Sunday 11 July: Businesses have been left in limbo by illogical contact-tracing rules

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/2021/07/10/letters-businesses-have-left-limbo-illogical-contact-tracing/

793 thoughts on “Sunday 11 July: Businesses have been left in limbo by illogical contact-tracing rules”

    2. Am I the only one who feels political cartoonists are going over the top in their grotesque parodies?

  3. Queen writes letter to Gareth Southgate praising England team’s ‘spirit and pride’. 11 July 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aba47c32b13cd003c0176f6b620928bbdd8a79d24e2f738800091e7f1a5ee6d6.png

    The Queen has written to Gareth Southgate praising his England team for their “spirit, commitment and pride” and sent her “good wishes” in the hope the squad make history when they take on Italy at the Euro 2020 finals.

    Morning everyone. I am of course always in danger of allowing my scepticism to overawe current events. I have no personal interest in what Bill calls Wendyball and yet so far as I can glean from the MSM he and I will be the only people in the UK who will not be watching this match tonight. The praise is Universal! All are on board except for Bill and Minty; those two old curmudgeons from Nottlerland! Still it does seem to be overegged. Despite the hype this is not 1966. That was a World Cup with a true English team. This is a money spinner for UEFA and the MSM.

    One wonders. Did her Majesty really sit down and think, “I must send Gareth a letter of support.”? Why has she never done anything like this before? We have sent some pretty impressive teams to the last few Olympics. Did they receive such encouragement? My own; perhaps paranoid suspicion, is that she was “encouraged” to send this; (despite its textual content) rather terse and cold message of support. This is a very public opportunity to laud the achievement of a Multiracial and Woke team supervised by a real convert to the cause. Southgate! He is someone whom I could never like. There is about him the aura of the True Believer. He would in my opinion make a good Wokefinder General. No wonder his team all kneel. Any dissent from his good opinion would see you sitting on the substitute benches for an eternity. If he isn’t the new Gary Lineker; a Knight and a permanent Woke Spokesman (whatever the result) by the time this is over I’ll eat my TV licence.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/10/queen-writes-letter-gareth-southgate-praising-england-teams/

    1. mng Araminta, very poor effort of Mrs Sparkle’s vanity attempt to string sentences together. Presumably this was composed while Harry was meditating

    2. If anything puts the mockers on Engerland’s performance, it will be that letter. Bit like saying to a batsman on 95 that his century is in the bag…

    3. This letter was a mistake, in my opinion. Royal family sucking up to BLM again. The final of a regional trophy is not that important.

    4. Morning, Minty. Add me to the list of non-watchers. And as for the potential knighthood: if it happens (which it will if England win) then I shall not eat my TV licence since I own neither a licence nor a TV set. The BBC’s support for Ross and Brand after Sachsgate, its total political bias and its U-turn on free TV licences for the over-75s are just three of the reasons for that.

      1. Morning Elsie. My TV licence is something of a bugbear. I always paid for it at the Post Office and was tempted to do it on line just for the ease, and to satisfy myself as to my online skills. When I did so I found that I had not simply paid one year but signed up in perpetuity. Not only that I cannot cancel it! Since this was never stated let alone made clear they have me in thrall by an act of gross deception.

        1. If you paid by direct debit you just cancel it if you don’t want to continue with it each year. Then notify them that you have done so or just let them find out later. They are happy to accept cheques for the payments.

          1. That is the point. It is not Direct Debit but some other method. I have tried to cancel it. Even appealed to the Bank. I cannot get out of it!

          2. If it’s a debit or credit card that you used, Minty, just tell the bank that you’ve lost yours and need a new one.

            The one you used for payment will just be rejected next time the BBC come to thieve your tax money. Yah boo sucks!

    5. But that wasn’t the whole letter see below

      PS – Would one stop all that kneeling malarkey, A grown man only kneels to God, their sovereign, the serving war dead and when they propose marriage, would one please get a grip or no knighthood will be forthcoming.

    6. ‘Morning, Minty and Bill.

      I’m pretty sure that you will not be the only curmudgeons, NOT watching the Wendyball culmination of the moneyfest.

      I think that many of the NoTTLe family carry the same detestation as you (and Bill) and I’m one.

      1. MB is off to watch wendyball elsewhere. I have a telly free evening. Yay!!!!!!!!!
        (Last night’s choice of a vacuous prog about Andy York’s daughters was a new low; at least I got a huge chunk of tapestry done. Maybe I ‘should of’ shoved any spare Appleton’s wools into my ears to block out the talking heads.)

    7. At least Brenda got her and GS’s names in the right place in her letter.

  4. Morning all. Sunday’s “literary roast” from the Islington Wine Cellar:

    SIR – I am currently holidaying in Padstow in Cornwall.

    The town is busy and those restaurants that haven’t been booked up since February have long queues, as demand far exceeds capacity in our socially distanced world.

    Just before we arrived, one large pub and restaurant had been forced to close temporarily due to contact tracing. Another was shut abruptly on Wednesday. The rest must be wondering if they will be next.

    This is tragic for the owners and staff, and bitterly disappointing for tourists, who are left wandering from eatery to eatery being turned away because places are full.

    Is this lockdown by stealth? The Government may be heralding the grand reopening on July 19, but at this rate there won’t be anything open.

    Stephanie Chessell
    Sevenoaks, Kent

    SIR – Dr Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency, has confirmed that the £22-£37 billion invested in test and trace has identified around 500,000 people. This equates to a successful “trace cost” of between £44,000 and £74,000 per person.

    When is someone in the Treasury going to demand that Boris Johnson stops throwing good money after bad?

    Kim Potter
    Lambourn, Berkshire

    SIR – Our daughter is resident in the UK and is getting married on August 7.

    My husband and I, plus our daughter and son, all live in France, and we will all have been double-jabbed for more than 14 days before we return to Britain for the wedding.

    However, we will still face having to quarantine for 10 days on arrival in the UK, with tests on days two and eight – plus an extra test on day five to end quarantine earlier.

    Apart from the hassle, the cost is ludicrous – and all this just because we’re not British residents and haven’t been vaccinated in Britain. Meanwhile, the Government is waiving quarantine for 1,000 Italian football fans and 2,500 Uefa officials. Our only hope is that France will be moved on to the green list when it is reviewed in the coming week. I sincerely hope that the Government sees sense.

    Victoria Hill
    Saint Prest, Eure-et-Loir, France

    SIR – From July 19, those who have been double-vaccinated in Britain, and those who are under 18, will be exempt from quarantine after travelling from amber-list countries.

    Once again, many young people are being unfairly penalised. I volunteer at a vaccination centre, so know that very few 18-to-24-year-olds have been allowed to get two jabs.

    In our family, five of us can return from Greece without quarantining – four of us because we are double-jabbed, one because she is under 18. Yet our 18-year-old, single-jabbed, is apparently a risk, even though he will be going where we go and doing what we do. How does this make sense?

    Lucie Patrick
    Bignor, West Sussex

    HS2 up-close

    SIR – Neill Beasley (Letters, July 4), writing in support of HS2, asks: “what is the matter with this country?”

    Presumably he is referring to those who have questioned the cost and viability of HS2, as well as the damage being inflicted on an entirely innocent population for the length of the track.

    From his home in Hampshire, Mr Beasley will not have to watch – as I must – while an enormous concrete railway viaduct is constructed across the entrance road to a historic Chiltern town in an area of natural beauty, destroying acres of ancient woodland, without a single benefit for residents.

    Governments rarely consider those who pay the price for such projects.

    Jeffrey P Addison
    Wendover, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – Never mind HS2. When will we get our normal train service back?

    There used to be several through trains between where I live and Euston daily, but now there are none. There was also a useful mid-morning train to Cardiff. Could part of the reason passenger numbers are down be due to the fact that trains are not running when and where we want them to?

    Dr H J Williams
    Prestatyn, Denbighshire

    Language schools

    SIR – As owners of English language schools, we read your report (“UK language schools ‘close to collapsing,’ MPs warn PM”, July 4) with interest.

    We and several hundred more schools teaching English to international students have effectively had no income since 2019 and do not anticipate any change until next spring at best. Most students who might have come this summer will be deterred by the prospect of two weeks’ quarantine prefacing a course of similar length.

    Furlough has helped us hang on to the staff who give the UK the edge against fierce global competition, but when that scheme ends, we will be looking into the abyss.

    We envy our colleagues operating in the few councils that granted business rates relief to language schools, but fail to understand why, despite 16 months of lobbying, the Government has not extended this to us all, when its own international education strategy stresses the value of English language teaching to the UK’s future exports.

    As small business owners who have remortgaged our homes, been forced to sell assets such as vehicles (and, in one case, face a £137,000 summons for unpaid business rates) just to keep battling on till the students can return, we implore the Government to put its money where its mouth is and spend just £17 million on business rates relief to save a whole industry.

    Farhan Quraishi
    Director, Speak Up London

    Dr Val Hennessy
    Director, International House Bristol

    James Herbertson
    Director, Bayswater Education

    Kate Hargreaves
    Principal, Living Learning English

    It’s coming home

    SIR – In cowardly fashion, while England played Denmark, I plodded almost five miles along the seashore. But I said a prayer for victory and a shooting star appeared in extra time above the English Channel, heading towards the country of our opponents.

    I’m writing this sitting on the concrete slab at Walmer beach that marks the landing place of Caesar and his legions. That match in 55 BC ended in home defeat, with Italian discipline pulling that side from near-disaster. Tonight the tide will turn, with English unity and coolness finally dominating.

    Brian Emsley
    Walmer, Kent

    Smart motorway spin

    SIR – I was shocked to read that Baroness Vere, a transport minister, thinks we need “more education” in order to see that smart motorways are safe.

    The implication is that she is right and those of us who believe it is obviously dangerous to remove safe hard shoulders on busy motorways are wrong. How many more deaths will it take for sense to prevail over arrogance?

    Dr Brian Wareing
    Chester

    SIR – Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 requires employers, organisations and the Government to ensure that the risks to the health, safety and welfare of people affected by their activities and operations are reduced to as low as reasonably practicable (Alarp).

    This is enforced by the Health and Safety Executive, which also regulates to ensure that “reverse Alarp” does not occur – that is, a change to operations, practices or equipment, for the purpose of saving money or increasing productivity, that results in higher risk. Given that smart motorways have led to multiple deaths, their implementation is a clear case of reverse Alarp.

    Alan Richardson
    Seahouses, Northumberland

    Lead shot risks

    SIR – You report (July 4) that nearly 600,000 ducks are being shot with illegal lead ammunition every year.

    Only last week I was in conversation with a radiologist in Devon about lead shot poisonings.

    In his years of experience he had seen a number of gamekeepers with lead in the appendix, with no effect on their health. Wildfowl can easily excrete the lead if eaten.

    Andrew Johnston
    Cirencester, Gloucestershire

    Phone improvements

    SIR – John Baker (Letters, July 4), who cannot dial out on his broadband phones, has been ill-advised.

    I recently moved my landline phone to my modem, which is in turn connected into a high-speed fibre link. I was able to retain my old number, and for under £4 a month receive a clear two-way service. No need for answerphone: messages are recorded and sent to my mobile and computer or can be reached on the phone handset.

    Graeme Williams
    Kings Hill, Kent

    A degree is no guarantee of policing prowess

    SIR – With regard to the idea of graduate-only police recruitment, in 1974 I wrote a letter to our Police Federation magazine warning against the plan to fast-track people with degrees.

    I spent the next 16 years watching the force deteriorate. When I joined in 1962, 90 per cent of the intake was from the Armed Services. Every officer who came out of Ryton training centre had joined to do the job first and foremost. I don’t remember anyone whose sole aim was to become a chief constable.

    My wife – also a former police officer – met a young constable recently and he said they had been turned into social workers. It’s time for the police to get back to doing the work that we all used to get paid for.

    Neville H Walker
    Atherstone, Warwickshire

    SIR – It is fortunate for the safety of this country that our Armed Forces have a tried-and-tested system for recruiting officers, which has proved its value over many years.

    The system of police recruitment is shambolic by comparison. The various approaches tried over the past 60 years have all been vain attempts to find a viable alternative to the Trenchard scheme, which offered immediate entry at inspector rank to outstanding individuals who had proved their talents in other areas.

