Sunday 13 September: Voters are losing patience with these knee-jerk curbs on liberty

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/12/letters-voters-losing-patience-knee-jerk-curbs-liberty/

722 thoughts on “Sunday 13 September: Voters are losing patience with these knee-jerk curbs on liberty”

      1. Morning chaps. I’m not the only one wide awake then 🙁
        Having worked a night shift then slept all day, things are a bit upside down.

        I’ll start the day with a moan – I went into our local Co-op yesterday, 12 Sep 20, and was confronted by a display of mince pies and chocolate Father Christmases

          1. Well, I’m looking even further ahead today, as I plan to make some pancakes and Shrove Tuesday isn’t util 2021.

          2. My birthday is in January but I fancy having some presents so I think I’ll tell everyone it’s next Satursay instead this year.

          3. I find it disturbing that you have different clothes for different seasons.

            The first time the war queen tried this nonsense on me the charity shop got a big influx and all my old shirts were found and restored.

          4. Not only clothes, but I also have summer and winter shoes!

            Would it freak you out completely to learn that some (female) people have summer and winter cushion covers too? They change them in spring and autumn apparently.

            I do feel this is a step too far, and they probably have too much time on their hands.

          6. Summer & Winter shoes, eh?

            Well why not, as there are Summer & Winter tyres, compulsory in some countries, e.g. Sweden.

        2. Good morning BSK,
          Sunshine , cloudy but breezeless here this morning , was a cold night.

          I suspect you felt really strange in your topsy turvy night shift world viewing Christmas stuff in your Co-op.

          I felt exactly the same when I saw shelves stacked with mince pies , Christmas puddings and cakes in Weymouth Sainsbury yesterday, then on the way home , viewing people enjoying themselves on the beach, and the sight of about 10 huge cruiseliners anchored in Weymouth bay .. all very dystopian .

          1. I went to a local Church last November and was shown how to make Christmas Puddings. I made two and have still to steam them and eat them. (Hangs head in shame.) Perhaps I could do this after today’s pancakes.

        3. Light a roaring fire if Father Christmas thinks he can come down the chimney this Christmas and arouse the local Covid Marshal who can count.

          Serve the chocolate blighter right! Ho! Ho! Ho!

        4. Yes, “tis the Season…” Our first Xmas charity brochure has just arrived, from a charity we’ve never heard of.

        6. Went to buy some milk today and the chap ahead of me in the queue had bought a box of mince pies. Christmas is coming!

    2. At 1:20! Sane people were asleep! I was just going to ruddy sleep!

      On that note, I’m going back to – in the attempt to actually rest.

    3. 323679+ up ticks,
      Morning Ptv,
      In reality it wants a million to be first& that I believe will be the last of it.

  2. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    I’m with Roger Simmens; his final sentence has got it in one:

    SIR – I have followed the Government’s Covid-19 measures thus far, however odd or confusing they appeared to be. But enough is enough.

    Although I am a Conservative voter, I can no longer support such a muddled and irrational administration, with such a patronising attitude towards the public. Care and concern are one thing, but this week the Government went too far.

    Lesley Spurway
    Seer Green, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – I can no longer see my grandchildren because the family is too big; my tennis group has been cancelled because there are more than six of us; my dentist cannot give me an appointment to have a very painful tooth with an abscess removed; people “working from home” are causing huge queues coming into our village; I haven’t met up with my friends from the pub; and we haven’t been able to visit our favourite country, Portugal.

    Although I am 72, I would rather risk Covid-19 than have to endure any more of this morbid nonsense. Let the young play, and let the old get on with their lives as they see fit.

    Roger Simmens
    Lyndhurst, Hampshire

    SIR – In the build-up to last year’s election, the Prime Minister rightly denounced “Project Fear”.

    Yet, in curtailing our freedoms in response to a negligible threat from Covid-19, he employs the same tactics. Infections may be up, but deaths and hospital admissions are still declining. The rules are simply being made more draconian to justify the panicked imposition of the first lockdown.

    William Tarver
    Wokingham, Berkshire

    1. 323679+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Willie in the last letter does nor seem to realise that build up rhetoric is fodder for fools, as with the wretch cameron saying I will cut down the incoming troop numbers then promptly raised them, they have repeated
      form in this area.

    1. As I sat wondering that the Left would hate ths as it implies the blacks are also to blame, of course, they don’t count them as part of the country, so it’d be fine by them.

      I find that a bit odd. Maybe that’s the distinction we’ve all been missing.

  4. Brexit: Blair and Major accuse Johnson of ‘shaming’ the UK with Internal Market Bill. 13 September. 2020.

    Writing in The Sunday Times, the two ex-prime ministers said: “We both opposed Brexit. We both accept it is now happening.

    “But this way of negotiating, with reason cast aside in pursuit of ideology and cavalier bombast posing as serious diplomacy, is irresponsible, wrong in principle and dangerous in practice.

    “It raises questions that go far beyond the impact on Ireland, the peace process and negotiations for a trade deal – crucial though they are. It questions the very integrity of our nation.

    “…integrity of our nation.” You would think that they would choke on the words. What did we ever do that we deserve these vile creatures?

    https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-blair-and-major-accuse-johnson-of-shaming-the-uk-with-internal-market-bill-12070571

    1. I didn’t have time to read the news this week, but I guessed that Boris’s “breaking the law” was probably the right decision, based on who popped out of the woodwork to criticise it.

      1. We’ve had to witness no end of incompetence and failure to apply the spirit of the law ever since we started goldplating Brussels directives since the 1970s.

        Surely, applying the Withdrawal Agreement, which we signed up to in order to get Brexit done, could be done with customary, creative and honourable incompetence, especially if we can get the co-operation of the Irish?

        No need to bring it up again with yet more legislation.

      2. I I love the “cavalier bombast” expression! Do this ghastly pair of creeps not do irony?
        Good morning all!

        1. Morning Sue!
          Apparently not – the sight of a row of ex Prime Ministers including the unspeakable Blair accusing Boris of dishonourable behaviour made me choke on my cornflakes too.

          1. Hi bb2! As is being pointed out on other BTLs and comments, if it’s upsetting these traitorous scumbags, it must be a great idea as bb2 said above – I merely used different words!

      3. It saves an awful lot of heart searching.
        Who’s against a measure? Him, her and thingy; ah, must be right, then.

    2. 323679+ up ticks,
      Morning AS.
      “What did we ever do to to deserve these vile creatures”

      Plain & simply continued the same voting pattern for decades building a foreseeable odious disaster.

      A lab/lib/con coalition, party before Country, rabid tiger by the tail voting mode.

      1. His part in this (the stabbing was actually done by Howe and Heseltine) doesn’t bother me. Getting by on four hours sleep a night for many years was making her boggle-eyed and mad, and she had to go.

        More to the point though was Major’s part in the Maastricht Agreement, and Blair’s over Lisbon. Like single sex marrriage, neither were properly debated in Parliament, but rather imposed as faits accomplis.

        1. They were all globalists, they stopped working for the benefit of the British electorate and for totally insane new world orderists instead.
          The madness started after Thatcher.

          1. 323679+ up ticks,
            B3,
            Plus encouraged via the polling booth they have never looked back proven by our present condition as a nation.

        3. To put on my Peddy hat, I think you mean “faits accompli”. (Peddy will let me know if I am right or not.)

          1. I wrote in the plural. If we take the French grammatical spelling, then both words should be in the plural, with the ‘s’ suffix. If we anglicise it, then if it were hypnenated, the ‘s’ should be at the end as in ‘fait-accomplis’, strictly in non-poetic English, the supporting verb should be before the noun as in ‘accompli faits’, again with no need to agree the two words. While there is no equivalent in British English, Americans would use the expression ‘done deal’.

            I personally consider it an unanglicised French expression, so both words should agree grammatically.

        4. I am sure that’s why she ended up with vascular dementia: she was just too driven.
          She unwittingly sacrificed her health to sort out a largely ungrateful country.

      2. 323679+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        Besides his treachery his dress sense needed addressing after addressing a curry, put paid to taking him seriously in many ways.

      3. Using the words ‘John Major’ and ‘integrity’ in the same sentence is dubious, just ask Edwina Currie.

        1. Or even more so, Clare Latimer, who he happily threw to the Press wolves.
          Or his wife, the man’s a creep.

          1. It may well have been, Peddy. However it is the very existence of the affair which shows a lack of integrity on his part.

      4. Have you forgotten his handy wisdom tooth crisis?
        Mind you the word ‘wisdom’ when applied to Major or his back teeth seems an ill fit.

    4. “But this way of negotiating, with reason cast aside in pursuit of ideology and cavalier bombast posing as serious diplomacy, is irresponsible, wrong in principle and dangerous in practice.” – but that’s enough about the EU negotiating strategy, what’s their opinion about the UKs?

    5. It tells one a lot, that these two former leaders of supposedly diametrically opposed political parties are singing off the same hymn sheet, with their robber masks on of course.

        1. Indeed.
          And why are all the little old men not catching it? ‘Cos they dead already.
          Note the vertical scale is quite small.
          (This data from August 14 2020)

          1. There ain’t so many little old men, women still live longer.
            Edit; I see you answered your own question.

      2. Morning, Paul.

        It is my guess that there is a larger number of female deaths recorded in the 90+ age group for no other reason than women, in general, have a longer lifespan than men.

  6. Morning all

    SIR – Having spent part of my police career training officers, I am astonished at the invention of the role of “Covid marshal”.

    To issue a member of the public with a yellow tabard is meaningless unless appropriate structures exist. How will marshals be selected, who will vet them and what level of training will they receive? To whom will they answer and how will they be held accountable?

    The police should be concerned by this delegation of their duties, and members of the public should be equally worried that local government employees or well-meaning volunteers could be given such power over them.

    Louis Fletcher

    Tavistock, Devon

    1. Who is going. by themselves, to tell a group of youths, in the darkening evenings, hoodies up and face covered, that they have to break up and go home? Hospital anyone?

