Sunday 12 March: Paying the French to patrol their beaches won’t put and end to the Channel crossingsSunday 12 March:

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

518 thoughts on “Sunday 12 March: Paying the French to patrol their beaches won’t put and end to the Channel crossingsSunday 12 March:”

    1. Good Morn, Oberst

      Hope you had a comfortable night without unscheduled excitements.

      1. Bed is harder than the floor, and notwithstanding the blood pressure cuff inflating frequently and painfully, managed to grab some zeds, thanks. Weird dream, like watching someone sketch with charcoals… 😮

  6. On GBN last night some Hollywood bint was reporting on the rumour that Jimmy Kimmel (who he?? Billed as the 2023 Oscars host) is preparing a sketch about the travails of Mr Todger and Mrs Princess from Montecito.

  7. End this crude smear against conservatives – Hitler’s Nazis were in fact left-wing racists… Peter Hitchens. 12 March 2023.

    The real problem with Gary Lineker is that he knows as much about politics as I know about football. But, while you will never catch me giving my opinions on soccer, Mr Lineker thinks his TV and advertising fame qualifies him to discuss politics and history.

    Actually, it is amazing how little so many people know about these things. Although modern school history seems to cover nothing apart from the wives of Henry VIII and Hitler, nobody seems to know one crucial fact. The Nazis were very Left-wing.

    They hated Christianity and deliberately set children against their parents. They imposed penal taxes on the middle class and attracted Communists to their ranks. They wrecked Germany’s schools, insisting (sound familiar?) that they taught mad dogmas instead of proper knowledge.

    Well said Peter!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11848611/PETER-HITCHENS-End-crude-smear-against-conservatives.html

  8. Question for Our Susan

    PETER HITCHENS: End this crude smear against conservatives – Hitler’s Nazis were in fact left-wing racists… Gary Lineker knows as much about politics as I know about football
    *
    *
    *
    Changing face of Britons abroad

    I remember when the Briton abroad was an object of wonder to foreigners – stiff upper lip, tightly-folded copy of The Times, probably going to bed in tweed pyjamas. Not anymore.

    As the new drama of The Diplomat on the Alibi channel shows, our image has been transformed, so that the words ‘British citizen’ are more likely to make people think of heavyweight lesbians from Merthyr Tydfil on hen parties, than of tall, reserved gentlemen with polished brogues.

    The series, starring Sophie Rundle, as a British envoy in Barcelona, is rather clever. I wonder why the BBC, whose BBC Studios arm helped to make it, is not showing it?

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/11/19/68588695-0-image-a-2_1678561200163.jpg
    Sophie Rundle as Laura Simmonds in The Diplomat

    1. BBC Studios Productions is now a production house for hire. In the case of a third party commission funded by another broadcaster-publisher, the BBC would not have any broadcast rights.

      Looking at this title, it appears to be a UKTV production distributed by BBC Studios Distribution. If the BBC declined to invest, in this scenario too it won’t have broadcast rights.

  12. More Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b7b3f0ee21ff6102b8a14221d794420ff007d073640c6712dee05835f21d56b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54fda6ea4acf812413ed6c0569721428a5fc788e7b45b3d605bc5f9e6982ee38.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/771fd5fcd872927c752e8a228867f47776b82fe9fbd08b87568e3fe041947b59.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c62a277aa54caef2cdb3bf5c3eb24ab79342fc977e66ba474ea18cb5315dd29c.jpg

    https://i.imgflip.com/5eoekk.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a00c47e03d13312950d3fd6dde9cab3fa22aa3925d08b5103a200969b332e962.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79f91b17be5fc1c9f527eec0f88991bb2c341dda7fb5825102f001fb80e2350d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/975204bbdcc7f48ee3ead9740d4ca9e35287fe87850aaa48b0b7f414e5300ed3.png

    1. The second one is no less than the truth. Feminism gives a group of inadequate men the possibility to sit around burping and farting and talking about beer, cars, computers and sex, while proclaiming to the world that they are women.
      (that is not directed at the person illustrated, just a general observation about others)

    2. The one about Drag Queens in schools reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s song The Old Dope Pedlar

      He gives the kids free samples
      Because he knows full well
      That today’s young innocent faces
      Will be tomorrow’s clientele.

      And of course the Jesuits boasted that if you gave them a child before the age of 7 he would be theirs for life.

    1. ‘Morning Rik. Yesterday we received in the post a SARS-Covid test kit, despite never having asked for it. Are we about to be softened up for another ‘pandemic’??

  14. Migration makes the world grow rich, but can it build stable nations? 12 March 2023.

    Human history is a story of the migration of peoples. The movement of populations has almost certainly been a primary force for social progress even when it was motivated by desperate circumstances like famine, or cruel intentions like conquest. Tribes or nations that remain static and isolated do not evolve: they lose the dynamism that seems to be essential for a successful, resilient culture. Taking in newcomers is not simply a humane gesture, it is essential to the health of a nation. But however obvious this fact is, it contains a paradoxical tension. Societies – even sophisticated, modern ones – are made up of communities that maintain their identity by a belief in shared values and attitudes. That homogeneity – the like-mindedness that binds people with a common purpose – is threatened by the arrival of large numbers of incomers who may have quite different social assumptions and expectations.

    Well I would dispute the headline alone. There is no evidence that migration has made any country richer. Janet is of course thinking of the United States but its wealth is built on its vast natural resources, freedom from the fear of invasion and the genius of the Founding Fathers. Historically those countries that are multi-ethnic and multi-cultural are never at ease with themselves; suspicion, murder and repression are forever waiting in the wings and all too frequently take centre stage. After 1066 England, being part of an island, was able to avoid these problems though this did not prevent it seeking and attaining to unify the whole that already existed. All this; the work of centuries and at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, has been thrown away. We are now back with Alfred and his problems. A struggle for our very existence is now taking place.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/11/migration-makes-world-grow-rich-can-build-stable-nations/

    1. Immigration hasn’t improved the lot of the First Nations folk, just the immigrants.

    2. Immigration may raise a country’s GDP but it reduces the average wealth per person of the indigenous population.

    2. Can anyone confirm the rumour that Oprah Winfrey has lost $800m and that ‘Ginge and Whinge’ are big losers too?

      1. To her, that’s probably the equivalent of one of us dropping fifty pounds on the train.

    3. Didn’t protect him, did it…I wonder what the reaction from other bankers will be, and whether this will deepen the split that some suspect is developing between the Rothschilds and WEF Eurotrash on one side, and Larry Fink and Jerome Powell on the other.

  17. Dental drilling and Toothless Times

    SIR – My husband is 83. As a child he lived in Ashton-under-Lyne where his dentist also used a foot pedal to operate the drill. He found it advisable to try to get a morning appointment because the dentist tired towards the end of the afternoon having been foot-pumping all day.

    Hilary C Bell
    Skelmersdale, Lancashire

    Good Morning all

    I was born in 1941. At the age of 9 or 10 I was treated by a dentist in Bristol who, instead of filling, simply extracted most of my lower molars, (under gas and air anaesthesia) leaving me with just three for life. He too had a foot-operated drill, a monster device.

    I recently ‘looked him up’ on the Internet and discovered that he was born in 1874, so was at least 75 years old when he treated me. Hence he was an apostle of the prevalent practice of removing complete sets of teeth as a birthday present for ladies, who could then have a lovely pearl-white set of dentures to improve their looks.

    Allegedly, many young men went off to fight in WW1 after surrendering all their teeth in order to avoid the risk of agonising toothache in the trenches.

