Saturday 30 April: A horrible experience hoping for a passport, endlessly phoning and then getting nothing

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

521 thoughts on “Saturday 30 April: A horrible experience hoping for a passport, endlessly phoning and then getting nothing”

      1. Morning Elsie
        Sorry for late update – i just did a health check on my smart watch to make sure I wasn’t dead and just dreaming I was Nottling!

  4. Igor Ivanovich Strelkov. 28 April 2022.

    Regarding the situation at Donetsk frontline (Ido not have any information about other frontlines):

    Continuing are fierce fights along the whole perimeter of the Russian foothold. Tactical advances can be observed everywhere. According to incoming data, the most fierce fights are happening on the right flank – in the area of Velika Kamyshevakha village (and possibly, directly in the village), but also at the spearhead of the offensive – in the middle of the foothold – in the area of (and possibly, inside) Nova Dmitrovka village. After capturing this locality our forces will directly reach the Barvenkovo-Sloviansk highway and create a danger for its takeover (which will not be easy, since localities along this highway merge into almost a continuous agglomeration). It’s important to note that fights are of a continuous, close nature. The enemy has enough manpower to prevent Russian troops from making deep breakthroughs despite the lengthening of the frontline in this area.

    At the same time, the enemy continues pulling out their forces from the foothold that is still under their control on the left bank of the Sever Donets river – from Lyman-Yampol area and the Severodonetsk salient, leaving the positions most protruding to the east, between Severodonetsk and Popasna (where fierce fights continue).

    It’s presumed that soon (today or tomorrow) the enemy will leave Lyman and withdraw its troops to reinforce flanks of the group – to Barvenkovo and Sloviansk. Russian and DPR Armed Forces were unable to prevent this and surround the enemy forces.

    Overall, the enemy is defending competently, fiercly, it controls the situation and its troops.
    No panic among UAF troops is observed. It’s clear that their bet is on WINNING TIME AND DEALING MAXIMUM DAMAGE TO STRIKE FORCES OF RUSSIAN AND DPR AF – by slowly forfeiting territories.

    Ahead of Russian troops in this territory is a huge and well prepared for defending Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration. The UAF will certainly not give it up for as long as they can, defending it as a “besieeged fortress” if necessary. (In this regard very high importance is given to remains of the Mariupol garrison – they should not be freed up and transferred in any case, otherwise the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk garrison will be defending for just as long and desperately, if not longer and even more desperately). However, this “fortress” still needs to be surrounded, which is not easy with existing limited forces and such slow tempo where the enemy is able to freely withdraw their troops and prepare new defense positions.

    In the south – in the area of Huliaipole and Orekhovo, the situation is without significant changes. The southern part of the pincer has stalled.

    In the central area – near Donetsk, the situation is generally without changes. It’s quiet in most areas, fights are only occurring north of Avdeevka where DPR Armed Forces have insignificant tactical successes.

    The general conclusion is unfortunately not joyful – the expected (by the enemy) offensive of the Russian group to encircle the Donetsk group of Ukrainian armed forces met fierce resistance and will most likely not lead to a complete encirclement and destruction of the enemy group (unless 2-3 tank corps “fall from the sky” to urgently break through the frontline and link up deep in the UAF rears). The “Cannae” certainly didn’t happen.
    In the best case scenario, the enemy will be slowly “pushed out” of Donbas with large losses (for both sides of course) across many weeks and possibly many months. This will allow them, without major rush, by summer, to create and introduce into the fight their strategic reserves en-masse at any chosen area.

    This account of the fighting in the Donbass area (unlike anything in the MSM where it is deliberately omitted) is almost certainly true. The Russians are advancing steadily against fierce opposition from the Ukrainians with both sides suffering heavy losses. The drawback here; from the Russian point of view, is that the Ukies are falling back on their own supply lines and the Russians are extending theirs when they already have serious logistics problems. This is not the worst of the Russian situation. The Ukrainians are amassing a strategic reserve, not just of men, but also materiel. When the time comes they will be able to use this to punch a hole through the Russian perimeter at any point they choose and collapse the entire position. At this moment unless he has also amassed a reserve (of which there is no sign) Vlad will have to decide whether to suffer defeat or up the ante by going nuclear. This also has implications for negotiations. The Americans (it is they that are directing this effort) will not allow Zelensky to make a deal that will deprive them of victory!

    https://turcopolier.com/igor-ivanovich-strelkov-ttg/

    https://www.politico.eu/article/soldier-spy-strelkov-snipes-from-sidelines-at-russias-setbacks-in-ukraine/

  5. Good morning all.
    Last morning here in Wild Welsh Wales so I got up early:-

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba9a943db0f9fca915a15aa0d098c827c15b54ad01a057bc73ac327d95148303.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15677c7041b424b982f5c83261f42b375919591343899af6902ce5ed5ded23c1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/143e431864ee503b534b230da8b15eb9c9727b3ea060686594e116336dcef900.jpg

    One of the locals did not seem too impressed though:-

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4df2575c548dc68c428cd686d829ff0a1521fc98e8627871027fb77c66c6a766.jpg

  6. 352312+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    ‘Porn MP’ Neil Parish refuses to quit as he loses whip
    MP for Tiverton and Honiton says he will continue to carry out duties as wife says: ‘It’s so stupid. He’s such a good person’

    Left in place he could be a nucleus for a
    rainbow club there surely is enough material
    along with the Koran between the two dispatch boxes & halal on the parliamentary canteen menu what could possible go wrong.

  7. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – Last September, we were looking forward to going to Greece with our friends after lockdown. My husband applied for a new passport in plenty of time and never contemplated it would not arrive.

    After weeks and weeks, and about a fortnight before travelling, he rang the Passport Office. All apparently was fine, but no passport arrived. More daily telephone calls – sitting in a queue for hours.

    Then more reassurance – all was going to be fine. More calls, more useless reassurance. We honestly felt it would arrive in time; how wrong we were. His passport never arrived.

    We couldn’t go and we let down our friends. Our flights were wasted. It was the most demoralising, exhausting process, with the worst service imaginable. I feel so sorry for other people experiencing this now. It was horrible.

    I am delighted the Prime Minister is considering privatising the Passport Office. It is simply unfit for purpose.

    Angela Stucley
    East Worlington, Devon

    Covid has effectively left us, and so should those who are responsible for the Passport Office! Silence of course from Johnson and JRM…

  8. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – Last September, we were looking forward to going to Greece with our friends after lockdown. My husband applied for a new passport in plenty of time and never contemplated it would not arrive.

    After weeks and weeks, and about a fortnight before travelling, he rang the Passport Office. All apparently was fine, but no passport arrived. More daily telephone calls – sitting in a queue for hours.

    Then more reassurance – all was going to be fine. More calls, more useless reassurance. We honestly felt it would arrive in time; how wrong we were. His passport never arrived.

    We couldn’t go and we let down our friends. Our flights were wasted. It was the most demoralising, exhausting process, with the worst service imaginable. I feel so sorry for other people experiencing this now. It was horrible.

    I am delighted the Prime Minister is considering privatising the Passport Office. It is simply unfit for purpose.

    Angela Stucley
    East Worlington, Devon

    Covid has effectively left us, and so should those who are responsible for the Passport Office! Silence of course from Johnson and JRM…

  9. ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE FOR HUMANITY. Egon von Greyerz. March 22, 2022

    We are now at the end of an era of economic and moral decadence in a debt infested world built on false values, fake money and abysmal leadership. All hell will break loose.

    The consequences will be fatal for the world.

    There are eras in history which have produced great leaders and thinkers. But sadly, the current era has produced nothing of that kind. The end of an economic cycle produces no great leadership or statesmanship but only incompetent leaders.

    Looking at the Western world, the only notable statesman in the last few decades in my view is Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.

    The only problem I have with this guy (he is after all primarily interested in selling gold) is that I agree with almost every word he writes.

    https://goldswitzerland.com…

  10. ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE FOR HUMANITY. Egon von Greyerz. March 22, 2022

    We are now at the end of an era of economic and moral decadence in a debt infested world built on false values, fake money and abysmal leadership. All hell will break loose.

    The consequences will be fatal for the world.

    There are eras in history which have produced great leaders and thinkers. But sadly, the current era has produced nothing of that kind. The end of an economic cycle produces no great leadership or statesmanship but only incompetent leaders.

    Looking at the Western world, the only notable statesman in the last few decades in my view is Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.

    The only problem I have with this guy (he is after all primarily interested in selling gold) is that I agree with almost every word he writes.

    https://goldswitzerland.com…

  11. SIR – In defending the decision by Abigail Tierney, the Passport Office director-general, to work from home in Leicestershire, Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office permanent secretary, misses the point.

    In charge of the Passport Office, Dr Tierney should lead from the front and be seen to be so doing. Her example encourages others to work from home, and the resultant inefficiencies of the organisation are clear to see.

    Max Ingram
    Emneth, Norfolk

    Quite so, Mr Ingram. My only ‘encouragement’ for Dr Tierney would be to shape up or ship out!

    1. She has no idea about leadership and has been over promoted.part of a quota .

  12. The first nine letters today are about the Passport Office. Only one of those is complimentary. If the Letters Editor is being proportionate this is a shambles.

    This, the ninth letter, raised a smile:

    SIR – Inspired by Abi Tierney, who seems to think working from home is an appropriate way to resolve the enormous backlog in her department, I thought that I would work from home yesterday afternoon. I am a guide in Canterbury Cathedral.

    Philip Barry
    Lydden, Kent

      1. I know, Ndovu, that’s why I got carried away and spent one and three quarters weeding the front garden border. (My daily target is no more than one single hour.)

      1. It’s a bad day when a the trans activist does not want to be called it when it wants to realign its personal pronoun or adjective.

        1. Someone in a shop once asked me if I had been a librarian- why I asked. Because you look like one.
          Glasses and slightly grey hair then….

  16. SIR – Jemima Lewis (Comment, April 28) says that “keeping a cat indoors is cruel, and owners should be told so”, and that cats “need to hunt”. She also refers to their prowling “before pouncing on a speck of dappled shade”.

    While this all sounds idyllic, according to the Mammal Society, the less charming reality is that over the spring and summer months, Britain’s cats kill more than 100 million creatures, including about 27 million birds.

    As one who enjoys watching my garden birds, I am not best pleased to see a cat hunting them and wonder why cat owners feel that their pets are entitled to trespass. I would prefer that they keep their cats inside, or on their own land.

    John Twitchen
    Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

    We suffer the same problem here – birds feeding on the ground being hunted by at least three different cats who frequently visit our garden. However, one of them had a nasty shock a couple of days ago when our Lab spotted on of them and gave it what for. I haven’t seen it since.

