Saturday 5 September: A Covid test? Certainly, just book a slot online and fill up the petrol tank

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/2020/09/04/letters-covid-test-certainly-just-book-slot-online-fill-petrol/

592 thoughts on “Saturday 5 September: A Covid test? Certainly, just book a slot online and fill up the petrol tank”

  1. Good morning Folks,

    Lovely clear sky this morning, at about 5.30 the moon was out and some bright stars, I assume they were planets.

    1. Under Build! Build! Build! (and it’s gone very quiet on Robert Jenrick since Parliament came back), these fighting age migrants will be assembled into cells in our cities, funded by quantitative easing and putting up Council Tax and VAT (which are not “tax” according to the spin doctors).

      Those indigenes that can afford it will be decanted into gated executive estates in the prettier parts of the countryside, where there is to be no further control over speculative development, except on those who are not in the pay of the developers, who will have draconian control over acceptable style to show that the rules are still being applied.

      Those indigenes that cannot move out or employ security to guard the gates can expect Mugabe-style raids on their homes, since clearly they are white-privileged and their lives don’t matter.

      Conservative Government anyone? Starmer = more of the same.

      1. 323333+ up ticks,
        Morning JM,
        As in a lab/lib/con coalition party I would & have said many a time.
        The party first mode of voting gives the electorate the same result, nout but sh!te.

        The last time the electorate could get away with
        putting the party before Country, maybe, their
        great grandfathers were playing football

    2. 323333+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      When all is revealed Og I wonder which of the political
      twisted treacherous politico’s has the uniform franchise.

      We could be in for a nationwide re-run of the
      Eagle has Landed via these political twisted tw@ts.
      .

  4. Morning all

    SIR – I have been offered an appointment for minor surgery at a hospital just six miles away. Excellent!

    However, I must have a Covid-19 test before arriving at the hospital, and have been offered an appointment at a drive-through centre in Ipswich, 108 miles away. Not so excellent.

    David Vincent

    Cranbrook, Kent

    SIR – Covid testing came up in conversation. Three of the group worked in large hospitals. One physiotherapist said she was tested every Monday, as were all members of staff.

    Another physio, despite being on the Covid-intensive ward at the height of the pandemic, had only been tested once for antibodies.

    The third, a doctor, had not been tested at all.

    If testing is that patchy among front-line staff, what hope is there for the general population?

    Jan Denbury

    Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire

    SIR – Once again lockdown has been imposed on Trafford. The rise in cases was 84 in a population of approximately 243,000, in an area of 41 square miles. That is one case in every 2,893 residents.

    The purpose of test and trace is to contact people who have possibly contracted the virus, with a view to their isolation. Is it really beyond the wit of man to identify the households with the virus and their contacts, in order to request them to quarantine, instead of expecting the whole of Trafford to lock down yet again, causing exasperation and massive inconvenience to its citizens, and devastation to local businesses?

    It’s time we came to terms with the fact that, with the number of cases and deaths falling, we should get over the fear inculcated by the Government and scientists, and pick up the threads of normal life.

    Marilyn Parrott

    Altrincham, Cheshire

    SIR – Both my husband and I are eligible for flu vaccinations this winter and indeed are being urged to have them “to help relieve pressure on the NHS and save lives”. So I rang our doctor’s surgery (which is effectively closed) to see how the system would work once the vaccinations are available later this month.

    The receptionist said she could only add our names to the list. There were no plans in place to vaccinate patients, as the doctors were only conducting telephone consultations, other than in emergencies. I did query how a vaccination could be done over the phone or by Zoom.

    It seems that pharmacies are expected to offer the service. How is it safe for an already overworked pharmacist to inject someone ­but not safe for doctors and nurses to do the same?

    I am keen to protect ourselves and help save the NHS, but it seems the surgery I have used for 56 years is not as keen.

    Annette Reeve

    Watford, Hertfordshire

    1. Mr Vincent should find out his nearest test centre and simply go there.

      My BiL – who lives in East Sheen London – was told to go to Manchester – but he just drove five miles to the Twickenham place – which was empty – and as tested there.

  5. On September 1, the Channel was patrolled all day by three aircraft; a Tekever AR5 drone operated on behalf of the Home Office, a Coastguard Piper Navajo and an RAF Shadow R1 reconnaissance aircraft. These aircraft were on the British side of the median line between England and France.

    The migrants in their overloaded inflatable boats were undeterred on September 1, when 145 arrived in 18 boats, as were the 409 (a record number for one day) on September 2.

    When will the Government agree that the problem of uncontrolled immigration across the English Channel in small boats will not be resolved off the coast of Kent?

    With the support of the French government, the beaches of northern France must be patrolled continuously when the weather is good enough for small boats to set sail, with light spotter planes reporting migrant activity to the Anglo-French intelligence centre in Calais.

    The migrants must be stopped in France before they risk their lives and the lives of their children at sea.

    Sqn Ldr James A Cowan (retd)

    Durham

    1. I wonder how many have to actually come in before “Jim” realises that the government has no intention of stopping them!

    3. The old joke was:

      The definition of revenge – a bastard going around a Durex factory with a pin!

      But shouldn’t we be employing some people to go round the rubberware dinghy outlets in France with pricks puncturing their products?

  6. SIR – A local private hospital was taken over by the NHS at the beginning of lockdown until December 2020. It has since opened, in the evenings only, for private patients’ consultations and non-operating procedures.

    I went for such a procedure last week, helped by two lovely nurses seconded from an NHS hospital. During the pandemic, they said, they had been bored, with nothing to do most of the time. Presumably, this same situation applies to other private hospitals hired with taxpayers’ money.

    What is wrong with NHS management? Surely extra capacity now is the perfect chance for the NHS to catch up on its enormous backlog.

    Sally Gordon

    Emsworth, Hampshire

  7. SIR – Goodness me – a BBC director-general with his finger on the pulse of the nation. Will I awaken from this reverie?

    Jim Reside

    London W4

    1. If I thought for one moment that the new DG really is a new broom who is prepared to take drastic action to restore impartiality and abolish the equally damaging ‘wokeness’ – monumental tasks given the deep-rooted leftie bias – I would be cheering him on. But I think this is pie in the sky, and the urge to defund will become the only solution available in the relatively short time left between now and Charter renewal (or possibly non-renewal). Such is the resistance in the rank and file to wholesale, fundamental reform, I can readily envisage industrial action as the gravy train heads for the buffers. Which is why it aint going to happen.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    2. Yes you will. His “gestures” are ploys to make hoi polloi believe he i serious. He has no chance.

    3. Unlike today’s counter-tenor he is a castrato – cut out for the job before puberty arrives.

      He gave the impression that he can hit the high notes but is just as base as the rest of the BBC minions and bigots.

      1. Out of sheer pedantry, counter tenors are whole, just adept at using their head voice. Castrati were a whole different ball game . . .

        2. I am aware of that – indeed one of my friends is a counter tenor who has fathered a couple of children! I have amended my post. The main point is that he has shown himself to be metaphorically impotent at the first opportunity.

  9. Painting a picture…..

    SIR – I remember in Union Square, New York, there was a store called Sig Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop. So what, I would say.

    I also remember visiting Honfleur in France two years ago. We stayed at a hotel with a large balcony. We didn’t turn on the television. We sat out, with a marvellous view of the Seine estuary, the Normandy bridge on our right and the large cranes of Le Havre on the left. The sun was setting behind us. It was fabulous: the long shadows of all the trees, with the Normandy bridge lit up white.

    We smoked cigarettes and ordered champagne. We sat there for two hours; the hour-long twilight had the richest colours. I will always remember it.

    Yet the newspapers today tell you “no drinking” and “forget about smoking”. This just makes me laugh. No television could have shown you the beauty we saw; you had to experience it yourself. Lots of people could have watched it from almost anywhere on the bank of the Seine.

    Love life. The bossy-boots don’t.

    David Hockney

    Rumesnil, Calvados, France

    2. “The Normandy bridge on our right and the large cranes of Le Havre on the left” and an imposing shaft from the Naval College coming up from the rear left us gasping with delight!

    3. Apart from the smoking of course, which is disgusting.

      In fact, smokers should only allowed to light up inside a human sized prophylactic. Then made to eat the butt of their disgusting habit.

    4. We visited “Ze big Chentlemans shop” in Berlin, near KaDeWe. Suits that you could park a car in (jacket buttons done up), and still open the doors. Belts as long as the Queen Mary… but they sold their smallest size leather jacket to Firstborn, and took the sleeves up on Sunday morning as well.

  10. Working from home, but not working at all

    SIR – About 10 weeks ago, my German-born wife sent off tax forms that she needed to have stamped by HM Revenue and Customs for the German tax authorities.

    Her online HMRC account showed receipt of the forms and an anticipated action date of July 14, four weeks after HMRC received the documents.

    On July 17, when nothing had been heard, I rang HMRC, which took 37 minutes to answer. The staff member – working from home on a very poor line – explained that they had the forms but, due to Covid, they would not be dealt with until August 18.

    My request for the matter to be expedited so that my wife could meet the German tax office deadline and escape penalties met with indifference.

    On August 7 we rang HMRC again. After a 22-minute wait, we spoke again to a home worker. He explained that his computer wasn’t functioning and transferred us to a colleague; the process took a considerable amount of time. The colleague’s computer was not working properly either, but hearing my frustration he transferred us yet again to another colleague.

    By this time I had been on the telephone for over 40 minutes. The third colleague was more helpful. He told us that our papers were with the technical department and were due for action by September 8. He could not raise the technical department, but said it would call me back within three days. It did not.

    We then sent off a formal complaint to HMRC, which promised us an answer within 15 working days. None came. We complained again and received the same response – another wait of 15 working days.

