Saturday 6 February: Captain Cook’s accusers ignore the evidence of his humane principles

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/02/06/letterscaptain-cooks-accusers-ignore-evidence-humane-principles/

925 thoughts on “Saturday 6 February: Captain Cook’s accusers ignore the evidence of his humane principles”

  1. Hi,

    May I be allowed to start today with a high?:

    From the DT:

    “One dead and 10 injured in spate of stabbings in South London (Croydon)
    Metropolitan Police say there was no information to suggest that all the incidents were linked

    It seems to have escaped their notice that over the past few years Croydon has been turning into a war zone. So glad I moved.

    PS Where is Jill Backson to report on these things?

      1. Morning Minty. Being correct in this instance gives me no pleasure. The writing has been on the wall for years- literally – I think it’s called Tagging….

      2. 329110+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        Talking of forecast I did post long,long ago ” then they will dismantle the war memorials”.

    3. I only live a few miles away from there, my work takes me to that area quite a bit, during the daytime it doesn’t appear much different from anywhere else, they must all come out at night.

    4. If it gets any worse they may have to contemplate putting a patrol car on stand-by in Paddington or Notting Hill as emergency cover – and supplementary pie and sandwich delivery car.

  2. Commemorating the Holocaust is too important for us to risk getting it wrong. 6 February 2021.

    If you start right with memorial projects, popular support snowballs. Start wrong and it melts away. The latter has happened here. Local Westminster residents and office workers (remember them?) love the quiet, green open space in a very built-up area. In an age when Parliament Square and its surroundings constantly pullulate with people exercising their “right to protest”, the Victoria Tower Gardens are uniquely peaceful.

    Since the Holocaust memorial is to be “striking and prominent” and the learning centre “world-class”, that will change. The gardens will become a site of pilgrimage, tourism, contemplation, study and visits from delegations of political dignitaries. Thousands of people would queue and buses would choke the narrow roads, a situation made worse by the inevitable security measures. The structure would overshadow the attractive Buxton Memorial to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and obscure the long view down the strip of grass to Parliament.

    Morning everyone. There should be no Holocaust Memorial anywhere in the UK regardless of the physical conditions. We played no part in it and bear no responsibility for it. It is we; that provided a safe haven for 10,000 Jewish children and fought on alone. The UK itself is already a monument to the failure of the Holocaust, since without us, and the sacrifices of our own people, the whole thing would have been completed and Hitler’s dream made a terrible reality.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/05/commemorating-holocaust-important-us-risk-getting-wrong/

    1. Perhaps our ‘government’ could offer each Synagogue a Plaque along the lines of your last two sentences instead of the proposed ‘Learning Centre’

    2. Good morning, Minty.

      Your last sentence sums up so much
      about this Country… :

      So much history!
      So many brave and honourable people!

      Yet we are allowing all and sundry to
      dismantle and destroy our heritage!

    3. The people that love to play the guilt card and use it has a tool to control freedom of speech are desperate to make us feel like we were the ones that are responsible for carrying it all out especially if anyone thinks what they deem are the wrong thoughts, usually these thoughts are not linked at all to what the National Socialists were doing but are merely a counter to their Left wing wokeness, instead of using the day as a moral booster to remember the sacrifices people made to stop the Nazis from conquering the whole of Europe.
      They have gotten away with this for far too long now and as it turns out the left are becoming just as fascist as the Nazis were at thought controlling the masses.

      1. 329110+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        The misguided beauty of their cause is that they are allowed to continue by the overseeing political
        party’s & these same party’s are supported by a
        multitude of the herd.

        Surely the last 3 decades have SHOWN us that
        change via the polling booth & appertaining to society in NOT, on the parliamentary, along with halal, menu.

    4. Striking & prominent, eh? Oslo’s monument is some empty chairs down by the quayside where the Jews were shipped off to camps in Germany, mostly never to return. A sort of “absent friends” feel, and very unobtrusive.

      1. There is a quiet garden of large boulders and white birch trees in Hyde Park created by the Board of British Jews which has existed for nearly 40 years and seems to do all that is required as a place of memorial.

        For those wishing to learn more there are exhibits in London’s Jewish Museum and a Holocaust Exhibition in Huddersfield and a Holocaust Museum in Newark, Notts. It seems that the UK already has plenty of material covering this matter.

      2. I seem to recall that somewhere there is a row of shoes to commemorate those Jews who were lost. It sounds a very poignant tribute.

    5. Morning Minty and all Nottlers.

      I would have thought there was no necessity for a Holocaust Memorial, as such, I thought our Cenotaph was for all who died during the wars.

    7. Is it not the case that the people in Europe, in country after country, simply stopped fighting and surrendered to the Germans? Thereafter most of them cooperated fully with German overlordship, rounding up their own citizens to send them to camps. The Belgians and French fell over themselves to surrender in 1940, leaving the British force exposed to attack, resulting in the retreat to Dunkirk etc.
      Around 1.8 million French soldiers surrendered and were sent to POW camps where they worked for the Germans. The “Resistance” was pathetic, having less effect on the Germans than the IRA on the British in the 70s/80s. Every other country in Europe followed suit. (Only Denmark deserves a special mention for their effort to protect their Jewish population.). The other countries of Europe actively worked with the Germans to eliminate Jews.
      Why is it that the intellectuals and chatterati never mention that, preferring to denigrate this country? At the start of the war around 600,000 Jews lived in Germany. As regards the Holocaust, where did the other 5,400,000 come from?

      1. One of my Dutch friends has written a book about the Dutch collaborators, particularly those in the police (he was a policeman), who sent Dutch Jews to Germany. Not all citizens were actively involved, of course, but a significant number were.

  3. Commemorating the Holocaust is too important for us to risk getting it wrong. 6 February 2021.

    If you start right with memorial projects, popular support snowballs. Start wrong and it melts away. The latter has happened here. Local Westminster residents and office workers (remember them?) love the quiet, green open space in a very built-up area. In an age when Parliament Square and its surroundings constantly pullulate with people exercising their “right to protest”, the Victoria Tower Gardens are uniquely peaceful.

    Since the Holocaust memorial is to be “striking and prominent” and the learning centre “world-class”, that will change. The gardens will become a site of pilgrimage, tourism, contemplation, study and visits from delegations of political dignitaries. Thousands of people would queue and buses would choke the narrow roads, a situation made worse by the inevitable security measures. The structure would overshadow the attractive Buxton Memorial to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and obscure the long view down the strip of grass to Parliament.

    Morning everyone. There should be no Holocaust Memorial anywhere in the UK regardless of the physical conditions. We played no part in it and bear no responsibility for it. It is we; that provided a safe haven for 10,000 Jewish children and fought on alone. The UK itself is already a monument to the failure of the Holocaust, since without us, and the sacrifices of our own people, the whole thing would have been completed and Hitler’s dream made a terrible reality.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/05/commemorating-holocaust-important-us-risk-getting-wrong/

    1. 329110+ up ticks,
      Morning VVOF,
      One expert “expert” said ” I couldn’t believe my eyes, when I observed the virus got out three times for a p!ss”.

    2. The move to temporarily impose a ban on booze is designed to allay fears from Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer and others, about the effect of drinking on social distancing…

      Whitty, the ‘brilliant scientist’ defended so stoutly on here yesterday.

      2. And I was firmly under the impression that the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to use alcohol.

    3. Have to government done a deal with MCoB ?
      We will close the drinking venues and you will all get the jab and stop mixing with your buddies in places of worship. and please do use the sanitiser’s to keep hands clean, yes, we know what it contains……….but you know it makes sense,…………. don’t you ?

  6. Yo All

    An Hour to V(accination) time.

    If it looks difficult, I will tell them that I am Pregnant

  7. Morning all

    SIR – To connect the word “genocidal” with Captain Cook (“Captain Cook statues next on activists’ list”, report, February 4) is disgraceful. Anyone who has read the journals written by Cook and his officers, or looked at the instructions he was given upon undertaking his voyages, will see that he and the masters he served were anything but genocidal.

    The Royal Society’s instructions with regard to the treatment of indigenous peoples reveal the humane approach that Cook was expected to follow. In the main, he attended to those instructions with great zeal.

    Even if you consider Cook’s voyages to be simply an adjunct to British empire-building, which I would deny, you cannot disregard the immense amount of knowledge that the expeditions brought back.

    Later generations of Europeans undoubtedly misused the Pacific and Australasian peoples terribly, but the present-day descendants of those peoples are using details from Cook’s voyages to help recreate their cultures. They may not be thankful to Cook, but should at least acknowledge his use to them.

    Advertisement

    An example of Cook’s approach towards Pacific peoples: on his third and last great voyage, his own crew almost mutinied in New Zealand because he seemed to prefer the Maori and was prepared to suffer insults rather than take action against them.

    The rewriting of history to suit minority agendas has reached a crisis point, and great figures of the past, many of whom should still be used as role models, are being sidelined.

    Cook himself, through diligence and intelligence, rose from poor agricultural beginnings to become one of the greatest navigators of the 18th century. That should be celebrated.

    Steve Ragnall

    Altham, Lancashire

    SIR – Captain Cook embodied Enlightenment values. This was almost universally recognised before Black Lives Matter claimed that in fact he was an instrument of imperial aggression. As a result, last year two Cook statues in Australia were defaced, and now memorials in Britain are threatened by hooligans.

    I suspect this ignorance is the product of wokeism in university humanities departments. How else to explain Australian confusion between Cook, who charted its eastern coastline, and Admiral Phillip, who led British settlement in Australia? Or the rejection by leading Australian universities of a programme of Western Civilisation studies?

    John Kidd

    Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    1. SIR – In 2019 my wife and I travelled extensively in New Zealand. Wherever we went – cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels – there were commemorations in various forms of the Queen and to Captain Cook.

      In the national museum in Auckland, Captain Cook’s influence and impact is put into the context of other early explorers, such as those from Southern Pacific islands.

      Jonathan L Kelly

      Yatton, Somerset

      SIR – Who next after Captain Cook – William the Conqueror, the Viking chiefs?

      What would the world be like if these people had never set sail?

      Richard Holroyd

      Cambridge

      1. Richard Holroyd
        What would the world be like if these people had never set sail?

        Well for a start BLM wouldn’t exist and they’d still be running around in loincloths.

        1. The only ‘reset’ we actually need is to get rid of the history deniers. What was done has been done, get over it.
          A lot of these idiots probably wouldn’t exist today if it hadn’t had been for the tough adventurous people who had the courage to go where they did before us.

        2. That’s utter rubbish, Alf!

          Where would they get the cloth for their loincloths? It was nakedness, animal skins or grass skirts. 😉

    2. Yo Epi

      What I cannot understand, is that years ago explorers discovered new parts of the world, we acted in ways normal for the era/time

      Wokeism was not rampant then, so we introduced our way of life into the places found

      A bit like what BLM is doing to us now

      We did not gatherf slaves in Africa, other tribes did that.

      1. The Indians wouldn’t be playing us at cricket in Madras as I write at this moment either.

          2. On the other hand it might have caused less trouble for a great many of its inhabitants (including the ones who are no longer in India) if it was still a region of many states.

        2. This morning they would probably vote for that. I’m sorry to see that Root got out cheaply again.

          1. He appears to like the sub-continent. I didn’t get up early enough to see Stokes though.

    3. Morning, Epidermoid.
      Of course, it is well known fact that Cook destroyed Aboriginal and Maori universities. They blew up the electricity generating facilities, trashed the drainage system and as for the libraries …..

      2. He wouldn’t have recognised the electricity generating facilities Anne, we didn’t have any here in his day. We didn’t have much in the way of drainage either except that water flowed downhill – just as it did in Australia and New Zealand.

    4. I can see the day coming when Ladybird books of the history of Britain will be changing hands illegally under the counter wrapped in brown paper.

      1. Those would be the original Ladybird books, bb2 – the latest ones appear to be woke and taking the mickey out of our culture.

