Saturday 30 November: MPs voted out of compassion for those who have suffered at the end of life

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

766 thoughts on “Saturday 30 November: MPs voted out of compassion for those who have suffered at the end of life”

  5. Good morning. They didn't vote out of compassion – they voted out of fear, and in doing so, delivered us into a worse state as a society than we were before.
    Just like they did when they destroyed the definition of marriage.
    A stable society revolves around the raising of its young in a stable setting and the care of its weaker members.
    Not abandoning the former to dystopian single parent families dependent on the government, and killing the latter.

    2. BB2, "They" were mainly the Labour government yesterday, whereas "they" were David Cameron's Conservative government when – as I recall – same sex marriages were imposed, but not debated in Parliament. (Good morning, btw.)

      1. …with assurances from Dodgy Dave that they would not seek to extend civil partnerships – and neither was it in the manifesto. A massive Tory betrayal.

        'Morning, Elsie.

      2. “They” are the same low quality parliamentarians who work consistently to further Agenda 2030 though, regardless of the colour of the rosette.

        1. Agenda 2030 will continue to provide them with a good living.

          Very sensible of them to continue supporting it.

          1. Until they realise that they are going to share the fate of the peasants, and that warm feeling they got for doing the bidding of billionaires isn't going to save them!

          2. They will all reach that stage themselves one day probably when all the ‘balances and checks’ have long been abandoned.

    3. BB2, "They" were mainly the Labour government yesterday, whereas "they" were David Cameron's Conservative government when – as I recall – same sex marriages were imposed, but not debated in Parliament. (Good morning, btw.)

  6. 397752+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 30 November: MPs voted out of compassion for those who have suffered at the end of life

    MY ARSE

    The same type of compassion shown to millions of elderly in regards to the cold weather payment, that sort of death hastening compassion ?

    We really are IMHO dealing here with a law being put in place with selective deaths in the political overseers mindset, constructed with treacherous abuse very much in mind.

    If you have the capacity to think please enlighten me as to when, these past four decades, COMPASSION was ever shown to the halal riddled herd.

      2. correction; gold and silver ARE money. It's just the ratio of the relative worth of the same weight of each.
        Our bits of paper, base metal and electrons are nothing but simulations of money!

  8. Good morning to Geoff and all Readers
    Golly, you guys are a bit early this morning!
    Trigger warning – smut ahead
    Today's Tale – Superman
    One sunny Sunday, Superman was flying around with nothing to do, so he decided to drop in on Batman.
    “Hi, Bat,” said Superman, “let’s go down the pub and have a beer.”
    “Not today. Super. My Batmobile’s broken down and I’ve got to fix it. Can’t fight crime without it, you know.”
    Disappointed, Superman went over to Spiderman’s place.
    “Let’s go down the pub for a drink, Spider.”
    “Sorry Super. I’ve got a problem with my web gun. Can’t fight crime without it, you know.”
    Dejectedly, Superman took to the air again, and decided to drop by on Wonder Woman. There she was, lying on her back out on her balcony, stark naked and writhing around. Superman conceived a cunning idea. “Everyone says I’m faster than a speeding bullet, and I’ve always wondered what sort of screw she’d be.”
    So he zoomed down, did her in a flash and zoomed off.
    “What the hell was that!” cried Wonder Woman.
    “I don’t know, but it hurt like hell!” said the Invisible Man.

  10. I have just read today's DT Letters. I am suspicious that the final letter – usually reserved for "funnies", is this one:

    SIR – As an Englishman living in Sweden, where pork pies are non-existent, I find that my supper hosts would much rather receive one of my delicious home-baked pies than any bottle of wine (Letters, November 29).

    Alan G Barstow
    Onslunda, Skåne County, Sweden

    If it looks like a pork pie, smells like a pork pie…etc, and comes from Skåne County, it might even be from a celebrated Nottler.
    Am I right?

  11. Medley…
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    1. I do wonder if the obese lesbian has any friends. I doubt even muslim paedo rapists would give it a go. No wonder there are so many people who self harm. Just spending five minutes with it would make me consider slashing my wrists.

        1. The assisted killing ads in London are a disgrace. They might as well say "white people, go kill yourselves"

    4. Just reading a book that mentions Denis Healey; he was, it seems, a very cultured and well educated man who served in Italy during the war. He was torn between becoming an Oxford Don and going into politics as a Labour MP. As for the last one, I don't think Larry likes him at all (the feline Larry, the only sane occupant of number 10).

  14. Good morning to all, and thanks as usual to Geoff.

    Wordle 1,260 5/6

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    1. Good morning. Thankfully i made my cup of tea before being dog swamped. I have one on each foot at the moment and can't move !

      1. I made Mrs D a cup of tea at 0700 and now she is readying to man the mobility chariot and take the Springer for a walk. I do the afternoon walk.

      1. Ogga, maybe you missed a letter off the end of one of your words.

        Let's try again:

        The illegals are certainly NOT here for our benefits, that's for sure.

        There – done.

    2. I would like to see and hear legitimate footage of Starmer saying the above. Not the clip referring to Labour Party members in 2023.

  17. ”…All the other countries that allow it cannot be wrong.
    Bryan Hatter
    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

    A terrifying Rubicon has been crossed.
    Kevin Duffy”

    I’m with Mr Duffy on this, rather than Mr Hatter.

    1. Well mad-as-a, do you approve of arranged marriages with cousins and for elderly men to young girls?
      By your logic I assume you must.

          1. Ndovu, we're sure that you noticed that none of the guilty were sentenced to

            deportation after completion of their sentences.

          2. I hadn’t but it doesn’t surprise me. It should be automatic for people who commit crimes and have citizenship of another country.

  19. Good morning all.
    It's getting lighter, but so overcast there's little sign of the sun coming up. A tiny bit of overnight rain and the Yard Thermometer is back above zero with 4°C. Very little wind.

  21. btw this is the link to the Dark Horse podcast I referred to a couple of days ago, where Bret and Heather discuss ARLA and its cow drug experiment. Later Bret talks about an enquiry he has had from BBC Vilify who are going to expose him for his “disinformation” (he is anti-vax) following a podcast he did with Stephen Bartlett on Bartlett’s “Diary of a CEO” podcast.

    I think you can earth the Dark Horse on Rumble but possibly not You Tube, as I think You Tube de-monetised them a long time ago. This link is just to an audio podcast (skip the first 10 minutes or so, when they read out ads)(you can of course just read the transcript):

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bret-weinstein-darkhorse-podcast/id1471581521?i=1000678461131

      1. A lot of debate and speculation on which supermarkets will be selling Arla's product. This morning I shopped at my local Lidl and checked both the double cream and full milk for the producer's name: it is Müller, a privately owned company. I'm certain that Wiseman's label was on Lidl's milk originally: the former was purchased by the latter in 2012.

        1. M&S sells Arla products.

          Tesco claims(?) to purchase its milk from farmers "in our sustainable farming group"

  22. Feeling ill.Good morrow gentlefolk, especially Geoff and thanks for his wonderful work on this site

    1. Good morning.
      Not particularly breezy here!
      Dull and overcast with the surviving leaves hanging on limply.

  25. Starmer would hope this bill will stop grannies before they freeze to death .
    It'll be a case of end the last day's of life to unburden the NHS

    1. Everything they come into contact with they eff it up and all that is passed in Wastemonster is devicive.
      It's their overall and general adgenda.

      1. In their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, first published in 2012, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson provide over 100 case studies of why societies fail.

        Their conclusion is that nations end when trust in institutions dissolves.

        1. There would be a very long list of failures deliberate or not with in our political classes.
          I think Heath started things off with his lies and obeisances towards Europe.

  26. Good – and grey – Moaning.
    Reading the DT letters, I see our Grizz is fast becoming NOTTL's Philip Duly.

  27. Morning, all Y'all from a snowy smallholding in the depths of Norway. Dark, too, very de-energising. Cider to bottle today, and honey to press, so a busy day.

    2. Morning Obs.
      We watched a very weird film last night based on a book. The Snow man. Set in Norway in Bergen, we stopped off there on a Fjord Cruise a few years ago, and loved it, but my word that film was weird. I can't say that either of us enjoyed it.
      Quite a few brits took parts and all in English.

      1. The books are much better than the films, Eddy.

        Jo Nesbø [pron: "You Nesber"] is the talented author of the Harry Hole [pron: Harry "Hooler"] set of detective fiction, based in Oslo. I've read the entire set and thoroughly enjoyed them, but the films leave a lot to be desired.

        1. If only Grizz.
          I’m still waiting for my second cataract removal. Then I will be able to be prescribed new reading glasses.
          It’s been a bit of a nightmare since June this year. And of course long before.

          1. That is appalling. Specsavers failed to diagnose my cataracts so I went to a proper opticians and they were noticed immediately. I had my first operation within a week, and then the second three months later.

            My close-up vision improved immediately but I still need specs for presbyopia and astigmatism. My distant vision, now, with the aid of those specs is as good as it ever was.

  28. 'Morning, Peeps and Geoff,

    Overcast and very mild this morning on yer sarf coast.

    Having read the comments on here, and particularly the many 'antis' on the DT Comments, I am relieved to note that I am not alone in my disquiet over the 'assisted killing' (sic) legislation. My main reason is that successive governments will indulge in mission creep, and will extend its scope by modifying or removing altogether the proposed safeguards. They will also put less effort into the quest for better and more widely available palliative care. My other concern is the presence of big money behind the pro campaign, which I find rather sinister. Here is just one of the leading comments (out of the current 5,500+) that is against it:

    Brewer Tier
    16 hrs ago
    This stinks and is wrong on every level. If people are suffering, it shows that we are not putting enough funds into palliative care, as has been demonstrated everywhere else in this government, we do not have funds for our own, but if it is foreign or woke, or net zero, we somehow manage to find billions.

    Tim Stanley's article is here:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/29/assisted-dying-not-same-country/

    1. State sanctioned murder. Just as what happened with abortions.

      There is a need to end suffering just as there is sometimes a need for abortion.

      What we are now seeing with abortions are foetus being dismembered in the womb at 8 months.

      2. The whole point of contraception is to stop conception happening in the first place. The Catholic Church's teaching is wise on many issues but, tomy mind, not on this subject.

        Abortion may be an evil but in some cases – such as rape and severe deformity – it might be an acceptable evil. Just as I cannot understand those who do not concede that human life begins at conception.

      3. The whole point of contraception is to stop conception happening in the first place. The Catholic Church's teaching is wise on many issues but, tomy mind, not on this subject.

        Abortion may be an evil but in some cases – such as rape and severe deformity – it might be an acceptable evil. Just as I cannot understand those who do not concede that human life begins at conception.

  30. Sadly, not.
    Maybe Grizz should start a business making & selling his pies – I suspect it would go really well.

    2. Mr Barstow

      My begging letter is in the post for you to supply me with pies.

      That should nottle but you to too much trouble I hope

      1. Yo, Mr Effort.

        I'd be delighted to do so; unfortunately all I would achieve would be a cartel of over-fed customs officers.

  31. Today Frederica makes a convincing case in Free Speech magazine on why we should all sign The Pledge . No, it doesn’t involve giving up alcohol, but is instead a set of principles based on free speech, patriotism and love of British history and culture. Please read Freddie’s article and, if she persuades you, sign up.

    Xandra H’s fascinating article ‘ State Designed Immaturity ’, on the development of self-awareness and autonomy in infants and how State involvement is subverting that process to produce immature adults, with a psychologic dependency on the State, is still up for those who missed it. Please do read it – it explains a lot.

    Today, terrifyingly, MPs voted in favour of making the assisted dying bill law, a law that is very likely to evolve into a State-mandated death instrument. FSB’s poll on whether you support assisted dying or not is still open at the top of the Today page . Please vote.

    And if you have not already done so please sign the petition calling for a new general election. At 0800 this morning it had attracted 2,909,358, up a still healthy 21,694 since 08:00 yesterday.

