An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting 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.
Happy last day of the year to you all!
Thank you, Sue Mac, and to you too. (Good morning, btw.)
Good Morning, all. Raining all night in Wilts
https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/responsive-image/content/2023/12/30/1703967439653.jpg
Good morning, Citroen1.
Good morning, chums. Enjoy the remaining hours of 2023.
Will 2024 be any better?
I don’t think so, Ndovu, at least for pensioners. I think that the new (Labour) Chancellor will in his first (Spring?) Budget state that the Triple Lock is “unaffordable”.
Hopefully by that time the wage increase will be more than inflation. So we shouldn’t lose too badly.
I don’t think so, Ndovu, at least for pensioners. I think that the new (Labour) Chancellor will in his first (Spring?) Budget state that the Triple Lock is “unaffordable”.
Morning everyone.
Good morning, Minty.
Gove has always been creepy and devious
Gove told to stop funding interfaith charity that failed to condemn Hamas attack
‘Serious issues’ with Inter Faith Network, whose members include Muslim Council of Britain with which government has cut ties
Will Hazell, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
30 December 2023 • 6:35pm
Michael Gove has been urged to stop funding an interfaith charity that has received millions from the taxpayer and counts a group banned from engagement with Whitehall as one of its members.
Two members of the Inter Faith Network have written to the Communities Secretary asking him to stop funding the organisation.
The IFN, founded in 1987, is a charity that exists to “make better known and understood the teachings, traditions and practices of the different faith communities in the UK” and to build “good relations between people of different faiths”.
According to the Department for Levelling Up’s annual accounts, the charity has received £3,858,000 from the Government since 2010.
Earlier this month, The Telegraph reported that officials within Mr Gove’s department were concerned about the IFN’s failure to explicitly condemn Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7.
Ban on engagement
The IFN counts the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) among its membership, despite the group being subject to a government-wide ban on engagement dating to 2009.
Gordon Brown cut ties with the council in that year after its then deputy secretary-general signed the Istanbul Declaration, which was widely interpreted as calling for attacks on Royal Navy vessels enforcing a UN weapons blockade on Hamas-run Gaza. While relations were temporarily restored in 2010, the Tories reintroduced the boycott when they came to power.
Now, The Telegraph can reveal that two member bodies of the IFN wrote to Mr Gove in April urging him to cease funding for the network.
In a letter sent on April 28, the Interfaith Alliance UK – a charity which works to promote literacy about religious beliefs and community cohesion – said the Government should stop funding the network “until serious and longstanding issues” are addressed.
On April 25, another IFN member organisation, Scriptural Reasoning, had written to Mr Gove saying that the IFN had “received many hundreds of thousands of pounds of public funds”, which would have delivered “far better value for money had it been given to multiple small local faith-based and interfaith projects”.
Muhammad Al-Hussaini, a senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life, who is on the board of Scriptural Reasoning, told The Telegraph that he had been raising concerns for years about the IFN’s membership including bodies such as the MCB.
A government source told The Telegraph that “serious concerns” had been raised about the IFN and added: “We are exploring all options at our disposal to make sure taxpayer money only goes to organisations that uphold British values.”
Denunciations of terrorism
In a response to The Telegraph, IFN’s lawyers said the organisation took care in regard to extremism and had made “repeated denunciations across the years of terrorism – in particular that which is based on selective or manipulative use of religious teaching”.
Their statement said that the network brought “organisations together in respectful dialogue, promoting understanding of the faiths and between the faiths and cooperation on social issues for the benefit of all”.
It continued: “Whether government funding would be better spent by funding small, local inter faith organisations such as those controlled by Dr Al-Hussaini is, of course, a matter of opinion.
“Based on responses to regular surveys and also a mailing of members earlier this year (which produced numerous testimonies to the importance of its work) IFN doubts that its local inter faith organisation members – while no doubt welcoming more funding for their own important work – would agree.
“You are no doubt aware that government departments take great care in assessing organisations to which they provide funding. IFN has received government funding throughout the long period of Dr Al-Hussaini’s vocal campaign against it, and has throughout been subject to the relevant department’s monitoring and assessment process.”
On the MCB, the lawyers said: “IFN has nearly 200 organisations in membership. It is not responsible for the acts or omissions of those members. However, it has a membership policy which would enable it to expel organisations that promote extremism and so act contrary to the purposes for which IFN exists.”
No support for extremism
The lawyers said that the IFN did not fund the MCB or any other member and that it was not aware of any policy from the group supporting extremism.
“It has been our client’s understanding that the individual who is said to have signed the Istanbul Declaration did so without approval of the MCB as an institution and that he has not been involved with the MCB for many years,” they added.
The MCB said: “[We have] never endorsed the declaration and we specifically reject any notion that we endorse an attack on the Royal Navy. That position was acknowledged by the same Gordon Brown government in 2010 when relations were restored.”
Zara Mohammed, the secretary general of the MCB, said: “We uphold British values by being a democratic organisation, encouraging our communities to engage with the democratic process, obey the rule of law, and champion mutual respect and tolerance by coming together through interfaith initiatives.
“We all would like to know exactly what British values justify excluding us from these forums to seek the common good, and to deny Muslims equal rights.”
A Department for Levelling Up spokesman said: “All funded organisations are monitored by the department and subject to internal finance and due diligence processes.”
****************************************
timothy cassel
11 HRS AGO
I utterly resent my taxed money going to any government selected ‘charity’, let alone Muslim ones.
Reply to timothy cassel – view message
They are not even real charities.., they are political lobbying groups, pushing policies on the government that most people would never vote for.
Morris Oxford
5 MIN AGO
No more public money to fund the Islamic flooding of Britain ! No more Mosque funding or Muslim Education funding .
As Mr Cassel says the government should not be supporting charities with taxpayers cash!
I no longer bother to shop at ASDA.
My money is not going towards building a mosque half the size of Blackburn.
Why is HMG funding any charity. With my/your money!
Saved me from saying it, Mr Cassel.
If David Cameron’s job is to keep us safe, why is he so intent on rattling his sabre again? Peter Hitchens. 31 December 2023.
Why does Lord Slippery of Tripoli like conflict so much? There are many tasks for our Foreign Secretary, whose chief job is surely to keep us safe in this dangerous world. But the former David Cameron seems to be oddly interested in making the world more tense.
Has he learned nothing from his disastrous intervention in Libya while he was Prime Minister? His idol and model, Sir Anthony Blair, is widely despised for his Iraq folly. But somehow, Lord Slippery gets away with what he did in Libya.
I can’t see why. Ever since he decided to overthrow that country’s despot, Muammar Gaddafi, two things have happened. One is that the Mediterranean has become a vast, open highway by which migrants make their way to Western Europe in uncountable numbers, causing a social and political crisis from Naples to Hamburg, which nobody can solve.
For Gaddafi, whatever his other many faults, had prevented this from happening. This was well-known. He boasted of it. Anyone could have guessed that toppling him would cause this problem. Anyone except a certain British politician.
The other is that Libya itself is trapped in what looks like endless civil war. For ordinary Libyans, life is worse than it was before. The old rule that even tyranny is better than anarchy is once again proved to be true.
Yet the person responsible (who, it has to be said, lacks any great record of achievement in any area of life, apart from the feathering of his own nest) is now Foreign Secretary. And what does he do? Is he chastened by his past blunders? No, he has got out his sabre and is rattling it.
While the rest of the country settled down to turkey and plum duff, he gave an interview in which he growled that Iran must be sent ‘an incredibly clear message’ that its current behaviour ‘will not be tolerated’. He proclaimed that Britain would work with allies to ‘develop a really strong set of deterrent measures’ against Tehran.
Well, look, I am no apologist for the Iranian Mullahs. They threw a friend of mine, Jason Rezaian, into jail on wholly false charges of spying, in what was basically a kidnap. Thank God, he is now home, but the experience was horrible, and we can only imagine what things must be like for those the regime does not release.
But Britain has no real business preaching to Iran. Plenty of Iranians are in fact pro-Western and opposed to their own regime. But Britain’s major part in overthrowing their last truly legitimate government, in a shameful putsch in 1953, is remembered there as if it was yesterday.
Iranians wonder if Britain’s militancy towards them has something to do with our creepy, subservient relationship with another grim Middle Eastern despotism, that of Saudi Arabia. And before he was elevated to the House of Mones, sorry, House of Lords, David Cameron’s one major honour was his membership of the Order of Abdulaziz al Saud, awarded in 2012 for ‘meritorious service to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’.
That Kingdom (already famous for its crowded jails, public executions and total lack of political freedom) has since distinguished itself by conducting a vicious war outside its borders in Yemen, and by strangling and dismembering a leading dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, after luring him into its Istanbul consulate.
Is Saudi Arabia aggressive? Many in Yemen would say so. I also find it hard to believe it was not involved in the recent disastrous destabilisation of Syria, in which so many formerly happy and prosperous people were turned into corpses or refugees, over several terrible years.
Actually, I understand that this country has to hold its nose in dealing with many foreign regimes. It has always been so, and always will be. But holding your nose is one thing. Active public grovelling and toadying is another.
I’d add that, as our armed forces are terribly weakened by decades of bipartisan neglect, we really are in no position to posture as a major power. It is all a bit like a weekly freesheet in Wiltshire publishing blistering editorials condemning Vladimir Putin.
Couldn’t someone explain to the man formerly known as David Cameron that he is not a modern Lord Palmerston or Winston Churchill and that the vast high-ceilinged room in which he sits is a relic of a lost age?
Sometimes I think the Foreign Office building should be turned into a museum of British power, and its Ministers and officials relocated to a trading estate in Slough.
I thought that was worth putting up in full. There’s scarcely an error in it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12913015/PETER-HITCHENS-David-Camerons-job-safe-intent-rattling-sabre-again.html
Absolute corker.
Well said, Pete.
Good morning, Annie.
Good Moaning, Olaf’s Relict.
Am I alone in loathing the expression “keep us safe”. It’s up there with “Build Back Better”.
No, Fiscal but maybe, like me, you have a very high loathing for the jumped-up Cameron.
