Sunday 3 April: Decades of woolly thinking on Britain’s energy policy have come back to bite

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

782 thoughts on “Sunday 3 April: Decades of woolly thinking on Britain’s energy policy have come back to bite”

    2. I don’t see what business it is of government one way or the other. If a group sets up to provide ‘conversion therapy; then so be it. If another group sets up to support gays, so be it. Neither should receive a penny in public funding.

  4. Diesel delivery highlights UK dependence on Russia. 4 april 2022.

    On Saturday afternoon, a bright red tanker carrying 33,000 tonnes of Russian diesel sailed up the Thames and delivered its cargo in Grays, Essex.

    Its arrival – which doesn’t violate sanctions – highlights the UK’s dependence on Russia, which supplies nearly a fifth of the country’s diesel.

    How to shoot yourself in the foot while trying to look noble!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60948439

    1. Morning Minty – from the same page:

      “Phasing out Russian oil will be extremely hard, and diesel will be particularly difficult. Russia supplies 8% of the UK’s oil needs but 18% of its diesel, according to government figures.
      Diesel is essential to a modern economy. Besides fuelling more than a third of UK cars, it powers trucks, buses, some trains, farming and construction equipment, and is used for generating electricity.
      The Ukraine crisis has led to a shortage of diesel across Europe, which depends on Russia for about half of its diesel imports.
      This shortage has been reflected in the prices that drivers pay for diesel at the pump, which have been rising faster than petrol prices.
      The average price of diesel in the UK has risen 18% since the start of February, to 177p a litre, while the average cost of unleaded has risen by 11%, according to RAC Fuel Watch.”

      1. I paid 180p per litre last Saturday. Fortunately I don’t go far so it lasts me quite a while.

    3. We notice that this article doesn’t comment on the Government cancelling “red diesel” which was for the benefit of farmers.

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – The plans to cover an area “the size of Exmoor” with solar panels are just another example of woolly-headed government thinking on energy.

    At least 10 years ago, the building industry had the ability to fit solar panels on to new-build homes, but it hasn’t happened. No government in the last 20 years has had the guts to commit itself to nuclear power, as the French have. Neither have our leaders prioritised energy security by continuing to invest in North Sea oil.

    Fracking is a contentious issue – but instead of putting some investment behind it while the industry worked on solving potential problems, developing different methods and reassuring the general public that it can be done safely, governments have taken the easy option and walked away.

    Now the “plan” is to carpet the countryside with on-shore turbines and solar panels. This will remove acres of valuable farmland that could be used for food production, meaning we will have to import even more at a time when transport fuel prices are going through the roof.

    Paul Braithwaite
    London

    Quite right, Paul Braithwaite.  The failure of successive governments to devise a workable and affordable energy policy is nothing short of scandalous, and is now costing us dear.  Despite recent signs that things may be about to change, I’m far from convinced that they are ready to take on the small but vociferous eco-loons who are permitted to break the law in pursuit of their idiotic aims.

    1. They haven’t wanted to because the agenda has always been to force green on people. There has been absolute no consideration or interest in energy security, it was all ‘you will accept climate change and we WILL tax you into the ground for it’.

      It is simply a tax scam. That annoys me on two level – the deliberate destruction of our energy supply and the cynical manipulation of gullible, immature children who think the government gives a stuff about ecology. It doesn’t.

  6. SIR – Terry Crocker (Letters, March 27) asks whether it is more economical to boil a kettle using electricity or gas.

    He may be pleased to know that gas is far cheaper. Unlike the large quantity required for central heating and hot-water cylinders, the amount used when cooking on a hob is minuscule.

    I discovered this a few summers ago, when I switched off the boiler from May to September (using solar panels for hot water). I cooked every day and boiled countless kettles on the hob, yet the gas meter digits hardly moved. My electric kettle has become redundant.

    Penny Ann McKeon
    Henfield, West Sussex

    Not the most scientific answer, Ms McKeon!

    At my previous house I experienced the same massive reduction of metered gas when the boiler went off and the solar pv panels heated the hot water.  In my case the period was more like late Feb/early March to early/late October.

    The average domestic gas boiler capacity is around 24 to 34Kw, depending upon the size of the accommodation.  By comparison, a hob gas burner uses a tiny amount of gas, and it is no surprise to see a dramatic reduction once the seasonal need for gas heating is over. 

    Last year I found an article in a respected journal (not the DT, obviously!) wherein it concluded that a unit of heat energy using electricity was, at that time, close to four times the cost of the same quantity of energy using gas.  (Needless to say I can’t find it now.)  Add to electricity the ‘green taxes’ of 25% and there can be no doubt which method of boiling a kettle is the more expensive. 

    Ms McKeon came to the right answer but perhaps via the wrong means.

    1. Morning Hugh. About 18 months ago the price per KWh of energy of gas was 25% that of electricity according to my energy bills. I fear the market is being manipulated to make gas more expensive than electricity to that everyone is nudged bludgeoned into going ‘green’ and compelled to use electricity instead of gas….

      (PS – The energy company supplies me with daily information on my energy use (data from the smart meters that were installed prior to moving in) – however you have to dig around to work out the comparative costs of the energy consumed or wait a month until the bill arrives!)

      1. Apologies for being obtuse, but ‘you fear’ the market is being manipulated? It clearly is. The state is using crushing taxation to force it’s agenda.

      2. ‘Morning, Stephen. A few months ago you may recall the suggestion that green taxes would be switched to gas (or perhaps to add them to gas while keeping those on electricity in place, more like). I imagine that the present turmoil in the markets may have made this wretched government think again.

      3. Of course electricity is more expensive than gas! First, you pay for the fuel, then burn it to make the ‘leccy, then transport it to the user. With gas, the user burns it, so there’s a step missing, and that step isn’t terribly efficient.

      4. Of course electricity is more expensive than gas! First, you pay for the fuel, then burn it to make the ‘leccy, then transport it to the user. With gas, the user burns it, so there’s a step missing, and that step isn’t terribly efficient.

    1. I hadn’t noticed it earlier. Have you seen in the group photographs how many of the World’s ‘Leaders’ wear the same coloured tie? I call it Soros Purple…..

    2. I hadn’t noticed it earlier. Have you seen in the group photographs how many of the World’s ‘Leaders’ wear the same coloured tie? I call it Soros Purple…..

  8. The USA wants this war… so it can drive Russia back to the Stone Age. Peter Hitchens 4 april 2022.

    It is this policy which explains the otherwise mad expansion of Nato, against the warnings of every qualified expert in the world. It also explains the taunting of Russia by President George W. Bush’s 2008 suggestion that Ukraine should actually join Nato.

    This came just a year after Vladimir Putin, still more or less open to reason, said very clearly that he’d had enough and that Nato expansion should stop. Then, of course, came the events of 2014, in which the USA openly backed a mob putsch which overthrew Ukraine’s legitimate President Viktor Yanukovych. More responsible nations, including France, Germany and Poland, tried to broker a peaceful, lawful path.

    But when Ukraine’s democratic opposition leaders told the Kiev mob about this deal in the early hours of February 21, one of the mob chieftains snarled that they did not want deals, that Yanukovych must go immediately, ending with this threat: ‘Unless this morning you come up with a statement demanding that he steps down, then we will take arms and go, I swear!’

    The elected president soon afterwards fled for his life, probably wisely, and was formally removed in a shabby procedure that fell far short of lawful impeachment.

    This putsch was the true beginning of the war now raging, the initial act of violence which triggered everything else.

    This is a pretty fair recounting of why we are where we are! Whether Russia will go quietly into the “Stone Age” is debatable. Surely there will come a point where they decide that if they are to go they will make sure everyone else pays their fare?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10679743/PETER-HITCHENS-USA-wants-war-drive-Russia-Stone-Age.html

    1. Well, Putin did say recently that the world was going back to basing value on minerals….I think he was talking about gold and land though.

      1. 351833+ up ticks,
        Morning S,
        The time was three plus decades ago .

        The major chap was the start of the serious decline thats when the political shite mountain footings were laid and have been built on ever since by an electorate that vote / support a long defunct party name.

  9. SIR – It is absolutely disgraceful that postmasters wrongly convicted of false accounting or theft should have to apply to have their convictions overturned. This should happen immediately.

    There used to be a principle in our legal system that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted.

    Many of these postmasters have said they were told by senior officials that they were the only ones having trouble with the software, but those officials knew that hundreds were having similar problems.

    It is high time that these individuals faced the consequences of sending innocent people to prison using false evidence. In my view the penalty for wrongful imprisonment should itself be a prison sentence.

    Andrew Rixon
    Hertford

    Hear, hear! It is a national scandal of truly epic proportions that no one has been jailed for covering up the obvious defects in the Horizon system and falsely accusing many sub-postmasters of fraud, resulting in jail sentences and all that these have entailed (wrecked health, broken families, no future prospects of employment, shunned in their communities etc). And you can guess who will be picking up the tab for eye-watering but fully deserved compensation payments.

    1. Absolutely. I honestly don’t understand how people can be sent to prison without a thorough investigation. It is too co-incidental that a new software roll out should suddenly see people stealing money. Perhaps they thought people would use it as cover for theft, in which case you check. If the system cannot provide the evidence then you cannot convict.

      Almost all software is rubbish. Very little is written well and the bigger the provider the worse the software is likely to be. I see appalling software go into customer sites because they’ve no choice and it is universally utter pap.

      1. Senior officials within the post office lied to the Court. The judge accepted their testimony.

        1. A slight correction, Phil, we are talking about a multitude of cases, not a single case:-

          Senior officials within the post office lied to the Courts. The judges accepted their testimony, every time.

          1. I always thought that lying on oath was illegal.

            Why haven’t any Post Office officials been prosecuted for perjury?

          3. Quite so, Alf. I believe that the Perjury Act of 1911 still applies, in which case the maximum penalty is two years in jail, with or without a fine. Seems rather light to me, bearing in mind the effect on the innocent in this case…

    2. I would have thought that all postal products – stamps, electronic credits for postage labels etc would be accountable and auditable. So which products were alleged to have been sold for which the proceeds were pocketed by the post masters? I listened with incredulity to a radio documentary on this issue a couple of years ago.

          2. The uptick is for you feeling better, not that you’ve had a hellish week!

          1. He’s spent most of the day sorting through surplus books on British/World history, and books on English Kings & Queens and books on The history of WWI, WWII and associated topics.

  11. Britain could get seven new nuclear power stations by 2050. 3 April 2022.

    Britain could build up to seven new nuclear power stations as part of a radical expansion of homegrown energy following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Business Secretary has said.

    In an interview with The Telegraph, Kwasi Kwarteng said “there is a world where we have six or seven sites in the UK” by 2050 as part of a push for self-reliance.

    Ministers have agreed to set up a development vehicle, Great British Nuclear, to identify sites, cut through red tape to speed up the planning process and bring together private firms to run each site.

    Wow! Slashing Red Tape eh? 2050? They are practically up and running already!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/02/britain-could-get-seven-new-nuclear-power-stations-2050/

    1. As an OAP I’d be more interested to read Kwasi Kwarteng’s proposals for the autumn/winter of 2022 which appear to be missing.

      1. Hinckley C started in the late 80s. Still not finished 35 years later. Only 27 years to 2050…

  12. SIR – It is astounding that, in the forthcoming BBC series Art That Made Us, the artist Jeremy Deller refused to cover work from the reign of Henry VIII because he thought the king was “just a horrible, horrible person”.

    It is equally astonishing that the BBC put up with this childishness. It seems to have forgotten that the adults who pay the wages of its staff might be very interested in the Tudor period.

    Patrick Kelly
    Chippenham, Wiltshire

    SIR – Surely it’s in the public interest to know what art was created during this turbulent period of our history. We should learn from our past. It has made us what we are.

    I for one am not interested in Jeremy Deller’s “cancel culture” views. Surely the BBC could have chosen someone else. There must be other articulate artists out there.

    Paul Langford
    Ingatestone, Essex

    How typical of the BBC to select a trendy luvvie as one of the ‘experts’ for this programme. A proper historian would have approached this subject in a scholarly and adult way, not like a foot-stamping child. Dr Starkey has already done so, and it was a pleasure to watch.

    Dellers:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Deller

          1. Guess he would shun art made by the inmates of Auschwitz on the basis that it was a nazi extermination camp.

          2. ‘Morning Obers! Yes, I think he probably is that stoopid! Hope your day improves!

    2. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. He just sounds like a spoiled child – one who should have no place on the BBC.