  8. The EU humiliated itself in Moscow. 6 February 2021.

    It was a masterclass in the worst of European Union diplomacy. Josep Borrell’s controversial visit to Moscow was a triumph. Sadly, though, for the Russians. In light of the treatment. of opposition leader Alexei Navalny — imprisoned this week on deeply-questionable fraud charges after he returned to the country whose leadership had tried to murder him — there had been calls for Borrell to cancel his visit.

    How one would have liked to have seen the same words applied with more justice to Tommy Robinson’s persecution by the State!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-eu-humiliated-itself-in-moscow

  9. Good Moaning.
    Last night I enjoyed a very well spent £3.00.
    I finally got round to watching Covent Garden’s ‘La Fille Mal Gardée’.
    It’s still available until the end of February.

    1. They should have attached a ball and chain to her ankle. That would have stopped the little minx.

      Erm…a bit difficult to do ballet though. Clunk clunk rattle rattle. :@)

      Morning Nursey.

      1. My parents took me to see it at the Bournemouth Pavilion when I was about 18. I loved it and I loved the surprise in the hay bales

        (I nearly wrote bails instead of bales but I though that his almost uncontrollable priapic urge to correct it would lead to poor pedant peddy having a heart attack!)

        1. Like The Magic Flute, it is a posh pantomime.
          It actually made me laugh which is quite an achievement when I’m attached to my laptop via my ALDI bargain earphones.

        2. You’re safe for a while, at least, Rastus. The pedant over-reached himself and has been sent off with a red card.

  10. 329110+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    An additive to last nights late post, it does seem to me that the control valve within the ONS office, ID tag being the manipulating inflate / deflate
    valve has been turned down to a low setting on account of the approaching may elections.

    Now there’s a question to ponder next time you enter the polling booth, was it the affairs of state that got us, as a Country, to this odious state of affairs.

    Sound advice from Ella,
    https://twitter.com/Ella32823623/status/1357836478408179712

  11. Now the Dems want to lower the voting age to 16. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., (a BAME) naturally had to bring race into the discussion. She.said:

    When “the younger generations are more predominantly Black and Brown, it sort of leads to a greater level of disenfranchisement.”

    I am reminded of a couple of quotes from the erstwhile ‘leader’ of the Labour Party, one Mr. Corbyn:

    “We demand the return of Shamima Begum to the UK at once, she was only a 16-year-old immature child when she decided to join ISIS and cannot be held accountable for her actions at such a young age”

    “We demand that 16-year-olds be given the vote in the UK, they are responsible and free-thinking young adults”

    1. They think that such a move will guarantee them absolute power across the Presidency, the Senate and the House with majorities that will even permit them to change the Constitution.

      They only need that absolute power for one term and there would be no going back.

    2. The libby dibbies dont want the voting age lowered because they believe children should have a say, they want it lowered because they think they will get more votes from the cohort.

    4. And yet if an 18 or 21 year old student falls in love with a member of the teaching faculty at university it will be against the law as she is not old enough to give her consent – even if she would have been old enough to sleep with a criminal drug pusher when she was only 16 if she wanted to.

      Why do we have such difficulty when we decide at what age a person is adult. Should we not settle on one age – 18 or 21 ?

      In return those over the age of 70 should no longer be eligible for political office!

      2. Perhaps an extra five years? HM the Queen requires her Lord-Lieutenants, and Deputy Lieutenants, to retire when they are 75.

  12. Starmer’s patriotic rebrand doesn’t fool anyone. 6 February 2021.

    But then there is the second telling phrase in that Guardian headline to consider, namely ‘Keir Starmer’s patriotic act’. Because it is an act.

    This, after all, was the week when the Guido Fawkes website got hold of video footage showing Starmer boasting about his history of anti-royalist beliefs just three years before he became Director of Public Prosecutions.

    Voters in ‘foundation constituencies’ will remember, too, that Starmer’s time leading the CPS did not produce many breakthroughs when it came to protecting vulnerable working-class girls from Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs, as Starmer himself admitted in 2012.

    They will also remember how he pledged to honour their pro-Brexit referendum verdict and then connived to subvert it. And how he knelt to Black Lives Matter, whose supporters desecrated the Cenotaph and Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square.

    I can’t really better that so I’ll shut up!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/starmer-s-patriotic-rebrand-doesn-t-fool-anyone

        2. Morning Sue

          He is not just sleazy git in a pimp suit , his heart is full of unwashed socks. His soul is full of gunk …The three words that best describe
          him are as follows, and I quote, “Stink, stank, stunk!”

          1. Good work Belle! OT has the readership of conwoman had a collective meltdown? You were getting some unwarranted stick on there earlier! At least we discuss our differing opinions a little more politely here! 🙄

      2. Usual disgusting Labour behaviour. It was all staged so they could ‘upskirt’ the poor woman. Sorry, I should have included ‘victim’ in there but I wasn’t sure where it went.

      3. Effing morons, all kneelers. And it takes a certain type of DH to enter politics i imagine all those people we hated during our school years. Not those who were god at all varieties of sport, or were top of the class in maths, English music etc. Those who were devious and had a bullying but sly edge about them. Now seemingly the only qualification to become a politician.

      4. Safely stowed away on my laptop. That is just the sort of picture that Google will ‘disappear’.

  13. Good morning, all. Wet start. Good to see Conwy back.

    I see that the lunatics are proposing to allow pubs to open in April but not to sell alcohol. That’ll go down well. Like saying shops can open – for viewing only….

    1. Punters will order a ‘tonic water with ice and lemon’ to be consumed with the gin they brought with them.

      1. My Dad used to do that when he first started taking us young boys to the Pub.

        Good morning Mr Beans.

          3. Two cokes for us boys and a swift top up from the half bottle of whiskey in Dad’s pocket.

            ……..surreptitiously looks left and right.

      2. Having fun is not allowed ! The real reason why Pritstick Patel wanted those social influencers out of the picture.

        Good morning your Majesty. Got a firm grip on your plinth?

    3. But, but, but it’s only temporary. You know, like three weeks to flatten the curve. In addition there’s the local elections in May and Johnson hopes to ride to success on the vaccine programme and easing lockdown whilst he hopes all the damage done will be either airbrushed from history or explained away as necessary for our survival. The unholy alliance of corrupt and rabidly anti-people politicians and their complicit MSM. An Axis of pure evil.

      1. Morning Korky, the problem will be a lack of quality alternatives on the ballot paper. Spoilt ballot paper looks likely.

        1. I agree, vvof. Independent, Reform or A.N.Other, definitely not Tory, Labour of the Dumbs. The people must not give Johnson any succour after what he has done. Any sign of support for Johnson will only give him the excuse to carry on with his agenda.

    5. They tried that in Wales. Most didn’t open, the ones that did said they should have stayed closed with very few exceptions. Many restaurants and pubs slapped a permanent ban on Dopey Dripford.

    6. Shirley the alcohol will help to stop the spread of the virus. But hey, they are politicians WTF do they know ? About anything in particular.

      Morning Uncle Bill, it looks like thaart Narrfuk is in for some very windy cold and nasty weather.
      You take care.
      Get yer logs in.

      1. My staff have filled the log store in the garage – direct access from house. We have been to Morrisons and stripped the shelves…. We are ready for whatever God sends to try us.

  15. Good morning all
    Sunny frosty day here .

    Workers at a Kent airfield converted into a coronavirus testing site have been warned that they must stop taking drugs and having sex.

    Security managers at Manston Airfield, which tests drivers entering France, have distributed a letter telling staff that they are of a number of ‘incidents’ and ‘allegations’ including staff offering drugs to each other.

    It also says they have been made aware of staff having sex with each other on the night shift and hurling abuse at Ghurkha soldiers who are assisting at the site.

    And it claims drivers are arriving at the site with fake negative Covid test certificate.

    The former Manston Airport site was transformed into a Covid-19 testing centre for lorry drivers travelling to Europe.

    The site was established just before Christmas as a new variant of the coronavirus was discovered and France refused entry to anyone without a negative test, leaving thousands of hauliers stranded.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9230337/Stop-zone-lorry-drivers-Covid-tested-mired-cocaine-sex-scandals.html

    2. Good morning, Belle

      The reason why the Ghurkas are getting abuse is because they are honourable men and disapprove of what is going on.

    1. Every vaccine so far produced has not met the minimum required standards! There is still ample time for them to go wrong!

    2. Every vaccine so far produced has not met the minimum required standards! There is still ample time for them to go wrong!

      1. Morning Minty.

        I heard the vaccine contains mammalian cells. I make the assumption that they mean T-Cells. What i would like to know is where these T-Cells are being harvested from.

        My fear is that it is from aborted babies. Another reason why it is encouraged.

        Call me paranoid.

      2. 329110+ up ticks,
        AS,
        Time is an important governing factor regarding the weighed up / common sense view concerning this issue being ignored in lieu of trusting the political overseers.

        GOD forbid this goes wrong via the hands of politico’s and supporters, the fall out of which would not be a pretty sight.

      2. Nothing to worry about, really. At the rate we are wiping out wildlife, there won’t be any animals left.

        1. Hello HP

          The people are importing bushmeat into the UK.. The Afs enjoy their chimp meat as a treat.

          The PM should ban all the exotic meats that slide into the country , sometimes below the radar.

          We are quite shocked to see there is a farm not more than 5 miles from here that has a field full of Llama and Ostriches!

          1. Yes. There is a series of documentary programmes about “Border Control” in Australia. They are very conscientious in searching out and destroying the kind of “food” that Asians think is essential to pack in their luggage.
            We don’t care a fig. Do all of our airport staff and Border Force, or whatever, all speak English?

            Llamas are popular. I’ve seen some around here, and there were ostrich farms in the past. Ostrich farms were a Ponzi type scheme as ostrich meat was the Next Big Thing, and llama are kept for their wool. Most of these things were abandoned. The field of llamas now has Xmas trees.

          2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10039748ca00bace40cd9b3fcb7cee697d9c0c3a048315f1709c4cf4fa01f740.jpg

            The Llama: Hilaire Belloc

            The Llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat,
            With an indolent expression and an undulating throat
            Like an unsuccessful literary man.

            And I know the place he lives in (or at least- I think I do)
            It is Ecuador, Brazil or Chile- possibly Peru;
            You must find it in the Atlas if you can.
            The Llama of the Pampasses you never should confound
            (In spite of a deceptive similarity of sound)
            With the Llama who is Lord of Turkestan.
            For the former is a beautiful and valuable beast,
            But the latter is not lovable nor useful in the least;
            And the Ruminant is preferable surely to the Priest
            Who battens on the woful superstitions of the East,
            The Mongol of the Monastery of Shan.

          3. Afternoon, Margaret.

            Will you please tell me: what is it that is shocking about eating llamas and ostriches that is not shocking about eating cows and turkeys?

          5. They were kept for meat production by the Incas. They used them for food, milk, wool, carriage and guano (for their fires and manure). Certain South American tribes still do so today.

          6. Sorry, I should have made it clear that I was speaking of UK keepers. Ostriches in the UK have been – and still are in a few places – reared for meat but none of the camelids have been. Most llamas in the UK are kept by hobbyists – although I know one sheep farmer who says that they have been useful in preventing trouble with dogs – they are not sufficiently active at night to deter foxes very well, but they do see off any roaming dogs in daylight hours. He has to put them elsewhere when the sheep are in the field with the public footpath though, as they attack people they don’t know (with or without dogs) too.

            I know an alpaca keeper who tried eating her surplus males – but she said that the don’t really put on enough flesh to be worthwhile and as abattoirs won’t handle them you need facilities to hang and process the carcases – as well as someone with a slaughter licence.

    1. There was a young lady called Jill
      Whose jab exploded at will
      They found her vagina
      In North Carolina
      And her tits in a pub in Brazil

  18. 1st report, both Mrs VVOF and myself has had the O/AZ vaccine this morning at our local doctor’s surgery.
    I must say it was a well run painless procedure, both of us was seen pretty well on time with no side effects YET.

  19. Don’t knock BLM, they are doing a wonderful job. All the surveys (no, I can’t be bothered to dig out the links) show that they have increased racial distrust in all groups except Liberal voters.