The Conservative Party lost its judgment when it chose Dave Cameron rather than David Davis to lead it.
If you build ‘back’, it means your original structure has been flattened.
Shirley, it is better to protect it in the first place
“Build back” does not exist anywhere else in the English language except as part of this ludicrous slogan. Chosen by someone whose first language (Schwab?) is not English, purely because it has the necessary three bullet points and is alliterative. I wince when someone uses the phrase,
Spot on.
Sadly he [Cam-moron] is not alone – there’s a very gung-ho article by that well known foreign policy expert Zoe Strimpel in today’s Telegaffe which might have been dictated by Boris – Ukraine all Russia’s fault, West need to do more etc.
Sadly he [Cam-moron] is not alone – there’s a very gung-ho article by that well known foreign policy expert Zoe Strimpel in today’s Telegaffe which might have been dictated by Boris – Ukraine all Russia’s fault, West need to do more etc.
I’d add that, as our armed forces are terribly weakened by decades of bipartisan neglect, we really are in no position to posture as a major power. It is all a bit like a weekly freesheet in Wiltshire publishing blistering editorials condemning Vladimir Putin.”
I’ve said before that the UK is no longer a world power and we should stop trying to find World leadership roles. When we think we are leading, do we ever look over our shoulders to see who is following? I’ll tell them who is following; nobody.
Wordle 925 5/6
Did it in 5 today. Not bad but let’s see if I can do better next year.
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Reams of secret poetry by pioneering British scientist finally come to light
Sir Humphry Davy’s unpublished verse – including one published below for the first time – was found in notebooks alongside details of his ground-breaking experiments
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/01a0eb539fa769303f6b3719ca4ca371b76dcc14/0_336_1426_855/master/1426.jpg?width=700&dpr=2&s=none
An 1803 portrait of the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy by Henry Howard.
Donna Ferguson
Sat 30 Dec 2023 15.00 GMT
He is famous for discovering elements of the periodic table, for inventing a lamp in 1815 that would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of miners and as an electrochemical pioneer.
But it is the unpublished poetry of the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy – and the intriguing connections between his poems and scientific breakthroughs – that is now electrifying academics.
*
*
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/30/reams-of-secret-poetry-by-a-sir-humphry-davy-british-scientist-finally-come-to-light
Many people digging for coal, were often killed in the mine
So I invented a special lamp whose name was the same as mine.
Lol.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little lamp.
I can warn where there’s firedamp.”
(Acknowledgements to a fellow Colcestrian)
I have one in my workshop.
He also pioneered the use of galvanic anodes which I used extensively for cathodic protection.
He also pioneered the use of galvanic anodes which I used extensively for cathodic protection.
Reams of secret poetry by pioneering British scientist finally come to light
Sir Humphry Davy’s unpublished verse – including one published below for the first time – was found in notebooks alongside details of his ground-breaking experiments
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/01a0eb539fa769303f6b3719ca4ca371b76dcc14/0_336_1426_855/master/1426.jpg?width=700&dpr=2&s=none
An 1803 portrait of the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy by Henry Howard.
Donna Ferguson
Sat 30 Dec 2023 15.00 GMT
He is famous for discovering elements of the periodic table, for inventing a lamp in 1815 that would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of miners and as an electrochemical pioneer.
But it is the unpublished poetry of the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy – and the intriguing connections between his poems and scientific breakthroughs – that is now electrifying academics.
*
*
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/30/reams-of-secret-poetry-by-a-sir-humphry-davy-british-scientist-finally-come-to-light
Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story
A Mule is Not A Nag
An old country farmer had a wife who nagged him unmercifully. From morning till night, she was always complaining about something.
The only time he got any relief was when he was out ploughing with his old mule. He tried to plough a lot. One day, when he was out ploughing, his wife brought him lunch in the field. He drove the old mule into the shade, sat down on a stump, and began to eat his lunch. Immediately, his wife began nagging him again.
Complain, nag, complain, nag – it just went on and on. All of a sudden, the old mule lashed out with both hind feet, caught her smack in the back of the head. Killed her dead on the spot.
At the funeral several days later, the minister noticed something rather odd. When a woman mourner would approach the old farmer, he would listen for a minute, then nod his head in agreement; but when a man mourner approached him, he would listen for a minute, then shake his head in disagreement.
This was so consistent, the minister decided to ask the old farmer about it. So, after the funeral, the minister spoke to the old farmer, and asked him why he nodded his head and agreed with the women, but always shook his head and disagreed with all the men.
The old farmer said, ‘Well, the women would come up and say something about how nice my wife looked, or how pretty her dress was, so I’d nod my head in agreement.’
‘And what about the men?’ the minister asked.
‘”They wanted to know if the mule was for sale.”
A very good one to round off the year, Sir Jasper. (Good morning, btw.)
I’m sorry, I was involved with my nose in a book.
No need to apologise, Sir Jasper.
I’ve have had a recount, I run out of stories on January19th. Any takers?
You’ll just have to go round again from the first one.
Already been doing that, Jules, for about 2 years.
Never mind. We won’t. Some seem more familiar than others.
Good Moaning.
Health bulletin.
The lurgy currently doing the rounds is a three-reeler.
1. A dry tickle throat cough and general malaise.
2. An intermission where you exhultantly proclaim you are ‘over it’.
3. It roars back as a sore throat with genuine cold symptoms i.e. sneezing your head off.
Thank goodness we are not booked for some NYE bash where we have to be in party mode.
Oh dear ,
Morning Anne ,
We had that pre Christmas.. sneezums , sniffles and coughs .. sneezing was intense .. took a Benadryl allergy tab a couple of times , eased things slightly, and hot Bovril, which was comforting .
My cough has moved from the dry tickle stage to bringing up the green stuff.
So far no nasal trouble but OH has a full – blown cold.
Not planning any outings till Thursday.
Hope to be rid of it by then.
Russia hits Ukraine with second wave of air strikes. 31 December 2023.
Ukraine is again under attack by Russian drones, officials say, after two days of major aerial assaults by both sides.
There are reports of explosions in Kyiv and Kharkiv, where the mayor said residential buildings were on fire.
If you can remember back to the beginning of this business weaponry was supplied to the Ukies on the condition that none of it would be used against Russian Territory. I suppose that strictly speaking, so far as we know, that is true here, but there was also an understanding that this would also implicitly limit Ukraine’s ability to do so. This has clearly now been violated.
This war is spreading. Just as one would expect it too. The same is happening in the Middle East with the Houti’s and the Israeli attacks on Syrian Territory. There is also a story going the rounds that once Israel has settled with Hamash it will turn its attention to Lebanon and Iran. This is a not unreasonable scenario. They have mobilised their entire forces and might as well take care of everything to defray the costs. It doesn’t actually matter if this is true or not. If the Mullah’s think that war is inevitable there is no point waiting until the Israeli’s are uncommitted elsewhere. Such a struggle must inevitably draw in the Americans. Happy New Year everyone.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67851431
Morning all. Dog walked and we are now snuggled on the sofa. Papers read, cup of tea nearly drained. Four invitations for tonight but bah humbug I’d rather stay home and be in bed at 10 pm.
Good morning all,
A nice dawn at McPhee Towers but it’s going to be a showery one, 6-7℃ and it’s going to feel a lot chillier in the brisk South-West wind.
Caught on a security camera over N W Hampshire at 2.07 am this morning.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ac1aa8e121a8553771d35663dded072261a61cb893c05d708e03bb67fdc55a6.png
No reports of any surface impacts yet so it probably burnt up completely or just glanced through the atmosphere and continued on its way. You don’t get the full brilliance from this screen shot but when you watch the short video it seems to have lit up the night sky fairly well.
There was one like that seen over Telford and captured on camera a few nights ago.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15e990276b6eec7725969779b9fd447ce5ac3c06ee3147d04dc1b90a35f2cdea.png
Good Morning Folks,
Bright & breezy start here
Junior doctors and patients alike would benefit from increased continuity of care
Surely we have to have some continuity of care before we can increase it
Britain’s future?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d9371b2c40fb81a87f1b857666845c8b3c0c46db2a26a4ce3bc2a61e5d702f30.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/30/protesters-brandish-sticks-london-clashes-police/
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7aa593638fac20cb32d9ea75522cb815f9a9a50239923508be1b5acf74c182c8.png
Activists? Don’t they mean rioters?
If a couple of whities walked along the road carrying sticks
even to support the runner beans on their allotments,
they would be arrested. Probably tasered. Let’s be practical they are weighed down with gadgets and equipment, that they never use unless it’s and easy situation. Like arresting Mr Robinson. I think it was 12 of the bully boys involved last time he went out for a coffee.
Because our pathetic useless police farce are too weak to carry out their jobs properly, in defence of the public and uphold the law. Don’t they understand the reasons why this is happening. And the consequences of their continued inaction.
Good morning, all. Overcast to the east but brighter in the south and a light breeze moving the conifers.
The tale of two cities? New York leading by a neck?
https://twitter.com/PeteEvansx/status/1741188252906729960
No doubt the residents are fleeing but that video was probably taken early on a holiday morning.
381047+ up ticks,
Morning Each,
Sunday 31 December: Junior doctors and patients alike would benefit from increased continuity of care
Above is a statement of fact,
Below is a statement of reality,
Sunday 31 December: Junior doctors and patients alike would benefit from increased continuity of care but for the fact the governing cartels are following a RESET agenda inclusive, as suffered, of isolation, seemingly premature deaths, serious activated illnesses, all these stretching into a very uncertain future.
The greatest danger currently is via the polling stations and
adhering to the same voting pattern without radical change,
resulting in dangerous fools and their Country being soon parted.
velow is a sfatement of reality
381047+ up ticks,
O2O,
Arm yourself with a large tea / coffee, a great deal of truth / facts coming through.
https://youtu.be/us4N4KL7VkI?si=3ecp_MGU_fxnGSoQ
ISIS fanatic who snuck into Britain illegally is given UK citizenship despite security service terror threat warning
Sudanese ISIS fanatic can remain in the UK on human rights grounds judges rule
MI5 said he is an ISIS propagandist who spread material calling for jihad
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12913061/ISIS-fanatic-Britain-illegally-UK-citizenship-security-terror-threat.html
Good morning Phizzee
The police are not strong enough top cope with the various altercations , eg , Camberwell last night , Eritrean’s kicking off.
