Sunday 21 March: The warped thinking at the heart of the EU’s vaccine programme

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/03/21/letters-warped-thinking-heart-eus-vaccine-programme/

787 thoughts on “Sunday 21 March: The warped thinking at the heart of the EU’s vaccine programme”

    1. Try this:

      Blonde Flier

      A plane is on its way to Toronto, when a blonde in economy class gets up and moves to the first-class section and sits down.

      The flight attendant watches her do this and asks to see her ticket.

      She then tells the blonde that she paid for economy class and that she will have to sit in the back.

      The blonde replies, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Toronto and I’m staying right here.”

      The flight attendant goes into the cockpit and tells the pilot and the co-pilot that there is a blonde bimbo sitting in first class, that belongs in economy and won’t move back to her seat.

      The co-pilot goes back to the blonde and tries to explain that because she only paid for economy she will have to leave and return to her seat.

      The blonde replies, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Toronto and I’m staying right here.”

      The co-pilot tells the pilot that he probably should have the police waiting when they land to arrest this blonde woman who won’t listen to reason.

      The pilot says, “You say she is a blonde? I’ll handle this, I’m married to a blonde. I speak blonde.”

      He goes back to the blonde and whispers in her ear, and she says, “Oh, I’m sorry.” and gets up and goes back to her seat in economy.

      The flight attendant and co-pilot are amazed and asked him what he said to make her move without any fuss.

      “I told her, “First class isn’t going to Toronto.”

    2. Risqué? It was a darn sight bluer than the entire conservative party*. I was shocked that one thoughtful Nottler had upticked it! I’m going to have to recalibrate my perceptions!

      Good morning thoughtful Nottler and good morning Tom.

      *Not difficult, I know, these days….

      1. Morning Stephen. Risqué? And there I was thinking of putting up some extracts from my stories to liven the place up!

        1. Morning Minty my comments were entirely tongue in er cheek 🙂

          Extracts you either hate ’em or love ’em – but one won’t know until they’ve been tried…..

  2. Tory anger as Boris Johnson to extend ‘draconian’ coronavirus laws for six months

    The ‘Cabbage Patch doll’ heading up the Conservative Party, appears to be drafting a lengthy Suicide note for its demise:

    Plans to give police “the most draconian detention powers in modern British legal history” for another six months have been condemned by Conservative MPs.

    Boris Johnson is expected on Thursday to push through extensions to coronavirus legislation that give far-reaching lockdown powers to close ports, ban protests and detain citizens to late September, despite being “hopeful” there will be a lifting coronavirus restrictions on June 21.

    Dozens of his own MPs are set to rebel.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/20/tory-anger-police-powers/

  3. Biden administration to launch cyber attacks on Russia as feud with Putin escalates. 21 March 2021.

    The Biden administration is preparing a series of aggressive cyber attacks on Russia in a major shift in tactics designed as a warning shot to rival powers.

    The US will not target civilian structures or networks, but the hack is instead designed as a direct challenge to Mr Putin, Russia’s President, and his cyber army, The Telegraph understands.

    Morning everyone. All this is predicated on the oft discredited assumption that all aggressors espouse; that their victims will meekly accept whatever punishment is meted out to them and then do as they are told. That the Russians of all people will adopt such a posture seems unlikely in the extreme. We should be under no illusions; the United States is set on war with the Russian Federation. It is pointless here to talk about winning. In such a conflict most of Europe and the UK would be destroyed and this is without the added threat of a Nuclear Exchange which would devastate the world.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/20/biden-plans-cyber-attacks-russia-feud-putin-escalates/

    1. Might also explain the draconian population control measures being planned by the ‘Prime’ minister…

        1. I hope not – it will put back my planned house renovations by a few months……

          1. You make sure to tell the Ruskies that the MOD site down the road is no more.
            That will get you off the target list and the house renovations can continue.

    2. Why, just why?
      This is the kind of thing that puts people off joining the cyber security services.

  4. Meanwhile back in The Shire, idiotic decisions continue to have deadly consequences:

    “The family of a man who died after an ambulance was delayed by road closures introduced as part of Grant Shapps’s “green transport revolution” has warned others will perish if emergency services are barred full access to streets.

    The South Central Ambulance Service has launched an investigation after a crew struggled to reach a dying pensioner because its route was blocked by a bollard and two planters.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/20/calls-review-road-closures-paramedics-blocked-999-emergency/

    2. They should put in smart barriers that will raise when a vehicle with the right radio transmitter approaches.

    1. Good morning AOE

      We heard the boom here in our Purbecky area .. the local pheasants chackked and the dogs said wazzat, wazzat , and rushed around the garden .

      Last time we heard a boom was when Concorde flew over the Channel.

      Are we under attack by meteor strikes ?

      1. Good morning TB,

        I think in Dorset you must be between a rock and a hard place. ☺️

  6. Kenya demands return of man-eating Tsova lions hailed as ‘first resistance’ against colonial rule. 21 March 2021.

    They have been hailed symbolically as the first resistance fighters against British colonialism in Kenya, their deeds having struck fear into the heart of those building the empire’s infrastructure.

    But for nearly a century the remains of the man-eating lions who terrorised rail workers building a line through the country were displayed not in Kenya, but thousands of miles from their native land.

    Now it has emerged that the Tsavo lions – who were stuffed and kept as trophies after being finally shot – could be returned to Africa under plans for a new museum of cultural heritage.

    They actually killed and ate Black Africans so I guess that’s alright then!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/20/kenya-demands-return-man-eating-tsova-lions-hailed-first-resistance/

    1. That’s unbelievably stupid.
      We can always remove the railway line if they don’t want it.

      1. Come on guys, be fair. Rewind 80 or 100 years.
        Colonial administrators such as the late W Thesiger used to shoot lions which had attacked domesticated animals (cattle, horses, camels) and the local tribespeople were grateful, as they had neither rifles nor antibiotics.
        Elephants could damage crops, but troublesome lions were perceived as vermin.

  9. We may think it’s all over but the battle goes on in Europe.
    Isolating the UK may be the only way of avoiding a third wave.

    German health minister Jens Spahn admitted Europe does not have enough vaccines to prevent a third wave. ‘We have to be honest about the situation – in Europe we don’t have enough vaccines to stop a third wave through vaccinations alone,’ he said.

    Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2021/03/20/covid-uk-will-there-be-a-third-wave-what-do-the-experts-say-14276897/?ito=cbshare

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

    1. Another ignorant flucker who appears to believe that the vaccine STOPS the virus…..

      1. Following the narrative as he talks down to those whom he believes are ignorant.

  10. SAS ordered to start disrupting Russian meddling around the world. 21 March 2021.

    SAS soldiers will be told to disrupt Russian meddling around the world as part of a major shake up of defence priorities.

    The SAS and other units in the Special Forces Group will likely work alongside MI6 to conduct covert surveillance operations against Russian spies and military units.

    Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, the chief of the general staff, told The Telegraph that special forces will be tasked with tackling “hostile state actors”.

    This is the UK lackey/idiot response to the announcement by the United States that they are instituting Cyber War against the Russian Federation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/20/sas-takes-fight-meddling-russians/

  11. Morning all

    SIR – Last week Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, threatened to block exports of Covid vaccines to Britain, apparently on the grounds that our vaccination programme has outperformed that of the EU.

    Is this the equivalent to nobbling a prize-winning horse to allow an also-ran to look better? There has been an outbreak of hubris in the EU.

    Jonathan Mann

    Gunnislake, Cornwall

    SIR – A number of European nations suspended their use of the AstraZeneca vaccine (since declared safe by the European health regulator), citing the precautionary principle.

    Should the EU not admit that it has put its subjects’ lives at risk for the sake of politics? It would be interesting to know whether people think that is a price worth paying.

    Andrew Willmott

    Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire

    SIR – Not that I need persuading, but the vaccine nonsense in Europe makes me more certain than ever that voting to leave the EU was the best thing we’ve done.

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    Clive Green

    Bristol

    SIR – Your Leading Article says “the UK Vaccine Taskforce showed what can be done when the state abandons its institutional loathing of the private sector”.

    It would be fairer to say that the success of the vaccine rollout has been a result of the partnership between the Government, industry and academia.

    Kate Bingham, its chair, chosen for her business skills in drug discovery, has taken no salary. The Government wisely put its money where its mouth was by providing £33.6 million to accelerate the development of the vaccines, and £19.7 million for blood testing facilities at Public Health England’s Porton Down labs.

    AstraZenica is to be applauded for its promise to supply the vaccine at cost, meaning that the profit motive has not driven vaccine development and deployment. The delivery has been carried out by a very public body, the NHS, with an astonishing army of one million volunteers adding a crucial element of civic engagement.

    In short, we have seen the benefits of authentic conservative values: pragmatism, civil society and, yes, authority, as the Government is now deferring to “data not dates”.

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    ADVERTISING

    Paul Thomson

    Knutsford, Cheshire

    1. “Is this the equivalent to nobbling a prize-winning horse to allow an also-ran to look better?” No, Mr Mann, that’s the handicapping system (although it’s weight, rather than drugs, that tries to bring all the horses together at the post). I think Paul Thomson should realise that the Government has no money; it’s taxpayers’ money that they poured into the vaccine programme, plus “data not dates” is a mere sound bite. Mr Willmott, the EU will never admit that anything it’s done is wrong and people’s opinions are of no interest to them whatsoever.

  12. Police reform

    SIR – The reforms proposed by Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, will not help to prevent such shocking cases as the killing of Sarah Everard.

    Leaving aside the highly unusual status of the suspect in this instance, what would make the streets safer is to have more bobbies patrolling them. The police must end their obsession with “hate crimes”, stop harassing people in breach of Covid rules – such as those who attended the Clapham Common vigil – and get back to doing what they have neglected for years.

    While I recognise the unique circumstances for women, the fact is that many men also find it scary to walk by themselves at night in towns and cities. Robert Peel set up the police force to deter crime and protect people. For far too long, a police presence has been replaced by CCTV for solving crimes after they’ve been committed.

    The Government needs to get a grip and ensure that something is done that will make a real difference.

    Tim Coles

    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    1. 330613+ up ticks,
      Morning E,
      Answering Tim C.
      ,”they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo” this is encouraged time & again by ….. the peoples via the ballot booth.

      What is planned in lieu of the blue police box is that you will have to check out your local pub for the peeler in residence.
      Pub shut ? police station shut long ago, they are currently working from home.

      Recent incident,
      Local pub, Chatham kent, attempted breakin, landlady phoned law, member of the law inquired, address of
      pub & was told Chatham Kent he then revealed he was in Dundee Scotland.

      We believe he is still in transit it’s a long bike hike.

  13. Well at least this years six nations refereeing competition is nearly over.
    It’s just a shame all those dedicated sportsmen have to get bashed up in the side show process.

  14. SIR – I read with interest your report about the furore in France over how to mark the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death.

    Advertisement

    This enumerated a good many of his faults, but omitted to mention that he was arguably history’s greatest cultural kleptomaniac. He pillaged the European countries he invaded, especially Italy, and many of his trophies ended up in France.

    All too often in Italy one finds that a particular altarpiece painted for a specific church – or, more irritatingly, a component panel of an altarpiece – is now in the Louvre. I have never understood why the Italian government allows this.

    A similar situation would be if the art collection assembled from around Europe by Hermann Göring (a close rival to Napoleon in this respect) had been allowed to remain in Berlin. But perhaps raising this issue would not be regarded as sufficiently communautaire.

    Roger White

    Sherborne, Dorset

    1. Is this proposal not carrying political correctness to idiotic levels?

      Political Correctness is idiocy Father Scott!

  15. SIR – Dame Jenni Murray says Britain should confront its colonial history.

    I am not sure what sort of school she went to, where she learnt about the British Empire without the attendant slavery narrative. I attended a girls’ grammar school, and these two subjects were taught simultaneously.

    There is still, however, a thriving slave trade – and this is what we should be dealing with, as we can change it.

