguage, but there are others – for example, that communication was by gesture before it was vocalised. According to a third, “multimodal” approach, gestural and vocal forms of communication evolved in tandem, having different but complementary functions. Vocalisations might have had a coordinating role in social interactions, for example, whereas gesture might have been more referential – for pointing out features of the environment.
    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/25/could-whistling-shed-light-on-the-origins-of-speech-aas-shepherds-language

    1. So, wolf-whistling is OK after all, it being an aboriginal language, meaning “Come & shake it over here, lass”!

    2. It might not be a coincidence, for example, that in two social animals – humans and dolphins – whistled communication arose in the context of subsistence activities performed collectively over large distances. And that observation might eventually help to explain why our closest primate relatives never developed speech even though their vocal tracts are speech-ready. Could the answer lie in their social organisation?

      All human whistled languages are endangered, Meyer reports, and most are likely to disappear within two generations. There are attempts afoot to revive some of them, for example in the Ossau Valley where Aas is located, but these may not succeed in bucking the broader trend. The languages’ vitality depends on that of the traditional rural practices with which they are associated, and those practices are also disappearing, as roads, mobile phone masts and noise pollution penetrate once secluded valleys, and young people move out to the cities.

      Then again, whistled languages have come into their own in surprising ways in the past. They have often flourished when there has been a need for secrecy – in Papua New Guinea during the second world war, for example, when whistlers of the Wam language were recruited to transmit military messages via the radio to evade Japanese surveillance – or when they have proved useful in countering some new threat. With the return of bears to the Pyrenees, and the Covid-19 pandemic pushing people back out of the cities, the whistled language of Aas might just be due for a renaissance.

  91. Cancel them

    Cancel them NOW

    New Quality Street sweet revealed: Crème Caramel Crisp – the brand’s
    first white chocolate sweet – will be available in time for Christmas

    RACISTS

    1. They’ve been dead to me – Dead. To. Me. – since they the dropped the Gooseberry Cream, the Pol Roger of Xmas chocs.

          4. Whatever the nut was it was a beautiful combination of tastes, textures and looks. (A bit like me.(

      2. Since I learned about the existence of the Gooseberry Cream last year, I realised that I will not be able to die happy until I have tasted it.

  93. Just opened my first bottle of Bunnahabhain in decades.
    What an idiot I am.
    So smooth, such wonderful flavours, so complex – why, oh why, did I leave it so long? What a fool!
    Problem is, it’s £55 a bottle here… :-((

        1. I’m of the school of greed that says if it’s that good don’t share!
          So there, yah boo sucks…

    2. Currently tucking into a 12 yo Glenfiddich which because I happened to have a little used clubcard on me was significantly reduced [as is the contents of the bottle. 🙁 ]

    3. I’ve always been a fan of Laphroaig, much cheaper I suspect.
      I’m not a great whisky drinker but I do enjoy a single malt occasionally, particularly the Islay.

      1. In my day, srb, Laphroaig was considered to be the ‘most seaweedy’ of the eight Islay malts; my last visit to Islay was on a visit by The Argyll and Clyde Health Board – of which I was a member – in 1986.

        AIR, the visit included a tour of the Bowmore Distillery …

        1. I was returning to Sweden, Luton – Västerås. Duty Free had two varieties of Bowmore; I bought one. After a 4-hour wait the flight was cancelled, so I dodged leaving the departure area as directed, but doubled back the way I had come, including DF, where a bought a bottle of the 2nd Bowmore.

    4. So cheap? I’ve prolly half a bottle of 18 year old Ledaig here, which was £80 a bottle. That’s what happens when you visit Tobermory Distillery, I’m afraid.

      3. Last time I was in Aberdeen airport, single malts duty-free were cheaper in Norway, full price, in the wine monopoly.

    5. Is that one of the peaty, smokey, Island Malts akin to Laphroig?

      If so, I’ll stick with my favourite Strathspey, The Macallan 12 year old.

    2. It’s not madness, it’s evil. It will only stop if people don’t comply with it.
      Fat chance in the west.

      Evil dictator: you’ve got to have regular annual injections of experimental vaccines with a higher death rate than any other jab and show proof every time you want to .
      Dim Westerners: OK!

          7. It’s my reflection on many aspects of life, the polite version being:
            shower of sherberts running a bunch of clowns,

            from governments to state machines and operations like the UN and WHO etc. eg, the Labour party is currently sosraboc.

    4. 339225+ upticks,
      O2O

      And so it came to pass as in prior post some time ago.

      The wretch cameron was the first tier of the semi reentry missile, treacherous treasa the intermediate tier leaving johnson as the reentry pilot.

      job done leave it to the tory’s (ino)

      1. 339225+ + up ticks,
        Evening w,
        ALL the political overseers had NO intentions of ever leaving,my opinion alone.

