Sunday 28 July: Too often the right to protest is used as an excuse for criminal behaviour

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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693 thoughts on “Sunday 28 July: Too often the right to protest is used as an excuse for criminal behaviour”

      1. The original was obviously taken by one of the "victim's" associates, so was biased. The latest footage was taken from a different angle, possibly CCTV.

        1. I suspect the original was edited before posting.
          If it can be found that it was, I hope it will be possible to prosecute the poster for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
          It might make an excellent case to set a precedent.

    2. The useful idiots who have been spouting on about how disgraceful it was wanted to believe it though. They wanted to believe it was “Islamophobic” behaviour by the police. Desperate to show how 21sr-century “compassionate” they are, and that they are good little “allies”.

      1. Not this time – it's all over the Internet, and was even played on BBC Breakfast this morning. The truth has finally come out.

        1. Listen very carefully to the BBC's commentary that accompanies the footage. It is a deliberate misinterpretation of what the tape shows.

        2. I wish I could share your optimism. I'll wager that the actual film will "go missing" – and any attempt to reinstate the film circulating on social meeja will be dismissed as "fake".

      2. On R 4 this morning… BBC Verify has not verified the footage, sheesh. I dont recall that warning put against the slammer filming.

      1. Not at all uncanny, but due to his accumulated experiences at the University of Life.
        Wiki: in 1942 "Reagan became an AAF public relations officer and was subsequently assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit in Culver City, where he felt that it was "impossible to remove an incompetent or lazy worker" due to what he felt was "the incompetence, the delays, and inefficiencies" of the federal bureaucracy." (AAF = Army Air Force).
        Ronald Reagan's mother was a follower of the Social Gospel movement.

  6. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) story

    Protect Your Environment – Recycle Your Old Jokes

    The grim reaper came for me last night, and I beat him off with a vacuum cleaner.
    Talk about Dyson with death.

    I went to the cemetery yesterday to lay some flowers on a grave.
    As I was standing there I noticed 4 grave diggers walking about with a coffin; 3 hours later and they're still walking about with it.
    I thought to myself, they've lost the plot!!

    My daughter asked me for a pet spider for her birthday, so I went to our local pet shop
    and they were £70!!! Blow this, I thought, I can get one cheaper off the web.

    I was at an ATM yesterday when a little old lady asked if I could check her balance,
    So, I pushed her over.

    I start a new job in Seoul next week. I thought it was a good Korea move.

    I was driving this morning when I saw a parked AA van.
    The driver was sobbing uncontrollably and looked very miserable.
    I thought to myself, that guy's heading for a breakdown.

    Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs are not Happy.

    I was explaining to my wife last night that when you die you get reincarnated but
    must come back as a different creature. She said she would like to come back as a
    cow.
    I said "You're obviously not listening.”

    The wife has been missing a week now. Police said to prepare for the worst.
    So I have been to the charity shop to get all her clothes back.

    Two Muslims have crashed a speedboat into the Thames barrier in London.
    Police think it might be the start of Ram-a-dam.

    When I was in the pub, I heard a couple of IDIOTS saying that they wouldn't feel
    safe on an aircraft if they knew the pilot was a woman.
    What a pair of sexists. I mean, it's not as if she'd have to reverse the thing!

    Local Police hunting the 'knitting needle nutter', who has stabbed six people in the
    Rear in the last 48 hours, believe the attacker could be following some kind of pattern.

    Bought some 'rocket salad' yesterday, but it went off before I could eat it!

    A teddy bear is working on a building site. He goes for a tea break and when he
    Returns he notices his pick has been stolen. The bear is angry and reports the theft to the foreman.
    The foreman grins at the bear and says "Oh, I forgot to tell you, today's the day
    the teddy bears have their pick nicked.”

  7. To my NoTTLer friends – an addendum you might wish to pass a lazy Sunday, downloading.

    Here you will find a link that will allow you to download a .PDF copy of my cook-book, which I have updated and re-printed (A labour of love) printing on both sides. I also took the opportunity to check the grammar and spelling, many American spellings were translated into English. Let me know if you find others.

    https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/yf9tt9nonf3mm7f/Tom%25E2%2580%2599s_Simple_Cook_Book_%2528Rev_14_A5_9Pt%2529.pdf/file

    It's SAFE to download. If you should decide to print it, I suggest that you lay in, at least a ream of A5 paper, as it is 289 pages long. A5 is slightly larger than a standard paper-back and is half the size of A4. You may, of course, always just print the page you wish to cook. When cooking, to protect the page, I slide it into half an A4 ring-binder insert.

    Should you want a copy, allow Tine (Hertslass) to release your e-mail to me.

    I hope you enjoy it.

    Love and hugs

    Tom (Sir Jasper)

    2. Morning, Tom.
      Another one of your books – I can't resist! 289 pages downloaded, to be perused once I have a higher caffeine level!
      Thanks!

      1. I’ve found that Morrisons are best source – they actually have (had) a butchery counter and ox-cheek is yummy I generally stew it, must see if Tesco do it.

        1. Yes, mine had a butchery in-store, employed it’s own butchers. I used to see Sir Ken occasionally, exchanged a few words, he’d go round the individual stalls, down the aisles, checking everything to be as he liked it. Post vaccine I order online and delivered to door. Morrisons are the best people/produce/price, have tried the others. Good luck with Tesco, Tom 🙂

  9. Good morning, chums. And thank you, Geoff, for Sunday's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,135 5/6

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    1. edit Good morning Elsie
      sorry, completely forgot I had not said Good morning
      Wordle 1,135 4/6

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    2. Good morning! Likewise.

      Wordle 1,135 5/6

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      1. Me too.

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  10. Cwessida’s mum has got a letter published!

    “SIR – The four and five-year prison sentences for the Just Stop Oil activists (report, July 24) are not only disproportionate but likely to be counterproductive, since they are a sure-fire way to provoke even stronger protests among those pursuing their ideology.
    If sanctions are deemed necessary under the law, surely something more apposite and beneficial to the community might be found, such as helping to repair the many potholes in our roads, wheeling disabled or elderly people round art galleries, or working to aid understaffed ambulance services. That might both temper the ideological impulse and also improve the general weal.
    Come on, Sir Keir Starmer, speak out. You of all people cannot want the law to appear such an ass.
    Salley Vickers
    London W11”

    1. wheeling disabled or elderly people round art galleries..

      ?? They're banned from all the decent galleries.. didn't you know?

    2. Gosh, she lives on another planet doesn't she.
      At least she admits it's an ideology, though a cult might be a better description.

      "They're too middle class to be sent to prison, they should get community service working in art galleries instead so they can throw soup on paintings in peace"

      1. Would she support exemption from prison for Islamic Terrorists who, like her daughter, will have caused death to others because of their ideology. Does she think that this chap would be de-radicalised by filling in a few potholes or that OAPs would arrive in coach loads from Rochdale in order to be shown around the National Gallery or the Tate by him?

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c2661b1519014ffadfc54c2ef430a1deed2b7565c1ee8d65fa395dab6a80f13.png

        1. I'm sure H&S would make sure he had the appropriate spade for tar shovelling.

    3. She doesn't seem to understand the fact that part of the reason behind any sentence is to act as a deterrent to others.

      1. I believe the pair who threw paint over the Van Gogh have been found guilty of criminal damage, before the same judge. It will be great if another salutary prison sentence is meted out.

        1. Phoebe Plummer.. couldn't happen to a nicer spoilt prat.

          The judge also set bail conditions for the two 22-year-olds, which includes not carrying glue, paint or adhesive substances in public places.
          Ha.

    4. And what are this horrible woman's suggestions for the lives that have been lost and the total disruption her selfish daughter and her co-morons have wreaked?

    5. The problem SickEar has is Milliband E bending said ear. And that's a problem for all of us.

    6. There's BTL shredding … and then there's BTL shredding and bar.
      Salley has definitely been sent down her alley.

    7. London W11?
      Shome mishtake shurely as I thought they lived in a delightful pile in Hereford.
      It cannot be possible that the family has a second home and that they pollute the planet by travelling between their various gaffs.

      1. I was being a bit frivolous. Not her mum really, but someone equally ghastly and stupid.

  11. I can unite the Conservative Party and turn us back into a winning machine. Priti Patel. 28 July 2024.

    I know how to make a success of both opposition and government. That’s why I’m standing to be leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

    Of course, we must unite. When we Conservatives fight one another, we lose general elections. We should reflect honestly on what went wrong but avoid spending the coming weeks – let alone months and years – in a soap opera of finger-pointing and self-indulgence, which would see a complete trashing of the things that we achieved in government over 14 years and only help our opponents.

    They cannot unite. Even if Patel managed to get herself elected the majority of the Party are still One Nation Tories and would dump her at the first opportunity for more of the last fourteen years. If she wants to be a Tory then she must cross the floor and join Reform.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/27/priti-patel-unite-conservative-party-winning-machine/

      1. Good question, Paul, and soon enough, they will mostly originate in the Middle East!

    3. There is no point in trying to unite the Conservative Party: total schism has led to its complete disintegration.

      The only answer is that some should join Davey's Lib Dumbs and the others should form a True Conservative Party or join Farage's Reform.

      1. It would take too long to form a TCP, I reckon, with quite a bit of squabbling and backstabbing. I'm going with Reform.

          1. I’d like to think so too…however, Farage scares a number of people off, and Tice seen as too ‘nice’ (not necessarily my opinions). They may need a few defectors from CP get the ball rolling. We’ll see:-)

    4. Seconded. I'm watching Badenoch. For me, Braverman lost a bit of respect when she seemed unable to face down the activist on GBN (Cambridge protest, with supposed student).

  14. I could have won more medals had I come out earlier, says Dame Kelly Holmes. 28 July 2024.

    Olympic champion runner Dame Kelly Holmes has suggested she would have won more medals if she had been open about being gay during her sporting career.

    The double gold medal winner, 54, thinks her performance was affected by the stress of hiding her sexuality.

    It was only marginally less obvious than if she had LGBT stamped on her forehead.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/27/i-could-have-won-more-medals-had-i-come-out-earlier-says-da/

    2. I can hear the commentary now.
      "And, as they all line up ….. the lezza automatically wins it."
      (Obligatory declaration: I have worked with lesbians and some of them became friends.)

        1. The sun is now struggling to break through – come on, give it your best shot,

    1. I don't think that Dowd's friend is far off the mark. This 'Trans' nonsense is another part of the attack on society by the globalist cabal. Convincing developing and impressionable children that they inhabit the wrong body is made easier when one, or both parents, are easily manipulated.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5aa6fa65175460aad8013f98bebe90183dc3c77617e8f0c54262d8bb76b59605.png

      The 'Pride' promotion is also part of the project. How anyone could take 'pride' in exposing their genitals in public and perform lewd acts in front of children disgusts me. Even worse are the parents who take their children to see this extreme pornography in real-time.

      6. I noticed in the visitors' book of the church where I heard evensong that someone had written "pray for women that they may have safe, one-sex only, spaces". Someone had added, "I'll pray for you" (and it was a bloke). Perhaps the message is starting to get out.

  17. Good morning all,

    Sunny at McPhee Towers, wind in the East heading South, 15℃ heading for 24℃ and I'm heading for the river to bother some trout.

