Sunday 30 October: Hard-pushed Britons resent subsidising greedy energy giants through soaring bills

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

722 thoughts on “Sunday 30 October: Hard-pushed Britons resent subsidising greedy energy giants through soaring bills”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, Your Sunday funny:

    Drinking Beer Could Turn You Into A Woman.

    Beer contains female hormones! Yes, that’s right, FEMALE hormones!
    Last month, Montreal University and scientists released the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer. Men should take a concerned look at their beer consumption. The theory is that beer contains female hormones (hops contain Phytoestrogens) and that by drinking enough beer, men turn into women.

    To test the theory,

    100 men each drank 8 schooners of beer within a one (1) hour period.

    It was then observed that 100% of the test subjects, yes, 100% of all these men:-

    1) Argued over nothing.

    2) Refused to apologise when obviously wrong.

    3) Gained weight.

    4) Talked excessively without making sense.

    5) Became overly emotional.

    6) Couldn’t drive.

    7) Failed to think rationally, and

    8) Had to sit down while urinating.

    No further testing was considered necessary!!

    Send this to the men you know, to warn them about drinking too much beer and women, to help their man!

    (Ducks behind large barrel of beer).

    1. I think I’d need to sit down after drinking a medium sized sailing ship of beer. A sherry glass of the stuff doesn’t wet the sides.

      1. It is from Canada, Paul, after all and those on the N American continent have some strange measures.

  3. Good morning
    Here’s an interesting short video about pushing the boundaries. He rambles around a bit, but he does get to the point, and his accent is interesting – sounds close to some Scottish accents at times, which I guess is not surprising.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJpW8ZNCxY
    I must admit that one of the reasons I avoid flying is that I don’t like the conformity of it, and the whole airport experience from start to finish is profoundly uncomfortable.

    2. Oh come on – it is only a five hour wait for security at Schiphol…. What’s not to like?

      1. It’s not just the security, it’s the whole ghastly place, with all the shops selling fake happiness, nothing natural in sight, everything carefully internationalised with the home culture obliterated. Was passing through Heath Row at Christmas about ten years ago, they even had a fake Christmas tree – it was a sort of cone shaped abstract spiral, with lights attached. Bleaughh. Just don’t bother next time.

  7. Just as an aside the news – the naughty DM have posted a photo of Charles looking obstinate and petulant next to the cover photo from Harry’s epic whinge new book, and the likeness is striking.
    There can be no doubt that they are father and son!

    1. Goodness! I see you’re right. He bears absolutely no resemblance to James Hewitt whatsoever.

  8. Good morning, everyone. Geoff, did you forget to put your alarm clock back an hour last night? I thought that I might just be first to post today. Lol.

      1. Nor I, Tom. I went to bed at 2 am (which instantly became 1 am) but by 2.15 am GMT (75 minutes later) I still hadn’t fallen asleep so came downstairs and started reading some Dickens, then discovered that I’d missed Geoff posting up the Sunday site. So now I am back to bed to see if this time I can go to sleep.

      2. Nor I, Tom. I went to bed at 2 am (which instantly became 1 am) but by 2.15 am GMT (75 minutes later) I still hadn’t fallen asleep so came downstairs and started reading some Dickens, then discovered that I’d missed Geoff posting up the Sunday site. So now I am back to bed to see if this time I can go to sleep.

    1. It wasn’t the pharmaceutical companies that locked us up It wasn’t pharmaceutical employees smashing down doors and dragging people back to prisons – err, quarantine. It was our own government and it’s enforcers.

        1. I don’t buy that. Government is huge. It has endless wealth. It could quite easily have employed analysts to look at the issue properly. It could have researched the costs and potential dangers.

          What are the 160,000 civil servants in each tombstone to failure doing if not there specifically for these such events.

          1. Are you mad? They aren’t there to do useful things. They keep finding rules and regulations to formulate to give themselves things to do.

      2. 366817+ up ticks,

        Morning W,

        ALL interlinked, par with lice
        living on a boa constrictors back with the help of the electoral majority squeezing the decency/ integrity / & life
        out of the nation.

  10. Liz Truss’s phone hacked for top-secret info in suspected Russian attack. 30 October 2022.

    Liz Truss’s personal phone was hacked for top-secret information by suspected Russian agents, according to the Mail on Sunday.
    The attackers are said to have gained access to details of negotiations with international allies, as well as private messages exchanged with her close friend Kwasi Kwarteng.

    The hack was uncovered during the Tory leadership campaign this summer, while Ms Truss was foreign secretary but the details were suppressed by then prime minister Boris Johnson and Simon Case, cabinet secretary.

    Several questions (assuming that there is any truth to these allegations) spring to mind. What was Truss doing discussing government business on her personal mobile phone? They are notoriously insecure. Why did Johnson suppress the news? Why assume that it was the Russians? It is the sort of stuff any intelligence organisation would be interested in. The United States in particular has a long history of spying on its allies!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/29/liz-trusss-phone-hacked-top-secret-info-suspected-russian-attack/

    1. Could the Russians hack my phone – please?
      There must be an oligarch so taken with the photo of our surplus sideboard that he’ll offer £billions for it.

      1. Would go nicely with that amazing looooooong dining table that nice Mr Putin entertained that slimeball Macron at a year or so ago.

    2. All digital cellular phones are ‘hackable’.
      Landlines were formerly relatively secure, in that if the call were intercepted, it was possible to detect and ‘flag’ the interception.

    3. All digital cellular phones are ‘hackable’.
      Landlines were formerly relatively secure, in that if the call were intercepted, it was possible to detect and ‘flag’ the interception.

  11. Good morning all. A dull, dry & mild 8°C outside.
    Looks reluctant to get light this morning.

  12. I don’t think the letter writer understands the energy market.

    Energy is expensive because we have a dearth of supply. That’s because the government has run down gas, coal and nuclear power generation in favour of unreliables.

    Now, unreliables cannot exist without subsidy. They are not competitive, they’re inefficient, expensive and wasteful. To counter this, government used contracts for difference to allow all energy companies to sell at the highest rate – which was, until Ukraine, wind. Cheapo coal, costing £15 MW/h got to sell at £100 MW/h – soemtimes over £200. They were very happy, the State was happy (an awful lot of MPs are heavily invested in unreliables) and the tax payer was footing the ever growing bill and using ever less energy. All good news for the greens, the Statists (who could put off real energy generation) and the non-jobs after office.

    However, such running down of capacity, such incredible market rigging and the demented insanity of refusing to meet demand created the obvious carnage and soaring prices when the market blipped, and one of our major suppliers … stopped.

    The real criminals of course are the statists who rigged the energy market, who continue to enforce contracts for difference – Truss discussed unwinding them away from the EU nonsense. The Civil service apparently spent more time fighting that than smearing against her budget.

    Big government is making energy scarce and expensive and prices are only going to go up and up.

  13. Britons warned food prices to rise again after Russia cancels UN-brokered grain deal. 30 October 2022.

    Britain was warned that food prices could rise even further after Vladimir Putin choked off the supply of grain from Ukraine.

    Mr Putin collapsed the UN-brokered grain deal after accusing the British Royal Navy of helping Ukraine carry out a drone attack on its Black Sea Fleet on Saturday.

    Just a bit of throwaway propaganda on the back of a serious news item. The Russians were already thinking of suspending the deal prior to yesterday’s attack on the Black Sea Fleet. This seemed to be motivated by the lack of reciprocal consideration for Russian grain exports though it’s difficult to be certain of this because of the Western MSM. The attack has certainly finished it. Why allow the opposition free passage when your own ships are not?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/29/russia-accuses-british-experts-aiding-drone-attacks-black-sea/

    1. Ah, the UN. The second most pointless organisation in the world.

      On another note, the governments of the West are desperately trying to shut down food production here, all in the name of green.

      I know it’s an old drum, but the problem continually comes back to the fact that the problem at the root of everything is government.

  14. Hard-pushed Britons resent subsidising greedy energy giants through soaring bills

    Well nobody has asked me that question, I have no problem with companies making profits.
    We need a proper explanation for why this is happening.

    It appears obvious to me that they are using high energy prices to try to frighten or force people into using less energy just like they have done with petrol and diesel over the years to try to get motorists off the roads and to get tax revenue from it.

    If government were going to put very high taxation on gas and electric bills like they have on the motorist, then this would not look good on government especially if people cannot afford to heat or eat, most people at least have other options for basic survival than driving.

    So what better a way to do it then to devise a system whereby the big energy companies make huge profits then the government snatches it back in a windfall tax.

    people are still paying the tax, but through a middle man that governments can put the blame on for being greedy.

    When all along all governments just want to reach their globalist imposed carbon zero targets.

    1. Yet companies do not pay tax. Their customers do. Besides, if you start a company and along comes big fat state to take every penny you have eventually you stop bothering.

      The term I find disgusting is ‘excess profits’. It’s profit. If that’s £1m or £1, it’s profit. Profit earned from the work of the producer. Energy companies are making a lot of money these days because the State locked the price of the cheapest producer to the cost of the most expensive.

      It is price fixing, market rigging – nothing else. If every apple costs the same, the customer has no choice in where to shop – they’re all equally as expensive. Thus folk bleating that energy companies are making ‘excess profits’ is solely down to the state rigging the price.

      1. Originally the given reason for prices increasing along with fuel was ‘Putin’s war against the west’.
        Seemingly organised by the west for the west to take advantage of. How on earth does this invented nonsense effect our cost of electricity ? And domestic items like sunflower oil ?
        Which also as we don’t directly import fuel or energy from Russia is a complete lie. Which is what our politicians are well practiced at.
        The sooner we get rid of this huge and useless disgusting pile of stuff from Westminster the better off we will all be.

        1. Sunflower oil apparently is due to it being grown in Ukraine. I haven’t used it for many years.

          1. Morning 🐘 🙂
            A pound more now, as is olive oil, not from Ukraine nor our beer wine bread you name it.
            It’s just another great British rip-off.
            Our weekly shopping bill has increased by around 35 pounds.
            My state pension allowance is still in the bronze age. 53 years I worked for that pittance.

          2. I feel fo r your Eddy. I think everyone on a fixed income is going to struggle in the near future.

            It’s comical that the state keeps ‘fiddling’ by whinging about the cost of pensions. What it continually ignores is that *it* makes goods and services expensive. 20% VAT on everything, 25% company tax, 20% business rates, employer NI, sky high energy taxes, fuel duty.

            Every single time the state adds a cost to a business to make, transport and sell something, it makes goods more expensive. Now, I’ve no pretence that fruit juice will drop from £2.50 to £1 overnight if we scrapped all those taxes, but you can guarantee that the market would change – more jobs, more goods, new goods means more sales which becomes a tide all it’s own.

            Lefties scoff at trickle down economics but ignore the opposite that’s all around them.

