Sunday 15 May: As taxpayers feel the pinch, civil servants fret about their work-life balance

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 we prefer 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.

815 thoughts on “Sunday 15 May: As taxpayers feel the pinch, civil servants fret about their work-life balance”

    1. Congratulations, Herr Oberst. Afraid I’m late on parade today. So a belated “Good morning, everyone” from me. And now I am off to spend some time in the garden to do my weekly maintenance (mainly pruning). Enjoy your days.

    1. What an amazing cartoon by Matt, nail right on the head 👏👏👏😂😂😂

  4. Eurovision 2022 results: Ukraine wins and the UK’s Sam Ryder finishes second. 15 May 2022.

    As many predicted coming into this politically charged Eurovision final, held in Turin, Italy, Ukraine were the big winners as the international public seized the chance to show their support following Russia’s invasion. An enormous 439 points from the public vote put Ukraine well clear of their rivals, turning a tense finish to the competition into a walkover.

    What a farce! Are they going to win Wimbledon and the Ashes as well?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2022/05/14/eurovision-2022-final-live-results-winner-updates-turin/

    1. Are they going to win Wimbledon and the Ashes as well?

      Probably. They won’t even need to turn up.

      Good morning, Araminta.

      1. I understand he’s booked to do his piano concerto for the Jubilee celebrations on the roof of Buck House.

        Do they have Cockney rhyming slang in Ukraine?

    3. Moh wanted to watch that rubbish , I fell asleep .

      Somewhere during the broadcast , I woke up… must have been Moh’s gasps ,viewing near naked Spanish dancers . I suppose they were rather eye
      catching .

      1. Best bit was the short snippets in order to invite votes, where only a few minutes of one’s life were lost forever. All a bit samey; the only entry that excited me was Moldova’s – quite different to all the others, like a bunch of gypsies in a Borat-style village and actually uplifting and made me chuckle.

        Missed the Spanish dancers alas. I hope they were more enticing that the tattooed lardbuckets they have on ‘Naked Attraction’.

      2. MB – whose tolerance of tellycrap is much higher than mine – started to watch it. Even he became bored and switched over to some US murder thing.

      3. I watched an excellent old Morse repeat. The production values then were so much higher than now. Sadly the shortcomings showed in that last series of Endeavour too.

      4. I guess that next year every European country (Australia included!!!!!!) will be shaking their barely clad backsides. Bring back the original contest when the entries were actually songs, like “Volare”.

  5. Off on travels to my sisters funeral today – back next Friday – play nicely while I’m away.

    12. So that’s why you’re visiting Cheshire. Sorry it’s such a sad occasion.

  6. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Still no rain here, despite the forecast, but the sky is grey and the rainfall radar suggests a few drops in the next half hour or so.

    Today’s leading letter – and there’s plenty more on the same subject:

    SIR – It is an insult to taxpayers that many civil servants are still working from home.

    Meanwhile, in the real world, those who work in the private sector – which generates the wealth to support Civil Service profligacy – are facing insecurity and spiralling costs.

    Good luck to Jacob Rees-Mogg.

    Roy Hodgson
    Little Brington, Northamptonshire

    Well said, Roy Hodgson.  It is beyond comprehension that the public sector is somehow allowed to provide a substandard service when the private sector has ploughed on regardless.  I’m sure this situation will resurrect the argument for privatisation and, I trust, a smaller state.

    1. You can live in hope, HJ, but somehow I doubt if anything much will change.

  7. SIR – Over 30 years as a freelance writer, I always rented an office.

    I could have worked from home, but the presence of other people working in other professions – accountancy, law, charity – made for a supportive work atmosphere, and made me more productive. Of course, I was only paid for what I wrote, and not for my rank or position. The outcome more than compensated for the journey.

    By contrast, a journalist friend of mine, working from home, used to tie his leg to his chair as it was all too easy to go out for the paper, take the dog for a walk or make another coffee.

    I’ve also read that a well-known cartoonist had a garden office and, each morning, would kiss his wife goodbye, walk to the office for the day, and come home in the evening.

    John Stringer
    Harbury, Warwickshire

    You know that, Mr Stringer, and we know that…but many of our Snivel Serpents have proved to be backsliding and work-shy, who obviously prefer all pay and no work.  When is the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, Simon Case, going to be hauled up to explain this shambles? Better still, shown the door for presiding over its creation.

  8. Progressives’ who’d rather wreck the Tiger Head’s school than admit they’re wrong. Peter Hichens. 15 May 2022.

    Isn’t the Ukrainian army amazing? A few months ago it was just a few overweight, undertrained geezers with ancient weapons. Now it’s positively fizzing. How did that happen?

    Apart from this brief and innocuous comment Mr Hitchens has nothing else to offer on Ukraine for the second week running. I guess that D notice is working!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10816875/PETER-HITCHENS-Progressives-whod-wreck-Tiger-Heads-school-admit-theyre-wrong.html

  9. SIR – The Civil Service unions are threatening an all-out strike if the plans to cut 91,000 jobs go ahead.

    Will anyone notice any difference?

    Richard Freer
    Ribaute-les-Tavernes, Gard, France

    I suspect that Mr Freer has been peeking at Nottl!

  10. SIR – Michael Gove may be correct that, in certain parts of the country, a lack of housing for the young is costing his party votes.

    However, it is quite clear that in West Oxfordshire the decision to allocate large green-field sites for housing development has lost the Conservatives many votes. It is not necessary to be a Nimby to believe there can come a point when our historic towns and their facilities are overwhelmed, however well new developments are designed. Sadly, Woodstock is an example of this.

    Dr Alan Hearne
    Woodstock, Oxfordshire

    SIR – With the exceptions of Plymouth and Exeter, there were no elections in the whole of Devon and Cornwall.

    Had there been, the ever deepening housing crisis caused by rampant second-home ownership would have meant a total rout for the Tories.

    You report that, among those aged 25-34, home ownership nationally has halved since the 1980s. The situation in the South West is far worse than that.

    Simon Cox
    Brixham, Devon

    This government seems to be unaware that it is storing up a heap of trouble, thanks to a policy of over-population and some awful planning decisions, some of which will become all too obvious at the next general election.  The electoral damage will be bloody and painful.

    1. Putting up interest rates to sensible levels would help considerably with the housing shortage. It should have been done years ago, but as we know the Bank of England is run corruptly for the interests of insiders and their governing committee has no public service remit, other than to send a grovelling “not me, guv” whenever inflation tops 2%.

      Now, putting interest rates to inflation + growth would be catastrophic. This was avoidable.

      Two things would be achieved – one is to keep a lid on mortgages, so that they are only available to cover three times gross annual income and no more. This would keep a lid on what developers could charge home buyers, since this is directly proportional to what they could raise in credit.

      The other is to make money worth something again, and provide the collateral to invest in businesses that make and do things, rather than in property. At the moment putting it in the bank or building society is like allowing a thief to lift 10% of one’s life savings or pension pot each year. Only property can be relied on to safeguard money, rather than spending one’s old age in debt, serving an ever growing siphoning off of public money through stealth taxes, Council Tax and VAT to finance the National Debt. Much of that money is going towards private yachts in the Virgin Islands and ever-bloating foreign 4×4 status symbols clogging up roads designed for classic cars.

      1. We’ve had 14 years of zero interest rates so there are going to be a lot of repossessions coming on the market when inflation really hits.

    2. Electoral damage? You mean voting for the same policies to be implemented faster by LibLab?

  11. SIR – At the time of Britain leaving the EU, I downloaded and read the Withdrawal Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol.

    Both parties agreed to act in good faith, and to respect each other’s internal markets. However, the huge number of checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea, compared with the number of checks at other EU borders, shows a distinct lack of good faith on the part of the EU. Likewise, the problems the UK has encountered sending goods to Northern Ireland demonstrate a complete lack of respect for our internal market.

    It is time to think again about this trade deal.

    Andrew Rixon

    The EU will continue to punish us until we stand up to them. The agreement includes an exit clause, so USE IT!

  12. Michael Gove: We’ll end property market’s ‘racket of illicit money’ from Russian oligarchs. 15 May 2022.

    Michael Gove has pledged to shut down the “racket of illicit money” from Russian oligarchs who use remaining loopholes to buy and sell vast homes under a cloak of anonymity.

    Draft legislation produced by the housing ministry sets out new powers that would require any company, trust or other entity involved in a property transaction to provide the Land Registry with details of its true beneficial owner in order to complete a purchase or sale.

    The move is designed to help turn a corner on the use of Britain as a haven for billionaires seeking to launder illicit cash or discreetly store up vast assets.

    The idea that Russians, oligarchs or otherwise, are still pumping money into the UK after watching the theft of their compatriots assets is quaint to say the least. I doubt that any move is necessary in that there must be a voluntary exodus of all investors anyway. Who wants to bank with someone who is going to steal your deposits or purchases at the first sign of difficulty? This is just another example of Sanctions being a double edged sword with most of the serious wounds being self-inflicted ones. .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/14/michael-gove-end-property-markets-racket-illicit-money-russian/

    1. Morning all.

      TPTB have been very happy to ‘accept the “racket of illicit money” from Russian oligarchs who use remaining loopholes to buy and sell vast homes under a cloak of anonymity’ all these years! Hypocrites.

      1. Yes. What was “Britain is open for business” but an invitation to people to bring their money here?

  13. SIR – It is impossible to ignore the growing deficiency in the various services supplied (or not supplied) by the NHS.

    Yet our Government has no ideas for how to change it – besides occasionally announcing an additional cash injection, which then disappears into an administrative black hole.

    When will politicians grasp the nettle and propose significant, wide-ranging reforms to bring our health service into the 21st century?

    Gray Pratt
    Banchory, Aberdeenshire

    Never, is the answer to that one!  This government boasts almost daily about how much additional funding has been provided, without realising that they are feeding a parasitic monster that gives little or nothing in return.  Yesterday  I happened to catch a phone-in programme on the radio – a caller had to wait several hours for an ambulance, and then a further 8 hours at the hospital before treatment commenced.  His paramedics were on a 12-hour shift, so just about all of those 8 hours were effectively wasted.  Another hospital had a queue of 14 ambulances, tying up 28 ambulance staff for hours on end.  Apart from the consequence of late or inadequate treatment, what a shocking waste of time and money.

    2. And don’t forget – we have a superfluity of ambulances anyway because we’re sending some to Ukraine.

  14. SIR – Your report gives four reasons for the huge decline in Britain’s hedgehog population, but overlooks an important one: the corresponding huge increase in the badger population since the animals became protected.

    Badgers, which have no natural predators, are strong enough to pull open curled-up hedgehogs and eat them.

    Philip Corp
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    Well said, Mr Corp! Packham and his deluded chums will now set about ‘cancelling’ you..

        1. I imagine there is a fair amount of meat on a badger, unlike squirrel, which is a bit scrawny.

          Might come in handy, when the Government get rid of the pig farmers in their drive to create a Single Market for Virgin Island financiers. We’d then have to choose between nutritious free range badger or pork reared in Denmark on the sea life dredged from the North Sea around England’s East coast, turned into protein-rich slurry and sold back to us, with a corner-the-market markup.

          They use a similar Government-approved business model to the Big Six energy companies, after they drove their competitors out of business. The “Free Market” now means – you are stuck with us and have no choice. The Government sets the price according to the industry standard that offers the executives enough remuneration to compete with the Premier League, but are absolved of all accountability because it’s been privatised.

