Saturday 27 November: Is it Britain or France that is exploiting the migrant tragedy for political ends?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

639 thoughts on “Saturday 27 November: Is it Britain or France that is exploiting the migrant tragedy for political ends?”

    1. BBC R3 has just started playing Send in the Clowns now.
      That’ll be me with dust in my eyes in a minute.

  8. Chris Whitty fears Britons WON’T accept lockdown rules to fight off Omicron super-variant over winter due to ‘behavioural fatigue’ caused by two years of restrictions. 27 november 2021.

    It is though the strain, which has more than 50 mutations – the most ever recorded in a variant and twice as many as Delta – could be more jab-resistant and transmissible that any version before it.

    ‘My greatest worry at the moment is that people… if we need to do something more muscular at some point, whether it’s for the current new variant or at some later stage, can we still take people with us?, Professor Whitty said...

    They lost me sometime around the beginning!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10248017/Chris-Whitty-fears-Britons-WONT-accept-lockdown-rules-fight-Omicron-super-variant-winter.html

    1. …can we still take people with us?, Professor Whitty said…

      They didn’t take the people with them at the outset of this disaster, they drove the people from behind with a massive, continuous and ongoing campaign of FEAR.

    2. There seems to be some confusion over the meaning of the word ‘new’;

      WEF article says omicron virus (B.1.1.529) was in S.A. in a July 12, 2021 article…

      But, WHO reports “The first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021”

      Explain that to me @WHO @wef

      Eyes are open and we don’t trust you. https://t.co/ubRsc4lfM5

  9. Chris Whitty fears Britons WON’T accept lockdown rules to fight off Omicron super-variant over winter due to ‘behavioural fatigue’ caused by two years of restrictions. 27 november 2021.

    It is though the strain, which has more than 50 mutations – the most ever recorded in a variant and twice as many as Delta – could be more jab-resistant and transmissible that any version before it.

    ‘My greatest worry at the moment is that people… if we need to do something more muscular at some point, whether it’s for the current new variant or at some later stage, can we still take people with us?, Professor Whitty said...

    They lost me sometime around the beginning!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10248017/Chris-Whitty-fears-Britons-WONT-accept-lockdown-rules-fight-Omicron-super-variant-winter.html

  10. Chris Whitty fears Britons WON’T accept lockdown rules to fight off Omicron super-variant over winter due to ‘behavioural fatigue’ caused by two years of restrictions. 27 november 2021.

    It is though the strain, which has more than 50 mutations – the most ever recorded in a variant and twice as many as Delta – could be more jab-resistant and transmissible that any version before it.

    ‘My greatest worry at the moment is that people… if we need to do something more muscular at some point, whether it’s for the current new variant or at some later stage, can we still take people with us?, Professor Whitty said...

    They lost me sometime around the beginning!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10248017/Chris-Whitty-fears-Britons-WONT-accept-lockdown-rules-fight-Omicron-super-variant-winter.html

    3. His disguise is slipping. You can begin to see the alien lizard underneath. His upside down eyes are a giveaway.

  14. Britain’s duty to the Black Sea. 26 November 2021, 5:00pm

    Britain also has strengths in ‘discursive statecraft’, the art of shaping international perceptions and assumptions. It can help push back against Moscow’s attempts to frame the Black Sea region as part of its so-called ‘near abroad’ sphere of interest. Instead, it must consistently and coherently uphold the sovereignty of Black Sea nations, and accept that Russia is one, too, with its own legitimate interests.

    However, that does not extend to the right arbitrarily and illegally to claim waters off Crimea and blocking transit to the Sea of Azov, on which lie the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk. Operations such as the recent transit of HMS Defender — which challenged Moscow’s claims, without directly provoking — demonstrate that Britain is perfectly able to affirm that the Black Sea is not a Russian lake.

    We don’t have any “duty” to the Black Sea any more than we do to any other stretch of water! This is just an attempt to justify Britain’s meddling and covering the Government’s ass if Putin should (more likely “when” in my opinion) respond. To see this, it is only necessary to imagine the response if Russia stationed ships in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico to help out with the local “sovereignty”! The War being brewed up here, like Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan is based on lies, only this time against someone of formidable ability.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-s-duty-to-the-black-sea

      2. Good morning, Spikey

        An old riddle for NtoN

        Q. What is the height of revenge?

        A. A misanthropic, self-hating bastard going around the Durex factory with a pin.

  16. If the information in the tweet below is true then it may be more data confirming that the mass “vaccinating” of people with a therapeutic potion is a mistake of massive proportions. Both natural innate and acquired immunity ‘sterilise’ the infecting virus/bacterium, this potion does not work in the same way: the result is it puts pressure on the virus to survive i.e. evolve to escape the “vaccine’s” effects. A virus versus “vaccine” race that Nature will win.

    We may very well be entering a pandemic of the “vaccinated”, untold millions of people each with a compromised immune system being coerced into taking ever more potion of a higher strength leading to immune exhaustion, as a recently reported study predicts.

    When will the people running this show finally admit they got it wrong: not by putting their hands up and saying sorry but by moving further into the background and abandoning governments to their fate? It can’t come too soon.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dae6a5603dbb5e8a24b9eb4e5e261c5fb5128b560dfc24bb1f4bc0b7ee549663.png

  17. Good morning all. I see that the press has managed to find a picture of a photogenic young woman to represent the migrants who died in the Channel:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/26/pictured-first-victim-channel-migrant-tragedy/

    I am sorry for the needless loss of life, but surely we are aware that most of the people coming are fit young men? The BBC will always manage to find the one cute child or pregnant woman, skirting over the fact that 90% or more are fighting age men. Remember the ‘child migrants’ who came to Croydon a few years ago? Most were hulking men in their 20’s and 30’s!

    And let us not forget that nobody has forced these people to circumvent legal migration routes and pay people smugglers to sneak them into Britain. They are criminals themselves, they are making a choice to try and jump the queue and they know the risks. Can we finally let the scales fall from our eyes about what is really happening? This is an invasion!

      1. Why did she have to travel on a rubber dinghy if her husband was legally settled in Britain?

    5. Once settled here under very false presences, they seem to have no qualms about going ‘back home’ for a holiday. Scum.

  18. Morning all

    Share

    Is it Britain or France that is exploiting the migrant tragedy for political ends?

    SIR – You report (November 26) that President Emmanuel Macron urged our Prime Minister “to refrain from exploiting a tragic situation for political ends”. I believe the term used for this in psychology is projection.

    Nigel Price

    Wilmslow, Cheshire

    SIR – If Boris Johnson sells out our fishermen in exchange for new border arrangements in France, with a view to stopping the illegal immigrants, then I believe he – along with the Conservatives – will be finished.

    John Hayter

    Sandwich, Kent

    SIR – It is unfathomable that the British and French security services do not know exactly who the smugglers are. How have they failed to shut down the trade in conspicuous equipment such as 40-seater inflatables?

    Both governments seem complicit in the smuggling trade. Twenty-seven people are dead. The whole situation is grotesque.

    John Gordon

    Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire

    SIR – Will the Prime Minister now cease calling the French “our friends”. They are clearly not.

    Peter Brown

    Lower Stondon, Bedfordshire

    SIR – Presumably the French would not tolerate their own type of behaviour if a neighbouring country, such as Italy, behaved in the way they (the French) do towards Britain.

    Simon McIlroy

    Croydon, Surrey

    SIR – If inflatables were not sold in France, there would be very few illegal crossings.

    Anne Langley

    Wolverhampton

    SIR – Since the Schengen agreement allows the free movement of migrants between the countries of the EU, surely it should have some pan-EU migrant board to deal with them.

    Allowing migrants to get to the Channel unhindered simply dumps the problem on to the French, who, in turn, seek to pass it on to Britain. It seems that the countries of the EU are not actually so close in ideals as they would have us believe.

    Gillian Courage

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    1. SIR – Will the Prime Minister now cease calling the French “our friends”. They are clearly not.

      Peter Brown

      What should he call them………?

      3. Well, they are his friends. They’re cheerfully doing the work that our political and civil service class want by rubbing unlimited immigration in the face of us Brexit-voting trogs.

  19. 955

    Why are we allowing our cities to become so ugly? Soon they will all look the same.

    Any long shot of London now fills one with dismay. Images of our long-loved and admired buildings are now dominated by hideous monstrosities.

    Have our architects simply lost or abandoned their sensibilities? They design nothing of value, nothing of beauty and nothing that will last. Is there a global conspiracy to make us all feel depressed? If so, it’s working.

    Barbara Davy

    Ilkley, West Yorkshire

    SIR – On the many television antique shows Art Deco objects are greeted with reverence and appreciated for their part in artistic dialogue, yet a building like this can be flattened.

    The store was built in an era when big changes were sweeping through our social culture and, as such, it should be left in Oxford Street as part of our retail heritage.

    Avril Wright

    Snettisham, Norfolk

  20. Good morning from Room 3 of the Pear Tree pub in Hook Norton.
    Well, that was a wild night! High winds at 4am with a lot of banging etc.
    Still breezy as I write this, but a lot quieter now.
    I have to walk up to the Brewery for breakfast in about an hour so I hope the currently paused rain stays away.

  21. Backbench babies

    SIR – At the risk of sounding as though I am betraying my sisters, why on Earth would anyone want to take a small baby into the House of Commons chamber (report, November 24)?

    We all know how endearing babies can be (especially our own, on a good day) but they also snuffle, gurgle, cry and far worse.

    Why would you want to inflict this on other Members of Parliament, who currently have quite enough distractions of their own?

    Rosy Drohan

    Bath, Somerset

    1. ‘Morning Epi. DT readers have no sympathy for Ms Creasey and her virtue-signalling nonsense:

      Bryn Riley
      8 HRS AGO
      Dear Rosy,
      Not all women are your sisters. There is a creche in the Palace of Westminster, which is more than most workplaces, so Stella Creasy should stop being a self-centered attention seeker.

      Paul Isherwood
      8 HRS AGO
      I read elsewhere that it was used for 2000 “baby hours” last year and costs a six figure sum to manage!

      L Lewthwaite
      7 HRS AGO
      Should be self funding. Nobody helped me with my childcare costs or provided a creche. SC should stop using a child as a political instrument. People smugglers are doing the same thing.

    2. It is reported in various media outlets that The Speaker has been lobbied by female MPs to keep the ban on children in the chamber.

  22. Morning again

    GPs out of reach

    SIR – After a bout of viral pneumonia, I had what I thought could be a fungal infection. I bought a cream, but my symptoms were atypical so I followed the advice to seek medical attention.

    An attempt to get a GP appointment resulted in a most embarrassing discussion with a receptionist (Letters, November 25), followed by a text. This did not contain the expected appointment details, but informed me that a prescription had been sent to a pharmacist – for the product I had bought in the first place.

    I wasn’t aware that the introduction of remote consultations removed the requirement for a clinician, at the very least, to speak to a patient. I’m surprised that I can get a prescription after a chat with a receptionist.