          3. I’ve tried to get something done about it. My previous mp was Peter Lilley once work and pensions sec. He did represent me with my enquiries to department. But all I ended up with was a stack of paper work that fills the mind with absolute BS. We have friends and relatives in Australia who were born here and worked here for around 15 years, two of them in particular, husband and wife, have told me they get around 9 thousand per year uk pension between them.
            In the early-mid 90s I even made up the difference for the 6 years I was living out of the country.
            Fortunately we have been lucky with investments and family legacies. We would now be forced to sell our home if we hadn’t been fairly lucky.
            But that’s not the point 🤔

          5. Indeed it does.
            Strange as it may seem I think he put himself up for acceptance in a North London Labour borough. He was unsuccessful. But was then shoe (eased in) horned into a large Tory majority constituency soon after Lilley retired. I’ve met him a couple of times he seems like a nice sort of person. But watch this space………..and he doesn’t seem to have done anything significant, especially against the Luton airport expansion.

          6. Fruit juice would be cheaper if they removed VAT (and didn’t replace it with another tax).

          8. Those who reached pension age before April 2016 are on a much lower rate. Our shopping bill is up too.

          9. Not for political classes Ellie. They just take what they want. Gold plated bomb proof pensions and thousands of pounds in expenses.
            Making sure that they don’t suffer from the same issues and problems they have caused.

        2. When Putin cut off gas the price of gas soared as the other providers responded to the market.

          Here in the UK, as our energy prices were locked to the highest cost (CFDs) our energy became hideously expensive.

          If govenrment hadn’t implemented CFDs to protect failed unreliables, had expanded gas, coal and nuclear when gas became expensive we could start buying coal and nuclear power. Prices would still have risen slightly, but 5% or so, not 100%.

          It is all the fault of government’s desperation to run down our energy generating capacity.

    2. IMHO. The explanation for this is to collect money by the backdoor, to pay for more and more government cock ups. We now have at least one hundred thousand people who are expecting to be fed housed and supported for the rest of their lives. Added to the million or so who are already here and involved in a similar exploitation.
      And now if the public don’t take these people off the streets to care for them.
      It’s their fault it’s happened and on-going. The blame game set up by our useless political classes.

  15. 366817+ up ticks,

    These very same British without let or hindrance returned these political
    economy manipulators to power… again, knowing full well their past pedigree.

    They, in regards to many issues first create the odious problem then when up & running set about solving it…. with your money.

    Sunday 30 October: Hard-pushed Britons resent subsidising greedy energy giants through soaring bills

    In the background you can hear a melody playing,

    🎵
    Git along little dogies git along”

        3. Most of our timepieces have internet connection so fix themselves automatically. Unless you have a non-web version somewhere, yjere’s no way of checking that they actually have updated…
          Morning, Delboy.

  18. Now is no time for complacency. We’re still facing defeat in the woke war

    Comment posted BTL, as the article descended into ‘Gender’ discussion.:

    Gender, being a mainly grammatical construct, has nothing to do with what sex you are or want to be.

    Your sex (male or female) is defined by your DNA at birth and despite all or any the medication and/or surgery, it changes your DNA, and hence your sex, by not one iota.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/29/now-no-time-complacency-still-facing-defeat-woke-war/

    1. I have no objection to the concept of gender being extended to whatever or whoever something identifies with.

      Often grammatically it is arbitrary, but often it is not so. There are usually three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) as there are protons, electrons and neutrons, but sometimes there are two (light and dark, or yin and yang, or positive and negative) which does not cater for neuter and forces us into a binary definition. The Holy Trinity (father, son and holy spirit whose gender terminology is arbitrary) is another threesome.

      All the nuances are catered for, and gender is a broad church. Biological sex is distinct and its definition is a lot narrower. Strictly speaking, it is set by one’s DNA at conception, but few infants can grasp that, and have something readily to hand that is much more easily grasped that sets whether one is a boy or a girl. For working purposes, I find that definition the most practical for everyday living.

  20. Oops, I nearly forgot…regard this DM article as the ultimate cure for low blood pressure.  If anything ever required a trigger warning, this must be it.  Proceed with caution!

    * * *

    Britain’s first ‘black university’ does not have permission to use official university title

    The organisation is this autumn running its first course, titled the Radical Imagination Labs, which is fully funded for 16 students

    By Ewan Somerville 29 October 2022 • 4:00pm

    Britain’s first “black university”, which includes a course on “burning s*** down”, does not have permission to use an official university title, it has emerged.

    The Free Black University was created by Mel Owusu, a PhD researcher at Cambridge, amid the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and is now starting to take on students.

    Owusu has said it is needed because British universities are “built on colonisation – the money, buildings, architecture – everything is colonial”.

    Having crowdfunded £150,000, the organisation is this autumn running its first course, titled the Radical Imagination Labs, which is fully funded for 16 students.

    The course only accepted applications from “people racialised as Black or mixed-Black”, with students challenged at a “revolutionary level” because “we are living in the imagination of a few White European men”.

    ‘Burn S*** Down’

    In the 10-week course overview, week two is titled “Burn S*** Down”, which focuses on “building abolitionist futures” and going “beyond the realm of mind and into the parts of self that the ‘Eurocentric masculinist knowledge validation process’…would not accept as truth”.

    Week three explores how “colonialism produced the concept of time itself”, while week four “will hold a grief ritual for the process of leaving what we have known in terms of the rationalist and evidence-based knowledge system behind”.

    Students will produce a journal at the end of the course in December. There is no assessment because “we do not believe the process of external validation is supportive for the process of exploration we will be setting upon”.

    It has been publicly supported by the University and College Union, the UK’s biggest academics union, and the National Union of Students.

    No official university title

    However, the universities watchdog has revealed it has not been given permission to use an official university title.

    Susan Lapworth, chief executive of the Office for Students, told The Telegraph: “This organisation is not registered with the Office for Students and so has not demonstrated that it meets our stringent requirements for registration, for example in relation to course quality.

    “Organisations are not permitted to use the legally protected term ‘university’ in their name without permission and we have not been asked for permission in this case.”

    The regulator said it does not oversee the Free Black University, which trades under The Free Black Universe Ltd, and the word “university” is a sensitive word under the Companies Act 2006.

    Inaya Folarin Iman, head of the Equiano Project, a cultural debate organisation, said: “This isn’t a university, it is an indoctrination camp which seeks to delegitimise the foundational ideas of Western civilisation and promote a narrative of cultural self-loathing.

    ‘Racialism and segregation is being promoted’

    “Far from supporting black students, it harms them by forwarding an anti-educational, anti-science, grievance-based politics. Racialism and segregation is being promoted in the name of anti-racism.”

    The Free Black University vows to “produce knowledge that cuts through the epistemic veil that sits across a world built upon the foundations of white supremacy (also known as Enlightenment thought)”, and “end the standpoint from which colonialism makes sense”.

    It has suggested it may eventually apply for degree-awarding powers, as well as build a physical hub with teaching rooms in a diverse London neighbourhood.

    Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert, from the race campaign group Don’t Divide Us, said Enlightenment thought has “the very values from which the trade union movement emerged in its fight to extend principles and practices of equality and freedom”.

    The Free Black University did not respond to requests for comment.

    * * *

    As you may imagine, the BTL posters are not holding back, and it remains to be seen how many will survive moderation.  This is perhaps one of the best:

    BRITISH BROWN FEMALE13 HRS AGO

    Quite frankly if anyone is able to sit awake through all 12 weeks of this “course” then they deserve a medal and clearly understand gobbledigook!

    Oh and if you’re wondering why Indians and the Chinese are the highest performing demographic in the UK, it’s because neither has a huge chip on their shoulder. Neither thinks they are perpetual victims. Neither tries to change the UK and neither spends their time memorising a holy book. No they spend their time studying hard to excell in the English curriculum!

    Mind you what am I saying? Blacks and Muslims are held back purely due to the racism of white people, and Indians are clearly “Superficially brown”.

      1. Including the green verdant countryside, our long established culture and social structure.
        Re culture…..the parts that needed changing have actually escaped attention.

    3. I imagine the £150,000 will suddenly disappear – along with the native chap who raised it!!!

    4. I would have thought that a university in Cambridge, England, that dwelt extensively on British European culture should be referred to as “indigenous studies” and that any BLM content is itself colonialist.

      Why don’t they set up their own indigenous studies faculties in Nairobi?

    5. Isn’t reading and writing a bit …. er … how do I put this …. a smidge colonialist and whitey?

      1. Well, the bame johnny on The Repair Shop only discovered that he could neither read nor write WHEN he got to University.

      2. Of course…and it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot, or even all, of the BTL posts mysteriously disappear when someone at the DT finally wakes up.

      1. I tried to explain to our lab why her grub was an hour late today but she still gave me a funny look.

        1. They do that very well! And Harry, the mad cockapoo who is here for his hols, does an excellent ‘side eye’!

        1. They both whimper if a shut them out. Took Harry for his first walk in the park yesterday. He bounced along like Tigger.

          1. Note to self: must try that on Spartie.
            Unlike husband and sons, he seems impervious to ‘mother going quiet”

  22. 366817+ up ticks,

    Fact,

    There is nothing stronger than a broken man who repairs himself, this can also be applied to a nation.

    The lab / lib /con current ukip coalition most certainly do NOT have the toolkit, & never had it these past 40 years.

  23. Watched a very strange programme last night. “The Repair Shop” – where the jokey, illiterate bame graduate “presenter” kept patting, hugging a bemused Charlie Boy. Chas (or, rather his Indian curator) had found two unattractive items in Chas’s 15th house that were to be “repaired”.

    Now, the actual artisans were obviously quite skilled. But I was very disappointed that (apart from the blacksmith) the cameras didn’t actually SHOW the viewer what they were doing. That would have been fascinating …. Well they did show a tiny bit of the woman in a very smart costume (just the thing for messy pottery repairs) renovating the missing glaze.

    And – as this prog has apparently a huge following – where were all the other artisans dealing with the hundreds of item brought in by weeping viewers to have repaired?

    It must cost the beeboids a bloody fortune.

    All very peculiar.

    1. I’ve been waiting since last June for a reply to a repair request, on a silver encased, Turkish dagger.

    2. It is a TV show, and its primary purpose is to entertain viewers, not to restore beloved items. The items for repair and screening would be chosen for their entertainment value, and are purely a means to an end. I would imagine that only one in a hundred items applied for actually make it to the barn.

      Now I am myself more interested in the artisanship of the repairs than I am of the “human interest”, but the producers may well have decided that “human interest” is more attractive to most viewers, and that I am just an outlier and not really important to their ratings. After all, more people watch soaps than documentaries. The show throws in enough artisan skill to keep people like me amused though.

      1. There are so many programmes offering human interest though, and not so many offering interesting information about repairs.

    3. Moh and I have avoided The Repair Shop for a while , because we think it has become too much like The BBC Breakfast show .. full of weepy personal stories , and although the creative clever fixing skills are admirable .. our patience is being tested b the emotional content .

      1. Lots of shows have gone this way alas. I used to enjoy ‘One Man and his Dog’ in the Phil `Drabble days, but these days it’s all about personality and one cannot follow the actual sport because of all the formulaic dramatic cutting of shots. ‘Ski Sunday’ went the same way, and more than half the show was celebrity chat rather than skiing.

