Sunday 19 May: Defence remains the Achilles’ heel of Labour’s plan for government

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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721 thoughts on “Sunday 19 May: Defence remains the Achilles’ heel of Labour’s plan for government”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story

    THE COW, THE ANT AND THE OLD FART

    A cow, an ant and an old fart are debating as to who is the greatest of the three of them…

    The cow said, “I give 20 quarts of milk every day and that’s why I am the greatest!”

    The ant said, “I work day and night, summer and winter, I can carry 52 times my own weight and that’s why I am the greatest!”
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    Why are you scrolling down? It’s your turn to say something!

    1. That (obviously American) cow is certainly not’ the greatest’. It gives short measure.👎🏻

      A Yank ‘quart’ is 32 fl oz. A proper (imperial) quart is 40 fl oz. This means that cow gives one whole imperial gallon of milk less, each day, than it ought to.

      Americans are the only country who still, steadfastly, use ‘quarts’.

      1. I remember buying cider by the (imperial) quart. Abraham Lincoln was a fan of the metric system, but was somewhat preoccupied in his first term as president, and his second term was tragically curtailed.

        1. Does this mean that, apart from being a Confederate white-supremacist, John Wilkes Booth was also a Luddite?😉

    1. I hope you had a happy, happy day, Tine, followed by 364 happy unbirthdays

      1. Dear T (another T),
        Thank you for your wishes – I wasn’t online much on 18th and not at all yesterday, so belated thanks!

    3. So sorry to be so tardy. We had a crisis with a friend who broke down on his way to Holland and we were preoccupied with getting him and his car sorted out.

      1. Stort tillykke med fødselsdagen, Dukke. Håber det er en god en.
        Bamse. 😘🥂👍🏻🎂

        2. Tusinde ( forsinkede) tak, Bamse. Funny Elsie didn’t ask what Dukke is – maybe thinks I duck?

      3. I’ve written to you but will write it again – it is lovely that you do the NoTTL birthday greetings, but it only means that my thanks are delayed!

      1. Thank you Sue – didn’t go as planned because not planned but t’was great nevertheless.

      1. Thank you (belatedly – the why is above) – it’s just lovely getting belated wishes, but a bit embarrassing being even more belated in my replies!

    6. Happy Birthday, Dearest. Glad you got your card. The postage was more than the contents !

        1. I expect a hug and a kiss when i see you, in payment. Not sure i will continue to buy stamps.

          Max and Alison confirmed the party invite today. 8 possibly 10 Nottlers netted so far !

    7. Ah, what the heck – a good excuse to sing to you again! Happy Belated, darling!! K x x

      1. Thank you, my sweet. That’s two birthdays – real and belated. I feel like Royalty!

    8. Thank you so much, Rastus, I’ve only just seen this (haven’t been around much).

  5. Defence remains the Achilles’ heel of Labour’s plan for government

    It’s okay, they protect their Achilles by wearing Jackboots

  6. Russia and China ‘manipulating UK public opinion by promoting pro-Palestinian influencers’. 19 May 2024.

    A taskforce launched by the Government last year, aimed at protecting the democratic integrity of the UK from threats of interference by nations such as Russia and China, is looking at ways to tackle the spread of online disinformation and conspiracy theories.

    I guess domestic opinion below the line must be turning against the government narrative. No mention here of Nudge Units or 77 Brigade needless to say.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/18/russia-china-manipulate-uk-public-opinion-pro-palestine/

    1. There is no need for Russia and China to promote the cause of the Palestinians and the annihilation of the Jews, the BBC is way ahead of them with its propaganda of hatred and has had many, many more years of experience.

  7. ‘I have never in my lifetime seen as much anger’: how Ireland’s migration system was overwhelmed
    Country’s asylum system at crisis point as it grapples with unprecedented numbers
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/19/how-ireland-migration-system-overwhelmed/

    It is beyond all doubt that our politicians – at home and throughout the West – are deliberately complicit in the destruction of all that is civilised in the world we live in. The sooner they are made to pay the price of their treachery the better.

    Let us hope that the Netherlands do not give in to the EU on the immigration issue and let us hope that governments will wake up to the fact that it is the responsibility of incomers to fit in with the indigenous way of life and not the other way round. We can no longer cope with such a large influx of people who hate us and wish to overturn everything we treasure.

    BTL

    Why cannot our politicians see that some cultures are compatible with others but that some are not?

    Those who wish to settle in other people’s homelands must agree to fit in with their hosts’ laws, values and philosophy. If they cannot and will not do so then they must go somewhere else.

    1. Morning Richard. Only Vladimir Putin and the Visegrád States are resisting this influx.

      1. Is this is all part of the Gates/Schwab/Soros plan for the New World Order?

        Bring in the JCBs and bulldozers to flatten the ground and then put in new deep foundations to build back better?

        (Better for whom?)

        1. It’s quite obviously coordinated. The lack of response is the key. It is not simply that the “Host” nations refuse to do anything. There is no criticism from their European counterparts.

          1. It is a blatant attempt to eradicate National identities. Hence the drive towards multi cultural societies. There’s just one thing that those promoting this drive seem to have overlooked and that is Islam that doesn’t recognise country boundaries. This will not end well for indigenous folk in Europe. Only five years to go until the native Dutch become a minority in Holland…..

          2. It is a blatant attempt to eradicate National identities. Hence the drive towards multi cultural societies. There’s just one thing that those promoting this drive seem to have overlooked and that is Islam that doesn’t recognise country boundaries. This will not end well for indigenous folk in Europe. Only five years to go until the native Dutch become a minority in Holland…..

    2. The BTL commentator is an extreme ultra-far-right Fascist, obvs! lol!

    3. The BTL commentator is an extreme ultra-far-right Fascist, obvs! lol!

    4. 387415+ up ticks,

      Morning R,
      Why cannot our politicians see that some cultures are compatible with others but that some are not?

      THEY CAN.

    5. Why do you think the GBP were effectively disarmed?
      Nowadays, only agents of state and especially criminals can gain access to decent firepower.
      I’m not suggesting Tesco start selling military grade weapons, just a bit more balance.
      The Britain of my youth, when normal people could hold guns under a moderate surveillance regime, was markedly less threatening and violent.

      1. A few years a periodical ran a short piece on Irish Nationalist attacks on Britain’s railways during the War of Independence in 1920/21. Near midnight on the 19th June 1921, Edward Axon, a signalman of 35 years’ service at Marple Wharf Bridge cabin, was shot at several times, two of the bullets wounding him. Hearing the shots, a neighbouring resident came to the scene with a loaded revolver, followed by his son with a shotgun (those were the days…). The gunmen escaped; Axon survived his injuries.

        If there isn’t a folk song called ‘Shooting Fenians In The Dark’, there ought to be.

      2. A few years a periodical ran a short piece on Irish Nationalist attacks on Britain’s railways during the War of Independence in 1920/21. Near midnight on the 19th June 1921, Edward Axon, a signalman of 35 years’ service at Marple Wharf Bridge cabin, was shot at several times, two of the bullets wounding him. Hearing the shots, a neighbouring resident came to the scene with a loaded revolver, followed by his son with a shotgun (those were the days…). The gunmen escaped; Axon survived his injuries.

        If there isn’t a folk song called ‘Shooting Fenians In The Dark’, there ought to be.

  8. Morning, all Y’all. Sunny, and we’re about to begin the trek home.
    Yesterday, all my electronics packed up; all my cards refused in the pub, but only after pint #2 – wtf? No data access on phone, so unable to check balances, still have two sms pending today. Drives me nuts, nothing working suddenly. What a pain!

  9. Morning all. Something sombre to start the day. Compare and contrast 2024, with its “Queers for Palestine” and “Queer Tango London” (queer tango dancing can “advance social and political objectives rooted in equality, inclusivity and freedom”, dontcha know?)

    “EIGHTY years after the Battle of Monte Cassino in central Italy, Jack Hearn, a British war veteran, is still haunted by memories of what he describes as the “most horrific battle” in the Second World War.

    Between January and May 1944, amid freezing temperatures and heavy snow, fighting raged around the town’s Nazi-occupied sixth-century Benedictine monastery, on a 1,700ft mountain.

    “The Germans were on the top of the hill in the monastery,” the former sergeant told The Telegraph from his home in Northumberland. “They had the advantage because on the left-hand side there was a river and on the right-hand side there was a mountain. There was nowhere for us to go.”

    The monastery’s near unassailable location gave the Germans the advantage as they turned it into a devastatingly effective defensive position complete with mines, booby traps and hidden machineguns. Allied troops were forced to fight house to house in the bombed-out ruins of the town of Cassino in the valley below. Among them was Mr Hearn, then just 20 and serving in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.

    The highly decorated soldier fought in Africa and Algeria before spending three and a half years in Italy. Employed as a lorry driver, he carried troops, weapons and food during the battle.

    “Every piece of grass I could hide behind, I did. Every tree I could hide behind, I did. You hid behind anything you could to avoid the gunfire raining down on you,” he said. “It was the most horrific battle in the war. We were terrified.””

    Today, Mr Hearn, now 100, will be in Monte Cassino again to mark the 80th anniversary of the battle.

    “I’m going to pay homage to the guys who didn’t make it back,” said an emotional Mr Hearn, who will be accompanied by his sister Val and son John, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. “I came back but they didn’t.”

    The Duchess of Edinburgh will also be present at the event, which is being hosted by the British Embassy in Rome and Lord Llewellyn, the ambassador, at the Cassino War Cemetery.

    Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the chief of the general staff, will lead representatives from all three British Armed Services, including more than 100 serving members of the Royal Tank Regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the Honourable Artillery Company, who will also provide the guard of honour.

    Thousands of troops from Britain and the Commonwealth, including from Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, fought and died in the campaign. On May 18 1944, British and Polish troops raised their flags over the ruins of Monte Cassino – paving the way for the liberation of Rome. A total of 4,271 British and Commonwealth soldiers are buried at the Cassino War Cemetery, 289 of them unidentified.

    1. And then our governments since and including Blair, have just blithely given our country away. For some flimsy and dangerous ideology called ‘globalism’. The Tower of Babel did not work and neither will this confected shoving together of disparate peoples in as short a time-frame as possible. We need a new form of government. This present system just fuels nutters, ideologues and anarchists.

  10. Notice the language. “Shock” victory (shock to no-one except the Leftards and the elites). “hard right” – because everyone who isn’t “literal communist” is Far/hard/ultra far/ultra hard right these days.

    “The Netherlands will tear up rules forcing homeowners to buy heat pumps as part of a war on net zero waged by Geert Wilders and the Dutch farmers’ party.

    Six months after his shock election victory, Mr Wilders this week struck an agreement to usher in a Right-wing coalition government of four parties. “We are writing history,” the hard-Right veteran firebrand said, as he announced the programme for the new government.

    The new coalition marks the first time a party focused on the interests of the agricultural sector has got into power in the Netherlands. It comes after the mass farmers’ protests swept Europe earlier this year. The coalition pact includes pledges to reverse green policies introduced under the previous government to hit EU climate targets, including compulsory buyouts of polluting farms. It also plans to end subsidies for electric cars in 2025 and rejects an EU demand that the Dutch reduce livestock numbers to cut pollution.

    The Dutch branch of Greenpeace said the coalition agreement was “an attack on nature”. The deal has put the Freedom Party leader, who has been dubbed the “Dutch Trump”, and his coalition partners on a collision course with the European Commission.

    The incoming government is demanding Brussels allows the Netherlands to emit more nitrogen per hectare than other EU countries beyond 2026, when a temporary exception for the Dutch expires. Dutch judges had ordered the halting of all new construction projects in the midst of a housing crisis until the Netherlands met its EU nitrogen targets.

    The last government’s buyout plan to reduce nitrogen emissions, which are caused by agriculture, precipitated a string of tractor protests. Compulsory farm buyouts will now be replaced with a voluntary scheme, which was one of the Dutch Farmer-Citizen Movement’s (BBB) conditions for entering government with Mr Wilders.….”

    1. More power to Wilders. I don’t agree with everything he says but the coalition will temper those, but at least he’s shattering the cosy political consensus and stopping the suicidal rush to Net Zero. If he succeeds Net Zero will die in the EU and we will need to rejoin!

  11. APCM later this morning. Expecting trouble from people who never or hardly ever attend the church at the behest of our ex Vicar. Most of them are women, largely single, of a certain age acting like grieving Groupies. Utterly bizarre.
    It really shouldn’t be like this.

    1. Annual Parish Church Meeting I assume? At our Methodist AGMs most are apathetic and even if they do stay for the meeting just sit there saying nothing. Can’t remember anybody coming just for the meeting.

  13. 3874`5+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Defence remains the Achilles’ heel of Labour’s plan for government

    As with ALL today’s governing wretches defence is lacking, as orchestrated, throughout the whole torso of these Isles.

    Nothing but nothing can be done about credible infrastructure NHS, prisons, schools, housing all the while they keep the dover invasion campaign operating.

    The average bloke,woman,trannie must surely realise by now that
    supporting / casting a vote for these strongly alledged political criminals is, without a doubt, a much proven anti English / British action.

  14. Another annoying six

    Wordle 1,065 6/6

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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Annoying!

      Wordle 1,065 X/6

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  15. Good morning, chums, I hope you all slept well. (And thanks, Geoff, for today’s NoTTLe page.) Now I didn’t get up late today, I was up at 5.45 am, but decided to do my usual Sunday morning thing of listening to “Wag’s Rag Bag” on Angel Radio, which is a 50 minute collection of poetry broadcast from 6.40 am to 7.30 am. Last Sunday, for a change, all of the poems were from A A Milne’s “When We Were Very Young” and this week he followed up with some of the poems from its sequel “Now We Are Six”. A most wonderful nostalgic listen to some of what were real delights from my childhood.

    And now for today’s Wordle results before I go on to read other NoTTLers’ early posts. Enjoy your Sunday, chums.

    Wordle 1,065 5/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  16. Fraudsters have stolen almost £1bn from Ministry of Defence since 2010. 18 May 2024.

    Fraudsters have stolen almost £1 billion from the Ministry of Defence since 2010, official figures show.

    The disclosure has prompted accusations that the MoD is seen as a “soft touch for thieves and corrupt government officials”, according to one senior civil servant.

    The figures show that almost every area of defence, from personal expenses to the procurement of weapons, aircraft, and ships, has fallen victim to fraud costing the country millions.

    This is of course a mere bagatelle. It is difficult to grasp the nature of the modern UK which is essentially Third World in its nature. Decadent; corrupt; the latter so all pervasive that there is no possibility of the prevention of fraud and peculation. We must remember that this article is in a National Newspaper and yet there will be no Questions in the House, no repurcussions. No arrests. No sackings.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/18/mod-fraud-reaches-record-280m-in-a-year-report-shows/

    1. Beano Questions in the House – just about sums up the brougha!

      Morning Minty & all.

    2. Beano Questions in the House – just about sums up the brougha!

      Morning Minty & all.

    4. £1,100,000,000,000 (1.1 trillion) Amount spent by Government each year – all of it stolen from taxpayers and small enterprises.

      One billion – 1,000,000,000 – is one thousandth of that. They don’t include the billions given to their families, friends, partners and LGBT organisations. Thieving b*****ds!

  17. Good morning from Audrey and me waltzing onto the page .
    Today is another lively day to cheer me up, I’m off on a geology trip to a beach an hour or so away on a geology day trip to dig up a beach looking for fossils, shells, etc – hopefully the God of the Sea, Poseidon will keep the tide out as its to dig up the beach – mind you I shall be climbing sandy cliff faces too and digging there .