    The scheme was abandoned after opposition from the Police Federation, which argued that it was unfair to rank-and-file officers who had to spend their first two years pounding beats under the supervision of sergeants who varied widely in their teaching ability.

    Perhaps police officers should be recruited on the understanding that they will spend their whole careers in uniform doing outdoor, operational shift work. Those who aim to leave “ordinary duty” at the first opportunity to join “elite” specialist units should be recruited like MI5 officers on an entirely different basis. In any case, radical reform is long overdue.

    John Kenny
    Acle, Norfolk

    Could net-zero Britain handle a harsh winter?

    SIR – You report that Public Health England’s emergency plan for tackling heatwaves has been deemed “totally inadequate”.

    I hope it has a better plan for dealing with an extreme winter, on a par with those of 1947 or 1963, especially with the drive to electrify Britain’s energy usage. A dramatic drop in wind and solar supply, a collapse of the National Grid due to transmission line failures under ice, and transport and home heating systems stripped of gas and petrol or diesel will present a major challenge, even if preparations have been adequate.

    John Snook
    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    1. All these people complaining about quarantine still don’t get it. They think the point of the rules is to protect them from a virus.

    2. Alan Richardson bumbles on using the strange acronym, ‘Alarp’ (As low as reasonably possible).

      When I was in industrial business consulting we used a similar test called ‘Failure Mode Effect Analysis’ (FMEA) which I used to remember as “F***king Mucking Everyone About.

      I’m sure that ‘Alarp’ may be remembered in similar fashion, as it doesn’t appear to be adhered to – at least not by any one of the PTB elites.

    3. Good heavens, Lucie Patrick! Don’t, whatever you do, expect any sense from government diktats! John Kenny is right; something similar has happened to teaching. One reason I came to dislike my job so much (apart from having no sanctions against disruptive children) was that I was expected to be a social worker rather than someone who had a good grasp of my academic subject.

      1. ‘morn AW. This is my own opinion and in all probability doesn’t accord with the majority but I find Cold War Steve’s output puerile and more fitting of a 6th former’s attempt at satire, the above was published on Facebook and his sycophantic followers all hooted with rage and disapproval that the Tories are so racist they wouldn’t even let Joseph , Mary and Jesus into the country, the irony I found with this is the fact that these rabid lefties completely overlooked the fact that J,MandJ were Jewish. James Gilray he is not.

        1. no worries Datz. Have supported Chris since he started, primarily due to his own mental challenges. He’s captured the dystopian view well [my pers opinion]

          1. He’s a great favourite with my younger brother who reposts his stuff all the time, my younger brother is also a great fan and believer in Jeramy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone and believes in BLM etc etc. We come from exactly the same background, there were no differences in our upbringing, no parental splits etc but we’ve ended up polar opposites politically, I cannot discuss politics with him as any deviation from his beliefs sends him into a fury and he won’t speak to me for months after.

          2. fair one. Similar issues with my younger bro, not politically merely different life approach. Haven’t spoken to my bro since 2011 which is no drama from either side. I iaise remotely, once a month with my two nephews, once’s just finished Uni at Bournmouth, the youngest one’s just started work as apprentice to get his HNC. Both doing fine and both aware of the “family drill” not mentioning our exchanges. They both seek different opinion / perspective / information on variety of issues / topics. Always happy to interact, provide although being in Kenya I can only offer a remote view on UK at ground level

      2. And did those feet in ancient time,
        Walk upon England’s mountains green:
        And was the holy Lamb of God,
        On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

  6. Good morning all.

    Not that I wish to begin this sunny Sunday on a negative note but…

    “Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, tells us that during the pandemic, the NHS saw seven million fewer people than it would have expected, including tens of thousands who would have come for cancer checks. The Government fears the waiting list could hit 13 million. The crisis has probably worsened many non-Covid problems, particularly in mental health.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/10/nhs-backlog-another-good-reason-end-lockdown/

    We have constantly been told for the last 16 months that the NHS will be overwhelmed if we do not ‘protect’ it. My experience is that hospitals have been like ghost towns, and clearly the service overall saw far fewer patients than in a normal year. How many younger people will die from preventable cancers, strokes, heart disease? Will the scales fall from our collective eyes over the failure of the NHS to provide basic services? I won’t be holding my breath!

    1. My guess is that some people will die who would otherwise have been saved, and another group will be saved, who would otherwise have been killed by the NHS. Probably the first group will be bigger, but that is by no means certain.

    2. 335287+ up ticks,
      Morning JK,
      The scales fell from many an eye near three decades
      ago via UKIP, that lasted until the 2nd June 2019 when treachery was triggered and the scale replaced.
      The REAL UKIP ceased to exist.

    4. Why is cancer always the benchmark? What about COPD treatments, or cystic fibrosis, or HIV or slipped discs or choleocystitis or or or…

    1. As for no judge daring to stick up for Trump – that’s what you get if you elect lawyers to office as judges. Justice is in thrall to the voters.

  8. A certain derangement has taken hold of our citizens. Are they suffering from long lockdown?

    Rod Liddle
    Sunday July 11 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    A recent opinion poll suggests that very nearly a fifth of British people want a 10pm curfew to be imposed every night after our, er, “freedom day” on July 19. Polls sometimes obscure more than they reveal. We do not know, for example, if this 19 per cent also want Chris Whitty to visit them at 10 o’clock, tuck them in and perhaps read them a bedtime story. Or if some of them think that a curfew does not go far enough and wish to be subjected to leather restraints, manacles and perhaps a gimp mask.

    The poll, by Ipsos Mori, also reported that a quarter of Brits wanted nightclubs and casinos to remain closed in perpetuity, and that more than a third wanted ten-day quarantine restrictions to remain in force for all people returning from abroad. I have a little sympathy with this last position. Frankly, if people wish to go to places such as Turkey or China on holiday, I wouldn’t let them back into the country at all. I’d keep them in a fetid pen in Lille, hose them down with ice-cold water every few minutes and then sell their assets. But that’s nothing to do with Covid.

    Reading this, you wonder if a certain derangement has taken hold of many of our citizens — a kind of infantile craving to be regulated, told what to do, suppressed. Perhaps they are suffering from that undocumented affliction “long lockdown”, which engenders in the individual a desire to be separated from reality and indeed from other people and subjected utterly to the idiotic whims of the state and the monomaniacal medical clerisy that advises it.

    But then you read another stat from the poll and suddenly you realise it is just another front opened in the culture war. Some 40 per cent of people intend to continue wearing masks in public for ever — and, please, don’t think for a moment that it is simply the case that they themselves prefer to wear masks and are easygoing about your preferences. They will be mask-shaming those of you who don’t mask up. They will be on Twitter and Facebook, howling and accusing you of being a “Covid-denier”; of murdering the elderly and placing a burden upon the sainted, bureaucratic and economically hopeless NHS.

    The mask-or-no-mask thing is the latest signifier of our culture war, and there is a strong correlation between those who voted remain in our referendum, sign up to the deluded unrealities of identity politics, big state and public sector and still vote Labour, and those who intend to wear a mask every moment of the day and probably still spray each other’s genitals with hand sanitiser when they are about to have sex, as a kind of left-wing form of foreplay.

    This has happened because Covid has been moralised and politicised and so the facts go out of the window. Covid has become the latest forum for virtue-signalling. The efficiency or otherwise of masks does not matter, nor the utter uselessness of washing your hands while reciting The Wreck of the Hesperus (there is virtually no chance of copping Covid from a surface). It has become as political an issue as a statue of Cecil Rhodes or a bloke dressed as a woman demanding his right to take a slash in the women’s loos.

    Incidentally, I say this as someone who has been a fence-sitting moderate in this particular culture war battle. I was entirely in favour of the first lockdown and largely in favour of the second. In general, when it comes to Covid, I haver and worry. I have my doubts about both the shrieking loons on the right who insist the virus is nothing much to write home about and we must all get back to work, and the lefties who think we should never die from anything, ever. I have no dog in this fight — all I have is a worry that we are not always told the whole truth.

    Otherwise, from a personal disposition, I love lockdown. I save money; I don’t have to visit the grotesque maw of London; I don’t have to hug people I can’t abide. I don’t go to casinos or nightclubs (any more: the memory of them lingers). I don’t even have a yearning to go abroad to visit one of the five countries of the world I find culturally and politically agreeable (Israel, India, Hungary, Poland and Finland). But the mania of the saucepan-banging, knee-bending, mask-wearing people of the left is beginning to grate.

    They yearn for authoritarianism and, however they might profess their love of humanity, they distrust and despise people who are not themselves. They are, I think, anti-democrats. They live in a world that is not to their liking largely because it is too free. Lockdown is, for them, a kind of nirvana and it should continue for ever.

    Arise, Sir Gareth?

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F3a311fc8-e19c-11eb-8372-0d41497c3283.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1022

    Taking the biscuit for frivolous ‘science’
    A team of scientists at Oxford has worked out the best way to eat a chocolate digestive. Apparently to get the most satisfactory flavour you should flip the biscuit over immediately before putting the biscuit in your mouth. You might care to imagine the scene at the Oxford University sciences department garden party. Our biscuit people are in attendance, inquiring of another team what they have been working on. “Oh, we saved the world by creating a vaccine in record time that will guard people against the deadly coronavirus. What about you?”

    One of the scientists replies: “Oh … um … we … er … ooh look, that’s Professor Smith over there … sorry … got to have a quick word… bye!”

    ‘Inadequate’: mark of a proper school
    The Department for Education, via Ofsted, is continuing its persecution of extremely good schools for progressive political reasons. Colchester Royal Grammar School has been stripped of its “outstanding” grade and told that it is in the worst category: “inadequate”. The inspectors observed that pupils could be unruly at times (Really? Goodness me). And that “some boys are rude about girls, judge them by their appearance and make inappropriate remarks”. Hard to believe, huh? The school’s exceptional academic record — it got 39 pupils into Oxbridge last year — was summarily discounted. It is increasingly the case that parents, in attempting to find the best schools for their children, should choose those marked “inadequate” by the deranged commissars who care nothing about educational excellence and everything about fashionable leftie shibboleths. Isn’t it time we had a proper Conservative running the DfE?

    Let braggarts unite on St Boris’s Day
    What a wonderful month. To have defeated both Covid and the Germans and then to win the Euros. It is already being suggested that Gareth Southgate should be knighted and Jack Grealish installed as foreign secretary, or something. Meanwhile the prime minister has apparently let it be known that July 19 may become a bank holiday — because that’s what we need, isn’t it? Another day off. I’m in favour of the idea only if the holiday is known as the Day of Misplaced Euphoria and Hubris. We could even design a flag for it.

    ******************************************************

    Catface

    6 HOURS AGO
    As a fellow avowed fence-sitter, the thirst for an authoritarian infantilisation of the nation has been eye-opening. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown pointed out on a chat show this week – it’s almost as if the government expect people to be responsible for their own decisions so they don’t have to be. Imagine that.

    2. “Colchester Royal Grammar School has been stripped of its “outstanding” grade and told that it is in the worst category: “inadequate.”

      Reminds me of a time I was in a meeting about the hospital’s CQC rating, only to hear the immortal line “‘Satisfactory’ is not good enough”.

      1. During the 1950s, sharing a school bus with them was rather riotous. Now I look at many local retired pillocks of the establishment and think “H’mmmm, once upon a time you were funny”.

    3. One of the bookmakers at Newmarket was asked if he still took cash – “of course”, he replied. “Covid is an air-borne thing. You can’t get it from handling stuff”.

  9. 335287+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Sunday 11 July: Businesses have been left in limbo by illogical contact-tracing rules

    Does it not seem to be orchestrated, contrived,artificial, unrealistic,no one group could surely be this inept without it being scripted.

    To me the WHOLE political governance,kit & caboodle lab/lib/con coalition, have been in an anti United Kingdom mode since the country hit the exit door running in 24/6/2016, nothing but nothing has gone right without having a bigger issue going wrong.

    The electorate really are dangerously out of sorts and do need an enema the size of the Elizabeth tower inserted within.

    They are consistent only one way, that being regurgitating political sh!te via supporting / voting for the lab/lib/con coalition unceasingly, no change, no opposition,mass suicide via the polling booth.

    I like to believe we as a nation are still lions led by treacherous political donkeys and as such we wanna be “free lions nationwide” if not given freely then, sad to say taken, for the better good.