    3. It just adds to the air of panic, divides the population and provides another step on the road to the Slave State!

  7. SIR – A friend was recently referred by her GP to her local hospital to have her ears syringed (Letters, September 6). The hospital has offered her a telephone appointment to carry out the procedure.

    Would it be churlish to wonder exactly what the £33 million so courageously raised by Captain Sir Tom Moore has been spent on?

    Stewart Keating

    Surbiton, Surrey

    SIR – Last Saturday evening I left England for France. Half-way across the Channel I realised that I had left all my medication at home. On Sunday evening a friend in the south-west 
told me not to worry: he would arrange something.

    On Monday morning I received an email telling me that I had an appointment with his GP that afternoon. Masks and a locked front door were the only concessions to coronavirus. Telephone conversations overheard while I was waiting indicated that appointments were available from two days ahead.

    How are the French managing to provide this level of service while Britain’s GPs are barely functioning?

    Dr Pamela Taor

    Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex

    SIR – The problems that some patients have experienced with the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic are indeed lamentable.

    However, I have recently spent a week in hospital after becoming seriously ill during the night. I was taken by ambulance to A&E, where treatment was immediate and first-class. The following day I had no 
 fewer than four major scans to determine the problem, together with daily blood tests. I have two follow-up scans next week to check my condition.

    Incidentally, the hospital was completely full and the staff magnificent, I cannot praise the NHS enough.

    Julia Dowling

    Dulverton, Somerset

    1. Morning!

      “Completely full”. So Julia Dowling was also given an inspection tour of the wards? She doesn’t name the hospital either.

      1. Good day, Our Susan.

        I can confirm that the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital was full when I was there a month ago. The shortage of available beds was one of the reasons I was moved five times in seven days.

        1. Nothing to do with other patients objecting because your breathing difficulties made them think that you had Covid?

      2. I think it indicates how reliant the services available on the NHS is subject to the Postcode Lottery.

    2. Another covid stone hitting its target. This is the great re-set for the nhs. We are on our way to non-socialised health via insurance. But not until we have all had our enforced socialised vaccinations, of course.

    3. “Britain’s GPs are barely functioning”
      Seen from here, that’s more accurate.
      Morning, all Y’all.

    4. The wage bill for a month of Public Health England.

      Ms Dowling has encountered the medical side of the NHS – which is, one arrogant radiographer aside (he suggested a shattered knee wasn’t important enough to come in to hospital with on a Sunday and I should have waited until convenient for him) isn’t bad.

      However attached to the medical side like a limpet is the bureaucracy, whose sole interest is to cost money, be inefficient, expensive and soak resources from the medical aspect.

      If the medical aspect were left alone with a much smaller, more efficient administrative element broken away from the monolithic and beloved (by the state) nature of central control we would get a far more efficient health service.

    5. A&E usually is pretty good; it’s if you’re waiting for routine treatments that it can get dodgy.

  8. Morning again

    SIR – It is madness to regard the scientific collections made by Charles Darwin during his voyage to South America on HMS Beagle, and now kept in the Natural History Museum, as “problematic”.

    The expedition may have been to “enable greater British control” in the region, but Darwin went as a scientist, not a colonialist. He 
argued with its leader, Captain Robert FitzRoy, who he said “defended and praised slavery, which I abominated”, and indeed feared that he would be compelled to leave the ship.

    On leaving Brazil, he said: “Thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think 
 that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty”.

    Black Lives Matter must surely consider that statement admirable, not offensive.

    Peter Saunders

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    SIR – Why don’t we just burn all our history books and start again at Year One?

    David Vincent

    Cranbrook, Kent

    1. Mr Vincent, this is what the Left want to do, now and forever. No future, no past, just a permanent, controlled now where with no progress, no change, everything is mutable to their wishes.

  9. RAF fighter jets intercept Russian aircraft off Scottish coast. 13 September 2020.

    RAF fighter jets have intercepted two Russian aircraft off the coast of Scotland.

    The Eurofighter Typhoons were scrambled into action after the Tupolev Tu-142 planes “entered the UK’s controlled zone of international airspace”, the Ministry of Defence said.

    Gonna be a chilly Christmas in Scotland! They appear to have moved it inside the Arctic Circle!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-raf-typhoon-uk-airspace-scotland-lossiemouth-b432694.html

    2. TU 142 – aka “Bear”. Big propeller plane, with contrarotating propellers. Noisy as you can get.

        2. Everybody gets to play the game and justify their budgets. What fun, rushing about the sky in a jet plane (the poor old Soviets have to make do with propellers, shame)

          1. Those were the days! Out of Bardufoss and up to Kautokeino to wake up the locals. All very important NATO business keeping the Ruskies at bay, of course.

        3. Nice picture. Just routine. The pilots wave to each other. Yes, really. They have been doing this for half a century.

    3. No, it is just Global Warming. It will be chilly. The signs are there. A miserable summer with little warmth and no heat retained. I suspect that the Gulf Stream is having some time off.

  12. Front page of The Sunday Grimes – woke weeping about the “Lesbos victims” – and how despicably they are treated (after deliberately setting fire to their camp).

    Better, however, about two-thirds of the way down: “Pretty Polly is a pain”. Unconsciously reporting the feeling of many NoTTLers.

    1. Had a BTL comment in the local rag removed by the mods as hate speech when I commented that, since they burned their camp, they can sleep outdoors until they rebuild it – why should the Greeks rebuild something these ungrateful scumbags destroyed?

      1. I had some thoughts on that; since they burnt their own camp and are hindering the building of a new one in their attempts to be relocated to the mainland, why not charter one of the redundant cruise liners, welcome them all aboard with promises of a mainland port and take them to Syria? It is the mainland!

    3. If Europe is so very bad then surely the places the illegals wish to leave must be even worse?

      Why aren’t the wokes directing their attention towards the places and regimes from which the illegal immigrants to Europe are trying to escape.

      1. Where do you think our £15 billion per annum foreign aid is targeted? Which it misses and heads off the the Cayman Islands.

    2. This can be connected to very many things by analogy. It makes you think about the motivations of our politicians on Covid and also the motivations of the EU negotiators.

    3. Although Hitler was democratically elected, many people were opposed to him. And so he needed to unite the Germans. It is much easier to unite people against a cause than in favour of one… so the Jews became the scapegoat against which the Germans united, whipped up by Hitler’s rhetoric.

      So scary… and so easily repeated.

  14. SIR – I read with interest Joe Shute’s article about rosebay willowherb, which appeared on sites bombed during the Second World War.

    I still call it Blitzweed – a name I learnt from my parents, who lived in much-bombed Manchester during the Forties.

    Susan Sinagola
    Antrobus, Cheshire

    Natural wonders to spot this week: the curious flower that emerged from the rubble of the Blitz
    Our regular ‘What to Spot’ column highlights the British flora and fauna to seek out. This week, rosebay willowherb

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/natural-wonders-spot-week-curious-flower-emerged-rubble-blitz/

    I am always amazed to see them growing in swathes along roadside banks, they are cheerful happy plants , but how do they get there?

  15. 323679+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    40% of Parents Don’t Want LGBT Lessons for 6-Year-Olds, Pollsters Say They Must Be ‘Persuaded’.
    Only 40% ? very suss.
    Persuaded = forced in the world of honest rhetoric.

  16. Students at RADA have said George Bernard Shaw’s name should be removed from its theatre over his support of eugenics.

    The call is included in an anti-racism action plan that also says received pronunciation should be “de-centred” from the curriculum. The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art should also consider dropping the performance of Restoration comedies due to their association with empire, the plan says.

    “Master and servant” exercises should no longer be included in improvisation classes because they are racially insensitive, according to the recommendations, while singing lessons should be overhauled because the composers studied “are almost entirely white men”.

    RADA, based in London, has promised to take action on the plan after admitting earlier in the summer that the drama school “has been and currently is institutionally racist”. It said it recognised the need for “urgent and fundamental learning and change”.

    RADA admitted in the summer that the drama school ‘has been and currently is institutionally racist’
    RADA admitted in the summer that the drama school ‘has been and currently is institutionally racist’
    The anti-racism action plan was drawn up by RADA’s student body in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

    It says “RADA celebrates historical figures who embraced racist ideologies” and calls for the renaming of the George Bernard Shaw Theatre, saying: “This man spoke in support of eugenics and fascism.”

    Shaw, the acclaimed playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was one of the early members of RADA’s council, joining in 1911.

    Since his death in 1950, one third of royalties have gone to the school, making him one of its most important benefactors. Royalties from his work, including Pygmalion and its musical adaptation, My Fair Lady, contributed £78,000 to the institution in 2019-20. But the bequest ends this year, when the 70-year copyright term expires.

    Towards the end of his life, he developed a keen interest in eugenics, writing: “The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.” Other figures of the time, including HG Wells and Bertrand Russell, shared his interest.

    In 1935, Shaw voiced praise for Hitler and also expressed admiration for Stalin and Mussolini.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/12/students-call-george-bernard-shaws-name-removed-rada-theatre/

    Leftie orientated Luvvies are shooting themselves in their own foot! (feet? no, foot)

    1. “Since his death in 1950, one third of royalties have gone to the school, making him one of its most important benefactors“- presumably they will be returning all of that tainted money!??

      1. And Bristol will be making reparations and returning all the Colston money to his descendants.
        All the Rhodes scholars will be handing back £millions to their college.

      2. I hope not, my mother won the top scholarship of her year at RADA.

        As a descendant of a beneficiary whom I have no doubt Bames would love to come to for reparations, I don’t have the money to repay that.

    2. “Since his death in 1950, one third of royalties have gone to the school, making him one of its most important benefactors“- presumably they will be returning all of that tainted money!??

  17. ‘Gates of Vienna’ reports:

    ‘Sixteen members of the Bundestag for Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc have
    called for the relocation of 5,000 displaced Moria refugees to Germany.
    Meanwhile, France has agreed to take 400 of them, while Germany and the
    Netherlands will take 100 children.’

