Sunday 14 March: The Sussexes must stop trying to have it both ways with the media

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/03/14/letters-sussexes-must-stop-trying-have-ways-media/

842 thoughts on “Sunday 14 March: The Sussexes must stop trying to have it both ways with the media”

  1. Falklands hero Lord West is ‘insulted’ by the Foreign Office after he casts doubt on UN’s ‘sexed-up’ Assad gas attack dossier. 14 march 2021.

    Admiral Lord West of Spithead, 72, a decorated Falklands veteran, former First Sea Lord and a Security Minister under Gordon Brown, was denounced on the record by the Foreign Office for engaging in ‘disinformation and propaganda’ and for helping to distract attention from the war crimes of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

    Lord West believes there are serious doubts about an investigation into the use of poison gas by Syria in Douma in 2018, and that credible complaints of censorship, made by whistleblowers, have been wrongly ignored.

    Morning everyone. Serious doubts? He’s joking! It was a murderous fiasco. Probably the reason there haven’t been any since. West obviously doesn’t appreciate how sensitive the Security Services are to these charges. Like Salisbury any sign of weakness might bring the whole thing crashing down with vast political consequences!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9359721/PETER-HITCHENS-Falklands-hero-Lord-West-insulted-Foreign-Office.html

    2. West was a poor sailor, a bad leader and then a shocking Liebour “minister”.

    3. Detecting the political lying bullshit is about to get much harder,at the moment it’s “Believe little of what you read and only half of what you see”
      With the new “Deepfake” video technology…………….
      Combine that with a bought and sold MSM and sites like this become ever more essential

      1. Morning Rik. Yes they will have to shut us up eventually. We will all go to the OAP’s Re-Education Unit and Geoff to the Rockall Gulag!

        1. OAP’s Re-Education Camps? To ensure that we only think correct thoughts? Will they be known as the ‘Instilling Fields’?

    4. “The Admiral’s supposed misdeed was signing an international ‘Statement
      of Concern’ over an alleged distortion of intelligence by the UN’s
      chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of
      Chemical Weapons (OPCW)”.

      He’s a bit too high profile for a ‘David Kelly’.

  3. “Wokers of the World Unite” (you’ve nothing to lose in chains). Good Morning all. The March of the Mods continues:

    From ZH Former speaker of the House Newt Gringrich:
    “There was no reason to censor my tweet or lock my account,” Gingrich continued. “Nothing in the flagged tweet “promotes violence against, threatens, or harasses” anyone. It is simply pointing out the fact that those entering the country illegally are not tested for COVID-19 and could be a health risk.”

    In an open letter to Twitter officials, Gingrich posed the following questions:

    Do the Twitter censors acknowledge that we are in a pandemic?

    Do the Twitter censors acknowledge that testing is a key tool in fighting the pandemic?

    Do the Twitter censors acknowledge that, unlike people entering the country legally, people who come into the United States illegally are not tested for COVID-19?

    Do the Twitter censors acknowledge that, unlike U.S. citizens, people who come into the country illegally are unlikely to voluntarily get tested because they are trying to keep a low profile?

    If so, how exactly do they justify censoring discussion of the threat to public health posed by people coming into the U.S. illegally without being tested?

    Gingrich noted that the vast majority of those being silenced online are conservatives.
    “This entire experience has made it even more clear to me that Twitter is only interested in censoring conservatives,” Gingrich said.
    “I hope Twitter will stop its aggressive and biased censorship, and return to the spirit and ideals of free speech which allowed it to prosper in the first place.”

    And this from another Thread:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de47f0075fe6fe0b389127054c8d904f9cb32c462d1ea2146bb56d447cb2c37f.png

      1. It refers to the website Zerohedge (frequented by anxious Americans in the main…)

  5. Good morning, all. Bright sun; clear blue sky. Won’t last..

    I see a lot of wimmin who broke the law are upset that the police, er, arrested them. Oh how sad.

    Now, if they had been black and wearing paramilitary uniforms – nothing would have happened. A lesson for these green, woke, eco-friendly ladies.

    2. I think you are supposed to say “Oh no, how terrible, white heterosexual males are oppressing women again!” and then take to the streets, maybe burn a few buildings that someone wants to snap up cheaply.

    3. Well, a sensible police commander would have kept the police completely out of it. No police at all. It would all have been forgotten by lunchtime today.

      1. Perhaps those police should have been deployed to patrol the streets, deterring crime and catching criminals, including those who do or might attack women.

  6. I know it’s Sunday but…

    When it’s OK to use the “F” Word
    Since you will undoubtedly come across the “F” word many times , maybe we should start with those, hopefully rare, occasions when it might be considered as appropriate…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ac8fca427928d23f5528b0a26cd19ed81c77f4ba71819d5ef9606bd0876f3dd.jpg

    I’m sure that we will return to this theme again – and again…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1357e5a833b5f4a53811c0d1f51303c0dc5e4fad54be9f0972555657efce82ce.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81f6041677ef3f30e88159103780e600487b6e16caad521704ccbed39f8e46ef.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5eda74c1f209a8bf6e68e420e9c6e3bc73089cd1103b74518c39890af3c1406f.jpg

    2. That top photograph is not such a calamity. The glass can soon be swept up, and the cat piss will soon be drained away.

        1. Why thank you. Although many here would probably conclude I’m a child on Nottle….

          3. Tell us when, I will come in to the city and take photos.
            Will there be skid marks?
            Good morning BTW.

  8. This is not what Sarah would have wanted. 14 march 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/916e337d60797600666f0387f4a5d535fcb58279678572e076ffebda9aad227f.jpg

    When I first heard of the vigil for Sarah on Clapham Common I was looking forward to attending – it felt good to be able to ‘do something’ and express my love for Sarah and my sorrow for what has happened to her. Less than a day later, I decided not to attend, as have many of her friends. I can’t speak for all of them, but my reason for not attending is this: my friend’s tragic death has been hijacked. It is not a tribute to her any more, it’s about something else – and I don’t like what it has become.

    The parallels with the George Floyd case are interesting. Murder by Cop. MSM frenzy. Celebrity objections. Flash mobs of sympathisers emerge. Photographs!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/03/13/this-is-not-what-sarah-would-have-wanted/

    1. I never thought that it could happen,
      On my vigil down in Clapham,
      The night out on the Common,
      The night I ain’t forgotten.
      The police dealt out the rations,
      with handcuffs, shields and batons,
      And so it’s my assumption
      I’m really up the junction

    3. Looks like Stacey Dooley. Can’t be her though. She normally makes documentaries about war zones and dictatorships.

      er….

      1. Is she the one who showed more than she planned to do (or was it precisely what she was planning to do?) in Strictly Come Dancing.

  9. Stephen Pound MP has a letter on the Prison warders describing prisoners as “residents or service users.”

    2. How do i become a ‘resident’? Oh, i know. Pound the shit out of him until he begs for room service.

      2. Good morning, Grizzly

        Yes, but that was with irony.

        The Wokists do not recognize or understand irony and if they did they would get it banned.

        1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

          I am wondering if regular correspondent, Bruce “No Nukes” Denness, was also being ironic when he spelt the name of that great Victorian inventor and engineer, George Stephenson, with a ‘v’ in today’s letter to the DT?

          Interesting personal fact about George Stephenson. I was born at Scarsdale Hospital, Newbold Road, Chesterfield (a converted Victorian Workhouse), which is directly opposite Trinity Church, where Stephenson lies buried.

    5. Stephen Pound was for a while a favourite of Radio 4 for his, always willing to discuss any matter of the day in his relaxed, easy-going and gently sardonic manner. In other words, a smug git. Here’s part of his Wiki entry:

      In 2003 BBC’s Today asked its listeners to suggest a law that they would like to see put onto the statute books. The BBC received 10,000 nominations and five were short-listed, from which listeners then voted to select their preferred choice. Pound agreed to sponsor in Parliament whichever idea eventually won the final vote.

      On 1 January 2004 it was announced on air that first place with 37 percent of the vote had gone to the proposal to authorise homeowners to use any means to defend their home from intruders. (The controversial farmer Tony Martin was still very much in the news.) Pound’s on-air reaction to the result was that, “The people have spoken—the bastards”.

      In April 2015, a video circulated on social media where Pound asked Cameron whether he was willing to disassociate himself from the “snobbish and disdainful” bingo and beer advertisement tweeted by the Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps. The Prime Minister thanked him for advertising the Conservative’s strong economic policy, and ended his reply concerning Pound by saying: “I am sure that the honourable gentleman enjoys a game of bingo – it’s the only time he’ll ever get close to Number 10”. After going viral it picked up more than 3.6 million views in less than 24 hours.

    1. No comments allowed on the Mail this morning. Is that because the commenters would not be on message?

  11. British military unfit to fight as Russians ‘laugh at us’ and Americans ‘shake heads’. 14 March 2021.

    A former Army chief warns that cuts have made our military unfit to fight – and a joke to threats like Russia.

    Lord Dannatt fears we would now struggle to support the US in conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq.

    And he added of our combat readiness: “The Russians are laughing at us, the Americans shake their heads.”

    All this is largely true though in my view understated!

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-military-unfit-fight-russians-23710412

    1. I would like to know what General Sir Nick Carter has to say in response. Waffle probably.

    2. Morning Minty

      And this?

      Vice Admiral Nick Hine has revealed he is autistic after being diagnosed 10 years ago and said that the military needs more ‘neurodiversity’.

      The Second Sea Lord, 55, opened up about his condition as he encouraged others with autism to join the armed forces.

      Hine said that the only way the British military could compete with adversaries that have more advanced technology and larger funds would be through ‘thinking differently’ and hiring people with neurological disorders.

      He said that his precision and desire for order had helped him to flourish in the Navy, but admitted to grappling with large group discussions and noise.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9354415/Second-Sea-Lord-Vice-Admiral-Nick-Hine-reveals-autistic-diagnosed-10-years-ago.html

      3. I’m a white granny with a metal hip. Would I add diversity to the armed forces?

    1. Brendan Cox was a perfect ambassador for ‘Save the Children’. He’d ‘save’ them until he’d had his supper.

    1. Well Kate went along with it too. Seems as though the entire Establishment wants a five minute hate on white males.

      1. A maskless Kate no less………,now seeing her thrown to the ground and arrested would have been popcorn time………

        1. I’m in two minds about that action.
          On the one hand, it has more than a whiff of wokeness (but also smack in the eye to Gruesome Twosome).
          On the other, it has given us a chance to see how plod behaves with demonstrators of the wrong colour.
          (And yes, I know there would be agents provocateur among the crowd)

    2. I guess I might still be human – Emily’s fate really upset me.
      But then, she wasn’t done in by a white establishment male.

    3. Selective indignation is all that this repulsive man is capable of producing.

      As Peter Quince said:

      All for your delight
      We are not here.

      so I’d better hide this in a spoiler.

      Every time this flatulent nincompoop, Boris Johnson, opens his slobbering mouth the poop, of which he is full, stays in his nincom and only his farts come out.

    4. Rik, Emily Jones murder was many times worse than that of Ms Everard. Not only was the little angel on this Earth for a mere seven years, but she had no choice; her parents (or mother) took her out to the park.
      Walking alone through certain areas of London at night during lockdown is (sorry) foolhardy behaviour, unless you can outrun your assailants.
      Ms Symonds is a practising Roman Catholic, and they tend to light candles irrespective of any CO2 emissions.

  15. Met’s War Crimes Unit examining allegations against Asma al Assad, wife of Syrian president. 14 March 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5bb1a433d713c2fa8f68b90d6eaefcbc0507a0eb4d09080d161131d559357171.jpg

    The Metropolitan Police has launched a preliminary investigation into Asma al Assad, Sky News understands.

