Saturday 7 October: The SNP’s by-election drubbing was just the latest sign of a party in freefall

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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493 thoughts on “Saturday 7 October: The SNP’s by-election drubbing was just the latest sign of a party in freefall”

  3. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s story

    Each According To His Life
    Three men died and went to heaven. Heaven had a new policy that whatever good or bad things a person did in his or her life, he or she would get a car accordingly. When the first man arrived, an angel asked him, “How many years where you married?”

    The first man responded, “Twenty years.”
    “How many times did you cheat on your wife?”
    “Five times,” the man said.
    “Okay,” the angel said, “you can go in but you will only get a Fiat.”

    As the first man drove away in his Fiat, the second man arrived. “How many years where you married, young man?” the angel asked.

    “Ten years.” “How many times did you cheat on your wife?”
    “Two times,” he responded. “Well done. Here is your Volvo S40.”

    As the second man drove away, the third man arrived. He was a very old man. The angel asked him, “How many years where you married, old man?”
    “Forty years.”
    “And how many times did you cheat on your wife?”
    “Never.”

    The angel smiled and held out a set of shining keys. “Excellent, here is your Jaguar 2000.”
    A little later, the first and second men were driving and they came across the old man, who was crying and really depressed. They went over and asked him why he was very sad even though he had a very nice car.

    He told them that he just saw his wife and she was on rollerblades.

  5. Putin’s plan for winning the war in Ukraine could be starting to become reality. 7 October 2023.

    As the right wing of the Republican Party tipped Congress into chaos over its opposition to committing more money to Ukraine, the Kremlin took a victory lap.

    Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said the turmoil was a sign of things to come — that Western support for Ukraine would begin to collapse.

    Analysts have long deduced that this is a crucial part of President Vladimir Putin’s plan: to stay in the fight so long that the West gets tired of helping Ukraine.

    I don’t believe that has ever been Vlad’s plan but it looks as though it might be working out that way. The MSM has become luke warm about the whole project, censoring online comments, and in the case of the Telegraph banning them entirely, while several major players have cut back and Poland has bailed out.

    A win for Vlad is a victory for the people of Europe and the UK. We should hope that it comes quickly.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-putin-plan-win-ukraine-may-be-coming-true-2023-10?r=US&IR=T

    3. I think spinning it out until the western economies collapse was definitely the Russians’ plan. The money launderers will never “get tired” of helping Ukraine, but at a certain point, they simply won’t be able to any more! That’s what the western media doesn’t want to admit.
      We all win if war stops, and we don’t get WW3 in the Ukraine.

    8. Dull and grey here. But at lea1st the rain hasn’t started yet.

      And a Happy Birthday to you by the way!

  7. The SNP’s by-election drubbing was just the latest sign of a party in freefall

    given recent events, is it any wonder

  8. So now we have the manopause heading our way in all the public services, apparently it is a real thing, but surely to be politically correct we should call it the womanopause if women have the menopause.

    I’m well past manopausal age, so I must have experienced it and so must the countless billions of men going back to the time of creation, I wonder why nobody had picked this up in the past.

    Perhaps with the shorter lifespan it wasn’t an issue.

    I wonder if there is any science behind this or is it just The Science again?

    3. Didn’t it used to be called a mid-life crisis?
      If there is any genuine hormonal effect, I’d look first at all the hormone-changing chemicals to which men are exposed these days.

    4. Some years ago before all this jiggery wokery there was a suggestion that some men could suffer some menopausal-like symptoms. Nothing definitive was reached but most people thought it to be psychosomatic ie in their heads.

    6. Happy birthday, if Rastus has the correct year it’s good age, an opportunity to celebrate your 21st three times today…

      1. Bob 3 posted the picture of the tattooed man saying he was 18 + 45 rather than 63 at the beginning of the month so I have reproduced the image he posted then.

  9. Good morning, all. Bright and clear in N Essex at the moment with 24 degrees forecast. Butcher, Lidl, garden and steak and kidney pies made with hot water pastry are the tasks of the day.

    Late yesterday, Rose put up a comment re cancer post inoculation with the ‘covid’ potion. Evidence of the bad impacts on health of the potion is growing and yet governments and so-called regulators continue to push the, “Safe and effective,” narrative.

    Here The Highwire’s investigative journalist, Jefferey Jaxen, exposes further research re the potion and heart problems: it’s not just the unlucky few suffering with heart inflammation.

    The Highwire – Troubling Study Reveals Heart Damage in Covid Inoculated Victims

  10. Net migration is too high, says Yvette Cooper. 7 October 2023.

    So does Labour want fewer work visas issued than at present? Ms Cooper is reluctant to put figures on it, referencing David Cameron’s pledge to get annual net migration below 100,000 which has never been hit. But after repeated questioning it appears the answer is yes.

    “Overall, actually, we shouldn’t have the need for as many work visas as a result of the plans that we’re setting out,” Ms Cooper says at one point. At another: “We don’t think we should be needing this many work visas because what we should be doing is improving training.”

    It reflects how far Labour has moved on migration. After all, Sir Keir himself, back in January 2020 when he was seeking to be picked as Mr Corbyn’s successor by Left-wing party members, promised to reinstate European Union-era free movement rules.

    Is there a General Election in the offing? Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/06/labour-yvette-cooper-migration-reduce-work-visas/

    1. Obviously trying to attract support from pissed of Brits who are fed up to the eyeballs with our useless government. But labour never make any sensible changes for the good.

      1. Indeed. It might have been a good idea for Labour not to use a spokesman who is so heavily connected with the Blair government in people’s minds to deliver this message.

        1. I can still remember all of his, Bliar carefree lying. Obviously all planned well ahead.

    2. Well Ms Cooper tell it to all the independent barber shops in the country that you would consider issuing fewer visas. It’s too late for them !

    3. To put it another way: we’ve imported enough Labour voters.
      We can now manage very nicely, thank you.

  11. 377420+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Starmer: Labour’s Scottish by-election win ‘big step’ towards becoming PM

    Sir John Curtice, the UK’s most eminent psephologist, said a similar swing throughout Scotland would see Labour win 42 seats

    It’s the pilot run via the coalition party for the Countrywide
    hand over.

    No one party could keep up year on year,a continuation of deadly, seriously injurious (jabs), treacherous, ruinous, anti
    Country dealings meted out to the peoples without even their hard core supporter / members realising the truth.

    So, time for change,sadly not for the better just another set of
    political scamming bastards, keep in mind they, via a cottaging PM gave us mass uncontrolled killings, rape & paedophilia
    after lifting the entry latch.

    1. On a turn out that is normal for a local election (37%), the Labour vote actually dropped.
      I suspect two parties, the Apathy and the Absolutely Bloody Pissed Off, actually won.

  12. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sun’s trying to make an appearance.
    Perahps after Olga Krankie’s performances Scots have seen they may be better off with out their over exuberant nationalism. Or maybe not.

    1. It’s a spoof. The writer, Roger Watson, says so:

      “Before I start, I must stress that this is a spoof take on the arguments and ways to deal with the many anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, mask refuseniks and those who disobeyed all the rules”.

  14. G’morning all,

    Lovely start to te day at McPhee Towers and the beginning of a spell of fair weather which should last until Thursday. Wind West-Sou’-West, 16℃ rising to 21℃.

    From letters:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59c04beb9edc8323d98672c147ed554c5d10b2f524c7d0a8d7e0e3fac5c4d0fd.png

    It’s climate change, innit! I too had notice the huge number of conkers adorning the horse chestnuts in this part of the country. But what can you do with them now that Elfansafety has banned the game of conkers in school playgrounds. Back in the 50s and 60s we used to go to school with belts of them skewered, baked and soaked in vinegar festooned around our necks. We held Inter-Galactic conker championship matches in the playground every break and lunchtime and after school. The youngsters today don’t know what they’re missing.

