Sunday 24 October: The Government’s green obsession is alienating the electorate

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

605 thoughts on “Sunday 24 October: The Government’s green obsession is alienating the electorate”

  1. Nadine Dorries commits to online safety reforms in memory of David Amess. 23 October 2021.

    Nadine Dorries said her former Conservative colleague’s killing, just over a week ago, may not have been prevented by an online abuse crackdown but “brought into sharp relief” the threats posed to MPs and others who are in the public eye.

    Morning everyone. Yes it has nothing whatsoever to do with Amess but let’s do it anyway. Those horrible people are all telling the truth about us. We’ll shut them up and everything will be OK! This of course is the counterpoint to Putin’s Russia; as it progressively shrugs off its Soviet past with all its horrors we sink inexorably into a totalitarian future that is even worse. There is no light in this darkness since truth will not simply avoid perception but will be erased from existence.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/23/nadine-dorries-commits-to-online-safety-reforms-in-memory-of-david-amess

    1. Excellent. Thank Heaven we have such perspicacious and logical law-makers. A man is stabbed to death so we will censor the internet to stop further assaults of that nature.

    1. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The road restrictions in Glasgow come into force this weekend, a week before the circus comes to town.
      On a lighter note, one of those attending will be Felix Tsishekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Brave man. He was democratically elected, sort of. Most of his predecessors came to power by coup and/or assassination. So there must be some likelihood of a coup in the Congo while he is on holiday in Glasgow, together with his heavily armed elite bodyguard, naturally.

        1. It used to be the King of Belgium’s private estate. That wasn’t democratic either. Strangely, we do not hear very much about the King of Belgium, and the Belgian government (from 1908) keeping a country enslaved up until about 1960.

    1. No you are not. You are a woman in a court which is enforcing laws – made by MPs – yes – even black ones.

    2. Oh dear: judgemental whitey doesn’t realise that throwing acid over a ‘love rival’ is a cultural norm in fragrant Ms. Webbe’s social circles.

    3. Is it part of a black woman’s inviolable cultural rights to be able to threaten love rivals with disfigurement by acid?

      1. I guarantee you that up and down the country, black women will be groaning as – yet again! a stupid loud-mouthed criminal is said to represent them.

  7. 340471+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 24 October: The Government’s green obsession is alienating the electorate

    So ?

    1. Of course, writing “of course” when you mean “off course” makes your posts as incomprehensible as I usually find them to be.

      1. 340471+ up ticks,
        Morning EB,
        I do put it down to you having a very selective
        nature compared say to me, I see many a slip twixt type & lip on here but hold my typing tongue, and smile.

  9. 340471+ up ticks,

    Climate policy should follow Tory principles
    The great risk remains that the green agenda becomes a mechanism for introducing socialist command-and-control policies

    Should read,

    Climate policy should follow Tory (ino) principles
    The great risk remains that the green agenda becomes a mechanism for introducing socialist command-and-control policies

    But it is successfully, and it will, successfully.

  10. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Mr Phil Coutie has the leading letter slot, and rightly so:

    SIR – The Government’s obsession with net zero – at the expense of our standard of living, our ability to properly heat our homes and our ability to travel freely – is sowing the seeds of the next serious split between the establishment and the people.

    No one voted to be colder and poorer, or to pay more for travel, but politicians are determined to inflict these things upon the electorate.

    This disconnect is what happened with Brexit, and our leaders haven’t learnt the lesson. When people start to notice the cost of net zero, there will be a heavy backlash.

    Phil Coutie
    Exeter, Devon

  11. The dark side of ‘insulating Britain’. 24 October 2021.

    The planet is heating up dangerously fast with devastating consequences for everyone that lives on it and if we don’t stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere we have no future as a species.

    It seems pretty certain that this is a Carbon Copy (snigger) of the aluminium con during WWII. Everyone was told to hand in their old aluminium pots and pans to be made into aero engines. It was of course useless for such a purpose and the disposal of the collected utensils posed a serious problem for the authorities. Insulation serves the same ends; it is to engage the population and their support in an endeavour useless in itself but that supports Government Policy. This time there is no Third Reich except in Westminster.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-dark-side-of-insulating-britain-

    1. The pots ‘n pans thing was a morale booster, same as park railings and the like. It was to demonstrate the need and urgency of the situation, and allow the citizenry to feel that they were part of it, “doing their bit”.
      If one has a well-insulated house, you use less energy to heat it. Thus, fewer bird-choppers windmills will be needed, and less land put over to solar farming. As well as it being cheaper to keep the place warm.

      1. Morning Oberst. The amount saved compared to all the worlds output and the new coal fired power stations opened every week in China and India is absolutely miniscule and will have no effect. Any home savings you might make will be destroyed by the vast increase in Energy Costs that are about to be applied by the Government!

      1. Flew past Etna once when it was in action, very impressive. Might have been same flight we flew past Mont Blanc and, because of the angle of the sun, it was like an enormous, sparkling mountain of crystal clear ice – an amazing sight.

      2. My father was in Sicily towards the end of WW2 he climbed to the top of Etna. I remember a souvenir piece of lava he brought home.

        1. My father watched the eruption of Vesuvius when he was a POW of the Italians. That was in 1944 and so far it hasn’t erupted again since. It never ceases to amaze me that there is still molten rock inside our planet and still hot enough after 4-5 billion years to erupt, seemingly at random.

    3. Well as we have seen not only is insulation ‘self igniting’ if you have the wrong type of it installed, it costs more than a life times mortgage to get rid of it and install new.

  12. I am almost praying for a cold snap of about 2-3 weeks and no wind as a high pressure system sits on us…it will surely see the overdue removal, sooner or later, of the eco-maniac currently inhabiting No 10:

    SIR – I wonder how many people have cancelled their membership of the Conservative Party as a result of its disastrous, short-sighted energy policy (Letters, October 14).

    Having worked in the energy sector for many years, I’m puzzled why this Government and previous ones, along with the energy industry itself, have failed to see the clear and present risk of demand exceeding supply if net-zero policies continue unchecked.

    I cancelled my long-standing membership of the party this year.

    Paul Shepley
    Market Drayton, Shropshire

    SIR – I agree with Allister Heath that there should be a referendum on net zero.

    The groupthink is wrong on this matter. Trust the instincts of the majority.

    Major Patrick Wallace (retd)
    Acharacle, Argyllshire

    SIR – Your report (October 19) details the Government’s plans for, among other things, decarbonising electricity generation. This includes nuclear power plants, offshore wind turbines and solar power.

    It is widely recognised that turbines at sea are a danger to shipping and kill birds. More solar panels could mean yet more good agricultural land being sacrificed. But Britain has 11,000 miles of coastline, along which the sea rises and falls up to 10 metres as the tide goes in and out. We have rivers whose flow towards the sea never stops. So why are we planning to rely on wind and sunshine – neither of which is constant – for our renewable electricity?

    Of all the countries in the world, surely we are in the best position to use water turbines in our rivers and along our shores. I would like to know why the Government continues to ignore this option.

    Meriel Thurstan
    Taunton, Somerset

    1. Edit:

      A leading BTL comment:

      Terence Courtnadge
      24 Oct 2021 1:23AM
      Our Prime Minister is determined to atone for Britain creating the Industrial Revolution that started all this global warming we have about us ; he is therefore making Britain’s ‘green agenda’ the most advanced – and the most expensive in the world, all for allegedly producing about 1% of greenhouse gases. He ought to be certified.

      Hear, hear!

      1. I do not agree that Johnson will atone for Britain creating the Industrial Revolution. Quite the opposite, in fact. The people of Britain will have to wear the green hair shirt of suffering a lack of energy for services and the consequent drop in the quality of life that will result. Johnson will be long gone to somewhere more agreeable to his taste. His stance is the very worst kind of virtue signalling.

      1. ‘Morning Elsie. I know, it’s a pretty short list for likely replacements, but my money is on Ms Trust.

    3. As we know Major retired. Nobody in the UK seems to like the results of referendums and the Brussels mafia have nothing but practiced disgust for such liberties

  13. Come along now, Michael Staples: when will you realise that banks are no longer there to serve their customers, only to screw them??

    SIR – As part of their no doubt ongoing service improvement, Lloyds Bank is closing my local branch and switching my accounts to a town 10 miles away.

    Given that we will still have a branch of Halifax, part of the Lloyds Banking Group, I asked if I could use it for paying in cheques and cash. The answer was no. Do banks really care so little about customers’ convenience?

    Michael Staples
    Seaford, East Sussex

    1. Do banks really care so little about customers’ convenience?

      They don’t give a damn! They’ve worked out that no matter what they do it will have almost no effect on their Bottom Line. So it’s Drop Dead Customer Clowns!

    2. Do banks really care so little about customers’ convenience?

      They don’t give a damn! They’ve worked out that no matter what they do it will have almost no effect on their Bottom Line. So it’s Drop Dead Customer Clowns!

    3. 340471+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Aren’t they busy buying up property, what would happen if you fell behind with the mortgage repayments ?
      does the wicked landlord department step in.

  14. 340471+ up ticks,
    It’s a feel good dogs life story,

    breitbart,
    Daring Rescue Mission by ‘A Team’ Saves Dogs Trapped by La Palma Volcanic Eruption,

    Anonymous Rescuers have saved three dogs that were trapped near the erupting Cumbre Vieja volcano located in the Canary Islands. Before the dogs were rescued by a group calling itself the “A Team,” the dogs were brought food and water by drone and an audacious plan to rescue them using drones was hatched by concerned citizens.

    Full story on breitbart.

    2. This story is being completely ignored by the mainstream media. I suppose they don’t want copycat (ha ha) missions to the area.
      Is this level of manipulation inevitable in a society with so much communication across large areas as ours?

  15. SIR – Before buying hedgehog food, it is important to check whether there are badgers in your area. If there are, there will be no hedgehogs to attract, as they will have been eaten.

    Karin Proudfoot
    Fawkham, Kent

    Quite right. This is the inconvenient truth that Packham and his ilk are either too ignorant or too afraid to acknowledge.

  17. Russians have had enough of government propaganda and don’t believe that they need to take precautions to avoid getting the delta variant and getting ill in three days:

    https://youtu.be/kOUbGdr_pLE

    Are they right?
    Did Vladimir really get a jab of SputnikV?
    Are they really behaving like children?
    Is this just another Russian government propaganda video?
    Was Bill Thomas right when he said there will be millions dead by Christmas – or is that just in Russia?

    2. It’s the same story they are peddling here for the Winter and DW is a notorious anti-Russian propaganda source. Note the low level of the Interviewees and the saccharine voice over!

      1. Why do I think I’m listening to a bunch of liars spewing anti-Russian propaganda? All because the Russians wont fall for the blunders the West has made with Covid and which, as events have proven, do not work.

  18. Good morning all.
    A dry and very red start to the morning 1st thing, but fading now. Scattered cloud and a 6°C in the yard.

  20. ‘World conflict and chaos’ could be the result of a summit failure. 24 October 2021.

    Global security and stability could break down, with migration crises and food shortages bringing conflict and chaos, if countries fail to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, the UN’s top climate official has warned ahead of the Cop26 climate summit.

    Is that all? I thought it might be serious! Neither Vlad, Xi or Modi are coming to this ridiculous Ceilidh; apart from the US, by far the most important players! The rest are all hangers on and subsidy vultures. We shouldn’t be there, let alone financing this scam!

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/24/world-conflict-and-chaos-could-be-the-result-of-a-summit-failure

    1. Morning, Bob3.

      Here in N Essex this morning we have a woke sky i.e. a bit of blue, some creamy white, a tad of light darkness and a little dark darkness. So diverse.😎

  22. I find I am becoming less tolerant of other
    people, yet I believe we have the right to
    free speech.

    I don’t believe climate change is destroying
    our planet … yet I do believe we are destroying
    our planet.
    Large areas of land and water
    are being decimated by greedy Corporations,
    destroying rain forests, filling our seas with
    rubbish and pollutants while they rub their
    grubby little hands as our Governments tax
    us, to further feather these Company profits,
    thereby increasing political donations.