    My wife has now sent the German tax office copies and transcripts of the correspondence and telephone calls with HMRC in the hope that she does not receive an unwarranted bill for non-compliance.

    We are both in our seventies and have found this experience exhausting, worrisome and totally out of order. Not only has HMRC been unhelpful, but at times obstructive and uncaring.

    Has the entire public sector stopped functioning? Are the appropriate ministers aware of this debacle?

    David Fullard

    Broughton, Lincolnshire

    1. I’m trying to find out if 55 year old Premium Bonds, discovered in an old shopping bag with ancient Christmas cards and a mixture of utility bills, have won anything in that past half century.
      It would seem that Ernie’s servants are not working from home or anywhere else.
      Ah well, KBO.

        1. You can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried on a weekly basis. That area of the NS&I section is not functioning.

          2. If you cash them in you will receive any prizes.

            Assuming they are yours rather than someone else’s, if you have any “modern” ones you should have a holder’s number and an NS&I number.

            In theory Ernie should know the details and connect the old with the new. We have prizes reinvested but very old ones probably won’t have that facility and prizes where the cheque has not been cashed should be stored.
            Good luck.

          3. They date from November 1965. I have sent a recorded letter, a completed downloaded form and copies of PoA to the office in Glasgow that deals with these matters. I will wait until the end fo this month and then gee things up again.
            Thank goodness we are checking every envelope and box rather than chucking the lot in a skip.
            We found a will (one of several it would seem) in a drawer containing nightdresses. Oh, and a dangerously bulging tin of cherry pie filling in a bedside cabinet. Plus a door behind piled up clothing that we thought led into the bathroom but which proved again to be full of clothes, shoes and unopened old books.

          4. I found a Russian pistol in my late mother’s knicker drawer. That was a bit of a surreal day.

          7. Respect. I was impressed with finding elderly chum’s late brothers false teeth; he died in 2009.

          9. Doesn’t everyone keep a tin of cherry pie filling beside the bed?

            ‘Moaning, Annie. I don’t envy your task…just getting rid of 31 years’ accumulated clag for a forthcoming house move is more than enough for me.

    2. Welcome to big state.

      What’s annoying is that the ‘computer problems’ are not fixed and will not be resolved. Now imagine if those people didn’t get paid if they weren’t useful. Suddenly their computers would start working.

      As regards people not returning calls – the public sector has no interest in doing so. It gets paid regardless of competence. Complaints won’t help as those people handling the complaints have no motivation or, more usually ability to improve things as the problem is endemic in how the system works. It’s like trying to turn the tide back.

    1. Hmm. If Kier Starmer doesn’t like him… whoever it is is the right man for the job!

      It’s a bit like the Guardian rule: If the Guardian doens’t like it, do it. If the guardian does like it, stop doing it!

      1. 323333+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        So in some respects they are doing the decent peoples a beneficial service, don’t tell them that though pike.

      2. The BBC report was telling: it said that Abbott was appointed in spite of his controversial views. This implies that there should be no ‘freedom of speech or thought’ and people’s opinions must be vetted before they are given any job.

        But who should do the vetting? And who should vet the vetters?

        ( I wonder if Owen Jones and Naz Shah have put their names forward as vetters with the correct opinions)

    1. If he was coughing over people (deliberately, as opposed to simply coughing) then he’s a twerp who should have been fined.

      If he was minding his own business and simply not wearing a maskk them just ignore him for making the choice he has. On a train you’re all breathing the same air for the journey, so just give over and grow up.

      1. That’s right. If anyone deliberately (as opposed to accidentally) coughed on me I would lay him spark out.

    2. “Man charged after uniformed Gestapo Officer pepper sprays him for not wearing a mask on a train”.

      An example of future train travel in the UK.

      By the way, HS2 is nothing to do with ‘high speed’, It is the German abbreviation for Heer Sondertransport 2 (Occupation Army) Special Transport Service No 2 – No 1 is already installed in France.

  15. No newspaper. Apparently the XR terrorists prevented newspapers from leaving the printers. Good way to spread their “message”.

  16. So – (© telly tart) we have no government; we are ruled by diktat; the police arrest innocent people on no pretext; thousands of illegals arrive each week; tiny – miniscule- minorities wreck everything while the perlice stand and watch; but Lineker has been told that the new “strictures” about being political don’t apply to him. So that’s a relief.

    Thank God for the crossword.

      1. And a very Bonne Journée to you, Caroline.

        I need a larf…although I am busy making a loaf!

    3. I do crosswords every morning. You wouldn’t want to hear the one way conversation between me and Radio 4, the BBC’s principle propaganda station and its mindless zealots.

  17. From The Grimes (online)

    “Rupert Read, an Extinction Rebellion leader, said that “parasitic” hard-left groups were trying to piggyback on climate protests to further political causes. “

    You have to larf…

    2. I am not laughing, and I believe this too. Furthermore, I suspect agents provocateurs coming from the Right. It can be no accident that the worst excesses of wokeness have been going under the watch of Conservative/Republican administrations.

      1. The quote continues:

        “Mr Read said that the climate action group was increasingly aware of groups including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Young Communist League (YCL) seeking to further their own aims through Extinction Rebellion, which has a strict policy of being apolitical.”

        1. The Socialist Workers Party, like the Police, turn up at all demonstrations. Any excuse to wave a red flag.

          I’m waiting for them to turn up to the Countryside Alliance march when protesting about the ban on fox hunting.

          I don’t think they are agents provocateurs, since they are largely good-natured and just there for the chanting, flag-waving and to sell a few pamphlets.

  18. Usual standard of BBC balance just now on Toady, allowing that Thornbury woman almost completely free rein in her diatribe against Tony Abbott, while letting his defender have only the occasional few seconds. Mind you, I think a lot of us would agree wholeheartedly with Abbott’s pronouncements on political correctness and mass immigration, which Thorbury found so offensive.

    1. My own feelings about Tony Abbott are largely positive, although I do not agree with him about climate disturbance caused by human activity, nor about the peril of a mass extinction of biodiversity, which I believe is already well underway.

      On other issues though, I think he has got it spot on, and is a useful antidote to the wokeness that has taken our institutions over.

    2. When I was a toddler, I didn’t need teachers or Government ministers to tell me about what bits I had on my body and what they were for. Nor that I had something that my sister didn’t have. At that age, grown-ups seemed preoccupied with me not putting hands where hands naturally go when relaxed, since it was not polite, especially in the middle of Bentalls.

      1. MOH used to look after two young children many years ago. One day the daughter came out of the loo crying her eyes out. Asking why she was upset the little girl pointed to her brothers groin and sobbed ” Mine’s dropped off into the loo!”

      2. Most of us, I suspect, were fascinated by the differences we found in our anatomies which we discovered in unsupervised moments. This fascination was clearly instilled in us for a purpose but, as with many things when one was an innocent (or even not so innocent) little child, the grown ups wanted to ruin it.

    3. I hope that Hancock is sacked and deselected if it is discovered that he himself has a homosexual paedophiliac past.

        1. Pull the protestors down, beat them soundly with truncheons and send them home without any dinner.

          Also not eon the BBC page : why we won’t vote for Trump again. No ‘Why we won’t vote for Biden’, is there? Biased, through and through.

        2. I know – I have seen it in The Grimes. Can’t understand why the police didn’t force the lorries through.

          1. What? And hurt the feelings of of all those lovely XR peeps?
            Now if they had been stale and pale males who pay their taxes …

          4. Having given up on the perlice too…well…police, it must be time for the publishers to apply for an injunction to have the great unwashed rabble removed.

            ‘Morning, Bill.

          2. Indeed – if only someone would! Our former delivery arrived around noon. The chap always did the same route – so someone got his paper at 6 – and we were the last. I did ask whether – just for once – he could do the route in reverse….. He gave me a look…..

            So we are very fortunate these days. Terrorists permitting.

  21. Just received this email from the Tellygraff.
    No Women’s Sports Section; How Will I Survive?!?!?

    Dear subscriber,

    Unfortunately we have experienced issues at our key newsprinter sites overnight due to protests. We’ve been working hard to ensure we reduce any impact from this however we do anticipate delays across the country and there may be some areas where delivery is not possible today. Rest assured that we are doing all we can to get copies delivered as quickly as we possibly can.

    As a result, some copies may not include the Sports section or Telegraph Women’s Sport.

    We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for continuing to be a loyal subscriber.

    1. With luck Bryony Gordon’s “article” will have gone the same way; look on the bright side.

    2. Why does women’s sport need a separate section? Why not put articles about tennis under Tennis, about rugby under Rugby etc? Not so hard is it?
      Otherwise, create Men’ section as well for men’s sport.

      1. Because many of the women featured will be of a certain hue, whereas men’s sports you mention…

          2. Crochet for men. Dusting for dummies. How to get the back of the fridge really clean. How to make breakfast in bed for your wife. How to be happy as a hen pecked husband.

          2. More to the point, as Women’s Hour is a radio programme, is “Listen with Mother” still on?

            That was one of the highlights of my day about 70 years ago.

          7. Instructions on how to fill a paddling pool with olive oil – plus how many people are allowed to social distance in it.

          8. …along with that big and exceedingly smug woman with specs on the end of her nose and a curtain permanently attached to her shoulder. She should have gone a long time ago. Any prizes for guessing the – ahem – type of woman selected to replace her?

            Manners: ‘Morning, BSK.

          9. Who – on sleb Univ Challenge – introduced herself as, “Dame Jenni Murray…” I kid you not…

          13. No risk of that – it will shortly have a black, lesbian, single-mother – who is transitioning – as presenter. And lots and lots about oppression ad diversity and how badly done by women (esp black women) are; oh and menstruation and the menopause.