    1. Walking around the horse chestnut-lined main square in my local town, Tomelilla, yesterday, I was astonished (as I am at this time every year) by the huge number of fallen conkers on the ground. These are completely ignored by the locals, especially the children, who would be utterly bewildered by our national autumn pastime.

        1. I believe it was the Norwich Council which, a few years ago, had a row of horse chestnut trees chopped down because of the danger to children of conkers falling on their heads.

      3. We have a conker tree in our garden which has produced a very large crop this year – the conkers will be chewed up by the lawn mower.

        2. Careful of any pets..They are poisonous to most animals too, including dogs, but some species such as deer and wild boar can eat them.
          Curiously, conkers are also poisonous to horses despite the tree being
          named after them. Conkers aren’t much use for eating, but they’re still
          one of the best parts of autumn!2

          1. The reason they are called horse chestnuts is because when the leaves fall off the end of the stalk is shaped like a horse shoe.

    2. Some people swear that conkers act as a deterrent to spiders.
      They bloody well don’t !

      2. Apparently they don’t like peppermint or eucalyptus, among other smells , smear some diluted peppermint or eucalyptus oil around windows etc. and other places where they might come in.

  16. Good morning all.
    A dull grey but dry start to the day and a pleasant 10½°C thanks to a thick overcast keeping the warmth in.

  17. Good Moaning.
    Life is one long learning process.
    Yesterday I learnt how not to build a footbridge spanning the Thames.
    Today – from the comments in the DT – I learnt a wonderful new insult. (Please insert name of choice.)

    “Burgon has to strip naked to count to twenty one.”

    1. The other issue with that bridge was it’s flexibility. Aluminium is a third as stiff as steel, so three times as flexible. Hence the bridge boinging…

      2. The other issue with the bridge was the involvement of Norman ‘leaky building’ Forster.

      3. They should have left it bouncy and charged punters a quid a time to have the fun of using it.

      4. I didn’t know all those things, but then I am not a civil engineer (despite having to grind through hours and hours of calculations about snow load and structures at university).
        How on earth did the “experts” involved in the bridge’s design and construction miss these facts?

        1. Maybe they thought spot of insulating tape would last forever.
          Or at least until they were safely under the daisies.

        2. My opinion is that they were used to designing for steel. Aluminium requires different shapes of beams to steel ines to achieve the same structural rigidity.

    2. It used to be, “he has to drop his trousers to count to twenty one”. Are we now assuming he might be wearing a skirt?

      1. Just pretend it’s because he might be Scottish. It will help preserve your sanity!

  19. Good heavens the deputy Labour leader has just informed the British public, well more emphasis on the English, she has specifically focused on our precious green belt land in building 150 thousand (one hundred and fifty thousand) new council and social houses.
    Now there’s a strong and very specified reason not to vote Labour. It looks as if we will never get rid of all these illegal invaders.
    But encourage even more of them to come and scrounge. And vote Labour, simply because they are advertising for specified types of voters. They clearly have no regard for our society and its established culture.
    Vote Labour we will wreck your safe home environment and all of the countryside.

      1. A ménage à trois with Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno was my wet dream for all my adolescence and beyond.

        Sigh!

    2. The English? To a thicko politician, that attribute covers many shades of pink and darker, much darker, skin tone. If these dumb politicos can’t, or refuse to, identify a woman as being distinct from a man then the colour of the skin and centuries’ long lineage will not pose them a problem.

    2. Three cheers for Bob!

      Anyone remember, “If your Bob doesn’t give our Bob the bob that your Bob owes our Bob, our Bob will give your Bob a bob on the nose!”?

      1. The Russians do have a blind spot about Israel. Possibly the Khazar thing, plus of course they now need good relations with Iran and the Saudis. My enemy’s enemy and all that.

      2. And the U.S.A under the Biden administration. Billions of dollars. They seem to like Islamic Jihad.

  23. I see in the print edition that the egregious Mrs Balls has turned her coat (again). “We will reduce visas. There is too much migration.”

    What a volte face….

      2. If she didn’t have that prissy, “aren’t I such NICE person”, holier than thou expression on her face, she’d be quite attractive in a Brompton Stomp “Grab-a-Grannie” night sort of way.

        1. Her little round head on top of her long, thick neck always reminds me of a tortoise.

  24. Oh, man. Here it goes again.
    Rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza this morning, followed by ground assault, kidnapping & killing Israelis. Israel mobilising for war. Reported by Aftenposten.

    1. Israeli Intelligence is supposed to be the best in the world. How did they miss 5000 rockets come to their borders?

      2. Morning Phizzee. The “rockets” are home made and it would be an accident if they hit anything and a miracle if they killed anyone.

        1. Good morning. They don’t seem to have had a massive impact. Except for some unfortunates and scaring everyone to death.

  25. The Today programme, BBC R4, at about 8:40:

    Presenter: “One day in three this year has seen temperatures more than one and a half degrees above pre-industrial levels, the threshold set by the Paris climate treaty and above which scientists warn of dangerous consequences. This is a much higher number than the previous peak set in 2016. Let’s talk to Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society.”

    Liz gave us the usual end-of-the-world spiel and, after the presenter mentioned The Fakir’s modest amendments to Net Zero, told us, hardly drawing breath as she did so: “We urgently need to reduce our carbon emissions because time is running out…just look at the extreme weather events that we’ve seen during the course of this year prior to El Nino coming into effect…there are many signals that our climate is changing rapidly and quite dangerously…extreme heat and flooding events…they’re becoming much more frequent and when they happen they’re much more extreme, record breaking…it’s here and now and we need to be acting to reduce our carbon emissions.”

    And off she went. No questions, no challenge, just a platform to spout the usual guff and frighten the children. This is not impartial and informed broadcasting.

    1. Been noticeably colder than usual this year here, with effects on honey production, grass/hay, and more.
      Could have used some warm.

      1. Like any statistics, the met terrorists just pick the ones that prove their case. As a casual observer, we had a cool unsettled summer in UK, pretty typical really! There were 2 periods of just a few days when the Met Off got very excited by ‘high temperatures’, they seem to have forgotten that it was summer. October has been a little warmer than average, but that’s weather, eh, and we are only one week in.

        1. We had two local events where we have our fundraising stall cancelled due to thunder, high winds and excessive rain. We had a few warm days in June and September. It’s not been excessively warm at all.

        2. October 1st. 1985 was unfeasibly hot.
          We remember the exact date as we were driving elder son + his university clobber down to Bristol for the first time.

          1. Isn’t it an eye-opener when ones children approach their 60s….?

            My elder son was talking about his pension the other day…..

            Time like an ever-rolling stream….

        3. Yesterday it was warmer out than in (19 degrees C vs 18 degrees C). Today that’s been reversed. This happens at this time of year in these latitudes.

    2. Someone I sometimes engage with on Facebook(!) because he posts some good wildlife photos has gone full on climate disaster and moaned today that nobody engaged with his post yesterday. I replied and said “I don’t engage with propaganda – I prefer your wildlife photos”. He will probably block me now……… This is somebody who travels all over the world by plane……. do these people only buy into the “global boiling” bullshit but not the “need to stop people flying everywhere” bullshit? Cognitive dissonance?