    Apparently there was a Patriots' rally in London yesterday, organised by one Tommy Robinson. Who knew? You wouldn't know about it if you relied on the BBC. But never mind, you can always rely on the Telegraph to be factual and honest. This is a pretty shameful piece of 'live' reporting. I'm not surprised that no-one has put his or her name to it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a6fcd1fcb9734f0b5c79b9efff25267e852e50f6760339c9882ecae6ffab04de.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/27/tommy-robinson-latest-protest-london-uniting-the-kingdom/

    BTL comments are over 6,400 so far. Here's the latest.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e4297c8fe29bb78ca930989e40d60d2036a6e04cf5ffb4f6257ac596a36de5bf.png

      3. As mentioned elsewhere, a certain Elton John wrote a piece in the DT this week, they didn't seem to think it necessary to put up that it was really just Reg D.

      4. The DT might start giving the original names of all the people it mentions – for example it might refer to David Cameron as Dave Total-Twat.

      5. The DT might start giving the original names of all the people it mentions – for example it might refer to David Cameron as Dave Total-Twat.

    2. I think it is time that Nigel Farage woke up to the fact that Tommy Robinson (whose real name is Ringo McCartney) woke up to the fact that Tommy's admittedly uncouth appearance and vocabulary hides the fact that they are in agreement on many issues.

      Not all yobs are mindless and not all toffs are dolts.

    3. I like Robinson for the report he wrote recently re: Kirklees schools. My neck of the woods as a child – I could have been one of those, as could my offspring.

  19. Hungary’s PM Viktor Orbán warns EU on path to ‘self-destruction’. 28 July 2024.

    “Europe has given up defending its own interests,” Orbán said in Băile Tuşnad, a majority ethnic Hungarian town in central Romania. “All Europe is doing today is following the US’s pro-Democrat foreign policy unconditionally … even at the cost of self-destruction.

    “A change is coming that has not been seen for 500 years. What we are facing is in fact a world order change,” he added, naming China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as becoming the “dominant centre” of the world.

    Orbán alleged that the US was behind the 2022 explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, calling it “an act of terrorism carried out at the obvious direction of the Americans”. He did not offer any evidence to back up the claim.

    There will either be a change in the World Order or its destruction. In accordance with the tenets of the Thucydides Trap the US is determined to resist it. The destruction of Nordstream was a part of that. War with Russia is next.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/27/hungarys-pm-viktor-orban-warns-eu-on-path-to-self-destruction

    1. I like him and Him Indoors likes him too, that's a rare statement as he's completely non-political.

  20. Good morning all.
    A bright start with clear blue sky, little wind and a tad over 7°C when I took theempty milk bottle out.

    A repost of an X-Tw@ter comment someone posted yesterday with a comment added by myself:-

    I can't remember the name of this Noble Gentleman, but he is the one who had the courage to speak up for Tommy Robinson (NHRN) in the House of Lords.
    If for no other reason than this speech, this is why the Upper Chamber should be preserved as a part of the UK's legislature. https://x.com/BeardedBob7282/status/1817458906240516098

    2. Lord Pearson of Rannoch. One of those whom Starmer would like to get rid of.

        1. I was actually shocked awake by the alarm, having managed at least 5 hours of sleep!

    4. Absolutely spot on. He nails it totally.
      And those who argue with any single word he spoke are the idiots we have in charge of our country.
      In other words those who are helping to destroy our culture and social structure. And anything else that they can get away with. It's got to stop.

    1. I missed it too but I saw enough bits yesterday to be grateful – I can't imagine who would want to sit through four hours of such degenerate trash.

  26. This is the bloke that the French Olympic authorities put in charge of the opening show, quite possibly with Macron's consent.. No wonder France was humiliated.

    Meet the French Theatre Director Behind the Olympics’ Drag Queens, Same-Sex Foreplay, Queer Last Supper Opening Ceremony

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2024/07/ThomasJolly-640×480.jpg

    The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris kicked off Friday with an opening ceremony that left many stunned and repulsed — drag queens cavorting in the streets, raunchy same-sex foreplay, and a gender-queer re-enactment of The Last Supper.

    There was even a bearded “woman” crawling around on all fours in a provocative blue bustier.

    Who was responsible for the unfolding artistic atrocity? Meet Thomas Jolly, a theater and opera director who was little-known outside of France before Friday’s broadcast — which was viewed by more than a billion people worldwide — turned him into a global curiosity.

    In interviews prior to Friday’s broadcast, the openly gay Thomas Jolly gave no indication that he would be turning the Opening Ceremony into a Pride parade. But he did emphasize the importance of inclusion and representation.

    “How do you write a show in which everybody, at one point, feels represented and a part this bigger thing, this bigger ‘us’?” he said. “It’s ambitious but also complex because one has to broaden one’s own imagery, one’s own outlook and include everyone, understand everyone so that no one feels left behind.”

    For a family friendly event, Olympic organizers provided no advance warning of the sheer number of drag queens and gender non-conforming performers who would be on display, nor did they mention the ceremony’s bizarrely horny undercurrents, with performers engaging in simulated acts of lust.

    They certainly gave no clue about The Last Supper parody, which prompted a swift backlash among Christians — many of whom noted that Jolly wouldn’t have dared to mock Islam in the same fashion.

    In the tableau vivant, Jesus Christ is played by an obese woman wearing a dress with plunging cleavage. The disciples are played mostly by drag queens in brightly colored wigs.

    Jolly, 42, has been heralded as a wonder boy of the French theater, infusing the classics with post-modernism and avant-garde provocations. He has directed for some of France’s most prestigious institutions including the Paris Opera and the Festival d’Avignon.

    His taste for the outré clearly informed his choices for the Olympics.

    Friday’s spectacle included what appeared to be a male performer with one of his testicles hanging visibly outside his lady undergarment.

    There was also an actress playing a decapitated Marie Antoinette, with her severed head singing the French Revolution anthem “Ça ira.”

    1. If he had done similarly regarding Islam I suspect Paris would still be alight and that he would now be in hiding for the rest of his life.

      Edit for missing "had"

    3. Oh my word how has plain stoopid become the 'order of the day' over common sense and decency?

    4. I didn't watch all of it but the footage I saw was humiliating, degrading and just plain offensive.

      1. Didntuwatch any of it, just a small clip of a disgusting spectacle.
        Edit: Didn’t…

        1. Didn't watch it here but I've seen enough short clips to know it was disgusting and degenerate.

      2. Didntuwatch any of it, just a small clip of a disgusting spectacle.
        Edit: Didn’t…

    5. There was an article in the DT yesterday, explaining that the British had no sense of humour and that's why they didn't 'get' the French Olympic pageant.
      It even mentioned Hebdo and Bataclan, which, to this po-faced Brit, suggested that there were giggle-free French 'citizens' who suffered a sense of humour failure.
      The BTL comments were largely non-supportive and the article appears to have vaporised.

      1. I am too grumpy at my age to have a sense of humour, and confess whenever I hear "comedy" being announced to jaunty muzak on the radio, I know it will be profoundly unfunny. Rather than exploring the absurdities of the human condition, which is what comedy should be about, it is sneering at the wimp and the swot in the playground for being uncool. Those cheering on the popular boy or girl appear to be laughing, but I still don't think it is funny.

        I must say that staring at the light show on the Eifel Tower was quite impressive for about the time it takes for a firework to light up the sky, but after 15 or 20 minutes of it, I begin to wonder what became of "joie de vivre".

        Thankfully I did not see the reimagined Last Supper. Was the fat lady Jesus bearing tattoos like some entry from 'Naked Attraction'?

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    Beautiful day in Northumberland.
    Twice yesterday we parked and got out of the car and it chucked it down with rain. Some roads were partially flooded.
    I felt for the farmers who had cut down the hay and left it to dry.
    I don't see protesting against an invasion and many other aspects of destruction of our lives and culture as criminal behaviour.
    Only newly invented and previously unheard of laws see protesting as criminal.

      1. Bright but almost complete cloud covered in Northumberland now.
        When you consider the alterations and the cloud seeded floods in Dubai, it certainly seems as if the ‘They’ are altering the seasonal, normal and natrual weather patterns.

  29. Pie in the sky?

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/29cfd25bc71823c115abf4ef2e04887fc2c55b55/163_94_2237_1342/master/2237.jpg?width=980&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=0e6f08be02719ea2d9843db6818eecff
    Uppal Bhupa Village, Jalandhar District, Punjab

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dedb76886434b598d2c21b9856592eb98a6a43a5/0_0_1600_2400/master/1600.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=f5941312d01c577699e388333e3a3766
    Bara Pind Village, Jalandhar District, Punjab

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7e9913f650af9da355e20c725b98f2a9da350d4b/0_0_2400_1600/master/2400.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=4788b3b24fc0faa660cefbd37f849a99
    Daulatpur Village, Nawanshahr District, Punjab

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/162da9cf6f3aa96a7256531a6bc61bfb01ccaf13/0_0_1600_2400/master/1600.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=6a64ff274f59c86c7107056aba8ce652
    Jhander Kalan Village, Nawanshahr District, Punjab

    1. Any chance of Punjabi planning officers taking over our town halls?
      Unlike cycle lanes and bossy notices, those additions to the street scene are amusing.

  31. The Left no longer thinks crime should be punished, and it’s terrifying

    We have also lost our grip on the essential contract of a civilised society: follow the law, or face the consequences

    ZOE STRIMPEL
    27 July 2024 • 6:00pm

    We live in an age so lily-livered and cowardly on the one hand and so bristlingly aggressive and hostile on the other that it can be hard to know where one trend ends and the other begins. Certainly, both are very much in evidence in the new generation of “omnicause” protesters – whether their focus is climate change, racism or Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

    When someone upends the laws and norms of civil society or international order, they should be punished, whether they are a criminal, a terrorist or a despotic warmonger like Vladimir Putin. But more and more, the link tethering flagrant law-breaking to consequences is being destroyed. People seem to think that they should be free to break the law, causing massive inconvenience or even harm to innocent bystanders, and effectively face very little real punishment.

    This was evident in the comments from Cathy Gethin, the mother of 22-year-old Cressida Gethin, one of the Just Stop Oil protesters recently convicted for conspiring to block traffic on the M25 in November 2022. Cathy Gethin seemed to complain that it was unconscionable that the sentence “means she will not be present at her brother’s wedding next summer”.

    I understand the maternal urge to protect one’s child – I can well imagine myself doing all in my power to wiggle my baby off almost any hook out of blind instinct. But it’s the broader apparent hypocrisy that draws a smirk.

    Cressie’s climate-saviour complex is apparently to be lauded when it inconveniences and endangers everyone else, but God forbid it stops her sipping fizz at family nuptials. Would she and her mother be taking the M25 to the wedding? And if so, would they mind if their way was blocked because people were dangling from the gantries? One suspects they would.

    Given four years in prison, Cressida will hopefully have time to reflect on the insanity of her position, and perhaps come to the conclusion that antisocial, messianic behaviour isn’t the way to analyse or solve problems.

    But at stake is a larger malaise within the process of law and order in Britain today. It goes right to the top – through law enforcement into the highest echelons of government. It manifests in the sense that many crimes aren’t really worth bothering with, that it doesn’t really matter if people get away scot-free.

    Take shoplifting, a crime that is essentially ignored with a nudge and a wink from on high, despite inflicting agony on the high street. In the rare event that a thief is caught, they are more likely than not to get away with a caution, barring an act of violence. The police don’t bother investigating “low-value” shoplifting at all.

    But the act of theft itself can often be violent, with displays overturned, staff intimidated or threatened, and machines broken. The Co-op supermarket, which wrote a report called Stealing with Impunity, recorded more than 330,000 incidents of shoplifting, violence, abuse and antisocial behaviour in 2023, a 44 per cent increase on the year before.