Rudyard Kipling called them Fuzzie Wuzzies .
Fuzzy-Wuzzy
We’ve fought with many men acrost the seas,
An’ some of ’em was brave an’ some was not:
The Paythan an’ the Zulu an’ Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o’ the lot.
We never got a ha’porth’s change of ‘im:
‘E squatted in the scrub an’ ‘ocked our ‘orses,
‘E cut our sentries up at Sua~kim~,
An’ ‘e played the cat an’ banjo with our forces.
So ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ‘ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ‘eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
We gives you your certificate, an’ if you want it signed
We’ll come an’ ‘ave a romp with you whenever you’re inclined.
We took our chanst among the Khyber ‘ills,
The Boers knocked us silly at a mile,
The Burman give us Irriwaddy chills,
An’ a Zulu ~impi~ dished us up in style:
But all we ever got from such as they
Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller;
We ‘eld our bloomin’ own, the papers say,
But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us ‘oller.
Then ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an’ the missis and the kid;
Our orders was to break you, an’ of course we went an’ did.
We sloshed you with Martinis, an’ it wasn’t ‘ardly fair;
But for all the odds agin’ you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square.
‘E ‘asn’t got no papers of ‘is own,
‘E ‘asn’t got no medals nor rewards,
So we must certify the skill ‘e’s shown
In usin’ of ‘is long two-‘anded swords:
When ‘e’s ‘oppin’ in an’ out among the bush
With ‘is coffin-‘eaded shield an’ shovel-spear,
An ‘appy day with Fuzzy on the rush
Will last an ‘ealthy Tommy for a year.
So ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an’ your friends which are no more,
If we ‘adn’t lost some messmates we would ‘elp you to deplore;
But give an’ take’s the gospel, an’ we’ll call the bargain fair,
For if you ‘ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square!
‘E rushes at the smoke when we let drive,
An’, before we know, ‘e’s ‘ackin’ at our ‘ead;
‘E’s all ‘ot sand an’ ginger when alive,
An’ ‘e’s generally shammin’ when ‘e’s dead.
‘E’s a daisy, ‘e’s a ducky, ‘e’s a lamb!
‘E’s a injia-rubber idiot on the spree,
‘E’s the on’y thing that doesn’t give a damn
For a Regiment o’ British Infantree!
So ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ‘ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ‘eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
An’ ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your ‘ayrick ‘ead of ‘air —
You big black boundin’ beggar — for you broke a British square!
(Soudan Expeditionary Force)
Good morning.
A Happy New Year you and your family!
As you know my parents were in the Sudan and my father was especially fond of the Dinkas who, he said, were a dignified and graceful people.
Yo All and Mr Fizz
Simples, as part of the rules for his release the jihadist must live next to the judges, on a weekly rotation.
The judges responsible should be named and made accoutable for any dark deeds done by the jihadist
No human rights for us then.
Morning 🐘
We were discounted decades ago.
I can’t understand what all these political idiots are expecting to achieve.
Cultural wreckage seems to be the aim.
But why ? I wish they had the guts to even attempt to explain.
The judiciary are among our enemies.
Nowing what they have done to people like (not a supporter) to Tommy Robinson, it’s clear that Whitehall, Westminster, the Lords and the judiciary hate the British public, the taxpayers who provide their income. It’s time for a Cromwellian character to emerge from the deliberately created mire. And be fully supported by the British people, especially the taxpayers.
I fear for our lovely innocent grandchildren. I’ve already told our oldest to go and live somewhere else when he grows up. I hope that he remembers.
Hello Eddy
The next election will be dictated by how 20% of the population vote , and already we hear and read that maybe the darkies have a plan afoot to become Independent MPs and thus mess up the traditional political parties .
Starmer is wooden and weak , but you know what will happen, he will get, in then there will a Putsch.
Politics is going to get uglier .
Take a look at the mp for Harpenden and Hitchin.
It once was Peter Lilley.
I’ve met him once, this new guy who I’ve also met. He has told me he has no opposition to ‘immigration’ he tells me that the UK has a fine record of taking care, accommodating refugees from war torn countries to escape persecution.
That’s obviously not a fact, as we all know they all come through and out of Europe.
And his expenses bill and allowences is to die for.
Like most of them.
I won’t be voting for him.
Even if I can be bothered to walk to the village hall to vote. I will either print across the form NOTA in black felt tip, or tick any independent.
I think as soon as these people are elected they have to attend for hypnosis, which is accompanied by large wads of cash.
Our was in banking so I guess he was use to the experiences of “Loadsa Money” !
The sermon this morning included a lot about “refugees”. I was grinding my teeth because most of them are economic migrants; they’ve passed through lots of safe countries to reach Treasure Island. The citizens of Gaza also got a mention (although those under attack in Israel didn’t). I turned off. Sometimes I think I am damned for my “hard-heartedness” (for which I was expected to ask forgiveness this morning). It’s relentless (and presumably deliberately so in order to make one question one’s sensible views).
If the “me” of 20 years ago could have foreseen the “me” of today, he would have been horrified. Now, I just don’t care.
It seems that the conspiracy is set firmly against the British people and taxpayers.
Why is it happening, what is the aim destruction of our country?
Poor education, lack of critical thinking, the lauding of virtue signalling all lead to the destruction of our culture and way of life. What the PTB will get out of it I have no idea. I had several emails from various UKIP spokespeople today. They are full of common sense and if people vote for those policies, we’ll be back on track. Will they, though?
As one the outstanding phrases from the original House of Cards series probably still echoes around Westminster. “Everyone has their price”.
It’s probably this that attracts most people into politics.
Yo T_B
The next election will be dictated by how the people who have taken the (postal) votes away from a large section of the immigrant population vote.
Like 3 out of 4 of our GB political leaders, they will not be White Effnick Brits
Indeed. The muzz are just using the Labour party as a flag of convenience and will jump ship to their own parties when it suits them.
That was made clear in 2019 by the spider woman. 🕷
Any half-competent legislator ought to realise the usual means of dealing with an enemy who has declared war against his host nation. Summary execution is the normal penalty for handling enemies, and the safest thing for him to do is to get out fast.
This man, by militating for an organisation that has declared itself at war with the United Kingdom with the intent of creating a hostile colonialist Caliphate within, has earned no mercy from the British Government and should be summarily executed by the military on the earliest occasion he demonstrates his hostility against the British. He would be wise to seek asylum in a friendly country. Sudan, maybe?
History is littered with stateless outlaws who are not welcome anywhere; many are innocent of any crime whatsoever, but are merely inconvenient to the aspirations of an invader, such as the vast majority of the Gazans, but there are plenty more examples that are ongoing. If, in their trauma, they become brutalised, vengeful and aggressive, then where do they go? Or should they all be summarily executed, alongside the malign forces, as the price we must pay for global stability?
What irks me are the emotive ads calling for charitable donations to relieve the suffering in Gaza or Ukraine or Yemen. Why is it that Israel, Russia or Saudi Arabia get so very sniffy when the international community criticises them for their aggression, yet demand that the international community deal with the homelessness and extreme suffering caused by their aggression? If there are national security reasons for destroying the homes and infrastructure of a people, then the cost of putting things right should be borne by the aggressors, not by those who played no part in the conflict, and who find their efforts negated without penalty by those who truly believe they should get away with it.
If humanitarian relief must come out of my taxes, then I claim the right to complain in the strongest terms against those who are causing the grief, and yes whilst Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia are not excused their obligations to humanity, so too should Hamas, the Maidan revolutionaries and the Houthis share the burden.
The only charities I willingly support are animal ones. I have no control over what they use my tax money for.
Why do I have to keep logging in every time I post something?
We must stamp that out immediately. {:^))
GCHQ have you on watch.
That’s part and parcel of posting on NoTTLers
They must have a whole department devoted to Alex Thomson, then.
Ask Bob, above.
He is the Nottler Logging expert
Good morning all.
A bit drier so far this morning with 2°C and not a lot of wind.
Morning, Sunny and chilly up here
Morning all 🙂😊
A bit brighter today.
Continuity of care would be a massive advantage, especially when something goes wrong again and again. And your gp practice is closed and 111 tells you to go to A&E and the last time you went even with a doctors letter you had to sit for over 14 hours before somebody called you through for proceeding further as in admission.
I wouldn’t ever blame the staff, it looks like a horrible job. But sometimes it might be a good idea to separate the people whose lives could be in danger from those with a sprained ankle, a nose bleed, or a bruised thumb.
That is what triage is supposed to be about. Next time insist on an ambulance.
I had a GP letter I should have been seen within an hour, I had to ask at the nurse’s station how much longer I would have to wait. There must have been more than two hundred people in there. It was bedlam.
From the car park on the way into A&E Phiz we walked past 6 parked ambulances, engines ticking over.
I was eventually admitted and stayed in for over 24 hours.
I still have the same problem and there has been no real follow-up. I’ve emailed the department with the information they requested, but nothing.
The NHS is a complete mess.
When you write to complain, as i did for the two years of terrible lack of treatment during my heart problems, they turned it all on its head and blamed me. Even denied all knowledge of the lies I was told.
But I found PALS very helpful. And a wonderful paramedic at our local GP practice.
Good God, Eddy. Hope you’re getting some useful treatment.
It was never even that bad in Nigeria in 1960s…
I’ve become self medicating Obs, I’ve had so many problems with some of the medication prescribed. They dish it out but don’t follow up.
I’ve had terrible back problems associated with one. Swollen legs and feet. Tiredness unable to walk far. Despite being told lack of exercise is one of the reasons I have high BP. I’m fed up with it all.
I have to make an appointment with a pharmacist ASAP. But it’s not a good time of the year.
My GP a very nice chap, but spends more time looking at his computer screen at scarce appointments.
But I can’t really complain because as we know there’s always someone far worse off than yourself. I’ve been to 6 funerals over the past three years. Nearly all old and younger friends.