      2. Please, God, bring about the (almost) immediate demise of the EU and all their devilish works.

        I want it drawn out a bit, in order to watch their twists and turns, as the day of judgement draws nearer and nearer.

    6. It is of no matter. The vaccinated will
      drop like flies with blood clots and other illnesses resulting from their severely compromised immune systems, leaving us unvaccinated and the (obviously) unvaccinated elites.

      At that point we will go after them, Nuremberg trials and imprisonment will follow as sure as night follows day.

      1. Hmm, We wish, Corri but they all wear their asbestos underpants/knickers to ensure that their arses are fire-proof.

    1. Hell’s teeth, if the state pays me £500 a week not to work and by working 40 hours I get £540 I’m working for £1 an hour.
      Forget that, thank you very much.

  97. Astute BTL comment re: La Palma volcanic eruption:

    “If you live in a volcanic caldera I guess you just have to go with the flow.”

  98. It’s green, it’s cheap and it’s plentiful! So why are opponents of shale gas making such a fuss??

    If it were not so serious there would be something ludicrous about the reaction of the green lobby to the discovery of big shale gas reserves in this country. Here we are in the fifth year of a downturn. We have pensioners battling fuel poverty. We have energy firms jacking up their prices. We have real worries about security of energy supply – a new building like the Shard needs four times as much juice as the entire town of Colchester.

    Our nukes are so high-maintenance that the cost of disposing of their spent fuel rods is put at about £100 billion – more than the value of all the electricity they have produced since the Fifties. The hills and dales of Britain are being forested with white satanic mills, and yet the total contribution of wind power is still only about 0.4 per cent of Britain’s needs. Wave power, solar power, biomass – their collective oomph wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding. We are prevented from putting in a new system of coal-fired power stations, since that would breach our commitments under Kyoto. We are therefore increasingly and humiliatingly dependent on Vladimir Putin’s gas or on the atomic power of the French state.

    And then in the region of Blackpool – as if by a miracle – we may have found the solution. The extraction of shale gas by hydraulic fracture, or fracking, seems an answer to the nation’s prayers. There is loads of the stuff, apparently – about 1.3 trillion barrels; and if we could get it out we could power our toasters and dishwashers for the foreseeable future. By offering the hope of cheap electricity, fracking would make Britain once again competitive in sectors of industry – bauxite smelting springs to mind – where we have lost hope.

    The extraction process alone would generate tens of thousands of jobs in parts of the country that desperately need them. And above all, the burning of gas to generate electricity is much, much cleaner – and produces less CO 2 – than burning coal. What, as they say, is not to like?

    In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news. Beware this new technology, they wail. Do not tamper with the corsets of Gaia! Don’t probe her loamy undergarments with so much as a finger — or else the goddess of the earth will erupt with seismic revenge. Dig out this shale gas, they warn, and our water will be poisoned and our children will be stunted and our cattle will be victims of terrible intestinal explosions. Yesterday the Observer found some political support for the gloomsters, in the form of a German MEP. His name is Jo Leinan, and it seems he is a prominent member of the Euro-parliament’s energy committee. There were only two countries interested in this procedure, he said – Poland and Britain.

    And according to Herr Leinan, neither of us knows what we are getting ourselves into. We are about to release the pent-up shale gas of Britain from its sinister cavities beneath Lancashire and Sussex, and anything can happen. Before we touch the integuments of the planet, he says, the European parliament will produce some regulations to “discipline” the operation.

    Regulations? From the Euro-parliament? And these people wonder why we in Britain are increasingly determined to have a referendum on our membership of the EU. I am sure that the SPD politician means well, but just what in the name of hell has it got to do with him? Before he draws up any regulations for the British fracking market, he might care to look at what has been going on in America in the past four years, where the discovery of large quantities of shale gas is turning into one of the most significant political events since the end of the Cold War.

    In 2008 the cost of natural gas in the US was $8 a unit. It is now $3 a unit. In China it is still up at $12 a unit – and the result is that the US is now competitive in industries such as fertilisers and chemicals that American politicians had long since assumed were lost to low-cost economies of the East. As a result of the use of gas, the Americans have cut their CO 2 emissions to levels not seen since the Nineties, in spite of a growing population.

    Indeed, the Americans have now actually met their obligations under the Kyoto protocol on climate change – and they never even signed up for it. The shale gas industry is a huge employer, and has so far contributed $50 billion in tax. As for the anxieties about water poisoning or a murrain on the cattle, there have been 125,000 fracks in the US, and not a single complaint to the Environmental Protection Agency.

    It is no wonder that some of the more heroic spirits in the Coalition Government are saying that we should get our act together, and make use of what nature has bestowed on Lancashire and elsewhere. As soon as he became Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson announced that he was going to make life easy for potential frackers, with a one-stop permit system. He has the support of George Osborne, who hailed the potential of fracking in the Autumn Statement.

