Sunday 26 February: Boris Johnson is right: we should commit to sending fighter jets to support Ukraine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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573 thoughts on “Sunday 26 February: Boris Johnson is right: we should commit to sending fighter jets to support Ukraine”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Star Trek!
    or should it be the dark side?

    The Iranian Ambassador to the UN had just finished giving a speech and walked out into the lobby of the convention centre where he was introduced to a U.S. Marine General.

    As they talked, the Iranian said, “I have just one question about what I have seen in America.”

    The General said, “Well, anything I can do to help?”

    The Iranian whispered, “My son watches this show called Star Trek and in it there is… Kirk who is Canadian, Chekhov who is Russian, Scotty who is Scottish, Uhura who is black, and Sulu who is Japanese, but there are NO Muslims. My son is very upset and doesn’t understand why there aren’t any Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans, Egyptians, Palestinians, Saudis, Syrians, or Pakistanis on Star Trek.”

    The General leaned toward the Iranian Ambassador, and whispered in his ear, “That’s because it takes place in the future.”

  2. Heigh-ho, I actually had a reasonable night’s sleep, except for the two-hourly need to empty the bilges. I’m almost refreshed!

  4. Good morning all. Patchy cloud, dry and -1°C.

    Just heard on the news that Lord Sainsbury has rejoined Labour and made a £2,000,000 donation.
    Another reason not to shop at his stores.

    2. Long-since boycotted Sainsbury and, if it weren’t the only grocery store in Moffat, I’d boycott the Co-op for the same anti-socialist reasons.

          1. My Gran always shopped at the Co-Op and collected the Green Shield stamps.

            I was quite pre-disposed to them for this reason until they became Uber-Woke and sanctimonious, before Woke was even a thing.

            Plus, don’t forget its former chairman, the cocaine, Crystal-meth and ketamine-taking Rev Flowers.

          2. True, but Sainsburys annoys me so much at this time of year that anything is preferable to setting foot in the place!
            Being blessedly free of a television, I only know when it’s qwerty soup month by the banners in the ghastly virtue-signalling supermarket.

  6. Boris Johnson is right: we should commit to sending fighter jets to support Ukraine

    If only he defended democracy in the UK with so much enthusiasm and didn’t want to parcel off Northern Ireland to EU rule.

    1. He does realise it’s not the same as playing with Wilfred’s toy planes and making ‘pokka pokka pokka’ or ‘kaboommmm’ noises?
      That’s if the Green Princess allows the sprog any vaguely male toys.

  8. Protest in Berlin over arming Ukraine against Russia draws thousands. 26 February 2023.

    BERLIN, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A demonstration against supplying Ukraine with weapons for war with Russia attracted 10,000 people on Saturday, drawing criticism from top German government officials and a large police presence to maintain order.

    Clearly German Public Opinion is not as supportive as the MSM would have us believe! Though it doesn’t say so here thoughtful Germans almost certainly realise by now that it was the Americans that blew up the Baltic Pipeline and once you accept that then the whole underpinning of the Proxy war against Russia becomes unstuck. This doesn’t mean that it is going to end. Like Vietnam, it will continue, despite all the carnage and protests, until hopefully it finally collapses

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/protest-berlin-over-arming-ukraine-against-russia-draws-thousands-2023-02-25/

    1. That’s interesting, because there was a 10 000 strong peace march in Munich at the security conference last weekend. Not huge as marches go, but at least it’s some resistance to this incessant war-mongering!
      And support for Olaf Scholz too, because I very much doubt that he wants to be the first German Chancellor since AH to send tanks into Ukraine! If the Germans are duped into sending tanks, the next narrative will be “Germany started WW3.”

  9. Why does Charles have a little bird whispering in his ear?
    Ihttps://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/11br3gt/does_charles_have_a_tiny_bird_singing_in_his_ear/

    Doing a search on images of “portrait charles III martin jennings” it does seem that this genuinely is there.
    The WSS comments are quite funny!

          2. The parallels with Charles and Henry VIII get closer every day…
            Henry insisted that every new wife should be called Queen, and her family showered with favours too, and of course he always had little birds whispering in his ear (as opposed to cleverer monarchs like Elizabeth who chose people she could rely on).

          3. I think he has more in common with his predecessors of the same name; Charles I was completely out of touch with the common people and believed in his divine right, while Charles II tried to sell us out to France.

          4. The parallels with Charles and Henry VIII get closer every day…
            Henry insisted that every new wife should be called Queen, and her family showered with favours too, and of course he always had little birds whispering in his ear (as opposed to cleverer monarchs like Elizabeth who chose people she could rely on).

        3. It’s an oomagoolie bird. Some think it is the oozlum bird, is a legendary creature found in Australian and British folk tales. Some versions have it that, when startled, the bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up its own backside and disappears completely, Other sources state that the bird flies backwards because while it does not know where it is going, it likes to know where it has been.

  10. 371587+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 26 February: Boris Johnson is right: we should commit to sending fighter jets to support Ukraine

    in a list of priorities the turkish delight would show allegiance to the peoples of these Isles by sending a defence force to Dover

    We gave away much of our freedom / democracy via the polling booth, now we are meddling in what to me seems like a domestic that got out of hand,for instance you get between a man/wife altercation you’ll end up with nasal canal trouble.

    As with ALL major towns / cities within the United Kingdom we have an internal foreign force, waiting, on stand by, we are witnessing daily trailers of the near future main event as in mass knifing, mass shooting,mass paedophilia,etc,etc.

    Past time by decades we addressed our own home grown political shite, obliterate the lab/lib/con/current ukip in the polling booth for starters,

    1. Good morning Ogga,

      What do you think of this .. and why is our British literature being deep cleansed >

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/25/james-bond-books-edited-remove-racist-references/

      James Bond novels have been rewritten to remove a number of racial references from Ian Fleming’s work, The Telegraph can reveal.

      All of the author’s thrillers featuring 007 are set to be reissued in April to mark 70 years since Casino Royale, the first book in the series, was published.

      Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the company that owns the literary rights to the author’s work, commissioned a review by sensitivity readers of the classic texts under its control.

      The Telegraph understands that a disclaimer accompanying the reissued texts will read: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.

      “A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”

      2. Jonathan Myles-Lea warned about this a few years ago, and said that people should keep reference books, because information on the internet was being changed.
        Now that applies to second hand books!

      3. 371587+ up ticks,

        Morning TB,

        There is not an author on this planet that could express in words what the
        poof / pansy / sensitive rear exit brigade
        want the sane among us to bend the knee to.

        Eventually someone will write
        ” the truth revealed” that will rank second to the Bible and be a multi,multi best seller.

        1. Well, that will certainly make the Bible a much easier and quicker read. For example, The first 17 verses of Matthew, Chapter One give the genealogy of Jesus, i.e. “Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and…” etc. etc. So much simpler to write “A lot of people were born.” Lol.

      4. Quite right, too. I remember the rude guffaws of school pals who read the final paragraph of one of the 007 paperbacks which read something like “Bond trumped on the table”. (Perhaps Casino Royale, but I stand to be corrected.) Lol.

        2. Perhaps the wording in How the West Was Won should have been altered, when one of the ranchers told the reader’s that he’d help his cousin Jack off his horse.

      5. Perhaps the Telegraph on behalf of the vast majority of the British population should set and print this headline example and suggest that the Wokey idiots should GET OVER YOURSELVES !

      6. Somehow I doubt the Felix Leiter joke about having to ask for a Jegro of rum rather than a Jigger will survive the rewrite

    2. Oceania v. Eurasia v. Eastasia.
      Perpetual war to distract the proles from noticing that their lives are being reduced to an Orwellian dystopia.

      2. Yo anne

        There are antodotes to ” Orwellian dystopia”.

        Lampposts, 12 Bores, getting proper jobs

      3. Yo anne

        There are antodotes to ” Orwellian dystopia”.