    It’s bad enough having parts of the garden used frequently as a toilet, but to see birds, and very young ones at that, stalked by someone else’s pet, is beyond the pale…

    SIR – I would like cat owners to keep their pets indoors. When cats use my vegetable garden as a lavatory, my tolerance of them drops even lower.

    Robert Ward
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

        1. Our cats are friendly towards most of the local cats, except one bullying tom, who gets the full works from the squirter, since he attacks the others. He learned a few times not to come round after getting a)wet and b) a well-aimed clod of earth.

          1. When we first moved in here in 1995, we had two cats, then aged 11, Pat & Joe. Down in the valley was a cat known as “the Grey Bruiser” which had taken over our empty garden as his territory. First one cat , then the other was attacked by this monster, and we had to take both of them to the vet on the same day, just not at the same time. They learnt to keep out of his way, and I think he disappeared sometime later – don’t know how……

      2. Cats loathe vinegar.

        The marina in Marmaris where we keep Mianda used to be overrun with cats. Indeed one night when we were asleep a cat got onto the boat and made a filthy smell and a filthy mess.

        Caroline found the answer. She took an empty detergent squeezy bottle and filled in with a mixture of water and vinegar and used it as a water pistol to squirt any cat that came near us. Cats cannot stand the smell of vinegar and they hate having it on their fur but it does them no harm otherwise and the marina cats very soon learnt to keep well clear of us.

    2. Have none of this trio of cat-haters heard of the phrase “Herding Cats.” as an example of a difficulty becoming impossible?

      It’s in cat’s nature to roam, as it is a dog’s nature to bark with joy, excitement or in concert with other dogs.

      Bur then I suppose it is in human nature to be grumpy, surly and possessive.

  17. SIR – Jemima Lewis (Comment, April 28) says that “keeping a cat indoors is cruel, and owners should be told so”, and that cats “need to hunt”. She also refers to their prowling “before pouncing on a speck of dappled shade”.

    While this all sounds idyllic, according to the Mammal Society, the less charming reality is that over the spring and summer months, Britain’s cats kill more than 100 million creatures, including about 27 million birds.

    As one who enjoys watching my garden birds, I am not best pleased to see a cat hunting them and wonder why cat owners feel that their pets are entitled to trespass. I would prefer that they keep their cats inside, or on their own land.

    John Twitchen
    Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

    We suffer the same problem here – birds feeding on the ground being hunted by at least three different cats who frequently visit our garden. However, one of them had a nasty shock a couple of days ago when our Lab spotted on of them and gave it what for. I haven’t seen it since.

    It’s bad enough having parts of the garden used frequently as a toilet, but to see birds, and very young ones at that, stalked by someone else’s pet, is beyond the pale…

    SIR – I would like cat owners to keep their pets indoors. When cats use my vegetable garden as a lavatory, my tolerance of them drops even lower.

    Robert Ward
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

  18. SIR – HM Forces will play a major part in the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. While fleet reviews may be history, there should always be “sea room” for the Royal Navy at state events.

    The RAF, which operates 75 per cent of British military aircraft, closes the Queen’s birthday parade with a fly-past. Surely the Fleet Air Arm, with Army Air Corps colleagues, should also take part in fly-pasts, both along the Mall and at Armed Forces Day.

    The Royal Navy is about more than ships and submarines.

    Rear Admiral Jeremy Larken
    Captain Malcolm Farrow
    Captain Colin Hamilton
    Lt Col Ewen Southby-Tailyour RM
    Commander Michael Bates
    Commander Nigel Chilcott
    Lieutenant Colonel Ian Berchem
    Lieutenant Commander Ivor Feist
    Lieutenant Commander Lester May
    Michael Shuttleworth
    London NW1

    Oh dear…

  19. SIR – This week my smartphone died. No amount of recharging or button-pressing got a response, so I went to order another online.

    I welcome Lloyds Bank trying to protect me when I make a purchase for £1,079, but at the point of payment I was offered three options: to confirm by text message; to confirm by phone; or to confirm by phone app. There was no option to confirm by email or any way to verify my purchase without a phone (I have no landline).

    Perhaps Lloyds should rethink this.

    Andrew Knowles
    Abingdon, Oxfordshire

    You paid how much?? Delivery by armed guard would have been the least to expect! Joking apart, the Lloyds system does seem rather silly in the circumstances.

    1. Not sure I’d want to advertise the fact that I’d be carrying such a costly smartphone when out and about. Perhaps, though, the local muggers don’t read the Telegraph!

    2. Lloyds
      Several years ago I held a few Lloyds shares that had been issued to me when Halifax went public (or something) in 1997.

      Lloyds wrote to all shareholders with an offer to buy more shares at a discount. The ONLY way that individuals could buy shares was via a cheque drawn on a single-named (not a joint) bank account and mailed in. I did this, but the purchase failed* because all the ‘big boys’ had swamped the system, gobbled them up and we tiddlers were effectively shut out.

      But what a crazy method from one of the big 4 banks who are doing everything they can to eliminate cheques!

      *Just as well, since the Lloyds shares sank like a stone. They went from 750p in 1997 to over 1,080p in 2007 but are now at around 45p.

      1. I think the banks are doing everything they can to eliminate customers, too! Particularly the small ones.

    3. Obviously a thickie to pay that much for a cellphone. Deserved all he didn’t get.

  20. Who do you call if you find someone lifeless?

    When doctors find that that your body is not performing to WHO health standards for the human life form they may have to restart you just like Windows 10 when your computer has almost reached the pearly Gates.
    Ironically when all attempts to get you back to WHO normal fail they have to turn you off by stopping your heart and then plugging you back in again.

    It’s difficult to know if you are actually dead or just dreaming that you are dead but thankfully technology has advanced to such a stage that you can tell now with a smart watch.

    Thought I’d check my vital signs this morning to see if it was worth calling an ambulance for a second opinion:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5dbadc84abc420c9686b0879ca8f702edaea1e42bb829c84721419080aa6d16.jpg

    No problem – all clear.
    I don’t need an undertaker to take me to A&E! 😉

    https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/bury-st-edmunds/news/emergency-services-called-after-person-found-dead-9252087/

    1. Certainly the weakened gulf stream isn’t providing the warmth we were used to.

  22. ogga1
    8 minutes ago
    352312+ up ticks,

    The electorate in the United Kingdom have seriously got to get their shite together in regards to the home front & the politico of the lab/lib/con hierarchy coalitions yearnings to return to brussels.

    Supporting & voting for the party name
    regardless of consequence is also ringing the death knell for these Isles.

    https://twitter.com/IanCockerill2/status/1520270363309002752

      1. They all appear to last forever with their skins tautened, daily total virgin blood transfusions and as many organ transplants as necessary. They are already a gerontocracy at the highest levels.

    2. Spouse(s): Wilfred Lagarde, Eachran Gilmour. Domestic partner: Xavier Giocanti. Age 66.

      Criminal Conviction of negligence in allowing the misuse of public funds: On 3 August 2011, a French court ordered an investigation into Lagarde’s role in a €403 million arbitration deal in favour of businessman Bernard Tapie. In December 2016, the court found Lagarde guilty of negligence, but declined to impose a penalty. Her full allegiance to former President Nicolas Sarkozy: “Use me for as long as it suits you and suits your action and your casting. If you use me, I need you as a guide and as a support: without a guide, I risk being ineffective, without a support I risk having little credibility. With my immense admiration”. Christine L. They look after each other those thieving politicians.

        2. They were married in 2020. He is taller than her, and they have apparently been an item since 2006.

    3. She is a criminal and proved to have been involved in a gross scandal with Mitterrand’s best friend, the grand larcenist, Bernard Tapis*, who managed to run his private yacht as part of the French navy to avoid taxes.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fef06677f9511e97874005fda28b2223bd700105b3193ef14176e1d1e40fbffb.jpg

      Lagarde ought to have been thrown into prison but they decided they needed somebody just as corrupt to replace Dominique Strauss Kahn when he was sacked from the IMF for dealing in prostitution as a nice little side line earner.

      (* I know his name is spelt Tapie but he needs to be carpetted!)

      1. The yachts of the members of the RYS were historically in that category, although I sincerely doubt that there was ever any fiscal advantage.

  23. ogga1
    ogga1
    42 minutes ago
    352312+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    ‘Porn MP’ Neil Parish refuses to quit as he loses whip
    MP for Tiverton and Honiton says he will continue to carry out duties as wife says: ‘It’s so stupid. He’s such a good person’

    Left in place he could be a nucleus for a
    rainbow club there surely is enough material
    along with the Koran between the two dispatch boxes & halal on the parliamentary canteen menu what could possible go wrong.

  24. Norman Surplus, first person to circumnavigate the globe in an autogyro – obituary

    He set off from Northern Ireland in 2010, expecting to be back in four months, but his odyssey took him nine years

    ByTelegraph Obituaries 28 April 2022 • 2:58pm

    Norman Surplus, who has died of cancer aged 59, was a businessman from Co Antrim who became the first man to circumnavigate the globe in an autogyro (or gyrocopter), the flying machine made famous by the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

    In 2003 Surplus had been diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer and given only a 40 per cent chance of surviving 18 months. Given the all-clear after surgery and chemotherapy, he began planning his odyssey with the aim of raising funds and awareness for cancer research.

    After undergoing extensive training, on March 22 2010, cheered on by well-wishers, Surplus waved goodbye to his wife Celia and two young children, lifted off in his tiny yellow aircraft from a playing field in Larne, Co Antrim on the first leg of his 27,000-mile journey, and set out over the Irish Sea.

    Despite the need to land every evening to feed sleep and refuel, and with planned stop-offs in 25 countries, he was optimistic that he would complete the journey in four months: “I’ll also be wearing a special flight suit for the trip so in case I did have to ditch in the Atlantic or somewhere I’d have my dry suit on with a personal locator,” he said. “I’ll be carrying a life raft as well. I’m the second coxswain on Larne Lifeboat so I’ve had plenty of survival training.”

    His time estimate proved wildly overoptimistic.

    In 2010 he flew his craft over Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, but on the way he was grounded for three months after crashing into a Thai lake and had to abandon his journey at one stage because of bad weather.

    He then found himself stuck in the Philippines for two weeks waiting for clearance to fly through Japan after the Chinese refused him permission to take one of the two viable routes out of the Philippines. The Japanese initially refused, but following pleas from supporters, permission was granted and Surplus reached Japan after approximately a year.

    He planned to continue his journey via the Russian Far East, and then cross over to the US via Alaska. However, his permission to fly over Russian territory had expired and a deteriorating international political climate led the Russians to refuse to renew it.

    Surplus’s autogyro remained in Japan for three years as he looked into other routes through the Japanese islands and the Aleutians, or the South Pacific, but his craft did not have quite enough range.

