Sunday 1 November: The new lockdown reflects a Government lost in short-term thinking

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/11/01/letters-new-lockdown-reflects-government-lost-short-term-thinking/

914 thoughts on “Sunday 1 November: The new lockdown reflects a Government lost in short-term thinking”

    1. Afternoon Rik. I’m afraid that two, at least, of your “truths” are a long way from true and the others may be questionable. It should always be remembered that truth is seldom pure, and never simple.

      1. Diversity is, indeed, a strength in almost all cases. Whoever wrote these supposed truths is clearly looking at diversity in a narrow and blinkered sort of way and defining it accordingly. But diversity applies to everything from skills, to share portfolios, to cooking repertoire. The person who cooks the same meal every day is in a bigger fix when the main ingredient goes missing than the person who can, and regularly does, cook dozens of different meals with a wide variety of ingredients. A variety of skills is more likely to keep you in work, income and comfort than a narrow set which are no longer in demand; and I’ll leave the investment managers to tell you hazards of putting all your eggs in one financial basket. The fact is that, in almost everything, diversity is a strength.

      2. Is questionable. All cultures started out as primitive and primitive culture still have things from which we can learn. All cultures are different, but that is not necessarily the same as unequal.

      3. Now this one is just plain wrong. For a start gender has nothing to do with biology. It’s a human construct which applies alike to animate and inanimate objects in a great many languages. Even in English where this is not the case some things (ships being a common example) are invariably referred to using a feminine pronoun. The divergence from biology can, possibly, be demonstrated most clearly by the fact that the German pronoun for a girl – is neuter.

      Sex isn’t “fixed” either. It’s a spectrum from high testosterone males to high oestrogen females and just about everything in between. There are men with XY chromosomes who have lower natural testosterone levels than the average female and women with XX chromosomes who have testosterone levels almost equivalent to the average male. Then there’s the approximate 0.5% who are born with one of a wide variety of intersex conditions some of which are demonstrated by chromosomal configurations like XXY others simply by malformed and malfunctioning genitalia or genitalia which do not match the chromosomes because the body is incapable of utilising the testosterone produced. Nature (usually referred to as feminine) is a cantankerous phenomenon and little, if anything, is “fixed”.

      4. I do not profess to sufficient understanding of Islam to make judgements – certainly the present noticeable influences within Islam don’t seem particularly peaceful.

      5. I was brought up with the adage that “good fences make good neighbours” – if only because they keep your cows from straying into his corn and vice versa. But our fences also had gates which allowed stock to be taken home via someone else’s ground in the event of flooding or deep snow and which, when our neighbour had a farm fire meant that his cows could be safely secured in someone else’s pasture whilst all his gates were open to allow access for fire engines. Good borders are not impenetrable.

    3. Spartie’s bath day. Like Good Queen Bess, he has a bath every month, whether he needs it or not.

      1. Every MONTH? Good grief! Her Maj only had one once a year (the Elizabethans only had baths if they were unwell).

  7. The dictators have taken over – and we didn’t even notice. 1 November 2020.

    I cannot say where or how this will end. It is my own growing belief that Johnson and Hancock do not understand what they are doing.

    Their decision to strangle our struggling economy once again in an alarmist shutdown is one of panic piled on panic and is visibly destroying the NHS they claim to be saving, as well as laying waste to those jobs and businesses they have not yet ruined or obliterated.

    I see them as two schoolboys on the footplate of an old-fashioned steam locomotive, clattering into deepening twilight, too scared to call for help, too vain to admit their error. They started it moving by accident, foolishly pulling and pushing at levers whose functions they did not know. Now they cannot find the brakes. The safety valves are blocked. The whistle screams, the pace gathers.

    Alas, the rest of us are trapped in the lurching, bucketing train behind them, unable to reach or influence them, let alone stop them.

    He’s not far wrong! They are fixated on the virus to the exclusion of all else. When its virulence expires, as it inevitably will, we will be left in an economic wasteland ripe for the New World Order..

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8901637/PETER-HITCHENS-dictators-taken-didnt-notice.html

    1. I see them as two schoolboys on the footplate of an old-fashioned steam locomotive, clattering into deepening twilight, too scared to call for help, too vain to admit their error.

      Or possibly asleep? It reminds me of the poem ‘Death and his brother Sleep’ by Edwin J Milliken, part of which Churchill recited in ‘The Gathering Storm’:-
      “Who is in charge of the clattering train
      The axles creak and the couplings strain,
      and the pace is hot and the points are near,
      and sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear,
      and the signals flash through the night in vain,
      for death is in charge of the clattering train”.

  8. I cannot get into the Daily Telegraph page without being forced on me a Cookie Consent popup that freezes the page until I click the “I agree” button whether I want to or not. A number of other sites have started this irritation, including Facebook and my local paper.

    Adblocks and popup stoppers do not seem to work to get rid of it. Under “Manage Settings”, I can grey out some of the consents, which have to be done manually one-by-one, but under “Legitimate Use” (which cannot be customised) are listed about a hundred ad-delivery corporations, and other outfits whose purpose I cannot find, which are to be given free rein over my system, reporting everything I do online. Clicking on the more info. (which again has to be done manually one-by-one) button, I am directed to their website which offers up sales platitudes and a long legally-written set of terms and conditions, which effectively permits them to be absolved of anything they may do to me, and which I must agree to before proceeding.

    Hacks such as Prebaked simply give a carte blanche, agreeing to everything so that I do not need to be pestered by any more popups. They explain I am effectively telling them all they can do what they like.

    How can I get back some control over this malpractice?

    1. If you are willing/able to fork out £40 or so for a Raspberry Pi then Pi-Hole may help – at least with the Ads.

    2. As I understand it, you will get the advertising whatever you do with the permissions, the cookies you accept just result in more relevant advertising. Obviously, Ad blockers are a way to block the ads. It was the EU of course that mandated that cookies could be forced upon us.

      1. On the contrary. It was the EU which mandated that sites, at the very least, tell you about cookies and allow you to accept or deny the site on that basis. The cookies were there from the very beginning – just never mentioned.

    3. Delete your history every time you close down. It improves your memory no end; I can now remember several passwords that I used to look up every time.

    4. When you click on the DT link to start opening the site, hammer away at the ESC key. That stops the pop-up, and allows you to move around the site as before. If it doesn’t work first time, hit refresh & try again. Worked for me yesterday. Remembering, of course, to hammer at ESC when opening articles…

    5. If you log into the Telegraph site by Right clicking on the link, then selecting ‘Open link in new private window’, their web site can’t identify you. So if you click on ‘Accept’, presumably any data they collect is not traceable to you.

      1. Before I close my browser, I click on the hamburger (the three lines or dots in the top right), click on history, close any other tabs.

        Click on the top item, press ctrl + A and delete them all. once deleted, I close the browser and run Ccleaner and at least once a week, I run SUPERAntiSpyware.

        All tracking ads will have been deleted and, since I run behind a VPN, no advertiser knows where I am.

  9. Morning all

    What has become of us?

    SIR – Lockdowns are like diets: they only work temporarily and, when they finish, the situation returns to what it was before, or perhaps a little worse.

    Just as management of body weight is a lifelong issue, so it seems that Covid-19 is here to stay, certainly for this winter and possibly permanently. We need to find ways of living with it that do not wreck our society.

    Roger H Helm FRCS

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire

    SIR – Someone should whisper in Boris Johnson’s ear: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

    The current Covid strategy is failing. Applying restrictions based on individual risk is the only way forward – especially given the doubts about the likely effectiveness of any vaccine.

    Mike McKone

    Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

    SIR – It is now clear who is at greatest risk from Covid-19. The elderly need protecting, and others who are vulnerable should be advised to stay at home. Everyone else should get on with their lives (responsibly).

    We don’t want a nanny state – and we certainly don’t want a police state.

    Robert Wood

    Edinburgh

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    SIR – In his address to the Cambridge Law Society, Lord Sumption stated that our fundamental human rights (such as those of free association) cannot be overtaken by the generalist rules of recent parliamentary Acts.

    I look forward to the rest of the country catching up with him and our rights being returned.

    Dr Alan Watt

    Mill Green, Essex

    SIR – The scientists advising the Government overstated the likely effects of Covid earlier this year. Now they have made further doom-laden forecasts for November and December.

    However, many of us (including other distinguished scientists) do not believe them or their modelling conclusions. If they are proved wrong again, they should be dumped and others appointed to guide policy with a more realistic approach.

    John Pritchard

    Ingatestone, Essex

    SIR – The idea of having a lockdown before and after Christmas, but lifting it during Christmas to let families mingle, does not appear to follow the science. This virus will not respect a Christmas truce, and numbers will simply flare up again in January.

    Keith Appleyard

    West Wickham, Kent

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    SIR – Is there any way of moderating the Prime Minister’s obsession with Christmas? Throw businesses into more chaos, reduce to destitution the poorest in society and incur eye-watering national debt – so that for just one day people can sit down for a meal with their families? Let’s have a bit more rationality.

    Christina White

    Rushden, Northamptonshire

    1. Last April, I reserved a place to attend the Salzburg premiere of the revised version of Alma Deutscher’s ‘Cinderella’ that was last performed in full in San José, California, three years ago. I went to see an open air performance of it in Austria in 2017. This new production opens on 6th December. A friend in Vienna had reserved fifteen seats for the fan club.

      We were promised that the Spring lockdown would knock this virus on the head, and we should be free of it by July. October was the backstop for the emergency measures. We all know what became of these particular political promises.

      Since then, the Salzburger Landestheater has been negotiating with the Austrian Government the number of seats that can be released while still complying with social distancing. The 780-seat auditorium was originally allowed 200 tickets, but this made the whole thing unviable. Eventually they haggled it up to 390 tickets.

      However, all but 100 of these have been reserved for corporate sponsors and the media, and some 1000 people are chasing these 100 tickets, including the fan club reservations. My friend was promised seat allocations in July, but the latest date now is “early November”.

      In the meantime Austria has gone into lockdown. All shows in November are cancelled, and rehearsals for the December shows are allowed only under very draconian rules and a general curfew at 6pm. In theory, this should mean the 6th December show will go ahead.

      Now, England has gone into lockdown until 2nd December. After this time, we are told it will revert to the three tier system we have at the moment. While it is Tier 1 where I live, Birmingham Airport is in a Tier 2 zone. Nor am I sure I will be able to get far or have anywhere to stay at the other end. Also, the 14-day quarantine period when I get home will mean I cannot get any groceries in for Christmas because I will have to be socially isolating at home.

      Rather than relying on the fan club, I also bought a ticket online for a later performance on 30th December, which may be easier to get to. I suspect though that the composer is eager to meet her most loyal fans at the premiere, and will probably not be there at the later performances. I believe she has spent the summer writing herself out of the opera, so that it can be performed in future without her.

      Was it always such hassle going to the opera?

      1. I long for the days when at least all you had to do was save the pennies for a few months.

    2. Yes, Christina, let’s. How about we don’t ruin the economy, reduce people to destitution and incur eye-watering national debt in the first place. Then we can go back to work, get on with our lives and enjoy Christmas and New Year.

  11. Justice for soldiers

    SIR – This week the Overseas Operations Bill will be debated in the House of Commons. It is designed to give service personnel and veterans stronger legal protections against vexatious claims that undermine their service and subject them to repeated investigations. But it has become susceptible to misrepresentations – such as the recent claims that troops will somehow escape justice when it comes to allegations of torture.

    This is categorically untrue. Our troops are not and will never be above the law. Whenever the Armed Forces embark on operations outside the UK, they are bound by domestic and international humanitarian law. The Bill does not prevent crimes being prosecuted and certainly does not decriminalise torture.

    To make sure that those voting on this crucial legislation properly understand what the Bill will and won’t do, I have today written to all MPs. As I say in my letter, the reforms we propose will recognise the unique burden and pressures placed on personnel during overseas operations. In the past, some of these brave veterans left a period of distinguished service only to find their lives blighted by long and repeated investigations into increasingly historic events. Hard-won reputations were destroyed. Families were torn apart. Mental health was shattered. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

    We’re coming up to Remembrance Day. It’s a time to remember what our veterans have done for this country. But it’s also a moment to reflect on the way we treat them now. In 21st-century Britain no one should have to wait decades for the wheels of justice to turn. So our Overseas Operations Bill will make sure they get the certainty, fairness and justice they deserve.