  10. Good Moaning.
    Well, chase my Aunt Fanny round the gasworks. No comments allowed.

    “BBC considers left-wing, anti-Brexit journalist for top news job”

          1. I tried to explain to a Swedish lady what a sausage roll is yesterday. “It’s some kind of “smördegskorv” [korv wrapped in smördeg (sausage wrapped in puff pastry)].” I explained. In the end I promised to bake a couple for her and her husband to sample.

          2. I ordered a sausage roll as a snack when last on holiday. What i got was a hotdog sausage from a jar wrapped in filo. I still ate it.

          4. Lucky you !

            I like Greggs sausage rolls. I think they use lard in their pastry. Or at least shortening.

          6. Horses for courses, Nursey. I can’t stand shortcrust pastry on a sausage roll. I much prefer flaky and I insist on eating them cold (not so greasy).

      2. She looks like a primary school teacher; the sort that allows the classroom thug to ‘express himself’.

        1. ‘Morning, BoB, I checked the BTL comments and was surprised that you, and answering comments, were still there, for seditious off topic comments. Long may it continue.

      4. The BBC and The Daily Telegraph are both part of the Global Left-infested cartel that is running the planet.

      5. I wrote about this yesterday, Bob, noting the significant difference in the reporting of the story by the BBC and the DT.

    2. mng anne. Re BBC here’s the latest garbage on Kenya https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-57666911 except for the penultimate para about no elections next year, which people here have known from outset. The core issue is the old guard money club do not want Ruto in that group. Title of Presidency is a red herring. Usual BBC woke emotion / non reporting.

          1. ‘Afternoon, Stormy, understood but it didn’t immediately spring to mind, being an Americanism.

  11. Sorry, Folks. Covid is just soooooo not scary enough.
    Millions dead by Christmas:
    “‘Nightmare scenario’: Potentially untreatable superbug being passed from dogs to owners” Tellygraff tries to outdo the Star but fails on the witty (ho ho) headlines.

    1. Another attack on the British way of life?
      Who disapproves of alcohol and thinks dogs are unclean and that masks should be normal attire, particularly for women, that music and theatre are bad and that churches should be closed.

      1. Anyone who tries to take my dog away from me had better be armed and prepared to use it.

          2. Charlie was only a medium sized terrier, but in his mind he was ten foot tall and just about as wide!

  12. Good Morning Folks,

    Its a football omen, blue skies and a perfect sunny start to the day here

    1. Are you suggesting that the duplicitous diverse divers will whip the wobbly whingeing wops?

  13. Good morning from a somewhat hazy Derbyshire with a light overcast and 10°c in the yard.

    1. Morning Bob. I see you’ve been doing battle with that 77 Brigade moron NiceChappie on the Spectator threads. You should save your energy for more worthy opponents!

      2. It gives me the chance to hone up my arguments.
        I spent a couple of hours last night going through a USB stick I used to use at work for carrying essential documents between the trains and the office, seeing what was worth keeping.
        Here’s a sample of a response I made on another message board to an absolute Marxist Trotskyite referance a discussion where I’d brought up Trotsky’s murder of the Bolshevik sailors in Kronstadt:-

        Bloody hell Daft!
        You’ve been busy spouting off!
        Sorry not been on the board for past few days, but been a bit busy.

        From what I can see, there are at least two schools of thought contending (why does that remind me of flowers blooming?) on Kronstadt.

        From the Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyite point of view, were they to admit that there was some truth in Emma Goldman’s allegations, their entire edifice of the corruption of the USSR being entirely down to Stalin and his gang will come crashing down about their ears.

        What there is of Trotsky’s reputation depends on Kronstadt being depicted as an attempt to derail the Revolution hence his “Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt” and other attempts to justify the action and cleanse himself from association with it.

        The work of Emma Goldman however is based on her position as a near eye witness of the events in that town, as is the work of other critics of Trotsky’s alleged actions.

        So the question must be asked, “How much of the counterblast to her statements is based on actual errors or political bias in her work and how much is a blatant political attempt to rubbish a truthful and independent account of an action that, effectively, set the stage for Stalin?”

        Even the more moderately voiced commentators of these events, like Ante Ciliga, one of the founders, later expelled, of the Yugoslav Communist Party, appear to cast doubt on the entire innocence of Trotsky and Lenin.

        At this distance in time it is unlikely that the truth will ever be known.

          1. Daft Punk, as he called himself, was an outright Trot who’d convinced himself that Trotsky had no involvement at all in the massacre of the sailors and objected most strongly to suggestions that he had organised the response to the sailor’s protests.

            The site was the old “Make Friends On-line” which, for a VERY moderate fee, allowed access to a range of chatboards as well as allowing like minded people to meet up, often groups events with up to a dozen people attending.

            Then it got sold to an Irish group who immediately restricted the chatboards, shoved the price up and then pushed it as another tacky dating site.

    1. Dr Richard Fleming said a long time ago that at least one part of the spike protein is patented by the US government, if I remember rightly.

      Edit: Thank you for posting this link, Korky!
      I’m in the middle of listening to it (it is very long).

      It is a very fact based analysis of the patents on the virus and on the vaccines.
      – 73 patents on different aspects of the virus, going back twenty years.
      – Many references to “accidental or deliberate” release of the virus in the run up to 2019.
      – Patented “cures” coming only days after patented changes to the virus, and explicit references to the profits that could be made.
      – Fauci did not manage to get one of his mRNA “vaccines” patented as a vaccine, because the US Patent office said that it did not meet the basic requirements of a vaccine, which include preventing future infection.

    2. Morning Korky!

      Yes, I watched it last night having found the link posted on the Lockdown Sceptics FB site. Long but well worth the effort. My question is by what process can the corrupt establishment be brought to answer for this scam.

      2. Morning, Sue.

        People power seems to be the only option. We have to assume that the justice system has been corrupted along with every other institution.
        Sadly, so many people have been cowed by the government that it may take some time for them to wake up.

  16. 335287+ up ticks,
    Take heed O English team, repent & reset the past via

    🎵
    I’M STILL STANDING,
    You could never know what it’s like
    Your blood like winter freezes just like ice
    And there’s a cold lonely light that shines from you
    You’ll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use.

    Tis the way to go,
    Best of luck.

  17. Our public service broadcaster is becoming more insular by the day. 11 July 2021.

    The BBC is freezing out newspaper journalists who may question the wisdom of prolonging restrictions.

    What passes for discussion on BBC News now largely consists of newsreaders interviewing the Corporation’s own correspondents who occasionally present lame interpretations of the criticisms on offer in the print media. This insularity is about to be compounded in a peculiarly self-defeating way. One of the few genuinely open discussion programmes left on the News channel and BBC World (where it was very popular) was “Dateline London” which invited British newspaper commentators and foreign correspondents based in London to argue and debate with no advance scripting. That is apparently going to be shut down at the end of the year in order – believe it or not – to give even more airtime to the BBC’s own staff.

    This is news? I watch Dateline so I’m sorry to hear that its going. This is not an encomium; the participants are not nearly so unaligned as Janet might lead you to believe but they do largely come from outside the Westminster Woke Bubble. The only way for this Woke Propaganda Outlet to be silenced is to shut it down!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/10/public-service-broadcaster-becoming-insular-day/

    1. Good Morning & Happy Sunday Minty, I think I’ve posted it before on here I no longer get the hated BBC World News on my cable subscription, it was 24/7 pro-Palestinian, pro-Muslim, anti-Israel, anti-British & anti-American propaganda with a bevy of Arab, Paki ,Black & insane Trotskyite British staff ranting endless lies & falsifications of the news. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/612187de5afb20b31fbbfdc2c5cb27351622f9a1d9a575d776a4532161b0b302.gif

        1. Colloquially known here in Israel as the ” Balestinian Bombers Comfort ” as no other international media outlet has given so much comfort & support to the murdering Palestinian degenerates since the invention of a separate Palestinian people by Nasser, Arafat & the KGB in Cairo in 1964. The BBC was the first KGB Affiliate to dedicate itself to the promotion of the false Palestinian narrative & is the Gold Standard by which ITV, Sky, Channel 4, CNN, MSNBC, Reuters & AP have endeavored to emulate & surpass ever since

      2. Elfie, your blooming bloomers are bloomin’ annoying.
        I keep clicking on your links in case there is something interesting to see or read but nine times out of ten it’s just a blooming bloomer.
        🙁

        1. Good morning & happy Sunday Stormy, I’m sorry if you find my little quirk of posting a flower to greet the ladies of NTTL annoying, I’ll try and remember not to post you one .

          1. I didn’t realise you only put them on the women’s posts.
            I’ll still have to click on any links you put up to see if there is something worth reading. Perhaps you could preface the floral ones with a warning 😃

          3. No, just so I know it’s a flower and so don’t need to click on it.
            Incidentally, are you assuming all males don’t like flowers?

          4. I’ll try to remember to add a ” Storm Warning ” . Personally I don’t like being near flowers or plants as some of them trigger my sneezing fits . When I was young & was often out in the field & woods during my military service I was fine but in my late 40’s in the office I had been working in for a number of years brought in a damn interior decorator to ‘feminize’ the place with plants and flowers under the guise of creating a better working environment & within a few months I began having sneezing fits . After complaining to senior management they removed the “Triffids ” from my office & I was then fine except when visiting other offices & corridors / public areas where they had a variety of plants. I took an unofficial survey of my colleagues & all the men favored removing the plants but the women liked them so it was a War of the Sexes stand off.

          5. I’m not sure if you’ve understood my point. I don’t dislike flowers, neither do I mind their absence. I’m totally indifferent as to their presence in the workplace.

            My point is, that there is a certain expectation that a link included in a post leads to further information to illuminate or support what has been written The flowers do neither.

          7. ‘Morning Mahatma,I think it’s a lovely touch! Don’t stop for the rest of us, please.

    2. Well I hope Italy wins! I’m fed up with the kneeling, virtue-signaling destroyers of the British establishment. They will only use a victory to push more destruction, more virtue-signaling, more “anti-slavery” and “climate emergency” lies.
      If you politicise football, you can’t expect that everyone will support the country’s team any more.

      1. GM blackbox2, even though the African …..England team will probably take the kneel I am still hoping that they win & then England fans can celebrate by burning down the HoC, Brixton & East London !

        1. I’d like the precious darlings to win simply so that we don’t have to keep hearing how long it is since they’ve won anything.
          The Welsh team has never won the WC or EC but we don’t bang on about it.

      2. I won’t be watching it BB and it’s a matter of imbuggerance to me whether they win or not and the fans are a disgrace to this country

      3. ‘Morning bb2,

        Not supporting kneeling, virtue-signalling England doesn’t mean that you necessarily support Italy. You could be splendidly neutral and simply not care… :o)

        1. I’m supporting ABK
          (Anyone But Kneelers).
          Italy might kneel, in which case I will be neutral!!

      4. ‘Morning bb2,

        Not supporting kneeling, virtue-signalling England doesn’t mean that you necessarily support Italy. You could be splendidly neutral and simply not care… :o)

  20. I pondered this morning whether – now that Halfcock is in disgrace (though I read that he is planning to “return to government”) – Shitts is the present Davos puppet.

    Discuss.

    2. Morning Bill. Well I know it goes against instinct but Boris seems singularly helpless against the Soros Agenda. Perhaps he’s not as daft as he seems?

  21. ‘We need help’: Haiti urges US and UN troops to guard the country’s infrastructure. 11 July 2021.

    Haiti has urged the US and the UN to deploy troops to guard key infrastructure after the country was plunged into further turmoil after its president was killed by assassins purporting to be a US anti-narcotics squad.

    More help from those Evil Whiteys? This country has been ruled by blacks since 1804 where its inception was marked by a massacre of the White population. It has never been anything other than a sh*thole!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/10/need-help-haiti-asks-us-un-troops-guard-countrys-infrastructure/

        1. Very true – but they tend not to run poxy fifth world countries such as Haiti and Liberia.

          Just saying!

          1. No.
            Well Liberia, if I am correct, was another American experiment was it not? – Based on the idea of a return of slaves to the African continent to establish a foothold for the Enlightenment among the benighted darker peoples. – in this mad world I have to point out that I am being sarcastic, of course.

            Haiti was a shitshow from the outset, I think. Did it have any period of grace?

          3. “sarcastic”? No. Liberia was created by the Americans for slaves to establish and develop a proper home .