    Barbara Marshall

    Helmdon, Northamptonshire

    SIR – You report (March 14) that Lambeth Council is proposing to rename Juxon Street.

    What on earth has poor Archbishop Juxon to do with slavery and exploitation? Not only was he an outstanding academic, but he also rose to became Bishop of London before being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles II. He supported Charles I, the Martyr King, on the scaffold, and was a devout and Christian gentleman. He was also a talented gardener and is probably responsible for the preservation of the gardens at Lambeth Palace and the adjoining Archbishop’s Park.

    Is this proposal not carrying political correctness to idiotic levels?

    Fra’ Ian Scott

    London SE1

    SIR – Changing the names of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s schools will not change the fact that staff and pupils have benefited – and will continue to benefit – from the slave trade; it will merely hide it.

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    The schools should include the details in their literature so people can reach their own views on whether a decision made over 300 years ago is relevant today.

    Ian Pimblett

    Lymington, Hampshire

    1. Nell Gwynn and her fruit is responsible for the outbreak of broken marriages today.

    3. I think Ian Scott has answered his own question with the qualities he ascribes to Archbishop Juxon.

    1. Morning E. I caught the clip on the BBC that reported both the UK and German demonstrations. Both were ascribed to the participants succumbing to Conspiracy Theories!

    1. The mask is there to prevent passing infection to others.

      The lack of a helmet is probably advantageous when it comes to stupidity.

      1. As a past motorcyclist I would observe that the mask will also filter out Gnats ,Flies and similar but not disposable nappies ( yep – it happened)

      1. It was a helluva Christmas present…..i assume they were boxed on Boxing Day.

  21. Good Moaning.
    Well, here’s a good start to the Spring Equinox.

    1. Dear Mrs Allan
    Thank you for the support you’ve provided to the Conservatives in the past year. As a Member of Colchester Conservatives, you are a crucial part of our Party.
    Your membership renewal is now overdue and your grace period ends in 14 days time.
    By renewing your membership before that date, you’ll retain your right to vote in Party elections, including candidate selections. You’ll also be helping us win elections. Because all of your subscription goes towards our campaigns.
    So if you want to continue to help change your community for the better, as well as your country, please renew your membership today using your membership number and renewal code below..
    Membership Number: xxxxxxxxx
    Renewal Code: xxxxxxxxxx
    If you have any questions about your membership renewal, please contact the Membership Department at membership@conservatives.com.
    Once again, thank you for your support.
    Kind regards,
    Sean Duckworth
    Deputy Head of Membership
    CCHQ Membership Team

    2. Why would we bother?
    If we wanted a micromanaging police state, there are plenty of parties to choose. You have completely lost any understanding of why people support the Conservatives.
    Until this Orwellian hysteria is over and we have a genuine Conservative Party again, we’ll not be wasting our money. Money that we don’t have because of your government’s stupid behaviour.
    Restore our freedom and control over our own lives, then we might rethink. At the moment, quite frankly, you can stick it.
    Anne Allan

    3. Thank you for your email to the Membership Department.
    We are experiencing a high volume of correspondence at present and will respond to your email as soon as possible.
    Thank you for your patience.
    Best wishes,
    CCHQ Membership Team

    I bet they bloody well are.
    After 40 + years of rolling with the punches, it’s time we chucked in a bomblet.
    Watch this space.

    1. 330613+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      Starting a boycott of the coalition on the 6th May would have very telling results.

    2. At CCHQ they’re probably scratching their heads over many similar, and probably much ruder, responses. Looked at a Steve Baker tweet earlier and quite a few long time Conservatives are telling him that they will no longer support the party.

      The polls indicating good support for Johnson and his cabal must be read with a truth warning.

    3. Wasnt the composer of the letter ever taught in school that ‘because’ is a conjunction?

      This group of words has no meaning
      “Because all of your subscription goes to our campaigns”

      1. Probably it’s an errant full stop and the word processor program has automatically inserted a capital letter after it.

      1. The world is going mad, Grizzly. (Good morning, btw.) Just looking at this ejjit’s presentation skills confirms it for me.

    4. Meanwhile in NSW Oz they have massive floods and a media photograph of men standing in a bar ‘up to (just past their knees) their waists’ drinking beer from cans, but social distancing of course. 😉
      But this sort of thing has been happening for thousands of years, it’s probably why the originals were so mobile for more than 30 thousand years.

    1. 330613+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Prime example,
      ” The Deal” = Political testicals casting pro eu tentacles.

    3. Good lord. Well I now know which side I’m on. How often these freedom fighters for democracy, as reported in our media, are exposed as globalist shills.

  26. The Observer view on bringing Assad to justice after a decade of war in Syria. 21 March 2021.

    Many other factors have kept his regime in power. One is the refusal of the western powers to forcibly intervene. Pressure to do so peaked in 2013 after Assad’s chemical weapons killed hundreds of people near Damascus. Fearful of another disaster like Iraq, MPs rejected UK military intervention. Days later, Barack Obama and the US Congress followed suit. The then Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said the Commons had spoken “for the people of Britain”. Perhaps.

    Assad also owes his survival to the opposite instinct, as exhibited by Russia and Iran. Vladimir Putin’s decision to step in militarily in 2015 almost certainly saved the dictator’s skin and changed the course of the war. Russian forces were accused of war crimes, too, as Assad reconquered roughly three-quarters of Syria’s territory. Pro-Iranian militias played their callous, sectarian part. Again, civilians paid with their lives, their homes, their futures.

    The “Western Powers” have interfered continuously and are still doing so; having failed militarily they are presently trying to starve the population into submission. As to Putin, he saved Syria from an ISIS bloodbath and Europe from a refugee crisis that would have dwarfed anything that had gone before!

    This is the last of my comments on anti-Putin/Assad/Russian articles today. The MSM is swimming in them in preparation for the coming War!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/21/the-observer-view-on-bringing-assad-to-justice-after-a-decade-of-war-in-syria

    1. And the 8 o’clock BBC radio news summary announced the Royal Navy is to get a new surveillance ship to monitor important undersea communication cables because the Russians have been threatening them with dangerous manoeuvres ….

      2. Bloody Russians with their dangerous manoeuvres…what will they get up to next?

    2. You’d have thought western governments would have learnt by now. As bad as North African dictators are, their people don’t do democracy and the alternatives are worse. We’ve wasted enough blood and treasure on them as it is. Besides, we have enough problems to sort out at home.

      1. They know how to keep islam at bay, and can do so as long as trigger-happy overgrown teenager “leaders” of Britain and France don’t interfere in their countries.

      2. Libya – Gaddafi killed thousands of his own people year after year – ensuring supporters their own coffers with oil money..
        The west intervenes and what happens? – tribal alliances / civil war ensues – economy goes down the plughole etc etc. Poverty, disease, more deaths ………… Gaddafi iron rule saved Libyan lives and improved the lot of many in comparison to the decade.

  27. Good Morning all –
    I had an errant thought this A.M. , I don’t know what triggered it but it is this:- The next time there is a vacant plinth looking for a statue why not dedicate it to the crews of the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron , to quote “between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans It is considered the most costly international moral action in modern history”

    3. I’ also like to see a documentary dedicated to the Nigerian slave traders – and their Arab clients. Run on a loop for days on end in front of the half-caste England hater wanqueuer Oloroso (or whatever he is called).

    4. The wokes would probably find the only black sailor and make a TV programme about him.

  28. 330613+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Sunday 21 March: The warped thinking at the heart of the EU’s vaccine programme, is truly matched by the dangerous punch & judy show from the heart of westminster.

    Surely the london freedom march yesterday was a telling factor that the peoples have had enough of the daily rising controlling sh!te level, and unmasked they are looking ugly, that does bode ill for the politico’s.

    https://twitter.com/JoeBlob20/status/1373291454710308869

    1. You would think that the US would be capable of designing a mobile airbridge that connects with AirForce One.

      Even an adapted forklift truck, because there is no shame in having a disability whilst US President. Think of President Roosevelt.

    1. Doesn’t seem as much fun when there are twenty people on the stairs at the same time.

    1. Why wouldn’t he be “doing fine” if he’s totally healthy? Have they just implicitly admitted that he’s a sick man?

  32. Yo all

    Rugger,as we used to call it.

    The (supposed) supposed play makers of a team are the

    Scrum Half Youngs 105 caps
    Captain Farrel 92 Caps

    You just need to watch videos of how they play to negate their influence

    Mt Thomas could do better than either/both of them

    We need to get rid of them and a few more: “we may lose matches” is the cry, we are anyway.

    The Augean Stables need purging

    and I have not watched any of the matches. I am still available, as is Mr Grizz, to play in the Second Row

    1. I was a pretty good fly-half in my time… We were taught never to kick the ball to the other side. A lesson which seems to be lost, these days.

      I noticed that the petulant thug Farrell was missing later in the match. Was he sent off?

      2. But, but, if you don’t kick the ball to the opposition what do you do with it?

        2. You ‘kick to compete’ as is the latest coaching jargon, along with ‘you can only play what’s in front of you’

      4. One of the greatest fly-halves of your generation was Richard Sharp of Blundell’s, Oxford University, England and the British Lions.

        When I was at prep school my father took me to see the school to which I would be going and there was a match being played between Blundell’s and Sherborne which was won by a significant margin by the home side mainly because of the brilliance of the Blundell’s fly-half. That boy, said my father, will be playing for England in a couple of years and indeed Richard Sharp won his first cap when he was at Oxford.

        1. I was at school with David Hemery (his sister was in my class).
          At Sports Day, the starting pistol would go off and DH was breasting the tape before the rest of the field had taken their first few steps.

          1. My father was a pretty good athlete and on his first father’s race at Sports day at my brother’s school thought he had a good chance of winning. No way – dad asked my brother who the winner was.

            “Oh, that’s Martin Bannister’s father” was the answer…

    2. ‘Morning, OLT, their ‘knee-taking’ will have cost them the support of many Englishmen (that includes Englishwomen)

    4. Worth noting that this year before each match the English team knelt in honour of BLM – a communist, defund the police, anti-white racist organisation. And this year, for the first time since 1976 – 45 years ago – England lost to all the other national teams in the British Isles : Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

      Once you surrender to wokery you have lost and are lost.

      1. The only thing we can cling to is…..it’s a good job Italy have stayed in the 6 nations.

        1. I look forward to the day when Italy beat England – they might change their tactics then. Their manager should go now anyway

    5. Worth noting that this year before each match the English team knelt in honour of BLM – a communist, defund the police, anti-white racist organisation. And this year, for the first time since 1976 – 45 years ago – England lost to all the other national teams in the British Isles : Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

      Once you surrender to wokery you have lost and are lost.

    6. Worth noting that this year before each match the English team knelt in honour of BLM – a communist, defund the police, anti-white racist organisation. And this year, for the first time since 1976 – 45 years ago – England lost to all the other national teams in the British Isles : Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

      Once you surrender to wokery you have lost and are lost.

    1. Pictures of this disgusting oaf are inducing in me a strong desire to vomit.

      1. 330613+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        That was the reaction of many decent peoples on hearing ” we have won the referendum, leave it to the tories”)

  34. Things are looking up here.The temperature has climbed to an Earth-shattering +2 degrees !!

    2. We have +8C, lots of wind (Oops, sorry :-(( ) and the snow is subliming nicely. With any luck, we’ll get sone rain next week to knock down what remains and wash some of the duct off the roads. Soil still very hard, though.

      1. Yep..we have 40Kph winds from the NNW making it feel very chilly.As for the soil..we can’t see any yet !

  35. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-the-truth-about-the-house-of-lords-peers-who-are-born-to-rule-nbdvcfrv3

    Just some of the 85 hereditary peers whose expense claims have cost the taxpayer almost £50 million since 2001
    The system of hereditary peerage is outdated and must be abolished, two candidates for House of Lords Speaker say today.

    The 85 dukes, earls and barons who sit in the chamber by birthright “devalue” democracy and cannot be justified, the peers add in their intervention.

    Our investigation has found that the hereditaries cost the taxpayer more and contribute less than life peers do.