            Can’t wait…

  22. “Attack on democracy: Priti Patel condemns Extinction Rebellion for printworks protest. The group targeted presses that print News UK newspapers including The Times and The Sun, but also The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail.”

    Dear Ms Patel, Could we please have some action to accompany your hollow words of condemnation? It is all very well “condemming”, but what are you going to do about it so law abiding citizens can continue our lives uninhindered by an extremist minority?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/extinction-rebellion-blockade-rupert-murdochs-printing-presses/

  23. Is there any word more overused than ‘both’?

    “Both my husband and I are eligible for flu vaccinations this winter”

    1. Confusingly, både… og… (Both… and … in Weegie) can have as many involved as you like – so, it could be the whole village, not just both my husband and I. That took a while to get used to.
      Morning, BSK

          2. I think they have more goats than sheep in Scandiland. Hence my referring to my colleague, whom I despised, as “den gamla geten”.

    2. ‘Morning, D-cup.

      Most authorities on English usage (and abusage), e.g. Fowler, Gowers, etc, deplore the overuse of “filler” words such as both.

    3. One step up from “flu jab”; the word ‘influenza’ must have too many syllables for the average NHS user. No doubt the MSM will soon be referring to the ‘Covi jab.’

      1. At Bristol an ex-Kenyan Indian taught us the use of local anaesthetics & how to inject them. I nicknamed him Guru Jab.

  24. Well; chase my Aunt Fanny round the gasworks.
    In less than a fortnight, the NS&I has replied to me. Albeit to tell me that my copies of PoA documents are ‘incomplete’. They either want originals (dream on) or copies signed by a worthy or the ‘donor’. Fortunately, i’m meeting with my fellow PoVer today.
    Oh well, at least they’ve registered our existence. KBO.

      1. It was a reference to an earlier posting about tracking down old (55 year old in this case) Premium Bonds discovered while clearing elderly chum’s house. National Savings and Investment have a dept that does the tracking, but, being a government organisation appeared to be doing diddly squat at the moment. I sent them forms, letters and copies of my Power of Attorney; on the plus side, they replied, on the minus I still have additional hoops to jump through.

  27. For the Russian state, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny was simply business. 4 September 2020.

    They have undermined neighbouring countries to prevent democracy spreading into Russia; they have strategically hacked political campaigns in western countries to prevent a united front against their kleptocracy; they have used state companies to bully smaller countries, and to reward allies. They have even had fun with it, by using the powers of the state to cheat at sporting events and then by trolling people who get cross. The poisonings, the murders and the attempted murders are just the violent expressions of this constant effort to dominate.

    While they have been building this mafia organisation, however, Russia has continued to look like a normal country, with ambassadors, a parliament, a seat at the United Nations, participation in international forums. Few things show the hollowness of these institutions more than the fact that, in 2017, a deputy minister flew to The Hague to unveil a plaque marking the full destruction of Russia’s chemical weapon stockpile. Less than six months later, two agents of the GRU (Russia’s military spy agency) used novichok – a chemical weapon – to attack the Skripals in Salisbury. Against Navalny, it’s been used again.

    Morning everyone. I personally don’t believe these stories about Russia because after the Skripal affair, which must be the most incompetent False Flag operation in history, I’ve undergone a slow conversion to the view that all of these “assassinations” are fake in one sense or another and that the active ones are committed by Western Intelligence Agencies; except oddly this last, which is Navalny trying to shore up his base. Even if I did believe them it wouldn’t make any difference because I don’t live there. All the things that the author of this piece attributes to Russia apply to the West in Spades. It is utterly corrupt and no longer remotely Democratic and is at present being taken over by a malignant force whose intentions are to eradicate any sense of nationality or belonging and create a population of slaves.

    Compared to that Russia looks like paradise!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/04/for-the-russian-state-the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-was-simply-business

      1. Funny how these deadly poisons are – apparently – readily available but useful poisons for gardeners are banned.

        1. Yerst. You need farming connections, if only to get a can of red diesel (a darn good weed killer, plus other plants if you’re not careful).

  30. 323333+ up ticks,
    In london, ex capital of UK,

    Esther Stanford-Xosei spoke before the crowd of mostly white leftist activists on Tuesday, calling for the creation of a pan-African superstate which she referred to as “Maatubuntuman”.

    Surely masterbationman would be more apt.

  33. I have just clicked on my avatar to check a comment I made earlier only to find that many of my comments have disappeared. Is this a general problem or is something wrong with my computer?

  34. In case you missed it last night. Enri d’Aith responded by asserting that the whole article is discredited because the aim to ‘dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain’ is not claimed by the UK BLM movement. There are two websites fro you to examine:
    https://blacklivesmatteruk.com/
    https://blacklivesmatter.uk

    The madness is more deeply ingrained in the Civil Service than I imagined. I’m sure if someone looks hard enough they will find that the CSRF can be traced back to Blair.
    _______________________________________________________________________

    The Civil Service has been infiltrated by extreme, politicised ideas about race

    Many in our bureaucratic elite are desperate to abase themselves before a creed that despises them

    CHARLES MOORE

    The Civil Service Code says the “core values” of the Civil Service are “integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality”. It explains the word “impartiality”: you must not “allow your personal political views to determine any advice you give or your actions”. You must not “act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests”.

    The code also justifies whistle-blowing: if you “believe that you are being required to act in a way that conflicts with this code, your department or agency must consider your concern, and make sure that you are not penalised for raising it”.

    But what happens if your department’s leaders are themselves breaching the code and actively encouraging their staff to do the same? Who will then be brave enough to trust the code’s claim that you will not be penalised for blowing the whistle?

    Last week in this space, I gave examples of how some permanent secretaries (the top post in each government department), in tweets and internal messages, approvingly used the hashtag Black Lives Matter (BLM) following the killing of George Floyd in early summer. Sir Stephen Lovegrove at the Ministry of Defence was one. Jonathan Slater at the Department for Education was another. Mr Slater advocated “tackling the whiteness of senior Whitehall”. These messages clearly expressed personal political views. They appeared to discriminate against white people. Imagine the justified outcry if Mr Slater had attacked “blackness” in Whitehall.

    This week, the new Cabinet Secretary, the man in charge of all Whitehall departments, has been announced. He is Simon Case, aged only 41, and endowed with an enormous brain. He will need to apply it fast: his service’s impartiality is seriously in question. As with the BBC, this phenomenon is already well known in relation to Brexit, but today – also as with the BBC – it is even stronger in relation to race.

    The mandarins’ endorsement of BLM was not an idiosyncratic “one-off”. It is – to use race-relations jargon – “systemic”. Behind it lie organisations and ideologies within the Civil Service which advance under friendly words like “inclusion” and “diversity”, but leave simple fairness far behind.

    Take the Civil Service Race Forum (CSRF). Although 100 per cent of its members come under the Civil Service Code, it sees itself as a group within government entitled to lobby for particular policies and interests. Thus it tells the Department of Health to follow its recommendations in relation to Covid-19 disparities between white people and ethnic minorities.

    On June 5, the CSRF declared: “We unequivocally support the global Black Lives Matter movement.” Unless civil servants “recognise their own biases” their conduct “risks complicity in upholding racial inequities”, it warned. A second Civil Service organisation, Project Race, born out of the CSRF, was instigated in 2015 by the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Richard Heaton, another senior praise-singer for BLM. It promotes “critical race theory”, based on five “tenets”. These include the idea that “colour-blindness” and “meritocracy” are tools of maintaining white power; opposition to the notion that it is a good thing when the interests of white people and non-white people converge; and the claim that “mainstream” school curriculums are white, middle-class conspiracies against ethnic minorities.

    Out of Project Race come a stream of “race ambassadors” within the Civil Service – 50 in the Ministry of Justice alone – who commit to spending two days a month (at taxpayers’ expense) on their task. The ambassadors bustle round the Civil Service disseminating their woke tenets and collecting “intelligence on the ground” about departments and individuals who are not pulling their weight. Project Race makes sure that senior civil servants are taught about “unconscious bias”, “white supremacy” and “micro-aggressions”, etc.

    When he was foreign secretary in 2018, Jeremy Hunt launched a “reverse mentoring” scheme to crown the glories of Black History Month. Senior British diplomats are taught by young ethnic-minority officials how to think properly (“help challenge ingrained views”). Reading lists circulate, recommending books like Why I Am No longer Talking to White People about Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge. The temptation to take Ms Eddo-Lodge gratefully at her word and not read her book must be irresistible.

    And so it goes on. Somewhere inside all this, the worthwhile idea that people from different backgrounds can enrich this country and give differing perspectives which will be useful to serving the public has vanished.

    The test case is Black Lives Matter itself. What is it? (A question, by the way, that no official has ever sought to answer, even in favourable terms, in their streams of communicated support this summer.)

    If you look at the UK Black Lives Matter fundraising website, you will see both its general aims and its specific policies. The former include the desire to “dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain”. In the eyes of BLM, that must include dismantling the Civil Service which pays the wages of all the people being incited by their bosses and race ambassadors to support it. After all, “the oppressive structures we live under” must go.

    As for the specifics, these include “defunding” the police, an end to all border controls and the “decriminalisation of black students in the classroom” (without explaining how they are criminalised at present).

    I expect all these policies are seen by the majority of the population as wrong and dangerous. More relevantly, from the point of view of Civil Service propriety and therefore of public trust, they are clearly personal political views rather than the policy of the Government which civil servants are duty-bound (as their name implies) to serve. So they blatantly fall foul of the Civil Service Code. Yet no one in the system dares object.

    One unmistakable aspect of these doctrines is that they are explicitly anti-white. They identify all the problems of black people as deriving from white people, all the goodwill of white people as bogus or useless, and all the evils from which black people suffer as inherent in white people simply because they are white.

