Sunday 28 April: Britain requires a fresh defence review to ensure that extra funds are well spent

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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900 thoughts on “Sunday 28 April: Britain requires a fresh defence review to ensure that extra funds are well spent”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    SEXUAL PROBLEMS

    A man goes to his doctor.
    ‘I have a terrible problem,’ says the man. ‘My wife’s pregnant, but we haven’t had sex in over a year. Is there any way that it would be medically possible for her to get pregnant?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ replies the doctor. ‘It’s a condition we in the profession call a “grudge pregnancy”; someone has obviously had it in for you.’

    When I came into my hotel room last night, I found a strange blonde in my bed. I would stand for none of that nonsense! I gave her exactly 24 hours to get out. Groucho Marx

    In Therapy
    A psychologist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children. “You all have obsessions,” he observed.
    To the first mother, Mary, he said, “You are obsessed with eating. You’ve even named your daughter Candy.”
    He turned to the second Mom, Ann: “Your obsession is with money. Again, it manifests itself in your child’s name, Penny.”
    He turned to the third Mom, Joyce: “Your obsession is alcohol. This too shows itself in your child’s name, Brandy.”
    At this point, the fourth mother, Kathy, quietly got up, took her little boy by the hand, and whispered, “Come on, Dick, this guy has no idea what he’s talking about. Let’s pick up Peter, Willy, Percy and John Thomas from school and go get dinner.

      1. Good afternoon. I’ve been hearing about your famous Viking relatives.

  3. Britain requires a fresh defence review to ensure that extra funds are well spent

    I thought it was all going to be spent on gender and diversity training for the time when they will be at war with us, just like the police

    1. MOH says that would be a surprising change from MOD policies in the last thirty years.

  5. Another Long-Distance Friendship.

    Morning all early birds. This one is 542 words – but takes under 3 minutes to read aloud.

    When I read Grizz’s personal story yesterday it struck a very strong chord.

    In 1956 or 57 my elder brother was ‘going out’ with a 16-year-old girl (who he later married). She had a 16-year-old penfriend, Jeanine, from Roquefort in southwest France who was, as they say, very photogenic.

    In 1961 my brother spent 6 months in Tours, in the Loire Valley, studying for a Diplôme de l’Université de Poitiers à Tours. Apparently, the French spoken in Tours is the purest form of the language.

    Long story short, aged 20 my brother’s girlfriend and I hitch-hiked to Tours and stayed with him for a week or so. ‘Why don’t we visit Jeanine?’ we thought, so we rented three Mobylette mopeds (maximum speed about 30mph downhill) and the three of us drove the 270-odd miles (no Autoroutes) from Tours to Roquefort, south of Bordeaux, in one day. It was late summer, and after over 12 hours in the saddle our backsides were feeling like raw beef – we arrived after midnight.

    I wish we had known that for almost the same money we could have rented a Citroen 2CV with a maximum speed of 56 mph – but that’s another story for a few weeks later, when we drove a 2CV from Tours to Gibraltar and crossed over to Tangier for a ‘Daytrip to Africa’. It was 18 September 1961, the day that United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane crashed in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia). But I digress.

    Jeanine’s parents welcomed us for a couple of days, then we faced the beastly long moped ride back to Tours. Since then, Jeanine had married, had 3 children, two of whom came to stay with us separately in the UK to improve their English. Her daughter attended the École normale supérieure (paris) probably the top college in Paris for the Civil Service and until recently was a very senior member of the Mayor of Paris’s staff.

    Both I and my sister-in-law kept in touch sporadically with Jeanine and her family all these years, with occasional mutual visits to one another’s homes. The last time I visited her near Montpellier was in September 2003, when I took my father (then aged 90) along, to stay with her and her husband, close to the Camargue. A great welcome!

    Things went quiet for over 20 years, until I was looking through my old photo albums recently and found several photos of her daughter as a 7-year-old, then a 19-year-old, then on French TV in 2023 being interviewed. I found the daughter’s email address, sent her the photos and was gobsmacked to receive a joyous email reply within hours. The daughter has divorced and left Paris, moving far south to live near her 82-year-old, widowed Mother, Jeanine. They would be delighted to see me.

    At 83 I’m not getting any younger myself, so I have booked to fly to Montpellier at the end of June to resume our friendship (definitely Platonic) of around 67 years. I’m looking forward to revisiting Arles, Nîmes and the Pont du Gard, the amazingly well-preserved Roman aqueduct. A very long friendship. Roll on June.

    2. A wonderful tale, roughcommon, and I’m sure you will have a very special time over there. Please give us a full report on your return. 👍🏻😊

    3. Good morning, roughcommon. I need to check Grizzly’s post of yesterday to understand this story better. HAVING CHECKED: How wonderful to see the photos of Inge and Grizzly and the full story of meeting again after all those years.

    5. For some reason your delightful account has made my eyes well up. Perhaps it is the connection between yesteryear – when none of us had an inkling of what lay ahead – and today.

    6. Arles has some powerful memories for me – a stone flew up and caused “un trou dans le reservoir” when I left the Camargue and I spent the day in Arles while I was waiting for it to be mended. When I watched Caravan to Vaccares it brought it all back.

  8. Britain to deploy homegrown hypersonic missile by 2030. 28 April 2024.

    Britain plans to equip the Armed Forces with a homegrown hypersonic cruise missile by the end of the decade, The Telegraph has learnt.

    Military chiefs want a weapon capable of reaching speeds exceeding Mach 5 as the Government races to catch up with China, Russia and the US.

    The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has insisted that the new weapon be designed and built entirely in Britain and is understood to have set a deadline of 2030 for it to enter service.

    Another General Election feel good Fairy Story.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/27/britain-deploy-homegrown-hypersonic-missile-by-2030/

    1. Araminta, as the Russians already have a missile that flies at Mach 10 is the MOD just “re-inventing the wheel”?

    2. Strongly suggest ramping up cheap drone & gaffer tape production to a million units per year.. this is the target set by Ukraine after running out of tanks, artillery shells & men.
      The front line is now held by drones taped up with themobaric hand grenades.

  9. ‘Morning All

    Let’s start with a 12 minute major Oof commended to you all

    https://twitter.com/evavlaar/status/1784264775574188371?s=46&t=vKlFhsxSFVUgpulHwoj79g

    Rest

    A start

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a46a60dda63c97196faf29041731a218105b480f410a0ef8ee4ae892530a150.jpg

    End Times

    https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/1784213597226238432?t=FKB9Pn_lr2jpNE1mzZsZ6g&s=19

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/22359c3162319ecbb9770d7de0a394b361df2ca2d3ea2e6f9b189b6f372e50af.png

    http://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMKXlJgXcAEbEZK.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/363dfa39671b21eb28e00ddf52179b3ca448653b1253ddec46bb7a99c6757822.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9acfe0709bb21fb28b2fea62cb0f6658812b6fdb45f554cf3bbbb3893b0dd21c.jpg

    1. Good morning, Rik. The idiot who “won” the egg and spoon race is showing cruelty to those young children.

      2. Looked more like a Dad or a teacher showing the children what to do.
        So many photos can be ‘reinterpreted’ for a laugh.
        Good moaning, Mrs. Bloodaxe.

      1. Excellent. But it’s a shame that the louts in the audience couldn’t STFU and listen to her.

      2. What a girl!

        I love Dutch women! Eva is one of my pin ups and I married another one!

        The Netherlands need Eva to be their PM.

  10. Good Moaning.

    There’s nice. BTL in the Sunday Telegraph letters.

    “Morgan – Jones

    36 MIN AGO

    If you think only the SNP has form, this is the leader of the Senedd and Labour Party in Wales..

    During his campaign to become leader against Jeremy Miles, Vaughan Gething took £200,000 from a company called Dauson Environmental Group whose owner was convicted of environmental crimes. He -Gethin – has repeatedly lobbied for that company and on the same day they made the donation to him they also put in an application to build a solar farm which will require Welsh Government approval. Just 11 months before they made the donation they had been given a £400,000 loan by the Welsh Government-owned Development Bank of Wales which at the time was Mr Gething’s responsibility as economy minister. Courtesy WOL.

    It does make you wonder, I believe there’s a word for it.”

    3. I fully expect the BBC six o’clock news to lead on this. Actually no, I don’t.

  11. It’s a dangerous myth that mass migration is good for the economy. 28 April 2024

    There is no clearer example of the broken Westminster consensus than the last three decades of immigration policy.

    Successive governments have failed to tackle illegal migration. And as I have set out in these pages, the latest attempt – the Safety of Rwanda Act – will shortly join the graveyard of policies that haven’t re-established our southern border.

    And yet this man and his friends have sat in Parliament for the last six years and never said a word about it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/27/dangerous-myth-mass-migration-is-good-for-economy/

  12. Good morning, chums. Another Sunday to enjoy.

    Wordle 1,044 2/6

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    1. Good Morning , Elsie.
      Well done, for a regular number two

      Wordle 1,044 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
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      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
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  13. SIR – Daniel Hannan’s suggestion that Reform UK’s apparent success is merely a mirage (Comment, April 21) may, to some extent, be true. But is that any different to the success of Labour or the Tory party? How many of their solutions have failed, yet have been paid for by taxpayers?

    What we do know is that both are tax-and-spend parties, and neither is prepared to seriously challenge the welfare largesse encouraged during the pandemic, just as neither was prepared to seriously question the wisdom of lockdown. The result is a population spoon-fed on taxpayerfunded welfare, which it now expects as a right.

    We now, essentially, have two Left-wing parties keen to outdo each other in the continuing provision of taxpayer-funded generosity, and Reform UK, which is prepared to take a serious look at welfare and tax.

    It may be a mirage to Mr Hannan, but to me, and millions like me, it is currently the only sensible option.

    Arthur Smith
    Grappenhall, Cheshire

    SIR – I don’t disagree with Daniel Hannan that Reform UK has no prospect of office, but I don’t agree that a vote for the party is wasted.

    After a lifetime of voting Conservative (except for a brief period of voting for the Brexit Party) I will be voting Reform next time.

    I would like to see the Conservative Party obliterated at the next election. There will then follow 10 years of Labour incompetence, which will destroy them. This will leave room for a new party and the country will stand a chance of returning to a sensible government that implements what most people want and believe is right, instead of giving lip service to it.

    Ken Webb Bardsey,
    West Yorkshire

    What you two chaps are telling us is all very true; however, history is against a small party emerging and coming to power. The only time in British history that has happened is back in 1900 when a pre-pubescent Labour Party started its stealthy growth and eventually replaced the tired old moribund Whig/Liberal Party as the main alternative to the Conservatives.

    Since then, countless wannabe upstart alternatives to the Tories have emerged, made a lot of squeaks and squawks, before disappearing with their tails between their legs back to whence they came. ‘Stalking Horses’ come and go (usually they go back far more quickly than they came), and noisy vulgarians such as The Referendum Party, UKIP, Reclaim Party, Reform Party and a few other ephemeral cliques all make the mistake that they can upset the political applecart. They never have done.

    All they ever achieve is to put the Conservatives out of office for a period to regroup and rethink. The last time this happened — when the hapless John Major was ousted by ‘New’ Labour (hah!) under the execrable Tony Blair — the Conservatives certainly did ‘regroup’. Unfortunately they got it horribly wrong and this ‘regrouping’ veered more and more to the Left. This means that instead of reverting to proper Conservatism and becoming a Right-wing alternative to Labour, they made the crass mistake of slithering to the Left to merely imitate them! The result is that true, lifelong, Conservative voters — the party’s traditional foundational base — discovered they had no one to represent their views and ideals in parliament any more.

    The Conservative Party remains, to the chagrin of many, a powerful political entity that can withstand any attacks by lesser upstarts. It simply swats them away like the flies they are. No arriviste party has — or ever will — gained a sufficiently sizeable voter base to successfully challenge this gargantuan behemoth of a party, no matter how much huffing and puffing they make.

    The only answer is for an army of true, dedicated Right-wing Conservatives to formulate a strategic plan to inveigle themselves inside — infiltrate — the party in exactly the same insidious and invidious manner that the current cartel of Leftist buffoons managed to do so over the past thirty years-or-so. Only then will there ever be a chance of the country seeing a return to true Conservatism in power.

    Trouble is, I doubt there is anyone — or any grouping — who possesses the balls, brains and cunning to be able to even start to think about effecting such a coup. The Left managed to do so, but that is because the Right sat with their thumbs up their arses, swilling pink gin and patting themselves on their backs as they revelled in their inert complacency. Is there anyone out there who can kickstart the Right-wing of the Tories into action?

    A new Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher, with the requisite guile and political acumen might be a start.

    1. As someone who was an activist with one of these upstart parties in the 1980s: “break the mould of politics” was their slogan, I had to concede just before the party disintegrated that all they did was to deliver a third term to Margaret Thatcher, thanks to a split Opposition. She knew well enough the power of divide-and-rule.

      What struck me most about the Conservative Party then, and what made them such a formidable opponent, was that their followers were not really interested in politics. They were primarily a social club, a means of being in with the right people, and that social skills in the grassroots were more important than political ideology. Therefore any criticism about Thatcherism was simply brushed off.

      1. There seems to be an ingrained, pathological inertia affecting the Right.

        It may well be a combination of their natural inclination to eschew mob-handedness (the raison d’être of the Left) and their traditional reliance on a grouping of natural self-sufficient independents amalgamating to save the day; or it might just simply be an unfathomable resistance to change.

        Either way, someone has to step up to the popping crease and take an attacking stance or the current miserable status quo will continue to perpetuate, sine die.

        1. I might suggest that a lot of the problem stems from the deliberate confusion as to what is Left and what is Right. I must confess that I do not comply with conventional categorisations, and actually find them quite useless.These days, it is probably more about commonsense versus lunacy rather than definitions pushed on us by our betters.

          1. No confusion on my part as to what is Left and what is Right.

            On which side of the political spectrum do I place myself?

            I class myself as Right-wing.
            I do so because I am peaceful, but I will fight tooth-and-claw against genuine injustices.
            I do so because I believe in discipline, personal discipline, good manners, personal etiquette and good grace.
            I do so because I believe in the proper, effective punishment of offenders against the person, property, and the nation.
            I do so because I believe in the custom that everyone has an implied duty to ensure that laws are not broken by others.
            I do so because I believe in personal rights.
            I do so because I believe in personal freedom and liberty.
            I do so because I believe in freedom of thought and expression.
            I do so because I believe in individualism.
            I do so because I believe in security of the individual, the family, your locality and the nation.
            I do so because I believe in self-sufficiency.
            I do so because I believe in innovation.
            I do so because I believe in entrepreneurialism.
            I do so because I believe in a hard work ethic.
            I do so because I believe in the generation of wealth
            I do so because I believe in capitalism as the best means yet devised for creating wealth, freedom and security.
            I do so because I believe in a free market economy.
            I do so because I believe in the free nation state.
            I do so because I believe in free trade with other free nation states.
            I do so because I believe in the Government having as little say in my daily activities as possible.
            I do so because I believe that taxation should be the minimum that is required in order to run the country efficiently.
            I do so because I believe that patriotism is not ‘the last refuge of a scoundrel’.
            I do so because I believe in the defence of the nation, its borders, its indigenous population and traditions
            I do so because I believe in human responsibilities over human ‘rights’.
            I do so because I believe that authoritarian Totalitarianism*, in all its guises, is a clear threat to what I believe in.
            I do so because I believe that the artificial concept called The State is an affront to personal liberties.
            I do so because I believe that any political party’s name that contains any of the words: Social, Democratic, Worker’s or People’s is none of those and is nothing more than yet another Left-wing abomination.
            I do so because I believe in common sense, not Common Purpose.
            I do so because I believe in personal responsibilities:
            Responsibility for my own actions.
            Responsibility to look after my own family without expecting the Government to do the job for me.
            Responsibility to assist, by my own efforts (but only if I so choose), a selected few of those less fortunate.
            I do so because I loathe Critical Theory (a.k.a. Cultural Marxism); indeed all The Frankfurt School’s doctrines,

            *I could add other reasons, but I am utterly against and abhor the Totalitarianism, that manifests itself as both Fascism and Marxist Socialism, which demands that the individual is subservient to, and his needs secondary to, The State. This is the complete and utter anathema of what I believe in and stand for.

          2. Agree 100%.
            Referring to Fascism, with it’s State controls, is an anathema to true believers of Right Wing principles.

            Also, the only way that patriotism is ‘the last refuge of a scoundrel’, is only after all other excuses for their conduct have failed.

          4. What is extreme right? Extremely for the individual? how would that work? Go & sit alone on a mountain-top?

          5. Indeed. As we’ve said many times before, the expression is an idiotic, vacuous, nonentity.

          6. But very popular, thanks to more misdirection from the Left, in the same way there were apparently Far right Nazis, Fascism was Far Right, and all the extremism that comes from the Left blamed on the Right.
            Excellent misdirection, that is.

          7. Marxism and Fascism are the opposite cheeks of the same shitty Socialist arsehole.

          8. NO. They are not! There is not anything called “Extreme Right”.

            What the hell is “far-Right”?

