Sunday 1 January: With NHS dentistry in disarray, replacing a filling privately can be cheaper and quicker

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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542 thoughts on “Sunday 1 January: With NHS dentistry in disarray, replacing a filling privately can be cheaper and quicker”

    2. Happy New Year Geoff

      Thank you for keeping us sane and together , and bless you for your early mornings / late evenings and sense of humour x

  5. Happy New Year everyone. I have a stinking cold and cough. A present from the neighbours.

    1. Hopefully, I’m getting over something similar. It’s been hanging around since Thursday last. Get well soon.

    2. Sorry to hear that, Phizzee. At least 2023 can only get better as you recover your health.

        2. And it would tell you, if it told you anything at all, only that you had a coronavirus, not specifically ‘covid’ nor its variants. Rest, tissues and honey for your throat.

  7. Happy New Year, everyone. A pinch and a punch, White Rabbits, and here’s hoping we all enjoy 2023.

  8. 369573+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Well the good times are over for another year whether the governing political body will allow celebrations next year is anybodies guess.

    So currently we are, as a nations indigenous peoples standing up to our lower lips in shite, smoking king eddies, and quaffing best brandy awaiting the latest elected political overseers to blow the whistle and give the order, BACK ON YOUR HEADS.

    A product of “democracy” today

    https://twitter.com/VFreedoms/status/1608983236465786880?s=20&t=2q58fqpoJpBlyyfW5axvFA

      1. Of course he won’t be deported – he is just the sort of person they want to be a member of the takeover team when Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral are ‘repurposed’ into mosques.

    2. That vile and disgusting POS should have got life. And also anyone associated with his actions.

  9. Happy New Year Everyone. Written with neither irony nor sarcasm. We must hope for the best and prepare for the worst!

    1. Morning AS – I think we must prepare for the inevitable “worst.” Sunak and Hunt are on the wrong track and there is no sign that they will change direction.

        1. Happy New Year, Richard – and to Caroline. I’m afraid that when I click on the Google link it bounces me back to this site.

        2. Sadly you are correct Rastus. A Happy New Year to you to and your good lady..
          What is the song? I get the same response as Elsie when I click on the Google link.

  10. Private dental costs seem cheaper than in places such as mine. A filling costs around £80 as does an extraction. I have no intention of getting a root canal procedure or a crown. I must admit my dentist is very thorough and explains what he is doing. If a filling comes out within 2 years the refilling is free. The waiting room is never as full as when it was an NHS practice.

  12. Inside Ukraine’s fight to purge the Orthodox Church of suspected Russian spies. 1 January 2022.

    In late November when the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) raided the 11th century Perchersk Lavra in Kyiv, one of the oldest Orthodox sites in Ukraine and the seat of the UOC.

    The SBU said the raids were meant to trackdown spies, saboteurs, and even possible arms caches.

    Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the SBU, said in October his agency charged 33 priests with various forms of collaboration including correcting artillery.

    The implications here are obvious. Even if these particular people are innocent the Ukrainian intelligence services must believe such exist. That there is in fact a Resistance to the government and it’s organised. Common sense tells us that they must be from the ethnic Russian population who stand to lose with a Ukrainian victory. So the people of Ukraine are not united in a love of Motherland, Freedom and Democracy?

    With Ukraine I am constantly reminded of the Vietnam War where the media told us a litany of lies from beginning to end; that Diệm, for example, was a popular Democratic leader only for us to find out that he was nothing of the kind. The whole state was rotten with corruption and division. It’s ironic that Diệm was also plagued by religious dissent, though in his case Buddhism, and it was this that eventually brought him down, the Americans conspiring at his assassination!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/12/31/inside-ukraines-fight-purge-orthodox-church-suspected-russian/

  14. I used to be an optimist, but 2022 changed me. Things are bad, and they’re only going to get worse
    Mankind experienced 65 years of progress towards peace, democracy and the rule of law. Now a new age of illiberalism beckons

    Daniel Hannan : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/31/used-optimist-2022-changed-things-bad-going-get-worse/

    Many of the posters under this article have lost hope for the future and feel that we are quite deliberately having a dangerous alien culture imposed upon us by our treacherous politicians.

    Here are a couple of BTLs

    Merrill Berthrong

    On the eve of a New Year, I have never felt so depressed about the future, and that for my grand children.
    Illegal immigration is a time bomb, with an army of combat age young men from cultures alien to our own, now accommodated around the country in over 400 hotels. Our own army is insufficient in numbers to deal with an insurrection from over 60,000 illegal immigrants. They can do what they like, obviously, otherwise they would have already been thrown out of our country.
    There needs to be a very right wing party to sort this all out.


    Percival Wrattstrangler (Repy to Merrill Berthrong)

    “There needs to be a very right wing party to sort this all out.”

    But there won’t be because we have already surrendered. In 20 years there will no longer be a place in Britain for ethnic and cultural Englishmen. We now have a prime minster, a home secretary, and a foreign secretary who are not from a traditional English background and a chancellor who is married to a Chinese woman.

    “So what!” As Sajid, that upstanding member of the Hertfordshire Javids, said recently.

    1. In 2011, when Matt Ridley published The Rational Optimist and Steven Pinker The Better Angels of Our Nature, the world had experienced 65 years of progress towards peace, democracy and the rule of law. Yes, that progress was fitful, but the trend was unmissable: we were getting richer, freer and kinder.

      Yet it suddenly looks as if 2011 might have been a high-water mark. Every survey tells the same story: at some point during the early 2010s, the movement towards liberal democracy went into reverse. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index, “More than a third of the world’s population live under authoritarian rule while just 6.4 per cent enjoy a full democracy.” DANIEL HANNAN.

      Yes and the UK is not in the 6.4%.

  15. 369573+ up ticks,

    Just thinking,

    How about, as a new years revolution and to combat these odiously rogue politico overseers we go into NO mode en masse,
    civil disobedience the English way, with manners.

    What is sorely needed to be tried is to reverse the voting trend of a party before Country vote.

  17. Why do we stir up trouble in foreign countries but can’t even run our own? Peter Hitchens. 1 January 2023.

    What a twisted society we have become. We stir up wars in other people’s countries and praise ourselves for doing it.

    But there is no political reward for protecting our own people against crime and disorder on their streets and in their homes. It is no longer clear if anyone is governing the country at all, so busy are we putting other nations to rights.

    Burglaries go unprevented, uninvestigated and unpunished, in colossal numbers. Our capital city seethes with uncontrolled knife crime and stinks of marijuana.

    Christmas brings news of terrible ultra-violent crimes in supposedly peaceful suburban areas. Migrants stride boldly ashore in unknown numbers. We pay heavy taxes for pitiful services, cratered roads and a health system that is the envy of nobody.

    Foreign adventures have always been the prerogative of Political Elites since the inception of organised states. It allows them to strut their stuff on the World Stage; it raises their domestic profile and keeps the Hoi Polloi occupied and onside. It’s the Great Game and playing is compulsory even for the weak; if only to fend off likely predators.

    The Elites as the Aristocracy, the Corporations as Guilds, Powerful Individuals, Plague, the utter indifference to the welfare of the serfs more and more resemble a technocratic facsimile of the Middle Ages. The Shire Reeves of the present; the journalists and opinion formers supervise and control what the peasants see and hear and who exist now only to be harvested of their skills and earnings

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11588573/PETER-HITCHENS-stir-trouble-foreign-countries-run-own.html

    1. …It is no longer clear if anyone is governing the country at all…

      IMHO, it is no longer clear for how long the Country would remain governable, should anyone make the attempt: such is the mess being created by those in authority. This state of affairs appears to be reaching a crisis point with the likely outcome of chaos and civil unrest. And all the while the foot-soldiers of demographic change are hurriedly imported from mid-Channel and conveniently dispersed around the Country, their welfare coming before that of the many indigenous who need help.
      Now we are informed (see Phizzee’s comment above) that members of the Met Police are undeployable because of health issues. A perfect storm approaching?