    That sounds quite like racism to me; and not just to me, but probably to any white person – not to mention non-activist black people – in a work environment where these doctrines are preached. BLM followers complain of “micro-aggressions”. This talk is a macro-aggression.

    There are times when the subject of race drives people mad. I fear we are living in one such. In apartheid South Africa, the desire to maintain white Afrikaner power drove the ruling party into a crazy quest to define everyone as white, black or “coloured” and settle their fates accordingly. Now it is a similar madness the other way round.

    This week, Jessica Krug, a black professor of African-American history at George Washington University and an activist (nom de guerre, Jessica La Bombalera), admitted that her romantic tales of descent from Angola and Brazil were utter fiction. She is actually a white, bourgeois Jewish woman from the suburbs of Kansas City. “I have built my life on a violent anti-black lie,” she said. She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.

    Perhaps Prof Krug has unique personal problems, but there are signs of collective madness in the desire of many in our bureaucratic elite to abase themselves before a creed which despises them. They should not be allowed to do so on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/04/civil-service-has-infiltrated-extreme-politicised-ideas-race/

    1. following the killing of George Floyd in early summer.

      Whether he was actually killed is still to be determined in court. The autopsy suggests he died from a drug overdose, and video footage showed him complaining that he couldn’t breathe before he was even handcuffed.

      As for BLM, the UK organisation is affiliated with the U.S. organisation.
      If they didn’t subscribe to the same ideology, they’d have come up with a different name for their group so there’d be no mistake or confusion.

      1. Writers, even those who should know better, too often write ‘killed’ or, even worse, ‘murdered’ in respect of the Floyd case.

    2. Black looting mob are racist. The clue is in the name.

      The green extinction rebellion are just Lefties – hypocrites. If they really believe what they preach they would go live up a mountain on grass but no… they want to force us to change to suit them.

      Both groups are fascists.

      In the US they’re becoming extremists, violent and evil – as Nazi’s always have, with a real streak of full blown Red Brigade abuse. This is causing a mass exodus of all sensible, law abiding people and business.

      Of course, the Democrats think they’re making Trump look bad – and all these cities are Democrat ones. This is their delusion.

      Frankly, it’s time for a crack down. Every single petulant Lefty needs a knee on his neck. Until they learn to behave a civil individuals, until they stop their abusive, racist attitudes keep them down – especially that racist Indian woman and any politician, anyone supporting tmen in dress- ism and any other nonsense Left wingery.

      Chain and collar them until they learn to behave, stamp out the fascists until they force another global war.

  35. Our old friend is splashing out on a new car, he got bored with his Automatic Jazz .. and wants a real car again, unfortunately the last car before his Jazz was a top mark Range Rover which made him feel like a king , yet he couldn’t hear properly and graunched the gears so much that it became a problem , then he left the tail gate open and everything fell out on the road, and we had a call from the police because he was staying with us then..

    Oh dear , I can see the same thing happening again .. He says he can do what he wants , and of course he can , especially when he is 85. We cannot dare to question his wisdom, he just loves to visit car showrooms , and that nice new car smell.

    Of course it is none of our business, but he showed us a nice metallic red you know what , all we could say was ooh and ahh , and wow!

    More up dates next week. Oh yes , I forgot to mention , he rode 200 miles around Dorset last week on his motor bike . I think he is having a second childhood, anyway , he is in good health , and being an ex para , has maintained his fitness!

    1. One of our near neighbours thought it would be a good idea to laud it around in the RR, but the same thing happened. The gear box packed up and the car was replaced and then the second one had problems. So they bought a large Volvo in the end. And they are still be able to look down on their fellow motorists.

  36. A belated good morning all,………Just a quickie during my coffee break,
    5-september-a-covid-test-certainly-just-book-a-slot-online-and-fill-up-the-petrol-tank/
    And alternatively don’t use your very expensive electric car due to lack of recharging facilities you have no chance of getting their and back with out a stop over. But don’t try and book a hotel they are already all full.
    As usual great organisation by our pointless politico’s eh.
    And Just thing after our tax [payers have supported the billons of pounds on HS2, you will be able to get to Birmingham from London half an o hour quicker. Assuming there has not been an inch of snow or it’s autumnal.
    I think the great British Public have already expressed (scus the pun) their thoughts on this terrible waste of money.
    When it has failed as most of the vastly expensive government projects do remember WE TOLD YOU SO !
    Now back to work …………..slayders. 😎

      1. I’m very neat and tidy uncle Bill.
        They don’t call me pick asso for nothing.
        It took me half a day to mask off the cupboard edges and the white walls from the other ‘tending colours’.
        Still it’s been worth it, ‘er indoors loves it and opposed to a new kitchen it’s saved us about 6 (i get a decent discount from the supplier) grand. Hopefully we can get off to Oz for 6 or 7 weeks sometime next year.
        Can you see what i did there ? 😎🤩

        1. Good to put the saved kitchen money towards the holiday! My lack of spending since our last trip has paid for the next one!

  37. Good Moaning.
    A couple of TCW articles that have – as near as possible in these strange time – nothing to do with Covid, Brexit or BLM.

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/notes-from-the-sticks-cutting-edge-hedge-trimmers/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=24d306d8e3-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-24d306d8e3-559682581

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/the-burning-need-to-incinerate-our-rubbish/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=24d306d8e3-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-24d306d8e3-559682581

    1. We employed a bricklayer whose hobby was hedge-laying.

      He won a major championship one year and was employed by Prince Charles for a hedge project.

        1. Very good.

          It was a bit of a pain for us because he gave up brick-laying for hedging as he could earn more and enjoyed it more.

          We had to wait ages for him to get a window of opportunity to complete some work we needed done. A very skilled individual and worth the wait.

      2. The Government must keep the fear going because the NHS has been freed up so much that people are beginning to think that it could now be safe enough to walk into A&E when they can’t get a GP appointment.

        Hence today’s headline that the Government is thinking of closing walk-in A&E and telling patients to phone 111.
        I can see the introduction of a triage app for smartphones to prioritise access to the on-line 111 service which will be manned by volunteers who have undergone a four hour first responder course.

        1. They’ll be saying next that now there is no need for physical A& E when they can deal with patients just as well online or by 111.

    3. 323333+ up ticks,
      AS,
      It is not over all the time the Dover anti UK invasion campaign is operating & keeping it in play.
      As a matter of fact it would not surprise me if there was not a re-set team scouring the world for pregnant mothers with covid looking to re-set in the UK.
      That mandy ( anybodies candy ) critter was guilty of doing just that some time ago, was he / she / it not ?

    4. Not quite. In Scotland we still have one in every hundred hospital beds occupied by a Covid-19 patient. We also have one in every hundred ICU beds occupied by a Covid-19 patient. (Just because we have over 20,000 empty NHS beds doe not mean it is over.)
      If it really were over, then surely the Government would require everything to go back to “2018 normal” overnight, without the increased restrictions, clampdowns, arrests and fines, that are happening?

      1. You have far greater confidence in your government or the U.K. government than I have had in any government in my 50 odd years as a voter. They scared the sh1t out of with the first advertising campaign warning us that we’re all going to die and now there are very few deaths they’re doing it again with their very obscure Control the Virus campaign. You must know, as they do, that you cannot control the virus but they want exercise control over us.

        As they never tell you the full story that may be fewer deaths than from seasonal flu.

        1. Um. Sorry! I am really saying why, given the very few now affected by Covid-19 (as opposed to the very misleading case numbers from testing) are we not back to normal?
          We need hospitals and dentists etc to re-open normally. There is no medical reason why not.
          Dentists are allowed to handle 10 patients a day, instead of the normal 60 at the practice I attend. Of, course they are still not allowed to use drills or sprays, only hand scraping. I’ve declined.

        2. You can check on this Alf.

          Every year official figures for deaths from ‘flu are issued by the Government.

          Easily downloaded.

          1. Thank you Janet but how will we ever compare this year’s debacle with anything in the past. The integrity of the UK’s statistics is forever tarnished.

    5. “Words mean what I want them to mean”, said Humpty Gatesy, “and ‘it’s over’ means you’re all going to have my luvely vaccine!”.

    6. It’ll never be over. They won’t let it.

      https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/09/04/covid-why-terminology-really-matters/
      COVID – why terminology really, really matters (Dr. Malcolm Kendrick)

      Or how the various advisors and international organisations and epidemiological predictors mixed up Case Fatality Rate and Infection Fatality Rate and cannot go back and admit they’ve made an almighty c*** up. Got to keep it going instead.

      When is a case not a case?

      Since the start of the COVID pandemic I have watched almost everyone get mission critical things wrong. In some ways this is not surprising. Medical terminology is horribly imprecise, and often poorly understood. In calmer times such things are only of interest to research geeks like me. Were they talking about CVD, or CHD?
      However, right now, it really, really, matters. Specifically, with regards to the term COVID ‘cases.’
      Every day we are informed of a worrying rise in COVID cases in country after country, region after region, city after city. Portugal, France, Leicester, Bolton. Panic, lockdown, quarantine. In France the number of reported cases is now as high as it was as the peak of the epidemic. Over 5,000, on the first of September.

      But what does this actually mean? Just keep to the focus on France for a moment. On March 26th, just before their deaths peaked, there were 3,900 hundred ‘cases’. Fourteen days later, there were 1,400 deaths. So, using a widely accepted figure, which is a delay of around two weeks between diagnoses and death, 36% of cases died.
      In stark contrast, on August 16th, there were 3,000 cases. Fourteen days later there were 26 deaths. Which means that, in March, 36% of ‘cases’ died. In August 0.8% of ‘cases’ died. This, in turn, means that COVID was 45 times as deadly in March, as it was in August?
      This seems extremely unlikely. In fact, it is so unlikely that it is, in fact, complete rubbish. What we have is a combination of nonsense figures which, added together, create nonsense squared. Or nonsense to the power ten.
      To start with, we have the mangling of the concept of a ‘case’.
      Previously, in the world of infectious diseases, it has been accepted that a ‘case’ represents someone with symptoms, usually severe symptoms, usually severe enough to be admitted to hospital. Here, from Wikipedia…. yes, I know, but on this sort of stuff they are a good resource.