    According to the most detailed data analysis of the institution to date:

    ● Hereditary peers have cost the taxpayer almost £50 million in expense claims since 2001.

    ● The average hereditary has spoken in the chamber just 50 times in the past five years, compared with 82 times among life peers. When they do speak, they are 60 per cent more likely

    1. The political appointments for ‘services rendered’ must surely cost hundreds of times more both economically and damaging to the country

        1. Compare and contrast the Bingham lady – who took no remuneration…to sort out the vaccine distribution.

          2. Yes.

            I used to employ her father when he was a young barrister… We knew he’d go places!

    3. And as a matter of idle curiosity, just how do crony appointments, appointments for favours and services rendered, and awards for failing to be re-elected to the HoC etc. “revalue” democracy?

    4. How about sacking all non-hereditary peers and scrapping all expenses for members of the HoL.

    5. Only the hereditary peers are connected to the very soil of our country. If the country prospers, they prosper and the people prosper. The rest of them are placemen in sinecures, money-grubbing carpetbaggers and charlatans

    6. Sack the rest and keep the hereditaries.
      Blighty was a happier and better run place under that arrangement.

      2. Agreed, Anne, 100%.

        Life Peers are there merely to do the bidding of their party masters and trough humungous expenses.

  36. The covid19 conundrum….

    Those who have watched the NWO journey have seen everything unfold as expected. However, the pandemic is the joker in the pack because it wasn’t mentioned in the original plan. It makes perfect sense to use the virus to create an extended lockdown while Agenda21/30 enters the transition period as it restricts air travel and changes people’s attitudes to work and transportation. The lockdown needs to be in place for quite some time to prevent the population returning to how it was before the virus arrived and future spoof mutations may play their part. The vaccine roll out debacle buys extra lockdown time.

    The lockdown derived from the virus also links perfectly to the original plan to create unrest leading to chaos when the final battle is lost before entering the “promised land”. The elite already control us with the Internet where they have profiled each and every one of us. Big brother is everywhere and laws are being put in place enabling the police to arrest people for simply opening their mouths in public spaces. Yesterday it was reported that anti lockdown protests had taken place in more than 50 countries as well as here in London. The chances of these escalating appear very real and could easily lead to the violence the elite have planned. While the virus is somewhat dubious, the lockdown is certainly playing with people’s minds and priming them for direct action rather than simply complaining in cyber space.

    Are the vaccines the real deal or just a ploy to extend the lockdown during the summer period with the threat of mutations to lock us all up during the winter flu season so they can keep the prospect of a violence very much alive?

  37. Good morning all. Home working :

    Insurer the Admiral Group, based in Cardiff, currently has the majority of staff working from home with a very small number working from offices.

    The company’s head of people, Rhian Langham, said staff were telling the company how they wanted to “embrace all of the best bits of working from
    home whilst preserving our amazing culture

    WTF is a ” head of people ” ?

    3. The insurance broker which has arranged our charity insurance for the last 10 years has its staff working from home so they imposed an admin fee increase from £25 to £75 – where’s that come from? We’re changing our broker this time.

    4. “Human Resources” is so brutal and old-fashioned. “Personnel” is rather clinical. “Welfare” is an old-fashioned matron. “People” is modern, open and all-embracing. Well, except for those who self-identify as something other…

    5. I fail to connect “the best bits of working from home” and “preserving our amazing culture” – unless of course, they mean “stuff the UK’s amazing culture, it’s Admiral’s version that matters”?

  38. What bounces and makes children cry?

    My cheque to children in need…

    Did anyone here watch it? Come on, own up.

    1. Nope. Can’t stand those sort of programmes – all that enforced jollity does nothing for me.

      I support the charities I support and won’t be drawn into these crowd-pullers.

      2. That’s why I loathe New Years Eve.
        By the time I was in my twenties, I knew that the following 12 months could hold some very nasty surprises.

      3. They could raise far more if the millionaire luvvies asking the poor to donate took a harder look at the irony.

    2. No, not us .

      Children in need, who where why and what ?

      All we see are council house families full of children , munching on pizza and fizzy drinks with very fat tattooed mothers.

      1. I thought it was Red Nose Day this time – Children in Need is usually sometime in the autumn. We never watch either of them.

        1. There is no such thing as Children in Need, Ndovu, it’s BBC’s Children in Need. The BBC is not interested in children whose parents don’t work for the Beeb.

          :-))

  39. A laudable suggestion Ms Robinson, but it would take as much, if not more to collect £25m.
    Clinics and their staff do not, by and large, have any facility or responsibility for handling cash. You would need to have a safe in which to store it and a secure means of transporting it to the bank or central collection point. This would presumably also have to be included on the insurance certificate thus increasing the premium.

    SIR – Visiting a vaccination centre on Wednesday, it struck me that we are missing an opportunity to show our appreciation for the successful rollout.
    It should be possible to make a voluntary contribution to this amazing programme. Had every recipient of the vaccine so far dropped £1 into a bucket, we would now have £25 million to give back to the NHS. Surely this would be more useful than clapping.
    Myra Robinson

      1. Put card machines into clinics and that will be the start of a slide towards privatisation.

        I would welcome that in my clinic tho’.
        At the moment we provide services free at POU to anyone who pitches up. e.g. I have had American tourists come to the desk asking for an IUD because the friend they are staying with for two weeks suggest she have it done while she’s here because its ‘free’.

        Likewise, men who live and work in e.g. UAE who while they are visiting home, requesting six months supply of PrEP and/or PEPSE because homosexuality is illegal in the country
        they have chosen to live in, presumably because of higher wages

        1. Here, unless you have a frikort or are a child, you have to pay. Pay to see the doctor, nurse, and for consumables, also prescriptions and outpatients work. Inpatients is free to taxpayers.
          Payment is usually by card as you leave the surgery. If you forget, they send you an invoice, with a £5 billing charge. My doctor costs £22,50 a visit, as he’s a Specialist GP. The usual is £16.50. For a 10 minute appointment.
          They don’t tend to get too many timewasters. If you bokk and don’t show up, the bill is in the post anyhow.

          1. The NHS should take it up. Cut out the time wasters. And obviously scrap the NI contributions.

        2. I have no idea, Stormy, what POU is and (apropos Americans) I worked out that IUD wasn’t Drunken Americans in reverse but a birth control device for laydees.

          As for PrEP/PEPSE, while I’ve no idea what they, the comment re homosexuality tells me I have no need to know!

    1. How did you get that to copy and paste?

      I tried to get it to do so from the Larson site the other day and it wouldn’t register, whichever method I tried.

      1. Right click on image and then ‘Save image as…’ You now can put it in your pictures library and do what you want with it

          2. That didn’t work either, all I got was a white screen.
            It may be my browser settings, but it’s one of the few places I ever get problems.

          4. Probably, it’s the only place I’ve tried to copy from where the methods people have recommended have not worked for me.

          6. On MB’s ward, one of the old chronic patients actually drank from the fish tank and swallowed the fish.

          9. It was a he. One those borderline cases where he was not only psychotic but also ‘simple’.
            By and large, they were sent to whichever hospital or ward had room at the time.

          10. Ok then get the picture on your screen and press CTRL and PRINT SCRN simultaneously the open Paint and select PASTE then save it. You them have it to do what you want with it

          11. Still no joy.
            I don’t often want to copy from that site, I usually only post a link to it, so I’m not unduly concerned.
            I was merely curious, I’m guessing Bob3 found the cartoon somewhere else or his browser lets him do so..

          12. I suppose if all else fails take a picture of your screen with your digital camera

        2. It seems, Spikey, that no cartoon on that site responds to a right-click. so Screen-shot is the only way I’ve made it work – see the post to Sosraboc, earlier (a few minutes ago).

      2. Any picture I want to use, Sos, I do a right click on it and select , ‘Save Image As…’ this generally will save it to your ‘Downloads’ file. I can then play with it in PowerPoint, then save the result as .jpg which can then be uploaded to NTTL.

        1. Rather than saving it in ‘downloads’ you can direct it to the folder you want to keep it in.

          1. Agreed, J, but ‘downloads’ is my default and depending on where I want to keep it, I can then move it.

          3. That’s why I regularly move what I want to keep but delete those I don’t. A very clean graveyard, J, with no-one dying to get in.

          1. I’ve just done a screenshot of an image on that site and it worked. I now have it in my pictures folder but I’ve not been able to post pictures on Nottl for ages so can’t prove it

          2. Bizarre.

            I just tried again and all that appears is a white page as the screen shot.

          3. It didn’t work with the Right click and ‘Save image as…’ but the screenshot of some horses at a table did with the screenshot. Did you leave enough time for the image to appear?

    1. After our experience – two years ago, Suzie demanded to go outside one evening and was never seen again – we’re paranoid about Lily going outside in the dark.

        1. We were keeping her in because something terrible had happened to Dulcie, a neighbour’s cat – just her fluffy tail was found. But Suzie was a very determined character and wouldn’t be deterred. She was 17 and apart from being deaf was healthy. But she wouldn’t have heard whatever was out there.

          There are graves of three cats in our garden – but the fourth one is missing.

          1. You will have to have a little memorial, like the one at Runnymede for RAF personnel who have no known graves.

      2. Same happened with mines sister (Called Susie too) about 5 years ago. Think she may have got taken by a fox or a pinemarten

      3. That’s awfully sad, Ndovu.
        We had a badger hereabouts 2-3 years ago, but I think it was shot, so it’s ok (I hope) for the furry ones to go out.
        Big Cat was attacked by a dog once, but a faceful of claws stopped that in its tracks.

        1. A badger had a couple of our hedgehogs which were ready for release a few years ago – it broke through the front of the enclosure they were in. The results were not pretty.

          1. This badger broke up our (wooden) rubbish bin enclosure and wire bin – heard a lot of noise outside, took a look, and found a sandbag jogging up the road… bastard. Vicious, too, and teeth like you’d not like to meet.
            Poor old hedgehogs. like going up against a panzer, so it is.

        2. My dog was attacked by next door’s cat in his own garden! Effing feral moggy – it clawed me as well.

      4. Sometimes they just leave. We had two cats, Brandon and Vinnie. Brandon was big and cuddly and allowed the children to drag him, and pull him around. Vinnie was a bit different. More independent and stand-offish. Both were allowed out and were frequently gone for hours. Brandon went missing of a couple of days. The children went looking for him and eventually heard him calling from one of the few closed and locked farm sheds. They fetched the farmer to let him out. Brandon was was none the worse.
        Vinnie would go away for a day or two days at a time. One day I was looking down the roadway between the farm buildings and I saw him outside a shed. He turned his head and looked at me, then went into the shed. We never saw him again.

    2. Get a cat flap.
      We have one with a chip reader, so it only allows approved cats through, and can tell you which way each cat went last – in or out.
      Cats can go when they please, no other animals in. What’s not to like?

      1. We have one. We are introducing them to it. It is in the porch – so they can go in and out but NOT bring their loot into the house!!

        1. Good luck with the loot
          ;-))
          They’ll likely manage to get a small deer in before you know it. Teamwork, doncha know?

          1. Our last one, Mousie, sued to bring in squirrels then butcher them, and leave the bloody carcasses on the door mat – to greet us.

          2. We get that. :-((
            Choicest cuts of rat, placed where an unwary foot will step in it as the owner goes to make breakfast… head & guts under the dining table, for a repeat performance at dinnertime.

          3. Apropos cats, prey and catflaps:

            I am reminded of Alfie, one of the brightest and most agile/adept cats I’ve had. While still about the size of G & P, he managed to bring an enormous (twice his size) seagull (sorry, Grizz) through the two catflaps needed to get indoors. Then there was the huge live rat at 3 in the morning….

            Mind you, he also used to walk to the pub with me and wait outside to walk me home!

            Was mousie articled to you? 🙂

          4. Tibby, the cat we had when I was a child, used to follow us to Church, and wait in someone’s hedge till we came out, then walked back with us. About a 20 minute walk.