      1. The problem is that doing things – actually changing things – takes along time. The state doens’t like to do anything because government gets at best, 18 months in office. The surrounding time is spent trying to get re-elected.

        As a consequence it prefers to tinker rather than resolve. Big changes take time – universal credit needed IDS to step out of government completely and the state still fought it’s most important features.

  18. Why do we stir up trouble in foreign countries but can’t even run our own? Peter Hitchens. 1 January 2023.

    What a twisted society we have become. We stir up wars in other people’s countries and praise ourselves for doing it.

    But there is no political reward for protecting our own people against crime and disorder on their streets and in their homes. It is no longer clear if anyone is governing the country at all, so busy are we putting other nations to rights.

    Burglaries go unprevented, uninvestigated and unpunished, in colossal numbers. Our capital city seethes with uncontrolled knife crime and stinks of marijuana.

    Christmas brings news of terrible ultra-violent crimes in supposedly peaceful suburban areas. Migrants stride boldly ashore in unknown numbers. We pay heavy taxes for pitiful services, cratered roads and a health system that is the envy of nobody.

    Foreign adventures have always been the prerogative of Political Elites since the inception of organised states. It allows them to strut their stuff on the World Stage; it raises their domestic profile and keeps the Hoi Polloi occupied and onside. It’s the Great Game and playing is compulsory even for the weak; if only to fend off likely predators.

    The Elites as the Aristocracy, the Corporations as Guilds, Powerful Individuals, Plague, the utter indifference to the welfare of the serfs more and more resemble a technocratic facsimile of the Middle Ages. The Shire Reeves of the present; the journalists and opinion formers supervise and control what the peasants see and hear and who exist now only to be harvested of their skills and earnings

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11588573/PETER-HITCHENS-stir-trouble-foreign-countries-run-own.html

    1. People are getting ‘bigger’ – taller, wider due to better nutrition. That’s not to say some officers are not portly, though.

      My brother in law is a beanpole. He’s 6’3 and a swimmer, runner andwhat not. His shirts are 2xl to fit on his shoulders. Quite simply, when an adult’s ‘medium’ would barely fit Junior the sizing is completely wrong.

      1. HG’s tuts of disapproval, apparently it is well known as such and sounds like a bloke, until it was switched off.

  21. Energy expert, Dave Walsh, expounding on the failed “laboratory test” of using the part-time and hence unreliable solar and wind as sources for energy production. Walsh also reveals that the USA suffered rolling brownouts and blackouts over the Christmas holiday which was underreported.
    We are now, more than ever, at the mercy of the weather thanks to the useless, ignorant, incompetent and morally bankrupt politicians that infest the corridors of power.
    From 5:30 in.

    War Room – Dave Walsh on Energy Problems

    1. Those the sam epoliticians who set about taxing real energy generation, hindering new research and development?

      Ah, yes. Thing is, it’s just boring now. We know what their intent is, what the goal is. The deceit is just theatre for the masses.

  22. How Putin’s dream of a new Russian empire was destroyed on the fields of Ukraine. 1 January 2023.

    Deep in the recesses of the Kremlin, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been poring over maps of Ukraine.

    We cannot, of course, know what drives this reclusive, ever more paranoid despot. His spectral presence haunts the nightmares of millions, but his own personality is a void — humanity’s black hole.

    Of one thing we may be reasonably certain, however. As he looks back over the past 300 days since February 24, he is tormented neither by guilt nor remorse for the terrible human consequences of his “special military operation”. That this year, fateful for him, has also been fatal for perhaps a quarter of a million other people, does not trouble him in the least.

    If we know anything at all about the Russian president, it is that he is unburdened by conscience and immune to compassion – a cold-blooded killer who increasingly resembles his predecessor Joseph Stalin.

    Well for someone who doesn’t know the author has an awful lot to say about him! How does he know that he pores over maps? How does he know without meeting him that he’s paranoid? Is it my imagination or is there an increasing desperation about this Anti-Vlad propaganda? If he’s not suffering from Cancer he’s got Parkinson’s Disease. If he’s not a cold calculating monster he’s suffering from Megalomania or Delusions of Grandeur. If he’s not bombing the shit out of the Ukies he’s run out of missiles! If he’s not advancing he’s retreating!

    Methinks they doth protest too much!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/01/how-putins-dream-new-russian-empire-destroyed-fields-ukraine/

    1. They’re using their narrative to attempt to ‘control him’ in their eyes. He is this, that’s why he is doing what he’s doing.

      For some reason the media need to rationalise Putin’s motives.

    2. Despite the £billions poured in by the west in armaments and money is the author saying it’s making no difference. We know it isn’t apart from impoverishing our own country.

        1. Vlad is my hero in all of this (true-born Brits always support the plucky little under-dog). The fact that he is trashed by the media in the same way as Trump was/is speaks volumes. I am ashamed of my country, its values, of what it has become. I try to uphold those values that existed when I entered this world, more years ago than I care to think about.

          Happy New Year, Minty – perhaps 2023 will be the year it all falls apart; it is crumbling ever faster, there is hope that the truth will triumph and set us free. Have faith!

  27. Morning all 😉 😊
    Had a lovely family day and evening yesterday best new year wishes to all 🍾🥂 have a good one, cheers. Loved the London fireworks on TV last night. Great they made reference to HMQ, sadly missed.

    1. ‘Morning Spikey! Happy New Year to you! Did you have a good night with plenty of black bun and things?

      1. In bed by 9 and asleep by 10. Happy New Year Sue 😘, other than boxing day gig seen no-one for the whole Xmas period

  29. Par 4 start to the New Year

    Wordle 561 4/6

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

    1. Me too.
      Wordle 561 4/6

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

      1. Me as well.
        Wordle 561 4/6

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

    2. This made me feel a bit better after being rudely woken by a clap of thunder.

      Wordle 561 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  30. Happy New Year everyone .

    Family Christmas present for all three cars … A tyre inflator from Halfords , quite a large efficient one . £45.

    The local garage took away it’s outside tyre air facility .. and before that , it used to charge money for you to fill tyres up .

    4. Father Xmas bought is the same one too. You have just reminded me that i wanted to commend the staff at our local Halfords on Xmas Eve for their excellent service.

  31. I’ve just been reading about the coastal erosion at Happisburgh in Norfolk. It’s so sad to see how so people’s homes have collapsed into the sea. It’s pretty obvious that no political figures have lived there. At least there might have been an effort to prevent it.
    2023 and onwards doesn’t look like much of a prospect for these desperately unfortunate people.

      1. Send them to work on fixing the problem they don’t do anything else for their keep.
        If they don’t like it they can float off.

    2. I used to go to a lovely café at “Ayzbrough”. They had to abandon it when it got to close to the cliff edge.

  32. Good morning and Happy New Year to the very diverse Nottler family! Mat 2023 be a happy and healthy and prosperous one for us all! Many thanks to Geoff and to each of you for keeping me sane! 🔔😘🍾

  33. I am not a firework fan .. How strange that the touristy part of London has taxes etc laid down by the Muslim King of London to deter motorists from polluting his precious citadel , yet £ millions were spent on gunpowder causing distress to many animals and people .. and those with PTSD.

    Miserable wretch, aren’t I.

        1. Dry and windy here, Maggie, so I did a lot of washing. (Amongst other bits and bobs.)

    2. A display which worked in the Ukes, gays, queers and Charlie’s end-of-the -planet message. Everything has to have the left political drum beating. But a better day today thankfully, there is sunshine in the garden.

    3. The fireworks woke me up last night. I had the window slightly ajar and counterintuitively the dogs seemed more relaxed. I suppose it is something to do with sound waves.

      Happy New Year to you.

    4. Our eldest took his family from their Hertfordshire home to the Natural History Museum on Friday. And with their coveted Blue Badge parked right at the rear of the building. And because of the Christmas holidays he didn’t have to pay any charges for the trip into London.
      It beat the hell out of having to struggle on public transport with two young children and his disabled wife. Good on him.

