1,121 thoughts on “Sunday 12 January: Even the staunchest monarchists draw the line at part-time royalty”

  2. A little light reading for a Sunday morning…

    New theory of quantum mechanics shows matter is not in the eye of the observer
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/science/2019/03/26/GettyImages-154932300_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqA7N2CxnJWnYI3tCbVBgu9b4zlUaYingzIOpHT5McSdI.jpg?imwidth=1240
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2020/01/11/new-theory-quantum-mechanics-shows-matter-not-eye-observer/

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

    BTL:

    Marcus Aurelius 12 Jan 2020 12:43AM

    “Our presence in the universe is somehow critical to its existence” … Only French people believe that.

    1. So, you are saying, Geoff, (© Cathy Newman) that if I don’t want to refresh the page I can go to Hell (i.e. to a page with yet more stories about the Sussexes)? :-))

      (Good morning, btw.)

  7. In my progressive new role, I’m stepping back from writing but keeping my salary
    Rod Liddle

    A personal message from HRH Rod Liddle

    After many months of reflection and deep internal discussion with myself, I have chosen to make a transition this year to start carving out a progressive new role with The Sunday Times. I intend to “step back” from writing anything whatsoever for the newspaper while still, of course, giving my full support to both the editor and the readers and being paid exactly the same as I am now.

    When I say a “progressive new role” I mean one that will almost certainly involve large amounts of travel to agreeable places, plus a new home equipped with vegan wallpaper, a gender-neutral nursery, a Fiore di Cristallo kitchen with a kale juicer and top of the range steamer for pulses, and a hot tub in the garden for when the Kardashians come round. I will also require a retinue of simpering lackeys and burly, armed security guards who will kick the living crap out of anyone who looks at me when I’m out in public. Oh, and six nannies.

    I will also require the services of a private jet, a helicopter and a fleet of Range Rovers, for those times when I suddenly wish to attend a summit in a Third World country about the terrible, devastating effects of climate change and what we, as deeply concerned individuals, can do to combat it.

    It is to be hoped that, in time, I will become able to independently support myself. I understand that in the wider world it is not always the case that people who resign are still paid their entire salaries indefinitely. But I am confident that The Sunday Times will, like me, adopt a more progressive approach than is usual. The truth is that of the many wonderful things about working for such an august institution as The Sunday Times, the one I have always appreciated most is the money, and it would sadden me, and impinge on my extremely fragile mental health, if that were to somehow “stop” simply because I have ceased to work for it.

    (“Progressive”, incidentally, in my vocabulary, means anything I want it to be. It could mean “enlightened”. Equally, it could mean “utterly stupid” or “transcendentally delusional”.)

    As I have said, I have taken this decision after long thought. The truth is that while many of you have, over the years, given me great encouragement, some people still cavil at the columns I have written, even going so far as to disagree with them. As someone with an epic, overweening sense of entitlement who also possesses the sulky and petulant qualities — and, indeed, political opinions — of an overwrought 13-year-old child, this saddens me.

    In future, then, my relationship with the media will be confined to its various branches being enjoined to publicise things I want them to publicise and otherwise keeping the hell away, or facing expensive and punitive legal action. This extends to ordinary members of the public, especially the lower classes with their mobile phones.

    I will continue writing. You can see a selection of my work at my new website, http://www.rodinechochamber.com/wokeidiot. My latest article, on how one can defeat climate change simply by looking incredibly pleased with oneself and wearing an expensive polo shirt, is available online now.

    I will also be devoting a considerable amount of time to my new “charitable entity”, full details of which I will reveal as soon as I get back from Courchevel. It’s no secret that I will be focusing on the terrible problems faced by transgender rainforests. The travails these marvellous trees confront, in being assigned a gender at their birth that they simply no longer feel is right, has too long been ignored by the mainstream media. I intend to put a stop to that, and also to world poverty, by the end of June 2021. George Clooney has said he will help.

    I will be relocating, of course. I’ve had it with this mean-spirited reactionary dump. I have decided to move to Canada — a place so progressive that its prime minister once displayed his acute racial awareness by blacking up several times. There, I think, the people will come to love me. And if they don’t, I’ll go somewhere else.

    So long and thanks for all the fish,

    HRH Rod Liddle

    World braced for new terror

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Feff6f5a0-348a-11ea-b2ca-01af494060b9.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=600

    Doctor Who-ha
    Worried that Doctor Who has become too politically correct? How very wrong you are.

    According to the writer Jack Hudson, it is more offensive than ever. Gay and transgender characters get zapped by Daleks when they have only just been introduced (Exfoliate! Exfoliate!). Black characters have their race “weaponised” against them. And, worst of all, the programme fails to engage with “real-world suffering”.

    This stuff appeared in a newspaper called The Guardian, which is published on a planet so many light years from our own that scientists cannot be sure it really exists.

    More mouths than one can feed
    The Conservative leader of Walsall council is in trouble for suggesting that people who are very hard up shouldn’t have large families. What might seem to you or me an incontestable statement is now regarded as a kind of hate crime by the stop-the-cuts-Tory-scum left.

    To have lots of children when you can’t afford to feed them is, to my mind, child abuse. For the left it’s a Yooman Right for everybody to have as many children as they like, and it’s up to the taxpayers to fork out for such profligacy.

    The councillor, Mike Bird, has so far refused to apologise for his comments. Good for him.

    Release Spacey: he’s not a suspect now
    It is now three years since Kevin Spacey was expunged from public life as part of the #MeToo witch-hunt in Hollywood. No further roles for the best American actor of his generation, no directing gigs, his films pulled from festivals. Even his previous performances have been erased from films through some deeply sinister Orwellian process designed to purge him entirely from the public mind.

    Two proceedings were launched against the man, one criminal and one civil. The prosecutors dropped the criminal case against him in July 2019 and the same thing happened in the civil suit at the end of December. There are no more forthcoming.

    So, can we have Kevin Spacey back now, please? Or does #MeToo’s presumption of guilt still hold in perpetuity, even though the chap faces no charges?

    1. Is it 3 or 4 of Spacey’s accusers that have suicided or met with an accident??
      Lucky Man…………………….

      1. And the one about “a newspaper called the Guardian, which is published on a planet so many light years from our own that scientists cannot be sure it really exists”.

      1. It was on my dog.
        I needed to search all over his body after a walk in the woods, particularly at Sandringham,
        to make sure that should any be found I could remove them with a special spring loaded tick remover before they got engorged with blood – that’s when they become particulatly dangerous.

        1. They are dangerous from the point of view of infection any time once they have inserted their proboscis. When they are engorged, it means they can start producing baby ticks.

          1. Having two long haired dogs this is especially annoying. Mongo happily gets washed. Jerry leaps in and out.

  11. Morning all

    SIR – The Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William are treading on thin ice in their deliberations over the future of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

    Their conclusion must be that, if the Sussexes are to stop carrying out their royal duties, they should have their titles withdrawn, pay for their own accommodation in Britain or elsewhere and make their own arrangements for security protection.

    Anything less could harm the public’s view of the monarchy – even among people, like me, who are completely loyal to the Crown.

    Ron Kirby

    Dorchester

    1. Here’s the rest….

      SIR – I don’t see why the Duke and Duchess’s move should have come as a surprise.

      The Duke was born with little or no choice as to his way of life or career. He cannot walk down the street – or go to the shops, or anywhere else – alone. When he fell in love, his wife then had to live in the same conditions. The couple’s decision is understandable, even if we might not have made it ourselves.

      James Dixon

      Stanningfield, Suffolk

      SIR – I am a royalist. I appreciate that the Duke and Duchess’s roles have quite possibly become too much for them. Rather than chastise them, we should respect their decision – and they should feel welcome to return to the fold at any time.

      Gordon Moser

      Barkingside, Essex

      SIR – The Duke has always known what his duty is. He should have impressed that above all else on the Duchess.

      They have now decided to be part-timers, which is untenable and must be a great disappointment not only to the Queen but also to our future king, Prince Charles.

      Brian Hicks

      Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire

      SIR – The Duke should note that no one ever solved a problem by running away from it. However much he blames the press for his mother’s death, he should recall that it was also her choice to remove herself from the protection of the police, with such tragic consequences.

      Jacqueline Berkinshaw-Smith

      Walton-on-Thames, Surrey

      SIR – The cost to the public of the Royal family is about £1.50 per year per person. For that, we get non-political ambassadors and trade facilitators, and a tradition that attracts millions of tourists. They are not a burden for the economy but a financial asset – and of this £1.50, the cost of the Duke and Duchess is insignificant.

      By contrast, for the cost of £150 a year, the BBC provides us merely with biased news and entertainment that is readily available on other television and radio channels. Let’s keep the cost of our Royal family in perspective. It is too valuable to lose.

      Alan Belk

      Leatherhead, Surrey

        1. Of course he is. Nobody is ever expected to knuckle down and deal with what life deals them these days!

  12. SIR – Like W J Foden (Letters, January 5) I received two NHS letters in the same post.

    One gave me a new appointment and the other told me that an earlier appointment had been cancelled “at your request”, which was certainly not true, and simply deferred the original appointment from a date in November to a new (and second, given the cancelled one) date in January.

    When I was a veterinary surgeon 
in general practice, appointments could be made for the same day and surgical procedures went ahead on the agreed day.

    Who is in charge? Why can simple things not be organised?

    Freddie Marshall

    Cobham, Surrey

    1. I have received the same letters .. three of them since the New Year, I feel so tearful .. 3 letters rearranging appointments .. not end of January, not February , but March!

      1. I had the NHS ring up to say they had had a cancellation and could I go on an earlier date in January instead of Feb. I could and said so. I had a letter through that stated that “due to unforeseen circumstances” the original appointment had been cancelled. It wasn’t unforeseen at all, it was at their request!

    2. More to the point, Mr Marshall, is it too much to expect even one of our thousands of NHS ‘managers’ to sort out an appoinments system? Obviously.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

    3. Ah, but you charged your clients, Freddie, and if you messed them around they could go elsewhere.

  13. Good morning all.

    Hooray it’s Sunday. That means kippers followed by Elsie’s excellent marmalade on whole grain toast.

    2. Good grief, Peddy, you must spread your marmalade exceedingly thin to make it last that long. (I plan to make some more later this month and shall deliver it to your door when the weather improves.) Guten Morgen, kaufen das Weg.

      :-))

    3. Morning Mr Viking .
      Much later – smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and granary toast .

  14. 10 new tory peers, including Sir D Liddington , to be appointed before end of the month, DT article. 20 current peers should be kicked out to make room for them. The rule should be 1 in, 2 out. This rule could be increased progressively say to 1 in 5 out by the end of this parliament.

  15. Sir Keir Starmer vows to retain radicalism in Labour Party while winning next election

    As expected Corbyn dressed up with a more presentably face. I dont think his approach will work. Given who are in control of the Labour Party I suspect the odd are heavily in favor of him being the next leader That will go down well in London and with Momentum but I dont think it will go down well with the rest of the UK. I could of course be wrong but that seems unlikely at present

    Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to retain the Labour Party’s radicalism while winning the next general election.
    The shadow Brexit secretary, who is launching his leadership campaign in Manchester later, said the party need to “forge a path to victory” while being “radical and relevant”.

      1. I was more meaning he will present Labour radical policies dressed up to seem more acceptable

      2. No. Some time or other he must have had his nose put out of joint. It will happen again at the next election if he is chosen as Labour leader.

      3. ‘Morning, Bob, only this one – a wonderful German word:

        ‘backpfeifengesicht’ – A face badly in need of a fist’

    2. Starmer, easily done. Here’s the formula:

      You adopt, immediately, a massive tax cutting purge of the state.
      You put forward a workable plan to scrap 15 years of Labour taxes and replace those with significant tax cuts – especially in regressive taxes.

      You starve local councils of funding and start sacking troughers and wasters.

      You tell the BBC, openly that it is biased and presents a twisted perspective
      You adopt a pro nuclear family approach, scrapping child benefit and replacing it with a married couples tax rebate.

      You scrap the upper and higher rates of tax
      You remove the pensions tax threshold and ISA limits (the war queen fills her cash one in January, the Shares ISA in February).
      You adopt Brexit wi gusto, pronouncing the EU as a toxic threat to this country and push for no deal, working with the Conservative government with eagerness.

      That’s a start. However, it’s a strong, Right wing approach. One you don’t understand.

  16. Multiple MPs letter today suggesting that Big Ben rings out on 31 January at 11pm to announce our departure from the EU. This apparently was ruled out by Bercow in 2018. I support this suggestion.

  17. Labour’s task is not to make itself feel better – it’s to win power. Tony Blair. Sat 11 Jan 2020.

    Fifth, patriotism matters, but I’m afraid we don’t get to define its basics. These are: pride in our country; support for the armed forces; being strong on law and order. The progressive view of patriotism will never be the same as the conservative one. We will add an emphasis on values of tolerance, equality and a commitment to social justice. But the basics can’t be absent.

    Satan speaks! This is a creature devoid of any interest in anything beyond his bank account. He would sell his own children if anyone would buy them and loathes the UK and despises its native people with an intensity that transcends mere bigotry.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/11/labour-task-not-make-itself-feel-better-its-about-winning

    1. The left continually seek to ‘define the basics’. If they don’t, they have to accept what they are. As their beliefs are utterly opposed to actual beliefs, they fight them – and are rejected.

      There is no need for tolerance or equality. The fundamentals demand a respect for others above yourself. You cannot enforce those things on people because in the doing you force definition, and definition dissolves the ethos.

      As always, the Lefty fails to understand that you cannot force people, you can only aspire them to put something greater beyond themselves and let society deal with those who do not. He just doesn’t understand the – as he calls it – basics.

  18. A letter today explaining that UTC does not usurp GMT. It seems that the world wants to drop GMT but the UK will continue with GMT although, on the internet I noticed Premier league game starting times have, or had ,UTC which confused me for some time.

      1. The Zulus would probably welcome their tribe being the international time base. Greenwich , I understand, is where the international time zones were decided and drawn up. It deserves to be recognised as such.

      5. It was chaos in the UK prior to the 1800’s as each place keep its own time known as LMT. The coming of the railways were the catalyst for change as LMT made timetables all but impossible. They introduced the concept of Railway Time which was a standard time for the UK. but LMT was still used so Railway clocks had an extra hand and showed both Railway time and local time. Must have been fun back then telling the time

    3. UTC is really only a reference time, Local times can and are still used, For most purposes UTC & GMT can be regarded as the same there is about a 1 second difference

  19. Morning dear people

    The country is being mugged by the Royal pair.. , feels they are robbing the bank of Grandma and the rest of us ..

    Our charitable tolerant feelings have been trashed , because that is what most of those sort of people do.. it is almost like our little tribe of well wishers have been poohed on

    1. Morning TB,
      We should be well use to it after decades of extortion via the eu & their
      bag men / women / things within the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party.

  20. PETER HITCHENS: Don’t dump Labour in the bin, we need the party from the 1960s and 1970s if we’re to have a strong opposition

    Many people will now be thinking that the Labour Party might as well be dumped in the nearest wheelie bin and driven away to be buried in landfill.

    Given how much harm Labour has done in the past 60 years, it is a tempting idea. And the pitiful line-up of contestants to succeed Jeremy Corbyn is dispiritingly bad.

    Who are these people? Wearisome egalitarians who have learned nothing from the wasteland they have made of our schools. Eurofanatics who still don’t get it.

    Blairites who have yet to grasp that Al ‘Boar-iss’ Johnson is now the Supreme Blairite, and has stolen all their clothes.

    Worse, he is even better at Blairism than Blair himself, being both much more intelligent and far funnier than the New Labour leader.

    When any of these people fight the next Election, riding directly into Mr Johnson’s guns, they will make the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a shrewd move. And yet it will be very bad for the country if we have a feeble Opposition.

    When governments are too strong, they make more mistakes. They become smug and high-handed. British liberty depends on there being a strong, effective Opposition.

    But how could that come about? Well, there is a tiny glimmer of hope, which I think civilised people should encourage.

    It is called ‘Blue Labour’. At the moment it is only a few brave and thoughtful people, and it was pushed to one side in the Corbyn era of childish, clapped-out 1970s Leftism.

    But if it succeeds it could not only be a good Opposition, it might even be a good government. People forget what Labour used to be.

    Before it was taken over by Bloomsbury social liberals and Islington Eurocommunists in the 1960s and 1970s, it was a highly conservative, patriotic, working-class party.

    Labour councils used to proudly build and sustain grammar schools, knowing that they benefited Labour families more than anyone else, as well as benefiting the country as a whole with educational standards far higher than we have today.

    Labour politicians understood that it was the poor who have most to fear from crime and disorder, and had little time for the liberal social theories that have gutted our police, courts and prisons.

