Sunday 16 March: Let military personnel run recruitment so that young people can be inspired to serve

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

653 thoughts on “Sunday 16 March: Let military personnel run recruitment so that young people can be inspired to serve”

  3. Good morning, chums. And thank you, Geoff, for Sunday's new NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,366 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Wordle 1,366 4/6

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      1. Snap!

        Wordle 1,366 4/6

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    1. If they had started there, and not on the farmers and pensioners, they might have had a little support. But too late, they have shown their true colours and the sooner they are consigned to the dustbin of history the better.

  6. Wotta surprise!

    Colin Macinnes
    8h
    The once-ambitious car battery maker Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden, ending hopes for a European challenger to the Far Eastern players that have dominated the battery market.
    The gigafactory specialist, which had about $8 billion in debt and 5,000 employees, said it had failed to secure financing to continue and that a court-appointed trustee would oversee the sale of its assets.

    It has been battling fierce competition from Chinese rivals, which have cornered the market, as well as supply chain disruption and stalling demand for electric cars.

  7. In Crawley
    9h
    The American military have expended some ordnance on Yemen, and the other day a top target in Iraq had his car modified by the US Airforce.

    The Don is in charge.

  8. NietzschesDog
    11h
    Bombshell new poll shows OVERWHELMING number of Britons back mass deportation of foreign offenders
    Ever since he came back to politics last year, I have thought that Farage has been misreading the electorate. He thinks it is still 2010. Maybe it's because he talks to his boomer base all the time. Of course this policy is overwhelmingly popular, it just needs to be articulated clearly and expressed in detail on how it will be effected. We don't need to dehumanise people in process. This is all Lowe was trying to do. Farage could have brought him in and discussed it. That's what good leaders do, they delegate, they consider other people's ideas. Lowe is an ideas and policy guy. Farage is a good communicator and campaigner. They would have made a good team. Instead, what we get is a political hitjob, with totally defamatory allegations against Lowe to get him out of the Party. Farage is no Trump that's for sure. Musk could spot it a mile away.

    3. How was this allowed to happen in an allegedly civilised nation ?
      Where is the army and the police ?
      The millions have had enough of it all.

  14. 403263+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Compared to the United Kingdom t he french issue is hardly worthy of complaint.

    The likes of rotherham as the Jay report revealed was a masterpiece in criminal negligence bordering on aiding & abetting portrayed by the police and councilors aka protectors of the peoples, inclusive of
    children.

    What was taking place there was a regular assembly line of pedophilia actions for over sixteen years allegedly carried out by pakistani immigrants "doing their bit" for diversity as they see it.

    In the race to the bottom the french are second raters.

    https://x.com/DVanLangenhove/status/1900899375938785358

    1. And still our leaders piss on us whilst telling us it's raining.
      The tragedy is that many people actually believe it is raining.

  15. Good morning all.
    Another bright, cold and sunny morning with -½°C on the thermometer.
    It's forecast to cloud over with a drop of rain this evening.

  17. Good Moaning.
    Turned out nice again, but I'll soon change that.
    From the DT.

    "Some 20 per cent of new car sales in Britain are now made under the Government’s Motability scheme in an emerging scandal.
    The scheme was originally founded in the 1970s but its use has ballooned in recent years, with state-of-the-art BMWs now available via Motability.
    Under the scheme, PIP recipients claiming mobility issues can make a down payment on a new car and then get the government to pay the lease.
    A new car is made available every three years, while insurance, accident breakdown, servicing, tyre replacements and paint options are covered by the state."

    2. Motability also price golf carts cheaper than conventional cars (the reverse of reality) and are a major component of leccy vehicle sales supporting the Greenscam
      'Morning Anne

    1. Just asking. Are there still any enclaves of wild, uncivilised white — caucasian — people living remote from modern life, anywhere on the planet?

      What I mean is: really secluded and wild, not in places like the Houses of Parliament or Congress. Nor do I mean places like Luton, Bradford, Leicester, Manchester, Portsmouth or Chelmsford.

      1. Good early evening, Grizzly. You seem to have changed your beret and string of onions for a different hat. I like it.

    1. Cultural norm. Nasty colonialists imposing their judgmental …………………….
      Yada, yada, yada . (Loses will to live)

      2. Ah, imagine that, over Westminster.

        And Phizzee, stop thinking like me. No good will come of it.

  21. Looks like the paywall is not up yet at the Times – yet there's nothing but blah-blah there, nothing that makes me want to take advantage of the free views!

  22. SIR – For my funeral, I have requested no flowers, because they make me sneeze.

    Michael Skiffins
    Havant, Hampshire

    For my funeral there will be no mourners. They will all be in the Pub taking advantage of the free Bar i have provided. While i go quietly into the night.

      1. It wasn't the cough that carried me off it was the coffin they carried me off in…

  23. JD Vance Warns that Europe at Risk of ‘Civilizational Suicide’ Through Open Borders and Censorship

    U.S. Vice President JD Vance has warned that Europe risks “civilizational suicide” if it continues to undermine fundamental Western liberties and engage in mass migration policies.

    In an interview published on Friday evening with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Vice President Vance doubled down on his critique of the globalist agenda that dominates much of Europe, warning that, ultimately, it may be the downfall of the “the cradle of Western civilization”.

    “The entire idea of Christian civilisation that led to the founding of the United States of America was formed in Europe. The cultural bonds, the religious bonds – these things are going to last beyond political disagreements,” Vance said.
    *
    *
    https://youtu.be/lNPWmty6KDA *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/03/15/jd-vance-warns-europe-against-embarking-on-civilizational-suicide-through-open-borders/

  26. I saw a kingfisher when out earlier and a little firecrest, rather pleased to see two brightly coloured birds of such different sizing . It's bright but cold this morning .

    1. A firecrest? Wow, they are a thousand times rarer than the much commoner goldcrest.

      1. Thinking about it, the bird might have been a goldcrest other then a firecrest, nevertheless still very beautiful .

    1. A bit of a non sequitur there. Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with the 9/11 assault on America, which was the work of Saudis. It was however used as a pretext by George W Bush in unfinished business started by his father.

      1. As usual, you're very wide of the mark. It was not 'unfinished business started by his father.' Saddam invaded Kuwait.

        1. The defence and restoration of Kuwait was started by George H.W.Bush in response to Saddam’s invasion, but technically you are right in that Saddam started it.

          However, Bush Sr did not follow through, least of all to protect the Marsh Arabs whom Bush had pledged to protect, nor the Kurds in the North. Iraq was left in a sort of limbo, which proved catastrophic when its army abandoned U.S. munitions to Islamic State in response to his son’s invasion of Iraq after 9/11.

  28. Phone theft epidemic

    SIR – Rowan Pelling (Comment, March 12) reveals that last year 70,137 mobile phones were reported stolen in London. It would be interesting to know how many of those phones were being carried in full view of people riding electric bikes, and were therefore easy targets.

    Sadly, in this day and age, walking along carrying your phone is tantamount to offering it to every phone thief anywhere. They should be kept out of sight.

    Marilyn Parrott
    Bowdon, Cheshire

    What with daily stabbings, rapes, shoplifting and other crimes, a plethora of CCTV my question would be…What do MetPlod actually do all day.

      2. If you want to join today's police do you have to be either a homosexual or a perverted rapist murderer like Wayne Couzens?

        This is unfair, I admit, but does painting police cars like this do any good to the police's reputation?

    2. What do Met Plod do? They race up and down Shepherd’s Bush Road with their car sirens blaring. They fancy themselves as Starsky and Hutch but without the crime bit.

    3. But Sad Dick is adamant that London isn’t more dangerous than when he took over!!

    4. Unfortunately our stupid political classes are still allowing the invasion to continue. And as a result of this crime will also continue to increase.

      1. If I may be so bold as to correct; our stupid political classes are still enabling and encouraging the invasion to continue.

    5. The phones being stolen is merely a symptom of the problem: the diversity. They're the ones stealing after all. Get rid of the diversity, get rid of the problem.

  29. Shall be going to a local pub for a nice roast lunch with a new friend today, I don't cook roasts when on my own. Looking forward to it.

    1. It's notable how many things you don't cook when you're single. That has the diet heading southward sometimes as what's the point of brewing up vegetables when there's only the one of you?

      Why cook a roast chicken when you're the only one eating it?

      I would cook a casserole and then have that over the week, but it got boring having the same food.

      1. I’m a married lady of over 25 years, the husband is overseas outside Europe for 6 months but you are quite right I do need to eat correctly.
        I’ll do a roast chicken next week .

        1. Oh dear, I wasn't err… singling you out. Just anecdotally that when you're (plural) on you're own you tend to eat differently to a family or couple.

          I know I did, as what's the point of reheating vegetables from half a chicken pie I've made three days in a row?

    2. I, who don't cook much, managed to cook myself a lamb leg steak at lunchtime, accompanied by roast potatoes, roast parsnips and cauli and broccoli. Anything I didn't manage to eat was wolfed down by the four-legged family. I quaffed sherry beforehand and a Shiraz with. Now, I just want to go to sleep!

  30. Good Morning!

    Today we have a piece from Frederica, Alas poor Albion , on the origin of the name and the now lost glories attached to it. Please read and comment and support our writers.

    The covid catastrophe was among the greatest ever atrocities perpetrated on the British people, one we are still suffering from in manifest ways, so rather than a day of reflection, we think we need a month of Remembrance, Lest We Forget’. So today we run a highly personal account of remembrance in Gone Viral , the first part of three.

    Energy watch 07.30: Demand: 28.87 GW. Total UK Production: 20.82 GW from: Hydrocarbons 28.8%; Wind 14.7%; Imports 28.7%; Biomass 9.9%; Nuclear 12.6%. Solar: 3.7%.

    We are currently importing almost 30% of our electric power requirements, mainly from France, just so Mad Ed can claim he’s reducing his carbon foot print.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  31. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunny but frost on cars and roofing.
    Is todays headline really from the sunday Telegraph UK ?

    1. An interesting point that emerges for this Twitter posting|: the MSM is largely supporting Nigel Farage whom they despise.

      This is, I would suggest, because they know that Farage is now a busted flush and that Rupert Lowe is far more dangerous to the political status quo.

      1. They have seen they can control him. That he is the architect of doing in what they fear.

      2. Ask a sample of the general public who Rupert Lowe is and a huge majority would say 'Who? Never heard of him".

  34. Good morning, all. Frost early on, now, bright blue sky and sunshine.

    Starmer and Farage both on the receiving end of harsh criticism. Lotus Eaters had a lot to say about Farage on Friday and now this from a party that has Christian Nationalism as one of its credentials.

    Re the Lotus Eaters' podcast from Friday last, Andrew Bridgen stated that he would consider joining with Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe in a political alliance.

    https://x.com/NHPUKOfficial/status/1900897455803121718
    GB News have waded into Starmer. Two snippets from the same broadcast.

    https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1900944151077621826
    https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1900941508162789833

    1. The last one is spot on – TTK has been a disaster, everything he does is a shambles – tax, growth, Chagos, sleaze, two tier justice – the list goes on. He's desperately trying to distract everyone with a Ukrainian squirrel!

      1. Starmer is the norm for what passes as Prime Ministers these days. He's unexceptional.

        1. Sadly, that is true.
          Britain seems to have lost the ability to create – or maybe attract – people with any vision or probity into politics.