          4. I read Graham Greene’s The Comedians fifty five years ago when I was a student. I wonder if the wokes have decided that it should be placed on their banned list?

        2. Morning LiM. These things are always a matter of proportion. Not all white run states are models of governance (witness the UK) but on balance they will almost always be better than any state run by blacks

        3. Candace Owens is a very intelligent and articulate woman. If more black people were like her there would be no racism.

          1. I am inclined to agree. As with Candace Owens and Thomas Sowell You listen to what they are saying. You’re not even thinking about them being black.
            Same goes for Trevor McDonald.

            You only start to notice these things when they are making a nuisance of themselves.

    2. With the nepotism, corruption, callous destruction of the economy, and culling of the elderly and basic denial of what is going on under the very noses of the people – in this country, and all over the “Enlightenment” world – we ought to be very concerned that the West does not become an almight basket case that would make Haiti look like a model of probity and social order.

    3. With the nepotism, corruption, callous destruction of the economy, and culling of the elderly and basic denial of what is going on under the very noses of the people – in this country, and all over the “Enlightenment” world – we ought to be very concerned that the West does not become an almight basket case that would make Haiti look like a model of probity and social order.

    3. Morning, you definitely aren’t living in east Cornwall then. It’s peeing down.

  23. Appreciate What You’ve Got

    A man goes to the doctors complaining that he can’t “get it up” and hasn’t been able to for many years now.

    So after a quick check-up the doctors tells the man to come back next week with his wife. Next week, they are both in front of the doctor.

    The doctor tells the man to step outside whilst he checks out his wife. He asks her to undress and lie on the bed.

    He then asks her to shake her bottom a bit.

    Then he asks her to put some fingers in her vagina. Then, finally, the doctor tells her to get dressed, and he steps outside to speak with her husband.

    “So what’s the problem, Doc?”

    “Well, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with you. She doesn’t turn me on, either!“

    2. “Wanted”?????? “I would like …” “Want” is a word used by toddlers; maybe Wilfred wrote the letter. My parents soon stopped such a baby word being used.
      And, of course, the date is wrong – but since I’m having problems remembering which day it is – let alone the year – we should let him off. After all, it’s highly likely that nobody around him knows the year, either.

        1. I don’t think it’s correct either, but it is quite common nowadays to see the addressee & their address at the foot of a letter instead of at the had.

        2. He missed off the address. I’ve seen many letters with the name and address underneath.
          I do it when writing to behemoths such as large corporations and government departments. The copy is reminder to me of to whom i wrote the letter and pin points recipient. Hany for when you sent a follow-up letter. (Hint – don’t address the reminder to Dear Deaf, Blind and Mentally Retarded Scumbag… The letter should also not include phrases like “get up off your a*se” ….)

      2. It’s still being called Euro 2020 because that’s when it should have been held.

      3. Good morning Anne

        ‘Want’ also means lack. e.g. “It was not through want of effort that Bloggs Minor failed his school exams.”

      1. Boris runs the ‘t’ and ‘h’ together. Look at ‘the’ two words later.

        1. That is precisely the point I am making with my comment. It is why I inserted an ħ in place of the expected th.

    5. “in all their lives’

      After COVID… re-incarnation or is it re-inCarrynation

      1. Three Lions on his shirt at Longleat – Boris Johnson can become Prey Pride!

    9. Its salutations are upside down. It looks like it’s adressed to the Prime Minister and is from Gareth Southgate.

  25. An article in the Telegraph about white suppremacy in teaching etc . .
    Staff have been asked to consider whether “someone from the Global South” . . . etc
    I think they mean Black People . . .?

    1. “Global South” indicates to me anywhere in that hemisphere of the globe south of the equator.

    3. For screaming out loud! If someone is here, inn this country then they are either British or temporarily visiting and shouldn’t have childrne in school.

      If they’re British then their skin colour is a differentiator – as that can affect some medical treatments as well. If a man is mentally ill and choose to call himself female then he can choose to be treated medically as a woman – and awake screaming on the table – or accept the biological truth.

  26. On a vacuous (American, naturally) YouTube channel hysterically entitled: 10 Most Illegal Dog Breeds In the World! I posted a comment:

    Anyone entitling a video “Most illegal” isn’t intelligent enough to be permitted to do so. Something is either illegal or it is not. There aren’t any degrees of illegality.

    I received an (expected) retort from “Jason Bourne”:

    There are definitely degrees of illegal, that’s why we have misdemeanors and felonies, each having different classes and levels of punishment. If not, you’d get life in prison for stealing a candy bar or just probation for murder. Not to mention all things illegal aren’t criminal, some are civil.

    I then advised “Jason Bourne”:

    Your reply misses the point. Having spent much of my life in law enforcement I know that there are different categories of crime. That was not my point. I was taking about “degrees of illegality”. You cannot have some crimes that are “illegal” (i.e. against the law); some that are “not illegal” (i.e. completely lawful), then a group of others somewhere in the middle that are “mainly illegal”, “probably illegal”, or are “just a touch illegal”. Legality is clear cut: something is either legal or it is illegal, lawful or against the law, there is no hazy centre ground.

    I sometimes wonder why I engage such vacuum-heads.

    2. “I sometimes wonder why I engage such vacuum-heads”.

      Because everyone needs to go out and play sometimes. Just make sure you’re back before Tea.

        2. As if you need to ask…bread and dripping of course. Though to a northerner it’s probably known as bread and dip.

    3. “The problem with arguing with stupid people is that the drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience!”
      (c) WSC, I think.

      1. Percentage of the population that has arrived by dinghy in the last three months?

    1. For those that are worried about the carbon footprint of billionaire space missions they have arranged for global Winter lockdowns for the serfs to cover it.

    2. Yo, Tryers.

      No decent, knighted, multi-billionaire would embarked on a space race against others of his peer group. He would have invited them all (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Soros, Musk, et al) to join him on his flight.

    1. The H of L is a legislative assembly. If it had a few testicles – it would pass an Act outlawing this bollox.

      1. My understanding, Bill, is that The Lords are there soley as an amending, modifying and overseeing chamber, of legislation passed up by The Commons. I doubt if they can instigate legislation, deserved or not.

        But I’m not a lawyer.

        1. Nor am I.

          They can and do promote legislation. The Bill about killing animals is a Lords Bill.

          I was just thinking aloud – and wondering why the Second Chamber allows itself to be bossed about by woke nonentities.

    2. Stanley Kalms is in his 90th year. Apart from being a family man, a successful businessman and a Conservative, he is of Jewish heritage. If he perceives a ‘wokery’ course as a cover for marxist or maoist propaganda, it is easy to see why he wishes to stand squarely against it.

    3. Stanley Kalms is in his 90th year. Apart from being a family man, a successful businessman and a Conservative, he is of Jewish heritage. If he perceives a ‘wokery’ course as a cover for marxist or maoist propaganda, it is easy to see why he wishes to stand squarely against it.

      1. Respect for those who are attending, I imagine.

        I went along to the work one. Best hours sleep I had.

    1. Every able-bodied man and woman in the nation should RISE UP and deal with the threat head-on! Time to arm. Grab your keyboards and send off some tut-tutting letters to Twitter!

      Oh, if only Wat Tyler, Robert Kett, George Loveless and the Kinder Scout trespassers had access to Facebook. Just think of the comments they could have posted (and remained alive).

    2. I saw that from the TPA – yeah, right. Shaft the pensioner in an effort to save money? How about starting with child benefit, any benefit without ensuring people at least try for a job, foreign aid, stopping the freeloaders instead of bringing them to Dover … Plenty of ways to cut down on splashing the cash without penalising the aged.

    1. I’ve always been a bit wary of so called “fact checkers” especially after researching the funding of some of them!

      1. “Fact checkers” are close relatives of YouGov – the poll that gives the answer YOU want.

    2. It is true that the Nuremburg code no longer applies as legislation.

      But the principles are not rocket science and in fact are enshrined in law in Western nations. National interests do not trump the interests of citizens when it comes to medical experimentation.

    3. Does not apply… undergone extensive clinical trials.

      Remind me, this vaccine didn’t exist until government poured money into creating it recently?

      Emergency use authorisation? That’s nice, but forcing people to use it by governmant mandate does not mean you have given consent.

      Do these ‘fact checkers’ even read what they have written, or are they so furiously devoted to their ideology that they have lost all sense of perspective?

      1. You don’t have to have it, any more than you have to have a driving licence. If you choose not to though, there may be restrictions on what you can do, just like not being permitted to drive without a licence.

        1. Yes, which I think is just as bad as coercion. A licence shows a basic ability to operate a vehicle in an environment with others (unless you’re in Soton, where being able to drive is irrelevant considering how people *do* drive).

          A vaccine isn’t evidence that you’re not a carrier for or going to be infected by covid. It’s solely to help your own body defend against the virus. No one else benefits from your choice – only you.

        2. Not having a driving licence (or insurance) doesn’t seem to stop some people …

  33. Just upset the wife, she was changing the bedding and all i said was do you do that every time England reach a cup final.
    Going out the garden for a while

  34. I laughed at the letter asking how we would cope in an extreme winter in Johnson’s Green utopia. Doesn’t the fool realise that with global warming we will never see extreme winters or that all those people from hot countries must know something to make such efforts to come here.

    Mind you, what do I know? I never quite understood why Saint Greta was so worried about global warming when she lived in one of the coldest countries in the world.

  35. I laughed at the letter asking how we would cope in an extreme winter in Johnson’s Green utopia. Doesn’t the fool realise that with global warming we will never see extreme winters or that all those people from hot countries must know something to make such efforts to come here.

    Mind you, what do I know? I never quite understood why Saint Greta was so worried about global warming when she lived in one of the coldest countries in the world.

    1. But, unfortunately, there will be NO medical staff available because 110% of them are devoted to Covid. So, they’ll all DIE – AND, very conveniently, add to the covid “deaths”.

      1. And the rest are self isolating after being pinged by Track and Vanished with No Trace.

    1. I wish Neil Oliver were in government. He is one of the few media personalities who speaks common sense with conviction.

      1. I like what he says, but, as with Bob Dylan’s songs, I wish someone else would say them. I find his voice very whiny.

        1. I wish he’d cut his hair. As for the voice – he is Scots. That whine is universal.

          (Takes shelter).

    2. Neil Oliver is totally right. However I see little recognition amongst our circle of friends that “freedom” is being denied us or made conditional. Everyone we meet via our bowls matches is so proud to say that they’ve had the two doses if whatever “vax” and are utterly astonished when we say no we haven’t and have no intention of doing so.

      Professor S(W)hitty said weeks ago that we have to live with this virus like we do flu. Government/scientists don’t coerce/bribe people, including children, to have a flu jab and then a booster in the autumn. Why can’t they see what’s really going on?

        1. Is that intelligence though? It’s easy to laugh and point at the black people and the A-rabs but.. when you’ve no need to understand complex tasks as your life is practically subsistence level it doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it means your brain hasn’t made the interconnects that higher order thinking entails.

          1. I have always been wary of IQ as a measure. I would rather have a local who knows their territory well than a supposedly high IQ individual. Some of the supposedly cleverest people I have know would probably die quickly away from their support. By territory I do not just mean land, it includes such things as physical skills, and in certain areas intellectual skills.

            However, I think that the “modern world” has existed long enough to suggest that certain people are incapable of making the most of it, wherever you place them, and there is a common denominator at play.

          2. Yes, I agree. It took me a while to recognise that there are different levels of intelligence and different types of intelligence. I was born intelligent and assumed, not knowing any better, that everyone was as smart as I was. I assumed it about teachers and continued to do so for a long time, even though the evidence suggested otherwise. Eventually, and by that I mean recently, I realised that everyone hates a smartarse, even when you are not showing off. By contrast everyone loves strong people and beautiful people.
            I eventually twigged about physical intelligence such as sports people. There is also the intelligence that tradesmen need, joiners and shoemakers and so on. There are people with people intelligence and they are the ones who have lots of friends who like them. Putting it succinctly, If I need a shelf put up I ask a joiner, and not a professor.
            There are many shades and variations of intelligence and they are not always easy to spot.

          3. ‘Afternoon, Sos, “…certain people are incapable of making the most of it, wherever you place them,...”

            Most seem to have been placed in The Commons.

    3. Hang on, is that intelligence or education? As the two are different.

      Notable that Canda mens are brighter than yankee doodles.