    Incredible as it may now seem, the Labour Premier Clement Attlee, and his Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, both voted in 1948 to retain the death penalty for murder.

    Modern Leftists, who claim to admire these men at a distance, do not really understand what sort of people they were.

    Labour was also seriously Christian, hugely influenced by Methodism.

    And it was sternly sober, strongly against the sort of Gin Lane drinking culture and the easy gambling that New Labour cynically encouraged.

    When, in 1970, Labour’s then Premier Harold Wilson began to destroy the laws against marijuana, his Cabinet split almost equally between the working-class Ministers, who wanted to keep effective laws in place, and the Oxbridge intellectuals, who wanted to let rip.

    Alas, it was the intellectuals who won, which is why the whole country now stinks of dope. And in the era that followed, real working-class figures almost vanished from Labour’s front bench.

    Where political parties combine patriotism, a strong but just welfare state, good education, firm policing and tough defence, they tend to win elections.

    France’s Charles de Gaulle ruled for years on that basis, and Poland’s Law and Justice party (for all its faults) has rapidly become the dominant force in that country. Why not here?

    I long ago gave up on the Tories, who don’t have a conservative muscle in their body or a patriotic cell in their brains.

    I can’t see them benefiting much from their guru, Dominic Cummings, and his appeal for more weirdos in government. Aren’t there enough already?

    Let Labour’s current hopeless leadership dash themselves to pieces in another Election. They’re no loss.

    Then, when these dullards have gone off to fulfil their true destinies in public relations or pantomime, maybe it will be time for Blue Labour.

    If they can seize back control of the People’s Party, I’d support them against the Pinko Tories.

    #MeToo killed off a brilliant movie
    Whatever has happened to the film An Officer And A Spy, which won the Grand Jury Prize and a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last August?

    It is based on a successful and excellent novel by the bestselling Robert Harris. One distinguished critic, David Sexton, says it is ‘an absolute masterclass in how to make a historical film’. But nobody seems to be showing it in this country.

    It is a powerful account of the scandal of all scandals, a filthy state-sponsored lie that took years to dispel, the wrongful imprisonment of the Jewish French army officer Alfred Dreyfus by an antisemitic French establishment.

    Yet the chances are you won’t ever see it. This is because its director is Roman Polanski. Polanski has admitted – and evaded justice for – a revolting paedophile crime.

    But alas, he is also one of the great film-makers of our age. Up till now, his films have been shown.

    But the #MeToo movement now seems to have put a stop to this in some countries.

    Should that mean An Officer And A Spy cannot be seen? If so, what should the BBC do about the sculptures by Eric Gill, which adorn its London HQ?

    Gill’s sexual crimes were so horrible that I will only say they included incest.

    As for the much admired surrealist painter Salvador Dali, his private life (by his own account) was cruel and disgusting beyond belief. Should his pictures be removed from the world’s galleries?

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

    I suggested it a few weeks ago and, after last week’s events, I think a lot more people will see my point. When the current reign ends, let’s keep the Monarchy but pension off the Royal Family.

    The continued theoretical existence of the Monarchy will keep politicians from getting too grand, but we won’t have to worry about the individual Royals, with their weird private lives, impossible desire to enjoy celebrity and privacy at the same time, horses and malfunctioning sweat glands.

    Hardly anybody under the age of about 80 understands the point of monarchy any more.

    Only someone brought up in an age of brisk walks in all weathers, strict bedtimes, regular church, finishing what was on their plates and thank-you letters could possibly tackle the role. There isn’t anyone like that left.

    Bushfire facts the biased BBC ignores
    Glad as I always am to get news about Australia, an interesting parallel civilisation very like Britain but also deeply different, I am sick almost to screaming of the BBC’s incessant coverage of the forest fires there.

    They do it only because it supports their fanatical preaching about man-made global warming. Actually, it doesn’t.

    A little study reveals that Australia has been just as hot before, according to measurements as far back as 1889.

    Various excuses are now made for ignoring these inconvenient figures but there really isn’t much doubt about it.

    Huge forest fires are also common in Australia’s brief history, some of the worst having been in the very hot summer of 1938-9.

    After lethal blazes in 2009, a Royal Commission in Victoria strongly recommended the ‘prescribed burning’ of brush to prevent future fires – an old Aboriginal method.

    It criticised the ‘minimalist approach to prescribed burning despite recent official or independent reports and inquiries, all of which recommended increasing the programme. The State has allowed the forests to continue accumulating excessive fuel loads, adding to the likelihood of more intense bushfires and thereby placing firefighters and communities at greater risk.’

    I don’t think anyone took much notice. Just so you know.

    1. Morning Z,
      I do beg to differ on the “none left” portion of post.
      There are still a great many who really do think of those lost whilst standing silent for two minutes, also put God, Queen & Country in prime position.
      The trouble being they are seemingly outnumbered by those who, via the polling booth think only of “party first” damn the consequences in many cases being evil.
      ALL the political contents of parliament
      have proved quite clearly to decent people to be totally unacceptable.
      A national re-start is needed in every department with none of the old
      “political public servants” my arse, in with a shout.
      Blow that whistle on them
      ” one OUT all OUT.”

    2. Good morning, Sir!
      He seems to forget that is was the Labour Party of the ’60s & ’70s that not only destroyed the Grammar Schools, but infected the teaching profession with the Left Wing ethos that has seen the near destruction of that system.

      1. Many of the teachers who are not left wing choose to teach in independent schools rather than in state schools. Perhaps this explains why the results of independent schools are generally rather better.

        1. My godson was taught in a class of 7. The local comp in class of 27.

          There was more discussion, more focus, more control over the students. Equally there was more ‘joshing’ between the boys because when you’ve seven faces to control it’s vastly easier to let out a short ‘ahem’ and command attention.

          There is, of course no reason why state schools couldn’t offer similar education as private schools. It just requires gonads, the sacking of staff and demolition of the department for education.

    3. The last thing we need is a re-run of the ’70s. I remember the piles of rubbish in the streets and the dead going unburied.

  21. The Pearly Gates

    A Muslim dies and by some error in his handling, ends up in heaven.

    He’s stopped at the Pearly Gates by St Peter who says:

    “Sorry, but we don’t allow Muslims into Heaven”.

    “What?” replies the Muslim, “and why not”?

    “Well, we just don’t! And that’s it… we’re short on Virgins”.

    The Muslim complains and carries on until St Peter gets fed up.

    “Well” says St Peter, “have you ever done anything good in your life”?

    “Ummm” the Muslim replies, “yes, the other day a lady stopped me on the street collecting
    for a children’s charity so I gave her ten pounds. Last week I donated ten pounds to the Cancer Society and a couple of weeks ago a tramp asked me if I could spare any money…so I gave him ten pounds too”!

    “Alrighty then”, says St Peter, “wait here and I’ll have a quick word with God”.

    Five minutes later St Peter returns and says to the Muslim. “Listen, I’ve spoken with God and he agrees with me.

    Here’s your 30 quid back… now bugger off!”

  22. Good Moaning.
    Phew. We can all relax; H&M did inform the queen first about their plans.
    They told Elton John.

          2. Y Ol

            They could have used mine, but it was taking Vaz O’Line to a Toy(boy) shop in the Philipines

          4. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle told Elton John of their plans to quit royal duties BEFORE they told the Queen

            By Rod Ardehali for MailOnline

            Prince Harry and Meghan Markle told Elton John their plans to quit their senior royal duties before telling the Queen, it has emerged.

            The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have grown close to the singer in recent years, having even made use of Sir Elton’s French Riviera home and his private jet last summer.

            The singer, described as a ‘rock’ to the royal rebels, defended the pair following the backlash over their use of four private jets in 11 days, calling Princess Diana one of his ‘dearest friends’ whose family he ‘felt a profound sense of obligation to protect.’

          10. I blame Brexit/Trump/sunspots/only one coffee/global warming/climate change/plastic bottles/fireproofed sofas ….. but not me being a numptie.

          12. I din’t realise that she wasn’t yet a British citizen, Maggie. But at least she has been confirmed as a member of the Church of England – by the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less. So will she now have to change all over again to be a member of the Church of Canada if she & hubby emigrate?

          14. I doubt if she would bother. After all, she got what she wanted, which was marriage to Harry. She doesn’t need the Church of Canada.

          16. People who use their ‘friends’ for self-promotion are not real friends and probably have no real friends themselves.

            All the sleb guests at the Sussex’s wedding hardly knew the couple before, and, attracted by the ‘aura’ of royalty, they were prepared to prostitute their friendship. I wonder if, for example, George Clooney and his wife’s reputations will be enhanced or diminished by their ‘friendship’ with the Duchess of Sussex and her dim husband?

            I expect that most of us here would agree that most of our best friends have been our friends for several decades.

    2. ‘Morning, Anne, it should also be noted that on a State Visit to America, HM was visiting San Francisco and was quite overwhelmed at the turnout.

      When she remarked to her American host that she’d never seen such a turn-out, he replied, “They all want to see what a real Queen looks like.”

      1. Is it more ‘homophobic’ to say that somebody is homosexual or more homophobic not to mention the fact because one is shy to do so?

        This is a valid question in that in the MSM some people are claiming that even to mention the fact that the Duchess of Sussex is of mixed race was a racist thing to do. And if a rapist or a terrorist turns out to be a Muslim it is islamophobic to mention the fact.

        1. I don’t care if she’s ‘mixed race’. It just seems that colour is used as a badge to excuse poor behaviour.

          Oohh, they’re black, you have to let them off. No, they’re graffitiing public/private property/stabbing someone. Their behaviour is criminal, they are criminals. Stop using colour as an excuse!

        2. Meghan and her acolytes were the ones to mention her mixed race first. Apparently, I read somewhere that she has previously described herself as “caucasian” for things like job applications. Since getting Harry, she herself went overboard on the mixed-race, even calling herself “black” on their trip to Africa.

    2. Listening to R4 this morning, I now know that it’s all down to waycism. Mind you, what isn’t?

  24. For the information of:

    Mark Francois MP (Con)
    Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP (Con)
    Sir Bill Cash MP (Con)
    Sir David Amess MP (Con)
    Sir John Redwood MP (Con)
    David Davis MP (Con)
    and 54 others; see telegraph.co.uk

    Big Ben is NOT a clock. Nor has it ever been.

    Big Ben is a BELL, situated inside the tower formally known as St Stephen’s Tower, now recently renamed as The Elizabeth Tower.

    1. Note the “unusually non-British”names of Shelter’s officials, including Alison Mohammed.

      1. Had a look at their Web site and accounts. Lots of the usual guff but try to find exactly what they were doing for the money was impossible to establish

        1. Well, I tried to, but all that happened when I clicked on you Avatar is that it said that “this user’s account is private – DEAL WITH IT!”

          6. Well, not at my behest. Try a few others, including yours, Mags, which appears as ‘Private’ to me.

            I suspect the hacker on this site and the Mods need to protest very strongly to Disqus and/or WordPress.

          8. I think only Geoff could do that – as mods we have very little input apart from hiding posts we disapprove of.

          9. What gets me about “private” messages (I don’t see anything wrong if you want to keep your posts private) is the insulting way Discus phrases it: “DEAL WITH IT!”

          10. I have put up a post shewing six others whose profile appears as ‘Private’ whether at their behest, I know not but I see Ogga1 says his has also been changed.

            I wonder if I should cease, like Bill T, but for security reasons – Disqus doesn’t seem very secure.

          12. I don’t use my real email address for Disqus – but they have our IP addresses anyway so who knows what crap they can pick up on us? I’m not bothering to get stressed out by it though.

          13. Morning NtN,
            I did point out in a prior post that if the voting upticks were being tampered with could this practise be used in other ways, as in a letter / word changed in ones comment ?

          14. NTN, the screen shot in your post simply tells me about the numbers of posts and votes. Just click on your OWN avatar and you will see what I mean.

            PS – Having moved down this page I have now seen your Pearly Gates / £30 joke – it is very funny!

  27. Thornbury on the Marr Show saying that the British taxpayer should continue to fork out for Brash & Trash’s security in Canada…

    “Harry spent 20 years on the front line in Afghanistan.”

    1. Yes, he did. And he will be in receipt of an army pension for his years served – when he retires.

      Tell you what Thornberry – you pay for it.

  28. Cold Feet actor slams Greater Anglia over wheelchair facilities in first class

    Seems to be complaining for the sake of complaining. As far as I know Greater Anglia are pretty much phasing out First Class and are only keeping it at least at present on the London to Norwich service, Space is at a premium on trains space it seems sensible to provide wheelchair space which most can use

    Replying on Twiteer, Greater Anglia said the trains met all accessibility regulations, with trains measuring 205m to 300m long requiring three wheelchair spaces, the amount allocated on its intercity trains.

    Greater Anglia said: “There are no wheelchair spaces in our first class seating area, as on many other non-long distance trains. The main advantage of first class on our new trains are larger seats and more space. We do not have a sit-down meal service in first class.
    “The wheelchair area is within sight of the café bar, where staff are often available to help if needed. It’s near a large accessible toilet, also designed with the help of disabled passengers and accessibility professionals.”

    It said it also worked with disability groups on other passenger improvements including use of contrasting colours on grab rails, tactile push buttons and door opening and closing alert sounds.

    1. As someone well over 6 foot and broad at shoulder a ‘modern’ train seat is laughably small in every dimension. There isn’t enough legroom, headroom or seat space. It’s as if a 6 year old boy were used as the template for design. I cannot imagine how someone with mobility issues copes with a train at all.

    2. I know we shouldn’t let our inferiors set our standards, but wheelchair users (not to mention sight-impaired people like me) might have a crack at travelling on French railways.

    3. I know we shouldn’t let our inferiors set our standards, but wheelchair users (not to mention sight-impaired people like me) might have a crack at travelling on French railways.

      1. The problem the railways have is they were built to the gauge used by horse drawn railway trucks, It got worse when e had hundreds of railway companies who all had different loading gauges . Brunel and the GWR got it right with their 7′ Broad gauge which was proved to be vastly better but the so called 4′ 8 1/2″ gauge had become so well established the GWR had to convert to standard gauge. IT is this gauge that is a real problem as it i very limiting

  29. There has started a thread about profiles that identify as ‘Private’

    While I have no quarrel with anyone wishing to remain private, I’m disturbed to be notified that mine apparently appears as ‘Private’ without my doing that.

    I took a stroll through the avatars and found these six. Again, far be it for me to crticise but I would ask the owners of these, is it ‘Private’ at your behest or has someone or something changed it for you?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ca09fc5678cee4e288f7e54c81ae9e4400879a069eb58eddbb206b099c6305d.jpg

    2. Mine is private – I changed it at Rik’s suggestion back in 2016, when I was being followed onto other sites and trolled. I saw no reason to reopen it.

        1. Who knows? I’m not getting too stressed about it though, so long as we can continue to chat here.

          1. N,
            I do believe that a great many peoples are peed off when their post’s, comments, hopes & fears are seemingly open to tampering.

          2. This site, although small, is open to all comers. We can ban people we disapprove of, for whatever reason, but they can still see the site, just not post here.

            Most of us use an avatar and pseudonym, but anyone can probably hack into our posts and find out who we really are, if they have a mind to do so. We are able to voice our own opinions, for now.

          3. N,
            Tis what I am saying, but to my mind peoples are waking up to the fact that there are a great many coxswains in play, for a great many self interest reasons, steering the peoples to “their” way of thinking & not for the best common sense reasons.

    4. Didn’t realise I was private, maybe that’s the default or I may have set it that way many eons ago in a fit of paranoia – anyhoo I’ve now exposed myself to the world fwit (as in “for what it’s worth” – not accusing you of being a fwit btw )

      1. I’ve just checked mine Maggie and I’ve lost 20,000 in the last couple of days. Mind you it’s of no importance to me – I’m completely imbuggerated at it.
        Good Morning

          2. “Are the thought police fingering us?”

            Well, what a thing to say. I never touched you! :•)

          2. Such people must be rooted out and excluded. The poison of the Left cannot be allowed to persist.

            We’ve had enough of their venom undermining society. Their buying votes, their websites encouraging illegality, the bot armies to promote their propaganda – it must be stopped at source. We’re too honest, us normals. The Lefty is a fanatic.

      3. That is interesting… and in a bad way.

        Looked at mine and 174K yesterday has become 161 today.

    6. Over a long period of time small disclosures give a rounded picture of the poster. Too much information for nasty people to use.

    7. Mine is private since a troll from another forum followed me here and started trolling here.

      1. Morning W,
        A successful campaign then,all
        due to a multitude of fools giving carte blanche to the
        false gods of
        PC / Appeasement.

        1. It was always going to be this way. It’s like living with Rottweiler you don’t bother training. One day, it’ll rip your throat out. It’s what it does.