    2. When I was young nearly all of my grandparents generation had dentures. My mother had all her teeth out in her 50’s. What on Earth induced everyone to do this sort of thing? Granted they probably didn’t understand about the ravages of too much sugar but even so surely just by cleaning teeth and gums regularly people could have avoided mass extractions? At 72 I still have a full set even if some are filled.

      1. The sugar ration in WW2 was 8 ounces a week. Probably explains it. All my parents and grandparents has dentures too.

      2. The sheer cost and pain of dental treatment was the reason behind the 21st. birthday gift of complete clearance and dentures.

  18. Dental drilling and Toothless Times

    SIR – My husband is 83. As a child he lived in Ashton-under-Lyne where his dentist also used a foot pedal to operate the drill. He found it advisable to try to get a morning appointment because the dentist tired towards the end of the afternoon having been foot-pumping all day.

    Hilary C Bell
    Skelmersdale, Lancashire

    Good Morning all

    I was born in 1941. At the age of 9 or 10 I was treated by a dentist in Bristol who, instead of filling, simply extracted most of my lower molars, (under gas and air anaesthesia) leaving me with just three for life. He too had a foot-operated drill, a monster device.

    I recently ‘looked him up’ on the Internet and discovered that he was born in 1874, so was at least 75 years old when he treated me. Hence he was an apostle of the prevalent practice of removing complete sets of teeth as a birthday present for ladies, who could then have a lovely pearl-white set of dentures to improve their looks.

    Allegedly, many young men went off to fight in WW1 after surrendering all their teeth in order to avoid the risk of agonising toothache in the trenches.

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps. A bright and dry start to the day here, with 11°C forecast. Long may it continue.

    Some of you may have seen yesterday’s article about the junior doctors strike due to take place this week, and the BMA’s instruction to its members not to tell their employer whether or not they will turn up for work over the next three days. This has apparently resulted in the postponement of well over 100,000 operations due to take place.

    The wife of a friend of mine was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer about six months ago. She was operated on but so far this hasn’t worked. Tomorrow she was booked in for a second op, on the basis that there was still a chance of recovery, although without it the outlook wasn’t good. Last week she was told that tomorrow was off because of the strike, and so far no further date has been forthcoming. Needless to say, they and their family are sick with worry.

    Junior doctors are pursuing a pay claim in excess of 30% (pigs might fly) and are using patients like her as some form of grotesque bargaining chip. Calous and selfish doesn’t begin to describe their actions as they are prepared to leave seriously sick patients to their fate.

    A few days ago our local news reported that a woman in Kent was sufficiently alarmed by her symptoms to call for an ambulance. Yes, she could have one – and it would be with her in about eight hours. She realised that her condition was getting worse, so with no one to call on she drove herself to A & E. She parked in the hospital car park and paid. She walked into A & E in the hope of being treated, but died an hour later, with no treatment having been provided.

    Just before Christmas my better half spent 21 hours in A & E. A scan and an x-ray promised several times never materialised, even though she spent a long night in a chair in an almost deserted side ward with no food, and water to drink only after she requested it. (Both waiting rooms were so full it was standing room only for subsequent arrivals, and at one stage we witnessed a lady waiting to be seen taking pity on another, who had been waiting for five hours with raging toothache and who was reduced to sobbing, by offering a couple of pain killers, which she readily accepted. Similar requests via the reception staff had all been refused.)

    A junior doctor issued a prescription to Mrs HJ which, it turned out, could not be prescribed by our local chemist because it was, in the words of the pharmacist, “illegal”. Furthermore, the patient in this case was a former medical secretary, who recognised that it is one of those medications that needs to be taken on a ‘build-up’ basis and not ‘as and when necessary’, rather like a pain killer for instance. It took several telephone conversations with a member of the prescribing team at our GP surgery to sort out this mess – at the conclusion of which there was apparently a shortage of the prescribed medication and would take a few days to arrive.

    Remember all those naieve (but probably well-intentioned) people beating hell out of their saucepans night after night in support of ‘our wonderful NHS’? They, and everyone else, have been well and truly betrayed by politicians and by many of those who run and staff the NHS. I hope the latter are proud of their actions – or inactions perhaps.

    1. A good mate’s wife has just terminated her radio/chemo & gone home to die, supported by husband full-time. No retirement sunset for them. Cancer caught too late, spread to her brain. Terrible.

      1. Dying at home is the way to go. But when in December 2023 my dear wife was pronounced at ‘End of Life’, the prescription was to take away all food and fluids. This left her on Oxygen, while I monitored her blood Oxygen levels using my Pulse Oximeter.

        A visiting doctor (yes, our GP actually visited 2 or 3 times) advised me to turn off the Oxygen and NOT to keep measuring her decreasing Blood Oxygen level and adjusting the flow to improve it. Had I known that it would take a week for my wife to expire, I would have followed this advice and mercifully shortened her departure. This was punctuated by daily visits from District Nurses who administered Midazolam for anxiety and Morphine for pain, from a ‘Just In Case’ pack of drugs provided by our local Pharmacy. Because it contained Class ‘A’ drugs, the JIC pack had to be returned to the Pharmacy, with all injections signed for.

        You live and learn – the hard way.

        3. What a truly awful experience for you, rc. I pray that my end and that of by dear wife may be swift and painless when it comes.

      1. I think you over-estimate the intelligence of both politicians and NHS management.
        However, whether c0ck-up or deliberate, the result is the same.

  21. ‘Morning, Peeps. A bright and dry start to the day here, with 11°C forecast. Long may it continue.

    Some of you may have seen yesterday’s article about the junior doctors strike due to take place this week, and the BMA’s instruction to its members not to tell their employer whether or not they will turn up for work over the next three days. This has apparently resulted in the postponement of well over 100,000 operations due to take place.

    The wife of a friend of mine was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer about six months ago. She was operated on but so far this hasn’t worked. Tomorrow she was booked in for a second op, on the basis that there was still a chance of recovery, although without it the outlook wasn’t good. Last week she was told that tomorrow was off because of the strike, and so far no further date has been forthcoming. Needless to say, they and their family are sick with worry.

    Junior doctors are pursuing a pay claim in excess of 30% (pigs might fly) and are using patients like her as some form of grotesque bargaining chip. Calous and selfish doesn’t begin to describe their actions as they are prepared to leave seriously sick patients to their fate.

    A few days ago our local news reported that a woman in Kent was sufficiently alarmed by her symptoms to call for an ambulance. Yes, she could have one – and it would be with her in about eight hours. She realised that her condition was getting worse, so with no one to call on she drove herself to A & E. She parked in the hospital car park and paid. She walked into A & E in the hope of being treated, but died an hour later, with no treatment having been provided.

    Just before Christmas my better half spent 21 hours in A & E. A scan and an x-ray promised several times never materialised, even though she spent a long night in a chair in an almost deserted side ward with no food, and water to drink only after she requested it. (Both waiting rooms were so full it was standing room only for subsequent arrivals, and at one stage we witnessed a lady waiting to be seen taking pity on another, who had been waiting for five hours with raging toothache and who was reduced to sobbing, by offering a couple of pain killers, which she readily accepted. Similar requests via the reception staff had all been refused.)

    A junior doctor issued a prescription to Mrs HJ which, it turned out, could not be prescribed by our local chemist because it was, in the words of the pharmacist, “illegal”. Furthermore, the patient in this case was a former medical secretary, who recognised that it is one of those medications that needs to be taken on a ‘build-up’ basis and not ‘as and when necessary’, rather like a pain killer for instance. It took several telephone conversations with a member of the prescribing team at our GP surgery to sort out this mess – at the conclusion of which there was apparently a shortage of the prescribed medication and would take a few days to arrive.