    Johnny Mercer MP (Con)

    Minister for Defence People and Veterans

    London SW1

  12. Morning again

    SIR – How sad that, as the centenary of the burial of the Unknown Warrior approaches, it has been suggested that there may have been “unconscious bias” in the selection of the body.

    The facts discount any such possibility. The aim was to choose an unidentified body of someone who had served in the British Armed Forces; four were exhumed. There was no examination by a forensic pathologist, so the identity, rank, race or, indeed, gender of each of the bodies was unknown. How could there have been any bias, unconscious or otherwise?

    In 1931, Chaplain David Railton, one of those who proposed the idea, wrote an article called “The Origin of the Unknown Warrior’s Grave.” He said: “No-one knows the Unknown Warrior’s rank, his wealth, his education or his history. Class values become vanity there. Many people have not yet grasped the fact that he may have come from any part of the British Isles, or from the Dominions or Colonies. And there are still a good few who do not realise that he may have been a sailor. No-one knows what his profession was. He may have been – until his country called – one of the ‘idle rich’. It is quite likely that he was a communicant of the Church, or a Roman Catholic, a Jew, a Salvationist, a Wesleyan, a Presbyterian, or a member of any other or of no religious denomination.”

    Rev Dr John R H Railton

    Swindon, Wiltshire

    1. …he may have been a sailor.” Come to that, Reverend Railton, he could also have been an airman of the Royal Flying Corps…

      A good letter, otherwise.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    2. …he may have been a sailor.” Come to that, Reverend Railton, he could also have been one of the 9,350 of the Royal Flying Corps who died in WW1…

      A good letter, otherwise.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

  13. Good morning, all. Watery skies. Dry kittens – pretty good for seven weeks to go nine hours without a wee. Wish I could!

  14. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03df5efc74c4f22ec3fcc2faee76ebeb60f53758b73848b05c6f048927eb9fc1.png The modern human species Homo sapiens sapiens is now, indisputably, the most stupid organism to have ever evolved.

    Having failed to learn from earlier in the year that selfishly stripping supermarket shelves of bog rolls was a more than asinine tactic, the cretinous are doing exactly the same again [we need a new adjective for stupid people who sequentially fail to learn from their previous stupidity].

    The current generation, who are in charge, are the most stupid crop of the species in history. Stupidity breeds stupidity therefore I have no faith, whatsoever, in the imbeciles this generation of idiots are breeding and even far less in the successive generations of morons yet to come.

    Oh, for leaders of intellect, wisdom, stature, balls and brains.

    3. TBF, Black Friday has been extended to the whole of November.
      These people were prudently getting in first.

        1. Morning, Anne & Hugh.

          I hope they come across a supermarket manager of the same mettle as that Aussie who told customers — who were trying to return unused bog rolls for a refund — where to go!

          My question is: why did the supermarket staff permit this to happen again? “Lessons” have evidently not been “learnt”.

    5. Anecdotal evidence from here in Brum suggests that many of these toilet rolls end up being sold for inflated prices in corner shops.

    6. What we need is a mass thinning of the planetary population. A virulent virus might work.

      Shame we don’t have one.

  15. Repeating these measures is the definition of insanity — and countless people will suffer.

    The definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. None of us know the full extent of the damage unleashed from the first lockdown, although more wounds unveil themselves every passing day, but the evidence is undeniable – a second lockdown will worsen the already perilous non-Covid health crisis.

    In a hypothetical scenario of society returning to full normality tomorrow, with health services unburdened by any Covid infections, the shock waves from the first lockdown would be felt for years. Backlogs are enormous and many conditions will worsen and become harder to treat after presenting at a much later stage. There is no quick fix to the damage already done.

    Just as we’re managing to get that raging fire under some sort of control, a second shutdown will whip those flames back up into a towering inferno. So far, epidemiological models have done a poor job of predicting the potential spread of the virus.

    As far as I’m aware they haven’t even attempted to estimate the non-Covid health consequences of another shutdown. All we are fed is “reasonable worst case scenarios” which make no reference to the suffering millions will endure from other illnesses.

    Earlier this week a Macmillan Cancer study revealed there were up to an additional 50,000 people with undiagnosed cancer due to the pandemic, with many more experiencing disruption in their treatment. How many of those will go on to experience significant issues because of the delays?

    It’s just a fact that an undetected tumour poses a far greater risk to the patient than this virus, which the vast majority will recover from.

    Every government action and policy has been judged on one metric – the spread of the virus. Another lockdown may artificially slow Covid, but for patients suffering from cancer, heart problems, mental health issues and many, many other illnesses, it will push them further to the back of the queue.

    Ministers will assure us that these forgotten patients will receive the care they need, just like they assured us back in March. They’ve ignored the non-Covid health crisis for months and will continue to do so in their bloody war against Covid-19.

    What happens when we emerge from our homes and survey the smoking rubble that was once our economy and society? We will start the same cycle again. It can’t go on, ducking in and out of lockdown, desperately waiting and praying for a vaccine that may never come in the form we hope, whilst destroying so much of what we hold dear.

    Another lockdown may save lives from the virus, but we can’t ignore the fact that it will cost countless others.

    By Charles Levinson [Dr Charles Levinson is chief executive of Doctorcall].

  16. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Christina White echoes my comment to Mrs HJ during yesterday’s announcement, only she is a lot more polite about it:

    SIR – Is there any way of moderating the Prime Minister’s obsession with Christmas? Throw businesses into more chaos, reduce to destitution the poorest in society and incur eye-watering national debt – so that for just one day people can sit down for a meal with their families? Let’s have a bit more rationality.

    Christina White
    Rushden, Northamptonshire

  17. SIR – In light of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s verdict on anti-Semitism within Labour, what does it say about Sir Keir Starmer’s judgment that he served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet for three years during which the party was breaking the law?

    Rhidian Llewellyn
    London SW19

    It says a great deal about Captain Sir Ikea Hindsight’s judgement, or a complete lack of.

  18. Good morning all.

    Thank goodness we won’t be force fed Black history this month , a bit more white respect would be appreciated.

    Funny to hear that seasonal flu has improved because people are wearing masks and washing their hands, isn’t it .

    Very windy damp day here , and still mild . The sparrows are twittering loudly.

      1. Morning Peddy,

        The yellow buddleia was pruned quite savagely the other day , probably down to a third , there are signs of new growth appearing on the remaining woody stems already , but I hope it recovers properly !

        I doubt it will flower next year though.

          1. Glad to hear that , hope you are right.

            Our modest garden has some lovely late spring colour, ceanothus tree, lilac and the yellow buddleia .

          2. We used to have a beautiful deep blue ceanothus tree. A few winters back we had a heavy snowfall; the tree cracked in the middle, and like Gaul, divided into three parts.
            I gather this is a known weakness.

          3. They originate in the western USA, and not at its most northerly extremes. They are not entirely frost hardy and they’re really not well adapted to snow. Though the lower growing varieties tend to be a bit more hardy.

            I lost the one which was in the garden when I bought the house, and the one I subsequently planted, both to frost. I’m only a couple of fields from the Severn and although this area is generally mild we do get hard frosts which, as they do everywhere, tend to lie in the valleys. There are some lovely ones in this area, in sheltered gardens and further from the river.

            My nephew has two in his garden but although he’s a long way north he is also very near the sea (about a quarter of a mile) and both plants are growing against high wooden fences and near to the reflected heat from the house. So far, they are doing well, but neither his mother nor I expect them to be particularly long-lived.

          4. Oh dear , I fear the same with ours, it is about 20 years old and just as high , and quite amazingly has some blossom at the moment , maybe because weather is mild .

          5. I trimmed mine back one year, we had a hard winter and it didn’t survive. I’m leaving its replacement untouched!

    3. Sorry to blight your morning, Maggie.
      Apparently Black Friday has been spread over the whole of November to help the customers flog off cr@p before Christmas.

      1. ‘Morning, Anne.

        Amazon are having a prolonged Black Friday season & there are some good bargains to be had.

        1. We are trying to get rid of cr@p.
          That is the upside to shopping being made such an unpleasant chore.
          I simply can’t be @rsed.

          1. I can sympathise with that feeling but for those who actually need to buy things it is often a good plan to take advantage of the best prices. This laptop was a Black Friday bargain – at nearly half its normal retail price – and my laptop is a tool without which I cannot work.

            My nieces and nephews will be hunting out bargains on the things that they need to keep growing families equipped.

      2. Morning Anne ,
        I did wonder . The huge Dobbie garden centre up the road from us , which took over from Wyevale, is cluttered up to the eyeballs with tawdry nonsense .

        I expect they will close on Thursday, again. They also host Edinburgh Wool and other franchises .

        Businesses are going down like ninepins.

        2. Yes. I will be getting a phone call from my local hairdresser shuffling my next appointment. Poor girl (girl!!!) she works so hard and this s0dding government has kicked her again.

          1. From “St Audrey” – tat was regularly sold at her fair (or, as it would be these days, fayre) 🙂

      4. “to help the customers flog off Chinese cr@p before Christmas”. There, fixed for you. I’ll put it on your account, shall I?

    4. Good morning, Bellle.

      “Funny to hear that seasonal flu has improved……” Funny also that that the same simple acts are doing nothing for covid, so downlocked we must be. Read on twiiter last last night that a sister in a ‘1600 bedder’ reported it as being empty except for her ICU ward with two patients with non-covid respiratory problems.

  20. Apparently the Greek priest shot in Lyon was the victim of a dispute between parishioners. I must remember that at the next PCC meeting…!

  21. ‘Morning again.

    Daniel Hannan on BLM and statue-wrecking:

    We knew that the anti-statue protesters were statistically in the minority; but I’m not sure we appreciated quite how tiny a minority.

    Leeds, like other cities, saw a spate of Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. The monument to Queen Victoria on Woodhouse Moor was vandalised, and a petition was circulated against the nearby statue of Robert Peel – the deft Lancastrian who gave us the police, free trade and the Conservative Party. Instead of panicking, the Labour council calmly set up a review, chaired by a black city councillor, which initiated a major public consultation. When the responses were in, it turned out that only 10 per cent of people wanted to rethink the monuments – and only a third of that ten per cent actually wanted any statues removed.

    Ponder that figure for a moment. Three per cent of people wanted statues taken down. Three per cent. Yet that was enough to have almost the whole of Official Britain dropping to its knees, often literally. Police chiefs, politicians, universities, corporations, football clubs, broadcasters – all were reduced to mouthing the slogans of a negligible sect.

    Why? Because of the asymmetry of conviction. If three per cent of people absolutely won’t compromise on something, but the other 97 per cent don’t much care one way or the other, that small set will get its way.

    To illustrate the principle, consider some non-political examples. Most people are content to eat or not to eat peanuts; but, for an unfortunate minority, peanuts are lethal. Hence the gradual withdrawal of peanuts, once the standard accompaniment to drinks, from planes, trains and, increasingly, bars. Similarly, most lamb exported from New Zealand is halal. Since non-Muslim consumers tend not to be fussed either way, it is easier for the producers to make all their lamb halal than to maintain separate production lines.

    The Lebanese-American writer Nassim Taleb calls this rule “the most intolerant wins” and muses, coincidentally, that the threshold could be just three per cent. Of course, “intolerant” here does not necessarily mean that people are choosing to be unreasonable. The same rule explains why, when there is limited space for bathrooms in a public place, the bathroom is likely to be disabled. Rory Sutherland, the advertiser and columnist, uses a version of the rule to explain why pizza is so often served: not because everyone loves it but because few object. Eric Kaufman, a professor at Birkbeck, observes that the endurance of a religion owes more to the inflexibility of the strictures it imposes on believers than to the appeal of its mythos.

    Which brings us back to the iconoclasts, the texture of whose passion is religious rather than political. These are not, by and large, people who want a calm stock-take of Britain’s involvement with slavery and its abolition. The issue, for them, has been sacralised, lifted out of the realm of reason. They are more interested in hunting heretics than in gaining converts, keener on displaying their fervour than on winning arguments.

