Sunday 16 August: A-level fiasco reflects the Government’s wider neglect of young people

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/15/letters-a-level-fiasco-reflects-governments-wider-neglect-young/

751 thoughts on “Sunday 16 August: A-level fiasco reflects the Government’s wider neglect of young people”

  3. Nicky Morgan (or Amber Rudd) at the BBC? Baroness Harding (the useless flop from TalkTalk who has been messing up at the NHS since 2017) to take over the tens of thousands sameold sameold ex-PHE employees, probably on increased salaries in shiny new offices? I despair.

    Hancock axes ‘failing’ Public Health England

    PHE to be scrapped this week and replaced by German-style pandemic response agency

    By – Christopher Hope – CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT – 15 August 2020 • 9:30pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/15/hancock-axes-failing-public-health-england/

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZC0v0qXYAYXBZn.jpg

    1. I’ve been up to PHE a couple of times for conferences and workshops on HIV and STI monitoring. Believe me, their offices are not that shiny.

      I wonder who I’ll now have to send my monthly reports to.

      1. Are you assuming that your reports are actually read, considered and acted upon?

        ‘Morning, BSK.

  4. Hmph, 0545h – I thought I was in with a shout at writing “First” 🙁

    Morning Minty, Morning Citters

      1. Be polite, Citroen1, don’t forget to wish a Good Morning to Hands and to Bumps-a-Daisy too.

        (Good morning to all NoTTLers! I did not sleep at all last night as I decided to sleep in my birthday suit under a single sheet and spent the entire night restlessly shivering – who’d a thunk it after such a prolonged heatwave! So I am scanning today’s posts, then will retire to bed wearing my jim-jams and possible even a blanket!!!)

        1. Morning Elsie and All! I had a blinding flash back yesterday, of calling being naked as “in the nicky shaggers”! I have absolutely no idea where it came from but the expression made my sister and me giggle a lot!
          Any ideas?

          2. If you saw him walking down the street you would never guess.

            Mind you, the very pretty lass does make his dancing look better than it probably is :).

            ‘morning Citroen

          3. Not sure about that, hopon. The very pretty lass was so riveting in her moves that I forgot to watch his.

  5. Several NoTTLers watched and praised the VJ Day 75 The Nation’s Tribute on BBC1 @ 8:30 pm last night.

    I thought that the VJ Day 75 The Nation Remembers (BBC1 @ 9:30 am yesterday morning) was far more tasteful and appropriate. [Available on iPlayer; skip the first hour of Sophie Rayworth plus talking heads and start at about 10:33 am; it lasts for an hour]

    1. Do you mean to say that it went out on time, despite snooker or some other vital sport?

      ‘Morning, C1

  7. SIR – As a former chairman of the long-defunct Strawberry Growers’ Association, I sympathise with Mr Rayner. Modern strawberry varieties are bred for maximum yield and the convenience of the retail food industry. Their “wet balsawood” texture extends their shelf-life.

    Sadly, few growers will be able to offer him the experience of tasting a ripe Cambridge Favourite, or the powerfully flavoured Brenda Gautrey that preceded it. I remember old timers who lamented the decline of the Royal Sovereign, which they claimed was the “strawberrybest” of all. Never again will that lovely, strawberry-scented air waft off the fields of Kent, Cambridgeshire and Worcestershire at the height of the picking season.

    Tom Bliss
    Sleaford, Lincolnshire

    Even better are wild strawberries. There are lots in a small area near here and I’m not going to tell anyone precisely where. {:^))

        2. My late husband Olaf Bloodaxe the Great, now gone to Valhalla – may Zeus rest his soul, used to call me his “real hot Tomato”, bless him.

          CORRECTION: For “Zeus” read “Odin” – with thanks to Peddy.

          1. Buenos dias, Elsie.

            No tienes razon.

            Zeus was the leader of the Greek gods. I think you want Odin.

          2. You’re quite right, Peddy. (Good moaning, btw.) I knew there was a good chance of being wrong, but couldn’t quite remember the name Odin. Who, incidentally, was the Number One God of the Romans? Was it Apollo? Or was that just a rocket ship?

          4. By Jupiter! I think you’ve got it! (Now I think I’m getting my Rodgers and Hart mixed up with my Lerner and Loewe.)

          5. Thanks for the upvote, ashes and dust. At least one other NoTTLer knows their musicals!

    2. We have wild strawberries – lots of them. To pick a decent mouthful takes quite a while, as they are so tiny.

  8. Belarus’s leader pleads for Putin’s help as post-election protests grow. 16 August 2020.

    The embattled Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has called on Vladimir Putin to help him quell the growing wave of protest inside the country, which has left his legitimacy in tatters and his regime facing its biggest crisis since he first came to power 26 years ago.

    Lukashenko appealed to the Russian president’s visceral fear of revolution at home and suggested that if his regime fell, Putin too was in danger. “This is a threat not just to Belarus … if Belarusians do not hold out, the wave will head over there too,” he said in televised remarks to a meeting of advisers on Saturday, claiming that the protests were organised by shadowy figures from abroad.

    I’ll bet Vlad was really pleased to hear all this! He has problems with his own Far East and now has this Fat Communist Moron who in twenty years of rule has failed to improve anything now threatening his own people with Russian intervention. What a choice! Belarus is vital for Russia’s strategic security and yet to interfere would be a diplomatic and political catastrophe. What will Vlad do? My guess is nothing. This is the least painful course.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/15/belarus-leader-pleads-for-putins-help-as-post-election-protests-grow-lukashenko

      1. Hopefully. The alternative is instability in Central Europe and we know how that goes.

  9. Think Hiroshima was monstrous? You’ve forgotten the monsters it stopped
    Rod Liddle – Sunday August 16 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    On the morning of August 6, 1945, as the first atomic bomb detonated 2,000ft above the city of Hiroshima, Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army was still busily going about its work, murdering civilians and captured enemy soldiers through the most bestial, almost unimaginable, “medical experiments”. These included live vivisections, drilling through prisoners’ skulls, gassing, injecting with pathogens and using flame-throwers on women tied to stakes.

    An estimated 580,000 people — mainly Chinese and Korean, but also Russians and Americans — were killed in such ways. The dedicated workers of Unit 731 referred to their victims as “logs”, or, when writing up their reports in scientific journals, “Manchurian monkeys”. Their activities ceased after Nagasaki was obliterated by the second atomic bomb three days later and the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, finally agreed — despite continued opposition from within the military — that his country should surrender.

    Japan had previously shown no inclination to surrender. With the ruthlessness, cruelty, derangement and monomania typical of a fascist state, it intended to continue fighting until everyone was dead. Even the Russian invasion of Manchuria did not convince Japan’s top brass that defeat was inevitable. Okinawa may have fallen, but the Japanese were still torturing British and American prisoners of war, murdering civilians and preparing to sacrifice every last citizen for the sake of pride.

    The death toll from Nagasaki and Hiroshima was approximately 200,000 (to use one of the higher estimates). Multiply that by 20 and you might begin to approach the Japanese and American death toll if those bombs had not been used.

    Last week we commemorated the dead of those two Japanese cities. Quite rightly so. My argument is not that nuclear weapons are “nice”, even if the residents of Japanese-held Manchuria, and our prisoners of war, might have regarded them as wholly benevolent. It is simply that with every year that goes by our grip on the realities of history seems to diminish and the Second World War is reduced, in the imaginations of the truly ignorant, to a square-up between two blocs of equal malignance.

    This process is encouraged in a climate that is relentless in its prosecution of the West, and especially America and the UK, for real or imagined crimes. Sure enough, it is no great surprise when Labour’s idiotic former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, refers to those atomic bombings as American “atrocities”. But I would bet that a good proportion of the party he once led, and an even larger number of kids on college campuses, might argue the same, given the non-judgmental rubbish they are fed. As the author and former Tory MEP Daniel Hannan said of the social justice youngsters who denounced Winston Churchill as a racist: “Just wait until they hear about the guy he defeated!”

    This view of history, of reality, is so berserk as to be almost beyond belief. And yet it is terribly au courant. History is stripped of its context and perspective and instead marshalled into an assault on people who were, like it or not, the good guys. For all their manifest failings and their own misdemeanours, unequivocally the good guys.

    Which is why it rankles when the BBC’s coverage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki mentions the how and the what, but forgets entirely about the why. It presents an endless parade of understandably quite upset Japanese people, but no survivors from the Unit 731 camps or the prison camps.

    America won the race to construct an atomic bomb because it was a liberal democracy to which the best scientists in the world fled, such as the Italian Enrico Fermi and the Hungarian Leo Szilard. It had the flexibility within government (as well as the cash) to pursue the project, even if many politicians and militarists doubted its efficacy.

    Germany and Japan were also pursuing the atomic bomb. Both failed. In Germany’s case it was at least partly because of the victimisation of brilliant Jewish physicists, the repellent nature of the Nazi regime deterring scientists such as Niels Bohr from co-operating, and an inflexibility among the Nazi high command.

    Fascism is not merely repulsive, it is also ineffective, when push comes to shove. That seems to me a slightly more cheering lesson to be gained from the Hiroshima commemorations.

    Boris defends schools record

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F5ca99748-def9-11ea-a18f-15f41f6d2fa7.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1022

    What a peace of work
    Can anyone explain why Barack Obama won the Nobel peace prize?

    The official citation suggests he was a kind of angel of diplomacy, tact and understanding. Yet he exacerbated the war in Afghanistan, totally misread the Arab Spring, launched a disastrous intervention in Libya and botched, hopelessly, talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the magnificently unpleasant Donald Trump has just brokered a truly historic concordat between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

    It would be fun to hear the Donald’s acceptance speech. But somehow, you know, I doubt it will happen.

    The neologisms we actually need
    New words in the Oxford English Dictionary are the subject of a quiz that is now very popular on social media sites. You have to guess the definitions of words such as “nomophobia” (fear of being without your mobile phone) and Jafaican (white English person speaking in the manner of a Jamaican, for which another description is “tosser”). Here are some words that are not in the OED this year, but could be next year:

    ● Hancock (noun, verb, adj): to bugger up spectacularly. As in “You’ve made a complete Hancock of this.”

    ● Barnarding (verb): to drive to a market town in order to see if you are blind

    ● Dostoyevskying (verb): The act of positioning your laptop during a Zoom meeting to show highbrow books on your shelf, rather than back copies of Razzle and Katie Price’s autobiography.

    Principled? Spin us another one, DJ
    When a BBC reporter recently used the n-word during a broadcast, the Beeb received more than 18,000 complaints. The outgoing director-general, Lord Hall, made a sincere apology and admitted a mistake had been made. But not before DJ Sideman, presenter of the urban music station Radio 1Xtra, had made a principled resignation, saying he could “no longer look the other way”.

    I wonder what way he — and Lord Hall, for that matter — usually looks? The 1Xtra playlist contains plenty of tracks that use the forbidden word, including Pop Smoke’s The Woo: “She want a woo n****” and Megan Thee Stallion’s Girls in the Hood: “You’ll never catch me calling these n****s daddy”.

    The term that springs to mind in response is “double standards”.

    1. Which is why it rankles when the BBC’s coverage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki mentions the how and the what, but forgets entirely about the why. It presents an endless parade of understandably quite upset Japanese people, but no survivors from the Unit 731 camps or the prison camps.

      This is just one example of the shortcomings of the BBC (which I no longer watch) which make you wonder why it has not been axed or at least defunded. Why is that exactly?

      1. Not that they regularly report lies, it’s more subtle thaan that. By omitting information, they skew the story the way they want, yet if accused, can say “We didn’t have time to include everything”.
        Clever. They learned from the Soviets and Narsties, and are much better as a result.

        1. David Sedgwick’s book “The Fake News Factory” lays out exactly how the bBC ‘report’ events to fit their mindset. No wonder they spent time ‘helping’ Amazon to delay the release date of review copies and/or any positive reviews from when it finally went on sale.

          David Sedgwick laid out their interference in a couple of articles on Going-Postal.com.

          It’s bad enough that the bBC’s 22,000 strong News and Current Affairs Dept. skews the newz, but the manhours spent camouflaging their chicanery would be enough to man a legitimate news gathering operation.

          I’m so glad I stopped funding their newz circus.

          1. The BBC staffing could be divided by 4 and still do a good job if that was their intention. Many of the BBC website headlines take you to the website of a local paper where you have to go through the privacy/cookies baloney. That is a swizz.

          2. I translate the oft used ‘the bBC has learned’ or ‘sources say’ to mean that a bBC churnalist has lifted the ‘news’ from their Twitter feed (or another news site).

        2. The recent programme blaming Churchill for the deaths in the Indian famine of 1943 was a case in point.

    2. Last night I sat and watched The Fog of War, which is Robert S. McNamara’s commentary on events from WWII, the Vietnam War and many other things – surprisingly absorbing.
      However, he did remark about the quantity of Japanese cities that were fire bombed prior to dropping the first Nuclear bomb. He posited that if the USA had lost the war then they would have been tried as war criminals.
      My view is that clearly the Japanese were not prepared to surrender, even though so many cities had ben destroyed – the Nuclear option was absolutely necessary and possibly saved 10 million lives.

      Here are articles giving the facts and figures;

      Fire bombed cities:

      http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html

      Estimated deaths if nuclear bombs not used:

      http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html

      The re-writing of history by SJWs and the emotionally woke children aided by the MSM needs fighting at every turn. It will be a losing battle but we should all still try.

      1. Also, you have to consider that Stalin was willing to invade Japan, and he wasn’t concerned about loss of life, just gaining territory.

        1. It’s the only way socialism/communism can continue – it has to continually expand to keep it’s people fed.

      2. The bombing of civilian targets, the indiscriminate bombing of cities came about because those flying the bombers could not hit precise targets such as factories and military installations. At the start of the war they could barely find the cities.

    3. “ Can anyone explain why Barack Obama won the Nobel peace prize?”

      No – it was a total crock of sh1t and just proved how PC and irrelevant the awards had become.

      The Treaty that Trump has arranged between the UAE and Israel is truly historic yet the MSM are strangely quiet about it. If Obama had made such a treaty rather than giving $billions to one of the biggest terrorist supporting, nutcase regimes then he might have deserved an award. As it isTrump has succeeded again whereas Obama was one great big fraud and failure (AKA the T.Blair Syndrome).

