Sunday 22 October: Hamas terrorists care nothing for the suffering they have inflicted on Gazans

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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438 thoughts on “Sunday 22 October: Hamas terrorists care nothing for the suffering they have inflicted on Gazans”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story
    Dough-boy Does Death
    Linda Daufenbach, 23, was visiting her in-laws, and while there went to a nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. Several people noticed her sitting in her car with the windows rolled up and with her eyes closed, with both hands behind the back of her head. One customer who had been at the store for a while became concerned and walked over to the car. He noticed that Linda’s eyes were now open, and she looked very strange.

    He asked her if she was okay, and Linda replied that she’d been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour.

    The man called the paramedics, who broke into the car because the doors were locked and Linda refused to remove her hands from her head. When they finally got in, they found that Linda had a wad of bread dough on the back of her head.

    A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat, making a loud noise that sounded like a gunshot, and the wad of dough hit her in the back of her head. When she reached back to find out what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains.

    She initially passed out, but quickly recovered and tried to hold her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid.

    And, yes, Linda is a blonde.

    1. Sorry to hear that, poppiesmum. I hope today is a bit more relaxing for you. (Good morning, btw.)

    2. Sounds horrendous, Mum. I cannot sleep at night but if and when, I DO doze and dream, I rarely remember them.

      1. I don’t usually remember mine either, sj, but I woke up to ‘save myself’ – I was a passenger in a car with no lights and darkness fell, we careered on and on for hours through the darkness everything out of control…… I suppose that is how we see our lives at the moment to a greater or lesser extent.

          1. No, just an ordinary car, I am relieved that Exploding Vehicle wasn’t added to the mix!

        3. My dreams are invariably surreal: neither “nice” nor scary. Wandering around town dressed in nothing more than a tee-shirt; running across country on top of a series of walls; falling from a great height slowly; or walking on air!

          1. I have a very good sense of direction. I never get lost. Even in an unfamiliar city.
            Which is why my recurring dreams seem strange.
            I am in a city and i am lost. As i try to work out where i am the streets get narrower and more mazelike. It is getting dark. Then i feel that someone is stalking me. Then i wake up. A bit unsettling.

            The other regular dream is that i am the worlds crappiest at parkour. Falling from a great height but never hitting the ground.
            Got around that one though by turning it into gliding.

          2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4916f5588007d3af31f35c6217fcbeeb0eb0457c9c90adfe26ebdd5cd395432c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0eec64bbfc41496714ee35791a5a71298636ecb77675d08ae4234fe398d40ee.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d60bfe884a0a1fc2a9eaafffbb353140a49d0516071767e092bce6b394c1d3b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed6087fa53c2bfbd4b2f61f75cbaa9540f590c5dab342c54ac7bc1282be3677a.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66dbf2696e81e59f529a4296187c80f230f75ff90e4171994fa0d90cfc3bf12b.jpg
            Apropos your venture into Yorkshire online delights, courtesy of Betty’s of Harrogate. I have a number of traditional Yorkshire recipes, which I’d gladly help you with. The Yorkshire curd tart, in particular, is a favourite (as you can see from the spilt dough on the book’s page!).

          4. Thank you for those. I’m not particularly good with cakes and tarts. Not my strongest area. I will leave it to the professionals.
            I did make ginger Parkin yesterday though. Easy really. Melt and mix.

          5. Rubbish. When I open my new fine-dining restaurant I’m recruiting you as head of the pastry section.

          9. No, it’s a Constablerism (John Constable, that is). His “Haywain” was nobbut a posh turd cart.

          10. The other night I dreamt I was eating a giant marshmallow – when I woke up the pillow had gone

        4. I hope you managed to shake that dream off. I am fighting against this by trying to do things to strengthen my situation. If you’ve actively done something, it helps you to stay afloat, iykwim.

          1. I do indeed, it helps to, for instance, food prep, just a little every week now. Frugal Recipes on youtube are a helpful reminder of items to gather (annoying narrator, I suspect AI). It gives one some semblance of control.

        5. Even though I retired from a job as cinema management I still have nightmares where I am trying to cope with the responsibilities. Last night I just couldn’t arrange to get any time or days off, and woke up in a cold sweat.

          1. It is only just recently that I have stopped having a similar dream, suddenly finding out that finals start tomorrow (how could I have not known this??) and I haven’t even begun to revise…. I have a stack of files to wade through that stand 4 ft high….. oh the panic! It is always variations on this theme, the dream is never identical. Then they just stopped probably about ten years ago after 40 years of torment.

  7. Hamas have already shown who they are. They must be defeated. Rishi Sunak. 22 October 2023.

    We support, absolutely, Israel’s right to defend itself against this murderous enemy. More than a right, it has a duty to its citizens to restore the country’s security and bring the hostages home. That is what I told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog when I met them this week – being clear this must be done in line with international humanitarian law and taking every possible step to avoid harming civilians.

    This as a hundred thousand of their supporters march through the Capital without a care in the world! If these people appreciated how ineffectual this cardboard cutout of a Prime Minister and his government were they would have just walked to Westminster and taken it over. There was literally nothing to stop them!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/21/hamas-have-already-shown-who-they-are-they-must-be-defeated/

    1. Pity the same principles don’t apply at home.
      Also, how unbelievably pompous.
      Git.

    2. Questions:

      Who in the Met decided that the black flag being waved in London by people supporting Palestine wasn’t the flag of jihad and why did they feel it necessary to do so?

      Is anyone else surprised that the Met has a “Slavic Police Association”?
      Surprised or not this ‘Association’ is at least questioning the woke nonsense re the black flag.

      Yesterday’s pictures and reports of the scummy mob in London being allowed to defile our once great capital city makes Sunak’s protestations as irrelevant as he and his government are.

      As for the scum both parading around London and sitting in the HoC, I’ve scraped better material off of the sole of my shoes.

      https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1715778288910508449

      1. I want to know how a tannoy was used to broadcast messages of support for Hamas on the tube in London? How on earth was that “permitted”?

        1. I rather doubt that permission came into it. If a train driver goes rogue and starts announcing unauthorised messages over the tannoy, there’s little to nothing that can immediately be done to stop it. If the particular train can be identified, its driver ought to be disciplined by London Underground management, although I wouldn’t bet much on it happening in any significant way.

  8. Morning, all Y’all.
    Still dark.
    SWMBO has just decided to repack everything for trip to UK, and cook breakfast, and we’re due to leave in 15 mins! How’s that for timing? Oh, and not having her bag out of the roof, despite not asked for, is naturally my fault.

  9. 377889+ up ticks

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 22 October: Hamas terrorists care nothing for the suffering they have inflicted on Gazans

    Does anyone else think that is a mighty rich
    observation / statement coming from an English
    point of view ?

    Talk of deflection in action, how about the sufferance these past years, ongoing, meted out to the decent indigenous peoples of the United Kingdom first & foremost via their MPs.

    we have seen a classic example of that displayed on Friday the 20th in the house of commons .

    One man stood against MASS LMF MP absentees, the peoples elected spokesmen.

    May one ask, what % on any vote casting opportunity are genuine free born British ?

          1. It’s getting that way up here. A lot of the roads up here were closed yesterday because of flooding 😘

          2. Same here re flooding. There were still a couple of flooded places when I drove to church this morning, but nothing, thankfully, impassable.

  11. Hamas terrorists care nothing for the suffering they have inflicted on Gazans

    Can’t help feeling that the whole evil enterprise was to kick of a global reaction like with George Floyd and the Israeli response has now become the police.

    1. Home Office ‘offers foreign rapist £1,250 of taxpayer money to LEAVE Britain’ a decade after he was convicted
      Joachim Cardos was offered cash as an incentive to board a plane to Gambia

      Illegal immigrant and rapist appealed deportation on human rights grounds

      Give him a parachute and drop him in the middle of the Sahara Desert having first castrated him.

      Surely a part of the punishment for anyone who has committed such a crime should be to remove his right to any appeal on ”human rights’ grounds: to violate the rights of a person whom you have raped should automatically exclude you from having any human rights yourself?

  13. It’s Cold War II, and the enemies of freedom are lining up to forge a new world order. 21 October 2023.

    The visual contrast was brutal. In Beijing, autocrats swaggered through those vast marble halls that dictators love to build. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were surrounded by sundry lesser despots – leaders from Egypt and Ethiopia, Myanmar and Mozambique, Turkmenistan and the Taliban – united chiefly by their enthusiasm for the coming overthrow of the Western order. Equally worrying, the presence of democratically-elected Viktor Orbán of Hungary – a disaffected Nato and EU member – shaking hands and smiling for the cameras.