    If true, it means the arsonists have got their way with transfer to countries more to their liking. Expect more of the same.

    https://gatesofvienna.net/

    1. Think of the children… May Bulman in the Independent, “The UK government is being urged to act without delay to offer sanctuary to some of the thousands of asylum seekers left stranded following a fire on the Greek island of Lesbos, including unaccompanied minors with family members in Britain.”
      Does that mean the grown-ups abandoned the children in order to see themselves all right?

      1. Germany, France and Netherlands. Not too far to travel to their true intended destination country from there.

  18. An article in The Grimes today by someone whom I often find childish and irritating – but has his finger right on the pulse:

    “The government’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, has your life, your children’s future and Boris Johnson’s testicles in his hands. This makes him the most powerful man in the country right now. And, possibly, the most dangerous.

    When the coronavirus first appeared on the scene, there was a genuine sense of panic, and many were reassured to hear that Boris was following carefully considered scientific advice from a respected epidemiologist such as Whitty. Better, in tough times, to be guided by someone who knows what he’s talking about than someone who can’t always tuck his shirt in properly.

    Now, of course, our priorities have changed. Yes, after a prolonged lull, Covid staged something of a comeback last week, but as the number of deaths has dropped dramatically, there’s no great worry at the moment that the NHS will be overwhelmed or that your fat dad won’t make it to next weekend.

    There is, however, a very great worry that the economy is on the brink of collapse and that if we end up with five million on the dole, there will be some troubling social unrest. Boris, therefore, doesn’t want to cancel Christmas or employ busybodies to make sure their neighbours aren’t having too many friends round. Quite the opposite. He wants us all to go to the office tomorrow, and to the theatre as soon as possible. He wants to see town centres full of people and schools full of kids doing something other than washing their bloody hands.

    But he can’t say any of that too loudly, because if he does, Whitty will resign, and that’s quite the last thing the Tories need right now. Having a disgruntled ex-wife telling all your friends that you squeak like a bat when you make love is bad. But having a disgruntled former chief medical officer telling everyone who’ll listen that if we ditch the social distancing and abandon facemasks, there’ll be a second spike and millions will die in screaming agony is far worse. And can you even begin to imagine the brouhaha if it turns out he’s right? Boris will no longer be a simple racist in the eyes of the left. He’ll be a murderer too.

    This means we are paralysed. The rest of the world is coming out from behind the curtains and opening up its patisseries and beaches, but here the universities are closed, the civil service is barely functioning, there’s no plaster for your kitchen extension and we are being led by a group of people who are terrified of not doing what Whitty wants. Which is for you to spend the rest of your life avoiding your parents and only having sex with yourself.

    To make things even more complicated, Boris really did say, very often, that following the science was the right thing to do. This means people are bound to ask: “So why isn’t it the right thing to do now?”

    I’ll tell you why. Following science is a fool’s errand, because science is like mercury. You can never quite get hold of it properly. You think you have it nailed, and then you learn something that proves you don’t. The Earth is flat, eugenics will be the death of us all, an ice age is coming, thalidomide is the cure for morning sickness, there are canals on Mars, Pluto is a planet, light propagates through a medium called the aether, California is an island and the planet is expanding.

    Scientists told us all these things over the years, and then along came more scientists who said that the original scientists were wrong. As Albert Einstein once said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

    Stephen Hawking was not stupid. He was generally considered to be the brightest physicist for a generation, and he spent the first half of his life working on a theory about singularities and event horizons and the beginning of everything. And the second half proving himself wrong.

    This is why I always roll my eyes when a global warmingist tells me that she has science on her side. Yes, the vast majority of scientists are in agreement that man’s fondness for electricity is causing global warming and that this is a bad thing. But it’s virtually certain that the scientists will change their minds. It’s what scientists do.

    There is no such thing as “proof” in science. Just “evidence”. And so we are sitting here, trying to drink through a paper straw and then walking to the shops for some sustainable yoghurt, and maybe that’s wrong. Maybe global warming is a good thing and we are actually holding back a bright new dawn.

    The quest for scientific discovery is never-ending. You have a theory. You find clues that suggest your theory is right. You invite your peers to study your workings-out, and if they agree that you have a point, your theory becomes fact. Until another fact comes along that shows it to be nonsense. The only truth in science is that there are no truths. Ever.

    And yet here we are, stultified by scientific research into Covid that’s already six months out of date. Everything has moved on. New questions are being asked. Some are saying that herd immunity in Sweden seems to be working. Others are wondering out loud why India has such a low mortality rate. Could vegetarianism have something to do with it? Or are they just not adding up the numbers properly?

    Time and patient study will reveal all the answers, and then further time and further patient study will prove those first answers to be wrong. And in the midst of all this debate and research there will be the legacy of Whitty. Thanks to him, Great Britain will be a ruined and bleak grey rock in the North Sea, its toothless people lining up in wartime coats outside soup kitchens, its industry gone, its financial hub home to nothing but foxes and deer, its theatres dusty and broken. And on its tombstone: “We followed the science.””

    Jeremy Clarkson.

    1. Morning Bill

      The way I see things here , is that Britain has now embraced diversity , and has absorbed many different cultures .

      The third world is camped in Britain , our cities are coarse common and rough as are some of our towns … Chav culture and diversity have aided and abetted this virus .

      Airports and seaports are allowing anyone in , and illegal boat people are clambering over the beaches in South East England with great vigour .

      I shudder to think of the horror of a second spike , to know that all of those who we know , hitting the floor like dead flies , because they have come into contact with selfish super spreaders .

      Celebrity wallahs are going to protest , they have to put up with the inconvenience of not being in the public eye, and no dosh!

      Tough titty , but I want to see a few more Springs and Summers.. as I have since reaching my three score years and ten and 3 more !

      1. Worry ye not, Maggie dear. All will be well. The Plague will not kill many more people – and those it does were prolly on the way out, anyway.

        As for the slammers – there is nothing you or I can do about it – so put it out of your mind.

      2. Britain hasn’t “embraced” diversity, it’s had it imposed upon it. Most cultures have not been absorbed at all – some cultures actively fight being absorbed and intend to annihilate the indigenous culture.

    2. Chris Whitty knows Bill Gates from 2008, SAGE has been stuffed with Gates’ reps and Boros Moonshot and Handycock are personal friends of Gates.

      What could possibly go wrong ?

    3. Glad I didn’t see the author’s name until I’d finished reading. I wouldn’t have read it if I’d known, but not bad at all.

      1. Quite – I read his piece last week (out of sheer boredom) and was surprised; so I thought I’d risk him today.

        1. When I was commuting to Athens weekly, on Sunday mornings, I whiled away the time with the papers. I always found his articles entertaining.

          I never particularly enjoyed Top Gear.

    5. JC has always written some very good articles. Viewers/readers are split practically 50/50 on whether they find him childish and boorish or unPC and funny (I’m in the latter group).

      One thing in the piece that irked me – we’re not using paper straws because of global warming but because we need to stop using single use plastics because of the damage to the environment and ecology.

      1. He uses hyperbole. The BTL comments are roughly equally divided by those who agree and those who bitterly disagree.

          1. There is of course the second childhood, when one takes pleasure in simple, long-forgotten things like drinking with a straw.

      3. A comment that my hairdresser and I made the other day. She used to use reusable gowns, now she has to swathe me in bin liner plastic to do the same job.

  20. Morning all, great family day for my birthday yesterday.
    Thanks for all the BD wishes and kind thoughts.
    I played nine holes in the morning with our three boys i went round in 37 that’s only 4 over and had a few duff shots and way would putts.
    Lovey family gathering for lunch, nice presents. I did drink too much wine, it’s the Tom Jones syndrome. Finished the evening off in the lower end of the garden around my wood burner.
    Now off to chop pulp and press three large buckets of apples for the cider.

    Just one thing,…………. WTF has Blair and Major and Brown got to do with Brexit, they had their chances and both monumentally stuffed things up. Mainly by secretly signing documents they not on person in the UK had a chance to vote on. All three purveyors of mistruths on a monumental scale. They along with many others probably committed treason in some shape or form.

  21. Mail to a Conservative MP………….

    Just discovered that Theresa May will not publish her memoirs.

    There’s a surprise. After years of likely Soros alignment, it would obviously be impossible to tell the whole story!

    By the way, did you ever discover where that approx $1,250,000 plus expenses for just 8 free to attend identical speeches actually came from?

    I wonder if it was laundered through universities and other institutions by Uncle George?

    Just by coincidence of course, Bill Clinton was the next speaker up from her at the Rhode Island uni for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he’s one of the world’s biggest laundromats!

    Polly

  22. Covid marshals? It’s a deeply alarming notion. 12 September 2020.

    BELOW THE LINE.

    Carpe Jugulum11 Sep 2020 10:01PM.

    I retired from policing after thirty years, twenty five as a detective. I have just retired from fifteen years of teaching biology in sixth form colleges so know a little more about SARS-CoV-2 than any ‘Marshall’ or indeed cabinet member. A few pointers regarding interactions with these ‘Marshalls’ –

    You are under no obligation whatsoever to engage with them.

    Under no circumstances whatsoever give them your details.

    They have no power to detain you in any way. Any physical contact they initiate is an assault.

    They may call the police. You are not required to wait around for them to arrive.

    If you are visited later by the police ( traced by registration of car etc ) DO NOT admit you were the person spoken to and DO NOT answer any questions relating to the incident.

    If the police arrive when you are being spoken to and like me you are retired and disinclined to cooperate with this nonsense then refuse to give your details to the officer. You do NOT commit an offence doing so but you may be arrested.

    If you are arrested and were having a boring day anyway continue to refuse to give your details. That should get you kept in custody to appear before the next magistrates court.

    Go on hunger strike. The food is utterly dreadful and you will be missing nothing anyway.

    Refuse to give your details to the court but inform them that you will also be refusing to pay any fines or costs.

    The likelihood is that you will be sentenced to ‘time served’ and released. If you have really upset them you may get the day in custody ie held until the court finishes sitting.

    Happy civil disobedience!