        1. And it’s become pretty obvious that most quiz programs have become less demanding in their questions, seemingly due to diversity quests.
          We watched Celebrity Chase last night and if that wasn’t fixed I don’t know what is.
          But all the same two charities benefited.

          2. These shows are entertainment. It may be that the contestants receive the answers prior to the show. These are not A levels or Uni exams and the notion of “cheating ” is irrelevant.

      2. It is a shame. All we want to do is admire the patience and skill of the restorers.
        The weepy bit has been hyped up, I suspect by Beeboids who don’t understand their audience.

      3. Yes, that’s the same reason I gave up on it. Blubbing upon collection is now so predictable.

    4. Gave up on this some time ago, just far too wet with all the tears. It needs to man up.

    5. Yes, some of it was a bit creepy, but I really enjoyed the breathtaking skill of the horologist – and the fact that his apprentice son is the fourth generation. (And he doesn’t yet wear even a single pair of specs, never mind two!)

      1. That was the chap whose work I would lake to have seen, close up and in detail. All you saw was him with a screw-driver! Agree about the lad, too! What was not mentioned, of course, is that the cost of his hours and hours of toil would have run into 4 figures…..

        As I have a 100 year old 8 day striking clock that is playing up and cannot find anyone within 100 miles who is skilled and interested……

    6. Yes, some of it was a bit creepy, but I really enjoyed the breathtaking skill of the horologist – and the fact that his apprentice son is the fourth generation. (And he doesn’t yet wear even a single pair of specs, never mind two!)

    7. Repair of old artefacts is a choice between conservation and restoration, and there is often a conflict, dilemma etc. General principle is that all actions should be reversible.
      Your wise words include something to the effect of ‘nothing on telly is real’.

      1. In the days when I was on t’telly – (fortunately long ago and long forgotten) – the very first director told me: “Remember, nothing you see on television is true”.

        1. Good morning, Bill

          I remember you well on the radio with JY – but what were you on on the telly?

          2. There was a local BBC TV half hour “magazine” prog every week. I appeared to give legal advice. It was dire. I lasted two years before embarrassment (versus the money) persuaded me to quit.

  24. A proper good morning to you all .

    Windy autumnal weather , overcast … but 15c.

    William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73.

    That time of year thou mayst in me behold
    When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
    Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
    Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang .

    2. Steak and eggs features prominently on my diet. It is as healthy and nourishing as it is delicious. Rib-eye steak and fried eggs: food fit for kings.

      1. 366817+ up ticks,

        Morning G,
        Bought two yesterday for devouring on Monday, plus two eggs on top, chips,
        mushrooms,

          1. 366817+ up ticks,

            G,
            The lady indoors is strict, no, no,no, chips , bread, wheat product, mainly meat ,eggs, fish, high fat ,ketogenic,
            she cut my battalion of roasted soldiers ( boiled eggs)down to a squad.

    1. Good morning. I had trouble reading that article. Hitchens is right about cannabis. I’ve seen the effects up close.

      2. Sebastian Faulks’s novel, A Week in December, gives a horrific account of the effects of cannabis which has been modified to a strength unknown when most of us here were in our teens or twenties.

    2. Good morning Anne ..

      The stench of Skunk hangs in the air in public places .. I bent down to stroke a very friendly dog which was tied up outside a large shop.. The poor animal stank of hash .. I sniffed my hand after I had stroked it …

      Families have hash smoking parents .. there cannot be such a thing as hungry families in the UK, feckless parents are to blame .

      1. I would have absolutely NO idea what drugs smell like. I applaud your worldliness (and experience) Mags…!!

          1. So did I, Mags – but it never registered. I must be the only person alive whose recreational “drugs” were tobacco (given up on 23 Oct 1968) and alcohol – still going strong. I have never used, or been aware of nearby use of, “drug” drugs.

            A sheltered life, clearly.

          3. The RN gave everyone who served in the RN a tobacco ration .. untill it was stopped years ago .

            I have also led a sheltered life .

            Some things in society have been an absolute shock to the system .

          5. I admit there were some words I’d never heard of until my mid-late twenties – as for Other Stuff, I am still finding out.

          6. Good morning Saintly Mr T, and everyone.
            Statistically, alcohol consumption causes even more damage to health than narcotics, but that damage is perceived as socially acceptable and economically necessary. Note that the Palace of Westminster provides on-the-premises bar facilities for politicians who are supposed to be working.
            Not wishing to appear priggish, but as a child I was told that booze was a ‘good servant, bad master’.

          7. My grandfather gave my sister and me sherry with lemonade with a touch of Angostura bitters in a half pint glass beer mug! We were aged 5 and 10! Never did us any harm…hic!

          8. My father died when I was four but I remember when he was well (must have been the summer before) going round to the local pub, sitting in the beer garden and he would give me a drop from his glass of beer – I remember being fascinated by the rising bubbles. He died in May 1953.

          9. Wonderful memories! I can see my grandfathers gin and tonic in his glass – it was almost blue! All viewed through a fug of cigarette smoke!

          10. I have also retained my virginity as far as recreational drugs are concerned – that is if you exclude tobacco and alcohol. I gave up smoking cigarettes on the stroke of midnight on December 31st 1987 but I still smoke an occasional pipe to which I am not addicted and I never smoke it away from home.

            Just as for many people of my generation smoking pot was de rigeur if they wanted to prove that they were rebellious I rebelled against my contemporaries by doing the opposite. When I wrote a song – a practice I used to indulge in when I was younger – my protest songs were protests against the normal protesters’ and their songs:

            How I hate Apartheid: Richard Tracey

            You’ve seen me in the papers, you’ve seen me on the box
            I complain of Vietnam – or the hunting of the fox
            Of hunger in Biaffra – or the nuclear atom bomb
            And where the filthy capitalists get all their money from

            How I hate Apartheid,
            But how I love to demonstrate

            I say that what we need is tolerance and peace
            In proof of this I smash up cars and throw things at the police
            I refuse to hear a point of view that’s different from my own
            A really reasonable debate’s a thing I’ve never known

            How I hate Apartheid,
            But how I love to demonstrate

            We really had a field day with Springbok sporting tours
            We cut up cricket pitches for the multi-racial cause
            When we stopped the Lions’ rugby game it was our finest hour
            But we don’t see any racism in those clamours for black power

            How I hate Apartheid,
            But how I love to demonstrate

            But now, alas, my student days I’ll have to leave behind,
            I’ll put away my banners and I’ll regiment my mind
            I’ll shave off all my whiskers and I’ll wear a pin-stripe suit
            And catch the 7.50 – cos it’s such fun to commute

            It was great to demonstrate,
            But now it’s time to vegetate.

          13. My father said that most of the natives in the Sudan in his day smoked cannabis and this made them pretty sleepy, idle and inefficient.

          14. One of my nephews after his first term at Highgate school came home with ‘a plant’ one of his friends gave him to look after during half term. 🪴

          15. At the Hillbrow end of the road I lived in in JHB the drifting smoke from the dope was almost intoxicating. I only tried it twice I was sick. I preferred Cain and Canada.

          16. Ooh Eddy! Exactly the same as me! It reminds me of the old joke with the punchline ‘I only tried it twice! The first time I was sick and the second time my hat blew off! ‘

        3. Once smelled and recognised, it is never forgotten. In the early 1970s one would smell it drifting out of college windows in Cambridge, the area around Christ’s seemed to be particularly bad! I asked a friend with whom I was with what it was. ‘Hash’ was the brief reply. It has a pungent, cloying, highly perfumed smell. It clings to everything. That first introduction, such as it was, made me never want to touch the stuff.

          Edit: Good morning, Bill and everyone on this damp, drizzly morning.

        4. I am no expert on recreational drugs but, according to the Eagles, the odour of cannabis is like the ‘warm smell of colitis’ – a smell coming from the colon.

          On a dark desert highway
          Cool wind in my hair
          Warm smell of colitas
          Rising up through the air
          Up ahead in the distance
          I saw a shimmering light
          My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
          I had to stop for the night

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVsbvFkhzY4

          4. We were there 😊😉
            Our boys were with my parents and we left early to collect them. Before they had finished the last number just to getaway quickly.
            As we walked back to our car, they drove past us in two limos and all waved. I felt very special.
            I’ve got a concert recorded from 1973 the original band. All that long hair beards and moustaches.
            Great harmonies.

          7. I love the story lines in their songs.
            There are a few alternative lyrics.
            It must have hurt a few ego’s.
            Desperado is one of my favourites. It reminds me of someone I know. 😉
            This afternoon, another monsoon day we Erin and myself, stayed in and sat at the dinner table and played a game of The Original Rummikub (you’ll have to look it up) whilst enjoying a TV recording of a live Eagles concert of more than two hours. It didn’t match up to Life in the Fast Lane. But first timer I did enjoy it with a nice glass of Abbott Ale.

          8. Likewise. I’ve since seen the support act, The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, a couple of times. Excellent.

          9. The TV recording was at the BBC London theatre studio in 1973. They weren’t too well known at the time.

        5. I don’t know what it smells like either. But I do know that there are some things I simply can’t smell, so maybe that is one of them.
          I can smell freezias though.
          I want someone to tell me when there’s a smell of hash, so that I can try to smell it and solve the mystery!

      1. To the State,you’re an annoyance, sos. The State is forcing an agenda – the first step is revenge, absolute, bitter, total revenge for Brexit.

        (Thought to add in the qualifier rather than imply that Sos himself was annoying – you’re not!)

      3. But you are expected to pay your own accommodation, food and utilities out of that.

        1. Indeed.
          But gimmegrants are far more deserving than I am, after all, they’ve probably never worked for their living.
          [/sarc]

    3. That is just soooooo cool. I am just weeping to know that these poor people fleeing the terrible, lawless, dangerous regimes in Albania – and France, in particular – are not destitute. A very big hug and thank you to the Government.

      1. How about we all chip in for a dinghy, getone of those cards each and live the life of Riley?

    4. £175 a week? That’s as much as makes no difference to the “benefit” I receive and worked decades to pay for. That’s just the cash they receive and morons on social media continue to claim that they’re here to work and contribute to the wellbeing of the UK. Mass psychosis has not impacted only on the CV-19 scam.

      1. I fully expect, once Serco have ‘run out’ of hotel type accommodation, that the HMG ‘nudge’ unit ably supported by the communist cabal in iSage, will expand on their ‘house a Ukrainian refugee’ programme.

        Perhaps through council tax incentives or similar short-term bribes.

    5. THE GIRAFFES HAVE TAKEN OVER THE ASYLUM

      GOV UK Site : https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get

      Asylum support
      Skip to contents of guide
      Contents
      Overview
      What you’ll get
      Eligibility
      How to claim
      Further information
      What you’ll get
      You can ask for somewhere to live, a cash allowance or both as an asylum seeker.

      Housing
      You’ll be given somewhere to live if you need it. This could be in a flat, house, hostel or bed and breakfast.

      You cannot choose where you live. It’s unlikely you’ll get to live in London or south-east England.

      Cash support
      You’ll get £40.85 for each person in your household. This will help you pay for things you need like food, clothing and toiletries.