    3. I do not listen/watch MSM news but when visiting friends I do catch snippets if they have their TV/radio on.
      Yesterday I caught Channel 5 News and the weather that parts of Scotland will receive today: apocalyptic rain.
      Ark building will be the new hobby, no doubt.
      Further south is will be very warm. Of course, climate change was woven into the narrative.

      Why is it called an Indian Summer? In the Met Office’s Meteorological Glossary, published in 1916, an Indian summer is defined as “a warm, calm spell of weather occurring in autumn, especially in October and November.”29 Sept 2023

      Noted as early as 1916, so not a 21st century phenomenon!

      Will we have an Indian summer 2023?
      The Met Office’s long-range forecast hints at a potential second wind of heat at the end of this month, and maybe into October. The first mini-heatwave may even strike as early as this Saturday, September 16 – with weather maps predicting the south-east to BOIL in 26C conditions.12 Sept 2023

      Water boils at around 70 degrees C on the summit of Everest so quite some distance to go before the 26 degree mark is reached. Such bollocks needs to be banned. Some vain hope with OFCOM in the chair.

      1. Ark building will be the new hobby, no doubt.

        Morning Korky. Ark Building! I like that!

          1. Shel Silverstein wrote the song and I posted him singing it here recently. To add a bit of diversity here is another rendition by Aled Jones and a children’s group which is worth a listen. This is something to sing to your grandchildren – I sang it to Christo and Henry when they were little!

            https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/397043

      2. Morning, Korky.

        I once , foolishly, asked for a cup of tea in a cafe near the summit of Cairngorm. It tasted like dishwater (or like American tea). At nearly 4,000 feet above sea level water boils at around 95ºC (or thereabout) so the tea was not properly mashed. It reminded me that tea just does not just require boiling water, it needs it to be boiling at a temperature of 100ºC, something only achievable at lower altitudes.

        1. Kettles here in Argentina don’t just boil to 100⁰ – many of them have a setting to reach 80⁰, which is what you need for yerba maté (the local equivalent of tea). 🙂

    4. Who was recording the temperatures pre-industry? Even John Gosden mentioned climate change because Newmarket and Ascot hadn’t received a lot of rain and the ground was on the firm side, which is unusual at this time of year. No, John, it’s WEATHER!

      1. The oldest continuous temperature record is the Central England Temperature Data Series, which began in 1659, and the Hadley Centre has some measurements beginning in 1850, but there are too few data before 1880 for scientists to estimate average temperatures for the entire planet.

  26. 377420+ up ticks,

    Appertaining TO US ALL,

    June Slater

    @juneslater17

    Society has lost the plot, and the media is driving it over a cliff.
    We’re going to end up with an unhealthy lazy thick society, as they are spoon fed incredible twisted narratives .

    For example Sky News run a heart felt story of a young mum who can’t afford to buy her baby milk.
    Mummy is very chubby, that’s not an insult, it’s an observation. So how can mummy be fat , but baby be hungry, it just doesn’t add up.

    Coming from an impoverished background, I know what poverty looks like. My mum often skipped meals, she was drainpipe thin but we weren’t. We always had food.

    Another young attractive mum makes the tabloids with a pizza delivery boy giving her a pizza to feed her kid…she is skint, having just spent two weeks in Cyprus on holiday….you couldn’t make this $hit up.
    Someone is out there thinking tha making the papers for claiming to be poor when you simply have no idea about priorities is acceptable.

    Our kids are taught and encouraged to digest all aspects of trans gender issues and kids are now able to go to school claiming to be cats. Yet no one is showing them how to open and run a bank account, pay bills and the long term effects of arrears and unauthorized overdrafts.

    They will mainly leave school numb and entitled, unless the parenting is of a particularly high calibre.
    They have babies without partners and think they’re cool and independent, the reality being, they state is in the role of the husband.
    The state is deeply involved when things go wrong. We are being groomed into more state involvement in everything we do.

    My generation gets insulted for kicking back, for seeing the writing on the wall.
    What is being sold to you by the complicit media as care, is control.
    Our government and parliament is now just a middle management team to implement directives from Non Government Organizations, herding us to a lesser life, by using blame and guilt.
    It’s your fault the air is poor, you must pay, yet China gets a free pass in The Paris Accord to spew out these emissions indefinitely and increase the use of fossil fuels.
    This trillion dollars a year industry is the biggest grift I’ve ever seen, but that’s just my opinion of course.
    Net Zero from 1% means ZERO NOTHING HAPPENS to the planet when that day comes.
    Personalized carbon credits are a scam , a system that will allow Leonardo DeCaprio to disembark from his superyacht and sanctimoniously preach at the masses about how to cut down their already frugal carbon footprint.

    The media is the snake that delivers the venom. Social media is there to mop up the spills of truth that gets out by people like me.
    If it wasn’t for Twitter X, I wouldn’t be able to share this perspective with you now.
    Attempt on FB result in unfair 90 day restrictions.
    It’s never been more important to be involved with your kids, to talk to them, about how life really works in the bill paying dwellings that they live in.
    Word of mouth is still the most valuable tool for any product or service..
    We prefer a plumber that someone recommended, rather than the cold search that looks good on the screen.

    It now the same with information.
    You may feel helpless and frustrated, you may see someone with a large following as doing more.
    You reading this right now can affect a shift in thinking.
    Persuade your friends and family to look for news via their phones and laptops, direct them to trustworthy sources that you believe in.
    Get them away from accepting that the truth only comes from the telly.
    Sow the seeds of doubt in idle conversations.
    As your packing your supermarket trolley, queuing at a cash machine or in a local shop. Your hairdresser, your nail bar, gently does it ..easy phrases like

    I never thought I’d see the day when our mainstream media just delivered propaganda…. I do it all the time, to my window cleaner, handyman, tradesmen at the house, on a dog walk. It can be done, and you could have an amazing affect.

    1. Funnily enough, my cleaner made a similar observation about the lack of usefulness of what was taught in schools. She said children should be taught how to manage a budget and run a bank account because a lot of them didn’t have a clue.

    2. “This trillion dollars a year industry is the biggest grift I’ve ever seen, but that’s just my opinion of course.”

      I have to agree, Ogga.

    1. Another woman to add to Laurence Fox’s list of *nsh*ggbl*es!

      (Bill must have thought the same and sought alternatives when he decided to book flights on Epstein’s Lolita Express!)

      1. On yesterday’s Irreverend podcast, one of the Revs read out a tweet summarising 5 occasions when that Amy Evans woman had said she wouldn’t sh@g a man…and the inference was Lozza was parodying her when he said what he said. Puts yet another new spin on the situation

  28. More and more evidence is coming out daily about the malign effects of the Covid jabs but still the PTB and the MSM are in denial.

    Hamlet in one of his soliloquys: said:

    For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
    With most miraculous organ

    We lack the miraculous organs in the MSM to publish the truth – but they surely can’t go on not publishing it for ever. Or can they and will they?

      1. That too. If the Chef and the customer neither wash their hands after taking a shit i expect they give each other immunity.

    5. “Mervin Davids from NoDepositDaily.com said: ‘Local authorities inspect food establishments every six months to a few years, depending on how much risk they pose. ”
      Risk to whom? Their customers or LA hygiene inspectors? Imagine rummaging through a fridge loaded with alien life forms to the sound of big knives being sharpened behind you. While a rat runs up your trouser leg.

  30. 377420+ up ticks,

    leilani dowding 🌸🚜 ☮️
    @LeilaniDowding
    ·
    3m
    It’s time the media interview people who are really struggling financially. Who don’t have smart watches, 800 quid smart phones, 30 quid acrylic nails, 6 kids etc etc…. But that would make people realise our own have it far worse than the people who come over on boats…

    OGGA!
    It is well past time that this is hammered into the majority voter who, with the General Election on hand, are busy forgetting 1997 / ongoing and the rape & abuse of their children as revealed by the JAY report 2014 and a multitude of other evil,odious issues, we have suffered.

