Saturday 5 October: A vote to legalise assisted dying would be a betrayal of the most vulnerable

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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535 thoughts on “Saturday 5 October: A vote to legalise assisted dying would be a betrayal of the most vulnerable”

  3. Morning Geoff and Nottlers
    Today's Tale
    Old Harry was on his deathbed. He raised himself on one elbow and beckoned his wife.
    “Doris,’’ he whispered, “you were with me through the Great Depression.”
    “Yes, Harry.”
    “Doris, you were with me through the worst droughts in the fifties and the eighties."
    “Yes, Harry.”
    “And you were with me when the farm got burned out by the bushfires in the nineties. And last year, you were still hanging in there with me when the bank foreclosed on our mortgage and we lost the farm.”
    “Yes, Harry.”
    “And now, here you are with me today, when I’m just about to die.”
    Doris nodded.
    “You know, Doris,” he whispered, “I’m beginning to think that you’re nothin’ but f**kin’ bad luck!”

  4. Yo and Good Day to you all, from Costa del Skeg.

    I will open the curtains in a minute…

  5. International crime-fighting teams to be deployed by G7 against gangs in illegal migrant hotspots. 5 October 2024.

    International crime fighting teams including British officers are to be deployed against people smuggling gangs in migration hotspots under a new G7 “action” plan announced on Friday.

    At a three-day meeting in Italy, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, and her G7 counterparts agreed to establish a network of law enforcement officers based in source countries from which the migrants originate and in “transit” nations through which they travel to stem the flow and crackdown on the gangs.

    The officers would be responsible for collecting and sharing intelligence on the gangs and co-ordinating joint operations involving border and law enforcement agencies from the G7 to identify and combat the criminals trafficking migrants.

    Or we could of course just patrol the twenty miles of beaches that are a danger and arrest anyone landing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/04/international-crime-fighting-teams-to-be-deployed-by-g7/

      1. Morning Tom. they have no intentions of stopping these boats. Not least because they provide a distraction from the vast numbers just strolling in legally.

    4. "Or we could of course just patrol the twenty miles of beaches that are a danger and arrestmachine-gun anyone landing."

  8. 394174 + up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    My view is repeated,leave as is, we are going through an era never experienced before with a large number
    of peoples still in a state of disbelief.

    We are in opposition with an odious element posing as politicians and this has been building over thirty plus years.

    The political posers and the pharmaceutical elites have formed a death dealing, serious life long injury, experimental coalition.

    Tis their open season on, as their judgement decrees
    overpopulation worldwide, hence culling under any credible banner, fodder for misbelieving fools.

    This latest death dealing issue is to back up the odious stopping the cold weather payment, I truly believe they are capable of employing squads in the cold weather period to enter old peoples homes and damp down bedding whilst opening windows,on health grounds.

    Saturday 5 October: A vote to legalise assisted dying would be a betrayal of the most vulnerable

        1. 394174+ up ticks,

          Morning OLT,
          I do believe there is a warehouse FULL of pothole expanders for councils daily use.

      2. This is a case of the political class inserting a very thin edge of a very large wedge that in the future could have severe consequences for people who fall ill.

        A first step along the road to the eugenicists' Utopia? All wrapped up in soothing assurances that the move to "assisted dying" for the gravely ill will be a merciful action.

        Believe the politicians who vote for this move at your peril.

    2. Then you need to prepare, and wait for the cue from USA in November because they are experiencing same issues x10.
      For instance, all across the country mysterious invaders are arriving en masse and being provided with brand-new, fully furnished luxury apartments, with rent and utilities completely covered by taxpayer funds.

      For certain Biden/Harris will never relinquish power. That will provide the cue. Of course you will require the services of 2&3 PARA.

    3. I'm sure that you're mistaken ogga.

      The NHS is the envy of the world, and I'm sure that their employees would never make a mistake

      deciding which elderly person has no productive future.

      The NHS has a long history of extremely high standards of care, and I'm sure it's to their eternal regret

      that no nation in the world has seen fit to copy it.

      A truly awe inspiring example of socialised medicine.

  9. Putin’s North Sea oil profits collapse. 5 October 2024.

    Kremlin-owned energy giant Gazprom suffered a collapse in its North Sea profits last year as sanctions and the windfall tax battered the business.

    Gazprom UK, which is owned by the Russian government, saw pre-tax profits fall from €45m (£37.6m) in 2022 to €4m last year, according to accounts filed at Companies House.

    Good heavens! Whatever will he do?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/05/putins-north-sea-oil-profits-collapse/

        1. No one not even presidents had: ‘I wish I’d spent more time in the office’ engraved on their headstone…..

        1. And don't forget when you see that logo on the back wall.. just like the PLA army, PLAN navy etc.. that means they belong to the equivalent of the Labour Party not the state.

        2. And don't forget when you see that logo on the back wall.. just like the PLA army, PLAN navy etc.. that means they belong to the equivalent of the Labour Party not the state.

  11. "I have stored canned baked beans upside down (Letters, October 4) ever since I was advised to do so by a tutor at catering college in the early 1980s."

    I still have a bag that used to have cake in it.

    These, and other exciting posts, can be seen Below The Line in today's DT Letters Page

  12. The ECHR appears to be tilted in favour of incoming 'non-Brits' and not the long-term residents and families (ie the Brits) of this Sceptred Isle

  13. Good morning all,

    Partly cloudy at McPhee Towers, wind South-East, 6℃ rising to 15℃ this afternoon.

    A bit of a slow news day. Market first then I'm going fishing.

  14. Morning, all Y'all.
    Grey day, but last night in my own bed… Bliss!
    (Although, to be fair, the bed we use at the In-Laws is the first bed we ever had as a couple (New mattress, though) – bought second-hand in 1980. I'd not have chosed a boingy spring mattress, though, and it's a 4' double, rather narrower than our 6' we bought to replace it (and still use).

    1. Yo Ol

      Making boingy boingy boingy noises with the bed, is not good when staying with in-laws

      1. I used to have a neighbour who made boingy boingy noises every evening at around 7pm plus When Harry Met Sally sound effects. Poor lass packed up and left when it finally dawned on her that sound carries in this building and we were all having a laugh at her expense. We assumed there were men involved and that they weren’t paying guests but who knows.

    3. I have a 4’ 6” double to myself. Going back to a 3’ 6” standard single would feel like sleeping on a ledge.

    4. Bought a King-size, seven years ago. It has a thick 'memory foam' mattress with another, much thinner, 'memory foam' liner on top. The best thing about it is that it has different levels of hardness on each side to suit personal preferences.

      I still have to buy my pillows (and pillowcases) from the UK, though, since the idiotic little square pillows that Swedes prefer are pathetic and utterly useless.

      1. Similar setup, Grizz, but we can get long UK-style pillows with substantial filling, from IKEA here…

  15. Morning, all Y'all.
    Grey day, but last night in my own bed… Bliss!
    (Although, to be fair, the bed we use at the In-Laws is the first bed we ever had as a couple (New mattress, though) – bought second-hand in 1980. I'd not have chosed a boingy spring mattress, though, and it's a 4' double, rather narrower than our 6' we bought to replace it (and still use).

      1. "It's a bit Bruce and Jackie out there today!"

        Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan … two hard nips!

  18. 394174+ up ticks,

    We should demand an overwatch committee of proven patriotic standing peoples, to closely scrutinise any "government body in regards to the " illegal invaders"

    International crime-fighting teams to be deployed by G7 against gangs in illegal migrant hotspots

    " illegal migrant hotspots" could very well be government controlled accommodating hotel / troop depots.

      1. 394174+ up ticks,

        Morning SJ,

        Precisely, and when they unite countrywide we will retaliate by appeasement as in, nutting the floor five times a day.

      2. They know what they can get away Tom. Our plod always turn up too late and then nick the locals.

      1. 394174+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        I would say thirty plus years to late,tis hard work trying to deter a majority voter hell bent on destroying all things decent.

        Never say never in regards to the return of common sense and decency.

  19. Good morning all.
    A rather latish start but a beautiful bright day with a clear sky, but a rather chilly tad under ½°C on the Yard Thermometer.

  20. I'd forgotten this episode. I knew Blighty had been blighted by the lunatics running the asylum for a good few years …..
    Michael Deacon in the Tellygraff.

    "Peak Guardian
    The time has come to commemorate a glorious milestone in journalism. Because this month sees the 20th anniversary of the single most sublimely bonkers article ever published in the entire history of The Guardian. I am of course referring to that unforgettable day in October 2004, when the favourite newspaper of the metropolitan middle-class Left enjoined its British readers to write fabulously patronising letters to swing voters in Clark County, Ohio – ordering them not to vote for that simply ghastly man, George W Bush.