      Something I would like to know is if parts of the UK are less intelligent/educated than others.

    5. China is patchy I think – they are not all Japan/Korea/Singapore level. I’ve seen their national average estimated at 100.

    6. Given that the West, with it’s diverse Benefits Systems, has been in the grip of a huge Reverse Eugenics Programme where the least valuable to Society are given everything they need to increase their numbers whilst the most valuable, the one who actually pay the taxes used to support the former, are penalised should the DARE to have children!

      1. Hi Bob! Just found your post from a couple of days ago! Our (nearly) son in law had a stroke a week past Monday and is now in the stroke unit! Vic and the twins are here with us and life has changed a lot! You’ll be pleased to know we KBO!

        1. I hope you’re coping. It’s getting like the Noel Coward song and as you say, KBO.

  41. I wonder what the woke, scaredy-cat Full Covidians would do if there ever was a REAL emergency facing the country….

  42. Has anyone here got an ‘Alexa’?
    If you have, try asking “Alexa, is it coming home?”

    Amusing

      1. I don’t think I’d want one. It is constantly listening even when you don’t activate it.
        One of my colleagues said he and his housemate were discussing going shopping and whether to go to Tesco or Co-op and ten min later, voucher codes for both appeared on his Facebook page.
        Could have been coincidental.

        1. I’ve heard that as well, It seems to listen to everything people say.
          I got fed up with it when i had asked for some music to be played and it seemed to want me to sign up for payment. Off it went.
          I then asked for un-ravels bolero.

        3. Google does that – you might be innocently looking at vacuum cleaners and then up pops an ad on Facebook.

          1. I know. I was looking into hearing aids for ‘the’ mother (see another post 🙂 ) and now I get bombarded with ads for them.

          2. 4 or 5 years ago everyone was given the opt out for customised adverts. Don’t know if it is still available.

          3. Whenever I’m reading something and up pops the privacy thing – I opt out of everything, but I don’t think google & facebook give you that choice.

          4. I always say yes to cookies but have programmes that remove them all, when I’m ready to exit.

          5. If you clear everything – that would account for the difficulties you have with Disqus. I hardly ever log out & don’t usually have any trouble.

            I don’t like websites that track you. I don’t want personalised ads and I always block sites that want to send you spam.

          6. Whether you like or dislike websites that track you, upon cleaning, I’m rarely notified of anything less than 400 trackers that have been removed.

            By now, J, you must have thousands of trackers on your computer. Try Ccleaner (it’s free).

          7. Funny you call the dear Mater, ‘The Mother’.

            We, my brother and I, did the same with ours. Fine old gal, who’d drink anyone under the table. Sadly missed.

          8. Afternoon Nanners. If you read further down you’ll see that ‘the’ mother was following my comment on Bob’s referring to ‘the wife’.

          9. Using pi hole and with compulsary ad blockers on every browser the number of ads I see is practically 0. Because I’m a sod, I also proxy most of our traffic to keep an eye on it and when Junior plays a game I block the ads that are called from that.

            Some sites are white listed of course, but I’ve no interest in any profiling or sales. Ads are just annoying and I pay no attention to them.

          10. I used to correspond regularly with a friend who had a gmail address. We deliberately wrote about idiotic things (it all stemmed from discussing “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”) to see what adverts we got.

        4. It listens when you use the command phrase. The rest of the time it doesn’t know what to do, so it’s only really listening for ‘Alexa’.

      1. I bought Alexa but because i never spoke to her i thought she was getting lonely. So i bought Siri to keep her company. Now they just gossip all day and when i ask a question they just say Shhh !

  43. Chum arriving soon – so I am off. Maddening weather. A 7 am mist; 9 am glorious sun; now heavy cloud – which looks set. Still, the MR is determined that we have lunch in the garden, so I am looking out anorak, rain hat, wellies…

    Back later for a look in. Hope you relish the “lady” umpire in the Gentlemen’s Final at Dumbledom. A real looker.

      1. Hi Plum! He’s rather gorgeous isn’t he? In fact, my younger daughter reckons that there is absolutely nothing wrong about his face – every feature perfect! Bit like me, really!

          1. Good grief! Not that bad tempered bu**er! The glorious Italian! I am old enough to remember Adriano Panatta! Got to say though, he doesn’t look so great nowadays! But then again, neither do I!😱

  44. Quiet night at work last night, my colleague suggested we try doing an online quiz. I love doing quizzes but, dear God, it was like pulling teeth.

    Didn’t know who Shakespeare was
    Had never heard of Snowdon, Scafell Pike or Ben Nevis
    Thought Israel was the capital of Egypt
    Didn’t know how many centimetres in a metre

    but he seemed to enjoy it and when we scored 87/100 remarked on how well we’d done!

    To give him his due, he did get 4/5 of the children’s TV questions right. (He’s about 27/28 yo)

    I’m working with him again tonight 🙁

      1. It frightens me that people like that can pass an interview for the job.
        It’s not high level stuff, but he is responsible for imparting information to patients and dealing with their enquiries.

        1. It’s all become very worrying. What on earth were they all doing at school ?

          2. I lost faith in state run schools before I left at 15 1/2. We then had a form teacher who was French, she was a lovely young lady, but we were not allowed to learn French. The long hill I cycled up nearly every day became more and more arduous.

          3. We were taught by old-school teachers who grew up and were educated in the early years of the 20th century – they knew their stuff and hadn’t been distracted by all the modern gizmos people have these days.

          4. I remember them well Ellie but many of them had a nasty streak. Two spinsters well known, were Miss Williams, Miss Jones and a couple of gay men with even less patients.

          5. Most of mine were good people – even Miss Harper the geography teacher ( Harpic – clean round the bend) who used to stand and stare at us until everyone was silent and facing the front………. she went to teach girls in Kenya and sent some interesting letters back to school.

            Another – a young history teacher was so scared of the girls that she became a target for mischief and eventually admitted defeat and retreated to academic life. I guess that was why Miss Harper didn’t want to show any sign of weakness.

          6. “…many of them had a nasty streak. Two spinsters…”

            Our Roman Catholic primary school had a lay teacher who was the epitome of the dried-up, late middle-aged spinster with a bad attitude and a view of the world completely at odds with what you might suppose to be the tolerant ethos of Christianity. On the first day of the new school year she would decide who her pets were and who were not. If you weren’t in her good books, no amount of academic brilliance would persuade her to give you a good report.

            Her habit of interrogating the class on a Monday to see who hadn’t been to church on a Sunday was tolerated by the head but came to the notice of a young priest newly attached to the school. He took a dim view of this, opining that the New Testament didn’t demand compulsory attendance at church to prove Christian virtue. This was a bit too radical for the Birmingham RC diocese in 1968 so he soon found himself on missionary work in South America.

          7. I also had a miss at infant school who slapped the backs of my legs with a ruler because at 5 years old I had difficulty writing 8, I use to put one circle on another. Which was basically the same. Miss bloody Bishop. The head mistress was also an elderly Miss, she was horrible.
            On my firsdt day and introduction i was just coming up the five. I said hello as my mother took me through the door and she shouted “WE DON’T SAY HELLO HERE, WE SAY GOOD MORNING” !
            Something really strange happened to me, about a year after my father had died in 1979 there was a memorial service at St Mary’s church in Hendon where my parents lived and were married. the vicar who used to be a RI teacher at the school local was conducting the service. he stood at the door as the congregation left and we shook hands and said thank you and good bye. More than 18 years on, he remembered my full name. I thought that was very scary, he was one of the people I mentioned in the above.

          9. Again, J, #MeToo most were WWII veterans and took no nonsense – or prisoners.

        2. #MeToo, Stormy, I’m amazed at the ignorance of today’s ‘young’, as commonly exhibited on ‘The Chase’, Tipping Point’ and ‘Impossible’ to name but a few. Young Hoi Polloi outside Uni, would be stumped with ‘University Challenge’, ‘Only Connect’ and ‘Mastermind’.

          I put it down to the lax and brainwashing re-education system. Ask them about ‘Love Island’ and the current (c)rapper clique and they’re in their element – but that’s about all.

          1. TBF, there was a grammar school educated girl amongst our 20 something social group whose ignorance was a constant source of embarrassment to her fiance.
            I think it reflects as much on the incurious one rather than a whole generation.

          2. True memory from an English lesson c.1960 :
            Teacher: Doreen – make an adjective from ‘to decide’
            Doreen: Deciduous.

    2. Snowdon was a photographer, yes? Scafell Pike – some kind of predatory fish, and Ben Nevis is the guy works down the chipshop who thinks he’s Elvis?
      Morning( just), Stormy!

      1. You got got that wrong Obs, Scarfell was the commie miner’s leader and Pike was in Dad’s Army but don’t tell him 😉😃😄😆

    3. What an idiot. Everyone knows the Pyramids are the capital of Israel!

      There are centi metres in a metre. – hang on, even trying to get that wrong the answer’s in the name!

      My mother would continually convert metric into imperial – and get the calculations wrong. In a fit of pique when asked ‘how far is 12cm’ I said 12cm! It’s blasted 12cm! Use metric! She retorted with ‘Explain it to me in one word’ – thinking i couldn’t. I replied. Ten! Everything is base bally ten!

          1. I had a holiday on the Faroe Isles once and I was so pissed off. There were no pyramids, no camels and no bloody Sphinx!

            I sued Thomson.

          5. Is it possible to buy new red (or any other colour) plastic covers for a SAK, Pud?

          6. Yes they are sold on Ebay by suppliers in Russia & the Ukraine & directly from knife retailers in various European countries . To fit them on yourself you will need a hand held vice & do it very slowly & carefully as they are liable to break or be marked if too much pressure is applied
            Here are links to 3 of the suppliers I have bought from, check if the price including shipping is more than the cost of a new knife & check what size cover ( called Scales ) you need , a full set or just front or back, with or without accessories ( tweezer, toothpick, pin, pen, lanyard ) etc & last check out SAK expert Felix Immler’s How to Change the scales guide
            https://www.ebay.com/sch/viktryls/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=
            https://www.ebay.com/sch/nataliyrylsk_0/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=
            https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ssn=andrey543&_osacat=0&_armrs=1&_odkw=&_from=R40&_trksid=p2046732.m570.l1313&_nkw=victorinox&_sacat=0

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzfB7OZ70sc&t=18s

          7. Thanks for that, Pud. As the bloke says: It’s always wise to put some tape on the cheeks of your wice!

      3. Gosh, I thought I was the world champion at annoying my children by being oldfashioned.

    6. Did he know that Nelson was an English Admiral & not a Black Terrorist, that Winston was a British prime minister & not a Black gangster & that English Muffins are actually American ?

      1. Didn’t someone suggest that Winnie Mandella should sit upon Nelson’s Column?

    7. One of my student jobs was presenting pub quizzes. Once I was in a pub so rough and lame that there weren’t enough people to make teams. So I called up reinforcements from the student house where I lived. A team of bright young things duly arrived.
      My student friends sized up the opposition and deliberately returned the wrong answers. A local team won.
      Later, the students confessed that they had been afraid that if they won, they would be physically attacked!

  46. Poor bitter Scots.

    ‘Save us Roberto’: Scottish newspaper causes stir with front-page support for Italy in Euro 2020 final

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eca9d391fb25aac22ea5effd52a63a6de7ecc0bf93a83136c7b6ec38ebdc947a.jpg
    https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/scotland-national-paper-italy-england-euro-b1881684.html

    Isn’t there a bit of a failure of logic here? Surely if England win tonight, the English will no longer be banging on about 1966 – and it’s unlikely that it’ll be another 55 years to the next one.

    Dunces…

    2. It is no surprise that some Scots would be happy staying in or returning to the EU as they would be with their spiritual soul-mates who are also spiteful, vindictive and nasty.
      Having said that we have some very good Scottish friends who are very decent people and the Scottish Sixth Formers who have come on our courses in France have all been delightful young people.

    3. Jokers. Lighten up. It’s not a matter of life and death. We’re having Spaghetti Bolognese for tea, with garlic bread, and a bottle of Morellino di Scansano.

      2. “It’s not a matter of Life and Death. It’s much more serious than that!”

    4. If one produced a ranking of peoples who hate their neighbours I suspect the Scots would be in the top division.

    5. Over the years the Jocks have produced some of the best players in Britain (think Kenny Dalglish) and they have been eagerly snapped up by English clubs. The problem has always been that when you collect them all together and swathe them in the blue shirts of Jockland, they fail to gel.

