Sunday 18 July: It’s nothing like Freedom Day as restrictions continue to manipulate us

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/17/letters-nothing-like-freedom-day-restrictions-continue-manipulate/

813 thoughts on “Sunday 18 July: It’s nothing like Freedom Day as restrictions continue to manipulate us”

  1. No need for Chilcot-style inquiry into Afghanistan campaign, says Armed Forces chief. 17 July 2021 • 9:00pm

    The Taliban has swept the Afghan government from dozens of rural districts in the two months since Joe Biden announced the endgame of his troop withdrawal. Sir Nick, who served for a total of nearly three years in the country, said the militants had overextended and Afghan forces had consolidated.

    He added: “If Kabul stands together in a united fashion and if can they manage to supply the Afghan army and sustain it so they can retain the key provincial capitals, then I don’t think that the rag tag and bobtail effort that is the Taliban insurgency is likely to be able to achieve its effect.”

    Morning everyone. Yes and if wishes were horses then beggars would ride! How can the Afghan Government hold the cities when the Taliban control the countryside? Vietnam provides the answer! Carter of course doesn’t want an inquiry any more than the Government. In this particular case because the Army performed no better. Starved of resources, incompetently led and in insufficient numbers to effect any useful outcome it was an effort doomed to failure from the very beginning. This said I’m not very keen on the idea of inquiries myself. I’ve seen a great many in my lifetime and they invariably lead to the deflection of responsibility from where it really belongs. What we need are trials after the example of Admiral Byng. Blair, Cameron and their cronies need to be up on War Crimes charges and the Army for Criminal Incompetence and Serial Negligence.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/17/cloth-face-masks-comfort-blankets-do-little-curb-covid-spread/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    2. Good morning & happy Sunday Minty. The Chilcot Inquiry was an establishment Whitewash at great expense to the taxpayer. Hanging Blair, Brown, Mandelson & the rest of New Labours leaders at the time in public would served justice better & cheaper! Sadly a whole new generation of completely brainwashed & indoctrinated kids have now reached voting age & have no knowledge of Blair & co’s treason.

    4. Sir Nick is a cretin.

      Kabul will be a city under siege. The people will starve. The elites and Government will be airlifted out.

      I hope the Taliban have some Surface to Air missiles.

    5. If the Afghans can develop pigs with wings, … but ah, I see the difficulty…

    6. As anyone who’s seen Carry on UP the Cyber, or watched the previous Russian defeats, anyone who thinks it’s worth throwing money and men at Afghanistan needs their head examining .We’ve been wasting our resources there since the 19th century..

    2. If they’re fools enough to have that app (and believe it) then they deserve all the whee-ping they bring down upon themselves.

  5. It has been obvious for ages that Cadwalladr is a power crazed commie nutter but nobody is making a serious effort to rein her in

    Revealed: Independent Sage is run by Left-wing group including anti-Brexit activists

    The Citizens, founded by journalist Carole Cadwalladr, describes itself as ‘founders and producers’ of Independent Sage

    By Edward Malnick, SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR
    17 July 2021 • 2:36pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2021/07/17/TELEMMGLPICT000264670895_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq6L3Bx11x18zbsv4k04trOOoz929jMpBUrvZM_vOFifw.jpeg?imwidth=680
    The Citizens, founded by Carole Cadwalladr (pictured), describes itself as ‘founders and producers’ of Independent Sage

    An “independent” group of scientists that regularly criticises the Government for not introducing tougher Covid-19 restrictions is being run by a body which boasted last week that it is “good at creating havoc” and was founded by an activist journalist accused of peddling conspiracy theories about Brexit, The Telegraph can disclose.

    The Citizens, founded by Carole Cadwalladr, describes itself as “founders and producers” of Independent Sage, a committee of academics that claims to “provide independent scientific advice”.

    The Citizens is also currently bringing legal action over ministers’ use of apps such as WhatsApp to communicate about official business, and claims to be gathering evidence of “the privatisation of the NHS”.
    *
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    **************************************************************

    Kevin Bell
    17 Jul 2021 2:52PM
    So why does the DT still cover and quote Independent Sage members? Could the DT now promise to ignore them?

    Derek White
    17 Jul 2021 3:00PM
    I think it was pretty obvious these were a bunch of communists.

    1. citroen mng, what these people don’t seem to figure, is real people that have ability to think, knew the agenda for ages. Now that they [feel comfortable [their inner ego] to be fully associated in public domain with privatising NHS, the “ebola variant SAGE” etc. as footsoliders for corporates, they’ve self signed their own Thomas á Beckett note

    2. Another thread of BTL:-

      Graham Sinagola
      18 Jul 2021 8:59AM
      Rabid lefties will stop at nothing. Reading about murderous Stalin will give you some idea of what commies get up to.

      Flag 10 Unlike Reply

      Alan Jolin
      18 Jul 2021 9:02AM
      @Graham Sinagola Yes and Perhaps, they should read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, before spurting their Postmodernist Agendas.

      Flag 2 Unlike Reply

      Canute Turner
      18 Jul 2021 9:04AM
      @Alan Jolin @Graham Sinagola Not a problem as long as you stay on message. Only heretics and enemies of the revolution are so treated.

      Flag2LikeReply

      Robert Spowart
      18 Jul 2021 9:28AM
      @Canute Turner @Alan Jolin @Graham Sinagola WRONG!

      The Regime MUST keep up a supply of “enemies” in order to justify their oppressions so will end up eating it’s own children.

  6. mng all, the Sunday woke digest: “Sebastian Monbiat” moniker still dancing with fairies [he’s not alone]:

    SIR – We need to stop calling tomorrow, July 19, “Freedom Day”. With the Government urging businesses to keep in place Covid measures out of a sense of “social responsibility”, we are far from free but are still being manipulated by a Government that is totally out of touch.

    Malcolm Tod
    Felton, Northumberland

    SIR – Could somebody please explain to this 82-year-old, double-vaccinated simple soul exactly what new freedoms we are going to be allowed tomorrow, as we are expected to carry on wearing masks in enclosed public spaces and may have to obtain a Covid passport if we wish to enter pubs and restaurants?

    Jacqueline Marshall
    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    SIR – Regardless of the rule changes tomorrow, I’ll continue to wear a mask.

    The Government’s anti-mask, anti-social-distancing agenda is, in reality, a thinly-veiled policy of herd immunity. It clearly wants to let Covid rip. It is now down to the people of Britain to deny the Government its herd-immunity wish. We should mask up, practise social distancing and generally be cautious to help save human lives from this vicious disease.

    Sebastian Monblat
    Sutton, Surrey

    SIR – The current Covid infection rate is around 40,000-50,000 per day and still increasing (though the figure is probably higher due to many having no symptoms and therefore not contributing to the daily figures).

    The reassuring fact is that deaths have only slowly risen to about 50 per day – nowhere near the horrendous figures of the first wave. Vaccination is undoubtedly working well, and this latest wave is increasing herd immunity rapidly, which is good news.

    We must keep things in perspective and note that over 1,000 deaths occur daily from other causes: road traffic accidents, heart attacks, strokes, cancer. Deaths from Covid are small in number, and are most likely occurring among people who are medically at risk with underlying health problems.

    Dr Paul Jacques
    Threshfield, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Throughout the pandemic, it has been stressed by the authorities that good ventilation is essential when trying to reduce cross-infection.

    Last Tuesday I made a return journey from Warminster to London, which involved five trains. None of the carriages had an open window. When I asked the conductor on the 17.20 from Waterloo if he could open some, I was told it was not possible, although it was a good idea. The conductor on the 19.13 from Salisbury did open one. It made a significant difference.

    Before mayors insist that the public must continue to wear masks on public transport, they should tell local providers to improve ventilation. The Government should do the same with the national rail companies.

    Richard Sawle
    Warminster, Wiltshire

    The lure of lockdown

    SIR – Daniel Hannan is a valiant defender of liberty (Comment, July 11), but he fails to consider the reasons why so many people support draconian restrictions on freedom. Not all of those reasons are irrational.

    My wife runs a small Airbnb property, and many guests come to escape London and other big cities. Hearing their horrendous accounts of the intolerable noise and disruption many suffer in their daily (and nightly) lives, I can understand why they might support extreme measures like curfews and the closure of nightclubs. My postbag from the small city of Canterbury, where I was an MP, used to be full of similar material.

    For those of us privileged to live in quiet, pleasant neighbourhoods, it is hardly fair to scoff at people who are sick of living among broken windows, discarded rubbish and foul language, with anti-social neighbours – people for whom a good night’s sleep is a distant aspiration.

    Conservatives should believe in liberty, but without the means to produce better citizens – from responsible families to discipline in schools – liberty degenerates into licence, and shrinking the state just leaves a vacuum; that means misery for those in crowded, broken neighbourhoods.

    Fortunately, Boris Johnson understands this; one of his first acts as Mayor of London was to ban alcohol on the Tube. When rioting came, he ordered water cannon (blocked by the then Home Secretary, Theresa May).

    Sir Julian Brazier
    Canterbury, Kent

    Clever coppers

    SIR – Would the proposed requirement for all new police officers to be educated to degree level (Letters, July 11) have made any difference to their ability to control the football thugs at Wembley Stadium on the day of the Euro 2020 final? I think not.

    Clare Byam-Cook
    London SW15

    Financial education

    SIR – One solution to the substantial workload of the financial ombudsman (“The financial ombudsman is ‘routinely failing consumers’”, report, July 4) would be to increase financial education in our schools. It is on the curriculum but taught consistently in less than half of all secondary schools.

    To a charity that works with schools to provide young people with coherent teaching in this subject, it is frustrating that adequate funding for meaningful financial education has never been made available. Financial education is a basic need of every citizen, and unsurprisingly there are promising signs that it can help to improve outcomes for young people doing a GCSE in Maths, perhaps because the subject starts to have some practical meaning in their everyday lives.

    The benefits would be less work for the financial ombudsman, fewer scams being successfully perpetrated, and individuals having the necessary skills to manage their own financial affairs.

    William Salomon
    President, Young Enterprise
    London W1

    Scooter space

    SIR – I completely agree with the boss of the rental company who wants cycle lanes widened to accommodate his electric scooters (report, July 11).

    What a splendid idea – this will also provide space for pedestrians who need to step off the pavement in order to avoid cyclists.

    Howard Thomas
    New Milton, Hampshire

    Britannia’s successor

    SIR – Sir John Major’s criticism of HMY Britannia’s replacement on the grounds that the money could be better spent on foreign aid (report, July 14)
    represents a major U-turn, given that his government fought to build a new royal yacht in the run up to the 1997 general election.

    On February 11 1997 he told Parliament: “I regard [the royal yacht] as an important national asset that plays an important role in winning business for Britain abroad. I believe that the project is an investment in our nation’s future, and that it is entirely appropriate that it should be met out of public funds. I look forward to the support that there will be when the yacht is built in a British shipyard, sustaining British jobs.”

    Sadly, his government mishandled the issue. It should have capitalised on Britannia’s high-profile programme and commercial success to justify the construction of another royal yacht when it announced Britannia’s retirement in 1994. Instead, it allowed the issue to drift for over two years before giving the replacement a green light in the worst possible circumstances, having failed to consult the opposition and announcing its plans ahead of a general election.

    Neither Tony Blair, nor the senior members of his shadow Cabinet, had any direct experience of Britannia, so they viewed the government’s announcement as a golden opportunity to score short-term political points.

    The irony of Sir John Major’s criticism is that the current Government could have benefited from higher tax receipts from British companies and workers stemming from the business generated by Britannia’s successor, to spend on worthy projects such as foreign aid, if his government had handled the issue more effectively in 1997.

    Richard Johnstone-Bryden
    Beausoleil, Alpes-Maritimes, France

    Picking a password

    SIR – When I was in charge of looking after a school’s computers, I was asked by pupils what to use as a password (“We’re sacrificing convenience for ridiculous web password demands”, City, July 5).

    Their choice of simple words was alarming, as they could easily be guessed. I told them to think of a simple phrase that only applied to them. For example: My mother hates tomato juice in the morning. This would become Mmhtjitm.

    Robert Ward
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    Through-train services stealthily removed

    SIR – Dr H J Williams (Letters, July 11) has noticed the disappearance of through trains from Prestatyn to London and Cardiff. This is another instance of the Department for Transport’s well-known tactic of closure by stealth.

    Its method is simple: it makes the service less attractive – in this case by making passengers change trains, meaning fewer people use them – and then argues for running fewer trains due to reduced demand. Eventually it presents a case to close the line entirely.

    There were once thousands of odd through coaches, multi-portion trains and hundreds of through trains from less obvious places to destinations in demand, but now they are rare things (outside the London commuter area where the civil servants live).