      1. This is the first I had even heard about this treaty! Obama would be canonised by now had he achieved anything similar.

    4. Thank you. The USSR opportunistically declared war on Japan, and if Stalin had been quick off the mark he could have invaded Japan and then divided the spoils, vide North & South Korea, East & West Germany.

    5. Thanks for posting, C1. I doubt that many of our generation expect anything other than distortion and omission from the BBC. Personally I made a point of avoiding their Hiroshoma and Nagasaki programmes because I simply didn’t trust them to ‘tell it like it was’. This is nothing new, of course, as their smug “We know best” attitude charges headlong towards the buffers. De-funding cannot come soon enough.

      1. Edit: I see from yesterday’s Murdoch Rag (Waitrose version) that Kipling was dropped from VJ programmes, the race card having been played by some over-sensitive wilting flower or other. I feel that it is now my turn to be smug; my decision to avoid the BBC’s tripe has been vindicated.

      2. Edit: I see from yesterday’s Murdoch Rag (Waitrose version) that Kipling was dropped from VJ programmes, the race card having been played by some over-sensitive wilting flower or other. I feel that it is now my turn to be smug; my decision to avoid the BBC’s tripe has been vindicated.

    6. While we are contemplating presidential Nobel prizes, perhaps we could cast our minds to two disreputable Republican hawks Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan who between them ended the Vietnam War and brought entente cordiale between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. It was the ever-so-worthy J.F.Kennedy that started the Vietnam War and came within a whisker of declaring war on the Soviet Union in 1962, and it was the saintly Jimmy Carter who in 1980 was talking seriously about a “limited nuclear war” in Europe.

      1. In 1970 I had a colleague who was in the TA and went on annual exercises that were war games. He said that the British Army of the Rhine had enough ammunition and resources to fight the Soviets for about six weeks. When they ran out of conventional weaponry they would then have used nuclear weapons. The presumed battlefield was Northern Germany. I would suppose an attempt would be have been made to contain the war to Europe, although at that point restraint would be in short supply.

      2. Irony of life, dates back at least to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
        President Trump is not everyone’s cup of tea, but he met with North Korean leader, risky diplomacy that may not bear fruit for twenty years.

    7. The way to end a war – as no one really wins them – is through overwhelming, absolute brutality. No exceptions, slaughter everything as cruelly as possible. Destroy the enemy’s will to fight.

      Obama won the peace prize for the same reason the EU did – despite Bosnia, Kosovo, Ukraine and all the other nations it’s expansionist arrogance has ruined – for political egotism.

    1. Good morning.
      We had heavy rain in the small hours and I picked up a couple of very distant rumblings at about 2:30ish.

    2. Sunny night here, much dew this morning. Cockerels and deer (bizarrely, bright orange…) about at 05:?? or so.

    3. ‘Morning, Peddy. Still no ‘proper’ rain in yer E Sussex, although once again we are promised some this afternoon and evening. At least the air is cooler and fresher this morning, although my lawns – such as they are – have decided that desert status is the only way to go.

    4. I thought you lived in Cambridge, Peddy, not in Flor… oh, Torrents! Sorry, my mistake.

    1. 322598+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      We have had the peoples army OG1 this looks very much like a topping up daily of the politico’s army that has been on the rise for decades.

      Could very well be the LLC coalition party are readying for a serious assault on the polling booth using foreign mercenaries & establish a firm bridgehead in one large town or city with own laws etc,etc say a Mecca in the midlands.
      Funny OG1 I was thinking the very same.

  13. Life lived by algorithms…….Morning all.

    SIR – I feel profoundly moved by the plight of those young people disappointed by the low grades they have unexpectedly been given, and their consequent heartbreak over missing out on the course and university of their choice.

    Over the past five months they have been deprived of so much: their education, the companionship of their peers, the opportunity to experiment and take risks – all vital experiences on the path to adulthood.

    This situation has had a far greater impact on young people whose families do not necessarily have the means – financial, intellectual or organisational – to support them. And all young people must feel let down by this Government.

    I hope that educational bodies will do everything they can to help this cohort.

    Janet Havercroft

    Oxford

    SIR – Boris Johnson claims that the A-level algorithm is the fairest system. Yet the admissions tutor at the university I can’t now join – having had my predicted grades of ABB reduced to CCD – says I have been “grievously impacted by the injustice of the way grades have been calculated”.

    Advertisement

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    Can the Prime Minister explain to me how the fairest system is one in which an algorithm, in the name of normalising my school’s performance, ruins my grades without any regard for me, my abilities or my wellbeing?

    Hannah Pamplin

    Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

    SIR – As a former teacher, I know how easy it is for the grading of pupils’ work to become subjective.

    An examiner marking A-levels will have no built-in opinions about individual students, and the marking will consequently be fairer. But that is not the case with predicted grades.

    The A-level algorithm was not perfect, but at least it was objective. It is true that there have been disappointments among this year’s cohort, but there have been many successes, too. Most students will be moving on to higher education at the university of their choice.

    There has been a rush to declare the results a catastrophe. In fact they are very similar to those of previous years, if not better.

    David Kidd

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – Why is there no discussion of the daft decision to cancel exams in the first place?

    They could easily have gone ahead in the empty halls of closed schools. It felt like the wrong decision at the time and so it has proved.

    We need to be generous to this year’s school-leavers. None of this was their fault.

    David Goodwin

    Lewes, East Sussex

    SIR – Gavin Williamson: soft on teachers’ unions, tough on pupils.

    Anne Cattermull

    London SW17

    1. If the algorithm, as it seems to, puts a lt of weight on the school’s average performance, what about the isolated brilliant pupil, or the dumbo? I guess they get average grades as well. So, if everybody is to get average, then why attend school at all? Where’s the incentive for teachers to do a good job and actually learn the little blighters something? This algorithm is, and will be, a disaster. I feel for those drastically marked down because they are bright in a school of thickos.

      1. They should have sat the exams, as children in other countries did. The problem with Britain is that too many idiots get into positions of power!

      2. The brilliant pupil at a previously poorly performing school is penalised, and the dumbo in a well-run school gains unfairly. No system can be perfect, especially at the moment.

        However, applying the algorithm tries to level out the overall situation. I know teachers who worked very hard, using guidelines whose acronym I forget, to get a realistic set of results for their school. Other teachers and schools didn’t do this hard work; it’s tempting to overegg the pudding when you get your pupils’ gratitude and the school’s reputation goes up.

        The algorithm is an attempt to ensure that those who followed the second path above don’t get away with it.

        Or at least, that’s what I am given to understand.

          1. No, I’m afraid I don’t. I was just passing on what I understood, rather than defending it per se. Sorry.

          2. Actually, I’m sorry that I came over so abruptly. We seem to be handing over decision making to people who compile algorithms of unknown provenance and dubious value. They don’t see to produce decisions, or outcomes that please anybody. I think that this is happening because those in positions of responsibility are shirking their duties.

          3. Oh, no worries. You’re right. Logical corollary of the attempts to root out humans favouring certain other humans – the tick-box culture and leaving the decisions to an algorithm.

    2. The exams couldn’t have gone ahead as there hasn’t been the same teaching across the cohort. Some children have had engaged, interested parents, others have not.

  14. SIR – Why is the Government imposing a quarantine on people arriving from France when it does not have the resources required to enforce this?

    Public patience is wearing thin 
with these knee-jerk and largely pointless measures. If people decide to ignore the restrictions (and it seems many of them already do), perhaps this will result in a step towards the normality that our economy so desperately needs.

    Al Matthews

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – In last Sunday’s letters, David Curtis-Brignell asked why an overseas holiday was seen as a right, while Chris Balderston suggested that all travel (except for emergencies) should be banned.

    We are among the many people whose children and grandchildren all live overseas, and have been effectively prevented from seeing them for the foreseeable future. We have not yet met our two-month-old granddaughter in real life (Zoom is a poor substitute).

    Some travel is not simply a luxury.

    Tim Guest

    Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland

    1. Yes Mr Guest, it is. It always will be.

      The current crop of governments want desperately to limit where you can go and how far by making travel costs prohibitive.

      As it is, the very idea that you can go on holiday as you please in this environment is absurd given that you don’t know if you’ll be able to get home again.

      Mr Matthews, the state *does* have the resources it wants. It simply spends whatever it wants regardless because it doesn’t pay the bills. Normality is a long, long way off because ‘normal’ removes the power the state has grown to like.

  15. SIR – On Thursday, I phoned my GP surgery (Letters, August 9) to ask about my annual ear syringe.

    I was told that this service was not being carried out because, as a result of Covid-19, it was not considered essential.

    I could, however, contact Specsavers, which is apparently able to perform the procedure.

    David Sampson

    Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

    1. I use a bic biro top as an ear spoon. Vikings used ivory ear-spoons, so precedent exists. Very effective it is, too.

        1. Why do people always think that one will RAM the thing right through one’s head? It is possible to fell the way down the ear canal, scraping as you go – and stopping before reaching the other side.
          In any case, not much danger of digging brainz out… :-((

      2. Morning, Paul.

        Make your mind up, is it a ‘Bic’ or is it a ‘Biro’? [two separate companies manufacturing ball-point pens, a device invented by the Hungarian, László József Bíró]. 😉

    2. I read not that long ago that GP surgeries had stopped providing ear syringing on the NHS & were charging £50 for the Spaß. Nothing to do with Covid.

  16. Morning again

    SIR – I am appalled by the recent calls to extend the furlough scheme beyond October.

    On top of its monumental cost – which will affect millions of workers who didn’t stop after the pandemic hit – there is the damage it does to productivity.

    I know of several young people who are shopping and going to the pub but not going back to work, as they are entitled to their daily wage without making any effort.

    While the scheme may have helped to cushion the initial blow of coronavirus, it needs to end in order for the country to return to some kind of normality.

    Luiz Eduardo Peixoto

    London W9

      1. One wonders how long it can carry on without money, and now increasingly without taxpayers too!

  18. Radio 4 in gender row after it made male character a woman in adaptation. 15 August 2020.

    BBC Radio 4 has been criticised for taking one of the most famous stories by Albert Camus, The Plague, and changing its lead character from a man to a woman.

    The station said it was reflecting “the expectations of the world that we live in today” by making Dr Brieux female, as the world has many women doctors.

    The play, broadcast last week, was adapted by Neil Bartlett from the original text. Camus wrote his novel in 1947, using a rat-borne plague as an allegory for fascism.

    Camus gave Dr Brieux a wife and this was retained in the Radio 4 production, with the doctor played by an actress, Sara Powell.

    So the doctor not only changed sex but became a Lesbian as well? This is quite blatant PC propagandising in itself and is reason alone for defunding the BBC!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/radio-4-gender-row-made-male-character-woman-adaptation/

      1. Hmmm? It’s not shoddy. It’s deliberate misrepresention of some one else’s work!

        1. Sorry, perhaps I didn’t explain myself well. Evidence of mediocre brains capable of producing only shoddy work.

      2. I’d put up with that (I don’t have to watch it, after all), if only I didn’t have to pay for it.

      1. I still call that country in Africa KEEN YA rather than the modern pronunciation KEN YA.

  19. Man killed by leaping mackerel. 16 August 2020.

    An Australian man has been killed by a mackerel after the fish leapt from the sea into a fishing boat and struck him on the chest.

    The 56-year-old man was fishing with family and friends in Darwin Harbour, in the Northern Territory, on Friday when the incident occurred.

    Northern Territory Police said the fish “launched itself into the boat” and hit the man, who was rushed to nearby Cullen Bay jetty. Paramedics attempted to revive him but were unable to save his life.

    Holy Catfish Batman. Even the Fish are hostile!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/man-killed-leaping-mackerel/

    1. Apart from sharks and crocodiles there are few creatures that want to kill you to eat you.

      The thing about Australia is how many creatures there are that just want to kill you.

      2. So that’s why today’s chip shops serve such enormous portions of chips – they are expecting deliveries of similar-sized fish.

      3. Cripes. I couldn’t get that soused.
        I’ve just remembered; mackerel hang around sewerage outflows. Does that say something about the Oz diet?

  20. A moist and tepid ‘morn all, my thought for the remains of the month:-

    “The only function of economic/climate/A level grade forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

    with apologies to John Kenneth Galbraith.

  21. Morning, Campers. (Don’t Touch The Roof!!!)
    Your starter for 10. No cheating; leave your phone in another room.
    Today, in my never ending quest for personal improvement, I have learnt a new expression “gender critical”.
    Off you go ….

    1. It’s that moment in a French exam when you cannot remember whether it’s le or la with the noun.

    2. To get the job it is critical that you make the correct decision as to which gender you must pretend to be?

    3. In the mode of University Challange,
      Buzz….. VVOF, Life Lived College, “Having A Baby”
      Correct!

    4. British police forces not welcoming ‘gender critical’ job applications. 16 August 2020.

      After the candidate made clear that she did not think a person could ¬physically transition to the opposite sex, another force in the South East said her views did not constitute “the behaviours expected” and an application “would be not successful”.

      Morning Anne. A society on the path to oblivion!

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/british-police-forces-not-welcoming-gender-critical-job-applications/

    5. It’s the same as GCF which is used by TIRFs to describe TERFs, which is considered offensive by some. I hope that makes it a little clearer.

  23. My suspicion is that the wrecking of the economy and the state-sponsored panic of these times has killed more people than Covid ever did. 15 August 2020.

    A paper submitted to the Government’s own scientific advisory group, SAGE, estimated that 16,000 people had died up to May 1, thanks to missed medical care following the shutdown of the country. They suggested another 26,000 could die by next March for the same reason.

    If these figures are right (and I believe they will be vindicated by hard research), the Government’s flailing panic killed two people for every three who died of coronavirus – and that is assuming the Covid death figures are not inflated.

    The scale of this error is so great that the mind turns away from it. Add to it the slow but relentless destruction of the economy and the catastrophe in the schools, and you have even more to weep over.

    Bit by bit, people are finding out what a recession actually means in terms of lost jobs, busted businesses and ravaged pensions. This is all now inevitable, and only weeks away. Meanwhile, thousands of teenagers have been robbed of an essential part of their education, which they can never get back.