      Your allowance will be loaded onto a debit card (ASPEN card) each week. You’ll be able to use the card to get cash from a cash machine.

      If you’ve been refused asylum
      You’ll be given:

      somewhere to live
      £40.85 per person on a payment card for food, clothing and toiletries
      You will not be given:

      the payment card if you do not take the offer of somewhere to live
      any money
      Extra money for mothers and young children
      You’ll get extra money to buy healthy food if you’re pregnant or a mother of a child under 3. The amount you get will depend on your situation.

      Your situation Extra payment per week
      Pregnant mother £3
      Baby under 1 year old £5
      Child aged 1 to 3 £3
      Maternity payment
      You can apply for a one-off £300 maternity payment if your baby is due in 8 weeks or less, or if your baby is under 6 weeks old.

      If you’ve been refused asylum
      You can apply for a one-off £250 maternity payment if your baby is due in 8 weeks or less, or if your baby is under 6 weeks old.

      Applying for the maternity grant
      You apply for the maternity grant in the same way whether you’re still an asylum seeker or you’ve been refused asylum.

      You’ll need to request form MAT B1 from your doctor to apply for the payment. You can apply for the maternity payment at the same time you apply for asylum support.

      If you get pregnant after you’ve applied for asylum support, you can apply to the support team that dealt with your application for asylum support.

      Healthcare
      You may get free National Health Service (NHS) healthcare, such as to see a doctor or get hospital treatment.

      You’ll also get:

      free prescriptions for medicine
      free dental care for your teeth
      free eyesight tests
      help paying for glasses
      Education
      Your children must attend school if they are aged 5 to 17. All state schools are free and your children may be able to get free school meals.

      Previous:Overview
      Next:Eligibility
      View a printable version of the whole guide

      1. So much free stuff for just rolling up on the beach.
        Work all your life, paying taxes and NI, get half od bugger-all, and that is taxed.
        Sounds like a lousy deal to me.

      2. I really shouldn’t read posts like this – depression and anger follow, and I’m sure I’m not alone

        2. Don’t shoot the messenger!

          But is ignorance really more blissful than knowing how the slime in office is betraying us?

          1. No pot shot intended Richard, yes I like to know what’s going on but at the same time it raises my hackles and blood pressure knowing there’s sod all I can do about it.

      1. And Johnson is beetling off to the climate conference to which Sunak will not be going and to which The King was instructed not to go.

        Beneath the bluster Boris Johnson was – and still is – an uxorious wimp; if he had steered clear of the green nonsense and got Brexit going properly by invoking Article 16 and setting Britain free of EU regulations he would certainly still be in Downing Street. But his most recent wife told him what to do and these things were not on her agenda.

          3. And so Mr Simmons should be.
            What a shame they are moving to SE London.
            We didn’t have much going for us. And now this.

  30. Jacob Rees-Mogg says UK ‘cannot ease up on legal migration’ until the arrival of illegal migrants is under control.
    The former business secretary also questioned claims within government that relaxing immigration restrictions would boost the economy
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/30/jacob-rees-mogg-says-uk-cannot-ease-legal-migration-arrival/

    The only amusing thing that David Cameron ever said was to Tony Blair : “You were the future – once.” Was it Corbyn who said to Rees-Mogg : “You’re not the future, you’re not even the present – but you are the past.”?

    I was slightly amused by this BTL comment:

    Noël Coward said with false modesty that he had: ‘a talent to amuse’; Jacob Rees-Mogg is gifted with an exceptional talent to disappoint.

          1. When children became the be all and end all of the idiot parents who couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of saying ‘No’, was the beginning of the me me me generation!

          4. Being a parent has been an odd experience for me. Junior’s never been a chum – he’s too high maintenance, but I like his company and encouraging him to think in his own way to see his character forming.

            He has to be an individual and that requires him to oppose and challenge but, ultimately he’s got to do as he’s told until he can present a rational argument as to why not – and, to his credit has done that on some things.

          9. Around forty years ago a work colleague called on me at home with his wife and toddler son. They were paying a social visit and wanted to show off their little lad.

            When I emerged from the kitchen with pot of tea, this little toddler was picking up a number of fragile, expensive objects I had on display on a low wall. I knelt down in front of this little chap, smiled at him and tried to take the fragile item away from him. I gently uttered the word “No” and shook my head (still smiling) in the hope that he would understand that this was something that he shouldn’t do.

            His parents were mortally offended! They had ignored him as he toddled around picking up whatever he wished. They said to me, “We never … ever … use that word! It is not a word that we wish him to hear.”

            Bemused, I stood up and said, “Well, unfortunately, it is a valid word in this house and I use it all the time whenever it is required.”

            They left and never returned. I’ve often wondered how that little lad grew up, not knowing the difference between what is acceptable and what is not.

          11. Indeed. I was run into in a supermarket by a small child pushing a trolley. I told him to look where he was going. The father said to me angrily, “he’s only three!” I asked him if he was going to put that on his grave when he ran in front of a car because he wasn’t looking where he was going. I was not exactly flavour of the month. What pillock lets a 3 yr old run riot with a trolley anyway?

          12. I’ve been told that recently! ‘We don’t use any negative words’! Perhaps it’s time you did!

          13. Our younger son and his wife started off like that with their little son. Until son no. 2 arrived when the elder was aged 4.

          14. At our last UK residence, the little girl from across the road was vandalising stuff in our house, got seriously told off by SWMBO, and never came round again. Clearly “no” was a foreign word at her place.

          16. I can tell you a true story about him that is hard to believe. He had joined the police from the RAF. He’d wanted to be a pilot (he was certainly potential Rupert material) but he had failed the reaction-times test.

            One day, newly recruited, he turned up for duty and noticed that a fellow police officer had “bulled” up his work boots to a mirror-like shine. He asked the officer how he had managed to get the boots so shiny. The other officer, a known wag, told him a fairy story which this hapless recruit believed. He told him that he had recently visited the nearby Coalite coking plant on an investigation. It had been raining hard and there was a massive dirty puddle, mixed with lots of coal dust, outside the Coalite offices. He said that he had no option but to paddle through this filthy puddle to get to the door. He was then astounded to see, when he emerged, that his boots had developed an incredibly dazzling shine!”

            The recruit actually believed all this bullshit, but the story gets better. Later on that day, the police station received a telephone call from Coalite. The office staff were bemused to report that they had a policeman turn up there who was busily, and curiously, paddling up and down in a large dirty puddle! They wondered if he was well.

            We often wondered the same.

          17. I can tell you a true story about him that is hard to believe. He had joined the police from the RAF. He’d wanted to be a pilot (he was certainly potential Rupert material) but he had failed the reaction-times test.

            One day, newly recruited, he turned up for duty and noticed that a fellow police officer had “bulled” up his work boots to a mirror-like shine. He asked the officer how he had managed to get the boots so shiny. The other officer, a known wag, told him a fairy story which this hapless recruit believed. He told him that he had recently visited the nearby Coalite coking plant on an investigation. It had been raining hard and there was a massive dirty puddle, mixed with lots of coal dust, outside the Coalite offices. He said that he had no option but to paddle through this filthy puddle to get to the door. He was then astounded to see, when he emerged, that his boots had developed an incredibly dazzling shine!”

            The recruit actually believed all this bullshit, but the story gets better. Later on that day, the police station received a telephone call from Coalite. The office staff were bemused to report that they had a policeman turn up there who was busily, and curiously, paddling up and down in a large dirty puddle! They wondered if he was well.

            We often wondered the same.

          18. They used to say that when a girl says Yes she really means No. Such an attitude would very quickly land you in prison today (unless you are of a certain peaceful religion when it is quite acceptable to ignore the word No!)

            I always enjoy this song from Oklahoma :

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A18kYnP4Pec

          19. Ado Annie, played by the wonderful Gloria Grahame. I have this marvellous musical on DVD, it is one of my favourites.

          20. Re the video of Oklahoma : I also have it and so I might say Mee too – but I as well is more correct!

          21. Far too many have brought up their children like that. You have to be cruel to be kind.

          22. Cruelty not necessary, Johnny. Just defined boundaries over which they must not cross or get to hear about it.

          24. Reinforced in schools with “child-centred education” and the end of corporal punishment.

          25. It is interesting, isn’t it. Gen X grew up through the 80’s and 90’s, starting work around the noughties.

            By the, government debt was manageable. However we really hit our stride during the Blair era, when debt went skyrocketing and borrowing insane and the state grew exponentially.

            It was also the decade when it stopped paying to work due to Brown’s taxes and welfare exploded and it became harder to support a family on one income.

            However, could it be that we brought the Blair and Brown terror in? They were kept in by the welfarists and statists Brown enforced.

          26. I think the people were blinded by comfort.
            And the debt monger patronage of the political class laughed all the way to the stock exchange.

    3. I can’t tell if we’re the ones drinking or holding beer. Certainly there were evenings when, out of baby formula Junior had a slug of Thatcher’s cider.

      1. I used to give my elder son (when he was a sleepless baby) a teaspoon of whisky. Worked a treat.

        1. In the 1974 power cuts my three year old son bit a chunk out of my gin glass. He was unharmed…….

        2. Mine could finish a 1/2 of Draught Guinness when he was 4 – I must admit he got a bit bolshi after it

          1. Apparently, nowadays I’d be done for (a) a crime and (b) child abuse.

            I only did it as a last resort having pushed the little bugger – wide awake in his pram – round Ealing in the middle of the night for an hour….

    4. Being GenX, I’ve wondered this myself. There’s no doubt that our parenting was different from our own parents’ – and I probably count as a harsh Gen X parent. When my children were young, there were people on mumsnet saying that the naughty step was too traumatic to inflict on children – other forms of discipline were beyond the pale.

        2. I thought that if you were Hindu you were honour bound to hate Muslims just as if you are Muslim you are honour bound to hate Hindus?

          1. If you’re muslime you’re honour bound to hate everyone else.
            As their banners say ‘Behead the non belivers’.

        4. But not St George’s day. Many councils have now made up stupid excuses to ban the celebrations and parades.

      2. This has been planned for decades.
        That’s why the ownership of guns were banned in the UK.

          1. Yes and people who used shooting ranges with rifles.
            Not farmers with locked gun cabinets and shot guns stowed away.
            Mind you there are probably more Hand guns on our streets now than there has ever been.

          2. Albanians have the right to bear arms. They need to be able to protect their businesses; prostitution, people smuggling, drug dealing.

          3. I had a revolver and an automatic pistol for target shooting in a rifle club. I bought them following an unsuccessful burglary at my neighbours house.- (which I interrupted). A policeman came round the house to check my application and I asked him what would happen if I came across a burglar in my hose and shot him. He replied ” as long as there is a weapon in his hand when we come you’ll get away with it” This was before that guy Martin was convicted for killing that pikie. I had to give them up in ’94 when they were banned

        2. Variousset up events took place, I think. Hungerford, Dunblane were the two most effective.

          1. I believe the gun users and perpetrators were both killed in these two terrible incidents.
            Having been an owner of fire arms and having know several other owners. It’s a prominent observation that the weapons are inanimate objects. As are road vehicles until the driver gets in and starts the engine.
            Not all drivers are angry destructive people. But crashes and deaths happen every day. Nor indeed are people with guns hateful and angry.
            Even a fertiliser was taken off the
            open market because certain
            people used it to make bombs.
            And kill people.