            I wish the press (and the public) would cease using idiotic, made-up, descriptions such as the risible (and eminently unprovable) term, “far-Right” (or “extreme-Right”, or “hard-Right”), which simply does not exist. “Far-Right” is a mythical concept invented by the far-Left (which does exist) to provide a smokescreen to cover the excesses of the various opposing factions of their own wing.

            Being called “far-Right” is simply an absurdity.

            Being labelled ‘far-Right’ is preposterously idiotic. If you are on the Right of the political spectrum it means you shower, work, know the words to the national anthem, belong to a family, voted Brexit, eat meat, and prefer single-sex lavatories. Have I missed anything?

            Oh yes, I’ve missed a lot. It also means you love life, liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. You are an independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant individualist who has aspirations and are innovative. You are a knowledgable, entrepreneurial, enterprising and hard-working individual who enjoys low taxation and small government. Moreover, your preference is a free-market economy, and you do not go in for mob-handedness, rioting and civil disorder. You expect these positive attributes to be encouraged and rewarded. Your self-esteem, your family, your locality and your country come first, and you are prepared to kill (and die) to defend them.

            In a nutshell, you are NORMAL.

            Therefore it logically follows that to be ridiculously labelled as being ‘far-Right’ means that you must be extremely free, extremely happy, extremely independent, extremely self-sufficient, extremely self-reliant and an extreme individualist; who is extremely aspirational, extremely innovative, extremely knowledgable, extremely entrepreneurial, extremely enterprising, extremely hard-working, and enjoys extremely low taxation and extremely small government, etc.

            If that is the case, then you may call me extremely ‘far-Right’ until the cows come home.

          9. Politicians of the far right and the far left rely on complete control by the state and suppression of individual freedom.

            I would take the point that Hitler who was branded far right was nothing of the sort.

            It would be interesting to see if any Nottlers could name extreme right politicians. Pinochet in Chile and Atilla the Hun might be considered candidates!

            We all need to service this from time to time!

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a8e1beddf36ea83051d670d23682b3e318b358bc52b335039ce7cc651cc75fd.png

          10. There is nothing ironic about believing in the existence of a “far Right”.

            People who believe in a “far-Right” also believe in fairies, pixies, imps and elves. They also believe that Politics and Religion are the solution to the world’s problems when the unexpurgated truth is that they are the primary cause of them.

          11. Didn’t Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle believe in fairies?

            Taking the left further to the left leads you to state control; of everything. Moving the other away – i.e. removing state control over the individual completely could lead to anarchy.

          12. I don’t recall any historical reports of anarchy when every village looked to its elders for guidance.

          13. No. Extreme Left is EVERYTHING controlled by the state which includes Fascism.
            Extreme Right is the ABSENCE of The State.

          14. Two sides of the same derriere. It’s that corrosive word ‘ extreme ‘ .

          16. Formulated because Italian Socialists feared that Marx’s divisive “Class Struggle” could reopen the wounds of the Risorgimento.

          17. In a nutshell: The Right is for the Individual; The Left is for the State.

          18. Good morning, Rastus. Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?

            Your natural erudition seems to have deserted you today since you seem to be posting a number of confused and non sequitur comments.

          20. A precise precis?

            Yes, Nursey, I know that but a previous couple of comments didn’t make sense.

          23. I think you have misunderstood some of the very sensible and reasonable points I am making!

          24. I couldn’t understand why you made reference to Richard Tice and Ramsey Macdonald in response a comment that I made on the present Conservative party. It came across as a non sequitur.

          25. Could you tear yourself away from your unfeasibly organised work shop and run Blighty instead?
            Pretty Please.

          27. Our cats are willing to give it a go.
            Couldn’t do worse than the current shower.

          28. Our cats are willing to give it a go.
            Couldn’t do worse than the current shower.

          29. I will enjoy going through your manifesto from my own different place on the spectrum.

            What the Brexit Referendum must have revealed is that the Right cannot hope to carry the nation on its own, but if it finds common ground with others, then indeed a majority can be achieved. I have often remarked on the anomaly whereby a 42% popular vote achieved by Theresa May in 2017 lost her her majority, with the DUP holding the balance of power. An identical popular vote won Margaret Thatcher her landslide in 1983 due, I suspect, more to a split Opposition than to her own national support.

            A lot of what you write is motherhood and apple pie, some I have reservations about, and some I oppose.

            The first two points go without saying.

            As regards punishment of offenders, a lot depends on how you define “offending”. There is a lot of spurious law about right now, and I was reminded the other day that fascism was less about being angry and more about punishment for punishment’s sake.

            The sort of jobsworthery you speak of was referred to as “sneaking” in my schooldays. Taken to excess, it creates an atmosphere of fear that Orwell described in ‘1984’ and turns the law into a monster and a tyrant, rather than a protector.

            I think a distinction needs to be made between rights, privileges and choices.

            There is a limit to personal freedom when it imposes on the freedoms of others. However, when it comes to thought and expression that does not impose, then merely “causing offence” is not sufficient to curtail this. Sometimes the price of freedom is the capacity to put up with disrespect with good grace.

            Individualism is fine, since the very first and most important level of responsibility is the individual – a fundamental Liberal principle. However, we are a social animal and a life in solitary confinement is intolerable for most of us, and impractical if we lack the mastery of everything, the time and the talent to be totally self-sufficient.

            “Security” is used to cover quite a number of bad practices, and whilst I agree that it is essential, in practice it needs to be effective and fair.

            I have very bad feelings about the “hard work ethic”. It is callous and brutal, especially towards those who may not be well or have other good reasons not to live up to expectations. It is actually more stressful to be underemployed than it is to be overworked. Often, what one has to offer is not wanted and what needs to be done, one cannot do.

            Furthermore, everyone has different talents, and useful occupations may rely on adequate rest, which may not be considered by the “hardworking”. I have ancestors who once made parlour pianos around Edwardian times. They were brothers – one made the pianos and the other sold them. However, the company fell apart in acrimony when the wife of each brother accused the other brother of not pulling his weight. Eventually the Luftwaffe put the business out of its misery.

            As regards innovation, entrepreneurialism and the generation of wealth, sometimes this can be profoundly antisocial or parasitic and actually make life worse for all but the perpetrator. The drug pusher, the armed robber or the institutional fraudster are examples. However, it must be said that it is often too the generator of prosperity and a great public benefit.

            Capitalism is a mechanism for ordering these things to maximising benefit. It has the great advantage of being somewhat self-adjusting for human nature, which Socialism struggles with. It relies on sound money though, and sometimes cannot provide essentials or even desirables when these turn out to be unprofitable, and are best met by the nation or community. It can also distract one’s talents towards making money, rather than doing what one is trained to do best. Relieving businesses and households of some of their overheads whilst doing so more efficiently, and with more integrity than is possible privately, can make the difference between viability and ruin.

            It is a contradiction to talk of the nation without reference to the State. One is reliant on the other. A nation without a State is a jungle. Pretending that the State has no place in a nation is a recipe for civil servants not to do their job, and I suggest is the primary cause of so much incompetence in the public sector, which got much worse under the watch of the Conservative Right or the Blairite Right. which to me are the two cheeks of the same bum.

            I care nothing for labels or political jargon. The only proper test is “is it working?”, and I prefer to look at policies on merit and context rather than purity of ideology.

            I have an equal loathing to you of Critical Race Theory and consider similar modern woke-led doctrines profoundly prejudicial and an affront to standards of justice that have evolved over centuries. Often they are plain loopy. I am reading up about the Frankfurt School, and I really don’t know enough to pass judgement on that.

            As a Liberal, I consider that responsibility and freedom are directly proportional, and starts with the individual and only moves upwards if the individual is incapable until it reaches a level that can cope. In a monarchy, the buck stops with the King, which is both a burden and a privilege for him. Hopefully, we will not need him too often, but he is there if we do.

      2. “They were primarily a social club, a means of being in with the right people, and that social skills in the grassroots were more important than political ideology”

        I would suggest that something similar goes on with the Labour voting classes where “working class” kinship is also fundamental.

      1. I think they did, yesterday- at least, they said it hasn’t been as cold as we know it has…

    3. This is really beginning to get us down.
      MB looked at the forecast and depressed himself even further.

  18. Good morning all,

    Grey, wet and cold at McPhee Towers – again. Wind in the North West going West, 4℃, 9℃ later.

    If you’re a prospective presidential running mate, don’t shoot your family dog then write about it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65d966723adbbe20011a0cac196ba5fd8752776652d5407f6f8b367a259409f4.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/27/kristi-noem-shot-pet-dog-memoir-governor-south-dakota-trump/

    The BTL comments are fully of RSPCA types who have never had to run a family farm as Kristi Noem did after her father was killed in an accident.
    “There’s no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners”. She’s a farmer’s daughter, brought up on a farm and ranch, lived her whole life with animals. Chances are, she knows animals.

    If your dog is untrainable, kills a neighbour’s chickens then turns around and bites you, I’m sorry, but the mutt gets a bullet. Just as Gabriel Oak had to do in Far From The Madding Crowd.

    She was one of the US State Governors (South Dakota) who resisted the convid garbage and kept her state free.

    I’m with Kristi.

    But I think I’d have held off with memoirs until after my political career was over.

  19. Good morning all,

    Grey, wet and cold at McPhee Towers – again. Wind in the North West going West, 4℃, 9℃ later.

    If you’re a prospective presidential running mate, don’t shoot your family dog then write about it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65d966723adbbe20011a0cac196ba5fd8752776652d5407f6f8b367a259409f4.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/27/kristi-noem-shot-pet-dog-memoir-governor-south-dakota-trump/

    The BTL comments are fully of RSPCA types who have never had to run a family farm as Kristi Noem did after her father was killed in an accident.
    “There’s no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners”. She’s a farmer’s daughter, brought up on a farm and ranch, lived her whole life with animals. Chances are, she knows animals.

    If your dog is untrainable, kills a neighbour’s chickens then turns around and bites you, I’m sorry, but the mutt gets a bullet. Just as Gabriel Oak had to do in Far From The Madding Crowd.

    She was one of the US State Governors (South Dakota) who resisted the convid garbage and kept her state free.

    I’m with Kristi.

    But I think I’d have held off with memoirs until after my political career was over.

    1. I’ve just started the latest book from my pile of unread books. “In defence of dogs” by John Bradshaw.

      …overturning the most common myths about dogs’ emotions, this book shows how we should really treat our pers, and stands up to dogdom…

      1. They may be loveable, domesticated pooches but underneath there are still the genes of a wild animal. We have enough reports of groups of dogs forming a pack and turning on their human ‘pack-leader’ when they sense a moment of weakness.

        1. I had one dog I couldn’t turn round and had to admit defeat with (it bit me and then attacked another dog). It went straight to the vet after that for the final solution. We were its third chance – it had been rehomed twice before. Some dogs just can’t be saved.

    2. She could have found a home for it, she just killed it because she couldn’t train it and she couldn’t be bothered to try and find another home for it. It would probably have been fine with a family in the suburbs.

      Saw this yesterday and was thinking about why this seems to have broken a law of the universe that killing an animal for food doesn’t. The relationship between humans and dogs is slightly different from the relationship between humans and herbivores (hunter / prey, rival for food) or humans and carnivores (rival hunter, threat to safety). Dogs joined our pack because they trusted us and we accepted them because they were useful to us. According to this site
      https://animaldome.com/do-wolves-get-kicked-out-of-the-pack/
      wolves do occasionally get killed by the pack leader for being useless, but they usually just get kicked out. I would say kicking the useless one out (i.e. re-homing it) is a far more normal solution than killing it in a fit of temper.
      Killing the dog implies a certain arrogance (1) I can’t train this dog, therefore it’s useless (nobody else could train it) and (2) the dog is useless to me, therefore it would be useless to any other owner and (3) Killing this animal brings me nothing (no food, no release from danger) but I am morally entitled to do it.
      I wouldn’t want her round my children, they might annoy her and who knows what she would do if they made her angry.

      1. It would probably have been fine with a family in the suburbs.

        It was a wire-haired pointer, it was supposed to be a working dog. Dogs bred for working whether as hunting, shooting, pest control or stock herding animals (that’s most breeds) don’t really belong in urban/suburban settings. I write from pesonal experience of having owned when I was a young man a virtually untrainable springer spaniel puppy. But he was a good-hearted, loveable, fun-loving dog. Just impossible to get through obedience training let alone training as a gun-dog, despite having some field-trials winners in his pedigree. We lived in a rural bungalow at the time but by the time he was a year old it was impossible to contain him either in the house or the garden. He went to where he should have been in the first place – a farm.

        This story is a report of a report of a report. None of the writers were there when Kristi Noem took the decision to shoot her dog. Neither were you or I so we can’t know the circumstances or what Kristi Noem was feeling as she did it or how she reacted after the event.

        She’s also a mother so I think she’d be perfectly safe around human young.

        1. She’s quoted as saying that she “hated that dog” therefore she killed it. It is unknown whether she hated the dog or her own failure to train it, but hating an animal that isn’t threatening you is stupid, it’s only an animal.
          I have heard some horrific stories from children growing up on farms, where this kind of lack of sentimentality reigns. It does go over into the attitude towards children too.
          Edit: in the nineteenth century, orphans were often sent to farms, and treated in a very brutal way by unsentimental farmers scraping a living, for whom the only value of the child was how much work it could do on the farm. You think Heathcliffe is fiction?

          Also, this kind of action, killing an animal purely to get rid of a small problem to oneself is the kind of thing my ex would have done. Couldn’t take his responsibility for anything, so get rid of the problem via the quickest route.
          That’s not being a farmer, that’s being a psychopath.

          1. It was the word ‘hated’ that bothered me.
            Yes, you can have a dog that is unsuitable for its surroundings and it becomes unmanageable. And, dogs can be lethal.
            But … this wasn’t a dog bred to be vicious.
            Her comment suggested she was taking the situation personally and she reacted spitefully like a disappointed child. Twice over as she shot a goat as well.

          2. My feeling as well. And she’s trying to cover it up by claiming it’s what farmers do and if you don’t agree, you’re a sentimental, townie, dog-mama. It reminds me of my psychopath ex in more ways than one.

      2. For someone trying to enter politics, it’s a daft thing to go public about – there’s a lot of disney-sentimental people around who would likely be repelled by that action, however reasonable it might seem, and vote for someone else. It shows her lack of awareness, and thus unsuitability to be a politician.

          2. She hasn’t been chosen as Trump’s VP candidate yet. Trump came out in favour of the covid vax again yesterday, which is unsettling his supporters.

          3. Trump attacked Kennedy on the vax, showing a remarkable lack of political judgement. Unless Trump finds a reverse gear on the vax he will lose support among his base.

            Robert Barnes says that Trump’s campaign is being run by Susan Wiles, a deep state operative.

      1. I’d have to re-read “To Kill…” to get the reference. Can you provide a nutshell?

        1. There is a rabid dog roaming the streets of Maycomb.

          Atticus the most respected and wisest man in the town quietly gets his gun and kills it with one clean shot.

          Jem and Scout are amazed because their father, ever modest, had never mentioned that he was considered to be the finest shot in the land.

  20. Good morning all,

    Grey, wet and cold at McPhee Towers – again. Wind in the North West going West, 4℃, 9℃ later.

    If you’re a prospective presidential running mate, don’t shoot your family dog then write about it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65d966723adbbe20011a0cac196ba5fd8752776652d5407f6f8b367a259409f4.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/27/kristi-noem-shot-pet-dog-memoir-governor-south-dakota-trump/

    The BTL comments are fully of RSPCA types who have never had to run a family farm as Kristi Noem did after her father was killed in an accident.
    “There’s no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners”. She’s a farmer’s daughter, brought up on a farm and ranch, lived her whole life with animals. Chances are, she knows animals.

    If your dog is untrainable, kills a neighbour’s chickens then turns around and bites you, I’m sorry, but the mutt gets a bullet. Just as Gabriel Oak had to do in Far From The Madding Crowd.

    She was one of the US State Governors (South Dakota) who resisted the convid garbage and kept her state free.

    I’m with Kristi.

    But I think I’d have held off with memoirs until after my political career was over.

      1. A* student.
        Always said “good morning”.
        Kept himself to himself.
        Nan’s in bits.
        Helped out at the local food bank.

        To be continued ……….

    3. Clearly the white man was the evil leader who forced the rest of the recent arrivals to do things that were anathema to them.

  22. I got to know Dan Poulter during a 2009 by-election campaign. A very bright, and refreshingly straightforward, guy. I was not surprised when the Tories parachuted him into a safe seat in the 2010 GE. As he has declared that he will not stand at the next GE, I must conclude that his defection to Labour is genuinely a matter of principle, rather than ambition. I fear that the Starmer administration will disappoint him.