      ‘In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) — sometimes called case fatality risk or disease lethality — is the proportion of deaths from a certain disease compared to the total number of symptomatic people diagnosed with the disease.’ 1

      Note the word symptomatic i.e. someone with symptoms.

      However, we stick a swab up someone’s nose, who feels completely well, or very mildly ill. We find that they have some COVID particles lodged up there, and we call them a case of COVID. Sigh, thud!
      A symptomless, or even mildly symptomatic positive swab is not a case. Never, in recorded history, has this been true. However, now we have an almost unquestioned acceptance that a positive swab represents a case of COVID. This is then parroted on all the news channels as if it were gospel.
      I note that, at last, some people are beginning to question how it can be that, whilst cases are going up and up, deaths are going down, and down.
      …
      At the start of the epidemic, the only people being tested were those who were being admitted to hospital, who were seriously ill. Many of them died. Which is why, in France, there was this very sharp, initial case fatality rate of 35%. In the UK the initial case fatality rate was I think 14%. Last time I looked at the UK figures, the case fatality was 5%, and falling fast.

      This fall has occurred, and will occur everywhere in the World, because as you increase your testing, you pick up more and more people with less severe symptoms. People who are far less likely to die. The more you test, the more the case fatality rate falls.

      It falls even more dramatically when you start to test people who have no symptoms at all. In fact, as you broaden your testing net, something else very important happens. You gradually move from looking at the case fatality rate to the infection fatality rate.

      The infection fatality rate is the measure of how many people who are infected [even those without symptoms, or very mild symptoms] who then die. This is the critical figure to know because it gives you an accurate assessment of the total number of deaths you are likely to see.
      On the 28th February, yes that far back, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD (A.S.F., H.C.L.); and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. 4

      In this paper ‘Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted’ they stated the following:

      ‘On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate (my underline) may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’

      A case fatality rate considerably less than 1%. Their words, not mine. As they also added, ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’

      At this point, you may well be asking. Why the hell did we lockdown if COVID was believed to be no more serious than influenza? Right from the start by the most influential infectious disease organisations in the World.

      It is because of the mad mathematical modellers. The academic epidemiologists. Neil Ferguson, and others of his ilk. When they were guessing (sorry estimating, sorry modelling) the impact of COVID they used a figure of approximately one per cent as the infection fatality rate. Not the case fatality rate. In so doing, they overestimated the likely impact of COVID by, at the very least, ten-fold.

          1. She is a disgusting example of our forced, multi culti society. Fortunately, most of us would cheerfully disown this scum.

          4. And on a scale of 1 to 90,000, what is the likelihood of her elders being shamed into returning the money?

            Oh, all right then, you can have zero as well.

          5. This has really made me want to spit. I don’t normally get upset about day to day casual kicks in the face for whitey, but the smug disregard for our innate politeness and doing “the right thing” has made me very sad.

          6. What sickens me about such cases is that she, and so many others like her, just accept the money as of right.

            I do not believe people do not know that what they are doing is wrong.

          7. I’m afraid that I do, Sos. They do not have one ounce of conscience or righteousness in their rotten DNA. They are not like us, and they hate us.

    2. “Two workers at the charity shop were suspended and subsequently dismissed over the mistake.” I wonder what hair style the two poor shop workers have now. How will they afford all those curly-wurly hair treatments now they are on the dole?

      1. They were probably grey-haired pensioners working as volunteers. Usually in charity shops only the manager is paid.

        1. I worked as a volunteer in a charity shop. I worked so much they started paying me as an assistant manager.

    3. utter scum. Such a creature should be put in stocks and flogged. If I were given that amount I’d call them to return it. As for taking a £9 item back to a charity shop – stupid, selfish harridan

  41. Afternoon all.
    That’s the last bit of the ballast and all the top soil I picked up from yesterday’s visit to t’Lad’s split into smaller, more manageable bags and taken up to where it’s needed in the garden.
    Now feeling totally knackered and in need of an early bath.

    The empty bags will be taken to t’Lad’s for refilling when I take eldest daughter into Derby for the train. He’s got a couple of 1 ton builders bags full of the stuff from when he renewed his main shed last month.

      1. No i’m not.
        I’m a bone idle procrastinator who delays doing anything until the last minute!

    1. A couple of weeks after my eldest son was killed, I chanced upon this on Youtube.
      The emotional effect was like a dam bursting.

    3. An all time favourite. It’s an old Russian folk song given new lyrics by Tom Springfield. The Red Army Choir used to give a very moving rendition of the original.

    5. Look, my eyes are watering because of my lunchtime gin …. honest ….
      Totally agree with you, Ped.

  43. A puzzled pensioner writes. My BiL is at Twickenham – where there is to be a rugby match – Bath v Quins.

    Given that rugby requires quite a lot of “contact” – how are the players going to have a scrum when they are 6 ft apart? Or tackle? And will their masks interfere with their breathing? And will the ref and touch judges be masked and gloved?

    Just asking…

    2. Your view is so last year!.

      Both teams will be sitting at computers playing a Nintendo (or other brand) rugby game. Big TV screens will be showing the action to the fans in the stands.

      Naturally participants will be spaced out across the pitch and the referees sole tasks will be to maintain spacing between players and ensure that there are no notes passed forward.

  44. BBC; “Coronavirus: Civil servants ‘must get back to offices quickly'”
    It appears though that ‘unions’ are against it. I certainly didn’t realise there were Civil Service unions. Doesn’t that strike one as being a bit odd (them having unions, I mean)?

    5. This push to get people back to offices, especially the public sector is odd.

      Public sector paid from private.
      Public sector is told to go back to work to buy from private sector
      Why not short cut it and instead of giving private business their own money back, why not just not take it in the first place?

  45. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Given the minnows and the intellectual pygmies in government and elsewhere these days, this obituary may demonstrate that ordinary people are capable of the most extraordinary achievements. For me it is inspiring and humbling in equal measure:

    Able Seaman Moss Berryman, who had died aged 96, was the last survivor of Operation Jaywick, perhaps the most long-ranged and daring special forces raid of the Second World War.

    On April 7 1942, as soon as he could, Berryman volunteered for the Royal Australian Navy. He and his friend, Able Seaman Fred Marsh, were still under training in Melbourne when they heard that a British officer was looking for volunteers to do something special.

    Sent to Refuge Bay on the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, they discovered that they were members of Z Special Unit, or “Z Force”, commanded by Major Ivan Lyon and part of Special Operations Australia, formed to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia.

    “My mate and I looked sideways at each other,” he recalled. “We were basically Sunday school boys. We had no idea how we were going to learn to kill people.”

    However, on September 2 1943 Berryman, now a fully trained commando, sailed north from Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia, in the 70ft Krait, a former Japanese fishing vessel, with seven other British and Australian commandos from the army and the navy, and six boat’s crew.

    Only once at sea did Lyon tell them that they were off to Singapore, some 3,500 miles away, “to blow up a few ships”.

    Berryman knew that the Japanese did not have a reputation for treating prisoners well, but, he said, “we were young ones, we thought we were indestructible, just like they do today,” and Lyon maintained moral by insisting: “this isn’t dangerous, it’s exciting”.

    “Still,” recalled Berryman, “I think if we had known earlier some of us may not have volunteered. There were definitely times we thought, ‘What the hell are we doing here? We’re getting five bob a day for this?’ ”

    The two-week voyage though Japanese-occupied waters was uncomfortable. They flew the Japanese flag and posed as Malay fishermen, wearing sarongs and constantly applying foul-smelling brown dye to their skin. Berryman spent much time at the top of the mast with binoculars looking out for other craft, which would be given a wide berth. When, occasionally, a Japanese float plane flew over, members of Z Force would wave and stand in a circle pretending to unpick fishing lines.

    On 18 September Krait arrived off Singapore – which was ablaze with lights and where the Japanese thought themselves safe – and offloaded six commandos in three two-man canoes. Much to their disappointment, Berryman and Marsh were told to stay behind. “Of course, we put on a bit of a turn – ‘We’ve done all the training, sir, why can’t we be in it?’ – and he said, ‘Nope, you two are going to be babysitters and look after Krait’ ”.

    The canoeists established a base in a cave on a small island, and on the night of September 26 they paddled into the harbour to attached limpet mines to seven vessels, sinking or damaging 37,000 tons of shipping.

    However, when Krait reached its rendezvous, the island of Pompong, 50 miles off Singapore, on the night of October 1-2, only one canoe was found. Lyon had told Krait to leave that night no matter what – but “being good old Australians, we decided we’d break the law and go back in two nights later,” when the other two canoes were recovered.

    On the return voyage, a few minutes to midnight on October 11, a Japanese patrol boat intercepted Krait in the Lombok Strait. As Berryman crouched low with his Bren gun trained on the warship, Lyon, who had packed Krait’s bows with high explosive, prepared a suicide ramming which would have destroyed both vessels, but after the longest 15 minutes of Berryman’s life the warship drew away without switching on a searchlight or hailing Krait. “It was pure luck,” said Berryman.

    Krait entered Exmouth Bay after a 48-day mission. Berryman was Mentioned in Despatches for gallantry, skill and devotion to duty in a hazardous enterprise.

    When later in 1943 Lyon asked Berryman whether he would care to return to Singapore as part of a larger, repeat mission, he carefully considered the proposal for two seconds before declining. All members of Operation Rimau were killed in action or executed by the Japanese.