    Energy Watch: Demand at 0800: 30.234 GW. Supply: Hydrocarbon = 25.2%; Renewables = 44.3%; Nuclear = 7.8%; Biomass = 6.9% and Imports 11%.

    Oh, and if you have high blood pressure, or a dicky ticker: DO NOT watch this!

    2. 'Morning TA. I find Net Zero Watch ( https://www.netzerowatch.com/ ) is a good way of keeping up with Marxist Minibrain's attempt to finish off our economy, and therefore our prosperity, with his weapons-grade insanity. He has made great progress and his work should be completed long before the electorate wakes up and calls time on this despicable sh1tshow of a government.

      1. Morning Hugh. It’s on my radar but time constraints but it difficult. If you ever see anything on there you need to share, pen FSB an article please.

  32. 397752+ up ticks,

    The result of the assisted dying vote was announced – then silence
    MPs struggled to process the outcome of what may well prove to be the most consequential ballot they will ever cast

    And I believe their thoughts , will I be eligible for the political Odessa route once the shite hits the fan as it surely will.

    Assisted dying could fall once full cost is revealed, say opponents
    Wavering MPs could flip and oppose draft legislation when impact on NHS and courts is revealed

    CRAP, just up the squeeze on the tax payer, it's always worked before when we want them to self inflict damage to themselves.

  33. Phey!
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  34. Good morning all

    Dull dry early morning , 14c..

    Son was up and about very early , getting his kit together , preparing to meet a running mate to travel together to Brockenhurst to take part in the half marathon New Forest trail run . https://www.ukrunningevents.co.uk/events/trail-runs/new-forest-roundhill-trail-run-2024 .

    Oh dear , drizzling with rain now . I expect the New Forest has plenty of leaf colour still .

    Despite everything , I slept strangely .. and do not feel too happy about the Kill Bill being pushed forward by the government .

    What if one received a dread diagnosis .. then the NHS would tot up the amount of money for treatment , then use the excuse , too expensive for treatment .. your choice .. how appalling.

    1. Morning TB, my thoughts entirely on the 'Kill Bill'. You can bet your boots some people will be rubbing their hands out there and be making a lot of money out of this.
      It's impossible to trust anyone in politics these dark days.

      1. …particularly when a Secretary of State is a convicted fraudster, shopped – apparently – by her own side because she is (was) a dangerously loose cannon and who made the 15% pay offer to rail unions entirely off her own bat without even consulting our pathetic PM or the Treasury beforehand. And who also told people to boycott P&O because she didn't like their methods. Once again FreeGearKeir has f…f…fouled up in appointing her and not sacking her when these things happened. Sh1t for brains, all of 'em.

        'Morning, Eddy.

      2. …particularly when a Secretary of State is a convicted fraudster, shopped – apparently – by her own side because she is (was) a dangerously loose cannon and who made the 15% pay offer to rail unions entirely off her own bat without even consulting our pathetic PM or the Treasury beforehand. And who also told people to boycott P&O because she didn't like their methods. Once again FreeGearKeir has f…f…fouled up in appointing her and not sacking her when these things happened. Sh1t for brains, all of 'em.

        'Morning, Eddy.

      3. …particularly when a Secretary of State is a convicted fraudster, shopped – apparently – by her own side because she is (was) a dangerously loose cannon and who made the 15% pay offer to rail unions entirely off her own bat without even consulting our pathetic PM or the Treasury beforehand. And who also told people to boycott P&O because she didn't like their methods. Once again FreeGearKeir has f…f…fouled up in appointing her and not sacking her when these things happened. Sh1t for brains, all of 'em.

        'Morning, Eddy.

  35. Morning all 🙂😊
    Foggy but a double figured start.
    But as was explained yesterday by the lady on itv news, winter doesn't start until next week.
    Who knew eh.
    Thank you all for your kind comments yesterday.
    Onwards and upwards.

    1. I knew that winter doesn't start until next week; the date of the First Day of Winter is printed in my diary 🙂

  36. Hey Beatnik, those Swedish folks want brännvin, akvavit, and glögg:, Dude not the old Vino Collapso or Blue Nun. Cooking up those pies over a gurgling kerosene cauldron down in the freight yard adds octane to your offerings, Hombre. Those pies are gentle on the mind, Pal like a nine pound hammer driving spikes into railroad ties. I spent twenty four hours in Sverige, Hombre and all the Good Ole Boys were drunk- must have eaten your pies, Pal. Kept calling me tyska, Dude they were totally lost in the ozone.

    2. Hey, Dean. Them local Hillbillies called you “Tyska” because they thought you were the HUN, Bro. As for the glögg, you have to be nuts to drink it (that’s nuts in it, Hombre) although being cuckoo helps.

      You gotta be awake when hob-nobbing among them Skånsk, Dude. Most countries have their wacko corner. The good ol’ US of A has its Georgia; The Canucks have Newfyland; Down Under, Queensland is the Ocker’s queer refuge; while His Majesty’s Britannic realm has Norfolk (them natives are not called dumplings for zilch, Man).

      Up here, the Svensk send all their untouchables to Skåne on the hog-cart, Compadre. They call it “second-home land”, Dude, but we know it as a rest home for the wackos.

      1. Hey Beatnik, those turnips thought I had Schnapps, Bro! They were sniffin' for high octane chugalug', Hombre. Anyway, Dude it was getting cold up there Svenskside so we caught that old Iron Horse direct to Venice via Hunland and other nutjob nations but our stash of beer ran out at Como- so we baled there Pal and met a Kraut who looked like me. That Kraut must have been selling moonshine in Sweden- making me look a renegade doppleganger and the Alkis' fave dealer, Dude. I have heard down that old Wisecracker Line that your pies made Prescott into the Numero Uno Lardarse and grand fromage Lord of the Pies, Hombre.

  37. Par. Tidy.

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    1. Well, you know, the Ukrain war is winding down. The military industrial complex has to go somewhere else to keep the dollars flowing in.

  39. I seem to be alone today in favouring the idea that I alone should be able to take my own life if I wanted to, with a fresh annual supply of Morphine syrup in the fridge. I know that's not what was being voted on yesterday. Yes, I could sit in my car with the engine running and a hosepipe from the exhaust in through a window. But that's a horrible way to go.

    As one of very many (including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey) who have actually watched their beloved partner or relative descending slowly and hopelessly into dementia or cancer and painful death, with no possibility of Hospice care, all I want is the availability of a painless death at a time of MY choosing (provided I am still compos mentis).

    My sister-in-law in Canada, a devout Christian whose husband – my late brother – was a Canon in the Church, wrote in these pages about attending at the MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) process of her dear 88-year-old friend. The latter was in continuous pain and doctors had no idea how to cure it without opening her up (again). Her chosen end was a swift and peaceful process, witnessed by my sister-in-law and the old lady's daughters.

    I know that 'mission creep' has happened in Canada, probably more than anywhere else. For that reason alone, I hope that in the UK, enough safeguards can be put in place, based on the decades of experience in places like Oregon. There, only about 10-15 percent of those who are given the means of ending their lives actually do so. They go on to die 'naturally', but have the reassurance that if the time comes when they want to leave, they have the means at hand. That is all that I wish for myself. Perhaps I am selfish or naïf.

      1. True. In Canada the MAiD process can happen within weeks. Looking at the UK 'version', I can't imagine it taking fewer than 6-12 months to crawl past a High Court Judge, etc. Many of those wanting the end would have expired by then.

        1. One suggestion that I have read in a DT comment was that the delay caused by the requirement for judicial approval would soon be regarded as unacceptable, given the small number of HC judges available, and the Act, if passed, would rapidly be amended to remove it. So the first safeguard against abuse would soon be removed.

          1. Deep down in the proposed Bill was the statement that if the patient was unable to

            speak for itself a "responsible person" would be permitted to speak for him/her.

            Who is a "responsible person"?

            Who appoints or chooses a "responsible person"?

            Can one volunteer to be a "responsible person"?

          5. Well Anne, perhaps employees of HMRC could get involved?

            They could establish a pre-bereavement department which could decide

            on the order of assisted dying.

          7. I think MPs are either being dishonest or they full well know where this goes. I suspect the latter.

            They put this up as "a right to die". It's "compassion" providing the vehicle getting them legalistically from A to B. Um… sorry, but why has a person nearer a natural death got any more of "a right to die" than the rest of us? Surely I'm a responsible person? Surely if I feel like it then I too have that "right"?

            Yes, I feel a case coming in to the ECHR before long…

            But of course the lawyer class in Parliament already know this.

          9. That was always an argument, soon sidelined in the stampede along with what it will do to health professionals once they get their hands dirty with the detail. All moral actions leave their imprint.

        2. We have Southport to thank for the fact we now know the government can get cases through the courts more rapidly if they can guarantee the right outcome.

          1. No, there isn't a poster of a young woman in a burka dancing for joy because she can now get help with topping herself.

    2. The trouble with assisted dying is not whether I want to end my own life but if somebody else wants to influence my choice and take that decision from me.

    3. I also support choice. Neither of my recently deceased parents needed such an option although I felt my father came close. I can understand the arguement regarding coersion but on the other hand I have heard many stories of individuals with unsufferable pain. In the end, an assisted departure has to be requested by the subject and those without capactity cannot give concent. Unfortunately, in true Brit style, the procedure proposed in the UK seems to be long winded and will probably end up in court battles. Dignitas is the easy way out and seems to be available for those who are not necessarily in terminal decline. From what I read, assisted deaths were common when doctors were truely family doctors and knew their patients so the option is not something new. Im not persuaded by the line that the state will get rid of us oldies to save on resources, once again, it is an individual's choice. In a free society we should have that option.

      1. What are now called "assisted deaths" were usually increasing medication to relieve pain and mental suffering.
        It was tacitly accepted that such treatment would shorten life by days or even a week or two.
        Ever since knowledge of plants like hemlock and the development of dwale, mankind has had the ability to make medically assisted dying a possibility. It's the involvement of government and lawyers that is worrying. We have recent history to explain people's doubts.

        1. Your first paragraph is spot on, Annie. Both of my parents went this way (12 months apart) with the quiet, efficient help of local hospice outreach nurses. In both cases as soon as the family was notified that their 'final injections' had been administered it was a blessed relief for us, and for them too if they were even still slightly conscious (which I doubt). We even had time to be with them when the end came. That is the sensible and compassionate end we wanted for them, with any quality of life having long since disappeared. I shall never forget the care and kindness provided by those involved.

    4. You are not alone. I also favour the idea of taking my life, at the end, if I choose to. I agree with you that we can learn how not to do it from Canada, Oregon, etc. I don't think that assisted dying means that someone has to do it for you unless you are so incapacitated. It means that you will be given the means, if you ask for it, without having to do such awful things such as breathing in the exhaust from a car. That further, you will be able to end your life peacefully, with your family and friends, if you so choose.

      People are emotional about assisted dying and I think there are two reasons for that. For some it is fear, for others it is because they haven't seen death or, if they have it was a peaceful death. The truth is is that it is a horrendous process for the most part with a lot of pain. At present, the doctors drug you up to the eyeballs to the point you are effectively dead anyway. To go one step further and end it is simply decent. As it has often been said, 'we don't treat our pets the way we treat people'. There is no excuse to torture people when they are dying, it is disgusting and a sophistic pretence at compassion to have people die 'naturally'. To be blunt, it is cowardly and cruel to deny people the choice.

      1. I don't think that many object to people having a choice.

        What everyone appears frightened of is the Government getting involved with its priorities

        being very different from yours and your family's.

        After all, how many great successes has the Government had in the last thirty years?

        1. Once it is law I doubt the government will want much to do with it. They will hand it over to the medical profession.

    5. Maybe a compulsory inquest after each assisted death would give pause for thought.
      Some (many?) friends or family members would not be too keen on their motives for helping or suggesting such a choice being picked over in public.