    1. It is being suggested that he has been promised some sort of advisory role in an incoming Labour administration. That might mean a seat in the House of Frauds.
      How can somebody who believed sufficiently in Conservatism to join the party and stand for election for them then turn to embrace the Labour Party while claiming to be ‘principled’. He is claiming that he is doing this so he can look his patients and constituents in the eye. Hmm.

      2. Politicians: These are ‘somebodies’ who usually regard themselves as quite exceptional.

    2. Any MP switching from one party to another should stand for re-election. This should be mandatory.

      1. I’d like them to have to stand again when they switch from one policy [TAKE BACK CONTROL] to another [OPEN BORDERS].

      2. I’d like them to have to stand again when they switch from one policy [TAKE BACK CONTROL] to another [OPEN BORDERS].

      3. It wold be if you voted for the party, but in the UK you vote for the individual, who just happens to follow one or another party. So, it’s that individual who is elected, regardless of party.

        1. Yes, I know you vote for an individual, but usually it is because of the party to which he/she belongs. This could be deemed to be part of the contract which the MP has made with the electorate when canvassing their support. In my view, a switch to a different party is a breaking of that contract, so the MP should submit him/herself to re-election.

      5. Under current law, the party affiliation of the candidate has no legal significance whatsoever.
        The candidate stands for election as the person to represent the constituency and the voters vote is on that basis.
        Granted that party affiliation will be the deciding factor for the voters, but during the early ’70s that affiliation was not even mentioned on the ballot papers.

  23. Good morning from the Anglo Saxon Kingdom of Mercia and Helicon with my longbow and blooded axe in the handbag – just incase there is a Viking invasion .
    Anyway, its a cloudy dull and miserable day outside xx

      1. If Harald Hardrada instead of Harold Godwinson had won at Stamford Bridge (and neither of them played for Chelsea) it’s likely he’d still have been defeated by William the Bastard at Hastings? Good morning!

      2. Aha, the Spectator wrote an article about , Queen of the Mercians back in 2018 ‘ Æthelflæd the Heroine who Sent the Danes Flying ‘ I shall see if I can find it . That’s a fine picture of Elsie’s relative Olaf 🙂

        1. Thank you. I do spend a lot of my time seeing to my old Auntie Elsie’s needs. Like making sure she eats her pobs (bread and warm milk) and doesn’t misplace her zimmer-frame.😉

          Olaf.

  24. ” Britain requires a fresh defence review ‘ . Too late, the enemy are within our gates .

    1. Dear Lord above! Are suggesting that there’s such a thing as the national interest, and that sometimes it might trump O-level economics? Begone!

      1. And Dan Poulter’s defection to Labour shows that even though the Conservative Party is now well to the left of centre it is still not left enough for many Conservative MPs.

        Reform may or may not be the answer but at the moment it is the least punctured lifeboat that Conservative MPs thinking of abandoning ship and defecting have if they still claim to be even remotely conservative.

    3. Most people are uninterested in politics. Just look at the content of newspapers such as the Sun and the Mirror. Even the supposedly midmarket Mail and Express are far more concerned with celebrities, sport and trivia.

      1. This is true even of those who have comfortable lives in nice areas and read the Telegraph. As long as there is a decently run council and a good life. Voting is just done every 5 years and politics might cause a brief moan but then it’s put aside as it affects the lives of others.

    4. This is because they’re both taking orders from the same person – and it’s not the voter. We don’t want anything they’re forcing on us.

      1. 386562+ up ticks,

        Morning W,

        The 2019 showing regarding support
        tells me they are still very much in play.

          2. If your family needs a Mother’s little helper then why not employ Ruby Tuesday.

    2. Back in the early-ish 60s (63-4)
      I was working at LHR, helping in refurbishing a restaurant. I opened a door and stepped into a corridor and the four young Stones were walking towards me. They all said hello. I think they were on their way to the USofA.

        1. Oh yes…..😄 I think little Bill was at rear.
          But I did them playing at Eel Pie Island as well. Bit too loud for me, I preferred blues. And modern jaaazzz😊

          2. I use to frequent several London clubs in the mid 60s.
            I once saw a three pices at a club above the Railway Tavern in West Hampstead. The club was called Klooks Kleek. Peter B’s Looners was the name of the band. Peter Bardens on Hammond, Peter Green on guitar and Mick Fleetwood on drums.
            No stage I stood in front of Peter Green. Didn’t know he was going to be lead in Fleetwood Mac.
            Such great early experiences. Another great Blues club was the Refectory opposite Golders Green station.
            One just outside Kentish Town underground. On one occasion saw John Mayles blues Breakers with my old drummer mate Dave. A low stage pints in hand we stood in front of the lead guitarist playing a solo.
            Dave said blimey he’s good who is he ? Don’t know I replied.
            It was Eric Clapton, fist gig after leaving the Yard Birds.
            Here’s another Dummer joke.
            How can you tell if the stage is level?
            The drummer is dribbling from both sides of his mouth.

  31. If Conservative MPs seriously think that their party is too ‘right wing’ it shows just how betrayed people who voted for them have been.

    The fact that Dan Poulter defected from the Conservatives to Labour – rather than to Reform – shows that the Conservative Party is too ‘right wing’ for him. Many of his fellow MPs share his opinion.

    The main problem, as many Nottlers would agree, is that the Conservative Party has destroyed itself by moving far too far to the left. .

    NOW is surely the time for a mass defection by the right of Centre Conservatives to Reform in order to show that conservatism is not completely dead?
    .

    1. 386562+ up ticks,

      Morning R,

      Give it a little time, many boxes of deceit & treachery have yet to be transferred.

    1. I seem to remember some years ago, there was a lot of hoohah about the Beth Din.
      Something to do with the anomalous position of widows or divorcees.
      No doubt an erudite NOTTLer will give me chapter and verse.

    3. It’s an arbitration service and does not overrule British law. So long as the participants are aware of this and no deception is deployed, then it can be a quicker and less expensive means of dispute resolution than formal legal processes.

      Of the world’s Sikhs, the great majority live in India. Wailing about Muslim countries is a pointless distraction.

  33. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny day here, I’ll try and bring some of it back with me.
    Britain requires not only a defence review it requires a mass clear out at Wastemonster and Whitehall. And The armed forces are capable of doing that.
    And then exercising the rights of British people.
    To save our nation from absolute ruin and being over run by the univited, as seen in in posts below. It’s pretty obvious that Something needs to be done with great urgency.

  34. A BTL Comment:-

    Cuthbert Thomasson 4 min ago

    Bit abstruce to feature defence concerns here now even as our ruling net zero cult’s credo compels their laying waste to the kingdom from within the net zero fastness of Downing Street and one party paranoid poltroon captured parliament … is it not ?

    Forlorn figures of mock-con ridicule their hopes of restoring government to sanity are in vain as the Conservative Party they supported now presides over our doctrinaire demise..

    Defence spending is now of no avail as the kingdom we knew and loved slips away from us.

    In these the last days of our dawning recognition of what we have been self-deluded not to see what evil ideology we have allowed to grow quite unopposed and take hold over our now doomed civilisation.

    Too late to act we must face the unbearable truth of fading hopes and all encompassing sadness.

    Watching powerless as our beloved kingdom’s single precious unique irreplacable unrepeatable culture and democratic lifeblood drains away.

    Is being lost and willfully sacrificed to gain an eternity of net zero autarchy.

    So we must take our leave and disappear.

    Be put down along with poor old Blighty like a lovely faithful and loving old dog whose days are done and must be put at an end forever.

    To save the world of course – what other psychotic fraud- science fantasy is there ever nowadays ?

    Betrayed mock-con confounded Blighty must now succumb to eternal net zero subjugation dominion, never to return.

    The matter has been ” settled” by our unknown masters.

    Good old conservative civilisations are to be put down for their own good : our continued presence causes catastrophy!

    So quite naturally we really must be abolished absolutely forthith .

    The cult has spoken and cannot be gainsaid.

    2. The intent of net zero is suppression. It’s as simple as that. Miliband will no doubt tax gas. They’re insane and do not care what damage they do as long as the trough is full of other people’s money.

  35. Just heard that there will be no Sunday Grimes delivered today. Our excellent and efficient newsagent received no supplies. Dagnabbit.

  36. Am I alone in sensing that the weather has increased NOTTL attendance this morning?

    1. Morning Lewis. Just went outside to go to the shop and turned back. It’s throwing it down.

        1. ’bout the same here, maybe 5C. At theast the weather forecast will e losing the yellow triangle for Danger of forest fires! (Skogsbrannfare)

    2. Probably!
      I’ve only got dressed because the temperature has dropped so much!

    4. I must go to Tesco to get supplies – specifically sudafed as my nose has turned into a tap.

      Digging through the cupboard showed that I really, really need to get rid of stuff.

      1. I get Tesco to deliver these days, no car and it’s 25 miles away. Expected at 18:00 this evening.

        1. I am pleased you don’t have to worry about grocery shopping, we do the same.

    5. It’s very loquacious today and hasn’t slowed down after lunch even with the sun now out .

  38. One in three BBC journalism scheme trainees are white Britons. 28 April 2024.

    The data also revealed that nearly three-quarters of spots were taken by women (71.79 per cent) and 28.21 per cent men.

    MPs have described the “concerning” findings as evidence of a “discriminatory” recruitment strategy within the BBC.

    No kidding? I would never have guessed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/27/one-three-bbc-journalism-scheme-trainees-white-britons/

    1. Eni Aluko.. a painful listen
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7UmG7MR6p4&t=2272s

        1. Joey Barton; she’s a DEI hire and really bad at her job..
          Eni Aluko; it’s “gate-keeping” innit.. an an an “it’s the higher.. high.. hier.. archie of white male pastry innit”..

      2. I posted this here the other day. It’s breathtaking. She’s all over the place with a fall back position to Marxist Feminism. How far into it have you managed?

        2. slightly longer than .. James O’Brien’s monologues lecturing Posie Parker.
          I was looking forward to this, but unfortunately JOB didn’t wait for any answers.

  39. As an Anglo Saxon, Kingdom of Mercia thingy I vote that we dump Londonstan as the capital city. It should be once again Winchester, as it was before 1066.
    We should have our capital city and the pox be upon London .

    1. Surely Alfred the Great’s daughter should be pushing for one of the burghs.
      BTW, I actually had to look up your hubby. He doesn’t appear to be memorable.

  40. One thing that struck me about the women’s France v England match. Most of the players looked “normal”. They had not (as their male equivalents would have done) spent years eating muscle promoting drugs products.

    And the large ladies were,er, just large. Including the one who could pass for Brian Moore!

    2. OH hasn’t watched it yet – don’t tell me the result. There are some big, beefy girls though.

    1. The population of Africa is 1.2 billion.. where’s your Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Stephen Hawking..?
      It’s the white male privvy ledge innit.

          1. There are very rich black entrepeneurs, we just don’t hear about them because our media doesn’t report on them. The choice of Musk and Bezos as examples was unfortunate, as they are probably two of the parasite class’s bright young men selected to dominate upcoming fields.

      2. It’s our fault they’ve never produced the equivalent. Also our fault they don’t have roads.

        There’ll come a day when Lefties realise they’re the ones holding the third world back, but it’s long in the future.

        1. Not at all. They hold Africa back, because it gives them opportunities to feel and look superior, not only in technology, but also “goodness”, in helping the poor black piccaninnies. Twice the virtue signalling for the buck! How good is that?

  43. Fragments of poems remembered:

    Oh to be in England, now that April’s there

    This is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I

    I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high oer vales and hills

    1. God! I will pack, and take a train,
      And get me to England once again!
      For England’s the one land, I know,
      Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;…

      When that was written it was probably true!

          1. I wonder how many of us here can still recite Adlestrop by heart?

            I learnt it at prep school in the 1950s.

          2. I still know the first verse of “The Eve of St. Agnes”.
            Mainly because we found a better rhyme for the word ‘grass’.

          8. I wonder how many of us here can still recite Adlestrop by heart?

            I learnt it at prep school in the 1950s.

          9. Nah! Edward Thomas nicked that and gave half of it to Philip Larkin, who was on the train on his way to The Whitsun Weddings.

        2. I have my father’s much browsed copy of Rupert Brooke’s poems.

          Honey’s off, love.
          [Peter Sellers: Balham Gateway to the South]

        3. Everyone remembers Brooke’s Grantchester and The Soldier

          This is one of his very powerful poems but it is dark. (One of my former pupils – who is now a very eminent and successful KC – read this at the School’s Reading competition)

          Jealousy : Rupert Brooke

          When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
          Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
          You’ve given your love to, your adoring hands
          Touch his so intimately that each understands,
          I know, most hidden things; and when I know
          Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
          Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
          Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
          Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,
          That you have given him every touch and move,
          Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,
          —Oh! then I know I’m waiting, lover-wife,
          For the great time when love is at a close,
          And all its fruit’s to watch the thickening nose
          And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,
          That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!
          Day after day you’ll sit with him and note
          The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;
          As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,
          And love, love, love to habit!

          And after that,
          When all that’s fine in man is at an end,
          And you, that loved young life and clean, must tend
          A foul sick fumbling dribbling body and old,
          When his rare lips hang flabby and can’t hold
          Slobber, and you’re enduring that worst thing,
          Senility’s queasy furtive love-making,
          And searching those dear eyes for human meaning,
          Propping the bald and helpless head, and cleaning
          A scrap that life’s flung by, and love’s forgotten,—
          Then you’ll be tired; and passion dead and rotten;
          And he’ll be dirty, dirty!

          O lithe and free
          And lightfoot, that the poor heart cries to see,
          That’s how I’ll see your man and you!—

          But you
          —Oh, when that time comes, you’ll be dirty too!

          5. I have even been unjustly criticised if not down-voted by those who should know better!

            I expect it was a false hand move on Minty’s part.

      2. Rather sadly, I find that I don’t pine (other trees are available) for England; in fact, I’m delighted I don’t ive there any more. Nothing seems to work, especially government, everyone is grumpy (and that’s on a good day), even the weather is dull. We are travelling over in May to visit crumblies and my Mother (quite likely the last time, as she’d crumbled almost to dust), and I don’t see it as a holiday, just an expensive pain in the arris. We have farming to do, in the sunniest month in S Norway, so yet again, will be behind the weather. Ho hum, more coffee required.

          1. Vogon poetry is a variety of poetry, often considered to be one of the worst. It is sometimes used by the Vogons as a torture method, as it causes physical pain to the hearer. A notable example of this was when they tortured Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent after the Dentrassis let them hitchhike onto the ship.

            According to the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Vogon poetry is the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria, and the worst is by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex, who perished along with her poetry during the destruction of Earth, ironically caused by the Vogons themselves. Vogon poetry is seen as mild by comparison.

  44. Waiting for the Imperial War Museum to open. Do you know, I have never been? But we decided to abandon our planned walk, because, you know, climate change. Or weather. Or something.

    1. The British started the war; killed innocent German troops; Churchill was a tyrant You’ll soon get the drift…..

      1. What’s terrifying is that the current bunch of woke wasters believe that.

        They honestly think the UK is the problem.

    2. If you have time, try to listen to some of the recordings made by troops.
      We were listening to one, I think it was regarding D-Day recollections, and my recently deceased F-i-L came up, it really spooked HG.

    3. I haven’t been for years but loved the place! I expect it’s probably been ‘woked’ since then!

  45. Britain requires a review of those who carry out defence reviews, as they are all woke wallies intent on the politicisation, feminisation and wokification of our armed forces, which soon struggle to fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

  46. This will be sent to my MP after bacon sandwiches, one Simon Hoare, an acolyte of CMD and general arsehole:

    Sir,
    As your party of faux Conservatives have destroyed this country I look forward to this country destroying your party.
    You have squandered an eighty seat majority, kept us shackled to an undemocratic, corrupt, bunch of Globalist crooks run from Germany, and consistently and regularly lied to us about controlling immigration whilst in actual fact accelerating it to a level never seen before. You are spending billions on a war in the Ukraine that is nothing to do with us whilst increasing the tax burden to levels that not even Gordon Brown would contemplate

    I have to say though, I like the catchphrase ‘Net Zero’, but only in relation to the number of seats your grubby little party returns after the election.
    Yours Sincerely,
    GQ.

    1. My sentiments entirely.

      The recent defection to Labour of Dan Poulter shows that the repulsive Conservative Party is not yet repulsive enough for him and many of his colleagues.

      1. Poulter was my MP when I lived in Suffolk, and. despite writing on numerous occasions, I never had a satisfactory answer. Just bumf and piffle.

      2. That he can simply cross the floor spouting such arrant gibberish unchallenged is laughable. Such a change should trigger a by election.

    2. Unfortunately you’re just cutting off your nose to spite your face.
      You can look forward to some years of a Labour government.
      Think back to the halcyon years of thesixties and seventies, the joys of the Blair administration.
      Your MP will lose the election, receive his economic compensation and continue to work on the boards of various companies or maybe even pursue a career in California.
      He will remain unimpressed by your jibes, his Parliamentary experience was just one more peldaño on the ladder to success.

      1. That raises.a good point that once got rid of the vermin come back as ‘directors’ and trough for favours. That’s why they’re bought, after all.