  35. Happy New Year!
    Ruddy fireworks went on til nearly 1 am. Sounded like a war zone in Hammersmith. Apparently the New Years Day Concert from Vienna will feature 18 works, 14 of which have never been played before at this event. I’m sorry but that isn’t a recommendation.
    Went to the Wigmore Hall yesterday evening. Dunedin Consort performing JS Bach works for Christmas. Lovely.

    1. It might not have been fireworks, Our Susan. But an actual war…..

      Happy New Year. Incidentally, I don’t know whether you see The Times – there is a newish writer called James Marriott (who looks about 12 from his photo) who goes to St Barts…. He wrote about it the other day.

      1. The name is familiar. Possibly on the reading rota. Only one service today, at 5pm, hence I’m whiling away the time on here!

        I did wonder if the very diverse residents of the White City Estate had actually started shooting one another. It wouldn’t surprise me.

        1. “Nine lessons and carols at St Bartholomew the Great, a majestic Norman church in the City of London. All I want to do at a service like this is belt out big tunes. I scrutinise the order of service for Christmas bangers. Am I alone in finding While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem dreary to sing? I love It Came Upon the Midnight Clear with its marvellously dismissive line on the war and conflict down on earth, “O hush the noise ye men of strife”. Everybody agrees that O Come All Ye Faithful is tops. I learnt this year (in The New York Times of all places) that its popularity is partly down to the “explosive, half-diminished seventh chord” expressing “awe and mystery” which comes under the phrase “Word of the father” in the final verse.

          A bit technical for me as I’d assumed cheerful tunelessness was half the point of carols but I’m pleased to have a technical-sounding reason for my raucous bellowing.”

          1. Thank you. In the 19th century ‘While Shepherds Watched’ was sung to the tune ‘Cranbrook’, better known as ‘Ilkley Moor’ (‘On Ilkla Moor baht ‘at’’). Makes it more interesting.

          2. I used to get the local choir to join in with the repeat “Bah’t’ at“. usually at a choir dinner but sometimes at a concert in retirement homes. They loved it and called it the ‘Potato song’ (patate, in French). Not sung for three years now because of covid.

    2. The evening concert sounds good. We went to bed and didn’t notice the fireworks, though our neighbours said they were good. I kept the electric blanket on while I was nottling and it eased the pain quite a lot so I slept well.

      1. That’s good. Putting the right ankle across the left knee and pressing down on the right knee can relieve pain in the sciatic nerve too. Likewise I try not use medication.

        1. Doesn’t that depend which side is affected? Will try that.

          My right hip is more mobile than the left one, though I don’t normally have any pain in either, which leads me to think it is just a neural pain and not related to any hip degeneration.

          1. Ah yes, of course. I thought it was more commonly on the right side but that’s just how I experience it! I wondered about my hip but the pain moves along the tract of the nerve, from lower back down to the knee and there isn’t any stiffness in the hip.

          2. It is on the right side though…..

            The worst time ever for this type of pain was shortly before giving birth the first time – so 52 years ago when I was 22. I could hardly walk it was so bad. Not quite that bad this time, but recognisable as neural rather than bone related.

          3. You obviously have a back problem, Sue, that’s where the sciatic nerve gets trapped.

            See a chiropractor or osteopath, they fix by manipulation not medication but try and get a good reference from a knowledgeable medic and not yellow pages.

    4. My poor dog was terrified again. They went on too long. I’m against fireworks for any day except 5th November. Bah humbug.

      1. You’d have been against fireworks even on Nov 5th if you lived where I do. Small houses, small gardens, completely unsuitable for today’s heavy ordnance. Recently, a young couple moved into one of these properties and upset the neighbours with a marathon Bonfire Night party. They topped that yesterday. At 5pm I was aware of a faint smell of burning. Had I left a gas ring on? Was it an electrical fault? No, it was the newbies, barbecue alight in the drizzle that was still falling. Thick grey smoke with the reek of chemicals (white spirit and commercial barbecue sauce) and something unidentifiable, like the smell of damp vegetation smouldering. It crept in everywhere. The artillery barrages took place at regular intervals throughout the evening, the last at about 10:30, the carousing for another hour until they finally retired indoors for the striking of the hour.

        I shall go out later and clear up the spent fireworks scattered across the street.

  37. ‘Terror on New Year’s Eve’: huge Russian missile attack kills one in Ukraine. 1 January 2022.

    Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least one person in the capital Kyiv and injuring more than a dozen in what one official described as “terror on New Year’s Eve”.

    Moscow’s second major missile attack in three days badly damaged a hotel south of Kyiv’s centre and a residential building in another district. A Japanese journalist was among the wounded and taken to hospital, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

    Wow! However did my parents and Ed Murrow survive the Blitz?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/31/russia-fighting-to-protect-motherland-vladimir-putin-claims

      1. It looked like a film set to me, and already derelict. Perhaps it was photoshopped, digitally enhanced imagery.

    3. Ukraine didn’t help itself by refusing to talk to Russia to end this stupid war.

      About a third of Ukraine considers itself Russian. Let them choose.

  38. Good morning everyone and Happy New Year to you all. Yay it’s not raining so it’s a great start to the day and New Year.

  39. OT – if you want half an hour of amazement – watch the final of the Old Folks University Challenge (Friday night). The Balliol team was outstanding.

        1. Could I nominate you to be the captain of the Nottlers’ Old Folks University Challenge Team? I am sure that The Nottlers would beat some of the teams we see on Jeremy Paxman’s Christmas Oldies series.

          1. Which of us would be willing to dress up in drag to pretend to be the trannny, though? The beeb would never allow a team without one, would it?

  41. Happy New Year everyone. All the bars here closed before 9pm last night and none open tonight. Start the year with a good savings!!!

  43. Na then. Listen up!

    Happy New Year to all NoTTLers, past and present.

    Gott Nytt År!

    Grizzly.

  45. Good morning, and happy New Year to everyone.
    Let’s hope 2023 won’t be as grim as we fear.
    That’s it with being optimistic for now.

    2. It is crumbling around more than the edges now and TPTB are having to play a fast game of whack-a-mole in order to keep things under control. Lets hope that 2023 is when the whole thing implodes.

      Happy New Year, bb2, and everyone.

      1. 360573+ up ticks,

        Morning PM,

        A great deal of “NO I do NOT agree to do that” from the decent indigenous peoples brigade will crack the odious treacherous political nuts.

        All the best.

        1. ‘Do not comply’ is the most peaceful and best way out of this mess, ogga. We WILL get there in the end, but it is what happens inbetween whiles en route to that end.

          1. 369573+up ticks,

            Evening PM,
            Agreed, maybe words to that effect should be sent to all area Mps en masse.

    3. The pundits are strangely quiet on the matter of economic meltdown. Similar to all the pensioner deaths from cold that usually fill the colums at this time of year. I expect there might be a few more. I have seen local shops already closed down, Jan is going to be a grim month for small businesses. Apart from that, Ive been out for my jog this morning and looking forward to thinking about what I shall do in 23.

  49. A Good morning and Happy New Year to all!
    A bright and, at the moment at least, dry morn with 3°C outside.

  50. Happy New Year to all Nottlers! – Thank you for keeping both informed and entertained in equal measure.

  51. Bill Bailey: ‘Jeremy Clarkson’s comment about Meghan belonged in the pub, not a newspaper’
    The comedian and Strictly winner opens up on making people laugh, the perils of social media and the impact of losing Sean Lock to cancer
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/2023/01/01/bill-bailey-jeremy-clarksons-comment-meghan-belonged-pub-not/

    The Mail is also banging on about the Sussexes again today. Apparently Migraine is about to publish a book saying how beastly the British are and especially the Royal Family. I think that poor old Lady Hussey played right into the hands of that foul American ‘actress’ – her apology to Ngozi Fullanus will be seized upon – why did she apologise for racism if there wasn’t any racism? Her apology confirms to Migraine that there is!