          What would be interesting is if all the writing is the same. Then it’s one individual – an illiterate one at that.

  31. My final post of the day before I disappear is for Bill Thomas, just in case he is watching us:

    Uncle Bill, how dare you leave this site? You have ruined my future (enjoyment of this site). How dare you! Come back at once!

      1. It really is time the phantom downvoter were prevented from doing so. It’s obviously a Lefty troll. They need reminding of their impotence.

          4. I think he will – particularly if what is happening here is also happening on the other forums he posts on.

          6. I didn’t see the comments that offended BT, but I would have thought that many of us have had people disagree with us, sometimes less pleasantly. He has always have a lot of support from people on here. It could be that the house sale/move and other things were also affecting him.

          8. It is said to be a common psychological difficulty people can have – in a room of 100 people, 99 of whom like us, we sometimes worry about the one that we think doesn’t like us.

          9. He left us for several months when his son died – but still commented on Breitbart. I suppose he felt anonymous there.

    3. Was he not aware that he has to give 28 days notice to leave NTTL, Failure to do so incurs a £100 penalty charge

    1. Doctor sued by woman for 7 figure sum at tax payers expense and struck off by hospital, never to work again.

      That is the madness we are living with these days.

    2. So you are insisting you are a man. Men cannot claim maternity pay or leave. Are you still sure you are a man?

      1. They’d go to court, court would uphold their argument.

        Come on, this sort of madness infests everything these days.

    4. Trannies are all deluded fools – but we are all expected to fall in with this nonsense.
      The rest of us should be allowed to have our own, sane views on this matter and let them get on with it, so long as they don’t expect it to be paid for by taxpayers.

      1. The “I’m not who you think I am” game. I wonder if complaints against transgenders in the workplace are actually quite high–but reporting levels are low–because customers (and fellow employees) are afraid of ‘mis-gendering’ the worker in question?

  33. Vegetables grown without soil for first time using nutrient root spray

    Does not sound that practicable for most crops . The cost of heating and lighting will be high as would probably the cost of harvesting them
    As for no pests that seems unlikely. Presumably this are grown under glass but pests can still get established and probably diseases

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/vegetables-grown-without-soil-for-first-time-using-nutrient-root-spray/ar-BBYRYe7?ocid=spartandhp

    1. There used to be a hydroponicum at Achiltibuie near me where plants and vegetables were grown in troughs of water, it used to be open to the public. I don’t think it’s there now but you could google it

    2. Ever heard of hydroponics?

      The costs you mention would be the same as for any ‘normal’ crop grown under glass. As for pests & diseases, the same applies.

    3. Hydroponics. ‘first time’? – tomatoes have been grown this way for aeons. Approximately.

        1. For relatively high value crop it can make sense but whether this has any real benefit over current intensive glasshouse crops( Grown using artificial light and heat) I dont know. It does not sound viable for basic crops such as cereals and carrots and potatoes etc

  34. The royal issue is being fed by fools in so far as keeping it running, worth two days media coverage at most.
    In my book it is being used to conceal the royal stitch up
    that will shortly hit us, the decent peoples of this nation.
    To my mind my Country has continually suffered at the
    hands of fools via the ballot booth, & treacherous, deceitful political cretins in parliament ,clearly seen over the last two decades
    The end result being these Isles now depend on a very dodgy commodity as in “hope,” hope this Pm does the right thing for instance, or for once.

  35. Megxit was always written in the stars:
    You Magazine’s astrologer SALLY BROMPTON says limelight loving Leo Meghan Markle craves fame and attention.
    The sign of Leo is ruled by the Sun, the source of all life on Earth, and typical Leos expect everything and everyone to orbit around them. They crave attention, fame, applause and adulation.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7876721/Megxit-written-stars.htm

    Any Leo Nottlers care to fess up…..?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d0acc6e8bb11d428e4e6b8e2f04ccd0b81963225e29239ce1aae78999def4e9.jpg

    1. I’m a Scorpio, and the characteristic of Scorpios is that they don’t believe in astrology because it’s a load of rubbish.

          1. I was told off, loudly & at length for being a terrible dancer. It’s like being told off for being blind: it’s an unwanted social handicap (one among many in my case) that’s impossible to get around.

          2. We had dancing classes at school – so in theory I can do the Gay Gordon Samba, Cha-cha and other assorted movements. However, some of us were more graceful than others. I was one of the others – and my mother (mothers were allowed to watch and then take their girls home) always giggled when she remembered the stern admonition to them by our teacher “the mothers must not l-a-u-g-h-“…

          3. When it was too wet to go out and play hockey, we had dancing, including the GGs but I was never any good at anything physical.

          4. When it was too wet to go out and play hockey, we had dancing, including the GGs but I was never any good at anything physical.

          6. Not only did I participate in the Scottish dancing group at school (we used to put on displays at fetes – a fete worse than death for the spectators, I suspect!), I represented my university at folk dancing, including Morris dancing!

          7. I regard dancing as no more than a primitive mating ritual, to be avoided unless there is a happy ending in prospect!

          9. It was a damned good way to get to grips with a girl (unlike modern jig-about stuff) and you could get close…..I remember a girl saying to me “You smell nice – what have you got on?” I replied “I’ve got a hard on but I didn’t think you could smell it”

  36. Should NOTTLERS continue to keep rabbiting on, in tedious and terminally boring fashion, about events in the Royal family?

    Please VOTE now.

    3. It’s getting a bit tedious, but I’m on the Queen’s side. Whatever she decides is good enough for me.

      1. I am on her side insofar as the Queen has always taken her duty into account (well, not perhaps in relation to the near-disaster that happened in Parliament over Brexit, where I feel she let us down. What is the use of her prerogative if she refuses to use it when the country is facing a crisis?)

        However, her feelings as a grandmother may cloud her sense of duty to the British people, in this case. Brash and Trash should cordially be allowed to go and do their thing – but NOT allowed to capitalise on the institution that they have so selfishly trashed. The Queen may forgive her grandson for sticking two fingers up at her and the institution, but the institution belongs to us – the British people. I am not sure that the British people will be so forgiving, and the Queen really needs to bear that in the forefront of her mind. The Sussexes have been rude to our monarch and is taking our Royalty for a ride.

        1. HM may care to reflect that her family were invited here (sort of, by tortuous logic, but still…)

    5. Why not? The Brexit stuff was repeated endlessly.
      Maybe we should return to the subject of tartan bog rolls?

  37. Posted too late last night for anyone to notice (following the thread started by HardcastleCraggs):
    Hurriedly clutched from thin air:

    My top ten desert island films.

    Emperor of the North
    Deliverance
    West Side Story
    Pulp Fiction
    Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
    Oklahoma!
    Oliver!
    The Bourne Identity
    The Departed
    The Usual Suspects

        1. I posted it last night, Grizz. It was spur of the moment though and no sooner posted than I though, ah but…

    3. Off the top of my head:

      Shadowlands
      Scent of a woman
      Andrej Rubilev
      The Searchers
      Blade runner
      The Decameron (Pasolini)
      Guys and Dolls
      An American in Paris
      Hobson’s Choice
      Babette’s Feast

      1. I posted this reply last night:

        My big problem with The Searchers was John Ford’s insistence that the names of a lot of the characters in Alan Le May’s superb novel were arbitrarily changed for the film. For example, the main character in the book (the part played by John Wayne in the film) was called Amos Edwards, which is, by any standards, a good strong manly name. To alter this, for no good reason, to the nonsensically effeminate “Ethan” made no sense and spoilt my watching of what was otherwise a fairly decent film.

        1. Not having read the book, I always thought The Searchers was brilliant. I know what you mean, though. I despair for those new to opera who see a ” modernised ” version of one of the classics. The old saying ” if it works, don’t fix it ” is ignored.

          1. A case in point would be “The Magic Flute” as seen over Christmas – great singing but a really weird, distracting production. Great music doesn’t need gimmicks to make it accessible.

      2. I’m an eclectic sort of dude, Philip.

        I can jump directly from serenading my paramour on an isinglass-curtained Surrey, straight into being raped by a snaggle-toothed Hillbilly. I find one has to be broad brush these days.

        Where’s me banjo?

      1. IT is though worrying how this is going with even children being treated almost on a whim. The previous process was very detailed with extensive psychiatric testing and then having to live as the gender they wanted to be for a year before any treatment would be considered. Now it is almost sex changes on demand. THe only hold up being the NHS cannot cope with th numbers and does not have the budget

        1. This kind of treatment should not be available on the NHS except under very stringent circumstances.

          1. Morning, OG.
            How did you get that past the censor?
            I did consider ‘lackadaisical’, but wasn’t sure if a daisical was verboten or not.

          2. LF,
            Is a “daisical” a camouflage word for hampton,
            john thomas, willy, podger, etc,etc, then.

        2. Is he technically a Double trans person now with a somewhat indeterminate physical body sort of half male and half female

  39. Good Morning and a Prosperous New Year to all.
    Much has happened, and nothing has happened.
    Ursula von der Leyen has said that year is not enough to agree a trade deal. Oops! A very careless comment betraying a sense of panic in the EU. As well there might be as it may no longer be the case that we will grovel to their demands. Maybe.
    Elsewhere the fabric of our society continues to crumble. In two recent cases, drivers who have killed have walked away, avoiding prison. Very American. The American police consider that such things are “just accidents”. A Scottish round the world cyclist was seriously injured by being knocked down by a female car driver in Texas. Just an accident, no prosecution. This goes some way to explain the US reaction to the Harry Dunn case.
    From the kitchen window this morning we watched half dozen crows mobbing a buzzard. At the seed tray the birds vie to feed on the seeds. No serious injuries occur, not to the crows, buzzard or the garden varieties. The nuthatch is alway given a respectful distance though. As I might have replied below to Araminta, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, ” It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog”.
    The Sultana and I were discussing stuff over breakfast. She is going to see a matinee performance of the panto in Edinburgh this afternoon with our daughters. Our middle girl is working as a stage manager there. The Sultana was worried about wearing good clothes as you don’t know who was last sitting in the seat. Changed days.
    When we lived in Edinburgh 30 years ago we had season tickets for the Lyceum. The audience dressed smartly, and acted properly and considerately. Now I’ve seen torn jeans and sandwich eating during opera performances. The Sultana decided on smart casual.
    A propos the upvotes thing. I have had problems with Disqus. I seem to have created a new account, or maybe just lost the old one, or the old one is the new one but trashed. I do not know. I do know that my account now only goes back a few weeks, and I have lost about 50,000+ of previous upticks. Not that I care, but I have also lost all of my witty, logical, and insightful comments that I had hoped to preserve for the enlightenment of posterity. Shambolic.

    1. Good Moaning Horace, your new account should be immune from being hit by the up vote loss bot as it only attacks the veteran accounts that posted on channels , accounts created after Sept.1st when the channels closed & accounts that never posted on channels are as far as I can tell unaffected by the malicious bot which seems to have hacked into the channel users data base

      1. Morning Hat,

        How do people manage to have multiple accounts? If I open Disqus, it knows who I am and knows that I’m logged in. There isn’t the option to create another account.

        Also I’ve tried to change the email address on my account but that doesn’t work either. In theory I could enter a new address and be sent an email asking for confirmation. In practice the email doesn’t arrive.

        1. Good morning Sue. Simply create another email account & then sign up to Disqus with it. Try one of the smaller free email services such as mail2world.com don’t use your real name either for the email acct or a new Disqus acct & use the new email acct just for posting on Disqus and nothing else with it

          1. Use a private window where the cookies are not loaded. It’s remembering your session between browsers.

            No session cookies, no login.

          3. I have another email account already but if I go into Disqus via Chrome or Safari it identifies me as already logged in via this device. Ditto with the Facebook app.

          5. Thanks Geoff. I may give it a try. So much of our commenting history was wiped when the old channels were closed that it makes little difference now. Might as well start again and see what happens.

          6. I’ve just done it, Sue. I set up a Disqus account using a different email address (I already had an alternative one – you may need to set one up. Perhaps use gmail or similar), having logged out of my original account. When I log in, Chrome now offers me the choice of either account.

          8. Didn’t the Daily Mail used to have a Femail section and weren’t they rounded on for being sexist? The part of the paper for those who identify as of the female persuasion just doesn’t have the same ring to it somehow.

          10. Simply install an additional browser such as Firefox or Brave and use it for Disqus . I use a laptop with 5 browsers installed – Chrome, Firefox , Brave , Edge & Internet Explorer

          11. Ah OK. That isn’t an option. I can’t install another browser on either an iPhone or a BBC laptop.

          12. Sorry about that I neither have a smartphone at present & would never buy an iPhone and I have no idea what you mean by BBC laptop – a company issued one or one bought from a BBC shop?

    2. A much better role model for youths of any colour or sex instead of that racist idiot Stormzy.

    1. That’s all very well, PT, but you will likely find that you can no longer post on other sites, since the -86,000 upvotes your profile has attracted have trashed your user reputation. :-((

          1. You won’t find it easy to upset Plum. She might tell you to FOAD though. In a nice way of course. :o)

      1. Actually no, some have more Negative upvotes than others ! At the moment you acct still shows upvotes but your Rep score is low 2.577364 and will once your upvotes disappear your rep score will go under the 0.3 threshold that will then define your acct as Low Rep and prevent it from freely posting anywhere it has not been whitelisted . I will check that you are whitelisted on my 4 blogs & report back to you later ( off out now )

        From the Solutions website : https://www.realms.chat/t/7784410304

        Marshal Blue Hall Monitor🎭 • a few seconds ago
        mahatmacoatmabag (1/12/2020 11:49 AM)

        !userinfo @sueedison

        For a friend on NTTL
        User Sue Edison :
        Realms Link: Sue Edison
        AuthorID: 146605207
        Rep: 2.577364
        Posts: 3799
        Approved: 3789 (99.74 %)
        Flagged: 48 (1.26 %)
        Spam: 2 (0.05 %)
        Likes: 689
        Joined: Mon, 02-03-2015 01:45
        Power Contributor (AllStar): False
        Closed: False
        Forums With Posts: 12
        Forums Followed: 3
        Followers: 14
        Followings: 0

  42. Britain must be ready to fight wars without US help, says defence secretary. 12 JANUARY 2020.

    Britain must be ready to fight wars without its American allies, the defence secretary has said, as he admitted that the thought of the US stepping back from its international role “keeps me up at night”.

    Morning everyone. This is quite clearly political posturing intended to bolster the Ministry of Defence in the public’s eyes. Who are we going to fight? The French? The Irish? To what end? We spend a great deal of time annoying the Russians but only because they are 2000 Kilometres away and pose no threat to us! The UK like a great many other countries in the world today simply does not possess the wherewithal to wage a war of any magnitude, we have neither the military nor industrial resources to do so and if we attempted it the US would certainly prevent it, as they did at Suez. Do we need to boost defence spending? Yes. But only as insurance. We will continue as we have done for the last seventy years as auxiliaries in the American Imperium.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/12/britain-must-ready-fight-wars-without-us-help-says-defence-secretary/

    2. Huh! we have always fought wars. The little ones, in Oman, Borneo, Malaysia, Sierra Leone, are good practice for our troops when they have to get embroiled in a real, and meaningful imbroglio like the Falklands. Not that we have the resources to fight Argentina any more.

    3. …so we had better join with the EU for defence, hadn’t we…seems to be an unspoken conclusion to that statement.

      But hang on – if we have to fight wars without the USA, then we won’t have to enter into any more wars that the USA wants to wage at its behest, either?

    4. Personally, I feel we should be ready to defend the realm from attack, rather than “fight wars” which seems to imply that we are the aggressor.

  44. Just wondering how the people that said that diversity will be good for Royalty and a uniting force for for the country are feeling about it now?

    2. Don’t start them all off again, Bob3! Just go away (not meant to be offensive, Sir) and read a book or something!

      :-))

      1. I grow tomatoes in a greenhouse for an early crop but I always plant outdoor tomatoes as their taste is superior in my opinion.

      2. My Grandfather did. He also used to keep pigs on his allotment. If I cast my mind back I can still smell the bran he made to feed them!

    2. We used to have a thriving tomato producing industry in Scotland then the Dutch ruined it all. We even had a big commercial greenhouse locally.

        1. I have a business acquaintance in Slovenia who said just that. Pre EU, they sold their apples to Russia, now they just rot on the trees or on the ground.

    3. Why would we want growers from the Netherlands to use this space? Their tomatoes are tasteless orange/reddish rubbish. I’ve purchased British tomatoes from Lidl that have been grown in areas as diverse as Durham and Kent and both are superior to what’s on offer from the Dutch growers. A friend of mine who has always grown masses of produce has given up on using Dutch varieties as he thinks all the taste has been bred out of them in the pursuit of crop yield and shortening the length of growing time.

          3. All the ones I had weren’t that fatty & less than 25cm long. I could polish off a pound of them for supper with some salad.