    3. I’ll bet he has no such qualms about art from the reign of Charles II, despite that monarch reinstating the transatlantic slave trade that had been banned by Oliver Cromwell.

    4. ‘Conceptual, video and installation artist’.
      In other words, he has no talent.

  13. SIR – Your report (March 27) about the rising number of dog attacks on livestock makes no mention of the responsibilities of dog-owners to train and manage their pets. Were these people prosecuted? If not, why not?

    The number of people owning dogs has increased rapidly in recent years, but there seems to be a rapidly decreasing understanding of what a dog is. They are not human; nor do they adopt human ways of behaving.

    They are pack animals with an instinct to chase and kill prey. They can be trained not to do this, but only if they understand their position as subservient in the human pack that adopts them.

    Peter Roberts
    Crickhowell, Brecknockshire

    As a part-time volunteer forest ranger for the past 12 years I have lost count of the number of times dog-owners have said “Oh he/she would never chase livestock” when reminded that they are in the grazing area with sheep nearby. Every year, without fail, sheep are both chased and savaged by ‘family pets’. We even run short and inexpensive courses for responsible dog-owners, but unfortunately the irresponsible type are not interested. Destroying a family pet with a shotgun isn’t pleasant, and some owners need to realise that merely chasing livestock is sufficient to justify their destruction. Neither is it pleasant destroying horribly injured livestock.

    Rant over!

    1. I’ll make it clear that despite being a working dog, Mongo does not chase sheep. He doesn’t like them very much as they tend to head but him.

      In fact, none of my dogs have ever chased sheep, cows, chickens. Wiggy used to try to herd pigs but he wasn’t very good at it. Maybe they’ve no prey drive as that’s not their history. Maybe when I say no, it means no.

      At the moment there’s a battle of wills between my saying no and Junior saying yes. It’s not fair on Mongo as he gets mixed signals and Junior’s not old enough to realise why this is a bad thing.

    2. I regularly see dogs walking their staff. It’s quite clear who is in charge and who is the pack leader. No wonder so many dogs are anxious – having to make all the decisions can’t be easy for them 🙂

  14. ‘They were all shot’: Russia accused of war crimes as Bucha reveals horror of invasion. 3 april 2022.

    The retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has left horrifying evidence of atrocities against civilians littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, turned into hellish war zones by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

    As Ukrainian armoured columns rolled into Bucha, a town north-west of the capital, they found streets blocked by burned-out Russian tanks and military vehicles, and strewn with the bodies of civilians whom locals said had been killed by the invading forces without provocation.

    Photographs from the town showed a scene of devastation, with hunks of charred and destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles lined up along one street, along with dead bodies.

    Along with all these accusations of “war crimes”, which are nothing of the kind, it is worth reflecting that civilians are inevitable casualties just by virtue of being in the Combat Zone. This has always been true of every conflict from the beginning of time. Here of course it is just being used as propaganda.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/they-were-all-shot-russia-accused-of-war-crimes-as-bucha-reveals-horror-of-invasion

    1. Morning Minty! “Ukrainian armoured columns”? Conjures up a vision of a mighty army that no more exists than Ukraine itself existed pre-Soviet. As for civilian casualties. Korea, Vietnam, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria.

  15. ‘They were all shot’: Russia accused of war crimes as Bucha reveals horror of invasion. 3 april 2022.

    The retreat of Russian forces around Kyiv has left horrifying evidence of atrocities against civilians littered across the region’s suburbs and towns, turned into hellish war zones by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

    As Ukrainian armoured columns rolled into Bucha, a town north-west of the capital, they found streets blocked by burned-out Russian tanks and military vehicles, and strewn with the bodies of civilians whom locals said had been killed by the invading forces without provocation.

    Photographs from the town showed a scene of devastation, with hunks of charred and destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles lined up along one street, along with dead bodies.

    Along with all these accusations of “war crimes”, which are nothing of the kind, it is worth reflecting that civilians are inevitable casualties just by virtue of being in the Combat Zone. This has always been true of every conflict from the beginning of time. Here of course it is just being used as propaganda.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/they-were-all-shot-russia-accused-of-war-crimes-as-bucha-reveals-horror-of-invasion

  17. Good morning all. A dull and overcast start to the day. Dry with a chilly -2°C outside in the yard.

    1. Well, they generate enough gas of their own every time they open their mouths.

      1. An idea would be to prevent government officials from using energy – but still send them the bill for a full day’s use.

        That’d concentrate their minds to get costs down and remind them of the future they’ve forced on us.

        1. All ‘non green’ heating should be turned off in the Palace of Westminster.

          1. And leave all the doors and windows open to reduce the possibility of catching covid like they suggested for schools.

    2. Woke up nice and warm. Got out of bed, made coffee, emptied washer, reloaded washer and thought… it’s not especially…. and the thermo was 16.2’c inside.

      It rather makes you want to grab one fo the cabinet by the throat and hit them until they get the message.

      Hell, the whole lot should be collared, chained and forced to walk at heel.

          1. Totally wrecked, to be honest. Early bed Friday, slept much of the nice part of Saturday, feel de-energised and useless today. Can barely press keyboard keys in the right order. Been over-working, suffering brain fade as a result.
            Hope you’re doing better, Grizz.

          2. At age 71 I’ve learnt how to pace myself better these days, Paul. My disciplined diet also helps a lot.

            Trouble is, it took me this long to work all that out! ☹️

          3. Morning Grizz. Applies to everything surely? By the time you have figured it all out you are too old to do anything about it!

          5. Indeed. Somewhat outflanked by the combo of hard & difficult work, selling Mother’s house, sorting out a home for her, and no vacation for the covid period. 2 out of 3 would be OK, but…
            A week on the smallholding, doing physical stuff, would go a long way towards recovery – and it’s Easter soon, so hanging on for that. Hoping for good weather, too.

          6. Two hours of Enya on the drive home has worked wonders with tension levels! Reccommended!

      1. Good morning Bill,

        Not sure about being fully recovered, taste and smell still affected , and have rather a rattly pair of lungs , but oh so much better than I felt last week .

        1. Sense of taste recovering? Excellent – it’s miserable not being able to taste food – or do you mean you no longer wear the plastic leopard-skin print mini-dress?

    5. Similar here, Belle. Most snow gone, we need rain now – place looks like Nigeria in the dry season. :-((

      1. Good morning Phizzee

        Were you living where you are currently when the Falklands war preparations were going ahead, 40 years ago.. I know you were just a lad then .

        1. No, i was in Portsmouth. I waved them off with everyone else.

          Been here 30 years. A couple of gaps in Brum and London. Rented the bungalow out for those forays into two ghastly cities. Just following where the work was at the time.

  20. Good morning, all. Last of the frosty mornings for a while, if the BBC forecast is to be believed.

    Below, Dr Geert Vanden Bossche lays out his view of what the future holds re SARS-CoV-2. It is not a pleasant future for many and he may, of course, be wrong. However, as one of the World’s greatest minds in the sciences concerning virology, immunology etc. he deserves to be heard. A year or so ago he spoke, in fact his words were more a plea, to the WHO and other bodies pushing the mass inoculation, asking them to stop. The consequences he told them, would be the creation of variants, one after the other. Naturally, he was ignored by the globalist controlled WHO and governments who pushed on regardless with sticking needles into millions of people. Sadly, he has been proven correct on his early prediction. If he is correct in his latest paper…

    Dr Vanden Bossche’s paper is 45 pages of technical writing and I haven’t linked to it: the conclusion below is more than enough for lay people.

    “I SERIOUSLY expect that a series of new highly virulent and highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 (SC-2) variants will now rapidly and independently emerge in highly vaccinated countries all over the world and that they will soon spread at high pace. I expect the current pattern of repetitive infections and relatively mild disease in vaccinees to soon aggravate and be replaced by severe disease and death. Unfortunately, there is no way vaccinees can rely on assistance from their innate immune system to protect against coronaviruses as their relevant innate IgM antibodies are increasingly being outcompeted by infection-enhancing vaccinal Abs, which are continuously recalled due to the circulation of highly infectious Omicron variants. In contrast, Omicron’s high infectiousness would enable the non-vaccinated to train their innate immune defense against SC-2 while the infectious and pathogenic capacity of the new SC-2 variants would be debilitated in the non-vaccinated for lack of infection-enhancing Abs in their blood. Unless…”

    Questions. Have the WHO and those pushing the “vaccine”, by their desire to become our masters rather than serve us, lost control of the “virus vaccine” relationship and therefore are floundering in the mess they have created? Is the ‘booster’ here, ‘booster’ there idea a mere sticking plaster response to what Dr Vanden Bossche is referring to? Whilst all the time the ‘booster’ is in fact exacerbating the problem.

      1. No, he is a very well respected scientist with an excellent record of achievement.

    2. I went into the office for the last time this Friday to say farewell to colleagues and have a drink before retiring. It was unprecedented how many staff were off sick with covid (or some other virus following on from covid). I can be fairly sure virtually all the staff have been ‘vaxxed’ (certainly those I spoke to all had) and when those well enough to appear were discussing their health, I truly heard ‘We all had covid but it could have been so much worse if we hadn’t been double vaxxed and boostered’. They clearly have no idea the jabs have damaged their immune systems.

      I was apalled to hear on the news that they are now rolling out this poison to 5-11 yr olds.

        1. Thankyou, I am very much looking forward to working on my own projects and spending time with the grandchildren.

          1. People often find in retirement they are busier and doing more than when they worked in the office.

          3. You’ll find once you’ve retired that you wonder how you ever found time to work! I speak from experience 🙂

  22. OT – last night we watched a (recorded) programme in the BBC4 “Storyville” series about the memories of elderly Germans of Jews and concentration camps.

    It is called (with some irony) FINAL ACCOUNT

    “A portrait of the last living generation of everyday people to participate in the Third Reich. Men and women ranging from former SS officers to children who grew up in Hitler’s Germany speak for the first time about their memories and perceptions of some of the greatest crimes in human history.”

    Chilling.

  23. Good Morning All.
    Sometimes it is very difficult to hope for better things to come. Yesterday I saw a wine label that said “Small Fuck”” and today saw a wine label that blasphemously pastiched Da Vinci’s “Last Supper”.
    Desert Island Discs has as a guest the boss from an organisation that supports trans gender children from two years old in India.
    I saw the film “Things to come” around 60 years ago.

    https://amegusta.com/boutique/en/south-west/270-cahors-little-fuck-100-malbec-75-cl-14-2018.html
    https://www.ventealapropriete.com/ventesprivees/m_i=woFdndW8HI8d6Gh0gqYoBDTUdqbL8nhS%2B6oqhs3f8JmRT4JtsRNmiUE87XBEBbcqm6ASAcBaUimxE2S0DzLebQTW8qwwwK&utm_source=Newsletter#vp8683
    https://food.ndtv.com/news/unaids-launches-campaign-to-highlight-rights-of-trans-children-2850271
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0015tp2#xtor=CS8-1000-%5BDiscovery_Cards%5D-%5BMulti_Site%5D-%5BGR01%5D-%5BPS_SOUNDS~N~~P_DesertIslandDiscs%5D
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqKGlrPAfSw

  24. Good morning, everyone. Walked the dog for an hour. Hard frost. Brilliant sunshine.

    1. Morning, Delboy.
      Puts me to shame – just on second coffee, and breakfast pizza. No movement at all… 🙁

  25. Police ‘should be able to work from home’

    Head of Superintendents’ Association also claims that flexible working would boost diversity

    POLICE officers of the future should be allowed to choose their own hours and spend more time working from home, the newly elected President of the Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA) has suggested.

    Paul Fotheringham, who took up his new post last month, said the pandemic had demonstrated how police forces could afford to be much more flexible with their staff, while still protecting the public.

    He said allowing officers to fix their own work patterns would help improve diversity in policing and would increase the number of women able to reach senior ranks.

    Earlier this year Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, hit out at the work from home culture and urged people to return to the office, claiming that staff were missing out on vital interaction with colleagues.

    But Mr Fotheringham, who spent 28 years with the Kent Force, rising to detective chief superintendent, said if policing wanted to remain attractive as a career option, it needed to modernise and be open to flexible working.

    He acknowledged there would always be a need for frontline officers working around the clock to respond to emergencies, but he said the changing nature of crime and the increased use of technology, meant there was now much more scope for remote police work.

    Just over half of all police are nonemergency response officers so could be eligible for some form of flexible working arrangements.