    Instead, Berryman completed his war service in the destroyer HMAS Vendetta, and was demobbed in February 1946.

    Mostyn Berryman was born at Kent Town, South Australia, on November 9 1923, and was brought up a Methodist: his father had fought as a teenaged signaller in the Australia Imperial Force on the Western Front in the First World War.

    Postwar Berryman returned to the stockbrokers S C Ward & Co, where he had been a clerk, and remained there until his retirement 46 years later.

    Berryman was aboard Krait when she entered Sydney in 1964 to become a museum ship, and in 1993, on the 50th anniversary of Operation Jaywick, he met Lyon’s son – “the spitting image of his father” – at Kranji War Cemetery. Lyon’s French wife, Gabrielle Bouvier, and their baby son, had spent the war in Japanese internment camps, and together Berryman and the son cried that the son had never met his heroic father.

    For many years Berryman was owed the five-bob-a-day danger money which he had been promised, and which the government topped up to A$5,000.

    Operation Jaywick, one of the most successful clandestine raids in Australian history, left a bitter aftermath. Lyon had intended that Jaywick be publicised to rattle the Japanese and boost Allied morale, but senior commanders decided against this as they wished to conduct similar raids in the future.

    Not having the slightest idea of how the attack had been mounted, the Japanese inflicted savage reprisals on Singaporeans, who they suspected of aiding the attack. “Sometimes,” a troubled Berryman mused in later life, “I feel that we shouldn’t have done it because they murdered untold numbers of people trying to find out who did.”

    He married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Cant, who predeceased him in 2018, and he is survived by their four daughters.

    Moss Berryman, born November 9 1923, died August 6 2020

    1. 323333+ up ticks,
      LD,
      Along the lines of TB then ?
      Dover intake keeps the political ball & scam rolling it is on par with a hole in the bucket.

    3. Why is it fantastic?

      It’s a choice, not something to teach in a school certainly not something to celebrate. if you’ve forced this nonsense through parliament you’ve wasted our time and tax payers money. In a just world, you’d be facing deselection the second you presented this nonsense.

    4. I agree with ogga that it is a waste of time voting for the Con/Lab/Lib.Dumbs. But we desperately do need a new political party which is more representative of the disenfranchised former Conservatives.

      1. …which is more representative of the disenfranchise former Conservatives.

        ‘Morning, Rastus.

        I’m surprised that you of all people would drop a ‘d’ off a past participle.

        1. Good afternoon, Peddy

          As usual – too quick on the draw – the typo was amended before I saw your comment.. And didn’t somebody (I won’t mention your name to spare your blushes!) yesterday drop an aitch and put ‘as’ instead of ‘has’ in one of his posts,

          Pots and kettles, man!

          1. If you understood my reply to Ndovu (I admit it was in German, which she understands) you would appreciate that my picking you up on your dropped ‘d’ was a retour for your picking me up on my dropped ‘h’.

            Now, what were you saying about pots & kettles? 😉

          1. Das ist bloß meine Retourkutche auf eine Bemerkung von Rastus, die er mir gestern geschickt hat. Die kleine Rache, so zu sagen.

    5. Not content with legalising perversions, they are intent on brainwashing and perverting young children.

    6. My Tweet.

      …..

      @Phil84705022

      ·43s

      Replying to

      @MattHancock

      Please tell us what you think of the dice game.

      I will post any reply but don’t hold your breath. Virtue signallers don’t like being questioned.

    7. Ah! A Minister of the Crown espousing the dissemination of sexual perversion in schools. Compulsory paedophilia soon one imagines!

  50. At least 50 officers are at the scene on the A20 while protesters block the road and shout ‘England ’till I die’
    Fears of violence were voiced and local MP Natalie Elphicke pleaded for people to ‘stay away’ over Covid fears
    Several officers were seen restraining one person on the ground before arresting them near Dover Marina

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8700851/Police-clash-anti-immigration-protesters-blocking-dual-carriageway-march-Dover.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR2p1TjGU7gtJx1h1xwd7ZJL_D9Uc-dk1E1wYYBYOVK7SYMZfGwE6xuph1I

    2. They always pick on non left demonstrators.
      When they have a go at General Franco they never remind us that he did what he did because the left in power refused to have the general election that was due..

    3. Parsons Green attack: Iraqi teenager convicted over Tube bomb

      Security minister Ben Wallace said: “It is clear that there are some lessons to be learned in this particular case.

      Ahmed Hassan entered the UK at Dover as an unaccompanied ‘child teenager’ and was put into care by the authorities by being placed with elderly foster carers whose home he used to build a bomb that partially detonated at Parsons Green tube station. He was caught the next day attempting to flee through Dover.

      Anti-immigration protesters are justified in criticising the authorities for not having learned the lessons of this case. Ultimate responsibilty must naturally reside with the Home Secretary.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43431303

  51. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/rescue-boats-migrants-channel-would-repeat-italys-mistake/

    “… promoted by bodies like the UNHCR, that the UK should launch a comprehensive rescue service for Channel…”

    Yes – rescue them by returning them to France, destroying the boat and if they attempt to board, tasering them. These people are criminals being trafficked by slavers. They’ve no right to be here and the signal must be clear: try it, and you’ll not make it and you will be shot.

    1. 323333+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Would an in-depth “coat of looking” destabilise the voting pattern ie party before Country / self respect to much Og ?
      Would make little difference which ever party, but I
      doubt it Og.

  53. After all this talk about the shortcomings of the BBC, I am now having to turn to commercial TV to be informed, educated and entertained.

    I have this question for anyone here identifying as a woman who knows about these things – are there any women over 30 alive today who don’t have leaky bladders?

    1. You wouldn’t think so by the number of ads for Tena lady or whatever! It makes me think quite differently about new mums walking around with their new babies – perhaps we should all wear clothes pegs as well as a mask!

    3. Leaky bladders? Isn’t that a TV crime drama? Oh, wait. That’s Peaky Blinders…

    4. Aftereffect of childbirth under the auspices of the NHS.
      Are there any men in the UK aged 65 or more who are not on repeat prescriptions from their local quackery?

      1. You’re lucky! After twins and a caesarian (ergo epidural) I have everything – backache, leaks the lot!

        1. Oh sorry HL! I wasn’t being dismissive! Daughter just had twins very early, so who knows what may happen!
          I just remember the pelvic floor exercises!

    7. ‘pparently not.

      Is commercial tv any better at news than the BBC??
      I’ve come to think they’re all just as bad.

    8. I don’t suffer from leaky bladder or vaginal dryness (whatever that is) but I do come over all Mary Whitehouse when I see those ads.
      Anyone in need of the stuff they’re advertising doesn’t need the ad to tell them they need it and the rest of us don’t need to know.

    9. I don’t suffer from leaky bladder or vaginal dryness (whatever that is) but I do come over all Mary Whitehouse when I see those ads.
      Anyone in need of the stuff they’re advertising doesn’t need the ad to tell them they need it and the rest of us don’t need to know.

      1. Thank you for sharing, our Susan. Such information will be invaluable should we ever get up close & personal…
        🙂

  54. As my late father used to say. if you have had lunch and not finished on something sweet, have a polo mint.

    Very good advice.

  55. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2843dd6e5a0f223fff8b941d7deb428287c07ec57999840daa1a878ba16e0693.png The deplorable standard in journalism at the DT continues to accelerate. In today’s edition of the sorry rag, this photograph was published. I had no option but to comment:

    “Why has a photograph, obviously taken in May, been published in a newspaper in September? Black-headed gulls are not in breeding plumage now and puffins are not on land feeding young.”

    2. Morning, Grizz.
      To be fair (why??), they don’t mention the date, but it is a bit weird to hold the picture over for six months. Perhaps they lost the negatives at Boots?

      1. ‘Morning, Paul. I’ve already seen other examples of risible reporting in today’s paper. A glaring example of “for free” being the one that readily comes to mind.

    3. Good morning Grizzly,

      Sorry to lower the tone but it is also not the season for puffin’ and gruntin’!

  56. US nuclear-capable B52 bombers fly into Ukraine and circle on the Crimean border in brazen challenge to Putin. 5 September 2020.

    Donald Trump has flown three B52 bombers into Ukrainian airspace as a warning to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

    The B-52H stratofortress bombers swooped along the border of the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula in a clear show of strength before flying close to areas under the control of Kremlin-backed separatists.

    The bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, took off from RAF Fairfold in Gloucestershire, UK.

    Well other reports say the Black Sea so you pays your money and takes your pick! Whatever, this level of intrusion is unusual. Was it ordered by Trump or Rogue Elements in the military? Well we don’t know. Just keep your eyes open and make sure the larder is full!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8700707/Donald-Trump-flies-three-B52-bombers-Ukrainian-airspace-RAF-Fairford.html

    2. As the media have been splashing headlines everywhere about Trump calling the war dead “suckers” and “losers,” which even his worse enemies wouldn’t take seriously, overtake this news with a bucket of salt as well.
      If the media tells me the sky is blue, I’d want to check for myself.

    3. Anything you read in the Daily Fail must be taken with a large pinch of salt… …and a generous dose of diarrhea medicine. Sales would double overnight if they included a free packet of Imodium with every paper.

  58. A letter in The Grimes – surely from a NoTTLer:

    “Sir, You report the comment of the new director-general of the BBC that “We must move away from any sense of a BBC type and not hire in our own image” and his emphasis on the importance of impartiality. I think we ought to be more specific as to what constitutes a “BBC type” in relation to employment in news and current affairs.