          1. I'm sure it's the political system that wants to keep out anyone "with any vision or probity".

        2. I take the general point, but I think Starmer is decidedly useless and probably dangerous even by comparison to recent abysmal PMs?

    2. They are illegal immigrants. They're criminals guilty of illegally entering a country without permission. As a result they should be collared, chained to a post and when enough arrive to pack into a hercules transport deported to whereever they came from – no one cares where they go. Ideally at 10,000 feet.

      If, someone does care about these criminals then they should join them on the transport.

  35. SIR – In the 1950s my aunt lived in Ghana, then known as the Gold Coast. One afternoon she was entertaining friends to tea, and asked the houseboy not to forget to put the tea cosy on (Letters, March 9). He returned with the tray a few minutes later. He hadn’t forgotten. He was wearing the tea cosy on his head.

    They remained good friends and corresponded regularly when my aunt returned to England. She was eternally grateful to him for having saved her life when she was almost bitten by a poisonous snake.

    Margaret Skeels
    Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire

    No doubt a very funny and heartwarming story, Madge, But why do you, the letters' editor, and countless others continue to promulgate the idiocy that some snakes are 'poisonous'? They are not! There are no documented records of anyone dying as a result of eating a snake.

    Do not conflate poison with venom. Despite both being seriously injurious to health they work in completely different ways. Poison kills by ingestion: venom kills by injection.

    When a mongoose kills and eats a black mamba, it ingests that snake's venom sac with no detriment to its own health. When anyone talks to me about a "poisonous snake", I know I am in the presence of an ill-educated retard.

    2. Oh Grizzly. It's a figure of speech. Do you know what the speaker means? Yes. Therefore you're arguing a semantic.

    3. If so, then ill-educated retards must be widespread. I'm confident that the distinction you accurately describe goes unnoticed by much of the population. No, I will not hold the bulk of the population in such low esteem. When I hear 'like' repeated ad nauseum by youngsters or people asking 'Can I get… ?', it's irritating but I don't deduce that the speakers are retards.

  36. Just been to TCW – Kathy is now on full censorship there. No more images, links were already moderated. Is she paranoid or is the Online Harms bill going to silence us all?

    1. That was always the intent. Control, subvert, abuse, silence. Of course, muslim will be exempt and no one will mention the appalling abuses the Left spew out.

      This is why they hate Musk. His community notes allow people to confront the appalling lies the Left wing media spew out and there's nothing the Left fear more than the truth.

      That's why they jail people telling it. The Left are evil. That the Tories didn't set fire to this horrific bill is evidence of the problem but then… it's EU legislation. So of course the Tories forced it through.

    2. Not enough. The entire state is infested with duplicated activity, hangers on, non-jobs and dross. What's the OBR for when it's stuffed full of treasury wonks? They all think the same, all say the same, all fiddle the figures the same way. None are independent as if they were they wouldn't be stuffed with placemen and ex civil servants but people from industry – but then, the state prefers to mark it's own homework.

    1. Zia Yusof has clearly got Farage by the short and curlies and is blackmailing him. What other reason can there be for Farage's absurd submission to him which has destroyed The Reform Party?

      I wonder what 'the goods' are that Yusof has on him : sexual misdemeanours or criminal financial activity? I wonder if we shall ever find out?

      1. Who knows? If farage doesn't have the stones to stand up and confront muslim he can't fight for the country.

  40. Until very recently there was two donkeys in a field here in Dunster who'd make a huge noise, both very friendly ahd inquisitive. I noticed that there was only one donkey for awhile and I asked why and was told one of the donkeys died and the one left didn't like being alone so they sent the remaining donkey away so it'd have company. Poor little thing.

    1. Herd animals don't do well on their own. While Wiggy was very happy with his human pack, when we got Mongo, despite the age difference he perked up to how he was as a puppy and played with the little fellow, spending more time outside hopping about.

    2. We used to have a donkey called Alfie here on the Common – you may remember him. He got knocked down by a car once but recovered. He was always with our neighbour's carthorses (but not too close). He died a year or two ago, though, sadly. The horses are still here and have been augmented with a few new ones.

      1. Poor Alfie, dear things are donkeys. I do remember the horses on Minchinhampton Common, I’m glad they’re still there. I remember taking the dog for a walk whilst they were eating grass, it was the first time Ben had seen a horse, he was fascinated but was a good boy and didn’t bark at them

    3. We used to have a donkey called Alfie here on the Common – you may remember him. He got knocked down by a car once but recovered. He was always with our neighbour's carthorses (but not too close). He died a year or two ago, though, sadly. The horses are still here and have been augmented with a few new ones.

    4. Donkeys are not solitary animals. They also don't have waterproof coats, so this climate is bad for them unless they are rugged up.

    2. Not surprised. I won't bother renewing. Reform just seems to be Farage's ego. When they pushed out 'who knows Rupert Lowe' it was pure spite. The dementia element just vile, the allegations abusive. Lowe became a threat and Nigel did for him. The rest just fell into line.

      All the other Reformists sudden;y pushed the same line, Reform is bigger than Rupert Lowe we should abandon and move on. It's just another miserable little statist party without a plan or purpose beyond getting into office, just like the others.

      1. I fear you are right – I was going to join, but won't for the moment. The more I discover about Farage, the less I feel inclined to join a party that he leads.

    3. In 74 years I have never felt the urge to become a member of any political party.

      Nor shall I.

      1. I've never belonged to any political party either. But I've never voted Labour in my life.

        1. I hadn't before I joined UKIP. I listened to the Con "Great White Hope" of anti-EU rhetoric (ironically, Douglas Carswell) and thought, he isn't serious about leaving at all. I went home and signed up. I'm still a member 14 years on.

  42. Good morning all ,

    Sunshine cold wind 2c!

    We have been glued to several of the Weymouth webcams ,early this morning , because older son is competing in the Weymouth half marathon . Huge turn out .

    The web cams are wonderful, and the wind is strong , blowing beach sand onto the prom , horses galloping on the sand and dogs chasing the crows and the seagulls , everyone apart from the runners dressed up for the cold ..

    I think the route takes the runners over the town bridge to the Nothe fort , can't access that on via web cams , I suspect he will finish by 10.30 .. lots of jostling and narrow roads to run through ..

    I can't begin to tell you though that the build up to each race is tense and rather like walking on eggshells ..

    He ran a gentle 5k yesterday in the Weymouth 5k park run , he was pretty slow compared to other runs , he just wanted to exercise gently .. 24minutes is pretty good , he has run it in 18minutes .

    Moh ran his 5k races in 24minutes .. until he stopped running when he was 72 .. bladder probs !

    Son is 56 years old now, and I hope he continues racing with loads of energy ..

    Sad that their cricket days are over , I was an ace cricket tea preparer years ago.

    Son injured his shoulder badly , he was a fast bowler!

  43. Shakespeare’s birthplace to be decolonised after ‘white supremacy’ fears
    Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon warned the Bard’s genius could be seen as a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/16/william-shakespeare-birthplace-trust-white-supremacy-empire/

    BTL

    Everybody, yes everybody, who is ashamed of Britain's past rather than proud of it should be sacked and given a free passage to go and settle in any other country of their choosing.

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

    1. Yet they won't. The Left will continue their mindless vandalism believing, fervently in their own self righteousness.

      They are evil beyond words.

    2. The tribes of Sub-Saharan Africa had no written languages of their own. Europe had Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. How do you manufacture equity in the face of that reality?

      1. By force and subjugation. You destroy what makes the West superior, denigrate it's culture, history and heritage and ruin the economy that drives the opportunity for that luxury to enjoy entertainment.

        https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noel-sheppard/2010/11/18/un-ipcc-official-admits-we-redistribute-worlds-wealth-climate

        The state ruins everything good and beautiful by endless regulation, legislation and taxation and force it's replacement with brown sewage.

  44. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/16/william-shakespeare-birthplace-trust-white-supremacy-empire/

    “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

    I hate, with absolute and complete lack of apology, the Left. They are evil. All they do, whereever they go is destroy beautiful things. From Mao, Pot, Caucescau, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin to the hated EU – they never change. They are vandals of culture, history, society, decency.

  46. Junior, being far too grown up washes the neighbours' cars at weekends for more pocket money (that doesn't get taxed by his evil parents (a tax rate of 40% on £5 is a bit harsh, even if we contribute £100 or something to his pension and savings account at the same time) . He takes Mongo along and is as safe as anything with him, coming back for water from the butts in our garden has lost a customer.

    A little old lady in a cottage down the way can no longer afford the £4 he charges. On his mournful return we had a long complaint about the state of the economy and the end of the world.

  47. I honestly have no idea what the bally heck people are playing at.

    What is Trump expecting to achieve with his tariff walls? He's pushing for peace in Ukraine by, basically letting Russia win (a situation that is inevitable, really as that area of Ukraine doesn't want to be part of Ukraine.
    Yet there's the EU, desperately trying to bring Ukraine in to the fold (the trigger for the latest conflict).

    Zelensky wants to continue the war – why? Ukrainians are dying and getting nowhere. Has he and his ilk not creamed off enough of the 'war aid' to last him many lifetimes?

    Starmer seems to be playing both sides against the middle, promising the EU support with British soldiers – utterly under equipped to fight Russia and is also pandering to Trump with pretence of peace. I know he's a hypocrite, but even this two faced BS is a record.

    1. I think the tariffs are to do with bringing industry back to the US aren't they?
      We have tariffs, they are called Excise Duty, or?

      I'm not really following Ukraine any more, but isn't it likely that the US has told Starmer and Scholz that they'll be required to stump up 'peacekeeping' troops?

    2. He isn't letting Putin win. Putin has won and the problem is that the West (Europe) went accept that. All that Putin is doing at the moment is recovering Kursk so that Zelenskyy can't use it as a bargaining chip. Once done Putin will settle down. By right of conquest he will have what he wants and Zelenskyy will have lost territory that, in my opinion, he has no right to in the first place, i.e. the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine which should not have been in Ukraine anyway.
      As for Starmer. See my remark above about Trump getting fed up with him.

    3. He isn't letting Putin win. Putin has won and the problem is that the West (Europe) went accept that. All that Putin is doing at the moment is recovering Kursk so that Zelenskyy can't use it as a bargaining chip. Once done Putin will settle down. By right of conquest he will have what he wants and Zelenskyy will have lost territory that, in my opinion, he has no right to in the first place, i.e. the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine which should not have been in Ukraine anyway.
      As for Starmer. See my remark above about Trump getting fed up with him.

  48. SIR – When I joined the family firm of funeral directors in 1969, all funerals were traditional religious ceremonies, with mourners suitably attired and sombre in their manner.

    Over the next 50 years, I saw everything change. My father was horrified when My Way was first heard in the crematorium, and we started to see mourners turning up in a variety of clothing, including football shirts. Alternative vehicles appeared instead of the traditional hearse, such as a motorbike sidecar for the biking fraternity, and donations to charities instead of floral tributes became the norm.

    Very few funerals are now entirely religious ceremonies, and celebrants are doing good business. My view is that change is inevitable and reflects the huge societal shifts we have seen during my lifetime.