    Helpfully it supplied its readers with a sample letter to copy. “I know that you, as Americans, understand the issues,” the letter graciously declared – but, just to be on the safe side, it explained “the issues” to them anyway. The people of Clark County were told that they should “be alarmed by your president’s breathtaking disregard for the environment”, informed that their country had suffered a shocking “erosion of standards in education”, and warned that they must not “stand by and observe your country being hijacked by a select group of neo-conservative extremists who spread fear and loathing”.

    Remarkably, no fewer than 14,000 Guardian readers nobly volunteered to do their bit. Strangely, however, it seems that the people of Clark County did not take kindly to being told how to vote by a bunch of social workers from Stoke Newington, or creatives from Crouch End. Back in 2000, Clark County had narrowly voted Democrat. But this time, in 2004, it swung behind Bush, instead.

    Personally, I just wish that the Americans had returned the favour. If only, during our own election this summer, the Clark County Chronicle had got its readers to write to voters in Britain.

    Dear limey,

    Please tell me you doofuses aren’t dumb enough to vote Labour. I’m telling you: within weeks, those pinko commie jerks will have ripped the winter fuel payment from your grandma’s hands. And, in case that doesn’t finish her off, they’ll rush through assisted dying, just to make sure…"

    1. Has he got that "letter" the right way round?

      Given the Labour majority, I wonder if they did.

      1. Given the obesity crisis in America why would we want their substandard UHP frankenstein foods…

    3. I was amused by a barbed observation from earlier in the article:
      "…I urge him to announce the creation of a National Penthouse Service, so that every child in Britain has access to an £18million rooftop apartment to do his or her homework in. We won’t have true equality in this country till he does so."

      Champagne socialist hypocrisy shown up for what it is.

      1. "…I urge him to announce the creation of a National Penthouse Service."

        Isn't Penthouse a magazine featuring Tits'n'Bums? Shouldn't a copy be in every school library?

      2. "…I urge him to announce the creation of a National Penthouse Service."

        Isn't Penthouse a magazine featuring Tits'n'Bums? Shouldn't a copy be in every school library?

  21. A first failure – and the Lotto doesn't look good either:
    Wordle 1,204 X/6

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

    1. Luck is heavily involved today…
      Wordle 1,204 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
      🟨🟩⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Always luck.

        Wordle 1,204 4/6

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

    2. Bight, fight, light, might, right, sight, tight, wight would all be possible solutions if your last four letters were I,G,H,T. Sheer luck would determine whether you succeed or not.

      I prefer Sudoku or cryptic crosswords where there is only one possible correct solution.

    1. Redwood's solved the mystery of the black hole.

      It's full of all that wild coal that's been captured running amok, and buried.

      1. I very vaguely remember a character called Nutty Slack in one of the comics of my youth. Maybe it’s his progeny running amok.

        1. Nutty Slack the Gentle Grappler, from 'Buster', a comic of the late 1960s, according to Google.

    2. The average human body comprises 22 pounds of carbon, Burying several million pensioners will count towards carbon capture and stopping them breathing out carbon dioxide is another 'Green' bonus. Win win situation. Help save the planet – do yourself in!!

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    Light grey today, nothing better at the moment.
    With no apparent versions of honesty being traceable from our current supposedly sensible politicians.
    On assisted dying, do the public, with their own opinions, get a chance vote ? I'm sure 'the people' who actually 'live the lives' have far better judgement than all the current morons in Wastemonster.
    I wonder if the public list would include certain protagonist's who are deliberately avoiding the current issues. Those following their own personal adgenda and making decisions that are making many thousands of people's lives a misery.

    1. It should be a national referendum as it should have been on hanging. but they will not have the result they want.

      1. Sadly as usual they aren't brave enough to employ public opinion.
        In their tiny restricted minds they always seem to think that they know best.
        That's why they eff up every single thing they come into contact with and big time.

  25. They think we are stupid. Tell us there is a 22 bn. shortfall. Then tell us they are spending the same amount on carbon capture. Just lies and more lies.

    1. Where's the opposition standing up in the HoC telling them it's all BS? I don't see Reform doing that.

      1. The many MPs that read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at University are incapable of understanding/dismissing BS concepts such as 'carbon capture and storage', BB2.

          1. PPE undergrads at university were referred to by those studying STEM subjects as P___-Poor at Everything.

      2. If The Reform Party Reform wants to break fresh ground in politics it must be the sole mainline party to come out with policies which challenge the Great Global Warming Lie and the Net Zero scam. They must invite some of the leading scientists who do not believe the lies and have been silenced and there are many of these.

        The party should also challenge the orthodoxy that Covid jabs are safe and necessary when it is very clear they are not. Again there are many reputable scientists who have been cancelled' who can add informed comment on this issue.

        1. 'Morning Rastus…do you read Ben Pile? he has an interesting piece today on Sceptic re Unions and their thinking around Green Agenda.

        2. 394174+ up ticks,

          Morning R,
          " IF" they ……..
          my true belief is they are tory MK 2 and peoples "want" them to be "opposition" at the same time as them being tory (ino) MK 2

      3. If The Reform Party Reform wants to break fresh ground in politics it must be the sole mainline party to come out with policies which challenge the Great Global Warming Lie and the Net Zero scam. They must invite some of the leading scientists who do not believe the lies and have been silenced and there are many of these.

        The party should also challenge the orthodoxy that Covid jabs are safe and necessary when it is very clear they are not. Again there are many reputable scientists who have been cancelled' who can add informed comment on this issue.

      4. How does Reform get an opportunity to do that? With just 4 MPs they can only occasionally get the chance to speak in the HoC.

          2. They do get the chance to speak in the HoC, but nobody will hear about it unless it's publicised. I agree, they will very rarely get a chance to speak on the big occasions.

      5. 394174+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,
        That would be on par with your left hand arguing with your right hand.

        Read up on the FULL pedigree of the leader.

    2. Unions are waking up to the realisation the numbers of jobs that will be lost, Johnny. A ray of hope, perhaps…….

  26. BTL comment under Micael Deacon's column.

    Starmer's version of the Labour 'anthem' – The Red Flag.

    "The working class can kiss my @r@e
    I've got the PM job at last
    Our pensioners can die of cold
    I've got a mate with pots of gold
    Some may laugh and others scoff
    I've got my snout in Alli's trough"

    2. Unions sound to have woken up now, anne, to Labour's agenda esp Green one. Maybe fun ahead…

      1. A man who has outrageously exploited the green scam should never be given an honour!

  27. BTL comment under Micael Deacon's column.

    Starmer's version of the Labour 'anthem' – The Red Flag.

    "The working class can kiss my @r@e
    I've got the PM job at last
    Our pensioners can die of cold
    I've got a mate with pots of gold
    Some may laugh and others scoff
    I've got my snout in Alli's trough"

  29. ‘Unacceptable’ shopfront in Britain’s most picturesque town must be repainted '

    According to the Stamford Shopfront Design Guide, a document drawn up by the district council to ensure that the heritage is retained, the maximum penalty for breaking the rules is two years in prison and an unlimited fine.

    You can lesser punishments than that for killing people in UK now

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/04/planning-row-repainted-peters-cleaner-stamford-lincolnshire/

      1. That reminds me. When Woolworh's wanted to set up shop in Reigate, the Borough Council told them they couldn't have their usual bulging gold letters over their shop-front, so they had to settle for discreet conventional lettering. (Not so in neighbouring Redhill, also part of the Borough of Reigate, but it's where the poor people live.)

          4. I preferred the formality of F. W. Woolworth Co., although I do understand why they opted for the simplicity of Woolworths.

        2. Reigate can’t be posh. 2TK went to school there and his family are ever so ‘umble.

          1. No. That's at Burghley Horse Trials.

            I once attended and I got the rest of the attendees to shout, "Hang 'em!"

          2. It was before the owner repainted it.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9a8a223c705d45149956f4d1c8a82a79cbe13726791e3d547891718a5ef9346.png

            According to the Stamford Shopfront Design Guide, a document drawn up by the district council to ensure that the heritage is retained, the maximum penalty for breaking the rules is two years in prison and an unlimited fine. The rules include a recommendation to use white or neutral colours on slender shopfronts, and a single colour for all the major elements of the design but there is no indication of what colours are and are not allowed.

          4. She's trying to make Stamford look like a Smurf village.

            https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2Y1F217/juzcar-spain-october-6-2023-visiting-of-blue-smurfs-village-in-juzcar-spain-on-october-6-2023-2Y1F217.jpg

            https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJKAzzmJssQseEkExLUNhg4MVg38hDBRrYhzMcq0d7aLLT7mfUXWd9dIbqPzGOvNvpFrJlVBv9md9mDyQ_5iEaTrBVbqncfboLPVr-oNVHYNBGx7U8T_i9N-FyiyTh_4mbvz2u3EKFeSED/s1600/Snapshot-2017-07-12+at+03_31_00+PM-7272.png

            Ghastly and tasteless.

            https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1802059475/photo/stamford-in-lincolnshire.jpg?s=1024×1024&w=is&k=20&c=Xd_SrWTdOXdWj1YEFDrc4x2Vb0S_1o5_HI911GeG148=

          5. I get your point of view, but I am a great believer in towns being places where people live, not museums. Like people clutching their pearls if someone in a crescent paints their door a different colour.