    Thanks to bungles piled on top of folly, they now face stupid injustice, broken hopes and the cold face of bureaucracy. Those responsible for this have a terrible load on their consciences.

    Morning everyone. This was of coursed noticed by NoTTL way back while the worst is yet to come. It will be found over the next year or so that the UK economy has been destroyed and the hopes and lives of millions of its people with it. This will be covered up with stories and distractions about Foreign Enemies by a compliant MSM and with the Lies that now flow so readily from the lips of those in Power. None of them any longer feel any need to tell the Truth about anything. They just make it up as they go along. Reality unfortunately sees no need to deal with fantasy. Eventually it will all come crashing down with catastrophic consequences. It will probably be the end of the UK as we have always understood it to be. The final extinction of Democracy and Representative Government and the imposition of a ruthless Islamic Tyranny.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8631149/PETER-HITCHENS-state-sponsored-panic-times-killed-people-Covid-did.html

    1. “the imposition of a ruthless Islamic Tyranny” sounds like a Senior Civil Servant’s dream – to have a fully compliant, submissive, obedient population and no awkward bu99ers to administer.

      Mr J Warner’s latest article in the DT which I hope Michael will post in full makes for sobering reading as does this BLT comment from the DT Letters page.

      Sorry to be a tad gloomy on this somewhat gloomy day but I do wish you and everyone Good Morning.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95bec21bfaf9d3d89794e1132cebb9f5a28ef1de060eb6adc5a260fefe62b736.png

  24. As requested by Stephenroi…

    What has become of Britain that it cannot get its Covid strategy right?

    Taking back control is all very well, but it assumes a Government with the competence and authority to use it

    JEREMY WARNER – 16 August 2020 • 5:00am

    OK, I admit it. I feel sorry for Gavin Williamson, our hapless Education Secretary, and have some sympathy for the difficulty of his position. But the fiasco of last week’s A-level results was a train crash that could be seen coming a mile off.

    Cruelly compared to Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, and thrust into a position for which he is plainly unsuited, Mr Williamson is somehow symbolic of everything that has gone wrong in the Government’s Covid response. At one and the same time, this has managed to be confused, contradictory, disproportionate and on the hoof from the start.

    But even by the standards of the past six months, last week was quite something, with calamity piled on calamity. We started with some truly shocking labour market data and yet another overhaul of the Government’s repeatedly failed test, track and trace efforts.

    Moving on, we were then revealed to have had the worst economic downturn of any country in Europe, and indeed comparable economy anywhere in the world. Somewhere in the middle was a little bit of positive news when a statistical adjustment revealed that the UK had a somewhat lower Covid death rate than previously recorded, albeit still up there at the top of the international league table. But then such was the stink about A-level grades, that someone seems to have thought it a good day to bury the further bad news, and announce a whole series of quarantines to add to our sense of imprisonment.

    Apparently the determining threshold, revealed out of the blue along with the French quarantine, is an infection rate of 20 per hundred thousand. It might have been nice to have been told that before. Given that the infection rate in some areas of the UK is higher, shouldn’t we be quarantining those who have been there when they move around the country too?

    Some of the local lockdown rules are equally barmy. If you live in Bradford, for instance, you are not allowed to have people round to your home, or visit people outside the area at their homes, but seemingly you are allowed to go to the pub outside the affected area and socialise freely within distancing rules. You can also go the pub within your area provided you don’t interact with those outside your bubble. This makes no sense.

    Williamson was no doubt let down by his officials, and the policy they constructed for him, but the buck stops at the top; the exam grade shambles was easily foreseeable and ultimately down to him and the rest of the Cabinet. The truth is that schools should never have been closed in the first place, which by the way would also have made it much easier for parents to return to work. In any case, pupils should have sat exams.

    These judgments are perhaps all very well with the benefit of hindsight, but as with much else to do with Covid, other countries seem to have handled things a good sight better.

    In Germany, after some debate among the country’s 16 regions, exams went ahead regardless. Even in countries which did cancel exams, such as the Netherlands, the process of awarding marks – which in Holland’s case was on the basis of course work and prior tests that pupils were allowed to retake if they wanted – passed without any of the same controversy that has plagued the UK.

    There was plenty of time to plan for this, but yet again we seem to have got it wrong, the biggest unfairness of the lot being that well performing schools – many of them private – had predicted grades broadly supported, but many poorly performing state schools were marked down.

    Of late, I’ve been more positive than most about prospects for the UK economy, taking the view that a relatively strong, V-shaped recovery is still eminently possible. Sorry to say that this somewhat Pollyannaish view is not supported by the Government’s persistent wrong-footedness.

    I’m not one of those who think we should simply have let the virus rip, but having seemingly adopted that view initially, the Government then belatedly changed its mind, and has been all over the place ever since. A more targeted approach, supported by robust test and trace, was plainly the way to go, but it has eluded us from the start. The curiosity of all this is that the perceived risk from the virus was understandably high at the start, when we didn’t know a lot about it.

    We now understand it better, and have got much better at treating it. The risk is correspondingly much lower, yet we are still approaching the problem as if it was still high. It’s all the wrong way around. These failings are not just down to the apparatus of the state, but to political leadership.

    Blanket lockdown measures have mercifully been lifted, but we’ve ended up instead with a continued zero risk policy that the Prime Minister has characterised as “whack-a-mole”. This is actually a more apt description than he might care to admit, because the game of whack-a-mole consists of ineffectively trying to annihilate a harmless irritant that then pops up somewhere else – much unnecessary exertion for only the occasional success.

    The new quarantine rules seem to epitomise that approach. The French infection rate is admittedly nearly double our own, if you can believe either figure, but in both cases the numbers are so low as to be of only marginal significance.

    Again, it makes little sense. Just as the airline and tourist industries were beginning to show signs of life, they are grounded again. It scarcely needs saying that if this carries on, there will be no airline industry to revive. There is only so long that firms can be kept in a coma before the vital organs begin to fail.

    Many have decided not to wait until the end of furlough, and are pushing ahead with sweeping redundancy programmes regardless. The downsizing goes way beyond retail and those directly impacted by the crackdown on social interaction. Virtually every sector bar e-commerce is at it, threatening a vicious circle of beggar thy neighbour job cuts as companies collectively seek competitive advantage.

    Looming into view amid the carnage comes one Liz Truss, the International Trade Secretary, still apparently obsessed with the “disgrace” of Britain’s trade deficit in cheese. Determined to prove that an imminent trade deal with Japan is not just a carbon copy of the EU’s existing trade deal with Japan, but carries a Brexit dividend, she’s insisting on preferential tariffs for stilton cheese. No doubt she’ll get it, but in the process, she’ll likely have to concede something else rather larger. As irrelevances go when all around is falling apart, this surely deserves some sort of a medal.

    Brexit was meant to be a moment of national rebirth, then along came Covid. Taking back control is all very well, but it assumes a Government with the competence and authority to use it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/16/has-become-britain-cannot-get-covid-strategy-right/

    1. The phoney depression is coming to a close. Soon enough we will be in the real, painful thing

      This autumn, when the furlough scheme is unwound, the tsunami of job losses will hit us.

      ROSS CLARK – 15 August 2020 • 1:00pm

      Imagine that last November you had met a fortune-teller who told you – accurately as it turned out – that in the second quarter of 2020, UK GDP would shrink by 20 per cent and government borrowing would balloon to £127.9 billion.

      I know how I would have reacted: by assuming it must be the work of Jeremy Corbyn, not Boris Johnson, then on the verge of winning an 80-seat majority in December’s election.

      But even then I would have wondered how things could turn quite so bad, so quickly – Corbyn was only promising £82.9 billion a year of extra spending. Yet his promise of free broadband for all seems positively mild compared to the government subsidising the wages of 9 million workers and going halves on our pub meals.

      The cataclysmic state of the UK economy was confirmed in last week’s quarterly GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics. Covid-19 has devastated every economy, but none to the extent it has Britain’s.

      The average fall for the EU was 12 per cent – little more than half of that for Britain. But no-one should fool themselves into thinking that things are so bad that they can’t get any worse.

      The most bizarre statistic this week has been the unemployment figure which, at 3.9 per cent, is still stuck near a 45 year low. How can you have a 20 percent contraction in the economy without a rise in unemployment?

      Because, thanks to the fools’ paradise that is the furlough scheme, the tsunami of job losses has yet to hit us. But it will do this autumn, when the furlough scheme is unwound. Add several million unemployed, and the 20 percent contraction in the economy is going to look a little less abstract.

      It is not just the economy. Deaths from Covid 19 may have slowed to a few dozen a week, but the real human misery is yet to come: the deleterious health effects of long-term unemployment, the toll from cancers and other health conditions which went undiagnosed and untreated during lockdown, not to mention the cost of being a poorer country than we otherwise would have been.

      Last month the Department for Health and Social Care quietly published an analysis of the cost of Covid-19 and lockdown. In terms of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), it concluded, lockdown will eventually cost more life-years than the disease itself (although it argued that Covid-19 would have killed far more people had we not had lockdown).

      If you think the past ten years were an age of ‘austerity’, it is nothing compared with what is coming. Fiscally, we are on a knife edge. Few in government seem to worry about borrowing at the moment. They should.

      This year, estimates the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR), the deficit will come in at over £300 billion – more than twice the overdraft left behind by Gordon Brown after the 2008/09 economic crisis, which was seen as a great ball and chain around the nation’s ankles at the time.

      If interest rates were miraculously going to stay at zero, or even a little under zero, then, sure, we could carry on like this. But it won’t take much of a rise in interest rates for the cost of servicing the government’s debts to become an onerous burden, necessitating deep cuts to public spending which will make George Osborne’s retrenchment look like a giveaway.

      The temptation will be for the government to print its way out of a fiscal crisis. But while governments can print money, they cannot print resources. Too much of the former chasing too little of the latter, and we will be back in the 1970s when at times the cost of living was rocketing up at 30 per cent a year. Since no-one under 50 can really remember living with rampant inflation, this horror will catch most people unawares.

      It is remarkable that support for the government has remained so high through this crisis. The polls continue to show a Conservative lead in the high single figures – all after Labour hfas ditched Corbyn and replaced him with a more centrist leader.

      How can a government that has led us into the deepest recession ever, whose efforts to tackle the epidemic have failed in so many areas, possibly have shed so little support since the last election?

      The clue is in a recent comment attributed to the Prime Minister: that he would never have guessed how easy it would be to take people’s freedoms away; nor how difficult it would be to return them. A hefty section of the public is not remotely concerned by the privations nor the economic damage wrought by lockdown; only on bringing down the number of new infections and the daily death toll. Everything else can wait.

      There was a phrase we used to hear a lot at the beginning of this crisis and which remains the ruling belief of many Britons: that “lives are more important than money”.

      The fact that the two are interconnected, and that economic disaster, like disease, costs lives, does not enter into the calculation. So long as the dreaded ‘second wave’ is kept at bay then it seems all will be will be forgiven – including this week’s A-level grades fiasco.

      But for how much longer can this attitude last? Only, I guess, so long as the bailouts last. As long as Rishi Sunak is able to dig into his seemingly expansive pockets and keep coming up with the goodies, economic decline will remain an abstraction.

      So long as the Treasury can maintain the illusion that the effective unemployed still have jobs to which they might one day return, many voters will remain preoccupied with the disease. But the phoney depression is coming to a close. Soon enough we will be in the midst of the real, painful thing.

      How Boris Johnson’s government adjusts from furloughed Britain to mass unemployment on the scale of the early 1980s – if not greater – will define its legacy.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/phoney-depression-coming-close-soon-enough-will-real-painful/

      2. Some fair points but also lots of “benefits of hindsight”.

        “ Corbyn was only promising £82.9 billion a year of extra spending. Yet his promise of free broadband for all seems positively mild compared to the government subsidising the wages of 9 million workers and going halves on our pub meals.” – Not fair to compare Corbyn’s promised spending with actual spending by this government – Corbyn’s figure does not include Covid.

        “ all after Labour hfas ditched Corbyn and replaced him with a more centrist leader.”

        “more centrist” – he is only slightly more centrist because Corbyn was bat-sh1t crazy Marxist. Slimy Starmer sits on a fence well to the left of centre.

    3. So speaks a committed remainer, remaining being one of the major objectives of the current games.

    1. Love it. Sang it in concert with Yeadon Male Voice Choir – mostly old men. Superb. The choir is long gone, and most of its member too. RIP ‘Lads’, it was great to know you all.

  26. Here’s a good comment from the letters page! “On Facebook, a friend of mine posted a Photograph. It showed our new arrivals huddled over their smart phones, with Border Force in the background. Not a female in sight.
    He wrote ” This is beyond a joke. All you Wokes out there should be ashamed of yourselves. Also Boris/Priti. These young fit men are not fleeing war; they come from France, a country that does not give them free accommodation, food, TV, social visits, money, phone top up, clothing etc. Pity disabled UK ex-servicemen don’t get any of that. And even then they have the ungratefulness to complain” How much more of this do we have to suffer. Priti Patel get it sorted !!    “

    1. Why would the Left feel shame? They *want* these illegal wasters here. It annoys us, so they feel good.

      They don’t give a stuff about soldiers or the homeless. The former in their view shouldn’t exist the latter are ‘da fault of da evul torreeees’ – ignoring the fact that the massive explosion in tax was followed swiftly by an even bigger expansion in public sector trougher salaries and that left nothing for those for whom taxes were for.

      The Left like that. They like a bg, powerful expensive state. They like that normal people are overrun wth gimmigrants. They aren’t the ones paying the price for these characters. Usually they’re the ones directly profiting from massive, uncontrolled illegal immigration.

    2. The invasion of the Barbarians . They should be sent back to where they came from .

      I hope they are tested for drugs , sex diseases , tuberculosis, etc

    3. 322598+ up ticks,
      Afternoon SB,
      Why ask when you surely know the answer ?
      The priti johnson team have got a firm grip on the situation as in BIGGER & BETTER BOATS equates to
      controlled VOTES.
      They can control any part of the country with any party
      from the lab/lib/con coalition fraternity.

      This will only continue until the lab/lib/con coalition get a large lump tore out of it’s @rse by the islamic ideology party shortly, when they devour their host party.
      Wake up it’s on the parliamentary menu.

