Sunday 13 December: The EU’s disdainful stance in trade talks strengthens the case for Brexit

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/12/13/letters-eus-disdainful-stance-trade-talks-strengthens-case-brexit/

1,025 thoughts on “Sunday 13 December: The EU’s disdainful stance in trade talks strengthens the case for Brexit”

        2. Why is it called “O five hundred hours”?

          It’s short for Oh my God it’s only five hundred hours

      1. I watched about a minute of ‘Celebrity Pointless’ yesterday. As usual, I’d not heard of any of the celebrities, who are famous mostly for getting on Pointless. All eight contestants introduced themselves with deadpan faces with dodgy makeup, a bit like how Star Trek humans with prosthetics are somehow aliens, yet Data’s pet cat Spot is not an intelligent life form the ship’s universal translator can communicate with. They said something like “I get up in the morning to eat toast and I am a comedian”. The creak of the “Laugh” sign from the warm-up production assistant is met by howls of canned laughter and cheers from the virtual studio audience.

        I much prefer the random contestants in their weekday show. At least they are interesting. Some are even accountants.

        2. As soon as I saw it was centred on comedians, I groaned inwardly & recognised none. They’re just not funny.

    2. Isn’t the bitch wearing goggles in the middle the one who advocated throwing acid over somebody? Very funny!

      2. Yes, Peddy, (good morning, btw) and she crucified Margaret Thatcher’s daughter Carole for saying a black man with a fuzzy hairstyle looked a bit like a golliwog, then promptly criticised Carole’s mother by saying that “Lady Thatcher” sounded like clippers women use to trim their pubic hair.

        1. ‘Morning, Elsie.

          The lovely, adorable, self-confessed alcoholic Adrian Chiles was in on the Green Room scenario too.

      4. Throwing acid over the wrong sort of people, those who are not a “protected category” is funny. A lot of money is on this.

      6. I’m inclined to agree with you…. but there are several on this forum who regularly recommend lampposts and piano wire for the same people (the target was “politicians” in general) and on the only occasion when I protested I was told that politicians are “fair game”. If they are fair game here, then why not for Ms Brand?

        Ofcom and the BBC deemed it to be OTT and she apologised… unlike anyone here.

    3. ‘Morning, Rik. A case of ‘No shit, Sherlock’! But still the BBC has yet to realise why so many of us have given up on their so-called comedy…

      Satire is now dead because it has been hijacked by the wokery. It’s a sad situation.

  6. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Here is today’s crop of Brexit letters:

    SIR – If it wasn’t apparent already, the stance of Brussels in the latest rounds of negotiations for a trade deal makes it absolutely clear that the EU has no intention of according Britain the respect and consideration that almost any other independent nation on earth would be granted as a matter of course.

    Instead, we were treated with disdain.

    If it can do that to the nation which by its actions in 1940 made the EU possible in the first place, then one trusts that other nations will take note and be suitably circumspect in their dealings with this sclerotic polity – which looks unlikely to survive for much longer in any case.

    If nothing else, the EU’s true colours have been revealed, demonstrating to the full not only that we are right to leave but also why we should never have joined in the first place.

    Philip J Ashe
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Boris Johnson said that the EU has demanded terms that no British prime minister could accept.

    He is wrong. I could name at least four.

    Martin Smith
    Brimpsfield, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Our European friends have shown that their perfect Brexit was the UK removing its annoying presence from the EU top table, but continuing to follow all the rules and pay for the pleasure: a golden-egg-laying goose on a leash, to be squeezed at will.

    Reportedly they threaten a variety of embargoes, but I trust our own lawyers are able to find equally irritating ways to ruin their day.

    Cross-Channel trade is more at risk from French fishermen whose fishing grounds contract dramatically from January 1 in a no-deal scenario.

    They have a history of blockading their own ports when they don’t get what they want, and the Dutch and Belgians have fishermen too.

    As for the tunnel, if the French unions can’t invent a reason to close it, a few leaves on the line should do it.

    In our favour, we need no longer apply EU tariffs, quotas and standards to goods imported from the rest of the world, and we can apply World Trade Organisation tariffs to imports from the EU. The EU could see its UK market contract abruptly.

    Tim Major
    Southampton

    SIR – Further to John Barratt’s letter (December 11) suggesting Somerset Brie as an alternative to French Brie, would it not be sensible to identify other EU products that could be acceptably replaced by products produced in the UK or by other suppliers outside the bloc?

    Obvious early contenders would be motor vehicles and wine, but many more could follow.

    I am confident that readers would discover plenty of such products to buy and hopefully a large percentage of these purchases would support the UK economy.

    Derek Pearson
    Stafford

    1. Moh’s Mercedes was built in South Africa.

      Really good workmanship, much better than his last one which was built in Germany.

      1. My Merc was built in Spain. German design (excellent), spanish quality. Rusty crap, it was, from new.

          1. I was really disappointed. It was the Viano, kitted out as a luxury saloon – pale blue leather seats, lots of space, walnut dash, automatic box, sat high up so visibility was good, surprisingly good fuel consumption, comfortable, manoevrable, quiet… Lovely.
            The bad points were that they hadn’t worked out how to make the paint stick – every year, it went back for partial repainting! One time, I shut the tailgate and a piece of paint the size of the palm of my hand slid out from under the handle and floated to the ground, leaving just a partly-primed steel surface!
            The other was the main hydraulic control valve in the gearbox. This failed in year #4, and had to be replaced. I had to threaten the dealer with the law to get it done under Reklamasjon – in Norway, goods brought privately must function for 5 years if capital items, 2 years if consumer items, and a 60 grand Merc is deffo capital item! They fixed it, the cost to them was £5k.
            I finally got to the end of my tether when the gearbox symptoms reappeared in year 6, so I sold it back to the dealer for almost as much money as the VW Tiguan I replaced it with.

  7. SIR – Chris North (Letters, December 8) wants the unvaccinated barred from public transport, theatres and shops in case they infect him.

    However, it appears that many may have to wait a year before vaccination is available, and even then may still carry Covid-19 and be infectious.

    Perhaps a better solution is for those as worried as he is to remain isolated, and for the rest – vaccinated or not – to help start rebuilding the economy.

    David Pelham
    Surbiton, Surrey

    SIR – In future we may need evidence of a Covid vaccination if we travel abroad. Would it not be sensible to ask people to take their passports with them when they get the second dose of the vaccine and stamp their passports there and then?

    Years ago that is what happened when you obtained foreign currency to travel abroad. If we leave it up to the Civil Service to devise a scheme it will just be a bureaucratic nightmare.

    Andrew Rixon

  8. SIR – I would like to endorse the need for proper recognition of Captain Michael Lees’s courage (report, December 6) during the raid on the German 14th Army headquarters in Italy in March 1945. The headquarters oversaw the command of German forces manning over 60 miles of the Gothic Line, a huge barrier to the advance northwards of the Allies.

    Having read Damien Lewis’s SAS Italian Job, which tells Michael Lees’s story, I was struck by the injustice of his not receiving an award for his outstanding bravery in helping to break through the Gothic Line and shorten the war. I wrote to Johnny Mercer, the minister for Defence People and Veterans, hoping that he could help obtain posthumous recognition for Michael Lees. His office rejected the case for two reasons.

    The first was that “since the 1950s it has been the UK government policy not to make retrospective awards, including in cases where the decision about an award has previously been made.” However, new evidence shows that the decision made at the time not to grant a Military Cross was unjust.

    The second was that “it is not possible, many years later, to confirm and verify the circumstances that took place at the time”. This is not a valid reason, as the circumstances are very well documented in SAS Italian Job. Moreover, the Telegraph report of December 6 includes extra new evidence from the case of John Burke, the SAS man who heroically rescued a terribly wounded Michael Lees.

    Major Roy Farran wrote the MC citation for Michael Lees, hailing his “gallantry, initiative and unequalled courage”. This should take precedence over whoever decided not to award the MC, as Major Farran witnessed the attack. If it is not possible to award an MC then an equivalent civilian honour should be granted posthumously.

    Margery Noble
    Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

    Sorry, Margery Noble; gongs are for politicians, civil servants and those who do well in sport. They are not for those who display courage of the very highest order and who, so often, lose their lives in the process.

    1. The whole system, peerages included, is a sick joke, and means the opposite if what it used to mean.
      The military medals still have some meaning – one cannot for example, help but respect a young Barbadian lad getting the VC. Good on Johnson Beharry. I’d buy him a gutload of drinks, if i could.

      1. The lower end of the honours system sees modest honours issued to lots of people who have done very good work over long periods in their own communities. People who have run Scouts, Guides and similar not just for a few years, but for decades, those who have raised thousands over many years for things like the RNLI in seaside communities. Lots of modest people given “small” gongs for which they are overwhelmingly grateful and which their communities whole-heartedly endorse. At that level it still works well. It is at the upper level that it has failed so dismally. And even there, there are exceptions and people who have genuinely deserved reward.

      2. Honours used to be a way of ensuring the loyalty of ministers and civil servants during their careers.
        It has long since been eclipsed by the dollars flowing in from the likes of Soros.

  9. Today’s DT Leader:

    Boris Johnson has been admirably strong throughout the UK/EU trade negotiations, and he should stick to his instincts and hang tough. The EU’s offer, as it stands, is unacceptable: it erodes our sovereignty, weakens our constitution and would force us to obey EU laws in perpetuity. No other nation has been asked to accept such conditions as a precursor to trade, and Britain should not be asked either. As the deadline approaches, the PM will come under huge pressure to cave. He must not.

    Remainers have been proven correct in one regard: it’s been harder to extract ourselves from the EU’s orbit than Leavers expected. But the reason for that difficulty is exactly why we were right to vote to exit. The EU is a technocratic, legalistic empire run by a self-perpetuating cadre and it sees anyone on the outside of the tent as a competitor; anyone trying to leave is a serious danger, threatening the integrity of the project. It cannot let us go lightly because it needs Brexit to fail, to prove that nation states don’t work. Brussels is not just sending us a message. It wants to remind its members what it stands for and why they should never leave.

    The European project began under the guise of economics, and that’s why the British voted to stay in in 1975, but its long-term ambitions were always political. It was a response to the horrors of two wars, the belief that nation states engender conflict and that voters can’t be trusted to pick the right leaders. Men like Jean Monnet, an architect of the 1951 European Coal and Steel Community, dreamt of a transnational union, a federation of regions with its own court, legislature and executive, that would resolve disputes peacefully – if undemocratically – and transform government into a matter of technical expertise. It derived momentum from the principle that once a competence or power had been added, it could not be taken away. There is no reverse gear in Europe and no need for one because, in the eyes of the most fanatical federalists, it is a moral project with the godly terminus of a unitary state. What Britain did in voting to leave, and then actually going through with it, broke the very laws of nature.

    We mustn’t confuse the EU with Europe: the project has always been controversial and nation states have voted against it several times (on every occasion between Maastricht and Brexit, the result has been ignored, fudged or run again) ). The problem with the EU’s philosophy is that it tries to make experience and human nature fit the theory, rather than the other way around, and it’s no surprise that one of the most grudging and difficult members of the project turned out to be one of its most pragmatic and common-sensical subjects: the UK. We just didn’t need to be fixed or rescued from ourselves. Our philosophical tradition is far more empirical: while the EU is rooted in the abstractions of the French Revolution or the idealism of Plato’s republic, the British constitution has evolved, not been invented.

    Most Britons approached engagement with Europe in transactional terms. After many decades, when the democratic costs of members kept on rising, when we saw where this thing was really headed, we voted to leave. Brussels, by contrast, sees membership as a philosophical matter, and the trade within its borders is not “free” in the classical sense of something that happens because free people choose to do it. It is something to be permitted, managed, regulated – and subordinated, as we now see in these negotiations, to the political needs of the union.

    A deal can still be done and, no doubt, 90 per cent has already been resolved to a satisfactory degree. But what’s left on the table, what we’re now struggling to resolve, is what is most precious to Europe: theory. When one understands what really motivates the Brussels negotiators, refusing to swallow anything unacceptable, however superficially convenient, becomes a matter of profound national interest.

    Top BTL comment:

    D Walker
    12 Dec 2020 10:21PM

    “We voted to be self-governing.
    Accepting terms which meant the EU sets regulations and we must implement them is the very opposite of self-governing.

    Boris must not surrender. If he does, his political career will be brought to an abrupt end …. and the Conservative Party will follow shortly after.”

    Hear, hear!

    1. “The European project began under the guise of economics, and that’s why the British voted to stay in in 1975,” That’s precisely why I voted to remain in the EEC in 1975. I was lied to.

        2. Not only no room at the inn, but no crib for the baby Jesus, who has to stand on his own two feet immediately after birth.

      2. A Marxist’s idea of what a crib should look like. (It’s outside St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City)

        Some people took to social media to complain that the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square is “horrible” and “cannot be looked at.” Others compared the characters to “Martians.” But according to Pope Francis, stopping only at the aesthetic of the creche risks missing the point.

        “In the nativity scene, everything speaks to the ‘good poverty,’ the evangelizing poverty that makes us blessed. By contemplating the Holy Family and the various characters, we are drawn to their disarming humility,” the pope said to the audience.

        1. Good morning, Citroen.

          I recognised it as a Nativity scene
          but I am surprised it is sited outside
          St. Peter’s Basilica; I can’t think it
          adds to the ambiance!

        1. So you’re saying, Annie, (good morning, btw) [© Cathy Newman] that the tall figure which I initially took to be an angel is really the Mekon hovering over a pile of dinner plates?

        3. So you’re saying, Annie, (good morning, btw) [© Cathy Newman] that the tall figure which I initially took to be an angel is really the Mekon hovering over a pile of dinner plates?

  12. Wealthy MP urged to pay up for his family’s slave trade past. 13 December 2020.

    A wealthy Tory MP is facing demands to pay reparations for his family’s part in the Caribbean slave trade after the Observer revealed that he now controls the plantation where his ancestors created the first slave-worked sugar plantation in the British empire almost 400 years ago

    Sir Hilary Beckles, a prominent Barbadian historian of slavery, said Drax must acknowledge the wealth brought to the family by slavery. “If Richard Drax was in front of me now, I would say: ‘Mr Drax, the people of Barbados and Jamaica are entitled to reparatory justice.’

    Morning everyone. Well if nothing else this should concentrate the minds of MP’s on the realities of Wokism!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/wealthy-mp-urged-to-pay-up-for-his-familys-slave-trade-past

  13. Good morning, all. A brief bit of pink sky then the cloud and fog returned.

    So the Germans won the war, after all.

  14. Here’s a mythical creature for your coat of arms, Dido: a cautious, responsible Tory
    Rod Liddle
    Sunday December 13 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    There are two rather cute martlets on the coat of arms of Diana Mary “Dido” Harding — that’s Baroness Harding of Winscombe to you, you pleb — as well as two lions. I’m not terribly fussed about the lions, but I do have a soft spot for martlets. These birds are forever on the wing, never roosting or nesting — kind of anti-evolutionary birds, then, chimeric swifts.

    They don’t exist, of course, but I still like them. I think it would be a nice gesture if you included a martlet or two in your own coat of arms. If you’re wondering what colour to make them, Dido’s martlets are yellow, by the way.

    The baroness is the head of our country’s NHS Test and Trace system, which has proved such a boon to us during this crisis. I am not quite sure why she is. OK, fair enough, one of her horses once won the Cheltenham Cold Cup, she was at uni with David Cameron and is agreeably high-born. That, by itself, may be enough to qualify her for the role in many people’s eyes.

    But her previous brush with public acclaim was when, as chief executive officer of TalkTalk (the telecoms business, not the crap 1980s band), four million of her customers were thought to have had their accounts hacked and she admitted she hadn’t a clue if their details had been encrypted. Just the woman, then, to run the fairly sensitive test’n’trace business. There were legal challenges when she was appointed but Dido, like a soaring martlet, evaded the clutches of the lawyers.

    Test and Trace has cost the taxpayer £22bn. It has repeatedly failed to achieve targets it has been set. It was once heralded as The Thing That Would Defeat Covid, but nobody talks about it much any more.

    We now know, through a National Audit Office report, that at the very height of the pandemic the 18,000 Test and Trace call handlers worked for precisely 1% of their time — that’s five minutes, max, during an eight-hour day. The rest of the time they were sitting around, perhaps doodling martlets on their Post-it notes.

    As an epic waste of money, Test and Trace easily eclipses the £220m spent on setting up our emergency Nightingale Hospitals, many of which never treated a single Covid patient. We don’t talk about them very much these days, either. It easily eclipses, too, the more than £500m spent by Dishy Rishi Sunak to bribe us to buy a party bucket of chicken Zingers from KFC on a Monday night, rather than a Thursday night.

    Such extraordinary amounts of money, utterly squandered. It is remarkable that a Conservative government could be so cavalier with our dosh, however panic-stricken and clueless it might have been. Less remarkable, though, that it doled out the various lucrative Covid-related contracts to its mates and appointed pleasant horse-obsessed Conservative peers to the important new positions regardless of their suitability.

    This is not hindsight speaking, as some Tories are prone to allege. During this pandemic the mismanagement has been endemic, right from the start. The government’s response to the crisis was laggardly and inept. Since then it has backtracked, U-turned, flip-flopped and utterly confused the general public.

    Right now we are locked into a tier system that makes no sense whatsoever. There are suggestions that parts of the north might be shifted from tier 3 to tier 2, and London shifted from tier 2 to tier 3 — none of which will make the slightest difference to the infection figures. It just means people will be even more bewildered about whether they need to order chips with their beer.

    It’s a kind of giant national hokey-cokey that, as the World Health Organisation has said, will do nothing to combat the spread of the virus. Lockdowns, especially lockdowns that vary in their constraints from one day to the next, do not work.

    It was almost exactly one year ago, as I write this, that Boris Johnson was elected with an 80-seat majority — mercifully enough, given the alternative on offer. Oh bright glad day, I thought to myself at the time, having voted Conservative for the first time in my life.

    How quickly one can be disabused. Dealing with Covid was not easy, admittedly. But the rapid procession of idiotic decisions by this government, plus the health secretary Matt Hancock presiding over us and telling us, like a teacher addressing the remedial set in third grade, “Don’t blow it” …

    Would I vote Tory again? Maybe, when the martlets finally nest.

    Royals take to the stage

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fce05a5c4-3c8e-11eb-ac13-4bedd83a49b7.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1022

    Loose talk on Salmond
    You would pay good money to have eavesdropped on the teatime conversations between Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, last week.

    Murrell dropped his wife in it when he contradicted her evidence over the investigations into that sweating, moon-faced old lech Alex Salmond. Some have said she should resign as a consequence. But it would be better still if her presence in office means the Scots finally drag themselves away from this overlong love affair with the shambolic Scottish National Party.

    Cheap avocados? It takes the biscuit
    Yummy mummies in Highgate will no longer be able to nibble avocado on toast in poncy cafés if we leave the EU without a deal, according to a whole bunch of publications.

    Good, was my first response. Avocado on toast is not the sort of thing that would be eaten by either Jesus Christ or Winston Churchill. They would have tinned sardines on toast, or mushrooms, or Heinz Toast Toppers (if they still made them).

    But then I thought, hang on a minute. Our avocados are imported from — in this order — Peru, South Africa, Chile and Israel. These are not bastions of the EU. The likelihood, then, is that they will be cheaper in future.