    As with most zealots, their numbers are insignificant. Coincidentally, a major study published this week by More in Common, the organisation set up following the murder of Jo Cox, found that the 13 per cent of voters it identifies as woke nuisances (it doesn’t call them that, obviously, referring to them primly as “progressive activists”) are vastly over-represented online: 55 per cent of them had posted political content in the past year, against a national average of 15 per cent.

    Lunatic fringes are nothing new; but social media create a false impression of their numbers. Again and again, we see mainstream organisations collapse in a panic when a modicum of patience would have exposed how little support their critics had.

    The best advice for a company, university or town assailed by social justice warriors was offered by the greatest of all Whigs, Edmund Burke, 230 years ago: “Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

    If you are one of the 97 per cent – one of Burke’s oxen, as it were – don’t swish your tail and low noncommittally. Bring your hoof down with the force of real intent. Someone has to.

  22. Morning, Campers. (But you’re only allowed a tent in your garden.)
    Corker of a BTL comment in the Tellygraff:
    “Apparently, We are a healthcare system with a medium sized country attached.”

    Reminded me of that crass V&A advert about about a caff with a museum attached.

    2. ‘Morning, VVOF.

      Last night you intimated that that clown was a turkey. Come along now, which is it?

        2. A turkey thigh makes a good roast dinner. The only part of the bird which is acceptable.

          4. Possibly because at one time they were considered a luxury (as was chicken) & people wanted only ‘the best’ for Christmas.

          5. In my yoof, chicken was Christmas and birthdays only.
            Nowadays, I make a conscious effort not to use it too often. (And that’s not buying the halal bargain packs.)

          6. And because (although turkey poults have a death wish, as do most young poultry) poultry farmers quickly discovered that they are easier to manage than geese which are rather temperamental beasties and not always amenable to putting on flesh.

          7. In my yoof, chicken was Christmas and birthdays only.
            Nowadays, I make a conscious effort not to use it too often. (And that’s not buying the halal bargain packs.)

          8. When I was a nipper, my mother & her MiL took it turns to provide a Saturday night cold buffet. Chicken featured only occasionally.

            I use far less chicken than I used to; now only thighs, either filleted or not filleted & the occasional poussin, in which case Missy gets the breast..

          9. Very occasionally I indulge in a ready-cooked whole chicken – if I happen to be in Morrisons when they are selling the last few at less than half-price at the end of the day. It forms the basis for at least 4 meals (and more often 5 or 6). I enjoy it for a change and since they have to be skipped if not sold on the day £2 for a chicken – and no need even to turn on the oven – is a bargain I find hard to refuse. But, like you, I only buy thighs for normal use.

            The last time I bought chicken breasts was for my 60th birthday “party” (just a family get-together) last year. They were sliced and marinated with garlic, soy and honey before cooking to make part of a spread of easy finger food for a gathering which encompassed an age range of 87 down to 1 year.

          11. Jack Sprat could eat no fat
            His wife could eat no lean
            But together both
            They licked the platter clean.

          16. We practised division of labour; dad killed it, it was my job to pluck it (a skill I still retain for the odd occasion someone gives me a brace of pheasants) and my mother prepared and cooked it.

          17. We practised division of labour; dad killed it, it was my job to pluck it (a skill I still retain for the odd occasion someone gives me a brace of pheasants) and my mother prepared and cooked it.

      1. Morning Bob, I admire you for signing it but we both know it is an exercise in futility.

        1. It does serve one purpose. It allows other signatories to gauge the strength of opinion on a particular matter.

  24. I see yet another ‘expert’ is on Marr saying that we shouldn’t rush to unwind the lockdown. Is it me or are they like JWs – get one foot in the door and they’re like limpets to remove? I just knew this was going to happen, given what transpired the last time.

  25. Good morning all.
    A pleasant start here in Derbyshire and that’s another 12 concrete blocks shifted up the garden!
    42 gone, 18 to go.
    A lot of manhandling, but it’s the only way to get it done.

      1. My back’s ok. It’s my hips, knees and ankles that I’m having to be careful with!
        To avoid carrying the blocks right round the house, I’ve been hoiking them up onto the lower wall first, then onto the higher wall as you see in this picture.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf174e593c351e86ed72382b89078c836430e83e62b265bd958829611665670c.jpg

        Then it’s round to the other side:-
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f66c5b4773a5980d2803e920a90a2f331791d1656d95d9233d11e025598b51b.jpg

        & carry them up to the stack:-
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d79d608ee48e2be8d79483a47f9d3d8ebc6347f5b84612581183dc847ebe2af1.jpg

        I’ve only got another 18 to finish shifting!

  27. Can anyone tell me how I tranfer or copy a tweet from Twitter? It may be in those magic symbols whose language I have yet to understand around the margins of a tweet. I have tried a simple copy and paste in this comment box but all that transferred was the tweeter’s name and to whom the tweet was replying. If you are able to help, thanks so much. I have to go out now and will be away for the rest of the day. Our son has invited us for lunch, as he and his wife are obedient lockdowners (sigh) but they are young and all this hasn’t affected them much – yet. They have yet to realise that government does not act in the interests of the population.

    1. This is a test post.

      We are being ruled by one of the most and cowardly and incompetent fools of modern times. Staggering lack of leadership.

      Data yet again just conjecture. Worst case after worst

          1. They will have to get past Dolly first. She has notched up two postmen, one window cleaner and the milkman.

          3. I fell in love with Tom Lehrer’s songs when I was eleven years old. My first niece was being Christened and my sister and her husband had the record (the one with the newspaper design on the cover) when they were at Oxford and having a celebration party in their flat.

            My mother said the songs were most inappropriate and shocking which, of course, made them even more attractive. However my comprehension was not very good at the age of eleven because I did not realise that the song about the old dope pedlar was not an affectionate portrait of a kindly old street vendor doing his best to make children’s lives happier.

          1. Mungojerry and Rumpelteaser; it will not end well.

            “And when you hear a dining room smash

            Or up from the pantry there comes a loud crash

            Or down from the library there comes a loud ping

            From a vase that was commonly said to be Ming

            The family will say: “Now which was which cat?

            It was Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer!”

            And there’s nothing at all to be done about that!”

          2. Keep the doors closed… it’s really not that difficult to keep small animals out of rooms where you don’t want them to be.

    2. Click through the text so you get the actual article. Then copy and paste here. I assume being logged in or not doesn’t make any difference.

    3. I don’t use Squitter but wonder – is there a symbol that is annotated ‘share’ when you hover over it? On other sites, usually a line that forks into two.
      If so, click this and you should be able to copy a URL which you can then send to someone.

    4. Alternatively you can use the Snipping Tool to capture a screen shot if your computer is Windows 10 – this has the advantage that you can capture the url with the tweet’s handy little reference number at the top of the page, and your computer’s timestamp in the bottom right hand corner.

    5. Try the “Snipping Tool” (yes, that’s its name…!!) Comes with Microsoft on a PC (or laptop, I understand).

          1. Have they got you house-trained yet? I haven’t been on the blog much these past few days but saw a video of two kittens ruining the furniture and presumed that they were Thomas kittens.

    2. Makes a change from having your feet dipped in tar and sand so you can walk from Narfuk to the Great Wen.

  29. Why so many Americans still love Trump. Douglas Murray. I November 2020.

    Donald Trump’s approval ratings in the UK have never been good. Rarely achieving above 25 per cent among the British public, the latest YouGov ratings see him with a mere 15 per cent approval rating. Thankfully for The Donald, he is not seeking the endorsement of the British public, and among Americans he enjoys far greater support.

    One reason that explains the divide is that almost everything the British public see of Trump is the negative stuff. He is undoubtedly brash, boastful, offensive and often coarse, which offends British sensibilities. What the British public often miss are the considerable achievements, which often do not travel in a media that is almost unanimously sniffy, if not downright hostile to him.

    Take the foreign policy breakthroughs of recent months alone. When it comes to Middle East policy, the British Government remains wedded to an approach based on the belief that peace in the region depends on the Palestinian cartel agreeing to a deal they have spent seven decades rejecting. By contrast, the Trump administration has sought to break that deadlock. Country after country in the region have signed “normalisation” deals with Israel, with more to come. Instead of getting America tied up in wars in the Middle East, the dealmaker Donald Trump has turned out to be a peacemaker. The American public has noticed this.

    As it has also noticed the success of many of his policies at home. At the height of his economic boom – before the coronavirus shutdowns – America was experiencing record lows of unemployment, with hundreds of thousands of new jobs created each month. To achieve this, Trump did things that no US president had dared to do, cutting deals and imposing tariffs that incentivised employers to create jobs in America, rather than outsourcing abroad. Not least to China.

    And then there are the cultural wins. In the US – as in Britain – there are ideologues of the radical Left who do not just have specific concerns about our history, but seem to hate all of it. American activists of BLM-Antifa, along with simple anarchists and looters, have in recent months been busily pulling down statues, torching cities and smashing up businesses across the country. In Portland, Oregon, I recently saw these paramilitary groups laying siege to a federal facility, provoking federal police into running battles. Later that night those same activists went out to topple one of the last remaining statues in their town.

    The best of these thugs claim that they are waging war on a racist, formerly slave-owning state that must be punished for its crimes. Trump rejects all of this as the ahistorical, spoilt, anarchistic nonsense that it is. As he said at a rally I attended in Florida last week, the country needs to stop teaching its young people to hate their country. They need instead a “patriotic education” which helps them see the historic good that America has done.

    When the issue of mandatory “implicit bias training” came up again earlier this year, Trump responded by announcing that he was banning it. Neither federal employees nor those who work for private companies should be radically indoctrinated by their employers. Besides, as Trump pointed out, these exercises are by their nature simply racist.

    Of course, a lot of the opinion-forming classes are caught off-guard by this sort of action. Even where they are not supportive of such anti-Americanism, they are keen on “on the one hand, on the other hand”-ism. But that is not the Trump way, and when it comes to countering decades of cultural, political and media rot many frustrated voters believe that the blunt Trump approach is the right one.

    Who knows if this will make an impact on Tuesday? The polls still do not look good for him. But there is one factor that British and American observers have not taken in to account. That is the radically different message which the two camps – and their media – are now giving out.

    Apart from expecting victory, the Biden team and their supporting media talk of social distancing, the virus, mortality rates, lockdowns and more. After a Biden victory, the future looks scary, isolating and bleak. By contrast, the Trump team – and the media who support them – are keen to get America going again, to downplay the virus and to talk up the opportunity America has before it. The world may be expecting Biden to win big this week. But from the centre of the storm, I wouldn’t rule out another upset.

    Morning everyone. I love Trump! I don’t like him of course. Who does? He’s boorish. Poorly read. Ignorant, prejudiced, and a pain in the neck politically. This said he stands for something greater than himself. He believes in Freedom. He believes in his Country. He represents the views of countless millions who have no other voice. If he fails the world will enter a new dark age where reason itself will vanish and oppression will rule.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/31/many-americans-still-love-trump/

  30. 326054+ up ticks,
    He is going to be a hard act to follow in regards in continuing the line of leaders like major, the wretch cameron, clegg, may, calibre, we could not have achieved our present semi kneeling position as a nation without their input.

    Cowardly and Incompetent’ Boris Johnson Faces Calls to Resign After Lockdown Announcement.

  31. Today is All Saints’ Day. Here in France, this is a day when families remember their own dead and, in the afternoon, cemeteries will be visited and flowers will be laid on tombs.

    This isn’t morbid; it is a recognition that death is part of life and will come to us all, one day.

    Perhaps it is time for our governments to think about this?

    As an illustration, I have just found this little snippet on the website of the Office of National Statistics, which shows quite clearly that Covid deaths at the moment are not causing a huge spike.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cb4b79f683bb3d308638834279c37d1b45a8401bc0539ba59b573650a3fdfb11.png

    1. Thank you, Caroline. The failure even to mention in passing the 1,700 people who die EVERY DAY from death etc sickens me.

    2. Lockdown fanatics will point to that little rise in the red line in October and say: “Look! Lift-off!”

    3. Anyone who has worked with the elderly expects two annual death peaks.
      One in the autumn as the days get darker and danker; the other is in late winter/early spring because the cold just goes on that bit too long and the hard miserable slog after Christmas saps any residual energy..