  27. Here’s a good comment from the letters page! “On Facebook, a friend of mine posted a Photograph. It showed our new arrivals huddled over their smart phones, with Border Force in the background. Not a female in sight.
    He wrote ” This is beyond a joke. All you Wokes out there should be ashamed of yourselves. Also Boris/Priti. These young fit men are not fleeing war; they come from France, a country that does not give them free accommodation, food, TV, social visits, money, phone top up, clothing etc. Pity disabled UK ex-servicemen don’t get any of that. And even then they have the ungratefulness to complain” How much more of this do we have to suffer. Priti Patel get it sorted !!    “

  29. British poet Kate Tempest, 34, comes out as non-binary, revealing they’ve changed their name to Kae after years of ‘struggling to accept myself as I am’. 16 August 2020.

    Hello old fans, new fans and passers by – I’m changing my name! And I’m changing my pronouns. From Kate to Kae. From she/her to they/them.

    I’ve been struggling to accept myself as I am for a long time. I have tried to be what I thought others wanted me to be so as not to risk rejection. This hiding from myself has led to all kinds of difficulties in my life.

    And this is a first step towards knowing and respecting myself better. I’ve loved Kate. But I am beginning a process and hope you’ll come with me. From today – I will be publishing my books and releasing my music as Kae Tempest!

    Here’s another one several slices short of a full loaf!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8604823/Poet-Kate-Tempest-comes-non-binary-reveals-changed-Kae.html

    2. I am also non-binary!

      I am also non-octal, non-decimal, non-hexadecimal, non-smoking, non-homosexual, non-vegan, non-eater-of-rocket-or-rabbit, non-Liberal, non-socialist, non-Labour, non-talking bollocks, non-willing-to-be-in-the-presence-of-weirdos, non-passive-in-the-presence-of-twats-with-an-agenda-for-controlling-the-way-I-think-and-speak-and-act, non-acquiescent-whenever-I-meet-or-come-into-contact-with-such-twats, non-etc…

    4. In the past would these people have been treated for split personality and be classified as a bit mad?

      1. From Wiki.

        In November 2019, along with other public figures, Tempest signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn
        describing him as “a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent
        far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic
        world” and endorsed him in the 2019 UK general election.[23]
        In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, they
        signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership in
        the 2019 general election. The letter stated that “Labour’s election
        manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership offers a transformative plan
        that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit
        and the vested interests of a few.”[

          1. It/they has announced to the world that it has dropped the T from kate and become non-binary. As if the other 7.8 billion people on the planet give a shit.

            Bandwagoning.

        2. A beacon of hope? Laughable nonsense.

          A struggle against far right nationalism? Not remotely. There is no far Right. There is only the fascist Left.

          Corbyn offered nothing but poverty and failure. There was no interest in people in his demented policies. The only such policy that helps people is low tax, small state market capitalism. Corbyn stood for high tax, big state oppression.

          Why these Lefties are so dementedly obsessed with lying to themselves I cannot fathom, but they seem to enjoy the constant doublethink. One day they’ll grow up and realise how nuts they are. One day – else they remain perpetual children.

        3. A beacon of hope? Laughable nonsense.

          A struggle against far right nationalism? Not remotely. There is no far Right. There is only the fascist Left.

          Corbyn offered nothing but poverty and failure. There was no interest in people in his demented policies. The only such policy that helps people is low tax, small state market capitalism. Corbyn stood for high tax, big state oppression.

          Why these Lefties are so dementedly obsessed with lying to themselves I cannot fathom, but they seem to enjoy the constant doublethink. One day they’ll grow up and realise how nuts they are. One day – else they remain perpetual children.

  30. Good afternoon all
    Rainy day in these Dorsetty parts. Took the dogs out for a gallop before the rain really set in.

    I didn’t bother to buy Sunday broadsheets , I have had enough of the news ,and the parrot has enough spare paper to go on the bottom of his cage , from last week’s offerings.

    Moh and I are wondering why so many people dashed over to France , knowing there was an imminent chance of problems ahead.
    Who are all these people who have so much money to burn , I thought most people were on furlough / or had lost their jobs / working from home ?

    I saw a few photos on line of masked people getting off trains from France , many of them did not look European ..

    The government haven’t breathed a word about the illegals flowing into Britain , funny that a so called Mr Big is organising the swift import of these people in small boats , who is he , and is he a drug baron, a really bad character.. because I read that Iraqis here in the UK were responsible for people trafficking .

    If any of us wanted to get into any other country maybe the USA with out papers or money etc , we would be sent back home immediately.

    I wonder whether law and order is breaking down , I think it is . People seem to be doing what they like, speeding , fly tipping , burglary , shooting , stabbings, child murder , fraud .

    What happened to Britain when the Romans abandoned us, we were left ruined , their hard work was trashed , and they had to return to Rome because the barbarians were attacking Europe , as in turn so were we by other barbarians .

    Don’t politicians study history any longer.

    You can see tweaks to our culture just by listening to the news or watching all the rubbish programmes full of diversity ..

    As for yesterdays offerings for VJ day , I turned it off, I found it all just too unbearable ..

    How dare the BBC cavil in to that idiot singer called White .. re Kipling’s Mandalay

    ‘Sir Willard objected to the line “an wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot”,’ I’m told. ‘He felt it derogatory to people of colour.’

    Mandalay, in which Kipling imagines a British soldier fondly recalling his days in Burma, has been criticised in the past as a vehicle for colonial thought.

    Sir Willard’s manager, Julia Maynard, confirms that the star was scheduled to sing Mandalay.

    ‘Sir Willard was invited by the BBC to sing Mandalay,’ she tells me, though declining to say whether Sir Willard, 73, voiced any objections to the poem or any particular line within it. ‘In the end, another choice of song was made.’

    Why do I feel that the British are losing their grip , and we are hurtling deep into hell on earth.

    1. Steamy and dull here. Managed to get yesterday’s washing more or less dry before the rain sets in.

      No telly last night – next door neighbour came round for dinner and we had a good evening.

    2. I wonder why black people feel it is perfectly acceptible to play white parts and sing some white songs yet won’t sing other white songs and certainly won’t approve of white people playing black roles or singing black songs.

      The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

      1. He really is a bit of an arse isn’t he? As Sue E pointed out last night, he is at least a decade past his prime vocally! But hey! What does whitey’s opinion matter to the British Broadcorping Castration?

      2. The funny bit is when you see a pile of ‘diverse’ faces in historical drama. Such is insulting to history, inaccurate and deceitful, all to push an agenda.

      3. I wonder why black people just don’t bog off to their tribal lands , and their tom toms.

        WHAT have theiy contributed intellectually to the welfare of this planet.

        This SIR WILLARD WHITE has appropriated our culture .. a Sir indeed … and what is he doing singing British songs and bowing in deference to HM the Queen to be knighted , what absolute rubbish and nonsense .. the Royals will be knighting skinny priapic Somalian runners next .

    3. Afternoon Belle, accept the fact that this country needs to descend further downwards before enough voters decide enough is enough.
      It has happened before which brought about our last Conservative PM, Margaret Thatcher, it may happen again if the country is not overrun by “Methodists” by that time.
      I have told all my children and grandchildren that I consider this country lost, they should flee before the barbarians burst through the gate.
      Probably too late for me at my age, hopefully I shall have passed on before then anyway.

        1. My point is only a few making a stand has no effect, only when things are so bad will enough voters demand change at the ballot box. Then and only then will things change if it not too late by then.
          Whilst I do not disagree with your statement I can think of no other way to bring about change.

      2. Afternoon vvof

        I hear that Iceland has only 350,000 population .. If global warming is true , well perhaps there would be a reasonable place to live!

        1. Iceland…Global warming anyone?

          From Wiki.

          The Norsemen were pastoral people who relied heavily on a succession of successful farming years in order to survive. Norwegian settlers who inhabited the coasts of Iceland in the late ninth century brought their farming traditions with them.[6]

          The settlers brought sheep, cattle, horses, and goats from Norway to supply their farms with animals.[7]
          Every animal served a purpose on the farm; sheep were valuable because
          of their ability to graze outside in the winter and they provided food
          and wool.[8] Cattle supplied most of the dairy products for the farm, which were stored over winter. Cattle were also eaten.[9]

          Viking farmers relied heavily on the natural pastures that
          encompassed their farm, but also planted grain, to be harvested for
          bread and fodder.[10]

          Farming in Iceland during the Viking Age was complemented by hunting and gathering along the coast. Coastal areas facilitated fishing, whaling, and hunting.[11] Sea birds, eggs, walrus, and lichens rounded out the Viking diet.[12]
          Viking farms had a significant impact on the landscape in Iceland. Wide scale erosion began in the land-taking stages of settlement. Coupled with deforestation, this had a profound effect on the landscape of Iceland

        2. Only if we are selective and keep the rabble out, ie no politicians, press or the like.

    4. Very heavy rain and cooler. wonderful. I do not live in England to have to suffer temps. over 30c.

  32. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Gavin Williamson: soft on teachers’ unions, tough on pupils.

    Anne Cattermull
    London SW17

    Made me smile, but only briefly. The sooner this incompetent goes the way of his exams – i.e. is ‘cancelled’ – the better.

    1. I believe that the real problem that this government faces, and for that matter any government, is not so much the incompetence of the ministers, but the abject idiocy and total incompetence of their advisors, civil servants and experts.
      Far too much of these placemen’s advice appears to be politically or corruptly financially motivated, conflicts of interest and the like..

      A complete clearance of all “experts” is essential and they should be replaced with people who have a record of being correct. This applies in particular to those areas where the “science is settled or the argument is over” but the reality is that their conclusions have been utterly wrong.

      1. Morning Sos. We have entered an era where Objective Truth no longer exists. All there is are Competing Opinions. Such a world connot long endure since it will lead to endless division and complete moral collapse.

        2. ‘Morning, Minty.

          Such a world connot long endure since it will lead to endless division and complete moral collapse.

          Your opinion on how to spell ‘cannot’ competes with mine.

        3. Nothing wrong with people having competing opinions, Minty. It’s the “My opinion is right and everyone else is WRONG!” that I can’t take.

      2. I thought all Ministers had SPADs. So it seems both the CS and SPAD (s) were clueless in this instance.

      3. I agree. I doubt GW is brain surgeon material, but Gove called the DoE The Blob for a very good reasons.
        He was just getting to grips with it, when the Babbling Poltroon took fright and shoved the frightful Morgan into the top job.

  33. ‘Morning, again.

    This is a BTL comment from the Letters, and one with which I readily agree:

    “Paul Miller
    16 Aug 2020 8:29AM
    Yet another example of government incompetence. Incompetence in our governing bodies across the board is a disturbing feature of the last 10-15 years. We don’t do much properly any more – it’s a major issue which needs addressing. Why is it that our country is beset by incompetence? The malaise has to stop. We must not accept incompetence.”

    Problem is – how do we stop the rot? Increasingly, Parliament seems to attract precisely the wrong type of person, but how do we keep them out? We are frequently accused of voting for them at successive GEs, but without primaries how do we get a say in the choice of those being presented to us?

    1. Problem is – how do we stop the rot?

      We don’t Paul. We have to wait till it crashes and burns and it may incinerate us all as well!

      1. 322598+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        One way that could be tried is to use HONESTY
        in the polling booth instead of party first dangerous STUPIDITY.

          1. Apology not necessary, Minty. Italics not possible on my phone – for me, anyway. And if you think I’m padding downstairs in the all-together to fire up my PC I regret to say that further disappointment awaits you!

          2. Apology not necessary, Minty. Italics not possible on my phone – for me, anyway. And if you think I’m padding downstairs in the all-together to fire up my PC I regret to say that further disappointment awaits you!

          3. Apology not necessary, Minty. Italics not possible on my phone – for me, anyway. And if you think I’m padding downstairs in the all-together to fire up my PC I regret to say that further disappointment awaits you!

          3. Unusually for him he hasn’t responded to any e-mails; normally he replies quite quickly, even when he is taking a break from Nottle..

            I’m assuming he’s been kept in hospital without internet access and that it’s not because he’s extremely ill.

            I hope that they will finally ascertain what the cough is being caused by and sort him out properly. It’s a disgrace the way he’s been shuffled from pillar to post.

          8. Nah, he’s a Puff gay Magic Dragon. :-))

            (It’s a joke, Hugh, I’m not casting aspersions of any kind. In my book you are entitled to be straight, gay or whatever you wish to be).

    2. 322598+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Please inform the PM, ( Paul Miller ) that to play the
      ” keep the same politico’s / party in power” you MUST
      accept incompetence in ALL issues.
      It is a proven fact that we as a nation would NEVER have got to where we are today without strictly adhering to the party before Country mode of voting.
      Does PM fully realise the obvious dire danger he is putting political lifestyles in with his type of post.

    3. ‘Morning, Hugh.

      I have proffered this solution many times in the past: the ruling classes would not like it but it is the fairest system yet.

      1. All prospective candidates, from each constituency, of all parties and independents, are ‘paraded’ before that constituency’s electorate in a pre-election selection. This is to give the voters the opportunity to scrutinise them at a very deep level. Any failing this scrutiny will be summarily dismissed.

      2. Only those passing the deep constituency pre-scrutiny will be permitted to progress to the election/by-election.

      3. A safeguarding scheme should be installed whereby any elected representative falling short of representing the constituency’s wishes can be readily and summarily replaced and the selection process then starts anew, resulting in another by-election.

      4. This can be the start of replacing party political parties with independents who will then remain so, but may them group together with other like-minded MPs to vote for what is best for the country.

      Choosing candidates before they are put up for election means we would have a return to true democracy and an end to the elective oligarchy (i.e. the party system) that prevails.

      Failure to adopt this system means that corruption, which is rife in the party system, will remain in perpetuity.

        1. Right, I’ve just read up on her and, under my system, she would have been de-selected, at point 3, for going against what she was first voted in on.

          We have to be ruthless on this or else we might just as well give up and accept defeat.

          1. The lady was chosen as Conservative candidate via an open primary i.e. not just party members chose her, so many voters had a vested interest in choosing a shiite stirrer. I’m all for independence of thought, but this one was often bloody minded for the sheer sake of it.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Wollaston

          2. Which is where should she stop obeying the public then she is removed. Frankly, if most MPs were more interested in obeying their employers than climbing the greasy pole the country would be in a far better state.