    Carole Molyneux

    Heswall, Wirral

    SIR – You report (November 26) that face-to-face GP appointments are increasing. My wife was given one at Guy’s hospital for last Thursday. The letter said: “Face-to-face appointment: do not come to the hospital, you will be phoned by our consultant.”

    I wonder how many of these are counted in the statistics.

    Idris White

    Sevenoaks, Kent

    1. My father in law was sent an appointment at Hinchinbrook hospital in Huntingdon with a date and time.
      Underneath in bold it read,”Do not attend this appointment “

    2. I have one of those for an appointment, from a different hospital, next month, but my instruction not to attend was in upper case, bold, and underlined…very welcoming, I’m sure.

    3. Did anyone else who was at a boarding school in the early1960s have to go through the same ritual as we had to go through at Blundell’s?

      This was what we called the Balls Up Inspection.

      At the beginning of every term each member of the house had to assemble in the house common room and take off his trousers, socks and shirt. He was then inspected by the school doctor and the san sister. When you had your name called out you hobbled forward and had to expose your armpits, lower your underpants and lift up your testicles and then put each foot in turn on a chair and separate your toes one by one while the doctor and the san sister peered inquisitively at what you had to show them. The aim of this was to see if during the holidays you can contracted any fungal diseases such as athlete’s foot or tinea cruris. We suspected that they were also checking to make sure we hadn’t got any other form of crotch rot or the clap.

      Those who were identified as being infected had to undergo special treatment each morning at the school san until the problems had cleared up.

  24. SIR – Two years ago I wrote these verses in reply to the first message of the year from someone saying that they would not be sending Christmas cards but instead donating to charity:

    We’re sending Christmas cards this

    year,

    The reasons I’ll make clear.

    For as I choose and write each card

    Come thoughts of those so dear.

    The friends we’ve made throughout

    the years

    In places far and near,

    They’ll know we haven’t popped our

    clogs,

    We’ve made another year.

    Jill Pearce

    Weymouth, Dorset

  25. 342055+ ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Saturday 27 November: Is it Britain or France that is exploiting the migrant tragedy for political ends?

    They are partners, co-conspirators,in treacherous league, lifeboat crews will be swapping Christmas cards at mid English Channel point.

    Truth be told ALL part & parcel of “the deal”

  26. ‘Emotional intelligence’ key for Army’s new Rangers units. 27 November 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90c2fb3cfcaab4f0239c07e57312a8e2a9e9d41d2c976bf0f71ea5f07202fa91.jpg

    Britain’s new special operations units will assess applicants on their “emotional intelligence”, the commander has revealed.
    Troops hoping to join the Army’s new Ranger Regiment will have to demonstrate personal characteristics beyond those required by regular soldiers.

    Resilience, calmness and self-awareness will be tested on a two-week assessment cadre that will include “ protracted periods of time under duress,” said Brigadier Gus Fair, the first commander of the Army’s new Special Operations Brigade, has said.

    This will I assume check for their “diversity awareness” “gender neutrality” and LGBT alignment?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/emotional-intelligence-key-armys-new-rangers-units/

    1. Nice model aeroplane. I’d have thought that model aeroplanes (drones) would be a bit more sophisticated than a balsa wood kit from the 50s. I suppose that the dog is trained to retrieve it when it runs out of fuel. The wee toy tank looks like fun.

      3. I presume that there exists a large supply of: Bands Rubber (Aero) for the use of, in the vehicle?

      5. Nice Model Aeroplane
        Horace, according to dronewars.net/british-drones-an-overview/ :

        ‘The Desert Hawk III is a battery-powered small drone in service with the British Army. It was developed by Lockheed Martin in 2002 and has been through a number of upgrades.The drone is hand-launched and can fly for around one hour with a radius of around fifteen kilometres. In April 2020 the MoD reported that there were 229 Desert Hawk III drones held by UK armed forces, with around a total of £70 million spent on the system.’

        So that’s £70 million divided by 229 equals £305,676.85 each including support.

        You can get quite a nice secondhand 4-seater in UK for less than that.

      6. Nice Model Aeroplane
        Horace, according to dronewars.net/british-drones-an-overview/ :

        ‘The Desert Hawk III is a battery-powered small drone in service with the British Army. It was developed by Lockheed Martin in 2002 and has been through a number of upgrades.The drone is hand-launched and can fly for around one hour with a radius of around fifteen kilometres. In April 2020 the MoD reported that there were 229 Desert Hawk III drones held by UK armed forces, with around a total of £70 million spent on the system.’

        So that’s £70 million divided by 229 equals £305,676.85 each including support.

        You can get quite a nice secondhand 4-seater in UK for less than that.

    2. Blank firing attachments (BFAs) on some of the weapons will save on live rounds, presumably??

      On a slightly more serious note, the ’emotional intelligence’ claptrap is the legacy of Gen Sir Nick Carter, the outgoing CDS. Let’s hope his replacement is less touchy-feely.

    4. I don’t know what effect these men (and blind girl) will have upon the enemy, but by God, they frighten me.

      Apologies to Arthur Wellesley.

    5. Morning Minty. I see 3rd from the right has a wee toy tank! Attackattackattack!

      (I know, I know…)

  27. 61 out of 600 passengers from S Africa tested positive for new strain of covid in Schiphol yesyerday. Algemeen Dagblad.
    Cue closing of borders again…

  28. Roof work today, replacong tiles that blew off last weekend. Flashings too. Light snow yesterday made it slippery…

    2. Finished. Broken & missing tiles replaced. Noticed a pile of woodwork needs done, but that will have to wait until spring.
      Now snowing, and part-way through a pint of IPA, in front of the fire.

    1. Good morning, ogga

      Remember the video posted here a month or two ago of O’Looney, the undertaker from Milton Keynes?

      The stiffs he received for embalming did not tally at all with the statistics the government issued about Covid deaths and this led him to conclude that it was a very evil scam being perpetrated on the people. He predicted that if people started getting too cocky and too sceptical about Covid then their fear would have to be gingered up a bit by the announcement of a new Covid variant.

  34. Hot Dog!

    Two foreign immigrants have just arrived in the United States by boat and one says to the other, “I hear that the people of this country actually eat dogs.”

    “Odd,” her companion replies, “but if we shall live in America, we might as well do as the Americans do.”

    Nodding emphatically, one of the immigrants points to a hot dog vendor and they both walk toward the cart.

    “Two dogs, please,” she says.

    The vendor is only too pleased to oblige, wraps both hot dogs in foil and hands them over the counter.

    Excited, the companions hurry to a bench and begin to unwrap their “dogs.”

    One of them opens the foil and begins to blush. Staring at it for a moment, she turns to her friend and whispers cautiously, “What part did you get?”

  35. 342055+ up ticks,

    Is he suffering from a case of fluttercheekitis regarding his rear exit
    and his past actions,

    New Covid variant is less worrying than delta, says Prof Chris Whitty

  36. This morning, I shall be making chutney. Wot I of done for 55 years! How time fly.

    I skimmed the paper DT. Two things caught my eye.

    A bame saying that the word “bame” should be abolished. All the more reason for using it, in my book.

    Secondly, the permanently offended slammer creekiter saying that “it had all been blown out of all proportion”. Well, matey – who did the blowing? Eh?

      1. We were extremely lucky in our quartier. It was by far the most vibrant in the village. Other parts tried but the could never match our exuberance. Henri, who took the snap, is the gentil organisateur.Pushing 70 – mountaineer, skier, cat lover, a man of incredible optimism and sense of fun. Oh, and co-potagiste, of course! He is the sort that makes you feel happy just to be with him.

        1. We are very fond of our French friends.

          They, poor people, are afflicted in the same way as the British are afflicted, by having completely sordid and repulsive politicians.

          Toyboy Macron tries to stir up hatred against the British just as the Bonking Buffoon tries to stir up hatred against the French – but they are not succeeding here at any rate.

      2. Writing of white people, I watched the racing this afternoon. Thousands of spectators – all white – but whom did they interview? Denise Lewis (she’s black, of course, but I’ve no idea what connection she has to racing; I thought she was a track competitor). Contrast that with the adverts in between where it was a case of “spot the white person”.

  38. ‘Morning All

    They’re just trolling us now

    Omicron=Moronic

    More #CovidClownWorld

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FFJuCDtUcAM7VB7?format=jpg&name=small

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bfd5d5db441c617640f647049a12d79fc0079867ce51b17c93d1024a1b030624.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/919bb0f6672c55371be231a369792b99611f69394647a06701b517672b77f7c3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3baa9932619347022de55c76bca78148461d00bf5eca970049f52aea0c3436c.jpg

    https://twitter.com/KatieRees6/status/1464334038999736321?s=20

  39. 342055+ up ticks,

    Murder Inc,
    ALL are complicit, politico’s, governments, supporter / voters of these mass uncontrolled immigration policy overseers ALL have been acting out this treacherous farce since anthony charlie lynton AKA (the bog man) lifted the entry latch.

    Dt,
    Migrant smuggler ‘butchers’ must be stopped, victim’s father tells France

  40. All part of France’s Brexit revenge?

    This morning we had to pay €12 to take delivery of a present in the post marked as a Christmas present with a value of under €10. (One of our cousins always sends us second-hand books from jumble sales or second-hand book shops for Christmas.)

    Why should such petty people as the politicians we have on both sides of the channel expect any respect from us whatsoever?

    1. All the EU countries are doing that, I think. It wasn’t possible to send parcels from the UK to my son studying in the EU.

    1. And they’ve forbidden the unvaccinated from leaving home too! Just look at all the bar stewards in the photo.

  42. Excellent breakfast at the Brewery, so that’s me on hard rations for the next week to compensate!

    Now shutting down and off back to the brewery for the shop, then the village butchers before heading home.

    TTFN all.

  43. Nicked

    This is my take on the Omicron, new super-scary, ‘deadly’ variant:

    It may have been part of the plan that all governments are following, but I
    think a new ‘deadly’ scariant that ‘evades vaccines’ has been cobbled
    together recently because the globalists/scientists/governments have
    been spooked by the deaths and injuries caused by the ‘vaccines’. Of
    course, they’ve been covering this up with the help of the compliant
    MSM, but they’ve realised the truth is gradually getting out.

    So,to properly cover up the deaths and injuries from the ‘vaccines’, the
    new plan is to introduce a new ‘deadly’ scariant that will start killing
    people and blame the deaths and injuries on Omicron. And bingo, the
    ‘vaccines’ are not killing and injuring people at all, it is Omicron!

    Just wait, this will become the ‘line’ all the scientists/governments/MSM will be taking within the next few weeks.

      2. The French Pox.

        “Syphilis (also known as ‘The French Pox’) landed on England’s shores in about 1493. The term ‘French Pox’ was derived from the belief that the disease originally travelled from the New World and through France before arriving in England’s green and pleasant land.”