      1. If there were a British team, the men’s team may well have won the WC years ago. Think Dalgleish, Giggs, Rush, Souness, Hanson, Bale, Southall etc all combining at different times with yer Rooneys, yer Beckhams, yer Robsons etc

      2. For a country with a population of about five million, they do amazingly well in international tournaments.

        1. I must quibble. Scotland had a very good record up to the 1990s. They qualified for the World Cup finals in 1954 and 1958, then each of the five tournaments from 1974 to 1990 (England missed two of these) and 1998 but not since. The European Championship: 1992, 1996 and this one.

  47. I’ve just had a thought. Instead of giving an extra day off to everyone if Ingerland wins the soccer tonight, what about giving double pay to those who couldn’t watch the match because they had to work?

    I don’t agree with either mesel’ but at least I would feel some benefit from the latter. (We NHS staff already get too much leave)

    1. What about giving everyone a day of unpaid extra work if Ingerland loses?

      1. What about those people who aren’t interested in the football at all, and are watching the Superbet Chess?

  48. This has slipped by with little comment, It seems.
    “G20 finance ministers have backed an “historic” plan which will see multinational companies pay their “fair share” of tax around the world.
    The plan to battle tax avoidance puts in place a minimum global corporate tax rate of 15%.
    It is likely to affect companies like Amazon and Facebook”.
    Up until now international businesses have been able to use transfer pricing to move the “source” of profits around. Amazon makes little profit in the UK as sales and profits are electronically “based” in Luxembourg. Companies, like Apple, are based in Ireland and Ireland has refused to sign up to this new tax plan. Irish tax is significantly lower and is the reason Apple is based in Ireland. Higher taxes might prompt them to up sticks and move elsewhere.
    Lower tax rates and financial inducements are an important consideration in locating a multinational enterprise.
    The whole point of being an independent UK is being free to manage ourselves. The EU “level playing field” is baloney and merely a pressure to prevent the UK becoming competitive. Signing up to an agreement like this is to tie our hands when dealing with multinational companies.
    My idea would be for the UK to offer a scale of tax to be applied to turnover. The placement on the scale would relate to the level of employee pay and the number of employees.
    So if Amazon were to pay all workers high wages, say at least twice the minimum wage then they would pay a low rate of turnover tax. Those high wages would be spent in the UK economy and the workers would pay tax.
    At present Amazon has a large warehousing operation in Scotland, premises built by taxpayers, and the wages are so low that the government is having to pay Social Security benefits to workers. The UK is subsidising Amazon’s profits.

    I’d like Thayaric to comment on this, please.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-57791617
    https://theferret.scot/amazon-workers-pay-buses/

      1. Yes, but won’t the EU compel the Irish to do as they are told and have the same corporation tax rate as the rest of the EU which is determined to ‘harmonise’ tax rates?

        As I commented the other day the whole of Wales should become a corporation tax haven offering only 5% corporation tax and then all the multinational companies would leave Ireland and come to Wales.

          3. The RoI has moved from being a net beneficiary to a net contributor after Brexit.

            The UK was a huge net contributor, and we have been compelled for years.

        2. Wales uses the same tax laws as the rest of the UK. A 5% corporation tax rate would be a fantastic idea and bring in wealth the like we couldn’t conceive.

    2. Boris Johnson and none of his ministers are remotely interested in common sense.

    3. My idea, which I floated some while ago, is to add an extra tax equivalent to 110% of the in-work benefits their employees receive.

      1. Why? The bosses have no control over government subsidy. Government could choose to take less in tax from the worker, removing the need for the subsidy, but it doesn’t.

        It’s really not complicated. If you rob people continually giving them their own money back is not generosity, it’s stupidity.

    4. The saying ” in life the two things you cant avoid is death and taxation ” has been invalid for for decades – if you are Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, Twitter, international banks & other large corporations and their owners and major shareholders you can avoid taxation and they have legions of accountants & tax lawyers who will help them find a way of avoiding fair taxation no matter what new politically inspired laws are passed by Globalist governments who are in essence the servants of big multi-national corporations & not the voters !

      1. Tax? Pah, that’s for little people.

        Some of them think they will avoid dying too, but they will meet the Grim Reaper just like the rest of us.

      2. Very few people worked on Amazon’s tax vehicle. No, shareholders don’t avoid corporation tax. They get hammered as usually they’re pension holders.

        There is NOTHING ‘fair’ about 23% of profits being taken by the state on top of all the other taxes stolen from a company.

        You are right to point out that corporatist government – ours, and most other incompetent, massive, over paid, feather bedded and oppressive governments are easily bought. That’s corruption and greed and fairly easy to solve: shred the state, run a combine through it, spin, slice and puree then strain the remains. When a dribble remains from the bloated waste – hell, half people are needed to run HP’s entire global operation than infest the home office – not police, prison officers, just administrators.

    5. Many countries, Including Republic of Ireland have flatly refused it. They cannot afford to lose Amazon and the like of tax bilckers.

      1. It’s notable that all the countries who propose it have taxes higher than that already, so they’re not really agreeing to anything.

        It won’t make a jot of difference to the nations who have low taxes specifically to attract businesses – because they’re not stupid.

        It’s a strange thing, but the nations with high taxes keep hiking taxes and keep losing money. They also spend that money before they’ve earned it, thus are heavily indebted.

        In contrast, nations where taxes are low but public services better look on and sigh rather heavily and point out that high taxes are not the answer. Small, efficient government is.

    6. Easy solution. Set corporation tax at.. oh.. 3%. Stuff this nonsense about tax harmonisation, it only does harm. The clue’s in the name.

      At the moment, the state sees nothing of these company’s income, and rightly so. Tax competitiveness is vital to force governments to offer more, as in any market.

      Then scrap all the screeds of idiotic stealth taxes, loopholes, cheats and fiddles that big companies buy from a massive, incompetent, arrogant, fundamentally *stupid* government.

      No, the UK is not subsidising Amazon. The wages are the minimum wage – a wage which has so little bearing on the cost of living – which is mostly tax at that level – that it’s pointless increasing it as for every £1, the receipient sees barely 30p.

      Sadly, the employees do pay tax. Lots and lots and lots of it. Council, fuel, energy, green, water, business rates, VAT, road tax, employer NI and employee NI. The government is simply stealing from the employee and because of those taxes is having to give some of the money it has taken back. This massive movement of cash from the worker, through the incompetent, inefficient, inept state machine and back to the worker is why people on low wages are poor. It is why productive efforts are crushed by the hard working and why the productive higher earners are inefficient, because they are specifically induced to work *less* to avoid tax.

      The problem here is not Amazon, Apple or any other industry. The problem is fat, lazy, stupid, gormless, featherbedded, fundamentally cretinous greedy statists..

  49. Virgin Galactic to launch space plane with Richard Branson on board. 11 July 2021.

    British entrepreneur Richard Branson is set to fly to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane on Sunday, days ahead of a rival launch by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as the two billionaires race to kick off an era of space tourism.

    Branson’s extraterrestrial venture Virgin Galactic will send its space plane into sub-orbital flight on Sunday morning, aimed at reaching 55 miles above Earth at its peak altitude.

    The bad news is that he’s coming back!

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/10/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-orbit

          3. Good afternoon, Uncle Bill. I am instructed by a higher power to register a complaint with G&P Enterprises about the lack of pictures. 🙂

          4. I try, John – but they won’t sit still. The only time they are still is when they are asleep – and you have seen lots of those snaps!!

            Watch this space.

    2. The bad news is that he’s coming back!
      Agreed if he does return I hope he’ll be in a bit of a pickle. And jarred for life.

  50. 335287+ up ticks,
    Take it as given they are isis or potential paedophiles / felons better safe than future airborne arses and raped & abused lifelong mentally damaged kids in multitude.

    These governance parties have been the prime cause of ALL our odious issues and in many cases with the parents / people’s consent.
    The innocents have been sh!t on on a regular basis not only by the politico’s but by those supporting these abhorrent governance overseeing criminal cartels,

    https://twitter.com/NatalieHats/status/1414164825245159427

  51. “A 90-year-old woman who died after falling ill with Covid-19 was infected with both the alpha and beta variants of the coronavirus at the same time, researchers in Belgium said on Sunday, adding that the rare phenomenon may be underestimated.”

    Right. Shut everything down. Nail up every door and window. Shoot anyone who dare to venture outside.

    She’s already lived 9 years above the average Belgian female lifespan, but we cannot be too careful

      1. The dear old lady had carers at home, and then had several falls. So who pushed her?
        Not vaccinated in time, because she died in March and lived in Belgium (cruel and unusual punishment)
        If she had lived in England she could have been jabbed in late December with Pzizer Biontech.
        Conclusion, she was murdered by the Belgian authorities.

    3. There are no alpha and beta variants. There are corona viruses which have been around for decades. Just as there was no universal vaccine for influenza there is no universal vaccine for corona viruses.

      This Covid invention is a fraud perpetrated on a global scale by tech media, universities, government agencies and pharmaceutical corporations.

      A vaccine by definition gives immunity to infection. These ‘Covid vaccinations’ are anything but vaccinations. They are designed to implant toxic pathogens into the bodies of recipients and have been long in the planning.

    4. It’s worser as it’s spreading.
      “Australia has reported its first locally contracted coronavirus death this year.
      The authorities said a woman, in her 90s, died in Sydney. She had contracted the virus in a family setting.”
      Soon 90 year-olds will be dying off everywhere, so the advice from SAGE is “do not visit your grannie”.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-57793539

        1. Well, if they’re all in the same place, let’s build a wall around it, flood the Thames and in solving a problem, also create the world’s biggest swimming pool.

  53. Euro 2020 final live: ‘Brexit effect’ means Europe supports us, says Italian press.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/euro-2021/2021/07/11/euro-final-live-england-vs-italy-2020-team-line-news-wembley/

    BTL Comment:

    The truth of the matter is that Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (PIIGS) would be far better off outside the EU and many Danes. French and Dutch are keen to leave it not to mention the Eastern countries.

    And don’t forget that both the French and the Dutch voted conclusively against the European Treaty but both their referendums were ignored and so it was reintroduced as the Lisbon Treaty and nobody was given another chance to put his or her point of view.

    2. Baby-Gro appeared about that time. We were terribly hip and happening because our sons wore them.

    1. Probably, George, it has bypassed me, because they insist on you logging in or registering – neither of which I am prepared to do. It’s bad enough with Twatter and Ar5ebook. I neither need, nor want, another.

    1. Reminds me of the old tongue twister: “Red lorry, yellow lorry”, but the Russian version.

    2. Given the standard of Russian driving seen on YouTube videos it won’t be long before it’s blocked by crashes.

  57. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.”

    Friedrich von Schiller.

    1. ‘Afternoon, George, Translates as, “The gods themselves struggle with stupidity in vain.”

      Shades of, “Those that the gods despise, they first make mad.”

      1. Yes, Tom. I’m fully aware of the translation (that’s why I posted it).

        I’m convinced that the entire human species is becoming stupider by the second. I never thought I’d ever hear myself say that I’m far happier to be 70 than 17.

  58. TWELVE COMMANDMENTS FOR SENIORS

    #1 – Talk to yourself. There are times you need expert advice.

    #2 – “In Style” are the clothes that still fit.

    #3 – You don’t need anger management. You need people to stop pissing you off.

    #4 – Your people skills are just fine. It’s your tolerance for idiots that needs work.

    #5 – The biggest lie you tell yourself is, “I don’t need to write that down. I’ll remember it.”

    #6 – “On time” is when you get there.

    #7 – Even duct tape can’t fix stupid, but it sure does muffle the sound.

    #8 – It would be wonderful if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes, then come out wrinkle-free and three sizes

    smaller?

    #9 – Lately, you’ve noticed people your age are so much older than you.

    #10 – Growing old should have taken longer.

    #11 – Aging has slowed you down, but it hasn’t shut you up.

    #12 – You still haven’t learned to act your age and hope you never will.

    . . . And one more:

    “One for the road” means peeing before you leave the house

    1. Well Cllr Varney – perhaps you’d like to house and support a few of them, you utter cretin!

    2. Commissar Andrew Varney is the Deputy Lord Mayor of Bristol 2021-2022. Liberal Democrat Councillor for Brislington West. Environmentalist & Cycling Enthusiast. Somebody needs to throw him & his bike into the sea !