            However, this must come with the caveat that only the employed net tax payer has the vote.

          3. Yes, Nursey, I have now read up on her and amended my comment (above). Under my proposed system she would have been summarily weeded out after she went against her constituencies wishes.

            This system would then be a warning to all prospective mavericks.

          4. The method is also horrendously expensive. Because everyone on the electoral roll has to be contacted, we’re talking little change out of 40,000 smackers. And that’s just the initial phase of the ‘democratic’ process.

          5. That’s easily sorted. Stop paying the members of the HoL a £300+ daily “attendance fee”.

            Nothing is free but unless you boldly go for change for the better, more of the same old, same old corruption will continue to proliferate.

        3. Good morning, Anne

          Was she a mendacious and deceitful woman before entering parliament or was she ‘turned’ once she was there?

          I am afraid that those who supported Boris Johnson at the last election have discovered just how quickly he has gone back on all they thought he stood for.

          1. Sarah Woolaston on channel four news: We need another referendum because voters are so much more informed now. Said the Conservative/Independent/Change UK/Independent/Liberal MP.

            She knows her own mind….Not.

      2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6b2OT3C9KY

        Far simpler approach: genuine, local democratic government. Step out of line, get sacked. Disobey, get sacked.

        There’s a reason the Swiss system of direct democracy works. It’s because MPs are basically part time. After all, when the public can get rid of you when you don’t do as they tell you everyone obeys. There’s no way to avoid it.

        We could try it. A bit of democracy would be a nice thing. What really needs to be smashed of course is the tombstones to failure that are government departments.

        1. In a way, Hugh, but since we don’t have any method in place in the UK to weed out the inept and corrupt, these charlatans and freebooters slide through the system like liquid paraffin.

  34. The MR is instructed to post this:

    Good morning all. I am afraid that I shall be away for some time (© Captain Oates). I have been diagnosed
    with asthma and the initial treatment – which suggested that I might be home on Saturday – was not enough. I am
    now being kept for more treatment and tests – several days of inertia interspaced with 5 minutes of hectic activity await.

    The MR is doing sterling stuff – as always – including making loaves and “tomata” using some of the Greek tomatoes
    that dear of late lamented Martyn Johnson gave me.

    KBO and don’t write to me as I have no computer or NTTL access. Thank you all for your kind messages.

    1. Our very best wishes for a speedy recovery from Rastus and Caroline.

      Keep your jaw fit! I sometimes remember these lines from Lewis Carroll’s ‘You are Old Father William‘ when I think of you and Carolyn:


      “In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
      And argued each case with my wife;
      And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
      Has lasted the rest of my life.”

    4. Time to catch up on your reading. Hope you feel better soon. And thank you for posting, Carolyn.

    5. All the best to you and the MR, Uncle Bill! Let them take care of you and come back to us fighting fit! We miss you!
      😘😃

    6. That’s very reassuring news, Bill, and thanks for thinking of all we concerned NoTTLers. Thanks also to you, the MR, for posting his note to us.

    7. Phew! We were seriously worried. Thank you for keeping us posted.
      Good luck and look forward to hearing from you when you’re feeling more chipper and back chez Thomas.

    10. Get well soon, Bill – your chirpy humour is greatly missed. Poppiesdad developed asthma in mid-life, ‘just’ coughing attacks and no wheezing. We didn’t know what it was for a long time. It was worse in damp and cool/cold atmospheres, he was much better in France. Also mould (the spores that mould gives off) made him worse, the hidden moulds like underneath and inside the powder tray in the washing machine, in the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink, it only takes a small amount. Also to bear in mind is that it has been an exceptionally bad year for hay fever sufferers and new people join those ranks every year. We all look forward to seeing you posting back here soon.

    11. WooHoo Willum
      Good to hear,I trust regular supplies of “medicine” arrive daily about 5.30

    12. Just an idle thought: have you checked/changed the cabin air filter in your new car, and the air conditioning system (if you ever use it)? Something somewhere could have triggered the asthma.

    1. Remember W.B.Yeats’s well-known observation in ‘The Second Coming‘:

      The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

      The best leaders are those who don’t want to be leaders. Boris Johnson is a prime example of somebody who was desperately eager to become prime minister but has revealed himself to be completely incompetent at doing the job.

      I would have favoured the likes of Owen Paterson and John Redwood with Nigel Farage in – rather than outside – the fold.

    1. 322598+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      The lab/lib/con no longer conceal their true intentions OG
      have you noticed, they are quite blatant, in your face with their treachery now.
      Yes, I noticed, it seems they don’t give a sh!te because
      they are very near the completion of their treacherous campaigning , or to quote from that great orator, our milkman,
      ” The end is nigh”

  38. 70’sGirly……I suspect she speaks for us all

    “Dear Ms Patel

    I feel compelled write to you, to protest in the strongest possible terms
    about the stream of illegal migrants being ferried into Dover everyday,
    by our own Border Force. Despite assurances from yourself and Boris
    Johnson that this route for entry onto our country would be made
    unviable, they continue to flood in. You are failing in your duty as
    Home Secretary to keep UK citizens safe and the country secure.

    These people are not refugees, 95% are young men. We do not know who they are
    or where they’ve come from, they are being shipped in, from FRANCE, by a
    criminal network and should be considered a potential threat to UK and
    its citizens.

    The behaviour of the French in facilitating their
    forward travel to the UK should be considered a hostile act. That Border
    Force assets are deployed to police and assist entry of unknown
    foreigners into UK is an act of national self harm. And once here, they
    are being bussed to 4* hotels, fed and watered at vast expense?! This is
    sheer lunacy.

    It is time to stand up for the rights of the
    ordinary British public, we do not want these people here, at best they
    have dubious credentials at worst they are a threat to us and our
    children. We should not be forced to accept 1000s of illegal aliens into
    our communities.

    Stop picking them up and bringing them here.
    Start intercepting them and towing them straight back to France. Any
    that do make it to UK shores should be quickly processed and deported,
    either to France or where they claim to come from. We are being taken
    for fools.

    The great British public want this stopped. They will
    be fully behind any robust action you take. If you need to change the
    law to facilitate change and put a stop to this farce, you must do so,
    and do it quickly. The govt has an 80 seat majority in HoC for goodness
    sake, what on Earth is stopping you from acting?!

    Regards”

    1. 322598+up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      I can imagine the two word reply to 70s girly …. off.
      The longer version in missal form will tell her in no uncertain manner,
      To go forth & multiply on account that they have, over the years, had their chance and gave it away, we politico’s are now in charge on entering the new world order, and the electorate are to heel & hark their local mini dictators
      orders, he/her/ it must be spoken to from a kneeling position and in a submissive manner.

      IT is quite clear that the politico’s in power do NOT give a rats arse about what anybody outside of their bent fraternity say or think they ARE PROVING IT ON A DAILY BASIS.

    4. France is in breach of international law.

      We have no need to do anything more than two these criminals back to France. We can protect our borders from invaders.

      Any pretence that we can’t is daft. I appreciate there’s legality involved but frankly, patrol international waters. Send them back. If the French navy are helping them, declare their actions as illegal. These are unwanted, murderous, rapist, criminal vermin.

      Fight back. Don’t ‘work with France’ as the frogs are the problem. When they get here, pack them into a shipping container a hundred at a time and deport them from a chinook.

    5. They will be fully behind any robust action you take.

      She’s not going to take any action except to obfuscate and delay. It is quite obvious that the Government supports this invasion else it would already be stopped!

        1. Yes I can remember her from way back on the old Telegraph Sue. She hasn’t been on here for a while!

  39. Every Sunday since he was 3, junior gets given £5 pocket money. Of that, he pays Mummy £2 in tax (which we match for his pension thingy), £1 he puts into his savings jar and he decides what to do with the rest. Usually it goes into his piggy bank and being the well organised 6 years old he is, he forgets to bring any money with him so it mostly sits there topped up by occasional raids on the Warqueen’s spare change.

    Today, in a moment of sheer delight as he paid his ‘taxes’ he said ‘Taxes are far too high. How can I save up if you take half my money?’

    Gentlefolk, my work here is done.

  40. Just had a really good Sicilian red wine with our beef lunch. I am finding Italian wine more and more appealing.

        1. Agreed. I tend towards” heavier” reds, Pecharmant rather than Bergerac for example.
          Australia is great for me, so many to choose from when we visit.

          4. If you remember the lyrics to that, you’re older than me!

            “I say, I say, I say. My dustbin’s absolutely full of toadstools!”
            “How d’you know it’s full?”
            “‘Cause there’s not mushroom inside!”

    3. I can’t get any good Sicilian reds here, Johnny. They are all to sweet and cloying. My favourite, Corvo Rosso, disappeared some years ago.
      Unfortunately, the whites aren’t worth the bother.

      1. No, we used to chill Loire reds when we were there and they were good in very hot weather.

          3. Unfortunately we guzzled it all! I was at Edinburgh Airport and we actually had a skin in the game for getting the wine back to the UK! It was very exciting until we tried it at silly-o-clock in the morning! Cue shoving it in the ‘fridge!

          5. Sorry Peddy! I’m sure that was funny but I only know ‘a red ballpoint’ in German! Could you translate please?

          11. As every year before and after. I was in London in 1982 doing what you may have been doing (as per your post lower down.). I was organising all our Beaujolais Nouveau deliveries, elephants, helicopters, timed delivery to morning parties..

          12. Ah Horace! I forgot you were with Vintners! It was quite a crazy annual event! I don’t know if it still happens but I’m a lot of years out of the business! Similarly with the Glorious12th and getting a grouse on the table! Completely ridiculous as they hadn’t been hung at all!

          13. I left the business the following year. I think Beaujolais Nouveau is still offered each year, but there is less nonsense. Less fun – I expect that may hold true for most businesses.

          14. It was fun and we tried to involve staff and colleagues within the airport. Airside, duty free, customs, special branch etc and we had prize draws to estimate the time the wine would arrive. A distinct lack of humour seems to pervade everywhere nowadays. Perhaps I never grew up!

          15. No, it’s. not you. As a society we have become more miserable, and more money-focused. Few of us live near where we work and the travelling has become frantic. Being spread out over large areas work colleagues find it difficult to come together for social occasions such as bowling nights, quizzes, mixed hockey, and the like.
            We have so much data that lots of time is now spent on trying to find the information.
            When I was analysing sales information on accountancy paper in the days before computers and spreadsheets, I had to formulate a very clear idea of what I wanted to know and how to get that information collated efficiently, before I did anything else. Key performance indicators, some of these things are now called.

          16. Ah Horace! I forgot you were with Vintners! It was quite a crazy annual event! I don’t know if it still happens but I’m a lot of years out of the business! Similarly with the Glorious12th and getting a grouse on the table! Completely ridiculous as they hadn’t been hung at all!

  41. We keep hearing that the A-level fiasco will harm the poorest students, but shirley anyone wanting to socially re-order higher education and bring in revolutionary change will make the most of what has happened to their advantage, especially with teachers giving false grade predictions.
    Has anyone considered that the powers that be have engineered this predicament for this very purpose.
    I predict that it will be the students from wealthier and native backgrounds that will suffer the most from this.

    1. I doubt it will be published, but I would like to see comparisons of grade predictions vs grades allocated:-

      by school
      with analysis of where the projections were “under” and where they were “over” at the school level

      how the pupils were treated by the algorithm to move them up or down by pupil.
      whether there was a standard move up or down all across all an individual pupil’s papers or whether they had, for sake of argument one subject moved up, one down, and one the same.
      which subjects saw the most changes, up or down.

    2. That is precisely the opposite of what initially happened in Scotland. Results of pupils from poor areas were written down, and well-off students were written up.
      The UK and Scottish Governments have shown that “government by algorithm” results in a shambolic pastiche of reality and a lot of needlessly unhappy people.

      1. Yes that is what happened, that caused a public outcry giving them the opportunity to do what they wanted all along.

    3. I cannot see that teacher estimates would have helped me with O and A levels. I did not fit the nice middle class background that was the preferred image of the grammar school and suffered because of the mismatch.

    4. Having never been especially good at exams I’m all for people being graded throughout their academic year. An exam is more an opportunity in memorising as much as you can – I’ve an eidetic memory so it’s a bit unfair.

      The bit I find annoying is that people are blaming the minister – obviously the rentamob will but the majority can’t – this comes from the department for education. It bothers me that people don’t appreciate that but then perhaps that’s a failure of their education – or a success, depending on how you look at it.

      1. Last did exams over 50 years ago, I wasn’t disappointed with the results, messed around at school quite a bit but I worked hard on revision before although I have never needed them for a job as I’ve always been self employed.

  42. From the DT “Natalie Pinkham: ‘Formula One is 88pc male and 91pc white – that’s not acceptable in 2020’

    Is there anything stopping Women developing their own alternative?

    1. The only women with access to that sort of money are already married to Bernie Ecclestone.

    5. Nothing to stop women going racing.

      I don’t recall Stirling’s sister Pat or her co-driver Ann Wisdom ever complaining that rallying was too “male” as they scooped up the prizes.

      Equal opportunity is one thing – equality of results is not a “right”.

    6. Why is it not acceptable?

      Is there evidence women have been refused work? Or is it because they’ve not applied? As for white – of course it is. This is because most of the engineering is done either here or in Germany. Both white, Western nations. AS the work is highly specialised those engineers are likely to be white men.

      Sorry lass, but demanding that you just be given a job is idiotic. Earn it. You don’t deserve it. For goodness sake, the petulant arrogance of these useless wasters is astounding.

    7. Well, if Ferrari, Lotus et al have enough cars they’re prepared to write off, just shove black female drivers in them and let them do a Lady Agatha, a la Vile Bodies.

      2. They will need a two seater bench cockpit to get both arrse cheeks in, then the acceleration is going to be a just a bit sluggish with the average sis on board. Best stick to twerking.

      3. That rules out Dawn Butler. She’d be driving around the circuit just to see if she gets stopped by Plod.

    8. Michelle Mouton was one shit-hot rally driver. Cute, too. Drove Audi, iirc.
      Are Brazilians and Argentinians black or white?