    Fresh fruit, I accept, may rise in price but then people who eat fresh fruit are not entirely right in the head. Have some decent British biscuits instead. The Lemon Puffs from my corner shop are 59 pence, delicious — and surely count as one of my five a day.

    Toast the health of al-Qaeda’s Mr Big
    A warm welcome back to these shores for Adel Abdul Bary, one of the al-Qaeda conspirators behind the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 224 people. Old Adel was in prison in the US, but the authorities have released him early because he became morbidly obese and would thus be at grave risk should Covid-19 strike.

    Heaven forfend such a thing should happen, of course. Still, it’s Christmas and we should show goodwill. I say reach out to Adel and maybe invite him over for a drink. Especially if you’ve just tested positive.

      1. Here’s a clue (from Wiki) to her own self-esteem, delusional cow that she is

        “A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet which never roosts and is continuously on the wing. It is a compelling allegory for continuous effort, expressed in heraldic charge depicting a stylised bird similar to a swift or a house martin, without feet….”

          2. I think Dido is more like the Oozlum bird

            https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/21b1708a-187c-41d4-bf49-c290a9703b27/d3kn2so-1c61910b-e834-40a0-b984-b9aee87c9eb7.png/v1/fill/w_900,h_675,q_80,strp/the_oozlum_bird_by_pixelmecha_d3kn2so-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD02NzUiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC8yMWIxNzA4YS0xODdjLTQxZDQtYmY0OS1jMjkwYTk3MDNiMjdcL2Qza24yc28tMWM2MTkxMGItZTgzNC00MGEwLWI5ODQtYjlhZWU4N2M5ZWI3LnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD05MDAifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.hdIrKlOE46AWjNKI2gAugZUbGLIyNEboVw2IN8IH0EE

      2. Her arms are those of her father and grandfather. On what basis the first baron chose them I do not know but it doesn’t seem unreasonable that she would continue their usage.

      4. I knew her at Oxford. Never liked her! I think the reason was that everyone kept saying how brilliant she was, and what a glittering future awaited her – but I never personally saw evidence that she was any brighter than anyone else. She had bags of self-confidence and a lot of money to pursue her interests. She wasn’t particularly original or interesting. It’s absolutely typical that she would think herself qualified to head a telecoms company and not know what an SQL injection attack is. That kind of thing is for the little people to concern themselves with.
        I’ve met a lot of people thoughout my career that I genuinely respect, who have skills and abilities that I don’t have – Dido Harding isn’t one of them.

  15. Yo All

    Joke no 123, for Mr Grizzle

    This is the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95.

    Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

    Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

    Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

    Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

    Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States’ Atlantic fleet.

    We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numeroussupport vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north,that’s one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken toensure the safety of this ship.

    Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_urban_legend

    1. Yo, Tryers, and thanks.

      I posted another version of this scenario joke that allegedly happened between the US Navy and the UK coastguard in the English Channel. Whether or not it happened at all, and whatever its true location, it is still a good joke at the expense of the ingrained superiority complex of the Yanks.

      1. Yo Mr Grizzle

        Trinity House does lighthouses

        The Coastguard (a Poxymoron) ensures the seas are safe for incoming little rubber boats, full of permanent ‘visitors’

        1. I think the coastguard in my version of the joke was doing a course with Trinity House at the time.

          He was probably manning the watch during the last dog.

          2. So that the watches are an uneven number and can rotate? Perhaps it’s a dog watch because it’s cur-tailed (curtailed) 🙂

          3. Correct, otherwise, with 6 watches, you would be working the same set of four hours, forever

    2. …and one for those with an Italian Mama:

      Italian Mother

      Mrs. Ravioli came to visit her son Antonio for dinner. He lived with a female roommate, Maria. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn’t help but notice how pretty Anthony’s roommate was.
      Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Anthony and his roommate than met the eye.
      Reading his mom’s thoughts, Antonio volunteered, “I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Maria and I are just roommates.”
      About a week later, Maria came to Anthony, saying, “Ever since your mother came to dinner, I’ve been unable to find the silver sugar bowl. You don’t suppose she took it, do you?”
      “Well, I doubt it, but I’ll email her, just to be sure.” So he sat down and wrote an email:

      Dear Mama,
      I’m not saying that you “did” take the sugar bowl from my house; I’m not saying that you “did not” take it. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.
      Your Loving Son
      Antonio

      Several days later, Antonio received a response email from his Mama which read:

      Dear Son,
      I’m not saying that you “do” sleep with Maria, and I’m not saying that you “do not” sleep with her. But the fact remains that, if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the sugar bowl by now.
      Your Loving
      Mama

      Moral: Never Bulla Shita your Mama

  16. SIR – Chris North (Letters, December 8) wants the unvaccinated barred from public transport, theatres and shops in case they infect him.

    Perhaps Mr North could be vaccinated, with the one the Americans use to stop naughty murderers re-offending

    1. I note that (according to the Grimes) 40% of NHS staff are avoiding the vaccine. Can’t think why…..

      1. Thanks, Bill. The suffocating effect of the airway spasms was panic inducing. Even the Springer was panicking.

  18. Am I alone in noting the absurd irony of the campaign to cut down tackling in rugby, and ball-heading in football, to protect players against concussion and brain damage leading to dementia?

    Whilst at the same time, boxing—the nature of which is to deliberately beat your opponent’s head into unconsciousness— continues to be given the green light.

      1. Which is surprising, OLT, as I remember my Mama telling me that, if you ever get into a fight with a black, don’t try hitting him around the head as he is bone thick – just kick him in the shins – they’re very fragile (allegedly).

        1. I remember seeing a piccaninny doing repeated somersaults over a handrail at Nairobi airport. Inevitably it fell off & landed head first on the concrete. There was a reverberating thud & we all feared the worst. It sat up bewildered, but without so much as a whimper.

    2. The same is true of high diving. Repeatedly hitting the water from 10 or 20 metres up is really bad for the bonce.
      Rugby is now a business, a gladiatorial contest. When I played turned up with my boots, teams were assembled by size and fitness. Mostly by size in the “social” XV*. The sort of fat guys who could neither run nor jump were the props, the tall boys who had outgrown their strength were the second row, the smallest player was the scrum half, the next smallest was the stand-off, then the full back, two chaps who knew each others names were the centres, and the wingers were anyone passing who could be collared. There was only a back row if sufficient players were available, otherwise the wingers rotated between the wing and wing-forward positions depending on the play.
      Had any modern player turned up, he would have been in the front row, as anyone over 14 stone was unquestionably a forward.

      * A description honoured in the breach. If we had 13 or more we were pretty happy.

          2. I took my daughters to Murrayfield to see Scotland play the All Blacks and some numpty Scot behind us was screeching “Ya big fat poof Lomu!” as he rampaged down the wing! Even his dafty pals were embarrassed and trying to shut him up! It was a brill day as the terrible full back Patterson slipped and fell on his back going for a penalty kick! Much hilarity!

          4. But his place kicking was excellent as was that of Ronan O’Gara of Ireland.

            Talking of place kicking Owen Farrell is not at all reliable – he missed several sitters in the recent match against France.

          5. Absolutely! My sister used to play poker with Andy Irvine, and when I was at the University Staff Club in Edinburgh, his mother was a waitress in the dining room! she was so proud of him! Hastings was OK, but nothing like Andy!

      2. I was a very mediocre player and played in the 2nd Row: I was in the 2nd XV at Blundell’s and in the 3rd XV at UEA (or the 2nds when the regular player was missing.)

        When I left UEA and worked in London my brother-in-law was captain of the Esher Extra B and so I turned out a few times with them – it was all very much in the manner of Michael Green’s excellent The Art of Coarse Rugby.
        My brother-in-law epitomised The Rakes’s Progress in rugby. He was incredibly fast for his era doing 100 yards in under 10 seconds and was in Sherborne’s 1st XV on the wing at the age of 15. When he left school he played in his college XV at Oxford and in Esher’s 1st XV. Thereafter he went down a team each season until he ended in the bottom Esher team of which he was appointed captain.

          1. I was the guy who got flattened by a high-speed steamroller. Every bluddy time. Apparently, if you tackle low, it doesn’t hurt. My arse it doesn’t. Like being trapped between a lorry and the ground, most of the time.

          2. Tackle low and get your head in the correct position and your steamroller guy hits the ground like a felled tree. The Japanese world cup team demonstrated that time and again.
            Get it wrong and you can do yourself, or have done to you, serious damage.

          3. There is a record of “rugby songs” that was produced in the 70s by Hampstead Rugby Club. I played against them when on our “Twickenham Weekend Tour”. This chap rumbled towards me like a large rhino, and I tucked my head down, hit him id thighs and hung on, sliding down as he gradually slowed before falling onto the greensward.
            Only later did I discover his physiognomy displayed on the cover of the LP. (Had I seen the cover, I’d have run the other way.)

            https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrEzNwcG9Zf11sAnxSJzbkF;_ylu=c2VjA3NyBHNsawNpbWcEb2lkAzAxZjQ4YmI4NDg5MTM0NThlMTZlYTcyOTU0YzBlZmNkBGdwb3MDMwRpdANiaW5n?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dmore%2Bcoarse%2Brugby%2Bsongs%26fr%3Daaplw%26fr2%3Dp%253As%252Cv%253Av%252Cm%253Apivot%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D3&w=456&h=450&imgurl=live.staticflickr.com%2F130%2F343191351_e3c33ee96f.jpg&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fbizarrerecords%2F343191351%2F&size=60.5KB&p=more+coarse+rugby+songs&oid=01f48bb848913458e16ea72954c0efcd&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Apivot&fr=aaplw&tt=Rugby+Songs+%7C+see+more+at+www.bizarrerecords.com+%7C+Nick+…&b=0&ni=21&no=3&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=wU4e2q_xaSYF&sigb=ofXkw1NzMYy2&sigi=kOxILZ_L7uni&sigt=fCm9tJYu7kW2&.crumb=qmWCsBlxLvH&fr=aaplw&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Apivot

  19. James Wong, who has presented the BBC’s Countryfile, claimed “UK gardening culture has racism baked into its DNA”

    I think it wong of Mr Wong to wite about a our gardening culture

    If he hopes to change cultures with his words, perhaps, he should start in China. He can inform their Government that the ffffffing
    big wall that runs the length of the country is blot on the landscape must be pulled down

  20. Reposted from very late last night:

    An interesting article by Douglas Murray in the Mail on Sunday about Mrs Merkel’s role in thwarting all chance of a sensible, rational and fair Brexit deal:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9047117/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-Merkel-gets-wrong-arrogance-boundless.html#newcomment

    DOUGLAS MURRAY: Authoritarian. Unyielding. Merkel gets it so wrong because her arrogance is boundless

    A BTL comment:

    It is ironic that Mutti – or ‘Mother’ Merkel – is childless as are Macron and May. On the other hand Boris Johnson has an indeterminate number of children!

    1. Not really sure how seriously to take these articles. “Blame the Krauts!” was always going to be a card in the British government’s playbook.

        1. Not without reason. The UK paid a heavy price in blood to thwart German ambitions in two world wars, only to find that the septics financed German recovery simply to provide a bulwark against the perceived threat from the Soviet Union.

          The victorious Allies would have done better to treat Germany like the Romans treated Carthage. In 1945 we should have stripped German industry of its machines and tools, demolished its factories, shipyards and the rest of its industrial base, blown-up its mines and – magnanimously refraining from sowing the land with salt – turned Germany into nothing more than a subsistence agricultural economy which would last a thousand years.

          1. That is what Stalin would have done – had the wussies western allies not given in to sentiment.

          2. As we are about to do now. ” Oh, those poor French fishermen…think of the children…”

    2. Mutti, Macron and May may not necessarily be “childless” (loathsome word); they might be purposely child-free, as I am.

      1. I used to share your viewpoints as I remained child-free – to use your preferred phrase – until the age of 47. I must say my experience is that having children can be a joyful experience.

        However my older sisters married at 20 and started their families immediately and so I became an uncle at the age of ten. I greatly enjoyed this and some of my nephews and nieces became not only family but also friends and my wife is younger than four of them.

        1. I don’t doubt that having children is a good experience: my own brothers will testify to that. However, it is not for all of us and I simply detest being labelled as “childless” by those who think they know better.

          I possess none of: a dog, cat, horse, Chieftain tank nor mangrove tree. No one calls me dogless, catless, horseless, tankless nor mangroveless as a result. “Childless” is an abominable expression and I find it an utter insult to be regarded (or, indeed, labelled by) that crass nonsense.

        2. I don’t doubt that having children is a good experience: my own brothers will testify to that. However, it is not for all of us and I simply detest being labelled as “childless” by those who think they know better.

          I possess none of: a dog, cat, horse, Chieftain tank nor mangrove tree. No one calls me dogless, catless, horseless, tankless nor mangroveless as a result. “Childless” is an abominable expression and I find it an utter insult to be regarded (or, indeed, labelled by) that crass nonsense.

        3. I remember having an argument with the German chairwoman of our discussion group. I said that I was kinderfrei (childfree). She interrupted (which always makes my hackles rise) with “kinderlos!” (childless) “No,” I replied, “I chose the word deliberately because my children have left the nest.”
          And there lies the distinction.

          1. We are child-free now. Christo lives in Leighton Buzzard and is getting married to a veterinary nurse next year; Henry lives in Lancaster with Jess, his girlfriend, who is in the second year of studying for her Ph.D. while Henry is working with computers and doing an external M.Sc. at York.

      2. Unlike many of our ‘visitors’ who live Upt Norf: they just ‘borrow’ other peeples kidz

  21. EEEEHH! That got a bit damp!
    Light precipitation, in other words that fine, thin drizzle that does not look much, but does an excellent and efficient job of soaking anyone walking in it.

    Just been to Cromford & back.

    2. I loathe drizzle! You can’t beat a good downpour since you can prepare yourself for it, but drizzle is simply miserable.

      3. Drizzle is good moisturiser for the complexion, but I am invariably wearing the wrong shoes when it starts to pour down.

  23. Not sure if this has been posted here this morning but Richard (Rastus?) has hit the nail on the head with his BTL comment under the letters.

    Richard Tracey
    13 Dec 2020 9:55AM

    Perhaps I am missing something but I cannot understand why a person who believes in the vaccine and has had it should be worried about travelling on a bus, plane or train with somebody who hasn’t been vaccinated.

    Either the vaccine is good and protects those who have had it and so should be safe from: the virus, those who have the virus, those who have had the virus and those who have not had the vaccine.

    On the other hand, if the vaccine is useless what difference does it make mixing or not mixing with unvaccinated people?

  24. Wealthy MP urged to pay up for his family’s slave trade past. 13 December 2020.

    A wealthy Tory MP is facing demands to pay reparations for his family’s part in the Caribbean slave trade after the Observer revealed that he now controls the plantation where his ancestors created the first slave-worked sugar plantation in the British empire almost 400 years ago

    Sir Hilary Beckles, a prominent Barbadian historian of slavery, said Drax must acknowledge the wealth brought to the family by slavery. “If Richard Drax was in front of me now, I would say: ‘Mr Drax, the people of Barbados and Jamaica are entitled to reparatory justice.’

    Morning everyone. Well if nothing else this should concentrate the minds of MP’s on the realities of Wokism!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/12/wealthy-mp-urged-to-pay-up-for-his-familys-slave-trade-past

    1. Such utter BS! Have they asked the governments of various West African nations for reparations for selling their ancestors into slavery?
      No, I didn’t think so!

    2. Araminta mng, thanks again for saving most others from dredging the Grauniad – it’s appreciated.

      Henry Beckles “Sir” being a Barbadian award for limp wristed services to Education, Sports and the Arts. His bio’s the usual canned laughter of fake honours: International thought leader, UN Committee Official, UNESCO, friend of former UNSG Moonbat https://uwi.edu/VCBiography.asp

      Am sure Hon Drax MP retort to Hilary Beckles would be along the lines of: “Sorry, you must be confusing me with someone who gives a sh!t”

    3. Tell Barbadians that they have stolen a country and all those of African descent should leave immediately for Africa.

      1. Since Barbados has decided to ditch HM as Head of State next year, they should be told to go take a flier.

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/PM_Mottley.jpg/220px-PM_Mottley.jpg

        Under the premiership of Mia Mottley (Barbados Labour Party, Law degree from LSE) the island has moved inexorably within the Chinese orbit. The USA are not happy to have the CCP sitting in the Caribbean.

        Like all lefties, she is enthralled by all the traditional trappings of office and arranged for her Daddy to get a knighthood in the 2019 New Years Honours list before her intention to declare a republic was announced in September 2020.

        1. As I observed the other day:

          A potential Cuban Missile Crisis with Sleepy Joe and the Democrats in charge.

          Gawd help us.

    4. Drax rarely comments on his ancestors’ history of slave owning. When he first stood for parliament in 2010, he was asked by the Daily Mirror about his historical responsibility. He replied: “I can’t be held responsible for something that happened 300 or 400 years ago.” Drax said it was an attempt to smear him. “They are using the old class thing and that is not what this election is about. It’s not what I stand for and I ignore it.”

      On Friday, Drax said: “I am keenly aware of the slave trade in the West Indies, and the role my very distant ancestor played in it is deeply, deeply regrettable, but no one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds of years ago. This is a part of the nation’s history, from which we must all learn.’’

      The Barbadian historian Beckles, however, told the Observer: “It is no answer for Richard Drax to say it has nothing to do with him when he is the owner and the inheritor. They should pay reparations.”

      Perhaps Barbadians should extend their enslaved palms out to rich Arabs who live in goldplated luxury .

      1. The British taxpayers have only recently finished paying for the slaves’ freedom. They can go and whistle.

  25. ‘Morning again.

    I am willing to bet that you, like me, stand aghast at the accusation that “UK gardening culture has racism baked into its DNA”. Yes, really! From the Tellygraff:

    A BBC presenter came under fire today after claiming racism had become endemic in gardening.

    James Wong, 39, said the “fetishisation” of words such as “heritage” and “native” were examples of how “UK gardening culture has racism baked into its DNA”.

    The botanist, who has presented Countryfile and appeared as a panellist on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, made the remarks on Twitter after a user shared an article he wrote last month questioning why horticulture wasn’t perceived as more political.

    In a series of tweets, he said: “The idea of field of ‘wildflowers’ (they ironically meant non-native cornfield weeds) was ‘more in keeping with the area’ is not just historically f*****. “It also is predicated on often unconscious ideas of what and who does and does not ‘belong’ in the U.K.

    “This is the kind of exhausting s*** you have to go through everyday if you work in U.K. horticulture. “Unless of course you internalise these unquestioned (often unconscious) ideas that are predicated in large part on a bedrock xenophobia and racism.”

    Wong, who holds ambassador roles with Kew Gardens and the Royal Horticultural Society, added he believed racism was holding gardening back from being treated on a par with other art forms such as music and film.

    The botanist said the “fetishisation” of words such as “heritage” and “native” were examples of how “UK gardening culture has racism baked into its DNA”

    James Wong has been contacted by the Daily Telegraph for comment.

    The remarks drew criticism from social media users with Wong accused of debasing the “concept of racism” through “trivial overuse”.

    Bunny Guinness, a fellow panellist on Gardeners’ Question Time, said she disagreed with Wong, adding most people were “welcoming and supportive” in the industry.

    She told the Telegraph: “It seems a bit bonkers to me because those terms are terms that have been used all over the world to discriminate between native and exotic plants for very important reasons.