        Lampposts, 12 Bores, getting proper jobs

  11. Dear God!
    Is David Proctor and idiot?
    Or does he want to see WW3 really get going?

    His BTL Comment:-

    David Proctor
    50 MIN AGO
    The real solution of course would be to send the Typhoons, but include pilots and all the requisite support including air tasking and so on. Trouble is we don’t have enough.

    2. I suggest that we send Typhoons with pilots and support, after David Proctor has joined the Ukrainian army and fought on the front line, i.e. NEVER.

      I heard yesterday a sad story of a Zambian student who was studying in Ukraine before the war, and for reasons unknown, joined the Ukrainian army and was killed. His body has now been repatriated to Zambia.

    4. I think he, apparently together with the entire Telegaffe editorial team, are utter morons who seem incapable of doing some basic research into the recent history of Ukraine – the corruption, the US/EU meddling and above all the massacre of their own people!

    5. Committing one squadron (12 aircraft) is feasible and would undoubtedly lead to other nations committing aircraft to Ukraine.

      The RAF have 137 Typhoons, in total, but are all Serviceable.

      Should we commit a Squadron, or just 12 ‘planes’, if so, who will fly and maintain them, direct operations etc. I Do you think
      Paddintong Bear can supply that sort of direction/back-up

      I we send a Squadron as a complete moveable entity, Pilots, Navigators, Maintainers, support trades etc. Above the sharp
      end, you have planners to tell them where to go and what to do, in which case, UK will have become involved directly in a war, many miles (not Kilometres) away from home.

      A very slippery slope to WWIII

      1. Indeed. Then Russia could claim it’s reasonable to bomb the support centres in the UK, and likely do so.
        Oh, good.

    1. Good morning, Annie. How odd – my book club’s choice for this month (THE SENTENCE) which I gave details to you in an earlier post has a character to whom this happens. Life imitating art, and all that.

      PS – When is the house-warming party?!?!?

    2. Good morning, Annie. How odd – my book club’s choice for this month (THE SENTENCE) which I gave details to you in an earlier post has a character to whom this happens. Life imitating art, and all that.

      PS – When is the house-warming party?!?!?

  13. Shamima Begum is being punished without a trial… All I see is a nasty sort of mob justice. 26 February 2023.

    I don’t like the look or sound of her. I suspect her basic problem is that she is not very bright. I hope never to meet her. But if anyone has any evidence that she committed a crime, then let them accuse her of it in a court of law, before an impartial jury. And if she is then found guilty I will cheerfully support the punishment she is awarded according to law.

    But this cannot happen, as long as she is condemned to spend the rest of her life in some Syrian slum. This is thanks to a cancellation of her citizenship, which reminds me of the thuggish old Soviet Union at its worst, a despotic Third World measure which this ancient civilisation should be ashamed of wielding.

    I don’t often say this but Peter Hitchens is wrong here. Shamima Begum was not deported nor exiled to Syria. She chose to go there. She decided to support ISIS even though she almost certainly knew about its murderous activities beforehand and certainly could not have avoided them after her arrival. She has, so far as I am aware, made no protest about them, or tried to escape its rule while there. She was quite happy about them and their activities. Like many another who have found themselves in dire straits from their own decisions she has seen the light. This is the light of self-preservation not understanding. She is still an unreformed Jihadist sympathiser. We have no obligation of any kind toward her. Not even a trial!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11793153/PETER-HITCHENS-Shamima-Begum-punished-without-trial-nasty-mob-justice.html

    1. I agree. There are lots of people who are not very bright, but they don’t boast about being complicit in mass murder. And the reason why mob justice must prevail is because there is no other sort – nobody has faith that she would get her just deserts in the UK court system.
      The pity is that the other 99.99% are back in Britain!

      1. Yes, the men were allowed to return to the UK. Shamina is being punished for being female and brown skinned. ‘Twas ever thus.

        1. Do you believe that if Islamic State had won that she would be clamouring to return?
          I very much doubt it.

          Letting the men return was a mistake, two wrongs would not make a right in her case.

        2. Not sure her skin colour is relevant. I doubt people would feel more charitable towards that white woman (Samantha something?) who took her poor little son out there to join ISIS , where reports have it that the child was killed. But it’s certainly easier for the public to hate a woman than a man. That’s no excuse for letting her off though – they should all have had a quick execution.

    3. Amazing, I never imagined Minty coming out as an apologist for Theresa May and MI5.
      Civis Romanus sum.

    4. IMHO Begum saw an opportunity to take advantage of the beliefs she was brought up on. As do millions of Muslims around the world.* It didn’t work out and now as is usually the case, it’s everyone else’s fault.

      * this is the reason why they cause so many ongoing problems wherever possible.

    5. Morning Minty
      Where he is absolutely spot on is that this is an utterly “fake” toughness applied to one individual when dozens if not hundreds of equally evil jihadis have been allowed to return and settle among us
      It’s a sham unless we treat the rest the same!!

    6. If she is to be tried, let it be in Syria where any alleged crimes were committed.

      Remember, she also has Bangladeshi citizenship.

    7. She is of course free to go and live in the sun kissed holiday island of Sri Lanka, but she choses to sit in a tent hoping for a life on benefits. Her decision.

  14. G’moaning all,

    Clear, frosty start at McPhee Towers, NE breeze ands 0℃. I think I’ll wait a few hours before going out to work in the garden.

    Had a good morning yesterday pruning low-hanging branches and clearing brambles on the banks one of the stretches of chalk stream where I go fly-fishing for trout in preparation for the season starting in April. The lady member had baked some delicious cheese scones for the working party.

    One of my personal bug-bears:

    SIR – N W N Brown (Letters, February 19) raised the issue of cyclists and e-scooterists using pavements illegally, and pointed out that prosecutions are rare due to a lack of police enforcement. The police will probably argue that they are obliged to allocate their officers “elsewhere”.

    However, since May 31 2022 local authorities in England have been able to apply to the Secretary of State for powers to enforce “moving traffic offences”. They are then given consent to issue fines for transgressions such as ignoring red lights.

    My local council already operates patrols enforcing traffic offences such as cars parking at bus stops and stopping in box-junctions. These patrols could also identify, apprehend and fine cyclists illegally riding on footways – so why don’t councils make use of them?

    Geoff Johnson
    Gateshead, Co Durham

    Perhaps if plod actually pounded a beat he or she could begin to re-educate the cyclists and scooterists. Pavements are for pedestrians and cycling on them is still illegal.

      1. Could you tell her to stop pestering the rest of us with it? Or ask for tips on finding the non-ESG companies to invest in?

        1. I very much doubt if you are an obscenely rich do-gooder American…. Thus she would not be interested in you.

      2. Morning Citroen and all.

        Dilbert has been dropped from all US Newspapers because Mr Adams spoke on a black and white issue which those who will not uphold free speech disapproved.

        1. Environmental, social, and corporate governance
          (ESG) is a framework designed to be embedded into an organization’s
          strategy that considers the needs and ways in which to generate value
          for all organizational stakeholders (such as employees, customers and
          suppliers and financiers).

          Environmental, social, and corporate governance – Wikipedia

          AKA bollocks

          2. Not only that, but both the UK and EU are enshrining the bo ll ocks into law. It means pension funds etc will be required to invest in companies which reach ESG standards for example, employ a certain amount of “diverse” (sic) employees. And companies who fail the Woke test, for example oil and gas companies, or tobacco, lose their access to capital.

            It’s more social engineering but this tome on a regional scale.

      4. Lol I sent these exact two to our ESG team when they were torturing me with this year’s sustainability report.

        1. I wonder how the many new NHS diversity managers might try and justify their existence in ESG terms.

    2. Good morning Phizz, and everyone.
      I started reading Dilbert in the mid 1990s; both his sense of humour and his drawing skills were, and still are, exceptional. However, I hold Scott Adams in highest esteem essentially for his brilliance at social anthropology, aka observing the human condition.
      Recently his work has become more political, and left wing extremists don’t like it up ’em.