    All the dots are there, some of us join them,
    others think we are deluded, stupid, racist or
    even worse … we didn’t and don’t believe
    President Trump was the worst President of all
    time.

    Some of us believe Islam, in all its forms to be
    an evil and repressive cult, others see it as an
    acceptable religion.

    What a mess!

    1. Morning G. I went to catch the 9 o’clock bus last Thursday, The usual crowd were there. About ten of them. Nearly all pensioners and moderately well off. I’ve come to look on them as my own personal focus group so occasionally I try to provoke them with a straightforward statement or chip in and offer a counter narrative to that of someone else. These don’t have to be true or reflect my own personal views. I’m more interested in their responses than my own opinions. This particular time Covid came up and they were all bewailing the state of things. I just simply said that I don’t believe a word of what the government are telling us. It’s all bull. Utter silence fell apart from the shuffling of feet. I then had a flash of insight and realised that they all believed what they were being told. It was like something from the Midwich Cuckoos. How to explain this uncanny unanimity? Well they almost all certainly watch only the BBC for their News. I’m beginning to wonder if the BEEB have a program of subliminal propaganda and the reason I’m not affected is because I don’t watch the damned thing!

      1. 340471+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,
        Heavens above Carruthers I think you have it,

        We know who no balls is as in, the fat turk
        who would be the current goebbals ?

      2. Minty, I agree with you, I neither watch nor listen
        to the BBC. I find it odd that this Village, generally,
        tends to follow and believe the Government
        propaganda ,,, yet in 2016, by a very large majority
        we told Mr. Cameron where to stick the EU.

        I do not [and have previously very rarely done so]
        wear a mask, but yesterday I was responsible for
        organising a very large Wake, following a wonderful
        ‘Celebration for the Life’ of one of our oldest Church
        members who had been in hospital following a fall in
        early March 2020, her Family had visited her daily …
        you know the rest, she was denied all visits, caught
        Covid and died on 12th. April, 2020.
        Yesterday there were about 80 present,[yes, all are
        logged in for track and trace,] some removed
        and replaced their mask after every mouth-full, others
        didn’t wear a mask at all. I don’t understand why some,
        sadly, become very poorly and die [with no underlying
        health issues] yet others in a family do not catch it, yet
        it is, supposedly, a highly contagious virus …
        I do wonder why!!

      3. We used to laugh and sneer at 1930s Germany. This past 18 months has shown that the British are equally craven and there is an uncomfortably high number amongst us who revel in their tin pot powers.
        Currently, I am watching Deutschland ’89 – which is about the collapse of the GDR; in the light of recent events, it makes for very uncomfortable viewing.

        1. Jordan Peterson has a lot to say about our behaviour in that sense. He talks extensively about the Gulags in reference to that and about a brigade of ordinary German policemen, not Nazis, but just your average town police. They were asked if they would go to Poland to do ordinary police work. They were told that if they weren’t comfortable with anything they could always request to go home. Only one policeman threw in the towel after arriving in Poland and being asked to do something he didn’t feel comfortable with. In the end the other policemen found themselves shooting pregnant women in the back of the head over a trench.

        2. I’ve recently read a couple of books by Anne Applebaum, ‘Gulag: a history’ and ‘Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956’, and I’m currently reading Peter Padfield’s ‘Himmler’, in bites. None of it is pleasant reading but the book on Himmler is positively horrifying. I’ve read as far as the winter of 1942-43 but it is apparent that Himmler was working on indexing the populace, in an effort to divide and rule, as early as 1923. All by card index!
          Today we are all well aware of the significance of yellow stars worn on clothing but a whole rainbow of colours were in use to discern other ‘less desirable’ elements in society.
          Today’s wannabe dictators have the luxury of being able to compile such masses of information at the stroke of a keyboard.

      4. It’s because you don’t watch the “damned thing” that you aren’t effected. Never watch TV so I’m never exposed to it. But when I do see it because I’m out in the big wide world it strikes me as totally alien, propaganda from somewhere like Enver Hoxha’s Albania or Eastern Germany. It literally strikes me as bizarre. I think the majority don’t realize how odd the BBC or most of the MSM is because it has advanced to the state that it is now by small increments. So people have been subjected to a phenomena rather like the frog that’s put in cold water and then slowly boiled before it has a clue that anything is wrong. In psychology the process is called “habituation” and if done properly can have people believing the most preposterous things. For proof of that all you have to do is watch the absurdities of the Covid Religion where it is believed that wearing a flimsy mask outside will keep you safe. It is a complete myth and has no scientific rational at all. Doesn’t have much scientific basis used inside either! So there you go the BBC going drip drip drip, transgender is real, male and female are social constructs and that there is something wrong with the older generation that actually doesn’t believes any of this stuff but are, in fact, mentally deranged racists who are oppressing the young. In the end people believe it because the Ministry of Truth never lets up 24/7.

      5. I had the same reaction when my colleague asked whether I trusted government, and I said a very emphatic “No!” before I’d even thought. He was horrified! And he’s an Aussie – who’d trust that nest of fascists?

      7. Similar in my local last Monday. A couple of friends are at home all day (other than a daily walk) and although I would not describe them as stupid, they were gleefully explaining that they had downloaded the NHSS app and provided passport information as well as their vax status to gain a QR code, as this would allow face recognition software to ‘recognise’ them when they turn up at Murrayfield for the Autumn tests.
        They were quite condescending, if not downright scornful, when I suggested that they just take an image of the two letters and corresponding vax, as the point of the exercise was supposedly to establish whether they had been vaxxed or not.
        Of course, they seemed unaware that the Shortbread Senate has barred Police Scotland from using the same facial recognition software to seek known criminals and that kids have already established that ‘healthy’ QR codes can be captured by screenshot, thereby making a mockery of the whole system.

        On the bright side, this couple appear to have finally dropped the idea of putting on their masks when going out for a smoke, even though they were in our company standing at the bar. Others in the company obviously watch less of the bBC propaganda and/or seem willing to listen to alternative narratives but I’m definitely ploughing a different furrow through the media blitz…mostly by ignoring it. After all, under the ’emergency’ powers taken in March 2020 – running as planned until March 2022 – the media are obliged to follow Govt ‘direction’ and are of course gaining millions in taxpayer-funded covid advertising income.

    4. Spot on Garlands.
      It is Corporate greed that is destroying our planet, nothing has the power to do so.

  23. ‘Morning again.

    In today’s DT there is a very lengthy article entitled ‘Has Radio 4 lost its way?’ It is so long that I haven’t posted it, but it will come as no surprise to Nottlrs that the BTL comments are almost universally hostile. In particular, the BBC’s pursuit of ‘the yoof vote’ is perhaps the most irritating for me – none of my children (35-40) ever listen to it, so I suspect that has been a great success! In doing so they don’t seem to understand that, in the process, they are driving away the more mature listener.

    This BTL sums it up nicely for me:

    Nick Smith
    24 Oct 2021 7:05AM
    There was a time when R4 would be always on during a weekly 4-hour car journey. That was pre-Brexit. I switched off snd never went back; the remainer bias raised my stress levels to the point where I wasn’t safe behind the wheel! I’ve tried going back but it’s just dreadful. Comedy isn’t funny, news is opinion, politics is anti-government propaganda, Covid coverage is a constant attack on Government.

    1. I mentioned last week, that having the honkey hating George the poet on R4 at 11pm with his rap and talk of violence, is unlikely to have the blacks flocking to listen but is guaranteed to turn off the traditional listeners that remain.

      1. But…but…but they have a ‘diverse voice quota’ to fill. They must have been taking lessons from the TV advertisers…

      2. Sounds like typical lefty stereotyping of black people. What do they offer the aspirational black middle classes?

      3. Sounds like typical lefty stereotyping of black people. What do they offer the aspirational black middle classes?

    1. Must have been a rabid remainer. The BBC does not celebrate those who have differing opinions to its dictatorial socialist dogma.

  25. Looking up a few things on my documents folder and I came across the words to this:-
    https://youtu.be/n1EWUUhjGLs

    Where do you go to, my lefty?

    You talk like you’re asking a question
    Like you think that people might care
    Your clothes are awfully unflattering
    And there’s remnants of pink in your hair, yes there are

    You live in a fancy apartment
    In majority white-people town
    Where you grow your Marxist opinions
    And wear them like they were a crown, yes you do

    But where do you go to my lefty
    When you’re alone in your bed
    Tell me the the thoughts that surround you
    I want to look inside your head, yes I do

    I’ve seen all your qualifications
    In gender studies and such
    Your lesbian dance theory classes
    Never amounted to much, oh no no no

    When you go on your summer vacation
    You go to Calais-le-jungle
    After taking some virtuous photos
    You stay in a 5 star hotel, oh yes I know

    When Trump tweets you’re found in a frenzy
    With others of the jet set
    And you keep your pussy hat handy
    But you never get your lips wet, no you don’t

    But where do you go to my lefty
    When women are really in need
    With statistics clearly against you
    I wonder can you even read, yes I do

    You’re connected to those in high places
    Including a certain kind man
    He sends you payment for protests
    And you go to them just for fun, for a laugh, aha ha ha

    You say you’ll never get married
    Because women can now have it all
    But you don’t really know what you stand for
    And I wonder if you give a damn or care at all

    But where do you go to my lefty
    As capital cities now fall
    And crime has become part and parcel
    Which touches the lives of us all, yes it does

    I remember a time that was different
    It seems like a long ago age
    When we didn’t need our safe spaces
    Because most of our places were safer, yes they were

    So look into their eyes now my dear
    And tell me just who pays the price
    Then go and forget them forever
    And I doubt you’ll even think twice about it all oh no you won’t

    But where will you go to my lefty
    When you finally hit that wall
    And your pronouns become so numerous
    You just can’t remember them all, oh no you can’t

    I know where you go to my lefty
    When you’re alone in your bed
    I know the nonsense that drives you
    Because I can look inside your head?

    1. Hallo Anne and everyone else! Just looked at the link. Obviously she doesn’t believe in the adage: “Physician heal thyself.” I would not want a doctor who is dependent on drugs to do her job.

      1. You may be right, and maybe she should see a doctor herself for a second opinion?

        I suspect that in her case, there is an underlying condition that has not been diagnosed, which is not necessarily related to an imbalance in brain chemistry, which is what antidepressants are there to treat.

        Often, it is an inflammation causing a toxic response getting into the bloodstream and messing up the systems. Dental problems are notorious at this. Another is a bowel problem, often caused by the wrong mix of bugs and enzymes, so that there is a constant irritation down below as well as a failure to extract the right nutrients from food.

        On the psychiatric side, sustained drip-feed of unresolved problems, often related to relationship or work prospects will set up a feedback cycle that is sustained indefinitely unless broken. A response to being bullied, without ever having the courage to thump the bully and get through it alive, causes lifelong problems that then seek the weakest point to express themselves.

        1. I would agree with you Jeremy. Have you, as a matter of curiosity, read Dr Thomas Szasz.

        2. Jeremy, the good Doctor is Jewish. If she hasn’t got something to grumble about, her life would be half empty.

    2. Over the years, I have been resigned to various home truths:

      1. I am falling to bits, and this is only to be expected at my age. Each time another bit of me no longer does what it should, I have to make best use of the bits that do still work. It’s much like coaxing an old car to get through another run and get me home without breaking down. Constant anxiety, but relief when I manage it.

      2. It is a lottery, with diminishing odds, to find anyone I have to rely on to do what I cannot on my own not to let me down. Often, they take my disappointment to take advantage of my vulnerability and charge again not to put right their mistakes, and know they can get away with it.