    In my assessment the BBC type believes the following to be doctrinal statements that are self-evidently true: Brexit is a mistake caused by ignorant xenophobes; Islam is an entirely peaceful religion and only Islamophobes cannot accept this; any concern for the unborn is the mark of the callous and reactionary; the British Empire was an evil with no mitigating factors, and any defence of any aspect of it is a symptom of fascism; voting Conservative is antisocial and little short of psychopathic; protesters in left-wing causes do no wrong whereas a right-wing protest is in itself a wrong; “free speech” is a synonym for causing offence to minorities and should be curtailed so as to avoid this affront. This creed could be extended.

    Paul Simmons
    Twickenham”

    2. Definitely a Grumpy old Nottler! He’s right, too. He missed out the Climate emergency – the science being settled and the poor refugees are fleeing climate change and poverty.

          1. I put my hand up as a grumpy old Nottler and agree entirely with Paul Simmons. I also agree with Ndovu that he missed out the great climate change scam.

        1. Yep. To the best of my knowledge, the new DG hasn’t withdrawn the £100m committed for “increasing diversity”.

          He was previously head of BBC Studios and Studios‘ output is dominated by the same ideology.

          We’re waiting to see who takes over Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide). My boss doesn’t think there are any obvious candidates.

      1. I have a specimen of radiolarian chert here on my window ledge, beyond the computer. It came from the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. One of my favourite cities.

    1. “How black people were behind the design and construction of this warmongering aeroplane…”

      1. Black People of colour would never make a warmongering machine. The original ones were constructed in peace loving regions of Africa from palm leaves, olive branches and white poppies and were intended to be used for humanitarian purposes i,e, carrying food and relief parcels to the starving German security workers in the remote holiday camps deep in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Shame on you for thinking otherwise. (Mz Dianne Abbott, Westminster)

      2. Black People of colour would never make a warmongering machine. The original ones were constructed in peace loving regions of Africa from palm leaves, olive branches and white poppies and were intended to be used for humanitarian purposes i,e, carrying food and relief parcels to the starving German security workers in the remote holiday camps deep in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Shame on you for thinking otherwise. (Mz Dianne Abbott, Westminster)

  62. And now for something completely different.

    Some months ago, I whinged about how poor my tomatoes were – and how the trusses refused to set. The MR did sterling work with an electric toothbrush.

    The result is that we have an enormous crop of tomatoes. So the advice of several of you – that I should be patient – was, of course, 120% right!

  66. Another Police Farce cock-up!

    A lorry driver has been jailed for 12 years after being caught smuggling £1.25 million worth of heroin into the UK hidden among packets of crisps.

    Gary Lineker is furious. “The Perlice should be down at the docks arresting evil colourophobes, not interfering with my BBC wages and monthly benefits” he said, stamping his feet so hard they nearly made a noise.

  67. Extinction Rebellion’s assault on the free press is an attack on democracy. 5 September 2020.

    I must say I didn’t think it would come to this. I really believed that the leadership of this mob had more political nous than to try to shut down the press. Arrogance and purblind narcissism have always been a feature of professional activism but there has generally been a recognition of the parameters within which public debate is conducted in a free society.

    But I suppose we should have seen it coming. The move from thinking that your opponents are not just wrong but wilfully wicked to believing that they must be eliminated is a very short leap. Eventually, carried to its logical conclusion, it ends in the terrible ideological crimes of the twentieth century when it becomes permissible not just to prohibit the dissenting opinions but to eliminate the dissenters themselves.

    Ah! The puppethounds slipped off the leash and bit the hand that feeds them! They need to be chastised and shown who is master!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/05/extinction-rebellions-assault-free-press-attack-democracy/

    1. Are there no pictures of Guardian journalists taking cups of tea and coffee, and doughnuts, to the XR protestors?

  68. Perhaps, just perhaps, a Country other than Sweden is finally starting to see the light.

    France’s health minister RULES OUT another nationwide lockdown as country records 8,975 new cases – its highest EVER – but only 28 new hospitalisations.

    1. They kow-tow to BLM and XR – both terrorist organisations – but attack the working class whites.

      1. Strange really as most front line Police were working class. They must have been told some scary story on their Common Purpose re-education courses.

        2. You said it Phizzee! “Were” working class! Now indoctrinated, over-educated, under-sized and under-fit drones.

          2. Good grief! That must be the one Damask Rose was referring to! What a ghastly specimen!
            I should have been a bit more heightist!

          7. Yes. That’s why they offered him a another mint.

            Now me on the other hand have so much charm total strangers in the street become discombobulated. Poor them. 🙂

  72. I am signing off for the day. A two mile walk this afternoon (including brief visit to the goats). Time for a drink and then I’ll settle down to watch the rugby. Glad I don’t know the result…!!!!

    I hope to join you tomorrow, terrorists = XR/BLM – permitting.

    A demain

  73. Tonight’s cocktail is a Roku G&T… a Roku G&T.

    I first saw the label about 2 years ago & my curiosity was roused because ‘roku’ is the Polish word for year. This last week my usual gin was out of stock, so I thought I’d try the Roku. It’s not at all bad.

  74. The Telegraph has dropped the paywall until Monday morning. All weekend content is now free.

      1. It’s a gesture they’re making on behalf of ‘free press’ following the blockade of their print works overnight.

        2. I remember Wapping. I know. I was in the vicinity. Always trouble from the not so progressives.

          2. Very many thanks. I’d send you a bottle of beer – but it won’t fit in the fax machine.

  75. “I will not give in to the enemies and oppressors of Mankind.” says CoE priest in film “Went the Day Well?”
    Changed days…

  76. OT
    In the context of whether or not to proceed with HS2, perhaps parliament should discuss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on ‘working from home’ and any permanent reduction in London railway commuter traffic …

    Perhaps northern intercity railway investment would make more sense than proceeding with HS2 ?

    3. Bit difficult now without exposing the corruption of all the back room deals, bribes and promises of Knighthoods. Could get a bit messy.

        1. Brown envelopes? Theresa May just stuck £5,000,000 in her hand bag when she went to the Dark Continent.

    1. The simple answer to the EU is ‘No’. That’s frightening to them as we have very little to lose.

      Complaining about the single market is nothing more than punishing shop keepers trying to sell out of ideological spite. If we stop buying, it’s Europe that suffers. We can get from elsewhere. The EU, increasingly trying to create a command economy is suffocating it’s own businesses out of sheer fanaticism.

      At the forefront of their minds must always be a raging conflict between crushing oppression through communist dictatorship and the obvious, terrifying knowledge that if they carry it out, they’re done for.

  78. Looking through my meagre poetry collection just now, and found this. Just changed one word, and it seems to fit.

    Who is in charge of the clattering train?
    The axles creak and the couplings strain,
    and the pace is hot and the points are near,
    and sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear,
    and the signals flash through the night in vain.

    For Boris is in charge of the clattering train.

    Edwin James Milliken, quoted by Winston Churchill in the debate on the air estimates in the House of Commons, 19 March 1935

          1. All those forks in the path of life and we always had the choice of which path to take, or did we?

  79. I know I have gone for the day – and I won’t be back. BUT – I have just seen that Johnson is bleating about the “attack in the freedom of speech” by the urban mob.

    Instead of tweeting and bleating, as Prime Minister, why does he not bloody DO something – and instruct his useless Hindoo Home Sec to ORDER the police to clear these terrorists off the streets – using all necessary force?

    These flucking politicians make me sick. All sound and fury – and bugger all action.

        1. We have a stoop, also known as the terrace, at home. Strictly, spelled “stoep”, it’s an Afrikaans word, I believe.

  82. Heard that the Australian cricket team refused to grovel before Marxism yesterday. Did anyone watch before start of play to see if England team did likewise?

    Understand our national football team will be showing submission later. Grrrr.

      1. Oh dear. Wonder if they realise how stupid they make themselves look and what contempt many have for them as a result?

        Had hoped all this nonsense would have finished with start of new season. Will it never end?

        2. Looking forward to games being played in front of a crowd! I think these virtue-signalling numpties may not get the reaction they expect.

    2. I see the DT whining about XR blocking the road causing non delivery of their paper to the public. A quick look at the DT online home page shows 6 articles regarding those nasty XR people.
      Where were the numerous articles condemning XR when they blocked North Bristol a while back which resulted in a son unable to reach the hospital in time to see his father before he passed away? Where were the articles condemning XR when they closed the Clifton suspension bridge bringing disruption to residents and tourists alike? Where was the condemnation of XR when they brought chaos to the streets of Manchester or London?
      The actions of the DT and the like has now come back to bite them on their backsides, no sympathy from me, if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas!

      3. They are the same people who don’t complain when antifas beat up and harrass real conservatives, but as soon as a Tory is attacked, all hell breaks loose.

      1. Not entirely sure why you would yippee that particular bit of Government bashing. It’s a runaway train which we have already signed up to. They can’t stop it. They are not in control. A bit like Pelham 123 except it isn’t terrorists/extortionists,this time. More like Anglela Merkel. Gesundheit !

    5. I only got as far as this post last night, and have been reading the Telegraph since! Thanks for posting.

  85. Good afternoon,all!

    From CW letters page:
    Sir,

    regarding Brexit – Prime Minister Johnson has to look at the political consequences within the UK should he want to blink first. The UK has a totally broken political structure courtesy of Labour and devolution. In Lincolnshire there is talk of a change in the structure of local government, will there be any consultation.

    It was the British Parliament that made the error of allowing the UK to become a member of the EU, there was no referendum. Parliament treated the British voter with utter contempt. Prime Minister Johnson became Prime Minister because he said the the UK would be free of Brussels and because parliament up to that time had treated the British people with, again, utter contempt. Confidence in politicians will be no longer exist except for “politicians” with extremist views. If the extremists take power the value of the Pound Sterling will fall, costs will increase and the UK will be just an insignificant so called nation off the west coast of main lane Europe.