    Remember all those naieve (but probably well-intentioned) people beating hell out of their saucepans night after night in support of ‘our wonderful NHS’? They, and everyone else, have been well and truly betrayed by politicians and by many of those who run and staff the NHS. I hope the latter are proud of their actions – or inactions perhaps.

  24. Good morning all from a bright & sunny Nottingham.
    Excellent concert last night. The soloist on the Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody, Claire Hammond, was superb.

    Wasn’t particularly keen on loud & crowded city centre pubs after the concert, particularly with that noise they call “pop music” blaring out so had 1 pint in Wetherspoons and was back in the hotel and in bed by 22:30.

    Going for the 09:35 Red Arrow service to Derby which should connect in with the 10:45 TransPeak to get me home for middayish.

    See you later.

    1. And our crazed and woke politicians cannot wait to close our remaining few. Climate virtue signalling at its worst and the people suffer as a result.

  26. Good moaning all,

    Light cloud at McPhee Towers, wind in the West, 8℃ with 12℃ forecast. Staying dry until this evening. Has spring arrived?

    From the Gatesograph letters, R G Purches writes of Lineker:

    “Any claims that he was entitled to his private opinions because he is a freelancer are entirely specious. I was a freelance reporter and presenter for the BBC for 14 years and it was common knowledge then that if you embarrassed the corporation in any way, or brought it into disrepute, then you would be sacked.

    “One can only assume that Mr Lineker was allowed to promulgate his offensive views for so long because his liberal-left opinions chimed with so many others in the national broadcaster’s workforce”.

    That’s in accord with my own experience of being a free-lance consultant/contractor in the airline industry for a few years before the scamdemic ended my nice little retirement earner.

  27. From today’s letters:

    SIR – The real story concerning Gary Lineker is not that he has been sanctioned by his employer, but that it took the BBC so long to act against this overpaid motormouth (“Match of the Day in ‘meltdown’ as pundits side with host”, report, March 11).

    Any claims that he was entitled to his private opinions because he is a freelancer are entirely specious. I was a freelance reporter and presenter for the BBC for 14 years and it was common knowledge then that if you embarrassed the corporation in any way, or brought it into disrepute, then you would be sacked.

    One can only assume that Mr Lineker was allowed to promulgate his offensive views for so long because his liberal-Left opinions chimed with so many others in the national broadcaster’s workforce.

    R G Purches
    Bristol

    Very well said, R G Purches! Defensive cries of “freedom of speech” were strangely absent when it came to any action to protect the victims of the Pakistani rape gangs highlighted by Mark Steyn when he was with GBNews. I am willing to bet that Lineker’s contract contained one or more clauses about refraining from political criticism embarassing to his ’employer’ while he was in the pay of the BBC – and quite right too. Those of us who were required to sign the Official Secrets Act in the course of uniformed service know only too well of the consequences of any breach, and thus our “freedom of speech” was similarly curtailed, and for good reasons. Not a direct comparison perhaps but the principle is the same.

    I trust that HMRC will now pursue with vigour the £4.9m in unpaid tax said to be owed by Lineker as someone who was not available to other organisations, thus rendering him an employee in all but name.

    Surely in a nation of 67m people a broadcaster can find a handful of people who are willing to be paid shedloads of licence-payers’ wonga to sit around and pontificate about football??

    1. Matt Le Tissier was let go as a broadcaster for speaking the actual factual truth, that was contrary to what his employer was peddling, rather than his opinions like Lineker.

    2. It’s an ill wind that blows no good….

      People were saying that half the tech startups in the US were with SVB, and it will set American tech back by ten years. Don’t know if that’s true or not.

      2. Doubt if it will take 10 years to sort out the sector. Anyway, too many prominent and big donors to Dems are facing too much hurt for Biden not to try some sort of bailout.

  32. Paying the French to patrol their beaches won’t put and end to the Channel crossings Sunday 12 March:

    The French want to get rid of them, they are not facing any sanction from the ECHR for allowing these inhumane people traffickers ply their trade, why would they change now, especially as we are now paying them some sort of Danegeld

  33. “Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study
    of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of
    communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but
    to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the
    better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told
    the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the
    lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To
    assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself.
    One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A
    society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine
    political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

    ―

    Theodore Dalrymple

    We can see this at work right here…………….

    https://twitter.com/iFightForKids/status/1634635786015350787?s=20

  34. A couple of letters that might raise a smile:

    SIR – Pedal-operated dentists’ drills (Letters, March 5) were still in use when I was 11 years old in 1953.

    On one occasion the dentist’s foot slipped off the pedal while operating on me, resulting in a cut to my gum. I cried and was rewarded with a clout around my head.

    Harry Sales
    Caterham, Surrey

    SIR – Margaret Ellis’s letter (March 5) on table manners reminds me of how at a smart regimental mess function in Hong Kong in 1987, one member – an international Army gymnast – completed a prolonged, perfect headstand on the dining table during the playing of the regimental march of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps.

    Lt Col Paul French (retd)
    Andover, Hampshire

    In the case of the latter, I still have fond memories of an RAF dining-in night where, at the end of the meal and speeches, visiting officers from another Station cleared the mess by means of the fire alarm and then proceeded to demolish the top table with a chainsaw – much to the horror of those assembled. However, unknown to the members of the mess in question, the ‘table’ had been constructed earlier in the day in great secrecy using pallets and chipboard, thus limiting the damage to subsequent bar bills. Honour was satisfied at a later date when, during a return visit, the Station Commander’s piano was mortally wounded. He was not amused when it succumbed to gravity and finished up in a lake. Quite rightly the guilty had to pay a high price for their stunt.

    1. Pianos were fair game in the RAF, I was passing the officers mess one saturday night at Binbrook when one flew (!) out of an upstairs window and smashed to pieces yards from me with a sound very like the opening chord in the Beatles ‘Hard Days Night’

      2. Yes, the piano always seems to be on the receiving end of unbridled violence…all that chastisement wasn’t good for their mentaw ‘elf, of course.

  35. Trying to remember the person that not long ago that was cancelled for saying people were behaving like the Nazis and where the Left all got on their high horses because it offended Jewish people.

    3. I very much doubt that those two freaks would have reached the positions they have had they been real women, nor do I think they would have risen as high had they merely been normal men.

        3. He is Sam Brinton. Notorious for stealing women’s suitcases from airport carousels. One suitcase contained clothing made by a fashion designer. She was going to exhibit her collection. The Brinton freak was later photographed wearing her unique designs.

          1. And this is what Biden thinks is fit to have a government post? It’s impossible to take these creatures seriously.

  37. Majority of Britons say BBC was wrong to suspend Gary Lineker. 12 March 2023.

    A new YouGov snap poll on Saturday night revealed a majority (53 per cent) of the British public think the BBC was wrong to force Lineker to step down following his comments on social media about the government’s asylum policy.

    The data finds that just over a quarter (27 per cent) think the broadcaster was right to suspend him and a fifth (20 per cent) don’t know.

    As always we have no idea how the questions were phrased or who commissioned it. Still with the poll almost concurrent with events it’s pretty difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was done to bolster support for Lineker and Co. It certainly flies in the face of opinion on the message boards.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/11/gary-lineker-majority-britons-say-bbc-wrong-suspend-match-day/

    3. Being in favour of free speech, I wouldn’t suspend anyone for shooting their mouth off, but Lineker should be sacked for being a smug, overpaid twerp anyway!