    4. These are NOT refugees. They are illegal economic migrants.

      Mr Varney, here’s the bill. Oh, and you’re going to jail for their crimes. Sounds fair to me.

    1. Nor will I Mags – though I’m still looking for the party that might relate to, “Cometh the Hour, cometh the Party.” They’d better be quick about it.

        2. If it was Haiti, there would be Greenpeace or Antifa there with a sign saying “UNITED KINGDOM 4000 miles >>”

    3. The Tories pretend they don’t want them. Labour would invite even more. heck, they’d use border farce as a taxi service.

  61. Home Office ‘acting unlawfully’ in rush to deport asylum seekers. 11 July 2021.

    Hundreds of people arriving in England in small boats are being immediately detained in immigration removal centres, raising fears of a new, secret Home Office policy to deport them without their asylum claims being properly considered.

    This is just more obfuscation and disinformation! No one is actually being, or has been, deported!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/11/home-office-acting-unlawfully-in-rush-to-deport-asylum-seekers

      2. maanged to remember to bring a coat, but not his passport. Just load them in a container and up-end it over France.

    1. You can see it all slipping away! Those things that used to make the West great! The tolerance and humanity disappearing into history. The future will be as brutal as the Dark Ages and there will be no light from Christianity.

      1. The future will be as brutal as the Dark Ages islam and there will be no light from Christianity.

    1. It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again – Hadrian’s Wall is not the boundary between England and Scotland – the wall is entirely within English territory.

      1. Whilst you are undeniably correct, there are no significant English league football clubs, north of the wall. Berwick Rangers is an anomaly…

        2. I doubt that the original poster of the article had thought that deeply about the geographical implications.

        4. Gretna played in the English senior setup for 20 years before moving back to Scotland, rising spectacularly to the Premiership and then going bust.

          1. OK – I’ll grant you that one. Rather like Carlisle United’s ascent to the top of the old 1st division, for a few weeks, followed by their uninterrupted descent to the old 4th division. I blame Coleman, for his endless comments about sheep…

    1. Hope he has to isolate for 10 days – oh no, of course he won’t because he is “important”.

  67. Just for the record (for the minority who are interested!):

    England v. Italy in all finals tournaments
    1980 EC L 0-1 [group stage] (in Italy)
    1990 WC L 1-2 [3rd place play-off] (in Italy)
    2012 EC D 0-0, lost on penalties [QF] (in Ukraine)
    2014 WC L 1-2 [group stage] (in Brazil)

    EC finals won and lost on home soil
    1968 W Italy
    1984 W France
    2004 L Portugal (to Greece)
    2016 L France (to Portugal)

  68. Just for the record (for the minority who are interested!):

    England v. Italy in all finals tournaments
    1980 EC L 0-1 [group stage] (in Italy)
    1990 WC L 1-2 [3rd place play-off] (in Italy)
    2012 EC D 0-0, lost on penalties [QF] (in Ukraine)
    2014 WC L 1-2 [group stage] (in Brazil)

    EC finals won and lost on home soil
    1968 W Italy
    1984 W France
    2004 L Portugal (to Greece)
    2016 L France (to Portugal)

  69. The tennis is … exciting ..

    Berrettini is one hell of a chunk.. and doesn’t he play well.
    Certainly not without personality .. wow .

  70. Chum just gone. A smashing person. The complete opposite of me. She is a leftie limp dumb; a remainiac; a semi-Covidian – but I love her dearly. She is one of the very few people with diametrically opposite views that one can have a decent argument with and still end up the best of friends.

    Lunch in the garden. It DIDN’T rain. Chum loves cats and G & P spotted that and made her welcome!

    Lunch was one of the MR stunners. Salads; salmon (in two ways). Tortilla. My loaf, made this morning. A brie that had to be caught and killed as it attempted a getaway. Needed a spoon…!

    For four hours we were able (almost) to forge(t) the buggerment.

    I don’t suppose I missed anything – except another 500 illegals arriving….to watch the tennis.

    1. You forgot to put the t on ‘forge’

      I just could not resist telling you!!!! (Du Ja Dave)

    2. You forgot to put the t on ‘forge’

      I just could not resist telling you!!!! (Du Ja Dave)

    3. Sounds great. I also felt an uplift after seeing friends recently. Then another when they went. :@)

    1. We are due a boozy boys night.

      Then we will discuss it for 4 minutes and then move on to more important subjects. Like polishing our ‘how to be awkward skills’.

    5. Ahh, student days and girlie posters, but today probably a chap who has lost his balls.

      1. You can’t tell from a rear view. Could be a ‘transwoman’ wanting to win Wimbledon.

    1. Tut, tut. He is “important”. The rules do not apply to him. © John Effing Whittingdale MP.

      1. Back to the post about the virus being sentient. It clearly knows to only infect the little people, not self-important pricks like Whitty.

        2. Yo Ol

          Whitty, prolley the most inaptlyesterer named person in the Universe

        3. Yo Ol

          Whitty, prolley the most inaptlyesterer named person in the Universe

    4. He is not wearing a mask because he knows it is all bollocks. He also knows full well that if he can ensure that everyone is poisoned with the Covid shots he will become a billionaire.

      Edit: If you ever wish to identify the most evil charlatans on planet Earth just look at the occupants of the Royal Box at Wimbledon.

    5. I’m wondering if Vallance even likes Tennis. You get invited to one of these pre-paid boxes generally it’s a case of Champagne.

  74. Afternoon, all. Took Oscar to a local garden to have a walk around and picnic. It clearly blew his mind. The dog who obediently walked to heel this morning suddenly pulled like crazy (it took some time to re-establish order and correctness so we could progress in a sensible manner). When I stopped at the cafe for a drink, he forgot all about sitting quietly and waiting as usual and suddenly turned into a leaping, barking, thieving lunatic – again until order was established (by snarling at him, which first surprised, then amused the couple at the next table). After that, he was fine until I got back to the campervan and set up the picnic table whereupon he reverted to leaping, barking, thieving lunatic mode again until order was restored. To cap it all, on the way back he decided to travel with his back to the engine and bark at the back window! He eventually settled down until I stopped at a petrol station to top up, when you’d have thought he was being skinned alive. He was certainly channelling his inner Charlie then (it was Charlie’s trick whenever we stopped, even briefly). Two steps forward and one step back! Serves me right for boasting about his progress yesterday!

    1. I can practically guarantee when I tell people that Spartie is ‘everyone’s friend’ is the time he will be a stereotypical little yapper.

          2. I think he’s just been allowed to get away with things if he has a strop (he does have big teeth!) and thinks he can throw his toys out of the pram to get his own way. He has a rude awakening coming!

          4. I keep telling him that 🙂 I threatened to leave him in the woods on the way back if he didn’t stop barking. He stopped 🙂 Just as when I was getting him back from the vets and trying to put his harness on – he was rumbling and grumbling so I told him to stop or I’d leave him there. He stopped and his harness went on. The vet nurse was impressed 🙂

          5. It does sound like he is beginning to trust you. You might still get a nip though.

          6. I did this afternoon; I thought he’d got hold of some cling film used to cover the sandwiches and tried to make sure he hadn’t – he objected! I still have my fingers, though because he didn’t mean it 🙂 I can now take away his empty dish without getting bitten, so he is starting to accept me as pack leader in feeding terms.

          8. It’s just five weeks today. I put Charlie’s new collar on him today (I bought Charlie a new collar on the Saturday and he had to be put to sleep on the Tuesday, so he never really got the benefit of it) to signify to him he is no longer an ex-Dogs’ Home dog, he’s a dog with a loving home – and he’d better not forget it!

      2. Dotty just resents anyone coming onto the property and barks like a rottweiler. Postmen and delivery people are very scared (of treading on her!).

    2. Children, dogs… much the same.
      Little Cat has resumed his habit of slowly flexing his claws when having a stroke on my lap. One telling off, then summaily ejected with smacked paws. I guess they just forget, the wee pesky furry buggers.

        1. Cats are more intelligent than most humans. They will pretend to comply and then poo behind the sofa.

          3. It’s at the bottom of the stairs, just where a bare foot goes on the way to the kitchen… 🙁
            and, it’s only half a mouse… the inside half.

          5. One of ours (Tansy, a 14 year old rescue) went and died behind the sofa, having walked over our, and our guests knees and rubbed all our faces! She was quite a cat!

    3. Yep, Connors, just like children who also need discipline to help them identify the boundaries between good and bad behaviour. Good luck with the training, KBO.

      1. Over my quarter of a century at the chalkface, I had to deal with many examples of pupils who had no ideas of boundaries or discipline. It’s one of the reasons I can’t stand having an ill-disciplined dog. One of the greatest compliments paid to me when I take my dog somewhere (and Oscar will get this accolade eventually) is, “your dog is welcome; he’s better behaved than many children we get here”.

    2. Why is WD40 called by that name?

      It was the 40th attempt so produce a Water Displacement Fluid, for Atlas Missiles

      1. So it seems, he is Ex-Canadian regular Army & seems to know a lot about plants, flowers, growing things including veggies and has a lot of birds & wildlife where he lives out in the countryside.

    1. 335287+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Tell me Ogs are this johnson chap and his band of treacherous political tripe immortals ? one would surely think so.

    2. Lockdown is only here forever if everyone goes along with their stupid rules! so pluck up your courage and don’t!

      1. I got turned away from a Pub on Thursday night (we were going for a nightcap and to say goodbye to our visitors/guests/Nottlers).

        They had two tables of two. We were the (famous) five.

        What we needed was Rik-Redux and his SuperPower. (Mr Awkward)

        Say goodbye to your business.

      2. 335287+ up ticks,
        Evening VW,
        Or as long as the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration, ongoing / paedophile importer umbrella, close shop coalition still finds support via the polling booth.

  80. I wasn’t aware that this absurd bill was a hangback to the EU. It’s another terrible example of Napoleonic Code v. Common Law, the generic v. the specific. Who would have thought we would see our parliament propose a rights convention for fish? I propose Sue Perkins for shark bait.

    The Animal Sentience Bill is a textbook example of bad law

    Laws which are passed “to send a message” never work out well

    DANIEL HANNAN

    If you want to understand why some laws are so spectacularly misconceived and misdrafted, consider the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill currently clunking and spluttering its way through the parliamentary machine.

    The Bill declares that vertebrates are sentient beings, and establishes a permanent committee to tell the government what to do about it. Frankly, it might as well declare that water expands when frozen, and that a committee is hereby established to ensure that the government has due regard to that fact.

    No one disputes that animals are sentient. They obviously feel things and perceive the world around them. I wrote here a couple of years ago about the discovery that wrasse fish pass one of the tests of self-awareness, namely being able to recognise themselves in a mirror. It seems a fair bet that, if darting blue fish have a sense of themselves as beings separate from their environment, higher mammals will have deeper and more complex feelings.

    Guess what? Our laws already recognise that fact. The United Kingdom has some of the oldest and strongest animal welfare legislation anywhere in the world, stretching back to the early nineteenth century.

    Our existing legislation, unlike this proposed bill, is proportionate and purposeful. It balances the welfare of different kinds of animal. It distinguishes between pets and pests, between livestock and wild fauna. For in reality not all animals are equal. As Hillaire Belloc deliciously put it, playing with Coleridge’s famous lines:

    He prayeth best who loveth best
    All creatures great and small.
    The Streptococcus is the test:
    I love him least of all.

    To make things even more bizarre, we already have an Animal Welfare Committee, which is there precisely to advise on the humane treatment of animals. Ministers could always ask it to look into the whole question of animal sentience or, indeed, to build sentience into its remit – although, honestly, even that would be pointless, since the very concept of animal welfare presupposes sentience.

    Why, then, this new legislation? To what problem is it a solution?

    To answer that question, we need to go back to November 2017, when Britain was transposing EU laws onto the statute books in preparation for Brexit. Animal sentience had been recognised in the EU, but not in legislative form. Accordingly, it was not replicated. When an amendment was moved suggesting that it be shoehorned in anyway, ministers demurred on grounds that British animal welfare legislation was vastly more comprehensive than the EU’s and that declaratory statements had no place in statute.