    When he did resume his journey in June 2015, he flew from the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, Oregon, where he had shipped the autogyro the previous year, crossing the US and becoming the first person to cross the Atlantic by autogyro, travelling via Greenland and the Faroe Islands and making landfall in Larne in August. By this time Surplus had set 19 FAI world records, including “the furthest distance flown by a gyrocopter in aviation history”.

    In 2013 Surplus had appealed directly to Vladimir Putin, during the Russian President’s visit to Northern Ireland, for permission to fly through Russia – permission which was finally granted in 2019.

    Leaving Larne on Easter Monday, he crossed England, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, before flying 5,000 miles across Russia, battling freezing temperatures over Siberia and passing through seven different time zones.

    He completed his circumnavigation on June 28 2019, landing at the Oregon museum.

    Norman Surplus was born in Larne on February 7 1963 and established a successful business career, becoming a video game designer in the early days of computer games and a co-founder of a clean technology company.

    Surplus is survived by his wife and children.

    Norman Surplus, born February 7 1963, died April 19 2022

    * * *

    I have always admired the exploits of Wg Cdr Ken Wallis, king of the autogyro

    (https://www.google.com/search?q=wing+commander+ken+wallis+autogyro&oq=wing+commander+ken+wallis+autogyro&aqs=chrome..69i57.13390j0j7&client=ms-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)

    but this chap’s achievement was truly remarkable.  So sad that he should die at such a relatively young age, but at least he fulfilled  his ambition before he departed. He is certainly up there with the great aviators.

  25. Good morning from Mercian Queen with longbow in handbag .

    Its a very cold morning here… sunny with clear blue sky , but merely 6c .

    1. I am reliably informed (I wasn’t awake at the time) that there was a white-over frost at 05.00 this morning.

  26. Good morning all

    Beautiful morning here. 2c.. cold … son and Moh are running the 5k Parkrun in Weymouth which starts at 9am.

    I am amazed to view from where I am sitting, lots of aircraft contrails high up in the sky, all equally distanced , so the airports must be back to normal .

  27. Good morning, all. Lovely sunny start to the day. Plant swap at 10 am – the village “Food Production Club” annual event.

    “Porn MP weeps openly”. Don’t they make you proud?

    1. At least he knew how to find porn on his phone, Labour MPs can’t understand how to do that.

      3. All this for trying to hide his money from a thieving government. Exactly who should be in jail?

  29. Good Moaning. Lord Frost’s existence – let alone his intellect – is an indictment of C21 democracy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/29/britain-overwhelmed-rising-tide-statism-entitlement-dependency/

    “Britain is being overwhelmed by a rising tide of statism, entitlement and dependency

    It is the duty of Tories to be honest with the public: the government cannot solve every one of their problems

    David Frost29 April 2022 • 9:30pm

    It is hard to believe, as we look around us, that this country was in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic for two years. Social distancing, vaccine certificates, the rule of six, Christmas presents being handed over in the car park: it is as if someone flicked a switch and we have all agreed to forget that any of it ever happened.

    The new normal seems remarkably like the old normal, at least in Britain. Only a few tell-tale signs of the disaster remain. The few remaining people clinging on to masks. The faded stickers on the pavement telling us to stay two metres apart, like the relics of some lost civilisation. The ever-growing backlogs at the DVLA and the Passport Office.

    On the surface, society seems almost back to what it was. But we should be worried by what Covid has done to us nevertheless.

    We saw two big trends during the pandemic. On the one hand, we got incredible flexibility and change from the private sector, which kept us all fed, warm, and entertained during lockdown. On the other, we saw the Prime Minister saying that the Government would “wrap its arms around people” and the Chancellor handing out the best part of half a trillion pounds to stop the economy crashing.

    Both responses were correct at the time. Only one is now. We must not take with us out of the pandemic the belief that the Government’s job is to protect us from every vicissitude of life.

    This is not just about tax and spend, important though that is. It is an attitude of mind. Too many government plans are collectivist in conception and accept far too many of our opponents’ assumptions.

    We are told that the Government must protect everyone from the cost-of-living crisis or face electoral retribution. As a result, it is already borrowing from the future and raising taxes for redistribution, economically damaging though this is.

    Having initially rejected it, the Government now seems to be flirting with an energy windfall tax if companies will not invest as ministers wish.

    The Online Safety Bill seems to be aimed at preventing anyone from seeing anything that might offend them online. The conversion therapy measures will restrict religious free speech.

    Tenants will be allowed to remain in their houses in perpetuity unless the state judges that owners have a good reason to want them back.

    We are even supposed to believe that football, a hugely successful industry, now needs a regulator so that no club ever goes bust – and I write as a Derby County supporter who might be thought to have an interest.

    Free societies can’t function like this.

    I fear we now have a strongly established culture of dependency, where people look to the state to solve their problems rather than making efforts themselves, and where business faces ever-growing practical obstacles to normal commercial activity. How have we become so collectivist? Why is it so strongly believed that every private problem has a government solution?

    I think three events have changed things.

    First came the 2008 financial crash, the rescue of the banks, and the cuts in interest rates to levels so low that most of us could not accumulate capital. Unviable companies survived as zombies. House prices exploded.

    That kicked off a general anti-capitalist mood and a psychology of “if the government can bail them out, it can bail me out too”. Programmes like Universal Credit, now a wage subsidy available a long way up the salary chain, are beginning to prepare the ground for universal basic income schemes that explicitly aim to protect everyone from losing income in any circumstances.

    Second was the growth of climate collectivism. For a decade or more we have all been told we have to make sacrifices to save the planet. Stop travelling, live local, eat less, stop eating meat, turn your lights out, stop being a burden.

    As most of us are generally reluctant to do this as individuals, the state has had to step in, with smart meters, heat pumps, low-traffic-zones, unsatisfactory electric cars, tailored taxation measures, and “nudges”. We have all gradually got used to this, so that it seems normal to be hectored about the moral aspects of virtually every choice in our everyday life.

    Third came the pandemic and the lockdowns and restrictions on normal social contact. These measures were unprecedented. Twenty years ago they would have been impossible. But in an environment in which we had all grown used to “living local”, taking money from the government, and being told what to do, they seemed somehow expected, perhaps even inevitable.

    We have all got used to the idea, even after lockdown, that it is normal to restrict individual behaviour to protect a government service, the NHS, and for ministers to lecture us about healthy eating and exercise, just like Winston Smith through his telescreen every morning.

    Socialist economics and green politics produce lockdowns and collectivism.

    It is time to put an end to these habits. They don’t lead to anything good. Wherever they are embedded, they produce a low-productivity society with one interest group fighting another for a share of the spoils from government.

    It is always difficult to call a halt, but call it we must. This is a Conservative Government and it is time to talk about Conservative principles – not only of low taxation and enterprise, but of freedom to act, to create and retain wealth, to debate and to speak freely even if others don’t like your opinions, to make your own economic choices for you or your family rather than have them made for you.

    These principles entail being honest with people. Not everyone can get everything they want from the state. It is no good saying that people expect the government to support them and don’t want to hear tough choices. In the real world, sometimes – and now is one of those times – tough choices are the only ones available. To avoid them is not only to choose decline as a country but to fail to grow as individuals and responsible citizens.

    So in the tough times to come, people need to hear honesty. “Yes, there are difficult things happening. You may need to work harder, longer – and most importantly smarter. You may need to cut things back today to get a better tomorrow. But we believe that letting you decide how to do so is the best way forward. And meanwhile the Government will abide by those principles itself, will stop fussing about trivia, and will do its core tasks properly and efficiently.”

    I actually think that most current Conservative ministers and politicians came into politics because they believed something like this. It is time for us all to say so. We can’t expect resistance to collectivism if we won’t make the case ourselves.

    As Margaret Thatcher said in her first speech after being elected leader in 1975: “We have lost sight of the banners. The trumpets have given an uncertain sound. It is our duty, our purpose, to raise those banners high so that all can see them, to sound the trumpets clearly and boldly so that all can hear them.”

    Of course our opponents will sneer and distort if we do. They will accuse us of being bad people. We will have to put up with that.

    It is our job to turn the tide, to change direction, to rally the majority who will agree with us. There is no other way for this country to succeed.”

    2. We have been reduced to the lowest common denominator by usurpers who have chips on their shoulders .

      Our quirky Britishness, values , Protestant ethics etc are being slapped down hard .

      Kind open hearts and sense of fairplay have been crushed , and are we losing our National value , it appears to me that we are nearly done for .

      1. Good morning, Veritable Joy Forever,

        We have compiled a list of English idioms which are impossible to translate into French.

        This was inspired by a boy on one of our course over 30 years ago who tried to explain that he thought one of the others was bit emotionally sensitive: Je pense qu’Il a une frite sur l’épaule.

    3. Agree with every word except “And meanwhile the Government will abide by those principles itself, will stop fussing about trivia, and will do its core tasks properly and efficiently.” That is just not happening. The Con party abandoned its principles of responsibility, low taxation, reward for effort a long time ago. Governments over many years have been busy “teaching” people to rely on HMG to provide solutions to problems. Anything goes wrong people say what’s the government going to do about it.

      And the war in Ukraine is none of our business. Or it should be. Instead we are sending arms and now troops to the Ukraine. We should be keeping our noses out of it.

      1. Brought a shiver to my spine. This is the first time I have read the words – very sentimental. She looks Irish but is of Welsh extraction. I visit
        Pontardawe occasionally but never knew she was born there. She has a beautiful light voice.

      2. Music is horses for courses. I couldn’t stand listening to this vastly overplayed and overrated song back in 1968. I’ve not changed my mind about it since.

      3. I remember reading at the time that it was a Hebrew song but looking it up online now I find a number of claims that the original was Russian. Either way, it wouldn’t be celebrated in the same way now as it was then?

  31. Good Morning to you all, it will be SWMBO’s Birthday on the 9th of May, I await that day with interest.

    A thought on the onangate scandal , The MP was in what must be one of the nations most secure and sensitive buildings, the fact that his choice of viewing matter came from sources renowned for carrying and distributing the vast majority of the most destructive malware and viruses to my mind is a far greater level of bone-headed stupidity than viewing ill-advised content.

    And so to Cats, as featured in the Letters today, many years ago I owned a copy of the “Cat-hater’s handbook, or, The ailurophobe’s delight ” , long since lost but I do remember one of the offerings by a poet named Shel Silverstein:-

    Can anyone lend me
    Two eighty-pound rats?
    I want to rid my house of cats

    1. I used to own a funny book called “100 uses for a dead cat”. The funniest was two dead cats being worn on the hands (hands inserted up their arses) and used as oven gloves.

      A steering-wheel glove was another good use for one.