    Mr Fotheringham said: “There’s no escaping the fact that we can’t compete in many ways with the private sector when it comes to employee packages and benefits, but we have so much else to offer that’s [unique] to policing.

    “The only way we will continue to be attractive as a career choice, whilst also bringing in people representing every part of our communities, is to become more flexible and forward thinking when it comes to working patterns.

    “We’re seeing this happen and it’s really important that we drive this forward.”

    He said the pandemic had forced the police to embrace new technology which had opened the door to more remote working.

    And while his comments might alarm some people, he insisted the public would not get a reduced service if officers were at home rather than based in police stations.

    He explained: “I’ve no doubt that when we started having to work from home, there would have been some senior leaders asking the questions: ‘People working from home? We need to check they are working’, instead of actually trusting the staff.

    “But we as an organisation must learn to adapt. Covid has helped with that in a way, because I think it has opened the eyes of many senior leaders within policing and demonstrated that if you offer more flexibility with your workforce you are going to get so much more back.”

    He went on: “Obviously in terms of uniformed officers you are always going to need people available to deal with emergencies but policing is about many different roles so the challenge for us in the future is to be much more flexible.”

    Mr Fotheringham also stressed the need to improve diversity in policing so that it better reflected the communities it serves.

    He said that a particular issue in the past had been officers forced to leave the service because they struggled to fit punishing shift patterns around family life.

    But he said that by offering more flexibility and allowing officers to choose which hours they worked, women with young children would be able to stay in service and gain promotions that had previously been out of reach.

    Meanwhile, it has been announced that Dame Cressida Dick’s last day as Metropolitan Police Commissioner will be Sunday April 10.

    Call me an ancient, out-of-touch, old-fashioned, fogey of a dinosaur; but, time was when police forces were run on military precision and discipline by people who possessed balls and brains. It seems that continued and incessant infiltration by the Common Purpose mob is intent on destroying Sir Robert Peel’s original and unimprovable concept and replacing the force with a disservice that is beyond a joke.

    When clowns are elected to power, who then install other clowns and imbeciles into positions of influence throughout society, then there is little hope left for what was once lauded as civilisation.

    2. Improve diversity in policing to reflect the communities….

      Ie. fill it with foreigners. You know, this country has been overrun with them. It’s normal, decent, civil society has been absolutely overrun with the alien. It is a deliberate attempt at race replacement, the destruction of a culture and society, a way of life for political gain.

      There’s no need to make the police multi culti because society should never have been forcibly subverted. It screams that they only want ethnics to deal with ethnics, perhaps to let them off. we already have plod ignoring rape and paedophilia crimes : is that what this diversification of the police is about?

      No. What we need is law enforcement. Brutal, straightforward, honest law enforcement. Not letting off one group, not treating the Muslims differently, not having Pakistani officers for Pakistani criminals because they’ll ‘understand’ their grooming and rape of children – we need a police force that enforces the law, equally.

      Frankly, this country has been made an abomination of weirdos, Lefties and wasters. Treated as a doss house by benefit frauds and thieves, rapists and murderers abound. It shouldn’t be like this. Everything is wrong. Everything.

        1. They’re free to leave to live somewhere else. Heck, 70% are entirely dependent on welfare. 70%. That figure is staggering. Why were they let into the country if they have no useful skills?

          Immigration is purely an economic issue. If people arrive here and are simply parasitic, then they make no contribution to the country and shouldn’t come here.

          Has anyone given thought to the 18% in poverty (a relative term) are actually poor because the few jobs they could do are taken by immigrants sat on welfare? That the welfare bill is so high simply because Labour added 40 million mouths to feed? Was that fair on the indigenous population OR the tsunami of immigrants?

        2. They could try getting a job and supporting themselves rather than scrounging off ‘hard working families’.

        3. If they insist in bringing with them their primitive ways and refuse to integrate into society, what do they expect?

        5. Enough spare cash to ply young girls with alcohol and dope them up to the eyeballs.

      2. “What we need is law enforcement. Brutal, straightforward, honest law enforcement.”

        I do believe that was Sir Robert Peel’s original idea.

    3. That’s his answer to Rotherham is it. Perhaps the police were working from home and couldn’t see anything wrong.
      As you say Grizz, an imbecile appointed by other imbeciles.
      The pandemic of stupidity is growing exponentially.

    4. There aren’t a lot of women demonstrators that can be physically abused or strip-searched lurking at home.
      Where do they get these clowns?

      1. It saves an awful lot of Suing for wrongful arrests and unwarranted strip searches etc. The Lawyers will therefore likely to be dead against any move for police men/women/trans working from home….

    5. There was an article recently concerning police recruits. It seems that even in today’s Police Farce, 50% of them were not fit for purpose.

      Softy little woke snowflakes.

  26. PETER HITCHENS: The USA wants this war… so it can drive Russia back to the Stone Age

    This is not a war between Ukraine and Russia. It is a war between the USA and Russia, in which both sides are cynically using Ukraine as a battering ram.

    The people of Ukraine will gain nothing and lose much from being treated in this way. They fight and die or lose their homes and flee. We pour in more weapons and shout encouragement from a safe distance. Russia wrecks the joint.

    What Ukraine actually needs is action to cure its festering, universal corruption. It would also benefit from the pushing to the margins of the ultra-nationalist fanatics who have far too much influence in its government and armed forces. The war will make these problems worse, not better.

    As I once again find myself on the despised, hated and reviled side of the argument, I might as well do this properly. These are very cynical events indeed. I am sorry to say that there are people in the USA who will not be sad if this war drags on.
    A ‘senior diplomat’ was quoted on Friday, by a commentator with ready access to the great and the good, as saying: ‘If you look at all the options, our strategic interest is probably best served in a long war, a quagmire that drains Putin militarily and economically so he cannot do this again.’

    This is no doubt true. Since the American neo-conservative politician Paul Wolfowitz set out his ‘doctrine’ in 1992, Washington has wanted to crush any revival of Russian power. The flaw with this scheme is that it was, in fact, China that was the threat, not Russia. But there you are. Mr Wolfowitz, a keen backer of the disastrous Iraq war, is not as clever as he thinks he is.

    It is this policy which explains the otherwise mad expansion of Nato, against the warnings of every qualified expert in the world. It also explains the taunting of Russia by President George W. Bush’s 2008 suggestion that Ukraine should actually join Nato.

    This came just a year after Vladimir Putin, still more or less open to reason, said very clearly that he’d had enough and that Nato expansion should stop. Then, of course, came the events of 2014, in which the USA openly backed a mob putsch which overthrew Ukraine’s legitimate President Viktor Yanukovych. More responsible nations, including France, Germany and Poland, tried to broker a peaceful, lawful path.
    But when Ukraine’s democratic opposition leaders told the Kiev mob about this deal in the early hours of February 21, one of the mob chieftains snarled that they did not want deals, that Yanukovych must go immediately, ending with this threat: ‘Unless this morning you come up with a statement demanding that he steps down, then we will take arms and go, I swear!’

    The elected president soon afterwards fled for his life, probably wisely, and was formally removed in a shabby procedure that fell far short of lawful impeachment.

    This putsch was the true beginning of the war now raging, the initial act of violence which triggered everything else.

    Putin’s decision to respond to it with an invasion was not just a crime. It was a terrible mistake. I suspect there were some in various parts of the current US administration who had to conceal their glee when he did this idiotic thing.

    It is an old tactic in high-stakes diplomacy to provoke your enemy into an unwise war, in the hope you will then destroy him.

    Germany did it to France in 1870, luring Napoleon III into a defeat which ended France as a great power. Germany did it again in 1914, goading Russia into another stupid war, which destroyed its monarchy and its prosperity, and subjected Russians to 75 years of Communist ruin.

    I do not think the USA expects to defeat Putin any time soon, though he could just collapse. I have less and less confidence in peace talks, which the USA is not even attending.
    Meanwhile the people of Ukraine will suffer horribly, while the world gradually loses interest. Putin and the USA now have a stake in keeping the conflict going. If Putin pulls out, it will destroy him.

    If the war stops, Washington will have lost an opportunity to bleed Russia white and to sanction its economy back into the Stone Age. Russia might break up under such pressure.

    The elimination of Russia as a major country will then be achieved, though someone had better be careful about what happens to all its nuclear weapons if that comes to pass. Meanwhile the Chinese police state, the closest the world has yet come to Orwell’s 1984, grows in strength and power, biding its time.

    I am reminded of Robert Southey’s poem about the Battle of Blenheim, which my late father (who had seen a bit of war) was fond of quoting. A child finds a skull on the long-ago battlefield and asks his grandfather what it is. The old man tries feebly to explain, but the poem ends: ‘But what good came of it at last?’ quoth little Peterkin. ‘Why that I cannot tell,’ said he, ‘but ’twas a famous victory.’

    1. Notwithstanding possible incompetence in the Russian military, I suspect that huge numbers of advance weapons systems have been sent to the Ukes along with advisors. Although there has been significant resistance from the population, driving back the might of the Russian military requires more than plucky citizens acting alongside their army. The RAF “Rivet Joint” aircraft has been operating along the border. It provides intelligence on ground positions and engages in electronic warfare, quite a sitting duck for Vlad if he wants to expand the conflict.

      1. I wonder which ‘Rivet Joint’ aircraft we talk about today.

        In my day it was the Shackleton, described as “40,000 rivets, flying in close formation.”

        1. Maybe they adapted the name to the modern version which has its roots in the B707.

      2. It’s a useful testing ground , like all the other minor skirmishes round the world.

  29. Part of Rod Liddle’s article about the wendyball world cup thingy….(in the Sunday Grimes – whose website is barely working):

    “Whether we should be in Qatar at all is an entirely different matter. We go there knowing full well that the decision to base the tournament in that scorching and sand-blown totalitarian satrapy was corrupt, and that hundreds of foreign workers, little better than slaves, died during the construction of what will undoubtedly be the usual Middle East bling stadiums, a style of architecture that seems to be a blend of Albert Speer and the Candy Brothers.

    Yet the formerly pious, knee-bending Mr Southgate seems not to give a monkey’s about any of that — and we fans are all too thrilled and bloated with expectation to care about such trivialities as democracy and human rights.”

    1. I don’t care what they get up to, as long as they keep pumping the oil in our direction, though Johnson appears to have even messed those deals up. Probably intentionally as the ‘net zero’ strategy unfolds…

  30. “Sir” Mark Thatcher: over-entitled, self-possessed and spoilt favourite son of an influential figure, with a penchant for uncontrolled recklessness and associating with rich and dangerous renegades.

    The Duke of York: over-entitled, self-possessed and spoilt favourite son of an influential figure, with a penchant for uncontrolled recklessness and associating with rich and dangerous renegades.

    Am I alone in noticing a connection, or distinct similarity, between such over-pampered stereotypes?

    1. Morning Grizzly

      Don’t forget the young useless Beckham lad who will be getting married shortly to an American Billionaires daughter ?

      1. Hi, Maggie.

        I tend not to have that family anywhere my universe. I’m not really as “celeb” [sorry: nonentity] kind of individual.

    2. Money talks – and those in possesion of the money and entitlement are not necessarily the most intelligent or sensible.

    4. In the interests of inclusivity and diversity, you could throw Dianne Abbott’s self entitled brat into that mix!

    2. The photo doesn’t really live up to the headline. Hardly Hunter Biden’s laptop, is it.
      If that’s cocaine, he’s an utter clot.

      1. I don’t understand why he even allowed himself to be photographed anywhere near the stuff.

        1. In my experience, people who take drugs think it’s normal after a while, and can scarcely believe that there is anyone who doesn’t do it.

      1. Given that 9 out of 10 loos tested positive on the government estate i agree with you.

  32. Is nothing sacred? The Derby, for heavens sake! Time for a bit of Fratricide/Avunculicide or Transportation to Tasmania

    Now Prince Andrew ‘will chaperone Queen to the Derby’: Disgraced duke plans to take his mother to Epsom after Westminster Abbey stunt… despite being told by Charles and William to ‘disappear’ following rape case payout
    The Duke of York is planning on accompanying the Queen to the Derby in June
    The Epsom race makes up part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations this year
    The Queen needs a ‘chaperone on all occasions’ due to her mobility, source says

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10680871/Now-Prince-An

    1. Time for a bit of realisation that he has neither been charged nor convicted of any offence.

      I think that despite evidence to the contrary, one is still innocent until proven guilty in this country.