    Tell me I am wrong in saying that every vote cast in support of a mass uncontrolled, Govn, controlled,morally illegal, pro eu,
    lab/lib/con coalition party is one of collusion.

  31. I know this has already been mentioned by Oberstleutnant but I feel this post by Mahyar Tousi is a bit more in depth than the anti-Israeli rubbish in the MSM. Israel should, long ago, have wiped Gaza off the map years ago.

    BREAKING: Israel Invaded By Palestine

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-tS1LFDGDk

    2. Sending the fake philistines to Gaza was a neat move. Gaza is ancient Philistia. Of course the real Philistines were Greek, not Arab. The Latin translation of Philistine is Palestine. Simples! The other alternative is to send the fakes back to their actual countries of origin. Mostly Egypt but some Lebanese, some Jordanian and some Saudi. All Arab not Greek.

      1. With more than a nod to the Philistines, the Emperor Hadrian named a Roman province “Palestine” in 134. The name caught on, and it was used by Balfour in his Declaration, addressed to Lord Rothschild.

        1. Hadrian’s intent, knowing the Philistines were the ancient enemies of the Hebrews, was to insult the Jews by naming their land after their enemies.

          I bristle at talk of, “first century Palestine”. No such place.

      2. Remember that Samson, because of the betrayal of his wife, Delila, was taken prisoner by the Philistines where he was blinded and shaved (because it was in his hair that his phenomenal strength lay) and chained to a column in the Philistine’s temple so that he could be mocked and pilloried. As John Milton described Samson when he was forced to work :

        Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves

        which supports your point that Gaza was ancient Philistia.

        It always bewilders me that when the Palestinians attack Israel it is Israel’s fault. Maybe when Putin invaded Ukraine it was
        Zelensky’s fault!

        When we sailed to Malta on Mianda in 2005 we avoided going to the Northern Island of Gozo because we were told that there were too many drunken Brits there. I borrowed from Milton and said they were

        Legless in Gozo – very ill with knaves.

        Mind you Samson’s hair had started to regrow and as the temple had probably been constructed with inferior quality concrete he was able to grab the piller to which he was chained and pull the whole place down killing not only himself but a multitude of Philistines with him.

        1. “Maybe when Putin invaded Ukraine it was Zelensky’s fault!”

          Most of us here know it was.

      3. 100% agree with you Sue. I think that they should all be expelled and sent back to where they originated from, as you suggest. I have posted before the reports of European travellers in the 18th 19th Century in Palestine. The place was empty, there were no Palestinians, it is a myth. In truth most of the current Arab population came as a result of the British and the Jews, Arabs seeing an opportunity to work for people who actually build things rather than destroy. Further more, something never talked about now. The Ottomans who ruled the area recognized the Jews already living in the area as the native people, not Arabs.

        1. Yes, of course. The Mizrahi Jews who never left the Middle East. I was forgetting that WWI destroyed the Ottoman Empire and removed Persian influence in that region as well as bringing down the Habsburgs, Romanovs and Hohenzollerns in Europe. The question is, was it deliberate? Does the New World Order begin back then?

          1. Some would say yes. That Count someone or other that new world order people often point to. It’s something like Count Calagari. Not that, but somewhat along those lines.

        1. When I was clearing out the shack (a work in progress!) I found a half eviscerated toy that Oscar had been given for his first Christmas. I took the rest of the stuffing out; now he keeps taking it out of the toy box as one of his favourites.

          1. I have a bag full of them, all clean and mainly empty of stuffing and squeakers! Harry and Fern empty the bag at least twice a day!

  34. My baby was born without an anus: Mother’s horror at son’s defect which left her fearing he was dying D Fail

    Don’t worry missus, there thousands going spare in Parliament and local government. Not sure your lad would want one of those though.

  35. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12603903/Why-failure-stem-migration-driving-liberal-Germans-arms-far-Right-Bavaria-goes-polls-tomorrow-ROBERT-HARDMAN-dismayed-spiralling-resentment-chilling-echoes-history.html

    I’m confused.

    For years, we’ve been told that not wanting to be invaded is ‘Far Right’. Yet the Left, terrified of being found out keep saying Hitler was ‘Far Right’ (he was, of course, a Lefty).

    If resisting invasion is now ‘Far Right’ given Hitler invaded many countries, are the Left admitting that actually he was a demented Lefty after all?

    1. Mr Hardman’s opinions are bordering on the hysterical, a bizarre mixture of the demented and the innocent.

  36. Everywhere, there’s a growing public revolt against net zero, forcing politicians across Europe to renege on green virtue signalling. 7 October 2023.

    America has the third-biggest coal-fired electricity generation capacity in the world. India is second (after China) and is building more coal plants too, as are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam. The Asia-Pacific now accounts for 80 per cent of global coal demand.

    Even if America closed all its coal capacity tomorrow, it would quickly be more than matched by all the new coal plants coming on stream in China.

    The grim truth is that China and other parts of Asia are now building so many new coal plants so fast that the ‘energy transition to net zero’ which British and other western politicians so obsess about is effectively meaningless.

    Even worse Net Zero is not really about Climate Change but control.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12603697/ANDREW-NEIL-theres-growing-public-revolt-against-net-zero-forcing-politicians-Europe-renege-green-virtue-signalling.html

  38. I see the beeboids have cut from a recording of “Question Time” the egregious (and ubiquitous) Fiona Bruce identifying a questioner by saying – “The black guy in the middle, yes you, sir”.

    She – natch – has grovelled in public and to the bloke in question. And the beeboids have also grovelled while saying that she said nothing wrong….!!

    She would have done better to refer to the “Man between the two white people in the middle row, yes you, sir.”

    The world really has gone made. Completely stark staring etc etc

    1. I commented on this story late last night:

      If you want to describe me as a white guy I shall not be offended.

      If you call me that good looking intelligent guy I may be offended because you’ll probably be being ironic implying that I look ugly and stupid!

      Why should the BBC think it is offensive for a black guy to be called a black guy?

      Presumably the BBC also thinks that it is offensive not to call a man in a skirt wearing lipstick a woman.

    1. I stand with you, Sue.

      I bet those FB “jokers” eat nobbut carbs, vegetation, seed oils and loadsa sugar. They will then whinge like the ninnies they are because they cannot get to see a doctor to “treat” all their countless life-shortening diseases cause by eating such crap.

        2. I see you still hold on to the belief that eating vegetation is good or you! Modern research shows that it is not.

          1. Not about nutrients but about roughage and water. Both of which are essential for a properly functioning colon !
            What’s got into you lately? You seem to be in a snit all the time. Still, not as bad as Stig. He had a post deleted for snittyness.

          2. Rethink the roughage, sunshine. You’ve been lied to about its necessity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1IjOHUYqMw&t=302s Listen to this as to how the WHO, and those pulling its strings, are wanting people to continue eating crap to kill them off.
            I have dozens of similar videos that show what you have been brainwashed into thinking is good for you is anything but.

            What is ‘snit’? Is it summat southerners suffer from? 😉

          3. I am already under Doctors orders to drink as much as 3 litres a day. Any foods mostly made up of water helps my condition. Not that i disagree with a high protein diet.

          5. I saw an upvote from him so he is still with us, thankfully. Normally much more level headed but has probably become exasperated from all these claims made.