            Smoked eel is also available in Germany at a high price, very fatty, being from larger beasts, & I found that 3 or 4 cm were quite enough.

          4. Blimey – I could barely manage more that a few ounces as they are so rich. I just arrived in NL today for another museum tour, so I will undoubtedly have some. And some soused herring from a street stall.

          5. Guten Appetit!
            If you’re used to the German fatty eels, as I was, you would find the Dutch eels refreshingly light. Mind you, the last ones I had were some 30 years ago.

          7. I’m bilingual English/German & I can read a lot of Dutch, but I don’t claim to speak it.

      2. For years I did not eat strawberries for that reason, but they seem to have woken up and put the flavour back.

        1. Last season strawberries from Staffs and Cambridgeshire were available locally in varieties that I hadn’t heard of before and they were quite nice. I have trouble growing strawberries in my garden; the plants start well and then for some reason I lose about half of them. I’ve tried a number of varieties and they all fail in a similar manner.

          1. Do you have them in a south-facing bed, preferably on a slope (and practise assiduous slug control)?

        2. We only buy locally grown soft fruit. It is ripe, and has flavour, and supports local business. The anticipation for the season is part of the pleasure!

        3. I grow my own strawberries that are full of flavour, TP. I pig out on them in June with Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice-cream. A dessert made in heaven.

      3. Most of the tomatoes inside for sale are from Morocco. They don’t taste much better than the Dutch ones.
        The best used to be from Spain/Canary Islands, but I don’t see many for sale from there.

    4. “The second greenhouse will be constructed on the Crown Point Estate outside Norwich.”

      That’s very near me. We go past the site on our way to Norwich.

    5. I really don’t like tomatoes raw, tasteless things somewhat like
      cucumbers. They need to be cooked down into a sauce,
      or if had raw, eaten with feta cheese / goats cheese, onions,
      olives or anything that makes them taste better .
      Bury St Edmunds can keep it’s greenhouse .

  46. Read all about it – the truth about British colonialism. Matilda Marcus. 12 January 2020.

    The reason is simple. We want everyone to learn about the British empire and its history in the land we call home. We are a group of sixth-form students, who came together on The Advocacy Academy’s social justice fellowship programme, working to ensure that each young person in the UK will have the opportunity to be taught a history that reflects our country’s diversity. We would like to dismantle the institutional racism within our education system and curriculum one step at a time.

    For more than 10 years, I’ve learned close to nothing about British colonial history in school; nothing about how millions were murdered, how children were packed into concentration camps, how nations were arbitrarily divided. I learned nothing about the tools my country used to extradite my grandmother from the Guyanese town she called home.

    And my experiences are common. Currently, schoolchildren can go through their entire formal education without learning anything about the atrocities committed under the union jack.

    No NoTTLer should read this without first taking several tranquillisers!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/12/read-all-about-the-truth-about-british-colonialism

          2. Yes, a tactic intended to deprive the Boer fighters of support and copied from the Spanish and American examples in various Spanish-American Wars.

            Unfortunately and largely through ignorance, disease was rife in the camps leading to a massive and totally unintended or expected death toll.

          3. Indeed. In modern terms, these camps would be called Internment Camps. They were not ‘Concentration Camps’ in the Nazi sense of the word.

      2. She looks as if she should be stroking a white version of Mrs. Slocombe’s companion animal.

    7. What diversity? When I was growing up, I never saw a blek person! I didn’t even meet a Jew(ess, as it happens) until I went to university!

  47. Increasingly Poor Quality of TV

    I think a clue as to why TV is so bad now is the court case the other day where some almost unheard of woman on some almost unheard of channel was complaining that £400 an episode for a 15 minute program was far to low and that Jeremy Vine was paid £3000 an episode for a 15 minute program

    Both pay rates are very excessive. Could these two presenters be easily replaced in my view yes.

    The problem TV has it is paying rates that might have been affordable 30 years ago but with collapsing audience numbers they re no longer affordable but rather than cut pay raters they cut the programs so the output is endless repeats and low end low quality programmers

    There is little market for the so called talent outside of the UK. The US is the only real market for them but very few find success there and most return to the UK

    The BBC set the pay rates in the UK as they dont have to rely on audience numbers for their income. Freezing the licence fee would mean the BBC would have to start cutting the excessive pay rates which in turn means the commercial channels can cut their rates

    1. The Beeb should not discuss remuneration with agents. All positions should be offered with a stated salary.

      1. The BBC has a problem. If it raises this woman’s pay to that of Vines it means every one on all the minor channels will be demanding similar pay and I doubt even the BBC can afford that. What the BBC out to do is to reduce pay levels to sensible rates. If we take the 15 minute program thats no more than 1.5 hours work being very generous allow about 30 minutes for make up and . 45 minutes to run through the script

        Bt the time you strop the padding at the start and end of the programs the actual content will be no more than 10 minutes. I cannot see how more than a £100 an hour can be justified

      2. Sadly, like ‘recruiters’ agents block the employee from the employer.

        They’re an industry in themselves. A parasitic one,

    2. Make BBC subscription only. Like Netflix. Then you can choose whether to pay for Pointless or not.

    3. I’ve often wondered what would happen if I set up an extreme low-budget public broadcaster – a cross between YouTube and Rutland Weekend Television, employing no celebrities or household names, many of whom amateurs, and children’s animations conceived and produced in a shed in Kent or Bristol (e.g. Smallfilms or Aardman).

      Would the quality of material actually improve?

    4. I bought myself a new TV yesterday Bill and I don’t know why. I only watch DVD’s and the occasional BBC4 documentary. They are wonderfully cheap though considering the quality of the image!

  48. HRH Megan has signed up to be Brand Ambassador for McDonald’s OK this is a joke at least at present but I can see this sort of thing happening unless they can put a legal block in to stop it

  49. That Royal baby is being used as a bargaining tool.. I doubt the unmentionable has any maternal warmth in her heart .. Harry seems to be the worrier and nurturer.

    (edited and fixed)

    1. Morning Belle. The child was obviously conceived to be a lever to prise Harry away from his family. There is much sorrow to be endured here. Not by Megan of course since she has no feelings other than for herself.

    2. ‘Morning, Belle.

      That Royal baby is being used as a bargaining tool.. I doubt she has any maternal warmth in her heart

      I thought Archie was a boy.

    3. Scurrilous I know – but just imagine the confusion if DNA tests showed that Harry is not little Archie’s biological father!

  50. A bit ‘off-beam’ in some respects but far, far better than most output from Cambridge these days.

    COFFEE HOUSE – Britain after Brexit: it’s time to decide on our place in the world
    Robert Tombs – 12 January 2020 – 7:33 AM

    ‘Global Britain’: a phrase that provokes mockery and even indignation. As an alternative to EU membership many consider it impossible and worse, undesirable. Are we capable of true independence, or is this an illusion? Does ‘global Britain’, as its bitterest critics accuse, draw on imperial nostalgia and nationalistic arrogance? Or is it a rational response to a changing world?

    It is certainly not a new response. Britain has been a global player since the 1730s. Since the early 1800s we have had to be: with a population of 14 million we were no longer able to feed ourselves, and Britain’s enemies looked forward to the day when it would starve. Sir Robert Peel abolished the protectionist Corn Laws to import the cheapest food available: ‘We might on moral and social grounds prefer cornfields to cotton factories, but our lot is cast.’

    Ever since, our goods trade has been precariously in balance and increasingly in deficit — now overwhelmingly with the artificially expensive EU and its Corn Law equivalent. Despite Sir Robert’s assumption, it was not King Cotton that fed us. Even during the fairly brief period when we were the workshop of the world we did not always sell sufficient manufactures to purchase our imports; and indeed, British industry has rarely, taking a long view, been a world beater. That title goes to global services and the City. We have long had to earn our bread by our wits.

    Those who believe that we can only trade effectively with the nearest markets — the ‘gravity model’ by which the Treasury justified Project Fear — know little history. Our most dynamic economic partners for more than 200 years have been in the Americas. Our biggest single export throughout the 19th century was cloth to India. Advances in steamships and refrigeration transformed Victorian living standards by bringing wheat, beef, lamb and butter from the United States, Argentina, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Twentieth-century economic crises and wars made us even more global. Joining the Common Market diverted much of this trade temporarily to Europe, but since 2000 it has been shifting back towards what it was before we joined. The result? The Legatum Institute’s 2019 Global Prosperity Index (based on a range of economic, cultural and quality-of-life criteria) places us second in the world among larger countries, just after Germany. So why the pessimism?

    Our future global role and standing will depend crucially on what we do at home. Some countries rely on raw power and fear. Russia has done so for three centuries. China may follow. The United States has been fortunate in combining power with a utopian vision. Britain has never been able to rely on power alone. It is a fundamental error to think of Britain as a shrunken superpower: we have never been more than a medium-sized state sometimes choosing — and often obliged — to ‘punch above its weight’. From the 18th century much of Britain’s influence came from offering a new vision of liberty, accountable government and broad prosperity (‘the English poor appear almost rich to the French poor,’ observed Alexis de Tocqueville). What vision should we offer now?

    We have lost ground in the world’s eyes due to our recent self-humiliation. To reaffirm accountable democratic government, constitutional, legal and administrative reforms are urgent. As a start, the Fixed Term Parliaments Act must be repealed and the Supreme Court reformed or scrapped. Improvement in schools, professional training and universities must be pushed boldly: we cannot rest on the laurels of a few outstanding institutions. When Britain emerged through commercial and industrial revolutions into its modern age in the 18th century, it was among the best-educated societies in the world. We must become so again. And we need a coherent energy policy — an economic, ecological and strategic imperative.

    If we can make ourselves a model national democracy in the eyes of the world, with clearly articulated values (do we know what they are?), the foundations of a global role will be firm. We possess huge advantages, starting with our language and history. The Henry Jackson Society’s 2019 Audit of Global Capability, based on the combination of economic, cultural, demographic and military strength, judged Britain to be second in the world after the USA. So we have a lot to work with, including our large aid budget. Its relative altruism — gifts not loans, and nothing expected in return — wins respect from other countries, though not emulation. Is this really the best way to run an aid policy — more or less as a charity? The welcome likelihood of merging DfID with the Foreign Office shows that some are having second thoughts.

    But what should we do in the world? We could become what the Foreign Office feared in the 1960s — a ‘greater Sweden’. A prosperous democracy minding our own business, giving up our UN seat, scrapping our nuclear submarines and selling our new aircraft carriers. I doubt this is possible, because of our size and geography, and because of the global economic imperative I have sketched above: ‘Our lot is cast.’ How we act, as in the past, will partly be shaped by the actions of others, allies and enemies. Why should they give us a free ride? Why would they respect rights we were unwilling to defend?

    Global dangers are formidable because unpredictable: climate change, China, Russia, demography, migration, the future of Africa, terrorism, international crime, cyber-attack, doubts about the USA. Yet in conventional terms, Britain is less threatened than at any time since at least the 1870s. We are less dependent on others than during the period of the two world wars and the Cold War. So we have some freedom to respond creatively to this troubling future. The foreign secretary Lord Palmerston told the Commons in 1848 that ‘England is a power sufficiently strong to steer her own course, and not to tie herself as an unnecessary appendage to the policy of any other government.’

    Yet Palmerston was painfully aware of the predatory world in which he lived and of Britain’s vulnerability: he feared invasion by the French and would never have dreamt of defending the Baltic against Russia, as we are now doing. His maxim was: ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.’ Quoted out of context, this seems selfish realpolitik. In fact, he was expounding an ethical foreign policy based on peace wherever possible, force only when inescapable: ‘I hold that the real policy of England — apart from questions which involve her own particular interests, political or commercial — is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support’ — occasionally backed by gunboats. Not a bad prescription for a democratic and trading nation, if we have Palmerston’s courage. But do politicians even know — let alone explain — what and where our ‘eternal interests’ are? If they include global order, trade, democracy and sustainable development, can we rely on others to promote and protect them?

    We have, fortunately, a huge advantage over Palmerston: we do have ‘eternal allies’, linked by profound similarities of culture and values. The closest are all English–speaking. But we might also add our awkward ally for two centuries, France, and our oldest Asian ally, Japan. The most important aim of ‘global Britain’ is to renew these ties, and make them effective through both hard and soft power. Aid to developing members of the club in Africa — not least in the form of university scholarships (at present officially regarded as elitist) — should be part of an explicit coordinated strategy.

    China and India will remain, as for centuries past, both tempting and risky. It will be interesting to see what effect the unprecedented education of a significant part of the Chinese elite in the UK will have on our relations. Meanwhile, we should give our ‘moral sanction and support’ to moderates in India and democrats in Hong Kong — hopefully a beacon of future Chinese liberty.

    In Palmerston’s time, defence spending was constantly under downward pressure, and panicky increases often came too late: a familiar and dangerous subtext to our national saga. Technological change — gunpowder, dreadnought battleships, radar — always adds to the flux by making existing forces obsolescent while giving sudden advantage to the technically and economically advanced. In the age of cyber warfare, hypersonic missiles, robots and ultra–precision weapons, this is an opportunity that we cannot afford to pass up because our potential antagonists will not. Incidentally, it makes the EU’s ambition to create a conventional army seem archaic.

    To govern is to choose, said François Mitterrand. We have at last a government that can choose, and it must: history will not forgive failure now. Who can bring all these things together — economic, cultural, political, strategic — and set a course to replace the half-hearted Eurocentrism of the past half-century? We have not had a great global strategist since Churchill, and before him, Salisbury, and before him, Palmerston. They are few and far between. But we need one now with the brains, vision and courage to show us the way through the dangerous labyrinth the world has become.

    1. Does Mr Tombs reckon the current
      supporting / voting lab/lib/con memberships would ever accept such, as a savior, even if he stood on a platform of an authenticated tablet from GOD, because I most certainly do not.
      We did not get to our present state ie
      odious, as a country, without the regular input from the lab/lib/con multi followers.

      1. I don’t know about Japan being an “eternal ally”. It was within living memory that Japan fought a bitter war against us.

        1. Afternoon EdA,
          The air brush is a mighty tool, in play a great deal as of late, used in the polling booth under the guise of a three monkey mode of voting.

        2. technically, that part of WWII was sparked by the USA’s oil embargo after the Japs caused untold misery and havoc in China. Commercially, It is quite easy to maintain an alliance with Japan. They have a solid culture.

          1. Whatever the cause, the Japanese behaved with absolute barbarism to POW and, indeed, just about everyone in the countries that they conquered. They have still not shown much evidence that they acknowledge their disgraceful conduct.

          2. It is their warrior culture history. When Singapore surrendered, as far as the Japs were concerned, all the military lost face.

          3. We’ve got a pretty long-standing warrior culture ourselves but acted in a civilised fashion for the most part. I can well understand the Japanese contempt for the surrender of Singapore but what about, for example, the rape of Nanking and the treatment generally of the Chinese, not to mention the brutality towards the native population of Malaya?

          4. They are considered barbarians and savages, Enri. Much as the 13th century English behaved in a savage manner to the Welsh and Irish, thinking they were less “civilised”.

          5. That is true – we were a pretty vicious bunch but that was 6 or 7 hundred years ago and we have moved on since then. In any case, it was the Normans, wasn’t it, that so ill-treated the Welsh and Irish back then? I think that they treated the English in much the same way.

    2. Excellent article, thank you.
      When I look at Dom Cummings, I see a man who wonders why multinational data companies have such amazing systems (Amazn, Gurgle, Faybuk) yet the NHS still uses snail mail.

      1. The empire builders at the NHS don’t want a systems like those. They would have no need of %50 of the office staff.

    2. I like the turquoise background. It’s the
      colour of a the Dorset coastline as opposed to
      mine which is North Sea grey .

      Might I have the honour of giving your new account
      It’s first up vote;)

          1. It’s vibrant and positive as a shade of blue,
            the colour of discovery. The EU wouldn’t like it.

            If Æthelfled requires reincarnating ( as if 1000 years isn’t enough )
            she’ll hold the standard of the Yellow Dragon of Wessex in
            her hand and battle henceforth 😉

          1. There’s a malicious bot afoot, awarding some of us ‘negative upvotes’. One would think this shouldn’t be possible, but Disqus don’t seem interested in fixing it. I’m losing a vote every five seconds, so I’m now tens of 1000’s into negative territory, ditto my user reputation, so I can’t post on the majority of sites any more. The bot seems to be targeting users of the old ‘channels’. I don’t think this site is being particularly singled out. Anyone with a recent account appears unaffected.

          4. Yes, it is not this site that is being singled out in any way. People were being hit by this “vote-stripping program” or bot, over a year ago, and they were from many different sites. It is effecting almost everyone now.