    “I have done so many commercial gardens, everywhere from the the east end of London to Birmingham and generally we want to encourage gardening. It is a very generous creative profession and most people are welcoming and supportive.

    “I do not know anyone who is racist in the gardening industry. “Native applies to plants and have been used for a long time, we have to discriminate between native and horticultural for good reason.”

    Mr Wong made the remarks on Twitter after a user shared an article he wrote last month questioning why horticulture wasn’t perceived as more political
    Mr Wong made the remarks on Twitter after a user shared an article he wrote last month questioning why horticulture wasn’t perceived as more political
    In response to one critic who claimed Wong wasn’t “fit” to hold an ambassadorial role with Kew Gardens, the presenter, of British-Malaysian heritage, told how he had made a podcast for the institution about its “ongoing efforts” to confront racism in botany and horticulture.

    A Kew Gardens spokesman declined to comment on Wong’s remarks but confirmed he had recorded a podcast episode “on botany and decolonisation” for its Unearthed series.

    “We appreciate that he is leading this important conversation,” the spokesperson added. The Royal Horticultural Society have been contacted by the Daily Telegraph for comment, while the BBC declined to comment.

    Wong’s remarks are the latest to associate racism with gardening after Gardeners’ Question Time was previously accused of peddling racial stereotypes.

    In 2014, Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, said the Radio 4 programme was riddled with “racial meanings” disguised as horticultural advice and discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted “nationalist and fascist belief”.

    At the time, a BBC spokesman said the “passing mention” of Gardeners’ Question Time was part of a broader discussion about language and race, which reflected the programme’s use of “accepted gardening and horticultural terminology”.

    * * * *

    Wong is obviously an attention-seeking idiot. Perhaps he is touting for more work from the Black Broadcasting Corporation by spouting crap like this?

    No BTL comments permitted…now there’s a surprise.

    2. Wong is just another oriental plant ! (Tongue in cheek)

      Loyal members of Chinese Communist Party are working in British consulates, universities and for some of the UK’s leading companies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal
      Leaked database of 1.95m registered party members reveals how Beijing’s malign influence now stretches into almost every corner of British life, including defence firms, banks and pharmaceutical giants
      Some members, who swear oath to ‘guard Party secrets, be loyal to the Party, work hard, fight for communism throughout my life…and never betray the Party’, are understood to have jobs in British consulates .

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9046783/Leaked-files-expose-mass-infiltration-UK-firms-Chinese-Communist-Party.html

    3. Now hold your horses.James Wong is absolutely correct,the gardening club in my sister’s village is just a front for the EDL,recruitment,indoctrination and weapons training are the order of the day
      Their hidden armoury is impressive,they have dibbers and they’re not afraid to use them!!

    4. That article reads like a chapter from Cold Comfort Farm. What is wrong with Wong?

      ‘Morning, Hugh.

      1. ‘Morning, Nanners. Indeed!
        Breathtaking stupidity from a Beeboid is about par for the course these days. He should seek immediate treatment…either that or he’s snorting some powerful stuff.

          1. Not supporting his general comments; but he does make a good point regarding “wild-flower” meadows. There is a huge pressure to plant lots of “wild-flowers” in currently productive grassland in areas where many of the species recommended have never been native and, indeed, in areas where wild-flower meadow never previously existed.

            Native, as Bunny Guinness points out, has real meaning… but a plant which is native on the chalk downs in Wiltshire may not be native in Cambridgeshire and certainly won’t be native on acid soils in Aberdeenshire. Yet the same mixtures are being pushed all over the country.

      1. Neither had I until he made his ridiculous comment. However, forewarned is forearmed, and now I can make a point of avoiding any programme in which this wanquer extraordinaire is due to appear.

        ‘Morning, AWK.

    6. According to Gardeners’ World, every other allotment is worked by an effnic. The others are cultivated by posh, middle class girlies.

      1. ‘Moaning, Annie. As soon as Monty Don went trotting off to film effniks and their ‘community projects’ the writing was on the wall, which is why we didn’t watch any of the last series of GW. I don’t think we missed much, apart from raised blood pressure.

    7. 327428+ up ticks,
      HJ,
      As kids and living in Kew we found them to be lucrative
      scrumping areas and the carrot patches something to behold.
      Your daily fodder intake at home had to be added to.

    8. Mr Womg is just too shy to express his heartfelt thanks to England for giving him every opportunity in his working life and more. Like Yasmin Alibhai Brown et al.

  27. COMMENT
    No, this isn’t the Brexit I’d have gone for, but it is better than staying in a quasi-empire

    The black swan that changed everything was Theresa May’s accidental premiership

    Daniel Hannan

    Consider the counterfactual. In the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, David Cameron is replaced, as expected, by Boris Johnson. Aware that it was a close result, and keen to prevent a fullscale culture war, Boris applies for the European Free Trade Association (Efta) as an interim solution – a transition, if you will.

    He knows, he tells Leave voters, that his compromise won’t please everyone. EU nationals will still be free to work in Britain – though he will make it easier to deport unsavoury foreigners and will also clean up the benefits system. Still, it is better to get Brexit done quickly, with an off‑the‑peg solution, than to spend years wrangling about the terms. Britain will once again become sovereign, leaving the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies, saving the greater part of its budget contributions and being free to strike its own trade deals. The rest can wait.

    Some people are unhappy. A few diehard Ukip activists set up camp in Parliament Square. One of them, wearing a Union flag top hat, seems to be there all the time, interrupting every interview with his trademark bellow: “Pro-o-oper Brexit!” But most Leavers are prepared to trust the man who led them to victory against the odds.

    EU leaders are not uniformly pleased. Some of them want to make an example of Britain and complain that Efta is “having your cake and eating it”. But they have no say over who joins that club. There are, to be sure, plenty of outstanding disputes, on everything from financial obligations to the European Arrest Warrant. These disputes, though, are seen as the province of technical experts. The idea that rival crowds might spend years bellowing at each other about them is too silly for words. This is Britain, for heaven’s sake. There is a different balance in Europe now: instead of automatically following the EU, Efta starts to diverge in selected areas. Brexit has become a process, rather than an event.

    I am not saying such an outcome would have been perfect – nothing is perfect in this sublunary world. But would it have been worse than the rage, the broken friendships, the tribalism that we have been through instead? Worse than a rupture so severe that Brussels is half-threatening to block our flights?

    Europhiles love reminding me of an interview I gave to Channel 4 News a year before the campaign in which I argued for a Swiss-style relationship and said that, since every other neighbouring country had tariff-free access to the single market, it was inconceivable that Britain wouldn’t get the same. Remainers have now developed a collective false memory of my “repeatedly” making this claim “during” the campaign. But the truth is that, when the results came in, I still thought a softish Brexit was overwhelmingly likely.

    Indeed, as the last votes were being counted on the morning of June 24, I told the BBC results programme that we Leavers needed to recognise that two of the four home nations had voted Remain, and suggested that the best way to reflect a close result would be “a phased repatriation of power”, rather than a sudden break. It wasn’t an especially controversial suggestion at the time.

    Why didn’t it happen? Was it the fault of Leavers who, having spent years calling for a common market rather than a common government, hardened their position in victory? Or was it, as Peter Mandelson suggested last week, the fault of Remainers for deliberately shooting down any compromise in their pursuit of a second referendum?

    Both played a part; but the polarisation was more a consequence than a cause of the failure to get a quick settlement. No, the real black swan, the event that overturned every previous assumption, was Theresa May’s accidental premiership.

    The new Tory leader, coming late and unconvinced to Brexit, grabbed at it hamfistedly. She never showed any interest in the economic or democratic objections to EU membership. The only reason she could understand for anyone to have voted Leave was hostility to immigration. Her approach was, in many ways, closer to that of Old Labour Eurosceptics, who disliked the Common Market because they associated it with competition and downward pressure on wages, than to Conservative Brexiteers.

    There was a legitimate argument to be had about the whether to prioritise economic continuity or sovereignty but, by the end of 2016, it was clear that we were doing neither: the only priority was border control. Desperate to secure that goal, May threw away every other card, agreeing to pay Brussels more than was strictly owed and accepting the principle that the UK was responsible for what happened on the EU side of the Irish border.

    Eurocrats, who had initially hoped that Britain would be one of a “ring of friends”, began to toughen their position accordingly – especially after the 2017 election, which they saw as an opportunity to overturn Brexit altogether. All manner of previously unthinkable demands were tabled in the hope of jolting Britain out of its decision. The idea that Northern Ireland should remain partly under EU jurisdiction was not voiced until late 2017. Even then, no one in Brussels could quite believe it when May agreed.

    Two things resulted. First, and most obviously, Britain was in a needlessly feeble position when the trade talks began, having already given Brussels most of what it wanted. Secondly, the EU was now locked into a series of demands that were primarily designed not to maximise its own advantage from Brexit, but to capsize the project completely. That was the position that Boris inherited when the glitch in the space-time continuum was repaired and, three years behind schedule, he entered No 10.

    He played a weakened hand deftly, improving the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement and securing a promise from Brussels that the accompanying trade deal would be not only agreed but implemented before the end of 2020. Having seen his predecessor’s proposals for a closer relationship contemptuously rejected, he asked for the low-fat trade deal, the “Canada option”, that Michel Barnier had offered.

    But Eurocrats had no intention of accepting the kind of deal they had negotiated with other countries. They wanted to give Britain a kicking on the way out, and made two demands that had no precedent. First, that Britain should be the only country in the world not to control its own maritime resources. Secondly, that Britain should agree to follow EU economic standards in the future.

    These two conditions were laid down precisely because they were palpably unreasonable. Brussels was making a point – even at the expense of its own consumers and businesses. The absurdity of its position is clear to third-country observers, and would be obvious to all sides in Britain had the past four years not created a tribe of commentators who will always back the EU, however self-contradictory or vindictive its demands.

    Sadly, we now face a fracturing of the Western alliance. In suggesting that it might block aviation, the EU is threatening Britain with sanctions that it does not aim at Russia, China or Iran. Good relations won’t survive a blockade. Strategically, as well as economically, the EU is accelerating Britain’s pivot to more distant allies.

    I would have gone about Brexit differently – but there is no question that it was the right decision. The past four years have shown us that the EU does not recognise the category of “friendly neighbour”. A country can be a full member like Bulgaria, a semi-protectorate like Bosnia, or an adversary like Belarus. There is no fourth option.

    The Eurosceptic contention that we are dealing with a quasi-empire rather than with an association of nations has been proved. It would have been easier to leave decades ago. But, had we left it much longer, we might not have been able to leave at all.

    Top BTL comment:

    D Walker
    12 Dec 2020 6:25PM

    The last four years have been painful and divisive. But they have taught us some very valuable lessons, which have been worth learning

    1. Our Continental neighbours are not our friends. In future they should be treated accordingly.

    2. The British Establishment does not believe in democracy and will pursue any and every underhand tactic it can (get away with) in order to try and get its own way

    3. A very large proportion of Parliament (both Houses) despise their own citizens

    4. The Supreme Court does not consider its job to be upholding the law. It sees its role to pursue the aims of the Establishment

    5. The Labour Party no longer has any connection with, or interest in representing, the working class

    In short, we’ve learned that we need massive Reform in the UK. And the Establishment Parties, Lib Lab Con, can’t be trusted to do it.

    2. 327428+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Gerard Batten lay out a route to take in 2014, went
      unheeded next thing was a successful result to the referendum only to be followed by, “job done leave it to the tories” from then on a doom-laden treacherous future
      was on the cards.

      Give the wretch cameron some credit regarding treachery he was of the higher echelon as in the unlikely event of a peoples win, may the treacherous was a
      placement farce & johnson a dangerous joke.

      There were peoples saying make bojo PM he makes us laugh… they ain’t laughing now.

  28. Violence flares in Washington as far-right Trump supporters clash with counter-protesters. 13 December 2020.

    An estimated 200 members of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, had joined the marches earlier on Saturday near the Trump hotel in the capital. Mixing with church groups who urged the faithful to participate in “Jericho Marches” and prayer rallies for the defeated president, the Proud Boys contingent wore combat fatigues and ballistic vests, carried helmets and flashed hand signals used by white nationalists.

    They shouted insults at rival Antifa protesters and burned Black Lives Matters flags but police succeeded in keeping the factions apart until the evening.

    Antifa and Black Lives Matter (creatures of Soros) are of course peace loving models of Democracy and Free Speech!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/13/trump-supporters-rally-against-election-outcome-as-proud-boys-and-antifa-face-off

  29. Made it,…. afternoon all….any one tried Stollen bread ? I’m think of baking some next week.
    Out for a short walk along our road and chatting with everyone who were also outside. My elderly (BBC news and TV star) neighbour’s were quite delighted yesterday afternoon when I presented them with a my home made Christmas gift of a log reindeer.
    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LJT2TGClgTQutUA1cKQo-rpgwrrz-amgwTfnhIzhm558rfHdDMF-3p2j1TF2DRCKA5nxszVNBZqkT2PbZp986p8tpKuQIGs8OCmxLcOMP9uf8slSXQ=w1280
    Lovely people.

    1. Currently working my way through ALDI’s stollen bites (MB doesn’t like them).
      And I have hidden away 2 packs of Lidl’s posh stollen bites so I don’t wolf them down beforehand. All I have to do is remember where ….. I’ll get back to you later.

      1. We live near woodland, the three fellas usually cut back a lot of invasive fast growing holly and leave the logs to rot. A year on the ground it usually long enough to be workable. I was trying to post a picture but i can’t seem to get it to work.

      2. I rested that,……….. saying I had a recipe but it’s since disappeared.
        I stopped in the nick of time.

      1. I had put on the internet, that I had stollen cake two days ago

        An illiterate perleesman just tried to arrest me

      2. I had put on the internet, that I had stollen cake two days ago

        An illiterate perleesman just tried to arrest me

      5. Right thanks your on, home made gifts for the family coming up. I have a decent recipe from good old auntie Mary Berry, but i’ll need some more Flarr.

      6. Stollen tastes better than other cakes, in the same way that scrumped apples taste better than bought ones! :•)

    1. Morning Bob. Drizzle here. Nagsman can’t ride a horse this weekend so is coming over for roast beef + etc at The Swan

      1. Good morning, Sir! Give her my regards please.

        It’s going to be wet all day today so I doubt if much outdoor work will be done.

  32. Mmmm! That was delicious. I’ve just steamed and enjoyed my first Christmas pudding this year. I made it in November.

    That is … November 2019. The flavours and textures were simply divine. I now know that the other four I still have from the same batch will not let me down.

    1. We’ve never got round to making our Christmas puddings, but I do look out the better quality ones just after Christmas when they’re being flogged off cheap to store for the next Christmas.

      Or, perhaps, the Christmas after that.

      2. Wasn’t there a famous xmas pudding maker at Heanor near you Bob that was sold for £60+m last year.

      3. I believe, that it is quite illegal to eat Christmas pudddings before their ‘Best Before Date’

        1. I ought to be illegal to eat Christmas pudddings less than 2 years AFTER their ‘Best Before Date’.

    2. As recently as that?

      When I moved house in 1977, I discovered a Christmas pudding that I had made in 1968. It was delicious.

      1. They were doing another offer on salmon at the supermarket this week. Caroline has followed your MR’s advice and has marinated it with brandy, lemon and ginger. We shall be eating it as an entrée on Tuesday evening when a friend comes to dinner,

        1. I’ll send a note to the kitchen.

          I didn’t know you wee allowed to entertain… Hope you finish before curfew.

          1. Some restrictions are being lifted on 15th December and so we are having Jim to supper to celebrate.

            For some years now we have always had our friend Jim with us for Christmas as well as for supper each Saturday night. Jim is an 85year old Irishman who is a widower and whom Caroline met when she played at his wife’s funeral seven years ago.

            Jim is less happy to drive after dark and the new rules are that a curfew means you have to be home by 8.00 pm. However Jim is allowed to stay the night and so we have made up a bed for him in the bedroom of one of our boys who now lives in England so that he can stay the night each time he comes for his weekly supper with us.

          2. Ironically, the curfew means that if you are entertaining people in the evening, it is “safer” for them to stay longer with you. And this is exactly how everyone in France is going to handle the curfew for the New Year’s Eve parties – turn up before 8 pm and simply stay partying all night! And all for our safety. France is a lovely country.

          3. Good evening, Rastus.

            The majority of people who
            post on this blog are genuine,
            kind and munificent.
            I am sure You, Caroline and
            Jim will have a splendid
            evening ….

          5. I bet it is safer at Richard’s when he has a friend over for dinner – – than at Dr Lecter’s. . . Unless of course Richard has a “nice Chianti” too.

      2. Ah 1997, that is when I put the sprouts( in the pressure cooker of course) fto cook or Christmas 2025

          1. Peel and slice them
            Cook them in frying pan with lots of) butter and juice squoze from an orange
            Lubberly Jubberly

      3. There is a critical moment when age no longer confers any benefit to a Christmas pudding. A friend of ours brought a Christmas pudding which was nearly 20 years old without telling us how old it was. It was leathery and horrible.

        Caroline made a couple this year in October when she also made the Christmas cake which she will be icing in the next few days.

        1. I am carp at icing. I’m doing a glazed fruit and nut topping.
          And eating the almond paste myself.

          1. I have solved the icing problem with my ‘Delia’ cake. I have eaten half of it already as a plain fruit cake and it seems fine without the sugar coating!

    3. Our family are use to me saying after a portion of CP……..oooh lovey …….you could climb Everest on that.
      As a little lad I remember making it with my mother and helping out with licking the bowl, and the Christmas cake.

        2. A bit too heavy for me, Anne. I usually take a carton of instant custard for a quick energy injection.

          1. A tube of Nestlès milk used to be a quick pick-me-up on walking expeditions, I don’t know if they still do it these days, I haven’t seen it for years.

          4. Well, it was in Scotland when walking across the Ardnamurchan peninsula that this was first recommended to me!

            Edit: i do recall thinking that it wasn’t going to be very good for my teeth at the time, but it was delicious. I must see if I can get some, it will be handy to have in for these food shortages we’ve been promised! I haven’t thought about it for years, but hey-ho, a little conversation and off go the memory tracks, shooting all over the place.

          6. Thank you! I have found it on Amazon. The white and blue Nestlè tube is ‘Currently Unavailable’. I had forgotten it was ‘condensed’ milk – I knew there was a word missing but I couldn’t recall what it was!

          7. Good afternoon, Mum.

            Lidl do an own brand condensed
            milk at about half the price of
            Carnation ….. equally decadent!
            and given the low price it is worth
            decanting into small containers,
            so be it if one misses out on a few
            licks!!

          9. Thanks for the info, Garlands, next time I am there I will get some. It will bring back memories of camping… and midges….!

          12. Yes, it is for our Lab too – she is allowed to lick the container spotless before we put it in the bin.

      3. There was a tradition in our home that stirring the pudding brought luck.

        My mother’s cleaning lady always changed her morning to be able to stir the mixture as she swore it invariably produced a win at her Bingo nights.

        1. We had a few silver ‘threepenny bits’ that were inserted into the pudding just before serving, if you found one it was supposed to bring you luck.