      2. Yes, and in great numbers around here….that’s why hedgehogs and ground nesting birds are nearly extinct in this area

      4. Badger Hams used to be a country staple apparently.

        Original Receipt in ‘The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director’ by Prof. R Bradley, 1728 (Bradley 1728)

        A Gammon of a Badger roasted.
        From Mr. R. T. of Leicestershire.
        The Badger is one of the cleanest Creatures, in its Food, of any in the World, and one may suppose that the Flesh of this Creature is not unwholesome. It eats like the finest Pork, and is much sweeter than Pork. Then, just when a Badger is killed, cut off the Gammons, and strip them; then lay them in a Brine of Salt and Water, that will bear an Egg, for a Week or ten Days; then boil it for four or five Hours, and then roast it, strewing it with Flour and rasped Bread sifted. Then put it upon a Spit, as you did before with the Westphalia Ham. Serve it hot with a Garnish of Bacon fry’d in Cutlets, and some Lemon in slices.

        http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/badger.htm

    2. Our much missed deceased elderly next door neighbour showed me a couple of spiney carcasses she found in her garden , she said the badgers had eaten them.

      I have always thought that badgers enjoyed a hedgehog meal .

      Not far from here , there is a pub , that supplemented its meat menu with badger , during the war. Our old 87 year old pal told us that , and he had tasted badger years ago , bit similar to pork he said.

  15. Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies. 15 May 2022.

    The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed.

    The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests.

    The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.

    Ah! Happy days! It now runs a vast operation against its own people!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/14/secret-british-black-propaganda-campaign-targeted-cold-war-enemies-information-research-department

    1. That is just one of the Guardianista fairy tales from its Book of Far Right Horrors. Designed to make the kiddies sh*t themselves when they see a white man. We only had frighteners like Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, The Boy Who Cried Wolf etc. Times have changed – unfortunately!

    1. Morning Del, nice and sunny up here but as I’m travelling down to Cheshire in a few minutes I’ll no doubt run into rain

  17. This BTL caught my eye:

    John Langdale6 HRS AGO

    I strongly urge everyone who has a concern for liberty to read Matt Ridley’s article about the WHO Pandemic Accord, which is due to be signed by its member countries, including this one, at a meeting on 22nd May.

    This agreement would hand over the making of domestic policy decisions, such as the imposition or otherwise of lockdowns in the event of a future pandemic, to the WHO, a deeply corrupt and politicised organisation that is in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party.

    There is a link in the comments section to a petition to at least get this appalling abrogation of our freedoms debated in Parliament. Given the present government’s willingness to follow the diktats of the Globalists it may not do a lot of good but it might raise peoples awareness of a situation about which I would imagine the vast majority of people are totally in the dark.

    So I looked it up.  To save you the trouble here it is:

    A WHO pandemic pact would leave the world at China’s mercy

    Lessons have still not been learned, so why should we trust the WHO in a future pandemic?

    MATT RIDLEY 14 May 2022 • 3:00pm

    On 22 May, the World Health Organisation meets for the World Health Assembly, an annual summit to which all the world’s countries are invited – except Taiwan, which is excluded at China’s behest. On the agenda is a “pandemic accord” that would greatly expand the WHO’s powers to intervene in a country in the event of a future outbreak.

    The European Union, true to form, pushed for a legally binding pandemic “treaty” instead, but that won’t happen for two reasons: the American Senate would need a two-thirds majority to ratify it; and the Chinese government would not allow even its pet international agency to tell it what to do. But the accord would still have substantial force of international law behind it, to make governments impose domestic lockdowns, for example – despite the WHO’s own figures showing little correlation between lockdown severity and death rates.

    Though some of the measures make sense, such as more sharing of vaccines with other countries, the plan skates around WHO’s errors during the Covid pandemic. It ignored Taiwan’s early alarm call, praised the Chinese government for its transparency at a time when it was denying human-to-human transmission and punishing whistleblowers, delayed declaring a health emergency, flip-flopped on masks and lockdowns and mounted a farcical Potemkin investigation into the origin of the virus. Added to its poor performance in the 2014 ebola outbreak, when for months WHO resisted calls from doctors and NGOs to declare an emergency to avoid offending member governments, this track record does not inspire confidence.

    According to the meeting’s agenda, the accord would be part of six “action tracks” focused on: healthcare systems; zoonotic outbreaks; endemic tropical diseases; food safety; antimicrobial resistance; and protecting the environment. What is missing from that list? Something WHO itself and the US and other governments insist might well have been the cause of the Covid pandemic, namely a laboratory experiment gone wrong or a virus-hunting researcher infected while sampling bats in the field.

    Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said in July last year that it was premature to rule out a lab leak, a view echoed by the G7 summit in Cornwall. Since then if anything the evidence has grown stronger. A book published this month, Preventable by Professor Devi Sridhar, argues that a lab leak is “as likely an explanation as natural spillover and should be pursued until evidence emerges to the contrary”.

    A former software developer by the name of William Gates has written a book called “How to prevent the next pandemic”. Its main message, according to one uncharitable reviewer, is that we can prevent the next pandemic by “doing all of the things that did not stop the last pandemic event, only more, faster and harder”. But even Mr Gates does allow that “regardless of how COVID started, even the remote possibility of lab-related pathogen releases should inspire governments and scientists to redouble their efforts on lab safety, creating global standards”.

    Over the years laboratory accidents have resulted in deaths of researchers and others from smallpox, anthrax, SARS and other pathogens. In one case, a global epidemic of flu resulted from a mistake with an experimental vaccine in China in 1977. In recent years there was a dramatic increase in the number of coronaviruses taken from bat caves into labs for experiments, most of them in a city called Wuhan. The experiments tested how easily the viruses could be induced to infect human cells. Some scientists compared this to searching for a gas leak with a lighted match.

    This pandemic began a long way from where the infected bats live but very close to the world’s leading laboratory for collecting and manipulating SARS-like coronaviruses. That, plus the continuing failure to find an animal infected with the virus in food markets or elsewhere, added to some peculiar features of the virus’s genome, has led many to conclude that a proper investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology is warranted. But the institute has refused all requests to open up its 22,000-item database for international inspection even though doing so could go a long way to reassuring the world.

    So you might think the World Health Assembly might have put lab safety and transparency of research on the agenda next week at the very least. But nowhere are these even mentioned. Presumably China would object. In February the WHO held the third “Covid-19 Global research and innovation forum”. In the titles of the 49 sessions, the word “origin” did not appear once. Though it has set up a committee, the WHO seems to be paying no more than lip service to its own commitment to investigating the possibility of a lab leak. Like some western scientists, it may be hoping the question of the origin of this dreadful pandemic remains unsolved lest the answer ruffle diplomatic feathers.

    Here’s what a pandemic accord should include, in my view: a commitment by all national governments to share the genomic data of all viruses collected in the wild and to share details of all experiments being done on potential pandemic pathogens (yes, including in biowarfare labs). Something similar happens with nuclear research and with airline accidents, so it can be done. If China’s government refuses to sign, then let’s gradually shame it into doing so. But it looks like we will have to do this outside the WHO.

    1. I see the officially non existent UK propaganda team are busy replying online to anyone mentioning this claiming that the WHO agreement has not yet even been drafted – nice try ar$eholes!

    2. I see the officially non existent UK propaganda team are busy replying online to anyone mentioning this claiming that the WHO agreement has not yet even been drafted – nice try ar$eholes!

    3. On balance I think the best political policy for countries is to never sign a treaty. It is of course possible to set up processes and procedures that countries may follow for mutual benefit, ready and waiting should the need arise. That would not need any prior commitment or supranational enforcement. (Having a fire extinguisher in one’s house might be handy, but you do not need a permanently resident fireman to tell you how to use it.)

  18. Can regulars here explain why we have heard nothing on the media here about Turkey’s invasion of Iraq? https://www.euronews.com/2022/04/18/turkey-launches-new-military-offensive-in-northern-iraq

    This might explain why Erdogan is proposing to veto Finland’s and Sweden’s application to join NATO, on the grounds that the Scandinavian countries are sympathetic to the Kurds, who were the only force who actually cleared out Islamic State from establishing a national power base around the Euphrates, saving the world from something truly horrible.

    What is Turkey’s position as regards Russian aggression on the Black Sea?

    1. Can regulars here explain why we have heard nothing on the media here about Turkey’s invasion of Iraq?

      Morning Jeremy. The PTB cannot risk upsetting Turkey at the moment. They have enough on their plate with Ukraine.

    2. The Ottoman Empire ruled the Black Sea region from 1529 to 1792 and of course the Turks fought for possession of Crimea in the 19th century but appear to want no part in the current dispute. They’ll be against US hegemony by now?

  19. Good morning, all. Grey with rain in the offing.

    I just can’t WAIT to see who won the Eurodrivel last night. (sarc)

    1. Morning Bill. We came second in an attempt to make it look like it wasn’t fixed!

        2. It’s a stitch-up so that we will have to host the wretched thing next year because Ukraine will still be at war.

  20. 352673+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 15 May: As taxpayers feel the pinch, civil servants fret about their work-life balance,

    Sunday 15 May: As taxpayers feel the pinch, they most certainly fret about their life balance which is on par currently with
    balensingh the one legged tightrope walker.

    The euro song contest donned the mantel of
    the political voting pattern, no realism, no honesty, mainly a punishment exercise, playground tactics.

    Our present condition as a Nation ( odious)
    can surely rest squarely on the shoulders of the electorate who have had nigh on four decades to change the voting pattern putting Country FIRST, but chose not to.

    The voting herd in the main refuse to acknowledge the treacherous quality of the party leaders over the last 40 years,the party name is the vote magnet even though
    in the case of lab / con the genuine party’s
    were killed off long ago.

    Dependency on the state looms large with echos of “we can’t manage” may one ask HOW did parents ie Ogga’s mum manage NO state payment for the first child of large family’s, make & mend the order of the day.

    Scruffy kids played out all the daylight hours God sent NO fear of knifings / paedophilia
    those still lay in the future eu days and the
    people power, highly volatile, current voting pattern.

    1. Young people these days know nothing of the way we lived in the 1950s, Ogga. We know what it was like to be poor and we still make do and mend as we always have done, even though we no longer need to.

      1. 352673+ up ticks,

        Morning N,

        Killing with kindness, I do also believe we had an inbuilt individual independence that served us well, now it is brand names ( politics inclusive) that rule the roost.

        1. It all started when they started putting labels on the outside instead of just inside the bck of the collar like they used to.

      2. I actually had to bin a cupful or so of fridge soup; cut me to the quick, it did.

    2. Loved the letter from that guy in Scotland. “ SIR – Demonising home-workers as privileged and work-shy ignores the fact that they have often borne substantial costs to build or repurpose rooms, purchase office furniture and equipment, and sometimes even buy or rent larger houses.”

      I nearly choked on my cornflakes. Is this stuff made up? It surely must be. Nobody could write that with a straight face, surely?

      1. 352673+ up ticks,

        Morning MIR
        On par with the Australian blokes letter to the tax inspector.

        ,

      2. Of course I went out and bought a new house last year because I had to work from home….what planet is that letter writer on?

      3. A BTL replyfrom Simon Bell
        Daft letter from Dr David Slawson of Nairn. If these shirkers have actually invested money in altering and extending their homes in the expectation that the public will put up with the current shoddy service in the long term, they may be in for a nasty surprise.

        Yes, but what can we realistically do? If we complain the snivel serpents can just ignore us. We can complain to our MPs, who will do nothing. We can effect a change of government which won’t make the slighest bit of difference. MPs and the Snivel Service can do as thy d*mn well please. MPs make promises and break them with impunity – it sometimes seems hopeless.

      4. A BTL replyfrom Simon Bell
        Daft letter from Dr David Slawson of Nairn. If these shirkers have actually invested money in altering and extending their homes in the expectation that the public will put up with the current shoddy service in the long term, they may be in for a nasty surprise.