    Their gradual demise is a godsend to the road lobby, which receives “investment” from the Department for Transport, while railways receive “subsidies”.

    David Pearson
    Haworth, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Dr Williams will be pleased to learn that Transport for Wales will introduce three new weekday return services of through trains to Cardiff from North Wales as part of the September timetable change.

    These will consist of comfortable refurbished locomotive-hauled Mark 4 coach trains, rather than ones with noisy bus engines under each coach. A full restaurant service, as on the withdrawn Mark 3 coaches – suspended while Covid-19 restrictions were in place – will be reinstated on these upgraded trains.

    Roger Croston
    Chester

    Horses are treated cruelly for entertainment

    SIR – Daniel Hannan suggests that a ban on horse racing could be among several possible unintended consequences of legislation accepting that animals are sentient (“For a textbook example of bad law, look no further than the Animal Sentience Bill”, Comment, July 11).

    He implies that this would be unfortunate, but I cannot agree.

    Horses are the only animals who may be beaten – whipped by their jockeys – in public for the sake of entertainment.

    Eighty-two per cent of flat-race horses older than three years of age suffer from bleeding lungs, which can cause blood to leak from the nostrils. Gastric ulcers are present in 93 per cent of horses in training, in whom the condition gets progressively worse.

    Horses are increasingly bred for speed rather than strength, which is why so many are injured and then killed. Would the end of this form of animal exploitation be such a bad thing?

    Iain Green
    Director, Animal Aid
    Tonbridge, Kent

    1. GM & Happy Sunday Citroen. Football is nowadays a game that attracts over paid thugs to play it on the pitch not just thugs to support it !

  10. Mike Yeadon sums it up perfectly [c/o off grauniad] https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/17/yeadon-sums-it-up/ and one of BTL comments giving links to major protests across France:

    Paris https://twitter.com/Haberci75575340/status/1416425190284795906

    Marseille https://twitter.com/Infirmier_Offi/status/1416415107198902277

    La Rochelle https://twitter.com/MohammedAalem/status/1416423460138532864

    Dijon https://twitter.com/Unbound_N_N/status/1416422181232205832

    Nancy https://twitter.com/Lumen27annis/status/1416421573779669002

    Aix En Provence https://twitter.com/AnonymeCitoyen/status/1416328865492967429

    And of course Montpellier https://twitter.com/OliBriO_/status/1416386448031420422

    2. Macron now back-tracking and reaffirming lack of spine, obligation to check health passports now only applies to large supermarkets / commercial centres

    3. The BBC report that 23 Renegade Frenchies took part in a unco-ordinated march through the village Nouvion

      causing much damage and harm to the inhabitants, says Rene, the local bar owner

  12. I posted this just now on a Spectator article about New Zealand in response to a Climate Change sceptic. https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/07/will-fairy-dust-power-new-zealand/

    “Richard Treadgold 5 hours ago:

    Jeremy, there is not a shred of evidence linking our emissions (or any human activities) to dangerous warming. It’s entirely reasonable that we do influence the temperature, but it so far remains undetected. If you think you have evidence of an influence, please tell us what it is. The IPCC shows no evidence in its Assessment Reports. If anyone thinks they do, tell us the page number.

    ——————-

    My response:

    Herein lies the difference between art and faith and the rule of law and science. Each has their place. Art and faith often goes off onto uncontrolled tangents of lunacy, but science and law can divert so much of our limited time and energy to acquiring rigorous evidence and ticking boxes that there is none left to get anything done, and that which is done is too late and too little – an unrelenting criticism of our current political setup.

    I do challenge your assertion that we have not detected any influence of artificial climate change. The dwindling glaciers in the Alps and the Himalayas, the melting of the permafrost in Siberia so that it can no longer support structures and releases methane locked up since the time of the dinosaurs. There is the opening up of arctic sea routes, and the possibility there of human encroachment onto its fragile habitats. There have always been natural disasters, but the scale of a simple twitch of the Jet Stream on Western Canada and Germany in the last month is far more than just a heat wave or a bit of rain.

    Mostly, I base my judgement on simple logic. The Earth cannot sustain the burgeoning and rapacious modern aspirations of nearly 8 billion people where before the first time the human population was over 1 billion was in 1804. People would have to move to where people do not belong – we only have to wonder why we are building homes on flood plains today – or they overburden the places where they are so many that there is conflict and the turmoil of civil war as clashing tribes and cultures sort out their differences in the violent manner humans have done for millennia.

    The IPCC is just another set of lawyers. I have little respect any more for these institutions – they have been corrupted by vested interests, or are open to the charge that they have been. There is an ethical deficit that has brought on general institutional breakdown. Only look at the National Trust in the UK or the BBC to see what that is about. In that situation, where science and the law have become discredited, all we have left to go on is art and faith.

    God help us all!”

  14. Good morning, all. Sunny and warm already. Just done half an hour’s ladder work before it gets too hot.

    No news, I see – what a relief.

  15. Labour should know by now socialist revolutions never work. If they need reminding, ask a Cuban

    Rod Liddle
    Sunday July 18 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    You have to feel a little sorry for Keir Starmer. The more he attempts to come across as a normal human being, the more he sounds like a speak-your-weight machine that has suddenly been afflicted with self-righteousness. The more he attempts to convince us that his party is eminently sensible and fit to govern, the more shrieks of manifest derangement emanate from his backbench MPs. Chic radical posturing and, to quote Lenin, infantile leftism.

    There are protests and riots in Cuba because they don’t have enough to eat, can’t get medical supplies and have no freedom. Thuggery is being used against the demonstrators, as you might expect. But for a large tranche — perhaps the majority — of the Labour Party, Cuba’s only problems are the consequence of the US trade embargo. Otherwise the country would be a utopia.

    Never mind that it is a dynastic totalitarian dictatorship led, in the main, by cigar-chomping bullies and tyrants who combine economic mismanagement with brutality, the imprisonment of gay people and trade unionists and the total suppression of freedom of speech. In the fantasy land of the modern liberal left, with its multiplicity of non-sequiturs and denials of reality, because Cuba is against the West and is “anti-capitalist”, they are for it.

    So they were all busy tweeting last week. Richard Burgon, for example, the Immanuel Kant of Leeds, the reliably hilarious Diane Abbott, the antisemite Zara Sultana and the Wansbeck MP Ian “Ooot-ray-juss” Lavery, who trousered £165,000 from the miners’ union he ran and had the mortgage on his house paid off. Solidarity with Cuba! Not with the Cuban people, mind, but with the, uh, glorious revolution. Castro and that pin-up psychopath Ernesto Guevara. The RMT union even has a garden party every year in solidarity with Cuba. Let them eat cake — and nibbles, with a glass of prosecco.

    All socialist states fail. This needs to be stated only because there is a growing idiocy at large — in the Labour Party, but also in Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter — that insists it is capitalism, in all its forms, that causes poverty and misery, when every piece of available evidence makes it clear that the precise opposite is true. The more chic and radically socialist the state is, the more likely it is to end in totalitarianism and people eating their own pets to survive — because socialism and mass starvation are wedded together, having walked up the aisle hand in hand.

    Cuba, where people have been desperately trying to find enough to eat for 60 years. Or Venezuela, the Labour Party’s wet dream. More than one million people have fled the country since Hugo Chavez decided it was ripe for a bit of hardline Marxism. Empty supermarkets, power outages and people eating cats. The grotesque suppression of human rights and freedom of speech. This sort of stuff follows “anti-capitalism” as reliably as night follows day. More examples?

    The People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, under the delightful Marxist Mengistu Haile Mariam: mass starvation and death. The one-party Marxist state of Zimbabwe under Big Bob Mugabe, in which 60 per cent of the population were “food insecure”. Once one of Africa’s richest countries, it enjoyed an inflation rate of more than 100,000 per cent in 2008. The millions who starved in Mao’s China between 1959 and 1961, the millions who died from starvation in the Soviet Union (and especially the Ukrainian SSR) because Stalin thought it might be a good idea to beat up the people who grew all the food. How are they off for food these days in North Korea, another socialist country with which some senior Labour figures, incredibly, stood in solidarity?

    Do I have to mention Pol Pot? Come on, you remember him: as many as 1.5 million people dead of starvation between 1975 and 1979 — and the total population of Cambodia was only seven million or so. When Burgon and co hand out the awards for the most gloriously socialist leader of all time, old Pol’s got to be in with a shout. He really punched above his weight.

    For sure, there is something intrinsically shifty and cruel about capitalism, especially if you are 15 years old and a bit dim, which is why it needs to be softened by the state to ensure that at least a soupçon of fairness prevails. But its cruelty is nothing to that which originates from radical anti-capitalism. Lavery, Burgon and friends are too stupid to grasp this, enveloped in their stunted ideology. But the kids on those marches for XR and BLM, who know nothing of history or believe it is all a fiction, are tempted by radical socialism. Someone, please, show them the bodies. The millions upon millions of bodies.

    July 19 — Pandora’s Box moment
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Ff5100dc0-e707-11eb-8a8d-0766fc17d1b5.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1022

    Critters get bitten by the cancel bug

    The latest things to come under the scrutiny of the deranged progressive commissars are moths and birds. Having taken advice from a “Romany activist”, the Entomological Society of America (ESA) has decided it will no longer recognise the name of one species, the gypsy moth. For now it will be known by the catchy title LDD moth. The gypsy moth is reportedly a highly invasive creature that descends, en masse, upon chosen rural areas and wreaks havoc.

    The ESA is also refusing to recognise the name of another insect, the gypsy ant. I don’t know what that creature does. Maybe it enjoys big, riotous weddings where everyone gets hammered. Meanwhile, a small bird resembling a sparrow — McCown’s longspur — has had a change of name because McCown was a Confederate general and Confederate generals were on the wrong side of history.

    •In an attempt to persuade children to read more books over the holiday, Redbridge council’s libraries invited a local arts group to entertain them. The show included a “rainbow dildo butt monkey”, who danced around with a giant plastic todger flapping in the breeze and a bared bottom.

    Local residents were unimpressed. The Mandinga Arts group claims its performances are inspired by Kafka and Orwell but, having read pretty much everything by those two writers, I have yet to find any reference to a multicoloured simian brandishing a prosthetic penis.

    One day the chill wind of Odin will descend from the Great North and cleanse our country of community arts groups. And street drummers.

    Bullingdon Club sets a new low

    Unmentioned during the prime minister’s exciting “levelling-up” speech was his appointment of a lawyer called Ewen Fergusson to an important Whitehall committee. No 10 has made it absolutely clear that Mr Fergusson’s appointment was wholly above board and the fact he is a close friend of Boris Johnson, dating back to their days in the Bullingdon Club of Privileged Braying Oafs, is an astonishing coincidence. The committee in question is the committee on standards in public life. There is an irony there somewhere, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

      1. And is a determined family whose house has been battered by a hurricane roofless or ruthless?

    2. Thank you for posting that, and with apologies to Rod Liddle I will print a copy for personal use (I try to respect copyright). Later today I plan to visit an enlarged burbuja. ie a small gathering for a kind and friendly Cuban grandmother. Never quite sure how all these refugees/immigrants/residents get established in Britain, but being able to garble a few words of Spanish seems to have launched me into a social maelstrom.
      Edit: BBQ postponed. It is easier to be vague about the past rather than certain about the future!

    3. Might I suggest that professional footballers who kneel in support of Black Lives Matter with its communist, defund the police, destroy the family agenda and philosophy lead by example and show solidarity with the people whom they claim to be championing; i.e

      Take no more in wages that the average worker in Britain gets.

    5. Capitalism is like gravity. It’s a constant fact of life. As are markets.

      The Left think it can be stopped. It simply can’t, no more than people can fly. It is the unequal sharing of success. That’s it.

      The state is using tax as a way to enforce ‘fairness’. That doens’t work, as it ensures that the well off stop bothering taking risks and spreading that wealth. The statists, following failed dogma are unable to consider the only approach that works: cutting taxes to let people get stinking rich. Then, in that environment the successful worker can better himself with choices of different employers. The poor worker takes his just desserts. The good idea gets to work unfettered by big corporates buying votes – or corrupt politicians buying advantage (Clegg with farcebook over the thoroughly corrupt EU).

      The Left seem willing to do anything to bring about a socialist society but given the opportunity to live in one, they refuse. Why Because they like the wealth, luxury and freedoms of one – just about but shrinking – with a market capital economy.

      Bluntly, they should all be offered a one way ticket to Cuba and forgotten about.

  16. 335513 + up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Sunday 18 July: It’s nothing like Freedom Day as restrictions continue to manipulate us

    Surely a sign signaling this was shown as early as 24/6/2016 when the
    referendum count came in 48% / 52% many needed to feel protected
    regardless of what shape or form the protectors took.

