Saturday 5 June: Vaccinated travellers would face scant Covid risks by visiting Portugal

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/04/lettersvaccinated-travellers-would-face-scant-covid-risks-visiting/

711 thoughts on “Saturday 5 June: Vaccinated travellers would face scant Covid risks by visiting Portugal”

  1. Picking the Right One – Italian Style.

    Giuseppe excitedly tells his mother he’s fallen in love and that he is going to get married.

    He says, “Just for fun, Mama, I’m going to bring over three women and you try and guess which one I’m going to marry.” The mother agrees.

    The next day, he brings three beautiful women into the house, sits them down on the couch and they chat for a while

    He then says, “Okay, Mama, guess which one am I going to marry?”

    Mama says immediately, “The one on the right.”

    “That’s amazing, Mama. You’re right. How did you know?”

    Mama replies: “I don’t like her.”

  2. Is Britain now a police state? Genuine question. Spiked. 5 June 2021.

    There is so much bad faith in the free-speech debate. We’re told it isn’t really an issue. People being sacked after they tweet something? That’s just accountability. Speakers being No Platformed on campus? That’s just students exercising their free speech. Censorship is only really about the state, the cancel-culture denialists tell us.

    Well, a woman in Scotland is facing up to two years in prison for… tweeting. Marion Millar, 50, has been charged under the Malicious Communications Act over tweets she sent in 2019 and 2020. Given how deeply concerned woke leftists apparently are about state censorship, you’d expect them to be up in arms, right? And yet, crickets.

    Morning everyone. One only wonders why the Title Question had to be reinforced and why it has taken so long to be asked!

    Wikipedia posts a definition of what is a Police State but even this is somewhat limited.

    A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance.

    That’s the present day UK! A country in which the Security Services do not merely spy on the citizens but arrange Show Trials and interfere in politics by undermining those seeking to change the status quo. The State, through its agencies, promotes policies that appear thinly disguised as plots in Soap Operas and Advertisements; censors news that is counter to its Message and has a Troll Army that acts on its behalf on the Internet. This is by no means the worst.

    The ordinary police have been stood down from those activities that are the usual part of such forces; the detection of crime and the safety of the public, and now exist to intimidate and control the population by means of well publicised personal events. The arrest of those deemed to have contravened Government Covid Guidelines and attacks at the end of any indigenous protest to delegitimise both its message and members; is now the norm. These actions have a chilling effect on Public Discourse out of all proportion to their numbers, since they appear both Random and Arbitrary. No one can be certain that anything they might say or do may lead to their arrest! All this takes place under the oversight of an MSM that is little more than a Weapon of State Propaganda, easily the equal of any previous Totalitarian Regime in history.

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

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/04/is-britain-now-a-police-state-genuine-question/

    1. Scotland certainly seems to be. Marion Millar is facing jail, yet this person (extract from a Reddit thread) isn’t:

      A report was made to police after a Twitter user, who was identified as a PhD student in Coventry, published a picture of a machinegun and tweeted: “Making a nice list of terfs tweeting @WomenWontWheesht because she needs target practice.” The message was removed for violating Twitter rules.

  3. Good Morning

    From BTL, TellyLaff Letters Page

    And did those knees in ancient time
    Kneel upon England’s sportsfield’s green?
    And was the holy Islam God
    On England’s city streets seen?

    And did the Countenance Divine
    Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
    And was Isla – am builded here
    Among these slave driven mills?

    I will not cease from mental fight,
    Thanks be to Harry and Meghan’s stand
    Till we have built woke dom light
    In what was England’s green and pleasant land.

  4. Good morning Folks

    Misty start here, that’s something we haven’t seen for a while.

    1. Yesterday morning I managed to weed the final portion of my back garden lawn and mow it before the heavens opened and it rained for the rest of the day. Today is predicted to be dry and sunny so the plan is to fill in with compost any holes in the lawn caused by my digging out the weeds and then adding lawn seed to those areas, followed by a gentle sprinkling with water. Hopefully I will then once again in short order have a fairly decent lawn.

      1. That twerp, Monty Don, sez you be bad, Elsie

        Why does the carefully tended, great British lawn make the greens see red?

        The ordinary man’s green sward is the latest target of ideologues who sneer at nature in its tamed form

        CHARLES MOORE
        4 June 2021 • 9:30pm

        I was brought up to think lawns were such a British thing that foreign languages did not really have a word for them. In Italian, a lawn is often called il prato inglese – the English field.

        Certainly, lawns are well adapted to our temperate climate. It is no accident that lawn tennis was invented here, or that Wimbledon, starting in three weeks, is synonymous with the sport.

        Lawns feature strongly in our idea of ourselves. In his great 18th-century dictionary, Dr Johnson defines a lawn merely as “an open space between woods” (plus the quite separate meaning of “Fine linen, remarkable for being used in the sleeves of bishops”), but not long after that, the word came to have its modern usage. The Oxford English Dictionary speaks of “a portion of a garden … covered with grass, which is kept closely mown”.

        The lawn represented leisure, order, perfect greenness, and something you could comfortably lie on with much less chance of being tickled by plants or bitten by insects. It was fun for children’s games. It also suggested a peaceful mastery of nature. Serving abroad in parched deserts or steaming jungles, Englishmen dreamt of the lawns of home – including, of course, that most famous, ultra-disciplined adaptation of the lawn idea, the cricket pitch.

        The lawn is now coming under attack. Like England itself (though, by the way, many of the loveliest British lawns are to be found in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland), the lawn is not wild. In current green ideology, that makes it BAD.

        Earlier this year, the television horticulturalist Monty Don pronounced that “cutting grass burns lots of fossil fuel, makes a filthy noise, and is about the most injurious thing you can do to wildlife”. It is even, he suggested, a borderline sexist act: “Making a lawn that is pure grass without any filthy and foreign invading plants in there, making sure it’s stripy and neat” is an example of the male obsession with “controlling rather than embracing”.

        This summer, the Royal Horticultural Society is urging people to stop watering their lawns from the mains. The well-named David Hedges-Gower, who makes his living advising the National Trust and others on lawns, sniffs the green wind and agrees: “If you’re looking after your garden lawn properly, it can be bone-dry and as brown as an over-ripe banana – and still be healthy.”

        Mr Hedges-Gower is factually correct: good lawns rarely die of drought in England. But I think it may be time to “control rather than embrace” Monty Don, and stand up for the rights of nature in its tamed form.

        First of all – as is usually the case in horticultural disputes – class is in play here. Most gardening ideas start on a grand scale. In its early days, the lawn was associated with nobility. In the 19th century, as a bourgeois class developed, millions in new villas or terraces were pleased to have room to create modest versions of the same thing. It was a similar process to taking the surnames of aristocratic families – Stanley, Russell, Percy – and bestowing them on their children as first names.

        It did not take long for grander owners to disdain this. The richer you are, the more space you have: ever since the Romantic movement took hold, people with lots of room started to cultivate (though the word in this context is a contradiction in terms) wildness.

        The geometric gardening of the Tudor period gave way to pretend wildernesses and artificial hermitages or grottoes artfully disposed over many acres. It was hard for the middle classes to follow suit if their gardens measured only 90ft by 30ft.

        And so it is today. At home – Longmeadow in Herefordshire – Monty Don has room for his Paradise Garden, Cottage Garden, Vegetable Garden, Herb Garden, Dry Garden and Jewel Garden. They all look lovely on Instagram. But if you want enough room to kick a football and relax in the garden of your suburban semi – and you have no labour but your own – you may take legitimate pride in your orderly lawn. It is a confined space where a molehill really can feel like a mountain.

        You may also be a bit annoyed with Mr Hedges-Gower for telling you to let it go brown all summer: that, after all, is the time when you want to sit in it. Besides, is it really beyond the power of a prosperous, wet country to conserve and distribute water in such a way that you should not be made to feel guilty for using what you pay for from the tap?

        Today is the age of “rewilding”. Wild boar are already digging up large parts of the countryside. Beavers are being brought back. The return of wolves is touted.

        More holistically, projects like Knepp Castle in West Sussex are experimenting with what happens when you abandon conventional agriculture and its machinery and fertilisers. Exciting results include the return of nightingales and turtle doves.

        Some of these trends are good, especially when, as at Knepp, they are pursued in a sustained way, adapting to discoveries as they go along. But inside ideas of rewilding are elements of evasion and dogmatism.

        The truth evaded is that rewilding is a rich person’s game. You need to have a lot of land, and not to need ready money from it, to rewild seriously. As Isabella Tree, of Knepp, discloses in her bible of the subject Rewilding (Picador), she and her husband can do what they do because he inherited 3,500 very valuable acres in the prosperous South East. Their abandonment of farm machinery has freed up enough farm buildings to convert and let them as light industrial units employing about 200 people. She is frank: green policymakers are not.

        What happens to country people if rewilders get it wrong? The National Trust owns 600,000 acres. It is keen to get back to nature and is well placed to improve habitat. But one hears rising complaints from trust farm tenants who simply feel neglected.

        One couple in rural Wales speak of being told by a trust estate rep to “concentrate on looking after your young family; don’t bother about improving the farm”. New National Trust leases restrict food production. How great will its rewilding prove if it works like the Highland Clearances? “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

        Attitudes to nature are being kidnapped by the dogma that nature is good and man is bad. This is, paradoxically, a 100 per cent man-mad idea, a form of self-hatred. In most countries today – certainly in a small, populated one like Britain – everything to do with nature is to do with man. We do not serve either well if do not admit this. Rewilding is a human activity and cannot work if it becomes anti-human.

        It seems to me that lawns often provide beautiful examples of how man can tame nature without harming it. Obviously, it would be bad if the whole countryside were laid to lawn, but it won’t be. Some of the loveliest landscapes, most characteristic of this country, are those where the eye can work up from the highly domesticated – the well-weeded flower-beds, the neat lawn – to the less cultivated park where livestock graze, and then up again, perhaps beyond a stone wall, to the moorlands (which also need tending by the hand of man) where the wilder things are.

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/does-carefully-tended-great-british-lawn-make-greens-see-red/

        1. Charles Moore is mistaken when he claims Il prato Inglese is Italian for “English lawn”; it’s actual translation is “the English prat” and if it refers to anyone it is to Monty and not to Elsie!

          :-))

  5. Good morning all.
    5°C and a lovely morning here in Derbyshire.

    It’s not often I’m up early on a Saturday morning, but for the past several months instead of being able to listen to “Through The Night” on Radio 3 for some decent music, they’ve had inane and up their own backside presenters who like to be known by a single name playing predominantly crap music.

    https://twitter.com/BeardedBob7282/status/1401054685633597440

    1. Good morning, BoB.
      20ºC and a lovely cloudless sky (again) here in Skåne.

    1. Another for the List

      Prevarications, Scaremongering, Deceit, Abuse of Power, Destroying a Nation: Boros and Co

    2. Another for the List

      Prevarications, Scaremongering, Deceit, Abuse of Power, Destroying a Nation: Boros and Co

          2. It’s the subject there. It’s accusative after the transitive verb ‘make’.

    5. Interesting how few entries there are.
      I saw a hat on Etsy and asked the seller if she made them or imported them,possibly from China?
      Here is here reply, in its entirety:
      “I neither make them nor import them.”
      An enquiry to Yesterhome regarding their product resulted in this reply:
      “Hi Thank you for our Enquiry,
      Unfortunately not all of our products are made in the UK, We do have some products that are made in China and we also have some that are made in India.
      On our Website if the product is made in Britain it will have a Made in Britain Logo.
      http://www.yesterhome.co.uk
      Kind Regards,”

      A search on their website results in 3 products out of 394 as “Made in Britain”.

  7. Well I see everything is going how the tin foil hatters predicted some time back, as we got nearer to release day, June 21st, a mysterious new variant mutant strain will arise from nowhere and put the kibosh on proceedings, then it will be all slowly downhill to the next Autumn lockdown.
    All those vaccinated people, virtually the whole adult population by then will have been jabbed for what appears to be no discernible benefit to freedom whatsoever, or to health, masks, distancing and isolation still in place, but by then a booster will be required before one can do anything and then my friends we will all be truly stuffed and not just with experimental drugs.
    Now it is time to use the mysterious new variant mutant strain to justify vaccinating children, not one mainstream media news station is asking any questions, GB news kicks off next week I see, but going by their facebook support groups it looks like being just the same as all the others.

    1. I suppose he’ll be dead in a ditch (again) if we aren’t free on 21st June.

    1. The threat of delaying the June 21st date strikes me as either:
      (a) a ploy to show how wonderful our PM is when, contrary to all expectations, we are totally and completely “freed” on the 21st,
      or (b) a ploy to persuade more people to get vaccinated through fear of the consequences.
      Only time will tell which it is.