        Yes, but what can we realistically do? If we complain the snivel serpents can just ignore us. We can complain to our MPs, who will do nothing. We can effect a change of government which won’t make the slighest bit of difference. MPs and the Snivel Service can do as thy d*mn well please. MPs make promises and break them with impunity – it sometimes seems hopeless.

      5. A BTL replyfrom Simon Bell
        Daft letter from Dr David Slawson of Nairn. If these shirkers have actually invested money in altering and extending their homes in the expectation that the public will put up with the current shoddy service in the long term, they may be in for a nasty surprise.

        Yes, but what can we realistically do? If we complain the snivel serpents can just ignore us. We can complain to our MPs, who will do nothing. We can effect a change of government which won’t make the slighest bit of difference. MPs and the Snivel Service can do as thy d*mn well please. MPs make promises and break them with impunity – it sometimes seems hopeless.

      6. If allowed to WFH (which does suit some jobs) this should be accompanied by a reduction in annual leave entitlement.

    3. 352673+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      It is my honest belief that there has never been a time when the children of the United Kingdom have been in such peril via the polling booth and main party’s involvement.
      The warning signs are there in parliament .

      How paedophiles infiltrated the left and hijacked the fight for …https://www.theguardian.com › politics › mar › how-pa…
      1 Mar 2014 — A 1970s campaign to lower the age of consent has returned to haunt Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and
      Jack …..

      It would not surprise me if an attempt was mass to
      legalise paedophilia, hitler never posed such a serious threat as do todays vote caster / main party’s.

      2. She was involved with the paedophile information exchange, after all.

        Normalising the abuse of children, calling it ‘minor attracted persons’ is just perversion.

  21. Ex-British spy and Russia expert backs claims Putin is ill and has invaded Ukraine for his ‘legacy. 15 May 2022.

    The former British spy who wrote a dossier on Donald Trump and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election campaign says sources have told him Vladimir Putin is “seriously ill”.

    Christopher Steele, who ran the Russia desk at MI6 in London between 2006 and 2009 and worked there in the 1990s, said Putin’s illness was “an element” of what is happening in Ukraine.

    Of course we should definitely believe him! The last person on the Planet to have any credibility.

    Ex-British spy and Russia expert backs claims Putin is ill and has invaded Ukraine for his ‘legacy’ (msn.com)

  23. Glancing at RT this morning, I was startled to read in an article that Ukraine produces 3% of the world’s wheat.
    How can this be, I thought? I had a vague impression of a much higher figure.

    Dear NOTTLers, pause for a moment here, and make a guess at how much of the world’s wheat is produced by Ukraine.

    If, like me, you came to a much higher figure than 3% (30%? 25%? 11%?), then it’s probably due to headlines like this one from the NYT “Russia and Ukraine together supply more than a quarter of the world’s wheat”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/business/ukraine-russia-wheat-prices.html
    or this article in the Independent
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ukraine-could-export-little-or-not-wheat-this-year-experts-fear-b2036323.html
    Note that half way down the page it says “The country, known as “Europe’s breadbasket”, was expected to account for 12 per cent of global wheat exports”

    So I looked up global wheat exports.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_exports
    If you add up all the wheat exports in this table, then the Ukrainian one is indeed about 12%. But this is only the top ten wheat exporters!

    It takes no account of grain consumed in home markets, or grain exported by all the other wheat-exporting countries of the world (you will be happy to learn that little UK for example, exported 119 million dollars’ worth of wheat in 2019/2020 (net export) according to worldstopexports.com).

    So in other words, this idea of 12 percent of the world’s wheat supply is utterly phony.

    In “Wheat production by country” here https://www.atlasbig.com/en-us/countries-wheat-production
    you can see that Ukraine does indeed produce just over 3% of the world’s wheat.
    So when wheat prices rise, and you’re told that it’s all Putin’s fault for not joining the global technocrats’ club invading Ukraine, just have a look at that table of wheat exporters again, and reflect on who’s responsible for shutting off large wheat exports from the global market.
    They are already coming out with the Putin-starves-African-babies line, which looks suspiciously like “Now look what you made us do!” to me.

      1. I’m finding that MSM (or any other) so-called news is just so depressing. Everywhere we turn we are being stabbed in the back, ripped off, used, abused…

        There’s a lot to be said for just shutting down shop, but I do like to be informed – so it’s a bit of a dilemma.

        1. I get most of my information from chatting here, reading sites like TCW and DS, plus the newsletters from people on substack. For light relief the DM is still free.

          1. Well I don’t really do msm except where it is referred to elsewhere, when I go and look at the article in question…but it’s just that the various PTB seem so much worse than they were, incompetence is rife (years of dumbing-down is showing results). All the things that were somewhere in the background before and now in our faces, and the PTB are laughing “and what are you going to do about it, eh, proles?”

        2. I’ve given up on newspaper or TV as a primary source of news, and started following various financial commenters on Twit. They relay the significant stuff that affects the markets. Other stuff, I glean from here or the TCW comment columns, for example, I am indebted to the person who posted the article about the WHO pandemic agreement today.

    3. Clever you, and well researched .

      So many truths are buried and distorted .

      I also thought tht Ukraine fed the world with grains .

      I tried to buy some sunflower seed for my garden birds , the price of seed has shot through the roof , so I thought … ahh Ukraine could be the excuse.

      Why have apples risen in price … most of them are British apples that have been stored .. Bramley apples are £1 each !

      1. £1 each! The last ones I bought in Morrisons were about £1.50 for a bag of five. Only a few weeks ago.

        1. We will eat our very last apple from last year after supper this evening.

          1. I still have a few from my dearly beloved’s orchard. He has a tree with the long lasting ones.

          5. You could benefit from that pruning this year. After a heavy prune, many apple trees ‘sulk’ the following year but proceed to a bumper crop after that.

          7. My grandfather used to do the same. They ended up wrinkled little things, as some of us are now. I used to pinch his crab apples from the tree.

      2. I have complained to our local supermarkets time and time again about the lack of British apples on the shelves – Granny Smiths from France, or S. Africa. Coxes from Italy etc.

        The EU made the UK close many of its orchards when we joined so that we could buy tasteless and inferior French, Dutch or Italian pap. It makes me so cross – so my choice of apples is very limited as I won’t buy from the EU.

        1. Allowing for opposite seasons, NZ apples are better at the moment.
          On the down side, it keeps the fragrant Jacinda in hay and alfalfa pellets.

      3. If you were to buy a single banana in Sainsbury’s Local, they want 25 p for it, I gypped when they wanted 14 p not so long ago.

        1. Considering how far around the world it has travelled, the cost of shipping, that 40% (directly) of the cost is tax and even more indirectly, it’s a wonder they’re so cheap.

      4. Good morning, Maggie.

        Bramley apples? I would KILL to get hold of a Bramley apple over here!

          1. I’m sure I could but, like Rupert Brooke’s clerics, I will be long-dust before I sample a fruit.

          2. I brought a tree over in my car to our house on the Continent once, and it gave fruit about two years later.

          3. I’ve had trees fruit after about three or four years max. I’ve planted all the trees in my orchard and they are bearing fruit now. Admittedly, none is a Bramley, but I do have a Lord Derby (cooker), which is prolific and I hope to see fruit on the latest (a Spartan) which I planted last year.

          4. I was surprised to get fruit so quickly. They were not meant to grow very big, so perhaps they were already older than I thought.

      5. Are you sure they’re British? By now, British apples are as rare as unicorn poo. (And, through long storage, have about the same consistency.)

      6. Good morning Belle,
        We have a local farmer who plants a significant crop of sunflowers every year. Glorious sight. The farm shop sells locally grown bird seed as well as vegetables and fruit in season. He has won awards for his ‘biodiversity’ policies, fields have had a wide ‘natural’ margin for many years, long before it became fashionable. There is an abundance of wild flowers, pollinating insects and birds.
        As for apples, I simply refuse to buy the French ones. Plenty new season ones around now from South Africa and other southern hemisphere growers.
        I find Aldi pretty good for decent apples, decent prices and, best of all, they carry English apples in Summer and Autumn. Shame the nearest one is 8 miles away.
        As for the price of Bramleys, that’s madness. We have a very old Bramley tree which always produces a heavy crop. SO many that even after I have given them away to anyone I can, I sometimes put a ‘help yourself’ boxful at the end of the drive.

  24. The pointless politeness of removing shoes.

    SIR – I agree with Sophia MoneyCoutts (Sunday, May 8) that it is precious to ask visitors to take their shoes off, “as if they had just been wading through the local sewers before arriving”. Where did this habit come from?

    In my book, being shoeless is bad manners: I do not want to have to look at my guests’ feet. Wooden floors – increasingly popular – can be dangerous for those in socks, too.

    Shoes are for wearing and carpets are for walking on.

    J M Moss
    Stourbridge

    Your book is a very closed and narrow-minded paperback, Mossy. Try that precious attitude over here, in Sweden (where it is de rigueur [nay: expected] that you will take off your shoes when entering the wooden-floored homes of hosts), and see how far you get. If you are so anally-retentive about the matter, do as many here do and take a pair of carpet slippers with you.

    1. Same in Norway, Grizz.
      I always take off shoes on entering – accidentally walking dogpoo into someone’s house is bad, and have you seen the dirt that falls through carpets (when taking them up)?

          2. Nope. Place is competely free of it.
            Only ever got dogshit on my shoes in the UK. It’s why everyone walks round staring at the ground – to avoid the poo.

          4. It really has changed enormously in the last few years. You have been away too long!!

    2. In most scandinavian countries, the grey grit used on the winter, snow-covered roads, remains in the gutters and on the pavements through most of the summer, therefore at any time of year, there is a distinct probability that the soles of your outdoor shoes will be harbouring some of these grains that will play pop with a well maintained hardwood floor. QED, Mossbrain.

    3. Does the Queen wear house shoes?
      We don’t in our family, but that is mostly because our house is too cold.

    4. Sweden is about the only place I’ve come across the habit of taking one’s shoes off (except the mosque, of course, but that hardly counts as England). I did have someone ask me when I hosted a meeting if they should remove their shoes. I said it was up to them (hopefully they had not been walking through the clarts).

  25. Good Moaning.
    Properly dull British spring morning, so we don’t have to spend the day fretting about climate change/global warming/tripping over dead dinosaurs etc…..

  26. Good morning all.
    A grey overcast morning, slightly damp after an overnight shower and 9°C outside.

      1. I see some Cymbalaria Muralis ‘Ivy leaved toadflax’ is creeping along the gravel at the bottom of the pic. It arrived some years ago, presumably with a bought plant and I can’t get rid of it. I looked it up and found this rather nice note on the RHS site:

        “It is said to have been introduced into England by accident when a
        shipment of sculptures was brought to Oxford. It was first introduced
        early in the 17th century and was widely planted in the UK up to the
        19th century.”

  27. Queen of Woke.

    BBC Radio 4 just devoted ten continuous minutes to prime ‘woke whinging’ by Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo for the banning of books by US schools, (like wot she rites) about gay women and benders, for which she has was awarded the Booker Prize in 2019. It’s OK to riot and tear down statues of whities who once had a great-grandfather who employed a ‘blek’ slave but the utmost evil to stop ‘kids; learning about the joys of gender bending and women with bow-locks. The hypocrisy is staggering.

    PS: I’ll bet no-one expected the result of the Eurovision Song Contest – who could possibly have thought that a country beginning with UK could win anything?

    https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640×360/p0c6ptmq.jpg

      1. At least this one hasn’t straightened her hair to pretend, for the purposes of self-advancement, that she’s white.
        A few years ago, a mixed family rented a house near us. All four boys had inherited their father’s afro hair. They all had enormous mops of tight frizz, sticking out 6″ or so from their heads. Imagine checking that for nits every time there was an outbreak in the boys’ classes.