      1. Revelations on the internet state that in the Bill there is NO requirement for an inquest.

        Sorry, Anne

        1. Quelle surprise.
          Maybe we have one MP amongst the 650 to add that during the discussion stage.

  40. I seem to be alone today in favouring the idea that I alone should be able to take my own life if I wanted to, with a fresh annual supply of Morphine syrup in the fridge. I know that's not what was being voted on yesterday. Yes, I could sit in my car with the engine running and a hosepipe from the exhaust in through a window. But that's a horrible way to go.

    As one of very many (including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey) who have actually watched their beloved partner or relative descending slowly and hopelessly into dementia or cancer and painful death, with no possibility of Hospice care, all I want is the availability of a painless death at a time of MY choosing (provided I am still compos mentis).

    My sister-in-law in Canada, a devout Christian whose husband – my late brother – was a Canon in the Church, wrote in these pages about attending at the MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) process of her dear 88-year-old friend. The latter was in continuous pain and doctors had no idea how to cure it without opening her up (again). Her chosen end was a swift and peaceful process, witnessed by my sister-in-law and the old lady's daughters.

    I know that 'mission creep' has happened in Canada, probably more than anywhere else. For that reason alone, I hope that in the UK, enough safeguards can be put in place, based on the decades of experience in places like Oregon. There, only about 10-15 percent of those who are given the means of ending their lives actually do so. They go on to die 'naturally', but have the reassurance that if the time comes when they want to leave, they have the means at hand. That is all that I wish for myself. Perhaps I am selfish or naïf.

  41. True. In Canada the MAiD process can happen within weeks. Looking at the UK 'version', I can't imagine it taking fewer than 6-12 months to crawl past a High Court Judge, etc. Many of those wanting the end would have expired by then.

  42. Q&A with Dominic Cummings.

    How the dysfunctional civil service run the show.
    The incredible lack of talent & political Will within the Tory party.
    How the Home Office actually believe that the RN.. the navy that defeated the Spanish armarda, Napoleon's & Germany's fleet.. couldn't beat the dinghy men.
    MOD are a sh1tshow.
    Whitehall & parliament keep in touch with the people by listening to the BBC & ITV.
    Farage or another party are your only hope.. IF they hire clever people.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EK3diXgqbI

    1. Oh.. and the only way forward is.. to go in hard & purge.
      Something the Tory party will never ever ever ever do.

      1. Cameron and Gove purged all the Gen X-ers who would have opposed them. We're seeing the entirely predictable results now.

    2. Oh.. and the only way forward is.. to go in hard & purge.
      Something the Tory party will never ever ever ever do.

  43. Q&A with Dominic Cummings.

    How the dysfunctional civil service run the show.
    The incredible lack of talent & political Will within the Tory party.
    How the Home Office actually believe that the RN.. the navy that defeated the Spanish armarda, Napoleon's & Germany's fleet.. couldn't beat the dinghy men.
    MOD are a sh1tshow.
    Whitehall & parliament keep in touch with the people by listening to the BBC & ITV.
    Farage or another party are your only hope.. IF they hire clever people.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EK3diXgqbI

  44. Somebody made the point that abortion is the only grisly death that's never shown in the media, because if people saw it, they would be against it.

  45. A sudden thought.

    Do you remember the hoo-hah over a putative trade deal with the US (the TTP?) which got a lot of backlash because of chlorinated chicken?

    I can’t remember the details but I think it was around the time of the Brexit vote and certainly the Libtards where I lived where all agin it (at the time i suspected it was more because they were anti-Brexit than anti-chicken).

    Where are the similar Libtard protests about the milk? Or (rhetorical question alert) is it different because the Libtards think stopping cows farting will actually “save tbe planet” (sic)?

    1. Especially when it's easy to wash chicken to get rid of chlorine, but you can't wash

      damaging chemicals out of Arla milk which you feed to your children.

      2. MOH points out that children drinking Arla milk will be a very interesting Darwinian experiment.

        The nation could well discover that in two or three generations nearly all the youngsters

        are descended from lactose intolerant forebears.

        Fascinating !!

    2. Plus recall that said Libtards were against chlorine at all while failing to notice that their beloved EU was using it too. It was just that the EU recommended lower concentration of it that's all. Libtardism and facts don't tend to come into contact with each other.

    2. The perfect metaphor for how the "transition to green" works and the mindset of those who believe it actually already works. Let fossil do the heavy lifting whilst green proclaims its virtue. Excellent.

          1. Lashings of butter, pepper and salt makes it edible. Pass the cranberry sauce would you dearie….

          11. And me.🦆
            Shredded and wrapped in thin pancakes with hoi-sin sauce, and thinly-sliced spring onions and cucumber.😋

          12. Our local Asian restaurant (Bambus Sushi) does a crispy duck salad as starter, and the full bifter, pancakes, strips of cucumber & onion, as main course.
            Utter bliss…

          13. And didn't that TV cooking show presenter, Gregg Wallace, get into trouble by goosing the cook rather than cooking the goose.

            One of my favourite song writers – or rather a poet – came from your part of the world.

            Ladies’ Basic Freedoms Polka : Jake Thackray

            The ladies of the neighbourhood
            Are fighting the fight for womanhood
            By taking what they feel to be
            Fundamental liberties.

            Gentlemen, don’t walk alone!
            Beware these women! They’re widely known
            For their marksmanship, their lobster grip.
            They’re quick to strike, and they strike to the bone.

            The ladies of the neighbourhood
            Are fighting the fight for womanhood
            By taking what they feel to be
            Fundamental liberties.

            They advance libertarian views
            With the speed of incontinent kangaroos.
            With a vampire’s wail their hungry nails
            Will sink into your bulging trews.

            The ladies of the neighbourhood
            Are fighting the fight for womanhood
            By taking what they feel to be
            Fundamental liberties.

            They’ve been where no women have been before,
            Up Lord Mayors’ petticoats, barristers’ drawers.
            They’re known to have poked up a horseguard’s cloak
            And many a butcher’s pinafore.

            The ladies of the neighbourhood,
            Fighting the fight for womanhood
            By taking what they feel to be
            Fundamental liberties.

            Your chef isn’t safe when they break loose;
            In his kitchen he’ll be brutally seduced:
            A yelp, a scream, a clatter of tureens
            And lo and behold your cook is goosed.

            The ladies of the neighbourhood,
            Fighting the fight for womanhood
            By taking what they feel to be
            Fundamental liberties.

            They had the vicar with a fearful tweak,
            Plucking at his cassock with animal shrieks.
            With a priestly wince he stuck to his principles
            And turned the other cheek.

            The ladies of the neighbourhood,
            Fighting the fight for womanhood
            By taking what they feel to be
            Fundamental liberties.

          14. Er … calling Leeds “my part of the world” is a bit like calling Paris “your part of the world”.

          16. Chicken, goose and duck all more tasty than turkey.
            I'm sure the only reason turkey gained in popularity was its size – good for a large family gathering. No-one actually likesit

          17. I would much rather savour the delicious flesh of any animal or bird over the utterly pointless, flavour-devoid, turkey.

            I've lost count of the muppets who have told me to, soak it in this and rub it with that, before roasting the infernal thing. It still makes no difference to the blandness of its meat.

            That is why I gave up on buying — and eating — it 40 years ago.

          19. Hairy Bikers in France cooking chicken how the French grandmother makes it.

            Joint the chick. Saute in butter and oil. Drown in cider and simmer.

            Tasted excellent.

          21. I have now, chronologically speaking, reached the melancholy Jacques's Act 6 – The Slippered Pantaloon – I certainly wear slippers about the house but my shank is not remotely lean, I don't wear spectacles and my voice is deep rather than piping treble.

            I identify more with Act 5 :

            And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
            With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
            Full of wise saws and modern instances.

            We certainly have a good capon at Christmas which my round belly is happy with and, like Lewis Carroll's Snark Hunters, I am fond of quotations; but I am not a lawyer, I have never sported a beard of formal cut (nor a panther-like one as the Fourth Age Soldier did) and I think my eyes are more kindly than severe.

        2. Which is why I don't eat chicken, a meat that requires a sauce to make some flavour. Same with turkey.

          1. Depends where you get it from. Find a decent free-range chicken (or capon) fattened on earthworms and then you have loads of flavour.
            Buy one from a ‘super’market and you’re throwing your money down the drain.

      2. Not a meat that I particularly care for, either. It was the use of beef tallow that I thought was worth a mention.

        I’ve just finished putting together the base for my flaky pastry, butter and lard, definitely no margarine or other type of shortening.

      1. The clown makes triple-cooked chips by first boiling away the spuds into a soup, then attempting to double-fry what's left!

        Ferran Adrià invented, then René Redzepi perfected, "molecular gastronomy". Blumenclown simply made a joke of it.

        1. From Lisa Goodwin Allen at Northcote.

          Lisa said: We get the right potato for a start.

          You need a chipping potato [Maris Piper and King Edward potatoes, for example] and then we cook them in salted water and then fluff them like a roast potato.

          That involves putting them in a pan or colander and shaking them so they go fluffy on the outside.

          And then we freeze them – and we cook them from frozen,

          and what happens is the inside goes really fluffy, because it kind of breaks down, and when we fry them the outside goes really crispy.

          I'm with Lisa.

          1. Lisa is a top cook. A Lancashire lass she was mentored by Nigel Haworth. I can remember him ranting on about how good she was when she was nobbut a slip of a lass.

          2. She certainly is. Nigel Haworth is brilliant too. And now his son Kirk who did the first plant based menu for 'The Great British Menu'. He managed to make vegetarian dishes that i would happily eat.

            Right this minute i am eating rare roast beef. And my new love…fondant potatoes cooked in the beef stock and marrow.

          3. Fondant potatoes? Oh yes, I remember them, they are so 1990s.

            I’m a pommes boulangère man, myself.

  48. TfL misspelt bus stop sign to read ‘Qween’

    Transport for London chiefs were left red-faced after it emerged that a bus stop was misspelt “Qween Elizabeth”.

    The sign for the bus stop in Charlton, south-east London, should read “Queen Elizabeth Hospital”, but it was instead spelt “Qween” on both sides.
    Residents were left “unimpressed” and said the sign should be changed as soon as possible out of respect for Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

    A TfL spokesman said: “We are looking to fix the typing error made on a bus stop in Charlton as soon as possible. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused to customers.”

    What the hell do you expect when London is run by a bunch of qweers.

  49. Absolutely spot on. As Abbott has a son who appears to be dangerously mentally ill, she knows thereof she speaks.
    On the wards, if a patient took a liking to you, it was all too easy to manipulate them into doing what you wanted. Unless you controlled your face and voice, that could mean an irritating patient being duffed up by your 'fan club'.

    "One of the most moving contributions came from Diane Abbott. The Mother of the House is visibly frailer these days, but she stood up and with shaking hands did her duty: not appealing to emotion but calmly demolishing the Bill’s central claim that nobody would be coerced into killing themselves.

    “People do not generally write letters to relatives asking them to consider assisted suicide and then put them on file. Coercion can often be about not what you say, but what you don’t say.” "

    (Madeline Grant's piece in the DT.)

  50. Absolutely spot on. As Abbott has a son who appears to be dangerously mentally ill, she knows thereof she speaks.
    On the wards, if a patient took a liking to you, it was all too easy to manipulate them into doing what you wanted. Unless you controlled your face and voice, that could mean an irritating patient being duffed up by your 'fan club'.

    "One of the most moving contributions came from Diane Abbott. The Mother of the House is visibly frailer these days, but she stood up and with shaking hands did her duty: not appealing to emotion but calmly demolishing the Bill’s central claim that nobody would be coerced into killing themselves.

    “People do not generally write letters to relatives asking them to consider assisted suicide and then put them on file. Coercion can often be about not what you say, but what you don’t say.” "

    (Madeline Grant's piece in the DT.)

  51. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger!
    Guess what chuffing idiot put the wrong date onto his London ULEZ payment last bloody week!!!!
    Just submitted an appeal to TfL.

    2. Visited a couple of churches I hadn't been to before, today. One of them had two memorials on the wall; one to an RFC pilot, aged 19 who was shot down near Arras 1917 and the other to a Guardsman killed in 1917 aged 21.