    The FACT mentioned in an earlier post was on hearing ” we won ,leave it to the tories(ino) ” gave them ( tories ino) good cause to believe ALL their eids had come at once.

    The warning klaxon, signal flags, whistles, sirens, triggered by the nine month delay via the chief rubber stamper ( political protector) went totally unheeded and the party was returned to power, with the people’s consent.

    A General Election won on a family tree, lesser guaranteed sh!te vote
    betwixt three odious close shop parties, an anti United Kingdom coalition.

  18. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/812438f38245a64f4d755d9abf6bd40e0927f473/0_0_2000_1331/master/2000.jpg?width=720&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=b4923747f12020ea77991504562092ad
    A rare Caucasian wingnut tree at Blenheim Palace has produced its finest summer floral displays in living memory. The tree’s catkins can reach half a metre in length. The fast-growing deciduous tree was introduced to Britain in the 1780s. Fossil records dating back more than 2.5m years have been found in Turkey.

    1. End of the World is Nigh.

      What a lovely picture. Sorry – sudden outbreak of cheerfulness. I won’t let it happen again.
      Morning, C1.

    2. End of the World is Nigh.

      What a lovely picture. Sorry – sudden outbreak of cheerfulness. I won’t let it happen again.
      Morning, C1.

  20. Good Moaning .
    Bright and sunny. Warm …. nay, hot.
    We’re all doomed. Global Warming/Climate Change. Millions dead by this evening.
    Trash that car. Ban fizzy drinks. And eating meat, eggs, bread, dairy …..
    Have a nice day.

  21. Gross inequality stoked the violence in South Africa. It’s a warning to us all. 18 July 2021.

    The country’s social contract has broken, fuelled by corruption and extreme poverty.

    Apartheid was ended in 1991 and Black Majority rule commenced in 1994. As was expected by those of us who do not live in Fantasyland it has not brought with it any improvement to the Black population and has had considerable downsides to the South African economy. It is of course “racist” to point out that this is the norm in Africa as a whole. There are no African Democracies or Dynamic Economies. This is not due to White Oppression or the Colonial Legacy It is self-inflicted.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/18/gross-inequality-stoked-violence-south-africa-warning-to-us-all

    2. one for the 77 Bde monitors [and Grauniad lovers, as they all avoid unpalatable facts] they can have a zoom meeting to digest this mere fact: “Unlike Winnie Mandela, pigeons in London can still sit on Nelson’s column”

      1. Yes, but the Communist Daily refuses to accept that the corruption and poverty is due to the Black government.

        Pathetic rag.

    4. Cry the beloved Continent!

      (A bit of a rant I am afraid)

      A few home truths for the supporters of Black Lives Matter

      My uncle Dr Hugh Tracey went to South Africa and became fascinated by the music and dance and was the first person to make a proper study of it. He set up the African Musical library, wrote several books and one of his sons, having studied at Oxford, became the Director of Music at Grahamstown University.

      My Uncle Leonard, a decorated hero of the Great War, went to Rhodesia and bought a piece of barren, arid and unpopulated land with his war gratuity and turned it into a prosperous farm employing and housing, schooling and giving medical care to hundreds of black workers whose lives mattered rather more to him than to his black successors. His son continued his work and the farm then employed over a thousand people. Mugabe stole the farm and kicked out my cousin and sacked the farm workers making them homeless. Those whom he had had trained in agriculture at university were murdered by Mugabe’s thugs. The wife of another of my cousins in Rhodesia was murdered.

      My aunt, Dr Decima Church, and her husband were missionaries who devoted their lives not only to the spiritual lives of the people but also their health and welfare.

      My aunt, Evelyn, became the headmistress of a girls school in Nigeria.

      My Aunt Vera and her husband farmed in Nigeria. She was murdered.

      My father, a brilliant Classic First at Cambridge went into the colonial service and rose to being the governor of the Northern Province. The Sudan was considered by many to have been the best run of all the African colonies. Since the British left and black rule took over : endless civil war, genocide, famine, plague, collapse of the infrastructure and health and education and partition.

      It seems that the welfare of the native black people in Africa mattered far more to those of the Tracey family who went there than to the woke idiots who don’t care for anybody.

      1. I looked up your Uncle and I had a similar tastes in some not all by any stretch of African music.
        I bought some Kwela music on Vinyl in JHB. But similar to many items when you are traveling they vanished.
        I remember well sitting having a beer at a bar just across the bridge at Victoria falls listening to a local band knock out a few tunes.

        Reading about the recent destruction and rioting in Southern Africa, I Some times I feel that the current direction the UK is going at the moment, it could end up as borderline third world which is seemingly where the ‘woke dopes’ want it to end up.
        Did you read that the UK might be selling off cheaply all of the surplus military equipment from Afghanistan to south Africa ? Lord Richard Dannatt is not happy. Especially about the fast naval patrol vessels.

      2. Richard, I’ve just copied that and posted it on Going Postal as I feel it needs a wider audience.
        I hope you don’t mind.

  22. Reposted from late last night

    Lacoste

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2bbcbf931ee5b3cb53a38a849d871c3c345db89ef972c668ac82690927f981ca.png

    From this on 18th July 1941 : https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b44b0eb8647b4c94f34e4046d729809d1c4804180961f017eaac7e71ddba42e.png to a splendid old croc of 80 on Sunday 18th July 2021! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e281877e66f9640965428cfaf7612b736a56b10f037dc7830d6ff3f7e0f8aba9.png With very best wishes and many joyous returns of the day

    from Rastus and Caroline

  24. A good morning to all. 13°C in the yard and it’s looking to be another scorcher.

  25. Good morning all, after a warmish night.

    Right, that Sebastiano Monbiat appears to be a Sussex University Eng Lit graduate with a journalism certificate who supported the Young Liberals, and he’s in his early twenties. A Remainer, here is his letter to the Grauniad last year :

    “Winemakers turning unsold wines into hand sanitiser (Report,
    5 June) is an ingenious idea. I, however, would be tempted to lick it
    off, so perhaps the packaging ought not to mention its wine origin.
    Sebastian Monblat
    Sutton, London”

    1. mng tim, given he’s allegedly from Sutton [I lived there yonks ago], his profile would fit the area. The translation from Suttonaise to English is he likes to drink his own urine before heading to the UB40 office

  26. That’s all the ladder work done and it’s not yet 9 o’clock. I’ll have a shufti at the newspapers and try to find out what has happened .

    By the way, do any of you who live in or near towns find huge queues of ambulances taking the plague-ridden to horspiddle?

    Thought not.

    1. Not here in N Essex but reports on social media indicate that in some areas ambulance activity has increased and in at least one other area funeral businesses are suffering unusual restrictions on the movement/collection of the deceased. With a deliberately non-functioning media people have to garner as much news as is available from other sources. Truth has suffered a mortal blow, so, what to believe?

      1. None of it.

        I notice that, for once, a Tory MP – Graham Brady – says that rules on masks have nothing to do with the plague but are “social control”. One can only hope that other “important” people (© John Effing Whittingdale) will also speakout.

        1. May I congratulate you on your perspicacity re my recent missive to my local MP Jacob R-M – “Incomprehensible measures to combat Covid-19” – Reply was there none. Future vote there will be none.

        2. Brady has received some stick for coming late to the party, so to speak. Better late than never, I suppose. Just another 500+ to convince.

    2. Morning Bill,

      I live within walking distance of Charing Cross Hospital. No queues of ambulances at any time during the last 15 months, in fact fewer ambulance sirens than usual.

      1. Good day, Our Susan.

        Just piles of bodies on the pavements and in the squares, then…!

    3. Just got back from QA. The car parks are empty and so was A&E. Everyone is obviously dying of covid on the beaches.

  27. PM and Sunak not isolating despite being pinged after Javid’s positive COVID test. 18 July 2021.

    Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will not be isolating despite being pinged after Sajid Javid’s positive COVID test, Downing Street has said.

    But Downing Street said Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak will be taking in a pilot scheme whereby they will be tested daily and so do not have to quarantine.

    A pilot scheme? How convenient! Do as we say not as we do! Time to ignore this twaddle and do as you please!

    https://news.sky.com/story/pm-and-sunak-not-isolating-despite-being-pinged-after-javids-positive-covid-test-12358198

    1. mng araminta. Expect this to possibly, be raised, sorry, spun on Marr show this am as his “guests” include Ferguson, the nonce shadow health Sec Ashworth and housing Sec Jenrick.

      1. Why, in the name of all that is holy, is anyone paying any attention to the cretin Ferguson?

    2. Any sensible person would have predicted that response. They really, really do take us all for fools (many are fools and have been taken in by government spin and must be woken up).

        1. Put plenty of Garlic on those Mussles and people won’t get close enough for you to catch covid.

    3. Is that the same pilot scheme that allowed Gove & Son not to isolate after Portugal turned amber, or is this a new variant?

    1. We definitely would if the smallpox and polio vaccines were/are as ineffective in preventing one catching the disease as the Covid ones are.

    3. so Dr Fauci, do tell us more about your attempt in 2015 to patent an mRNA injection as a vaccine…and remind us again what eradicated smallpox.

    1. How the hell did people who think of themselves anti-fascists ever get embroiled in such nonsense as this trans absurdity.?

      2. “Thinking” is perhaps beyond them. They just create trouble wherever they are paid to do so.

      3. 1. They’re fascists, not anti fascists.

        2. They don’t stand for anything, they stand against common sense and the rule of law – because they don’t like it and want power for themselves.

    2. How the hell did people who think of themselves anti-fascists ever get embroiled in such nonsense as this trans absurdity.?

  30. Did you know…

    The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime-time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstones.

    Coca-Cola was originally green.

    Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.

    Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.

    Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.

    City with the most Rolls Royce’s per capita: Hong Kong

    State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

    Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

    Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

    Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.

    Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

    The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

    The youngest pope was 11 years old.

    First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

    111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

    2. Charlie (who lived to be 17 and 5 months) didn’t cost me anything like that figure!

  31. As shown below, there were large demonstrations in France yesterday against vaccination, vaccine passports and other restrictions.

    For a change, there were reports in yer French press; Le Monde says there were 114,000 people across the country – a curious figure. Organisers say there were many more.

    But greater emphasis was given to remarks by politicians suggesting that the demonstrators were trouble makers and people who insult politicians and action must be taken against them.

    No change, then.

    1. Good morning.

      The protesters all looked pretty normal to me.

      Action will be taken….When it’s time to vote.

      1. That’s what les PTB can’t bear – normal people reacting to cretinous politicians.

    2. Being half French (nobody’s perfect) I follow affairs over there.
      Macron said a little while ago that he may not run for re-election because he would soon have to make very hard decisions and there was conjecture as to what these would be.
      It seems we have the answer. He has completely sold out his country the EU and their globalist bosses – Alstrom being the most blatant example but selling national assets at basement prices left right and centre. People are now manifesting their displeasure in typical French fashion but we need to be careful – there as here people are broadly in favour of their continued and increased control.
      But there are serious military rumblings against him recently and the French have a certain tradition of moving against their governments – which is why the police and the Gendarmes are under different commands.
      The army will have been aware that there were alternatives to vaccines from the outset – every northern military have given their soldiers HCQ whenever they went to the tropics for malaria; the gendarmerie helped hospital director Raoult roll out massive testing in Marseilles from the outset, allowing him to treat with HCQ/zinc/azithromycin intelligently and giving that region the lowest covid mortality in France (and Europe, I think).
      If the military turn against Macron there is a chance. Unfortunately, most of the upper echelons owe their appointments to him, so it is still unlikely.
      There is chaos ahead.

      1. The French are revolting!

        I first went to France in 1949 – and every year from 1969. For 30 years we lived half the year there. I know far more French people than English – and miss life there, the sunshine and – in our village – the “can do” approach to things.

        I left there on 21 March 2020 – and have been unable to return – much to my chagrin. A trip is sort of planned for September – but I rather doubt that it will happen.

        I agree about the rumblings. That Abstainers won the recent regional elections by an enormous landslide is worrying if only because it shows that the “little people” hold the important ones in even greater contempt than usual.

        It is not that different from most other western European countries. Despair at the ruling class.

        1. Strange we have lived and worked in both France and Germany and ended up disliking both countrie and glad to be home, only to see Englanf becoming more like them day by day, with state control of more and more. I love freedom you see.

  32. SIR – When I was in charge of looking after a school’s computers, I was asked by pupils what to use as a password (“We’re sacrificing convenience for ridiculous web password demands”, City, July 5).

    Their choice of simple words was alarming, as they could easily be guessed. I told them to think of a simple phrase that only applied to
    them. For example: My mother hates tomato juice in the morning. This would become Mmhtjitm.