    Morning everyone. A little friendly advice for tomorrow from Carpe Jugulum!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/11/covid-marshals-deeply-alarming-notion/

    1. Morning AS – Interesting but not the advice I will follow. I will not waste police time nor lie to them.

    3. Good morning, Minty, it’s amazing what you learn on this site. And who’da thunk that you are really formally Detective Constable Archibald Leach (PC 49)!

    4. Could have a second opinion on this, please, Bill? Does this apply equally in Scotland? Will you get your head bashed in for being bolshie?

    1. Happy Birthday, Anne! Sung so loudly from up country that you’re bound to hear it. Or wonder why the klaxons are going off or something.

    4. You must remember, John. I was holding your Rs like this, you had your underpants on your head as usual and I said “You don’t have any balls either. What a coincidence”.

  25. Oh look… it’s happened again !

    ”Tony Blair and Sir John Major accuse Boris Johnson of ‘embarrassing our nation’ and bringing shame on the UK over his plans to tear up parts of the Brexit divorce deal”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8727361/Tony-Blair-Sir-John-Major-attack-Boris-Johnson-Brexit-plans.html

    Have you noticed how Major, Blair, Brown and May suddenly pop up to sing praises to the EU and Global Government ?

    They remind me of Switzerland where little figures every hour chime, bow and pirouette… and in their case, it’s surely George Soros who is winding up their cuckoo clocks!

      3. I cannot understand why Edwina Currie was prepared to abase herself by going to bed and having sex with this completely excremental piece of subhuman filth.

        Maybe now would be the time for her to republish her account of the story of their sordid affair in order to highlight the hypocrisy of this repulsive individual.

        2. They went to bed? I heard she gave him a knee trembler in his office.

          Can you imagine the furtive eye contact preceding congress? Pass the sick bag.

    3. Traita May, David Cameron, Michael Howard, William Hague and John Major – would prefer the United Kingdom’s territorial integrity to be destroyed by the EU’s machinations rather than to support the current prime minister in his determination not to let this happen?

      This should be broadcast loud and clear by the BBC – but it will not be.

        1. Why not – and of course paid for by the EU once Britain no longer has to contribute one penny piece to it?

        2. Customs posts are not needed, as has been explained many times. All around the world, tariffs are collected ‘behind the lines’. There is already an electronic paper border in Ireland for currency and tax. Adding tariffs is not difficult.

    5. Sometimes fingernails and hair continue to grow after a person has died. These evolutionary remnants are obsolete, having very little function, if any.
      They don’t know that the body is dead, the lights have gone out, the heart has ceased to beat and the brain activity has fizzled to nothing.
      Meet John Fingernail and Tony Hair.

        1. thanks… My point was about being rude about the MajorBlair team, not about postmortem bodily anomaly, real to imaginary. Although I shall be keeping my extremities trimmed, just in case.
          Not to mention that I will prefer a mausoleum that open from the inside, in case of premature burial.

    1. 323679+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      The lab/lib/con coalition party have certainly had a success of carrying forward lenny boys teachings without a doubt Og.

  30. Good morning, all. Grey and strong breeze. Not the hot sunshine that was promised.

    Incidentally, the MR was on a long international skype yesterday. One of the participants was in Santa Fe. It had snowed the previous night…

    3. The police are of the people, and the people the police.

      Get up man. You disgrace the uniform and have no right to wear it. If you want to kneel, go ahead – but not while you’re representing me.

    4. The police are of the people, and the people the police.

      Get up man. You disgrace the uniform and have no right to wear it. If you want to kneel, go ahead – but not while you’re representing me.

  32. Russian missile “could circle the globe for years”.

    Russia is developing a nuclear-powered missile that can fly around the Earth for years on end ready to strike at any moment, the chief of defence intelligence has warned.

    Lt Gen Jim Hockenhull said Russia was “pushing the boundaries of science and international treaties” in developing novel weapons, as he outlined the threats upon which the Government’s forthcoming defence review will be based. In the first media briefing in the Five Eyes intelligence hub at RAF Wyton, Cambs, he said: “Moscow is testing a subsonic nuclear-powered cruise missile system which has global reach and would allow attack from unexpected directions.” Given its nuclear power source, the missile would provide “a near-indefinite loiter time”.

    The ‘suicide’ story of lemmings is a fiction created by Walt Disney’s film-making crews. Their desire for ‘self-destruction’ is nothing but a made-up nonsense.

    Humans, however, without a shadow of doubt possess a strong impulse and proclivity for self-annihilation.

      1. White Wilderness contains a scene that supposedly depicts a mass lemming migration, and ends with the lemmings leaping into the Arctic Ocean. The narrator of the film states that the lemmings are likely not committing suicide, but rather are in the course of migrating, and upon encountering a body of water are attempting to cross it. If the body of water the lemmings encounter is too wide, they can suffer exhaustion and drown as a result.

        Although the staging of the lemming scene was legal in 1958, it is unlikely to have been authorized or approved by Walt Disney himself. Wiki

        Hollywood, climate change fanatics and politicians – Making millions out of the easily lead with lies, threats and unfulfilled promises.

    3. It is a ‘surprise’ missile. It travels in low orbit with just enough power output to keep it in the sky. After a few years the power runs out and the missile falls to Earth. The device is triggered by air pressure and detonates. It is a surprise as no one knows in advance where the will be, not even the Russians.

      1. What you are implying, then, is that it could fall to earth at any time, and disappear up Putin’s bum?

        Has he thought that one through?

      1. 323679+ up ticks,
        B3,
        As of yet it is NOT compulsory to follow, following strange treacherously misguided peoples has brought us nothing by woe, take for an example supporting / voting continually for the lab / lib / con coalition…….

    1. The ones on the right are just thugs. Nasty, spiteful, typically Left wing fascists.

      Comically they think they’re the heroes when really they’re the enemy we all must fight against – as we have throughout history.

    2. We can all remember a Conservative leader’s Hug a Hoodie speech.
      Is it time to issue another maxim?:

      Hug a ******

      But what?

  34. Killer whales launch ‘orchestrated’ attacks on sailing boats. 13 September 2020.

    Scientists have been left baffled by incidents of orcas ramming sailing boats along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts.

    In the last two months, from southern to northern Spain, sailors have sent distress calls after worrying encounters. Two boats lost part of their rudders, at least one crew member suffered bruising from the impact of the ramming, and several boats sustained serious damage.

    The latest incident occurred on Friday afternoon just off A Coruña, on the northern coast of Spain. Halcyon Yachts was taking a 36ft boat to the UK when an orca rammed its stern at least 15 times, according to Pete Green, the company’s managing director. The boat lost steering and was towed into port to assess damage.

    This is it. They are finally pissed off. This is the Orca’s revenge!

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/13/killer-whales-launch-orchestrated-attacks-on-sailing-boats

    3. Can we persuade Rishi to provide the funds to hire them and train them to attack illegal rubber dinghies heads for our coasts?
      CORRECTION: For “heads” read “headed”.

    4. They are hungry and very stressed out.

      There are too many yachts , motorboats, engine noises , I am certain our poor marine creatures are having a difficult time.

      1. Good morning Maggiebelle

        I do not have much sympathy for those who wish to attack my way of life and beliefs – such as Muslims, politicians, climate change fantasists, wokes etc. – and I do not have much sympathy for creatures that attack my boat!

    1. “We’ll never let those who seek to divide us win.”

      Right sentiment, wrong subject.

      Starmer certifies himself as a virtue-signalling idiot.

      1. Khan is the one who divides us. The man is a wretched failure. Arrogant, stupid, obstinate, self obsessed with his own grandeur despite the obviousness of his utter failure.

        Both men are morons. Khan’s a dangerous whelp who, without the massive welfare dependent Muslim voting bloc would never see office.

    1. Good morning, ogga

      “That the truth should be silent I had almost forgot.”

      (Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra)

    2. Good morning, ogga

      “That the truth should be silent I had almost forgot.”

      (Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra)

      1. 323679+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        That the truth should be MADE silent……… is more currently apt methinks.

  39. OT – just back from my afternoon bike ride. Along the lanes are several large oak trees. There are huge quantities of acorns – many more than in an average year. Is this glut caused by the Plague, I wonder?

    1. So glad you enjoyed your bike ride Bill.

      There are zillions of acorns and sweet chestnuts, holly berries , sloe berries , hips haws and hazel nuts.

      There don’t seem to be many horse chestnuts , crab apples ..

      A hard winter ahead, who knows.

      2. Nuts and fruits are the result of good conditions in the spring and summer not a prediction of a hard winter. We had a mild winter, warm sunny spring and a generally benign summer. So good growing conditions.

        We also missed the usual gathering of the martins on the wires – where were they?

      2. Have you ever seen Bill? He is extremely lithe and fit and I suspect he has a far better figure than most of us here.

          6. I have never been more than 73 kg in my whole life. I used to be 6 ft – but since Laddergate am now 5 ft 9½ in.

        2. Yes, i have seen pictures of Bill. Obviously i am suffering a humour malfunction today and will deactivate. We are glad to have been of service.

  40. Last night of FREEDOM……!
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html

    Where are our Freedom Fighters….?
    What happened to our rebellious teenagers, radicals and frustrated young people. Do they not question the government’s actions anymore…..are they woke or awake?
    If they roll over, lie down and do nothing we are in serious trouble…

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

    1. Too much female hormones in the water these days for people to grow a decent pair and revolt. Instead, the people are just revolting. The population has been turned into a submissive mush with any nutty alien ideology accepted without question. Hope your visit to the fish counter worked out. I imagine that the only choice soon will be rainbow Trout to show support for our health services and the keyboard of wierdos.

      1. I haven’t read what you said – I can’t get past the opening four words.

        Either of these would have been better.
        Too many female hormones or
        Too much female hormone

        1. Depends: are the hormones the result of the residue of various versions of the Pill being excreted (too many) or are we referring just to ‘The Pill’ and covering all eventualities (too much)?
          I wonder if the late Mrs. Lock is looking down her former pupil and nodding her approval or will she deduct ten house points?

