Sunday 25 June: It is not the job of government to bail out mortgage borrowers as interest rates climb

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

557 thoughts on “Sunday 25 June: It is not the job of government to bail out mortgage borrowers as interest rates climb”

  1. Morning, all Y’all.
    Overcast, lots of birds tweeting & magpies shouting “Cor!”

        1. Nothing worth watching, really, Anne. They just sit up in the trees making bluddy noise.

  2. ‘Morning All

    Bah

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    Rest of the Medley

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  3. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s shaggy dog story

    A Doggy Story

    An Alsatian, a Golden Retriever, and a Black Lab are all in the vet waiting room. The Alsatian says to the Retriever, “what are you in for?”

    The Retriever says, “I’m a digger. I dug up the yard, the carpet, and I dug a hole in my masters couch.”

    The Alsatian says, “So what are they going to do to ya?”

    The Retriever says, “Prozac! That’s what they give all dogs now a days!”

    The Alsatian, still curious, turns to the Lab and says, “What about you? Why are you here?”

    The Lab says, “I’m a pisser. I piss on the floor, the rug, and the other day on my masters bed.”

    The Alsatian says, “So what are they going to do to ya?”.

    The Lab says “Prozac”.

    Now the Lab is also curious so he turns to the Alsatian and says, “What’s your story? Why are you here?”

    The Alsatian says, “I’m a humper. I hump the couch, the kids leg, and the other day when my mistress was getting out of the shower I couldn’t resist and I climbed up and humped her.”

    The Lab says, “So are they giving you Prozac?”

    The Alsatian says, “No, I’m just here to get my nails trimmed!”

    Sounds familiar?

  6. ‘Morning, Peeps. A rather unpleasant 25°C forecast here today, no doubt accompanied by yet another unwelcome visit from Betty Swallocks…

    Headline in today’s DT:

    “Rishi Sunak to hit households with £170 net zero green levy

    The two-year suspension of green levies announced last autumn is to end from the beginning of July, The Telegraph has learned”

    The utter bastards. Obviously Labour’s 25 point lead isn’t enough for them.

    A fitting BTL comment:

    Ronald Emler
    8 HRS AGO
    Net zero. The number of Tory MPs after the next election.

    1. This report from the GWPF, kindly put up by a BTL poster, is well worth a read:

      https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Kelly-Net-Zero-Progress-Report.pdf

      It is rather lengthy, so the eminent author has thoughtfully included a summary:

      Summary

      “With extra costs comfortably in excess of £3 trillion, a dedicated and skilled workforce, 70% of that of the NHS, and key strategic materials demanded at many times the supply rates that prevail today, and all for no measurable attributable change in the global climate, the mitigation of climate change via a net-zero emissions UK economy in 2050 is an extremely difficult ask. Without a command economy, the target will certainly not be met.”

      Yes, I agree, we are completely stuffed

      1. My rebuttal:

        Climate Change and You

        The climate ‘science’ is wrong. CO2 being 0.04% of the atmosphere is a cause for good, as it is essential for plant life.

        The atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. The remaining 1% are various trace elements of which CO2 is but a small part.

        The greatest cause of any change in the Earth’s climate, is due to the cyclical nature of the Sun’s phases, which may lead to vast differences between ice ages and continual heatwaves

        Check https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/challenging-net-zero-with-science/

        Please feel free to copy and paste this anywhere appropriate.

      3. There are many people in the Civil Service and Parliament who will use this to introduce a Command economy.

    3. Mr Emler: but that won’t get us very far if they’re all replaced with Lib Dem and Labour ones! Out of the frying pan into the fire, in fact.

  9. Trans activists ‘attacked’ at children’s drag queen story time event. 25 June 2023.

    Some of the activists who took part in the anti-trans protest came from traditional Far-right groups such as the Football Lads Alliance, Blood & Honour and Britain First, which have their roots in the extreme Right-wing National Front, British National Party and British Movement.

    But others are members of the conservative youth organisation Turning Point UK, an offshoot of a US group that seeks to challenge the view that young people are inherently Left-leaning and anti-free markets.

    Turning Point UK said in a statement: “There were no far-Right activists in attendance and instead the radical trans-activists attacked attendees of our demonstration with wooden clubs.”

    Hmmmm. Whom to believe? The term Far-Right appears seven times and Right-wing three in the text.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/24/trans-activists-attacked-children-drag-london-honor-oak-pub/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    2. 373801+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      “The far right”

      As seen as the genuine UKIP, Tommy Robinson,
      Nick Griffin, the football lads, the vets, could or would if amalgamated have brought us to such an odious state as a nation we are currently suffering in.

      The “so far right” would be a far more honest title.

    4. You only have to realise that across the Atlantic, mothers protesting against drag queen story hours have been labelled “far right” to realise which story sounds more like the truth!

  10. Morning all,

    I now understand that I’m unconsciously incompetent and that is because I don’t know what I don’t know.
    It follows that if I should use any software embedded with an AI product like ChatGPT I am likely to get only 1% correct answers to my questions or demands.

    This is a good starter tutorial in how to approach an internet interface employing ChatGPT and is a good explanation of how to treat it sensibly whilst avoiding the pitfalls that Elon Musk finds more dangerous than nukes:

    https://youtu.be/cWil0mqdXRY

    Edit: unconsciously misspelt previous word

  12. 373801+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 25 June: It is not the job of government to bail out mortgage borrowers as interest rates climb

    Nor is it the job of “government” to keep a large % of foreign MANKIND as guests in five star hotels,or to run experimental
    medication without consent on a trusting, gullible,judging by the continuing voting pattern, weak minded peoples.

    The latter resulting in premature death and long term injury ongoing.

    Mortgage bailouts, in many peoples mindset,”see the torys (ino)
    politico’s are a better class of rat),the tories in turn are using this problem ( much of it their making) to soften up the electorate, give a little take a great deal.Mortgage bailouts are, in this instance, a good thing but bear in mind these WEF /NWO politico’s are not doing it out of the goodness of their
    ( non existent ) hearts, it is seen by them as a beneficial gesture
    in their favour.

    This is not a “government” but the result of an evil vee trusting souls coup.

  13. Here we go again – yet another sickening headline:

    “St Paul’s Cathedral branded Winston Churchill a ‘white supremacist’ and ‘unashamed imperialist’

    Family of wartime leader upset after description found on website of cathedral that held Churchill’s state funeral”

    This BTL poster is spot on:

    James Denham
    7 HRS AGO
    The Marxist infiltration runs deep, this is going to be one hell of a struggle, but the nation that gave the world Churchill is up to it, I hope.
    He kept the torch of freedom burning when the lights went out all over Europe, he delivered oratory which gave his people and the world hope in darkness, he was the greatest Englishman of all time, from a country that gave the world Newton, Darwin and Shakespeare that is really saying something.

    * * *

    Bravo Mr Denham. It has come to something when hatred of this country is expressed by St Paul’s Cathedral, of all places. Will heads roll? Of course not, this is the gospel according to Karl Marx.

      1. As was our Aynock. (The late great honorable MP foe Wolverhampton South West)

  15. It is not the job of government to bail out mortgage borrowers as interest rates climb

    It is not the job of government to cause the situation either

    1. Nor to apply a £170 ‘Green Levy’.

      My bill will go in the paper re-cycling.

    2. Old Polonius had a point!

      Neither a borrower, nor a lender be
      For loan oft loses both itself and friend
      And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

      It is not as if most of us here did not see for many years that holding interest rates down and allowing people to borrow large multiples of their salaries would end in disaster. But one of the reasons why people borrowed too much was the fear that when property prices were rising exponentially if they did no get onto the property ladder quickly they would never get on it.

      Most Nottlers who had mortgages took them out when interest rates were far higher than 5%. There was income tax relief on the interest payments to soften the blow and because people were not able to borrow more that three times their income people were generally more secure.

      When we moved to France 35 years ago property prices were a fraction of prices in England and we were able to afford the sort of home that would have been beyond our wildest dreams in England. Indeed for the price we paid for Le Grand Osier we would have been lucky to have found a small flat in Lyme Regis or a two-bedroomed terraced house in Seaton. In France mortgages have a fixed rate throughout their terms and strict controls are imposed on how much you could borrow. The consequence is that most young people have far more pleasant homes than their English counterparts and are not crippled by debt because their mortgage repayments don’t suddenly explode.

      1. We broke those rules the moment we embarked on the debt-based currency disaster.

        1. And the state has been the main beneficiary.

          When we die we want to pass on what we have to our children. The more our property is worth the more we shall have to pay in death duties and the less there will be for our sons.

          Since we do not want to sell our home or borrow against its value the less it is worth the better.

      3. I’m afraid Mrs T gets some of the blame for the easing of restrictions on borrowing in the 80s.

    3. Funny how they can pour out money on net zero and invading migrants, but they suddenly remember that they’re the party of small government when it comes to assisting British people out of a situation created by politicians in cahoots with central bankers.

    1. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, corimmobile! Keep enjoying your retirement and have a wonderful day! 🍾🎂

    5. 🎶Happy Birthday, Corri🎶🎉🎉🥳🎉🎉🍰🥂🍾 Have a wonderful day, and the sun is shining in these ‘ere eastern parts!

    1. Well, obviously it’s the SNP battle bus, on steroids! You could fit the whole party in there! Or at least, the membership!

  19. Good morning, all. Sunny.

    First harvest picked between 06:30 and 07:15 this morning. Both are now cooking over a low heat in preparation for being turned into seed free jam tomorrow. Not quite enough fruit for jam today but tomorrow’s pick will provide more than enough. Busy week ahead as the redcurrants are also looking, err red, and ripe for picking.
    The plants are looking very good with plenty of fruit: back in March for the first time I dressed the plants with bone meal and as usual, compost from my garden waste. My general fertilizer of choice is fish, blood and bone and in April I followed the bone meal with that. Looking good at the moment.

    Raspberries
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ceca81427f0a75a0aae04f7ea5f452fdf5fd33fed87f92bfb08945c548252031.jpg

    Loganberries
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/225e653edb190178ce7ee485e1ba6c16482f55b519c38edca6721e81fd8348f3.jpg

    3. Nice! The rasps look really good.
      Our “secret” for a plentiful harvest is bees. 4 hives on the smallholding.

    4. Superb, as usual I had gooseberries, I used chicken wire for protection but the squirrels have stolen them all.
      Same goes for any grapes and hazle nuts I manage to grow.
      But they planted some walnuts in the garden, no idea where the supply is.
      One of the trees is now growing in the North Pennines. My nephew sent me a photo of it and a conifer the furry little buggers planted.

    5. Good morning Korky.
      Looking good. You can’t beat homemade jams.
      Over 20 years ago, I planted summer raspberries. After a few years, I dug them out as most of the feeble fruits were infested with maggots.
      I then planted Autumn raspberries in a different place – I was rewarded with unbelievably massive crops of good quality for many years. These canes have been trouble-free, just an annual dump of garden compost, add some chicken manure pellets and cut down the previous year’s canes in late winter. Unfortunately, the canes are no longer so good. Might be time to dig them out then replace on a different plot next year.

      1. I’ve lived here for nearly 40 years and my summer raspberries are in their fourth position. Not because of any growing problems but because of garden reorganisation. Sadly, my autumn raspberries aren’t, they already have flower buds and will produce fruit well before Autumn: they are not very prolific fruit producers but the fruit is definitely sweeter and better for dessert use than the summer varieties.
        Cut out the old, tie in the new, feed, water, weed then pick fruit and enjoy. What could be more simple?