    Unfortunately the enemies of Freedom conjuring up a New World Order are here in the West.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/21/its-cold-war-ii-and-the-enemies-of-freedom-are-lining-up/

  14. Good morning all.
    A bright sunny morning for a change with a rather chilly 1°C outside.

  16. 377889+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    Antisemitic Crimes Up by over 1,350 Per Cent in London Amid Israel War

    The opposition to Antisemitic Crimes Up by over 1,350 Per Cent in London Amid Israel War DOWN by 1.350 %.

  17. Good morning all,

    Sunny at McPhee Towers, wind in the Sou’-West, a cool 8℃ rising to 13℃ this afternoon.

    Rather than dwell on any of the miseries of our world this morning I thought I’d pick up on this letter;

    Identity crisis

    SIR – I am a Welshman born and bred, having lived in Denbigh for the first 20 years of my life. My grandmother was named Collins and not unreasonably claimed to be Irish.

    My daughter gave me a DNA test for my birthday in July. It transpires that I am 60 per cent Scottish and only 8 per cent Welsh – the rest being West Country and “European extraction”. Grandmother was Scottish!

    Maybe your readers can advise how I can accept this shock, and particularly how I should now respond to situations such as rugby and football matches when, for the last 88 years, I have supported the reds.

    My mind is in turmoil.

    Andrew Mortimer
    Watford, Hertfordshire

    Well, that is interesting to this 72% Scot, 25% Irishman, 3% Englishman who has a Welsh wife from Pembrokeshire who likes to think she has Viking and Flemish blood coursing through her veins. We live in N W Hampshire. Mind you, those percentages are based on family history, not on DNA. It may be entirely different. The Scottish bit contains ancestors who may well have migrated from Ireland in the first place as the original ‘Scots’ were, in fact, Irish raiders. Then the Irish bit may well be Scottish as one great grand-father came from Armagh, another from Fermanagh so may well have been from Ulster plantation people – who may well have been English. And we read that archaeologists and historians have revised the outcomes from the Anglo-Saxon migrations and now think there was much more inter-mingling and inter-marriage with the Romano-Celtic Britons than was previously thought so the modern English are a lot more Celtic and a bit less Anglo-Saxon than they think they are.

    I think I’ll buy my non-Welsh-speaking Welsh wife (despite her father and grand-parents having been Welsh-speakers) a DNA kit for Christmas.

    What a glorious Union we are.

    1. Two of my grandparents were Irish, one was Scottish and one was English. When I took a DNA test the result came back as English 65.5%, and Irish, Scottish and Welsh as 34.5%.

    2. Remember the Danish Vikings settled in Scotland and Ireland as well as founding Yorkshire.

      2. And West Wales which is why SWMBO thinks she has Viking blood. The place names tell you – Haverfordwest, Milford Haven, Tenby, Fishguard, Fiskigarðr – fish-catching enclosure. The offshore islands – Skomer, Skokholm, Grassholm, Ramsey. And the village of her birth – Solva.

    3. I haven’t had my DNA analysed and I probably never will but all the ancestors I have found in my research going back to the 1500s were English with a few later ones born in Wales.
      Not sure what happens to one’s DNA once they have you in a database so I will probably avoid it now.

      2. I share your suspicions – I do not want to contribute to a world database of DNA to be sold to any police force, virus researcher etc.

        1. I recall news reports of criminals being identified after police matched DNA samples against these databases.

          Your fears are justified.

          1. Yes, that is what I was thinking of too! Plus we know that virus research is focusing around targeting viruses at people with particular genes.

    4. And your choice now Andrew Mortimer, is not to live in Watford.
      Tune in to “Escape to the Country”.

      I’ve been thinking of DNA test, I’m afraid that my ancestors were possibly French. We already know my wife is Irish/Scots.
      Be jaysus, Jimmy.

    5. They only interesting thing about my heritage is an Italian great grandfather from Naples. As to my genetic mix, I’m not sufficiently interested to find out.

    6. If her mother had been a Welsh speaker, she probably would have spoken Welsh. My grandfather (Taid) was a Welsh-speaker but my grandma (Nain) was English. My father didn’t speak Welsh. As I frequently comment, I only speak road sign Welsh 🙂

  18. Good morning, all. Bright and calm here.

    Andrew Bridgen MP addressing his supporters after his attempt to prod Sunak’s so-called government and the other 600+ wastrels in the HoC into doing their job of representing the people.
    In the past there have been, The Short Parliament, The Long Parliament and the Rump: this elected shower should go down as, The White Feather Parliament, its cowardly actions deserve nothing better than the ignominy that that symbol represents.

    https://twitter.com/nbreavington/status/1715698869839786423

      2. It’s ironic that these politicians like to be known as members of a ‘progressive’ government. IMO they have chosen that word because they think that people will believe it has a positive connotation when in fact it can equally describe a negative movement e.g. ‘a progressive decline’: and that is what is happening, by design. This gradual move to decline probably started under Major, accelerated under the Blair/Brown regimes and has continued to gain momentum under the faux Tories. Under Sunak/Hunt we are close to its nadir with Smarmer waiting in the wings to deliver the coup de grâce.

    2. I’ve already sent my mp an email telling him that he’s lost my vote.
      I won’t be voting for any one in that awful den of iniquity again.

  19. Two letters regarding the latest Bye Election failure with a BTL Comment:-

    By-election blues
    SIR – Was ever a new government handed such an amazing opportunity to rebuild our autonomy as this Government at the last general election? The Conservatives squandered it. They were too busy with internal bickering, lacking the focus and commitment to tackle the issues they were elected to deal with.

    Conservative HQ is apparently surprised that its voters did not go to the polls in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth. I have voted at every election since I became eligible, and always Conservative, but I would not have done so had I been eligible in one of these constituencies.

    Jean Stephenson
    Solihull

    SIR – The results of the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-elections are appalling for the Conservatives – but not unexpected. As a lifelong Tory voter, I despair; after 13 years in office, the party has become lazy, complacent and unimaginative, and its perception of its own entitlement continues undiminished.

    Its failure to recognise reality is exemplified by Conservative HQ blaming the more than 20 per cent swing in those by-elections on a low turnout, and not on the fact that normally loyal voters have become totally disenchanted with Mr Sunak and his uninspiring Cabinet.

    Unless there is a radical change of course – by which I mean a return to true Conservative values of low taxation, less public spending and less state interference in individual choices – the Tories face a catastrophic and deserved defeat at the next election.

    Sandy Pratt
    Storrington, West Sussex

    R. Spowart
    9 MIN AGO
    Message Actions
    Do Jean Stephenson of Solihull and Sandy Pratt of Storrington, West Sussex not realise that we no longer have a “Conservative Party”?
    After his election as Party Leader, Blairite minded Social Democrat David Cameron filled Conservative Central Office with more of his ilk and then began the process of installing like minded candidates into the constituencies, often in the face of strong local opposition.
    As a result what we call The Conservative Party is now led by a New Labor Lite clique.
    It is too late for the true Tories to regain control of their party. They need to resign en-masse and create their own truly Conservative Party.

    REPLY
    1 REPLY 9 0

    1. “It is too late for the true Tories to regain control of their party. ”

      So the only hope for Conservatism is for the few true Conservative MPs in the party to resign from the party and join the Reform Party so that they can rebuild conservatism.

      However they will need a more inspirational leader than Richard Tice and they must be willing to confront the green agenda and get rid of Net Zero, leave the ECHR and sort out immigration and get a proper Brexit done.

      1. Those policies would certainly garner some support but I very much doubt anything like enough to create a parliamentary caucus of sufficient magnitude to put them into effect.

        1. So the real Conservative MPs in the party will be wiped out without even putting up any fight at all?

          If this is true they will not only lose their seats but they will deserve to do so.

      2. Morning all.

        “ they must be willing to confront the green agenda and get rid of Net Zero, leave the ECHR and sort out immigration and get a proper Brexit done”.

        And in the second week? 😂😂😂. Trouble is we all know none of that’s going to happen. It’s far too late. Andrew Bridgen is the only ex-Conservative MP willing to put his head above the parapet.

        Perhaps losing the coming GE will give true conservatives the chance to regroup.

          1. I know it, you know it, just about everyone knows it. But they’re just not doing it. Too many egos I suppose – usual story.