    3. Was Delta the cover for the onset of ADE and “vaccine escape” aka “vaccine” failing to do what was claimed on the vial?

  44. ‘Russia is the acute threat and managing that is top of my list’. 27 November 2021.

    Sir Nick’s broad experience of war, fighting in many different and complex environments, has set him in good stead for the challenge of carrying out a comprehensive restructuring of Britain’s Armed Forces, where the key aim has been to integrate Britain’s traditional military strengths with the technological advances taking place in areas like cyber and space.

    In this context, one of his notable achievements had been the creation of the Army’s new 77th Brigade, a combined regular and reservist unit that is specially designed to wage war in realms like the internet.

    Yes it wages war on its own people!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/26/general-sir-nick-carter-russia-acute-threat-managing-top-list/

    1. Russia has never been threat on the same scale as the USA. (The Soviet Union was a threat, but it no longer exists.)

  47. Apparently all the 61 people who tested positive for Covid on the flight from South Africa to the Netherlands were double jabbed.

    Would the MSM announce it if, for example, a plane load of people arrived and the only people who did not test positive for Covid were people who had not been vaccinated gene therapied because then they would have to admit that the best way to avoid Covid was to remain unjabbed!

    1. Damning and worrying news, Rastus. We’ll have to wait for the new playbook to be published, I have read that Javid (The Bald) is to make a statement to the House.

      1. I prefer to call him Squalid Jawdrop because I find him jaw-droppingly squalid to the point of being completely repulsive. The fact that the prime minister’s trollop wife has a ‘thing’ for him and got him reinstated after he left the government before highlights just how perverse her judgement is.

  49. Didn’t take long for “independent and anonymous fact-checkers” to creep out of the woodwork and attempt to rubbish a renowned cardiac specialist, did it? I am approaching 73 years of age and I consider myself reasonably well informed and I think I can say that I have NEVER in my life experienced so many COINCIDENCES befalling the World before CV-19 and the “vaccine” appeared.

    https://twitter.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1464312950970269703

    1. Why don’t they (The MSM under instructions from the PTB) just admit it that the jabs are a waste of time which will need constant topping up and still won’t stop you getting the disease or passing it on?

      1. The key is in the photo “Privileges will be granted to fully vaccinated people only”
        How can anyone not see how sinister that is?
        The “privilege” is supposed to be a health benefit!

          1. While looking at that Tweet I also found this one – May I politely point out that “Omicron” is an anagram of “Moronic”.

            I think Poppiesmum has already posted it, but perhaps you missed it there?

  51. Malala Yousafzai graduates from Oxford University. 27 November 2021.

    Malala Yousafzai graduated from Oxford University with a philosophy, politics and economics degree on Friday, nine years after being shot by the Taliban after campaigning for girls to be to be educated in her native Pakistan.

    She will get a Labour safe seat at the next election and will be berating us for our, Racism, Misogyny and Colonialism shortly thereafter!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10248619/Malala-Yousafzai-graduates-Oxford-University-philosophy-politics-economics-degree.html

      1. ….in exchange for promising, promising, promising the world that she had looked and looked and looked and there wasn’t any anti-Semitism in the Labour party.

    3. It is interesting to note that she is still in awe of the ideology which tried to murder her. You can of course never leave islam. A bit like the UK, arrive for medical treatment and never go back.

    4. I hear what you’re saying Minty but I do think she deserves some credit for this achievement after what she went through.

      1. Morning Ndovu. Actually I was trying to draw attention to the PP&E qualification! Failed! Again!

    5. I don’t know why you would assume that, after all half the Conservative government is Asian and they aren’t social— oh, oh, oh! never mind.

  54. Good morning to all! weather very odd here in West Sussex. It looked like about an hour ago, a mixture of rain and wet snow. I have never seen that here at this time of year. But as per usual, it is lights on against the gloom.
    I see that Chris Witless is now playing down the Botswana Bubonic Covid of death in contrast to the Americans who are preparing for the end of days. A sample headline from Fox: “New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issues state of emergency in response to omicron variant.” They haven’t even seen it yet! Yesterday it was described as “horror”. Ever calm those Americans.

    3. This new covid scare is a complete scam.World deaths are below 1% and the scam should be ignored. I have never worn a mask and never will.

      1. Yes, I’m also convinced it is a complete scam and I would be willing to bet that it is a milder form of Covid, that is what mutations usually are. I haven’t ever worn a mask either Johnny but I’m exempt on medical grounds anyway. But I have never been stopped and had anyone demand proof. But then, if you heard my breathing, an imitation of Thomas the Tank Engine, it is obvious that I’m having problems.

      2. Yes, I’m also convinced it is a complete scam and I would be willing to bet that it is a milder form of Covid, that is what mutations usually are. I haven’t ever worn a mask either Johnny but I’m exempt on medical grounds anyway. But I have never been stopped and had anyone demand proof. But then, if you heard my breathing, an imitation of Thomas the Tank Engine, it is obvious that I’m having problems.

      1. You are getting it mixed up with the My little pony variant. It come after Swine Covid aka The Pepper pig Sick or the Boris Trot.

  55. 342055+ up ticks,

    Personally I would prefer the return of the bog man b liar, at least there was NO pretence at him being a treacherous @rsehole whereas with….

    Prime Minister Farage: Blair’s Former Minister Fears Relaxing Migration Rules Could Result in Farage as PM

  57. A Story from Today’s Daily Mail

    Canadian school CANCELS event with ISIS survivor Nadia Murad because her harrowing description of torture and rape ‘would be offensive to Muslims and foster Islamophobia’
    The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is not allowing its students to attend a book club meeting featuring author Nadia Murad
    Murad’s book details how she escaped the Islamic State, where she was ripped from her home and sold into sexual slavery aged just 14 years old
    The superintendent Helen Fisher said Muslim students would be offended and the book ‘promotes Islamophobia’
    Book club founder and TDSB parent Tanya Lee said the book ‘has nothing to do with ordinary Muslims. (TDSB) should be aware of the difference’
    The Board later issued an apology but still won’t let the students attend the event
    By SHANNON THALER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

    So in order not to offend Muslims the barbarities practised upon the young author by Muslims should not be reported!

    So should we not be told about vicars and priests who have committed rapes so that Christians are not offended?

    I think that the thing which is really likely to foster Islamophobia is the way in which the MSM and the PTB make excuses and cover up things for Muslims which they would be more than happy to report in followers of other faiths.

    2. 342055+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      In the United Kingdom thanks to the JAY report they cannot cover up any longer rotherham plus, that is one odious stain that will NEVER be erased in the eyes of decent peoples, it rests equally on the shoulders of the lab/lib/con close shop, coalition party.

    5. The same mindset as the police, social workers and others had that allowed the vile grooming gangs in Rotherham, Bradford and other towns & cities to perpetuate their sick crimes.
      If they were so concerned about offending Muslim students, why couldn’t they simply explain that it was extreme barbaric thugs that brutalized this young girl and scores of others.

  58. Good morning. As we hear, (and naturally sing Te Deums in gratitude), that another shiny new injectate will be ready in a very short time for the new “Botswana” brand, I thought I might take us all down memory lane to remind us of some of the advice we had from the UK branch office last year about masks, as we still seem to have bad people promoting them and fools wearing them.

    The further and more deadly this tragedy the greater the clarity of stupidity caused by greed that is driving the calculating minds of Mr Global.

    http://www.tarableu.com
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkOIesmFXg&t=2s

    1. When I tapped on the YouTube link it actually took me to the Monty Python “I want to be called Loretta and have babies” sketch. Who knows why but no complaints – it’s still very funny!

  59. vw and I would like to thank you all for the kind messages of support for our son who is now in intensive care with pneumonia in both lungs.

    Very trying and worrying times.

          1. And me, Alf. I found your post from last night when I was up very early this morning.
            Thoughts, prayers and blessings to you all.

      1. Sort of stable but his sats are only 75-80% and should be at least 95%.
        Thank you for asking.

        1. That is obviously not good but that he is stable is good. Wish I could do something more that pray but, rest assured, he is in my thoughts.

    8. I hope all is stabilising. My experience of nearly two years ago was very worrying for all concerned, apart from me, l wasn’t totally aware what was going on. I wish him well, and that you and your wife can gain comfort from each other too.
      Good luck for a speedy recovery.

    9. Only just saw this. I don’t know the background but how terrifying for you. Sending all best wishes.

      1. Diagnosed with covid pneumonia being treated with CPAP oxygen, IV steroids and IV antibiotics.

        1. So sorry to hear that. Can imagine how frighten this must be. Presumably you’re not allowed to visit either. I will be thinking of you all.

          2. Banning visitors makes it extra hard on both patients and their families.
            How old is his son?

    11. I send you my best wishes for a speedy recovery. I’ll remember him tomorrow when we pray for those who are in need, sickness or any other kind of adversity.

    1. The Chinese Communists are not mobilizing, Taiwan would certainly know it and would be yelling it from the rooftops, so would Japan and several other countries in the region. Taiwan is only 100 miles from China so they can practically see what is going on. Besides, they would be mobilizing missiles ready to lob them at any fleet that the Chinese would be massing for an invasion. In short, military activity would be obvious if it were serious.

  64. It takes CM a thousand words to work his way to the conclusion that most of us had reached years ago.

    The judges and people smugglers are united in disregarding the importance of borders

    It is too easy to blame the Channel crossings on Emmanuel Macron. Until we address judicial overreach at home, nothing much will change

    CHARLES MOORE

    Central to a democratic nation is the idea that citizenship brings rights. It follows that if non-citizens can arrive illegally and then avail themselves of those rights, the interests of citizens are damaged. Democracy is thus damaged too. This – not racism – is the main reason why most voters hate illegal immigration.

    The influx of people by boat on to the south coast of England makes this illegality visible. Illegal immigration by other means has, in fact, fallen sharply, as has net migration. This is mainly because of Covid, partly because of Brexit, but also because, contrary to widespread belief, there has been effective co-operation between French and British about tunnel crossings. Until about two years ago, a farming neighbour tells me, it was commonplace for fruit lorries from the Continent to arrive at a Kent packhouse, open their doors and disgorge several stowaways who then ran away. No longer.

    Instead, the rickety boats come, in growing numbers. This week, as was eventually inevitable given the crowding and the heartlessness of the smugglers, one such boat sank, drowning almost all on board.

    We live about a dozen miles from the coast where such boats land. Friends who live closer sometimes watch the arrivals at Winchelsea Beach, Dungeness or Hastings, landings that are often assisted by the RNLI. They bear no ill will to the people seeking the opportunities that Britain offers. But they do feel oppressed by the sense of helplessness. One, a doctor, points out that if a comparable boat capsized in nearby waters, “30 severely hypothermic or half-drowned human beings appearing at once would overwhelm the hospital in a way that no wave of Covid has managed to do”. There is little preparation. An air of fatalism hangs over the whole subject of the boats, as if nothing can be done.