      2. My, you’re quick!
        I try to test my links so as not to disappoint. It’s there now, I missed the closing ” in the link address.

    2. There are many descendents of ukranian immigrants out west, the little shit is just trying to buy votes.

      Not that anyone out there will vote for him but what the hell. It is our money.

      1. I totally agree Obs. Every where this shite goes on the planet they stir up trouble. It’s their sole reason to exist.

      2. Which is why, Paul, I advocate that we start with the Muslim version of Kristallnacht.

        Stig thinks it abhorrent but like it told the Jews in Nazi Germany, “You’re neither welcome nor wanted here.”

    2. They are declaring war on our civilisation.

      Is it that our politicians are too blind to see it and protect us – which is their first duty – or is it that want it to happen?

      This poses the question – ‘If politicians don’t want to protect us then what can we do to protect ourselves? And if we do so won’t it inevitably lead to civil war?’

      1. No, the state is, and yes, I think it’ll have to. Until every single criminal gimmigrant is removed and the tsunami stops, permanently the country is doomed, the state is intentionally not doing it’s job – in fact, it is doing the opposite of it’s job.

        Move all these criminals in with home office officials. Especially those with young children and women living alone. Really, really laser focus the minds of the scum forcing the tide of filth on us.

      2. 366817+ up ticks,

        Morning R,
        Is there any doubt as to the United Kingdoms
        politico’s intentions ? they are treachery on Viagra
        they seduce EVERYTHING they touch and that is orchestrated as we are led (willingly in many cases) down the path of repression,replacement reset.

        “This poses the question – ‘If politicians don’t want to protect us then what can we do to protect ourselves?”

        Take their power away, STOP SUPPORTING POLITICAL SHITE THEN WHINGING.

      3. It’s a real question.
        But for civil war we would need to rally around someone.
        1. Most of those who are disgusted are a lawful bunch and we just want stability. We’re not the type to take up arms against our neighbours. Even if they are darker and talk funny.
        2. It’s an opinion free for all out there. There is no central anchor of dissent.

          2. Well, judging by the brutality shown by the perlice against innocent, harmless people during the plague – I hold out no hope there.

          3. I expect chaos.
            The authorities think they will be able to keep a lid on it, but they won’t.

      4. Why do you think the British were effectively disarmed?
        Two sections of society now have access to guns: selected state employees and criminals.

    3. They are just tourists on a boat trip – once around the bay on the ‘Skylark’, having a sing-song.

  38. Arizona bikers were riding South on the US-93 when they saw a girl about
    to jump off the Hoover Dam Bridge. So they stopped. George, their
    leader, a big burly man of 53, gets off his Harley, walks through a
    group of gawkers, past the StateTrooper who was trying to talk her down
    off the railing, and says, “Hey Baby…..whatcha doin’ up there on that
    railin’?”
    She says tearfully, “I’m going to commit suicide!!”
    While he didn’t want to appear “sensitive,” George also didn’t want to
    miss this “be-a-legend” opportunity either so he asked …”Well, before
    you jump, Honey-Babe…why don’t you give ole George here your best last
    kiss?”
    So, with no hesitation at all, she leaned back over the railing and did
    just that … and it was a long, deep, lingering
    kiss followed immediately by another even better one.
    After they breathlessly finished, George gets a big thumbs-up approval
    from his biker-buddies, the onlookers, and even
    the State Trooper, and then says, “Wow! That was the best kiss I have
    ever had, Honey! That’s a real talent you’re wasting, Sugar Shorts. You
    could be famous if you rode with me. Why are you committing suicide?”
    “My parents don’t like me dressing like a girl.”
    It’s still unclear whether he/she jumped or was pushed??

    1. And of course it has nothing to do with 10’s of thousands of illegal immigrants arriving needing food and shelter.

    2. 6000 people homeless in the capital city. More than 25 rapes every day. Stabbings by the blacks through the roof.

      It’s obscene. No, Khan, it’s not part of living in a big city. It’s part of living in hell. A hell you and your useless Lefty quislings have created.

      Find that runt and hang him.

      1. I think I hate that pile of dung more than you do.
        I believe he was also involved in the defence of the London bombers.

    1. I managed to change our Oven clock this morning, …….. it’s a bloody nightmare. It does everything except what you are trying to achieve.

        1. The previous oven was easy, a Nef as is this, but it’s so awkward.
          At least our car clock is updated now.
          And I haven’t even been in it today 🙂

          1. Mine, too. It’s right all year round, but only corresponds with the country’s time when they stop messing with the clocks.

    3. The clock on my car has been wrong ever since I had a new battery. I managed to get the minutes approximately right but the hours are wrong. I spent ages pushing buttons and gave up.

      1. The garage helpfully reset mine last year. It’s now one hour fast in summer, and two hours fast in winter.

  42. Making use of the extra hour of daylight, I’ve just done a mix of mortar and a bit of wall building.
    Now I need to leave it a couple of days, to Wednesday at the earliest, to harden properly.

    2. How is there an extra hour of daylight Bob? The total daylight has just been moved by an hour, it’s the same length.
      This nonsense should be stopped, if it’s inconvenient just move the time of the events.

  44. 366817+ up ticks,

    Many of the peoples would not give us credibility as a credible party
    when you had the leadership of the genuine UKIP those same peoples would rather listen intently to choudary and nod their heads ( full of shite) wisely in agreement.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    2h
    It should be. Mr Choudary is the authentic voice of Islam. He is honest & frank about the core Islamic teachings, as enshrined in their scriptures.

    We need Mr C. to tell us exactly what Islam has in store for the Western world.

    Anjem Choudary reckons Twitter ban could be lifted after Elon Musk bought platform — The Sun

    https://gettr.com/post/p1w2jw844f0

    Anjem Choudary reckons Twitter ban could be lifted after Elon Musk

    1. It would appear then that Sunak is as evil as May but in a much more deeply sinister way!

    2. CBDC, which is advocated by Sunak under the framework of the WEF ‘stakeholder’ concepts, is being considered by the Bank of England in the light of the move away from cash to bank accounts.

      But is the move away from cash still relevant in today’s world when an energy company can force a customer to install a prepayment meter using tokens that are cash oriented?

      https://inews.co.uk/news/men-broke-into-my-house-to-install-meter-energy-customers-left-in-tears-over-forced-prepayment-1826879

    3. He’s in now, there to ensure the decline fo the country. He will announce significant tax hikes, more borrowing and, of course, more spending.

    4. How do I contact her? I have a little piece about CO2 that I think should be widely published, it reads:

      Climate Change and You

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

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

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

      2. Please feel free to copy it and post it wherever you like – best if, where you post it, has a wide (woke?) audience.

  48. Man kills himself after throwing petrol bombs at Dover immigration centre, witness says. 30 october 2022.

    A man threw petrol bombs attached with fireworks at a new Border Force immigration centre in Dover and then killed himself, a witness has said.

    The alleged attacker, a white man in a striped top, drove up to the centre in a white Seat sports utility vehicle. He got out and threw three petrol bombs, one of which did not go off, according to a photographer for Reuters.

    RIP.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/30/dover-petrol-bomb-immigration-centre-border-force

  49. I can’t copy and paste – it is too long – but if any of you want a real LARF this arvo – there are extracts from a book about Untrussworthy when she was Trade Secretary which are pure gold in the Sunday Grimes.

    As a naive ignoramus I learned from BTL that “double espresso” (the coffee to which the woman was addicted) ACTUALLY refers to cocaine…..

    Which makes the article even more rivetting!!!

  51. Bloody hell, after bright sunshine for a brief period of an hour or so, it’s now gone VERY dark and raining!
    Glad I resisted putting the washing out!

    1. I managed to do some weeding of the veg plot, but then it started to rain, so I packed it in.

    1. The ruling class are depraved, degenerate, and rotten to the core.

      I am not certain our own bunch would fair any better if the light were shone on their activities.

  55. The Peter Hitchens article featured earlier:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11368907/PETER-HITCHENS-murderers.html

    In all the reports of the conviction of Vasile Culea for the murders of Ken and Freda Walker there has been hardly any mention of his nationality. In one of last week’s editions of East Midlands Today it was noted but it doesn’t appear in this BBC website report. Hitchens doesn’t even mention it. The Guardian does.

    I wonder how PH would get on if he submitted a FoI request for criminality amongst post-1997 immigrants, broken down by nationality and ranked per capita for each…

    1. William, the official version is that approximately 30% of the UK prison population are of foreign birth or are dual nationals.
      In plain english that is one in three.
      If you were to categorise convicted prisoners by
      family history, like the German regime back in the 1930s, the non-English or Irish or Scottish or Welsh percentage might be higher.
      Also important to note that offenders often claim that they are drug addicts.

    1. But doesn’t the donkey pose the same environmental problems with its flatulence as a cow does?

  57. Let’s hear it for Noddy cars; discontinued 11 years ago and still carting shopping and dogs plus trips to the tip.
    A very cheering article.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/why-refuse-give-old-banger/

    Lucy Denyer says she does not plan on trading in her Volvo any time soon

    Why I refuse to give up my old banger

    Like thousands of other Britons, I question the logic of splashing out on a new car when there is nothing wrong with my middle-aged one

    30 October 2022 • 8:00am

    I have a thing for old cars. Not fancy sports models, museum-class relics or investment opportunities: just old, practical cars. I was brought up this way, so it seems natural to me to run a middle-aged vehicle, and it turns out that it’s not only my family who feel comfortable in a pensionable jalopy. Record numbers of Britons are hanging on to their midlife motors and questioning the logic of splashing out on a new one. According to the experts, the number of cars over 10 years of age on British roads is growing by half a million every year. Driving a banger, it seems, is bang on trend.

    The first car I ever owned was a 1985 B-reg Ford Fiesta. Metallic beige, four gears, a 1.1 litre engine which got going with a choke – and no working stereo; it cost my dad £300. I christened it Kenneth, and for the next couple of years it carried me trustily around the country to a soundtrack from my makeshift stereo (an actual cassette player Blu-tacked to the dashboard). It was my haven; my safe space on wheels, where I could laugh, cry, talk to myself and sing out loud and out of tune without fear. Being an antique, Kenneth had character; I remembered him fondly this week when it was announced that Ford was to stop making the Fiesta.

    Kenneth finally failed his MOT one too many times and was dragged to the scrapyard to be replaced by a gold Mini that leaked whenever it rained. That in turn was followed by another Mini (nicknamed Goliath on account of having fitted six of us in it on one memorable trip to the university boat club), then a beaten-up old Golf that I accidentally left the handbrake off on one day, which led to it gently rolling down the hill and smashing spectacularly into a far inferior (though more expensive) car belonging to a neighbour. Douglas, the Golf, suffered barely a scratch. After Douglas came my father’s old Volvo saloon, followed by my grandparents’ even older Rover.