      In such cases, I can keep buggering on until death releases me from purgatory. The stiff upper lip. Or I can keep taking the tablets, so at least I can get a decent night’s sleep and be in a fitter state to take on the world.

      1. Red medicine isn’t on prescription, but seems to have the desired effect – apart from a need to pump bilges during the “wee” hours.
        People taking advantage of those less able should be shot, and their bodies fed to foxes and crows.

        1. That takes out most of the professional classes. Who are we left with to run the country, apart from a lot of obese urban foxes and flightless crows, who really need to go on a diet if they are ever to nest in chimneys again?

    3. Over the last 40 years, I have been very lucky. By chance, on the three times that I really needed a competent GP, one materialised. A miracle, really.

    5. When I was 25, I got mumps – as did my two young children as I had no immunity to pass to them. It was painful and nasty, and left me very depressed. That became my normal self, so for a couple of years, until it eventually lifted, I thought I was just a miserable person. I didn’t seek help or medication, and eventually life became better.

      I don’t honestly think these pills would have helped, and people just become dependant on them. Years later, when my mother died and my marriage was on the rocks, I recognised that the way I felt was just a reaction to the circumstances, and a normal part of grief. I’ve never taken anti-depressants and i hope I never will.

      My husband’s estranged sister has taken medication of this kind for more than 40 years and she is a nightmare.

    6. It seems there are quite a few Doctors raiding the medicine cabinet. If your job is too stressful do something else !

          1. the port of Djibouti would be a good place to take homeward bounds who can’t stand the UK.

    3. They will commandeer the Isle of Wight Ferries, and/or ‘take-up-from-trade’ any Cross Channel Ferries laid up because of Covid

      The Invading Army MUST be fit and ready, when it hits our shores

      Additionally of course, the ships will be able to land the incomers at any UK port, thereby, not limiting the incomers to Dover

  30. I have an odd but minor problem on here and wondered if anyone else has it happen to them? If I try to uptick someone’s comment, the page will jump up, sometimes for a considerable way. So I have to scroll down, look for the comment and then uptick. It only happens on the first attempt and then it’s fine but it is every time I tick up. Doesn’t happen on any other forum but this one, although I only go to one other forum to hurl abuse, ‘CW’. Anyone got any ideas?

    3. Yes, happens just as you describe. It’s been that way for some weeks now.
      I found that, before clicking on the tick, just hovering for a while until the names of other tickees has appeared and it’s usually OK.

      2. Well that’s a relief! If it was something to do with my computer I wouldn’t have a clue how to fix it. I was also a little worried that it might be a manifestation of something nefarious, someone/something taking information or some such.

        I will hover, as you describe, then pounce.

        1. Nothing wrong with the computer on that account. Whether you are being hacked and tracked is something else again.

          1. Unless something weird happens I don’t worry about it. But I do have “Advanced System Repair Pro” which seems to catch anything that’s wrong. I recommend it, the free version.

          2. Try a Chromebook. Until the machine is 5 years old, Google continually updates the operating system; free of private sector viruses, which must be a blow for Morton.

          3. Never use Google, they are in the enemy camp manipulating information with their algorithms. Anything Google I try to avoid. I use Duck duck go as my search engine and anything that pops up on my computer from Google I will not download or use. .

    4. It’s a long standing problem Jonathan though it is jumping a little further than usual at the moment! I just carry on.

    6. I think it’s a Disqus glitch – it happens frequently though not all the time. Usually on an uptick I get taken to someone’s profile but when trying to type a comment, it shoots up or down and then I have to search for it again.

    7. Yes, it happens to me all the time, and is very annoying.
      The other thing is when I can’t upvote a comment, instead it just opens the profile of another upvoter.

      1. Ah that last bit is because the list of upvoters is appearing as you are starting to click. And the profile is between your pointer and the chevron.
        What I do is to scroll the page so that the up-chevron is close to the top of the screen, and then the list of other upvoters gets pressed down so you don’t click on it.

    8. That happens all the time if you click on and then off of reply it usually works okay.
      Although it didn’t happen this time 🤗

    2. I understand from my local rag that several items in the budget have already been released. Whatever happened to leaking the budget being a sacking offence?

  32. Frightening air-show disaster

    Amazing photo shows great detail

    This is tough to see.

    But it illustrates the possible dangers of attending these shows.

    The pilot was bringing his craft in at a low altitude and apparently lost control. It narrowly missed the crowd gathered for the air show and slammed into four buildings. One can only imagine the horror of the occupants in the buildings.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/afe2a2f0d6fdad24d3ce2a1efaed0fd584419b5f5148ac3b47495038496fafa1.jpg

    Probably scared the crap out of them!

      1. Tried to put it on the computer as my desktop but, sadly the photo comes out as way to big.

          1. Thanks Ndovu. I will have to look. Don’t even know if I have such a thing on my computer, haven’t bothered to look in the past!

          2. If you have Windows, the image viewer installed with it will do the job for you, as will the graphics tool ‘Photo’.

    5. I would like a link to this. If you are privy to it you might pass it on so I can email it to my sons.

      1. Right click, chose ‘Save image as’ and save to your pictures folder. From where you can email it/copy it etc

      2. It came from My Bumper Joke Book, Stories collected over many years, Richard, and I can only recommend copy and paste.

      1. In the same elite group as Gates etc. Unelected but feel that they are important enough to be able to influence foreign, I would like to say leaders but I can’t so, persons elected to positions of authority, will have to suffice. How much influence do they have? Ask Johnson.
        Would Johnson be reckless enough to try and mandate jabs without Parliament’s agreement? I would like to think that that event would be the final nail in his political career’s coffin.

          1. I live in hope that the changing of Human Rights laws and possibly Common Law with regards to bodily autonomy and medical intervention would be a line than Parliament would not cross. If Parliament took that route then everything is on the table and where would it end, revolution?

          2. Pushback needs to happen quickly, not wait until the enemy is not only at the door, but inside the house with it’s feet up in front of the fire! The longer you leave a problem, the worse it gets and the more difficult it is to fix.

    2. I think that will make it all the more likely that people will refuse them!

      It’ll go down about as well as Obama’s “back of the queue” intervention that just galvanised people to vote for Brexit.

    3. Not difficult to see who is for and who is against freedom and who is for and who is against democracy and who is for it.

      Nobody has ever explained coherently why people should be forced by law to have a pseudo-vaccine which:

      i) Does not stop you getting Covid 19;
      ii) Does not stop you passing Covid 19 on if you do get it;
      and
      iii) in which the jury is still out as to whether the ‘vaccine’ will damage you natural immunity;
      and
      iv) where long-term side-effects cannot be either denied or confirmed because not enough time has yet elapsed to know whether or not there are any.

      And has anyone seen any member of the government actually comprehensively challenged with these points by the MSM?

      1. No claque is going to challenge their paymaster. I suppose that only the self-funded social media types are able to ask such questions. No one bothers to answer.

        1. Well that’s not creepy at all, is it.
          Implication was that when the spike proteins are out of the body, then the immune system would go back to normal.
          Still, it seems that it’s compromised for some weeks after having the jab, at least, which would explain the raging covid numbers following vaccine campaigns.

          1. What he didn’t explain was whether the man had further tests later to see if his immune system went back to normal.

          2. He implied that it would, when he said that to treat auto immune disorders you have to remove the cause of the problem. I hope he posts a follow up to this.

  34. We’ll play ‘dirty Remainer’ and stir up trouble if EU does not stop overreach, warns Poland
    Country’s ruling party could target EU net zero policy in retaliation for move to punish Warsaw in rule of law spat, claims party official
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/23/play-dirty-remainer-stir-trouble-eu-does-not-stop-overreach/

    I wonder who made this BTL comment?

    “It was a choice between slavery and freedom and by a margin of 52 -48 the British chose freedom in the 2016 referendum. But for four years those who preferred slavery over freedom and subservience over autonomy tried to force slavery on us after all.

    Now we are partially free – but, given the N Ireland Protocol and the Fishing fiasco, we are only partially free and we have a prime minister who is neither reliable nor trustworthy.

    Given the EU’s behaviour in Poland it is astonishing that anyone still can bring themselves to mention the EU and democracy in the same breath.

    I am reminded of John Milton’s words in Samson Agonistes:

    “But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,
    And by their vices brought to servitude,
    Than to love bondage more than liberty—
    Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.    “”

    2. Pray tell, why are we implementing the disasterous net zero nonsense when it is EU policy? We left specifically to bin such idiotic nonsense.

      Ah! I see. It’s to speed our destruction and force us back in to the hated EU. That’s where this is going, of course.

  35. We’ll play ‘dirty Remainer’ and stir up trouble if EU does not stop overreach, warns Poland
    Country’s ruling party could target EU net zero policy in retaliation for move to punish Warsaw in rule of law spat, claims party official
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/23/play-dirty-remainer-stir-trouble-eu-does-not-stop-overreach/

    I wonder who made this BTL comment?

    “It was a choice between slavery and freedom and by a margin of 52 -48 the British chose freedom in the 2016 referendum. But for four years those who preferred slavery over freedom and subservience over autonomy tried to force slavery on us after all.

    Now we are partially free – but, given the N Ireland Protocol and the Fishing fiasco, we are only partially free and we have a prime minister who is neither reliable nor trustworthy.

    Given the EU’s behaviour in Poland it is astonishing that anyone still can bring themselves to mention the EU and democracy in the same breath.

    I am reminded of John Milton’s words in Samson Agonistes:

    “But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,
    And by their vices brought to servitude,
    Than to love bondage more than liberty—
    Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.    “”

    1. I posted one of his statements from earlier in the month. Clear, forceful and truthful. No politician is listening.

    1. Bit bloody late, Mr Davis. Why didn’t you speak out – and find like-minded colleagues to do the same?

      2. There is that. But at least he is saying something. As per usual, Reese Mogg, the one everyone thought should be PM is as slavish as Boris is to Princess Nut Nuts, when it comes to toeing the Tory party line. The list of those who voted for polluting our rivers with sewage was quite revealing in that sense.

        1. One of Delingpole’s recent guests said that Rees-Mogg’s role is to give the common people the impression that the Tories can be trusted because it has principled men at the top, while being completely in with the WEF stuff in reality.
          I would say that is highly likely.

          1. I would agree. But then I mentioned a while ago his run in with a victim of cerebral palsy. I thought Moggs reaction to the man really disgusting. It struck me as on the level of: “Are there no poor houses for you to go to?” Turned me off Mogg completely. Mogg kept prattling on about the achievements of this government. And the man obviously acutely distressed kept saying: “10 years, 10 years and you have done nothing for us.” So Mogg simply worked away clearly oblivious to his psychological thuggery against the man.

          2. One has to have great depth of character to confront someone who is suffering as a result of government policy, when one is (a) so privileged and (b) in a position to influence decisions. Clearly he has not got that.
            I liked him at university, but he was always reserved – there was part of himself that he definitely wasn’t sharing. And there were certain points of principle on which he would take a stance that was clearly not consistent with the kind of Thatcherite, aspirational Conservatism that was common at the time (and which I believed in and still do), but he would stick to it like glue and not budge. It’s sad when you see someone tested to the point at which the base side of their character shows through.

          3. Without putting either side, we all know the facts are that government policy is mostly made collectively. Then it’s made badly – almost all govt policy is bad.

            However, the problem government has it that people look to it to do something, where the thing you want government to really do is much, much less and to pass the responsibility closer to those who can genuinely impact people.

          4. As far as I was able to gather. The man with Cerebral Palsy had a job. The government in its wisdom put him on a programme that took his job away from him and thus deprived the poor man of his independence and dignity. I can readily understand how that sort of government “benefit” can be devastating to someone in that sort of position. It would be cruel.