        2. Been out in the magnificent sunshine!. Yes, I looked twice at that. I thought that it was your option two, but I decided that hormone was plural. It needs completely rewriting but there is a garden to be sat in.

          1. Oh well, in for a penny…

            It needs completely rewriting but there is a garden to be sat for sitting in.

      2. It might be and interesting search to reveal where most of the areas are in the country are that use recycled water.

    2. The young are rebelling by meeting up and enjoying themselves. Please continue to be young, because most of your life is being mature and responsible.
      I’ve never been to a rave and would hate it, but I’m so tempted to attend one. It would be a good way to check the efficiency of my metal mickey hip.

      2. Happy Birthday, Anne. And may you have many more to keep us informed and entertained.

        One is old for an awful lot longer than one is young, they should make the most of their years of youth.

      3. “Most of your life is being mature and responsible”.

        Oh bugger. Knew I was doing something wrong . . .

          2. Our younger son’s reaction when his daughter was born on September 1st.
            “Oh, Christ. Another Virgo to boss me around.”

    3. “To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family, tradition, national patriotism, and religious dogmas.”

      Dr George Brock Chisholm, who served as the first Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) from 1948 to 1953

      Good going Boros…. you and Gates are getting there !

    4. I had a chat with our eldest yesterday, i had sent all three emails to our sons that i posted here last week, highlighting all the terrible things going on in the world, they simply ignore it, i guess hoping it will all work out in the end.
      They all like cycling so i invented an analogy to cycling.
      Saying. Q. Okay your riding along a road and what do you do if you see a pot hole looming ?
      A. I ride around it.
      Q. Of course, but what do you do if next time the pot hole is wider ?
      A. Well i ride around it again.
      Q. What will you do when the road surface has become so potholed its has become too dangerous ?
      A. A shrug of the shoulders.
      Well this is what is happening in your lives now, you can’t keep ignoring the damage that’s being deliberately carried out in our culture and established society. Eventually in analogy you might have to ride on the wrong side of the road to reach a safe destination Therefore endangering your lives with oncoming traffic. Or raise the question with those in charge and keep up the pressure until the message of the road repair analogy becomes an important part of our future culture.
      All three are in management position in their jobs, hopefully it will be food for thought.

      2. Hmmm

        Good morning Eddy

        Just wondering , their management positions , will there be anyone left to manage /

        Did any of them follow you , their father in to the great creative skills you possess?

        Our 2 sons DIDN’T want to follow their father int the RN nor did they want to fly .

        Son no one has great apptitude and can turn his hand to many skills , he is an electrician , and son no 2 went to Ag college to study horiticulture , had his own little business for a while untill plug plants started arriving from Europe .. and everyone in the world then became garden experts !

        Eldest son has been working all the way through the Covid nonsense , and 2nd son is on furlough, now meant to be working for a large high street chain.

        1. Christo and Henry loved reading as children and indeed they both had some literary talent. However Christo is now an aerospace engineer with a passion for hang-gliding and his brother is working in computers and doing an M.Sc in computer technology.

          I was not able to follow in my own father’s footsteps because the British Administrative Service in the Sudan no longer exists!

        2. Electrician, a good job.
          and everyone in the world then became garden experts !
          It’s so annoying when you see people presenting themselves instead of getting their hands dirty. And gardening has become very snobby. When i see rich people saying I’ve created so and so …..they never knelt down or done so much as getting dirty hands ??
          When i ran my own building company and the boys were a lot younger i use to get them working during school holidays etc. I paid them, but always gave them the hard work. It might sound terrible. But it put them off the construction industry for life. Which was my intention. The trouble is TB when you are self employed and get injured, my back gave way with two ruptured discs in early 2003, i had to have a hip job in 2012, or ill and can’t work you have no income and it’s all very nice laying on a beach soaking up the sun but you have no holiday pay.
          One thing stuck in my mind the surgeon i saw for a much needed second opinion at Stanmore Mr Ben Taylor. Told me that i didn’t need an operation and he said most self employed people recover far more quickly. He was right.
          The eldest is Global production manager for a marine pump company until Corona he use travelled a lot overseas. Number two is CES sales director of a London based company, head office The Shard.
          Number three is senior sale adviser in new and completed building projects. Barratt Homes London. Some apartments are 500 k a bedroom.
          He went to Leeds Uni to study building surveying but had a terrible car accident and had to give it up. But he’s okay and has a lovey lady he lives with., near Stanmore. They are all working very hard but are doing well.
          One of my nephew’s followed his father one of my BiLs into the navy, after a stint on HMS Orkney, cod war fishing patrol off Iceland and serving on HMS Manchester, he became a lieutenant navigator on a mine hunter in the gulf war.
          I also had a cousin in the Navy, Subs.

    4. Not really unusual for a vastly over populated country like ‘England’ to be high in the charts.
      I suspect if Wales NI and Scotland where remove from the calculations it would look even more frightening.
      There are more people living in greater London than in the whole of Sweden.

      Happy Birthday Anne if its apt. 🥰

    5. Thanks for that, certainly seems to fit what we’ve seen. User friendly stats too. Happy birthday, Anne.

    7. Good morning Anne! Wishing you a very happy birthday and make sure it’s a good one! 🍾🎂🎉

    1. Anne 13th September
      Peddy 11th September
      Rastus 1st July
      Caroline 26th March

      P.S. (to which I shall add if more come in)

      Jeremy Morley 28th February
      Delboy 26th July
      Ped 29th February
      Poppiesmum 2nd January

      Any others wish to add their names to the Nottler list of birthday dates?

        1. Virgo – you are a very judgmental person. You really go out of your way to tell people uncomfortable truths they would rather stay away from, hide, or deny

          Trusted Psychic Mediums(snigger)

          1. Not at all. I celebrate on the 28th and also on the 29th every fourth year. Five birthdays in four years 🙂

      7. Mine is the 2 January….. everyone has a hangover or has started a diet. Very often nothing in the post either….!

    2. Yuck.
      I have to phone our surgery tomorrow regarding my upper respiratory infection. I always suffer this from the dregs of a common cold, which i started one week ago. I had exactly the same infection just before Christmas last year.
      If they wish for evidence i’ll drop a few used tissues in to the surgery mail box 😉

        1. Do you think i might get a better result if stand out side with a placard ? Citing mental health issues, using growly vowels and pouting.

          Our neighbour is a surgery receptionist i’ll ask her for some tricks of the trade. Fore warned and all that.

          3. How to deal with Medical Receptionists
            Ear Infection

            This is so true!

            They always ask at the surgery why you are there, and you have to tell them (in front of others) what’s wrong and sometimes it is embarrassing.

            There’s nothing worse than a Doctor’s Receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you in a room full of other patients.
            I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this old guy handled it.

            The 65-year-old man walked into a crowded waiting room and approached the desk.
            The Receptionist said, ‘Yes sir, what are you seeing the Doctor for today?’
            ‘There’s something wrong with my dick’, he replied.

            The receptionist became irritated and said, ‘You shouldn’t come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that.’

            ‘Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,’ he said.

            The Receptionist replied; ‘Now you’ve caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the Doctor in private.’

            The man replied, ‘You shouldn’t ask people questions in a roomful of strangers, if the answer could embarrass anyone. The man walked out, waited several minutes, and then re-entered.

            The Receptionist smiled smugly and asked, ‘Yes?’

            ‘There’s something wrong with my ear,’ he stated.

            The Receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice. ‘And what is wrong with your ear, Sir?’

            ‘I can’t piss out of it,’ he replied.

            The waiting room erupted in laughter…

            Mess with seniors and you’re going to Lose

          4. Like the man who went to the docs with earache. The doc said “Well the first thing you must do is stop playing with yourself” The man replied “Will that help then?” Doc said ” No, but you were upsetting the others in the waiting room”

  45. Another mail to a Conservative MP…………

    Reading your blog is always interesting, but it makes me think of a pilot restoring a lovely old British airplane……

    It’s all looking good with Brexit Air above the windows… and fitted with the powerful new Clause 38 engines, she’s all ready to go……

    Thing is, the airframe has had 23 years of soros immersion and is all corroded. ”Don’t waste my time” says the pilot, ”I’m not inclined to fix it because it’s too difficult, too embarrassing and the passengers will never know because I’ve covered it all up with paint!”

    Oh dear, no wonder the UK, and the Conservative Party, resemble a Max.

    Polly

  46. Up to 4.5million most at risk from Covid ‘will be told to stay home under new shielding plan based on health, age and weight’. 13 September 2020.

    Letters with tailored advice are to be sent to individuals based on a new ‘risk model’ which will factor in underlying health conditions, age, sex and weight.

    It comes amid a surge in coronavirus cases, with a rise of 3,497 yesterday – the highest Saturday uptick in four months. Another nine died of coronavirus, bringing Britain’s death toll to 41,623.

    Nine! My God! The end is nigh!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8727553/Up-4-5million-risk-Covid-told-stay-home-new-shielding-plan.html

    1. And of that nine I’ll be extremely suprised if they will not all have one or more of:

      Being over 75, Underlying health problems, being considerably overweight.

      1. 2019 = UK road deaths = 1,870.

        So 9 = roughly two days. Must do better by banning all road vehicles.

          2. 1941 was, by a country mile, the worst year for road casualties. However, that can be attributed to the “blackout” campaign of WWII.

          7. I filled up just before lockdown & the tank is still 1/4 full. The car went in for service on Saturday & they were amazed that I had driven just 1200 miles since last year.

  47. LETTER FROM MY M.P.

    Ahead
    of my usual monthly update on local issues I wanted to update you on
    the crucial votes happening in Parliament over the next few days.

    In the week ahead we have one of the most significant pieces of
    legislation starting to make its way through parliament since the
    General Election, in the form of the UK internal market bill (UKIM).
    This is the bill you will have read about in the media which says that
    the Government will be breaking the law by overturning the withdrawal
    deal we signed to leave the EU.

    However I want to make sure you are aware of some of the facts not being set out in the media.