    The easiest, most enjoyable thing just now is to blame the French. Far be it from me to defend Emmanuel Macron. He is undoubtedly seeking electoral advantage in next year’s presidential election. But if you imagine the situations reversed, with us in Britain being lectured by France that we must not let illegal immigrants leave our shores for theirs, I think you can see how the French might feel.

    In the short term, with a lack of trust between Macron and Boris Johnson, made worse by No10’s strange decision to publish in advance the Prime Minister’s letter to the president about joint policing, the prospects of a joint approach are poor.

    Nevertheless, the true interests of both countries are closely aligned. Britain does not want the boats, of course, but nor does France. It is terrible for President Macron that this week’s drowning happened on his watch. It is also extremely unpleasant for the residents of northern France that Calais is a sort of fortress and that people smugglers infest their territory. Immigration is a considerably fiercer issue in French politics than in ours, highly damaging to Macron.

    If France agreed to let us turn the boats back – an agreement that would, admittedly, cost us a great deal of money – it would not be long before the business model of the smugglers collapsed and with it, their frightening sway. An unstated reason why French police sometimes just stand and watch as the boats load up on remote beaches is that they are heavily outnumbered and literally outgunned by the smugglers. Kill the trade, and all that goes.

    More widely, this is a European issue – and by “European”, I do not mean EU alone. We in Britain groan under the weight of asylum applications: one good aspect of the forthcoming, rather limited Nationality and Borders Bill is that it will pare down our absurdly extensive rights of asylum appeal. But both Germany and France have far bigger numbers of asylum seekers than we do and face a greater existential risk from trans-continental migration.

    The recent migrations into Poland laid on by Belarus (with Russian backing) are not far short of undeclared war. Non-European migrants have been press-ganged, sometimes even flown in, to attempt mass incursions there. Western Europeans well understand that this is a hostile political act, not a spontaneous movement of refugees, and are co-operating to resist it. Britain, for instance, is contributing engineers to Poland to help reinforce physical borders.

    In the Channel, there is no comparable plot by a nation or nations to invade us with a conscript army of the wretched of the earth, but there is a situation that is politically dangerous to Western democracy. Borders define rights, responsibilities and jurisdictions. If those borders are not upheld, those rights and responsibilities are undermined, and jurisdictions become blurred. This gives advantage to bad actors, such as people smugglers and Islamist terrorists.

    This blurring of jurisdictions began in the 1970s and became much more apparent in our Continent, first after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and later with mass movements from disturbed parts of the Muslim world and Africa. The people most responsible for this have been judges, and the “human rights” lawyers for whom this has become a big industry.

    In an interesting study – titled Immigration, Strasbourg and Judicial Overreach – published by the think tank Policy Exchange earlier this year, Professor John Finnis, the distinguished legal philosopher, and Simon Murray, a barrister practising in the immigration field, explained what has gone wrong with “human rights”.

    To avoid renewing the horrors of the Second World War, the victors, with Britain playing the leading role, drew up the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 1950. With similar aims, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was signed the following year.

    Finnis and Murray argue that the original documents understood their limits. Their authors sensed danger if rights were too absolute for sovereign states to handle. Thus they contained no obligation to let in refugees if they arrived at borders en masse, no legal (as opposed to moral) obligation to accept refugees at all and no absolute obligation to provide refuge to asylum seekers who were a danger to the community.

    Many years later, however, judges began to develop the doctrine that the ECHR is a “living instrument” – a lawyer’s way of saying that judges are free to make it mean whatever they think the spirit of the age demands. They used this latitude to expand enormously all the definitions – what is meant, for example, by the right to privacy and family life in Article 8.

    Gradually, their judgments incentivised illegal immigration because they meant that, once you got into the country of your choice, no one could get you out. In Britain, Tony Blair gold-plated the “living instrument”, turning the ECHR into our Human Rights Act.

    So there is co-operation, in effect – though not, of course, in intention – between the judges and the people smugglers. The former give illegal immigrants a get-out-of-jail-free card, and the latter, for large sums of money, get them where they want to be.

    As Finnis and Murray put it, this liberal interpretation of rights “incoherently privileges preventing risks to non-citizens over risks to citizens”.

    That, unfortunately, is where we are. It is pretty much where we shall remain unless we in Britain – and preferably the entire free world – decide the law should respect the borders and wishes of democracies instead of disregarding them.

    The task of reining back judicial overreach is similar to the “taking back control” sought by Brexit. So far, our leaders have lacked the stomach for it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/26/judges-people-smugglers-united-disregarding-importance-borders/

      1. I think, Nanny, it also has to do with the fact that those sort of people are so insulated that it takes a lot for facts to sink in.

  65. Hang on a minute: isn’t she some sort of journalist and a hanger-on at the court of Call Me Dave?
    Wouldn’t that shake the naivety out of you? Perhaps a desire for screen time and being miffed at your contribution being slashed to ribbons played a greater part in this denunciation.

    PLATELL’S PEOPLE: How the BBC’s golden boy Amol Rajan conned me into royal hatchet job

    Eight months ago, I was introduced to the BBC’s rising star Amol Rajan who asked me to be interviewed for a TV documentary he was making.

    It was about Princes William and Harry and their relationship with the media after the death of their mother Diana. He said the working title was The Princes And The Press but, he went on to say, delphically, that it didn’t ‘capture what we’re doing’.

    Indeed it didn’t. The first part of the resultant series, broadcast last Monday, was, in my opinion, a hatchet job on the Palace and the Press . . . and a hagiography of Harry and Meghan. It was so biased against the royals the Palace has since threatened a boycott of future dealings with the BBC.

    Clearly, being party to such a calumny was not what I signed up for when I submitted myself to at least two hours of filmed conversation with Rajan, who it must be said, was charming, self-deprecating and made me feel everything was on the level.

    When I saw the programme, my two hours had been reduced to less than two minutes of selective quotes. I felt utterly conned.

    To avoid further ghastliness, I asked Rajan to show me any other edits of our chat that might appear in the second episode on Monday, given that six months has passed since the interview. He replied: ‘Alas impossible to share: we are still working on the programme. I’m so sorry as always want to be fair.’

    I think viewers have already made up their mind about how ‘fair’ the series is.

    The producers allowed Meghan’s lawyer Jenny Afia to speak with the duchess’s approval, at length and unchallenged. Most shamefully, they seem to have failed to offer the Royal Family the same opportunity.

    What’s more, they gave disproportionate prominence to Omid Scobie, a Meghan super-groupie who was co-author of a fawning biography.

    He had free rein to claim the Palace briefed against her because she was too popular. Yet the national broadcaster, set up by Royal Charter, refused Palace staff the courtesy of a preview to see what the Queen and her family were accused of.

    I’m deeply ashamed to be associated with The Princes And The Press and feel let down by Amol Rajan, who I believe misled me.

    During Monday’s episode, he highlighted two of my Daily Mail columns that were critical of the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William —even though I’ve written any number in their favour. It seemed I was being used to bolster Meghan’s case. I should have known better.

    However badly treated I feel, Heaven knows what the royals feel about being trashed by the BBC.”

    1. Never talk to the press. You don’t have conttol over how they edit your input to fit their agenda.

      1. I know that. You know that.
        Strange how a journalist of some 30 (?) years experience didn’t know that.

    2. She was a pal a Geordie Grieg who was a pal of Call me Dave. Methinks Mandy Platypus may be feeling a tad vulnerable this week with Geordie’s demise.

      1. I don’t believe in Geordie’s demise.

        He was just too closely associated with Epstein for anyone’s liking.

        He’ll maintain a low profile for a couple of months, then emerge as if nothing had ever happened.

    3. “charming, self-deprecating and made me feel everything was on the level.” It’s called Taquia. Or some spelling variant of that word.

    4. After the Bashir stitch up of Lady Diana one would think a senior exec at the BBC would have stamped on this.

      The nightmare that is Meghan is never going to go away. That woman revels in her spite.

      The Palace should be consulting lawyers and the Queen should revoke the BBC’s charter. IMO

      1. The BBC loves the Markle creature because she is destabilising. She is a thorn in the side of the Monarchy and respresents everything the Beeb stands for: impermanance, arrogance, elitism, green fanaticism, a Left wing, self absorbed agenda.

        The Monarchy stands for permanence, duty, integrity, self discipline, service (well, it used to). Of course the BBC hates it.

  66. Off topic but possibly serious
    It may be my paranoia but I’ve been having problems with my PC.
    The common feature for crashes has been the Nottle blog.
    Using the iPad I tried to access via safari and received an error message saying that the site was insecure and lacking a certificate a moment ago.
    Given our attitude to the scares I wonder whether someone might be trying to sabotage the site and its users.
    It may be a coincidence but my avast antivirus has also been playing up, going into overdrive. All virus scans have been negative.

    4. My computer is about 7 – 8 years old, is running Windows 10 and I’m not having a problem with NOTTL using the Edge browser.

    5. Have you tried deleting your history and cookies – this is a pain, I know, when you have to put in your user names and passwords elsewhere, but it often solves my iPad problems.

        1. It may not be – try a complete unplug and plug back in. If you can, take the side off. You don’t need to ‘do’ anything, just watch for any lights.

          1. Been there, seen it done it.
            Lights on, nobody at home. The Dell doesn’t have a facility to easily remove the battery and playing with function keys hasn’t worked either. The off switch doesn’t respond.

    6. Hmm, as the certificate is valid and works in firefox and chrome. On my ipad I don’t see any certificate errors either.

      Being honest, it sounds as if your certs are being intercepted.

      Could you click on the padlock icon and post what you’re seeing there? If you click on view certificate you can see the full info of the certificate. Might be worth comparing it to someone else’s?

      1. Thank you.
        It’s cPanel . nttl . blog
        Issued by R3
        Not trusted
        Expires 16/01/2022
        I’m very wary of touching it
        I’ll leave well alone for my computer guy, who is excellent.
        It’s the intermittent aspect that’s causing problems.

        1. No worries, it sounds valid. My thinking – if it was woolly – was that you had some sort of virus redirecting your traffic.

          An easy thing you can do is clear your cache, cookies and disable all plugins. It costs you nothing, but it removes any possible drag from your browser.

          I’ll take this opportunity to promote bitwarden. An open source password manager. This separates your passwords from the cookies. It’s a little ‘fiddly’ as it’s defaults are typical of open source – security first and over complicated with a not easy to interpret UI but do persist. Happy to help if it’s useful.

          1. It’s always helpful thank you.
            Oddly enough I had a nasty virus and it was cleared right back to square one. There was a worry but we’ve run several different AV programs all of which are clear.

          2. That’s good to hear. Try the physical shutdown – infuriatingly due to how Windows is designed it’s very difficult to clear all the junk away. I always suggest a form of restore that’s a ‘known clean’ with any data stored in at least two locations.

            I’m very happy to suggest ‘online’ back up solutions as well as external hard disks.

          3. That’s good to hear. Try the physical shutdown – infuriatingly due to how Windows is designed it’s very difficult to clear all the junk away. I always suggest a form of restore that’s a ‘known clean’ with any data stored in at least two locations.