        THis is where direct democracy must be applied. If the public don’t want it, government cannot do it. Doesn’t matter how big or small.

        1. Agreed. Direct democracy is the only kind of democracy. Middlemen MPs are too open to corruption and as the UK’s sense of cohesion has been brutally eroded we have to dispel with traditional governmental decision-making.

      1. Please copy and send it to him. I have sent similar to the above to his constituency office explaining that I have sent it to them because my MP is far too busy seemingly to bother with the proles.

    8. He won’t care. They simply don’t have to. There is absolutely nothing stopping them doing whatever they want.

      Although I imagine much of government is really tied up in pointless administration. Even if the wil for change ere there the machine makes sure nothing changes. Look at the furore over Truss ignoring the OBR: A lobby group persistently wrong that deliberately excludes tax cuts from it’s equations yet somewhow has to be slavishly obeyed by ministers. Like most quangos, it exists to exist, not to have value.

  47. A pointer to why the govt is importing thousands of military age young men?
    In Ireland, “Sinn Fein wants to recruit unvetted undocumented military aged males that arrived from the U.K. into the Gardai.”
    Interesting that they’re going to Ireland. Why is that happening? Are the bennies more generous, or is there another reason?
    https://twitter.com/ThoughtsToby/status/1783793447184343154

    1. I still advocate that if immigrants were told ‘here’s the bill’ for everything – school places, nhs care and all welfare revoked

      they’d leave in droves. 70% of the muslim population is unemployed. It will never work because it’s paid to not.

    1. The boats could have been stopped years ago. It simply means big government must repeal the laws that prevent us from doing so. The state refuses to do this, mainly because it would make it harder to rechain the UK to the hated EU. Therefore the state is complicit in the invasion.

      As it is, 1.2 million a year is utterly unsustainable. Heck, atenth of that is unsustainable. Immigration should be in the tens, not hundreds.

      1. Why should there be nett immigration? Sure, some skills needed, but since automation is taking over more and more tasks, why do we need more people?
        Although a maintenance engineer, current work is with instrumentation, automation and robots to allow for autonomous operation of offshore oil & gas installations. Soon, they will all be automatic.

    2. That quotation is quite a simplification. Hungary must accept citizens of other EU member states. Also, as this Hungary Today article implicitly says, Hungary will accept legal migrants from beyond the EU. The fact is, though, that the Hungarian language is a major obstacle for those contemplating settling in the country. Nearly all those attempting to enter illegally will see it as a transit state, not an ultimate destination. What Viktor Orban is determined to do, though, is not accept an EU imposed quota of asylum seekers from other EU members.

      https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-will-refuse-to-implement-eu-measures-incentivizing-migration/

  49. Pissing down – roads awash with puddles – potholes galore. And not a Sunday Grimes to be had even for ready money in this part of Narfurk. I know one can read it online but it’s not the same. Sighs…

    1. Same here in West Yorks. I’m sure that a bloke down the road is building an ark.

      1. He’s a bit early – shouldn’t he wait until there’s no ‘R’ in the month? Only three days to go…

    2. Same here. I’m off out to the farmers’ market at Lavenham soon, so there are at least small mercies around.

      1. Good morning James. Wonderful Lavenham is around 20 miles from me
        . I do recommend for lunch No 10 Lady Street, the wonderful old building on the corner opposite the pub . The do a rather fine roast venison with all the trimmings .

        1. My maternal grandparents (born 1890 and 1900) had their honeymoon in Lavenham and named their house after it!

          4. Useless fact of the day, Lavenham church was designed by the same architect as Great St Mary’s, Cambridge. It is in fact a copy in tracery, dimensions and so on, of that church, but without the Victorian balcony seating of Cambridge’s version, meaning you can see the effect of the light across the building interior much better.

      2. My dear late aunt was very friendly with the proprietors of The Swan at Lavenham years ago.

      4. Well, I’m back now. Burdened down with honey, good veg, cheese and meats. Oh dear, how indulgent!

  50. I see another coachload of “groomers” have been found guilty of various horrendous sexual offences.
    What did strike me though is that the powers that be are still very much in the minimisation state of mind.

    They can’t deny the existence of these gangs, which they previously did for decades.
    What the authorities can do, and are doing, is minimising the scale and seriousness of these offences; probably for “community cohesion” or some such.

    Even the name “grooming gang” is part of the minimisation. It sounds better than rape gang. Also part of the process is never to mention the exact ethnicity of those in the gangs, or their religion.

    But most of all we have the deployment of reporting restrictions. This means that you don’t know how many trials are happening right now. You don’t know how many people are accused. in particular you don’t have reporters standing outside court every day reporting the trial. When you are only allowed to report the result of the trial you get a one day report; not two or three months of reports.

    Minimise, minimise, minimise. Nothing to see here.

    1. They should have stuck with death threats to teachers over cartoons, no criminality associated with that particular favourite pastime of the peaceful religionists.

      1. Allowing more and more of these people into the country puts women and children at increasing risk. Not something the liberal left want to admit, or even to hear.

  52. Top BTL Comment on DT Letters page:

    9 HRS AGO
    Congratulations to Peter Whittle on the Ten pledges made at a recent New Culture Forum meeting listed below. Let’s put some patriotism back into British politics- time to push back against the establishment.
    Pledge 1.
    A permanent and complete end to mass immigration. A total freeze on migration for a certain period.
    Pledge 2.
    UK must withdrawal from ECHR.
    Pledge 3.
    The equality act must be abolished.
    Pledge 4.
    Balanced history and its achievements of this country must be taught to every pupil in every school up to the age of 16.
    Pledge 5.
    It must be stated unequivocally that there is no blasphemy law in this country.
    Pledge 6.
    The concepts in law of hate and harmful speech must be scrapped
    Pledge 7.
    There must be a complete ban on the teaching, as though it were fact, of critical race theory, gender ideology and all associated ideologies in schools across the country.
    Please 8.
    There must be a ban on compulsory attendance at so called diversity, equity and inclusion courses and unconscious biased sessions. All public funding must end.
    Pledge 9.
    All institutions and quango’s including publicly funded broadcasters that stray from their core purpose by prioritising ideology must be challenged and if possible lose their funding.
    Pledge 10.
    Those bodies of which instead of promoting Britain and caring for its history and heritage but actually undermine it should be replaced either with another that does do the job or all public funding should be withdrawn.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3PPDUaGrE9w

        1. I’m pleased to write that I received my Ph.D at the same ceremony as Sir Frank Whittle.

          5. “In 1987, he (Frank Whittle) was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Technology) by Loughborough University.[94]”

            [Wiki]

          9. I used to hang out with his grandson.. lad done well, married into the Kadoorie family. Keeeerching.

    2. For 3, add in the race relations act, diversity act, gender recognition acts, online harm bill, remove the mandate for ESG finance and make it a criminal offence for banks to willfully invest in idoelogical programs over making money for their customers.

      Stop funding sodding stonewall.

      Also abolish the supreme court and repeal the human rights act.

      For 9, vexatious litigation against commercial channels has to stop. There’s a coterie of hard Left communists who are desperately trying ot shut down GB News. How about they are responsible for the claim and complainant pays all the fees, regardless of outcome. The Left are essentially hypocrites, so must pay for their actions.

      1. I agree, with one slight correction.
        ………… hard FAR Left communists .
        Let’s give them some of their own medicine.

    4. Excellent policies, therefore they will all be sneered at as ‘populist’. The Conservatives are shortly to find out that being ‘populist’ is greatly to be preferred to being ‘unpopulist’ if you want to keep your Parliamentary seat.

  53. It’s very lively upon these hallowed pages this morning.
    This Mercian personage of the dark ages must find her way to the kitchen and cook brunch, eggs from daisy the hen ( not cow ) back bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes. Including white toast with seville marmalade and very decent Italian coffee .
    And I shall plot in regards to our capital city before 1066. Have fun x

        1. I’ve not seen the current menu for Hickory, tonight, yet. I’ll post what I’ll be having, tomorrow.

  54. Good morning all.

    Not the nicest Sunday morning ever here – wet and grey – hope it improves because I so want to get back on McGinty this afternoon.

    1. Good morning, Nags. It is 18ºC, sunny, with clear blues skies here.

      Enjoy your ride on McGinty.

      1. He came with that name. Superstition is that one should not change the name of a horse – but I do call him Mac most of the time.

  55. 386552+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Migration must be capped at ‘tens of thousands’ to restore trust, says Jenrick
    Ex-immigration minister says Government is sticking ‘two fingers’ up to the British public by breaking border-control promises

    “Government” ? I think not, not by a long chalk , odious dictatorship is far more apt.

    Migration must be capped at ‘ten to restore trust, says Jenrick
    Ex-immigration minister says, treacherous political manipulators are sticking ‘two fingers’ up to the British public by breaking border-control promises, that being more acceptable being the truth.

      1. 386562+ up ticks,

        Morning SS,

        The answer you seek is highly classified, pack a small suitcase in preparation for a 3 am early morning call.

    2. Deportations need to be uncapped and running into six figures per year.

      “Oh, yes …. you and whose army?”

      Not ours …. there’s only 60,000 of them.

  56. How about a new feature, “Yesterday from the Bidet”.
    A roundup of the golden nuggets from that perennial polluter of pompous drivel in the Spacca comments.

    We had drugs in the 80 and 90s. Rather too much actually. It was very hard to get any work done with everyone looking out the window waiting for the dispatch rider

    Nick was never the most popular, or attentive, but his limited imagination never fails to betray him.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/life-was-better-in-the-1990s/

        1. It indicates that the blockquote function has been applied to that text.

          Just highlight the text you want to put in a blockquote then click on the quotation mark at the bottom of the comment box. I use it on text pasted from another source, then paste beneath it the URL of that source.

        2. “blockquote” command in <>. There has been a button on the comment bar, like for italics and bold.

    5. Smeg, what do you do to the URLs you post that makes them unclickable?
      I had to highlight that then right click and select “go to”.

      2. It looks like he has “code” linked. Standard procedure at old Disqus Spectator BTL, direct links would just go into the “waiting to be approved” pile, aka the bin.

      3. It looks like he has “code” linked. Standard procedure at old Disqus Spectator BTL, direct links would just go into the “waiting to be approved” pile, aka the bin.

      4. It looks like he has “code” linked. Standard procedure at old Disqus Spectator BTL, direct links would just go into the “waiting to be approved” pile, aka the bin.

      1. The king of sealioning.

        By the way, have you accessed your Spectator Disqus comments age yet?

    1. There must be a factory somewhere churning out those ‘Free Palestine’ placards (and others). Quite often, they have a ‘Socialist Workers’ Party’ reference on them.

    2. Was June Slater intoxicated when she composed her tweet (or whatever they’re called now that the microblogging service is called X)? Her comment lacks coherence.

      1. 386562+ up ticks,

        Afternoon DW,
        So do mine, do they not, that is probably why I understand her so well.

      2. I think she and Hello Dave make two points very coherently:

        i) The anti-Semites are rather better organised and better funded than those nurses who marched against compulsory Covid jabs;

        ii) Rageh Omaar was eager for himself and his family to have the Covid jabs. Perhaps there might be adverse consequences from having them?

        Come on Stig, you don’t have to be a genius to work that out.

        1. When The front line NHS workers marches against the forces vaccine.

          I’m guessing she meant, “When The front line NHS workers marched against the forced vaccine.”

  59. The BBC is blinded by its bias against GB News

    The Today programme hosts can’t stop taking shots at our fledgling broadcaster, forgetting that this kind of prejudice is why it was created

    WILLIAM SITWELL • 26 April 2024 • 4:56pm

    I watched the action unfurl, my heart in my mouth. Spooked by an ugly noise, the beast seemed out of control. Would he be caught and calmed and order restored?

    I’m talking of Nick Robinson, of course. The poor chap has been frothing and squirming, apoplectic and bewildered at the sight of that irritant GB News, those rascals who run and present shows on the channel, getting away with it, week in, week out. Incredulous is Robinson that no one is stopping it and shutting it down. The “no one”, specifically, being the chief executive of Ofcom, Dame Melanie Dawes, who was interviewed this week on the BBC’s Today programme, by Robinson’s colleague Justin Webb.

    “We’ve put them on notice,” she said. “Notice of what?” asked Webb. “That fines and sanctions may follow.” But, Webb pointed out, there have been 11 rulings thus far, yet no sanctions or fines have been administered.

    When the chief executive of GB News, Angelos Frangopoulos, was on the Today programme himself last September, I could hear Robinson and his other colleague, Amol Rajan, scoffing at the absurdity of this interloper. Yet, still the channel broadcasts, night after night, its shows fronted by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage. And if it sounds fishy that Right-wing Rees-Mogg interviews other Right-wingers, including his sister Annunziata, Ofcom has actually sent warnings when the likes of Rees-Mogg actually break the Ofcom code and read the news.

    Robinson has been fuming on Twitter, wailing like Job in his sackcloth, and screaming things like: “So Nigel Farage can present an ‘impartial’ programme on a TV ‘news’ channel during the general election according to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom.” He was hoping to stir them into a response, but they ignored him. So back he came: “Dear Ofcom, for clarity can you confirm that other politicians like Nigel Farage who are not candidates can present ‘impartial’ programmes on ‘news’ channels during an election?”

    Again they ignored him. So he took up the subject on The Today Podcast (paid for by the BBC licence-fee payer and promoted on Twitter, it is a podcast in which Robinson has a habit of quoting himself from his show and reading extracts of stuff he has written in his books).

    “Right-wingers set it up, Right-wingers fund it, the presenters are Right wing,” he moaned. “A politician interviewing a politician isn’t journalism,” he went on. And then he got Rajan – presumably trying to take a break from Robinson – to record his thoughts in between changing nappies at home.

    “GB News, and the way it has transformed broadcasting in this country, has happened without a debate,” said Rajan. That’s right, no proper debate, hosted by proper journalists such as Rajan and Robinson, before and after which the likes of Rees-Mogg must walk the gauntlet of the BBC news studio, like Indiana Jones venturing through the Temple of Doom, trying not to step on the hissing snakes.

    Robinson and Rajan, in their passionate quest to be impartial (clearly anything but when it comes to podcasts slamming GB News), may actually be right. Maybe there is an Ofcom breach when double-barrelled Right-wing politicians quiz their double-barrelled Right-wing sisters on the infallibility of the Pope or how climate change policies are making people cold and poor, or whatever else Rees-Mogg bangs on about in his opening “Moggalogues”.

    But while the existence of GB News so riles the Today gang, perhaps they ought to step back, take a long sniff of the coffee and realise that the reason GB News exists is because of their ilk.

    I’ve listened to the Today programme and observed the BBC’s news coverage in general over the years, so I get why the likes of Paul Marshall, the hedge-fund-millionaire backer of GB News decided to launch, and continues to support, the eye-wateringly-loss-making channel.

    And it’s that strong whiff of institutionalised bias, of Left-wing consensus, that emanates from the BBC; such a strong whiff that not only led to the launch of the channel, but saw audiences flock to it – and continue to do so in such numbers as to have seen off its rival Talk TV, run by News UK, which is biting the dust as I write.

    What, you might wonder, kept the fledgling GB News going in the latter stages of 2021, after its launch in June of that year? It was the most chaotic start. Its star frontman, Andrew Neil, had quit, and technical glitches made it look like the calamitous dress rehearsal of a nativity play. Yet it was the BBC itself that encouraged it onwards. I’m thinking particularly of Robinson himself on October 5 2021 when, while interviewing Boris Johnson, he told the then-PM: “Prime Minister, you are going to pause. Prime Minister, stop talking.”

    It was a moment that represented the very essence of why GB News had been created. In the words of one of the current presenters, Albie Amankona: “[GB News was] set up to challenge what happens in traditional media outlets and that’s what we do every day – challenge a liberal metropolitan consensus and give under-represented voices a way to speak to the nation in a different way.”

    Or rather, when, for example, interviewing the British prime minister, to show them a modicum of courtesy in respect of the job. A job that, with my peculiar views, I think should come with free babysitting, housekeeping, food and drink, and whatever else it takes to help the person do the best job possible.

    Another example came this week when the BBC Politics Twitter account repeated an allegation made on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg by eco-warrior Chris Packham that journalist and free-speech campaigner Toby Young’s blog, The Daily Sceptic, was “put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliation with the fossil-fuel industry”, which Young calls “false and defamatory”.

    That air of disdain to PMs and broadcasting interlopers sustains as if they are like the Collins English dictionary: a benign and righteous breath of official, correct air. And when things don’t go their way, they are like the Manchester City football manager, Pep Guardiola, complaining that the fixture list is demanding, the breaks between seasons are too short and if his team loses, it’s because the pitch wasn’t flat.

    Now this is all sweet agony for me, as I’m a Today addict. I can shout at the radio, but I can’t give it up. And if Labour win the general election this year, I’ll be listening very carefully to see what kind of ride they’ll give Starmer and co.