  38. Good moaning.
    Yellow thing in the sky and we don’t need the lights on.
    Obvs – we’re doomed.

  40. Morning all 😉 😊
    Apparently we could reach double figures today.
    More ammunition for glow ball warmalists.
    And Sporting disasters best not mentioned.
    Just sitting up in my warm bed having ‘a nice cuppa tea’.

  46. Should anyone be interested there’s a good documentary series on the Gulags on YouTube. It’s French-made but has commentary in English. The sheer horror of life under the Bosheviks cannot be overstated. Hitler really had nothing on them. This should be shown in all our schools and the direct connection to neo-Marxism/wokery drawn. Here’s Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 will pop up after it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fhI9YMyvOo&t=2583s

  47. Good morning, chums. Late on parade today after a long lie-in following a very full week of activity. And it’s good to think that in a fortnight’s time we shall have arrived at British Summer Time.

  48. So, a group of overpaid pinko bedwetters have stopped work at the BBC becasue a smug, even more overpaid leftie twit [other vowels are available] has been sanctioned for breaking the impartiality guidelines yet again. With luck nobody in the real world will miss the arrogant morons!

    1. You are too generous, SB!

      I spotted this very fine comment in the BTL posts…no wonder it is currently top of the pile:

      MARY LOUGHLIN
      7 HRS AGO
      Lineker is a disgrace: we are sick of Champaigne Socialists.
      At eleven he went to the local grammar school and at sixteen joined Leicester City’s Academy, joining their senior first team at the age of eighteen.
      As Springsteen once wrote..
      ‘ I have been paid a kings ransom for doing what came naturally.’
      Lineker earned a fortune for playing a game he loved and then went on to be, for years, the most over paid presenter on the BBC. He repaid them by breaching the terms of his contract over and over again: constantly attention seeking and boundary pushing.
      To liken the current government to those of Nazi Germany was clearly a step too far and he should never work for the BBC again.
      Starmer is furious because he is relying on the BBC to win him the next election. The corporation has been for years just a wing of the Labour party. That is why a friend of Boris`s was asked to run the BBC, because if it can`t become genuinly impartial politically, is has to be privatised. Ineveitable.
      I don`t want the boat people entering my country illegally. Apart from the thousands that have instanly joined the Albanian Mafia here, the Welfare State simply can`t cope.
      We don`t have the available housing. We don`t have the places in over crowded classrooms. Nurses are on full stretch and doctors are striking.
      But none of that will ever affect Lineker or any member of his family. He will never have to wait a year for surgery. All medical expenses will be paid from his multi millions, increased by possible tax avoidance.
      His four sons went to schools of their choice. They did not have to worry about getting into the best in any particiular catchment area.
      Essentially, Lineker is a spoilt, bored, highly over paid, irresponsible character and I have no desire to see or hear from him again.

    1. Wonderful!
      There is a ski resort near Munich that used to give day passes for 5 euros to the over-eighties. I believe they had quite a lot of customers!

      1. Just back from Austria, enjoyed and easy week in warmish conditions. The runs were just hanging on in the lower resorts but I didnt miss the icicles and howling gales in colder conditions. I was wondering when I might get a lift pass reduction, but not hit 70 yet!

          1. Sorry, away for a while. Niederau, only an hour ESE of Innsbruch. Its a low resort at 900m with the runs going up to 2000m, not particularly extensive. We didnt book until Jan and prices were on the up and I needed a single room, so my daughter did well in finding something reasonable. We also ranged from beginner to expert, I’m in the middle and at 67 years have to work within the limitations of age and stop thinking like a youngster. The hotel was lovely and we all enjoyed the week very much. My banker son was in Tignes the week before but Im not one for paying €10 for a pint! I have been to Sauze a few times and like it very much.

  51. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, when that clock went off at 06:00, I turned it off, turned over and went back to sleep.

    Now, here belatedly, is today’s story

    A Dying Wish

    In a London Nursing home, an old priest lay dying.
    For years he had faithfully served the people of the nation’s capital.
    He motioned for his nurse to come near. “Yes, Father?”, said the nurse.

    “I would really like to see Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer before I die”, whispered the priest.

    “I’ll see what I can do, Father”, replied the nurse.

    The nurse sent the request to No 10 and waited for a response. Soon the word arrived; Rishi and Sir Keir would be delighted to visit the priest. As they went to the hospital, Rishi commented to Sir Keir, “I don’t know why the old priest wants to see us, but it certainly will help our images”.

    Keir agreed that it was the right thing to do at this time. When they arrived at the priest’s room, the priest took Rishi’s hand in his right hand and Keir’s hand in his left. There was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest’s face.

    The old priest slowly said: “I have always tried to pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ”.

    “Amen”, said Rishi

    “Amen”, said Sir Keir

    The old priest continued, “Jesus died between two lying thieving bastards; and I would like to do the same…”

  52. Good morning Nottlers .

    Moh loves the new Match of the day, no gabbling , just football and the crowds cheering , veiwing without the commentary is like being at a football ground.

    1. I caught the last 10 minutes of it this morning – I found it quite enjoyable without the commentary, and as for the pundits – I didn’t miss them or Mr. Smug at all.

    2. Tell him to write in or Twitter his thoughts.
      YouGov have produced a poll that contradicts what seem to be commonly held sentiments.

  54. It’s a beautiful day and I’m trapped inside 🙁
    Plan for weekend was to clear a room in Firstborn’s barn so we can set up for honey production, but events dictate otherwise.
    Bugger.

      1. I’ll crank up the voltage on the pacemaker – or get jump leads to car battery!

      1. Beautiful weather, too. Heavy snow forecast for tomorrow.
        Double damnation!!

  56. Sunshine and blue sky here , 9c.

    Slight breeze ..

    Guess what … a HUGE brown rat has climbed up the Elderberry tree.. stretched his body from one of the branches and grabbed the bird seed feeder .. He is bigger than a squirrel, and just as agile.

    1. Morning Belle. Rats are smart! They will probably replace us after the Apocalypse!

        1. Wait till they are chopping them down! That will give him something to think about!

          1. In that case, point them towards the Dower House. There’s self-seeded holly tree wasting garden space.

          3. Already cancelled?
            The tree is either identifying as male or it doesn’t give a phook.

        2. T_B,
          In Laboratory conditions, with plenty of food and no predators, rats used to live to 3 years and reach 2 kilograms. See my reply to Araminta above.

      2. Rats are Smart

        In a previous existence I worked in an Industrial Toxicology laboratory, testing the safety-in-use of food colourings, additives, stabilisers and so on. We had thousands of white laboratory rats in cages of about eight animals, housed in metal batteries of a dozen cages (4 rows of 3 cages), hence, nearly a hundred rats to each battery. The cages each had an external food hopper which dispensed hard cubes of food and a spouted bottle of water.

        We researchers had a Weekend rota to come in on Saturdays or Sundays to replenish the food and water in the cages. One Saturday we found a rat battery in which ALL the food had disappeared from the top three rows of cages. We began topping up the top rows of hoppers, but when we reached the bottom row we discovered that one cage had a loose lid. The rats had got out, but then had raided ALL the other cages, carried the rations down to their own home cage and were sprawled on top of a huge mound of dried food. They did not need or seek to leave. Lab rats are SMART.

        1. P.S. if you think that confining 8 rats to a cage is cruel, you should try putting a dozen lab rats in a 10-foot square room.
          They usually sleep during the day and forage at night, so you will find them sleeping in a heap in one corner. From my post above, why would they leave when they have an endless supply of food and water?