          1. It has been said that if the cat had been walking away from him, the inventot of ‘cats-eyes’ would have come up with a pencil-sharpener.

  32. Another fine example of valuable wartime service that really should have been recognised:

    Pam Torrens, wartime Wren who served in the elite group dubbed ‘Freddies Fairies’ listening in on German E-boats – obituary

    She could still remember the German phonetic code nearly 80 years later, for example, SOPHIE TONI, meaning ‘Stop engines!’

    ByTelegraph Obituaries 28 April 2022 • 3:32pm

    Chief Wren Pam Torrens, who has died aged 97, was one of “Freddie’s Fairies”, an elite group of special duties Wrens who eavesdropped on German wartime communications.

    Pamela Iris Watson was born on September 20 1924 in a prosperous suburb of Southampton and educated at the Girls’ Grammar School in the city; her father was Captain C H Watson, a Trinity House pilot.

    Her first memory of the war was cowering in a cellar with her sister, Thelma, as the German Blitz destroyed the houses around her and rendered her family home uninhabitable. There was no question of her reaction: coming from a long line of fishermen and sailors, she volunteered for the Women’s Royal Naval Service.

    Responding to an Admiralty appeal via the BBC for German-speakers, Watson, chaperoned by her mother, attended a language test in London and was accepted as a Wren (Special Duties). There were only 400 or of these Wrens, who proudly called themselves “Freddie’s Fairies” after Lieutenant-Commander L A “Freddie” Marshall, who recruited and trained them.

    After two weeks’ initial training and eight days at a highly secret training establishment in Southmead, Wimbledon, Pam Watson found herself recruited into the naval Y-Service at Abbots Cliff in Kent, listening to enemy E-boats which were using VHF for tactical communications.

    She proved so adept – she could still remember the German phonetic code nearly 80 years later, for example, “SOPHIE TONI”, meaning “Stop engines!” – that in 1943 she was sent to the Y-station at Hemsby, Norfolk.

    The station, staffed by a junior WRNS officer and 12 Wrens, all in their late teens and early twenties, listened for E-boats and gave warnings of attacks on East Coast convoys.

    But there was “nothing but sand dunes and a nine-mile cycle ride to Great Yarmouth for a hop with a lot of rude soldiery”, so Pam Watson, who had learnt Morse in the Girl Guides, worked hard to improve her speeds so that she could progress to recording more strategic and operational wireless-telephony.

    These were the raw intercepts on which Bletchley Park depended for its code-breaking. “Of course,” she recalled, “we only knew it as Station X, which sounded quite exciting to us teenagers.”

    Promoted to Chief Wren in September 1943, she was sent to the naval Y-Station on the Downs above Ventnor, where the base of the direction-finding tower is now a listed monument. There the Wrens kept the naval intelligence centre at Portsmouth informed of German naval movements, including, after the enemy’s daily wireless checks, its order of battle.

    She was at Ventnor, but off watch, when she was woken by a friend calling her: “It’s today, it’s today, they’re going!” – and she rushed out of her quarters to see streams of landing craft headed for Normandy.

    Afterwards she was sent to another large Y-Station, at Abbotscliff in Kent, where the Wrens continued their important work under the flight path of flying bombs: occasionally the Wrens took cover under the benches where they were working, and Pam Watson was once woken when the exhaust flames of a buzz bomb filled her bedroom with fiery light and exploded on the hillside behind the station.

    Postwar, she translated captured German documents in offices in the basement of the Admiralty before joining the forces of occupation in Hamburg. Released at the end of 1946, she studied at Glasgow University and became a teacher.

    The Wrens Y-Service was quickly disestablished, and not one woman received any honour for the important services which they had provided during the War.

    Pam Watson and the other Freddie’s Fairies were flabbergasted when the secrets of Bletchley Park began to leak out in the 1970s: for decades longer they kept the mystery of their wartime work and the contribution they had made, both to naval tactical operations and to the strategic successes of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and it is only in recent years that the last few survivors of this select group of women have spoken about their achievements.

    She married, in 1975, Patrick Torrens, a wartime RAF pilot, and emigrated to Malta, where she taught French and business studies for many years before returning to Plymouth to continuing teaching.

    She read, walked, played golf, and drove her own car until recently, and was an active member of the University of the Third Age – but her day did not start until she had completed the Daily Telegraph crossword.

    Pam Torrens, born September 20 1924, died April 3 2022

      1. Met once a friend of SWMBOs grandmother – she had broken code in Bletchley Park, and that was as far as she ever went in that discussion. Very interesting lady!

    2. My mother was a Wren during the war, but her duties weren’t anywhere near as adventurous as Pam’s!

    4. Can I question the timeline. If she was born in ‘24, she was 15 when war broke out and 19 in ‘43. Were 19 year olds promoted to senior positions?

      1. Good morning Sue.
        Firstly, some volunteers occasionally made mistakes when listing their date of birth.
        Secondly, promotion would surely have been based on a combination of ability and test results.

        Thirdly, the average age of death in Bomber Command was twenty-three.

        1. I don’t see the newsroom but where I sit, in BBC Studios, there’s a helluva lot of racial diversity.

          1. That’s what i thought. If you look at the Masterchef line up it couldn’t get more diverse.

      3. Quite often. It doesn’t surprise me that she was a senior rating at her age in wartime. If you can do the job…

        I recall that F/O Geoff Wellum was posted to his first Spitfire squadron three months before his 19th birthday.

        There is record of a 14 year old joining the RAF (for a dare!) as Sgt Pilot, who went solo days after his 15th birthday and then proceeded to fly twin-engined bombers over Germany.

    1. Sadly I think the majority of people will just accept this as ‘normal’ and ‘progress’ because they have been sufficiently brainwashed over the last two years to think it’s all for the ‘good of everyone’ – the boiling frog syndrome.

      I think my days of travelling have probably come to an end.

      1. One of my 2 sisters is coming over from SA in July, but she asked a friend who arrived back in the UK a few weeks ago to renew her British passport .. her friend has told her that there is a10 week+ delay .. My sister also has held a South African passport .for 55 years, but doing anything in SA even sending a letter , is an absolute nightmare ..

        Britain is unashamedly becoming third world , and it’s civil servants are also third world derivatives.

    2. There is an advert on TV for a “Safe Driver” app which is supposed to get you cheaper car insurance. I’m sure loads of youngsters will down load it, but my first thought was “they’ll know exactly where you went and when and probably who met up with you if they have the app as well”.

  34. My husband makes me a lovely breakfast a few times a week and I’ve had it this morning.
    Its filling but refreshing too . Porridge oats soaked over night in the fridge with 100ml milk and 100g natural yoghurt ( mine have less measurements) in the morning he adds honey ( but he doesn’t have honey in his ) cinnamon ( optional ) blackberries, raspberries and pecan nuts ( its nice with other nuts too or different fruit ) . I like it very much .

  35. My husband makes me a lovely breakfast a few times a week and I’ve had it this morning.
    Its filling but refreshing too . Porridge oats soaked over night in the fridge with 100ml milk and 100g natural yoghurt ( mine have less measurements) in the morning he adds honey ( but he doesn’t have honey in his ) cinnamon ( optional ) blackberries, raspberries and pecan nuts ( its nice with other nuts too or different fruit ) . I like it very much .

    1. If Mr Redwood thinks this is a matter for nation states he has not noticed the usurpation of nationhood by a confusion of luciferian clans and huge corporations.

  38. I’m worried about Our Leader. He’s closed his profile and posted two versions of Nottl yesterday. All without any explanation. I think that he’s been kidnapped by Mi5 and is at the moment being Tortured and Brainwashed by its Woke Thought Division in the Cellars of Westminster!

    1. All is well, Minty. I was fairly sure that I’d posted a new page just after midnight yesterday morning, but on rising, it wasn’t there. Hence the duplication, which I hadn’t noticed. Note to self – must pay more attention.

      2. You sure they haven’t “broken” you Geoff? They didn’t (oh God!) make you join the Conservative Party did they?

  39. Good morning, everyone. First bowls league match today. We are playing Wimborne at home.

    2. My dixleksic brain read :
      First bowels league match…
      I thought, what a strange competition.
      Good luck trouncing Wimborne.

    3. Does the “at home” mean “on home ground” or are you all isolating at home and playing some kind of cyber-match?
      Asking for a friend…

  41. Conwoman

    THE recent announcement from the

    General Medical Council that doctors face being struck off for

    spreading fake news on vaccines and lockdowns is somewhat frightening given the recent experience of Dr Sam White, a GP in Hampshire. It has a chilling Orwellian overtone to it.

    It seems to imply that fake news is anything not approved by the

    Government and any of its agencies such as Public Health England and the

    NHS plus the mainstream media, who have been bribed throughout the

    pandemic with lucrative advertising contracts.

    It assumes that ideas and speculation from discredited sources such

    as Neil Ferguson and Sage were correct and accepted by the senior

    medical officers such as Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, with all

    other inputs ignored or treated with contempt.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/strike-off-the-truth-tellers-no-strike-out-whitty-co/
    There will be no dissent from the narrative comrades!! Unpersoning and ruin awaits……..

  42. The lack of self-awareness, individually and collectively, is the most striking part of this feature.

    “Our mosque was a makeshift place of worship wedged between rows of houses. Due to the complaints of neighbours, the imams had to recite with the microphones turned down and there were stewards at the gate ushering us straight home – no stopping and chatting allowed in case the council took action. I once scurried to the car with my dad while he spoke in whispered tones to friends as we passed a pub on the very same street that was blaring karaoke out loud at midnight. Some noise, it seemed, was OK after all.”

    If the writer knew anything of the people amongst whom she lives but despises, she’d know that most of them don’t like noise nuisance – and that councils are useless at enforcing the legislation that should prevent it.

    “For the first time in my life, I felt immersed in a community that didn’t need to apologise for our faith.”

    But the kuffar must apologise for his existence.

    “Mosques, with their expansive halls purposefully designed for worship and minarets standing proud as though asserting their presence on the skyline. Loudspeakers call out the adhaan – call to prayer – and its tranquil melody drifts into nearby homes.”

    Tranquil melody? WTF!

    A Ramadan spent in east London is unlike anywhere else in the world

    https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/29/a-ramadan-spent-in-east-london-is-unlike-anywhere-else-in-the-world-16558590/

    1. The writer might think that the Muslim call to prayer is a tranquil melody, but I call it caterwauling.

      1. When we are anchored in Fethiye in Turkey we have no option but to hear the Call To Prayer which is broadcast though a faulty and crackly loudspeaker system. It is not always the same imam who howls out his gloomy sounding noise so we always try to decide which of the three different Bobs is doing the Wailing!