      3. I’m beginning to despair at Tice’s performance. The very worst Tory government imaginable with a Labour government in-waiting that is even worse but his party is unable to make a breakthrough. He knows the technical stuff well enough but he lacks the ability to inspire others i.e. he has no fire in his belly. You either have it or you don’t, it cannot be taught and learned.
        He should step down as leader and become director/advisor to someone who will inspire voter confidence. The question is: is he a big enough man to realise his shortcoming and make the change to try and help his Country?

        1. The sad truth of the matter is that if Nigel Farage becomes the leader of the Reform Party and if the few remaining conservative Conservative MPs join him then all the red wall seats will abandon both Labour and the Conservatives and give Reform a strong foothold.

          In my view, Farage is flawed – his surrender to Johnson in 2019 in not challenging seats held by sitting Conservative MPs led to the disastrous surrenders on fishing and Northern Ireland by Johnson and Gove.

          However there is probably no other politician in Britain who is capable of denting the inevitability of Labour coming to power. Like him or loathe him he has charisma – and nobody else in British politics has that.

          1. My sentiments exactly. But somehow I can’t see his doing that. He really wants to be inside the Establishment tent. See his appearance at the Conservative conference this year.

          2. I agree that Farage is flawed, who isn’t? However, he does have that innate ability to put across his arguments and get people on-side. He is the best political orator around at the moment.
            My concern is that he has become too comfortable in his new life and that this new life has banked the fire in his belly. Someone or something needs to reignite and refuel that fire. I’m surprised that the threat of a Smarmer led Labour wrecking crew hasn’t been sufficient reason for a come-back.

        2. The sad truth of the matter is that if Nigel Farage becomes the leader of the Reform Party and if the few remaining conservative Conservative MPs join him then all the red wall seats will abandon both Labour and the Conservatives and give Reform a strong foothold.

          In my view, Farage is flawed – his surrender to Johnson in 2019 in not challenging seats held by sitting Conservative MPs led to the disastrous surrenders on fishing and Northern Ireland by Johnson and Gove.

          However there is probably no other politician in Britain who is capable of denting the inevitability of Labour coming to power. Like him or loathe him he has charisma – and nobody else in British politics has that.

    2. We have a limp dim MP because the Tory candidate was utterly urban, knew nothing about farming (this is still, despite all the house-building, a largely rural area with lots of agriculture), a lawyer and tinted. He had no connection with the constituency (at least the limp dim lived here) other than some tenuous link of working in a hospital in Telford years ago. If they had set themselves up to fail they couldn’t have made a better job, particularly as some party apparatchik sent out a press release (hastily suppressed) that said he made a good candidate because he contributed large amounts of money to the Party!

  20. Good morning, all. Sunny. Chilly.

    In rugby, in order to score you must have possession. Giving possession to the other side seems an odd way of going about things.

    Just saying.

    1. The less boring side won but given how boring they both were, naturally it was a close run thing.

    2. Morning folks.

      I think England did the honourable thing by losing yesterday. It saved them from being eviscerated by the Kiwis next week. So we can all look forward to a stress fee weekend…..!

      1. Hopefully the kiwi’s will give the bully boy boks a damn good thrashing.
        As I think Argentina will give to England.

      2. Well, many of this England team hammered the Kiwis in the semi-final four years ago – then surrendered to the Springboks in the final.

    3. True. ‘Kick and chase’ when you have a 9 point lead is plain bonkers. They should have played ‘keep ball’ – although the Springboks were a bit ‘iffy’ under the high ball on a wet night. Still to lead for 78 minutes then lose by 1 point is gutting.

  21. Morning all 🙂😊
    I awoke too early and went back to sleep.
    Lovely sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky.
    Unlike the cloud of medieval minded hamas and its supporters threatened the further existence of many.

  22. As it is Sunday…

    A chap & the parish priest were playing golf.

    The chap swung, watched the ball miss the cup and said…Missed the b@st@rd!

    The priest was shocked you shouldn’t say that! God will be displeased!

    The chap gave him a look & played on and missed the cup again.
    and said Missed the b@st@rd!

    This happened several more times, continuing to shock the priest.
    Finally he said If you keep swearing like that God will send a bolt of
    lightning to strike you down!

    The chap gave him another look & played on, missing the cup
    again and said Missed the b@st@rd!

    Suddenly there was a loud crack and a bolt of lightning struck the
    priest leaving him as a pile of smoking ash.

    From the heavens came a voice of thunder and the voice said MISSED THE B@STARD !

  23. Labour are worse in almost every respect – yet still they triumph

    The government’s biggest failures – public debt, illegal migration, crime – would not improve under Starmer. It will be more of the same

    ROSS CLARK • 20 October 2023 • 9:20am

    It is beginning to feel like 1997 all over again – except that in one sense it is even worse than then for the Tories. Voters are switching directly from the Conservatives to Labour, without even having the decency to stop by with the Lib Dems on the way. In Tamworth, the Lib Dem share of the vote even fell, by 3.6 percent. In Mid Bedfordshire, the party did better, but remained in third place.

    At least when disaffected Tory voters go for the Lib Dems it can be explained as a protest vote, but when they go straight to Labour you think: they really do want Keir Starmer to run the country. It isn’t hard to see why voters should want to punish this wretched government, but one has to wonder: are they really sure they know what they are doing?

    The government’s biggest failures, the things which people tell pollsters most offends them about the current government – public debt, illegal migration, crime – are all areas in which Labour is traditionally weaker than the Tories. You think Sunak and Hunt have lost control of the public finances? Then are you sure you want to vote for the party of Gordon Brown, who left the country with a deficit pushing £160 billion, or of Denis Healey, who had to slope off to the IMF to beg for a bailout? Labour has unfailing allowed borrowing to run out of control – so don’t expect it to be any different with Rachael Reeves at the tiller. She can blather on all she likes about fiscal responsibility, but the moment she sets foot in Number 11 she will be besieged by unions, councils, quangocrats and pressure groups expecting a big payday.

    You are offended by the Tories’ inability to stop the boats? Then why vote for a party whose kneejerk response to anyone complaining about migration has long been to accuse them of being a racist? Remember how Tony Blair claimed only a few thousand migrants from Eastern Europe would come to work in Britain after the expansion of the EU – and then was caught out when half a million arrived. If Labour succeeds in stopping the boats, it will only be because the human rights lawyers who influence Labour (not least a certain Keir Starmer) will have relaxed the borders in other ways. You think the police are too fixated on woke issues and don’t care enough about burglary and shoplifting? You can’t seriously expect things to improve under Labour. Anti-colonialism will find it even easier to capture our institutions once Labour is choosing who runs them.

    In so many ways – from public spending to guilt trips by public institutions over colonialisation and slavery – Britain has taken a sharp turn to the left under the present government. The accusation by Polly Toynbee and others that Britain is run by a Polish-style populist administration is laughable †. Laziness, incompetence and a lack of will has allowed the Left’s takeover of so many public institutions and much of our social policy. We get tough talk – and feeble action.

    If these are the things that concern you as a former Conservative voter, go on, put the boot into the current crowd – they deserve it. But don’t expect Britain to somehow get more fiscally-responsible, less consumed by leftish nonsense under a Labour government. We will be voting for even more of the same.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/20/labour-are-worse-in-almost-every-respect/

    Two observations:
    (i) It won’t be like 1997 – Labour won’t have a healthy, working economy with which to indulge its socialist fantasies.
    (ii) Poland may well change after last week’s general election, in which the young voted for the end of their well-protected national identity. Here is Toynbee at her recognisable best: “Older people are the least educated, most right-wing and the most authoritarian in attitudes to crime, immigration and patriotism.”

    We’re the bad guys, hey, Polly?!

    † https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/poland-election-rightwing-populists-keir-starmer-labour

    1. How do they know disaffected Tories are voting for Labour? From the figures it would appear they are just not voting at all.

        1. At the election I will be voting for one of the new “conservative” parties. Trouble is, if they all stand in every constituency, they will just split the disaffected right-wing vote.

          1. Recent experience here suggests that only the Conservatives, Labour, Lib-Dems and Greens will stand. Another spoilt ballot paper is my likely response.

    2. The oldies had a decent eduation – unlike the brainwashed children going through school these days.

      1. It really is amazing how little they know. Do you remember Trivial Pursuit? One Christmas played that and one of the guests was a high powered young executive around 30 years old earning pot loads of money. But playing Trivial Pursuit she didn’t know the answer to a single question. She may have been good at her job but in terms of what existed out of it she knew nothing.