    Labour will find it very difficult to win an election until BLM have shut up and gone away and a couple of years have passed to let people forget about them. The degree of hostility they have engendered in the population, including older people in the Jamaican and Indian populations is a wonder to behold. I won’t go into what the Muslims think of them – it wouldn’t be allowed.

      1. Elections are won by winning the margins and getting your base to turn out. An unhappy Labour base will ‘Vote Labour’, but won’t turn out.

        1. Tch tch Rodger, that is so twentieth century. We now have postal votes, your voter base doesn’t even have to know they voted, let alone turn out.

      2. This may be the push they require for their development of their own party. And then we are in trouble. How labour could not see this would happen one day amazes me.

        Good morning, Bill. I hope you are feeling better today.

        1. Yes, thanks, PM.

          If the slammers DO set up their own party, that ought to split the left vote – and ensure a centre right government.

          1. You off your head or somethin’.

            If there is a Muslim party all Muslims will be coerced to vote for it. Getting a bigger share of the vote as their population expands. Caliphate in the next 20 years instead of 50.

            Glad to hear you feel much brighter.

          2. Yes – I know that. But, at present, there are not enough slammers. So they will all vote for the slammer party (5 million, say) and that will be 5 million fewer votes fr Cur Ikea’s mob. A split vote. Try to keep up…!

        2. Champagne socialists are head up bum fantasists whose ignorance and lust for power blinds them to reality.

          I listen to colleagues at work demanding 50% black representation on-screen at all times in all contexts. Of course they’ve been historically under represented. Evolutionary biology and Northern Europe anyone?

  20. This day in 1944 the younger of my two older brothers (now deceased) was born
    This day in 1952 King George VI died
    This day in 1958 was the Munich air disaster that killed so many young Manchester United footballers.

  21. From the Newsletter of the Campaign for Marriage:

    THREATS MADE TO LAWYER IN MARRIAGE CASE
    Dear marriage supporter,

    A top barrister has said that despite receiving “abuse and threats” she will not step down from a legal case defending traditional marriage.

    Dinah Rose QC is representing the Government of the Cayman Islands as it seeks to uphold the definition of marriage as being only between one man and one woman.

    Back in 2019 LGBT activists used legal action in the Cayman Island Courts to try to get same-sex marriage legalised. The Chief Justice ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

    The Cayman Government then successfully overturned this on appeal, but now this ruling is being appealed to the Privy Council in London.

    LGBT activists have claimed that because of the case, Dinah Rose is unfit for to be President of Magdalen College, Oxford – a position she has held since last year.

    Ms Rose has spoken out in the national press about the threats to her and the College because she is representing the Cayman Government.

    Dinah Rose has acted for LGBT clients. She also represented the late Lillian Ladele, the Islington marriage registrar forced her out of job because of her Christian beliefs about marriage.
    …….
    …….
    Yours faithfully,

    Colin Hart
    Chairman
    Coalition for Marriage (C4M)

    1. I reckon the government have done a deal with the MCoB on this one. We’ll stop the drinking in your towns, you take the jab and stop fraternising in your dome shaped buildings.
      Next on the list, all dogs must be on a lead where ever they are. And no more bacon.

    2. At the time a local hairdressers had the words ‘Saloon’ on its door. I wondered if they stocked beer shampoo.

    1. First comment which i found funny…

      The cannula, I can stand,

      The Jugular and Femoral lines, i can stand,

      The gastic tube down my nose, and the catheter up my…, I can stand,

      The abdominal drain, and the…aroma.. of my neighbours’ leaky stoma bags, I can stand,

      But the violin?

      Oh dear Gods….THE VIOLIN.?

    2. Good morning m’dear.
      During my week in dock I was entertaining the other patients with my singing!
      Most of them appreciated it.

    4. Thanks Caroline, that reminds me of a time when I played the organ which was in a ward at Warrington hospital. I was due to play for an hour from 7pm. All the beds were wheeled into the day room where the organ was and I started at 7pm. 1/2 hour later a patient got out of her bed and switched the organ off at the wall in the middle of a tune. I asked the ward sister who was standing by me what was going on. She said ” It’s Coronation Street – they watch it at 7.30″ and they turned the TV on.

      2. When Coronation Street started many years ago, I read that 18 million people tune in to it, so I thought that it must be something really worth watching. I saw ten minutes of it. That was enough to last me for several decades!

        1. As children in the early 60’s, we weren’t allowed to watch it! In fact, ITV was pretty much banned in our house!

          3. You are so right Phizzee. When our daughter started going out with a chef, who worked weird hours, he would often be at our house at lunch times and he would always watch one of the Australian soaps. And vw became almost addicted to it, whatever it was. She also used to watch Casualty and Holby City but gave them up some years ago. We now watch A & E or Helicopter ER. Real stuff, good.

          4. 🎵 Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours.
            Just a friendly wave each morning,
            Helps to make a better day 🎵.

            ***I heard from a friend. :@)

          6. Oddly enough one of my grandmothers, at one stage,had a telly but no fridge! She was still using a meat safe and those beaded doily things to go over the milk bottles!

      4. That is very funny!
        We had a new project manager once.
        The timetable for this particular day was

        9.00 – Department Meeting
        10:00 – Staff restaurant opens, and if we don’t get down there sharpish, all the Bacon sandwiches will be sold out, and we will be left with egg and cheese.

        So at 9:58, our department head was just winding the meeting up with the words “Now M (new manager) is just going to hold a presentation to outline her plan for restructuring the project…”
        Nobody said anything.
        We all sat there, as quiet as mice.
        She was no fool, and after a few minutes, stopped talking and said suspiciously “What’s up? Is there something I don’t know?”
        She was met by a room full of blank faces, because nobody wanted to mention Bacon sandwiches in front of the boss.

        They were all sold out of course. After this slightly rocky start, she became very popular though.

    1. I am not sure about this.

      If she is placed with a nice family (not Indian, they do treat them as unpaid slaves).

      The Au Pair gets free board and lodging.
      In her travels she picks up foreign languages.
      She can leave any time. She is not a slave.
      It sets her up for when she decides to have her own family.

      She gets a day off where she can meet friends with some ‘pocket’ money to spend.
      She enjoys it.

      The minimum wage is a broad stroke which does as much damage as it helps.

      Also, I feel it is the envy of wealthier people here from the Left.

      It is not about the Au Pair.

      Morning, Bob.

      1. Given that most of the one’s complaining about the imminent collapse of the Au Pair system are the same Left voting Middle Class 🥃⚓️⚓️telling us how thick, stupid and uneducated we are for voting for BREXIT and how we should be ashamed of our country, my heart pumps purple piss for them.

        1. I get on with people from all areas of the antiquated and outmoded class system, from toffs to labourers.

          What gets on my tits, though, about so-called “middle-class” people is how they constantly and stridently trumpet their status in the contrived class hierarchy; considering themselves to be much better people than those they perceive as “below” them. Toffs and labourers don’t do this; they simply and calmly get on with life. They have nothing to prove.

          Australians and Swedes, who exist in “classless” societies, laugh their socks off at how the British perpetuate their idiotic class system.

          2. The DT had a letter a few weeks back from a Dr Ruth Campbell blaming Brexit for the lack of Au Pairs. It gave the impression, to me at least, she was a hard working Hospital/GP struggling with work & family.

            Turns out she is s psychologist and she runs an au pair agency on the side as a NLE (nice little earner)

            My 3 sons always had somebody available 24 x7 – she was their mother. If you do not want to care for your kids why have them?

          3. Well, sometimes it can happen that their father dies or does a runner, and then one is faced with the choice between sponging off the taxpayer, or hiring an au pair and going out to work.

          4. Granted. But how many single parents can afford to pay to employ an au pair ?

            My sons & their wives used to pay £1500 / child per month for nursery day care 8am till 4.30pm – they found that challenging and they were both working – only 1 working would have been impossible.

          5. Au pairs are cheaper because you give them board and lodging.
            Single parents are just like anyone else, except that they only have one wage – they are not uneducated low earners.

          6. My father died when I was four – so my mother was forced to go out to work. My grandmother came to live with us – but she got dementia and died soon afterwards.
            I went to school but for the couple of hours before she came home, neighbours kept an eye on me in the winter, and during the summer I did my own thing.

          11. But not a Nazi. Anna Soubry is most emphatically not a Nazi. Even though she got those lads prosecuted and fined, she will go down in history as Not a Nazi.

          13. Come on, Grizz. People will never be equal. Equality of opportunity – yes; please give everyone the chance to improve their lot. People being deemed equal has resulted in the deaths of millions; deaths inflicted by a clique who have their own department stores and their own country houses stuffed with looted works of art. And don’t get me onto the subject of nepotism.
            Do I gather there are no better educated, wealthier or more capable people in Australia and Sweden.
            Everyone is drably conforming to the lowest common denominator?

          14. Come on, Nursey. My post had nothing to do with inequality. I’m a fully aware that inequality exists and always will. If you read my post properly you will see that I was only referring to the ingrained snobbishness of those who think they are better than the rest of us.

            When I speak of a “classless” society, I am referring to a lack of snobbishness. Nothing more. There was no mention (or allusion) of “equality”, real or perceived, anywhere in my post.

          15. As DR says, the real McCoy don’t look down on anybody. It’s the socially insecure who do so.

          16. Wrong. There are plenty of the “real” gentry with titles centuries old who look down on everyone.

            Like any other set of people the gentry come in all sorts – almost every “noble” family got there by dirty dealings too.

          18. Read a few history books. Look at how people behave. Use your brain…

            My comment was not dictatorial – since I have no power to dictate. Perhaps you meant didactic – so I think you should start with your dictionary as your first reference book.

            If you choose to throw rocks, I’ll throw right back at you.

          19. The people in between looked out of place and harassed
            And underdone and mean and horribly embarrassed.

            [Hilaire Belloc]

          21. Come on, don’t tell me that Sweden is classless! Isn’t it rather that middle class culture is dominant? What do normal, middle of the road fence-sitting Swedes think of people who want to ban immigration? I’ll bet words like “uneducated” come into it!

          22. You need to visit Sweden to see how it is. Everyone speaks to everyone and most of them want to ban immigration. No one talks ‘down’ to (or of) anyone else; which is what my post was about.

            When I visit my GP or a hospital it is impossible to tell who is who since all doctors, surgeons, nurses, ward-orderlies and bog-cleaners wear identical white trouser-suits.

          24. A good question to which I don’t know the answer. Sweden, in common with many other European countries, operates a proportional representation system, which effectively ensures a hung parliament after every election. This means that all the parties get together in a seemingly never-ending sequence of bartering with each other in order to form some semblance of an administration. The result is an unholy alliance of parties with differing views. It should serves as a warning to those in the UK who still hanker after proportional representation.

          25. And yet somehow the migration policy keeps being implemented?
            FPTP is not serving us better at the moment, when both horses in the race are carrying the same colours.

          27. Am I allowed to suggest solutions that include a guillotine and a lot of one way tickets to other parts of the world??

      2. It was an arrangement that benefitted both the girl (usually) and the family. But these howls of anguish do show that they are getting the care on the cheap.

        1. Au pairs are available from outside of the EU, too, and have been for yonks. Wonder how that worked?

          1. All our au pairs came from either England or Scotland. We had several French girls as babysitters but often I stayed at home to look after the children while the baby sitter went out to a restaurant in the evening with Caroline and the students. When we dined at home we often invited young French people to come and dine with us so that our students had some French people of their own age with whom to chat over the meal and a glass of wine.

          2. During the 1970s there was an official German au pair agency. We usually got our au pairs via that contact. As did my brother and his wife.
            Apart from my brother, we were all nurses and needed help during our shifts. As soon as we finished, we took over and the au pair was free for the rest of the day and completely free on our days off. I really do resent the implication that we were exploiting these girls.

          3. Ooo… young people and alcohol is a taboo subject here. It was a regular theme in parent-teacher meetings, reporting all thoughts of alcohol in other folk’s kids… So, what happens is the youngster gets absolutely hammered the day they are 18, and has no idea about how to cope with alcohol, as they never grew up with it in managed quantities. Norwegians typically drink on limited occasions and to get drunk, as opposed to using it as a social lubricant – although things are slowly improving.