    When I got married, my husband and I inherited an ancient bright-green Peugeot 106 from my cousin which needed pushing to get it started (there was one particularly hairy moment when I’d parked facing the wrong way on the Gloucester Road and had to push it into oncoming traffic before doing a swift U-turn). When we moved to America a couple of years later we bought a Jeep Wrangler that was so old the speedo dials didn’t actually work (highly illegal), and you didn’t even need a key to turn the ignition on (we sold it for parts for more than we bought it for).

    None of these cars were fancy; none cost more than a few hundred pounds. I didn’t have money to burn and it seemed silly to throw what I did have away on a new – or even newish – car. As long as it got me from A to B I didn’t really care what I drove. I’d grown up in a family that always drove second-hand Volvo estates that could fit lots of children in and get a bit scratched without anyone minding too much, and we secretly thought that anyone who drove a new car was a bit naff (especially if it was a BMW). The world divided into two lots of people – new car drivers versus old car drivers, usually with corresponding levels of tolerance for mess (new car owners always had immaculate vehicles; the age of a second-hand car could usually be measured by associated levels of interior filth and assorted detritus).

    Naturally we viewed anyone with a gleamingly tidy recent registration with great suspicion. That’s not to say I didn’t occasionally suffer a pang of envy towards those who had an easier ride. One school friend was given a brand new Ford Ka for her 21st birthday – glossy, black and oh-so-modern in comparison to dear old Kenneth; another had a brand new Mini (much more spacious than Goliath, although not half as characterful), while to drive a Golf or a Peugeot 306 was the height of sophistication during our student days. But I was broadly happy with my old bangers – cheap, easy to fix, unlikely to be stolen and all bringing great pleasure, if not an entirely safe driving experience.

    These days, I drive my own Volvo – the newest car I’ve ever owned and acquired when we had our third child and needed something big enough to fit three car seats in a row (the exciting jeopardy of driving a vehicle that might break down at any given moment wore off after becoming a parent). It still feels thrilling to take the wheel (heated seats! A stereo you can Bluetooth your phone to!) and, following the family tradition, I’m not planning on trading it in any time soon.

    It’s a family trait – both the cars and the desire to drive them into the ground. My parents are in their 70s, but both still drive Volvo estates, despite no longer having multiple small children to cart about – my mother’s is 20 years old, with 240,000 miles on the clock, and my father’s just a few years younger with nearly 200,000 miles on it. “We will drive them both until they die,” declares my father, when I ask him whether they’ve thought of trading them in for younger models. My sister swapped one lot of banger-loving parents for another when she got married: her father-in-law only traded in his 1983 Volvo estate last year after “I felt as if I was becoming a slave to it, rather than it being a slave to me.”

    But now, it seems, the whole clan are actually quite on-trend. According to recent analysis by Auto Trader, a record number of ageing vehicles are expected to be on the road in the next five years: based on DVLA figures, the company estimates that, by 2027, around 15.4 million cars in Britain will be at least 10 years old – an extra 3.6 million on 2021. Covid supply chains mean it’s harder than ever to get your hands on a new car, while the cost of living crisis means more of us are thinking twice about upgrading our motors.

    The average age of a used car advertised on Auto Trader has jumped from 57 months in 2019 to 71 months in 2022, and like-for-like prices on 10- to 15-year-old cars are up 12.1 per cent compared with a year ago. “Cars are getting older but they’ve also got fewer miles on them,” points out Laura Harvey, director of communications at Auto Trader. “Covid has had a huge change on how and where people work and that, coupled with lockdown, has all contributed to this change in mileage – people are using their cars less than they were.” All of which means that age doesn’t necessarily equate to something that’s been driven to death anymore – and buyers are waking up to that fact.

    About time, I reckon. Surely nobody in their right mind would buy a brand new car just off the factory floor: they lose most of their value in their first year, for a start. “I don’t understand what the incentive is for me to swap it,” says Simon Eccles of his 1968 Rover, which he’s owned since he was 25 (he’s now 51).

    “The whole thing of persuading you to change your car every three years is a racket – it’s fast fashion for motoring. To get the modern equivalent of the car we’ve got would cost us £80,000. Mine meets all the latest emissions standards, and it seems much more logical to keep that one lump of metal for as long as possible.”

    There are eco-concerns, of course. Our car is a polluting diesel – terrible for urban driving, not that we do a lot of it. But, as Eccles points out, “I would love for someone to genuinely show me whether it’s more environmentally friendly to scrap [my car] and ask for lithium batteries to be made for a modern Prius.” He and his wife walk to work; their children catch public transport to school; “I’ve yet to be convinced that the environmental damage of getting one more car off the production line offsets the relatively small amount of fuel the thing drinks.”

    John Humphrys feels the same way. The veteran broadcaster owns a 28-year-old Rover and has done his own calculations. “The amount of CO2 I would emit by getting the car scrapped and a new one built would roughly equal the amount I’d spew out if I drove it for another nine years.” Monty Don swears by his ancient Land Rover, and there is a long established connection between country-dwelling aristocrats and battered 4x4s.

    And let’s not be silly here. These days it’s all about cutting down on our conspicuous consumption, making do and mending, and yes – driving our old cars until they die. In the meantime they become our friends, telling our life stories in their scratches and stains, and, of course, the litter they accumulate.

    My top tip? Fix the stereo. An old car might be de rigueur these days, but Blu-tack on your dashboard is never a good look.

    The science of bangernomics

    by Alex Robbins

    It was motoring journalist and used-car guru James Ruppert who first coined the phrase “bangernomics” way back in the 1990s – the art of cost-effective motoring not in shiny new cars, but old bangers, and of keeping them running instead of throwing them away at the first sign of trouble.

    In recent times bangernomics has fallen out of favour as attractive financing options tempt buyers into new cars. But as interest rates rise and the cost of living bites, it might be about to make a comeback.

    That’s no bad thing, because old cars have never been better. There was a time you wouldn’t have been surprised to find a car rendered virtually unusable by rust barely 10 years after it was made.

    Nowadays, we’ve hit a sweet spot wherein the cars that count as bangers were well-made enough to last the course. But they remain mechanically and electronically simpler than newer cars, and therefore relatively economical (in most cases) to keep on the road.

    Cars made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in particular, now make brilliant bangers. And good, usable examples can still be had for not much more than £1,000.

    There’s an environmental imperative for keeping these cars on the road, too. If you do a low annual mileage, you’ll likely incur less CO2 than you would by doing it in a brand new car, whose production will incur a high carbon cost – especially if that car is electric.

    But how to buy a banger that won’t let you down? Ignore any aspirations to style or image, and buy the best example of the most reliable car you can.

    That means, most likely, something made by a Japanese or Korean brand – Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Kia, Hyundai and so on – or something ubiquitous and cheap to mend, such as a fairly basic Ford or Vauxhall.

    Dependable bangers nearing 20 years old, such as the Honda Accord and Mazda 6, are likely to be fitted with luxuries including air-conditioning, cruise control, electric windows and remote central locking, even heated seats in some cases.

    But equipment levels should come second to condition in your buying priorities. Look for cars that have been well cared for – a full service history is unlikely at this price, but look for evidence of regular maintenance and tyres that match across the axles. And buy a car that has had a recent MOT roadworthiness test.

    Once you’ve found your banger, look after it. Keeping it in good fettle might seem counter-intuitive with a car that isn’t worth much, but sympathetic care and maintenance could make the difference between it lasting one year or five.

    Treat it to a service (or at least an oil and filter change) every year, check the level of the oil and other fluids regularly.

    So if you’re looking for a way to reduce your outgoings, don’t bother renewing that PCP or lease deal. Get in on a secret most other motorists don’t know about: bangernomics is back.”

    1. My first car was a Hillman Hunter for £70 from the porter that bought it new. A great car that had wondeful vision out of its windows that has not been
      by any of my cars since.

      1. Mine was a 1946 MG TC with pneumatic brakes (well hydraulic but I never bled them), I had some fun in that car

          5. OMG… you have had a very tough early start Phizzee.

            Your escape plan was desperate , but it proved how resourceful you became in later life, giving you the strength to cope now.

          6. They still haunt me, Belle. I even bumped into my brother and my older sister quite recently. Again to my shame i greeted them warmly..once in the dentist and once in the Tesco carpark.

            the last time i stood up to her she manufactured a situation where it looked like i had attacked her. None of my other brothers or sisters were prepared to stand up for me. Then… even after she threw my other sister against the wall holding her by the neck and later punching my other brother in the face did they then respond with……why didn’t you tell me?

            I no longer speak to any of them.

          8. To my shame i stole it. I didn’t really know how to drive. It turned out that the owner had parked it at his elderly mothers bungalow because it was not road worthy. Neither of them chose to prosecute. I was fined on three counts at £50 each. I had no money but i was trapped. I was 16 and attended court on my own as i knew the punishment from my parents would be far worse. I was there all day…sitting in the waiting room too scared to ‘read the list’.

            No one was hurt and no one suffered any financial difficulty but it did teach me a lesson.

            I was desperately trying to leave. Two months later i did. Slept under Southsea Pier for two summer months and then met a priest. I know priests tend to have a bad reputation but this one didn’t take advantage and mentored me.

            He also paid my fines, God bless him.

            Among my friends now, more than 40 years later they call me ‘parking ticket’ because of my wanting to and often failing to abiding by the rules !

          1. Scarey – no MoT in those days, braking was non existent and it was always breaking down but it was fun to drive. I’ll see if I can find a photo and post it tomorrow

        3. Flash git!

          Which is more memorable – you first girlfriend or your first car. My first car was a Morris Minor which I shared with my mother. It was the model that pre-dated the Minor 1000 and had the split windscreen and a side valve engine.

          One of my best friends at UEA had an MG TD which was a great looking car but my MGA was rather quicker. Did you ever see a film called Two For The Road starring Tom Finney and Audrey Hepburn – the MG TD was the star of the film!

          But if you were libidinous and over six feet tall MG sports cars certainly offered you quite a challenge!

          1. I meet the girl who turned out to be my wife and drove her home that first night in my first car, rang and arranged to pick her up for a date the following night in my new (to me) car.
            She was very impressed, thought I had loads of money, she soon learnt otherwise but still married me 3 years later.

          3. Well the first car was a more comfortable ride. I had one of those moggies – 848cc side valve if I remember right and no heater. I would have loved to own an MGA but at least I eventually got an MGB GT with sunroof and overdrive. No never saw that film

        1. First car of first marriage was a Hillman Imp – it blew the head gasket in the Lake District and we had to return home from honeymoon by train.

          1. My second car was an Imp, and mine suffered the same head gasket problem (aluminium engine).

          3. Ours went to the Lake District; loaded with 2 adults, two boys and a small dog. Plus heaps of camping kit that altered the centre of gravity and nearly did for us when I was overtaking a lorry on the A1.