          6. He’s usually so sensible and well -balanced in his posts – but that one was unusually nasty for him. He got fed up with us all in the summer but came back. I hope he will resume posting soon.

          7. As do I. A voice of reason. Just wish i hadn’t missed his blowout. But Geoff made his decision.

          11. Nothing wrong with eating vegetation. It’s the processed crap and too many carbs that make people fat.

    3. Probably the reason that I don’t need to lose weight is that I partially follow this diet.

    5. The wine is your fruit/vegetable, I suppose.
      Apparently people who are well nourished by meat require less Vit C than people who are poorly nourished (vegans).

  40. I cannot support a Tory party in denial about immigration. Nigel Farage. 7 October 2023.

    The time has come for Reform UK to accept the baton from its predecessors and to reshape British politics. As Richard Tice will make clear, it will stand candidates in more than 600 constituencies at the next general election. It will do so as the only political party whose outlook is in line with the clear, overwhelming mainstream public view that net migration must be drastically reduced.

    Yes, we will have to live for a few years with a Labour government. But unless the situation is confronted, unless the arguments are changed, and unless we can prompt a realignment of the centre-right in British politics straight away, I think we will be doomed to live in a Britain that will be beyond rescue. The country will lose its identity and we will all have to accept a lower standard of living across the board – in spite of a growing tax burden.

    Who wants to live in a country like that?

    No one at all. It’s already too late Nigel. Reform UK is not going to reform anything.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/07/nigel-farage-i-cannot-support-a-tory-party-in-denial-about/

  41. Afternoon All

    Oops

    https://twitter.com/NewDogWhoDis/status/1710625251065786874?s=20

    Rest of the medley

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61f1cc3631aa289138d8e16643a3c3f27bb9f627ebbde4d601778ab369abc3f6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dbf52bd2e535be43f106991803df2207dc484944f581eab0783318b191c28ecf.jpg

    https://d.justpo.st/media/images/2021/08/20/watching-the-roman-empire-collapse-again-but-with-wifi-and-memes-this-time-1629510962.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e35d7fec9ec8c73277397927a72614aee5ff68074b2257bb6746533b7c6e7cc0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c36b486e5b8d89ee8c120bfdd5178385627f9abad3ab748548378e09ba7027c0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a34e1e721c21272092ff0742871ee3cd81097120e31168b4b000e834a2c75c2.jpg

  42. Lib Dem Layla Moran under fire for ‘shameful’ comment after Hamas attack on Israel

    Foreign spokesman said she was ‘concerned’ about situation, but party leader Sir Ed Davey delivered a much stronger message

    By Will Hazell, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT • 7 October 2023 • 11:03am

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b530ad77aac0471e533da4f62674e82dd214f902cf7bbb579a4936349edef72.jpg
    People survey the aftermath after rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel
    CREDIT: Reuters/AMIR COHEN
    _________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    The Liberal Democrats’ spokesman on foreign affairs has been criticised for her response to the Hamas attacks on Israel.

    Posting on Twitter on Saturday morning, Layla Moran said: https://twitter.com/LaylaMoran/status/1710554463830782201

    Lord Wolfson, a Conservative peer and former minister, tweeted in response: “The Government condemns. Labour condemns. The Liberal Democrats are ‘concerned.’ Shameful. ‘Concerned’ is when the council hasn’t emptied the bins for a week. Not when civilians are being executed at bus stops, in their cars, and their homes.”

    Jeremy Brier, a KC, said: “Thousands of rockets fired by Hamas – many murders of Jews – and abductions. And this is your response? No condemnation of the perpetrators. Without morality or shame.”

    Delivering an apparent slapdown to Ms Moran, the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey posted his own tweet two hours later. He said: “Horrifying scenes in Israel and Palestine this morning. Liberal Democrats fully condemn Hamas. This terrorism must cease. Israel has a right to defend itself.”

    Rowing back from her earlier comment, Ms Moran issued a new statement which said: “I am horrified to wake up to such dreadful scenes of violence in Israel and Palestine this morning. Last year, I met with Israelis living in villages on the Gaza border. I am mortified to learn that these places are facing terrorist attacks as we speak. My thoughts are with those I met, and their safety, and all those others impacted by this awful violence. “Liberal Democrats fully condemn the terrorism of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This violence must cease. I am profoundly worried about the prospect for broader escalation.”

    James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, “unequivocally” condemned the attack and said the UK would “always support Israel’s right to defend itself”.

    Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, also condemned the attack for which he said there was “no justification”. “Israel has a right to defend herself,” he added.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/07/israel-gaza-rockets-hamas-tel-aviv-palestine-layla-moran

    1. Dare one suggest that this is one of the main reasons why Ukraine is being cleared of Orthodox Christian Ukrainians? So it can be used as a Jewish homeland 2.0? Or to be more factually correct, restore the population of the Pale of Settlement to what it was before the migrations to Israel?

  43. Is the countryside racist?

    The founder of a Muslim hiking group argues that, in Britain, ‘minority communities’ are ‘edged out’ of ‘rural spaces’. Really?

    MICHAEL DEACON, COLUMNIST • 7 October 2023 • 7:00am

    Sir Lenny Henry caused a stir last year by saying he was “always surprised” by the “lack of black and brown faces” in the Glastonbury crowd. It seems, however, that it’s not just our rock festivals that are insufficiently diverse. Our countryside is, too.

    This week, the founder of a hiking group for British Muslims wrote a column for The Guardian†, complaining that, in Britain, there are “huge racial disparities in access to the outdoors”. Although the countryside “may be open in theory”, argued Haroon Mota, it is “not, in practice, open to everyone” – because “minority communities” are “edged out”.

    Possibly it’s just a sign of my white privilege, but I was somewhat taken aback by this claim. I for one have never witnessed any efforts by rural people to deny entry to non-white visitors. Mr Mota, however, insists that minority communities face “barriers”. Sadly, even after rereading his article, I’m still none the wiser as to what “barriers” the countryside contains. Perhaps he’s thinking of fences, or drystone walls. If so, the good news is that they aren’t insurmountable. There’s usually a gate, or a stile.

    The scale of the inequality, he laments, was highlighted by a recent study revealing that “the whitest areas of the country enjoy an astounding 144 per cent more local footpaths than the most ethnically diverse”‡. Personally, though, I’m unsure why Mr Mota describes this statistic as “astounding”, given that, earlier in the same paragraph, he notes that ethnic minority populations are mostly concentrated in cities and towns. In light of which, it seems unclear how the disparity can be resolved, unless the Government introduces a network of scenic rural footpaths through, say, Hackney.

    To me, at least, it’s all very puzzling. On the plus side, though, this shameful injustice may at least explain why the beautiful sycamore at Hadrian’s Wall got chopped down. Some noble champion of the oppressed wanted to replant it in front of a tower block, so that marginalised communities could have access to it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/07/is-the-countryside-racist

    † https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/02/minority-communities-uk-green-spaces-nature-racial-disparities
    ‡ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/20/ramblers-study-whitest-areas-more-local-paths

    The ‘racist footpaths’ report was featured here last week. And I’m fairly certain Mr Mota has been on Countryfile.

    1. I should jolly well hope it is. We must retain the land and food production in indigenous hands.

    2. I live in the country and in truth we rarely see non-natives. I can only assume they aren’t all that interested in visiting. It is not as if they would be greeted with pitchforked wielding yokels. Fact is they would be treated much like anyone else unless they are wafting around in that animated tent gear that some are so fond of, makes them seem hostile and contemptuous of us. So welcome to visit. But to be brutally honest, please do not live here, import your so called “values” and ruin our way of life. It is our country, our culture and you have no reason to expect us to accommodate your cultural quirks. When in Rome do as the Romans do. If you think that’s “racist” I really don’t care. By calling us “racist”in our own country, because we prefer our traditions and way of life, is racist and incredibly arrogant on your part. Go home!