        2. Well the queen has not told him that, its rather obvious. Ultimately it is for her to say. So whatever others tell him to do is irrelevant.

      2. The mob rules these days. And let us not forget the non-crimes recorded by police against your name,

      3. Doesn’t seem to me to be much in the way of evidence Nanny. Unless we can pretend that Andrews unpopularity before this happened is evidence. But it isn’t, being a prat is not proof of any crime, I think you will agree.
        Frankly I suspect she is a gold digger. Her age at the time does not make his behaviour, if it happened, a crime in the UK. People should not forget that. It is odd to me that she tried to get him tried in America. And I’m sure the reason is that the Americans are quick to judge. The treatment of Justice Kavanaugh is testimony of that. “We must believe all women”. Even when they are escorts for sex. Right!!!

        1. I take it you mean Andrew, rather than Edward.

          I suspect the gold digger wanted him tried in America because sex with a 17 year old girl is not a crime in this country. Clearly, as she had bragged about it to her friend, she was a willing participant.

          1. Oops. thank you Ndovu, will change that. It becomes rather a blur who they all are at a certain point, I think you will agree. And yes, I think she was, if it happened, a willing participant. I would be happy to bet she saw the potential of the cash machine between her legs.

          2. She may have been corrupted in the first place by Epstein and Ghislaine, but later she appeared to enjoy recruiting other young girls. The testimony of her friend that she was ‘over the moon’ about meeting and sleeping with Prince Andrew, rang true.
            And the famous photograph shows she was happy to be with him, whereas the Prince himself looks shocked at the flash going off.

          4. Good morning all.
            Paying for secks with anyone under the age of eighteen can be an offence in the UK. Did the teenager receive any payment, in cash or kind, from Andrew?

          6. No, I mean she must have been on Mr Epstein´s payroll, salaried, with certain contractual duties.
            Her big failure and subsequent fury was that she agreed to a much lower payout from Mr E’s estate than her fellow prossies.
            But with due respect to the Royal Family, Andrew must be a world class twit for reasons that we are too polite to mention.

        2. ‘Gold digger’? Prostitute, poutana, tramp, sl*t, sl*g…the list is endless! And sold by her father…allegedly!

      4. He is guilty of far too much arrogance and stupidity ever to represent Britain in an official capacity again. I only wish the same standards were applied to members of the House of Commons.

        Getting upset because he helps his mother go out to the races is just silly. All her children should be helping her at this stage in her life.

    2. If the Queen wants him by her side then that’s where he should be. He’s still her son, whatever he may or may not have done.

      He’s not been found guilty in a court of law – merely the one of public opinion. He’s made some very poor choices as to whom he associates and does business with – but that’s not yet a crime.

      1. Quite. For all we know, HM may find Chas infuriating, Edward wet and Anne overbearing.

        1. Hello, Bill. Melinda Gates is divorcing her husband because of the many trips he made on the Epstein aircraft. There were doubtless many other high profile men on those flights. Yet the media would have it that the only associate of Epstein was Prince Andrew. Odd.

    3. The Queen is still our sovereign. It is her choice and not for us to gainsay.

    4. Perhaps by keeping him very close it’s the only way she can insure he keeps his dick in his pants?

    5. His big brother did not talk sense to Prince Andrew, or show him the right road, or knock him about or protect him as and when required. Charles should not be let off the hook. It’s a brother’s job.

        1. I agree, but we are going to get him, whether we like it or not. I just wish he could be eased in gently, through some kind of semi-retirement, like a regency of sorts. Then perhaps he could gain some useful experience and advice before he is empowered to ignore it. To have the death of the Queen and Charles suddenly as King is going to be a bit much all in one go.

  33. Changing your gas boiler for a heat pump?

    There are a lot of hurdles to jump over before you can take advantage of the Government’s £5,000 incentive towards a heat pump. There are just too many to list here but after watching this video of what’s involved I was horrified to learn that you may well need a 100 amp company fuse to be able to run a compressor big enough to sufficiently warm a two bedroomed bungalow:

    https://youtu.be/yFxfSyOnz-8

    You can probably guess the answer to the video’s title.

    3. Well, yes of course you *can*. Is it sane to want to? No.

      Can someone living in a pokey flat do it? Nope.

      1. Not just a pokey flat, how about more than six floors up and no way to charge the car.

  34. Morning all. bloody cold here in West Sussex, 41f. It really isn’t good enough. What wrong as well is that it is sunny. Things are just not up to snuff.

    I see that Quasi Quarthog is promising 7 new nuclear power stations by 2050. No doubt we will all be dead by the time they go on line, if they go online by 2099. By which time they will be redundant. A latter day Boris Johnson, named Mohammad, would have discovered the glories of Donkey Power, or some other nonsense.

        2. Or issue the jockeys with oars, perhaps. Handy for unseating the competition.

      2. As John Snagge once said – “They are neck and neck – it is either Oxford or Cambridge…”

          3. A long time ago. When the English speaking world was civilised and the BBC could be trusted.

          5. Good Lord no – the first radio broadcast was in 1927. So J Edgar is VERY old. First TV 1938.

          11. It’s the makeup. I remember the sinkings , and the year the cameras couldn’t see the boats for driving snow!

      3. Sunday FFS……..?

        Saturday afternoon is traditional .
        I shall recorded it and watch it next Saturday… so there!

      1. It is English for cold. I don’t use centigrade, don’t hold with that continental muck.

        1. That’s because you lived all those years in the USA – we were forced to get used to centigrade or Celsius many years ago because we were in the EU.

          1. Yes, I know, my sympathies, really. I find that whole metric system cold. There is something, inhuman about it. I don’t know if that makes sense to you? But I really loath using it.

          2. I’ve got used to it in some ways – I know that 10c equates to 50f so that’s a benchmark. We still use miles and pints and gallons here. My husband, being a former engineer, thinks in metric measurements.

          3. I always stard from the point that 28C is 82F and work up or down from there. Knowing the 10/50 reckoner will also be useful, thank you.

            It’s funny but when johnrack mentioned 41F earlier, I knew exactly what that would feel like.

          4. I always stard from the point that 28C is 82F and work up or down from there. Knowing the 10/50 reckoner will also be useful, thank you.

            It’s funny but when johnrack mentioned 41F earlier, I knew exactly what that would feel like.

          5. It makes absolute sense.
            I use centigrade, but for cooking it is utterly pointless to switch to metric.
            What does a gram of flour look like? Please.
            Anyone can measure out an ounce with a handy tablespoon!

          10. Yes, but the advantage is that one’s tablespoons don’t change size, so one gets used to them, and how an ounce of flour, sugar, caster sugar etc should look. It only has to be checked once.

          11. I use the American system of spoons and cups. Had them imported for me from the USA. because they are not quite the same as English spoon and cup measures. It is, hands down, the most straightforward system. I do not buy cook books in Metric, always American additions. One thing I do admire about the Americans is how they simplify everything for the sake of efficiency. It is really quite impressive how they do that in almost every field of endeavour. It takes a lot of thought and organization.

          12. I like the cup system too, but having been brought up with ounces and pounds, I’m quicker with them.

          13. It is inhuman because it’s artificial and invented. Imperial measurements are based on body sizes.

          15. The temperature gauge in my car is set to Fahrenheit and the clock on my car remains on GMT just to upset the German manufacturers.

            I also opt for Fahrenheit on my weather apps, just to work out how many layers I need adopt before golfing.

        2. No, centigrade is a measurement of temperature, a metric measurement.

          Reminds me of my mother asking what 110cm was. I said 110cm. She didn’t seem to understand. Base ten is uncomplicated. Everyone should use it.

          1. I prefer what I grew up with, as a British subject ,and used until the age of 60 + in the USA. Base 10 etc has nothing to do with it. We had a perfectly serviceable system for daily use for centuries, from 1707, in point of fact, and only changed it to accommodate the EU, I believe. Since we are no longer members of the Club of Gangsters, I see little reason to use centigrade, besides, it’s French and nothing good comes out of France. A place only known for pretentious food and the Trifle Tower.

          2. It can be pretentious but there are a lot of classic French recipes that are simplicity itself. Sole in brown butter and capers couldn’t be simpler and tastes superb. Normally served with steamed potatoes.

            Alternately i am sometimes aghast at American offerings. Mashed potatoes with a meringue topping, icing sugar over bacon, rainbow coloured bread !

            An over reliance on packet mixes, Sarah Lee and Betty Crocker.

            Massively over sized portions.

            Not getting at you JR but i would be seriously interested in the types of foods you ate while there.

          5. It’s the American use of ‘cups’ in recipes that I find abhorrent. Yet you can also get conversion tables so why use ‘cups’ in the first place.

            A cup, to my mind, can be anything from a demi-tasse to a pint teacup.

          7. Good for her. It is said that more than a handful is a waste but I don’t know what they’re talking about.

          8. Your Mother had plenty of nous. The most versatile and useful tool in any kitchen is the human hand.

          9. The cup size became standardised at half a pint or 8 fluid ounces. Not that difficult to do a conversion. Where it gets confusing is in other English speaking countries 1 cup = 250ml.

          10. I discovered Pip, that once I got into Viennese cooking that it was really, in many ways, French cooking without the pretension. Two things exhausted my humour with regard to French cooking. The story that on being asked, by Dame Nelly Melba how his omelettes tasted so magnificent, Escoffier declared that it was because he stuck a garlic clove on a knife and swirled it around the pan once!

            The other was making Tornadoes of Beef in a mushroom sauce, discovering after I made the mushroom sauce from scratch, which took ages, that it tasted exactly like mushroom soup out of a can. That was it as far as I was concerned. I should say that I do not include the food of the French provinces in this sense of annoyance.

            Viennese seems to me to be French food with Germanic efficiency thrown in and thus without pretention.
            I still have my Larousse Gastronomique because it is a great source of ideas and amusement. But other than that I just don’t bother with French anymore. And since there is only me to cook for, it is hardly worth it.

          11. I sympathise re the mushroom sauce – I once made a tarte au citron from scratch, using a recipe that took 3 days [not all of those 3 days, obviously!!] – it was wonderful, but sadly not really any better than one bought from a well known supermarket!

          12. Tarte au citron from Sainsbury’s is excellent. Sicillian lemons.
            Tarte au citron from ASDA tastes like lemon soap.

            I like cooking a great deal. My favourite hobby. I will happily go through the processes to make a beef Wellington for a dinner party but they would get the Sainsbury’s tart for pud.

          14. Much of the French peasant food is excellent. Tends to be one pot dinners which would suit you.

            The garlic trick is viable as far i am concerned. You get the essence of garlic and no lumps in your omelette. Plus…you still have the garlic !

            The Viennese cook book you recommended is waltzing its way over the atlantic as we speak. :@)

          18. I didn’t eat American at all, neither did my wife, being wealthy and Jewish from New York, the famous stereotypical obligatory French speaking Jewish Princess you have no doubt read about. The only thing my wife could cook was an Avocado sandwich with bacon, tomatoes and sprouts, She was not Kosher. I was the cook in the house and when I did it would be mostly, I suppose you would call it, Mediterranean food.

            We ate out most of the time so when we went out it was Japanese, https://yoshis.com/ was my favourite place for that. Korean restaurant was in Albany, next to Berkeley but I have forgotten its name, Thai, non in particular, a fish restaurant that I have forgotten the name of down by the Berkeley marina. California Cuisine, which you probably know about. The North side of Berkeley is known as “The Gourmet Ghetto” So Alice Waters, Chez Panisse. Would eat there a lot because we had an advantage, she was a friend. Most people have to fawn and scrape to get a table there. Look it up, you will find plenty written about that. Used to go to the “French Laundry” for special occasions too. Had money then, costs a lot to eat there. My favourite meal is simplicity itself, steamed mussels in white wine with a sour dough baguette. Also used to eat at “The Baywolf” https://tableagent.com/san-francisco/baywolf/ That, I think, was my favourite place, very quite and cosy, a wonderful peaceful atmosphere. I do not go for rich sauces or heavy meat etc. I tend to eat very lightly, hence the preference for Japanese and Korean. Love Saki but I haven’t drunk alcohol in decades.

          19. Well thank you for all that. I do think it rather proves my point about American cooking though. Add lots of cream and rich sauces ends up in masking the taste !

            My training with French sauces were to use a lighter hand to enhance not to swamp.

            It is much like our traditional roast beef and all the elements. People then make the biggest mistake with the gravy. They either use a flour/thickening agent or Bisto.