        Have noticed that too of the howler monkeys posturing as Hamas sympathizers, insisting that “Israeli occupied Gaza” be liberated from the genocidal oppressors. That the Israelis left the place in 2005. seems to have escaped their notice. And when has a population subject to genocide increased its population rather than become severely diminished? What is horrifying is that our politicians and leaders are bad enough now, what is it going to be like when these ignoramuses come to power?

        1. It’s probably even worse now that children are bombarded with inappropriate sexual ‘education’ and and gender nonsense.

          We used to visit a lot of local schools before OH had his heart troubles last year to talk to the children about hedgehogs and wildlife in general. Most of the children were very receptive, and always there was one child who would stand out from the rest by being more knowlegable and able to answer quite tricky questions. That’s rather come to a halt now that he has decided to retire from active work like that.

    3. You are offended by the Tories’ inability to stop the boats?

      No! Incandescent! The conservatives have a Parliamentary majority. Abolish laws that prevent the UK from refusing ‘refugees’. Sure it will totally upset recent immigrants from the minority communities. However if it doesn’t end soon the indigenous Brits will become the minority…..

      2. I’m more offended by the Tories’ unwillingness to stop the boats. They could if they really wanted to.

    4. You are offended by the Tories’ inability to stop the boats?

      No! Incandescent! The conservatives have a Parliamentary majority. Abolish laws that prevent the UK from refusing ‘refugees’. Sure it will totally upset recent immigrants from the minority communities. However if it doesn’t end soon the indigenous Brits will become the minority…..

    5. I’m not very much convinced that large numbers of Tory voters switched to Labour. The Labour votes were very similar to those of December 2019. If lots of Tories added to their number where did the Labour votes go?

    6. By “the least educated” I think la Toynbee means least likely to have gone to indoctrination school university. Most people who were educated pre-1970, say, had decent education even if they went to secondary moderns.

  24. Off shortly to go and collect the two beautiful felines we visited on Friday morning. We have food, litter, trays, food bowls etc all lined up to receive our new family members. Let’s hope they like it here!

    3. How long must you keep them indoors to establish in their minds that your home as their home, too?

      1. I think probably a few days – we will see. They are nothing like as nervous as Lily was when she arrived. Her first time out was after about 10 days, but was a bit of a disaster as she scuttled into the shed and wouldn’t come out again. As it was getting dark we just had to shut her in there. In the morning she shot into the kitchen so at least she knew that was home. She did settle down after that and never wandered far.

  25. The BBC’s deep-rooted prejudice is fuelling the poison of anti-Semitism. 22 October 2023.

    At times of significant crisis like this, our nation’s great institutions take on an increased importance. In the case of the BBC we expect it to provide us with accurate, unbiased reporting. But the BBC’s reporting of the Hamas terrorist attacks and subsequent conflict has been a failure of both journalistic credibility and public duty.

    Er! No! I can’t remember the last time I expected the BBC to produce the truth! In fact if I were even more cynical than usual I would suggest that the present foofaraw is only because Israel and the Jews are involved. They certainly didn’t get excited about the mass rape of English schoolgirls and those nasty bombings and stabbings couldn’t be airbrushed off the screen quickly enough. We don’t even want to go near Shut Downs, Covid and Inoculation.

    The BBC should have been shut down long ago. Only the cowardice of the Elites left it to thrive and fester.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/21/bbcs-deep-rooted-prejudice-fuelling-poison-of-anti-semitism/

    1. Never paid for the BBC when I watched TV. The threats simply went in the bin where they belonged. The BBC is propaganda for the left and does not represent the people of Britain.

    3. I wouldn’t call it cowardice. That suggests they lack the courage to do so. I believe the elites are fully supportive of the BBC and wish to see it thrive.

  26. Talking of nationality. I was arrested at the port of departure and fined 198 Euros last time I returned to the UK from France. Apparently I had overstayed by seven days the allotted time for non-EU passport holders. Luckily was of Irish decent, my father was born in Ireland. Unfortunately, he died three weeks before I was born and of course I never met him. My mother remarried and moved house and I never even saw a photo of him. I obtained his birth certificate and applied for an Irish passport. It was cheaper than an English one (which I also had to renew) and it was dealt with more promptly too. It also came with a plastic card equivalent for free. Now I just wave my card or EU passport and give the gendarmes a secret sign as I pass through customs. Thank you dad. I never met you but I never forget where I came from.

    1. Two of my grandparents were born in Ireland, so I qualify for Irish citizenship (and a passport) if I want it. However, I would have to provide copies of birth certificates and marriage certificates, some of the originals which may have been destroyed during the Irish Civil War when the Irish Public Record Office (PRO), part of the Four Courts in Dublin, was blown up. My brother (a Remainer) has talked about going through the process, so I’ll let him do the legwork.

  27. Sitting at t’airport waiting… 2 hours delay to departure 😵‍💫 hope we and baggage can make ourconnection, ‘cos if not, weeks plans are all to cock, and 06:10 flight in the morning. Argh!

  28. Weird! Good morning all. Just did a post and half of it vanished after I had posted it.
    Anyway, I wrote. Today is Sunday and it is a, regrettably, time of conflict in the world. In keeping with that here is a video pertaining to that and the day of the week.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqq3iWw6D4Q

    1. It’s unusual that it is both modern and beautiful. Unlike the carbuncles we get lumbered with.

      1. 20 New Churches are built every week in Russia and there are also a lot of new cathedrals this Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
        was rebuild after it was destroyed by Stalin.
        “The current church is the second to stand on this site. The authentic church, built during the 19th century, took more than 40 years to build, and was the scene of the 1882 world premiere of the 1812 Overture composed by Tchaikovsky. It was destroyed in 1931 on the order of the Soviet Politburo….the current cathedral was restored on the site between 1995 and 2000.
        It is an exact reproduction of the original and a testimony to the faith of the Orthodox that it was built in 5 years.

        By the way Pip. You aren’t a Christian. Is that correct? Just curious.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqlI7MvlD0

          1. Thank God for that, Pip! If you were a muslim, I’d worry about you with those kitchen knives 🙂

          2. Clues: Mr Pip has two beloved dogs living indoors, drinks alcohol & eats meat, is thoughtful, generous and has a sense of humour. That generally rules out all world religions except those of the Hatters and the Building Society enthusiasts*.

            * (Jesus saves!)

          1. I often wonder what can be done about the state of Christianity in this country and a possible revival. One thing I am convinced of is that it is not taught properly at all. Interpretations of it have been reduced to the crude mouthing’s of people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Who’s onslaught on Christianity consist of a caricature, a straw man that they then proceed to demolish. But the people who are pitted against such people are so shallow that they themselves hardly make it as Christens, in my opinion.

            The wisest person on the subject in the West, so far, is Jordan Peterson and that is because he is genuinely on the journey toward understanding. Most religious I find sanctimonious, self righteous, smug hypocrites operating, mostly, out of fear. For them Christianity is a lazy motorway with high walls like freeways in Los Angeles beyond which you can see nothing, these people feel safe on them and dare not get off. It sets their boundaries on which they are blind.

          4. I would not listen to a word Dawkins says. He was exposed by Piers Morgan as a moral coward when it came
            to Islam.

            Revere truth, goodness and beauty; live life for others, do no harm, do no injury and cause no loss and you are half way there, I’d say. Show the way by example.

            And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32.

    2. My wife told me about politics live this morning with the obnoxious Victoria Derbyshire being put in her left wing and nasty place by an Israeli government representative.
      What a horrible woman she is.
      And the guy rightly made the point that the UK is likely to have similar issues and probably attacks in and on our cities by pro Palestinian terrorist.

    3. I read a while back that parts of the Cathedral have a steel floor – the steel coming from the remains of Germany battle tanks lost during WWII.

      1. Yes, apparently a lot of things are made from German steel left in Russia from the war. ‘Swords into ploughshares’ and all that.

    4. I read a while back that parts of the Cathedral have a steel floor – the steel coming from the remains of Germany battle tanks lost during WWII.

  29. Harley Street doctor compares Israel to Nazis as she posts picture of swastika next to state flag

    Cosmetics procedures specialist reported to police over online comments following bombing of Gaza in response to Hamas massacre

    A Harley Street doctor has been reported to the police after comparing Israel to the Nazis following the Hamas terror attacks of Oct 7.