          1. Probably pull the racism card for even suggesting a black boy might have nits. Nits are obviously racist as they can hide more easily in such hair.

          5. Perhaps because they went to private schools? My son and daughter went to the local state primary and of course both got them> As Laura’s hair was fair, thick, long-ish and curly (very pretty it was) washing and combing her hair was one heck of a job!

      1. We do anyway through the Beeb impost.
        That’s why Blighty is always in the finals.

      2. You are probably right – they just picked the biggest mug to be second, because they know the war in Ukraine will still be on next year.
        We do live in depressing times!

    5. DT Healine, 28 Feb 2028

      White Englishman arrested for committing Heterosexual sex act, with unknown woman.
      His wife, John, said he is totally surprised and disgusted by the betrayal

    6. Thankfully, the Booker prize is now a list of books to never ever read. I made the mistake of reading Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and… dear life, it’s dreadful.

      On the note of books, I’m reading Stuart McBride’s Cold Granite. I saw it on the shelf of a chum and while not my usual fare, it is well written with differentiated characters, a really good plot while being easy to read (albeit with an uncomfortable story).

    1. For a second I thought you meant that “activist lawyers” had challenged the Eurodrivel result…!!

      1. The UK came second because voters thought it was the abbreviation for Ukraine

        2. That was my first thought too – Postal votes being churned out without proper scrutiny by the riggers… I said riggers, people wot rig things.

        3. That was my first thought too – Postal votes being churned out without proper scrutiny by the riggers… I said riggers, people wot rig things.

    3. Bodes well for the Rwanda flights doesn’t it…………

      The worst of it isn’t “activist laywers” it’s the “activist Judges” who back them up

      The changes in judicial appointments away from the Lord Chancellor to allowing lawyers to apply for Judgeships in “areas they have a special interest in”(ie immigration) has proved just as destructive as you would expect……

      ‘Morning Sos

      Cue “The best lack all conviction, while the worst. Are full of passionate intensity.

    1. Morning OLT

      Some one so young and bloodthirsty with a lethal weapon with the intention to murder , slaughter is really heinous .

      “It isn’t exactly news that young Black men run a much higher risk of being murdered than the rest of us. It also isn’t exactly a mystery who’s killing them.

      Data on who commits homicides is for obvious reasons less complete than data on victims, and “clearance rates” — the percentage of crimes that are solved — were especially low for homicides in 2020. But the information that is available indicates that young Black men are the main killers of young Black men.
      This is neighborhood gun violence, for the most part.” https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-22/pandemic-murder-wave-fell-most-heavily-on-young-black-men

    3. The BBC Radio 4 came straight out with it this morning (about 4am) “White man kills ten people, nine of them black, in racially motivated attack”. No ifs, no buts – whitey kills lots of blacks in race hate frenzy. The white man who died was an armed security guard.

      1. The headline I saw said that two of the victims were white?

        I am getting a strong stench of propaganda here. They seem to be hoping for a another George Floyd wave of hatred.

  31. I am old enough to remember when GP’s did work ‘from home’.

    One room of the house was the ‘Surgery’ and next door was the ‘Waiting Room’.

    Then came ‘Centralisation’ and the monoliths called Health (or should it be Wealth) Centres.

    Totally impersonal, travel miles to get to one, FourFeet tall barrier between you and the armed guard to get to waitingroom,
    if you passed her test of course.

    Progress, to tie this in with another letter, is like saying Mr Blair’s aim for every school leaver should have a University
    Degree improved education

    My Brother in Law , made a comfortable living, teaching school leavers to read and write, in the 1990’s and early 21st Century

    1. I still remember the horror of the doctor’s house with a long path after the gate to its green front door, with a large brass door knob in the centre. And entering to the smell of disinfectant as we were shepherded in by the lady in white…

      1. Back in the late 1940’s we never had to pay see Doctor Power, our GP
        Dad just took a gigantic bunch of his prize winning Chrysanths for Mrs Power

        1. More: NHS. While people now are registered to a doctor, 75 years ago they did not have their own doctor. Prior to the establishment of the NHS, babies were often born at home or in a nursing home attended by a midwife. Mothers would have to pay the midwife one and six to deliver the baby.

          1. As a war baby, I was pre-NHS, born in a nursing home attended by the family doctor.. Brother just scraped in to the NHS and got free orange juice…It was shared out…

          3. I was born at home even though the NHS had come into being. My mother wouldn’t go into hospital (as she had for my elder brother) because everybody could go there on the NHS!

          1. The mare was reshod yesterday. As that’s her bills where Mongo is mine, let me just say – Mongo’s good value for money.

          4. Coincidentally, in Janus Towers we have always referred to the dentist as ‘the farrier’, on the basis that in our youth he displayed a distinct lack of finesse, and he didn’t believe in injections. So any visit to him involved plenty of pain, whereas these days the pain is felt more in the wallet.

          5. One of my antecedents was a blacksmith who, I understand, also undertook dental work!. This was in Costessey in the early 19th century. I think it’s because they were supposed to be strong, to cope with the pulling.And had pliers!.

          6. The Toothwrights’ Tale: A History of Dentistry in the Royal Navy 1964-1995 Paperback – 29 May 2012

  32. Morning all.
    I’ve just been reading about people claiming compensation for the side effects for the AZ covid jabs but can’t find any reference to it anywhere else. Anyone got any ideas.

      1. You may say i’m a dreamer but i’m not the only one……….a line from Imagine John Lennon.

      1. From documents released by Pfizer: all animals
        used in the vaccine trials, died. Permission was granted to continue trials on humans. In the first 90 days of those trials 1203 people died from the so-called vaccine. I wouldn’t call that a rare event.

        1. Animal testing is unreliable, thouh. We react very differently to drugs compared to other animals.

          1. During trials of a swine flu vaccine
            (I believe in the 70s) when 50 people died the trial was abandoned.

        2. I don’t know where you found that 90 day figure, but I would treat it with caution.

    3. I have several ideas, but most are violent and involve Boris Johnson and his cabinet, a pair of pliers and a bathmat.

    4. A site mentioned in a GB news show was VIBUK.UK However, I’d advise caution.

  33. @Geoff

    I’m writing a short essay ( featured post ) for a small American site I know ( not regarding politics). It’s kind of Ancient and Medieval Theology / philosophy in terms of thoughts about memory and the soul – with the likes of Aristotle / Aquinas / St Augustine, it might be of an interest to you – please feel free to pop there and read it .

    1. OK, erm, where is it, please, and how do I get there, metaphysically speaking?

  34. @Geoff

    I’m writing a short essay ( featured post ) for a small American site I know ( not regarding politics). It’s kind of Ancient and Medieval Theology / philosophy in terms of thoughts about memory and the soul – with the likes of Aristotle / Aquinas / St Augustine, it might be of an interest to you – please fill free to pop there and read it .

  35. ‘Morning All

    First we had the “Ghost of Kiev” who shot down 40 Russian jets(snigger)

    Now we have the Uke tanker who has “destroyed dozens of Russian tanks” with his captured T90 called “Bunny”

    Hmm I suspect some top trolling here meet Bun-Bun the fantasy tank from the John Ringo novels…………

    https://preview.redd.it/4xhctwcmiro61.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=880a5d931e31b886f83c08f313b8150595904f94
    Bun-Bun is the switchblade bearing rabbit from the Sluggy Freelance cartoons

    1. You can guarantee our civil service would desperately bring as many as possible here, feed clothe and house them.

    2. Good God above. The man is so dangerous it’s unbelievable. I wonder will he carry on with this when he is crowned King? “You will own nothing” – how do they all envisage removing ownership from us all of our properties etc. I suppose it will be something along the lines of l for the common good”. How on earth can we rid ourselves of these people?

        1. Don’t know much about him so looked him up – Turns out to be a gay bender and a paedophile who believed an Indian spiritualist, Meher Baba, was a living god, a left-wing Labour supporter and an ardent EU remainer. Thinks the Yanks should control the world. Why don’t you like him?

          1. My dear old Dad would have said he needed ‘A damn good haircut and a disinfectant bath.’ :))

        1. It’s an expression that is quite complex to abbreviate. who’d’ve thought?

          6. No that’s the difference between a Magician’s wand and a Policeman’s truncheon. The first is for cunning stunts…

    3. The autocrats have had it too easy for too long. Autocracies like Russia and China have morphed into one-man totalitarian dictatorships, repressing their people and threatening their neighbours with impunity. Some democracies have fallen for the allure of ‘the strongman’, as in Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines and Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil.

      It’s not so much the threat of Russia and China that should bother us as the enemy within. Orban looks at Western Europe and understands what that means. To equate him with Bolsanaro is simply wrong.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10814277/ANDREW-NEIL-Democracy-march-Putin-chewing-carpet-Kremlin.html

      1. It’s all a pack of lies and misinformation.
        There is precious little democracy left in the West, where voters get to choose between three identical parties in many countries, or have their vote effectively annulled, eg the USA.
        In any case, the word democracy is vastly over-used. One point that has come out of the pending Roe vs Wade overturning, is that the US is a republic, not a democracy, which means that it must abide by certain rules, regardless of what mass opinion at the time is.
        Contrary to the squawks coming from the American left, this doesn’t mean making abortion illegal, it just means that the laws must be passed by each state separately.

    4. The autocrats have had it too easy for too long. Autocracies like Russia and China have morphed into one-man totalitarian dictatorships, repressing their people and threatening their neighbours with impunity. Some democracies have fallen for the allure of ‘the strongman’, as in Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines and Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil.

      It’s not so much the threat of Russia and China that should bother us as the enemy within. Orban looks at Western Europe and understands what that means. To equate him with Bolsanaro is simply wrong.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10814277/ANDREW-NEIL-Democracy-march-Putin-chewing-carpet-Kremlin.html

    5. …..only if he asks guests to take their shoes off when they enter…..

    6. “President Putin’s unprovoked and barbaric invasion of Ukraine”. Andrew Neil

      Unprovoked? What about the killing of 40,000 Russian speaking Ukrainians by the Nazi Battalions, the threat to the Russian naval bases and the EU and US expansion of NATO territory on Russia’s western border, egged on and paid for (with our money) by the idiots in Westminster. Putin is a rabid nutter, a murdering psychopath, but the idiots who set fire to a nuclear-owning madman’s parlour are stupid beyond belief. And it ain’t over yet.

  42. Wordle 330 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Fluked it!

      1. Another par 4 for me.
        Wordle 330 4/6

        ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
        ⬛🟩⬛🟨🟩
        ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Crap today but I got there in the end.
      Wordle 330 6/6

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

      1. I’m betting that the grey first letter in your fifth attempt matches the first one in my third attempt?
        Making the word something large and green? 😊

      1. Not big enough. I have run out of space for plants and can’t bring myself to cut everything back…

    2. We have one of these shrubs in the front garden. It never fails to impress. Last year after it flowered, I gave it quite a heavy prune and it looks like it’s going to be smothered in flowers this summer.

      1. Excellent! I was late the year before last and didn’t chop it back until later in the year. Result, no flowers last year. They are one of the plants that needs a good chop as soon as they’ve flowered. The variegated foliage for the rest of the summer makes them especially good.

    4. Splendid. In between the showers I’m clearing the last of the vegetation in the garden that prior to our recent acquisition had been neglected for three years and infested with bindweed, brambles and nettles. Once the guys booked to start next week erect new fencing and a decking area I’ll be able to start with a cleanish pallet…

      Softwood cuttings are fairly easy to grow on. However, I fear I don’t have the luxury of being able to abide time until they reach a reasonable height 🙁

      1. That’s the problem as one gets to ‘maturity’ isn’t it, plants put in now are too late to reach it!

        1. However, I quite like the philosophy that -“Even if the World is due to end tomorrow I would still plant my apple tree today”

          Edit: PS I know Apple trees are best planted in the Autumn but with the dipsticks in charge the World could so easily end tomorrow!