            Puree the trivet vegetables which the beef was atop and then you have gravy.

            I don’t ‘get’ the reference to ‘French speaking Jewish Princess you have no doubt read about’. I haven’t i don’t think unless you are talking about a major fusspot !

          20. The Jewish Princess is a stereotype. Their parents always make them learn French, its cultured, don’t you know. My wife and I were waiting for our car at a garage in Manhattan, the car, a luxury car, not interested in cars so I have no clue what the thing was, arrived and the attendant says: “Is this…” Turns round takes one look at my wife and says: “Of course this is your car”! Never forgot that, identification of a Jewish Princess at 20 paces.
            Joke. How do you know when a Jewish Princess has had an orgasm? She drops your wallet. Thus it goes. Jewish princesses tend to be obvious. They dress impeccably and tend to be somewhat haughty if you don’t know them. And sarcasm, boy, my wife was sarcasm personified. Jewish and a New Yorker, lethal combination. But life with her was incredible fun.

          22. I am bilingual when it comes to metric and imperial, but in order to comprehend the actual size of something, I need to translate it into feet and inches!

        3. 5 C seems a lot colder………..

          Decades of woolly thinking on Britain’s energy policy have come back to bite, it’s because our political classes have never run a business or actually carried out a decent days and useful work in their entire lives. But many are run by greedy chancers who do run businesses and use political situations to their advantage. Often it seems with much reward.
          During the 1950s period the UK had access to more nuclear power than the rest of the worlds population put together.
          And what happened our political classes made certain destructive decisions. As they usually do.

          1. Morning Eddy. Agree with you 100%. The only solution I see is that people really have to see that the established political parties are our enemies and then stop voting for them. Until that happens we will continue to go downhill because, at this point, I think that is an unspoken but deliberate policy of all the main parties. They are out to destroy Britain for a homogenous mass of nowhere “culture” that can be directed at the will of politicians with us as their latter day serfs.

          2. Howsit going. 🙂
            I posted something on FB the other day in a comment about the tory party’s demise and being behind in the polls.
            Our political classes of all parties, have spent the past 4 decades destroying the British Culture, it’s established social structure and possibly the once well structured education system and definitely the British country side. There are something like 8 million people living in the country (England) between the ages of 16 and 65 who have never and will never make a contribution towards their keep. How and why was this allowed to happen ? Why have they allowed 40 thousand people to arrive on our shores in rubber boats. It’s costing us around 2 billion per year for house and feed them. No wonder the prices and costs of everything have increased, we have to pay for the increasingly smug politicians dreadful disastrous mistakes.
            I will never vote for a major party again, there are a complete and utter disgrace and a treason filled shambles.

          3. As I said yesterday. I will not vote unless their is a Reform Party candidate here. But considering that this is a 99.9% Tory constituency, there isn’t much chance that the Reform Party would bother. Hope they do, but I’m not optimistic. I think the only way things will really change is if the majority decides civil disobedience is in order. But I don’t think there is much chance of that either.

          4. Neither Reform, Reclaim nor For Britain have issued a manifesto of their intentions, should they hold the balance of power.

            I just wish the twerps would get together, stop vote-splitting, and form a coherent opposition.

          5. Agree Nanny. They should all form a coalition. But often as not, these parties are a vehicle for ego, not the needs of the country.

          7. On the other hand, UKIP does have a manifesto, including one for local elections.

  35. “SIR – I enjoyed Richard Collett’s piece on “a corner of Mexico that is forever Cornwall”.

    In the 1980s I used to buy a product from the Real del Monte mine for processing in Britain. I never visited the mine but heard the stories about the Cornish pasties.

    The Cornish also left their genes in the area. There are local people with surnames such as Pendenis, Thescothic and Trevarvis.

    R J Roxburgh
    Kintbury, Berkshire”

    So – Mr Roxburgh IS the Man from Del Monte.

    2. I see that Tommy Robinson has been arrested on arrival for a hol with his kids in Mexico. It seems that the penalty for outing slammers is eternal harassment by the state.

      1. They will never stop getting at this man. I have a great deal of admiration for him, and wish more people knew what he has gone through in his pursuit of the truth. I’d have given up long ago in light of the persecution. His past isn’t to everyone’s taste but at least he hasn’t denied it.

  36. Great excitement in the Thomas household. We have booked a short trip to Rome!!!! First time away from Blighty for 25 months.

    Very straightforward booking Rome hotel; KLM flights, Schiphol hotel for the outbound overnight. Easy to book airport pickup in Rome.

    In comparison, only tricky website – Norwich International Airport advance carpark booking!!

    1. That airport’s car parking is outsourced to a private company. They were a joke when I worked there.

    3. Rome is the only city I’ve wanted to go back to. It really is quite beautiful.

      1. I’d be happy not to go there again – too many shysters, cheats and crooks. Public transport was good, though.

    2. Why aren’t the police going in to these people with their truncheons? If they did that these middle class items of useless stupidity would stop it double quick. Zero tolerance for those who disrupt essential supplies. Such people are enemies of the state.

      1. The frustrating thing is the waster protestors are so dementedly egocentric they honestly believe they are justified in their actions.

  38. Good morning!

    The Israeli Government undertook what is, unfortunately, a very rare exercise in vaccine safety – a proactive survey where it asked a representative sample of 2,049 third dose recipients their experience of adverse events.

    Dr. Josh Guetzkow, a senior lecturer at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, analysed and summarised the results:

    Two thirds of the respondents (66%) reported at least one side effect within three to four weeks after the jab (75% of women).

    Close to one third of respondents (29%) reported that they had “difficulty performing daily activities” due to the booster side effects (51% of women).

    One in three hundred respondents (0.3%) reported hospitalisation (not just medical care) as a result of the side-effects.

    Nearly 10% of women under the age of 54 reported disruptions to their menstrual cycle after the injection. Half of these women reported ongoing menstrual symptoms in a follow-up survey two to three months later.

    Around 5.5% of the respondents reported chest pain (7% of women), and 4.2% reported enlarged lymph nodes (6% of women).

    Close to 5% reported neurological problems (6.9% of women), including Bell’s palsy (facial paralysis; 0.5%), eye disorders (0.5%), memory issues
    (0.4%), hearing issues (0.4%), convulsions (0.2%) and loss of consciousness (0.2%). Around 4% reported allergic reactions (5.3% of women).

    About 25% of people with pre-existing auto-immune disorders, depression or anxiety reported a worsening of their symptoms following the injection.

    Around 5% to 10% of people with diabetes, hypertension, and lung and heart disease also reported a worsening of their conditions.

    We now know that more 25-40 year olds died in the US last year than in 10 years of war in Vietnam, – 65,000.

    The promotion and delivery of the injectates is forseeable harm and those undertaking it should be liable to prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

    1. What are they injecting if two thirds have reported side effects? It has no relationship to our experience, a few have had the type of side effect that people get with flu vaccinations and that is it.

      There is now a traditional vaccine (none of the mrna rubbish) that supposedly beats all of the other vaccines for effectiveness. Trouble is a tobacco company has a minority stake in the company that developed it so WHO are refusing to consider it for ethical reasons. World’s biggest threat eh?

        1. No, not really, the coal dust got ground into their skin. They never got clean but always looked grubby.

    3. Nowadays it’s ids in the Congo digging up Cobalt. The toffs don’t change, they just moved the pollution out of sight.

      1. And that is why this zero policy is so hypocritical. It is hiding the problem by inflicting it on other people that do not have a voice. It is corrupt and evil to the core. 5 year olds being forced into labour for Cobalt and other rare materials for the decedent of our political class. I am sure that if ordinary people understood what was really going on, they would not favour our political liars and their zero energy policies.

        1. We won’t be hearing about Chinese reparations ever, though. Nor will they be demanded – probably because the Chinese won’t give a hoot, unlike the self-flagellating West. As for Americans…they do manage double-think rather well.

          1. To be blunt. The Americans are the most hypocritical people on earth. They constantly talk about democracy and then impose their will on other people.

  40. 351833+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    UK Doctors to Be Paid for Putting People on Transgender Sex Change Hormones

    May one ask why is the electorate seemingly content with such a society supporting & adding to it at every voting opportunity.
    They have proved beyond doubt that lab/lib/con coalition is still an eu asset and holding no allegiance to the United Kingdom.

    Will the electorate dig it’s lethargic arse out of the current voting pattern and support
    en masse a fringe party, one preferable with no connections to the reform / brexit/ farage
    stable

  41. After invasion, famine. 3 April 2022.

    Last year Russia and Ukraine together accounted for almost 30 per cent of global wheat exports, nearly all of which passed south through the Black Sea. With the port of Mariupol destroyed, what was once known as the chorni shlyakhy, or black paths, are barely functioning. Russia has stopped around 300 grain ships from leaving the southern coast of Ukraine. The Agriculture Ministry has suggested that because of this blockade, Ukraine may have to export its grain via Poland or Romania. But the price of wheat shipped by rail, when it finally reaches deep water, will be exorbitant. The world market cannot pick up the slack; the only climate where farmers can plant in March for a summer harvest is Canada. Though India had a substantial surplus this year, it has limited facilities for storage and deep sea delivery.

    BELOW THE LINE

    ugly_fish • 2 hours ago

    We make our own bread in this household. I read similar articles to this a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday we took delivery of 150kg of flour.

    I assume that Bill and the other bakers on here have taken similar precautions?

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/after-invasion-famine

    2. And yet the state continues to want to cover farmland with solar panels.

      Is there going to be a point where intelligence and common sense reach the government?

        1. Sadly I think you are right – it’s all too convenient to blame Putin, Covid or plain stupidity – I smell corruption on a massive scale

      3. With those big evergreen container ships running aground everywhere, offshore wind farms are not safe.

    3. Sorry Canada cannot help. We are chasing Trudeaus green dream and all of that acreage has been turned over to corn for ethanol.

  42. Is a wheelchair user solely defined by their use of a wheelchair? What about someone using crutches temporarily due to a broken ankle? Is someone with glasses ‘a glasses wearer’ because they’re short sighted?

    Do these things define who we are?

      1. A post on linked in said it was sad Her Majesty was now a wheelchair user. I couldn’t square the circle that someone be defined by that alone.

        Much like someone who says ‘My name is Geoff and I am 45.’ It ignores that Geoff has written 5 books, likes custard creams, dark chocolate and has a cat called Colin, 3 children and cleans his bin with a jet washer.

        1. If it isn’t significant it is not important. It is significant in Brenda’s case as she has always made a point of standing at ceremonies. There is also a matter of protocol to be considered.. it has always been the rule that one does not sit before the monarch has taken her/his seat. I expect the aides and equerries will have already drafted new etiquette guides.

          1. HM will be 96 in a couple of weeks; apart from some recent bouts of ill health, there’s always been a tendency to think she will live forever. She is, after all, the only monarch many of us have ever known. So I think that may be why there is this buzz now that she has to use a stick, need the support of another arm or use a wheelchair.
            In my eyes, it does not diminish her at all of she needs to use a chair or stick to get around. To me it’s a symbol of her determination to keep going as long as she can. And this country needs her!

          3. And she no longer has her husband for support, either. That can’t be easy.

          4. Hence my comment after the Memorial Service that I had never seen HM looking so sad or bereft as she did in the Abbey that day. Philip was her support, as she said many times, and coming to terms with his loss must be so hard, if not impossible.

          5. I said then, and haven’t changed my opinion, that now Philip isn’t there to support her, she will stand down.
            She deserves some time in retirement.

          6. She never will, Paul, She is very duty-minded and well-remembers the last abdication (of responsibility).

          8. I agree that she needs some down time which is why I think we won’t see much of her in person in the future. Maybe a couple of appearances over the long Jubilee weekend. Everything else she will do via Zoom or in situ at Windsor.
            It is my opinion that she will not abdicate unless her health becomes so precarious that it becomes an issue. HM saw the effect the last abdication had on her own family and her father’s health- although the war certainly didn’t help either.

          10. He was and also a serious Scotch drinker. Neither helped but he was a good King when Britain needed one.
            Excellent biography about George VI called The Reluctant King- by Sarah Bradford, if I recall.

          11. So was Her Majesty – Benson & Hedges smoke of choice – i don’t know when she gave up.

          12. If she continues to reign in absentia, so to speak, she risks becoming like Queen Victoria. Surely better to let Charlie-boy at leasst have some kind of regency, so that there is a more gradual transition?

          13. Her Majesty will take comfort from the fact that she will be joining him before too long and be certain he is waiting for her.