        I may object to this for aesthetic reasons as the noise is so depressing but, to be fair, it is acceptable in a predominantly Muslim country but it is not acceptable in Britain which has an established church.

          1. Apparently you would be arrested if you had a bible in your luggage as you entered the country.

          2. In the 1970s, nurses going to work in Saudi had to cut the M&S labels out of their clothes.

      1. Taser? Shoot the bastards in the face instead. That will galvanise the thoughts of copycats.

          1. And having never paid a penny into the system they would be taking up spaces in our NHS.

          3. People are difficult enough to hit, without aiming for tricky parts of their anatomy.

      2. I suppose the bearing of a blade is at least consistent with the ideology. Where the early Christian missionaries spread their message by the word, the Saracens spread theirs by the sword.

      3. It’s always the same people causing the same problems. Blair and Brown should be tortured for the poison they flood this country with, and the dross moved away – ideeally into a giant hulk we can float off the coast and shell from a distance.

    3. WTF ! indeed and behind the spreading cloak of known (diversity) adversity they will one day spring ‘an unannounced attack’ on the people of any country where they settle. And remember it took three hundred years to get them to leave Spain. And now they are back, all be it in small numbers but………….

      1. I would guess, Eddy, that throughout Europe there are already well over 1,000,000 – I don’t call that a small number (and it rises, daily).

        1. And they get paid for having babies in the UK
          This country is so effing stupid, a blind man’s dog could have seen this coming or even his walking stick.

        3. Million?? In each country, at least.
          When we moved to Norway, the population was about 4,5 million. Now, 25 years later, it’s 5,5 million. And there are a lot of suntanned faces around. Just saying.

  43. You know how it is that certain events set something running at the back of your mind. Not so much good old déjà vu but a nagging feeling that there’s something else significant about those events buried away in your memory. For days, the riots in Sweden had this effect…and then I stumbled across it last night while looking for something else entirely.

    “We must be open and tolerant toward Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so toward us.”
    2006 – Jens Orback, a Swedish government minister.
    http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2006/07/dhimmi-of-year.html

    How’s it going, Jens?

    1. “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.” Winston Churchill.

        1. Has the Norweigian government considered that this is perhaps the wrong way around and wasn’t necessary before they forced massive uncontrolled immigration on the country?

          You know – responsibility for their actions in soaring crime rates, especially the worst kinds?

    2. Before i read this as i posted below …………..

      And it wasn’t long ago when our police were seen escorting muslim protesters against Israel in London most of their placards read behead and death to those who are non believers. Nothing has changed for century’s and never will, it’s their whole raison d’etre.

        1. Yes that’s the one but the escorting Police have been Cropped of course. Just see the edge of one far left which is Apt

    1. Cortez is a complete moron. Nothing she has said has convinced me she has any understanding of modern economics or how to really help people whatsoever. She’s just another egotistical ignorant Lefty.

  45. British soldier captured in Ukraine paraded on television by Russians. 30 April 2022.

    A British soldier captured in Ukraine has been paraded on Russian state television, asking if he was safe and when he might be able to return home.

    Andrew Hill, 35, a father of four, appeared injured, with bandages around his head and his arm in a sling.

    Asked a series of questions by his Russian captors, he spoke quietly, barely looking up, seemingly dazed and scared.

    Eagle eyed Nottlers will have noticed the disproportionate number of “unmilitary” Americans and Brits being killed; injured or captured in Ukraine. This is almost certainly because they are “liaison officers” attached to Ukrainian forces and tasked with reporting back accurate information to their superiors who then analyse it and process it for use by the US High Command who are actually running the war on the Ukrainian side.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/29/andrew-hill-british-soldier-captured-ukraine-paraded-television/

      1. No doubt sent there to help Ukraine ‘protect its borders’ while ours still leak live a sieve.

    2. I think you are attributing far to much to these idiots. They are far more likely to be the sort of fantasist that plays “call of Duty” or some such video game and then thinks it would be fun to get involved in the real thing without understanding the consequences. In other words, fools.

    3. I think you are attributing far to much to these idiots. They are far more likely to be the sort of fantasist that plays “call of Duty” or some such video game and then thinks it would be fun to get involved in the real thing without understanding the consequences. In other words, fools.

      1. My thoughts exactly. Should be in the Channel stopping the invasion if he’s ready to pick up arms.

  46. Michael Deacon excelling himself.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/30/sorry-john-cleese-todays-woke-world-surreal-monty-python-sketch/

    “Sorry, John Cleese – today’s woke world is more surreal than any Monty Python sketch

    Plus: an ingenious new way to tackle climate change… and do we really need more ramblers?

    Michael Deacon30 April 2022 • 7:00am

    Last month we learnt of a striking new trend in the NHS. Before being given an X-ray or an MRI scan, female patients had always been asked whether they were pregnant. But lately, we were told, some NHS Trusts had taken to asking male patients whether they were pregnant, too.

    This was remarkable enough. Now, though, there has been an even more intriguing development.

    A university has apparently been teaching student midwives how to help male patients give birth.

    According to reports, students at Edinburgh Napier University were given a textbook that included the following instruction. “It is important to note,” it read, “that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia.”

    This news will no doubt have been of interest to the surviving members of Monty Python. In the film Life of Brian, an anti-Roman agitator named Stan (played by Eric Idle) announces that he wishes to be a woman and have babies. As he puts it: “It’s every man’s right to have babies, if he wants them.”

    Cruelly, however, his comrade Reg (John Cleese) tells him that his wish is unlikely to be fulfilled, on the grounds that he hasn’t got a womb. Poor Stan bursts into tears. So it’s heartening to see that, after all these years, he has at last been vindicated.

    Other men, however, should be on their guard. During the rumpus over the NHS a few weeks ago, a reader wrote to the Telegraph letters page with a helpful suggestion.

    “If all men who are asked if they are pregnant say yes,” he argued, “the need for the question will very soon disappear.”

    At the time I thought this was an excellent idea. Now, however, I fear that it is fraught with risk.

    Because, if I tell the NHS that I’m pregnant, a midwife might rush me off to have an emergency caesarean.

    Do we really need more ramblers?

    A campaign group called Right to Roam wants the Government to give greater freedom to ramblers. This is all very well for the ramblers themselves. But what about the people who actually live in the areas they demand to ramble across?

    Auberon Waugh, the former overlord of this column, would be appalled. Country folk like him, he wrote, viewed ramblers as “a serious menace and a blot on the landscape of rural Britain”, because of their insistence on “swarming over the countryside and spoiling what little is left of its serenity”.

    Extending ramblers’ rights will only intensify this type of resentment. Personally,

    I blame Tony Blair. The whole problem could have been resolved back in 2004, if New Labour ministers had been willing to take a more conciliatory approach over the Hunting Act. What they should have done is offer rural communities the following compromise.

    You may no longer hunt foxes. But instead, you can hunt ramblers.

    This solution would have satisfied all parties. City-dwellers would have been happy, because they could rest assured that adorable little foxes were no longer being chased to their deaths by horrid posh people. And country-dwellers would have been happy, because they could still enjoy the ancient sport of riding to hounds. The sight of a bearded, kagoul-clad Guardian reader scurrying at full pelt across the fields with the Quorn and Pytchley in hot pursuit could have become a glorious Boxing Day tradition.

    Inevitably some people will argue that hunting ramblers is cruel. But, as any farmer will attest, it’s important to keep pest numbers under control.

    Herd immunity

    Scientists have proposed an imaginative new way to save the planet. Climate change, they say, is partly caused by methane emitted by cows when they burp. So, to prevent this methane from being released into the atmosphere, they’ve suggested that we should make cows wear special masks.

    It sounds highly ingenious. I have only one question.

    What should we do about all the methane that cows emit from the other end?

    I suppose we could try making them wear trousers. To stop the methane escaping, the trousers would need to be made from a strong, thick, impenetrable material. The ideal choice would be leather, although it’s possible the cows might disagree.

    Happily, there is an alternative. In 2014 the EU imposed a directive outlawing the use of fertilisers on any slope with a gradient of more than 15 per cent. This alarmed a farmer in Germany, whose family had grazed their cattle on a local hillside for over 400 years. Brussels, he feared, might rule that cow pats constituted a form of fertiliser. To avoid getting into trouble, therefore, he dressed his herd in nappies.

    Perhaps, to tackle the methane problem, we should start doing that with all cows. Then again, there is a potential drawback. Methane is lighter than air. So if the gas can’t escape from either end, there is a risk that the cow will slowly inflate, and then eventually, in the manner of a hot air balloon, float off. Unless farmers tether them down with ropes, the skies will soon be filled with bemused bulls and heifers, drifting gently over Britain. As well as causing the poor creatures great distress, this would pose a serious danger to aircraft.

    Still, the nappies would at least help to avert one calamity. It’s bad enough being hit by a bird dropping. Imagine if it came from a cow.”

    1. It all started in Nazareth, nine months after the Immaculate Conception, when Joseph asked the innkeeper if there was a place in the inn to give birth.

      “No womb, no womb!” the innkeeper replied.

  47. Migrants detected crossing the English Channel in small boats – daily data. 30 April 2022.

    The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 29 April 2022.
    • Number of migrants detected in small boats: 0
    • Number of boats detected: 0
    • The Ministry of Defence does not believe that any migrants arrived on their own terms in a small boat from the English Channel.

    Is this ridiculous scam working? I shall not decry it if it is but suspect it will not last long. It at least shows us that these people are not random arrivals but organised groups.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats

    1. Colour me cynical the announcements are very carefully worded……..

      “The Ministry of Defence does not believe that any migrants arrived on their own terms in a small boat from the English Channel.”
      How many were transhipped to larger boats??

    2. Colour me cynical the announcements are very carefully worded……..

      “The Ministry of Defence does not believe that any migrants arrived on their own terms in a small boat from the English Channel.”
      How many were transhipped to larger boats??

  48. Well , so pleased to report that son and Moh had an excellent Parkrun this morning .. Newbie runner son who is 52 ran 5K (3 miles ) in 28minutes 57 seconds and Moh ran a tidy 35 minutes … not bad for his 75-79 age group.

    Sad to say I am a tortoise.

    2. Better than me Belle. I’m a sloth. My top speed is only discovered falling out of bed.

          1. Had yet another fall last night. The legs just suddenly give out. Just a minor twinge to my ribs this time.

          2. Mine is combination of a permanently buggered disc and COPD. I try not to fall but don’t always achieve it.

    2. They have prompt cards for national crisis and BBC celebrations – she picked up the wrong one. Wishful thinking indeed.