            In those days the overwhelming common factor among those whose votes were wiped out was that they were “Conservative” or on the right wing of political thinking. As Discus is run by far-left New World Order sympathisers, it is only a surprise that it took them this long to try to get rid of us all. 🙂

          5. I just a few seconds ago, checked your profile and you had 11 upvotes. I gave you another one and immediateky checked your profile – it had jumped up to 27 upvotes. I think that Disqus probably outsourced their arithmetical algorithm to Miss Abbott.

          6. That’s the new account and those are genuine upvotes. The old profile is in freefall. It shows ‘0 votes’, but Disqus never shows a negative number of likes. Behind the scenes, thanks to the site pointed out by Mahatma, my upvote total is around minus 64,000. And counting.

    4. Yo Boss

      How does one create a new account? All my attempts take me back to zxcv3. (Years ago I had zxcv1 and zxcv2). I can’t seem to get a ‘clean sheet’

      Thanks in advance for any guidance (from you and from other NoTTLers)

      1. mahatma – that is twice you have listed your “blogs” in 2 comments, and around the 15th time in a few days. I like you chap, but it does look a bit “strange” when you keep doing it.

        You don’t want to end up looking like a certain user here with their many, many repetitive comments. 🙂

        More power to you on your other comments though. We are in lockstep 99% of the time.

        1. I posted an offer on here the other day to Whitelist any Nottler who wanted it on my blogs, both Goeff & Sue have opened new ID’s today so I have posted to them confirmation that their new accts are whitelisted and exactly where they are whitelisted so that they can book mark them.

          1. mahatma – I know that your intentions are good, but a real friend sometimes says things that need to be said, if they actually care.

            Seeing you list your blogs so many times is starting to look as if you are desperate for people to join you. I am sure that is not your intent, but I thought I should let you know that this might be the impression that some new arrivals here might get.

            I really hope that you do not take offence at this comment. It was meant to highlight something that you might not be aware of. But keep up the other comments chap. 🙂

          2. I am not desperate for folks to join – I have a fair number of regulars on my blogs , what I need are more page posters as unlike NTTL I don’t use the open forum method but individual articles on the wide variety of subjects covered on the blogs . My News channel during its just under 2 years of existence had 154K followers, was in the Top 20 trending channels of the 4K existing channels , I had 5K+ article pages & dozens of page posters but unlike on channels where anybody could post a page , on blogs only authorized posters can post pages. I use Blogger & it requires a Gmail acct & to be signed up to Blogger & to mail the Blog owner the Gmail details to be added to the system and posting pages on Blogger is much more complicated than Disqus channels – on Disqus I could post a page with dialogue, photos, gifs & videos in 2-3 minutes but on Blogger it takes 5-15 minutes to complete the task depending on the level of mixed media in the page .

          3. Sorry for the delay – I was away there catching up on comments lower down. I am down to the ones about being on the Queens side and whether people can dance or not.

            I hope you didn’t take offence at my comments and I certainly didn’t say that you were desperate, I said that that was what it “looked like.” Those numbers you listed were impressive. Imagine multiplying them for the 30 years that I have been online. But all of those things are just sand in the wind. People are what are important, as you know. 🙂

            Anyway – to avoid any misunderstanding I won’t speak any further on this. I’m back down the page to the dancing Queens. 🙂

  53. The picture of the HM the Queen is totally unflattering

    How can the DT be so despicable and cruel

    She does not deserve this type of coverage.

    She, like many of us has family problems, brought to the fore by the MSM, with help from here grandson and his wife

    On top of that is Brexit, about which she has been diplomatic

    Give her some Peace

      1. Jellyhead Windsor. “Born with lime jelly instead of a brain, Jellyhead [Windsor] is completely useless…” (with apologies to Viz)

    1. Just don’t mention that you are in favour of the United Kingdom being free of the EU, or express support for any politician who is not far left – or your new account will be put on the list as well.

      Their long-term aim is to silence any views that do not fit in with theirs. They will still keep losing elections though. You cannot silence the human spirit and the desire to be free. 🙂

    2. My reason is honestly partly because I wanted to change my email address and Disqus wasn’t letting me. The Beeb has recently changed its rules about personal use of email addresses. It used to be OK.

        1. Apparently, just create a new email and password
          and sign up to disqus with it. There is no need to
          delete the one you currently have. Storm in a D Cup has two.

      3. My oldest email address, that my old friends have, is so ancient that it has my actual name in it. 🙂

        Those days were more innocent. You would not do that so readily in the age of everyone trying to track everything that you do.

        1. This is also a new account I’ve just set up. I took your advice and just used another email address I already had. 😸 We’ll see what happens.

      6. I’ve just spent the last half hour or so setting up a new account and new email address – now I’m not sure which one I’m using! So this is a test post.

          2. I’ve just noticed today’s date here says
            Sunday 12th December instead of Sunday 12th January

            I thought oh Christmas shopping again for a moment-
            that was a shock 🙂

          4. Bugger. That’s what happens when you oversleep and arrive at the laptop with 2 minutes to spare before the self-imposed deadline of 7 am. Still half asleep. I’ve done that twice this week…

          5. Oh never mind you clearly needed your sleep.
            That date is also my birthday, so it did stick out 😉

          10. Yo Boss

            I have been trying to set up a new ID, zxcv5. Utterly infuriating. Can’t get anything to work. It tells me I can’t comment on here using that ID

          12. Did you go through the palaver of sending yourself a confirmation email? It told me I couldn’t comment here till I’d done that.

          13. Thanks Geoff – I think I’ll have to find a new elephant pic so I can see which account is which. I’m already getting confused.

          18. Its long gone – the owner self deleted his/her account , the mods quit & it got overrun by porn posters – it was one of the 11 channels that Disqus deleted for TOS violations in April 2019 which preceded the appearance of the upvote loss bot & all those who posted on those channels were in the first batch of posters hit by the bot!

          20. Yes I know you didn’t post on it, I did but with a previous version of theelephantintheroom ID a few years ago which I deleted 2 years ago my latest elephant ID is its reincarnation & now it too is heading for the dustbin

    3. You’re OK at the moment, Bob, but some of us (those showing ‘zero votes’ in their profile) are being awarded ‘negative upvotes’ by the confounded bot. This affects the user reputation, and once that reaches a certain level, one can only post on sites which have ‘whitelisted’ you. My new account isn’t affected by the bot. Yet.

      1. Yeah, I have finally lost all upvotes, time to get on with life and ignore this popularity race.

        .

        1. Quite right. The people that you talk to online in places such as this are what is important. Not some number on a screen that can be wiped out at the press of a button. 🙂

        2. It’s not about popularity. It’s about being able to share opinions. If we’re prevented from doing that because someone doesn’t like them, then they’ve silenced us. I for one, am not ready to give in.

          1. If we’re prevented from doing that because someone doesn’t like them us, then they’ve silenced us.

            Start with the first person, keep to the first person.

    1. In my defence I did sing the praises of JdF and MdS here a couple of months back, and yes for atmosphere, poignancy and pure punch in the midriff OMG I didn’t see that coming this duet IMO cannot be beaten.

        1. Yes, but you asked for 7 films, and if they had already chosen 6 then to add two more would have moved the numbers up to 8. Could we perhaps list the 3 Godfather films as just 1?

          2. Sorry about that, but it was you who wanted us all to go to the naughty step wasn’t it?

          4. Message from the “nit-picker” to the “patroniser” (and all NoTTLers): Goodbye! (© Bill Thomas).

      1. The film’s score is mainly based around the music of Giuseppi Vedi. The aria Invano Alvaro from the Italian master’s opera La forza del destino can be heard throughout the film.
        It’s worth watching for the wonderful music especially the opening scene….
        You’re missing a treat.

        1. I have actually seen the films. They just don’t do anything for me 🙂 If I want to listen to Verdi, I can do so without watching the film 🙂

  57. I get the feeling that the BBC and the mainstream media dislike the Australian PM as much as they do Trump

          1. If they can get away with destroying a French icon like Notre Dame they can get away with anything.

      1. No mm they are just cheesed off about fuel tax hikes and upping the pension age to 64……

      1. Anne in practical terms up voting a poster whose account is at Zero up votes like Plums in is pointless as no new up votes stick to her account, the Bot instantly negates them.

        1. But doesn’t Plum still see upticks on her information bar (if you press the little button next to your name on the right). Even if they are not cumulated?

        2. But doesn’t Plum still see upticks on her information bar (if you press the little button next to your name on the right). Even if they are not cumulated?

    2. Ada – ” What’s up Bert”?
      Bert – “70 years on Nottler, and no upvotes to show for it”.
      Ada – ” Well don’t worry Bert, you can’t take them with you”.

    3. That’s the point, i.e. to either prevent people posting comments, or drive them away. It’s the US election year, so they are trying to censor potential Trump supporters for sure, and conservatives in general.

      Anyway, this is my new account. Hi, all.

    4. We can get back to fave movies and music later maybe. Perhaps plays and pictures too. Books are a little more tricky as that can take us back to politics. I’m reading Douglas Murray’s Madness of Crowds. Just finished Andrew Doyle’s Titania book. The joke may now be wearing a little thin for some but I found it a good laugh.

    5. Can I crap on about apostrophes or will you report me?

      Just took a butchers butcher’s only to find…

      2. Do carry on, peddy. Some of us only come here to have our grammar corrected. We miss skool. Of course, you might piss off a well liked poster who did his best, but having aphasia as a result of a mini stroke, was so offended he left the site and closed his account. But – hey – that’s just collateral damage, right?

        2. If you took the trouble to read & analyse carefully the sequence which lead to ECD’s departure, you would see that grammar, spelling & apostrophes were not involved. He simply didn’t answer Anne’s question(s), which I pointed out.
          Stig, as an independent & sensible witness, came to the same conclusion.

          1. “Lead” to his departure? I did take the trouble to do all of that. But the fact remains that he was sufficiently offended / hurt to leave us. And close his account. Much banter goes on here, and that’s fine, but perhaps we should all (I include myself) ask ourselves before posting, “is it kind / necessary / liable to be misunderstood?”. “Would I say this to a complete stranger in the street?” It’s been clear to me for years that the guy is intelligent and accomplished, but has issues in the grammar department, which are probably outside his control, and I, for one, wouldn’t have dreamt of pulling him up on any errors. You’re defending the indefensible here.

        3. Is peddy correct?

          … butcher’s hook requires an apostrophe but that’s not what I said,

          1. You may not realise it, but that’s exactly what you said, otherwise your opening remark doesn’t make sense.

            The Cockney, butcher’s hook = look, is so well known that it can be shortened to ‘butcher’s’ & the word, look, is understood. This occurs quite often with Cockney rhyming slang.

          3. Off the top of my head I would have thought that butchers is a noun in its own right and therefore wouldn’t need an apostrophe. If you had put one in, then one could say “a butcher’s what”? I.e. the word hook would have been necessary.

            But I would put that question below that of the oonsequences of getting minus votes and being unable to comment on other forums… :o)

          5. I must admit I largely feel that too – although the Conservative Woman is one I sometimes post on.

            I guess I was sort of saying tongue in cheek, so what? about the apostrophe…

          6. Hejsan min vän.

            See my reply to Plum, immediately above. The word ‘hook’ was not necessary as it was understood

          7. I think as it is from rhyming slang which also drops the rhyming bit, then butchers would require an apostrophe as it is short for “butcher’s hook” ie look. If she was just referring to two butchers (ie people) then it wouldn’t.

          10. Yes, but surely even if it is the abbreviated version of the rhyming slang, the word is still “butchers” – the context gives the intended meaning.

        1. That’s an easy one, Conners.

          The expression is ‘a butcher’s hook’ -singular. It is extremely unlikely that a number of butchers would be sharing one hook.

          Next, please.

          1. But it’s a hook, there is nothing to say it wasn’t generic to more than one butcher 🙂

  61. @peddytheviking:disqus

    Mr Viking you’re dropping as quickly as I am,
    must be a dark ages thing, God knows.

        1. Disqus is now owned by Zeta Global Marketing Company,
          but have kept the ‘ Disqus ‘ Brand name but maybe they
          want to move in a completely different direction then
          being a host site for comments.

      2. I’ve not the foggiest but on some UK sites it’s not affected
        whatsoever. Some think it has sinister motives and others
        think it just some disqus blip. I prefer to think it the latter .

  62. There once was a prince named Harry,
    Who chose so badly when he did marry,
    The Queen was aghast,
    The flag flew half mast
    And the only one left happy was Larry

    1. There once was a second son
      Who was looking exceeding glum,
      ‘Cos instead of his wife
      Enhancing his life
      He ended up under her thumb.

  63. After ignoring the upvote furore until a few days ago, I found that for 27k comments, I had a similar number of upvotes.
    Yesterday the upvotes had reduced by 90% and today it is zero.

    The cause? No idea.

          1. N,
            Agreed, even as open as mrs may.
            O what a tangled web they weave, those who set out to deceive ……..

        1. Of course Balham is nearer the Equator than Scandinavia. It is, after all, The Gateway to the South.

  69. Did she get it right ?

    Ann Widdecombe faces angry backlash after telling CBB housemates she is ‘uneasy’ about Meghan Markle joining royal family because of her ‘background and attitude’

    Ann Widdecombe has faced a backlash after labelling Meghan Markle ‘trouble’ and saying she is ‘uneasy’ about the American actress joining the royal family.
    The Celebrity Big Brother contestant said in a discussion with housemates that she is concerned about the ‘background’ and ‘attitude’ of Prince Harry’s fiancée.

    The 70-year-old outspoken former MP put her hand up and said: ‘I think she’s trouble’, before Johnson asked her why. She replied: ‘Background, attitude, I worry.’
    Johnson said: ‘She’s older than him, she’s been married before.’ And Miss Widdecombe continued: ‘Yes, I add it all up and I am uneasy, but there we go.’

    1. Gosh! If only the Taoiseach had the same views, I’d give up my boycott of everything Irish.

    2. What’s the background to this?

      The problem is , the Left never stop. They consider such responses encouragement to destroy her. They are not rational people who think logically. Their entire attitude is to crush those who stand up to them. If one person starts to flag, another carries the standard, and another and another until they destroy their opponents: truth, dignity, respect, merit, achievement, ethics.

      They hate, irrationally, unthinkingly, relentlessly.

      1. ” What’s the background to this?”
        I suppose I should know ? But not a clue anywhere, She just goes on and on.

      2. As I understand it Tracey O’mahoney is a barrister in Ireland who is campaigning against the new laws being considered there to limit Free Speech. She was a Twitter Virgin and unwisely made her views known on the same and thus called down the wrath of those who actually oppose it and who tried to get her sacked. The video is her response in what I would consider (though I agree with her views) an equally unwise move.

  72. Was having chicken with masala wine and mushrooms tonight
    but my cough and germs are being a pain.
    So I’ve suggested sweet and sour chicken instead as it’s quick and simple.
    And then i shall return to where i am atm within my duck feather
    winter duvet in my cosy and very warm Norwegian brushed cotton
    duvet cover with reindeer ‘s and winter scenes on one side and some
    Norwegian tree pattern on the other. Anyway it’s warm and cosy.

    1. I feel all sleepy and cosy myself for reading that…..enjoy and hope you feel better soon…..x

      1. Thank You. Before sleeping I shall have some warm milk with
        cinnamon, rum and a teaspoon of honey, it’s soothing and just
        nice anyway as a winter drink instead of hot chocolate:)

        1. Nope it isn’t! Well maybe in a Irish coffee or Bailey’s
          Irish Cream.. It’s the cream that improves it 😉

          2. Hmm, I’ll have you know there are 8 different types of
            booze in my Christmas pudding, it puts
            people to sleep for hours whilst I raid the chocolate
            truffles and have some peace and quiet:)

      1. Thank you. We were away at Christmas in Wiltshire staying
        with husband’s relatives and they didn’t put the heating on,
        a large house with fires they also didn’t light, hugely cold
        at night, freezing. Husband caught a chill and cough first
        and he’s sweetly given it to me. But Thank you, I am sure
        I’ll be bright as a button soon.

      1. Didn’t get much choice, we sent away to Norway for it and the
        Christmas scene was the only one on offer.
        I must admit it looks like it should’ve been packed away with
        the decorations. It’s very warm and cosy 😉

        I don’t think sunny beach scenes are ever on duvet covers,
        summer ones have floral designs.

    5. Roast pork. Potatoes, gravy, carrots, sprouts. Settles me unhappy tum – didn’t know if the pains were due to emptiness or whatever upset it.

      1. That sounds nice, winter warming nourishing foods,
        they always settle the stomach. And anything with mash
        or custard.

          3. There are two types of sculpture. The example given which is exquisite and designed to be appreciated at eye level.

            By contrast, sculptures mounted high on cathedrals and churches, intended to be viewed from the ground, employ cruder techniques in order to be effective. There is a sculpture by Niccolo Pisano in the V&A which demonstrates this aspect. David Pye explained this in his seminal work ‘The Nature of Art and Workmanship’.