        2. I made the grave mistake of being taken in by Grease Smogg.

          He lost all credibility when, along with fellatio Old Etonian, Uxorius Johnson, he was prepared to vote for the Evil Witch May’s EU Withdrawal Agreement. Using the modern parlance one might say that Grease Smogg sucks.

      3. After our U3A visit when we came out of the commons a few years ago, we saw several MPs walking around, and Nigel Havers and even Brillo at lunch time and David Davis had dropped his wallet and his credit cards fell out, he had to almost get on his knees to gather his small scattering. But strangely enough nobody stopped to help him. Not a dislikeable person of course. And nobody tried to injure him while he was down, but he’s always been a bit of a non end tity.

    2. The Conservative Party signed its death warrant when it chose David Cameron rather than David Davis.

      May and Johnson may call the corpse the Conservative Party but nobody can seriously believe that it is anything other than the corpse of a once respectable political party.

      1. It really has fallen, hasn’t it Rastus. A sad end to a once decent party for conservatives. Now its just a socialist woke party of little worth and playing havoc with the country. Perhaps it’s time for Labour to get in, create more damage, and for the people to finally get utterly sick of the pair of them and do something else.

  38. Extract from a comment on DTL

    Colin Thomasson
    24 Oct 2021 11:14AM
    The greens need and mean absolute control.
    They crave obedience as they spell the end of capitalism.
    The root of all evil which shall have no place in the New Age of sacred Geen Monasticism to come.
    And all they ask is the subservience of serfhood,
    Also, in no particular order, the renunciation of history, knowledge, civilisation and, most of all, the veneration of fools.

    “In 2050 we will still be driving cars, flying planes and heating our homes, but our cars will be electric, gliding silently around our cities, our planes will be zero emission, allowing us to fly guilt-free, and our homes will be heated by cheap, reliable power drawn from the winds of the North Sea.”
    The blueprint, however, emphasises that tackling the climate crisis requires “significant behavioural change”. According to the document, titled Net Zero: principles for successful behaviour change initiatives, and produced by the behavioural insights team, or “nudge unit”, the British public may have to reduce its demand for high-carbon activities such as flying and eating ruminant meat, among other changes.

    The report raises concerns over the expansion of airports contained in government policy and tax exemptions given to the aviation sector. “The UK government can lead by example, and recognise the hugely impactful signal it sends to, for example, approve airport expansions, or financially support the airline industry with little demands for decarbonisation in return,” the removed report states. It says a more realistic transition to net zero would be through tactics including reducing the number of frequent business flyers.

    The report outlines nine key principles needed to change public behaviour to meet net zero. These include making clear to people what changes they have to make, making those changes easy and affordable, and aligning commercial interests with net zero outcomes.

    It recommends tax and statutory interventions to force change, including carbon taxes, a financial levy on food with a high-emission footprint, using the law to force the public to change, and forcing the markets to be more transparent to enable consumers to choose more sustainable options

    Laws … matter and can powerfully cement emerging shifts in normative values,” the report says. “Looking at past government-led initiatives, significant societal behaviour changes related to, for instance, reductions in harm from smoking, increasing worker or motor vehicle safety or uptake of vaccinations have all involved taxes, bans, mandates and other regulatory measures beyond soft persuasion.

    “We do not have time to nudge our way to net zero, and so a focus on building sufficient political capital and public support to instigate bolder action will be needed.”

    So, now you know.
    The scale of mock conservative perfidy and betrayal
    As we linger forlorn in the twilight of fading British civilisation
    Watching hopelessly as democracy is done to death
    We are all greens now.
    There is no other choice
    Boris’ mock conservatives are certainly seeing to that.

    I do wish the British of a certain Woke age group would wake up from their dystopian slumber .

    2. Some wokists do. Most go on oblivious, becoming ever angrier and angrier, usually ending up in the public sector where they cost the tax payer vast amounts of money to attend endless meetings where they ensure nothing gets done.

      1. The husband of Kate Graeme Cook, DT letter writer extraordinaire. Some time RAF/BA pilot and yachtsman.

      2. The husband of Kate Graeme Cook, DT letter writer extraordinaire. Some time RAF/BA pilot and yachtsman.

  40. Remember this?

    Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

    Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash

    By Christopher Booker • 28 November 2009 • 6:10pm

    A week after my colleague James Delingpole , on his Telegraph blog, coined the term “Climategate” to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

    [Booker goes on to describe how the CRU effectively presented bent data and hid the evidence.]

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

    Last week, the BBC broadcast this:

    The Trick

    Conspiracy thriller based on the events of the ‘Climategate’ scandal in 2009. Professor Phil Jones and his team of climatologists at the University of East Anglia find that their work has been hacked by climate change deniers and turned into the first big fake-news story. The deniers and corporations with vested interests skillfully create the image of climate change as a conspiracy being perpetrated by academic scientists.

    Although an inquiry concludes that there was no case for Jones and his team to answer, it has taken a decade for the public perception of the veracity of climate change to recover.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010s10/the-trick

    At a time when, more than ever, the nation (the world!) needs fiercely independent news media, we have this.

    1. Even by the high standard of dishonesty to which the BBC holds itself, that takes the biscuit.
      They must have taken lessons from the US media over the last eighteen months or so.

      1. They really do think we’re stupid, don’t they! Sadly many people know nothing of that incident and really are taken in by the lies.

        It was that incident that convinced me that global warming was all lies. My son gave me Booker’s book, and Plimer’s that Christmas along with another which clearly explained the scam of “urban heat islands” etc, that exposed where the warmer temperatures were taken.

        1. Of course, the parliamentary committee that investigated the affair didn’t find much wrong…

        2. It is quite a few years now since the CRU at UEA was exposed for cherry picking its climate- weather results to suit its agenda. The whole machinery blinked briefly, then carried on with renewed vigour as if nothing had happened.

      2. They really do think we’re stupid, don’t they! Sadly many people know nothing of that incident and really are taken in by the lies.

        It was that incident that convinced me that global warming was all lies. My son gave me Booker’s book, and Plimer’s that Christmas along with another which clearly explained the scam of “urban heat islands” etc, that exposed where the warmer temperatures were taken.

      3. CBC have gone all out pushing the Trudeau green future and naturally as the impartial national broadcaster, no dissenting voices are allowed.
        Eery rain storm, forest fire, ordry spell is being pushed as a result of the climate emergency with no question that it has been like that for years.

        I thought that coverage of covid was biased, but at least they occasionally showed vaccine hesitant protests, this time it is just raw raw greenie.

        On Friday, I golfed with someone who without prompting offered his view that Biden is doing a good job, with that kind of public mentality we are totally stuffed over here.

    2. The BBC has heavily invested it’s pension fund into the green nonsense.

      Of course it is going to lie. Note that it has left it just long enough? That most folk won’t remember? Also note the buzz words and hurrah phrases to ensure the blame isn’t on those lying, but those exposing the truth.

      It’s tedious and tiresome. The BBC needs to go.

  42. What I find absolutely disgusting about the Conservative party and this government is they voted against stopping water companies from discharging sewage into our rivers. With a massive recent increase in population this will even make matters worse. How stupid can they actually be ? Third world conditions will ensue

    1. 340471+ up ticks,
      Afternoon RE,
      Was there not a salmon seen in some part of the Thames I believe ?

      But what is a proven fact all the sh!te is now in parliament.

      1. Along with pathological and habitual lying they have other problems such as the mush over used phrase ‘mental health issues’ most of them seem to have totally lost the plot. It’s a great shame all that scaffolding wasn’t used for a better general purpose.

        1. 340471+ up ticks,
          Afternoon RE,
          I do disagree in the nicest possible way,
          it is NOT the politico’s they know what they are doing, as shown in NOT DOING.

          It is the electorate that have lost the plot big time, again,again,and again.

          1. I see robert who ever he is stapleford is against you again.
            I would have gladly voted for another candidate but i n have never had the opportunity i did vote for an independent once and it doubled his support.
            In our area Harpenden and Hitchen we have never had a UKIP candidate.

          2. 340497+ up ticks,
            Afternoon RE,
            I am no longer a UKIp member since the treachery via the party nec / farage against Batten and the genuine UKIP party.

            I maintain that to continue the voting pattern that has brought about our near downfall as in the “best of the worst mode” is still giving consent to one of the close shop treacherous party’s to continue.

            The vote in to keep out pattern these last decades has near destroyed a nation especially in the light of the three being a coalition and level pegging at the top of the political sh!te table.

    3. I seem to remember that when the Waterworks cannot deal with the effluent it has to stop accepting it. This would mean home drainage would stop and sewage would block up in houses. For this eventuality they were given permission to discharge sewage into waterways to avoid this disruption to houses.

  43. 340471+ up ticks,
    Introduced to the United Kingdom by the lab/lib/con coalition, via the polling booth with continuing consent from the majority of the electorate, operating in the United Kingdom parliament, taking oaths on the operating manual,eating halal in the parliamentary canteen.

    In short the electorate has taken a grip of the tigers tale, without serious thought for the herd as a whole but the welfare of the party first & foremost.

    Regards,A Kafir,

    https://youtu.be/Gru7JrlqQ7Y

    1. Do you know ogga, I am beginning to think that the Tories have even abandoned the “Party First” mantra? We have moved into a post-democratic era, in which it’s every man for himself, and fill your boots while you can, even though you know the electorate hates what you are doing.

      1. 340471+ up ticks,
        Afternoon BB2,
        I’ve see it that way post Thatcher, with vengeance clearly showing, the referendum
        result really done it.

        The electorate need a “Beginning ” campaign to counteract the political
        ” When the politico’s began to hate the English” campaign.

    1. No, she’s a black criminal in a court. Neither are things unfamiliar to this country.

      If she didn’t want to be there, she shouldn’t have broken the law. Frankly, the wretched harpy needs flogging, then a sound beating with a cricket bat and to be forced to repay her entire expenses claims. She’s obviously vermin.

      1. Claudia Webbe, MP for Leicester East the electors had previously elected Vaz Oline

        Keith Vaz

        In February 1990, after a bombing attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army against a British Army recruiting centre in Leicester, Vaz publicly suggested that the Army might have planted the bomb.[21]

        Allegations about Vaz were published by the British tabloid Sunday Mirror in early September 2016. It was reported that he had engaged in unprotected sexual activity with male prostitutes and had told them he would pay for cocaine if they wished to use it.

        I do not think that Leicester East is a white constituency

        If Ali Harbi Ali stood for Parliament, he would win this seat easily

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

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

      1. Yo Plum

        Specsavers and Mind operate a 24 Hour Emergency Service for people who can see, or say, anything Nice about the Johnsons

        We know, that you are being sarcastic, but someone might believe you

        Mind is a mental health charity in England and Wales. Founded in 1946 as the National Association for Mental Health, it celebrated its
        70th anniversary in 2016. Mind offers information and advice to people with mental health problems
        and lobbies government and local authorities on their behalf. Wikipedia

      2. Yo Plum

        Specsavers and Mind operate a 24 Hour Emergency Service for people who can see, or say, anything Nice about the Johnsons

        We know, that you are being sarcastic, but someone might believe you

        Mind is a mental health charity in England and Wales. Founded in 1946 as the National Association for Mental Health, it celebrated its
        70th anniversary in 2016. Mind offers information and advice to people with mental health problems
        and lobbies government and local authorities on their behalf. Wikipedia

  46. Joe Biden’s popularity plummets faster than any other US President since 1945. 24 October 2021.

    For the weekend, Mr Biden again left the White House for his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

    He has spent more time away from the White House than Mr Trump had at this stage of his presidency.

    There’s a lot here in a similar vein but I smiled at this because I remember the MSM bleating continuously about Trump playing golf in Florida!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/23/joe-bidens-popularity-slumps-faster-us-president-since-1945/

    1. Hearing him in a stand up interview say ‘What am I doing here?’ was worrying. In an entirely non-partisan way, is it fair to keep someone so clearly ill in such a demanding role?