          7. It's not the blue; it's the contrasting complementary — orange — that assaults the eyeballs. Not much point in keeping an old town looking traditional if some muppet decides to ruin it by (illegally) adding garish nonsense.

            Genuine answer.

          8. That colour contrast would have been considered positively muted by the Victorians. I still think it’s nonsense.

        1. The definition of 'vaccine' was changed by the WHO during the pandemic so that the Covid jabs could be described as vaccines. That's why I always refer to them as 'jabs'. As they do not prevent infection, nor transmission of tthe virus (which a true vaccine should) they should be more accurately described as 'pre-infection therapies'.

          1. Changing the long standing definition of an established word after they discovered it didn’t solve the problem as vaccines should.
            Dishonest ?

  31. EU states must recognise transgender identities across bloc, top court rules D Torygaff
    Judges in Luxembourg say Romania has broken EU law by refusing to accept British-Romanian transgender man’s change.

    What a relief! All those QWERTYBBCLGBT trannies who were frightened of travelling across the EU and not being recognised will be relieved to know that the law has been clarified and you can ponce about and claim free Tena pads and co-habitation allowance for your husband wherever you go in La La Land,

    1. Latest News

      Man arrested in Trafalgar Square, London for "Declaring himself Heterosexual and Reciting out loud the Lord's Prayer"

  33. Good day Nottlers.

    Today we have new an article by Frederica ' Who Can Save Britain ' on patriotic conservative sites and organisations that we should support and, eventually, try to form liasions with and use our numbers to form a mass movement. Freddie spent a whole afternoon doing this, so please show your appreciation by reading and commenting on her article. FSB hopes to grow to the point where it can help co-ordinate a partiotic backlash to the woke globalist tyranny and to do that, we need a genuine mass movement, the creation of which is our ultimate aim. Hope you will support us.

    I have also written an short article on the ' Russian floating bomb anchored off Kent ', and, in the Editor's Picks' section on the Home Page, Mark Smith, to counter all the gloom caused by the flooding in Thailand, has updated his ' Life in the Land of Smiles ' article. It's well worth reading, even if you read it.

    Anyway, enjoy your weekend.

      1. A Wonkey Donkey.

        I've had the impression something was wrong with our well established but opinionated website for a few weeks. Not everything opens straight away as things use to.
        Far far left Government spies ?

        1. I sometimes suspect that RE, but usually it turns out to be disqus having a tantrum.

          1. I tend to agree Tom but …….
            After many years of my life I have now reached the conclusion that any other unexplained actions could be atributed to outside interference.
            Something that seems to be more usual in our modern day lives.

      2. Thanks KLB, the error was in disqus, but I have replaced the link and it is working now.

  34. My BTL comment:
    After some initial surprise at the less than huge gap between the incarceration rate for foreigners and UK citizens, I thought: any chance of seeing the figures for white and non-white UK citizens? I reckon these figures would be very "enlightening".

    BTW someone noticed that the Albanian prison rate is 16/17 fold (232/14) that of "UK citizens". That is some going

    ——————————-

    <i>One in 50 Albanians in the UK is in jail, according to analysis revealing the first league table of criminality by nationality.

    More than 1,200 Albanians have been sent to prison from a migrant population of nearly 53,000 Albanians living in the UK who do not have UK citizenship, according to a Telegraph analysis of official data.

    They top a table of more than 130 nationalities ranked on the number of prisoners per 10,000 of the population in the UK from their countries. Albanians are followed by Kosovans, Vietnamese, Algerians, Jamaicans, Eritreans, Iraqis and Somalis.

    The analysis suggests that the overall imprisonment rate of foreign nationals is 27 per cent higher than for British citizens. It shows 18.2 inmates per 10,000 migrants compared with the UK’s 14 per 10,000. German, Italian, Indian, Greek, US, Sri Lankan, French and Chinese nationals are the least likely to be jailed.</i>

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/04/one-in-50-albanians-uk-in-prison-telegraph-analysis/

    1. Because of the obvious expense, that in simple terms suggests that our general finances have a huge black hole.
      Can someone please let our 'blind to the obvious problems' government know.

        2. I've had a couple of hours up the hill and used a tank of 2-stroke mix in the chainsaw.
          All the large sections of trunk have been sawn and cleared from the higher levels towards the lower levels where they'll be sawn into chopping lengths to await chopping and stacking.
          Just having a 2nd mug of tea and I'll be away back up!

  35. Good morning, all. Sun making an appearance.

    I haven't been around much this week as I've had a short holiday on the Isle of Wight. Therefore, I do not know if the following has been discussed.

    Miliband minor has come out with his dastardly plan for "carbon capture" with a down payment of £22Billion for whomever he wishes to involve. If ever there was to be another "black hole", after reliable and cheap renewable energy, this is it. Once in the gravitational grip of "carbon capture" there is very little chance of escape. Where the final bill ends up is anyone's guess.

    https://x.com/Ed_Miliband/status/1842104184218288495
    Plenty of comments pointing to trees as a much cheaper and proven to work option, and of course, trees – planted on areas unsuitable for farming – have a reusable product available a bit further down the line. Surely, that is a "Green" option to be exploited, isn't it?

    PS If the UK carries on destroying its industrial base e.g. no steel making hence reduced heavy industry manufacture where will all these jobs arise to create the "global leading technology" ? My guess will be China et al. Kit of parts assembly will never be "global leading".

    2. The man is scientifically illiterate – out of his depth in a puddle. Moving all your industry to other countries doesn't change any pollution as far as the earth is concerned, it just moves it to a different country so that UK can look virtuous – and utterly broke!

      1. Didn’t some UN high-up admit that the Climate BS is de facto about the redistribution of wealth, not environmentalism.

        1. You might be thinking of this one:
          "One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world's wealth.”
          Ottmar Edenhofer IPCC Co-Chair Working Group Ill 2008-2015
          Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010

          Also, an earlier revelation:
          Maurice Strong, the doyen of the global warming/climate change movement and MC of the Rio Summit that kicked the whole thing off in 1992: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?"

      1. The Union Inn, West Cowes. Real olde-worlde Fuller’s pub. London Pride and HSB on draught, open fire and the smell of burning wood. Friendly bar people. Also, the tiny PO41 café in Yarmouth, excellent Americano and other coffees. Again, friendly staff.

          4. Kept the NAMES of the brews.
            Fuller's HSB is totally different to the old Gales Horndean Special Bitter.

          5. And even if the recipe is kept the same, moving production from the closed brewery to another one will mean that a different water supply will be used and this will alter – probably significantly – the taste of the beer.

      1. And why is she dictating whether or not we are going to allow state-sanctioned murder?

        If she has an issue, she should go to Switzerland. Nothing stopping her.

        As a kid, i never liked Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris or Esther Rantzen.

          3. I only saw her close-up once, in Television Centre. An odd looking woman. Her hair and skin were the same colour. A sort of light yellow/cream.

          4. Oooh Bill, do tell! What did you used to do, that brought you into her radar?

      2. He probably realises that "I made a promise to Bill Gates" wouldn't go down well with the British people either.

      4. A member of the elite caste whose level of entitlement is twinned with that of 2TK.
        During covid this bloody woman was doing the rounds rooting for more lock-down because her daughter who lives with her has chronic ME and would allegedly have been at terrible risk. The Wilcox establishment is likely to be spacious, have a garden and ample access to deliveries of Britain’s finest foods, so I felt that Dame Esther should just be content to shut herself and her daughter away without seeking to curtail the freedom of poor sods with none of those benefits.
        But it is all about her.

      5. Is she still alive?
        When I was a kid (some nearly 50 years ago), she fronted "That's Life!", a comedy show on TV, then went on to consumer affairs.

    1. Happy to have been of help. The staggering ineptitude of O'Barmy was shocking to see.

      1. Not these Nellies. The elephants working in the teak forests were often very badly treated. However, the Nellies in sanctuaries tend to live 5 to 10 years less.

      2. 84. Another great person bites the dust eh. He was from Leicestershire a trained structural engineer. RIP

  41. Watch: Wild boars spotted strolling past pub as landlady says it is 'normal'

    The roaming animals were filmed near Forest of Dean, which has Britain's biggest boar population

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/489ef90365b5139160cc67152ab4471c9d0bb130d8e8bdea60d061d85ee45c2b.png
    Wild boars have been seen strolling past a town centre pub – and the landlady says it is "normal".