    5. We have one just outside our kitchen window it’s lovely this time of year. And also ‘borrowed’ from someone else’s garden twenty years ago. Well worth the huge effort involved. 🤩🌳

    7. I have one of those in the back garden and one in the front garden which came from a cutting from the one at the back.

  44. As I haven’t been around for a couple of weeks, someone may have already shared this petition, but it is definitely worth sharing again.
    There’s a petition against the signing of the sinister WHO pandemic power grab. “Do not sign any WHO Pandemic Treaty unless it is approved via public referendum”
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/614335

      2. Done again with my other email address! 66,258 now – just over 9,000 when I signed a couple of weeks ago.

    2. I see that people are signing it more than once.
      Signing it more than once, using alternative e-mail addresses, undermines the whole petition.

      1. Agreed. I’ve a feeling it would need to reach over 1,000,000 for the government to take it seriously.

      2. Just as well I only have the one address then. I do have another one but that is strictly close family and friends – not even shared with my brother. I have often had emails forwarded from him showing email addresses of numerous other people, and in spite of showing him how to remove them before forwarding, he is so technically incomplete that he can’t remember how to.

          1. At least they would know people were aware of what’s being done without their consent.

          2. And?
            They don’t care. They do what they believe is right and if it happens to be a nice little earner for them, so much the better.

          3. They do what they do because it is a nice little earner, and if it happens to be right and benefit the public that is simply happenstance.

      4. Good afternoon sos
        It’s a pity crime that the government continues to undermine the whole electorate by slyly signing away our freedoms.
        I think it’s fighting fire with fire.

        1. It may be, but it will be used to claim that the numbers over-represent the real situation.

          1. They’ll ignore it anyway. It’s no good playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules when the buggers are kicking you to death.

        2. My father used to say ‘fight fire with fire’. That’s why he lost his job as a fireman.

          ((C) Tim Vine I think)

          1. When I lived in France, there were forest fires from time to time – many of which were lit BY firemen…..

          3. Crikey! That’s the first time I’ve laughed at Tim Vine – ever!

        1. Good afternoon m’Dear!
          Did a bit more this afternoon. Will have to get camera up there for progress photos.
          Need some more cement and then do a sloppy mix of concrete to fill the voids between the concrete blocks at the rear and the stone facing.

      1. Well done! I may share it again tomorrow. There may be some Nottlers as yet unaware.

  45. Just scarified the lawn AGAIN – for an hour. Another ten barrowloads. Still looks as though no one has made a start.

    I must say that Mrs Vardy comes across as vain, very dim and foul-mouthed. Or am I being generous?

          2. Someone has to keep the cocaine and prostitute industries afloat.

            Do keep up.

      2. Now that women’s sport is finally starting to get some airtime, will we be treated to stories about the HABs?

          1. If they’re attractive and wear skimpy clothes we could have some photos 🙂

        2. Prolly. I’m glad women’s sport is getting airtime. Do women watch much sport? Is there a fan base? I know women’s beach volleyball in minimal clothing gets lots of viewers but for the wrong reasons.

      1. On that theme you’ve reminded me of the (apparently true) story of a tarty secretary who worked in the office block at the factory I started my first job at.

        A confirmed single woman, she was in her mid-30s, very attractive and very self-confident. One summer’s day she turned up, unannounced and wearing a flimsy bikini, at the private residence of one of the directors. She took herself to his swimming pool and reclined there, sunbathing. When the irate director appeared and discovered her, he shouted, “What permission do you have to invade the privacy of my home?”

        She simply smiled at him, pulled down the front of her bikini bottom, pointed to what she had revealed, and coquettishly replied, “Here is my permit!”

        The (possibly apocryphal) story goes that her ‘permit’ was happily accepted!

    3. It all makes me want to ask ‘Why are you being such a pathetic, spoiled bag of effluent, Miss?’

      This trial is a bunch of idiots whinging about who is the more unpleasant.

    2. She’s obviously taking a leaf out of her leader’s book, and aiming for maximum incoherence.

    1. 352673+ up ticks,

      Afternoon Mib,
      A mandatory six months
      hard would not go amiss.
      That is far better than all the guard rails, police beats if any, word would soon get round, you don’t go in there twice.

      1. If the proposed boundary changes go through, Grantham and Stamford will be separated. I suspect a significant proportion of the liebour/green/limpdum voters are in the former. Next election might return a Liebour MP for Grantham and the more conservative Bourne. It is proposed that most of the remaining parts of South Kesteven, including Stamford, would join the Rutland constituency.

      1. Hatred and bigotry run deep amongst the ignorant. socialists whose mantra is ‘He’s got it, I want it, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t get it handed to me on a plate for no effort or cost.

      1. I remember an aunt and her obnoxious husband (not deserving of the title ‘uncle’) complaining bitterly about the poll tax. At the time, they lived in a council house – a beautiful property built for soldiers returning from WW1 – both worked at well paid jobs as did their two oldest sons. From having a low rates bill (I think council houses, size for size, attracted lower rates than owner occupied houses), their bill suddenly quadrupled. A couple of years after that, they bought their house under Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy. Within a few more years, the house was worth a small fortune so they sold up and moved away.

    5. it’s nearly 32 years since she was dethroned. I suspect the majority weren’t even born.

  49. We’ve just heard that our best man has died, aged 71. He had an undiagnosed heart problem which caused a heart attack, but he also tested positive for Convid when he was admitted to hospital. He’d had trouble with asthma for as long as I remember, and breathing difficulties. Unfortunately I fear he has become just a statistic in the great con.

        1. 71 is no age at all. Sorry to hear the news. Did he have family? If so they have my sympathy. Avoid hospitals at all costs.

          1. His wife is devastated, 2 married daughters who live fairly close, and 4 grandchildren. It’s such a shock, and contemporaneous.

          4. Words can never be enough, but empathy sometimes helps a bit.

            AT least you and your husband have each other – it’s times like this that closeness matters, isn’t it?

          5. Absolutely! He may not be the most demonstrative man on the planet, but I know how much he cares.

          6. Sue. I know how you feel. I went to pieces when my mum died. She was 52. Car crash. It was a massive shock. Time helps but it doesn’t heal.

    2. That’s unfortunate. I hope the actual cause of death is correctly attributed, 71 isn’t old nowadays.

    3. Sorry to hear that, Sue. Our friend Ian (who was OH’s best man twice) is still recovering from a serious heart operation last year, which left him unable to speak or eat, except through a tube. We are just grateful for our good health.

      1. Thank you Mr. Grizz. It’s our 39 year wedding anniversary in a fortnight, and it seems like yesterday! His speech was hilarious!

    6. Sorry to hear this Sue, It’s such a sad shame when people you know well pass on, it can leave a rather large hole.

    7. How sad for you, Sue, and for your friend’s family. Unfortunately this is the kind of tthing that happens more often the older we get – it never makes it easier though.

      Thinking of you.

      2. Every time we hear of somebody who has died at a similar age to us, it reminds us of our own mortality and the fate that we are ever closer to.
        It also reminds me of visiting my paternal grandmother in her last decade or so. She’d greet my Dad with, ‘Remember Mr/Mrs X? Well he/she died.’ All her contemporaries. I’m getting like my Nan, bless her.

      2. Your sad news is alarming and frightening .

        So sorry for your friend .

        I am still worrying about me and my breathing and ears and sinus , and feeling so tired , pains everywhere.

        Moh doesn’t understand , but I really feel as if I have been poisoned by all of the jabs, and have been invited to have a Spring booster which I have now declined .

        1. The more I think about it the worse it gets. His wife said that he had been going downhill since 2019 but nothing seems to have been done. Obviously I didn’t want to be nosy and hurt her more, but was he jabbed and boosted?

    10. Not the best of news for you. My condolences on the loss of a friend.

    11. That is very sad and no age at all. Hopefully his family will have plenty of support.
      A sudden death is so hard for those left behind; my dear Dad died suddenly from a massive heart attack in his mid 50s. Completely out of the blue. Our only consolation was that he hadn’t suffered, a long drawn out illness would have been worse in many ways. My dear Mum never really got over losing her husband.

      1. Thank you, Mum. I’ve had so many kind wishes here today. His widow is stunned, and the girls have their families. It was such a shock.

          4. I don’t wish to be patronising but your training in PunCando is really coming on at this rate you’ll soon achieve a Bleck Belt!

          5. Ah so! I used to play judo when I were nobbut a lass, and one class I threw our master Mr Gamlin. As he went to the floor, his false teeth shot out and skidded under the wall bars! How we larfed!

          6. Ah so! I used to play judo when I were nobbut a lass, and one class I threw our master Mr Gamlin. As he went to the floor, his false teeth shot out and skidded under the wall bars! How we larfed!

        1. I should have thought the stomach of a great white might have been better.

  51. I notice that many lady wendyball players have “blonde” hair – arranged in a long ponytail.

    Lady rugby players tend to have their hair tightly arranged next to the skull.

    Perhaps a lady NoTTLer sports fan could tell me whether there is a reason for this.

    Also – lady wendyball seems to employ far fewer diverse an/or vibrant players. Compared with the male game where – it seems to me – there are virtually no white, native born English players any more.

    1. Re the hair- having long hair flapping round your face would hamper your vision. In rugby, I would guess it’s safer to have it close to the head. Having taught teenage girls, they do have a tendency to pull each other’s hair if fighting.

        1. I think that’s the way the silly tarts should have sorted this out! Saves paying lawyers and the bonus of being a bit of’entertainment’!

        2. Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. Silly women and they give other women a bad name.

      2. I grew my hair and my mother plaited it … not for long .. I had my hair pulled by a girl who sat behind me , she was a real bully, and she tormented others as well.

        1. It’ amazing – memories of a bully/bullies never really leave – they just fade for a while. There was a gang of three in my class, I wonder whether they turned out to be decent adults when they grew up. I rather think they probably didn’t, but people do change, some more than others.

          My son was bullied by a small gang – not a lot, as he could fend for himself, but he was never a violent or aggressive boy, tending to internalise rather than hit out. I know that if I came across one of them today I would be hard pushed not to say something very scathing to him (which of course would not help at all). I don’t exactly go round bearing grudges, but I guess I am not a very forgiving type if someone has done a dirty wrong on me or mine.

          As for my ridiculous adoptive father and the gold-digging bitch he married – I have thrashed them in my mind so many times! It really is better to put some things behind one. :o(

          1. A boy in my daughters class bullied her for months, and his mother, who was a friend of mine, refused to countenance the facts. It took our younger daughter and her friend to sort the little sh*t out and he couldn’t say anything because they were 3 years younger and his embarrassment was complete! I won’t forgive him!

          4. We found it very amusing! She actually biffed him and he couldn’t do a thing about it! I can’t imagine where she got her temper from….

          5. A boy in my daughters class bullied her for months, and his mother, who was a friend of mine, refused to countenance the facts. It took our younger daughter and her friend to sort the little sh*t out and he couldn’t say anything because they were 3 years younger and his embarrassment was complete! I won’t forgive him!

          6. I know what you mean HL.

            My parents were social creatures , not warm comforting parents , we were hauled abroad from pillar to post ( in Africa) they partied until there was no tomorrow .

            That is why I loved boarding school , England and the kind aunts and uncles who thought alot of me . Just needed the right sort of stability , and I could fend for myself on the whole , which stood me in good stead for when I was married and when Moh was away for months on end .