    The British-born wife of Syrian President Bashar al Assad is accused of supporting and encouraging terrorism. If charged, the Met could seek her extradition.

    Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers accuses her of being among a number of “influential actors” who encouraged and incited acts of terrorism and international crimes.

    I guess Blair and Cameron were too easy!

    https://news.sky.com/story/mets-war-crimes-unit-examining-allegations-against-asma-al-assad-wife-of-syrian-president-12245430

    1. Sky News understands nothing. Asma has the protection of the Russian State. The Met are wasting their (our) money. Again.

    2. …and when do they start investigating Carrion for inciting lunacy and endangering the country.

    3. The more they tell me how bad Assad and his family are the more I believe the opposite.

  16. Can you imagine what would have happened on Clapham Common last night if the lady murdered by a white cop had herself not been white?

    This country is now very much like a forest in a heatwave with pyromaniacs running around with boxes of matches.

    How on earth can Britain remain peaceful throughout the rest of 2021 and summer just a few weeks away.

    2. I’m looking forward to it.

      After half of London has been burned to the ground i would like to see Sad Dick Khant be interviewed on the BBC about it being ‘mostly peaceful’.

    3. Good morning ,

      Or the cover up re that dear little girl who was nearly beheaded whilst walking with her parents in a park by some one who had no right t be in Britain !

    1. Badly misjudged by #metpolice

      Was it misjudged? I thought that there was some theatricality about it. The woman’s responses and the police’s actions! Perhaps I’m wrong. I’m wrong so often!

      1. In a video clip in The Sunday Grimes – I noticed some thuggish looking men having a go at the perlice.

  18. Morning all

    SIR – Why is it that those who complain the loudest about press intrusion go out of their way to court it?

    However much celebrities (as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have essentially become) would like to curate where and how they appear in the press, their obsession with keeping a high profile results in heightened public interest in them – and thus an inevitable appearance in publications that don’t meet their exacting criteria.

    Giving an interview to Oprah Winfrey in order to “draw a line” was naive. All it did was expose the couple to comment as they publicised their criticisms of the Royal family.

    Jane Knott

    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    SIR – In speaking out against those who he well knows are unable to retaliate or challenge inaccuracies, Prince Harry has shown a streak of cowardice. He has let down his country, his regiments and, more importantly, himself.

    ADVERTISING

    Robert Leng

    Colchester, Essex

    SIR – If extricating himself from the “trap” of being born into the Royal family was Harry’s goal then I am pleased for him that he has achieved it.

    However, to complete the process, and to be true to himself, he must give up all his titles and renounce his and his issue’s place in the succession.

    Peta Seel

    Lahitte-Toupière, Hautes-Pyrénées, France

    SIR – I always read your Court Circular and am always impressed by the amount of work that the Royal family does on our behalf.

    In recent months I have noticed the number of phone calls made by the Duke of Cambridge to members of the NHS – a shining example of service, and one that his brother should note.

    Roger Job

    Worcester

    SIR – The most egregious aspect of Meghan Markle’s interview was her suggestion that there was a link between comments on the colour of her baby’s skin and his eligibility to be made a prince. The granting of the title is regulated by protocol that dates back over 100 years.

    By refusing to name the individual who made the comment, Meghan and Harry have smeared the entire Royal family. It is disingenuous to exempt the Queen from the accusation, as she is the head of this family, and it has surely caused her great distress.

    Advertisement

    ADVERTISING

    Peter Hardy

    Harrow, Middlesex

    SIR – Meghan claims that she was unprepared for life in the Royal family.

    An actress who fails to research the role, read the script or take direction should not expect a successful career.

    Rosalind Grimes

    Honiton, Devon

    SIR – Am I the only one nostalgic for the days when abusing Piers Morgan and virtue-signalling were separate activities?

    Dunstan Vavasour

    Monks Kirby, Warwickshire

    1. I don’t give a flying one if Harry has let himself down, he has revealed himself to be a contemptible, unthinking prick.

      2. Yo Ol

        prick.

        Please find a more accurate description

        The prick is the start of all reproduction Well apart from the amoeba). and therefore essential for all life

        How about Harry is a Boros, a Lammy, an Abbottopotamus etc

  19. Jail genteelism

    SIR – You highlight the Prison Service policy of referring to inmates not as prisoners or – heaven forbid – convicts but as “residents”.

    Visiting HMP Whitemoor a few years ago, I was told by a prison officer not to refer to my constituent as a prisoner but as a “service user”. I pray that she spoke in jest but fear that she did not.

    Stephen Pound

    MP for Ealing North (1997-2019)

    London W7

  20. SIR – When John Prescott was deputy prime minister, he was responsible for turning the outside lane of the M4 into one reserved for buses and taxis on the final stretch into London.

    Advertisement

    This was painted red, and anyone else caught in the lane would be prosecuted. It was disliked as it exacerbated the queues in the remaining lanes. However, it worked because drivers kept out of it.

    Instead of buying extra land to create, in effect, a fifth lane on smart motorways, why can’t the nearside lane just be painted to re-establish the hard shoulder? Quite simply, these motorways are not smart, and they have failed. We need a quick and easy way to return to safer driving.

    Paul Master

    Poundbury, Dorset

    SIR – Another coroner has warned that more people will die on smart motorways in the absence of a hard shoulder. Of course they will – but this is the case with all changes made to roads. One could equally argue that dual carriageways should have hard shoulders, or that low bridges should have better warning technology, or that railway crossings should revert to manually operated barriers, or that the minimum driving age should go up.

    Driving is dangerous and always will be. I have on several occasions come across cars stranded in the outside lane of motorways with hard shoulders, usually due to their drivers’ ignorance. I have even seen someone parked and having a nap on lane one of the M4.

    Advertisement

    The Highway Code is clear: one should leave enough space ahead to pull up and stop in an emergency. Sadly, too many drivers do not comply. That is not the fault of the Highways Agency.

    Timothy Goss JP

    Advanced Driving Instructor

    London NW3

  21. I am not interested in the Royal Family. I believe in the institution and see what it does for the country, but the individuals are average people trying to live out a completely abnormal situation – and that is the decent ones like Prince Charles and the Queen.
    I suspect that Harry and Megan are uninteresting people without great talent who need to cash in on the the most interesting thing that has happened to them… which just ain’t that interesting. It’s a bit embarassing, tbh.
    Personally I won’t read a word about them and watch any of the interviews. I just wish the world would shut up about them.

    1. 330331+ up ticks,
      Morning Lim,
      Totally agree, it was news for a day, it has now morphed into fully fledged deflection, shielding issues of treachery as in for starters, the DOVER replacement campaign and many more.

    2. For God’s sake. I hope people are ignoring all advice/propaganda I am sick of all adverts on tv, radio and in roads as well as motorways. Just utterly sick of it all.

      Morning all btw. Bright and breezy so far (but not me!). Fed up to the back teeth.

      OTOH lovely card from daughter with a gift in Dubai and son popping over later on. Something to look forward to.

  23. So here’s a thought…

    We know there’s been an attempted coup in the US and that Biden is not President.

    Has something similar happened in the UK?

    Why were the poor Clapham protesters put down so violently?

    The UK doesn’t look normal.

  24. 330331+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Being pushed again when to continue to give it “for & against” rhetoric is continuing to give it survival substance, see it for what it is, deflection.

    More to the point DEMAND to know from “your MP” if the views of the
    Clapham Common debacle are the onset of reset, the next stage being
    “slapping some sense” into the alledged offenders, then who knows,anything goes.

    Sunday 14 March: The Sussexes must stop trying to have it both ways with the media.

  27. Nicked,I suspect speaks for many here as well

    “Like many on here, I would applaud the woke women’s protest last night
    if they had shown the slightest sympathy for the thousands of young,
    white, girls from Rotherham who were brutally mistreated by men but that
    never happened. The self selection of which cause to champion signifies
    just how hypocritical these women’s groups are and demeans their whole
    argument in my eyes.”

    1. As the TV was screening “Peterloo” the Met were duffing up women on Clapham Common. There is no truth in the rumour that they threw women in vans while whispering, “take that from Wayne”.
      Assistant Commissioner Ball, in an official statement said,”we had to bash them up to protect people’s safety”. (Or words to that effect.)

  28. If so it’s a very clever coup !

    Undercover of C-19, exaggerated statistics, manufactured fear and a compliant PM, the globalists appear to have taken over Britain by stealth

    That’s why Johnson looks so disconnected from events and protesters are put down so violently.

    1. Stealth is the operative word…

      But in reality it was in full view but many simply kept their eyes closed.

      1. 330331+ up ticks,
        H,
        A multitude of the electorate have restricted viewing as in, the inner walls of the rear exit.

  29. Another Telegraph howler:

    “SIR – Ian Simcock (“HS2 carnage”, Letters, March 7) is right to laud the exploits of earlier engineering giants such as Stevenson and Brunel.”

    We had a Stevenson screen at my school and would go and take the temperature readings from the two thermometers inside it.

    1. When they weren’t building screens for the railways, they were writing novels in lighthouses.

    2. That’s a real bummer, Dean, man.

      Looks like the sub-editors of this expensive kindling can’t tell their Jekylls from their Hydes, dude.

  30. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03b22765611f87383e6c25418ac71ffdd374c7a4cab52a2a1244c56f68837ed4.png Stop getting all hot under the collar, Terry lad, about the introduction of wildlife. I would suggest that the uncontrolled daily introductions of human invaders on the south coast present a FAR more serious threat to both wild and human life than any lynx ever could hope to.

    I know you are one of the editor’s pets who seldom fails to get a letter published, but get your bloody priorities right, man.

    2. Hey, Beatnik, I reckon you want more exotic road pizza to dine on in your travels, Dude. A chunky lynx burger fried by the highway. Man that’s what the King of the Road considers a regal feast, Bro.

      1. Chow time by the gulch, Dean, bro? Boiled beaver bavette and kibbled kite kebabs are no serious threat, dude, to them barbied venison haunches and roasted pheasants, both introduced for sport for the amusement of the toffs, man.

    3. He’s also being disingenuous about the NZ parrot predation by not mentioning the introduction of domestic cats.

  31. My take on the definition of a conspiracy theory…

    The truth dressed up as unbelievable.

    The globalists put the conspiracies out to provide a safety net further down the line as because everyone believes they are conspiracies as intended…they therefore dismiss the truth.

    To stand this up all you have to do is Google the conspiracies written several decades ago and then cross reference with what’s happening now and how they unfolded by simply using hindsight.

    1. The globalists put the conspiracies out to provide a safety net further down the line as because everyone believes they are conspiracies as intended…they therefore dismiss the truth.

      Yes I’m pretty sure this QAnon is a fabrication.

    2. All my memes are fresh picked daily,I don’t save them,pity, this one

      “Anyone got some fresh conspiracy theories,all my old ones have already come true”
      would fit right in

    3. Conspiracies are real! Guy Fawkes really did try to blow up the Houses of Parliament! Caesar was assassinated by a Senate Cabal! Mi6 and the CIA did overthrow the Iranian Prime Minister! They are the reality of political life. All politicians are ceaselessly plotting to overthrow their opponents and not infrequently to murder them.

    1. “Banana slugs grow penises on their heads…”

      Sounds like your average politician to me.

      3. 330331+up ticks,
        G,
        Agreed, I see it as being priti prolific among the lab/lib/con coalition governance politico’s, highly noticeable.