    And like that result, Labour will win because of the Tories in the same way that GB News exists because of the BBC.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/04/26/gb-news-bbc-bias-today-nick-robinson-amol-rajan/

    1. I simply do not understand why the writer continues to listen to the Toady “show”.

      1. Indeed. I tried it again, about fifteen years ago. The strident squawking was enough to switch off, and that’s before even processing the left wing dogma coming out of their mouths!
        People who have done well out of Britain tend to think we’re still living in the 80s – a delusion not shared by the rest of us.

      2. Radio 3 is just as bad. Currently ‘Private Passions’ is celebrating a Wokist! Switched it off….

      3. If it were his job to report on news and current affairs broadcasting, I might understand, but he seems to take a perverse pleasure in listening to it.

  60. Morning all.

    I was awoken last night at 10:30 pm after hearing a rumbling noise outside which required investigation.
    Nobody else in the house including MOH, daughter nor SIL heard it.
    I looked out of bedroom window and neighbour’s car was adjacent to my fence and he was walking round his car. I went back to bed.

    This morning I found an apologetic note saying he would come round this morning.
    I inspected the damage this morning and got a printed quote for the damaged weatherboarding fence panels before he came round and he was happy to pay for the quoted sum most of which was the delivery.

    Owing to my previous installation of a reinforced concrete spur post at the damaged part of the fence my neighbour is faced with a much larger bill for repair to the offside rear of his car.

    Last time another neighbour’s car backed into my boundary wall the whole wall fell over and the car owner’s insurance claim for brickwork restoration was more than the car damage after reversing through my wall.

    1. It would seem your fences and walls are not very neighbour-friendly. Either that, or they are all crap drivers.

      1. The wall case was a driver who tried driving an automatic whilst drunk.
        The fence case was a driver who could not reverse a car in the dark.

        TBF, both scenarios are not evaluated in the driving test. Furthermore, both the wall and fence were stationary at the impact times.

    2. It sounds as if your wall is in a spot which is hit rather too often. I should put some extra heavy duty concrete spurs all around the vulnerable point were I you. Next time it might be an HGV!

      1. My fence posts all have reinforced concrete spurs resulting in my neighbour’s car’s momentum being halted by dissipating the impact energy into his car’s bodywork.

    3. I’m spared that, fortunately. My home is set well back from the road near the closed end of a cul-de-sac. No vehicle ever passes at a speed such that a collision with my property is possible.

      2. I’m also at the closed end of a cul-de-sac.
        Both neighbours’ car impacted at low speed at different boundaries.
        However, the damage, even at low speed, can be cosiderable.

        Now if they had been EVs the vehicles would have automatically stopped before impact.

      3. I live at the end of a cul de sac too. Also there is a line of bungalows in front of me and below them is the road. Very peaceful and quiet here. The noisiest thing is the birdies twittering away.

        1. My home backs onto a primary school. An access alley to the school passes between here and a neighbour on the detached side of this end-terrace property. There’s the twice-daily school run and, when the weather’s fine, the school playground is a riot of screeching children. Other than that, it’s quiet.

          1. I definitely wouldn’t have moved there. Screaming children would drive me nuts.
            A the back of mine is a disused railway line. All gone wild now. Badgers, deer, foxes, hedgehogs and lots of birdies nesting in the hawthorn hiding from the magpies. When the line was running there was only one slow train a day down to Fleetlands. I used to wave to the drivers.

  61. I was not suggesting that Ramsay Macdonald was a Conservative but that the Labour Party had no MPs in 1906 but 18 years later in 1924 RMD formed a government.

    Owen, Williams, Rodgers and Woy did not achieve that with the SDP nor did Farage with UKIP and the Brexit Party

    1. From May 1923 to May 1937 James Ramsey Macdonald played Prime Minister Table Tennis with Stanley Baldwin.

      To me, to you; to me, to you; to me , to you …

  62. It has been a sunny and warm morning here, which is very gratifying as the comments make it clear that this is far from being the case everywhere.

    1. It’s getting better in East Anglia, well send you some rain 🙂

        1. Yes it’s been beautifully sunny, it still is now but with a few clouds in the sky.

    2. Heavy rain here for much of the morning but finally ceasing by about 11. Since then, mostly light-grey skies interspersed with a mixture of brief bright spells and dark lowering cloud threatening yet more rain. Rather cool with temperatures in the upper forties.

  63. I think we should have a poll of Nottlers regarding what to do with all the Muslims living here. Voting as follows.
    1/. Round them up and repatriate to their countries of origin.
    2/. Round up and repatriate after they’ve repaired all the potholes and paid us £10,000 each for our hospitality.
    3/. Repatriation as above but allow enough to stay to ensure the curry houses remain operational.
    4/. Let them all stay and celebrate how wonderful and diverse our country has become.

    I’m not anticipating many votes for option 4 but who knows?

    1. I’d go back to my grandparents time when the only concern were the Germans blowing us up, they never knew of Muslims then. Only those who travelled to the Middle East knew of Muslims – it was better then . Why must we even know of blasted Middle Eastern desert savages and have them forced upon us and not be rid of them .

      1. My father worked with Muslims in Sudan and Libya; Caroline’s father worked with Muslims in Iran.

        They never met but both of them independently said that it was tedious and wearying having to work with people who always lied and always tried to cheat.

    1. Funny song that. Welshmen and New Zealanders never have any problem finding another one.😘

    2. Judith Durham had the most beautiful voice.

      My son, Christo, and his bride danced to this song at the first dance at his wedding.

      When he was a child we used to play The Carnival is Over and Morningtown Ride,” to him and he never tired of hearing them.

  66. Yesterday I noticed several vacant commercial properties in my town centre shopping precinct plastered with numerous posters inviting people to join the Communist Party. Fair enough, I suppose, as it’s still a moderately free country. All the same, the hammer and sickle was clearly evident and I wondered whether those who support this party have any conception of what that symbol represents. For me, it represents repression, tyranny, cruelty, mass murder. Its associations are as abhorrent as those of the swastika. Do its followers know this yet think the benefits will outweigh this grim past, or are they young and naïve with little or no knowledge of history?

    1. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Therefore the youngest people who would probably remember it and have realised the implication of what was going on are now in their mid-to-late forties. Younger generations have no direct experience of Communism or the misery it caused world-wide, so look at it through rose-tinted glasses.

  67. Got there in the end:
    Wordle 1,044 5/6

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

    1. Lucky today

      Wordle 1,044 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
      🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  68. Very good article in the Telegraph about Frank Field’s prescience in warning of the dangers of a bloated welfare state. It starts with a tribute to the man himself:
    “Frank Field is one of the really good men of politics,” wrote former environment secretary John Gummer in 1998, just after Field had resigned as Tony Blair’s minister for welfare reform.
    “Where Peter Mandelson makes enemies, Frank makes friends,” Gummer continued. “His intelligence is obvious but never flaunted, his commitment real and not contrived. What Frank Field believes shines through in all he does. Frank is therefore NOT in the Cabinet, while Peter Mandelson is.”

    More insight:
    “Years later, while Field was in government during the first 14 months of Blair’s New Labour administration, he was again undermined by the party machine.
    Powerbrokers such as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell were happy to watch as then-chancellor Gordon Brown – spooked by Field’s expertise and determined to control all aspects of welfare and pensions from the Treasury – drummed the minister for welfare reform out of office.”

    But his abilities were recognised by those less envious and insecure:
    “During his long public policy career, Field wrote dozens of detailed books and pamphlets on benefits policy and pensions. Despite so little time as a minister, his influence on these subjects was huge – with Field acting as an unofficial adviser to a succession of cabinet ministers working in this area, at their request, whatever their party.”

    Full text at:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/28/frank-field-britain-sicknote-culture-welfare-state/

  69. Very good article in the Telegraph about Frank Field’s prescience in warning of the dangers of a bloated welfare state. It starts with a tribute to the man himself:
    “Frank Field is one of the really good men of politics,” wrote former environment secretary John Gummer in 1998, just after Field had resigned as Tony Blair’s minister for welfare reform.
    “Where Peter Mandelson makes enemies, Frank makes friends,” Gummer continued. “His intelligence is obvious but never flaunted, his commitment real and not contrived. What Frank Field believes shines through in all he does. Frank is therefore NOT in the Cabinet, while Peter Mandelson is.”

    More insight:
    “Years later, while Field was in government during the first 14 months of Blair’s New Labour administration, he was again undermined by the party machine.
    Powerbrokers such as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell were happy to watch as then-chancellor Gordon Brown – spooked by Field’s expertise and determined to control all aspects of welfare and pensions from the Treasury – drummed the minister for welfare reform out of office.”

    But his abilities were recognised by those less envious and insecure:
    “During his long public policy career, Field wrote dozens of detailed books and pamphlets on benefits policy and pensions. Despite so little time as a minister, his influence on these subjects was huge – with Field acting as an unofficial adviser to a succession of cabinet ministers working in this area, at their request, whatever their party.”

    Full text at:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/28/frank-field-britain-sicknote-culture-welfare-state/

  70. Lord Flashheart
    @Lordflashh3art
    Popped down the local butchers yesterday to pick up a leg of lamb for today’s roast and it went something like this:

    LF: ‘Hello my good man! Might I have a leg of your finest lamb, 2kg should do the job.’

    Nice friendly butcher: ‘No problem sir, I’ll cut you a fresh one off tout suite!’

    *proceeds to chainsaw a whole lamb in half and presents it to me*

    Scary man covered in blood within reach of several sharp objects: ‘Will this be ok, it’s a bit over… just shy of 3kg.’

    Visibly sweating LF: ‘Absolutely fine, that’ll make a few dinners during the week I’m sure! HAHAHAHA!!!’

    Scary animal slayer: ‘Great, that’ll be £682.30 please 🙂’

    Urine soaked LF: ‘Thank you so much, I’ll definitely be back and will recommend you to all of my friends and family, have a great day!!!’
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98c6897e18ca70972494756bff5fb6ff6de3c8bf8e0e36379bd168ebdcaf52ec.jpg

    3. Cheese magic stretches back to the medieval age and dark ages .
      William of Malmesbury was convinced that enchanted cheese was a genuine risk. He explained that female Italian innkeepers were especially prone to using enchanted cheese to the customers to turn them into beasts of burden. I wonder about the strength of the ale myself 🙂

      1. Pffft. Mediaeval fake news, obvs!! When did blokes *ever* come out of the pub more inclined to work?

    4. Those old charms don’t work but I know one which does:

      You may fascinate a woman by playing football for a Premiership Team

      And another:

      You may fascinate a woman by owning a large yacht moored in the South of France.

    5. An American cousin was touring Spain with her family last year and spent the day with us. She stoically ate the tasty Spanish dishes placed in front of her in a good restaurant without comment. Later at supper ignored my wife’s Spanish omelette and said nothing about the ham from pigs bred on chestnuts.
      But suddenly she brightened and asked about the wonderful cheese. Never had she eaten anything like it. Fascinated she was.
      Having eaten the same cheese in California from ‘Trader Joe’s’ we all found her fascination extraordinary. But at least one thing caught her eye.

  73. @TottyDotty:disqus
    Your Victorian Devilled Kidneys breakfast sounds rather fine. Might I suggest you find the ghost of cookery writer of the 1800 Mrs Beeton who’d recommend Kedgeree .
    A breakfast of size at 9 in the morning allowed men to spend the rest of the day on horseback, following hounds, shooting game and fishing for salmon or trout ( ladies like myself I suppose would not engage in such pursuits ). Breakfast would include ‘ Easter hedge pudding ‘ a concoption of sorrel, nettles and barley mixed with eggs and cream . They’d be creams, breads, bacon, eggs, smoked salmon and venison pie. I assume it set them up for the day and there wasn’t any obesity. Anyway if you had guests or knew someone with a pile in the country such foods would be a good idea and so very English .

    1. I’m a fan of Mrs Beeton. She’s the standard practical guide of cooking. It’s all there. “What does Mrs Beeton say?”.

      1. ‘ Dine we must and dine elegantly ‘ indeed so.

        Mrs Beeton also has a book on household management- cleaning and dusting- AA . Cleanliness is good for the soul .

        1. Advice on cooking a rabbit.

          “First catch your rabbit!”

          I bought Caroline a copy of this book when we got married. To our great disappointment we could not actually find this advice in it.

      1. I thought it might be . Just Eggs Benedict for me or scrambled eggs with smoked salmon – if I’m invited 🙂 I have a Mrs Beeton and Valerie Child’s favourite foods .

  74. Hands trembling
    I checked the numbers again
    9-15 29-04 20-24.
    I was in shock,
    after all these years I’d finally
    got a doctors appointment.

      1. Yes Sir. Right away Sir.
        Just opened an account with the Lottery and bought a lucky dip for the £10,000 per month for 30 years.
        That’ll do nicely.

  75. 386562+ up ticks,

    Cut out the bitter spiteful shite created via Brexit, send them straight to Calais.

    Ireland plans to send migrants back to UK under emergency law
    Dublin claims the Rwanda Bill has caused asylum seekers to pour into the country

    1. And how will they “send them back?” Force them onto ferries or flights? Goo luck with that, ROI.

      1. 386603+ up ticks,

        Morning JS,

        May I suggest, with a DNR payment,
        a one off hard to refuse, then apply war time security to ALL entry points.

        Do not return.

  76. St. Bartholomew’s in Shapwick (the Dorset one), right alongside the Avon:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1dea5e6ab3795f4b8bfa8d28484cb685b837aad63ef5f9655e928af5cee46645.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55c8326b28f2c498393bdd545b7d09520097b6b80d52663ec271b45f362bc495.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/784686c7c85fdeda1a90e59dedfdf5c4b733ffb411e2f150758947880652e31c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/174b23fe9153abeb2a80078a66c81b520dd894657c98325076dc54ede3294153.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d1c495e9c95d2a3983af1643c707de3cf9206a053d4366bafecf4e7c44ed868.jpg

      1. I do wish that an Orthodox mission was organized and sent to this country. It would do the world of good. If people think that means everyone swanning about in the elaborate vestments of the Orthodox Church of Russia, Greece, etc think again. As I have pointed out before the Church in England, before St. Augustine and Canterbury, was Orthodox. We would be returning to our true Christian roots before it became so messed up by being forced to become Catholic at the Synod of Whitby. But the point is that Orthodoxy is still a living church producing saintly people with great regularity. We need such people because they are living testimony to the truth of the Christian teaching. That it is not a Church of mere words or dogmas but a Church of living saints.

        1. You may have pointed it out before but you are incorrect. Before St Augustine and Canterbury there was no Church in England. The early Saxons worshipped Woden and his chums. After St Augustine up until the Great Schism of 1054 it could plausibly be argued that England was Orthodox, I suppose, but due to our geographical location we would have been far more influenced by the Roman rites than those of Constantinople. Even after St Augustine the northern churches were inclined to Celtic Christianity until the Synod of Whitby in 663.

          1. You are incorrect. There was most certainly a Christian Church before St. Augustine. It was already here in the 3-4 century. It’s recorded that a British Bishop named ‘Restitutus’ from London, was present at the Synod of Arles in 314. He and several others are recorded in the Orthodox Church. And yes, I’m aware that the Church was Orthodox until the Roman heresy caused schism in the church in 1054. And if there was no Christian church in Britain, as you assert, who were the Bishops that Augustine talked to at the Synod of Chester who were there prior to his arrival?

          2. That was a meeting between Augustine and bishops from in Wales. As you will be aware, that whilst the AngloSaxon conquest of England had wiped out the Christian religion in England it had endured in Wales and Ireland.

          3. I don’t know how to attach a PDF to a post but, if you can, please download from google: ” CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN BEFORE ST AUGUSTINE – English Catholic History …

    3. I see that Russell Brand was baptised today. I assume a Catholic because he was talking about doing the rosery.

  77. The hoopoes have arrived, probably blown here last night.as the thunderstorms swept through.

      1. Indeed they do.
        I’ve had one sitting on the window sill calmly looking in and watching me watching it.

  78. The wife said last night, “Can we do some role play?”

    I said, “Yeah. What do you suggest?”

    She said, “Fireman to the rescue.”

    I wish she’d hurry the feck up, I’ve been stuck up this tree dressed as a cat for twelve hours now.

    1. A friend of mine had a water bed but unfortunately his girlfriend got seasick.

  80. Well, well, well…There’s some Irish logic here…it’s the UK’s fault for choosing Brexit which made us such a desirable destination….so we shouldn’t make ourselves less desirable by sending people off to Rwanda..

    Ireland plans to send migrants back to UK under emergency law

    Dublin claims the Rwanda Bill has caused asylum seekers to pour into the country

    Genevieve Holl-Allen, POLITICAL REPORTER
    28 April 2024 • 1:21pm

    Simon Harris, the taoiseach, has asked for proposals to be brought to cabinet next week, after concerns were raised that the UK’s Rwanda plan had already caused an influx of asylum seekers to the country.

    Mr Harris has asked Helen McEntee, the justice minister, to bring forward proposals to allow the return of inadmissible international protection applicants to the UK, according to the Irish broadcaster RTE.