          8. I was bullied at school – until I got fed up and split one of the bullies’ lip and hacked another’s shin. Strangely enough, the bullying stopped after that …

        2. I had my plaits pulled in assembly. My hair is very fine and not really suited to being long or plaited. Eventually my single plait was as thin as each of the two had been. I had it all cut when I was about 13 i think.

          2. I had my hair in bunches till a nurse plaited it when I was in hospital having my appendix out. I was 10 1/2 then. So I had plaits when I changed from junior to senior school.
            I wanted it long but my mum wasn’t keen. She had very curly thick hair when she was young and hated it – she went and had it chopped short when she was in her teens, much to her mother’s displeasure.

    2. Calm down, Mr T

      In the Cup Final yesterday, which I did not realise was being played, there were FIVE English.onthe field

    3. As far as I can tell, there is a higher proportion of female wendyball players of a Sapphic persuasion than there are of female rugby players. They therefore have long hair which is very ornately styled when not playing to counteract the stereotypes.

      Also, the severely scraped back ponytail is the prevalent hairstyle among the classes from which I suspect wendyball players are plucked.

      1. The Sapphic trait seems to be present in a number of woman’s high level sports. Basketball is one and cricket another. Rowing and golf.

        1. I expect that will change as it gets more exposure and being sporty becomes acceptable to more girls and thence attractive to more males.

  52. I spoke to a patient at about three o’clock this morning who often rings in the middle of the night for a chat. She was telling me about the (unpaid) job she found recently, doing shopping and small errands for people who can’t get out of the house. She said she’d like to find a part time paid job because money is getting tight and was asking me what sort of job she could do. She is fifty-eight, is disabled and suffers from mental illness. Any ideas anyone? I’ve never met her but I feel very sorry for her.

    1. That’s a difficult one. Is the lady tech savvy? Like could she do something online?

      1. It doesn’t sound like it Phiz, from our conversations. It’s tricky because I am not a qualified staff member, it’s just my part time job where I work OOH on the hospital switchboard so I have to e careful what I ask or say to her. She prefers talking to the switchboard staff though and rarely asks to be put through to an RMN or social worker.

        1. I’m not in any way qualified to give advice but…at a local level with Church or Charity shops where she could be of use.

    2. I worked for the council doing shopping for housebound/disabled folk. When the council, in its wisdom, got rid of the service 2 of the girls took on clients from the lists. One of the problems that came up was the change to your car insurance if you use the vehicle for work. It was a great service and the ‘continuity of care’ was much appreciated by the old biddies!

    3. Thanks to all for your suggestions. If she calls the next time I’m working I’ll pass on some ideas.

  53. To the title:
    My job is investigation and I can just as well do that from my desk at home as my desk at the office.
    But we investigate complaints against our organisation and staff and people do pop in for advice so it is important that the office be manned. We have an unofficial rota which ensures there are at least 2/6 of us in at any particular time. The original reason was that close proximity was conducive to contagion, but it has continued unofficially because it is simply more convenient. We are all aware that it may end at any time and that in an emergency we may all have to come in immediately.
    But there is a lot to be said for convenience and managing a working environment that is pleasing to the workers as long as this does not impinge on productivity.

    I suspect that many other roles also require no more than 1/3 levels of physical presence.
    I also suspect that if word got out that maybe 50% or office space (and rentals) is surplus to real requirement that this might have a detrimental effect on the value of property.

    1. How long will it be until working from home is associated with lack of opportunities for promotion?

      It is one thing to be able to perform assigned tasks but if you have no opportunity to interact with supervisors and managers, where can you go kiss kiss suck up?

      1. Good question.
        But I’m not interested in promotion.
        There is plenty of scope for those that are to find extra things to do.

        1. The best decision I made was to turn down moving into the management stream at work. No hassles with performance reviews and budget reviews, I just managed projects and could pass BS up the ladder to those who cared.

          I was paid a lot more than most managers as well!

      2. It’s been tough on our legal trainees at work. Being isolated is OK, up to a point, when you already know the job but trying to learn when you can only interact via zoom and phone isn’t easy.

      3. I really don’t see why. What someone does is vastly more important than where they do it.

        I regularly tell my ‘manager’ off. He’s new and needs to do the things the business needs of him, not manage the team.

    2. “…unofficial rota which ensures there are at least 2/6 of us...”

      If you had been subjected to £SD, you would understand why 2/6 resonates with us older folk. It was how you wrote half-a-crown, i.e., 2 shillings and 6 pence – there were eight of them to the pound.

    3. “…unofficial rota which ensures there are at least 2/6 of us...”

      If you had been subjected to £SD, you would understand why 2/6 resonates with us older folk. It was how you wrote half-a-crown, i.e., 2 shillings and 6 pence – there were eight of them to the pound.

  54. The Martins have arrived on the warm front coincident with drops of water falling on my kindle screen…
    Summer is here!

    2. No Martians for us, but Orioles, hummingbirds and Grosbeaks have arrived.

      Oh to live in town and avoid the dawn chorus – said no one ever.

  55. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ebb1ed9b7a500a85ed353a6e516b3bc5a076bb4e5cd4924f0ff3f4ccf7fc46ea.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/57e127606830b079a79f4e4dd7ad4c66d811c9909779a2269b586dddc80939f8.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26e5dabbd9d53da4f8df6788d8944e94e3f7207e3a1f5bb24d382f4838d11a80.png As expected at this time of year, the borders are awash with countless blue forget-me-nots. Curiously though, there are a few large patches this year where the flowers are white or pink! This has never happened before. Is this usual, unusual, or do I need to get out more?

    2. Or as our eldest when she was 3 years old referred to them as: “Remember me now flowers”….

      1. Thanks, Maggie. It was a nightmare posting them. I had to cut them down and down again and again (in size) before Diqusting would let me use them!

    4. I frequently have pink forget-me-nots flowering in the garden. Can’t say I’ve seen any white ones, though.

    5. Do they change colour according to the acidity of the soil, like hydrangeas?

    7. I have seen that before.
      Just as you’ll suddenly get a clump of white bluebells in a wood.

        1. I have 2 clumps of white ones which appeared this year! No idea where they came from!

  56. French weather forecast: High winds, thunder, lightening and hail in the afternoon. Actual: Sunny, part cloud cover. 27 degrees Celsius in the shade. dead calm. – global warming obviously.

  57. Nearly 8,000 people have arrived in the UK so far this year having crossed the English Channel in small boats following the latest arrivals this weekend.

    Today, at least 300 people were picked up by Border Force vessels and RNLI lifeboats in the Channel while 167 people made the crossing in 13 boats yesterday, according to the Ministry of Defence.

    Around 20 people, mainly men, were brought onto the beach at Dungeness while most other migrants were taken into the harbour at the Port of Dover.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10818085/Toddler-BABY-brought-ashore-day-167-people-picked-English-Channel.html

        3. What is that as a percentage of the hundreds of thousands of illegal invaders? Even if the Rwanda plan cost nearly as much per head as keeping the savages here – not that it could as the cost of living must be multiple times lower in Rwanda – keeping them far away wouldn’t pose the current real danger to our citizens nor would it block our hotels, hospitals and housing stock. The main losers would be owners of the hotels they are kept in.
          We are hoping to travel, maybe in the autumn, to visit family in Canada. We’d stay overnight at Heathrow but want to avoid the ‘contaminated’ hotels. I must dig around as I’m sure there is a list somewhere, and some hotels at Heathrow are included.

      2. Neither, frankly, do the taxpayers who will have to pay for the lack of effort to get rid of the freeloaders.

        1. We know little will happen. If only we could ship a few thousands off, the message that we were serious would soon get back and the flood would slow to a trickle. The rule should be that all those who arrive illegally (I think the favoured, mealy-mouthed, apologist term is ‘irregular’ arrival) will NEVER be given the right to remain.

          1. It should be, but you, I and the invaders know it never will be unless the electorate wake up and start voting for what’s best for the country.

          3. There was here in the last GE but the ones who would have made a difference all lost their deposits!

          4. Because, Connors, they are so up themselves that the idea of amalgamating and forming a viable alternative party is miles away. It would stop the vote-splitting and give a reality to an alternative vote.

          5. I agree, but who is to take the lead? The original and genuine or the upstart, Johnny-come-latelies who have jumped on the band-wagon?

          6. Whoever they are, they MUST recognise that to keep trolling on, each with their own manifesto, will not encourage the voter but will successfully spilt the vote to the advantage of Lib/Lab/Con and they will ALL lose their deposits. Stupid and profligate

          7. Most of the electorate, especially the ‘don’t work, won’t work’ brigade, don’t really care as long as they can still get their mindless ‘reality’ shows on TV, regular supply of booze/ plastic nails/caterpillar eyebrows/ vile ‘wax treatments’ to their unmentionables and so on. Same with the proposed WHO total control plan under the guise of pandemic protection.

    2. At least your invaders have to make some effort to be picked up by the border force.

      Canada has several unofficial border crossings where invaders from the US can literally get a taxi to the border and then just walk across and claim asylum from the waiting police. No risk, no effort required and it bypasses visas and waiting lists..

      The blackface groper claims that closing the border would be too hard to do so we should just accept the illegals without question.

      1. But genuine visitors must still have the Canadian jab pass app and assorted ‘proofs’. We need to look into how we upload our jab proof as neither of us have the NHS app to transfer from. My old phone is simply incapable of using the NHS app (What a shame) Maybe need a new phone, get the NHS app then get rid as soon as we’re home.

        1. I can’t remember how I did it now – getting the app to work took a whole afternoon of effort. I was able to print it off though.

        2. Not likely to change either, Trudeau is refusing to budge on vaccination mandates.

          1. Not surprised to hear that. The thought of still wearing masks there in summer is unpleasant too. According to son & his wife, most people were wearing masks outdoors in the city last summer, and most still are. Fools. Still, when in Rome ……

    3. Why are we simply not towing them back to France and forcing them to obey international law?

      Why are border farce not protecting our borders ?

      We have a great big blue border. The hated state must be forced to do it’s job and get rid of these criminals. We don’t want them here.

    1. My silly mistakes led to an Effin’ Five …
      Wordle 330 5/6

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

      1. Snap. Wordle 330 5/6

        ⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
        ⬛🟩⬛🟨🟩
        ⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩
        ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. Brilliant – Four play lasting 20 minutes.

          I doubt I could get my mind round it.

      1. Same par 4 here.
        Wordle 330 4/6

        ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
        ⬛🟩⬛🟨🟩
        ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  59. Just back from a spot of grocery shopping. Surprised to see Diesel back over £1.81 per litre and half pound nondescript butter at £1.90. I daresay that nasty Mr Putin is at the bottom of all this….

      1. Excellent. Thank you for posting. The last few couple of minutes make for grim viewing!

        1. Disconcerting in that the conflict in Ukraine needn’t have caused the current mess.

    3. There’s a 20p price difference between diesel and petrol at our local garage. Long gone are the days when diesel was the cheaper.

      1. It was only cheaper while they were trying to get us all to buy diesels. It’s about 171.9ppl here. I filled up today at 161.9ppl (petrol), but I could have (had I been clairvoyant – that petrol station came before the other one which had been at 160.9ppl on Monday) bought at 160,7ppl.

        1. My tank’s still 3/4 full but it will probably be even more by the time I need to refill. It was 181.9 p when I went past yesterday morning.

          1. I have got into the habit of topping it up every time the first bar on the digital display disappears. I am not looking forward to filling up the diesel camper after my away breaks. Still, I take the view that I might as well spend my savings as they are losing value all the time.