    1. Thanks, but no. I can’t listen to children singing repertoire which is not just vocally unsuitable, but beyond their capacity to interpret. Sorry.

        1. Had to look him up! He wasn’t singing opera. O for the wings of a dove feels fine for a child to sing.

  33. I see that it only took a DAY for someone from the government (Gove) to row back on the lockdown being only one month. Give ’em and inch and they’ll take 5 feet.

  35. As Europe’s governments lose control of Covid, revolt is in the air. 1 November 2020.

    Europe, once again, is the centre of the global pandemic, accounting for almost half the world’s infections last week. But as desperately needed financial support fails to materialise, and track and trace systems fail to cope with the surge, there is public exasperation and, in some cases, open rebellion. On Friday evening, protestors threw molotov cocktails at police in Florence, in the latest outbreak of social unrest following Conte’s new rules.

    Across the continent, there is similar evidence of people facing dire economic hardship and psychological exhaustion. Earlier this month, a study from the World Health Organization reported widespread apathy and reduced motivation to follow public health guidance. The emotional toll of Covid-19 has been compounded by a growing scepticism in the capacity of governments to truly get on top of a crisis that is destroying people’s livelihoods as well as threatening their health.

    Worth a read if only because you will not see it on UK TV. I of course had no faith in UK Government prior to the Virus. All my reservations have been confirmed. Parliament is a conclave of empty shirts devoid of belief even in themselves. They are sat watching as Boris and his pals destroy the country!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/01/governments-lose-control-virus-revolt-civil-unrest-continent

  37. Two people killed as man in ‘medieval clothing’ goes on stabbing rampage in Quebec. 1 November 2020.

    Police in the Canadian city of Quebec have arrested a man on suspicion of killing two people and injuring five others in a stabbing rampage on Halloween on Saturday.

    The provincial police had been looking for a man dressed in medieval clothing and armed with a bladed weapon who had left “multiple victims”.

    “medieval clothing” That’s a new one! What’s next? Bedsheets? Oriental Cutlery?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/01/two-people-killed-man-medieval-clothing-goes-stabbing-rampage/

  38. It’s Your ‘Civic Duty’ to Inform on Fellow Britons Breaching Lockdown. 1 November 2020.

    “People are doing a civic duty in contacting us for the right reasons. The vast majority of people across the country are really concerned about this. Any information that you can give us in relation to breaches will save lives, and that’s why people are doing it,” Chief Constable Cooke said, according to The Mirror.

    Words I’m sure that Dzerzhinsky, Beria and Himmler would fully approve of!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/10/31/uk-police-its-your-civic-duty-inform-britons-breaching-lockdown/

  39. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Christina White echoes my comment to Mrs HJ during yesterday’s announcement, only she is a lot more polite about it:

    SIR – Is there any way of moderating the Prime Minister’s obsession with Christmas? Throw businesses into more chaos, reduce to destitution the poorest in society and incur eye-watering national debt – so that for just one day people can sit down for a meal with their families? Let’s have a bit more rationality.

    Christina White
    Rushden, Northamptonshire

      1. Good morning Harry,

        Yes indeed , the obsession that thrusts faux glitter and imported rubbish in our faces, and how sad that we haven’t heard a church bell since March .

          1. Confucius, he say, “Chinese glitter used on loads in winter. Make not sripperly.”

          2. Oh … loads; I saw a 5 letter word ending in ‘ds’. I haven’t seen my optician in yonks.

        2. Morning Belle. And a dead tree in the corner, dropping needles everywhere. No thanks.

          1. We have a live tree which, after 4 to 6 years of Christmas Tree duty gets an honourable retirement up the hill above the garden.
            Dr. Daughter reminded me that she remembers the first one to get established being planted which must make it over 25yo.

          2. We have a live tree – really it’s a giant bonsai.
            It sits in a pot out in the garden all year and we bring it in for the fortnight.
            Must be coming up to its tenth Christmas.

        3. Fortunately, Maggie we hear the church bell every other Sunday for either an 8 o’clock Communion or a 10 o’clock family service.

          Our little 12th century church that we have lovingly restored over the past 5 years is open through daylight hours and is the hub of a small village that has no shop, pub, school, village hall or bus route but we are a very cohesive community and have come together, with neighbouring villages to fight the efforts of bankers and others to swamp us with solar panels. Check CARE (Suffolk)’s FB.

      2. I believe most people aren’t obsessed by it, but are forced to be inundated with its crap by retailers and the MSM.

        2. It is also a time when most works and offices are closed for a few days; making it easier for extended families of working age to spend time together.

  40. SIR – In light of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s verdict on anti-Semitism within Labour, what does it say about Sir Keir Starmer’s judgment that he served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet for three years during which the party was breaking the law?

    Rhidian Llewellyn
    London SW19

    It says a great deal about Captain Sir Ikea Hindsight’s judgement, or his complete lack of.

      1. Be fair, Annie, he’s a politician. We shouldn’t expect even a hint of honour or common sense.

      2. Be fair, Annie, he’s a politician. We shouldn’t expect even a hint of honour or common sense.

  43. A question about interest rates:
    Will the Great Reset involve raising them, or do the powers that be want to keep us all enslaved in debt and only getting tiny returns on investments?
    I would guess the latter, because a debt ridden society is by definition a less free society – however, “you will not own anything” suggests that you won’t be having a mortgage either.

    1. There’ll probably be a “wealth tax” for all but the wealthy, who’ll continue to stash their dosh offshore.

    2. I think that’s the whole idea, besides wanting us to spend any money we do have, they want to pretty well pauperise us all so they can bring in the Universal wage, they’ve been working towards it ever since last March, and to wipe out people’s savings by bringing in zero rate interest rates probably this week. It helps to keep us all in our place – which will be at the very bottom of the heap.

      1. They will eventually move to negative interest rates on current accounts to steal any savings you may have.

        1. They will organise a cashless society so that they can monitor what you spend. The banks are trying to get there now.

      2. What should we do then? Buy gold now?

        Universal wage my ar5e. I didn’t stay in studying when all my contemporaries were out partying, and work long hours for years to earn a bldy Universal Wage.

        1. The whole point, I always thought, of going without while contemporaries were earning a reasonable wage, was to gain qualifications which would enable one to earn more and enjoy an enhanced lifestyle later. Deferring one’s gratification, as it was known. With hindsight, I should have dropped out of school at 15, bummed around the world, never bothered working and paying taxes and would now be coining it in benefits!

        2. At that point, all your contemporaries were also learning to become lefties, so that they knew how to confiscate your hard earned assets.

          1. Sadly, too true. Some of those lefties subsequently joined the Conservative Party as well!

        3. You are one of many bbox who have studied and worked hard to make their way in the world. However seems to me they are determined to grind us all down as far as possible. Many jobs and businesses will disappear – no job, no income, state aid required, which will be hard to sustain. Those who are rich will be ok but the rest of us …

      1. Gulp!
        That’ll be after they’ve got rid of cash.
        Think I might start collecting shells for when our new barter economy and alternative currency gets going.

    1. 326054+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      I would imagine it would get tedious after at least three decades.
      The construction industry matters also first you put it up
      then you take it down, then you clear a bit of ancient
      woodland for a bit of track laying, keeps the ovis on their toes and minds NOT dwelling on the Dover invasion front.

    2. It appears that if a hospital sends its patients to a Nightingale, then they also have to send the necessary staff to support them. Naturally, they can’t afford to lose the staff. Thus the Nightingales are not being used.
      The fact that there might be non-covid treating staff sitting idly by is irrelevant.

      1. Couldn’t they have worked that little quandary out during phase 1? Lessons learnt and all that!

          2. That’s the quote after it’s been shortened like milk – it’s a condensed version! [with apologies to “I’m sorry, I’ll read that again”]

        2. They’ve been too busy planning for phase two to review and solve what happened in phase one.

    3. “𝐈𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐇𝐒 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 that those people who suffer from heart attacks & strokes and who require cancer treatment won’t get the treatment that they need.”

      But they are not getting any treatment now! It’s interesting to watch Gove change saddles just before this point!

  45. The definition of insanity?

    Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.
    The Government’s Coro 19 latest plan of action ?. . .

    “Well I never! . . . “

    1. It is not insane if it is all part of a world economic reset for revolutionary change, will it is a different sort of insanity, I suppose.

    2. 326054+ up ticks,
      Morning S,
      Along the lines of a lab/lib/con vote over the last three decades then ?

    1. 326054+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      I do not believe it will interfere with the politico’s train set financially though HS2 will still plough ahead, appeasing
      brussels after our 24/6/2016 verdict.

  47. I made a comment about R numbers last night.
    As far as I can tell R numbers are based on an assessment of the number of cases, and possible projections. I attach a link to the BMJ on this.
    The number of “cases”, we know, is wildly inaccurate in terms of finding new infections. The article posted on here a little time ago made that clear. The methodology is flawed as it is non-specific. The tester may make mistakes, the sample may not be correctly taken, or may be contaminated. The virus sample may “die” if held for too long before the analysis is carried out. The analyses may be being carried out by people who had never been in a laboratory before being recruited. The positive results will include other coronaviruses such as ‘flu, the DNA of “dead” Covid-19, and there will be any number of false positives. This completely inaccurate number is then a basis for a guess as to the future R number. This R number is then used by politicians to justify tyrannical laws and regulations.

    The information given in the BMJ article does not contain enough detail to allow me to carry out an R number calculation, that is, to replicate the calculations of the people at Oxford and elsewhere. Does anyone know how it is done, in detail? As England has been ordered to shut down, as has Scotland, it would be nice to know that there is a firm, accurate, reliable and rational basis for this in a calculation that can be replicated. Note that this calculation may not be the same as Ferguson’s fraudulent program. Contrariwise, Prof Ghani’s comment suggests that the figures need to be taken with a pinch (bucketful) of salt!

    https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1891

    1. If people are not being tested then they are not included in any statistics and the R number thus has no value whatsoever!

      1. It’s worse than that. The people who are being tested are those displaying symptoms themselves or who have been in contact with someone who has COVID-19 or is exhibiting symptoms. It is thus a self-selecting dataset.

        1. They are also testing perfectly healthy people who may possibly have come in contact with another perfectly healthy person who had a false positive test.

    2. At least in Ontario, eligibility for tests changes at a whim. Some weeks anyone can roll up at the testing sites and be tested, other weeks you are only supposed to get tested if you have severe symptoms.

      So I will double you inaccuracy call.

    3. Thanks HP for the reference to R.
      I came across an article from the USA that referred to R0 and wondered if it was the R that the UK Government was using.

      I found the answer in reference 1 of your link where R alone appears to be meaningless – it must be qualied by a suffix
      which may be either as in R0 or Re (or possibly Rt)..

      The two forms are used in entirely different scenarios according to the degree of penetration of a virus into a community.

      Reference 1 is appended below along with a quote:

      Unfortunately, the symbol R0 is often used in publications when Re is meant. This can be confusing.

      https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/when-will-it-be-over-an-introduction-to-viral-reproduction-numbers-r0-and-re/

      I can only conclude that the R number in the UK is being misused in Government publications in a non-scientific manner to justify virus eliminating policies:

      https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-number-in-the-uk

      1. Yes, it looks that way. Why not, we don’t know the difference, do we? I’d guess that the politicians don’t. That does not matter to them. This is about fear and not facts.

  48. Just sent my French pals a quick e-mail to congratulate the French XV on coming SECOND….!!!

        2. But they are still a bit touchy about Agincourt and Waterloo and they will never forgive those British cyclists who consecutively won the Tour de France.

    2. Mind you the French beat the English decisively in the first match of the 2020 Six Nations by a score of 24 – 17.

      I know you don’t think much of the former Gresham’s scrum-half but he did have a reasonable game yesterday. When our Christo was at Gresham’s Ben Youngs was getting his first English cap and there was a mounted picture of him in the Tallis House common room.

        2. My tendency to make typos is not improving

          Corrected – and thanks for pointing it out.

  49. Today is the start of a week that may well see an already horrific year get a lot, lot worse.

    1. There must be many people running small businesses or waiting for vital medical treatment who will wonder just how much worse things could possibly get.