      1. mng Elsie,the intended threat is real, they’re looking / waiting for the appropriate excuse without proof and timing to announce

  10. Excellent BTL comment on Overseas Aid on the letters page:-

    Simon Olley
    5 Jun 2021 6:43AM
    The overseas aid budget would seem to be a perfect candidate for an online referendum, though I suspect the question would be skewed to something like:
    Should the country’s Foreign Aid Budget as a proportion of GDP be:
    □ 0.5% GDP
    □ 0.7% GDP
    □ 1.0% GDP

    Instead of the question that should be asked which is:
    Should the UK government be borrowing money on your behalf to send to corrupt overseas governments?
    □ Yes, I am happy to see the country’s debt grow to support the India space project.
    □ No, I am more than capable of supporting charity myself as I feel appropriate.

    1. Everybody apart from virtue signalling politicians knows Foreign Aid definition is “Poor People in Rich Countries giving Money to Rich People in Poor Countries”

    2. Everybody apart from virtue signalling politicians knows Foreign Aid definition is “Poor People in Rich Countries giving Money to Rich People in Poor Countries”

  11. Mng all. the weekend jottings part 1: For Andrew Mitchell [MP?] the penny finally drops about Government breaking promises, just the rest of reality dots to join up. Mr Versi pens a note on behalf of all mooselimbs? Loose use of “us”: Mr Dewey’s imagination runs wild of his imaginary friends:

    SIR – I see from the Telegraph (June 3), that the number of new Covid cases in Portugal stands at just over 50 per million. Not deaths; just new cases.

    Most people who catch this disease will recover. Some will hardly know they have had it. Most travellers from Britain to Portugal will have been vaccinated, which minimises the risk of death or serious illness.

    None the less, Portugal has been moved from green to amber, requiring quarantine upon return and, I guess, putting off most would-be travellers.

    By what measure does this move strike a reasonable balance between the damage to the tourist industry and the risks associated with Covid? It is not possible to get the Covid risk down to zero, and attempts to do so are resulting in massive damage.

    Andy Bebbington
    Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire

    SIR – Given that the Covid infection rate is lower in Portugal than in the United Kingdom, does that mean that I will now have to quarantine for 10 days after doing my weekly shopping? If not, why not?

    Captain Peter Holcroft
    Conwy

    SIR – It would be interesting to know how many people who are forced to quarantine for 10 days after returning from red or amber countries actually test positive for Covid-19. Are the figures recorded?

    David French
    Dému, Gers, France

    SIR – While the media all appear to deplore the new travel restrictions, perhaps I can say that, like many of my friends, I am extremely aware that Covid is largely transmitted round the world by unnecessary travel.

    W G Dewey
    Teignmouth, Devon

    SIR – For the second year in a row my planned holiday in the Greek islands is having to be cancelled.

    As far as I can see, there is absolutely no justification for preventing vaccinated people from travelling to areas that are at the same level of protection as England.

    I am sick of being told by a gang of po-faced prefects what I can and cannot do, and where I can and cannot go. I am old enough to assess the risks to myself and others, and need no nannying by what is turning out to be the most nannying of nanny states.

    Gail Bridger
    Kingsbridge, Devon

    SIR – If lockdown and travel restrictions continue in spite of a really well-executed vaccination programme, then Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, to use football parlance, are in danger of losing the dressing room.

    Alexander Mackie
    Tedburn St Mary, Devon

    SIR – May I suggest that the PM asks Dominic Cummings and Sir Keir Starmer what they would do about lifting the restrictions. They will know.

    George Bastin
    Stroud, Gloucestershire

    National Trust tickets

    SIR – On the subject of National Trust prices (Letters, June 4), there are two other rather dubious pricing practices that have been adopted over the past few years.

    The first is to charge the inflated “gift aided” price as the default unless the visitor specifically asks for the standard price. This is particularly misleading for foreign visitors, who are unlikely to know about the latter.

    Secondly, the “garden only” option has long since been abandoned in favour of the much pricier “house and garden” ticket.

    These practices have meant that, after many years, my wife and I, both keen gardeners, have reluctantly given up visiting National Trust properties.

    Mike Bridgman
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    Soft bridal landing

    SIR – My mother’s wedding was both green and economical (Letters, June 3).

    She married in 1945, just after my father was demobbed, and made a rather impressive dress – complete with train – out of my father’s now redundant parachute. My father wore his RAF uniform, because he had no other suit.

    I can remember the parachute-silk petticoats my mother and I wore for many years afterwards, which she made from the dress and its remnants.

    Kate Alexander
    Ardgay, Sutherland

    A pipe of peace

    SIR – Andrew Graham’s letter (June 3) reminded me of when carriages had corridors. Placing a pipe in my mouth, not necessarily smoking it, usually guaranteed a compartment to myself.

    Peter Clark
    Ash, Kent

    SIR – I had a friend who, when travelling by train, could almost guarantee an empty seat beside him. At the approach of any hopeful occupant, he would leer lasciviously up at them while patting the empty seat invitingly. This method seemed to repel both sexes.

    Jane Cullinan
    Padstow, Cornwall

    SIR – By adding a portion of fish and chips to the empty beer cans that Andrew Graham recommends, I once hit the jackpot and secured a whole table to myself for the entire journey from London to Edinburgh.

    Edward Church
    Selling, Kent

    Rules of the road

    SIR – It was reassuring to learn that young drivers read the Highway Code (“Young better drivers than over-55s as they read rules”, report, June 3).

    It would be more reassuring to hear that cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders, to whom the Highway Code equally applies, have read the rules. There is little evidence that they have.

    David Hughes
    Winchester, Hampshire

    SIR – If the young are better drivers, why do insurance companies charge them more than older ones?

    Grahame Lavis
    London E16

    Britain’s overseas aid

    SIR – Your Leading Article (June 4) is correct in saying that “Britain has proved itself to be a remarkably generous country”. But to respond to the responsibility of chairing the G7 group of rich nations by cutting our support for the world’s poorest nations is an embarrassing failure of authority.

    By cutting aid from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent we are breaking a promise we made at a previous G7 summit, just days before hosting a G7 summit at which we will rightly ask other countries to make their own promises.

    We are also bucking the trend, France is raising aid to 0.7 per cent, Germany will exceed 0.7 per cent and the United States is increasing aid by $14 billion. The United Kingdom is the only G7 country cutting aid, and at 
0.5 per cent we will be less generous than Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

    Our economy is forecast to return to growth and the cuts being made are just 1 per cent of what the Chancellor is borrowing this year. Keeping our promise is the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do.

    Andrew Mitchell MP (Con)
    London SW1

    SIR – Each of us may donate however much we wish of our personal wealth to overseas aid. If we emulated the Chancellor, we could choose to borrow money and give it away in overseas aid.

    I would rather not be coerced as a taxpayer to make overseas aid payments with which I disagree. A fair approach would be for HM Revenue and Customs to provide an overseas aid “opt out” on our tax returns.

    Alan Stedall
    Sutton Coldfield

    Displaying flags

    SIR – Nick Timothy (Comment, May 31) claims I was “suggesting there might be two sides to racism”. This is untrue.

    I spoke out because Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, was tone deaf to the bigotry faced by Muslim children when he wrote about the racism faced by Jewish children.

    My plea was simply that Muslim children should not be ignored and I pointed to many examples where young Muslims were censured for simply saying “Free Palestine” and displaying Palestinian flags.

    Mr Timothy claims we are hurtling towards segregation. He is welcome to self-segregate with his closed-minded fellow travellers. The rest of us will work out our differences without imposing our views on others.

    Miqdaad Versi
    Harrow, Middlesex

    Jolly Roundheads

    SIR – “Even the gloomiest republican must struggle to sneer at a double bank holiday” next year, you say (Leading Article, June 3). Why do you assume that republicans are gloomy? We are actually a rather jolly bunch.

    Michael Derrig
    Twyford, Berkshire

    Putting a deposit on bottles torpedoes recycling

    SIR – While a deposit on bottles (Letters, June 3) may help to reduce litter, it will annoy those responsible people who put empty bottles and cans in their recycling bins.

    Roadside collectors can’t possibly count the bottles and credit each householder. Either we give these deposits to the council, or we’ll have to store the empties, then take them to a collection point, which would be inconvenient and create pollution.

    Roger Jackson
    Stockport, Cheshire

    Can’t Stonewall see that mothers give birth?

    SIR – Stonewall (Letters, June 4) achieved its original laudable aims. However, its leaders seem to be perpetual campaigners who will continue to invent minorities. How many more letters will they add to the list? They lost me after LGBT.

    To me it seems an organisation that started well but has lost its way and wandered into a separate universe. Men cannot bear children and babies are born to mothers. Biology should trump ideology.

    Rosemary Wells
    Chickerell, Dorset

    SIR – The disconnect of Stonewall from its original roots of supporting gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals is sad.

    People who have spent their lives campaigning for LGB rights are finding themselves ostracised because they cannot buy into the more illogical claims of the trans activists who have now taken over the organisation.

    The biological definition of sex is a real thing. If that obvious scientific fact is no longer acceptable, then being gay or lesbian is likewise a meaningless statement. Even more worrying, it’s clear that the rights of women are being thrown under a bus.

    Jonathan Wheeler
    Reading, Berkshire

    1. Keeping promises, eh, Mr Mitchell? Like promises on stopping cross-channel illegal immigration, to name but one? Arsehole.

      3. Whatever France says about its increase in Aid contradicts the article yesterday which said they had not realised/met their target since 1967.

    2. “The rest of us will work out our differences without imposing our views on others” says Miqdaad Versi. Isn’t this the aim of Islam – to impose itself on everyone?

  12. The West’s Wuhan cover-up will not be forgotten easily. Douglas Murray. 5 June 2021.

    Last week there was another major anti-lockdown protest in London. As usual, it was ignored by most of the media, and its participants were derided by commentators who prefer their rule-breakers to be violent and thuggish rather than peaceful and generally good-natured.

    The tech overlords love to flex their muscles on such occasions. Just as they decided before the last election that America’s oldest newspaper – The New York Post – should not be allowed to run a major story about Joe Biden’s family, so the kidults in Silicon Valley decided that they knew best about Wuhan wet markets and virus origins.

    The same thing happened with views that were anti-lockdown. As the Telegraph reported last year, interviews with major scientists such as the former WHO adviser Professor Karol Sikora were taken down by YouTube as soon as they were posted online. Anyone who questioned the received narrative was virtually disappeared. The public were only allowed to be told one version of one story. And that whole narrative began with the assertion that the virus was the result of an accident in a Wuhan wet market.

    One only wonders at Douglas’ naivete. The MSM and its new allies in Social Media are Purveyors of Fantasy, Silencers of the Truth. Nottlers were posting their suspicions of China’s place in all this as soon as the story broke!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/wests-wuhan-cover-up-will-not-forgotten-easily/

    1. Disqus is censoring anti-lockdown posts on TCW heavily.
      The posts attract a review for reasons that are not always obvious, and are then deleted.

        1. No, and I’ve seen other people complaining too. If your post attracts a Review, it will always be deleted. One trigger seems to be the names of large tech companies. But another post of mine was very bland, I’m not sure what triggered them.

          1. probably an opaque reference trigger. Luckily most on TCW [and here as well as others] pick the signals and have ability to post in ways that initially doesn’t attract attention for review. Either way, thanks for confirming

    2. Not just suspicions, but links to research papers, commentaries, and links to the facts of “gain of function” developments co-ordinated between Chinese and US scientists.

    3. I like Baku.
      It had the advantage of not being rebuilt as a glass and steel tower block in the Soviet times, and so has a lot of attractive older buildings still in use.
      People are friendly, too, and the food good. Alcohol available. What’s not to like?

    1. Ramblin’ Joe, ramblin’ Joe
      Why you ramble, only the doctor knows
      Old and garrity, that’s how you’ve grown
      Who can cling to a ramblin’ Joe?

  15. Putin sees ‘double standard’ in US Capitol riot prosecutions. 5 June 2021.

    “They weren’t just a crowd of robbers and rioters,” Mr Putin said of the Trump supporters who stormed Congress on 6 January and temporarily suspended a session to certify Mr Biden as the winner of last November’s election. “Those people had come with political demands.”

    When the forum moderator suggested Mr Putin’s comments about the Capitol riot could see him banned from US social media platforms, the Russian leader drew applause from the audience by retorting: “I don’t give a damn about being blocked somewhere.”