            Since alcohol is a key part of western socialising, we brought out two up that alcohol was some dull stuff that farty daddies drink, but they were offered a sip of beer when small, thir own beer when bigger, wine with dinner, and when over the age of consent, spirits. All consumed under supervision, so they learned about the effects it has on them. Both are abstemious, and Firstborn can consume the most amazing volumes with little effect. Second Son will have a wine with dinner, and an occasional cider, but that’s all.

          4. When our sons were in their teens, we could tell which of their friends had been introduced to alcohol by their parents, and those who had been kept away from the demon drink.
            Guess which ones passed out in the hall way or puked up the stairs when the boys held parties.

          6. Your 2nd paragraph, Paul, mirrors my own alcohol up-bringing, except, being quite tall at 14, when I went to the Speedway or the wrestling in Norwich, I’d partake of a pint of mild at 1/3d a pint. That would have been 1958.

          9. Sonst wurdest du nur deine eigenen Muttersprache zu Hause reden, und das AP-Mädchen wurde kein Deutsch lernen…

          10. Vilket låter lite som jag. Jag talar bara mitt modersmål som hemma och jag strävar efter att lära mig konversationssvenska. Oroa dig inte, 95% av svenskarna talar utmärkt engelska.

        2. To be absolutely honest we did not actually need to have an au pair but the au pairs we did have would have been keen to come to us without any pay at all.

      3. When our boys were little many of the girls who had been on our courses and were studying French at university were eager to return to us. We treated them as members of the family, took them on expeditions with our students, fed them, housed them and gave them pocket money and Caroline helped them with their academic work. In fact one of our au pairs (who was a boy) went on to Cambridge and became a don; another is now the Head of Modern Languages in one of the top independent schools in London.

    2. Actually, if done properly, the au pair system is a way for families to get affordable childcare and young people to get a foothold in another country, either to learn the language, or to emigrate there while having a place to live for the first year.

  25. ‘Morning, all. Here’s a BTL comment on a thread in the DT Letters today. The thread started off discussing “social distancing” – whether it should be measured in feet or in metres – and moved on to a comparison of temperature measurement – Fahrenheit v. Centigrade/Celsius.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/23a723a61705488f13f35fad6ae20a8831c239ba110b3ad9c9113c1af8ca575e.png

    Being old-school, I detest the Centigrade system and I’ve always refused to use it. I could never understand why this inferior system was foisted upon us since the Fahrenheit scale is far more precise. Water freezes at 32°F and boils at 212°F, dividing the two points into 180 units, whereas the Centigrade scale divides those same two points by only 100 units (0°C – 100°C).

    (As a footnote, I have a long-case barometer/thermometer/hygrometer, made by Negretti & Zambra of London in the mid-1800s – which belonged to my grandfather – and measures temperature using the Fahrenheit scale. It hangs on the wall in the entrance hall and is a fine piece of furniture in its own right as well as being a very accurate bit of kit.)

    1. Ooh Duncan! Negretti! Very dodgy name! You’ll probably need a visit from BLM to rip it off your wall!

    2. N&Z made fine instruments. They were still going (in Aylesbury) until relatively recently.

    3. Hi, Duncan.

      Will you sell your barometer [barometre?] to me? I will offer you 300 guineas, 15 pieces-of-eight and a groat for it.

      When it comes to temperature I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Kelvin man. 0ºK for absolute zero sounds about right to me.

      1. Morning Grizz, I believe 0 deg K is a hypothetical figure as it is impossible to achieve

        2. I read somewhere, Spikey, that super conductors were reduced down to that temperature, or close, in order for them to function. -273ºC if I remember correctly.

      3. 329110 + up ticks,
        Morning P,
        In the nicest possibly way I must beg to differ
        in so far as “they know precisely what they are doing”.

    5. Shouldn’t he worry more about adolescents with mobile phones?
      (Rats, I’ve given him another repressive idea.)

      1. Adolescents without mobile phones wouldn’t be subjected to porn.

        Drug dealers wouldn’t be able to connect with their customers.

        What’s not to like?

  28. Signs of the Times

    Sign in a Gynaecologist’s Office:
    “Dr. Jones, at your cervix.”
    **************************
    In a Chiropodist’s office:
    “Time wounds all heels.”
    **************************
    On a Septic Tank Truck:
    Yesterday’s Meals on Wheels
    **************************
    On a Plumber’s truck:
    “We repair what your husband fixed.”
    **************************
    On another Plumber’s truck:
    “Don’t sleep with a drip. Call your plumber.”
    **************************
    On a Church’s Bill board:
    “7 days without God makes one weak.”
    **************************
    At a Tyre Store
    “Invite us to your next blowout.”
    **************************
    On an Electrician’s truck:
    “Let us remove your shorts.”
    **************************
    In a Non-smoking Area:
    “If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action.”
    **************************
    On a Maternity Room door:
    “Push. Push. Push.”
    **************************
    At an Optometrist’s Office:
    “If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place.”
    **************************
    On a Taxidermist’s window:
    “We really know our stuff.”
    **************************
    On a Fence:
    “Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive!”
    **************************
    At a Car Dealership:
    “The best way to get back on your feet – miss a car payment.”
    **************************
    Outside a Car Exhaust Store:
    “No appointment necessary. We hear you coming.”
    **************************
    In a Vets waiting room:
    “Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!”
    **************************
    In a Restaurant window:
    “Don’t stand there and be hungry; come on in and get fed up.”
    **************************
    In the front yard of a Funeral Home:
    “Drive carefully. We’ll wait.”
    **************************
    And the sign at a
    RADIATOR SHOP:
    “Best place in town to take a leak.”
    **********************
    Sign on the back of another
    Septic Tank Truck:
    “Caution – This Truck is full of Political Promises”

    1. Seen on the side of a builders van…

      Novak & Goode

      A year later with a third partner Billy Steele

      Steele, Novak & Goode

  30. Been vaccinated, after queueing outside the ‘Health’ Centre for 45 minutes in the pouring rain, cus
    they had computer problems.

    I am positive it was all a plot for us oldies to catch pnuemonia and die.

    1. Well at least you would get a mention see the link above.
      My Good lady is just off the get her’s now.

        1. It all went very well i was rather nervous but the people running the venue were brilliant. The lady who jabbed me was a retired Doctor. I do like to have a bit of humorous ( asked her if she’d done this before and she laughed) banter with people, it certainly helps in situations such as we are going through. And she didn’t say just a small prick either !!! Because i was driving home, I had to sit in the observation area after the jab for 15 minutes. Just have a sore arm today wife had a restless night though, but both on top of it now.

          1. Did you have the AZ one? I had to queue outside in the sunshine for 20 minutes, which wasn’t a problem as it was not cold. When I got to the vaccination room, there were two people doing the jabs – mine was a nurse, and very efficient. I didn’t feel anything. I asked her if she was going to tell me which one I’d had and she did, but it was on the little card as well. I also asked her if I needed to sit down for a while, and she said it wasn’t necessary for the AZ one, but not to drive if I felt dizzy. I walked back to Tesco’s where I had left the car, about 10 minutes walk, and felt fine so I drove to Waitrose, did some bits of shopping and then drove home. No reactions so far, and my arm is not sore.

          2. AZ I walked in the front door of the community hall In Harpenden, booked in, was shown to a seat, sat for less than ten minutes and was called across. Had the jab sat down to make sure I had no adverse reaction. Walked out and drove home all done in an hour and ten. .

    2. Strange that you should write that OLT; during the last spell of wind and sleet a friend queued for 25 minutes outside the vaccination centre.

  32. The Electoral Reform Society has produced an article on 3 February claiming that the numbers of Lords are not representative of many parts of the UK and are too numerous, 833. The ERS suggest 600 [ I think 200 or less] The politicians are incapable of reforming the Lords which could be at 1000 members by the end of this dysfunctional Parliament. How can we take action to bring about reform of this bloated interfering HoL.

    1. I suggest that each party can nominate a ‘voting’ Lord to match their MPs. The rest can’t vote, don’t get expenses, can write to the Speaker asking to speak on subjects where they have special expertise. The Speaker has a budget for their expenses.

      But they can use the bar, where they pay.

      1. That is a good idea, but would negate the role of the Lords as being a rein on the government that is above electoral politics.

        1. It is not my preferred solution, but better than what we have. I would have an elected chamber, about 300, with constituencies being defined across society, Universities, Accountants, Engineers etc. That is how it is done in the RoI upper chamber and all govts. hate it – so, good. But it should be a revising only chamber.

      1. Ah yes, those hereditaries – who don’t give a damn about the country, don’t give a damn about the people – and haven’t got a clue.

        No. Get rid of all the hereditaries and get in some people who haven’t grown up thinking that “Sir” is the usual form of address for themselves.

      1. Make it a pub without the old soaks present.
        It would be the first time in many, many, many years.

      2. If they face up to the state of the building, it might have to be demolished.
        Actually, that is quite a good contender for next major crisis – a giant fire at the Houses of Parliament, and when the smoke clears, who knows what changes will have been made?

      3. ‘Afternoon, Paul, there is need for a supervising and modifying house in order to prevent the Commons doing silly things.

        The few hereditaries and Law Lords, which should be all the Lords there are, must also have the ability to delay legislation up to a year as they did in the 1911 reform.

    5. Reverse the Blair vandalism and reduce the number of life peers to be no more than the number of hereditary peers.
      Then cut the level of payments, allowances & expenses, to match what it was before Blair interfered.

      1. Having, done that BoB, re-install the Law Lords, as the highest court of appeal and dissolve the Supreme Court.

      2. The hereditary peers were a lot of blood-suckers who didn’t give a damn about anyone. The House of Peers has done a far, far better job as a reforming chamber since they were kicked out.

        Numbers need to come down, there are no payments and allowances should be looked at but the hereditary peerage served their own interests and, in the main, their own interests only.

    6. Reverse the Blair vandalism and reduce the number of life peers to be no more than the number of hereditary peers.
      Then cut the level of payments, allowances & expenses, to match what it was before Blair interfered.

    1. About sums it up.

      I think i will re-read One day in the life of….

      Just so i know what’s coming next.

  34. Oh look… another one has resigned… the all important Secretary of State of Pennsylvania, Kathy Boockvar……….

    I wonder why ?

    Donald’s getting closer !

  35. Just to cheer your Saturday morning……………

    The possibility of climate lockdowns is already being floated by some of our greatest thinkers.

    They see a confluence of global crises as an opportunity. The perfect

    storm caused by COVID-19 and the resulting global economic meltdown

    offers a chance to take what they see as bold and dramatic action to

    save the planet. The Biden administration will certainly use the

    consequences of COVID to push through some green legislation, but just as before, it will not be enough in the eyes of progressives. There must always be more.

    Mariana Mazzucato, an author and a professor in innovative economics at the University of London, raised the prospect of climate lockdowns in MarketWatch last September:

    ‘Under a “climate lockdown”, governments would limit private-vehicle

    use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving

    measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To

    avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do

    capitalism differently.’

    The idea of ‘doing capitalism differently’ is the driving rhetorical

    motivation behind the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset (another term

    for the implementation of global Marxism).

    https://www.thegwpf.com/are-you-ready-for-the-climate-lockdowns/
    Eat the bugs,Bigot!!

    3. Mariana Mazzucato doesn’t sound like a “greatest thinker” – perhaps we could ration her oxygen intake?

    4. Well, that is certainly looking like the most likely contender for the next step in the great reset.
      Now that they’ve tested lockdowns successfully, I don’t think they will be giving them up in a hurry.
      “If 70% of the population give up their cars, we can ease the lockdown, otherwise we would face a crisis of climate-related deaths”

      1. 329110+up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        You just wait until bloody Thor hears about this malarkey, there will be a perfect storm alright.

      2. Those of us who live (and are still working) in the sticks will have to give up work, then. No public transport that will go where you want when you want (and, as importantly, get you back home again the same day).