      1. Apparently Boris said it was up to the Medics to select who got treatment for their ailments. He added to choose between “life and death”. I hope I remain reasonably healthy for the next few years.

      2. A Democrat victory in the USA will soon show them.
        The waves there will wash around the planet gathering momentum.

    2. One silver lining is that Trump is likely to get back in, probably on a landslide (don’t believe the polls), which should help. I think that the MSM have over-played their hand, not just on the US elections but on COVID, and hopefully they will soon pay the price, as will all the shadowy forces behind the pandemic, lockdowns, The Great Reset, the UN’s Agenda 21 & 30 and the WEF’s 4th Industrial Revolution.

      The anti-lockdown riots on the Continent and rising resentment elsewhere is beginning to have an effect.

      2. You are assuming that the other side won’t cheat, or if they do, that it won’t affect the result….

        I’m afraid we must face that if Trump does get re-elected (which I pray he does), it only buys us four years.

        1. The Dems (IMHO) are cheating (but not to the degree they wanted, because of some court rulings about postal voting [hence why they are now encoraging in-person voting]), but they are waiting to see if the result is close (then they’ll go the litigation route to get Pelosi or their puppet pro-temp in as the next in line) or a Trump landslide (in which case they go back to doing as they did before election day).

    1. None of this is a reflection on the Senedd or its purpose. It reflects very badly on current administrations in both Cardiff and Westminster rather than upon the institution itself. Rule from Westminster was, if anything, worse.

    1. I believe that I am not the only Westerner who, despite recognising Vladimir Putin as a nasty sod, would sooner trust him than our own politicians.

      1. He is certainly the most able leader in the world today, Domestic and Foreign; while his reputation is almost certainly due to the disinformation propagated by the Western Media!

        1. He has the advantage of being able to kill people who might be a challenge politically.

          Come to that, I can think of some UK “politicians” who would not be missed….

          1. Dear Mr Putin,

            I would like to warn you that Messrs Johnson, Hancock, Gove and Sunak are a clear and present political danger to you.
            Yours sincerely,

            A well-wisher

          5. Funny you should say that; I always use the water from the dog’s bowl to seal envelopes. If they want any DNA, it will be his!

          6. p.s. they are all meeting in the Cabinet room at 10, Downing Street at xxxxx time xxxxxxxx day.

      2. Know what you mean. He is a competent mafia boss, ours are only capable of lining up at the trough with relish and following orders.

    3. Well, I guess he is the expert, as he seems to have emerged as the victor in the snake-pit that is Russian politics, over many years!

  53. Surely if a healthy person can be asymptomatic for a disease known or invented on account of being considered infectious due to a positive result from a test that can’t identify the infection – we’re back to trial by ordeal on a charge of witchcraft?

    1. There are many diseases for which carriers may be asymptomatic and for which tests are not reliable.

      Be thankful that a positive test for SARS-CoV-2 in a human results only in a couple of weeks of isolation.

      A positive test for TB in a cow results in a bullet – though TB is actually found in only a small minority of the carcases.

          1. damn the Florida election commission, they checked postal vote applications against death records.

      2. “Vote early and vote often” used to be the slogan in Republican areas in Northern Ireland. Perhaps it still is.

    2. Even CNN is saying that it is close so it has to be some real-estate rags claiming victory.

      Some really nice games going on in Texas, about 125,000 votes are at risk thanks to attempts to invalidate the curbside voting that the official polling station has been using for some time.

      Never mind the votes, let’s get right down to the lawyers and their dirty tricks.

  55. Just bragging.

    Trudeau has promised that there will be no lockdowns in Canada,. I am sure that everyone in the big cities that are under lockdowns ordered by provincial premiers will appreciate this.

    Seeing how little we trust boy PM, the queues are already forming at the supermarkets.

      1. you need toilet paper if you overdose on that stuff and despite being surrounded by forests, processed wood is in short supply.

      1. Half of them think trudeau walks on water, they wouldn’t believe anything bad. The rest of us don’t see anything like this.

        One Ontario MPP did question the internment camps in the Ontario legislature, he did not get an answer, the speaker went straight to the next question.

        Conspiracies everywhere, so easy to spread and so hard to dispel.

  56. Angry TV film-makers stop release of lauded Iranian documentary. 1 November 2020.

    The film’s fresh perspective prompted widespread positive reaction among foreign affairs journalists, including Channel 4’s news anchor Jon Snow, who called it “utterly brilliant”.

    But now angry complaints from some of the biggest names in British television, including the veteran documentary-maker Brian Lapping, have blocked the general release of Coup 53. They allege the film undermines their reputations by suggesting they kept government secrets when they first told the story on television in 1985 in the landmark Channel 4 series End of Empire, made by Granada TV.

    Once in Mi6 always in Mi6! That said the coup is widely known. Like most Western Intelligence operations in the Middle East it ended in catastrophe with the ascension of the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Learning is beyond the capabilities of these organisations, they’ve been trying to overthrow Assad in Syria for the last seven years just so the Jihadists can take over and flood Europe with another couple of million refugees!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/01/angry-tv-film-makers-stop-release-of-lauded-iranian-documentary

    1. Have we ever got an intervention in the Middle East right?

      And why exactly did Blair and Soros conspire to flood Europe with people from the Middle East and Africa? And why were the indigenous population never asked if this was what they wanted?

    2. British journalists who report from a foreign country are always approached by our security services.

        1. If they get paid or not i couldn’t say. Perhaps they do it out of patriotism. Like Ian Fleming travelling the borders of China as a Times corespondent.

          1. Just checked the comments to give a few upticks. Your comment about the coven of three was most perceptive. I will be taking a rest from commenting for a few weeks. I really do not like downvoting and remain surprised that others cannot see those three for what they are.

          2. I have falling foul of each of them. I got banned over Lottie because i called her out in no uncertain terms over her politics. Peddy was so funny and nice to me for a long time until he trashed several posters here who actually went to visit him when he was hospitalised and then went on for a long time blackening the name of a very good friend who travelled a long distance to stay with him by his bedside in hospital. Jennifer is an entirely different kettle of fish and should be avoided at all costs.

            Lottie Leftie, Peddy Mysogynist and Jennifer Bi-Polar. Just my opinion……..of course.

            People have expressed their view that they appreciate your expertise and knowledge on our built heritage. I do too. Even if i live in a greenhouse. 🙂

          3. You should count me as a friend. I love your humorous interventions and as I stated you are one of the more perceptive commenters.

            I have a vast experience of architecture simply because my whole life has been devoted to the subject. I am proud to have achieved several major listed works and lots of smaller unrecognised stuff for which my clients are grateful.

            Other truth is that several on this thread actually dislike professional people. It is a sort of jealousy because they have achieved nothing of note apart from pulling a few teeth, counting sheep or pontificating about the legitimacy of a wretched failure viz. Richard III. The latter, mostly Americans, call themselves Ricardians. They are all mad.

            I do not think I can put my case plainer than that. But you will know that I am correct because you are intelligent and not some innocent follower of these mad tendencies.

      2. I have a French lawyer (and university lecturer) friend who frequently goes to odd parts of Africa on unspecified business. Over lunch one day, I said, “You are a spy, Henri, aren’t you?” He smiled. Then said, “Bill, am sure whenever you go to a foreign country, you report what you saw to your equivalent of Renseignements Généraux “….

        We opened a second bottle.

        1. Having finished the half of Cab Sav from yesterday, I am about to attack the port – any port in a storm! 🙂

          3. Even in my drinking days I seldom suffered from hangovers, I can only think of 2 occasions. The first was definitely caused by bad port, the second by being sufficiently foolish to accept when being entertained by the guns, mulled wine at 09:00, sloe gin at 10:30, champagne with lunch and a rusty nail (50/50 whisky and Drambuie – honeyed and so easy to swallow, but a kick like a mule) at about 16:00.

            I hasten to add that I wasn’t driving home, but I did have 100 cattle to feed when I got their (they all got fed) and the hangover had arrived well before 20:00.

            We live and learn. I never did it again. I learned to sip and hand it on in the mornings (any ladies present always got drinks first and there were never enough of the little steel cups to go round so that was easy) and make sure I had a glass with ice and a slice but only tonic water before the guns came into the bar at lunch-time. I could then, quite safely, take a glass wine with lunch, even if I was driving home it had worn off by the time we had done the afternoon drives.

    4. Have we ever got an intervention in the Middle East right?

      And why exactly did Blair and Soros conspire to flood Europe with people from the Middle East and Africa? And why were the indigenous population never asked if this was what they wanted?

      1. I am currently reading a book by Peter Hopkirk about operations east of Istanbul. The Germans stirred the pot (and are probably responsible for the current on-going jihad) to advance the Germanic Empire pre-1914.

  57. Morning all. A blood pressure warning ….

    Hilary McGrady, Director General of the National Trust

    Desert Island Discs 11 am … soon …

    Hilary McGrady, Director General of the
    National Trust, shares the eight tracks, book and luxury item she would
    take with her if cast away to a desert island. With Lauren Laverne

        1. I thought I had Rockall in my image bank but could only find Ortac.

          I have never sailed anywhere near Rockall but I passed Ortac regularly when sailing from Salcombe or Dartmouth to Alderney.

          1. ‘Morning, Rastus.

            … but could only find Ortac.

            Apart from finding it, what else would you have done with Ortac?

          2. Good morning, Peddy

            I have now updated my computer’s image bank so I can send you a pretty picture of Rockall and suggest it as a pleasant place for you to spend a year or two!

            Incidentally I came across an interesting quotation from a novel by H.G. Wells this morning:

            He had faced death in many forms but he had never faced a dentist. The thought of dentists gave him just the same sick horror as the thought of Socialism.


            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c00fa32f35a1ac4d202140dba6475b28084b46c0a7a30714659f583ee98a5e9c.jpg

          1. I think that to use the word “sadly” of the decontamination of an island is a bit sad. Just because it’s far away from most people doesn’t make the fact that it was toxic a good thing, particularly since it is so close to the shore.

            Anthrax occurs naturally in soil and occasionally cases crop up on farms (usually in cattle) but spreading it about, even on islands, isn’t an admirable thing.

          3. Your talents and peccadillos never cease to astonish me. I must admit I never suspected you of dogging and suggesting it as a suitable pastime for other Nottlers!.

      1. Actually it would be worth sending her her choices if it meant that she would go to a desert island (free of historical plantations, obviously).

  58. A post-bath thunk:
    1. World economies, especially those with unsustainable welfare costs, are now in such a financial mess that the only answer is to burn down the house and walk away.
    2. 1st. January, Johnson goes; whether it is via the men in grey suits or because he is bored or Wilfred is interrupting his sleep is immaterial.
    3. His successor will be someone modest and unspectacular – rather like Attlee succeeded Churchill. The analogy is not exact because there were other factors, but I suspect people would be happy to settle for someone quietly competent. Let’s hope Conservative MPs read the mood.

    Caveat: these predictions are from someone who thought sanity would be restored to Blighty in May, 2020.

    3. I agree with your predictions Anne but have a slightly different caveat:

      I thought sanity would be restored to Blighty by May, T.

      How wrong we both were.

  59. I am refusing to join the lockdown club. I am fed up to the teeth with people who don’t know me trying to tell me how I must live. I am not going to play their game. I have no idea what the statement by the puppet said last night and will make no effort to find out.
    I will continue to live my life as I want because not to do so would be worse than complying with anything like the last lockdown.
    The destruction of our once great nation in less than 11 months.

    1. As Anne Allan said in a reply to me a couple of weeks ago.

      There is more to living than not dying.

      1. I keep myself living, Alf, with a frequent dose of internal antiseptic, in the form of a wee deoch-an-doruis.

        There’s something to keep the Gaels busy correcting my spelling (from Collins dictionary) as an alternative to their dreich sort of day.

  60. An ignorant and innocent pensioner asks: “Is Fishy Rishy one of the “Reset” freaks?”

    1. This is a quote from a statement he made to the IMF:

      The IMF has rightly focused on immediate crisis stabilisation in response to Covid-19. However, as the crisis evolves, the Fund must play a central role in resetting the global economic growth trajectoryto support growth which is sustainable in all senses of the word. Decisions made in the coming months will have lock-in effects for decades to come. The greener the economic recovery from this crisis, the stronger, more resilient and sustainable it will be – and IMF research suggests a green recovery can support jobs too. The Fund should encourage and provide expertise on stimulus policies that support structural transformation towards greener, low-carbon and inclusive growth. Climate change is already a macro-critical threat to economic and financial stability, and the window for avoiding profound negative global economic consequences is closing.