        1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5c34f26d948c40c3a60c238d152728196200b7976a3de9ab0bdfac9e8657e2b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cdaa57ab3fc52e9de6e52f1b701d712749f07c0da65b033db7537119d593d95d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e491e9af0dae891a83007d1333236b748fc5be1cd3616c7b1283c14e691dcd0.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a07f45797971d46e9334772838db26c704ec038bc59175bf14356cfc7466e49c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/85b33b7c7a28d3f7a651413fa45272579b82572c6fddf5e5a1b5950b60ae8791.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/160424c395db8a66317a819b2c3f9a435385a076072c347ab3488148789a9904.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ebd45f41c51cfcbcf96734cf5936d7214b574a282eee514f9822f5534245e3d.jpg
          Good morning, Philip.
          My brother (food and beverage consultant, first class, far east and Australasia, Emirates airlines) has just visited China to have a refresher course on beige and brown food. Bats were off the menu! 😉

          5. Good morning, Grizz. I see he got the brains and you got the looks !

            Most of that looks disgusting. Beige or not.

          8. Was the dog included on the plates or licking it’s lips for its share of many left overs ?

          10. Apologies, it all looks so anatomical, it makes me want to throw… :-((
            I’ll stick to egg & cress sandwiches.

          11. When I worked at Raleigh cycles, two maintenance electricians went to a remote part of China for a month to install the wiring in a new factory there. They were jumping for joy at the thought of eating Chinese take-away food for the duration of their time there. They were as miserable as hell on their return since three times a day they had been fed on bland boiled fish accompanied by boiled rice.

    3. The idiot sheet, Daily Fail (which some on here insist is a “newspaper”) cannot correctly spell the word cancelled in its headline.

    5. Charity shops will be coining it.
      Their shelves will be raided for Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Dilbert.
      Heck, just buy up anything published before 2020.

      1. At the first look, it seems like a story about tolerance where three boys get punished for making fun of a dark-skinned child (the coal-tar-raven-black moor in the german original). As such, the story seems more liberal than the other stories from the book Struwwelpeter.
        Looking closely, however, the story reveals the morals of the 19th century, where the poor darkie can’t help his poor fate of being black, and therefore different from the other children. It is not a Don’t make fun of others because of their differences-story, but a Don’t make fun of that poor moor, who can’t help being black-story.

        This is even made clearer when being black is shown as a punishment, a bad thing. The boys making fun of “the moor” are dunked in a barrel of black ink, becoming “moors” themselves, in fact blacker then the original moor, a fact that pleases him immensely.

        Concluding: This is not a story to teach children not to be racist, and is revealed to be captured in racist thinking itself, depicting having a different color as a bad thing. A bit of the old white man’s burden ideology….

        https://everything2.com/title/The+Story+of+the+Inky+boys

    1. Good morning, Grizzly. Good on yer! And it avoids you having to shout that in English and then shout a translation in Swedish. Lol.

      1. From what I remember from watching the Swedish ‘Wallender’ the ‘F’ word is exactly the same in Swedish.

          3. In Weegie maybe, but I’ve heard ‘Faen’, (pronounced far on), so many times in Swedish that I think my translation is correct.

        2. Sweden has such a poor vocabulary of swear-words that they tend to use our English versions, particularly ‘fcuk’ and Jeremy Hunt Rhyming slang.

        3. Knulla (the ‘k’ is pronounced) is the Swedish word for fuck. They don’t use it, though, since th English version is universal.

        4. And what I have discovered from watching current American films the English word “ghost” translates in Merkin as “whoopsies”, as in “Holy Sh1t!”

  20. Morning all 😉 😊
    Well I made it through the night, frosty and bright outside, lunch out today ten of us, most of them long time no see. My wife’s ladles group.
    I just have to say this, WTF are you talking about Bore-us, how many lives would be on the line by sending almost obsolete fighter aircraft to interfer in a conflict that has nothing whatsoever to do with any other country on this planet. Didn’t you learn anything from the Blair mistakes.

  21. As I think we are all aware, the CofE is f****d and so is the Judiciary.
    Picked up from Going Postal:-

    jaal
    2 hours ago
    The judge in this case seemed a bit biased.
    Today’s MoS
    “An awful blow for free speech and Christian values’: School chaplain sacked for defending the right to question new LGBT policies loses unfair dismissal case.
    The Reverend Dr Bernard Randall told pupils they were allowed to disagree with the measures, particularly if they felt they ran contrary to Church of England principles.
    But the school, Trent College in Nottingham, which has a long Anglican tradition, decided his sermon was harmful to pupils, secretly reported him to the anti-terrorism Prevent programme – which normally identifies those at risk of radicalisation – and later fired him.
    But he received no backing from the Church of England hierarchy, whose silence was described as ‘appalling’ by campaigners last night.
    An organisation called Educate & Celebrate (E&C) run by Dr Elly Barnes, which was invited to ’embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric’ of the school and help ‘develop a whole-school LGBT+ inclusive curriculum’.
    During staff training, Ms Barnes had encouraged staff to chant ‘smash heteronormativity’, which Dr Randall, a former Cambridge University chaplain and Oxford graduate, described as bizarre.
    But following a hearing at East Midlands Employment Tribunal, Judge Victoria Butler said this was ‘simply an enthusiastic attempt by Ms Barnes to warm up the teachers at the outset of the day’.
    Judge Butler suggested that Dr Randall had ‘misconceived’ what E&C is and that he had ‘an extreme reaction’ to their involvement within the school.
    She said: ‘We saw and heard no evidence that came anywhere close to supporting the claimant’s view that E&C would indoctrinate pupils in such a way.’ She added the decision to refer Dr Randall to the terror watchdog was justified ‘from a safeguarding perspective’.
    Dr Randall’s claims for unfair dismissal, discrimination, harassment and victimisation were all rejected.”

    Article here:-
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11793657/School-chaplain-sacked-defending-right-question-LGBT-policies-loses-unfair-dismissal-case.html

    1. The solution is widespread support for commonlawconstitution.org. We can then get rid of such deviant judges.

    2. The world, or at least the people controlling the system, have an agenda, that the majority of us, I’m certain, abhor.

    3. Didn’t all this also occur in the middle ages.
      What next ducking stools, stocks, burnt at the stake ?

    4. We are lost.

      Just listened to a New Culture Forum podcast “So what you’re saying is” entitled “Britain’s Woke Revolution Seeks to Demoralise Society”. The point was made that the Gramscian Revolution is complete and we are in post-Revolutionary times; there was quite a nice metaphor which I can’t remember, along the lines of “we are up to our ankles in quicksand” i.e. we still have a long way to go before we turn it around.

    6. Let us hope that Trent College goes out of business.

      The dump should be expelled from its membership of the HMC (Headmasters’ Conference). Incidentally how long before this association has to change its name?

  22. Good morning all,

    Sunshine , blue sky , frost on the roofs and cars.. 2c.. yes , cold .

    I liked this comment on the DT letters page

    SC

    Saint Christol
    7 MIN AGO
    Can anyone help me get a response from former prime minister Mr. Johnson please?
    Since he held that office and afterwards, I’ve tried to find out from him what arrangements he was putting in place to ensure adequate infrastructure (in the broadest sense) for the country, following his invitation to well over five million from Hong Kong to come here.
    I’ve also enquired why he instituted what is effectively a border in the Irish Sea when he implied he never would.
    Can anyone get answers from him please?

    2. 371587+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      Know your place, yours is NOT to reason why yours is but to ………….

    3. He specifically promised not to have a border in the North Sea.

      Why the lumpen proletariat want him back is beyond my understanding – Sunak is a disaster but who is there who could now lead the unleadable Conservative Party? John Redwood? Bill Cash? Christopher Chope? If Trump and Biden are considered young enough in the US then why not?

      1. Then I, Richard, at 78, should be a useful candidate, except that I no longer believe in the Conservatives as a viable party.