    Please will you think of me tomorrow ( Monday ) evening, we’ve got another meeting in regards to the evil Lib Dems development plans – they want to build 3000 new homes – of which is more homes then the combination of this villiage ( which contains less then 1000 homes and the two next villiages, only a few attended the last meeting. Apparently the Lib Dem Council are going to ‘ take in our local concerns ‘ and speak with us next year in the Spring but one of the fields is having huge black pipes already placed along it.

    1. Good morning.

      Have you thought of asking Audrey to convene the villiage meeting on the topic? I’m sure she’ll hold the attention of the villiagers. 😉

      1. Good morning Grizzily, maybe I should become Audrey Hepburn for the meeting. One of her most well known quotes ” Only Absolutely Determined People Succeed ” . A lesson in life in a world where many are browbeaten.

    2. The Coast Protection Act of 1949 made it illegal to remove natural materials such as these from any UK beach. Taking fossils – you and your friends are thieving little gits . . . so am I!

      FOSSILS
      Lots of beaches in the UK are home to amazing fossils. If you’re lucky enough to find one, do take a photo and note the location so you can tell the relevant agencies or local museum. Some areas have restrictions on fossil hunting so pay attention to signage and check local rules. In many cases, fossils belong to the landowner. But mostly, in the UK, it’s fine for amateur fossil hunters to take home the odd find. It’s not like you’ll be falling over perfectly preserved ammonites wherever you go anyway.

      They control every aspect of our lives.

  18. FULL ENGLISH TWISTS

    SIR – I was surprised that the English Breakfast Society has said that masala beans, bão buns and chorizo can be part of a morning fry up (report, May 12). Of course they can, but they cannot be part of an English breakfast.

    I have twice tried the English breakfast with an Indian twist at a well known (and expensive) restaurant in central Manchester. It was, on both occasions, uninspiring.

    Michael Ganley
    Heywood, Lancashire

    SIR – Rather like the National Trust and parts of the Civil Service, the English Breakfast Society appears to have lost sight of its purpose and mission in advocating that bão buns and chorizo might now legitimately be served as part of the full English.

    A stated aim of this illustrious society is “to restore the tradition of the English breakfast to its former glory”. It is now clearly failing to do so.
    Whatever next – salad cream instead of ketchup, and a helping of deep-fried sushi?

    Paul Embery
    Pilling, Lancashire

    SIR — If the stated aim of The English Breakfast Society is to ‘restore the tradition of the English breakfast to its former glory’,
    then it should consider abolishing baked beans and hash brown potatoes. These two recent usurpers from America do not
    belong on a traditional plate of bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, fried bread, black pudding, mushrooms and — in days of yore — kidneys.

    Grizzly.

    1. Good morning Grizzly ,

      Remembering my late mother , who used to love cooking, and the special recipes she used to prepare for my father , the smell of Devilled kidneys for breakfast was memorable …

      I am also certain she used to prepare delicious scrambled egg on anchovy toast .

      1. Good morning, Maggie.

        The last time I was served kidneys as part of a breakfast was when I was on duty at the Brandside Pop Festival, situated on a moor-side outside Buxton in 1974.

        We were billeted at the nearby Buxton catering college where the breakfasts they served us were comprehensive and very delicious.

        1. Moh used to wax lyrical with glutinous need for Kidney Tobago , I attempted to make the dish , sausages chopped and tabasco and other stuff, on lots of occasions , but sadly now I have an absolute revulsion , why I don’t know of handling offal, meat especially pork and even fish.

          Why this should be , I just don’t know .. and our sense of taste / scent and flavour seems to have diminished .

          Melon pieces , bacon , oranges and custard odours are very pleasing , is this a getting older feel, I hope not.

          1. The most vile smell I can remember from my childhood (even worse that the sulphurous stench of over-boiled cabbage at school) was the disgusting combination of orange peel placed into ashtrays on the upper decks of buses and them having cigarettes stubbed out on them. The stench was nauseating.

            Why so many people ate oranges on a bus and then placed the peel into the ashtray remains a mystery.

          2. Only morons boil cabbage.
            It should be steamed above the root veg and the water from the veg used in the gravy.

          6. I sometimes steam it with a bit of grated fennel root on it.

            Another favourite way is to slice it into thin strips and lightly sauté it in butter, sometimes with some thinly sliced onion or garlic, and salt and black pepper. Cabbage doesn’t necessarily need to be anywhere near water to cook deliciously.

            Sautéed cabbage and spring onion, mixed into mashed spuds, gives the classic and delicious Irish dish colcannon.

          7. Yep agree with the over boiled greens smell , revolting .
            Another dislike was the smell of certain perfumes .. ughh.

            A couple of days ago , I visited a very elderly lady, 100 years old in July, she is usually bright and sparky and very IT orientated , but sadly now rather unwell.

            Her carer had forgotten her, and the prepared lunch was in the fridge , it was 14.30 and she was hungry !!

            The dear old soul grows all her vegetables , cooks for herself .. and would you believe , batch cooks her meals and freezes them .

            So I looked in the fridge , saw a small bowl of lamb stew , lots of vegetables , so popped it in the microwave for her .

            Her pudding was tinned peaches ( four slices in a bowl ) and a small jug of evaporated milk ..

            When I took the cover off her bowl of peaches and added the evaporated milk , my mind whizzed back probably 65 years to when I was at boarding school , the scent of the tinned peaches and evaporated milk was delicious and comforting .

            Any way , when I did my own shopping , I searched out a tin of peach slices in juice , and a tin of condensed milk , and Moh was shocked but delighted , because his memory was .. Sunday tea time when he was a lad .

          9. I used to like evaporated milk. Mum used to put some in home-made rice pudding. We never bought condensed milk (it is evaporated milk but with loads of sugar added).

            The worst perfume smells of my memory came from inebriated young women emerging from discos at 2:00 a.m. in the 1970s.

            A lot of them wore the cheap crap from Woolworth’s and the stench of that sweet, cloying muck, together with the stink of spirits mixed with fruit juice that they had consumed in quantity, inevitably made me retch.

          10. MB and I have done that.
            Even semolina with jam.
            Talk about second childhood.

          11. Lovely , really yes.

            Did you ever have Rennet pudding , essence of rennet added to slightly off the boil milk and left to cool in the fridge , consistency of blancmange , but different , and lovely with a splodge of fruit jelly.

          14. I’ve never burnt any catshit.

            I’ve attempted to drink catpiss but it wasn’t my thing. Some people enjoy drinking it and, curiously, call it ‘lager’.

      2. We love devilled kidneys.
        I usually need to order lambs’ kidneys, though I am unsure it’s whether because they are so popular or they are normally used for ready meals or dog food.

        1. I love lambs’ kidneys but it’s a struggle to source them here. I know a few places where I may order them but it is not easy since Swedes do not, traditionally, eat lamb or mutton.

          In fact they are curiously averse to it. They tell each generation to avoid it since it “tastes like eating a wool cardigan!” I can’t persuade them otherwise.

          2. I get delicious black pudding over here but there are no large “white bits” in it, much to my dismay.

          3. One of our chums ordered a box of scrummy Scottish goodies for our anniversary.
            The black pudding and haggis were sublime.
            I’ve asked her for the details.

          5. Some eat them since they are inevitably sold in the shops here in autumn and winter. I’ve always liked them and there is nothing better to put in bubble-and-squeak.

          6. I bet you could tempt them with lamb cutlets Greek style. Loads of garlic and oregano.

        2. I think most offal goes into pet food. I never see it in the supermarket. Except for Pigs liver. I bulk buy Kidneys, Veal and Calves Liver from Donald Russell. Especially when they have a sale on.

      3. When we lived in Old Portsmouth our local landlords son uesed cook devilled kidneys every day for breakfast.

        Just turn up at 9.30. He was ev RN. He use to call Sh** on a raft.

      1. I have sometimes fried a bit of onion. Added some curry powder and then a tin of beans. I wouldn’t expect that as part of a traditional English breakfast though.

      2. Bão buns are soft, fluffy bread cobs — steamed, not baked — common in the far east. They are delicious.

    1. The Somali gypsy came over the hill,
      Down to the valley so shady;
      He whistled and he sang,
      Till the green woods rang,
      And he won Tip-pe – rare – Eirey!.

      (with aplos to L. Maguire / Patrick Maguire)

    4. How sad. These people only come for benefits. Most won’t be able to point to Ireland on a map.

    5. Ireland should never have joined the EU. Having fought for years for ” independence” they then give it all away by joining the EU. As all can now see it IS the evil empire.

      1. Not unlike the illogical fanaticism of the SNP – desperate to cut ties with the UK, yet at least as desperate to re-join the Eussr, where they would be but a tiny irrelevant speck of dust.

    6. Morning TB.
      Now they know how we feel about it all. And if they see the footage regarding the one white cross for white farmers and families murdered in SA. They have every right to be worried.

    7. If (when?) the Irish turn on the immigrants, the world’s media, especially the BBC, will either turn away, studiously examining their fingernails, or declare that it’s a sad day for the proud Irish, for so long such a brave people. If the British turn on the immigrants, it’ll be “There go the ****ing racist English again!”

  20. SIR – It is worth remembering that members of the military don’t just fight wars; they also conduct search and rescue, assist the police, and step in to empty our bins, guard our prisons, drive our ambulances and put out fires when the strike-bound down tools and walk out.

    Indeed, I was part of the tri-service medical personnel deployed to cover the nationwide ambulance strike of 1989-90. Thirty five years ago the military had the resources to ensure that people who needed emergency medical help received it. Today, I doubt it does.

    Furthermore, the military will educate, train and qualify any tri-service staff who want to expand their skills – from paramedics to electricians – and will pay applicants while they qualify so that, unlike many university students, they won’t be saddled with huge debts. People who have been through the military tend to be smart, fit, punctual, disciplined, determined, have high standards and are able to work in teams or alone. So, when they leave, they are often a great benefit to employers in both the public and private sectors.

    There are thus huge economic benefits to having a large military. Investing in it should be a priority.

    Angus Long
    Newcastle upon Tyne

    A good argument for compulsory military service for everyone.

    1. Except that national service locks many experienced military personnel into herding recalcitrant teenagers.
      As a start, treat the forces with respect and remove Crapita from recruitment.

      1. On our dog walk yesterday in the Purbecks, we were amazed to see a large group of teenagers doing an orienteering exercise , they had back packs , and heavy weather gear , even though it was sunny and warm .

        We watched them criss cross the heathland and heard them chattering , they were in small groups , like little sheep they were all over the place and did require leadership , they had a herding instinct which was laughable.

        There are private orienteering companies who take on the responsibility of tasking youngsters from different schools .

        We chatted to a fit ex army leader who was responsible for the teenagers( he had binoculars) .. and he said that modern parents molly coddle their children , and complain if the children arrive home muddy from entering a swampy/bog / scratches sunburn etc etc . It is referred to as ” helicoptering parenting ” and modern children aren’t used to walking through rough terrain , let alone walking a few miles of hard slog .

        He said that it was a rare thing these days in identifying youngsters with leadership potential ..

        Oh well, we listened to him , and hoped that the youngsters wouldn’t encounter the herd of hairy pigs that rootle on the heathland ( thanks to the NT) cattle , huge herd of frisky horses , and a dozen or so of curious donkeys , plus the odd adder or two and other hazards .

        Our rural spaces are quite overcrowded these days , some of the city children were girls wearing the head covering and other flappy garments .

        Diversity at it’s best , and will they be qualified to be the guardians of our natural history and ancient monuments , and local folklore?

        1. Here in Wellingborough it’s the weekend of the Waendel Walks (apparently people pay to walk around the borough, something I do free of charge every day). Anyway, the behaviour of the walkers always makes for an interesting observation of life. The occasionals, dressed in ordinary clothes and training shoes, some pushing prams, rambling along at an ordinary pace and stopping to goggle at the swans and their eight cygnets on the lake (a big brood this year) and the ‘professionals’, all the gear, striding out purposefully, overtaking on the inside and the outside.

          Any ordinary encounter with local teenagers is likely to involve surliness and gratuitous abuse (by them, not by me!) so seeing a large group of them walking towards me by the lake where the path narrows with water on one side and a bramble thicket on the other suggested an awkward moment but no, they went into single file and smiled. Perhaps they were from a private school. Perhaps they thought I was an AOWM! They certainly weren’t like the comprehensive crowd from the town. I was momentarily disorientated.

        2. Our grandson’s idea of fun is camping out in Thetford Forest in October or yomping over Rannoch Moor.
          I can safely say he hasn’t inherited this from the paternal side of the family. Maybe his mother’s Viking genes have kicked in.

    2. No, it’s an argument for the revolutionary Far Left, Anti Semites and the Redmainers to completely destroy the traditions and structure of the UK’s armed forces in order that everything could be redesigned in their image. Otherwise Angus Long is correct, in that ex-military personnel serve important roles in the Police, Prison Service, Fire Brigades, transport, engineering, different forms of security etc etc.

      1. The deputy headmaster at my school was ex-military and it showed. Men like him demanded and got respect. They wouldn’t have tolerated the nonsense happening in schools now.

    3. We have military service in Norway. 9 months, then refreshers periodically. Men & women. The Crown Prince’s daughter has just completed.

  21. As much as I’d love it to be Gary Lineker..
    A married TV presenter hosting sports coverage has been arrested on suspicion of raping a child after a raid at his home saw devices seized, according to reports

      1. I think we’re at the stage where every TV sports presenter in the country now has to deny it’s them, one by one, until there’s only one suspect left..

        1. Or just assume that they are all perverts or twisted in some way. Well, why would you want to be a TV presented in modern TV? Money yes. But that is it.

    1. In a word, ‘poseur’.

      Anyone who would ‘take the knee’ in submission to criminal riff-raff doesn’t have the moral strength to be a leader. Pose all you will but you’ll never match the real men in the picture. Shameful.

    5. Shameful Starmer , his politics started this darned diversity nonsense .

      Why is he portraying himself as a macho man .. wearing the uniform of fighting men ..

      He is a lawyer .. and his wordsmithery , 2 faced nonsense and taking the knee are a betrayal of the first order

  23. Eventually:
    Wordle 1,065 5/6

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

    1. Grrrrrrrr…and I actually considered the correct word for my second guess!
      Wordle 1,065 5/6

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

  24. SIR – With the House of Bishops and upper echelons of the Church of
    England seeming increasingly keen to promote division and discord on so
    many fronts, hundreds of thousands of people – lay and clergy alike –
    despair at the decline of the Church we love.

    A recent visit to my
    home county of Cornwall left me heartbroken at the accelerating
    collapse of parochial ministry within the Truro diocese under successive
    recent bishops.

    The coup de grâce was a quite disgraceful
    Evensong at the cathedral, purporting to celebrate 30 years of women’s
    priestly ministry. It was actually an ignorant liturgy, much of which
    was a moan-fest of the “smash the patriarchy” kind. It was certainly no
    advertisement for the Church, nor for women ministers, many of whom I
    greatly admire.

    Whither the Church of England, which, in John Henry Newman’s words, “I have loved long since, and lost awhile”?

    Father Michael J Maine
    Ditchling, East Sussex

    Dear Father Michael. It is always the same when you invite man hating lesbians into any group.

    1. Phil, such ladies are innately angry whereas gay men can just get on and enjoy life. Cue PG Wodehouse :

      “It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”

  25. One for our esteemed Nottler, Fallick Alec.

    Music in care homes

    SIR – What a lovely interview with Keith Herdman (“‘I feel bored, insulted – and sick of Vera Lynn’”, Sunday, May 12).