    Vlad’s just twisting the American’s tail here. Free Speech and Free Expression are now the prerogative of the leader of the former Soviet Union! Bizarre eh?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57366668

  16. Good morning, all. It rained all night – but has stopped now. In theory it will be dry and sunny. In theory…

    Seeing that the RN now goes almost all the way to Calais to pick up the illegals – I suggest that HMG pays the ferry companies. Save a lot of work – and stop the rubber boat traffic…. (sarc)

  17. Out-of-touch bishops are pushing the Church to the brink of ruin

    The church is losing its attachment to local people — and with that, its diversity of thought

    EMMA THOMPSON – 4 June 2021 • 7:00pm

    Look at their actions over recent months and you could be forgiven for thinking that Anglican bishops are on a mission to alienate their flocks, run down their parishes and ultimately give up their special place in British public and spiritual life. How else to explain the actions of the Bishop of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy, who has been forced to delete her Twitter account and apologise after tweeting, “Never, never, never trust a Tory”?

    I am not theologically trained, but I cannot remember Jesus telling us to love our neighbours unless they are Tories. Our country is becoming unhelpfully polarised along age, North/South and rural/urban lines. It is the Church’s job to remind us, in crisis times, of our common humanity.

    There is nothing new about Left-wing bishops being out of touch with their congregations. The trouble is that the political divide between bishops and laity is not the only issue driving a wedge between them.

    This is most keenly felt in the decline of parish churches. Last month, the Bishop of Winchester, Tim Dakin, was forced to “step back for six weeks” after an extraordinary revolt by both clergy and laity. Bishop Dakin appears to have prioritised resourcing urban Evangelical “megachurches” while rural churches have been harassed with demands for growth, in money and attendance. Winchester diocese is cutting clergy numbers, proposing to merge village churches into ever-larger, geographically awkward benefices. Similar plans are being pursued around the country by bishops who have come up through a bureaucratic system and seem distanced from lay members.

    Crockford’s Clerical Directory reflects that many Bishops, early identified as “high-fliers”, spend their careers mostly in non-parochial jobs or large suburban churches, leaving them lacking in hands-on experience. This hierarchy now appears to view Covid as enabling a welcome technological and cultural change: more middle managers, fewer local clergy. This is despite the fact that the Church thrives on social connection. What of the poor and elderly, more likely to be excluded by the move away from physical services? A friend’s vicar recently got up at 3am to bless a dying baby; she had known the family for 20 years and lived nearby. She retires in 2022; the diocese has said that she is unlikely to be replaced. What then?

    Rural dwellers love their parish church buildings. This attachment to local people, place and parish is, sadly, almost portrayed as part of the Church’s problems. Properly understood, it should be part of the solution. A recent report from the University of York found that, post-pandemic, even 75 per cent of non-churchgoers wanted access to churches, as places of quiet reflection and comfort.

    Large organisations need diversity of thought; the Church’s breadth used to be its strength. Bishops insulting potential donors, and withdrawing parish clergy without listening to the people, reminds me of the old joke about the tinker’s donkey: “He had just taught it to go without food when it died.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/out-of-touch-bishops-pushing-church-brink-ruin/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    ****************************************************

    D S Wilson
    4 Jun 2021 7:47PM
    With the Archbishop of Canterbury, (woke, un-Christian, leftwing activist Justin Welby), in hiding throughout the worst crisis this country has experienced in a generation, what example and message does that send to the vicars and clergy around the country? Then he goes on retreat to his private six-bedroom house in France, but graces us with his presence at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral for his own ego. The hypocrite is quite prepared to criticise the Government at any opportunity, but not attend his congregation in their time of need.

    The CoE constantly plead poverty, despite being one of the biggest landowners in this country – sell off one prime property then.

    That man is a disgrace to this country and the Church and should be sacked.

    1. That man is a disgrace to this country and the Church and should be sacked.

      He was appointed with the understanding that he would destroy what was left of the C of E!

    2. ‘Morning, Citroen, Using our own experience here in rural Suffolk where our small 13th Century Church is maintained by the local Parochial Church Council and the vicar, who serves 7 other parishes in the area, can only provide one Family Service a month and one Holy Communion in the same period, I have to agree with Emma Thompson’s view and just add to her statement, ” Our country is becoming unhelpfully polarised along age, North/South and rural/urban lines.” Plus massive divergence along religious and cultural lines, exacerbated by the actions of our supposed guests, who refuse to integrate and expect us to change to comply with their peculiar ideology.

      1. Yo NTN

        Plus massive divergence along religious and cultural lines, exacerbated by the actions of our supposed guests, who refuse to integrate and expect us to change to comply with their peculiar ideology.

        The understatement of the year decade

        1. Thank you, OLT, I’m well known for practicing the Great English Art of Litotes.

      2. At least there are only three parishes in our benefice. Our rector has just retired, though, and we are now in the Vacancy. We have to make do with the services of retired vicars to fill in on a rota basis. Church is 15th century and beautiful.

    3. ‘Morning, Citroen, Using our own experience here in rural Suffolk where our small 13th Century Church is maintained by the local Parochial Church Council and the vicar, who serves 7 other parishes in the area, can only provide one Family Service a month and one Holy Communion in the same period, I have to agree with Emma Thompson’s view and just add to her statement, ” Our country is becoming unhelpfully polarised along age, North/South and rural/urban lines.” Plus massive divergence along religious and cultural lines, exacerbated by the actions of our supposed guests, who refuse to integrate and expect us to change to comply with their peculiar ideology.

  18. ‘Morning All

    Words Fail Me……

    “Channel migrants have been secretly picked up in French waters by the UK Border Force and taken to Dover, the Mail can reveal.

    The controversial action on the French side of the Channel was orchestrated

    between senior crew members of HMC Valiant and French patrol ship Athos

    last Saturday.

    On Friday night, a Home

    Office source said the Government’s own border agency appeared to have

    helped migrants enter the country illegally, adding: ‘The job of Border

    Force is to secure the UK’s border, not facilitate illegal entry across

    it.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9653583/Home-Office-launches-probe-Border-Force-entered-French-waters-collect-asylum-seekers.html

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc44068b70e8bb12f25f8cd11e4f9c39e95fada9e9f8932212d51c00ac04bfdd.gif

      2. 333860+up ticks,
        Morning OLT,
        The unveiling is getting ever closer as the ranks are swelling on a daily basis, the supply depots countrywide are in place, the call to arms can be given from tall towers across the Country, it is only a matter of time surely.

    2. 333860+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Just heard it on radio 4 the french bloke being interviewed & asked how are hundreds are dodging security & crossing, he answered we do NOT have a clear window……

      If we as a country could benefit from the treacherous orchestration these political overseers are overseeing we would be world leaders.

      One party forever calling for “controlled immigration”
      was taken out of the Battle of Britain via treachery
      daubed as far right racist and their falling applauded by a multitude of supporters / voters of the very parties still dancing to the orchestrated steps of
      brussels.
      We in REAL UKIP wanted total severance the
      coalition of treacherous politico’s / supporting fools
      got “the deal” consequently ALL innocents suffer.

    3. If the last 15 months has proved one thing it is that the Government, the Opposition, the Civil Service, Quangos and many other bodies linked by an umbilical to the Establishment are corrupt and rotten to the core. Now we hear that the forces enlisted to physically protect our borders are possibly contaminated with the same disease. Only the ‘People’ are capable of stopping this escalating mess, if that means civil strife, then so be it. The PTB must be made afraid of the good People of the UK.

    4. The reason/excuse given for this activity is that if the French ship approached the invaders boat they would throw themselves in the water.
      The UK Border crew apparently negotiated with the French to allow the UK boat to pick up the invaders in French waters.
      The French and British governments are colluding in the Channel Invasion. This has been clear for some time and our dictatorial PM doesn’t care. The Conservative government will pay dearly at the next election unless Johnson is brought to heel or kicked out of parliament.

      1. “…if the French ship approached the invaders boat they would throw themselves in the water.” Well, OK. but why did the French ship not take the invaders boat in tow and take it back to France? If people choose to jump into the sea, let them.

  21. [WATCH] SADIQ’S LONDON ADVERT: TRUTHFUL EDITION

    https://youtu.be/4G5WEbBEEVM

    Today Sadiq Khan released a typically-polished video promoting London ahead of the Euros. While Sadiq continues focusing on his image, and participating in Twitter trends, Guido thought it’d be useful to remind the mayor of real-life under his city. He’s welcome.

    4 June 2021 @ 17:10

    2. It’s funny that he doesn’t present the facts yet calls it ‘normal in a big city’.

      Of course, before the savages were imported by Labour to destabilise the country and give them a voting bloc, this simply didn’t happen.

      Left wing policing, arrogant statists, a refusal to accept the basic problems are going to destroy what little remains of our society.

    1. Perhaps these same “school leaders” (useless expression) could tell us how many dead children would be regarded as “acceptable”….

    2. Shame on the Guardian for wanting to inject these precious, life-giving vaccines into privileged white kids. We should donate them to the third world instead. They will know what to do with them.

  24. I observe- with anger but resignation – that NOT ONE British TV channel is covering the Inauguration, tomorrow, of the D-Day Memorial.

    Nor is it being broadcast in France.

    There is a “livestream” to the Memorial Arboretum – but that’s no good for the rest of us.

    The running order for the opening ceremony
    10.00am: D-Day Commemorations at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire

    10:30am: The opening ceremony at the British Normandy Memorial, presided over by the British Ambassador to France

    11:00am: Two Minute Silence

    11:15am: Livestream ends

    1. Teenage daughter thinks the video is satire. Apparently parents making celebration videos on Tiktok that their child is gay, is quite a thing. Nothing like defining your child in front of the whole world, is there.

    2. She is clearly an idiot. Firstly, she’s got a pair of ring lights and is not bright enough to put them above her head.

      Secondly, she’s pushing her wishes – which she clearly doesn’t share – on her child. That’s.. oh.. abuse.

  28. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a3d582e78bb62f17927e902d85e62d66e7f3249e777442a97fe9885e4ae028d.png If taking your empties to a collection point “creates pollution”, Rog, then surely a trip to the supermarket to collect the fulls will create the same pollution?

    Here in Sweden we have a different system. Each house has two wheelie bins: one for general household rubbish and another for food waste. They are emptied once a fortnight. Every village has a recycling area where bottles, cans, paper and cardboard can be placed into dedicated skips. Supermarkets have an area (just inside the entrance) where deposit-paid plastic bottles can be placed into a machine that issues a ticket for a refund of the deposit. On the outskirts of small towns there are municipal disposal areas that take in scrap metal items, electrical/electronic goods, scrap timber, gardening waste and volatile liquids.

    The system works, the environment is clean and free from litter, and everyone is happy.

    2. He has a valid point though. Britain will manage to mess it up and implement some kind of Heath Robinson system with Soviet-style bureaucracy which fines people for putting the wrong bottle in the wrong place – but only if you’re white.

      1. One could always keep the bottles – to throw at the police when they force an entry to check that your Covid test is up to date.

        1. Officer: “Why did you throw that bottle at us?”
          Citizen: “I was advised to do so by a retired advocate.”

        2. Better yet, fill glass bottles with petrol – while still available – insert a petrol soaked rag wick and store with the rest of your armoury of machetes, tasers, Glock 9 mm etc.

    3. ‘ Morning, George. When I lived in Sweden (late 90s) you always got money back on beer cans as well. I remember getting in trouble for crushing them.

      1. ‘Morning, Tom. Word on the street is that they’re wanting to bring back deposit-paid glass bottles too.

        1. Does Sweden still have a deposit system on beer/coke cans? ‘Twould be good to know if such a system could work here.

          1. Currently it’s just plastic bottles; however, there is a groundswell of opinion that it should be extended to glass bottles and tin cans.

    4. Hey Beatnik, I saw you in San Fran, Man, back in ’78. You had a sack, Dude and you were pulling all those old cans out of the trash and building your stash for the pennies that the metal earned, hombre. That’s called “capitalism in action” Rockefeller, none of your nancy boy European big state recycling there back then- just hard-working dudes earning a dollar or two walking and working the highway and getting a good groove together.

        1. Hey Dude, don’t leave it bad.
          Take some litter and make it tidier.
          Remember to dump into the bin,
          Then you can start to make it better.

          Repeat for a considerable length of time screaming at the fade out.

      2. Hey, Dean. Way to go, Bro, but that must been some other bum. Frisco’s never been on my rails, hombre. This ‘Bo was crashin’ in some other Hooverville way down on Route 66 (natch … my name’s in the lyrics!). Them old Coors cans have more credo and nickel-earning potential than any Miller’s, Schlitz or pseudo-Bud could ever muster, Dude.

        1. Hey, Beatnik, must’ve been your twin bro, Dude. You were getting your kicks and cans down Main Street America, hombre, other clued in men of the road were cleaning up with those cans, Man. Pennies from heaven in those garbage containers- you get a sack of plenty, cash ’em in and buy a bottle of Thunderbird, and you’re sky high, hombre.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrb0RVUFv90

          1. Hey, Dean, where are those silver-lined dumpsters at, Bro? Let me at ’em, Compadre.

          3. I’m ahead of the curve, Dean. Basin Street and Bourbon Street are already on my antennæ, Bro. I’ll not Muddy the Waters with that Chicago stuff, Hombre. The Dixie Delta is where’s it’s at, Dude. Surfin’ the levee is my bag, Compadre.