    I have sympathy with Peter Harper’s expectation that mourners wear dark clothes (Letters, March 9), but when my time comes I want my family and friends to enjoy the day and remember my love of life, and all that comes with that.

    Philip Roberts
    Caernarfon

    SIR – Peter Harper gently reminds his friends and relatives to wear dark clothing “when his turn comes”.
    My dear departed grandmother would have told him that funerals are for the living, not the dead.

    Simon Paynter
    Brede, East Sussex

    SIR – On breaking out my father’s funeral plan, we were somewhat confused by his musical choices. Dad loved the sounds of the 1960s, Motown, Elvis Presley and Atlantic rhythm and blues. None of this was listed. We obviously followed his wishes.
    As we left the crematorium, Dad’s good friend, with whom he had walked the Isle of Wight coastal path, told us that, during their walks, they had each planned their funerals. He revealed that Dad had chosen music guaranteed to make people cry.

    George Adams
    Brading, Isle of Wight

    SIR – For my funeral, I have requested no flowers, because they make me sneeze.

    Michael Skiffins
    Havant, Hampshire

    When my mother died, in 2008, I attended her funeral wearing a pale stone-coloured suit with a bright lilac shirt and tie. I received a few strange and even a few angry looks from certain fellow mourners. I explained my decision when I gave the eulogy. I told the assembled congregation that my mother had always loathed the shade black. She refused to wearing clothing of that hue and frequently told me, "I hate black so much that I don'e even want it worn at my funeral!" I went on to say that was my reason for eschewing black and instead I wore clothing of her favourite colour, lilac.

    Since I moved to Sweden I have now attended four funerals and noticed that there is generally a laissez faire attitude to the clothing worn for such a solemn occasion. I have seen lots of males wearing dark suits and white ties (a Swedish funeral tradition of long provenance); however, I have also noted that most younger mourners simply turn up in whatever clothing they happened to put on that morning: some even looking like they had just arrived directly from their garden or allotment!

    1. At my father's funeral one of my cousins turned up in jog pants, untucked white shirt and trainers.

          1. It is very good. A true heroes journey. I thoroughly recommend The StormLight Archive next, Mistborn is very good as well.

          2. Thank you. Always like recommendations.

            Have you read Excession by Iain M Banks? Great space opera.

        3. Downloaded Stirling to my kindle but i lose the bottom line of text because of the page number banner. Any suggestions?

      2. My suit was in Southampton, my father in Norfolk. Finding someting that'd fit a 6'4 bloke in that tiny town in 3 days would have been impossible. I doubt my Dad cared.

    2. Yo Mr G

      There are (at least) two ways of looking at Funerals

      Mourning the passing of person and wearing dark, sombre clothes

      or

      Celebrating the life of the person and wearing bright, cheerful clothes

      The music I want at my funeral

      Going in
      Rod Stewart, with "Sailing", having made sure the "Flying" verse gets heard

      Passing Out
      "Always look on the Bright Side of Life"

      They suit me into the ground

      I also wish to be 'buried at sea' and those who go can dance on my grave…….

      2. Yo, Mr Effort.

        Personally I still prefer the original version of Sailing, as sung by its writers, The Sutherland Brothers (Iain and Gavin).

      3. Yo, Mr Effort.

        Personally I still prefer the original version of Sailing, as sung by its writers, The Sutherland Brothers (Iain and Gavin).

      4. On my departure I want people to celebrate the wonderful life I have had and am having. Going in music: Berceuse sung by Summer Watson. Going out: Autumn Leaves by Eva Cassidy.

    4. I have attended many funerals and always wear a dark suit, black shoes, white shirt and black tie. Often the only one. to do so of late..

    5. I have already written my Order of Service. I plan to write a list of the music I want the organist to play while people are assembling. As for clothing, I suspect people who know me, know that I would like them to be smartly turned out as I usually am. As I have no family likely to attend, I doubt anyone will be wearing black.

  49. I have no problem but you do have to tap twice at the bottom of the article to get the comments.

  50. Last year, Caroline's great friend, a nurse who had to have the Covid jab, had one of the best attended funerals our village has seen for a very long time.

    Apart from the undertakers I was the only man there wearing a dark suit and a black tie.

    1. When I peg it I want people to turn up wearing whatever they like. Celebrate my life, not my death. I live on in every life I've come into contact with.

  51. I've seen them disappear as well. I wondered if it was my adblocker(s). I think it's that's stupid 'quizzly' thing spilling into the javascript for the comments.

  52. That's the administration done, time for another coffee.
    Bills paid, Mother's care home fees paid (10% increase from 1st April), sister-in-law's birthday present (flowers & silly balloon from independent florist) booked and paid, money shifted around, tax assessment checked (they owe me a few groats, apparently), now I can return to NoTTL with easy conscience…

  53. Macron: We will send peacekeepers to Ukraine without Russian consent. 16 March 2025.

    Emmanuel Macron said Russia will have no say over whether foreign troops will be sent to Ukraine to guarantee an eventual ceasefire.

    “If Ukraine asks allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or not,” the French president told local press last night before another aerial attacks between Russia and Ukraine.

    Since Putin has made it absolutely clear that he will not accept any NATO troops in Ukraine this can only be an attempt to derail the peace process.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/03/16/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-war-latest-news-ceasefire/

    1. The grandstanding by European leaders shows no bounds. Im not so sure their populations will be so supportive when WW3 is provoked and missiles start landing on European cities.

    2. Apparently there are rumors that Trump is so fed up with Starmers interference that he wants him removed. That does not bode well for us, he could threaten to destroy our economy with a flick of his felt tip to force his resignation.

      3. Starmer is doing that anyway and it may last 4 more years. Better to tear the plaster off quickly and get it over and done with!

    3. this can only be an attempt to derail the peace process.

      Of course it is. European leaders can't destroy their countries fast enough.

      1. I saw Starmer described as a "peacemaker" in a newspaper headline this afternoon. Delusional, or what?

    5. It is a naked attempt to start WWIII. I do so hope that the nukes fall on Westminster 1st of all. And I will die before I let my grandchildren be Shanghai'd into the meatgrinder of the "defence" of a faraway country steeped in corruption and pushed into war by malign globalist grabbers of wealth.

      1. Starmer wants his "Falklands Moment", but being inept as he is, what he'll get is his "Nagasaki Moment".

  55. And that's my fingers warmed back up after my 1st stint of "doing things" up the "garden".
    Now to get a few more small jobs done.

      1. I'm getting logs sawn, chopped and dragged down the steps for stacking.
        Most of the stacking is being done, eventually, by Grad.Son.

    1. Fabulous little violinists! I could just manage ‘The March of the Tin Soldiers’!

        1. Tricky to wield through a window open half an inch. Unlike a spray. Just saying!

          4. A spray can of 'Deep Heat' (other makes are available), for that niggling muscular pain, obviously. 😉

          5. There's also a purple or cyan-blue coloured dyed disinfectant that replaces gentian violet now that that has been declared carcinogenic.

  57. B####r politics ..

    Britain has sewn it's own catastrophic ending to it's brave history ..

    We could be nuked if Starmer does a Blair !

    Anyway , son has phoned home to say his half marathon (13 miles ) in Weymouth was a happy moment .. He thinks he ran it in 90 minutes.

    The results will show later. . Conditions were sunny , windy and the sand was being blown off the onto the prom from the beach .

    https://www.camsecure.co.uk/Camsecure2/Weymouth_Seafront_Webcam.html

      1. I cannot believe I am such a tortoise .

        Son has inherited Moh's sportiness , my sisters love and breathe sport in South Africa , and me , it was always and still is " Hurry up Maggie , stop dawdling ".. because I stop and look at things and photograph and pause awhile .

        1. Nothing wrong with being a tortoise, Maggie. Life goes by fast enough. No point in rushing to meet it.

    3. I once did a "Round the Beacons" Charity walk in my 20s and nothing since. I would never run in the street only on a sports ground.The last time i went to a gym was at school. He has done very well.

  58. Our youngsters should be recruited into the British Army. What for, what are they supposed to defend? Now they are attacking Shakespeare.
    Shakespeare’s birthplace to be decolonised after ‘white supremacy’ fears.
    Who are these people? Ordinary sane people should find out and have them tossed out on their ear.

      1. I'm sure they are. I'm being perfectly serious too. These people should be hunted down and removed. They are enemies of the people and traitors to the country.

    3. I thought everyone knew that the Bard was a slaveowner.

      Did we HAVE and empire when he was scribbling away?

      Thought not.

  59. For those who suffer from pollen/dust allergies try quercetin.

    Quercetin is a naturally occurring polyphenol flavonoid which is rich in antioxidants. It has anti-allergic functions that are known for inhibiting histamine production and pro-inflammatory mediators.

    Most commonly found in apple skins.

    An apple a day does keep the doctor away.

      3. Are they people who are paid by the NHS (taxpayers) for looking after patients with health problems, but are never available because hey are either on TV chatting and waving their arms around, or off working in the private sector ?

      1. I don’t know but as an anti inflamatory it might be of help. You will need to google.

    3. Capers are a good source, too – I discovered that during the covid nonsense.

      1. Love capers. A liberal sprinkling over my bagels and Lox. Plus red onion steeped in apple cider vinegar. A healthy lunch kind to the stomach.

  60. In and out today – am making chutney. It is two years since the last batch and I struggled to remember what to do! But I did…

    1. Made some green tomato chutney last year. Tomatoes went out late (MOH had been seriously ill on and off last year, with multiple hospital visits, so tomatoes went out late and most didn't ripen), and I had a glut of green tomatoes. I used a very easy and simple recipe from James Martin, and I was very pleased with the results.

      1. You've just reminded me, I also made some for the same reasons, I'll have to take a look in the back of the many cupboards.

      2. I made fried green tomatoes from the film of the same name. Unusual but quite nice.

        Sorry to hear of your husband's woes. Multiple visits are a nightmare. I ended up going in a wheelchair which made a difference.

          1. The lead women characters were golden. Jessica Tandy was superb as Ninny. Then we have the most wonderful Kathy Bates.
            Snowflakes should watch her. A masterclass in how to take control of your life.

            I have only watched it about 20 times though. :@)

  61. OT – it was good to see reference made to George Ford's superb pass to young Pollock for his second try. "A rare thing of beauty" wrote Stuart Barnes. And he was right. Amazing to think that Ford has 99 caps.

  62. By the way. Forgot. Apparently on Thursday 20th., this week. There is an emergency judicial hearing on the unreasonable conditions of Tommy Robinsons imprisonment. At this point, as you all know, the government is guilty of torture in the use of solitary confinement against him.

  63. A bit warmer today.
    Wordle 1,366 5/6
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
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    🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
    🟩🟨🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  64. It's bitterly cold out even with the Sun shining. Postponed venturing into the garden for an hour or two.

    I received my water bill for the forthcoming year on Friday last and opened it yesterday. The facing sheet out of the envelope consisted of a large blue rectangle with the word 'Gulp' printed with a very large font in white, followed with 'It's a big ask' printed below in a smaller font. In fact there were two 'Gulps'.

    The word 'Gulp' was fitting when I saw the price I was being asked to pay for the coming year: an increase of £184 to £1,019.