    I play at a couple of retirement homes and day centres with my trio, called Side By Side. I’m 82 and on guitar, keys and drum machine; Mickey, 83, is on bass; and Ken, 79, is on guitar. We’re all former professionals from the 1960s.

    Mr Herdman is right: the folks don’t want war songs. One lady said to me: “We don’t want Bing Crosby and Vera Lynn. We want Do-Wah-Diddy and The Beatles”.

    So that’s what we give them and they love it. I hope we can do it for many more years to come.

    Malcolm Lenny
    Tonbridge, Kent

    1. Spot on – the residents in the care homes I play in want the 60s stuff – it’s their youth which is being returned to them and music is the last thing which goes in the minds of those with dementia. Some will get up and have a dance with the staff, others hand jive. It’s great to watch them enjoying themselves. I have 90 year old groupies who are after my body but can’t remember why

      1. Just keep yer hands on your own instruments 😄😉🤗
        I’ll get me harm Monica.

    2. A couple of Friday’s ago we had a local U3A 10th aniversery celebration.
      And a local band of four elderly/middle aged gents named Strictly Sixties. And they were brilliant so many old people up dancing.
      So good for the aging soul.

  27. Good morning all.
    A beautiful start to what promises to be a hot day with 8°C on the Yard Thermometer and a currently cloudless sky.

    2. In a seaside village in Valencia. 18°C
      Sunday Mostly cloudy High: 22°C Low: 14°C

  28. Sunday Worship BBC Radio 4

    Conversation Under Trees from the garden at St James’s Church, in central London on the feast of Pentecost. Lead by Lucy Winkett, Rectum at St James Piccadilly. The Church of Global Warming – The Holeyist of Holey religions(sic). More Holes than a colander.

    1. Lucy Winkett has one redeeming quality that I know of. Heard her sing once, at St Paul’s. She does have a lovely singing voice. If only she’d restrict herself to singing nice music and otherwise just shut up!

      1. Regrettably, I don’t think that her singing voice will redeem her in God’s eyes from the false teaching which she spreads in the church.

  29. Or low grade ignoramuses like the Bishop of Dover. Being straight doesn’t redeem her. Our midwife, Bishop Sarah, is at least not stupid. Morning!

      1. You have, thank you. I’d love to come. Details nearer the time or by email? (Birthday girl has my email address.)

    1. Say what you like about the Orish, they put in a good day’s work wherever they go. Canals, railways, motorways…

  32. Morning all 🙂😊
    Only light grey so far. Possible solar breakthrough later.
    I’ve given up with politicians they are nearly all useless money grabbing users of an antiquated system of government.
    Given the correct information robots and AI would be able to follow the right track and of course get better overall results. Assuming that public opinion was also considered. The overall savings would be absolutely massive and generally we might feel much more at ease.

    1. Morning Eddy. Sun shining in a cloudless sky eastwards.

      I was drawn to your point about politicians, which is entirely plausible given the routinely low grade decision making capabilities of that dreadful caste. The cost savings would be substantial.

      Interestingly this is precisely the point I put to a traffic enforcement officer who was busily sticking a ticket on a lorry trying to deliver a 40′ Christmas tree imported from Norway that was going to be erected where I worked, once. Needless to say he was extremely put out by that suggestion, but it’s very difficult to take action against someone who’s telling you very politely and without rancour that he’s just a useless tool.

  33. From Coffee House the Spectator

    How anti-Semitism breeds on university campuses
    Comments Share 19 May 2024, 6:00am
    It’s often said that anti-Semitism is a shape-shifter, seen best in the way that the right-wing have painted the Jews as rootless revolutionaries and the left-wing have portrayed them as rapacious capitalists. It’s also grimly notable that – unlike prejudice against many other ethnic groups – it’s been equally appealing to the young and the old, the over-privileged and the under-privileged, the educated and the uneducated. But we’re now at the weird point where the young, over-privileged, educated are the drivers of anti-Semitism on the campuses of this country.

    Jew hatred in academia is nothing new
    Jew hatred in academia is nothing new. The first book burnings in Nazi Germany were organised in 1933 by students on university campuses all across the country. Quota systems – limiting the number of Jewish students allowed into universities – were widespread in European and North American countries during the 19th and even into the 20th century. McGill University in Canada kept theirs in place until the late 1960s. The GI Bill took care of this rubbish in the USA, when returning American soldiers going into further education took objection to a less violent version of the very racial purity crusade they had been fighting against on their own campuses.

    Our own history is chequered. In 1264, a man rudely recorded as ‘Jacob the Jew’ sold the land which Merton College, Oxford, was built on, but Jews would be barred from becoming students at Oxford until 1856. The casual anti-Semitism of the English upper-classes pervaded well into the 20th century (even a reasonable woman like Agatha Christie could have a character say in a 1932 novel ‘He’s a Jew, of course, but a frightfully decent one’) and made many Jewish students swerve the leading universities. The aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust at last put anti-Semitism beyond the pale in Britain – but when it did reemerge, it was on university campuses in the 1970s. After a 1975 United Nations resolution declaring Zionism to be a kind of racism, student unions began banning Jewish Societies on the grounds that universities would give ‘no platform for racists’ – a phrase originally coined to ban the likes of the National Front. As with the popular use of conflating swastikas with the Star of David on the Saturday hate-marches now, one senses a sadistic pleasure that progressives derive from putting Jews and Nazis in the same box. It’s pretty much gained pace ever since, the Hamas pogroms being the latest incident in which Jews are demonised for not colluding in their own destruction, and for fighting back against it.

    Most popular
    Andrew Tettenborn
    Stay-at-home parents don’t need free nursery places

    Though the British left defines itself as anti-American – to the point of routinely choosing the side of the US’s enemies, no matter how illiberal and homophobic, as we recently saw with the Houthis who happily kill ‘queers’ wherever they find them – it’s amusing that it will inevitably trot along like a wheezing, devoted pug at the heels of what passes for the American Left, which is generally a bunch of silly rich kids hoodwinked by a bunch of sinister criminals; think Manson Family without the sex. Tomiwa Owolade examined the dire consequences of this where race is concerned in his brilliant book This Is Not America and now ‘our’ students have similarly herded themselves into ‘Gaza solidarity camps’ across the land.

    It must be horrible to be a Jewish student right now and have to run the gauntlet of shrieking Violets and rabid Ruaris when you’re trying to get to lectures. No wonder the Union of Jewish Students issued a statement earlier this month saying that Jewish students are suffering from ‘the continuous torrent of antisemitic hatred on campus’ since the Hamas pogroms of 7 October: ‘While students have a right to protest, these encampments create a hostile and toxic atmosphere on campus for Jewish students…we will not stand for this hatred. It’s time that universities took their duty of care to Jewish students seriously.’

    Despite the usual twaddle from the Pals of Palestine about how peaceful their protests are, such events are taking place against a backdrop of a 22 per cent increase in university-related anti-Semitic hate incidents reported over the past two academic years. But I also can’t help but find the Tent City students (the Unhappy Campers, we might call them, or the Yappy Campers) as comical as they are nasty; ‘grotesque’ probably says it best.

    We are now facing the folly of Tony Blair’s ambition for further education for all
    For starters, they’re thick, and thick people who think they’re smart are invariably hilarious. The same goes for posh kids who think they’re revolutionaries; the posher the university, the more likely you are to find these camps. The reason is simple: at regular universities, the students are more likely to be occupied doing evening jobs to pay their way. (Like starting a career in journalism, you probably need to be financially supported by Mummy and Daddy these days in order to have the time to protest.)

    Students who live under genuinely tyrannical regimes often exhibit great bravery – contemporary Iran comes to mind – but this lot are just so lame. Students at Newcastle asked for donations of hot-water bottles, blankets and ground sheets after just one night under canvas; having surveyed the splendidly hardy young Geordie pleasure-seekers, near-naked in the bleak mid-winter of the Bigg Market, I think we can safely say that these are not natives.

    Over at Oxford, students yelled ‘One, two, three, four, occupation no more. Five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terrorist state’; I’ve heard more wit and originality on the terraces of a second division football match – and these are meant to be the best minds of the upcoming generation. It’s like an updated sitcom about the dirtiness and delusion of students – The Dumb Ones? – waiting to happen.

    It’s all about the brains, in my opinion; the thick children of the ruling class have always known that they can’t keep up with this most superbly over-achieving of immigrant groups. Thus no sooner had the musty right-wing prejudices against Jews been overcome, with the end of quotas, than what I’ve previously coined ‘Fresh’n’Funky anti-Semitism’ was there to take the weasel wheel under the guise of being pro-Palestinian. Though anti-Semitism has elements of ordinary racism, it also has the unique quality of incorporating envy and resentment at the way this particular minority group have had to overcome unspeakable obstacles yet have still succeeded. It’s the hatred of the stupid for the smart. Having been banging on about white privilege for the past five years, how will posh Gentile students explain their own failure to get the jobs they want even after such expensive educations? It’ll be the Jews’ fault, of course – as always.

    As for the protests, they may come to a natural end; as Yascha Mounk wrote here:

    With the Israeli military advancing in Rafah, the protests may grow in size and become more unruly in the coming days and weeks. And yet, it seems unlikely they will last forever. That’s partially because university leaders have grown surprisingly willing to call upon the police to end illegal encampments. But it’s mostly because, in a few weeks, the academic year will end at many universities – and most student activists don’t want to cancel the exciting trips they have planned or to forgo prestigious summer internships.

    As we saw when the double-barrelled big-shots of Extinction Rebellion flounced out of interviews after being confronted with Instagram proof of their air-miles, nothing comes between these stuck-up air-heads and their ‘hollibobs’.

    To sum up, though I am immeasurably glad that people put themselves through all those years of further education to become useful things like teachers and doctors, I’ve never had a high opinion of students. To most of us of working-class origin, the very word student conjures up a clown who believes itself to be too good to go out and earn their keep like the rest of us, but is probably just too lazy.

    We are now facing the folly of Tony Blair’s ambition for further education for all. It’s plain to see that young tradesmen and apprentices do something both more useful, more secure – no plumber is ever going to lose their job to AI – and more lucrative than the average Media Studies student kicking about in a dead-end job while waiting for the world to recognise their unique talent. The universities – often throttled by foreign money from countries with less than democratic modes of government – have increasingly revealed themselves over the past decade as places where ideas and debate are shut down. Those tents may look like noble protests to their inmates, but to us in the real world they look like the mental Skid Row that the contemporary left-wing academic mind has become. But as those campus book-burnings warned us, this won’t be the first time that citadels of education and enlightenment have served as cradles of ignorance and hatred.

  34. SIR – The recent creation of a Doom painting for St Mary’s church in Woodham Ferrers, Essex, using traditional techniques (report, May 12) reminded me of many times admiring the glorious 15-century example in my own parish church, St Thomas’s in Salisbury.

    It is the country’s largest and best preserved Doom painting, and, having been recently restored, is well worth a visit. I recommend binoculars: without them, I’d never have spotted the curious faces forming the devil’s knees.

    Christ sitting in judgment is the Doom’s focal point, but the multitude of painted details, including my favourites – a dishonest alewife and a sinful bishop, with crowned monarchs heading in chains towards Hell – are equally awe-inspiring.

    A more effective pictorial warning of your fate if religious teachings were not followed is hard to imagine, though today its phantasmagorical images make me smile.

    Peter Saunders
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    I wonder if that was what Johnathan Yeo was hinting at in his portrait of King Charles.

        1. I love Turner, used to have a print on my wall of one of his paintings when I was in my 20’s. Sadly, that’s some time ago now,

    3. I used to often ‘frequented’ Salisbury when I was stationed at Larkhill. I wish I’d known about St Thomas’s, I would have visited. The Cathedral and the local inns were a great attraction.

  35. looks like a fine day on the Sussex coast. 16c and sunny. Sprayed all round killing weeds, my home made weed killer nothing escapes it.

  36. Full English twists

    SIR – I was surprised that the English Breakfast Society has said that masala beans, bao buns and chorizo can be part of a morning fry up (report, May 12). Of course they can, but they cannot be part of an English breakfast.

    I have twice tried the English breakfast with an Indian twist at a well known (and expensive) restaurant in central Manchester. It was, on both occasions, uninspiring.

    Michael Ganley
    Heywood, Lancashire

    My question is….why did you bother the second time.

  37. Good morningall,

    A cloudy start at McPhee Towers but it’s going to brighten up. Wind North-East 13℃ rising to 22℃ this afternoon. I won’t be here though. Off to Chichester again to see sprog and her sproglet.

    It’s been a long time coming but now it’s here. Well done, Matt Briggs.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f320ceba7cedc7871ae67c0530283dff494bd2f54c8694c4192622754c685fd.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/19/justice-dangerous-cyclists-matt-briggs-legal-amendment/

    1. Good for him, keep it going, you have the support of all the people who are still sane in our country.
      Some people on bicycles have weaponised that once quite majestic mode of transport.

      1. If the cyclists can afford to blow £thousands on a bike and the gear that seems to be essential, they can damn well afford to hire time on a track or velodrome.
        They are not cycling to get from A to B; they are using two wheels as a sport. Fine; but pay for it like everyone else indulging a hobby.

  38. Good morningall,

    A cloudy start at McPhee Towers but it’s going to brighten up. Wind North-East 13℃ rising to 22℃ this afternoon. I won’t be here though. Off to Chichester again to see sprog and her sproglet.

    It’s been a long time coming but now it’s here. Well done, Matt Briggs.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f320ceba7cedc7871ae67c0530283dff494bd2f54c8694c4192622754c685fd.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/19/justice-dangerous-cyclists-matt-briggs-legal-amendment/

  39. I am well past any love I once had for foreign fare. Just the best home cooking for me with the best British farms can produce.

    1. Went out for lunch yesterday to celebrate my son’s birthday in the seaside village in Valencia where we are now.
      Mussels and Octopus with potatoes for the first course and black rice with alioli for the second.

        1. The second was better.
          It was a choice between fideuá, paella or black rice. Minimum two people. I would have preferred one of the other two but it wasn’t my birthday.
          It was the best black rice I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant.

  40. I’m sure all these things are nice, but they aren’t part of a traditional English breakfast and it’s ridiculous to pretend they are.
    Mind you, the breakfast society includes baked beans, which are an abomination at the breakfast table in my opinion.

    1. Imagine going to a country where you didn’t know the culture or the norms and being served a dish of food which they said was traditional and then you got served a mish mash of things that an indigenous person wouldn’t recognise.
      In their attempts to be inclusive they are managing to be divisive.

      1. Went to a campsite in Cornwall a few years ago. There was a café on site. Serving blimmin Thai food!!
        I like Thai food, but I’m on HOLIDAY in CORNWALL! I want a nice fry up in the morning, and a cream tea in the afternoon! (healthy eater, me)

        2. Not keen on Thai as i don’t like hot/heat. Were there other options? If not i would have complained.

          1. There weren’t other options. I left them a bad review, but that was due to the whole place being dirty and things being in poor repair – the food was minor as we just didn’t use the café. They were very keen to collect the money, but I got the impression that they had never tried camping on their own campsite and didn’t respect their visitors.

          2. Sounds terrible. I don’t on occasion mind doing cheap but it has to be clean.

  41. Long read but foodies will love it…

    Michel Roux Jr interview: ‘Restaurants may only open three days a week because staff won’t work the hours’

    Ahead of his new restaurant opening, the chef talks closing Le Gavroche, family, and why, after the pandemic, he’s struggling to find staff
    Eleanor Steafel 12 May 2024 • 7:00am

    474
    Michel Roux is opening a new restaurant at The Langham on May 22
    Michel Roux Jr. is opening a new restaurant at The Langham, London on May 22 Credit: Rii Schroer

    If you had strolled past the back door of 61 Lower Sloane Street in the summer of 1967 and timed it right, just as it swung open, you’d have been hit in the face by a tantalising cloud of browning butter and garlic. A new restaurant had just opened, the menus written in French, its food stylish, luxurious, full of flavour – a gamble in an era when the offering in most London restaurants was still largely beige and stodgy.