    Five boars were filmed walking near the Golden Lion in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, on Wednesday. Feral populations of boars have existed in the nearby Forest of Dean since escaping from a farm in the 1990s. They now represent Britain's largest boar population, with the Woodland Trust estimating that there are 2,600 of the animals nationwide.

    Nikki Norman, the pub's landlady, said it was "quite normal" for the animals to be seen roaming around the town because it was close to the forest. Customers love it," she said. "They think it is really great."

    Boars are sturdy, powerful animals covered in bristly hair that can vary from dark brown almost black in colour to gingery brown. They were once native to Britain but were hunted to extinction in the 14th century. However, their numbers have surged since the 1990s when they escaped or were illegally released from farms.

    They can weigh up to 220lbs, heavier than the average man, and stand about 2.6ft tall at the shoulder, almost the same height as a Great Dane.

    In 2004, around 60 boars were released near Cinderford when they were illegally dumped near the village of Staunton. By 2009, they began breeding and the numbers steadily increased, with each sow producing up to 12 piglets a year. Now they represent the largest boar population in England and attract tourists to the area, which borders Wales. But they have also been blamed for car crashes and livestock deaths.

    Farmers in Scotland, who have had their lambs attacked, have called for culls to control the population of boars. Conservationists argue that the concerns are overblown and that boars are useful for improving habitats and ecosystems.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/04/watch-wild-boars-strolling-past-pub-landlady-says-normal

    PS: 220lbs seems a curiously precise figure until you realise it's 50kg…and 'about' 2.6ft [sic] is about 80 cms.

    Another PS: Warnings are often given that boars can be dangerous. I know from experience that the people of the FoD can also be a bit dangerous. It's one of those places where you can still be greeted by "You're not from round 'ere, are yer?"

    2. Or

      The roaming animals were filmed near the Houses of Parliament, which has Britain's biggest bore population

    3. There was a delicatessen in Tavistock where I bought wild boar salami. It was delicious but now long gone.

    4. Not long ago on BBC Country File, the reporter Tom Heap informed the viewers that 'a pack of domestic dogs' had attacked some local sheep and killed them. Not very far from the forest of Dean. I wrote to them telling them that it would not have been 'a pack of domestic dogs' but it would have been the then newly introduced Wild Boar. No reply of course.
      Now a long way back, and around the lambing season with our dirt bikes on trailers with a few good friends we use to drive from Adelaide to the Narran Lake area in NSW and spend a week or so as the guest of local Sheep farmers out in the scrub and bush, shooting the non indigenous Wild boar. These animals and would and probably and still do, attracted by the births, would more often than not kill the new born lambs and eat them. Wild boar are also cannibalistic we would quite often find all that was left of the bodies were the trotters. The only thing they would leave in a pile of food waste was citrus.
      But they were quite tasty BBQ ed.
      I would think by now Scottish farmers are already on the case.

      1. "Conservationists argue that the concerns are overblown and that boars are useful for improving habitats and ecosystems."

        Just wait until one of these simpering half-wits wakes up one morning to find their organic eco-allotment has had a visit from a herd.

        1. It's probably the reason they were originally removed from the environment.
          In a group they can be confrontational. The wild boar of course.
          Conservationist's are all very dopey wokie.
          The next problem they will be trying to excuse will be all the lovely furry beavers felling trees blocking the flow of our rivers and causing floods……..oh hang on !

      1. With slugs, so no choke on the barrel. Buckshot might be usefl too, but a boar has an armoured hide.
        Taste great, though!

      1. Some one close to where we live use to keep pigs and sometimes allotment tenants would fence off the plot an borrow the pigs for a couple of weeks. The pigs would 'plough' the plots and clear all traces of previous growth. And fertilise. Perfect.

  43. Farm income is in free-fall. DEFRA civil servants are among the most incompetent and seem to hate farmers. And Lammy wants to give all our dosh to his chosen 'beneficiaries'. I despair.

    Labour could cut financial support for farms damaged by floods

    Exclusive: Farmers still awaiting promised payments for uninsurable damage caused by Storm Henk

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/99a5d2901c3cc2367ccaf651b401902e68427374/329_0_4950_2970/master/4950.jpg?width=700&dpr=2&s=none Flooded fields and roads after the River Trent overflowed its banks during Storm Henk in January.

    Helena Horton Environment reporter
    Sat 5 Oct 2024 07.00 BST

    Labour may cut financial support for flooded farmers, the Guardian has learned, while money to compensate them for deluges in January has still not hit their pockets.

    The previous Conservative government earlier this year promised up to £25,000 in payments for uninsurable damage from flooding caused by Storm Henk. However, the eligibility criteria for these grants has still not been set out, leaving farmers out of pocket. The scheme has been plagued with delays, with some affected farmers not being paid because they live too far from a river.

    Some early claimants received money in July but thousands more who are thought to be eligible are still waiting for the financial support.

    Senior sources in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told the Guardian that decisions about how much money could be paid to farmers for the floods were being held up because of the spending review, and that cuts were on the table. The Conservatives had promised a £50m expansion of the fund before the general election.

    Floods have already begun this autumn, with freshly sown crops washed away and farmers facing another unprofitable harvest season. Farmers fear that they are about to take a financial hit while still waiting for government payments from January’s floods. New Met Office data shows six counties had their wettest September on record: Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. There have been floods across the country and more rain is expected by the end of this week.

    The National Farmers’ Union vice-president, Rachel Hallos, said: “Back in May, farmers impacted by the devastating storms at the start of the year were promised help through the expanded farming recovery fund offer, but this has not been forthcoming.

    “Months later, farm businesses are still suffering the impact of the relentless rain. Thousands of acres of farmland have been completely saturated and unusable, and we’ve just finished an incredibly difficult harvest with huge variations in yield and quality. We urgently need details of when the fund will be available to help these farms recover.

    “With further heavy rain leaving more fields waterlogged, arable farmers are once again concerned about getting crops in the ground for next season. We cannot keep getting stuck in this cycle – we simply must invest in our water management systems. The farming recovery fund is one part, but we need a long-term plan for how we protect our towns and countryside from what is becoming more regular, and expensive, flooding events.”

    This is the latest blow to farmer confidence from the Labour government, after the Guardian revealed ministers were mulling cutting about £100m a year from the nature-friendly farming budget.

    Flooding is hurting UK food security, and experts believe floods are being made worse by climate breakdown. Income from farming in England plummeted by 19% in 2023 after floods meant harvesting many crops was impossible. Farms also contributed less to England’s economy in 2023 at £10bn, a fall of £1bn or 8.7% compared with 2022. Farmers’ total income from agriculture in England was £4.5bn, down £1.1bn or 19.0% compared with 2022.

    A Defra spokesperson said that all spending commitments for the coming year were to be confirmed in the spending review, adding: “The government is working at pace, with input from representatives of the farming sector, to accelerate the building of flood defences through our new flood resilience taskforce. All farmers eligible for the initial farm recovery fund set up in April have been offered payment, with further information on the scheme set out in due course.”

        1. Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes
          Here comes your nineteenth           climate breakdown.

    2. Just following the lead/orders from US elite..

      Biden-Harris' Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) blocking shipments of critical goods for relief efforts into the storm-battered North Carolina region. There have been numerous reports this week of FEMA actively hindering relief efforts in the western part of the state, including threatening private helicopter pilots with arrests for conducting rescue missions.

      North Carolina has been deemed problematically white.

    3. Just following the lead/orders from US elite..

      Biden-Harris' Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) blocking shipments of critical goods for relief efforts into the storm-battered North Carolina region. There have been numerous reports this week of FEMA actively hindering relief efforts in the western part of the state, including threatening private helicopter pilots with arrests for conducting rescue missions.

      North Carolina has been deemed problematically white.

    4. When did communists ever care if the masses starve. The wastemonster mob are squandering billions on vanity projects to enrich themselves and their pet primitives.

    5. Well, duh. How else are they going to drive family farms out of business so that wealthy investors can buy their land and re-sell the rights to re-wild it?

      1. Why, you could even get hundreds of Bibby Stockholms that were anticipated by the Tories moored on flood waters.
        That would make even more sense than spending £22bn on sending CO2 back down the pipes that were intended for distributing gas to the UK from the North Sea. What's more is that excessive output of electricity from windmills could be replaced by plugging a gas hole when you don't want the energy flowing – instead, taxpayers have to pay for excessive windmill outputs when the providers can't sell it.

    8. NFU only place we could get insurance, country area – very little arable land but a lot of woodland. Recommended.

    9. Don't worry with all the Solar farms planned for Arable land the farmers won't have to worry about flooding and compensation as there won't be much farming left!