    In fact, 2023 was a year of untrammelled looting across the whole retail sector, causing losses of up to £1.8 billion. To find ourselves with what Paul Gerrard, the Co-op’s director of public affairs, recently called a state of “lawlessness on the UK high street that has never been seen before” requires a certain confidence among the looters and thieves. Theft no longer just presupposes a sense of incredible amorality, but also a risk assessment concluding that nothing is likely to happen by way of consequences.

    The Government is not helping to unburden the thieves of their swagger. The police, terrified of appearing insensitive, are reluctant to use stop and search. Allegedly overstretched and underfunded, they don’t have much street presence at all – let alone the ability to chase thieves down the street.

    Nor do they seem to have the capacity to follow up crimes even when the victim hands them direct evidence. I recently turned over scores of threatening and abusive emails that I had been sent, but received nothing in response from the police, despite even turning up at a station to pursue the case further.

    It’s been more than a month. Nothing.

    Meanwhile, the news about full-to-bursting prisons has been broadcast far and wide – another boon for criminals. There is no room for new offenders, and thousands are about to be set free under Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to ease overcrowding. We can be sure that fraudsters, thieves, looters, vandals and public nuisance-causers will note this with glee and feel more emboldened than ever.

    Hovering over and under all these failings of administration, funding, bureaucracy and poor leadership is the queasy progressive belief that locking people up for committing crimes is just mean. There is a palpable sense that perhaps those who steal and swindle are, in fact, the real victims, held back by “inequality”, and only trying to live a self-actualised life like everybody else. This is an absurd notion, grouping hard-working, law-abiding citizens with common criminals. Perhaps our current society can no longer tell the difference.

    Just as we are no longer willing to go to war to defend our nation, lest we invoke offensive images of colonial domination – no doubt to the merriment of our enemies – we have also lost our grip on the essential contract of a civilised society: follow the law, or face the consequences.

    1. Morning. When you say "The Left", I'd think you're including our wet so-called Tory government in that? What Ms Strimpel hasn't drawn attention to is that they don't believe in pursuing criminals any more than Labour does.

      They cannot do so based on the evidence, because since 2010 when Cameron came to power they've removed 10,700 prison places from the system, with a net increase of only 300 prison places over that 14-year period. It's fourteen prisons that have been closed, by the way.

      Parliament still consists of a left leaning talking shop. All that's happened is that its occupants just swapped seats in the chamber, as far as I can see.

    2. I know that putting the world to rights here is like preaching to the converted. Those with the authority to do anything about it will not listen to us plebs. We are not important.

      Never mind. There must be a cheaper way of sentencing offenders than putting them in prison. I would not, for example, send lawbreaking nuisance protesters to prison. Better for them a hefty bit of community service, starting with making good any damage they have done.

      There are a lot of "bravado" crimes – lads showing off to earn respect from their peers, which eventually get them into bad company and into the realms of serious criminality. For them, prison is just a university for crime, learning the tricks of the trade, and possibly the last place we should be entrusting our criminal youth to. For them, ritual and swift humiliation may be better – making them appear a loser before their peers, and something to be avoided rather than gloated over. Spending a day stark naked in the stocks being shat on by pigeons is probably not "cool", but if it ever becomes so, then perhaps an alternative form of public humiliation could be devised. The important thing is that when the day is done, the slate is wiped clean, and there is no lingering taint to one's character other than memories of youthful indignity.

      The most important thing of all is to be caught and dealt with swiftly and justly. I see sentencing as the difference between a state-of-the-art tank costing millions and a jeep, or between a patriot missile and an Iranian drone. Sure, the former are effective and prestigious and will get the job done, but how many times before you run out of money? The latter, cheap and cheerful, can be produced by the thousand for the same price as one of the other. They may not always work, but hey who cares, since they cover the ground and achieve their objective. Why must judges feel minded to choose the expensive option when sentencing?

      1. I agree with you that sentencing would be more effective if tailored to the individual – there are some glorious examples from America's sheriffs – but this requires knowing the person in question. (For some, the stocks would be a lifelong deterrent; for others, a larf or badge of honour.)

        The trouble is that our system is, by design, impersonal and immensely bureaucratic. I suspect the judges feel their hands are tied.

        1. I hardly think that a bare-bottom birching would be considered a 'larf or a badge of honour'. More likely a humiliation, especially if administered in public.

          1. Like Arab women being birched in public for complaining about being raped? Where does it stop?

          3. Do you really think they’d go as far as birching? I have met blokes who would laugh at being in the stocks…

          4. There's a world of difference between the stocks, the pillory and a public birching.

        2. To be "fair", everyone must experience the same. Whether it has the same punitive effect is moot.
          Following the principle of fines as a % of income, then other punishments should inflict the same pain on the miscreant – so, for example,someone who is an avid fellwalker should be locked away where he can see, not access.

  32. Good Morning all. Nice Sunday morning here in West Sussex, sunny and cool.
    I don't know how many have seen this but according to the accusations of people there, the police tried deliberately to provoke a fight at the Tommy Robinson event yesterday. Here is part of the incident. Sad that we can't trust the police anymore. Certainly aren't the friendly bobbies we used to know as children.
    You can here someone saying he is not part of the TR demonstration, just a bystander as the policeman tries to provoke him.
    Paul Thorpe talks about the incident at length on his after the event video.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6j_1Zq63uI

      1. If it were a Jew interrupted a slammers March he would have been arrested.
        spot the difference, I bet you can't?

        1. The slammers have probably threatened a huge riot if they don't have their own way.
          How much longer will this favourable plod
          faffing go on for ?

    3. It was obvious our politicised Plod would try to pull a stunt like that. I am not at all surprised.

    4. Picture worth a thousand whastits and all that..

      Hamas terrierist with Isis style fingering shouting Allahu Akbar protected by the Teletubbies deliberately provoking the natives.. because he can.

      1. Where's the vid of them escorting someone carrying a St George flag towards the far left Corbyn army a few streets away? There isn't one? Because it didn't happen?

        Just as I thought.

    5. Try standing still on the pavement with a Union Flag as the Hamas shower approach: the politically weaponised police will have you arrested and bundled away tout de suite.

  33. Good Moaning.
    Warm and sunny, so we're all doomed.
    To balance things up, I will plonk myself down in the middle of an arterial road and cause embuggerment.
    Or just sit in the garden and enjoy a summer's day.
    Choices. Choices.

    2. The government has issued a warning to keep your curtains closed.
      Sunlight gives people other ideas.

        1. 😂 it's amazing how many people managed to survive in 1976 during the climate crisis.
          Even though we had some stand pipes.
          I remember the two baths a week being used to syphon the water onto my vegetable patch where I even grew celery.

      2. Given that the government is not a credible organisation for issuing advice, I shall be ignoring that.

      3. The government advice is geared to keep the population's vitamin D levels low, amongst other benefits. Hancock's statement during the Plandemic that vitamin D does not aid the immune system was wrong. A government still promoting extremely dangerous inoculations and advising people to stay out of the sunlight is most definitely not acting in your best interests.

        Here are some benefits of sunlight: homo sapiens evolved in the Sun's environment. Closing down sunlight as proposed by CC nutters has other impacts than falsely claimed warming, especially the health of people. Now, why would governments in thrall to the WEF/NWO cabal want to have a negative impact on the people's health?

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40d9e704816171b51a790a17eebc3261ac1b5e02a161bd42c4df02c39deb6193.png

    3. From a seaside village in Valencia

      29°C
      Sunday 12:21 Sunny

      Very hot last night. No wind. Then cold and cloudy in the morning. No chance of rain today although it looked like it.

  36. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/498962e7294fb8cc058e3bade321eed675c6c3d4/0_0_2302_2717/master/2302.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=49b26ef9653d105da8eb5671e201b77e
    A pair of harvest mice (Micromys minutus) greet each other on wheat stems in Dorset

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d94d101c47cc25aab48876dbf798df4ce2ae03b0/0_0_2941_1923/master/2941.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3acdfc7c09451e17ef5c4a346aec8959
    A colony of walruses, Svalbard, Norway

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/04d4da6520baba42bbdd4f6eea0c5d47fdc900f9/0_0_4500_2991/master/4500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=28d25880cba0b8c3367b2bd8c3d35c02
    Young elephants take a mud bath in Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa.

    2. Send the top picture to BBC Country File. It could be included on the next year's calendar.

      2. A couple of years ago or so, I think it was Wildlife Photographer of the Year that included a picture of a Harvest Mouse on a bramble stem among the finalists. We were not overly impressed as we have almost identical pictures at home and had a pretty shrewd suspicion that – like ours – they had been taken at a wildlife conservation centre where the photo opportunity is effectively set up.

  37. Ukrainian Drones May Have Flown A Record 1,100 Miles To Target Russian Bombers At Their Northern Base. 28 July 2024

    Ukraine’s intelligence directorate may have pulled off its most impressive strike on Russian territory since Russia widened its war on Ukraine 28 months ago.

    According to Ukrainian Pravda, citing intelligence sources, the directorate flew long-range strike drones a staggering 1,100 miles on Saturday to hit Olenya airfield, a Russian air force bomber base in Murmansk in northern Russia.

    Regardless of the length of the flight, the information on which it was based must have originated with the Americans since the Ukies do not possess the satellite reconnaissance resources. In this sense, Russia and NATO, are in practical terms, already at war. From an American point of view, the closer the better. They clearly intend that, like the Ukies, the Europeans should act as their proxies in any ground war. They will supply the air power.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/07/27/ukrainian-drones-may-have-flown-a-record-1100-miles-to-target-russian-bombers-at-their-northern-base/

    1. I wonder who supplied the drones ?
      The yanks need to 'back off' before they start WW3.

        1. And I have no idea why anyone would want another world war. Weren't the first two bad enough?

    2. If true there will be consequences.

      Russia had already reportedly warned Lloyd Austin that they were aware of a pending attack deep within Russian territory and advised him to intervene to stop it.

        1. Of course. As I said below – that film will be “lost” and when the internet version is produced, it will be dismissed as fake.

    2. Someone posted an alternative booting last week, it looked as ifa single plod took a fierce kicking by four forgien looking chaps.
      The media won't be showing that.

  40. I saw a short clip of a horse galloping up the river – that was probably the best bit. The rest was disgusting crap.

  41. I missed my wee snifter before bed – well, I'll have it for breakfast together with a tangerine and a banana!

    1. The magic eh…:-DD Grey and cloudy here, just been out to look at fruit trees…either non-existent or small and likely too dry. Very little rainfall this year. Sun always shines on the righteous..sigh…:-D

      1. I think, Kate, you're not far from where I lived for seven years, Pencoed just outside Bridgend. It seemed always wet there.

        1. I wish, Tom. Much further North, the frozen wastelands 😀 I do like Wales tho, very much. Going to disappear for a while, watch Nagoya basho – there’s a hot place this time of year..phew…

  43. I also use Morrisons for home delivery. Will try it again, next time. No, no product found @Tesco for Ox-cheek.

    1. I just looked at my Morrison’s a/c, Tom, Ox Cheek is listed .25kg (£13 per kg), but it might be different your area. Good luck 🙂 Btw, I forgot to say Sir Ken always wore short-sleeved shirts, khaki trousers, smart but ready for work.

  44. https://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey/osprey-webcams/

    Brunch for the babies!

    We had a wonderful excursion to the Isle of Wight yesterday , visiting no2 son and his partner .

    Sunny day , took the car to Southampton , one hour on the ferry , brilliant service , landed at Cowes where they live .

    https://www.redfunnel.co.uk/

    Saw some amazing yachts , huge things racing .

    The Isle of Wight is similar to how most of us remember Britain, decades ago , bit similar to Guernsey / Jersey .