    Michel Roux Jr. was seven when his father, Albert, and uncle, Michel – the Roux Brothers, as they were known – opened Le Gavroche; some of his first memories are of pushing through that back door after school and heading down into the engine room of a kitchen. “It was the smell and the heat of the kitchen, and then walking down the steps and it gradually getting hotter and hotter and noisier and noisier,” recalls Roux.

    “All these unbelievable smells. Because the ventilation was terrible – the hot air would be coming up the stairs as if it was a chimney. And then getting to the bottom and seeing Dad and Uncle running around sweating. And Uncle invariably giving me a freshly cooked madeleine.”
    Michel Roux, uncle of Michel Roux Jr
    Michel Roux, uncle of Michel Roux Jr Credit: Getty

    It was the restaurant that fundamentally changed the way the British ate out in the Sixties, earning three Michelin stars, training chefs including Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing and Monica Galetti, and serving the late Queen on her 90th birthday. Roux captained the ship from 1991 until the very last service in January when, after losing his father and uncle in the pandemic, he served his final Soufflé Suissesse and closed the doors for good.

    Now, on a sunny afternoon in Marylebone, he is preparing to begin again. It has been three months since Le Gavroche closed, and at the Langham on Portland Place, he is gearing up to take over the old dining room, to be renamed Chez Roux. The menu sounds unlikely – it’s to be short, simple, British, but with the occasional French tweak. Welsh rarebit, steamed pudding and cheeses from this side of the Channel will lead the way rather than the classic haute cuisine French fare he is known for (though the original grilled lobster with garlic butter from Le Gavroche will have a place, alongside four other mains). The aim isn’t Michelin stars – it’s good, hearty food. “No frills, no froths, no foams, no flowers. Not tweezer food.”

    The concept, he explains, is “my childhood memories of food”. Roux was born and raised in Kent, where his father worked as a private chef to the Cazalet family at Fairlawne, a Grade I listed house in Shipbourne. “The style of food that my father was cooking at that time was very much for the private house. He was learning how to cook English dishes – these great British dishes such as steamed puddings and pies.”
    British dishes: Roux Jr tucks into a roast chicken (2017)
    British dishes: Roux Jr tucks into a roast chicken (2017) Credit: Andrew Crowley

    Roux Senior fell in love with those nursery classics “when they were done properly”, foraging for walnuts on the estate to pickle and make his own walnut ketchup (a version of which will be on the menu at Chez Roux). “I suppose he did add a little bit of French technique to some great British classics. The family absolutely adored it – they loved Dad’s food and loved Dad.”

    When Albert opened Le Gavroche with his brother, they were “pioneers”. “They were so brave back in 1967 to open up,” says Roux.

    Nearly 60 years on, “brave” is how he describes anyone trying to open a new restaurant in 2024. British food might be unrecognisable from the days when it was regarded, he says, as “bland and brown and boring”, but the climate couldn’t be worse. “I really feel for anyone that is brave enough to open up a restaurant now. It’s incredibly difficult. The market is very very tough.”

    The risk is lower, in some ways, for his new venture at the Langham – his name will be above the door, but it’s more of a takeover than a brand new opening. Roux will shepherd the existing restaurant into its new life, but he won’t be behind the stove as head chef. He was in the kitchen at Gavroche every day. Now, he says, “I’m not cooking everybody’s steak. But I still enjoy being in the kitchen with the team.”
    Roux Jr: ‘I’m not cooking everybody’s steak’
    Roux Jr: ‘I’m not cooking everybody’s steak’ Credit: Rii Schroer

    At the time of Le Gavroche’s closure, he issued a statement saying that he was closing the doors to “make time for a better work/life balance, so I can spend more time with my family and on my other business ventures”. Given he is about to open Chez Roux and spent the Bank Holiday weekend working at his restaurant at the Newmarket racecourse, he isn’t exactly looking like a man who is slowing down.

    “I’m still working on [it],” he laughs. “I promised that this time next year I will have nearly got there.”

    Looking healthy and trim in a denim shirt and black jeans, Roux, 64, seems energised by his new project. He arrives at our interview in a private dining room in the hotel with a phone in hand, glued to his emails.

    He is excited about his new menu, but ask him about the state of the industry he has lived and breathed all his life and his face changes. Across the industry, he says, footfall has “drastically gone down”. “People are very careful about what they spend, and quite rightly so.”

    The UK “used to be one of the places where people ate out the most”. “It was 2.8 times a week. […] Now it’s gone to just over once a week which is below the average of Europe.

    “That’s [the] financial crisis. And that’s definitely hurting everybody.”

    It means that however good the restaurant, the “customers are not there”, though if the bustling dining room in The Langham today is anything to go by, the hotel seems to be thriving. Generally, though, Roux says diners “have less to spend and there are less of them”. “And running a restaurant is just incredibly expensive. […] To actually finance it – borrowing money is expensive, whereas it used to be quite cheap. In hospitality we’ve always had to deal with these hurdles, but it’s certainly got harder.”
    Roux Jr’s new restaurant will be based at the Langham Hotel in London
    Roux Jr’s new restaurant will be based at the Langham Hotel in London

    He feels for his contemporaries who have had to close. “You hear of the amount of closures that are going on on a daily basis. And some very well-established names. Simon Rimmer up in Liverpool. His place had been there for nearly 30 years. I’m guessing the rent isn’t quite the same as Mayfair and if he can’t make ends meet up there you think, shit.”

    Staffing is also a problem, says Roux. Even more so as a younger generation with a more dogmatic idea of what constitutes a work-life balance enters the workplace. Kitchens still run on a knife edge; restaurants have historically been built on the shoulders of chefs and front of house staff willing to be on their feet for long hours, six days a week. The real “problem”, says Roux, began presenting itself after the pandemic. “After Covid – and it’s not just in hospitality, it’s in lots of different careers and industries – people don’t want to work on the weekend. Don’t want to work unsociable hours, and would rather work delivering parcels as and when they want to. It’s as simple as that.”

    Does he worry the next cohort of young chefs don’t want to slog it out as he and his peers did? “Just because I worked 80 hours a week or more doesn’t mean the next generation should,” he says. “Quite the contrary. That is something that we have to address in our industry. We could still do more. But it will mean ultimately that going out is going to be more expensive, and that maybe your favourite restaurant is no longer open seven days a week – it’s only open three or four days a week.

    The industry is simply going to have to become “a lot more flexible”. “If somebody only wants to work three shifts a week, well, let’s make it work. That’s three shifts covered, I’ve got another four shifts, somebody wants to do four shifts. Ageism was a big thing in our industry as well. You had to employ youngsters. Why?”

    Roux’s father died in 2021, his uncle the previous year. He must miss them terribly. “There’s not a day where we don’t think about them.”

    What would they have made, I wonder, of his decision to close Le Gavroche this year. “I did speak to Dad at length about the future before he passed away,” says Roux. “ I didn’t actually say I was going to [close] because I didn’t know what my decision was going to be, but we did talk openly about it. I know he would have been 100 per cent behind the idea.”

    “One thing is for sure – he would not have wanted me to sell the business and the name. That is something which I would never do. And I’ve had ridiculous offers. But that would be like selling my right arm. No, it’s not for sale, at any price. I just couldn’t live with that.”

    For Roux, home is a “nice-sized” flat in Clapham, where he has lived with his wife Gisele, who worked as the secretary at Le Gavroche, for 36 years. His daughter Emily is also a chef (she runs her own restaurant, Caractère, in Notting Hill with her partner Diego) and has two small children who he clearly adores. When you ask Roux about how he feels now what happened with the restaurant, so tied to both his family and his career, he seems visibly uncomfortable. There are “still very mixed emotions”, he says. “Sometimes very difficult to… to compute.”
    Roux Jr pictured with his daughter Emily Roux, also a chef, in the kitchen of Le Gavroche, 2016
    Roux Jr pictured with his daughter Emily Roux, also a chef, in the kitchen of Le Gavroche, 2016 Credit: Clara Molden

    He thinks about his Gavroche team a lot. “I’m constantly asking head chef Rachel and the office team to check up on everybody and see what they’re doing, how they are, are they alright? I had news this morning that one of them it’s not going very well where he’s working, he’s not very happy, so I’ll be having a word with him.”

    He claims not to have had time to sit and think about it “in depth”, but it’s clear there is a certain amount of sorrow beneath it all. “It is tinged with sadness. But it’s also a weight off my shoulders. Running a Michelin-starred restaurant for so long really does take its toll. It’s very very hard, tiresome, and stressful.”

    For years, marathon running was his way of dealing with the strain “for my mental health”.

    “There’s the pressure of running a business, there’s the pressure of running a restaurant. Then there’s the pressure of running a Michelin-starred restaurant, then there’s the pressure of running somewhere like Le Gavroche. It had been open 57 years. So it’s huge.”
    Le Gavroche closed its doors in January 2024
    Le Gavroche closed its doors in January 2024 Credit: Issy Croker

    Would it be fair to add to that list the family name he also had to uphold? “Absolutely. Second generation, so it’s a huge…” he pauses. “Yeah, I mean when I first took over that was a huge responsibility, and that was very very tough because the old man didn’t want to let go. He said he’d retired but he hadn’t. […] So it was very difficult. But I was at the helm for 35 years which is longer than my father was. And when I say that, that makes me think ‘wow’.”

    It’s a “heck of a long time” to cope with that daily pressure, he says. “And it is – it’s daily. And dare I say even every breath. Sleepless nights and tossing and turning and thinking, was that right? Did I do this right? Can I do better? It’s just relentless.”

    Was there financial pressure too? “No, Le Gavroche was doing okay and there was nothing untowards in that respect,” he says, though Brexit “certainly put a spanner in the works”. “Honestly, I think we could have carried on until I keeled over.”

    Emily and Diego didn’t want to take it on. And so it was, quite simply, time. “I’m 100 per cent behind their decision, because they’re doing their own thing and they do it very well.”

    He is clearly extremely proud of his daughter. “Her restaurant is called Caractère – character – for a reason. She’s got character.” It isn’t the easiest industry to be a woman, he says. “She certainly experienced that on her way up. But she’s a tough cookie, and she’s talented.”
    Roux Jr’s daughter Emily learnt the trade at a young age
    Roux Jr’s daughter Emily learnt the trade at a young age

    However complicated his feelings around Le Gavroche, whatever challenges the industry is facing, there is undoubtedly energy behind a new opening, and Roux is still as excited about restaurants as ever, particularly in London which these days “rubs shoulders with Paris, New York, Tokyo as a place people look up to go and eat,” he says. Which does he consider the more interesting place to eat out at the moment, London or Paris? “London. Although Paris has changed immensely over the past few years. And strangely enough it’s because French chefs came to London and went back with lovely ideas.”

    Restaurateur friends in France “got helped out a lot more during the pandemic – I mean a heck of a lot more”. The Government needs to support the British hospitality industry, he says. “They need to realise the hospitality industry brings in so much to the UK. I think I’m not mistaken in saying it’s the third largest employer.” British food used to be “the laughing stock”. “But now people come to London not just to go to the museums, they come to eat.”

    At home, though, the French still eat better than the English, says Roux, who has a house in the Ardèche in south east France which he plans to spend more time in now. “We eat more fresh fruit and vegetables than in the UK and there’s still a market culture.”

    He despairs at the state of the nation’s health here. “Ultra processed foods for me are the worst things you can put in your mouth. And the understanding of what processed and ultra processed food is – sadly, they tend to be the cheapest foods out there. Added sugar, added salt – that for me is worse than fats.

    “For many many years we were told fat was what was going to make you fat. It was bad for you. So eat these other fats instead. And if you look at the label of any kind of processed vegetable fat it makes you shudder.

    “Read a label and if there are words on there that you don’t understand then generally it’s not going to be that good for you.”

    Fake meats – in his words: “bloody expensive”, “full of bizarre ingredients” and “ultra processed” – are a bugbear. “There must be a better way, and what’s wrong with just eating vegetables? Rather than eating meat substitutes, which I can’t get my head around.”

    Roux himself is loosely flexitarian. “Not because I want to be […] but just because I don’t think we need to eat animal protein every day of the week.”

    He thinks healthy eating should be “taught from a very young age at school. I think it should be part of the curriculum. To get the message to kids what it is that they’re putting in their mouths. Children should “know how to cook. They should be taught maybe ten recipes, just basic. Even knowing how to cook an egg.”

    His own grandchildren, Julian, four, and Luca, nine months old, have, as you might expect, discerning palates. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the eldest ends up being a chef. He loves his food, and he knows good from bad.”

    Last year, Roux went back to Fairlawne, where he lived until he was not much older than Julian. “The garden is still there, the cherry tree is still there, and the front lawn.” Archive photographs of Fairlawne will hang in the new restaurant, along with a portrait of his father. I wonder if he feels, at 64, and with the behemoth that was Le Gavroche with its Michelin stars behind him, that he has already done his best work? He looks momentarily stumped.

    “Yeah, what next? Do I really want to open another Michelin-starred restaurant? No. Do I still want to create lovely restaurants where people are happy and enjoying the moment? Yes. But I suppose most importantly do I want to be happy in what I’m doing? Yes. And where am I most happy…? It feels like I’m lying on a couch now.”

    It sounds rather nice, this idea he could just be happy bringing people lovely, relaxed food. I’m not quite sure I buy it – Roux is clearly a perfectionist. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a day in the kitchen where I could say everything just went absolutely 100 per cent perfect,” he says.

    “In some respects it’s a good thing but in others it’s terrible because it eats you alive. It’s horrible. But it does keep you going.”

    We stroll over to the dining room. Roux has a few things to finish up before heading to meet his wife for dinner at a Portuguese restaurant in Battersea. “We’re definitely trying to catch up on eating out,” he says. He has more time on his hands now, and plans to spend it taking his wife out for dinner, enjoying the handiwork of other chefs, rather than sweating behind a stove.

    He waxes lyrical about a little French place called Ploussard he discovered in Clapham recently. “It made me really feel positive about the restaurant industry. It’s a 30 seater – to see it busy, rammed… it’s been open a year now so they’re obviously doing okay. You think: okay, there’s hope.”

    2. Moh has never been a fine food diner, but I would love to be taken to some where different to sample some culinary artistry .

      Decades ago , I suggested we ate at a seafood restaurant , I ordered lobster thermidor. It was delicious .

      Moh enjoyed his as well . A few years later , we went back again , and had Halibut steaks , divine !

      The nicest seafood I have eaten was in Malta in the 1960’s.

        1. A boyfriend and I had tea at the Ritz in the mid 1960’s.

          It was a splendiferous event , I was so thrilled to be there , it was a special occasion for me . Lots of the “it” girls and their chaps were there as well as some gnarled old blue rinses . I think it cost £5 each then .

          I know exactly what I wore , a matching blue lacey dress and coat and beige sling backs and matching handbag , funny how we remember things like that ..

          I could scrub up well in those days ,

          Many thanks for the tip Phizzee, you are so caring .

          1. You are too kind.
            I also remember things like that and the food i ate at the time.

  42. Given his portrait of George Bush i think there is a hidden joke in the King’s portrait. Just haven’t figured it out yet.

      1. Subversion. Sugar in the fuel tank. Spud rammed up the exhaust. Ooh, lots of things.

  44. Pointlessly intrusive incidental music: aagh! A busy string arrangement is accompanying a pair of golfing experts summing up the state of play in the USPGA championships to the point that I’m so distracted and annoyed by the music that I’m paying no attention to what’s being said. These audible cues are supposed to be clues as to what is being broadcast. Well, I for one, don’t need to be told when I’m looking at a scorecard, listening to a summary, watching a replay, or whatever it is that the broadcaster thinks I need to hear in order to distinguish between them. It’s bloody infuriating.

    1. Perhaps it is a play on words, Stig. “Score” (in golf) and “score” in music…

      I’ll get me violin…

    1. One of the unknown soldiers has been identified recently, his remains are being brought home to Newfoundland where he will receive a ceremonial burial ceremony on July 1st.

      Hopefully Trudeau in his rush to dismantle everything Canadian , will stay the hell away.

  46. Hats off to Starmer, he’s playing a blinder. Dress up in military fatiques. Always always always without fail stands next to a Union Jack. Keeps all his policies vague. Lots of Blair type soundbites.. “Get Britain working again. Ban on puppy killing.” Landslide victory.

    Now what if Matt Goodwin came out with a list like this..
    https://youtu.be/WiOBLqcNjBU?t=17

    Or enlisted Gary (either of them) to read em out.

    1. That’s a female?

      It looks and sounds like a little boy who’s had his nuts chopped off.

    2. That’s hilarious – I’d vote for that programme like a shot! Surely society has never been so divided as it is today, and even the left has never been so blind and lacking in self-awareness…

    1. Heaven forfend! It cannot be true. In the pre release to this much vaunted release Rotten Tomatoes gave it a very rare 100%, I seem to recall.

        1. Hah! Thanks, not much change since I last looked then. Now it’s been Disneyfied I expect the fans will be getting called bigots before long. Usual next stage.

    1. Mehdi Hasan is a repulsive, race-baiting piece of filth who, fortunately, has been off the British scene for a few years. However, it was notable that the esteemed social commentator Lineker was caught out recently with a clumsy remark about Israel and did so on a show hosted by Hasan. If this turd is back on the British media, there’ll be some good sport coming up.

      1. Hasan slithered over to Al Jazeera and now works in America. Typical Islamic hypocrite.

    2. Mehdi Hasan is a repulsive, race-baiting piece of filth who, fortunately, has been off the British scene for a few years. However, it was notable that the esteemed social commentator Lineker was caught out recently with a clumsy remark about Israel and did so on a show hosted by Hasan. If this turd is back on the British media, there’ll be some good sport coming up.

    3. Mehdi Hasan is a repulsive, race-baiting piece of filth who, fortunately, has been off the British scene for a few years. However, it was notable that the esteemed social commentator Lineker was caught out recently with a clumsy remark about Israel and did so on a show hosted by Hasan. If this turd is back on the British media, there’ll be some good sport coming up.

  49. A remarkable woman on Desert Island Discs:

    Dame Sarah Joanne Storey, DBE (née Bailey) a British Paralympic athlete (born without left hand) in cycling and swimming, and a multiple gold medalist in the Paralympic Games, and six times British (able-bodied) national track champion (2 × Pursuit, 1 × Points, 3 × Team Pursuit). Her total of 28 Paralympic medals including 17 gold medals.

    Storey’s major achievements include being a 29-time World champion (6 in swimming and 23 in cycling), a 21-time European champion (18 in swimming and 3 in cycling) and holding 75 world records. She took part at the Paralympics on eight occasions in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. She is a current para world record holder in women’s 3000m individual pursuit and hour record.

    Well done that woman.

  50. Defence Credibility remains the Achilles’ heel of Labour’s plan for government.

    Sooortid.

      1. Boris Johnson was the best chance they had and they blew it without a second thought.
        Crooked? He had great organization skills, achieved an enormous majority and finally after years of Tory dithering managed to get Britain out of the EU.
        If he were still PM the Tory party may have had a chance of winning the next election or at least have avoided the cruel fate now in store.
        Get real. They are all crooked, some more than others.

        1. Sorry – don’t agree. Johnson was an incompetent oaf who – for some bizarre reason – capitulated to his greeniac, limp dumb current wifelet….. He lied through his teeth about almost everything. He had not the faintest idea what being Prime Minister ACTUALLY meant. Incapable of making any decision and sticking to it. Unable to inspire loyalty in other cabinet members. To call him a charlatan would be grossly unfair on charlatans.

          And as for that vain, crooked Iraqi – words fail me.

          To summarise – no, I am not a fan.

          1. Not to mention his effectively putting a stop to any peace negotiations in Ukraine, his biggest single mistake in my view.

          3. I suspect so, although I can’t help thinking that he saw himself as Churchill the politician rather than what he was, Churchill the dog.

          4. No you don’t seem to be a fan. I still think he was the best chance they had despite your misgivings.

          6. Be fair, Bill. The man did have a firm handle in the debate over ping-pong, table-tennis or wiff-waff.

          9. Spot on!

            Now to be seen occasionally supporting a war being fought in a faraway country.

          10. I think Boris works for the parasite class because they are the biggest bullies in the room. He was just following their orders.

          11. “To summarise – no, I am not a fan.”
            Thank goodness you clarified that point.
            I was just soooooo unsure.

        2. Sorry – don’t agree. Johnson was an incompetent oaf who – for some bizarre reason – capitulated to his greeniac, limp dumb current wifelet….. He lied through his teeth about almost everything. He had not the faintest idea what being Prime Minister ACTUALLY meant. Incapable of making any decision and sticking to it. Unable to inspire loyalty in other cabinet members. To call him a charlatan would be grossly unfair on charlatans.

          And as for that vain, crooked Iraqi – words fail me.

          To summarise – no, I am not a fan.

    2. The list of things the Tories shouldn’t have done is very long:

      Shouldn’t have hiked corporation tax, should have forced vaccinations, shouldn’t have pushed the Windsor agreement, shouldn’t have considered net zero, the migration pact, frozen the tax allowances, hiked benefit payments, shouldn’t hav ousted Truss, shouldn’t have reduced the capital gains allowance, shouldn’t pretend not hiking a tax is cutting it, shouldn’t have let a single criminal welfare shopper into this country, shouldn’t have continued Labour’s borrowing insanity.

      There’s countless thousands more examples. Every single thing they’ve done has been the exact opposite of what we needed.

        1. Possibly not, but the reality was that he was turned into a LibDem Greeniac by his wife and what she was driving down the line for the climate scam would utterly have ruined Britain’s economy.
          The ousting was getting rid of her influence on British politics and good riddance to unrecyclable rubbish.

          1. Talked a great game, didn’t he. Trouble is he had a backbone made from pilchard bones

  52. If it wasn’t for the very strong north wind – it would be nice out! Very sunny. Warm out of the gale.

    1. Morning Bill,

      There is a stiff cold breeze here , washing is drying on the line because my old drier broke yesterday, fan belt .. so have ordered a new belt , hope that fixes the problem .

      We have had nose to tail problems with domestic appliances breaking so far this year .

      1. I always console myself that if I’m forced to buy a new one that it should see me out.

      2. Aye, I figure every hour the wash is outside is less water inside. Even if the sun is weak and feeble it’s free. In a while I’ll turn the quilt cover around so the top is sunward.

  53. Yesterday someone showed me a Soshul Meeja image of a mutual friend on a Pro Palestinian Killers & Rapists demonstration. The person in the photo is a parent, kind, generous, middle aged, highly intelligent, professionally qualified and has a successful career. When we next meet at some social gathering, should I keep silent?

    As I am not without sin, I have no right to throw any New Testament stone.

    1. I sympathise. I have the same situation. I have a few quips up my sleeve in case it gets mentioned. Including asking them to define “genocide” and asking them their views in relation to events on 7th October.

      1. Asking the modern exponent to define anything they believe in is the ultimate argument destruction method, quite so. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

    2. In such a divisive issue, you will never persuade the friend to your pov. If you want to pick a fight, you can try, and lose the acquaintance, or just ignore them on your terms.

    1. I’m imagining what my father would have said to this cretin! It would have been along the lines of ‘Get back to….wherever you came from’! It may also have included an arboreal reference!

      1. I’m confused.
        If he wears a wig, is he guilty of cultural appropriation?
        Or like just about everything in C21 Blighty, does that only work one way?

    2. Hello Wibbling

      Why can’t we say this?
      You are not white so therefore you have no right to make pronouncements in our British courts of law .
      Clear orf to your own jungle habitat , and leave us alone       .

      1. I just think he’s a selfish, egotistical rhymes with anchor who is deliberately playing the diversity card to get his, personal own way. He epitomises everything wrong with this country. He should be told by his peers – including many black lawyers – to shut up and stop bringing the profession further into disrepute.

    3. Again, it’s all about “me” with these people. Culturally it used to be the fashion for Western men to wear long hair and emit drivel about peace and love, while singing about stardust and the Age of Aquarius. I don’t recall barristers being allowed to wear long hair in the age of Woodstock, because it was their “culture”.

      If he wants to become credible in Britain then he’d better learn to adopt the culture, is my view.

    4. I’m curious – the article is dated today but refers to “QC” – does a QC remain so or should that be KC now?

      Here’s what Wiki says “Upon the death of Elizabeth II and the succession of Charles III, the General Council of the Bar wrote that all QC titles changed to KC “with immediate effect”.[42] This was not a matter of decision by the Bar Council, nor by the Crown Office. It is the automatic effect of the Demise of the Crown Act 1901, s 1.[43]”

      1. Always KC under a king and QC under a queen. They take an oath to serve (operate) under the auspices of the Crown.

        I, similarly, swore allegiance to the Crown — before a Justice of the Peace — before I commenced duty as a constable.

      2. The comments indicate the article is two years old. So probably before the Queen died.

    6. He probably wears his hair that long/wide and scruffy as a snub to OUR indigenous culture, as a form of ‘up yours’ whitey. Do barristers in his ‘homeland’ wear wigs?
      I often wonder how many school-age brats with this sort of unkempt mess are harbouring nits. In our sons’ school, there were a number of pupils of African descent – both girls and boys kept their hair short/tamed and neat.

    7. I’ve never seen an ‘Afro’ yet that I’m not tempted to put a lit match to!

    9. Presumably he knows the reason for the wearing of wigs. And if he cannot accept this (and the evidence is that he’s a narcissist, which is why he’s making this commotion) then he has no reason being a barrister.

    1. Enough, already. We had these appalling children on the forum a couple of days ago. They get worse with each viewing… Grrr!

          1. Frankly I find the word cute just as offensive as the children who are described as cute!

      2. I’m with you Uncle Bill! Other peoples garstly children do not impress me!

        2. I get utterly confused when people present their new-born babies and then coo “Ooh, isn’t he/she gorgeous?”

          I smile weakly but think to myself, [“I’ve never seen a new-born baby yet that isn’t plug ugly!”]

          2. It seems to be a woman thing to coo and cluck over ‘bundles of joy’.

          4. Some are a lot uglier than others, so getting one of the better ones might produce the response.

          5. 100% agree with you Grizzly. Although my daughter turned out to be quite a beautiful woman, as a baby her face looked like a furious Churchill forced to be sober. Like you I don’t think I’ve seen a genuinely beautiful new born. Thinking of things to say when the photos of the little moppets are passed around to admire, forces me to be a hypocrite.

          7. I have a terrible confession to make; both as a mother and a possessor xx chromosomes.
            Babies Are Dead Boring.
            And toddlers are only bearable if they can talk and say something rude.

          8. Being the eldest of a tribe of five I was surrounded by brats (and all the associated paraphernalia and smells) all my youth. My mother dropped the last one when I was 17 and after I’d started work!

            Hence my early — informed — decision to remain happily child-free all my life.

      3. The girl is an obnoxious brat…….but she is young enough for the genuine culprit to be her mother. She’s just articulating what she’s heard.

      4. Agreed. I can’t stand videos where children are encouraged to be rude or swear.

  56. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/18/damage-lockdown-did-to-our-democracy-becoming-clear/

    I like Janet Daley, but this continual blithering ‘Far Right/extremist Right/Hard right nonsense has got to stop. The rejection of uncontrolled gimmigration by aliens, the subversion of market economies to dysfunctional socialism, the enforcement of poverty and misery under the hoax of ‘climate change’, the repeated, incessant lies to destroy farmers and farming, the horrific tax burden is NOT ‘Right wing. It’s just normal people sick to the back teeth of a mendacious, violent state machine destroying their lives.

    1. Her grasp of history leaves much to be desired. Germans were not pushing barrow-loads around banknotes around in the 1930s. Wrong decade, Jan.

      1. And their hyperinflation was only for a short while. We had it worse in the 80’s !

        1. The Cosa Nostra tarts are in the fridge, defrosting, I look forward to eating them this evening after dinner.

          2. I will. I think it tells me to defrost in the fridge to prevent condensation. Had that happen to a chocolate cake that I defrosted from room temperature. It rather marred the glaze. It was, nevertheless delicious. So after a couple of hours I will take them out of the fridge to reach room temperature.
            I think I told you that I used to make Viennese Torts, used to make quite a variety of them. I suspect you would have enjoyed. There is, actually, a Zitron Torta, that is made with genoise flavored with lemon zest and juice then filled with three layers of lemon buttercream, lemon cream and candied lemon on the outside, it’s quite good for a summers day tea on the lawn or to stuff yourself silly whilst wallowing in bed. I often made that and its counterpart together, Orange torte. Viennese pastries are superior to French muck 😊

          3. The tart i had was dinner plate size and it wasn’t frozen. If it is Sicilian i suppose it will be fine.

          6. I’m glad it wasn’t frozen……frigid tarts are a bit pointless.😂

          8. So Pip, I ate one last night, after dinner and kept one for lunch today. Plus there are two more in the freezer. The filling is delicious, I give it an 8 out of 10 because I thought the pastry rather greasy, could actually taste it.

            Have you tried the Tesco Lemon cheesecake? I think I’m addicted to them. Eat at least three of them a week.

            https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/277302334

            These are the best out of their range of cheesecakes and cheap!

          1. Baked beans on toast was all i could afford for months on end. Mortgage going up by £50 a month. Every month.

      2. A loaf of bread, which cost 250 marks in January 1923, had risen to 200,000 million marks in November 1923.
        By autumn 1923 it cost more to print a note than the note was worth.

        Caused by the proto European Union (France and Belgium) demanding reparations that the Krauts couldn’t pay. Sound familiar?

    2. The Canadian Security people have just come out with a report infering that people questioning diversity and 57 gender varieties could act in anti canadian ways.
      Naturally they were talking about white man, not the pro hamas trash demonstrating everywhere.

      The way that Trudeau is breaking canada, I proudly comply.

      1. Terriblegraph reporting today a drop in Canadian living standards. I thought of you when I read it!

        “CANADA is experiencing one of the country’s worst declines in the standard of living in 40 years, according to a study.

        The authors of the study by the non-partisan Fraser Institute said the figures should serve as a “wake-up call” for the country’s Liberal government, led by Justin Trudeau, to enact “fundamental policy reforms”.

        While Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) has grown in recent years, driven by high population growth and labour supply, its GDP per person has fallen dramatically, the study said.

        It found that from mid-2019 to the end of 2023, GDP per person dropped 3 per cent when adjusted for inflation, from $59,905 (£34,625) to $58,111 (£33,588). Moreover, it warned that the decline was continuing and “may still exceed” the steep economic downturn of the late-1980s and early-1990s in its length and depth.

        Measuring a country’s economic health is complex, and the tools used to calculate economic activity can be contentious. GDP is a key metric and is typically measured either in aggregate or per person.