      2. Labour politicians Peter Shore, Eric Varley, Kate Hoey and Frank Field are/were all more Right-wing than the present Conservative Party are.

  23. They’re getting desperate…

    “Hear Ye, Hear Ye….

    Henceforth all Anti-Vaxxers shall be lumped in with Piltdown Man fraudsters and burned at the stake…”

    The Observer Science

    From Piltdown Man to anti-vaxxers … What science’s worst hoaxes can teach us

    Covid disinformation prompts Royal Society to consider ways of countering forgeries and falsehoods

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0aeddf5cef84d6ee32be2e7dccec5918a291097e/0_257_3504_2103/master/3504.jpg?width=700&quality=45&dpr=2&s=none
    The Geological Society of London met in 1954 to discuss the Piltdown Man forgery.

    Alessandro Siani, a biologist based at Portsmouth University, chose to write about research on vaccine hesitancy in the online academic network the Conversation earlier this year. The consequences were unpleasant.

    A screenshot of an out-of-context extract of his article was republished online with a new headline: “They knew: why did unvaccinated not do more to warn us?”……

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/25/from-piltdown-man-to-anti-vaxxers-what-sciences-worst-hoaxes-can-teach-us

      1. Our good friend and doctor who advised us not to be jabbed has been struck off. She is appealing and we pray to God that her appeal will be successful.

    1. Morning’ Tom
      The article was too long for me to finish but some of the BTL comments are worth reading.

    2. My suspicious mind tells me they will have a commission, strive for credibility, then declare it all perfectly OK after all. Just ‘cos it’s called “Truth Commission” doesn’t make it so.

    3. A minimum of 12 years gestation to produce a doorstopper with blacked out pages.
      Another scam financed by a shrinking pool of taxpayers.

    1. What have all (650) these stupid incompetent AH politicians done to our country ?
      And what is their justification for the destruction of this countries long established culture and social structure.

      1. They’ll come back with a guardian comment. The protesters are all known far right terrorists.

    1. That’s it. Run away to a new safe space rather than face reality. The problem remains though. You will both be there.

      1. Hi Phizzee

        They are bolters, aren’t they .. They have upset the Africans , so I doubt whether they will end up there ..

        The Aussies will flatten them ..

        I don’t think anyone will welcome them .. they are similar to Plutonium and will be toxic to everyone .

    6. I sometimes wonder if Doria is her mother after all. In the picture above Migraine looks whiter than Harry!

      1. Of course!
        Mere possession of a penis does not prevent a woman from being a Lesbian!
        {/sarc}

        1. Straight men are now called transphobic if they won’t have sex with someone who has a penis and identifies as a woman.

    2. It is not a person’s looks, sexual orientation, or whether a bloke has a minge, or a chick has a dick, that bothers me.

      It is the rapidly escalating stupidity of the entire species that forces me to think that humanity is on its way out as the premier ‘intelligence’ on this planet. All other species of animal life possess a far greater level of intelligence than humans do. This can be easily proven.

      Mankind may be clever, inventive and resourceful; but with that comes a lack of intelligence and a level of stupidity that cannot be measured.

      1. hermaphrodite
        [ hur-maf-ruh-dahyt ]SHOW IPA

        See synonyms for: hermaphrodite / hermaphroditic on Thesaurus.com
        📓 High School Level
        noun
        (no longer in common use; now considered offensive) an individual in which both male and female reproductive organs are present, or in which the chromosomal patterns do not fall under typical definitions of male and female.Compare pseudohermaphrodite.
        Biology. an organism, as an earthworm or plant, having both the male and female organs of reproduction.
        a person or thing in which two opposite qualities are combined.See also gynandrous.
        adjective
        of, relating to, or characteristic of a hermaphrodite.
        combining two opposite qualities.
        Botany. monoclinous.

        USAGE NOTE FOR HERMAPHRODITE
        The term hermaphrodite was once commonly used in medical and informal contexts to refer to people, though this use is now dated and considered offensive. Intersex has become the preferred term. It can refer to a person born with both male and female reproductive organs or with a chromosomal pattern that does not align with typical male or female patterns, for instance, an individual with a mix of XX and XY chromosomes or with androgen insensitivity syndrome.

        Oh my Gawd!

        1. “… this use is now dated and considered offensive.”

          Time for people to ‘grow a pair’. Being offended is what gives one character.

      2. There is a huge gap between being intelligent and being clever.
        Years ago, Johnny Morris explained the difference on ‘Animal Magic’.

        2. A very good friend of mine has a first class degree in Modern Languages from Oxford and yet he is one of the most stupid people I know. But some of the most intelligent and clever people can be far worse company than my stupid friend is.

      3. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

    3. I get ‘friendship’ requests all time on FB but they are much better looking than that.
      I tell them not to be so silly and block them.

      1. Reminds me of this childish limerick.

        A remarkable bird is the pelican
        His beak can hold more than his belly can
        He can hold in his beak
        Enough for a week
        But I really don’t know how the Hell he can.

        Rather tame when compared with the limericks I have sometimes posted here behind a spoiler.

        There are, of course three types of limericks: those you can recite in front of ladies and children; those you can recite in front of clergymen; and limericks.

  29. ‘Morning All

    Sunday Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71ff7a2fa9409796c977832728d1ba8b69eae97cbab935fbe7c99df7a533fbed.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51da1d9523f739b572e51a6f5440e13895ac7f5a940427e375d08f69bc6f9a59.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72244c71580f34f9819a5b670f2a8eb90fd309f71157684592eb817a76430bc6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc6b89721cfb7b7850769ef32ab82138f30162fd1ecb9a09f78fa513a490f589.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/50fbe3fbb73d0e97b04356b7a9c426ecea1759d5e5c360aaaf30c0e4cb0df20e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a30d48ec66125242887d9cf68894a75cf3589f2b1f646fa80df6ab469db7c26.jpg

    1. We always have a capon at Christmas in France – a good meat with which Jacques’s justice lined his belly. However capons are now not available in Britain because it is not very kind to castrate cocks. However most of the beef the English eat comes form bullocks – or castrated bulls. Is this not a clear case of discrimination against mammals when we castrate dogs and cats as well as bulls – is it mammalophobia?

      2. “The prisoner standing in the dock gave the judge a hellava shock

        by twisting and turning his balls. They were large balls, larger balls,

        twice as heavy as they should be. With a flick of his muscular wrist

        he threw ’em right over his head, tararaboom, rararaboom, tararaboom boom boom!”

      5. Capon are available. I had one for Christmas from Ocado M+S. It may be that chemically neutered is allowable. Castrated capon can still be legally imported too.

  30. Good morning all – belatedly. I cannot get into NoTTL on my PC. No idea why – message says unavailable. Brilliant nephew will look into it this arvo.

    So I’ll be away until the ishoo is sorted.

    Have a nice day.

    2. Serves you right for buying a Billy Goats machine and, thereby, directly increasing Billy Goats’ largesse and funding his ability to continue his work against the species.

    3. Somewhat paradoxical.
      We are told that the secretive bankers are behind Davos etc. preparing for their globalist technocracy.

      On one hand for the NWO to exist we need a great reset and on the other that we must support the Ukraine to maintain the status quo.

      1. Supporting Ukraine drains us of resources, thus hastening the ‘need’ for a NWO, surely?

    4. Some of these people have nothing else in their heads. Global order?
      Hitler ?
      He was a homicidal despotic maniac.
      If the Ukrainians hadn’t been murdering the Russian speaking people of their country none of this would have happened.

      If Putin had wanted to sieze Ukraine he would have done it already.

      1. Why don’t the Left ever admit that Hitler belonged to them – he was not right wing!

      2. He didn’t need to seize the Ukraine while it remained an independent buffer against NATO and the EU.

    7. Good let Ukraine burn. We do not wish to have a global order nor the likes of the Rothschild bloodsuckers bleeding us dry with their credit notes.