  53. Now that the Legalisation of Homicide bill has passed we are being told everything was done out of "compassion"? Right…

  54. Dreich at Tighe-McPhee, wind South-West, a mild 13℃.

    Tim Stanley is getting a bit ahead of things with this Aktion T4 (Initial) Bill.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8efa6fb6a8837d9419e32a4af0390e92c42350be4d31b882899e1712d901bb66.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/29/assisted-dying-not-same-country/

    The actual State of Play: This was the second reading of this Private Members Bill. It now proceeds to Committee and the House of Lords where there will no doubt be amendments before it comes back to the Commons for a third reading and vote. A number of MPs who voted for the passage of this Bill have made it clear that they did so only because they believe this subject needs to be given more discussion; it did not mean that they support the Bill. This is not over yet and those who were celebrating outside Parliament may have been doing so a bit prematurely.

    However, there is no doubt that it would be a slippery slope going by 'progress' following the implementation of this sort of legislation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada. It starts off with the terminally ill and before you know where you are it includes the disabled and the clinically depressed or even anyone who doesn't think their economic position is worth living for. In Canada they're trying to extend it to under 18s.

    That's why I've called it the Aktion T4 (Initial) Bill.

  56. Far be it for me to boast (oh, all right then, if you insist) but this is my posting under the DT article headed
    "The map that shows Russia’s ‘secret war’ with the West has now begun
    Bomb scares in London, a plane crash in Lithuania: they all form part of a web of suspected acts of sabotage, and may be just the beginning"

    159 upticks and counting. And 5 downticks to be scrupulously fair.

    "Oh look. A red squirrel.
    The West in general, and Britain in particular, is doing a perfectly good job of destroying itself. While I have no doubt that Putin is cruel and ruthless and doesn't harbour warm feeling towards us, our greatest enemy sits in Westminster, harassing and gaoling us if we react to their anarcho-tyranny.
    Our nemesis is safely settled within – imported and supported by our own governments – and working away at destroying our culture like death watch beetles in church beams.
    "Wir schaffen das"; and so on and so forth."

    1. The time to start getting really terrified is when they kill off all electronic means of communication.

      As soon as we are all left impotently incommunicado, that is the moment we shall realise that they have won and it is time to put the cat out for the final time.

      And to put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye!

    2. Morning Anne. The threads have become markedly hostile to the Telegraph's Globalist agenda.

          2. And just hope Louise Haigh isn't in the next cell. If she is, get a written receipt for that phone.

        3. Poignant.
          The 'small suitcase' advice was designed to avoid suspicion or panic, and of course there were the possibilities of loot afterwards, from dollar bills and diamonds to gold teeth.
          At a certain place in Poland, it's the sight of all those Little Shoes that cracks people up.

    1. Well done, Matt. Unusually pointed for him, but highly relevant for the pathetic scarlet-haired fraudster…

      1. Has she dyed in the line of service and will Kemi Badenough dye her hair blue and will Davey add a yellow wig to his bright red nose?

      2. Has she dyed in the line of service and will Kemi Badenough dye her hair blue and will Davey add a yellow wig to his bright red nose?

    1. Lots of finger pointing at others but not one proposal to address the issue. What a complete waster.

    2. He's always got an expression on his face like someone has just slapped his a*se.

      Anyway, that's how he got the job anyway: because the Conservatives were so inept. Yet he never takes constructive action – on anything. Just accelerates the destruction whilst telling us how bad the Tories were. Yes, we know. That's how you got the job…ad infinitum.

  61. Phew!
    It's a bit warm for swinging the axe! That's 9 large diameter logs split and awaiting the Grad.Son to get them stacked.
    A bit of chopsawing next and carting the full trays down for stacking behind the house.

    1. My turn this afternoon for splitting some lovely oak rounds delivered by our second-born a few days ago.

  62. Please call:

    999 for police, ambulance, fire service

    111 for emergency health services

    666 for assisted suicide services

    (I am pro assisted suicide btw.)

    1. PS I am the one who assisted the 'suicide' of the Great Robert Bidochon by posting conservative opinions as the not-so great Robert Bidochen.

      He's disappeared from The Spectator. It was very simple to effect.

          1. Robert looked at Vote for Meh with distain.. And he said..
            You're faaar right. You're racist. Homophobe. You're a xenophobe. You patriarchal transphobic. islamophobic. You're spreading HATE. You're SPREADING HATE. YOU'RE SPREADING HATE. You're lidderally Hilter.

          2. Robert looked at Vote for Meh with distain.. And he said..
            You're faaar right. You're racist. Homophobe. You're a xenophobe. You patriarchal transphobic. islamophobic. You're spreading HATE. You're SPREADING HATE. YOU'RE SPREADING HATE. You're lidderally Hilter.

          7. Maybe. Depends on the company and the venue.

            Given what Greg Wallace is having to deal with at the moment i would think men would be afraid to say anything to a woman.

            Not making excuses for his behaviour but we all laughed at Sid James and Benny Hill once.

          8. As soon as the whinging Kirsty Wark and Ulrika ka ka turned up I knew it was a 🤑 and I cannot bear the awful bald barrow boy!

      5. Well done. Caused much amusement.

        He might also have realised that you can only defend the indefensible for so long.

    2. PS I am the one who assisted the 'suicide' of the Great Robert Bidochon by posting conservative opinions as the not-so great Robert Bidochen.

      He's disappeared from The Spectator. It was very simple to effect.

      1. Yo Mr grizz

        But do not bother the perlice, with 999 calls, if the naughty boys read the coran

        1. You said it, Mr Effort.

          If I were still in uniform, I would have been hung out to dry by now for gross insubordination.

  63. Farage is outgunning the Tories. They're running out of time to get their act together

    Reform is gaining momentum, and could soon initiate the biggest political revolution since Brexit

    Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor
    29 November 2024 4:42pm GMT

    The crashing incompetence of Keir Starmer and his Cabinet, like the Conservatives before them, is starting to make Nigel Farage look like a much more serious politician. [That's not difficult, is it?!!] As with most of the so-called Westminster "elite", I never used to take my fellow GB News presenter all that seriously, largely because he didn't seem to either.

    With his "Bad Boys of Brexit" schtick, which famously saw him compare then EU president Herman Van Rompuy to a "wet rag", Farage presented himself as an anti-establishment disruptor, rather than someone actually capable of running the country.

    While the jury very much remains out on his boast to me, on Thursday's Daily T podcast, that he could "possibly" be PM come 2029, his rivals underestimate him at their peril.

    They have yet to fully catch on to the threat posed by Farage and his increasingly professionalised Reform Party – but Prof Sir John Curtice, a man who knows a thing or two about Westminster politics, already sees it clearly. As the political scientist wrote this week in the Telegraph, reflecting on how 42 per cent of the electorate voted for someone other than Labour and the Tories on July 4: "The grip of Britain's two largest parties on the affections of the electorate has never looked weaker."

    At the last general election, one in four Conservative voters backed Reform, fed up with broken Tory promises on tax and immigration, not to mention the party's obsession with net zero. Their lockdown zealotry hardly helped, nor did the perception that Boris Johnson and his successors failed to capitalise on Brexit.

    And now Labour are doing even worse. After four months in which we have witnessed Donorgate, endless broken promises on tax, the Chagos Islands giveaway, the closure of Vauxhall's Luton plant and the resignation of Cabinet "fraudster", Louise Haigh, it is Reform, not the Tories, who are on the rise.

    The latest compendium of council by-election polling by Britain Elects makes for fascinating reading. Since the general election, Labour has haemorrhaged nearly 10 per cent of its support. But intriguingly, it hasn't gone to the Tories, who are down 0.3 per cent. Some support has shifted to the Liberal Democrats, up 1.2 per cent (although that may have come from the Greens, down 1.8 per cent), but most appears to have gone to Reform, up 11 per cent.

    Farage shrewdly plans to capitalise on this by emulating the late Paddy Ashdown in establishing Reform as a serious local political force to be reckoned with, with well over 300 branches now open across the country. National polling suggests Reform has grown its vote share from 14 to 18 per cent since the general election, with the party now the main opposition to Labour in Wales.

    All of which should frighten Starmer, a man whose inability to connect with the common man (and woman) was once summarised to me by a former Red Wall Labour MP, who said his working-class Yorkshire constituents regarded the former Director of Prosecutions as resembling a "Brylcreemed spiv".

    As Andi Peters kindly pointed out to the Prime Minister on ITV's This Morning on Monday, he is now less popular than Farage, whose approval rating currently stands at 28 per cent to Starmer's 23 per cent according to Ipsos. (Badenoch is currently tied with Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey on 21 per cent and therefore needs to make rapid progress in the popularity stakes, but we'll get on to the Tories shortly.)

    So it isn't just a threat to Starmer that Farage is better liked by the public. It's also problematic that he has a far more extensive social media reach. A little like Trump, but on a much smaller scale, Farage is the only party leader in Britain with an established fan base. He's just surpassed the one million followers mark on TikTok, half of whom are under 25, and thanks to regular appearances online and on television, he is instantly recognisable.

    Whether he's credible as a prospect for PM remains to be seen, but consider this: of the 34 per cent of a 60 per cent turnout who voted for Labour, the vast majority did so simply because they weren't the Tories. They wanted the Tories out. Starmer is already alienating Labour voters, right, left and centre. If his bungling continues, which in all likelihood it will, then come 2029 the main motivation for voting will be ABL (Anyone But Labour).

    And if the Tories are still seen as damaged goods (and Sir Ed reprises his clown act), who will they support? Many voters said in 2024, "how much worse can Labour be?" We now have our answer.

    The scale of incompetence we have witnessed with successive governments since 2010 makes Farage, Tice et al seem a far less risky prospect by contrast. At least some of them have run businesses, unlike most of the Labour front bench. This week Tice, to his credit, questioned why on earth the Ministry of Defence is importing steel from adversaries like China rather than buying British, with steelworks in places such as Port Talbot closing down as production continues to soar in Asia. Reform can credibly attack Labour because it has never been in power (a point that is also the party's Achilles heel), but the Conservatives' attacks are awkward.

    Badenoch tried to undermine Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions by blaming Labour's obsession with zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) for the closure of Vauxhall's Luton plant. But everyone knows it was the Tories who originally came up with many of these economically illiterate targets, in the same way they know the Tories built on Blair and Brown's open border policy, resulting in net migration soaring to nearly a million in 2022-23.

    Just as Starmer should be deeply concerned about the rise of Reform, so too should Badenoch. Her party's membership could soon be overtaken by the Right-wing challengers. Reform passed the 100,000-member mark around the time Conservative minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns defected to the party, in what feels like the confluence of two symbolic events.

    The new Tory leader was right to this week announce a review of "every policy, treaty and part of our legal framework – including the ECHR and the Human Rights Act". It will take work to persuade the public that they will indeed introduce "a strict numerical cap", given the failure to deliver on such promises in office.

    The one advantage Badenoch has over Farage is that some still regard Reform as David Cameron did UKIP: "Fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists". But that tag may only work when ascribed to an amateur outfit.

    We are witnessing the reform of Reform – and next May's local election results will reveal whether Farage really is in a position to mount the biggest political revolution since Brexit.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/29/farage-is-outgunning-the-tories-theyre-running-out-of-time

    3. All the Reform party needs to do is keep pointing out the inescapable truth every time whichever of Labour or Conservative talk about what needs changing or sorting: this happened under a Tory government.

      The fact is that Tories since the advent of Blair are left of centre politicians. Everybody knows.

      1. One of the more depressing aspects of political debate today is that to point out the obvious failings of Mad Max & Co is met with a cry of "14 years in which you lot messed up! It's our turn now! We have to fix it!"

        For these people, it's still a tedious 'binary' argument of Tory v. Labour. It's why we need a radical change.

        1. To be strictly fair (not that i particularly wish to), it certainly wasn't 14 straight years. They had the LibDem coalition for the first few, then they had the May/Bercow disaster, then they finally got a majority in 2019. Then the Covid scam/hysteria hit. So they were media/LibDem/Remainer driven all the way through. Not that I'm excusing their sheer gutlessness. If only they had carped the diem when they could. Now look.