          3. That’s what they are called, I found some in my fathers old Edwardian smoking cabinet probably the very same as i described. I haven’t a clue what ‘the management’ did with the old cabinet and it’s contents………..you know what it’s like 😉

          6. If I remember right it was passed to me by my grandparents, years after they were replaced by the twelve-edged brass coin. I have an example of every old British coin including: a farthing, a ha’penny, a penny, a joey, a 3d bit, a tanner, a florin, a half crown, a Coronation crown and two ‘bobs’ (one English and one Scottish).

          7. Time was, George that I had a Victorian Groat – fourpenny bit – but where it went, is lost in the mists of time. Together with a birthdate (1944) half-crown,

          8. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c93b7eb6d3a2e15ece37be28e257701caa5ad478254219447c5575eca149fa2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c0c0235d4cc290974029f1c48ca06d82783999eaf9053a3364fbfc4a4f5ff0e.jpg I’ve just been in the counting-house and I had a few more than I realised. I’ve lost the coronation crown (a birth gift to my niece) but I still have:

            2 farthings (1939 & 1942)
            1 ha’penny (1967)
            2 pennies (1913 & 1967)
            2 Joeys (1916 & 1936)
            1 thre’penny bit (1937)
            3 tanners (1954, 1964 & 1967)
            6 bobs (3 English: 1951, 1963 & 1966; 3 Scottish: 1949. 1954 & 1963)
            1 florin (1960)
            1 half crown (1951).

            No 1933 pennies, alas!

            Also a few of the ‘New’ coins from 1971-ish.

          10. I don’t think SWMBO got her thruppennies in the mix. Pity. :-(( Could have enjoyed licking them clean!

        2. Our pudding has always had silver threepennies and silver “favours” stirred in when the pudding is made. When the children were at home they each gave the pudding a stir and made a wish. Now that they are elsewhere we do it on their behalf. As the pudding is the standard 3 pint size (we only have 3 pint and I pint basins) there is always plenty left over. While previously it served as breakfast on Boxing Day, being fried in butter, now it is kept until a child visits us. They are not all always available to be with us as they work in jobs that can finish at 11pm on Xmas Eve and start again on the 27th.
          When they do visit, maybe Easter or June, we then have a “fake” Christmas meal. We may have Christmas Dinner 2 or 3 times a year.

          2. I have always enjoyed it both hot and cold but fried in butter is superb. Good to hear of someone else who does so, most people grimace when I recommend it.

            I much prefer sherry butter to brandy butter with it too.

          6. My mother also used to make a ‘mock’ Christmas pudding to get us in training for the big one.
            It was lighter than the real thing and we used to eat it with butter and sugar. I can feel the weight piling on just thinking about it.

    4. That is cruel …. Christmas pudding is my absolute fave. And we’ve got bread and butter pudding today.

      1. I love bread and butter pudding. My fave was cooked at the now-closed Red Lion at Upper Sheringham. It was called Scotsman’s Delight and had a good glug of whisky poured over it. Sometimes the cook had shaky hands and you ended up with more Scotch than pudding. :•)

  33. Ministers predict THIRD WAVE in January …. and a fourth, fifth, sixth and…(yawns and drops off).

    1. I keep waving Two fingers at them.

      COVID is not the problem it is Internet/MSM/Politicians/Axe-Grinders/I want to control the world freaks, ie Soros

    2. Rumours doing the rounds that Merkel is planning major lockdown starting on the 16th of December. Will our dope on a rope follow her move? Perhaps ‘things’ aren’t progressing fast enough?

      2. “German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday ordered most stores to shut from Wednesday, along with schools and daycare centers.

        The new restrictions will be in effect until at least January 10 to help tackle the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic which threatens to overwhelm the country’s health system.

        In a news conference after a meeting of federal and state leaders, she said the country urgently needed to address the exponential rise in COVID-19 infections.

        The decision is set to cause a major disruption for retailers, the education system and the public in the lead up to the Christmas holidays.”

        What do the new restrictions consist of?

        All non-essential shops and services will close until January 10, including hairdressers which remained open under the current lockdown “lite.”

        Schools are urged to send students home and continue lessons online as well as extending the Christmas holidays until January 10.

        Daycare centers will also close, but parents will be able to take paid holidays in order to look after their children.

        Employers are encouraged to allow employees to work from home.

        People will not be allowed to drink alcohol in public.

        Religious events in churches, synagogues, and mosques may take place if they follow hygiene rules, but communal singing is not allowed.
        States still plan to ease stricter contact restrictions for December 24 to 26 so that close family members can spend Christmas together — a household may, during this time, invite up to four adults from other households but only from the immediate family, plus any number of children under 14.

        People may not purchase fireworks for New Year’s Eve.

        The chancellor also recommended that families who are planning to meet up should isolate for a week beforehand to be safe.

        1. From what I remember of New Year’s Eve in Bavaria, I can’t see the ban on fireworks and alcohol in public being adhered to!

          1. She has never wavered from what she was taught in the DDR – and from her great pal Putin. You will recall that I have long believed she is an old-fashioned unreconstructed Soviet sleeper.

      3. No longer rumours according to the daily mail.

        Well it is the DM but none of their normal could / might weasel words were at the top of the article.

    3. Third wave, my arse. The control-freaks in Government have discovered the power of fear and they like being able to rule over a subdued population by diktat. They will not readily relinquish their newfound power.

      “Desperavi nequaquam ultra iam vivam parce mihi nihil enim sunt dies mei”
      — Job 7:16

      3. 16 I reject life; I don’t want to live long; leave me alone, for my days are empty.
        He must been in a bad way DM

          1. Might have lived in a cave a lot of those religious peeps did in those thankfully long gone days.

      4. 327428+ up ticks,
        Afternoon DM,
        It surprises me that the “Beginning ” has not begun as of yet.
        The french are far more advanced in beginning their “Beginning and will have begun their “beginning ” before our “beginning” has begun.

          1. 327428+ up ticks,
            DM,
            The Beginning,
            It was not part of their blood,
            It came to them very late
            With long arrears to make good,
            When the English began to hate.

            They were not easily moved,
            They were icy-willing to wait
            Till every count should be proved,
            Ere the English began to hate.

            Their voices were even and low,
            Their eyes were level and straight.
            There was neither sign nor show,
            When the English began to hate.

            It was not preached to the crowd,
            It was not taught by the State.
            No man spoke it aloud,
            When the English began to hate.

            It was not suddenly bred,
            It will not swiftly abate,
            Through the chill years ahead,
            When Time shall count from the date
            That the English began to hate.

          2. That’s a lament of how it used to be when the English had balls, brains and refused to be pushed around.

            It is no longer the case since the nation is now populated by an emasculated bunch of ‘woke’ thickos who let the government ride all over them.

          3. “Do you like Kipling?”
            “I don’t know, I’ve never Kippled.”

            >

            Norman and Saxon

            A.D. 11.00

            “My son,” said the Norman Baron, “I am dying, and you will be heir

            To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for share

            When he conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little handful it is.

            But before you go over to rule it I want you to understand this:–

            “The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.

            But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.

            When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,

            And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing,’ my son, leave the Saxon alone.

            “You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears;

            But don’t try that game on the Saxon; you’ll have the whole brood round your ears.

            From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field,

            They’ll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield.

            “But first you must master their language, their dialect, proverbs and songs.

            Don’t trust any clerk to interpret when they come with the tale of their wrongs.

            Let them know that you know what they’re saying; let them feel that you know what to say.

            Yes, even when you want to go hunting, hear ’em out if it takes you all day.

            They’ll drink every hour of the daylight and poach every hour of the dark.

            It’s the sport not the rabbits they’re after (we’ve plenty of game in the park).

            Don’t hang them or cut off their fingers. That’s wasteful as well as unkind,

            For a hard-bitten, South-country poacher makes the best man- at-arms you can find.

            “Appear with your wife and the children at their weddings and funerals and feasts.

            Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all poor parish priests.

            Say ‘we,’ ‘us’ and ‘ours’ when you’re talking, instead of ‘you fellows’ and ‘I.’

            Don’t ride over seeds; keep your temper; and never you tell ’em a lie!”

          4. I don’t know who wrote that, Anne but it appeals to me, despite my mongrel lineage.

            It sounds like a recipe for Delderfield’s trilogy, A Horseman Riding By

  34. Following Tim Stanley’s piece yesterday about irresponsible meeja – here is an absolute classic headline in The Sunday Grimes:

    Ministers warn supermarkets to stockpile food amid no‑deal Brexit fears

    I am off now to queue at Tesco (which doesn’t open until 11 am) so as to strip the shelves….

    That sort of article makes my blood boil – and, yet again, demonstrates the fatuity of BPAPM and his gang of idiots.

    1. I find it is so much easier on my blood pressure if I simply lower my expectations of any elected member of Parliament to roughly the same as I would expect from any other dribbling, gurning half-wit.

        1. It’s not about regulations. As I’ve laid out to Still Bleau above, it is about how much free time and how much money you have. The rich with plenty of time on their hands (whether on the right, or the left) can still travel.

      4. Travel isn’t banned. But unless you are travelling for certain approved business (truck drivers, for example, are exempt from quarantine although you could regard life in a truck as a form of semi-permanent quarantine) you need to have sufficient leave to cover any quarantine required by the country you are visiting and quarantine when you return… as well as your holiday. Most people simply don’t have that kind of holiday entitlement so, effectively, most people can’t travel. Because most people can’t travel, large numbers of flights have been cancelled. But someone who has just been given 6 months (very well) paid leave doesn’t have a problem with spending a month, or more, on holiday and a month in quarantine and for someone with sufficient money there will always be a flight…

    1. Hard-hitting comedy offends people, and offence is verboten in a world where virtue signalling and identity politics have gained a stranglehold over what we can write, see and think.”

      Not entirely. Heaven forfend the conniptions the woke may have if a white actor were to black-up to play an African part, but the Beeb doesn’t see a problem in the (dreadfully unfunny) Mrs Brown’s Boys of a man’s dragging up as a woman.

      1. Drag has been acceptable for a long time, from pantomime to the really skilled drag artistes like the late Danny La Rue (I remember seeing him on the box when I was still in primary school), or Hinge and Bracket, not forgetting the completely OTT Dame Edna.

        White tenors are still singing the part of Otello – but blacking up for the role hasn’t been done for years. I don’t know that Shakespearean actors ever blacked up… but his women were all played by boys.

  38. Mail to Mr R…………

    Back to Mr Major !

    Presumably Mr Major would have gone to Davos at the end of the 1980s and in January 1990, January 1991 and January 1992 where he would almost certainly have met Mr Soros?

    From Wikipedia………..

    In Cabinet (1987–1990)

    Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1987–1989)

    Foreign Secretary (July–October 1989)

    Chancellor of the Exchequer (1989–1990)

    The January 1990 Davos meeting looks particularly significant in view of………

    ”By early 1990 Major had become convinced that the best way to combat inflation and restore macroeconomic stability would be if the British pound were to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), and he and Douglas Hurd (Major’s successor as Foreign Secretary) set about trying to convince a reluctant Thatcher to join it”

    The timing looks exactly right if Mr Major had been ”convinced” by Mr Soros at Davos to enter the ERM.

    Strangely, in all the media reports of the ERM disaster and the ”breaking of the Bank of England”, there has been no consideration given to the possibility that Mr Major and Mr Soros might already have met and known each other personally, or having perhaps even discussed the ERM.

    Although that does look a possibility, would you not agree?

    I wonder why Mr Major never mentioned Mr Soros in his memoirs, despite Mr Soros being central to the 1992 story, and the extraordinary coincidence that his million dollar position at Carlyle of DC from approx 1997 coincidentally overlapped, apparently, with Mr Soros being a $100,000,000 client at the same institution from 1994?

    Can you think of any reason why Mr Major omitted Mr Soros from his book, or was it just an accidental oversight which could have happened to anyone, as in the case of Mr Blair, Mr Brown and Mr Cameron?

    Polly

    1. Especially as Mr Soros made a lot of money at our expense in 1992. Almost as though he engineered that disaster.

  39. Navalny poisoning: Russia made second assassination attempt — report. 13 December 2020

    The Kremlin tried to poison outspoken opposition figure Alexei Navalny a second time after the first attempt failed, The Times newspaper revealed on Saturday.

    A second dose of poison was allegedly given to Navalny before he was flown to Berlin for further treatment, western intelligence sources told the British newspaper.

    They poisoned him with the world’s deadliest chemical weapon and then they poisoned him again? God give me strength. Do they keep it in an aerosol bottle for quick dispensation? One sniff of this stuff and you’re dead! This story is as stupid as Salisbury, probably because the same people are behind it!

    https://www.dw.com/en/navalny-poisoning-russia-made-second-assassination-attempt-report/a-55921189

    1. Sounds like they got a cheap deal from a dark chap selling sunglasses and perfume on the costas.

    3. The not so intelligent Intelligence Service do not reveal information to newspapers that could compromise actual sources of information. They do however release information to newspapers when they wish to distract from reality.

  40. A ban on turkey is my secret to a tasty Christmas Simon Heffer

    I come from a long line of turkeyloathers, for whom the answer is the Roast Beef of Old England

    I read the other day that turkey farmers fear a glut of their birds this Christmas. Smaller gatherings, as a consequence of the pandemic, mean families are deciding that the usual gargantuan fowl would provide rather too many leftovers for comfort.

    It was a story I read with unusual disinterest, because I have never seen why turkeys have to die. This is not because I am a vegetarian or turkey-hugger, but because I have always found turkey to be, frankly, pointless and about as special as polyester. One might wonder whether God invented turkey purely in order to make Brussels sprouts appear desirable. I am amused by the lengths to which our American cousins go to make it palatable, by what they call “brining” it for a couple of days in a vat of water containing not just salt but all sorts of fruits and spices, in the hope it might acquire some flavour. Some even have huge hypodermic syringes with which they inject the bird with exotic fluids in the hope that it won’t have the moistness of the Sahara when the time comes to try to eat it.

    I come from a long line of turkey-loathers, for whom the answer for Christmas dinner (and it should be dinner to allow an immediate departure for bed, and the deep sleep required after a proper feast) is the Roast Beef of Old England. This is not just because beef – preferably rib or sirloin – is so enormously tasty but because it is what many of our people used to eat on Christmas Day, since time immemorial. Turkey is a rather parvenu invention that took hold early in Queen Victoria’s reign. Also, what would you really prefer for lunch on Boxing Day? A grief-inducing slab of cold turkey or a superb roast beef sandwich (on white bread, with a dash of horseradish)?

    If they had the money, our forebears would serve goose and beef. That may be too gluttonous for today’s tastes, but the problem with a festive goose is that it usually ends up feeding only half a dozen, if you are lucky, whereas you can get as large a number of ribs of beef as you like and feed a multitude. The key thing is sourcing. The turkey’s advantage is that it tastes boring wherever you get it from. Beef, if acquired from a proper butcher who knows how to choose it and hang it, is fabulous in flavour and texture. Don’t even think of buying it from a supermarket, unless you feel Christmas should be a time of penance and suffering.

    At the end of a year as taxing as this has been, pushing the boat out and having a dinner that people actually enjoy eating at least sets the optimistic tone we need for next year. Something fishy to precede the beef – not necessarily smoked salmon (which, if low-grade, is the perfect complement to the turkey you are not having), but oysters, or Dublin Bay prawns, or langoustines – is an ideal start, with a white burgundy.

    With the beef, potatoes roasted in goose fat, Yorkshire pud and whatever vegetables you like, washed down with claret; then Christmas pudding, preferably one whose fruit is well-soaked in brandy; and some Stilton, either with a 20th-century port or, if you wish to be radical, a sauternes. And establish the location of your nearest defibrillator, just in case.

    You have put the case against this deplorable latterday American junk-food import far more lucidly than I ever could, Mr Heffer. For years I have had people telling me that turkey is “traditional”. It isn’t: it was only introduced in the mid-19th century. Goose is traditional, having been eaten in the UK for millennia. That it is “delicious” if you brine it or add various potions, herbs and spices Why bother when you can buy better meat that is delicious from the start?

    To all those millions who are duped into buying this overpriced, overrated and under-flavoured travesty of an excuse for meat: you need to get your tastebuds operated on.

    1. ‘Morning, George, “I come from a long line of turkeyloathers, for whom the answer is the Roast Beef of Old England“.

      We already have a five-rib booked from that Donald chap in Scotland – delivered on 19th December.

        1. Worth it, Sue, for the multitude of dinners we shall get off it. There are only two of us for Christmas this year and Best Beloved is a whizz with beef and King Teds roasted in goose fat. I already have the Port and Stilton.

          Breakfast may well be scrambled egg and smoked salmon washed down with a glass (or two) of champers – that reminds me, must order.

          1. Morning, Tom and Sue.

            I’m having a two-rib joint this year but it will not be eaten until the first week of the New Year. This is because the Swdes insist on having their traditional julbord (Christmas table)—of which you well aware, Tom—on Christmas Eve.

            To eat a British Christmas dinner the following day would be an impossible feat, even for a trencherman.

            I tend to alternate my Christmas meat every year. Rib of beef, loin of pork, goose, capon and duck all feature.

            I love King Teds roasted in goose fat; but I love Desiree or Maris Piper treated the same way even more.

          2. Just added £35 to the Waitrose Order for the same day – 19th – for a bottle of Bollinger NV.

          3. I can’t get on with fizz, Tom. I’m allergic to gas (same with ersatz beers like ‘lager’).

            I’d spend that money on a decent claret or burgundy.

          7. Smoked salmon, prawns, sourdough bread, maionnaise, white wine – our julebord (24th, evening), followed by a gift or two. Light & smallish. English Christmas dinner for midafternoon on 25th, followed by remaining gifts. And groaning & farting, of course.
            Picking over the leftover for evening 25th, if anybody still needs to eat…

          8. Do the Norwegians do the rice pudding with hidden almond in it? The almond that is always miraculously found by a child?

          10. A Golden Wonder (if you can find one) is an even better roastie. But very few are now grown.

            As it is not possible for me to travel to Scotland this year I will be cooking a duck… locally grown by one of my clients.

          11. I remember those spuds, and the fact that the Golden Wonder crisps of the 1960s were named after them.

          12. Indeed. Many people think that the spuds were named after the crisps but as a variety established in 1906 Golden Wonder is only a little younger than King Edward (1902).

            In the days when we grew our own spuds at home the early in the garden was Duke of York and the maincrop (half a dozen rows down the side of a field) was Golden Wonder. Dad continued to grow Dukes in his garden until a few years ago, but veg gardening is now too much for him – hardly surprising at 88 with an artificial hip (it should have been 2 artificial hips, but his April op was cancelled).

          13. Remind me of your address? We are going to elder daughters farm with younger daughter and partner and Twins. We were promised a 14lb home bred rib roast and I actually got to see it! Much smacking of lips and drooling! However SiL has decided he’d like turkey……! The disappointment is palpable! Hey ho “Christmas is what you make it..”

          14. Suffolk is a bit of a trek from Aberdeenshire, Sue but I’ll look out for a distraught Wifey or quoin, on Christmas morn.

          16. I’m already gathering for next winter!
            There are a couple of points on my walk to Cromford & back where I can drop off lumps of fallen tree to be picked up later with the van.

          17. NTN, I know Port and Stilton are traditional and well paired together but have you thought of trying Suffolk Blue? It’s made just down the road from you at Creeting St Mary. There’s also Binham Blue made over the northern border by those there Narfuck folk. Last time I was there both of these, and other small production English cheeses, were available at Hollow Trees Farm Shop at Semer.