        1. I guess different soils, weather and aspect would have quite an effect. When I bought my canes, I also bought some for my brother – his have never been as bountiful as mine.

    6. Good morning Korky.
      Looking good. You can’t beat homemade jams.
      Over 20 years ago, I planted summer raspberries. After a few years, I dug them out as most of the feeble fruits were infested with maggots.
      I then planted Autumn raspberries in a different place – I was rewarded with unbelievably massive crops of good quality for many years. These canes have been trouble-free, just an annual dump of garden compost, add some chicken manure pellets and cut down the previous year’s canes in late winter. Unfortunately, the canes are no longer so good. Might be time to dig them out then replace on a different plot next year.

    7. My raspberries are autumn fruiting, so I’ve barely got any flowers on them yet!

  20. Move over, stuffed teddies. Museums today need more to stimulate young minds. 25 June 2023.

    The need is there, and this week the Victoria and Albert Museum is reopening its old Museum of Childhood as Young V&A – championing creative confidence and cultural capital from toddlers to teenagers. Many Observer readers will fondly remember the old “Toy Museum” (as it was known) in Bethnal Green, east London, housed in what were once the boiler rooms of the 1851 Great Exhibition. It was a magical, creepy place of baby houses, Victorian table settings, and cots. But, truth be told, parents and grandparents always enjoyed visiting it more than children, whose interest in postwar soft toys can quickly wane.

    So, we have stripped it out to create a museum centred around play, imagination and design. Rather than displaying just toys, Young V&A has mined the entirety of the South Kensington collection – from ancient ceramics to contemporary jewellery to the Joey the Warhorse puppet (from the National Theatre production) – to stimulate creative thinking.

    Children have become the victims of the New World Order. No more teddies or Mum and Dad They are to be the first completely woke generation.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/24/public-sector-creative-crisis-children-museums-vanda

    2. I thought all museums were already ruined in the pursuit of indoctrinatingstimulating young minds.

    1. Not yet in The Borders, but we need to do something drastic about the useless Muzzie First Minister and his wee pretendy Parliament.

          1. Hoping to move sometime soon, Either to Annan, still D&G, but also looking at Royal British Legion Home in Cromer, North Norfolk, my county of birth.

          2. Sorry to read that. There’s nothing worse than being at odds with your place of abode. One man’s meat etc…

            I, a Scot, live in Hampshire which I realised 33 years ago was a mistake for me but I’ve come to terms with it. I’d be far happier back in a (SNP-free) Scotland or in Pembrokeshire, SWMBO’s beautiful county.

          4. Lovely spot. Does the Night Mail still plough up Beattock Summit? Years ago when I was in the RAF I frequently used to take a Tornado roaring up the Moffat Valley, over St.Mary’s Loch and on towards Selkirk before turning back South.

          5. Sorry, Fiscal, I hate the place. I feel like an exile, as well as lonely and isolated, Hence the attempts to move.

            RAFA also know I’m not happy here, whether it will have any effect, I’ve yet to find out.

  22. Well the mainstream media must have run out of false flag stories and have gone back to using the insurrection one.

    1. They can’t hide their devotion to the hate that they believe in against any other opinions or way of life.
      They’ve been working on it in many countries for a long time. It took 300 years for the Spanish to get rid. But of course they are creeping back again under the cover of Darkness.

      1. Time for us, and not only the PTB, to shine a light on their nefarious ways. 1st step – stop the boats.

      2. Wasn’t it more like 700 years until Ferdinand and Isabella did their stuff?

  24. I have seen a putsch in Moscow when I was there in 1991 and I pray there will never be another. 25 June 2023.

    Without mass defections by soldiers, he had no hope at all. Many Russian nationalists think Prigozhin’s troublemaking, in the midst of war, is unpatriotic and disloyal. They think Putin has been weak to put up with it so long, and they will hold his dithering against him at some point in the future.

    Many in the West are largely unaware that, by comparison with such people, Putin is a cautious, milksop moderate. Militant Russian nationalism is a powerful political force that Putin struggles to keep on his side at the best of times.

    But such nationalists will still not forgive anything which weakens the country in the face of the West.

    Yes, the illusion is peddled by the MSM that Vlad is leading his people astray when his popularity is of course an expression of his following their instincts and beliefs. They have had no difficulty supporting him over Ukraine and there was no sign of any support at street level for Prigozin which one suspects played a large part in his retreat yesterday. Had he met cheering crowds it might have beena different story. We don’t have his equal anywhere in the West which is led by Globalist stooges. .

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12230429/PETER-HITCHENS-seen-putsch-Moscow-1991.html?ico=topics_pagination_desktop

    1. According to all the British newspaper headlines Vlad has gone AWOL. Still it’s reassuring that JB is still present on Deck (even if he doesn’t have a full deck of cards….)

  26. Morning all 🙂😊
    Beautiful start and destination 30 degs.
    The problem with any government is they don’t actually have any of their own money. It’s all been deftly stolen (mainly wasted) from the tax payer’s.
    I read that if a Labour government takes power they are going to force local councils to use more green belt and agricultural land to build more homes because of the shortage. But the people who they consider to be elegable are from countries far larger than the UK. So send them back and tell them to put their own houses in order. Our culture and social structure has already been wrecked. Now these idiots have plans to wrecked our countryside.
    How green can this be?

    1. The worst aspect is that it has been deftly stolen from the current tax-payer’s children, grand-children and great-grand children. Criminals, all of them (governments, not the g-c and g-g-c).

      1. Agreed totally.
        And what makes everything even worse is those sick SOBs produce absolutely nothing but heartache for every one.

        1. 373801+ up ticks,

          Morning RE,

          But tis fact, the majority of voters seem to thrive on
          self inflicted heartache material, they are always up for more.

      2. 373801+ up ticks ,

        Morning FM,

        That could have been so once upon a time, but for the last 40 years, via the polling booth it has been done through the majority consent.

  27. Good day all,

    Another lovely day in prospect at Casa McPhee. Clear skies until late this afternoon, wind in the south going Sou’-West, 21℃ already and likely to be 28℃ by early afternoon. No point in rushing to the river today, trouty action will be late afternoon/early evening when some cloud cover arrives and the day cools.

    Wishi-Washi and the rest of the laundry gang really do have a death-wish. They want to make us pay directly for their Net Zero insanity.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/24/levy-net-zero-green-tory-rishi-sunak-this-week-170-pounds/

        1. So the electricity can be cut off if you don’t pay it? I guess they have learned from the poll tax episode.

  28. Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt wins auction for $67.6M superyacht Alfa Nero after 267ft vessel was seized from Russian oligarch following invasion of Ukraine. 25 June 2023.

    Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt won a lucrative auction in Antigua to buy a $67.6 million superyacht previously owned by a Russian oligarch.

    Schmidt, 68, snapped up the coveted vessel Alfa Nero after it was seized from fertilizer mogul Andrey Guryev last year following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    This used to be called recieving stolen goods!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12230091/Ex-Google-CEO-Eric-Schmidt-wins-67-6M-superyacht-Alfa-Nero-vessel-seized-Russian.html?ico=livefeed#comments

    2. What a fool!
      I personally would not touch with a barge-pole, stolen goods from a country where very rich people who are out of favour mysteriously topple out of windows in places like London.

    3. Perhaps Guryev’s mate will ensure the yacht goes on fire, with Schmidt in it. That would be interesting.

    1. I wanted to watch trivia last night, couldn’t be bothered with anything that required much thoughT. to hot in my bedroom even with all the windows open. So, perversely, I watched ‘The Meg’, at least three imploding submersibles in that escapism and a nice body count of people being chomped by a Megalodon. The dog survived, thank God!

    1. And happy birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🥂🍷from me too – though I guess Corim won’t be here till late evening.

    3. Just revisiting late as usual. Thank you very much for your greetings.

      Sitting in the garden now quaffing from a bottle of Cremant de Limoux. Saving the English sparkling wine for another day (Chapel Down from Tenterden).

  31. Interesting that pictures from Rostov-on-Don show by-standers dressed pretty much in exactly the same common attire as most of ‘les gens’ in the West – shorts. tea-shirts, trainers and the inevitable reversed, IQ-reducing, baseball caps. The Global American Empire of Trash Culture really has won whatever happens on the battlefield.

        1. I don’t like pyjama trousers – I wear a cotton night shirt – Caroline makes them for me.

          1. This time of year it’s boxer shorts for me but in winter it’s definitely brushed cotton jim-jams.

      2. I can honestly say I have never been out in public in my pyjamas – I’ve never even attended a pyjama party!

      1. A working visit to Samara some years ago, we discovered that Russian lasses like to dress for the office like they are going clubbing – tight skirts, high heels, very attractive, slender and feminine, so they are – like the picture. Although Norwegian women are very attractive, they normally wear dumpy clothes and trousers whenever out, and so the contrast was very marked.
        The Long Bar in Samara (CAMAPA – of Lada fame) is the place to go for beautiful Russian girls.

        1. Hi Ober! Yes I find them very attractive and quite sophisticated. The Russians are nice people all round. It is sick that the West seeks to demonize them.

      2. Do you remember all the films from the late 70s showing empty shelves in Russian Department stores and queues for any item of stock? All down to the Communist / Soviet system which the silly pillocks in power in the West seem to want to emulate. How times have changed!

        1. Yes I do remember that, bloody depressing! I do have an acquaintance living in Russia. He says the store are better stocked than they are in the UK, never run short of things, and that goods are cheaper too. Funny that we never get to look at the daily life of Russians. I guess it would P a lot of people off that they are better off than us. People would start asking questions.
          And, by the way, all those businesses that supposedly left Russia are still there, they simply changed their names and work through subsidiaries based in Europe. So you can still get your Nikkei’s, Levi’s jeans, Dior, Givenchy, etc, etc, etc. just as you could before. Nothing has really changed. Even the credit card system and other financial services are working, just done a different way to evade the sanctions.

          1. Ah, but don’t forget Russians are missing out on all the pleasures that Diversity brings…..

        2. They are not “silly pillocks” but useful idiots who think they’ll be in the club if the globalist oligarchs succeed. They won’t and most of them will realise it too late.

        3. Queueing appears to be the way the Russians shop – or at least shopped when I was there. You queued up to choose your item, then queued up to pay for it and then queued up to present the receipt and get your goods. I’ve no idea if it’s different now; I haven’t been back since glasnost’.

          1. It appears to be vastly different today with incredibly well stocked shops & shopping malls….

  32. From the Conservative Woman today:

    The BBC has reported the resignation of Mohammed Nazam as Mayor of Keighley after he described his attendance at a Pride event as a ‘lapse in judgement’, but the state broadcaster did not name his religion as Islam. Mr Nazam had said in a Facebook post that his participation in a Pride flag-raising event on June 16 contradicted his ‘personal religious beliefs’. In his post on ‘Keighley Pakistanis’, Mr Nazam said: ‘I wholeheartedly apologise for my participation in the flag-raising ceremony, as it contradicts my personal religious beliefs, as many of you are aware.’
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-muslim-sacrificed-on-the-altar-of-pride/

    So either Muslims who support homosexuality are condoning obscene infidel practices and should be worried about violent reprisals from their co-religionists or the are practising:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5cfb7274eec50b824d1000c47810979545387f51994e64462e57881f8496659c.png

    Now where does the Mayor of London stand? Wearing this T shirt doesn’t he risk being taken to the Shard and thrown off the top of it or does everyone know he follows Islam truly in his heart and is just doing a bit of TAQIYYA?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd5109983d90a540f89714234f370fdd4a08c2f02886ada013b1c187ad7f17e8.png

    1. Isn’t his wife a letter box? I thought that I “saw” her at the coronation!

    2. Yet, anyone else saying they don’t support pride would be vilified for it, and cancelled.
      Double standards, BBC? Surely not!

      1. Then vilify and cancel me. I take NO pride in ‘pride’.

        In fact, isn’t it one of the 7 deadly sins?

    3. The strange thing is that Khan owns a dog – Luna, a Labrador. I thought Islam considers dogs unclean or ‘Haram’.

      3. I suppose loosely a lab is a “hunting dog” (shooting at any rate) which is permitted.

    4. I began to despise this particular sect that considers it’s self as religious, when a few years ago, i saw them parading through our London streets with their faces covered and carrying placards calling for the beheading of anyone who opposes them. Then watching the two TV programmes based on and initialed Blood and Gold. With Simon Sebag Montifeori.
      They from the Spanish mainland sent out their Moore sailors who spent months and years stealing fair haired children from the southern British Isles and the coast of Ireland. Thousands of these poor little children were taken to Alhambra shoved into caves for storage and used at the discretion of those in charge. And fed to the caged pet lions when finished with.
      But of course it’s never mentioned when slavery is discussed. WHY ?

    5. They are ALL taqqiya-merchants. When they think there are enough of them (25%?) we’ll see their true colours.

    6. They are ALL taqqiya-merchants. When they think there are enough of them (25%?) we’ll see their true colours.

  33. Good Morning to all, trust everyone is well or, at least at peace on a Sunday morning.
    I promised to repost this because I posted it rather late in the day. So here it is. But it is already past history. Prigozhin’s troops have already retreated and, as far as I understand it, Prigozhin has fled to Belarus. His goose is cooked!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE2IqsAO-2M

      1. Well, the NYT says that the Americans knew before hand that Prigozhin was going to try rebelling. So I leave it up to your good sense to decide who aided and abated Putin’s enemy.

        Looked at Russia Today a few minutes ago. Nothing worth reporting from them. They seem to be rather indifferent to events, a storm in a teapot, sort of approach. They talk about how the Western Press is reporting it. Damaged streets in Rostov-on-Don, stuck tank in a gate, Putin’s Speech to the Nation, basically nothing new. But then, they are not interested in bigging up a damp squib of a rebellion.

    2. Will Lukashenko give him sanctuary? After all, the Belarusian president is an ally of Putin.

  34. Vladimir Putin receives lukewarm response from allies over ‘internal’ problem. 25 June 2023.

    The Russian president has alienated himself from much of the world following his invasion of Ukraine last year.

    Vladimir Putin received a lukewarm response as he launched a flurry of phone calls to international allies.
    The Russian president has alienated himself from much of the world following his invasion of Ukraine, and his diplomatic isolation could leave him vulnerable as the internal chaos continues.

    How on Earth does the author know this? Was he listening in on the other line? As one can see from the US’s failed attempts to spread the gospel the opposite is the truth. The majority of the planet have no interest in Ukraine or its outcome. India, the Middle East, China, Africa, South East Asia, South and Latin America want nothing to do with it. What the US has, is the leftovers from the post WW2 settlement. The two defeated nations and its nominal allies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/24/putin-lukewarm-response-allies-support-belarus-deescalate/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. Do I detect an air of desperation creeping in to these stories? As the much-hyped Ukie counter-invasion has vanished from the papers (‘cos it isn’t working, maybe?), they have to come with other “Oh, look! A squirrel!” stories.

      1. Morning Oberst. You could smell the 77 Brigade Troll Semen on the Spectator threads yesterday when they thought Vlad was a goner. Much quieter today!

    2. If there was a viable anti-Putin faction in Moscow, they would have seized their chance yesterday. Not quite the way that the Beeb is spinning it.

      1. Morning Joseph. I think that was Prigozin’s intention. He sent a feeler toward Moscow to test the water and when no support was forthcoming withdrew.

    3. They no longer need to bug telephone lines. Most undersea cables have a splitter on them allowing the Americans to listen in or do a data dump to their computers. It is certainly true of all cables coming in and out of the U.K.

      1. Morning Phizee. Very true but I don’t think Telegraph reporters are privy to the content!

        1. Good morning.

          Just avoiding certain words and phrases gets around most of the surveillance.

          1. Oops! You just mentioned the S word – but I think you may have gotten away with it…..

        1. Let us see if the Americans who suddenly found an extra $6 billion through an accounting error still have it.

          Good propaganda for the Ruskies either way.

          2. Apparently they sold ‘off the shelf’ weapons to Ukraine at today’s prices rather than what they were purchased for.

            And if you believe that i have a bridge going cheap.

      1. I think Sunday shopping is now world-wide.

        Even here in The Borders I was in the local Co-op @ 07:45.

  36. 373801+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Seeing as you can swear an oath on the Quran /Hadith in parliament isn’t this going against the grain of any oath taking material ?

    Mind, it is the ultimate in OUTS for politico’s.

    https://youtu.be/zmCb4sBSbpk

    1. Good morning BB

      Thank you for drawing my attention to this article. One sentence struck me as particularly true:

      “…. stupidity is distributed roughly equally across all human beings regardless of their level of education.”

      I have some friends who are extremely highly educated and yet completely stupid and some with a low level of education who are far more intelligent and have far more common sense. Indeed many highly degreed schoolteachers are abominably thick!

      My father-in-law used to classify people into four groups:

      i) The intelligent who are useful and do constructive things;
      ii) The intelligent who are lazy and do nothing;
      iii) The stupid who are lazy and do nothing;
      iv) The stupid who are industrious and keen to do as much as they can

      Of the four groups by far the most dangerous is the fourth group and at the moment the PTB are overstaffed with such people.

      1. …. stupidity is distributed roughly equally across all human beings regardless of their level of education.

        Intellectuals are notoriously gullible!

        2. But……We appear to have a massive concentration of this phenomenon in Westminster and Whitehall.

      2. …. stupidity is distributed roughly equally across all human beings regardless of their level of education.

        Intellectuals are notoriously gullible!

    2. There was often a bit of rivalry between the boarders and the day boys when I was at school!

      1. Oh I bet that lot are full of degrees and postgraduate qualifications! Not that that necessarily means anything today!

        1. How are you doing? I couldn’t reply to your post because I’d been away too long, but please don’t think I considered it was moralising!

          1. Ah, thank you Conway. I re-read it and thought I sounded somewhat sententious (not a word one hears every day these days) and that was the last thing I intended. The written word is so 2-dimensional. Not doing so well at the moment. We included her in everything connected to our somewhat very ordinary lives so we miss her in everything we do. Our hours are now long and our days are empty. I never realised how much eye contact I had with her during the course of a day, how many conversations. Early days.

          2. You can only hope that time heals – and maybe a new companion.

            Check out Blue Cross as they publish photos as well.

            That’s where we found Dotty.

          3. We are looking, Tom – at the moment it is a case of trying out the idea and seeing how it fits.

            We knew her, and she knew us, so well. She knew what we were thinking before we knew it ourselves.

          4. That I can understand, and it is because you spent so much time together, that that knowledge passed from human to animal and vice versa.

            Rest assured, it will come again but you, the human, have to seek it out.

            The animal won’t say, “I’ll go and live with them.” It doesn’t know how and certainly not why.

            It will become what is referred to, as learned behaviour.

            I wish you all (animal and human) the learning to love again.

          5. It’s very difficult to include nuances in the written word. So much interpretation depends on paralinguistic features which are missing in print. I agree about the emptiness; it’s the space where they used to be, the little sounds they made and the touches they gave that are no longer there which hurt. It took me a long time to stop looking for Charlie when I opened a door (he used to like to position himself behind it!). I am pleased to report that Oscar is now starting to wag his tail on occasions other than when food is in the offing (he has started to wag his tail to greet me when I come back home) and he wants a cuddle without trying to bite my fingers! Today I managed to rub him down with a towel – a great step forward.

          6. It is indeed. That is so rewarding and I think you have done wonders for him. It sounds as though now he appreciates not only the bread, but also the side it is buttered on as well! I love the fact that Elsie when saying goodnight includes Oscar and Kadi too. It always makes me smile.

    2. Google translation:
      Try To Understand The Day When Everyone Realizes It Was Actually Deep State Corruption & Child Trafficking They Defended, Wounded & Died For

      Deep state: NATO, EU, WEF, WHO & UN

      So much suffering & death for the Deep State’s evil plan

      People are blinded by Deep State propaganda

        1. They also use the French ‘achette’ for a small plate, as do the Swedes from the time of their French Rule under Bernadote.

        3. Bairn is also used in northern England. Danish and Noewegian use “barn”.

  41. Should you wish to do a big shop when near Monaco – Sunday morning is a perfect time. Empty roads; empty parking very few shoppers. Ideal.

    And filled up with liquid gold €1.95 a litre for petrol.

    2. It’s not much more than that here now – £1.45.
      Ooops! missed the decimal point.

    3. If you must visit an IKEA Store I can thoroughly recommend the best time is during the football World Cup Final – I guarantee the store will be empty!

      1. I went once – just the once – to an Ikea…1980 odd. Left without buying.

        We were shopping in Carrefour taking advantage of their booze offers…

        1. I’m about to complete an on-line order to Sainsbury’s for some plonk. Aussie Wolf Blass Shiraz Cabernet £6 a bottle. (Please don’t reply telling me how little plonk costs in France!)

          2. Thanks for the tip. I try to support my local Spar shop as it serves the village (with a fairly large number of elderly) and has a very handy sub Post Office. The price of their Glen Dhu is a penny under £14 (and despite inflation has not increased in price for at least 2 years)

          3. Sounds good, Stephen, we have a Spar in Moffat I may try that. I presume the bottle size is only 70 cl.

            My Whyte and MacKay bend comes in at £17 per Litre bottle.

          5. It is and I used to live on the Whisky trail when I was in Banff – that’s where I grew to love Macallan’s 12 Y O

    4. Are all the shops open in Monaco on Sunday morning? Godless place!

      That is VERY expensive petrol!

      3. Aye, in comparison our petrol is about 50p a litre. Add on taxes and it’s £1.50 but the fuel itself is cheap.

        And Sunak says there is nothing he can do about inflation!

        1. Latest petrol price I remember here, in Moffat is £1.48/litre but it fluctuates, daily. Probably much more now.

        2. We all know that Sunak wouldn’t recognise the truth if it leapt up and bit him on the nose!

    2. With lots of Unidentifiable flags – I think the red and yellow one is Spanish, or Austrian?

      1. It’s Spanish with the national coat of arms.

        I can see the Irish tricolour, a black and white union jack flag although I cannot see a thin blue line which would have paid homage to the police, and a rainbow vortex swirl with peace symbol. I don’t know whether it’s another Pride variant.

    3. We white racists, tend to stick with our own, as do Slammers, BLMs and BAMES, funny that – we are the only racists.

      1. That nature that condemns its origin
        Cannot be bordered certain in itself.

        [The Duke of Albany: King Lear]

        In other words those who run down their own side, their own people, their own heritage are unstable, mad and twisted!

    4. We white racists, tend to stick with our own, as do Slammers, BLMs and BAMES, funny that – we are the only racists.

    5. Iceland was almost 100% white, the only coloured faces we saw were Merkins on holiday.

    7. There were tens of thousands of people at Royal Ascot – ITV managed to find about half a dozen blacks (often “celebs” plus the self-styled “paddock expert”) to parade.

  43. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66df2d5d1e4b25e9b2fc08ebc9a3de1fa935d4a406cacee679bb623a376246cd.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/britain-house-price-crash-will-worst-in-world/

    A rational rant from Wratty?

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Alarmists want it both ways: when house prices rise it is a disaster because young people can’t get onto the property ladder; when house prices fall it is a disaster because people are faced with negative equity and repossession.

    1. The government won’t allow house prices to fall too much as they’ll lose out on stamp duty and inheritance tax

      2. More house prices won’t fall because demand ensures they’ll remain high. If nothing else, big state will force purchase at the top of the market.

        They are also forcibly bringing in millions of criminals every year.

      1. How I wish I could get there. Application just about prepared. Judy is swotting up on ‘Lasting Power of Attorney’, ‘cos they also do palliative care.

      1. It’s framed already. Might get the medal framed too, and mounted alongside.

      1. Thanks.
        Some weird stuff, like a tailors cuttling rule presented to my Grandfather on award of his MBE (volunteer fireman in the war).

          3. I nearly was, October 1962 – Cuba Crisis – the only time I’ve been really scared that the end was nigh but at 18 you think these things.

          4. Ah, I was nobbut a bairn aged 18 months, and on the Elder Dempster line to Lagos during that period of excitement.
            Apparently, the weather was fierce crossing Biscay. Mother recalls a period where everone had to sit on the floor as furniture was too dangerous, and together with the saloon piano, was strapped to the bulkhead, and she saw a cabin down the corridor where the door opened and closed with the roll, then a trunk appeared and disappeared back into the cabin several times, then the trunk made it’s way down the corridor an vanished.
            Bath time was fascinating, when the bath water would, for no explicable reason, climb up the side of the bath until only half of you was wet…
            Ah, the joys of cruising without stabilisers! And missed the potential for a shooting war with Russia. Thank God.

    6. As far as I know, awarded for long service dedicated to educating Nigerians so they could become propperous, as we are in the West, and a specific event of persuading the Nigherian army not to come on the campus and shoot the rioting students… then persuading the students to stop rioting, as he couldn’t stop the Army a second time.
      The students shut up and went home.
      Peace restored, without bloodshed.
      From what I read on NoTTL, like many Fathers – forceful when it mattered.

  46. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/62137b9173aa6a9a0db94060a8c0caca062ace572564995af11f11e6cb396f70.jpg Where’s Philip?

    Last night I made this dessert for my guests. It was given to me some years ago by an ex-RAF colleague at the airport. It was his favourite pudding and I wonder if it was popular among our RAF contingent.

    You scoop some diced nectarines into your dish; then cover them with some double cream, flavoured and thickened by the addition of lime zest and juice (or lemon, if you prefer); then scatter over some crushed Cadbury’s Flake (or chopped Lindt 70% plain chocolate). It really works well as a dessert. I just added some home-baked shortbread for an extra texture. Being on my carb-free diet, I just had the nectarines and lime cream.

    The main course was two racks of long-smoked baby pork ribs served with a sweet-and-sour sauce (pineapple juice, tomato ketchup, soy sauce, vinegar); with that I added a home made guacamole (avocadoes, shallots, chilli peppers, toasted and ground cumin seeds, lime zest and juice, tomatoes, fresh coriander, salt and black pepper); boiled new potatoes (I abstained); broad beans; and a mixed salad dressed with a vinaigrette (red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, salt, black pepper and olive oil).

      1. I’m told it tasted nice, light crunchiness. Pity I couldn’t sample some.
        250g butter; 100g sugar; 300g plain flour; 90g rice flour. 40 mins @ 150ºC.

        1. #metoo.
          Can’t get on with flapjack either. Jaffa cakes, well, now you’re talking!

          1. Oscar loves flapjacks! We go to a dog friendly cafe and he’s extremely vocal until he’s had his flapjack. Then he settles down under the table 🙂

    2. No such luxurious feasts in my time fending off Russians at Coltishall. I rather like nectarines, sweetness with a bite..

        1. They are so sweet and full of flavour at the moment. Can’t imagine where the supermarket went wrong with that one. British strawberries are good too. £4.31 per kilo. At Ocado.

        1. I wipe the fur off with a towel before eating, otherwise they stick into my face like nasty little spikes. That’s why I prefer nectarines.

      3. I’ve passed through Coltishall (the town not the base) numerous times. I’ve never been accosted by any Russians there.

        Not even in The Recruiting Sergeant!😉

      5. How are you keeping, Capt. Kaypea?
        Planning a visit to the UK over late summer – including a trip to Penarth to visit Mother.
        Maybe we can get together again and take a beer or whatever together?

        1. Apart from a seafaring holiday in Sept, nothing planned. Let us know when you’re inbound.

  47. Pffft. Just watched the BBC news trying to spin the Vlad is Bad narrative. Had to turn it off.

    1. He’s brave to say that, as Khan is a vicious, lying bag of human waste who will sue him and these days, the truth doesn’t seem a defence.

  49. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bfc3c4b42a1f1137c11cfec2c2ab543e356207e794c2a01977b8c49b3b0304c3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/874744e24266311dad5cebe5f5ea17dc1c2bdce6d20513b4bf37b08916aad191.jpg I shall not be eating anything today (nor shall, I on Tuesday and Thursday). My four-meals-a-week diet (on which I am thriving) has been labelled by Elsie as my FIDO diet! I know this conjures up images of me eating nothing but Winalot and Spratt’s Ovals and me being thrown sticks and balls for me to “fetch”, but Elsie assures me it stands for Four Ingesting Days Only. I believe him.😉

    Today I knocked up a few Scotch eggs (or, to be precise, Deutsch eggs) since my home-made sausage meat in this case was from a Bratwurst recipe. I have already given two of them away to my good friends and neighbours, Bengt and Gertrude, who love them. I shall eat one of mine (with some salad) on Monday and then keep the other one in the fridge and have it, possibly, on Friday.

    I’m still finding it hard to believe that I can eat at 1300hrs only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at 1800hrs on Saturdays, and never feel hungry in between. However, that is precisely how it is and I no longer crave sugar, alcohol or carbs; and I feel fitter, sharper and I sleep an uninterrupted deep sleep of eight hours each night. I wish I had discovered this régime years ago.👍🏻

      2. Another pair I’d like to find in front of my Heckler & Koch.

        In fact there are many of that ilk, I’d easily see orf, doncha know?

    3. Check Bengt and Gertrude’s bin to see how much they really love your food… evil face.

    4. Gosh, Grizzly, that sounds a bit Spartan. If it works for you though, that’s the main thing.

      1. If anyone had suggested it to me a year ago (or further back) I’d have told them they were mad! The reality, though, is that you don’t even think about food if you cut out carbs, sugar and alcohol.

        In one video I posted, last year, a tribe of natives in the Amazon rainforest (educated and not ‘savage’) were asked about their eating habits. One chap was asked what he had eaten ‘today’. He looked incredulous as he replied that he had no need to eat today since he had already eaten yesterday! His tribe has no history of obesity, cancer, strokes, heart disease or, indeed, any metabolic syndrome which manifests itself in bodily inflammation, the precursor to all modern diseases. They eat fresh fish, meat, meat products, fruit and vegetables. They do not eat cereal products, sugar or processed food; neither do they use any seed-based ‘vegetable’ oils, nor do they consume alcohol.

        It seems crystal clear to me that to eat like them means to keep healthy. To eat a modern western diet is a paradox: either you have to be stupid to do so, or doing so makes you stupid. I leave that moot point for others to discuss.

      1. Little Cat is asleep by my feet, and his ears are twitching in time with the beat!
        Magic!

          2. Swedish is different to both, although the Scandies all understand each other, unless you try Finnish. Live and let live, I say.

          3. I always had two stekt ägg (fried eggs) at breakfast on top of bread and ham

            I cannot remember the original Dutch name for that dish.

            I wonder if Caroline Tracey might help out.

          4. Fried rib-eye steak (medium-rare) with two or three fried eggs has long been a favourite.

        1. I must admit that in all time I’ve spent in various parts of Sweden, I never saw them, but then again I didn’t search for them but just accepted the local food, and how and why it was prepared that way.

      1. That’s the Archpillock of Canterbury for you. Somebody must do a hatchet and dagger job on him – the sooner Just in is Just out the better.

        2. St Paul’s is the Midwife’s church, not the Archpillock’s. (That rather reminds me of Nell Gwynn. “Good people, I’m the Protestant whore, not the Catholic one”. As in, a whore either way.)

    2. The sermon this morning touched on “racism”. I doubt the priest meant the racism of the blacks against the white indigenous. I refused to pray to thank the Windrush generation and their descendents for their contribution to the country. I don’t consider knife crime and drug dealing to be a positive contribution.

    3. When you look at what the Left have done to this country, at the damage they’ve caused in their crusade to insult and offend the normal people it is difficult to conclude that they were just spiteful, but thoroughly evil as well.

      What’s perhaps worse is that they refuse to accept that what they have done is wrong and instead continue to force the damage they have done.

        1. It’s easier to have other people’s money and other people take decisions for you, and you can then absolve yourself of any blame for poor choices.
          Just like being a small child, really.
          Pathetic.

    4. And had he not been in the right place at the right time, kicking arse, we’d likely be speaking German, as would the rest of Europe.

    5. Indeed. Chinese propaganda is all over the internet saying that they build schools in third world countries while the Americans bomb them.
      The British built a lot of infrastructure too. Perhaps we weren’t that bad after all.

      1. Schools.
        Universities.
        Clean water.
        Administrations.
        Railways.
        The list is endless.

    3. Is that Asda? Their cheese aisle looks far more entertaining than Sainsbury’s.

      No blue cheese, Coppa or figs in Sainsbury’s when i was was stocking up for Katie.

  52. Afternoon, all. Have been AWOL for a few days owing to having been very busy. Just catching my breath now. It is not the job of government to bail out anybody. That is not what tax-payers’ money is for. The less government does, the better off the country will be. Its prime duty is defence of the realm, something that seems to come a very long way last in its considerations.

    1. I agree completely, however big state prefers to meddle. It gets votes that way.

      As it is, the solution is not to just help home owners. It’s to help everyone by scrapping the moronic and damaging green taxes, to undo the corproation tax hike – saving everyone 40% on food costs, to reduce VAT, increase the tax allowances and make significant cuts to state waste.

      1. Fundamental rethink of what government is for, which is mostly to NOT MESS, and keep undesirabøes out.
        After that, fire everybody who isn’t involved in these, and get out of the way, leaving people to organise themselves.

          1. A bren gun or a Heckler & Koch, either would do the job, always provided I had enough spare magazines for both houses.

          2. Could never get on with the H&K. Prefer Walther semiautos, me, or Ruger revolvers.

          3. To me it doesn’t matter, so long as it does the job.

            The bren is the only machine gun I’ve ever fired.

  53. he European wine industry is being battered by sliding demand due to the current inflation storm on food and drink prices, in combination with a solid 2022 harvest, which has left wine cellars filled to the brim, according to a new European Commission report.

    Wine production on the continent increased 4% last year compared with the previous year, while wine stocks were 2% higher versus a five-year average. The drop in wine demand was the most significant in Portugal, down 34%. Demand also tumbled 22% in Germany, 15% in France, 10% in Spain, and 7% in Italy.

    And it gets worse for the producers, as the commission stated:

    “In parallel, EU wine exports for the period January to April 2023 have been 8,5% lower than the previous year, contributing to further increasing the stocks.”

    In solidarity with the indigenous population of these Isles, given the lack of firm action by the French authorities against the traffickers I’ve not been buying French Wine for some time….

    2. At a recent blind tasting in Reims, Chapel Down Sparkling wine from Hampshire beat French Champagnes. That might account for it.

      I also noticed in Waitrose a few weeks back they were selling Moet at £35 and Bollinger at £45. Sod that…I will stick to Cramant with a splash of Cassis.

    3. I used to prefer the French Malbec to the Argentinian, but that was when two of us could/would share a bottle. These days I just stick to whisky, though I have a couple of white wines in the ‘fridge, one French, the other Spanish. I’ll save those in the unlikely event I might yet entertain a lady of mature years.

      1. Don’t be too choosy, Tom, a younger model might fit the specification nicely.

          3. Anyone who can both author books AND who share’s them without asking for money is an out and out gentleman in my books.
            Hope you get to repatriate soon. I’m looking forward to joining you in raising several glasses to your new place!
            Hic!

          5. My speling isn’t quite what it should be. 🙁 I blame the 10% Danish Faxe I’m drinking…
            Corrected in a mo.

      2. I’m into Italian this last decade or so – love Chianti, and one or two Sicilian reds (sadly not usually available), but I had a bottle of Gaillac 2 weeks ago whn in Paris, and I’d forgotten just how superb it is. Not a great apellation, so fabulous wine at reasonable price.
        Sigh…

    5. I have been doing the same, except I’ve extended my boycott to all EU wine-producers, not just France. Where possible, I avoid buying EU produce in general.

      1. I have a lot of sympathy for the farmers/producers. They have no control over the idiot government or EU, yet bear the consequences of what idiots decide – as in, they lose their jobs/livelihoods/farms.
        So, I try to piss on the EU whilst supporting the farmer as best I can.
        We all need to eat & drink, and if it’s alcofrolic, even better.

          2. Ahhh…light goes on.
            I’m drinking 10% Faxe – some slowness must be expected.

        1. Brandy for the parson.
          Baccy for the clerk…

          Yes, my Mama had and loved that poem.

      2. At least they didn’t claim he “died”! At a CMC meeting that was how the murder of the MP at the hands of his alien assaliant was described.

        3. In the linked piece about his son’s fundraising efforts, it says Lee “died as a result of multiple cut and stab wounds following the attack in London in 2013.”

          1. Strictly speaking true, but he wouldn’t have had the multiple stab wounds if the slammers hadn’t murdered him!

      3. Brutally murdered by those vile racist POS. Who are currently being nurtured by the UK taxpayers in relative luxury. All needs recognised.

    2. Taking the bus from Greenwich, my good lady and I spent some time in Woolwich about 3 years after Lee Rigby had been murdered. We were going on one of the tall ships for a trip along the Thames and back. We couldn’t get out of Woolwich quickly enough when we returned. It felt very uncomfortable being there. It was like a third world town.
      Something else that our political idiot’s have effed up. Terrible people.

  55. The Telegraph is so predictable in the lies it continues to churn out day after day. That it does so with all the other paid-for press whores is no less depressing – they all parrot the “narrative” news output which has nothing in it for any ordinary citizen to believe or admire

    Putin is, of course they say, finished.As Churchill had it – some chicken… some neck!

    As we now look elsewhere for truth and real information so we find it in increasingly impressive sources. This guy has a Substack and a thousand Con Coughlins would not start to have this valuie!

    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/prigozhins-siege-ends-postmortem?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    2. My reading of this is that Wagner are to be given contracts and will come under the command of Russian commanders and MOD. The Wagner soldiers have been granted amnesty including those who followed Prigozhin.

      Prigozhin has not been granted amnesty but has been exiled to Belarus and will likely be tried in Russia for mutiny or else reassigned to fight for some African despot in a faraway place.

      Contrary to everything written in the British media Putin is not weakened but strengthened by his clear and direct handling of the disgruntled upstart, an upstart with neither comprehension of military discipline nor chain of command and likely influenced by US and Ukrainian entities.

  56. Government-Backed Censors Confuse ‘Disinformation’ With Mainstream Opinions

    https://www.takimag.com/article/government-backed-censors-confuse-disinformation-with-mainstream-opinions/

    Disinformation, misinformation and fake news are real problems in a world that is now mainly online. However, this shouldn’t blind us to the very real risk that comes from a government that aggressively polices information or becomes an arbitrator of the truth. It’s simply too easy to use this power to silence political opponents or people who hold unpopular opinions. Caution on this front is more, not less, important now that America is so politically polarized.

  57. Any sign of Lottie today? I haven’t seen anything, hopefully she’s having a restorative zed or several. Sleep helps avoid pain…

      1. Hoped that would smoke you out!
        ;-))
        Not too smart with notifications, need to reload to get anything.
        ‘Ow’s tha’ diddlin’? Better, I hope.

        1. A bit better than yesterday and I did get some sleep, however it’s not good and the pills are not doing me much good- not even sure they are helping with the pain.
          I did get some laundry done and a big pile of washing up which neither of us was able for yesterday; I think I was a kind of delayed shock yesterday and my husband is still trying to get his head round it all.
          Thank you for asking.

          1. If I could do anything to help, I will.
            I might even venture mansplaining or unwanted advice… but virtual hugs seems to be the only option so far.
            -)(-

          2. These things take the oomph out of one.
            It’s hard – be kind to yourself, and YOH. Men don’t typically explain, and for him, it’s likely a thousand times worse – he will be so unbelievably concerned over the woman he loves more than anything, and won’t want to stress you with his concern. Give the poor lad a hug, receive one in return, and I’ve sent some spares by web so it might be in your spam filter…

          3. Because I’ve been AWOL I am not up to speed with bad news. Sorry. Still said a prayer for both of you this morning.

  59. Early worly, sorry, wordle. Evensong at 5 and then to the Wigmore. Howling gale outside. Storm coming, maybe?

    Wordle 736 3/6

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    1. Just a par here, Sue.

      Wordle 736 4/6

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      1. Bogey Five here, Mola. My new ‘bait’ wasn’t helpful!

        Wordle 736 5/6
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  60. One small item recovered from the removals is a small steel hand with curled fingers, on a telescopic wand rather like a stout car arial. Made for scratching unreachable parts of one’s back… utter bliss, so it is!

    1. I have something similar. A magnet on the end of a telescopic stick. I call it the Puberty Tool – it’s for dropped nuts…..

    2. After our SiL had his stroke, he mistakenly ordered a pack of 24 of them on Amazon! We still have 23 of them!

          1. Next time you’re down Moffat way, please bring one. I’ll even pay your petrol.

            Flat 11, Dowding house, Old Well Road, Moffat, DG10 9AW.

    3. …and we expect them to go home and improve their country – they’d rather trash ours.

    3. err…
      Where do they get the 72 virgins for those men killed on Jihad?
      Let me guess: they much prefer small boys.

  63. Earlier I mentioned the availability of good in Russia despite sanctions. So this afternoon, this came into my You Tube feed. I’m sure those creeps are watching and feeding you stuff. It’s a bit unsettling. All the same, here is the video.

    Russian TYPICAL Supermarket Tour: What are Prices like in 2023?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94KPrOpXzto

      2. You would be surprised at the number of Westerners living there, business mostly or married to Russians.

  64. https://twitter.com/MigrationWatch/status/1672943472196591617

    Soon the migrant barge will arrive , how many barges will the UK require?

    France’s lack of action in stopping illegal migrants crossing the English Channel constitutes “an unfriendly act”, according to the former prime minister of Australia Tony Abbott.

    He told GB News: ”The British parliament is sovereign and I can’t understand why the British Parliament hasn’t passed a law removing the jurisdiction of this European tribunal over British policy.

    “In Australia, we turned the boats around because in the end, if people can get here, they will be tempted to come here.

    “I appreciate that France is a different country to Indonesia, and we were turning boats around back to Java.

    n a discussion with Camilla Tominey, he said: “If the French aren’t prepared to do their job, if the French are prepared to at least part facilitate what at a sufficiently large scale starts to become a peaceful invasion, I think Britain must be prepared to say, ‘well, they’re coming from France, they have no right to come from France.’

    “The way is shut, we send them back.”

    Asked about the Government’s policy on deportations: “I think they’re on the right track.

    All credit to the British Government for getting this deal with Rwanda.

    “But it’s not much of a deal if you can actually get the people to take off and land in Rwanda.

    “The British parliament is sovereign and I can’t understand why the British Parliament has passed as hasn’t passed a law removing the jurisdiction of this European tribunal over British policy.”

    6. “He told GB News: ”The British parliament is sovereign and I can’t understand why the British Parliament hasn’t passed a law removing the jurisdiction of this European tribunal over British policy.” And that says it all.

  65. Some 46,000 migrants are currently being housed by the UK government at a cost of £6 million a day. Plans to accommodate asylum seekers on cruise ships on the Mersey in Wirral and in city docks in London have been thwarted.

    However, the Home Office is working on proposals to house migrants in marquees on large sites. The Government is also planning to house more than 3,000 migrants on RAF bases Scampton in Lincolnshire and Wethersfield in Essex.

    Separately, officials have brokered a deal to use a barge in Portland Harbour, in Dorset, as accommodation from the end of July. Rishi Sunak said earlier this month that the Government had already secured the use of two more cruise ships, to house a further 1,000 migrants but ministers have yet to find any ports that will take them.

    Earlier this month, Ms Braverman said: “I have been clear that the unacceptable number of people making frankly illegal and dangerous crossings must stop.

    “That’s why we are taking immediate action to deliver alternative accommodation, bring down the asylum backlog and use new technology in Dover.

    “We will continue to crack down on the abuse of our asylum system, ultimately saving the British taxpayer money.”

    Last week, the Home Office said that more than 3,000 migrants crossed the Channel by small boat in June, a record month for the year so far and already ahead of last June’s total.

    The surge cast doubt on the Prime Minister’s claim that government policies aimed at stopping the small boats have “started to work”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/24/migrant-hotel-costs-11bn-migrant-bill-fails/

    1. No wonder all our costs have gone through the roof.
      Someone has to pay for all these stupid mistakes.
      Send them all back to France.

      1. 373801+ up ticks,

        Evening RE,

        Mistakes Eddy, I think not, orchestrated
        to the last little detail, much of it only needs the party members / voters usual consent via the polling stations.

    2. What BS the government come out with. Braverman at the front, but the rest following closely.
      Why does nobody call them out on it?

    4. That the government does nothing about it means that they approve.
      The government is the enemy.
      Take appropriate action.

    5. That the government does nothing about it means that they approve.
      The government is the enemy.
      Take appropriate action.

    6. Assuming that it was accurate when first put out, that £6 mn figure is way, way out of date: it will be far more than that now.

    7. Earlier this month, Ms Braverman said: “I have been clear that the unacceptable number of people making frankly illegal and dangerous crossings must stop.

      “That’s why we are taking immediate action to deliver alternative accommodation, bring down the asylum backlog and use new technology in Dover.

      “We will continue to crack down on the abuse of our asylum system, ultimately saving the British taxpayer money.”

      Anyone out there capable of deciphering Braverman’s word salad and eliciting some meaningful actions that will lead to the end of the invasion?

    8. Alas, the Prime Minister presides over a clump of multivalent incompetents, Maggie!

    9. “...but ministers have yet to find any ports that will take them.”

      Try mooring them off Rockall.

        1. I don’t think there is enough land to build a concentration camp – ‘cos that’s all they deserve.

          2. Somebody camped on a ledge for 40 days and 40 nights. That’s how inhospitable it is. But mooring 20 barges in and around the rock might be an idea.

  66. Bogey Five today.

    Wordle 736 5/6
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    ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Par here.
      Wordle 736 4/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
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  67. Back from anti-penultimate swim. Gorgeous. 5,536 steps conquered – and, tonight – non=-stop and no gripping the handrail….. Not bad for my age…

    Signing off – have a jolly evening plotting your Russian coup.

    A demain

    1. How very patronising, holiday apartments for the indigenous. They’re going to love that. Disgusting.

      Get rid.

      1. 373801+ up ticks,

        Evening PM,
        That was me thinking as the political enamas would think, but most definitely do agree with the “get rid”

    2. Now we know for sure he’s as useless as the rest of them. And very dangerous. Get rid of him he’s not our PM he’s only the leader of the Conservatives. Who are all collectively useless.

  69. It turns out that when you are asked to state which is your favourite child, you are supposed to choose one of your own.
    I know that now…

      1. My two are both my favourite. Quite different personalities, both admirable.

        2. I have two daughters but the youngest disowned me because I had the temerity to divorce her mother when youngest was, wait for it…

          …31. It’s not as if I deserted her, she was married and also had two girls. Haven’t seen hide nor hair since 2001.

          1. That’s very sad, Tom.
            Have a mate who married his (divorced) wife, and the wife’s younger kid hates him, blames him for the marriage break-up. Doesn’t help that the mother died last autumn from a brain tumour. Awfully complicated, so it is.

      2. I have a favourite older child, and a favourite younger child. Also, a favourite daughter, and a favourite son. I am very lucky.

  70. So much written about so little!

    The £6.5 million row over this random rock in the Atlantic Ocean

    It’s said that there’s ‘no place more desolate, more awful’ – but the waters around Rockall are at the centre of a tug of war over territory

    By Guy Kelly • 24 June 2023 • 5:00pm

    Viewed from afar, it’s not immediately clear why anybody would care about Rockall, the tiny, uninhabitable speck of rock brooding 163 nautical miles (188 miles) off even the outermost Outer Hebrides. Up close, it’s even less obvious.

    Rising to barely 50 feet above sea level, and 100 feet long at its base but only a few at its summit, it is little more than a granite nub, the tip of a stubborn, 52-million-year-old extinct volcano with the rough shape and proportions of a rotten tooth.

    Mind you, the smell is probably worse. Manage to navigate this mardy patch of the North Atlantic – where some of the highest open sea waves on record have been observed – to clamber on to Rockall, and all you’d find up there is a broken light beacon, the remnants of a rusty plaque left when some Royal Marines ‘claimed’ it for the UK in 1955… and masses of bird poo.

    Without Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast, which describes the conditions around Rockall as part of its broadcast four times every day, most of us might never give it a thought.

    ‘To the average person, the existence of the locality known as Rockall is almost, or wholly, unknown. It might form part of the British Isles, or be situated in Central Asia, so far as the ordinary man is able to tell,’ so said the 14th edition of the Scottish Geographical Magazine, printed in 1898.

    Now, 125 years later, that remains true, judging by 90 per cent of reactions to this story. ‘You’re writing about… where?’ people would say, before following up with: ‘Right, and that’s British, is it?’

    The answer to that second question is complicated, and controversial, and involves the other ‘B’ word. (The one banned at dinner parties since 2015. Don’t make me say it.) It is the nub of the nub, if you will. But suffice to say: from adventurers to fishermen, diplomats to environmentalists, people care about Rockall, all right. Far more than you’d think.

    ‘It just grabs you, you get involved in it and the allure, the mystery, the legend…’ says Chris ‘Cam’ Cameron, trailing off in a way that many do when talking about this isolated lump of obstinance. He snaps out of it. ‘It’s completely mad, though. It’s just a rock.’

    It is just a rock, but at this precise moment, perhaps nobody in the world cares more about Rockall than Cameron, principally because he’s the only person on it. Since 30 May, the British Army veteran, who served for six years with the Gordon Highlanders, has been sleeping on the only ledge on the islet, in a small tent-like contraption the size of a king-size bed. He has little more than a bottle of Scotch, a big bag of rations, and the hope that the seagulls don’t turn on him.

    Cameron, 53, is only the sixth person to have ever spent a night on Rockall (by contrast, he points out, 12 have walked on the moon, and more than 6,000 have climbed Everest), and intends to be there for a total of 60 days, breaking the current record of 45 days set by the adventurer Nick Hancock in 2014. It is lonely and bracing and dull. His wife, Nicola, and children Fia, 14, and Archie, 13, didn’t even want him to go.

    Getting on to the island, he told me when we met in the spring, is the hardest part. Cameron has managed that. Now, it’s about waiting.

    ‘I don’t have any great philosophical reason for going. My wife hates the idea. My children are upset by it. They think this is more dangerous than any of my past deployments [he has toured Northern Ireland and the Falklands, among other places]. But once I’m on, I’m on. I’ll have my Kindle. I’m going to write a book. I quite wanted to take my bagpipes, as there are no neighbours to complain, but I had to pack light…’

    Cameron’s aim is noble. Inspired by a lonely fugue in lockdown (he appreciates the irony in remedying that with a trip to the most isolated place on the planet, but ‘as midlife crises go, it’s better than buying a sports car’), he spent two years planning. He hopes to raise £50,000 for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity and ABF The Soldiers’ Charity.

    But what it is not, he insists, is a patriotic mission to reassert British authority.

    For decades, the UK and Ireland have been at an impasse as to who exactly Rockall belongs to. Queen Elizabeth II sent those Marines to be dropped by helicopter on to the summit in 1955, reportedly to block the Soviet Union from being able to spy on missile tests being conducted on South Uist.

    They planted a Union flag, essentially making Rockall the last acquisition of the British Empire. ‘In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I hereby take possession of this Island of Rockall,’ Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott said, witnessed by only a few gannets and his crewmates. Some 17 years later, in 1972, the Island of Rockall Act was passed to declare the islet part of Scotland, specifically Inverness-shire. It wasn’t exactly advertised as a tourist attraction.

    ‘It is a dreadful place. There can be no place more desolate, more despairing, more awful to see in the world,’ the Scottish Labour Peer Lord Kennet said ahead of Royal Assent being granted. Granted it was, but Ireland, despite never attempting to capture the rock for itself, has also never recognised Britain’s claim. Instead it has simply insisted that Rockall is a rock and no more than that, so it is terra nullius: land belonging to no one.

    The row simmered relatively harmlessly for years, with only occasional controversies. In 1975, a Dubliner, Willie Dick, tried to climb up and plant the tricolour, with debated success. In 1985, Tom McLean, a British Special Forces veteran, replanted the Union flag when he spent 40 days and 40 nights living on the rock in a small plywood box. But the land itself is of scant interest to governments: nobody likes guano or granite that much. Rather, it is the water and seabed around it that starts fights.

    Technically, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) dictates that rocks that ‘cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone (EEZ) or continental shelf’. This means Rockall cannot represent the furthest point of Britain’s EEZ, yet the Convention also states that countries are entitled to stake a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea around such barren outcrops, should they have a valid claim over the land. Britain believes its claim is valid. Ireland does not.

    ‘Rockall is a rock, essentially a sea stack in the middle of the ocean. It’s uninhabitable, uninhabited and I don’t think it is something that Ireland and Scotland should fight over,’ Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, said in 2019. ‘We don’t have a claim on it. We don’t accept any other sovereign claim on it.’

    The waters around Rockall are rich in squid and haddock – but also oil and gas possibilities, which has brought further interest from Iceland and Denmark, as well as from environmentalists – and Irish vessels fished unimpeded in the area for decades, often working near or alongside Scottish boats. That changed after Brexit, when Britain started to enforce its rights.

    On 4 January 2021, four days after the Brexit transition period ended, an Irish fishing vessel was blocked from entering waters around Rockall and boarded by crew from a Marine Scotland patrol boat, sparking a new row in a more than 40-year saga. It still shows little sign of ending.

    ‘The vessel was suspected of fishing in Scotland’s marine areas without the right to do so and in breach of its licence conditions,’ a Scottish government spokesperson said at the time. ‘As per long-standing arrangements, Marine Scotland has reported the breach of licence conditions to their Irish and UK counterparts.’

    That did little to quell displeasure across the Irish Sea. There was an amusing Google Review page posted for Rockall, with ironic information and dry answers to the kind of queries you’d normally find for a more accessible holiday destination. In response to somebody asking how often this former volcano erupts, somebody simply wrote: ‘Every time another country tries to claim it from Ireland.’

    Yet this is a serious issue, not least for those fishermen whose potential catch has shrunk. Irish politicians estimated the total impact of that loss at €7.7 million.

    Sean O’Donoghue, chief executive of the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation in Donegal, has fished in the waters around Rockall for over 40 years, and now represents some 20 boats who used to rely on the area. ‘What’s happened with Rockall since Brexit is totally unacceptable,’ he says.

    ‘While Britain was part of the EU, there was no issue with access. We’d fished there for decades. Then there was no mention of Rockall in the TCA [UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement], so we as a fishing industry assumed that the arrangements that had always been there would resume. That didn’t happen.’

    He cites the UN Convention but from an Irish perspective, restating that fishermen, and the Irish government, do not recognise Britain’s claim over Rockall so see its sudden activity in the North Atlantic as unnecessary, provocative and a hangover from colonialism.

    ‘We have a significant loss of earnings, plus any fines if we do go in. But we don’t even go in there any more; our vessels can’t afford to be towed back to Scotland.’

    Just on squid alone, O’Donoghue estimates his organisation is down €5 million per year, a loss he says has severely dented the economy of Donegal, which relies on fishing. ‘What I’m hoping is we can have a diplomatic solution, but it doesn’t seem to have moved very much. I do not need to tell you how emotive Brexit is. It’s right at the top of our priorities, but I don’t know about London or Edinburgh…’

    By the sounds of it, those governments have rarely entertained discussion on Rockall. In June 2019, a Scottish government spokesperson merely reiterated that ‘Irish vessels, or any non-UK vessels for that matter, have never been allowed to fish in this way in the UK’s territorial sea around Rockall […] it is disappointing that this activity continues.’

    Understandably, Scottish fishermen agree. ‘Irish vessels have no legal right to fish within 12 nautical miles. The area is recognised in UK law as part of Scottish territorial waters, and hosts multimillion-pound haddock, monkfish and squid fisheries that are hugely important to our fleet,’ Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said in the same month.

    ‘The Scottish government is right to impose compliance, full stop. But at a time when we are moving towards independent coastal state status, it lays down a benchmark for the future.’

    All of which is to say: while the UK authorities are happy for Cameron to visit Rockall, he will not be following some of his predecessors in flying the Union flag, lest he appear some kind of conquistador. Instead, he is just a man, on a private jolly, who just so happens to have a Scottish accent.

    ‘I possibly would have been interested in [making more of it being a British expedition], but we’re not even allowed to do that. No flags, no banners, no displaying sponsors,’ he mutters, with baffled resignation. ‘It’s a sensitive political issue, shall we say.’

    If Cameron can’t quite explain why he’s so drawn to Rockall, he’s not the only one. ‘It’s got a kind of siren quality, once it calls to you, you sort of can’t help but go deeper and deeper until you decide you need to go,’ says Aaron Wheeler, a filmmaker who is turning Cameron’s quest into a documentary, Rockall: The Edge of Existence.

    In mid-April, both men were at an outdoor adventure centre in deepest Snowdonia, spreading the gospel of the trip to like-minded, walking-booted souls. Cameron, who grew up in north-east Scotland, now lives in Wiltshire. He arrived at 7.20pm, after a five-and-a-half-hour drive, spoke for an hour or two, then planned to set straight off back home. ‘That’s one hell of a mission,’ I told him, as he arrived. He gave me a look as if to say, ‘Yeah, but it’s not exactly going to Rockall.’ Fair point.

    Born in Buckie, a burgh town on the Moray Firth, Cameron is the son of a merchant sea captain, and has a photo of himself as a boy, on an oil tanker, with Rockall in the background. For the past 30 years, he’s been a Naval reserve.

    ‘The sea has been my life. But I also like to do things: skiing, kayaking, biking. My mum keeps asking me why I don’t just run a marathon, but thousands of people do that. And only five people are in the club that’s stayed on Rockall. So that’s the challenge: getting there, getting the kit together, planning it. The world record is a bonus.’

    With the help of Wheeler and a small cadre of supporters, he planned every aspect of the trip: raising enough sponsorship money to get the project off the ground, convincing companies to lend kit and supplies, organising a yacht to sail him from Inverkip (the war in Ukraine made it too expensive to take a powered vessel) and, crucially, back. ‘Otherwise it would have cost about £5 million for the coastguard to come and collect me.’

    People have been tempted to visit Rockall for more than 200 years. It has appeared on maps, and in Irish mythology, for even longer, but the earliest landing is generally given as 8 July 1810, when HMS Endymion dropped anchor nearby. A Royal Navy officer, Basil Hall, led a small party on to the rock. He had mistaken it for a ship’s sail (over the years, it has also been assumed to be a submarine, an iceberg and a whale). The tiny shelf on which Cameron and all overnighters before him have pitched their shelter is called ‘Hall’s Ledge’ in his honour.

    Since then, the legend of Rockall spread, as tales of this gnarled little outpost grew. By the time the Royal Navy returned in 1955, it had entered culture. To William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, Rockall was surely the inspiration for the rocky Atlantic islet on which the titular character in the 1956 Pincher Martin is marooned.

    ‘A single point of rock, peak of a mountain range, one tooth set in the ancient jaw of a sunken world, projecting through the inconceivable vastness of the whole ocean,’ Golding writes.

    Golding had never been to Rockall, but plenty of others have, even for brief visits. In 1978, an invitation was sent to the 200-odd members of Oxford’s Dangerous Sports Club, simply reading: ‘Tea, Rockall, Black Tie.’ The story goes that nine of them sailed for five days in force nine gales, then spent a night dancing to the Beach Boys and drinking Champagne on Hall’s Ledge. In dinner jackets, of course. More earnest adventurers question that account.

    Almost 30 years later, Ben Fogle laid an unlikely claim to the islet. He travelled there with the intention of making himself king. The surf was too much to set foot on it and plant a flag, though, so he simply slapped a Post-it note on the rock face with ‘This belongs to Ben’ written on it.

    Tom McLean, who did manage to plant a flag and stay for 40 nights in 1985, is now 80 years old, and runs an outdoor adventure centre in the west of Scotland. ‘It’s nearly 40 years since I went, but the old rock will be just the same,’ he says.

    Cameron contacted him, just as he did Nick Hancock, who set the 2014 record, for advice. They agreed it was toughest to get on. Cameron, joined by a mountaineer and radio operator for the first week, would end up making it on the third pass, owing to the sea conditions.

    ‘Living out there, it’s all about just being content in your own company,’ McLean says. ‘I guess he’s got better communications and radio than me. But you’re doing it for the adventure – I went for the craic, really.’

    It was enough to be the first man to stay the night, but McLean also wanted ‘to reaffirm Britain’s rights to the rock as a civilian, to help the government, the country, and maybe if one day it was helpful for fish and oil rights and things’.

    As for Cameron, McLean is confident he’ll meet his target of 60 days. ‘Now he’s on,’ he says, ‘he should be fine. The record will be easy. And in another couple of years it’ll probably go again.’

    For now, there’s not much for Cameron to do besides write that book, and send the odd update via satellite phone. Ships pass, birds visit, two minke whales have made his acquaintance, but on Rockall, the tiniest dot in the ocean, Cameron is all alone. Whatever you do, just don’t say he’s on British soil.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/24/rockall-crag-territory/

    1. Pity it’s not David Cameron on the rock. If it were, I would suggest leaving him there.

    5. In the 1970s Rockall featured in a thriller or adventure story; a group of villains created an underground hideout there, from which they sought to obtain lots of money or achieve world domination .

    6. I’ve actually seen Rockall. I flew over it in a trans-Atlantic jet in 1983. The captain of the flight pointed it out to passengers.

  71. So much written about so little!

    The £6.5 million row over this random rock in the Atlantic Ocean

    It’s said that there’s ‘no place more desolate, more awful’ – but the waters around Rockall are at the centre of a tug of war over territory

    By Guy Kelly • 24 June 2023 • 5:00pm

    Viewed from afar, it’s not immediately clear why anybody would care about Rockall, the tiny, uninhabitable speck of rock brooding 163 nautical miles (188 miles) off even the outermost Outer Hebrides. Up close, it’s even less obvious.

    Rising to barely 50 feet above sea level, and 100 feet long at its base but only a few at its summit, it is little more than a granite nub, the tip of a stubborn, 52-million-year-old extinct volcano with the rough shape and proportions of a rotten tooth.

    Mind you, the smell is probably worse. Manage to navigate this mardy patch of the North Atlantic – where some of the highest open sea waves on record have been observed – to clamber on to Rockall, and all you’d find up there is a broken light beacon, the remnants of a rusty plaque left when some Royal Marines ‘claimed’ it for the UK in 1955… and masses of bird poo.

    Without Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast, which describes the conditions around Rockall as part of its broadcast four times every day, most of us might never give it a thought.

    ‘To the average person, the existence of the locality known as Rockall is almost, or wholly, unknown. It might form part of the British Isles, or be situated in Central Asia, so far as the ordinary man is able to tell,’ so said the 14th edition of the Scottish Geographical Magazine, printed in 1898.

    Now, 125 years later, that remains true, judging by 90 per cent of reactions to this story. ‘You’re writing about… where?’ people would say, before following up with: ‘Right, and that’s British, is it?’

    The answer to that second question is complicated, and controversial, and involves the other ‘B’ word. (The one banned at dinner parties since 2015. Don’t make me say it.) It is the nub of the nub, if you will. But suffice to say: from adventurers to fishermen, diplomats to environmentalists, people care about Rockall, all right. Far more than you’d think.

    ‘It just grabs you, you get involved in it and the allure, the mystery, the legend…’ says Chris ‘Cam’ Cameron, trailing off in a way that many do when talking about this isolated lump of obstinance. He snaps out of it. ‘It’s completely mad, though. It’s just a rock.’

    It is just a rock, but at this precise moment, perhaps nobody in the world cares more about Rockall than Cameron, principally because he’s the only person on it. Since 30 May, the British Army veteran, who served for six years with the Gordon Highlanders, has been sleeping on the only ledge on the islet, in a small tent-like contraption the size of a king-size bed. He has little more than a bottle of Scotch, a big bag of rations, and the hope that the seagulls don’t turn on him.

    Cameron, 53, is only the sixth person to have ever spent a night on Rockall (by contrast, he points out, 12 have walked on the moon, and more than 6,000 have climbed Everest), and intends to be there for a total of 60 days, breaking the current record of 45 days set by the adventurer Nick Hancock in 2014. It is lonely and bracing and dull. His wife, Nicola, and children Fia, 14, and Archie, 13, didn’t even want him to go.

    Getting on to the island, he told me when we met in the spring, is the hardest part. Cameron has managed that. Now, it’s about waiting.

    ‘I don’t have any great philosophical reason for going. My wife hates the idea. My children are upset by it. They think this is more dangerous than any of my past deployments [he has toured Northern Ireland and the Falklands, among other places]. But once I’m on, I’m on. I’ll have my Kindle. I’m going to write a book. I quite wanted to take my bagpipes, as there are no neighbours to complain, but I had to pack light…’

    Cameron’s aim is noble. Inspired by a lonely fugue in lockdown (he appreciates the irony in remedying that with a trip to the most isolated place on the planet, but ‘as midlife crises go, it’s better than buying a sports car’), he spent two years planning. He hopes to raise £50,000 for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity and ABF The Soldiers’ Charity.

    But what it is not, he insists, is a patriotic mission to reassert British authority.

    For decades, the UK and Ireland have been at an impasse as to who exactly Rockall belongs to. Queen Elizabeth II sent those Marines to be dropped by helicopter on to the summit in 1955, reportedly to block the Soviet Union from being able to spy on missile tests being conducted on South Uist.

    They planted a Union flag, essentially making Rockall the last acquisition of the British Empire. ‘In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I hereby take possession of this Island of Rockall,’ Lieutenant Commander Desmond Scott said, witnessed by only a few gannets and his crewmates. Some 17 years later, in 1972, the Island of Rockall Act was passed to declare the islet part of Scotland, specifically Inverness-shire. It wasn’t exactly advertised as a tourist attraction.

    ‘It is a dreadful place. There can be no place more desolate, more despairing, more awful to see in the world,’ the Scottish Labour Peer Lord Kennet said ahead of Royal Assent being granted. Granted it was, but Ireland, despite never attempting to capture the rock for itself, has also never recognised Britain’s claim. Instead it has simply insisted that Rockall is a rock and no more than that, so it is terra nullius: land belonging to no one.

    The row simmered relatively harmlessly for years, with only occasional controversies. In 1975, a Dubliner, Willie Dick, tried to climb up and plant the tricolour, with debated success. In 1985, Tom McLean, a British Special Forces veteran, replanted the Union flag when he spent 40 days and 40 nights living on the rock in a small plywood box. But the land itself is of scant interest to governments: nobody likes guano or granite that much. Rather, it is the water and seabed around it that starts fights.

    Technically, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) dictates that rocks that ‘cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone (EEZ) or continental shelf’. This means Rockall cannot represent the furthest point of Britain’s EEZ, yet the Convention also states that countries are entitled to stake a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea around such barren outcrops, should they have a valid claim over the land. Britain believes its claim is valid. Ireland does not.

    ‘Rockall is a rock, essentially a sea stack in the middle of the ocean. It’s uninhabitable, uninhabited and I don’t think it is something that Ireland and Scotland should fight over,’ Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, said in 2019. ‘We don’t have a claim on it. We don’t accept any other sovereign claim on it.’

    The waters around Rockall are rich in squid and haddock – but also oil and gas possibilities, which has brought further interest from Iceland and Denmark, as well as from environmentalists – and Irish vessels fished unimpeded in the area for decades, often working near or alongside Scottish boats. That changed after Brexit, when Britain started to enforce its rights.

    On 4 January 2021, four days after the Brexit transition period ended, an Irish fishing vessel was blocked from entering waters around Rockall and boarded by crew from a Marine Scotland patrol boat, sparking a new row in a more than 40-year saga. It still shows little sign of ending.

    ‘The vessel was suspected of fishing in Scotland’s marine areas without the right to do so and in breach of its licence conditions,’ a Scottish government spokesperson said at the time. ‘As per long-standing arrangements, Marine Scotland has reported the breach of licence conditions to their Irish and UK counterparts.’

    That did little to quell displeasure across the Irish Sea. There was an amusing Google Review page posted for Rockall, with ironic information and dry answers to the kind of queries you’d normally find for a more accessible holiday destination. In response to somebody asking how often this former volcano erupts, somebody simply wrote: ‘Every time another country tries to claim it from Ireland.’

    Yet this is a serious issue, not least for those fishermen whose potential catch has shrunk. Irish politicians estimated the total impact of that loss at €7.7 million.

    Sean O’Donoghue, chief executive of the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation in Donegal, has fished in the waters around Rockall for over 40 years, and now represents some 20 boats who used to rely on the area. ‘What’s happened with Rockall since Brexit is totally unacceptable,’ he says.

    ‘While Britain was part of the EU, there was no issue with access. We’d fished there for decades. Then there was no mention of Rockall in the TCA [UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement], so we as a fishing industry assumed that the arrangements that had always been there would resume. That didn’t happen.’

    He cites the UN Convention but from an Irish perspective, restating that fishermen, and the Irish government, do not recognise Britain’s claim over Rockall so see its sudden activity in the North Atlantic as unnecessary, provocative and a hangover from colonialism.

    ‘We have a significant loss of earnings, plus any fines if we do go in. But we don’t even go in there any more; our vessels can’t afford to be towed back to Scotland.’

    Just on squid alone, O’Donoghue estimates his organisation is down €5 million per year, a loss he says has severely dented the economy of Donegal, which relies on fishing. ‘What I’m hoping is we can have a diplomatic solution, but it doesn’t seem to have moved very much. I do not need to tell you how emotive Brexit is. It’s right at the top of our priorities, but I don’t know about London or Edinburgh…’

    By the sounds of it, those governments have rarely entertained discussion on Rockall. In June 2019, a Scottish government spokesperson merely reiterated that ‘Irish vessels, or any non-UK vessels for that matter, have never been allowed to fish in this way in the UK’s territorial sea around Rockall […] it is disappointing that this activity continues.’

    Understandably, Scottish fishermen agree. ‘Irish vessels have no legal right to fish within 12 nautical miles. The area is recognised in UK law as part of Scottish territorial waters, and hosts multimillion-pound haddock, monkfish and squid fisheries that are hugely important to our fleet,’ Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said in the same month.

    ‘The Scottish government is right to impose compliance, full stop. But at a time when we are moving towards independent coastal state status, it lays down a benchmark for the future.’

    All of which is to say: while the UK authorities are happy for Cameron to visit Rockall, he will not be following some of his predecessors in flying the Union flag, lest he appear some kind of conquistador. Instead, he is just a man, on a private jolly, who just so happens to have a Scottish accent.

    ‘I possibly would have been interested in [making more of it being a British expedition], but we’re not even allowed to do that. No flags, no banners, no displaying sponsors,’ he mutters, with baffled resignation. ‘It’s a sensitive political issue, shall we say.’

    If Cameron can’t quite explain why he’s so drawn to Rockall, he’s not the only one. ‘It’s got a kind of siren quality, once it calls to you, you sort of can’t help but go deeper and deeper until you decide you need to go,’ says Aaron Wheeler, a filmmaker who is turning Cameron’s quest into a documentary, Rockall: The Edge of Existence.

    In mid-April, both men were at an outdoor adventure centre in deepest Snowdonia, spreading the gospel of the trip to like-minded, walking-booted souls. Cameron, who grew up in north-east Scotland, now lives in Wiltshire. He arrived at 7.20pm, after a five-and-a-half-hour drive, spoke for an hour or two, then planned to set straight off back home. ‘That’s one hell of a mission,’ I told him, as he arrived. He gave me a look as if to say, ‘Yeah, but it’s not exactly going to Rockall.’ Fair point.

    Born in Buckie, a burgh town on the Moray Firth, Cameron is the son of a merchant sea captain, and has a photo of himself as a boy, on an oil tanker, with Rockall in the background. For the past 30 years, he’s been a Naval reserve.

    ‘The sea has been my life. But I also like to do things: skiing, kayaking, biking. My mum keeps asking me why I don’t just run a marathon, but thousands of people do that. And only five people are in the club that’s stayed on Rockall. So that’s the challenge: getting there, getting the kit together, planning it. The world record is a bonus.’

    With the help of Wheeler and a small cadre of supporters, he planned every aspect of the trip: raising enough sponsorship money to get the project off the ground, convincing companies to lend kit and supplies, organising a yacht to sail him from Inverkip (the war in Ukraine made it too expensive to take a powered vessel) and, crucially, back. ‘Otherwise it would have cost about £5 million for the coastguard to come and collect me.’

    People have been tempted to visit Rockall for more than 200 years. It has appeared on maps, and in Irish mythology, for even longer, but the earliest landing is generally given as 8 July 1810, when HMS Endymion dropped anchor nearby. A Royal Navy officer, Basil Hall, led a small party on to the rock. He had mistaken it for a ship’s sail (over the years, it has also been assumed to be a submarine, an iceberg and a whale). The tiny shelf on which Cameron and all overnighters before him have pitched their shelter is called ‘Hall’s Ledge’ in his honour.

    Since then, the legend of Rockall spread, as tales of this gnarled little outpost grew. By the time the Royal Navy returned in 1955, it had entered culture. To William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, Rockall was surely the inspiration for the rocky Atlantic islet on which the titular character in the 1956 Pincher Martin is marooned.

    ‘A single point of rock, peak of a mountain range, one tooth set in the ancient jaw of a sunken world, projecting through the inconceivable vastness of the whole ocean,’ Golding writes.

    Golding had never been to Rockall, but plenty of others have, even for brief visits. In 1978, an invitation was sent to the 200-odd members of Oxford’s Dangerous Sports Club, simply reading: ‘Tea, Rockall, Black Tie.’ The story goes that nine of them sailed for five days in force nine gales, then spent a night dancing to the Beach Boys and drinking Champagne on Hall’s Ledge. In dinner jackets, of course. More earnest adventurers question that account.

    Almost 30 years later, Ben Fogle laid an unlikely claim to the islet. He travelled there with the intention of making himself king. The surf was too much to set foot on it and plant a flag, though, so he simply slapped a Post-it note on the rock face with ‘This belongs to Ben’ written on it.

    Tom McLean, who did manage to plant a flag and stay for 40 nights in 1985, is now 80 years old, and runs an outdoor adventure centre in the west of Scotland. ‘It’s nearly 40 years since I went, but the old rock will be just the same,’ he says.

    Cameron contacted him, just as he did Nick Hancock, who set the 2014 record, for advice. They agreed it was toughest to get on. Cameron, joined by a mountaineer and radio operator for the first week, would end up making it on the third pass, owing to the sea conditions.

    ‘Living out there, it’s all about just being content in your own company,’ McLean says. ‘I guess he’s got better communications and radio than me. But you’re doing it for the adventure – I went for the craic, really.’

    It was enough to be the first man to stay the night, but McLean also wanted ‘to reaffirm Britain’s rights to the rock as a civilian, to help the government, the country, and maybe if one day it was helpful for fish and oil rights and things’.

    As for Cameron, McLean is confident he’ll meet his target of 60 days. ‘Now he’s on,’ he says, ‘he should be fine. The record will be easy. And in another couple of years it’ll probably go again.’

    For now, there’s not much for Cameron to do besides write that book, and send the odd update via satellite phone. Ships pass, birds visit, two minke whales have made his acquaintance, but on Rockall, the tiniest dot in the ocean, Cameron is all alone. Whatever you do, just don’t say he’s on British soil.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/24/rockall-crag-territory/

    1. I would be more empathetic towards Andrew Bridgen if he would tell us what ought to have happened, not with hindsight, when the first wave of the virus stretched IT units around the country to the limits in spring 2020. Was he advocating, at the time, that the government should have taken no special measures, should have adopted a hands off approach, and told the nation that some people will die needlessly in this wave so as to allow the populace to be better prepared to prevent more deaths in the next and future waves. Did he know, in spring 2020, that the government was overreacting, was on the wrong course and that.more people would die by its intervention than if it had done nothing. Did he know it then, more than three years ago, not now?

      1. It was only influenza, otherwise why didn’t it figure in any of the normal death counts for the season?

        I refused the jabs (including the ‘flu shots) and survived, to my detriment, of 79 years.

        I might just take a jab but my beliefs don’t allow for suicide.

      3. It was supposed to be ‘three weeks to flatten the curve’ not the interminable lockdowns we got. Which did untold damage to many people.
        They panicked.

  73. Just to make some of you jealous:
    It’s a hard life in the commune; part two
    The stalls were few, but the products were excellent, particularly the home made ice cream. I don’t particularly enjoy ice cream but HG said it was superb.
    It’s a great shame that eating ice cream isn’t an Olympic sport, if it was, our household would have more gold medals than Steve Redgrave!
    ‘s8
    There was a traditional oompah band, not too loud and people joining in ; ALL ages from 18 month to late 80’s, singing, swaying and clapping, it was NOT a dance band.

    The local French made a point of making us welcome, as usual. I’m fairly sure, but not certain, that we were the only Anglais. Again lots of very well behaved children, running around and having fun.
    Two couples, possibly a little older, who we had never met before, said they hoped we would be attending the next do, so we could meet up.
    The local politicians were there in force, exchanging banter (as far as my French could tell) and spending time with everyone.
    Just a thoroughly pleasant evening.

    Fireworks later, past my bedtime.

    1. Believe it or not, there are still places that do similar activities in England. Especially the West Country. Local politicians included. Once the hoi polloi come down in the summer hols it’s a mess though.

      1. I remember being on the committee in our village for such events and being one of the “crew” whose job it was to resolve any trouble well before it got out of hand.
        Here, unless they hide it a lot better, I’ve never seen any need.
        Even at the height of the tourist season one sees a little evidence, but nothing like as often as in the UK , and it is generally resolved by finding a suitable table with benches, never with violence.

    1. What is the point of all that supposedly clever expensive, fool proof equipment if it’s as useless as that ?

      1. Quite.

        A new technology that recognises that a theft has taken place and electrocutes the thief would get my vote.

      1. Only if it discharged as the key was turned, one wouldn’t wish for an innocent bystander to be killed.

    3. How did the signal get out of the Faraday cage in order to be amplified by the second device?
      I keep mine in a lead box

    4. “The car is fooled into believing the key is close by.”

      How on earth does a car “believe” and how can a non-sentient object be “fooled”?

      1. Grizzly – you have to talk about software modules in this way, as thought they’re sentient – otherwise it’s not possible to convey the ideas, or else you have to describe them in such abstruse language that nobody will understand it.

  76. That’s me for another day, i’d better get off to bed. I’m going to be busy tomorrow drumming up support against a proposal of a new ground fill rubbish tip near us. I have only just heard about today. Bloody council has kept this quiet. As usual, probably plenty of bungs been taking place.

  77. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk, I have to be up betimes as my lady friend is visiting at 10:00.

  78. Good night, chums. I’m off to bed now, and will see you early tomorrow morning. Sleep well.

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