      It might answer your question.

      The link to the full PDF is here:

      https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwim4oOx4eHsAhWtRxUIHTexBvEQFjADegQIBxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmeetings.imf.org%2F~%2Fmedia%2FAMSM%2FFiles%2FAM2020%2FIMFC%2Fgbr.ashx&usg=AOvVaw0t8We0DELCTMHQP28YBcSp

        1. Indeed, but why else would he use his position to attempt to completely bankrupt Britain?

          Don’t forget he’s an ex-Investment banker and is married to the daughter of a billionaire, so a globalists at heart.

      2. I thought there was something odd about him. He is just as bad as all the other bastards.

          1. I didn’t know he was left-handed.

            By odd – I meant creepy. I distrust people who are always “smiling” – cf Cur Dickhead Branston….

          2. By sinister I meant it in the Vincent Price sense.

            I agree re people who are constantly smiling yet their eyes say otherwise.

          4. I understood, it was the additional explanation that prompted my reply.

            Don’t assume we’re all as slow on the uptake as you are!

          5. But before that, Biggles. He didn’t like people who smiled too much (Another Job For Biggles set in Arabia in the fifties).

        2. Of course he is, and that is why he is being touted as the next leader of the cons.

          Keep them going, Cameron, May, Johnson and then Sunak.

      3. My God, Sos, I’ve never seen so many weasel words in one statement. Straight out of the Harold Wilson playbook.

        1. I take it you read the entire statement.

          He’s a wrong ‘un, no question about it, in my view.

    2. “Eat out to help spread it about” (to justify the next lockdown) and therein lies your answer.

    1. The clips involving Prince Charles are the best argument yet that he should never become king – just like Biden he is already senile.

      The new horror is that Prince William is shaping up to be just as catastrophic.

      1. William and Charles will sell us down the river as long as their own position is safe, and they can feel virtuous about saving the planet.

    4. Dave Cullen is covering these issues and has mirrored his ‘Computing Forever’ (it used to be about tech until he found out about the very bad stuff going on as regards the culture wars and then this) YT channel on Bitchute, Minds and elsewhere. Given that I think Google is involved, don’t give them your ‘business’ (though Dave’s and I suspect the other channel referred to have been demonetised long ago) and use the other, free speech sites. They must be good because twitter blocks any videos from Bitchute.

    1. If I had time (and space) I could regale you with a coffin story that happened on the Jimmy Young Prog about 35 years ago…{:¬))

      But fear not: I won’t.

      1. Please write your memoirs, even if not for publication. I enjoyed the JY Prog, because the specialists avoided being patronising whilst being very informative. Apart from Mr Canine and Mr Avian, that Grocer was good value.

        1. I also loved the JY prog. As you say, the specialists were excellent, very knowledgable and clear. I also think that one of the biggest difference is having an intelligent host in charge. JY was calm and objective, no matter what his own opinion may have been. Trying to listen to the ghastly Jeremy Whine and his awful hysterical outpourings of grief/caring/faux outrage is impossible, so I don’t!

        2. I also loved the JY prog. As you say, the specialists were excellent, very knowledgable and clear. I also think that one of the biggest difference is having an intelligent host in charge. JY was calm and objective, no matter what his own opinion may have been. Trying to listen to the ghastly Jeremy Whine and his awful hysterical outpourings of grief/caring/faux outrage is impossible, so I don’t!

    1. 326054+ up ticks,
      Morning LD,
      I’m calling for a General Election minus the lab/lib/con
      coalition party & supporter / voters.
      Personal view.

  66. https://twitter.com/rood_wit/status/1322544693477998592

    Mensenschapen/tv-kijkers in de rij voor een griepprik met mondkapjes op. En als ze daar bij de arts naar binnen gaan handen desinfecteren. Ze zijn hun zelf aan het uitroeien. Man facepalming Hoeft Hugo niks voor te doen.

    Google translation -Human sheep / TV viewers line up for a flu shot wearing face masks. And if they go in there to the doctor, they disinfect their hands. They are exterminating their selves. Man facepalming Doesn’t have to show Hugo anything.

  68. Anyone else noticed that if someone replies to you – Disqus says it was an hour ago, even if they’ve only just replied?

    1. Yes.
      Apparently you posted an hour ago, too (and this commet is times 16:51 UK time)

    7. I’ve had some replies come through yesterday as “email notifications” – but NOT showing up on the normal site page until today. Something definitely acting up.

    2. As my now deceased Brother-in-law replied when asked if his pub might have a happy hour, “Happy, hour, bloody happy hour; we might have a ‘less miserable 15 minutes’.”

          1. Don’t care – I’ll be drinking anything but Party 7. Then taking it home with me unopened, ready for the next party.

    4. I had lost contact with an old friend i hadn’t seen for 5 years since a reunion (the magnificent 7) dinner (piss up) i met him in the 1960s when were were at college in north London.
      I found his face book page and became worried as i saw a photograph of him in a wheel chair and tried to contact him through that page. But no avail. I messaged someone who seemed to know him (i found out she was one of his daughters). She replied and gave me his home phone number.
      I rang the number today and he answered to my relief. We had a lovey chat for half an hour and i reminded him that on the 13th day of this month it would be 52 years (Friday the thirteenth) since we boarded the Union Castle line ship, SS Pendennis Castle and then sailed to Cape Town for our adventure in South Africa. I stayed for 2 years he stayed for over 35.
      The photo of him in the wheel chair was taken when he recently went to Durban for one of his daughters wedding. They were inside a huge shopping centre and to save his legs they rented a wheel chair for him to get around inside the centre.
      We chatted about the state of play over there and came to the joint conclusion since the country became governed entirely by ‘the locals’ its gone further down the pan than it has ever been in it’s history. Even black politicians eff up everything they come into contact with. So my learned friends we are not alone.
      Happy moments relived earlier today.
      I tried to set up another reunion this years in Dorset but an ongoing virus put an end to that.

      1. Recently looking through an old address book I came across a friend from the 70’s. He was older than me but a big kid at heart, the life and soul of the party. He was lots of fun , you couldn’t be miserable for long when he was around. He was brilliant playing air guitar and we joined in acting like rock stars……lovely, lovely man…..
        Where is he now?

        1. We have so many great memories Obs, unfortunately we are missing one now. We call our selves the old Mugs we all had a pewter a mug presented on our respective 21st birthdays.
          The Six mates and i were laying on the beach in (first foreign holiday) Benidorm (it was still a sleepy easy going town then) 1967. John said to me, ah, this is the life, let’s go to Australia. Too far i replied. J said how about Canada ? Too cold there i replied. I said how about South Africa ? Yep that’ll do, he said and just over a year later we were boarding the ship. What a great adventure.

      3. Recently looking through an old address book I came across a friend from the 70’s. He was older than me but a big kid at heart, the life and soul of the party. He was lots of fun , you couldn’t be miserable for long when he was around. He was brilliant playing air guitar and we joined in acting like rock stars……lovely, lovely man…..
        Where is he now?

        1. It’s a bit sad PT nobody else you know knew him ?
          When i lived in a c shared house in Whetstone North London i remember a guy who use to pop in and stay over night or for a few days sometimes. I had no idea whose friend he was. But there was and old up right piano in a small down stairs room and he could play anything you asked him to play in an instant. I think his name was Rhett Wade.
          We had some parties in that big old 6 bedroom house.
          It was commissioned to the Canadian air force in WW2 the graffiti under the wall papers was very interesting.
          And now the dulcet tone of the dinner gong ……..back later.

  70. Filched from Tellylaff BTL

    Just a reminder from the ONS:.

    InSeptember 2020, there were 39,827 deaths registered in England, 2,568
    deaths more than the five-year average (2015 to 2019) for September; in
    Wales, there were 2,610 deaths registered, 135 deaths more than the
    five-year average for September.

    The leading cause of death inSeptember 2020 was dementia and Alzheimer’s
    disease in both England (accounting for 11.2% of all deaths) and in Wales
    (11.1% of all deaths).

    The coronavirus (COVID-19) did not feature in the top ten leading causes of
    death for deaths registered in September 2020, in England or Wales; in
    England, COVID-19 was the 19th most common cause of death     and in Wales
    COVID-19 was the 24th most common cause of death.

    Boris must have missed it.

  71. Afternoon, all. Miserable day (weather-wise) here so no gardening. The government is lost – tout court. I just hope they don’t stop me riding again. I shall have to find a way to circumvent that at all costs.

    1. Looks like we are saddled with them, Conwy.

      Good evening – the sun did shine briefly in yer Narfurk. I was able to pick the last five pounds of tomatoes and then dig out the plants for burning.

      1. It seems that exercise is permitted as many times a day as one likes (unlike the last madness). The horses were exercised (by the yard staff) last time, so I think I shall just have to be “employed” (probably paying for the privilege) once a day for the weeks of the lunacy. Frankly I am willing to do pretty much ANYTHING to avoid the folly of the last incarceration.

  72. I hope we shall all enjoy November in spite of our politicians’ determined efforts to stop us doing so.

    If anyone wants to add his or her name and birthday to the list then please post a reply to this post immediately underneath it.

    Date Year Name

    02 January 1947 Poppiesmum
    07 January Lady of the Lake
    08 January Rough Common
    10 January 1960 hopon
    16 January 1941 Legal Beagle
    18 January Stormy
    23 January 1951 Damask Rose
    27 January 1948 Citroen 1
    11 February 1964 Phizzee
    22 February 1951 Grizzly
    24 February 1941 Sguest
    28 February 1956 Jeremy Morfey
    29 February Ped
    05 March 1957 Sue MacFarlane
    08 March Geoff Graham
    26 March 1962 Caroline Tracey
    27 March 1947 Maggiebelle
    27 March Fallick Alec
    19 April Devonian in Kent
    26 April Harry Kobeans
    08 June Still Bleau
    09 June 1947 Johnny Norfolk
    09 June 1947 Horace Pendleton
    23 June Oberstleutnant
    25 June 1952 corimmobile
    01 July 1946 Rastuc C Tastey
    12 July David Wainwright
    18 July lacoste
    19 July 1948 Ndovu
    26 July 1936 Delboy
    29 July 1944 Lewis Duckworth
    30 July 1946 Alf the Great
    01 August 1950 Datz
    03 August molamola
    10 August 1967 ourmaninmunich
    14 August Jill the lass
    18 August ashesanddust
    04 September 1948 Joseph B Fox
    07 September Araminta Smade
    11 September Peddy the Viking
    12 September Ready Eddy
    13 September Anne Allan
    15 September veryveryveryoldfella
    26 September Feargal the Cat
    07 October 1960 Bob 3
    11 October 1944 Hardcastle Craggs
    25 October 1955 Sue Edison
    01 December 1956 Sean Stanley-Adams
    06 December 1943 Duncan Mac
    21 December 1945 Elsie Bloodaxe

    (I notice that no Nottler has a birthday recorded here for November.)

    2. Of course the most important day in there is February 11th. Everyone else are also rans. 🙂

      I’ll get me bouquet.

    4. Why are so many people still pretentiously coy about revealing their year of birth (and, consequently, their age)? I find it all a bit pointless.

      1. When we were originally asked – it was just the day and month – nothing to do with being coy. I was born in 1948.

      2. Since your date of birth one of the ways attacking your internet security it might not all be coyness.

    5. Mine is in November, but I have decided not to give the full date, as I am a bit concerned about publishing personal information on the internet. Rather like Facebook, where people could easily pick up personal details in order to commit identity fraud.

      It’s not because I am a grouch (well, not all the time), but I’m uncomfortable about disclosing information which could be used by criminals, and I don’t believe NOTTLers are, but you never know who is reading our posts.

        1. Fraudsters work by piecing together various bits of data from different sources. The trick is not to make it too easy for them.

      2. I thought the same, so I have a false birthdate on my FB page. One can’t be too careful these days. Those who know me, know when my real birthday is.