          4. Hey Beatnik, I’ve grooved at Tipitina’s and been down through that bayou country stuffing down that gumbo filé, Dude. Desitively Bonnaroo as the good doctor described it.

    5. But that’s the British solution to everything. Tax it. If it stops working, keep taxing it ever more. When the tax makes no difference, blame the people creating the product. When that reduces sales and creates unemployment or reduce product size and options, such as the chocolate recipe in a mars bar.

      When the product is rubbish, the taxes destroying it, the company cutting corners, tell the customer it’s bad for them and oh, tax it.

    6. The best way to stamp out fly tipping is to provide places where people are not charged for dumping their waste.

      When we first came to Brittany over 30 years ago there was a certain amount of fly-tipping. Now that there are well organised déchetteries with several options for where to put your rubbish the problem of fly tipping has disappeared.

      A new section has just been introduced for stupid people such as myself who are reluctant to throw away things that still work well but clutter up the home. The thought that if I do not want to use a thing any more but that somebody else will be able to do so provides a good motive for taking it to the déchetterie.

      1. Fly tipping is not a feature of Swedish life. Swedes care for their environment and litter of any kind is rarely seen.

    7. The same applies here in this part of Dorset , Grizzly.
      We have 3 bins , one small brown caddy for food waste 2 dustbins , one for recycling and one for general rubbish, oh yes and a green box for jars and bottles.. and if you want to pay for garden rubbish to be taken away one of those as well, except we take garden sacks of cut stuff to the tip ,

      It is workable here becuse the area is small enough .

  30. 333860+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Saturday 5 June: Vaccinated travellers would face scant Covid risks by visiting Portugal

    Seeing as treachery if rife & anti United Kingdom among the lab/lib/con
    coalition supporters / voters the present state of the Nation clearly shows this, could the twisted mindset of these overseers be inclusive of
    jabbing children one ingredient of the jab being an
    appeasement agent.

    Link that to the DOVER campaign & likes and you have a multitude of peoples instead of uprising in protection of their homeland, uprising and crying YIPPEE more boat peoples are crossing.

    Unbelievable ? compare this country today to the one of three decades ago.

      1. 333860+ up ticks,
        Many Britons current lab/lib/con supporter / voters are IMHO
        suffering from a blight as in “Blighty die back.”

    3. How many Nepalis have visited Portugal recently?

      …..as compared with how many illegal migrants have landed at Dover with the British government’s blessing.

      1. 333860+ up ticks,
        Morning J,
        British government / brussels blessing, securely linked
        via “the deal”

    1. As I say, I’m not against masks, and neither am I against lockdowns. But I can’t banish the feeling that we’re sleepwalking into an irreversibly authoritarian future.

      Welcome to NottlerWorld pal!

      1. 333860+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        Sleepwalking into VIA the polling booth and
        misguided / treacherous consent.

      2. He’s a bit late to the party isn’t he but I suppose at least he has woken up!

  32. Vaccinated Britons can enter France freely from next week
    Travellers with two jabs will only need proof of an antigen test and no longer need to have a “compelling reason” for their visit

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/vaccinated-britons-can-enter-france-freely-next-week-travel/

    Poor Mr Macron. What a dilemma for him!

    On the one hand he is determined to stuff the British, on the other he is facing growing resentment from the holiday industry in France which relies on the British tourist trade and is dependent upon it.

  33. ‘Over confident’ U.S. risks going down same path as Soviet Union, warns Putin. 5 June 2021.

    Later, during a call with journalists, Putin criticised the United States as being overconfident and drew a parallel with the Soviet Union.

    “You know what the problem is? I will tell you as a former citizen of the former Soviet Union. What is the problem of empires — they think that they are so powerful that they can afford small errors and mistakes,” he said.

    “But the number of problems is growing. There comes a time when they can no longer be dealt with. And the United States, with a confident gait, a firm step, is going straight along the path of the Soviet Union.”

    Vlad is of course right (though he’s not the first to say it) Empires are destroyed from within! Their vast Armies and Arsenals avail them nothing when the core is rotten and the people no longer support them!

    https://www.euronews.com/2021/06/05/over-confident-u-s-risks-going-down-same-path-as-soviet-union-warns-putin

  34. Good morning, everyone. Glorious morning to walk the dog. The deciduous trees have greened up, first the silver birch and lastly the magnificent oaks. Ferns are 4ft – 6ft high and the rhododendrons are in bloom. Gorse bloomed early and the yellow flowers are no more.

    1. Against all expectations many of the ash trees I thought dead a couple of weeks ago have, somewhat belatedly, actually come into leaf, though very few are more than 10 or 20% of normal.

  35. Warning! Thousands of far-right white supremacists are poised to march tomorrow in celebration of their deadly assault on the European mainland in 1944. We, oppressed LGBT and BBC employers, demand that the government crush these loathsome demonstrations of stygian hate and imprison every single one of them for life as an example to their supporters, relations and potential recruits. Death is too good for them – keep them in pain and misery for life.
    (Peace be upon you brothers and sisters)

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/11/08/20/2E3C1BC600000578-3309186-image-a-3_1447014102031.jpg

    1. exactly the type of far right white supremacists I like to meet and engage with, no social distancing, no masks, no BS!

      1. expect that “attire” at the G7 in Cornwall. I’m getting word security for the event is rapidly approaching Davos levels

        1. Let’s be honest, we would all like to punch a few of those cretinous morons in the face a few times.

          A fixed tax rate? Stupid tossers. That folks, is a command economy. International communism. Thankfully hundreds of countries will ignore it and wealth will flood to them. Disgustingly, it will equally flood away from us. But hey. With the fanatic green policies these fools are proposing we won’t be able to work anyway.

  36. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/06/04/still-family-no-matter-earl-countess-wessex-grieving-grandpa/

    This is an article in the DT about the Wessexes saying what a happily united couple they are. Indeed they are a good advertisement for marriage and I think Sophie Wessex, Catherine Middleton and Mike Tindall have joined the royal family very successfully.

    The DT actually allowed comments and I made this point about these successful marriages but I added that it was very sad that four of the very close descendants of the Queen made very unsuccessful first choices: Charles with Diana Spencer, Anne with Mark Phillips, Andrew with Sarah Ferguson and now – the very worst of all – Harry with Meghan Markle.

    Of course my post was taken down.

    Why are the editors of the Daily Telegraph so determined to stamp out opinions which do not conform with what they want to hear? The much reviled Daily Mail allows comments on a far wider range of issues and is a far better example of allowing free speech and presenting the vox pop.

    1. mng Rastus. DT’s just as woke in their fake morals, they don’t want the truth aired or it taints their perception agenda when conducting an emotive Psyop

        1. The Dreary Fail won’t publish most of my harmless but erudite offerings of personal wit and wisdom – what chance has Rastus with his forthright but equally erudite disquisitions? If you speak the truth they don’t like it up ’em!

    2. Good morning, Rastus.

      Did you mean: “Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones, Catherine Middleton and Michael Tindall have joined the Royal Family very successfully.”? 😉

      1. I often think that the main cause of their divorce was the constant press and paparazzi attention with the associated carping & criticism from holier than thou, up their own arses commentators.

          1. 17 years old?
            Yes, a bit young, but, as far as I am aware, the supposed event took place in the UK and was not against UK Law as it stood at the time.
            It was also after the divorce.

    2. Littlejohn cuts his cloth better than nearly all on DM. If he’d have added Nepal & china bilateral that would’ve sunk all illusions.

      Zero mention of millions of woke Everest climbers all dying of C-19. Govt missed one there

  40. David Hockney – Britain Needs a Cigarette https://unherd.com/2021/06/britain-needs-a-cigarette/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=b1d458c190&mc_eid=f8bf59e7dc comments posted so far

    Sam Cel roman

    Go to the WHO or any health authority you trust, and look up info about who dies from lung cancer. Hint: the majority of them are NOT cigarette smokers!

    Stewart B

    Have never smoked. Have never defended banning smoking. Apart from anything else, it’s the thin end of the wedge.

    If you accept the principle that a state authority can override you in managing your health, absolute tyranny will ensue, because you will never be able to draw a line. There will always be a good reason to go further.

    As we have painfully discovered these last 16 months.

    Peter Walker

    My Grandad smoked a similar quantity per day as the author for his 80-odd years. As a child I distinctly recall the disgusting smell of their house and the yellowing paint on the walls. A decade or so later my commute into central London required a tube ride and on occasion the only one I could squeeze into was the solitary smokers carriage. Looking at the ceiling, the rivulets of yellow snaking down, and the awful stench, reminded me so much of my visits to my grandparents.

    In a purportedly free society, if folk want to burn their cash that way, fine, but it’s the effect on non-smokers that I have issues with.

    1. Cancer of the oesophagus is not number one on the Big C list. However, I have known of 3 fatal cases amongst my fairly limited range of friends and family.
      2 out of the 3 were not smokers and apart from the occasional beer or wine did not glug back the alcohol.
      The third case is the only one who conforms to the ‘blame the patient’ syndrome.

      2. My husband’s aunt died of that at the age of 71.
        I don’t think she was a smoker, though I only knew her for 10 years before she died. She certainly didn’t smoke when I knew her. She was an active, lively woman – seeing her just before she died was quite a shock. She spent her last few weeks planning her funeral, and organising little Christmas gifts for everyone.

    2. I hope Peter Walker will now be happy with the increases in his tax payments, hiked to make up for the lost revenue to HMG, because of the reduction in smoking that everyone – except smokers – yelled for.

    1. copies of his mails, stored, along with all the other intel. UK Govt / MSM’s on backfoot, they’re trying to body swerve,but they’re in the cross hairs and they know it

      1. We need evidence of any government links to the “…jab the World,” promoters. Sadly, investigative journalism has been neutered by the application of millions of pounds in cash for “advertising” issues around CV-19. Independents e.g. Delingpole are pretty much sidelined and are capable only of reaching a limited audience.

      2. This morning on the BBC news we had more faffing about regarding all the areas in England that have the most problems with the current infection rates all are communities of a certain faith, many of which now have ‘no go areas’, all probably nothing at all to do with India. But the media are scared sh*tless to mention the I or the M word. Or even being more honest and naming it the kneeling variant.

          1. Many years ago at the age of 18 in between leaving school and going to university I worked in an advertising agency and there a chap in my office called Fawcett and of course everyone called him Foreskin much to his annoyance.

    1. You realise that opting out means that you disappear from the NHS syetem – and no GP/hospital etc will treat you. Ever. {:¬))

      2. Opting out hasn’t stopped them hassling me to be jabbed. Or for bowel screening, which I’m not due for this year anyway. Now if I was sick…

        1. Nobody gets paid if you’re acksherly sick. In fact the GP has to put in a bit of effort in return for guaranteed income.

      3. Have you tried getting any treatment recently Bill ? The proverbial light isn’t even on………….

    2. According to the long piece that TB posted last night , if you opted out of caredata in 2014, you don’t need to do it again.

    4. At least one American company has at least two contracts with the NHS and are on a preferred bidder list.

      That company is called Palantir. A company that specialises in data storage and dissemination. Their primary cutomers are the Military, the Police and Surveillance companies.

      It is no coincidence to my mind that a Palantir was an indestructible ball of crystal, used for communication and to see events in other parts of Arda, whether past or future In the Lord of the Rings.

      The Dark Lord comes.

  43. Borer Farce Taxi Service –
    Fury as Border Farce ‘facilitates illegal access’ and collects migrants from French waters.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1445808/English-Channel-migrant-news-France-Immigration-latest-Priti-Patel-Border-Force

    On 29 May HMC Valiant entered French waters, with permission from a French patrol vessel, to pick up migrants who were not obviously in distress. Radio traffic between HMC Valiant and French ship Athos was recorded by a British sailor.

  44. Right…..off to waste this lovely sunny morning knocking a little white ball around in a sweaty leisure centre……..

        1. it would not suprise me Eng struggle to make follow on. It’s a good warm up match for kiwis ahead of playing mhindis at Ageas

        2. I understood this to be the finest England XI which would “whitewash” (sorry for any offence) the Kiwis.

          Was I misinformed?

          3. Stokes and Foakes are injured while Archer is recovering from surgery on his elbow (and will probably be out for the whole summer so that he can be fit for this winter’s Ashes). Buttler, Bairstow, Woakes, Curran and Moeen Ali are absent after being allowed extra rest having played in the abandoned Indian Premier League, for which some of them missed matches in the Test series in India – priorities, eh?