    It comes just days after Micheal Martin, the deputy prime minister, complained that the Rwanda policy was “impacting on Ireland” as people were “fearful” of staying in the UK.

    The justice minister said that she would be meeting with James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, on Monday to raise the issue.

    Ms McEntee told RTE’s Six One News: “My focus as minister for justice is making sure that we have an effective immigration structure and system.

    “That’s why I’m introducing fast processing. That’s why I’ll have emergency legislation at cabinet this week to make sure that we can effectively return people to the UK and that’s why I’ll be meeting with the Home Secretary to raise these issues on Monday.”

    A spokesman for the taoiseach said that Ms McEntee had been asked “to bring proposals to cabinet next week to amend existing law regarding the designation of safe ‘third countries’ and allowing the return of inadmissible international protection applicants to the UK.”

    More than 80pc of migrants ‘entered from UK’
    Ms McEntee revealed earlier this week that 80 per cent of illegal arrivals to the Republic of Ireland came from the UK across the Irish border.

    She told RTE: “There are many reasons why we have seen an increase in migration toward Ireland.

    “What’s clear in the decision that the UK have taken in choosing Brexit, they have actually seen an increase in people seeking asylum in their country.

    “The way that they deal with that, it’s their policy.”

    The Rwanda Bill, which will allow asylum seekers to be flown to the central African nation, was passed through Parliament this week and has received royal assent.

    Rishi Sunak said that flights could take off within ten to twelve weeks.

    Mr Sunak told Sky News the comments from Mr Martin were evidence that the plan is already acting as a deterrent.

    “What it shows, I think, is that the deterrent is… already having an impact because people are worried about coming here,” he said.

    Asked if the Rwanda plan meant that the UK was simply “exporting the problem” of illegal migration, the Prime Minister said: “Well, my focus is on the United Kingdom and securing our borders”.

    ***************************

    BTL comments flooding in with suggestions as to what the Irish can do to themselves

    1. It’s ok for the Irish to send asylum seekers back to the UK, but not ok for the UK to send those same asylum seekers back to France?

    2. They are inside the EU. That’s all they need to know to understand their migrant crisis.

      1. It was the R of I that was insisting on a practically invisible border with N. Ireland during the farcical Brexit “negotiations”. How many immigrants have we had via the R of I route? Do we even know? After all, they sent us all their unwanted (both by them and by us) “travellers”.

  81. SIL’s existing pharmaceutical contracts have terminated but he is now faced with the emergence of AI in drug development when seeking openings in pharma consultancy.
    This is equally so in the pharma companies in which he was previously employed and one of the main issues is to whom the patent rights belong when AI has been deployed.

    Here is an article headline showing the rapid development of drug creation using AI:

    https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2024/03/27/artificial-intelligence-is-taking-over-drug-development

      1. I had to tell him twice not to reply to my comments as he had absolutely nothing to say; which I recall he did in long vacuous screeds.

    2. The village idiot at the Ball of Kiriemuir was capable of performing a most amazing feat.

      Amazingly Jim Croce can be found with a google search singing about the attendees at the dance in a slightly censored form. He attributed the Village Idiot’s antics to the magician but it still is better placed behind a spoiler.

      The Village Idiot – he was there
      He really was a farce
      Pulling his foreskin over his head
      And vanishing up his arse

      and we must not forget the Vicar’s Daughter:

      The Vicar’s Daughter she was there
      A sitting by the fire
      Knitting contraceptives
      From a ball of rubber wife

      We all tried to make up additional verses on the bus ride back to school after a rugby match.

      https://www.google.com/search?q=Jim+Croce+Ball+of+Kirriemuir&oq=Jim+Croce+Ball+of+Kirriemuir&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMgoIAxAAGIAEGKIEMgoIBBAAGIAEGKIE0gEJMTgxNjZqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:84d6a827,vid:bTIQIEDQfck,st:0

  83. From today’s Daily Mail

    Soviet traitor and Cambridge Five spy Anthony Blunt may have also passed secrets to the Nazis that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Allied troops, a new book has claimed.

    1. Didn’t know about any Allied troops but since Blunt was a spy I assumed that his activities had ended up in the deaths of people on our side. Ditto the rest of the Cambridge Five.

      1. If the driver liked the Mare, Sad Twit Khant, he would have lowered the suspension

    2. He doesn’t want polluting cars in London which damage the health of its people but for £12.50 a day he’ll put up with it

      1. Remember the Wild West Show?

        “In this cage, Ladies, and Gentlemen, we have the winky-wanky bird”

        “The winky-wanky bird, fantastic!. What the f***ing Hell is a winky-wanky-bird?”

        “The winky-wanky bird, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the only animal in the world with a piece of string connecting its eyelid to a string so that when it winks it wanks and when it wanks it winks. No, no Lady – please don’t throw dust in his eyes!”

    2. Not sure it happened exactly as described, and maintenance is going to be hard…interesting idea though!

          2. Most boats have holding tanks which can be pumped out and most countries have strict rules against boats pumping out their holding tanks within a certain distance of land – say 12 miles. On inland waters the rules will be far stricter – ask King Stephen.

          3. Most boats have holding tanks which can be pumped out and most countries have strict rules against boats pumping out their holding tanks within a certain distance of land – say 12 miles. On inland waters the rules will be far stricter – ask King Stephen.

          7. ‘Sea toilets aren’t permitted on canal boats. A local small boat hire business uses a hand operated pump-out into Polyprop containers loaded on a trolley… you know what they say: “Where there’s muck there’s been an arse….

          9. As it does on the towpath – waste pumped into containers loaded on a trolley trolley carted off to nearest sewage disposal point. They have a similar problem in reverse in brining fresh water to the boat unless they have provided an incoming water pipe to the boat….

          10. Yes, but a quick glance at the photo shows there is neither a towpath nor vehicular access. So who is collecting the poo?

    4. I suspect that against the rules he may have dug the trench whilst no one was looking. If anyone asked subsequent he’d probably say the boat was craned out into the field….

      1. I’m trying to work it out but I’m finding it very difficult.

        2. “Justene 5 (A.D. 1005). This year King Æthelred, the son of Edgar, died at London, on the twenty-third day before the calends of May. And he reigned over all the English nation, first, five years before he was king, then, twenty-eight years afterwards. Then, in the same year, succeeded Edmund Etheling, his brother, to the kingdom. He was afterwards slain by treason. In his days came the immense famine throughout England, such as no man ever remembered; so that many hundred men died of hunger. In this year also was the great and wonderful sign seen in the heavens, on the eve of the festival of St. John the Baptist, the moon shining bright the whole night.”

          This is just a modern English translation of the Old English text.

          1. I learned to speak Latin so I could understand Ovid and the vocabulary is easily understood and letters are limited. My great love is classicism – especially classical literature- I try to learn Greek so I can understand Aristotle and Plato – something painstakingly long and difficult to understand Greek with it’s alphabet alien to me – I still cannot understand the majority of anything, but to see words in the correct tongue is imperative to me. I don’t use Google or translations,
            I have to look at old books and documents. One never stops learning in life and one must do it oneself or you’d never have a sense of achievement or truly learn .

          2. Kudos to you on your uncompromising approach! I have to admit I look at good translations at first to frel my way into a language, but that’s for the slightly different purpose of communicating in said language.

            One thing I found really helpful in learning an unfamiliar alphabet is to play with putting together words and phrases in English using the new alphabet. It not only solidifies the sound(s) relating to each letter in your head, but allows you to laugh at yourself for ending up with a foreign accent. 🤣

            (Honestly, it sounds silly but works quickly and efficiently.)

          3. Thank you, I shall try those methods, maybe the words in terms of music In some way, I’d understand better then, hopefully.

          4. I listen to modern acoustic songs that take my fancy to get a feel for vocab and pinpoint pronunciation. Works a treat, but may be more tricky to find the right songs in ancient Greek!! 🤣🤣

    4. When I was twenty something and had more living brain cells, I stared at the oldest text of Beowulf in the British Library and could actually make out some of the words. When I finally read Beowulf in its entirety, it was the Seamus Heaney translation.

        2. Chaucer is even more easily comprehensible if you can read French. He was the first major post-Norman writer.

      2. Wonderful. I really should visit the British library again one day.

    5. Old English. There was a time, more than 50 years ago, when I would have been able to read that. No longer, sadly 🙁

      1. The letters are just so beautifully scribed, I imagine someone painstakingly working on the details of every letter, that’s before understanding what it says . 🙂

        1. Yes they are. Almost all the work was done by monks and their pupils, the latter coming from the elite families of the era.

  91. Spectator Userhttp://localhost:57163/article/485822/content.htmlTrinity College Cambridge has rushed to judgement on Captain Cook5 hours ago

    I must confess I would be very loath to let my children go to some of these so-called places of learning these days as it appears that the learning is so defective. All they come out with is a massive debt and a skewed view of the world according to some lefty professor

    Share ›

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    P

    PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani Spectator User

    4 hours ago

    Our daughter finishes at UCL in June – it’s been utterly cr*p for her – the lecturer didn’t turn up for her first lecture 3 years ago – then she went to her second class and they had forgotten to enroll her in the course – zero pastoral support, tutors who don’t know what is going on in relation to how they will be marked and assessed (in third year!), hardly any europeans in the place – her course is stacked with Chinese and other foreign students – she has made zero close friends – and is coming out with nearly £45k debt – I paid her rent and living expenses so she could afford to live in a decent area – £1,400 quid a month for a tiny room in a flat above a kebab shop. Can’t wait for her be shot of it and go travelling around the world with her boyfriend…..

    Share ›

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    N

    Neil Gulliford PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani

    2 hours ago

    Hopefully your Daughter didn’t come back a Marxist like a like of graduates

    Share ›

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    T

    Tony PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani

    3 hours ago

    The same experience at King’s College London. Appalling teaching when the staff bothered to turn up. Outrageous fees for minimal or zero contact hours (Covid). Truly shocking.

    Share ›

    1. Granddaughter had the same at Kent University.
      When it wasn’t lecturers on strike, it was some sort of convid excuse.
      This continued for the whole three years (sh graduated last summer).
      Our son paid her fees so she wouldn’t come out with debt and she also worked to help support herself.
      For what?

    2. My grandson has declared that he wants to be a soldier. Unfortunately he may get his wish even if he has changed his mind in the 10 years between now and when he turns 16.

      1. Well surely it will be eighteen not sixteen.
        For a moment , with four grandsons in the same age bracket as yours, you made my blood run cold.
        None of us know what calamities may lie ahead but we can only hope that the future will be bright.
        I have lived with the spectre of world war since I was six years old when my mother told me about the Cuban missile crisis.
        The nun who taught me that year used to tell the class throughout the autumn that Kruschev had said we would be in ashes for Christmas. That was sixty three years ago and Kruschev has been long dead and I’ve seen several Christmases since then.
        Putin too will disappear.

  92. A raw deal. The universities needed finance to compete with American institutions in their search for rich foreign students. As always the British middle classes had to provide the money.
    And so you have graduates saddled with debt.

    1. Many people her have heard me ranting about this before:

      I do not object to students borrowing money to study but:

      i) Loans should be repayable with an interest rate of zero as in more civilised countries. When interest rates are several times higher than the bank rate this is unrealistic – it is, in my view, criminal usury;
      ii) Students should be encouraged to pay off their debts as quickly as possible – to this end the repayment of the capital should be allowed as a direct charge against income tax when they start working;
      iii) Employers should be given tax incentives to help their graduate employees pay off their student loans;
      iv) In state education, healthcare and other government funded operations a new graduate employee should expect his/her loan to be paid off for him/her after a specified time of working for that state operation to encourage people from not moving away.

      My parents paid all my tuition and living expenses when I was a student – and so did Caroline’s. We did not want our sons to have less than we had had so we made sure they left university debt free. by paying their fees and living costs

      They got good jobs immediately, have both bought their own homes and have not asked for any money from us.

      I find it very sinister that a government is quite indifferent to the fact that a majority of graduates will never pay off their loans and be crippled with debt for most of their working lives.

      1. Politicians should not be permitted to “forgive” student loans to buy votes as Biden is doing.

      2. ‘I find it very sinister that a government is quite indifferent to the fact that a majority of graduates will never pay off their loans and be crippled with debt for most of their working lives.’
        Very true.

      3. I gave my son 30K in bonds (this was back in the noughties when interest rates were quite high but student loans didn’t have nearly such high rates) and he also took a loan which we helped repay after he graduated. Having the money in bonds meant he didn’t have to worry too much about being in debt long term but he had an incentive to be frugal because he could see that the less he spent, the more he would have left.
        I’ve seen young people for whom being able to borrow the money just meant that they spent more as students than they could reasonably expect to be able to spend once they graduated. That is a recipe for corrosive discontent.

      4. I gave my son 30K in bonds (this was back in the noughties when interest rates were quite high but student loans didn’t have nearly such high rates) and he also took a loan which we helped repay after he graduated. Having the money in bonds meant he didn’t have to worry too much about being in debt long term but he had an incentive to be frugal because he could see that the less he spent, the more he would have left.
        I’ve seen young people for whom being able to borrow the money just meant that they spent more as students than they could reasonably expect to be able to spend once they graduated. That is a recipe for corrosive discontent.

    2. Many people her have heard me ranting about this before:

      I do not object to students borrowing money to study but:

      i) Loans should be repayable with an interest rate of zero as in more civilised countries. When interest rates are several times higher than the bank rate this is unrealistic – it is, in my view, criminal usury;
      ii) Students should be encouraged to pay off their debts as quickly as possible – to this end the repayment of the capital should be allowed as a direct charge against income tax when they start working;
      iii) Employers should be given tax incentives to help their graduate employees pay off their student loans;
      iv) In state education, healthcare and other government funded operations a new graduate employee should expect his/her loan to be paid off for him/her after a specified time of working for that state operation to encourage people from not moving away.

      My parents paid all my tuition and living expenses when I was a student – and so did Caroline’s. We did not want our sons to have less than we had had so we made sure they left university debt free. by paying their fees and living costs

      They got good jobs immediately, have both bought their own homes and have not asked for any money from us.

      I find it very sinister that a government is quite indifferent to the fact that a majority of graduates will never pay off their loans and be crippled with debt for most of their working lives.

  93. 386562+ up ticks,

    Lest we forget,

    If justice is to be seen to be done I would say it would be common sense forward planning, to free up a great many
    long term incarceration places, say in deportation of foreign felons seen as necessary so as to house
    political / pharmaceutical fear & mandatory jab agents, of long term serious injury / death.

    https://x.com/ezdubs_bot/status/1784575621948956687

  97. Afternoon, all!

    I found this article very thought-provoking. I notice within myself an unwillingness of the mind to assimilate the concept of a whole civilisation inexorably bureaucratising *itself* into oblivion. In the same way as it took reading Desmet to grasp why friends were behaving as they were during the covid madness; it was far easier to imagine malevolent actors than to comprehend massive but impersonal forces.

    Mind you, I could still be being naïve!

    https://open.substack.com/pub/seekingthehiddenthing/p/there-is-no-fixing-what-is-wrong?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=adgbw

    1. It could be both though. It could be a group of people who have studied the decline and fall of past civilisations and who see the direction the west is going, factor it into their plans and use it to their advantage.
      The size of the public sector in Britain is insane.

      1. Oh, I don’t doubt that there’s a complex swirl of individuals taking advantage of the Zeitgeist – it’s just that I found things easier to comprehend once I realised that it wasn’t *just* about evil plotting.

        I am of course open to further enlightenment, but in the meanwhile, sod it, I shall dance!

    2. Thanks, Katy. I’ve skimmed the substack post. Perhaps I’ll return to it when sober. But I have felt for a few years that I have been granted a privileged seat at the ringside of the “End of Western Civilisation Show.”

      If I had progeny, I’d be more deeply concerned. In fairness, I’ve been rather worried since the Siemens combined oven/microwave thingy I installed in the kitchen at the last place insisted on displaying “end time” every time I used it.

      It may have had a point…

    3. We don’t understand why it’s so important for 77 brigade to be involved in this. Any ideas?

      1. No more than anyone else, probably. They are posited as part of our defence: we used to suppose that this meant defence of the realm, i.e. the land and its people. Now, they defend the bureacracy against its enemies – who turn out to be us.

    2. The internet is often misinterpreted (often because of DI – Divine Intervention) – the bible has been around for far longer and now there is evidence that the Lord is actually amongst us:

      Isiah 32:15 Until the spirit shall be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest.

      https://youtu.be/f_5L9icYJ-0?si=4ajjaVb4P2F33964

      It’s time for the Arabs to build drains – dam it!

    3. Excellent point, we are the martyrs of the planet.
      Meanwhile Dubai are going to increase the size of its own airport making it the largest on the planet.
      Spending billions of its oil revenue doing so.
      I wonder if that little git who fines people for driving in London is aware of this.