    Robert Ward Loughborough, Leicestershire

    My letter

    I was asked by pupils what to use as a password: A Mnemonic

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

    1. I got one Bjiabflf.
      Your starter for 10 – Boris johnson….. now fill in the rest.

    2. When I was responsible for the systems and order processing of a very large company, I suggested that computer users write their password on the wall in front of them, or any other convenient visible location.

  33. Yesterday, HC and sos reported different attitudes in French villages to the plague. HC said that the handful of people at his village do for Bastille Day wore masks and stood 6 ft apart. Sos said that the evening event he and HG attended was maskless, joyful etc. In a very small village in the hills above Laure, an evening party in the forest was scrapped at the last minute because of the virus; in Laure a similar event is to take place on Wednesday night (unless cancelled!)

    One gets the impression that it all depends on local willingness to tough it out or to cave in.

    Here in Norfolk a very large wedding took place on Friday – defying the petty rules. It just needs nerve and determination. Hard, I know.

        1. I want to cry. Stuck in Peckham by the scoundrels in charge.
          Big roughty-toughty that I am.
          Honestly, I am so bloody angry at these people.
          EDIT
          … and let’s face it – not being able to take my parents there to buy their funeral plot this summer is the least of this world’s problems.

          3. My family is from here:
            https://goo.gl/maps/6eCR1MZDLtPL9fYt8
            My grandparents are buried at Conques and I have been “back” nearly every one of my 58 years.
            The smell of the rosemary in the garrigue, the barage de Villegly and its absurd collection of roundabouts EDIT – no, it’s zebra crossings, I have it confused with another village., Grottes de Limousis, picnics at Pic de Nore are engrained into me.
            I still can’t pass a cypress tree without the whiff giving me flashes to another place.
            We also bought a place in Auvergne to have somewhere between Paris and there to stop at.

            My life is good and I am also a Londoner, but you can love two places and I was looking forward to my early dotage on the road. That is up in the air. But personal considerations aside, the assault on liberties is outrageous.

  35. Yesterday on BBC Breakfast TV there was a piece explaining scientists’ alarm over more than expected hikes in temperatures over North America caused by a high pressure dome.

    By chance I happened across two adjacent news articles.
    One seemed to suggest that global warming was messing with the jet streams and the other that jet streams were causing global warming.

    Is this a chicken and egg situation?

    Here are the two articles:

    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31102018/jet-stream-climate-change-study-extreme-weather-arctic-amplification-temperature/

    https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/what-happened-winter-jet-stream-science-explains-unseasonable-warmth-u-n1136136

    So did the chicken or the egg come first?

    2. The state is aiming to prevent air travel entirely except for the elites. Then it will proclaim it has met the pointless and unecessary green targets.

      1. So we can infer that COVID lockdown is a major contributor to offsetting global warmimg/climate change. 🤔

    3. The climate has been changing forever, little can be done about it and you should not even try. These warnists are cranks.

      1. Johnny, yet again you are so kind! These warmists are lunatics and nutters, they should not ever be taken notice of and they should all be strung up for inciting fear and madness! IMHO of course!

      2. They are far worse than that. If they get their way there will be mass extinction of species, both flora and fauna, and wide spread famine leading to the death of people on an unimaginable scale.

    4. The jet streams do not exist in isolation but are created by the differences in the temperature of air masses and hence pressure differences at high levels. So I suppose that changes in surface temps may have an effect in increasing the speed of the jet but not on its existence. Even the met office seems to perpetrate the untruth that the jets position the weather systems, its actually the weather systems determining the position of the jet. Of passing interest, here is a picture of the jet streams on my last flight before the collapse of a certain holiday company. The thick black lines are the jet streams and the speed is indicated by triangles (50kts) and lines (10kts). The winds are generally westerly in the northern hemisphere but not always as shown in this example as they are created by differences in the air mass and how those are positioned. photo below.

  36. English ‘operated as a language of the coloniser’, students at top university that produced several world-renowned authors are told
    The School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing to ‘decolonise’ its courses
    It is the latest controversial move by institutions to make lessons more diverse
    Critics claim the move is ‘anti-academic’ and ‘corrosive’ and political dogma

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9798379/English-operated-language-coloniser-students-told.html

    Can one resign as an alumnus?

    What does Bill’s MR make of this?

    1. If English is the language of “the coloniser”, what does that make Italian (Roman), French (Norman), Spanish, Portuguese, German, Mongol, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Danish and a few more in history?

      1. It’s only because we were the most successful at it :o(

        Go’morgen, Bamse!

        1. The language of the slave trader is actually Swahili. That is one of the reasons it exists as the Lingua franca of Africa.

          3. It’s a mixture of Arabic, Bantu, Hindi/Urdu and English with a dash of Portuguese.

          4. My brother in law spoke it, in Kenya. Not sure about it being a version of Arabic but Arabic slave traders certainly used it as the major form of communication with the blacks who were selling them blacks from the interior that they had captured to flog off, with not a single European in sight, let alone an Englishman.

      3. Snap!
        Sorry, Grizz, too quick to make my point to read further down.
        :-((

        1. Mao didn’t have an Empire though. I’m talking about the Mongol Empire of Kublai and Genghis Khan.

    3. Well you know how to reply to their next begging letter!

      Dear Ms Snivell,
      As you have requested money in the language of the coloniser, I spurn your disgusting letter!
      I would not dream of defiling your bank account with the currency of the coloniser either.
      Onwards, Comrades, in the true spirit of eradicating racism!
      Yours etc

    4. Control what can be taught. Control what can be read. Control who can say what.

      Punish people for wrong think.

      Is this Soviet russia or the UK? The left must be bulldozed into the sea before this miserable drivel gets it’s fangs even deeper in. Just round these people up and put them on an island on their own in the Atlantic where they can set up the most tyrannical, miserable, brutal, thuggish, bitter, spiteful society they want.

      What’s that? I’m as bad as them? Yes, we have to be. We HAVE TO BE as the alternative is they start slapping paint on doors and then killing us – again.

      2. I wonder if the Irish and Welsh will jump on the bandwagon; the Evil English suppressed their dialects languages. Now they can be understood throughout the world.

        1. Yes, because so many people outside the Principality and Patagonia speak Cymraig.

    5. Well, if English is a language of the coloniser, perhaps the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing should stop using it?

    6. French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and whatever it was the colonising Belgians spoke.

    1. Oh, they only mean it to be applied to those they disagree with. Never themselves.

      Do these fascists not realise just how vicious and spiteful they are? Do they not see that they are just reinventing all the evil regimes of history past – regimes defeated by sane men?

      2. Because of the power of big business in the USA there has always been the danger that America would become a fascist state. It seems that is precisely what has happened under Joe Biden, the first Chinese shill in the White House. It’s all reminiscent of Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex. Of course he had no way of knowing it would end up as a complex of government and mass media. It would have been unthinkable in his time.

  38. We take democracy for granted now, do we not? Yet this country is still a very young democracy, just over 100 years ago less than half the population had a vote. My grannie was alive then. It was only in the 1950s that every adult in the UK was able to vote. Prior that decisions were taken by the elite, by the aristos, the good and great, those and such as those. It would not be a surprise if that grouping desired a return to those days when they controlled everything. It may be happening. What if Soros is not the prime mover? What if he is simply providing finance, some direction, some placemen, and some drive? What if he is simply riding a wave already swelling, a rising tide of the upper classes?

    3. Khamy should do some research on how the “vaccine” affects the immune system. Dr Sucharit Bhakdi is a good source or Del Bigtree on the Highwire site, especially the video with Geert Vanden Bossche. After supping from the poisoned well, Khamy may not like what he/she discovers.

  41. Hate preacher Anjem Choudary’s public speaking ban is lifted. 18 July 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35d89c4d83f2b1dc78e98f42432a66aa2ae51a34dc6591133a2e3d2ec21e9c4b.jpg

    A ban on radical preacher Anjem Choudary speaking in public is being lifted on Sunday as licence conditions which were imposed after his release from prison come to an end.

    The extremist was jailed five years ago after being convicted of inviting support for the Islamic State terror group, and he left Belmarsh high-security jail on licence in 2018.

    The Elites of this Society of which we are unfortunately members have a Death Wish. I have no objection to this personally just that I am being forced to accompany them!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/18/hate-preacher-anjem-choudarys-public-speaking-ban-lifted/

    2. The state will never reform a character who believes in god’s law rather than state law. They are happy to die for their ideology, so a bit more ranting, followed by another 10 years to get through HR lawyers at taxpayer expense, and he might be back in the slammer.

    3. Good. He is great spokesman, never anything less than honest. With a bit of luck he might join up with the new kid on the block Hijab Mohammed to send the message to the UK. I look forward to the official response.

      Meanwhile in Batley…

      1. That’s GREAT! Where is it, do we know? the US by the look of it. If you put that up round where I live, some busybody would be along in 5 minutes accusing you of a hate crime.

  45. Protesters demand wealthy MP pays up for family’s slave trade past. 18 July 2021.

    Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, told the rally that Drax had a moral duty to pay reparations to Barbados. “Mr Drax should pay up now,” she said, citing the violence, rape and murder that accompanied Caribbean slavery.

    O’Grady is a non-executive director of the Bank of England that facilitator of numerous wrongs visited on the Third World!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/protesters-demand-wealthy-mp-pays-up-for-familys-slave-trade-past

  46. Perhaps descendants of slaves freed by the Royal Navy could be asked to show their gratitude by paying some money….

    1. That’s exactly what masks are about, social control. I read, yesterday that because of the size of the virus, it is the equivalent of putting a scaffold around a building in order to stop marbles! Once in a while a scaffold pole might repel a marble but almost all the rest are going to get through and hit the building. It is also a matter of fact that there have been three studies now, one in Sweden, one the University of New Mexico, and the other I don’t recall. All of them state unequivocally that mask wearing is a pointless exercise in terms of health. The safest thing to do is what was said in the first place. Keep your distance from others and wash your hands. Apparently in order to get contaminated by Covid, you must be around someone for at least 10 minutes who is showing symptoms.

        1. Thanks. That is where I got the analogy from but couldn’t remember. The lockdown sceptics is simply a repeat of what is in the Telegraph.

      3. The other analogies I’ve read are barring a mosquito with chain link fencing or stopping a fly with chicken wire.

    2. You may be correct about the fractures. However, what is needed is many more MPs of all persuasions to follow Bradley i.e. state what the overwhelming scientific evidence confirms and declare their opposition to the unscientific babblings of Johnson & Co and bring the whole house of covid down.

      Lawyers are actively compiling dossiers of evidence and looking at the complicity angle regarding many groups involved in lockdowns and especially the inoculation of the potion: coercion being one point in question; another, the failure to follow the legal procedure of obtaining clear informed consent before pushing the needle into the victim. Advocating that a medical procedure is safe when current evidence shows that it is killing and maiming thousands of its victims is the action of cretins. How they sleep at night is beyond me.

      1. More like the actions of murderers than cretins as the experimental jabs are killing people

      2. Afternoon Korky, only the possibility of being removed from the trough persuades MPs to change their position.
        We have not yet reached the point where having the buffoon in No10 impacts badly for his Conservative colleagues. As for the opposition, they are irrelevant in nearly every respect, not going to pressure anybody over anything.

  48. Some rumbles of thunder and a few spots of rain.Good..it will keep the dust down.

  50. Well now; here’s an offer I can easily refuse.
    From one of Colchester’s cultural centres. Poop That Party.

    “Visiting Firstsite from Monday 19th July

    It’s been wonderful to welcome our visitors back to Firstsite – thank you for observing the safety guidelines to help us all stay as safe as possible.

    The safety of our staff and visitors is our highest priority and so from Monday 19th July, when government guidelines change, our current safety measures will remain in place for the time being. This will be reviewed regularly.

    Our staff will be continuing to wear face coverings and observe social distancing. We would be very grateful it you could support us and other visitors by also wearing a face covering if you are able to and socially distancing whilst in our building.

    We would also be grateful if you can check in by scanning the NHS Test and Trace QR code located at our front desk with your mobile device, and continue to use the hand sanitiser provided – particularly in our Shop.”

    2. Ugh. I cannot stand places that launch into paragraphs of text about their utterly fascinating covid rules and fears before you’ve even set foot in the place.

      1. I think it’s supported by Colchester Borough Council. So unlimited taxpayer money to p!ss up the wall.

    4. Afternoon all.

      To be honest I think many people will continue to wear a face nappy. People are firmly wedded to them. Saw only one other person today in Sainsbury’s not wearing one. Bet you anything you like they will be worn tomorrow and onwards.