          5. I built a big outdoor shelter for the two I had 30 years ago for when we were at work. Came home one evening and found them sitting on top of it. I wasn’t surprised when I looked inside, there were 2 enormous mallards (dead) inside so there was no room for them. They’d dragged the 2 ducks from the local pond over the garden wall and stuffed them into the shelter and they had that smug face on them which said ‘Look what we brought you for tea’

          6. When the MR get her job in Monaco, Mousie went to live with an old chum of ours. She has a cat-flap.

            In the middle of the night, chum felt a lump land on the bed, and miaow. She put out her hand to stroke Mousie and discovered that she was wet. And sticky. Chum put on the light to discover that Mousie had caught, killed, butchered and dragged through the cat-flap and up on to chum’s bed, the bleeding corpse of a rabbit……

          7. Sam was a great ratter in his day and also brought in a couple of large and messy birds.

      2. We had one of them in a previous house – I swear our cat used to hire his collar out to other cats who wanted a free meal because the collar had the code in it

        2. Chip in the cat, not the collar.
          It also means if anyone finds a lost cat, they can be identifed.

      3. Lily had evidently never used a cat flap in her earlier life – she has to have the door opened.

        1. Ours occasionaly demand that the staff open the door – located right next to the cat-flap…

          2. Our doors are either armoured with a steel liner, or glass, so I cut through the side of the house. Worked well.

          3. Good for the burglars then if they can’t cut through the door, but they can through the house!

  42. Imagine the games the elite could play once they have total control of the world population…

    They have already created a game of musical chairs where populations are on the move across the world. Illegals are pouring into Europe and the UK while the US southern border is being swamped. Now they have a virus to play with also.

    At some time in the future they could simply announce that the virus had almost expired and lift all travel restrictions. Desperate for a holiday, those who could afford to would fly to destinations around the world. Millions of people would be in somebody else’s country and many miles from home when suddenly a new virus mutation strikes and all travel is suspended for months and even years. Nobody could return home as there would be no means of travel available.

    Unlikey of course but could easily happen if they wanted it to.

    1. 330613+ up ticks,
      Morning H,
      Unlikely ? just yet, but it is work in progress.
      People power could, via the polling booth generate a united front but the electorate are happy with three musical chair parties and NO chair ever being deducted just swapped, to protect the guilty.

      1. No, they’re NOT happy with them but they don’t understand any alternative. The problem is, none of us are thick. None of us are capable of thinking like your average person.

        They are dumb beyond measure and cannot conceive of an alternative choice. One where the political class don’t tell us what to do, where we tell *them* what they will do.

        1. 4 nuns up in front of Mother Superior for being pregnant.
          MS says “How did this happen?”
          Nuns ” Benedictus!”

    2. It’s called progress!

      Maybe I didn’t understand the story but didn’t The Duchess of Sussex send banana-shaped dildos to sex workers in the third world.

      1. She and The First Doormat were visiting some sort of Whores’ Charity. As they packed the lunch boxes (yes, I know) madam had the bright idea of inscribing uplifting messages on the bananas. Stuff like “You Are Strong” and other such Californian Woke blibble.

  49. Warning: this is not the Bumper Book of Crap Jokes.
    Book review: NOTTLers know most of this.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/shot-collecting-stamps-gulag-letters-lay-bare-dystopia-stalins/

    ‘Shot for collecting stamps’: gulag letters lay bare the dystopia of Stalin’s Russia

    A new book, My Father’s Letters: Correspondence from the Soviet Gulag, captures the cruelty and paranoia of the Soviet Union

    20 March 2021 • 5:00pm

    In Russia, during the decades of the Communist experiment, was there a single person who was happy? “Millions of the citizens of this great country,” writes Ludmila Ulitskaya in this harrowing book, “were killed by the very Utopia that they strived to create.”

    Teachers, engineers, architects, botanists, physicists and doctors were particularly liable to arrest and execution – almost as if anyone bright and accomplished was automatically suspect; they were going to be the people capable of coming up with individual opinions and judgments, and from the viewpoint of the alleged proletariat they were envied and hated. The more they bleated under duress that “I owe all of my knowledge, my labours of love and everything I have achieved in life, to the Soviet state,” the less they were believed.

    Membership of the Central Bureau of Regional Local History became a crime, for example, as inquiring into the past was taboo. History was a “bourgeois” subject, like reciting poetry. Indeed, anything with an emphasis on aesthetics, philosophy, unorthodoxy and “the primacy of the word” conflicted with the “tendencies of Soviet politics and culture”. Anodyne-seeming hobbies like stamp collecting meant the bullet – business correspondence with specialists abroad, attendance at meetings with fellow enthusiasts: to the NKVD this was evidence enough of “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”, a cover surely for spies.

    Eighteen million people were sent to the forested and frozen gulags, or “corrective labour camps”, where temperatures plummeted in winter to minus 30 degrees Celsius. Most were guilty of absolutely nothing at all, but the impression I’ve always formed of the Great Terror is that Stalin and his henchman Lavrentiy Beria were never going to rest until everyone was dead or had been reduced by constant fear to the semblance and status of zombies.

    The pattern was this: at approximately half-past-one in the morning there’d be a loud knock on the door. Red Army soldiers would rush in and the house or apartment would be ransacked. The bleary, unshaven, half-undressed husband and father would be bundled away, a panic-stricken glance over his shoulder the last the family would ever see of him. (Even now, descendants are still working out what happened, tracing records, scouring declassified archives.)

    At the police barracks, the people now under arrest – highly qualified weather forecasters, wind-power pioneers, experts on the propagation of rice crops, hydro-electric dam builders, lecturers in public health, the head engineer at the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metals, the chief physician from the Neurological Hospital and the Inspector at the People’s Commissariat of the Coal Industry – were held in a single cell with hundreds of others.

    They were tortured, deprived of sleep for up to six uninterrupted days and denied access to a toilet. Taken off one by one for interrogation, the prisoners were made to sign blank sheets of paper, the security chiefs writing in a false confession later. If anyone demurred, their teeth were kicked out. “Sign the confession or we’ll bring in your wife and mother,” frightened and exhausted people were told.

    Half were executed there and then; the more fortunate were sent to “political detention centres” for at least 10 years. There was no judicial process. There were no witness statements nor any right to appeal. Challenges from any other side were not permitted and cases were considered and rubber-stamped in the defendant’s absence. Every few months, the police chiefs, army officers and magistrates were themselves purged. Though occasionally a brave person would be so outraged he’d say, “An alarm rings involuntarily in my soul, warning that the truth is redundant,” this did no one any favours – indeed, complain and you’d be bumped up the queue for a death sentence.

    With few specific charges filed, prisoners were condemned for abstract crimes – “suspicion of espionage”, indulging in “anti-Soviet conversation”. You could be arrested because as a teenager before the Revolution you’d belonged to what was later an underground political circle, or maybe you’d simply been seen speaking to the wrong sort of character in a bar. To possess a photograph of Trotsky meant you were for it, and to have had a grandfather who was a landowner was absolutely fatal. Senior apparatchiks who wrote personally to Stalin, informing him that “somebody considered it necessary to slander me in this absolutely absurd manner”, had their executions brought forward, as the absurd slanderer in question was Stalin himself.

    1. Not exactly “reading for pleasure” then.
      I think I might give that one a miss – terrible though these experiences were for those who had to endure them.

      People living in Putin’s Russia are lucky.

          8. Get used to that. I was covered in scratches for the first couple of years after getting my pcs

    2. 330613+ up ticks,
      Anne,
      That being the prototype is the UK following the pattern
      as in the grass next door is not always greener but reporting on you to the police prior to you being Tommy Robinsoned.

      On this onset of reset does there not seem to be a lot of similar links ?

    4. This hasn’t been out for a while, but deals with a similar subject, but how it starts:

      When the Nazis came for the communists,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a communist.

      When they locked up the social democrats,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a social democrat.

      When they came for the trade unionists,
      I did not speak out;
      I was not a trade unionist.

      When they came for the Jews,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a Jew.

      When they came for me,
      there was no one left to speak out.

      Pastor Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller

    1. Yes. I should have seen a consultant last June, saw him first week in March. Waiting time has gone from a maximum of 12 weeks to a minimum of 24 weeks.

          6. No, I won’t do a peddy – it’s Sunday, give the girl a break, because she’s worth it…

  52. The two NHS Trusts I work for (and I suspect most others) have given all staff an extra day’s annual leave in 2021-22, called a Recognition Day for coping during Covid. (I know)

    I dont feel I have done anything to deserve this so emailed our HR rep to ask how I could give this back and donate an equivalent day’s pay to the hospital charitable funds. My plan was that if I could do that I would post a Trust-wide invitation for others to do the same.

    His reply was that it wasnt possible to do this but se t me instructions on how to make a donation.

    I replied that my intention was to sell something I don’t need, not buy something I don’t need.

    I’m taking my query higher.

    1. There will be Charitable Trust Funds held by the Finance Department. If they still exist the Local League of Friends will also have charitable funds for the benefits of patients (and staff)….

      1. I know, and I have donated and drawn upon funds in the past. My point is that I wanted to donate my day off.

        1. You could consider giving the equivalent amount of earnings to a registered charity under the gift aid scheme and they can reclaim your tax, assuming you get a daily rate, although from your earlier posts I suspect you are not on a daily rate days worked basis.

          I appreciate it costs you hard cash, rather than holiday foregone and I suspect it’s too much like hard work for the accounts department to work out and allocate the requisite cost of a days work on your part, what with NI and benefits (if any), but at least you’ve achieved a donation that way.

          I thought it was a novel and worthwhile idea, it’s a pity the system probably won’t permit it.

          1. I haven’t given up. I’m going to escalate my request to someone higher up. There are many who feel as I do that it was a totally unnecessary exercise.
            It’s not like ennaitchess staff don’t get enough leave already.

          2. Good luck and more power to your elbow.

            Just as long as it doesn’t become one of those initiatives where people who can’t afford it or don’t approve of the beneficiaries are not peer pressured into doing it too.

            PS edit
            too many negatives as Devonian in Kent has pointed out!
            I don’t want people to feel pressurised to do something they can’t afford.

          4. Indeed, tangled up in too many negatives!

            I’ll leave it more or less as is or your accurate comment won’t make sense to later readers.

          5. I haven’t given up. I’m going to escalate my request to someone higher up. There are many who feel as I do that it was a totally unnecessary exercise.
            It’s not like ennaitchess staff don’t get enough leave already.

      1. Well I work during half my days off to try to keep because we’re permanently short staffed so I probably will anyway.
        It’s the principle I’m trying to stand up for. The extra day day is being applied indiscriminately to everyone employed between 01 Apr 20 – 31 Mar 21 so even two of my new recruits starting next week will get it, along with those high risk staff who sat at home for three months last summer with their thumbs up their bums.

        1. Do you get remunerated for the extra hours you work?

          Either way it’s a round of applause from us Nottlers.

          1. I claim for some of them. If it shows on the budget, the bean counters should set the staffing budget higher the next year.
            I stress ‘should’.

          2. I have had lots of appointments recently and i am in admiration of the commitment and efforts the staff go to. Everyone has been so kind and upbeat even though it must get a bit wearing.

    1. If I want better accommodation paid for by someone else, will it be OK for me to burn down my house? Oh yeah – I’m not a foreign arrival.

    4. Oh dear, how sad – now they’re going to live a burned out ruin.

      Could we stop feeding them? Stop providing them with food and water? They’re here illegally. The only reason we are holding them at all is surely to deport these effluent?

  55. It’s official – well, by my reckoning, at least. I live in an affluent area.
    There are now nearly as many abandoned electric scooters on the pavements as discarded face masks.

  56. Had a right old time . Younger dog rolled in fox poo when out for morning walk.

    Sticky grey very smelly clay like muck on his neck .. rotten fish smell.

    Searched for the dog shampoo , nope none left , local hardware shop was open , so dashed down there … what a choice … Fox poo removal shampoo cost £15.00, and normal dog shampoo £3 something or other . He still smelt whiffy after a good wash ..