          4. World T20 is priority for ECB. Stokes, Foakes and rest of IPL lads back for India series. Archer won’t last. Pope’s gone as expected 140-4

          5. Predicted by the commentators as they picked apart his technique before his dismissal.

          8. I was school with a bloke called Selby. Very religious boy. Ended up a Bishop!

          12. World T20 is priority for ECB. Stokes, Foakes and rest of IPL lads back for India series. Archer won’t last. Pope’s gone as expected 140-4

          13. Well, yes. There’s 4 or 5 players that wouldn’t be first choice if others were available.

  49. Just read in the DTel that we changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1800. (Apols if this has already been noted.)

  50. FEEEEEERRRRK after hours and even days of trying to contact customer services at virgin media I have just had a phone call for a pleasant lady with a north of England accent. We had weeks of pixilating TV pictures on a variety of channels and she put me through to the service and engineering department. The chap at the other end had a very strong Indian (what happened to the Swansea service division?) accent and I had to ask him to repeat almost everything he said not only was it a bad line i couldn’t understand what he was saying. After we had gone through all the password BS and everything else he told me there was nothing wrong with the TV ….well Mr Guptah I already knew that it’s been working well for about 5 days, but we had to switch to Free view to stop the pixilation’s from the virgin channels earlier this week . He just kept talking over me as if he was reading an effing script and just kept saying there is nothing wrong with the TV now …..agghhh. Tell me something i don’t already know matey ! Decision made,…….. change providers.

          1. I wonder how many cubic metres of concrete was poured to protect their ‘customer services’ department ?

          4. What annoyed me most was he wouldn’t tell me what the fault was and just kept saying it was working okay now.
            I think i know what VM game plan is, they slow down the broadband speed to try and get people to upgrade thus paying more money.
            I’ll knock the time and money off the bill that I spent trying to fix a problem that didn’t exist.

          5. He woouldn’t tell you as he hasn’t a clue, so follow script, give same parrot answer over and over. VM agenda as you say, upgrade and then provide same slow broadband speed. Bottom line VM profit, customer is merely an ATM for them

          7. I don’t have Virgin tv supply but have recently had a message from 02 ( my mobile supplier ) saying they and Virgin are now “together” and more details will be forthcoming. I don’t know who has took who over – yet.

    2. This might be apposite:

      The Dot; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69af297a45e2d0cfbb83b4fee1e743b9256c59f8cbcb7abfa28c477171dd1018.jpg Finally, someone has cleared this up. For centuries, Hindu women have worn a dot on their foreheads.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bed5a7566f044e0b8176784303b6848b38643f94ab31c90cc411b5869e3fe1de.jpg
      Most of us have naively thought this was connected with tradition or religion, but the Indian embassy in London has recently revealed the true story.

      When a Hindu woman gets married, she brings a dowry into the union. On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the dot to see whether he has won a corner shop, a petrol station, a curry house, a taxi cab, or an old people’s home in the UK.

      If nothing is there, he must remain in India to answer telephones and provide us with BT technical advice.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79363f5ad5a3499a2f6842911d51fad1b16958ffceeb8f82d68a4a958dd13bc6.jpg

      1. That’s about right.
        I have nothing against Indian people i have worked with them, one of the nicest guys I have ever known was Indian and our youngest son is engaged to lovey Anglo India lady, her family are very nice people. BUT……….Virgin media you have to remember that ‘Cheap’ can be very expensive. And will now cost you around 800 pounds.

    3. This might be apposite:

      The Dot; https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69af297a45e2d0cfbb83b4fee1e743b9256c59f8cbcb7abfa28c477171dd1018.jpg Finally, someone has cleared this up. For centuries, Hindu women have worn a dot on their foreheads.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bed5a7566f044e0b8176784303b6848b38643f94ab31c90cc411b5869e3fe1de.jpg
      Most of us have naively thought this was connected with tradition or religion, but the Indian embassy in London has recently revealed the true story.

      When a Hindu woman gets married, she brings a dowry into the union. On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the dot to see whether he has won a corner shop, a petrol station, a curry house, a taxi cab, or an old people’s home in the UK.

      If nothing is there, he must remain in India to answer telephones and provide us with BT technical advice.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79363f5ad5a3499a2f6842911d51fad1b16958ffceeb8f82d68a4a958dd13bc6.jpg

    4. How did he know there was nothing wrong with your TV if he wasn’t looking at it? Sounds spooky.

  52. There is a photo of “finance monsters” at the G7 farrago. There are TWELVE of them. At the G SEVEN?

    Too much for my pore brane.

    I gather that several thousand people are invading Cornwall for this ludicrous event – which could have taken place without covid risk or general buggerment and vast expense – by ZOOM.

    Why do these wanqueurs think that they are so important that they have to be in the same room?

    2. Hopefully the virus turns out to be as dangerous as they tell us it is and they all die.

    3. Because if they said everything over the internet through such as zoom they’d be terrified of it being hacked and published.

  53. Tecky help required.
    I’ve squished photos into JPEG format. I’ve cropped off excess. And still Disqus tells me they’re over 5mb and it can’t accept them.
    Any suggestions?

    1. Any use?

      https://support.shutterstock.com/s/article/how-to-reduce-the-size-of-a-jpeg?language=en_US#:~:text=First%2C%20open%20the%20image%20in,dialog%20box%20called%20Image%20Dimensions.

      Or:

      How To Resize, Save As, Convert & More With JPEGs
      Open the image in Paint.
      Select the entire image using the Select button in the Home tab and choose Select All. …
      Open the Resize and Skew window by navigating to the Home tab and selecting the Resize button.
      Use the Resize fields to change the size of the image either by percentage or by pixels.

      1. The problem seems to be that MB’s camera is too good.
        I’ve diddled around with a more basic method … et voila.
        A good case of KISS; Keep It Simple, Stupid.

  54. 333860+ up ticks,
    This is historical news it is just because it is coming to the point where action WILL be surely taken by peoples recognising the fact AT LONG LAST the need to protect their homeland.

    We are fighting here not on the old rules of engagement lab vee tory vee lds, but on the clearly defined sides of RIGHT vee SH!TE.

    UK Border Force Sailed Into French Waters to Pick Up Illegal Boat Migrants: Report

    Have we forgotten after pledging otherwise Tis the 6th June tomorrow.

        1. Don’t govt inquiries take years? Probably get another 5 million immigrants ( and then their families of course) into England by the time it even started.

      3. She could order an enquiry into why she promised – 23 months ago – to stop the crossChannel rubber boat “trade” forthwith. And has actually allowed it to get much, MUCH worse.

      4. Riiiiight …… Excuses for non-action.
        1. Because of Covid
        2. Because we’ve signed something we didn’t know about/May didn’t understand
        3. Because we is waycist/white/Christian/colonialists

    2. UK Border Force Sailed Into French Waters to Pick Up Illegal Boat Migrants

      Only after asking the French if it was OK……………FFS

      1. Tut, tut – we had to ask their permission 77 years ago – if it would be OK for several hundred ships to enter French waters?….

    1. I was just reading this article, which is about the background of various people connected with the AZ vaxx.

      Particularly disturbing is this part about June Raine, the acting CEO of the partly Gates-funded UK government agency, the MHRA:

      “However, Dr. June Raine’s association with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is more than financial…. in September 2015, at a forum on ‘Real world evidence’ held by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Dr. Raine stated that, as regulation becomes increasingly proactive in planning active surveillance, ‘the world of reactive regulation is the world of the past’.”

      Proactive regulation? WTF is that supposed to mean, and what does it have to do with her vaxx remit?

      2. bb2 mng. Nothing to do with her remit, she’s one ofthe accepted soundboard echo chambers, but is obviously fully briefed in for an approach controlling regulation that’s proactive in planning active surveillance as a control tool. It gives more depth and confirmation of how detailed the planning has been and how much control over politicians at all levels they have. The sole thing they’ve overlooked is the people and basing their approach on the current Government instruments for command and control. Like the vote on Brexit, they level of resistance is critical.

  56. How to join the UK border farce using our award-winning online resources. Get instant access to actionable advice, insider’s tips and proven training today.

    https://www.how2become.com/…

    You’ll need a firm background in the tourism industry – preferably with experience of travel and accommodation.

  57. The letter by Miqdaad Versi has understandably drawn criticism BTL, mostly charges of hypocrisy. He refers to an article by Nick Timothy (“We’re not drifting into segregation, we’re hurtling perilously towards it”). Here are the relevant paragraphs:

    Schools have reported huge spikes in anti-Semitic abuse of pupils. In Leicester, gangs of college students were filmed stamping on tables and chanting “Allahu akbar!” The intimidation of Jewish pupils and teachers grew so severe that the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson wrote to schools warning that while pupils are allowed to express political views, anti-Semitic language and threats must not be tolerated.

    In response to the Williamson letter, Miqdaad Versi, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, complained that the Government was being “one-sided”. The letter, of course, was not about events in Israel, but the harassment of British Jews. In suggesting there might be two sides to racism, Versi revealed more than he intended about why the Government refuses to engage with the MCB.

    A long hot summer with some big demos and last year’s BLM riot will seem a mere scuffle.

    1. ” threats must not be tolerated. ” – like we see regularly on Traffic Cops and Police Interceptors? They try and laugh it off but it is just letting them get away with it. They should be instantly sprayed and Tasered – with anyone else of the gang saying anything getting the same. It is all recorded, they cannot deny they have said it.
      Recently read that 10,000 Army were losing their jobs – put them all in the Police and let them sort the scum out.

      1. Recently read that 10,000 Army were losing their jobs – put them all in the Police and let them sort the scum out.

        No, Walter, we want them on our side, influencing their colleagues to join in the great revolution. It’s certainly coming, if the PTB continue on this wayward path.

    2. Hang on.

      Allowed to express political views… as long as they are approved and agreed by the state, and don’t involve Muslims.

      That’s hypocrisy.

    1. Doesn’t Sparkie go for the hens?

      Nice show, pet! All your own unaided work, no doubt…

      And a chapel at the end, too…!!

    2. Doesn’t Sparkie go for the hens?

      Nice show, pet! All your own unaided work, no doubt…

      And a chapel at the end, too…!!

  59. Wokery is playing havoc with England’s sport.

    The England Rugby XV suffered its worst season for 40 years as a result of its humiliating, self-abasing kneeling in reverent memory to to a violent black American criminal and today the English cricket team has collapsed as a result of the ECB deciding to punish and drop a new bowling discovery who, 9 years ago at the age of 18, tweeted politically unwoke opinions.

    It is probably not just England that is finished – the whole of Western civilisation is too when you look at the USA whose president is a senile idiot whose party involved itself in mass fraud to steal the reins of power.

    1. European Christian Civilisation will be gone within twenty years Richard. Europe itself will be an Islamic Caliphate after that!

    2. Ah tghasnk, good memory jog.

      Taking a knee, debased wokery – that must mean a F1 race is due.

  61. Had a cynical thought during lunch (our own asparagus, picked 15 minutes before serving…!).

    I wonder whether Halfcock, and that flucker Shaggs, and Witless and Unbalanced etc etc all have shares in the companies selling “tests” at several hundred quid a pop. Not in their names, of course, (cough, cough) but through third parties….

    Just asking. That WOULD be a nice discovery. Hullo, journalists – here’s an idea for you to “investigate”.

    1. Halfcock and Shaggs* have wives.
      I’m not sure whether Witless and Unbalanced have a life outside work.
      * Other names are available.
      Grant Shapps, or Sebastian Fox, or Michael Green OR Corinne Stockheath

      1. Shaggs was meant to replace Shapps (the git with a smug grin every time he announces a new restriction…)

  63. Hell, now I can blame your miserable bunch of politicians and health “experts”

    The Ontario lockdown is supposed to be ending and a gradual (very gradual} reopening start on June 14th. Oh no the naysayers are now saying, the delta variant is a concern to the authorities in the UK, we cannot possibly take the risk. I don’t know why they won’t call it Indian, Trudea has already annoyed all of them.

    Next I suppose the gamma quadrant variant in outer Tibet will be cause for concern.

    1. It’s rumoured that Alpha Centauri is sending some real crackers.
      Or was it Betelgeuse?

    1. What a feast of foliage. If he has a spare hour, just send him up here!

      Is he OK now???

      1. Pottering around.
        I miss the sort of jobs that we used to do between us. One of the sash cords on my playroom window has gone.
        It’s a job we’ve done dozens of times, but I doubt even with me as carpenter’s mate, he could tackle it now.

  65. Whitty’s in the news again for being harassed. I can’t stand the sight of the bloke. When am I going to get the nerd immunity that I was promised?

  67. Putin REFUSES to rule out hijacking a passenger flight from London and forcing it to land in Moscow after Belarus used MiG to kidnap dissident off Ryanair flight. 5 June 2021.

    Vladimir Putin today refused to guarantee that he would not use a warplane to force a commercial flight from London to land in Russia after Belarus used fighter jets to ground a Ryanair flight.