  51. 335513+ up ticks,

    British Police Officer Charged With Murder in Killing of Sarah Everard
    and the notice taken over 16 plus years of the rotherham paedophile rape & abuse cases numbering 1400 / 1600 by the police I would hazard a guess that a minor party of patriotic stance with this currently in their manifesto would have a polling booth walk over.

    “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

    https://twitter.com/NKrankie/status/1416702401550094342

    4. I’m with the black guy there. Whatever the reason for the dispute, and I note the black guy is dressed for basketball but the white guy isn’t, pulling a gun like that is completely over the top and no-one should put someone in fear of death over a basketball. Furthermore, pulling a gun like that risks the black guy or his mates going to get their guns and starting a shooting match.

      1. There are numerous possible scenarios here. The man with the ball might have been taking it to another group, the much bigger man might have been threatening him and trying to take the ball, the bigger man might have called his mates across already. Who knows.
        But are you suggesting that it’s OK for one man to slap a much smaller man. Do you not think that the smaller man might equally be in fear of death?

      2. 335513+ up ticks,
        Afternoon D,
        The way I see it is the black guy ( chap) is the snappy dresser aggressor on the attack,
        the white chap was NOT willing to turn the other cheek, controlled and nipped in the bud after doing a quick risk & assessment.

        Whole governance parties are killing on a daily basis as is being witnessed much by neglect alone.

        By the by the black guy (chap) going to get his mates ? to what end ?

        HE MADE the AGGRESSIVE move was he expecting kneeling appeasement is so he came very unstuck.
        A lesson learnt ? maybe, as with many things basketball just ain’t what it use to be.

    1. I emailed both my Local MP and Sunak over a week ago seeking answers to pertinent questions regarding illegal migration and the link with it to the rising carbon foot print of the UK, but they have still to answer.
      It just emphasises how completely and utterly effing and shamefully useless they all are.

      1. Such things tie the state in knots.

        On the one hand, they don’t care about immigration. It doens’t affect them except to create work for the state, so it’s arguably a win.

        They also don’t give a toss about ‘climate change’ either. It is only a method of hiking taxes.

        1. It’s a shame we cant resurrect Elizabeth 1 She would have had none of this nonsense from them.

    2. You mean, if you have suffered from covid, been jabbed twice and wear a muzzle, its still not good enough. Strewth, I shall be avoiding cocktails of drugs unless administered orally (with a little umbrella and some ice).

      1. So hot here i could really do with a long glass of WooWoo but i have to hold off as i might be recalled to hospital.

    1. One dog sits passively, dopey as a moose and is happily patted by the postman on his way around.

      The other is a beserker. Comically, if the dozy one gets tired of the barking and running about he bops other on the head with a paw and the noise stops like a switch.

    3. She tried to nip the ankle of my financial advisor on his last visit. He saw the funny side as he has a Chi as well. Thank goodness !

      1. All large dogs are very wary of Chis etc….. they can reach parts that other dogs …… um … have to make more effort to reach.

        1. A while ago a great big soppy dog ran over to Dolly. She freaked out and shot off over the park.

          Soppy giant chased her. Dolly turned on a sixpence and big dog crashed into the undergrowth.

          Not to be outdone he recovered and came to say hello and she ran through his legs.

      2. I have to say I was very proud of Oscar today. We had visits by two sets of paramedics (it’s been that sort of day, culminating with MOH falling downstairs and being taken into hospital at least for tonight) and he was totally chilled out with the first pair (lay down and ignored them completely, but they were very doggy people) and the second pair he was just a bit anxious when I had to go downstairs and leave him in his “pen” (behind the dog gate) to get stuff. I think he has a sore spot on his back, near his hip because first of all when I petted him, he yelped and went for thin air and the second time he didn’t yelp, but he closed his jaws on my wrist (but not enough to hurt). He is making progress, despite that last reaction.

          1. Had a phone call from one of the MOs at the hospital about half an hour ago. MOH will be in definitely overnight and I have to ring tomorrow at 10.00 to find out the latest. Hopefully, it will mean a stay of several days and I get some much needed respite while MOH gets the care that I struggle to give. Win-win.

        3. Not the best way to get a night’s respite, Con, but fair play for looking on the bright side.

    1. No wonder they wanted all the armed forces on the vaccinated side.
      At the time of the second gulf war, I saw how deeply members of the military were taken in by the lies. They fell for the whole story, hook, line and sinker. So I have no faith that they won’t fall for the Unvaxxed-Are-Killers propaganda as well.

    2. That’s BS – Canada doesn’t have a working army any more, they are all tied up with discrimination and hurty feeling investigations.

      Oh wait, idiot PM is talking about the border opening in August, maybe Biden will be sending us the troops that have been pulled out of Afghanistan.

      1. Once upon a time I would have scoffed but living in the lunatic asylum that is the UK I am prepared to at least consider most things. After yesterday’s demonstrations all over France it is possible that that sort of state action is not too far away. Who would have thought two years ago we would give away our birthright, our ancient freedoms, overnight?

    1. I loved this paragraph. Can you imagine it?

      “Greenhalgh goes on to admit that loose fitting masks are practically pointless and, having previously recommended wearing panty liners in masks, she now recommends wearing tights over your head to ensure the mask is a snug fit.”

      2. You made that UP!🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

        2. No, honestly, it’s there towards the end the article! I wish I had made it up, I can’t believe that ‘they’ are dreaming these things up for us. This is my made up contribution: presumably we are expected to tie the legs in a bow on top of our heads to stop them from dangling and getting caught up in things…!

          1. She also specified a “clean” pantyliner……… these people really do take us all for fools, don’t they? I’m sure a dirty one would do the trick!

          3. poppiesmum, talking of legs, I was pulling one of yours. Nothing, absolutely nothing surprises me any more.

          4. Nothing surprises me either! The whole world has gone stark, staring mad.

            I see that detestable Blair has crawled out from beneath a stone again to galvanise the vaccinated against the unvaccinated.

      1. Branson by a mile. Rashford is at least well-meaning. Never heard of the other two.

        1. I went for Branson because only an idiot self-promoter would spend his money on a short flight not quite to space, having recently pleaded his businesses were going bankrupt.

    2. Wot, no Gary [I travelled over 3,000 miles covering Euro 2020] Lineker? No Boris, no …..

    3. Wot, no Gary [I travelled over 3,000 miles covering Euro 2020] Lineker? No Boris, no …..

  58. How do Boris Johnson and Squalid Jawdrop get away with being such appalling anal orifices?

    2. Javid is growing on me…he looks as though he would be good company at a dinner party.
      Pity he works for the dark side.

        1. As my son says, “I won’t have hair all my life, so I want to wear it long while I’ve got it!”

          1. Both my sons were very blonde when they were little and when they were teenagers one of them looked like a young Viking and the other was more conventional like their father .. All three are bald now , not totally but sever receding hairlines .

            The younger one used to say just the same when he was a lad , “if I am going to take after dad and grandpa , I want my hair to grow now “, he looked like a popstar ..

            Strange how the baldness gene is so strong in families .

            I feel so sorry for William and Harry , they are too young to be so receding .

            My 2 are late forties and early fifties .

          2. My paternal grandfather was bald by 28.
            As a child, I had white hair, then it went mouse-coloured, now mostly white again.

          3. William has lost his hair very quickly. He still had some ten years ago at his wedding. Harry’s thin on top but it’s a different pattern.

          7. Look at the nose……… and the eyes too close together.

            I think Diana waited till she’d done her duty by producing the heir and the spare before she embarked on her adventures with other men.

          8. My view is she’d provided the heir, got fed up with Charlie and played around (but went back to him for one last fling so she could claim that Harry was Charles’) – but then I am a cynical bast@rd 🙂

      2. “Javid is growing on me”

        I suggest you see urgent medical help – it could spread, fatally…

    3. Rude answer: because they’re both full of shit and despite being appalling, anal orifices will do what anal orifices have evolved to do, excrete.

      1. No, what we owe him is for the second those Muslims started to complain they were sent packing, the local MP to stand up and say this sort of pressure on a teacher will not be tolerated. For the cabinet to say that same thing.

        In short, for the state to stand up to bullies and thugs and defend free speech, personal freedom and teaching the facts about Islam.

    1. More power for the government is usually a bad thing…

      What scenario are they foreseeing? why do they think refineries will close?
      If lack of demand, then why would bolstering the UK’s supplies be effective?

      1. One does not expect joined up thinking from today’s civil service. I’m sure the army will be very good at mastering the technical challenge of running fractionating towers. And if not, there’s always the fire brigade.

      2. Quite honestly, we should be taking this seriously .

        Some one we know has been away for riot training , civil disorder should be our greatest worry

      3. When the multinational oil companies are forced out of the UK by increasing taxes and restrictions, you will be thankful for the ration card giving you limited access to government supplies.

        1. I am so old that I remember pumps with ‘Pool Petrol’ on them. I think they became National Benzole.

          1. You should still have them, like me. They are Government Property, and not to be destroyed by the likes of you or me.

          2. Must have a hunt around for them. I still have my cardboard ID card and my grandmother’s ration book…..

          3. I’m afraid that we illegally disposed of my sit- in gas mask some years ago. I’m still expecting a knock on the door demanding its return.

          4. My ex cut up the old gas mask for some reason……… it might have come in handy this year.

    3. Only about 4 days ago the greens the were talking about carbon free flights around the world by 2050, add another couple of noughts to that.

  62. Small brash from ash trees finally shredded and some bags of sand emptied to be refilled with soil at t’Lad’s tomorrow. He’s digging out for the garden workshop extension he’s just got planning permission for and he needs to get rid of the soil & I need it to level off the last bit of wall I’ve done.

  63. Immigration rules will need to be temporarily relaxed if widespread labour shortages persist, according to the Government’s official migration adviser….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/18/let-migrants-ease-staff-shortages-says-government-adviser/

    So now we know why the Government Test and Trace initiative continues after ‘freedom’ day.
    Immigrants all have smart phones otherwise they wouldn’t have got here across the channel however I suspect they will be exempted from using the COVID app so that that their employment will not be interrupted by inappropriate pinging.

    There could be an immigrant slogan neverthess:

    Get a jab and get a job!

      1. It looks as though the Government is reintroducing slavery by the back door – i.e. across the channel.

      2. Don’t know if you saw my post, Belle.

        Some chums arranged a surprise Hen party and Stag for my neighbours. The Hen party was in the back garden so i gatecrashed that. Me and lots of Ladies… :@)

        The guys went off to Oxford to play Golf I didn’t want to put a crimp in their fun with a wheelchair. Not that they would have minded but i wouldn’t have been able to participate.

        It was a complete surprise to the bride and groom.

        The golf was a form of crazy golf cum assault course played in complete darkness with UV goggles. lol.

        And they were allowed to take their drinks round with them.

        Focus on the fun things life has to offer.

          1. They are all ex-RN. They know how to have a good time. Especially when beer is close by.

    2. I hadn’t noticed immigration rules being actually enforced! Perhaps we could insist on some of the immigrants already here taking up the jobs affected by “widespread labour shortages”? Oh, silly me!

      1. How about insisting that the indigenous have their benefits stopped if they don’t take up work of which they are capable?

        1. Seriously, one problem I have come across is that there is apparently a shortage of HGV drivers – the main problem of course is not that there aren’t volunteers to train but that the series of lockdowns and the plethora of government U turns means that the training and examinations aren’t taking place – just one example!

          1. Heyup! throw in the way that HGV drivers are mucked about from pillar to post,
            Incidentally, there is also a shortage in pasts of the Continent too, not just in the UK.

        2. Seriously, one problem I have come across is that there is apparently a shortage of HGV drivers – the main problem of course is not that there aren’t volunteers to train but that the series of lockdowns and the plethora of government U turns means that the training and examinations aren’t taking place – just one example!

        3. How about insisting that immigrants do their share proportionately, of the work going.

    3. “Their employment” – what employment? They didn’t come in dinghies for employment…

    4. Our even more so dead useless government, have absolutely no idea who has arrived on our shores over the past 3 – 4 years, there can not have been any checks, not one of the illegals would have any ID whatsoever.

  64. Immigration rules will need to be temporarily relaxed if widespread labour shortages persist, according to the Government’s official migration adviser….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/18/let-migrants-ease-staff-shortages-says-government-adviser/

    So now we know why the Government Test and Trace initiative continues after ‘freedom’ day.
    Immigrants all have smart phones otherwise they wouldn’t have got here across the channel however I suspect they will be exempted from using the COVID app so that that their employment will not be interrupted by inappropriate pinging.

    There could be an immigrant slogan neverthess:

    Get a jab and get a job!

      1. I had to go to the Acute Medical Unit this morning at QA. Maskless. No one said a thing.

          1. Just to check my potassium levels after the scare a few days ago. They wanted me to wait two hours for the results. I said no.