        1. My first ever job was washing the outside of aeroplanes at £5 a day… nasty, vicious caustic wasing up liquid, it was, too.

          1. It’s not the washing, it’s the polishing with Wadpol (Military Duraglit) that took the effort. When I was i/c a squadrons engineering, one day when the weather was so bad the birds were walking, all the aircraft were in the hangar and jockeys had nothing to do, I got the CO to get them all out of their crewroom and clean the aircraft. Went down well with the groundcrew!

    2. Whenever I gave my dog a bath Belle he would sneak off to the local pig farm as soon as possible and come back smelling of bran and sundry other less than salubrious scents!

      1. Whenever I washed the blanket that my late hound, Robinson, slept on – he would immediately take it outside and roll on it on the grass – or, better still, a flower bed, then drag it back to his quarters!

    3. If a long haired dog then it’ll get stuck in the undercoat. When Mongo gets covered in mud it’s the spray head in the shower for a really long rinse. Shampooing him can be tricky as it removes all the oils from his skin and, if it’s hot he’ll itch like anything.

    2. The shops are empty! The shelves are bare! We have no food! We are all starving!

      Except, of course, none of that is true.

    3. The shops are empty! The shelves are bare! We have no food! We are all starving!

      Except, of course, none of that is true.

  58. Locals watch helplessly as floodwaters rise across New South Wales. 21 March 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a3db9b12652e452650efbfe1fbc680c79ad4d57e8514a44f81562fd869a704d.jpg

    As floodwaters inundate the New South Wales mid-north coast, residents are scrambling to take stock of the damage and prepare for the rising tide.

    Horses and livestock were seen floating along rivers and washing up on beaches on Sunday, as the region faced a once in a lifetime deluge.

    Greg Cox, who lives in Raymond Terrace north of Newcastle, was watching the water slowly rise around his property on Sunday morning.

    It’s wet down under cobbers! I’m sure it has something to do with Putin!

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/21/never-seen-anything-like-it-locals-watch-helplessly-as-floodwaters-rise-across-nsw

  59. Shamima Begum does not deserve to return to Britain
    Her smirking mixture of Islamic extremism, Benefits Street entitlement and Cosmo Girl feminism is anathema to most Britons

    SHERELLE JACOBS
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/19/shamima-begum-does-not-deserve-return-britain/

    The Telegraph is truly committed to free speech and giving the readers the chance to air their views.

    They decided to open the comments section on this article but when I went to post a comment they had closed it before they had even put up one single comment! This is what I saw:

    “0 comments

    Richard Tracey

    This conversation is currently closed to new comments.
    Newest | Oldest | Top Comments”

        2. Are you really saying that you would like to see a young woman killed slowly?
          Shamima was a 15 year old schoolgirl who happened to be considerably sharper than the average fully trained and overworked employee at Gatwick.
          Management failure, a bit like when that German pilot drove his ‘plane into a mountain.

          1. Yes, burned in a cage would do, as ISIS does to others. Followers of islam understand the concept of retribution.

      2. Ms Begum should be given a medal for demonstrating that Gatwick Airport security is inadequate. They have to sack the numbskulls in the Government and the Home Office, and design a process to match each passenger to a valid identity document. Problem is, how would the Security Services operate if they had to use genuine ID?

      3. Ms Begum should be given a medal for demonstrating that Gatwick Airport security is inadequate. They have to sack the numbskulls in the Government and the Home Office, and design a process to match each passenger to a valid identity document. Problem is, how would the Security Services operate if they had to use genuine ID?

  60. I had a thought during lunch. That Belgian Hitlerine who is threatening to declare war on the UK – she is the EUSSR equivalent of Williamson.

  61. During “normal” times and a government we could trust….

    If an honest PM said it was imperative that everyone had a vaccine for a genuinely serious virus then most people would rally to the request. Despite doubts of the validity of the flu like virus being touted as dangerous, Johnson urges everyone to have a jab due to the likelihood of a third more serious wave.

    Question is: Has anyone threatened Johnson and other world leaders that if they don’t comply with a raft of orders including lockdowns and the green agenda then another more serious strain of the virus be released?

    There are times when governments keep things secret in the interest of national security or for fear of causing public panic. Is this one of those times or simply the government playing games with us?

    So many questions…so few answers.

    1. The gurning Gates,chuckling at what comes next gives your thoughts all too much credibility…………..
      Scary,ain’t it
      Edit
      http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3acb8d1072fbcaadeb87672734e81f907bda1f8af59fcbdcd33981e33f7f4576.png
      Another
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a8019a3585e2cc4dda74eef07a72e5b886621a41fa187870f6ac84b950e6bfd.jpg
      Re-edit
      How come even if you reread your post umteen times you STILL can’t see the typo until after you’ve posted it!!!! Grhhhhh

  62. Some Laffs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bccb253a1f559146f51ddbbae02c76ae7986275b086620ccd5d05553dfcc0af4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a67edf3eb0d4e8470334d80e3fd8ede29eed9a5a9fef3f97a821e46a18c6e5e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/daa893b4ed66d83c546a8a9a04af25dadb1ab357a3dae0ef291ff715e13cada5.gif

    https://i2.wp.com/www.dumpaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/when-youre-working-hard-for-the-tuna.jpg

    https://i1.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/dr-fauci-milking-cow-covid-power.jpg?resize=520%2C402&ssl=1

  63. 330613+ up ticks,
    Remember the peanut club lapel badge / guinea pig club badge, no singing dancing, doorstep clapping then, sometimes, no doorstep with house attached that was there yesterday.

    Daily situation far worse than a jacked up for political reasons, flu virus
    Death & very long term injuries guaranteed.

    What would be Achie Mcindoe’s views today.

    I would personally think keep calm & carry on.

    Lest we forget.

  64. Ursula Fonda Lying Studied in London when she was a teenager. She used an assumed name because the Baader-Meinhof were after her.

    They would probably make her their leader today.

      1. That would make a change from just dropping them in the street (and hanging them on bushes, decorating walls with them and stuffing them down drains).

    3. So [© telly tart] you will need to prove you’ve had the vaccine and there will be an official document to do so [?] but it won’t be called a passport??

  66. Just filled in the census. For anyone who sees them as a fascinating snapshot of society as is, and feels they are justified in that, I would just like to say that I was not allowed to state what my actual line of work is, just what I had earned any money for in the past year. So those looking at this in the future might well conclude that those fields of work which have been classed as “inessential” and closed down did not exist. No live music, no theatre, etc etc etc. No option for saying “The government has forbidden me to work as an [X]”. If they’re going to use this to plan things in future, we’re stuffed.

    1. 330613+ up ticks,
      Afternoon A,
      Rest assured they will use it in the future if via the polling booth “they” are given the opportunity.

      I’m not submitting to being stuffed in any shape or form
      that is surely a personal choice as is voting.

      lab/lib/con/greens/ ersatz uKiP do NOT enter the equation.

    2. I don’t know why they bother holding the census. It’s not used for anything. Certainly if it is, the government doens’t bother to actually provide what people want or need.

      Perhaps that’s the point? Perhaps it gathers all this data to make sure it only does precisely what no one needs or wants?

      1. It is a data gathering exercise.

        They say it is so resources can be better targetted. While at the same time cutting funding for services year on year.

      2. No matter how many it says are here – they’ll still carry on importing more – just like Priti’s new plan will do. Anyone “fleeing war” will be given indefinite leave to remain. So, when one side flees war, and comes here – – and the other side flees the same war – and comes here – -they can start again here – while WE have to foot the bill for their treatment. FOREVER.

      3. I left MB to fill the thing online.
        I’m really not interested. And history is my favourite subject!

        1. We did ours online a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t anticipate any change between then and now.

    1. I was a bit shocked by that too. Suggesting that people of 75 need help with normal tasks like shopping is a bit rich.

      Is it related to the records of how much prescribed medication people take?
      Out of interest, how many people on this site take no prescribed medication of any kind? (Me, touch wood).

      2. Last week I had 5 days on antibiotics and took a few painkillers. This was related to dental work.
        My general health is very good. No regular medication whatsoever. 65 and still working full time.

        1. Hi Sue,
          just worth mentioning that as we age, antibiotics are rumoured to take a little bit longer to work. But presumably your course was pre-dentistry.

          2. I’m an old, hairy-arsed engineer, specialist in bullshit. With a materials and inspection & maintenace flavour.

          3. I spent years at APV Baker in the special projects division but finished up with a packaging machine company in Gainsborough.

          4. Materials, construction & welding, offshore lifting operations, inspection, project management, & now a maintenance specialst. Quite good at most things engineering, as long as it doesn’t require too many social skills.

        3. You should never go near a Doctor’s Surgery except under dire necessity. They are dangerous places. You could catch something!

          1. They’re not doctors nowadays..they’re salesmen for their favourite drugs company.

          2. Too true. What really annoys me is they are quite happy to give an open ended prescription for opioids for pain management but won’t mention something like Yoga.

            I know this from personal experience. I use a Tens and 10 mins of Yoga and the pain goes away. If i were on Tramadol all the time i would be an addict by now.

            I am having to take Codeine at the moment because there are some conditions that alternative therapy doesn’t work but i would like to have the information from a GP rather than trolling Google.

          4. That reminds me, Stephen, another (semi) blue joke:

            Ear Infection

            This is so true!

            They always ask at the surgery why you are there, and you have to tell them (in front of others) what’s wrong and sometimes it is embarrassing.

            There’s nothing worse than a Doctor’s Receptionist who insists you tell her what is wrong with you in a room full of other patients.
            I know most of us have experienced this, and I love the way this old guy handled it.

            The 65-year-old man walked into a crowded waiting room and approached the desk.
            The Receptionist said, ‘Yes sir, what are you seeing the Doctor for today?’
            ‘There’s something wrong with my dick’, he replied.

            The receptionist became irritated and said, ‘You shouldn’t come into a crowded waiting room and say things like that.’

            ‘Why not, you asked me what was wrong and I told you,’ he said.

            The Receptionist replied; ‘Now you’ve caused some embarrassment in this room full of people. You should have said there is something wrong with your ear or something and discussed the problem further with the Doctor in private.’

            The man replied, ‘You shouldn’t ask people questions in a roomful of strangers, if the answer could embarrass anyone. The man walked out, waited several minutes, and then re-entered.

            The Receptionist smiled smugly and asked, ‘Yes?’

            ‘There’s something wrong with my ear,’ he stated.

            The Receptionist nodded approvingly and smiled, knowing he had taken her advice. ‘And what is wrong with your ear, Sir?’

            ‘I can’t piss out of it,’ he replied.

            The waiting room erupted in laughter…

            Mess with seniors and you’re going to Lose

          5. I thought the first one you posted today was very funny – but perhaps it should have been posted after the Waterbed – I mean watershed…

      5. Me. I don’t take medication either, and I’m 74. I seldom see a general practitioner. Years go by before I darken the doors of the surgery.

        1. That’s encouraging! I am hoping to do the same.
          The grandfather of a friend of mine died recently in his early 90s. He lived in the rural area of Zimbabwe, and had the old, traditional lifestyle until shortly before his death. She said he just ate simple food and not too much of it, and survived without any attention from the medical profession all that time.

          1. Pharmaceuticals don’t make profits by curing people and making them well! I suppose their wares alleviate the symptoms to ensure one goes back for more.

        2. My mother told me if you want to keep well stay away from the Doctor! Wise words however I’ve recently been stymied with my ankle…..B8gger!

        3. Occadoomal ibuprofen for me due to osteoarthritis in both hips due to years of
          a. Carrying beer barrels
          b. Carrying bergens
          c. Being overweight
          🙁

          1. I like a lass built for comfort, not speed, and who knows her way around a pie… like SWMBO
            :-))

          1. I know it is possible to get it again, so they say, but I don’t know anyone so unfortunate as to have had shingles twice.

      6. Atorvastatin.
        Cloppidogrel.
        Aspirin.
        Centrium multi Vit.
        Omeprazole.
        Turmeric Curcumin for Dogs.