    This is an idiot question. No other leader would issue such a guarantee either; though I would issue one that if Edward Snowden were to inadvertently overfly any European, Middle Eastern or Scandinavian Country it would be intercepted and forced down!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9653147/Putin-REFUSES-rule-hijacking-passenger-flight-London-forcing-land-Moscow.html

    1. The team, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, says the findings present the first real evidence that patients with untreated HIV can have an impaired immune system that allows coronavirus to take root and mutate into potentially deadly variants that could spread to others.

      Cheerful news! One suspects that there will be no end to the Covid Epidemic and that it will mutate until a truly Toxic Variation appears that will finish off most of the population!

        1. Afternoon Nan. Shocked one of my neighbours this morning when I told her I hadn’t had my “shots”!

          1. Few days ago, while waiting for my order I mentioned that I’d not had any either. The man a few feet away yanked his fleece over his mouth, grabbed his food and RAN. He had just been mouthing off about how HE was safe as he had both jabs ( all he was doing was shouting what he had been told – NOT thought about if those govt comments made any sense.

          2. Afternoon Walter. Yes they look at you as if you were Medieval Leper. I must admit I was a little remiss here. I did the same the other day and I promised myself to be a little more cautious in the future..

          3. A man I know, ( 74 ) has been banned from going to his own families house – because he hasn’t had the jabs. His SiL actuall had to be hospitalized blood clot on brain, because of the jab, for four days, but STILL thinks it better to have it !!!

          5. Just cough when you tell them you haven’t had your shots.

            They will probably piss themselves.

          6. Afternoon Phizzee. I sneezed on the bus yesterday morning and everyone turned around to look! Lol!

          8. Its a good way of getting the queue to move quickly as well – but the owners don’t like that.

          9. Think what it’s done to my vaccinated Best Beloved. She thinks I’m some sort of traitor!

      1. Stroppy teenager probably.
        I would take him….I like a challenge however I don’t want more grief at present.

      2. He’s a big boy. Probably around 80 kilo. Not good for elderly or infirm. Plus costs a fortune to feed.

      3. He came with all sorts of issues (he’s been found straying and injured) and was traumatised by being walked on a lead (probably people had used unpleasant methods to try to get him to comply).

    2. Looks “institutionalised” to me! Probably a psycho! The Charles Bronson of the Canine penitentiary!

    4. I suspect he’d be far too big for me, but I wish him well and hope he finds his forever home soon.

  73. RAF’s new drone ‘could search Channel for people smugglers’. 5 June 2021

    Due to enter service in 2024, the new Protector drone will be able to stay airborne for 40 hours, providing surveillance day and night in nearly all weather conditions.

    Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, said sharing assets with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) made sense where appropriate, adding that Protector’s ability to stay aloft for almost two-days straight was “more than helpful”.

    In particular, she said the ability to use Protector’s imagery in court proceedings was “vital” in securing convictions for people smugglers.

    So we just have to wait for 2024 then? The lies propagated to cover the Government Policy to bring in as many immigrants as possible become ever more preposterous!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/04/rafs-new-drone-could-search-channel-people-smugglers-say-defence/

    1. What’s the good in spotting immigrant boats earlier, then not turning them back? They are still going to get here!

      1. So they can get their new houses, heating on, ready and warmed up for them to move in as soon as they arrive.

          1. That won’t be enough (it never is with arabs). All the bathrooms will need to be removed and a hole dug in the front garden. Room then for another dozen people where the bath and bog combo were situated.

    2. By that time, the drones will be controlled by Ali’s Snack Bar and will inform the hi-jacked ferries how to avoid the inflatable Border Farce dinghy sent to look frthem

      1. It’s not as if there were any difficulty finding them OLT! They call up the Border Farce on their mobiles to come and get them!

    3. Given that the ferries – err, border force – are bringing them here – we don’t seem to need to find these criminals. The problem is turning them back.

      Border force seem to not want to do, well, their job.

      1. Afternoon Wibbles. It’s quite obvious that there is no intention of stopping these people, rather the opposite.

      2. It is just SO ironic that this invasion is happening on the eve of a true invasion 77 years ago.

      1. Sure, Plum, waiting for the sheeple to do anything, is like watching wood warp.

    2. Pity the silly boy lemon who’s jockeying this can’t keep schtum and let us make up our own mind – fortunately, I’ve seen it elsewhere without his fractious interruptions.

  75. A message for the Boss

    Geoff

    How does someone join the Nottlers site, please

  76. I know it won’t happen but oh how i wish it would.
    Ollie Robinson has taken 4 wickets and then was 2nd top scorer.
    I would love it if he said to the ECB..”you know what?..stick your test cricket up your a**e”
    “You could have backed me,instead you went on the attack to appease the woke mob
    Its someone from my past who revealed the texts…i’ll find out eventually.
    Now its back to County Cricket and if they don’t want me i’ll emigrate.A lot of other countries will give me a fair chance.”

    1. Pity he didn’t get a hundred, or at least a 50. That would have left the ECB with egg on their face.

      1. He did enough.When he came in they were 140…staring down the barrel of a follow-on.
        Pope,Lawrence and Bracey had done bugger all.He steadied the ship.
        They were 203 when he was dismissed.

  77. The G7 tax deal is an unworkable mess. 5 June 2021.

    Poverty will be abolished. Governments will be able to spend again. Inequality will be eradicated, our welfare systems secured and the power of the tech giants will finally be curbed. We will hear a lot of hype about today’s global tax deal. Given that the liberal-left have spent the last decade complaining that the main problem in the world is that Apple and Facebook don’t pay enough tax, a lot will be riding on the agreement reached by the finance ministers of the G7 today. There is just one small problem, however. The deal is an unworkable mess.

    First, the global minimum of 15 per cent is, er, less than any major developed country charges anyway, except for Ireland (which will be feeling a little nervous), while the offshore tax havens are not signing up to it. So that is irrelevant. Next, take a look at the global re-allocation of tax. At this point it is probably a good idea to take a deep breath. A multinational company has to have a 10 per cent profit margin and then 20 per cent of any profit above the 10 per cent threshold will be allocated to be taxed in the countries where they make sales, on some pro-rata basis that still needs to be figured out. Confused? Yup, me too.

    Well that’s put paid to that! Hatched and trashed in one day. One suspects that this was always a scam designed to fool the peasants into thinking that something was being done, getting the politicians off the hook and leaving the Globalists to Carry On Regardless!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-g7-tax-deal-is-an-unworkable-mess

    2. Watch the price of all on-line stuff go up by at least 15%. Hell, round it up and make that 20%.

          1. When Batman developed the problem he just went…tena tena tena then punched Robin in the face.

    2. Yo Fizz

      It looks like the ‘second’ ones you get in Froggie Bathrooms

      The one named after POTUS………..Bidet/n

    4. My old man was dribbling on about this yesterday. Can’t say I was over-whelmed!

    5. Isn’t that just a variation on the hole in the floor arrangement the Arabs favour?

    8. “Uprose the merry Sphincter,
      And crouched no more in stone;
      She melted into purple cloud,
      She silvered in the moon;
      She spired into a yellow flume;
      She flowed in blossoms wet;
      She flowed into a foaming wave;
      She stood Monadnoc’s head”

      (With Apols to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

  80. If there’s going to be a digital tax I won’t quite be able to put my finger on it! 👍

    1. I suspect Big Tech will simply wave a couple of digits at the authorities….

  82. Beautiful BTL Comment from across the pond:

    “Agree the world is full of crazy. The world became a much safer place the day John McCain died. He deserved a Nobel Peace Prize just for passing away.”

  83. Oh what fun !

    Now it’s alleged the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency has been given $7,000,000 since 2011 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation… and the MHRA is fine with vaccination for 12 -16 year olds………

    ”Despite its status as a executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care, over the past decade the MHRA has received $7.15 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), which in June this year invested $1.6 billion in GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.”

    https://architectsforsocialhousingDOTcoDOTuk/2020/11/25/bread-and-circuses-whos-behind-the-oxford-vaccine-for-covid-19/

    Here’s Johnson meeting with Gates……

    https://twitterDOTcom/sunpolitics/status/1326215764685312002?lang=en

    Hancock and Klaus Schwab at Davos holding the”4th Industrial Revolution” dossier also known as ”Great Reset”………

    https://twitterDOTcom/MattHancock/status/956851034797891584

    Hancock praising George Soros…….

    https://twitterDOTcom/MattHancock/status/1075319635464081409

    Hancock praising Bill Gates…….

    https://twitterDOTcom/matthancock/status/1088390904858202112?lang=en

    So it looks like Gates has it all smoothed and fixed with the politicos and the regulators !

      1. Well.. quite !

        There’s a vast amount of info in that superb analysis which makes the entire vaccine rollout look like a gravy train for everyone in authority.

  84. Well done Rory Burns(if you were any more Laid-back you’d fall over)
    A game -saving 132.
    Now for a boring draw.

  85. Matthew Lynn
    The G7 tax deal is an unworkable mess
    5 June 2021, 2:46pm

    Poverty will be abolished. Governments will be able to spend again. Inequality will be eradicated, our welfare systems secured and the power of the tech giants will finally be curbed. We will hear a lot of hype about today’s global tax deal. Given that the liberal-left have spent the last decade complaining that the main problem in the world is that Apple and Facebook don’t pay enough tax, a lot will be riding on the agreement reached by the finance ministers of the G7 today. There is just one small problem, however. The deal is an unworkable mess.

    Sure, the headlines are fine. There will be a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 per cent designed to stop countries from unfairly competing with one another. Companies will be taxed more heavily in the countries where they make their main sales, rather than simply shifting revenues to whichever shady island happens to have the lowest tax rate that year. And, in fairness, a few multinationals may end up paying a little more, although of course corporation tax revenues were rising anyway, so we may not be able to measure the difference.

    But the details are a mess. First, the global minimum of 15 per cent is, er, less than any major developed country charges anyway, except for Ireland (which will be feeling a little nervous), while the offshore tax havens are not signing up to it. So that is irrelevant. Next, take a look at the global re-allocation of tax. At this point it is probably a good idea to take a deep breath. A multinational company has to have a 10 per cent profit margin and then 20 per cent of any profit above the 10 per cent threshold will be allocated to be taxed in the countries where they make sales, on some pro-rata basis that still needs to be figured out. Confused? Yup, me too.

    In fact, the tax breaks the cardinal rule of any form of levy, which is that any tax should be simple and hard to avoid. With this one, the accountants are going to have a field day. Margins might magically fall to 9.8 per cent – heck, we spent so much on R&D this year guys! – while the rows over where sales were made will take up years and may never be settled.

    We have seen some poorly designed taxes over the decades. But this is among the very worst. It is debatable whether we want to tax companies more. Most of the evidence suggests that higher rates are simply passed on in the form of higher prices, lower wages, or lower dividends, most of which are paid to pensioners. In fact if we want to raise more tax from companies, we should just hit them with higher business rates, or National Insurance contributions: it isn’t especially fair, but those levies are impossible to avoid.

    This ‘global tax’ will get some headlines and the accountants will be celebrating. But beyond that it won’t do any good – and certainly not what its cheerleaders expect.

    1. Do you think that they really care about the scheme being effective? It gives the appearance of them doing something and that is enough to satisfy the masses.

  86. Not one death has been attributed to any of the Russian vaccines,used in 66 countries.
    Anyone?

    1. Of course. Black Lives Matter – defund the police… Sasha just wants the dosh, like another who claims she is of the same ilk – the Nutmeg. Apparently the latest in that sordid saga is that the Harry who she encouraged to believe he was hard done by (and make dollars by selling his “truth”), is now being told by the same obnoxious person to quieten down his rhetoric, because “they can’t take away our titles”.

      1. Watch, silly black girl, as your titles all disappear like mist in the morning sun.

        1. If only. However, sbg is certainly not above blackmail, as well as lies, to topple our Royal family. She is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Her husband is a thoroughly pathetic, weak, self-engrossed twerp.

    2. Minneapolis isn’t the only city to have seen a rise in crime over the last year, but it is magnified here and the city has stumbled in the spotlight as it tries to reimagine public safety.

      There have been 36 homicides so far this year, more than double the number at this point last year and more than four times that seen in 2019.

      Car-jackings are up a staggering 222 per cent. Shootings have risen 153 per cent. Eighty per cent of the victims are black.

      Eighty per cent of the victims are black. Black Lives Matter? Defund the police and this is what you get.

      1. The riots, burning and looting are a land grab organised by dark Democrat forces to enable purchase of devalued properties and valuable real estate by followers of Obama and the Clintons.

        Biden, Harris, the hideous racist black woman with a fat gob and their mates in Antifa and BLM are Obama’s useful idiots. This is the stuff of the Mafiosi presently running America.