            Back to what passes for normal thank you.

          2. Good news! I wish I could say the same (I’m still having problems with my hip).

          3. Sorry to hear that. Are you waiting for an operation?

            As i was lying in my bed in the Acute Medical Unit it became obvious to me (eavesdropping) that the people getting the hip operations were the ones involved in some sort of accident such as a fall where an ambulance was called.

            A 91 year old gent had been at his grandsons BBQ and had mis-timed a step an cracked the ball off the joint. The A&E consultant said they would operate the next morning.

            Perhaps time for a little subterfuge on your part.

          4. Nope. I am still waiting for the results of my X ray (taken a couple of weeks ago after the fall in March). Getting through to the doctor is more difficult than breaking into Fort Knox. Perhaps I should have called an ambulance then rather than getting up and limping to the freezer for a bag of frozen peas for my ankle. Can’t go to A&E or minor injuries at the moment because MOH has been taken into hospital after falling down the stairs and there’s no one to look after Oscar.

          7. After two and a half weeks of agony at every twist and turn, I’m enjoying my first day free of back pain. So I’m celebrating with an ice-cold Pimm’s on this somewhat warm afternoon.

          8. Three cheers. Hic Hic Hooray.

            I know not what your condition is but google Tens Machine. Worked wonders for me and no opioids needed.

          10. Tens definitely would have helped. It interferes with the nerve signal to the brain.

        3. …but you don’t have covid. At least you are being seen – hope you are your healthy self very soon.

          Bananas!

    2. From that same link, Angie, “Businesses and organisations including the London Underground have been thrown into chaos after hundreds of employees received an alert telling them to stay at home.”

      Track and trace, together with faulty tests, improvised figures and a sheepish population, it’s all working out well, Boris. Ain’t they Just?

  68. At the end of the day the only people that come out of the covid pandemic well and with their integrity intact are the conspiracy theorists and the tin foil hatters

  69. 335513+ up ticks,

    Delingpole: Masks Are About ‘Social Control’ Realises Leading Tory, Finally…
    GETTAWAY,

  70. It gets worse!!

    This is it, they’re coming for the children from next week. The
    idea’s been floated to test the water. Unless there are howls of protest
    it’s happening. You can be guaranteed the teaching unions have been
    primed to demand as the cost of reopening the schools in September.A decision on routinely offering Covid jabs to under-18s will be made within days, a senior minister has said.

    Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said the government was “very sympathetic” to
    the idea of inviting children aged 12 to 17 to have a jab.

    It comes as more than 50,000 daily coronavirus cases were recorded on both Friday and Saturday – levels last seen in January.

    “It seems like a sensible thing to do. The evidence we have received so far
    is compelling and ministers are going to make a decision armed with the
    advice in the coming days.”
    Let’s force an untested potion KNOWN to cause many bad reactions and a number of deaths on children that are effectively at ZERO risk from the virus
    I want these swine hanged

    1. Yesterday’s story in the DT was flu jabs for toddlers this coming autumn……..

      1. I wonder what the flu jab will contain. Added ingredients I suspect. Or the same little vials with a different label. Since when has any government really cared about our health? That is the bottom line. Edit: with 14 million on nhs waiting lists thanks to our govt’s obsession with ‘covid’ and at least 30,000 dead from same.

        1. I think there was talk of combining it with the covid boosters…….. I expect depopulation is another aim of the Green Agenda and Great Reset.

    2. A parent/ guardian needs all the information to make an informed decision. They are not being given that information they are being given propaganda.

    3. I really hope they don’t target the children, as the schools will swing into full propaganda mode, and the carrot for parents will be that your child doesn’t have to isolate when a classmate tests positive if they’ve had the magic jab.

    5. …and these poor little blighters have little or no information about impunity, lack of testing and long-term effects.

      Harking back to 1933 et al.

  71. Afternoon, all. It’s a real scorcher here – I took Oscar for a walk at just after 07.00 this morning and it was warm then! I am not expecting “Freedom Day” to be any different from what’s gone before, to be honest. It’s just that those few who don’t comply will not get the full force of the law thrown at them.

      1. I’ve been mask free for months since I downloaded the exemption badge. I doubt that “Freedom Day” will make much difference to my lifestyle. None of my pre-Covid activities seems to have been reinstated.

    4. Will Mummy read him ‘Little Black Sambo’ as he snuggles down with his warm milk and bikkies?

    6. Funny you should mention that VOM………….my wife had one of my wardrobe clear outs a few weeks ago.

  75. Something weird going on at Smithfield market this morning.

    Meat deliveries happen in the evening and never seem to necessitate barriers and a heavy people presence, plus there were tents and long queues of young people who were quiet and not at all like vegan XR protesting types.

    A revival of the wife markets? Banning normal social interaction might make that sensible. Or are they queueing to be sterilised. Or slaughtered. I thought livestock markets left Smithfield long ago. Is it Logan’s Run? The Hunger Games? No clues online that I could find.

  76. Oh dear, Kneel Hamilton may have knocked Verstappen into the barriers. . .

    Oh, he did. Red flag. Verstappen out. Penalty coming for Hamilton?

    Edit: BTL split evenly over penalty. IMO is a racing incident as H was faster and almost level up inside and V failed to make adequate allowance for inside’s being dusty and cut across too much. H is a clean driver. Horner is being a devious tw@t (same as he was when I raced against him in karts).

    2. Only a 10 second penalty,…….. no where near as long someone else took last week.
      They should have made him start from the back on the restart.

    3. If you do that in horse racing, not only do you get a lengthy holiday, your horse is disqualified and placed last!

    1. We’re now past the end of Q2 2021, and the transition to universal basic income hasn’t happened, has it? Most countries are rowing back on paying people to stay at home.
      I don’t see them trying to implement things like this – I think they will go for an organic shrinking of the middle classes, eg by making property too expensive for the masses.
      Of course, what happens this winter could be a game changer. My gut feeling is that overwhelmed hospitals for whatever reason will be used to blame the UnVaxxed, and there will be full-on pressure to try and get people jabbed.
      Ways that life is likely to get worse? Sanctions on the unjabbed, bans on protests and closing down of opposition on the internet (“spreading misinformation”).

      1. I agree. I think they are finding things not as easy as I thought they were going to be – the virus wasn’t as lethal as they expected and the side effects and deaths from the jab so early on in the proceedings were not expected either – I suspect they hoped that these would be staggered, further down the months and years and differ according to an individual’s genes. Instead its blood clots galore. It is all going to get very interesting.

      2. Property in most of Toronto is already beyond the dreams of my son and daughter-in-law, both on ‘professional’ incomes. They can only afford their rent because an error was made in the offer four years ago, and that offer apparently was binding.

      3. Fiscal q2 starts in july, there is still time for the fantasy to come true. Of course nothing will be mentioned here, media have been bought by mighty big payouts from the government to encourage a viable media (sure!). If you think the BBC is biased, try the cbc – they are a totally woke, liberal biased organization.

        If those internment entities exist, the food and conditions cannot be much worse than the quarantine hotels so not too bothered about them.

        They already have screwed us with internet censorship, a law was passed a few weeks ago to take care of that.

        More likely to see China buying up even more of canada, I doubt that the imf have enough money to pay off trudeaus debts.

        Signed: depressed in upper canada (I don know where Ilive anymore, the idiots are objecting to the name of the town! .

        1. If you disappear from here, Richard, we’ll know you got censored and cancelled……….

          1. It wouldn’t surprise me, the canadian group that I belong to is worried, personal postings on social media are subject to the censorship rules.. Some of those late night blasts from corrim would definitely lead to a knock on the door.

        2. Quarantine hotels make me jumpy, because they are effectively concentration camps by the original definition, ie people who have committed no crime are being locked up because the government wants it that way.

    2. Saw a bloke on the side demanding a world where ‘wealth is shared’. Righty matey, I’ll have half of everything you have.

      What’s that? No? Tough. You want to share wealth. Share your wealth! What’s that? Oh, you meant ‘other people’s wealth? Yeah. Thought so. So… if you want to share other people’s wealth, why would they bother creating it if you’re going to take it from them? Hadn’t thought of that, had you?

      As for war and poverty are eliminated, war would be nice but will never happen as humans are stupid. Poverty is easily resolved by reducing state expansion and control freakery. Just set up a programme to buy a block of flats and let the homeless move in. Get them jobs under an incentive tax approach and the issue goes away.

      It is proven that the more the state tries to fiddle things, the worse they get.

    1. I don’t care if Branson doesn’t pay tax. In fact, I’m quite pleased he doesn’t. Tax is disgustingly high.

      Government could do something about this, but it chooses not to.

      1. I am annoyed that someone working forty hours a week in a restaurant pays more tax than him.

        1. Yes – categorically, but productive work is now punished.

          It’s idiotic that it is better for me tax wise to work 4 days a week than 5. I *gain* when working fewer hours. That’s just stupid.

          Labour were experts at punishing the lower paid. The majority of the taxes Brown introduced were applied after income tax and NI. Green taxes, fuel duty being the worst, council tax, VAT. How people could then vote Labour as ‘t’ pardy o’ t’ werkin’ maaan’ is beyond me.

          1. I fear too many suffer from the “me grandda’ and me da’ voted Labour, so I vote Labour an’ all” syndrome.

  81. Well, chase my Aunt Fanny round the gasworks. Speechifying money not rolling in as planned?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/18/john-bercow-breaks-pledge-not-take-speakers-pension-65/

    John Bercow breaks pledge not to take Speaker’s pension until he is 65

    Former Commons Speaker decided to take final salary pension – reportedly worth more than £35,000 a year – after stepping down in 2019

    John Bercow has broken his vow to defer taking his gold-plated pension until he has neared retirement age.

    The former Commons Speaker, 58, was plunged into a fresh row on Sunday after it emerged that he had decided to take his final salary pension – reportedly worth more than £35,000 a year – after stepping down in 2019.

    Until 2013, Prime Ministers, former Lord Chancellors and Speakers were entitled to claim half their final salary as a pension from the moment they stood down, regardless of their age and length of service.

    While former Prime Minister David Cameron and Lord Chancellor Ken Clarke refused to take up the entitlement in the wake of the financial crisis, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Bercow had now done so. It comes despite his promise in 2012 to postpone taking it until he reached 65.

    Mr Bercow said at the time that the state of the economy and the fact he was likely to continue working after leaving the post were factors behind his decision. A statement issued by his office said that because he was elected to the role aged 46 it would mean him claiming the pension at a “relatively young age” which he did not believe “is right”.

    “Having taken appropriate advice, he has therefore proposed before he leaves office to waive his entitlement to the Speaker’s pension until he reaches the age of 65,” the statement continued.

    However, when approached by the Mail on Sunday, Mr Bercow revealed that his wife, Sally, had persuaded him to change his stance.

    “Shortly before I left office, Sally and I discussed the matter,” he said. “She emphasised that the pension had always been part of my employment package and I should therefore take it, especially as, in her words, the Johnson Government was ‘breaking conventions and promises left, right and centre’.

    “I agreed with that sentiment and have been taking my Speaker pension, in line with my predecessors’ practice, since I retired.”

    Former Cabinet minister David Jones said: “The fact is Mr Bercow made a solemn pledge to save taxpayers’ money by deferring his plum pension. Given how publicly he made that original promise, the least he should have done when he stepped down as Speaker was announce that he was going back on his word.”

    2. Typical Bercow. Blame it on someone else. Sally and John deserve each other. I hope they remain married for a long time so others don’t have to suffer the unsufferable.

    3. Sorry, Annie, I won’t chase your Aunt Fanny (or anyone else for that matter) around the gasworks or anywhere else. It’s too darn hot!

    6. Elected to the role at the age of 46, left at the age of 56 (in 2019) ……. that gets him a £35,00 annual pension? No doubt he has other pensions too.

      1. There are a great many people who worked all there lives and don’t get that.

        Entitled little shit.

        Pardon me.

    7. Elected to the role at the age of 46, left at the age of 56 (in 2019) ……. that gets him a £35,00 annual pension? No doubt he has other pensions too.

    8. He’s a horrible self obsess little git. Flushing him round the U bend would be to kind.

    9. Thirty-five thou, is that all it needed for him to break his solemn promise. It shows how unsuited the little git was for the speakers position.

      At the other extreme the canadian speaker wears the badge of honor that being taken to court by trudeau (boo, spit)
      brings.

    10. In final salary pension schemes, a deduction of around 4% is made for every year that the pension is taken before Normal Retirement Date under the scheme.

      Shows what self-serving charlatans politicians are,

      And WE PAY FOR THEM!