    Alas, we are in a Coalition, and the Liberals run the Department of Energy and Climate Change. They have announced a moratorium on fracking, claiming that there have been earthquakes in the Blackpool area – even though there are tiny quakes every day. In what they thought was a cunning move, the Lib Dems also leaked the location of two big reserves of shale gas – in Tatton and Shropshire North. Much to his credit, Owen Paterson immediately announced that he was all in favour of fracking his constituency if it would deliver jobs and growth, and he is dead right. The shale gas discovery is hateful to the Libs and the Greens, because it destroys their narrative about the ever rising cost of hydrocarbons. It is glorious news for humanity. It doesn’t need the subsidy of wind power. I don’t know whether it will work in Britain, but we should get fracking right away.

    Boris Johnson, 2012

  99. John Ward (resident in France) writes:
    Since last June, I have been attempting to fill in the French online formule that will allegedly result in my Civil Right to vehicular mobility being restored. My third attempt two days ago convinced me that I had finally succeeded in avoiding rejection. Oh, how wrong I was.

    During the previous week, I had motored some 30 miles to a photostudio commissioned to give my photo not just approval, but also a long string of numbers. I had also myself photographed official documents – eight in number – assuring the French State as to where I live, why I have the right to live here, when I first came here, and who’d countersigned all such permissions. Finally – having been chained to a phone for nearly a month – I had at last found a free line into Grant Shapps’ much-vaunted DVLA, and then waited five weeks for Form D737 to arrive so I could upload that too.

    This is what happened: everything I uploaded passed the ‘validé’ test – including a big green tick. After finishing the 2-hour process, I pressed the vital ‘fin’ button. I was given yet another number saying I was in the system.

    An email arrived almost immediately to say my temporary State “attestation” of worthiness to drive would be wending it’s way to my pc.

    The next morning, I received an email saying my application had been rejected. There was:

    *No Reply offered to the email

    *No reason given for rejection at all

    *A less than encouraging “warning” saying that there is a nine month delay in swapping UK for French driving licences

    *A reminder that temporary permissions only last for two months

    *A further cautionary note saying that, after December 31st 2021 all bets are off – and all foreigners will be required to take a driving test.

    I’m sure you are just as capable as I am of working out that not only is the French State taking the piss here, but (a) they don’t give a damn about law-abiding residents and (b) the British State is perfectly well aware of the calumny in play, but they don’t GAF about their expats either.

    1. Had to attend on Wednesday for foreign residency ID card this week. Show passport, be fingerprinted and photographed.
      Was a bit early, and the actual process finished before the allotted time.
      On Friday, the ID card rolled up in my postbox.
      WOW!! Gast has never been so flabbered! The State can move, if it wants to!

    2. That why we decided to retire in England our home country. We nearly moved to France ( Metz) as i had worked in this area and Germany. We just knew if current circumstances ever changed the French government ( not the people)would turn very difficult. I am sorry you are caught in it all.

  100. Robert Spowart
    25 Sep 2021 10:00PM
    Am I the only person who thinks that with Labour’s strong and honourable historic links to the fight for Women’s Equality sit very uneasily with its Left Wing’s support for the demands of Trans Rights Activists?
    Labour’s tolerance of this has created a dichotomy that has many of its supporters in danger of vanishing up their own backsides.

    3. Must have been damned inconvenient. Got in the way, for example. How can you pee accurately with a tool like that? I assume he’s also the god of “Sprinkle while you tinkle, be a sweetie & lift the seatie”.

    5. Can’t remember the actual ditty but I do remember a line from one of them to the effect:

      “With his bloody great kidney wiper and his balls the size of three…”

  102. Good night all.

    Fillets of Gurnard pan-fried with small roast potatoes., washed down with a White Rioja.
    Delicious, but watch out for the pin-bones!. Missy enjoyed the skin.

    1. I’m impressed with your culinary variety for dinners. Me, due to lack of olfactory competence (polyps in the schnozz) and not being arsed, would prefer to just not be hungry, as it’s easier.

    2. Roasted mediterranean vegetables,

      Thrice cooked potatoe wedges coated in Herb Provincial, Garlic and Onion Powder

      Pork fillets

      Yum Yum

    3. Gurnard is one of our tastiest fish. If I’m lucky enough to catch one (of a decent size), I’m more pleased than with it than catching a decent cod or bass. Luckily they take lures close to the bottom.

        1. The fillets are relatively small, haven’t ever bought a gurnard as they don’t look so nice on the slab. In life, they have the absolutely most beautiful dark blue eyes.

    4. Up until very recently the Americans have regarded the gurnards, they call them sea robins, as ‘trash fish’. They do have a much wider range of fish across the water though.

    1. National Self Destruction

      The empoyers of these people MUST be reponsible for ALL the charges that a Brit driver would have to
      fork out, before he got his pay packet: ie Income Tax, National Insurance, have a established address etx

  104. Evening, all. Damp start, but lovely and sunny later. Did some more work clearing the new seating area and cut one of the lawns.

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