    Some shopping areas need a boost , similar to over here in Dorset really , but the ambiance was happy and relaxing , and another part of our stunning coastline ..

    We saw so many gardens full of Agapanthus, and other exotic plants , bit like South African gardens , I was delighted to know that tropical plants grow easily there .

    I think that so many of you would want to upsticks and live there , public transport excellent , and the roads are small and uncluttered , apart from cyclists!!!

    Choice of ferries , hop on hovercraft , car ferry , and a few others , that go to Southsea , Portsmouth and Southampton , and residents have a great discount .

    I last visited there in my twenties , and first visited when I was 10 yrs old..

    Feeling a bit tired today , the car ferry had a passenger lift , cafe, and excellent viewing points .

    On the way back through Southampton water , 3 enormous , gigantic cruise liners hooted at us all as they sailed by us on their way into the Solent , Saturday afternoon after 5pm must have been the usual day for embarking on expensive holidays ..

    1. Only been there once – we stayed a few days in 2006 – specifically to see the Glanville Fritillary – which we did. Very old-fashioned feel about it but pleasant. Scilly isles are like that too. Quiet and English.

    2. My one and only visit to the IoW was 30+ years ago, and was definitely stepping back years in time. Most strange.

  45. It is probably just me – but I find Tommy Yaxley-Robinson, and his side kick Paul Thorpe extremely unappealing. Their message is fine – but their latent aggression scares me.

    1. Same with me .

      Did you ever see that terrible film A clockwork orange .1971 film .. Droog, a Nadsat slang term for "friend" in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange and the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation.

        1. It was all horrorshow.
          And – for those who haven’t read it- horrorshow means good (Russian derivation). Sports pundits have subsequently misapplied the term.

          1. From the Russian – Fine, good (Отлично) – pronounced somethomg like "kharosho"
            Excuse the appalling Russian – I was only exposed to it in Azerbaijan 1993, where I worked for BP as marine warranty surveyor. That was a long time ago now, and since I can barely remember yesterday due to heart failure deleting memory, I don't reckon that's too bad.

          4. Why are they using Russian terms? Getting practised for the end of the coming war?

          5. It was written in the 1960s as a dystopian novel that, among other things, chillingly satirises state control through aversive behavioural techniques. Alex and his droogs use a distinctive argot in the manner of gangs and it may be that incorporating Russian terms seemed appropriate in view of the proclivities of the soviet state.

          6. Это хорошо indeed.

            Is it perhaps appropriate that the film should be raised in the context of Mr T. Robinson and co? The film asks the question about freedom of conscience: should we suppress free choice all because the alternative allows the unappealing and latently violent in society free rein. A Clockwork Orang (Utan) is after all an unnatural offence against creation. In short, he's a wrong 'un.

            Whether we agree with him or not, or whether we find him distasteful or not, in my opinion he should be left with the equipment to decide for himself what he should be. Interesting days.

            As for sports pundits… 🙄. Especially ones whose surnames begin with the letter L.

      2. Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange was banned in the UK. I watched it in the Tuschinski Theatre in Amsterdam in 1970 or thereabouts.

        As a young Architect at the time I thought the film setting of the newly built Thamesmead appropriate to the mobster theme and brutal gang violence. I thought then that the brutalistic concrete vision of the typical ‘modern architect’ was both dehumanising and retrograde and have during my career fought against it in my own work.

        The other architectural horror show in those days was Cumbernauld.

        3. Ah Thamesmead. The only area that I know of where Milk floats had to have the milk enclosed in locked cages to ensure the Milkman could complete his daily rounds….

        1. Robinson et al suffer from the problem of not being middle class. But if you listen to him carefully you realize he is at least as clever and intelligent, I suspect more so in intelligence, than Douglas Murray. We need people like Tommy Robinson because if things were to 'kick off' it will be the working class that will take the brunt of the fighting and they certainly wouldn't need or want a Douglas Murray leading them in those circumstances. He has immense personal courage and has sacrificed everything in order to stand for his principles. There are very few people like that and they should be treasured for the hero's they are. I strongly urge you to listen to him talking to Jordan Peterson to understand just how much he has lost, it is everything in life including his family, his children, that he clearly loves. But he is neither broken or unbowed. He is what typifies a hero.

          1. I am reminded of Arthur Scargill. His message was quite clear and accurate. There was a determination to close coal mines. He had his "list" and he was absolutely right. He could not be faulted on the facts.

            Trouble was his message was lost on most people outside mining areas because his hitlerian ranting made him sound a dangerous crank.

          2. But Tommy Robinson doesn't rant. He actually comes across as quite mild, but he has been subjected to unrelenting persecution and character assassination. It is actually surprising how much he has put up with and kept restraint. The only time he has been physically violent is when he has been put in physical danger. Sadly that danger has almost always been engineered by our authorities, the police and prison staff with the collusion of bureaucrats that are obviously corrupt and are our enemies as well as his. That includes government ministers and members of the judiciary.

        2. Robinson et al suffer from the problem of not being middle class. But if you listen to him carefully you realize he is at least as clever and intelligent, I suspect more so in intelligence, than Douglas Murray. We need people like Tommy Robinson because if things were to 'kick off' it will be the working class that will take the brunt of the fighting and they certainly wouldn't need or want a Douglas Murray leading them in those circumstances. He has immense personal courage and has sacrificed everything in order to stand for his principles. There are very few people like that and they should be treasured for the hero's they are. I strongly urge you to listen to him talking to Jordan Peterson to understand just how much he has lost, it is everything in life including his family, his children, that he clearly loves. But he is neither broken or unbowed. He is what typifies a hero.

    3. Agreed. Same as Jim Davidson.
      No wonder Farage wants to maintain a distance.
      Likewise on the other side of the culture wars.. Owen Jones, Ash & James O'Brien.. Their message isn't fine – and their latent aggression scares me.

      Whereas Matty Taylor.. working class and tough.. comes across as an asset for Reform not a liability.

    4. To do what he does you have to be on the rough side. Its very easy for us to sit on the sidelines harumphing about slammers but someone needs to get out there and actually do something. He must be in constant danger given that the ropers will happily lay into armed police or blow up as many kuffir as they can get close to. Probably a bit like our armed forces, I dont really want a bunch of nancy boys in the front line, I want those who feel for their country and values. In our present society, those may not be the type the vicar invites to tea but they are the only ones who will actually defend our way of life.

    7. "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." It was ever thus. Inspired by Kipling and paraphrased by Orwell. These men are a part of our life tapestry, they are required stitches.

  48. Paris Olympics: a smug spectacle of wokeness. Spiked 28 July 2024.

    Is anyone else bored of ‘queering’? Everything’s getting ‘queered’ these days. We’ve had ‘Queering the Curriculum’. ‘Queering the Arts’. And my personal favourite: ‘Queering Palestine.’ This entails academics ‘unpack[ing] the multiple intersections of queer politics and the Palestinian struggle’. Hot tip for these profs: if Hamas ever invites you to discuss your theories, don’t agree to meet them on the high floor of a building. ‘Queering the Pavement’ is the only thing they’re interested in.

    Now, with soul-zapping inevitability, we’ve had the ‘queering’ of the Olympic Games. Yesterday’s rain-sodden opening ceremony in Paris was super LGBTQIAzzz.

    There were drag acts everywhere. A bearded bloke twerked for the world. A bollock-naked man in blue paint was served on a platter of fruit to a gaggle of diet-dodging drag queens. Look, if I wanted to be exposed to the camp debauchery of drag culture, I’d go to a kindergarten.

    It really was a naff, dispiriting affair. It was the first opening ceremony to take place, not in a stadium, but in the heart of the hosting city. Boat after boat after boat carried the Games’ athletes along the Seine as 300,000 spectators in soaked plastic macs craned their necks for a glimpse. It seemed to go on forever. It was so bad that even square liberals on X started using the favoured slogan of the right: ‘STOP THE BOATS.’
    The weather didn’t help. The lashing rain hampered the audio, making it hard to hear the ceremony’s star turns, Celine Dion and Lady Gaga (an upside of the downpour, I suppose). What we could hear was just weird. Like when a headless Marie Antoinette sang the opening bars to an ear-splitting heavy-metal ditty. The ceremony organiser, Thomas Jolly, said he wanted his spectacle to be a ‘celebration of being alive’ – here we had a celebration of being dead.

    Then there was the ‘queering’. Just as you can’t switch on the BBC, visit a library or have a quiet pray these days without encountering a drag queen, so you can’t watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics without seeing portly men in moob-hugging outfits voguing and gloating. It was more Eurovision than Olympian. More Ru Paul than Ancient Greece. More ‘Sashay away’ than ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’. That’s the original Olympic motto. It means ‘Faster, higher, stronger’. Because, believe it or not, we were once a species that celebrated the moral beauty of sporting heroism rather than the ability of a middle-aged man to lard himself into a sequined gown.

    The part of the ceremony that caused the biggest stink was the camp Last Supper. A bunch of drag acts gathered around a buxom woman adorned in an aureole halo crown in an unmistakable mimicking of da Vinci’s painting of Christ and the apostles at their final meal. Wearing the smug look of all glib performance artists who love nothing more than to piss off ‘normies’ – because they lack the talent for anything else – the drag queens giddily got into their disciple positions and heaped holy adoration on the lady Jesus. You could almost hear their thoughts: ‘Ooh boy, this is going to piss off old farts – yes!’

    Christians are angry. As well they might be. This was ‘extremely disrespectful to Christians’, said Elon Musk. Now, naturally, there’s a backlash against the backlash. Calm down, the woke are saying. Stop being such prudes and snowflakes, they’re chortling. It’s just a little light mockery, they’re insisting. Which is big talk from a section of society that would be weeping into its keffiyehs and demanding heads on spikes if the ceremony had featured a drag-act Muhammad being served a smurf on a plate of fruit with his cock out.

    For me – a non-prude and non-snowflake who fully supports the liberty of blasphemy – the question is not ‘How could you disparage Christ like this?!’, but ‘Why would you disparage Christ like this?’. At an Olympics opening ceremony. In front of a billion viewers (well, until we switched off). I have no problem with drag acts in Soho, or Le Marais, of course. But at the opening ceremony to an international celebration of human brotherhood? I’m fine with mockery of religious idols and beliefs, if that’s what you want to do. But at the Olympic Games? Why? Why sully this ancient competition with the infantile Christ-bashing of the conformist godless drones of the modern culture industry?

    The shallowness of these provocateurs is summed up in the fact that they would never ridicule Islam. Just imagine if a drag queen at the ceremony had clambered on a pantomime winged horse in open mockery of the Muslim belief that Muhammed flew to heaven on just such a fantasy creature. Paris would be in flames right now. Thomas Jolly would be in hiding. The papers would be full of chattering-class angst over the evils of ‘Islamophobia’. Instead – because it was only JC who got it in the neck, not Muhammad – the liberal press is full of praise. What a ‘unique’, ‘queer’ and ‘very French’ ceremony, they’re trilling.

    The knowing profanity of the ceremony was not ‘stunning and brave’ – it was dumb and cowardly. Christianity is a safe target in 21st-century Europe. If you really want to stir shit up, give us a drag Muhammad next time. Give us queens cosying up to the Prophet wearing a boob tube and lipstick. You won’t, of course, because you know the potential consequences. There is something sick about well-paid performance artists taking cheap shots at Christianity in a country where people have been shot to death and literally beheaded for raising questions about Islam. They’re the brave ones, not you. And yet rather than show solidarity with them, you look the other way, and throw shade on far easier targets. What moral weaklings.