    11. He’s not got the plum jobs MPs pick up. Therefore he’s getting desperate.

      As for this “especially as, in her words, the Johnson Government was ‘breaking conventions and promises left, right and centre’.” Spiteful, petty dribbling fool.

      The man should be forgotten.

  83. HAPPY HOUR.
    Love – you too!

    Shopping this morning in the supermarket I bumped into a member of the tennis club. She commiserated on my torn tendon and continued to tell me in great detail how ankles are prone to injury due to the aging process.
    Thanks for that I thought…
    She was jubilant with her triumphant win last weekend at an away match in Gloucester and was looking forward to the return match.
    I wished her well and as I headed for the exit I made sure I clipped her ankle with my trolley on the way out….

    1. Were you in Safe Way ? …just askin’.
      Oh no, go on, her Name is Rose and you didn’t want her to leave so soon. 😉

  84. “The moment Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick insisted it was right for Boris Johnson to avoid quarantine using a daily testing pilot – only for the Prime Minister to perform a U-turn within hours”

    I hope the little squirt of a nonenity felt a real plonker when BPAPM changed his mind.

  85. A great day for live England sport. An Englishman wins the British F1, live on C4, the England cricket team ahead at the cricket T20, live on BBC1, and no wendyball.

    Kneel Hamilton may be an rsehole out of his car, for which I despise him, but he sure can beat everyone despite penalties, getting past the Italians in the final laps. He passed Sainz using an identical manoeuvre to that against Verstappen; was the difference Verstappen’s arrogance and aggression or Sainz being scared ? – discuss.

        1. I sat outside for a while (in the shade) but it is certainly rather warm out there. We’ll be having our dinner on the patio this evening……..better go and start cooking……..

          2. Chicken Provençal with Cremant de Bourgogne (chilled). Nectarines baked with brandy to follow.

          4. C de B currently at 25% discount at Waitrose, as are many other sparklies.

          5. I do take advantage of Waitrose 25% but my wine fridges are full at the moment.

            I did just take advantage of Aldi selling Brunello di Montalcino. A single grape from a single winery.

            A superb red.

          7. Brunello is where I almost came to blows with a nutritionist. she was blabbing on about a Mediterranean diet being wonderful so I told her that a nice Brunello and a pizza make a wonderful casual dinner.

            Well it beats the olive oil soaked sardine fillet and a glass of water that she was talking about.

          8. Don’t forget to have a sardine in your pocket next time you see her.

            Pizza is very healthy. Real ones. Not the mass manufactured rubbish.

          11. So I probably won’t make it for dinner, then?
            Shame! It sounds delicious

          13. Me too! At the moment, I am doing an excellent line in baby food! So far this week the favourite has been courgette, broccoli and sweet potato, with a bit of cheese followed by plain Greek yoghurt with bashed up banana! The twin nappies are a joy!

          16. Chicken linguine at the golf club tonight. We are now allowed to eat inside so sod them, we have reserved a table on the deck overlooking the lake.

      2. That’s just part his being an rsehole. What’s that got to do with his performance in his car?

        2. It’s got a lot to do with him as a person. Stuff his performance if he is a git.

    3. As a true patriot, there was me hoping for Molinari to win the Open and Ferrari to win the F1!

    4. I’ve not watched any of that. I’ve been too busy watching far superior sport in the way of the Tour de France and The Open Championship.

      Spellbinding, both events.

  86. I am signing off – far too hot to do anything but sit in the shade and read.

    Have an exciting evening preparing to throw away your masks tomorrow…oh, hang on a mo..{:¬((

    A demain

  87. Thinking about Silverstone F1 today, was it the first GP facility to open up in the country?

  88. Thinking about Silverstone F1 today, was it the first GP facility to open up in the country?

    1. Much better than a troop ship for carrying across an invading army! Maybe we should have thought of it back in 1944 and got some friendly Germans to help our boys ashore? I am sure Hitler would have complied with international humanitarian laws and put them up in decent hotels before distribution to sleeper cells all over the Fatherland.

      Instead, our inflatables were in Kent somewhere pretending to be General Patton’s 23rd Division.

        1. No, our boys would not have been allowed to land in Kent in 1940, not after returning from an amber occupied country.

    2. Why are they in a border force boat?

      Why are they *here*

      Why is France not being punished for failing it’s international duty?

        1. 335513+ up ticks,
          Afternoon HL.
          That was the excuse last time then before that & before that, then again before…..

          1. That’s not a excuse; it’s a fact. What the sheeple will do is something else…

          2. 335513+ up ticks,
            HL,
            The wanna be sheep WILL continue to do what they have up until now always done to get us into such an odious state as a nation
            support the lab/lib/con (ino) parties for more of the same, continuing so right up to the mosque door.

      2. 335513+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        Punished ? They are political allies, at governance overseers level, they are ALL in it together.

  90. Does anyone know if there’s a garmet that just immerses you in water? Water that can then be pumped through a cooling unit? Sort of like a mobile plunge pool?

    1. Nearly bought a fighter pilot’s airconditioning undersuit. Like a big nylon boiler suit, all covered in pipes.

      1. If the pilot has just been involved in a crash/flying incident, stand well clear when he pulls at the neckseal to vent the suit!!!

    2. No. But what are you trying to do. I ask on the principle that there is more than one way to skin a cat!

          2. Our two lurk in the basement, where it’s a good 5-10 degrees cooler. Found lying on the chilly tiles.
            Must be a bummer wearing a fur coat when it’s hot.

        2. You wish to slosh around during a protest? Perhaps being drunk would be the easiest solution 🙂

      2. Cool down.

        I do like the idea of a sleeping bag though. One with arms, like high waders.

        1. Have you seen those foggers that are used to cool the air? You could devise a mini one, umbrella perhaps with the tank on your back. Here’s a link to the things I’m talking about. They are used a lot in California for open air restaurants and peoples garden patios. They work. If you were able to invent a portable individual one, you would make a mint!
          https://www.aeromist.com/applications/fogging-systems.html

  91. John Bercow breaks pledge not to take Speaker’s pension until he is 65
    Former Commons Speaker decided to take final salary pension – reportedly worth more than £35,000 a year – after stepping down in 2019
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/18/john-bercow-breaks-pledge-not-take-speakers-pension-65/

    The only thing that one say in support of Bercow is that he does not give a damn that all decent people think he is a piece of stinking excrement.

    2. Aren’t the big corporations giving him a lucrative deal on the lecture circuits?

    3. How many years ‘service’ did he have for that fat pension? Not sure, but did I read somewhere that an MP’s pension is non-contributory?

      1. It is contributory, but it is a defined benefit pension. Accrues, or used to accrue at 1/40th. That means a Member of Parliament would receive a pension of 50% of final emolument/salary after 40 years service at Westminster. Ministerial pensions are higher, and there are special benefits for the top four plus the Speaker. (PM, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary).
        The interesting bit for comparison is that European Commission pensions are subject to a substantially lower income tax rate, protected by Treaty, but it has proved difficult to discover the exact percentage online. I have a suspicion that it is between 12 and 16%.

  92. So Wout van Aert wins the sprint in Paris – what a phenomenon that man must be – climbs as well as the best climbers, beats the best in the world in a time trial and can outsprint the best too – I wonder what his secret is?????

          1. I used to go walking in the Ardennes – nice scenery and plenty of good restaurants.

    2. Since his parents decided to call him ‘Wout’ he’s probably a handy scrapper too.

  93. Robert Buckland: Judges have become more restrained since ruling against prorogation of Parliament

    PLUS: The Justice Secretary writes for The Telegraph as the Government prepares to introduce the Judicial Review and Courts Bill

    By Edward Malnick, SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR

    Judges have become more restrained since the backlash against the Supreme Court’s ruling against Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament, the Justice Secretary has said. In an article for The Telegraph, Robert Buckland described the legal cases surrounding the prorogation of Parliament in 2019 as “troubling” examples of “political controversies” entering courts.

    But writing ahead of the introduction of legislation to overhaul the system of judicial review, Mr Buckland said the best solution to perceived “judicial overreach” is not bringing in new laws but “judicial restraint.”

    “I believe we are now starting to see more of the latter in our most senior courts,” he added.

    Mr Buckland confirmed plans to allow judges to “suspend” quashing orders, in order to allow the Government time to take corrective action before a court simply strikes down measures, such as sanctions against terrorists, which are deemed to be unlawful. Additionally, he said the Government will act on a type of judicial review used in immigration cases to “frustrate deportation proceedings”.

    Judicial review is the mechanism by which judges are asked to rule on the lawfulness of a decision or action by a public body. Legal observers have pointed to recent examples they say show a more “deferential” approach by senior judges, including a ruling earlier this month that dismissed a legal challenge to the Government’s two-child limit on welfare payments.

    The Judicial Review and Courts Bill, which will be introduced next week, follows a review of the system that was commissioned after the Supreme Court drew the ire of senior Conservatives in 2019 after ruling that Mr Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament during a stand-off over Brexit was unlawful. At the time, the Prime Minister said he “strongly disagreed” with the judgment and that ministers believed judges “overstepped” the jurisdiction of the court in its ruling. Lady Hale, who presided over the case, has since retired.

    Mr Buckland described judicial review as a “vital instrument in holding governments to account and protecting citizens from an overbearing state” but added: “In recent times, political controversies have entered the courts in a way which troubles me.

    “The legal cases surrounding the prorogation of Parliament in 2019 are perhaps the best examples, but by no means the only ones. Many observers thought this was an example of judicial overreach. If this problem exists, the best solution is not legislative, it is judicial restraint. I believe we are now starting to see more of the latter in our most senior courts.”
    ____________________________________________________

    My duty to prevent the judiciary being dragged into politics

    ROBERT BUCKLAND

    “In the vast majority of cases, Judicial Review is the servant of Parliament.”

    These are not my words, but those of Lady Hale, the former President of the Supreme Court. Judicial Review is and will always be a vital instrument in holding governments to account and protecting citizens from an overbearing state.

    However, in recent times, political controversies have entered the courts in a way which troubles me. The legal cases surrounding the prorogation of Parliament in 2019 are perhaps the best examples, but by no means the only ones. Many observers thought this was an example of judicial overreach. If this problem exists, the best solution is not legislative, it is judicial restraint. I believe we are now starting to see more of the latter in our most senior courts.

    Earlier this year, a High Court judge expressed concern that a number of MPs had added their names to a Judicial Review in which they had no standing. I share this concern. Such grandstanding by politicians can give the public the impression that legal proceedings are being used to advance political causes.

    This is not what the courts should be for. I have a duty to prevent the judiciary being dragged into politics.

    Our Judicial Review and Courts Bill, which I will introduce to Parliament this week, seeks to banish the ghosts of Judicial Review past and to make it fit for the present, to ensure that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays in aspects of government. I believe reform is needed because, while Judicial Review is a vital instrument, it can also be a blunt one. The “all or nothing” nature of the process is not always conducive to good public policy.

    I am not satisfied that the courts currently have the range of remedies at their disposal to provide enough flexibility, which hampers the effectiveness of the Judicial Review process.

    Perhaps the best example of the limitations of the current range of remedies available to the courts comes from a 2010 Supreme Court case, HM Treasury vs Ahmed. The details of the case are complex but revolve around asset freezes imposed by the Treasury on suspected al-Qaeda members. The courts ultimately ruled that the government had acted beyond its powers and were left with no option but to strike down the sanctions with immediate effect. The Brown government was then forced to rush emergency legislation through Parliament within a week to reimpose the sanctions on a group of people of high concern to the security services.

    It is of course vital that the courts prevent public bodies from acting beyond the powers granted to them by Parliament. But was it proportionate that the inescapable decision made by the courts was to remove the sanctions on individuals suspected of financing terrorism in this case? I don’t believe so, which is why I want Parliament to give the courts powers to suspend Quashing Orders. In the Ahmed case, had this been an option, the sanctions could have remained in place for a limited period while the law was amended.

    I also want to act on a specific type of Judicial Review which is frequently used in immigration cases to frustrate deportation proceedings. In 2007, the Supreme Court upended the system Parliament created under which certain decisions in immigration tribunals should not be subject to Judicial Review in the High Court. Parliament voted to exempt such decisions from Judicial Review in the High Court for good reason – the Upper Tier Immigration Tribunal has the same status as the High Court. Applying for Judicial Review to both is simply a duplication of process.

    The 2007 decision has resulted in a significant drain on the courts’ time. Of the thousands of applications made in recent years using this loophole, only a very small percentage were successful. They now comprise 10 per cent of all immigration Judicial Reviews, causing delays and imposing an unacceptable burden on the taxpayer.