Hope 2024 goes easier for you, Eddy.
When midnight or bedtime comes, whichever the sooner, I’ll raise a glass of the strongest I have to your health. Best I can do…
We were rather hoping to get over to Oz, via Singapore, it’s been eight years since we were there and accommodation except for Sydney is virtually on the house. I might ‘do a runner’ 😎🤠as I’m more than a bit favourable to the country. I’ve had more than enough of England.
Sounds like a plan.
Sorry to hear that. You must live in a high density population area for it to be that busy.
Just a lack of hospital’s St Albans doesn’t have A&E the old 1960s QE 2 at Welwyn Garden was demolished and a huge block of flats built in its place. A a small minor injuries unit was built in there. Watford just getting there is a nightmare. Luton and Dunstable is not far but parking is almost impossible. Hemel Hempstead not far but same problems over crowded. I have to go there on the 8th.
The Lister at Stevenage is as I mentioned rammed. Only a few years ago the A&E was sparsely used. And service was excellent. Continuous plotical blunders and Too many people in the country and probably more than a million arrived since.
When OH went into severe urinary retention on 2nd January 2021, 111 phoned back eventually and the medic said take him to A&E now – I did and we arrived in a blizzard in the middle of the night – but he was seen and dealt with very quickly. Also when we went with a dr’s letter in 2022 he was assessed at triage in 20 minutes and in need of admission – no bed for him so he spent the night in a chair but he was admitted.
The drunks and fight victims must have been asleep by that time. 😊
That happened to me last year I ended up sitting in an arm chair for 18 hours.
It must be a bit less populated than where we are.
It’s rural here but we have a choice of Gloucester or Cheltenham. No noisy drunks on either of those occasions.
While shopping on line at Boots yesterday for SWMBO a popup invited me to buy an electric toothbrush, on special offer. Who would pay £480 for a toothbrush? Obviously some do. Out of curiosity I looked up the product blurb, I doubt if the worst of Cameron, Mandelson, Cummings and every Whitehall spin doctors could come up with better utter garbage. The best bit is the “How to use”!
Oral-B iO6 – Black Lava & Pink Sand Electric Toothbrush Designed By Braun
Oral-B has gone above & beyond to create a brushing experience that’s in a class of its own.
Beyond purely an advance in technology to incorporate world-class engineering – enabling the most thorough, gentle and quiet clean of your life. Beyond design to craft a genuine object of desire – creating a sleek look reserved for the most sought after technology.
Sure, when you go from a manual brush to power – it upgrades your clean. But when you go from electric brushing to iO it goes beyond the ordinary to become a truly extraordinary experience that you will see, hear and feel differently.
Oral-B’s BEST EVER CLEAN with REVOLUTIONARY iO TECHNOLOGY for a professional clean feeling & gentle brushing experience
Combines the unique round brush head from Oral-B with gentle micro-vibrations for a fresh, clean mouthfeel and 100% healthier gums in one week
INTERACTIVE DISPLAY signals vital information: including brushing modes and head replacement reminder, greets you as you power up & gives you a smile for a job well done
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE recognizes your brushing style and guides you to cover all your teeth, so you never miss a spot
5 SMART MODES to personalise your brushing: Daily Clean, Sensitive, Gum Care, Intense Clean, Whitening
ENHANCED SMART PRESSURE SENSOR signals red, white or green to alert you whether you’re brushing too hard, too softly or with just the right amount of pressure
Content: 2 iO6 handles with ultimate clean 2 brush heads, 1 charger
Suitable for
Not intended for use by children under age of 3 years.
How to use
Wet the brush head and apply toothpaste. Place the toothbrush in the mouth and turn on. Guide the brush head slowly from tooth to tooth. Hold the toothbrush head in place for a few seconds before moving on to the next tooth. Brush the gums as well as the teeth, first the outsides, then the insides, finally the chewing surfaces.
https://www.boots.com/oral-b-io-6-black-lava-pink-sand-electric-toothbrush-designed-by-braun-10297732
While shopping on line at Boots yesterday for SWMBO a popup invited me to buy an electric toothbrush, on special offer. Who would pay £480 for a toothbrush? Obviously some do. Out of curiosity I looked up the product blurb, I doubt if the worst of Cameron, Mandelson, Cummings and every Whitehall spin doctors could come up with better utter garbage. The best bit is the “How to use”!
Oral-B iO6 – Black Lava & Pink Sand Electric Toothbrush Designed By Braun
Oral-B has gone above & beyond to create a brushing experience that’s in a class of its own.
Beyond purely an advance in technology to incorporate world-class engineering – enabling the most thorough, gentle and quiet clean of your life. Beyond design to craft a genuine object of desire – creating a sleek look reserved for the most sought after technology.
Sure, when you go from a manual brush to power – it upgrades your clean. But when you go from electric brushing to iO it goes beyond the ordinary to become a truly extraordinary experience that you will see, hear and feel differently.
Oral-B’s BEST EVER CLEAN with REVOLUTIONARY iO TECHNOLOGY for a professional clean feeling & gentle brushing experience
Combines the unique round brush head from Oral-B with gentle micro-vibrations for a fresh, clean mouthfeel and 100% healthier gums in one week
INTERACTIVE DISPLAY signals vital information: including brushing modes and head replacement reminder, greets you as you power up & gives you a smile for a job well done
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE recognizes your brushing style and guides you to cover all your teeth, so you never miss a spot
5 SMART MODES to personalise your brushing: Daily Clean, Sensitive, Gum Care, Intense Clean, Whitening
ENHANCED SMART PRESSURE SENSOR signals red, white or green to alert you whether you’re brushing too hard, too softly or with just the right amount of pressure
Content: 2 iO6 handles with ultimate clean 2 brush heads, 1 charger
Suitable for
Not intended for use by children under age of 3 years.
How to use
Wet the brush head and apply toothpaste. Place the toothbrush in the mouth and turn on. Guide the brush head slowly from tooth to tooth. Hold the toothbrush head in place for a few seconds before moving on to the next tooth. Brush the gums as well as the teeth, first the outsides, then the insides, finally the chewing surfaces.
https://www.boots.com/oral-b-io-6-black-lava-pink-sand-electric-toothbrush-designed-by-braun-10297732
Good morning, all. Late on parade (again). Raining.
Nerdy Anniversary Reminiscence.
It is 0930hrs GMT, Sunday 31 December 2023. This marks exactly 40 years —to the second — that I last extinguished a cigarette and became a fresh-air breather. [Dec 31, 1983 was on a Saturday]
I put out my last fag and walked into my appointment with a hypnotherapist. Half an hour later I had lost all my cravings, desires and needs for nicotine and they have never resurfaced.
Best twenty quid I ever spent.
I grew up with a smoker so never had those cravings. It put me off for life.
Both my parents smoked, dad a pipe mum senior service.
It was hard to see across the living room in the winter time.
Brown ceiling, brown walls………
We bought our 2nd house from an elderly couple who were chain smokers. Yellowed gloss paint and yellowed ceilings. The stench of stale cigarette smoke seemed to have permeated the very fabric of the house. No amount of stripping back and decorating seemed to completely obliterate the smell – maybe if we had removed all the plaster and replaced floorboards …… After a couple of years, visitors said they could no longer detect the smell, but we still could.
I can remember our paint work being yellowed by smoke. Incredible the damage it did. Horrible.
I stopped on 23 October 1968. Just like that. I smoked 20 a day up to then.
Poppiesdad also stopped ‘just like that’, probably 1983. He also smoked 20 a day. Three weeks later someone offered him a cigarette, which he accepted. He said it made him feel absolutely awful, and he hasn’t touched one since. I have never smoked.
I tried a quick puff in the bushes with the older kids – it made me cough so I never bothered again.
I am like my father; I have never smoked after trying it when I was a student.
When I stopped in January 1991, I had been smoking 4 roll ups a day for ten years. I gave up overnight.
Well done, I beat you by ten years but my first cigarette of the day was after dinner in the evening. And with a pint in the pub. 20 a week at the most.
Easy to stop, just chucked a half empty packet into the coal fire.
Hey Beatnik, did you panhandle those twenty big ones, Dude? A hombre on the lam has no time to work for The Man- he’s rockin’ and a rollin,’ ridin’ the rails, Pal- working is for the sell-outs, Bro.
Hey, Dean. I normally keep shtoom about the spondulicks, Man. Them IRS spooks have snitches on every railroad rout these days, Bro’. Time was when any self-respecting bum could pay his way in every soup kitchen, Compadre.
Hey, Beatnik! The IRS is checking on down the line, and they carry heat now, Dude. You’ll need to be like that old Breeze, Man and blow before the flatfoot bunko squad losers haul you in, Bro. Roll with flow and roll on out of the Mean Streets policed by The Man, Pal.
Good on you, Grizz!
Over 50 years since I quit Grizz – from 40 roll-ups a day
Beat me to it by eight years.
Beginning of the end’ for EU in current form as hard-Right parties surge
Euro 2024 elections seen as a battle to end Brussels overreach into national sovereignty
James Crisp, EUROPE EDITOR and Ben Butcher, DATA EDITOR
31 December 2023 • 7:00am
Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orban will lead their hard-Right parties to victory in next year’s European parliament elections, polls have predicted.
Their parties are expected to be the largest in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Hungary after the EU-wide vote in June, which is seen as a battle to end Brussels overreach into national sovereignty.
Nationalist parties from Poland, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Slovakia and Cyprus are also expected to return the most, or equal most, MEPs to Brussels and Strasbourg.
More than a third of all MEPs are predicted to be at the very least critical of the EU in a European parliament that has long been dominated by pro-EU groups – up from around 25 per cent a decade ago, excluding the UK.
Within that group, hard-Right parties, firmly opposed to Brussels and often anti-migration, are predicted to make gains of up to 25 per cent of MEPs, compared to just 11 per cent a decade ago.
Nigel Farage led UKIP and the Brexit Party to victories in European parliament elections in 2014, a breakthrough year for eurosceptic parties, and 2019.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/31/beginning-of-end-for-eu-hard-right-surge/
“UKIP and the Brexit parties were ahead of their time. The populist surge that we are going to see in the European elections next spring will mark the beginning of the end of the EU in its current centralised form,” said Mr Farage.