    It would be a mistake, though, to see yesterday’s wet, lame spectacle as irreligious. For in truth, it represented the ascendancy of a new religion: woke. It’s actually fitting that, before the eyes of the world, France replaced Christ and his disciples with ‘queers’ and drag queens. It was a dramatic rendering of a real trend: the usurping of old moral values by the dispiriting belief system of the new elite. Indeed, if you want to be cancelled today, forget mocking Christ – try referring to a ‘transwoman’ as ‘he’. They’ll have your head like Marie Antoinette’s. Yes, if it’s blasphemy they want, let’s give it to them. Transwomen are men, drag queens should stay out of schools, Islam has loads of mad beliefs – what else should we add?

    It was a demonstration of the moral decadence of the West.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/27/paris-olympics-a-smug-spectacle-of-wokeness/

    1. Yup, just the point I made here yesterday. Why at the Olympics?

      I'm no prude. I liked Life of Brian. It belonged in the cinema where if you like that sort of cinema then you could pay to watch it. But the Olympics is pasted up as the preeminent worldwide celebration of what is good and best in humanity. What came across was a very big statement: Christians are not welcome in the modern world. When we say 'the best of the world' we don't mean you basically. The old order is gone and a new religious ideology has replaced it.

      They saw a triumph. I saw a shitshow.

        1. It was just that. Debauchery in its rawest guise.

          As Belle says hereabouts, it can legitimately be interpreted as Surrealism. Yes it can. That’s a respectable art form and some of it is quite good in my view if you look around the movement. The trouble is that if we were seeing the exposure of aspects of the unconscious mind expressing itself through Surrealism in that ceremony then I’m quite put off by the mind I’m being exposed to.

          True art, Surrealism without exception, must stand the test of whether or not it points towards Beauty. That is the ideal in Art, otherwise it isn’t art, quite simply.

          Nope, it was a debauched expression of triumphalism rather than Art that was being expressed there. The ceremony was deliberately staged outside the stadium “amidst the people”, sending us the message that it was “owned by the people” for the people are all in the French ideal of Liberty, Fraternity, Egality. That tableau together with the Marie Antoinette bollix was there to send a loud signal that France, its people and its authorities are what you now see: it is no respecter of other ideas. It proudly stands in opposition to the old ways, or so it imagines.

          To her credit and bearing in mind I know very little about her, Marie Le Pen spotted this very quickly. She was straight on it, announcing to the world that, “this is not France”.

          1. I think it was Marine's niece, Marion, who spoke up.

            The clips that I saw, especially the debauchery and the Marie Antoinette piece, reminded me that the descendants of the French who designed the guiottine and master-minded the revolution and the Terror, are still there.

          2. Ah yes, thanks for that. As I say, I’m unfamiliar with them in general and the news just popped up in passing. Marion then, finger on the pulse I’d say with that comment.

          3. Macron’s shitshow has given Marine Le Pen a sheath of arrows with which she can shoot him. Macron’s debauched version of France is not France.

      2. I guess I blotted out the debauchery , because it was as if they were celebrating the fall of the Roman Empire .

        I liked the artistry , and the clever use of music, art and French surrealism .

        Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that began in Paris in 1924 after World War I. Surrealist artists sought to change perceptions of the world by exploring the unconscious mind, dreams, and the irrational. Their work often depicted illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas, and aimed to balance a rational vision of life with one that asserted the power of the imagination.

        It was so French ..

        1. Perhaps I shouldn't comment as I could not have sat through that trash for four hours, and the bits I did see were probably the worst…….but what was the relevance of all that to a sporting festival?

        3. I expect a lot of French men would take offence at that. They would probably also feel the Surrealist movement was a complete load of bollocks as they were hauling their nets, working the Docks and making an honest living which the so called intellectuals have no idea, want or need to achieve.

          1. Nothing wrong with appreciating Dali's works. And yes, I do appreciate having under-taken, hard work to earn a living.

          2. I always thought Dali was overrated. His art stemmed from self induced paranoia and hallucinations.
            His works were called dreamscapes. I call them nightmares.

        4. I expect a lot of French men would take offence at that. They would probably also feel the Surrealist movement was a complete load of bollocks as they were hauling their nets, working the Docks and making an honest living which the so called intellectuals have no idea, want or need to achieve.

        1. Nope, me too. Just extracts. It doesn’t take long to get the picture.

    2. Yup, just the point I made here yesterday. Why at the Olympics?

      I'm no prude. I liked Life of Brian. It belonged in the cinema where if you like that sort of cinema then you could pay to watch it. But the Olympics is pasted up as the preeminent worldwide celebration of what is good and best in humanity. What came across was a very big statement: Christians are not welcome in the modern world. When we say 'the best of the world' we don't mean you basically. The old order is gone and a new religious ideology has replaced it.

      They saw a triumph. I saw a shitshow.

    3. Indeed – the question was "Why?" – and "because you can" is not the answer.
      I'm damn glad I had absolutely nothing to do with that spectacle – if I had, it wouldn't be on my CV this morning.

    4. And despite all the fake promotion we see of slamnerism, still no burka clad athletes or swimmers. 🤔

      1. Interesting – in the women's cycling time trial yesterday the two Afghanistan competitors were there despite being effectively disowned by their government. They weren't wearing any Islamic approved clothing!!

        1. Oh no, they had their legs on global display. Perhaps the mhoolars will have them stoned.

    5. ' what else should we add?'

      Your President Macron likes taking it up the arse from Algerians. He should have been part of the spectaque. Missed a trick there Monsieur Jolly.

    6. Jesus, known as Isa, is mentioned in the Holy Koran, also the Virgin Mary. So if you mock Jesus, you run a risk with a certain demographic.

    1. 390292+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      The descending boot could also be justly seen by many peoples countrywide, as part payment for ALL the odious actions dished out by our
      unasked for, unneeded foreign guests.

      Tis an ill wind………….

      1. One thing I've not seen mentioned as yet, as an aside to the matter of the "descending boot" is the fact that the wearer of said boot is in fact clearly shown as armed in the video. That limits severely what he is entitled to do in that situation and may even justify his actions under UK law.

        Just a thought.

        1. 390292+ up ticks,

          Afternoon JG,

          Good point, the BBB treatment,
          Boot Better than BULLET.

          1. Armed police are under orders to take a hands off approach when engaging suspects. It's well known, because they run a serious risk of losing their weapons to assailants. In UK law he will argue that he used "such force as was reasonable in the circumstances" to prevent crime, where his actions were severely limited. We'll see if he gets away with that given the need to maintain… erm… Community Relations I guess. We now have George Floyd all over again in principle. Let's see how the cookie crumbles when the windbags at Westminster start to realise that they might just have opened their capacious maws a little bit too wide and much too early this time.

            It's fine sniping from the sidelines when you're the Opposition, but once you're in government then "boot" belongs firmly on the other foot.

        2. Apparently they are trained to use their feet because under no circumstances are armed police to let go of their weapons. Makes sense to me.

          1. See my reply below Jonathan.

            He will plead reasonable force given that the assailants were in danger of getting out of control. His instructions, he will say, curtailed his desire to act as a regular officer. The prosecution will respond: the guy you kicked was on the ground and tasered, so was subdued already. The defence will point out that tasering lasts only seconds, etc.

            Personally I think he's entirely justified in putting the boot in and should continue to do so until the threat has been eliminated. I'm sorry if Guardianistas cry 'ooh how distasteful' but suppressing violence using bigger violence is a messy business. We weren't watching a fixed wrestling match or the noble art of pugilism under the Marquess of Queenbury's Rules just there.

          2. You will know, James – I read earlier there were two female officers who had already been attacked, and the male officer/s intervened because of that?

          3. Yes and there’s now a video of it. The end which everyone jumped onto is part of the whole incident, not a decontextualised piece of random police brutality, as we were being led to believe.

          4. The miscreants should be thankful that the police didn't do a Jean Charles de Menezes on them.

        3. There is also a brief instant where the "victim's" hand comes very close to being able to grab a weapon.

    2. He found the police conduct "very disturbing", did he? I found the image of a big bloke cowardly punching seven barrels out of an officer on the ground and some other chap in blue acting like that little yappy dog that always turns up at a dog fight, punching others when their backs were turned "very disturbing" personally.

      These people are "my constituents" he reminds us and asks for the police to be investigated. Well, aren't the police his constituents too? Instead of puffing his weedy windbag chest up by shouting, in effect, 'sone of the victims are my best friends' and others of my constituency are my enemy, perhaps he ought to be having a word with himself about why the constituency in which he sits has become such a lawless ghetto under his stewardship. He, after all seems to imply that he makes such a grand difference through his influence and is very keen to own all its worth. Time he owned its warts too, while he's at it.

    4. The family have two priorities.

      The first and most immediate priority is the implementation of Islamic rules with regards to travel; No touching. No infidels. Halah only food. No Jews. Two state solution within UK.
      Their second priority is the need for compensation.

      Oh, btw you can follow their demands on social media.. however, please respect their privacy as they do not want to become the centre of a media circus either.

    5. The family have two priorities.

      The first and most immediate priority is the implementation of Islamic rules with regards to travel; No touching. No infidels. Halah only food. No Jews. Two state solution within UK.
      Their second priority is the need for compensation.

      Oh, btw you can follow their demands on social media.. however, please respect their privacy as they do not want to become the centre of a media circus either.

    6. funieeeee–st line of the lot.. Lefties love this one.

      and that none of their officers should be above the law.

      N.B. nota bene they didn't need to remind anyone that Islam is above the Law as it's a given.

  51. Anyone tried looking at the Daily Mail lately? You either have to pay up or let them have complete access to your privacy. No thanks – I won't be bothering with them any more.

    2. Yes, I noticed that too. I get my MSM news in the form of a general round up using Google news. I can see right across the board Guardian, Mirror, Star, local papers, regional, etc that way. There's one or two doing this now of late, so I've instructed Google to hide stories from those sites. Works for me. The Mail et al have nothing to say. I'm only ever interested in the headlines so that I can understand what's being talked about. It's no loss. They can slip into even greater depths of irrelevance for all I care.

      1. Come and read my article on the demo in Trafalgar Square yesterday in Free Speech James, and then try to Google around for info on it. Pure distortion.
        On our Gossip page we also carry a good selection of the day's MSM front pages.

        1. Thanks Tom, I've not had time yet, but will do so soon. I must confess to doing some housework today, despite my copious utterances here, e.g. a bit of hoovering, a bit of putting the washing out on the line while She Who Must Be Obeyed is out supervising youngsters at the local library. Well I say hoovering. In fact I moved one or two items in order to clear the decks and set the robot to work from my mobile phone. Then putting washing out a pleasure on a bright blue windless day at 74⁰F.

    3. I have a VPN it gives me access to the mail for free. I do't read the Daily Mail apart from skim over the headlines. But if you want to read something please feel free to ask and I will post it here for you.

      1. The articles behind the paywall are not worth reading. And certainly not worth paying for.

    5. If there is a M+ article I particularly wish to read I copy and paste it into 12ft ladder page.

      1. Well I wasn't going to alter my privacy settings and allow their cookies so I can't see it now.

    6. Try the app, Ndovu…you'll still see the headlines, some of the comments, get the gist?

      1. I’ll have a look for it on my phone. I’m not changing my privacy settings on here for it.

    7. If you have Safari, you can get into those articles by pressing Share, add your email address and the article arrives in its complete form.
      Whether this applies with other search engines, I'm not sure.