  33. I don’t know if this article about Jenni Murray has been posted already. It takes a man from Bombay to put this former BBC Wokester jokester in her place it seems:

    Dame Jenni Murray has called for Britain to “dampen down the nostalgia” for our history and confront it like Germany has done with the Nazis.

    The former BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour presenter said Britons have been “taught to be proud of the achievements of the British empire” often without questioning its negative side.

    Murray, who retired from the BBC show last year, said the UK has “a lot to learn from the Germans” in confronting its past following the rule of Adolf Hitler.

    “The debate around [British] colonialism must be had in full – the good and the bad,” she said.

    “We sang ‘Rule, Britannia’ with gusto and never thought to question how some of the revered local heroes whose statues stood in our towns and cities had made their money,” she added.

    Murray admired the approach of Germany, which has put up educational posters next to Nazi monuments and taught cadets about the history of policing in the Third Reich.

    “We have a lot to learn from the Germans,” she wrote in her weekly column in Saga Magazine. “They have an impossibly long word, ‘vergangenheitsaufarbeitung’, which means ‘coming to terms with the past’.

    “In recent decades, they have addressed Nazism and the Holocaust in art, theatre, television and cinema.

    “Nazi monuments have been put in context, and commemorative ‘stumbling stones’ – small brass plates inscribed with the names of victims of the regime have been installed in pavements 1,200 locations. Police cadets are taught the history of Nazi policing and are made to visit a concentration camp.

    “It’s time now for us to dampen down the nostalgia and look to our future as a multicultural society with shame understood and acknowledged by everyone, never to be repeated.”

    Dr Zareer Masani, a historian who was born in Bombay, said the comparison of the British Empire with Nazi Germany is “completely historically illiterate”.

    “It is an outrageous comparison,” he said. “I don’t think anyone who makes that comparison has any knowledge of history.

    “It is a fashion in some parts of the liberal left to equate the two things as part of a post-colonial guilt syndrome that they suffer from.

    “But I think it is quite insulting to people like me who grew up under the Empire and have a very positive experience of it.”

    Murray also used her column to express her dislike of the word “woke”, a popular term to describe a brand of politics seeking to address perceived social injustice.

    “How I hate the word ‘Woke’,” she wrote, “lacking any sense of English grammar and suggesting the rest of us have no shame about racism and the history of slavery. Of course we do”.

    While Murray encouraged Britons to face up to the UK’s colonial past, she questioned the approach of millennial activists who toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol last summer, and those who are calling for the national curriculum to be decolonised.

    “Is the destruction of the symbols of the darker side of colonialism the answer?,” she asked, concluding that Robert Jenrick, the Communities Secretary, has taken the “right steps” to prevent more statues being pulled down.

    “To me, the choice should never be to ‘remain or remove’,” Murray wrote. “Placing some of them in museums may be an option or, at the very least, a tablet explaining the controversy might suffice.

    “The root of all of this lies in education.

    “History lessons must not be decolonised. Historical figures should not be wiped out and forgotten, but set in the context of their time.”

    In 2011, Murray said she considered not accepting her damehood due to its links with Britain’s colonial past.

    “Was I making a terrible mistake?,” she wrote in the Radio Times. “Had I become a traitor to my class by rushing headlong into the bosom of the Establishment? Should I, like the poet Benjamin Zephaniah, be repulsed by anything that had the word Empire in it and which, for him at least, recalled the days of colonialism and slavery?”

    1. confront it like Germany has done with the Nazis

      Yes the Narsties did happen

      The holocaust did not

    2. confront it like Germany has done with the Nazis

      Yes the Narsties did happen

      The holocaust did not

    3. The diminutive Dame Jenni Murray need not worry about ‘Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung’. In the UK, lessons have been learnt and we are already well on the way to imitating the German experience. We are governed by diktat – the Government tells us where we are allowed to go and what we are permitted to think, a ‘snitch’ culture is being encouraged, our once respected police have morphed into the Gestapo and a system of identification by ‘Ausweise’ will soon be upon us.

      Dame Jenni must have patience. The Government is doing its best but these things cannot be done overnight, after all Berlin was not built in a day.

    4. The only thing I agree with is her condemnation of the awful use of the word ‘woke’.

  34. Speaking of NoTTLers who’ve not shown up on these fora for a while; has anyone seen any sign of Bassetedge lately?

    I certainly miss his posts, especially his wonderful photographs.

    1. I think he left because he got very fed up with the long pun threads, particularly if they started on the back of one of his serious nature posts.

        2. 10/10 for using Mothering Sunday.
          Mothers Day is an excuse to sell cards etc… during a fallow time of year; hence early May.

          1. I have always found it odd that there are cards such as “to my wife on Mother’s Day”.
            It’s up to children to send wishes to their mothers – a husband should be sending wishes to his mother, not to his wife.

          3. Something that sends me up the wall is MB – even jokingly – referring to me as ‘Mother’.
            Thinking about it, my anger must have got through, as he hasn’t done that for some years.

    2. Ditto – he lacked a sense of humour, I fear.

      Some of us can be childishly stupid (looking in mirror) but also very serious about some things. That was what he failed to grasp.

        3. I think the poor lass had had a sense of humour by-pass at the same time as the charisma by-pass.

      2. I often wonder whether BravoOscarOscarTango (“Boot”) still keeps a weather-eye on this forum.

    3. He got fed up with us all during the first lockdown. He must miss his trips to Spain.

  35. BBC news tells of rising covid cases across Europe…

    They also blame the slow roll out of vaccines across the Continent.

    Incompetence or designed to prevent people travelling this year as per the other agenda?

  37. As I have no daughters in law, sadly 2 unmarried sons .

    I have several career women nieces .. they are very attractive strong assertive women.

    Many women I know who have adult daughters comment on how strident their daughters are and that they have been educated to believe in equality with men .

    I really feel for the family of poor Sarah Everard, but as I am cautious about walking in wide open spaces on my own and dare I say frightened of the dark , i would never ever have travelled that distance on my own .. in fact after being confronted by aggressive female beggars , and drunken drugged up women who try to tap you up for spare cash and more … because I AM a woman and woman have compassion.

    Say, no sorry I can’t help, to a beggar , and you are liable to be spat on and abused .

    On this subject though , I can remember a couple of niggling things that I can recall , during the 2012 Sailing Olympics down here , I was down by the beach watching a display , and I raised my camera to take photos and it was practically knocked out of my hand by a Robocop in full kit, who shouted at me … No photos , put that camera away!

    I think the furore last night carried many mixed messages .. and the modern day harridans are now surfacing and having a field day .

    I feel so sorry for nice men and youths who must now be feeling very put upon.

          2. No prob Bill – I’m reminded of a time when I reported some men taking photos of Bloodhound missiles being serviced from outside the perimeter wire. I reported them to the RAF police who said they couldn’t do anything about it as they were outside the wire and that even if they put up a notice saying ‘no photography’ it wasn’t legally binding

          3. I remember going for an interview at Marconi. Walking through i stopped to inspect a torpedo with its flaps open.

            When i mentioned it in the interview as something i found interesting i was told it was a restricted area. I didn’t get the job.

    2. Where ever you go, all of us have to consider the risks and take appropriate precautions. Unless crime can be eliminated no one is entirely safe. I would suggest that most street crime is opportunist and probably motivated by theft or drugs. So teddies and tea-lights or the wringing of hands by politicians will have no effect.

    3. When I was little, courtesy and chivalry were impressed upon me. I also like stories about knights. The “Classics Illustrated” comics were an excellent introduction to a wide range of literature on any subjects. Women were to be treated like ladies. It was quite normal for a a bunch of tough blokes working in a yard to moderate their language when a female office worker passed through (“Mind your language. Ladies present.”)
      Flick forward thirty years to post feminism times. A young woman gets up from table in a pub where she is sitting with a couple of other young women.. She is dressed in black leather. She has a silver ring pierced in her eybrow and a safety pin through her nose. The blue of tatoos can be seen at her wrists.
      She walks to the next table and lifts the cruet set and the sauce bottle without even acknowledging the two men having lunch at that table and returns with the condiments to her own table.
      Move on another twenty years. I worked in an accounts office and the staff were all women. The language was the most vile that I have ever heard. It was casual and frequent. It was the norm. I have worked in warehouses and factories, offices and shops, with roughs and sophisticates, but I have never heard language like I heard inthat office.
      For the last fifty years girl children and women have been told to be like men. It is ongoing insanity.

      1. I had a few women working for me in a machine shop in the 70’s – the language and sexual innuendos (no not the Italian suppositories) were shocking even to an ex-forces bloke like me. The language is the same in Scotland now – there’s no sound quite like a Glaswegian lass telling you to “Get tee F*ck”

        1. After a shift on the female locked ward, you came out feeling like a piece of chewed string; the constant tension as the women went from niggling to explosion and back again several times in 8 hours was exhausting. We were not helped by a Glaswegian ward sister who, I now realise with hindsight, relished the situation and probably exacerbated it.
          The male ward was deceptively relaxed; all quiet on the western front … then all hull would break loose. Even MB forgot to remain alert and allowed a patient to get behind him in a corridor. He ended up with the black eye to end all black eyes. Given the patient’s history, MB got off lightly.

      2. Apparently, giggling and jiggling are on the review list as well. No sniggering in the back of class, please.

    5. I don’t know any strident, feminist women, but I do know a number of very pleasant, confident women who are happy in their own skins – and they are actually annoyed by the victimhood culture for women, and positive discrimination too. They want to get to the position they have because it’s acknowledged that they are good, not part of a quota.

    6. Morning, Maggie.
      The facts of life are that, by and large, women are not as physically strong as men. A minute proportion of men are like rogue elephants; this occasionally applies to women. No-one, male or female would survive an encounter with a bizarre creature like Joanna Dennehy.
      Simple self-preservation means you avoid certain areas, particularly after dark. Even in our boring, leafy suburb, there are alleyways that I would not use at night; the last case of assault round here took place at around 3.0 am on a young woman returning from the town centre along an enclosed pathway that runs behind the most expensive road in Colchester. What on earth was she thinking?
      A perfect world according to extreme feminists would be one even more Orwellian than the one we are currently experiencing. The drive that got us out of the trees is also the drive that occasionally leads to homicide.
      Just use your common sense; even male BTL posters have stated that they would not cross somewhere like Clapham Common after dark on their own.

      1. ‘Morning, Anne, aah, BTL posters, a thing of the colonial past that should be consigned to a museum.

    8. In the 1920’s when my mother was a young single woman she used to stay with cousins in London and often walked quite happily alone and safely home through the streets after supper with other friends who lived a couple of miles away. Not only did she never feel she was in danger – she probably wasn’t.

      On another subject it is funny how many of my close friends have sons and no daughters. We have two boys; our very good friends, Steve and Miquette have three sons (to one of whom I am a godfather), another couple, Richard and Mary have two sons (again I am godfather to one of them), Jerry and Sue with whom I played music at UEA have 2 sons as do Joe, my best man, and Judy. We were all at either Cambridge or UEA in the 1960’s. Maybe it’s something to do with the water in East Anglia.

      1. Historically there have always been more males born than females. Of those males who survived (male infant mortality tended to be higher) wars usually evened up the balance between the sexes.

  38. Well, Golly Gosh and a great Good Morning to all living Nottlers, past and present.
    The BBC News at 9AM this morning had the following running order of stories
    1. Clapham Common
    2. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
    3. Covid-19
    I noted these as I passed through. It seems the BBC stories are prioritised according to wokeness.
    A later segment was devoted to the arrest of demonstrators in Russia. The commentator in the report said that the demonstration was arranged from the UK by the “Open Russia” organisation in the UK. Golly, and thrice Golly! So the UK is hosting an organisation that was funded by an oligarch to criticise and subvert the Russian government. On Wikipedia there is no mention of a UK office. Nor are any addresses or phone numbers given on the English language “Open Russia” website. So their address is secret. I suppose they are slightly worried by the possibility of a visit from Russian diplomats bearing gifts of perfume bottles.