    4. I read a report, this morning, by London Economic (online magazine) which showed that Reform did not split the Conservative vote; Labour would still have won with a sizable majority if Reform hadn't existed. So anyone who tries to undermine Reform with this argument is plainly wrong.

    5. "… nor did the perception realisation that Boris Johnson and his successors failed to capitalise on Brexit."

    6. The Tories can't say anything about Port Talbot as they have the same demented Left wing net zero ideology. That's the fundamental problem: they both believe in the same things. How can they oppose when they have the same goals?

    7. Not sure whether Ms Tominey is 'Conservative', but it's amusing to note that she has a colleague (Nigel) who is on first name terms with the US President Elect.

  64. 500 BC
    I usually try to listen to BBC Moneybox on Saturdays at lunchtime. It's one of the few BBC programs that I (sort of) trust.

    Today's programme ended with an item about Coin Collecting, with a nine-year old lad who had found in the road a £2 coin which was missing the figure 1 from its edge-stamped 1999 date and thought it might be super-valuable. A coin expert put him right – there were 4.93 million of that 1999 coin minted and lots had a 'weak' figure 1 in the edge date. So if it is in excellent condition it might be worth £5 or even £10.

    But the 'killer 'came at the very end of the show. A listener got in touch to say "I've been a Numismatist [coin collector] since 1959 and my oldest coin is dated 500BC". I larfed. Must have been a Prophet-able coin (no pun intended).

    1. Saturday morning is a Times time for me. I was struck about the doom and gloom in the financial pages and the contrast with the monies being spent on luxury vacations, multi $million items in auctions and $billion developments around the world. Strange times, more than likely great interest is ahead especially with the appetite for borrowing to fund useless ideas.

      1. I present one question over silly spending: is it my money. If it's not, don't care. Somewhere it's creating wealth for someone.

      1. Yes, Ped, I know that because I collect coins too. Perhaps I should have written:
        "and my oldest coin is DATED 500BC". The presenter didn't have an idea that BC DATES on coins are a little unlikely.

  66. Well, that's the cider racked and kegged up, with a very few bottles for friends. Had a couple of slurps, and <my <god, is it dry! At the barn room temperature, so about 3C, it's absolutely wonderful! All the sugar fermented, it's nearly teen% alcohol, too.
    Proper job!

        1. Oh yes, over 1100 OG is mighty fine. Be careful how you get to your feet after drinking that.

          1. The tasting in the honey room was at ambient temperature, so close to freezing. It was lovely, still apple falvour, and dry as dust. Dead chuffed, so I am.

          3. Smellchucker wasn't working… might get the little buggers out of the tree without use of ladders. We don't have a tree-shaker attachment for the tractor, unfortunately.

          4. My brother in law has one for the olives! The Scots who go over to help with the harvest call it the ‘shoogler’!

          5. ♬"If you want the fruit to fall,
            Have to give the tree a shake.
            If you shake the tree too hard —
            Bough is gonna break …"            ♬

            Mary's Prayer, Danny Wilson.

          6. Smellchucker wasn't working… might get the little buggers out of the tree without use of ladders. We don't have a tree-shaker attachment for the tractor, unfortunately.

  67. Well, that's the cider racked and kegged up, with a very few bottles for friends. Had a couple of slurps, and <my <god, is it dry! At the barn room temperature, so about 3C, it's absolutely wonderful! All the sugar fermented, it's nearly teen% alcohol, too.
    Proper job!

  68. Those with a background in legalities or accountancy do not seem to make good or effective ministers. Starmer is a classic example. I think this is because neither actually do or deliver anything, they do not create original value, they live in a world of third parties. I'm not decrying these professions, they are needed but I'd suggest their experiences are not best aligned with those required to manage the nation. In fact there is a case for the US model where secretaries of the nations offices are not drawn from elected individuals but selected by the head individual. Just some loose thoughts of a retired engineer while pondering on the state we find ourselves in.

  69. Those with a background in legalities or accountancy do not seem to make good or effective ministers. Starmer is a classic example. I think this is because neither actually do or deliver anything, they do not create original value, they live in a world of third parties. I'm not decrying these professions, they are needed but I'd suggest their experiences are not best aligned with those required to manage the nation. In fact there is a case for the US model where secretaries of the nations offices are not drawn from elected individuals but selected by the head individual. Just some loose thoughts of a retired engineer while pondering on the state we find ourselves in.

          3. It's not the length of the regulation, it's the desperation that government believes it has a right to control our lives to that minutae. That's why we had to abandon the hated EU.

        3. If that, alone, does not provide sufficient justification for a fire-bomb blitz on Brussels and Strasbourg, then I don't know what will.

          1. Don't forget Luxembourg; they've got a "parliament" there as well – not used, but costing a fortune in upkeep.

    2. … and how would all the poor politicians help their lawyer mates get paid if everyone understood what to do?
      Elon is so selfish.

      1. Sounds like he's just the man to be the D.O.G.E…. Just wondering if he wouldn't mind coming over here and having a look at our Civil Service.

  71. 397752+ up ticks,

    The rich get rich and the poor get poorer, and it ain't gunna change all the time the daily invasion is active ALL the infrastructure is affected in multiple ways, NONE beneficial to the indigenous peoples AKA the cash cows.

    As things progress the end game will be entering the knackers yard on the put down day, the victim of press gangs of foreign kapos sweeping the streets of retired workers AKA NPs ( non producers).

  72. As an engineer I was always trained to test assumptions when making decisions. I find it rather unsettling therefore that one of the most costly and far reaching activities the country is embarking upon – net zero – (and all the associated actions such a electric vehicles) is based entirely on opinion and scientifically unverified assumptions.

    1. Indeed. Qualitative (experience-based) evaluations don't look too good. A proper verification would confirm that.

      1. I don't have a problem with empirically based assumptions, but the decision maker's minds need to remain open. Danger looms when dogmatism takes over.

        1. Not for them though.

          The state sees where bountiful cheap energy takes us – a place where they're not needed. A modern, advanced, growing economy has to be held back lest it abandon the parasites clinging on to it. What use is there for big government if it cannot strangulate the economy? If it cannot cream off thousands of billions into it's own irrelevance and then use that money to make our lives harder, simply to replicate itself?

          They have to be dogmatic. The same reason they say 'we can't afford to cut taxes' or ' unfunded tax cuts'. It is all to slant the narrative to make the state seem the useful rather than the cost. Only 'big government' starmer waffled; can provide choice over 'combating' climate change.

          Well.. who really asked him to? If we wanted it stopped, would he? What choice is there when the state decides what will happen? It's all lies.

      2. I don't have a problem with empirically based assumptions, but the decision maker's minds need to remain open. Danger looms when dogmatism takes over.

      1. But that doesn't stop them pouring billions of taxpayers money to try to achieve it! But they can't even verify if progress is made, they can't measure anything to do with it, it's all opinion and based on assumptions.

      2. But that doesn't stop them pouring billions of taxpayers money to try to achieve it! But they can't even verify if progress is made, they can't measure anything to do with it, it's all based on assumptions.

    3. Unfortunately that is our self centred politicians for you. A quite flip through the pages, lessons from chosen 'experts' and they are off convinced of and with their own assessments.
      No other opinion counts.

    4. I am very annoyed when people present man-made climate change as a fact when it has not been proved. You are told that you are a conspiracy theorist or a climate denier but those who say that are Useful Idiots.

      We need far fewer Useful Idiots who are happy to go along with what they are told to think and a few more cynics.

      1. Notice how we are 'combating' climate change? How it's a 'battle'? As if we are, literally at war and thus should make the same sacrifices made during war time.

        This is programming to make people think in a certain way that suits the state. If there were a genuine ecological reason they'd present that evidence and the counter, but the Left don't want to. They discovered a tax source that cannot dry up because it is essential. However the fools are also making it scarce, to achieve their demented goal of socialism.

        Truly, the Left created a weapon of control, subjugation and oppression and combined it with the biggest hoax going: 'climate change'. A nebulous marketing term, with no defined outcome, with no specific resolution, that cannot be stopped, that is as open to interpretation as they want and can be infinitely weaponised.

        It's nothing but a hoax.

        1. They can't produce evidence for so they suppress the evidence against. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes "the truth".

        2. There was someone on R4 who was talking about firing up the military flashpoints across the world if we let Vlad keep the land he has taken. One of his list of conflicts was the catastrophe of climate change! Apparently our chief spy in Keeeve thinks Vlad will roll over the Nato homelands and be knocking on the gates of Dover if we dont flight for the Ukes. He had better get going as there are thousands ahead of him in the queue.

        3. I've just read a post on social media that the "Coal Authority" has changed its name to the "Mining Remediation Authority" because "coal was causing problems"! They have spanking brand new high viz jackets with the new name on, too. When one of the posters said it had cost a lot of money, the OP came back with effectively, "no it didn't" but wouldn't actually reveal, although repeatedly asked, how much it did cost. Cue rabid greeniacs talking down to people who made factual points about no generation when the wind didn't blow and needing diesel generator back up when they had to be shut down because the wind blew too hard and that it wasn't cheaper in fact, because it was heavily subsidised. In the end the ex-Coal Authority posted it would delete any derogatory posts about the change of name!

      2. What were the ancestors of these fools doing in the nineteenth century when our ancestors were building Britain?
        Their idiotic little voices were not being heard. We need to return to that state.

    5. Well… yeah? It's a government attempt to soak tax. There is no scientific basis for it. The evidence is irrelevant. The facts do not come into it. All the matters is that money is taken from the earner and put into the pockets of statists.

        1. The whole head swelling is lesser today, but puffy under my eye. Still got the wick in which I am hoping is why I can't hear anything but that not falling out is either it's dug in too far or the ear is still jammed up.

          Using pain killers far less, had a good sleep, then another 6 hours on top of that. Hosp tomorrow to find out next steps.

          Still getting fever chills and sweats but, not dead.

          I liked the pun!

    6. Well… yeah? It's a government attempt to soak tax. There is no scientific basis for it. The evidence is irrelevant. The facts do not come into it. All the matters is that money is taken from the earner and put into the pockets of statists.

  73. As an engineer I was always trained to test assumptions when making decisions. I find it rather unsettling therefore that one of the most costly and far reaching activities the country is embarking upon – net zero – (and all the associated actions such a electric vehicles) is based entirely on opinion and scientifically unverified assumptions.

  74. Afternoon, all!

    Getting ready for today's adventure, which is to perform in a very alternative, experimental theatre piece. In Spanish. Not quite sure how that happened, but there you go.

    My first appearance is as an academic (Cambridge/Sorbonne), in specs and pearls (thanks, Mother!), who in the middle of a scholarly discourse on the nature of love suddenly bursts into full-blown opera (yurss, Carmen). I also get to sing my first tango in public! It has verses. I hate singing strophic stuff as I tend to muddle up the words. And this will be walking the streets of Buenos Aires encouraging our audience to sing along…

    Currently the voice does not wish to warm up due to a slight cold, and I am worried that the accompanying violinist will be a bit of a disaster – but hey ho; nothing's perfect, right? 🤣🤣

    3. My goodness me, lucky talented girl, the world really is your stage and you have embraced it fully ..

      You could have your own TV series and outstrip popular Jane Macdonald , everyone loves an opera singer and no one has attempted to do that before , apart from the usual chaps .. singing glorious pieces from around the world …

    4. My goodness me, lucky talented girl, the world really is your stage and you have embraced it fully ..

      You could have your own TV series and outstrip popular Jane Macdonald , everyone loves an opera singer and no one has attempted to do that before , apart from the usual chaps .. singing glorious pieces from around the world …

    5. Oh how exciting Katy! I’m sure it will go brilliantly, and you just enjoy that experience! 💕

    7. It will be alright on the night. Judging by the pictures of you, many of them won't be too worried about the words 🙂

      1. Ashes has one of those faces that when she is looking right into your eyes she makes you feel as if you are the whole world.