    When the PM renegotiated Theresa Mays deal, he took out the dreaded
    backstop which kept Northern Ireland aligned with the EU and effectively
    broke up the United Kingdom. Instead outstanding issues around the NI
    situation were left aside to be later thrashed out by the Joint
    Committee set to oversee what is called the Northern Ireland Protocol.
    If in the event of a free trade agreement between us and the EU this
    Northern Ireland Protocol would not be needed. However as time marches
    on it is increasingly likely that it will be needed. Disappointingly
    though the joint committee, which is made up of UK and EU
    representatives, cannot come to an agreement on NI. In the withdrawal
    agreement the UK agreed that NI would stay in the EU single market but
    remain in the UK customs union. However the EU wont’t accept this now
    and say NI must be both within the EU single market and customs union.

    This would effectively break up the UK and is is a step too far and so
    the PM wants to bring in the UK internal market bill to ensure that NI
    remains in the UK customs union in the event of a deal not being agreed
    with the EU. Without this trade between the rest of the UK and NI would
    be subject to export declarations and tariffs. Would we accept this
    between Manchester and Birmingham?

    If we accept this proposal
    from the EU it would not only lead to the break up of the union but it
    would also jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern
    Ireland as the Unionist community could never accept this.

    While the UKIM legislation will change the withdrawal agreement so too
    would the EU proposal to take NI out of the UK customs union.

    On Monday the bill will get it’s second reading and during the rest of
    the week will be in committee stage where we will have several late
    night sittings thrashing this out. Preserving the Union is a red line
    for the Government.

    Ideally we won’t need this legislation as,
    for all sides, a free trade agreement would be the best outcome but
    this is an insurance policy in case that does not happen. We need the EU
    to also honour its commitment in the withdrawal agreement to allow
    Northern Ireland to stay in the UK customs market should a deal not be
    agreed.

    I will update you on events in Parliament when I send out my usual monthly e-news next week .

    with all good wishes

      1. So why are so many former leaders of the Conservative Party on the side of the EU rather than on the side of the UK and why are the BBC and MSM so generally anti the UK’s territorial integrity?

        It sounds like treason to me and I would not be at all unhappy to see May and Major in prison for starters.

        .

    1. If ever a book title was an apt description of a person, it is of Major – “The Man Who Never Was”.

    2. Interesting that they now stand on the same platform now especially how when Blair ripped the Conservatives apart using charges sleaze and corruption in the run up to the 97 election.

      1. Is there a greater hypocrite in politics than John Major?

        Mind you, the fact that Major and Blair are teaming up to try and destroy the territorial integrity of the UK will surely do Boris Johnson no end of good.

      2. He knew whereof he spoke.
        First incorporate the HRA into British law so wifey could earn a good wedge.

      3. Is there a greater hypocrite in politics than John Major?

        Mind you, the fact that Major and Blair are teaming up to try and destroy the territorial integrity of the UK will surely do Boris Johnson no end of good.

    6. Evil red staring eyes on Bliar and a ball sack for Major’s upper lip. Not sure the cartoonist cares for these two creeps.

  54. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/los-angeles-compton-police-shooting-footage-a4546276.html

    Will the woke storm the ghettos burning, killing and looting, demanding justice for the police?

    Nope.

    Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies are fighting for life after being shot in the city of Compton.

    Video footage of the attack shows an individual approaching the deputies’ car late on Saturday, before firing shots into the car and running away.

    Captain Kent Wegener, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), said at a news conference: “At this point we have a very very generic description of a dark-skinned male and that came from one the victims.”

    1. At this point we have a very very generic description of a dark-skinned male and that came from one the victims.

      RACIST!!!

  55. SIR – Arbitrary “emergency” road and lane closures (report, August 30) will not encourage people to get on their bikes. Most people simply need to feel safer when cycling.

    Local measures need local decisions. The best thing any central government can do is legislate to put the assumption of guilt on the driver in any vehicle-bike collision.

    The driver’s defence is a working dashcam. Dashcams are cheap, efficient and should be fitted to all new cars. Insurance companies can then tell drivers of older cars to fit one in order to be covered against cycle collision.

    Such a measure might sound like an extension of the surveillance state – but my right to cycle safely on public roads feels more important than my right not to be filmed while using them.

    Mike Wells
    Ickwell, Bedfordshire

    “Assumption of guilt”? What about “Innocent until proven guilty”?

    1. Arrogant bastard.

      How does placing the fault on the driver help cyclists cycle more safely?

      Why not take personal responsibilty for your actions Mr Wells.

    3. The assumption of guilt is now the position on Scotland, as far as I know. All cyclists are saints, and very stupid. Clearly if car driver has a collision on a country road, his best option is to destroy the cyclist’s headcam and kill the cyclist, and then drive off.
      This kind of biased greenies promoted nonsense is required because the Government will not separate cycles and motor vehicles. There are plenty of country roads which could br made cyclists and local access only, just as there are lanes, alley and back doubles in towns that could similarly be cycles and access only. The corollary would be that cyclists would not be permitted on any other roads at all. It is bizarre to see vehicles queuing for half a mile behind a cyclist on an A road. Some of these cyclists are not sportsmen in Lycra but wheezing, fat, dafties, struggling to reach the speed of treacle.

      1. I’m with you most of the way but the danger is that even more of them are driven onto footpaths which they regard as their own.

        1. Many of them are arrogant and act as if the law does not apply to them. Because police rarely take action, there is no curb on such behaviour.

    5. Indeed.
      I was told that, in a collision between a car and a camel, it was always the car driver at fault – as cars are not mentioned in the Koran.
      Same arseheaded logic. So, if the car driver is always to blame, that gives cyclist a free pass to be complete idiiots on wheels.
      Can we also say, by extrapolation, that in a collision between a cyclist and a pedestrian, that the cyclist is automatically at fault?

      1. Given the sheer idiocy and lack of common sense applied by some cyclists I’ve seen, it won’t be the car driver at fault. Swerving round traffic waiting at a red light and ignoring said stop signal to turn left into a stream of traffic is probably one of the less suicidal incidents I’ve witnessed.

  56. That is me gone – what a gorgeous day. And two more similar to follow. Make the most of it – there’ll be snow (as well as a million dead) by the end of September.

    A demain.

  57. The wheeling out of past prime ministers in support of staying in the EU when they were the ones that signed us up to all terrible treaties and gold plated all the EU directives doesn’t really help the remainer cause so much.

    1. But who knows that? Most Remainers have no clue about treaties, implications or that CAP determines what farmers get paid for growing.

  58. 300 years on, will thousands of women burned as witches finally get justice? Sun 13 Sep 2020 08.51 BST.

    Lawyer seeks pardon for 2,500 Scots who were tortured and killed in ‘satanic panic’ begun by James VI.

    It spanned more than a century and a half, and resulted in about 2,500 people – the vast majority of them women – being burned at the stake, usually after prolonged torture. Remarkably, one of the driving forces behind Scotland’s “satanic panic” was no less than the king, James VI, whose treatise, Daemonologie, may have inspired the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

    Now, almost 300 years after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, a campaign has been launched for a pardon for those convicted, an apology to all those accused and a national memorial to be created.

    There seems little doubt that there’s a social trend for useless gestures. This is probably because they require little commitment except time. The supposedly oppressed women of yesteryear like Florence Nightingale or Elizabeth Fry actually put their lives on the line to help others. What we have now are historical voyeurs with cheap principles and even less common sense. One can peruse any area of history and find some supposed injustice. They were as common as dirt. They were in fact the norm. Life was hard. Just surviving was a feat! We are coming to the end of an unprecedented period of peace and tranquillity in the west, brought at the cost of much blood in the last century. Soon there will be no need to seek injustice or oppression. We will all be a part of it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/13/300-years-on-will-thousands-of-women-burned-as-witches-finally-get-justice

    1. No, no, no! Don’t stop. They are still amongst us – mainly in the Scots Nat Party. Burn the witches!

    2. 4,000 years ago, “Pete Marsh” (aka “Lindow Man”) was garotted and left lying in a bog which preserved his body. His body now lies in state in the British Museum.

      I demand justice for “Pete” and compensation paid to his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren.

          1. Not many people procreated at 40. I based my generation on 25, which was probably good, especially for the BC half of that history, and most of the AD bit too.

            From Wiki: A generation is “all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively.” It can also be described as, “the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children.”

    3. I demand compensation for 12 years of a Labour government. Specifically, 50 years of pension contributions, the gold Brown sold off, the stock market damage and cumulative 8% interest rate returns every month on my savings.

      Call it a round £100K. Cough up Brown, you sick bag inducing liar.

    4. These pointless apologies for past misdeeds serve no useful purpose – except for virtue signallers. We are not responsible for the slave trade, witch burning or any of the other horrors of history. I feel no personal guilt whatsoever, so why apologise for something which happened, and cannot be changed? That is not to say that we should not remember and learn from them.

      1. Yes its quite pathetic. As it happened Britain did more to end the slave trade than any other country. Thats what counts.

      4. A very interesting read . The real history behind ‘Rule Britannia’
        In the 17th century the seas around Britain were ruled by North African Muslim Slavers. They stopped British ships and carried off the crews to be sold as slaves in Algiers and Tripoli.
        The situation became so bad that fishermen from Devon and Cornwall wouldn’t put out to sea in case they were captured by North African Slave Traders.
        Between 1609 and 1616, 466 British ships were captured by Slave Traders in the English Channel, Irish Sea and North Atlantic, and the crews were sold into slavery.
        In 1625 a raiding party landed at Mount’s Bay in Cornwall and 60 people who had taken refuge in a local church were dragged out, loaded up and taken off to Africa to be sold as slaves.
        On 12 August 1625 the Mayor of Plymouth wrote to London for military help after 27 ships had been seized by North African Muslim Slave Traders in just 10 days.
        In 1645, 240 people were seized as slaves in Cornwall.
        The situation only began to change after the end of the English Civil War when the Royal Navy was built up under Oliver Cromwell. By 1700, North African Slavers generally knew better than to bother the British Isles in the search for slaves because of the Royal Navy.
        It was a triumph that Britain was finally able to control its own coastal waters.
        It was in commemoration of this that in 1740, James Thompson wrote ‘Rule Britannia’.
        It is a hymn of thanksgiving rather than a proclamation of aggressive Nationalism.