      3. My first car was a 1957 Ford Prefect 997cc sidevalve engine, bought from a friend of Dad’s who was a motor mechanic. It had a 4 speed all synchro gearbox and electric wipers, added of course by the previous mechanic owner. The only time it let me down was coming out the pub car park which had a sharp left hand turn immediately into a very steep hill. It just couldn’t manage it with 5 of us in it, 3 had to get out and walk to the top of the hill, no run up see.
        I paid £50 for it and sold it for £45 two years later. Winner!

      4. Mine was a 1961 Goodwood Green Ford Consul 375 (Reg No 260 DYR), with bench front seats and three-speed column change, that I bought for £40 in 1971.

    2. My favorite car was Mazda 626 that I purchased in May 1990 new. I did over a quarter of a million miles in it with the only fault was a replacement automatic choke under warrenty. The colour was Winning Silver.

          1. My grandmother was cracking the joke, about the number of heads and handles her broom had, in the 1930s; decades before that “comedy” programme was thought up.

          2. When I first heard it, it was about somebody’s axe, the number of blades and handles, etc,.

    3. My car is a diesel Peugeot 206 which I bought new in 2007. I’ve no intention of changing it. I don’t go far – it’s done just under 45,000.

      1. My car is a diesel Peugeot 307 SW .. with 140k on the clock . I love it .

        A real work horse , and the dog box and boots and balls and towels fit neatly in back ..

        1. Mine’s a work-horse – a bit smaller than yours but big enough to take all the stock we need for events – not that there have been so many over the last few years. This year we only did Stroud Show and Gatcombe – and we have two Christmas markets coming up.

    4. I’ve got a Toyota petrol car. It’s 14 yrs old and replaced a Corsa that was 20 years old. I’ve never had a new car. The nearest I got was one that was 3 years old – and I’ve still got it.

  58. It appears to me after much research that the covid vaccines have infected the human body rather than cure it. We cannot know where it will all end up, but I think a great wrong has been done in their rush to launch these new type vaccines. I feel so vindicated in refusing to have them.

    1. I feel the same.

      Apart from GBNews virtually none of the MSM are interested in talking about this and you will be banned and taken down from most of the social media platforms if you try to raise the matter.

      Very great Evil is afoot.

    2. It’s the younger generations that are going to have to live with the long term consequences, I suppose.

      1. I would like to know just how many politicians, doctors and people in the public eye have pretended to have had the jabs when they haven’t in fact had them. A list of these people wold be very interesting to see.

  60. Has anyone else on here had kidney stones before? I’ve got them, and I can’t for the life of me understand why 5 3mm stones can cause so much difficulty.

    However, difficulty they are causing indeed. How have folk coped with/dealt with them? The infection I’ve antibiotics for but it’d be really pleasant for these things to go away.

    1. To ease your symptoms, a GP might also recommend:

      drinking plenty of fluids throughout the day
      anti-sickness medicine
      alpha-blockers (medicines to help stones pass)
      You might be advised to drink up to 3 litres (5.2 pints) of fluid throughout the day, every day, until the stones have cleared.

      To help your stones pass:

      drink water, but drinks like tea and coffee also count
      add fresh lemon juice to your water
      avoid fizzy drinks
      do not eat too much salt
      Make sure you’re drinking enough fluid. If your pee is dark, it means you’re not drinking enough. Your pee should be pale in colour.

      Most kidney stones are small enough to be passed out in your pee and can probably be treated at home.

      1. Cheers Belle – my worry has been (and I told the doc this) that my pee has been the same colour since the infection. He said yes, you’ve a stone occluding the right kidney.

    2. What is extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy?
      Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy is a technique for treating stones in the kidney and ureter that does not require surgery. Instead, high energy shock waves are passed through the body and used to break stones into pieces as small as grains of sand. Because of their small size, these pieces can pass from the body along with the urine.

      What does the treatment involve?
      There are two ways to remove stones using shock wave treatment. In one method, the patient is placed in a tub of lukewarm water. Using x-rays or ultrasound to pinpoint the location of the stones, the body is positioned so that the stones are targeted precisely. In the second, more common method, the patient lies on top of a soft cushion or membrane through which the waves pass. About 1-2 thousand shock waves are needed to crush the stones. The complete treatment takes about 45 to 60 minutes.

      What are the advantages and disadvantages of this treatment?
      The main advantage of this treatment is that many patients may be treated for kidney stones without surgery. As a result, complications, hospital stays, costs and recovery time are reduced. Unfortunately, not all types of kidney stones can be treated this way. In addition, stone fragments are occasionally left in the body and additional treatments are needed.

  62. Work is set to start on a new mosque and temple facility at Royal Bolton Hospital.

    The new faith facilities have been made possible thanks to donations from the community to the Our Bolton NHS Charity and are scheduled to be ready in time for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan next year.

    This will be found behind the main hospital building, which Bolton NHS Foundation Trust hopes will prove to be a significant improvement on the current faith facilities near the maternity unit.

    A statement said: “We’re thrilled that [work to start] the new mosque and temple, housed behind the main hospital building, will start on Monday, November 7.

    “The current facilities, situated near the hospital’s maternity unit, are not fit for purpose due to space restrictions and limitations in the rooms themselves.

    “The new facilities will include separate ablution areas for male and female worshippers, and designated space to allow the congregation to worship separately, as is obligatory in the Muslim faith.

    “The space will also include a community room next to the temple, which will be available for staff and patient use.”

    “Collectively we are committed to initiatives that support the communities we care for, caring for our staff, and ensuring that we are fully reflective of our diverse population in all that we do.”

    The space will cost around £430,000 and is intended to help support patients and staff with their spiritual wellbeing while at work, or during their time in hospital.

    The new facilities will include separate ablution areas for male and female worshippers, and designated space to allow the congregation to worship separately, as is obligatory in the Muslim faith.

    https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/23074660.royal-bolton-work-set-start-new-faith-facilities/

    2. We really are being overrun and replaced. England will be turned into an open sewer by these creatures.

    3. Are similar facilities going to be provided for those who follow Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity?

      1. Are you mad or suffin’? The “faiths” you name are false ones. There is only one Allah and only one prophet.

        Get used to it. © Caliph of Londonistan

      3. When one considers that Bolton is less than 10% Muslim (allegedly) they get far more than their fair share of special treatment.

      4. My elder son works on very large constructions , he is an industrial electrician.. He says that all sites have to have facilities for the trades .. including a prayer area set aside for the Muslim workers ! He says they are not very productive , especially those from Eastern Europe

  63. HS2 ‘likely’ to exceed mammoth budget unless urgent savings found. 30 October 2022.

    The cost of the HS2 high-speed train line between London and Birmingham is “likely” to blow its £40.3bn budget unless cost savings are found quickly, MPs have been warned.

    Almost £30bn has been spent or allocated on “phase one” of the route despite the first trains not being due to run until the end of the decade at the earliest, new Transport Secretary Mark Harper has revealed.

    Costs are up £200m since March and are now £1.9bn higher than initially expected, due to “high levels of inflation”.

    A rough rule of thumb when dealing with government contracts is that they will almost certainly exceed by three times the estimated cost! All this so that someone can get to Edinburgh half an hour earlier!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/hs2-budget-exceed-london-birmingham-route-mel-stride-b1036266.html

      1. They’ve massive works going on across the A515 to the North East of Lichfield the HS2.

    3. They have been throwing money around like there’s no tomorrow. Not surprising if the billions already allocated weren’t enough.

      1. Afternoon Phizz. It will probably be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and bring down the entire economy!

        1. Good afternoon Mistress Smade. They have many more printing presses. The new ones are binary, non-binary and neuter everyone’s wealth they don’t approve of.

      2. A rail fellow I spoke to yonks ago said ‘at least half a trillion’. Mostly because those sat on the various boards have no interesting in actually building it and are happily troughing up their 6 figure salaries.

    5. We travelled from Edinburgh to London in around five hours in the 80s. We travelled in relative comfort with meals served in the dining car.

  64. HS2 ‘likely’ to exceed mammoth budget unless urgent savings found. 30 October 2022.

    The cost of the HS2 high-speed train line between London and Birmingham is “likely” to blow its £40.3bn budget unless cost savings are found quickly, MPs have been warned.

    Almost £30bn has been spent or allocated on “phase one” of the route despite the first trains not being due to run until the end of the decade at the earliest, new Transport Secretary Mark Harper has revealed.

    Costs are up £200m since March and are now £1.9bn higher than initially expected, due to “high levels of inflation”.

    A rough rule of thumb when dealing with government contracts is that they will almost certainly exceed by three times the estimated cost! All this so that someone can get to Edinburgh half an hour earlier!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/hs2-budget-exceed-london-birmingham-route-mel-stride-b1036266.html

          9. De ye ken John Peel,
            With his balls of steel,
            His prick made of brass,
            He stuck it up a lass,
            The lass was nice so he stuck it up twice,
            And he died with the horn in the morning.

    2. The outline is amazing – how was it done? Inverted charcoals or a digital lark, painting in white on black canvas?

      1. Stylus, on the PC, tracing the picture, then deleting the picture and inverting the colour.

      1. Thanks, Grizz!
        I was bowled over, me. It took him this morning to do… on my PC, with a stylus.

        1. But, but – yesterday he was designing a label for his son’s HONEY….. I assumed this was the improved version….

          1. It is – the basis, anyhow. There will be “customisation” for the specific product – honey, cheese, fruit, pork, whatever.

          5. Indeed.
            The sketch is the logo, and will be enhanced in relation to the product it is applied to – cheese, honey, fruit, mead, maybe cider…

      1. It’s effectively the trademark, and will be adjusted to suit the product it gets applied to. We haven’t got that far yet.

  69. Effing Bogey Five again …

    Wordle 498 5/6
    🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. #metoo!
      Wordle 498 5/6

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

  70. OT – has any kind NoTTLer a link to the delightful video from the 1970s of the River Test and Lord Mountbatten’s gamekeepers?

    It was on here a week or so ago.

      1. I looked at YouTube. NBG. Hence my request – so helpfully answered by the Great(est) Railway Engineer.

        1. Well, the former Squire of the Morris Ring put it into a book he wrote several decades ago, along with some disturbing snippets about corn dollies and child sacrifices.

  72. Off topic
    If you enjoy competitive sport and good commentary watch the Samoa France rugby league match.

    The game is entertaining and the commentary is very amusing.

          3. Ah! You think I get it free when you have to pay?
            Don’t forget that in frogland the TV tax is part of the “rates”

          4. I thought Toyboy had “scrapped” that – and made it free. In other words – as with the taxe d’habitation (or the other one – the one he has abolished) the money is simply stolen from else where.

          5. I think it is the last year for it.
            Either way, my council tax equivalents are much lower than they were in our UK property, AND we get to see what they are spending the money on, road repairs, verge trimming, litter clearing, ditch clearing etc etc?

          6. Interesting – on our ancient village property we paid far more (with taxe d’hab and tax foncière) that I do on our palatial Norfolk estate.

          8. Ah – like UK tax changes which are always going to happen “next year” or the year after that”….

          9. So far, so good.
            Over the years we’ve been here, our taxes have fallen relative to our income, I suspect that it’s because our income is actually relatively low because we only take money from our QROPS, Ass vie etc, when we need it. Allowances have moved in our favour. We’re slowly selling “stuff” at auction which tides us over.