“Gosh, I could have led a big group!,” he joked, referring to the pan-EU alliances formed by like-minded parties in the parliament.
Viktor Orban chose Judit Varga, his former minister of Justice, to take the fight to Brussels after clashing with the EU over the rule of law and migration.
Ms Varga said she will fight the campaign to show European voters that there is an alternative, and to battle for a conservative majority in the parliament next year.
“What I’m fighting is the hypocrisy of the EU, the double standards of the EU. And it’s not against, but it’s for the European future,” she added.
“A new Europe is possible,” said Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy, who leads a pan-EU alliance of hard-Right parties in the European parliament after Mr Wilders won an unexpected Dutch general election victory in November.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/31/beginning-of-end-for-eu-hard-right-surge/
Soft or virulently eurosceptic parties will be the largest, or joint largest, in 10 of the 27 EU member states, according to national polling analysed by Europe Elects.
Half of all MEPs returned from France, Italy, Cyprus and Hungary are expected to be from a eurosceptic party.
There will still be a large majority of pro-EU MEPs. However, the increase in hard-Right MEPs could have a real impact on EU legislation, especially if they vote with the influential and establishment centre-Right.
MEPs have the power to amend bills in negotiations with EU governments across the majority of European laws.
The hard-Right parties are likely to join one of two eurosceptic groups. If they band together to form political groups, they qualify for more EU funding and speaking time in the parliament.
The expected winners include Poland’s Law and Justice, which was ousted by the pro-EU Donald Tusk after eight years in power following elections in October.
While it was the single-largest party, it did not have enough support for a majority, but is set to win the European elections.
https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/illustrator-embed/content/782d231137694d91c5c7c176147e3e0974661118/1703090181000.jpg
Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, which is kept from national power by a coalition of establishment parties, is set to win in the EU’s own backyard.
So is the Sweden Democrats, which is propping up a Right-wing coalition in Stockholm, which has adopted anti-migrant policies in return for its support.
The other expected winners include Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz and Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party.
Mr Wilders is still attempting to form a coalition government but Ms Meloni and Mr Orban are already prime ministers, which grants them access to European Council summits.
Heads of state and government in the council give political direction to the European Commission and will decide on the next leaders of the major Brussels institutions after the June election.
Slovakia’s Robert Fico, a pro-Russian Left-wing eurosceptic nationalist, bolstered the hard-Right in the influential council after winning elections earlier this year.
https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/illustrator-embed/content/9a7121af7ca81c9e5feacce9a02581c0236530cf/1703090133587.jpg
Hard-Right parties are predicted to make big gains in a number of national elections across Europe next year.
There are elections in Austria, Lithuania, Croatia, Romania, Portugal and Belgium in 2024.
In 2023, the average proportion of national parliaments filled with hard-Right parties hit its highest level since 2010 at around 14.3 per cent. Based on current polling, this will be exceeded in 2024.
In Austria, the hard-Right Freedom Party has been leading the polls for months. A five-poll average currently has the pro-Russian party at 31 per cent.
In Belgium, Vlaams Belang is currently expected to see its seats increase by five to a record 24, making it the largest in the chamber for deputies, even if it is unlikely to be part of a future coalition.
In Portugal, Chega is currently polling at more than twice its vote share in the previous election at 16.4 per cent. It is expected to remain the third-largest party but narrow the gap on establishment parties.
The Alliance for the Union of Romanians is polling at 18 per cent – twice its 2020 vote share.
https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/illustrator-embed/content/eda8b9fcb775151f67a72c219436cb1a367bed69/1703090153065.jpg
“Clearly the result of the recent Dutch elections should be a warning for the EU,” said Elizabeth Kuiper, associate director at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels.
“If more populist parties gain momentum there is a risk that EU countries will become more inward-looking, and positions will shift due to changes in government.
“Clearly the mobilisation of voters expressing political discontent needs to be addressed at the EU level in the years to come.”
She added that Brussels would have to prove it could solve social problems, including a fair transition to net zero, to prevent more populist victories.
“Populist parties will present themselves as the saviours of the welfare state and turn their back on the EU,” said Ms Kuiper.
**************************************
John Hickman
2 HRS AGO
Hard right? Pathetic description of people who are not left wing or do not pander to the woke media and snowflakes.
Edward Harding
2 HRS AGO
They are not ‘hard right’, ‘extreme right’, ‘populist’ or any other disingenuous term you want to try to label them with. These parties actually represent the views of the majority, ergo, must hold the centre ground.
Thing is, the EU was designed specifically to be immune to such annoyances as democracy. It can carry on, producing endless appalling legislation and there is nothing – short of leaving it – that these governments can do.
The EU knows this, and because many of these nations have been literally and figuratively (civil service non-jobs, back handers, future careers for statists) bought by the EU nothing will change. The project will continue unhindered regardless of what the public want.
Heck, we voted to leave 7 years ago and DEFRA still refuses to divert from EU law, desperately hoping to rechain us to the CAP and CFP.
A very good post; however, none of the graphics have a key explaining the meaning of the various colours in them.
John Hickman, Edward Harding
Spot on. The general public and consensus is that we have had enough of all this crap from the Dopey Wokies hard left.
False dusk. The European Project may at times be delayed, but it is never reversed.
Mind you, those who believe that they have the wind of history in their rails are often dashed against the rocks of fate.
Strange how these journos never tag anyone as “far left/hard left”.
This is more or less a comedy report- after all, it features Richard Branson and other publicity junkies but it did attract investment even though it was the ultimate in “pie in the sky” beyond the realms of intergalactic BS but that did not stop this madness gaining traction because we live in a world, where the more ridiculous things become, the more those that call the shots support such programmes. It would be hilarious, if it did not highlight how seriously SNAFUd everything is. Mentioning state-sanctioned madness, let’s hope the New Year’s Day celebrations worldwide go off okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_dheE-y7-M
There will be fireworks, cheering, lots of excitement and what and the next day reports of rapes, murders, stabbings. The sad, tiresome continuation of vile humanity.
Over th year everything bad now will get worse. Taxes will soar ever higher, socialism will be forced, the lies repeated, the truth suppressed. The state will grow, decency will be squashed.
I hope you are not right but the dynamic thus far suggests you will be.
Nothing would give me genuinely greater pleasure than to wake up to the Warqueen turning on the iPad and saying ‘Hamas have apologised and are disarming. Have asked Israel for help providing water and fuel lines.’
That the hordes of immigrants have gone. That Sunak says ‘we’ve done everything wrong. We did it to ruin the country for the WEF. I’m going to set in train policies to undo that damage today.’
To have Russell Davies admit he was wrong, and Dr Who is not his personal nutter vehicle and undo the damage he’s tried to do.
That merit will be paramount as the head of Aviva is sacked and villified. That Stonewall is investigated for racism. That Blair has died and left his money to Help for Heroes.
That the lie of climate change ends and all the taxes and assault on the public are stopped with electricity dropping to 8p a Kw.
But it won’t. Everything will get worse.
The issues we face- all driven by insane policies hang heavy on us and it is hard to envisage things getting better with all these destructive things happening with no concern for the huge negative outcome they will engender and what it means for the future.
Could the royals get any more rotten? Spiked 31 December 2023.
2023 – the year of King Charles’s coronation and Prince Harry’s Spare – was a weird year for a republican like me. Though I nurse a profound and lifelong loathing for Charles, I found myself repeatedly taking his side against Harry and Meghan of Montecito. Add to this my weakness for Diana-faced Prince William (even when he is manhandling man-necklaces) and his well-groomed, well-meaning wife (great-great-granddaughter of a miner, daughter of a trolly dolly), and my attitude towards the British monarchy became something of a hot mess.
I always thought that a country in its right mind, sure of its place in the world, was automatically better without a monarchy. But how many of those are there in these dog days of civilisation? Looking at the United States, led by a man who barely knows what day it is, does the world’s leading democracy seem any healthier than ours, just because it has an elected head of state?
Royal or Republican? A tricky question.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/31/could-the-royals-get-any-more-rotten/
President Blair or President Johnson or President Khan is sufficient for me to accept a Monarchy, for all its faults.
William’s a bit of a dunce and Kate’s a good clothes horse but rather them than someone like Biden.
He’s not half as much of a dunce as Harry (according to someone who taught the latter to fly helicopters).
OK – he’s university educated but still not Brain of Britain!
Morning (just), all Y’all.
Much snow overnight, another 0,5 to 1 metre due for delivery shortly.
Guess who gets the exercise of moving the stuff off steps & balcony? Sigh…
Ahh; you mean keeping yourself fit in the fresh air whilst ridding yourself of the need for gym fees?
(*ducks, sniggering*)
Indeed. :-))
And they aren’t ducks, but seagulls…
Kraa!
🤣🤣
Phew!
First task of the day done. When the ‘Leccy Lads got the pole up, a week past Friday morning, they didn’t complete backfilling the hole for the new pole so we’ve had traffic lights round the work site since then.
The finished the job yesterday, took the lights away but left behind the sandbags full of quarry scalpings, over 2 dozen of the things, that had been used to divert the stream that runs down the gutter. I’ve just shifted them and got them stacked ready to be carried up the “garden” when the water they’ve absorbed drains out a bit.
No doubt I’ll find a use for them.
“Retired Sapper held on theft charge”
No intention to permanently deprive, just storing them to protect the environment until the lorry returns to collect.
Edit: there is a Telegraph obituary for Richard Rampton, a distinguished barrister; the obit mentions several of his cases but using ‘vs’ instead of ‘v’.
Actually, the mess left behind was more akin for flytipping.
Sounds like an Honourable Discharge with no lasting blemish on your record for heaving rocks up a steep incline. {:^))
Sounds like an Honourable Discharge with no lasting blemish on your record for heaving rocks up a steep incline. {:^))
You’re just recycling items that you have already paid dearly for through inflated energy costs and energy
subsidiestaxes.https://scontent.flhr10-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/414458611_10227856887701870_806992781254696027_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c42490&_nc_ohc=qZbufaKdsEIAX-nA7Oy&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr10-2.fna&oh=00_AfAUSOIsaNk4DWSPqk4CBgKNzgxjrTxLrU8ag-i3GBgpWw&oe=65971AEF
So have I – I’m a pensioner.