        1. I have been wondering about that too. However, it could also go the other way – only rich people who can afford an electric car will be able to live out in the sticks.
          It is not certain that they will manage to push this electric car nonsense through. However, I suspect that the WEF knows that telling people to give up their cars is likely to be a flashpoint, so they will make it happen as part of a “crisis”.

          1. Good luck with getting electric cars to work out in the sticks, too. Where I live there are no recharging points I know of except possibly one or two in the larger conurbations (and that is a guess). Electricity supplies themselves may be dodgy, too. I know of one house that has a charging point (fortunately, it’s a new build and the car can be parked next to it). Many of the older houses don’t have parking spaces at all.

          2. I know one chap who has paid several thousand to have a charging point installed in his garage, in the belief that electric cars are inevitable. Everyone in our hamlet has the space – still don’t want one though. No electricity, or a charging battery would mean we’d be completely stuck – and in any case, I do not fancy having my car being dependent on the electricity grid. We’d probably end up having to save up to charge it to do a monthly shop!

          3. With all the emphasis on unreliable “renewable” energy (ie wind turbines), energy supplies will be iffy to say the least, especially in view of the rising population (greater demand) and the lack of wind inevitable on cold, still days in winter under a high pressure.

          4. Exactly. They have already admitted that smart meters are going to be used to “manage” demand.

    5. 329110 + up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Bolstered by their success at the may elections dick and the pillow whisperer will be in campaign overdrive.
      The thought of teaming up with president miden is enough in my book to have dick & wisp of the pillow
      coupling again and creating yet another ersatz tory.

      I do believe they would appreciate any other words with flu inclusive such as Confluence that can be distorted into a viable sounding fear or threat for herd fodder.

    6. One ray of sunshine: Marxists are so slow and inefficient, it’ll probably all fizzle out before it gets started, especially given the ages of Sorass and Schlob.

  36. Off topic

    What a foul day, the apocalypse may be nigh.

    We’ve got a really strange and spooky pink/grey hue to the light and the rain is so full of dust that the car turned brown. Even the air smells peculiar. Perhaps the authorities are spraying us with something new to justify further lockdowns.

    2. Blue sky and sunshine in Hampshire. As long as the apocalypse is limited to France I can live with that.

    4. Similar light here but I haven’t been out to check for Sahara sand.

      Edit: Just been out to check and yes, Sahara sand being carried by the rain and a layer of it on everything.

    5. Cheap cremations. Why spend thousands on your corona victims when the churches are shut?

  38. England are on 550. When India get to the crease we are going to see 11 Geoffrey Boycotts. Or trying to be.

      1. Talking of China, did you see the long piece on Al Jazeera news about Uighers only being allowed electronic money (so that the Government can see where it’s being spent).

        Next will come the banning of non electronic money held by ordinary Chinese citizens.

        Infuriating to our politicians that the Chinese have rushed on ahead with The Great Reset.

        1. The fools who are too lazy to use cash are also too thick to see the implications of this piece of news.

          2. We have bakery in our town who refused to take any cash for about 6 months from March. Needless to say there a quite few folk who refuse to buy from them now that they’ve decided cash ain’t so bad. It was be good if sane people boycotted those cashless shops in droves.

          3. …and if people bought from shops instead of online shopping we would still have a High St. bustling with shoppers…

          4. Interesting BB” that the BBC have completely ignored it.

            Must be a case where The Great Reset is more important than the welfare of Muslims.

    2. I saw that on Twitter earlier on – I think I’ve probably read every one of his posts and retweeted a fair few. He’s the voice of reason. I hope we find him again.

  41. Earlier Bob3 posted re. Are you feeling poetic about the jab….

    Any ideas for HAPPY HOUR NoTTlers?

    There was a young lady called Jill
    Whose jab exploded at will
    They found her vagina
    In North Carolina
    And her tits in a pub in Brazil

  42. Well it just shows how badly the Remainers are taking all this good news since we left the EU, what with Cadburys returning, Nissan and the Banks giving it the thumbs up , but rather than apologise to me for all the name calling and opprobrium they have unleashed on me over the years for being the one spokesman standing up for Leave, my local political facebook group have only kicked me out of the group, for some spurious reason.

  43. Saw this on PG I wonder if it is a relation

    Thomas Cochrane: Craziest Captain in Sea History.You Tube.
    For all you history buffs, especially of navy history, this hour long animated documentary had me scratching my head in disbelieve at this guy’s story of his adventures and many, many victories during our wars with France and Spain. He made the great Admiral Lord Nelson look as if he was standing still.
    Must admit I’d never heard of him until watching this vid.
    Amazing stuff from this buccaneering Scot known as the Sea Woolf. Very enjoyable.

      1. “Memoirs of a Fighting Captain”? It’s rather heavy going at times but, as you mention, a fantastic life! It seems fitting that the base in Rosyth was named HMS Cochrane.

        1. “The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain”, by Robert Harvey. I’m just re-reading the Jack Aubrey series, again, a lot of Cochrane’s life is borrowed.

          1. I must try that – Cochrane’s own accounts are fascinating but the style is obviously rather dated and I found it heavy going despite the fascinating content!

    3. I have a copy of his memoirs. All matter of fact and desperate hand to hand fighting on every page. His exploits after leaving the RN were considerable.
      Every street in Chile is named after him and every open space has a statue.

    4. Patrick O’Brian in his naval novels with Jack Aubrey nicked a few of Cochrane’s ups and downs.

    5. Another great sailor who doesn’t get much of a mention, unless you live in northern Western Australia maybe, is William Dampier.

          1. They were full of obscure bits of information. I knew a classics don at a British university who swore that one day he would write a paper that would reference the Ladybird Book of Roman Britain as a source.

  44. This, from the Aberdeen Press & Journal’s Letters to the Editor.

    SIR — It is high time the statue of King Edward VII was removed from its plinth at Union Terrace, Aberdeen, and consigned to the dustbin of history. This depraved monarch was not only a libertine, a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist racist and an ethnic German to boot, he invented Teddy-boys, which were the scourge of the Granite City during the 1950s.

    There can be no place for a memorial to such a man in 21st century Scotland. Edward VII must fall.

    A. Numpty
    Faculty of Historical Grievances
    University of Aberdeen

      2. It was Edward II who lost the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. It’s a wonder the Scots haven’t erected a statue to his memory, complete with the notorious red-hot poker.

        1. Edward I was as embarrassed by his son as much as Edward III was embarrassed by his father.

  45. One of the benefits of monitoring the BBC news channel…

    I know it’s too painful for many to watch but there are clues to be found if paying careful attention. Despite full on coverage to scare the population about covid it seems some of the presenters are trying to warn us that all is not as it seems. It’s like a situation where you are being held hostage and have to answer the door without mentioning the danger within or a family member will suffer at the hand of the hostage taker.

    In recent days some presenters are reporting deaths as “With Covid”. Others use the term “With covid on the death certificate“. Sometimes their facial expressions give the game away. An example here is how they reported the passing of Captain Tom. He was reported as entering hospital with pneumonia but the presenters were told to give the cause of death as covid with no mention of other serious conditions.

    Even Whitty admitted that nobody has died of the regular flu this winter and that the death certificates were signed off as covid. Those closer to the action like him and the BBC staff must know the truth behind covid and the lockdown but have something held to their heads so they dare not reveal the truth.

      1. Medical students had better do a few politics courses at university, better to understand their instructions in the future.

      2. Regular flu and the common cold are corona viruses,,,

        By amplifying the DNA showing corona virus from previous bouts of colds and flu equates to dying of covid 19. How else could nobody have died from the regular flu that kills 1,000’s every winter?

        1. “Regular flu and the common cold are corona viruses,,,”

          Not so. There are cold viruses in the coronavirus group but flu viruses are quite different. There are many cold viruses in other groups.

          1. That’s the great advantage of coronavirus. It kills all known viruses – except itself…(sarc)

      3. Yeah, but hang on.

        If a bloke dies with a lamp post through his head and tests positive, his death is counted as being from covid.

        If he doesn’t get a test but covid is still mentioned, he has, officially, died from covid.

        The lamp post is completely ignored, but that is, in reality what caused the death – same as Sir Tom died from pneumonia, not covid.

        1. Indeed, but Honda’s OP was about the confusing presentation of the data and the BBC’s use of the higher ONS figure.

    2. Those who believe they are immune to propaganda ( & advertising ) are unaware of the insidious subconscious / subliminal / cumulative effects of it and are almost definitely more susceptible to it because of that.

      1. I’d dispute that, but those who are not aware of the advertising yet claim to be immune to it are clearly waffling.

        Personally I find internet based advertising intrusive and idiotic, and I have multiple ad blocking layers. Not having a TV in the house helps as well.

        As regards magazines and so on – I wouldn’t buy a fancy watch because Joe Soap was wearing on. I’ve no interest whatsoever in designer clothes and should I buy a computer it’s after a lot of research.

        Besides, no one advertises parts for a 1980 AM Vantage.

    3. I think it’s simple cash. Hospitals are counting deaths as covid simply because thety either get money for it or to exacerbate the disease in the public eye [erhaps just to make the NHS look busier than it really is.

      Either way, it’s blatant deceit. Was it the Question Time fellow who said that only 350 people had died directly from covid?

      If 12000 people die a week in the UK, over a year that’s what, 600,000? If 352 have died solely from covid… the numbers are paltry. Covid is simply a scam from the start.

  46. OT – we watched the prog about the documentary maker Ken Burns. Very interesting. One could tell where his politics lie… (not a Republican)..

    Being American, it was a touch cloying – the absence of either of his wives was (to me) telling. I think it must be a bit like living with God – because everyone in his town (ad his film crew) just “lurves” Ken and worships him etc. No mention of his kicking the dog and shouting at his missus (not that he could possibly have done either, of course).

    Nonetheless, he does make extremely powerful and significant docus. BTW – he looks at 67 almost exactly the same as he did at 21. Amazing how his hair is still very dark….(sarc). I wish mine was!!

  47. The unfettered GB-NI trade petition that some people signed a couple of days ago is now standing at nearly 125 000, with zero publicity in the newspapers….

    1. A BTL comment suggested that we shall probably never know for sure if the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory because the Chinese would have covered up or destroyed all the evidence.

      My reply was that we shall probably never know for certain whether Biden’s Democrats stole the US election because they will have covered all the evidence if they had done so.

      1. Well, they (The Dems/Big Tech/MSM) are now bragging about their conspiracy in that Time magazine report, thinking they are now ‘untouchable’ due to all (bar the Supreme Court) parts of the US government and the vast majority of the MSM/Big Tech being controlled by ‘their people’. I just hope they continue to overreach…

        You’re likely right about COVID, and I suspect much of the same forces behing The Steal are also behind the China cover-up and huge transfer of power and wealth from us plebs to themselves. Normally us Brits would be amongst the first to realise this, but at the present time, it appears more of our continental and US friends appear to be. Most Brits seem to be either resigned to our fate or completely brainwashed/blue-pilled by the propaganda from the Establishment.

        It just shows what the difference between the times when the media was much freer and professional and now, when its mostly activists and self-serving propagandists. Even Channel 4 News showed up Big Pharma for their blatant lies back in 2010/11 when trying to engender a pandemic for Swine Flu. Now, they and all the rest of the MSM just do their PR work for them.

    2. Sadly, this good article is followed by a blatant propaganda piece – no reader comments allowed (well, it IS [IMHO] the Gates Foundation that funds the Telegraph on its COVID pandemic coverage)

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2021/02/06/croydon-became-hotbed-vaccine-misinformation/

      Notice how they conveniently mix in actual nutbag conspiracy theories and theorists with genuine concerns about the lack of long-term testing of the COVID vaccine, the pushing of COVID passports via the back door to effectively make the jab manditory via all but name to be able to have any semblence of normality (which itself will be far less than it was beforehand, despite promises to the contrary) and to push The Great Reset under the guise of ‘building back better’.