  39. Old joke – new situation

    A suspected Covid-19 male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. A young student female nurse appears and gives him a partial sponge bath.
    “Nurse,”‘ he mumbles from behind the mask, “are my testicles black?”
    Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, “I don’t know, Sir. I’m only here to wash your upper body and feet.”
    He struggles to ask again, “Nurse, please check for me. Are my testicles black?”
    Concerned that he might elevate his blood pressure and heart rate from worrying about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and
    pulls back the covers.
    She raises his gown, holds his manhood in one hand and his testicles gently in the other.
    She looks very closely and says, “There’s nothing wrong with them, Sir. They look fine.”
    The man slowly pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her, and says very slowly,
    “Thank you very much. That was wonderful. Now listen very,
    very, closely:
    “Are – my – test – results – back?”

    ADVICE: Do listen carefully when the patient is wearing a mask!

  40. I thought the noise on Radio 3 was truly weird for a Sunday morning. It turns out that they are imposing on us a “weekend of discovery and innovation”.

    So, I shall tune in to France Musique – or Catalan Classic.

    2. Good morning, Bill

      I find there is too much pretentious crap on Radio 3 and France Musique is far from perfect. Classic FM ins ruined by adverts.

      Have you tried this:

      https://streema.com/radios/Radio_Suisse_Classique

      I often listen as I nottle and have bookmarked it.

      (I’m listening to it as I type this – they are playing Elgar’s Nimrod)

    3. Good morning, Bill

      I find there is too much pretentious crap on Radio 3 and France Musique is far from perfect. Classic FM ins ruined by adverts.

      Have you tried this:

      https://streema.com/radios/Radio_Suisse_Classique

      I often listen as I nottle and have bookmarked it.

      (I’m listening to it as I type this – they are playing Elgar’s Nimrod)

    1. Hi Ogga,

      this is precisely what I have been wondering about since the story first appeared in the press. The murder rate in London has increased year on year since 2017 (slightly down last year from 150 (2019) to 126 (2020) – probably due to lockdown. Why then has this murder caused so many headlines from politicians, feminist protest groups and the woke parts of the MSM?

      There is an agenda but why and what is it?

      1. 330331+ up ticks,
        Afternoon H,
        I personally believe that the lab/lib/con close shop coalition group has quite openly, these past three years especially, been in reset replacement mode.

        I see the “deal” as the pro eu ratchet.

        DOVER is an open, in your face affront, to the innocent indigenous peoples of these Isles, by innocent I mean those NOT supporting / voting LLC coalition for more of the same.

        This latest murder to my mind is being politically used as deflection material as with covid, I give covid the benefit of the doubt and say it is a new flu virus , if it was man made we would never know the truth of it, on par with Dunblane for instance.
        What the peoples really want is to eyeball ALL serving politico’s bank offshore accounts, indepth, follow the wonga.

    3. Way off message, your honour. Only white people are racists. And all of them are, btw.

      2. Virginoctail.

        It’s like a bloody Mary.

        Virgins’ blood and gin.

        Favoured beverage of suicide bombers.

      3. They may drink (or eat) anything they wish, as long as they ask ‘Big A’ first. Permission is invariably implied.

        1. As we discovered with moslem English language students. Clearing up vomit on the landing at 3.0 am meant a phone call to the school later on that morning.

      4. They may drink (or eat) anything they wish, as long as they ask ‘Big A’ first. Permission is invariably implied.

  43. Good Moaning. A sunny one and I’ve had my first night in three weeks without violent coughing fits.
    Currently sound as if I smoke 60 a day, but at least I’ve had my sleep.

    I don’t know if this letter’s been posted, but it made Oi Larf:

    SIR – Am I the only one nostalgic for the days when abusing Piers Morgan and virtue-signalling were separate activities?

    Dunstan Vavasour

    Monks Kirby, Warwickshire

  44. Finally got logged on. Bloody internet is causing immense problems and I’m not sure if it’s the modem of the supply.
    S@H is planning to drag Student Son home later on to sort it out, so I’m going to do a beef stew to feed us all.

    Was bright & sunny an hour ago, but now overcast & a bit dull at 4°C in the yard.

    And the bloody internet is still dropping out!

      1. I’ve four assorted nearly empty sauce & pickle bottles & jars to be rinsed and the water poured into the stew.

    2. Morning Bob. I had some trouble earlier. Virgin shutting down. Or so it said!

    4. Afternoon Bob – I got on early, went out for a cycle ride and then straight out on my car for 21 miles of driving to clear the diesel particulate filter.
      When I got back about 9.30 Google couldn’t get me on to this site.
      I made a batch of soup and had lunch and another bike ride .
      I came back on here about 2pm and got on no problem.
      I thought the authorities had closed this site and I am delighted I was able to get back the ability of free speech which is what keeps me going in these troubled times.

    1. £37 billion. Thirty thousand millions. What in the name of trousers was it spent on? Surely there are accounts, costings an audit?

      Where did the money go?

      1. Audits, there’s lovely now.
        The EU would make contribution to something or other and one of thr conditions was that they might audit the accounts and if they did not like it they would ask for their money back. The time limit for the audits was set at 14 years, if I remember.
        I was working as an accountant for a Scottish higher education college which had been involved in an EU funded collaborative project 12 years previously.
        To compile the audit information I had to have the archived computer accounting files converted to a system that could be accessed, as the college had installed a complete different accounting software package since then.
        After putting everything together, all the reports, summaries and back up documents were sent off to the EU.
        Some time later, they came back with some queries. These including a request for some missing receipts, including one for a meal in London and used Tube tickets.
        There was no way to find the missing Tube tickets. But I did manage to track down the person responsible for the meal receipt. They had left the college and moved to Paris. Were they ever surprised by my letter asking for the receipt for a meal at Mr Bumbles in Islington some evening 12 years previously…

  46. Good morning, my friends

    I find it tedious that the the DT has gone into overdrive about how beastly men are and how all men are potential murderers and rapists except the followers of Mohammed. At least it has knocked the story that American divorcees fast approaching middle age are quite entitled to nurture their sense of entitlement when they submit to a rich but incredibly stupid member of the royal family in marriage. Indeed, many of us have had to revise our opinion of the Duke of Sussex – we always knew he was exceptionally stupid but we thought he was a thoroughly good chap. Now we see that he is not only stupid he is also weak despicable and contemptible.

    Anyway, back to the more perennial theme of my ranting:

    UK forced to change tack as trade with EU descends into chaos
    With the levelling-up agenda and a determination to make the economy more self-reliant, now is the time to make more of our own goods

    JEREMY WARNER

    But I do not need to rant. This BTL comment says all I need to say.

    Everyday more information arrives that proves we would have been far better off if we had gone straight to WTO terms soon after the 2016 referendum. Does any rational person still think that Boris Johnson’s deal was a good deal when No deal was the only sensible choice.

  47. I suppose there is one tiny bit of good news on today’s dreary headlines.

    At least Brash and Trash are not able to make a “private” visit to Clapham Common (having ensured maximum press coverage, of course)…

    1. Has Someone been laying down the law ??
      Is Muz dickie in trouble again ?
      She’ll just hide behind her desk and blame someone else probably a bloke.

        1. I don’t know how she sleeps at night – with that Brazilian chap’s blood on her hands.

          5. There are afflictions that impair a person’s ability to feel remorse, empathy etc. Just saying…

          7. No. I have some close experience of contact with our Metropolitan constabulary.
            It is true that you need the discipline to put empathy aside on occasion, but it is often channeled into empathy for the victims of crime and solidarity with people on whom you would rely to save your life possibly at the cost of their own.

          8. H’mmm … I’m no admirer of Cressida Richard, but she was fed iffy information and plod lied its socks off afterwards to cover the ineptitude of the officers concerned.

          9. But but – she was the woman in charge. She should have stopped them from going into Stockwell station if there was any doubt. Any doubt at all.

            She didn’t. She authorised by omission the man’s murder.

          10. She also covered up a lot of “evidence”. Had this discussion with Rodger a couple of days ago and he whitewashed her!

          12. Take your point. I seem to remember there had been a lot of bangs caused by tanned gentlemen around that time, so most people were somewhat jumpy. The Brazilian electrician was in the wrong place at the wrong time: doubly so as he’d outstayed his permission to live here.

  48. Interesting comment BTL in The Spectator about the “vigil”:

    “I’m afraid I don’t agree that the public at large are pushing back against lockdown. The people at Clapham are quite a different type. I heard an interview with Patsy Stevenson, the woman that was violently arrested. She is a typical activist. The type that supports lockdown but sees herself as supporting special causes (BLM, Reclaim The Streets) that are above the rules made for the rest of us.

    She said the response should be bigger protests. How would she feel about bigger anti-lockdown protests? These people are entitled and elitist, although they believe themselves to be rebels and radicals. Their opinions are flattered every day in every way, and when they end up being treated as badly as everyone else, they are outraged.

    What happened at Clapham is the logic of lockdown. It’s what most of those protesting there today agreed to. Only not for them and their preciouse causes. Like so many Meghan Markles, they can’t believe they might be treated in a manner they didn’t expect. Their self awareness is zero. Whist I 100% support their right to protest (as I do anti-lockdown protesters) and will rail against their treatment, their politics is authoritarian and anti-human, and they are not the allies of freedom.”

    1. Surely one should have a vacs certificate to be able to protest………oh hang on a mo !

      1. Witless (or the other one) said that open air meetings were no a problem because the virus is dispersed – or something like that.

        1. Witless (or the other one)
          Now I expect seeking expert advice…. of have they run out of friggin experts. But hang on a bit, there’s another rubber boat landing at Dover, let’s ask the much favoured passengers to look into it 😷🤪

        2. Not only that, Bill. A member of SAGE, one Professor Semple, said last Monday that masks were useless to deal with the virus. So why is Boris making us wear them?

    2. “It’s what most of those protesting there today agreed to.”
      My response to BTL is that no one had a chance or any mechanism for disagreeing with lockdown. It was not a choice. It was a law passed overnight without opposition from the Opposition.

    3. I think many are missing the point. What was so special about this particular victim that she deserves a vigil in the first place? There are 400-500 murders each year in the UK, so does the victim have to be young white and middle class, with the killer a white male in a position of authority to generate a Princess Diana level of grief? Imagine the reaction if the killer had actually been BAME or the victim a working-class schoolgirl.

  49. That’s put the kibosh on the rest of the year:

    “Professor Lockdown says you CAN enjoy summer: Neil Ferguson is ’80 per cent sure’ Covid will be driven to ‘very low levels’ in next few months (but don’t still count on getting abroad)”

        2. I must not make jokes about ‘just a little prick’.
          I must not make jokes about ‘just a little prick’.
          I REALLY must not make jokes about ‘just a little prick’.

          Oh, all right, if you insist …

    2. He’s been wrong about everything so far. I do not believe the state will ever let us out of lock up.

  50. Not really anything about Harry and Meghan in the “People’s Friend” this week.

      1. I believe so – we used to get it up till about 5 years ago when SWMBO went into the home. The same guy painting the front covers still.

  51. Anyway… I think that a silent globalist coup, or by China, has already happened !

    From the ”Spectator”……….