    1. Turns out the criminal activity is by the government; Tommy Robinson has been arrested under counter-terrorism laws for telling the truth – a truth neither the government nor the MSM wants you to hear.

    2. Thanks for the report, Tom.
      No fuss = no interest from the MSM, who love to paint the indigenous in a poor light.

      1. Yes I agree but I cannot see what's in for them for the MSM and the PTB to oppose our friends and take the side of our enemies.

        2. It's all part of the bigger picture. All part of the breakdown of Britain. The msm is owned, all of it, by Blackrock and Vanguard, by these huge umbrella organisations that own the pharmaceuticals and are affiliated with the WEF (I do not know the precise relationship, 'affiliated' will have to do). There are no independent msm operatives now, so no investigative journalism, only opinion purposes. The msm's duty now is manipulate the perceptions of the public. All our institutions have been taken over by the marxists; Marx's 'Long Walk Through the Institutions' is now complete.

    3. I was only there for about an hour and a half but I totally agree. That was what I saw too.

  56. Tommy Robinson ‘arrested under anti-terror laws’. 28 July 2024.

    Tommy Robinson has been arrested under anti-terror laws, according to his verified account on Twitter.

    His detention follows a complaint over a film which was shown to the crowd at a march in central London on Saturday led by Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

    Who “complained” I wonder? Wasn’t me.

    NO COMMENTS ALLOWED

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/28/tommy-robinson-arrested-under-anti-terror-laws/

    1. More likely to be contempt of court wasn't it? Perhaps the Telegraph being a little disingenuous?

      1. That is standard procedure when dealing with Robinson isn't it? When the original misdemeanor doesn't warrant a sufficiently severe penalty, switch to contempt of court to open up a wider range of penalties.

    2. Tommy Robinson ‘arrested under anti-terror laws’
      Detention follows complaint over film shown to crowd at march in central London on Saturday.       https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/28/tommy-robinson-arrested-under-anti-terror-laws/

      Would somebody please tell me what the word patsy means in colloquial use?

      The DT is becoming increasing more reluctant to go against the PC line. Is it now a patsy?

      You always know that when the DT does not allow comments that it knows full well that the comments would not be comments they want to publish!

      1. patsy
        American slang for a gullible and weak-minded person. A patsy is a fool, usually a person that has good intentions but is deceived easily. The term originated when Irish immigrants came over to the USA, during the potato famine in the 19th century. (i.e. patsy = St. Patrick) and loads of Irish people entering the working class, were easily gullible and duped by Americans crooks/fraudsters when they settled there. Another term that isn't used very much and is more rare is, "paddy". Americans were mostly Protestants too, so calling Irish people patsy was more insulting of their Catholicism than their actual ethnicity.

        It is no longer derogatory against just Irish people or religion in the USA, and is now usually used in modern society by American dads to scold their sons. It's almost like saying "Don't be a gullible pussy".

          2. And me! Bit late – old man and I are disassembling the rickety old garden shed in preparation for the delivery of a new one on Tuesday! It’s blooming hot out there!😅 In fact, it’s probably a scorcher….

          3. And me! Bit late – old man and I are disassembling the rickety old garden shed in preparation for the delivery of a new one on Tuesday! It’s blooming hot out there!😅 In fact, it’s probably a scorcher….

        2. I contributed to the Trafalgar Sq gathering so i am now also on a list and will join you in the gulag.

          1. Don’t forget your balalaika. We will need a sing-song or two after a day in the salt mines.

    4. Nor me. The film was about the “Syrian refugee” boy allegedly “water boarded” by an English boy at their school. It turns out the story was a lie. People who knew were afraid to speak out so Tommy got to the truth by using hidden cameras. I don’t know the whole story as I didn’t stay for the whole film but if the evidence is presented, will he be charged over the way it was obtained? Even though the mainstream media use the same technique?

    5. This was an old film which had legal restrictions placed upon its distribution in UK. It has been on the net for a while and I'm not sure why TR wanted to show a lengthy diatribe to the crowd when there are better things to bring to light. Why he is arrested under terror laws, only plod will know. But I suspect that it is so that the state can do as much damage as possible and keep him bound up in lawfare. It supports the narrative that these extreme right wingers are a danger to the country.

    1. I don’t know what you said but it’s usually true so I e upticked you anyway! 😂

  58. Fascinating video about the discovery, and the adventures, of the U-455.
    A blend of history and the personal – interview with two of the crew, after the wreck is found at depth in the Med, and identified.
    It's quite long, but worth watching.
    https://youtu.be/mngwJh_hS2k?si=zdTnLfK1QKr-qU61
    "My best friend is in there."

  59. Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen.
    After breakfast I had a little stroll around Blandford Forum and paid a visit to the glorious Church of Saint Peter & Paul. Built in 1740 on the foundations of the original medieval building destroyed in the devastating fire that swept through the old town on the 4th June 1731.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0cf5ef81c18a6a299aa721105c2ff658e75ce5e1447632c050963df39d2ccea6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f39b9fd01d9a07c9011992ab6f8c95878e1df3516a964cd4503760302477586b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a949ace62be24318a4973b232080e722fe5722e2a564d4ed0808802a9c833ef7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20e6a72ef2ed54e177e14c323fe9f901a85460c42898db1e22a1783b9338c95a.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f69a942664180b65654757b7ab3d2201eb8329e502bcb900fa0d9bf52b1497d5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5080f7e4da32b4fc8740df481559db3048c129ec30a11c2853d4ccec0db182d0.jpg

      1. It took my breath away when I walked in.
        The custodians are slowly renovating a lot of the interior after the roof developed a leak, but as that cost £5 million it will take time.
        My photos don't do it any justice.

    3. I remember the church as being one of the finest Georgian churches outside London, St Philip Birmingham (Birmingham Cathedral) being the other candidate.

      The builders (architects) were John and William Bastard and the pulpit thought to have been designed originally for one of Wren’s City Churches.

      The plain exterior belies the extravagance of its interior decoration as your beautiful photographs demonstrate.

      1. I believe the The Bastard brothers remodelled a few churches through the area, up to the Cranborne Chase and up through the Chalke Valley.

  60. The naked blue man at the Olympic opening ceremony opined…'It was meant to be controversial. What sort of world would it be if everyone agreed with everyone else'.

    1. Try disagreeing with the sick mind that choregraphed that degenerate display and find out.

      1. I think blue man was making a valid philosophical point. If everyone agreed about everything all the time where would the innovation and new technologies come from.

        However as we have all witnessed if you do disagree they become angry and or violent. That's where the ideal breaks down IMO.

  61. 390292+ up ticks,

    If this be the case then a great majority of the political body should be incarcerated awaiting charges of running a joint venture with the pharmaceutical top rankers, in regards to excess deaths & life long injuries with their experimental trials
    of an immature by far, vaccine.

    It has come to light that ALL paths leading to the truth go via Belmarsh.

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1817538922945130946

      2. The first time I hit the link I got a completely different video to what’s there now. Strange.

      3. It seems it is a download so I deleted the first one and substituted the the X one one of the next US Presidentette!

  63. Sitting on the train this morning en route to church I was pondering the difference in Christian and Moslem responses to blasphemy. It occurred to me that the instruction to offer both cheeks doesn’t actually preclude retaliation should the offer be accepted.

    I suggest that if a man “smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” and if he smacks the left one as well, give him a swift kick in the balls.

    4. Yes slammers always seem to be offering both cheeks daily, but not something I care to sample.

    6. Striking someone on the cheek in the 1stC Middle East wasn't predominantly an act of violence but an insult. Jesus's instruction to his disciples is to respond to an insult (presumably for His sake) with no response other than acceptance. This has no relevance to the question of self-defence against aggressive attack, which is a rather more complicated subject.

      1. Indeed. Turning the other cheek is taken as a call to pacifism, which it clearly is not, hence Jesus also urging that we sell our cloak to buy a sword. It is, as you say, more complicated.

      1. True on more than one level. When my eldest sister found out our father wasn't her father she spent her life plotting and scheming to destroy us. She didn't manage it but we are fragmented.

    2. Don't tell me he's a reader of the koran !

      So he aspired to become the best so he could destroy them?

      The gates of Vienna have not fallen…they were left open.

    4. BTL

      Ver Cr
      1 HR AGO
      I find the removal of the name offensive.
      I am one complainant. So put it back, now

    5. The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims during the medieval era that began primarily to gain control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups.

      Really? I thought they were campaigns to reclaim for Christendom lands seized by the Desert Death Cult.

      3. Indeed. The Moslems attacked Christian Jerusalem and the knights went to the defence of their Christian brothers. Their efforts failed in the end because they were undermanned and under funded. The muzzles both started the fight and won it yet they play victim. No one has the right challenge them.

        1. That quote from the Telegraph was written by either a gullible, unquestioning sap or a coward under duress.

        2. It's the mindset. Just like what happened at Manchester Airport. Extreme violence and then when it is applied to them they become the victim.

    8. Every day without fail they push a little further.
      I can remember years ago when they complained about Mecca Bingo in Luton and won.
      Time to 'man up' GB and tell them all where to go.

    1. Tommy R breaks laws and ignores court orders. Prudent to avoid such people. As for people's real names, Boris Johnson's paternal great grandfather was Ali Kemal, so he should be Boris Kemal.

    2. Tommy R breaks laws and ignores court orders. Prudent to avoid such people. As for people's real names, Boris Johnson's paternal great grandfather was Ali Kemal, so he should be Boris Kemal.

    3. Strangly TR eems only to break newly invented laws. Where as many others seem to break long established laws and traditions without any interest at all from PPP. Pathetic Political Plod.
      Oh hang on …..some one at the front door…….

  66. One for Fiscal & Mola…

    Three men went fishing early Sunday morning. Conversation erupted and fisherman #1 asked #2 what did he have to do? He said I had to promise to do dishes, mop the kitchen. #1said that's nothing, I had to promise to stain the deck….. Time went by and finally they noticed #3 was uncannily quiet. Finally asked him, so what did you have to do to get permission to go fishing today? He said, I woke early, 5 o'clock, nudged her awake and said, should I go fishing or stay and have sex? She said, don't forget the sunscreen……

    1. Mine's not bad in that respect, she probably prefers me out of the house. My biggest worry is one day she'll discover how much my tackle costs and the price of lures.

  67. BREAKING NEWS

    The Royal Air Force has announced that, following one complaint, 74 Tiger Squadron is to be renamed "Scaredy Cat" Squadron.

      1. No they don't. When you give them water they say why haven't you provided all the water my tribe needs. So then we give them Wells and they say…this water is not as good as you drink…why is that? are you racist? And the Left says…yes we are…we are so sorry…come to our country to drink our water.

    2. An RAF squadron has dropped its “Crusaders” nickname following a complaint it is offensive to Muslims.

      Who cares what is offensive to Muslims , I don't .

      They will be banning pigs next!

      2. If we'd had that attitude in 1940 we'd all be nazified. Don't let's be beastly to the Germans?

      4. That’ll be 14 Sqn, one of the squadrons I served on. In 1985, while we were forming up on Tornado, there were two 14 Sqns for a short while. 14 Jaguar Sqn were ‘Crusaders’, we were ‘Saracens’.

    3. An RAF squadron has dropped its “Crusaders” nickname following a complaint it is offensive to Muslims.

      Who cares what is offensive to Muslims , I don't .

      They will be banning pigs next!

      1. We will have to think up something to really offend the Muslims who are wafting around in their robes in Bradford , Rochdale etc etc .

        Christmas nativities, lights , Taylor Swift , church bells , banning beards , gay policemen , removing translation services , no more flights from Manchester and Luton , and anywhere else .