        Then she buggered off to the other side of the world ! :@(

      2. Ashes has one of those faces that when she is looking right into your eyes she makes you feel as if you are the whole world.

        Then she buggered off to the other side of the world ! :@(

    10. Good grief Katy! I never imagined for one moment you'd have to turn to street walking to earn a crust……

      2. Not yet! I’m three hours behind you. Two consecutive performances then a birthday party; shan’t report until tomorrow. 😎

        2. Only three? It was four or five hours in Brazil, depending on where we were. But that was before we went back to GMT. So that sounds about right.

    2. If Starmer is more hated, the Donald can't by definition be the "most hated" person, I would have thought.

      3. Starmer appears to have absolutely no respect for the average Brit. It seems he and his crew have the same attitude.

  76. For all those who argue that Reform split the Con vote in the 2024 General Election, the London Economic has produced a report which shows that Labour would have still won with a sizable majority. When Reform win, in the next GE, it will be because they have the right policies and because the traditional parties have wholly discredited themselves. Vote Reform with conscience clear. And don't be swayed by those who are trying to use evidence-free tactics.

    1. I did vote Reform, but not because I believe in them. It was a protest vote as I couldn't in conscience vote for the legacy parties. It was marginally better than spoiling my ballot paper.

  77. Afternoon, all. Have been out to a couple of Christmas Fayres and am gradually getting into the festive spirit. Had a very nice (but expensive) coffee and cake at a small cafe. Still, I've always been of the opinion that money was made round to go round, not flat to stack. I might as well spend it as allow Labour to take it. At least it's helping to support small businesses and genuinely grow (or at least help) the economy rather than being wasted or sent abroad courtesy of Wastemonster.

    If the headline letter writer truly believes that, no wonder we're in the state we are! You'd have thought after the last twenty odd years the penny would have started to drop about the intentions of those who have power over us.

  78. Phew!
    A bit more chopsawing and stacking of trays of sticks, then a couple more logs chopped and a well deserved bath!

        1. I didn't think you actually needed the firewood Bob, all that chopping must keep you warm most of the winter!

          1. Logs keep you warm three times – when you cut them, when you split them smaller and then when you put them on the fire……….

  79. Somewhere in the pages of today's Telegraph there is an article about orcas (big dolphins with attitude) that like to balance dead salmon on their heads. Amusing to note that the writer mentions 'ice floats', in connection with seals; ice floes surely?
    It's time for AI to learn how to do some sub-editing.

    1. Apparently it is a fashion that comes and goes with Orcas. I wonder where they find the dead salmon? Is this why our fish are not coming home to spawn?

    3. Yes, I saw it, and yes, it should be floes. They also don't mention the fact that they'll harass female whales with a calf and kill the baby whale to eat just its liver.

    2. That's exactly why someone should step up and remove him.
      All this on-going nonesense started more than thirty years ago.

    1. Well done. Par here.

      Wordle 1,260 4/6

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

    2. Well done, par here.

      Wordle 1,260 4/6

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

    4. Wish that I was that good

      Wordle 1,260 5/6

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

    2. I would expect to be able to order on-line, a pellet with the poison. The line will be "Die in the comfort of your own home". (Postage extra)

      1. "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!" ??

          1. I think you are thinking that if we kill him with the pill from the till by making with it the drug in the jug, you need not light the candle with the handle on the gateau from the chateau!?

  83. Just back from playing the One True Game at lunchtime🙂, as the team was short and my fractured thumb is four weeks into recovery. We lost, but the opposition were nice and it makes such a difference.
    🏑

  84. The Warqueen suggested we go away this Christmas. Stay in some sort of cottage place.

    It's a nice idea. Then you have to find ones that allow dogs. And have heating (many don't). Then you think of the logistics: piling three people and the large skip of Christmas presents, food, gubbins in the car would probably mean taking both cars.

    Then I looked and… they all look like our old farmhouse and I think… feck.

    1. We go through the same decision just about each year. Is it to the kids, if so, which ones, if we go to one then it's "why not us this year" from the others. It's all to much hassle, and like you, we go through the same rigmarole, shall we go away "for a change" etc, then we look at the places on offer, the cost involved, and the hassle, then conclude we have everything here in our 1840s old school house, Rayburn, hot water, heating, a bit tired at the edges but so what, it's familiar, which we have lived in for 34 years. Those who want to see us, then come here, more than welcome.

      1. What somewhat jerks our chain is that Christmas visit to the UK, if we try to take in old friends and family not parents, we have to fit in with their itinerary. This usually required driving diagonals around the UK, or is just not achievable. THis year, it's to Penarth to visit MOther, overnight, then to Bidefod for in-laws, and stuff the rest of them.
        OPen invite to come to us (proper, guaranteed, white Christmas, enough bedrooms, and a house with heating) not taken up for years now.
        Very frustrating…

          1. That's this year. Only going to visit Mother, and stay with in-laws (just up the road from a pub serving Thatchers cider, so there's an escape). In any case, they are nice people, don't drink noticeable, and aren't unpleasant to their daughter.

          2. Want to swap? You'll have to take the dogs, of course…

            And as Mongo won't do anything un;ess Junior asks him to, an 11 year old as well. He though, is well behaved and very polite. He's just folded clothes up as I had a fall.

            Maybe not as well as I thought.

        2. I know that feeling. Too far for them to travel but surely we can go over to see them.

          If J go 4,000 miles this Christmas it will be to somewhere that the snow doesn't go.

        3. We have the same here, plenty of room in the chateau, OK it's chilly, but when the wood burners are full blast it's very cosy.
          Nobody is interested.

          1. Our wood stoves don't half heat the house nicely. The effects last for days.
            We have one in the basement, a big cast-iron job, that heats the air that then curls up the stairs and heats the house generally, and another stylish one with big glass window in the sitting room. That one heats the sitting room and looks cosy, especially surrounded by cats laid out on the floor.

      2. I think it's the idea of breaking away from the familiar as you say. But then, there's a reason it's familiar.

        I see no point visiting my mother and her mother usually comes here. I know it's probably horrible to say it but I wish she didn't. She turns up already having drunk many bottles of gin and immediately starts sniping at her daughter and that wonderful, secure, usually rational dirty smiling woman I married is turned into a teenager.

        We asked brother along but it was very difficult for him – unfairly so as we can't keep to a schedule: there's too much chaos and witout hiring a catering staff to ensure there are always 4 sausage rolls, side to end on a plate in the kitchen it's going to fail.

        We are going to visit my sister, but she struggles with the Mongo, let alone all three of the pack now. Not because she dislikes him or he is trouble, but you can't ignore a metre and a half, 80 kilo bear. She didn't get why he (Mongo) would suddenly decide he didn't want to walk any more and need carrying or waiting for.

          1. It is. We usually pin MIL down with a large dog and a box of chocolates and- I'm sorry, but I'll admit it – I dose her. She then is less obnoxious, the Warqueen can relax and rather than carrying the evil vulture home at 3am on a freezing Winter night she sleeps on the sofa under a blanket and pillows. And tent straps.

          3. If only Dickens were alive today . He'd rewrite A Christmas Carole ….to include tent straps..:-)

      3. Left to me, I would spend Christmas reading new books (ta muchly, family, for checking my list) and nobbling anything in the fridge that wasn't green or furry.

        1. Christmas for me is sorted, as ever. I've just added the December service rota to my diary. There are approximately 20 engagements. Not counting the John Rutter Christmas Concert at Guildford next Saturday – but at least I can sit back and leave that one to the experts…

    2. We are going on a cruise, 16 days of being catered for, hopefully some warm weather, back After The new year. No tinsel, same old very boring Christmas tunes, and a welcome break from this weather. What's not to like.

    3. It's coping with the food and an unfamiliar oven and everything, absolutely everything, being in a different place and not immediately to hand that would make it a very stressful Christmas.

    1. And fifthly, when you hoover up the dust.

      If you're lucky ashesthandust will sing along while you're working

      1. 😀
        That was a nice thought! I'm glad she's having a good time in the South – sounds so lovely! Hope her singing goes well…

  87. We're going away, to the olds. I prefer to stay at home, but the olds can't trave to us any more. Home in time for New Year…

      2. On balance, I prefer to stay at home; I have everything I want or need. My house is cosy, I have my dog, I can go to my own Hunt meet on Boxing Day rather than having to visit a strange one and I don't have to take pot luck about church services on Christmas Eve. What's not to like? I even manage to knock up a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. I do occasionally fantasise about going to a swish hotel and having everything done for me, but you have to march to the beat of a different drum (and probably dress for dinner to boot) in that event.

        1. It’s a long time since we went away for Christmas – to the in-laws – but they died in ’98 and 2000, so it’s been a while – we stay here and my boys come for Christmas Day and then to their father for Boxing Day.

    2. I went away last year. It was enjoyable, but there were drawbacks; I couldn't drink (I had to drive home) and Kadi got bitten on the neck by one of their dogs – not seriously, but enough to make it bleed.

      1. Yes, we did visit the brother in law's family and while they're lovely, the brother in law's brother is a total wazzock with a barely trained pug thing that has never been socialised. Consequently, Mongo would do the right thing and move away from it back to us. Oscar is far more protective and Lucy not yet 1.

  88. That's me for this grey, damp but very mild day. Nice surprise. The village Coal Money was £50 (not the £40 as last year). Returning from the village hall, I fell into conversation with a chap who lives a quarter of a mile along the lane. I know him by sight and name but have never, as far as I recall, spoken to him. He asked if we still went back and forth to France, whether I had become shorter (I have by three inches – since laddergate). He is by profession a marine model maker and has been for sixty years.

    I was gobsmacked by the stuff he knew about me – though not my name! Funny thing, village life!!

    Hae a spiffing evening preparing for Advert Sunday.

    A demain.

    1. Clearly you are not a native villager or he would have been related to you (I was born in a village) 🙂

        3. We have lived here 25 years , and Moh knows no one when travelling around the village , he doesn't bother with conversation with other people apart from a nod of the head .. pleasantries with locals are not his thing ..

          Now , the golf club is a different matter ..

          I am the opposite .. and life can be rather awkward.

    2. A variation on that is dog walking.
      We know the names of our dogs, but not their owners slaves.

      1. I agree; I often refer to "Rusty's owner" or "Barney's Mum" because I can't always remember the owners' name!

      2. Same with me ..

        We are terrible ,and then I always worry , to lead or not to lead , that is the question .. Pip spaniel is not too keen on larger dogs .. labs , retrievers …. and wait for it … sheep dogs!

  89. Excellent plan!
    But – in-laws are nice people, and Mother has no-one else to visit her (not that she knows who we are any more), so one feels obliged.

  90. Excellent plan!
    But – in-laws are nice people, and Mother has no-one else to visit her (not that she knows who we are any more), so one feels obliged.

  91. 1 When you fell the tree
    2 When you cut up the tree
    3 When you split the logs
    4 When you move them to the woodstore
    5 When you stack them
    6 When you barrow them back to the house
    7 When you bring them to the stove
    8 While you sit by the stove

    1. We didn't fell the tree
      We didn't cut up the tree
      Our neighbour split the logs for us
      OH put them in the log shed
      He brought a few to the box by the stove
      We both sit by the stove (when it's lit)

    1. Hello GQ, I've signed it just now . We in the West are not barbarians who wish to see animals suffer, leave that to the cruel savages .

    2. It is a waste of time because this was brought up before and muslim made a specific exclusion. Sorry folks: to deal with that religion we're going to need far more aggressive laws.

        2. I suppose after Bob's fortress building it was inevitable we'd get on to how to defend it from the ravening hordes of Lefties.

          A personal favourite is the AR15 with under slung grenade launcher and night vision laser sight. Heavy to carry, but light enough to move around room to room.

        3. I'm always fascinated by the Nottler knowledge of weaponry.

          My schoolboy shooting with a .303 is chicken feed.

          You people had better be careful Cursed Harmer will be coming for you all.