      I’d say that this article FURTHER REINFORCES people’s genuine concerns and make them more worried about what is going on, given they are trying to smear everyone in that group with the same tinfoil hat brush. The lack of transparency from the authorities, media and pharma companies, plus that they are already targeting actual experts with ‘cancellation’ via well-place hit piece articles, social media smears and lies just shows (as we see below in the post about that scientist) they must have something to hide, something they want to protect.

      That may be a transfer of power and wealth and not some drug to control us or make ourselves infertile to control the population, but the former is still a terrible act that must be challenged and exposed, and then stopped and reversed.

  50. The BBC last night came up with the information that the results of over 6m Covid-19 vaccinations had been analysed and the number of people with significant side effects was around 3 in 1000. (I cannot now find this report on the BBC website.)
    As the endless stream of film reports – “news” – of people being vaccinated pretty much show them being jabbed and shoved out of the door to let the next one in, there would not be much time to observe and record side effects. Many people would just put up with some side effects without contacting, or attempting to contact a doctor.
    Additionally, we know that the statistics which the government has compiled on Covid-19 cases and deaths over the last 14 months are so far wide of the mark as to be complete baloney. It follows that this analysis of the incidence of side effects is likely to be worthless, except as reassuring propaganda to be fed to the proles.

    1. The side-effects reported are after a very short period of time – almost instant. A further question would be about the longer-term side-effects, which by their very nature, may be permanent. That’s what proper testing is all about.

      1. Ah, yes. “Proper Testing”. That is now being carried out on the entire population of them that’s willing. We’ll see what happens over the next five years, although a large cohort will have died anyway, being in the over-75 danger zone.

    3. The term ‘significant’ is certain open to interpretation. I thought that the whole point of the vaccination process was that the person remains (seated) for 15 minutes in an observation area, just in case they took a turn for the worse.

        2. I thought that only applied to the Pfizer jab.
          MB and I both had O/AZ. He was zapped the following day (in bed until lunchtime and then not at his most fizzing). I just felt very tired on the evening of the following day.

    1. Love it! The way his legs stick out over the end of the cushion! Classic cat!
      How are you feeling, Uncle Bill?

    2. Love it! The way his legs stick out over the end of the cushion! Classic cat!
      How are you feeling, Uncle Bill?

      1. They are either thundering all round the house, eating or sleeping.

        Apparently, young cats need up to 20 hours sleep a day. Ours manage on about 12.

  55. Joe Biden: I’ll ban Donald Trump from intelligence briefings because of ‘erratic behaviour’ 6 February 2021.

    US President Joe Biden said Friday that his predecessor Donald Trump, who is awaiting a Senate impeachment trial on charges of inciting an attack on the US Capitol, should not receive classified intelligence briefings, as is customary for former presidents.

    “I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?” Mr Biden said in an interview with the CBS Evening News.

    This from someone who functions at a Pavlovian level to Aural Prompts and Autocues.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/06/biden-says-trump-should-not-receive-intelligence-briefings-erratic/

    1. But has a very acute olfactory nerve apparently….

      [This probably explains why: ‘The olfactory nerve is the first cranial nerve and conveys special sensory information related to smell. It is the shortest of the cranial nerves and passes from its receptors in the nasal mucosa to the forebrain.’]

    3. Maybe Biden should go for the op that severs the tube running from the anal canal to the mouth.?? Its a bit of a shitty op but it stops the BS spewing out.

      1. Because you can get life threatening infections including heart attack if the tooth is not sealed properly.

    2. At least they could get an NHS dentist to see – no appointments available from mine since the pandemic started.

      1. Mine is working 7 days a week to clear the backlog, because of distancing and having to clean everything all the time. But then he’s Private. £30 a month with Denplan.

  59. Mail to a Con MP…………..

    The headlong rush back to the Stone Age with Net Zero, except of course for certain billionaires who will retain their private jets, originates at the World Economic Forum, Davos and is unsurpringly promoted heavily by those self same billionaires with private jets.

    Just by totally unconnected random coincidence, those billionaires, in addition to directing the Davos agenda, also direct the UN agenda which is identical in every respect and taken together is one of the most obvious ”exercises in global government” ever seen on Planet Earth.

    So the question inevitably as always is why do certain national politicians and senior global officials so love the company and policies of the Davos billionaires, when, as Douglas Murray in the ”Spectator” today so eloquently says…………..

    ”Davos is packed with insights hardly worth the bus fare” ?

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-disconnect-of-davos-man

    So if Douglas Murray is correct as I believe he is, surely it cannot be the policies of the Davos billionaires which politicians love so much… but an altogether different aspect unique only to billionaires?

    For the answer, please consult Mr Tony Blair, who can doubtlessly assist following his highly profitable partnership with a well known Davos billionaire which began in April 1996 at the New York Plaza Hotel and included such activities, apparently, as selling state assets in low price sweetheart deals among themselves and cronies and sharing the profits. Also the other three UK PMs who, just like Tony Blair, completely forgot to mention the same billionaire in their autobiographies whom they all apparently knew so well. Namely John Major, Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

    It surely looks obvious that UK Prime Ministerial group amnesia and UK politician secrecy and censorship are essential and vital clues to solving this complex and all important mystery………….

    Have a great day !

    Polly

    1. Quite a lot of jokes currently doing the rounds about Biden’s pick of John Kerry as his ‘climate Csar’. I do love all the excuses from the Establishment as to why their trips abroad by private jet/first class airliner, etc, etc are justified. Presumably they haven’t heard of ‘the telephone’ or ‘video conferencing’.

  61. I was watching the rugby but turned off due to female commentator……FFS leave it to the guys who know what they are talking about…

    BBC2 film offering ‘Ivanhoe’ . Wake up BBC do you expect license fee payers to continue to pay fo this crap….

    PS followed by Flog It…………..

    1. Hi Plum. We have the rugby on but without the sound. I just think they should have men commentating and interviewing. Is that sexist? I expect so!

      2. Not men. Just one man. It’s like a chat between three tipsy blokes in the pub. Not one iota of useful information or clarification.

    2. Sometimes you can have the sounds from radio commentary instead, whether by simulcast (BBC red button only) or just by muting the TV and turning the hifi/radio on. Worth a look if 5 Live is running any rygby commentary today for the match.

      1. Maybe but you are so right. Am sick and tired of all this stuff. I much prefere a man who has played mans rugby commentating on a mans game.

    3. I’m a female and I don’t watch the build up to the rugby anymore die to the female hosts. And cricket is just as bad. Cancelled my Sky sports when they got rid of the good old cricket fundis.

    4. I put a comment on the Beeb hys to the effect that it was akin to listening to a bunch of pub bores, who, in their youth, had played for Old Possibles 4th XV’s

          6. A cricket score, I see in Rome. How boring. One sided matches are a turn-off. Italy ought to be dropped and we should revert to the Five.

          7. They weren’t up to much even when the excellent Sergio Parisse was playing but, without him, they are utterly lost.

          8. I would prefer to see a second division, with promotion and relegation.
            Two up two down.

            It might be the same teams for a few years, and there will be massacres, but standards will rise and even Italy have not always won the wooden spoon.
            Alternatively have three lots of five and one up one down or even, shock horror, if the ecoloons allow the flying, pull in the USA Canada and The Argentines and Uruguay with three divisions.

        1. My rugby-playing Dad didn’t appreciate him at all! He could be quite biased on occasion!

          1. I noticed that he got a bit biased towards the end of his career, but I still revere him as the best rugby commentator ever. I still miss his wonderful Borders tones.

        1. Just wonderful what a few days self-medicating by avoiding all tablets – can do…

          We are standing by for the shock of winter weather in winter from Sunday for a week.

          In January 1986, the village was completely cut off for three days by about three feet of snow falling very quickly. It then stopped; the sun came out but the temperature remained below zero. Perfect weather. This is what the garden looked like:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6ca6bd49fda36ecd6e1b1a8c752d79c1b3077415cd052cae47016108561e8ce.jpg

          1. Golly it was deep if you had to dig the beagle out….

            Yesterday I watched a drama documentary about Shackleton and his ill-fated expedition to Antarctica – With your evident cold weather skills I’m surprised you didn’t apply to join the expedition….

    3. The Discovery Channel has a great series of short films called How It’s Made. One of the Freeview channels used to show it?

  64. We have very heavy snow forecast so have prepared if we cannot get out. Moved bins to just by the back door with snow shovels and brushes, gum boots brought in from the garage inside ETC. All this to make sure it does not snow.

  66. HAPPY HOUR

    The Essence of Charm By Laurie Lee

    Charm is the ultimate weapon, the supreme seduction, against which there are few defenses. If you’ve got it, you need neither money, looks, nor pedigree. It’s a gift, given only to give away, and the more used, the more there is. It is also a climate of behavior set for perpetual summer and thermostatically controlled by taste and tact.
    True charm is an aura, an invisible musk in the air; if you see it working, the spell is broken. Charm is dynamic, and cannot be turned on and off at will. As to its ingredients, there is no fixed formula. A whole range of mysteries goes into the caldron, but the magic it offers must be absolute-one cannot be “almost” or “partly” charmed.

    In a woman, charm is probably more exacting than in a man, requiring a wider array of subtleties. It is a light in the face, an air of exclusive welcome, an almost impossibly sustained note of satisfaction in one’s company, and regret without fuss at parting. A woman with charm finds no man dull; indeed, in her presence he becomes not just a different person but the person he most wants to be. Such a woman gives life to his deep-held fantasies by adding the necessary conviction to his long suspicion that he is king.

    Of those women who have most successfully charmed me I remember chiefly their voices and eyes. Their voices were intimate and enveloping. The listening eyes, supreme charm in a woman, betrayed no concern with any other world than this, warmly wrapping one round with total attention and turning one’s lightest words to gold. Theirs was a charm that must have continued to exist, like the flower in the desert, even when there was nobody here to see it.
    A woman’s charm spreads round her that particular glow of well-being for which any man will want to seek her out and, by making full use of her nature, celebrates the fact of his maleness and so gives him an extra shot of life. Her charm lies also in that air of timeless maternalism, that calm and pacifying presence, which can dispel a man’s moments of frustration and anger and restore his failures of will.

    Charm in a man, I suppose, is his ability to capture the complicity of a woman by a single-minded acknowledgment of her uniqueness. Here again it is a question of being totally absorbed, of really forgetting that anyone else exists, for nothing more fatally betrays than the suggestion of a wandering eye. Silent devotion is fine, but seldom sufficient; it is what a man says that counts, the bold declarations, the flights of fancy, the uncovering of secret virtues. A man is charmed through his eyes, a woman by what she hears, so no man need to be too anxious about his age: As wizened Voltaire once said: “Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.”

    But charm isn’t exclusively sexual; it comes in a variety of cooler flavors. Most children have it–till they are told they have it–and so do old people with nothing to lose; animals, too, of course. With children and smaller animals, it is often in the shape of the head and in the chaste unaccusing stare; with young girls and ponies, a certain stumbling awkwardness, a leggy inability to control their bodies. But all these are passive and appeal by capturing one’s protective instincts.
    You know who has charm. But can you acquire it? Properly, you can’t, because it’s an originality of touch you have to be born with. Or it’s something that grows naturally out of another quality, like the simple desire to make people happy. Certainly, charm is not a question of learning palpable tricks, like wrinkling your nose, or having a laugh in your voice. On the other hand, there is an antenna, a built-in awareness of others, which most people have, and which care can nourish.

    But in a study of charm, what else does one look for? Apart from the ability to listen–rarest of all human virtues–apart from warmth, sensitivity, and the power to please, there is a generosity which makes no demands. Charm spends itself willingly on young and old alike, on the poor, the ugly, the dim, the boring, on the last fat man in the corner. It reveals itself also in a sense of ease, in casual but perfect manners, and often in a physical grace which springs less from an accident of youth than from a confident serenity of mind. Any person with this is more than just a popular fellow; he is also a social healer.