  47. A sunnier “work from home” option?:

    An Italian housefor less than €1

    TIM MOORE

    ‘It seemed like a pretty good deal,’ says Rafael Solorzano, leaning against an ancient whitewashed wall. A half smile settles across his young, bearded face, a look of understated satisfaction that might most convincingly relate to a discount secured on the acoustic guitar propped up by his bedside table. But the 28-year-old from Miami is referring to the house we’re standing in – all four floors of it, if you include a yawning basement – and the fact that this habitable, historic home in a comely old Sicilian hill town was his for the price of a slice of pizza.

    It’s now 14 years since former MP and cultural commentator Vittorio Sgarbi suggested a radical solution to Italy’s ratcheting rural decline. Young Italians have been moving away from the countryside – to native cities or the wider world – for over a century, a trend that accelerated in the 1950s and has barely slowed since. Over the last two decades, a million small-town Italians have left their homes.

    To reverse this flow, Sgarbi proposed that the nation’s dwindling settlements offer their many vacant houses to newcomers for a pittance. It took a while to convince mayors and absentee owners, but 34 remote towns and villages are currently running €1 house schemes, scattered along the country’s full length. For some, these initiatives are just part of the desperate solution to an existential crisis. Pledge to settle in Molise, a struggling region in the southern Apennines, and the local authorities will give you €800 a month for three years. Further south, Calabria offers small-town newcomers who promise to establish a business or enrol their children in school a golden hello worth up to €33,000.

    But more than half of the €1 house towns are in Sicily, where the socio-economic pressures that drive rural depopulation are redoubled: this is one of Italy’s poorest regions, where youth unemployment runs at a barely credible 48.3 per cent. Most of the struggling settlements on the mainland are hoping to attract young Italians, but the mayors of the 20 little Sicilian towns currently hawking €1 houses can’t afford to be fussy. They don’t care how old you are, or how foreign.

    Having shed a third of its population, in 2019 the village of Sambuca di Sicilia put 16 old houses up for auction, each at a starting price of €1, via a press release that instantly went viral across the world. ‘The headline kind of wrote itself,’ says Tom Murray, an editor at Business Insider, one of the countless media outlets to have published breathless stories about the houses. ‘I mean, it’s a beautiful home in rural Italy for a dollar. Who isn’t going to click on that?’

    Who indeed? Within 48 hours, the mayor of Sambuca’s office had received 38,000 enquiries. More than 100,000 emails had overwhelmed the municipal inbox by the time the houses found new owners from all over the world – the UK, the US, Norway, Dubai, Jordan. Around half sold for €1, with the rest bid up to a few thousand; almost 100 foreigners who missed out on the auction snapped up another 90 local homes for under €10,000.

    Inspired by this success, hill towns across the island got in on the act, none with more gusto than Mussomeli – a settlement of 11,000 right in the middle of Sicily that has to date sold a table-topping 50 €1 houses to foreigners, with a further 100 currently on its books. Browsing the English-language website this municipality has set up in collaboration with a local estate agent (case1euro.it), I am dangerously tantalised by the listed properties. Beneath the dust and rust, beyond the full spectrum of structural decay, I spy marble staircases, encaustic tiles, panoramic terraces: Mediterranean dream-home potential in its very headiest form. ‘Is it true or is it a joke?’ reads the most arresting entry in the website’s FAQ section. There is of course only one way to find out…

    The drive to Mussomeli lays bare the challenges and rewards of life in central Sicily. After the autostrada turn-off, I spend a long hour weaving about tentatively on ravaged asphalt, harried at close quarters by a succession of impatient farmers in rickety Fiat Pandas, meaty brown forearms dangling from their windows. But the desolate majesty of the landscape is utterly captivating, ranks of suede hills pierced here and there by terrific rocky outcrops, most topped with a precarious monastery or castle. At the end of another fierce summer, the last crop of fat red grapes hangs heavy under dusty white tarpaulins that ripple in a warm breeze.

    Mussomeli, derived from a Latin mash-up meaning ‘hill of honey’, is guarded by the most splendid of those lofty castles, a full-on Game of Thrones number nicknamed the Enchanted Fortress. But the streets beyond share nothing with my expectations: they are lined with nondescript mid-rise apartments, and dense with gregarious Mussomelians of all ages. Only when I park up at my hotel in the Piazza Umberto 1, a most becoming triangle of slightly frayed palazzos and townhouses, do I note the tight mass of pantiled roofs that tumble down from the old town behind. This is the front line between postwar ‘new’ Mussomeli, where almost everyone now lives, and the centro storico, a steepling compaction of churches, clock towers and several thousand extremely old houses, 60 per cent of which lie empty.

    Covid has thrown a hefty spanner in the €1 house works: barely any of Mussomeli’s giveaway homes have yet been renovated, and just a handful of foreign owners are currently in town. The next morning I try to procure their details at the town hall – a monolithic edifice whose corridors full of ambling administrators speak of triplicate paperwork, ruminative bureaucracy and a wage bill that isn’t going to be paid by selling houses for €1 a pop. (You may have seen this coming, but that €1 price tag is at heart a savvy PR ruse, inflated from the off by sundry extras. An American buyer in Sambuca who triumphantly paid her €1 by bank transfer was charged €30 for the privilege. Once you’ve settled up with the notary, the estate agent and paid the requisite local fees and taxes, you’re already in for at least €1,800 – still next to nothing in today’s property market, but, in the words of the American, ‘One euro, my ass.’)

    Toti Nigrelli, Mussomeli’s amiable, can-do deputy mayor, welcomes me into his cavernous third-floor office. ‘In this town we have a lot of buildings without people inside,’ is his winning introduction. ‘But only in the centro storico. The local people don’t like these small old houses, they like to have air condition, they like to have big rooms.’ Mainly, he says, they like to drive everywhere and park outside their front doors. (How? That afternoon, attempting to pilot my hire car to an old-town rendezvous, I age a decade in half an hour.)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/italy/one-euro-villa-rural-italy-wheres-catch/

    1. Has the Italian government considered removing the endless legions of red tape and tax that are destroying jobs? After all, incentivise people to live somewhere, but why not let them ‘work’ in cities remotely. I can write code anywhere. I just need an internet connection.

      Ah. Hang on. That would mean Italy leaving the EU.

        1. I have an Italian colleague who’s unjabbed – I think she and I are the only ones in our dept. She has two family members who are medics and likewise unjabbed. They’ll resign from their jobs in Genoa and are considering moving to Denmark.

          1. My Italian friend and her husband are unjabbed – I doubt they will be moving back to Italy any time soon. Denmark is good if you’re highly qualified and can fit in, I think.
            I’m pretty sure that I will be facing the no jab, no job mandate fairly soon, and will have to re-locate, or find a remote job. I think there is a Hungarian girl who is unjabbed at my work, but I’m not sure about others. You’re supposed to do a voluntary test or wear a mask if you’re unjabbed, but I’m pretty sure some of the people signing for tests (the list is public!) are just bed-wetters who can’t be too sure. Nobody apart from me is still wearing a mask, but they may be hiding out working from home. I am only still wearing the silly mask because I am implacably opposed to all forms of vaxx passport, including ones where a test is also valid.

          2. Mask wearing seems to be on the rise round here. Just about everyone in the local supermarket (except the people on the tills) were masked and I saw one chap wearing a mask while walking his dog!

          3. I misunderstood that as, his dog was wearing a mask! Let’s hope nobody tells him that animals can catch covid too.
            One of my daughter’s teachers, a young man in his thirties, wears an FFP2 mask during lessons. He says that he is vulnerable. That may be the case, but he survived colds and flu maskless until the scare campaign got going.

          4. I tried to word it so as not to imply the dog was masked – I know what Nottl is like! 🙂 I was chatting to someone today who said that her husband, a plumber, was working on a property and the chap had the TV on all day. It was, he said, unrelenting doom and gloom about Covid. No wonder people are terrified.

          5. Yes, that joke about switching the TV off is too close to the mark. We don’t have a TV so I’m immune to covid…

  48. £billions to be spent on building new larger Border Force ships. I hope they are to be built in the UK

      1. Building ships in the UK would be a better introduction to our young workforce trainees than installing unwelcome heat pumps. The potential for there to be many skills required in building and equipping these ships should be an attraction for youngsters wanting challenging jobs

        1. Yes, the Chinks are allowed to pollute the planet as much as they like. The Brits are killing everyone in the world with their obnoxious 1% planetary CO2 output.

      1. Hopefully they will come into force when the illegals will be ferried back to France legally.

        1. You should go on stage. There is more comedy in that one line than all the BBC programmes in the last ten years. 🙂

      3. Of course – the French will puncture the dinghies just when they are in UK water, so that there is no alternative but to take the hapless passengers. That happens even now.

    3. Surely we need smaller ships, as otherwise they’ll just bring in more illegal gimmigrants.

    1. If council management salaries were reduced to twice the average wage for a year, we could afford to provide a house for every single ‘homeless person’ in the country for a decade.

      1. and if all immigrants sodded off to where they came from there’d be enough houses for everyone

  51. Thanks I’ll stick with the sherry…..HIC!

    Yoga and HULA HOOPS join list of quack cures for Covid on social media as doctors warn over spread of misinformation on treatments.’Alternative’ remedies include eating Hula Hoops, avoiding avocados, yoga and cryotherapy.
    ‘It is essential anyone experiencing ongoing symptoms after Covid contacts their GP,’ says expert
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10125147/Yoga-HULA-HOOPS-join-quack-cures-Covid-social-media-doctors-warn-misinformation.html

    Contact your GP…………….you gotta be kidding……….!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a85c7cf3365b015e556119704fe6d81487cb174e4bbd882b3b19a67c3cfbb2d8.gif

  54. Been doing a bit of gardening today, quite nice in the sunshine, time for a look at the newspaper and the crossword and a doze.

  55. Queen of Tigers BBC2…recorded

    Shown last night on BBC2 I watched this earlier until the tiger’s prey
    included a young deer.
    Quite put me off my venison….!
    I’m sure there must be plenty of useless humans to devour before attacking innocent
    animals….

  56. Found this on Faceache:-

    Forces Support Page
    17 October at 19:50 ·
    Powerful.. Joshua Dyer (aged 14) was tasked at school to write a poem for Remembrance Day.
    An hour later (without any help) he produced this..
    ONE THOUSAND MEN ARE WALKING
    One thousand men are walking
    Walking side by side
    Singing songs from home
    The spirit as their guide
    they walk toward the light milord
    they walk towards the sun
    they smoke and laugh and smile together
    no foes to outrun
    these men live on forever
    in the hearts of those they saved
    a nation truly grateful
    for the path of peace they paved
    they march as friends and comrades
    but they do not march for war
    step closer to salvation
    a tranquil steady corps
    the meadows lit with golden beams
    a beacon for the brave
    the emerald grass untrampled
    a reward for what they gave
    they dream of those they left behind
    and know they dream of them
    forever in those poppy fields
    there walks one thousand men
    Joshua Dyer 2019 (aged 14)
    Lest we forget
    This has to be shared. An incredible poem from 14 year old Joshua Dyer

    2. It’s verygood, but my cynical, bitter, deeply unhappy mind sees the fields covered over with box houses to house illegal gimmigrants and welfarists, the country run down, treated as a doss house by gabbling foreigners who are happy to take everything, but contribute nothing. I see hate filled, nasty Lefties trampling on their efforts and sacrifice to allow those nasty, bitter, spiteful Lefties the right to state their opinion.

        1. I don’t now to be honest. I passed three folk on my walk yesterday, all gabbling away to either each other or on the telephone in a foreign language. It just feels that the basic respect for this country has been erased, and anyone can behave however they want because demanding integration is labelled ‘waycist’.