  60. Evening, all. Went to the Mayoral celebration at St Chad’s in Shrewsbury this morning. Sermon was about speaking truth to power, so I button-holed Daniel Kawczynski afterwards to try to warn him about grass-roots feelings. Typically, he ignored everything, thought it was “ridiculous” and generally dismissed the truth. I hope when reality smacks him in the gob he remembers, but I doubt it. He told me (as if I didn’t know) that we were trillions in debt. I told him bluntly we were living beyond our means and the state was too big, but he didn’t think the answer was to spend less (quelle surprise!), do less or cut taxes. He proclaimed that he was Polish, but people still voted for him. I said that I knew that, but people voted for a blue rosette and that wasn’t necessarily going to be the case in future (look at North Shropshire; the people are fed up). I am increasingly getting the same feeling I did in 1997. As the French Revolution song goes, ça ira, ça ira!

    1. Good evening, Conwy.

      Our MP masquerades as a Tory but it really a Limp Dumb with heavy Green leanings. An absolute shite.

      1. At least our MP is now a proper Limp Dim. It’s the hypocrisy we find hard to deal with.

        1. Our man makes me vomit.

          “Every confidence in the PM – he is doing a grand job”
          “Climate change – I am all in favour of the government’s plans – the science is settled”
          “Covid was brilliantly handled by HMG”
          “Immigrants are welcome – we need jobs filled”

          Sort of thing

          2. And it is one of the safest Tory seats in the country – so he will never be chucked out.

          7. I think that’s what HQ thought about North Shropshire. Massive majority and only once in more than a century not true blue. Well, it went yellow. Another thing I pointed out was that they chose completely the wrong candidate for North Shropshire. “He had all the qualifications for being a good MP”, I was told. “I’m sure, but not for a rural constituency – he’s an urbanite [he came from Birmingham and was tinted].” Clearly they didn’t think that people representing rural constituencies should have any understanding of rural matters – typical of “we know best”, which is why they got stuffed and will do again if they don’t listen.

          8. Difficult one; I suspect many thought Kemi Badenoch was a strange choice for Saffron Walden.
            Until she spoke.

          9. Kemi Badenoch is one of the few Tories that I’d vote for. A former software developer and real conservative – she’s my kind of woman.

          10. Daniel K was spouting the wonderful handling of the Covid 19 situation and it being the reason for our being in debt. What else could we have done? he asked. I told him bluntly, “follow the Swedish model” and he looked a bit taken aback. I don’t think he gets out much to hear alternative opinions.

          12. I think he thought I was just being obnoxious, but frankly, I don’t want to see a Lib/Lab coalition next time round. I want a proper Conservative (or conservative) government. Clearly a prophet is without honour in his own county (sic).

          13. Ask him why the vast majority of all immigrants are on welfare and why we still have high unemployment. They don’t come here to work. They can’t. They’ve no skills, value or utiility to our economy – arguably neither have 30% of the current workforce.

          14. He doesn’t answer questions. To any letter/e-mail – he simply sends reams of HQ garbage.

          15. Ask him why the vast majority of all immigrants are on welfare and why we still have high unemployment. They don’t come here to work. They can’t. They’ve no skills, value or utiility to our economy – arguably neither have 30% of the current workforce.

    2. . “Speaking Truth to Power”!?
      A socialist Common Purpose outfit then! One of their slogans…

      1. I wasn’t impressed by the sermon, to be honest, despite the padre having done three tours in Affgaff. “We are all the same” – no we aren’t. Some people are lazy while others are hard working, some are dishonest while others are straight dealing, some (muslims) hate our guts, some are thick while others are bright, some are tall, others are short – I could go on, but you get the picture. We also had a bit about loyalty. In my view, loyalty works both ways – if you’re disloyal, you can hardly expect unquestioning loyalty in return. The Mayor’s reading (which, fortunately, was printed in the order of service, or we’d have not had the faintest idea of what it was about because she delivered it so badly) was a piece by the Dalai Lama. Whatever happened to using the Bible for inspiration? Then there were the Ukrainian flags hanging from the balcony – where were the union flags? Nowhere to be seen.

    3. . “Speaking Truth to Power”!?
      A socialist Common Purpose outfit then! One of their slogans…

    2. That isn’t new; it was being touted several years ago. Personally, I’ve been hungry and it’s over-rated.

      1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKfR6bAXr-c&list=WL&index=6 That all depends upon what you eat. I’ve been on a one-meal-a-day (OMAD) fast for well over a year now and I never get hungry. If you cut out sugar and carbs (which are sugar anyway) then your body gets used to eating just healthy and nutritious protein, fat and leafy vegetables. I would heartily recommend the régime to anyone looking for a healthier lifestyle.

        1. How much weight have you lost?

          I am on a diet – I need to lose 4 kg. Two gone, so far. My diet is just eating less.

          1. Losing weight in later life can mean loss of muscle rather than fat. My OH has got very thin.

          2. I’m not losing muscle. Regular cycling (proper bike in good weather: exercise bike when wet and windy) will keep the muscle in good trim.

          3. Trying to rebuild muscle by farming. Sort of working, but very tiring.

          6. Yes. It is just that last week I realised that I was having difficulty doing up the top trouser button.

          7. So has Moh ,

            Really thin arms and legs, although he was a scrawny child , as we all were in those days , he has lost muscle tone … but by heck , can he run .

          8. Mine plays tennis & table tennis – but he had quite a long time off the court – first when he injured his shoulder in 2019, then there was the lockdown times when there was no sport facility. But he had started to lose muscle before then and he is small and light anyway.

          19. Doesn’t help. In my case my stomach muscles are now non existent so when standing the 12stones just droops over where the waistband should sit….

          21. You need less ‘medicine’. Poppiesdad has cut out the evening booze (pre-diabetic issues) and has lost one and a half stones, mostly from around the middle. He now weighs nine and a half stones. He is no longer pre-diabetic. His wife can really push him around now….

    4. The best diet I ever experienced was school dinners. I used to skive off with friends who had packed lunches and they would let me have a small Marmite sandwich.
      My parents were furious when they found out, as they were paying for the damn things.

      1. I’ve gone right off Marmite…. used to love it but can’t eat it any more.

        1. Love it.
          Danish D-in-L’s father didn’t realise how potent it was.
          He barmed it onto his bread like you would jam.
          The reaction was impressive. And we’re talking about a Viking who enjoyed Gammel Dansk for breakfast.

          1. I have an American friend like that- slapped on his toast like boot polish and could barely breathe afterwards;-)

          2. Yes, I don’t know if it still carries the warning “spread thinly” – perhaps that should be “very thinly if new to Marmite”…I’ve seen similar reactions.

    2. Biden (or more correctly Obama) deliberately gave the billions of dollars worth of American armour, guns and state of the art equipment to the Taliban and Basra airport to the Chinese. Most of the military equipment has been divided between Pakistan and China.

      Biden now plans to send billions of dollars worth of American military equipment to the Joker in Ukraine.

      It must be obvious to anyone with half a brain that Biden is deliberately weakening American Military strength. Why else make a repulsive queer an Admiral, leave Woke traitor generals in charge one of whom snitched on President Trump to the Chinese.

      Biden and the Obama retreads forming his administration are set on the destruction of America. They are all in hock to the Chinese and associated globalist institutions and billionaires.

  63. 352673+ up ticks,
    That action should be rewarded by a years hard

    ,Dt,
    Revealed: Margaret Thatcher statue egged by arts centre boss hours after being installed

  64. Well, another useful day. Sun never shone – but we planted out various veg and started to prepare the greenhouse for its summer use. Just finished when it started to drizzle and then rain. Couldn’t have timed it better!

    Quite funny. G & P having spent the WHOLE day asleep in the sitting room wanted to go out for a wazz. They trotted to the back door: I opened it. They looked out and said, “What?” I gave each a gentle shove and quickly shut the door.

    Five mins later they were both in the porch!!

    Anyway, I’ll love you and leave you – with this completed jigsaw. Now I have not infrequently found puzzles with bits missing – but never with seven extra pieces!!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/077d8123bb30cc4efcbeab327f40531a1365f8bd84d369e0fc66639832c61b31.jpg

    A demain.

    2. Somewhere in the world there is an identical jigsaw puzzle with seven missing pieces.

    3. Last year, I had a puzzle with three extra pieces but one missing. I had to send pictures of the missing piece and the extra pieces effort they would consider they had a problem, they eventually sent me another puzzle to play with.

  65. Just seen the Downton Abbey film. Like all character based stories, it was a mixture of laughter and sadness.
    A lovely warm bath story line with plenty of twists.
    A proper story – none of the arty farty clever d!ck stuff that is so often inflicted on us in the name of entertainment.

    1. A good recommendation! Our nearest cinema is about 15 miles away. I think the last time we went was to take one of our then young teenagers to see something – all I recall was the overactive air conditioning. I’ll wait until it’s either on DVD or on the box at Christmas. Or next year, it may be on the Air Canada offerings when we (hopefully, no new scamdemics permitting) fly over.

      1. We go to the Curzon cinema.
        The individual cinemas are smaller; the sound comes from the front and it doesn’t explode your head.
        And the cinema has a bar and you can take your drinks into the auditorium.
        Comfy seats and even little table on the right armrest for your glass.
        This time, I had a ‘Downton Abbey’ cocktail – gin and Earl Grey Tea syrup. Good sized glass for chilling and sipping. Bliss.

        2. So glad to read that you enjoyed the new Downton Abbey film, Annie. And that, like me, you sing the praises of the Curzon cinema in Colchester.

  66. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/15/cost-living-top-priority-says-boris-johnsons-policy-chief-andrew/

    ” The scars [of covid] are still healing, so high spending must remain. No, that’s merely ideology. Spending should drop and low taxes replace that. Radical, significant tax cuts would help everyone.

    “narrative has emerged that Red Wall voters, those in traditional Labour-supporting Midlands and North East seats, which Mr Johnson managed to win in 2019, are supportive of high spending and a higher level of taxation to finance it. ”

    They key is in Labour voting. Labour policies have kept the north poor. They’ve ensured poverty and unemployment. The north needs an end to statist idiocy and businesses to be unchained. It needs Conservative policies. Not Labour ones. Robbing the south to pay for the north is just socialism, and that doesn’t work. Halving the cake doesn’t give everyone more.

    ” voters of Little Hampton and Bognor are as interested in levelling up Little Hampton or building back Bognor as anywhere in the Red Wall.”

    Twaddle we are. Couldn’t care less about other parts of the country. Tax cuts benefit us all. Levelling up is a nonsense. The very term is stupid. To them this is just about buying votes, not sustainable economics. That’s why they cannot be permitted another term. Short term , careerist, failed, incompetent, useless politicians playing with our lives.

    ”

    “People should keep more of what they earn. That provides the incentive for people to be in employment and to take control as much as they can of their lives. “And that is a point that people would unite around and remains the core to the Conservative belief”

    Yet the state clearly doesn’t believe that because it continues a tax and waste socialist agenda. It continues a high tax, big state policy which is making everyone poorer and doing nothing to help people. Perhaps the clue is ‘Conservative’ party. The current lot are not Conservatives in either sense.

    “If I took the Prime Minister down to the streets of my constituency, people would cross the road to come up to him.”

    Yes, I would. To punch him in the gut, follow it up with a right cross and a knee to the face as he went down. That useless Beeep has made everything expensive and all of us hundreds of pounds worse off every month. He can shove it.

    “it is unsurprising he is firm in dismissing criticism in two flagship policy areas, housing reform and the green revolution”

    I don’t know if it’s a lack of intelligence or simple hypocrisy, but these people cannot blither on about being Conservative and then actively want to make people poorer and interfere with markets. It’s pure double think.

    “There’s no fundamental conflict that I see between making the most of renewable, clean, green energy, whether it’s nuclear or wind or some of the other areas we’re investing in, and having a prosperous economy and growing more jobs and reducing people’s energy bills over time.”