    One and bit of the other three pages were about support and help to pay your bill: I'm not in a position where paying my bills is a problem – much as I find current annual increases being excessive – but I do feel for people who will be struggling or unable to pay. An example of an excessive increase was my house insurance, up by 50%. However, for insurance I am able to shop around and I found a reputable company that charged me about £20 more than my previous year's bill. I cannot do that for water.

    Oh, by the way, the 'Gulp' sheet when opened turned out to be about WaterAid. Some years ago I decided to only support local charities that I can see are using the funding for our benefit, and I'm sticking with that decision. If the government feel the urge to fund foreign aid then instead of spaffing £Billions on the climate scam perhaps they should insist on the money actually arriving at the correct destination, one of which could be the provision of clean water.

    1. Wow, my water bill is £212 a year. Mind you we have a lot of water in the Highlands

      1. Firstborn's water bill is … 0.
        He has a well, and the most delicious water.
        Mind you, some electricity to pay to pump it up to the house.

    2. We had a similar bill. The first time we'd had one that startling in the two years we've been at the Dower House. We had been on a meter at Allan Towers and assumed that the Dower House was the same, particularly as the house had been rented out for several years: there are enough covers of various sorts dotted along the pavements to make this assumption seem reasonable.
      However, it turns out that we are not metered so I've sent in a request to have one installed. Using AW's own reckoning site, it should practically halve our bill.

    3. Given that the government has been funding wells in Africa for some time, I wouldn't trust them to manage to ensure that the funds reached the right place, but even if they did, the recipients would soon trash the investment.

  66. Well, that's the chutney done. Amazing how it shrinks down. 72 oz of ingredients produced 4 x 12 oz jars. So now I can relax.

  67. From Coffee House the Spectator

    15 Mar 2025
    Coffee House
    Jonathan MillerJonathan Miller
    The licence fee is at the root of the BBC’s problems
    15 March 2025, 5:30am

    The BBC’s reputation is in shreds – again. Its Hamas propaganda film, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, had to be withdrawn after it was revealed that its protagonist and narrator was the son of a Hamas minister. The BBC has announced it will investigate itself following the broadcast of the documentary last month, but what is to be done about the accident-prone public broadcaster? Unfortunately, every indication is that the government will continue to stuff the BBC’s undeserving pockets with money.

    Kemi Badenoch has threatened to reconsider the Conservative party’s support for the licence fee, now £169.50 and due to increase to £174.50 in April. What a feeble response. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has proposed mutualising the BBC, turning viewers into the corporation’s owners. But the regressive licence fee is the fundamental problem, the root of everything that’s wrong with the broadcaster. It has produced an ideologically-driven media apparatus that is utterly unaccountable to its customers. Viewers can cancel Sky and Amazon Prime, but not the BBC. No reform of the broadcaster is conceivable while this continues.

    Supporters of the licence fee acknowledge the problems but claim it is the ‘least worst’ method of financing the BBC – a statement that doesn’t pass the most cursory interrogation. Lord Thomson of Fleet, the first chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, said decades ago that the licence fee was a criminalisation of female poverty. Nothing has changed.

    The BBC’s contracted TV licence ‘inspectors,’ who cosplay policemen, have their happiest hunting grounds on poor council estates, preying on single mothers. These women have no legal representation, are quickly fined, and a few even end up in jail, after defaulting on fines. It’s a hideous mockery of justice. At Croydon magistrates’ court I once observed more than 100 undefended women get summarily convicted.

    From the day I started covering the BBC in 1987 as media correspondent of the Times, my instincts told me that this was a deeply flawed organisation: endlessly self-regarding, dissembling in its own defence, terrible value for money, peddling its own hidden agendas, and zero direct accountability to its captive customers. Yet then, as now, it was worshipped by many as the best of British, on a pedestal with the NHS.

    Disgusted by what I saw in Croydon, I refused to pay the licence fee myself and was convicted. Charles Moore also refused and was also convicted. This was years ago. The perversion of justice continues.

    The BBC claims to be beloved and good value for money but there’s an easy way to test this. If it was really good value, and its services so admired, millions would surely subscribe voluntarily. In 2024, Netflix had roughly 17 million subscribers in Britain, paying as little as £5.99 for the ad-supported version of the service. YouTube, Amazon and Apple all have millions of UK subscribers and all are cheaper than the BBC.

    New technology has made the BBC less relevant with every passing month. In 2022, only one in 20 young adults watched BBC TV live daily. In 2023, fewer than half of 16-24-year-olds in the UK regularly watched it. The yoof are spending more time with video-sharing platforms. Half a million people cancelled their licence fees in 2023, taking their chances with the inspectors.

    The BBC’s response? It speaks in babble, because it has a captive audience and does not have to reform. ‘We want everyone to get value for money from the BBC, which is why we are focused on delivering what audiences want from us – trusted news, the best home-grown storytelling and the moments that bring us together,’ it boasts. The BBC is delivering on none of this. The BBC has not created a new TV hit for five years, according to the National Audit Office. Its commercial division makes most of its money from old shows that were first released decades ago. Of the BBC’s ten most profitable shows last year, only one – a ‘soft drama’ series from 2019 – was created by BBC Studios, while three were bought from rival producers.

    There is a magic bullet

    The corporation now promises to launch ‘our biggest ever public engagement exercise so audiences can help drive and shape what they want from a universal and independent BBC in the future.’ This is code for a massively expensive information campaign to persuade us of its virtues. ‘We look forward to engaging with government on the next charter and securing the long-term future of the BBC,’ says the BBC, knowing it is knocking at an open door in Whitehall.

    Nothing emerging from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport gives grounds for optimism. Retention of public finance in some form looks certain, perhaps by replacing the fee with direct government subsidy through income tax. A horrific prospect, because despite whatever window dressing is in place it puts the supposedly independent BBC under direct government control. The BBC wants the licence fee moved onto council tax, with higher-rated properties paying more, its chairman Samir Shah hinted to the Sunday Times.

    Unusually for a public policy question of such importance, there is a magic bullet. The solution to all this is subscription, and to let the public pay for what they want. Scrap the licence fee – and let viewers decide if the BBC is as wonderful as it claims.

    Jonathan Miller
    Written by
    Jonathan Miller
    Jonathan Miller, who lives near Montpellier, is the author of ‘France, a Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (Gibson Square). His Twitter handle is: @lefoudubaron

    4. Surely people are paying for it because they want to watch it, so make it subscription only. If they're confident that people want to watch their content then what's the problem?

      Unless, of course, they're not and are frightened people will stop paying when they are not forced to pay to watch other channels.

    5. I watch very little BBC output these days. It's not an ideological position, merely that it broadcasts very little I want to see.

      2. I watched Wolf Hall recently on a Spanish platform. Two seasons. Thoroughly enjoyed it although the multicultural courtiers were somewhat irritating bearing in mind it was the sixteenth century and most people were of Saxon and Norman descent.

        1. I've read the book. I don't need someone else's interpretation to imagine it (especially as I specialise in Tudor history).

          2. I am probably a lone voice on here in that I loathe Hilary Mantel's "literary" output. I have ploughed through some of it – the above mentioned and its sequel, plus various repulsive short stories. Turgid, sick-minded, pretentious crap is my verdict.

          3. No, you aren't alone. I've read the Cromwell trilogy (well, I'm about 3/4 the way through the Mirror and the Light at the moment, but I will plough on and finish it). I don't like her style. Too confusing, too verbose and too much filler. Only because I know a lot about Tudor history does a lot of it make sense.

          4. Really?
            I was thinking of buying her book about Cromwell. They say it’s well researched.
            The series presented a very different angle on Tudor history.
            But I read comments on the IMDb platform and you are not alone.

          5. Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies and the Mirror and The Light. She is a historian. I prefer Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory who are also historians, as I find their books more readable.

          8. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews. IMDb began as a fan-operated movie database on the Usenet group “rec.arts.movies” in 1990, and moved to the Web in 1993. Since 1998, it has been owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.

          9. I did the Tudors forever at school and never found much empathy with Cromwell so this series was really interesting.
            I also watched a Spanish series about Carlos V Catherine of Aragon’s nephew. Gave me a whole new perspective on the reign of HenryVIII

    6. The BBC licence fee is under review by the Government with the public broadcaster's chairman suggesting wealthier households should pay more.
      Dr Samir Shah, CBE, is an Indian–British television and radio executive. He co-authored the UK government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report. Now Chair of the BBC. He receives fees of £160,000 per annum. The time commitment for the Chair will be at least 3 days per week. Plus expenses incurred on behalf of the BBC and claimed through the BBC's expenses system.

      His half-brother, Mohit Bakaya, is controller of BBC Radio 4.

      The increase won't bother Shah, he'll just claim it on expenses. The country is infested and controlled by alien turds.

    7. "… the licence fee, now £169.50 and due to increase to £174.50 in April …" Oh good! I'm saving even more money by having ditched my TV! I feel much better for it.

  68. We've started getting the Pantry Woodstack refilled now.
    Most of the ready sawn logs at the front of the car-port have been stacked and I've begun sawing and chopping from up the "garden" where there is a heap of logs I need to shift so I can get some wall building done.

      1. I am relaxing!
        Sat here with a mug of tea whilst Grad.Son gets the wood stacked.

      4. Too bloody right, Paul. The tiresome practice of placing near identical photographs side-by-side of waterlines taken many years apart, pretending that sea levels have remained unchanged in the intervening years, tells us nothing, as the state of the tides at the two moments is unknown to us. You might as well place two photos side-by-side of the same scene, one taken in January and the other in July many years later, and claim that the climate has changed enormously between the two dates.

    2. as soon as you see a "average" or a relaitive number its a scam

      most of the data theyre basing their models (which are ALWAYS WRONG)

      is literally MADE UP oh sorry "interpolated"

      as soon as we went from men with a clipboard going to a white box in the middle of a field and looking at a thermometer

      to thermocouples next to a load of tarmac and concrete on a runway by jet blasts and data links

      all the climutt change appeared

      1. Another thing to watch out for is the choice of start dates.
        It is staggering how often they just happen to start at a date that makes the claims look worse/better according to the narrative being sold, and if several claims are made it's often the case they have different starts.
        Seldom does one see a collection of claims all starting at the same point.
        That's because if they did at least one and more probably a number are likely to contradict the claims being made.

  70. From the Telegraph

    William Shakespeare’sbirthplace is being “decolonised” following concerns about the playwright being used to promote “white supremacy”.

    Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust owns buildings linked to the Bard in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. The trust also owns archival material including parish records of the playwright’s birth and baptism.

    It is now “decolonising” its vast collectionto “create a more inclusive museum experience”.

    This process includes exploring “the continued impact of Empire” on the collection, the “impact of colonialism” on world history, and how “Shakespeare’s work has played a part in this”.

    The trust has stated that some items in its collections and archives may contain “language or depictionsthat are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful”.

    The process of “decolonising”, which typically means moving away from Western perspectives, comes after concerns were raised that Shakespeare’s genius was used to advance ideas about “white supremacy”.

    The claims were made in a 2022 collaborative research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins, an academic at the University of Birmingham.

    The research took issue with the trust’s quaint Stratford attractions, comprising the supposed childhood homes and shared family home of Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, his wife, because the Bard was presented as a “universal” genius.