      1. Johnathan

        We are allowing this takeover .

        We are living in an Alice in Wonderland existence .. Black History Month , BLM, Luxury hotels for mud hut dwellers, faeces on the street , on our greenspace , gangs of feral blacks bullying businesses, police who take the knee , machete murders , and on Thursday , BBC Question time when a blackchap felt sensitive about his own colour because Fiona Bruce identified him in the audience as black , when he wanted to ask a question .. she should have referred to him as chap with the wiry hair ..

        I am fair haired , my husband is white and balding , this is how we describe each other .. isn’t it?

        There was no such thing as racism was there until the none whites got lippy and uppity .. Mother in law long gone now, Hampshire born and bred , as was her husband , used the word ‘darkies coming from everywhere , floating here on coconuts’ , was that racist , no, it was their observation .. because they were born a few years after WW1 , in little Hampshire villages that had just been connected to a power supply and running water, delivery of certain food items was by horse and cart .. and everyone knew each other . One was a complete stranger if you appeared from a town or another village .

        People from Romsey were regarded as fast and loose … and the same applies still to the stories that older folk still relate from here in our growing village here in this part of Dorset .

        Elderlies are grumbling because some of the new social housing host people of a different colour , rowdy behaviour , and some adults who are covered from head to foot with tattoos and weird coloured hair .. Actually to be fair , pleasant people really, just different ideas , and the inability to make haste to the job centre , no buses , and an expensive train ride to take 12miles away .

        The news is grim and frightening .

        Is Sunak capable enough to face the terrifying challenge that is now real and looming largely into our view?

        1. “Is Sunak capable enough to face the terrifying challenge that is now real and looming largely into our view?”

          No. No one in politics has the courage. I made the same point last night in response to Charles Moore’s column.

        3. Sunak doesn’t care – he’s off to the US of effing A the minute the $hit hits the fan here.

    3. The man is a nutter! Not only is his head on upside down, but he thinks he’s got ‘long Convid’, whatever that is! Check out his Twitter/X

    5. Those barriers he talks of are lack of Halal takeaways and Mosques.
      I was in the Lake District a while ago now. As i was traveling on the ship across Windermere i saw 3 coaches turn up in a carpark choc full of the berobed folk. They didn’t partake in anything. They brought their own food and drink. Kept to themselves and didn’t have anything to do with anyone else. Nor visit the cafes or the steam train or for that matter the slate mines.

      That was a minimum of 150 people keeping to themselves. The countryside isn’t racist. They are.

    6. Why don’t they go back to whatever benighted place they came from and enjoy the countryside there? There probably won’t be any whites as well (unless they are working to improve the infrastructure), which would be a bonus for them. I’m sick of whinging blacks. I am beginning to wish there were insurmountable barriers to coming into the country – sorry, countryside. There were plenty around at a local festival.

      1. This subject has come up more than once in The Guardian and on Countryfile and will always get the same response i.e. that’s it’s often about urban and rural. Plenty of white city dwellers find the countryside a peculiar place.

        1. That’s because the countryside IS a peculiar place. We do things differently here (largely because we’re affected by the weather as we spend a lot of our time outdoors and don’t have public transport).

        2. Unlike me a country boy (Norfolk) born and bred.

          I do so long to return home and leave this benighted and misruled Caledonia far behind – where it deserves to be.

  44. Is the countryside racist?

    The founder of a Muslim hiking group argues that, in Britain, ‘minority communities’ are ‘edged out’ of ‘rural spaces’. Really?

    MICHAEL DEACON, COLUMNIST • 7 October 2023 • 7:00am

    Sir Lenny Henry caused a stir last year by saying he was “always surprised” by the “lack of black and brown faces” in the Glastonbury crowd. It seems, however, that it’s not just our rock festivals that are insufficiently diverse. Our countryside is, too.

    This week, the founder of a hiking group for British Muslims wrote a column for The Guardian†, complaining that, in Britain, there are “huge racial disparities in access to the outdoors”. Although the countryside “may be open in theory”, argued Haroon Mota, it is “not, in practice, open to everyone” – because “minority communities” are “edged out”.

    Possibly it’s just a sign of my white privilege, but I was somewhat taken aback by this claim. I for one have never witnessed any efforts by rural people to deny entry to non-white visitors. Mr Mota, however, insists that minority communities face “barriers”. Sadly, even after rereading his article, I’m still none the wiser as to what “barriers” the countryside contains. Perhaps he’s thinking of fences, or drystone walls. If so, the good news is that they aren’t insurmountable. There’s usually a gate, or a stile.

    The scale of the inequality, he laments, was highlighted by a recent study revealing that “the whitest areas of the country enjoy an astounding 144 per cent more local footpaths than the most ethnically diverse”‡. Personally, though, I’m unsure why Mr Mota describes this statistic as “astounding”, given that, earlier in the same paragraph, he notes that ethnic minority populations are mostly concentrated in cities and towns. In light of which, it seems unclear how the disparity can be resolved, unless the Government introduces a network of scenic rural footpaths through, say, Hackney.

    To me, at least, it’s all very puzzling. On the plus side, though, this shameful injustice may at least explain why the beautiful sycamore at Hadrian’s Wall got chopped down. Some noble champion of the oppressed wanted to replant it in front of a tower block, so that marginalised communities could have access to it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/07/is-the-countryside-racist

    † https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/02/minority-communities-uk-green-spaces-nature-racial-disparities
    ‡ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/20/ramblers-study-whitest-areas-more-local-paths

    The ‘racist footpaths’ report was featured here last week. And I’m fairly certain Mr Mota has been on Countryfile.

  45. I’m trying to watch a bit of the Wales v Georgia match at the moment. Does anyone else find itvX useless? I keep getting the message “Sorry, it looks like there’s an issue with itvX at our end”. It simply does not work on an iPad. And rarely on my desk top.

    1. Works fine on iPad and desktop for me. The only thing I would say about the desktop is that I run Linux rather than Windows. That shouldn’t matter much though as I still use Google Chrome to access it.

      1. Biden is funding Hamas. Biden is also funding Iran. Everything Biden touches is proving to be a disaster, lacking Trump’s leadership qualities and seeking to reverse the Abraham Accords.

        The coverage of on the ground activities in Israel is in stark contrast to the lack of battlefield coverage in Ukraine. This seems to be a deliberate distraction from Biden’s utter failure in the Ukraine proxy war.

        As ever we are witnessing pure evil promoted by the demons in Washington.

        1. If these Lefties succeed they will bring the civilised world crashing down around our ears. They think they will be safe in their gated estates and communities but they won’t be. Not once they have allowed the beast off the leash.

  50. Lieutenant Cecil Harold Sewell VC (27th January 1895 – 29th August 1918), Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, British Army, attached to 3rd (Light) Battalion, Tank Corps.