          1. I was counting those in.

            As my Chilean cousin put it: the Spanish fucked the Mapuche & the result was the modern Chilean nation.

          2. I was thinking more of Peru and Bolivia – we spent five weeks in 2005 touring with our Bolivian friends.

        1. I believe that South America imported far more slaves than North America or the Caribbean.

          Brazil was a huge importer.

  43. In the news today, a new report says that Ryanair is the most hated airline in the country.

    Ryanair has apologized to its passengers …

    and charged them a £50 Apology Fee.

  44. Good morning, my friends.

    I have just got round to reading yesterday’s excellent article by Douglas Murray about universities becoming indoctrination camps:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/britains-universities-have-become-indoctrination-camps-reckoning/

    I tried to post this comment below the article but the comments section had closed:

    I have argued for some time that there should be a compulsory course in straight thinking and logic for all pupils in the Sixth Form wishing to continue their studies at university.

    In The General Paper which I took with my “A” levels in 1964 you were given a comprehension exercise on a piece of dense prose (such as a good newspaper’s editorial) and were given a current topic and asked to put both sides of the argument.

    Today’s paper might, for example, ask you: to argue for and against BLM; for and against ‘no-platforming’ in British universities; for and against uncontrolled immigration, transgender rights …. and so on.

    It always strikes me as absurd that the Labour Party wants young people to vote at the age of 16 but is not remotely concerned by whether or not they are capable of rational, dispassionate thought – indeed it seems clear that it is considered better if they are not.

    1. Great idea, but it would be used to weed out anyone who could put forward a good case against such woke givens as BLM, climate change, immigration etc.

    2. The Labour Party and the left have always wanted the population educated sufficiently to understand the propaganda but not sufficiently to challenge it.

      1. 322598+ up ticks,
        Morning Atg,
        In view of a great many issues and how they are handled could this current,in name only,tory party be considered to be of the “left”

          1. 322598+ up ticks,
            AFG,
            Which begs the question If the answer is yes is this realised in the polling booth ?

            Ps Thanks for the no nonsense answer.

          2. No. People are tribal and only a few votes change each election in a few constituencies. As I have told you before I voted UKIP in the last 2 elections. In the last one the Dumb Libs made inroads but our MP still had an 8,000+ majority.

          3. 322681+ up ticks,
            Evening Atg,
            There lies a great deal of the trouble, peoples vying for political power for one of three parties all of which especially over the last three decades have proved to be pro eu.

            ALL this with no credible opposition party and UKIP on occasion was tactically voted against to keep them out of the closed shop.

            Peoples can have an MP showing 1/2 dozen halo’s
            over his/her / it’s head,it’s the leading honcho who counts as in major, cameron, may. johnson.
            We have two problems currently, the lab/lib/con coalition still finding support.
            Plus no organised opposing party the nearest we got was under Batten and taken down by treachery from it’s nec.

    4. Morning Rastus – the problem is you seem to have misunderstood the purpose and intent of modern education. It is not to teach people how to think but to teach them *what* to think.

      After all, if people are taught how to think then they start challenging the status quo. They realise that something isn’t right. They compare and contrast using facts rather than opinion. In short, they start to want evidence and information. The state wants to avoid that at all costs as a questioning audience doesn’t obey. Isn’t easy to control. It asks questions when hte state wants to have a soundbite believed.

      2. Think? How many think? They just follow the herd.

        Here’s todays Canadian article showing how people are unable to look at what is going on in a dispassionate manner.

        https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/it-is-like-sitting-on-a-cliff-september-schools-and-pre-traumatic-stress-disorder-in-covid-times/wcm/91a77573-a72b-4a5b-a6b4-2630d705fc0f/

        This article was published yesterday, the anniversary of VJ Day. What a contrast between what our parents went through and the blind fear and panic in todays generation.

        1. Something I’ve commented on on Tw@ter many times is the inability of many on the Left to take a step back from their emotions and examine things dispassionately, such is the way they are so emotionally bound up with their beliefs and ideals.

          1. Not sure that I agree that it is just lefties, there are many tribal believers who cannot see the failings of their leaders messages.

      1. Not all Etonians like Welby, Cameron, Johnson are a disaster but not all of them are good either.

        Matthew 7 16 – 20

        Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
        Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
        A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
        Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
        Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.>

        1. The hewing down and casting into the fire is not as easy as it sounds unfortunately. Even when they get hewn down they seem to spring back up like like an unwanted elder shrub.

        2. I greatly respect Mr Murray, but I wonder if you are aware that he might once have been labelled as a ‘fruit’?

    7. ‘Morning, Rastus.

      Yes, because if they were capable of rational, dispassionate thought, they wouldn’t vote Labour.

      2. It also explains *why* they want the voting age lowered. Such people are usually ignorant and unthinking, driven by emotion rather than reason. Look at the wailing ‘you’ve stolen my future!’ and that oafish child blaring ‘how dare you’ – well dear, if you insist on being ignorant of course I dare. You’re a child and I know better than you.

    9. The most useful instruction that I received at Hatfield Poly was a brief series of sessions on the library system. In the few hours available the librarian went way beyond explaining the dewey classification and tried to instill a passion for books and literature into a cynical group of spotty faced science students.

    2. The answer is yes – I usually manage to get it switched to that first when I’m trying to put screws in!

  46. There is an article in the DT today: “Lebanon is doomed unless the deadly stranglehold of Tehran can be broken”.

    But it is reported elsewhere, regarding Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, during a visit to Beirut: “Zarif slams help to Lebanon from foreign countries that ‘impose their conditions’”

    Naturally, Iran hasn’t imposed any conditions, other than being responsible for the entire mess!

  47. BBC cancel Kipling poem from VJ Day celebrations over ‘cultural sensitivity’ 15 August 2020.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N6dvVyfLbc

    The taxpayer-funded corporation had formerly arranged for the musical version of Kipling’s Mandalay to be the highlight of tonight’s commemorations for the sacrifice and courage of soldiers who helped defeat the Japanese Empire at the end of the Second World War. However, the musical version of the poem was cancelled after he opera singer Sir Willard White, who was born in Jamaica, complained that it was a representation of “cultural superiority”. The Duke of Cambridge will pay tribute to the veterans during events at Horse Guards Parade.

    I’m not certain where someone called Sir Willard White gets the gall to complain about “Cultural Superiority” but I can detect none in the lyrics. Anyway this is a most charming song from what I consider to be a Superior Culture than that now exists. This is Peter Dawson.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1323369/bbc-news-rudyard-kipling-vj-day-celebrations-cultural-sensitivity

    1. I can’t watch these things. Services in honour of those who fought for us, who died for us are humbling. However, the front rows of participants/ audience are now crowded with those who actively betray not only the people they are purportedly honouring but their descendants, that is, us.

    2. I quoted some lines from a song sung by Peter Dawson at my wedding reception speech after getting married in 1988 at the age of 41:

      At seventeen he falls in love quite madly
      With eyes of tender blue
      At twenty-four he gets it rather badly
      With eyes of a different hue
      At thirty-five
      You’ll find him flirting sadly
      With two or three or more
      When he fancies he is past love
      It is then he meets his last love
      And he loves her
      As he’s never loved before.

    3. Was White booked to sing it? He’s a couple of decades past his prime as a singer and was never anyway all he was hyped up to be. Ignorance and mediocrity.

        3. M’Lud replies: I thought he was one of the characters in a “Sean Connery as James Bond” film.

          1. As part of the story in Carousel it is very moving.
            But for a commemoration event – probably the last that will be attended by participants in WWII – it was cloth eared and meretricious.

          2. I do not know Carousel, it is one of the musicals I missed. ‘You’ll never walk alone’ has become so clichéd over the years and inappropriate for a commemoration event.

    4. 322598+ up ticks,
      AS,
      I do honestly believe that whitey is chanting a bum note
      in bass. ment rendering.

    3. She wants to create a global clique.

      I listened to a very interesting BBC radio programme talking about Josephine Baker.. She was a brave woman , and had had such a fascinating career.

      She wanted to raise a Rainbow family to prove that all nationalities can get on with each other !

      Baker raised two daughters, French-born Marianne and Moroccan-born Stellina, and 10 sons, Korean-born Jeannot (or Janot), Japanese-born Akio, Colombian-born Luis, Finnish-born Jari (now Jarry), French-born Jean-Claude and Noël, Israeli-born Moïse, Algerian-born Brahim, Ivorian-born Koffi, and Venezuelan-born Mara.[59][60] For some time, Baker lived with her children and an enormous staff in the château in Dordogne, France, with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon

    5. What a f****** moron.
      She jeopardises other white women, because the migrant men see things like that and think we’re all the same.

    1. Afternoon Belle. I really like Lawrence Fox. He sounds so sensible! (Especially for an actor).

  51. All this moaning by students, they don’t know that they are born.
    All we got was a BCG back in the day.
    In the arm if you were lucky.

  52. Dark, dark, dark. A cracker of a thunderstorm raging with torrential rain right now.

    2. Just spotting with a few drops of rain here – had an hour or so outside tidying up the jungle a bit.

      1. It’s been raining most of the day here.
        Was woken by bladderdash at 02:30 this morning and heard a couple of distant rumblings of thunder.

        1. Totally clear sky, 25C, really powerful sun in very clear air. Lovely – if a bit much for working outside in.

          1. Caused by a misreading of the word Balderdash during early rehearsals of one of the Beachley Pantomimes at Chepstow.

    1. Probably against the wishes of the asylum seekers too. They will return to London as fast as they can, is my guess. The room in the rural community will still be paid though, and will be their official address.

      1. They are under guidance by the smug oaf who is suing the government after Priti exposed his stupidity. The Home Office needs a clear out and its staff replaced by people with diplomatic experience and life experience.

      1. Awful bursts of wind tore past us, lifting the very stones and soil before them, and with the wind went hail and level, hissing rain, made visible by the arrows of perpetual lightnings that leapt downwards from the sky and upwards from the earth.

        It was as she had warned me. It was as though hell had broken loose upon the world, yet through that hell we rushed on unharmed. For always these furies passed before us. No arrow flew, no javelin was stained. The jagged hail was a herald of our coming; the levens that smote and stabbed were our sword and spear, while ever the hurricane roared and screamed with a million separate voices which blended to one yell of sound, hideous and indescribable.

        As for the hosts about us they melted and were gone.

        Now the darkness was dense, like to that of thickest night; yet in the fierce flares of the lightnings I saw them run this way and that, and amidst the volleying, elemental voices I heard their shouts of horror and of agony.

        I saw horses and riders roll confused upon the ground; like storm-drifted leaves I saw their footmen piled in high and whirling heaps, while the brands of heaven struck and struck them till they sank together and grew still. I saw the groves of trees bend, shrivel up and vanish. I saw the high walls of Kaloon blown in and flee away, while the houses within the walls took fire, to go out beneath the torrents of the driving rain, and again take fire. I saw blackness sweep over us with great wings, and when I looked, lo! those wide wings were flame, floods of pulsing flame that flew upon the tormented air. Blackness, utter blackness; turmoil, doom, dismay.

        Just your normal everyday thunderstorm!.

        1. You’re probably right, Minty. All the walruses and polar bears have disappeared from my orchard! 🤣

      4. Didn’t think you were that far south-east, Grizz. Had it in my head that you were somewhere between Borås and Ljungby.
        Bugger – was planning vaguely a trip over, once borders are open for more than 5 minutes, but the extra miles will take more than a moment or two.
        Rats!
        :-((

        1. Sorry about that, Paul. I live nearer to Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad), Lithuania and Germany than I do to Oslo.

          You would be made most welcome if you did come over, Paul (as would many nice NoTTLers), but we’d have to find you some accommodation locally since we don’t have the facility to put anyone up here presently.

          My cousin and his wife visited us a year ago and stayed at a local B&B around 15km away (nothing much of note any closer).

  57. Manchester police chief blasts ‘outrageous’ lockdown rave where officers pelted with missiles

    A top police officer has expressed his disbelief over an illegal street party which saw police pelted with missiles as they tried to break up the event.

    Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Ian Pilling said the “outrageous” behaviour, which is said to have involved hundreds of people, was the worst he had seen in 30 years of policing.

    Officers were forced to call for significant back-up as they dealt with the large gatherings, which took place in the Gorton area of Manchester, for the second night running.

    DCC Pilling said objects were thrown at officers as they attempted to intervene to stop a party in Harlow Drive, Gorton. The disorder followed large gatherings in the Wilmslow Road area of the city on Friday.

    I like the way they go all around the houses to avoid saying Muzzies. Lol! Nevertheless it is ominous. These people have discovered that they are now immune to Police Action and can do pretty much what they please. It takes no great insight to see where we are going!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/manchester-police-blasts-lockdown-street-party-a4526006.html

    1. Seriously?? A DCC is surprised by this “outrageous behaviour”? Which cave has this moron been living in? The general public, who live on his “beat” have probably been putting up with this sort of stuff for years and deserve an awful lot more than this overpaid wazzock can possibly give. Bleedin’ heart bozo!

    4. They have brought it on themselves. Same with poor PC Harper. If they didn’t let these groups get away with obvious lawbreaking they may have kept control. They have lost it.

      1. In my day we used the Ways and Means Act, and there were no mobile phones around on which to record us “implementing” it.

        1. Go in hard at first, back off later once authority is established. Works a treat.
          Worked for me in professional life.

    5. GM Police Farce are not exactly held in high regard and criticising the foot soldiers for struggling to do their duty when the senior managers are being pilloried at every turn for their abject performance over many years is unfair. Lack of leadership from the top will flow down to the lower ranks as sure as night follows day.

      Whistleblower @PeteJacksonGMP, a former Detective Superintendent, is a severe critic of GM Police and the Mayor of GM, Andy Burnham et al. Khan isn’t the only completely useless Labour mayor of a once great British city.

      https://twitter.com/PeteJacksonGMP/status/1292866432712216576

  59. If we have high winds this Autumn, life should get interesting. Many trees on my dog walk – especially shallow rooted ones like beech – are shedding leaves like billy-o.
    On the plus side, they won’t have lots of leaves to act like sails (a la 1987), but their roots are probably boogered and I could see many dying branches.