      1. All the solar cells will short out when they are submerged. That won't help anything.

    10. While I do believe that summers have been getting warmer and winters milder, I do not subscribe to the notion of an impending and irreversible climate catastrophe demanding immediate drastic action. Adapting to these changes seems to me the more affordable and publicly acceptable course of action.

      As to the particular claim above that recently high aggregations of rainfall signal climate breakdown, it wasn't so long ago that forecasters were advising us to prepare for a more Mediterranean climate and for farmers and gardeners to plant crops, vegetables, fruits and flowers with a more arid climate in mind.

      1. I agree, Stig. The above article was written for The Guardian (i.e. in accordance with George Monbiot's alarmist House Rules)

      2. I agree, Stig. The above article was written for The Guardian (i.e. in accordance with George Monbiot's alarmist House Rules)

        1. There seems to be two lines of thought; that a warmer climate will see Mediterranean conditions migrate northwards or that warmer air will hold more moisture and become more turbulent and stormy.

          2. Over the years I’ve seen so many different claims about the changing climate that I stand by my analysis.

            They haven’t a clue.

  44. You might remember this from last October. Marykirk, Scotland:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/300e955387c0e5f8dc3cb38620745ae1ba50be63ebf565f10267cdd50939c034.jpg

    Fixed in 6 months – for anywhere in the UK, that's almost miraculous.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/302b9afb8642fff8093fecfbea219e6e3495604df7361513f53078181f497bf1.jpg

    Perhaps WM Donald Ltd could pop down to Oxford and give Network Rail a hand…

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/angus-mearns/4980722/a937-marykirk-bridge-re-opened

      1. A wicked thought crossed my mind. Did the contractor bill the county council for the Armco barrier that isn't there but should be?

  45. There's nothing wrong with calling women 'birds'

    Apparently it now qualifies as sexual harassment, but the world would be poorer without such terms

    Rowan Pelling

    One of the many joys of the current Bridge production of Guys and Dolls is the refreshing lack of ambiguity when it comes to the sexes. No "107 gender identities" (according to http://sexualdiversity.org ) in sight. Guys are guys and Dolls are dolls and the audience revels in the guilty pleasure of stereotypes that still feel superbly true, as is often the case with great musicals: "When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky/ You can bet that he's doing it for some doll."

    The show reminded me of how much I enjoyed it in the early 1990s when "London's rudest landlord", Norman Balon of Soho's Coach and Horses, used to say, "Oi, aren't you that bird who works for Hislop?" At the time, I was the general dogsbody at Private Eye and had to organise the magazine's fortnightly lunches at the pub.

    I had grown up watching The Liver Birds and thought of the term signified youthful fun. There were plenty of unprintable words Balon had for people he didn't like and many punters frequented the joint for his reliable spleen. (I must further confess my coven of women friends from the school gates – a TV director, a financial adviser and an academic – are on a WhatsApp group titled "Cambridge Birds")

    Balon, however, was running an old-school, 20th-century boozer and it appears there are different rules for upmarket whisky investment companies in 2024. An industrial tribunal has just ruled that when male employees at Whisky1901 called a female co-worker "a bird" – as part of a list of complaints – it could be construed as sexual harassment. The complainant was awarded almost £52,000 in compensation.

    Obviously, part of me started calculating the millions owed to me in light of this complaint, if we back date the injury to 1991. While the other side thought, "for Pete's sake", invoking the immortal genius of the Eye's late owner, Peter Cook, who loathed people taking themselves too seriously. Perhaps I'm a traitor to my sex but I've always enjoyed men being as cheerily, robustly rude to me as they are to each other and I love dishing it back. Two male colleagues from Erotic Review days used to be fondly known to the women of the office as "Colonel Raincoat and Sergeant Perv".

    I've also long had a tendency to call men I work with "boys", leading to surprise from new friends when they discover my co-worker is 58, not 18. I suppose this tendency to view them as school-age could be deemed patronising but you can only be offended by warm banter if you choose to be. Most women I know are sanguine about, if not openly embracing of, such terms as flower, petal, love, babe, hen, and US versions such as chick.

    Fact is, pithy lingo that may or may not be illustrative of the subject's sex is part of the fun of using vernacular. The many viewers currently delighting in Season 4 of Slow Horses are, in part, lapping-up the drama because of Jackson Lamb's insider jargon for MI5 operatives.

    The internal investigation officers at "the Park" are known as "dogs", agents in the field are "Joes", while surveillance operatives are "stoats". Lamb's insults to his colleagues are also a visceral pleasure, making it even more thrilling when a hard-nosed woman spy out-viles him. I whooped when new MI5 head of security Emma Flyte says to Lamb while handcuffing him, "I'd rather not take any chances with a man who looks like he gropes people on buses."

    None of which means I don't vigorously police my sons' language. Certain words are banned for obvious reasons but I do think context and intention matters with jokier terms. I don't want my boys to treat women like delicate china but as witty flesh-and-blood equals who can out-spar them. Shakespeare believed this too, which is why his greatest heroine is feisty Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Happily, a stellar new production opens soon with Hayley Atwell and Tom Hiddleston.

    We can all revel again in Beatrice's line, "A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours", or it's better to be a smart parrot than a dumb brute.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/05/theres-nothing-wrong-with-calling-women-birds

    1. Birds are alright but I prefer girlies. I switched off Radio 3 this morning because there was some girly playing noise by other girlies. Flipped over to Classic FM and Aled Jones playing music.

      1. There's no respite is there. What really annoys me about the new presenters with their 'Shows' is the gushing and simpering. Boy are they going to have a hard time when islam really takes off in the UK!

    1. And lo Chairman Ed said let us spend squillions we do not have on Carbon Capture……….

        1. But the climate freaks are letting them cut the trees down and build on green fields. What a scam.

    2. Mao's slogan,"Human beings will fight the nature and win", sums up cretinous communist/socialist thinking (if it can be called 'thinking').

      Nature hears this imbecilic bollocks and replies, "Oh, yeah?"

  47. Afternoon All
    Where to begin…
    "Once you realise that all of the things that Labour is doing are really continuations of everything that was already planned under the Conservatives, you can start to understand what is going on. The politicians are not actually in charge of anything. They are not making any decisions whatsoever. They are simply doing what they are told And being paid handsomely.
    Their mission, like the governments before, is to destroy the UK in financial, industrial, cultural and historical terms . Once you get this, everything begins to make sense."
    Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2812f31539f001374b70225e7d7f6ca4ff2a63f7d45c2e77607a48615407a778.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63d7733ee1b2ba5fac21a99d335bea4df3d4aaedd94be9358963d5e4ec99a12b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68bd92109954426ac5459fb4d99c85d706eb897d9cd2bd512664e692b0d81b83.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55befd83ee492a1037f7529dc4974a3df425046718fc4f88181e0b1b81ef19e1.png
    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=568,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/166/997/391/original/281d3507acfba0bd.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e77aed7a35f84022870be8999fb1e2a5455a76d495dc26ed36ad5c3d71046ba7.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad441cf142136edfe0b1ddbfe4c0dc92e9118cefe92cde5d293d48ce901807cf.gif

    1. Labour may have been blaming the Tories for a £22bn black hole in the UK finances but there was a cunning Conservative plan to make Labour the fall guys – particularly as they are now digging their own £22bn black hole.

  49. Greens Try To Designate Entirety of East Sussex “County of Sanctuary for Migrants”

    The Greens are up to their old tricks in local authorities. After getting elected to councils across the UK on a muted NIMBY platform they’re showing their true colurs…

    Down in East Sussex County Council the Greens have put forward a motion to “designate East Sussex as a County of Sanctuary for Migrants.” That apparently includes signing it up to “core principles” including: “No one should be locked up indefinitely,” “No one should be left sick or destitute in our society,” and “We should welcome the stranger and help them to integrate.” How those would work in action is anyone’s guess…

    More concretely the motion would sign up the County Council to the “Migrant Champions Network,” an organisation which spends most of its time campaigning for councils “to pledge not to share workers’ data with the Home Office” so that illegal migrants can’t be located by the government. It would also appoint a councillor to act as a “Migrant Champion” who would act as an “advocate for migrant constituents.” How much will that cost?

    These are the same Green personnel who run the Wealden District Council with the LibDems. Their leader Rachel Millward has tried to force all events including bonfires to be net zero. All while living in a 6-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool…

    1. "No one should be left sick or destitute in our country" – except for the indigenous, particularly those who have worked and paid taxes all their lives.

  50. 394174+ up ticks,

    All the time these look alike politico's have the edge on peoples of decency, in so far as they are now openly
    importing the materials making up the crime tables on a daily basis, and in bulk.

    Revealed: First migrant crime table
    One in 50 Albanians in the UK in prison, Telegraph analysis shows.