    In 1918 he was a Lieutenant in the 3rd (Light) Battalion, in command of a section of four “Whippet” light tanks. On 29th August, near Bapaume, France, during the last “Big Push” which eventually led to the Armistice, Lieutenant Sewell’s section was advancing towards the German lines in support of New Zealand troops. The official V.C. citation in the London Gazette of 29th October 1918 takes up the story. “When in command of a section of Whippet light tanks in action this officer displayed most conspicuous bravery and initiative in getting out of his own tank and crossing open ground under heavy shell and machine-gun fire to rescue the crew of another Whippet of his section which had side slipped into a large shell-hole, overturned and taken fire.” The tank’s door had become jammed against the side of the shell hole so Cecil Sewell dug away the earth so that the door could be opened and the crew was able to escape.
    Seeing one of his own crew lying wounded behind his tank, he again dashed across open ground to his assistance. He was hit in doing so, but succeeded in reaching the tank when a few minutes later he was again hit, fatally, in the act of dressing his wounded driver. During the whole of this period he was within full view and short range of the enemy machine guns and rifle-pits, and throughout, by his prompt and heroic action, showed an utter disregard for his own personal safety.
    He was buried where he fell, but in 1920 he was re-interred at Vaulx Hill Cemetery, France.

    https://i0.wp.com/victoriacrossonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/1-44.jpg?resize=270%2C452&ssl=1

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/85e8207d7a20b9e4c23a6aa48dbe4688db3892afb51ca72bd37badf367226cac.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5bf384a8af92867dc2e05d0e013df4834ab2fc3942a5b9bf4d6c5c03efe85243.jpg

    2. It has only been going on forever so………….Wait until the enemy commits then wipe them out. Just my opinion and i have never read the Art of War !

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. A military defeat for Hamas is meaningless. They will simply reform and rearm. Unless the Israeli’s address their political grievances it can only continue.

        1. Good afternoon.
          How exactly would the Israelis address their grievances to an outlawed organisation while that organisation is supported by the U.S.A ?

          1. They would have to find a way. Political obstacles have a way of disappearing when it is necessary!

          2. Have you been drinking?
            The U.S fucked us over WW2. They fucked us over Libya and Egypt, Iran and Suez. They fucked us over Afghanistan. They fucked us over the Falklands. They fucked us over Ukraine. Let alone what is going unreported in Africa ! All down to our special ‘poodle’ relationship.
            Please excuse the excess of fucks. I blame my Doctor who prescribed testoterone. (that bit is true. Also having a bit of difficulty in other areas)

          6. They would have to find a way. Political obstacles have a way of disappearing when it is necessary!

        2. But, but, that assumes they have legitimate grievances that can be met via diplomacy and reasonable concessions?

          1. Afternoon Sue. Legitimate or no, and that is a matter of opinion, the alternative is war without end!

          2. Legitimate grievances are difficult due to the history. That’s not to say that diplomacy and concessions couldn’t resolve the situation. The problem is that the Palestinians aren’t interested in either.

          3. Except that it isn’t the “Palestinians”.
            It’s Islam.
            Islam doesn’t want peace, it wants dominance: first, last and always.

          4. At least we can take comfort in the fact that they are blind to technology. They might be able to point a gun at someone or a family member or even be supplied for a time from outside forces but in the end they will destroy themselves.

          10. Not just the Palestinians but all the Islamic extremists across the world. Mostly because of religious teachings from centuries ago. Diplomacy won’t work…ever.

      2. Afternoon Phizzee. A military defeat for Hamas is meaningless. They will simply reform and rearm. Unless the Israeli’s address their political grievances it can only continue.

    4. They were “prepared” for the attack.
      They killed lots of the invaders.

      Their problem is that such attacks are inevitable so long as Islam exists.
      This has little to do with “Palestinians”, they are merely a convenient conduit for Islam to attack Judaism.

      Come the time, if Judaism is eliminated, Islam will attack Christianity, once they succeed there they will attack secularism.

      Welcome to the Caliphate.

      1. Exactly. As with their Moslem brothers in Europe, they seek conquest. Also, they lie. It’s a cultural norm.

      3. Islam is already attacking Christianity. At the moment they aren’t strong enough to do it with huge amounts of violence.

  53. That’s me for today. Started on the end of season work in greenhouse and generally. Quite a mild day but little sunshine. Same tomorrow, I gather.

    Have a spiffing evening

    A demain

  54. The Mid Bedforshire by-election takes place on the 19th. Here’s the list of candidates.

    Conservative – Festus Akinbusoye
    Liberal Democrats – Emma Holland-Lindsay
    Labour – Alistair Strathern
    Green – Cade Sibley
    Christian People’s Alliance – Sid Cordle
    Reform UK – Dave Holland
    English Democrat – Antonio Vitiello
    Mainstream – Chris Rooney
    Monster Raving Loony – Ann Kelly
    True & Fair Party – Alan Victor
    Heritage – Alberto Thomas
    Independent – Gareth Mackey
    No description – Prince Ankit Love, Emperor of India

    Festus Akinbusoye (b 6.1978) is Nigerian born and came here at the age of 13. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons to you and me). He supported the Remain campaign and urged fellow black Britons to join him. He is the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b604b99c8ddcc6e98d96c3562388c4703fd53efbc2233299123d8faa9c427e63.jpg
    Festus is on the right…

    4. Not Uncle Fester from the Addams Family then? Shame.

      No Neil Oliver on GBN tonight. Smell a rat?

  55. Well, one thing I will not suffer from is “bungalow legs”. I’ve been up and down like the Assyrian empire.
    This afternoon has been spent on the second grand sort out. Moving stuff from barn and attics and actually putting them in their proper place.
    I have new respect for librarians; they must have muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
    But, yay …. more grot to go to the tip and Noddy car full of charity shop stuff.
    Wine and junk food; who can ask for anything more?

  56. RWC: England v Samoa – if you’ve recorded it to watch later you’re in for a treat.

      1. Bill, I’m little bit Samoan on my great-great-great-grandfather’s side, when he was “touring the southern seas, writes?

          1. Oh, I hope so too! I have no idea of their past relationship, but Mike and the Mechanics wonderful lyrics are very poignant.

          1. If it has finished, I hope it was quick and painless, she was very badly let down by the NHS as was her husband.

            LotL, if you are reading these exchanges I hope and pray that you are not in pain.

          2. When Ann first received the diagnosis, she was onlygiventgre to six months. The shock of her husbands death cannot have helped.

      3. I think all of us here have worried about Ann, but without her name I suppose we shall never really know. I hope she is at peace.

      4. Hope so too, but to my surprise, teared up a lot following reading that.
        RIP, Ann, you hear?

    2. I have just posted this above as a separate comment, Paul.

      Is this our LotL, our Ann?

      Elizabeth Ann EMPTAGE
      Published on 20/09/2023
      EMPTAGE, Elizabeth Ann (“Ann”) Passed away peacefully in Bournemouth Hospital on the 2nd September, Aged 70. She was a much-loved Wife and Mum. Loved and missed by all. Her funeral will be at Hinton Park Woodland Burial Ground on the 28th September at 3pm followed by her committal at the New Forest Crematorium at 4pm. We welcome friends and family to join us. Please wear a splash of pink to honour Ann. Donations welcome in aid of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

      2. Oh shit. Looks like it.
        Another good one fallen off her perch.
        Only 70.
        RIP, Ann. How’s the red medicine up there?

  58. Been a good day. Lots of work to prepare for winter: water supply sorted, blackberries that remain picked & being frozen, rubbish taken to tip, lots done. Two powerful gin n tonics, now we’re well happy!

    2. You may be assured that thousands of these potential murderers and apologists for murderers walk among us. Our own government let these vile individuals into the country in the promotion of diversity and inclusion.

  61. A week or so ago I posed a question about the invasiveness of the plant Mirabilis Jalapa. Today I found an answer in the form of half a dozen seeds that have already germinated! I will need to keep a close eye on the flower beds as although I scooped up hundreds of seeds, in the process I must have buried / sown dozens more! Eeek!

      1. Correct. The good news is that unlike Japanese Knotweed, whose roots go down 2 metres this little beastie only has roots that go down two feet!