Sir Humphrey?
Jan Steen – one of my favourite old masters.
“Get yourself dressed up love,” I said to my girlfriend, “it’s two courses for a tenner today.”
“Great, I’m starving” she replied.
“What the Hell are you on about?” I said, “I need you to carry my golf clubs.”
A bit rough. Not a fairway to treat a girl.
She must be green.
Couldn’t putt it better myself.
Hole in one!
Well, I am a chip off the old block.
No you’re not. You’re a big bogey!
Was she tee’d off?
Hardly. More a slave driver.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e21e9c952e7af106e3fbfa63d8e9e91c88ab9c391e455bd8c61e0f8c015f9db.jpg
Excellent! I will send that to a friend who needs a good laugh.
Belated ‘Morning All
Last Medley of the year
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51ca7746a1df3491609090b88773c54e6565d3918f36aef74ec0c35414d01ef5.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e3fd1d00ca4624fbb7cfbdaecb80c983ac01dada7d1ea109f22fbe7d97f70f14.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2410ba04b5787c12a7e25176f5cbac3eb72000fa0338248ee10015213b36dab8.jpg
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2004,yet here we are………..
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1840586a61c2d4f0dbab91aec3c9d8ad586acedb30b12578b654de38d24bdd6.jpg
Thanks for your medleys throughout the year, Rik! I’ve lost count of how many I have snitched to make friends snigger – much appreciated.
Happy New Year!
You still South of the Line, Ashes?
Happy New Year. I expect you will be Tangoing til dawn !
Damn well hope so!! I shall wave regally in your general direction if so x x
I shall be abed with a family size box of fererro rochet…Enjoy !
Sigh…
Today’s MoS
“Five-day work from home deals for pampered mandarins as
civil servants make mockery of calls to return to the office:
Taxpayer-funded quango staff get 10,000 days WFB (Working From the
Beach).
The number who can permanently work five days a week from
home has more than doubled this year, Freedom of Information requests
have revealed.
In addition, staff at Government-funded public bodies
have spent nearly 10,000 days working ‘from the beach’ since 2020 after
an increase in approvals to log in from abroad. The move to contractual
working from home surged in 2023, with some Government departments now
letting hundreds of workers avoid the office all week – on top of those
who increasingly work part-time from home already.”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac74ce63f27cebb756dbd08a8f63fa70d960d90a0b572b3fc56d5658794775d0.jpg
I don’t mind where they work. I mind that what they do doesn’t need doing.
Your challenge for today, fellow Nottlers, is to provide me with some ideas to help me help my daughter in an essay she is writing. There is a book rotten* in 2013 called “The entrepreneurial state” by someone called Mariana Mazzucato, which argues that the private sector only finds the courage to invest after the entrepreneurial state has made high-risk investments and that the state fixes market failures and actively shapes and creates markets. More recently she is arguing for massive government intervention to mitigate the global climate emergency etc. basically this woman appears to be a Communist and has cherry-picked examples to make it look like the State is better at picking winners than the private sector.
Now what are the best arguments or examples you can think of to refute this? Do we think this idea of an “entrepreneurial state” which guides and nurtures the private sector is a useful one? I think naturally we would all tend to say the state should butt out and leave it to the markets but is there a role foe the state in picking winners? Or is it (as always) a bit of “it depends…?”. I’d like to give my daughter a few good pro-private sector arguments and solid examples to help her write a good essay that her lefty-Professors can’t deny.
I am going to do a bit of research on Freeports but I’m not sure that these are designed to innovate or whether they are just a tax incentive to provide jobs.
*edit: written lol
Re your final paragraph – what happened to the Freeports which were going to be set up after Brexit? I think they were just a tax incentive. yes.
Thing is yet again big government did it wrong. Their solution was to give the statists in certain areas more money. Now, what happened to that cash? Oh yes! Government spent it. Barely any additional value went to the private sector.
The rational solution is to say to an area – as Switzerland does with Cantons – you can change business rates, corporation tax, even VAT in this area. The only thing you can’t do is increase any taxes.
The difficulty there is councils are run by morons who would demand to hike taxes – it’s what they know. The idea of cutting tax to generate revenue is beyond them.
Thank you everyone!
Thanks for putting up the question! Fascinating debate, with examples!
The State doesn’t pick winners. It picks cronies.
There was a huge gap in the market and Charlie Mullins stepped in and got very rich. At least you could get a plumber where he operated.
The government would have relaxed visa entry and we would have ended up with cowboy jobs everywhere and still your pipes would leak.
Too few of them – if any- have ever worked in business. And it shows.
The idiot SNP turned down the chance of a Freeport in Dundee! Thanks again Nikeliar, for your staggering lack of foresight, and your vile hatred of the Toaries and Westminster! I hope she rots in jail in 2024.
Re your final paragraph – what happened to the Freeports which were going to be set up after Brexit? I think they were just a tax incentive. yes.
The state does not create markets though. It regulates them. Markets are created by people ‘wanting’ something, or a variation thereof. Government has never, ever rescued a market as, again, if a market is failing then that is markets working. Government interference to support an industry is that market being broken.
An example is salads. This year, Morroco had a poor harvest. Government meddling had made energy too expensive. People still wanted to buy salads but government refused to help UK farmers to grow salads (as it is done under glass and is energy intensive). That led to a shortage. Prices couldn’t rise fast enough before supply evaporated. The market was broken in two places, by government: energy and farming.
I’m not sure how the entrepreneurial state is any different to theprivate sector, as defacto it is private wealth being spent as the earner wants it to be. If you buy a £1 charm from a craft fair or invest £100 million in a sports car factory it’s the same source.
The same applies to climate change. If there was a market for next generation material then government wouldn’t need to punish (distort) the existing working market. Saying there is a ‘climate emergency’ is simply not true. Much science disagrees. ‘The Science’ doesn’t apply as that just gives the state the answer it wants – more tax revenue.
If windmills could survive without subsidy then they would already be built. Same for electric cars. If there really were a problem government should be offering significant tax breaks and regulatory changes to encourage home batteries, solar and adapting insulation laws, recyling, re-use. It would be encouraging repairs and renewal rather htan replacement but because it has made production so expensive through legislation that the only way to make a profit is efficiency it can’t. It isn’t. These prove ‘climate change’ is just weaponised weather.
Markets exist to supply demand. No demand, no market. If government forces it, through massive subsidy and high taxes all you end up with is high taxes. This is basic economics.
Government continually tries to pick winners and continually fails. It fails because no matter how heavily it stacks the dice it cannot compete with market forces. Every time it has tried it’s resulted in failure, massive cost and dismal results. Why? Because it has no incentive for efficiency. Government could not forsee Alexa controlled light bulbs. It wanted a train set. It wants people to have fibre but isn’t watching how the money is spent. It wants to heavily regulate what you can do with it.
Inside government look at prisons. Home office staff come up with all sorts of Left wing nonsense on prisoner treatment yet never visit a prison. The control is simply too far from the construct.
Welfare is an artificially created market. Government gives people who don’t contribute other people’s money. What then happens? That’s a market that doesn’t work, but is pumped full of supply with endless demand – the price – the value of the item is therefore nil.
I’d recommend lots of economics sites for the statistics and realities, but I think, in this day and age if your daughter were to turn in an essay discussing the abject failure of government and the harms of welfare, the hoax of climate change she would be punished. Academics do not like the stool they stand on (or in, usually) being disturbed.
She could discuss those topics but leave the reader to draw thir own conclusions. The lefty academics would draw theirs and sensible people the opposite.
I agree, the problem is you can’t present a supply and demand graph clearly demonstrating the incompetence, stupidity and chaotic ignorance of big government, nor discuss evidentiary facts about ‘climate change’ without making the position clear. Yes, you can say X believes and then Y believes but truth cannot be disputed.
That’s a whole other essay though, as the state invests millions in deceit to promote it’s agenda.
Last paragraph is too true. Punished, for telling li like it is.
Good morning MiR, and everyone. Start with Wiki, where it states that ‘she believed’ instead of she proved or demonstrated. Then look at the criticism levelled at her by Johan Norberg, a Swedish intellectual. Apart from her writing (including journalism) Dottore Mazzucato has spent her entire life in the public, academic and not for profit sectors. She is a good looking liberal lefty who does not understand the role of capital. The concept of the entrepreneurial state is bolleaux; when the state pays for research, it is inevitably looking towards weaponry. (Manhattan Project, DARPA, Wuhan).
An “Entrepreneurial State” is a contradiction in terms. The State, any State, is a parasite. It lives off the efforts of others to prosper and improve. Given sufficient opportunity it will eventually suck the lifeblood out of its host!
I’m a bit engineering in all things, but I know the state is too entitled to be entrepreneurial, too slow, too ineffective.
If the State is so good, why is the worlds richest man Elon Musk, with Tesla? When did they start up? What’s the history of British Steel, before and after Govt ownership? How did Austin, Morris and co get started until the state took over and the business was sold as BL mostly to foreigners? How was the West Africa Company able to operate, including their own military, without govt interference? How did Bjørn Kjuus start the airline Norwegian, and very quickly outcompete the tri-state owned SAS?
Why is State-owned Aeroflot so God-awful?
And so on… Google may well be of help in tying down dates and events.
The internet: DARPA, using technology developed by the NPL. The web: developed by Sir Tim at DERN. Satnav: US Department of Defense. Try living without them. Something to be set for the gummint.
Happy New Year 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kkANVzPvvjI?feature=share
And to you too, Johnathan – I hope your health improves.
Well at least my stamina will improve. I will be put on oxygen in January.
But a very good year to you and hope your hopes will all come true.
Make sure you have a good fitted mask. The one they gave my MiL burned her eyes.
Make sure you have a good fitted mask. The one they gave my MiL burned her eyes.