    The other 49 are busy filling out their criminal lifestyles
    under their freedom pass to surf the crime wave with
    impunity.

    Lets see the true honest numbers of paedophile odious action since, that bent twisted one, haunter of the park public toilets on cottaging missions GHOUL
    " miranda" open the gates of decency to the agents of hell.

    Number manipulators will be rogered to death by rough ends of pine-apples, viewed as treason in time of war.

    2. Gus and Pickles which to associate themselves with their neglected cousin. "Haven't been fed for, er, hours," Gus added, waking briefly.

    3. When I got home Kadi tried to convince me he hadn't had his tea. Unfortunately for him, his dog sitter left a note to say he had and the last of the chicken dog food had gone 🙂

  55. Phew!
    Just having a break. Did 2½h of chainsawing, one tank's worth of 2-stroke, up the hill during which I've sawn all the large bits of tree trunk felled by the loggers and made a start on moving them down the hill.
    Already had one mug of tea and just decided to do myself a 2nd mug before I go and refill the saw and cut up some of the larger lumps I've gotten down the hill.
    The little Husqy is working well!

  56. Where's Wibbling? Slinking back home in the early hours, I turned a corner and bumped into what appeared to be two medium-sized black bears. Luckily they were on leads, so I stopped to have a cuddle, and the owner proudly said they were Terranovas. Which is Spanish for Newfoundlands. (You learn something new every day). Gorgeous creatures!

    1. My younger sister had a Newfoundland. He was lovely, but shy and could even walk backwards.
      I bumped into a nice lady last week with two beautiful black labs. Brother and sister. Sister was shy, big brother had been rolling in Fox poo and it stinks.
      Ours use to do that occasionally.

    2. If Starmer had an extra-marital child would it be an illegitimate child or a love child?

      The word 'love' is not one that can easily be associated with the cold fish Starmer.

    1. White middle class republicans. Didn’t I also see on Twit that they’re obstructing the aid Elon is trying to give?

  59. Two hours ladder work – three trays of picked apples; another of – yet more – usable windfalls. Exhausting. Come in for a bit of a rest. Dunno how young Robert manages all the stuff he does – except that he is nobbut a lad, of course!

    1. Now that really is Birds and Bees Stuff!

      I'm surprised there wasn't cigarettes involved afterwards!

      1. I saw the male ostriches' wiggle waggle after he had done his business , and was shocked at the size of it , I had no idea birds possessed such a protuberant thing!

        One learns something everyday.🙄😊😮

          2. ‘Can’t curl, but can swim—
            Slow-Solid, that’s him!
            Curls up, but can’t swim—
            Stickly-Prickly, that’s him!’

            ‘He’ll never forget that this month of Sundays,’ said Stickly-Prickly. ‘Hold up my chin, Slow-and-Solid. I’m going to try to learn to swim. It may be useful.’

            [Rudyad Kipling: Just So Stories]

          3. A superb set of tales.
            I used to read them frequently as a child, my favourite was how the elephant got his trunk.

          4. Led go you're hurting be as the Elephant's Child said to the bi-coloured python rock-snake

            I also loved the Sing Song of Old Many Kangaroo:

            He was grey, he was woolly and his pride was inordinate and he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia.

            (My own children loved the Just So stories when I read them to them just as much as I had loved them when my father read them to me)

            Bedtime stories were one of the most important events of the day when our boys were little. I read to one boy in English and Caroline read to the other in French. When we had finished a story we swapped boys!

        2. Well I think you'd faint at the size of the Male Antarctic Blue Whale's equipment – the size of a large wardrobe i believe….! 🙂

  65. A prospector Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,204 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done. Par here.

      Wordle 1,204 4/6

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

      1. Don't you hate those words where there are so many options and no clues to which option you should select..

        A gimme eagle!

    2. Hard going for me.

      Wordle 1,204 5/6

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

    3. Par again

      Wordle 1,204 4/6

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

    4. Back in the ball game! Likewise…..

      Wordle 1,204 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
      ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  66. "As a black man descended from enslaved people, I understand the plight of the people of Gibraltar, oppressed as they are by imperialist, colonialist Britain, and will do everything in my power to help reunite them with the free people of Spain."

    © D Lammy, 2024

        1. Only because he wants to give it to Morocco as compensation for barbary pirate slavery.

      2. He knows nothing of Spain, any information some may have read to him would have left out the periods when the Spanish people and captured white children were enslaved by the orders from Alhambra.

    3. Is that a spoof or did he really say it? He's far more privileged than most of us. And white people and white systems have allowed him to flourish and spout his bile. Wonder what his life would be like if he'd been born in Africa and stayed there?

      1. Imagine the misery his white wife has to endure when he makes the beast with two backs.

        1. A reference to William Wobbledagger's work no less:

          "“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.”

      2. To that end, I posted this a few months ago. It's worth repeating:

        All slave descendants from the West Indies have what I call slave privilege. If their enslaved ancestors had been dragged across the Sahara, they wouldn't be here, as the men were all castrated. If their ancestors had never been enslaved, they would have been born in some third-world dump in Africa.
        As their ancestors were taken across the Atlantic, their immediate forbears were able to settle in the UK, thus offering them the opportunity to prosper as they would never have done in the West Indies.
        That is their Slave Privilege! Bear that in mind, Mr Lammy.

    6. I have had it up to here with this ignorant grifting oaf.
      According to Wiki, Lammy was born in 1972. Even if he was born to successive generations of people who didn’t breed until they were 40, the nearest relative he could have that was born into slavery would be a great great grandparent and it is more likely that it would be more remote than that. So not only he himself, but his parents and probably his grandparents won’t have known any relatives who had ever been slaves. Yet it somehow oppresses him so much?
      Let’s contrast it with my children’s grandparents – people they actually knew. Their step grandmother had been a slave – not in the Caribbean but in a labour camp in Europe. The people who enslaved her were Germans. All the property that belonged to their paternal grandparents was appropriated by the state and has never been returned, even though much of it is in countries that are EU members.
      Would Mr Lammy care to demand reparations for them?

      1. Don't get wound up. It is alleged Sir KS was merely taking the piss in appointing him Foreign Secretary…

  67. So no wonder the lefty politicians all love Net Zero

    It transfers the means of production to the workers.

    The workers in China

  69. That's me for today. Very pleasant. Hard work in t'garden. Now relaxed. Pickles was a GREAT help when picking apples – standing under the ladder, chasing fallen fruit.

    I must own up that I made up the Lammy "quote" – but I am impressed that it appeared genuine!

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  70. Such a pity…

    Hezbollah successor ‘unreachable after Israeli airstrike’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/10/05/TELEMMGLPICT000396792863_17281351065640_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Hashem Safieddine photographed in August 2024

    Hashen Safieddine, widely expected to succeed slain Hassan Nasrallah as leader of Hezbollah, has been unreachable since an Israeli air strike on Friday, three Lebanese security sources told Reuters.

    Reports suggest Safieddine, who was Nasrallah’s cousin, had been targeted in an Israeli strike.

    A high-level Hezbollah source confirmed that contact with Safieddine had ben lost.

    “Contact with Sayyed Safieddine has been lost since the violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs” early Friday, the source told AFP. “We don’t know if he was at the targeted site, or who may have been there with him.”

    Safieddine was born in the southern Lebanese village of Deir Qanoun En Nahr near Tyre in 1960 and studied theology at two Shia institutions – one in Najaf, Iraq and the other in Qom, Iran.

    His son is married to the daughter of the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a 2021 US drone strike.

    The loss of Nasrallah’s rumoured successor would be yet another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran.

    Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah’s leadership.

    5. It is rumoured that Saffieddine has been killed. At this sad time we all offer our condolences to the Labour party and the BBC…

  71. I see the Foreign Secretary has opened talks to return Falkirk to Argentina.

    4. I don't understand how it is possible for part of our sovereign realm to be legally gifted to foreigners without at least parliamentary scrutiny. And what of our Monarch? Should he not prevent this? They have given away something that doesn't belong to them – something which they were elected to preserve and steward wisely for the good of the nation. It reeks of treason.

      2. Farage has written to Lammy requesting a debate in the hoc before any islands are signed over.
        According to X the dirty deed was done in recess before anybody knew.

        1. Judicial review? After all, Gina Miller succeeded in getting a judgment that effectively said that constitutional changes must go through the HoC

  72. Just a simple question about these Chagos Islands that Starmer is giving away.

    They do realize that they are low lying little islands don't they? Wouldn't the increased sea level resulting from the promised apocalyptic global warming have the whole shebang disappearing under the waves before net zero can ride to the rescue?