          14. I think she is reminded of Margaret when she was in a wheelchair – rather pathetic-looking, she was.

          15. Her mother used a golf buggy (painted in her racing colours – blue and buff stripes, black velvet cap with tassel).

          18. Made me sick, actually. Much prefer Liz Taylor as Cleopatra – at least she was pretty.

          19. It’s theatre and deliberately so. I have that from a trained theologian. The Church is pretty broad on such stuff. At the other end of the spectrum there are the monasteries.

        2. If it isn’t significant it is not important. It is significant in Brenda’s case as she has always made a point of standing at ceremonies. There is also a matter of protocol to be considered.. it has always been the rule that one does not sit before the monarch has taken her/his seat. I expect the aides and equerries will have already drafted new etiquette guides.

        1. I just fall flat on my face and make like a snake. I couldn’t get on with crutches. No real upper body strength.

    2. So many things define us, yet are irrelevant:
      Blond(e) hair.
      Beard
      White / black skin
      etc., etc.

    3. I have noticed in the Daily Fail and others of it’s ilk that the value of the dwelling of the reported person often features regardless of relevance.

    4. My septentrional qualities are invariably picked out by the austral contingent on this forum.

      1. But consider, George, that, like many on here, you are in your eighth decade

        Whilst you may be using austral to highlight your contempt for the south of this once-fair country, austral also means ‘unknown’, hence Australia – the unknown continent at its time of naming.

        1. George is also forgetting we have orients and occidents too. That would be the Welsh contingent and Bill from Norfolk.

          1. I too, am Norfolk born and bred but now live south of the border, down Flowton way.

            I don’t think Bill is Norfolk born but, since he’s been there for more than 40 years, he will now be accepted.

        2. But consider, Tom, that I spent 12½ years [i.e. a full eighth of a century] living in Norfolk, in the southern half of the country, doing missionary work among the residents. They were very happy to receive my kind guidance, wisdom and counselling. I have no contempt whatsoever for southerners, or “the south” (just ask my many southern friends). That invented “contempt” only exists in your very vivid imagination. It is quite dangerous, you know, to conflate (or confuse) banter with contempt.

      2. A pretentious Northerner ! Bloody hell ! Stop reading books. Your head will explode. :@)

  43. Biden rebuffed as US relations with Saudi Arabia and UAE hit new low. 3 April 2022.

    As Joe Biden moved to open US strategic oil reserves, his two biggest oil-producing allies have kept their tanks firmly shut. The UAE and Saudi Arabia continue to rebuff the US president as he attempts to counter soaring oil prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And both countries have been unusually frank about their refusal to step in.

    The five-week-old war is bringing tensions to a head in several parts of the world, but perhaps nowhere is a regional order more under strain than the Middle East, where two of America’s biggest allies are now seriously questioning the foundations of their relationship.

    The Saudi and Emirati refusal to bail Biden out – or even to take his calls – has pushed relations between the Gulf states and Washington to an unprecedented low. The extraordinary flow of Russian wealth to Dubai, just as the US and Europe try to strangle Putin’s economy, has inflamed things further.

    The stealing of Russia’s foreign currency reserves and private property hasn’t gone unnoticed either! For countries that keep their money in American Dollars a pretty sensitive subject!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/03/us-relations-saudi-arabia-uae-oil-crisis

    1. Biden is going to have to move fast (unlikely). America has around 570 million barrels of oil in reserve. At their current usage their reserves will last 29 days.

      Americans won’t take to rationing very easily. They are not used to it. There will be rioting everywhere.

      This has blown up spectacularly in Biden’s face. Just as Obama said it would.

      When the shit hits the fan they will cut off Germany. Dominoes falling.

      Good afternoon.

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. I was watching CNBC Friday when Biden announced the release of these reserves. No one was sure that they actually existed in the quantities that he was talking about!

          1. The difference being the US Military are at full strength. I see them lashing out. It won’t end well for anyone unless they stop with the lies and propaganda and go full on diplomat. As Trump would have done.

            Trump is a successful business man. He is used to making deals.

            Biden is a WEF stooge and is following an agenda. As are we in the UK.

        2. I expect they have some large stockpiles but they really won’t last long except for extreme rationing. Basically the military and the police will get it. Supermarkets won’t get deliveries and will be empty. People will riot.

      2. That suggests that Obama doesn’t have the influence over Biden that many credit him with?
        If the German economy falls then the EU can’t be far behind. There was speculation on RT the other day as to what Zelensky will do when it’s all over. Hide or be hanged. One correspondent thought it better for Russia if he simply gives in.

        1. I said, 12 months ago, Sue, that I gave the EU and their tinpot Euro, two years before it implodes.

        2. Of course Obama has no influence on Joe Biden, dribbles in one ear and out the other. Every time he sees Obama he always asks: Who’s the darky?” memory screwed and back to the good old Democrat days when they knew their place?

          3. To suggest that Tom is a Putin lover because he makes a different assessment of the news which you clearly agree with tells us everything we need to know about you.

            It is also a most gross insult to someone who has served Queen and Country.

            It is you who should be ashamed.

          6. Russia is winning. The trouble is that because you only read propaganda, you haven’t a clue what is really happening on the ground. You are being lied to, it’s as simple as that and like the unthinking individual you are, you simply can’t see it.

          7. I have no idea as you cannot believe any of the media. It looks to me it is changing tactics as it will settle for the eastern end of the Ukraine where the people want to be part of Russia.

        4. I was talking to my Zimbabean friend last night, and she was saying that Russia is popular in Zimbabwe, because they supplied them with guns back in the day, but never tried to interfere in their internal affairs (pot-stirring during the Cold War!).
          This would tend to suggest that the Russian world view described by Starkey is not new.

        5. Very interesting, if somewhat polemical. Got the brain working; unlike the mantel clock that either needs winding or repairing.

      2. I expected to you here hours ago, since we are talking about woolly-thinking.

      3. Turned up again like a bad penny. And still supporting neo-Nazi’s then. Learnt nothing.

          1. I would dearly love to hear your comments about the 15,000 people killed in the Donbass between 2014 and 2022 by the Ukrainians.

            What do you think about that? Do tell.

          2. Tell me, Bill, when did you first hear of Donbas (or Donbass)? Is it still a major topic for discussion in the back roads around Fulmondeston? Mind you, it comes up frequently – every couple of years or so – ín Soham.

          8. History is written by the victors – how many victors in Soham after that debacle?

          11. Why not? Those little girls were tortured, raped and murdered by someone employed by the local authority which you aspired to.

            It is your type of thinking that allowed the mass grooming of vulnerable young girls then being drugged, then raped, then no one in any position of authority either taking responsibility or been prosecuted for it.

            50,000 across many towns and at least one unfortunate being turned into Kebabs. Which were then sold.

            It is your ideology at fault here.

          12. People talk about me being offensive. You are certainly personally offensive, particularly as you obviously know f*** all about the matter that I had absolutely nothing whatever to do with.

          13. I see i am over the target.

            Rather than refute or argue the case you have resorted to anger and bad language as you and others of your ilk always do.

            The prosecution rests.

          14. Hi Geoffrey,
            1)We are not all fans of Mr Putin.
            2) The Soham incident was avoidable, which only heightens the tragedy.

          19. Maybe, Herr Oberst. I have to tell you that this forum was great fun years ago (you and I both recall it) but it has turned into an exchange for people who are increasingly intolerant of the opinions of others and increasingly tolerant of a monster who has charge of a once-great country that has in turn embarked on a vicious venture that has shocked most of the civilised world.

          20. I rather think, Geoffrey, that the intolerance is a tad one-sided, particularly with your opening comment on this thread.

            Go back and check it out.

          23. You clearly do not keep up. There are quite a few on here that do not support Putin or his actions. One particular poster who does agree with him seems to ‘trigger’ you. Perhaps you should as they say ‘educate yourself’.

          24. “There are quite a few on here that do not support Putin or his actions.”

            Let’s hear from them then. I guess that they feel cowed and daren’t ‘speak’ up.

          25. Answer the question it is simple enough. Do you approve of the 14,000 people killed in Donbass by Ukrainian Neo-Nazis or not?

          26. Geoffrey, I have been following this forum since my days in the Sultanate of Oman and I can honestly say it’s the most tolerant, informative and friendly site I have come across.
            I only once threw my dummy out of the pram on here and that was me being over sensitive.
            You seem to be the intolarant one with your vituperation of others.

          27. Don’t avoid the issue.

            What do YOU think about all those dead people, murdered by Ukrainians?

            Come on, you must have a view.

          29. Indeed I do. After Putin seized the eastern part of the Ukraine, where mainly Russians live, the Ukrainians have been systematically shelling civilians – and, as I say, 15,000 (UN figures) have been murdered.

            I find that abhorrent. Just as I find Putin’s retaliation today abhorrent.

          31. Well then, Bill, you can’t accuse the Russians of padding the figures, they say 14,000 with 44 children killed by deliberate shelling of civilian targets.

          32. So what you are saying is that you are not well informed but condem others who quite possibly are.

          34. Then why are you making comments when here you directly confess to your ignorance?

          35. Perhaps it is because I know something about the facts and evidently you don’t. It’s obvious that you slavishly follow the propaganda of the West and their Ukrainian errand boys in trying to destroy Russia. Odd that you ignore the knee capping of Russian soldiers and shooting them in the genitals by your Ukrainian “good guys”. Ignore the 14 thousand dead in Donbass killed by Ukrainian Neo-Nazis. Whilst so far, the “Butcher of Moscow” has by Western reports, only killed 1000 civilians and all accidently. You don’t apparently think it odd that you can’t hear the Russian side of the story because it has been censored. When the English during WWII were able to listen to Lord Haw Haw. Is it perhaps that the Western side doesn’t want the real truth to come out? That your poster boy has also arrested all the opposition politicians to his regime. That officers in his own army are rebelling against him and being arrested by your actor president. Do you ever think for yourself, that is the question and evidently the answer to that is no?

      5. Its not support for Putin, its the shock that Western governments can go around confiscating property on the basis of nationality and if you are mates with those they do not like. Who is next on the list?

        1. The revelation also that the West, completely willingly, has paid to rely strategically on Russian energy supplies gets my goat. And it won’t be easy to reverse. Next comes huge inflation – and interest rates. Deep joy. :-((

          1. I for one do support him – he is looking out for his own, after the massacres in Donbass by the Ukranian neo-Nazi Azov brigade.

            Does your liberalism stretch to support those horrors?

          3. What is the matter with you?

            Why are you so determined to be offensive.

            Just because not all people here share your views does not mean that they are bigoted or offensive.

            A little more tolerance and respect for others from you might endear you to the majority of people on this site who are generous-spirited and rational people.

      6. America works on the principle of diplomacy by force or coercion: first applied to Japan in the late 18th and early 19th century. They have been doing it ever since: the list of countries they have destabilised over the years is rather long for me to list here.
        That is why most people with some knowledge of history can see what Russia is against.
        Why are you not venting your anger on the Saudi, American and to a lesser degree UK war in Yemen? it’s killing just as many, if not more civilians than the one in Ukraine.

      7. Me too! I learned the Polka at school, as well as the Dashing White Sergeant and the Gay Gordons. It was only later that I learned Strip the Willow and the Puke.

      8. Minty’s post that you replied to is not particularly supporting Putin, it merely points out that freezing the dollar assets of a country that the US doesn’t like looks remarkably like theft -and I would add that judging by world reaction, non western countries seem to have interpreted it the same way.
        If one is in favour of world peace and stability, it was a very silly thing to do!

    1. Hello! Nice to see you – nice!

      Hope all’s well with the longbow, axe and bag…..

  45. About 40 cars set on fire in the Bristol area. BBC News. A branch of the environmentalists?

    1. Appalling’ spate of arson attacks damages up to 40 vehicles. 3 april 2022.

      Up to 40 cars and vans have been damaged in an “appalling” spate of arson attacks near Bristol on Sunday.

      Police said they were first called to a car fire in Stoke Gifford in the early hours, with others later attacked in Bradley Stoke, Little Stoke and Patchway.

      Avon and Somerset Police is appealing for witnesses and dashcam footage.

      Bradley Stoke mayor and town council spokesman Tom Aditya said the attacks were “appalling and shameful”.

      Speaking to the BBC, he called on police to “deploy a special dedicated team to identify the culprit”

      This would be a “diverse” team one assumes?