        :@(

      8. Gevrey-Chambertin
        Chateauneuf-du-Pape
        Nuits St George
        Chassagne-Montrachet
        Sauterne (only with foie gras)
        and when required, Chablis

      9. 40mg of Gliclazide a day for type 2 diabetes (lowest dose you can have) and Glucosamine for my arthritis (self prescribed), 80 next week and still driving a recovery truck

        1. I have a little list – we’ve got you on the list!

          Three birthdays coming up this coming week.

      11. Hay fever tablets and an occasional voltarol, both OTC in the UK, although they can be prescribed here in France.

      13. Me, but I should urgently lose some weight. I confess to having taken analgesics when I had a dose of sciatica.
        And occasionally some antibiotics.
        And recently Sguest mentioned that he was 80-ish and healthy.

    2. It will be DNR next on your record, Plum. I have 3 tablets for High Blood Pressure and 1 twice daily for Diabetes Type 2. Both conditions are under control.
      So far I can manage on my own for shopping etc.

      1. I had no idea all these drugs were available…..glad you are coping. I’ve never felt so unfit now I’m not playing tennis.

        1. One year on I am so much less fit than I was before they started lockdown. Instead of saving my life, they are killing me slowly, what with depression and lack of exercise. When I see the Connemara he won’t recognise me (and I’ll be huffing and puffing for 45 minutes the first time I ride him).

    3. So who’s telling lies? The article says:

      “Since 2017, medical records of all patients over the age of 65 have been automatically scanned by a computer program called the Electronic Frailty Index. “

      As far as I am aware “Covid” wasn’t around in 2017.

  68. 330613 + up ticks,
    May one say,
    If you have NO love or feelings for England / GB then join & vote, starting on the 6th May for any of the lab/lib/con/greens coalition party.

    breitbart,
    Refugees Applying Via Legal Routes to Be Given Automatic Settlement in UK

    1. 330613+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Seems like the electorate are supporting these
      governance parties who in turn these governance parties are intent in handing the very land ( UK) over to foreign ownership.

      It surely MUST be that a very high % of the electorate are seriously mentally retarded.

      Should the water supply be checked out ?

    2. At the start of the last war, lots of people had their pets euthanised because they were afraid of how they would cope with them in wartime. I can see that happening again.

  70. Google have banned NRK (Weegie version of the BBC), because NRK have made a programme about nakedness and bodies to educate children, and nakedness is, apparently, unAmerican. So, in case you had any doubts, we all have to accommodate prudish Merkin habits.

  71. Ah, bugger.
    :-((
    Just had The Call. Brother-in law croaked this morning, about an hour ago. Only 57. Came downstairs complaining of feeling unwell, then fell over. Heart-attack, apparently. Totally unexpected.

          2. So sorry to hear your news , I expect your dearly beloved is distraught with grief.

            Shocks happen when we least expect them .

            Life is a bitch !

    3. Much sympathy Oberst however useless it is. My father went downstairs in the early morning and dropped dead of a cerebral haemorrhage at 43!

      1. Thanks, Spikey.
        We’ll see what the autopsy comes up with. A big shock to SWMBO and the boys.

    8. Please accept my condolences.
      It’s hard enough for families at the moment without something like that happening. I hope the extended family take comfort from each other.

      1. Thanks, Sos.
        Rather a surprise, and a real pisser. Not sure how we deal with the funeral, whenever that will be. Takes the shine out of the day, so it does.
        Wish we had a flag to lower to half mast.

    9. So sorry to see that, Oberst. Condolences to you and family, distance always make these times harder.

      1. Thanks, Jill.
        At least SWMBO & he had a long converation yesterday. Longest I can remember, in fact.

          3. The next bad bit will be when he’s not there to say goodnight. And good morning, run her to the station, all the silly wee things that you don’t notice so much until they are gone.

          4. That’s right. I’m already feeling guilty about dying and upsetting the missus and kids.

        2. That is so like my younger boy. The Monday before he died, we had a very long conversation – over an hour. I was in France. He asked when I was returning – the Friday four days later – wished me a good flight home and said he’d skype on the Saturday.

          He had a similarly very, very long conversation with his mother on the Thursday.

          He died in the early hours of the Friday. Weird or what?

    10. Sorry to hear your sad news, life has a habit of sneaking up and bites us on the a$$ when we least expect it.
      Condolences to you and your family.

      1. Thanks, VVOF.
        I’m sure British humour will out, but it’s a bit stressful right now.

      1. Big surprise, I must say. Not what we expected at all. A right pisser, if you excuse my French.

        1. Gosh he was only two years older than my surviving boy. What a terrible shock for his family. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to get back for the funeral, either, thanks to the wazzocks “ruinning” (sic) the country.

    14. Good Lord. What a shock.
      Only 2 years older than our elder son.
      Does his widow have nearby support?

      1. Many friends. Family a bit further away. Situation somewhat unclear just now – apart from a lot of unhappy people, of course.

      1. Thanks, DiK.
        It seems not. Guess he got the easy end of the business… but he’d be pissed if he could be, his lass was about to start Nordland Nanny training. He’d have been really proud of her graduating from there.

    18. Sorry to hear that, Paul, at 76, I’m lucky to have survived three (possibly four) heart attacks but the next one will probably get me, being so far from the hospital up narrow rural lanes.

      1. Well, let’s hope that “next one” is a bloody long time coming, Tom.
        Where would we get the early morning funny from?

    19. Sorry to hear that, Paul. It’s bad enough when you’re expecting it, but for him to go suddenly at that age, must be quite a shock.

  72. A government minister has just said on the BBC news channel…

    Don’t book foreign holidays because travel restrictions could remain in place for years.

    3. I suspect numerous people were only proposing to have jabs because it would allow them to travel. If the PTB take away even that ray of hope it might be counter-productive in making more people refuse them.

      1. Have you seen the rules to enter the UK? Tests, quarantines… and exit is as difficult. You need an “approved” reason to leave.
        The website doesn’t mention that the business class queue bypass includes wee rubber boats at Dover…

        3. We watch fairly closely both from our own perspectives and looking at whether we will get any business for the cottage.

          2. Not really. We have friends who concentrate on the French market and they are getting very few too.

            We only advertise on the TripAdvisor/Holiday lettings site, which tends to be English language sourced.

            One of our very few last year was French and we do get some. We’ve had bookings from all over the world in the past but at the moment we’re not even getting enquiries.

          3. We’ve booked two AirBnBs in France in the last few weeks, and there has been a lot available, but the cheaper ones were booked up. There are no tourists at all that I can see in France at the moment though, partly because everything is closed and we saw the police stopping a car with Luxembourg number plates on the motorway.

          4. Whereabouts are you at the moment?

            We have cars with plates from all over the EU, as well as the UK, in Bergerac.
            I suspect the UK ones are caught here because of the lockdowns.

            It will serve them right if they are those who live here but don’t re-register and carry on without MOT/CT and are not insured either, and are then picked up by the Gendarmes.

          5. In Elsass at the moment, doing urgent house maintenance.
            Tree cutters coming tomorrow.
            Original quote was 2500 euros to fell one tree and prune the other (big, high branches).
            I went out and bought a small chainsaw and a chainsaw on a 4 metre pole.
            17 year old daughter felled the tree, and we managed to prune the branches that were touching the roof with the pole chainsaw. It’s a bit heavy for us to use, so next time I’ll get one of my sons in – they are also taller than us.
            Tree cutters are going to remove a large crown about 6 metres off the ground, and also another large branch that is about 5 1/2 metres up, for which we are paying 800 euros.
            We get to keep the chainsaws for next time, so I’m quite happy. We also did a lot of other vital work.
            We’ll be haring home on Tuesday, so that I can earn a bit of money during March!

            We’ve only seen three cars with German numberplates in our back of beyond area, though there were a few other foreign cars on the motorway near Strasbourg.

          6. Lovely part of France.

            We’ve just felled a few poplars, right next our neighbour’s houses. well over 20 metres tall.

            Any of them would have taken out a roof.
            We took them down because the roots were encroaching on to their properties and it seemed to be a neighbourly thing to do, they were affecting boundary walls.

            Lots of heavy ropes, wedges and levers. They came down a treat and I now have about two years worth of wood for the stoves.
            We usually take down one Oak a year for firewood, because there is nothing near by to worry about, but the poplars were a real challenge.

          7. We’ve also stacked a fair bit of wood in the garden.
            You need a lot of open space to bring down a twenty metre tree!

          8. I have a lot of open space, this was merely (a bit more in fact) a question of getting the trees to topple in the right direction.

            All the leaves fallen, a very still day, and Bob’s your uncle.

            I shall miss them, I used to enjoy watching them swaying in even the slightest breeze.

            It’s a surprisingly heavy wood, nearly as dense as oak. It doesn’t burn quite as long and it spits, but in the stoves that tends not to matter.

          10. Felling axe. And if needed, wedges and and a sledge hammer.
            I really enjoy the exercise

          11. I’ve done that in the past, but not sure I want to repeat the exercise. No chance of persuading the children that it’s healthy exercise either! I think the farmers who sell split logs have a splitter, but it probably costs more than I can justify for the amount we have to split.

            The pole chainsaw is worth its weight in gold, which is approximately what it cost! Really proved its worth today with big branches that fell awkwardly from the top of the walnut tree, eg leaning against the trunk and hooked round it.

        4. It’s harder to enter and leave the UK than any other European country at the moment. The permission to leave is a real killer. You’d have to book a medical appointment in your destination country as far as I could see, reading the rules! Surely they would accept foreign citizen going home while not maintaining an address in the UK though? That’s how someone I know managed it a few weeks ago.

          1. “Going home” does not seem to be an approved reason for leaving.
            Also, can you leave before your 10 days quarantine is over? Can’t find that nugget of info.

          2. Well, as I said, I know someone who managed it – young, female, pretty and very determined!
            I have wondered too about leaving the country again before the quarantine’s up! I suspect it’s a case of if nobody’s checking, you go under the radar.

            I am disgusted with Britain having exit permits.

          4. I only know that if you visit Russia, you get a visa for the area you want to go to, and you’re not allowed to stray outside it.

          5. I’ve been a few times, and like other places, they specify port of entry & exit. There were no travel restrictions when I was in Russia – Moscow, St Petersburg, Samara.

          6. A colleague goes fairly frequently, they had to apply for two separate areas I know, as they wanted to visit a particular place.

          7. ‘Evening, BB2, “It’s harder to enter and leave the UK …”

            Unless you arrive in a rubber dinghy.

      2. Have you seen the rules to enter the UK? Tests, quarantines… and exit is as difficult. You need an “approved” reason to leave.
        The website doesn’t mention that the business class queue bypass includes wee rubber boats at Dover…

    4. No surprise there. The state is desperate to meet the pointless ‘green’ targets. Forcing and refusing all commercial flights would do just that.

      Of course, the aviation industry, tourism and commercial traffic would be ruined, but big state is only interested in the targets – because it’s an incompetent, stupid, self centered pack of gormless fools with their heads up their fundament.

  73. Tory anger as Boris Johnson to extend ‘draconian’ coronavirus laws for six months

    Just checked where we I am on Disco’s GPS

    It says North Korea, NOT UK

  74. Wild weather…

    Watching someone’s house floating down a river in Oz and considering the floods frequently occurring across the planet, it does go part way to standing up the claims of global warming and educating the masses that we need radical reforms to save the mother earth.

    Five or six years ago, I was in the company of a Met Office scientist during a non related project when I asked a very simple question. “Can man interfere with the weather”? The answer. “Yes, but with catastrophic consequences”.

    Some weather events are indeed catastrophic at a time when the great reset is going on and therefore designed to get people to comply by giving up air travel and their Morris Minors and replacing them with push or electric bikes.

    1. I notice the up ticks, presumably agreeing, yet can recall saying exactly the same thing over on Breitbart at the time a few years ago.

      Most others completely poo pooed the claim, saying it was impossible for man to do that. But just in the way that forest fires break out every summer, these too are man made disasters. It was reported that following a wild fire in Australia that well over a hundred people had been arrested for arson.