    Most of us think that Harry is outstandingly stupid – but his father and brother are not far behind him.

    BTL from Percival Wrattstrangler

    Jeremy Clarkson was wrong to apologise but this was not nearly as wrong as the apology that poor old Lady Hussey was forced to give to the woman with a fake African name wearing fake African dress and yet protesting that it was racist to ask if she was African.
    The way that King Charles and the Prince of Wales behaved toward Lady Hussey was a total disgrace and has converted me to republicanism.

      1. The millionaire residents will surely string Mayor Khan up from one of their lovely trees if he tries to vandalise Holland Park Avenue. The houses behind those trees and some high walls are mansions. You have to be very rich to live there. One is the Uke embassy but most still appear to be private homes.

        1. Good morning Sue

          Whilst walking the dogs near Arne some time ago, a couple of beautifully dressed older men called out good afternoon to me and I cheerfully responded , then they asked if they could stroke my wriggle bum spannels .. but of course you can… they chattered on to me , told me they were renting a cottage nearby, and often visited this part of Dorset .. I actually felt and sounded like old Ma Larkin , wearing my old muddy shoes and battered jacket , etc especially when I asked them … Where have you come from .. their response was .. ( they didn’t say Not London) , but Holland Park … So I said in proper Darzet , where iz that to then..( you know , I can do accents ..) I think they were most put out … .

          The conversation died a death !

          Then I went on my way with the dogs bouncing around .

        3. 42 million pounds for ten miles of cycle lane, and now the council has told them to Eff Off.

        4. Michael Winner was a Holland Park resident. He would have told Khan where to go, in no uncertain words.

        1. Personally, I would vote for him, since he utters far more common sense than any other ‘politician’ on earth!

          1. Oh, yes, if ran as an independent here I’d vote for him in an instant. I’d vote for Farage too, just don’t tell Ogga.

  53. BUGGER!!!
    Went out to sort the empty woodstack ready for refilling and it began chucking it down!!

    Bloody weather!

      1. It was lovely to visit MiL’s local, the Westleigh Inn. Full enough that seating was at a premium.
        No muzak, warm, cheerful, lovely bozz of conversation, happy publican and pretty young staff, excellent beers and ciders, great food… just like a pub should be. Now my second favourite pub after the Blue Anchor, Aberthaw.

    2. I opened the door to let Kadi out this morning (Oscar was still doing his Rip Van Winkle impression in bed) and he took one look at the rain sheeting down and dug his heels in. The look he gave me plainly said, “if you think I’m going out in THAT, you’ve got another think coming!”

    1. My heart goes out to this poor woman but she has been betrayed not by the Asylum Seeker but by the Traitors and Cowards that reside in Westminster!

      1. It’s terrible and just because the political classes can’t be bothered. I would go as far to say that there are thousands of people driving on our roads that have never had a sniff of the Highway code and never had one second of instruction or advice on driving on UK roads.

        1. Road Tax, MOTs, Car Insurance and Driving Licences/Tests are only required by Wasps
          (Whitish , Anglo-Saxonish People) in UK now.
          Not required where child grooming is not illegal

    2. When I was growing up one of my fathers brothers leaving for Canada, gave our family an old Gramophone and piles of 78 records. I love the Andrews Sisters singing Sunny Side of the street.

    4. Happy New Year to you. We have the full works of Gary Larson in pride of place, alongside the OED. which are consulted when spirits are low!

    1. This is now part of TPTBs bandwagon- the public’s fault for not going to the NHS/gp etc. not their fault at all when they said “Save the NHS” extremely loudly and so, as well as the psyops to divide people there was psyops to put people off seeking medical advice or help. It’s all our fault.

      1. VW, Not sure what TPTBs means ?
        As was explained to me whilst i was in hospital for 3 days before Christmas. The cardiologists are very busy half of their working days with Private patients.

        1. The Powers that Be.

          The Oxford heart surgeon who was in charge of OH’s treatment does private work as well. I expect they all do. Cardiosurgeon.co.uk

  59. Police officers who posted pornography and pestered women among those allowed to stay on duty. 1 january 2022.

    Police officers who preyed upon women and posted homemade pornography to social media are among hundreds allowed to keep their jobs in recent years, it can be revealed.

    An investigation by the Telegraph has found that the country’s rank-and-file continues to be plagued by officers whose wrongdoing online ranges from sexual harassment to racism.

    Most received little more than a slap on the wrist after their behaviour came to light, with some facing no repercussions whatsoever from internal disciplinary probes.

    I don’t actually know any policeman apart from Grizz but can I say that I suspect these people; for all their woke shortcomings, are the last barrier between Us and Chaos and that is the reason for their superiors reluctance to get rid of them? Cromwell once said. “The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. If they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies”. This is as true today as it was in 1643. It is no use looking to the LGBTQ crowd to deal with Albanian Gangsters or Islamic Terrorists!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/31/police-officers-who-posted-pornography-pestered-women-among/

    1. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf” – George Orwell

    2. Happy New Year, Araminta.

      Going on from what you are saying, here is a response from a retired Derbyshire police superintendent who was replying to a comment (on a private ex-police Facebook page) whereupon the writer was lamenting the decline in police standards of: attention to duty, general behaviour and — especially — the modern standard of uniform. Much of what he says in his response is very pertinent and often overlooked.

      I retired fairly recently and had the chance to work with the front line cops as reactive Inspector.

      Having been behind the scenes for many years before that job I had my eyes well and truly opened to the reality of being a front line cop in today’s world.

      Every time they deal with anything they have 10 people filming them with mobile phones, in addition to that they will automatically be accused of being misogynistic, sexiest, racist, etc, etc.

      They have to let all of that wash over them without daring to retaliate for fear of being accused of abuse and violence.

      The workload of a single cop resembles the workload of an entire shift ‘back in the day’ and that is no exaggeration.

      I can say hand on heart that the majority of cops I served with wouldn’t last a week trying to police in 2022.

      Our police officers are surrounded by organisations, charities, government departments, journalists (the list goes on) whose only aim seems to be to wait for something to go wrong and then swoop like vultures.

      As a Superintendent I was expected to wear a tunic for ceremonial duties. I had to buy one from Anchor Supplies in Ripley, it cost £6 and looked like it should have cost less, I was quite surprised to be honest until I discovered what the cost of new ‘dress’ uniform is.

      Over the years the Home Office has slashed police budgets so expensive uniform is no longer an option.

      I agree they don’t look as smart, but in every other way they are at least as good as we were, and in many ways they are head and shoulders above.

      In a world where they are attacked from every angle I think they should be able to rely on us, as retired officers, to give them our support and encouragement, if they can’t rely on us, who can they rely on?

      1. And, of course, the officers are expected to sort anything at all out, and be the first in the line of fire – whether equipped or not. I’d not care to take that on.

          1. You knew the rot had set in when “The Police Force” became “The Police Service”.

          2. I knew before that, John. The old-time chiefs wanted burly, intelligent men who got on well with the public. The new lot just want those with degrees in social studies and who hide away from the public.

          3. Our daughter is an inspector in the BTP, she cannot wait to retire as it has changed so much from what it was. It feels like only yesterday at her passing out parade at Ashford.with the band of the Parashute Regiment.

  60. There’s a bloke who was given someone else’s lotto prize – £820,000! By bank transfer. He managed to get it sent back before the end of banking business in 2022 – otherwise he might well have been liable for a wedge of “asset tax” on it! The indignity – stonking tax bill & no winnings after all!

  61. Happy New Year to all. My wife suggested we had a lie-in this morning. We were woken from our slumbers by a huge clap of thunder. I hope the power stays on for me to boil the kettle.

          1. Somehow, for some reason, my selfies do not reflect the inner-me selfie. I am still twenty years old in my head…!

  62. I watched some of the New year concert on TV from Vienna this morning, I was surprised it was allowed to be televised. It was so painfully hideously white.