          18. Thanks for the tip, Korky but the Stilton is already quietly maturing. I shall note Creeting St Mary’s Suffolk Blue for a future tasting.

          21. True. If you add in lunch at the Kersey Bell or the Peacock Inn at Chelsworth it becomes doubly fatal.😎

      2. We have a rolled rib booked from a local farm shop – we had a three rib number last New Year which cooked to perfection on the bbq and we will be doing the same this year, as it releases oven space for the Yorkshire puds and assorted roasties. Followed by my home-made Christmas pudding and Delia’s Squidgy Chocolate Log for the allergic one.

        Good morning, NTN.

        1. Good morning, poppiesmum.

          I’ve enjoyed rolled rib of beef, but I do find that the flavour is somewhat depleted by the removal of the bones.

        2. Good to know, Mum, together with the news that some 55,000 turkeys have been destroyed in East Anglia because of bird ‘flu.

          3. From Gov.uk:

            For avian influenza and Newcastle disease you will only receive compensation for healthy birds that are culled. You won’t be compensated for birds affected by disease.

            Any money you receive from the slaughter house, or from an insurance policy that covers loss as a result of disease, will be subtracted from your compensation.

            If your neighbour’s sick birds are within a certain distance healthy birds may be culled (especially any which have been out of doors, though everything in the UK is now housed 24/7 under the Avian Influenza Prevention Zone which covers the whole of the UK). Given the numbers involved many farms do insure. Most outdoor poultry rearers try to ensure that their birds are as far as possible from any other outdoor poultry.

      3. I usually have my Xmas lunch with SWMBO in the care home but this year it’ll be turkey flavoured crisps with the cat at home :o(

        1. I’m sorry about that, Spikey.
          Same for my Mother – she’ll be alone at home for Christmas. I believe the carers will deliver her some festive food, but it won’t be the same.

          1. That’s a shame Paul, in fact some kind soul in the village has nominated me for a Xmas hamper which is given out by the community to ‘deserving people’ on their own – it includes everything for a Xmas dinner plus goodies so things ain’t that bad – I’m also on call for recoveries so can’t drink :o(

        2. That must be heartbreaking.
          The DT is at her mother’s at the moment to give her sister a break and has sent me an e-mail saying MinL was been taken into hospital with abdominal pains.
          I’m half hoping she’ll be kept in over Christmas which should give aforesaid SinL a break, though knowing her she’ll spend the time worrying!

    2. We haven’t cooked turkey in our family since about 1980. It’s only redeeming feature is its size, although that just leads to a greater number of diners’ not enjoying themselves.

      Beef and goose round our ‘ouse each year too.

    3. Blimey, for once I completely agree with Simon Heffer (we banned turkey in favour of goose or beef, some years ago).

        1. Salmon sounds like an interesting alternative. We had beef last year and will again this, having got a bit bored of goose (although we’ll do that again sometime). Turkey, hopefully never again – awful.

          1. Also in Germany, we could get small turkeys (ca. 2kg) around Easter & they were good eating.

            For a number of years after my divorce, I used to come over to Blighty to spend Christmas with my cousins in Norfolk. The inevitable turkey spent hours in the AGA, then was sawn up with the electric carving knife. The balsa-wood breast served for lunch, but the relatively flavoursome dark meat was reserved for a “curry” a couple of days later.

    4. Grizzly, you and Mr Heffer have convinced me: roast beef will be eaten at Bloodaxe Towers this Christmas. Previously, I had thought of perhaps having a more substantial meal, such as Scotch Egg. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. Thanks for the upvote, young Grizzly, but – as you will see from my second post – I am very much undecided, and may instead have roasted Dodo for my main meal.

      2. If you have beef, get it from a butcher that sells Rib with a lot of fat marbling through it.

        1. Even better to get it from the butcher who bought the cattle you reared from little calves (because they had been produced to his requirements with adequate fat). I’ll never do it again, but there is something a little bit special about eating beef you reared yourself.

          Note that I had no qualms at all about sending the stock I reared to slaughter, that was their purpose from the beginning. I would rather not watch them die, but I have done that too, and was regularly invited to inspect my carcases so that I could discuss their good points (and failings) with the butcher.

    5. I don’t particularly like turkey but I find that a lot of the disdain comes from people who don’t know how to prepare it and its trimmings and then cook it properly. HG cooked turkeys when the children were young and the lunches were neither dry nor tasteless. Left overs were not a problem as most of the bird was eaten in one sitting. A big mistake that people make is to purchase a monster sized, over-breasted bird which produces far too much meat and is then cooked for ages to ensure it is cooked through.

      We will be eating duck on Christmas day.

      2. I have personally found that every turkey I have ever sampled, from wherever; whether moist, brined, spiced, herbed ,stuffed … or not; has invariably been devoid of flavour and the ‘yum factor’ that invariably comes as expected with pork, lamb, beef, chicken, duck, goose, penguin, camel and dodo.

        1. Ignore my previous post, Grizzly, I now fancy trying roast dodo instead of roast beef for my Christmas meal. Do you know if they are sale at Aldi?

          :-))

          1. They are indeed, Auntie Elsie.

            You will find them in the same aisle as the greak auk, quagga, thylacine, passenger pigeon and Labrador duck.

          5. Wouldn’t that, as with any other bird, depend on the age at which it was slaughtered? 😉

          6. Good morning Peddy

            Angus Wilson’s reputation was founded on his short stories: The Wrong Set and Such Darling Dodos and his novel Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.

            He lectured at UEA when I was there and, with Malcolm Bradbury, instigated the Creative Writing course at UEA which has, to date, produced two Booker Prize winners.

        2. Never tried penguin, or doodoo. Camel is good, though. Chicken is only small turkey, the world’s dullest meat, and only fit for conveying tasty sause to one’s mouth.

          1. …and only fit for conveying tasty sause to one’s mouth.

            You should listen closely to Greg Wally – it’s sorwace. As in “Corwa! Va’ sorwace is fantastic!”

          2. And perhaps they are not. Maybe they are honed from a lifetime of enjoying proper foods with real flavour.

      3. I agree with you regarding proper cooking.

        On the other hand a fairly large bird is must for a Christmas day meal for 10 – 14 (the usual numbers in my extended family – though not this year) people and some folks actually like to have lots of leftovers.

        1. We often had even larger numbers of people, but were fortunate to be able to cook two smaller birds simultaneously in a double oven, with a bit of judicious swapping around.

          Never rushing the meal is a key aspect.

    6. Shakespeare’s justice (In Jacques’s ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech in As You Like It) had his ‘fair round belly with good capon lined’ and for many years now we have had a capon rather than a turkey at Christmas.

      1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7fef2a4349ae3d40c12c2c47f0a1c39411984b77f4aa9f85732fb18a6a7d851e.png

        Me too. For many years I would buy—from Mick Maloney, an excellent family butcher’s business in Warsop, Notts—a capon that had been boned out before being rolled back into shape and stuffed with an assortment of meats and stuffings. The drumsticks were left on but the whole roasted joint could then be sliced as you would slice a loaf of bread, so that everyone received a thick slice of everything within.

        They were utterly delicious.

        Maloney’s pork and tomato sausages were the best I’ve ever eaten.

        1. Due to indifferent supply here in Norway, SWMBO & Firstborn make their own sausages. Pork, for Christmas, and moose or venison, for the rest of the year.
          The bit that surprises me is how much belly fat is needed to give the pork sausages a good consistency and flavour – about 30% by weight, and more for the game.

    7. The point of turkey is that it allows you to convey tasty substances to your mouth without you looking weird and having to lick the plate. Substances like homemade, no added sugar and spiced wild cranberry sauce (tyttebær, good gravy, stuffing… the list is endless.

  41. SIR – Further to John Barratt’s letter (December 11) suggesting Somerset Brie as an alternative to French Brie, would it not
    be sensible to identify other EU products that could be acceptably replaced by products produced in the UK or by other
    suppliers outsidethe bloc?

    Obvious early contenders would be motor vehicles and wine, but many more could follow.

    Derek Pearson Stafford

    And we all know how the French just love their whine

  42. I want a laugh this Christmas for my £157 TV licence but great comedy offends people and the BBC’s too terrified to make it. 13 December 2020.

    There are many forces at play. The divide between big city and provincial viewers has become ever wider. I am not the first to say that the BBC appears to be in the grip of young, metropolitan types who favour a diet of politically correct and suitably diverse programming. We are a big country and it is certainly diverse. But today’s BBC seems to have no idea what a 60-year-old woman in Kettering or King’s Lynn wishes to watch. Or perhaps it hasn’t done its homework.

    There is also competition from ‘disruptors’ such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, which seem determined to put traditional TV out of business altogether, although it is my prophecy that the BBC will be around long after Netflix.

    The latter is of course true because the BBC has no reliance on its audience since it is financed by extortion under criminal penalties. If this were removed the BBC would collapse into irrelevance!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9047271/Great-comedy-offends-people-BBCs-terrified-make-writes-LAURENCE-MARKS.html

  44. 327428+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    There is NO truly trusted opposition to the eu, up until the 24/6/2016 ALL party’s as in lab/lib/con were happily engaged with being eu assets as
    rubber stampers, we the peoples hurt them, the contented politico’s.

    Thing is you don’t kick your butler he / she / or it gets resentful.

    Four & a half years of lost progress, unnecessary talking instead of necessary walking.

    To my mind on the 24/6/2016 the real UKIP party gave these Isles a
    UKIP designed & triggered win, what may one ask, did you do with it ?

    Sunday 13 December: The EU’s disdainful stance in trade talks strengthens the case for Brexit

  45. Just caught a snippet of Boris speaking on the wireless. He gets more unintelligible by the day, I thought for a minute I was listening to Rowley Birkin QC, the character from “The Fast Show”.

    Although to be charitable, Boris may have been very, very drunk.

    1. Rowley Birkin QC was an earlier incarnation of KtK on a football club comments site. Heady days of expressing my progressive views on the beautiful game and winding up the kick-and-rush and the, “on me head son,” aficionados.

  46. This rings a bell … in addition to the ringing in your ears.

    From the Spekkie:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-i-won-t-mourn-the-death-of-the-cinema

    “Why I won’t mourn the death of the cinema

    Why I won’t mourn the death of the cinema

    (Getty images)

    You could smell the stale popcorn and rancid carpet from the other end of the high street but that unmistakable Odeon odour always set my pulse racing. That was before we lost the vast art deco interior to corporate greed and short sightedness. The carving up of the beautifully ornate auditorium into three miniscule screens ruined the ‘going to the pictures’ experience. It became a sad portent of things to come.

    A couple of years after the needless vandalism, not one but two hangar-sized multiplexes landed on the outskirts of town rendering the old inner-city Odeon obsolete. For several years, my beloved fleapit stood like a towering 1930s headstone to a lost era. OK, so the place may have reeked of terminal decline, but the building itself added some much needed glamour to our gloomy little provincial town. My mother would always make an effort to dress up even when we were on our way to see some schlocky 80s horror movie. The grandeur of the architecture warranted our respect.

    For all their gloss, multiplexes have killed off any last vestiges of movie magic. The retail parks that house these soulless edifices repel rather than welcome visitors. There is no sense of occasion and no reason to stick around once you’ve been herded back into the lobby. Movie going has lost the power to thrill and it is this deadening of the experience itself that should concern filmmakers like Christopher Nolan. The director, whose blockbuster Tenet failed to revive cinema attendance figures during the pandemic, is furious about Warner Bros’ decision to release all of its 2021 films simultaneously in cinemas and on the streaming service HBO Max. Ironically, it is Tenet’s poor showing that is thought to have partly formed Warner Bros’ decision.

    Nolan’s chief concern appears to be that punters will choose to stay home rather than make the effort to go out, thus missing the spectacle of films designed specifically for the big screen. Understandable perhaps for a filmmaker of Nolan’s reach but his reluctance to accept that the way we consume content is changing reminds me of the BBC’s intransigence over complaints about the licence fee.

    If Nolan is so confident about cinema’s appeal, why is he worried about competition from streaming services? Surely it’s a win-win for moviemakers and punters alike? Ardent film buffs will probably still want to schlep across town to see the latest Hollywood bombast, while those with only a passing interest in CGI may well decide to stream from the privacy of their own home.

    If it’s simply a matter of scale then Nolan obviously hasn’t visited his local Currys superstore lately. The ‘small’ screen has ballooned to gargantuan proportions over recent years. TV is no longer cinema’s fuzzy, diminutive cousin; indeed many of the mega tubes on offer rival some of the smaller multiplex screens. 4K televisions have also become much more affordable only adding to cinema’s crisis of identity. With pin sharp 4k projectors also vying for our attention, it’s possible to recreate that epic scale filmmakers like Nolan seek to preserve. Indeed some of the newer models are now so technologically advanced that they are as good (if not better) than some cinema projectors.

    The real question now is why anyone would choose to go to the cinema when the cinema has effectively come to us. And frankly, the experience of watching movies at home is far less stressful.

    Yes, you might miss the communal thrill of listening to other people rustling but at least you won’t have to book a seat in advance and run the risk of being stuck behind a giant with big hair. At home, you can sprawl across the sofa in your pyjamas, ban the use of noisy popcorn and go to the loo with impunity without missing vital plot points. If your friends start gossiping or texting during the film, you can ask them to stop without fear of being assaulted in the car park after the show. And if the volume is too high, you simply use the remote rather than having to stuff tissues in your ears. The same applies to room temperature; multiplex owners seem to think we all live in Death Valley and have set their air conditioning units accordingly. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had to beg front of house staff for a blanket just so I can make it to the end of a movie without freezing to death.

    Then there’s the small matter of cost. Taking the family to the cinema is not only bad for your pocket, it can seriously damage your health once you’ve factored in all those buckets of overpriced popcorn, stinky hotdogs and nachos smothered in plastic cheese. As you can see, staying home certainly has its appeal.

    Rather than complaining about the competition, Christopher Nolan and his ilk should be campaigning for cinema chains to up their game. He could start by demanding that multiplexes make a bit more effort to woo customers; architects need to start building attractive spaces and ditch the corrugated out-of-town warehouse look. Ticket prices also need to tumble if cinemas are to compete with streaming services and no more stealth taxes on so-called ‘event movies.’

    With the demise of large high street department stores, cinema chains might want to consider moving back into town centres, converting monolithic edifices into the sort of pleasure palaces they once sought to destroy. Offering customers healthy meals before and after the show, instead of all those sugary overpriced snacks might also help. Snacking during feature presentations has to end, as do all those noisy commercials; no one pays £18 to be shouted at for half an hour.

    Lastly, cinema managers ought to start listening more to punters’ concerns. May I begin by suggesting they turn the volume down and the heating up. Why should I have to dress for the Antarctic and wear noise-cancelling headphones every time I want to see a warming comedy?

    Look, I’m only trying to help but even if all my ideas were put in place tomorrow, which seems unlikely (trust me I’ve tried) I fear it may already be too late. The pandemic has speeded up the inevitable and I fear cinema going may soon become a distant if poignant memory. If multiplexes go the way of town centre Odeons, perhaps Currys ought to think about moving in. If my predictions are right, sales of projectors are set to soar.”

    1. I don’t bother with the Cinema anymore. Though i can afford it why waste money on a film which for the same price you could buy on DVD 3 months later? and watch in the comfort of your own home with a pause button for loo breaks.

      There are still some things worth going to the Cinema like streamed Opera and live concerts but it only seems to attract an older more discerning audience.

      Hollywood has had its day.

      2. Sometimes it isn’t even necessary to have
        any pictures, just reading the comments on
        here is an entertainment in itself!!

      3. I’ve little sympathy for Cineworld and Odeon, as they charge extortionate rates at their cinemas, but Vue and the smaller chains tend to charge about half as much in less affluent areas for all tickets, and even in reasonably affluent areas like mine, they still do ‘cheap’ days where you only pay between £5 – £8 for a ticket.

        Prices of food is extortionate in all cinemas, but that’s because the big Hollywood studios charge sky high prices for the cinema chains to show films, so they have to make a good deal of their profits from food and drink sales. Things didn’t used to be so bad when films weren’t so ‘front loaded’ – i.e. not pushed to show them on large numbers of screens in the opening week or two, when the studios make more money via higher percentages of the ticket sales than later weeks.

        I agree that unless the public push back (and permanently) on the authoritarian COVID measures and dash to ‘green’ tech with the big corporates in charge, cinemas are done for, because one ‘pandemic’ after the next to keep control will mean no more blockbuster films, and the small films earn almost nothing for cinemas. Note that many media outlets are now effectively controlled by the very people and organisations pushing more authoritarina lockdown/COVID measures – including one major US newspaper which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, who already has earned an extra $85Bn out of the pandemic and more to come as their streaming service takes over (as will Netflx and a few others) from traditional film and TV makers.

        1. Everything about this year should be re-examined from the perspective of cui bono, and those that have should have their finances taken apart to find Kipling’s “honest serving men” who should then be interrogated in great detail.

      4. When I lived in London my favourite was the Electric Cinema in Portobello. We would have a few pints in The Sun in Splendour after the show.

        Stephen Joseph who advocated theatre in the round (thrust stages) wrote a book which I have a copy of. One of his great ideas was the concept of a Fish and Chips Theatre. You could watch the play whilst seated on the flanks eating fish and chips.

        Cinemas could do no the same with a bit of imagination.

      6. All the movies seem to be the same violent carp too, featuring all the same faces who can’t act.

        1. They are the same as they ever were. Mostly average with the odd gem and the odd terrible film.

          Tenet is my film of the year though you may need to watch it a few times as it’s a Christopher Nolan film

        2. I will only stir myself to go to the cinema for a Bavarian comedy nowadays. Hollywood – forget it. I don’t want to be lectured about political correctness.

      7. When I lived in London my favourite was the Electric Cinema in Portobello. We would have a few pints in The Sun in Splendour after the show.

        Stephen Joseph who advocated theatre in the round (thrust stages) wrote a book which I have a copy of. One of his great ideas was the concept of a Fish and Chips Theatre. You could watch the play whilst seated on the flanks eating fish and chips.

        Cinemas could do no the same with a bit of imagination.

    2. Almost the only times in the last few years we visited the cinema was for the live screening of opera from Covent Garden.

  47. OT – NoTTLers may recall that in the early summer of 2019, the MR and I were having a great deal of trouble from two drug addicts who had moved into the houses next to ours in Laure. Throughout the very fraught time when the house was on the market – we were frightened sick that one or other of them would create mayhem and put off any viewer.

    Amazingly that never happened and a couple from Paris bought the house. They knew that they had a six bed, four bath, super house for the price of three parking places (not garages) in Paris.

    We remain in touch – and only once did one of the chaps get in touch to say that he had had “words” with the f*uck face opposite about his din. He added, that, following that discussion, his brother, a policeman in the CRS, had called upon the neighbour “for a chat”. There has been no further disturbance….!

    Two thoughts. First, I wish that I had had such a relative! Secondly, the buyer with the CRS brother is an art dealer – the very last man I’d have imagined having such a relative!

    2. I would have loved the opportunity to have “had a chat” with such types. I remember once being on duty and remonstrating in the street, late at night, with some pissheads who were making a noise and waking up the street.

      The biggest (and loudest) of them turned to me and said,“You think you’re a big man in your uniform. I bet you wouldn’t tell me what to do if you weren’t wearing that!”