    Labour then scurrilously claimed that the Tories had voted “against” animal sentience. This outrageous canard was picked up by some newspapers. “MPs just voted that ‘animals cannot feel pain or emotions’”, Tweeted the Evening Standard. “The Tories have rejected all scientists and voted that animals don’t feel pain as part of the Brexit bill,” reported the Independent.

    Although they later corrected their stories, the damage had been done. Dozens of celebrities piled in on the basis of the original falsehood (Sue Perkins’s Tweet was typical: “Shameful bastards, denying what is obvious – animal sentience”). MPs were deluged with outraged emails. In a panic, ministers promised a British animal sentience bill – a promise which found its way into the 2019 Conservative manifesto and so into the proposal currently before Parliament.

    A law, in other words, is being passed in response to fake news. Harmless enough, you might say. Except that it is precisely these declamatory laws – laws passed, as politicians like to put it, “to send a message” – that have unintended consequences. At the very least, this one will accelerate the shift in power from representatives (whom we can sack) to officials (whom we can’t). And once animal sentience becomes the test of every policy, who knows where it might lead. To the banning of zoos? Of horse-racing? Of pets?

    No doubt a case can be made for each of those things. But are these not precisely the kind of sensitive questions that should be determined by our elected representatives, acting on the basis of our collective sensibilities? What is the point of taking power back from one set of bureaucrats in Brussels only to hand it over to a different set in Whitehall?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/11/animal-sentience-bill-textbook-example-bad-law/

    1. It’s worse than bad law; it’s an attempt to kill livestock farming in the UK. It’s a full scale attack on our way of life.

      2. To continue the ‘sentient way’ of slaughtering animals for our food chain, just ban Halal

        Simples

        1. Halal slaughter is no different from the way animals have been killed for food consumption for thousands of years, all this nonsense about pre-stunning animals with electric shocks as being humane is a lie, its torturing them pointlessly before killing them & it came about to prevent Jews from having Kosher slaughter & drive them out of Europe and has gained momentum as a useful dig against the Muslims too!

      3. The Sentient Committee will, however, offer quite a few jobs for the boys (and girls).

  81. I have just finished watching Dr David Martin and Rainer Fuellmich linked by Korky this morning. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, it’s an analysis of the patents for the corona virus and the vaccines.
    https://brandnewtube.com/watch/dr-david-martin-dr-reiner-fuellmich-july-9-2021_RlmKScwsMf6ATEG.html

    It’s two hours, and very intense, but worth watching.
    – corona virus is not new or naturally occurring, and we know this because there are 73 patents on different parts of it, dating back 20 years.
    – the patent for one part of the vaccines was put in three days after the patent for the corresponding part of the virus, indicating the sharing of knowledge between two apparently unconnected companies.
    – at 40 minutes, there is an interesting quote about pandemics and if you show a profit, investors will come.
    – Fauci tried to patent mRNA treatments as a vaccine in 2015, and it was refused on the grounds that it is not a vaccine, because it does not prevent people from getting the virus.
    – Dr Martin thinks that the first attempt to get people hooked on annual jabs was the flu vaccine.

    The last part has some interesting comments on the European patent office. I applied for a job there once, got messed around, offered the job verbally, then invited to reapply.
    Later, someone told me that the personnel office there do this to everyone, to give themselves work. I don’t have time for these games.
    My informant added “but you wouldn’t like it there anyway. They never have any work, and they’re always off sick”
    In other words, he was telling me that there is a culture of dishonesty there. This is a similar point made by Dr Martin at the end of the video.
    I would say this is dynamite.
    You can contribute to the lawsuit, the bank details are on the stiftung corona ausschuss website, at the bottom of the home page where it says “Spende”
    https://corona-ausschuss.de/

    1. Me too. I watched it earlier and it goes some way to confirming the rest of the available information about this grotesque con.

      I agree it is dynamite. I have copied and sent to fellow sceptics.

      1. It give me heart to see that the Germans are fighting back. It’s good to have them on our side!

        1. I do agree. The other point I noted was the exposure of the German Patents authority, dictating exclusively on behalf of the EU and ignorant of other EU Patent authorities was most telling.

          It tells us everything we thought we knew about the EU. It’s institutions are run for and behalf of Germany.

          1. The Patent office isn’t an EU agency – it’s independent.
            Frankly, I don’t blame the Germans wanting it run their way. Their high-tech manufacturing economy that has produced so many inventions and design innovations, is far too important to let the French mess it up!

  82. That’s me gone. Log shifting tomorrow in readiness for the soon to arrive early winter (caused by a lethal combination of global warming and covid).

    No idea what is planned for this evening – a nice film, I hope…{:¬)) For some bizarre reason, the MR has turned into a wendyball fan…..

    A demain. I hope.

  83. Just home from Evensong. Led by a young ordinand who preached on how the present age is anti-science, since scientific exploration and discovery was a product of Judeo-Christian civilisation and not in opposition to it. There is hope. The choir then sang “I Vow to Thee, My Country”. For a while, all was well with the world.
    The Central Line was packed to old normal levels but still at least 70-80% with face nappies.

    1. As few as that…
      Have you seen Marcus’s piece in this week’s Spectator?

      1. Yes. The Speccie site hides it behind the paywall but he posted a link on Twitter and that worked. Giles Fraser has a good supportive article on Unherd too.

  84. Thought for the day.

    Vaccinations for all, and the antibodies/genetic changes never leave the body.

    Capital punishment is generally banned. What better way to deal with your undesirables than to inject them or give them a “medicine”, supposedly as a cure for something, that reacts with the Covid jab and kills them, without the trouble of a trial and judicial execution.

    1. If you’re going to give a down vote poppiesmum, at least explain why.
      By all means do so, but it is courteous to give the reasons behind it.

      1. That surprised me too…. sorry, it was an accident. ‘Fat finger’ ……. I never vote anyone down, I prefer to leave it if I disagree. My finger must have hovered whilst I considered the implications. My apologies.

          1. Thank you – yes, I have done that. Sometimes it happens when scrolling. IPads have their disadvantages.

      2. I would just like to give advance warning that if I ever downvote anyone on NOTTL it will be a mistake.
        If it’s on any other site, it’s probably intentional! (but I only downvote the 77th twit brigade on TCW).

        1. Everyone should be free to down vote, all I would ask is that they just explain why.
          Although one might make a similar argument for/against up votes.

          I use the up vote very freely: agreement, amusement by the comment, acknowledgement of a reply.

        1. Indeed.
          It was swapped around after I asked.

          I don’t mind down votes, all I ask is an explanation. It’s a lazy way to express an opinion and it gives no opportunity to explain a comment further or even to persuade a change of mind.

  86. Managed to call Mother whilst she was awake. Good conversation. So, she is still alive, then. And mostly compos mentis. Apart from the bit about her mother being away…

  87. Just thought of a good cunning plan to win the game, get the crowd to sing Just One Cornetto, Give it to me, while the Italians are distracted by thoughts of an ice cream cone on a Gondola, Sterling can dribble round ten players and toe punt the ball in the net.

        1. Canadian actually, most Americans can’t stand the mix.

          Hey there has to be something we can be proud of over here.

    2. And a good one too. No theatrics, no fouling, just an old fashioned attack and cross.

      1. Hope they don’t get complacent. If anyone can football, the Italians can.

    3. Drinking wendybooze to go with the wendyball. Baileys, by the wineglass.

    4. Dear Lord, please don’t let them win. The BLMers will be insufferable if they do.

      1. And think how the cabal will use it next week to further implement their plan.

      2. Italy genuflected as well. Bunch of silly buggers controlled by they (the footballers) know not who.

  89. Back on Terror Firmer. My transit of the Caen Hill flight was pretty smooth. First 6 locks solo between 6:00 – 8:30 a.m and then a hire Boat with a crew of four appeared and I was invited to stay on my boat for the next 16 locks (God life can be hard at times) and down the flight in just over two hours. Spent the rest of the day at the bottom before completing the next 7 locks early the following morning….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e820a3c6d0e25385ecbac0b06b0d8a1d67570d7d44db409c45b78a6fc5056dae.jpg

  91. Bullshit baffles brains.

    The BBC has recently taken to giving pictorial analysis of the England set up. They are highlighting where the England players are standing and the territory they are covering.

    If they did exactly the same with the Italians’ set up it would show that the two teams are pretty much a mirror image at the point they, the Beeb, are suggesting England are doing something unusual.

    Call me a cynic (oi you cynical bastard) but I get the impression that they are attempting to show us all how clever they are but ignoring what the opposition is doing.
    It’s pseudo-analysis in my book.
    I’ve been flicking back and forth between the two.
    My view is that ITV are winning, but only on points, their commentary is slightly more intrusive, their studio team is slightly better.

    It’s a much better game than I was expecting.

    1. All sports are over-analysed today, with vast arrays of data produced on just about everything a player does in a match. Cricket is even worse than football.

  96. The shape of things to come?

    I generated input values to the previously identified professional virus model as shown in the graph below to reflect the current policy of living with a virus given the first case starting in UK in January 2021.

    I have tried to set values to reflect the state of affairs six months after
    introduction of a virus to a UK population with no inherent immunity but with evolving infection levels at a considerably higher rate than either hospitalisation or death.

    R0 is 1.42 as currently estimated.

    What this model does not take into account is the changing level of R0 throughout the displayed time period of 500 days due to vaccinations, lockdown or Test and Trace.

    Furthermore the downward trend in infections is based on an intervention in R0 of 0.85 as a model input at the present time.

    Here’s the problem:
    R0 is an output of the model that is supposed to be what we are trying to achieve by an intervention after six months by inputting R0=0.85. Yet R0 is an output and varies over time.

    Thus the model is only valid if the output is fed back into the input.
    If this were to be included we would need to understand how the model responds to non-linear feedback in view of the intrinsic discontinuities in the formulaic relationships in a realistic model.

    Computationally such a model may not actually be stable and R0 may not converge to a unique value.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d41475864025241f229695c2aeffb2c50a65a88568eb1d9615ddc93f2676924.jpg

    In such a case the only option whilst running a model simulation on a computer is to press Cntrl+Alt+Del.

    The Big Reset?

    1. I think if they want to find covid cases then they will – whether they’re there or invented.

  97. Anyone any views on these gin and tonics pre mixed in a can. Thought I would try one.

    4. Ive tried them JN, and also the JD & coke variety. They’re just about OK for an occasion where the real thing can’t be provided, e.g. barbecue on the beach, but no substitute for the real thing.

  98. Extra time. I just have to say that I disagree with any who wish Italy to win due to knee bending. The Eyties did the same. But more to the point, our players (and the Italian players) are being used as pawns. I will always support English teams.

      1. I deliberately make sure I do not watch the first minute of the game so that I do not have to witness the English players humiliate themselves. As I have already said I only switched on just in time to see England’s goal.

  102. I hope that history doesn’t repeat itself for Southgate, but if it does, I hope it’s the cheat Sterling who has to live with it for the next 25 years.

    1. Why were they taking them? Oh, diversity in penalties – didn’t work, did it? No doubt if more whities had taken them, there would have been cries of “racist” even if we had won.

      1. Indeed. Putting the younger players up front was a mistake. Two of them (Rashford and Sancho) had only just come on.

    2. Why were they taking them? Oh, diversity in penalties – didn’t work, did it? No doubt if more whities had taken them, there would have been cries of “racist” even if we had won.

  109. 00:56
    ITALY WIN EURO 2020

    Such sad scenes for England as Saka bursts into tears after his penalty was saved. But every England player surrounds him, giving him plenty of support.

    Sancho also crying and receiving the same support from his team-mates.

    1. Grealish, Saka and Sancho should have been put on sooner. They would have had time to get used to the match. Southgate is missing a shed load of management skills.

      1. Grealish and Sancho without a doubt. However the ineffectual Saka replaced the most potent player on the pitch: Trippier. Saka played like a pussy and Southgate’s game management was dire. Southgate’s dithering lost the match for England.

    1. How could it have ‘come home’ when England has not won it before and Italy won it in 1968 – two years after England last won an international football competition. So the cup has ‘gone home’ to Italy.

    2. How could it have ‘come home’ when England has not won it before and Italy won it in 1968 – two years after England last won an international football competition. So the cup has ‘gone home’ to Italy.

    3. Happy birthday Stig, and many more! Enjoy your day, and only one year to go until state pension…(remember to request it, it doesn’t get paid automatically).

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