    What makes me even more concerned about this than I otherwise would be is the Home Office’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, published this week. Some of the extra powers it would hand the police to break up protests border on draconian. It attacks one thing in particular which is alarming: unless a protest or gathering of any kind is completely silent, the police have the legal right to break it all up. As should be obvious, no protest could or would ever be silent, so this is essentially a diktat to halt any protest the government doesn’t like the look of. Not divert it or even kettle it – bring it to an immediate end, by force if necessary.”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-met-police-badly-mishandled-the-clapham-common-vigil

    That is totalitarian.. so Johnson is a totalitarian and is very likely the sidekick of the globalist Davos billionaires… or China !

          3. I’m afraid I regard the overkill as ludicrous.

            Fine, stop the killing of elephants etc. now, but what possible point is there in making heirlooms, which just happen to have ivory in them worthless?

          4. Many items traded as ‘antique’ are artificially aged ivory from recently killed elephants.

          9. Not legally. The exemptions from the Ivory Ban are very few and far between, for example items of historical importance and with a provable provenance can be traded, but not much else.

          10. I must declare an interest. I have inherited many pieces which contain ivory, none of them are less than 100 years old and most considerably older.

            I’m afraid I fail to see why people such as me should be made out as criminals because real criminals are cheating the system and I cannot see why I should not be able to sell my objects readily, if I so choose.

          12. I hope they’ll be lucky and have the space for it.

            It’s just that type of nonsensical effect of the legislation that makes me cross.

  52. I can’t imagine Dixon of Dock Green pinning a woman to the ground.

    The Briish perlice farce has now been twinned with the French CRS.

    1. Few women in the days of Dixon of Dock Green would have forcibly resisted arrest, as this woman did, and those that did got a hard slap (in the early 70s). The Drug Squad were the worst, they hit first and asked questions afterwards, and if they didn’t like the answers you got punched. They were untouchable and they knew it.

      People who fantasise about how wonderful the police used to be have no idea.

      1. Do you really think I was fantasising?

        When you have been here a bit longer, you’ll be able to spot those of us who post comments with their tongues in their cheeks.

        1. My apologies. I do it myself. I didn’t particularly mean you – a lot of people fantasise about how wonderful the police used to be.

        1. I hope not – all generalisations are false, as any fule kno!! including that one!

    2. Dick of the Yard wishes she had troops the calibre of CRS. The latter make our plod look the plastic council enforcement officers that they are when it comes to the rough stuff.

    1. Patients invited to swallow a tiny camera to look for signs of early bowel cancer.

      What’s the point if you can’t get treatment?

      1. It is so you can prepare yourself for an early and painful death, PT. What’s not to like?

        1. Should I be so diagnosed, Bill, I would immediately cease taking my medication and wait for the fourth and probably final myocardioinfarction (MCI or heart attack).

          Whilst I don’t believe in suicide, to my that will just be risk avoidance.

      2. It is so you can prepare yourself for an early and painful death, PT. What’s not to like?

  54. Last night’s vigil in Clapham Common…

    No doubt you have exhausted commenting on the subject and I haven’t been able to fully keep up with the entire thread but there is an exclusive video on the Breitbart site… https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/03/14/watch-london-cops-clash-with-sarah-everard-mourners/ that shows another angle to those shown on the MSM sites.

    It shows that there’s a strong possibility at least that Antifa made an appearance as they often do when crowds gather. What do you think?

    1. Certainly I saw some thugs in a short clip on The Sunday Grimes website. Just towards the end when the perlice were getting “iffy”.

      1. There are key words associated with Antifa that were spotted by other viewers that are chanted whenever they are active.

    2. Everything these days has become a can of worms.
      I still blame it all on Blair “Things can only get better” For whom and “Education Education and Education”.
      That didn’t worked did it ? But his open door policy succeeded (Backed up by come on in Cameron and Mayhem) in destroying our culture and long established social structure.
      I just wonder if the protection officer in question might have been minding the London mayor at some stage.

        2. Owe yeah innhit……….

          I was called away our family bubble arrived for mothers day greetings. I absolutely loved playing with my grandson and his little sister, Lilley she’s 16 months she absolutely a gorgeous dream. But they had to go because she needed a sleep. Good timing.

          2. Now off to second sons and wife bubble with another 16 month old grand son this time, for ‘an Italian night’ mothers day dinner. Eddy is more than ready.

    3. All demos contain an element of agents provocateur. Nowadays, the taxpayer is unwittingly financing those who would destroy the system that makes their way of life possible. At the moment, both sides of these events are equally unpalatable.

      2. I imagine they all clapped to look good. The damage and danger from green is hilarious though.

        If nothing else, this nonsense shows that we don’t live in a democracy. Look at the idiocy the fools in Westminster are forcing on us!

  57. Interesting DM article.
    I had glandular fever at the advanced age of 40; for a good couple of years afterwards, I had days where, when I woke, I had to rearrange my to-do list from what I’d planned for that day to what was actually necessary to do for the next 24 hours.
    A relative who develop Hairy Cell Leukaemia was also found to have E-B making matters even worse.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9358477/Why-struck-Long-Covid-really-suffering-glandular-fever.html

    1. I do wonder about Derek Draper – who is supposed to be suffering from covid though a year has gone by. But one can’t say anything because his wife is a telly person and grieves publicly (and in The Grimes today)….

        1. One would assume that the white-coated would have tested for other conditions, diseases etc etc… (Gullible fool that I am).

  58. Before I attract the wrath of just about everyone here, let me say that I wholeheartedly agree that women should not be belittled, mocked, or harassed, let alone physically attacked. It is an abhorrent thought and I would fully support anything positive that was done to improve matters.

    That said, is it just me who thinks that the vigil etc is being highjacked by the Feminist wing of the BLM movement? There seem to be a lot of politically motivated talking heads being interviewed on TV this morning.

    2. My thoughts exactly .

      Genuine vigils are kind and tender , but I did wonder about the rabble element .

      I suspect the police were in a real old quandary wondering how to tackle the noisy elements. There were loads of men as well , clearly supporting the sisterhood.

          3. My life is irrelevant!
            But I read Emily’s entry on Wiki, and it looked sad and awful. Borderline mentally ill, lost her father when she was a 21 year old student. A bluestocking, she would easily have forged a career (eg as a teacher ) later in 20th century.
            Yeah, it’s a good joke, but let’s face it, if she had had a husband, he would have been catering for himself.

    4. You’ll have to forgive me here, but I rather think you could replace woman with ‘anyone’.

    5. Agreed.

      I suspect that part of the reason the organisers attempted to call it off was because they had been warned about what might happen, and the warnings were accurate.

      1. But, the antifa types got what they wanted! Conned me, too, the bastards. Not agin. Fool me once, etc etc.

    6. Rent-a-crowd, available for demos, protests and vigils. Amazing how quickly the protest was organised including a court hearing. The fifth column is ready at a moments notice; don’t suppose they have a tedious thing like paid work to get in the way.

      2. “…don’t suppose they have a tedious thing like paid work to get in the way.”

        They are laydees – busy at home looking after the babees (and doing Mumsnet a lot).

        (Seeks deep shelter).

      3. They tend to be the offspring of middle class parents. Going on a demo is seen as a rite of passage. It hardly matters what the cause is as long as they can cause disruption.

    7. Alwys watch out for the opportunists. Their strategy is prepared, they are ready & waiting for a suitable event so they can mobilise.

      1. Yeah! I don’t remember the wimmin going on mass marches and holding vigils for “The Rotherham 1,400”.

        1. I saw a report that estimated 30,000 girls and young women had been sexually abused in England. Mostly by Pakistani men. The ones who were investigated and prosecuted are mostly back to their old stomping grounds. Cases of abuse by Pakistani men date back to the 1950’s.

      2. Yeah! I don’t remember the wimmin going on mass marches and holding vigils for “The Rotherham 1,400”.

      3. Apparently in the US, Antifa, backed by Soros front organisations, has several ‘mobile units’ ready to go all over the country to ‘attend’ protest rallies and marches in order to stir up trouble, sometimes even delivering weapons (remember the van full of bricks left conveniently for the BLM rioters to use?). I bet they and their compardres in the UK from the Hard Left activist groups do much the same.

    8. Extremists never let a crisis or nasty event go to waste. Nor do those spouting propganda, whether for their own political ideological purposes or for the organisation/government they work for. None of them actually care about the unfortunates involved, just their agenda. Notice how ‘co-ordinated’ many of these protests are, with many professional-looking placards all saying the same thing, and yet barely had a day or two to organise them.

      1. Extremists never let a crisis or nasty event go to waste

        Not least because:

        #1 People higher up the leftist/globalist food chain get to create/manage crises and nasty events to their liking. (See 9/11, Climate Change, Covid)

        #2 Their media wing get to decide the definitions of crises/nasty events and the responses to it. Both in the past, present and future (See 1984, George Floyd, mass Muslim rape).

        So its hard for the opposition to exploit a crisis when the other side already know what the next crisis is going to be, how its going to rolled out in the public arena.

  59. Emergency census in 2026 ‘needed to show true picture of UK’
    Another snapshot in five years could assess recovery from the coronavirus and test the government’s levelling-up plans

    Ministers should plan to hold an emergency census in five years because the Covid pandemic will make this month’s survey “a snapshot of a strange unrepresentative time”, a leading academic has said.

    Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Oxford and an expert on measuring inequality, said there was “serious concern” that this month’s census would not give an accurate picture of Britain due to lockdown measures. He said that an extra census in 2026 would also show whether the government’s aim of “levelling up” poorer areas was working.

    Writing for the Observer online, Dorling states that there is a danger the census will be “a snapshot of a strange unrepresentative time, an image of pandemic Britain where young adults have temporarily moved in with their parents”.

    “It will record a place with low street homelessness, at the tail-end of the ‘Everyone In’ campaign. It will miss Scotland, as the census is being taken in a year’s time there. It will include hundreds of thousands of people just waiting to travel back to mainland Europe (for good) prevented by travel restrictions, but ready to join the million who (we think) left in 2020. And it will count as employed those currently furloughed, but who will not be returning to work.”

    He adds: “A 2026 census could be used to ascertain if any local levelling up has occurred overall. To date we have seen levelling down due to how the government dealt with the pandemic. A 2026 census could assess how much we have recovered – or not – in the five years from March 2021. It would fill the gaps in the record.”

    The census is going ahead in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on 21 March despite a complaint from a union that it should be postponed because of Covid concerns and problems over a £45m outsourced contract to recruit tens of thousands of field staff.

    A high court judge has already ordered changes to the guidance that accompanies a census question regarding a person’s sex. The guidance had said people could use the sex listed on their passport, which can be changed without a legal process. Campaign group Fair Play for Women argued this allowed “self-identification” as male or female. The court ruled that guidance should be changed and that individuals should state the sex on their birth certificate or gender recognition certificate, which denotes that someone has changed their legal gender. A full judicial review will take place this week.

    1. 330331+ up ticks,,
      Afternoon TB,
      Keep up this current voting pattern and in five years time
      you will be TOLD to believe the news from your local imam.
      Check out the progress that has been made in that direction these past five years.

      I believe that in 5 years time those politico’s from
      today will surely have to have a chest mounted bracket to support the Pinocchio type nose.

      1. When I was young, very few photographs were taken because it cost a lot of money to have them developed. I think that during the whole 2½ years we lived in Egypt from 1949-1951 about 50 photos in all were taken. Including high days and holidays.

        You young people just don’t know how hard life was for us (now) old folk….