      2. The Sunday Times claims that there are 125,000 illegal immigrants being fed and housed by the Government whilst their claims

        are being processed.

    2. In December 2011, campaigners called for Robathan to be sacked after he compared the medal claims of 66,500 veterans of the Arctic convoys of World War II to the proliferation of honours made by “authoritarian regimes” and “dictators”: Some 3000 sailors died on the convoys – which Winston Churchill described as the “worst journey in the world.
      Robathan claimed the maximum second home entitlement of £24,006 in the period 2008–09 though he was not one of the 343 MPs required to repay money by the Legg Report – was he a mate of Legg? He was quoted in The Times newspaper suggesting that MP’s salaries be increased to £110,000.

      The man’s an Rsole.

    3. Now, was Cyril Smith Fat, or a Kiddy Fiddler

      Only one of the above “Faults” is frowned on by HMG

    4. Could he also maybe tell blacks not to kill each other, muslims not to… Oh, what’s the point? They all seem to be insane.

  58. 3 hours past time, dinner is served. Cumberland sausages in cheesy mash with onion gravy.

    3 hours to make, about 3 minutes to get eaten.

      1. First buy your piglet & fatten it up. That’s what my friends in Poland did twice a year.

    2. Rump steak, triple cooked chips and a Madeira cream sauce.

      But i like the sound of yours.

      Are the Cumberland sausages real or from a supermarket?

  59. Tesco website hit by hackers, leaving thousands of customers frustrated. 24 October 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f17aec44e08c6cc194f8bd10d066ae379ebf9277e15f7b8cfe8470ec1720f547.jpg

    Tesco has been hit by hackers, leaving thousands of frustrated shoppers unable to buy groceries online at Britain’s biggest supermarket.

    The outage leaves its grocery website and app down for a second day, with people unable to book deliveries or amend existing orders. Tesco receives 1.3m online orders every week.

    A Tesco spokesperson said: “Since yesterday, we’ve been experiencing disruption to our online grocery website and app. An attempt was made to interfere with our systems, which has caused problems with the search function on the site. We’re working hard to fully restore all services and apologise for the inconvenience.

    Is this Vlad seeking to takeover the World Supermarket industry? The Chinese? Or most likely ASDA giving them the Christmas finger?

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/24/tesco-website-hit-by-hackers-leaving-thousands-of-customers-frustrated

    1. Is there evidence of this in a bill or SI?

      I don’t doubt it, as the state is disgusting and cannot be trusted. The very idea of science being ‘settled’ is ludicrous. I suppose the state longs for the control the Church had centuries ago and fears dissent, thus wants to be the new Church, and is making faux science the new religion.

      1. Long ago, the Church relied on the premise, that although the Locals could speak to each other, they were illiterate

        Then came edukashun

        We are fast approaching a duplicate time, but with a slight difference

        We have millions of people living here, in UK, who can read AND write, but not in English.

        Just check with the No Hope Service, how many languages forms etc can be translated into

    3. Who chooses what “the settled will” is? What if it’s wrong, or criminal, or dangerous?

  61. OK, which of you Notlers is going to buy this weekend retreat?

    The biggest Palladian new-build in 100 years is selling in the Cotswolds for £20m

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/luxury/2021/10/22/10_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwVSYfRx-a0rm-wOQ3-QTCoU.jpg?imwidth=680

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/property-and-architecture/biggest-palladian-new-build-100-years-selling-cotswolds-20m/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

    3. Utterly vulgar.

      I’d build a decent sized house in the Victorian style, a sort of like Homerton college and buy the land so no bugger could ruin the view.

    9. There is nothing remotely Palladian about that rebarbative heap.

      If you want to see a modern Palladian mansion google Tusmore Park, the home of Wafic Said near Bicester.

      1. https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=AOaemvJfp3ewcdqi4DOSpRrtxYSJpJleoA:1635096858057&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=tusmore+house&fir=QDk3X4Ifm9RvrM%252Cykks5MWIdnZUUM%252C_%253BjRG_nlHtakcIJM%252C7dGOmH8-vfugjM%252C_%253B-W71-p4lW0DI8M%252CEGawbmKiMtrxcM%252C_%253BsHU9w6ADyPvkTM%252ClODGbdlci8UBFM%252C_%253BuNc2xw7oZ57mZM%252C48-zq1QEkGGVAM%252C_%253B9hvzm041_t20aM%252CHmttn7TfaKGuiM%252C_%253BwRvJWNCTxKcddM%252CrLYmZpW_xLra1M%252C_%253Bk0m9dxd_TfZ1tM%252CMDxu3uMbivM2CM%252C_%253BrverMNldRhabjM%252CMDxu3uMbivM2CM%252C_%253BGC1D0cGcdsHtoM%252CXgjtmhEj9ldV5M%252C_%253B-mL71i55YWRPqM%252CBSpIwuuqVlrxGM%252C_%253BeeEzDpz9gf1W7M%252CrLYmZpW_xLra1M%252C_&usg=AI4_-kQ4-zT2mtYdpLfERtQo6LVZrh600A&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihxpa7yuPzAhWbgP0HHQ9lCdAQjJkEegQIHxAC&biw=1366&bih=625&dpr=1

      2. Even for such manufacturing we still cared what it looked like.Also train stations – they used to be beautiful, elegant structures.

        Why are we not allowed to any more? Why do we create such hideous abominations? Why are the five new people all foreign?

        I’m truly tired of this country being treated as a B&B with no one caring about it. This rootless, shiftless population is alien. It contributes nothing lasting. it doesn’t care about the culture or history. It won’t fight for the country. It won’t defend her values. It’s just a bus stop to dump their things, to travel around on the bus, the roads, to go to the shop but ultimately, they don’t care about it.

        1. I totally agree. I worked for the architect of Tusmore for on and off a total of twenty years.

          In that time I achieved severable notable buildings such as Richmond House Whitehall and Drummond Gate at Bessborough Gardens in Pimlico, listed Grade II* and Grade II respectively.

          I always had grave doubts about the Tusmore project and declined the opportunity to run it. Wafic Said, whilst a benefactor to Oxford in particular, made his billions from arms deals.

          I preferred to complete the designs for the buildings for CCF Charterhouse at St Paul’s Churchyard and subsequently the documents for the Interior Restoration of Christ Church Spitalfields.

        2. I think anyone in our world might ask why a Syrian arms dealer would wish to have a country house here in England and then ingratiate himself with our Queen by building an obelisk in her honour in his grounds.

          Said might have bought an original Palladian country house. Instead he commissioned a sort of facsimile of a Palladian House and then commissioned the Architect to purchase the contents on his behalf.

          Whitfield was an expert in antiques and collected many items of value using the bulk of the fees from his architectural practice for fifty years. His collection was in part sold for several millions following his demise. There will doubtless be a further sale after Covid restrictions are lifted.

  62. OK, which of you Notlers is going to buy this weekend retreat?

    The biggest Palladian new-build in 100 years is selling in the Cotswolds for £20m

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/luxury/2021/10/22/10_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwVSYfRx-a0rm-wOQ3-QTCoU.jpg?imwidth=680

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/property-and-architecture/biggest-palladian-new-build-100-years-selling-cotswolds-20m/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey

  63. While recent attention has been focused on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding the genetic manipulation of bat coronaviruses in the same town as the bat coronavirus pandemic emerged, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have demanded answers over ‘sick’ experiments on drugged puppies, according to The Hill.

    “Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive,” writes nonprofit organization the White Coat Waste Project. “They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies.”

    As The Hill’s Christian Spencer writes:

    The White Coat Waste Project, the nonprofit organization that first pointed out that U.S. taxpayers were being used to fund the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology, have now turned its sights on Anthony Fauci on another animal-testing-related matter — infecting dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug on them.

    House members, most of whom are Republicans, want Fauci to explain himself in response to allegations brought on by the White Coat Waste Project that involve drugging puppies.

    According to the White Coat Waste Project, the Food and Drug Administration does not require drugs to be tested on dogs, so the group is asking why the need for such testing.

    White Coat Waste claims that 44 beagle puppies were used in a Tunisia, North Africa, laboratory, and some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed, allegedly so scientists could work without incessant barking. -The Hill

    1. That’s horrible!

      This man Fauci needs to be brought to justice for starting the process which brought covid to kill people. How many deaths is he responsible for?

      1. It is too early to tell how many will die or be maimed by the Fauci vaccines and as a result of his other actions such as the banning of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine and his promotion of Remdesivir to treat Covid.

        Fauci is the closest article to Goebbels that we have witnessed so far. Schwab, Soros, Bezos and Gates are his High Command.

    1. I thought he was a black half-brother of the Guiness Book of Records twin brothers Ross and Norris McWhirter.

      1. Carrie can keep herself warm by cutting off some of his blubber and using it to make heating fuel.

  68. We decided to go to the cinema last night, not the Bond thing but something that caught my eye that had been well received by the reviewers and looked to have great potential as a little gem, it’s The French Dispatch. The film was preceded by 15 minutes of adverts with a compliment of 95% Black ( not BAME just black ) actors, the only white actor I noticed was a weedy little fellow trying to change the picture in an art gallery with a remote. Thus I started the film in a bit of a grump which didn’t improve as I became more and more bewildered by the incomprehensible content of the film. It’s a portmanteau job of 3 separate tales with a common point. Perhaps I need a better understanding of the 60’s American magazine supplements and the culture of the New Yorker, the only reference I caught involved James Thurber. I fear I may be showing my lack of something here.

  69. That’s me gone. Useful day. An hour of ladder work removing dead branches produced enough crap wood to fire the stove for a week.

    Hope tomorrow is fine. Have a smashing evening.

    A demain.

    2. Beautiful, Plum, with just another winter of discontent ahead of us, I can only say roll on next Spring and Summer.

      Or, as Sarah Kennedy used to say, “If we are spared.”

  71. 340471+ up ticks,

    “Imperative” getting a jab from down below via the chief stoker.

    Hillary Clinton Insists It’s ‘Imperative’ Boris Johnson Mandates Vaccine Passports in UK

    1. Just reading that the woman shot by Alec Baldwin was the wife of an aide to the Clinton lawyer implicated by special prosecutor John Durham in the bogus Russian Hoax scandal organised by Hillary Clinton.

      A warning from the Clintons in all probability.

      Edited.

      1. Too complicated. Doesn’t the trail of bodies include more quiet suicides and car crashes than Agatha Christie style murders?

        1. Good point but the lies emanating from the Obama Clinton franchise continue apace. They really do think the rest of us are stupid.

          A similar stage has been reached in the UK where nothing coming out of Johnson’s mouth can be relied upon. Johnson’s thrall to tame behavioural scientists and his globalist masters is now of sickening proportions. I for one wish the fat bastard would ‘die in a ditch’ as promised.

    3. Sorry, I am out of the loop. I thought that she was an American politician. What is it to her?

      1. Yet we can’t do anything about it.

        If a shop ignores it, then the state shuts them down, so they obey. Then to get in, we have to.

        My gym are terrified of another shutdown. It’ll drive them out of business.

        The stat does not care.

    1. Sums up the Left in a nutshell. They won’t listen to facts or reason, and thus they are vicious and violent.

      That’s why they seek groupthink, gather around them others who think as they do, and demand others think the same. This ensures the truth – reason and logic – cannot be considered.

    2. Applied to today’s situation, that means that we must free people from masks and vaxx passports before they will start to think for themselves and realise that those things are authoritarian.
      I don’t think some people will ever realise though – they will just say See? nothing happened, I told you there was no reason to worry.

  74. Advice/help please. NO jokes etc thank you. A man I vaguely know, honest, decent, workimg class, has been told he has terminal cancer, disease very aggressive. Given less than a year. SENSIBLE replies ONLY PLEASE. He has had NO family, friends, and very little money. but owns his own small house – and that’s it. He wants to do a private/home Last Will and Testament. He is NOT on the internet, doesn’t understand that at all and I said I’d ask you lot for sensible advice. Don’t know his intentions from the house cash at all.

    Thanks.

    1. Oh, Lord. That’s terrible. My sympathies. I hope at least there are a few mourners at the funeral.
      Suggestions: Maybe he could leave the house and whatever money there is left to an ex-Serviceman’s charity that supports homeless ex-servicemen? There’s a definite need there, and not a lot of government action to help out.

    2. If it’s the will process you’re after, there used to be will forms and the basic requirements for writing and witnessing as a pack on sale in WH Smiths last time I was there – so, 24 years ago. Might still be available?
      You could maybe provide the guides from these folk (there are more than cats here): https://www.cats.org.uk/support-us/giftsinwills/free-charity-will-writing-service?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=Free%20Wills&utm_term=GPPC&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiNSLBhCPARIsAKNS4_e8mVsRm2ecXOD1jW2CjRNgTD5wM-pq-7v7Gb3LL6-UcOQkI0aCsYkaAhS9EALw_wcB

      here too: https://www.gov.uk/make-will

      Edit: and here: https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/death-and-bereavement/diy-wills-what-you-need-to-know

    5. There are many charities that will pay a solicitor to write a will for you for free in the hope that you will leave them a little something.

      1. But it is very important to NOT make any solicitor an executor.

        He/she can charge whatever they want, take as long as they like, and the other executor(s) cannot remove him/her.

    6. There are many charities that will pay a solicitor to write a will for you for free in the hope that you will leave them a little something.

    8. Walter has he talked to Macmillan yet? I found them to be invaluable and still do although, officially I became cancer free the 21st of this month.

      Macmillan Cancer Support https://www.macmillan.org.uk/

      Tell him, if he is hesitant to go ahead and phone they are really helpful on all fronts. By all fronts I mean they will help with anything and if they can’t then they will put him in contact with someone who can. But he can talk things out with them so he has clarification about what he wants to do and how. I find them to be unfailingly good people and not pushy in any way.

      1. Don’t know – keeps himself to himself – just him – tv and a few pints – never been abroad etc.

        1. Then urge him to do so. He really will find a friend or friends there. One thing I have learnt is you must not be reticent but you must speak, must communicate. If you don’t then nothing will happen. You have to reach out in order to get anything back. It’s that simple really. I was very hesitant because I’m a very self contained person. But after taking that first step I found it a huge relief to find that there was someone who would respond to anything I had to say either as a mentor or in terms of practical advice. But he has to take the first step. After all if they don’t know, how can they or anyone help? He will also find, as I did, there is a whole world out there for cancer sufferers that you are just not aware of if you don’t have the disease, it’s pretty astonishing how organized it is. And that world is set up to take care of you and help as much as you need it.

      2. “…officially I became cancer free the 21st of this month.”
        Effin’ good news, JA! Couldn’t be better!
        :-D)

    9. Couldn’t he just go to the citizens advice bureau and ask them to help? None of the lawyers office pretense.

      Alternatively, just sell the house, have a good time and just hope that a second opinion doesn’t say oops!

    10. I would suggest it is time for him to set up a Power of Attorney.

      Unless he can nominate someone to act on his behalf in the event he can no longer make decisions regardng his health and financial affairs this role will fall to the Office of the Public Guardian(OPG).

      Here’s a paragraph from a trust in my locality:

      When is it time to set up a Power of Attorney?
      Sometimes things happen in life which catch us by surprise. To help deal with these unforeseen circumstances, it is important that we have our legal affairs in order. One key legal document is a lasting power of attorney. Normally enacted for medical or financial reasons, this legal step can provide you with additional peace of mind in knowing that your affairs are in good hands, and lasting power of attorney is just as important as a Will. Let’s take a look at the basic principles behind lasting powers of attorney as well as some of the situations when it might be needed.

      From: angliaprobatetrusts.com

      The forms would need to be downloaded for him with someone who has internet access and a printer:

      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/make-a-lasting-power-of-attorney

      There are two stages: application and registration.
      Both would be advisable if time is limited to enable decisions to be made at short notice by his nominated attorney should the need arise. Fees can be reduced for people with limited means.

      2. I have just registered LPA for myself. It can be done very simply by downloading and completing the form from the Gov website and costs £82 to register. Although I’m not near the gaga stage yet, who knows whether I will have a close encounter with a runaway bus in the morning, enough to remove my ability to reason. If not, the paperwork sits in the draw in case its ever needed. Well worthwhile.

    12. Hi Walter,
      Seriously, if he is short of friends you will have to give him some emotional support; the money is the least of his worries. Try and find out it if he has any other friends.
      Most Nottlers can give advice about wills, solicitors, power of attorney etc, but someone will need to help him talk with social services, the local GP, Age UK etc.

  75. Another request for advice (see walter’s below)
    My friend has what she describes as a rash, with scabby bits around her tummy and back. The doctor says it’s a consequence of the cold with sore throat that she had last week.
    I’ve never heard of this – is it a common post-cold effect?
    She’s under a lot of stress at the moment.

        2. Eczema? My first guess would be mild shingles after her immune system was hit by a heavy cold. The cold that has been all around UK recently is described as respiratory syncytial virus.

        3. I had shingles last February and the rash didn’t hurt, or itch or be painful. It was accompanied by a complete lack of energy, fleeting pains in my ear, lethargy. It was on one side of my body, across my right back shoulder, then 2-3 weeks later it extended itself to my left back shoulder. I checked with ‘Dr Google’ if this could happen, and yes this was confirmed, in some instances this could occur and the timing was spot on – 2-3 weeks after the first rash outbreak. I was very fortunate, I was not very ill with it and the rash scarcely troubled me. However, the later rash outbreak is taking a long time to heal, the first showing on my right shoulder has cleared up, but I am now 8 months down the line and the healing of the left shoulder is slow. In the case of your friend, if it is shingles the surrounding area is a lightish pink with areas of darker pink or scabs. Our gp confirmed my rash as shingles by my sending in to the surgery a photo of the first rash outbreak.

          1. Thanks for the info. Sounds quite nasty, I hope the remaining bits clear up soon. I didn’t realise that shingles could show itself like that.

  76. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband goes on hunger strike
    Second time in two years that Richard Ratcliffe has gone on hunger strike over Government’s ‘inaction and failure’ in handling wife’s case
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/24/nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffes-husband-goes-hunger-strike/

    Starve himself to death and leave their daughter with no parents? This is obviously a publicity stunt and will not be taken seriously by the UK government. The Iranian authorities wouldn’t give two hoots, in any case.

    1. What would you do? What would I do? I don’t know.

      Richard Radcliffe wants wants to bring attention to the case and see if he can provoke Johnson into action.

      Perhaps the sooner we all realise that the Muslim and Christian cultures don’t mix and stop pretending that they do – the better.

      1. I think Richard Radcliffe is doing it to keep his wife’s predicament in the public eye. The UK government would much rather forget about it and let the problem fade away.

      2. Honestly, I know it’s a bad situation for their family but my sympathy for people who go back to a dangerous country that they left, and then get trapped there, is limited. Same with Afghanistan recently.

    2. It will be taken very seriously by the UK government, I think. I am fairly sure that any fuss that the UK kicks up with Iran will be welcomed by the US, for whom Bojo works , amongst others, and will allow him to further ingratiate himself. That the US simply laughs at us and Iran couldn’t care one way or the other is lost on our PM.

      1. It’s an irritation to the UK government, which would much rather not be bothered by such matters.

  77. As you would expect there are no physical descriptions of either the attackers or those who were killed. Should we draw any conclusions from this?

    I find this section of the report interesting when compared with the fact that a priest was not allowed to give the last rites to Sir David Amess:

    On Sunday afternoon a group of people carrying flowers arrived at the scene.

    They were allowed through the police cordon to leave the flowers outside.

    One teenage girl burst into tears as they approached the scene.

    The police investigation is ongoing.

    Eight arrested in murder probe after two teenage boys killed in Brentwood
    Police were called to the address at Regency Court in Brentwood at around 1.30am on Sunday morning
    Two teenagers have died in Brentwood

    Eight people have been arrested on suspicion of murder in relation to the incident.

    By Telegraph Reporters
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/24/eight-arrested-murder-probe-two-teenage-boys-killed/

    A neighbour has described hearing shouts and someone “yelling out in pain” from the scene of a suspected double murder in Essex.

    Police were called to the address at Regency Court in Brentwood at around 1.30am on Sunday morning.

    They found three injured people, including two teenage boys who later died from their injuries.

    The third person was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

    Neighbour Mark MacIntosh said he had only just arrived home before he heard shouting and screaming coming from the nearby residence.

    “I came home last night, I came in five minutes before I heard the shouts and screams,” he said.

    “I said should I go down as I usually do if I think there’s something serious but I couldn’t hear.”

    He said he paced around his flat wondering what he should do.

    “And now as I reflect I realise that what I heard was somebody yelling out in pain who may have lost his life shortly thereafter.”

    On Sunday afternoon a group of people carrying flowers arrived at the scene.

    They were allowed through the police cordon to leave the flowers outside.

    One teenage girl burst into tears as they approached the scene.

    The police investigation is ongoing.

    Detective Chief Inspector Andy Clarkson, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said there were a number of witnesses to the incident.

    He said: “We know there were a number of witnesses to this incident and I would urge anyone who saw anything in Regency Court and the roads around it in central Brentwood between 1am and 2am to come forward and speak to us if you have not already done so,” he said.

    Anyone with any information has been asked to contact Essex Police on 101 and cite incident 125 of October 24.

    1. Hmmm. I suppose that no MPs were involved. That people were allowed into the “crime scene” would suggest that they were not white.

      1. Yet when Amess was murdered, the Police did not allow a Catholic Priest in to give the Last Rites.
        What is the SOP on this?

        1. It is OK to knock whites about. Especially Christians and old people on their own, whom you can happily kick without fear of retribution. By denying Mr Amess the Last Rites the police were acting as accessories to the murder.

          1. The last statement is an exaggeration, Horace, but in the light of that a whole bunch of others had been there, and it seems OK to put down flowers at other locations, it seems harsh to deny him the Last Rites. I’m sure the Father would be OK with giving prints etc if they were necessary afterwards.

          2. No, it is not. The Last Rites is the means by which a Catholic may enter Eternal Life with God, and not fall into the clutch of the Adversary and the fires of Hell. Now it hardly matters if you do not believe that. But we do. In what remains of a Christian country in a Christian continent, that should carry some weight with the defenders of the peace of the country. that it does not indicates how very far we have fallen.
            No Catholic is unaware that we are at war with the forces of darkness whose protagonists grin at us daily.

  79. EXCLUSIVE: Renowned Aussie doctor calls for ALL Chinese surgeons to be BANNED from Western hospitals and unis amid claim many are returning to China to take part in its ‘real-life Squid Game’ organ harvesting market
    World renowned transplant doctor says Chinese surgeons should be banned
    Professor Russell Strong is concerned about Beijing harvesting human organs
    About 100,000 political dissidents are killed every year for their organs in China
    The terrifying trade mirrors side plot in the smash hit Netflix series Squid Game

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10106599/Chinas-real-life-Squid-Game-Doctor-issues-urgent-warning-Chinese-surgeons-banned.html

    No 1 son who is in his early fifties , watched some of the Squid Game on Netflix ….

    That is a truly terrifying series .. I think it is Korean , it is utterly barbaric and with out soul , the stuff of nightmares ..

    If young impressionable minds are watching Squid Game , one might call the series a SNUFF MOVIE, and I am sure it is desentisizing children , torture and murder by the foulest barbaric means filmed by people with a reputation for bad things .

    When we read today that more murders are being investigated , murders and savagery seem so common place , and I expect the perpetrators have all been following the Squid Game on Netflix .

    TV is becoming the very Devil in the room .

    The disturbed minds of film directors must be questioned deeply.

    1. A shark was swimming around looking for food…
      … and he catches a squid.

      The squid says: “don’t eat me, I’m really sick!”

      So the shark says: “fine, I won’t eat you. But I know just what to do with you…”

      The shark takes the squid to his friend and says: “here’s the sick squid I owe you.”

    2. Never mind hospitals, the brilliant Trudeau allowed Chinese scientists from Wuhan to do research work in a Canadian virus lab. Apparently they were stealing samples before being thrown out a few years ago.

      The stonewalling to prevent details of the theft and reasons for expulsion has been quite impressive.

    3. With almost all morality gone from society and the social norms destroyed by liberal elites, it is no surprise that there is much talk of ‘mental illness’ in the younger generation. The minds of young people are thus prepared to accept whatever they are fed, any one off message is cancelled or loses their livelihood. I haven’t looked at the game but it sounds just like the kind of vile material that turns the mind to blancmange just ready for indoctrination.

    4. ‘That is a truly terrifying series .. I think it is Korean , it is utterly barbaric and with out soul , the stuff of nightmares ..’

      Without Seoul ………………..shurely

    5. ‘Professor Russell Strong is concerned about Beijing harvesting human organs
      About 100,000 political dissidents are killed every year for their organs in China      ‘

      Brings new meaning to the ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May’ song.

      1. IIRC, there’s a shot of a young Tom Selleck in suspended animation, waiting to have his organs harvested.

  81. ‘He’s sold his soul’:

    Campaigners and fans slam ‘greedy’ David Beckham over ‘£150m’ deal to be Qatar ambassador and face of World Cup as he faces calls to be stripped of UNICEF role over country’s human rights record
    David Beckham was seen working on a promotional film for the Qatar World Cup
    The rich Middle Eastern nation has a record of appalling human rights abuses
    Beckham didn’t comment on Qatar’s unjust treatment of gay men and women
    It is thought Beckham is being paid in excess of £10 million to create the promo
    By KATIE FEEHAN FOR MAILONLINE and KATIE HIND FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

    PUBLISHED: 13:07, 24 October 2021 | UPDATED: 15:18, 24 October 2021

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10125357/Campaigners-fans-slam-David-Beckham-deal-Qatar-ambassador-face-World-Cup.html

    3. As a by-the way, how many Nottlers would turn down the chance to earn £10,000,000.00, because
      the rich Middle Eastern nation of Qatar has a record of appalling human rights abuses

      1. Reminds me of the old joke:
        Old man to beautiful young woman: “Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?”
        BYW: “Well, of course!”
        OM: “Would you sleep with me for a pound?”
        BYM: “Of course not! What do you think I am?”
        OM: “I thought we had established that, now we’re haggling over the price!”
        My rules in decision making: What would I say at the Court of Inquiry if it all goes horribly wrong?
        Will I be able to look myself in the eye in the morning mirror?
        Helps keep one on the straight and narrow.

    4. As a by-the way, how many Nottlers would turn down the chance to earn £10,000,000.00, because
      the rich Middle Eastern nation of Qatar has a record of appalling human rights abuses

  83. Lidl releasing ‘Trick or Treat’ flavoured Halloween sausages
    https://www.penarthtimes.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/19666083.lidl-releasing-trick-treat-flavoured-halloween-sausages/
    Yes, Halloween sausages!
    The sausages, made with British Pork, come in ‘trick’ and ‘treat’ flavours. ‘Trick’ will be Carolina Reaper Chilli flavoured, and ‘treat’ will be Toffee and Apple flavoured. The Halloween seasonal sausages will be available from Thursday, October 28 and will cost just £1.99 a pack. The Carolina Reaper sausages will definitely add a kick of spice to your bangers and mash, and if sweet flavours are more your thing then Toffee and Apple sausages are one to try.

    1. Hmmm, Muslims versus Vegans. But which is better? There’s only one way to find out…

      FIGHT!!!

      1. Fairly obvious who is winning. Plenty of genuine vegan sausages available, but prophet rolls are in short supply.

  85. UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 31 October – 12 November 2021

    I foresee a multi-faceted disaster: Virtue Signalling, Hypocrisy, Protests from all quarters, Strikes, Stinking Rubbish (human and other), Stalinist Lockdown (no home deliveries, no mail or road access for Glasgow ‘Redzone’ residents), no Pubs, Theatres or Restaurants, inappropriate Police and Military intervention, 35,000 non Covid-tested delegates, thousands of super-green Private Jets …

    Next Sunday, folks …

    What could possibly go wrong?

    3. Gosh, the important people are not going to see any of that. They will be swept to their luxury accom in their brand new Taxpayer funded EVs whilst the little people are kept well away. More Champers Klaus….

    4. Sooooooooooooo … These full-time wasters are going
      to waste almost 4% of a year talking about:

      something which is non-existent?

      which the greatest polluting nation in the world is not
      attending?

      And who is paying for/hosting this brewery in a piss-up?

      But how long will it keep Carrie-on-camping sweet?
      How long will it be before the PM falls for yet another
      Carrie-ridden scam?

      Edited:

      Good evening, Lacoste.

      2. Fattaturk has fallen for all her scams – and will contiue to do so for the future ones. At some stage the stupid, licentious old man gets too old to bother to look elsewhere…and gives up.

        Methinks he is at that stage.

    5. Police Scotland has met with a number of groups to discuss how the event will be policed, including Extinction Rebellion.
      Assistant Chief Constable Bernie Higgins said there was “no one size fits all to protest”. “Some groups will do a lie in,” he said. “If people want to go to George Square and lie down, crack on, because you’re really not going to have much impact on the conference.”
      This is encouragement of antisocial behaviour. “..crack on..” means “please feel free to go ahead” in English.
      No wonder Police Scotland do not arrest rapists, or keep murderers in custody.
      On the other hand if you are not the right sort of protestor, for example if you are simply a thoroughly pissed-off Glaswegian*, expect to be pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, clubbed, punched and kicked before being taken away to be held in custody before being given a prison sentence in double quick time.
      *The police are cosying up to the XR protestors et al, having meetings with them and letting them know what they can get away with.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58915705

      1. I fear that the Royal Family first division, by ‘sharing the stage’ with David Attenborough, many dodgy green scientists – and 18-year-old Greta Thunberg – could permanently damage the credibility of Royal Institution; the issues are far too political.

        Sensibly perhaps, because of recent health scares, Her Majesty may avoid centre stage.

        However, over-enthusiasm for Green propaganda may well damage the credibility of her successors in line …

        1. Cynical me could not help wondering whether HM’s health scare was invented as she realised how unpopular the participation in COP is. Maybe all my scathing comments in the Daily Mail were not wasted….

      1. The Lion and Albert
        by Marriott Edgar (1880-1951)

        There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
        That’s noted for fresh-air and fun,
        And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
        Went there with young Albert, their son.

        A grand little lad was their Albert,
        All dressed in his best; quite a swell,
        With a stick with an ‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle,
        The finest that Woolworth’s could sell. https://allpoetry.com/The-Lion-and-Albert

        2. A novel I’ve just read goes on for four hundred pages, a mystery/thriller about a young English woman living in Iowa who returns home to the north of England. Set near Christmas December 1964 and January 1965, just before the death of Churchill. German spies looking for artifacts from a crashed spaceship in the Black Forest in Germany in 1936 ( not a sci-fi) harass and follow her and she realises her life is in danger. I began following the writer on Instagram and found the ebook on Kindle. The House Near Fallowfield by James Fillmore.

        4. Probably have the woke people wanting to issue a warning about how scary this is for youngsters today!!

    2. Its for cars that do not comply with Euro 4/6 petrol/diesel emission standards, I believe. However, once introduced, the noose is inevitably tightened.

    4. It works well for me Edit Bit I will never x 1 million go to London. When the Queen wants to Knight me, she can come up to Lincolnshire

      Of course Sad Dick Cant must pay OUT OF HIS OWN POCKET for the mayoral car and his body guards transport

      The rate/poll tax payers of London should not

  89. So I expect all those people that have given up eating meat, bought an electric car and have been thrice jabbed will now be looking forward to a winter lockdown while making plans to get a heat pumped fitted in the Spring

    1. The best bit for me, is that all the fertiliser used on the vegetables will be man made
      No cows to provide the Organic Sort (Cow Dung and Straw)

        1. The human body cannot ‘process’ (ie absorb) tomato pips or sweet corn husks.

          We know where Tintent Cludges have been emptied. Go to any Sewage Farm and see for youself

          1. I know, which is why I wrote the comment. During the war, when night soil was commonly used as fertiliser, tomato plants were everywhere. You use sweet corn as an indicator that your digestive system is working as it should.

    2. What do such people think their reward for their great obedience will be? Being allowed to go to Tesco and stay alive? I think they might be a bit optimistic on the last one.

  91. Evening, all. In church, when we were socialising after the service, the priest (ex-RAF and normally, I thought, quite sound) opined that “islam has a lot to offer”! What? It seems he’d been in Oman in a muslim family and was quite impressed. Pointed out the disadvantages for women (he said the woman of the household where he stayed told him she felt modest in a hijab and he wouldn’t expect his wife to go out without a bra, with which he agreed). Couldn’t convince him that the two were hardly the same. I suspect this is something that will run and run.

    1. Yo Conners (& Oscar)

      Your Padre has the makings of a future Archbishop of Canterbury, looking at the present one

      1. He is retired and just comes along to help out (we are still in a Vacancy and haven’t found a suitable replacement yet). I don’t think he could be ABC because he appears actually to be a sincere Christian (if somewhat misguided about islam).

        2. This naive view of islam is very common though – “oh I’ve met a muslim and they told me this and this about islam, it’s a wonderful religion actually”
          Wake up idiots, muslims talk quite differently among themselves – you were sold the propaganda version. They never tell naive westerners that Hitler was a great man who had the right ideas, or that 9/11 was a great day in history (both things that I have heard from muslims who who felt confident in their surroundings).

          1. I should have asked him (but I wasn’t the only one in the conversation) if he’d heard of taqiyya and kitman. I prefer “Thou shalt not bear false witness” myself.

    3. Remind him that the koran/hadiths mandate the murder of anyone “rejecting Allah” i.e. leaving islam, and that this is put into practice until today. And that it’s none of his damn business whether his wife goes out without a bra or not. She is a person in her own right who makes decisions for herself. As recognised by his boss.

  93. A brief history of the advancement of Life in UK

    Caveman, Walkers, Villagers, Horseman/Coaches, Sea Travel, Big Town, Train/Canal traveller, Industrial Revolution, Gas/Electric to houses/ Cyclists
    Motorised Transport, Air Travel

    Boris

    No Gas Electricity, No Motorised Transport, No Industry, No Agriculture, Cyclist, Villages, caves

  95. Coronavirus cases to slump this winter, say scientists

    Definition of ‘slump’ a sudden severe or prolonged fall in the price, value, or amount of something.

    As you can see from above, In normal parlance ‘slump’ means a loss

    The scientists, or the reporters seem upset the this is going to happen

    Shirley, better Headline would be: Coronavirus cases to reduce greatly this winter, say scientists

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/24/coronavirus-cases-slump-winter-say-scientists/

  96. Coronavirus cases to slump this winter, say scientists

    Definition of ‘slump’ a sudden severe or prolonged fall in the price, value, or amount of something.

    As you can see from above, In normal parlance ‘slump’ means a loss

    The scientists, or the reporters seem upset the this is going to happen

    Shirley, better Headline would be: Coronavirus cases to reduce greatly this winter, say scientists

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/24/coronavirus-cases-slump-winter-say-scientists/

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