    Dr Maryam Osmani, 43, a former NHS doctor who runs a “luxury aesthetic clinic” offering cosmetic procedures including Botox and fillers, sparked outrage by posting a picture of the swastika alongside the Israeli flag on her official Instagram page earlier this week.

    The post appears to attempt to draw parallels between Israel and Adolf Hitler’s regime, which killed more than six million Jews during the Holocaust, by suggesting that both were “founded on supremacy”, “expelled millions from their homes” and “put racial groups in ghettos”. It also suggests that Israel is like the Nazis by claiming both use “dehumanising language for undesirables” and “enforce collective punishments”. Under the swastika, it reads: “Signature method: gas chambers” while under the Israeli flag it reads “Signature method: carpet bombing”.
    …

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/21/harley-street-doctor-israel-nazis-swastika

  30. Colleagues left ‘appalled’ by top doctor’s comments on Israeli response to Hamas attacks

    Dr Camilla Kingdon also failed to mention child hostages when writing about conflict and hospital strike in Gaza

    By Ruth Hallows and Patrick Sawer, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER • 21 October 2023 • 7:47pm

    A leading children’s doctor has sparked outrage by implying that Israel’s military response to the Hamas terrorist attacks has been “barbaric” while failing to highlight the plight of child hostages.

    Dr Camilla Kingdon, the president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), wrote to members on Friday about the conflict and the blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza earlier in the week.

    She wrote: “One act of barbarity cannot and must not justify a wider descent into barbarism and so the images of sheer panic and raw grief in the aftermath of the Gaza hospital blast are etched on many of our minds.”

    Her comments came after controversy about who was responsible for the explosion at the hospital on Tuesday night.

    Hamas claimed that up to 500 civilians had died in a strike by Israeli forces, while Israel blamed a rocket fired from Gaza that fell short of its intended target, a version of events that has since been supported by independent experts.

    Dr Kingdon’s comments have “appalled” some members of the college.

    One told the Telegraph: “I understand if the college wanted to advocate for the protection of innocent children caught up in the conflict, but how could they possibly release a statement that makes no mention of the babies and children being held hostage by Hamas? I’m appalled and really disappointed.”

    Hamas has confirmed that it has 200 hostages, 30 of which are estimated to be teenagers and young children.
    …

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/21/royal-college-president-dr-camila-kingdon-israel-hamas-war

  31. 377889+ up ticks,

    I did ask yesterday what percentage were of English stock,

    UNN
    @UnityNewsNet
    So GB News, Tories etc having a meltdown over the scenes witnessed in London yesterday.

    The reality is that the majority of people there will have arrived in the UK in the last 13 years under TORY RULE yet they still want people to keep voting for them!

    Hypocrisy off the charts.

    https://x.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1716021741414158774?s=20

  32. A Sunday morning philosophical question to which I have no answer, do any Nottlers?

    The past several years seem to have demonstrated a steady infiltration of left leaning ideology to many aspects of life and institutions – education, health services, broadcasting companies, media. The ability to counter this encroachment seems to have diminished, and in some cases is non existent. Attempts to counter this intrusion results in vilification and being branded a heretic. What and/or who is behind this change and how is it so all embracing, almost impossible to counter?

  33. 377889+ up ticks,

    No way could we do that in England, courtesy of the lab/lib/con coalition, member / voters, the bloody country would nose dive to the seabed.

    Israel-Gaza latest news: Move south or be treated as terrorist sympathisers, Israel warns civilians

  34. 377889+ up ticks,

    A Gerard Batten truth bullet,

    Now why might this be?

    Starmer is a member of the Trilateral Commission that works for centralised world govnt under the control of financial & technocratic elites.

    The Corbynite wing of Labour are out & out Marxist-Leninists, the political wolves in democratic sheeps’ clothing.

    Starmer has to manage these two things while still trying to fool the voters long enough to achieve power.

    https://gettr.com/post/p2sbh9tb77b

    The only ‘vision’ he can sell to the voters is based on lies, & no wonder its not convincing. But the treacherous Tories have done his job for him. Now he only has not to lose & snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

    1. People are so actually, forget that, even behind a spoiler it was too strong for NOTTL they will vote for him and then wonder why they’re going to hell in a handcart.

    2. Trained to moisturise with saliva, the vital parts of certain bodies to attract their votes.

    3. If anyone – anyone – believes Starmer has any concept of a vision for personal wealth, private property, business growing and libertarian values at all I’ve a bridge to sell you.

      He’s the same as Sunak.

      1. They only thing Starmer is offering is the same menu with a glossy prospectus of self-proclaimed superior chefs.

  35. Finally boarding. Sitting so far back in the plane that they called a taxi for me to get to the seat from the entry door…

        1. Here Bell End Farm. https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=35fbe41cfe4d0d27JmltdHM9MTY5NzkzMjgwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZmQ0Y2MxNi01OTEwLTZiOTYtMzZiZS1kZmJmNTgyODZhNWUmaW5zaWQ9NTIyMg&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1fd4cc16-5910-6b96-36be-dfbf58286a5e&psq=hpb+bell+end+farm&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaHBiLmNvLnVrL3Byb3BlcnR5LXBvcnRmb2xpby9iZWxsLWVuZC1mYXJtL2RldGFpbHM&ntb=1

          3. Grizz.
            Look Up William Bradley hopefully this link will work for you.
            https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=14d5944daeafae35JmltdHM9MTY5NzkzMjgwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZmQ0Y2MxNi01OTEwLTZiOTYtMzZiZS1kZmJmNTgyODZhNWUmaW5zaWQ9NTE5NA&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1fd4cc16-5910-6b96-36be-dfbf58286a5e&psq=william+bradley+southend+pier&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWNoby1uZXdzLmNvLnVrL25ld3MvMjAzMDA1MzAuc291dGhlbmQtaGVyby1iZWNhbWUtb25lLWNpdHlzLXJpY2hlc3QtbWVuLw&ntb=1
            Hero William Bradley is a relative of My good old mate Bruce in Victoria Oz. Bruce’s four times great grand father’s brother, there is a resemblance and a beard.

          5. Bruce didn’t know too much about it until I saw a mention of heroism on Flog it from Southend. Sent his some info and he’s done a lot of research since.
            I can hardly believe its now Eight years since we went across to the old country to see them.

      3. Mother-in-law, so Barnstaple. Via Frankfurt.
        Just boarded with the door slamming just behind us.
        Time for a beer on the way.

    3. Got yr messages Paul, had difficulty replying to the number, not sure why. Resent thro Skype, so hope you got my acknowledgement. Hope the rest of the trip goes a little better. KP

    1. If the WHO treaty has been scuppered that’s great news. Do we have Russia and her new third world besties to thank?

      1. There’s another “WHO Pandemic Treaty” waiting in the wings for idiot governments to sign up to which is just as draconian in its scope!

    1. The marvellous Hawker Hurricane was indeed the splendid workhorse that won the Battle of Britain.

      In looks, though, comparing it to the Supermarine Spitfire was like comparing an Austin Allegro to an Aston Martin DB5.

      1. Sometime back in the 70s or 80s, when I lived in Bromley, I went to an air show at Biggin Hill and I know very little about these things but remember thinking that on the ground, the B17 Flying Fortress looked much more impressive than the Spitfire. Of course in the air the B17 looked clumsy, while the Spitfire was doing aerobatics.

          1. B17 FF engines are Pratt and Witney Twin Wasps radial piston with their own distinctive throb. These were produced in hundreds of thousands and also powered Liberators and the Catalina flying boat.

            A single B17B occasionally flies over our Ridgewell airfield where they were based during WWII.

        3. I have some photos from the restoration hangar at Biggin, but unfortunately (for those who might be interested in such things) they refuse to upload. I was at Biggin Hill in 1971 when it was still an RAF station. I failed my medical there (it’s my only claim to fame)!

      3. There were more Hurricanes than Spitfires because they were easier to build. They were a stable gun platform, could take a lot of punishment and shot down a lot of bombers. They were, however, no match for the German fighters. Tom Neil (who flew both) lamented the lack of performance of the Hurricane.

        1. The Hurricane could absorb more punishment and was easier to repair as it had a tubular framework fuselage which was covered with fabric – a hole was soon patched with fabric and doped over. The Spitfire had a monocoque construction with an aluminium skin which meant cutting out the damage then riveting an insert to a backing plate. The Hurricane also came into service well before the Spit, once the fuel starvation when inverted was sorted the later Spitfires outperformed the German fighters in the turn.