    3. That’s no bias, that’s the next article being about Boris and her mind getting muddled.

      Bias is when they have 2 people, one, a hard Left think tank unionist communist introduced as an ‘researcher’ and the other a businessman, introduced as ‘responsible for the problem’. The subsequent 7 minute debate has the businessman interrupted 8 time in his 30 seconds of allowed speaking and the nutcase Lefty given free reign to spew offal, only halted by the presenter to encourage them and direct spite against the other fellow.

    2. A lovely reminder of bluebell woods from childhood, is that Jack ambling along?

      1. Hello Jill,

        Yes, that is Jack , bless him .

        I still haven’t any sense of smell back , so I couldn’t smell the wild garlic or bluebells , my friend said the smell was heavenly.

    1. Don’t show the useless oafs that. They’ll imediately say that obvious we need more solar and wind.

      In fact, that’s how they think anyway.

    1. “Come on – show us your teets girl !”

      That’s quite a reasonable request in the circumstances – it’s hardly the Chamber in the HoC!

  54. Gorgeous sunny day – but still a chilly north wind. Lawn sand applied. I hope the rain forecast for tonight DOES fall….

      1. Just a family dispute – nothing to worry about.. Usually they are delightful neighbours.

    3. I’m gettin’ married (to a stranger) in the morning
      Slash, slice, the knives are gonna shine
      Pull out the choppers, we’ll kill some coppers
      But get me to the mosque on time

    5. West Indians v. Pakistanis, a long-running rivalry in Birmingham going back to the 80s. There were serious riots in October 2005 over an unsubstantiated claim of the rape of a 14-year-old Jamaican girl by a gang of Pakistani men and, in 2011 in the week of the Barry Duggan riots, the deaths of three Pakistanis, run down by a car. The accused were acquitted.

      The BBC struggled with the 2005 riots. For several hours in the evening, it referred vaguely to ‘disturbances involving youths and the police’ (as though it was youths versus police) yet just about every other media outlet reported the details. It wasn’t until about 11pm that evening that the BBC changed the reports on its website. They couldn’t cope with Handsworth – in their minds, Britain’s ethnic minorities only rioted when rising up against their ‘oppressors’ (the police or white people). They had no problem with reporting the northern riots of 2001 because the National Front was involved.

    6. West Indians v. Pakistanis, a long-running rivalry in Birmingham going back to the 80s. There were serious riots in October 2005 over an unsubstantiated claim of the rape of a 14-year-old Jamaican girl by a gang of Pakistani men and, in 2011 in the week of the Barry Duggan riots, the deaths of three Pakistanis, run down by a car. The accused were acquitted.

      The BBC struggled with the 2005 riots. For several hours in the evening, it referred vaguely to ‘disturbances involving youths and the police’ (as though it was youths versus police) yet just about every other media outlet reported the details. It wasn’t until about 11pm that evening that the BBC changed the reports on its website. They couldn’t cope with Handsworth – in their minds, Britain’s ethnic minorities only rioted when rising up against their ‘oppressors’ (the police or white people). They had no problem with reporting the northern riots of 2001 because the National Front was involved.

    1. Lucky you. Ours are weeks behind and – despite much TLC – are not looking all that bright.

    1. If it is true that all the private pension providers aren’t solvent either, then there are only three options
      1. we get no pensions
      2. they reduce the number of pension recipients – Midazolam, anyone? Or can I tempt you with Covid? Euthanasia this way…
      3. some event happens to render the pension companies miraculously solvent again (war).

      Suddenly option 1. isn’t looking that bad…

          1. I’m sure that it was explained to them up front that pensions couldn’t be paid either by the state or the private system before they ordered the midazolam to prepare for the pandemic that happened totally by chance.

            I am getting the feeling that covid was intended to kill more elderly people than it did. Germ warfare is a bit tricky – get it wrong, and you can end up wiping yourselves out! But perhaps I am letting my imagination run away with me!

          2. I think ‘covid’ was not as lethal as they were hoping, and the ‘vaccine’ was a lot more lethal than they were expecting especially in its early stages. I also feel they were expecting us to be a lot more terrified of ‘the virus’ than we were and that we would, like good little sheep, all turn up at the vaccination centres on command with our sleeves rolled up. I don’t think it has all gone entirely to plan. It must have seemed so easy on paper. God works in mysterious ways.

    3. Yo all

      The first pensions to go should be those paid to MPs etc and those Snivel serpents working for/in the Treasury

      If they will accept that action and are happy with it, then roll it out to the plebs after a 5 year trial period

        1. While we’re at it let us make sure that MPs lose their expenses for heating, electricity and other fuel bills.

    5. Never, ever rely on government money, schemes or funds.

      Government is slow, inefficient, wasteful, profligate – on itself – and capricious. The only thing you can rely on it for is to waste money and grow, like a bacterium.

      1. No, never heard of him or the song. I have always had a problem understanding the lyrics of songs – and this was no exception. I have sung in more than ten languages but I even have a problem with English too. 😀😀😀

  61. FFS, I see from the Daily Fail that Angelina Jolie is visiting Ukraine.
    People are dying, I do not think that the ego of a Hollywood star is needed (I am sure she’s got some pretendy UN role, but really!!).

    1. I think it’s the best place for her.

      She’ll never get near the actual conflict zone, will spend money in the country – and won’t be travelling alone, she’ll bring lots of press to the area away from the front line.

  62. How low does the temperature have to get before NOTTLers put the heating on?
    I have just lit the stove, it was 15 1/2 degrees Centigrade in the sitting room (but damp outside). I have the feeling my parents would just have put another jersey and thicker socks on.

    2. 22 in my bedroom/office. Sunshine full on the big window. Coolish breeze but nice in South Hants.

      I have a heat mat for Dolly but i also have one under my desk to keep my toesy woeseys toasty.

    3. 20°C but 5 years in Spain ending in 3 successive summers (Spain, Australia,UK) have spoiled me for wanting warmth.

    4. I keep an extra sweater over the back of my computer chair so if I get chilly I can use it like a shawl.
      We get a lot of sun in the front during the day which helps to warm things up. Having beef stew tonight though.

      1. Best Beloved is going out to the Kebab shop to pick up Doner in Pitta with salad @ 18:00 hrs. She’s a star.

          5. Done hundreds of those when i worked at the Taverna with ‘Play Bouzouki Helena’ playing in the background. I had to learn Zorba and teach the patrons on Fridays and Saturdays after they have imbibed copious amounts of Retsina. Chef, Waiter and Dance Instructor for £5.50 a 7 hour shift. The bastard also limited our tips to £2 per person per night. I still enjoyed it though. First job in 1981.

          6. If he’d paid me that much I would have smashed all his plates! 🤣

            I enjoyed my ‘Zorba Night’ tonight!

          7. You wouldn’t like an extended stay here, with some very welcoming and VERY appreciative hosts, would you? :o)

          13. A teenage girl was raped and murdered in Blackpool. To disguise the crime the muslims made kebabs of her dead body. Never again will i buy from such animals.

          14. Sorry, the song above was meant to be a reply to NtN.
            I remember that story. I have never been convinced about the kebab part (simply on practical grounds, it is not an efficient way of disposing of a body), I think it is more likely that the poor child is under the concrete of someone’s garden shed or extension.
            The whole rape gang issue is not going to go away, much as the establishment pretends it’s been dealt with.

          15. Not forgetting the muslims run most of the slaughterhouses in the UK. They have the tools.

          16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yopHI0q5C88&ab_channel=Giantpsycho

            Lyric:
            Ich hab ‘ne Zwiebel auf ’em Kopf, ich bin ein Döner, denn Döner macht schöner. Ich hab ‘ne Zwiebel auf ’em Kopf, ich bin ein Döner, ich hab mich zum fressen gern. 1.Strophe: Ich greiffe jeden Tag zu einer kleinen List, denn man isst, was man isst. Ich bin lecker, schön und heiss, weil ich eines sicher weiss. Baguette macht fett! Sushi macht wuschi!! Pizza macht spitzer!! aber Döner macht schöner!!! Ref. Ich dufte gut und bin so knusprig braun, darum lieben mich die Frau’n. Erst neulich hat mich eine überrascht und dann ganz spontan vernascht. Baguette macht fett!! Sushi macht wuschi!! Pizza macht spitzer!! aber Döner macht schöner!!!

            I’ve got an onion on my head, I’m a kebab, because kebab makes you more beautiful. I’ve got an onion on my head, I’m a doner kebab, I like to eat myself. 1st verse: I use a little trick every day, because you eat what you eat. I’m delicious, beautiful and hot because I know one thing for sure. Baguette makes you fat! Sushi makes wuschi!! Pizza makes you sharper!! but kebab makes you nicer!!! Ref. I smell good and am so crispy brown, that’s why women love me. Just the other day, one surprised me and then spontaneously ate it. Baguette makes you fat!! Sushi makes wuschi!! Pizza makes you sharper!! but kebab makes you nicer!!!

          17. I made the stew with beef shin which I haven’t used for yonks. It smells wonderful and, having just tested it, it’s tender after a longish slow cook. Carrots, onions , small spuds. Some red wine in the gravy. And there will be enough for tomorrow evening for MH if I don’t feel like eating.

          18. When i have used the slow cooker before by the time it comes to eat it i don’t want it. Smelling it all day reduced my appetite. I now use a Pressure King Pro which will roast a frozen chicken in 60 minutes. Comes out nicely brown too.

          19. Don’t use a slow cooker as I don’t have one. Large pot on stove…. just tasted the gravy- yum.

          21. Thank you. Wine is a great numbing beverage.
            I have had a small bowl of the stew and it is good! Will be even better tomorrow.

    5. We just use the stove. W have not turned on the CH since April 2021. (Smiles smugly).

      1. Tells us nothing about the temperature, Bill, in N Norfolk at the moment, I’m guessing 18°C max. I’d be shivering.

        1. We have super double-glazing – the house faces south. AND we have a woodburner in the living area – and an AGA in the kitchen. And a low temp night-storage rad.

          6. Well done, Lass for running interference on the question. I still think it must be -10°C in there

    7. 15½°C is chilly indoors. Had 2 trailer loads of seasoned oak delivered yesterday for the dual fuel burner. A fire in the evening makes me feel a bit warmer.

    9. Depends, really, on how cold the house feels rather than the actual numbers on the scale, but 15 degrees C seems to be the point where I start to feel the chill.

    10. I have a Nest thermostat. It’s set to 17°C at 06:00, to take the chill off, then 15°C at 08:00, and finally 12°C at 22:00 hrs. I have a large East-facing window (2,5 m²) in the Lounge, where it’s currently 21.5°C. So, solar heat gain is definitely a thing here. If I feel chilly, I’ll either tweak up the temperature with the Nest app, or ask Alexa to do it. Over the last ten days, Nest tells me I’ve used no heating at all in four of them. For the other six days, the heat was on for between 30 mins and 2 hrs, usually because I intervened at some point.