  60. Today we have another day of cloud and rain. We have had six days of clear sunshine in the last seven weeks. Every other day has been cloudy and rainy. There have also been days with a cold wind. The forecast for the next fortnight is cloudy and rainy, every day but one and even that is doubtful.
    That is why we want independence from England, as you keep the nice warm weather to yourselves.

    2. We could always export our good weather to you, after you become independent. Of course, it would have to be approved by your new masters, the EU.

    3. Faint glimmers of sun today but that’s the first we’ve seen since last Wednesday – grey and overcast since then.

  61. A Government of National Unity is being considered by all Westminster
    parties, to save them from a potentially disastrous episode of
    democracy.

  63. Last week we had to drive through Belgium to get to Holland. We did not want to go to Belgium and we certainly did not want to stay there but please look at your atlas – the most practical way of getting to Holland from Brittany is to drive through Belgium.

    Sorry to sound like a school master but don’t put away your atlases yet. If you want to get from the Mediterranean to Britain you will have to pass through France or depending on where you start, several other countries such as Italy and Greece and Turkey as well

    So, in effect France is being treated like Belgium as somewhere to pass through in order to get to Britain and, not surprisingly, the French do not like it as they are doing quite well in stopping illegal entries from entering France via the French Mediterranean – but, unlike the British, they have several other land borders to police.

    It is entirely understandable that the French are pissed off with the British.

    It is not surprising that they do not want thousands of undesirable people using their country as a conveyor belt to Britain. It is nor surprising that they are happy to assist the illegals in getting out of France where they are not welcome and into Britain where they are not only welcomed but fed and housed in luxury hotels.

    And it is not surprising that they blame the British for the problem. If Britain treated immigrants firmly and did not keep caving in then these migrants would not need to make the journey through France and both the indigenous French and the indigenous English would be far happier.

      1. But of course Nottlers have a sense of geography – I was using the reference to an atlas as a rhetorical device.

        1. When I lived in Germany, I always drove to Vlissingen (3 hours), overnight ferry, supper on board to live piano music, 1st class cabin, breakfast on board before driving off at Sheerness, then another 3 hour drive to Dorset. Unfortunately that crossing was later turned over to freight. Then I used the Chunnel, having to negotiate the rush-hour traffic around Antwerpen.

    4. If France didn’t let them in in the first place they would solve their own problem and ours as well. Adherence to Schengen is the underlying problem.

  64. HAPPY HOUR –
    Why is Boris Johnson taking us back to the Seventies? asks JOHN LONGWORTH
    https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1323314/uk-economy-1970s-boris-johnson-civil-liberties

    Were the 70’s so bad? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02bc3d5972c0551720cea5c15bd1f5b6ae1767183caf87f20358b207e34e9db0.jpg

    No internet, mobile phones and no Justin Bieber – sounds great, doesn’t it?!
    Take a look at some of the things that were great about the 70’s
    Shag pile carpet…
    The Sony Walkman. …
    Levi’s 505 jeans
    Cassette tape recorders – top 40 hits.
    Long hot summers
    Abba

    Growing up in the 1970s, kids didn’t realise life was tough – it was awesome and full of adventures. Roller skates were a must, The Bay City Rollers, The Fonz, every kid had a Space hopper…Swap Shop
    So….Boogie on down and add to the list…..

    PS (if you can remember the 70’s – you weren’t there)…

    1. I remember the early seventies, we had just bought our first house and a year later the interest rates went soaring to the top.

      There were food shortages , strikes and all manner of nonsense.

      2. When I married in ’69, my ex was in the army – we had a private cottage rental – nice but a bit primitive, then a variety of army quarters. After he left the army, we lived with my mum for a few months, then rented a flat, then bought a house in ’76. We had two boys by then.

        1. We married in 1968, and rented , R was in the RN then so we moved a couple of times to various air stations, house prices were rising so we bought in 1973, we had one youngster and another on the way . We furnished the house for fifty pounds ! Then gradually added stuff as and when . Burco boiler and mangle , that sort of thing! We were no different to other youngsters with the first step on the property ladder.

          1. My friends married a few months bbefore us – they bought a house in Gloucester, ready to move into, for just under £3,000, and furnished it with mainly 2nd hand stuff for about £150! By the time we were in a position to buy ours, our three bedroom inner terrace was £9,000.

          2. I bought my first property for £9.5k in ’76. Sold it 2 years later for £16k.

          3. I had to buy out my ex’s share in that house when we divorced. I eventually sold it in ’96 for £42,000.

          4. Ditto J,

            We were in between the devil and the deep blue sea . We had just come back to Dorset from Scotland / Ayrshire where Moh was flying with his squadron , we could have bought a magnificent house for next to nothing with land up up there , for £4,500, and we had to be back in Dorset because R was then flying from the base at Portland (RNAS Osprey ) and houses were selling like hotcakes , the price difference was atrocious , bought a squidgy semi on a new estate for £10,600 .. it was terrible and badly built, the snag list went on forever , new houses then were being thrown up , those big building companies have alot to answer for .

          5. We married in ’79. I remember going to an auction to buy a table and chairs. We missed several tables because we had a budget of ten pounds! We finally got one (which we’re still using) for a tenner, holding our breath that nobody would bid more! The chairs cost us a fiver.

      3. The day I met my old man, there was a bread strike and a bank holiday! And yes, the Stars the stars were definitely aligned!

      4. I was traveling quite a bit. I remember bringing kilos of sugar back from Holland for us and our baby sitting neighbours, as there was none in British stores (due to a strike, of course). And it got worse as the decade continued.

        1. I thought that the sugar crisis was caused by panic buying.

          Those were my sailing days. I remember enjoying a coffee with the skipper outside a café on the IOW. People came rushing up asking if we had any spare sugar. They couldn’t believe that we were drinking it without.

          2. I weened myself off sugar in 2 weeks when I was a student. Couldn’t believe how easy it was.

          3. My mother didn’t put sugar in tea, or coffee and was quite annoyed when other people thought I should have some in mine. I don’t think I’ve ever been keen – it’s disgusting if you have the wrong cup by mistake.

          4. I could taste it if somebody stirred their sugared tea/coffee before mine with the same spoon. I was a very fussy guest.

            My stupid boss in Ost Friesland wasted a lot of time trying to persuade me to have sugar in my Greek coffee. He was a bone-headed Bosnian Serb. I hated him.

          5. I can too – and if someone stirs the tea with a spoon that’s been in a coffee cup. I use one for tea and one for coffee and never mix them.

          8. Richard,

            I enjoy drinking strong hot coffee with hot milk,
            without sugar.
            I am very partial to an iced coffee but I cannot
            drink it without some form [however small]
            of sweetening in it.

          10. I recall there was a threat of shortages in the early/mid 80’s when I was a money-broker. One of the lads in the office thought it would be clever to buy some on the futures market.

            When it was delivered it came on a big lorry, rather like a petrol tanker. He was expecting it to arrive in 2lb bags!
            He had it poured onto his garage floor and actually made quite a good profit sacking it up and selling it to local bakers. That would almost certainly be illegal nowadays.

      5. Remember the three day week and the four- hourly power cuts? We sat drinking gin & T by candle-light, and making shapes on the wall – funny dogs’ head, etc. Then our toddler wanted a sip and bit a chunk out of the glass. Good job we had a crockery allowance!

        I didn’t break much but I still have some items from then as I used the allowance to buy things I needed.

        1. We missed out on the three day week. We found out that the office was on the same distribution lines as the local hospital.

        2. The Labs hated power cuts because of all the flickering shadows on the ceiling. Sometimes in Dorset they lasted 3 days.

          1. We used to have a lot here but they have become less frequent now – the last one here was in January.

    2. 322598+ up ticks,
      Afternoon PT,
      Minimal eu,
      very little political treachery.
      The Kray brothers kept the streets of London safe for pearly Kings & Queens to walk.

        1. Heath was ahead of his time in many ways. He really belongs in the Blair – Brown – Cameron – May series of Prime Ministers.

    3. I suppose, Plum, it was no worse than other
      decades….. for other people:

      A Cousin was killed in a car crash.
      My Mother had an accident and was horribly
      burned.
      My first husband buggered off with my youngest
      brother’s fiancee.
      My Mother then suffered mental breakdowns
      and after recovering from these died after a minor
      cosmetic operation.

      Yes, I do remember the 70’s….for the wrong reasons!

        1. Thank you for understanding,
          one thing led to another.
          One doesn’t get over it….
          one keeps papering over the
          cracks!

          1. That’s the problem with memory, one can try to be selective but something is always out there to remind one of the bad times.

            As an aside, I’ve been conversing with GG on e-mail.
            I would like to participate a little more actively in your off-piste nottling.

          2. Sos.

            Your request is acknowledged.
            I will endeavour to give you my
            e-mail address.
            Please pay attention!. 🙂

          3. I’m sorry, I logged off before seeing this.
            HL has mine as do GG and BT, but BT is not answering while he’s in hospital.

          4. Okay.

            I will ask Geoff to forward my e-mail address
            to you.
            Re: Bill….I read the post, thank you.

      2. Good heavens Garlands. My heart goes out to you. I know it’s in the past, but what a lot of emotional upheaval. You must have been so strong.

        1. It was not intended to be a tale of woe, Oberst
          more a tale of life as we all at sometime experience!

          1. Sometimes, things just add up. I lost the love of my life in the early seventies. It took a while to get over that, but I did and it taught me a valuable lesson; you can’t change the past and you have to look forward.

    4. Ah memories

      Walking both ways through the shag carpet to change channel on the TV. actually just a rug since we couldn’t afford carpet.

      Being given £600 by my in laws which was enough for the down payment on a house (in Brentwood).

      Waiting for thre months before we could get a telephone installed, which ws three months of being paid to be on call with no chance of a call out.

      Passing my driving test and buying our first car, an A35. The car that I bought last month cost 500 times more than I paid for the little rust heap.

      Probably a lot happier than the gadget rich youth of today.

      2. You lived in Brentwood?? Gosh, you was posh then! We could only afford a place in rural Essex, on the way to Bradwell Nuclear Power. I remember watching the truck carrying the spent rods to the local rail station, we called it the “coffin” as the rods were in a huge, lead-proof container.

        1. Ah but born in Bradwell, not posh.

          We could only afford the house in Brentwood because in laws gave us the deposit on a house. £600 towards a house costing £5,500. As others have written, there was lot of making do in the first few years.

    5. My long wished for son arrived in the early 70’s. I was blissfully happy to be blessed with a beautiful baby boy.
      However the 90’s presented a very different scenario which ended in tragedy for all the family…

    6. I spent the entire decade as a minor and not very effective cog in the NATO machine that kept Europe safe.

    7. The winter of discontent, three day weeks, TV finishing at 10pm (they actually had decent programmes on then), power cuts, rubbish piling up in the streets, the dead unburied, petrol rationing … I remember the seventies only too well (I was still at university).

      1. No 3-day week for me – we shared a building in Croydon with IBM, and they installed generators the year before the strike. They ran them 9-5, 5 days a week!

    8. I can remember them, university, engaged, married, 8 house moves, two children and one on the way, lots of different jobs, hard work, little money, but good.

        1. It’s strange how many really great times we had, given how tight money was. I suspect a lot of that was to do with making the very most of the opportunities that arose.

          We also did things that would have the children taken into care nowadays, going to dances and leaving them in their carry cots in the back of the car, for example.
          It’s one of those memories that always sends a shudder when the McCann case comes up.

          1. Our parents used to drive to see friends in Southsea and they’d bung my sister and me on the back seat of the Morris Oxford (lying down, no seat belts) and leave Newcastle about 2am, with coffee in a flask and bacon sandwiches! We’d generally eaten them by the time we got to Chester-le-Street!

          2. When I took over the boy’s football team, I transported 8 of them to matches in an old estate car, the other dad took another 5 in his small car. We had all the kit to transport as well.
            Eventually we had parents and friends of family following us around as the team got better and better. Success breeds success and the start points are effort and enthusiasm.

            That team would have been killed off by modern H&S.

            They’re well into their 40’s now and many of them still keep in touch with each other. When I moved on to starting again with “the tinies” I had children of ex-players appearing.

          3. I remember leaving first born, in a pram outside the supermarket….shock horror!! I can’t believe I ever did that but the grocery shops were so much smaller then, there was no room inside.

          4. And I suspect that if anyone suspicious even started to take the child another person would have intervened.

          5. Compared to living in the 2020’s the 70’s were happier..no surveillence cameras … digital age….internet!

            Of all post-war decades, the 1970s has undoubtedly had the worst press, most ordinary families in 1970s Britain were better off than the 60’s/50’s…
            Holidays abroad….sun, sea, sand and sangria…..and sex!

            Not forgetting the hippies….Peace and Love….

          6. That’s odd, as the 70s was said to be the decade in which the gap between rich and poor was the lowest in British history. I guess that was because the Labour govt spread the misery evenly.

          7. Margaret Thatcher Britain’s first woman Prime Minister could hardly be a better symbol of change.

            mrs Thatcher won in 1979 not just because she offered something different, but because she understood how much Britain had changed.

          9. We didn’t go abroad until 1981 – first trip to France. The sun and sand were in Cornwall or Wales, the sex……….

          11. Sorry, you post broke up just after the sand in Wales, could you elaborate?

            We emigrated to Canada in 1978. It could have been just about anywhere, I was bored with life in the UK and started applying for jobs overseas, an opportunity came up in Canada. When we come back to the UK (will it ever be allowed again) I look at our friends who are still living in the same town and going to the same pub and I wonder how our life would have turned out if we had stayed.

          12. #meetoo.
            We don’t fit in the UK any more. Slightly weird feeling when we go over.

          14. Returning to the UK to live after 19 years in Germany & Sweden was a real culture shock.

          16. It wasn’t long after we realised that WTF had happened… that we decided to take out US citizenship. We have only a few relatives left in the UK and they come and visit.

          17. Kismet….

            I almost turned my future hubby down…however common sense prevailed.
            And dear reader I married him…he was my soulmate for 40 years I miss him still….

          18. I ad a similar experience. On a visit from Germany I met up with a load of former friends. All had their two kids, a semi, a Labrador 2nd hand Volvo estate & a mortgage. They were so smug. I looked at them & thought, you ain’t done nuffing.

    9. We had a long hot summer in ’76, which ended with a thunderstorm that knocked our power out. We took the kids to Longleat but didn’t see the lions.