        1. So that is the reason the bbc wanted it gone. They don’t want us to have any reminders of our past, not only because it is our history, and they want it destroyed, but because they don’t any of us ferreting around our history to discover that we, too, were once taken for slavery in a very brutal manner to foreign climes. That would ruin the narrative. After all, we have to bear the guilt of being slave-masters-in-chief (even though we were not).

          1. See my post above – none of us here today should feel or bear any guilt for the misdeeds of the past.

          2. N – I don’t. My grandfather was given a 3 month prison sentence back in 1918 (he would be 46) for a debt – I do not feel any guilt or responsibility for it; it was 30 years before I was born and under any circumstances it was his responsibility and his alone. Today it would not gave been a crime, however it had enormous ramifications for our family. One cannot be responsible for the actions of another, independent person. I feel no guilt over slavery, none whatsoever at all, and neither should anyone else, anywhere. It was of its time, a different time, with different values, and that is where it should stay – in the past.

          3. True, but let us not forget that slavery is still occurring in the present day, even in this country.

    1. What is giving people immunity is the fact that IT IS OVER, as per Anne’s posted video yesterday.

    2. There’s absolutely no logic there whatsoever. You become immune to a virus through exposure, contagion and then developing immunity.

      You DO NOT develop immunity by using false efforts to prevent infection.

    4. Following your link I discovered that in addition to antibodies and T-cells we’ve also got B-cells in our bone marrow which remember if we’ve had COVID and if so triggers killer cells to destroy the reoccurring alien pathogens.

      Here’s an introduction:

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459471/

      Specifically The B Cells have the ability to transform into plasmocytes and are responsible for producing antibodies (Abs). Thus, humoral immunity depends on the B Cells while cell immunity depends on the T Cells.

      Humoral here means that B Cells are in your body fluids as distinct from your cells.

    5. If that is the case, then everyone should wear face masks all the time, for ever, in order to protect against all other viruses, not just COVID-19.

      2. Also no driving in case accidents happen, no running water in case a child drowns in the bath, and no knives at all in case those of us now completely cut off from the rest of humanity decide to end it all.

    1. And yet not even the few decent members of the Conservative Party have had the strength of their convictions to leave the party and form a new genuine, right of centre Conservative Party.

      The decent members of UKIP, the Brexit Party and the Conservative Party should be capable of uniting for a common cause greater than their own petty little squabbles..

      1. 323679+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Anne,
        Yes I read that, horrific,
        The perpetrators then had a following & sad to say would still find one now … in the UK

    2. Also worth pointing out this: https://nypost.com/2020/08/30/blm-activists-celebrated-as-trump-supporter-killed-devine/

      Comical that they believe they oppose fascism. It is long past time they were dealt with.

      Where is the justice for that murder? Why is this group not chained, collared and swinging from a rope in retribution for the callous murder of someone just because they disagreed with them? Does that make me as bad as them? Probably. They create their enemy, and sometimes you have to stand on the neck of the snake to cut off it’s head before it kills you.

    1. The best thing Boris Johnson can now do is to dismiss SAGE and the sociopath Matt Hancock. Any other cabinet members making trouble over Brexit or Covid-19 should be sacked. It is not as though there are no proper conservatives, many remain seething on the back benches and ready to stand in.

      We should then be allowed to return to normalcy and live our lives unencumbered by stupid regulations and nonsensical directions.

      I believe I have witnessed the biggest fraud in our modern history, greater even than the wretched climate change scam.

      1. If you have 3/4 of an hour, look back to the video link Anneallan posted earlier.
        It should be shown in both Houses of Parliament on continuous loop.

          1. I’m fairly sure that’s the one.

            EDIT
            And it should be compulsory viewing for all sides of the argument.

    2. Entirely consistent with what we know about what is happening, and with what we know about statistics. Translated into something a politician may understand, “the test results tell us nothing meaningful about the spread incidence or spread of Covid-19 in the general population. It follows that the lockdown restrictions, all of them, are completely without value and they have no effect on either raising or lowering the number actually infected and suffering from Covid-19”
      So we can all carry on we did in 2018, as it won’t make any difference. I cannot imagine that the Government will wish to relinquish its grip on the throats of the nation…

  63. Husband played in a Sunday golf match this morning , whilst elder son went off to Cheddar with a pal , both guys drive lovely motorbikes , so I do hope they both have an easy ride and a very pleasant Gorge experience . I have heard that the Wookey hole caves are closed , but no matter , it is a fine sunny day , slight breeze , and the country views will be amazing .

    I had a quiet morning , scurried around the house with the G tech vacuum, then took the dogs out fo a nice run.

    It appears that our sparsely spread swifts, swallows and house martins have gone back to the Southern Hemisphere. I didn’t see them gather on the wires as I usually do … they must have just flocked and vanished.

    This is the second Sunday I haven’t bothered to buy the Times or Telegraph. My routine has been shattered by the death of my parrot 2 weeks ago

    The broadsheet newspapers were sufficient and thick enough to be used as a base for my parrots cage , I would use 2 or 3 spreads every day or so, just to keep the cage clean ..

    Thirty six years .. how many Prime Ministers has he poohed on ?

    I would NEVER EVER EVER have allowed the newspaper to be face up with Maggie Thatcher on the floor of the cage , but took great delight when John Major or Tony Blair or all the others appeared in full to be pooped on .

    Moh doesn’t bother with newspapers, but I used to enjoy a good read , then dissect the gumph written .

    So I waded through various articles on line this morning . I must say I used to find the smell of broadsheet papers quite addictive , probably goes back to the days when I was allowed a comic when I was a child!

    2. A guy I work with won’t even drink Thatchers Cider because of the name… but then, he is a twisted and bitter soul.

    3. I am so sorry to read about your parrot, Belle. Our routines are so different after a loss. Perhaps we can stock up with toilet rolls bearing Blair/Major etc.

    4. Sorry about you loved parrot, Belle.
      Sounds like he was a good ‘un shiting on all those politicians – an ambition many of us have, but never have the opportunity to! Lucky bird!

        1. If it makes anything better, I can come round and fill in for him! As long as there’s plenty of birdseed, of course.
          Pwaark! Kraa!

          3. Bizarrely, was allowed a duplication – so deleted.
            Sorry about that. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
            :-((

  64. Mao’s instruments of terror were The Red Guards—a mass student-led paramilitary social movement. These violent ideologues pulled down statues, destroyed holy sites, and humiliated and murdered those who dissented.

    Isn’t that taking hold here?

    2. Visited the village of Rode at lunchtime today. At the centre of the village green is their war memorial with the names of three dozen local men. I spent a few minutes pondering their sacrifice – how I despise the Woke brigades.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d838919eb081dd086e1a4c27c5ed1ef1b2baeddfdc63d6497b4c43a359a2501e.jpg

      A little later a very good Sunday Roast ( freshly perfectly cooked veg) at The Cross Keys which houses a formidable clock purchased by the village for £55 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee (and made in Croydon). I offered them £65 for the clock but my offer was declined,,,,,,

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d7cef93855f2cd840397e1afb2bd3d8a390ef34a67c967a3ad47da4a6197c66e.jpg

  66. Evenin’ all. Hope you enjoyed the last day when your basic right to Freedom of Association still existed:

    https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-11-freedom-assembly-and-association

    Will we see Christmas Day raids on private households? Covid Marshals checking the age and numbers of the revellers within? It is ironic that it is apparently a Public Health Act from 1984 which is giving dubious legal cover to all this. We seem to have slipped into Orwell’s world.

      1. I don’t think even Cromwell limited association to six people – although he did disagree with people having fun.

    3. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

      1. You see the point of the 2nd Amendment. The US Constitution is remarkably well written, each word is there for a purpose. Here, the key word is “free”.

        1. One might argue that the militia is “of the people” and that the right to bear arms only applies to the people when they are part of that militia.

          1. I think the point, like a lot of US Constitutional matters, is a balance of power. In this case, between the state and the people – if the authorities get too powerful and threatening (and the threats always seem to be physical), then the people can defend themselves in like coin. It doesn’t say “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to write letters expressed in the strongest possible terms, shall not be infringed.” for a good reason. The State shall not have a monopoly on power.

          2. It’s certainly about the balance between the State and the people. I would argue that when it was written there were separate States and the fear was of an all powerful Federal State usurping the powers of the individual states. I think the civil war may have come about partly as a result of that.

          3. The Constitution was written at a time when the USA did not have a standing army and the threat of Britain attempting to overthrow the revolution was very real. Thus, a ready-armed militia was necessary as a defence against this. The rationale for the second amendment has long disappeared but has left the US with an obsession with guns.

          4. Back then, you raised a milita when it was needed, it wasn’t a standing army or a national guard. More like a posse, raised of the citizenry for a specific purpose.

          5. Agreed, and as I noted earlier the underlying reason may have been fear of the all-powerful State.
            They had broken away from that and didn’t want it repeated.

          2. They really are not fit to pick till after the first frost (or at least they taste much better after it). And by Easter in a year like this they would probably already have bolted (though maybe not in your northern climes).

    1. He’s just winding up all TDS sufferers.
      What’s their worst nightmare? Trump forever….so he’s obligingly waving it in front of their noses, and they’re all biting.

  68. Reminder – Casablanca is on later for those who wish to see it.

    Also tv – the Beeb are shaking up “A Question of Sport”. The host Sue Barker and the two Captains are being replaced. Given the Beebs current fanaticism for everything non-white and anti- English I can only imagine who they will be replaced with.

  69. Hurrah. The Green Room Restaurant in Colchester has managed the current nonsense without a mask or bossy notice in sight.

    1. When we went to the Turkish on Saturday night, no masks or visors, just hand sanitiser at the door & no taking personal details.