The Church Militant.
We could do with that today.
All the best JR.
All the best JR.
How Donald Trump plans to gut Washington in second White House stint. 31 December 2023.
It is Ukraine that has rattled allies the most, with Mr Trump at the forefront of Republican scepticism over the financial burden of the war. He has suggested on the campaign trail that he could demand that Europe reimburse Washington for the ammunition used so far in the conflict.
Mr Trump has claimed he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine in 24 hours by brokering a deal with Vladimir Putin. He has declined to elaborate, but foreign policy analysts believe any agreement could include considerable territorial gains for Moscow.
TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.
Mac Of Macca.
Don’t suppose we can borrow him for a year to clean out the cesspit of Westminster? What he plans, is what we need, but in our Woke, Wishy Washy Country, all we can do is watch it’s continue decline and occupation by Illegals, I can never forgive the Tories for what they have done and failed to do over last 14 years, they should swing for Moscow.
All of it sounds good to me but I doubt that there is time in one administration for it. I’m in agreement with Mac as well!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/31/how-donald-trump-plans-gut-washington/
How Donald Trump plans to gut Washington in second White House stint. 31 December 2023.
It is Ukraine that has rattled allies the most, with Mr Trump at the forefront of Republican scepticism over the financial burden of the war. He has suggested on the campaign trail that he could demand that Europe reimburse Washington for the ammunition used so far in the conflict.
Mr Trump has claimed he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine in 24 hours by brokering a deal with Vladimir Putin. He has declined to elaborate, but foreign policy analysts believe any agreement could include considerable territorial gains for Moscow.
TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.
Mac Of Macca.
Don’t suppose we can borrow him for a year to clean out the cesspit of Westminster? What he plans, is what we need, but in our Woke, Wishy Washy Country, all we can do is watch it’s continue decline and occupation by Illegals, I can never forgive the Tories for what they have done and failed to do over last 14 years, they should swing for Moscow.
All of it sounds good to me but I doubt that there is time in one administration for it. I’m in agreement with Mac as well!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/31/how-donald-trump-plans-gut-washington/
381047+ up ticks,
Dream time,
It’s time to train our own doctors, and stop importing them
Reality time,
The doctor is only as good as his/her support team, as in the plumber / electrician / the brickie / the chippy as an indigenous team they form the backbone of an independent
decent Nation.
A nation of gross stupidity would give consent to a multitude of foreign multi tongue labour/ doctors, etc,etc with, then a necessity to then employ a multitude of interpreters.
Currently the majority voter via lab/lib/con/current ukip are
dancing to the RESET CONGA.
Must be climate change……………….snigger
https://twitter.com/RealMessageEire/status/1741392101835731278?s=20
ODHSNM
How I would love to believe that this is not an accident!
Oh dear, never mind. Unfortunately, the savages will just be housed elsewhere, adversely affecting a different community.
They will commandeer our spare bedrooms in true communist fashion.
Oh how sad.
Arsehole of the world wiped clean?
Just a few hour too early.
Saves the migrants the bother of burning it down themselves.
Shame.
In the event I forget, or time escapes me, and yes, I know it’s only 1pm but still, I would like to wish everyone here a healthy and happy new year. I would again express my thanks and gratitude for your tolerance, kindness, good humour, wit, charm and panaché.
Thank you, wibbling! And all the best to you, the Warqueen, Junior, Mongo and the other giant dog! (Oscar?) Enjoy your new home and keep posting your erudite, humorous, descriptive and thought provoking missives! Love them! 💕
You can get pills from the pharmacist for pan ache… 😉
The thing that keeps me coming back to Nottl is the experience, wit and humour of the contributors, amongst whom I particularly prize your contributions, Wibbling.
Happy New Year! Hope 2024 is the best ever for all Y’all!
You can get pills from the pharmacist for pan ache… 😉
The thing that keeps me coming back to Nottl is the experience, wit and humour of the contributors, amongst whom I particularly prize your contributions, Wibbling.
Happy New Year! Hope 2024 is the best ever for all Y’all!
All the best to you and your family.
John Pilger, RIP
https://x.com/johnpilger/status/1741419322449215716?s=20
“As I stride through the mud…”
My advice to Roger Boyce regarding missing his daily walks is to buy a treadmill – I bought one and I can walk any distance in any weather as it’s in the garage and can be programmed to go at any speed and will stop at a pre-programmed distance, time or calories used. It also displays my heartbeat
Aren’t they quite expensive? I know i could use one and when i’m not using it i could dangle a bone at the front and put Fat Dolly on it for an hour or two.
Plenty of second hand ones about Phil, look on Facebook. I bought mine S/H for £150
Thanks.
Last jigsaw of 2023 completed. It was a jolly nice one.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffbe20e48216e694132686a09862760d509b38d760a294cd7c55fce20a83a786.jpg
That’s good, Bill. Very cozy!
No cats…
Have you taken up a religion of peaces…
Photo of your sitting room?
Close!
381047+ up ticks,
Just a thought,
I do believe one more General Election without very,very radical change will result in a culling campaign via assorted means,
state orchestrated civil unrest, the knife, the bullet,
government / pharmaceutical input via a pill / needle ALL in time will become the “norm” ALL For the good of the party
(as bent as a nine bob note) name.
https://x.com/EleftheriaElpis/status/1741400537264771198?s=20
Look at this ! This revolting turd poking his nose in all over, where does he live does he have proposals for thousands of new dwellings for illegal migrants near his home ?
Michael Gove names and shames St Albans over Local Plan
22nd December
MICHAEL GOVE
ST ALBANS CITY AND DISTRICT COUNCIL
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
ST ALBANS
By Will Durrant, local democracy reporter
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Michael Gove has named St Albans one of the seven worst authorities for plan making
Michael Gove has named St Albans one of the seven worst authorities for plan making
Michael Gove has singled out St Albans as one of the seven worst authorities for plan-making in the country.
The levelling up secretary has said the Hertfordshire city and district council must send him a Local Plan timetable within the next 12 months, setting out when councillors can expect to adopt a new set of housebuilding policies.
But St Albans City and District Council has had a timetable in place for more than a year and is on track to formally adopt a new set of planning rules in 2025.
Recommended by
In a speech at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in London, Mr Gove threatened to intervene “to ensure that a plan is put in place” if the seven authorities fail to send his department a timetable.
St Albans City and District Council leader Cllr Chris White (LD, Clarence) described the comments as “crass”.
He said Mr Gove had launched a “campaign for a general election”.
Cllr White told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We are going as fast as we can.
“It’s all part of a system and there are things we have to do by law. Once it is done, it will go to the inspectors who will check it through.
“We have to go through all the steps without rushing it.”
Herts Advertiser: Chris White has responded to Michael Gove’s comments
Chris White has responded to Michael Gove’s comments (Image: Chris White)
St Albans City and District Council held a first-stage statutory consultation, known as a Regulation 18 consultation, over the summer.
Councillors debated the initial findings on Tuesday, November 14.
The “quick survey” with 1,057 responses found protecting historic buildings, wildlife sites and areas of natural beauty was the top key issue.
Infrastructure ranked second, above “tackling climate change”, “building the right kind of homes to meet local needs” and “providing local jobs for residents”.
Officers are analysing technical responses to the consultation.
According to the latest work programme, approved on Tuesday, December 12, councillors are due to consider the final-stage Regulation 19 consultation in September 2024.
This is in line with a timetable agreed at a meeting in September 2022.
It sets December 2024 as the month when council planners will send their draft local plan to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – which will be reviewed by a government-appointed planning inspector.
St Albans has one of the oldest local plans in the country, with a set of rules which date back to 1994.
Cllr White has led the authority since 2019. When asked what makes his administration different to previous ones, he said: “We used to have councillors sparring with each other in the chamber.
“Sometimes, we would spend hours going through meeting minutes. We got the Local Government Association in to review our meetings.
“We’ve now stopped doing political back-and-forth, because the Local Plan is a technical exercise.”
The St Albans Local Plan will set aside space for more than 11,000 new homes in the district by 2041, along with a “wish list” for new infrastructure such as roads, schools and health centres which developers should provide if they are to secure planning permission for their schemes.
Cllr White said Mr Gove “should wake up” to residents’ interests in infrastructure over their interest in housing or economic growth.
The council leader said his authority does not have the funding to build and provide new social housing, leisure venues and services during periods of high inflation.
The other areas which Mr Gove named were Amber Valley in Derbyshire, Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, Medway in Kent, and Uttlesford, Basildon and Castle Point, all in Essex.
In his speech on Tuesday, December 19, he said: “Where there is and has been consistent underperformance, I will act.
“I am taking steps to deal with underperformers in the planning system, and there is no greater failure than to actually have a plan in place.”
Mr Gove said the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities must receive Local Plan timetables within 12 weeks.
“I will consider further intervention to ensure a plan is put in place,” he said.
Eff off you POS.
I live in Amber Valley and we already have too many houses for the infrastructure so Gove needs to feck off, and then feck off a bit further!
Given the opportunity eh……….
Our old and long established village will be no-more if these people get their way.
They’ve already wrecked our country with no joint or conscious effort to make an explanation as to why and what their intentions are. WTF are the doing to us all ?
That must be the area Know as Amber Side Drive all new housing.
There is no way these properties are being built with any of the existing population in mind.
I had the misfortune this morning to drive past the vast housing estate built on what were once green fields. They look like 4, 5 and even 6 bedroom houses. What the area needs is 1 and 2 bedroom starter homes and bungalows. The nasty thought entered my mind that maybe they’d been built with a view to housing immigrants ten to a room 🙁
Don’t you just hate it when this happens
https://scontent.flhr10-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/415056879_10225697316882116_7583913747541776464_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p843x403&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=c42490&_nc_ohc=eOktda_PgE8AX_QS_O7&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr10-1.fna&oh=00_AfC2Hg8vqLQDrMVixl3k5Rc2xm-iTh4ATdKMjx-hUmcmqA&oe=6596E69E
Nottlers one and all, I wish you a wonderful New Year!! May you be visited by joy, good health, and the continued pleasure of squabbling pedantically on here.