          1. Ah, Miss Shilling’s orifice 🙂 Spitfires did have canvas on the ailerons and tail (only in the early marks, though, I think). Whatever her shortcomings in terms of ease of construction and repair, she is a delightful aircraft to fly.

          2. Yes they soon replaced the fabric with aluminium, apparently it increased the roll rate – the fabric covered ones flexed

    2. I was puzzled by the statement that Camm designed the undercarriage to fold outward. I always understood that the Hurry’s ease of taxying and capability of handling rougher ground was because the wheels folded inwards towards the fuselage.

      Compare the width of the Hurricane’s undercart here:

      https://www.worldwarphotos.info/wp-content/gallery/uk/raf/hurricane/British_Pilot_Framed_in_Undercarriage_of_Hurricane_Fighter_1940.jpg

      The Spit’s wheels fold outwards away from the fuselage, making it a bit twitchy on the ground.

      You can see that here:

      https://c8.alamy.com/comp/AJRXE6/ww2-raf-spitfire-2seater-AJRXE6.jpg

  38. Hard-Right rock star steals the stage from his rivals in Argentina

    With his country in crisis, even convinced Peronists are considering voting for Javier Milei as president

    ‘I think Milei is not the best there can be, but he’s the first step to a better Argentina’

    Footage of explosions and a soundtrack of rock classics washed over a crowd waving fake chainsaws and dollar bills, as Argentina’s election front-runner Javier Milei took to the stage.

    “I am the king, I am the lion,” the hard-Right libertarian candidate shouted as he emerged from the cheering throng of supporters, many of whom were dressed as lions.

    “The caste is afraid,” he added, referring to the political elite he has pledged to sweep out of government.

    Mr Milei is expected to win the first round of voting in Argentina’s election today, in what is considered the most important vote since the return of democracy in 1983.

    Such is the extent of the anger at the state of this crisis-stricken nation, that even long-term leftist voters are considering backing Mr Milei.

    “I’m Left wing but I might vote extreme Right,” said Juan, a 32-yearold actor from Cordoba, who has long supported the Peronism movement, named after Argentine ruler Juan Perón, which has dominated the country’s politics since the 1940s.

    Mr Milei has stoked a series of controversies during his campaign in Argentina, saying that humans did not cause climate change, and abortion rights should be revoked and has even taken aim at the Pope.

    “Dinners with my family have become shouting matches,” said Juan. “Argentina has always been polarised – we call it the crack. But before there were two parties, and now there are three, and it is even worse.”

    But Argentina’s runaway economic crisis – inflation has risen to 138 per cent – has left voters agonising over which box to tick.

    Despite being “afraid” of what may happen if Milei comes to power, and opposing many of his positions, now even Left-wing voters like Juan say they are considering backing him.

    Mr Milei is facing Sergio Massa, the leftist Peronist candidate and current finance minister blamed for much of the country’s crisis, and Patricia Bullrich, the centre-Right candidate and former security minister who until a few months ago was the favourite.

    “We can stick with Massa, the ‘continuation’ candidate of this current crisis, or vote for the extreme-Right libertarian,” said Lucía, a 42-year-old teacher. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

    Mr Milei, a 52-year-old former Rolling Stones cover band singer, turned economist, turned TV pundit, and now turned politician, has campaigned heavily on being the “anti-establishment” candidate.

    With four in ten Argentinians now living in poverty, Mr Milei’s campaign has focused on lambasting the political caste for what he says is years of economic mismanagement.

    He plans to scrap the peso and the central bank, introduce the US dollar as the country’s currency, and cut government expenses and ministries.

    His voters are willing to gamble that it just might work.

    “My family always told me that Argentina is going to decline and that I need to escape. Milei says I don’t have to, that another option exists,” said Felipe, a 20-year-old at the rally. “I think Milei is not the best there can be, but he’s the first step to a better Argentina. With great change comes great sacrifices.”

    Final polls suggest his strategy is working. A poll by Opina Argentina last week placed Mr Milei with 34-35 per cent, followed by Mr Massa at 29-30 per cent, and then Mrs Bullrich at 24-25 per cent. To win today’s vote outright, a candidate needs to secure either 45 per cent of the vote or over 40 per cent with a lead of more than 10 points over their closest rival.

    But experts are also unsure about how some of Mr Milei’s contentious statements and proposals will land.

    He has lambasted fellow Argentine Pope Francis, calling him a “filthy leftist”, and divided the predominantly Catholic country.

    Then there is Mr Milei’s antiabortion stance, a topic which led to countrywide protests just four years ago. At a pro-abortion march in late September, protesters carried signs reading “Milei out, Milei is not my president”.

    “He goes against us, against women, he wants to revoke our laws,” 29-yearold Lucía told The Sunday Telegraph.

    For the 15,000 people who gathered in Buenos Aires, Mr Milei’s frontman past was on full display.

    As he swaggered across the stage like Mick Jagger, thousands of supporters belted out Argentine rock music and the undeniably catchy song written for his campaign.

    They were already celebrating, but today’s vote will be the ultimate test for Mr Milei.

    “Hard-Right”? “Extreme-Right”? “Far-Right”? What planet are you on? The Right-wing does not progress beyond moderate. Any far-, extreme- or hard- factions are invariably on the Left.

    1. It’s odd how the state labels Right wing. It seems to be anyone who wants a small state, efficient services, a functioning economy and low taxes.

    2. Yep. Interesting Times on my doorstep. (I think I shall give the centre of town a miss today!)

    3. He’s suggested that he’s going to try to get the Falklands, so as far as I’m concerned Argentina can stay broke and, well, broken. The last thing we need is a resurgent and unfriendly country in South America.

  39. Jessie and Ziggy are here. They are having a good look round but seem quite relaxed and both have let me stroke them. When Lily arrived, she shot behind the hifi and then spent the next three days behind the wood burner, only coming out (when we weren’t looking ) for food. So I think they will settle in ok.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/646ae0cba1522b89e5098d6704b672cea06f05d184eb58cc4f500871ab9a9cd0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6668397a5682b934c0a9f28338389a435cd12dc347d6444df471ea5f2017b127.jpg

    4. Brilliant. I am sure they will settle very quickly. And they have each other. Two is so much better than a singleton.

      1. We had Pat and Joe (boys) from kittens and then Suzie and Sam (girl and boy) – all lived into their late teens. So I hope these two, aged eight and ten, will be with us for a long time. Lily was quite elderly when we took her in, and she was with us for four years. The house was very empty without her.

        1. I imagine it will be a day or two before you let them out.

          Cats in gardens = deep joy. I was gathering kindling in one of the wooded parts just now when Pickles materialised from nowhere, tore across the lawn to join me, was very interested in the box and “helped” with the twigs. Then rushed off again only to do a repeat! Gus, meanwhile, sleeps. The MR disposed of the large rat he had killed…..

          1. We’re hoping these two are past the main predatory ages. Especially when it comes to birds. They usually stop killing things when they reach 10 or so.

          2. I know what you mean. G & P have rather gone off birds (I am glad to say) but kill several rats a week. Like most rural areas, we are overrun with them.

          4. Our old Sam was a good ratter. But I was upset one day when they caught a frog. Blood all over the kitchen floor. I picked it up and put it on a plastic meat tray. However, it was not dead….. it revived and was put on the side of the pond – then it jumped in!

          5. I fired up an old laptop today and found some photos and a video of my previous old dog in the garden.

      2. Yes I’ve always obtained two but in all cases one has gone missing/run over but at least when settling in they have each other

    6. They are beautiful. Cats take a while to find their feet in new territory as they find the hiding places. Dogs, being a bit more people oriented tend to not worry so much.

      Claudius spent most of her first day perched on my shoulder.

      1. Jessie’s been on my lap most of the morning and Ziggy hasn’t had much of a look in today.

  40. The England Tonga rugby league contest is on.
    Much, much more entertaining than yesterday’s RU bore-fest.

    2. That’s exactly the same as I just said to Erin, who’s just sat down with a cuppa after some gardening.

  42. Just realised – there will be the thrilling rugby world cup match for third place….(yawns…)

    1. I really don’t know why tournaments bother to have a third-place play-off – neither team has any real incentive after the disappointment of losing in the semi-final. Much better to award a ‘third-place’ medal to each – or not at all.