    1. And the Vienna Phil is still the greatest orchestra, with just 15 permanent female members.

      1. Almost as hideously white as songs of praise from Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff. But you know what old auntie is like.
        That wasn’t allowed to happen.

    4. There were some 32,000 people at Cheltenham racecourse today. Try as it might, ITV couldn’t find one blek to showcase.

      1. I watch some of the racing and other races from Musselburgh.
        They don’t appear to join in with as much of Britain’s culture and social structure as the media like to suggest.

        1. That’s becos we is so raacist and keep ’em away 🙂 Brian (Hughes) and Donald (McCain) had a double at Musselburgh today. Good to see since I have the bulk of my horses with Donald, ridden by Brian.

  63. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has tweeted that it has today ended all imports of Russian LNG (liquefied natural gas) as part of its response to the illegal invasion of Ukraine. 1 January 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9de9522ec74ef44a380682b605489201084dc2eb6987c1e867848817969e49b9.jpg

    Today the UK has ended all imports of Russian Liquefied Natural Gas. We’re cutting Putin off from funding his illegal war and supporting countries around the world to reduce their own dependency.

    They will be telling you next week that Vlad cutting off the gas is the reason for rising Energy Prices!

      1. I think it’s a case of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. Both are against the US/NATO/West.

        1. Very much so. Russian Orthodoxy and Chinese Communism may be irreconcilable but BRICS could break US hegemony. The financial incentives are strong?

          1. It is the rule of law that distinguishes western states from the BRICS. Independent judiciary,and separation of powers are fundamental. BRIC type states are resource rich, but when the money appears its owners like to keep it safe. First rule of capitalism: protect your capital.

          2. Do you really think the US, UK and EU judiciary are independent and that we still have the rule of law?

          3. US = political appointments. They may have independent legal minds…BUT…
            UK = there are still a few. The “Supreme” Court is now a joke – totally political appointments.
            ECJ = JOKE

            An elderly lawyer writes.

          4. The Supreme Court was a joke from its Blair-instigated inception coupled with the connected desecration of the House of Lords as a legislative as well a legal institution. Likewise, our Blair-instigated Human Rights Act was a deliberate sabotage of the rights that many of us ordinary citizens used to have, in the name of “Human Rights” where we didn’t count as human for such purposes.

            Never mind, his fragrant wife made a fortune out of her specially set-up Matrix Chambers, so someone benefitted.

          7. civil law, contracts etc. The moneymen can play freely, which is much more difficult in sh*thole countries.

    5. I’m sure the government’s virtue signaling will be a great comfort to people shivering in their homes.

      1. Funny thing; as I was walking the dogs this morning, I thought, “I must watch ‘The Prisoner’ again”.

    6. I remember seeing AJP Taylor in the flesh and regrettably I never had the courage to say hullo. What would he have written about the present world conflict?
      President Putin’s heart might be in the right place, but he has made some serious strategic errors over the last twenty years. The old, old story of preparing to fight the wrong battles with outdated equipment. Mrs Merkel had a handle on Putin, but clearly he is not an easy man to help. As for the current EU leaders, they are like turkeys in November.
      Minty, I admire your perspicacity in being able to shine a UV light on what appears to be already well illuminated, and await the next chapter!

    7. I remember seeing AJP Taylor in the flesh and regrettably I never had the courage to say hullo. What would he have written about the present world conflict?
      President Putin’s heart might be in the right place, but he has made some serious strategic errors over the last twenty years. The old, old story of preparing to fight the wrong battles with outdated equipment. Mrs Merkel had a handle on Putin, but clearly he is not an easy man to help. As for the current EU leaders, they are like turkeys in November.
      Minty, I admire your perspicacity in being able to shine a UV light on what appears to be already well illuminated, and await the next chapter!

  64. Nice Bible quotation: Isaiah 5, 20:
    “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter”

    2. That is printed on a trailer parked outside a house on the way to Shrewsbury. I think, “dead right” every time I drive past.

  65. We waited till dawn to set off our New Year fireworks. Nice to get your own back.

    2. There weren’t any here at midnight, Johnny, so perhaps the locals followed your example 🙂 There were quite a few at 20.00 for some reason. Getting an early night, perhaps?

  66. The appalling G & P are sauntering round the house doing their: “Spare us a teaspoon of Whiskas, Guv” act….

  67. Re Witless and Unbalanced and their shares in chemical companies:

    Sept 2020: Sir Patrick Vallance has a £600,000 shareholding in a pharmaceuticals giant which is racing to develop a Covid vaccine for the Government, a report has revealed. The Chief Scientific Adviser holds the deferred bonus of 43,111 shares in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) from his time as president of the multinational company. Sir Patrick has already sold more than £5 million in shares he received during his tenure from 2012 to 2018, when he was appointed by the Government. Accounts seen by the Telegraph show that Sir Patrick held 404,201 GSK shares when he resigned, worth £6.1 million at today’s price.

    In 2008, Chief Medical Adviser Prof Chris Whitty, accepted, $40 million from Bill Gates to control British vaccine promulgation: and he stated “COVID-19 vaccines and drugs would need to be in place before measures could be lifted … “:

    That is the best I an do. Other NoTTLers may know more…

    1. “Sept 2020: Sir Patrick Vallance has a £600,000 shareholding in a pharmaceuticals giant which is racing to develop a Covid vaccine for the Government, a report has revealed.”

      Any sign of a vaccine for HMG? Haven’t heard of one more’s the pity LOL. 😝

    2. Just reread your post Bill

      “ In 2008, Chief Medical Adviser Prof Chris Whitty, accepted, $40 million from Bill Gates to control British vaccine promulgation: and he stated “COVID-19 vaccines and drugs would need to be in place before measures could be lifted … ”. Did Shitty state that in 2008?

        1. You could not possibly have wreaked as much havoc as Whitty over the last few years!
          Were you there at the same time as Delingpole and Jonathan Myles-Lea?

    4. How is any official body allowed to accept donations from a philanthropist an activist with an agenda? (Rhetorical).

    5. How is any official body allowed to accept donations from a philanthropist an activist with an agenda? (Rhetorical).

  68. The Independent reports that in a Savanta survey 65% of Britons think there should be another EU referendum. The survey is not entirely anti- Brexit but the pro-EU group is off the mark early in 2023.

      1. Ooh! I like that! ‘Creative surveying’ I’ll be using it if you don’t mind Minty?

  69. I was kept awake last night by the neighbours dog barking in their garden. Tonight I’m going to grab it and put it in my garden and see how they like it

  71. Putin kickstarts de-industrialisation of Europe’s factories. 1 January 2023

    As the war drags into the winter, Europe is facing up to a future without any Russian gas. That is a problem for industrial companies who have relied on plentiful supplies of cheap gas delivered through pipelines from Russia.

    Experts warn that the likes of Germany and Italy will lose out to factories elsewhere as their competitiveness is hurt, not least by the US. The business model that has been the backbone of Europe’s industrial heartlands may have been broken by the Kremlin.

    Now what did I say earlier? Vlad hasn’t cut off their gas. They have done that themselves voluntarily as part of the Sanctions and of course with a little help from the Americans blowing up the Baltic Pipeline. There is a military aphorism: Fighting your Command to Destruction. That is what is happening here. Even if Russia is defeated, and it’s a big IF, it will still drag Europe down with it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/01/putin-kickstarts-de-industrialisation-europes-factories/

    1. Hi Minty, Happy New Year!

      Above (if you read most recent first) I have a plea if someone knows of an article that I can provide MOH with as an intro. to the apocalypse that Agenda/21 and 30 represent)…

      You are so well-versed in things written, that I wondered.

      1. Morning H. Thank you for that. Happy New Year. I tend to respond to the stories of the moment; my primary interest being in the Truth. Needless to say in the Present World this requires some finding without burdening myself with looking too far ahead!

    1. I will not go vegan; I will not go dry and I will make my decisions about what’s best for me. And as for the government and all its oily cohorts, they can go and chase themselves up a greasy rope.