      I took off my helmet and put it on a wall along with my tunic and tie. I said: “I’m off duty now. You were saying?”

      They all turned and walked away as quiet as mice.

      1. I wonder whether the current crop of yobs would be so compliant.

        The present crop of thugs seem to have lost all respect for, and fear of, the police and if drunk and drugged enough would certainly attack a lone copper if they thought no reinforcements were available.

        1. That’s why I’m happy to have served when I did, in more sensible days. I could never do that job in this day and age,

          1. I am glad that I did my time in the RN, when I did

            We had things that those serving today know nothing about ships

          3. I don’t think that there were RN battleships left even before WW2 ended. There were plenty of other ships around though. I have just watched the second episode of the Andrew Marr documentary about the new Elizabethans. One section dealt with the fleet review at Portsmouth on the occasion of the Coronation. 300 ships, although some were foreign ones, were assembled. What a sight!

      2. I admire your courage but if you tried that today you would very likely find yourself with multiple stab wounds.

    3. Sadly I’d think over here the copper would more likely do nothing. One I know (who now is an inspector [scraping the barrel]) living near me actually said that I was an idiot for not voting for Corbyn’s Labour last year. Just shows how far things have come in our police service. They are no different to any other civil servant in their views – the difference is that they can arrest US for having different ones to them now.

    4. House buyers have greater protections in the UK than in France i.e. you are obliged to record any information about disputes with neighbours in the buyers information pack.

    5. Big scary friends can be an advantage at times, Uncle Bill.
      Firstborn has filled that role a couple of times – he’s as wide as he’s tall, and can be very forceful.

  48. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dbc75554ed339aa97a737b132771311212b8bfaf08d95cf61a9af5a8d1490d87.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07a32be814bc16f3f05eab8a945f1e11003b4b5667b6f79150c78724ae3981d3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/802e84907fd9866fbafca1c1b8b6f8dfa46ce4f2acb31edda5ed73d5b7f8ef66.jpg I’ve generally stopped putting photographs of my food on here, after numerous complaints that it is not photogenic or appetising.

    I wonder if last night’s supper looks more edible. Roasted Char-Sui pork ribs; stir-fried vegetables (onion, ginger, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, broccoli, carrots); and mushroom steamed rice (with peas and spring onions).

    2. Looks delicious Grizz! What is it with men cooking on a Saturday night? My old man did Chinese sea bass with garlic, chilli, spring onion and ginger and egg flied lice! Yummy, it was!

      1. There is no Sunday roast lunch/dinner tradition in Sweden, Sue. Swedes have their main meal of the week on a Saturday night; after all they don’t “do” pubs!

      1. It tasted even better, Paul.

        Sometimes I fry the rice (in unrefined peanut oil, like the Chinese do) after I’ve steamed it and add some egg and a touch of light soy sauce.

      1. When I worked in Nottingham, my old Jamaican friend, Wilbert (Willie), would bring me some huge red scallions from his allotment. They were the best I’ve ever tasted.

    5. Grizz, it’s you and the other bakers here that have helped me get cooking more seriously. My fruit loaf, now with much more fruit and a dash of spice and a sugar glaze, not only looks the part but tastes great. I’ve made Bakewell Tart using pâté sucrée, although the first attempt at rolling out the pastry was a bit of a disaster as I didn’t realise how swiftly it becomes soft and unmanageable, but now with some research I’ve cracked that problem. Keep on posting and I may request your pork pie recipe in the NY.

      1. Thanks, Korky.

        I may request your delicious fruit loaf recipe in exchange for my pork pie one. :•)

        1. You ride and train horses, don’t you? That takes some skill; I couldn’t do that as I can’t stand the beasts. Each to his own, Conway.

    6. Looks very good to me, but from an “eater’s” perspective I’d have put the pork atop the rice for the photo.

    7. Grizzly,

      ‘Numerous complaints’ ?

      I find your recipes, photos and
      comments to be very interesting.

      Your pork pie recipe is ‘the best’!

        1. I bought some four inch moulds,
          as you suggested; I have made
          them previously, some years ago
          but you inspired me to have another go.

          1. Well done. I like mine with a splash of Heinz salad cream. I know some may turn their nose up at that but it really works.

          2. I love salad cream on stuff that seems unusual. Love it on a sausage roll for instance. And it is the best condiment for chips.

          6. Now there is a memory
            invoked! 🙂

            I like mine with ‘Dijon’ mustard,
            ….. but I have always been
            arbitrary!! :-))

          7. I doubt there are two people alike who eat it the the same way. Some like mayonnaise, some like brown sauce, some like tomato ketchup, some like Colman’s English, some like Branston Pickle, some like piccalilli, the list goes on. I shall try some Dijon the next time I have some.

          9. I would if I could access some. Here in Sweden it is nigh-on impossible to obtain decent foods from abroad. I love Maille but I can’t stand Grey Poupon (which smells and tastes fusty).

          10. That’s a shame, because the Fallot is so good that even epicurean Nottlers who have tried it agree that it’s worth seeking out.

            If you ever take a trip into yer France and head to the Burgundy regions, and well worth the detour even if I am biased about the other side, a visit to their small factory in Beaune is fascinating.

          11. STOP PRESS. I may have found a source to obtain some, here in the gastronomical desert of Sverige! I shall report on my success/lack of it anon.

  50. I am well aware that every country in the world has ambassadors to other countries but I wasn’t aware that Kew Gardens has an ambassador! However, someone there has this absurd title.

    It is reported today that this woke ‘ambassador’, a ridiculous leftist, says that ‘UK Gardening Culture Has Racism Baked Into Its DNA’. But this is hardly surprising given that such deeply moronic nonsense is promoted by the BBC which says that the entire countryside is racist!

    “BBC presenter Ellie Harrison has insisted that “the countryside is racist” after it was controversially described as a “white environment”. This absurd Twitter statement is accompanied by this photo, perhaps to emphasise the whiteness of the sheep!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b2fa6116b870ff5a66737d28a73a82b75b498ef6c5e8dfe5620b545aa336580a.jpg

    The photo is of Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire where I was born. My father was a curate there in the 1940s. I was christened in that church and my ancestors are in the graveyard there, including my mother, father and sister.

    My business partner is a charming Nubian from Upper Egypt, and he is almost black. He has been several times to Chipping Campden and is welcomed with open arms. There is nothing racist about the people of Campden or their gardens!

      1. Black and brown, a pure Suffolk never actually has a white fleece. Very few sheep do, but the Suffolk has a darker coat than many.

      2. PS. I have yet to encounter a sheep with a bleat that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as musical 😉

    5. ‘There is nothing racist about the people of Campden or their gardens!’

      Says you. However, overall, the claim certainly possesses enormous potential for earnings.

    7. Absurd is the perfect adjective to use when describing the ludicrous BBC; its idiotic reporters and clueless presenters; its vapid programmes and feeble shows; and their vacuous opinions.

  51. That’s me for yet another dreary day. Got the Christmas cards done, though. They still say it will be nice tomorrow. And a very mild night.

    Time (nearly) for a little drinky-poo.

    A demain

  53. Good morning, my friends,

    I have given up submitting letters to the Telegraph as they find my views too anarchic and don’t publish them any more! However, when the opportunity is offered I make the occasional BTL comment. Here are a couple I have made under today’s letters:

    I live in France where I can buy an almost drinkable wine at €2 a bottle, an acceptable bottle for 3€, a good bottle for €5 and an excellent bottle for €10.

    Maybe Euro-sceptics would become more reconciled to Brexit if comparable wines at comparable prices were available in Britain after a ‘No Deal’ departure?

    In order to celebrate “No Deal” a popular move from the government would be to remove all taxes on British produced wine and increase the tariffs on all wine imported from the EU?

    and

    Perhaps I am missing something but I cannot understand why a person who believes in the vaccine and has had it should be worried about travelling on a bus, plane or train with somebody who hasn’t been vaccinated.
    Either:
    The vaccine is good and protects those who have had it so that they are safe from: the virus, those who have the virus, those who have had the virus and those who have not had the vaccine.
    Or:
    The vaccine is useless and does not work in which case what difference does it make mixing or not mixing with unvaccinated people?

    1. Reply:-

      @Richard Tracey Well said Richard. It’s a point I’ve pondered myself several times and can not believe the bed-wetting hysteria and germophobia of so many of my countrymen.

    3. Good morning, Rastus.

      I misread your line, “they find my views too anarchic” as “they find my views too archaic“. I tend to suffer from the same delusion. :•)

    4. Good morning Richard. If we end up on WTO rules re EU trade any tariffs we slap on their wine would need to be replicated on wine from other countries we don’t have trade deals with. So we need to hurry up with signing deals with Australia, SA, NZ, Argentina (!), Georgia (some very good, interesting wines) and even Lebanon (for those who must have their French style wine). I believe we have already rolled over an old EU deal with Chile.

      2. Morning, Cochrane.
        Last Georgian wine I had was in 1992-3 or so, and was hideously sweet red. I assume they have improved a lot! I drank it because that’s all the Hotel Intourist in Baku had – even the vodka and champanskiy had run out, and as for tonic water or coke, forget it. I wouldn’t contemplate drinking the water, either, since toilet roll was rather lacking too.

        1. Great story and they still make that rubbish. But they also make much nicer wines now. Many are made using a kvevri which, when added to grape varieties we’re unfamiliar with, gives Georgian wine a distinct taste. Personally I like it, but it’s probably not to everyone’s taste. I’d recommend you to try it again though as the days of mass produced Soviet rubbish, are gone.

          2. Likewise Australian wines 50 years tasted disgustingly metallic. Different story these days, so I’m told – I buy almost exclusively Chilean reds.

          5. I go for NZ SBs, but at the moment I’m stocking up on a good Pouilly-fumé at a very good price.
            Chilean SBs are too earthy for my liking.

      3. But doesn’t the EU follow WTO rules too? If you are right then would the EU be able to raise extra taxes on Britain and not on, say, Norway and Switzerland?

        1. All WTO members should follow WTO rules. The EU has trade deals with Norway (EFTA) and Switzerland (various bi-lateral treaties), so they trade under those rules, not WTO rules. Under a No Deal, the EU would trade with the UK under the same arrangements as they do with say Mauritania.

        2. It does where there are no specific trade agreements. The purpose of negotiating the agreements is to get trading advantages.

          What I find is the most annoying is the way the EU is trying to tie us to rules, standards and legal controls that they do not and cannot apply to any other nation.

          Quality and technical standards are perfectly acceptable and reasonable requirements, having to obey EU laws which for example the USA doesn’t is unacceptable.

          There is a reason why so many agreements around the globe are made under UK Law; it’s because it tends to be consistently applied and without political interference.

          1. If there is to be harmonisation between British and EU standards, there are three ways this could be achieved:

            1. The UK follows all new EU rules.
            2. The EU follows all new UK rules (our forthcoming ban on live animal exports being an imminent example)
            3. Both sides agree to do both 1 and 2.

            As far as I understand matters, the EU is demanding number 1, which in the absence of being willing to also accept #2, is obviously unacceptable.

          2. The EU is not, in fact, demanding No. 1. But they wish to reserve the right to institute tariffs if we do not adhere to rules which are roughly equivalent to theirs. Where our rules have already been gold-plated then there would be no issue.

          3. Which is effectively number 1 and which is a clause not included in other FTAs. Early in the negotiations the UK was offered a Canada-style FTA by Barnier; now that’s been taken off the table, which suggests the EU has broken the Political Declaration commitment to negotiate in good faith.

          4. No it is “effectively” nothing of the sort. And yes, it is a clause included in other FTAs. There is always the right to reject goods, or levy tariff on goods which are not up to the required standards. The deal offered by Barnier was rejected, that’s why it is off the table.

          5. They are also insisting that all disputes are resolved under ECJ jurisdiction, which should also be unacceptable.

          7. 1,000 upticks.
            The practice is totally unnecessary. We’ve been importing frozen meat from the other side of the globe since 1882.

  54. Unaccompanied children in France are being told by the French authorities that they should give up hope of being reunited with family in the UK after the Home Office failed to offer the help it had promised.

    With the deadline to enter the UK legally and safely under the EU’s family reunification rules due to expire at the end of the year, the Home Office is accused of reneging on its vow to help unaccompanied children reunite with family in the UK.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/13/uk-reneges-on-vow-to-reunite-child-refugees-with-families

    Children , do they mean children with beards?

  55. I met a Yorkshire man the other day who was so tight he cultivated a wart on the back of his neck to avoid buying a collar stud

    1. Yo Alec

      That takes me back a bit
      As an Apprentice, my uniform was known as ‘Fore and Aft’ ie Blue Suit, normal trousers, (Detachable) collar tie, and peaked cap

      As opposed to Square Rig: bell bottom trousers, White Front,, Lanyard, Blue Collar, Milk Churn Hat

      It took us 16/17year olds weeks to master the starched collar, studs etec…. then it became easy forever

      The fun came when watching newly promoted Square Riggers try to master ‘The Collar’ its was hilalarious. New swear words were invented

      1. Me too as an RAF apprentice – struggling with a detachable collar for the first time, thank god they eventually faded out. I was friendly with a stores guy later in life who got me some zobs shirts (Van Heusen if I remember right) which were nice

        1. At Chepstow in ’68 we has Shirts, Kaki Flannel with attached collars for day to day wear and Shirts, No.2 Dress for parades with detachable collars.
          I very quickly made up a front collar stud using two buttons linked by JUST enough thread to go through the stud holes on the shirt and collar. I got away with it because it was covered up by the knot on my tie!

          1. When I was at Blundell’s we had to wear shirts with detachable collars. The collars were changed every day but the shirts were only changed twice a week.

            Anyone who visits a boarding school will notice a gloomy, clammy smell in the place. However if you live there you very soon don’t notice it any more.

      3. It was part of our school uniform.

        One was expected to wear the shirt for days, just changing the collars.

        As you say, the skill never leaves.

      4. Our QARNNS dresses had detachable white starched collars and stiff starched cuffs, starched aprons .. the cuffs would be removed when we reached the ward, and our dress sleeves would then be rolled up above the elbow and we would then put our frilly cuffs on !

        Mastering the art of putting together our starched ward headwear was similar to origami ! Woe betide if we were caught out in a rainshower travelling across the RNH Haslar quadrangle to the wards!

  56. A guy walks into the doctor’s office and says, “D d d doc, I’ve bbeen stttutering ffor yyyears and IIII’m tttired of it. Cccan yyyou hehehelp mmme?”
    The doctor says, “Well, I’ll have to examine you to see what’s going on.”
    So he examines him and says, “Well I think I know what the problem is..”
    The guy says, “Wwwell wwwhat is it, ddoc?”
    The doctor says, “Well, it’s your penis, it’s about a foot long and all the down pressure is putting strain on your vocal cords…”
    The guy says, “Wwwat cccan we ddo?”
    The doctor advises, “Well, I can cut it off and transplant a shorter one.
    The guy says, “Dddeal…..Dddo it!”
    The guy has the operation and six weeks later, he comes back into the doctor’s office and says, “Doc, you solved the problem and I don’t stutter anymore, but I’ve only had sex once in the past three weeks. My wife doesn’t like it anymore. She liked it with my long one. I don’t care if I have to stutter, I want you to put my long one back on”
    The doctor says, “Pppiss off. A ddddeal’s a dddeal.

  57. Would I be right in thinking that No Deal = No Withdrawal Agreement? No Political Declaration? No £39bn? No ECJ jurisdiction? 100% of our fishing waters?

    Could it be that Johnson has actually played a blinder, by using the EU tactic of letting the clock run out? Do we dare to dream that we are actually about to get everything we voted for on 23rd June 2016?

    2. No. We signed the withdrawal agreement.

      No deal means no frictionless trade with the EU’s single market.

      1. I though the WA was contingent on the EU negotiating in good faith towards a trade deal? Surely No Deal = No trade agreement = no WA?

        And let us not forget that the EU loses frictionless trade with our single market. That £90bn a year trade surplus floats away into the ether…

        1. Much of the £39bn has already been paid because it included our gross annual contribution to EU funds for 2020.

        2. No. Again Boris signed the withdrawal agreement. That is now legally binding on the UK. I’m not even convinced he knows what’s in it.

          A trade and security deal, which is what we are negotiating now, is all about how we’ll trade and cooperate in the future. Trade won’t stop with the EU, but in the event of no deal it won’t be frictionless. That is going to screw up a lot of firms who work on the just in time supplies regimen. Prices for EU goods will likely increase as we’ll be on WTO tariffs.

          1. “A trade and security deal …, is all about how we’ll trade and cooperate in the future.” Which is why it’s bonkers that no mention has ever been made about our ongoing commitment to defend Europe through NATO.

          2. Well, if France can opt out of NATO, on their terms, we can do the same to the EU

            Just remember who was supplying weapons to the Argies, back in the day

          3. But, but, but – what was Bill Cash’s amendment about? Did it mean nothing? Bad faith = No WA.

          4. There is no definition of good faith, it’s largely meaningless. Who decides if both sides have acted in good faith?
            We’ve tried to negotiate, we can’t agree in some areas and as such barring some miracle now we wont continue to have frictionless trade with the EU.

            No WA in place could have repercussions for some NOTLers being UK citizens living in the EU.

        3. That is what I understood the arrangement to be.

          I sense a sell-out and betrayal wafting across the English Channel.

          1. Nope.

            The withdrawal agreement is set in stone and provides for a transition period that end on new years day at 1 min past midnight.

            The withdrawal agreement is a legally binding treaty between us and the EU. It is in force.

            The political declaration, a wish list for the future, is not legally binding and suggests the sort of relationship we want with each other in the future. It is this relationship being negotiated and both sides can’t agree. The EU can’t be weak or else there will be a cascade of states wanting out. We can’t be weak or we might as well have stayed in. It’s plain to see there will be no agreement in time.

            If there is no agreement at the end of the transition period then frictionless trade ends with the EU and we go to WTO tariffs. Even so the withdrawal agreement is still in force.

          2. “The withdrawal agreement is a legally binding treaty between us and the EU. It is in force.”

            Who enforces it? What happens when one side says “We don’t like this anymore”?

          3. What usually happens when international agreements are ignored?

            Such things usually start wars.

          7. Happens all the time to my old man! Trousers, suits, sometimes even shirts just shrink in the wardrobe…

          9. Can you see any country in the future signing a trade deal with us ot any kind of international relations deal if we have broken previous deals?

          10. Err….
            Every country in the world changes when it suits them.
            China Australia?
            EU UK?
            Japan EU?

            They’ll moan and we’ll moan, but both sides will be pragmatic.

          13. Yes. Countries still do deals with Argentina, who have defaulted a number of times.
            Admittedly, the risk premium in the fees might be quite high, though.

          14. On that premise no sentient trade negotiator would enter into a trade deal with the EU. They allow the supremacy countries, France, Germany and Holland to break every rule in their little green book.

            Take fishing in our coastal waters for example. The French, Dutch and Danes use factory ship trawlers, scrape the sea bed of everything necessary to sustain fish life and destroy protected shelves.

            Then again, under utterly stupid EU regulations on quotas for fish caught, millions of fish are caught and thrown back dead into the sea. The EU has always been the personification of madness disguised as authority.

          15. Yes there’s certainly a lot of stuff in EU policies that doesn’t make any sense. That’s one of the reasons we want to leave.