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-60972632

      2. So, 40 x £20k = £800k damage? I bet even if Plod manages to catch the scroats, they’ll just get a £50 fine for littering the street with burned out vehicles.

    1. Four today. Also got my first quordle out too. I find word.tips the best word finder to sort out guesses.

    3. Just got home and wrapped it up quickly.
      Wordle 288 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  47. A request to the Mods. I do believe in free speech and differing opinions but Geoffrey Woollard is clearly trolling if you read his posts today. And i for one think he should be banned.

    1. No, Philip, it’s rather like a game of squash – all his worthless answers are easily smashed back.

      1. Just my opinion Geoffrey. Not all will agree with me.

        Though i expect you would like to live in a country that bans people for their thoughts.

        Oh, we do !

  48. Daniel Hannan has stirred up venomous comments between Remainers and Brexiteers with his Article today on the urgent need to serve Article 16 on the NI protocol.
    The Remainers are out in strength rubishing the Brexiteers.

  49. Well , a bit of normality , although a pretty boring race , but nice to see happy healthy fit young men skimming through the water.

    The race seemed to be so quick , Olympic quality guys on the oars.

    4. I’d like to see the Varsity boat race crews confined to undergraduates on first degrees only.
      The crews are usually these days made up of Olympic rowers who enrol on an MBA just to get a blue.

  51. We went out late morning to top up the car with diesel .. Sainsbury in Weymouth are ONLY allowing emergency vehicles to fill up ..

    Their diesel was £1.70 per litre a few days ago .. I wished we had toppped up the car then , fuel in the village is £1.81 ..

    Dorchester Tesco had queues of cars ar the pumps , their diesel was £1.71 .

    Also, there has a been a run on Sunflower oil , shelves almost empty.. Apparently the Ukraine is the largest supplier of sunflower oil, they have been unable to plant the acres of sunflowers required , as well as cereal crops .

    2. Afternoon Belle. There are shortages of both diesel and sunflower oil already! Pray who is being sanctioned here? We buy from Russia not because they are popular but because they are the cheapest. If we have to pay a premium then we are already at a disadvantage in the world. This is the most stupid sanctions regime ever devised!

        1. They never will. I am convinced that the elite in the West and the Chinese are colluding.

    3. Afternoon Belle. There are shortages of both diesel and sunflower oil already! Pray who is being sanctioned here? We buy from Russia not because they are popular but because they are the cheapest. If we have to pay a premium then we are already at a disadvantage in the world. This is the most stupid sanctions regime ever devised!

    4. Plenty of rapeseed oil and sunflower oil for the moment, but the world depends on the harvest later this year.
      £1.09 per litre bottle at Lidl, but not for long I suspect. Olive oil is also likely to increase in price.

    5. It was said that Putin’s troops had specifically avoided the countryside in order to avoid disrupting the farmers’ planting season.
      No ships have left Ukrainian ports since this kicked off, which I suppose could have led to shortages – the stuff will be stuck in warehouses.
      Otherwise, it’s just good old panic buying at work.

        1. I was just visiting a couple who don’t have a television, and funnily enough, they aren’t hoodwinked by Project Fear either!

    7. I filled up last Saturday – when we went past the garage this afternoon, it was now 2p cheaper.

      Never use sunflower oil so I’m ok Jack.

      1. Same here. I would have topped up as I came back past, but the garage was closed. I hope by Wednesday, when I go past again, it will have dropped further.

  52. Off to fester in front of the idiot’s lantern – play nicely, except with the Woolly Geoffrey.

        1. Rishi is ambitious for Rishi.

          His ‘Step One’ is to engineer a humiliating electoral defeat for Boris.

          Rishi believes that he will ‘ascend’ from the debris – he has no worries about Labour led by Keir Starmer – and has treasury officials on his side.

          His personal wealth insulates him from reality; meanwhile WE are getting very angry about horrendous, avoidable domestic energy rates.

          2. Maybe he sees himself in terms of a kind of rajah – Rishi the rajah. Western style, you know.

          3. Maybe he sees himself in terms of a kind of rajah – Rishi the rajah. Western style, you know.

          1. I have met Alf for a luncheon and he could seriously wear that costume. Though i feel he would probably let them all get away. Such a nice chap as he is, the big softie ! :@)

          2. 1 day more on the eye drops but my sight is excellent. I can therefore state clearly there doesn’t appear to be any Conservatives in Parliament.

        3. When are fifty Conservative backbenchers going to resign their seats, join Richard Tice and stand for re-election under their new colours?

          I cannot think of any other way of bringing the lumpen lying lout lingering even longer and illiteratively in Downing Street .

          (ogga suggested Anne Marie Waters of the For Britain movement but I am not convinced that she is likely to bring off the immediate political earthquake that a 50 seat defection from the Conservative Party to the Reform Party would cause.)

    3. Should have done it already! Everything that can possibly be scrapped right now should be- even if it’s just a temporary measure.

    4. The point is that the so-called green taxes go to support private individuals who own so-called green energy companies. They aren’t even nationalised, and should NOT be paid anything at all from our taxes.

    5. Scrap Rishi Sunak say I. And Boris. And Shapps. And Gove. In fact I’d like somebody to bulldoze the HoC when it’s fully occupied and pushed into thenThames. ASAP.

  54. We had a LimpDum councillor canvassing for his colleague earlier.
    We laid into him somewhat and probably wrote on his notes ‘Right wing bigots’.

    4. We have one of the few limp dumb councils in the country. With an even limper, dumber mayor. IMO the population realises that it doesn’t like Labour, or Tories (much – although we have a Tory MP) but can’t quite make the step of not voting for any of the main parties.

      1. Problem is, the smaller upstart parties are clearly not serious, but vehicles for their leader’s egos.
        They have litle internal discipline, they have little ability to get their message across to voters, some of them have a new leader every week.
        Who would want a shower like that running the show?

      2. This said that as people got older they didn’t vote. He doesn’t realise that young people don’t vote but Mr Rachid’s followers do, early and often.
        I asked him to petition the electoral commission to put a box on ballot papers with None of the Above and see how many vote that way.
        We finally let him go.

  55. https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1569592/rishi-sunak-news-stealth-tax-hmrc-national-insurance-rise-updates

    “…
    A Government spokesperson said: “We do not recognise these figures. The UK has the highest basic personal tax allowance in the G20 – and maintaining the threshold is a progressive approach to fund our world leading public services and rebuild the public finances following covid.
    …”

    Of course you don’t recognise them. They’re facts, not invented drivel. Rebuild public services my backside.

    Progressive approach – going backward. Theft, waste and debt. Nothing ‘progressive there’, scum.

    “…
    “Our approach ensures that higher earners contribute more – while the vast majority of taxpayers will still pay the basic rate of tax by 2026.
    …”

    If you work hard, are bright, capable and motivated, we’re going to hammer you into the ground in tax. Tory Britain: don’t bother trying.

      1. You left out the police, the judiciary, and the worst offenders? The sodding government.

          1. You are forgiven- it’s so hard to keep up when we are overwhelmed by buffoonery.

          3. Boris is a buffoon, among other far worse things. I wouldn’t describe him as benign…buffoonery has become a cloak for far more sinister characteristics.

      2. Ooops, StillB – I guess it was inevitable that that crass statement could ot go unremarked upon. That’s what i get from reading newest posts first…

        1. He said that these were the worst and most dangerous words a politician could say!

    4. The state realised to destroy the country it had to remove the native, genuinely Consrvative elements, that the population had to be made and kept poor and thus dependent on benefits and that the state had to become so huge nothing could ever challenge it.

      The solution’s simple. Sequester the property and monies of all quango crats, non-jobbers, statists and Lefties.

  57. That’s me for today. Unexpectedly sunny. Rain coming overnight. Milder.

    Rome trip all sorted. Flying from Narridge via Amsterdam – as the one-way taxi from here to Heathrow is £320!!

    Have a jolly evening making a list of the things you need to start hoarding.

    A demain

    1. You wouldn’t get out of Heathrow anyway. Mile long queues. British Airways dropping the Flag. Again.

      Expect on your arrival your paperwork isn’t up to date and you will be sent on a flight home 24 hours later after you have had the privilege of spending the two nights in a migrant hotel. If i were a solicitor i would sue.

      2. Yes, but that’s a lot of people who can’t get away from you, either. They can be hunted through corridors, locked in terror in their rooms…

      3. Yes, but that’s a lot of people who can’t get away from you, either. They can be hunted through corridors, locked in terror in their rooms…

    2. Being in an enclosed space with several thousand other people with nowhere to escape to is not my idea of the perfect holiday.

      3. My best holiday was my honeymoon with Caroline in 1988. We chartered a 32′ sailing boat called Illiatoros
        on the Greek island of Poros and sailed to Hydra, Spetses, Navplion, Astros, Leonhidion, Ermione and other places in the Argolian Gulf and Saronic Sea.

        A dozen years later we hired a boat again and revisited these places with our children, Christo and Henry. We were having supper on the beach at a restaurant in Poros when the waiters told us that the Twin Towers had been attacked and destroyed by suicidal Islamic maniacs in hijacked passenger planes.

        Two years after that we bought Mianda and returned yet again to the Eastern Mediterranean.

        2. Our honeymoon suffered from a lack of money. 1 night in a cheap (and rather nasty) hotel, a rental car (the mini wasn’t too reliable), and a borrowed cottage in Brixham. Powerful sunburn, too… 40 years ago this coming July.

          1. My second honeymoon was thus… we had a lovely meal courtesy of my sister in law and her daughter, who were our witnesses at our wedding. We got home, changed out of our finery and spent the evening listening to our favourite songs, music etc. And the night was ours….

        3. Our honeymoon was 2 night in the Kingsley Hotel, Bloomsbury.
          We went to the British Museum on the Sunday and saw the mummies.
          Exactly one year later vw gave birth to our daughter. :-))

          2. I spent my honeymoon in Hope-under-Dinmore. Dunno what that said about our marriage, but it lasted 42 years 🙁

      1. Unless they have a inside inside cabin and then they can then be sick over the the Promenaders. Manna from Hell.

    4. Its OK, at least no one had covid cos you have to be jabbed until you leak to go on one of those holidays.

    5. Rooms cleaned by people where a UK minimum wage would be enough to feed their entire village. Meals prepared in much the same way. Besides spitting in the food and other disgusting efforts. Staff living below decks in artificial light for weeks on end.

      I don’t even need to read the article.

    1. Don’t let the bally Warqueen see it. She’s already looking at shelters for ‘her’ dog.

      3. I play most days, don’t post it everyday tho’
        Wordle 288 3/6

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

    2. Got lucky. Wordle 288 3/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Sounds like a trick question but i suppose i would use the money to either enlighten myself or those around me. If that fails… bet the lot on the Grand National outsider.

      1. He might be arguing that’s the cost of an education in America land, but not everyone is suited to academia. Preventing other value items is a bit silly as you could use those as a capital on another, more nebulous entity, such as starting a business – where the money loses 10% of it’s value every year under this useless government.

    2. Sounds like a trick question but i suppose i would use the money to either enlighten myself or those around me. If that fails… bet the lot on the Grand National outsider.

    3. What’s he getting at? For most people the sensible choice is to pay off a mortgage/get a mortgage.

      The one thing there’s not enough of is land – because the government keeps giving it to foreigners.

          2. Isn’t that so he can turn the land over to non-meat produce – so that there isn’t any meat (except for the elite) and we live on plants and insects

          3. I believe that Gates buys land at a premium price after his Democrat chums have diverted water from it so as to wipe out the livelihoods of any farmers cultivating it.

            Water is the principal commodity ahead of oil and gas. If you control water you own everything and that arsehole Gates knows this.

  62. Found in https://punchng.com/fifa-asked-to-eject-iran-from-world-cup/
    FIFA asked to eject Iran from World Cup
    FIFA on Friday faced calls to sanction Iran and even throw its team out of the 2022 World Cup finals over the Islamic republic’s renewed failure to allow women to attend an international football match.

    Iranian news agencies this week confirmed that 2,000 women who had bought tickets for Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier against Lebanon in the northeastern city of Mashhad could not enter the stadium.

    Activists based outside Iran accused the authorities of using pepper spray at close range to disperse women who then protested the ban outside the venue.

    The United for Navid group of exiled Iranian athletes and activists, set up after the execution of wrestling champion Navid Afkari in September 2020, said Iran should be suspended from international football until it changes its stance.