        1. You try buying film in Nigeria… I have almost no pictures of anybody in my family, parent or otherwise. I tried to set up a “family tree” display on the wall of our dining room, so the boys had some kind of relationship with their genetic roots, but it was just names, so never took off. That made me sad, as did the realisation last week that now my Mother has dementia, the story of the family is now lost. I never got told any of it, and all other blood relatives and their friends are dead. So, pretty well, my family history starts with me. Maybe I’d better write it down before I lose my marbles – unless it’s too late, of course… :-((

          1. You must write things down Ob.

            Nigeria wiped out loads of parents photos , including pics of me and my siblings . They took everything with them wherever they lived in Africa .. I have very few of me as a young teenager.

            So lots of sections of my early life are sketchy .

          2. Problem is, at the time, you don’t think of these things until it’s too late. And, I was always at boarding school, never at home, then University, then living in my own home and not with my parents.
            A while ago, I found a lady who would go and interview parents, and effectively ghost-write their story, not for sale, but for family archives. I started to set that up in about 2002, but life becme complex, and I didn’t persist. Bugger, what an ass I am. Too late now.
            I also note how we don’t have too many pictures of our boys growing up, either, but SWMBO is failrly on the ball there, so we can assemble a reasonable storyline. I just bought a video-making software package, maybe that would be a good place to start assembling …

          3. Same here .

            My brother took charge of old movie film Dad took in the early days , some of it would be quite historic now , but old film rots , and it has been difficult transferring old film over .

            I was away training as a student nurse , then didn’t want to live in SA with them all , preferred Britain after all the chaos experienced as a child in Africa , moments slipped away, and with three other siblings , the division of spoils can cause conflict!

          4. My mother promised me her library of classics. We played Scrabble and crosswords all the time and knew of my interest. After she died i asked my Father where they were and he said my eldest sister had given them all to her daughter. Cow !

          5. My maternal grand parents had dozens of interesting ornaments, odds and sods, paintings, clocks, some very valuable and my grand father promised me his collection of old coins, WW1 medals and all his ( he was a joiner) woodworking tools. I was the only one of the family who helped out quite often at weekends and after school shopping gardening etc. After they both died and when the house was cleared the relatives that did absolutely Eff All turned up mob handed and took the lot.

          6. We have seen that time and again.
            Precious few visitors when the patient was well enough to appreciate the company. Once it was realised the spark was fading, company was flocking through the door.
            One particularly rich family made sure they even took the dried out slivers of soap.

          7. My maternal grand parents had dozens of interesting ornaments, odds and sods, paintings, clocks, some very valuable and my grand father promised me his collection of old coins, WW1 medals and all his ( he was a joiner) woodworking tools. I was the only one of the family who helped out quite often at weekends and after school shopping gardening etc. After they both died and when the house was cleared the relatives that did absolutely Eff All turned up mob handed and took the lot.

          8. I have a cousin who as a young boy used to visit our Gran and spend hours to her about the family.
            I thought he was the family idiot at the time but he has as a result of many years work produced a family tree going back to the 1750’s.
            Not such an idiot after all, although a remainer who still can see no bad regarding the EU.

          10. Never to late, old pal. Get in there, now; and start a work that’ll keep you (and yours) busy for more than a modicum of time.

            If you want to download a word copy of Not A Bad Life, let me know and I’ll send you a link to download it (if I have your e-mail – if not let Hertslass know to release it to me.)

          11. That is sad. But other relations still living there might well have photos of your family before you left Nigeria. I was chatting to a Nigerian lady last year and discovered that she had more than 20 siblings, so you can imagine the enormous family gatherings.
            And your Mum might be able to talk about events long ago more easily than things that happened yesterday.

          13. Feel free, Paul, to copy the format of Not A Bad Life.

            I wrote down all the addresses I’d lived at, in WORD plus all the places I’d worked and then went through each one, listing as bullet-points salient features and incidents.

            Once done you can go through and expand it into a readable narrative. Check out though, how many times you write ,”I remember…”

            By the way a big ‘Thank You’ to Poppiesmum, true to her word, I see she has downloaded a kindle copy.

          14. Good tip – thanks.
            I have an electronic notebood that mimics pensil & paper rather wekk (ReMarkable), and it does storyboards, so I thought I’d storyboard it – much as you suggest, Tom. :-))

        2. You are so correct Bill.

          Photo of Mummy and I was taken in Khartoum in the early fifties

          Photo of Mummy, younger sister and myself was taken in Egypt prob 1955/56 .

          Very few photos were taken in those days and much film was ruined by heat or humidity .

          Later on there were four children .. Me , my sister and twin brother and sister .. I was 11 years old when they arrived , and then boarding school and goodness knows what .. She was killed in a car crash in SA when I was 39 ..she was only 61 .

          1. I’m sorry that your Mum died so early, Belle. That’s not fun.
            Lots of people my parents knew in Nigeria ended that way – a car smash. No emergency services, lousy roads, no car maintenance, no driving skills. No airbags. No crumple zones.

          2. Yes , I am afraid so , and no one knew where she was for a day or so, she had only gone out in her car to post some mail and retrieve mail from the PO mailbox . I was not in SA when that occurred , here living in Dorset .

        4. Now they take snaps of their supper and post them. Erm…we do that too.

          Feeling lazy last night so i heated up a Charlie Bigham Jalfrezi. Worth every penny.

          Tonight is Daddy Rump steak and Tabouleh.

    4. Don’t think I have any bar wedding photos. It just wasn’t done I don’t think and by the time you thought of taking photos of the “olds” as we are called it was too late.

        1. I was terrified. I got to hear of some villagers nearby being eaten by a lion, and as a small boy living in a caravan, it was somewhat scary!

  62. 7.10 GMT BBC 4

    If you have an half-hour spare this evening then this is worth watching:

    The Plank
    Eric Sykes and Tommy Cooper (1967)
    27min

    2. I assume the plank came from non-colonial free range forests and was cut by ethnic lumberjills?

        1. no, it is a health and safety training film about the dangers of allowing pets into construction sites.

          1. Britain, London. The early 60s. No black people in sight. Do I have to write more!?

  63. BTW, just in case anyone was wondering, today’s Letters Page never had any BTL comments facility, i.e. it wasn’t there and then taken down early this morning. I checked at just after midenight as it was posted and there was no facility. Given the Ginger & Nutmeg story will be running for some time to come, it looks like DT subscribers won’t be getting much in the way of BTL comments areas for now.

    I’ll be interested to see the DT subscriber numbers over the next month or two. Lots of seriously ticked off people.

      1. Properties in Montecito where they moved to have tripled in price. They paid £10,000,000. it is now valued at 30,000,000.

        The vacuity of celebrity.

        2. In the middle of the 19th century, the Montecito area was known as a haven for bandits and highway robbers, who hid in the oak groves and canyons.

          Looks like they have changed tactics and broadened their horizons.

      1. Perhap a letter-writing/email campaign to the DT Editor and Onwers telling them of readers’ disgust at their ongoing censorship and hypocrisy, followed with a threat to unsub en-masse.

        #Cancelyourtelegraphsubscription or such n such

        1. I have written several letters to the DT complaining about the fact that they never allow BTL comments on any controversial topics but the paper never addresses this very pertinent question.

          I think they would argue that they would be held responsible for giving any sort of platform to anybody with unacceptable unwoke opinions and they are too yellow bellied and lily skinned to take the risk.

    3. They’ve also removed comments BTL the 11th. March column where posters continuing to comment.

    2. Are they mad? They are utterly utterly stupid and I hope they never complain they’ve ever been assaulted by a partner/husband/friend/girlfriend.

      1. I keep searching the media for examples which might show that human intelligence is on the increase.

        So far I am serially thwarted.

    3. …and that’s entertainment. What does it say about the obviously appreciative crowd?

      1. If I didn’t have such a jaundiced view of the depths to which humankind can sink, i would actually feel disgust.

    1. Commissioner Dick escaped all censure for the Black Lives Matter debacle and tha national humiliation she inflicted on us. Here her officers were free to attack selfish and misguided white people who, as woke Londoners, almost certainly supported the previous outrage. I have clearly missed something.

    2. I am waiting for the protesters to move from Clapham to Rotherham, to mount another vigil.
      I have not heard cries or virtue signalling to highlight the treatment endured by those females up in those towns.

      1. Nothing was said at the time except shut up complaining about it. The exposure that should have been the duty of our national media never happened in any joined up way, so the sclae, depth and full chronology of these appalling industrial scale criminal enterprises ahas still to be fully described. A token number of offenders have been before the courts of stomach turning depravities carried out on girls as young as thirteen; many are back on our streets. I have not heard nor read a single prominent feminist talk about this monumental sex crime against females. Not one. If I missed something significant by all means point this out.

        1. I think you have missed nothing, least of all significant.
          The silence is deafening.

          1. Thank you. That is what I believe. Incidentally the long with held Home Office report dismissed the evidence for industrial scale rape by Pakistanis and substituted the unsupported by fact claim that ‘most grooming gangs’ were white males. Now, I don’t care for child sex perverts of any colour or creed, but we remove ourselves from dealing with any such crimes when we ditch plain fact and the truth.

    3. They seem to be working up to some kind of change in the law, but what, I wonder? No doubt all will become clear soon.

    1. The depressing aspect to this is that our media needs such transparently nasty behaviour explained to it.

    1. Given that the powers-that-be want EVERYONE (including children) to be vaccinated, plus the vaccines (unlike all other medicines) have NOT been tested over the longer term, the entire population are now guinea-pigs for this. No thank-you. I’ll wait until 5-10 years and then see.

      Manufacturers are already talking about getting ‘compressed’ long term tests done by 2022-23, which is nowhere near long enough, and besides, we’re already hearing about ‘experts’ wanting OAPs/the most clinically vulnerable to have a ‘booster jab’ in the early autumn to guard against ‘variants’, no doubt followed by us getting ‘annual jabs’.

      Given that the virus came out of a Chinese state lab, who knows who might be in store, especially as big pharma seems to signing from the same hymnsheet as all the other globalists, who appear to like the way China conducts its business.

      1. I have watched a few of this doctor’s videos since the start of the lockdown a year ago and he ain’t been wrong yet now I have the benefit of hindsight!

    2. I’ve followed Vernon Coleman for some time and found his Bilbury series engaging and his Diaries amusing and informative, it’s fairly obvious from the outset that he doesn’t care for authority in it’s various forms and has been a constant thorn in their sides for decades. Is he a lone voice in the crowd shouting dire and valid warnings that nobody will listen to or is he a single issue fanatic with a tired old sandwich board proclaiming “the end of the world is nigh”? maybe a mix of the two.

      1. The Nuremberg Code, as we’ve explained before, is a code of research ethics created in the wake of the Nazis’ horrific treatment of human subjects in experiments during the Holocaust. One of its primary principles is that individuals participating in research should do so voluntarily and with adequate information about the experiment to make an informed decision.

        I found a website rubbishing Dr Vernon Coleman’s claims. In the text I copied and pasted one particular sentence (in bold above)

        Now look around you…burning history books…changing history…tearing down statues…etc all going on today as it did in the 1930’s in Germany.

          2. Vernon Coleman ceased practicing as a GP decades ago and has followed a successful career as a publisher and Author , he has always been cynical about vaccinations and has published books on the theme, “Vaccines Are Dangerous – And Don’t Work” being one, now obviously I have no qualifications in the field but ~I have a son in law who is a pharmacist, his sister , based at Porton Down and an Ebola trouble-shooter, and a my eldest a clinician in the NHS and I have a couple of good chums who are G.P.s and none of these people share his concerns , are these folk part of a conspiracy ? . I will say now that I think face nappies are a pointless abomination as is lockdown but I have no idea if this is a part of a global conspiracy headed by Soros/Gates or just a prime example of Hanlon’s Razor.