          Rats are very social. They ‘purr’ if you hold them and stroke them under the chin. They even make good pets.

          2. In the 1970s a couple of researchers I spoke to at a nearby Medical Research Lab tried butchering and eating some lab rats and said they tasted just like chicken. I will not reveal their names here. Like all laboratory rats, those rats were SPF (Specific Pathogen Free) meaning that you had to wear protective clothing and walk through disinfectant troughs when entering their animal rooms, for fear of infecting the rats.

        2. P.S. if you think that confining 8 rats to a cage is cruel, you should try putting a dozen lab rats in a 10-foot square room.
          They usually sleep during the day and forage at night, so you will find them sleeping in a heap in one corner. From my post above, why would they leave when they have an endless supply of food and water?

          Rats are very social. They ‘purr’ if you hold them and stroke them under the chin. They even make good pets.

    2. Good morning everyone.
      There are two species which do nothing good for the planet; one is rats and the other is humans.

          1. Under observation, they call it. That means wires everywhere. And something going beep somewhere. Very dull and inconvenient. Could use a Sunday lunchtime beer or two…

          3. They don’t seem to work Sundays. More battleaxe types – although very nice.

          6. Can’t your family bring you a “care” hamper? I sneaked a few things in for my husband when he was in the stalag. Mind you, the level of indifference there meant that no-one noticed.

          7. What is it with beeping equipment?
            The Dower House kitchen and utility room sound more like an ITU than an area to produce food and get your clothes clean.

          10. I can’t stand beeps. Spend half my time zapping them on my phone. I do wish those who made things would give us the option to turn them off. Still, as most people don’t seem to even notice them, I don’t suppose that’s going to happen.

          12. I would, but need to hear calls in case of emergency. This is something those who design phones don’t seem to understand. 🙄

          13. They just confuse me. I don’t know if they signal a job completed, a job reaching particular stage of its cycle or something going wrong that I will only discover the next day when everything is cold and wet.

  57. With all the cash (ours) being given in aid to help the cost of living crisis (£800 in the last year) what has really made the difference in surviving is the 25p a week pension increase for being over 80 – FFS 3 weeks of that doesn’t even buy a 2nd class stamp

    1. But by talking about the headline figure – the billions government is giving pensioners – it hides the reality.

  58. Silicon Valley Bank collapse could spark the next financial crash – but we cannot bail out failed bankers again. 12 March 2023.

    Depositors can’t get their money out. Payrolls might not be met next weekend. And small companies, especially in the fast growing technology industries, might soon face closure as their assets are frozen. There will be a lot of nervousness when the financial markets open on Monday morning following the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank in the United States and the decision by the Bank of England to take control of its London arm.

    More Good News!

    I’ve noticed a change in my attitude recently and I don’t think it’s an improvement. I’m beginning to hope for the end of this slow motion descent into a Totalitarian Hell. Nuclear War, among other possible outcomes, is looking increasingly welcome. This, aside from being irrational and nihilistic is also of course totally selfish, but here’s the rub. I don’t care. In all the other wars that this country has waged the enemy has always been The Other. Now it is within. Our greatest enemies are those among us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-could-spark-next-financial-crash/

      1. It isn’t capitalism though, it’s big corporations and banks owning the government. Now what was that system of government called, it’s on the tip of my tongue…..!

      2. These folk really don’t know what capitalism is.

        Brown broke our banks in 2008. He encouraged overlending and kept fiddling the banking code. When the banks broke instead of letting them fail – because that would expose his incompetence – he forced the taxpayer to bail them ouut. As it is, only one bank took tax payer cash and has returned it since.

        This is not capitalism. It’s an obese state fiddling until the system breaks, then panicking.

        1. Yes but try explaining that to the average bloke, who has been brainwashed into reciting “it’s all the bankers’ fault”.

          Though i have to hand it to Brown. He did a terrific job at deflecting attention from MPs’ culpability in the mess.

    3. Are you prepared, though Minty?
      – for the few weeks of chaos that are likely to surround a collapse
      – to live under a central bank digital currency?

    4. I don’t quite know why big government so determinedly hates us. Are therer really that many pointless non-jobs for mandarins to do?

    5. Possibly, Minty it’s because you are of a certain age and you won’t be here when the shit really hits the fan – unlike peoples’ children and grandchildren.

        1. I have to admit similar feelings. My children are middle aged and I have no grandchildren. I think we have lived through the best of times.

  59. Silicon Valley Bank collapse could spark the next financial crash – but we cannot bail out failed bankers again. 12 March 2023.

    Depositors can’t get their money out. Payrolls might not be met next weekend. And small companies, especially in the fast growing technology industries, might soon face closure as their assets are frozen. There will be a lot of nervousness when the financial markets open on Monday morning following the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank in the United States and the decision by the Bank of England to take control of its London arm.

    More Good News!

    I’ve noticed a change in my attitude recently and I don’t think it’s an improvement. I’m beginning to hope for the end of this slow motion descent into a Totalitarian Hell. Nuclear War, among other possible outcomes, is looking increasingly welcome. This, aside from being irrational and nihilistic is also of course totally selfish, but here’s the rub. I don’t care. In all the other wars that this country has waged the enemy has always been The Other. Now it is within. Our greatest enemies are those among us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-could-spark-next-financial-crash/

  61. My last comment (I promise) about the smug git crisp seller.

    I think it is most unfortunate that views have divided on political grounds. Left all for him; right dead against him.

    To me it is quite simple. His “status ” and following is due to his work with the BBC. The BBC (laughingly, I know) is supposed to be impartial.

    The bloke is perfectly entitled to be a public bore – like any other old fart pontificating in the pub. But NOT when his still associated with the BBC.
    Want to pontificate? Fine, cancel your BBC contract. Want to keep on boring wendyball followers on t’telly? Fine – stop pontificating.

    2. It was made plain by HR in my ex company that any employee comments on any platform, that might damage the Company brand, would result in disciplinary action. I’m sure its the same in any large organisation.

    3. Yet Lineker knows he has a platform solely because of the BBC. He is using their authority to push his message.

      That’s the problem throughout the damned thing though. A bunch of Lefties forcing other people how to think.

      1. “Yet Lineker knows he has a platform solely because of the BBC. He is using their authority to push his message”

        Wibbles – that was entirely the point of my post.

    4. Why is so much space given in MSM to what he says? I don’t care what he spouts. Just stop printing it!

    1. It’s a variation on foreign aid.
      Giving money from poor people in rich countries … to rich people in rich countries.

      1. I take it the word’gas’, as used in the article, is the American word for petrol/ diesel as we know it.

      2. ” If you can’t rely on political agreements anymore, it gets really dangerous.”

        Oh bless the EU. The hypocrisy, doublethink and sheer, unadulterated treachery is laughable if it were not so serious. The Eu regularly breaks it’s own treaty for it’s own benefit. They’re the ones who voted to be allowed to change the ones they had made without future agreement. What utter hypocrites.

    3. The Right – as with the NHS – are fighting the wrong battle. They think that green is about the environment – because that’s the lie the Left have spun. In reality, green is about control. It’s about removing the ability for the citizen to function without state approval and permission. It’s about power – not the energy sort.

      Electric cars are a nonsense. The state wants to stop us driving. Heat pumps – the state wants to control how wee live, where we can live and the comforts we enjoy. The enforced Left wing vegetablism – it’s all about forcing societal change to suit their demented ideology.