          3. The field below the garden “Grows to seed, things gross in nature possess it merely” Looks like it could do with prettying up……

          4. The field below the garden “Grows to seed, things gross in nature possess it merely” Looks like it could do with prettying up……

          7. Chris Packham writes:

            Whadda-moron, this Kingy bloke has encouraged plantacheous global Armageddon into a small corner of England.

            Hell’s teeth, bring back oil!

  63. Evening, all. I think the recent by-election result was more a triumph for apathy than Labour.

  65. Let us hope this doesn’t spread to neighbouring countries…
    Latest:
    “Death toll in Israel now 250
    The number of people killed in Israel since the Hamas militant attack began early this morning has risen to at least 250, Israeli media report.

    The health ministry has said that another 1,452 people have been taken to hospital, with 18 in a critical condition and another 267 described as severe.

    Hospitals in both southern Israel and Gaza have been inundated with casualties. Palestinian health officials say 232 people have died in Gaza and another 1,790 are wounded.”

  66. Referring to the conversation below, is this our LotL, our Ann?

    Elizabeth Ann EMPTAGE
    Published on 20/09/2023
    EMPTAGE, Elizabeth Ann (“Ann”) Passed away peacefully in Bournemouth Hospital on the 2nd September, Aged 70. She was a much-loved Wife and Mum. Loved and missed by all. Her funeral will be at Hinton Park Woodland Burial Ground on the 28th September at 3pm followed by her committal at the New Forest Crematorium at 4pm. We welcome friends and family to join us. Please wear a splash of pink to honour Ann. Donations welcome in aid of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

    1. I also saw that notice in the Echo, I assumed Ann was in her mid sixties .

      I am certain that isn’t her .

      Didn’t Herts Lass have an email link for her?

        1. I thought of her as being mid sixties for a while, then suddenly she wasn’t.

          Edit: time passes so quickly – I realised a while ago she was probably 68, it is possible she had just had a birthday which would just make her 70 (for pedants here, yes I realise 69 follows 68 but only say, 14 months ago she could have been 68).

          2. Definitely not younger. She said something about her age not so long ago, and I recall oh, that is older than I thought. And again time moved on. It was the donations to Battersea that really made me think, she loved her Goldens.
            I came across this https://elizabethemptage.muchloved.com/

          3. I don’t think that’s her – there are no marks on her face and she looks as though she was in a home.

          7. My first wife (also called Ann but in truth Antoinette) passed away yesterday so I’m informed at 79 she would have been just 3 months younger than I. I’m May 1944 and she was August 1944.

        2. Yes , I thought she was in her sixties, time goes by so quickly .

          Earlier when things were going wrong for her , I tried to extract more info from her so that I could have perhaps gone to see her.

          2. She didn’t give me an info , sadly.

            Can you remember the huge palaver we had with Grantchester Meadows .. a terrible saga , and very intriguing , and he seemed to be an incredible chap . His background was almost like a synopsis from a John Le Carre novel .

            Meadows had a dreadful disease, and we were all involved in his path to eternity .

            I felt terrible affected by his departure, none of us knew who he really was .. and was he a fake or a famous modern day scientist / hero ?

            His narrative on here was entertaining and plausible .

          3. Oh yes, I remember Grantchester Meadows! I can’t remember now, what dreadful disease he had, but there was some things that did not quite add up with his narrative at the time.

      2. I thought she was late sixties but it is just possible she had reached 70. It was the donations to Battersea that got me, she loved her Goldens.

      3. I thought Ann was 10+years younger than me, which puts her in her late sixties, my last birthday was August when I was 79. I also think there has been a post since 2nd September but I am not sure.

        1. The same thoughts as me , Jill.

          I am 76 now , so I felt so sorry for Ann, new husband , her anxieties about rash marks on her skin , then all hell was let loose , especially when her husband had his fall when he went to the shops to pick up groceries .

        2. The last post of hers I replied to was 5th September, and she was just out of hospital

    1. ‘Hate’ and ‘crime’ are two words which do not belong in juxta-position. Unless it’s crime-hate.

  68. The vast majority of the DT’S BTL posters agree that Farrell must be dropped from the England Team.

    England play far better when he is not on the field nor on the bench. Ford and Smith are both better No 10s and Smith must not be kept out of the team.

      1. Oh I don’t know. It should stop them from falling flat on their faces (even if it might pinch a bit and bring tears to their eyes…)

      1. A man called Woodcock found the name embarrassing so he changed it. To Oakhampton…

  70. Par today.

    Wordle 840 4/6

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

    1. Me too.

      Wordle 840 4/6

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

          2. I recall she said the consultant said she had until probably September if she didn’t have treatment, that was probably early May sort of time, five months.. There were several options given to her. I can’t recall if she actually started any treatment because of the problems associated with travel, and then her husband died. About this time LotL said it had spread to her liver.

            I am starting to feel quite weepy now, like everyone else there is a need to know what has happened to her, we all need ‘closure’. I am hoping against hope that she is all right but I fear the worst.

          4. Damask Rose had her email address and wrote to her probably two or three weeks ago with best wishes from us all, and an e-card, but she has not had a reply.

          5. I don’t think she did start treatment, because of the travel difficulties, etc, At the end of July I asked HL if she could put me in touch with her by email. She replied on 31st July. I wished her luck for the appointment she had for the 1st August. That was the day she found her husband dead.

            Shortly after that she got the diagnosis about her liver.

    1. With full support from a Muslim run London. Isn’t it horrible when the country you love and live in is run by people who hate it.

    1. It gives you an idea of the state of Scotland today. If ’twas Londonistan, I’d still want out.

    1. Night night Tom, I hope you get a good night’s zzzzzzzzzzzzz past the morn’s half light.

      1. If I zzzzed past the morn’s half light, mum, there might not be a funny until much later – as has happened before now.

  76. Goodnight, all. Oscar’s already well away, snoring his head off and I shan’t be too far behind.

  77. Off to bed soon.
    Still a stifling 26C here in Gran Canaria. Expected to be 33C again tomorrow.
    Good night all.

    1. I’m managing, Alf, to keep the internal temp at 26°c, by max blasting every radiator ‘cos that bill is paid by RAFA..

    1. Anti semites all. It was ever thus.

      Of course Netanyahu who after the establishment of a US Embassy in Jerusalem spat in President Trump’s face, ignorantly hitching his cart to the village idiot Biden.

      I despair.

  80. It seems that weapons supplied to Ukraine by the US have fallen into the secondary market and been redirected to Hamas and Iran.

    This goes some way to explaining how Hamas have been able to launch thousands of shells and missiles from Gaza and into Israel.

    Joe Biden has to be the most stupid and ignorant warmonger since George W Bush.

  81. The US and Europeans built up Zelensky, a bad actor, as some sort of Churchillian figure. What can Scholz, Macron and the rest say now that Ukraine is on its last legs? The leaders including Ursula von der Leyden, Sunak, Scholz, Macron, Rutte, Meloni and especially the rump in Brussels would in proper circumstances resign in such a debacle. These Europeans afterall advocated enthusiastically for Biden’s war.

    Meanwhile the US is now likely to walk away and it is certainly the beginning of the end to funding for Ukraine. The Europeans are stuffed because if they lay blame on the Americans for the debacle then NATO will be no more. If the Europeans can survive the other disasters over which they have presided they will most likely survive this latest mess.

    We live in a world ruled over by morons.

  82. An early good morning to all. After lying awake for an hour, I’ve come down for a while.

    Well, the letters are up, but the DT is not allowing comments. I wonder why?

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