        Putting a money limit on cash leaving the country , banning the import of rice and spices and ban non Christian names . No more Mo's.

        Come on let Britain be difficult , no more appeasement please, and stop being scared of them .

        My husband house names at school ..

        Argonauts , Crusaders , Venturers and Vikings .

        My Moh isn't called Richard the Lionheart for nothing .

        1. Good ideas, Belle….we both know fine well none will be implemented. Wasn't that a Harry Enfield/Kathy Burke sketch, Wayne & Waynetta, where she says she 'wants a braaaan baby like all the other muvvas'…..now become reality parts of the UK.

        1. Hear you, we need Trump back in the WH, and hopefully someone we can support in Opposition UK (I like Badenoch and would use my vote for her but she’s not on the list as yet).

    5. And the ‘Dambusters’ (617Sqn) will henceforward be the ‘Bumdusters’.

    1. Oh I dunno, Belle…how will they get their food and clean water..to say nothing of shelter and how they'll get there in the first place. I assume this island is part of the UK, in which case they'll need planning permission, unless they've bought it..from whom and how much..

      1. Move them over then deny all planning permission, all materials, all tools, all energy, anything.

        1. Scot ‘government’ likely to approve just to annoy English. World losing its wits one day at a time.

          1. Then make it a protectorate of England and use the state to disband the Scottish government. Not like it's any use.

    2. Think of the opportunities of an open prison where there is no water or power and we can send every dindu, welfare trougher, waster, Lefty lawyer, Labour voter, Labour MP…

      And then keep them in with a shoot to kill order for any trying to leave. Imagine jet washing the excrement off the sewer the Left have made of this country.

  69. 'This is my calling': Video reveals hate cleric's follower roaming on remote Scottish island in bid to raise £3.5million donations and turn it into Islamic homeland 'for all believers'

    Please, please let them. Then we can ship every single gimmegrant who arrive on for them to care for. Patrol the waters with orders to shoot those who try to leave.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13681001/This-calling-Video-reveals-hate-clerics-follower-roaming-remote-Scottish-roaming-bid-raise-3-5million-donations-turn-Islamic-homeland-believers.html

    1. brilliant. crank it up. Great for many reasons..
      Brings the wee jocks on board, like the 0rish.
      It can only get better.. by getting a trillion times worse.

    2. Yep. Post them all there, then keep them in and cut off water and power. Claim it's a 'climate change' thing.

    4. Good grief! I thought it was more remote! I used to sail up there, off Jura and Scarba! Far to close to civilised peoples!

    5. So they want to buy an island in Scotland and turn it into a shithole. They'll have competition from the SNP…

  70. Seven die in DR Congo stampede during gospel music concert in Kinshasa's Martyrs' Stadium. 28 July 2024.

    Seven people were killed in DR Congo capital Kinshasa when a stampede formed at a music concert inside the country’s national stadium.

    Hundreds more were injured in the incident on Saturday where Mike Kalambayi, a popular gospel singer, was performing to around 30,000 at the Martyrs' Stadium.

    If I found myself listening to a Gospel Music Concert I’d stampede.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/seven-die-in-dr-congo-stampede-during-gospel-music-concert-b1173308.html

      1. Ouch. Yes, it is sad, probably tragic. No-one asks to be born in a poor and dangerous country that has never recovered from Belgian exploitation, and this was a concert for Christians.

    2. I expect they never learned how to stand in line. A British attribute. They just rush. I remember Paris. No one queued and that was not that long ago. I chose to walk down the tiers of the Eiffel Tower hoping that the lift broke down. Though they probably would have ended up eating each other after half an hour.

      1. It is a uniquely British trait. Whereever we go, folk queue. Where we haven't been, there's chaos.

    1. "Real change"?
      Hand Labour £20 and count your change, you'd be lucky to get a 9 bob note.

    2. Yes, public services are in a mess. Cut state waste radically, with real, significant cuts to state spending to bring waste and inefficiency under control. Alongside that, reform welfare. If welfare fraud were eliminated we could scrap – not reduce – scrap – the basic rate of tax.

      However doing things that will make a real difference are anathema to Labour's MO.

      They like big state, high tax, waste and debt. They don't like efficiency, outcomes, small government and low taxes. It reduces their power and socialists love power.

  72. Afternoon All
    The Manchester Airport incident and the selective release of filming to portray (as usual) the 'slimes as the innocent victims has fallen apart as more info has appeared
    As per usual the lie was round the world before the truth had got its boots on
    Why has Tommy been arrested??
    Because his documentary SILENCED exposes the MSM Police etc doing EXACTLY the same thing only much more successfully such exposure cannot be allowed and he must be silenced at all costs
    Here is that film thanks to a much freer X
    Judge for yourselves (I'm only a few minutes in)
    Edit
    This is a horrorshow well done Tommy
    https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/1817184820151070917

    1. It is here too. Any consolation to you, I feel the same way, have done since the vaccine – fight it every day.

      1. Yes, I know you've been struggling for ages. I seem to have run out of fight at the moment, then I look around and think "why bother?"!!

        1. I do similar, then I see my dog struggling to stay in the fight alongside me and think I should do better.

          1. Yup, I do worry about the cats, especially the only "official" one. Don't think he would survive long trying to fend for himself.

        2. Do not despair, Peta! It may not be quite as bad as it looks, and anyway we enjoy your very valuable contributions to various sites (it's getting rather interesting on that front).

    2. Very similar here, and set to continue …followed by storms and likely leccy cut. Always something to look forward to:/-

  74. A protected Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,135 3/6
    🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done, I'm having a run of bogies.

      Wordle 1,135 5/6

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

    2. Got lucky here. About time…… similar profile to yours!

      Wordle 1,135 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Well done. Five here.

      Wordle 1,135 5/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. The invasion must be stopped and reversed. Every single one must be removed. If the state won't do it, the public must.

      1. it doesn't work like that..
        this is going to be a long process. For starters 50% of your population doesn't even acknowledge it's a problem.
        and as I keep saying.. Islam & Muslims are not the problem.. it's the progressive liberals.. they're the ones driving this.

        1. 390292+ up ticks,

          Afternoon KB,

          Lest we forget,
          48% / 52%

          I do believe that a show of force as Tommy Robinson generated in london would bring it to a decisive head
          at Dover.

  77. Prevening, all. It will be ave atque vale again tonight; I've been out all day with Kadi (eucharist in the morning, lunch in a pub, a walk around the mere and then a talk on the rebuilding of the church). Glorious day and actually WARM! I think that might be summer. Will be out shortly to attend evensong in a village in Cheshire because the choir singing are friends of mine.

    The trouble these days with protests is that the protesters feel so ENTITLED. Their view is the only view so people need to be MADE to listen. No alternative opinions will be entertained.

    1. 390292+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Could a "disappear dept." be on the " peoples guardians" cards.

      Keep a close eye on TR.

  80. MORE BREAKING NEWS

    The Royal Air Force has announced that, because of one complaint from a person who can only count in binary,
    Treble-One Squadron will be renamed: 1101111

    Hope that simplification is clear.

    1. Oh do be quiet. I am having enough trouble navigating my trolley through Sainburys to buy some rice whilst all the prayer mats are out !

          1. Coltishall and Leuchars for me with the lightnings. What did they run at Waterbeach. Last time I was around there it had the REME in it.

          2. 56 and 63 = Meteors; (56 later = Swifts). Later still, the gorgeous Hunter. The brown jobs moved in once 11 Group Fighter Command came to an end.

            253 = Vampires.

          3. The Hunter, very nice. Later on in dad’s career we had Buccaneers at Honington. They were good.

          4. I used to live near Honington in a village called Troston when the Buccs were there although I was stationed at Wattisham on the Lightnings – commuted daily on my Honda Dream motor bike

          5. Around 1970-1973 then, I guess. I vaguely remember them moving in I think. I know Troston. Army Air Corp at Wattisham now. We get the Apaches over us from time to time.

          7. Coltishall was the Operational Conversion Unit and 216 Sqdn I think, or it might have been 216 OCU

          8. I do know 74 SQN (tigers) was there during my time, (64-67 I recall). What they did aside from interceptor work was beyond my pay grade as a kid! Yes OCU sounds right. My old man was in flight sim, so just where you’d find OCU going on.

          9. I was stationed at Tengah when 74 Sqn flew in to be stationed there. Tiger aircraft and Tiger beer – what’s there not to like?

          10. Ha-ha, yes. I had a chap in my class at school who I think came back from there when the squadron returned to the UK. There were one or two others too I recall.

          1. Yep, spot on. I loved the noise, especially night exercises. Awesome craft in my opinion.

      3. One flew past at considerable speed at Leicester airshow when I was a kid.

        1. When they put their nose in the air, afterburners on, and lived up to their name.

          1. Yup. Just stood on the tail and vanished vertically. What a noise, and what a thrill for a young lad!

        1. I think they had Mk6 Hunters – I remember repairing a Black Arrows Hunter wing when I was an apprentice

          1. Yes, but they were treble one, I'm sure. Hunters seemed to be the aircraft of choice for aerobatic displays at the time. The Blue Diamonds had Hunters.

  81. That's me for what has been quite a nice, summery day. T-shirt and shorts. 1½ mile walk. Bordeaux Mixture sprayed on the tomatoes.
    Only puzzle – Basil. I have grown it from seed for 40 years. Never a problem. This year I have now sown in succession four separate pots. All seed
    germinated. Lovely little seedlings grew. All potted on. ALL – EVERY SINGLE ONE wilted away to zero. Can't understand it.

    I have now set a fifth pot in soil (rather than seed compost) and am hoping against hope. I am wondering whether there was an isshoo with the compost (Jack's Magic).

    Anyway – always some damned thing, isn't there – the joy of gardening. Tomorrow dead heading 40 rose bushes. I expect some of them to retaliate…

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

      2. Tom Lehrer makes it all perfectly clear.

        https://www.google.com/search?q=new+math+tom+lehrer+youtube&sca_esv=c839f9702c677c11&ei=7X2mZrOmE46kkdUP5eTiqAg&oq=new+math+tom+lehrer+&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFG5ldyBtYoIHRvbSBsZWhyZXIgKgIIATILEAAYgAQYkQIYigUyBRAAGIAEMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeSIapAVDBCViXZXABeAGQAQCYAYYBoAGJDaoBBDEuMTO4AQHIAQD4AQGYAg-gAv4NwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICBBAAGB7CAgsQABiABBiGAxiKBcICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIIECEYoAEYwwTCAgoQIRigARjDBBgKmAMAiAYBkAYFkgcEMS4xNKAH2Sk&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:91cbac65,vid:UIKGV2cTgqA,st:0

      4. Oops! Ours doing brilliantly. Sorry. They're always a mystery though aren't they KJ.

          1. Not everything doing well although most things have liked the extra rain this year. First radishes brilliant, but second batch failed, for example. Roses all doing great, except for the Gloire Etoile climber, which just suddenly died. Most odd.

          2. On the one hand, James, good to hear about first batch and most of roses. On t’other hand, sorry second batch and especially Gloire Etoile. My climber Bathsheba not doing great, neither the two jasmines. Weather either hot sun and dry, or heavy rain and drenching.

          3. The beauty of gardening KJ. It keeps us on our toes. A new Gloire has gone in and sprouting fine since April. The honeysuckle and clematis on the other side of that arch are bushy and big. It makes no sense at all. I dare not keep a jasmine, since the wind here can be a bit scouring at times. It’s pointless putting something like skimmia or a scabious in my garden despite them being so versatile as they always fail. Perplexing.