      1. I don’t understand people going without things that please or comfort them in January (the depths of winter), when we need all the cheering up we can find.

          1. Last night we discussed why the Scots don’t celebrate Christmas like the English. One view was that it was all down to John Knox who didn’t want people to enjoy themselves.

          2. John Knox was a nasty person. “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” Horrid man.

          3. To be fair about the Trumpet, he did have to put up with Mary Queen of Scots (and see Elizabeth on the English throne). 🙂

    2. So now they’re telling children that if they don’t comply with meaningless mask regulations then cute fluffy little animals will die?
      How anyone can’t see the march of totalitarianism is beyond me.

  74. 369573+up ticks,

    If only,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    3h
    What might ‘new politics’look like? How about:

    1) Proportional Representation elections.
    2) MPs not allowed to have outside employment (bar writing).
    3) MPs to have basic pay, but with bonuses based on meeting targets for high employment & low inflation (assessed by ONS).
    4) MPs’ basic pay to be docked for low attendance in debates & voting.
    5) MPs barred from being nembers of outise political & lobbying institutions (eg Trilateral Commission as with Starmer).
    6) Abolishion of House of Lords & its replacement with a scrutiny & amending chamber chamber not based on patronage or buying seats with political donations.

    No doubt you can think of some more beneficial changes.

    https://gettr.com/post/p23jtdg5f2b

  75. Just in from an hour pottering in the garden. Agreeable to be outdoors without a jacket and not be shrimmed with the cold. Won’t last, of course, but nice while it does.

  76. REQUEST.

    The other day a post was, er, posted showing a short list of essential things that Fishi should do to be sure of the votes of traditional Tories.

    Can anyone remember and reports?

    Thanks.

  77. And in further cat news, G & P are now claiming that they are so weak from lack of food, that they can barely walk!!

    (This arises from our decision post vet check to reduce their daily food intake by about a tablespoon!!)

      1. They are greedy. Gus is a bit too large…! One can only just feel his ribs (the acid test).

          2. I think it’s more old age than worms – she uses a tray and I’ve seen no sign of worms in her faeces.

  78. Hello all, and Happy New Year!

    I have formed my opinions on the world, Agendas 21/30 etc. over many years of reading. MOH thinks that politicians in the world are just being incompetent, that there is no systemic and systematic blueprint for the future being acted out. His answer is always that there is no hard evidence to the contrary.

    Could anyone (of those who also hold the view that there IS a dangerous and deliberate conspiracy) kindly point me to an online beginner’s article with which to begin? He has been persuaded of many things after I have provided him with material, but I can’t find anything at the moment where the writer is not already so far down the line of accepting that there is such a plan, and that this is evident in the narrative, that MOH will consider it biased ab initio.

    1. Follow the money.
      You do not need a big article in the media, just pick a subject.
      Private Eye used to be good at that.

      A recent example would be the MEP found with a huge amount of cash.

      1. I’ve tried that, but there are a lot of excellent articles, that take as given many things that those who have been reading about the subject have already. What I guess I’m looking for is an idiot’s (as opposed to a Useful Idiot’s) guide…

        1. From the financial side you could find an account of the inter-bank liquidity crunch in the summer of 2019 and how disaster was postponed by putting the economy into an induced coma and pumping money straight into companies.
          As tim says, Follow the Money explains most things.

          1. Yes, it explains thing on an individual level – eg. Big Pharma etc. in relation to COVID. But the bigger Grand Plan for us is more hard to pinpoint for someone who is (wilfully?) blind…

          2. I think if one understands the financial reason for closing the economy down, then a whole lot of stuff falls into place.
            There are loads of video clips of WEF people articulating their evil plans – I think at some point we must start to believe that they mean what they say!

      2. I’ve tried that, but there are a lot of excellent articles, that take as given many things that those who have been reading about the subject have already ready. What I guess I’m looking for is an idiot’s (as opposed to a Useful Idiot’s) guide…

    2. There is no point looking for evidence when none will ever be allowed to get into the public domain through the mainstream media.
      And when something does through the internet it gets dismissed as untrustworthy conspiracy theory.

      1. I have looked at places like TCW, but there is no search facility…I guess if someone knows of a suitable site/blog with a search facility rather than something published on the internet.

        1. You could search Peter McCullough, Mike Yeadon or Robert Malone. All of them have written stuff or taken part in videos with loads of proof, and also made the link between Covid and the WEF/GAVI etc.
          Malone has an excellent website.

          1. Thanks. I do dip in and out of many sites, but if I kept everything then things would get even more unmanageable.

          2. I’ve got folders in my stored links, and use them occasionally to find interesting articles that I’ve bookmarked. But really, nothing bad would happen if I threw them all away!
            It’s infuriating to remember some fascinating fact that you read last week and then closed the tab without saving!

        2. I don’t think that search engines make it very easy for people to find what they are looking for if they are looking for materiel that goes against the scientific consensus

          1. Oh whoops, I am blind as well as deaf. Of course! I couldn’t see it.

            Cheers Pirrip!

            Any shoes of any interest?

        4. If sites do not have a search facility just type the name of the site and the topic you would like in google search. It normally comes up. On TCW the search facility is the magnifying glass on the right hand side at the top.

      1. Er, no – because Agenda 21/30 don’t actually say what the consequences are of their implementation of their oh-so-laudable-sounding aims are.

        Plus, the book will come later – I need a tinder to spark the light!

      2. Flip – when I saw it I realised that I had already sent that one. MOH seems to think that if Agenda 30 doesn’t specifically say HOW its aims are going to be carried out by governments etc. to the detriment of the people, then it is not part of Agenda 30.

        He is not normally a stupid person, but I am getting close to wanting a divorce.

    5. Strangely, Twitter is worth looking at, there are many different articles posted there, it’s not simply a platform for a personal opinion. I must confess to not having listened to this earlier today when I came across it but I thought it was worth a save for future reference. I would agree that our present predicament has been decades and decades in the making. Arrogance will be their downfall ultimately; with arrogance there is a certain lack of insight and reflection. https://twitter.com/SpacePirate144/status/1609444406821793792?s=20&t=q7NgPi9zenOVvhG0xzeMaA

      1. Thank you, pmum, I’ll have a look.

        If anything can get through that seemingly impenetrable denialism…

        1. Nothing in this world happens by accident, Hl, and much of it is many, many years in the planning. The globalists’ arrogance will be their downfall. There is so much stuff out there but it has to be pieced together and dots have to be joined, pennies to drop. Perhaps Johnson’s Daily Telegraph Oct 2007 article on overpopulation might help – from memory, Johnson was complaining about no-one being prepared to grasp the nettle of the overpopulation problem – it was still there online a few months ago. See also Stanley Johnson’s publications on Amazon – ‘The Virus’, his population studies. I could go on at length about Gates and his involvement in vaccines, his investments, for instance, but I’ll leave it there!

          1. The globalist downfall is already underway. The synchronised actions of those ‘selected’ by the WEF cabal to govern entire countries otherwise called ‘lockstep’ in implementing vaccination programmes using untested novel messenger RNA injections has caused such immense damage to populations that can no longer be denied or ignored by the perpetrators.

            The suppression of scientific opinion to enable this malicious and atrocious crime is well documented and increasingly revealed as suppressed by Twitter drops and whistleblowers.

            There are so many obvious crimes perpetrated by politicians and ‘young global leaders’ acting on instruction around the world to ignore.

            Nuremberg 2 awaits the bastards. In the U.K. that means you Whitty, Vallance, Van Tam, Farrar, Bunter, Hancock, Ferguson, Sunak, Hunt and the rest of this evil cabal of subservient globalist morons.

            The same applies to the New Gangreen Deal merchants supported by these effing morons. All will meet their just deserts, hopefully dangling at the end of a rope.

  80. Can the slammers get any more crazy. Attacks in Afghanistan today by a group the Taliban calls Islamic State. All in the name of a god I suppose.. I really feel for the poor souls that have to live there.