          4. Thank you C…I can see how the sculpture above would be lost at the top of a cathedral. It really is quite beautiful isn’t it……

          10. Veiled ladies in marble were very popular, because it was a way of combining sensuality with modesty.
            As for the initial process, the artist could model a head in terracotta and then drape it with fabric soaked in some form of adhesive, and that is half the battle, to get the material to hang naturally.
            When the figure is ready to copy, you take a block of suitable stone and chip away anything that doesn’t look beautiful.
            Of course, you would need to be an expert sculptor and modeller.

        1. I am reading Ken Clarke’s autobiography and he said that period was the last meritocracy. I think he was right.

    2. Stupidity beyond measure

      ROGER SCRUTON

      The Times, Thursday 9th December 1999

      While politicians debate whether to keep one kind of pound, they have silently allowed the disappearance of another. After December 31 it will be a criminal offence to sell products by the pound and the ounce. The reason for this is that the DTI has not bothered to obtain the ten-year extension of our old imperial measures that was offered by the EC as a preliminary to forbidding them. No more blatant example could be imagined of random law-making in defiance of popular wishes. The law compelling us to use the metric system was never discussed or voted on by our elected representatives; and although opinion polls suggest that nine people out of ten are opposed to the change, their desires count for nothing. The Eurocrats have decreed that the metric system will be used, and another foundation-stone is to be removed from the already tottering edifice of our national culture.

      Do weights and measures matter? Those who introduced the metric system – the French Revolutionaries – answered with an emphatic “yes”. Weights and measures mediate our day-to-day transactions; hence they are imprinted with our sense of membership. They are symbols of the social order and distillations of our daily habits. The old measures were redolent, the Revolutionaries believed, of a hierarchical, backward-looking society. They were muddled, improvised, and full of compromises. What was needed was a system expressive of the new social order, based on Reason, progress, discipline and the future. Since the decimal system is the basis of arithmetic, and since mathematics is the symbol of Reason and its cold imperatives, the decimal system must be imposed by force, in order to shake people free of their old attachments.

      The conflict of currencies therefore expressed a conflict both political and philosophical. The distinction between the imperial and the metric systems corresponds to the distinction between the reasonable and the rational, between solutions achieved through custom and compromise and those imposed by a plan. Muddled though the imperial measures may appear to those obsessed by mathematics, they are the produce of life. In ordinary transactions, measurement proceeds by dividing and multiplying, not by adding. It makes sense to divide a gallon into a half, a quart and a pint, or to have 16 ounces to the pound.

      The antiquity of these measures – like that of our old coinage, arbitrarily jettisoned in a previous fit of rationalism – is testimony to their common sense. But the most important fact about them is that they are ours. They are commemorated in our national literature and in our proverbs; they have shaped our eating and drinking habits; they are the lingua franca of all our books of recipes, all our manuals of gardening and husbandry and handicraft, and the subject matter of a thousand schoolbooks.

      The idea that we should be committing a crime by using them, and just because some foreign bureaucrat has said so, is such an offence to the sense of law and justice that we are surely under a moral obligation to go on using them nevertheless. If ever there were a case for civil disobedience, this is it.

      There is another and deeper reason to resist these mad imperatives. The French Revolutionaries believed that by changing weights and measures, calendars and festivals, street-names and landmarks, they could undermine the old and local attachments of the people, so as to conscript them behind their international purpose. The eventual result was Napoleon, who spread the metric system by force across the Continent. In a small way the same is being done to us. The effect of destroying our weights and measures will be not only to undermine the old local loyalties between shopkeeper and customer. It will be to destroy the small businesses that cannot afford the change. And we should ask who would really want such a result.

      The answer, it seems to me, is clear. The supermarkets are international players, who have a vested interest in the metric system, since it is applied in most of the countries from which they import their products. If the measures on which old and local businesses depend are criminalised, the supermarkets will score yet another advantage in their war on behalf of the global government that will do most for their profits. Is that what we want? Surely, it would have been nice of our dictators to ask us, before commanding us to change.

      1. “It makes sense to divide a gallon into a half, a quart and a pint, or to have 16 ounces to the pound.”

        I have argued this brand of common sense, long and loud, with advocates of the decimal system who think their methods are ‘best’.

        When I inform them, “Simply halve ten and you already have an indivisible odd number”, their feeble brains cannot compute! How utterly mind-numbingly brainless that?

          1. Feet certainly help. Although I’m putting my foot in it, again, with a certain founder of our site.

        2. Interesting. Paper sizes likewise. Imperial, half imperial, quarter imperial. Not A2, A3, A4 etc, since the numbers don’t actually relate directly to the reduction in size.

          1. Yes they do!
            A4 is half a sheet of A3, split along the long side.
            A5 is similarly half A4, A3 is half A2, and so on.

          3. American “equivalent” of A4 is 11″ x 8½”.

            Did you know, Paul, that the side to side ratio of the ‘A’ series of paper sizes is 1:√2 ?

          4. Didn’t know that… the things one learns. I wonder why that relationship? Foolscap is different…

          5. Jackthelad will probably know, he uses the system. I only discovered it recently when I received an invoice from an American firm I’d bought good from.

          6. Sorry, Sue. Not entirely correct. A3 is half a sheet of A2, A4 half A3, etc…

            However, A4, being arguably the most common paper size, would have been more helpful if it was 300, rather than 297 mm long…

          9. It doesn’t work on logic (in common with the metric system). All sheets (of whatever size) in the ‘A’ series have the same side ratio, 1:√2.

            The series goes (from large to small): A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6. The length of the short side (on all sizes) is a factor of 1, and the length of the long side (again, on all sizes) is √2 (approx 1·414213). This ensures that if you fold, say, a sheet of A4, you will end up with exactly two sheets of A5 that have the same side to side ratio of 1:√2.

          10. Nothing logical about metrication.

            Try sorting kitchen Gastro-norm pan sizes. All completely incompatible with our traditional Bakery tray sizes and Baking ovens.

            Most catering equipment is now designed to European Gastro-norm pan sizes. It would be difficult in my view to now reverse this reality.

          11. It doesn’t work on logic (in common with the metric system). All sheets (of whatever size) in the ‘A’ series have the same side ratio, 1:√2.

            The series goes (from large to small): A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6. The length of the short side (on all sizes) is a factor of 1, and the length of the long side (again, on all sizes) is √2 (approx 1·414213). This ensures that if you fold, say, a sheet of A4, you will end up with exactly two sheets of A5 that have the same side to side ratio of 1:√2.

          12. …and we use 8 1/2 x 11 as the US standard “letter” size and 8 1/2 x 14 for “legal” size.

            That’s doubtless ‘cos lawyers are long winded – you there Bill?

          13. A4 is a bugger as by contrast with foolscap you could write a letter confined to a single print page on foolscap. Ditto the Imperial drawing size on our old drawing boards was a more manageable size than the cumbersome A0 and inadequate A1.

          14. My height and weight in kilograms and kolometres, baffle me. I always have to ask the nurse at the doctors to translate. She can’t do it without looking it up on a table.

          19. I have shrunk too…:-( Lost just over 2 inches with spine problem and arthritis – also age of course. There is more air down here….Lol….

          21. That is my problem too!!!…….isn’t it a bother. My knees are now wider than my thighs thanks to arthritis – I suppose I could be a stand in for Big Bird if Sesame Street has an opening….lol.

          24. I used to say to my friend that good stuff came in little bottles – and her reply was…and poison comes in little bottles….lol.

        3. Spot on Grizz. Twenty years ago I measured the interior of Christ Church Spitalfields including surviving joinery items including those dismantled and found in tunnels at crypt level. The beautiful interior had been wrecked by Euan Christian (architect of The National Portrait Gallery) and vandal of Christ Church.

          When measuring mouldings which were designed in Imperial measurements one can be accurate in determining eights of an inch and even sixty fourths. If having to reproduce such artifacts, turned staircase balusters and moulded handrails for example, it is essential to record everything in the measurement system used in its production.

          The conversion of the Imperial system to Metric on historic artefacts is a real problem and involves a lot of rounding of converted dimensions. Fortunately my CAD System will do this for me but I remain distinctly uneasy about approximations.

          We still buy plywood and particle board/MDF sheets in Imperial sizes viz. 8’0” x 4’0” and 10’0” x 4’0” sheets now described as 2440 x 1220mm and 3050 x 1220 mm.

          Apart from any other considerations our American cousins still sensibly use feet and inches.

          As someone once stated: “why adopt a system of measurement where those counting can count no further than the fingers and thumbs on their hands”.

          1. When I bought my 125-year old brick-and-flint cottage in North Norfolk in 2001, the previous occupiers had “modernised” the lounge by covering up the ceiling beams; covering the inglenook fireplace wall with cheap, plastic wood-pattern panels; filling in the fireplace with rubble; and installing a cheapo pretend fire.

            I ripped out all this crap and discovered that they had punched a hole in the old brickwork above the fireplace in which to pour all the rubble. After filling three skips with rubble, I noticed that the old brickwork was imperial but they had filled the hole they had made with ill-fitting metric bricks. Luckily an old jobbing builder I knew told me where to obtain some reclaimed imperial bricks. [These had been hand-made and two of them even had a cats’s paw prints in them as they had been walked across when being laid out in the sun].

            To cut a long story short, I returned the cottage to its former charm using period materials.

            I grew up in engineering using both systems of measurement simultaneously, but I always retained a preference for the more intuitive feet and inches. I recently bought a digital vernier calliper that has the facility for measuring in inches and even shows fractions of an inch down to 1/128th of an inch.

          2. Contrary to perceived architectural wisdom, hand-made bricks are more precise in dimensions and shape to their machine made alternatives. The beauty of hand/made bricks is that each brick assumes a characteristic according to the way in which it is thrown. Every brick is different but of a regular size.

            The true differences come about after the bricks are fired, preferably in a traditional clamp. This process if fuelled by charcoal or coal will give every brick a distinct colour according to it’s place in the kiln. Those bricks exposed to the maximum heat will be ‘over burns’ and appear dark grey or purple whereas those in the middle will fire as a mixture of colours, if reds from plum or damson through to lighter reds. We call these bricks a mixture.

            Bricks stacked traditionally in a kiln or clamp will oxidise more at the ends or headers than the stretchers or sides. This is what makes bricks laid in Flemish or English Bonds so interesting.

          3. Like you, I can visualise in yards, feet and inches, something I utterly fail with in the metric bollocks.

          4. Even Fahrenheit gives a much more accurate measurement than centigrade (sorry, Celsius – oh shit).

          5. …our American cousins still sensibly use feet and inches.

            Yes we do, and lbs and ounces, gallons, etc. Only issue is that unlike almost everything else here, our gallons are smaller than yours, being based off a 16 fluid ounce pint. I assume someone found a certain “fearful symmetry” in having the same number of fl oz in a pint as there are ounces in a pound.

        4. Do you think we’ll go back to it, George. A dozen always made sense to me and, being a barman in the Punchbowl in Stonegate, York, in 1962 taught me very quickly how to tot up a round in my head, using pounds, shillings and pence and, when they breasted up to the bar and said “Same again.” you not only had to remember what the drinks were but ensure that the price was the same to the penny, otherwise there where ructions.

  75. RIP Sir Roger Scruton

    Sir Roger Scruton: 1944-2020

    ‘Coming close to death you begin to know what life means, and what it means is gratitude’
    Roger Scruton – 12 January 2020 – 6:55 PM

    Sir Roger Scruton died today at the age of 75. In an article for the 2019 Christmas issue of The Spectator, republished here, he looked back on his year:

    January
    My 2018 ended with a hate storm, in response to my appointment as chair of the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. But the new year brings a lull, and I hope and pray that the Grand Inquisitor enthroned by social media will find another target.

    February
    The 27th is my 75th birthday, and as it happens the last Wednesday meet of foxhounds for the season. We host the meet and celebrate with our neighbours. Despite my wife Sophie’s protests, I maintain my resolve to give up hunting at 75, counting again the broken bones, sprains and muscular disorders acquired over 35 years in the saddle, or, rather, out of it. On my last hunt, I am glad to say, I stay in the saddle all day.

    I try out my thoughts on Parsifal before a crowded meeting of the Wagner Society. Through a wonderful artistic contrivance Wagner connects redemption and suffering, showing that our highest aspirations grow from our darkest griefs, and that the gate to fulfilment stands on the way of loss. The music says this, even if the words and the plot shroud it in mystery. One member of the audience asks a penetrating question. I forget the question, but remember the man, since five months later he is to save my life.

    March
    I have been dismayed to discover how many meetings, reports, visits and discussions are involved in a government commission. Creative writing is clearly impossible. My little book of stories, Souls in the Twilight, may have to stand in for all the other things I have wanted to write in my retirement. My agent suggests a relaunch in April. I go along with the idea, not anticipating what awaits me.

    High points include a visit to Newcastle and Tynemouth, much-loved places where I could certainly live, notwithstanding the vandalisation of the city in the Sixties by councillors who treated collective responsibilities as personal gifts.

    A visit to my dear friend Jonathan Ruffer at Bishop Auckland shows that our country also produces people who treat personal gifts as collective responsibilities. Jonathan convinces me that the regeneration of the north-east could be easily achieved if influential people were to see it the way he does, as a patriotic duty to be accomplished through faith.

    April
    My publisher, Bloomsbury, has agreed to an interview in the New Statesman, a magazine for which I retain a certain fondness, having served as its wine critic for several years. Unfortunately Bloomsbury’s publicity officer cannot make it to the interview, and I am alone with an eager young man who has come not to learn about my views but to reinforce his own. I think nothing of it, since the presence of a young and enquiring mind switches me to teacher mode, assuming knowledge in order to induce it. The fact that this person may be not just ignorant of the issues that crop up but interested only in the ways they can be used to damage me does not cross my mind.

    Readers of The Spectator do not need reminding of the sequel. The interview is duly published — a mendacious concoction of out-of-context remarks and downright fabrications. We are able to obtain the tapes of the interview, and on the strength of this, and thanks to all the support that is offered to me, not least by this magazine and its brave associate editor Douglas Murray, I obtain an apology from the New Statesman.

    By that time the damage has been done. I have been dismissed from the Commission, by a party which seems entirely unacquainted with the many thousands of quite well-argued words that I have offered in support of it, and the architects queue up to pour their ritual denunciations on my head.

    At my lowest point, fearing that all the work conducted by the Commission would be lost, I communicate to James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, that he should stick with it, and to his credit he does. It has been a hard time for Mr Brokenshire, but his apology leads to my re-instatement, and even the architectural press, apart from the adolescent Dezeen, ceases to repeat the fantastic and fabricated charges against me.

    What lessons do I draw from this episode, apart from the obvious one that conservative intellectuals are being censored out of the public debate in our country? A headline in the Times informing the reader that I have been dismissed from a government position ‘over “white supremacist” views’; an attack in parliament demanding that I be stripped of my knighthood in the light of my ‘Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic comments’ — and so on and so forth — such things naturally jeopardise my loyalty to the country and the party to which I have devoted so much of my energy over 50 years. Do I belong here? I ask. To discover that even prominent members of the Tory party are inclined to say ‘no’ is a fairly shattering blow. But there is a good side. Letters of support come in from across the world and for a while it is as though I am listening to the speeches at my own funeral, with the unique chance of nodding in agreement. And just in case I do think of emigrating, Le Figaro mounts a campaign in support of me, preparing the way.

    But this reminds me of the real disaster in April. Writing in Le Figaro in the wake of the Notre-Dame fire I pay my tribute to a city whose art and literature have been a continual inspiration since my first visit as a teenager. ‘As the angel on the roof has promised,’ I write, ‘Notre-Dame will be resurrected. It will be resurrected because its city, unique among modern capitals, has remained continually itself, from the time when it was the heart of Europe, through the time when it turned the world upside down, to our present time, when it reminds our troubled continent of the spiritual inheritance that it must not deny.’ Is that a pious hope or will the postmodern worldview of Emmanuel Macron still allow Europe to be what it really means to us? This question has animated politics across our continent throughout the year, and yet few people seem to be aware of it.

    May
    Sophie has arranged a belated birthday party with my closest friends. There are speeches to warm the heart, and a performance of my three settings of Lorca, sung by Emily Van Evera. David Matthews has composed a set of variations for violin and piano on ‘Despedida’ (‘Farewell’), the last of the songs, and this melody which means so much to me stays in my head through the ensuing months, pointing in a direction that I soon discover to be the inevitable one.