      The Right are fighting the wrong battle and they won’t realise until it’s too late.

      1. Ditto ULEZ and 20 mph speed limits. Monitoring. Controlling.

        Plod where I am loves enforcing the 20 mph limit. So law-abiding motorists who have been driving without incident for 30 years are now criminals with points on their license, if they forget that they can’t do the speed they were previously able to. Even when there is no other traffic on the road or pedestrians.

      1. I have questioned and continue to question, how much of a threat is CO2?

        At 0.04% of the atmosphere it doesn’t pose a threat but is required for sustained plant life.

  64. California Dreaming………

    For my part, I am sincerely grateful for the services of Smog Lady. Diversity is our strength.
    It reminds me of and old 60s song Arlo Guthrie
    You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

  69. Back home again!
    The DT advises me that it was -5°C last night but +4° this morning by the time she got up!

  70. That nasty white stuff has just about disappeared. Apart from the temperature it’s almost Spring like!

    1. Still got some hanging around here and Winter might just still have a sting in its tail to come.

    2. Just had the windows open to get some air in. Still wide open in the kitchen and bathroom.

    3. The weather app on my phone had warned, last weekend, of the end of days commencing last Wednesday. This was gradually pushed back until reality arrived and all the skull and crossbones have gone…until next time.

      Meanwhile, here on the Costa Clyde, it’s cloudy and breezy for the first time in a week and I’m confident of an adventure-free drive to Dover via Walsall on Wednesday/Thursday.

  71. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/12/jeremy-hunt-risks-tory-tax-rebellion-unless-goes-growth/

    Hunt keeps saying these things, but his budget will do the exact opposite. Therefore, he is NOT in favour of growth as the onyl way to grow an economy is to cut taxes. All of them. Scrap most of them.

    What Hunt means is he wants to control who gets what money. He wants to take it from one side and give it to another – taking vastly more than is needed – so he can proclaim how great he is and how successful his policies are. That is not creating growth. It’s simply socialism.

        1. Nah – £200 billion ain’t what it used to be. The engineering consultants and construction companies sponsoring the whole wheeze will want to clear 3.142 times the original £100 billion. It’s the standard cost overrun formula written in the stars.

          1. My guess is over half a trillion, and then the state will simply run out of money OR, more likely, given the desperate fighting to rechain us to the EU, we’ll be back in that pointless thing and they will say stop spending it as we’ve moved on from TEN-T and now want a different train set to ferry the bodies about.

            Folk have got to remember it’s an EU project, and thus was always unnecessary.

          2. My guess is over half a trillion, and then the state will simply run out of money OR, more likely, given the desperate fighting to rechain us to the EU, we’ll be back in that pointless thing and they will say stop spending it as we’ve moved on from TEN-T and now want a different train set to ferry the bodies about.

            Folk have got to remember it’s an EU project, and thus was always unnecessary.

  73. I notice that the beeboid Gauleiter-General has adopted the mandatory estchury accent.

    What would dear Lord Reith have said….?

    2. I often think of Lord Reith when I see colleagues dressed in clothes that would once have been kept for doing the gardening. Remember the story that Reith once sent a secretary home because her stockings were beige not black?

  77. I’m sure that’s all hunky-dory…{:^))

    Silicon Valley Bank employees received bonuses hours before government takeover
    *
    *
    *
    On Friday, SVB CEO Greg Becker addressed workers in a two-minute video in which he said that he no longer made decisions at the 40-year-old bank, according to the people.

    The size of the payouts couldn’t be determined, but SVB bonuses range from about $12,000 for associates to $140,000 for managing directors, according to Glassdoor.com.

    SVB was the highest-paying publicly traded bank in 2018, with employees getting an average of $250,683 for that year, according to Bloomberg.

    After its seizure, the FDIC offered SVB employees 45 days of employment, the people said. The bank had 8,528 employees as of December.

    A spokesman for the FDIC declined to comment on the bonuses.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/silicon-valley-bank-employees-received-bonuses-hours-before-government-takeover/ar-AA18vFVG?cvid=d0cbe1ef9c6f429aba61662451eb7f1f&ei=31

    1. C level share sales in the last few days were not bad either. Nothing excessive, just in the range of $750k each.

      Nothing we can do about it, all planned in advance.

    1. The swastika is one of the oldest religious symbols in the world. The Nazi version is sinister in the true meaning of the word in that it is anti-clockwise!

      1. Disagree!! He is entirely irreplaceable. One could never find anyone else quite as smug and obnoxious!

      1. Man washing car.

        Pigeons waiting till he finishes so as to crap on it.

        Possibly.

        4. Pigeons……the political classes of ornithology.
          Pecking at everything and at every opportunity. Use the communal bird bath and crap in it as they fly off.

        5. I am sure that the nearby car wash has some trained pigeons or maybe gulls who are related to that pair.

          It is pollen season down here so cars get washed regularly to get rid of the yellow haze. Every time I take my car there, itr gets dumped on somewhere between the car wash and the condo.

      1. He’s using a jetwash. The birdies are waiting until he is finished before decorating it.

    3. They chew their way into our compost and waste bins. I catch them in a rat trap. Drown them in a water butt.
      When they are done put them on the shed roof and a red kite will take the body within a day. Perfect recycling techniques.

        1. Of course. 😊
          But I have tried to get a photo shot of the kite swooping in to scoop up the carcass. It never happens.

  84. After yesterdays NTTL comments about Biden stealing Make America Great Again from Trump, has anyone else seenhis latest announcement?.

    In a complete reversal of policy, drilling is being approved in several Alaskan oil fields. That’s a big turnaround from those initial golden days when Biden shut down a pipeline from canada and stopped new oil field development.

    Next will be a southern wall to keep the illegals out.

    1. In time to begin campaigning for the next election? Not that I’m cynical or anything. Much.

      1. Oh believe me, they have started. We are in South Carolina at the moment and they are really at it. All they need is a Trump that appeals to the muddle of the road voters.

        They used to all be for Nikki Haley down here, not so much now.

        1. Where are you in S. Carolina? We are heading down at Easter, hopefully to meet up with brother-in-law and his wife in Myrtle Beach.

          1. Wave when we pass each other on the road then. We are in Pawleys Island until the end of March.

    1. I was in the garden earlier it’s not as warm as advertised. It’s down as 12/ feels like 10. It’s only 10 in the green house with the door closed.
      Spinach is starting to make a move.
      I Pruned the grape Vine. Cleared away the rubbish from the pond all in the green bin. For collection in two weeks.

    2. 12c here this morning, 13.8c by the time we took Poppie out, according to the thermometer tucked behind the fence. However, the wind was very cold, as we trudged into the teeth of the southwesterlies. It wasn’t raining, the clouds were high and a hazy sun was visible until about 1.00 pm. It is now all over grey, with a feeling that the weather is a-changing.

  87. Labour would bring in annual safeguarding reviews for schools in England, 12 March 2023.

    Bridget Phillipson told the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) in Birmingham that too many girls were being exposed to “intolerable language, images and behaviour”.

    “Some of the things that are missed are the most important of all because they are about the safety and wellbeing of our children,” she said.

    Yes! By their teachers!

    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/mar/11/labour-would-bring-in-annual-safeguarding-reviews-for-schools-ofsted

    1. Indeed. Pushing their transideology agenda. As supported by Labour. Who have form in this area.

    2. Safeguarding. That’s code for ‘control what people think’. Saw how that would creep to engulf schools two decades ago.