            I’m very happy to suggest ‘online’ back up solutions as well as external hard disks.

        2. No worries, it sounds valid. My thinking – if it was woolly – was that you had some sort of virus redirecting your traffic.

          An easy thing you can do is clear your cache, cookies and disable all plugins. It costs you nothing, but it removes any possible drag from your browser.

          I’ll take this opportunity to promote bitwarden. An open source password manager. This separates your passwords from the cookies. It’s a little ‘fiddly’ as it’s defaults are typical of open source – security first and over complicated with a not easy to interpret UI but do persist. Happy to help if it’s useful.

  67. The Emergency Medicine Journal (EMJ) is aimed at doctors, nurses, paramedics and ambulance staff.
    However this EMJ editor’s pick is understandable by non-medical professionals and throws light on the importance on the balance of two enzymes, the ADAMTS13 and the von Wilibrand factor in the presention of the hitherto elusive diagnosis of a COVID-19 infection:

    https://www.emjreviews.com/hematology/article/editors-pick-von-willebrand-factor-and-adamts13-in-covid-19-and-beyond-a-question-of-balance-j060121/

    This is a screenshot from the article showing the degree of imbalance of the two enzymes and where a COVID-19 infection sits in the spectrum of haemolytic disorders:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f87e8efb46c27122084b2053491c4dd86148e35e68ec5ab09e47e8469981df3d.jpg

    It is interesting to note that a COVID-19 infection is a secondary thrombotic microangiopathy.

      1. I put secondary thrombotic microangiopathy in my comment so that you can ask your doctor to test your vulnerability to a COVID-19 infection by measuring your VWF/ADAMTS13 Ratio.

        You can give your medical professional the above reference to show that you know what you are talking about.

      1. Hi Peter

        Anybody can observe a reaction but to be able to attribute it to a specific acquired illness requires a medical diagnosis.

        Hope that answers your question.

  68. No, it’s not April 1st. From the Spekkie.

    “German euthanasia clinics refusing unvaccinated customers

    Irony has been declared many times in this pandemic but now, from Covid-riddled Germany comes the final proof: you can’t kill yourself now unless you’ve been vaccinated. As European countries battle to limit the spread of the virus, Verein Sterbehilfe – the German Euthanasia Association – has issued a new directive, declaring it will now only help those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease. In a statement, the association said:

    “Euthanasia and the preparatory examination of the voluntary responsibility of our members willing to die require human closeness. Human closeness, however, is a prerequisite and breeding ground for coronavirus transmission. As of today, the 2G rule applies in our association, supplemented by situation-related measures, such as quick tests before encounters in closed rooms.

    ‘Close encounters in closed rooms’ – what a fabulous German euphemism for assisted suicide. The term ‘2G’ meanwhile refers to a system which only allows free movement for leisure activities for the geimpft oder genese— ‘vaccinated or recovered.’ God forbid that a person without the jab should try to end it all – talk about a vaccine passport to the afterlife…”

  69. I’ve been busy all morning bread making and taking a Phone call from Oz.
    Now two of our lovely grandchildren brother and little sister, are on they way to see us.
    Our neighbour messaged me and is now stranded in Capetown, but with her family so as I told her not too bad. Say hello to Muizenberg beach and the rock hopper penguins for me L.
    My Niece has had to give up on her plan to come over to stay with her family at Christmas and new year.
    Brucie and I have been putting the world to rights again. They live quite close to the Puffing Billy railway in Upper Fern Tree Gully. The raised track was recently undermined by many days of torrential rain. Well, they do live on the edge of a rain forest. On one of his programs Mr M. Portillo was seen on the railway with his legs hanging over the side of the carriage.
    The loss of life in the channel was inevitable. I am surprised it hasn’t happened more often if it hadn’t n been for our weak government helping the invasion, it would have. And the only political gain by politicians will be Toy Boy, once more trying very hard in making out he’s teaching the English a lesson. Because if Boris stopped the illegal invasion he would gain much favour. And possibly save this country from another useless labour government. It all depends on one’s preference in this mater.

    2. All joking aside, the warqueen comes in just as I am ..ahem… viewing that imagine. Her response? ‘If you want me to dress like that, stop being a skinflint with the heating.’

    1. What an extraordinary coincidence that all these people, from all over the place, should use the SAME WORDS.

      Spooky, eh? {:¬))

    2. Easy to build back better. Shred the state, cut taxes, get the state out of the way. Get rid of the waste of money all these creatures have created.

      It’s very simple. As for education, scrap the entire nonsense of Left wing green. You cannot reset a functioning economy. The state will only ruin things. It’s all it ever does. The best way to rebuild is to shred the state. Permanently.

    4. Omicron1 Orionis is a binary star in the northeastern corner of the constellation Orion. There is also an Omicron2 Orionis, a single star in the same constellation.

      1. Orion, one of my favourite constellations, especially during the cold, clear nights. Worth taking the telescope out to look at the nebula.

        2. Mine too, but when I was in Chile, I couldn’t get used to his standing on his head.
          Btw, the Stars which make up his belt are known as the 3 Marys in Chile.

  73. Peter Moloney, teacher, humorist, broadcaster and former monk who became a favourite on the after-dinner speaking circuit – obituary. 27 November 2021.

    Peter Moloney, born November 29 1931, died September 29 2021.

    Peter Moloney, who has died aged 89, was a former Trappist monk, an African missionary, and a polymath with a wryly humorous streak which he harnessed to become one of Britain’s most popular after-dinner speakers.

    In his heyday in the 1960s, he enjoyed a brief television career starring in shows including Moloney On … and Only Moloney, and appeared with Joan Bakewell on the religious quiz What’s It All About? (BBC Two, 1975).

    One of his specialisms was linguistics, and as a Liverpudlian wordsmith he enjoyed claiming a particular affinity with Saxo-Celtic Oral Uniate Spoken English (SCOUSE). To his astonishment, an American linguistics professor misinterpreted Moloney’s witticism and visited him after hearing he was the definitive expert.

    Acclaiming Moloney the father-figure of after-dinner speaking, the Telegraph noted that he could make a 40-minute sermon seem like a comedy routine, promising laughter but with a message: “meringue, but with a nutritious inside”.

    With his ascetic cast of features, Moloney managed to combine a seriousness of purpose with a frivolity of approach. It was a winning formula, and he worked hard at it, saying it took him a week to write a minute of speech. “The important thing,” he explained, “is that you have to be psychologically secure about your material.”

    Facing an expansive and expectant after-dinner audience, Moloney would have already identified a strong opening, and was fond of recalling some well-worn advice: “If you don’t strike oil in the first three minutes, stop boring.” Knowing of his Liverpool background, people expected him to demonstrate a talent to amuse.

    One of his curtain-raisers was about a Liverpool sequel to The Silence Of The Lambs – “Shut Up, Ewes”.

    Indeed, Moloney’s material was shot through with references to his home city, where, as he noted with a twinkle, “shoplifting is so rife that some confessional boxes have a sign reading ‘Eight items or less’.”

    But for all the froth, Moloney could always startle, not least when he turned to observations about Merseyside’s long postwar industrial decline, which he believed had led to “the misery of involuntary poverty and the loneliness of unshakeable wealth”.

    “What happened to Liverpool was simple,” he concluded. “The wealth creators just shoved off.” Despite his uncompromising message he invariably succeeded in sending his well-heeled listeners home feeling not berated for their prosperity, but elated at the prospect of sharing it with others.

    One of seven children of a Catholic GP and a nurse, Peter Desmond Moloney was born in Liverpool on November 29 1931. At his surgery in Everton Brow, Dr Moloney shared with his son a love of wordplay, entertaining Peter with talk of “hysterical rectomies” and recalling asking an elderly female patient if she was suffering from “stress evacuation” to be told “No, burruv gorra touch of the trots.”

    Removed from a local prep school allegedly for biting a nun, Peter boarded with his four brothers at Mount St Mary’s at Spinkhill, Derbyshire, a Jesuit school where the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins had once taught and where the young Moloney became the under-16 boxing champion. He won a state scholarship to Oxford but declined, preferring to remain in Liverpool.

    At Liverpool University he was an outstanding linguist, debater, athlete and talented actor, winning admiring reviews for his Gloucester in King Lear. He also held degrees from London and Lancaster universities, as well as the London College of Music and the College of Preceptors, the country’s oldest teaching association.

    Calling himself a “novice papist”, in 1953 Moloney shaved his head and became a Trappist monk, spending two years in the silent order at the Cistercian monastery at Nunraw, east of Edinburgh, rising daily for prayer at 2am.
    Advised by the Lord Abbot that his vocation lay elsewhere, he undertook National Service in the Parachute Regiment, staying on as a second lieutenant for active service in Cyprus, Egypt and Jordan.

    In the 1960s, working with his young wife as missionaries with the Kiltegan Fathers in Nigeria, Moloney built a secondary school in the village of Ikom and became its principal.

    Back in Liverpool, as a young teacher at St Malachy’s School in the Dingle, Moloney recalled a school inspector asking about his class. When one child piped up “We’re the divvies,” the puzzled inspector turned to Moloney for enlightenment.

    Burying his tongue firmly in his cheek, the erudite Moloney unblinkingly explained that “divvy” was derived from divuye, “a term used in the Russian Orthodox Church meaning a searcher who has not quite yet got to his pilgrim’s destination”.

    For 20 years he was a lecturer at Liverpool Polytechnic, now Liverpool John Moores University, teaching communication studies, public oratory and English.

    With a mixture of what he called “great pleasure and indescribable terror” he started taking engagements as an after-dinner speaker, usually black-tie affairs. Ranging all over the country, he soon became identified as an authentic Scouser who, far from conforming to the popular stereotype, could season an essentially serious presentation with cheeky humour.

    “When people hear that you come from Liverpool,” he observed, “they want you to be funny.” He ascribed his success as a communicator to having taught at all levels, from primary to post-doctorate students, and believed the best teachers were – like him – shy extroverts.

    Peter Moloney, who was named Benedictine After Dinner Speaker of the Year in 1990, received an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University in 1999. He was also a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.

    He released an album called A Load of Moloney (1967) and wrote two books on Scouse humour, A Plea for Mersey or the Gentle Art of Insinuendo and Football Mad (both 1966).

    Peter Moloney married, in 1962, Noelene Mullen, a radiographer, with whom he had four daughters, all of whom were contemporaries at Oxford University. His eldest, Catherine Moloney, qualified as a barrister before becoming a successful crime novelist.

    His wife and daughters survive him.

    A figure from my youth when all things seemed possible. I have heard nothing of him for almost sixty years! RIP Mr Moloney!!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/11/26/peter-moloney-teacher-humorist-author-former-monk-became-favourite/

  74. Peter Moloney, teacher, humorist, broadcaster and former monk who became a favourite on the after-dinner speaking circuit – obituary. 27 November 2021.