    He’s deranged. Net zero is pointless, idotic and will destroy jobs, entire industries for no value whatsoever. We will all be poorer, unhappier and miserable.

    These people are stupid. Worse, they’re spiteful, ignorant and utterly delusional.

  68. Tomorrow, Monday 16th May, at 6.00 PM (BST), the annual Jo Cox Memorial Lecture will be live-streamed from Pembroke. The lecture will be given by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, and her topic will be: Culture wars – an attempt to divide?.

    Organised in conjunction with the Jo Cox Foundation and the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge. This lecture series was set up to celebrate the life and inspiring work of Jo Cox MP (1992, Social & Political Sciences), who was so tragically murdered in 2016. Jo dedicated her life to helping others: campaigning tirelessly for a fairer, kinder and more tolerant world.

    Baroness Warsi is a member of the House of Lords, and was the first female Muslim Minister to attend Cabinet in the UK. She was Co-Chair of the Conservative Party from 2010-2012, and then a Minister of State until 2014. She was a good friend of Jo Cox, and is not afraid of being outspoken when the need is there. The lecture will provide for a very interesting talk and discussion. The lecture will be live-streamed through YouTube and on our Facebook page and subsequently be available to view on demand.

    After the lecture, there will be an unveiling in the Hall of the new portrait of Jo Cox, that the College has commissioned from artist Clara Drummond. The unveiling will be done by Jo’s sister, Kim Leadbeater, who has succeeded her as the MP for Batley and Spen. Jo’s parents, husband and children, will all be joining us for the occasion. We look forward to sharing the images of the painting with you in due course.

    I wonder whether David Amess will be similarly sanctified at Bournemouth University, with annual memorial lectures, etc?

      1. Jo Cox was regrettably just another Schwab plant. There are so many, particularly in Labour and Liberal ranks in government. Needless to say, Johnson, Sunak, Raab, Hancock and the others are also Schwab plants.

        She might have been a decent person and did not deserve to be brutally murdered by a mad person. The mad person should have been placed in a secure mental hospital, not left to ‘care in the community’ which translates as ‘no care at all’.

        1. She wasn’t a decent person at all, but I do not condone murder as a method of ridding us of the likes of Jo Cox. I agree, there is a place for secure mental hospitals, and it’s a pity her murderer wasn’t being treated in one.

  69. Just a little note to thank all you lovely Nottlers for your kind words and sympathies on the death of our best man. You are very thoughtful and I’m so grateful.

      1. Yes it’ll be in Inverurie I expect. His widow and daughters are seeing the undertaker tomorrow.

  70. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef807a2bb98af9f19e694d567ff1f53b08ac117a28e551a8fc47ca2832a09942.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fa272e54b05b1fcf1bcc12eca6c3ea7289a8f0c45495eeab1323880d52f3ce2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b3a50db39a3596c526b87b937bf17c78719bb39a620d26d548e450d6db62c67.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92bd3593054068685ce57d47c7398a79f32e29cddfa699dfa786889dd21b1901.jpg Just had a run out to my favourite flooded field to check on the birdlife. Not a lot about tonight but there were 10 wood sandpipers (some were calling), a nesting pair of little grebes, a nesting pair of blue-headed yellow wagtails, and a solitary white wagtail. I got a few record shots but they were all too distant for a decent snapshot.

      1. Apparently like the female singer in Saturday night’s Spanish Eurovision Song Contest entry.

          1. Remember Muffin the Mule with Annette Mills (John Mill’s sister). One of the friends of Muffin was a golliwog character which they called Wally the Gog!

          2. He seems to have been ‘disappeared’! Nothing on the official website! I think it’s a whitewash!
            By the way, as you lived in Scotland I’m sure you know that a ‘wally dug’ is one of those china things they have on the hearth!

          3. No, Sue, I didn’t know that. Must try and find time to look up its meaning.

  71. ‘Only William is surprised’ Dr Shola backs FA Cup royal boos and slams ‘out of touch’ Duke

    Dr Mos-Shogbamimu said people who felt offended or touched by football fans booing the Duke of Cambridge at Wembley Stadium on Saturday should “get over it” as the second-in-line to the throne is “not beyond reproach”. Hours after the shocking scenes at the London Stadium, the women’s rights activist took to Twitter to say: “Only #PrinceWilliam is surprised he got booed – like how out of touch is this guy? Laughable.

    I wonder who those boo-ers were; it looks rather like a concerted set-up, as William hasn’t actually done anything for the supporters to boo about, has he, despite Mos-Shog. saying he is “Not beyond reproach” – what is that suposed to mean, exactly?

    If anything is laughable (or pitiable, rather) it is a foreigner like Mos-Shog. (second generation or something) living here, supporting rude, crass behaviour by some wendyball oiks, against PW, especially so close to the Jubilee celebrations. Dr Shog. exhibits a huge superiority complex about her colour and her sex, and is a prime example of why diversity is not a blessing for this country. Why are her opinions on things that have nothing to do with her, published so frequently? Who cares what someone like that thinks?

      1. Thanks. I just get so irritated by some of these people.

        And M-S I find particularly repellent, generally.

    2. Thing is, I despise people like MosShogbamimu who just want to tear down the previously stable country that they are crowding into, but I am so over the Windsors and don’t much feel like defending William the Woke either.

      1. I understand if you are over the Windsors but then you are entitled to be, if you want. They are your RF. Mos-Shog is just a foreign indigenous-baiter of the country she is in. Which, unfortunately for us, is our country.

    3. The job of an editor is to sort the wheat from the chaff and to print the chaff!

      IABATO!

      1. People like her don’t do embarrassment – neither do they look at themselves. Your comment is spot on – but she won’t see that in a million years.

      2. Good grief, Maggie, for one minute when I read your reply to Hertslass I thought you were talking about Humphrey Lestocq.

    7. Apparently, Liverpool fans have a history of booing the national anthem, dating back to the 1980s and protests against Margaret Thatcher.

      1. So they were booing the anthem, not PW? Obviously Mos-Shog. didn’t know that, either.

        1. Either way it’s wrong and rude. Typical of this country these days.

      1. I really don’t know on what basis she is, or calls herself, a solicitor. Information about her is fairly scanty. While I am not suggesting that this is the case in her case, it is not unknown for people who haven’t actually qualified as a solicitor, to call themselves such.

  72. I’m getting soft. I’m tearing up watching the Queen arriving at her Windsor Platinum bash.

    1. Why not, Anne? I think we all know we shall not see another one like her, whatever our feelings for the Royals are.

  74. Brace yourselves, I am going to post something totally non woke or de colonialised.

    Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
    And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
    Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines
    And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance or nature’s hanging course untrimmed;
    But thy eternal summer shall not fade
    Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
    Nor shall death brag thou wandered in his shade
    When in eternal lines to Time thou growest.
    So long as men can breathe and eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

    By some new fellow- W. Shakespeare.

      1. How on earth can The Sonnets be wrong? Gawd, I despise these “woke” idiots.

        1. Me too! Although I think it seems more so in the UK, but I don’t watch much tv.

    2. I sang this with the Choir recently as it was incorporated beautifully in Paul Carr’s ‘New Four Seasons’ with its homage to Vivaldi

  75. First it was Edmund Hillary and now Mr Cool both within the Reign of HM…

    “British mountaineer Kenton Cool (48) has successfully completed his record-breaking 16th summit of Mount Everest.
    The Gloucestershire climber became the first person to complete the 8,849m (29,032ft) peak 16 times on Saturday.”

    1. My eye was somehow drawn to the last part of the 2nd sentence:-

      The Gloucestershire climber became the first person to complete the 8,849m (29,032ft) peak 16 times on Saturday.

      And I thought “Bloody hell! 16 times on the one day???”

        1. Yes.
          That is a huge problem especially as a lot of the waste which would normally rot down, does not because of the cold temperatures.

  76. Right, a small amount of wall built and a few 🥃⚓️⚓️⚓️ upset on the Express’s race baiter article, so I’m off to bed.

  77. Off to bed- another doc appointment tomorrow morning and am tired.
    Sleep well Y’all.

  79. This plat jub concert – why are they all shouting? Couldn’t ITV afford big enough amps?

    BBC doesn’t do much right but I do think it would have made a better fist of this.

    Hardly a Brit in sight either.

  80. I recorded the platjub bash and am now watching the Top Secret Drum Corps. Might have to change its name methinks now it’s on TV.

    1. Good night, Tom. On Friday night you were worried sick about what your best beloved might say on Saturday and suspected you would have nowhere to call your home. What actually happened?

      1. It seems that I’m still on notice of eviction and have just finished updating Passing Three Score Years and Ten with the latest situation.

        As you will gather, I’m frankly feeling suicidal and (worse yet) have the means to do it.

        1. Blimey, Tom. Take care and stay sane. We’re all here if you need to shout.

        2. N2N, this is horrible to hear. Please do not lose hope; even later in life, it is just a bad patch and things will improve. You are a valuable person wherever you go; we cannot afford to lose men like you.

        3. Hi Tom,a ring round your local sheltered housing groups might help many have unpopular studio units that are hard to let but are perfectly adequate and at reasonable rents.,Mine is fine

          At one point I thought my next address was going to be
          The Scruffy Sleeping Bag
          Council Office Steps
          I got through it and I’m sure you can too
          Non Illigittimi Carborundum Mate

        4. Tom, you have many many friends here.
          Please do not despair. If you want a chat Geoff and Garlands have my email address.

        5. Don’t do anything rash, Tom. I have to leave the house this instant for a very important series of meetings, but will reply as soon as I get back. Hang on in there, friend.

        6. Tom, as promised, after an extremely busy day I am now back at home and here are a few comments which I hope will be helpful. I myself have in the past suffered from clinical depression and I know how it feels when you can’t see even the faintest glimmer of a speck of light at the end of the tunnel. But please don’t take any irrevocable steps; there is a way out of this terrible prison. Here is a list of what I have found helpful in the past:

          (1) Seek help (available 24/7) from The Samaritans – they are good and non-judgemental listeners.

          (2) Seek help from your GP. I know that swift GP appointments are hard to get these days, but drugs – especially SSRIs (Selective Seratonin Re-uptake Inhibitors) – are much better than any medication available in the mid-20th Century. They do take some time to “kick in” and often it is a case of trying different ones until you find one which your body can accept. GPs can also refer you to a psychotherapist and often Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) will help.

          (3) Many “self-help” books are useful and I found that “Depression – The Way Out Of Your Prison” by Dorothy Rowe is excellent.

          (4) Remember that many NoTTLers on this site are incredibly supportive when Churchill’s “Black Dog” strikes. As an example, Lady of the Lake has been having a rough time of late and has been very grateful for our empathy, support and encouragement.

          (5) Keep a “Gratitude Diary” where you can log each day a brief note of what blessings you may have, such as sunny days, friends, mobility, reasonable physical health, a little money in the bank (you posted recently that you would be able to pay a small sum to anyone able to give you a bed should you end up homeless).

          (6) When it seems that nothing of any value is happening, add to your “Gratitude Diary” what you have been able to do today, even if it is along the lines of “despite sleeping most of the day I was able to get out of bed for long enough to put the kettle on and make myself a cup of tea”. On other days you may be able to walk to the end of the road, or perhaps around the block at a later date, or say “Good morning” to someone you pass on the street. Keeping a record of these “achievements”, however small, will give you hope when you re-read them as you will see that you are making incrementally small but definite progress.

          (7) Remember that “This too will pass” and that each day you get through is one more step on the road to recovery.

          Tom, I do hope that the above suggestions will be helpful. I have not listed them to “preach” at you but as a way to hopefully get you through this very difficult and painful time of your life.

          Sincerely,

          “Elsie”.

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