    Charm, in the end, is a most potent act of behavior, the laying down of a carpet by one person for another to give his existence a moment of honor. It is close to love in that it moves without force, bearing gifts like the growth of daylight. It snares completely, but is never punitive. It disarms by being itself disarmed, strikes without wounds, wins wars without casualties–though not, of course, without victims.

    In the armory of man, charm is the enchanted dart, light and subtle as a hummingbird. But it is deceptive in one thing–like a sense of humor, if you think you’ve got it, you probably haven’t.

    So there you go NoTTlers….do you have charm…?

    2. “By the time you swear you’re his,
      Shivering and sighing,
      And he vows his passion is
      Infinite, undying –
      Lady, make a note of this:
      One of you is lying.”

      Dorothy Parker says it all !

    4. More to the point, Plum.

      What a superb writer … his ability
      to evoke the memories still, to this
      day, amaze me.

  68. Rugby – most England players going down on one knee. Scots remained standing.

    I hope Scotland wins.

      1. No, but Humza, the “Justice” secretary might. His Free Speech bill is an absolute nightmare, full of racist invective!

      1. I was hoping against hope that this farce had ended, especially as it did not happen before the Italy v France match. Sadly not.

      1. I have English, Irish and Scottish ancestry, so I have the luxury of being able to pick and choose.

        1. The way they’re playing, it’s difficult to watch them, but I can’t stop supporting them.

        2. Ah, the benefit of being British! I have Welsh, Irish and English blood in me, plus a bit of (Roman nose) Italian. perhaps not the right choice of avatar for me – nationality-wise, but correct for my job.

          1. A friend of mine sent a spit sample off for DNA testing to one of the on-line asncestry sites and was very excited that his results said he was 8% Viking. He seemed deflated when I pointed out that most British whites would probably get the same result.

            Talking of DNA tests you can do at home, I wonder how many brothers and sisters have had the test kits as Christmas presents (I hear it’s a thing) and found they have different results.

    5. Looks like you got your wish. Maybe I’ll watch the cricket instead. Well, record it anyway and watch later.

    3. What’s the betting that the next host will be BAME woman, maybe from the alphabet community, inkeeping with the Beeb’s ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ strategy? Maybe Ash Sarkar? Maybe Jodie Whitaker – given she’ll won’t be doing much after 2021.

  70. I am off – sealing the windows and looking out sandbags against the terrible prospect of temperatures as low as minus 1ºC……

    Loada bollocks.

    Have a jolly evening – drink well.

    A demain.

    1. Apparently -20 and 50 cm of snow has been forecast in northern Germany when that gust from the Sahara that was dumping dust in sosraboc’s back yard hits the cold air coming down from the north!

      1. When I was looking up the long-term (more than 2 days) weather report, it showed Russia with temperatures down below -20degC and a HUGE dump of snow. Puts our weather into perspective, as well as the authorities’ response to it.

        I look forward to another week of no bin collections. Joy.

    1. A good idea but you just know it would be labelled racist because so much knife crime is black on black.

      1. Perhaps put a wall around a violent black area, for their own protection. Come back in 10 years and see if anyone is left?

    2. 329110+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      Good thinking but the lab/lib/con coalition party & supporter / voters say NO.

    4. It’d be a good start. It’d leave all the Tyrones with nothing. Applying it to their parents is a good step as well – after all, they’re responsible.

      Frankly if we want to stop knife crime in London we just need to cancel welfare. If we want to stop gangs and drugs then we just deport a huge tranch of Bulgarians, Romanians and other such dross.

    2. Yes, it was nonsense. As as silly as Townsend sitting alone in the stand, wearing a mask.

      1. I was tempted when the ‘masking up’ craze took hold last year to buy a couple of ‘joke’ complete face masks – of Spiderman and Deadpool, deliberately wearing them on the train or in the supermarket whilst otherwise dressed normally. Saly the material wasn’t particularly condcive to breathing or keeping cool for extended periods, not helped by me being an asthmatic anyway.

        1. I have a custom mask, with my own face on it – from zazzle.com.
          I hate masks, so piss-take is essential.
          Believe you can get zombies, too… }:-))

    3. Oh JUlia! They have to show the pretence! That’s what matters. Not the spirit, the letter.

  76. ‘Children need more fat heroes so teach them Billy Bunter’
    Academic says the fictional character would be a more relatable hero for youngsters because of his imperfections
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/06/children-need-fat-heroes-teach-billy-bunter/

    Billy Bunter should be taught in schools because children need more fat heroes, an academic has said.

    The fictional character, who was famously overweight and called names such as “fat Owl” and “fathead”, would be a more relatable hero for youngsters because of his imperfections, according to Prof Graeme Davis, an expert in linguistics at Buckingham University.
    …
    Prof Davis, a professorial research fellow in humanities and associate lecturer at Buckingham University, said Billy Bunter is certainly no “paragon of virtue” but makes the best of things in what he finds to be a “truly awful” environment, his school.

    I don’t know what Billy Bunter books Professor Davis has been reading, but the character I remember is greedy, conceited, lazy and full of his own importance.

    2. “Did you take a currant bun from the kitchen, Bunter?” “No, no, sir. Anyway, there weren’t many currants in it. ….Oh, Ohh!”

  77. It used to be said that rugby is a game for thugs played by gentlemen and football is a game for gentlemen played thugs.

    Now rugby is a game for thugs played by muscle blob thugs and football is a game for gentlemen played by super fit chancers. I think the football one is net an improvement just about, rugby it’s just a disaster.

    1. Well, at least they aren’t as bad as American Football – what they do to themselves – and others, makes our sportsmen look like saints in comparison.

      1. I disagree. RU has sunk so far the NFL is a far better game these days. And it is changing for the better; less regimented, more ‘trick plays’ i.e. ones employing imagination. Primary contact by the head is banned. An NFL player is now far more likely to end his career with his mind intact and without a limp than an RU player.

        1. Oh, it’s not the game itself I’m talking about – I completely agree that they’ve taken it to new heights as regards the skill element (my ‘team’ [the 49ers] having just missed on out the SB last year), but the players do like to abuse their bodies in various ways and have, shall we say, ‘very colourful’ lives away from the pitch.

          It’ll be interesting this year to see the legend of Tom Brady with his new team vs last years’ winners (boo! [no bad losers there :-)]) with the current king of QBs in Mahomes. At least this time I won’t have to stay up through the night only to be disappointed (and that’s not a rude joke either!) again.

          1. It’s funny, I like watching NFL played in the US, it looks like shit played in Europe.

          2. Indeed – maybe the lack of atmosphere, maybe the players are there just for a nice payday and put less effort into it, jetlag? I prefer watching the highlights, as US sports like US Football and Baseball have a lot of (long) stoppages.

            It’s one of the reasons I’ve gone off many sports in the UK where they regularly use stoppages for video replays, etc. Spoils the dynamic of a game. As does loads of subs. I’m old enough to remember when our footie only had one sub per side…back when a million £ player was new…now they get paid that in under a month.

          3. I will probably watch the Super Bowl tomorrow, usually do. But very keen to see how Tom Brady and Mahomes play.

          4. Me too. I would hate to be a Septic though and have to put up with the amount of advertising that interrupts their sporting events.

    3. Definitely time for upper weight limits for players.
      Either that, or reduce the number of replacements allowed and stop this ridiculous ‘finishers’ idea. You might as well go the whole hog and either adopt rolling substiturions as in ice hockey, or special teams as in American Football.
      Stop the watch when a scrum is called and start it again only when the ball is fed in; stop the watch when penalties kicks are taken and allow three subs only – if players knew they would have to run around for eighty minutes they might not bulk up so much.

      1. I would go for a simpler approach. Keep the game running, even a hack midfielder in modern football covers 10kms in a game, top level is well over 15Kms. Muscle blobs can’t do that, they would over heat and collapse. Any penalty, scrum, line-out – you get 10 seconds to deliver the ball into play whoever stops that gets penalized, 10m. It would be far more fun to watch, hurry hurry hurry, makes for mistakes, gaps, fluid play

      2. A weight limit for the pack – rather than for individuals – would allow for talented outliers (think Jonah Lomu) who are genuinely bigger than average guys. But it would keep things more even on the pitch. Rugby also needs to sort out how it deals with concussion. Strange that horse-racing, where the jockey is just a hireling in most cases, takes a far more drastic attitude to concussion than most other sports – and has done so for decades.

  79. Eddie Jones?
    We might just as well have Aled Jones.
    Pathetic, predictable, and almost pointless.
    England under Jones is a one trick pony. Wham, bam, kick, wham, bam, kick.
    Pathetic

    2. I thought that English rugby players were tough no-nonsense lions or bulldogs. Have, previously bodily and intellectually strong rugby players, along with the police and other institutions, been emasculated by the wokes?

      Shame on them! They need to research the real goal of BLM, which has little to do with black lives.

      1. Yeah, but it’s not about that, is it. To these people the bandwagon is more important than the reality.

    3. It was one of those games where penalties spoiled the game, I don’t really understand the rules to be fair, I watched the France Italy game earlier and there were hardly and penalties and the game was allowed to flow.
      England didn’t play well, Scotland were making the most of it.
      Scotland will have one good inspired game and England will improve if it goes to the usual pattern.
      I enjoyed a bottle of wine while watching and will wake up tomorrow ( hopefully ) not battered and bruised, that reminds me, I’d better do the washing up tonight.

      ,

      1. I suspect that if there was an analysis of every six nations match over the last 20 years England would top the penalty given away table by a very long way, but equally, given the way they play, they would also top the penalty awarded table too.

    4. All I saw was Ben Youngs box kicking possession away. Every match is the same.

      The referee was Irish and very keen to penalise England at every opportunity but that is par for the course. England played too many inexperienced players and left it too late to improve with substitutions.

      1. Any referee would have done the same and I suspect that most of them have been forewarned.

        For the life of me, I have never seen why Youngs is so popular.

      2. “..very keen to penalise England at every opportunity but that is par for the course”
        No, it’s because England has always been a very ill disciplined side.

        1. I’m not sure that “always” is quite fair. But they have certainly taken the attitude that the rules are for everyone else for quite a few years now. There is no doubt that they get this attitude fed to them at every meal by their present coach.

    5. All I saw was Ben Youngs box kicking possession away. Every match is the same.

      The referee was Irish and very keen to penalise England at every opportunity but that is par for the course. England played too many inexperienced players and left it too late to improve with substitutions.

    6. I bet there are thousands of people who were glad not being able to spend £85 for a ticket to sit in the rain and watch that shitshow.

    1. French authorities stopped another 92 people from making the crossing.

      The cheque ls in the post etc

      ls

    2. Considering that’s expected of them by international law, they should be paying us to return the wasters to them.

      It really is time to drag them back, destroy the boats and leave them.

  81. Well,well,well

    It’s all been a long time in the planning……………….From 2017

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/person/image/334/Matt_Hancock_May2015_GOVUK.jpg

    Our task, in this building and around the world, is to make this

    technology, this change, work for humanity. And I’m profoundly confident

    we can. Because this technology is made by man, so it can be hewn to

    build a better future for mankind.

    And I’m delighted to speak alongside so many impressive colleagues

    who really understand this, and alongside Professor Klaus Schwab who

    literally ‘wrote the book’ on the 4th Industrial Revolution. Your work,

    bringing together as you do all the best minds on the planet, has

    informed what we are doing, and I’m delighted to work with you.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-4th-industrial-revolution

    3. I scrolled down [on the Mod’s page]
      and felt sure you were going to refer
      back to ‘Tone’….. there is a very slight
      resemblance i.e. the flashing ££££
      signs in the eyeballs.

    5. Nothing much there in respect of fuel and power security, strong armed forces and a well-equipped Navy. Nothing about maintaining essential heavy industry to supply our war machines, and utilities. Nothing about, well a lot of stuff

    6. “bringing together as you do all the best minds on the planet, has
      informed what we are doing, and I’m delighted to work with you.”
      Christ, I think he’s out of his mind.

      3. If you mean Klaus Schwab… he leads the World Economic Forum; a somewhat batty organisation which has been in existence for half a century without having the slightest influence on a single government. The tinfoil hat brigade have, however, decided that his moment is now and that governments all over the world are about to fall under his sway… vanishingly unlikely as that would seem to anyone else.