  88. BTL comments flooding in on this one…

    SNP frontrunner Humza Yousaf vows to break up Britain by ‘any means necessary’

    Leadership hopeful says nothing ‘off the table’ in bid to demonstrate public support for Scottish independence

    By Simon Johnson, SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
    12 March 2023 • 1:25pm

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

    Andrew Lapping
    Anyone asked Lineker for a view?

    Simon Bell
    38 MIN AGO
    Any mention of a Caliphate?

    tony platts
    33 MIN AGO
    Reply to Simon Bell – view message
    A McCaliphate, surely?

    Simon Bell
    23 MIN AGO
    Reply to tony platts
    Fries with that?

    2. We could send you a couple of Quebec separatists, the similarity in their aims is striking.

        1. Just imagine if a “far-right” politician used the same words.

          An armed response unit would have bashed his door in and taken him away in handcuffs.

  89. A guy in the pub just told me he won’t be watching Match of the day tonight!

    I said, “Are you supporting Gary Lineker?”

    He said, “No, I’m a Liverpool fan.”

  90. Just watched Match of The Day on the iplayer. All they had was the
    highlights and key moments of the weekends games, no music, no
    commentary, no interviews with the players or managers and no post match
    analysis.
    Keep those tweets coming Gary.

    1. Dr Bhakdi was on to the probability of the jabs causing clotting from the off. Vert smart man and a great human being.

      1. From Wikipedia
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucharit_Bhakdi

        “Sucharit Bhakdi is a retired Thai-German microbiologist. In 2020 and 2021 Bhakdi became a prominent source of misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, …”

        As far as spreading misinformation is concerned he is not a patch on our politicians and the MSM!

      2. He and Dr Mike Yeadon kept me focused throughout and on track – I encountered Mike Yeadon first in the earlier days pre-vaccine when he was explaining the trajectory of the ‘virus’ – it was mostly over by end of May 2020 and then fanned into life by government hysteria. Then the ‘vaccine’ was introduced, for a non-existent problem. Yeadon and Bhakdi are heroes.

        1. I found Dr Yeadon on Twitter in 2020. He was drawing an awful lot of flak as they tried to silence him. Now we know why.

          1. I am surprised Yeadon and Bhakdi are still alive, or rather have been allowed to live. Yeadon had to escape from the UK, from N Yorkshire (Richmond???) to Florida quite early on in the process. He is a former CEO of Pfizer, and has said he feels completely betrayed by the company. He comments on TCW from time latterly as Triple750.

          2. As ruthless as they are the people attempting to change the World to fit their deranged view are not stupid. If Yeadon and Bhakdi, there are many others too, were somehow to die mysteriously those events would set off alarm bells across the World. Another who could be at risk, and his family has an awful legacy in assassination, is Robert Kennedy Junior: an extremely brave man who is currently talking about facing Biden, should the latter seek re-election, for the Democrat presidential nomination.

    2. “$150Billion”
      For that much couldn’t the Russian military have been bought up, lock stock and barrel, and sent home?

      2. I understand that Plum has implied that she won’t be returning anytime soon, I think lacoste has information. She seems to have developed an antipathy towards computers since being ill.

        1. I spoke to Plum on last Friday; she continues to have an antipathy towards computers, ppm.

          She needs a dog, but her daughter thinks otherwise. I encourage her to look – she will probably do so – once the weather gets warmer.

          1. Quite frankly, her daughter needs to stop being bossy.
            Plum misses Maud desperately.

          2. I’m with you, Anne! Having some other creature to look after and cherish can make life seem like living, and no one should tell you otherwise!

          3. Yes, I have found that looking after my husband…..if only there was a kennel to put him in.

          6. A dog will make all the difference to her well being and her life; dogs rescue us as well as we rescuing them – once you have had a dog in your life there is no going back! You are not the same person as you were pre-dog. No doubt there are dog walkers in the area who could take her hound for a daily walk if she isn’t up to it on a particular day. Do give her our best wishes when next you speak to her, we miss her and I miss my companionable glass of sherry…!

          7. Somewhere out there is a dog that needs Plum.
            Recently I encountered a shih tzu puppy, totally bouncy as they always are.
            The pleasant but misguided owner told me that they are training her to keep off sofas and other furniture. (good luck with that, I said to myself)

        1. She didn’t take any of us- could use some sun, it’s pissing it down here- again!

      2. She turned 60 on 18th January and, if I remember rightly, she went off on her exotic travels soon after.

        My beloved Caroline is 60 but she could very well pass for 35 in the dusk with the light behind her!

        (Can anyone tell me from where I borrowed this turn of phrase?)

          5. Well done, Sir.

            I appeared as a member of the jury in a production the masters put on at Allhallows over 40 years ago!

          6. About 40 years ago I accompanied a friend and members of the University of Sheffield Orchestra on a coach visit to the University of Leeds. The two University orchestras were giving a concert and my friend’s brother a chap called Michael Bernamont was to be joint leader with a very pretty girl from the Sheffield orchestra. At that age one notices such things.

            We attended the rehearsals and that evening the recital. The then leader of the Halle, a fine violinist, performed the Mendelssohn violin concerto.

            On the coach back to Sheffield the students broke out into singing Gilbert and Sullivan by heart.

            Since those days I discovered and developed a love of the G&S operettas but also the pure musical output of Arthur Sullivan himself, a truly great instrumentalist.

  95. A Plain Par Four today.

    Wordle 631 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I did the same.
      Wordle 631 4/6

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

    2. Three today.

      Wordle 631 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  96. Another Weekend almost over…..
    Sun over the yard arm already, time for a slurp 🍷

    1. My Maine Coon, Basil, attacked a harmless Garter snake in CT. Even a mild snake can rear up like a cobra if provoked. Didn’t stop Basil though- lots of paw action and the snake departed.
      I hate snakes- shiver.

      1. I’ve always been fascinated by snakes and have always enjoyed encountering them. Rarely see them in the UK, and that’ll just be adders and vipers, never met a smooth snake.

        1. Heck. Now I have this ear worm of a snake uttering “Ding Dong” in its best Leslie Phillips voice.

        2. An adder is a viper. The one you missed is the grass snake.

          But you knew that! 😉

        3. What do they call the smooth silvery one? (a a slow worm – I can’t remember).

          1. I wish I was a glow worm
            A glow worm’s never glum,
            How can you be grumpy
            When the sun shines out your bum.

          2. Vhy didn’t the viper vipe her nose?

            ‘Cause the adder ‘ad ‘er ‘andkerchief!

  98. That’s me gone for today. Sunny and sort of mild – well, far less cold. The cold is back Tues/Wed – then mildish again.

    Spent half an hour getting the propagators out and trying to remember what one does to make the greenhouse auto-vents start to work again.
    The bloke who designed THEM never tried to fit them wile standing on a pair of steps, trying to work at a thing with a killer spring a foot above your head.

    For trombetti fans – at lunch we had the very last serving of soup made from the very last trombo harvested in October, And my gardening calendar tell me that it was exactly 11 months ago today that set the seeds from which the dear old trombetti came.

    Ireland had a bit of a shock until the last 20 minutes. Still think they’ll slaughter England next week.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – when I shall be mainly shovelling horse shit. Hope to get five trailor loads from the horse-owner 200 yards away.

  99. Just had a visit by SWMBO and Second Son.
    Amazing how uplifting a huge hug from a 22 year-old can be! :-D)

      1. #metoo. Thanks.
        Suspect there’ll be an assessment tomorrow, followed by the usual nil-by-mouth for a day. I hope. My own bed looks better by the hour!