    This idea of Shakespeare’s universal genius “benefits the ideology of white European supremacy”, it was claimed.

    This is because it presents European culture as the world standard for high art, a standard which was pushed through “colonial inculcation” and the use of Shakespeare as a symbol of “British cultural superiority” and “Anglo-cultural supremacy”.

    Veneration of Shakespeare is therefore part of a “white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly ‘West-centric’ worldviews that continue to do harm in the world today”.

    The project recommended that Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust recognise that “the narrative of Shakespeare’s greatness has caused harm – through the epistemic violence”.

    The project also recommended that the trust present Shakespeare not as the “greatest”, but as “part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world”.

    The trust then secured funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, an organisation that finances projects that boost diversity and inclusion, to help make the collection more international in its perspective.

    As part of its commitment to being more international in outlook, the trust has so far organised events celebrating Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, and a Romeo and Juliet-inspired Bollywood dance workshop.

    The trust will continue looking at updating the “current and future interpretation” of objects in its collection. It will also explore how objects could be used as the focus for new interpretations which tell more international stories, in order to appeal to a more diverse audience.

    It has additionally pledged to remove offensive languagefrom its collections information, as part of a “long, thoughtful” process.

    The collections contain not only some of the limited contemporary documents linked to the Bard, but archived material, literary criticism, books linked to Shakespeare and gifts from around the world offered in honour of the writer.

    The ongoing closing of sites linked to Shakespeare comes following a trend for more racially-focused criticism of the playwrightin the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

    The Globe Theatre in London ran a series of seminars titled Anti-Racist Shakespeare which promoted scholarship focused on the idea of race in his plays.

    Academies taking part in the series made a number of claims, including that King Lear was about “whiteness”, and that the character of Prince Hamlet holds “racist” views of black people.

    A statement from the trust said: “As part of our ongoing work, we’ve undertaken a project which explores our collections to ensure they are as accessible as possible.”

    Properties run by the trust, including his family home New Place, are not original buildings Shakespeare would have known, but later reconstructions.

    Dr Hopkins has been approached for comment.

    3. These creatures get into office not through competency or interest but through pure, unadulterated uselessness. They say the right things to equally useless incompetents and eventually they proliferate everywhere, failing, stupid, dangerous and their attitudes and idiocy spreads like cancer, as to protect themselves they hire equally useless incompetents.

    4. That's odd. Akira Kurosawa, the great Japanese director made two films one based on King Lear, the other on Macbeth (Throne of Blood). The Indians have done Othello and Macbeth. Those are just the ones I'm aware of. I bet that the Chinese have had a stab or two at Shakespeare as well. But the point is that Shakespeare deals with themes that are universal and thus appeal to almost all cultures. To say that the "… idea of Shakespeare’s universal genius “benefits the ideology of white European supremacy”…" is just plain garbage. The observation of people ignorant of other cultures, a manifestation of their own parochialism and lack of awareness of other cultures.

    5. I guess that Merchant of Venice will be banned for it's racist overtones. There again since it is bashing the jewish stereotype, maybe not.

    6. "… Veneration of Shakespeare is therefore part of a “white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly ‘West-centric’ worldviews (sic) that continue to do harm in the world today”." Did nobody point out to the pillock that Shakespeare was a) white, b) English, c) a European and d) a Westerner? As for the harm, the wokey clap trap does more harm than any of Shakespeare's prose.

  73. Planning a bath tonight, before bed. Not had a bath in over 20 years, and since the bathroom will be dismantled soon, I'll have a go in our huge oval bath – just in casse it gets broken.

    1. The Warqueen has plans to build a 'tub' in a spare room with heated pipes the water circulates through. As she's 175cm tall she's planning 2 metres long and 90cm wide and 100cm deep. The plumber described it as a small swimming pool.

      When we moved in we said no nesting as we weren't sure if we were staying. It all depends on the political situation. If stamp duty doesn't get removed or radically cut we'll cost so much in tax to move it's almost pointless yet while the heat pump works, we would both like to turn the temp up/down and we do want a window in the bathroom. The house is badly designed on that front.

      1. This is an oval bath, set at about 30 degrees in the corner. Curvy glass shelves mirror the shape, and it's a triumph of stylish design by SWMBO. We also have underfloor heating… bliss!
        But it's costly to renovate. Spend 3 grand on tiles yesterday, and there'll be a guge amount more on demolition & rebuilding. All for a leak in the floor, buggering the kitchen ceiling below… Sigh.

        2. Could you not have got to the leak from underneath? Ripping a hole in a ceiling is no big deal compared to redoing tile, etc.

          1. It's a cast floor, poorøy laid, so needs to come out anyway for a proper replacement. Sadly.

        3. When we moved in, our bathroom had a Harvest Gold (yes, remember them?) suite and yellow, green and orange tiles. It now has white tiles and a roll top bath with a mahogany surround. All put in by us (with a bit of help from our plumber neighbour). The large orange and green flowered wallpaper has been replaced by a more subtle one with small sprigs of blue flowers. It's a pleasure to have a bath in there now. Unfortunately, owing to my lack of mobility, I am rather wary of having a bath too often lest I get cast and am unable to get out 🙁

  76. Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen from a glorious sunny but chilly and breezy spring day here in Verwood.
    Taken just now with the daffs in full effect, and if anyone knows where that hyacinth came from I'd like to be told because I'll be damned if I planted it***.

    ***And yes, I know all about the "When a daddy hyacinth loves a mummy hyacinth very much…." https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b16aea890f4c76d093e24862e086d996a00a614a12afaca7d215139d24885695.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e0e9fd2c68b384bf68878f7e8bc7807f7ea58e78c125e6d466cf4033c8566ac.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a8e081d43ea603e63fa794f097535ee8a454f80ae2e50f6412577152771e522c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59052fcc57118841b5875b4943712dd1f4a115c122e75ce58121a4502132bae9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f42c43ee88d3e25a892ac22ce758d210728d5b491934d362f095a84573c96139.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9992bb9c13c23bf062c52c4934629efe1bb4d3e01dfd22d5c8d8277a303a59f1.jpg

    1. Gorgeous!

      As to the hyacinth, do you know anyone nearby with a rogue sense of humour? My brother once planted a red tulip in his wife's carefully planned and very fashionable blue-and-white bed, then waited a whole season for it to flower. 🤣🤣

      (Yes, they're divorced. Why do you ask?)

      1. I read years ago about a German POW at the end of the war who had been employed as a gardener in an elderly spinsters home. The spring after he was repatriated in 1947 had the crocuses in the lawn come up spelling Heil Hitler.
        It made me laugh.

        2. Reminds me of the closing scene in the film Morgan – A Suitable Case for Treatment.

      2. I used to know their roadie. And my friend was persued by Dave Green (18 years older than us) – but it felt glamorous, at the time

      3. Me too. I saw the original line up at a venue in Mansfield, around 35 years ago. The set was superb but just one mistake was made. Hugh Cornwell, when singing their cover of The Kinks' All Day And All Of The Night, started to sing yet another verse at a point when the refrain was needed. The resultant cacophony meant that all four stopped playing abruptly. After a moment's awkward silence, Jean Jacques Burnel walked across to Hugh, looked him straight in the face, then shouted, "TWAT!".

        A few seconds later they struck up the opening again and played the song perfectly, as they did the rest of the set. Whether the mistake was genuine or simply part of the 'act', I'll never know. All good fun.

    2. I just opened my blinds and discovered it's raining, then this was the first thing I saw on Nottl… 🤣🤣

      Thanks – brings back memories! 😎

  79. Quite. Though I am not sure how the show-pony Smith managed to gather 43 caps…

  81. The birthplace of Shakespeare – Stratford upon Avon is to go through ' decolonisation ' due to fears of white supremacy as we move towards outside of Western civilisation. Never mind Western civilisation producing Shakespeare and not the Congo .

      1. Actually, jack, you should know that ALL the playwrights were black. They just looked white to take advantage of the privilege.

  82. Here is an excerpt from the ruling by the BC College of Nurses that found nurse Amy Hamm guilty of misconduct:

    "the panel “agrees that the statements which discount a mystical belief in a gender soul are a form of discriminatory erasure as they deny the existence of transgender people.”

    Any resemblance to Orwell is completely scary.

    3. Discipline Committee decision: Amy Hamm
      By identifying herself as a nurse or nurse educator while posting discriminatory and/or derogatory opinions regarding a vulnerable and historically disadvantaged group on various online platforms, the Respondent undermined the reputation and integrity of the nursing profession. A finding that the statements constitute unprofessional conduct would support the objectives of maintaining the reputation and integrity of the profession and promote trust in the profession of nursing."

      Questions should be directed to media@bccnm.ca
      Looks like the Canadian's have the same moronic politicians and bureaucrats as the UK.

    4. “A mystical belief in a gender soul”. Blasphemy! These idiots make the inquisition seem like a good idea.

  84. Health Secretaries

    I have a very good friend, head of a team that works for NHS England. They have had six different Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care since Jeremy Hunt left the post in July 2018: Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid, Steve Barclay, Thérèse Coffey, Victoria Atkins, Wes Streeting.

    Every time there is a change at the top a flurry of new questions is thrown at NHS England’s staff, many of whom are (and need to be) qualified accountants. The queries are usually thrown out with a very short time scale, usually 24 hours, frequently on a Friday afternoon.

    I can imagine his team being asked to work the weekend (again) to provide an answer to the Secretary of State ready for passing up to the PM in time for Prime Minister’s Questions.

    The response is now more likely to be: “Sorry, you have just told the World that my job is not necessary and that my redundancy will be handled sensitively. So I’m spending the weekend tidying up my CV.”

    I have been through redundancy twice now. It is a great motivator, but not to work harder for the organisation.

    1. I once replied to being laid off by retorting No you can't do that!
      That response was not in the script that my had been given, I stayed with the company for maybe fifteen more years.

    2. What a coincidence, that is exactly what brought down Olaf Scholz's government in Germany – government overreach with money they didn't have the right to spend.

    3. It was the Supreme Court that controversially slapped down Bonjo over his prorogation of Parliament in 2019, calling it 'unlawful'. How different is that from this?

      1. I wish that we had a supreme court with as much get up and go as yours, the Canadian Supreme Court decided that Trudeaus prorogation of parliament was completely above board and legal.

        It all depends on who you appoint to these positions, Trudeau chose his supreme court well.

        1. The UK convention was always that the courts did not interefere in the procedures of Parliament, hence the rows over the prorogation and, before that, the Article 50 nonsense. Nor has it been the case, AFAIK, that minor decisions on spending be presented before Parliament. However, if Labour is proposing something as significant as changing eligibility for welfare benefits by, say, Orders in Council rather than through changes in statute law, then it certainly is exceeding its legitimate authority.

          However, the last thing we need is a Supreme Court preventing a government from actually governing.

        2. The UK convention was always that the courts did not interefere in the procedures of Parliament, hence the rows over the prorogation and, before that, the Article 50 nonsense of 2016/17. Nor has it been the case, AFAIK, that minor decisions on spending be presented before Parliament. However, if Labour is proposing something as significant as changing eligibility for welfare benefits by, say, Orders in Council rather than through changes in statute law, then it certainly is exceeding its legitimate authority.

          However, the last thing we need is a Supreme Court preventing a government from actually governing.