          3. I’ve never had any worries about vaccines….

            I was jabbed with everything under the sun when I was deployed abroad.

            But the world seemed quite sane back then and this particular virus is going hand in hand with all sorts of peculiar things.

    3. I’ve followed Vernon Coleman for some time and found his Bilbury series engaging and his Diaries amusing and informative, it’s fairly obvious from the outset that he doesn’t care for authority in it’s various forms and has been a constant thorn in their sides for decades. Is he a lone voice in the crowd shouting dire and valid warnings that nobody will listen to or is he a single issue fanatic with a tired old sandwich board proclaiming “the end of the world is nigh”? maybe a mix of the two.

  68. Not only do the Met have a Dick, they also have a Ball: if there was another one, they could
    produce their own perlicepeeple or perhaps not

    “We did not want to be in a position where enforcement action was necessary,” says the Met’s Helen Ball

  69. Women have lost faith in the Metropolitan police. 14 March 2021

    This isn’t now about firing Cressida Dick (although I do think she should resign), or the time for vague statements of solidarity from politicians, because this doesn’t really make women in this country any safer. We need a culture change. We need better town planning to make side streets lighter, and bus shelters safer. We need better prosecutions – rape prosecutions have dropped every year since 2016-17 and are now at a record low. Harassment is widespread – recent research showed that 97 per cent of women aged 18 to 24 have experienced sexual harassment in public spaces. We need men to help change this. Around half of the population have to think about escape tactics they might use while just going about their daily walk.

    This “culture change” would actually require an alteration in human behaviour which has hardly altered in 10,000 years, and if you did achieve it, we would no longer be human!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/women-have-lost-faith-in-the-metropolitan-police

    2. Well your last sentence is not right any more is it. We are well on the way to being dehumanised.

    3. Well there is one culture that will not change!

      But the point is correct, it is more than just a band aid fix that is needed. Better, working street lights might dissuade a few predators for the time being but in the long term it will achieve nothing.

      If politicians showing emotion would help, you could borrow Trudeau, my ex drama teacher PM can lay on the tears with the best of them.

    1. 19th March 1988 I think it was, Saturday morning I decided to change the CVJs on the Maxi, the Haynes Manual said 2 hrs – the following 2 days will be burnt into my memory for ever

      1. I got married excactly two weeks after that (on Saturday, 2nd April 1988) and I’ve been on that job for nearly 33 years!

    1. Most modern-day people would get stuck in a never-ending loop at the ‘knobhead’ section.

      1. My pointyheadedness insists that the questions should be in a diamond, not a rectangle (rectangles are for processes, not questions).
        I’ll get me clipboard.

        2. I’ve still got a plastic stencil (in one of my my drawing drawers) that is for producing all the correct shapes on a flow chart.

  81. ‘No doubt’ Britain will be hit by third wave of coronavirus infections in autumn
    UK’s statistics chief warns of stark regional disparities in antibody rates

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/14/no-doubt-britain-will-hit-third-wave-coronavirus-infections/

    BTL Comment

    There is a great dispute raging in political circles as to how best to control us – whether it is more efficient to grab us by the short and curlies or to squeeze us by the testicles.

  82. Just in from two hours stacking the logs. And barrowing the dead ones for immediate use.

    Just started to rain – neat planning. G & P loved “helping”…

  83. ‘A poster for tomorrow’s planned protest (In Parliament Square, tomorrow pm, proposed by Patsy Stevenson, the young lady arrested by the police at last night’s ‘vigil’) has been shared hundreds of times and promoted by leading activists from Stop the War Coalition and Black Lives Matter.’

    I rest my case.

    2. Just ask her to spell the name of the murder victim – assuming she knows it.

      1. And let us not forget,…….. i believe he was also involved in defending the 7/7 London bombers

  85. Fundraising page set up to pay Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s £11million mortgage on their California mansion closes after raising just £78.64 – and the organiser promises it was NOT a joke

    Anastasia Hanson, 56, from Ventura, California, set up fundraiser for Sussexes
    Ms Hanson aimed to raise £11m to pay for Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s mansion

    Prince Harry revealed to Oprah last weekend that he had been ‘cut off’ by Royals
    Page was removed from GoFundMe after raising just £78.64 for the cause

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9360289/Fundraising-page-set-pay-Prince-Harry-Meghans-11m-mortgage-closes-raising-78-64.html

      1. Wow – I thought it was a “mere” £10,000,000. Which was why he wanted Daddy to keep funding him.

      2. I would be interested to know where that figure comes from, I’ve seen £10mn and similar from his great grandmother, but nothing like as much as £80mn.

    6. These people are rolling in it. Diana apparently left the Duke of Wank a fortune. Why would we office rats give him any damn thing? I’d not even give him the steam off my piss.

    7. 7,864 people took the opportunity to spend a penny on Harry Meghan, I wish I could have!

        1. 2 p or not 2 p that is the question, whether it is nobler to oblige or noblesse oblige.

        2. 2 p or not 2 p that is the question, whether it is nobler to oblige or noblesse oblige.

    9. Isn’t the stipend or allowance a Royal receives base don their serving the country and being unable to work otherwise? Clearly, harry and Megan are whores selling themselves to the highest bidder.

      Why would anyone pay them anything?

          3. Diabolical. The blood thinners are working as did the Venesections. Trouble is now the blood is beginning to seep back in it’s agony. I have had to go back on the Codeine. Trouble with that it makes me dopey dopier. All the surface skin has peeled off too but at least that doesn’t hurt. Looks like i have polished my feet.

            Dear Uncle Bill has been pointing out my numerous spelling mistakes. I think he is heartless. :@)

            Ordered those stilts yet?

          7. My prostheses could arguably be described as stilts.

            Sorry to hear you’re having such a hard time. Ironically, for all my travails, pain wasn’t an issue. Hang on in there….

          8. It has been about 2 months now. :@(

            I’m not in what i would say was severe pain but i can’t walk any sort of distance. a few yards at most.

            The pain now comes in spikes that make me…verbalise.

            Codeine makes me sleepy but the pain is still there. I think i’m going to demand something stronger this time.

            Watch out for Nottl posts more weird than usual. :@)

          9. But BPAPM claims to be skint – he lost everything when his Most Recent wife divorced him.

          11. He’s good at talking. Must be a muscular tongue in his mouth… just saying.

          14. Looks like Hillary. Probably a hint to her husband to save on the drycleaning bill.

      2. There are some people who would look like they were wearing a sack of spuds even if they were wearing the most expensive clothes on earth. But there are also people who would look good wearing a spud sack. No prizes for guessing into which category Johnson falls.

        1. William Sitwell on Masterchef wearing a particularly nice blue woollen three piece suit. Open collar and no tie. Chunky white trainers. Obviously wanting to ‘get down with the yoof’.

          All wrong.

          1. Any bloke, who routinely wears a suit, an open shirt collar and no tie, deserves a slap.

            If you do not wish to wear a tie, you clueless clowns, wear a crew-necked shirt!

          5. Interesting you say that Grizzly. Some years ago when S-I-L went for an interview with a major airline he wore a suit but no tie. And he saw one of the interview panel had written down “shows great confidence”. It may be that our view that a tie should be worn is outdated now, I don’t know. He got the job BTW. He’s one of those who can wear anything and look good in it.

          6. My problem, vw, is that a standard dress shirt was specifically designed to be worn with a tie. Take the tie away and you are left with an incongruous article of clothing that is not ‘complete’. Moreover, in its incomplete state, it looks scruffy and unkempt.

            For many years now, fashionable Italian and French men have worn suits with round-necked (crew-necked, turtle-necked, polo-necked) shirts, i.e. shirts that are not designed to be worn with a tie, and they look impressively smart and well-groomed. This is the style that I adopted years ago.

    8. 330331+up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      It is not so much the hair that is the problem, tis the 5’9″ root base.

        1. Leaving aside her prognostications which have yet to come to fruition, Polly has been much more respectful of late…

          2. But still not potty trained. Nor ready for her GCSEs. I bet Mummy and Daddy found home-schooling her a trial…

    4. I don’t think these ‘protests’ had anothing to do with anti-lockdown, in fact, some of those involved in them ‘protesting’ about ‘wimmins issues’ actually said they supported harder lockdowns – because they were leftists. These are people who are exploiting a bad situation for their own nefarious puproses, rather like internet trolls who do so for an activist organisation, government, etc.

      Remember the Antifa chap caught trying to egg on the Capitol protestors?

      1. Ok, you stick with Johnson’s stupid lockdowns and support the horrible scenes in Claham yesterday. Just don’t invent all sorts of reasons why people should be stopped from protesting when they want to. Maybe you should keep right out of it.

        1. I wasn’t saying that people shouldn’t protest – especially about the lockdowns, but that the protests you saw weren’t anti-lockdown ones, but to do with that woman’s murder – but had been hyjacked by leftists.

          You know full well from my own postings on this forum that I am vehermently against the lockdowns because they do more harm than good and are authoritarian in nature.

          We need to be sure we are ‘fighting’ the right battles – not those some undesirable activists want to manipulate us into by misdirecting us.

          1. Oh so Kate is a leftist. I didn’t know that.

            I haven’t noticed any hijacking. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been deeply upset about Sarah, and also sick of lockdowns.

          2. The photo you showed was one in Parliament Square. That isn’t Clapham Common.

            You need to look harder about those ‘protests’ about that killing – and there’s a whole world of difference between those wanting to leave flowers in sympathy for the family of the woman, and those activists who want 6pm curfews for men and laws to outlaw ‘harrassment against women’, amongst many other leftist ideas – including ones from BLM, etc.

  88. Has anyone yet discovered a link between Eton and the Salve Trade (apart from PMs and us ‘Slaves’)…

    Haberdashers’ Aske’s private schools could change name over founder’s links to slave trade company
    Historical connection to Royal African company ‘abhorrent’ says governing body as it launches rebranding review..

    It really is time we changed the name of Wednesday to Wokeday…..FFS…

    1. One wonders why these “connections” – which have existed for hundreds of years – have not been spotted by “governing bodies” before.

    2. Until the 1970’s fagging was compulsory at Eton. Not quite slavery, but I can’t recall any prominent Etonian abolitionists.

  89. Just ordered some white furniture for our bedroom and the ‘front room/parlour’

    We had to get brown units for the guest(BLM) room so we cannot be called racist

  90. That’s me for the day. Very weary – shifting logs is not easy. A nice bath in Epsom Salts in due course.

    It was great to see Gus and Pickles scampering around the garden and up and down trees for two hours. Both out for the count now!

    A demain.

  91. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/03/14/cambridge-childrens-mothers-day-cards-granny-diana-revealed/

    Does anyone agree with me that it is mawkish and absurd sentimentality for a child to send cards on Mother’s Day (properly known as Mothering Sunday) to a dead grandmother whom he or she has never met sending a message saying that they love her and that Daddy misses her? Yet this is what our future king William and his family do each year.

    Yes I miss my parents and one of my great sadnesses in that neither my wife nor my sons ever met my father. But they do not love him as I loved him – how can they when they never knew him.

      1. Speaking of upper crust tarts…

        The Duke and Duchess of Argyle were in Court getting divorced. The Duke produced a photograph of his wife giving an unnamed man felatio.

        2. The infamous Margaret, Duchess of Argyle. Thomas Ades wrote an opera about her, called Powder Her Face. I went to see it at the Barbican but it was very modern and screechy.

        3. When I was young and innocent I used to think that Felatio was a character in Romeo and Juliet and the Cunnilingus was an Irish airline.