    3. So that’s where you’ve been all day, Annie. A belated Happy Birthday – I hope you enjoyed your special day.

  70. I think it was Peddy mentioned a few days ago he was listening to Beethovens Seventh.
    It’s worth it! Attached, a link to YouTube of a Berliner Philharmoniker, driven by von Karajan. It’s a bit old – you can hear the odd crackle – but it’s absolutely the best recording I have heard. BP & HvK.
    https://youtu.be/u6mNgN1LKbc

    1. I mentioned that it was on the Prom concert on (I think) Thursday night, but I couldn’t watch it & I haven’t chased it on i-player. It’s my 2nd fave of the Beethoven symphonies after the 9th.

      2. I listened to it being played from memory by the Aurora Orchestra.

        I believe I have the complete set of Beethoven Symphonies conducted by HvK on DG. I can’t check as they are in storage!

          2. I also have a boxed set of the symphonies on CDs, including the 2 alternative endings to the 9th. Can’t remember who by, but it’s good.

          3. Does the alternative ending celebrate the UK’s escape from the EU with a rendition of Rule Britannia?

          6. My mother still has all my dad’s vinyl records, and the ability to play them, but doesn’t.
            They are still in his favourite order – by date of composition. No wonder I can never find anything there – I haven’t a clue.

          9. The few occasions I get to have no TV and instead just music, are blissful.
            There’s a lot I like to play – traditional jazz, classica, opera, whatever takes my fancy. At “performance volume” (too loud).
            Couple of glasses (OK, buckets) of wine, and the stress just runs out of me. Then bed.
            Mozart Grosse Messe each time I’m mourning someone. Getting a bit worn these days.

          10. I don’t turn it up that loud (though I could, as the neighbours on that side of the house are very deaf).

            Sadly, as we age, the dispatches become more frequent than the hatches and matches… though you’ve got a way to go yet.

          11. I doubt I’ll be playing overloud Mozart after I croak, but it’s a nice thought!
            But yes, the despatches are getting all too frequent.

          14. Thanks John. I was being entirely whimsical as I remain doubtful whether there is any “afterwards” — but then my friend (retired Anglican priest) has always told me that faith is full of doubt.

      3. The 9th is beautiful. But is known the soprano members of many amateur choirs as “Beethoven’s bloody 9th” on account of the fact that most of the top line is above the stave and it’s rather above, literally, their level.

        Having sung it (top line) I’d much rather listen nowadays.

    2. I’ve played the final movement at dawn doing 120mph on a deserted motorway, one of those magic situations.
      I also played it mentally on a run up the Swash into Poole Harbour in a Force 6 with the rollers of the incoming tide crashing over the stern – that was epic!

    2. Very good parody. It would be good if Ray Davies and the Kinks could be persuaded to record it again with these words.

  72. Evening, all. I’d like to see some evidence that voters are tired of the mess the government is making. People out on the streets protesting against the curbs on liberty would be a start.

      1. There was an article in my local rag today reassuring people that Shropshire is actually very safe when it comes to Covid 19 because people are afraid to venture out. What do they expect? They’ve spent six months instilling the fear of the Plague into us, convincing us that it’s lethal and if we catch it we’re doomed, now suddenly (with all the mask-wearing farrago still in place) we are supposed to be reassured? Not that I’m cowering in a bunker; I’m just sceptical about the fear-mongering.

  73. I’ve been watching theTour de France, postponed from July. Rather bizarre seeing spectators in the wilds of nowhere wearing masks. I’ve watched the Tour since the early 80s when it began to be shown on television. But I digress.
    Something struck me today that I had not previously looked at in any detail. Everywhere in France looks lovely. It all looks clean and new and prosperous.
    Nothing like the UK. Why is this?
    The answer is that France has been the beneficiary of EU largesse for 50 years. It is also the case that France suffered very little material damage in WW2. They could not wait to surrender, falling over themselves to do so. There were two results from this. The first was that Paris was untouched by war as was most of France. So buildings, roads, railways and other infrastructure were preserved intact. France surrendered in June 1940. The second result was that within 3 weeks the Germans had occupied the airfields of Northern France. The Battle of Britain began in July 1940 from those airfields in France, and the occupied countries as well. From then on the UK was relentlessly bombed flat. Every industrial area, town and city from Clydebank to the Channel was bombed. London was struck with thousands of cruise missiles and supersonic ballistic rockets. Thanks, France.
    At the end of the War, France simply continued where they had left off. No worries. The Germans had suffered devastating destruction. The Marshall Plan sorted that and German industrial power was soon back on its feet, in the Western Zones anyway.
    We had to rebuild from next to nothing.
    So we should not be nice to the French who betrayed us to the Germans, or to the Germans who broke treaties to bring about war. The American are no friends of ours either. The damage to the Empire was something the USA welcomed, as they were jealous and wanted to extend their hegemony around the world.

  74. “African swine fever is hitting the news again, this time in Europe, as the first wild boar just tested positive” in Germany.
    China having lost half its national herd of pigs is taking a firm line. China’s General Administration of Customs, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said:
    “All pigs, wild boars, and their products from Germany shipped from the date of this announcement shall be returned or destroyed.”

    Let us hope the disease doesn’t spread through Europe..

        1. Yes all we need now are the Sea Peoples. You know those foreigners who emigrate to other countries and cause mayhem. Oh wait a minute!

      1. The speed of 367 years ago ( River Wey canalised in 1653)

        As it happens the boat has printed signs either side which say:

        “Interested in Time Travel?
        Meet here last Thursday at Noon”.

      1. Crazy bugger. But then, he used to be a Bootneck, so what do you expect?
        He’s a big lad. Respect!

        1. They do do bone transplant – but not joints. When mother had her first knee replacement she was asked if the bone chips could be retained – they use them to fill in when mending shattered limbs from motor accidents and the like.

          1. Yes, I was aware of the “bulking” use of spare bone, often in dentistry too, albeit smaller.

          2. I knew a lad years ago who had his cheekbone shattered in a farm accident (hit in the face by a piece of machinery) and they actually took bone from his pelvis to rebuild his face as they didn’t have any spare to hand.

            The surgeon told mother that he had frozen all the healthy bits he removed from her knee for use at a future date.

          3. Freezing bone I wasn’t aware of, but I guess makes sense – particularly to you when thinking of preserving meat etc.

          4. Soft tissue cannot, of course, be frozen and then transplanted because the cells are disrupted by freezing (which is why defrosted meat often seems to be softer than fresh raw meat) but the mineral bits of bone can apparently be frozen and thawed when needed.

            Modern medicine has made great strides. I’ve been learning a bit about lasers recently!

    4. But is he going to play a symphony when he gets to the top of the mountain?

      I find it very depressing that the location is being kept a secret, because our country is over-crowded and over-regulated.

      1. You don’t really think they would have posted it if he didn’t make it do you? No bragging rights in that.

          1. Thanks Jill. I’m tiptoeing around the edges.

            Life is a bit of a mixture, but then it usually is.

          1. You are clearly not quite as cynical as I have learned to be. Except on the specialist community sites which cater for (and are generally run by) parents of children with any one of a multitude of disabilities no one puts their children on the internet except in braggable content.

            The specialist sites are too heart-breaking, in the main, for anyone not involved to be able to cope. That the word “unbearable” is meaningless becomes ever clearer when you have friends and family with disabled children.

    1. Used to get that once a month on board the vessels with Filipino cooks years ago, but no anchovies or breadcrumbs. Bloody lovely.

      2. The anchovies were my own addition.
        The Filipino “chef” on the 5* Danube cruise last year produced 1/2-raw ratatouille at every meal including breakfast. Bloody horrible.

        1. We had great Flip chefs. Then Chinese ones, Indonesian ones and Indian ones. When offshore Oz we had Aussie chefs. The Singaporean Chinese cooks were probably the best. Making me feel hungry.

          1. The food on that cruise was generally disappointing, the exception being the night we had St Pierre fish. The waiter on my table spoke reasonable German, so I was able to get a 2nd helping.

          2. Caught my first John Dory 2 weeks ago, they appear to be getting more prolific locally. Very tasty fillets.

          3. They are one of my favourite fish (to eat). I first met it at a family supper in Geneva of all places.

          5. Do you mean Zander? That is pike-perch, my fave freshwater fish. I’ve eaten it often in Germany.

          6. No, never tried zander, although they were illegally introduced into UK waters in the 70s. Lovely big perch in Lac Leman, Perca fluviatilis, same as we get in the UK.

          7. I don’t think I’ve had perch pure. When Zander was on the menu in Lindau, I always angled a 2nd helping.

          8. I’m sure they’re good, related much more closely to the perch than the pike, a nasty bland fish for eating but nice to catch and release.
            “Angled”, very good.

          13. Where in Geneva were you when you ate it? We used to have an apartment in Rue du Lac, and could see the Jet d’Eau, if we stuck our heads out of the window.

          14. We were invited to supper in my ex-wife’s cousin’s apartment. It was over 40 year’s ago & know only that it was somewhere in the city. Before we had the children, we stayed in my wife’s aunt’a apartment. We used to go there every August for the Genf Fest & the fireworks, which we viewed from the roof garden of a lakeside office block.

    1. It depends how you define breaking the law?

      Without acting in good faith over free trade negotiations the EU is clearly in breach of the WA and the treaty is void?

      1. That’s a slightly different issue, in my view; although I agree with your comment. The EU has acted in bad faith throughout, aided and abetted by treacherous UK politicians and the lawfare leftwaffe.

    2. “Is there any acceptable way of breaking the law?” – doesn’t that depend on immigration status/skin colour and religion?

    4. The government is the law, or should be and can change any law they wish if its in their manifesto or not. The left like to put the leftie lawers in charge but we do not vote for them.

        1. Depends. Usually, yes, but all too often nonsense comes from a quango or ‘focus group’ with an agenda and brought to parliament by chums and, well, let’s be blunt – bribery – usually not outright, but back room deals, special offers, promises of jobs after office.

          Then there’s just scum like Chakrabalti who wangles her nonsense in to undermine any concept of rational government.

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