  73. I never cease to be amazed by how a tiny, pea sized dob of shampoo can cover and lather a head of hair in less than two seconds. I expect it is explained by capillary action but I like to believe it is also because clean will always overcome dirty.

    I hope that this is also analogous to social media activity and believe that while fewer people on the right post on social media in comparison to the number of leftards who vent vitriol on fora such as Twitter and Facebook, (do right wing thinkers even harbour vitriol?) that right (the adjective as well as the noun) will always overcome left just as clean overcomes dirty.

    2. That’s a bit worrying for us living in Essex; this area is notorious for hard water and it takes a lot to wash this nonsense right out of our hair.

    3. It depends on how clean your hair is to begin with.
      If I’ve been doing a mucky job, especially carrying bags of building ballast or topsoil up to the garden, the first application of shampoo has little more effect than releasing a dark grey liquid to run down my face.
      This then has to be rinsed off and a second application made for the desired effect.

  74. A headline that sums up what a brain dead country the UK has become.:

    Timeline of the 24 hours that shaped lockdown 2.0: How leak of plans
    for a new four-week shutdown in November and the subsequent political
    chaos forced Boris Johnson into action – and caused havoc on Strictly
    Come Dancing

      1. It’s certainly true for me; all my social life (dinners out, lunch with friends, Association meetings, Lodge meetings, coffee mornings to meet my parishioners, etc) has stopped. I am left with the cooking, washing and general drudgery that MOH is no longer able to do 🙁

        1. Not much I can say in response to that.

          We all signed up for better for worse, would any of us have it any other way?

          4. You get 10/10 for cherish.
            Hhe still seems to be in remarkably fine fettle, apart form his Democrat leanings, of course!

          6. I know. That it has turned out to be for poorer, for worse, and in sickness, is just the roll of the dice. KBO.

        2. “I am left with the cooking, washing and general drudgery that MOH is no longer able to do”

          What sort of life did your Moh have whilst you were having dinners out, lunch with friends, Association meetings, Lodge meetings, coffee mornings to meeting your parishioners, etc?

          I am just curious , that’s all.

          1. MOH was a fabulous and talented cook who enjoyed it (which is more than I can say for me) and happily did the cleaning. Now I am the only one who can work the washing machine and I end up doing the cooking as best I can (I have to get a cleaner in because my arthritic hands don’t allow me to clean properly). Does that answer your question?

          2. Conway

            Please don’t be offended .

            I wasn’t being insensititve, I was speaking as one who is left behind to quietly get on with the general drudgery of housework!

          3. Good evening Lovely Beauty

            Our house reminds me of a line from Steptoe and Son where ‘arold upbraids his father for not cleaning the house properly: “This isn’t dust, it’s topsoil!”

            I agree with Caroline who has taken the following to heart:

            “Only boring women have immaculate houses!”

            I am very happy to be married to a lovely woman who is not even remotely boring – even when she is explaining the intricacies of French grammar.

          4. Good morning R

            I wasn’t really complaining , I cook , clean up and try to have some order , but am not immaculate. Muddy paws and man stuff around the house are part of the identity of the home.

        3. Sorry to hear that Conners,………. i think your a nice guy.
          If i lived closer i’d volunteer to help.

    2. The car park at our local leisure centre – half of it roped off for the testing centre – is empty, apart from the lower half, which is people actually using the leisure centre.

    1. Sorry but Nigel has been a big disappointment. Always folded when it counted. Round our way we would have said “all fur coat and no knickers”.

  79. Just finished reading what passes for a newspaper (The Grimes). Rod Liddle was very good on Macron – and how he salutes the man for telling it as it is with the slammers.

    Incidentally, can some worldly wise NoTTLer tell me why some adverts are now called “promoted content”?

    1. Promoted content is an advertising model in which companies pay to have their social media content displayed in everyday social media users’ newsfeeds, as opposed to banner and sidebar advertisements.

      And no I’m not sure either!

      2. It’s so that the adblockers can’t detact them. They just clog up your newsfeed.
        Facebook’s new bloatware means I can no longer use it on my laptop. If I want to see what friends are posting Ihave to use my phone – which only works in part of the house, not the sitting room where I am sitting.

    2. Nobody clicked on adverts.
      Last week I actually willingly clicked on an internet advert for the first time ever…and I have been using the internet for more than 20 years. It was an ad for a course on secure software development that does actually interest me.

  80. Came across this just now, attributed to Samuel Adams:
    “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

  81. I see that Cathy Newperson has a column in the DT again….bemoaning online trolls, but saying she doesn’t ‘retweet them’ any more – I don’t recall her ever responding to them personally, other than to complain to whichever platform she was on in order to get anyone who criticised her cancelled by having their posts deleted.

    The DT now don’t even give her column any reader commentary, after she got roasted one too many times (but not trolled) by their inciteful comments. Just like all the other lefty feminists writing for them these days. Ain’t censorship great?!

    No wonder the DT loved Sir Kneel-a-lot Stamer – they too have bent the knee to the Left and every woke agenda going, barely paying lip service to the remaining few proper conservative journalists working for the paper. Simon Heffer now relegated to writing reviews of old French films and on cricket.

    1. Bryony Gordon’s articles do not allow readers’ comments either because too many people were not shy of saying what they thought.

      Indeed, you can tell quite a lot about the DT by its craven policy in not allowing comments on the articles upon which people would particularly like to comment.

  82. Police in England fear flouting of lockdown rules after breaking up weekend raves. 1 November 2020.

    Police broke up a string of raves across England over the weekend, including one involving 1,000 people, raising fears that there may be numerous breaches of the country’s Covid-19 laws in the days before the second national lockdown begins.

    Obviously Boris is failing to convince large numbers of people of the reality of his beliefs.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/01/police-in-england-fear-flouting-of-lockdown-rules-after-breaking-up-weekend-raves

    2. But when people see the police farce ignoring hundreds of people kneeling outside the French embassy in London last week, perhaps the ravers are encourage to proceed by the obvious lack of action.
      Obviously Boris is failing to convince large numbers of people of the reality of his beliefs.
      Perhaps the belief’s of the offenders are considered more important

    3. Over the last few weeks Police Scotland have raided over 3000 premises in the Glasgow area because of breaches of the rules, such as parties.

  84. From someone I know on Faceache:-

    Jon Gale
    8 h ·
    You younger men have your challenges…this is ours!! Lol
    I was young once . . . To all my male friends from 50 years and up… most of us are going through the next phase of our lives. We’re at that age where we see wrinkles, grey hair and extra pounds. We see the young 25-year-olds and reminisce. But we were also 25, just as they will one day be our age. What they bring to the table with their youth and zest, we bring our wisdom and experience. We have raised families, run households, paid the bills, dealt with diseases, sadness and everything else life has assigned us. We are survivors… we are warriors in the quiet… we are men.. Like a classic car or a fine wine. Even if our bodies may not be what they once were, they carry our souls, our courage and our strength. We shall all enter this chapter of our lives with humility, grace and pride over everything we have been through and should never feel bad about getting older. It’s a privilege that is denied to so many.

    https://scontent.flhr2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/123436658_10159000217394306_6453933097597652914_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=2&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=DxcBs82czQ0AX_98oUj&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr2-2.fna&oh=868eb8186e32a680d7d61176e5258530&oe=5FC435A9

    1. That was me 42 years ago Land Rover, shot gun, Tikka triple 2. Lovely Walnut stock and Leopold Scope.
      But no flat cap green wellies and ear defenders. 😉

      1. I still have the flat cap, tweed jacket and green wellies 🙂 I did get rid of the Landrover, though and I only shot at college, so no gun of my own.

        1. I use to unbolt the side front widows (top of doors) of the LR we used to take it in turns to sit on the bonnet spare tyre and spotlight the rabbits the passenger had the gun. For the rabbits we used a fair ground 22. Less damage.

          1. I enjoyed watching one of those cheffy travelogues and they went to NZ and met some …let’s call them ‘deer hunters’….. They lived in the wilds and were assailed by critters that wanted to eat them out of house and home and so they went out at night in 4×4’s with lights and culled them. Bit like in Europe with the boars.

          2. Another of my shooting experiences was with some good mates rifles slung across our backs riding dirt motor bikes across sheep stations in Norther NSW flushing out and shooting wild pigs, with boar like tusks. These are none indigenous animals and thrive in lambing season they sniff out a birth and if they can i kill and eat the new born lambs. We lived in the shearers huts for 10 days. The three sheep stations close to Narran Lake owned by this particular family, were an area about the size of Hertfordshire.

  85. Well I suppose the conversation starter this season go like something like this – ” what aren’t you doing for Christmas this year”?

    Or ” wom arem wou noing oar quimmas mis mear”? if wearing a mask.

  88. Two bottles of ale that’ve been hanging about for a couple of months and that’s me off to bed.
    Good night all.

      1. I may be completely wrong and of course a glass of wine or to……..far gone but my understanding was that most of the Indian restaurants in the U.K began with Bangladesh migrants.

        I suppose they, like every other area are now polluted by Islam.

  91. If anyone missed my response to Walter earlier on, here’s a repost:-

    My back’s ok. It’s my hips, knees and ankles that I’m having to be careful with!
    To avoid carrying the blocks right round the house, I’ve been hoiking them up onto the lower wall first, then onto the higher wall as you see in this picture.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf174e593c351e86ed72382b89078c836430e83e62b265bd958829611665670c.jpg

    Then it’s round to the other side:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f66c5b4773a5980d2803e920a90a2f331791d1656d95d9233d11e025598b51b.jpg

    & carry them up to the stack:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d79d608ee48e2be8d79483a47f9d3d8ebc6347f5b84612581183dc847ebe2af1.jpg

    I’ve only got another 18 to finish shifting!

      1. They’re not as bad as they look, but yes, it is on the list.
        At lease I’ve got the mixer!

    3. Only just seen them Bob – had to go out. But I feel sorry for you moving that lot up there. It doesn’t look like there is any flat ground there at all.

      1. Yes, if you come & cut them yourself!
        Round my garden are several dying ash trees I’ll be dropping over the next couple of years as well as a few elm I’m expecting the Dutch beetle to infect.
        I’ve also got permission to drop dead & dying ash trees around the mill pond over the road, so I’m not short of potential firewood.

    2. Ah, but the virus knows. Same as it knows if it’s after 10pm, there are more than six of you, or if you are in the same support ‘bubble’. It’s omniscient.

    3. I have reached the stage where I’m just hunkering down, getting on with my somewhat depleted life and waiting for the madness to abate.
      I just hope it happens in my lifetime.
      And …. thank goodness we don’t run a business now.

      1. I have to laarff i only posted the above 1 minute ago and it says 40 mins.
        Are they messing with our minds now ?

        1. Can some kind person point out to the person who responded to my comment, that I’m not in the least bit interested in anything she has to say. She is unbelievably and unnecessarily rude, has no sense of humour and that’s why i have blocked her.
          Thank you.

      2. As I’ve said already on these pages, it is easier in many ways for those who have now retired. Not altogether easy of course, but there are fewer hazards to being bolshy about restrictions and no, you don’t have a business to run – so you are not tripped up at every turn by new regs. The chancellor’s “games” with VAT rates, deferment etc are an absolute nightmare.

    3. I don’t need any more kettling TY. Now Wales is out of step with the rest of the country, I suspect a great deal of political grandstanding from the Welsh windbags.

  96. Fraudsters dupe Indian doctor into buying Aladdin-style magical wish-granting lamp for £72,000 – even conjuring up their own GENIE – as two men are arrested over scam
    Laeek Khan approached police after he realised the lamp wasn’t actually magic
    The doctor paid 7,000,000 rupees (£71,842) for the fraudulent lamp
    Two men were arrested and are in custody waiting to be charged
    By ISABELLA NIKOLIC FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 07:49, 1 November 2020 | UPDATED: 17:53, 1 November 2020

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8902047/Indian-doctor-duped-buying-Aladdins-lamp-genie-show.html

    1. I dunno if he’s got a lamp, but an Indian gentleman has just conjured up billions of quid from fresh air closer to home.