        3. The UK convention was always that the courts did not interefere in the procedures of Parliament, hence the rows over the prorogation and, before that, the Article 50 nonsense of 2016/17. Nor has it been the case, AFAIK, that minor decisions on spending be presented before Parliament. However, if Labour is proposing something as significant as changing eligibility for welfare benefits by, say, Orders in Council rather than through changes in statute law, then it certainly is exceeding its legitimate authority.

          However, the last thing we need is a Supreme Court preventing a government from actually governing.

      1. There Is a sausage dog who lives near me, when passing it when out walking I just think it needs a roll and mustard 👿

          1. They do look rather silly . I prefer working dogs – labradors , spaniels etc

          3. Next week's Countryfile features Devon's River Otter and the return of beavers. Is there a species of hound trained to sniff them out?

          5. 1. Do beavers crap on the bank or in the water? No good for hounds if the latter.
            2. You missed a great pass!

      1. I'm often told I behave like one. The Warqueen has learned to steer me around obstacle rather than letting me smash through them.

      2. I've always heard that lawyers were thick-skinned and charge a lot (sorry, Bill, but you've heard that one before).

      3. Not particularly but I have a memory of playing in a cricket match where our slip fielder took a good catch. He exclaimed “Did you see that? I leapt to it like a gazelle!”

        Then came the put down “More like a shot rhinoceros!”

  88. "Regulated by the FCA"
    I've just watched an Ad for short term loans over six months to "Fix your boiler" or "Repair your car"
    For half a second at the end is mention of interest rates
    1000.9 APR
    Yes One thousand% APR
    Some regulation!!

    1. Folk fall for it. What's really annoying is the people who most fall are those who can least afford it.

      The adage rich people spend less is true. My old laptop finally stopped working and the NUC I have is also ancient, so we're looking at new ones. We can get those on free credit. Some people can't. Thus they pay more, it costs them more and they end up horribly indebted.

  89. Okay , hear this !

    These governments were characterized by one-party rule by a communist party, the rejection of private property and capitalism, state control of economic activity and mass media, restrictions on freedom of religion, and suppression of opposition and dissent.


    Now read this .

    10 Characteristics of Communism in Theory
    In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and co-author Friedrich Engels outlined the following 10 points.

    Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes
    A heavy progressive tax or graduated income tax
    Abolition of all rights of inheritance
    Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
    Centralization of credit in the hands of the state
    The state would control communication and transportation
    The state factories and instruments of production would cultivate wastelands and improve the soil
    Equal liability of all to labor and establishment of industrial armies (especially for agriculture)
    The gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country
    Free education for all children in public schools and the abolition of children's factory labor
    The manifesto mentions state ownership in its last three points, making even this pure vision of communism sound like socialism. However, Marx argued that state ownership is a valid stage in the transition to communism.3

    What is the difference between Marxism and communism?
    "Marxism" refers to a theory of the relationship between social classes and the economy. Communism, on the other hand, is a revolutionary political movement that actively seeks to change society. There is plenty of overlap, but not all Marxists would call themselves communists. Economists and sociologists may use Marxist theory as a method of analyzing trends and current events, but that doesn't necessarily mean they advocate for the abolition of private property or any other communist principles.

    https://www.thebalancemoney.com/communism-characteristics-pros-cons-examples-3305589

    1. It's that a labrador ? A favourite dog of mine. I think you know I'm Terpsichore I just can't be bothered with the muse anymore. Some here know my actual name is Kitty , I've heard ' hear Kitty Kitty ' since a child .

      1. It looks like a Lab to me but either way he is clearly a very gud boi.
        You have told me you're Terpsi before I seem to remember.

        2. Yes and it's still my account name, well, terpsi dancing upon helicon
          Just wanted a change and to forget the muse. Audrey because I'm a huge fan of Audrey Hepburn whose in the picture In Rome and K is for my Christian name. Its a very good dog indeed .

      2. Were you given the name Kitty, at birth, or is it a diminutive of Katherine, Kathleen (or Caitlin)?

        1. My maternal grandmother was a Katherine but she was usually called Kit by family and friends.

          1. When I was a child I had an “Aunty Kit “and an “Aunty Daisy” who often sent cards at Christmas but who I only ever met once. They were not part of the family, just a couple of unmarried ladies who lived together and were former wartime work colleagues of my mother.
            As a child I — obviously — never asked about their putative sexuality, I just assumed they lived together for companionship.

          3. Single or widowed ladies often lived together in the immediate post WWII era to share housing, of which there was a very real shortage, so us kids had multiple "aunties" who were not related to us. Simpler times.

            My grandchildren and their friends (all brought up in the US) were taught to refer to their parents' female friends as Miss Mary (or whatever the christian name was). Ditto with male friends , Mr Joe, etc. Less formal that using surnames, but still respectful. Even though they are now adults, they still use that form of address to the older generation.

          4. Some elderly aunties lost the love of their lives in WW1, Miss Maud , Elsie , Ethel, Alice , Winnie .. a lost generation , many grieving women , who were only in their sixties when I was a young teenager.

          5. Many of those ladies formed the backbone of Infant and Junior School staff for several decades.

          6. One of my mother's older sisters, my maiden Aunt Katharine, looked after my two sisters in St Mawes during the war as my parents were effectively stuck in the Sudan and could not get home. She became known as Kitty Mum.

            My mother was the youngest member of her family and her father was Charles Bowen-Cooke which meant that in the village she was known as Baby Cooke and that name stayed with her until well after she had her own grandchildren, who all loved going to St Mawes for the summer.

            Her first sailing dinghy in which I learnt to sail was called The Baby Cooke. This was rather like the Swallow in the Swallows and Amazon stories and had no centre board so you had to take down the gunter rig and row to windward.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffc2bdbc14bb569687ffe0c24f95d2b0e6360919b6695795923730edcd3908aa.png
            My mother always associated herself with her boats – she was not fond of her name, Eileen, and so she called herself Joanna after the name of her 14 Foot International Dinghy.

        2. It’s my middle name of which I prefer. No, just as it is. Still very much as an adult I’m like a small cat, I like to sleep rather a lot and various other small feline attributes.

          2. He is over the operation, then? Back to active mode!

            G & P have 12 different places where they sleep in the house . They share them but never sleep together. They never argue about their preferred places. If one is taken, there are eleven others!

          7. He’s a little corker, Pet.
            BTW The toon are 1–0 up at Wemberlee, Pet! Howay the lads!

      3. Still feel the presence of our lovely Lottie the Lab, nearly three years since we had to have her put to sleep.

      1. I was so relieved, as a 12-year old in 1963, when my kind of music (blues-based rock) emerged as the favoured genre in popular music; displacing all that tediously banal rubbish that was ubiquitous between 1959 and 1962.

        The execrable Marty Wilde was one of those dozens of pretend Elvis pastiche acts which symbolised that awful, desolate, unimaginative era.

          1. Indeed it was and there were many innovators between 1954 and 1958. The interregnum after that, though, was filled with countless pastiche acts who tried to emulate the originals but failed abysmally.

        2. Billy Fury, Ricky Rage, Tony Tantrum, Eric Erratic and Ruby Wrath were much admired in their day!

  91. Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse…..

    "Girls in care should be allowed to share a bedroom with boys who think they are transgender, according to guidance published by Scotland’s care watchdog.

    The advice, issued by the Care Inspectorate, said that “if a transgender young person wants to share a room with other young people who share their gender identity, they should be able to do so as long as the rights of, and risks to, all those involved are considered and respected”.

    Its guidance, which was published in the wake of last year’s Cass Review, says that transgender children “should not be made to use the toilet or bedroom of their sex assigned at birth”.

    It adds: “The provision of gendered facilities such as toilets is social convention. There is no law in Scotland about this”.

    Women’s rights activists have accused the watchdog of being “grossly negligent” amid a fierce debate on the provision of single-sex spaces in Scotland – namely, that men who self-identify as women can gain access to women’s changing rooms and toilets.

    Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at human rights charity Sex Matters, called the Care Inspectorate’s guidance “a terrifying failure of the state’s duty to protect some of Scotland’s most vulnerable young people”.

    1. The advice, issued by the Care Inspectorate, said that “if a transgender young person wants to share a room with other young people who share their gender identity, they should be able to do so as long as the rights of, and risks to, all those involved are considered and respected”.

      Wants to?

  94. I say, Jack, just remind the nation who was Home Sec when the HRA was passed into law?

    Jack Straw urges Starmer to back away from ECHR

    The former home secretary has questioned the 'utility' of Britain being bound by judges in Strasbourg

    Ethan Croft • 15 March 2025, 6:00pm GMT

    Jack Straw, a former Labour home secretary, has urged Sir Keir Starmer to back away from the European Court of Human Rights.

    Mr Straw has questioned the "utility" of Britain being bound by the court's rulings and said human rights are "safe enough" under existing UK law. The Cabinet veteran, who also served as foreign secretary and justice secretary under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, criticised the lack of a "democratic override" on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He also said the court's judgements were of "lower quality" than those delivered by British judges.

    He cited the Human Rights Act (HRA), introduced by Sir Tony's government, as an adequate guarantee of rights. Mr Straw is the first Labour grandee to call for Britain to reconsider its position on the European court.

    This week it was revealed that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, is reviewing how an article that guarantees the right to family life is being applied by immigration judges. The Home Secretary wishes to ensure that it is being applied in a "sensible" and "proportionate" way.

    It follows a number of cases reported in The Telegraph that revealed how Article 8 was being used to keep foreign criminals in Britain. These included an instance where an Albanian criminal won the right to stay in the UK after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets, citing the convention. In another case, a Pakistani paedophile jailed for child sex offences evaded deportation by claiming it would be "unduly harsh" on his own children.

    On another occasion a Jamaican drug dealer avoided deportation after he promised to only smoke cannabis and not sell it. The man claimed that being deported back to Jamaica would breach his rights to a family life under Article 8 as he had three young children in the UK with his wife.

    Mr Straw wrote in a letter to The Times: "Given the undoubted success of the HRA, the question that must now arise is: what utility is there in the UK being bound any more into the Strasbourg court? Not much, is my answer. The convention articles are safe enough within our own HRA."

    The HRA enshrined key ECHR rights into UK law, meaning that appeals could be made in British courts rather than in the Strasbourg court, which is made up of 46 judges from the member states of the Council of Europe. And Mr Straw appeared to throw his weight behind Government plans to water down Article 8 of the ECHR, which has been repeatedly used to block deportations.

    Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Michael Ellis, a former attorney general, has also called for Britain to leave the convention because "it's a body that has badly lost its way". He argued that "it protects not the rights of society but those of the antisocial".

    He wrote: "It's time for the UK to take our leave. Yes, the left will squeal and portray the UK as falling into despotism – but they will be wrong. The ECHR is not sacrosanct, it isn't the high priest of jurisprudence, whose words will be imparted through the Eons like the wisdom of Solomon. It's a body that has badly lost its way. It protects not the rights of society but those of the antisocial. It damages respect for the law with its offensive and highly damaging rulings.

    "Withdrawal from the ECHR will not be a panacea to the UK's problems with international law. Our lexocracy (my word for the rule of lawyers, rather than the rule of law) also includes our own Human Rights Act, as well as a rather out of control concept of judicial review and other problems which have allowed our judges to become a law unto themselves. These things will all have to be addressed – but withdrawing from the ECHR would be an important first step."

    Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court justice and one of the country's most senior legal minds, has also called for Britain to leave the convention, saying it lacks democratic accountability and has "arrogated to itself the right to decide between competing public interests".

    When he ran to be leader of the Conservative Party, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, also advocated withdrawing from the ECHR.

    Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, has yet to make a decision on whether it is her party's policy to leave the ECHR.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/15/jack-straw-backs-calls-leave-echr-poor-quality-justice

    1. With Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, we didn't need any of this EU crap. Common law gave us rights which signing up to Corpus Juris (EU law) removed. Repeal it all and leave us our traditional rights.

    2. Neatly described in an article in The Spectator by (of all people) Peter Llley (remember him?)

      "Perhaps the most explicit example of the (human rights) court’s disdain for democracy is its judgment against the Swiss government last year when it overruled the outcome of a referendum on climate targets. It declared: ‘Democracy cannot be reduced to the will of the majority of the electorate and elected representatives in disregard of the requirements of the rule of law.’ What voters want, in other words, is secondary to the opinions of Strasbourg judges.

      1. Nobody told them that the essence of democracy is that it is supposed to deliver what people vote for.

        2. Unless it's an election/referendum where the EU don't like the result – in that case the [unelected] EU feel quite justified in declaring the result as invalid!

          2. I am glad about that. I have read The Spectator since 1954. It is now further to the left than the Statesman.. Often lately I have thought of cancelling my subscription

      2. A good painter will produce a true likeness of the character of the subject. Just as paintings of certain Popes actually reveal the subject(s) to be nasty twisted individuals so here the painter of Hoyle has suggested a certain pointed arrogance and unwarranted superiority.

        The only thing missing is a flat cap on a hatstand in the background.

  96. Grizzly's attachment to the Florida Police:
    https://scontent-cdg4-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/483360223_636930612299402_4421757323503926512_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s600x600_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=LSOsOC-Ufd8Q7kNvgFLTCik&_nc_oc=AdizJu_r04I5xGbq0ISEc7kA6dpyUcyNyCMmOI8s1LfJ9zh6O_sYdRzXZzCE222R9GqeKAaJgwZm3WVOntWdrXAF&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-3.xx&_nc_gid=bvrfIxL__Dz93malyP5coQ&oh=00_AYGcGOsBaBOIyiIckDC37UefJS3UaOdQfoLoutYxEQ0XDw&oe=67DCDE71

    1. Woman without her man is nothing
      Woman, without her man, is nothing.
      Woman, without her, man is nothing.

  97. Afternoon, all. A promising sunny morning has turned into a dull and miserable afternoon, so I have turned to Nttl to lighten my mood. In the sermon today, Mother Pat discoursed on Christ coming out of the wilderness and having choices. When she said, "the person in charge is, to put it politely, slimy" I thought for a moment she was going to be political, but she clarified she was talking about Herod. In the cheap seats, I immediately thought of Starmer.

    As for the headline, why should young people be inspired to serve a country that they've been told for years is racist, imperialist and shameful?

    1. Talk about hopeless causes: True Belle's husband still supports Southampton Football Club, as does our Henry's godfather.

      I have never watched Norwich play at Carrow Road or Southampton play at the Dell but I nominally supported the former when I was at UEA and the latter when I was at Southampton University.

      1. I have never supported a football club, although I have watched a few matches (Dynamo Moskva in Moscow, Ipswich vs Sunderland and one other I can't recall).

        1. My claim to fame was being a Tottenham supporter since the mid 50s. And apart from seeing Stanley Mathew's play.
          My Best long lasting memory is, after a one all draw in Poland Spurs played a home game at WHL. Won 8-1.
          But the best goal was from Gornik. From a corner the scorer seemed to hang sideways in the air and scissor kicked the ball into the roof of the net.
          And an old boy shout at me and my mate. Cor blimey did you see that boys ? Old Browny (Bill Brown) didn't know wether he wanted a shit or a 'king 'air cut.

      2. Ye s , my Richard has followed Southampton since he was 9 years old when he used to go to the old Dell with his father .

        When we got married , and when Moh was in the RN before his flying training , we had a flat in Shirley .. the first Saturday we had together , he told me he was off .. "Off where" says I , to the Dell of course said he .. I cried my heart out , the Dell was very near to where we lived in those days , I was lost for words .. and wondered what on earth I was going to do on a Saturday afternoon in a strange city , on my own .

        I could hear the noise from the crowd , cheering and shouting .. and thought OMG.. is this how it is going to be and so it has been for nearly 57 years .

        Football crowds were raucous , rough and something to steer clear of .. not like Rugby crowds ..

        Saints will probably be relegated , and Moh is very upset with the standard of playing .

        1. Henry's godfather, Chris Reilly, and another of our friends, David Danby, regularly go to watch Southampton play. We were in our teens in MIlford-on-Sea when they started supporting the Saints. I wonder if your Richard knows them?

        2. We lived just off Lodge Road, t'other side of Stag Gates from The Dell and would often hear cheers or, possible more often, collective groans on a lot of Saturday afternoons.

    2. Herod Antipas was nominally a king, but Judea was a client state or protectorate of Rome. Antipas was raised in Rome. He divorced his wife in order to hook up with a younger woman, and was criticised by John the Baptist.

  98. Wordle No. 1,366 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 16 Mar 2025

    Brand for Birdie Three?

    1. Good one, just a par here.

      Wordle 1,366 4/6

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

    3. Annoying – if I'd stuck to my usual tactics and played my second starter word I would have got the two other letters and a 'walk-in' birdie. Went for glory and crashed and burned – Bogey!!

      Wordle 1,366 5/6

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

    4. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,366 4/6

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

  99. Pomies one and three in the most expensive race in the world. More tyre changes in wet Melbourne than you could poke a stick at.
    G'donya guys.

  100. We have just been subjected to a lovely invasion (visit) from part of our family. Three grandchildren and three of the parents.
    Noisy but such good fun. All tidy again now. 😅😂🤗

  103. That's me for today. Four jars of chutney is all I have to show (plus two crosswords… Cold and miserable here again. Roll on Wednesday when a mini "heatwave" will strike. Or not.

    Have jolly evening

    A demain.

  105. Whisper it folks, but Newcastle United are 2-0 up at Wembley against Liverpool, with 10 mins to go! The last time NUFC won a trophy was 1969 and I was there!

          2. They were utterly sumptuous, from start to finish. They had fire in their bellies and made sure that Liverpool didn't get a look in. They were better in all respects and well deserved their victory.

            Earlier I watched my team, Sheffield Wednesday lose the "Steel City Derby" at home against Sheffield United. Honours were even in a scoreless first half, but the Owls were easily on top throughout the second half before the Blades ran away and scored against the run of play.☹️

            Watching the exquisite display by the Toon, later in the day, made me forget the disappointment of earlier.👍🏻

          3. To see Guimares and Joelinton so proud to have done it for the fans and the club, and Burns who was let go by Newcastle at 12, and worked his way to back to the top via Blyth Spartans, was inspiring! I’m so chuffed!

    4. "The last time NUFC won a trophy was 1969 and I was there!"

      You went to Hungary way back then? Respect!

        1. Wiki:
          "Nowadays, Bobby Moncur makes semi-frequent appearances on Sky TV as a football pundit. He currently holds the record of being the last Newcastle United captain to lift silverware for the club and is frequently quoted as wanting to lose this honour as quickly as possible."

          A wish come true.

          1. I remember when he retired and bought a sports shop in Grainger Street, Newcastle. We used to spend hours hanging about waiting to see him!

          2. The British centre-half of the time had a not entirely unfair reputation as a lunk good only for launching the ball downfield but Moncur's three goals belied that, especially his flying volley at the start of the second half that spiked the Hungarians fightback.

            The same XI plus sub started in each leg: 4 Scottish, 3 English, 2 Welsh, 2 Northern Irish and one Danish. All the English players were from County Durham (and, yes, Pop Robson was from that big Wearside town). Today's starting line-up included just five UK players but one of them was captain Dan Burn from Blyth. How fitting, given Newcastle proper is wholly in Northumberland, not partly in County Durham as some ignorant suvverners fink.

          3. Indeed! We were talking about city/county demarcation and I was actually born in Co. Durham, which was later renamed as the dreadful Tyne & Wear!
            The team were hailed as heroes, and the trophy parade was amazing! Benny Arentoft, WynDavies etc!

          1. Ooh! You are a cynic! My friends father was a director at Newcastle! I was in a box, but in the Gallowgate End when the team bought the trophy back!

  106. Waltzes in, good evening, feeling rather chilly do I've just put on a comfy jumper .

  108. Amazing how many people took this serious on FB, it appeared to annoy RW & LW groups alike

    In the event of Reform looking for a new leader, they need look no further than Sir Keir Starmer, with his war mongering credentials, tough stand on crime, taking a chainsaw to public sector jobs and Scroogelike approach to benefits & welfare claimants plus his superb record on deportation.
    Labour are already rebelling against his sharp U-turn to the Right.
    Could it be time for Starmer to cross the floor and become Reforms fifth member of parliament?

  109. 403263+ up ticks,

    Lurpak boss: Conspiracy theorists are targeting our butter
    Arla chief says boycott will not deter company from making decisions based on science.
    Now there's bosses science and ordinary peoples science about as different as chalk & cheese, ho and check the cheese also.

    Proof of the pudding ( check the pudding as well) that boycotting is having a telling affect, as the chorus girl said to the vicar, keep it up.

      1. The League Cup.

        It's 'Howay' for Geordies; but 'Haway' for Mackems and Smoggies!🤣

          1. No, I’m really not! And don’t start on me…some twit on the DT told me I can’t spell my surname!

      3. Oh thanks! It’s the League cup, as you well know! Remember 1973?
        And it ‘howay’ aksherly!

          1. I know! You beat Leeds! And how we all cheered! Don’t you remember that feeling?

        1. "domestic trophy"

          I visualise the scullery maid's head above the fireplace next to the water buffalo.

    4. Excellent result.

      But it would have served them right if Liverpool had scored when, in the dying moments, that idiot who would have been one on one with the Liverpool goalkeeper with a chance of 3-1 decided to head for the corner instead, to waste time, and lost the ball.

        1. My cloud is smiling as I rain on your parade.

          I was pleased they won, but that doesn’t mean that I support stupidity.

  112. Have a good evening, I'm about to struggle with some books 🙂

    2. AH had a similar problem. Indeed I understand he wrote about it in a book called Mein Kampfe ….

    3. AH had a similar problem. Indeed I understand he wrote about it in a book called Mein Kampfe ….

  113. I hope you know which side your bred is buttered, 'cause if not you could be in trouble!

      1. I found at least two newish tv channels playing and showing footage of 1970 80s music.
        Ad breaks are rife but worth a look. One is called 80s oldies.

  117. There's been a lot of activity over on Freespeechbacklash (which I frequent) in regard to the Online Safety Act – elements of which kicked in today, apparently.
    As a result of this TCW has cancelled its Readers Forum and is considering blocking all btl activity.
    I dont follow TCW but I copy a link from FSB to show what's going on.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/my-tcw-week-in-review-9/

    Seems a little concerning and I was surprised to see no reaction on this site……….