    1. Six Shovels for me today …
      Wordle 315 6/6

      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟨🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Abject failure (my third now).
        Wordle 315 X/6

        ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
        ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
        🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
        ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
        ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩

    2. 4 for me, an odd one.
      Wordle 315 4/6

      🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I have plastic grass in my garden room. I know it’s naif but it’s better than bare concrete.

    2. ‘An Eden Project spokesperson said: “To ensure the safety of the children enjoying this temporary play area, we took the decision to use durable and soft artificial grass that will be reused many times over. Real grass, in this context, would become mud within a few hours and therefore would not have been sustainable.”’
      What twats.

      1. Just remind me, what’s artificial turf made from? How does it convert CO2 into oxygen? Virtue signalling numpties alert.

      2. I think you have to see the whole picture – there is a third frame. It was too big for me to copy and paste on my small screen. I will try again.

          2. Thanks Sue! I managed to copy it, but you can’t add a picture when editing a post apparently!

          3. True, BB2, but I usually upload pictures into PowerPoint and edit, then save as .jpg, cropping as necessary.

  67. HAPPY HOUR – Hi NoTTlers

    Do you think the BBC licence fee is value for money ?

    It’s great if you enjoy sport or cooking……Three hours of snooker last night
    and another three tonight! FFS….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg

    NADINE DORRIES has started her campaign to end the TV Licence fee as she criticises the broadcaster for failing to meet impartiality standards.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1603556/BBC-tv-licence-fee-waste-of-money-have-your-say-evg

    2. CBC is the Canadian version of the BBC, we don’t pay a license fee but they do receive a billion or so from general government funds. It is worth every penny of our license fee (see first line!).

      One of the campaign promises from the leader in the conservative party leadership campaign is to defund the CBC. Naturally their pundits are doing all they can to run him down and cast him as Trump light.

      It will be interesting if he ever gets into power.

  68. Met policewoman ‘who had sex’ while appearing on Nigerian version of Big Brother without permission is allowed to keep her job as she is given final written warning
    PC Khafilat Kareem appeared on the Nigerian version of Big Brother in July 2019
    The constable was denied permission by her bosses but joined the show anyway
    She took her work laptop and gave it to the show’s producers without permission
    On the show she entered a relationship with Ekpata Gedoni who she has married

    A Metropolitan Police Constable has kept her job despite appearing on the Nigerian version of Big Brother without permission.

    PC Khafilat Kareem, who worked had been given unpaid time off but her bosses refused her permission to go on the show, feeling it was ‘no in the best interest’ of her or the force for her to take part.

    Despite this PC Kareem, who had been based at Lambeth Police Station since 2015, left the country to take part, and took her work laptop with her which she then gave to the show’s producers.

    The officer was used as a ‘poster girl’ for the Met, posing alongside Met Commissioner Cressida Dick to encourage black and female recruitment and celebrate 100 years of women in the force.

    One colleague told the Sun: ‘She’s a serving British police officer – it’s outrageous. She asked permission to go on the show but, when her request was refused, she went anyway.

    ‘Her out-of-office email reply blatantly says that she is away from work, yet no one does anything.

    ‘Other officers working with her are furious that she can just disobey orders then swan off the Africa and tarnish the reputation of the force.’

    Miss Kareem began as a PC at Lambeth station in 2015 after four years spent as a part-time special constable.

    The Met Police Constable (pictured on the programme) allegedly had sex while taking part in the reality TV show without permission
    +13
    View gallery
    The Met Police Constable (pictured on the programme) allegedly had sex while taking part in the reality TV show without permission

    Khafi Kareem (pictured with Mr Gedoni) was a poster girl for the Met and has been allowed to keep her job
    +13
    View gallery
    Khafi Kareem (pictured with Mr Gedoni) was a poster girl for the Met and has been allowed to keep her job

    The officer, who has spoken against stop-and-search, joined up after a 16-year-old friend was stabbed to death.

    The PC worked as a spotter at airports, looking for possible victims of female genital mutilation (FGM).

    She also acted as a translator as she speaks French, Italian and her native Yoruba.

    Publicity material for the programme showed Miss Kareem in her uniform, branding her a talented singer and dancer.

    The material said of Miss Kareem: ‘Police officer Khafi Kareem believes that you can have it all if you believe in yourself.

    ‘She is not only hoping to win the prize money but she wants the exposure that being in Big Brother Naija House brings so that she can do societal good.’

    Her romance with Mr Gedoni gripped viewers of the show.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10770435/Met-PC-sex-appearing-Nigerian-Big-Brother-without-permission-keeps-job.html

      1. Yes. Rather one wonders… why hasn’t she been sacked for gross misconduct and theft?

        Why are we paying her salary during her absence? Is her pension being accrued?

        The state is awash with or money. If it were properly constrained this would never have happened.

        1. If we weren’t forced to pander to PAY FOR the taxpayer-paid so-called services, and especially those in those “services” who are not white, things would be very different. But the BTP are woke, woke = ££££.

        2. If we weren’t forced to pander to PAY FOR the taxpayer-paid so-called services, and especially those in those “services” who are not white, things would be very different. But the BTP are woke, woke = ££££.

        3. If we weren’t forced to pander to PAY FOR the taxpayer-paid so-called services, and especially those in those “services” who are not white, things would be very different. But the BTP are woke, woke = ££££.

        4. I don’t think she stole anything, did she? But it was undoubtedly a breach of security to let someone else see the contents of the police laptop. Maybe I am just old-fashioned, but I’d expect that to be a sackable offence.

          1. I would have thought that she breached her contract of employment – implicitly if not explicitly. Which can be just as sackable. Certain things are implied – such as not putting your employer’s reputation or confidential information into the public domain or worse, into disrepute.

          5. No, not my birthday – we went to Issy’s funeral on 28th. It was a long and quite tiring day – driving to Cardiff and back, with hold-ups on the motorways it ended up being a 7+ hr round journey.

            It was a sweet little 45 minute service in the chapel, and lots of people including many neighbours turned up and had nice things to say about Warren (that was his name). Katrina (his devoted carer for over two decades) and her family, and D and I met at his house and accompanied the hearse to the chapel. I can email an e-version of the Order of Service to anyone who would like one. I had written a piece about Warren and the pleasure he got from NoTTL, and the great fondness and respect of NoTTLers that he himself engendered – which was read out as part of the service.

            My birthday is in May. It’s going to be chaos – we are have new secondary windows fitted in some rooms, and new cielings nee to be boarded, plastered and painted. We have lived in mess for the last 6 weeks – which is when we were first told that the work would begin, and we cleared everything out of the relevant rooms. But it didn’t, it will start on Tuesday, so D and I will hopefully escape this mess to the pub for lunch on my b/day!

          6. Poor Issy , but how kind you and D were to attend his funeral . Sounds as if you had a dreadful journey there and back though .

            Having builders to do anything to improve things is very tiresome .

            Still , once the job is done , you will both be happier and more relaxed .

            Birthdays come around so quickly, don’t they , just sit back and celebrate . x

          7. Ah, thank you Maggie!

            We were both very fond of Issy, and I used to speak to him almost daily on the phone. He was completely bedridden for the last couple of years and needed help for pretty well everything – that’s one of the reasons he got so much out of NoTTL.

          8. I would have thought that she breached her contract of employment – implicitly if not explicitly. Which can be just as sackable. Certain things are implied – such as not putting your employer’s reputation or confidential information into the public domain or worse, into disrepute.

          10. It is normal to have a work laptop at home these days. I usually ask the company if they are OK with it if I take it to another country.

    3. This will be all over the media for the next month or more, with the BBC leading the way with in-depth reporting of the obvious injustice in the treatment of this disgraceful woman and the unfortunate ‘pin-up’ viewer who has been hounded out of Parliament – just you mark my words.

  69. That’s me for this slightly better day. Sunny all through – but still a little Jap in the air.

    Have a jolly evening furnishing your nuclear bunker.

    A demain. DV.

        1. It’s impossible to avoid viewing attractive fit girls whilst searching internet sites featuring tractors.
          I know because I wind up my ten year old grandson who is mad on tractors by showing him videos with pretty girls handling enormous machines that he thinks are beyond their capabilities:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06acf68d927123cb9742871f6ec9bdb17dd432b8466fd770d4d7f55eebcb665d.jpg

          This could look like porn to the casual over-the-shoulder peeping thomasina!

          1. The two po-faced, pearl clutching ‘colleagues’ who shrieked ‘Please miss, we know what he’s doing, miss!’ should be named and shamed!

          2. But he was apparently a Porn again Christian:

            “He said the first time was accidental after looking at a tractor website, but the second time – in the House of Commons – was deliberate.” Quoth the Beeb….

      1. And the delightful Claudia Webbe! A convicted MP, suspended sentence and still grasping her £80,000+! Ghastly racist hypocrite!

      1. I wasn’t following it particularly, so only the mainstream story filtered into my consciousness – and of course, they will never admit that all their hatred aimed at white Catholics was wrong.

    2. No bodies found because they haven’t dug any up yet.

      They know when they are onto a good thing with claims of racism, this-ism and every other ism that brings money in. We are paying compensation for poor water supplies as well as for anyone that went to school.

      Trudeau loves it, he is really using first nations issues to divide the country.

  74. Happy birthday to my cousin Rosie….the Humboldt penguin who is apparently 32 today. About the same age as me…..;-))

    1. Old Humboldt was an explorer and polymath genius who had a bunch of things named after him, including animals, plants and places.

          2. No but Herr Humboldt was apparently:

            “The Humboldt Current is named after the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt even though it was discovered by José de Acosta 250 years before Humboldt[2]. In 1846, von Humboldt reported measurements of the cold-water current in his book Cosmos.[1]”

      1. I was having a chat to a fellow dog-walker today and he said he liked listening to ’80s music. When I said I preferred that of the ’60s, he said it was the music his parents listened to! Grief, that made me feel old (he was no spring chicken)!

  76. I used to be able to do cartwheels. Now I tip over putting on my underwear.

    I hate it when I see an old person and then realize we went to high school together.

    I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes… so she hugged me.

    My wife says I only have 2 faults. I don’t listen and something else….

    I thought growing old would take longer.

    I came, I saw, I forgot what I was doing. Retraced my steps, got lost on the way back, now I have no idea what’s going on.

    The officer said, “You drinking?” I said, “You buying?” We just laughed and laughed…. I need bail money.

    I think the reason we are born with two hands is so we can pet two dogs at once.

    Scientists say the universe is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. They forgot to mention morons.

    The adult version of “head, shoulders, knees and toes” is “wallet, glasses, keys and phone.”

    Life is too short to waste time matching socks.