    It is inevitable that governments will face challenging court cases, but bitterness at undesired outcomes should never be the motivation for reform and it is certainly not mine. That the Government and other public bodies occasionally lose in court is a sign of a system that is working. But our system of government and constitution have evolved over centuries to serve the needs of the citizens of our country. It is inevitably the case that, through all that change, the constitution will at times require attention to ensure that it continues to strike the right and sensible balance between institutions.

    I regard myself as a constitutional plumber. This is not a revolution. It is routine maintenance. I believe our Bill is a prime example of sensible reform, respecting the need to be vigilant in order to maintain the vital checks and balances within our unwritten constitution.

    Robert Buckland is the Justice Secretary

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/17/robert-buckland-judges-have-become-restrained-since-ruling-againstprorogation/

    First BTL:
    Joss Wynne Evans

    That this individual can write this complacent stuff without any reference to the efforts of so many of us to get the government in front of a court to hear a judicial review of the arrogation of powers under the Coronavirus Act is not a surprise given the state we are in.

    The whole straw edifice of the government’s assertion that their measures were a proportionate response to a public health threat was a black lie at the time and events have shown that even more starkly as time has passed. The court system was effectively nobbled to prevent any such hearing, to the significant cost of thousands of people who crowdfunded the effort to bring proceedings.

    Mr Buckland gives comfort to criminals. If he disagrees with that proposition I suggest he lets the courts hear the case, and let the government prevail if it is in the right. Until he does the tens of thousands who have died and suffered needlessly as a result of their actions will remain without justice.

  94. Reports that the Danish caricaturist at Jyllandsposten, Kurt Westergaard, has died. He who drew the Mohammed cartoons. 86 years old, seems no nefarious acts.

  95. Replace ‘international travel’ with ‘entire Covid’.

    The Government’s international travel policy defies all logic

    Ministers have once again retreated to decision-making based on the most pessimistic reading of the data

    TELEGRAPH VIEW

    The Government’s policy on international travel defies all logic. From tomorrow, the traffic light system was finally due to become a little more coherent, with the double-vaccinated exempt from the burden of quarantining at home for 10 days if arriving from an amber list destination. Yet ministers have thrown the system into chaos by excluding arrivals from France at just 48 hours’ notice. Tens of thousands of holidaymakers are believed to be affected, and the travel industry is warning of yet more carnage to come.

    Ministers are worried about the spread of the beta variant of the virus in France, and the possibility that it may override the protections afforded by the vaccines. Yet that is by no means established. The Government has once again retreated to decision-making based on the most pessimistic reading of the data, with little apparent regard to the consequences.

    If the beta variant is indeed circulating strongly in France, rather than in its overseas territories as some maintain, what is to stop it spreading elsewhere in Europe, to other amber list destinations? The upshot of the Government’s decision is that nobody can plan a holiday abroad this summer with any confidence that it will not be upset at the last minute by some sudden and arbitrary rule change.

    The country cannot afford to remain stuck in this state of limbo. Tomorrow will see the lifting of the lockdown legal restrictions in England, on what some are calling Freedom Day. Yet, despite the evident effectiveness of the vaccines in reducing hospital admissions and deaths, a rise in cases has scared the Government into persisting with onerous guidance and advice. The test and trace system, meanwhile, is still condemning hundreds of thousands of healthy people to self-isolation, even those who have received two doses of the jab.

    The costs of this policy of extreme caution will not be small. There is, in practice, no chance of eliminating Covid. We have to learn to live with the virus, or at home and abroad face the prospect of restrictions returning intermittently for the foreseeable future.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/17/governments-international-travel-policy-defies-logic/

    1. I cannot believe what clowns are running the UK. Do any of them think, or are they all drunk?
      Thank f*** we left in 1998. This heap of shit-for-brains being in charge where I live would have made me explode.

  96. Evening all,
    So much for freedom day. Are there any businesses not caving to perceived public desire to continue with mussels? We had an email from Tesco stating customers should continue being muzzled. Several local cafes and shops are doing likewise. Interestingly, our village shop announced masks would no longer be needed though, for the time being, they will stick with a limit of three customers at a time. (The shop is rather cramped!)

      1. Best hangover cure known to man.
        Two pints of Marston’s pedigree (late 60’s early 70’s version) and half a pint of cockles.
        Never failed.

    4. My butcher friend is dropping mask wearing but will continue with only 2 customers in the shop at the same time. This is because he has calculated that they spend more when there’s fewer people in and he can push more of his wares. He is a canny tight northerner though.

          1. I made the analogy, some time ago, that wearing a mask is similar to standing inside a tennis court to avoid being shot by someone standing outside it. This bloke makes it more realistic by saying that chucking marbles at scaffolding has a greater similarity.

            [I copied this article from today’s Sunday Telegraph.]

          2. Someone tried that in Washington yesterday at a baseball game.

            The only injuries were scaredy people scrambling for cover.

        2. I’m using the Portwest CV22 – 2-Layer Anti Microbial Fabric Face Mask when requested.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/626c92f3669b7bd2ea715507cf0edffdd9881dceada55baf0e9fc4755cdeac20.jpg

          Useless for stopping COVID virus but the CV22 mask is made of Texpel fabric and has a stitched in Portwest logo so it sets it apart from most other masks. Can be washed 30 times without losing its bacteriological performance.

          The adjustable loop allows it to be used dangling casually and safely from one ear to show that you don’t really care about catching COVID because you’ve got Government immunity from viral infection. 😉

          1. When deployed to Afghanistan, our issued kit included anti-bacterial underpants!t They were men’s pants so didn’t fit so I never wore mine. I should see if I can still find them and make a mask out of them.

        3. I’m using the Portwest CV22 – 2-Layer Anti Microbial Fabric Face Mask when requested.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/626c92f3669b7bd2ea715507cf0edffdd9881dceada55baf0e9fc4755cdeac20.jpg

          Useless for stopping COVID virus but the CV22 mask is made of Texpel fabric and has a stitched in Portwest logo so it sets it apart from most other masks. Can be washed 30 times without losing its bacteriological performance.

          The adjustable loop allows it to be used dangling casually and safely from one ear to show that you don’t really care about catching COVID because you’ve got Government immunity from viral infection. 😉

        4. But but ! There are so many recommendations for and against masks that facts no longer apply.

        1. Elf, that’s disgusting, that must be the recent film of Dad’s army. I stopped it as soon as I heard Jones’s voice. That’s not Jonesy!

          1. Its the remake film version with Catherine Zeta-Jones. The film didn’t do well at the box office, not surprising since the original was so good & can’t be emulated . If they ever re-make the series for TV you can expect half the platoon to be Blacks, Pakistanis & Transgenders and the officers & NCO’s to be Wimminz

    5. From what I’ve seen online, Masks are being recommended by most supermarkets. You don’t have to wear one. Let’s see who does continue to wear one.

      1. Going by today’s shopping expedition to Sainsbury’s the vast majority of sheeple will continue us to wear masks. They have been fooled all this time and will not accept that they have been fooled.
        ETA: This is of course what the government wanted and has encouraged. They will not let go.

          1. I strongly suspect that about 70% will continue to “choose” what they’ve been brainwashed to believe.

  97. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “Yet not matter how much we recycle, believe in our Priuses, and abide by local laws, we see that our beauty is being destroyed, crushed by greed and cruel stupidity.”

    Anne Lamott.

  99. I had the strangest dream the other night ,

    I dreamt that the British , French , Italians and Dutch , not forgetting the Germans and the Spanish , recolonised some of the North coast of Africa , and encouraged all leavers to stay and put things right , create jobs , improve infrastructure , encourage people to holiday there to enjoy the abundance of fruit and hidden assets that parts of North Africa possessed..

    Damnation , and then I woke up .

    2. The plan of the E.U was to make North Africa part of the Union. It still is.

      As far as dreams go….I was dreaming of you in a satin shift in the garden of Eden carrying an amphora of wine and a tray of cheese and biscuits. I woke up… :@(

        1. Oi ! There’s only room for two in this dream. Who on earth do you think we are !

          1. Been there done that. An entire morning on Christmas Eve peeling grapes for the fish course of Sole Veronique. It was Hell.

          2. Then you have no technique.

            You do it like tomatoes.

            You dunk them in boiling water for a few secs then straight into iced water. The skins will slide right off the flesh.

  100. Well the bath of cold water was well used today.
    After completing several tasks, I had a relaxing cool down in it 5 times!

    I’ve the next two diseased ash trees for felling roped up and the first to be dropped secured to an elm 50′ diagonally across the garden. Because of it’s size, at least 10″ at the but end, and the amount it’s over the road I’m planning to do it Sunday morning before the heavy traffic starts.
    I do not envisage any problems as I’ve already dropped similar sized trees the same way.

        1. You could bottle that. Some damn fool would buy it.

          You could market it as….l’eau de ma Sueur Exceptionelle.

          Price it at £50 for 1.5 fl.oz

    3. Have you ever thought of moving to the Amazon…. a bloke with your skills could make a real killing…..

      PS I understand there’s lots of running water on tap.

    1. Looks lovely apart from the concrete bank and wall. I’m sure it’s necessary but doesn’t look pleasant

  103. Can anyone help? Bought a book 2 weeks ago from a supermarket, called Troubled Blood by a Robert Galbraith. Just finished reading a Town like Alice because I’d recently watched the film, and a damned good read too, if a little tear making. so picked this up to read. After 2 pages, because it mentioned Scotland and perhaps independence I looked up the copyright date. It was 2020 and I thought ok, but then saw that the author was actually J K Rowling.
    Is it worth reading or will my knowing who the true author is give me a biased and prejudged opinion?

          3. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate that there’s more to life than money, Hat.

          8. It doesn’t make you happier, but it can sure make some troubles go away.

          10. Something good to drink, or is it only bad things that come in threes? 🙂

          13. Hi Sweetie….. So sorry I missed your birthday yesterday …I’m sure you will forgive me. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

            HAPPY EVERYTHING..

          14. I assume you weren’t allowed pudding or cake as you didn’t eat all of your vegetables! 🙂

    2. Someone gave me a couple of Robert Galbraiths – I found them mediocre, and it’s very easy to spot the villain, because he will be the (only) able-bodied, heterosexual, white male.
      I would say, do not feel guilty about having a pre-judged opinion…

    3. Eva Cassidy was well known in Washington DC, for too short a time. This is one of my favourites, thanks for posting.

    1. I’ve just come back in from sitting out and drinking a cup of double choc mocha by the arch with star lights on. I’ve fancied doing that for a while, but I’ve never felt relaxed enough to be able to do it before. Oscar lay at my feet and it was a good moment.

      1. Lily’s on my lap – not easy to see the keyboard at the moment. She presses things too, and bits disappear. Think I’ll have to go to bed.

    2. Love the cover for the wine glass……I have one from my mother, with beads on the fringe, intended to cover the milk jug before the days of refrigerators in common use!!

      1. Just been posessed by Big Cat, who was insistent that my lap is the only place he can be, and whilst he is there, I might as well stroke him a lot. Plays merry hell with coffee & local raspberries for breakfast… but he is nice and warm and fuzzy, so I went along with it.
        Morning!

    1. Thanks Rastus and Caroline! It’s also our wedding anniversary- 24 years this time. We’re walking down to our newly reopened local for lunch.

      1. Happy birthday and congratulations, J. We’ll celebrate 42 years at the end of next week – assuming that C19 doesn’t see off MOH (now in hospital after a fall down the stairs).

          1. About lunchtime. The ambulance didn’t arrive until nearly tea time! The WMAS were very apologetic about the delay.

          3. No, but eventually MOH was able to get up and go to bed, whence the paramedics arranged transport to hospital.

        2. Oh, lord. That’s terrible. Hope she’s only a bit bruised and is released soon, Conway. Poor lass, must have been a shock for her.

        3. Oh Conway! What a terrible shock for you both! I hope she is comfortable and is able to come home soon. Good wishes to you both, and Oscar! 😄

      5. Double congratulations, N!
        Hope you have a grand day, and very many more!

      7. Happy Birthday, Ndovu and good wishes for a wonderful anniversary! Hope you have a great day! 🎂🎉🍾🎁

      9. Happy birthday, Ndovu – and your 24th wedding anniversary – have a great day !

  112. I really cannot believe that folk are submitting to the ‘vaccines’. All the evidence suggests that these potions will either kill you or else render your lives redundant.

    Please wake up you stupid fuckers. The government hates you and will destroy you with their killer potions. Meanwhile the Johnson’s, Goves and other satanic monsters in our government are pretending to having been vaccinated in order to lure idiots into taking the fateful jabs.

    I very much doubt that any of these monsters have taken the jabs they are prescribing for the rest of us. There is a special place in hell reserved for this government. I hope they will also hang first.

    As for ‘sleeping tight’ I simply say ‘wake the fuck up’ before it is too late.

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