    Peter Moloney, born November 29 1931, died September 29 2021.

    Peter Moloney, who has died aged 89, was a former Trappist monk, an African missionary, and a polymath with a wryly humorous streak which he harnessed to become one of Britain’s most popular after-dinner speakers.

    In his heyday in the 1960s, he enjoyed a brief television career starring in shows including Moloney On … and Only Moloney, and appeared with Joan Bakewell on the religious quiz What’s It All About? (BBC Two, 1975).

    One of his specialisms was linguistics, and as a Liverpudlian wordsmith he enjoyed claiming a particular affinity with Saxo-Celtic Oral Uniate Spoken English (SCOUSE). To his astonishment, an American linguistics professor misinterpreted Moloney’s witticism and visited him after hearing he was the definitive expert.

    Acclaiming Moloney the father-figure of after-dinner speaking, the Telegraph noted that he could make a 40-minute sermon seem like a comedy routine, promising laughter but with a message: “meringue, but with a nutritious inside”.

    With his ascetic cast of features, Moloney managed to combine a seriousness of purpose with a frivolity of approach. It was a winning formula, and he worked hard at it, saying it took him a week to write a minute of speech. “The important thing,” he explained, “is that you have to be psychologically secure about your material.”

    Facing an expansive and expectant after-dinner audience, Moloney would have already identified a strong opening, and was fond of recalling some well-worn advice: “If you don’t strike oil in the first three minutes, stop boring.” Knowing of his Liverpool background, people expected him to demonstrate a talent to amuse.

    One of his curtain-raisers was about a Liverpool sequel to The Silence Of The Lambs – “Shut Up, Ewes”.

    Indeed, Moloney’s material was shot through with references to his home city, where, as he noted with a twinkle, “shoplifting is so rife that some confessional boxes have a sign reading ‘Eight items or less’.”

    But for all the froth, Moloney could always startle, not least when he turned to observations about Merseyside’s long postwar industrial decline, which he believed had led to “the misery of involuntary poverty and the loneliness of unshakeable wealth”.

    “What happened to Liverpool was simple,” he concluded. “The wealth creators just shoved off.” Despite his uncompromising message he invariably succeeded in sending his well-heeled listeners home feeling not berated for their prosperity, but elated at the prospect of sharing it with others.

    One of seven children of a Catholic GP and a nurse, Peter Desmond Moloney was born in Liverpool on November 29 1931. At his surgery in Everton Brow, Dr Moloney shared with his son a love of wordplay, entertaining Peter with talk of “hysterical rectomies” and recalling asking an elderly female patient if she was suffering from “stress evacuation” to be told “No, burruv gorra touch of the trots.”

    Removed from a local prep school allegedly for biting a nun, Peter boarded with his four brothers at Mount St Mary’s at Spinkhill, Derbyshire, a Jesuit school where the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins had once taught and where the young Moloney became the under-16 boxing champion. He won a state scholarship to Oxford but declined, preferring to remain in Liverpool.

    At Liverpool University he was an outstanding linguist, debater, athlete and talented actor, winning admiring reviews for his Gloucester in King Lear. He also held degrees from London and Lancaster universities, as well as the London College of Music and the College of Preceptors, the country’s oldest teaching association.

    Calling himself a “novice papist”, in 1953 Moloney shaved his head and became a Trappist monk, spending two years in the silent order at the Cistercian monastery at Nunraw, east of Edinburgh, rising daily for prayer at 2am.
    Advised by the Lord Abbot that his vocation lay elsewhere, he undertook National Service in the Parachute Regiment, staying on as a second lieutenant for active service in Cyprus, Egypt and Jordan.

    In the 1960s, working with his young wife as missionaries with the Kiltegan Fathers in Nigeria, Moloney built a secondary school in the village of Ikom and became its principal.

    Back in Liverpool, as a young teacher at St Malachy’s School in the Dingle, Moloney recalled a school inspector asking about his class. When one child piped up “We’re the divvies,” the puzzled inspector turned to Moloney for enlightenment.

    Burying his tongue firmly in his cheek, the erudite Moloney unblinkingly explained that “divvy” was derived from divuye, “a term used in the Russian Orthodox Church meaning a searcher who has not quite yet got to his pilgrim’s destination”.

    For 20 years he was a lecturer at Liverpool Polytechnic, now Liverpool John Moores University, teaching communication studies, public oratory and English.

    With a mixture of what he called “great pleasure and indescribable terror” he started taking engagements as an after-dinner speaker, usually black-tie affairs. Ranging all over the country, he soon became identified as an authentic Scouser who, far from conforming to the popular stereotype, could season an essentially serious presentation with cheeky humour.

    “When people hear that you come from Liverpool,” he observed, “they want you to be funny.” He ascribed his success as a communicator to having taught at all levels, from primary to post-doctorate students, and believed the best teachers were – like him – shy extroverts.

    Peter Moloney, who was named Benedictine After Dinner Speaker of the Year in 1990, received an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University in 1999. He was also a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.

    He released an album called A Load of Moloney (1967) and wrote two books on Scouse humour, A Plea for Mersey or the Gentle Art of Insinuendo and Football Mad (both 1966).

    Peter Moloney married, in 1962, Noelene Mullen, a radiographer, with whom he had four daughters, all of whom were contemporaries at Oxford University. His eldest, Catherine Moloney, qualified as a barrister before becoming a successful crime novelist.

    His wife and daughters survive him.

    A figure from my youth when all things seemed possible. I have heard nothing of him for almost sixty years! RIP Mr Moloney!!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/11/26/peter-moloney-teacher-humorist-author-former-monk-became-favourite/

  75. Lunch chez Korky on a cold, damp, windy and now thoroughly miserable day. Nothing special but wholesome, warming and filling.
    Homemade steak and vegetable pie; King Edward spuds mashed with butter, a dash of whole milk and several grindings of black pepper, savoy cabbage braised in butter and finished off with some freshly ground cumin seeds and last but not least, bog standard steamed carrots. The gravy, or should that be jus? I had to concoct as I used all the meat stock in the pie. Washed down with the remainder of the Banks’ Amber Ale that didn’t end up in the gravy.
    Not trying to out do Grizz on the cooking front, perish the thought, but I thought posting different pieces of irrelevant nonsense, the young lady’s assets for starters, might help ease the mood on here. Sadly, we have two Nottlers with tragic personal problems, best wishes for good outcomes to them, of course, plus the ongoing government attack on our freedoms. I do not have the fund of Laffs that Rick has at his finger tips so here we are, for goodness sake, a plate of food!🙄🙄🙄

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/554cde40319770d0306d15012e64ecaf251c2ab2fbed2506c4151484497bad92.jpg

        1. Everyone’s cooking is better than his.

          His best buddy Genarro Contaldo appeared on the Saturday Kitchen prog.

          A first year catering student could have made a better job of filleting and skinning a fish. And he calls himself a Chef.

        2. He only got the gig because a female producer of a Channel 4 documentary on The River Café (where he was a kitchen lad) thought he was “cute and cheeky” (i.e. overbearingly gobby!).

          I’ve lost count of the number of times proper chefs have complained about him messing up and destroying their proper recipes through his gormless cluelessness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_KdbASIkB8&t=53s

    3. Nice! Superb lunch… we had yellow pea soup. Nice ‘n warming, as it’s -5 and snowing -and, I wuz working as well!

      2. I made a large panful of ärtsoppa last week. I put some chopped ham in it and a pinch, each, of oregano, thyme and sage.

        1. Nice!
          SWMBO & Firstborn have invented a mild blue Caerphilly cheese (by accident).
          It’s really rather good… Full fat cheese, acid, soft & crumbly, with mild blue flavour. Excellent!
          The home-made sauerkraut has turned out really well, too.

          1. Food doesn’t need to be over-complicated: it is so easy to knacker good food by too much fannying around with it.

        1. When I have attained my desired weight, I shall celebrate with a pie, and I hope it looks (and tastes) half as good as yours does. 👍🏻

          1. Thanks for the compliment, Grizz. I’m sure from what you’ve shown us you’re more than capable of making a delicious steak pie.

          2. A little mayo, some olive oil and lots of black pepper.
            How’s your mum doing? Any luck with the phone conference?

          3. No conference. Social worker has vanished… Two care homes lined up, awaiting a Go ref sale of house. Mother still mazed…

          4. Oh lawdy Obers, I am sorry. It is so worrying for you being so far away. Will keep you in my thoughts, along with Alf &VW and Craggers.

      3. Can’t beat a savoy but I haven’t the room to grow them now. Learning to braise cabbage in butter taught me never to boil cabbage again.

    9. I do commend you on your pastry. I am a reasonable cook. In 1964 I did a course at the – then – very new Cordon Bleu School in Marylebone Lane. Though I learned all sorts of things, the one thing I simply couldn’t do was pastry. 57 years later – that lack is sill evident! The MR does all sorts of pastry brilliantly. Mine always looked like a cross between playdoh and plasticine – and about as appetising!

      1. You are overworking it. Just pulse the fat, flour and salt in a processor for a few seconds until you get breadcrumb texture. Add just enough cold water to bring it together and rest in the fridge for half an hour before rolling out. Don’t knead it !

        Stupid boy !

      2. Thank you, BT. Depends on the style of pastry. I’ve struggled with both Pâte Sucrée and hot water pastry as I find them hard to work with. Short crust and flaky are fine along with a sweet shortcrust for flans. The latter made, as Phizzee recommends, in a processor on pulse.until the butter is not fully incorporated and resembles half of a peitit pois; no water but an egg to bind the dough. I enjoy the challenge of learning and doing, especially at this time of the year when outside work is either impossible or uncomfortable.

  76. Shyte weather here just now. The wind has been gathering pace – supposed to peak about 10 pm. Rain, too – though that won;t last more than a few hours.

    Cats very put out. Forced to sleep on the best chairs by the stove.

    2. The storm’s more or less died down here now – the wind was perishing and we had a blizzard for a while, but it didn’t last too long. Just a foretaste of winter.

  77. I’ve lit the woodburning stove in my library which is now glowing merrily and have sat myself down in my most comfortable chair with Summer Moonshine, an old P.G. Wodehouse novel written in 1937.

    Life can be very peasant if you insulate yourself from reality and forget the world we live in today.

    1. I discovered PG Wodehouse at college and have loved the books ever since. Not too keen on Jeeves but I adore the Blandings Castle stories.

        1. Brought over to England from Ireland in lemonade bottles.

          At a garden party the host kept topping up my glass and i kept throwing it in the flower border.

    3. We’re having the first woodstove fire of the season tonight. The snow didn’t last long but the north wind was fierce.

      I went to table tennis practice this morning – that warmed me up!

  78. Recovering from a wonderful Thanksgiving day, hosted by daughter and son-in-law, a real coming together of English and American traditions! Even the sprouts were excellent, she roasted them with bacon and tiny pearl onions. Dessert was a tough decision, Apple crumble, raspberry cheesecake or pumpkin roulade. Need to stop eating now, until the next feast!!