    1. That's probably the ideological reason for giving them away! Unfortunately it is a load of bollocks….

    2. Inconvenient fact that you are not supposed to notice. Or that the poor Chagos islanders who were unceremoniously turfed out at short notice in the 1970s by Britain, do not seem to have had any say in the gift of their homeland to Mauritius either.

  74. There is a well known saying that Marriage has a familiar ring;

    Engagement Ring
    Wedding Ring
    Suffering

    Today I find myself in that 'happy' state after 49 years!

      2. How many Nottlers met the love of their life aged more than 40 when I met Caroline; and how many met the love of their life younger than 24 the age when Caroline met me?

        (I suspect more in the second category than in the first)

        3. I heard last week that the ex Mr Cup of thirty years (we split up about three years ago) died a few weeks ago. I'm very sad about that, I'd have liked to have seen him again.

    5. Marriage is a fantastic institution – provided, of course, you like living in institutions……..

      1. What no one ever tells the happily married couples is to lower their expectations…

        She becomes unhappy because she expects him to change and is disappointed when he never does..
        He doesn't expect her to change and is disappointed when she does….

    6. Marriage is a fantastic institution – provided, of course, you like living in institutions……..

    1. Lots about this appearing on inappropriate news sites over here (so don't go looking on cnn or msnbc).

      It has taken over a week but several hundred Canadian utility repair crews are now on their way to North Carolina to help repair their infrastructure.

      1. These storms aren't really a surprise though the severity might be….why aren't rescue groups able to mobilise immediately?

        Like Grenfell it sounds like bureaucrats need to make lots of announcements before anything can happen.

  77. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e45375f42c385a64d7a1f475ed34689c8e0b99a8/0_0_5712_4284/master/5712.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=dec13af3cd2b81885415821e98e06b67 St James's Park

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6d9874d1a6808e8f7389c925a7adaf39da4f64bb/0_0_3489_2430/master/3489.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=37d2f38c96b12fcbce7be65a543ad246 “Draw me like one of your French girls” … a seal on the banks of the River Stour near Ramsgate.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e6ba8aaeed7dc05094062ca1fc0f84ab36167d08/0_0_4032_1908/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=0e35f9d3ca89e599a464d702bd43f7ee A pine marten takes its first step into the wild. Eight adult females and seven males have been relocated to Dartmoor

    1. The wonderful thing about the Pelican
      Is that it's beak
      Can hold more than its belly can!

      2. He can take in his beak
        Enough food for a week
        And I’m damned if I know how
        The hell ‘e can!

      3. He can hold in his beek
        Enough for a week
        But I really don't know how the Hell he can!

        Sorry everyone got there first before I read down!

    2. Pine Martens are great at taking out grey squirrels – they cant get at the lighter red squirrels who can escape onto thinner branches.

    3. I’ve never seen a pelican at St. James’s Park! They wouldn’t half mess up the pitch and I’m not sure they like Magpies!

  78. They don't give up, do they? No doubt, plenty of gullible fools who read the report will be making haste to book the latest conjab, and many will be more than happy to pay if they are not in the 'vulnerable' groups. Masks at the ready!
    All of 115 alleged cases in the UK. Panic! Hospitals are about to be overwhelmed.
    Edit: Sounds just like the common cold or maybe flu.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13927609/new-xec-covid-variant-map-europe-doctor-warning.html

    1. It makes their covid shots even less worthwhile than they would be otherwise. Health Canada are bragging about their latest shot that is targeted at some kp-2 variant that was around back in May.

      It's like being offered flu shots from 2020!

      1. But the gullible will be queueing up. I wonder if they are still 'boosting' young, healthy children in Canada? If they are being offered, I would guess my grandies will be in the line.

  79. About 4½h of chainsawing today, two tanks worth of 2-Stroke.
    All the large diameter logs cleared from where they'd been felled with several taken right down to the top terrace.
    I've realised that, when dealing with 12"+ diameter logs, cutting to lengths at least 3x the diameter makes getting them down the hill a lot easier, despite the heavier weight.
    Need to do some tidying up at the lower level tomorrow.

    1. Have you thought about taking a holiday in the Brazilian Rainforest like Ndovu?… Lots of timber there i understand…just saying….

          5. Thanks Kingy! Been on high alert all day and am now off to bed! 🥱
            The twins will rise at 6.30!

          6. Thanks Kingy! Been on high alert all day and am now off to bed! 🥱
            The twins will rise at 6.30!

      1. Many of the real things at Firstborn's place.
        Felled trees with pointy ends in the river.

    3. Greta the green goddess would be proud of you for so much pollution.

      If I managed a tankful of fuel in my chainsaw, I would be knackered.

      1. You and all of us are free to think nasty thoughts, but please don't post them here. At least your gaydar was in working order.

        1. Phil can (like most of us) get a tad emotional from time to time – nay incandescent!

          1. Especially on Saturday evening.
            Had a couple of tinctures myself, about to hit the sack.

        2. In todays world such words could end up with Geoffs front door being demolished by the thought police.

          Unfortunate but true.

        1. Ah, that's the problem with getting older. Inside every man there is a prostate desperate to get out!

          1. During my prostate exam, my doctor told me it’s perfectly normal to become aroused and even ejaculate. That being said, I still wish he hadn’t.

    2. Great film – enjoying it does not make you a racist fascist bigot – quite the opposite I would have thought!

  82. Evening, all. Spent most of the day in No. 1 Radio School, Cosford (at an AGM). You know you're getting old when the erks on the gate look as though they are still at school. Was gratified to find I am still on the system and was allowed in. Was amused when one of the hams had a sign on his Zoom picture "GCHQ – the only government department that actually listens to you". Interesting that HF comms are coming back.

    We all know Labour intends to betray the indigenous; whether by freezing us to death or importing hordes of savages to kill us or legalising euthanasia. We need to fight back.

      1. Yes it was, but I'm not sure Locking is still an RAF posting. So much has been "consolidated" (i e shut down and closed). No 1 radio school has been at Cosford since 1998. Before it was at Locking it was at Flowerdown in Hampshire (No 1 RS at Cosford is in Flowerdown House).

          3. The Radio School didn't move until 1998 so it wouldn't have been there (nor would Flowerdown House) when you were there.

      2. I did all my Army signals courses in Warminster at the School of Infantry. (I was awarded Top Student at one of them :))

  84. Another day is done so, goodnight, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen fruh. Schlaf gut. Ich hoffe.

    1. The really interesting thing about STD's is when you look at official data in some regions in the UK there are no women logged over the age of 45 attending the STD clinic…

      In other words – play safe – Sleep with older women!!!

      1. Er, we get plenty through the doors. I'll run the exact figures if you like when I get ack to work on Monday.

      4. I don’t know, but I think it’s fairly recent, possibly because VD was essentially from “normal” male female intercourse. After the huge increase in things like HIV due to promiscuous homosexuality and sex in all holes STI/STD widened the net, (as it were).

    3. Why isn't Norn Iron coloured in? It's part of UK.
      Otherwise the label should have been GB.

  89. She no longer looks at the sky
    She knows that Death is nigh
    Far too long suffering in pain
    Her breathing staccato now and again
    And when it comes, the Eternal end,
    Mercifully a true God send.

      1. Fit to rule? No, not even fit to live.
        Oh, miserable country, ruled by a murderous tyrant with no right to rule.

        [Malcolm tests out MacDuff saying he has even more faults than the king who was formerly the Thane of Cawdor in the Scottish Play. Finally MacDuff can stand it no longer and says Malcolm is not fit to live]

        2. Incredible to think we are reliving the Stuart times. Kingly patronage replaced by PM patronage. The new Puritanism in the form of eco- and trans-zealotry. What a world. I might be minded to opine we need a new, successful Guy Fawkes, but that would lay me open to a two-year stretch of Porridge, so I won’t even think it.

  94. EEarly night tonight – I'm pooped having spent all afternoon rearranging Mama's living 4oom furniture in about fifteen different ways before she decided.
    I'm not as young as I was.

  95. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Macron’s EU gloom is well placed
    Gavin Mortimer5 October 2024, 12:00am
    Michel Barnier was interviewed on prime time television on Thursday night and not once in his 45 minutes of conversation did he mention the name Emmanuel Macron. There was an indirect reference to the president of the Republic, when Barnier described himself as the ‘anti-Jupiter’ Prime Minister. ‘Jupiter’ was one of the nicknames bestowed on Macron when he came to power in 2017 – and the world, albeit briefly, was fooled into thinking this was a man of rare talent.

    The French media appear to be taking their lead from Barnier. There was scant coverage of the president’s visit to Berlin on Wednesday when he spoke at a Global Dialogue event. Fortunately for Macron he did have an audience in European and British journalists, who were present to report his bleak assessment of the European Union. ‘The EU could die,’ he declared. ‘We are on the verge of a very important moment. Our former model is over – we are over-regulating and under-investing. In the two to three years to come, if we follow our classical agenda, we will be out of the market.’