          16. Who’s to say the EU won’t break the rules? Why did you assume I meant only the UK might do so? I asked what happens when one side doesn’t like it anymore.

          17. We need to adopt the EU approach then; we don’t like it, so we’re ignoring it. That’s what they consistently do, so they can hardly complain when they get a dose of their own medicine.

          18. But what about the Bill Cash rider built into the the WA? Have you forgotten that completely?

      2. We signed the WA in “good faith” and ever since, the EU has acted in the opposite way.
        To Hell with them.

        1. Both sides have acted in good faith. Neither will back down from what they want. There has been negotiations, endless amounts of them actually.
          If the EU is weak several countries will line up. There will be a Quitaly for sure. So the EU has to show member states that you can leave if you want but you can’t cherry pick the good bits of the relationship and just keep those.
          We can’t be weak or else it would have been preferable to stay in.
          We are heading for no deal and WTO tariffs for sure now, but the WA remains in place and in force.

          2. But have you no confidence in the fact that before the election Boris Johnson promised us that he had secured:

            A brilliant, oven-ready WA

            Surely you cannot believe he was pulling our legs??

      3. Has the EU acted in good faith?

        Why did Bill Cash have his bit inserted onto the WA to allow us an easier wirthdrawal if the EU did not act in good faith?

        And why on earth have Boris and Gove given up this admirable insertion of Cash’s?

    3. It would be nice to think so, but I won’t be breaking open the last bottle of champagne (I shan’t be buying any more) just yet.

    4. I do so hope that’s what he’s doing.
      Just let the time dribble away and then it’s toodle pip and (literally) thanks for all the fish.

    5. I fear that he is a bodger as well as a bonker, a buffoon, a bull-shitter and a bungler well capable of losing a hand even when he holds a royal flush.

      I can only pray that I am wrong.

      When Mrs May became prime minister she declared loudly and clearly:

      NO DEAL IS BETTER THAN A BAD DEAL

      and I thought: “How splendid, this is it, at last we shall be free. The hour has produced the right person!

      But how wrong I was then

      1. 327428+ up ticks,
        Evening R,
        You were NOT alone then there were those that knew she was a wrong un, & her predecessor, &
        before……… then there was …..

  58. Evening, all. You would think most people, seeing what the EU has been doing, would be glad to be rid of it and realise that nothing can be worse than remaining shackled to such a punitive institution. Unfortunately, the leader in my local rag is still going on about the damage Brexit will do to the economy – the pillock clearly hasn’t noticed that what has already destroyed the economy (bearing in mind we haven’t left yet) is the Westminster lunatics’ approach to Covid 19.

    1. I suspect Remainers who are afraid to take charge of their own country and obsessive mask wearers are the same people.

      1. My personal family experience bears this out. My youngest daughter and son-in-law voted Leave, and are contemptuous of the restrictions. My eldest daughter and son-in-law voted Remain and follow the rules rigidly (we cannot enter their house, and have to converse on the doorstep, 2 metres apart).

          1. Possibly something to do with your name being attached to it, Cor!

            That bloody-minded cailleach sits festering at her ‘puter every night, lurking silently in the forum, just waiting for you to appear so she can downvote you.

            i truly believe the damn’ woman’s psychotic. Totally wud!

          2. As you will know my family motto is ‘cor immobile’ which means ‘steadfast heart’.

            I realise that she is a stalker and also agree that the poor soul needs to seek psychiatric help. That, or phone The Samaritans.

      3. The leader writer is certainly all in favour of the Covid 19 restrictions, so I suspect you are right. I have often felt there is a correlation between the two opinions.

      6. I thought that cartoon about the fat person lecturing the thin person to wear a mask was pretty accurate too. Social medical insurance means that thin people subsidise fat people’s lifestyle choices already, but the mask-wearing takes this principle to unacceptable lengths.

        1. But then again, smokers, boozers, gluttons et al pay syntax (ho ho) and support those who live longer.
          Everyone who dies between 65 and 70 is doing the rest of us a huge service.

          Health care, pensions, releasing properties, Inheritance taxes etc etc, all feeding the welfare state.

          They’ve paid NI and other taxes right up and until the point they die. they’re the poor sods who’ve really lost out.

          {:-((

          3. They also suffer a lifetime of aches and pains, knee replacements and diabetes, all of which are unfortunate and cost the NHS!

            The healthcare thing can be argued back and forth, but mask-wearing is NOT a small change to society, and I feel it really shouldn’t be imposed on all because of some people’s choices.

    2. Tipping it down here.
      Thank goodness I took a rather reluctant Spartie out for a walk earlier.
      When I say ‘reluctant’ we’re talking foot dragging, pouting teenager.

    3. Wet and slippery here as well.
      The birds are still feeding on the feeders, I have put a few fat feeders and seed containers around the garden , an assortment of tits and lots of sparrows , chaffinches grazing at the bottom of the feeders and lots of sparrows .

      Birds definitely have specific hours for feeding , not weather dependent.

  60. My son is due to have some dental work tomorrow , but he has a cough which has lasted a few months, he is not a smoker but has a job which can be dusty , although all health and safety rules are followed!!

    119 recommended he should have a Covid test to satisfy and reassure his dentist.. He was booked in with in the hour and 2 hours later he was given a Covid test .. and with in 24 hours , son recieved an email from the NHS to say he was in the clear.

    Do you see where I am coming from here … a Covid test is as only as good as it is on the day .. isn’t that true?

    1. He might consider talking to his GP (yes, I know…) about possible micro-reflux – this is when you regurgitate tiny amounts of stomach acid into your gullet, usually whilst sleeping, and inhale the acid fumes. Result is irritation to the lungs, and a regular cough that seems to have no cause – in my case, Xrays didn’t show anything. Diagnosis (in my case) was by prescription antacid pills that reduce acid production (not Gaviscon, nor over-the-counter rennies or similar). For me, the effect was noticed within a week – cough gone! 🙂

          5. I have Esomeprazole because I’m on it long term (omeprazole is for limited use, I understand).

          1. Then, Philip, if you cannot use Viagra or Cialis, Caverject is your friend for 4 hour sustainability – take it from one who knows!

    2. If you have one of the main symptoms then a test can eliminate CV as the cause and you can get on with life as normal as possible. But as you say, you might pick up a dose on the way home. Mrs Pea had an intense headache some while ago and we have a school age child but a test eliminated CV and the worry of use becoming spreaders.

    3. Play them at their own stupid game.
      Boxes have been ticked; that’s all they need to know.
      And good luck to your boy tomorrow.

    5. Yes. It comes down to risk or rather the dentist’s appetite for risk i.e. I doubt that he’ll treat your son without using PPE despite the Covid test, but the chance of your son contracting Covid between his test and his dental treatment, will be low.

    6. Even then on the day, a positive test is more positive than a negative test is negative – if you can see where the Government is coming from.🤔

    2. And the bigger versions, the Trolls. When you’re out in the forest or mountains at night, it’s easy to believe in trolls. Skogstroll, who live in the forest, and fjelltroll, who live in the mountains (I guess above the treeline). It can be scary out there…
      There’s also the modern versions, my favourite of which is the data troll, who lives in your pc and, amongst other devilry, causes the Blue Screen of Death…
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92131fbe2b58b87ea8eecb3a1e9567609fac25d34a82d32288a2385ed1660160.jpg

    1. Woke is as Woke does. How soon before some prat complains that the history of the Industrial Revolution has inherent bias in its history i.e. it was in the main created by white men.

      2. Because we White Men could, whereas your actual black was still too busy putting bones through his nose or raising piccaninnies on the slave estate where he skived off as much as possible.

        Black Looks Miserable

    2. What a complete and utter load of bollueax. Not your comment Aeneas but whoever has custody of Hogarth’s talent. Hanging will be too good for them.

      1. The complete “Rake’s Progress” was at Sir John Soane’s Museum when I went there a few years ago. The little house is a treasure trove. Probably all “woke” now.

    3. Even Hogarth couldn’t have foreseen such a farcical situation as modern-day wokism. His pen would have melted trying to outdo the stupidity of the idiots in charge of British culture and tradition.

    4. Just a thought – make them all anonymous, and display the best of them.
      I’m not aware that the creative process is improved or otherwise by being gay, wearing a dress, or having one or another skin colour.
      Perhaps the “Over-representation” results from that others are crap at cartooning, and would be better occupied doing dotty pictures on cave walls??

    1. I was only thinking this morning what Scotland will do when they rejoin the EU after leaving the UK. They will not have a Royal Navy, an Army nor a Royal Air Force.

      England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Orkney and Shetland will remain in the UK and enjoy the full protection of the British armed forces: especially if Sturgeon’s upstarts try to claim the oil and gas fields. And they will have a tremendous difficulty in persuading the EU countries to intervene, militarily, on their behalf.

      1. This would be the mostly depleted oil & gas fields, with a shedload of installations that need removed at fabulous cost – the cost of which it tax-deductable… nice fat bill for the Scottish treasury.

        1. A question.
          How much Scottish North Sea Oil & Gas is actually Scottish?
          I remember away back over 5 decades seeing a map shewing how the North Sea had been divided into oil exploration areas.

          From what I recollect, the convention was that when the border between two countries reached the coast, the general line of that border was projected out into the sea.
          If that is correct, then have a look at the border between England & Scotland where it reaches the coast just South of Meg’s Dubb.

          1. Indeed, an important question.
            Then throw in the Shetlanders and Orcadians maybe not going with Scotland, and you get a real mess.

          2. At the time of the independence referendum there were endless arguments about the angle of the border at the coast.

      2. I’d imagine the various Scottish regiments will form the basis of the Scottish Army. They’d also get a proportionate share of UK assets such as fast jets and the RN.

        1. They would need to find a Bonnie Prince to lead the tartanned hordes.

          Oh blast, I forget. They tried that once and only got as far as Derby.

          1. Bonnie Prince Charlie was hardly Scottish and his revolt was hardly a war of independence. I believe more Scots were on ‘our side’ at Culloden, although there were also Jacobite supporters in the north of England. Didn’t he raise some troops in Manchester?

          2. Charles Stewart was not exactly eager to regain the crown for his family and had to be coerced into becoming the rebellion’s figurehead and as soon as it was obvious it had gone tits up, could not get out of Scotland and back to Italy quickly enough.

    2. There was outrage among fisheries and Brexiteers after the SNP’s Justice Secretary vowed to ban Royal Navy warships from Scottish waters. Humza Yousaf hit back after the UK put the Royal Navy on standby in case of a no deal Brexit. He told the BBC: “The UK Government gunboat diplomacy is not welcome in Scottish waters.”

      Mr Yousaf added: “We will protect our fisheries but we won’t do that by threatening our NATO allies, our friends and neighbours.”

      He later tweeted: “62 percent of UK EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) is in Scotland.

      “Police Scot and Marine Scot will protect fisheries if necessary, chief constable has primacy.

      “UK Government has confirmed with me Royal Navy will not be deployed unless chief constable requests.”

      https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1371876/Brexit-news-fisheries-SNP-Scotland-British-waters-fishing-France-no-deal-latest-vn

      1. Mr Yousaf added: “We will protect our fisheries but we won’t do that by threatening our NATO allies, our friends and neighbours.”

        What will he do, lift his kilt & show the Frogs his secret weapon?

      2. Clearly he doesn’t see England as a “neighbour” or a NATO ally. It goes without saying that he doesn’t see England as a friend.

      4. Yessss. This is the Mr Yousaf that doesn’t comment on individual cases. Given that Police Scotland has one helicopter and no patrol boats, our fisheries won’t get much protection. No one in their right mind would get into a Police Scotland helicopter. They crashed the last one and killed 10 people.
        I’d have thought that protecting our fisheries/EEZ was a defence matter and therefore reserved to Westminster.

        1. I had wanted to visit the Clutha before the accident, but my shifts never really allowed me to, but I did visit a couple of times after it reopened.

      6. The quicker the irascible, petulant tribalist mongering Olga Krankie is removed from office, the whole of the UK from top to bottom, will be better off by far.

          1. Thanks I realised my mistake shortly after I wrote the comment but I let it stand, anything non covid would have been enough to upset the deniers.

          2. No problem Richard, it just happened that I returned to check out the late-night nottling not long after reading the report of his death.

      2. The last one I read – the Tailor of Panama – was so precious and a parody of a Le Carre novel that I actually tore it in half and threw it away. That’s the only book I ever tore up, in irritation or for any other reason.

  67. anne, if you are still here

    I did not ‘do’ Ganges, that is where the ‘sailors’ went

    My training started at HMS Fisgard, at Torpoint, over the road from HMS Raleigh, who took over the sailors training when Ganges closed.

    My son did go to RHS!

  68. DT Live: Brexit latest news: Talks to continue beyond deadline, Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen confirm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/13/brexit-no-deal-news-boris-johnson-trade-latest-eu-uk/

    “Letting I dare not wait upon I would like the poor cat in the adage”

    Boris is playing the part of the cat in the adage in The Scottish play. He is still dithering on the brink without the courage or the conviction to commit himself either way.

    They are saying that they will ‘go the extra mile’ to get a deal – but with this talk of ‘going the extra mile’ we must remember that in the EU they use kilometres rather than miles.

    As a kilometre is only 5/8 mile the EU would never expect to go as far as Britain! I doubt if the EU would even go half a kilometre.

    1. What isn’t clear, is are the talks continuing right now, or some time in the coming week? What is the new deadline? Talk about flogging a dead horse!

    2. I never understand the point of a deadline if the person setting it doesn’t adhere to the principle. Extending it just makes them look weak.

  69. 327428+ up ticks,
    You don’t have to be a bloody seer to realise an update on August 1642
    could very well be on the cards in the near future,

    The Beginning,
    It was not part of their blood,
    It came to them very late
    With long arrears to make good,
    When the English began to hate.

    1. I hated it for years. I can just about tolerate it now.

      I love the 2nd of January best when it’s all over, each day is getting lighter and I can soon see some snowdrops.

      2. My much-loved and much-missed great aunty Ethel, used to lean back in her chair on Boxing Day and say “well, that’s got Christmas nicely over!”

    2. I love Christmas, but only the “traditional bits” from my and my children’s childhoods before the magic wore off.

      Covid has prevented having similar with grandchildren.

      2. We are spending Christmas with my youngest daughter and son-in-law and their two children. There is a marked difference in attitude in response to the ‘pandemic’ between her and my eldest daughter and son-in-law (three children), who resolutely obey the rules.

        We will enjoy Christmas without paying too much heed to the doomsayers.

          1. Thanks, sos. After this dreadful year, we are determined to make the best of it we possibly can. I don’t think that the PTB who are advocating caution because of a possible ‘third wave’ understand the fact that everybody is sick of all these restrictions, and that most people are determined to enjoy themselves over this festival season, come what may.

          2. I feel the same. This is the first time I’ve put Christmas lights up in the garden and yesterday, I dug up a self-seeded pine (it was in the wrong place anyway) and have put it, with tinsel and baubles on it, in a pot on the patio so I can see it from the kitchen window. I WILL enjoy Christmas if it’s the last thing I do (and given that I survived Covid 19 in February, it probably won’t be).

        2. We have just been talking to a friend who has a sister in the states. The friend still believes in Trudeau, her sister thinks that Trump was cheated. It would be avery entertaining conversation if those two got together.

    3. Normally enjoy Christmas, once the faff is done, but this year has gone flat. No visitors, no visiting, no energy, no snow, no pub. Plenty booze, though!

    4. Not this year; its a non-event: no family meetings, drinks or dinner, nothing ’till the vaccination …

    5. The best day of Christmas for me is Boxing Day. A leisurely stroll down the pub with family and some very good friends and neighbours for a couple of pints, followed by the gathering at VVOF towers for cold meat, mash potato, pickles with fresh baked rolls.
      That friendship and shared laughter means more to me than the stress and expense which culminates on Christmas Day.
      I’m not sure it will be such a pleasant gathering this year, it is tempting to say let’s give it a miss with all the worry people will have about the virus.

    6. Some very good friends have until recently hosted festive gatherings on Christmas Eve 7:00pm till very early…
      Two years ago they suggested fancy dress. I went in a full length home made Christmas Cracker….. sadly I didn’t get pulled…..

    8. Ha bloody ha. Dearest wife just asked me to write the normal Christmas circular that gets emailed out to friends.

      Let me see.

      Dear all,

      We did nothing and went nowhere this year

      Virtual hugs

      2. ha ha
        Those bldy circulars!
        If honest mine would read

        Dear all
        None of my children have gone to Oxford, Cambridge or indeed any university this year. Neither have they represented Great Britain, sailed round the world single-handedly, or ridden a winner in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. One is working at McDonalds, and another is an kitchen help in a butcher’s shop café. A third is without gainful employment, and the youngest is about to quit school, declaring that she can prepare better for her exams at home by herself. The school is being rather sticky about the fees. On the bright side, none of them is trans yet.
        Merry Christmas!
        Yours, Blackbox

        1. Ahem, it’s THE winner OF the Cheltenham Gold Cup. You can ride A winner AT the Cheltenham Festival. 🙂

    9. I’m a great fan of Christmas (I’m a big kid at heart). I love putting up the tree, shopping for and wrapping the presents, decorating the pictures with holly, etc and if it snows then it’s an added bonus. Unfortunately, MOH, being an atheist, makes Scrooge look positively festive. I have always enjoyed it in spite of everything – ho, ho, ho! What I don’t enjoy is having to cook the meal, which I’ve had to do for the last four years 🙁 Boxing Day is always great, too. Going to the meet (no chance this year, though), then coming home to watch the racing from Kempton with a glass of port and a mince pie.

    10. No. It’s stressful and expensive. Not sure if anyone’s coming this time – might be just us. In which case it will be alot less stressful than usual.

        1. Well – two sons with very different politics, plus a stepfather………doesn’t make for a relaxing time. He always feels outnumbered, and I just try to get through it with no rows.

    12. For about ten years we have helped a local church organise and serve Christmas dinner to anyone that turned up. No need to be poor or attending church, if you arrived at the community centre you were welcomed and fed a traditional Christmas meal.

      This year the event is cancelled, it was going to be take out / delivery but then the covid testing unit moved into the community centre and the big commercial grade kitchen is not available.

      However, the bargain of the year is Christmas dinner at the golf club, $25 (about £15) for dinner. It is going to be different with only thirty people dining instead of the normal two or three hundred.

    1. Boom!!
      Hope it goes well, OLT. Moving is one of my least favourite activities – I think I’d rather push pineapples up my a***, frankly, so I don’t envy you.

    2. Yo,Tryers.

      With my best wishes to you.
      Once you have settled in we
      will pop-up to see you ….we
      could have a paddle together,
      followed by fish and chips…
      on the Prom!!

          5. Naturally.

            They won’t be quite so amused when camps are set up and their daughters are groomed.

          6. I am pretty sure most of Lincolnshire voted to leave. Certainly when I was there before the referendum, Vote Leave signs were just about everywhere.

          7. maybe it depends on locality, we were around Spalding at the time of the referendum and had several of the locals lecturing up in the idiocy of leaving.

          10. I recall the young Polish woman from Boston on Question Time who came out as Leave on air……. it was quite amusing to see David Dimbleby’s face…… she had arrived here a generation earlier, as it were, and she was ****ed off with the incomers undercutting wages and putting pressure on housing.