          1. I, too, shot the .303 Lee-Enfield no. 4 as a schoolchild. I now have a Mauser K.98 in original form as a hunting rifle, a pile of handguns and a beautiful side-by-side 12-bore.

      3. Danes have already done.
        Time for them to take over Blighty again. What HAVE they been doing for past 1,000 years?

  95. Canal Boat Diaries. Love it.

    Edit. He’s in Knowle. I used to jog along there when i lived in Brum

  96. They had five dogs and at the time I had two. I was surprised it was Kadi; if anyone was likely to start trouble, my money would have been on Oscar (if only taking a dislike to one of the humans). He lay down behind my chair and didn't budge until we moved away from the table, then he was in heaven – he was allowed to sit on the sofa (house rules chez Conway are 'no dogs on furniture').

    1. Volkswagen was founded on May 28, 1937, as "Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH" (translated: "Company for the Preparation of the German People's Car") by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), a Nazi-affiliated organization.

      The company was established during Adolf Hitler's regime as part of his vision to create an affordable car for the average German family. The car, later known as the Volkswagen Beetle or VW Type 1, was designed by engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who played a significant role in the technical development of the vehicle.

      Thus, while Ferdinand Porsche is often credited with designing Volkswagen's first car, the company itself was a state-sponsored initiative.

    2. Is she a bit… you know… thick?

      Honestly, why are Lefties such bigoted, evil, nasty people? What's wrong with them?

      1. Yes, because it would show you drove a car and had the temerity to take it somewhere. As a result you did not go on the train, a bus or bicycle and are evil.

        1. Indeed, but perhaps a speeding ticket, or lack of insurance or any of the many driving offences that might be criminal but in the great scheme of things should not follow a person to the grave.
          There has to be a point where past sins are forgiven.
          Give me a repentant sinner over a bland dindo nuffin every time.

          1. It all depends on the individual. I do not believe in group think or one size fits all. Would I employ someone for the cash office that had been convicted of theft. er no.

      3. Ministers always are chauffered around.

        Why would they ever get caught for a parking ticket?

  103. Remember the chap who noticed that all the webcams have been switched off in London?
    David Jenson has a theory about it, and it's to do with the shortage of physical gold and silver in the LBMA.

    "As knowledge of the decaying availability of physical gold and silver in London spreads, it is to be further expected that interested parties holding cash/spot contract claims in the London market would start to ask for delivery at an increasing pace eventually ending in a run.

    Given what appears to be the arbitrary and authoritarian nature of Keir Starmer and his government, owners of metal in London vaults also have a potential inducement to remove the metal from London vaults to secure ownership in a safe place.

    A parade of armored trucks would at some point then start to become highly visible moving from various vault locations in the City of London and metro London to transportation hubs such as Heathrow Airport and London City Airport"
    https://jensendavid.substack.com/p/londons-public-webcams-have-been?publication_id=1026961&post_id=152369669&isFreemail=true&r=28gmek&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

  104. Robbie is now in Skipton.

    Don’t ask me why, but it was a long-held ambition of mine to go through Skipton on a canal barge.

    So about 5 years ago I organised it. It was me, mum, dad and my daughter.

    When it came to mooring back up, dad (at the time, 80)who was driving, had real trouble turning it round and parking it up. The guys in the side were shouting at him to turn the tiller. But it wouldn’t turn.

    I knew if my dad couldn’t do it, no one could.

    In the end, he managed it (my dad is amazing).

    The guys on the shore who had clearly been thinking he was inept took a look at the propellor and discovered so much rope and so many plastic bags, they couldn’t believe it. They said they wouldn’t have been able to do what he had done. And I believe them.

    3. I've this image of you wheelie-ing like a jetski,, hanging off the back as the prow in ten feet in the air, a giant bow wave behind you, a plume of flame in your wake thumping death metal pounding off giant speakers.

  105. HG's mother is so fit there's a very good chance she'll outlive us both.

    And I believe that we're both older than you!

  108. I’m supposed to be reading my book for next book club. It’s a biography of Gertrude Bell, but I just don’t like her.

    2. A book club should be fun! Why not get them reading Words of Radiance or Mistborn, or Harry Dresden. Something silly and funny or moving like the Bridges of Madison Country.

      Books are for enjoying, for saying 'that bit, that bit when Kaladin! Oh my trousers I… I leapt up and bellowed … YES!'

      And you do. Read the Stormlight Archive to see why. 5th book of ten is out on the 6th of December. 5 days to read the others, only 1000 pages apiece.

    3. It's why, despite enjoying reading and doing a lot of it, I have never joined a book club. Most of the books chosen are not my cup of tea.

  109. Very good and much more humorous than "diaries"
    Grizzly would hate the "BBC received"

    I still prefer the diaries.

      1. Quantity seldom supplants quality.

        Given that, if the rest are as good they're worth watching.

  111. Islamist rebels have seized control of Aleppo and punched through into Hama city amid claims that Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad has allegedly fled to Russia with his family.

    Thousands of Syrian insurgents fanned out inside Aleppo in vehicles with improvised armor and pickups, deploying to landmarks such as the old citadel on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria's largest city facing little resistance from government troops.

    Syria's armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it has redeployed and is preparing for a counterattack. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14143909/syria-dictator-bashar-al-assad-fled-hama-russia.html

  112. Breaking News

    Buenos Aires erupts into a mass sinalong (Yep sin not sing) as a popular Nottler walks the streets.
    Government ministers seek photo opportunities.
    Singers seek redemption, sinners just join in.

    1. Grumpy old man leans out of window and says 'turn that noise off, some of us are trying to whinge!'

    2. What are they singing?
      Hark! Do I hear strains of
      "K-K-Katie, K-K-Katies……."
      On the far distant breeze?

  113. Fell over. Didn't expect to just couldn't stay upright so as was folding socks up became down. Warqueen grabbed me so not the first time I've got on top of her this year but not our best work. Don't really know what happened but assuming inner ear and lack of sound positioning sent me toddly.

    1. Take care, man. Whilst being grabbed by Herself might be fun, the risk of getting hurt on stairs or out shopping to high.

      1. Aye, we're doing that on line at the mo and I'm going up and downstairs on all fours – don't laugh, the dogs think it hilarious.

      1. I was earlier, but I put that down to eating too much too fast. I am having to put it to my ears being buggered and expecting two sources of sound.

        1. Do something soon! My old man ignored the symptoms and now has depleted hearing….or so he says! It may well be selective deafness! Anyway, do something on Monday!

    2. That reminds me of learning to drive when the instructor asked me 'can you make a U-turn?'. 'Turn?' I said 'I'll make its bleeding eyes water'

      I'll get me crook

    4. You can tell by the colour that they are Cotswolds sheep:

      (The Cotswold is a British breed of domestic sheep)

      1. No, I found it on the internet. Wouldn’t mind having them in my garden though! They really capture the total unreasonableness of sheep.

    2. They have a saying in Northern Britain that they'"should be bloody well hung like a Norse"….

        2. Mongo's a big boy, but Oscar's fairly normal – only 65kg at last weigh in. Lucy's still tiny. We did our heel training again today and she aced it!

          The Warqueen tells me off for carrying her so much. It's because her limbs aren't properly formed for pavement yet, not because she's the loveliest little thing ever!

          1. I should have thought the Warqueen was capable of walking and wouldn't need to be carried so much 🙂

      2. I will try, they're not used to sitting posing. My hands shake as well so getting them up is often really blurry.

    2. For all his faults, Assad did at least support the minority religious communities in his country, so the Christians there could live a comparatively secure existence – one of the few countries in the ME where they could. Not for much longer, by the looks of it.

      1. As an "Alawite" he/is was regarded as insufficiently Muslim.
        His sect, as well as all other religions, will soon be under the cosh.

    3. The ME cannot get it together , can they , the only things that they traded are now trashed .. and no matter what the Koran worshippers have no love in their hearts .. what is it with the rebels what do they want .. they have savaged economies ..

      In a funny sort of way, funny being sarcastic .. meaning Labour have trashed our economy, laid millions threadbare of funds .. and depleted their taxpaying workers .. so our economy is ruined because Climate zealots are just like terrorists ..

      We had no warning that the Labour manifesto was a wadge of lies .. and now a robust bunch of nasty enforcers are silencing our protests .

      When the population of foreigners of a different culture and religion reach 11% or more amongst our indigenous culture , we must be prepared to show our indignation, strongly.

      1. Surely the evidence of Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Blair and Brown should have forewarned you about the lies and ineptitude that would ensue. Brown even went to court to establish that manifesto promises weren't binding, for heaven's sake!

    4. Assad was a civilised man who was educated and trained here as an opthalmologist. His wife was born and brought up in this country. They are infinitely better than what will replace them.

    1. Doesn't matter. Starmer will dismiss it. He, like all Lefties only likes democracy when it suits him.

    2. The no to brexit petition got 6 million, so I think I will know what will happen. But at least its a start.

      1. The difference being, the "no to Brexit" petition didn't need any action because there was no intention of letting Brexit happen anyway.

    3. I think the urgency has gone out of it now that they have said that it will be debated in Parliament. What gullible twats we all are.

  131. Well I wouldn't have expected anything less than a load of lies from Labour. I don't know how we can get rid of them and their nasty enforcers. The Islamists will probably take over here soon, and what can we do?

    1. Then they'll email the signatories with some platitude about democracy and why they couldn't implement it and it will be service as usual.

    1. Nice tree. I love Christmas, too, but I shan't start putting mine up until after the Advent Carol service tomorrow.

      1. Over here many people will be delaying their Christmas tree purchase until December 14th, Trudeau has given everyone a big gift and declared that tax is being removed on tree purchases from then until mid February.

        That's sure to buy a few votes.

        1. I have a little real one sitting in a pot on the kitchen window sill. Once decorated, that will go in the dining room – out of reach of Kadi! The big ones are artificial to avoid confusion.

          1. Yule begins on the solstice; that's when to put lights in the window and decorate the house as well as bring in the Yule log.

          4. Ideally, I'd wait until Christmas Eve (and have done so in the past).

            But with end-to-end Carol / Christmas Services, any tree will have to be up by 20th December at the latest. Trees are tricky without personal transport. Or expensive, delivered. My last tree was a couple of years ago, n absolute last-minute bargain at Waitrose, Guildford. So I summoned an Uber. The (prolly) Christian driver took one look, shook his head and drove off. And Uber charged me £20 for the privilege.

            So I dragged my tree, not without difficulty, to the nearest taxi rank. The Muslim driver couldn't have been more helpful.

            I like a tree, but I prolly won't bother this year. I'm not expecting any visitors, and don't really have the space. Ho hum…

          5. I do it for the children, the grandchildren and the childlike husband. I would just rather that it didn't encroach so.

    2. A grand tree. Did you see that Tousi has been invited down to the station on Monday for a chat. With Tommy banged up, Tousi is next on the list for harassment.

  138. So bl***y what. We are a Christian country. Plus, so-called diwali fireworks apparently go on in some areas for over a week to the annoyance of the non-celebrating in those areas, and many animals.

    1. I'm not happy about it, either, but the die-versity gonks in Wastemonster think that's more important than supporting Christianity.

    2. Dilawi is so important that Trudeau has decreed that our next election should be delayed by week to avoid disrupting dilawi.

      Nothing religious, the delay means that many liberal MPs would then qualify for a nice indexed MP pension.

  140. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Among the many destructive after-effects of the pandemic, the impact of two years of lockdowns has had serious consequences for public museums and galleries, particularly so for our national museums and galleries.

    More than two-and-a-half years since the last restrictions were lifted, visitor numbers to many of the big London institutions have yet to return to the levels seen pre-pandemic, according to the latest figures released by the DCMS. Although the British Museum and Natural History Museum have come roaring back, surpassing their 2019/20 figures (the NHM attracting some half a million more visitors alone), the picture varies wildly, mostly between the more ‘scientific’ museums and those whose remit is visual art.