        2. Friend Dianne was here for the weekend. So, after two nights on the sofa bed, I wholeheartedly agree…

          Fingers crossed for a satisfactory outcome.

    1. Excellent. I hadn’t come across that before. I was born at:

      2 Third Avenue
      Sherwood Rise
      Nottingham

      a couple of years before that was written. I was 10 before I realised that I wasn’t born at 2/3rds Avenue. And look at me now!

    2. Thanks for that, Bob, and the reminiscences of Raleigh Industries. I observed quite a lot of change in the company during my time there. Much of the site was sold off and the manufacturing was downgraded so much that many items were bought in ready made, including bike frames.

      One essential part of a bike, though, which continued to me made on site was bike wheels. When I asked why, it was because they cannot be stacked, or packaged, after assembly (since the hubs are much wider than the rims). Packages of rims were bought in from outside as were boxes of hubs and spokes. The wheel shop was mainly staffed by middle-aged women and it was almost mesmerising watching them thread spokes though the hubs and rims to make a wheel. Their speed was rapid and most of them wore headphones to listen to their favourite music as they worked. Assembled wheels were placed on a rack and then passed to the wheel-truers who placed each wheel on a device that spun them and after a few tightening tweaks on the spokes by a skilled wheel-truer, the perfectly aligned wheels were then sent into the assembly shop.

      The whole site has now gone: sold off to Nottingham University. A small industrial unit at nearby Eastwood [“Acewood” to Nottingham folk] that assembles brought in components is all that is left of that iconic Nottingham concern.

      1. The whole problem with Raleigh Industries is that, having put in an MRP (Manufacturing Resource Planning system), they believed in the idea that they should put in ‘Minimum Stocks’.

        Far too high and far too expensive – they bankrupted themselves.

        This I know, because I was an industrial consultant at the time, and would NEVER have advised this

        1. Should they have put in a JIT system (Just In Time) ? it seemed to work well in the automotive industry

  103. Here’s one for you: Do user manuals for guns have a trouble-shooting section?

    1. SWMBO must have brought you a new box of Christmas crackers when she visited today. C’mon, ‘fess up.

  104. I tried calling the Tinnitus helpline just now. There was no answer, just kept ringing!

  105. Looked up “Opaque” in the dictionary. The definition wasn’t very clear.

  107. The first restaurant just opened on the moon. It has great food, but no atmosphere.

    2. Try reading about the development and habits of Yersinia Pestis when you’re feeling knackered.
      Very enlightening, but possibly not when a month of sorting out a house is catching up with you.
      Helpful hint; while you’re in horsepiddle, stick to reading something light and frivolous.

      1. Joke books, maybe?
        Hope you’re keeping in reasonable shape, Anne. I’m still not over clearing Mother’s house, and all that entailed. Never mind my own place.

          1. Black Death! See Anne’s post! OK it’s a worse joke than any of yours, pet! 🙄

  109. Just moved rooms in horsepiddle. New room is outside the communal area and above the A&E arrivals – just had the place lit up with blue lights from outside. Sigh…

    2. Hospitals are bally awful. They tell you to rest but they’re the one place you can’t.

  110. Dear Norwegian Hospital.

    You hve a deranged English patient who has been given a book of “jokes”.

    PLEASE will you the the book away from him – and sedate him heavily.

    Thank you.

    The NoTTLers.

    1. We could do with a bit of positive policing here with things like Just Stop Oil and the Extinction Rebellion Mob.

  113. I know it’s early but David Attenborough’s voice on TV is making me sleepy.
    But I might grab some cheese and biscuits. To stay awake.
    And seriously Obs.
    I wish you more than all the best for tomorrow.
    I’m sure your in good scandie hands.
    🤗😉

    1. Thanks, Eddy. Appreciate that.
      I’d love cheese, biscuits too, and some rather good Nero D’Avola I bought last week… Sigh…

      1. Best of luck, old troop, let’s get you out of there and a chance to enjoy your cheese and bickies.

        Thinking of you and will mention you in my prayers.

          1. No need to feel humbled – I’ve been helped by NoTTLers, Why shouldn’t you? We care for our family.

          2. Indeed, you and Conners also have remembered me in your thoughts and prayers. And others have done so as well. Even if one is not religious just knowing that someone is thinking of you with positive vibes is a great help.

      2. Too hot and lazy to scroll down, but on the assumption that you’re becoming a bionic man tomorrow, best of British; I’ll be rooting for you!!

        1. Jump starter to be fitted soon, I believe.
          Hot sounds good. Hope you’re having a wonderful time & wish I was there!

          1. Having an absolute ball! 40⁰ here today (sorry!).

            You wouldn’t want to dance the tango with me with a dicky ticker – FAR too dangerous! 🤣🤣 I’ll dance with you one day x

          2. Nobody would want to dance with me- got three left feet. And now a stick- maybe “tripping” the light fantastic is possible;-))

  116. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk.

    Don’t forget to include Oberstleutnant in you nightly prayers.

  117. Please let this be true:

    Gary Lineker ‘on verge of victory over BBC’: Sources close to MOTD host ‘increasingly confident’ crisis will be ‘resolved to his satisfaction’ in next 24hrs as talks ‘inch forward’ amid concerns his contract means he can’t be sacked or silenced

    It should mean that the taxman can hammer him.
    Tax, legal fees, penalty interest, damages, wonderful.
    Bankrupt the bastard.

    1. I don’t understand …. could you explain he the taxman can hammer him (this does not have to be detailed!). I definitely hope it is true.

      1. On reflection I suspect, sadly, that it might even help the swine.

        My understanding is that he is under investigation by HMRC, because they claim he is a BBC employee, he claims he’s a contractor and should be able to avoid tax.
        If he’s a BBC employee his claim to be self employed fails.
        But if he can’t be sacked it suggest he isn’t.
        However it should mean that the BBC can refuse to extend his contract when it expires if they choose so to do.

        1. Thank you. I think he will wriggle and come through all this smelling of left-wing roses as usual but fingers crossed.

  118. A nice roast chicken dinner with Wibbles’ favourite veg- Brussels Sprouts and after cooking and eating, time for bed.
    Sleep well Y’all and good luck to Paul with his hospital stuff. You’re in my thoughts mate.

    1. Hope you had roast taters with that! For the time being, only 4 hours behind you, since we lost an hour today.So I am trying to stay up for a bit longer, hope y’all sleep well and I echo your thoughts for Paul (aka Oberst)

  120. Interesting take on Steve Bannon’s War Room who describes Elon Musk as a ‘running dog of the CCP’.

    Of course China is the principal maker for Tesla vehicles which rely on lithium for their batteries, a commodity almost exclusively found in China. Are our politicians totally asleep or merely incompetent in buying into Chinese propaganda.

    What better way to have the CCP enslave us than have us dependent on China for the ‘fuel’ enabling us to travel. Net zero is perfect for the CCP takeover of the world as promised by their eternal leader, a sort of Chinese version of Herman Munster.

    Evidently the CCP have penetrated all major defence contractors in the US along with investment companies and banks. So much for government regulations.

    I suspect much the same has occurred in the UK. Our banking system has failed its investors for decades. The collapses are now occurring but potentially far worse than 2008.

    1. You’ve got to Han d it to the Chinese!

      Thank God Gary is all over the front pages taking everyone’s mind off Bank runs and Bakhmuts…..!
      Edit:
      I should have added with the ‘penetration of all major defence contractors in the US’ (& quite possibly some in the UK) one might say there is a chink in our armour!

Comments are closed.