  97. A husband and wife in their sixties were coming up on their 40th wedding anniversary.
    Knowing his wIfe loved antiques, he bought a beautiful old brass oil lamp for her.
    When she unwrapped it, a genie appeared.
    He thanked them and gave each of them one wish.
    The wife wished for an all expenses paid, first class, around the world cruise with her husband.
    Shazam!
    Instantly she was presented with tickets for the entire journey, plus expensive side trips, dinners, shopping, etc.
    The husband, however, wished he had a female companion who was 30 years younger.
    Shazam!
    Instantly he turned 93 years old.

  98. Goodnight, all. I’ve just been doing my planning prep for the PC meeting (by Zoom) tomorrow. Ye gods! Is there nobody in the drawing offices who is literate and can proof read? Boarders for borders, prouning for pruning, truning for turning, alter for altar, anno domie instead of anno domini … these are just a few! It’s obviously a curse these days to have had a decent education 🙁

  99. That’s me for this long Sunday. Kittens behaving. Lots of “tray work”. Only one small accident.

    But still, I have earned a glass or three.

    A demain.

  100. I just re-watched the broadcast where Boris Johnson announced the March 23rd lockdown. He said that the measures would be reviewed in three weeks and relaxed if the evidence allowed it. It was clear that the purpose was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed, not to ‘defeat’ the virus.

    And here we are, all these months later about to go into another lockdown. Anyone who believes that this one will end on December 2nd is deluded. It is likely to last until the Spring, when we will be back in some kind of Tier system again. When exactly will we be able to freely live our lives, as we did before Johnson took all our choices away? If we don’t start pushing back soon then I suspect that the answer will be never.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/backsliding-on-a-lockdown-end-date-has-begun-already

    1. i wish he would listen to other experts – in particular economists and sociologists. He’s done the same with his ‘zero net carbon’ target, although in that case it’s because he’s constantly nagged by his current life partner who happens to be a Greenie.

      1. He only listens to the Neil Ferguson (lockdown or we all die) model. Why not at least consider the ‘focused protection’ argument in the Great Barrington Declaration? I can only assume it is because Ferguson gives him (dubious) scientific cover for what he wanted to do anyway.

        https://gbdeclaration.org/

    2. They are just playing for time, waiting for the fabled vaccine to arrive.

      Can you imagine the response if they said lockdown until at least next September.

      2. By then we will be holding our arms out and begging to be vaccinated, if they will just give us a semblance of our lives back.

        1. there, I knew the plot would get people to conform.

          But but . ? ? I had a shingles vaccinations on Thursday and I am still suffering from the supposedly rare side effects, can I be exempt?

          1. You are unfortunate; I had mine on Friday and so far, touch wood!, I have had no ill effects whatsoever.

          2. In my case, I ain’t got time to get the shingles jab, ain’t got time to wash the floor, ain’t gonna leave this old house forever I’ll just have to stay indoors.

            :-))

        1. That’s very polite.

          It will probably take a Biden imposed lockdown in the US to get a sizeable response.

          2. Job done then. The only question will be who pulls the strings behind Harris? At the moment it seems to be old (really old) guard or left of left.

            You would think that a middle of the road bias (in US terms that would be like Thatcher) would just walk the US election but no, bring out the deadwood.

            I do give him longer than a few days, that would lead to suggestions of impropriety.

          3. Pulling the strings?

            Not politicians.
            Billionaires who hope to become trillionaires would be my bet.

  102. Moment Tommy Robinson is arrested for breaching coronavirus restrictions at London protest as he shouts ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, you’re breaking my f***ing arm’. 1 November 2020.

    Tommy Robinson appears to have been arrested on suspicion of breaching coronavirus regulations at a protest in London.

    Footage shows the English Defence League founder, 37, being detailed by police following an event in Hyde Park today.

    The far-right activist can be heard telling officers: ‘You’re breaking my f***ing arm,’ as he is handcuffed.

    The Stasi getting a little free publicity for their lockdown campaign!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8902855/Tommy-Robinson-arrested-breaching-coronavirus-restrictions-London-protest.html

        1. In the wild mountainous faraway spaces of Spain, in Cantabria and elsewhere, the spectators at the Vuelta cycle race all wear masks. Just as they did along the route of the Tour de France, by decree.
          Does any of it make sense? Medically – no. Politically – yes.

    2. I read the article in the Express and Star (he is my MP after all). Suicides are all too common and frequently are swept under the carpet. If any good comes of this, Rose won’t have died in vain.

        1. Partly through Aintree and partly because she was for some time secretary for Owen. We corresponded by email on constituency business.

    3. I fear the worst for many in these difficult time for business, and those who feed from the prosperity of others. Many of us here, I think, are on pensions so hopefully not seriously affected financially. But I think that an undercurrent of business failures is collecting its victims before a tsunami washes them up. I hope that I am wrong.

      1. ‘Evening, Kaypea, both best beloved and I are on pensions and have a comfortable living but…
        …what happens when, due to lockdowns, paying workers the missing 20% of furlough payments, so many businesses go bust, thousands become unemployed and all look to social services for payouts that the chancellor isn’t now receiving tax payments to fund?

        Oh shït. We can’t pay pensions either. I suppose the lack of bennies will cause a lot of gimmegrunts to flee to the safety of the EU – oops, that’s gone bust, disbanded and ain’t there anymore. Still the whole of continental Europe now more closely resembles the shïtholes they came from. Job done.

        1. You are correct insofar that anything can happen. The Gov can print money but what price a loaf of bread! I should spend it on a cruise, oh hang on…

    4. That is extremely sad.
      I know it’s equally sad for anyone in that situation, but he is one of the good guys and really didn’t deserve this.

      1. It’s always sad Anne, and no one deserves it, I’ve seen it at far too close range for comfort as well as fighting my own battles.

        On the other hand preventing a suicide and saving a life are not synonymous… Some people really can’t go on and it isn’t nearly enough just to scoop them off bridges and railway lines etc etc. Over a decade ago one of our drivers had a chap walk out in front of the truck on a French motorway – with predictable results. The French police are not normally terribly kind to foreign truckers but they scooped our guy up and filled him full of coffee and croissants etc whilst the forensic guys did their job and the front of the truck was hosed down and the remains gathered together for decent disposal. We were lucky that it was one of our most level-headed drivers and he coped with it surprisingly well. But something he relayed which the French policemen had said to him has stuck in my mind. They told him that they had been rescuing the dead man from potentially fatal situations for nearly 20 years – at least 2 or 3 times every year and that “until today we could prevent him from dying, but we couldn’t make his life worth living”. Suicide prevention is useless if you are not prepared to put real investment into mental health services.

        1. It strikes me (having been on the receiving end of a close friend’s suicide) that it is an extremely selfish act. The pain of living for the suicide is over, but the guilt, regret and loss for those close to him or her last for a lifetime.

          1. It is easy to interpret it that way, but the truth is that to reach the point of suicide is usually a long, unbelievably lonely, and terribly frightening road which appears to have no other possible exit. Hence my comment that to “save a life” much more is required than to “prevent a suicide”.

          2. I’ve been there – but for the grace of God I would have been a statistic, too. I realise, however, that I only cared about myself and not about those who cared (in some cases, passionately) about me.

          3. Again I would say it’s not that simple. If you’ve reached the point where you don’t care about continuing your own life you are not capable, simply not physically able, to care about anyone else’s. You have to fight your way back – and a long way back – before you can see that. Don’t blame people for what they simply can’t help… they would if they could.

          4. That’s rather a harsh criticism, Conway. I rather feel desperately sad for someone who sees life so bleak and awful that they’d rather end it than continue. I don’t believe any malice is intended, just that they feel they can’t go on. It’s often a surprising choice, too: Second Son’s best mate threw himself off a cliff a few weeks ago – 19, and a great lad. My friend Elaine – pills and car, left husband and small sons.
            “the guilt, regret and loss for those close to him or her last for a lifetime. – ain’t that the truth.

          5. I didn’t mean to imply malice (they feel there is no alternative, after all), but ultimately it is all about them and they don’t care about anyone else. My friend emailed me to say goodbye! She didn’t care how I would feel when I received that, that’s for sure!

          6. Gee… that’s awful. I’d think that she didn’t think how you’d react, so hadn’t got to the bit about caring or otherwise.

          7. She knew, because I’d tried to support her during her depression, that I passionately wanted her to recover, but in the end, she was determined and for her, ending it all was the only thing that mattered. Even after all this time (nearly ten years) I a) still miss her conversations and b) feel deep regret that I failed her and guilt that I didn’t do more. I have to stop typing now, because I’m so upset to talk about it 🙁

          8. I have an inling how you feel, Conway.
            Barely a day goes by when I don’t think of my beautiful friend, Elaine. Wish I’d been able to do something useful, but…

          9. A very close friend’s elder brother committed suicide shortly before his 30th birthday. She was just about to finish her 3 year rotation in preparation for work as a GP; but she took a year to study psychiatry before she went out into the country, to try to understand more about his condition – he’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia. She told me later that it had been very worthwhile … if only to teach her that she could have done very little, if anything, to change things.

          10. In my early twenties and a catering manager, I had a restaurant supervisor, couple of years older than me, very pretty, bubbly, lovely husband, 2 young children, and good family. She walked in front of a bus on George 4th Bridge, but only managed to break her shoulder and arm. 8 months later she lay down in front of a train and was decapitated. At the crematorium there were hundreds of young people and I couldn’t comprehend that there wasn’t one person that she could have confided in. It was awful.

          11. Guilt, regret and loss follow the deaths (particularly the premature deaths) of those close to us whatever the reason for their death. Yes, you can feel guilty about making the optician’s appointment which finds the tumour which leads to the surgery which ends with death from pulmonary embolism two weeks later… and you can go on feeling it even when you know that feeling to be entirely irrational.

            It can even be the beginning of the long, lonely and frightening road which leads to standing with your toes hanging over the edge of that cliff. The road back from the edge is equally lonely and, although it seems unlikely, can be even more frightening.

          12. There have been several times, Paul, when I have been contemplating and have been close to suicide.

            What has prevented me is my belief, weird though others may think, that there is a purpose to each life and that each life is a lesson to be learned before, in the next stage of reincarnation, one moves to a higher plane with, maybe, another, tougher lesson to learn.

            To commit suicide is to flunk the test and have to come back and do it all over again before moving on.

        2. I remember patients like that. They were readmitted time after time.
          Eventually, it was usually the poor train drivers who finished the job. Now they are the people I feel really sorry for.

  104. Re Boris, lockdown and we’re all gonna die.

    The Fergusons of this world can only be proved wrong if one ignores their advice entirely.

    If one locks down and deaths drop, they claim the credit, even though it might be down to any number of other factors.

    It takes a brave politician to say “NO” and then risk the deaths the doomsters are suggesting.

    I think BJ has made an utter pig’s ear of it, but would you want to be the one who history says sentenced millions to death?

      1. Me too, but when the choice is binary: thousands of deaths or lockdown, it makes it harder.

        Easy for us, on a blog, not so for the one who would have to explains 4,000 deaths a day.

        1. At some point he’s going to have to explain the thousands (or tens or hundreds of thousands) who have died because of lockdown – because there is no doubt that they will die.

          1. Isn’t that all part of the great reset program though?
            The scientists and their globalist funders must know that hundreds of millions will die, but they want to save the planet instead.

          2. Only if you are daft enough to believe all the crazy conspiracy theories surrounding people who have been ignored, very successfully, for the last half century. There is no “great reset” programme except in the minds of crazy people.

  105. Latest Breaking News – Dyslectic Middle Eastern religious fanatic burns down Nostradamus museum in Provence.

  106. MIL just died. Covid took just a week to finish her off.

    None of this heroic bike pump down the throat or exotic remedies, she just faded away, it is as if she decided that enough was enough and shut down.

    3. Condolences, Richard. I’ll be going to a Requiem for All Souls tomorrow evening (before public services have to stop again) so will say a prayer.

    8. So sorry Richard. There’s never right time for you to get news like that, but it seems as though the time was right for her. Thinking of you tonight.

    11. Condolences, Sir.
      Though it sounds as if she was ready to let go and did so with little fuss or distress.

    13. Sincere condolences. The Covid strain is a real threat to our elderly population and evidently designed to be so. We live in strange times.

      A lot of us are losing the will to live but the elderly are particularly susceptible.

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