    8. Good let Ukraine burn. We do not wish to have a global order nor the likes of the Rothschild bloodsuckers bleeding us dry with their credit notes.

  32. Putin’s myth-making glorifies Russia. Ours humiliates the West. 26 February 2023

    We have been ready and prepared to offer the means to achieve these things to less advantaged countries. Now, not only must we accept self-denial for ourselves – we must impose it on the world at large because this Western way of life is too dangerous to be propagated.

    Where once the developing world might have expected to graduate to the standard of living we took for granted, it is now being told that the party is over: we will not give them a chance to experience life in the modern era, after all.

    Russia, in its mortification at having lost the Cold War, is seeking to revive a myth of past glory, at the same time as the West – having won the great argument – is mired in self-loathing. Where is that going to end, do you think?

    Aside from the truth this is why we should support Putin in in his present difficulties with the US Hegemony. The West is doomed. Only Russia stands a chance of avoiding its fate and carrying the fruits of the Renaissance and Enlightenment into the future

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/25/putins-myth-making-glorifies-russia-humiliates-west/

      1. I’ve just asked a svensk what a ‘svenskknappen’ is (or means) and all I got in way of a reply was a blank face!

        1. Weegies like to insult the Swedes – so the forced switchoff and on is called Swedish button, as are sandals called “Swedish protective footwear” – bizarrely, you can buy sandals with steel toecaps… in a Swedish chain, Jula! 😀

      1. Perhaps easier, Ped, the real reasons why Putin invaded:

        Why Putin Invaded Ukraine Pt I

        Too many people obviously have no idea as to why Putin invaded Ukraine.

        Here is the first reason:
        It was Zelensky’s Azov Brigade, ruthlessly slaughtering over 14,000 Russian speakers in Donbass and other Eastern Ukrainian provinces, that made him feel that someone should endeavour to put a stop to this slaughter of his near neighbours by a despotic tyrant.
        The sad thing is that the US, the EU and NATO all joined in on Zelensky’s side.
        I take it they all agreed that the slaughter was a good thing!

        Why Putin Invaded Ukraine Pt II
        Russia invaded Ukraine (a part of its country) in order to expose and eliminate U.S. funded bio labs. We are referring to US funded ‘gain of function’ research into bio-weapons research.
        This exposure was the objective of the Russian ‘special operations’.
        The US ‘gain of function’ research laboratories were placed in Ukraine for the reason that Ukraine, neither a country nor an independent state, is not subject to international weapons conventions and control of weapons.
        The ‘vaccines’ are proven to be gene therapies produced by companies specialising in the introduction of specific known pathogens into the world populations. These ‘vaccines’ aim to infect every recipient with synthetic mRNA nano technology. This renders human recipients as trans human in much the same way that mice, rats and ferrets are rendered transgenic in our research laboratories.
        My own research evidenced that Malaysia has already convicted George W Bush and our own Tony Blair as war criminals. Regrettably Malaysia has no international clout and these two criminals are above our decrepit international law, a law, if properly instituted, would condemn these war criminals to a life of servitude in gaol.
        The Truth will always out. Just give it a few more months and these idiots will be exposed.

        1. “ The ‘vaccines’ are proven to be gene therapies produced by companies specialising in the introduction of specific known pathogens into the world populations. These ‘vaccines’ aim to infect every recipient with synthetic mRNA nano technology.”

          We need somebody to stand up for the public who seem, in general, totally unaware of the impending WHO takeover of our health. There is a meeting in May at which the signatories sign over all control so WHO will be able to “declare” a pandemic on the slightest pretext and all countries will have signed up to do exactly what they are told, I.E., mRNA jabs galore.

        2. The sad thing is that the US, the EU and NATO all joined in on Zelensky’s side.
          I take it they all agreed that the slaughter was a good thing!
          A case of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend, I suspect, Tom – that, and the high hiedyins don’t give a shit about the “little people” – lots of evidence of that last.
          Do you have a link, Tom?

  37. BBC1 lunchtime news yesterday featured the snow in LA, the first for more than 30 years:
    “Forecasters say the area, which was hit by wildfires in the summer, is experiencing classic signs of climate change.”

    Much of England is experiencing a drought at the moment (here in Northants, barely a third of an inch of rain in six weeks and none in the forecast for the coming week) but it’s hardly been mentioned on the news.

        2. October and November were very wet here but December and January fell well short of the average.

          Winters like 13-14 (Somerset Levels, Dawlish sea wall collapse) were supposed to be the new norm, weren’t they?

          1. Ditto – well only half full. By end Feb ought to be overflowing. No proper rain for over a month.

          2. Unlike the summer of 76. I had to have two baths a day to stop my veg plots from drying out.

          6. Just a hose pipe syphon and gravity from the window to the veg plot.
            Carrots, Radishes, lettuce, I even grew celery.

      2. I wonder why we haven’t been building more reservoirs?* You might question the “climate catastrophe”, but there is no doubting the rapid increase in our population.

        *Yes, yes, I know.

        2. …and not just more reservoirs but forcing the Water Companies to delve into their vast profits, to improve their sewage disposal systems and stop polluting our rivers and waterways.

    2. The question is, did have any effect?

      The answer is probably a resounding, “NO!”

      The only thing it appears to have done is divert plod from pursuing crime, into the potential for a massive beating up of the protesting public.

      1. “ The only thing it appears to have done is divert plod from pursuing crime”.

        Cmon Rik, pursuing crime? That’ll be the day.

  40. What about this ?
    This is interesting and what i’ve been saying since the Queen died.
    Charles cannot serve the illegal WEF and the people…he should be forced to choose otherwise he might find himself in a constitutional crisis…the like of which we have never seen.
    I cannot see the WEF stepping away can you? They have no legal standing but do as they please, which is outrageous… no-one stops them unfortunately and i have to ask why?
    I get the feeling that he will not care one iota about us…unlike his mother. But will we care enough to stop him taking the Crown?
    Is the King compromised? –
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3aXekqZwVQ

    1. We once had a king who sympathised with a foreign dictator. Can’t remember what happened to him.

      1. Adolf Hitler, chancellor and dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, died by suicide via gunshot on 30 April 1945 in the
        Führerbunker in Berlin

      2. Adolf Hitler, chancellor and dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, died by suicide via gunshot on 30 April 1945 in the
        Führerbunker in Berlin

      3. Precisely. The WEF is a private club to which a particular group of ambitious narcissistic psychopaths comprising individuals from politics and large corporations are invited.

        Those invitees who do not conform to the narrow vision of global central control by a WEF dictatorship are quickly uninvited. Group think is the essence of WEF-think and total control of money via a one world bank its ultimate aim.

        We must resist the WEF and ECB otherwise they will redouble their evil efforts to control us through a central bank digital currency combined with digital passports and digital ID.

        As regards King Charles III and his allegiance to the unholy cabal this alone disqualified him from his non-political position as Head of State. Much the same applies to elected members of Parliament and those occupying seats in the House of Lords. The people are sovereign, not a group of unelected psychopaths in Davos and Brussels.

        1. I do so agree, Corri and have published a link on Ar5ebook urging readers to go to commonlawconstitution.org and check up on English Common Law.

  41. Funny old world. There is a full page (FGS) story in the Sunday Grimes about some self-obsessed telly person who rode his bike in front of a car on a London roundabout and was, predictably , knocked over. He has posted pix of himself ad infinitum.

    There is a video available which shows, QUITE clearly, that he was the author of his own misfortune. He also admits that there is a perfectly good cycle-track and cycle underpass which he elected not to use.

    I suggested BTL on The Grimes that he had only himself to blame. While 50+ like-minded, sensible people have given me thumbs – the Lycra brigade have been out in force – accusing me of all sorts of crimes – from saying that women who go to nightclubs deserve to be raped – and other similar bright ideas. Serves me right, I suppose. The cycle mob are as bad as the trans one.