    June
    I am in Poland to open the inter-parliamentary conference celebrating the first semi-free parliament in the former Soviet bloc, 30 years ago. All the countries that suffered are represented, and my task is to unite them around their original bid for freedom, downplaying the differences that have since grown between them. Many of the martyrs are there — old people recalling the 20- and 30-year prison sentences that were then the lot of those who think like me. Their moving testimonies leave me in a shocked and sober frame of mind, knowing how little all of this means to young British people today, as the knowledge of the history and culture of Europe slips from their grasp. Because I have taken their experiences seriously over the years, the Poles consider me entitled to their Order of Merit, duly conferred by the President. With an added touch of Polish humour they also confer the Ministry of Culture’s prize for architecture. Needless to say, the British ambassador is absent from these embarrassing events, and I escape to England with a heart full of gratitude for another country where I would be welcome as a refugee.

    July
    And it is not the only one. For reasons I do not truly fathom I have a fan club in Brazil, and have finally agreed to turn up there to talk about the meaning of life. I am not feeling well, and the journey puts a strain on me. I stay in my hotel, reading Shakespeare. I groan in discomfort above streets where no sane man would walk, and am carted around to give lectures to crowds of young people, all of whom seem to be devoted to the task of saving western civilisation in the furthest point it has reached, which turns out to be Brazil. Maybe they are better able than I am to see the alternative is not another and better civilisation, but no civilisation at all.

    Returning to London, I finally get to see the rheumatologist with whom I have booked an appointment. He talks of my lecture on Parsifal, at which he asked that forgotten question. And he delicately suggests, as a matter of some urgency, a CT scan. Alarmed by what he finds, he puts me in the hands of an oncologist who, concluding that otherwise I may be dead from cancer within a week, sets to work on me at once.

    That week has been extended, but for how long? This question naturally dominates my life and the life of my family. Hope of a remission remains, though life will henceforth be very different. Nothing can be planned as a goal but only as a possibility. Again, however, as with the scandalous interview designed to ruin me, the good outweighs the bad. Never before in my life has so much appreciation come my way, and thanks to my oncologist I have been able to work at my desk, writing the report for the Commission, and organising the Scrutopia summer school, to be taught now by friends and students.

    August and September
    There follow chemotherapy, intensive reading (Homer, George Eliot, Conrad, Seamus Heaney), and much intimate correspondence with friends with whom I now have no inhibitions. Marwa al-Sabouni draws my attention to the covenant between Abraham and God in its Quranic version. Hold your faith to this, she writes from Syria, but remember that your pain is your redemption. Back to Parsifal, by way of the Quran! And so far the pain has been a companion, but not a tyrant.

    October
    I am able to get out for one consoling event — the memorial service for Norman Stone, whose amused and amusing vision of modern life always cheered me. Norman was a strong defender of our inherited identity but, as a Scot, he understood that identity has many layers: a Scot is not forced to choose between being a Scot and a Brit, any more than between whisky and wine — Norman being, in the matter of alcohol, a believer in a borderless community of the Enlightened. He had a deep knowledge of the European empires, a love of Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman settlement, and a remarkable acquaintance with the languages and literatures of central Europe. He set an example of imaginative involvement with other cultures that was all the more impressive for the sarcastic wit with which he punctured our patriotic illusions.

    November
    I am due in Prague for the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Chemotherapy and crippled legs impede me, but Sophie’s unfailing support is augmented by that of our embassy. I am now a diplomatic asset in a place where previously I rocked the boat, and the event is conducted in the highest good spirits by people grateful for the former British involvement. Don’t accept the EU propaganda version that we are celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall as though ‘freedom of movement’ were all that it is about. We are celebrating the restoration of national sovereignty to people who had been absorbed and oppressed by a lawless empire. The fact that they are now absorbed by a lawful one does not alter the case.

    The Czechs confer their commemorative medal on a Eurosceptic, namely me, in a touching ceremony that reminds me why, despite the appeal of the Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and many more, it is the shy, cynical Czechs to whom I lost my heart and from whom I have never retrieved it.

    December
    During this year much was taken from me — my reputation, my standing as a public intellectual, my position in the Conservative movement, my peace of mind, my health. But much more was given back: by Douglas Murray’s generous defence, by the friends who rallied behind him, by the rheumatologist who saved my life and by the doctor to whose care I am now entrusted. Falling to the bottom in my own country, I have been raised to the top elsewhere, and looking back over the sequence of events I can only be glad that I have lived long enough to see this happen. Coming close to death you begin to know what life means, and what it means is gratitude.

    1. Roger Scruton RIP

      I used a quotation from The Great Gatsby yesterday. I repeat it for Roger Scruton;

      “You’re worth the whole damned bunch put together.”

        1. The VWH I think – he mentions the meet at Cirencester Park, although he also cited the Royal Agricultural College Beagles. He was a keen defender of the ethics of hunting.

          1. VWH – Jonathon Seed, whom I knew at university. A great ambassador for hunting, but sadly retired now.

    3. RIP, Sir.

      Another good one bites the dust.

      Here’s hoping those who kicked him when he was down don’t now crawl out of the woodwork uttering their insincere words.

    4. RIP. A great humanist and a fine intellectual. He often exposed the architectural profession and its arrogant architectural journalist promoters for their vacuous attachment to the so called Modern Movement, the flat-roofed broken-backed style of Adolf Loos.

      Muthesius, a German, appreciated the greatness of English architecture in ‘The English House‘. How right he was. Wordsworth wrote about the ‘genius of the place’ a concept lost entirely on the cretinous Modern Movement architects of today.

      Look at the EU buildings in Strasbourg and Brussels, disruptive of the historic fabric of these ancient cities and utterly alienating to the common folk.

      The Muslims almost certainly destroyed Notre Dame. If allowed they will destroy yet more Christian edifices as they seek to promote their own mad and backward mediaeval cult of death.

    5. Douglas Murray.

      Sir Roger Scruton has died. Diagnosed with cancer last summer, he passed away peacefully on Sunday surrounded by his family.

      There will be a lot of things written and said in the coming days. But perhaps I could say a few things here.

      The first is to reiterate something that the Scruton family have said in their announcement of his death. There they refer to how proud they are of Roger and of all his achievements. I think I can say that all Roger’s friends share that feeling. His achievements were remarkable. He was a man who appeared to know about absolutely everything, producing books on architecture, philosophy, beauty, music, religion and much more. In many ways – as his former student Rabbi Sacks once said to me – he seemed bigger than the age.

      There seemed no area he had not mastered. In the mid-2000s we were at a dinner party at the house of our late friend Shusha Guppy with a group of eminent writers and journalists, all with egos of their own. I remember one of them asking Roger whether he would think about doing an updated version of his book ‘The West and the Rest’. With characteristic and by no means feigned humility he replied that he didn’t think so because he didn’t think his Farsi was any longer up to it. How beautiful it was to see every other writer in the room look as though they might just give up there and then.

      Doubtless there will be some talk in the coming days of ‘controversy’. Some score settling may even go on. So it is worth stressing that on the big questions of his time Roger Scruton was right. During the Cold War he faced an academic and cultural establishment that was either neutral or actively anti-Western on the big question of the day. Roger not only thought right, but acted right. Not many philosophers become men of action. But with the ‘underground university’ that he and others set up, he did just that. During the ‘70s and ‘80s at considerable risk to himself he would go behind the Iron Curtain and teach philosophy to groups of knowledge-starved students. If Roger and his colleagues had been largely leftist thinkers infiltrating far-right regimes to teach Plato and Aristotle there have been multiple Hollywood movies about them by now. But none of that mattered. Public notice didn’t matter. All that mattered was to do the right thing and to keep the flame of philosophical truth burning in societies where officialdom was busily trying to snuff it out.

      Having received numerous awards and accolades abroad, in 2016 he was finally given the recognition he deserved at home with the award of a Knighthood. Yet still there remained a sense that he was under-valued in his own country. It was a sense that you couldn’t help but get when you travelled abroad. I lost count of the number of countries where I might in passing mention the dire state of thought and politics in my country only to hear the response ‘But you have Roger Scruton’. As though that alone ought to be enough to right the tiller of any society. And in a way they were right of course. But the point did always highlight the strange disconnect between his reputation at home and abroad. Britain has never been very good with philosophers of course, a fact that Roger thought partly correct, but his own country’s treatment of him was often outrageous. As events of the last year reiterated, he might be invited onto a television or radio programme or invited to a print interview only for the interviewer to play the game of ‘expose the right-wing monster’. The last interview he did on the Today Programme was exactly such a moment. The BBC might have asked him about anything. They might have asked him about Immanuel Kant, or Hegel, or the correct attitude in which to approach questions of our day like the environment. But they didn’t. They wanted cheap gotchas. That is the shame of this country’s media and intellectual culture, not his.

      But if there was a reason why such attempts at ‘gotchas’ consistently failed it was because nobody could reveal a person that did not exist. Of course Roger could on occasion flash his ideological teeth he was one of the kindest, most encouraging, thoughtful, and generous people you could ever have known. From the moment that we first met – as I was just starting out in my career – he was a constant guide as well as friend. And not just in the big things, but in the small things that often matter more when you’re setting out. Over the years I lost count of the number of people who I discovered that he had helped in a similar way without wanting anyone to notice and expecting no reward for himself.

      A man other than Roger might have got bitter about some of the treatment he received, but he never did. Whatever his complex views on faith, he lived a truly Christian attitude of forgiveness and hope for redemption. His last piece for The Spectator – a diary of his last year – radiates this. If he sometimes fitted uncomfortably with the age in which he found himself it was principally because he did not believe in its guiding tone of encouraged animosity and professionalised grudge. He believed instead – and lived in – the spirit of different age. One in which he encouraged his readers to share. That is a spirit of gratitude for what you have received, and forgiveness for what you have not.

      One of my first grieving thoughts on hearing the news was how much I still had to ask him. But in that spirit which he encouraged I will instead turn to the shelves I have full of his books and marvel again instead about the huge amount he gave us.

      https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/roger-scruton-a-man-who-seemed-bigger-than-the-age/

  76. Just finished watching a recording of the story of Jonestown and Jim Jones. 918 people died in Guyana in 1978. Most of us oldies can probably remember the mass suicide/murder but the point was made that the followers were entranced by an alternative political message and unchallenged statements. The hysteria that resulted was used by Jones to persuade nearly a thousand people to destroy themselves and their functioning society, although many were forcefully injected including 300 children. In passing, I wondered what St Greta and the disciples of her ideology are doing this evening.

      2. Not possible. Bananas don’t grow in Sweden, and she couldn’t possibly condone the carbon cost of transporting the fruit…

    2. Gina Miller was born and bred in Guyana, although she would have been only 13 in 1978.
      For one child to be murdered is terrible, 300 is evil beyond belief.

  77. If Harry and Meghan want out, they should just go. No half in, half out, just go.

    ‘Bye, no hard feelings.

    1. Basically World War 3 is about to break out because Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle are moving to America or something. It’s all very complicated.

    2. I have started a campaign to get all script editors to expunge the words, “What’s going on?” from all film, play, television and soap-opera scripts.
      It makes me cringe to hear such lazy dialogue every ten minutes-or-so in every production screened.

      [Concurrently, I shall urge all authors and scriptwriters to consider alternative names for their characters from the tedious and obsessive “Jack” and “Harry”. Other male names are available.]

    3. A few months ago the time travelling Saxon Queen
      posted on Disqus Papua New Guinea
      regarding some tribesmen in the wilderness having issues
      with not eating people. It being wrong these days and all that.

      Something going on across the world 😉

      1. There’s a passage in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop about African tribesmen having long since been converted to Christianity so it’s no longer acceptable to be seen in public eating humans during Lent. Satire of course but with a nub of truth.

        1. Waugh wasn’t the first to note the nubbliness of man. Kipling wrote:

          “Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, ‘I’m hungry.’ And the small ‘Stute Fish said in a small ‘stute voice, ‘Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?’
          ‘No,’ said the Whale. ‘What is it like?’
          ‘Nice,’ said the small ‘Stute Fish. ‘Nice but nubbly.’
          ‘Then fetch me some,’ said the Whale, and he made the sea froth up with his tail.

        3. And do you remember Brigadier Ritchie-Hook in Evelyn Waugh’s Men At Arms trilogy? The Brigadier’s great ‘hobby’ ‘ was going to Northern Africa to collect ‘coconuts’!

          Scoop, of course, was set in Abyssinia where the hapless William Boot, who wrote the nature column in The Daily Beast, was sent to report on the war.

          I believe our that our good friend Bill Thomas makes a point of rereading each of Evelyn Waugh’s novels every year.

        2. Plastic clothes, like puffas or fleeces, always make me sweaty. Wool, down are the best.
          I have some army wool & canvas mittens. You can grip things without the insulaton squashing flat and your hands getting cold. They also have a trigger finger that sticks up out of the top, like a small horn.

          1. I much prefer natural materials; wool, silk, leather, linen, cotton, sheepskin. Warmer/cooler as required.

          2. ‘Morning, Tom. Why does a knowledge of railways evoke a random call of ‘anorak’ when other hobbies do not? Is Nickr an ‘anorak’ also? He (and a few others on here) knows much more about railways than I do.

          3. I think that “anorak” just comes from tradition, but you probably know this. You would see the train-spotter standing on the platform in all weathers, waiting to see the train passing through. In those days there were not 10,000 types of clothing, 95% with designer labels, and the Anorak just became a term used because it was such a common site to see them.

            I’ve never had a problem with people who take their hobbies seriously. I always had my head in a book instead of being interested in more mundane things. Some people that I knew loved taking hours painting those little miniatures for wargames, although I don’t have the manual dexterity or patience to do that.

          4. I wear a Barbour wax jacket, warm hat and stout boots when I go out birdwatching*. I just rail at those gormless halfwits who are too sad (or dim) to have any form of hobby taking the piss out of those who do.

            [*Not as often as I used to (or as often as I’d like to) when I was a licensed bird-ringer and field ornithologist]

    3. I could never understand the ‘designer’ price issue. I just don’t get it. If I suddenly became very rich, I would not be fooled into paying more for something than I feel it is worth.

    4. Down at the station, early in the morning,
      See the little puffer billies all in a row…

      etc., etc.

    5. I don’t care about the fabricated ethics.

      I don’t care about if has been made in some sweatshop in India at below the minimum wage (a few rupees will feed a family and that includes granny)

      I don’t care what it is made of and that includes farmed fur.

      I do care about being warm and healthy in a cold enviroment. Plus…I think i look rather fetching in this hat and of course i get to eat the provider…

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c9daa232afcd4b0a9ae036dfc7440a6f9efb541ce094457a35426f92e3f690d.jpg

      1. When did they become Puffers? I always thought they were puffas and I never heard of them being made from down plucked from live birds.

      2. For the avoidance of doubt I have nothing against your’s or anyone else’s Puffa. It’s simply the incredulity that someone might pay £1,175 for something similar than can be picked up for around £5 in a charity shop

      3. Husky jacket is THE one. mrs N still has one going strong. Taken over some years ago by an italian comany who just want the name so the real Husky came to an end.

      4. For the avoidance of doubt I have nothing against your’s or anyone else’s Puffa. It’s simply the incredulity that someone might pay £1,175 for something similar than can be picked up for around £5 in a charity shop

  81. Goodnight everyone
    Just about to go to bed with my milky drink with rum, honey
    and cinnamon. Might even have two chocolate biscuits too 🙂

  82. Talking in their Sleep – Edith M. Thomas

    “You think I am dead,”
    The apple tree said,
    “Because I have never a leaf to show–
    Because I stoop,
    And my branches droop,
    And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
    But I’m still alive in trunk and shoot;
    The buds of next May
    I fold away–
    But I pity the withered grass at my root.”
    “You think I am dead,”
    The quick grass said,
    “Because I have parted with stem and blade!
    But under the ground
    I am safe and sound
    With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.
    I’m all alive, and ready to shoot,
    Should the spring of the year
    Come dancing here–
    But I pity the flower without branch or root.”
    “You think I am dead,”
    A soft voice said,
    “Because not a branch or root I own.
    I never have died,
    But close I hide
    In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.
    Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
    You will see me again–
    I shall laugh at you then,
    Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”

        1. Didn’t get a mention, although wouldn’t it have been the Circumcision? It was the first Sunday after Epiphany, aka Plough Sunday, complete with a Ford tractor and old-fashioned plough parked by the back door to church, around which we gathered for the blessing. The rector gave a talk (not a sermon, it was a family service) in which he produced a shovel and called it a spade – by his own admission he is not into farming (or horticulture, by the look of things) 🙂

          1. At least he didn’t call it a “subterranean void-enhancing implement”. According to the Lectionary, today is the Baptism of Christ. Having Googled it, I see that it’s also Plough Sunday. I think I’d prefer that. We sang ‘On Jordan’s Bank’ this morning. And on the feast of SJTB. And in Advent. And the same tune on Palm Sunday, albeit to different words. I have a great last-verse arrangement, but one can have too much of a good thing…

          1. So, you’re not Bill Clinton, you never had a unique humidor and I claim my 9- note.😎

          1. Thank you I haven’t heard this song before.

            There’s a chap by the name of David Johns who produces a VLOG of 15-20 minute programmes now numbering over 200 about buying a narrowboat and cruising the inland waterways. He currently has over 95,000 subscribers to his channel on you tube with people from virtually every country on Earth:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARvkDzt1RCQ

          4. Yes indeed – and I also like the train ones going through the alps, some are over 3 hours. There are a few additional canal vids at the bottom of this one which I shall be watching. If you make them full screen…they are very effective I find.