    2. Oh, it sounds lovely. But what a waste of the onions and bacon.

      Just boil the sprouts in water. As many as you can, in a huge vat.

      Then, keep the water going but find a large, thick black bin liner. Pour the sprouts into the bin liner to save anyone else the misery of that loathesome vegetable.

      2. Have you tried pink sprouts? They are slightly sweet & not at all bitter. W/rose sometimes has them.

    3. Last one I heard was Delta. What happened to Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa and Lambda.

      I have seen only one reference to Mu, nothing on Nu or Xi

    4. Apparently Fataturk has announced that the moronic variant can be spread by double jabbed people – since that also applies, as I understand it, to the other variants as well, I fail to see why it’s important? A number of real scientists are advising a lack of panic – Boris doesn’t seem to be listening to them!

      1. Ah, Whitty’s just let the cat out of the bag. Apparently the vaccines can only partly protect against the moronic variant so it’s really, really important we all get the booster……………….nope, didn’t see that one coming

      2. The prat wants to emulate Churchill but panics at the news of a variant before anything is really known about it. If this was 1940 the abominable Prime Minister would be on Dover cliffs with all the white sheets he could commandeer. Leadership? He wouldn’t recognise that concept if it reared up and bit his arse.

  82. Firstborn pricing pig “components” & checking with supermarkey & speciality prices… Good pork is expensive!

    1. I buy pork chops from Pipers farm. Just under a fiver each. Very tasty though and cheaper than dining out.

      1. I have a kilo of belly pork from Pipers coming in the next few days. Half teryaki and half chinese five spice. Very slow cook then portion into 2inch cubes for the freezer.

        To get the crispy skin back just fry a portion gently skin side down.

        Doesn’t last long.

  84. Heyup All!
    Got back 14:00ish after a diversion off the M42 because of a long delay.
    A lot more snow up here than in Oxfordshire!

          1. Hmm. Some of your posts make me wonder..{:¬))

            I don’t see why J Oliver bothers you. All his recipes are stolen – and some are very useful. His “cheeky chappy” persona grates – but – as a telly cook – he is less irritating that a lot of sweary, loud-mouthed, self-promoters…

          2. He takes classic recipes and then adds lots of unnecessary ingredients. That isn’t being a Chef. That is being an idiot.

            I don’t care for the enfants terribles Ramsay and Pierre White either. Appalling attitude to their staff.

            Gordon Ramsay’s Chef just quit at the Savoy Grill and Pierre White is flogging Knorr stockpot glue.

            Marcus Wareing and Jason Atherton both told Ramsay to go to hell and Ramsay called Raymond Blanc a little French twat. Horrible people.

            Raymond Blanc’s Kitchens at Le Manoir Aux Quatre Saisons is an oasis of calm and professionalism even during service.

            I wouldn’t eat in a Ramsay or Oliver Restaurant even if it were free.

            Said the cook.

          3. Fortunately, I do not watch any cooking progs (of which there appear to be far too many). And I no longer eat out because it entails motoring and I never drink when I have to drive. Nor does the MR – so we are a touch stymied.

            When we travelled to and from yer France, we DID eat out on each of the two nights on each leg of the trip. As the journeys were always the same – we found and regularly patronised four different places – where we became known and were treated as regulars (handshakes, names remembered) – even though we only went three times a year.

            That I miss. And I fear will never be able to revisit.

            The “Le Beauvoir” in Bourges was a magnificent family restaurant with cooking of the highest standard. Always full. Son-in-law has taken over from Ma and Pa who ran it for 40 years. I just HOPE that one day we can return.

      2. I keep getting texts and letters to get me to sign up for a “Covid testing programme” to help the nation’s health. I delete the texts and burn the letters (they could be contaminated and one can’t be too careful ). The last one said it was my “last chance” – thank goodness for that, then. Hopefully now they’ll leave me alone.

    2. Note their use of the word ‘monstrous’. Guaranteed to get the bed-wetters quaking. From what I have read here and there, while this moronic variant might spread more easily, it is far less likely to lead to serious illness, hospitalisation or death.
      I’m a coward at heart (well, can’t deal with nasty comments or looks) so will get one of those silly clear face shields. No less useless than masks but at least my glasses won’t steam up.

      1. Those things are actually quite difficult to see through. There’s little point in me having an expensive varifocal lens for my good eye if I’m just going to shove a blurry piece of plastic in front of it.

    1. Racism is already defined quite clearly. The problem is it’s not broad enough for the racists to agree with. There’s also the danger it could apply to da blicks as well.

      For example, a Lefty wants ‘racism’ to define as ‘being white’. Yes, they are completely blind to their own bigotry.

  87. 342055+ up ticks,

    South African doctor who raised alarm about omicron variant says symptoms are ‘unusual but mild’
    Dr Angelique Coetze noticed otherwise healthy patients demonstrating unusual symptoms and worries how the new variant might hurt the elderly.

    I believe they are in great danger of falling off their zimmers …with laughter.

    The fat turk & co will soon boost the terror aspects, the healthy patients demonstrating unusual symptoms, to a man they not asked but DEMANDED tory (ino) membership enrollment forms.

    1. I imagine they all had to be switched off so that they didn’t spin out of control….those rather missing the whole point!

          2. Note that a lot of the ‘green’ comes from overseas through connectors. It’s not ours, it’s theirs.

            Yet again, wind is a nonsense deceit.

    3. Likely none. They’re blocked in 200 tons of concrete – on shore – and 400 tons offshore. Because concrete is environmentally friendly. Oh, but the blades not turning will do wonders for wildlife – it won’t be killing them, nor disrupting those animals that navigate by magnetics.

      But hey. Green is vastly more important than reality.

      2. You’ll never see one fallen over for the same reason you never see a broken-down Rolls Royce by the roadside – the dealer will arrange for a covered van to pick it up pronto.

    1. Politicising the NHS by linking it in with authoritarian government policy strikes me as being one of the Conservatives’ worse ideas.
      The name of the NHS is going to become toxic.

    2. Very clever.
      Panic over nothing. This variant is even less of a ‘danger’ than previous versions. That what viruses do – become less of a risk to health with each new version.

    4. Two plusses: I walk rather than use the bus and stop shopping again.
      My weight goes down and my bank balance goes up.

    5. When folk point out the absurdity of the double standard he’s likely to say oh yes and impose the condition on hospitality (by popular demand) Sheesh!

  90. Just heard from my daughter – she was on a protest in an Austrian regional city today. Population 100 000, demonstration ten thousand! Not bad, especially as these demonstrations were happening all over Austria, so it really was just people from their region. The mandatory vaxxing issue has got the country riled up.

    1. Some reports started to appear in the UK media about the various protests – is the media blackout (apologies to any cricketers reading this) slowly loosening?

    3. 2 cases of this supposed virus- 3 people have been killed by this latest storm. I am so sick of all this bloody nonsense, I really am. Have decided to carry on ignoring it all; I would like to see some spotty oik in Asda trying to make me wear a mask. Grrrrr.

    4. I believe the Chinese leader Xi and the Greek letter Xi are pronounced differently. Anyway, which dictator is called ‘Nu’?

  93. Climate extremists have terrified a generation into not wanting children

    Instead of combating this alarmist ideology with facts and reason, our authority figures have only pandered to it

    DOUGLAS MURRAY
    27 November 2021 • 6:00pm

    In many ways it is a miracle that the human species has survived at all. Never mind the various natural disasters to which we have been prey, we have had to survive that greatest challenge to our species: ourselves. And yet somehow we are still here, thanks to people having children and raising families through the bleakest imaginable periods.

    People still had children in the midst of the Black Death and the Great Plague. During centuries of pestilence and famine people still raised families. Even throughout the horrors of the 20th century and in the shadow of nuclear annihilation, humankind continued to express hope in the future through the gift of new life.

    So it is not just strange but alarming that our era is seeing an increase in the number of people who believe that it is not just their choice, but their duty, to avoid having children. An analysis carried out earlier this year found that the “movement to not have children owing to fears over climate change is growing and impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline”.

    It is an increasingly popular view, parroted by celebrities and politicians alike: “Why have children when we are facing climate change?”

    The Left-wing US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that young people are asking a “legitimate question” when they say: “Is it OK to still have children?”

    Pop star Miley Cyrus has mulled the same dilemma. “We’re getting handed a piece of s— planet,” she said in one interview, “and I refuse to hand that down to my child. Until I feel like my kid would live on an earth with fish in the water, I’m not bringing in another person to deal with that.”

    One wonders what delegation of marine experts and fishermen might satisfy Miley’s concerns and assure her that the conditions for reproduction were indeed in place again.

    Yet while it is easy for adults to scoff at such insane scare-mongering, the evidence suggests that many young people do not dismiss such talk, nor laugh at it. They are taking it deadly seriously. And the adults are failing to correct them.

    In a speech to headteachers earlier this month, the headmistress of Benenden School, Samantha Price, said that teachers and other adults should take children’s climate worries far more seriously than they currently do. Rather than dismissing them, Mrs Price said that children should be encouraged so that their “passion” for subjects from sustainability through to equality does not “end up just going by the wayside”.

    While Price drew the line at pupils following Greta Thunberg’s lead in abandoning lessons to make their point, she did say that their “ideas” on how to improve the climate should be raised within their schools.

    And, in its way, Price’s speech was a prime example of the problem that a generation of adults have set up for the next generation. Children do not leap forth into the world with original worldviews, let alone planetary solutions of their own. They first repeat what they have been told and then tend to go from there.

    For a generation, politicians and others have told children the most doom-laden stories possible. They have told them that the apocalypse is imminent. They have told them that they may never even get to grow up. They have told them that capitalism is destroying the planet and killing its inhabitants. They have failed to explain that capitalism has raised a billion people out of extreme poverty just in the 21st century so far.

    Instead, they have taken the most fanatical rhetoric into the mainstream, claiming that our planet is on the cusp of annihilation and only a return to some sort of pre-industrial society could possibly save us.

    They have given a megaphone to the most radical climate alarmists, and almost everybody in positions of authority has joined in parroting the same megaphoned message.

    Only a few years ago Boris Johnson could be seen in these very pages telling people that we needed to cool the rhetoric on global warming. Fast-forward to earlier this month in Glasgow and the same Boris Johnson could be found telling Cop26 that we had just one minute left to save the planet.

    Of course, young people do not just listen to celebrities and political leaders, they also notice what is permitted in the world around them. And in the UK at present you are allowed to get away with pretty much anything so long as you say that 
you are doing it in the name of 
 saving the planet. Or “insulating” Britain’s homes, to use the most bathetic recent slogan of this offshoot of the extremists at Extinction Rebellion.

    This alarmist movement is much closer to an end-time cult than anything resembling scientific activism. Their claims do not stand up to the most basic scrutiny. But if you are a member of Extinction Rebellion the problem is not what you say, the problem is that there is almost nothing you are not allowed to do.