    1. Cyclists who go on a main road when cycle paths are available should be fined. I saw the results of another such selfish, arrogant decision to cycle on a main road that has cycle lanes on both sides of it a couple of years ago.

      1. I don’t like the obsession for fining and banning, but they should be fully liable for any uncomfortable event that occurs as a result of their foolish actions.

      2. No plod on the beat to enforce it and new number plates to bring the miscreant to book – time to change both – but not in today’s wokey jokey ways.

    2. The idiot just rode into the car. A good lawyer might advise the driver that they have a claim for the trauma caused…

    5. It was clear from the video that he was at fault. He said so, which gives him some credence.

      Decent drivers are respectful of cyclists, but all too often a cyclist is not respectful of other vehicles. Que vis the fellows riding two abreast, slowly through town on a Saturday. It’s bad enough there are 30 traffic lights in less than a mile of road, it’s made intolerable by two blokes chatting to one another, doing 2mph and blocking a lane.

      1. I would just nudge the back wheel of the outrider and delight in the collapse of both stout parties.

  43. OT – did anyone else notice on t’telly yesterday, cutaway shots of the Prince of Woke and his Good Lady looking reet glum in the Royal Box?

    I know it was a lamentable game but you’d have thought they would have been trained to LOOK interested…. I came to the conclusion that they had had a row and the Woke Willly was sulking.

    1. I thought it was part of the theatre that they were supposed to be supporting opposite sides, so one of them was obliged to look sad while the other was cheering?

    2. I wonder how narcissistic the PoW is , he seems like a cut out figure , not very engaging and lacking personality, catarrahal.

      Strange that I thought years ago that Harry had thick headed malleability.

      Of course I was correct, but he was like putty in the wrong hands .

      1. I think William is someone who naturally likes to wait and assess things before reacting. Kate is also said to be someone who has no opinions of her own.
        I don’t think these traits necessarily make them bad people – they are just slow to make up their minds and react. It could mean that they lack principles though.
        I don’t like either of them that much because of their support for anything woke and non-traditional – unless it interferes with what they want to do, of course.

    3. They could just be fed up, cold and would rather have been at home, beside a warm fire, reading a book?

      It’s jolly hard to feign interest in things you aren’t, regardless of your role. Take a man shopping, for example.

    4. I understand from a chum that Kate is now in charge of Wimbledon (tennis, not common) and has been landed with the job of deciding whether the Russkis can play or not. Naughty manoeuvre as she should not have to make political decisions. No wonder she looks glum.

  46. To brighten your day:

    “Matt Hancock sets up his own TV company after earning £360,000 for appearing on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! and Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins”

    It is to be called Halfcockvision

  47. I am off for some time, Chums coming to lunch – slow roasted shoulder of MUTTON. Have a spiffing afternoon.

    I hope to join you later….assuming the PC doesn’t play up (or the computer, come to that!!)

    1. I believe it was administered to change people’s metabolism and immunity to infections.
      It’s certainly effed up my life.

          1. I got a call last week asking me to go for a flu shot- I said no thank you very firmly- god only knows what the jab contains.
            I think, and so does my husband, that those jabs poisoned us.
            Good luck with everything- you have been through the mill!

  50. I recently found a photograph circa 1961 of my class at school. 42 of us, 22 girls. I can remember the names of all the boys except for one and around 8 of the girls. I wonder that they are all doing now ?
    And now we are off to Harpingyarr for our lunch meeting at 12:30. Ten at the table, not old school chums. but old friends.
    Slayders

  54. The two Zelenskys. Spiked 26 February 2023.

    Then there’s the other side in the memeification of Zelensky. His haters. And man, do they hate him. I find the virtual hostility to Zelensky incredibly disturbing. It is most pronounced among what we might refer to as the post-Covid right – that corner of the world wide web where the understandable agitation with lockdown has morphed over time into anti-vax conspiracism, an unhealthy obsession with the World Economic Forum, a distrust of everything and everyone and a cast-iron conviction that Volodymyr Zelensky is a puppet of the globalist elites determined to drag us all into World War 3.

    That would be me then! Lol!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/25/the-two-zelenskys/

    2. Absolutely incomprehensible why people might not adore a man who performed lewd routines on stage for money, was placed in the Presidency of one of the most corrupt nations on earth by a criminal cabal, takes billions of dollars of other people’s money, shelled the Donbass killing thousands of people and is needlessly prolonging a war he can’t win.
      What’s not to like, eh?
      Bigoted haters!

  55. PUFFIN (and GRUNTIN’?) BOOKS is to be complimented on a brilliant marketing strategy.

    I. Censor the most liked children’s author, Roald Dahl, in order to create an outrage;
    2. Announce that you will still publish his books in their original form as well as in the revised form;
    3. Prepare for a boom in sales – not just of the original Dahl stories but also of the revised ones so that the tut tutters can buy both to compare the two and enjoy their moral outrage and indignation at the Bowdlerisms and say “What a disgrace!”
    4. Laugh all the way to the bank!

    1. It has worked out that way, but I honestly don’t think they’re that bright.
      Next year’s news; public no longer buying books, reading now “irrelevant” says woke publisher.

  56. PUFFIN (and GRUNTIN’?) BOOKS is to be complimented on a brilliant marketing strategy.

    I. Censor the most liked children’s author, Roald Dahl, in order to create an outrage;
    2. Announce that you will still publish his books in their original form as well as in the revised form;
    3. Prepare for a boom in sales – not just of the original Dahl stories but also of the revised ones so that the tut tutters can buy both to compare the two and enjoy their moral outrage and indignation at the Bowdlerisms and say “What a disgrace!”
    4. Laugh all the way to the bank!

  57. 371587+ up ticks,,

    New eu rules ?

    Many of us voted for total severance, don’t ring us we’ll ring you when WE ARE READY, but the peoples in their, what they took to be wisdom went back, post referendum, saying “job done” to voting lab/lib/con who’s political hierarchy must have thought all their eids had come at once, the pratts are still at it.

    Dominic Raab refuses to confirm there will be a Parliamentary vote on Government’s new Brexit deal
    Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, the Justice Secretary would only say: ‘Parliament will find a way to have its say’

        1. THERE’S nothing daft about a brush. This “saying” is a meaningless southern English corruption of the entirely logical northern expression “soft as a brush”. “Soft” means weak in the head.

          Grizz would be proud of me.

        2. My teacher at primary school used to say it. Really, it’s amazing that any of us 5 year olds survived without trauma counselling…

    3. For my two cents worth.
      “The doctors” who allow this, and take money to do so, should be struck off.
      The only medical assistance these deluded individuals should be receiving is psychiatric.

    4. A pity that the under picture writet kanut ssplel ie transition not transision

      Or is detransision a secret code for being rebollocked

    5. A pity that the under picture writet kanut ssplel ie transition not transision

      Or is detransision a secret code for being rebollocked

    1. ‘They’ is a plural pronoun. If Sam Smith doesn’t want to identify as male or female, then the English neuter singular pronoun would be most appropriate – ‘It’.

    2. At one time (in band camp?) a Bearded Lady used to be an Attraction that you paid money to see at a Funfair or Circus

      Now, you are laible to pay money, as a Fine, if you do not Kowtow to their selfish stupidity

        2. I think it follows on from an earlier clip where none of Biden’s security were paying any attention to the air raid sirens suddenly sounding when he and Zelensky were playing walkabout in the hostile zone.
          Doubtless in due course we will hear of Biden’s experience in a way similar to Mrs Clinton’s claims about having been under fire in Bosnia.

    1. They will all be in tins and on sale here by next week

      Eskimo he say “Do not eat yellow snow’

      Manuel the Spaniard, he say “Do not eat yellow or brown tinned tomatoes”

    2. To be fair the Spanish only do that when they are not sticking spears into bulls or chucking donkeys off tower blocks.

      1. Have you ever tried to reverse a donkey down a minaret? At least when you throw one off the top it’s kebobs all round !