      1. And meanwhile the BBC is making podcasts on the despicable female who left to become an “ISIS bride” (her name happily escapes me at the moment) and who now wants to come back. To live on benefits, no doubt.

          1. As far as I’m concerned she should be made to stay there. Like a murderer should be made to stay in prison, and a Lifer should be made to stay for life.

  82. REQUEST MARK 2

    I posted a request below for a report of comment someone put up here a few days ago. It was a serious request.

    The Oleaginous Fishi has a new “political secretary” appointed ten days ago. I intend to write to him (by post) setting out the excellent short list of items and telling him that his Boss (and he) will be out of a job, and that no traditional Try will vote that way again – unless the ideas are taken up and put into force.

    So PLEASE, someone, help find the post.

      1. It was a short post from a regular NoTTLer listing numerically concisely (I think) seven vital issues that must be dealt with.

        2. Was it this?
          1. Individual freedom
          2. Limited government
          3. The rule of law
          4. Peace through strength
          5. Fiscal responsibility
          6. Free markets
          7. Human dignity

        3. How’z about:

          1. Defence of the realm.
          2. Freedom of expression.
          3. Minimal government regulation.
          4. Strict immigration control.
          5. Low energy costs via nuclear, North Sea oil and
          fracking.
          6. Low personal and corporation taxes.
          7. Restoration of a Police Force.

    2. Do you have any idea of the latest and earliest dates it might have been posted? Otherwise one is thinking in terms of thousands of potential comments.
      It sounds like a list that might have been put up as a response below the line in a regular newspaper.

      1. I thought it was a couple of weeks ago – before Christmas, certainly. But memory plays tricks. I hoped that the original poster might remember…

        1. That’s a start point.

          As far as you can recall:
          Was it a single post with replies or was it as a response to another post?
          Did it get many upvotes?
          Did you reply to it?
          The answers to any of those would help a search enormously

          1. Prolly gave it a thumb. Don’t bother any more – I’ll just hope that the original poster spots my request.

            La vie soit trop courte!

          2. Pity.
            Too little detail to tie the search down to a reasonable frame.
            As you note, your best bet is the OP seeing this thread.
            Have you posted on the other places you frequent, it looks like something that might appear on the Speccie.

          4. My suspicion, having spent quite a few minutes hunting, is that it may be within a linked article, which would not necessarily show up as a post on the page.

          5. I’ve looked back three months in my notifications (because I vaguely remember posting an additional wish), but I can’t see anything relevant.

      1. Thanks. What I am after (forlornly) is a short list that looks vaguely like:

        1 Stop the illegals
        2 Scrap net-Zero
        3 Sort out N Ireland
        sort of thing.

        3. Radical cuts to state waste, an end to the DIE nonsense, significant and meaningful tax cuts – on regressive taxes like fuel duty and energy especially, the utter abolition of the nonsense lifetime pensions allowance, and end to capital gains tax (and countless others, frankly).

          It won’t happen. The intent is to continue to do massive damage to the country.

  83. Britain must be clearer who its friends and enemies are. 1 January 2023.

    As 2023 arrives, it is encouraging to hear the Government putting British national interest and security back at the heart of its foreign policy objectives, adopting a more realistic and pragmatic assessment of who our friends, competitors and enemies are. Given the military and economic dangers posed by Russia and China, but also the belligerent behaviour of Iran, this is timely. It is in this context that Britain’s relationship with the Gulf states must be reviewed.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Graham Cushway.

    Easy to say, but enemies of the British people, and the enemies of our treacherous leaders are different. They are still desperate to kow-tow to China and drag us back into the EU. They will sell us to either as cheaply as possible.

    Our worst enemies, as always, are in Westminster. Until that snake-pit is cleaned out and the Tories replaced by a non-woke non-Socialist alternative, there is not.

    Amen to that Mr Cushway. Vlad may, or may not, be Bad but Westminster is the enemy of all that is right and decent!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/01/britain-must-clearer-who-friends-enemies/

  85. That’s me gone for this year. Well, until tomorrow! I hope someone can find the “wants list” that I have banged on about.

    Have a spiffing evening…..hoping for the best.

    A demain.

  86. Happy New Year, everyone! I missed yesterday because the Rayburn went out (again!) and refused to relight, which made me grimy to say the least. Then I had to scrub up because I was going to one of my neighbours’ for a Hogmanay party. By the time I got back, even you lot of celebratory revellers would have gone to bed! There was a surprisingly good turnout at church this morning, although some were probably, like me, a bit the worse for wear. I did manage to read the lesson okay, though.

    2. Happy New Year, everyone!
      Conway, tell me please, will the ersatz Eucharist continue indefinitely, or is there any sign of a return to pre-covidian faith? I was aghast when offered a wafer dipped in wine, instead of the proper substance.
      Edit: Sue Edison, you attend a posh church, what is the outlook in London?

      2. Intinction (dipping the wafer in the wine) was outlawed due to Covid (although it was done for a very elderly member of the congregation this morning when communion was brought to her in her pew, but she was the last communicant and the priest did the intincting). We take communion in both parts, although people are free to refuse the communal cup if they wish and only take the wafer. If, like me, you drink the wine (the chalice is silver, it’s wiped and turned after each person shares it) that can mean a lengthy wait at the altar rail until the person after me has finished taking communion and I am free to leave!

        1. Thanks, I will pass those useful details to local churchwardens etc.
          Lady priests tend to be ‘woke’, in my limited experience.

          1. Ours is a box-ticker. She’s on holiday for a fortnight! When she comes back she’ll probably be off with Covid and then she’ll be away at a conference (rinse and repeat).

      3. We’re back to kneeling at the altar rail and taking communion in both kinds, with the communal cup. A small number decline the cup but most accept. My only quibble is the pale colour of the wine but it seems to be the done thing now.

    3. “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit …”

      1. Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake. St. Paul.
        Well, that’s my excuse anyway;-)

        1. Well, it looks as if a lot of we NoTTLers are familiar with the Bible. I first heard the quote in an episode of the TV series MAVERICK.

      2. I’m not a great one for whisky 🙂 I take a little wine for my health’s sake (St Paul).

        2. “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities” (1 Tim 5:23).

          1. Don’t worry; lots of people reminded me that what St Paul actually wrote was for one’s stomach’s sake. Close, but obviously no cigar :).

      3. “Drink no longer water but use a little wine, for thy stomach’s sake and thine oft infirmities.” (St. Paul’s 2nd letter to Timothy.)

      1. It say it was coercion, considering people were threatened with the sack if they weren’t jabbed.

        1. Well Trudeau claimed that the jabs were voluntary. After all how could you consider loosing your job, not allowed to travel by train or plane and not allowed into shops for anything except essentials as coercion?

          Still the idiots vote for his band of crooks.

        2. The NHS lost 40,000 staff over this. Including Nurses, Medics, Porters. And they then wonder why they don’t have enough frontline staff.

      1. 369573+ up ticks,

        Evening W,
        Then a serious attempt to pinpoint those that pushed the fear element and used the gullibility of many as a political tool.

        They must eventually, if enough unified people power is applied cast up an offering to appease the peoples.

        There is no honour among the political rodent pack.

  88. I hope everyone has had a good New Years today!
    At least the rain stopped and I was able to get some wood split & stacked today with a bit of assistance from Student Son.
    He’s going back to Uni in Derby tomorrow and I’d told him he’d be going back on the bus if he didn’t assist!

  90. Right, that’s me having trouble keeping my eyes open so I’m off to bed.
    Good night all.

  91. Trees planted by councils die after ‘rush job to show off green credentials’
    Local authorities spend more than £11m of taxpayers’ cash on schemes but often fail to record survival rate

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/31/trees-planted-councils-die-rush-job-show-green-credentials/

    Millions in taxpayer money has been spent to plant trees that may not have survived, according to analysis of council data by the Telegraph.

    At least 80 local authorities are failing to record whether trees planted to help climate change are surviving, despite them spending more than £11 million in council and central Government funds.

