Sunday 14 April: European nations must pull their weight if Nato is to withstand Russian aggression

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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699 thoughts on “Sunday 14 April: European nations must pull their weight if Nato is to withstand Russian aggression”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story
    NOTE ON THE FRIDGE

    I awoke this morning to find that my wife had left a note on the refrigerator.

    “It’s not working! I can’t take it anymore! I’ve gone to stay at my mother’s house!”

    So, I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was still cold.

    I don’t have a clue what she is talking about!

      1. He assumed it was the ‘fridge, and not his marriage that wasn’t working. Are you blonde by any chance?

        1. Ah, so obvious now you’ve explained it to me. I was brown-haired for a long time, but now my locks are white, except for a black spot at the back of my head.

  3. Good morning, chums. Today I did Wordle in fourWordle 1,030 4/6

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

  4. Good morning, chums. Today I did Wordle in fourWordle 1,030 4/6

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

  6. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/13/israel-hamas-war-latest-iran-attack-soon-biden/

    Israel and its allies intercepted “99 per cent” of the drones and missiles fired at its territory by Iran on Saturday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, said Iran had launched more than 300 drones along with cruise missiles and ballistic missiles but no fatalities had been reported.

    Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, said the bombardment had caused “very little” damage as a result of the “impressive operations” by the IDF and Israel’s allies. However, Nevatim Air Base, in the south of the country, was hit but its “capabilities were not blunted”, Mr Hagari added. A 10-year-old girl was also injured by fragments of rockets.

    RAF jets helped defend Israel from the barrage and are reported to have shot down drones near the Syria-Iraq border, where Iranian proxy groups are active.

    1. Any museums which have airworthy ‘warlike’ aircraft as exhibits had better lock them up.

      Thet will be ‘requisitioned’ and sent to Ukraine.

      That includes the Swordfish in FAA Museum, RNAS Yeovilton and the aircraft in Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby

      1. I’m quite good at folding paper darts that fly quite well… would that help?

  7. Morning, all Y’all. Sunny, chilly and windy.
    Time to put on the summer facial hair, in the hope of the weather getting hot and sweaty. Might even give up with the heavy woollen sweater, if it gets properly warm, too.

  8. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/west-must-remember-how-to-fight-it-may-already-be-too-late/

    One of the good things about being a citizen of the West is that, since the last world war ended in 1945, most men’s survival has not been imperilled by the need to go and fight in massive wars.

    We do not have to kiss goodbye to tens or hundreds of thousands of beloved sons, friends, fathers or brothers. We have a professional army, are accustomed to relatively small casualty numbers when that army does go into combat, and, bar periodic terror attacks, we are generally able to get on with the business of living miserably or prosperously – but living.

    Less lovely is the corollary of this comfort: the moral decrepitude and cowardice that has sunk deep into our psyches. We are too narcissistic and bored, too cossetted and ill-focussed to be collectively courageous – or warlike. This has been devastating for the trajectory of the whole world in general and catastrophic for the safety, security and prosperity of the West.

    How did we get to this perilous pass? The answer is that we have spent the past decades focussing on made-up threats and burying our heads in the sand. We have elected leaders, and created political, policy and educational elites, who have wilfully pretended that the real threats – Islamists, global jihadi movements, their regime funders in Iran and the unvetted influx to Europe of migrants from countries steeped in their evil ethos – are just the fever dreams of a racist and backward fringe.

    In so doing, we have picked apart the rationale of robust defence – which sometimes involves the need to attack; and to die in doing so. By discrediting Western interventionism and military might, we have not made the world a nicer, cosier, more just place. We have merely given a green light to monsters happy to die if it means killing more of us.

    And so as Israel enters yet another month of bombardment from terror groups on all sides, with a dwindling number of hostages still alive in Gaza and anti-Semitic displays getting bolder every day in Britain and the US, I find that my patience is at an all-time low for the faux-astonishment and passive consternation at the prospect of Iran, a rogue state on the brink of being a nuclear power, directly attacking Israel.

    Israel, after all, is one of the few countries left in the civilised world – a member of that tiny number that includes Ukraine – that still understands the devastating but necessary calculus of military power. The chain of events that would follow any assault by Tehran would begin with a sturdy and (one expects) devastating military response.

    At times like these, we don’t need proclamations of dismay from our leaders. We need action. The hour is already advanced. And still, the fast-dwindling powers of the West do nothing. With Iran, Obama seemed to work as hard as he could to keep his head in the sand, pretending that his laughable “deal” would somehow change Iran’s spots and convince it to put on hold its ambitions to be the most evilly powerful regime in the world. Trump cut off the bargain, and while Biden tried to keep it on life support, it now appears to be dead.

    That hasn’t stopped the White House freeing up billions of dollars that Iran has been able to use to fund its nuclear programme and its proxies, including Hamas. Leaked documents this week appear to show how Tehran sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the group from 2014. Meanwhile, Britain’s response to the Iranian threat has been lily-livered. We have refused to cut off diplomatic relations with Tehran, and more bewilderingly refuse to proscribe its Revolutionary Guard as a terror group for fear of provoking the regime. This is despite threats to Iranians on British soil.

    The US and the UK have let Iran’s proxies get away with violence for decades, but since October 7, there have been direct hits with the Houthis’ bombardment of our shipping vessels in the Red Sea. And instead of roaring with rage, we prefer to turn the other cheek.

    We seem to have done our best to defang our military, whittling down the appeal of our armed forces so that even many of those who do apply end up giving up before even getting to basic training because recruitment is so rife with delays. We have the smallest number of combat personnel in modern history, and the focus in the armed forces, as elsewhere, seems to be as much on “diversity” tick-boxing as on preparing for war or offering credible deterrence.

    All of this, and the mindset that has allowed it to happen, has helped embolden Putin and Xi Jinping, and literally helped to arm Iran – with Israel paying the awful price. Yet, instead of thanking and helping Jerusalem as it takes on the ogre of the Middle East, we snipe at it, lecture it and threaten it – sinking low enough to moot cutting off arms sales in its hour of need.

    Will we wake up in time? We need to relearn the vital importance of the West’s role – and particularly that of the Anglosphere – in maintaining the balance of power that keeps us from global reversion to bloodthirsty servitude, religious mania and authoritarianism. Our leaders must stop misleading platitudes about fighting racism and Islamophobia and get real, acknowledging that it’s partly our fault that Iran, Afghanistan and Russia have become what they have – and that it’s in our gift to stave off the threat posed by their regimes.

    But to do that, we’d actually have to remember what war is for, and the sacrifice it requires. We would have to be willing to send some to die for the sake of good against evil, right against wrong, the West against horror and despotism. We would have to be willing to kill for that too. Those of us who lack physical courage need the courage of our convictions – and at the moment many of those convictions are deeply and terrifyingly wrong.

    1. “… willing to send some to die…” always easy to do when it’s someone else who is doing the dying.

      1. Well a society is finished if it no longer possesses that moral will because our enemies certainly possess that will.

    2. You and I agree over many things, but not over Israel.

      Far from being a naïve and innocent victim, Israel has shown itself quite capable in defending itself, and does not shirk in putting itself in the firing line in the defence of its nation and its people when it chooses to. Maybe it is the school of hard knocks that has made it so, but whatever. However, it is abusing its favoured status on account of the Abrahamic Covenant that has directed not just Judaism, but also Christianity and Islam. Israel has an obligation to honour the teachings of Moses rather better than the aggressive factionalism current in today’s Knesset. Was this not the Christian message which could have spared Jerusalem the wrath of Vespasian in AD 70?

      What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, even at a time when it is a “hate crime” to express such a distinction. Iran, for all its faults – and there are many – has as much right to defend its people and its nation (and also its sympathetic allies abroad) as Israel has, and they could not let their enemy get away with the destruction of their consulate in Syria, lest emboldened that belligerent enemy decided to take it further. In reality, that bit of face-saving was token and did not do much real damage to Israel, which has a lot to thank Iron Dome for.

      It would be nice to draw a line on this, and for these squabbling siblings in the Middle East to get on and leave the rest of us in peace. Iran and Israel were once close allies with a common foe, the Babylonians. It was King Cyrus that rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem, which stood for centuries until it was demolished by Vespasian.

      As for our own national defence, I am in no position to make a judgement. I am 68 years old and unlikely to be called up as cannon fodder, even if this were regarded as militarily effective. It is those much younger than me, and those who have an interest in the UK remaining prosperous, free and intact for more than the couple of decades I have left, who may be asked to make the final sacrifice for the common good. It is their decision, not mine. All we can do is to advise and warn, same as the King.

      1. We agree over very little actually, and although I believe you to be a well intentioned if muddled person, I find your views on Israel and Jews abhorrent. I think you need to bone up on Biblical prophecy and the central role of a reborn Israel in Christianity. Even some RC theologians do so and share similar interpretations as Protestant ones.

        1. No need to patronise me. I am sure of my position and prefer to think things through for myself rather than to rely on centrally-approved identity propaganda, however ancient.

          Our common ground is over the importance of small enterprise being the seed corn of our future prosperity, and which should not fall victim to casino culture in high finance, along with the lobbyists which pervert democracy. We may also agree on current social developments masquerading as “progressive liberalism”, but which are anything but.

      2. The problem Israel has is it is a developed first world nation. It is also, obviously; Jewish.

        Muslims hate Jews. Why, I don’t know. Muslims are nutters generally. In the majority of times Israel has fought in conflict the muslim has started it. Hamas didn’t need to fly a glider over Israel and drop bombs. They chose to.

        The West keeps having this idea of palestine as the underdog. It is by choice. It abuses international aid, is thoroughly corrupt and stll public money pours in to it – and is promptly spent on weapons.

        There could easily be peace. It just involves muslims not wanting to kill people.

  9. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/west-must-remember-how-to-fight-it-may-already-be-too-late/

    One of the good things about being a citizen of the West is that, since the last world war ended in 1945, most men’s survival has not been imperilled by the need to go and fight in massive wars.

    We do not have to kiss goodbye to tens or hundreds of thousands of beloved sons, friends, fathers or brothers. We have a professional army, are accustomed to relatively small casualty numbers when that army does go into combat, and, bar periodic terror attacks, we are generally able to get on with the business of living miserably or prosperously – but living.

    Less lovely is the corollary of this comfort: the moral decrepitude and cowardice that has sunk deep into our psyches. We are too narcissistic and bored, too cossetted and ill-focussed to be collectively courageous – or warlike. This has been devastating for the trajectory of the whole world in general and catastrophic for the safety, security and prosperity of the West.

    How did we get to this perilous pass? The answer is that we have spent the past decades focussing on made-up threats and burying our heads in the sand. We have elected leaders, and created political, policy and educational elites, who have wilfully pretended that the real threats – Islamists, global jihadi movements, their regime funders in Iran and the unvetted influx to Europe of migrants from countries steeped in their evil ethos – are just the fever dreams of a racist and backward fringe.

    In so doing, we have picked apart the rationale of robust defence – which sometimes involves the need to attack; and to die in doing so. By discrediting Western interventionism and military might, we have not made the world a nicer, cosier, more just place. We have merely given a green light to monsters happy to die if it means killing more of us.

    And so as Israel enters yet another month of bombardment from terror groups on all sides, with a dwindling number of hostages still alive in Gaza and anti-Semitic displays getting bolder every day in Britain and the US, I find that my patience is at an all-time low for the faux-astonishment and passive consternation at the prospect of Iran, a rogue state on the brink of being a nuclear power, directly attacking Israel.

    Israel, after all, is one of the few countries left in the civilised world – a member of that tiny number that includes Ukraine – that still understands the devastating but necessary calculus of military power. The chain of events that would follow any assault by Tehran would begin with a sturdy and (one expects) devastating military response.

    At times like these, we don’t need proclamations of dismay from our leaders. We need action. The hour is already advanced. And still, the fast-dwindling powers of the West do nothing. With Iran, Obama seemed to work as hard as he could to keep his head in the sand, pretending that his laughable “deal” would somehow change Iran’s spots and convince it to put on hold its ambitions to be the most evilly powerful regime in the world. Trump cut off the bargain, and while Biden tried to keep it on life support, it now appears to be dead.

    That hasn’t stopped the White House freeing up billions of dollars that Iran has been able to use to fund its nuclear programme and its proxies, including Hamas. Leaked documents this week appear to show how Tehran sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the group from 2014. Meanwhile, Britain’s response to the Iranian threat has been lily-livered. We have refused to cut off diplomatic relations with Tehran, and more bewilderingly refuse to proscribe its Revolutionary Guard as a terror group for fear of provoking the regime. This is despite threats to Iranians on British soil.

    The US and the UK have let Iran’s proxies get away with violence for decades, but since October 7, there have been direct hits with the Houthis’ bombardment of our shipping vessels in the Red Sea. And instead of roaring with rage, we prefer to turn the other cheek.

    We seem to have done our best to defang our military, whittling down the appeal of our armed forces so that even many of those who do apply end up giving up before even getting to basic training because recruitment is so rife with delays. We have the smallest number of combat personnel in modern history, and the focus in the armed forces, as elsewhere, seems to be as much on “diversity” tick-boxing as on preparing for war or offering credible deterrence.

    All of this, and the mindset that has allowed it to happen, has helped embolden Putin and Xi Jinping, and literally helped to arm Iran – with Israel paying the awful price. Yet, instead of thanking and helping Jerusalem as it takes on the ogre of the Middle East, we snipe at it, lecture it and threaten it – sinking low enough to moot cutting off arms sales in its hour of need.

    Will we wake up in time? We need to relearn the vital importance of the West’s role – and particularly that of the Anglosphere – in maintaining the balance of power that keeps us from global reversion to bloodthirsty servitude, religious mania and authoritarianism. Our leaders must stop misleading platitudes about fighting racism and Islamophobia and get real, acknowledging that it’s partly our fault that Iran, Afghanistan and Russia have become what they have – and that it’s in our gift to stave off the threat posed by their regimes.

    But to do that, we’d actually have to remember what war is for, and the sacrifice it requires. We would have to be willing to send some to die for the sake of good against evil, right against wrong, the West against horror and despotism. We would have to be willing to kill for that too. Those of us who lack physical courage need the courage of our convictions – and at the moment many of those convictions are deeply and terrifyingly wrong.

  10. Tory MPs View Islam as a Threat, Reveals Survey
    ©Provided by Edge Media
    One study conducted by Hope Not Hate revealed that 58% of Tory politicians believe that Islam is a threat, which is a 2% increase from a 2019 survey that asked them the same thing. This comes after the Conservatives face multiple allegations of Islamophobia within its ranks.

    Don’t worry !

    Once the election is over they will relapse into their normal attitude of allowing fit young islamics to enter the country without hindrance.

    ………….or even without identifying them.

          3. Oddly, I imagine it probably does. Likely several tens of thousands of hangers on, troughers and wasters are involved in endless studies.

            But India is huge.

        2. NuLabour in 1997 implemented their (secret plan) to rub the noses of the right in diversity. Clearly there has been overshoot as now in 2024, all of us – right, centre, and left – are drowning in diversity.

    2. Why do you think the Channel tunnel was *built/constructed?

      *(Do you build things you dig?)

    1. I Wonder how Mister Trump would have handled it all?

      Well for a start, unlike Biden, he has not got a son financially involved in Ukraine with King Mafiosa

      1. Under President Trump the USA and UK provided weapons and training for Ukrainian forces. Those were the things that defeated Putin’s initial invasion.
        Trump’s a realist, far more so than Biden, and his foreign policy was a success because he knows who the West’s enemies are – Islam, Iran, the CCP and Putin.

          1. Fair point but they are internal enemies and even then far less dangerous than homegrown ecowokies.

        2. Under President Trump the USA and UK provided weapons and training for Ukrainian forces. Those were the things that caused the Russian invasion.

        3. Which is funny because the Leftwaffe think the enemy is Trump despite the horrific abuses carried out by those nations against all the things Lefties proclaim to love.

    2. I suspect “President Reagan’s brain is missing” came from the wily old ham actor himself, eager to hoodwink his opponents into a false sense of superiority and not knowing what hit them.

    1. Particularly as the “experts” have predicted a steady increase in the price of oil in the next few years.

      Of course, our Government could always rely on the Middle East for supplies.

    3. With Labour literally salivating over their forthcoming power trip and with people like this having control, the ‘Greenscam’ will be escalated to the detriment of the UK as a whole.

      https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1778867865979867503

      Milliband minor is fanatical about the scam and the chances of ending it under his auspices are nil. Goodness only knows what further damage he will inflict on us.

      2. When did it become a religion for you, Miliband? I do not believe in your church. If you want to, go worship your monuments to folly in private, without my money.

      3. Lest we forget, Millibean minor concocted the ‘Climate Change Act 2008’, which tolled the death knell for British heavy industry. His eco-madness was then gold plated by the treasonous hag Saggy May in a fit of pique over Brexit.

        The only ‘achievement’ Saggy May can claim is that, through a succession of ‘poor’ choices for chairman of the child abuse inquiry, she protected her father from questions regarding his connection with the venues utilised by some of the accused.

        Edit to add: the inquiry was kicked so far into the long grass, I suspect as yet undiscovered tribes are looking at it in a puzzled manner.

        1. Mrs May is a very evil woman.

          If they can make Cameron a lord why don’t they make May a barrenness?

  16. Time for a national strategic energy and security policy. Should take a few hours to write.

    1. ???

      We’ve got one? The strategy is this: make energy unaffordably expensive so as to fully retard the country’s economic development. destroy jobs, cripple industry and impoverish tax payers. Socialise costs until the market is completely wrecked, then mandate usage under strict controls. Enforce poverty, ration provision. Enact communism, punish for Brexit.

  19. Unfit to govern
    SIR – As a lifelong Conservative voter, I am mystified by those who say that a Labour government would be a “catastrophe”.

    By any measure, this Tory Government has been catastrophic. Everything it has touched has been a shambles. I see no reason to waste my vote on a party that has demonstrated that it is totally unfit to govern.

    Peter Gilbert
    Llangarron, Herefordshire

    1. By voting for another party that is equally unfit to govern, and for much the same reasons?

    2. Labour does not offer a decent future for Britain; the Conservative Party is dead and the corpse must be completely cremated at the polling station.

      This leaves Reform which is flawed – but is it as deeply flawed as the alternatives?

      1. I hope reform have candidates locally I certainly will not bother with the ten minute walk to the polling station unless.
        Not even to spoil the paper. With NOTA ! In black felt tip.

        1. I have applied for a postal vote, as I will not be able to walk to the Polling Station – I shall vote for a Reform Candidate, if there is one. Otherwise it’s NOTA for me.

  21. 386043+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 14 April: European nations must pull their weight if Nato is to withstand Russian aggression

    Yes,yes,yes, lets worry about that further down the line, I believe our letter of submission has already been drafted.

    Our political overseers will go where the biggest coin is to be found regardless of indigenous peoples feelings.

    We are, I do think going through a period of, block out the true facts via rhetorical chaff dropping in regards to the “excessive deaths” and the politico’s /pharmaceuticals part they played.

    If found to be guilty of wilful neglect and ignorance of true facts they should NOT be in power but in prison.

    If found to be guilty of deaths caused by the above then they are
    surely guilty of mass manslaughter and should NOT be in power, but prison.

    If found to be following the WEF / NWO agenda then they should be charged with mass murder and NOT in power but prison.

    Any thoughts of holding elections and supporting /siding with any of these odious overseers in this power struggle taking place currently, is frighteningly dangerously &. ludicrous.

    Lest we forget or want to forget for the “sake of the party” they
    brought to an end peoples lives, either through ignorance of proven fact, or intentionally, and this done without feeling or remorse.

    Justice MUST be seen to be done as a first foundation block
    to be laid on the decent peoples reset path construction
    regarding returning to being, once again, a nation of decency & well being.

    1. When I saw the footage of that stabbing rampage in Sydney, I saw a black man holding the knife. My gut reaction was that it was another damned alien settler imposing their sense of law on the natives. Looking closer though, it could have been an Aborigine that ran amok in that shopping centre. It could then have been an indigenous native that had had enough of the settlers and settler culture.

      It exposes what is so wrong with US-directed social analysis, especially when it comes to race and whom we should be bending the knee to.

      Maybe it is time to draw a line on race, and simply to apply the law universally – that it is wrong for anyone to run around stabbing people, native or indigenous.

    2. Russia is NO threat to Europe but is hell-bent on destroying Zelensky’s version of Ukraine.

  22. 386043+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 14 April: European nations must pull their weight if Nato is to withstand Russian aggression

    Yes,yes,yes, lets worry about that further down the line, I believe our letter of submission has already been drafted.

    Our political overseers will go where the biggest coin is to be found regardless of indigenous peoples feelings.

    We are, I do think going through a period of, block out the true facts via rhetorical chaff dropping in regards to the “excessive deaths” and the politico’s /pharmaceuticals part they played.

    If found to be guilty of wilful neglect and ignorance of true facts they should NOT be in power but in prison.

    If found to be guilty of deaths caused by the above then they are
    surely guilty of mass manslaughter and should NOT be in power, but prison.

    If found to be following the WEF / NWO agenda then they should be charged with mass murder and NOT in power but prison.

    Any thoughts of holding elections and supporting /siding with any of these odious overseers in this power struggle taking place currently, is frighteningly dangerously &. ludicrous.

    Lest we forget or want to forget for the “sake of the party” they
    brought to an end peoples lives, either through ignorance of proven fact, or intentionally, and this done without feeling or remorse.

    Justice MUST be seen to be done as a first foundation block
    to be laid on the decent peoples reset path construction
    regarding returning to being, once again, a nation of decency & well being.

  23. SIR – Excellent Chelsea buns were available in Bookham, Surrey, where we used to live, thanks to a local baker with several popular shops in the area.

    The recipe was simple. No peel (thankfully) but plenty of currants and a liberal sprinkling of castor sugar.

    Pulborough, however, is a relative desert. No bakery, just Tesco and Sainsbury’s. What is a person to do for a Saturday treat?

    Robert Barlow
    Pulborough, West Sussex

    Your letter, little Bobby, boils my piss on so many levels.

    1. No real man, with balls, would ever refer to himself as a ‘person’. What is wrong with man, chap or bloke?
    2. What you do is buy some ingredients, roll up your sleeves, put on your apron, and bake some yourself.
    3. And WTF is ‘castor’ sugar? Caster sugar is so-called because it is fine enough to be sprinkled from a sugar caster.

    If all those fail, you wimp, you simply nip down the road to Philip’s house and he will give you some lessons!

  24. I’m not patronising you but explaining my reaction to some of your views.

    We do agree about the things in your second paragraph.

  25. Good morning Good People.
    A bright and sunny one today but back down to a rather chilly 1°C! Forecast to cloud over later with possible rain this evening.

  26. Is Robert a relation of yours?

    (No hostility like interpersonal family hostility!)

    1. Is Dick a relation of yours? That is: Dick the radio ‘tec?

      (My name is not ‘Barlow’).

      1. Dick Tracy’s creator forgot the e in Tastey. Yes, tasty referring to flavour has no e but as my pseudonym it does just as Tracey does in our family name unlike Tracy used as a girl’s name which usually has no e .

        Please correct my faulty spelling in your case.

        (Incidentally we have framed your chart and are going to put it on the bedroom wall of the room in which Henry and Jess stay when they are with us).. We shall post a photo of it for you when it is up.

        1. I still have a copy of that chart. Problem is, every time I unfurl it and try to rediscover the location of the wreck of HMS Association, it takes me an hour of searching before I find it!

          That area is truly the graveyard of shipping.

          1. In 1985 I sailed my 31 foot sailing boat, Raua, from Tortola to Bermuda across the Sargasso Sea to Bermuda.

            I think the stories of siren forces wrecking planes and boats in the Bermuda Triangle are a load of hogwash.

            I used to have to pore over charts in the days before GPS took the hard work out of navigation. I was very proud of having crossed the Atlantic using a sextant and arriving at Barbados from the Canaries and taking a compass fix and finding my DR was within ¼mile.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a15d7e24f6d14dbdd8dcc4434ff76a3e88b56c7d9fb37006245d661851492aa6.jpg

          2. The only danger to navigation in the Sargasso would be the eels getting caught around the propellors. 😉 Not a problem on a vessel powered by wind.

          3. I had a Walker Log to record the distancetravelled though the water. This was effectively useless in the Sargasso as it kept getting clogged up with weed.

            You attached the dial to the stern of your boat and cast off a line with a propeller on the end of it and its rotation turned the line which was recorded on the dial.

            We did not catch an eels but when we pulled the line is we occasional found a baby turtle which we returned to the water.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3853b367b8fb6bac1ec57a37f8c7906f75c1a8b5aabb296d54ba159f5a8242ab.png

        2. I still have a copy of that chart. Problem is, every time I unfurl it and try to rediscover the location of the wreck of HMS Association, it takes me an hour of searching before I find it!

          That area is truly the graveyard of shipping.

      2. Dick Tracy’s creator forgot the e in Tastey. Yes, tasty referring to flavour has no e but as my pseudonym it does just as Tracey does in our family name unlike Tracy used as a girl’s name which usually has no e .

        Please correct my faulty spelling in your case.

        (Incidentally we have framed your chart and are going to put it on the bedroom wall of the room in which Henry and Jess stay when they are with us).. We shall post a photo of it for you when it is up.

  27. Good Moaning.
    It would seem that Oz is also inflicted with “Don’t Care In The Community”.
    A Maltese nut job, apparently.

  28. Fate of Middle East hangs in the balance as Israel mulls its next steps

    The prospect of a major regional war in the Middle East hangs in the balance on Sunday morning, when Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet is due to meet to decide Israel’s response to Iran’s drone and missile attack.

    I doubt that they are doing much mulling. This is an opportunity to deal with Iran’s nuclear program that will not come again.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/14/fate-of-middle-east-hangs-in-the-balance-as-israel-mulls-its-next-steps

    2. What has happened since hamas attacked Israel has more than emphasised what is going on in the minds of all Muslims.
      They are the only danger to mankind in general terms.

  29. I bend the knee to no-one but My King and Country and the Lord Jesus, even though I’m agnostic.

  31. The MSM propaganda machine is cranking up a notch or two all the time, and the war drums beat louder and louder. They seem to be using Orwell’s 1984 as a guide book – and we must resist it. Russia is no threat to us in Britain. It was no threat to anyone in the West until the warmonger Globalists in the US decide to push Nato right up to the Russian border, organise a coup against a democratically elected pro-Russian President and train and arm Ukrainian ultra-nationalists to attack and murder fellow Ukrainians of Russian descent.

    And that is where the real threat lies, in the Biden gangster regime controlled by the woke globalist Blob who want an end to the nation state and one world government run by and for the super rich. Resist, unless you are happy for you, your children and grandchildren to be mere cannon-fodder.

    1. I totally agree.
      Russia is no threat to Europe.
      Only our own political classes are the threat including that unless puppet Biden.

    2. It was the EU’s inveiglement into Ukraine that tripped Russia over the edge. That and an impossible wet, weak and clearly ill Biden.

      1. …and the forbearance of NATO. The tearing up of the Minsk Agreement and the overthrow of the then democratically elected Ukrainian Govt and the installing of the puppet Zelensky and his Azov Brigade.

  32. I always felt that it was far more likely that the nuclear holocaust would start with the Israelis rather than Iran, who would be its first victim. This seems to be being confirmed by Israel’s sympathisers.

  33. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-dominic-cummings-pushed-us-into-lockdown-part-3/

    I do recommend Paula Jardine’s articles on Cummings’ central role in imposing lockdowns on the UK, something not widely appreciated, It was also Cummings who pushed for MRNA vaccines, ruling out other approaches without any discussion despite warnings from the likes of Prof Angus Dalgleish. A friend of mine was working with Prof Dalgleish and gave me a running commentary which is one of the reasons we resisted any Covid vaxx.

    Cummings’ arrogance simply made him unfit for any central role in government, and when combined with Johnson’s laziness, it made for a truly dangerous double act in such circumstances.

    1. Cumming’s arrogance? You did read the messages that gurning cretinous oaf Hancock sent, didn’t you?

      1. No, I know what people who know him socially or who worked with him of the Leave campaign have told me about him, plus those who working with Prof Dalgleish experienced with him during Covid.

    2. Bring back your Travellers -it would be a win -win situation…..

      Morning Belle and all…

        1. I thought you were an avid reader there – you post the link quite often, which is the only way I can get in there on my phone, though it’s not a problem here on the laptop. The articles were good and showed who was the boss at no 10 for those years – not Boris.

  37. …boils my piss on so many levels.

    Surely castor sugar is more likely to stimulate a bowel movement?😉

    Good morning, Grizz.

  38. For once we disagree AS. I support Israel and its fight against Hamas, but thought that launching missile attacks on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus a step too far and a huge mistake. I fail to see what good will come of it as the evil buggers who were killed will be replaced by buggers at least as evil. In the circumstances Iran was bound to respond, but it seems to me that it did so in a manner that they hoped would avoid all out war. And remembering that the loons in the Biden regime have been itching to attack Iran, I fear that Israel was pushed into this by the evil Biden regime in order to keep them on side.

  41. Morning all. Slightly weird question for all the gardeners out there. My rhubarb has gone very tall and looks like it’s trying to flower. I have never seen anything like it. Any answers???

      1. Oh wow thank you. I now have to decide. To let my rhubarb plant reproduce, or fetch my knife.

        As i don’t think i need any more rhubarb, and I’m not big in rhubarb rights, i will am coming down on the side of butchery.

        I am going outside. I may be some time.

  42. Good morning all,

    Light cloud overhead McPhee Towers, wind in the West and a tad cooler today, 8℃ to no more than 12℃ later.

    Is this a renaissance or a company signing it’s own death warrant?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cfa96b4b6c3d6547f9da86a16beb0fdbfe31be2d723b1a4ddef0f137f96e94e3.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/13/jag-man-jlr-jaguar-cars-roar-again/

    Jaguar plans to be all-electric, I’ve been told, from 2025 . No more ICE cars.

    1. They don’t seem to be aware of public opinion. Generally the public don’t want electric cars. They are only suitable for private driveways. I doubt if any one who could actually afford one would ever dare to keep it in a garage. Their home insurance would be unaffordable. 🔥

  43. Good morning , yawn , well, we are all still here , and not blasted into oblivion , yet .

    Dull start to the day, cold , 9c .

    Moh spluttering, coughing and groaning , sniffing , as we all are at this time of the year..

    I liked this DT letter comment .

    Martin Selves
    1 HR AGO
    What topic should I write on today, when broken Britain is in dire need of investment and effective regulation? Everywhere you look from the NHS to the common pot hole, we are in trouble from neglect and incompetence. I will stick with Defence.
    Air Cdre Michael Allisstone writes an excellent letter, and overnight Iran launched a massive attack on Israel with over 330 cruise, drone and missile attacks. Everyone in the EU should be alarmed at this, and the escalation that is bound to happen when Israel responds. Russia is beginning to win in Ukraine because of the failure to replenish desperately needed munitions, and Trump has warned the EU they must increase defence expenditure to 3% or more. The USA have been taken for granted, and a ride since 1945. They have spent Trillions of Dollars rebuilding and defending Europe. Trump has a point that Europe must not ignore at their peril.
    And neither should the UK. Starmer has promised 2.5% on defence, and Sunak continues to praise our overstretched and hard working Army. Where is the money Mr Sunak, and why is our equipment and recruitment levels in terminal decline? Under 14 years of Tory Rule we have seen a proud Army fall off the cliff, and is now an weak and unreliable partner as described by the USA.
    The only thing that is working well in broken Britain is WOKE and Political Strikes. These appear to be “settled” today, and cannot be challenged, and seem to be without end. Just like Fracking and Net Zero, the former cannot be granted a test drill just in case it produces huge quantities of cheap Gas, and Net Zero cannot be challenged now because the WOKE ECHR has granted itself the power of enforcement.
    We truly live in insane times.

    David Proctor
    1 HR AGO
    And what is worse Martin is that the lunatics are running the asylum.

    S Thomas
    23 MIN AGO
    It seems to be the government that is incompetent and who ever wins the next election will be no better. The defence of the realm is the most important thing and we need to worry about internal security as well as external threats. Stop thinking about ourselves and look to the common good. I’m tired of vicious people who think they are the only ones that are in the right and don’t look at the bigger picture.

    MZ KP
    10 MIN AGO
    Can the Fixed Term Parliament Act be rescinded before the upcoming election? At least this would shorten the life of Tweedle Dum, two party politics.

    1. Spot on Martin Selves. And four others. Including TB.
      I’m afraid our once proudly presented nation has become a disaster, all due to the political idiots. Their joint adgenda is utter lunacy.

      1. I wish that we could all put this political and social disaster down to incompetence but there’s a playbook being enacted and we the people weren’t in on the script when the vote was taken. Now, we are the victims and nothing short of either a political revolution i.e. Reform taking many Tory seats and holding the balance of power or the people decide enough is enough and take direct action e.g. mass non-compliance with government diktats that are deemed to be against the will and good health of the people.

        WHO inflicted lockdowns or compulsory inoculation with unknown, and most likely untested and therefore dangerous potions, appear as probable options at the moment.

    2. And a few days ago we discovered that three Bulgarians had filtered off £54,000,000 in Universal Benefit. That sum alone would have bought many doctors, nurses, or soldiers. Yet, how many Bulgarian or other foreign-born groups have got similar £50 mln+ “benefit harvesting” operations rolling happily along.

      1. When will the benefits office be censured?

        If the state stopped welfare fraud we could scrap the basic rate of tax. That, in a nutshell is the problem. While it’s someone else’s money there is no interest in controlling it.

        1. And whilst this is going on, with millions of young people opting for benefits, rather than full time work, we have a PM whose highest objectives are to have more young people doing advanced (useless for all but a small minority) and remove the last few smokers.

          Definitely a case of : “those whom the God’s seek to destroy, they first make mad”

    3. Thing I don’t understand – given the soaring debt, massive, crushing taxation why is everything so shabby?

      Where is the money stolen from the tax payer going?

      2. Apart from keeping the MP’s in the comfort they desire, the rest goes to pay the vast welfare bill for the incoming spongers. Not the elderly who paid into the system all their working lives.

  44. Buongiorno tutti
    Off to see ma mere to make her (and me) a Sunday roast.

    Chook or lamb? Votes please.

          2. When we lived on oz, with my mate’s Trevor and Dave we use to catch squid. On one particular occasion I’d left a few in one of box compartments in the back of my LWB Land Rover for a few days. Can you imagine the stink ?
            Have you tried Yabbies ?

          3. I ate octopus when I was in Greece. I was fine until I got a bit of tentacle with a sucker on it. Then, suddenly, I lost my appetite!

    6. Lamb.

      I have leg steaks marinading in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and oregano. Serving with honeyed yogurt, tzaztiki, Greek salad and pittas

    7. Lamb over chook every day of the week for me. I never eat chook curries, only lamb.

      Roast shoulder of lamb (far more flavour than the leg) is one of the eight wonders of the world. Chook is only worth considering if you can source it from someone who lets it run wild to chomp on weeds and creepies.

      2. Chicken is the dullest meat on earth, only made interesting by the sauces served with it. Otherwise, it might as well be slices of brown cardboard carton.

  45. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunshine which is quite exceptional.🌞
    I don’t agree that Putin is the problem, it’s been perfectly obvious that Zelenskyy backed by various other worldwide political idiots are the outstanding problem. IMHO of course, but who am I ?

    4. Who are you? A sensible person who is not carried along by lies and false propaganda. That is what you are Eddy. And good on you!

    1. Yesterday afternoon I sat out side with a beer first time since last summer. When I took my empty glass in, I noticed a very small creature stuck in the residue. Instead of washing it away I picked it out and set it free.
      We use to have hedgehogs living in our garden but I think there were too many foxes around as well.

        2. Badgers wouldn’t get into our rear garden I could see scrapping on the gound under the edge of the iron gate. Definitely foxes. And some poo.

      2. Not so much foxes (though they are clever enough to lie in wait while a hog uncurls, then pounce) but badgers are the main killers of hedgehogs. Also slugs (give them lungworm) and pesticides.

        1. Firstborn has badgers. Big buggers, they are, like an animated sandbag.
          We prefer the hares and other smaller creatures.

          1. If you have hedgehogs……. if you find just the shell and prickles but the soft parts gone, that’s the badger’s work.

          2. Not seen any hogs here in Norway, either as a bundle of spikes or a small, scurrying creature.

          4. He also has Lynx and several kinds of eagle, foxes (I haven’t seen them, but you can hear them) and even green woodpeckers. Nice place in the countryside.

      3. One of our neighbours who keeps chickens had a fox get into her hen-house last week and kill 16 of them. Heart-breaking.

        1. Terrible thing to happen. I think that is what encouraged the foxes near us we had two nearby neighbours with chickens.
          We had chickens on our allotment a few years ago. Brown rats were the problem. They dig in under the chicken wire.

        2. If it was a Hamas fox, then there would be demos in London and elsewhere in support of him (or her, in which case it would be a vixen). The chickens would have been bent on fox genocide had the fox not attacked first.

    2. Horrific! Strimmers can be lethal. I hope poor Arthur pulls through. Replied and retweeted with both accounts.

  48. It’s time to finish the work of Brexit, and finally bring control back to our sovereign Parliament
    A ludicrous decision in Strasbourg proves that we must leave the ECHR or be governed by the whims of judges
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/13/finish-work-of-brexit-finally-bring-control-to-parliament/

    The work of Brexit has not been completed because the establishment and The House of Commons never wanted to start it in the first place.

    This was largely the fault of Nigel Farage who lost his nerve and stood down Brexit Party candidates in seats held by remainer Conservative MPs in in the 2019 general election.

    Farage’s thinking was that if Brexit votes took away Conservative Party votes then the Conservatives would not win and Brexit would not have been achieved.

    As it was Farage’s limp withdrawal of candidates from the fray enabled the House of Commons to continue to be so stuffed with remainers that they have been able to thwart Brexit at every turn.

    1. Given that Mr Farage has done more than any person alive to get the UK out of the EU and pretty much devoted his entire adult life to it at significant personal cost, it’s churlish to criticise him for not being able to read the future. Brexit came within a hair’s breath of being killed in the Remainer dominated HoC and Mr Farage’s decision was a pragmatic one designed to give a large enough Leave majority in the HoC to get the substance of Leave enacted into Law. People who criticise him with hindsight should have stood for Parliament on a purist Leave platform.

      1. I take your point.

        It is interesting to hear Anne Widdecombe on GB News who has joined the Reform Party.

        When asked if voting for Reform was giving a free ride to Labour so voting for Reform would be a mistake she replied that when the Brexit Party had stood down candidates in 2019 it had resulted in Johnson selling out on Brexit and that Reform must not make the same mistake as The Brexit Party had done.

        Of course it is hypothetical and subjective but I think that Farage should have held out against Johnson and not caved in. For example he should have refused to stand down Brexit Party candidates in seats held by Conservative MPs known to be Remainers. A Conservative majority of say 20 with just a few Brexit Party MPs holding the balance would have ensured a better Brexit that the shambles Johnson gave us with his 80 seat majority.

        1. I simply do not understand why so many still worship at the feet of Farage. I imagine that it must be that they have never met or had dealings with him.
          Good points – Great Orator. Good fun for a drink after work. Great at convincing people that he is right.
          Bad points – thoroughly undisciplined. Planning – back of a fag packet – to be thrown out pronto. Reckless with money. Dictatorial – gives favours to sycophants and promotes them -then ditches them when they don’t come up with the money. Serial Adulterer.

          I could go on. Remember I was a long time in UKIP – ran the SW Region.

          So you will understand why would not near Reform UK with a barge pole.

          I promise you that he is not the Messiah – and that as soon as Trump is confirmed as GOP Candidate our Nige will be off to help him – and be paid big bucks for doing so. Follow the money – NF does.

          Simply my opinion.

          1. Your description of Farage could also fit Boris. It’s no wonder this country is in such disarray.

          2. Oh yes – 2 peas from the same pod. Opportunists – permanently broke and running after money.

          3. Though I suppose their definition of broke is being down to their last couple of million…..Farage was forced to disclose his banking details last year and Boris has been on a nice little earner since resigning.

        2. The ONS stated that the Tory Party has 200,000 members, and

          the Reform Party has 1,200,000 members.

          It would appear that anyone voting Tory is giving a free ride to Labour.

    2. This is not really a Brexit matter. There are European countries which have never been in the EU or its forerunners but are, nonetheless, signatories to the Convention and subject to the jurisdiction of its court. The recent Swiss climate change case being a prime example.

      Some are, however, current or lapsed applicants, others are in the single market or the Schengen zone such as EFTA members and Switzerland, thus more closely aligned with the EU than the UK is at present. Armenia and Azerbaijan, though, are a couple of examples of Convention signatories with little in the way of a close association with the EU.

      https://sdg.humanrights.dk/en/instrument/signees/2465

  49. Rishi Sunak condemns Iran’s ‘reckless’ drone attack and says UK stands with Israel. 14 April 2024

    Rishi Sunak has condemned Iran’s “reckless” attack against Israel in the “strongest terms” and said Britain will “stand up for Israel’s security”.

    The Prime Minister said that the strikes risked “destabilising” the Middle East and that the UK would work with its allies to “prevent further escalation”.

    Why? What’s in it for us? Prior to Blair the UK used to have its own Middle Eastern policy. This was to be broadly neutral and offend no one deliberately. The Iraq War changed this since it was based on a lie and from that our credibility was shot. We are now simply an adjunct of the US. We fly when they fly and fight when they fight.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/13/rishi-sunak-condemns-iran-reckless-drone-attack-israel/

    1. We do have a lot of ties technologically to Israel. May of their richest folk live here.

      Yet they also live in Switzerland and you don’t hear that country crowing for war.

  50. 386043+ up ticks,

    Good A, no need of travelling to a foreign war you can mow watch the action, in your own armchair, in your own country, in what was your own capital city

    ALL courtesy of the tribal continuous actions of the majority voter putting and keeping treacherous political / parties in power these last four decades.

    Pro-Palestinian protester makes ‘cut-throat’ gesture at Israel supporters
    Activists carrying banners calling for an end to all arms sales to Israel confronted the counter-protest in central London

  51. That’s me gone. A very busy week ahead in Narfurk with family stuff – so I’ll not be around until 23 April. Play nicely.

        1. I’m still water logged. Wales Today headline predicting a wall of heat soon, when reading the article it says average temps for the time of year. They just dont give up.. Evening!

  52. Khan legally committed himself to exploring pay-per-mile

    Mayor’s official transport strategy investigates proposals for the next generation of road-user charging

    Will Hazell, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    13 April 2024 • 5:59pm

    In his official transport strategy, which has a formal legal status, the mayor says Transport for London (TfL) would “investigate proposals for the next generation of road user charging”.

    Since the Mayor has had opportunities to update his transport strategy and to remove any policies he does not wish to pursue, the Tories have claimed that his failure to do so is evidence he remains wedded to exploring pay-per-mile.

    Mr Khan has firmly rejected the claims and insisted that he has “ruled out pay-per-mile”.

    His transport strategy, originally published in 2018 and subsequently revised in 2022, says: “The Mayor, through TfL, will investigate proposals for the next generation of road-user charging systems.

    “These could replace schemes such as the Congestion Charge, Low Emission Zone and Ultra Low Emission Zone [Ulez].”

    The document says that “more sophisticated road user charging” could achieve policies in the strategy relating to “mode share, road danger reduction and environmental objectives, and to help reduce congestion on the road network and support efficient traffic movement”.

    “In doing so, the Mayor will consider the appropriate technology for any future schemes, and the potential for a future scheme that reflects distance, time, emissions, road danger and other factors in an integrated way,” it says.
    *
    *
    *****************************

    Ben Francis
    15 HRS AGO
    How on earth can he be popular!?! Most people I speak to can’t stand him! This seems to be based purely on his religious background and If so, it is a spectacular shot in the foot by the electorate as all crime has increased in London since he took over. I guess voting based on ethnicity and religious belief is more important than your policies or performance. Welcome to 3rd world Britain

    1. Folk already pay per mile. It’s called fuel taxes.

      Yes, Khan only exists in post because London is an open sewer.

      2. A good point. They don’t, however, flow into the coffers of the London mayor and his administration.

        A case could be made for a high-tech road pricing scheme to help manage traffic flows and reduce peak congestion using premium pricing at times of high demand, although the congestion is itself a disincentive to use roads at busy times.

    2. Mr Khan doesn’t stop to think of the knock on effects of his anti car policies. For example Mr Sapola is a hospital consultant who – shock horror – still drives across London to work and provided on-call for 30+ years. His department and many others in the London NHS depends heavily on consultants who are in their 60s and 70s and I suspect that , like him, they have absolutely zero intention of making an hour of daily commuting into 2 hours by travelling on public transport with their noses in someone else’s armpit when they could just retire.

    1. He’s lovely.

      Mainly because sat down he has about the same area as Mongo’s paw, which woke me up this morning by falling on my back, then my head. This caused Oscar to bark from the other side of the bed. In the end it was all a bit silly as Junior stood in the doorway softly calling the great beast as he had woken when Mongo moved and opened the door.

      1. One thing I like about Bobble is that he never criticises me for letting the place get messy. Indeed, I suspect his attitude is “the messier it is, the better …. as long as you know where the Dreamies are”.

    1. I was about to type the same – it’s raining now, just as I’d stripped the beds!

    2. All my paths and terrace sprayed with Algon lots of green mold with such a wet winter.

    3. We have so much wind that washing the terrace will make me very wet; until that’s done, the terrace furniture stays indoors (it’s pretty lightweight, will blow away), and there’s no point in raking leaves.
      Bugger.
      The day’s planned activites are mostly cancelled. The chucking-out of outdated clothing progresses, however.

  56. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/04/12/us-army-marine-corps-ai-fighter-drone-f35c-stealth-fighters/

    This article is nonsense. It isn’t about the hardware being ready, it places horrific weight on the programmed glorified search engines current AI are. Yesterday someone postulated that ‘AI’ could solve their networking problem.

    I said go ahead. Man furiously types into chat gpt and gets a screed of curated search results – including many areas of ‘this you will have to know’. He furiously fills those gaps in to get more information.

    So armed, he goes off and does everything it says, expecting magic. He then witters on that this will now be self updating, self improving, will commit the changes to repository automatically, knowing when that needs to be done and basically be ‘magic’.

    I wish the chap well. I also expect to be called very soon to ask to fix the mess he gets in because his AI hasn’t done – because it can’t – any of the things he thought it could.

    1. I presume that AI doesn’t know (indeed, hasn’t the slightest idea) that it’s overestimating itself.

    2. Thirty years ago I would have said that a spell checker was AI. So it seemed to me as a then computer novice. Is the notion of AI as some miracle a bit over exaggerated? Is IA just ever-improving software given a cliched name by journalists?

  59. That’s a valid opinion and one correct with hindsight but neither you nor I were on the inside of the BXP at the time. I do remember very well however how the Remainer majority in the HoC were increasingly overt about killing off Leave and scrapping the whole thing, something that would have caused widespread civil disorder.
    Politics is the art of the possible in the circumstances at the time and, while evidently less than many of what we Leave campaigners wanted, we still got the fundamentals of Leave enacted because of Mr Farage’s decision. One can go on playing double or quits but in the end one will lose. Mr Farage decided to take the best available without risking the loss of the whole thing.

    2. Silver lining, to be honest that’s not the worst we have seen him. My face isn’t covered by my hands.

      1. At a time when the BBC didn’t seem to mind that most of the were White, 2-parent, and with none of their 2.4 children suffering from homophobic or transphobic bullying.

  65. Posting this because as many of you know I spent my childhood in Libya. Like many I had a confusing relationship with Qaddafi, on the one hand I loathed him, on the other admired his vision for Libya. So I’m posting this as a small corrective to how he has been depicted and as a critique of how the West, in its corruption, destroyed Libya. Decent people who, if we had taken proper care, would be one of our most staunch allies in the Arab world.
    America Angry As Russia Leaks Classified Files About Gaddafi’s M*urder
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLcYxgZ5A_w&list=TLPQMTQwNDIwMjTc7ii-9LZGVw&index=9

    1. Had work over several years in Libya, really liked the place, and the people. Clever, dignified, didn’t always try to sell you something as Egyptians seem to. Then the West in it’s arrogance smashed the place up, and now look. Heartbreaking.

    3. The US is the biggest threat to peace, and the CIA the world’s biggest terrorist organisation. Don’t let them drag us into another war.

    6. A most enlightening video thank you, but what is the need for video makers to include those annoying whooshes on slide transitions? I find them not only unhelpful but totally unnecessary. (Rhetorical question).

    1. But, you know that is a difficult story to fully believe. It says “Biden tells Nethanyahu”, whereas surely the truth is that A B,and C decided that Jill should tell Joe to tell Nethsnyahu, or, maybe they decided to cut out the middleman/crime family and just tell Nethanyahu directly ….

      1. Fully believing any story that has part of its roots in a report from the White House is beyond rash, but the gist I suspect is true whoever is pulling the chain of the POTUS cistern.

  68. Good morning
    Does anyone know what are the “aerial dispersant services” that this Northampton-based company carries out?
    I know about cloud seeding to make it rain in Africa, and spraying the clouds in central Europe to stop huge hail stones from forming. What’s done in Britain though?
    https://www.2excelaviation.com/special-missions/

    1. I thought one of our resident experts might have more idea.
      Con trails are definitely hanging around longer/more numerous than they were a few years ago, and there is a plausible suspicion that they are connected to persistent thin, high clouds (some knowall showoff knowlegeable person is bound to start spouting about nimbus and strato cumulous in a moment 🙂 )
      Someone on Twitt said that the new generation of jet planes have so-called “cleaner” engines (?) and leave more water vapour in the sky (shirley they can’t be burning bio-diesel!).

      Where I live, those thin, high clouds are pretty rare, and usually foretell a weather change. They did appear this morning, as well as a lot of contrails, but the sun burned them off by about ten am.

      I used to look at the sky a lot when I was a child, and there were far fewer contrails (fewer aircraft, but many of them also didn’t leave trails), but wispy, high clouds were also pretty unusual.

          2. Lots of east-west high-level traffic. You’re likely under an airway US-Europe/Germany.

          3. We are probably equidistant between Stansted and Luton, 35 miles probably to each from S.Cambs

          4. Those contrails are a long way up. They’ll not be aiming for either, but may be crossing navigation beacons at, or close to, the airports as they fly to wherever.

  70. Putin threatens Biden not to interfere in Iran and Israel tensions. Apr 14, 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0873539105d4acd3b1fd479d39b603d528e2fa0f2453c7b90fc5910d0b251bae.png

    Russia President Vladimir Putin warns United States not to interfere in the Iran and Israel tensions. Putin’s threat came amid U.S said it shot down some drones launched by Iran towards Israel. If Biden supports Israel, we will not sit ideally and do nothing, roars Putin. Iran’s massive drone and missile strikes came after days of speculation that Teheran will avenge IRGC commanders , who were killed in Israel strike in Damascus.

    There are two international reports substantially the same though I can’t find any Western source for this story. I’m sure Nottlers know how that works. Keep your eyes open.

    https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/international/will-support-iran-if-putin-threatens-biden-not-to-interfere-in-iran-and-israel-tensions/videoshow/109283106.cms

    1. I do wonder at such reports. I note that Putin is not shown saying anything as such and we are given portentious music with the written commentary. There is nothing of this on the Russian outlets, and Putin tends to release everything he says there. There are plenty of people in the media game who love to stir things up, and of course the people who pay them…..
      Putin’s MO so far does not suggest to me for a moment that this is much more than media puff. I hope so! Things will get enlivening enough when Netanyahu, as he will – he has nothing to lose now- , escalates.

      1. The RT headline is, “Biden told Netanyahu he won’t support retaliation against Iran”. As you say, no mention of Putin saying anything.

    1. It’s Bert and Ada at the garden centre:
      “Y’know Bert – I feel that with this length of wood we’ll need to open the sun roof!”

      1. She’s on a boat on the canal and is clearly like Betty Boothroyd, a Tiller Girl.

      2. Hey man, that’s EXACTLY why muslim chicks are so darn easy – they don’t want to be virgins in the afterlife, stuck for all eternity with some pimply remains of a suicide bomber.

      1. I wouldn’t trust her not to release a loud fart in the middle of the Fruit & Vegetables.

        Seriously, wearing that should be arrestable.

  74. And what a lovely day it is!
    The Bungalow next door, unoccupied for the past 2½y has a pond I’ve been watching, expecting to find some frogs or toads lawing spawn in there, but I’ve just realised it’s occupied by newts.
    Tried to get photos, but so far have failed.
    So, here’s a couple of the cuckoo pint that is rather abundant and some hart’s tongue.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b7055cf575e95163139eb23194d547c97a9ae7df6d0445d7257c0f0f3df0f757.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f27dea01e7f295e2bf608d484062931296ecc03b823810a5d4d7e695c32ebc8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cfdeded2e33ce06a977cbdf826916bde61e155bb893c701756eb5e3548f30bb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51a5f6492892dac41f05a0e0a3409179b609b380eb4c06b9358b00eaf1a31744.jpg

        1. I rescued minute from the house storm drain – I released it in a pond in the local park.

      1. At least Augustus Fink-Nottle found a soul mate in Mr Livingstone.

        Hilaire Belloc wrote about some amphibians such as the crocodile and the frog but he did not write about newts as far as I can remember.

        Here is his verse about the Frog:

        Be kind and tender to the Frog,
        And do not call him names,
        As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’
        Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’
        Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’
        Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:
        The Frog is justly sensitive
        To epithets like these.
        No animal will more repay
        A treatment kind and fair;
        At least so lonely people say
        Who keep a frog (and, by the way,
        They are extremely rare).

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e38503be925c21460e6ce9f71cd52583984b79d636f9b18c0e2bc3dab84dc1e0.png

        1. There are not many poems about newts.

          Pauline Morris Mar 2016

          Mr. NEWT

          I just took a wrong turn going to church
          Ended up down by the old white birch
          So I decided to sit down there at it’s roots
          And up to my shoulder scurried a little newt
          I liked the little fellow
          Until in my ear it started to bellow
          Why are you doing that I asked
          He said not a thing just pulled out his flask
          He motioned for me to drink
          And before I could think
          I took a big swig
          And before I knew it I was dancing a jig
          The swirling and twirling brought me down to my knees
          The limbs in the tree moved with the breeze
          And before long I started to wheeze
          What Mr. Newt what have you done
          Don’t worry dear with us you are becoming one
          So scurry on up here and sit on the branch
          By day we watch at night we dance
          None of this has happened by chance
          You wished for it, now it is so
          Back to your life you no longer have to go

          That’s one of a few on the Hello Poetry website.

          There are numerous others which mention newts, including by Robert Browning, Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare, plus a small number about Newt Gingrich.

          https://hellopoetry.com/words/newt/

  75. Ooh! First egg laid by the osprey at Loch Arkaig! Hissing down and windy as usual! The pair of them must wonder why they came back from Africa!😳

      1. All over their nest and feathers? Dorcha looks bedraggled and frankly, fed up!

  76. A hurricane and earthquake was reported in Liverpool April 2019

    Liverpool Hurricane Appeal
    A major tempest (Hurricane Scouse) and an earthquake measuring 1.8 on the Richter Scale hit Liverpool in the early hours of Tuesday with its epicentre in Toxteth. Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering “f’kinnell”.
    The hurricane decimated the area causing almost £30 worth of damage. Several priceless collections of mementos from Majorca and the Costa Del Sol were damaged beyond repair. Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were woken well before their Benefit Orders arrived.
    Liverpool FM reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Liverpool. One resident – Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 3 said, “It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my bedroom crying ‘What the f’k was that!’ My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Melanie-Victoria slept through it all – but that could have been the Rohypnol they drank by mistake last night. I was still shaking when I was skinning up (rolling a joint) and watching Jeremy Kyle the next morning.”
    Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried on as normal.
    The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 40,000 crates of Special Brew to the area to help the stricken locals. Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, including duplicate benefit books, jewellery from H Samuel and Bone China from the Pound shop.
    HOW CAN YOU HELP?
    This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is most sought after – items most needed include:
    Fila or Burberry baseball caps
    Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers)
    Shell suits (female)
    White stilettos
    White sports socks
    Arsedangling blue jeans
    Any other items usually sold in Primark.
    Food parcels may be harder to come by but are needed all the same. Required foodstuffs include:
    Microwave meals
    Tins of baked beans
    Pork scratchings
    KFC and mushie peas
    More cans of Colt 45 or Special Brew.
    22p buys a Biro for filling in the compensation forms
    £18 buys chips, crisps and cola drinks for a family of nine
    £25 buys 6 reefers and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.
    BREAKING NEWS
    Rescue workers found a little girl in the rubble, smothered in raspberry Alco-pop, and were worried she had been badly cut…
    …”Where are you bleeding from?” they asked,
    “I’m from bleeding Knotty Ash” said the girl, “Wot the f’ks that gotta do wiv yew?”

    Calm down! Calm down!

      1. I have a Breton friend/acquaintance who runs a popular restaurant here, He is a communist political agitator and a rabid fan of Liverpool too. I have looked up today’s score and will not be going anywhere near his place either. 🙂

  77. STEPHEN POLLARD: The Israel attack shows the catastrophic consequences of appeasement. The only way to secure peace is strength

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13306633/STEPHEN-POLLARD-Israel-attack-catastrophic-appeasement-peace-strength.html

    But after Biden was inaugurated in 2021, he resumed talks on a renewed deal. And although the sanctions have not been formally lifted, their enforcement has been weakened, sending an implicit message to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, that the US was no longer serious about imposing them.

    Iran has since vastly expanded its oil exports, largely to China – just as it has escalated its malign behaviour in Gaza, Lebanon and now from its own soil.

    We need to learn some lessons here. When Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement in 1938, Hitler felt empowered to invade Poland.

    When Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, the West stood back and watched – galvanising him to launch an all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    And now Israel has been attacked on its own soil once again after Biden undid Trump’s good work in standing up to the mad mullahs.

    The world is growing too dangerous for us to keep repeating this mistake.

    Putting boot on the other foot entirely.
    If one regards the regular annexation of former Soviet Bloc states by NATO and the EU as similar to what Germany was doing pre WW2 in Europe, one might argue that Putin is standing up to those who seek to undermine and destroy Russia.

    1. The state of our country is a classic example of the consequences of kindness and appeasement.

    1. I see the darkness in the hollowed out Conservative Party piping up “Conservative MP and ex-tech and the digital economy minister Damian Collins said: ‘The major social media companies must do more to combat harmful content on their platforms, including campaigns of harassment and intimidation.”.

      1. Unless the harassment and intimidation comes from the people they favour. Which it usually does.

  80. 386043+ up ticks,

    Britain is ‘now involved’ in Middle East conflict, warns Ellwood
    RAF warplanes in Iraq and Syria were deployed to shoot down

    So now the decent peoples find themselves fighting on two fronts, as in, home and abroad. seemingly these politico’s and supporters are hell bent on bringing the great cull to fruition.
    Would you trust the likes of these political overseers in power at this moment in time, with the nuclear keys ? if so be sure to get back to me when the skin is melting of off your children.

    Iranian drones fired at Israel

      1. Reputedly the Rothschilds (and possibly other bankers) did that in WWII. Possibly WWI as well. Personally I’m of the opinion that Britain should have kept out of WWI but WWII had to be fought regardless of where the funding came from.

      2. Correction if I may…..pathological and habitual lying, greedy do nothing useless bastards.

  82. Does anyone know about cleaning oil paintings?
    I’m looking for a good book on the subject. Have just bought a beauty at a car boot sale, about a hundred years old but definitely needs proper cleaning.

      1. Hmmm……worried it might remove too much!
        I have washed with detergent in the past, which doesn’t seem to damage the paint, but also doesn’t clean that well.

          1. I’ve used that in the past, but it doesn’t really get everything off. Was hoping that a magic solvent might do better. IPA? Alcohol hand sanitiser?

          3. I have done it before with WD40 and it worked. There is very little that WD40 won’t solve.

          5. No, I’m for real. We had a very highly paid restorer here after a house fire and he confided that that was what he uses – so I did. And it worked.

          6. Just contemplating my sitting room smelling of WD40…I suppose you must clean it off with something else?
            Will give it a go.

          7. Do a tiny test bit first, BB2. My success might be a fluke, the restorer might have been taking the Mick – or- I might have dreamt his advice and done it anyway. This painting was covered in mould and other stuff, and – Hey Presto!

    2. Be very gentle so you don’t wipe the paint off. Believe ear buds are the tool of preference.

    8. Find out what it is before trying to destroy it. Any written info, such as a signature or a label?

  83. I’m trying to book a hotel in South Wales, to use when we visit Mother in her care home next month.
    Going to the likes of hotels.com, I get confronted with a wee game to prove I am human – every time. Immediately after that, I get an error message “Rate exceeded error” with a jumble of alphanumeric codes, and the whole lot stops up.
    This has never happened before, now it happens every hotel finder site I go to.
    Does anyone have any suggestions how to fix this?

    1. Ern, I tend to use Premier Inn central telephone booking. I don’t like automated online systems if it can possibly be avoided.

      1. I’m trying to find somewhere reasonably close – betweeh Rhoose and Penarth, to know who to even call.
        And my phone has given up with calling the UK – a (Norwegian) voice comes on and tells me that the number I haave called is not available, so that’s not helping, either.

          2. No no no, not like that, go to the Travelodge site its’ far far cheaper, see my link below.

        2. Oh drat. I used to use the Radisson chain but their central booking line puts you through to the US and last time I spent a fortune on the call but never finalised the booking. They messed me about and the Barclaycard system smelled a rat.

      1. Many of the hotel websites direct me to hotels.com or similar – and the problem recurs.

      1. No help. Makes no difference. Is it likely the PC has a malware/virus?
        In any case, the hotle booking is a symptom – it’s the inability to actually open a website that’s driving me insane.

          1. Yes. First thing!
            Tried googling, and no luck there.
            And my phone doesn’t allow me to call the UK, as well.

          2. Did you remember to replace the leading zero with 44, the international dialling code for the UK?

          3. Yes.
            Irregardless of who I call in the UK, I get a Norwegian voice telling me the person I’m calling is not available. Before any form of ring or engaged tone. Makes me think taht the account has been blocked from calling out of the country. But – I can’t log in to check, and Nohelp not on seat.

          5. All sorted (the hotel bit, anyhow), thanks.
            The telephone not yet, and the interney hassle not yet.

          6. Off topic, but not entirely unrelated:

            Before I moved in 2020, after much trial and error, I was with Vodafone. I had been with Plusnet for internet and mobile. Their landline broadband wasn’t great. I realised that my Vodafone mobile data was faster than my broadband by a considerable margin, so I bought a 4G router, stuck an unlimited Vodafone SIM in it, and got four times the speed for half the cost. I parted company with Plusnet, but asked them to retain their hosting of my domain name (geoffreygraham.co.uk). So they closed my account, and zapped the domain name. In fairness, the free domain name upon joining Plusnet was no longer an offer, and I doubt whether the call centre folk knew anything about it.

            When I moved, I thought all I had to do was bring the 4G router with me. Which I did, but there was no Vodafone signal at all. Forced into having broadband, I ended up with Vodafone again, purely because I was an existing customer. I switched the mobile to O2, on a one year SIM-only contract. This was better, but not great. A year later, I switched to Three, which is still rubbish here, but measurably better.

            Friend and ex-partner Dianne moved to a new house in Topsham late 2019. Since cable was available, she went to Virgin Media, including Virgin Mobile. Last year, Virgin Media merged with O2. Eventually, all Virgin Mobile subcribers were ‘migrated’ to O2.

            “What’s wrong with your phone? Your number isn’t recognised.” This happened several times a day. “No-one else has a problem ringing me, so try the landline.” I don’t generally use the landline. The previous tenant must have been susceptinle to scams, because I was inundated with them,so I bought a BT ‘Blocking Phone’. This has cut out nuisance calls, but also puts off genuine callers. Hence my mobile number is on the back of the Village News for anyone who wishes to speak to the Director of Music.

            “Do a WhatsApp call instead”. In Dianne’s case, WhatsApp calls drop out every couple of minutes.

            Fast forward a few months, and I get an email from an old school friend, now living in Caterham. “What’s wrong with your phone? Number not recognised” So I rang him. Turned out that he was with Virgin Media, and his phone had been migrated to O2. There’s a pattern emerging.

            Since I still have an O2 account, I posted a query on their community forum, along the same lines as the above. It was deleted.

            I’ve got round my problem by buying a dual-SIM phone. So I’ve kept the old SIM / number as SIM 1, and added a Smarty cheapo SIM as SIM 2. As I expected, the 3 ex-Virgin callers who have complained can all get through to the new number. It’s worth paying £5.40 pm to Smarty to avoid having to tell everyone on the planet who knows me that my number has changed…

            PS I spent much of Saturday clearing unwanted apps from the old phone. Then I used SmartSwitch to copy the remaining stuff to the new phone. Checked every app, some of which were fully-functioning, others needed user names and passwords. But all was pretty seamless. Satisfied that it was a job well done, and since the new phone, direct from Samsung had a trade-in deal, I resolved to reset the old phone and stick it in the post. Found the factory reset option; restored the phone to pristie condition. Then wondered why the old phone was sitting on the table. I’d reset the new one… 😟

    5. Always phone direct. Bookings.com etc will take a 15% or more commission on each booking – you will get a better deal direct.

        1. “Hi say, ‘Ave you hany hantifreeze for a ‘Illman Himp?”

          I was once accused by a work colleague (years ago when I was an apprentice) of trying to sound ‘posh’ when I made that request at a car dealership.

      4. hour, heir, honour and honest are the only four words — all beginning with a non-aspirated ‘h’ — that demand an an as the indefinite article.

        All other ‘h’ words are aspirated (including hotel) and they demand the use of a as the indefinite article.

        An hour, an heir, an honour, an honest (opinion).
        A hotel, a hotchpotch, a higgledy-piggledy etc.

          1. An hourly … An heiress …

            All derivatives of the four words I mentioned count as the primary word.

          2. We were always taught that “hotel” and “historian” came into that category, Grizzly. I really don’t care that much. but do dislike the degradation of our language.

          3. Some British ‘authorities’ still do allow that but they are in a tiny minority this day and age, opopanax.

          5. If one is being pedantic here, your original comment stated there were only four such words yet clearly there are more than four.

          1. Accepted in the past, considered incorrect now. The ‘h’ in historic is aspirated these days, no one says ‘istoric nowadays.

        3. If you look in the King James Bible you will find in the psalms the words ‘Yea though the sparrow shall find her an house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young…’

          ‘An house’ was clearly correct in the past.

          1. Look at the works of Chaucer … and Shakespeare … and a hell of a lot was different in the past. I’m only interested in what is correct right now.

          2. I read somewhere that in the past ‘house’ was pronounced as ‘Ouse’ and the same goes for ‘hotel’ and one or two other words where the aitch is now heard. That would account for the change which is surely to avoid an ugly glottal stop. ‘A ‘ouse’ sounds dreadful.

          4. Only to our modern ears because it sounds common due to the association of dropped aitches with lower social groupings. It would not have had that association in the past.

    7. Sorry, no – though I tried to order an online death certificate from the GRO the other day (payment £2.50) via Worldpay – never had a problem before but now my card details failed cardholder validation. I even tried using the other account (the shopping one) and that didn’t work either. I tried again a couple of days later – my order was still there but still unable to pay for it.

  84. Israel considering whether to ‘break all the dishes’ with Iran retaliation. 14 April 2024.

    Israel’s war cabinet is meeting this afternoon to discuss whether to “break all the dishes” in its response to the Iranian attack, according to officials.

    Despite thwarting the attack, the military campaign is not over and Israel “must be prepared for every scenario”, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister said.

    I don’t really see how they can refuse this opportunity. They have wangled UK and US involvement to protect the home turf and thus given themselves time to attack Iran with little danger to themselves. Such a chance may never come again.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/israel-hamas-war-iran-drone-attack-raf/

  85. Australia mourns five women, Pakistani guard killed in Sydney mall attack

    Misinformation about the attacker’s identity – as a Muslim or Jewish man – spread widely online before police identified the suspect.

    By Al Jazeera Staff
    14 Apr 2024

    Australians are mourning the death of five women and a “courageous” Pakistani security guard killed in a stabbing attack at a Sydney shopping centre.

    Police on Sunday said they were yet to confirm any motivation or ideology behind the attacks in Sydney’s Bondi Junction but are investigating if the killer deliberately targeted women.

    Misinformation speculating about the attacker’s identity, as a Muslim or Jewish man, spread widely online before police identified the suspected killer – Joel Cauchi, a white Christian man and an Australian national, who was the seventh person killed in the attack.

    The 40-year-old suspect from Queensland was killed at the scene by a police officer who shot him after he allegedly confronted her with a knife, police said.

    The five women he allegedly killed included Ashlee Good, whose nine-month-old baby, suffering stab wounds, was taken to hospital.

    Good’s family described her as an “all around outstanding human” and said in a statement on Sunday they were still “reeling from the terrible loss”.

    Her family also thanked two men who “held and cared for our baby when Ashlee could not” and said the nine-month-old was “currently doing well” after undergoing hours of surgery.

    Faraz Tahir, 30, a security guard who had recently moved to Australia after fleeing persecution in Pakistan, was also killed in the attack, “while defending others”, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Australia said in a statement.

    The statement said Tahir was a “cherished member” of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community “known for his dedication and kindness” who came to Australia seeking refuge about a year ago.

    Elven[sic] other people were also taken to hospital suffering stab wounds, including nine women and two men, local police said.

    New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner Karen Webb told reporters on Sunday the higher number of women targeted in the attack was part of their investigation.

    ‘False claims and rumours’

    Speculations that the “perpetrator was Muslim or Palestinian emerged within minutes”, leading to “anti-Muslim hatred” in the comment threads of leading Australian media outlets, the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) said on Sunday.

    An article on another News Corp site remained online with the headline “Was this a terrorist attack? Question all of Australia is asking” on Sunday night.

    A “story about the perpetrator being a different person with a Jewish name emerged, also false”, AMAN said, adding that “our hearts go out to the victims’ families and the baby who has lost her mother”.

    Sarah Schwartz from the Jewish Council of Australia said “right-wing Islamophobic groups” had “[exploited] this tragedy to push their hateful agenda”.

    “We must not allow this tragedy to be exploited for political gain or to stoke Islamophobia or anti-Semitism,” she said.

    Cameron Wilson, a reporter at Australian news outlet Crikey, said social media platform X “seemed to be the engine room of many Bondi Junction false claims and rumours”.

    “It’s horrifying that while people were pre-emptively and baselessly blaming immigration for the Bondi Junction attack, one of the victims was a refugee security guard who died serving others,” Wilson said in a post on social media.

    It was the deadliest attack in Australia since six people were killed in December 2022, which police months later attributed to “Christian extremist ideology”, with Webb telling reporters that police had ruled out links to Christian activism in Saturday’s attack.

    While fewer mass shootings have occurred since Australia brought in strict gun laws following the 1996 Port Arthur mass shooting, an Australian attacker killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch about five years ago in one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern history.

    The number of women killed by men in Australia has been the subject of widespread protests in recent months and years, with activist group Counting Dead Women saying the five women murdered on Saturday brought the total number of Australian women killed so far in 2024 to 23.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/14/australia-mourns-five-women-pakistani-guard-killed-in-sydney-mall-attack

    It’s clear that the identities of the killer and security guard have been interchanged in an abject attempt to reduce Islamophobia. Who do they think they are fooling?

    1. I don’t know if you saw the initial pictures/video, but the perpetrator did not look at all like his later photographs.

      1. There is an image of him brandishing the knife on the shopping mall’s escalator. It looks more like some photos of him from other sources. This news website shows a picture of him taken from his male escort profile in which he looks quite swarthy. It’s clear that Joel Cauchi had a disturbed mind, living precariously.

        https://www.9news.com.au/national/bondi-westfield-stabbing-spree-killer-joel-cauchi-identified-man-from-queensland/a7793456-88ba-41a3-8954-fd307a2374b3

      2. I posted under the original picture of the stabber on the escalator that he looked like Humza Yousef. The later picture didn’t look anything like him. Also if the first picture was the security guard why wasn’t he wearing a uniform?

    2. Speculations that the “perpetrator was Muslim or Palestinian emerged within minutes”, leading to “anti-Muslim hatred”…

      I just can’t think why any open-minded, well-informed people might jump to such a shockingly prejudiced conclusion.

      It’s a mystery.

      1. They are determined that we all have “anti-muslim hatred”; it’s almost as if by banging on about it incessantly, they can later on say that we all do have this hatred and lo! they can bring in an anti-muslim “hate law” to clobber us all with.

        Oh. Wait. That exactly what they are doing.

    3. Are you being ironic, David? The problem is that with attacks of this kind, people are bound to jump to conclusions, since multiple stabbings are the modus operandi of Islamist terrorists. It would seem that this man has performed a copycat attack, which would not have happened if previous stabbing attacks had not happened. Assumptions make an ass out of u and me.

    4. Are you being ironic, David? The problem is that with attacks of this kind, people are bound to jump to conclusions, since multiple stabbings are the modus operandi of Islamist terrorists. It would seem that this man has performed a copycat attack, which would not have happened if previous stabbing attacks had not happened. Assumptions make an ass out of u and me.

    5. How can these people be regarded as anything other than invaders when they are clearly fighting to get in?

  88. I had a little stroll around Cranborne earlier.
    This is St Mary & St Bartholomew Church, where I was nearly savaged by some chickens:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37e5eaa46e28e3e4ca4a06319a201ce1792f6bfa822c6d955f74bc038c8815bc.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95080610d8c7467a48a97cfa44b935626c23b46397e07800ba22f10edefa0db1.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/73b56905a6c785043ff8d7c830f5217d2df702a20ea706323b46fd8f3e9240af.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15b4a81ffd4c03e36f2a8bc8ae59bd21c180bb9412dec0e4e2f7f816344fc60b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ec1c0f5d9240a4a65e413d487d4c7bd58748c2866c8c03e3dee8419cd309ecd.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fc4bbe6f0cc6df8a6b9241dd1fd18b58f1f635780a32d4ddab0685ced6d628c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/328677fcb79c48569e49d4c2ced3c6f8aded9dce1f868e740aa2a82e8751a477.jpg

    3. Nearly savaged by chickens, eh? You do live dangerously!

      Thanks for the lovely photos; they make me miss England.

        1. How true. I’m meeting up with several cousins on the IoW in June. Last time I was there, I had to set my watch to the 1950’s. I do hope it hasn’t changed…

          1. Grizz thinks the IOW is full of chavs. He was probably doing his work experience in the 1950’s. Northerners…No taste.

    4. I’m 100% certain that those chickens were unregistered. Report them to DEFRA; tell them the keeper is one Mr J Welby of Lambeth Palace, London SE1 7JU.

      Worth a try…

    7. Are those original paintings and windows? If so, the church did well to escape the attentions of the Cromwell family.

        3. Looks Victorian glass – similar to our church’s. The frescoes look interesting, but again restored and later than our 18th century ones.

  89. A dirigible Bogey Five!

    Wordle 1,030 5/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. 4 here, colonel.
      Wordle 1,030 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Wordle 1,030 4/6

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

    3. Metoo.

      Wordle 1,030 5/6

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

    4. Four here.

      Wordle 1,030 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Par again
      Wordle 1,030 4/6

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

      1. A close friend of mine worked for Mike Young. Hired ‘Thug in suit’ to Paula Vennels. We are watching the news in hope their bullying shit house of cards come tumbling down.

    2. If that tree were to be burnt to create electrical energy, I wonder how many full charges it would make for that EV. Not very many I think.

  93. Captain William Barnsley Allen VC, DSO, MC & Bar (8 June 1892 – 27 August 1933), RAMC, attached to the 246th (West Riding) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.
    .
    In September 1916 Allen was awarded the Military Cross for actions on unspecified dates:

    For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He was telephoned for when an artilleryman was severely wounded, and came in at once over ground which was being heavily shelled at the time. On another occasion he did similar fine work under heavy shell fire.

    On 3rd September 1916 Allen was attached to the 246th (West Riding) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, near Mesnil, France, when the following event took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross “for most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty”:

    When gun detachments were unloading H.E. ammunition from wagons which had just come up, the enemy suddenly began to shell the battery position. The first shell fell on one of the limbers, exploded the ammunition and caused several casualties.
    Captain Allen saw the occurrence and at once, with utter disregard of danger, ran straight across the open, under heavy shell fire, commenced dressing the wounded, and undoubtedly by his promptness saved many of them from bleeding to death.
    He was himself hit four times during the first hour by pieces of shells, one of which fractured two of his ribs, but he never even mentioned this at the time, and coolly went on with his work till the last man was dressed and safely removed.
    He then went over to another battery and tended a wounded officer. It was only when this was done that he returned to his dug-out and reported his own injury.

    In 1917 Allen was awarded a Bar to his Military Cross:

    For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. During an intense bombardment of a town with high explosive and gas shells, he left the Advance Dressing Station to search for wounded men. Hearing that there were some in a remote part of the town, he proceeded there, collected them, and supervised their removal to the Dressing Station. On his return, hearing that a party under another Officer had not come in, he was on the point of starting out again to look, for them when they appeared. Although seriously gassed, he continued to perform his duties with the greatest devotion and gallantry, until eventually evacuated to the Casualty Clearing Station.

    For actions in October 1918 Allen (by then acting major) was awarded the Distinguished Service Order:

    For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during the fighting west of Saulzoir for the Selle River line between 11th and 14th October 1918. He showed a very high degree of fearless initiative in organising the collection of wounded from ground under continuous hostile shell fire, and by his inspiring example, untiring energy and contempt of danger, he was able to move large numbers of helpless wounded from positions of danger before he was himself gassed.

    Allen died of an accidental drug overdose in 1933.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/VCWilliamBarnsleyAllen.jpg

    2. Top bloke. That’s real leadership, that is. Let’s hope there are some young blokes around in the same mold. We may be needing them soon.

  94. No surprises here

    BBC cuts council house row question from Rayner interview

    Newsnight admits omitting ‘Beergate’ comparison from segment recorded last month after ‘concerns’ from Labour staffers

    Amy Gibbons, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    14 April 2024 • 3:17pm

    The BBC is under fire after cutting short an interview with Angela Rayner over whether she broke the electoral law amid “concerns” from Labour staffers.

    On Friday, Newsnight’s political editor Nick Watt admitted editing an interview he conducted with the Labour deputy leader three weeks ago to remove a comparison between the row over her former council house and the “Beergate” saga.

    In the clip omitted from the original broadcast, Mr Watt asked Ms Rayner if she would consider her position untenable if it turned out she was in the wrong, just as Sir Keir Starmer had pledged to resign if he was fined over claims he broke Covid rules in “Beergate”.

    Speaking live on Friday’s programme, he said the decision to cut the exchange was made for a “good editorial reason”. But he also admitted that Labour’s team had raised “concerns” after the interview that the “Beergate” comparison was unfair, as Ms Rayner was not under police investigation at the time.

    Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, said licence fee payers who “expect impartiality” will “want answers” as to why the broadcaster made the edit when “virtually every media outlet is focusing on this story”.

    The broadcaster aired the clip for the first time on Friday after Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said it had launched an investigation into claims Ms Rayner wrongly declared which house was her permanent address on the electoral roll, which is a criminal offence.
    *
    *
    ******************

    Razor Eddie
    3 HRS AGO
    BBC; the media wing of the Labour party.

    Phillip Bratby
    3 HRS AGO
    Reply to Razor Eddie – view message
    And the Grauniad

    John McGowan
    3 HRS AGO
    BBC, corruption, appeasement, bias, Labour support, anti-Semitism and pro-Hamas support are its raison d’etre.
    And we are mugged financially to fund its hate campaigns against Great Britain.

  95. I spent 3 hours in the garden weeding. I’ve filled the garden bin to about 2/3 full. There’s loads more to be pulled along the river bank, but I’ve done enough for today, I’m aching!

  100. I did a couple of hours – mainly pulling down the tangled mass of my Montana Rubens that died in last year’s frost. I left it last summer in vain hope that bits might have survived. All very dead. I bought a Hagley Hybrid as a replacement the other day so had to remove the dead stuff. Hard to reach the top as it had gone up high.

    1. We moved here in the summer of 2022. It’s a very different garden environment to what we had before. Bloody comfrey everywhere, lots of weird MASSIVE weeds growing alongside the river and obscuring the view. Plants we grew at the farmhouse hate it here. It’s an ongoing learning experience.

      1. Try a flame thrower…https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ignition-Adjustable-Canister-Compatible-Eco-Friendly/dp/B09BRCGLBF/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1DX8VUWG3EEO7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.j1Fp8OkgTM3vPmZDcFodR4JjfDHudBhOB1eyHFslCX7hf6acZHSE2F375L2z2Yg5U_sn6KhnEm_86I-oliyYV7CGQctuxMVgi4lkgkLLJILa1xlfmTe8o8gKBz7IFv79Vtb27L2arPcAGcOyMLv45xbsFzMjNTqEUsAl13QL_hKj58T1rqoVS2r3DvxnFLDLNt6J9TRCcHkNYDH3gS9PYdT3AeWHo-t5G32hB4E4UF-6RNhAeoX5xZS1V8jI31pu82d9dtuYmFEBTXQC70g6SaGHo0A3jP4JHG5JUHsH6s8.uy7sj5OCIA7ybPE7asJdcjYsP2SYlJ37GYDXTKroRBY&dib_tag=se&keywords=flame+thrower+for+weeds&qid=1713120474&sprefix=flame+thrower+for+weeds%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-5

      3. We moved here 29 years ago. Garden’s not large but it’s on a slope with terracing, little walls, bushes, etc. Getting a bit more effort now than it used to be but we’ve got no plans to leave.

        1. It took us 15 years to turn the last garden from jungle to flower filled haven. This garden is bigger, we are older, and it has been similarly unloved for many years

    2. I cut the grass in the back (Felt like out back) garden early. Tough work. For an oldie.

  101. Number 3 on the phone/visual from Dubai at the moment. Amazing reception chatting to muvver. Sounds like he’s having a lovely time so far.
    Lovely chap, didn’t we do well. Three of them so proud.
    He’s taken his Gulf clubs with him……I’ve taught him everything he knows 🤗🤭

        1. I certainly don’t believe it was all a conspiracy to inject everyone with graphene trackers if that’s what you mean.

          5. BTL on sites like TCW and Breitbart was full of the bizarre stuff about the ‘vaxx conspiracy’ including the vaxxes containing graphene for sinister purposes. Pretty Polly was in her element as were numerous others,saying that 90% of the population would be dead in 18 months etc.
            The articles in TCW about Dominic Cummings’ role in it all I cited this morning and things I was told at the time by friends involved in the Dalgleish’s Anglo-Norwegian research team told made it clear to me that it was not a global conspiracy but rather a wave of irrational panic by politicians completely out of their depth travelling around the world, resulting in reckless and irrational policy responses. Cummings, the arch Brexiteer, can hardly be accused by being a Globalist, a power crazed autist possibly, but not a Globalist.
            And no, my family remain unvaxxed but neither do i succumb to conspiracy theory hysteria.

          6. BTL on sites like TCW and Breitbart was full of the bizarre stuff about the ‘vaxx conspiracy’ including the vaxxes containing graphene for sinister purposes. Pretty Polly was in her element as were numerous others,saying that 90% of the population would be dead in 18 months etc.
            The articles in TCW about Dominic Cummings’ role in it all I cited this morning and things I was told at the time by friends involved in the Dalgleish’s Anglo-Norwegian research team told made it clear to me that it was not a global conspiracy but rather a wave of irrational panic by politicians completely out of their depth travelling around the world, resulting in reckless and irrational policy responses. Cummings, the arch Brexiteer, can hardly be accused by being a Globalist, a power crazed autist possibly, but not a Globalist.
            And no, my family remain unvaxxed but neither do i succumb to conspiracy theory hysteria.

          7. Given that governments around the world instigated the same plans at mostly the same time it is no wonder people think of conspiracies.

            This is after the event where we in the UK staged a massive exercise to see how the emergency services would cope and then completely ignored the recommendations until the pandemic struck.

          8. I can’t help thinking that it was a conspiracy to do a mass testing of a completely new therapy in the hope it might provide cures for numerous diseases and vast profits for the pharmaceutical industry; completely bypassing the normal testing regimes..

          10. You believe what you will.

            I believe they were all in it together.

            The whole panic was manufactured.

          11. At the risk of trashing all their economies, losing power etc? No chance, politicians take the line of least resistance.

          12. Trashing the economy is preparation for “Build Back Better”. It brought about the biggest transfer of wealth in human history. Small businesses were trashed and the money went to the corporations. Government handed out lucrative contracts to friends and family. Billionaires became trillionaires.

          13. Have you seen Pfizer’s share price recently?
            And most large corporations got hammered too.

    8. I wonder how many folk share the same Bucket List of:

      Schwab
      Soros
      Blair
      Gates
      Biden
      Nuland
      Kissinger
      ?

      For the avoidance of doubt – that is they’d be a lot happier (and the World a happier place) when they kick the bucket at the end of their naturals…

        1. Shown to be an incompetent third rate chancer on the make with no impulse control. Hardly a master conspirator.

      2. And you would have believed Fergusson with his track record?
        Let alone all the other obvious skulduggery.
        And for a moment I thought you were serious.
        If the politicians had been remotely convinced they would have followed their rules themselves.
        They didn’t.

        1. I never believed any of it, least of all Ferguson. That doesn’t mean that I believe it was all a conspiracy.

          1. I’m actually of the school that believes that for want of a better explanation, in any given set of numerous coincidences that it was a cock up.

            But too many people and companies were suddenly making too much money with very similar products almost simultaneously for me to believe it was unintentional.

          2. MRNA tech has been knocking around for years, a solution awaiting a problem. If you want to scale up to unprecedented amounts of vaccines in a short period it has to be synthetic vaccines like MRNA rather than traditional egg based cultivars. That’s why they went for it.

          3. Funny how a problem suddenly materialised and all alternative solutions were rejected almost instantly.

          4. For the reason I stated. In the UK it was Cummings who shut down other possible approaches.

          7. Glaxo Smith Kline are headquartered in Barnard Castle. Cummings supposedly tested his eyesight and concentration by driving there from his parents’ home in County Durham. More than a coincidence.

          8. I’m sorry but that’s utter rubbish. GSK’s HQ is in Brentford, Middlesex, and GSX was not a Covid vaxx producer anyway.

          12. The experimental ‘vaccines’ could only be authorised for use if there were no other proven alternatives – Hence the ban on the use of Ivermectin. Unforgiveable!

          15. No, arguing my case rationally and calmly on a basis of my knowledge without resorting to insults like some here; insults which show they have no evidence to support their arguments other than supposition.

          16. When too many coincidences happen all at once then in all probability they aren’t coincidences.

          17. I don’t think it started out as a conspiracy, but why let a good crisis go to waste so it very rapidly morphed into one.

          18. As you can tell I don’t believe it was ever a conspiracy although malign actors took advantage of a world in flux Frankly, I regard our political and administrative classes as took incompetent to conspire anything.
            If there was a conspiracy at all it was at the very start the genetic engineering of Covid in a Chinese Cat 4 laboratory part funded by US actors in defiance of their own laws., and it escaped…

          19. Covid wasn’t engineered as a world-wide conspiracy, but as a conspiracy against the Chinese people to solve their self-inflicted demographic problem. Then, as you say, it escaped and that was the start of the conspiracy.

  105. I’m going to quit while the going’s good.
    Great to hear from number three in Dubai.
    Might have to raise a glass 🥃
    Night all. 😉

  106. You’d need to prove conspiracy to use that word. That certainly doesn’t apply to Astra Zeneca, who knows Pfizer or Moderna?

    1. No I don’t. I’m referring to the claims of the manufacturers and the politicians who espoused the claims!

  107. Good evening from Mercia and Helicon and me .
    I saw a kittiwake today – a bird nearly named after me .
    I hope you’ve all had a good day and that the world hasn’t ended ,.

    1. I think AZ were most likely acting in “relative” good faith. As for the others: I think they saw three lemons and went for it. It is my personal opinion that Fauci and Ferguson (do add to the list above – in fact let’s start an “f” column)) are evil incarnate, in the same league as Mengele

    1. The poster to whom I was replying used the words ‘they were all it in together’. That’s a conspiracy.

      1. Certainly a number of governments throughout the world (with the exception of Sweden ) tore up tried and tested pandemic plans and followed the same useless script!

    2. The poster to whom I was replying used the words ‘they were all it in together’. That’s a conspiracy.

  110. You need to click on “copy video url” and then paste it. Glad you had a lovely day and saw a Kittiwake 🙂

    1. I usually press copy and paste, I’ll remember “copy video url and paste ” next time I’m on the laptop . Thank you.

    2. That only works when I’m at work on the laptop, which I refuse to bring home, though I could. On the phone, copy and paste is the only option. Also no snipping on the phone, just photos that can be saved.

    1. It is yet to be tested in a Court of Law but given the blanket indemnity unlikely to be so….

    1. Divali, I guess, but I didn’t know there was even a small Indian demographic in Poland.

        2. As a slavonic language it’s easier if you’ve learned Russian and Serbo-Croat first.

          2. A lovely lady I worked with in Selfridges in the 80s tried to teach me Slovak, Russian and Polish simultaneously. The only phrase that stuck was one I declined to use when I went to Poland ‘cause I didn’t go there to get laid!

        2. I once purchased a ‘hobby’ cement mixer made in Poland with every revolution it made a noise which sounded like Gdansk, Gdansk, Gdansk… etc

  120. Are you really suggesting that a minion like Cummings really had that power?

    How you can make such a statement and then reject conspiracies makes you a laughing stock as far as I’m concerned.

      1. TCW !!!

        Wowee zowee, the world’s authority is it?

        So now we know, if TCW says it’s right or wrong, end of conversation.

        You might just as well state the BBC or the Guardian or Far-right weekly is the definitive arbiter.

        1. They are an interesting perspective from one writer which reiterates exactly what a friend who worked in Prof Dalgleish’s research team who had dealing with Cummings at the time had already told me.

        2. Actually those articles are very good. What they show is that Cummings influence may have been ultimately short-lived, but it came at a crucial time.

    1. On the basis of my enemy’s enemy is my friend? I know that the Saudis and Iranians have a frosty relationship.

      1. Yes, the Sunnis hate the Shias more than they hate the Jews, plus the Saudis are canny on the business front and have more to gain from supporting Israel.

    1. Good night, ill be joining you, it’s been a long day .
      Good night everyone else too.

  124. Evening, all. European countries have a long history of not pulling their weight in NATO contributions. I don’t expect it to change now.

  126. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.

    1. Logic tells us we do. Look at those the virus killed – the old, the ill and, to a lesser extent, middle-aged men unlikely to ever find wives and procreate in a country with far too many men.
      I read a very interesting article in late 2020 written by an ex-diplomat who worked in China for 30 years and spoke the language fluently. He said that the Chinese kept excellent records available to anyone who knew how to find them and could read them. One statistic that he pulled out was that in the first three months of 2020 over 100,000 pensioners dropped off the benefits register in Wuhan alone.

      1. But that is still supposition. There are other theories, including the mundane that there was a breach of biosecurity due to lax discipline. Gain of function research was banned in the USA with good reason, the Chinese who put little value on life simply wouldn’t care.

        1. “the Chinese who put little value on life” really rather proves my point.
          You are right about the breach of biosecurity though, but it might not have been lack of discipline. You probably know this so forgive me if you do, but that lab was originally built together with the French. The contract stipulated that French contractors would be in charge of all biosecurity matters but the Chinese reneged on that, and other agreements as well including not carrying out gain of function experiments. The French pulled out completely in 2015 and that was when the US stepped in courtesy of Fauci & Co wanting to get round the US ban.

  132. Envy of the world my arse
    Just got home from A&E trying to look after my elderly lady friend who had a nasty fall and who has either a chipped bone in her foot or a very nasty sprain
    Ambulance 2 hours wait not too bad to be fair then it’s TROLLEY time from 3pm by 6 finally x-ray done 7.30 doc says inconclusive need another scan 10pm goes for scan to deserted dept no-one to interpret scan sent off somewhere on line
    Doc does a vanishing act at 2.30 a bed replaces the trolley in the cubicle and they’re keeping her
    I’m emotionally and physically buggered time for coffee a large rum and bed back to A&E at Nine
    Edit
    Dammit I’m so wired and angry more Rum may be required

    1. Sad to say that seems like normal service now.

      I had a bone chip in my ankle after a fall. They wouldn’t operate. They just suggested a pressure bandage until the swelling went down.
      Hope they look after your friend properly.

      1. They don’t do service at all! Everything is run for the benefit of the staff and the system – b*gger the patients! ‘Morning all! Couldn’t sleep!

        1. Good morning. The ward i was in recently had 80 beds. *I counted them. There were 12 patients including me. Everything still took ages though.

  133. Wordle 1,031 4/6

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

    This is my Wordle attempt for Monday the 15th of April, posted here because Monday’s page won’t be up until 7 am.

    3. I missed that! ‘ Morning, Geoff and thank you for all your efforts on our behalf.

  135. Good Morning,Geoff. Do you need a nudge? Someone with his ‘phone number; It’s rising 07:15!

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