      All the elite need to do is give somebody a box of matches and a financial reward and people will think the fire was an act of God.

    2. I notice the up ticks, presumably agreeing, yet can recall saying exactly the same thing over on Breitbart at the time a few years ago.

      Most others completely poo pooed the claim, saying it was impossible for man to do that. But just in the way that forest fires break out every summer, these too are man made disasters. It was reported that following a wild fire in Australia that well over a hundred people had been arrested for arson.

      All the elite need to do is give somebody a box of matches and a financial reward and people will think the fire was an act of God.

    3. Yet nobody, H1234, seems to take account of the amount of both carbon and CO2 released annually by volcanoes or, as the result of earthquakes.

  75. From DT letters comments:
    Angus Long
    21 Mar 2021 2:50PM
    I read that the forthcoming trial on the policeman charged with the death of George Floyed is descending into a vile media circus and TV bonanza.
    While the death of Floyd was regrettable, I do find the subsequent aftermath somewhat disturbing.
    I often wonder, if it was the reverse with the policeman black and the dead offender white the outcome and aftermath would have been the same?
    Would there have been riots, widespread condemnation, would there have been a circus trial, would the family of the dead person awarded many millions of dollars in compensation?
    If not. Why not?
    We are either equal or we are we aren’t.
    I have no view either way just an observation on what appears to be a degrading media frenzy.
    I also don’t expect this post to last very long. Seems any critique of the Floyd case is swiftly redacted. So much for freedom of speech and a fair and balanced trial reporting.

    E Hatfield
    21 Mar 2021 3:06PM
    @Angus Long The other day somebody posted about a retired black policeman who was murdered (by black criminals) and around whose name nobody seems to have rallied. It seems that Black criminals’ Lives Matter than those of the law-abiding ones. The comment and replies were swiftly deleted.

    Court TV coverage of the jaw-dropping jury selection process is worth a watch. The courthouse is heavily protected and the only acceptable verdict seems in advance to be a guilty one.

    1. Are you aware of the relationship of the cop and Floyd and the horror crimes Floyd had previously committed?

      1. Yes. The only real surprise in that grim story is that Floyd survived to be killed by a white thug in uniform instead of someone closer to his own demographic.
        … if he was even killed by Chauvin. There is a real contention that he died of an overdose which provoked heart failure.

        1. The cop and Floyd were also partners in crime…

          The cop was moonlighting and worked with Floyd as security at a counterfeit money factory. The reason Floyd was stopped was because he had a counterfeit note on his person so it looks like it was either a sting or a score to settle.

          2. If the counterfeiters knew he was sampling the product it might even have been a tip off, although drawing attention to their own activities would be a bit stupid…

          3. The worst thing about the whole event was the BBC news channel giving four or more hours of non stop coverage of Floyd’s funeral in an attempt to stoke up racial hatred.

            I doubt even Prince Phil will get that amount of coverage when he passes on!

          4. Unless he has a State Funeral, which he probably will, the whole thing won’t last four hours.

      2. I believe there was a story doing the rounds on blogs, no links I’m afraid, that Chauvin and Floyd had had previous run-ins when they were employed as bouncers together at a club.

    2. “Angus Long – The other day somebody posted about a retired black policeman who was murdered (by black criminals) and around whose name nobody seems to have rallied.”

      David Dorn in St Louis.

    1. These cats of yours seem very capable … Please don’t fret over them Bill, I think they are free spirits now and have found their feet!

      1. Fret ye not, Mags. They have transformed from little baby kitties into bold, fearless cats who love being outdoors (when it isn’t raining!)

      1. Norwegian Forest Cats are long haired and similar in appearance to Maine Coons. They are stupidly brave and will expect the traffic to stop for them. Two such (award winning pedigree cats) have been run over outside my house by boy racers.

        1. We had one (Mikko) but he died of old age 3 years ago.
          He would come and go as he pleased,sometimes for a week and just turn up again when he felt like it.
          You approached him on his terms or he’d have your bloody arm off!!

    5. If only you could train them to carry little chainsaws, they could prune the tree for you.

  77. Eighty-three dogs believed stolen have been seized in a police raid.

    The animals were found during an almost 10-hour search of West Meadows travellers’ site in Ipswich on Saturday.

    Officers, who found dogs of various breeds and ages, arrested six people at the site on suspicion of conspiracy to steal.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-56475355?fbclid=IwAR2icOwDOnAnXm5PeqXRUZRAj4MAgXgqI2Pq5qGyFSV6pBhQIKBgX0ITvAc

    Of course no guesses where they were found .. On a compound where protected people live who are beyond the law , and who have no respect for anyone or anything , and who … oh well , I have said enough!

    2. Someone should have ‘smelt a rat’ weeks/ months ago:

      Eighty-three dogs make a lot of noise, need confining, feeding, watering, exercising, poo-disposal etc. None of this is silent or invisible.

      1. ‘Evening lacoste, “…need confining, feeding, watering, exercising, poo-disposal etc.”

        Yes, they’ll be confined but not too much of the rest.

    4. I’m gobsmacked The Police actually took action against ‘travellers’? My friend tailed thieves who stole his metal gates to a local site but no action was taken despite video evidence on the grounds that the Police did not have enough resources to ensure the safety of its officers. My stepson was deliberately knocked into a ditch clearly by fun by ‘travellers’ along with his motorbike but, despite independent witnesses and a registration, the Police passed him from pillar to post until he gave up. I had my catalytic convertor stolen, resulting in a £1,000 loss, but the Police couldn’t be bothered to review the CCTV evidence I had even though the vehicle had no MOT, tax or insurance. I don’t blame individual Police, but I feel betrayed and abused.

      1. When the police don’t act, eventually the people will, and in a very much less civilised and dispassionate manner – with violence.

        1. That’s why our Police and Crime Commissioner made such a song and a dance about cracking down on vigilantism.

    5. I’m gobsmacked The Police actually took action against ‘travellers’? My friend tailed thieves who stole his metal gates to a local site but no action was taken despite video evidence on the grounds that the Police did not have enough resources to ensure the safety of its officers. My stepson was deliberately knocked into a ditch clearly by fun by ‘travellers’ along with his motorbike but, despite independent witnesses and a registration, the Police passed him from pillar to post until he gave up. I had my catalytic convertor stolen, resulting in a £1,000 loss, but the Police couldn’t be bothered to review the CCTV evidence I had even though the vehicle had no MOT, tax or insurance. I don’t blame individual Police, but I feel betrayed and abused.

  78. Masks and social distancing ‘could last years’

    Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at Public Health England, said basic measures could be in place until other countries successfully roll out jabs.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56475807

    Mary Ramsey & Co can p!$$ off.

    1. A very mild response, William.
      The comments I made, when
      reading your post, turned the air
      blue!!

      1. #MeToo, little g.

        BBC is a bluddy disaster and if the only way to kill it is to stop paying, then so be it.

  80. That’s me for the day. It turned out better than it started. Cleaned the raspberry bed and the strawberries while cats cavorted. I know I keep on about them (“No, no – give us more!” I hear you shout) but they do raise the spirits – at a time when they really DO need lifting.

    I am about to give the MR a glass of wine. She abstains during Lent – except for Sundays.

    To B&Q tomorrow – the tip of e-mailing the CEO may have worked. The items I require are supposed to be ready and waiting for us at the Fakenham branch. I shall not believe that until they are in the car!

    A demain

    1. Your cats raise our spirits, too, Bill. I love hearing about them and seeing their photographs, bless their little ginger hearts.

    2. There has been a cat in my life for nearly all of my 67 years,now I live in an animal free court
      Your stories and pictures of Gus and Pickles are balm to my heart,keep ’em coming

    3. Although I’m a dog person (haven’t had cats since I was a child due to the high attrition rate (lived opposite the churchyard and the road in between their hunting ground and our house was lethal), I still like to see their photos and hear of their antics.

      1. We have a cat age 21 called Paris. She ventures into the rear enclosed garden on warm days and luxuriates on a cushioned bench. Thankfully she is disinclined to venture to the front of the house where we have lost several cats to boy racers.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d95fc1d7a3254fbebc3796b7f3cc62e03834533cbb30152ec0bb2d5ba9c14440.jpg

        Here is Sinbad, still with us on medication: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6412c4e9816b821989032ef372f9dd0e1e50b8425228d0c905ddd3c9fe4a8e88.jpg

        2. Pleased to hear Sinbad’s doing OK, John. Sometimes, one hesitates to enquire.

      2. We have a cat age 21 called Paris. She ventures into the rear enclosed garden on warm days and luxuriates on a cushioned bench. Thankfully she is disinclined to venture to the front of the house where we have lost several cats to boy racers.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d95fc1d7a3254fbebc3796b7f3cc62e03834533cbb30152ec0bb2d5ba9c14440.jpg

        Here is Sinbad, still with us on medication: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6412c4e9816b821989032ef372f9dd0e1e50b8425228d0c905ddd3c9fe4a8e88.jpg

    4. Although I’m a dog person (haven’t had cats since I was a child due to the high attrition rate (lived opposite the churchyard and the road in between their hunting ground and our house was lethal), I still like to see their photos and hear of their antics.

    1. As I said on the ‘what can we do to promote diversity and inclusion’ in the work questionnaire – bin it. Stop talking about it, stop dividing people, stop labelling people. Throw the whole pile of utter tosh into the bin of Left wing intolerance, bigotry and spite and burn it.

    3. Woke panderers.
      I give them two more generations, no longer if they carry on down this path.

        1. I’m a lifelong monarchist (stability), but the only thing that could turn me to a republican would be a woke royal family working for globalists. If we’re going to have a corrupt elite getting their orders from Davos, they may as well be politicians!

    2. The extra powers are horrible, but so is this demonstration.
      Clever strategy really – tell the police not to police favoured demonstrations, then pass a bundle of new laws purporting to give them powers to police the demonstrations.

      1. “The extra powers are horrible, but so is this demonstration.”

        The same BLM mob as turned out in the summer to toss statues into the harbour and would happily do the same with the police and their vehicles. If ever there could be a justification for banning demos then, just as in London last weekend, these people would provide it.

        1. That’s what the globalists want though, isn’t it? We get so p’d off that we support draconian measures, thus delivering ourselves into bondage.

  83. The BBC can’t survive sneering at the people who pay its bills

    If you’re going to be supported by hoi polloi, you’d better be prepared to show them respect in return

    JULIE BURCHILL

    Another week, another reason to defund the BBC. If they’re not sacking women for that first fatal grey hair or making “sex education” films which tell nine-year-olds that there are over a hundred genders (while hopefully reminding future employees among them to identify as a man on pay day, due to that cheeky BBC pay gap) they’re breaking the cardinal rule that the reporter must never be the story.

    It’s no good Auntie (or rather, Dirty Uncle) Beeb scolding the likes of Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt after the damage is done – this brace of babbling buffoons has been steeped in such a stew of self-righteous superiority that sneering at a politician for having the Union flag and a portrait of the Queen in his office must have seemed all in a day’s work. That Robert Jenrick was discussing the progress of Britain’s vaccine programme in the light of the EU’s epic self-harm mission somehow made the snarking all the more repulsive.

    If you’re going to be supported by hoi polloi, you’d better be prepared to show them respect in return. Don’t believe that your cushy billet can forever be a cross between an echo chamber and a playpen where all you have to do is Be Yourself and Speak Your Truth in order for the taxpayer to shower you with stipends.

    That goes for politicians too. Remember when that liberal Lady Muck Emily Thornberry tweeted a picture of a working-class driveway displaying the England flag and a white van during a by-election in Kent, as though she had spotted a fascinating new species of sub-human? Well, we all know what happened next– White Van Man drove it straight into the Red Wall.