    1. Yes. I was offered some on a freebie site. Dolly said no thanks. I’ll stick with the steak and chicken.

          2. He hasn’t been out much yet but the neighbours all comment about his ears. Harry is a long haired blue. I don’t know if the ears are usual.

    4. Cochineal is made from bugs. Locusts and grasshoppers have long been halal.
      (no idea how they cut their tiny throats)

  66. Just had an email from the Gatesograph. They plan to ‘up’ my digital subscription to £34.99 per month from 25th March. Considering they have shadow-banned me on all comments, I don’t think so. Bye bye, DT, it’s been nice knowing you these last 54 59 years.

    1. Phone them on 03301 735 542 and tell them you’re cancelling your subscription. They will reduce the renewal fee.

    2. I’d taken the Telegraph since 1979 when I got pissed off with the tabloids whilst on an NI tour at Castle Dillon and had been a subscriber since the subscription service started.
      Stopped my subscription a year ago.

    3. There are various ways to read their output online for free.

      Other than that, email them and tell them how angry and upset you and your friends are to be denied a subscription you can no longer afford due to the cost of living crisis and will have to retreat to a safe space and rely on the local Librarian taking pity on you and giving you her copy…After she had filled in the crossword !!!

    4. I got a year for £49 recently. I cancelled the DD when they put it up and rang them a few weeks later. Next year its going to be £189 or similar. Note to diary…

    5. Check if your local library gives you acres to PressReader. Else I think you can subscribe to that for £7.99 a month.

  67. Just had an email from the Gatesograph. They plan to ‘up’ my digital subscription to £34.99 per month from 25th March. Considering they have shadow-banned me on all comments, I don’t think so. Bye bye, DT, it’s been nice knowing you these last 54 59 years.

  68. Just had an email from the Gatesograph. They plan to ‘up’ my digital subscription to £34.99 per month from 25th March. Considering they have shadow-banned me on all comments, I don’t think so. Bye bye, DT, it’s been nice knowing you these last 54 59 years.

  69. Another cold morning in church today. Apparently The Midwife aka the Lord Bishop of London decided that instead of a new boiler, pipe work should be installed to piggyback off the hot air generated by the Central Line. (No sniggering at the back there).

    It seems that this isn’t actually impossible but as well as not heating a cavernous Norman building effectively, it would cost five times as much as a boiler and probably have little or no effect on future energy bills.

    After months wasted researching and confirming this, a faculty has finally been granted for…a boiler.

    1. Haven’t Churches been traditionally cold?….Dress appropriately when attending? I think the heating is for the staff not the congregation…

      1. The staff were bluddy cold this morning and it’s been the same all winter. Three layers plus a cassock and cotta isn’t enough with no boiler. The medieval monks wore furs as well and lit fires!

        2. When I attended a service in Calverhall, the boiler had broken. We huddled together in the choir stalls with blankets around us and we were still frozen!

    3. The churchwardens should be looking at various options; in spite of almost total ignorance, I would suggest installing two boilers.

    4. I don’t know if it was cold in my church this morning, I didn’t go. I shan’t be going until the rectorette has been sorted out. I may be absent some time as the Archdeacon sounds a bit wet.

    3. This topic is what I was mentioning on Laurance Fox and Neil Oliver. Both of them have covered various aspects of this disaster.

  72. I seem to have in born radar instincts for the absurdities one reads on line , and really and truly wish I hadn’t read .

    Now aged 37, Jason Arday is about to become the youngest black person ever appointed to a professorship at the University of Cambridge

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-64717079?at_campaign_type=owned&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_format=image&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_origin=BBC_London&at_link_id=B14AB43C-B424-11ED-9573-34A8AD7C7D13&at_ptr_name=facebook_page&at_link_type=web_link&at_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR08DeYhiTUNH-aZ0U9vZtuZoHCcSKqTKNusNCBTXF906TqoBU8ZKbFVvqE

    An ology, SOCIOLOGY.. I feel faint .

    2. Sociology at UC Berkeley was regarded as a default field of study for the dim witted. It is a correct assessment of the “discipline”

        1. Degrees are very prestigious if gained at UC Berkeley, a little or the same as a degree from Stanford. So great for getting a job apart from getting a job in such’soft’ subjects like Sociology. I knew a Dr of Sociology who graduated to cleaning houses. Sociology, regardless from which university you get the degree does not help unless you are fortunate to get a job teaching the subject at some school.

          1. I taught modern languages. Russian was part of my sociology degree (sociology of state socialist societies).

  73. Hospitals are suspending the use of pain-relieving gas and air for mothers-to-be over fears for midwives safety.

    A number of NHS Trusts have temporarily halted the use of laughing gas following concerns that medical staff are being exposed to harmful levels in the workplace.

    Nitrous oxide residuals have been measured as 50 times over safe levels in some NHS units, according to The Sunday Times.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11794935/Hospitals-suspend-gas-air-pain-relief-used-mothers-labour-amid-fears-unsafe-levels.html

      2. When I go for my next face surgery they’d better be generous with the local. I can scream really loud and will do so if I can feel anything.
        This country has totally lost the plot.

  74. Boris Johnson is an idiot, one of many who are taking us towards nuclear war. He and his moronic mates should be dropped en masse on the Kremlin, without parachutes, but to be fair. a warning should be given to the Ruskies so that they can watch it happen. The resulting mess will serve as a warning to the Putinites that they shouldn’t mess with the UK.

    1. Realistically, this is going to have to happen though. I don’t believe they can afford the state pension from 62.

  76. Here is some really offensive anti-British propaganda. As an ex colonial I know people simply didn’t behave this way. Such people would have been hauled out of the country in disgrace. I remember a soldier in Libya beating up an Arabic woman. He was shipped back to England on a stretcher, in disgrace, with a multitude of broken bones. The other soldiers had beaten him to a pulp.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkULj_9bwYc&list=TLPQMjYwMjIwMjNdG0sMhsinhg&index=5

    2. This is a recounting of the plot of Roar. Rise. Revolt. An Indian movie recently released. It is, as can be seen, a grossly over the top account of an imaginary incident. India needs such movies to assuage it’s deep feelings of inferiority.

      1. Carry On Up The Khyber summed it up rather well. So grateful I grew up in a world where we were allowed to laugh.

      2. My best friend is Indian. In his opinion the Indian ruling class, the noble families, were happy to collude with the British and would have preferred it to last. He should know since he is a member of the royal family of Manipur. I know that sounds rather grand to have a friend of such status but, unfortunately, he lives in the USA and is as poor as a church mouse. So no invitations to royal palaces and such. 😒

      3. One gets, I have noticed, from watching WION and other Indian news channels, that they certainly have a sense of inferiority to the British and to a lesser extent, to Europe.

        1. Morning Johnathan . India as the author JS Naipaul once observed is a “Wounded Civilisation. “ Mortally wounded one suspects. It must always be divided by the Islamic Conquest. A lesson there for us perhaps?

          1. Yes indeed. If we do nothing about Islam we will end up, in my opinion, a dead civilization, not wounded. Islam hates us to much to co-exist with us.

    3. This is a recounting of the plot of Roar. Rise. Revolt. An Indian movie recently released. It is, as can be seen, a grossly over the top account of an imaginary incident. India needs such movies to assuage it’s deep feelings of inferiority.

    5. When my father retired from the Sudan he worked for the administration in Libya for a couple of years.

      He hated it because the level of corruption was so high amongst the indigenous people in his office that it was almost impossible to achieve anything.

      Funnily enough my father-in-law worked as the managing director of a large Dutch multi-national company in Iran and he too found the level of corruption was so high that he managed to get himself transferred to Spain as soon as he could.

  77. A pleasant Par Four.

    Wordle 617 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

          1. Made an early start today

            Wordle 617 4/6

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

    2. Me too.

      Wordle 617 4/6

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

    3. With this, unless you look it up on the answer sheet, it’s difficult to cheat.

      I enjoy the daily solitaire competition and measure my result against the final result, rather than the group I end up in.