Personally, I think this last year has been my best yet, and I can’t wait to see how 2024 unfolds.
Had you told me this time last year that my day would take the following form, I would have suspected you’d been hitting the cooking sherry a little early:
I’ve been out on the roof terrace, as is my wont on sunny days, reading Neruda’s passionate poetry out loud, having managed to convince myself that this counts as homework.
I shall soon wander down to the presidential Palace to hand-deliver a letter to Milei offering my services as a top-level English coach. Well, I’m going to have to work at some point soon, and what a blast it would be to have a toe in the waters at such a momentous time for the country.
And I plan to see in the New Year on the dance floor, surrounded by friends, revelling in the positive energy of the amazing phenomenon that is tango, which has captured me mind, body and soul.
Katy x
PS Ah, go on then. Photo of planned outfit attached. Potential glamour currently slightly compromised by having scarlet hands after preparing beetroot on a whim, but hey, it wouldbe a talking point between dances! 🤣🤣
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/402c1aec67f5d8346a44a1a2039c63c042f31c733c9916738db97a3d3b655c02.jpg
Give us a twirl!
Here ya go…don’t say i don’t give you anything…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc4f6e8feb1efa7da999f5e244f752b8ba316c168329092d3e9bf6090f40bbdf.jpg
Snickers to himself!
What a Marathon effort!
Squabbling ???
Is that a photo from the daily Mirror. Stunning. 🤩
Happy new year to you Katy x
It’s certainly from *my* daily mirror! 🤣
Thank you.
Lovely shot. It reminds me of my wife when she’s getting dressed to go out, the full length mirror gets her in shape. 😉😆🤗
Happy New Year to you, Katy! Have a lovely evening dancing in the new year. It would be great if we had an ear in the Palace.
You’re going to wow them looking like that. x
You are our Eva Peron and i claim my $5 billion Pesos.
Tell him if he gives you the job he can have the Malvinas !
🤣🤣 5 billion pesos might even get you a drink or two!
For ei flott dame!
You scrub up well, lass! Wow!
You should see her in a swimsuit…I have but i was too much the gentleman to take any snaps. :@)
Magnificent!
She is isn’t she. And what a voice !
Happy New Year to you, Katy! And you look amazing!
If she gets the job i’m going to apply to be her Butler !
Thank you!
Have a brilliant New Year, Katy and much happiness in your new life! You know when you’ve been Tango’ed!
I do. I DO!! 🤣🤣
Have a wonderful time, Happy New Year to you and carry on Tango ing!!
Fabulous! Have a wonderful time, and a wonderful 2024
Thank you x
Well done, Katy. Always with the potential to be the Scarlet Lady but you scrub up nicely. Give ’em hell and show ’em what they have been missing all these years. Be fabulous!
Phoooaaaarrrr!
🤣🤣 x
Gott Nytt År, Katy.😘🥂
Can you hear the whistle at that distance? 🙂
That was you, was it? I thought it was one of the caracaras on the roof… 🤣🤣
Wow!. Just, Wow…
Happy New Year to all NOTTLers!
In spite of all the crap we’re having to deal with currently I remain an eternal optimist…!
Vince
Same to you. Though I am not conVinced. {:¬))
HNY, Vince. Hope you’re correct. Sceptical. though…
381047+ up ticks,
See what treasures unity in supporting / voting for the governing coalition cartel have brought down on the shoulders of indigenous children, and other innocents.
https://x.com/AvonandsomerRob/status/1741147420677808402?s=20
Off to the football match presumably.
381047+ up ticks,
Afternoon M,
Presumably, once they find a suitable head.
Bit unnecessary – wearing both pyjamas and nighties.
381047+ up ticks,
Afternoon A
The current voting pattern dictates we will get use to wearing it, OR ELSE.
It’s their goat shagging outfit.
What do they wear to shag camels?
Stilts?
I think we lost a long time ago…didn’t we? Any and all modicum of fight-back is snuffed out by ‘the authorities’ and labelled a ‘hate crime’ or summat. We folded before we realised what our political classes were doing to us as individuals and our nation in its aggregate worth.
God’sAllah’s Own County, apparently.Happy New Year to all ye Nottlers, and I hope you have all survived the storms that we have heard about. Here’s to 2024 and hope it brings good health to you all, cheers!!
They are making Margaret Beckett a Dame.
The very fact that they are making the foul socialist harridan Margaret Beckett a Dame proves beyond doubt they are taking the mickey out of us.
Well, she has possessed the face of a pantomime dame all her adult life.
Ah – the caravanista.
It also shows that such people have no principles – otherwise she would have declined.
Just like Lord Prescott did… Oh, wait…
And Kinnock.
It’s been going a long time; Stanley Baldwin claimed if he were offered a peerage he’d become Lord Luvaduck. When he was, he didn’t.
In case of impaired consiousness in later hours, I’ll wish all Y’all a Happy New Year, and that 2024 is the best year ever for all Y’all.
Godt Nytt År, folkens!
Samma til du, Paul..
I’ll be raising a glass to you, Tom, and the other Nottlers – hence my early good wishes for the New Year – it’ll not be charged with cheap, either.
I shall return the toast,Paul, just received 3 x Famous Grouse and 2 port so, well stocked to drink your health.
HA! HA! HA!
US Navy helicopters sank three vessels operated by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels that had attacked a container ship in the Red Sea, the military said Sunday.
After the Houthis fired on the US helicopters, they “returned fire in self-defence, sinking three of the four small boats, and killing the crews. The fourth boat fled the area,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of Yemen, have disrupted world trade for weeks with attacks on ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea in what they say is a response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/31/israel-hamas-war-latest-news1/
How did one get away when the choppers are clearly faster?
It would depend on the current Rules of Engagement. If the vessel was clearly retreating and not take offensive action then the helicopters crews were absolutely right in ceasing fire. There is a distinct possibility that doing otherwise would result in a murder charge.
Except that the bastard terrorists would be dead and unlikely to give a statement to the Muslipolitan perlice farce.
After seeing their comrades blown to tiny pieces, they likely hightailed it out in case they same fate befell them, too.
Poor shot.
Let one escape to warn the others off…
I believe the phrase ‘Oh, dear, how sad. Never mind!’ is appropriate here…
Strange they can’t manage something similar in the channel.
M.V. Cardita.
Motor tanker
Complement:
60 (27 dead and 33 survivors).
11,500 tons of motor spirit and white spirit
At 19.54 hours on 31st December 1941 the unescorted Cardita (Master John Osmond Evans), a straggler from convoy HX-166, was torpedoed by U-87 (Joachim Berger) 110 miles from St. Kilda. The vessel foundered on 3rd January 1942. 27 crew members were lost. The master, 16 crew members and six gunners were picked up by HMS Onslow (G 17) (Capt H.T. Armstrong, DSC, RN) and ten crew members by HMS Sabre (H 18) (Lt P.W. Gretton, OBE, DSC, RN) and landed at Reykjavik, Iceland.
Type VIIB U-Boat U-87 was sunk on 4th March 1943 in the North Atlantic west of Leixoes by depth charges from the Canadian corvette HMCS Shediac and the Canadian destroyer HMCS St. Croix. 49 dead (all hands lost).
https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/cardita.jpg
WSC must have danced a jig (metaphorical) when he heard about Pearl Harbour.
Afternoon folks. Just popped in to wish you all a very happy and healthy new year.
Thanks for all the thought provoking articles, comments and jokes in 2023. Keep them coming in 2024! S
You too
Jokes?
Happy New Year, should it arrive.
Happy New Year to you, too! K x
I guess yours will arrive somewhat later. I’ll still be in bed. HNY, Katy…
I have no sense of time, anyway! Happy New Year, Geoff, and thanks for keeping the lights on here x
You’re most welcome, Katy. All the best…
Happy New Year to you, too, Stephen.
Happy New Year to you, too, Stephen.
Worth a read – especially the comments:
Britain is no longer safe – and few police chiefs care
Too many forces view appeasing social justice activists as a worthy substitute for fighting crime
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/12/30/crime-rates-police-performance-college-of-policing/
‘Too many forces view appeasing social justice activists as a worthy substitute for fighting crime.’
That sentence suggests a separation between the police and government, which is incorrect. We no longer have an independent police force, serving the people. They’re just another arm of the government these days. And it’s government that appeases the SJWs, as they align with their own ideologies. The police are just doing what they’re instructed from above to do.
All the heads of police are in office because of the government. There isn’t one to go against the grain here and do things differently. If such a head of police existed, he’d be out of a job faster than you can say ‘It’s a fair cop, guv!’
Happy New Year to one and all…though if you are like me, you will probably be tucked up in bed asleep at the witching hour!
All the best for 2024 – may you achieve all that you are striving for.
You too – me too
And to you, BB2. Should I be awake at the witching hour, I’ll put up the first page of the New Year.
Here’s one for Maggie:-
https://twitter.com/busterandoreo/status/1741113250303893531
I suspect this has saved many a car interior:
https://youtu.be/7sNBM9LR6dg
Just try that with a cat (other than a Swimming Cat of Lake Van).
The dog friendly campsite I stayed on near Malton had a dog wash. We never needed to use it because it rained all the time!
Oreo presumably because he’s brown and white.
Hacker:
Europe is a community of nations, dedicated towards one goal.
Sir Humphrey:
Oh, ha ha ha.
Hacker:
May we share the joke, Humphrey?
Sir Humphrey:
Oh Minister, let’s look at this objectively. It is a game played for national interests, and always was. Why do you suppose we went into it?
Hacker:
To strengthen the brotherhood of free Western nations.
Sir Humphrey:
Oh really. We went in to screw the French by splitting them off from the Germans.
Hacker:
So why did the French go into it, then?
Sir Humphrey:
Well, to protect their inefficient farmers from commercial competition
Hacker:
That certainly doesn’t apply to the Germans.
Sir Humphrey:
No, no. They went in to cleanse themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race.
Hacker:
I never heard such appalling cynicism! At least the small nations didn’t go into it for selfish reasons.
Sir Humphrey:
Oh really? