Sunday 14 February: The Health Secretary still isn’t facing up to the terrible toll of lockdown

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/02/14/letters-health-secretary-still-isnt-facing-terrible-toll-lockdown/

764 thoughts on “Sunday 14 February: The Health Secretary still isn’t facing up to the terrible toll of lockdown”

    1. It was a political acquittal. We all have our own opinions about whether he actually did incite insurrection, and it’s more to do with whether we like the man or not.

      My feeling is that Donald Trump is a maverick nutcase, always has been, and he’s not hidden a thing about the crankiness of his character. It was what got him elected in 2016, and what still commands enormous support today from his followers.

      Mostly, Congress failed to get the 2/3 vote because the incoming Democratic administration have more pressing things to do, and anti-Trump Republicans don’t see the point in impeaching a president that has left office. If they cannot put up a decent candidate against him at the primaries in 2024, then God help the GOP!

      1. Morning Jeremy. I’m not blind to Trump’s faults it is just that we are caught in the old trap between the disastrous and the unpalatable. We have him or Biden in many forms! There is no other who represents us!

        1. Indeed. In the UK though, we have the saving grace of living in a benign monarchy.

          The globalist Murdochite Right grumble about Prince Charles hugging his trees, but at heart he is a good man, and has dedicated all his life to serving the nation in many good ways. His son William has had military experience, is equally dedicated to national service, and since his marriage to the admirable Kate, he has a solid family behind him.

          In the game of Good Prince, Bad Prince, we have to go back to 1936 to unearth when we got them the wrong way round. Even party and whore loving Bad Prince Tum-Tum who succeeded Queen Victoria turned out rather well in the end.

          I only wish representative democracy could do a better job right now.

          1. I used to think the same about Charles, until he hopped into bed with Schwab and Soros, and is now their poster boy for the green fraud part of their great reset.
            That’s dangerous meddling in international politics, and is giving his loyalty to a cause outside the United Kingdom, which the Queen, for all her faults has never done.

      2. The do nothing Democrats can now continue to run down America. Trump will return. He is just what is needed he IS in the real world.

        1. Trump saw though scams immediately whilst Biden is one big scam. Fuel independence, low unemployment and contempt for the latest grotesque fraud be it warming or covid or continuous war. Biden is a creepy old man who will ruin America mm

        2. I think what is worrying some people is that they said that about a number of charismatic and forceful leaders in the 1930s, and we all know where that got us.

          1. That’s what happens when the politicians stop listening to the people and their concerns, and it’s gathering pace all over the worls just now. If the reasonable politicians won’t listen and address he concerns, people will move toward the unreasonable ones, who say they will address the concerns. And we all know how that tale ends.

      3. I don’t like him, and think he’s a buffoon.
        But the reactions to him are totally off-the-scale and demented. Insulting balloons in London, for example. And the attitude of those who tell us what to think is the same – just look at the biased reporting of his no-impeachment vote. The man doesn’t get a fair hearing, and he’s managed to achieve things few others haven’t, being insulted instead of praised. Obama was given the Nobel prize for just being Obama, yet Trump is insulted for brokering an agreement in the Middle East between the Emirates and Israel. For example.

    2. Morning Minty et al.

      This morning’s BBC Website headline is totally churlish: “Senate falls short of majority needed to convict Trump”

    4. A foregone conclusion. All it has done is to prevent the process of conciliation in the USA, like picking a scab instead of leaving it to heal by itself. Pure vindictiveness on the part of the Democrats, especially Nancy Pelosi.

        1. Pelosi has been given a too easy ride by the media for her appalling behaviour since Trump took office.

    5. Radio 4 News this morning saying – Donald Trump the president who has been impeached twice.

  2. I have just filled in a questionnaire online about the proposal to make home abortion pills a permanent thing in Wales.
    If anyone else would like to do the same, here is the link:
    https://gov.wales/termination-pregnancy-arrangements-wales

    My concerns centre around women’s safety – the home being a very unsafe place for many victims of abuse. Child sex abuse victims being forced to take an abortion pill to cover up the abuse, etc.

    By the way, I didn’t give my address or phone number on the last page and it accepted it.

  3. Larry, the No 10 cat, celebrates 10 years on the seat of power. 14 February 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7dfcbba5f2cc9a75e5636d55efb73f65a64636288f8eea40d6326ade64b86a2d.jpg

    Britain’s chief mouser is celebrating 10 years prowling the corridors of political power at No 10 Downing Street.

    This Monday marks 10 years since Larry the cat left Battersea Dogs and Cats Home for a new home with the prime minister.

    He was the first cat to hold the rat-catching portfolio since stalwart ratter Humphrey was retired in 1997.

    I don’t wish Larry ill but he’s let a lot of two legged rats have the run of the building!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/13/larry-the-no-10-cat-celebrates-10-years-on-the-seat-of-power

          1. Last night I watched the BFI-restored film by Herbert Ponting of Captain Scott’s ill-fated journey to the South Pole. And I discovered that the expedition had a totally black cat as a mascot which shared the same name as Guy Gibson’s dog. I must stop watching these films or the police will come after me for being a racist.

        2. Have you read Steinbeck’s novel with this title? Not his best but still worth reading

    1. Good morning!
      Our snow not only hasn’t gone, in the shady parts it is still powdery, as the temperatures haven’t risen above zero for several days!

    2. Good morning!
      Our snow not only hasn’t gone, in the shady parts it is still powdery, as the temperatures haven’t risen above zero for several days!

  5. ‘Boris’ Burrow’ tunnel to Northern Ireland set to get green light. 14 February 2021.

    An undersea tunnel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland could get the green light as early next month and help unblock trade which has been hit by Brexit tensions by creating the first ever fixed link between all four nations of the United Kingdom.

    Any new connection – possibly dubbed “Boris’ burrow” – would also delight unionists in Northern Ireland who have been outraged at the way the Government has allowed the European Union to impose new checks on ferry cargo heading to the Province.

    This is even less economically viable than HS2 but paradoxically should have been constructed as soon as it was practical. A further one between England and Ireland would not go amiss either!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/02/13/boris-burrow-tunnel-northern-ireland-set-get-green-light/

    1. Morning, Araminta.

      An obvious, “Oh, look, there’s a squirrel,” moment from the totally useless Johnson.

    2. I wonder if anyone in the Government has any idea about how difficult and costly this might be? Such a tunnel would probably need to go under the Beaufort Dyke [no smut please], the deepest point of the North Channel. I suspect it’s possible but given how the costs of HS2 have escalated since the original estimate, I hate to think how much this idea will cost. Given that “carbon neutral” Boris is in favour of this mad idea makes me even more sceptical!
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7c9503de44df4eaf97986ea542f63b904c247d0d7c8afee451476776e14e0e6.png

      1. They could consider a submerged, rather than subterranean, tunnel. That could go down underground for the shore approaches (cut ‘n cover) then pass through the water at depth for the main crossing.

          1. It could be built ashore and towed afloat to location before being deballasted and anchored in place. And relatively easily removed the same way if required.

        2. I’m not sure the gradient profile would work for that approach, and as Clydesider points out the deepest area was used for dumping munitions. Although I have done some hydrographic work here a good while ago, I’m not in possession of the detailed facts and I’m not a geologist, so maybe it would work – sadly I have no great belief that Boris will ask those who do have the necessary expertise before committing to this idea!

        3. I’m not sure the gradient profile would work for that approach, and as Clydesider points out the deepest area was used for dumping munitions. Although I have done some hydrographic work here a good while ago, I’m not in possession of the detailed facts and I’m not a geologist, so maybe it would work – sadly I have no great belief that Boris will ask those who do have the necessary expertise before committing to this idea!

      2. I thought one of the objections to this tunnel was the danger from unexploded weapons dumped in the sea after WW2.
        Another crazy idea from Johnson.

        1. To be fair, Boris wasn’t around to have crazy ideas at the end of World Wa… Ah!
          ;-))
          Morning!

    3. I think he is also toying with idea of building another tunnel – this time between Mevagissey in Cornwall and New York.

  6. Morning all

    SIR – Matt Hancock says he hopes that, by the end of the year, Covid-19 will be a disease that Britain can “live with, like we do flu”.

    I am afraid that is not good enough, without the prospect of a much earlier end to lockdown. Vaccination numbers are rising rapidly, but so are those for hospital waiting lists. Cases of mental illness, domestic violence and unemployment are also going up.

    The Government must focus on easing lockdown and mitigating the collateral damage being caused to young and old alike. This is urgent: it should be a matter of weeks, not months. Mr Hancock, in particular, should not be diverted from this task by embarking on a restructure of the NHS before the pandemic is over.

    Norman Macfarlane

    Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

    SIR – I always understood that the purpose of lockdown was to “save the NHS” and “flatten the curve”.

    Advertisement

    Now that the most vulnerable 14 million have received at least their first jab, why are ministers still telling us that children shouldn’t be using playgrounds, and we shouldn’t be booking domestic summer holidays?

    We should be hearing about plans to unwind lockdown as soon as possible. We need to get the country out of what is becoming an unnecessary prison sentence affecting millions financially, mentally, physically – and, in some cases, all three.

    Adrian Wright

    Shaftesbury, Dorset

    SIR – At the start of the pandemic, our Government was panicked by scenes of chaos in Italy’s hospitals into imposing the draconian measures that have destroyed lives and livelihoods.

    The original idea was for three weeks of restrictions to “flatten the curve” and prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. Since then, however, the restrictions have escalated, creating even worse problems for both the economy and people’s health, physical and mental.

    I looked in vain in Matt Hancock’s proposals to reform the NHS for a plan to ensure that this won’t happen again when the next new virus arrives. The NHS needs to be nimble, employing a reserve force of retired nurses, doctors and volunteers (unencumbered by last-minute training courses) in the manner of the Territorial Army. Its remarkable medical staff – as well as taxpayers – deserve nothing less.

    Tim Coles

    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    SIR – In December 2019, while making calls to voters from Tory HQ, I found myself sitting next to Matt Hancock.

    I asked him when we, as a country, would be able to have a grown-up conversation about the NHS. He shook his head and said: “Never”.

    He seemed a nice enough man at the time, but I should have known then that someone unprepared to face up to the biggest issue in his portfolio would only morph under pressure into the hectoring bully we see today.

    Brian Gedalla

    London N3

    1. That is an interesting anecdote from Brian Gedalla, and as he says, it is quite a pointer to Hancock’s character.

      1. BTL Comment:-

        Robert Spowart
        14 Feb 2021 2:55AM
        Brian Gedalla fails to realise that Matt Hancock had a point about the impossibility of a grown up conversation about the NHS for as soon as any political party make any noises suggestive of a much needed NHS Reform, the Usual Suspects comprising of The Labour Party, Trades Union Activists and the entrenched Self Interest REMFs within the Upper Reaches of NHS Bureaucracy immediately kick into overdrive mode with the hysteric kneejerk screams of “THEY WANT TO PRIVATISE THE NHS!!” and “SAVE OUR NHS!!”
        As a result of which, any thought of meaningful NHS Reform is either torpedoed at the start or, should proposals actually be made, implemented in such a desultory fashion as to be ineffective and very often counter productive.

        Delete30LikeReply

        1. That has been recognised for years as being the greatest obstacle to having a grown up discussion about the NHS.
          However, that is still no reason to reply “Never”. Hancock should have recognised the necessity of laying the foundations for root and branch change of the appalling financial structure of the NHS.
          The most important single reform would be to cut the umbilical cord between the NHS and the government, and make clear to people which part of their pay packet goes towards healthcare services.
          Only when people realise what they are paying for, will they be able to break free from the “Evil Tories/Save the NHS” mantra.
          Hancock is clearly not the principled man who could even lay the groundwork for this vital reform.

        2. That said, the NHS has been “reformed” on several occasions. Older readers will recall the Salmon reform, for example.

          1. And, of course, what was the result of those reforms? Very often and usually due to deliberate misinterpretation by the REFMs, the opposite of what was intended.

        3. ‘Morning, BoB, “…implemented in such a desultory fashion as to be ineffective and very often counter productive.”

          Like the disastrous NHS Trusts – all fighting independently with no joined up systems so that, for example, a person from Hawick, on holiday in Devon or Cornwall, who is taken ill will find that the medical records are unobtainable.

          I have difficulty with obscure acronyms and can only conclude that REMFs are Royal Engineer Married Families but doubtless I’m wrong.

    2. As I wrote yesterday:
      At the beginning, it was the government and the people against the virus.
      Now its the government and virus against the people.

  7. Untrustworthy history

    SIR – It is claimed that the drive to identify links between National Trust properties and slavery is merely about historical “facts”.

    If the aim were to understand colonialism properly, there would also be an effort to highlight properties associated with the many colonial administrators who devoted their lives to the betterment of those whom they were sent to govern.

    Even if the drive were focused specifically on slavery, it would also pay attention to properties associated with the officers and men of the Royal Navy who cleared the oceans of slave-traders, and with those who have campaigned against modern slavery.

    David J Critchley

    Buckingham

    1. They choose to ignore all the good stuff. It doesn’t strengthen their agenda. Just like the Rhodes statue ignoring all the endowments he made.

    2. These things should be looked at in context. For example, will future historians, or propagandists look at the current lockdown restrictions without mentioning viruses or Covid-19?

  8. Morning again. Just finished opening my Valentines

    SIR – It is disingenuous of “environmental groups” to suggest that grouse shooting threatens wildlife and biodiversity. Moors are meticulously managed and support a huge range of animals and plants.

    If shooting stopped, the moors would simply not be managed, as it is hugely expensive. The red grouse, the heather and the whole ecosystem would disappear very quickly as the moor turned to scrub.

    “Conservationists” have caused enough damage to British wildlife over the last 50 years through their irrational obsession with predators. Their motives have nothing to do with the health of either the moors or the countryside.

    Philip Fairless

    Scots Gap, Northumberland

      2. Yes. Forests were cut down in Scotland to create grouse moors. Mr Fairless appears to suggest that the moors are cultivated. I’ve seen plenty of moors but no cultivation, just the occasional burning.
        “Conservationists” … irrational obsession with predators.. Predators are part of the natural ecosystem. What a pity they have to be trapped, poisoned and shot so that the owners of moors can breed easy targets for guns
        Mr Fairless does not mention that owners of moors – shooting estates – have been irrationally fixated on the wallets of fat German businessmen.

        1. Isn’t the burning part of the “cultivation” (I prefer the term ‘management’, myself)? It encourages new growth.

          1. Yes, it is. but that’s about it, I think. This is about creating vast areas of habitat for grouse. It is a monoculture that only benefits the owners and not wider society. Quite unlike woodland and farmland. Contrariwise, the owners of shooting estates happily wipe out golden eagles, buzzards, and every sort of raptor, despite it being illegal to do so.
            There is the now notorious case of a gamekeeper being acquitted of committing such a crime because the person who filmed it happening was “trespassing”.

  9. Good morning from a still chilly Derbyshire. Dry, but overcast and -3°C in the yard.

    So the Democrat’s spiteful little plan failed, but the question in my mind is, “Who really did organise the invasion of the Capitol on January the 6th?”

  10. BBC Breakfast News at 08:00 – report of the Trump trial. Heavily one-sided (and I am not a Trump supporter). Presentation of the prosecution case with no mention whatsoever of the defence.

    1. According to paper here, all of America is horrified at the verdict.
      Balls. Just our MSM (Orange-man-bad types) are horrified.

  11. Good Morning.
    I didn’t say anything yesterday because it was a developing situation.
    My Bill had – to use a generic term – a heart attack on Friday evening. Two days after his 80th Birthday; what a way to celebrate it.
    He is now in the cardio unit at Basildon hospital; yesterday he had a stent fitted and will probably be in hospital until at least Wednesday.
    Today our younger son and I are running down to Sarf Essex with additional clothes, magazines etc…. We are not allowed to visit him, so will have to leave the bag at reception and come straight back home.
    Bill has one of those bedside phone thingies, so I ring him in the afternoon when the ward is less hectic and noisy.
    I will keep you posted.
    (The bulletin will be hung on the fence outside Allan Towers.)

    2. Anne, what an awful time you’re having. Just to let you know we’re thinking of you and sending love and blessings to you and, of course to Bill. It’s 39 years today since my old man and I got engaged and I cannot imagine life without him. KBO in typical Allan fashion and take care of yourself and your wonderful family!

      1. 22nd. February is our 56th. wedding anniversary.
        Holy Smoke, we’re as old as the Rolling Bones.

          1. I couldn’t possibly comment. 🙂
            Two small boys and a mortgage meant there was no spare cash for drugs – other than the odd aspirin.

    3. My wife had a heart attack 5 years ago. The ambulance people were in contact with a consultant, who had access to her stats. The consultant instructed the ambulance to take her to The William Harvey Hospital in Ashford instead of our local (Medway Maritime). She was taken straight to the Cardiac department and was having a stent fitted within minutes of arrival. In on Sunday evening, she was discharged on Tuesday afternoon. Fantastic service from the NHS.

      1. The paramedics ran all sorts of tests at Allan Towers and buzzed them over to the (duty?) consultant.
        First Bill was taken to Colchester General Hospital and then transferred to Basildon. Throughout, the hospitals kept me informed by phone of each move.

        1. Anne, I’m sure your Bill will be fine. When Lynn had her heart attack, at no time did I fear that I might lose her. From start to finish, the paramedics through to the surgeons and the nursing staff gave me complete confidence that she was in the best of hands.

          1. That thought didn’t occur to me. Maybe childish of me.
            In fact, I was thoroughly English – didn’t want to be a bother. I was pretty sure what was happening, but, as the sight of Bill crying was very distressing, I checked with sonny boy whether my reaction was over the top. He confirmed that I wasn’t and the rest is history.

      2. In their haste to condemn all aspects of the National Heath Service (I deplore the common modern habit of reducing all things to initials) most of those doing so fail to realise that there are doctors, surgeons and nurses in many establishments that do give a shit about your health and who possess the ingrained professionalism to invariably provide a good service.

        1. We all know the frontline staff tend to be good. It’s the busybodies running around with a piece of paper that are such a bad advertisement for the organisation.

        2. In the last few years members of my close family have needed the emergency services of the National Health Service and have received quick , efficient and successful treatment. These events included a certain SWMBO roller booting and breaking a leg .

    4. Good luck to your Bill and let’s hope he is soon home and on an improving trajectory.
      I hope you and your family continue to cope well.

    5. So sorry to hear that, Anne. Best wishes to Bill for a full recovery and to you and your family.

      1. With hindsight, he had been looking drawn, and been rather withdrawn, for several weeks. But then, we are all being adversely affected by the lockdowns and the capricious nature of our government.

    9. My sympathies to Bill and yourself, it’s at times like this that the geographically fragmented nature of this forum that precludes physical help gets frustrating, I will be with you both in spirit.

      1. Our son made that point; ironically, by the attack coming on so unexpectedly, Bill avoided years of sitting on an NHS waiting list.

    11. My dear – how terrible for you both. If the unit he is in is anything like the one at NNUH – hell be up and running in a short time. Give him our best – and look after yourself.

    12. Good morning Anne

      I am certain you must have all had a very frightening experience , but very relieved that the Cardio bods have sprung into action to mend your dear Moh.

      You must rest up and relax now and gather strength.

      Kind thoughts to you all from me here in Dorset .

    16. Our very best wishes to you both.

      We do hope all will be well.

      (We loved the happy photo you posted here last week of the pair of you)

    17. We are very sorry to hear the news that your Bill is in hospital.

      You are both in our thoughts and look forward to a successful outcome for him. You will know that all NoTTLers are thinking of you both. xx

    18. ‘Morning, Anne, beastly things MCIs, having suffered 3. I’m still here and thankful for an extra 19 years since I apparently died in 2002 with a straight line VF but the battery charger brought me back.

      Being of an age around your Bill’s years, one can only hope that his strength (of mind as well as body) will pull him through.

      I’m sure I’m not alone in passing on to him, through you, the very best wishes of the NoTTLer family.

    19. Oh, so sorry to hear this, Anne, what a shock for you all, especially your husband, and so distressing. I do hope he makes a speedy recovery and that he is safely back in the bosom of the family home before very long. You are both in our thoughts and God bless.

    20. Oh Anne, I’m so sorry to hear that. I have everything crossed for a speedy and complete return to health for Bill, and am sending hugs to you.

    21. Best of luck to ‘im indoors, and I do hope he makes a full and speedy recovery without being adversely affected by the coof, one way or the other.

    22. Only just seen this Anne – I hope he’s recovering well and will soon be home. What a worry! Sending good thoughts your way.

    23. The lengths some guys will go to rather than just admit he forgot your St Valentine’s card.

      Hope all is well and he’s home safe and sound soon.

      1. 🙂 He’s always tended to be a bit dramatic, but this was over the top – even by his standards.

    24. Chin up, Anne. Sounds like it’s under control and he’s in good hands. You’ll soon have him home so you can nag encourage him in his recovery.

    25. What a worrying time for you, Anne, and compounded by visits’ being verboten.
      I hope things go to plan for you on Wednesday.

    26. Oh my, how terrible for you both. Especially hard with the Covid situation and no visiting. Good to know he had the stent fitted so promptly. A youngish (mid 50s) female relative had a series of heart attacks last summer and had a stent fitted at (I think) Colchester. Spoke well of the treatment and, once meds were stabilised, felt much better. Hopefully Bill will respond as well as she did!

    27. Dear Anne.

      The frontline Staff are wonderful;
      Paramedics are beyond compare,
      I hope Bill will makes a fast recovery.
      With my love, prayers and best wishes
      to you both. J.xx

    28. Fingers crossed it will be nothing but good news (but stock up on hydrochlorowhatsit and zinc, just in case!).

  12. So we have the first positive bit of news for Trump and Trump supporters in three months.
    How even one senator could vote for impeachment after watching that farce of a trial is beyond comprehension, what is the point of a trial when they vote politically?

    2. I thought it was very amusing when the Dems voted to call witnesses but backed down immediately when Trumps’ lawyers said that they would call Pelosi (and the Mayor of DC).

      It is thought that Pelosi knew in advance about the threat to the Capitol. A freedom of information request was made for the release of documents held by the DC police, but it was denied on the grounds that the release of the records would be “personally embarrassing and privacy invading”.

      Pelosi has twice failed to nail Trump with impeachments – she is a witch with her own witch hunt!

      3. I still find it VERY strange that the level of DC Police at the Capitol on that day – given what was taking place (and scheduled) – to be VERY suspicious. Add to that a number of leftist activists and ‘journalists’ in with the crowd who made it to the Capitol building (and well before Trump had finished speaking) – likely to be involved in riling those idiots who went there, then this sounds like something planned on the OTHER side of the political fence.

        I detect the hand of Soros.

  14. 329390+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    “Sunday 14 February: The Health Secretary still isn’t facing up to the terrible toll of lockdown”

    Although I do believe much of the governance actions to be pre- planned
    they now,` like the electorate, have an odious very nasty tiger by the tail, in the case of the electorate the lab/lib/con coalition.

    ALL I’m asking is why this political sh!te in many cases is being supported time and again resulting in the same action re-plays over & over.

    Point of fact is much of our sufferance is self inflicted via the polling booth.

    Ps,
    One bloody Valentine card, I wouldn’t have got that if I had missed the post.

      1. 329390+ up ticks,
        Morning S,
        Just so, I have always maintained the lib dems to be the most honest in the world of political treachery is so far as, they showed
        no pretence in being anything but through & through pro eu.

        1. And yet the Lib Dems was the first party to promise a referendum on continued EU membership. Mind you they soon changed and removed this offer when they discovered that people would actually vote to leave the EU.

          But I cannot understand their feeling that promises should be honoured. After all they promised to abolish university tuition fees before happily agreeing to them being tripled.

          1. It was the telegenic Nick Clegg who did for the Lib Dims. For years, as a party of obscurity, they could promise all things to all voters without ever having to make good on their deceit.

            Sadly, for the Lib Dims, Clegg was put on tv ‘debates’ with Snotty McDoom and Spoonface Cameron and unsurprisingly came out of the ‘beauty contest’ fairly well.

            So much so that the Lib Dims picked up a record number of seats (for them) and ended up in the coalition government, where their chicanery was laid bare for all the world to see. Hence there are now fewer Lib Dim MP than men who walked on the Moon!

            As an aside, I’m sure I’m not the only one to find pre-election televised political ‘debates’ to be a complete and utter waste of time for the voters; nothing more than attempting to produce soundbites for the headline writers whilst avoiding the ‘gotchas’ the headline writers have pre-printed.

      2. Labour are brownish.
        Conservatives are brownish.
        Limp Dims are brownish.
        UKIP are brownish.

        In fact, let’s cut to the chase: they are all a shower of shit!

        1. 329390+ up ticks,
          G,
          Since the Gerard Batten / Richard Braine
          treachery instigated via the ukip party
          Nec / nige I do agree, and have pointed out such in saying the coalition now reads
          as lab/lib/con/ukip.

          From an ex long term member.

  15. The sticky truth about Navalny. 13 February 2021.

    His courage is exhilarating. Even if you think his cause hopeless, Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and Putin-baiter, deserves our admiration. To return to Moscow after being poisoned, surely knowing arrest awaited him, is beyond brave. The chances are he will be crushed. But annihilation is not certain; and if one day he wins his battle with Putin, his return to Moscow this winter will become the stuff of legend. Navalny is not crazy: he has made a rational calculation, weighing the relative safety of a tedious future in grey and indefinite exile against a small possibility of making Russian history. With open eyes he has chosen risk.

    Navalny is a Russian political Evel Knievel. He advances himself, gets his rocks off (and makes a great deal of money) baiting Vladimir Putin. His support team are foreign intelligence agencies who supply the means to do it. The fake “Putin’s Palace” story is just the latest fabrication. One has only to look at the paragraph above. He wasn’t poisoned with Novichok of course, since he’s no use to anyone dead, but he did indeed return to Moscow voluntarily; which though it speaks to some rather large cojones, only happened because he waited until his parole ran out before doing so, knowing full well that this would lead to his arrest. One supposes that he will eventually overstep the mark; or more likely his western handlers will decide that he will be more useful dead than alive, and then it will be over!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-sticky-truth-about-navalny

    1. Good guess, but it’s impossible to know the truth, really.
      His actions do provide rather a contrast to the bed-wetting United Kingdom, where we are told that people would rather exist in perpetual holidayless, jobless, worshipless twilight without family than expose ourselves to the smallest risk of dying.

      1. The Russians know all about political oppression.
        In Blighty, we have been cocooned for centuries by the comforting phrases like “it couldn’t happen here”, “an Englishman’s home is his castle”, “Mother of Parliaments” yada, yada, yada.
        That has not been true for decades; our descent into totalitarianism began with the introduction of CCTV.
        Which reminds me of another banal expression: “If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear”.

        1. Before the ECHR put a stop to it in the early 90s over 120 organizations had the right to enter your home without a Warrant, just not the Police. One of them was TV Licencing and they did it all the time. The idea of “an Englishman’s home is his castle” was a complete myth, and although a Warrant was required for entry, the Police often ignored it, “We smelled gas” was a favourite excuse, and accepted by Judges.

          1. They had better not try the “we smelled gas” line at my house – we don’t have gas, not even LPG!

        2. If anyone says to you “If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear”, ask them if they have curtains.

      2. It baffles me; do they think they will never die? The whole of life is a risk and the pathway to death.

    2. Good guess, but it’s impossible to know the truth, really.
      His actions do provide rather a contrast to the bed-wetting United Kingdom, where we are told that people would rather exist in perpetual holidayless, jobless, worshipless twilight without family than expose ourselves to the smallest risk of dying.

    3. Navalny is not ‘the opposition’ in Russia, his support is tiny. The real opposition is the Communist Party and Putin’s policies are largely oriented to keeping them at bay. The media never mention this basic dynamic of Russian politics and offer us political fantasies instead.

    4. What about the DT exposing Putin’s fake marches in support of him?

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/13/fake-rallies-made-for-putin-videos-tell-russias-leader-popular/

      BTW – that Spectator piece was an opinion spot by the hardly-conservative Matthew Parris, where he gave zero evidence about Putin’s palace being fake or that Navalny didn’t get poisoned by the FSB etc. Navalny may well be a showboater salesman – like Trump is, but we cannot make out him to be a ‘villain’ and Putin to be some kind of ‘white saviour’ rallying against political correctness and standing upo for the man and woman in the street, when the evidence (including on video) says very differently.

      As I said yesterday, Putin, to his credit, has done some good over the years, but also a LOT of VERY bad things, far outweighing the good. That he uses the media in Russia to do his bidding is rather a testament to the abilities of the democratic opposition parties that resentment to Putin and his polcies is growing steadily and recently spilled onto the streets nationwide.

      I do recall many people on this bog complaining about UK citizens being arrested for peacably proetsting against authoritarian measures instituted by our own government, and yet seemingly find Putin’s thugs mass arresting and often disappearing similarly peaceful protesters in Russia perfectly ok.

      1. What about the DT exposing Putin’s fake marches in support of him?

        They weren’t “fake” they were in support of him and they mentioned him by name. How the two unnamed and unidentified teachers were fooled by an event that required a costume change and rehearsals for an indoor musical event must remain a mystery to everyone but themselves.

        Tatyana Stanovaya writes for the Moscow Times, an anti-Putin newspaper, so her opinion is hardly likely to be generous.

        That “Putin’s Palace” and the “Novichok Poisoning” are both fakes’ are my own conclusions. The Palace was always a half ruin as can be gleaned here;

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9253565/Builders-Putins-1billion-palace-confirm-home-riddled-mould.html

        There was never any evidence that it is or has ever belonged to Putin or in fact ever inhabited by anyone. The whole story is as fake as a £3 note!

        Novichok is a serial joke. It was fake at Salisbury, and fake everywhere else. Aside from its amazing non-fatality we are supposed to believe that the President of Russia has attempted to kill a series of nonentities by easily identifiable means that can only make serious trouble for himself? Why didn’t he just stab them and leave a knife with his fingerprints on it and a signed confession? To believe any of this is to believe that Putin is a fool, something far from the truth!

    5. What about the DT exposing Putin’s fake marches in support of him?

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/13/fake-rallies-made-for-putin-videos-tell-russias-leader-popular/

      BTW – that Spectator piece was an opinion spot by the hardly-conservative Matthew Parris, where he gave zero evidence about Putin’s palace being fake or that Navalny didn’t get poisoned by the FSB etc. Navalny may well be a showboater salesman – like Trump is, but we cannot make out him to be a ‘villain’ and Putin to be some kind of ‘white saviour’ rallying against political correctness and standing upo for the man and woman in the street, when the evidence (including on video) says very differently.

      As I said yesterday, Putin, to his credit, has done some good over the years, but also a LOT of VERY bad things, far outweighing the good. That he uses the media in Russia to do his bidding is rather a testament to the abilities of the democratic opposition parties that resentment to Putin and his polcies is growing steadily and recently spilled onto the streets nationwide.

      I do recall many people on this bog complaining about UK citizens being arrested for peacably proetsting against authoritarian measures instituted by our own government, and yet seemingly find Putin’s thugs mass arresting and often disappearing similarly peaceful protesters in Russia perfectly ok.

    1. Even the 63 are gutless because they’ve bought into the lie about the vaccine. It has not been tested for long term side effects, and yet the government is bringing in COVID passports via the back door, getting private business to do the dirty work for them, leaving them to say it ain’t us, blame them!

      #1984ishere

      1. Opposing the vaccine if you’re in the public eye is a sure way to become “cancelled” and your voice lost forever. Are some people playing a tactical game to keep their voices heard?

    1. Morning Bill. It does indeed though one would have thought that Nottlers needed no reminder of mortality!

    1. Good morning, Dandy Front-Pager

      I still feel bad about not highlighting your 72nd birthday on 10th February. I shall borrow from Lewis Carrol’s Alice and wish you

      A VERY HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY

      [Edited & Corrected]

      2. Yes, Korky, I had no idea or I would have baked you a rhubarb crumble my dear. Hope you had an enjoyable time on Wednesday.
        (Note to Rastus: I didn’t see Korky on your list – could you perhaps re-publish it on this site?)

        1. It was on my list but buried deep in my Nottler History. I printed a paper copy but it was not up-to-date and in my incompetent senility I did not spot it.

          PLEASE, Fellow Nottlers, let me know of any errors, omissions or additions I need to make to this list.

          02 January – 1947 : Poppiesmum
          07 January – **** : Lady of the Lake
          08 January – 1941 : Rough Common
          09 January – **** : thayaric
          10 January – 1960 : hopon
          16 January – 1941 : Legal Beagle
          18 January – **** : Stormy
          21 January – **** : Nagsman
          23 January – 1951 : Damask Rose
          27 January – 1948 : Citroen 1
          10 February -1949 : Korky the Kat (Dandy Front Pager)
          11 February- 1964 : Phizzee
          22 February- 1951 : Grizzly
          24 February- 1941 : Sguest
          28 February- 1956 :Jeremy Morfey
          29 February- **** : Ped
          05 March—– 1957 : Sue MacFarlane
          08 March—– **** : Geoff Graham
          26 March—– 1962 : Caroline Tracey
          27 March—– 1947 : Maggiebelle
          27 March—– 1941 : Fallick Alec
          19 April——- **** : Devonian in Kent
          22 April——–1950 :Jay Sands
          26 April——- **** : Harry Kobeans
          24 May——– 1944 : NoToNanny
          08 June——– **** : Still Bleau
          09 June——- 1947 : Johnny Norfolk
          09 June——– 1947 : Horace Pendleton
          23 June——– 1957 : Oberstleutnant
          25 June——– 1952 : corimmobile
          01 July——— 1946 : Rastus C Tastey
          12 July——— 1956 : David Wainwright/Stigenace
          18 July——— 1941: lacoste
          19 July——— 1948: Ndovu
          26 July——— 1936 : Delboy
          29 July———- 1944 : Lewis Duckworth
          30 July———- 1946 : Alf the Great
          01 August—— 1950 : Datz
          03 August—— 1954 : molamola
          10 August—— 1967 : ourmaninmunich
          14 August ——-1944 jillthelass
          18 August—— **** : ashesthandust
          19 August——- 1951 : Hugh Janus
          04 September- 1948 : Joseph B Fox
          07 September- **** : Araminta Smade
          11 September- 1947 : peddytheviking
          12 September- 1946 : Ready Eddy
          13 September- **** : Anne Allan
          15 September- **** : veryveryveryoldfella
          26 September- **** : Feargal the Cat
          30 September 1944 : One Last Try
          07 October—– 1960 : Bob 3
          11 October—– 1944 : Hardcastle Craggs
          25 October—– 1955 : Sue Edison
          12 November- ***** : Cochrane
          01 December– 1956 : Sean Stanley-Adams
          06 December– 1943 : Duncan Mac
          10 December– **** : Aethelfled
          16 December– **** : Plum
          21 December– 1945 : Elsie Bloodaxe

          (E&OE)

          2. I suspect that more people are afraid of being ‘doxxed’ and then ‘cancelled’ these days.

    2. Belated Happy Birthday, Korky! Just keep warm and wrap up, it is bitterly cold with these easterlies.

      1. Thanks, poppiesmum. I popped out to my tool store to get some methylated spirits (times are hard 😎), really to clean some glue from work I did yesterday. The wind was bitingly cold. No walkies today, just housework.

        2. Happy birthday Sir!
          So far I’ve had a walk to Cromford & back, sorting wood for later pickup in both directions, chucked the last lot of sawn & chopped wood over to where it’s going to be stacked, brought a crate of firewood in for the woodburner and hand sawn enough small sticks to fill 3 mushroom trays for next winter’s supplies.
          Still muffled up like an arctic explorer, so haven’t lit the woodburner yet.
          And it’s still -3°C outside.

          1. Thank you BoB. Your exertions are wearing me out.😎

            Next week it looks as though I may be able to tackle my winter pruning. The crab apple needs a severe trimming back, the Bramley a prune ordinaire and the redcurrant, after again watching how to do it properly, a cut back to hopefully get some decent fruit this year. If it refuses to crop then it’s for the chop. Repairing existing and building new deep beds will have to wait a few weeks until I can be assured of some decent weather.

          2. Must be nice having a garden you can do something with instead of a bloody chunk of hillside with some bits nearly needing an abseiling rope to get to.

    1. It wasn’t carefree, you were just young, with the whole raft of cares that entails. And then there was MAD hanging over us, and now we know how close that came.

      1. Do you honestly believe that the threat of MAD has left us? I think the world is a far more dangerous place now than it ever has been.

        1. It hasn’t entirely, but it is less itchy trigger than it was. OTOH my guess is that Iran will build a bomb, put it in the luggage hold of an Iran Air commercial service. Late divert from the glide path into London, Paris wherever and air burst. The people on the plane will be martyrs, the pilots Islamic heroes.

          But it won’t blow up the entire planet.

          1. There was certainly a threat back in the 1960s; however, the people in charge then, although not entirely trustworthy, were nowhere near as demented as the decrepit imbeciles who are in charge these days.

          2. Agreed, but look up Stanislav Petrov. One man who disobeyed orders and thereby probably prevented all out nuclear war in September 1983.

          3. I think that, having had some real adversity in life, they had a better sense of proportion and knew what it was like when half the world wanted to kill you. The top bods when I was young pretty well all had active, front-line service, for example. IIRC, Willie Whitelaw’s tank was blown up by Walter Wittmann, a very successful Tiger tank commander. That kind of experience focuses he mind somewhat.
            “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

          1. I used that expression yesterday when we had to return to the house as my OM had forgotten his wallet and mobile! Again! Morning good people!

  20. Good morning, my friends

    Sheer nonsense of course. I wonder what Boris Johnson’s live-in concubine thinks of it?

    ‘Boris’ Burrow’ tunnel to Northern Ireland set to get green light
    The tunnel – which would be the same length as the one to France – could help unblock Brexit tensions

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/02/13/boris-burrow-tunnel-northern-ireland-set-get-green-light/

    A BTL Comment

    What a clever man Boris Johnson is. Mind you the digging equipment powered only by solar and wind-power will, I am sure, be marvellously effective. And if Scotland gets its independence and Northern Ireland becomes part of the Irish Republic then English taxpayers will be very generously paying for their tunnel.

      1. You will see it again soon. I was having trouble deleting it as I am saving it up to use on a significant occasion.

        My wife and both my sons are extremely proficient on their computers but I am completely useless and completely dependent on Caroline. She’s at Mass now so I hope my posts don’t all collapse.

  21. Atheist Belief

    A girl comes home from a date rather upset. Her mother asked her what was wrong and she replied

    “Anthony proposed to me an hour ago.”

    And her mother says “Then why are you so sad?”

    And the girl says “He’s an Atheist, he doesn’t believe there’s a Hell.”

    Her mother looks at her sympathetically and says, “Marry him anyway. Between the two of us, we’ll prove him wrong!”

    1. I wonder why, with so many of the males on here who profess their love for their wives and their long and happy marriages, that so many jokes are posted that take a negative view of the same.

      1. Good afternoon, Stormy.
        They are mostly funny though!!
        The ability to laugh at ourselves
        and others?

          1. Yes! I don’t have an answer;
            I have always worked with men,
            for all their blokey ways I find them
            far more pleasant to work with than
            women, far kinder amongst other
            attributes. There is always the self-
            centred misogynist but one tries to
            ignore him.

      1. 329390+ up ticks,
        Morning JBF,
        I have learnt to believe nothing wearing a tory tag is believable, or their family members or any friends they have in the USA.
        That also goes for the lab/lib dems.

  23. Blimey it’s bitterly cold outside, strong wind chill I thought it was supposed to warm up a bit today.

    1. Beautifully sunny here – all sides of the snow are lit up, ‘cos the sun is reflecting off the newly painted (last summer) house.

  24. I did something today, for the first time in months, that required a great deal of personal courage to preserve whatever sanity I might have left. I looked at the news page on the Guardian’s website.

    Here are some of the predictable headlines that I saw:

    – Republicans have betrayed American democracy – and boosted the world’s dictators
    – President says the substance of the charge against Donald Trump over the January attack on US Capitol is not in dispute
    – ‘White supremacy won today’: critics condemn Trump acquittal as racist vote

    I didn’t bother to read the articles nor did I dare to look at the opinion page.

    People who rely on the Guardian for their news are grossly ill-informed because they only ever hear one particularly perverse side of a story, written by people who hold most of the indigenous people of the UK in contempt, along with our heritage, culture and traditions.

      1. Morning Sue

        I have just glanced at the Guardian on line , it is not on my list of must reads , apart from their gardening or recipe pages sometimes

        Their news articles and opinions make my ears itch, rather similar to itch scratch itch that dogs sometimes have .

        Some of their journos are on a different planet , however I think the same applies to the DT and the Times and most politicians

        I know I am growing older , and some of my ideas are fixed and not very flexible or forgiving , shall I just become submissive to all new ideas , shrug my shoulders and say it is what it is ?

    3. In the 1980s, it used to be said that Britons abroad who bought the overseas Guardian edition never came home because they thought Britain was some kind of nuclear wasteland.

    4. To be honest, I can’t see why most MSM papers bother to have a ‘Comments’ section, given most of their ‘news reporting’ is essentially partisan commentary or outright lies. It’s one of the (many) reasons I stopped subscribing to the Telegraph.

      To show how far things have fallen in the last 30 years, as a teenager at school, I was more than happy to read the news section of the Guardian or Independent in the library if the Telegraph was being read by someone else. It was mostly factual news with a bit of obvious opinion. Now it’s all sneaky opinion and lies dressed up as ‘facts’.

      Blairism ruined this country, and as it was adopted in most ‘western’ nations, the world.

    5. According to Auntie and the rest of the MSM that is permitted to comment, The Donald was guilty, it is just that they got the wrong result in the vote.

  25. It is heartening that the priority for the government is to permit we proles to go for a picnic, then play golf and tennis. Schooling or restoring viability for the thousands of small businesses on the brink of collapse or those that have already vanished does not seem to feature in the minds of salary secured Whitehall sloths. Lockdown has become an end in itself.

    1. I’ll send you my weather then, Margaret. Foot-deep snow, two feet in the drifts, frozen solid and packed now with temperatures of -13ºC on a North-Easterly wind. I’ll swap you any day.

      1. Mmm…. must admit, I’m getting bored with cold – but the sunshine is good.
        Ayup, Our Grizz.

      2. All the roads around Ullapool are closed – high winds have drifted the snow over them again

  27. What is going on with the cricket? unmasked fans allowed into the ground and not social distancing, suppose our players catch the Indian strain?
    Have our players had to live in isolationist for weeks for nothing?

    4. I suspect they have a nice local supply of vitamin D (if they can’t get it from subshine [not too difficult in India at the mo I suspect]) and Zinc. I also suspect they can also get their hands on (legally) hydroxychloroquine if needed should they catch COVID and develop symptoms, given it is apparently available over the counter in most non-first world nations and cheap.

  28. Good morning all. We are now on the outside of the EU looking in, and I hope that even the most ardent Remainers will start to take off their rose-tinted spectacles and see the EU for what it really is:

    As the official enquiry into the Santer scandal said over twenty years ago, “It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/13/ursula-von-der-leyen-should-resign-probably-wont/

    There are clearly major problems with the deal which Johnson signed up to, especially over Northern Ireland and fisheries. We can only hope that the intention, even with Theresa May’s awful deal, was to get out and re-negotiate the bad bits later. It is like when an employee has left a company – if they didn’t get that last piece of work done, if they were over-paid their final salary, what can you really do? Let’s hope the government finally stands up for this country and tells the EU to see us in court if they don’t like it.

    1. And not the ECJ.
      It can’t go to the International Court as that body does not, rightly, recognise the EU as a country. If we are sensible, big IF, we could force the 27 to bring a class action in the IC. That would be fun wouldn’t it.

      1. Any legal dispute would run on for years and years. In the meantime, we could merrily be cutting taxes and regulations and doing what the EU has always feared the most – demonstrating that nations are better off acting in their own best interests outside of the EU!

    2. Dream on. Many horrors yet to be revealed. The offhand and casual responses given by Cabinet Ministers to the ongoing disasters at the borders should be enough to show that either they are supremely careless and stupid, or that they knew all along how this would be?
      Our entire fish export industry has been thrown away, as has the exporting of all fresh food. It does not matter whether it was stupidity, cupidity or conspiracy. It is not going to be fixed.

      1. I am sure you are right – we have only seen a fraction of what this horrible Pandora’s Box contains.

        In the story there was just one thing left in the box when everything else had come out: HOPE.

        At the moment I am rather more reminded of the John Cleese line in his film Clockwise ;

        “Despair – I can cope with despair; it is the hope that I find so completely soul-destroying!”

    1. And even better if you combined it with Zinc. Which is what thos two doctors recently mentioned from the US and NZ have been saying all along. Odd how no supermarkets or major pharmacies over here are selling that combo – just separately at extorionate prices.

    1. …and despite South Africa being the richest/most developed nation in Africa, it has, by far, the highest incidence and deaths with COVID per 100k (as well as nearly half of all recorded deaths in Africa) on that continent.

    1. A Russian arrives in New York City as a new immigrant to the United States.

      He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says, “Thank you Mr. American for letting me into this country, giving me housing, food stamps, free medical care, and a free education!”

      The passerby says, “You are mistaken, I am a Mexican.”

      The man goes on and encounters another passerby. “Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in America.”

      The person says, “I not American, I Vietnamese.”

      The new arrival walks farther, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand, and says, “Thank you for wonderful America!

      That person puts up his hand and says, “I am from Middle East. I am not American.”

      He finally sees a nice lady and asks, “Are you an American?”

      She says, “No, I am from Africa.

      Puzzled, he asks her, “Where are all the Americans?

      The African lady checks her watch and says, “Probably at work.”

      1. That is what a lot of English people feel like here. What happened to the govt saying that anyone who comes here and can’t support themselves within a certain period of time must leave – they don’t get deported, others are put in hotels – and WE have to pay for them to live here and commit crime while destroying this nation.

  32. Do you think Boris Johnson understands he has created a Police State and that people feel less free than ever before. They see the evil people go free at the same time the police are knocking at your door to check who is in your house. I will fight against it all the way.

    1. Does it strike any MPs that it is bizarre to demand people arriving at airports to go into quarantine and have to pay for their hotel accommodation while illegal immigrants are housed, fed and put up in 4 * hotels at the taxpayers expense rather than returned to their last departure point?

      And does it occur to them that this sort of thing results in their being held more and more in total contempt?

      2. It appears to me that many politicians who aspire to high office lack the self awareness that the majority of people enjoy. The fact that they can openly lie, both to the public and to parliament, and then carry on as if nothing had happened reveals their contempt for the people, to integrity and to the truth. The people’s contempt for them is as nothing; the ends justifies the means to these charlatans.

      3. And why does it cost 1700 pounds to stay ten days in a room that can’t be more than about 90 pounds a night?

  33. Dominic Raab says ‘vaccine passports’ COULD be needed to get into pubs or supermarkets in the UK despite the government insisting they will only be used for foreign travel
    Dominic Raab said ‘vaccine passports’ for use within UK ‘under consideration’
    Government previously insisted that any system would be for for foreign travel
    Asked if proof of jab could be needed to go into supermarket, said not ‘ruled out’
    By JAMES TAPSFIELD, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 10:34, 14 February 2021 | UPDATED: 10:39, 14 February 2021

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9259043/Dominic-Raab-says-vaccine-passports-used-inside-UK.html?ito=push-notification&ci=77303&si=7271111

    2. Amazing how they flatly denied wanting this 3 months ago when it was leaked about two pilot studies into the idea, but then it was ‘just for foreign travel’, then its for that and possible entry to sporting and cultural events, now extended to pubs and restaurants, then to supermarkets (presumably to starve the nay-sayers into subsmission) – but, of course, nothing ‘mandated’ by law, just the private sector ‘doing as the market wants’ (aka as company directors are being cajoled into by various government officials and left wing activists, as well as Gates & Co).

      They are either cowards for bowing to the evil forces behind this, or are willing participants and are flat out LYING. Neither option bodes well for our nation and democracy. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a foot. Sadly, they already taken several yards and no-one cared.

      1. Function creep. Same as the technology to catch illegally on the road cars – now used to track where every vehicle goes.Every registration monitored and recorded. Mobile phones – same. New cars have Auto Assist – which if turned off or disconnected – stops the car working. Every vehicle in the future MUST be tracked. Every person here WILL be tracked and monitored.

    3. Then there’s this. This government is beyond the pale with its sheer incompetence and mixed messaging. Discrimination on the grounds of vaccination records will leave supermarkets etc open to lawsuits. The government are too cowardly to take that step i.e. meddle with equality legislation because that would open up a real can of worms and so they will encourage their proxies to try it.

      https://twitter.com/EssexPR/status/1360760192716197893

    1. Time for windscreen wipers? Unfortunately they do use quite a bit of juice if needed constantly per solar panel.

      1. Hush now! Only scientists are allowed to talk about Global Heating, and they will look at the numbers and tell you what can be done.

        Wind was actually negative most of the week, because the things use power to stop freezing up in still and cold.

    3. The rear window screen on my car has, as most cars have, a system integrated into the glass which clears the frost and humidity. Surely the solar panels could generate enough power to melt the snow and ice.

        1. 329390+up ticks,
          Afternoon M,
          Makes Dover redundant brussels to NI
          boat train, fast deployment of the incoming troops.

      2. Boris Johnson is seriously deranged and if anybody seriously thinks he got a good EU deal they are almost as deranged as he is.

    3. It would a stupid thing to spend money on as things stand. Unless there is a major change of direction in Scotland, independence is inevitable. Build it to England or don’t bother.

      1. 329390+up ticks,
        Afternoon RTD,
        There is no way Jock is going to vote for independence , far to canny.

          1. 329390+ up ticks,
            Afternoon BB2,
            An empty sporran or a sporran emptier will always be frowned upon and the cause sniffed out by the average Jock, and eventually voted on to rectify.

        1. But 37 miles each side. Chinese would get it done by the weekend, but I suppose it depends on the geology. We live in an ancient volcanic area and it’s all very messy under down there. When the they did Section 1 of the A465 dualling, they did all the test drills, full due diligence. Then in the middle of construction they found a narrow band of sand at 45 degrees to the vertical that had been missed. A retired Highways Engineer said he warned them something was there, ’cause he’d spent decades re-doing the surface on top of it. Section 2 has been a nightmare as well.

        2. I discovered tonight that the Crown purchased the Isle of Man in the mid-eighteenth century. All the silk smugglers who had used it as a base had to move out.

  37. Watching a recording of the cricket. Not entirely enjoyable because:
    1. England are in trouble.
    2. The commentators are talking non-stop over the action. They are in love with their own voices.

      1. Maybe they are feeling ‘white guilt’ at the moment for beating the Indian team so comprehensively last time out, so thought they’d give them this one?

      2. The ball was spinning early on the first day. The pitch has clearly been produced to favour spinners, and therefore India more so than England.

    1. 329390+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      Not near enough dead ovis on show yet to convince the party before Country brigade that they are on the wrong road.

    3. Clearly put about by very dangerous extremist terrorists who deserve ten years in jail for disrespecting the Government.

    1. Bill, have they actually seen any other cat besides each other yet? has any other cat strolled across the lawn while G and P have been gazing out of the window?

      1. No. We wonder what their reaction will be. It is now 16 weeks since they last saw their mother and siblings – and as they were only barely six weeks – they may have forgotten all about them. One curious thing – neither of them miaow. They just squeak. I guess that is because they have never heard a cat miaow.

          1. They purr like engines – a right din!

            We have trying miaowing at them – they look at us as though we are madder than they thought!

          4. My aged pooch is very vocal and I often try to imitate him – I frequently wonder what I’m saying! It seems to spur him to greater efforts at communication, whatever it is 🙂

          6. That’s the only time Lily gets excited – she eats catfood because she’s hungry – but a bit of meat from a chicken or a joint really gets her going.

        2. Ive read somewhere that miaowing has only developed since being domesticated.

          Adult cats rarely meow to each other, so an adult cat meowing to human beings is probably a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens; a call for attention.
          By around three to four weeks of age kittens do not mew when at least one littermate is present, and at four to five months of age kittens stop mewing altogether.

          1. Lily is much quieter that Suzie and Sam were – her main vocal expression is a little chirp. I think she always lived in a one-cat household – but we’ve gradually come to see her character.

        3. They will recognise parents and siblings by their smell.
          Big Cat and Little Cat are related, though not from the same litter, and bonded straight away when they met for the first time – after much sniffing.

        4. I swear when I let my cat back in I say “Hello’ and she says what sounds like “Hello” back

        5. Our family cat didn’t miaow until he had spent two weeks at a local cattery, although he did chirrup at us in the mornings after he had hauled himself through the cat-flap. On one occasion he sat in the middle of the kitchen and made the most awful sound, a cross between a yodel and a howl, very loudly, and promptly threw up a large scrunched up ball of aluminium foil. I don’t know how he had managed to swallow it in the first place. It was truly enormous.

  40. Fishing for bluefin tuna is to be allowed UK waters. The EU has allowed us a small quota in UK waters, around 300 fish in total per year. Never mind that the population of Atlantic bluefin has dropped by 70% in the last few years.
    This vicious nonsense is being promoted as a “boost to our fishing communities”.
    What baloney! How about allowing our fishing communities to catch thr fish that used to catch? What about enabling them to sell their fish to their traditional markets? what about providing enough fishery patrol boats to ensure the EU boats stick to their quotas, by rigorous and frequent “stop and search” boardings?
    No?

    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/big-game-tuna-fishing-catches-195204754.html

    1. 329390+ up ticks,
      Morning HP,
      What about cutting down to zero the support & votes for the lab/lib/con/ukip coalition at any future voting opportunity, starting say on the 6th of May 2021.

  41. There is an article in today’s Sunday Telegraph –

    “Disabled police officers not given same consideration as other minority groups, senior officer warns”

    Now, forgive me if I’ve read this wrong, but what are we doing with disabled persons in the police service?
    I understand this concerns the lack of recruiting of the disabled rather than the disability caused by any service related incidents?

    [ I use the word “service” to be politically correct!]

    2. There must be numerous “back-office” jobs that can be done equally well by people with disabilities.

      I suspect that the issue has much to do with how very wide the net has become in the definition of what it is to be disabled.

      1. Back office jobs have often been done by disabled people who do not wear uniform.

        What this fluck-arse copper is on about is UNIFORMED ACTIVE policemen.

        Dial 999 – “Press 3 if you want a one-armed policeman to call”…..

    6. So, next time I’m thrown into back of paddy wagon, it will take 3 hunchbacks, 1 below the knee amputee and another plod who’s ‘armless? While the station idiot makes notes?

      1. Next time? – – – Please entertain us with the reasons for your previous times of being thrown into the back of the ( are we allowed to say p4ddy wagon ).

        1. 🙂 I was empathising with the little grannie who was tackled by 4 (?) of the Met’s bully boys while protesting against lockdowns.

  42. With minutes to go, Morning all. Oh the distractions of valentines day eh !
    I hope Hubby get well soon Anne.

    1. Sonny boy and I dropped a load of reading matter and clean clothes.
      Note to anyone driving in Sarf Essex. The Basildon Hospital is not signposted; only the fact that it is big ugly building gives you any idea as to its purpose. The Cardio Unit is round the back (one sign near the entrance and then you’re left up in the air) and you have to walk for seems like miles from carpark to the building. If nothing else, I learnt that my heart is still up to a trek through unfamiliar bits of Essex.
      Just had a phone call from Willum; he is in there at least until Sunday.

      1. Sorry to hear you’ve had a health scare in the family, anne. Sending all best wishes for a speedy recovery.

      2. Good to hear it Anne and Hubby is in good hands.
        I remember a couple of years ago our neighbour’s opposite were having their extension built and the brick work came to a halt. The brickie had suffered a heart attack, but went straight into hospital they fitted a stent and he was back at work within 4 days. Mind you he was only in his mid 50s.

  43. The Great Leader of Wales has stated that cases are high down here in the valleys because: Close living conditions, austerity, inequality. Austerity because the social services have been cut, inequality, there was no explanation why, but no good politician could not possibly miss the opportunity to throw it in as a cause. Clever little critter that virus, and obviously a labour voter.

      1. ..and will be forever more as 16 year olds and non citizens will be voting in the Assembly elections in May. Not forgetting that we are a nation of sanctuary. If we are not allowed to go abroad, I can go to Tenby with a take-away curry and get the same experience I imagine.

          3. Indeed, although roamed the planet as one does, and returning 10 years ago. Started my first job threatening Ruskies from a safe distance at RAF Coltishall.

          4. Gosh – the days when we had a Royal Air Force.

            My father was at Waterbeach from 1954 to 58. The CO (Air Cdr Bernard Chacksfield) liked to encourage the young and would take two or three of us in the station Anson to visit local bases – Coltishall; Bassingbourne; North Weald….

            Gosh – 65 years ago…. Go back another 65 years from then – and the Wright brothers had yet to fly!

          5. The RAF had its 100th anniversary in 2018. I felt rather old as I had been flying game for 46 of those 100. The demise of a large tour operator in 2019 brought my career to a sudden end a year before I would have had to go anyway. Fortunately, the sudden stop was survivable unlike many colleagues along the way.

          10. Ah – aircrew. Good. We had a pilot here – Martyn J – sadly he died in 2019. He sent me seeds of a Greek tomato variety – which was luscious. I still have some for 2021.

    2. In the old days, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue might have done a wonderful round based on being offended….It could have been an extra reason to interrupt in Just a Minute.

    1. It’s the old “Is that caviar on your tie, Charles?”, and as Charlie looks down gets a whap on the nose.

    2. He’s 90 years old 6ft 2″ and worth 20 billion dollars……………..I say, do you know who i am sonny ?

      1. I was about to ask if he has a heart condition, and remembered our circumstances. Thank goodness MB is too busy busy sitting in his bedside chair to read NOTTL.

        1. Only just read your earlier post, Anne – I hope MB is making a good recovery – what a worry for you.

    3. “Excuse me, young man, but can you give me a good definition of the word ‘plonker’?”

    4. Obscenely wealthy or not, there was a time when such outrageous behaviour would have seen him hanged, drawn and quartered.

      1. Maybe so, Grizz, but, though I’m not keen on either of them, the imagery you appear to relish looks to me really shockingly terrible and a very very sad reflection on you.

          2. In fact, Polly it should be drawn, hanged and quartered. A jolly way we English would deal with the worst criminals; they would be drawn on a hurdle (look it up) to the gibbet, hanged until nearly dead, at which point they would be cut down, disembowelled while still alive and then chopped into (actually) 5 pieces. Their body in four but their head impaled on a spike on London Bridge, pour encourage les autres.

            What’s not to relish?

          3. Well, quite apart from the sheer, ugly, cruel, bestial brutality, you might have got the wrong guy……….

            Then what ?

            Suppose it was you ?

          6. DNA is not infallible.

            There are obvious possibilities for corruption, for set ups, and laboratory mix ups and cross contamination.

            There has been a lab cross contamination scandal already.

          7. ‘Evening, Polly, I see you took the bait. When we were drawing, hanging and quartering felons, America was still a colony and DNA certainly hadn’t been discovered.

          8. It’s not a battle. I am on the same side as you.

            I am a peaceful individual however. I think if such individuals as Tony Blair and others were ever tried and convicted in a court of law for what they have done, a walk through Traitor’s Gate at low tide at the Tower would be a good idea with pictures on the front pages.

            Followed by a long stretch in Pentonville. That for me would be enough.

          11. All you have given me there, Tom lad, with your link, is an unqualified, anonymous internet page with opinions but no author or invitations for further reading on the topic. There is nothing contained therein to verify the ‘facts’ it is presenting.

            All I said was what I was taught at school.

    2. Yep. Surely any person with a smidge of common sense would know that, never mind a design engineer like myself. probably all those civil sevants with degrees in Classics or ministers with ones in PPE etc who wouldn’t know a ventilation system from Adam.

      Its the same reason why the most modern trains (including and especially underground trains) and buses – none of which have openable windows and who use centralised ventilation/AC systems (often with partial air recycling), were/are vectors of the transmission of viruses generally, whether they be the flu or COVID.

      1. The only time I have suffered from flu recently was after a 4 hour flight.

        Apparently diseases became more freely circulated after smoking was banned on aircraft because they ran air cleansing systems less frequently as, without smokers’ exhaled breath in the air, they felt they did not need to do so.

        1. I was told, perhaps here, that modern aircraft no longer circulate cabin air but send fresh back into the cabin.

          1. Oddly enough (though not here and about 20 years ago) I was told the opposite, because the smoking ban on flights meant that less fresh air was needed – which has to be mostly heated (in either the cold on the ground or always when at altitude) or cooled (in summer when on the ground), so the more that can be recycled, the less it needs to be heated/cooled.

            As a designed of ventilation systems myself, our guide books tell us that in smoking environments, the required fresh air rate is much higher than in non-smoking ones. Lots of energy savings to be had there.

            It may well be that they dialed down the fresh air rate too much and had to increase it again. Still, like modern trains and buses, it all mixes with whatever people are breathing out in a confined space. That’s why I’m still so surprised that relgious gatherings – especially where the buildings are large and have high ceilings, are not allowed to hold services for ‘COVID safety’ reasons. It’s not as though most churches ever get anywhere near full these days.

          2. For churches it’s currently down to each parochial church council to decide. The church I used to attend in Fulham is locked but services are continuing at Barts Smithfield. Max 50 people, sitting 6 feet apart. Our breath rises high into the 13th Cent triforium. There are human bones up there but none recently deceased! We’re still not allowed to sing of course and the choir are doing online services only but there is a cantor and organist in church.

        2. First time I got it was when I was travelling home from a work meeting in London and sat next to a nice, chatty American lady. It was only half way home that she proceeded to tell me she thought she had the flu as opposed to just a cold…

    3. Perhaps that is the result they want, to spread it around with the added bonus and frisson of excitement of new possible variants! Remember ‘Eat out to spread it about’ when numbers were falling last July.

  47. New Indian variant of covid discovered. You can’t feel the vindaloo burning on its way out being the first symptom.

  48. 329390+ up ticks,

    Nigel Farage: “Sadiq Khan’s Anti-British Statue Wars Will Sink the Labour Party”
    breitbart,
    I concur to your judgement being as you are an expert on sinking party’s.
    IMO & valuing children over statues if the cover up of rotherham for 16 plus years & the JAY report made no difference to the voting pattern nothing ever will.

  49. 329390+ up ticks,
    They are halfway through the lab/lib/con coalition fully kneeling campaign,
    first stage one knee, second stage, two knees, followed by back bending
    forehead meeting the deck, not long now.

    If lab are toast then con are marmalade, and lib dems butter, to make it more palatable for the ovis to swallow, but swallow it they will.

    https://twitter.com/LabourAreToast/status/1360208548756664325

    1. 7 counts of prostitution & human sex trafficking charges

      Only seven? He must be a beginner – or a good liar – or they have let him off with the other two or three hundred cases.

    2. I no longer support the English rugby team because of their humiliating, self-abasing behaviour before international matches.

      They were outplayed by Scotland and had a lucky escape against Italy and (I thought I would never say it) I now hope they will be wiped out by Wales, France and Ireland.

      1. Their cricket team ain’t doing so well either. England can’t handle spinners nor do they place an attacking field for their own spinners unlike the Indians and Pakis

  50. Grey or Gray: The Right Way to Spell the Color.

    A question asked in an ’email’ today. Grizzly will know. 😃

    2. It depends which side of the Atlantic you are, but either is acceptable. Gray is predominant in American English.

        2. He was the fifth of twelve children, and the only one to survive infancy. Lived with his mother after she left his abusive and mentally unwell father. Never married that I know of and spent a lot of time in the company of the Walpole and other young men. ‘Be right at home at the BBC.

        3. Very amusing. But we’re discussing the colour not an 18th century poet! Didn’t he write a book called ’50 Shades’ ?

        4. The only English poem that routinely carries the name of the poet in its popular title (though not its official title).

          Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard, by Thomas Gray, is routinely referred to as “Gray’s Elegy”.

          1. Drill Sergeant to recruits:

            “This afternoon you ‘ave a gentleman wot is coming to give you a lecture on Keats – not that any of you higgerent shower would know what a keat is.”

          3. Elegy Written in a Country Coal-Bin

            The furnace tolls the knell of falling steam,
            The coal supply is virtually done,
            And at this price, indeed it does not seem
            As though we could afford another ton.

            Now fades the glossy, cherished anthracite;
            The radiators lose their temperature:
            How ill avail, on such a frosty night,
            The “short and simple flannels of the poor.”

            Though in the icebox, fresh and newly laid,
            The rude forefathers of the omelette sleep,
            No eggs for breakfast till the bill is paid:
            We cannot cook again till coal is cheap.

            Can Morris-chair or papier-mâché bust
            Revivify the falling pressure-gauge?
            Chop up the grand piano if you must,
            And burn the East Aurora parrot cage!

            Full many a can of purest kerosene
            The dark unfathomed tanks of Standard Oil
            Shall furnish me, and with their aid I mean
            To bring my morning coffee to a boil.
            Christopher Morley

  51. See this film – and cherish your liberty https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9257595/PETER-HITCHENS-DID-sensible-Covid-plan-copied-police-state-instead.html

    After the Soviet authorities had massacred striking workers in the town of Novocherkassk in June 1962, they tried to obliterate all traces of the murders.

    But the heat of the sun had baked the bloodstains into the surface of the main square and they could not wash them away, so they had to burn away the road surface and relay it.

    Then they announced that a dance would take place at the scene of the killings and expected the townspeople to attend and dance where their friends and neighbours had been gunned down a few days before.

    This horrible event is the subject of a brilliant new Russian film, Dear Comrades!, which I greatly recommend. It brutally describes what happens in a society where the state claims to be completely in charge of the welfare of all its citizens – the sort of state we are now building here, I might add.

    If the people do not like what is being done in their name and dare to object, then they have to be punished and frightened into changing their minds. In this case, the people could not be persuaded that pay cuts and price rises were for their own good.

    And, as the state is always good, any trace of such a revolt must be wiped from the record. The bodies of the murdered were even buried by the KGB in existing graves, in nearby towns and villages, to conceal their very existence.

    See the film. Remember the dead. And learn that liberty, limited government, the rule of law over power, and free speech are your most precious possessions.

    If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens click here

    1. Speaking as someone raised in the bosom of the British Communist Party, there is nothing about British politics that surprises me. ‘Woke’ is just a Soviet mechanism re-purposed, cancelling people ditto, all company politics is a breeze if you were trained in the rules as a kid. At 10 I understood it all perfectly; my father, an idealist for whom cynicism was utterly foreign never had a clue what was going on. Every disappointment (and there were many) was an inexplicable hammer blow. I used to explain it to my mother, but she never dared pass it on to my father.

      “Dear Russia” contains nothing shocking. In a sense it is entirely understandable. 1962 was only 17 years after the end of the Great Patriotic War and at that time everything, absolutely everything was all about that war. Nothing else informed Soviet society at that time, and the harsh brutality that enabled Russia to survive that war was still the mainstay of political life. Britain has not experienced the brutality of Russian life 1941 to 1945 since about 1350.

    3. How ironic that CNN appeared to be behind the talk or sponsoring the event. I can’t imagine them doing that these days. Maybe a speech given by Kier Starmer…

  55. Afternoon all.

    I see vaccine passports to “enter pubs and shops under consideration”. Dominic Raab apparently. Can this government be any more communist? I am absolutely furious at this floated idea. This is outright coercion and blackmail as far as I’m concerned. I hope no conservative supporter ever knocks on my door ever again .

      2. Of the worst kind. It is not “If you don’t do ‘x’, you will be punished”, but “Do ‘x’, or you will not be allowed to do ‘y’ “.

    2. I’m sure that coercion to force someone into an unwanted medical procedure is illegal. Here’s something I found. The piece re third party is of interest. I expect that this whole area is fraught will both legality and illegality and why the cowards in government do not want to dabble and get their fingers burned. Leave it to the private sector to take the hits. Forgot the link:

      Ethics Oxford University

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9719a30740263310ff41dff0d79e1c46ee130c571e887be46d38785f400abb52.png

    1. I am not very good at interpreting graphs but I would say that the usual winter flu viruses were converted into ‘covid’ to suit their agenda and for the manipulation of the public.

  57. Not sure if this has been done yet but it’s worth a look

    https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1360716676778622978?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1360768544305270787%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dgoingpostalcomt_i%3D6019420https3A2F2Fgoing-postal.com2F3Fp3D60194t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fgoing-postal.com2F20212F022Flarrys-diary-week-eighty2Ft_e%3DLarryE28099s20Diary2C20Week20Eightyt_d%3DLarryE28099s20Diary2C20Week20Eightyt_t%3DLarryE28099s20Diary2C20Week20Eightys_o%3Ddescversion%3D29c202bd5375a83aaa456b585075cb15

    1. I repeat, Bob, what I’ve just said about the other view:

      Well said that man, and not before time.

      A message that the world MSM might well heed. Someday it won’t just be words that are flung at you.

    1. Well said that man, and not before time.

      A message that the world MSM might well heed. Someday it won’t just be words that are flung at you.

    2. Caught backtracking on her statement, talking over him in an attempt to disrupt his flow and gets destroyed by a smart lawyer and yet still has the composure to to smile inanely to camera. Do they have training programme for these people?

    4. I thought former Presidents were always called “President” for life. This obnoxious woman keeps referring to “Mr Trump.”

      Ven der Veen is very good! I wish we had more people who would stick it to the BBC in his style.

      1. He comes across as a man of integrity who is amazed at the dissolute world in which he finds himself.

        1. He is a successful lawyer, but in comparison to that woman, he came across as a paragon of integrity! Quite some feat!

      3. Indeed, yes. A honorific in much the same way a senior military officers may retain their rank after retirement.

  59. Radical change needed in handling of rape cases, says England and Wales police lead. 14 february 2021.

    She said her biggest concern was a knock-on effect on public confidence in the criminal justice system. “I consider the impact on individual victims, and that they don’t see justice done,” she said. “But when … it plays out in the public domain, I do worry about public confidence – not just in policing, but in the whole criminal justice system. And if you can’t do it for rape, where the effect is life-changing, you could [ask]: what is the criminal justice system for?”

    Lawyers? Judges? Cops? It’s not for ordinary people or victims. I gave up on it years ago!

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/14/radical-change-needed-in-handling-of-cases-says-england-and-wales-police-lead

    1. I’m surprised that they haven’t said the system should change to Guilty (after all, ‘believe all women’) until proven innocent. Believe credible evidence.

      1. Trudeau was trying that in Canada.

        It went wrong when he had a disagreement with the Auditor General – a woman who would not bow down to his demands to ignore corruption.

      1. 329390+ up ticks,
        Evening Db,
        I heard that it will be on par with their handling of the ongoing Dover invasion campaign so no worries then ,a ?

  62. As Lord Mandle of Fondle returns to the Labor Party…………

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/14/dark-lord-mandelson-may-back-labours-inner-circle-keir-starmer/

    a quick look at his Soros related finances…………….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7883304/The-mystery-of-Lord-Mandelsons-finances.html

    ”The man in the velvet smoking-jacket and black cravat, holding a giant storybook on his lap, looks straight at the camera, shifting slightly in his leather armchair.

    “Once upon a time,” he says, confidentially, “there was a kingdom, and for many years it was ruled by two powerful kings. But they wouldn’t have been in power without a third man.

    “They called him the Prince of Darkness,” he says, adding with a smirk: “Don’t know why.”

    Peter Mandelson’s TV advert for his about-to-be-published memoirs may be a magnificent new landmark in ex-ministerial camp.

    But from the king of spin, it would probably be unwise to expect full disclosure.

    An investigation has uncovered several alleged aspects of the Mandelson story which seem most unlikely to feature in the pages of this week’s authorised version.

    It is a tale of a rich friend, inside information, allegations – denied – of a dubious oil connection and the apparent concealment of financial interests in breach of Parliamentary rules.

    It starts in one of London’s most expensive streets, at the heart of the Nash terraces around Regent’s Park. On it lies a beautiful peach-stucco villa, and a long-standing mystery.

    There is no puzzle about the owner of the house: Lord Mandelson. There is no secret about its value: Land Registry records show that in 2006 he bought the place for £2.5 million, including stamp duty.

    The mystery has always been how he could possibly have afforded it.

    The price was around 16 times his then-income as a European Commissioner, a mortgage which, even in pre-credit crunch days, no lender would have contemplated.

    Sources close to the then Mr Mandelson suggested at the time that he used a bequest from his late mother, Mary, and sold his shares in an advertising agency.

    But probate files show he received only £452,000 from his mother’s estate; a search at Companies House disclosed he sold the shares a year after buying the house; and Land Registry records of his previous property dealings in London and his former constituency of Hartlepool show that he could have amassed no more than around £1.15 million in equity to put towards the purchase.

    Added together, all that would still have left Mr Mandelson at least £1 million short. He did take out a mortgage – reportedly for £750,000 – to cover most of the gap.

    But in a 2009 interview he let slip that he had paid it off completely after just one year.

    The normal place to look for politicians’ earnings is the declarations of interests they are obliged, under the rules, to make.

    Mr Mandelson’s declarations list only modestly-paid work for newspapers and magazines, and a number of speaking engagements.

    The Telegraph has been told, however, that Mr Mandelson had at least one paid interest which he has not declared, or not declared fully. The most important, it is alleged, was with a company called Medley Global Advisors (MGA), founded by Richard Medley, the former chief adviser to the financier George Soros.

    Mr Medley, an American, met Mr Mandelson in 1993/4 when they both attended the “global transatlantic young leaders’ programme” of the Aspen Institute, a think-tank.

    “We’ve been good friends since the early nineties,” said Mr Medley from New York last night. “He was here at my house probably three weeks ago, and he and I have met many times.”

    But according to nearly a dozen current or former employees of MGA, spoken to by The Sunday Telegraph, the relationship was more than personal.

    Mr Mandelson, they say, was paid by the company, whose job is to provide “inside information” for its clients, principally hedge funds – information they can act on before it becomes public.

    Mr Mandelson, according to the MGA sources, delivered “intelligence” on the plans of the British Government.

    “It was on economic policy, fiscal policy, what they were planning with Europe – and what the Bank of England were telling them internally,” said one source.

    That much, if usually from people at lower levels, was the firm’s bread and butter – they had, according to Mr Medley, hundreds of “consultants,” including journalists, academics and policy-makers, on the books – and there is no evidence that Mr Mandelson disclosed official secrets, or information acquired in his on-off role as a minister.

    But the atmosphere of secrecy rang alarm bells in the company. Mr Mandelson, said one MGA source, was referred to internally by a code word.

    “What distressed me about it was that he was very cagey,” the person said. “It was the behaviour of a man who wanted to hide what he was doing.

    “One time I was in the office he came in and did a conference call,” where clients were invited to call in to speak to him.

    “He was absolutely paranoid about knowing who was on the call. He wanted all the names of the people who had been invited to call in.

    “Richard would tell us: ‘Peter’s very sensitive about this and you’ve got to be very sensitive about this.’ I was truly disgusted – it just felt wrong.”

    The company was based in New York and London. Another MGA source said: “He said he didn’t want to talk to any British employees, presumably because he was worried his relationship with the company would get out.”

    Mr Mandelson’s relationship with the company, the sources said, extended over a number of years, and he was paid over at least two years.

    Some of the sources with access to the records say that there is documentation relating to discussions and meetings with him in March, June and July 1999, three in June 2001, and two in February and June 2002.

    Mr Mandelson, who twice had to resign from office, was not in government on any of those dates. He served as a minister from May 1997 to December 1998, and again from October 1999 to January 2001.

    However, some of the sources say his relationship, though not necessarily the payments, continued during his periods of ministerial office.

    Even if he was only paid while a backbench MP, Mr Mandelson would have been obliged to record any payments in the Commons’ register of members’ interests.

    However, Mr Mandelson’s register entry shows no payments from MGA, apart from a single one-off fee for a “speaking engagement” in New York on 30 January 2002. The amount was not disclosed.

    “His relationship was much more extensive than that,” said an MGA source.

    Another, who had access to the company’s financial records, said: “I can confirm he was paid. I cannot remember the specific amounts, but the normal fee to consultants was one to two thousand dollars a month.”

    Mr Medley, who sold MGA in 2005 and now runs another business, said last night: “I am absolutely not saying I didn’t pay him, I’m just saying I can’t remember.”

    After also initially saying that Lord Mandelson “could not remember” any payment from MGA, his spokesman issued a statement last night saying: “Peter has known Richard Medley and his family for nearly twenty years.

    “He has seen and spoken to him on countless occasions during that time at home, on the phone and in his office. But he has never acted as a paid consultant to Richard or his company.”

    The Sunday Telegraph investigation has also raised questions about whether Mr Mandelson had an undeclared relationship with Friedhelm Eronat, a secretive millionaire oil-industry fixer then based in London.

    Mr Eronat’s former company, Cliveden Group, was awarded a concession to drill for oil in the Darfur region of Sudan.

    He was also named by US federal prosecutors as an alleged conduit for bribes in the 1990s between Mobil Oil and the then prime minister of Kazakhstan, Nurlan Balgimbayev. Eronat was never prosecuted for any alleged offence.

    In 2005, Cliveden’s former chairman, Peter Felter, took Mr Eronat to an employment tribunal in London. The alleged link with Mr Mandelson, hitherto undisclosed, emerged in the context of those tribunal proceedings.

    Dr Felter stated during the case that Mr Mandelson had been hired by Mr Eronat in part because of his “very good contacts” with another oil firm, BP.

    “Eronat told me we’ve got Peter Mandelson as a consultant,” Dr Felter said, in remarks not reported at the time. “He was hired while he was out of office, later in 2001 or the beginning of 2002.”

    Dr Felter also stated at the time that Mr Mandelson was paid, though he did not know how much. “Eronat took pride in having this connection,” he said.

    The employment tribunal was settled. Dr Felter, who has now signed a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement, yesterday refused to comment further.

    It is not clear what, if anything, Mr Mandelson did for Mr Eronat. There is no suggestion that he was involved in the Sudan or Kazakhstan deals.

    At around the time Mr Mandelson was hired, Mr Eronat, an American, renounced his citizenship to avoid being caught by a US ban on its nationals doing business with the Sudan regime. He subsequently acquired a British passport.

    Lord Mandelson insisted last night that the reason he had not declared a relationship was that he had no relationship to declare.

    “He has never acted as a consultant to Friedhelm Eronat and has no knowledge of the man in question,” his spokesman said.

    There is one last, potentially very lucrative, paid interest which Mr Mandelson did declare: his work for the French business “fixer,” Alain Minc.

    Minc’s firm, AM Conseil, employs only three staff. But in the last year Mr Mandelson declares a relationship with it, 2004, the company turned over £5.5 million.

    According to Mr Minc’s biographer, Stephane Marchand, Mr Minc charges up to £150,000 per consultation to favoured clients and “earns his money selling intelligence and influence”.

    It has never been clear what Mr Mandelson, who does not speak French, did for AM Conseil, or how much he earned.

    But both Mr Minc and Mr Mandelson, as a Euro-commissioner, spoke out strongly in favour of the hugely controversial takeover of the French steelmaker, Arcelor.

    The successful bidder was Lakshmi Mittal, a friend of Mr Mandelson’s and a major donor to the Labour Party. Also involved in the deal was Nat Rothschild, a close Mandelson friend on whose yacht the former business secretary has famously sailed.

    Yesterday, in an interview to promote his memoirs, Lord Mandelson defended himself against the charge that he was too keen on the company of rich people.

    “Do you know what I say to that?” he said. “Good for me. I mean, I’m not going to be governed by Labour Party political correctness about who I should meet or talk to or where I should spend my time.”

    With its disclosures about Messrs Brown, Blair and Campbell, the Mandelson book may be working Westminster into a lather over the settling of political scores.

    But the former business secretary knows some rather more obscure power-brokers, too, and the story of his money is just as interesting as the story of his politics.”

    1. 329390|+ up ticks.
      Afternoon PP,
      Has me puzzled, he hasn’t the looks to be a high class working poof more at the 10 woodies a session end.
      What a daisy chain the all party in-house politico’s could form, mandleson,blair, vas, the wretch cameron, may with strap on, followed by dick with dick,enough to scare a seasoned SAS man.

      1. No photos but seen one

        I love you with all my bum
        I know its supposed to be my heart
        but my bum is bigger.

      2. that looks nice. Much more snow than we have had so far this year. Only -5 and the sun is melting the snow on the driveway.

        1. No danger of the roof falling in under the weight? Still, i expect the snow weight was taken into account with the design.

          1. Rooves are designed for quite a load, but the advice is, if doors suddenly don’t fit properly, or suddenly spring open, then you need to get up on the roof and clear it. Carefully, so as to preserve the balance in the loading.

          2. Sod that for a game of soldiers. I would just leave the attic door open and turn the heating up.

    2. Ah you have seen the Canadian air farce. To think that Trudeau only paid twenty billion for this fleet of F35s.

      1. In the ‘Seventies/ ‘Eighties, Trudeau’s Mum used the Federal Government’s Citation II for her weekly shopping trips to NYC …

        It too, was invisible :))

        1. Her son follows in the family tradition using government jets for his holiday trips to the Carribean.

          That is the woke, green tree hugger son who has banned foreign travel, introduced quarantine and generally screwed up.

  71. With all the cold and darkness of the season and the duplicity and evil of the government I thought we could all do with being reminded of the true beauty of the planet and Universe which we inhabit. All these screenshots were taken from the Neil Degrease Tyson Twitter feed.
    In the shot of the conjunction of the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn it’s hard to believe that Jupiter is close to half a billion miles from the Sun and Saturn is a further 400 million miles from Jupiter. The detail, one of Jupiter’s moons is visible along with clear indication of Saturn’s rings is amazing.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ce5a545077c0a4c4dc203085a189859fa14c1b5acc8a8fd2f8b5290e9d57b86.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad559af393e29097c70115d12f1cf853b12b1ca830632e4cd4d3bde6e6a80b9f.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a26adf1422d9c0cf423225d6fe9fef53f004dc12779825e1925fbee9f22d7596.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4eb7f9030753f5fa7e4129324242493e4c3674c92a8efb34ac6216b2d39a6a3e.png

      1. A couple of years ago I asked a science mag the following:

        “My wife told me I should get out more. I replied that I’m just about to celebrate my 66th free trip around the Sun. Having been born and lived most of my life within 10 miles of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, I assume I must travel around 22,000 miles every day as the earth journeys around the Sun. I also understand that the Sun is orbiting the centre of our galaxy at over 500,000 miles an hour. Can anyone let me know how many miles I’ve travelled in our galaxy during those 66 years?”
        From the range of answers provided by readers it seems that in just 66 years I’ve travelled 337 billion miles or 5.1 Billion miles a year. Not bad for someone who should get out more….

        2. The actual ‘distance’ depends upon how it is quantified, given the Earth moves around the sun in its orbit, the sun orbits the Milky Way galaxy, and the galaxy itself is on the move, with us and the nearest ‘large’ galaxy moving towards eachother (gravitational attraction). Don’t worry – a good few billion years before they meet, and even then because there’s so much empty space in between planets, stars etc, the likelihood of anything major hitting eachother is minute.

          PS. As the universe is always expanding, technically we’re moving as a result of that too…

          Not that I like the show, but the phrase does seem apt:
          https://youtu.be/if-m-bWGrsw

          1. I read a while back that the Andromeda Galaxy is likely to collide with ours in about a billion years before our Sun gives up the ghost. However, I just wanted to know how many miles I had put on the clock travelling around our galaxy….:-)

          2. You might need a service or two by then… 🙂

            I’d also love to be around when the red supergiant star Betelgeuse goes supernova (we’re quite safe even at around ‘only’ ~650 light years away), given it’ll be so bright (for a month or two) that it will be as bright as the moon and also be visible during the day.

            Unfortunately this could happen at any time over the next million years. Given my lack of luck, e.g. wins on the lottery, I’m probably going to miss out…

          4. You might need a service or two by then… 🙂

            I’d also love to be around when the red supergiant star Betelgeuse goes supernova (we’re quite safe even at around ‘only’ ~650 light years away), given it’ll be so bright (for a month or two) that it will be as bright as the moon and also be visible during the day.

            Unfortunately this could happen at any time over the next million years. Given my lack of luck, e.g. wins on the lottery, I’m probably going to miss out…

          6. Well, we’re getting the Africans, the Asians, the Muslims – no doubt when the galaxies pass/collide we’ll get millions of Rigel4s as well. All wanting a house etc etc.

      2. Perhaps that’s because interstellar distances (in miles) usually exceed lawyers fees (in pounds sterling) …

    4. The owl has it’s shields up, whilst the reindeer (?) has really let one go and lit it… 🙂

      Great first image – I was looking out for that in the night sky at the time of teh conjunction, but it was always overcast. Damn British weather! The Sky at Night is probably the only BBC programme I would miss if I stopped my TV licence.

        1. On principle, and because (once it hopefully becomes legal to enable me to cancel my TV licence) I’d have deleted all my BBC channels from my freeview PVR (my TV is essentially a monitor only as it doesn’t have freeview inbuilt, even if it’s a 720p HD Ready TV).

          It’s not that I watch much else on the BBC at the moment – currently just that and a supposed re-run of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica which I never saw first time around.

          1. I meant all TV Andy – if everyone stopped paying the licence the BBC would buck its ideas up

      1. She told me that she has never been so cold.

        The fish were frozen! The water was 1.5ºC – the windchill made the air minus 5ºC.

    2. The Greene King pub chain should change its name; ‘Greene King’ is unacceptably ‘Climateist’ along with ‘Tree Huggers’ …

    4. In a hundred years archeologists digging through a long abandoned dump will uncover this medical treasure trove, starting another great pandemic as the now seriously mutated vaccine strain infects anyone who survived the first five hundred waves of covid.

    1. It certainly is!

      Many years ago, I had a French girlfriend who was trying to improve her English, just as I was trying to improve my French.

      She called me a wormbook!

      1. Each morning I ride my exercise bike for half an hour while I read a book and listen to the Suisse Musique Classique radio station.

  76. That’s me for the day. It is raining. So the roads will be lethal tomorrow morning.

    Have a jolly evening – and spare a thought (and raise a glass – for that is what she and Bill would want) for the Pushy Nurse from Colchester.

    A demain.

    1. I take it that the much warmer weather won’t make it to your part of the UK by then? Down my way we’re due for a change from currently hovering around zero to 13degC.

      TTFN

          2. I am – sort of – in both. My town (Royston) used to be in Cambs and Herts (some idiot put the boundary right down the main road in town) and is now right on the county border of Herts and Cambs, and its mostly flat farmland… 🙂

            I also get my local TV news from the ‘Anglia; region rather than London, where central and southern Herts gets theirs.

          3. Is it more relevant to you? Here we get “West Midlands” which has nothing whatever to do with us in the Marches! North West is equally irrelevant and as for North Wales …

          4. Where along with Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly happen.

            The thaw has started here in Brittany and expect all the snow to be gone by tomorrow afternoon.

    6. It’s been positive territory for the temperature here today, Bill (plus two and now up to plus five!). Mind you, the wind chill has made it seem an awful lot colder.

  77. Just watching on the Yesterday channel – Abandoned Engineering – about the Stasi and its work/control. Getting a look at our future.

    1. 329390+ up ticks,
      Evening W,
      Could someone then explain in little words to me why has building for such a future been given such succour via the polling booth ?

  78. What a Great Week. Hope you enjoyed it too !

    President Donald J Trump beats impeachment. Democrats in disarray. The Lincoln Project collapsed to the ground. The RINOS in the GOP establishment on the run, exposed & collapsing. Cuomo & Democrat Governors in free fall. The media depressed and lashing out at Democrats for their epic impeachment fail.

    Lieden exposed ever more as a cheat….. MAGA ascending again………

    President Donald J Trump soon to resume his office as President of the United States !

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a96ab47592b24c4b6a10b28ab83fe64e7c9eb23086894099f6cf1ec7ad7685a4.jpg

  79. “We cannot live in a society where lockdowns are perpetually on the table, in fear that a minister might, without notice, impose restrictions that cost people their jobs, their livelihoods, their ability to date, to marry, to visit family at home and abroad, or to invest in their futures.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/14/ministers-must-never-free-impose-crippling-restrictions-without/

    Well said Steve Baker! We have essentially been living under a medical dictatorship since 23rd March 2020, our most basic rights and freedoms taken away on ministerial whims. Lockdowns must not be a Sword of Damocles held over our heads forevermore.

    1. New avatar!

      Well said indeed, Steve Baker – this totalitarian disctatorship will not be reelected. If we get the chance to throw them out.

      1. How kind of you to notice! 🙂 I’m more concerned right now about the complete destruction of our way of life from lockdowns than the flaws of the Brexit deal or Islamic terrorism.

        Steve Baker has been great since the days of the ERG – but it remains to be seen if words translate into actions. If Johnson’s ‘Roadmap’ turns out to be a very long and windy road with lots of cul-de-sacs then I hope that he co-ordinates getting the letters into the ’22.

        1. 329390+ up ticks,
          JK,
          There are a few that could be considered
          as great during the last few years ALL potential party saviours, to no avail, but talks cheap money buys houses.
          The ratchet takes up another click going forward on their treacherous campaign.

      2. 329390+up ticks,
        Evening N,
        That’s a awful load for “if” to be carrying not forgetting “they” have been the cause of mass uncontrolled immigration, mass killing and mass
        foreign instigated paedophilia, scarring children for life, they & their ilk still operate.
        A very sad state of affairs.

      3. Sure they’ll be re-elected. Who else is there, with an alernative, and even a tiny bit of credibility? In any case, elect Labour, get Tory-lite. Or was it the other way around? It’s so difficult to tell these days.

    2. 329390+ up ticks,
      Evening JK,
      I would be very reluctant to thank any of them IMO the
      defence and attack are ALL encapsulated within the party.

      The sword has been in the forging openly for at least three decades awaiting a dangely trigger, ( the plague)

  80. 329390+ up ticks,

    Vaccine passports to enter shops, pubs and events ‘under consideration’

    If this is their intended intentions to bring this in then surely the peoples reaction will be reflected in the approaching May elections will it not ?

    But having allowed things over the years to get this far what with following the party line maybe they,the governance party that is, will find acceptance.

    If submissive acceptance is the outcome then surely that will set a precedent for the future.

    2. It will be easy to spot the people that haven’t had the full course of vaccinations.

      They will be breathing

    3. Hmm. I honestly didn’t think they would. I simply assumed they’d make life so difficult without them that you got one simply to live.

      1. 329390+ up ticks,
        Evening W,
        Ask yourself why do it in dribs & argumentative drabs when you can do it in a “passport entry”, “no passport NO ENTRY”, same as a bus pass only with very nasty consequences.

    4. It will never happen as the in the black community very few will have a jab so they would discriminate against us without hesitation . but not them.

      1. 329390-+ up ticks,
        Evening JN,
        It could very well leave us with a split society, divide & conquer
        leaving those that are threatened to, in a weakened state, slowly
        filter over to agreeing.

        Peoples must ask themselves in ALL honesty “how did we get into such an odious state as a nation, what part did I play”
        Then vote / not vote, according to their self evaluation.

    5. I noticed a pattern in that politicians from Mandelson to Hancock have all been groomed by Soros and Gates under the ‘Global Young World Leaders’ events around the globe. Invitations to Davos would be the high point of their miserable little existence.

      This probably indicates that they were either brainwashed or bribed or both to fall into line with the globalist agendas. Those agendas include such as the climate change scam snd now the control of populations via the vaccinations for all scam which are inextricably linked.

    2. Signed, at 115 821. I hope it might get enough signatures to make the government realise that we are serious.
      I expect the bedwetters will start a rival “Implement vaccine passports to shame non-compliant criminals” though.

      1. It’s nearly at 120k now. I doubt it will do any good, but at least it’s better than just sitting back and doing nothing.

    3. Signed but it will make no difference and as with all other petitions it will be fobbed off with the usual standard government text. Bla bla bla etc.

    4. Signed but it will make no difference and as with all other petitions it will be fobbed off with the usual standard government text. Bla bla bla etc.

    1. Polly this is wonderful but have we
      seen it before? …Are you suggesting
      we are like sheep…easily led?

  85. I’ve been making a few comments on some Yankee sites:-

    “According to one law enforcement official, medical examiners did not find signs that the officer sustained any blunt force trauma, so investigators believe that early reports that he was fatally struck by a fire extinguisher are not true,” CNN reported.

    Looking in from the other side of the Big Pond in the UK, it seems entirely possible that the American Public have been “sold the dummy” over this Officer’s tragic death and for CNN, one of the News Outlets that ran with the Fire Extinguisher story, to retract in this way is very suspicious.
    If, as seems entirely possible, the anti-Trump Lobby lied to use this for political gain, then the American Public need to ask the question, “Who REALLY organised the Capitol Invasion of the 6th of January?”
    Whilst it is undeniable that Trump Supporters did take part, there are aspects which make me wonder if this was a False Flag Operation begun by agents provocateur, not least the reports that Pelosi not only turned down offers of Federal reinforcements for the Capitol security detail, but also denied the requests from that detail for more resources.

    One thing is certain. The pure hatred unleashed against Trump by his opponents is going to foul not just American Politics, but politics throughout the Western World for years.

  86. And:-

    Greg Jadwin Dave_from_Florida • 2 days ago
    Here’s what this really is:

    The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor. The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone The Notcee Party used the fire as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the German government, which made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Notcee Germany.

    “Let no crisis go to waste.”

    With my response:-

    Total change of subject, but as you mention the Reichstag Fire, there is evidence that the accused, Marinus van der Lubbe, was actually innocent and had been driven to the Reichstag in order to be the scapegoat for a False Flag operation by the NSDAP.

    Hmm. Did I just say “False Flag”???

    From Wiki:-

    1955 testimony of SA member Hans-Martin Lennings
    In July 2019, more than 80 years after the event, Germany’s Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung and the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland published a 1955 affidavit uncovered in the legacy of former investigator Fritz Tobias (see above), which was found in the archives of the Amtsgericht (court) in Hannover in which Hans-Martin Lennings (1904–1962), a former member of the NADAP’ paramilitary SA unit, stated that on the night of the fire, he and his SA group drove Van der Lubbe from an infirmary to the Reichstag, where they noticed “a strange smell of burning and there were clouds of smoke billowing through the rooms”. The statement suggests the fire had already started when they arrived and that the SA played a role in the arson which led to the issuance of the Reichstag Fire Decree.

    Lennings, who died in 1962, further stated in his account that he and other members of his squad had protested the arrest of Van der Lubbe. “Because we were convinced that Van der Lubbe could not possibly have been the arsonist, because according to our observation, the Reichstag had already been burning when we dropped him off there”, he said in the testimony. He claimed he and the other witnesses were detained and forced to sign a paper that denied any knowledge of the incident. Later, nearly all of those with knowledge of the Reichstag fire were executed. Lennings said that he had been warned and escaped to Czechoslovakia.

    Lennings had asked that his account be certified in 1955, in the event the Reichstag fire case ever returned to trial.

  87. Evening, all. The Health Secretary has no idea what it’s like for ordinary people under lockdown – and neither do any of his colleagues.

  88. I don’t know if anyone has already said this, but Happy Valentines Day to all here, and to all you naysayers, ‘where’s your sense of romance?’
    Will shortly be preparing salmon stuffed with crabmeat and roasted asparagus for dinner, hope his nibs has some decent wine ready!!

    2. Just enjoyed a bottle of champagne, fillet steaks with cabbage/ broccoli/ carrot/ onions and English mustard. Too full for the Bramley apple crumble and now relaxing with a bottle of Morgon.

    5. Devon Red Ruby Chateaubriand, slow-roasted sundream tomatoes, buttered purple sprouting and baby potatoes, topped with a classic red wine (shallot-based) jus. Wasn’t bad, if I do say so myself!

    1. Indeed and Ash Wednesday the day after. Then forty days to Easter. Easter was cancelled last year; what’s the betting it will be out of bounds again this?

      1. I eventually got my pancakes last year (in July!) as I can’t be bothered to get the ingredients to make them myself (I do recall doing so as a scout in my yoof) and so my mum offered to make them (and for her and my dad) when the re-opening happened. I hope to not have to wait that long this time around. 🙂

        2. I was born on Shrove Tuesday, at home. My sister, who was sent to one of our grandmothers house, has never forgiven me as she didn’t get her pancakes that day!

      2. Good evening, Conway.

        It is not forty days until Easter though!!
        It is forty days of fasting [Sundays not
        included] until Good Friday…
        As a child, at a Convent, I always felt the
        forty days was a bit of a con!!
        Yes, I do know what the forty days represents.

        1. You, know me, G – mathematically challenged as always 🙂 I did know about Sundays not being fast days (when I gave up sherry last year, I probably drank enough on Sundays to more than make up for what I gave up!). I always felt Good Friday (not forgetting Holy Saturday, which never gets a mention) was the start of Easter.

          1. I am sure you are not mathematically challenged…ever :-))
            I like the Sunday drinking idea! :-))
            I feel a terrible sadness from Maundy Thursday but, hopefully,
            this year we will be allowed out to play!! :-))

          2. Alas, I am definitely mathematically challenged. I suffer from the number equivalent of dyslexia 🙁 I think that Ash Wednesday last year was the last time I went to church. If not the actual last time, then close (perhaps I went the Sunday after, first Sunday in Lent), but I had to stop when they made masks compulsory. There was no way I could have sat through a service with a face covering. Not that the services were like any service I was accustomed to.

          3. I don’t wear a mask, wearing one causes my eczema
            to flare up, but the pressure has been put on me at
            Church, albeit in a fairly subtle way;
            [ not that we are having services but I provide
            fresh flowers every week and do some titivating.]

          4. I afterwards printed out a government exemption certificate and now wear that when I go shopping without a mask (the only way I can cope with it). I have only once been challenged (ironically by a person I know well) about not wearing a mask, but as soon as I showed the certificate there was no more mention of mask wearing.

          5. Hmm, ‘Evening, Conway, I always understood that it went, Good Friday, Black Saturday, Easter Sunday. Am I wrong?

          6. Perhaps that’s the woke version. I looked it up and it is, apparently, one name for it, although not, I think, a Christian one. It was always Holy Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday in my liturgy. The day when the altar remains stripped, all the statues and crucifixes remain covered and the sacrament is kept in the tabernacle (because there is no Mass after Maundy Thursday until Easter).

    3. The woke are ruining that as well.

      The popular pancake mix called Aunt Jemima is being renamed because the permanently insulted have decided that the picture on tha package is racist.

      The fact that the coloured woman that they modeled the picture on was paid royalties and happily posed for the photo is irrelevant.

        1. I don see uncle Ben escaping. If he is black it’s racist, if he is white then it’s white privilege.

          At least some of your politicians say something against this rubbish, Trudeau is all in favour.

          3. Quite. I am still spitting blood over Greene Kings’s intention to rename The Black Boy in Market Square Sudbury, one of my favourite watering holes.

            Greene King: what a horrid company they are. I would purchase bottles of Abbott Ale from Percy Wing’s corner shop on Clarendon Street in Cambridge when we lived in Victoria Street. We returned the glass bottles and received a refund.

            The Ale was excellent in those days. Now it tastes like gnats’ piss.

      2. Who buys packets of pancake mix when the ingredients are only flour, milk and eggs. Do they manage to get the eggs and milk in the pack.

        1. They probably add sugar as well, it would give the Chinese dried eggs a certain attraction to the chemical mix.

      1. I’m a Strawberry jam person. I can stomach the sugar and lemon juice. When I was a child, I also occasionally put golden syrup on them.

  90. MSM explained…………

    I just heard that James Altucher, when he regularly guested on cable news, was told by a producer “we’re just trying to fill in time between commercials,” and he was dead serious………

    Once one understands that, everything makes sense !

    1. That’s news?

      I worked on a system for broadcaster once. The ‘Playlist started with them blocking off the national advertising slots, then they added the local station timeouts. Only then did they get into timing the programming.

      The news people were told how much time they had between ads.

  92. Raining and a touch below -½°C in the yard.
    Upon which I shall bid you all a good evening and sign off.

    1. It would be poetic justice if they cross referenced celeb passports against where their lockdown status allowed them to be.

      There again they wouldn’t misuse the passports like that would they?

    2. Let’s just hope that Morgan suffers not just an immediate vaccine re-action but one which shuts his foul mouth for a decade or two.

      1. The second dose should shut him up especially when he is exposed to the wild virus. If ferrets died in experimental trials it is a good indication that rats like Morgan will also succumb.

        However, I suspect that with other celebs advocating we all submit to vaccination that he will have been given the saline solution.

        The video showing Anthony Hopkins receiving a vaccine, evidently in the insanitary environment of a subterranean car park (with a nurse trying to control her long hair in the wind) and then having pretended to prick his skin discharges the phial contents over her shoulder should by now have been widely circulated.

    3. 329390+ up ticks,
      Evening Rik,
      Precisely what President Trump done, brought all the enemas to the surface.
      Will it alter the UKs voting pattern, wishful thinking on my part, will it hell.

      1. That’s right, really depress me! I can’t stand living an hour ahead of myself and find it totally miserable. I can’t wait for us to get back on proper time (GMT).

    2. Good morning Conway. I hope you are having a decent night’s sleep as I type this!
      It already is warmer here in Derbyshire. Just a tad below zero before I came to bed. Unfortunately it was also chucking it down with rain.

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