      Over the last few days I’ve been in the 4 -10 range in my group of 50. Ego I know, but I like to get a “podium finish”.

      I came 8th out of 50 one day but was in the eventual top 8,000.
      In the grand totals I’ve been in the top 10-20,000 out of 500,000 plus almost every time, although I’ve had some real disasters too, a double, double bogey in your wordle terms.
      I wish the programmers could identify and eliminate all the bots and the obvious cheats, or at least separate them into a separate category.
      Grrrr.

    4. Par here, too.
      Wordle 617 4/6

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

  78. Simon Heffer makes a valiant attempt to identify Hunt’s failures, but misses the mark as he advocates more civil servants to audit the existing civil service. Mark your own exam paper if you please.

    “To cut public spending, a Great Jobs Audit is needed. The number of state employees is growing inexorably. To reduce spending, it is time to see if all these roles are needed.”

    This BTL comment sums it up perfectly.

    I’d like to apply for the position of Auditor General of Public Services, I will expect a salary of £250k. I will need a small army of deputies, and they will need offices and teams around the country. Whilst the report will be promised for 2035, I think it will be possible to spin it out until 2050. After five years we will change the name of this public office to the Public Spending Watchdog. We will produce an annual vision and stakeholder report. All staff will be trained in Diversity, Equality and H&S. We will be subject to annual ISO inspections. After ten years I will have succeeded in inveigling the Watchdog into every public sector organisation in the UK, in such a way that no one knows where it starts or ends. In 2040 I will take my final salary pension and accept a Knighthood and a place in the House of Lords. From the Lords I will be able to undertake reports into things like the Public Spending Watchdog, and make the case for cost savings initiatives; part of my remit will be to semi privatise the PSW, and act as its fully funded Chair. In the spirit of public service, I will take a number of non executive directorships (remunerated) on failing public sector organisation boards.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/26/cut-public-spending-great-jobs-audit-needed/

  79. P&O Ferries spends £230m on hybrid ships that cannot be charged at Dover or Calais
    Limited power capacity at ports means the hybrid ships may rely more heavily on their diesel engines
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/26/po-ferries-spends-230m-hybrid-ships-cannot-charged-dover-calais/

    BTL (Wrattstrangler)

    Yet another Ed and Yvette Up!

    (I think this is how Percival got round the fastidious censorship of the DT which does not allow words such as Balls!)

  80. That’s me gone. Nice day. Lovely chums. Delicious mutton. Agreeable walk as sun began to set.

    PC all perfectly OK – according to brilliant nephew computer wizard. Tomorrow waits. Have a jolly evening

    A demain

  81. From https://www.aftenposten.no/verden/i/P405VR/ukraina-var-ikke-et-demokrati-foer-krigen-men-naa-kan-noe-viktig-ha-skjedd
    Criticism of the use of the word “democracy” in relation to Ukraine, especially by Joe Blow Biden.
    The Economist index of democracy is a score out of 10, and you have to score minimum 6 to be called “democratic”.
    Interesting the steady drop over time.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f82e2be259361a31503f2a22fa30bb425a9d5b8dfb0993527f5bca834093dca4.jpg

  82. Has this been covered already?

    “Italy’s deadliest shipwreck in a decade as migrant boat smashes against rocks at resort

    The rickety boat is believed to have been carrying around 150
    passengers when it sunk, with bodies washing up on a nearby tourist
    beach”

    Easy mistake to make, especially if Telegraph reporters have no access to an English dictionary.

    1. Instead of commenting about spelling and grammar why don’t you ask serious questions?

      The vessel, which was carrying around 150 people from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, crashed into rocky reefs on Sunday.

      Look at the header and how the numbers change!
      https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/33-migrants-die-crotone-b1063144.html

      1. How did they know where they came from, given that the majority destroy their papers?
      2. How many safe countries did they pass through before they even got onto the boat?
      3. Where do you suggest they were heading, and who do you suggest should shelter feed, and otherwise care for them; and very importantly WHY?

      1. Sunk vs sank.

        I feel sad about anyone losing their life in such circumstances, especially children.

        1. I knew what you were on about, I don’t think that in the great scheme of things it was even remotely important.

  83. Hooray.
    After the England/Wales boor/bore fest yesterday a proper game.
    Lots of skill, lots of excitement, lots of commitment and a refereeing team with the balls to make the right decisions.

    Excellent.

    1. So she will drag the 55% of voters who said ‘No’ to independence in 2014 out of the UK against their will?

      2. All she needs to do is open the referendum to English voters and they’ll be gone in an instant.

    3. Didn’t America have to fight for independence with weapons of war? Do they think Braveheart will be resurrected?

  86. Evening, all. Bojo is an idiot with no military experience whatsoever. I doubt he was even in the boy scouts.

    1. A couple of unelected ‘residents’ about to ignite The Troubles again.

      Fonda Lying is the worst sort of militaristic German, remember the torchlight march reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany as she left office as Defence Minister.

      Sunak is a WEF placement, a minnow of a man with ‘sparrows’ ankles’ and drainpipes, unfit to govern a Third World shithole (which under his auspices the UK is rapidly descending into).

      1. Pedant alert. The torchlights thing is a long standing Prussian tradition dating back centuries. Anorak off!

  89. Step-son paid a visit and the DT did a load of washing for him today, though she did need to wear rubber gloves such is the state of his personal hygiene!
    I’ll probably tell him to come & pick the dried washing up on Tuesday and will make him have a bath!
    After he’d been fed he went for the bus back to Derby and I got on doing a bit more digging out of the next wall section and shifted half a dozen bucket loads of soil.

    But that is me for the night!
    Goodnight all.

  93. More doom and gloom. I asked SWMBO what was she looking at on her phone

    Answer Halal certified chocolates, ie cows that supplied the milk not ‘sedated’, when slaughtered
    Also, seemingly the company has to pay for Halal certification,

    Is Toblerone halal?

    Is Toblerone Halal? Yes, indeed! Our factory in Bern, Switzerland is the only Toblerone production facility in the world and it is Halal-certified. In fact, due to the inherent nature of Toblerone chocolate, its production process essentially meets the Halal criteria anyway.

    Which chocolates are halal in UK?

    Halal Chocolate Brands

    Nestle.

    Charm School Chocolates.

    Dear Coco.

    Go Max Go Foods.

    Green and Black’s.

    LuLu’s Chocolate.

    Manifest Chocolates.

    Missionary Chocolates.

    1. What happens if a sick cow is sedated before slaughter, do they recall all of the chocolates made from milk they got from the cow in her productive days?

  95. My husband has not used a walking frame since mid pm yesterday! He is walking unaided, albeit slowly. His bad leg is much more flexible which is wonderful.
    Long may it continue.

    2. So pleased for your husband and you, LotL. It is uplifting for all of us to hear of his progress, we need all the good news we can get in these uncertain times.

        1. ‘Morning, Paul, slept 9 hours last night and then the bladder cut in.

          No good sleep after that so I’ve been up since 03:30.

          1. Argh! Mine has started to kick in at about 03:00, and despite only a couple of glases of wine the evening before, I must go and pee the entire contents of Lake Tanganiyka… how does that work, and why at 03:00?

    6. After having his BMW knocked out from under him, T’Lad took a couple of weeks not to need a frame and he stopped using his crutches a few weeks back.
      His right knee cap apparently showed up as a Mercedes badge on the x-ray!

        1. He’s already bought a replacement! A couple of years more recent and stored for over 10y with a VERY low mileage.
          We had a trip to London to collect it t’other week.

  97. 371606+ up ticks,

    The politico’s are so treacherously adept with the knife that we did not feel it go in,YET,

    The Meeting betwixt King, cobras, had to be held in Windsor for the simple reason that there ain’t no snakes in Ireland and Paddy wants to keep it that way.

    Trust NOTHING govmental currently with a political tag on it if it walks & talks it lies.

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