    The BBC is like a corrupt diplomat, seeking the protection of the national flag – it’s your patriotic duty to support the British Broadcasting Corporation, peasants – while at the same time defacing it. Munchetty and Stayt are just the tip of the idiotic iceberg who take the taxpayer’s coin under the guise of uniting the nation while slagging it off, as do the vast majority of alleged comedians on Radio 4. And they’re every bit as much a parasitical class as aristocrats; they’re the Mewling Class, whimpering all the way to the bank with our money. A state-sponsored rebel is a sad thing to be.

    The BBC’s new Director-General, Tim Davie, wants to steer this sinking ship of fools away from disaster – and its narky, narcissistic London bubble – with his stated desire to see more news and current affairs programmes presented from different locations. But Stayt and Munchetty were having their snigger in Salford; you can take the liberal elite out of London but you can’t take London out of the liberal elite. The news that we’ll be treated to two new regional soaps – one from the North of England and the other from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland – made my laughter even more hollow; probably fat people on motability scooters moaning about Polish builders while attractive young incomers put EU flags in their windows. What’s the point in moving a few miles up the M6 when you’re living on another planet?

    Nigel Lawson once cleverly said that the NHS is the closest thing this country has to a religion; the BBC is the closest we have to a feudal lord, demanding tithes from the serfs to fritter away as he wishes. But the peasants are revolting now, and it’s part of an ongoing political sea-change which started with the fall of the Red Wall; every time some over-paid know-all sneers at the flag, another Labour vote dies. Because the Red Wall was won not on the playing fields of Eton, where Boris was a boy – it was lost in the hallowed halls of the BBC and every other liberal establishment institution which understands “diversity” to be a rainbow of races and sexualities all parroting the same party line, and belittling those who think differently.

    Next time, don’t make the likes of Stayt and Munchetty apologise; make them watch footage of the brave and beautiful young protestors in Hong Kong, waving Union flags and singing God Save The Queen. [Steady on, JB, that’s a touchy subject.] Then, hopefully, their tiny minds will be forced to process the fact that for many people living under or threatened by dictatorship, the symbols they mock so readily represent a freedom of expression they themselves have so shamelessly squandered.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/21/bbc-cant-survive-sneering-people-pay-bills

    And just to make a point, here’s Margaret McGuinness making excuses for the EU with a flag behind her. No comment on that!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/62376153194fa7b71b6336e0e8b81bd11a77b5b02e1571e31177a4333ef0b642.jpg

    2. “Munchetty and Stayt are just the tip of the idiotic iceberg who take the taxpayer’s coin under the guise of uniting the nation while slagging it off, as do the vast majority of alleged comedians on Radio 4.”

      The license fee has f**ked its legitimacy; let them go – and defund the repulsive, unpatriotic BBC. It has reached the pits.

  84. Curses. I filled out our census form earlier and had my preferred gender as Klingon Jedi Eunoch but decided that my response would be used as evidence that a significant proportion of the country identified as a gender other than their sex, thus bolstering the Trans idiots. For the same reasons I also bailed out from putting my religion as Other: Banana Cult. Did anyone fall to temptation?

    1. What census? Haven’t heard anything about it yet or doesn’t it include Scotland?

          1. The amazing thing is, Spiky is that the elections can go ahead in May! Wot a suprize, eh?

          2. Yes Sue, I got my voting form yesterday. That’s because to the SNP nothing is more important than the chance of a majority government which can set up a further referendum.

        2. Amazing, considering the majority of people will probably complete the census online.

          2. Four and twenty Asians came down from Inverness,
            and when the count was over, there were four and twenty less.

          3. Four and twenty Asians came down from Inverness,
            and when the count was over, there were four and twenty less. More?.

    2. Tempting but I was honest. My boss at work tells me his son listed himself as a Jedi. I want to see proof of his lightsaber skills.

      3. Replying like that, of course boosts the percentage of the followers of the ROP in relation to other religions.

    3. Tempting though it is to manipulate the census, the Government uses the figure to set policy and you might be doing yourself more harm than good.

      As a silly example:
      100 people complete it.
      30 say Muslim, 10 say Christian, 10 say Jedi, 10 say Foad, 10 say Atheist, 10 say Hindu, 10 say Buddhist and 10 say Other.

      Just who do you think is going to get the most attention and taxpayers’ money?

    4. I put my sex as female but didnt put anything in gender but added a comment to say I didnt have a gender, only a sex.

  88. I was initially sceptical but, Oh, for heaven’s sake, will people please stop crowing about their refusing to have a Covid vaccine. You have nothing to be proud of. Make your own decision on whether to have the vaccine or not and forced vaccination is wrong, but all the evidence is that the risks of having the vaccine are far lower than not having it. There is no conspiracy; for once, scientists and politicians are making the correct balance of risk vs reward. Let someone else have your slot, but don’t try and persuade them with a one-sided diatribe that is as bad as the vaccine zealots’.

    1. Oh come on, Andy..

      99% of the pop don’t need it.

      I had C-19 and it was nothing. All gone in 4 days.

      1. I think people think if they get covid they will die. I would say at this time on balance the vaccine is more of a risk.

        1. Precisely. The vaccines on offer are mRNA and will affect and compromise a recipient’s innate immune system.

          This mass vaccination programme is instigated by those who are pure evil and will lead to many lost lives.

          Our politicians have betrayed our trust, surprise surprise, and now have entrapped us in perpetual lockdowns, obligatory vaccine passports, face masks, social distancing and a widespread sense of overwhelming fear.

          Hitler and Goebbels could not have managed the relegation of humans to snitching morons and automatons as easily as we have seen in 2020.

          God help us all.

    2. What is the evidence? There has been no long term testing, it is a rushed job – see the vaccine for H1N1 ‘flu 2008, narcolepsy being the main side effect ruining young people’s lives, lives that had scarcely begun; the covid so-called ‘vaccine’ is not a vaccine in the legal sense of the word. I could continue, but I won’t.

      Edit: typo

    3. What is the evidence? There has been no long term testing, it is a rushed job – see the vaccine for H1N1 ‘flu 2008, narcolepsy being the main side effect ruining young people’s lives, lives that had scarcely begun; the covid so-called ‘vaccine’ is not a vaccine in the legal sense of the word. I could continue, but I won’t.

      Edit: typo

      1. If the vaccine really was the snowflakes poison then even at my age I’d prefere a fighting chance. 3 out of five bulls @ 500 yards last time I loosed from a Lee Enfield No. 4.

        I only need to get two of them before they get me and I’ve won by 2-1. More would be a nice bonus.

      2. If the vaccine really was the snowflakes poison then even at my age I’d prefere a fighting chance. 3 out of five bulls @ 500 yards last time I loosed from a Lee Enfield No. 4.

        I only need to get two of them before they get me and I’ve won by 2-1. More would be a nice bonus.

    4. What is the evidence? There has been no long term testing, it is a rushed job – see the vaccine for H1N1 ‘flu 2008, narcolepsy being the main side effect ruining young people’s lives, lives that had scarcely begun; the covid so-called ‘vaccine’ is not a vaccine in the legal sense of the word. I could continue, but I won’t.

      Edit: typo

    5. My concern about the vaccine is that it has not been tested over a long enough period, not that vaccines (or indeed this vaccine) are bad. That said, I decided to have it as my wife is in a vulnerable category. If it were just myself, I may well have decided not to accept it. It is up to each individual as to whether or not to take the vaccine. People should not be bullied into accepting it against their better judgement.

    6. Hello Dale…

      You had yours or still deliberating?

      It’s a bit like tossing a two headed coin and calling tails.

      I suppose if half have it and half don’t…the b@stards won’t get all of us.

    8. Who is crowing? The only crowing I see is that of the sheep who have submitted to rushed and untested vaccines. You have not researched the matter so best if you leave alone those who do not wish to have any of the vaccines.

      My own personal view is that the mass vaccinations are inappropriate. There are cheap and effective clinical treatments for those showing symptoms and these have been ignored and outlawed in favour of pushing expensive vaccines.

      Those believing that having a Covid jab will provide resistance to other Covid strains and wild virus and the many mutations of the earlier strains are living in cloud cuckoo land. Likewise those believing that having the jab will enable overseas travel are misguided; you will still be forever stuck in some lockdown or other.

      I now maintain social distancing from anyone who has taken the jab. You jabbers are likely to become an asymptomatic spreader and a danger to me, not the other way around.

      Actual experts in epidemiology and immunology have published data on this likelihood.

    9. I like to hear why people have had the jab and from those that will not have it. To call it crowing sounds like you are trying to stop people expressing their opinion.

    10. All I get from friends and neighbours is “I’ve had my first/second jab, have you had yours”. Why are these people so proud to have had and untested liquid pumped into their bodies?

      The crowing is on the other foot to your area.

  89. Anyway.. the report which recommended legal net zero to Theresa May’s administration, which means electric cars and all the rest, was bought by Soros and the wind industry.

    So it’s a sting, and it looks like Theresa May was in on it.

    Probably that explains her million dollar plus speeches since 2019.

  90. Evening, all. Never mind about the vaccine programme, there is warped thinking at the heart of everything the EU does.

    1. You just have to work out the logic, and it falls into place.
      But most of it would disgrace a kindergarten playground.

    2. 330613+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      Why look to brussels when you have the same treacherous warped political mindset on the home front, westminster.

    3. Evening, Conway.
      I was thinking this morning that we hadn’t seen you for a few days.
      Are you all right?

      1. Yes, thank you. I was here (if only intermittently because of an Internet problem) last night. Clearly I didn’t make much of an impact 🙂

          1. It goes slow of an evening. A shame for folk like me who remain alert and wake up after midnight but there you go. Most of the crap is written during the daytime so I am in a way glad to miss it.

        2. It was quite late….. many nottlers seem to turn in early! It must be the effects of the cocoa.

  91. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9386167/Hundreds-chanting-Kill-Bill-protest-Bristol-controversial-Police-Crime-bill.html?ito=push-notification&ci=104451&si=26738248

    Police suffer serious injuries as ‘disgusting mob of animals’ attacks officers, burns vehicles and trashes police station in Bristol when ‘Kill the Bill’ demo against more state powers descends into riot
    Violent protest is taking place in Bristol against the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
    A standoff at Bridewell Police Station saw protesters smash windows and set a police vehicle alight
    Bill will give police more power to impose conditions on non-violent protests, including for being ‘too noisy’
    Bill passed its second reading earlier this week, despite public opposition and votes against by Labour MPs
    Protests are currently banned under lockdown legislation, which prevents large gatherings from taking place

    1. This is the same police farce that stood by and watched a statue get thrown into the harbour in Bristol. Whilst I do not condone tonight’s violence I am not surprised by it.
      You cannot send mixed messages to the mob and expect a happy ending.

        2. Those agents will have their work cut out to garner any sympathy for our police in today’s climate, no matter what the issue is.
          IMHO Johnson and his cronies are in danger of being thought of less favourably and trustworthy than plod.
          It seems the kickback is underway throughout many countries now, what little trust has gone.

    2. Bristol is an odd place. There is a great history to the Second City but for the past forgotten or so years it has been a dumping ground for drug addicts and foreigners, starting with the Caribbean mob who occupied St Paul’s and rendered the area a sort of mini Brixton.

      They were succeeded by other migrants, Asians and Africans who have no equivalent social values to the Bristolian Methodists and Baptists.

      On the architectural front, my expertise, the only buildings built to a high standard in the C18 are those built by imported labour from Bath, carpenters and stonemasons in particular. Left to their own devices the local tradesmen would Jerry build. Perhaps the wealth of the Bristolian corporations and a preponderance of Masonic societies contributed to this aberration.

      The old road signs on approaching Bristol read ‘Welcome to the City and County of Bristol’ so they were always a cut above the rest of us. I write as an architect, architectural historian and a Bathonian.

      1. Bristol was severely damaged by the Luftwaffe and it was many years before the damage was cleared and rebuilt. In more recent times, the recent rebuilding of shopping centres etc has made the city centre a soulless place. I don’t very often go there now, but many of my family lived there in the 19th century.

        About 18 months ago, we were there for a hospital appointment and took a wrong turning. Three different young people all gave us help to find our way and could not have been more helpful.

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