            On the other hand the wisteria I planted about 7-years ago is very happy and I’m going to need to scrape it off the roof if I’m to keep it in check.

          4. You lucky son-of-a-gun, James. We have too much to look after, mostly woodland, so mostly polys for veg and I’m allowed a small area 12×12 ft approx for flowers so tubs it is…..In the past I have had lovely planted gardens which I did myself, but often we moved elsewhere so I got a bit shall we say – discouraged 😀

          5. Yes that’s a pain. You set a garden going then you have to let it go.

          6. Take heart, James. Both my sowings of radishes came to naught – they bolted without producing an edible root.

          7. First lot like specimen examples. Great we thought. This year we’d staggered the sowing so that we could keep them coming all season. Ours bolted too, yes.

      5. Oh dear. A couple of cheapo trays I bought from Lidl gave us weeks of sweet peas.
        MB even gave sprays of the flowers to our neighbours.

        3. Lidl really is pot luck (excuse the pun). Sometimes you get brilliant results, sometimes they just die…

    2. I employed gardeners this year. Had half a ton of well rotted. Bought loads of plants. Though the toms are looking promising and i have a couple of peppers and courgettes maturing i think next year i will pave it all over. Install solar panels and import all my fruit and veg from Uruguay. It's how i am feeling at the moment.

      1. Don't despair. Phizzle, and definitely don't do that. It's just been a year of shit weather for most plants (except ragwort, grace a "rewilding").

        1. Not just this year. I have a cherry tree that gives some fruit though not enough to utilise in any fashion but gives safe harbour to millions of blackfly, greenfly and their controller ants. The tree doesn't even look good. What to do….

  82. Singing for supper…thanks Belle:-) (I signed recently but not getting updates yet).

  83. Very cross today. The telegraph is not allowing comments on anything I want to comment on.
    Poor Charlotte Dujardin had her career wrecked because she was a bit harsh on a h horse in training four years ago; but the rules have been changed to allow a Dutch paedophile not only to compete, but to be protected from the press.
    And everyone is ok with that?!’
    What a world.

    2. The CD situation is a serious can of worms. I have watched that video over and over and can see no constructive reason for her actions with the whip. At the same time, I don't believe that it necessarily harmed the horse, at least not physically. I would love to see the whole video and to hear her explanation. I would also like to hear all those present giggling and wiseacreing in the background come forward, identify themselves and explain why they sat on this for 4 years and released it now, in what looks to all intents and purposes like an act of professional revenge.

      She remains one of the most beautiful and sympathetic riders I have ever seen, and no-one has ever produced horses so happily and joyfully compliant by abusing them.

      1. I've watched the video a few times too, and I don't think she harmed the horse either. Also, if she really was hurting, or even just frightening it, surely it would have reacted much more than it did, to the point of throwing the rider? And would she be stupid enough to do something like that during a lesson and with another witness as well, who was actually filming it? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

        1. It's baffling. I would like to know what she hoped to achieve, though, because what she did in that clip seemed to me both random and bizarre – ie I'd very much like to see the whole hour-long lesson rather than just one minute of it, and to hear the rest of the background commentary of those that recorded it and sat on it for 4 years, then used it to destroy her career through the "Dutch Lawyer" just before she was headed for another Olympic medal or two.

        2. There seems to be a theme. Young middle class white girls. It's okay to train elephants and donkeys with whips to carry goods but…

      1. Do you think they are too drug-addled and distorted with hatred of the English to make a rational decision? (I do).

          1. Sole perp. Unknown to victim. All that’s been made public so far. Country area, possibly walking dog.

          2. Why do they hate the English so much that they would be happy to see their own culture and history destroyed……………….

          4. It must be a heavy burden to carry over hundreds of years. Particularly where the best of them left the homeland for pastures new.

      3. They can have them. They're always saying they want more. They can have a significant proportion of ours – "fair shares" and all that – like the Barnett formula…

    2. What do we expect? Not assimilation, civilised behaviour or (perish the thought), gratitude???!!!!

    1. Perfect for the job. Let in all the slammers and they will happily run everything at 'home' with ruthless efficiency. Now u dont see migrants washing up on the shores in Saudi, do u!

  91. LAST POST – I had to mention this because by towmoorow, I'd have forgotten.

    Re the Horse Whipperer (geddit?). story.

    A poll of the great unwashed, uneducated, thick, ignorant public (aka Labour voters) – 20% believe that horses should not be used for ANY SPORTING activity.

    What these half-wit fuckwits do NOT understand is that IF they had their way all those horsey-worseys would be killed off and never bred again. Because there would be no point in doing so. So there would be no horses for them to fawn over.

    (I expect it was a YouGov poll – that always gives the answer YOU want).

    TTFN (On second bottle now….)

      1. Phizzee, there is the most wonderful article on UnHerd today about the man who thought he had a click with Grizzly bears and finished up being eaten by them, and about that mindset – which I suppose you and I would call Hubris.

      2. My Oscar still dreams he's hunting with the pack, but suffers the food we give him.

    3. Horses, like dogs and cats, have evolved alongside humans. Those who did not like working with us did not get the breaks that those that did, did.

    4. Not just that, but when they have killed transport by motor vehicle we are going to need both horses and old-fashioned skills to train them in order to get around. (Put like that, I'm quite looking forward to it)

      1. Anyone that can get a horse to plough a crop will find their crop stolen and the horse roasted. It doesn't take long. Three days for a city and then they come swarming like locusts.

    6. We'll be back to using pit-ponies again when the Green scam drags us all back to the steam age.

    7. We'll be back to using pit-ponies again when the Green scam drags us all back to the steam age.

    1. What is happening in Great Yarmouth then? Don't tell me it's irregular migrants raping again !

  95. Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones – Live at the Checkerboard Lounge. Sky Arts Channel 36 on Freeview.

  96. Even with the lovely Kemi, I cannot see myself voting Conservative ever again, even if they have a serious purge of the "LibDems" amongst them, and actually put forth some conservative policies with gumption. I would like to see them split and the wets go to the LDs or Labour, where they belong, and any with the gumption to walk the conservative walk to jump over to Reform.

    1. If anyone I could vote for made that jump, so would I opopanax. Can’t come soon enough.

    2. It's unlikely they'll elect her as leader anyway. 'Lib Dem' types been there since Cameron, quite embedded. To say nothing of the blasted Civil Service. And Ms Grey.

      1. Now why is there no press curiosity about her? IRA supporter (allegedly) who has played both sides against the middle to retain unelected power. Hmm

      1. King S = I am completely losing track of which of these acronymous organisations are the good guys (I do know there to be very few)

    2. Our 'ruling classes' AKA the Government and Whitehall are always too bloody thick to understand the way they EFF every single thing they come into contact with UP.

  99. Early this morning,. Woman was attacked walking her dog early today a man from the 'Ipswich area' arrested for attempted murder.

      1. Not needed really. They know where to find their victims. Perhaps women in this country should wake up to the fact. BTW…Hope it was Cressida's mummy. She might then realise there are more important things to worry about.

      2. The description "from the Ipswich area" says it all. He was one of those people who are quite known to go round attacking women, you know, that lot.

      3. The description "from the Ipswich area" says it all. He was one of those people who are quite known to go round attacking women, you know, that lot.

  100. I'm signing off although I'm in glorious Northumberland and we are heading back Tuesday morning. And I'm having a bit of a nightmare with my 16 year old metal hip and adjacent back.
    Been sitting down all day and I couldn't even get to the pub this evening.
    Oh Booger.
    Night all 😏

  101. Back now after an uplifting sung evensong and a catch up with old friends from my former congregation (the choir was my former church choir, sacked by the rectorette).

      1. Maybe. I was at a lunch with him not so long ago and i had the staff open the bottles and put them in front of the guests. I knew his preference and after a while i asked him why he wasn't drinking.

        His response was he was waiting to be invited. There are manners and then again there are manners……………………..

          1. What can i say… I have a party coming up and i don't have time to serve a drink to everyone at the same time !

            I know. I will lay everything out and then have a headache for half an hour. :@)

          2. That should sort it….free for all, sounds like a good ‘un…do you remember those cameras, I think they were disposable – people often set them up to run for an hour at a wedding/party/whatever, took continuous photographs to a limited number.

        1. Mullet would be a staple as they like cruising in shoals, often at the surface.

          2. Oi ! Some of us can't afford Turkish Barbers and have to accept the trimmer of pain from mothers who don't have bowls !

      1. I am trying to keep an open mind on that point. The trouble is that there is so much corruption around the political scene one starts to assume bad stuff, but as far as I know there is no cause to on this. I hope you don’t know otherwise!

        1. I don't know of anything, they both seem as clean, but no-one knows too much about her. I'm going to trust his judgement 🙂 As for corruption, I don't know if it's as widespread as is reported or shock jock reporting. Pretty fed up with it tbh, on many websites and especially on social media. Thinking of taking a break 🙂

        2. No I don’t know anything (although I thought I knew I’d replied to you hours ago, apologies). Most people seem bemused by his choice, not knowing anything either.

    1. 390292+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Much, much more in line with nazi germany
      than the current Russia.

      1. I think if we had lost that war we would all be in a better place. I know you won't jump on me as a Jew hater which i am not but it might have stopped what we have now…Mental Islam.
        In fact i think the new diaspora of Jews would be safer than any where else. I wish i could go with them.

    1. Someone from the diverse sects was dressed inappropriately i suppose. Where is Bianca Sensori when you need her !

      1. Presumably getting dressed/undressed dependent on the time of day/presence of paparazzi…..

      2. Perhaps one of the Muslim women, crossing the stream, hitched up her bin bag and showed too much ankle to the lascivious goat herder menfolk.

    6. It is now time to deport these morons to their countries of origin. They are polluting our great country and mocking us with their frivolous and arcane disputes among themselves.

      Let us press on to be rid of them.

  114. Well, chums, I'll now wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well and hopefully awaken refreshed tomorrow morning.

  115. Well – I think I'm off to bed…… might come back on my phone. Had dinner, tidied up and got the plants watered. A few of the Sungold toms nearly ready to pick. Cats have been living outside the last couple of weeks – just coming in for food. Busy week coming up.

  116. I just want to mention this obit to Dame Edna O'Brien , I enjoyed reading her books , especially when I was much younger .

    My late mother once said to me , what on earth are you doing reading stuff like that .. and I replied to her , "Mummy ,you are not in the Convent now " .. she was convent educated in South West Cork and had strong ideas .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/07/28/edna-obrien-country-girls-ireland-novelist-obituary/

    Dame Edna O’Brien, acclaimed writer whose early novels caused outrage in her native Ireland – obituary
    Her needle-sharp evocations of Irish life and manners, her sexual candour – and her vivid eye for detail – made her a literary star..

    Sometimes one word can recall a whole span of life.
    Edna O'Brien

    1. My old Mum liked Edna O'Brien – she died about 23 years ago. I was surprised to read that Edna was 3 years older than my Mum!

      1. My clever youthful Mum would be 99 years old , except she was killed in a road crash in South Africa when she was 60 years old , she was driving her car , and that was it .

        1. That must be hideous, the complete shock. My Mum was taken out by liver cancer aged 67 – still early – but at least I got the chance to tell her how much I loved her.

    1. Thanks a ton, Caroline and Rastus.

      80 Not Out, but in an innings where all the players get dismissed …

      3. Excellent knock, wait until you get to the nervous 90s. Have a lovely day, LD.

    1. 'Morning, Geoff and thank you for the fine job you do, all the work and effort you have put in to keep us all going. Well done! More power to your elbow (or keyboard).

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