    Am I proud to be British, the answer is no because of parliament and the present political system. The native English are, as normal, being treated worse than slaves under the old Greek democracy. The UK is slowly reverting back to the the late 1800s and early 1900s regarding the provisions of health services and with wealth distribution.

    If the UK remains in the EU, which is an organisation that is showing a contempt for laws not made by it, for example the statement that fish in the UK maritime economic zone do not belong to the UK yet under international law they do belong to the UK. Does the EU and its chief negotiator have any respect for the UK? How can you negotiate with a negotiator who keeps changing the rules of the negotiation.

    The easiest thing may be to state “The UK will allow EU fishermen, in total, for a one year TRANSITION period, 50% of the 2019 catch for the year 2021. The only right the EU will have is to apportion the catch allowed to it. Once the catch allowed reaches its limit, as assessed by the UK, no more fishing will be allowed. During 2021 the EU will negotiate the annual/biannual fishing quota with the UK, the UK having the right to decide the size of the overall catch. The EU will acknowledge that under international law it that it no legal right to control the UK maritime zone”.

    The EU will also recognise that the UK and its overseas territories are lindependant countries in the world that exists outside the European Union . The UK being a part of Free Europe. The EU will the have to make a legal agreement that it will continue trading with the UK.

    If the EU will not recognise BSI standards then the UK does not have to recognise EU standards. Each new model of EU car, van or truck will have to be tested in the UK to ensure it meets UK standards. Similarly with drugs, food and wine. “Fresh” food from the EU will not remain fresh whilst awaiting customs clearance and the value of the food will be reducing daily. If the ships cannot be off loaded quickly then ‘tough”. Return the lorries to the EU until the back log has cleared. The lorry lanes should be marked UK owned and Alien. Lorry parks should not be built in the UK for “Alien” lorries bringing imports into the UK. Lorries coming into the UK should have a valid test certificate for the vehicle. No valid certificate and the lorry and load is not allowed into the UK. A trailer load could be allowed in to the UK if the tractor unit is owned by an approved haulier.

    If Prime Minister Johnson gives way to Barnier and the EU the word ‘Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free” should be changed to “Land of No Hope and No Glory, Mother of the Condemned”.

    Respectfully, David Turgoose

    “The easiest thing may be to state “The UK will allow EU fishermen, in total, for a one year TRANSITION period, 50% of the 2019 catch for the year 2021…”

    How many transition periods do we need? NO MORE so-called TPs. We all know that EU fishing fleets won’t stick to the agreement anyway. It stops on 1.1.21. End of.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/letters-to-the-editor-saturday-5th-september-2020/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1

    1. We need more time to built up our Fisheries Protection Fleet. Of course, we’ve had five years to do that…

    2. No transition.
      If the EU fishermen want to fish British fish, then they need to buy a British fishing company, or at least a very expensive British fishing quota.

      1. I hope we keep all of our fish and rebuild our once great fishing fleet. I hope we see a revival in the numbers of fish and chip shops throughout the land.

      2. Nope! the EU fishermen have had thirty years of getting rich on UK fish. Visit any French harbour for proof.
        Whereas the UK government wiped out the UK fishermen, the fish processors, the fish exporters and plunged many communities in England and Scotland (well, who cares about Scotland) into misery. Boats that had been in families for generations, old boats and new boats, were destroyed deliberately so they could not be used. Described bureaucratically as “decommissioning”, but the real term is murderous vandalism.
        The point of leaving the EU was for British boats to land British fish to be sold by British companies to local chippies and Michelin starred restaurants in Paris. Our fish should be for our profit and not be gifted back to the thieves of the EU.

        1. The majority of the great British public eat cod or haddock and chips. The Crab and Lobster has always gone to mainland Europe besides many other species. Devon fishermen have said themselves that if it was all open to them they couldn’t fish more than 10% of what is there.

  88. Second Son is away in a few minutes to a gathering to remember his mate who took his life last Saturday. They’ll discuss how it was to have Carl as a friend, stories and funny events from his life. Kind of an unofficial remembrance. Funeral next week.
    :-((
    Appropriately, it’s hissing down with rain.

        2. Rainbows are a symbol of hope in many cultures. … In Christian culture, a rainbow promises better times to come. …but you need patience. Don’t give up too soon!

          1. Unfortunately, I’m familiar with that – as, I suspect, are all who post here.
            Just glad I wasn’t his dad – the empty space and silence in the house is bad enough to imagine, let alone experience.
            19 years old. Barely left school, let alone started on life.

          2. My son found his own song to sing…

            And your song will play on without you
            And this world won’t forget about you
            Every part of you was in your song
            Now we will carry on…
            Never Without you..

      1. “They took away all the trees and put them in a tree Museum
        And charged the people a dollar and a half just to see em”

        Thankfully there are still a lot of mature tress around the circus at the far end of the street.

        2. I loved to listen to Joni Mitchell when at university 1970. Those songs resonate with me to this day.

          At one end of Great Pulteney Street you have the Holburne of Menstrie Museum, containing fabulous paintings and drawings by some of the better Italian draughtsmen such as the Bibbienas.

          Behind the Museum is the only surviving C18 pleasure garden extant in England. It is Sydney Gardens. It is remarkable for accommodating, effortlessly, the Kennet and Avon Canal as well as the Great Western Railway.

          I am a Bathonian and know the value of such things.

        3. Trees – Joyce Kilmer

          I think that I shall never see
          A poem lovely as a tree.

          A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
          Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

          A tree that looks at God all day,
          And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

          A tree that may in Summer wear
          A nest of robins in her hair;

          Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
          Who intimately lives with rain.

          Poems are made by fools like me,
          But only God can make a tree.

          and, of course, Ogden Nash:

          I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree.
          Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all.

    4. What!, no pedestrian bollards blocking off half the road unlike others in the city. It is still open to traffic as well, unlike a few others in the place.
      P.S. The Circus is still a fair walk from Great Pulteney Street, not quite at the end of the street unless the council has buggered that up as well. 🤣

  91. Goodnight, all. Have just had a wine glass fall off my computer desk (poltergeist or vibrations from my typing?) and smash, so had to clear it up before the hound lay on it and got splinters in his skin. They say that breaking a glass is lucky; I broke a sherry glass at my wedding reception – mazzeltov!

    1. We’re down to just four of our old kitchen glasses. Do you remember the garage glasses from the 1980s? Yes, those! They’ve done good, every day service for more than 36 years.

  94. Whole article available to view – no paywall.

    The green fanatics have terrorised a generation of children. Now they’re turning on the free press

    Politicians, celebrities and activists of the left have spent years encouraging the extremists of XR to take precisely this kind of action.

    DOUGLAS MURRAY

    “…children are taught that they are likely to die before they grow up. Telling children such things would ordinarily constitute child abuse. But the children’s crusade, led by Greta Thunberg, has terrorised a new generation.

    What we are facing here are fanatics: members of an apocalyptic, end-times cult. A cult dedicated to immiserating our society and intimidating anybody who stands in their way. It is high time that they were stopped…”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/05/green-fanatics-have-terrorised-generation-children-now-turning/

    1. More reading here:

      These are the Extinction Rebellion activists who stopped the presses

      The green protestors have a record of bringing chaos to Britain’s streets

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/extinction-rebellion-activists-stopped-presses

      One of the featured cretins is quoted thus: “The cruelty of this is particularly for the young. The media is denying them the information to protect themselves, to prevent what could eventually kill them.”

    2. Boris Johnson and his pathetic government should be locked in a cell and compelled to read Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe and not allowed out until they have fully understood what it is telling us and are determined to rectify the situation.

    3. If the police/authorities had any sense they would grab anyone who was at the forefront of these demonstrations, arrest them and fine them £10,000 as they did to Corbyn.

      Catch 50 of the buggers and do that and their enthusiasm would soon wane.
      Fight fire with fire.

      Of course, it won’t happen.

      1. No – they only go after harmless old loonies like Corbyn. violent activists like those of BLM and XR are just given a slap on the wrist.

    4. May I suggest that one way to stop them might actually be to address their concerns?

      I do believe the young, like the rest of us, are pretty sick of being told by the institutions and those who do very well out of them, that they must sort out their own concerns, even when they are caused by the incompetence and corruptions of the institutions that rule over them.

      How we can expect young people to act responsibly or even respectfully to their elders when we cannot even educate them properly?

      1. The young have been brainwashed by left-wing teachers to the extent that they are no longer taught how to think, but only what to think.

  95. 323333+ up ticks,
    Looks very much like birmingham has fallen what with re-set being triggered, what’s the next one ?

  96. Extinction Rebellion facing ‘organised crime’ curbs
    Government crackdown on extremist group after “unacceptable” attack on free press

    Extinction Rebellion could be treated as an organised crime group as part of a major crackdown on its activities that may also include new protections for MPs, judges and the press, the Telegraph can disclose.

    Whitehall sources said Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have asked officials to take a “fresh look” at how the group is classified under the law, after the Prime Minister described its blockading of major printing presses as “completely unacceptable”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/extinction-rebellion-facing-organised-crime-curbs/

    Question to Cabinet: WTF do you think Her Majesty’s finest are for?

    1. Perhaps Priti and Boris should look at the ER mission statement. They should proscribe those fools along with Antifa and BLM. Bloody idiots.

      The Police appear to have lost any notion of their founding principles, just as the BBC have done likewise.

      The Courts are now close to a joke and The Supreme Court contemptible.

    2. The daft thing is that the printing presses had their power back in the day of the Wapping strike back in the 1980s, when Murdoch and Maxwell and their chosen political cronies ruled the day, and the police used to escort agents provocateurs employed to break up the rally protesting against new technology.

      These days, XR would be better off blockading Twitter.

Comments are closed.