    Others report survival rates well below expected, with some projects leaving no trees alive amid concern that planting schemes are being undertaken without adequate expertise.

    Experts say a survival rate of 90-95 per cent should be expected if tree-planting schemes are well planned and have adequate aftercare.

    The high rates of failure, and lack of monitoring, among local authority schemes raise concerns that money is being wasted on rushed planting projects. Some local authorities said failed trees would be replaced, requiring additional resources and manpower.

    The deaths of trees planted for carbon offsetting purposes also raises concerns that councils and businesses may be able to greenwash their pollution, by claiming to have offset their emissions with trees that do not survive.

    M Donovan
    2 HRS AGO
    Our PCC stated we couldn’t afford the 100 new police promised to address growing and serious crime in our area but then went on to announce investment in changing all police and emergency vehicles with top end costly electric vehicles and tree planting.
    In the meantime, while there is nothing wrong with intelligent tree planting, and replacement of 19th century veteran trees, dense plantations on undisturbed pastureland mostly used for grazing is counterproductive as pastureland is a better carbon reservoir than forests and supports greater plant and animal diversity. As usual we are being misled by government and media on science.
    It saddens me to see people led to harm the environment.

    1. Never mind survival rate, we are still waiting on trudeaus 2 billion tree planting extravaganza to begin.

  92. Regular cough medicine users could be sent for cancer checks by pharmacists
    Pilot scheme will mean people can be referred to community diagnostic centres and hospitals for tests

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/30/regular-cough-medicine-users-could-sent-cancer-checks-pharmacists/
    By
    Lizzie Roberts,
    HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
    30 December 2022 • 6:00am
    Habitual users of cough medicine could be referred for a cancer check by their pharmacist as part of a new NHS scheme.

    More than 11,000 pharmacies in England can now access training to spot signs of cancer in their patients in a drive to catch symptoms earlier, making the disease easier to treat.

    From next month, pharmacies in Cornwall will look out for patients who repeatedly come in to buy cough medicine or other drugs to manage symptoms.

    Around 20 will take part in the pilot scheme to begin with and will be able to refer people directly to cancer services, such as community diagnostic centres and hospitals, for checks. Before the new scheme, patients could only be referred for a cancer check or scan by a GP.

    It comes as 7.2 million patients are waiting to start treatment on the NHS. The most recent data, from October, show that 53,128 people waited longer than two weeks to see a consultant following an urgent referral for suspected cancer from a GP.

    Meanwhile, more than 72,000 people had to wait longer than four weeks from an urgent referral to be diagnosed or told they do not have cancer.

    2. Even when they DO have cancer, the chances are the NHS will tell them for months that they don’t and then suddenly admit that they do and it’s Stage 4 terminal. This happened to my neighbour, Kadi’s former owner.

  95. Apologies, fellow NoTTLers I thought I had put today’s story up before I repaired to my bed.

    Obviously not so I shall try double bubble in the morn’s morn but for now I’m saying, Happy New Year and seeking my bed again. God bless you all.

  96. I cannot remember a new year’s day when I woke up feeling so depressed. MH and I are both medically compromised but it’s not that.
    It seems to me that there is no hope for this country. There are so many problems but none are addressed. Strikes? Nah. NHS? Nah. But we must all focus on the weather and interest rates.
    How about we get this sodding country back to running properly. Get rid of Net Zero; as Phiz said earlier, scrap HS2; stop putting up illegals in posh hotels and focus on the real needs in this country.
    I sort of apologise for the rant but I have had it.

    1. I think many on here are with you, Ann.

      Be sure that NoTTLers, every day seek to cheer us up and on, on a daily basis.

    2. We can all moan about it but we are powerless to do anything about it – which is perhaps why it’s so depressing. We can see what’s wrong but ‘they’ do nothing to put things right.

      1. I was saying to MH earlier that if I were younger I would be an activist- minus glue;-) I simply can’t see a light at the end of this tunnel. There is no-one with any sense in the govt to achieve anything positive.

        1. Its a belief that its just a matter of not enough money and we need more, when really its a matter too much spending on wrong policies.

        2. I used to be an activist (I’ve done my bit campaigning and leafleting), but now with dodgy knees and a compromised sacroiliac region, I find I can’t do the street pounding that I used to. It takes me all my time to walk the dogs these days.

      2. I think the classic example is the day Rishi served meals to homeless people , but didn’t empathise or relate nor listen or observe and only chatted about his own success.

        Now that could be a male thing , or even a successful woman thing , but I feel the only people who listen and converse happily and successfully with out an agenda , are the supermarket checkout bods , who are remarkably philosophical about everyday life .

        1. It was just a PR stunt; he didn’t have any intention of empathising with the poor and homeless.

      3. 369573+ up ticks,

        Evening N,
        Then surely we must resist helping “them” doing nothing to put things right.

      4. And, worse, there appears to be little we can do to force them to put things right. If voting changed anything it would be outlawed.

  97. Apologies if posted earlier, courtesy of The Guardian but also featured elsewhere:
    “Ninety thousand police were deployed across France for the new year celebrations. Darmanin said on Sunday there had been 490 arrests across the country, up on 441 the previous year. An interior ministry statement added that there had been a “historic” drop in the number of vehicles torched, with 690 cars set alight this year, down on 872 in 2021. In recent years, car-burnings on New Year’s Eve had become a major focus for police.”

    4. She must have seen the edition of Countryfile that I reported on last August in which a mad black woman researching for a PhD claimed that the presence of ‘Africans’ in Britain during the Roman occupation was evidence of their eternal presence in these islands:
      “I came here to honour the ancestors, to honour the black history that’s right here in the English countryside. Black people have been here. People of colour have been here. We belong here.”

      1. What a fool. The Africans in Britain under the Roman empire were mostly Berbers captured from the north African part of the Roman empire and transported to the other end of it.
        i.e. white people.

    5. Nature has provided these people with black skins to cope with the effects of radiation from the sun near to the equator; ours are white to allow our bodies to make maximum use of the limited sunlight at latitudes nearer the north pole.

    1. Congratulations, Poppiesmum. Welcome to the club.

      Here’s a bit of extra trivial information: Little Ronnie Howard turned out to be a fine film director (including APOLLO 13), Paul Ford was previously Colonel Hall in the Phil Silvers Show (Sgt. Bilko), and “Till There Was You” (a hit song from this musical) was sung by Paul McCartney on the first Beatles album. Also, Shirley Jones starred opposite Gordon MacRae in OKLAHOMA, and Robert Preston opposite Julie Andrews in VICTOR, VICTORIA.

    2. Thank you, Rastus! Another year tucked under the belt….. nearly there…! Only another 26 years to go to beat the longest lived in our family….

        1. Thank you, Paul – no easy exit for me, I come from a long-lived family! We have not one, but several centenarians.

      4. That’s the spirit, poppiesmum! :-))
        Many happy returns, hope you have a lovely day.

  104. feargal the cat and Joe Cater author of Titanic Britain 🇬🇧 Moby/Dick follow
    Tony #VoteAnyoneButLibLabConGreen
    @Tony40335450
    ·
    14h
    EDF owned by the French state are turning off the UK’s nuclear power stations 😂🤦🏻‍♂️

    Nuclear plants face shutdown over tax on windfalls.

    EDF warns it may be forced to shut two nuclear power stations, which supply 4pc of the UK’s energy, early.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/12/31/nuclear-plants-face-shutdown-tax-windfalls/

    1. Yes, and since both are old and life-expired, imagine the fuss if they said “To hell with it, just keep them running!”. Life extension for plant is very expensive, and EDF also are making the point that tax our profits & we’ll cut costs in ways that are inconvenient.

    2. Why the Hell were the Frogs allowed to take over critical infrastructure in the first place?
      Ditto for all the other foreign ownership.

  105. Goodnight, folks. Tomorrow is a step towards normality – shops will be open for the usual hours and we can start getting on with our lives again.

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