        When Canada’s GDP is assessed by aggregate, the country had the second highest rate of growth among the G7 nations. However, the analysis by the Fraser Institute argued that assessing GDP per person “is the more useful indicator of economic progress” – and by that metric Canada had one of the lowest rates among the G7.

        “Despite claims to the contrary, living standards are declining in Canada,” said Grady Munro, a co-author of the Fraser Institute’s report.

        The report noted that Canada’s “historically high” population growth “[increases] aggregate GDP but does not necessarily grow per person incomes”.

        In fact, it found that Canada had experienced one of the longest and deepest declines in real GDP per person since 1985, exceeded only by the 5.3 per cent decline between 1989 and 1992 and the 5.2 per cent decline between the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.

        “However, the decline in incomes since Q2 2019 is ongoing, and may still exceed the downturn of the late-1980s and early-1990s in length and depth of decline,” the report warned.”

        2. That’s correct, living standards are falling quite dramatically and Trudeau seems not to care, they certainly don’t have a clue on fixing the problem.

          More immigrants and increasing the carbon tax doesn’t help help for some reason nor do lots of handouts to low income families – but that might gain them votes.

    1. They know we know. We know they know we know. But still they don’t care.

      1. That’s why Conservative supporters should vote Reform. Labour will get in anyway but if Reform do become an opposition we shall probably stand more chance of stopping the runaway Labour idiots.

  58. Most journalists are band wagoners, it’s they only way they keep their jobs these days. It seems that the majority opinions never matter to them.

      1. I haven’t been counting but I don’t think it’s that many……we haven’t had a wet day for a while though.

  62. S.S. Fort Missanabie.

    Complement:
    60 (12 dead and 48 survivors).
    Ballast.

    At 17.55 hours on 19th May 1944 the Fort Missanabie (Master Charles Robert Williamson) in convoy HA-43 was torpedoed and sunk by U-453 (Dierk Lührs) south of Taranto. The master, ten crew members and one gunner were lost. 35 crew members and 13 gunners were picked up by the Norwegian steam merchant Spero and Italian corvette Urania and landed at Augusta, Sicily.
    The sinking of Fort Missanabie was the last success of the U-boats stationed in the Mediterranean.

    Type VIIC U-Boat U-453 was sunk on 21st May 1944 (two days after the above attack) in the Ionian Sea north-east of Cape Spartivento by depth charges from the British destroyers HMS Termagent and HMS Tenacious and the British escort destroyer HMS Liddesdale. 1 dead and 51 survivors.

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/fort_missanabie.jpg

  63. 387415+ up ticks,

    I take it we can rest assured that, via the polling stations and the majority voter the whole of England will NOT be under a blanket of concrete then, shortly on take over soft spots in market squares will have to be organised.

    If not already in place contact your local mosque.

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1792114446719971626

  64. I am going outside – despite the gale – to “enjoy” some garden work. I may be some time. Play nicely…

      1. It’s grey, heavy clouds here, damp and miserable!! May has been a wet and cool month so far, not what we are used to here.

        1. Where are you? I think you have been sent our Welsh weather by mistake. Please don’t send it back!😂

          1. West Virginia, USA. We had a few sunny, warm days but I still have to keep a wooly cardigan at hand! Forget about shorts and tee-shirt for a while.

          2. Aha! An American. What do you think of that damned good-for-nothing Prince we sent you, along with his appalling wife? Please make them very welcome so they don’t come back here!

          4. Then why is she a ‘lass’ which is a northern thing? And in Virginia which is, er, an American thing? Very confusing.

          5. Because moh was known as “Jackthelad” on this site for a while.
            Sorry to confuse you, I’m going back a few years to when Geoff first started the site.

          6. Her husband jackthelad used to be a regular here and posted for many years, he seldom does so now

          8. I am ex-pat Brummie via Essex, here in US since 1979.
            All I know about “god-for-nothing Prince and his appalling wife” I read in the Daily Mail!! Hardly mentioned over here that I have seen.

        2. Where are you? I think you have been sent our Welsh weather by mistake. Please don’t send it back!😂

        3. We’ve had some warm, sunny days after a long, chilly and wet April. Nice again today too, and yesterday was the warmest day so far.

  65. If so, it must be shared at the very least.. but there must be a time limit on submitting sovereignty claims. Perhaps overseen by the EU or Jamaica.
    Russian discovery of huge oil reserves in Antarctica has made Falkland Islands the ‘world’s most valuable real estate’.
    Jack Straw, Call Me Dave, Sir Keir prefer the EU to arbitrate.. whereas Ash & Corby say it’s none of our business. £ to a penny..

  68. I bought some fresh dill yesterday because I was going to use it in a recipe last night. In the event I changed the recipe and now have a lot of fresh dill. Does anyone know if dill freezes or (better) a good way to dry it out to refill my (nearly empty) dried dill spice jar?

    1. Pretty sure my other half freezes it, yes. Can enhance the flavour too, which I’m unsurprised to learn, since I always freeze sloes before making sloe gin.

      1. I do that with the sloes, it makes them easier to bruise before soaking in the spirit.

        1. Yes, it explodes the flesh as they thaw, meaning the liquor can infiltrate itself into fruit this extracting a richer juice from it. The old way of poking them with a fork to pierce the skins is ok, nothing wrong with it, but the freezing causes the right sort of damage all round

    2. Pretty sure my other half freezes it, yes. Can enhance the flavour too, which I’m unsurprised to learn, since I always freeze sloes before making sloe gin.

    3. You can freeze herbs but not for long. My suggestion would be to push the whole lot into a virgin olive oil and allow it to flavour the oil.

      1. I do make herb butter sometimes, especially with left over parsley, then freeze in inch blocks, handy for adding to cooked veggies.

        1. The fat in the butter will preserve the herb flavour. I like to use a block of butter with a lot of fine chopped parsley and lots and lots of minced garlic. Roll into a cylinder shape and freeze. You can easily cut a slice/roundel or to to sit atop a steak or put on hot toast.

          1. Exactly. When is your party? I know you did say, but I’ve forgotten, a regular thing these days!!

          2. #MeToo. I have notes all over.
            August 10th at 2pm. Pretty much anyone on Nottle is invited. Even the BOSS has accepted !
            As he is an organist i suggested he knock out a tune or two on my E Piano. Bat out of Hell…Abba…Mozart…:@)

          3. Roll over, Beethoven!! Please make a note that photos of the event are required for those of us who cannot attend!!

          4. Will do. Though some Nottlers may not wish their visages published. Probably on the run from the cops !

          5. As much as I love y’all, it’s the food I want to see, don’t upset the camera shy!!

          6. I have been taking inspiration from several sources. Masterchef recently set a test for the contestants to create canapes. Notes taken.

            I also tested Pani Puri. These wonderful little crisp globes that can be filled with aerated mousse or pate.
            Slices of lightly toasted or fried baguettes with endless toppings.
            Smoked salmon, prawns, caviar. Various herbed butters. Caper and raisin paste ! Pomegranate molasses was a revelation. Works brilliant with red onion and coriander.
            I also did a trial run on mini choux eclairs which went very well with chicken liver pate.

            I also have a box of 40 macarron in the freezer. Lots of other ideas too.

          7. I am drooling….I will certainly be there in spirit, if not in person!! My long distance flying days are really over, it’s just so much hassle.

          13. A friend played some bat out of hell type music during practice for an organ recital at a local church. Apparently the organ can apparently be used to broadcast the equivalent of the bells and the amplifier was on so the sacrilegious music was being broadcast outside the church.

    4. For freezing dill – and any other delicately-flavoured herb – first chop the herb and then, using a blender, make it into a pulp with a little water. Pop the mixture into an ice-cube tray and freeze. This preserves the flavour better than just freezing the herbs whole or chopped.

      That being said, if you have a fairly robust herb like flat-leaved parsley, I don’t bother with the pulping. Just chop and freeze in a sealed container. Ditto lemon zest.

      1. That sounds like a lot of effort for a herb which can be purchased for a few pennies.

    5. I often place an excess of herbs in paper bags fold over to top of the bag put a clothes peg on and put it somewhere dry for a week or so it often retains flavour when dried. But I’ve never tried it with Dill. It’s worth a try.

    6. Dill? I’m awash with the damn stuff over here. I call it Swedeweed.

      The Swedes even put it in the pan with new potatoes. When I tell them new spuds better with fresh mint they look askew at me as if I’m from another planet.

      They even ask me, “What the hell are ‘spuds’?”

  69. 387415 + up ticks,

    Busy working in the garage also listening to radio four and the trials & tribulations of being a politico in today’s world.

    Seemingly many are on the verge of cracking up through stress etc,etc much brought on by covid,others will not be standing in regards to the next GE.

    In my book covid was a
    pharmaceutical / politico construct in its wake it has left them as with a tiger by the tail and the situation is those that can get out will get out before very,very, serious questions are asked and in such a manner as they must be answered in a very credible fashion.

    1. Poor dears. It’s a man plays with fire, surprised to get burnt story.

    2. I’ve just been to the Royal Albert Hall box office and bought my Prom tickets. The booking clerk, who’s also a friend and neighbour, told me that he’d heard stories of people logging on at around 7 am yesterday morning and still not getting any tickets online by late afternoon.

    3. I remember going to the Post Office to change my stamps. The fellow said, sorry, we can’t. You have to download a form, print it off – no, you can’t submit it electronically – include your stamps and then wait for them to be sent back.

  71. Well this is awkward…….

    John Pilger in 2014

    On May 13, 2014, legendary investigative journalist John Pilger wrote

    an article in the UK Guardian titled: “In Ukraine, the US is dragging

    us towards war with Russia”.

    The US had taken control of Ukraine

    and would use it to provoke Russia into getting involved, Pilger

    prophesied. The result would be a Nato war in Europe.

    “Nato’s

    military encirclement [of Russia] has accelerated, along with

    US-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine,” Pilger wrote.

    “If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained

    ‘pariah’ role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to

    spill into Russia itself.”The resulting CIA-manufactured war

    would be portrayed by the media as a Russian attack. Vladimir Putin

    would be “subjected to a western media campaign of vilification”, he

    wrote..

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger
    Was it only ten years ago we still had some real journalists

    1. There are a couple of issues with this analysis.

      Much of the situation in Ukraine is home-grown and nothing to do with America. Traditionally, the large agricultural hinterland has historic links with Lithuania and Poland, whereas the coastal and industrial regions are linked with Russia. A nation needs both its agriculture and its industry if it is to function. Ukraine is vulnerable if its farming is disrupted, and cannot defend itself alone without its factories, which have fallen into Russian hands. Putin knows this and is happy to exploit these vulnerabilities in order to force Ukraine to concede.

      Elected Governments from one side have routinely undone decisions made by the other camp, rendering democracy temporary at best. This is as much true either way.

      What happened in 2014 was that pro-Russian paramilitaries started destabilising the pro-Russian regions forcing the Government of the day to take action against internal terrorists, else vigilante groups such as the Azov Battalion on one side and Wagner on the other take the law into their own hands. In the end, a peace treaty was cobbled up which pleased nobody, such is the nature of compromise.

      Before 24th February 2022, I don’t think America was much interested in the Slav backwater, being more preoccupied with Muslim insurgency, organised criminals from Latin America and Chinese domination of commerce. Putin’s “Special Military Operation” was lamentable. It was all too much like the annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, which brings up bad memories of the perils of appeasement. I do think America was primarily interested in nipping in the bud any looming war in Europe, but that was about as far as they wanted to go.

      The wholesale destruction of cities, creating millions of refugees swilling around Europe, is appalling and sufficient in my mind to condemn Putin, whatever the provocation or the monkey business coming from the CIA. I condemn Netanyahu in the same breath. Tackling these two powerful thugs is the primary remit of the UN, never mind NATO.

      1. I don’t know much about the Ukraine, but I do know that it has been part of Russia since Russia was a ‘thing’. Probably since Jesus was just a gleam in the Archangel Gabriel’s eye!😂

        1. Certainly when my folks left Odessa in 1899 they regarded themselves as Russian and knew nothing about Ukraine.

        2. It is indeed the doom of Ukraine to be forever a member of the tribe of Tobolsk.

        3. It is indeed the doom of Ukraine to be forever a member of the tribe of Tobolsk.

      2. “What happened in 2014 was that pro-Russian paramilitaries started destabilising the pro-Russian regions…”

        What? Out of the blue? Did nothing happen in the preceding 25 years?

        1. Engaging in democratic persuasion, for example support for Yanukovich, is a legitimate process. If the public does not like this interference, then it has every right to spot when foreign powers are trying it on and see it off through the ballot box if they don’t like it.

          The Jewish lobby had a powerful influence on the 2019 British General Election, undermining the position of the Leader of the Opposition and eventually getting him thrown out of the party and replaced by someone more biddable. No doubt this was a foreign interference in British politics, but seems to have been accepted by the British public. There is no doubt that there was heavy Muslim interference in the recent Rochdale by-election, but again accepted by the public there.

          Where it crossed the line in Ukraine was when Yanukovich was deposed by popular acclaim in Kyiv. This set off a counter-revolutionary movement that turned paramilitary in the Donbas and Crimea. The ceding of Crimea to Russia tipped the balance of power in Kyiv to those supporting a move towards EU and NATO membership, which was understandably of great concern to Russia.

          Where I criticise Putin is that he was already making progress bringing the EU into dependence on Russian trade and influence. There was the Nordstream pipeline, making Germany reliant on Russian energy, the social conservatism of Central Europe increasingly uneasy with race and gender lunacies being pushed in the West, and that it was Russia that was keeping order in the Middle East, with the temporary liberation of Palmyra being a particular triumph. America, under Trump, was becoming increasingly isolationist and its engagement with NATO in Europe was no longer something to be taken for granted. In Syria, it was Trump who betrayed the Kurds, forcing them to sue for protection from Russia.

          1. Where it crossed the line in Ukraine was when Yanukovich was deposed by popular acclaim in Kyiv.

            The West should have stood back in 1989/90. It might not have been possible to regard Russia as a friend or ally but nor was it necessary to continue to treat it as an enemy. This mattered less when Yeltsin was president, a time when vast sums of money flowed out of the country to the benefit of Western banks. It mattered a great deal more when Putin took over – he took it all personally, especially the theft of Russian wealth. If you have an angry neighbour in your street, it’s not wise to bang on his door in the middle of the night.

            Of course, it wasn’t just the West interfering in Ukraine. Yanukovich was almost certainly persuaded by Putin to refuse then EU deal.

          2. Where it crossed the line in Ukraine was when Yanukovich was deposed by popular acclaim in Kyiv.

            The West should have stood back in 1989/90. It might not have been possible to regard Russia as a friend or ally but nor was it necessary to continue to treat it as an enemy. This mattered less when Yeltsin was president, a time when vast sums of money flowed out of the country to the benefit of Western banks. It mattered a great deal more when Putin took over – he took it all personally, especially the theft of Russian wealth. If you have an angry neighbour in your street, it’s not wise to bang on his door in the middle of the night.

            Of course, it wasn’t just the West interfering in Ukraine. Yanukovich was almost certainly persuaded by Putin to refuse then EU deal.

      3. Funny how you seldom make the comment that the UN should be dealing with Hamas and the Islamist trouble makers all over the world.

        1. Perhaps a clue is given by the title of the organisation “United Nations”. Its remit is to deal with rogue nations, rather than local insurgencies, which are the responsibility of the nations to deal with.

          It is moot whether Palestine is a nation. It has been recognised by some, but most consider it to be a semi-autonomous province of Israel, a nation that has been recognised internationally since 1948. Whilst Hamas is ultimately the responsibility of Israel to keep in order, the United Nations may intervene if Israel’s actions are so disproportionate that they violate basic humanitarian principles or engage in war crimes. I feel that whilst Israel has a duty to protect its citizens from assault by its local insurgents (i.e. Hamas), it does not have a licence to destroy civilian areas in a spirit of ethnic cleansing way beyond control of the insurgents, and has crossed this line. That they are being funded and armed by allies such as the UK and the USA also renders these nations as part of a conspiracy, themselves exporting terror and opening up a precedent that may well be exploited by others, such as Islamists from Iran and Saudi Arabia organised criminal gangs in Latin America, and possibly Russia as it supports local uprisings in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

    2. Pilger is an old school deranged Leftist. Like Chomsky all roads lead to USA bad. As the broken clock is right a couple of times a day the same goes for Pilger’s low resolution bigotry.

        1. If in the mood I will give him a listen. Unlike the modern Left like Novara Media who I find corrosive to the soul in their sneering general take, Pilger I find something of a hoot. A “What’s he said now?” wry smile. I’d think something similar about Jeremy Corbyn if he wasn’t so anti-Semitic.

          1. Yes, he is at least original often. Trouble is I’m too hard bitten about him now, given “The Pilger Report” of years gone by.

        2. If in the mood I will give him a listen. Unlike the modern Left like Novara Media who I find corrosive to the soul in their sneering general take, Pilger I find something of a hoot. A “What’s he said now?” wry smile. I’d think something similar about Jeremy Corbyn if he wasn’t so anti-Semitic.

  72. It is hot here in Snowdonia again. Due to be hot again tomorrow. That’ll be the end of summer and I haven’t even seen a swallow yet. I have seen a large number of tattoos and beer bellies, to be fair (and that was just the women). A more reliable herald of summer than the elusive swallows.

  73. Greetings from sunny Schiphol! Good journey so far, but Bristol airport is nightmare. Screamed at by security wankers for following the signage, so much noise, millions of chavs… Horrible place.
    Schiphol quiet, deffo no shouting! Free wifi, tol.

      2. It’s apparently 1 279 miles, and we should complete in 17 hours or so, giving an average speed of 75 moh.
        Phew!

        1. It’s what puts me off travelling by air more often. At the end of it all, you are cream crackered.

      3. It’s apparently 1 279 miles, and we should complete in 17 hours or so, giving an average speed of 75 moh.
        Phew!

    2. I am not prepared to travel from city airports any more. The automatic weapons and you are not even allowed to pat the dogs on the head ! I like Hurn at Bournemouth. Just a couple hundred people queuing for 20 minutes. Suits me.

        1. Stansted is a nightmare. We paid extra for the “fast-track” – which was fine for the gestapo at baggage and passport. But the short cut to the shuttle was closed and we had no choice but to walk the walk through the unspeakable “shopping” area. Talk about Dante’s Inferno…

          1. Is fast track new there, and what do they charge?
            It’s several years since I’ve flown from Stansted.

          2. £8 odd per person. – in each direction. If anything, the place is worse than you would remember….

        2. Manchester airport is horrible. I really resent the parking charges just to drop someone off and the general poor signage.

          2. Bet you were shocked, Obers, and had thought that the decline was exaggerated before you witnessed it for yourself

    3. Well done I hope you enjoyed your stay in the UK Obs.
      I intensely dislike being checked and searched by people who only a few years ago would have been the suspects at the airports. I deliberately don’t look then in the eye.

      1. Had to have my socks searched (yes, really! By hand!). Glad to day, socks were hot ‘n sweaty!

        1. I do t know why the idiots don’t use profiling to make themselves more efficient. The only people dangerous on planes at the moment have a beard and are of Middle Eastern appearance. Search them and stop wasting everyone’s time searching white pensioners.

    4. My friend, who has a five-week holiday in the USA every autumn travels to Washington DC direct from Copenhagen.

      The only time he had to fly via Amsterdam he was given the works by the Cloggies in security. He vowed never to travel via ShitHole airport ever again.

      1. Its quite depressing. A while ago, one would expect to be addressed in Dutch in the airport and on the plane, but now it’s all English. Whole place has lost it’s character.
        Dank U vel, Mijnheer! Tot ziens!

  75. Well she’s hoping to be your President one day, I believe. And she’s a Democrat as well.

  77. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is reportedly missing after a helicopter he was travelling in was forced to make a “hard landing,” according to state media.

    [Telegraph , 15.42]

    5. Lives ‘at risk’ after helicopter incident, says Iranian official
      In the last few moments, an Iranian official has spoken to Reuters about the helicopter incident involving Ebrahim Raisi.

      The unnamed official said the lives of the president and his foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were “at risk” following a “crash”.

      “We are still hopeful but information coming from the crash site is very concerning,” said the official.

      So far, Iranian state media just been reporting Mr Raisi’s helicopter was forced to make a “hard landing”.

      We have already heard rescue teams are on their way to the site of the incident, but state media has reported bad weather is hampering their efforts.

      [Iranian official, 16.06]

      2. Perhaps Farsi doesn’t have a term for ‘smoking hole’, but I’m sure it was all in allah’s big plan..

      2. No, no, no, Bill; that would tend to raise the temperature …

        The President’s helicopter lost all controls spontaneously …

  78. Just in from a 6 mile return walk from Bathampton to Batheaston on to Bathford and then to the Pepper pot (which is a climb of one mile to a height of 600+ feet) and some pictures:
    A Boat Fayre on the canal today:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5d1880af668e2de1d194fe8019163ed4e96cc2ffd1cacfecb6b2cb4b7bf50bc.jpg

    A couple of interesting dwellings near Bathford Church:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f16626e692346dec78b26a1139f6cf38a26c8ad59657649c469ffd0f29aad00.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48218f10dd7b3e579fac1f4714b6081fef7231450a4677f0c8b460e4500758e5.jpg

    Some runners about to race up the hill (Good luck it was knackering just walking up in 24oC!)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/909076258c97bbc8a490d0f119f24d4de730ebadd5db32dfc4605aac54a62782.jpg

      1. There was a glass of chilled medicine to be had in the Crown at Bathford at the bottom of the hill!

          4. One of the reasons that I never drink in pubs! Especially not “wine”….

        1. I simply cannot believe that you enjoyed an afternoon out without the global majority….

    4. “Just in from a 6 mile return walk . . .”;

      Do you keep the boat on a lead, Stephen?

      1. Please don’t mention the boat – The River Kennet is still in Flood and I can’t take her out until the water levels drop….! 🙁

    5. Be careful. A flotilla of Argentinian narrowboats have been sighted cruising along the Somerset Coal canal.

      I think they may be intent on a spot of Argy-bargy.

      1. Don’t worry, there is lots of support arriving in the form of the
        Barge Poles

  79. Well this is a twist. The lady interviewed has yet to fully realise her basic Leftist assumptions are helping create the anti-Semitism she is sadly experiencing. Still holding to smug assertions like “making the word a better place”, how about starting your lot by not making it any worse? She continues to use the language and thinking of the Left. The same Left that nastily turned on her.

    https://youtu.be/Vtqn34pE-2o?si=G7Kd91ypz3TPZfit&t=10m43s

  80. Forced to make a Hard Landing!

    Wordle 1,065 X/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I’m taking my ball home.

      Wordle 1,065 X/6

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

    2. I just stumbled along to my normal uninspired par.

      Wordle 1,065 4/6

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

      1. #metoo.

        Wordle 1,065 4/6

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

      2. #metoo.

        Wordle 1,065 4/6

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

    3. Clearly a toughie today – I got lucky…

      Wordle 1,065 5/6

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

        1. There’s obviously a fair bit of luck involved, L

          But – and I’m sure I’m not giving anything away here as everyone must have done it by now! – bitter experience has taught me to always look for the ‘double letter’ – I think the setters believe it potentially adds another level of difficulty?….

  81. I shall be on my way in a trice – but leave you with a snap of the white wisteria – even larger flowers than the photo posted a couple of days ago.
    My only carp is that the flowers arrive late and are quickly partially hidden by the new foliage. Still, I am not complaining!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/608178e93b7e7d57335ffeadb6a674f95054a2ae0e1e00925185badf5e715783.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10fd8f6a1e8b50483445eb806d203d82b5b8311219027ed59ded9315494f208f.jpg

    Have a jolly evening. Here, though sunny, the wind is very cold – so no drinks on the terrace this evening.

    A demain – one hopes…

    3. Wow. My Wisteria planted Just 2 years ago and now 15′ tall has produced just one flower this year!

      1. Next year (or the one after) it will go bananas. This is what they do after 3 years or so.

    2. If the crashed helicopter was in a convoy of three helicopters ( as mentioned by the ever reliable daily mail), why don’t they know exactly where he is?

      If nothing else, you would expect the US to have the precise location.

      1. It’s a bit like that lost plane that amazingly vanished completely.

        There’s a GPS transponder in 30 separate locations – including each engine, fuel tank, cockpit, landing gear. It *cannot* disappear. They didn’t want to find it.

      1. No.
        BTW: Israel says “We didn’t cause the fog and it was a very old helicopter anyway.”

  84. Good grief, a sensible article about drinking., long but interesting
    Use the escape button to access

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13433233/The-truth-happens-drink-14-units-alcohol-week-shortens-life-shorter-think.html

    Towards the end

    Each person’s individual risk will also be different depending on their genetics, their age and how healthy they are.

    As for alcohol-free days, the ­evidence is even weak on whether this is beneficial. ‘There’s some evidence that, if you’re a heavy drinker, having a few days off can help the liver recover,’ explains Prof Holmes.

    ‘But, broadly, making this recommendation part of the guidelines was about frequent drinking being habit-forming, which might push up consumption – not because we have evidence that drinking every day is worse for you. I mean, the suspicion is it isn’t great, but the evidence is far less certain.’

    It is, however, not all good news. It is looking less likely that there are protective effects from drinking alcohol in small amounts. That ‘medicinal’ glass of red wine may not be beneficial after all.

    The theory was based on older studies which compared the health of teetotallers with other drinkers, and which found those who do not drink could be as unhealthy as those who drank more heavily.

    There seemed to be a mild protective effect for the heart in those who consumed a small amount of alcohol. Drink more than that, and those benefits were lost as the increased risk from cancer and other ­problems took over.

    But some research failed to account for the fact that some ­teetotallers are former heavy drinkers, or don’t drink because of poor health.

    Prof Holmes says: ‘We’re pretty confident now that we’ve been overestimating any benefits, and they may not exist at all,’ he says.

    Research suggests that updating the guideline has not, in any case, had much of a lasting impact on our alcohol consumption.

    Professor Robert Dingwall, a sociologist at Nottingham Trent University, says: ‘The risks for most people are trivial. What you do have is a concentration of ­people for whom alcohol is a real problem and the public health challenge is how you get to that group, rather than change the advice for the population as a whole.’

    Prof Holmes says: ‘The way I often describe it is that most people have been given a pretty good hand, and there’s a good chance they’ll win the bet when it comes to their risk from alcohol. But you’re betting against the house. It’s up to you whether you fancy your chances or not.’

      1. Which is why i go to lunch, entertain and drink what i want when i want. I had an appointment with a Locum GP not long ago where she said if i didn’t stop drinking i would die. She didn’t even see the idiocy of her statement. Why would anyone want to live like a teetotal vegan. No wonder they are so effing pale and miserable.

        1. You’ll die whether or not you stop drinking, dear Phizz, as will we all. What idiots these people are. Let’s all re-inject FUN into the political agenda – along with beauty and duty and common sense.

        2. Everyone is going to pop their clogs at some point whether they enjoy a few glasses of wine or not. Everyone now is just too afraid to live and enjoy life. I do know some teetotal vegans who are very pale and dull .

        3. I find it really annoying and intrusive when medics ask ‘how much alcohol do you consume’?
          I love wine for its flavours and where it comes from in the world. So Mind your own business.

          1. Well, one divides by 12 and takes away the number one first thought of and they still gasp in horror. Absolute hypocrites.

          3. My heart man asked how much I drank by starting “do you drink one or two litres of wine a day?”
            so after that my consumption didn’t look too bad!

          5. I love Chablis and Malbec. I bet if you asked a GP now what they liked to drink it would be lager and fruity pops.

          6. If they were honest it would be in our league and beyond, Phizzee. They know how to wallop down the wine

          7. Quite a few years ago we were at a local junior school function and when the raffle was drawn our then GP won a bottle of scotch. Lots of laughter ensued but he only smiled.

          8. I always understood the definition of a alcoholic is somebody who drinks more than their doctor…….

          9. Ha ha. I can remember early 50s we had two nice Irish GPS they both had a good sense of humour..but my mother thought they might have been drinking.

          10. The answer is: Two glasses of red wine for my health and anymore for pleasure!

        4. Don’t worry Phizzee. Alcohol may be a slow poison, but none of us are in any hurry to die (just yet!)

        5. I can’t find the link but it goes something like this:

          “I don’t eat meat, don’t drink, I don’t fornicate. Tomorrow I celebrate my 80th birthday. ”
          The reply is simply:
          “How?”

        6. My doc told me I had to drink less, stop smoking, stop gambling and stop chasing women.

          I asked him ‘Doc, will that make me live longer?’

          He replied ‘No, but it will fcking seem like it….’

      2. I think that’s part of the conclusion here.
        Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.

    2. That must be a UK firewall, no problems getting DM content when I access the site from Canada.

      1. Normally I do too, but recently the DM exclusives have been more “protected”

    3. Any mention of the anaesthesia effect that alcohol can produce against the fucking inanities of the World?!

    4. Any mention of the anaesthesia effect that alcohol can produce against the fucking inanities of the World?!

  86. I’m hoping the struggle for power in Iran will see a few more of them off.
    The more the merrier.

  87. Good evening everyone, i hope you’ve had a lovely day in the brief sunshine, I am back after digging up a beach for an entire day, a very nice day indeed .

  88. Well done Crawley Town, winning the English Football League – League Two play offs final.

  91. I made a post earlier similar in nature. This time it’s our Scottish watermelon friends. I noticed this statement “The declaration said: “We know that globally women, as a sex, are disproportionately affected by climate change and environmental degradation, and that their empowerment is essential to our work as environmentalists.””

    The same thinking at work which has gotten them kicked out of the Green Party, but sadly for us all they have yet to figure that out. Ouroboros. So it’s stunning and bravely onwards with more of the same song from that lot on either side.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/19/scottish-greens-expel-members-for-claiming-biological-sex-i/

    1. I suppose in some ways we should be very grateful to the Scottish “Greens” for exposing the very extreme sexual perversions that are at the heart of their political ideology. Same applies down south (if that is not too evocative a term)

    2. The inside of the Left wing mind must be truly terrifying. They honestly believe this guff. They are arguing that black is white, solely because they say so.

      They’re insane.

      1. I think your analysis to be correct. Many of the megalomaniacs that dominate global power seem to be clinically insane. I give you Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates for a start (oh, and the psychopathic palindrome). Merkel. Not to mention the Evil Emperor Blair

      2. Narcissistic reversal: bitter is sweet, darkness is light and so on. See Joshua Slocum on his Dissaffected podcast.

        1. Just watching this week’s. It’s the only one i actually watch (my Sunday evening treat). The rest I listen to.

        2. Just watching this week’s. It’s the only one i actually watch (my Sunday evening treat). The rest I listen to.

        3. Just watching this week’s. It’s the only one i actually watch (my Sunday evening treat). The rest I listen to.

  92. Some days days produce the most unexpected blessings. The day began with extreme anxiety ahead of our church APCM where we heard rumblings that the ex Vicar’s fan club were organising to attend and cause trouble, and ideally block my re-election as churchwarden. The PCC are united and likewise the regular congregation and pretty much all turned out for the fight.
    As the APCM started not one of the opposition turned up, they chickened out, and everything went through unanimously. The Diocese/Vicar’s last real chance to get us was stillborn.
    A quiet sense of euphoria filled the church but something more in the Pentecost service which followed, something many of the very sensible and sober congregation ascribed to the presence of the Holy Spirit being with us. The very mild former churchwarden said to me beforehand that she was sure we were doing want God wanted and were resisting the forces of Darkness embodied by the Diocese.
    Big claims but this evening an unexpected visitor, one of the countries foremost academics in the fields of economics/politics/security matters, often on the TV and writing in the serious papers, Jewish heritage but non-religious, very sound, husband of the neighbouring parish’s churchwarden who is our big ally int he battles we are fighting… well he came to see me to tell me he had decided to become a Christian and wanted me to sponsor him at his baptism. Given that this man would have any number of top academics etc to do this, I’m a bit stunned that he should ask me, a humble Westcountry peasant. He has been helping us with all his contacts in high places in our battle and the Diocese really don’t know what they are up against.
    So yes, I believe God is with us. Praise the Lord. We’re on a high, new energy, time to raise the intensity of the fight…

      1. Thank you but it’s not us, but ‘Him’.
        It’s not the end of the battle but it eliminates the internal and Trojan Horses threats. We can now devote all our energies to fighting off the Diocese and growing our faith in the village.
        Another very cynical lady in the village who runs a lot of the organisations and who saw though our ex Vicar very quickly also told one of the congregation yesterday that I was the most Christian man she’d ever met. Probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me in my life.

          4. Does it occur to you that it might have been an insult rather than praise?

    2. Great news. A neighbour of mine tells me whenever I see her that fear is a sin. Easy to say of course but when we act and act well, the Spirit supports our actions.

      1. Amen.
        Our parish wants to join STP corporately but I cannot get through the website with my browser. Can I join by phone?

        1. The last email I got from them was urging PCCs to join as a group and included a link to register your organisation. Is there an email address I could forward it to? If you answer an old post of mine it won’t be seen by anyone else.

          3. There is a joint force building up, of PCCs, it might work In numbers.

          6. There is a joint force building up, of PCCs, it might work In numbers.

    3. Crumbs. You are becoming NOTTL’s very own Trollope.
      (Um …. maybe I could word that a little better!)

    4. Well done JD – I’ve been taken by your description of the challenges you have faced, astonished at times by the apparent wickedness of the so-called ‘Men of God’ you have encountered, and delighted by the fact your doggedness appears to be paying off!
      I’m not a particularly spiritual person myself (my wife does that for me; I, like my hero Einstein, remain agnostic) but I feel uplifted by your efforts and look forward to hearing more about your ultimate victory against these ‘dark’ forces.
      As the Crusaders used to intone.. ‘Oh Lord give power to my blade this day’…..

      1. Thank you 4G.
        There’s still time for you. If a non-religious eminent Professor Emeritus can become a Christian so can you!
        We’ere digging in for long fight but have already cut the money off which is very popular with the congregation. Operation Starve the Beast. 🙂

        1. Actually, I identify as a Christian already (and have all the cap badges), as I believe it to be a great life philosophy!

          2. Bless you! – as Woody Allen once said;

            “If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank.”….. 😉

      2. Thank you 4G.
        There’s still time for you. If a non-religious eminent Professor Emeritus can become a Christian so can you!
        We’ere digging in for long fight but have already cut the money off which is very popular with the congregation. Operation Starve the Beast. 🙂

    5. Very pleased indeed to hear that, JD. I said a couple of prayers for your meeting this morning. We serve a great and faithful God.

      1. Thank you so much Angus. Many people were also praying for us, a number of good souls here. It worked!

    6. Pleased to hear it indeed, you’ve lots or responses and support .

    7. At the end of our Pentecost service we went out with lighted candles to carry the light into the world and fight the powers of darkness. It seems you’re doing the same.

  93. Well bbc Country File is focusing on untreated sewage being discharged into our river systems. Due to flooding and heavy rainfall over winter. But It seems it’s Nothing to do with millions of people coming into our country to live. Because that hasn’t had a mention.

    3. Will they mention the refusal of the EA to deviate from EU law on water control? Perhaps mentioning the massive cost of energy for cleaning water due to net zero?

    4. I do not watch Country File and leave the room when it is on. It is woken bilge and never fails to start up with its faux concerns and references to climate change.

  94. Can I scream?

    Old lady , sharp as a needle but poorly at present , 100 years old in July has just rung me up to tell me her new carers visited her yesterday and today , this evening in fact , to give her her tea and help her get ready for bed .

    She sounded so embarassed when she told me that yesterday her new carer was probably from South America or China??????? a man … yes a man , and this evening her carer was from Southern India and he was also a man ..

    She said , her words in her Northampton accent ,” but they were male darkies, Maggie . I needed some personal help ,and felt embarassed “.. this lady whose late husband was a Normandy veteran and a Sapper , with medals galore , her Percy would have been horrified .. horrified , what the blazes was WW2 all about and the loss of life was for what purpose , when we are being invaded daily , and an elderly widow who needs care has two foreigners attending to her toiletry requirements.

    Have I got this wrong , and why is my blood pressure soaring ..

      1. I always find it strange that it’s perfectly normal for men to be cared for by female medics and carers yet when it’s men caring for women it isn’t.
        Equality doesn’t seem to apply in those circumstances.

          2. “A million housewives every day pick up a tin of beans and say” Oh No! Not bloody beans again!

          3. Variety is the spice of life and there likely to be even more than 69 in a tin.

    3. WW2 was nothing to do with whatever ails people here and now. Those who fought, those who suffered at home, did not do so to prevent or avoid whatever they now dislike about this country. We did not succumb to National Socialism and tyranny of the likes which prevailed in the second quarter of the last century. That’s what WW2 was about.

  95. Given how immensely valuable black people are to the world, or so we are told, if we sent every black here off to the Caribbean then those Caribbean nations would owe us vast amounts of money.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13435747/UK-owes-Caribbean-nations-slavery-reparations-Cambridge-academic.html

    UK ‘owes Caribbean nations £205bn in slavery reparations’, says leading Cambridge academic – as he calls on Scotland to lead the way and start repaying its £20.5bn share of debt

    1. The article also refers to some International judge declaring that Britain owes trillions not billions. One wonders whether the Windrush ‘victims’ will suddenly discover that they belonged to the Caribbean all along. Given that my husband doesn’t even have any entitlement to property his grandparents owned in states that are now part of the EU and that were appropriated by communists post WWII, I fail to see why international judges are exercised about events 200-350 years ago.

    2. Could we have our foreign aid back first then, or do we just take that off the bill? Oh look! You owe US money!

    3. Can we bill them for all the prison expenses incurred by a hugely disproportionate number of Afro Caribbean criminals please.

  96. A similarly aged, slightly younger, male relative has the opposite and his care is outstanding, one could not wish for better.
    The Caribbean women could not be kinder and he looks better kempt than he has been for years.

    1. This lady has not had any contact with coloured people , and imagine her embarrassment at being undressed by foreigners , males .

  97. It seems our local folk don’t want to work in care homes. You’ll be very lucky these days to find anyone with an English surname working as a carer in a nursing home…..

  98. I can understand her situation.
    My M-i-L is a self confessed racist, but oddly enough never exhibits racial prejudice.
    She has had numerous interactions with coloured medics and carers and is full of praise for them.

    1. This dear lady has NOT had interactions with people of another race , especially men , arriving at her home to carry out intimate treatments on her body .

      Muslim women do not have interactions with white doctors , do they?

  99. I thought you said it was a “he” who called you the most Christian man.

  100. Why?

    I’ve been getting care from medics and carers; women, homosexual carers, every colour on the planet, both male and female, and I’m very grateful for what I get.

    1. Well, I’ve no way of telling what sex you are, sos, but have assumed you to be of the male persuasion. It is different for women, it really is, and I’m sure you can work out why if you put your mind to it.

      1. Yes I am male.

        But what bodily functions does a post menopausal female have that men don’t?

        I’ve been bathed, shaved, had my arse wiped by women, it’s certainly unpleasant for them and I didn’t like them having to do it.

        So, as I clearly can’t work out why, you tell me.

      1. Oh dear me, you poor delicate female flowers.
        You want total equality, but only on your terms.
        As I said below,
        Given the choice of that care or no care, which do you suggest the old lady opts for?

        1. You may find it hard to believe, but many women would opt for no care. And in any case, that shouldn’t be the choice.

          1. I agree, and in this particular case the people who organised the care were utterly thoughtless and can’t really have looked at the patient in question before allocating carers.
            But it’s probably NHS sub-contractors, so they really don’t care.

  101. Another very cynical lady in the village who runs a lot of the organisations and who saw though our ex Vicar very quickly also told one of the congregation yesterday that I was the most Christian man he’d ever met.

    My bold

  102. The whole thing is a nonsense.
    I have long believed that the vast majority of slave descendants would not be alive today if their ancestors had not been sold by the Africans who did so. Those ancestors would have been killed by those Africans as they were captured enemies and had no value except as merchandise.

    2. All slave descendants from the West Indies have what I call slave privilege. If their enslaved ancestors had been dragged across the Sahara, they wouldn’t be here, as the men were all castrated. If their ancestors had never been enslaved, they would have been born in some third-world dump in Africa.
      As their ancestors were taken across the Atlantic, their immediate forbears were able to settle in the UK, thus offering them the opportunity to prosper as they would never have done in the West Indies.
      That is their Slave Privilege!

  103. Maybe offset that alleged debt against the huge sums in treasure and blood spent by the UK in abolishing slavery worldwide, a cost to the UK that was only fully paid off at the end of the last century

    1. Better yet confine the whole thing to what it is: history.
      We can’t go back and change it.

    2. Plus whatever sums we have sent to the Caribbean islands in aid since independence and whatever has been sent in remittances by Caribbeans in the UK to their relatives back home.
      I suggest also that every Caribbean resident should have a DNA test to assess what proportion of their ancestors were white Europeans ie slavers. they can then be required to compensate themselves accordingly.

      1. Hello Ms Sapola, good to see you in this parish. I hope all is well with you.

          1. The commentary is welcomed here since BTL at The Spectator went pear shaped.

  104. If you think of what goes where sexually in terms of possible abuse you may stumble upon a clue.

    1. Given that one reads of women and homosexuals/lesbians doing similarly, taking advantage of opportunities, I think it applies to both sexes.

      Given the choice of that care or no care, which do you suggest the old lady opts for?

      1. Cant. Humbug. As you well know. The recent rise in sexual abuse by women is only because weirdo men are allowed to call themselves women. I’m a woman (a real biological one) and I can tell you without doubt that women are hardwired to care and not abuse. Although I do concede that other cultures may produce women with different imperatives.

        In answer to your question, I would opt for no care in preference to having my privacy violated. Maybe this is why such a travesty is being pushed alongside the option of “voluntary” euthanasia.

        1. Really?

          Haven’t you read of women taking advantage of adolescent boys?
          Times have changed, probably not for the better, and until there are sufficient carers for patients to pick and choose who does what for them I think we are going to have to live with it or go without.

          I have equal concerns about “voluntary” euthanasia.

          1. You have obviously seized, with glee, upon that female teacher recently in the news. Are you seriously suggesting that such behaviour is the norm?

          2. I suggest you look into these cases a little more carefully.
            They are far more frequent than you might be aware.

            I did not seize on this case with glee.

          3. OK. We’ll agree to differ. You are clearly quite relaxed about being intimately tended to by anyone of any sex or etc.. I’m not and I sympathise with the 100 year old lady who should not be subject to such indignities, in my opinion.

          4. I’m not saying I don’t sympathise with her, but in her shoes I would prefer that to having to sleep in soiled clothes and bedding.

            I actually feel embarrassed for the female staff who have had to handle me, and I can’t say I enjoyed it in the slightest.

          5. OK. We’ll agree to differ. You are clearly quite relaxed about being intimately tended to by anyone of any sex or etc.. I’m not and I sympathise with the 100 year old lady who should not be subject to such indignities, in my opinion.

  105. I think you have to take into consideration, Sos, the lady’s age. At nearly 100yrs old, she would probably not be used to the idea of equality in this sense.

    1. There I agree.
      BUT
      Given the choice of that care or no care, which do you suggest the old lady opts for?

      1. I think in a hospital situation there should be less of an issue, but on your own, defenceless in your own home, I would be uncomfortable with a man coming to care for me.

  106. Just turning in for the night now.
    Had a pleasant day and had a face time call from out youngest in Dubai. He seems to be enjoying it there, making friends through work. And has even managed to set up a game of golf through his company’s Corporate membership. Likes the bars although expensive.
    Night all.
    😴

  107. Also off into my basket. Ridiculously tired = have been a busy little bee this weekend. Nos da and very sweet dreams, all.

  108. Lieutenant Cecil Harold Sewell VC (27th January 1895 – 29th August 1918), Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, attached to 3rd (Light) Battalion, Tank Corps.

    In 1918 he was a Lieutenant in the 3rd (Light) Battalion, in command of a section of four “Whippet” light tanks. On 29th August, near Bapaume, France, during the last Hundred Days Offensive, which eventually led to the Armistice, Lieutenant Sewell’s section was advancing towards the German lines in support of New Zealand troops. The official V.C. citation in the London Gazette of 29th October 1918 takes up the story. “When in command of a section of Whippet light tanks in action this officer displayed most conspicuous bravery and initiative in getting out of his own tank and crossing open ground under heavy shell and machine-gun fire to rescue the crew of another Whippet of his section which had side slipped into a large shell-hole, overturned and taken fire.” The tank’s door had become jammed against the side of the shell hole so Cecil Sewell dug away the earth so that the door could be opened and the crew was able to escape.
    Seeing one of his own crew lying wounded behind his tank, he again dashed across open ground to his assistance. He was hit in doing so, but succeeded in reaching the tank when a few minutes later he was again hit, fatally, in the act of dressing his wounded driver. During the whole of this period he was within full view and short range of the enemy machine guns and rifle-pits, and throughout, by his prompt and heroic action, showed an utter disregard for his own personal safety.

    He was buried where he fell, but in 1920 he was re-interred at Vaulx Hill Cemetery, France.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5bf384a8af92867dc2e05d0e013df4834ab2fc3942a5b9bf4d6c5c03efe85243.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb70f5c7162330a8063d912567223b3b69e5f169322fb2e88b5a996b6eea405c.jpg

    https://i0.wp.com/victoriacrossonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/1-44.jpg?resize=270%2C452&ssl=1

    1. Could use more young lads like Lt. Sewell. The world is a poorer place for his passing.
      Respect.

  111. And that’s me off to bed.
    Other than getting the ply panels screwed to the van interior, I’ve done as much as I can before having to fit the insulation.
    Once I have the seized turbo replaced, it’ll be down to see eldest daughter in Basingstoke, then a week meandering over to Cardigan to pick up some stuff made from sheeps wool.

    Good night all.

  112. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.

  114. Evening, all. The APCM was like the Chinese curse – interesting. The rector was caught out lying but the Archdeacon backed her up and tried to say she hadn’t denied saying something really unpleasant to one of the PCC members, even when the written evidence was presented to him. He is a waste of space, but we knew that already. I am, thankfully, no longer on the PCC; my term of office ended and I most certainly did not seek re-election. I wash my hands of it now.

    As for the headline; defence, the economy, the protection of our culture and way of life, safe streets, free speech and a myriad of other things are Labour’s Achilles heel!

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