      1. Seeing as achieving net zero is the aim of numerous governments, the UK can hardly be singled out as a martyr.

        What happens in Dubai is not really any concern of Sadiq Khan in his capacity as London mayor. Besides, he’s aiming for cleaner London air rather than trying to single-handedly save the entire planet.

        2. He couldn’t care less about cleaner London air – it has been shown that the difference between before and after ULEZ is very small. But of course “polluting” vehicles are still welcome, so long as they pay…

          1. Not to mention the M25 runs over the LEZ (but is not affected by it). Don’t tell me the M25 doesn’t cause pollution.

          2. Isn’t Heathrow Airport affected – I haven’t been there for decades but read something about people being fined for going to pick up people there. That’s disgraceful – it’s a major British airport, not Khan’s private flying shop.

        3. I think the weather as in strong wind cleans the air over London and even the rest of our country.
          Not fining people who use and depend on their own transportation.

        4. Is Khan aiming for cleaner air in London, or is he in fact in thrall to the Net Zero agenda?

          Mr Khan first proposed the 2030 goal for London – a full 20 years ahead of the Government’s 2050 target for the country – in 2020, enshrining it a year later in his 2021 re-election manifesto.

          He restated the goal in his latest manifesto, published on Thursday, which says: “We have an ambitious target of making London a net zero-carbon city by 2030 – faster than any comparable city”.

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/20/london-drivers-pay-per-mile-sadiq-khan-net-zero-targets/#:~:text=Net%20zero-carbon%20city,-The%20report%20said&text=Mr%20Khan%20ended%20up%20picking,“mid-late%202020s”.

          1. Whatever that is, it’s not single-handedly trying to save the entire planet. Other city administrations around the world have set themselves net zero targets.

          2. No, but he is trying to impose his climate change views on Londoners. Does he have a mandate for this? Does the UK government have a mandate for this?

          4. Londoners will very soon have an opportunity to oust him. My bet is that they won’t take it.

          5. My bet it is that they will not be voting for Khan because of his Net-Zero aspirations, but on a more ‘tribal’ basis (Labour or racial).

          6. In which case net-zero is not near the top of Londoners’ priorities. If they don’t like it, they are prepared to lump it for the sake of something else that matters much more to them.

        1. Its not just what is or has been known as London for centuries Tom that turd has been trying and is succeeding in taking over the whole area inside the M25 as his own.
          He’s made changes to long established post codes and captured parts of Hertfordshire as his own domain.

      3. Is there a global effort to reach net zero?
        Yes, a growing coalition of countries, cities, businesses and other institutions are pledging to get to net-zero emissions. More than 140 countries, including the biggest polluters – China, the United States, India and the European Union – have set a net-zero target, covering about 88% of global emissions. More than 9,000 companies, over 1000 cities, more than 1000 educational institutions, and over 600 financial institutions have joined the Race to Zero, pledging to take rigorous, immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030.

        https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition

          1. I’m trying to point out, contrary to the tone of the whinging, that the UK is not the sole country on the planet taking measures – whether wise or not, whether popular or not – to combat climate change and achieve net zero. The UK isn’t a martyr. It’s not just about China’s coal-fired power stations.

          3. Mostly it is the western countries reducing their consumption of oil and commodities and the BRICS nations ramping theirs up. It is the planned handover of economic power from the west to BRICS, especially China.
            That’s what the whole CO2 scam is all about – persuading the west to give cars, flying etc up voluntarily so that China can increase its consumption. Put it another way, the Arabs aren’t going to stop selling oil, they’re just going to be selling it to China and India in the future.
            China is literally building hundreds of coal fired power stations.
            China, Russia and India have the gold, and fairly soon, oil will effectively be priced in gold, via some gold-backed international digital currency. Net Zero is just a campaign to get us in the West used to the idea of being colder and poorer without going for bankers with pitchforks.

          4. What exactly is the benefit to the world of transferring wealth from the West to BRICS? Sharing wealth so that no country has abject poverty is one thing, but complete transfer? It won’t make any difference to the people of those countries because any wealth they have will continue to stay in the hands of the few.

          5. I think long economic cycles just happen, and economic power shifts from one country to another. Ashes posted a link to a very good article on this subject yesterday.

        2. And if you believe that….
          It’s about as likely to occur as if I pledged to do everything in my power to eradicate Islam.
          It ain’t gonna happen.

    4. I’m not sure what that map is supposed to represent. The UK is red. If we’d achieved net zero and plunged the country into poverty, mass unemployment and back to the third world there would be no emissions to bother with.

      The world certainly wouldn’t be affected at all.

      1. At least some third-worlders might go back – for the weather, the living conditions otherwise probably being similar.

    1. I have supported the RNLI for over 50 years – indeed I pay a sub to be a Shoreline Member and I get the quarterly magazine.

      Surprisingly the magazine does not publish stories about the heroic rescues they have made in The Eastern English Channel in clement weather.

      I am sure that long-time members of the Natural Trust feel as I do about the RNLI: Logic and reason tell us that these are causes which should no longer receive our support but sentiment keeps us tied. I feel the same about the CofE and my wife would like me to become a Catholic.

      I can empathise with Jacob Rees-Mogg – he must know, rationally, that the Conservative Party is no longer a party which should be supported and the sooner it dies the better – but his sentiment prevents him from making the sensible, objective decision to leave it.

        1. i don’t blame you.

          I have spent much of my life messing about in boats. I have never had to call on the services of the RNLI but I have always been glad to know that they were there.

          1. Chances are they won’t be there if you need them in the future – they’ll be otherwise occupied ferrying illegals over to be kept by us.

          2. As a youngster and diver, we held many sponsored swims along the canals and rivers of East Anglia, and raised quite a bit of money for them. They were also in my Will. Now, with considerable regret, that’s all off now. I’ll be damned before I support an organisation committed to illegal immigration – like sponsoring a Colombian drug cartel.

          3. There are independent lifeboats that you can support. I forget what the organisation is called, but it’s not the RNLI.
            RNLI has a cash mountain, they don’t need our support.

      2. When I receive one of their begging letters through the post I write on the envelope “Return to sender. I won’t fund a taxi service” and put it in the letter box.

      3. When I receive one of their begging letters through the post I write on the envelope “Return to sender. I won’t fund a taxi service” and put it in the letter box.

      4. When I receive one of their begging letters through the post I write on the envelope “Return to sender. I won’t fund a taxi service” and put it in the letter box.

      5. I wonder what would happen and who one of those RNLI rescue boats would chose to save if there were people in real and actual serious trouble in the channel. And say 20 were in danger of drowning. But the RNLI boat was already filled with the invaders..

    3. That’s a bit of an irony. Saracens !!
      But I am a supporter and have been to quite a few of their matches.
      Our eldest knows the head coach.

  100. Are we the trend setter?

    EU chief’s party backs Rwanda-style asylum deportation deals

    Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party says it wants to ‘implement the concept of safe third countries’

    Genevieve Holl-Allen, POLITICAL REPORTER
    28 April 2024 • 3:42pm

    1. Yes, all the EPP has to do is to get a EU directive passed to declare any prospective country for immigrant settlement as safe.

      Simples!

    2. Yes, all the EPP has to do is to get a EU directive passed to declare any prospective country for immigrant settlement as safe.

      Simples!

  101. Radical Islamists Rally in Hamburg Calling for Caliphate in Germany

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/04/GettyImages-2149874926-1-640×480.jpg
    The German city of Hamburg saw over a thousand Muslims rally on Saturday against the freedom of the press and other liberal values of the country while calling for the imposition of an Islamic caliphate.

    Around 1,100 gathered in the central Hamburg district of St. Georg — a progressive area of Germany’s second-largest city often identified as a gay neighbourhood — to demonstrate against what they perceived as an attempt by the media to portray all Muslims in Germany as radical Islamists.

    However, the rhetoric reported from the event indicated the radical positions of the group itself, with chants of Allahu Akbar (God is great or Our God is greater than yours). Meanwhile, signs at the rally declare that a “Caliphate is the solution” and others read: “Germany = dictatorship of values”, NTV reports.

    The rally was also attended by members of the Muslim Interactive group, a successor to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamic fundamentalist political party seeking to institute a caliphate which was officially banned in Germany in 2003 for extremism.

    Muslim Interaktiv, which was founded in 2020, previously organised a demonstration in St. Georg in October in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, despite the city placing bans on anti-Israel demonstrations at the time. The group has also been active outside of Germany, having organised a February 2023 protest against Qur’an burnings in Sweden.

    Hamburg’s Interior Senator Andy Grote cited Muslim Interaktiv earlier this month as being part of a new generation of Islamist radicals using social media to spread their messages to the youth of Germany.

    The report noted that despite apparently violating some of the principles of Islam, the influencers often using top of the line video editing with a “very professional appearance” as well as using sports cars and luxury brands in an apparent effort to gain more interest in their Islamist message.

    Senator Grote said that since attempting to take over the streets of Hamburg in October, local officials have launched a crackdown on the group, saying: “We responded with consistent prosecution, including searches, and some social media channels were shut down on the initiative of the security authorities.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/04/28/watch-radical-islamists-rally-in-hamburg-calling-for-caliphate-in-germany/

    2. “Germany = dictatorship of values” notice the relativist Social Justice activist claim. Islam is absorbing the Wokeish victim language. For further evidence of this trend read the 2017 “revised” Hamas Charter.

    5. As far as the Islamists are concerned I can’t help thinking “how dare they! Ungrateful gits”. But then that is what they do, and our politicians know that all too well..

    7. Do the banners say behead those who don’t like us? Meaning everyone !
      The people of Hungary and Poland aren’t putting with any of this stupid nonsense.

      1. I wouldn’t bet against Poland switching over to welcoming asylum-seekers with its present government.

  102. A cropped Par Four!

    Wordle 1,044 4/6
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
    🟨⬜🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Not too bad today.

      Wordle 1,044 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Quite. And I’ve just filled a garden waste bin with the result.

        Wordle 1,044 3/6

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

    2. #metoo.

      Wordle 1,044 4/6

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

    3. I gave it five. Too many options.

      Wordle 1,044 5/6

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

  103. Conservative Manifesto, 1979
    FOREWORD by The Rt. Hon. Margaret Thatcher
    1. OUR FIVE TASKS
    2. RESTORING THE BALANCE

    The control of inflation
    Better value for money
    Trade union reform
    1. Picketing
    2. The closed shop
    3. Wider participation
    Too many strikes
    Responsible pay bargaining
    3. A MORE PROSPEROUS COUNTRY
    Cutting income tax
    A property-owning democracy
    Industry, commerce and jobs
    Nationalisation
    Fair trade
    Small businesses
    Energy
    Agriculture
    Fishing
    Animal welfare
    4. THE RULE OF LAW
    The fight against crime
    Deterring the criminal
    Immigration and race relations
    The supremacy of Parliament
    Northern Ireland
    5. HELPING THE FAMILY
    Homes of our own
    The sale of council houses
    Reviving the private rented sector
    Protecting the environment
    Standards in education
    Parents’ rights and responsibilities
    The arts
    Health and welfare
    Making sense of social security
    The elderly and the disabled
    6. A STRONG BRITAIN IN A FREE WORLD
    Improving our defences
    The European Community
    Africa and the Middle East
    Rhodesia
    Trade, aid and the Commonwealth
    7. A NEW BEGINNING Foreword
    FOR ME, THE HEART OF POLITICS is not political theory, it is people and how they want to live their lives.

    No one who has lived in this country during the last five years can fail to be aware of how the balance of our society has been increasingly tilted in favour of the State at the expense of individual freedom.

    This election may be the last chance we have to reverse that process, to restore the balance of power in favour of the people. It is therefore the most crucial election since the war.

    Together with the threat to freedom there has been a feeling of helplessness, that we are a once great nation that has somehow fallen behind and that it is too late now to turn things round.

    I don’t accept that. 1 believe we not only can, we must. This manifesto points the way.

    It contains no magic formula or lavish promises. It is not a recipe for an easy or a perfect life. But it sets out a broad framework for the recovery of our country, based not on dogma, but On reason, on common sense, above all on the liberty of the people under the law.

    The things we have in common as a nation far outnumber those that set us apart. P> It is in that spirit that I commend to you this manifesto.

    Margaret Thatcher

      1. But she wasn’t a man…she was better than any of the men around her, in any of the parties.

      2. Blair and the wrecking crew laid all the groundwork for the damage that has since ensued.
        If a history is written by the Caliphate, the conquerors will praise them to the rooftops.
        If we manage to undo the damage before we are finally conquered then history will brand them as the traitors they truly were and Blair will rest alongside the very worst that history can recall.

    1. If you’re suggesting that the UK is the sole country in the world that is truly striving to achieve net zero, than I have to say I completely disagree. We’re fully aware of measures being taken by other countries which seem quite draconian. Just look at the efforts to cripple agriculture in some EU countries, as one example. Those farmers blockading roads with tractors are more than just a bit grumpy.

    1. Our country is being wrecked by our treasonous political classes. And they are rubbing our noses in it all by using the publicly funded by donations, RNLI.

    2. Given the number of dinghies I jolly well hope they are being recycled for re-use!

      1. There are 75 airworthy Spitfires (albeit not all in this country). There are at least 12 airworthy Hurricanes.

  108. Just repeating what I said a few days ago.

    Politicians should start calling out the mess that Africa and other Muslim countries have got themselves into,

    Britain and Europe educated and built a better Africa, giving it railways , education , hospitals, roads , trade and many financial benefits as well as acting as mediator with regard to tribal wars and and the many conflicts warring tribes have inflicted on innocent good people , Nigeria and the Sudan , Zimbabwe , Uganda and others are prime examples .

    Now we are NOT hearing much criticism aimed at the post Mandela regime in South Africa which is hurting many people , murders rape , food shortages , mendacious financial deficiencies , and the infrastructure is being ruined by stealing and inefficient maintenance .

    Africans and those from Arab Muslim countries are now ruining us , by bankrupting us.

    Britain should halt the guilt trip , and deny strongly that colonisation has ruined Africa and Asia .

    Hindsight is a wonderful thing .

    Britain and Europe should have left them all alone in their mudhuts and squabbling tribal massacres a century plus ago .

    Not our problem .

    Get them all out of here , for goodness sake .

    1. You forgot the ridding of much of Africa of disease and pestilence, and a huge reduction in starvation.

    2. Do not contribute to international charities that operate in Africa or Asia they are the problem and not the solution. It’s highly likely there are more starving children in North Africa now than there were in 1984 when Michael Buerke made his report. The populations on Ethiopia and Somalia have grown 4 fold since then .
      If you’re going to give to charity choose a local one like a hospice. The CEO of our local hospice is a volunteer and does not draw a salary.

    1. Actually we’ve been watching doctor who again from the beginning and it’s a delight. Recently finished the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton doctors – they were in black and white of course. I just loved the old fashioned quintessentially English characteristics and eccentricities.
      There was no wokiesm and everyone has a beautiful English accent even the aliens. Watching the 3rd Doctor now with John Pertwee – still excellent and charming but you can see little hints towards leftistm but not much .
      I do know they changed as they’ve gone along but it’d be unrecognisable now .

      2. Excellent, salad days indeed. You might not want to watch the above video then. Also avoid like atomic blast radiation a recent Dr Who episode “Tomorrow’s Children”, which brutally rewrites established canon. It’s soooo BBC it hurts.

        Similarly the series “Picard” has ruined Star Trek: The Next Generation for me.

    6. Maybe she saw the Cathy Burke sketch…”I want a baby like the other muvvers. Nah, one of them brahn babies”

  111. That’s me for this exceptionally dreary day. Rain. Cold. No newspaper. Just the stove to sit by. It is claimed that tomorrow will be dry and “warm”. Hmmm. We’ll see.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Its sunny now here in East Anglia, Mr T. It’s been bright for atleast the past few hours. Maybe you’ll enjoy it for the next couple of hours whilst it’s still light – I send you joyful musings. Have a nice evening.

      1. Sunshine here this evening , Moh is mowing the the lawns with spare noisy mower, the sound of springtime and summer , and a lovely grassy smell , and of course petrol!

        1. OH has been watching yesterday’s ladies’ Rugby…. I went outside in my slippers to pick some rosemary while it was dry – next thing I new the heavens had opened. We had new season’s lamb for dinner.

          Earlier on Jessie caught a little shrew and brought it indoors – live! The first time I’d seen either of the girls showing any interest catching things. She must have been quite quick to catch it. But J managed to catch it and put it outside still alive.

      1. I’d reverse the first two words. Gypsies are a bad lot even if they’re waterborne.

        1. I dont disagree, but I dont see any evidence of pikeys here – they’re more caravans arent they??

    1. I used to love playing the Gymnopédies when I had a piano. Thanks for posting.

      1. Hello, opo, the painting resembles Bosch but it’s far more modern. It’s by Jon Crane ( 1892- 1924 ) surrealist art, it’s called ‘ The Stream ‘ . I think Bosch painted the very sinister looking ‘ Grinning Man ‘ .

  116. Gillian Keegan is to axe the 50 per cent cap on faith schools, ending a policy that forces institutions to keep half their places open for children of different religions.

    The Education Secretary will announce the move this week, explaining that it will encourage faith schools to expand and create more “high-quality” places for pupils.

    Lord David Cameron – who has described himself as “evangelical” about his Christian faith – introduced the cap while in the coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

    Under current rules, any new faith schools that are oversubscribed can only prioritise pupils based on faith for 50 per cent of its places.

    When the cap was introduced, it was argued that it would stop the proliferation of hardline religious schools. However, ministers feel that the cap has had little impact and instead had the undesired effect of preventing Catholic schools from expanding.

    Oh Well that will delight our Muslim Brothers as they develop even more Madrashers…..!

    1. What non-Muslim in their right mind would want to send their child to an Islamic school?

      2. No Muslim in their right mind would do so either. Mind you, there appear to be virtually none of these.

    1. Many years ago my daughters were given piano lessons by a chappie who had studied under Bartok….

        1. VG! But it was mostly under Barstewards something which I’m sure you will appreciate!

    2. The problem with Andras Schiff is that he feels the need to lecture his audiences on politics. The last time I saw him at the Wigmore he prattled on about Irish folk dancers. Intended as his defence of the EU. Yep, barmy. But then remainers are and it got cheers. I’ve avoided his recitals ever since. A great musician if he would just keep his idiot ideology to himself.

      1. ‘Evening , Sue. As an ‘umble village organist, I don’t expect my views will ever be heard.

        My former protegé is an entirely different kettle of fish. Brilliant organist, great choir director, for a few years a tenor with Voces8.

        Remainer.

        So I can only agree.

          1. Sorry, SW, but he’s the product of the march through the institutions. Politically, I disagree with him. But politics isn’t the ‘be all and end all’.

            Meanwhile, he’s he only organist whose recital at Westminster Abbey I’ve ever attended.

          2. Who is he? I know quite a few organists who are friends with James O’Donnell, even though he’s in the States now.

          3. Yo, Squire. Belatedly catching up with notifications. Former protegé is Robert Mingay Smith. Not sure wher the Mingay came from, but at least it distinguishes him from The Cure’s keyboardist. He’s D of M at St Mary at Hill and St John, Wimbledon.

            As a 14 year old, we managed to enrol him in the St Edmundsbury Diocese Organists Training Scheme. So he had lessons with the late lamented Geoffrey Hannant. A brilliant organist, who played for Princess Anne and Mark Phillips’s wedding in 1973. Latterly a sufferer of MS, but a great teacher. I used to drive Robert to his lessons in Bury St Edmunds, and sit in during the lessons. I learned quite a lot also. Geoffrey was quite a character, and he knew his stuff.

            Ironically, I find myself in the same boat as Geoffrey, insofar as – being a bilateral below-knee amputee – I’m no more able to play the organ pedals than he was.

    3. Whatever Bartok was thinking, the conductor is utterly confused. What is he doing wearing a cummerbund with a tailcoat?

  120. Sent.

    Sir,
    As your party of faux Conservatives have destroyed this country I look forward to the country destroying your party.
    You have squandered an eighty seat majority, kept us shackled to an undemocratic corrupt bunch of Globalist crooks run from Germany, and consistently and regularly lied to us about controlling immigration whilst in actual fact accelerating it to a level never seen before.
    You are also spending billions on a war in the Ukraine that is nothing to do with us whilst increasing the tax burden to levels that not even Gordon Brown would contemplate.
    I have to say though, I like the catchphrase ‘Net Zero’, but only in relation to the number of seats your grubby little party returns after the election.

    I have also CC your Conservative association as I now never get any response from you to my valid concerns.

    Yours Faithfully,
    GQ.

    P.S. I’m a life long Conservative who now has no one to vote for. Thanks.

  121. Of course it’s not, but the UK is not the only country trying to achieve it.

    1. True, but it strikes me that the UK is going above and beyond even Canada, NZ and the Nazilands.

    1. I heard a cuckoo this afternoon as I left the church of St. Bartholomew’s in Shapwick (Dorset).

    2. That’s excellent, Kitty – I like Delius (even though he’s a Yorkshireman!), particularly his Requiem.

  124. Look around.
    We (and by we I mean the PTB) are closing most “non-green” power sources
    We are trying to kill car usage
    We are rewilding and building all over prime agricultural land
    We are banning fossil fuel heating.
    We are bringing in millions of economic migrants, most of whom consume rather than contribute
    We are setting in motion metering systems that will allow central closure
    We are blindly following directives that harm the countryside
    We are trying to reduce dairy and other meat production.

    Tell me again that we aren’t amongst if not the worst.

      1. Indeed, but I would argue not as far and as fast as we are.
        We have a death wish.0

  127. The Home Office will launch a major operation to detain asylum seekers across the UK on Monday, weeks earlier than expected, in preparation for their deportation to Rwanda, the Guardian can reveal.

    Officials plan to hold refugees who turn up for routine meetings at immigration service offices or bail appointments and will also pick people up nationwide in a surprise two-week exercise.

    Lawyers and campaigners said the detentions risked provoking protracted legal battles, community protests and clashes with police – with officers in Scotland put on high alert.

    Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The government is determined to recklessly pursue its inhumane Rwanda plan despite the cost, chaos and human misery it will unleash. We know it is likely to cause a catastrophic system meltdown.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/28/home-office-to-detain-asylum-seekers-across-uk-in-shock-rwanda-operation

    1. Whatever happened to the official secrets act?
      Does anyone think that if the Guardian became aware that there was a plan to round up everyone who supports Tommy Robinson that they would publish it?

    2. “We know it is likely to cause a catastrophic system meltdown.”

      We have a system?

    4. The home office are truly totally useless, they don’t have an effing clue what they are doing.

    5. Ah that’s why they’re all on their way to Ireland!
      Expect them back in Blighty soon, as the Irish govt will miraculously be able to send them back…

  128. There was a good turnout for evensong today, lured by the promise of wine, supper and a movie afterwards. Not my kind of movie this time. Not that I need an incentive to go to evensong anyway but for me, “Babette’s Feast” is to cinematic excellence what John Cage’s 4’33” is to music. If I were choosing great movies with a moral message, the titles that come most readily to mind are “The Third Man” (Orson Welles), “A Matter of Life and Death” (Powell & Pressburger) and “Witness” (Peter Weir).

    1. Ah, Evensong. I seem to remember it. In our parish of four churches – two largeish with choirs, and two small without – we launched monthly Choral Evensong. Alternately at the two larger churches. It was good for both choirs to learn the music. Unfortunately, the congregation had different ideas, and stayed home.

      I have eighteen months of my employment contract left. Following which, there’s a church in South Farnborough which is accessible by public transport

      1. There isn’t anything more peaceful and spiritual then evensong in a English country church.

      2. Evensong is popular at cathedrals. The musical demands are too much for parish choirs, particularly these days. Living where you do, Winchester cathedral would be a good choice for evensong. When I was a chorister at Chichester we used to have the three choirs festival with Winchester and Salisbury. ‘Dreary Neary’ was the Organist at Winchester in those days.

        1. Ah, I got to know Martin and Penny Neary at All Saints Fulham. No opinion on either as musicians and certainly not on the reasons for them leaving Westminster Abbey. They were pleasant enough acquaintances until ASF turned too woke for me to bear.

          1. He is a very sound musician. The nickname ‘dreary Neary’ was simply local prejudice from those of us at Chichester. 😂

        4. I got thrown out of Salisbury cathedral in the early 70’s. I was on a weekend break with a lady and we went into the cathedral with a load of tourists. I spotted a Hammond organ not far from the doorway which was probably used for small services as opposed to the big one. I broke away from the thong and switched on the organ, I began to play ‘In The Mood’ but only managed a few bars before being asked to leave.

      1. Canticles: Evening service in G minor – Purcell.
        Anthem: Laudibus in sanctis – Byrd.

        1. I have never sung or conducted Purcell in G minor. I am going to listen to it now to hear what I’ve been missing.

          1. OK. I’ve just listened to them. Not blown away. That’s a Monday evensong at best.😂

          2. It’s pleasant. Our director of music likes contemporary composers. I like pleasant once in a while 😊.

  129. Watch out for the Nigerian princess trying to scam you?

    ‘Non-working Royals’ Harry and Meghan will tour Commonwealth nation Nigeria after being invited by the government to take part in ‘cultural activities’… days after Harry’s UK Invictus event (so will Meghan join him in Britain first?)

  130. Cant they get rid of Tice ffs? He’s a complete electoral liability (and his stupid missus as well!)……..

    1. Lord Farage will replace him shortly, I believe. Tice is OK……but he doesn’t have Lord Farage’s ability to galvanise voters.

      1. I’m not sure, I think Farage doesnt have another one in him (more’s the pity).

        I repeat, Reform will never break through whilst Tice is at the helm……..

        1. Totally agree, Tice has the charisma of a drain blocked with last night’s vindaloo. Whereas Farage has bucket loads of charisma and he’s well known. But I’m not sure Farage wants to get that much involved in politics anymore. He prefers to be advisory .

          1. Well he’s off to help Trump, isnt he? That sounds like a much better, and far more lucrative, gig for him. Shame really, but I honestly cant blame him….

          2. Ha! You’ve never had a vindaloo or you would know from bitter experience that its products tend to be…ahem…too liquid to block a drain!😂

          4. Have vindaloo regularly. Gas is the usual problem – paint-stripper, so it is.

        3. Farage is a bolter , he scuttles and runs when the going gets tough .

          He is all noise , hoof and cucumber , and has never stood for election , has he?

          1. Well he has, Belle, on a number of occasions stood for MP and never got elected! But that may be because of FPTP – dont remember the details.

            He has , however, presided over two of the most amazing votes of all time – the European elections when UKIP won from nowhere, and the Vote to leave the EU, which was basically down to him.

            I think that makes him undoubtedly the most significant politician of the 21st century.

            I get your points about him (love ‘hoof and cucumber’, whatever that means!!) but he’s unique, we will not see his like again.

          2. He has stood for election on numerous occasions and sadly has never been elected. The most recent time was in Thanet in about 2017 I believe.

  131. I was just thinking about the Conservative defector.
    It is not all bad news.
    At least Labour now have one D Poulter in their party

    1. Corporal punishment?

      I think most modern-day crimes and misdemeanours call for Sergeant-Major punishment!

    2. Looks like an attempt to get catapults made illegal?
      Can’t have Britons being able to defend themselves!

    3. No real problem with knocking off rabbits & squirrels, provided it’s a clean kill and they are then eaten, but swans, ducks and pet animals are a big no-no.

    2. Captain of Enola Gay: “Dear Mayor of Hiroshima. We may have made a tactical blunder. May we have our Little Boy back?”

  134. Grrrr! Wretched key fobs – keyless starting.

    Error message – battery low on the key fob – so son takes it off the Timpsons who charge him £20 to change the battery in the fob. Whatever they did or did not fit they have made my problem umpty Doxens worse – and they will pay for it with the sharp end of my tongue – because now it does not work at all and I am having to use the physical key which was secreted VERY SECURELY inside the fob. Now all this was interfering with my plan to go ride my horse so there was rather a lot of blue air around the house – to say I was unhappy would be the understatement of the week if not the month.

    Eventually I release the physical key – and got the car going. YEAH – Off to the yard where daughter (bless her) has caught and groomed my horse – so on I climbed. 20 minutes or so actual riding rather than chasing the sweetie lady – and a further 20 minutes just sitting on horseback in the sunshine. Pictures to follow later.

    So often it is animal which restores my sanity.

    1. I am following your heartwarming tale of returning to riding It is (and you are) magnificent. Thank you.

    2. There will be a youtube video for your particular Car key fob and the batteries are usually about £2 from Amazon (other suppliers are available)

    3. There will be a youtube video for your particular Car key fob and the batteries are usually about £2 from Amazon (other suppliers are available)

  135. My contribution to the wonderfully diverse music being posted on here recently: interpretations of tango classics by an orchestra called Tango Bardo. (You may or may not be familiar with tango music; I was wholly ignorant of it before getting hooked.)

    Posting this in particular because I am getting ready to go and hear them live, and (assuming that someone asks me – fingers crossed!) to dance to what you’re hearing. 🙂🙂

    https://youtu.be/EH1g-0mOgZ8?si=zAQkp_xa3BuKBY4T

  138. Evening, all. Went to a plant fair this afternoon (after the APCM in church). Didn’t buy anything, wasn’t inspired and was shocked by the prices. Did have a walk around the gardens, though – their rhododendrons are in full flower and it was a riot of colour.

    As for the headline, we require a fresh contingent in Wastemonster; preferably one with real life experience working for a living.

  140. We have just closed the door to out balcony after eating our supper and drinking our local very tasty Portuguese wine and watching the sun set.
    My idea of heaven.
    Good night all.

  142. As well as a refuge from Radio 4, NottL is fast becoming a refuge from Radio 3…. 🙂

  144. From the DT:
    AstraZeneca has admitted for the first time in court documents that its Covid vaccine can cause a rare side effect, in an apparent about-turn that could pave the way for a multi-million pound legal payout.

    The pharmaceutical giant is being sued in a class action over claims that its vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death and serious injury in dozens of cases.
    Lawyers argue the vaccine produced a side-effect which has had a devastating effect on a small number of families.

    The first case was lodged last year by Jamie Scott, a father of two, who was left with a permanent brain injury after developing a blood clot and a bleed on the brain that has prevented him from working after he received the vaccine in April 2021. The hospital called his wife three times to tell her that her husband was going to die.
    AstraZeneca is contesting the claims but has accepted, in a legal document submitted to the High Court in February, that its Covid vaccine “can, in very rare cases, cause TTS”.
    TTS – which stands for Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome – causes people to have blood clots and a low blood platelet count.

    Fifty-one cases have been lodged in the High Court, with victims and grieving relatives seeking damages estimated to be worth up to £100 million.

          1. It is very hard to find someone who has not had the jab who wishes he or she had had it and easy to find people who have had the jab and now wish they hadn’t had it.

        2. Many of us here are used to being called deniers of one sort or another. You are a jab-damage denier!

        3. Funny, since 2021 I don’t know anyone who’s died in a car crash. I do know (personally) 1 rushed to hospital shortly after the jab with some heart condition, 2 sudden deaths, 1 young Parkinsons, 1 auto immune disease, 2 shingles, 1 heart attack.
          Among my unjabbed acquaintance, zero serious illnesses and zero car crash deaths.

      2. Me too. But it would have terminated my employment as an organist, had we been allowed to sing. I lost the use of 20% of my right hand thanks to AZ. The feeling came back after around six months.

        1. I remember that episode. I think Eric Clapton was similarly affected. I was lucky and had no noticeable side effects. Hopefully, three years on, our immune systems have eliminated it.

    2. I was recently in Papworth on the Addenbrookes Cambridge Campus. ( to undergo a heart stress test which fortunately I passed resulting in patient discharge).

      Near Papworth Hospital I noticed a hideous zig zag facade of dark glass and that this was the Astra Zeneca complex.

      You could not witness such a closer connection between the NHS and the Pharmaceutical giants as demonstrated by the sheer proximity of their premises.

      Remind me again, the Astra Zeneca jabs were banned by the EU and swiftly left the scene. Has anyone from Astra Zeneca yet been held to me account for their dereliction of duty to ensure safety and efficacy of their product? Why have they not yet been sued?

    3. I was recently in Papworth on the Addenbrookes Cambridge Campus. ( to undergo a heart stress test which fortunately I passed resulting in patient discharge).

      Near Papworth Hospital I noticed a hideous zig zag facade of dark glass and that this was the Astra Zeneca complex.

      You could not witness such a closer connection between the NHS and the Pharmaceutical giants as demonstrated by the sheer proximity of their premises.

      Remind me again, the Astra Zeneca jabs were banned by the EU and swiftly left the scene. Has anyone from Astra Zeneca yet been held to me account for their dereliction of duty to ensure safety and efficacy of their product? Why have they not yet been sued?

    4. I was recently in Papworth on the Addenbrookes Cambridge Campus. ( to undergo a heart stress test which fortunately I passed resulting in patient discharge).

      Near Papworth Hospital I noticed a hideous zig zag facade of dark glass and that this was the Astra Zeneca complex.

      You could not witness such a closer connection between the NHS and the Pharmaceutical giants as demonstrated by the sheer proximity of their premises.

      Remind me again, the Astra Zeneca jabs were banned by the EU and swiftly left the scene. Has anyone from Astra Zeneca yet been held to me account for their dereliction of duty to ensure safety and efficacy of their product? Why have they not yet been sued?

  146. After a day of not very much it’s time for bed!
    When the rain eased off I did a bit of bramble bashing, uprooting the fresh shoots on a patch I’ve already cleared.
    The weather actually turned pleasant this afternoon!
    Still bloody cold though.

    Goodnight all.

  147. Good night, chums. I’m off to bed now. Sleep well and see you all (hopefully) tomorrow.

    2. Good morning and thank you, Geoff.
      I see you had an early start this morning!

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