        1. If, as you say, Prof Schwab and the WEF has ‘no influence’ over any government, why do wolrd leaders attend his conferences year after year, and are now parroting the ‘Build Back Better’ (including our PM and Charley-boy, as well as Biden and other Presidents/PMs)and ‘Great Reset’ policies that he and his organisation espouses?

          One , which, I hasten to add, will impoverish the vast majority of the world’s population whilst simultaneously transferring wealth and power to him, governments/civil servants and rich and powerful international businesses?

          Is it no conicidence that the WEF deleted the ‘you’ll own nothing and be glad’ sections of their videos and articles from their website after that agenda was exposed a few months ago?

          1. If you can demonstrate the effect that the WEF has had on any country’s economy since it was founded 50 years ago – then I’ll believe it has influence (though I still won’t believe it has much influence). But I’m fairly certain that you can’t do so, which suggests that things are highly unlikely to change. Going on a conference jolly and doing anything about anything afterwards are two very different things – especially in political circles. The very fact that such things as “you’ll own nothing and be glad” were there highlights the lack of influence – even the Chinese never took things quite as far as owning nothing.

            “Build Back Better” – now where have I heard something like that before… ah yes, that would be “Homes fit for Heroes” sometime around 1918 wouldn’t it, as well as other slogans at other times – but they weren’t built and I’d be prepared to bet that there won’t be much better building (of anything) done in the next few years either.

    8. Found that out some time ago, thanks to Dave Cullen’s (Computing Forever) and Paul Joseph Watsons’ journalistic efforts – which, given both are essentially talented amateurs, puts the so-called professional journalists at the DT and elsewhere in the MSM to shame.

      Well worth subscribing to their channels on YT and Bitchute (Dave now only putting up videos there because he gets censored on YT), as well as Carl Benjamin’s channels (now essentially on The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters/The Lotus Eaters) and websites.

    9. Found that out some time ago, thanks to Dave Cullen’s (Computing Forever) and Paul Joseph Watsons’ journalistic efforts – which, given both are essentially talented amateurs, puts the so-called professional journalists at the DT and elsewhere in the MSM to shame.

      Well worth subscribing to their channels on YT and Bitchute (Dave now only putting up videos there because he gets censored on YT), as well as Carl Benjamin’s channels (now essentially on The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters/The Lotus Eaters) and websites.

  82. Channel 4 are promoting a ‘culture-hopping hit US comedy drama’, starring Golden Globe winner Ramy Yousef. Given 4 stars by The Guardian, who describe it as ‘funny and occasionally ingenious’.

    Well if The Guardian rate it highly, looks like being a ‘must-watch’.

    2. Rather like the vast majority of the recommend you watch 4*+ rated TV shows and films from the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin and Co. Either luvvie lefties or ‘access media’ shills.

      1. Why is Britain behaving like a servile Butler ..

        We used to have such a wonderful type of National arrogance which kept our heads erect and our backs straight .

        Why is everything now becoming so humbling and Indian head wobbling .

  85. Just back from having our first Covid Pfizer, vaccination, back in three weeks for 2nd. Well organized operation, plenty of helpful people and didn’t have to wait long.

      1. At this time, we were not given a choice. I guess it is what the State of WV has enough of to give two doses, 3 weeks apart.

          1. We applied as soon as we could on line, filling in all our medical info, for the local health department and they called us last Wednesday with our appointment for today and details where to go. It all worked very smoothly. I’m happy to say.

        2. Sue, having read about the two options,
          i was given a choice:

          Pfizer …. in Wellingborough; or
          Astra-Zeneca … at Moulton Park.

          I went for both … a girlie cannot be too careful!!

        3. I believe Johnson & Johnson have asked US Regulators for emergency approval for their vaccine, a day or so ago, which if approved will make a third option available within weeks.

      3. Not when you turn up at a site but I think different services are offering different vaccines.

      1. Gotta be better than the Moderna vaccine, I’d be singing country & western…..(the vaccine research was partially funded by Dolly Parton at Vanderbilt University, Nashville)……

          1. You guys do so stick together……I will not say what Jack suggested, after I made the comment about Dolly……
            Where is Phizee and Dolly? Must admit, I’m not on here as much as I used to be…but have not seen anything posted from him.

          2. Phizzee has had some health problems, but last I heard (yesterday) he was taking his medication and getting on okay.

    2. Imagine if the teams had had to raise their left arms straight, in salute.

      Seriously; tell me what the difference is.

      Yes, I know the Nazi salute was right arm, but BLM is Marxist

    1. Do they dub or subtitle?

      Was sent to a talk at work once about delivering tv via mobile phones, where a guy from NRK said that they got around copyright problems by filling the gaps with a fish tank video. Sadly the fish proved more popular than the programmes.

      1. Because they’re compromized.

        Eight very significant anti Donald individuals have resigned in the last week, because Donald has something on them through Presidential Emergency Action Order surveillance.

        It’s a clear out of Deep State. Resign or face prosecution.

        1. “Eight very significant individuals have resigned …”
          That’s great news, PP; who are they ?
          Will there be more ?

          1. After the BS election of Supreme Court judges by Trump just before he was thrown out, that is a touch hypocritical.

            Oh look its the democrats, it must be bad.

          2. ‘Evening, Richard, “Oh look its the democrats, it must be bad.”

            Many a true word spoken in jest.

          3. And people talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome.

            It is pathetic to automatically assume that one side or the other is wrong.

          4. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a very real thing Richard, the deranged followers of Trump make that as plain as possible – they just don’t realise that it describes them and no one else.

          5. Bearing in mind your personal animus against Trump – which you’ve often displayed in this forum – derived from your obsession about Trump’s Balmedie Golf Course, it seems to me that anything you have to say about him can be dismissed out of hand, since it’s motivated by viciousness and sheer prejudice.

            BTW, how’s your pal, Carol Rohan Beyts doing? Driven up from Montrose to pish on the links at Balmedie lately or has she found somewhere nearer to home where she can relieve herself without fear of being arrested for indecency?

          6. No, Jennifer, it’s the people who consider that they are always right and who prove to be invariably wrong that are somewhat deranged. Those who cannot come up with a cogent argument other than a downvote need to partake of a little introspection.

          7. The downvote is all you are worth. Anything more (and this will be very brief for that reason) is a complete waste of my time.

          8. That was very brief because, as usual, you have no counterargument.

            Anyway, since it is now 01:30, I’m away to my bed. Any further comments will just be straws in the wind.

          9. Counter arguments are not required against obvious drivel, which seems to be the best that you can produce.

            Bye bye.

          12. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a very real thing Richard, the deranged followers of Trump make that as plain as possible – they just don’t realise that it describes them and no one else.

          13. To me, Richard (and Jennifer if she’s listening/reading) anything that smacks of socialism is wrong; Winston Churchill had it just about right when he said, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, its only virtue being the equal sharing of misery”.

            If the Democrats are socialists – which I think, by their actions, they are, then the cap fits – I suggest they wear it.

            UK politics are currently shot, inasmuch that there’s nothing to choose between them, they’ve all gone socialist/green/deranged. I have no idea for whom I shall vote for in future. But in the US, Republicans used to have good ideas and Trump, despite his forthrightness, did his best for what he, as a businessman rather than a politician, thought right to Make America Great Again.

            Anyway Richard, you enjoy living under you disreputable Prime Minister who is busy wrecking Canada in the same way as Biden and his cohorts will wreck America and put it under Chinese Rule – coming to a country near you!

          14. Oh look I got one from our favourite downvoter. I’ll take that as a compliment since I must have hit the target.

          15. You don’t even know where the target is. You are so sure “that you are always right” that you’re too thick to realise that you are almost invariably wrong. You’re the target – and I just keep landing them. When you stop writing the shit, I’ll stop with the downvotes. Until then your nonsense won’t change a thing.

          16. I would say that the majority of Democrats are not socialists, as recognised by the UK. But like the Republican party, they too, have their extremists, but on the whole I have found Americans to be very much central in both parties.

          17. It is a long way from the excesses of Trump to the excesses of Trudeau.

            Trudeau is a disgrace. He has been caught in many scandals during his reign and the liberal handling of covid is disastrous but somehow he is still sitting at about 40% in opinion polls. People are starting to wake up to how badly Trudeau is performing but I forsee a liberal star campaign to make the conservatives look like Trump. God help us, Trudeau might win reelection.

            Politics is shot all over. I watched ukip grow and thought that they might be a model for the future, that did not work out well.

            If I was still working but laid off because of covid, I might prefer the Trudeau handouts to the worries of lost healthcare insurance and the financial worries in the US.

        3. I believe there is a mounting body of evidence showing foreign interference in the recent election(s) and exposing corrupt state governors and other officials at state level.

          In particular some of the threats made against prominent lawyers by Democrats and other corrupted officials, threats to debar those questioning the validity of the voting, are merely exposing such legislators as holding political bias and to charges of misconduct in public office.

          The CCP have thrown millions at US state officials as have Facebook, Twitter and Amazon.

          The truth will out, hopefully sooner rather than later.

          1. Ah, another downvote in lieu of a cogent argument.

            Have an upvote to start counteracting it.

      1. Eight anti Donalds gone in one week….

        Come on, it’s unprecedented.

        Oh, now I’m hearing of a ninth………..

        1. Carry on with your dreams.

          Many are old and have said that they are retiring now to allow Biden to select their replacements. Naturally the way the US works the replacements will be out and out democrats.

          2. What gets me more is how the idiots are renaming schools in San Francisco. Apparently Lincoln and Washington are not acceptable to the woke

      1. There is no tax to avoid when you are working for the cousin of your neighbour from back home, illegally.

  95. Evening all.

    Just watching 24 hours in A and E and an Indian woman had put a garlic bulb in her ear. Apparently it was a “cure” for something or other! God help us.

  97. Late to the party today – working a doubel shift again 🙁 – so apols if someone has already asked this, but I have just nipped home to feed the PCs and watched the first five mins of the E-S rugby match – can anyone explain why the players stood six feet apart from eachother for the national anthems when they were going tp spend the next eighty minutes in a bundle on the floor with eachother?

    1. It’s been asked, but not answered. Seems a bit daft, but on the other hand it isn’t actually hurting anyone so why worry 😉

    2. I didn’t see the beginning, Stormy but I heard that many ‘took the knee’ and were pissed off because some refused.

      Had I known that when I switched on, I wouldn’t have continued.

      1. I shall now boycott any rugby match where they ‘take the knee’ to a group that wishes to enflame racial hatred.

  98. Watching the rugby was depressing, The Law changes of the last 20 years have completely neutered the game I fell in love with as a schoolboy (and incidentally played to a high level in the amateur era), Its now akin to Rugby League, where you have no option but to meekly wait for your opponent to make a mistake.

    Other than that, has no one told the England players that you cannot EVER win a game without the ball ? Why in Gods name do they persist in kicking the ball back to the opposition at every opportunity ? All the coaches I ever played for would have ensured you never played for them again if you committed this cardinal sin.

    1. They kick the ball because it is the easiest way to move the ball up the pitch. The players are too big to keep running around for eighty minutes.

      1. Yes, but the rule changes mean kicking for field position is no longer an advantage. Not only do the opposition get the line out throw but because “lifting” is now legal you are virtually guaranteed possession from your own throw, Back when you could actually compete for the ball, the team with the better lineout held the advantage so the defending team would avoid kicking the ball out as a result.

  100. Evening, all. The “accusers” are not interested in anything good Captain Cook might have done; that doesn’t suit their narrative at all.

        1. Thanks, Jill. We’re all OK, albeit I am now a bit reclusive. Hope you and Jack survive your jab!

          1. Sorry to hear you feel a bit reclusive, but understand. So far, so good for the survival of the jab…….but early days yet! Hang in there, and as they say over here, “don’t let the turkeys get you down” Night, Night.

        1. That’s good to hear. I’m not always about, nor always communicative, but my thoughts are with you. J

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