    The problem with Tate’s reinvention as the gallery wing of social justice activism is the public isn’t turning up

    The National Gallery, constrained since last year by its current rebuild of the Sainsbury Wing entrance (set for completion in spring next year), is still some 2.4 million below the 5.5 million of 2019. But perhaps most alarming are the fortunes of Tate’s London galleries, with Tate Modern seeing 1 million fewer visitors in the year to April than before the pandemic (5.7 million), and Tate Britain posting visitor numbers of 1.2 million, down 440,000 on 2019/20.

    These figures are serious for Tate, which last year posted an £8.7 million deficit, and whose trustees approved a deficit budget for 2023-24. With visitor numbers only moderately increased, with inflation biting in increased costs and trading income down, and with Covid-related government support now ended, Tate faces some serious decisions; unless the new government swoops in with increased funding, or visitors magically reappear, Tate will have to decide what kind of cultural institution it wants to be for the next decade. Because although Tate’s travails aren’t unique among the ‘Big 6’ museums post-Covid, the fact that its audiences aren’t returning points to a bigger question about the institution’s position in the national cultural landscape.

    Outside of the narrower historical remit of the National Gallery, Tate is the main national expression of the visual arts in Britain. If Tate is struggling to reconnect with the public, it suggests that the problem goes further than the temporary aftershocks of the pandemic and lockdowns. It’s in Tate’s changing priorities regarding the art it’s charged with representing – and the audiences it has chosen to pursue over the past decade – that some of the trouble becomes clear. If ‘go woke, go broke’ is an all-too-common jibe of the cultural wars era, the reality is that Tate stands out as a particularly enthusiastic convert to progressive ideological fashions, reluctant to consider that it may not be taking its public with it.

    One of the more ambivalent consequences of Tate Modern’s enormous success since it opened in 2000 has been the relative sidelining of Tate Britain. The gallery is charged with the care of the Tate’s historical British collections but has been stuck with the awkward job of representing modern British art while Tate Modern’s remit also claimed modern art at the international level. The split has left Tate Britain with a sort of ongoing identity crisis, as if playing second fiddle to the behemoth on Bankside.

    While Tate Modern was confidently riding the cultural enthusiasm for contemporary art that characterised the 2000s and early 2010s, Tate Britain was saddled with the unfashionable old stuff, over two decades in which Britain’s history and sense of national identity have come increasingly under attack. It was Tate Britain’s previous director, Penelope Curtis, who began presenting the history of British art as critical revision of social history, with shows such as Migrations: Journeys into British Art, Art Under Attack: Historics of British Iconoclasm, Artist & Empire and Queer British Art conceived during her tenure.

    Curtis departed in 2015, after a backlash by prominent newspaper critics including Brian Sewell and Waldemar Januszczak, but Tate Britain’s social justice-tinted view of history has continued, not least with last year’s rehang of the permanent collection, delayed by Covid, in which preoccupations with Britain’s colonial and imperial history, the representation of women and people of colour, and depictions of social class have become the main narrative thread. That this social history does little to offer visitors an understanding of the aesthetic and stylistic evolution of art in Britain seems to pass Tate Britain by. So while mediocre paintings can be wheeled out to make a point about the position of black people in Georgian and Victorian Britain, popular and artistically significant modern paintings, such as Stanley Spencer’s 1924-7 ‘The Resurrection, Cookham’, long on display, can be packed off to the storerooms for the crime of not conforming to contemporary curatorial sensitivities about how people of colour should be represented.

    No doubt Tate Britain would dispute that there’s been anything wrong with its recent reinvention as the art gallery wing of social justice activism, but the fact is that the public isn’t turning up. At the time, Curtis was lambasted for seeing visitor numbers fall under her watch, but they have fallen even further in the years that followed. Tellingly, it was 2017, the year of David Hockney’s retrospective, that drew the crowds. More tellingly, Tate Britain hasn’t staged a similar monographic show of a significant (meaning recognisable and popular) postwar British artist since.

    Tate posted an £8.7 million deficit last year and approved a deficit budget for 2023-24

    Tate Britain’s identity crisis is only one part of Tate’s wider move towards progressive cultural and social agendas that, whether well-meaning or not, have the effect of splitting the gallery’s public into separate identity groups, promoting shows that it assumes will attract particular demographics. This shift has been a strategic choice. In her recent book on the role of the contemporary museum, Gathering of Strangers, director Maria Balshaw is fully signed up to the idea of the museum as an engine of social activism, historical decolonisation and environmental advocacy. What doesn’t figure so much is any interest in Tate’s relationship to the national story, the term ‘nation’ barely figuring at all, Balshaw’s view of society jumping from the ‘international’ to the ‘hyperlocal’, with a sort of blindspot where the ‘national’ should be, fixated with ‘diversifying’ the audience to include the underrepresented. And yet still they fail to come through the doors.

    Balshaw’s view of the museum is a diminished one. By the book’s end, she is arguing for the ‘degrowth’ of the museum, musing that deaccession (getting rid of artworks) may be a good thing, chiding other museums that insist on maintaining the ‘best conditions’ for the preservation of the objects in their care without thought to the energy consumption required, and questioning if the ‘blockbuster’ show isn’t overrated, since they tend to be of ‘familiar, usually dead, white and male, artists’. ‘Is quantity our best measure for good?’ Balshaw wonders.

    Considering the relative merits of quality and quantity would be fine, as would extolling the fashionable virtue of ‘degrowth’, if your numbers weren’t so bad, you weren’t running a deficit and were scrabbling for funding. According to one attendee of a recent meeting of Plus Tate – the partnership network of Tate and more than 40 UK visual arts venues (mostly Arts Council-funded) – when the idea of lobbying the new government for increased funding was mooted, Balshaw was allegedly quick to discourage this, suggesting that Tate’s financial concerns should take priority. Degrowth is fine… for other people.

    While cutting funds or shrinking the activities of great cultural institutions is never a good thing, it’s time for a big debate about what Tate thinks it’s for, who it’s for, and where it’s going.

    WRITTEN BY
    J.J. Charlesworth

    1. Awful, destructive and absolutely deliberately so. Mind you, the Tate is full of complete crap masquerading as "Art"

      1. The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich is even worse, believe it or not. Scribbles on the wall and scrunched up cars, and the satanic Marina Abramovic features prominently on the art history syllabus for sixth formers.

    2. Who it isn't for is the average, white, non-woke art-goer. Reading all that put me off. Even if London weren't a hellhole, I wouldn't want to go and see it – and I'm an artist!

      1. I'm not an artist although my wife paints and comes from a family of painters, some of them well known. She loves the Tate Modern and I too have come to appreciate the museum. We spend at least one day there whenever we visit London. I enjoy the walks from London Bridge Station along the river bank past Southwark Cathedral and the Globe. What I like about The Tate is that each exhibit is thoroughly explained. Thus even if you regard paying a fortune for a pile of bricks in geometrical formation rather silly you still can see method in the madness.
        I prefer the Prado of course and the Sorolla museum in Madrid is my favourite.

        1. Chacun a son gout. I used to visit, but then, I used to go to London regularly when it was recognisably part of England.

      2. Same here. The Tate has rarely been anything but boring, with its insistence on showing dreary modern abstract and conceptual art. Add social justice warriorhood into that mix, and why on earth would I want to go there?
        Even in the article above, the stupid phrase "dead, white and male" is trotted out yet again, with not an iota of understanding about the people, politics and times that produce great art.

  141. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Before MPs voted to support the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, Kim Leadbeater, who has sponsored the bill, rose on a point of order.

    There were murmurs in the House. Then Leadbeater said, a little sheepishly, that she wanted to correct the record. She had wrongly implied that serving members of the judiciary had indicated they support the bill. The Judicial Office had written to her, telling her off; and now she was repenting at the eleventh hour.

    It was a fitting conclusion to a debate that has been, from beginning to the end, characterised by falsehoods. Still, MP after MP stood up and thanked Leadbeater for the way she had conducted the debate.

    I say this is Leadbeater’s bill, but it is perhaps more accurate to say this is Dignity in Dying’s bill. The Voluntary Euthanasia Society (as it used to be known) has for almost a century tried to legitimise the principle that lives can be ended when they’re not worth living.

    Ahead of the vote, Dignity in Dying, flush with money, advertised on a massive scale. They plastered Facebook with ads. They covered the walls of Westminster tube station with posters showing people jumping in joy to celebrate being able to kill themselves. (There is at least one suicide attempt every week on the underground network.) Dignity in Dying knew this vote was their best shot at legalising assisted dying in a century, and they held nothing back.

    In parliament, Leadbeater has not behaved much better. She and her supporters knew from the beginning that too much debate on this issue was dangerous. She waited until less than three weeks before the vote before she released the text of her bill. When it was impossible to scrutinise, she was telling every gullible media outlet that her bill would have the strongest safeguards in the world.

    There was no way, she and her allies said, that Britain would become like Belgium, where depressed teenagers can now legally take their lives with the help of doctors. Or the Netherlands, where disabled toddlers are now involuntarily euthanised. Or Canada, where disabled people are regularly asked by doctors whether they want to be euthanised. No, Britain would be different, of course.

    Then, when the bill was released, it turned out that Leadbeater’s world-beating safeguards were about as useful as a chocolate teapot. The bill says that assisted dying will require sign-off from two doctors, the second of whom is meant to be ‘independent’. In reality, the first doctor will be allowed to pick and choose the ‘independent’ doctor. If the independent doctor disagrees about going ahead, the first doctor can simply pick another.

    Leadbeater has repeatedly argued that one of the safeguards in her bill is a required sign-off from a High Court judge. In reality, our overworked family courts are not going to have the time to properly scrutinise thousands of assisted dying requests a year. And the wording of the bill means judges will not even have to hold a hearing before making their decision. It is hard to understand what the purpose of this ‘safeguard’ is – except perhaps to make wavering MPs feel better about voting in favour.

    Often during the assisted dying debate it became apparent that the bill’s supporters had no idea about its shortcomings. Many did not appear to have actually read the bill.

    Christine Jardine, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, fumbled so badly at answering the most basic questions about it on Newsnight that she stopped making media appearances for her side for weeks. Another supportive MP, Tony Vaughan, confused the High Court and the Court of Protection, and accused his critics of ‘hair-splitting’.

    A few years ago, Canada was all the rage among assisted suicide’s promoters in England. Once the horrors of its Medical assistance in dying (MAID) regime had been laid bare before the world, the death lobbyists switched to Oregon as their go-to example. In the House today, MP after MP stood up to say that Oregon was an example of best practice.

    In Oregon, there are reported cases of people being given ‘assisted suicide’ for anorexia, sciatica, arthritis, complications from a fall and, incredibly, a hernia (we do not know the precise details of these cases because medical files are destroyed after death). Yet this was the system our legislators wanted to replicate.

    Many MPs, in five- or ten-years’ time, will claim sheepishly that ‘we didn’t know this would happen’, or ‘we didn’t vote for this’ when the disabled and the vulnerable are killed. But MPs cannot be allowed to claim ignorance.

    They were warned, they knew exactly what would happen and they will have to assume moral responsibility for every single wrongful death that the Leadbeater bill will cause. History will not be kind to them.

    WRITTEN BY
    Yuan Yi Zhu
    Dr Yuan Yi Zhu is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange and an assistant professor of international relations and international law at Leiden University

    3. Dr Yuan will undoubtedly remember the great scandal when the NHS purchased (at great cost !)

      contaminated blood from the USA, and the luckless taxpayers ended up paying millions in compensation

      to the wretched individuals who were given transfusions.

      Be ready for a repeat scandal.

    4. Dr Yuan will undoubtedly remember the great scandal when the NHS purchased (at great cost !)

      contaminated blood from the USA, and the luckless taxpayers ended up paying millions in compensation

      to the wretched individuals who were given transfusions.

      Be ready for a repeat scandal.

  145. Good morning, chums. A pinch and a punch, and white rabbits. I went to bed early at 9 pm, and have only just woken up at 2 am. I shall do the first Wordle in December, then back to bed. See you all in the morning.

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