    1. The trouble with this new law is that the state can define what online comment they do not like. Minty has mentioned this issue for a while but like many modern laws limiting freedom of expression, they are brought in to cover one particular situation but then can be used to persecute anyone who makes an online comment. I think it was the sad case of Molly Rose which partly inspired this Act, maybe something that was needed, but it has exploded in its reach to cover anything you write online. This government has already shown its ruthlessness over public comment after Southport. I see a lot more prosecutions of run of the mill commentators in future. Full details here. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

    2. In my case as they can go after historical posts my meme history means I already qualify for a long stretch
      I'll keep them spicy
      fuck'em

      1. Nice one Rik, but the obvious concern would be that 'they' could close the site down or force the site owners to take it down – Kathy Gyngell at TCW is worried she might be hit by a humongous fine that could cost her her house!!

          1. Perhaps in the not too distant future, they'll be sending the machete swingers to our homes with summary justice.

    3. When I post on TCW my posts always get held in moderation, I wonder if it's because I have no upvotes on Disqus.

      1. I dont frequent TCW sos but I'm going to repost tomorrow morning as the traffic seems to have died down on here.

        I believe this site faces an existential threat, like many others such as Freespeechbacklash, one vexatious complaint from some asshole at 'Hope not Hate' (which apparently was the problem at TCW) and the site could be gone.

        I'm a relative newcomer on here and, as such, I am not as invested as many others – but there needs to be some sort of contingency plan…..

        As I say, I'll repost tomorrow morning.

        3. This is what I posted, why would it be pulled?

          Fight fire with fire.
          Complain constantly about anything and everything that people like "hope not hate" post anywhere.
          Why is their "offence" more important than yours?
          Flood the system to overflowing and then sue the regulator for inherent bias when they support any other complainant before you.

          1. Well I think you could have a bloody good guess -'Hope not Hate' anyone?? This needs to be challenged…..

            PS I like your tactics!!

        5. I’ve had a response.
          I’m a new poster.
          However, in the past I have tried to post on numerous occasions and the posts have not appeared.

  119. Three young M#sl1ms lured Itay Keshti, an Israeli record producer living in England, to a secluded house.
    They kidnapped him, posing as representatives of Polydor Records.

    They wore masks and were armed. They tied him to a radiator and beat him brutally and mercilessly.
    They emphasized that he was kidnapped because he was Jewish and Israeli, and threatened to kill him.
    At one point, Itay Keshti managed to escape and called the police.

    The three were arrested and charged with kidnapping for political, religious, and financial reasons.
    After finding correspondence saying: “The three of us have complete trust in Allah and therefore we cannot fail,” they were charged with anti-Semitism.

    Keshti said the event felt like a reenactment of October 7 and that he felt shocked and afraid, thinking of “his Jewish ancestors who experienced the Holocaust.”

    The shameful sentence the terrorists received – only 8 years – means they are out of prison before the age of 30.
    This is what anti-Semitism looks like.
    Now who has heard of this story?

    Pulled from F/B

    1. It was on Talkradio this morning. Peter Cardwell was all over it. I was horrified to hear it happened in this once wonderful country.

  120. Yemen's Houthi terrorists claimed to have attacked the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier – as well as several American warships – in the Red Sea.

    The terror group said, without offering evidence, that they attacked the Truman and its warships with ballistic missiles and drones in response to the U.S. attacks.

    Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Sunday: 'The armed forces, with the help of God Almighty, carried out a qualitative military operation targeting the American aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and its accompanying warships in the northern Red Sea, using 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones in a joint operation carried out by the missile force, Drone Air Force and the naval forces.'

    Several unnamed U.S. defense officials dismissed the claims and said they were not aware of any Houthi attack on the Truman.

    The alleged attack comes after the first set of Donald Trump's airstrikes against Yemen's Houthi rebels killed at least 31 people – which were triggered when the Houthis started raiding shipping vessels bound for the West.

    America previously set up their aircraft carriers in the Red Sea, much to the ire of the terrorists who were attacking Israeli ships during the 15-month conflict in Gaza.

    The Houthis claimed that America's intense barrage of strikes killed children, which were carried out with British military support. They said 101 people were wounded.

    President Donald Trump vowed to 'use overwhelming lethal force' and ordered Iran to 'immediately' cut its support from the Yemeni terror group.

    To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON'T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!' he said.

    The Houthis warned that the strikes 'will not pass without response', while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the deaths and said Washington had 'no authority' to dictate its foreign policy.

    A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry, Esmaeil Baqaei 'strongly condemned the brutal air strikes by the US' in a later statement, denouncing them a 'gross violation of the principles of the UN Charter', and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed to retaliate against Trump's strikes.

    Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said on Sunday that U.S. airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen 'took out' multiple Houthi leaders.

    'This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out,' Waltz said on ABC News.

    Waltz had been asked by anchor Martha Raddatz about how the strikes by the Trump administration were different from those conducted during the Biden administration.

    He said the difference was 'going after the Houthi leadership' and 'holding Iran responsible.'

    The Houthi Ansarollah website slammed what it called 'US-British aggression' and Washington's 'criminal brutality'.

    The US Central Command (CENTCOM), which posted images of fighters and a bomb demolishing a building compound, said 'precision strikes' were launched to 'defend American interests, deter enemies, and restore freedom of navigation'.

    'Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to confront escalation with escalation,' the rebels' political bureau said in a statement on their Al-Masirah TV station.

    The rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the 'axis of resistance' of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.

    They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians.

    Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Houthis had 'attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023'.

    The campaign crippled the vital route, which normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, forcing many companies into a costly detour around southern Africa.

    The Palestinian group Hamas, which has long supported the Houthis, hit out Saturday at the US strikes, branding them 'a stark violation of international law and an assault on the country's sovereignty and stability'.

    After halting their attacks when Gaza's ceasefire took effect in January, the Houthis announced on Tuesday that they would resume them until Israel lifts its blockade of aid to the shattered Palestinian territory.

    Trump's statement did not reference the dispute over Israel, but focused on previous Houthi attacks on merchant shipping.

    'To all Huthi [sic] terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON'T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!' he said.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14504927/yemen-houthi-terrorists-attack-american-aircraft-carrier-trump.html

    1. I Hope he'll do what the Russians did to the Somalian pirates attacking shipping off their coast.
      Machine gunned them
      all off to a new life.

  121. Yemen's Houthi terrorists claimed to have attacked the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier – as well as several American warships – in the Red Sea.

    The terror group said, without offering evidence, that they attacked the Truman and its warships with ballistic missiles and drones in response to the U.S. attacks.

    Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Sunday: 'The armed forces, with the help of God Almighty, carried out a qualitative military operation targeting the American aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and its accompanying warships in the northern Red Sea, using 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones in a joint operation carried out by the missile force, Drone Air Force and the naval forces.'

    Several unnamed U.S. defense officials dismissed the claims and said they were not aware of any Houthi attack on the Truman.

    The alleged attack comes after the first set of Donald Trump's airstrikes against Yemen's Houthi rebels killed at least 31 people – which were triggered when the Houthis started raiding shipping vessels bound for the West.

    America previously set up their aircraft carriers in the Red Sea, much to the ire of the terrorists who were attacking Israeli ships during the 15-month conflict in Gaza.

    The Houthis claimed that America's intense barrage of strikes killed children, which were carried out with British military support. They said 101 people were wounded.

    President Donald Trump vowed to 'use overwhelming lethal force' and ordered Iran to 'immediately' cut its support from the Yemeni terror group.

    To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON'T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!' he said.

    The Houthis warned that the strikes 'will not pass without response', while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the deaths and said Washington had 'no authority' to dictate its foreign policy.

    A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry, Esmaeil Baqaei 'strongly condemned the brutal air strikes by the US' in a later statement, denouncing them a 'gross violation of the principles of the UN Charter', and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed to retaliate against Trump's strikes.

    Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said on Sunday that U.S. airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen 'took out' multiple Houthi leaders.

    'This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out,' Waltz said on ABC News.

    Waltz had been asked by anchor Martha Raddatz about how the strikes by the Trump administration were different from those conducted during the Biden administration.

    He said the difference was 'going after the Houthi leadership' and 'holding Iran responsible.'

    The Houthi Ansarollah website slammed what it called 'US-British aggression' and Washington's 'criminal brutality'.

    The US Central Command (CENTCOM), which posted images of fighters and a bomb demolishing a building compound, said 'precision strikes' were launched to 'defend American interests, deter enemies, and restore freedom of navigation'.

    'Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to confront escalation with escalation,' the rebels' political bureau said in a statement on their Al-Masirah TV station.

    The rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the 'axis of resistance' of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the United States.

    They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians.

    Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Houthis had 'attacked US warships 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times since 2023'.

    The campaign crippled the vital route, which normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, forcing many companies into a costly detour around southern Africa.

    The Palestinian group Hamas, which has long supported the Houthis, hit out Saturday at the US strikes, branding them 'a stark violation of international law and an assault on the country's sovereignty and stability'.

    After halting their attacks when Gaza's ceasefire took effect in January, the Houthis announced on Tuesday that they would resume them until Israel lifts its blockade of aid to the shattered Palestinian territory.

    Trump's statement did not reference the dispute over Israel, but focused on previous Houthi attacks on merchant shipping.

    'To all Huthi [sic] terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON'T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!' he said.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14504927/yemen-houthi-terrorists-attack-american-aircraft-carrier-trump.html

  122. It continues to get worse…

    "Consultants assessing Covid vaccine damage claims on behalf of the NHS have been paid millions more than the victims, it has emerged.

    Freedom of Information requests made by The Telegraph show that US-based Crawford and Company has carried out nearly 13,000 medical assessments, but dismissed more than 98 per cent of cases.

    Just 203 claimants have been notified they are entitled to a one-off payment of £120,000 through the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) amounting to £24,360,000. Yet Crawford and Company has received £27,264,896 for its services.

    The VDPS is run by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) but it has been criticised for a lack of transparency regarding how claims are assessed.

    Prof Richard Goldberg, chairman in law at Durham University, with a special interest in vaccine liability and compensation, said: “The idea that this would be farmed out to a private company to make a determination is very odd. It’s taxpayers money and money is tight at the moment.

    “The lack of transparency is not helpful and there is a terrible sense of secrecy about all of this. One gets the sense that their main objective is for these cases not to succeed.

    “There are no stats available so we don’t know the details about how these claims are being decided or whether previous judgments are being taken into account. They just trot out the same old line that they will examine the medical and epidemiological research and current medical consensus.”

    He added: “What we want is people who are entitled to compensation to get it, and I’m not saying everyone deserves compensation. But the vast majority of cases are knocked out on causation grounds and I believe that there is a need for rigorous criteria to determine causation, as well as a system that is fair and accessible.”

  124. Right, chums, it's my bedtime now. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and see you all tomorrow.

  129. ♬Ah me lads, ye shudda seen wi gannin',
    We pass'd the foaks alang the road just as they wor stannin';
    Thor wis lots o' lads an' lassies there, aal wi' smiling faces,
    Gannin' alang the Scotswood Road, to see the Blaydon Races.♬

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