    You are allowed to prevent newspapers from leaving the print factories (as XR did last year) and receive the most minimal slap on the wrist for this assault on the free press. You can plonk yourself in the centre of the nation’s highways, trying to cause maximum disruption to an economy still desperately struggling to get back to normal.

    And if you do that then the police will most likely just stand around, observing you with interest. Though woe betide any member of the public who does the job the police should do and haul these protestors out of their paths. We built up to this moment.

    Two years ago XR extremists carried out criminal damage on the UK headquarters of the energy giant Shell. Rather surprisingly they were actually arrested and put on trial. The judge in their case declared that the majority of the defendants had absolutely no defence under the law. And yet a jury found all the accused “not guilty”.

    One of the defendants crowed afterwards that the fact that no jury would convict them for their crimes was a sign of “truth”.

    “A broken window is a just response to a breaking world,” he said, imperiously.

    The verdict was less a sign of truth than it was an invitation to anarchy. Because of course if you decide that we are all about to die there is very little you might not permit to be done to stop it.

    Instead of countering such extremism, figures in authority everywhere have been giving out the message that it is acceptable to do the most outrageous things, and make the most outrageous claims so long as you are doing so in defence of “the planet”.

    At the centre of this is a terrific fallacy. For the younger generation are merely repeating what they have been told. And because they are young they are highly likely to become defeatist or depressed.

    Not just because the situation has been presented as so appallingly bad. But because there is no way that they are yet informed enough to come up with the sort of innovative solutions that will be needed to allow our whole planet to some day come off fossil fuels. They inevitably bash against the limits of their own knowledge, because they have been taught what to think, rather than how to think.

    And so this feeds this strange contemporary delusion that we must feel that the future is completely certain before we can consider bringing children into the world. Or that the optimal financial or climactic positions must be in place. And that unless this future is assured then reproduction is not just a pain but an outrage. As it happens we have countered this before.

    In the autumn of 1939, C S Lewis preached a remarkable sermon at the University Church in Oxford. One part particularly stands out today.

    For, as Lewis says, human life “has always been lived on the edge of a precipice”. We have always had to live with terrible shadows before us. But as he puts it: “If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun.”

    It is the same when it comes to reproduction. If our species had always waited for the optimal conditions to be in place for reproduction then we would not be here today. The conditions never were optimal. Other species might choose their own paths. But mankind is different from them.

    As Lewis concludes: “[We] propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.”

    That remains quite as true today as it was in 1939. Today’s climate extremists have terrified a generation. In order for there to be a next generation, this one should be not further terrified, but better educated and better consoled.

    1. Surprisingly naive article from Douglas Murray. People didn’t carry on having children during the Black Death, they carried on having sex!
      The difference nowadays is that they can choose to make that sterile.

    2. Douglas needs to look at Africa, where they have many children precisely because of famine, drought and disease – for the same reason that Victorians had large families. The problem is that in the past 50 years the West has stepped in and kept many more African children alive, hence the explosion in population, which is a far greater issue than climate change.

    3. There is, however, a certain demographic which continues to pop out sprogs at an alarming rate. It’s almost as if they want to take over …

      1. “5 Minutes to Midnight” Johnson is about to present us with his 6th (?) 7th(?) acknowledged child.

        1. Hopefully at least some will be more intelligent – after all, that’s not a difficult target!

  94. That’s me gone for this stormy day. Hope tomorrow is better.

    Have a lovely evening digging out your old masks.

    A demain.

    1. Well that’s got as many holes in as a Swiss cheese! How come they’ve got covid if they’ve all been tested regularly? And if they’re all vaccinated, shouldn’t they be protected from nasty side effects?

      1. 342055+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2,
        It all boils down to if they were jabbed Monday,Wednesday,or Friday I believe.

    2. 342055+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Heard that among the politico’s & elites hollow tooth implants are reaching plague level, og.

    3. Instead of listening to Gates – does he have any medical credentials? – these low grade non-journalists should listen to a real cardiologist and CV-19 expert, Dr Peter McCullough. The only agenda Dr McCullough is following is good health for all.

    1. “The occupants are in no way suspected of being involved in Ava’s death, said Merseyside Police.”

      Depends what they were carrying in the van late at night…

    2. “The occupants are in no way suspected of being involved in Ava’s death, said Merseyside Police.”

      Depends what they were carrying in the van late at night…

  99. Evening, all, from a gale-swept North Shropshire. I’ve lost several garden items wrecked by the wind and large, heavy pots have been blown over! As to the headline; it isn’t a “tragedy” it’s a disaster for us on our small island and both Bojo and Macron are exploiting the situation for their own ends, none of which involves the welfare of the British people.

  101. Sainsburys might suffer with the dystopian shopping, but Amazon should get a booster, I’m betting their shares will rise on Monday.

  102. Somebody said earlier, that a still tongue makes a happy life.

    I said that i prefer mature cheddar myself.

    1. In this house:
      Me, Alexa, do you mind if I whine?
      Alexa, I have added wine to your shopping list.
      ;-))

  106. It’s the Women’s FA Cup tomorrow. While most of the participants will be athletic and sturdy, I can only envisage Chichester and Selsey Ladies taking the field with pots of Earl Grey, bone china cups & saucers and cake stands adorned with slices of Victoria sponge cake.

  107. Good night all

    Baked cod loin with lava (seaweed) butter, on a bed of Med-veg couscous. Baron de Ley white Rioja 2019.
    A custard tart with heaps of blueberries.

  108. More than 80,000 rugby fans who attended the England versus South Africa game at Twickenham last weekend are being urged to come forward for testing if they have Covid symptoms in a bid to stamp out the new omicron variant before it gets a grip on the British population.

    The game operated a strict Covid pass system meaning that spectators had to show evidence of double vaccination and a negative lateral flow test but the new variant is thought to be highly contagious and may be able to evade vaccines.

    On Saturday, Munira Wilson, the MP for the area who is also the Liberal Democrats health spokesperson, said: “While I’m confident the RFU will have had the necessary protocols in place to prevent any potential spread, this serves as a reminder that we all must remain vigilant in the fight against this virus.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/fears-twickenham-rugby-match-may-have-omicron-superspreader/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0rp-HBej0ZbgB1bHQLaUHfUSc57DJvx7coQZRBXjbhBpYYbwPAf4kLhe8#Echobox=1638040327-1

    1. I was there. I saw no evidence of any checks on COVID vaccination status. Needless to say, I will not be taking a test.

    2. Oh what bollocks. Not you Belle but this is out of control and, as I posted earlier, I have had enough.
      On a lighter note, Neil Oliver was good tonight as he had a segment about the Brontes who were the topic of my final paper at college. And also about a Yorkshire village that fell into the sea in the mid 14th C. I was rabbiting on about the weather in the 14th C a couple of weeks ago. There were almost 3 years of rain, floods, failed harvests and starving livestock which had to be slaughtered. This all led to the Great Famine. And, I firmly believe was a contributing factor for the Peasants Revolt in 1381.
      It is why I like Neil Oliver; he does not bang on about politics all the time although he certainly covers it but he talks about other things. Anything with history and literature has me hooked.

        2. Neil dealt sympathetically with an arsehole guest who had swallowed the government narrative, hook, line and sinker.

          Neil showed great reserve and tolerance when responding to the brainwashed jerk. The jerk asserted that we should all comply with vaccinations and mask wearing. What a tosser.

        3. Neil dealt sympathetically with an arsehole guest who had swallowed the government narrative, hook, line and sinker.

          Neil showed great reserve and tolerance when responding to the brainwashed jerk. The jerk asserted that we should all comply with vaccinations and mask wearing. What a tosser.

    3. Ramping up the testing. Got to get those false positives rolling in to get those ‘cases’. In order to ramp up the fear again.

  111. I have just seen this: The World’s First Vaccine Murder Case filed against Bill Gates at India’s High Court, posted by the Indian Bar Association. I do not know how significant this is. I know that he was hounded out of both India and Africa for his polio and tetanus vaccine injuries, maiming, sterilisation and death and causing a fiercer strain of polio to emerge from his leaky vaccines (there is a pattern developing there…!). https://indianbarassociation.in/worlds-first-vaccine-murder-case-against-bill-gates-adar-poonawalla-filed-in-indias-high-court/

    1. The World will get Gates eventually. The man is a human virus and pure evil.

      I imagine that our own Fataturk and his corrupt cohorts might imagine that they are safe from prosecution. They are not.

      The evidence is mounting daily that they have committed crimes against humanity with their lockdown and vaccination dictates and coercion directed for healthy people to take experimental vaccines. The vaccines are the killer bio-weapons as is now bloody obvious to anyone with half a brain.

      I agree with LotL that this nonsense is out of control and makes no sense to the sentient. We have been played for two years by a bunch of criminal politicians in the pay of Pharma giants, ably assisted by the BBC and other utterly prejudiced organs of the State, as mirrored in America with CNN, MSNBC and a multitude of other crony Bezos and Soros sponsored stations.

      1. Gates is influential, but he’s not the ultimate power. That is the families who own Vanguard, at a guess.

  112. I thought my cat was injured and had blood on her leg – couldn’t find the wound though, and on closer inspection I realised it was chocolate. And it was a bit messy on my trousers too. I’d dropped a small bit and it had melted while she sat on my lap.

  113. From Twitter:

    “Omicron “presents mild disease with symptoms being sore muscles and tiredness for a day or two not feeling well. […] as medical practitioners, we do not know why so much hype is being driven”
    Angelique Coetzee, chairwoman of The South Africa Medicines Agency”
    #DoNotComply https://pic.twitter.com/aaVERHg4on

    Night-night, folks. Sleep peacefully, if you can.

    1. The symptoms continue to change and the latest, reported above, do not mention any respiratory symptoms. What, therefore, is the problem? I can’t believe that the NHS is going to be overwhelmed by people with a few aching muscles and tiredness that lasts a couple of days. I remember having illnesses with those symptoms in my younger days: cure was, stay warm, keep yourself hydrated and an analgesic to ease any aches and pains. On the current evidence Johnson’s reaction is way OTT. Of course, we all know why, don’t we?

      1. Omicron will be used as a cover for what is really going on, the collapse of people on sportsfields and presumably elsewhere that we don’t really hear about… an excuse for the myocarditis, clots etc. I feel in a week or two we will be hearing about OMG! people falling in the streets due to ‘omicron’ in response to what actually is, the ‘booster’. As they did in China March 2020 in those dubious videos, so many will have seen it before and think it perfectly credible.

    2. Tch tch South Africa is not on message…more bungs urgently needed.
      Hopefully this mild variant will crowd out the more dangerous ones.
      I don’t think they will stop the scam though – they will simply launch the next “crisis” – smallpox or bringing down the internet, take your pick.

  114. A great 70th party at my fishing friend’s house. Brilliant company. Just embarrassed at how fantastically they keep the ‘big hoose’ so immaculate. I’m drunk as a lord.

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