      2. But he was their mother, not their tart.
        Rastus is right – it’s not healthy.
        Mothering Sunday was the time to return to your Mother Church; the Americans adapted it to mean celebration of your mother.
        I told mine, years ago when she moaned about not getting cards and presents, that I don’t hold with it and do not intend to participate. She has a birthday, after all, and Christmas too. Why does she need yet another day?

    2. Where do they send the cards? My mother died without leaving a forwarding address. I used to send cards to her sister as well because auntie had no children of her own and it pleased her but she’s gone now too.

    3. That is weird. We have a neighbour who celebrate the birthday of her long dead mother every year and her birthday too.

      1. I remember mine every day but I don’t send her a card. She used to joke about the “in memoriam” ads in the local paper – who was supposed to read them? The dear departed or everyone else?

        1. I was very much annoyed with my brother-in-law. My Mother died alone in a car crash age 53. He and his mates erected a five foot cross at the site. The local newspaper carried the story and showed the cross. Not her picture.

          I also find that these flower tributes at crash sites could likely distract a driver and cause another damn crash !

          2. To me it was virtue signalling at a time of great grief for the family. This was before virtue signalling became mainstream.

          3. Virtue signalling has always been around, i think previously it may have been named self-righteousness. It is only recently it has been dubbed virtue signalling.

          4. Diana’s death 1997, a classic example. Today we should mourn the election of Bliar and his crew in the same year.

          5. On the A45 bypass near me, some people were injured laying flowers at the scene of a fatal crash, despite the pavement being behind a barrier.

          6. That’s the press for you., Phil, never let a chance go by to glorify the death of another.

        2. Reminds me of those stoneware bowls that have the word ‘Dog’ printed in large black letters on the side.
          Even if the cat could read, it wouldn’t take any notice.

          2. Been there…done that. I did Wraps and Tapa’s and searched around for suitable bowls. One of my guests pointed out that one of them said ‘Kitty’ on the side. Not seen them since.

            Some people have no sense of humour. It had been through the dishwasher !

        3. #me too. And often wonder what on Earth my parents would have made of today’s shenanigans.

      2. I always think of my parents on their birthdays – 9th May 1898 (my father) and 9th March 1904 (my mother) but I do not think about their death days. Why should I – it was their birthdays we celebrated when they were alive. Indeed, I do not carry these dates in my head and I have to look them up.

    5. Same trend with people celebrating so-and-so’s “300th birthday”. It’s not their birthday, for goodness’ sake – they’re dead. It’s the anniversary of their birthday. People don’t want to face the fact of death.

        1. My father’s birthday was 4 July. Easy to remember, and really nice of the Americans to put on such a party for him every year. Sadly, he died aged 72 in 1997 (never met Second Son), so I guess I should write to that nice Mr Biden and suggest that they can stop now Dad’s gone.

        2. My father’s birthday was 4 July. Easy to remember, and really nice of the Americans to put on such a party for him every year. Sadly, he died aged 72 in 1997 (never met Second Son), so I guess I should write to that nice Mr Biden and suggest that they can stop now Dad’s gone.

        3. My father’s birthday was 4 July. Easy to remember, and really nice of the Americans to put on such a party for him every year. Sadly, he died aged 72 in 1997 (never met Second Son), so I guess I should write to that nice Mr Biden and suggest that they can stop now Dad’s gone.

    6. I can imagine that sort of ritual is more common amongst the modern human who is unable to accept that tragedies happen in life. Sad as they are, life must go on. Maybe those who have suffered loss feel themselves to be victims and do not want others to forget.

      1. I’ve been a church organist for 50 years. I’ve prolly (©BT) been to more funerals than anyone who isn’t actually an undertaker. Mostly, all goes according to plan. But sometimes, the mourners get carried away.

        1. I’ve been playing as a “reluctant organist” for the last ten years – I know just what you mean. Not sure if I’ll have time to make fifty years as an organist, though!

          In our parish we have a lovely service once a year, on the evening of 2nd November, in which we commemorate all the parishioners – as well as close family members of parishioners – who have died in the past year. Many families have told us that this service has somehow brought more comfort than anything else.

          2. November 1st, Conway, All Saints and All Souls. – The religious aftermath of the (current) pagan, American Hallowe’en (Which they cannot spell correctly).

          3. I think I’m probably getting confused; I thought at first la Toussaint, then I remembered that was All Saints (on 1st November). It’s All Souls on the 2nd.

          4. Thank you Conway, as a very lapsed (converted Catholic) I’ll take your word for that.

      2. I blame the lack of definite Christianity. The smiting sort, that was definite, and had a list of “Thou shalt not’s”. It gave guidance and comfort as necessary, and something to hold fast to when life gets rocky.
        A pity the CofE has given up with being Christian.

        1. Talking of which, Well-meaning has gone very quiet; wasn’t his sabbatical handily timed!

    7. More morbid is when people (and I have seen people do this) keep a family member’s FB account open after they die and post messages to and from it.

      2. Something else I’ve learned today.
        I had to control my face when a work colleague was going to have her husband’s ashes made into jewellery.
        The idea was gruesome enough, but they couldn’t stand each other when he was alive.

    8. What’s it matter, Rastus? It is merely including the children in a ritual memorial. The printing presses would be red hot with condemnation if they thought that the royal couple had neglected to remember Saint Diana.

  92. According to today’s standards I think the Irish Government owes us an apology….

    “St Patrick’s exact birthplace is unknown and debated. Born Maewyn Succat around the year of 385 AD in either England, Scotland or Wales, the patron saint was captured by Irish pirates at the age of 16 and taken to Ireland as a slave.

    Working as a shepherd, Patrick was held captive for six years and grew closer to spirituality and prayer during this period of isolation. After a “voice” told him it was time to leave Ireland, Patrick successfully fled his master and sailed back to Britain to continue studying Christianity”

    1. Shame he’s not around today. After he’d done his ‘Pied Piper’ bit in Ireland to rid the country of its snakes; we could borrow him to do a similar job on all our undesirables.

      1. Agree with the sentiments but I think you’ll find the snakes are more numerous today…..

  93. Just watching PBS America channel on Hitler and the widespread use of Pervitin pills issued in their millions to the German military. Nowadays the drug would be called Speed. It keeps you awake.

    As then, so today we have a government dependent upon and sold out to Pharma. We are on a very dangerous path from relative freedom to tyranny. This time the threat of restrictions to our activities, if we do not have vaccination passports, is about the most odious example of this trend to communistic world government.

    Edit: The British reacted with the issue of Benzedrine to night time bombing missions.

    2. 330331+up ticks,
      Evening C,
      What puzzles me is that these actions being taken by the governance parties are not just a new happenance they have been building for years so you would think that seeing as jigsaw puzzles are highly popular the peoples
      ( electorate) would have little trouble putting together these odious actions, and when entering a polling booth vote accordingly.
      There must surely be an underlying reason for this
      phenomenon, can any participants shine a light on it ?

    3. Do our armed police take benzedrine? I have tended to think that actions like shooting Brazilians could b partly explained by that.

      1. I reckon our Police in general have been recruited for their innate ignorance snd stupidity. In addition they have been brainwashed to give undue preference to supporting evil actions as opposed to good actions.

        The evidence is to be seen everywhere. Witness taking the knee to Antifa and Black Lives Matter hoodlums compared with their brutal treatment of peaceable anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protesters. There is no equivalence.

        1. Aah, come the revolution and the armed forces, as well as taking over ALL communication mediums, will also confine all police to barracks on pain of death.

          Let the fun begin – don’t forget the step-ladders and piano-wire.

          Yes, I’ve had a few but I do think that, given the current times, this is the shape of things to come.

    1. Let’s hope he (and ‘Sir’ Nick Clegg) can also resign from Facebook as well.

  96. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56386446
    The Army is likely to find itself “outgunned” in any conflict with Russian forces, MPs have warned. In a damning report, the Commons Defence Committee described efforts to modernise the Army’s fleet of Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFV) as “woeful”. The ageing and depleted fleet puts the Army at “serious risk” of being outmatched by adversaries, it states. The Ministry of Defence has promised “an upgraded, digitised and networked armoured force to meet future threats”.

    In the report – entitled Obsolescent and Outgunned – the committee highlighted the “bureaucratic procrastination” and “general ineptitude” which had “bedevilled” attempts to re-equip the Army over the past two decades. In 1990, the UK had around 1,200 main battle tanks in its inventory – today it has 227, the report states. It said armoured vehicle capability had reached “a point of batch obsolescence, falling behind that of our allies and potential adversaries”.

    2. Ah, yesterdays war with battle tanks advancing over the north German plain. I would have thought an agile and well armoured troop carrier would fit today’s regional flare-ups, if we must get involved.

    3. But we do go down on bended knee, to praise our freed slaves

      I bet the Russians don’t do that

      We have been Woken up

    4. With the decline in Her Britannic Majesty’s forces I fear Minty could outgun them on a wet Thursday afternoon….(the pen being mightier etc)

    5. Heigh-ho, WWI all over again. Give ’em shovels and start digging trenches. Would you like a cavalry charge with lances or scimitars?

  98. Bad news coming:

    “Ministers are considering declaring the beginning of the end for the North Sea oil industry with a ban on new exploration licences.

    The radical move is on the table as part of a decisive shift away from fossil fuels and as part of preparations for the crucial climate summit the Government is due to host in Glasgow in the autumn.”

    1. Glasgow is going to be wall to wall triumph for the globalists. They have the royal family and the government in their pockets.

    2. I can imagine that Boris will want to make us ‘world leaders’ in all this greenery and promise all sorts of amazing targets for the UK. The ICE is already veboten from 2030, what other delights are in store for us.

      1. ‘morning, KP, “I can imagine that Boris will want to make us ‘world leaders’ …”

        Maybe that should be changed to, “I can imagine that Carrie will want to make us ‘world leaders’ …”

    3. Bugger.
      A bit of notice, and I could have adjusted my share profile to my considerable advantage…

  99. 330331+ up ticks,
    The mayday triggered reset and brought it into the open with the treacherous nine month delay, the only ones that benefitted from”we” won the referendum, now leave it to the tories were brussels and still are.

    1. Apparently those that died had low platelet count, clots and bleeds. Weird combo.

  102. How much was Boros promised to ban North Sea oil ?

    Theresa May did pretty well out of Net Zero.

    So Boros probably got something too.

    See above !

  104. The Scandal of Legal Net Zero.

    In 2018, Conservative think tank “Bright Blue” was commissioned to write an environmental report which concluded with the recommendation that the UK government should legislate for legal Net Zero.

    Theresa May accepted the recommendation and legislated in June 2019. It was one of the last significant acts of her government. As well as accepting the UN’s migration pact which is very likely related.

    Who paid for the “Bright Blue” report ?

    None other than billion dollar green investor George Soros’ foundation Open Society London and the wind industry !

    Soon after stepping down as PM, Theresa May started a series of 8 one hour free to attend speeches for which she was paid a total of approx $1,250,000 plus expenses.

    At Brown University on Long Island, the next booked speaker was none other than arch money launderer Bill Clinton.

    Theresa May was scheduled to make more speeches but these were postponed due to lockdown.

    No matter. She was paid for the speeches anyway.

    Perhaps a spell in Pentonville would be appropriate ?

  105. An early Good Morning to fellow insomniacs.
    Yet another small hours session and staggers back in amazement, the Letters Page is allowing comments!!
    I wonder how long for?
    at least Radio 3’s Through the Night is playing something decent as I type, Johann Sebastian Bach, Partita for solo violin no 2 in D minor (BWV.1004). Performer: Leila Schayegh.

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