          12. The farmers love their deft, and hard-working European labour. Fruit picking pays over the minimum wage… by quite a bit

          1. Yup,

            We came quite close to buying a house in Coningsby, bur its’ location was not right for us

    5. I’ve always let the removals men do the packing & unpacking. They are experts & there are seldom breakages. All done in a day while I relaxed.

      1. Awhen we moved about twenty five years years ago we used one of the big moving companies.
        The men that do were all over six feet tall and were quite capable of single handedly picking up the washing machine and dryer, items that we would struggle to just move round the laundry room.
        Nowadays we don even consider moving furniture ourselves, we let the professionals do it.

        1. Olden days my friend.

          In the UK now, they won’t even consider moving “heavy” furniture without several men to do so.

          Things I can still move, and I’m old, grey, and nowhere near as strong as I was, require at least two men and often three.

          Each of them could undoubtedly do it on their own, Compliance says NO

          1. we had no trouble with that move, all of our English style furniture arrived intact and immediately out of place.

          4. My brother and his family went from Scotland to New Zealand, then to Canada (after a gap of about 2 years), and back to New Zealand (after a gap of about 15 years). My sister in law brought some of her things from NZ to Scotland after their wedding.

            They certainly got on better letting the professionals do it… but I don’t think they had a move without something coming to harm. On the last trip they had to wait for nearly a month for their container to be fumigated and searched for contraband (accidental or deliberate… NZ’s phytosanitary protections are, quite rightly, fierce).

          5. Try Australia.

            Every single item has to pass tests, be certified, rubber stamped a gazillion times and then cleaned until all the conceivable bugs, viruses, patinas, et bloody cet have been destroyed

          6. NZ is the same. Brother and his wife returned there from Canada a couple of years ago… their container was detained for about a month for fumigation and searching.

      2. That wasn’t the case when I moved. The removals men omitted to bring the piano trolley despite my having told them they would need one. They took a chunk six inches long out of the top of my piano (and did other damage to items, as well as leaving some of my stuff in the house I’d moved from).

        1. A company I worked for insisted on us using Pickford’s.
          Pickford’s damaged so many things we had to get loss adjusters in.

          They still refused to accept any liability.

          Thank God for the good old days when one could find the home address of the Chairman.

          I wrote to him, telling him that I would camp on his front doorstep.

          Letter arrived with him, PA Called, everything was sorted out by lunchtime.

          I suspect it’s not as easy now

          2. It might tell you how to contact them, but how many home addresses does it give?

            I had a problem with a CEO and I was close enough to deliver my letter myself.

            His full address was written on the envelope along with “by hand” instead of a stamp.

            Problem over before 10 am the following day.

          3. In Norway, finding the executive board isn’t hard.
            I had a beef with Avis, so I wrote to him at home with every dot & comma of how Avis messed up and how they could work better.
            Instant response. They hate it when you bug them in their private time.

    7. Good luck with the move – Salop’s loss and all that 🙂

      They say that moving house is akin to bereavement in the stress stakes, so I hope all goes well.

      1. Fanx Conway

        PS So do I. We have to stay with B-i-L for about a month, whilst solicitors (spit x3) take a months sabbatical over Xmas

    1. He, and other so-called ‘experts’ on the Covid-19 pandemic keep cropping up on the BBC news programmes. There is apparently no recourse to any other, or indeed dissenting, point of view. Isn’t journalism supposed to ask difficult questions? There is no evidence of this on the BBC.

  73. Not sure if this has been posted here this morning but Richard (Rastus?) has hit the nail on the head with his BTL comment under the letters.

    Richard Tracey
    13 Dec 2020 9:55AM

    Perhaps I am missing something but I cannot understand why a person who believes in the vaccine and has had it should be worried about travelling on a bus, plane or train with somebody who hasn’t been vaccinated.

    Either the vaccine is good and protects those who have had it and so should be safe from: the virus, those who have the virus, those who have had the virus and those who have not had the vaccine.

    On the other hand, if the vaccine is useless what difference does it make mixing or not mixing with unvaccinated people?

  75. Mail to Mr R……… the sequel………………..

    So do you think the reason why Mr Major became ”convinced” of the merits of the Pound joining the ERM is because Mr Soros ”convinced” him at Davos in January 1990?

    ”By early 1990 Major had become convinced that the best way to combat inflation and restore macroeconomic stability would be if the British pound were to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), and he and Douglas Hurd (Major’s successor as Foreign Secretary) set about trying to convince a reluctant Thatcher to join it”. Wikipedia.

    It’s quite a ”coincidence”, would you not agree?

    George Soros must have been very much in favor and also getting the Pound in at a rate which would have been beneficial to him, and he goes to Davos every year to meet and greet the latest upcoming politicians who might be useful in the future. Just as happened when Mr Soros entertained Mr Blair in New York in 1996.

    Suddenly, just at the right moment, up pops John Major who got things exactly right !

    Then, to add ”coincidence” to ”coincidence”, John Major is later awarded a million dollar position at an institution where George Soros is a $100,000,000 client !

    Still, it is all just one of those totally innocent, random, unconnected ”coincidences” which happen from time to time… including the additional ”coincidence” that Mr Major forgot all about Mr Soros in his book…. Just as Mr Blair, Mr Brown and Mr Cameron ”coincidentally” all forgot about Mr Soros in their books too !

    Just a series of random, totally innocent, unconnected ”coincidences”…………

    Is that not true, Mr xxxxxxxxx ?

    Polly

  76. A deal is likely, but Britain and the EU must learn to trust again
    Brussels is guilty of moving the goalposts, but an agreement is in sight and Britain will be free to go its own way

    NICK TIMOTHY

    “Britain should be free to diverge from the European Union regulatory framework, but if divergence causes significant, demonstrable harm to its member states, the EU will have the right to take action.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/13/deal-likely-britain-eu-must-learn-trust/

    This is unbelievable. If a deal is agreed on this basis then Brexit has been completely betrayed

    I saw Anne Widecombe on the SW BBC New. She said that the one thing that was sure was that we would have a fudge “deal”.

    The only question to resolve now is will it be Vanilla, Chocolate or Walnut Fudge?

      1. 327428+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        Do they care ? they could already have cut a personal deal.
        The politico’s are the only ones that want a deal
        not the politico’s employers.

      2. I doubt it.
        People have short memories – hell, how come they vote for the same losers again & again, expecting something different? Anyhow, who else is there to vote for? Labour – get the same, LibDems, yeah, right. Farage and his many parties have proven a damp flush. UKIP are too busy changing their leader to actually do politics… So, likely the tories will be voted in, especially when they come with the wonderful deal that was snatched from the jaws…

  77. 327428+up ticks,
    Once again extending the extension after extending the extension that …..
    once more we go along the well beaten track to the wire.

    Boris Johnson tells country to prepare for no deal ‘with confidence’ as talks run past deadline.

    I am certain many of us told him that four & a half years ago.

      1. 327428+ up ticks,
        Evening KP,
        Must be some tool, it’s actions have brought the Country to it’s knees.

  80. Thank goodness I’m too poor to live near Park Lane.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/12/priti-patel-urged-help-powerless-council-dealing-mayfair-brothel/

    “Council ‘powerless’ after brothel run from a tent on Park Lane

    Leader of Westminster City Council has written to the Home Secretary urging her to tackle criminal gangs of beggars

    13 December 2020 • 10:32am

    Priti Patel has been warned that one of the country’s most affluent neighbourhoods is on a “cliff edge” because the authorities are powerless to dismantle a homeless encampment despite a brothel having been run from a tent near a primary school.

    For seven years, scores of tents have been set up on a central reservation on Park Lane in Mayfair, London.

    The encampment, between Hyde Park and rows of luxury car dealers, attracts mainly Roma Gypsy families from Romania. The inhabitants are seen regularly using local fountains to wash and subways as toilets before begging around the capital.

    Now, Rachael Robathan, the leader of Westminster City Council, has written to the Home Secretary urging her to “double efforts” to tackle organised criminal gangs smuggling people to the UK and beef up immigration laws when the UK leaves the European Union so professional migrant beggars can be deported.

    The letter, seen by The Telegraph, reveals how two tents set up outside school gates in the borough served as a makeshift brothel with parents taking children to and from school being offered sex. She also warns how human rights laws prevent police searching tents, with one encampment near Downing Street posing a potential terrorist threat.

    “Complaints were received from a local primary school regarding a campsite with two tents located on the pavement outside the school gates,” it says.

    “The occupants were two female sex workers and their dog, who conducted their business within the tents, sometimes with the door open; the clients being seen exiting the tent to get fully dressed.

    “Parents reported being approached by the girls for business on the school run; drug dealers and friends were invited into the area where drugs, alcohol and other associated disruption became commonplace throughout the day; discarded condoms, laundry hanging on residents’ fences and human fouling within the locality were commonplace.”

    Although the council served the women, who were sisters and not believed to be Romanian, with seven notices to leave they simply moved location to avoid prosecution. A community protection notice was served before they moved to a neighbouring borough.

    Mrs Patel was also warned how “several tents … within 300 yards of Downing Street” where people visit the Ministry of Defence, New Scotland Yard and Parliament cannot be searched under current laws.

    A borough wide ‘street count’ in September found 251 of the 269 people sleeping rough were foriegn nationals. Of those, 131 were from the European Economic Area, meaning the authorities have very few powers to deport them under EU freedom of movement rules.

    Mrs Robathan adds: “Most individuals have housing in their home country, but they insist they do not want to return home and instead remain on our streets.”

    A person begs for money from passers-by in central London

    A person begs for money from passers-by in central London Credit: AFP

    The letter highlights how these campsites attract criminals from across Europe. One Portuguese crook jailed for serious assault in his home country, arrived in London and “straight away started selling drugs within the street population”. He outwitted police by moving his tent “frustrating any warrant applications” before being arrested 11 times for crimes including money laundering, possessing firearms and drug dealing.

    Mrs Robathan says council and police have “limited powers” to dismantle campsites “as neither authority can enter or remove tents” because the Human Rights Act protects people’s right to privacy in their home – a tent being classified as a “dwelling” under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

    Diana, a 27-year-old mother from the Mayfair Roma Gypsy encampment who has been in the UK with her grandparents and parents for three months, said she sent money from begging back to her two children in Romania.

    Alex Hauschildt, a committee member of The Residents Society of Mayfair & St James, said the site on Park Lane looks like a “dump” and was being used as a “hub” for begging, criminality and organised crime gangs.

    He urged the Home Office, police, the council, the Crown Estate, which owns the land, and Transport for London, which maintains it, to stop passing the issue from one another “like a hot potato” and instead work together to dismantle it.

    A Home Office spokeswoman said: “From January, where migrant rough sleepers persistently refuse support and continue to engage in anti-social behaviour, steps can be taken to cancel their permission to stay in the UK.”

    She said they will be asked to leave voluntarily with “government support” but if refuse face “enforced removal”.

    She added: “Those seeking to establish their family life in the UK must do so on a basis that prevents burdens on the taxpayer and promotes integration.”

    1. I have responded, as Best Beloved (it’s her subscription) to Daniel Hannan’s article:

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/12/no-isnt-brexit-have-done-better-staying-quasi-empire/#comment

      as follows, and it may identify the Home Secretary’s paralysis, :

      Never mind ‘going the extra mile’. If the idiot EU isn’t prepared to drop its ridiculous demands then the answer is ‘No Deal’ and we’re home, free as at 00:01 1st January 2021 with no further obligation to the EU, the ECJ and we should now concentrate on the following:

      1. Leave the ECHR

      2. Repeal the Human Rights Act

      3. Deport illegals who have been convicted of serious crimes and others who have over-stayed

      4. Reform the House of Lords by allowing only hereditary peers to sit and return the highest court of appeal to the law lords

      5. Disband the ‘Supreme Court

      6. Reduce the Commons to 400 MPs

      I’ll think of others, later.

    3. Wasn’t it all the rich elite who actually WANTED the borders opened so the world could arrive? ( so long as they didn’t live near them or impact on their lives ? )

    4. London has been pimped by Khan .. no ifs or buts , our capital city has been ruined.

      I hope people realise that when we Brexit , the judiciary of Britain will be still tainted and weakened by their limited powers because the Law is infested with human right’s lawyers who care not a jot for those of us who are the indigenous inheritors of these Islands of ours.

      1. He’s grinning disgusting POS and an AH, he should be removed from office he’s no good to man nor beast.
        If our Queen could see fit to remove the Australian PM, she can get rid of this horrible little git.

      2. Removing the Human Rights Act, Mags, would take not only the wind out of their sails but, hopefully, the pounds out of their capacious pockets. Shysters the lot of them, on a par with Estate Agents, MPs and used car dealers.

        1. Oh, and various bibulous mayors and police commissioners.

          I’m sure others will have their favourite piece of shïte to add.

    5. Meanwhile an elderly lady is spot fined £100 for a small piece of tissue flying out from her handbag when looking for her keys.

        1. This was a litter marshall but as we have seen the police are just as bad. The police seem to have the time to harangue someone not wearing a mask in a shop but don’t have the time to arrest shoplifters.

    6. You would have thought that Dick Head of the Yard’s bovver plod would have enjoyed taking it apart….

    8. I have responded, as Best Beloved (it’s her subscription) to Daniel Hannan’s article:

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/12/no-isnt-brexit-have-done-better-staying-quasi-empire/#comment

      as follows, and it may identify the Home Secretary’s paralysis, :

      Never mind ‘going the extra mile’. If the idiot EU isn’t prepared to drop its ridiculous demands then the answer is ‘No Deal’ and we’re home, free as at 00:01 1st January 2021 with no further obligation to the EU, the ECJ and we should now concentrate on the following:

      1. Leave the ECHR

      2. Repeal the Human Rights Act

      3. Deport illegals who have been convicted of serious crimes and others who have over-stayed

      4. Reform the House of Lords by allowing only hereditary peers to sit and return the highest court of appeal to the law lords

      5. Disband the ‘Supreme Court

      6. Reduce the Commons to 400 MPs

      I’ll think of others, later.

      1. Parliamentary Candidates only allowed to stand (for whate-ever party) after the have successfully passed the interview, carried out by Nottlers Committee, selected of couse by The Boss

      2. You do realise that the ‘deal’ is just a trade and security deal. We are beholden to the EU in some ways even as a free country because the pratt signed the withdrawal agreement. I said at the time the political declaration was about as useful as toilet paper.
        We won’t be leaving the ECHR. We’ve been there since the beginning.
        Consequently the HRA is likely here to stay too.

        2. Raise the immigration annual income threshold to £35,000 + £2,000 per family member, in line with other developed countries.

      4. Don’t be such an optimist.

        They are about to announce some progress but they need more time. Executive orders will extend leaving by a few months.

    9. If I say a Very Bad Word like “black” the police may kick in my door at 4 am.
      If I set up a tent in the very small park across the road and run a brothel, I will be free from any interference?

    10. 327428+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Anne,
      Been going on for 2/3 GEs the peoples were satisfied with the political status quo, as long as the begger types maintained the required six foot six & six aights apart.

    11. ” leave voluntarily with “government support” ” – -Fat chance of that – – they are NOT walking away from free healthcare. As for govt support – -read “taxpayers cash”. – – If they take it and go – -they’ll just return.

        2. In that he was wrong.

          Never, ever, hit a woman.

          It’s by not hitting them even though, by and large, we are bigger and stronger, that that shows them we’re in charge.

          Besides witch (sic) she’ll probably poison my food!

  83. Good night all.

    A delicious supper suitable for this weather: Milagu thanni, which is the original mulligatawny, using boned & rolled breast of lamb & it’s dead easy to make.

    Chop a large onion finely & soften in olive oil & a little salt. Don’t let it brown. Add 2 generous tsp of a curry paste* of your choice – I used tikka marsala, & heat while stirring – this switches the spices on. I cut the log of lamb into 4 pieces & added these to the pot with 250ml chicken stock & 250ml whole milk. Bring up to simmering & allow to blip gently for a couple of hours, check seasoning & serve. Squeeze 1/2 lemon over each bowl. Plenty left for tomorrow.

    * The excellent firm, Ferns, makes an authentic Milagu thanni paste, but for some reason it is very difficult to find.

        1. I recommend, that you get anything that you want delivered

          The ‘Birmingham’ shop is ine a Chinese Enclave, in which there was a fantastic buffet cafe ( I cannot spell resturaunt).(it has moved)

          Go to Wing Yip shop and you spend a fortune…………… but it is good.

    3. ‘Evening, Peddy, Made a port-wine sauce to go with the venison steaks that Best Beloved had bought for me. Recipe available but it doesn’t include patience.

      That venison was so tender but the sauce took forever to make, Reduction after reduction but, when served with sauté potatoes, coated in pepper, salt, rosemary and thyme. Mmmm, so tasty.

        1. Port Wine Sauce

          Ingredients
          50 grams sugar
          240 ml port wine
          160 ml red wine
          1 sprig of thyme
          1 small bay leaf
          500 ml veal stock
          Salt & pepper to taste
          50 grams butter

          Method

          1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar with 100 ml of water.

          2. Caramelize the sugar on medium heat.

          3. While heating, clean the sides of the saucepan with a brush and a bit of water to dissolve any excess sugar.

          4. When the caramel is golden brown, remove from heat.

          5. Add the Port Wine, heat gently and flame. Then reduce by 70 % on very low heat.

          6. Add the red wine, thyme and bay leaf, and reduce again by 70%.

          7. Add the veal stock and continue reducing on very low heat. Season to taste.

          8. Skim the surface regularly to remove any foam or grease. The sauce is the right consistency when it coats the back of a spoon nicely.

          9. Strain through a sieve and discard the thyme and bay leaf. Bring to a boil in a clean saucepan and season to taste.

          10. Immediately before serving, bring mixture to a boil, skim if necessary, remove from the heat and “Monter au Beurre”, (add the butter in knobs and blend using a whisk).

  84. Totally and completely off topic:

    I’ve just had a survey request from BBC news, which I have completed.
    The jackasses asked a question about international flights.

    Unless I’m one of the ultra elite, how in Gawds name could I be taking lots of flights?

  86. Do not miss out You luverlie Nottlers. at 2100 tonight, on ITV, you have:

    Des O’Connor: The Ultimate Entertainer

    After all the Wokes watch this, your carefully hidden LPs will be worth a fortune on E-bay

  87. Since Disqus continues to play the fool, I shall retaliate with a little foolish, if funerial, humour of my own:

    Funerals

    A prestigious cardiologist died, and was given a very elaborate funeral by the hospital where he had worked for most of his life…

    A huge heart – covered in flowers stood behind the casket during the service as all the doctors from the hospital sat in awe.

    Following the eulogy, the heart opened, and the casket rolled inside. The heart then closed, sealing the doctor in the beautiful heart forever.

    At that point, one of the mourners burst into almost helpless laughter.

    When all eyes stared at him, he said , ‘I’m so sorry, I was just thinking of my own funeral – I’m a gynaecologist!’

  88. Brexit trade talks until New Year’s Eve as latest deadline is missed

    Hopes of a deal rise after both sides agree to continue negotiations until the bitter end.

    If they both think they will ‘win’, no point in going on.

    I envy those people who are not PAYE. I would not willingly give the shower of T osspots a penny, until they realise BLM British Live Matter

  89. 327428+ up ticks,
    Scorched earth ( seabed) policy,

    breitbart,

    EU Supertrawlers Ravage British Waters Ahead of Brexit, Kill Dolphins, Porpoises, Seals

Comments are closed.