      2. League is better than Union. Much more dynamic, more energy. Almost as good as Aussie Rules.

        2. RL is up there with basketball and netball as the most boring sports in the world.

          In RL, only six players actually play the three in the middle on each team. Run, tackle, run tackle, run, tackle six times then give to the other team to have a go. And WTF is the point of uncontested scrums? I know the RU scrum has become a bit of a chore but at least the players are having a go.

    2. As a bloke at the pub says, ‘good shout’. It’s really turned into a running passing game.

      2. Lovely! Wish I could watch. Went off Rugby a few years ago when it became a catch & kick-back game. As bad a wendyball.

          1. RL is vastly superior.
            Recall some years ago a team from the Royal Marines went up against a RL team (St. Helens??) and weren’t fit enough to compete. Says it all.

          2. “Fitness” is an odd concept.

            Some activities need certain levels of “fit”, I used to be an adequate sportsman, some sports demanded far different levels of fit. Endurance, strength, mental certainty, pain resistance; the variety was part of the fun!

          3. Riding demands a fitness level beyond “well, you’re really just sitting down doing nothing” 🙂

    3. Why don’t Germans join in ? I know Switzerland and Austria are too hilly for rugby but Germany ?🤔😉
      Joe King by the way.

        1. Or any other country of course.
          Maybe Poland would set up a team.
          You like never know Sos they might have been told to stay out of it for safety’s sake.

          1. When one looks at what the “evil British Empire” introduced as sports with rules across the globe and the pleasure they have given to millions if not billions of people, one could argue that that was our greatest legacy.

          2. Aside from democracy, rule of law, a supposedly impartial justice system and other benefits, presumably?

  73. That’s me for this day of two halves. Wet dreary morning – then, about 3, out came the sun and I was able get the ladder out to finish cutting back the Petiolaris. Now, all shrubs etc attached to the house are ready for winter – oh, except the “Mile a Minute” rose – the bastard climber that fights back and leaves anyone who approaches with pruners with bloody arms.

    Still don’t understand why the illiterate bame “graduate” has to wear his hat indoors – and did not raise it to greet Charlie Boy. The new modern, I suppose.

    I am going to risk recording the SAS “drama” prog tonight. A pound to a penny it is DIRE. Quite why a French totty “spy” has been inserted (if you’ll forgive the word) is beyond me…

    Oh – and ref the mosque story below, I gather that the EnnHaithchEsse is going to rename that hospital as the Islamic Bolton Hospital. Only right, really.

    Have a spiffing evening. The MR is still not right after he TWO jabs yesterday first thing. She WON’T listen….

    A demain.

      1. ‘Flu and plague. Nuts. As I said – she won’t be told. You may have encountered such ladies…!!!

        2. Once upon a time we were discussing definitions of poverty. The anecdote came from someone whose large family moved away years ago.

          1. We all had corn flakes in the 70s, looking at price now, I do wonder if they were cheaper relative to other stuff. Oats and half milk-half-water are much cheaper nowadays, at any rate.
            If you haven’t been poor at some point, you haven’t learned how to appreciate stuff, really.

        1. Not for those. The Lefty whingers are beloved by the state and big government does everything to protect it’s supporters.

          1. As I observed a few days ago, accidentally drop a wasp or hornets’ nest amongst them. That would get them shifted

    3. I don’t understand how when trying to remove these protestors nobody accidentally treads on their genitals…

  76. For you especially, Tom, but watch out for (c) Gary Delaney, from whom I stole them.

    1) Does anyone know how to give up dressing like a pirate? I tried patches but they made it worse.

    2) My Scouse friend claims her cousin is the Prime Minister of Canada. I’m not sure if that’s Trudeau.

    3) I’m in Wolverhampton and I can’t tell if everyone’s dressed up for Halloween or no one is.

    4) My hairdresser says I don’t look good in a tightly permed white wig. Bit judgy.

    5)I saw a sign in Specsavers saying children should not be left without supervision. If they had that they wouldn’t be in Specsavers.

    6)I tell you who’s always upping the ante, randy uncles.

    7)”I used to be a musician on cruise ships”
    “P and O?”
    “No, guitar”.

    8) People get annoyed when I read over their shoulder on trains which is a shame as I have a lovely voice.

    9) My therapist says I have boundary issues. Those weren’t her exact words, she actually said ‘Get out, I’m having a shit!’

    10) He-Man was the first person to tell people his pronouns.

        1. Official definition is:

          Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.

        2. Easily confused with Kardasians (if I could [or want to] spell it) but better educated than them.

    1. No pageantry, no gun-carriage, no horses, no sailors pulling or holding the gun-carriage. Just motorised plod.

      1. Meanwhile. whilst Cloggie PLod was parading… some farmers were ploughing their land!

        1. Meanwhile. whilst Cloggie PLod was paprding… some farmers were being stopped from ploughing their land!

    2. Some of the funeral processions for police officers in Canada are equally impressive. No celebrities just police and other first responders.

    3. “Wednesday, 12 October 2022
      Truck driver who struck and killed motorcycle cop gets 12 years in prison
      Truck driver Willem M. was convicted for causing the death of motorcycle police officer Arno de Korte. The man was sentenced on Wednesday to twelve years in prison and compulsory psychological treatment in an institution (TBS). Dozens of De Korte’s colleagues attended the Rotterdam court hearing where the verdict was announced. M. was not there.
      In addition to the prison sentence and the TBS order, the court in Rotterdam banned the 47-year-old truck driver from Melissant from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle….”
      https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/12/truck-driver-struck-killed-motorcycle-cop-gets-12-years-prison

      It was deliberate.

    4. “Wednesday, 12 October 2022
      Truck driver who struck and killed motorcycle cop gets 12 years in prison
      Truck driver Willem M. was convicted for causing the death of motorcycle police officer Arno de Korte. The man was sentenced on Wednesday to twelve years in prison and compulsory psychological treatment in an institution (TBS). Dozens of De Korte’s colleagues attended the Rotterdam court hearing where the verdict was announced. M. was not there.
      In addition to the prison sentence and the TBS order, the court in Rotterdam banned the 47-year-old truck driver from Melissant from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle….”
      https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/12/truck-driver-struck-killed-motorcycle-cop-gets-12-years-prison

      It was deliberate.

  78. Winter is here.

    500+ cranes flew over this evening. The first I’ve seen this year.

    A wonderful sound and the advance party of what will be thousands heading West and South.

    1. Glad that’s blanked out, because I don’t want to see.
      But they are only poor black people, so they don’t matter – only rich black lives matter.

      2. And all they want to do is be seen on TV.
        Realistically a lot of those in charge are born and bred politicians. They eff up everything they come into contact with.
        Look on Google Earth at some African cities. Especially JHB. The places are shit holes full of litter and other piles of rubbish in the streets.

    2. It just keeps reminding me what absolute savages these people are; yet Rishi and his henchmen want to import thousands of their ilk into Britain!

      1. They reckon that, when it kicks off, whitey will be finished and they can still be in charge.
        Yeah, right.
        Everybody in any position of authority, as well as many ordinary folks, will be slaughtered. When shit like that starts, there’s no controlling in.

      2. Rishi also needs to be aware that it’s not just Christians but Hindus as well, a la Leicester.

    5. 366817+ up ticks,

      Evening TB,

      What is going on in Nigeria is a warm up for the biggy
      the downfall / takeover of the United Kingdom.

      Many a person in this country complaining of hardships being faced in current society will not know what hit them.

  80. Evening, all. You just can’t tell some people, can you? It isn’t “Greedy energy suppliers”, it’s lunatic government policy and net zero idiocy. We could have cheap, reliable energy if they weren’t so deliberately useless. That said (or written), my electricity bill for this month is £1.45 thanks to the government giving my some of my own money back. I am just back from a very pleasant sung evensong for All Souls (I don’t do Hallowe’en, although we did celebrate All Saints this morning). I’m afraid I have failed on all counts of being sober and quietly governed 🙂

  81. Almost 1,000 migrants crossed the English Channel in 24 small boats on Saturday, the Ministry of Defence says.

    It brings the total number of migrants making the journey from France so far this month to 6,395.

    Government figures collated by the BBC show 39,430 people have crossed on small boats so far this year, compared with 28,461 who arrived in 2021.

    Conditions at a migrant processing centre in Manston have been described as “wretched”.

    The Ministry of Defence said 990 people had made the crossing from France on Saturday.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-63446010?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_campaign=64&at_custom2=twitter&at_medium=custom7&at_custom4=E9B39252-584A-11ED-B15F-E1AE4744363C&at_custom3=%40BBCNews&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D

    1. Ministry of defence ? Or the facts …… Defunct meaningless rhetoric from the taxpayers supported snivel serpent’s.

  85. I think I too need to go to bed, so goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk.

    Bis morgen fruh.

      1. That’s an old Aussie saying not particularly aimed at ladies.
        Similar to givus a beer mate I’m as dry as a pommy towel.

  90. Come on, GG. Where are you?
    PS – Coming up to 10 minutes since I made this post. I have too much to do to stay here any longer, so will now go away and let Minty or BoB be first. I sincerely hope that “no news is good news”.

      2. Patience is a virtue. Judging by many of the postings here one might conclude that Nottlers aren’t at all virtuous!!!

        Morning Bob and all

        1. Patience is a Virtue
          Virtue is a Grace;
          Grace is a naughty girl
          Who wouldn’t wash her face.

          4. Now don’t get yourself in a lather! You’ll get saddled with it! (Couldn’t get Lux in there!)

          7. Morning all. Quoting Alf’s mum:

            Patience is a virtue
            Possess it if you can
            Often found in woman
            But never in a man!

            Matriarchal family.

      3. Patience is a virtue. Judging by many of the postings here one might conclude that Nottlers aren’t at all virtuous!!!

        Morning Bob and all

    1. Never apologise. Never Explain..

      Good Morning Mr G. It seems you’ve already made several people happy and you’ve only just woken up!

  92. Rishi in No10 marks progress, but Britain is not yet the perfect melting pot. 31 October 2022.

    Sunak’s elevation shows we are two nations: one at ease with racial diversity, another still badly divided

    And yet it would be an error to conclude simply and complacently that Britain is the world’s greatest melting pot; that our multicultural experiment is an unalloyed triumph. For the task of maintaining a cohesive society amid radical diversity of values is far from easy. Studies from around the world find a negative correlation between increased diversity and social trust. We need a common culture and strong national institutions within a single legal framework to maintain our shared identity and the solidarity, sacrifice and compromise required by citizenship.

    Unalloyed triumph? Mass rape? The descent into a Police State where none dare speak? The utter destruction of the Country’s Institutions where the Law among others is a joke?

    This diversity was imposed on us by a traitorous Political Elite in pursuit of a Social Chimera. A Multiracial, Multicultural Paradise. No such place has ever existed except with the full force of State repression. When that eases they dissolve into fragmented Civil Wars riven by Pogroms and Massacres.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/30/rishi-no10-marks-progress-britain-not-yet-perfect-melting-pot/

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