    “We formally request that FIFA immediately suspend Iran and prohibit its participation in the World Cup 2022 as long as the Football Federation of Iran continues to violate the Olympic Charter and FIFA regulations,” it said in a letter to FIFA’s deputy secretary general Mattias Grafstrom.

    In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP Friday, it said that Iran had pledged to FIFA that it would end its policy of “gender apartheid” by allowing women to attend matches.

    “But not only has Iran broken that promise by continuing to bar women from entering a stadium but women are beaten, abused and threatened,” it added.

    United for Navid said Iran “continues to ignore” FIFA’s requests to show “basic adherence” to human rights.

    – ‘Long overdue’ -Human Rights Watch meanwhile urged FIFA to demand that Iran urgently overturn the “discriminatory” stadium ban on women and ensure accountability for abuses.

    “Given the Iranian authorities’ longstanding violations, FIFA needs to follow its own global guidelines on nondiscrimination and should consider enforcing penalties for Iran’s noncompliance,” Tara Sepehri Far, HRW’s senior Iran researcher, said in a statement.

    The New York-based NGO said that under FIFA’s statutes discrimination on the basis of gender is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion”

  63. Not sure of the veracity of all the figures but the gist is right.

    THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S CALCULATION OF AVAILABLE PENSION IS THAT THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY EVER COLLECTED OLD AGE PENSION.
    WHERE DID ALL THAT MONEY GO?
    Remember, not only did you and I contribute to our Pension, our employer did, too. It totalled 15% of your income before taxes.
    If you averaged only £15 000 over your working life, that’s close to £220,500. Read that again. Did you see anywhere that the Government paid in one single penny?
    We are talking about the money you and your employer put in a Government bank to ensure that you and I would have a
    retirement pension from the money we put in, it was not money that the Government had any right to spend elsewhere.
    Now they’ve started to call the money we paid in an ‘entitlement’ when we reach the age to take it back.
    If you calculate the future invested value of £2500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% interest (that’s less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows from overseas), after 49 years of working you’d have £892,919.98.
    If you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive £26,787.60 per
    year and it would last better than 30 years (that means until you’re 95 if you retire at age 65) and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit!
    If you bought an annuity with the money and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of £1976.40 per month.
    THE CROOKS IN GOVERNMENT HAVE PULLED OFF A BIGGER ROBBERY THAN THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERS EVER DID.
    Entitlement!!??
    My foot !! IT’S MY MONEY!! I paid IN cash for my pension.
    Just because they borrowed the money to spend on other things, that doesn’t make my pension some kind of charity or handout!!
    Remember MP’s benefits? —
    free healthcare,
    outrageous retirement packages,
    67 days paid holidays,
    three weeks paid holidays,
    unlimited paid sick days.
    Now that really should be called welfare entitlements, yet they have the nerve to call my O A P retirement payments entitlements?
    We’re “broke” and the government can’t help our own OAPs, our ex-service personnel, our orphans or our homeless
    Yet in the past few years we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, Turkey, India, Pakistan, etc., etc., etc. Literally, BILLIONS of Pounds !
    But they can’t help our own citizens!
    Our retired seniors living on a ‘fixed old age pension have to beg social services to receive additional aid, while our government and religious organizations pour hundreds of billions of £££ tons of food to foreign countries!
    They call the old age pension an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives, and now, when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money.
    Why did the government borrow from it in the first place?
    It was supposed to be in a securely locked box, not to be used as part of the Government’s general funds.

    1. Yup.
      Took all mine out, and now it’s invested in my name elsewhere in the world.
      When I die, my estate will inherit MY money, and government get to see none of it.

      1. We can’t get at our state pension. Anything we have, mainly our home, will put us in the IHT bracket and anything over the allowance will be taxed at 40%. Thieving buggers.

    2. Government doesn’t like to talk about the fact that pensions are not ring fenced and that it likes to give the moeny away to the African spice girls, gays rights in Iran, the Indian space program, oh, and those endless quangos don’t fund themselves.

      The roblem is government *can* spend it, so it does – on things that are not the pension.

      1. They could easily pay higher pensions but the ‘lack of money’ could be cured if we didn’t continue to sen £billions to the EU we’ve supposedly left.

        1. Of course, the majority of our ‘foreign aid’ goes to the EU slush fund as well.

    3. I recall my state pension was ‘awarded’. Damn cheek. Our state pensions are the lowest in Europe and barely enough for many to scrape by on.

      We need major change and a massive jolt to our political system and the useless jerks pretending to represent us whilst only representing themselves.

  64. The forecast for my town on the South Coast of England for the next week is rain. Clear blue sky so far. I wonder if the department of meteorology is trying to put people off traveling over the Easter Holiday. Oh, shush me…………………

  65. Can you take this seriously?
    Han Duck-soo tapped to again serve as prime minister

  66. Now SWMBO is watching a house-doing-up programme in Danish… takes me a while to acclimatise to Danish…

    1. Furniture less severe? Mere behagelig? Of course you could dump the expense and go for big bean bags !

    2. They swallow the middle of their words.
      I remember an EFL Norwegian student watching Brookside with puzzlement.
      He said the Scousers sounded like Danes.
      I assured him that I also had to concentrate to understand the Liverpudlians.

      1. Lots of “mouth full of really hot baked potato” pronounciations… takes a while to get used to.

  67. Evening Nottlers.
    I’ve found Sputnik on Telegram.
    I don’t take it as gospel but it gives a useful alternative to the propaganda from “our side”.

      1. I’ve been trying to work it out but age us against me.
        I downloaded Telegram then search RT and Sputnik in the toolbar.
        RT is blocked but Sputnik showed up.

    2. I watch the RT livestream on Odysee and their videos on Rumble. Simply won’t accept censorship from habitual liars.

  68. One for Mr Woollard…

    The Bank of Russia’s move to link the ruble to gold and link commodity payments to the ruble is a paradigm shift that the western media has not really yet been grasped. As the dominos fall, these events could reverberate in different ways. Increased demand for physical gold. Blowups in the paper gold markets. A revalued gold price. A shift away from the US dollar. Increased bilateral trade in commodities among non-Western counties in currencies other than the US dollar.

    1. Geoffrey is a farmer who has enriched himself on EU grants to not do any farming. Now those grants are drying up he is enraged that he may have to actually do any farming. I expect his next crop to be baby solar panels and windmills.

      1. Almost certainly – it’s not his fault the EU gave landowners money to not do anything with land because the CAP was such a moronic, useless, poisonous bit of legislation paid for by efficient British farmers to support incompetent, lazy, wasteful French ones?

      2. Geoffrey is just Geoffrey. He is anti-Trump and pro-EU. He doubtless has his reasons. God only knows what his reasoning is but who really cares. Each to his own.

        Some of us at the sharp end, so to speak, recall wine lakes, butter mountains, the wanton destruction of otherwise edible fruits and tomatos.

        We recall the imposition of policies that disfavoured our industries from coal, oil exploration, maintenance of our rivers and canals, fishing industries (ensuring the destruction of our once great fishing fleet) and our processing plants, the evisceration of our power supply industry and its replacement with utterly unreliable and inadequate wind and solar ‘installations’, the destruction of our market garden industries, our hop gardens, brewing industries and the grubbing up of our orchards.

        The list of EU appropriations of our culture and activities is endless. The most regrettable aspect of the undermining of our nation state is the fact that we have all paid for it thanks to our fucking useless politicians of whatever stripe. We have lost almost everything of historic worth and intrinsic value.

        Instead we have watched as the potholed rough gravel roads of France, Spain and Italy have become super highways whilst our own infrastructure has crumbled. Poland now has better highways than the UK and all has been at our expense.

        We need a new grade of politician. Politicians who stand up for our interests as opposed to the cringeworthy trough feeders we have endured for several decades.

        1. Reason enough to declare war and round up all their flag wavers. We can start with Geoffrey.

        2. Not forgetting the downsizing of our military and police to make us more readily fit into EuroForce.

    2. If oil and gas are pegged to gold then fiat currency is stuffed.

      We’re got to move away from the idiocy of government controlled currency.

      2. I think the government knows that and that’s why they’re keep for a digital currency.

  69. I’ve given up for the day and with a ‘large’ glass of Lagavulin, I have The Köln Concert performed by Keith Jarrett at the Opera House in Cologne on my headphones.
    An ECM recording of probably his best improvised concerts ever.

    2. I have my earplugs in and am listening to Handel’s Coronation Anthems. I love Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi etc but to me , no-one gets harmonies quite like Handel. Sheer joy.

      1. Guess what Geoff? Next up is Mozart’s Mass in C. Am in pain and choral music helps. And vino- natch.

          1. Don’t drink red, only with poultry. White plonk for me.
            edit- My husband and I have a new movie….”Carry on Whinging!”
            Sorry to be such a wimp.

          3. Don’t drink red, only with poultry. White plonk for me.
            edit- My husband and I have a new movie….”Carry on Whinging!”
            Sorry to be such a wimp.

      2. It’s the Red Priest for me, I have his music on LP, Cd and several musical scores that I (sad but my thing) follow when listening.
        Purcell is another composer I like (my Great Uncle many years removed: on my mothers side).

        1. I love Vivaldi too. Also Albinoni. Do you like Vivaldi’s Gloria? I love it.

        2. Around the turn of the century, I was Director of Music at St Alban, Hindhead. We were blessed with a choir of humble village amateur singers, plus one retired opera singer formerly known as Sheila Armstrong. She knew a bit about Henry Purcell…

          https://youtu.be/0pdhc3BaESw

      3. It’s the Red Priest for me, I have his music on LP, Cd and several musical scores that I (sad but my thing) follow when listening.
        Purcell is another composer I like (my Great Uncle many years removed: on my mothers side).

      4. It’s the Red Priest for me, I have his music on LP, Cd and several musical scores that I (sad but my thing) follow when listening.
        Purcell is another composer I like (my Great Uncle many years removed: on my mothers side).

        1. They don’t care. To them the countryside is something you concrete over to house illegal rapists, murderers and paedophiles.

          2. Except those corners of the countryside that house their own country residences, of course.

    2. Been on the North Wales coast today. The sea is infested with the damn bird chompers.

  72. Discover the greatest writer of sex in the English language
    John Donne wrote about desire like nobody else, before or since – he’s the poet our confused society needs
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/discover-greatest-writer-sex-english-language/: Katherine Rundell

    WHOEVER loves, if he do not propose
    The right true end of love, he’s one that goes
    To sea for nothing but to make him sick.

    [John Donne}

    I studied John Donne when I did my “A” levels in 1964. These words stuck in the mind of a 17 year old boy and gave him a certain amount of both inspiration and justification!

    1. I recall “Come madam come, all my powers defy, until I labour I in labour lie”. (or words to the effect).

      ‘To his Mistress’ from memory. I cannot find my book of Donne verses among the thousands of other books distributed about the house at present.

      We are moving hopefully within a few months to Norfolk where we hope to properly retire from a lot of the shit we have all endured over the years.

      1. Ah, Norfolk’s a fine and private place, but none I think do thee embrace….

  74. Just watched An Audience With…Victoria Wood on ITV3. Gosh, she was talented. Mind, she’d be cancelled today. One of her quips was that the difference between men and women is there isn’t any such thing as a man who looks good in a pinafore dress. The transloonies would want blood?

  75. I know this shadow has offended in the last few days.
    Am grumpy and trying to keep calm, pain doesn’t help- nor worry.
    Please bear with me my friends.

      1. Thank you- it really helps. Being scared doesn’t help either. Am so worried about MH….

    2. No need to apologise, Ann. NoTTLers are renowned for their support when one is low or in pain. KBO, as WSC used to say.

    3. I know what it’s like to be in constant pain. It grinds you down. Being anxious doesn’t help, either. Will put in a good word for you both with ‘Im Upstairs on Wednesday.

      1. Thanks Conners, I hope you and Oscar are well and biting each other’s toes ;-))

        1. He has been very good of late, I’m pleased to relate. He was glad to see me when I got back home. So lovely to have a welcome. He’s curled up in his bed now with a selection of tugs and a rubber bone.

  76. Evening, all. Busy day today. Only got back just before nine thirty. The A55 being shut didn’t help 🙁 I don’t think there’s been any thinking about our energy policy, except perhaps, “let them wear wool”.

  79. REE! goes the msm. REE! Viktor Orban is re-elected (despite close ties to Putin). Or, because he bats unashamedly for Hungary.

    1. The Shriekometer (c. Catherine Austin Fitts) has been turned up again, has it?

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