      1. With staff on a low wage, comparatively. Hope she doesn’t wear cotton or have a lawn.

  89. I’ve missed my jabs
    Time after time
    I’ve done my lockdown
    But committed no crime
    And bad mistakes
    I’ve made a few
    I’ve had my share of forgetting my mask
    And got too close in a queue.
    And we mean to go on and on and on and on
    We are the anti vaxxians my friends
    And we’ll keep on not jabbing till the end
    We are the no jabbiaons
    We are the no jabbians
    No time for losers
    ‘Cause we are the no jabbians of the World

  91. Announced on the ITV Evening News – England will continue to take the knee during the Euro 2020 tournament, despite the fact that they there ‘might’ be an adverse reaction. What a bunch of morons.

      1. Football was my game, I played, coached and for a short time was a referee. Sadly, no more. I lost interest in much after last June 20th but I thought footy would bring me back, however, when I see the players genuflecting to the memory of a serial criminal I immediately turn off. Currently, politics is the turn-off with its intrinsic corruption and venality and by projecting a political stance equally as corrupt and venal as what inhabits the HoP into sport, the end result will be disaster.

        1. Is it nearly a year?
          It seemed a short year for me, it must have been a long one for you.

          1. Thanks, sos.

            In one sense it has been a long, long year but then I sometimes say to myself, “where has the time gone.”

        3. Sorry, Korky, I’ve never had any affinity with Wendyball and their recent actions (and the Rugby Team) have done nothing to enamour me to their cause.

          Wimps the lot of them.

          1. Why apologise for not liking a particular sport? I have never taken to rugby although I did admire the great Welsh teams of a few decades ago.

            I have to agree that football has changed, both for better and for worse. In the former case the tactical and technical ability has improved all-round although I must add a caveat, the number of highly gifted individuals of the calibre of Gascoigne, Robson, Greaves etc. appears to have fallen.

            On the downside is the increasing evidence of cheating, especially simulation to gain an advantage.

            The political nonsense that has been allowed, maybe even encouraged, to creep in, has destroyed the game for me.

    2. No need for fans to boo. They should simply stand up and turn their backs on the prima donnas.

      3. Booing can be heard on the television. A visible gesture by the fans would possibly not be seen by the players, and the TV pictures would probably just concentrate on the players on the pitch, so the fans’ protest would not be seen by viewers.

    3. No need for fans to boo. They should simply stand up and turn their backs on the prima donnas.

      1. We were, possibly.

        The incomers and their useful idiots have worked relentlessly to cause divisions and resentment.

    5. 333860+ up ticks,
      Evening A,
      The fans really do ask for it, they had the perfect opportunity to rectify matters ” we are NOT returning through the turnstiles until the entry fee is brought down to an acceptable level” benefits would then be
      past down the line as in wages etc,etc.

      What surprises me is the actual player is taking the knee ( the piss) & not the players butler.

  92. Well, THAT was an eventful half hour. I was sitting (at last) with crossword and glass of medicine, when Gus did something he has never done before. He came and put his front paws on the arm of my garden chair and just LOOKED at me. I picked him up – and he was SMOTHERED with fleas. The MR arrived with tweezers and we spent half an our removing as many as we could. He (and Picks) was due the flea/tick treatment yesterday – serve us right for missing a day.

    Anyway, both done – all bedding in the washing machine and all soft indoor surfaces known to be cat friendly sprayed.

    I shall go and have a shower….. Then pick up my medicine glass again.

    Funny thing, though – Gus never moved, squeaked or struggled during the whole treatment….

    A demain. I’ll try not to scratch. And remember to put that RBL “stream” at 10.00 in your diaries.

      1. Used that – but there were hundreds. G & P are woolly cats, to, which makes discovery more complicated!

        3. How and why are they covered in hundreds of fleas, do you have rabbits or hedgehogs in the garden , or is there a visiting feral cat or even an old scraggy fox?

          1. Goodness knows, Mags – they both hunt like mad. They have seen a hedgehog (notorious for fleas) but steered clear. Prolly a mouse. They catch several a day.

          2. Does anyone local have chickens? Collared doves and wood pigeons are also covered in fleas.

          3. Fleas, or bird mites and lice, Sue? I’ve seen these on wild birds but I can’t remember seeing fleas. Don’t know about chickens though.

          4. Chickens have mites! Easily confused I am! Pigeons do have fleas though.

          5. If the greenies have their way, Sue, it won’t be long before we too are covered in fleas. It is the future they want for us.

          6. Dotty, regularly gets her anti-flea and anti-tick squirt on the back of her neck – just did it today.

          7. What do you use? I’ve read that Frontline is now useless as fleas have developed immunity to that. We currently use Effipro.

          8. They caught a few fleas some days ago.

            Those fleas have been deposited and they have been spreading eggs all over the house.
            The ensuing plague of fleas only appeared on the cats today.

            You’re welcome.

            Enjoy.

    2. We have a “tick tool set” comprising tivk spanners and a glass jar as both our cats amass ticks like nobody’s business – and there’s a detcking daily. Anti-tick goop helps not a lot.

      1. Any chance of that in English? Ticks are far easier to cope with than two hundred fleas.

        I did suggest dipping him in petrol, but the MR was against it!

        1. Ticks isn’t nice.
          When they drop off and fall into your clothes… 🙁

  93. 333860+ up ticks,
    Will the tory (ino) member / voters believe the enquiry bilge for the good of the party when in reality the inquiry I believe will be as to “is there individual seating for the illegals as health & safety rules” the waves.

    Dt,
    Priti Patel orders inquiry after Border Force vessel brings migrants from French waters to UK
    Border Force union chief also critical after cutter Valiant allegedly entered French waters to pick up migrants who were not in danger

    1. Were I, Home secretary I would immediately order the building of 100 high-speed, armed cutters to patrol around the British coastline with up to 60 of them concentrating on the English Channel and the Southern North Sea.

      May I have the job tomorrow?

  94. We preferred working with Michael Gove say EU diplomats

    Politicos blame Lord Frost for politicising disagreements over the NI Protocol, which prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland

    Brussels misses dealing with Michael Gove, EU sources said as they accused David Frost of stoking up Unionist anger at the Northern Ireland Protocol. One EU diplomat told The Telegraph: “Gove’s professional, less emotional approach was the more logical one from where we sit.”

    Mr Gove is said to have built up a constructive relationship with his opposite number at the European Commission Maros Sefcovic. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster even nicknamed “Big Maros” the “sausage king” after striking a deal to keep British bangers coming into Northern Ireland after Brexit.

    Lord Frost took over responsibility for negotiations with the EU over the Protocol from his fellow Cabinet member in February, amid growing fears that Mr Gove was too soft on Brussels. Shortly afterwards he angered the EU by unilaterally extending grace periods on customs checks on British goods being exported to Northern Ireland. The commission brought legal action against the UK for violating the treaty. Lord Frost promptly extended grace periods in other sectors.

    “The EU pressed the reset button when it replaced the French Michel Barnier with Sefcovic from the traditionally more UK-friendly Slovakia. Maybe it is time the UK did the same thing to clear the air,” a Brussels source said.

    Another two senior diplomatic sources blamed Lord Frost for politicising the disagreements over the Protocol, which prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland by introducing customs checks in the Irish Sea.

    “Frost wants to ensure that EU-UK relations remain subzero to avoid any useful rapprochement in the foreseeable future,” a diplomat said.

    On Saturday, Ireland’s EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness accused Lord Frost of trying to “wash his hands of” and “shred” a deal he helped to negotiate in an interview with the Irish Independent. “You can’t wash your hands of an agreement that you shaped and made and signed,” Ms McGuinness said. “It just isn’t credible to do that. And I’m sure there are other countries, including the US, that are looking at what the UK are doing and maybe asking questions about the credibility of doing any deals with the United Kingdom.” †

    The former Brexit negotiator, who agreed to the Protocol, said last week that the checks on British goods were excessive and could jeopardise the peace process. Brussels says that the checks are needed to ensure goods meet EU standards in case they end up in EU member Ireland.

    Both sides said relations had been far warmer when Mr Gove was in charge. Sources claimed that Mr Sefcovic had recently felt blindsided and deceived by Lord Frost. There was a desire in Brussels to de-dramatise the border issues to make it simpler to find workable compromises over the Protocol, which was becoming more likely thanks to Mr Gove, they said. Instead Lord Frost’s provocations made it difficult for the EU to compromise, they said.

    Member states’ patience was wearing thin. EU sources said any further unilateral extensions of the Protocol’s grace periods would be met with a tough response. That could ultimately include triggering dispute resolution procedures in the Protocol which can, as a final result, end in tariffs and even the suspension of parts of the Brexit trade deal.

    The EU is expected to offer to remove barriers to British medicine supplies to Northern Ireland in a bid to break the deadlock in Brexit border negotiations with the UK next week.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/05/miss-michael-gove-says-eu-accuse-lord-frost-stoking-n-ireland

    † This is a common line offered by Remainers BTL in many articles on the subject. The reality is that a fudged deal was hurried through in order to break the deadlock in the HoC but with the hope that over time it could be improved. We know now that the EU has no intention of doing that yet Mairead McGuinness, in her own way as oily and sly as the Bombay Bogshite, offensively presents the UK as the dishonourable party.

      1. And the delightful Ms McGuiness is a Brit hating,EU stooge. Overpaid nodding dog economy graduate with a pinched face resembling the even more ghastly Fond of Lying!

    2. If the EU dislikes working with Lord Frost, he must be doing something right for the UK.

    4. “The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster even nicknamed “Big Maros” the “sausage king” after striking a deal to keep British bangers coming into Northern Ireland after Brexit.”

      I think Gove is of the type who prefers a big sausage. He will get plenty from the electorate to go along with his piano wire and lamp-post.

  95. Night All
    Nicked
    Comment from the Torygraph…
    ‘Economic sabotage and genocide were the court charges that got Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu shot in 1989.
    Fast forward to the UK today, the first is self-evident and the firehose
    discharging of Covid patients back into care homes looks suspect, too’.
    If bloody only……………

    2. Fauci and his wife have been exposed as venal self interested charlatans in the States.

      News travels fast and will catch up with the criminals in our government, their corrupt advisors and Pharma.

      2. Absolute idiocy. Orange man and his minions have decided to attack Fauci as part of their resurrection tour and you have fallen for their misdirection away from his incompetence. .I suppose that you still believe that Trump will be back in power this year after the supposed audit in Arizona.

          2. So I see from the profile. I wonder if it is one of the banned bin crawling out.

        3. mng, welcome to Nottle. Thanks for your post, as you appear to have your finger on the pulse, your comments are welcome on the details within the FOIA https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20793561-leopold-nih-foia-anthony-fauci-emails and explain why did thpse involved operate behind the then President’s back to pursue their own agenda regardless promoting Gain of Function and the Event 201 Simulation Exercise? As this was planned to be rolled out in 2016 until our Brexit EU Referendum kicked the system, followed by as you say “Orange Man” again upsetting the corporate agenda. Your thoughts on the attachment are welcome as data was provided independently outside the septic corporate MSM on the fraud election https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0764c3c7c8b2c7703659200705734c85632bd604bc034035796ce02cbcd47639.jpg

      1. It would seem that no journalist interviewing Southgate asked the obvious question – why are fans booing the knee-taking? And does he think that the fans who are booing are racist?

      2. Why does kneeling to a Marxist cult that worships a violent American drug dealer represent England?

      3. Has it ever occurred to you, Southgate that Wendyball and its taking the knee reflects adversely on the team, the game and you?

        You are advocating a form of acceptance to BLM who want to overthrow our way of life, defund the police and allow anarchy to rule – is that the aim of the England Wendyball team?
        .

  97. Worth a read as regards the border defence…
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/border-force-vessel-migrants-french-waters-uk-b938932.html?__vfz=medium%3Dstandalone_content_recirculation_with_ads
    A
    n inquiry has been launched after a Border Force vessel went into French waters to pick up migrants and brought them back to Dover.

    Last Saturday a boat of migrants that had been zig-zagging between UK and French waters had been intervened by the Border Force cutter Valiant.

    The Government boat, which was on sea patrol to protect UK borders, went into French waters and launched a fast inflatable boat to “rescue” the migrants and take them to Dover.

    The migrants were taken to the UK even though they were not in trouble but had been travelling at a “slow” pace.

    In a recording of a maritime radio conversation obtained by the Daily Mail, officers could be heard discussing the “legality” of the operation.

    The conversation between British and French officers started at 12.23pm British time last Saturday.

    The Mail reports a British officer with a northern accent could be heard proposing the unauthorised handover.

    He then double-checks with his French counterparts that he has legal authorisation to carry out the manoeuvre.

    He later asks: “Would you have a problem if we put our boarding boat into the water near the vessel, however, we will just escort it towards UK waters?”

    At one point, the Athos officer says: “We give you legality to do this, no problem.”

    It comes as the Home Offices faces growing pressures in a week when record numbers of migrants have crossed the Channel.