          5. As above, I’ll watch it because it will give a guide to how England may have measured up against the ABs who didn’t even bother to put Scott Barrett back on the paddock when his yellow card expired, thus deliberately finishing the game with 14 men, such was their superiority.

      2. The match will generate financial benefits for the hosts with little extra effort for the organisers.

        1. Not my game – I never played it. Mine was a football, not rugby, grammar school. I do watch rugby however, even though at times it’s impossible to know why a penalty has been awarded.

        2. I know, how about we have hookers who, you know, hook for the ball once it’s touched the ground having been put in STRAIGHT by the scrum-half, as we used to do In my playing days. It may require the other front five forwards to be de-powered (ie not be 20 stone behemoths) which would be no bad thing.

      4. Particularly as they have already played each other.
        If Argentina win will they then play a decider?
        /sarc

        1. On reflection, I’ll watch it because it will give a guide to how England may have measured up against the ABs who didn’t even bother to put Scott Barrett back on the paddock when his yellow card expired, thus deliberately finishing the game with 14 men, such was their superiority.

          1. I just hope that the final won’t be yet more of the kick and chase.

            From the England perspective, although I doubt he will do so, in Borthwick’s shoes I would be playing all the younger players in their preferred positions, to see how ready they are to take over from the old lags. It really isn’t a must win game, but the pressure of pride is still there. Put the middle rank on the bench and politely but firmly tell the old guard, those that will be past their sell by date at the next world cup that their time is up, even if it means results in the short term might not be as good.
            The only exceptions would be those whose physical support and mentoring skills would enhance player confidence when “under the cosh”.

      5. Tend to agree. When you’ve missed guaranteed silver and a chance of gold by one point who gives a **** about bronze.

  43. 377889+up ticks,

    You can hear the black comedy laughter echoing through barnet after witnessing ex vets under viaducts, I do believe that the political reason would be “but all the 5* hotels were full up”
    So he brought the property with over £100000 reduction, after entering the country on a “borrowed passport”,my sides are aching with hysterical laughter i cannot continue.

    https://youtu.be/hSaCN8o4-sw?si=RILwbZzTNkv_lzBD

      2. I think it is really invigorating the way that diversity extends its net. Let us hope that this gallant freedom fighter stands for Parliament. I hope, incidentally, that none of his extended family is taken hostage. That would be a hate crime.

    2. The lot of them are parasites. Cut off welfare to gimmigrants and they’d all leave. Get on with it.

      1. When I was staying overnight in London in July. We sat on public benches near St Barts hospital. There is a large parking bay
        Close to the bench. The SUV in front of us had a blue disabled badge on the dash. We witnessed five people in recognisable ethnic costume get into the vehicle. Not one of them displaying any disabilities. The blue badge in London is probably much easier to get hold of if you know the right people.

          1. As far as I know no doctor has to sign the form, but it’s those in the town hall who make the decision and they are probably all slammers.

          2. I was thinking back to 1987 when my late father badly needed a disabled pass – the GP – who knew him – refused to sign.. He was a bastard then, and I hope he died in pain.

            As you say, slammers will always help their “brothers” (spit!)

          3. When I got mine (severe degeneration in my lower vertebrae) I didn’t need a doctor’s signature (I’d probably have got one straight away if I had). It went to County and they turned me down! I re-applied and they sent me for assessment. The physio took one look at my walk and I had the badge in about 75 minutes!

          4. I sent in my request in via my doctors surgery about 12 weeks ago. Haven’t heard a single thing.

          8. Pressactly.
            I expect the illegal goings on are horrendous.
            I haven’t been to Luton Town for many years. But even that long ago there was such a lot of illegal parking. And more green Grocers shops than you could poke a stick at. Something did add up. One of the first things the slammers did was to shut down the casino. It was called mecca.

    3. The problem being, that since that little turd as been wearing the crown of London, Barnet Hertfordshire is much larger than it use to be.
      ‘Barnet’ Town Hall use to be in Hendon NW4 Town Hall.
      He must have been aware of all this sack the little shiite.

      1. 377889+ up ticks,

        Evening S,

        I believe he was reluctant to leave his 5* hotel and the powers to be, with the
        party supporters backing, had to resort to appeasement.

        1. Imagine if people graffitied his property with “Jew killer” “terror arranger”, “suicide bomber organiser”

          They would be hunted down and imprisoned.

          Yet his supporters are being given fairly free rein in the UK to do such to Jews and Jewish centres, schools, synagogues and the like.

          1. 377889 + up ticks,

            Sad to say this has been building via the polling stations for the last four decades, and seemingly the L/L/C coalition majority voting wretches are
            seeking more of the same.

  44. Par four today

    Wordle 855 4/6

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

      1. Surprise three for me too.

        Wordle 855 3/6

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

    2. I managed a par but not a good day.

      Wordle 855 4/6

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

  45. Daily tea and coffee drinkers stay stronger in old age, study suggests. 22 October 2023.

    Researchers have said that drinking coffee and tea at midlife may be associated with a reduced likelihood of physical frailty in late life.

    Caffeine is the key and those who drank four cups of coffee a day fared best, though those who drank black and green tea also benefited.

    This explains my longevity of course. I’m always baffled as to who pays for this “Research” which seems to require nothing more than interviewing old duffers like myself. Some of it is quite bizarre. Having a dog for example adds years to your life though no one can tell you why. If someone collated all this stuff we would all live to be centenarians!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/22/caffeine-drinks-reduce-frailty-later-life/

    1. Cats, on the other hand, shorten your life – by taking your favourite chair… Every day.

    2. “Having a dog for example adds years to your life though no one can tell you why.”

      I’d say because they cheer you up, are very affectionate and you walk with them. Exercise, lower depression and joy.

  46. That’s me gone for today. Sunny and sort of mildish. Got stove going now, though.

    Have a jolly evening, At least there is no bad refereeing to watch. {:¬))

    A demain – one hopes. Well, I do.

    2. We really do have to shut the police down and start again. Defund them. Build Back Better.

    3. “Show me a more corrupt police force in the developed world.”

      Corrupt or merely cowardly? The rot is certainly at the top. The political establishment is terrified of the Islamic hordes. However, it’s depressing – and frightening – that an ordinary officer on the ground describes the St. George Cross as racist.

      1. If climate alarmists are to be believed, there will be a nice snowstorm that will fill in the pot hole for you.

  49. Evening, all. Sunny (cloudless blue sky!) but bitterly cold. I think Hamas does care about the suffering they cause. They want as much as possible.

    1. I think that was the purpose of their murder raids on 7th October. They knew it would provoke an Israeli response, the result of which would be bound to be civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip. Then the inevitable backlash against the Israelis for causing those casualties.

      Hamas doesn’t care how many Palestinians are killed. The greater the number, the greater the ‘outrage’.

      1. I don’t know why, but it wouldn’t play for me. I just kept getting the modern equivalent of the egg timer.

  51. I’ve had a busy and knackering day.
    Behind the house is a passage with a high wall up to part of the bit of hillside that calls its self “my garden”. The top of the wall is actually the bottom of a bank that has been ignored for too long, so today I began an(other) attempt at getting it sorted.
    Doing a bit at a time, I started towards the Bonsall end of the bank, a triangular bit of ground with my Aldi Special apple tree and a lot of raspberry canes, some of which are intermingled with the apple tree.
    My plan is to work towards the Bonsall end of the house, remove the raspberry canes, temporarily (I hope) replanting them elsewhere, together with getting rid of unwanted weeds such as bramble and bindweed.
    I then plan to lay textile matting to suppress the weeds and lay some turf over the top of the matting, gradually working my way towards the Cromford end of the house, replanting the raspberry canes probably next Autumn.

    2. Cardboard works as a barrier to suppress weeds. Not so much with brambles. The worms will thank you for it.

  52. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12659147/thousands-pro-palestine-protesters-march-europes-capitals-paris-berlin-brussels-israel-hamas.html

    Tens of thousands of protesters march for Palestine through capital cities including Paris, Brussels and Sarajevo as Israel-Hamas crisis deepens
    It comes after a similar massive 100,000-person protest in London on Saturday

    And just imagine if even 1% of these are potential shooters, stabbers, bombers, truck drivers, suicide bombers and the havoc they could cause across Europe.

    Don’t be stupid sosraboc, as few as 1%?
    Who do you think you’re kidding.

    2. It will not take much. Just one of these peaceful(?) demonstrations needs to get out of hand and end up with a bit of US style police brutality to set things going.

      Even islam loving Toronto police got their riot gear out yesterday, it’s getting closer.

    2. My one question will always be why are you here ? And subsequently the door is always open.

  54. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11a40000e9359335a7d3fd3db5c55cac95f9e3d91a327c8404df464faefc9fe9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/88926db39e286665f0a82697fb94ac4739d673b3167f45399bb33e340a50f3f3.jpg Progress at last.

    The manky old cow-shed windows have been ripped out of my workshop/studio today and replaced with a pair of modern, sealed, double-glazed units. Even though there is still work to be done in finishing off the surrounds and new sills, I can already feel just how warmer it is in there and how the noise from outside traffic is muted. I shall then install some roller blinds to shade the area from the low winter sun in its southern aspect.

    Once it is finished I shall then be able to work out where to efficiently replace all my machine and hand tools in the workshop, and then make the studio a bit more ergonomically interesting.

    3. It’s a shame you couldn’t have kept the original shape of the windows with modern “double/triple glazed filling” they added character to the room.

      1. We thought about it but the cost was prohibitive. We have similar shaped single-glazed windows in the kitchen and utility room and we had a carpenter make some secondary units (under protest) for them.

        1. Do you have a similarly idiotic ruling that windows have to be fitted by something that insures certain uk expectations, the Swedish equivalent of FENSA ?
          Around 12 years ago I changed a single glazed kitchen window for our son in their first home. I had the window made by a company I had used many times. And he had to take out an insurance indemnity because although in my past I had fitted more windows than the average holder of the FENSA certificate.
          It didn’t comply with the new regulations.

      1. It certainly will. The walls are 15″ thick and well-insulated. It has never gone below +7ºC in winter, even when it is –12ºC outside. Any heat generated by my heater in there remains there so I doubt I’ll ever see it drop below –16ºC at any time now.

    5. Good to see you have now got a lightweight aluminium stepladder, Grizzly. Comes in handy when you need to climb up on to the work surfaces to take interesting photos!

  56. Well, I must say The Grownups have certainly improved our prospects for a long and radiation free future.
    Utter twats.

    1. Look at what happened in Westminster yesterday.

      Jab damage is of no interest to anybody.

      1. It’s probably because none of them have had the covid jabs. Johnson effort was a fake. And they are trying not to give the game away.
        And might have been taking Bungs.

    1. We are witnessing the dying throes of the US Empire. This has been brought about because stolen elections have consequences.

      The promise of a Trump administration to end wars, promote peaceful resolutions to conflicts worldwide and revert to free trade between nations was abandoned by Obama/Biden neo-cons to a continuation of seeking conflicts all over the world under their worn out dictum “divide and rule”, which is precisely what they have sought to do.

      The Biden administration have not noticed that other nations have moved on, do not wish to have to turn to the US in every crisis and can happily prosper through cooperation and free trade. Thus India is on friendly terms with Russia and China, Russia with China and Saudis etc. and China in particular has sought successfully to rebuild the ‘silk route’ linking Asia to the west via modern infrastructure.

      Had the western nations any political sense they would have embarked on the continuation of the Chinese initiative and completed the route to join with Europe. But instead they have embarked on the ridiculous war in Ukraine, a lost cause from its initiation and which has effectively bankrupted both the US and European Union member states. Germany in particular has permanently lost its access to cheap energy from Russia and is now deindustrialising. Its mad green policies have put economic development back by decades.

      The UK has fared little better than the EU by also blindly following the deviant in the White House and adopting its corrupt practices which include mass immigration from corrupt Eastern European and sub Saharan Africa of fighting age men, many of whom have alien cultural forms and habits and at worst are Muslims of various hues.

      Somehow we must confront the tyranny we behold whether the Crimes of Covid and the medicos, the funding of black holes such as the Ukraine war and the attempts to rewrite our true history to promote alien cultures and beliefs and sideline Christianity and the perversion of societal norms and in particular children’s education from an early age.

    2. We are witnessing the dying throes of the US Empire. This has been brought about because stolen elections have consequences.

      The promise of a Trump administration to end wars, promote peaceful resolutions to conflicts worldwide and revert to free trade between nations was abandoned by Obama/Biden neo-cons to a continuation of seeking conflicts all over the world under their worn out dictum “divide and rule”, which is precisely what they have sought to do.

      The Biden administration have not noticed that other nations have moved on, do not wish to have to turn to the US in every crisis and can happily prosper through cooperation and free trade. Thus India is on friendly terms with Russia and China, Russia with China and Saudis etc. and China in particular has sought successfully to rebuild the ‘silk route’ linking Asia to the west via modern infrastructure.

      Had the western nations any political sense they would have embarked on the continuation of the Chinese initiative and completed the route to join with Europe. But instead they have embarked on the ridiculous war in Ukraine, a lost cause from its initiation and which has effectively bankrupted both the US and European Union member states. Germany in particular has permanently lost its access to cheap energy from Russia and is now deindustrialising. Its mad green policies have put economic development back by decades.

      The UK has fared little better than the EU by also blindly following the deviant in the White House and adopting its corrupt practices which include mass immigration from corrupt Eastern European and sub Saharan Africa of fighting age men, many of whom have alien cultural forms and habits and at worst are Muslims of various hues.

      Somehow we must confront the tyranny we behold whether the Crimes of Covid and the medicos, the funding of black holes such as the Ukraine war and the attempts to rewrite our true history to promote alien cultures and beliefs and sideline Christianity and the perversion of societal norms and in particular children’s education from an early age.

  62. Our girls seem to have settled in well today – both sat on our laps and had a cuddle. Ziggy enjoyed playing with the laser light toy. They followed us to the conservatory while we had our dinner, then back to the sitting room while we watched telly. I left them having a bit of supper and came to bed.

    1. It’s going well. It seems as if they already feel at home. I’m so pleased they are happy to be with you. You and your husband are kind to offer such a welcoming home to this middle-aged – in cat years – pair of felines. I wish you all – cats and humans – a happy future together.

      1. Thanks David. We’re too old for kittens now but it’s an empty home with no cat. Lily died in July and we miss her – these two also had an owner go into care.

        1. Not my business of course but if i had to give up Dolly and Harry I would be reassured that they had found a new happy home. Obviously if the previous owners have something like dementia i wouldn’t want to trouble them.

          1. Their original owner went into care. They were then placed twice with families with young children but the cats were not used to children so they were returned to a dog rescue. They then came to our local cat rescue and a very experienced carer. They had only been with her for 10 days when we went to see them on Friday. We don’t know who was the original owner.

  65. I am not sure whether fellow NOTTLRS have subscribed to Locals in particular the Vivafrei Barnes channel where the distinguished lawyer Robert Barnes contributes most days.

    I just now listened to his brief account of the history of the Muslim Brotherhood which was founded in the 1920’s and whose most famous members include Yasser Arafat the leader of a supposed Palestinian Liberation Army when Arafat was an Egyptian and there was no such a people’s or state as Palestine.

    He recounts the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and its promotion by the US CIA as a means to counter what they thought were potential threats to their interests. As ever with the CIA they consistently back evil organisations above intrinsically good ones.

    So with US funding after WWII the grand mosque in Munich was erected followed by others in German cities.

    When it came to Iran and the reinstatement of radical Muslim leadership over the secular governance of the Shah the CIA were supportive. The Obama regime sought to purchase Iranian influence by shoving billions of dollars in their direction just as Biden has done.

    On reflection I would say that almost all of the disorders of our present day emanate from decisions and preferences shown by successive US governments. The single exception is of course the administration of Donald Trump which recognised the
    historical facts and sought to disarm the enemies of the US and by extension the collective west.

    The powers that be in the collective west should hang their heads in shame for their ‘collective’ mistreatment of President Trump. For once in their pathetic existence the leaders of the west should back Trump and just hope that his next administration can arrest and reverse the decline. Failure to do so will result in further chaos and WWIII.

    3. True, but every fading power at the end of a long economic cycle has rushed into war to try and beat their upcoming competitors and hold onto power and the US is no exception. Plus, they have to camouflage the end of fiat currencies somehow, so that the masses don’t realise that the Great Muppet Reaping and the transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich that has been enabled over the last half century ever happened.

    1. #metoo. Perhaps you can repost on today’s page when it is set up in a few hours?

      There were some good names on the list.

      1. And a Rothschild too.
        The people who are saying that it’s all a manufactured conflict with the intention of starting WW3 and that we should not fall for it are not on the list as far as I could see – Neil Oliver, James Delingpole

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