  86. Poor, naive, lost Harry.

    I can’t help thinking that Stevie Smith’s famous poem applies very much to a personality like Harry’s.

    I was much too far out all my life
    And not waving but drowning.

      1. I quite agree M……my grandsons would not want to leave me now never mind if I was in my 90s.

    2. It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. And not waving but drowning.

      1. Richmal Crompton is one of the best humorous writers of the 20th century We have the complete collection of the William stories.

  87. Gosh ! You have all been busy while i have been watching porn this evening. Time to wash my hands as the keys are getting sticky. :o(

          1. Well DT will wear off after a few days but if you are supping it concealed by a brown paper bag there is no hope. :o(

          3. I’m thinking of arranging a party at your gaff. A flash mob of Nottlers. We’ll bring our own bags…you do the sausages on sticks.

          5. Solid. Hope it’s not a joke..

            I’m in the process of trying to get Jill in my bed for our joint birthday celebration but she is being coy i think.

          6. You are not talking about me, are you?? I didn’t know we had birthdays in common. ;-)) Have a good evening, Phil, love your comments here!

          8. Lucky you. We really enjoyed it even though it was a bit of a first for me. Really nice place and only an hour away. I remember every moment of it. Me sharing a platter with XXXX. The Ladies telling me they wanted to talk Politics and to go away. Personally, i knew they were discussing how fab i am but didn’t want Dolly to be jealous. I do remember you being there….vaguely. :o)

  88. Department Store Chain Beales warns of collapse

    They are trying to find a buyer as well as trying to reduce rents. I think the dice are loaded against them. In the year to March 2019 they posted a £3.1 Million loss

  89. An emergency alert was issued in Ontario this morning, signalling an emergency at one of our nuclear power stations.

    About an hour later the alert was cancelled, they had been testing emergency procedures and someone pressed the wrong button.

    That would have been a few breakfasts spoilt when they woke up to see a warning not go go outside because the power station might go boom.

      1. I think that trash is here already. Hopefully her new found fame will let her go upmarket and move to LA.

      1. When I dance (or sing) it brings tears to the eyes of all those around me

        I was sent off, from the crowd at the old Wembley, just for joining in singing the Nationa Anthem

        2. Hmm, been a long time since I last watched Battle of Britain, but I don’t remember it as a well made film, I’m afraid.

          1. I’ve got the DVD and watched it a few days ago. Whenever I watch it, I am reminded that it was the destruction of heritage at Duxford during the making of it that led to the IWM saving the airfield.

          2. My choices weren’t meant altogether seriously, but as a tongue-in-cheek response to Peddy.
            Edit: Whoops! Should have been response to Oberstleutnant, not Peddy!

    2. I’m still on You’ve Got Mail. Guns of Navarone. Where Eagles Dare. Anything with Cary Grant in it.

      1. BofB was great, but had more than a few continuity errors. 1940’s thatched cottages didn’t generally have 1960’s Friedland illuminated bell pushes at their front doors. Just saying.

        1. Yes, I know. The cottage with Ian McShane and his leader has so many things wrong with it, but I’m happy to close my eyes to that for the sake of the Spitfires. 🙂 I have been to the Jackdaw – they only used the outside for the film; the internal shots were somewhere else.

          1. Suspension of disbelief. Speaking of Ian McShane, I remember an early episode of Lovejoy, when the geography of Bury St Edmunds was completely discarded. I did like the Dog and Partridge, though (their local in the early series) on your average Friday lunchtime.

  91. We are at the moment living through a “if only” moment as in, if only the same interest and scrutiny was being paid to PM johnson & co doings as harrys.
    Little wonder we suffered first a nine month delay in escaping extended to near four years, ongoing.
    Tell me, is this hope material that strong as to be depended on and used, concerning politicians doing the right thing & in regards to the welfare / future of a country ?

  92. UKIP the only party that consistently called for controlled immigration,all the toxic trio lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration, were supporting the campaign to destroy the working system of,
    ……………………………………………..Medication,
    ……………………………………………..Education,
    ……………………………………………..Accommodation,
    ……………………………………………..Incarceration.
    Their combined efforts to date could not have been bettered.
    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1216391408539574273

    1. O2O,
      “Our leaders” ? are the latch lifters to our problems,kept in place by “our electorate” again,again,& again.

      1. I will become more unpopular than ever if I were to suggest that one female American mixed race usurper with pretensions of grandeur who crept into the Royal family by sheer artifice has caused far more problems than 350. 000 migrants who have been flooding into Britain every year.

        THAT Markle woman has almost trashed our Monarchy, confused and divided our peace of mind.. and has done more damage in the past few days to our Sovereignty and National identity than the EU ever has , I expect.

        1. It could be that she will unite the country in condemnation for the disgusting and sellfsih way she has carried out her will.

        2. Evening TB,
          In the nicest possible way I must disagree somewhat,
          In my mind she cannot come near to the amount of damage that the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition have visited upon these Isles.
          Triggered first by labour then continued by the tories even with the wretch cameron raising the incoming numbers.
          This backed year on year by an electorate who
          considered the party first more so than the country.
          Lets face it TB, these are two young people and many young peoples do not hold the same values as many of us, gold-digger she may well be, but who is to blame in the whole rotten mess society has become ?
          The problem is to few role models and NONE at all among the political fraternity.
          I am not out to upset but to point out the facts.

    1. Yep, that’s Dolly. She likes to get to know visitors personally by welcome barks and then and biting them. I think i may have taught her bad habits…. :o(

      1. Dotty also, though most times, particularly postman and newspaper deliveries (morning jobs) she can’t be arsed to leave her bed.

        1. Dolly is 2 and a bit and she is still champing at it. Bless her. She isn’t able to break skin and she is really friendly to all visitors when she gets to know them. As a man of 5 foot 5 i can empathise with her position.

  95. If I am going to get stuff like this (from Phizzee), then it’s time for me to leave.

    Had enough, Sad to see this board go down the drain.

    Nice knowing most of you.

    “Nice to see you Tony as a recent contributor, but my personal opinion
    is that you are full of shit. Over opinionated and not shall we say
    considerate of people who have been here for years. You sound like the
    Duchess of NoHope.

    2. Hope you’ll be back tomorrow, Tony. Don’t let any late night drunken crap drive you away.

  96. My Good night. Not anywhere near as amusing as Rik.

    As I sat in my Range Rover, with a brace of pheasant and my shotgun in
    the back, I saw a vegan couple force feeding their child carrots and
    tofu.

    “That could’ve been me,” I thought.

    Then I realised I was wrong.

    My parents weren’t pretentious CXXXs.

  98. I just looked down the recent posts. Quite shocking really but not entirely unexpected.

    Lotl at least remains a lady.

  99. I read a news report recently. Probably in the DM about women complaining about the fact that they had to pay more for a haircut the same as a man but at a price they would be charged at a Salon.

    I do agree that if a woman wishes a buzzcut style of hair and i must admit i think it looks good on them then they have to cover the cost of the unused curlers, perming fluid, free magazines on ‘house and home’…hours of gossip and not wanting the coffee provided i begin to wonder.

          2. That’s especially true at Marks and Spencer in Longbridge, Birmingham which has very good toilets.

          4. Many years ago, in Bullough’s long-departed department store in Carlisle, I attended a meeting to resolve the failure of the flushing mechanism in the Ladies’ Toilets. The store management thoughtfully placed a ‘closed’ sign directly in front of the door. While we were in there, battling with Armitage Shanks’ rep, no fewer than twelve ladies burst into the room, screamed, and hurriedly left…

          5. Was it a Phantom of the Opera moment? Personally, i didn’t think you were THAT bad looking.

    2. John whereas Jim had had had had had had had had had had had the examiners approval. Or

      John, whereas Jim had had “had”, had had “had had”. “Had had” had had the examiner’s approval.

      2. That that is is that that is not is not is that not so

        That that is, is. That that is not, is not, is that not so

      1. Incidentally, I discovered something today. Our Curate and I were both conceived in Anglesey, despite being English, and were both the product of Immaculate Conception…

        OK – My Mum and Dad tried it once and didn’t like it. Same for Rev’d Phil…

  104. Bank of England considering an interest rate cut

    I think this is dangerous low interest rates have encouraged excessive borrowing whilst at the same time discouraging saving. It means most people have no safety net should they have unexpected costs or interest rates increase which they will have to eventually. The BOE have created a very dangerous situation in my view

    1. You are probably right in your view but do you know the last time it was worth saving because of interest rates?

        1. When I was in Australia in 2009/2010, the interest rate I was getting from the Commonwealth Bank was 6%.

        2. Interest rates on savings around one percent; overdraft or credit card interest charged around 30 per cent.
          How the interest charged on an arranged overdraft (RBS at the moment) can be justified is beyond me.
          The financial system is a nonsense. Stand by for the next collapse.

          1. We have now switched our personal accounts from RBS to Lloyds. A breath of fresh air.

            RBS is rubbish, they have closed branches and left us having to travel distances to the nearest Nat West to meet a person. Their phone lines are as good as useless.

            Lloyd’s by contrast are brilliant. We also bank with Barclays who are also attentive and have friendly and accessible local branches.

            By contrast RBS are a lost cause, hopeless in fact. So much for our money invested in rescuing these idiots, so removed from their responsibilities (with massive bonuses and other unwarranted perks) that they have destroyed a decent bank to all intents and purposes.

          3. I was with Barclays during the 1990’s recession. They probably contributed to my depressive breakdown. They have always had a bad reputation for their treatment of business customers. I moved to the RBS in 1999 – at the time they were superb. But that lasted about ten years, then they went down and down and down. I am no longer in business, so I will be saying goodbye to them soon.

  105. Department Store Chain Beales warns of collapse

    They are trying to find a buyer as well as trying to reduce rents. I think the dice are loaded against them. In the year to March 2019 they posted a £3.1 Million loss

    1. I think you are right. These stores struggle to find quality items at a price the customer can afford or want to pay. I looked recently at John Lewis for some dining chairs and my first thought was fuck off. I’ll go to British Heart Foundation and throw the dining table that comes with them on the skip. And still save myself £600.

        1. I know. I have two regency dining chairs and they need to be refurbished at expense but it is a lot cheaper to do that than buy new crap. Also i’m not keen on the designs. A lot of it looks like the uncomfortable stuff i was forced to sit on at school.

      2. It seems they had poor Christmas trading so it looks as if the March 2020 accounts will likely be worse. Many of their stores are in small town as well

      4. Good evening Phizzee

        We needed some new dining chairs as well.. shop prices are appalling .. outrageous .. so we went to Dorset reclaim and bought 4 really nice comfy dining chairs for £5 each .. I always look through charity shops for bargains ..and in turn donate stuff we don’t require anymore…

        Psst what on earth do I do with a large collection of model cars or stacks of WW1 postcards that Moh’s G parents sent to each other , or old crystal glasses, milk jugs and Edwardian stuff,, like EPNs jam spoons, pickle forks etc etc

          1. Yes, if you can stomach the eagle-owl hosting it, “Antiques Roadshow” is quite an eye-opener.

        3. Good evening, Belle. I’m not the person to ask really as i have happily taken things to the tip and put them on the area where people buy the items from the operator at low cost. Don’t care really if i want to get rid of something.

          Regarding furniture i would suggest you buy the style you like and have it refurbished or get your lazy arsed husband to arrange it to please YOU !

          The other stuff all needs to be catalogued and priced up but you may find some profit in the effort. Possibly enough to pay for the refurbishment of the chairs.

        4. eBay calls. Cost you 20 per cent commission etc., but better than throwing them away. ………
          eBay is fun. You list something. You see that twentyseven people put the listing in their watch list.The listing ends, but nobody bids. You kick the cat and try again.

          1. Cynical, but true. I’ve bought several cars on eBay. All but one have been good value. The other involved a BA flight to Glasgow to collect it. It was a crock of shiite, but it was raining heavily, and Surrey was a long walk away.

      1. I think reading between the lines the administrators will move in on Monday. I suspect the store would probably be kept trading for a short while to see if they can find a buyer. Suppliers though will want cash up front . SDont buy anytrhing for future deliver unless on a credit card

      3. Now a University town full of diversity that isn’t interested. They sit on the floor and crap in the streets.

        1. Leon Redbone – that’s a blast from the past. I remember seeing him at a concert in Maryland in 2005 and was amazed at the novelty of his act, mixing music, songs, stories and jokes. A unique character, sadly no longer with us. Thanks for jogging the memory banks.

  109. Morning all

    SIR – I think everyone needs to calm down over the decision by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to “step back” from royal duties.

    The Duke is currently sixth in line to the throne, so he is highly unlikely ever to be king. However, he is a happily married young man with a child. Why shouldn’t he want to get away from the stifling press scrutiny? Whatever he does, he will be accused of not doing enough. The Duchess, meanwhile, will always come under attack just for being a bit different from the normal royal wife.

    My guess is that, rather than spending their time appearing on chat shows, as has been suggested, they will carry out international charity work – something they are both good at. And they will live off their own money; they have plenty.

    The Duke’s mother was hounded by the press. Let’s cut him and the Duchess some slack and support them whatever they decide to do.

    Christine Wilson

    Newtownabbey, Co Antrim

    1. SIR – The Sussex saga is now about more than just the machinations of “the Firm”. Already a Labour leadership candidate has suggested that Britain should hold a referendum on the monarchy. The situation is playing into the hands of republicans.

      I only hope that the current problems are swiftly resolved, and that the Royal family is able to advance into the 21st century.

      Charles Holden

      Micheldever, Hampshire

      SIR – I am old enough to remember the abdication of Edward VIII. The right decisions were made then and hard decisions are called for now. In or out.

      A compromise solution might well see the beginning of the end of the monarchy as we know it.

      Brian James

      Bracknell, Berkshire

  110. Morning again

    SIR – We are survivors of the Holocaust and genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and we are writing because we are concerned that dangerous divisions are being formed in our society, fuelled by the extreme and polarising language used by those in positions of power.

    We are living witnesses to what can happen if vitriolic public discourse is not recognised and halted. What starts as name-calling can become licence to maim and murder.

    Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 – marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia – we are calling on politicians to think beyond point-scoring to the long-term impact of their words. We ask them to lead by example and make a positive choice not to use words that inflame tensions for a brief moment of political effect. In making this plea, we hope we can help to create a kinder, more respectful climate in which divisions can begin to heal.

    Steven Frank

    Ivor Perl

    Hannah Lewis

    Joan Salter

    Dr Martin Stern

    Bernd Koschland

    Sabit Jakupoviæ

    Safet Vukalic

    Var Ashe Houston

    Sokphal Din

    Eric Eugene Murangwa

    Isam Agieb

    Zina Abbas (identity protected)

  111. SIR – The other day I noticed that my local supermarket is selling vegan “chicken” sandwiches.

    Clearly, however, vegans don’t eat chicken, and the product isn’t chicken. Perhaps readers could suggest names for vegan products that don’t refer to meat.

    Roger Gentry

    Sutton-at-Hone, Kent

    1. It probably amounts to mis-describing these products but the law seems to turn a blind eye to it

      The probability is it is a Quorn sandwich with artificial flavorings. That though does not sound very appetizing

  112. SIR – You report that some schools are banning slang.

    It is highly unlikely that Sir Michael Philip Jagger, who attended Dartford Grammar School and the London School of Economics, would have achieved the same success in his subsequent musical career if he had written a song called I Am Unable to Obtain Any Satisfaction.

    David Miller

    Chigwell, Essex

  113. Regional airline Flybe in bid to stave off collapse

    I think these sort of airlines probably don’t have much of a future. They focus on Internal and very short haul flights. These are the flights where there are more environmentally friendly modes of travel such as rail or the channel tunnel . There may even be taxation changes to discourage such travel. It is unlikely that trading conditions for these airlines will improve

    Flybe, Europe’s biggest regional airline, was locked in survival talks on Sunday night less than a year after being bailed out by a Virgin Atlantic-led consortium.

    amid mounting losses.EY, the accountancy firm, has been put on standby to handle an administration of Flybe Group, according to aviation industry sources.

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