    If you see me talking to myself, just move along. I’m self-employed; we’re having a staff meeting.

    My doctor asked if anyone in my family suffers from mental illness. I said, “No, we all seem to enjoy it.”

    I don’t mind getting old, but my body is having a hissy fit.

    Camping: where you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person.

    Project Manager. Because Miracle Worker isn’t an official job title.

    I told my wife I wanted to be cremated. She made me an appointment for Tuesday.

    THINK! (It’s not illegal…. YET)

    I’ve reached the age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me

    If you’re happy and you know it, it’s your meds.

    1. Would you stop? I have choked on at least two mouthfuls of wine. Hilarious. Thanks Paul.

      1. Have you been having any probs with Face book .. I cant see comments nor articles or my pals on there . Don’t know what to do, I can receive private messages , but thats it.

  79. For those who are mildly interested, we beat Wimborne fairly comfortably after a poor start. Wimborne were top of the league last year and we were bottom. One of our rinks lost and two won. The rink I skipped won 29-9. I am too modest to say any more.

    2. Congratulations. That means as much to me as talking about tempi and flying changes does to most people on here, I expect, but it sounds like success 🙂

    5. Sounds and even looks a lot like curling but as I found , different muscles get stretched. That was the one time that I tried bowls at a local club.

  80. Evening, all. Been another nice day today, but I spent it indoors watching the 2,000 Guineas. I’m pleased to say, I predicted the one-two in the right order! Pity I don’t bet 🙂

  81. That’s it folks, Disqus playing up by randomly removing posts. I’m off so Goodnight and God bless.

    1. Goodnight Conners and Oscar. Sweet dreams. And no toe biting for either of you ;-))

      1. I am pleased to say that Oscar has been thinking twice about toe biting of late. He’s had a couple of opportunities and passed up on both of them. Progress! Nearly 11 months now, so hopefully he’s realising which side his bread is buttered.

  84. I wrote earlier today about Jens Orback’s Swedish suicide note and how I had come across it while looking for something else. That something was Ptolemy Dean, an architect and, briefly, a favourite of the BBC a few years ago and whose name popped up in a search on Westminster Abbey. Dean was responsible for the glass-encased lift shaft stuck on the back of the abbey a few years ago. It was referred to in this short piece by Harry Mount in the DT.

    Westminster Abbey reminds us we live in the land of the Goths, not well-mannered classicism

    HARRY MOUNT • 14th December 2016

    Turn to the front page of today’s Telegraph, and you’ll see, in the paper’s masthead, a last fragment of the Gothic style – the style that dominated Britain until the early 17th century.

    Yesterday, Prince Charles paid tribute to the style by laying the foundation stone of a Gothic tower at Westminster Abbey – the first new tower at the abbey since 1745. When it’s finished in 2018, the tower will lead to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, which will exhibit the abbey’s treasures.

    The galleries will be housed in the abbey’s triforium, its first floor, closed to the public since the abbey was built in the mid-13th century. Henry III wanted chapels up here but never managed it; his gargoyles and soaring Gothic vaults still loom above you. Instead, the triforium has been an unloved storeroom for 750 years – until now.

    I went to services in the abbey, three times a week for four years, when I was at Westminster School in the mid-1980s, but I never knew this vast area existed – you can’t see it from down in the nave. Once you’re 70 feet high in the triforium – as I was this week – you get stupendous aerial views of the nave; no wonder Richard Dimbleby’s commentary box was built here for the 1953 coronation.

    And what a wonderful view you get through the triforium windows – the finest view in Europe, John Betjeman said. If there had been a Hunchback of Westminster, this would have been his view – towards Parliament, across the gargoyles and buttresses of the Henry VII Chapel.

    The new tower – designed by Ptolemy Dean – has a Gothic exterior hiding a concrete liftshaft. It’s decorated with 31,000 fragments of medieval glass and bands of the different stones used for the original abbey: Bath stone, Portland stone, Reigate stone and Caen stone from Normandy.

    The tower is a lovely reminder that, until Inigo Jones imported classical architecture 400 years ago, Britain was a Gothic country. Practically every single church – apart from the Norman ones – was Gothic; most houses, too. Claude de Jongh’s 1630 painting of London Bridge shows a Gothic city of half-timbered houses and pointed church windows.

    From 1150 until the early 17th century, Britain’s villages, towns and cities looked less like Italy, and more like northern Germany, northern France and Holland; more swirling gables and higgledy-piggledy half-timbering, than symmetrical, Greek columns and Roman, stone pediments.

    You can still see the British Gothic look in the cathedral cities of York and Norwich, and villages with pre-1600 cottages wrapped round a medieval church tower. That’s why you can imagine a Brueghel scene – painted in Gothic northern Europe – in a Suffolk village or the Yorkshire Wolds; less so in Leeds or Birmingham.

    Over the last four centuries, Britain has become an increasingly classical country – particularly in our terraced houses, derived from Palladio’s Italian palaces.

    But – in our outlook, character and weather – we remain a northern European, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic lot, given to periodic fits of damp gloom and beery cheer, of grumpy laziness and dutiful hard work.

    We are a land of Goths, better suited to rain-lashed spires and crocketed pinnacles than sub-tropical colonnades and sun-kissed piazzas.

    Harry Mount is author of ‘How England Made the English’ (Viking Press)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/architecture/westminster-abbey-reminds-us-live-land-goths-not-well-mannered/

    “…in our outlook, character and weather – we remain a northern European, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic lot, given to periodic fits of damp gloom and beery cheer, of grumpy laziness and dutiful hard work. We are a land of Goths, better suited to rain-lashed spires and crocketed pinnacles than sub-tropical colonnades and sun-kissed piazzas.”

    I wish I’d written that.

  85. I wrote earlier today about Jens Orback’s Swedish suicide note and how I had come across it while looking for something else. That something was Ptolemy Dean, an architect and, briefly, a favourite of the BBC a few years ago and whose name popped up incidentally in a search on Westminster Abbey. Dean was responsible for the glass-encased lift shaft stuck on the back of the abbey a few years ago. It was referred to in this short piece by Harry Mount in the DT.

    Westminster Abbey reminds us we live in the land of the Goths, not well-mannered classicism

    HARRY MOUNT • 14th December 2016

    Turn to the front page of today’s Telegraph, and you’ll see, in the paper’s masthead, a last fragment of the Gothic style – the style that dominated Britain until the early 17th century.

    Yesterday, Prince Charles paid tribute to the style by laying the foundation stone of a Gothic tower at Westminster Abbey – the first new tower at the abbey since 1745. When it’s finished in 2018, the tower will lead to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, which will exhibit the abbey’s treasures.

    The galleries will be housed in the abbey’s triforium, its first floor, closed to the public since the abbey was built in the mid-13th century. Henry III wanted chapels up here but never managed it; his gargoyles and soaring Gothic vaults still loom above you. Instead, the triforium has been an unloved storeroom for 750 years – until now.

    I went to services in the abbey, three times a week for four years, when I was at Westminster School in the mid-1980s, but I never knew this vast area existed – you can’t see it from down in the nave. Once you’re 70 feet high in the triforium – as I was this week – you get stupendous aerial views of the nave; no wonder Richard Dimbleby’s commentary box was built here for the 1953 coronation.

    And what a wonderful view you get through the triforium windows – the finest view in Europe, John Betjeman said. If there had been a Hunchback of Westminster, this would have been his view – towards Parliament, across the gargoyles and buttresses of the Henry VII Chapel.

    The new tower – designed by Ptolemy Dean – has a Gothic exterior hiding a concrete liftshaft. It’s decorated with 31,000 fragments of medieval glass and bands of the different stones used for the original abbey: Bath stone, Portland stone, Reigate stone and Caen stone from Normandy.

    The tower is a lovely reminder that, until Inigo Jones imported classical architecture 400 years ago, Britain was a Gothic country. Practically every single church – apart from the Norman ones – was Gothic; most houses, too. Claude de Jongh’s 1630 painting of London Bridge shows a Gothic city of half-timbered houses and pointed church windows.

    From 1150 until the early 17th century, Britain’s villages, towns and cities looked less like Italy, and more like northern Germany, northern France and Holland; more swirling gables and higgledy-piggledy half-timbering, than symmetrical, Greek columns and Roman, stone pediments.

    You can still see the British Gothic look in the cathedral cities of York and Norwich, and villages with pre-1600 cottages wrapped round a medieval church tower. That’s why you can imagine a Brueghel scene – painted in Gothic northern Europe – in a Suffolk village or the Yorkshire Wolds; less so in Leeds or Birmingham.

    Over the last four centuries, Britain has become an increasingly classical country – particularly in our terraced houses, derived from Palladio’s Italian palaces.

    But – in our outlook, character and weather – we remain a northern European, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic lot, given to periodic fits of damp gloom and beery cheer, of grumpy laziness and dutiful hard work.

    We are a land of Goths, better suited to rain-lashed spires and crocketed pinnacles than sub-tropical colonnades and sun-kissed piazzas.

    Harry Mount is author of ‘How England Made the English’ (Viking Press)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/architecture/westminster-abbey-reminds-us-live-land-goths-not-well-mannered/

    “…in our outlook, character and weather – we remain a northern European, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, Gothic lot, given to periodic fits of damp gloom and beery cheer, of grumpy laziness and dutiful hard work. We are a land of Goths, better suited to rain-lashed spires and crocketed pinnacles than sub-tropical colonnades and sun-kissed piazzas.”

    I wish I’d written that.

    1. I believe it was Summerson who pointed out that Blenheim Palace is a Gothic building.

      Ptolemy Dean is supposedly an expert on Sir John Soane and as with all such persons with a high public profile, a fraud.

  89. Good morning, dear NoTTLers,

    While this is in yesterday’s DT, I was just thinking about Priti Patel and the Passport Office : I went there in person to get a passport, some 25 years ago. Even then, the majority of the staff looked like they came from places foreign:

    SIR – After I had applied successfully for a renewal in February, my new passport was delivered to the wrong address. TNT admitted this was its error, but has unilaterally declared the matter closed having notified the Passport Office.

    To date, the Passport Office has not replied to emails or answered phone calls in any meaningful respect. (I was put through to the “Progress” department, which never answered.)

    The Passport Office is, of course, under the auspices of Priti Patel’s Home Office. From my experience, I fear for the asylum seekers resettled in Rwanda in progressing their applications.

    James Reeves
    Dorking, Surrey

    I’m not surprised they don’t reply or answer calls “in any meaningful respect”. Of course, Priti will be welcoming many more of her compatriots following Johnson’s “deal” with India. As for any prospective immigrants in Rwanda (if that actually goes ahead), they will be waved through by people with largely the same-sounding surnames at the Passport Office…

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