    Nearly 600 migrants have been intercepted attempting to cross the English Channel in the past three days.

    The Home Office has confirmed that the French authorities dealt with eight incidents involving 130 people on Friday with the UK dealing with four boats involving 83 people.

    This follows 201 people being stopped by Border Force officers in eight incidents on Thursday.

    Priti Patel has become frustrated that the French are not doing enough to stem crossings.

    France has blamed Brexit for the rise in people making the unsafe journey.

    In May last year, Ms Patel asked her Paris counterpart to agree to more interception in French waters.

    However, no deal was reached and instead, the UK gave France £28 million for extra beach patrols.

    Since the start of this year, more than 4,300 have reached the UK, including 1,058 in the past seven days.

    1. What utter bollocks
      “Priti Patel has become frustrated that the French are not doing enough to stem crossings.”
      HA HA HA!
      Nobody has done anything useful at all – it’s all crap, they are deliberately bringing them in following the requirements of the UN Global Compact on Migration – as I keep posting.
      Bah!

    2. One has to ask the increasingly not so pretty Patel, “What the f*ck are you doing”?

    3. We should ask for our money back, with interest. Mind you, anyone who gives money to the frogs in return for them doing something is lacking any braincells…

  98. That’s better!
    A day spent redoing the shuttering for the next bit of the wall ready for the concrete later this week, then a couple of hours hand weeding getting rid of a load of ground elder and the odd bramble.
    One or two other little tidying up bits, shoving a heap of brash through the mulcher for example and I was ready for the bath I’ve just had.
    Now I’m off for an early night with the Saturday Crossword.

  99. After a couple of years waiting to see a specialist about the submandibular gland in my neck , or rather I saw a specialist 2 years ago, but was referred for surgery pre Covid .. and then a long wait for months and months.. non urgent of course.

    I had a small lump under my tongue in my salivary duct .. and a dry mouth .. as well as a noticeable gland on one side of my neck .

    3 days ago I had a call from the hospital asking me to arrive asap for a Covid swab , motored miles and had it done , had a phonecall this morning of confirmation re a letter recieved yesterday .. day surgery this morning ..and they rang to ask if I could arrive early , because of so many cancellations due to the fine sunny day !

    Moh and I dashed like blazes to the one of the larger hospitals in the area , renamed stupidly, and I presented myself for surgery . The big hospitals were clearing a backlog at weekends , and good for them . Day surgery was pretty busy, loads of staff, and a huge variety of nationalities , Spanish, Kenyan , Zimbabwean, Eastern European and Filipino staff .
    They were all wonderful , I mean it . Many had come from other city hospitals like Brighton , London etc just for the week end work in less frantic Dorset hospitals .

    The surgeons were Eastern European I think, and experts in that sort of thing.

    All the pre op procedures were carried out , and then wheeled down to theatre , anyway withut going on too, much the procedure got under way under local anaesthetic.. surgeon probed under my tongue in the salivary duct and pulled out a calcified stone , she probed deep into the duct and a mass of gunk came out as she massaged my gland (in my neck) stale mucous . Do any of your kettles get limescale .. similar sort of thing you see.

    Couple of stitches later , and instruction to suck lemons and limes plus a course of antibiotics .. and a follow up in a few weeks ..

    In these days of Covid , I think they are sailing along beautifully.

    1. That sounds excellent, Belle! Well, all apart from the bit about gunk… glad supper was a while ago… but great news you’ve been “fixed”!
      Mouth stones… Who knew?

      2. Hi OB, yes they say they are similar to kidney stones and gall stones , funny that , calcified deposits .. looked like a little diamond or pearl , more pearl really … our bodies do amazing things .

        1. I hope you asked to keep them.

          They might make an unusual necklace.

          100 years from now your relatives will be on the antiques roadshow and be being told that these are exceptionally rare and worth thousands.

          };-))

        2. Hmmm, Mags, it’s a bugger if they end up in the male bladder and then try to pass. That can be sooo painful. Been there and screamed!

    2. As a Nottler you’ll be good at sucking lemons.

      Best of luck with the recovery.

    3. Great result, Maggie, I didn’t know there was a salivary duct under the tongue. The body is an amazing piece of machinery.

      1. We have 2 , if you lift your tongue up and look in the miirror you’ll see a line underneath and on either side little tiny pink things .. our salivary ducts!

      1. I wondered why lemon juice, that does make sense now that I think about it. I used to enjoy a glass of hot PLJ back in the day, even now I can eat a lemon slice from a drink without puckering.

        1. When she was very young, her uncle (NOT on my side of the family), gave my granddaughter a piece of lime to suck. He thought it would be very funny.

          Camera was at the ready, to take the “amusing” picture/video, but the little girl thought it was delicious, no puckering whatsoever.

          It was lucky I wasn’t there at the time, because I would probably have punched him had I seen what he was doing.

          1. Punch him anyway. I love squeezing a fresh lime into a glass followed by soda water and a bit of ice.

      2. … and the lemon stimulates the saliva action. Squirt out any little bits left over.

      1. Cor blimey Anne, has it ever.

        What amazes me is all the microsurgery , magnifying glasses on face and that sort of thing , those surgeons do some very delicate fiddly stuff, mine was nothing , but the technology and capability of these guys is amazing .

        1. Are you allowed to take your lemon as sorbetto limone, or lemon drizzle cake? Much more interesting than straight juice – unless you’re making a Tom Collins (I think)!

          2. #metoo
            :-((
            The best comes from Ortigia, Sicily.

            Oh, yes, and chilled Limoncello! Don’t forget the half-frozen limoncello!

        1. We haven’t been rejected yet. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll fill in the paperwork, pay the huge bill and take him home.

    8. Good to know, Mags, we all hope it went well and will continue to a good result. Love and hugs.

    10. Just caught up here now! Good for you – and hope you are right as rain soonest possible xxx

  100. Nice!
    Just had a tasting of Firstborn’s and SWMBOs first home-made cheese – a Caerphilly (‘cos it’s quick to mature). Very nice it is, too, clean flavour, maybe not so acid as I remember Caerphilly, but a success all the same!

      1. Looks good.
        File for protected status, AOC immediately.
        Consider Norfully as a name.

        1. Probably; we just tasted it this evening, and it goes well on a salty cracker. Celery test another day (if the cheese isn’t all eaten up by then!).

      4. Reminds me of the ones my parents used to make when we were children. They did the whole 70s smallholding thing.

    2. Those were the days when a car that had a fault would stop working and a patrol motorcyclist could fix it on the spot by saluting you and doing something under the bonnet.
      Nowadays all that breakdown mechanics need to do to get the car going again is to reset the engine fault light by plugging an electrical gismo into the OBD2 socket.

      1. Yep, Angie, the blonde was told after the car was fixed that the problem was, “Shit in the carburettor.” She asked, How often must I do that?

  102. Evening, all. We have survived the selection process so far. I shall be back tomorrow for the “adoption meeting” and then – ta-DAH!- I’m hoping Oscar will come home with me. They did mention a third meeting, but why? He came and greeted us, we played ball with him, fed him treats, made a fuss of him and I took him for a walk in the compound. He was fine on all counts, so I shall strongly resist having to go for a third visit. It seems that we weren’t first on the list; someone else had been to see him, but had rejected him. It must be that he is the one I’m meant to have. Oscar le Dieudonné. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6bd0f90f5d72c29f13076689bf9c66ec0ff676b67058d6bde8081f983c1c0b75.jpg

  103. Evening, all. We have survived the selection process so far. I shall be back tomorrow for the “adoption meeting” and then – ta-DAH!- I’m hoping Oscar will come home with me. They did mention a third meeting, but why? He came and greeted us, we played ball with him, fed him treats, made a fuss of him and I took him for a walk in the compound. He was fine on all counts, so I shall strongly resist having to go for a third visit. It seems that we weren’t first on the list; someone else had been to see him, but had rejected him. It must be that he is the one I’m meant to have. Oscar le Dieudonné. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6bd0f90f5d72c29f13076689bf9c66ec0ff676b67058d6bde8081f983c1c0b75.jpg

      1. That’s what attracted me to him when I saw his photo. He is a cheeky chappie.

      1. His owner had to surrender him because he (the owner) had had hip surgery and couldn’t walk him. The family didn’t want to take him on.

          1. I have promised to take photos when Oscar’s settled and at home and told them to pass them on so they can see he’s okay.

      1. He’s great. He’s a foodie (loves his treats) and is obsessed with his toys. He doesn’t, apparently, like being fussed, but I suspect that will change when he’s settled; Charlie didn’t know what a fuss was when he came and then he became a fuss budget.

      2. He’s great. He’s a foodie (loves his treats) and is obsessed with his toys. He doesn’t, apparently, like being fussed, but I suspect that will change when he’s settled; Charlie didn’t know what a fuss was when he came and then he became a fuss budget.

    7. Fingers crossed and praying (which I don’t do generally, but I will when I’ve stopped typing).

      You two should be with each other.

      1. I admit to choking up a bit when I walked him. It was so good to have a dog at heel again after nearly seven weeks.

      1. We stopped off at a pub on the way back to break the journey and have a drink. He was toasted.

    10. Seems like a nice boy, Connors, I can only wish you well in your pursuit of a (doggy) lifetime pal.

      1. I was taken with him even before I met him. My dog sitter (who drove us there) is convinced he’ll suit us well (and he’ll love the garden).

      1. So do I! Hopefully I’ll be able to bring him home tomorrow afternoon. I’ve made an appointment for 3pm, after I’ve been riding.

    14. 333860+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      In the nicest possible way, you do deserve an Oscar.

  104. Well, I had a very satisfying morning today, casting bad spririts out of our local church.
    The departed churchwarden was a full-on believer in Project Covid Fear, and had plastered the building in bossy notices. Last year, there was even one on the door with a hand stopping you from entering and telling you “not to enter this building if you have any symptoms of Covid-19”.
    Thankfully, someone else took that un-Christian horror down.
    There remained four bits of paper with bossy regulations, and a grudging admission that the church is open for private prayer at the weekends.

    I moved them off the door onto a stand up notice board at the side, still visible but not actually barring the way into the church. I removed the now out of date information that there are no services, and was able at the same time to tape over a dreadful line that described the church as a “special space.”
    The one on the gate was shabby, so I took the opportunity to replace it with a friendly, inviting one that doesn’t lecture you about spreading disease before you’ve even set foot on the path.

    Inside, there are a pile of laminated sheets, and another notice that begs you to place one on the seat where you have sat to pray, “so that we can keep everyone safe.”
    Yes, if you do not leave a laminated sheet saying “This Seat Has Been Used”, you are a KILLER!

    Back in the 90s, I supported women priests. Boy, was that a mistake. The miserable showing of the Church of England during the past 14 months has been largely due to the school-marmish better-100%-safe-than-free-and-sorry attitude of the female clergy.

    1. I can honestly say I’ve never supported the idea of women priests. I had a terrible feeling it would be a disaster.

      3. Me too. The disciples were men for a reason.

        Edit: Cardinal Basil Hume, Cardinal of Westminster Cathedral and formerly of Ampleforth School, gave a brilliant talk on the radio years ago giving the reasons for priests to remain male. I cannot find a link at present. It will have been thirty five to forty years ago or thereabouts.

      1. Effin’ wonderful people these Muslims, spreading peace and light where ‘ere they go.

        NO! bloody murdering thug ideologists who need to be killed on sight, thus further inflaming the war between Muslims and the rest of the world.

        If I’m to be accused of inciting violence, remember, they started it and we should finish it.

        1. But . Muslims are ALWAYS the victims. They never stop saying it. As for their supposed law of ” Obey the laws of the land you are living in ” – what about grooming gangs, County lines drug gangs, All the driving laws they ignore here? – – and not one of their own kind ever criticize what they do.

    1. Good night, Tom. I am reading your autobiography (Not A Bad Life) and thoroughly enjoying it.

          1. Available on Kindle – Not A Bad Life – just USD5.00.

            The first recommendation about ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ is from Paul, our own Oberstleutnant, many months ago.

          2. Will get – Kindle recently acquired (I usually prefer physical books, but there is always an exception!).

  109. Demented Joe to confront VVP on Human Rights [don;t laugh too loud] https://www.globalresearch.ca/biden-confront-putin-human-rights-issue/5746979 Zuckerberg offered Fauci very exciting proposal [Vax Resources] https://www.globalresearch.ca/facebook-ceo-offered-dr-fauci-very-exciting-proposal-vaccine-resources/5746972 and Prof Chossudovsky https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-2020-worldwide-corona-crisis-destroying-civil-society-engineered-economic-depression-global-coup-detat-and-the-great-reset/5730652

  110. Remiss of me, apologies, from my first post today, after morning, I should have included the D Day anniversary [remembrance of it] which the BBC may, if they feel so, to give passing mention

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