      1. And anyone who lived in areas with clay soil suffered from subsidence. Very common in Essex, where we owned a bungalow. But our house insurance was “all risks” so they paid for the house to be fixed. We had actually spent most of the year in the US, came back to drought and cracked foundations.

      2. I was teaching in Eastbourne and remember sunbathing on the roof (of Compton Place, the Devonshire’s pied-a-terre which was being used as the language school).

      3. Having taught my firstborn all the names of big game in Swahili, Simba, chui, twiga, nyati, etc., I took the boys to Longleat. But they were too young & not interested at all in seeing the beasts.

        1. They saw lions etc where you had told them to expect exotic creatures, what do you expect?

  66. Had some delightful news earlier, our youngest daughter gave birth to a son, named for my father – Alexander – which I think is great.

    He weighed it at 7lb (and no he doesn’t look like Winston Churchill!)

      1. Thanks Belle. It’s our third – we have two grand daughters the youngest starts school in three weeks.

    5. Your daughter is truly blessed.
      When my daughter was born she looked liked Winston Churchill…and my son looked liked Chairman Mao…

      1. Yes. Well behaved, bang on time (the two girls were both 3 months early – couldn’t wait to go shopping……)

          7. I can see that the second cat was unlikely to be a girl – but these days one never knows!

          11. You missed a golden opportunity there you could have called little sister Smith then you would have had WH Smith…..

          13. With my Polly Parrot hat on, what was the name of Hooly Golightly’s cat called in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s”. (No, not George Soros.

            :-))

        1. Make the most of him Lacoste (I’m sure you do), I’m still waiting for a first grandchild.

      3. My dad was Harry. His father had a strong Russian/Yiddish accent and the joke in the family was that the registrar chose Harry because he couldn’t understand what grandad actually said.

      4. Er, I think his parents have already decided on Alexander, Harry. Mind you, you’re not wrong: Harry Corbett, Harry H. Corbett, Harry Palmer, Harry Lime, etc. But not Prince Henry (whom everyone but me incorrectly calls Harry).

      5. Er, I think his parents have already decided on Alexander, Harry. Mind you, you’re not wrong: Harry Corbett, Harry H. Corbett, Harry Palmer, Harry Lime, etc. But not Prince Henry (whom everyone but me incorrectly calls Harry).

    9. Our firstborn looked just like his maternal Uncle Nigel & I thought, Oh dear. But after a few days he adopted the Peddy features & all was well.

  67. Evening, all. The A Level fiasco has more to do with the state of education than the government’s neglect of young people (I actually think they pander too them too much).

    1. Of course these youngster are going to stamp their feet… They have been brought up in a culture of no competition , everyone wins and of course , thanks to Tony Blair , everytone goes to Uni, it is a rite of passage.. the jobless figures won’t look so horrendous .

      1. The problem of the difference ce between teachers’ predicted grades for their pupils a d the assessed grades by the examining bodies is that teachers have been over generous, not to akt the pupil look good but to try to make the school look good. The pupils have been hoisted by the teacers’ petard.

        1. Well, that’s what I used to think until I spoke to my cousin yesterday. Her granddaughter alleges that she was forecast to gain an A8, A, and B grade but was awarded three Bs. Whereas someone in her class was forecast three Bs and got three As.?!?!?

  68. Doubtless the DT writer who complained about Formula One’s lack of diversity, will have something to say (ha!) about Hamilton, who is not exactly white, winning again today and being on his way to yet another world championship.

    Or doesn’t he count?

    1. While Hamilton indulges in peurile gestures I no longer watch F1. TBH I can’t say I miss it unduly.

      1. I gave up taking F1 seriously when “aero” became the defining attribute. It’s become so disconnected from mainstream automobile technology, it really is irrelevant these days. “Racing improves the breed” is a long dead concept.

        I am glad I was around for the good times – BRM, Cooper, Lotus, etc. when a pit pass could be obtained for a sane price, though “mechanicing” and transporter driving, for an entrant in one of the supporting races gave “free” entry.

        1. You paid for pit row admission?

          As a mere lad, I went to Brands Hatch to see an F1 practice day. I don’t think that we paid to get in and we were able to go onto pit row. Somewhere I might still have Graham Hills autograph.

          I did once get around to trying F3, it was a lot of fun at the leisurely pace that we managed.

      1. Which half is white? Top half, bottom half, front half, back half, right half, left half? C’mon, we must be told!

          3. The broadcast I saw had an exchange between Botas and his pit crew that went along the lines of

            *** these **** black uniforms are **** hot.

            Or at least that is what the closed caption reported.

        1. They have had very heavy rains this year – when we were there, end February- early March, the short rains had barelt finished before the long rains were starting. It should be dry season now, but some areas are still having rain. This is from the Kenya Met Office facebook page of a few days ago:
          Kenya Meteorological Department.
          6d ·
          FORECAST FOR THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS FROM 11TH TO 17TH AUGUST, 2020.
          Several parts of the country particularly within the Highlands West of
          the Rift Valley, the Lake Victoria Basin, the Central and South Rift
          Valley and the Northwest are likely to continue receiving rainfall.
          A few areas in the Highlands East of the Rift Valley may also receive occasional rains.
          Most areas in the Northeast, the Coastal Strip and the Southeast Lowlands are likely to remain dry.
          Strong southerly winds of more than 25 knots (12.9m/s) are expected over the eastern sector of the country.
          The Highlands East of the Rift Valley (including Nairobi County) and
          some parts of the Southeast Lowlands and the Central and South Rift
          Valley are likely to experience occasional cool and cloudy conditions.
          Download the forecast
          http://www.meteo.go.ke/pdf/seven-day.pdf
          #WeatherForecast
          enya Meteorological Department.
          6d ·
          FORECAST FOR THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS FROM 11TH TO 17TH AUGUST, 2020.
          Several parts of the country particularly within the Highlands West of
          the Rift Valley, the Lake Victoria Basin, the Central and South Rift
          Valley and the Northwest are likely to continue receiving rainfall.
          A few areas in the Highlands East of the Rift Valley may also receive occasional rains.
          Most areas in the Northeast, the Coastal Strip and the Southeast Lowlands are likely to remain dry.
          Strong southerly winds of more than 25 knots (12.9m/s) are expected over the eastern sector of the country.
          The Highlands East of the Rift Valley (including Nairobi County) and
          some parts of the Southeast Lowlands and the Central and South Rift
          Valley are likely to experience occasional cool and cloudy conditions.
          Download the forecast
          http://www.meteo.go.ke/pdf/seven-day.pdf
          #WeatherForecast

    1. Buenas noches, Peddy. Suena con los angelitos.

      The word “Suena” is meant to have a tilde over the n so as to mean “Dream”. I don’t mean for your snores to sound like those of angels”.

    2. Buenas noches, Peddy. Suena con los angelitos.

      The word “Suena” is meant to have a tilde over the n so as to mean “Dream”. I don’t mean for your snores to sound like those of angels”.

    3. Buenas noches, Peddy. Suena con los angelitos.

      The word “Suena” is meant to have a tilde over the n so as to mean “Dream”. I don’t mean for your snores to sound like those of angels”.

    4. Buenas noches, Peddy. Suena con los angelitos.

      The word “Suena” is meant to have a tilde over the n so as to mean “Dream”. I don’t mean for your snores to sound like those of angels”.

  72. Just finished the online pub quiz (fairly easy this week) and sitting outside with the cat and a glass of Malbec. Let me know if any Nottler quizzers want the details. Modesty prevents me from telling you who wins most weeks…

      1. The establishment that hosts the quiz is ‘The Bookshop Alehouse’ in Southampton.

        https://m.facebook.com/BookshopAlehouse/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0

        The quiz is online on Sunday evenings starting at 1830 hrs local time. There are 7 rounds including a picture Round. Use of internet research is not discouraged. Entries are submitted by email by 23.00 hrs. If you look at the Facebook ‘posts’ you can see last night’s questions; answers and winners will be posted around lunchtime on Monday. No prizes!

        If you go for it please let me know your team name! Mine is ‘French Connection’.

        Bon chance Stormy!

          1. Beano eh? That’s a new one! You can look at last night’s questions and answers to get a feel for the quiz and format. And winners.

  73. I wonder if Joe having a thorough sniff of Kamala proved the decisive factor in his choice of running mate?

  74. Wail about your pain, if you must, but let me tough it out

    Sportsmen today are concerned and saddened – appearing flash and hedonistic, but hurting inside

    JULIE BURCHILL

    When did sportsmen get so deep? I remember when all any professional ball-kicker, bat-wielder or motor-racer cared about was birds, booze and boogying on down in the back room at Tramp.

    But here they are, everywhere falling to their knees as they’d probably only have done before when chucking up after one too many pornstar martinis in the gents at Sugar Hut.

    Sportsmen today are concerned and saddened. They have just learned the word systemic. Though they may appear flash and hedonistic, they’re hurting inside.

    Due to social media, we too can feel their pain, as we did poor Lewis Hamilton’s when he – and his dog – went down to the lonely sea and the sky (probably in Ibiza or somewhere equally lush, but it’s the solitary thought that counts) to share this:

    “Took the day off on Tuesday, a day for myself and no phone, no training, just me and Roscoe on the water. I had time to reflect on where we are in the world today, every day I see something upsetting happening, people being abused, people suffering, volcanoes erupting, explosions, oceans and forest’s [sic] being destroyed. 2020 is such a heavy year. But it gives me hope seeing people come together, fighting for justice … cleaning up oceans and just generally doing more for our planet … I’m sending you all positive waves.”

    Phew, isn’t it good to know this young role model is upset – when I thought he was enjoying life, I might have taken him for a heedless playboy who took the tainted euro of Mercedes and Boss despite their historic links with Nazism and chose where to live largely because of the tax it helps him avoid. That would make him a half-witted hypocrite and not at all the sort of person with whom he and his dog would like to share positive thought waves.

    It’s not just the rich and famous who emote their pain. I recently heard a young woman complaining of PTSD – because her gran died. She’s started up a podcast inspired by it. But that’s what grans do – they die on you. Don’t trust them!

    Both are examples of the icky offspring of virtue signalling; vulnerability victors, miserable and thus morally superior to we tough-minded stoics.

    I know what mental illness is; it killed my son by suicide five years ago. But in the old days it was easy for a starlet to get media attention by getting her kit off; now revealing her panic attacks is a far better bet. Our willingness to fetishise fragility explains so much of what’s gone wrong with the cultural climate of this country.

    Cancelling, triggering; who can forget social influencer Freddie Bentley who opined last year that the Second World War should not be taught in schools as it impacted badly on pupils’ mental health? Only this week, a young Guardian writer tweeted: “Older people – do you realise that ending a sentence with a full stop comes across as unfriendly to younger people?”

    When journalists live in fear of full stops, the keeping calm and carrying on this country once prized looks woefully AWOL. We’ve swallowed the lie that expressing negative emotion is invariably a positive.

    I was once an embarrassingly fulsome cheerleader for Me-Gain, Duchess of Sussex. I realised how profoundly shallow she was when she said: “I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. But I think what that does internally is probably really damaging.”

    There you go, Queen Elizabeth II – almost seven decades of selfless and stoic rule could have been so much improved if you’d only expressed yourself.

    The Queen and I don’t expect everyone to be tough. But neither will we accept the current wisdom that says we’re all hurting. Some of us simply aren’t, or have high pain thresholds mentally, as athletes do physically.

    There’s no sin in having mental health problems – but no virtue either. People like me who can tough it out are not any worse than you. This is my truth; grin and bear it, gin and tonic. So go and sob in a corner if you must – but please, cry bullies, don’t strength-shame me.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/16/wail-pain-must-let-tough/

    1. Hamilton is the ultimate fool and hypocrite. Identifying with some imagined black ‘race’ with which he probably has no historical connection is just stupid.

      The fool should put his money where his mouth is. The fool should go to Chicago, Detroit or Seattle and see for himself the results of his support for Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

      Those cities are now shitholes, the whites have fled, and the great manufacturing industries of the past which defined everything good about America, are now remembered as empty ruins.

  75. Just heard on R4 some chap who entered this country in the back of a lorry on 2014 tell us that we should be grateful to all those immigrants for the work they did in the pandemic.

    AIUI, the NHS recruits a lot of nurses in the Philipines – legally.

    1. Nurses are one the most valuable exports for the Philippines. They train many more than they need and the surplus are encouraged to emigrate and send a portion of their wages back home to help support their families.

    2. Data suggests that immigrants are employed by the NHS at the same proportion as they are in the wider population.
      Or: if we didn’t have so many immigrants in the UK, we wouldn’t need them in the NHS.
      Note: I don’t have a particular problem with people coming here to work in the NHS. I’ve worked alongside many of them, including my best friend when I first started work who was from Sierra Leone, here on a training programme and who returned after three years.
      But having hundreds of thousands come here every year just so we can recruit a tiny minority to work in the NHS is insanity, and cultural suicide.

      1. 322598+ up ticks,
        Morning IMS2,
        Successfully happening as we type, top ups coming in via Dover, immigrants in positions of power countrywide, immigrants building for immigrants, immigrants in governance governing for immigrants, illegal immigrants weakening the welfare state via weight of numbers etc,etc.

        It is an orchestrated cross treacherous parties
        campaign to bring the British Nation in line with
        the lowest bush nation & it’s working, courtesy of the polling booth.

    1. Dear Plum.
      Do not for one moment be
      disheartened…….
      I believe you understand
      life and its upsets.

    1. Great God Almighty! – the first hour is devoted to the production of loo rolls with Greg Wally.

  79. Always a surprise to see what kind of wild life we see from our kitchen window!! Just had a flock of turkeys strutting through the garden, some no more than chicks, with several adult birds nudging them forward.

        1. Indeed, but you wouldn’t want to eat these! Too tough, although I believe some do hunt them in these parts!!

      1. We used to see partridges & their chicks running up & down the road here until it was adopted & made up.

      2. Yes, T_B, along with deer, groundhogs, foxes, I love watching them, especially right now when there are a lot of young deer around, with their spotted backs so pretty.

    1. Having up to 6 individual tellies blaring away on the ward 2 years ago was enough to put me off having one in the bedroom for ever.

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