    His remarks echo those last month of Mario Draghi, when the former president of the European Central Bank predicted that Europe would suffer a slow and agonising death if it didn’t undergo ‘unprecedented’ reform. ‘For the first time since the cold war, we must genuinely fear for our self-preservation, and the reason for a unified response has never been so compelling,’ announced Draghi in a 400-page report, explaining that Europe required additional annual investment of at least €750 billion – approximately 5 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product – if the EU is to catch up to America and China.

    Most popular
    Lloyd Evans
    Inside the Welsh village where English speakers aren’t welcome

    Referencing Europe’s two competitors, Macron said: ‘They invest much more, they are much more in advance.’ But the Frenchman also accused the pair of flouting convention. ‘When both the US and China do not respect the rules, we should not be the only one in the room to just abide by the rules,’ he said. ‘This doesn’t fly. I don’t suggest trying to become protectionist, this is an awful world, but at least to be fair. With our industry, with our farmers, with our people.’

    Macron must have had a sense of déjà vu as he spoke. He’s been urging the EU to get its act together for years, since September 2017, in fact, when he gave a keynote speech at the Sorbonne entitled ‘Initiative for Europe’.

    ‘What we need is a long-term economic and political strategy,’ declared Macron. ‘And our challenge within the eurozone is to work out how to make it an economic power which can compete with China and the United States, and how to achieve what for the past ten years we have failed to do: to create jobs and ensure that today’s generation.’

    That failure now extends to 17 years and there is little sign that the EU will stir itself anytime soon and compete with China and the USA.

    The EU’s economy has never been so vulnerable, a fragility embodied by Germany, as Ross Clark recently highlighted. Their economy has now contracted in four of the past seven quarters, and there is no cause for optimism on the horizon.

    On the eve of June’s European elections, Gabriel Attal, then Prime Minister, warned the French not to vote for the Euroscepticism of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. After all, look at those British, still crying over Brexit and wishing they could return to a dysfunctional bloc run by third-rate bureaucrats. Le Pen’s party romped to victory, taking a third of the vote, more than twice that of Attal’s Renaissance party.

    Britain, on the other hand, is coping better than its EU neighbours in these harsh economic times. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the country’s growth is ‘robust’ and among the G7 countries only America’s economy will perform better this year.

    This is a fact that very few of the Paris elite, be they politicians or journalists, can bring themselves to admit. The vast majority worship Brussels with the same dogged and deluded devotion as their president.

    The vast majority worship Brussels with the same dogged and deluded devotion as their president
    Then Le Monde, the paper of the Progressive Paris establishment, tried something similar in the subsequent parliamentary elections. ‘The economic and political disaster that followed the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU has turned Brexit into a deterrent,’ it declared in an op-ed.

    Again, the French people saw through such nonsense and more of them (37 per cent of the popular vote) voted for Le Pen than any other party. They did so because they know what Macron is now realising: that the EU is dying. And it’s taking Macron’s political career with it.

  96. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    A remake of Cheers won’t work
    Patrick West5 October 2024, 12:00am
    One of the most popular sitcoms of the 1980s, Cheers, is set to return to our television screens. The show is set for a revamp, except now it will be uprooted from Boston and transposed to a pub in Britain. This is obviously a terrible idea, for a few logistical reasons – and for one large cultural reason.

    Comedy wasn’t a slave to politics back then
    The main scriptwriter for the UK remake is reported by the Daily Telegraph to be our own Simon Nye, the brains behind Men Behaving Badly, while it’s being developed by Big Talk Studios. Its chief executive Kenton Allen explains that it will be no mere repeat performance of the original:

    ‘The attitudes of Cheers in the 80s are very different to the attitudes of today, so there’s a massive amount of work to be done around taking inspiration from the original characters but creating something fresh.’

    That statement alone should have alarm bells ringing loudly for aficionados of the original series.
    The makers face many obstacles even before the writers put pen to paper or cameras start to role. For one, attempts to transport comedy shows from one side of the Atlantic to the other have an awful track record. Men Behaving Badly was one such example, with its US version running for two series between 1996 and 1997. American versions of Dad’s Army, The Inbetweeners, and The Thick of It fared even worse. Most famously there were several failed attempts to transpose Fawlty Towers. British attempts to remake US sitcoms The Golden Girls and Married…With Children also foundered. The only comedy ever to have successfully traversed the cultural divide between our two countries has been The Office.

    The sitcom as a genre is decidedly passé today, ever since its heyday of the 1990s. That was the decade that witnessed the tail end of Cheers, and the dawn of Frasier, Friends and Seinfeld. These remain classics. The only sitcom remotely of note to have emerged from the USA since has been The Big Bang Theory. Back home, the turn of the millennium similarly saw Father Ted, I’m Alan Partridge and The Office. Again, it’s been thin gruel ever since. The only domestic sitcom of recent years to have made an impact has been Not Going Out.

    In an age when audiences prefer cheap, quick laughs from YouTube and TikTok clips, commissioning editors consider sitcoms too expensive and too long-term a gamble. They’re also too politically risky. One of the reasons the US version of Men Behaving Badly failed was that cable audiences found its bawdy, gross-out humour inappropriate. Sitcoms inevitably touch upon serious issues of the day, and amidst today’s mood of cancellation and self-censorship, to approach serious issues is a venture fraught with peril. How confident would nervous producers feel now in making a show featuring David Brent, with all his awful, unacceptable views?

    And what a time to decide on a comedy set in a British pub. As Kenton Allen himself concedes: ‘I might be insane. The British pub is an endangered species, so there’s an answer for the “Why now?” about it.’ Why now indeed. What with this institution already having been hit by the smoking ban, a rise in abstemiousness, a culture averse to the lunchtime or after-work pint, the British pub is now threatened by our government with the threat of reduced opening hours, two-thirds-sized pint glasses and a reputed hike in alcohol duty. Making the British boozer a funny place to be will take some leaps of the imagination.

    Yet what of the eventuality of a re-vamped Cheers for the mid-21st century? Contemporary television is particularly susceptible to the whims and diktats of identity politics, as Dr Who audiences or those who follow BBC drama know all-too-well. Anyone who still catches early morning re-runs of Cheers on Channel 4 can’t help agreeing that it is very 80s. Yet that’s its appeal. That’s why Channel 4 still show it and why people still watch it. Comedy wasn’t a slave to politics back then.

    Its original integrity can only be but compromised by the demands of today. The first ‘problematic’ issue will be its all-white cast. This is seen as even unacceptable today in historic dramas set in periods when everyone actually was white. There were also no regular gay character in Cheers, let alone those from the trans community. Its lead protagonist Sam Malone, so obviously the epitome of chauvinism and ‘toxic masculinity’, would have to be emasculated or done away with. Its principle women would no longer be the vain snob Diane Chambers or the avaricious neurotic Rebecca Howe, but a mandatory ‘strong female character’.

    As as for the dipsomaniac, work-shy Norm Peterson, whose much-maligned wife we never even got to see? He would be history. So too might be all our fond memories of this charming show.

    1. "The only comedy ever to have successfully traversed the cultural divide between our two countries has been The Office."

      Till Death Do Us Part transferred successfully.

    2. Forget all the guff about self censorship and political incorrectness. TV companies would be incapable of signing off anything funny, quite simply. They are far too priggish and humourless to ever countenance doing such a thing.

    3. Having been a great fam of Married…With Children, the UK version with Russ Abbott was dire.

      1. In 2011 they made a shortlived Spanish version of ‘Cheers’ starring national glamourpusses. 26 episodes were initially ordered, bot only thirteen were made and the series was cancelled after nine were broadcast. Very disappointing results.

    2. Please keep France away from any 'wars'

      UK does not have enough white sheets for the French to turn into Flags

      1. Sir Keir is busy knitting a white flag for a remote part of the Falkland Islands facing Argentina.. to send a clear message.

      2. Sir Keir is busy knitting a white flag for a remote part of the Falkland Islands facing Argentina.. to send a clear message.

    3. .. We are defending on seven eight fronts.. in Gaza against Hamas, in Lebanon against Hezbollah, fighting against Houthis in Yemen, militia in Iraq, terrorists in Judea and Samaria, fighting against Iran.. and of course the moronic Leftie progressive and their infantile off spring.
      The axis of terror stands together.

      Shame on them?
      They have no shame.

    4. .. We are defending on seven eight fronts.. in Gaza against Hamas, in Lebanon against Hezbollah, fighting against Houthis in Yemen, militia in Iraq, terrorists in Judea and Samaria, fighting against Iran.. and of course the moronic Leftie progressive and their infantile off spring.
      The axis of terror stands together.

      Shame on them?
      They have no shame.

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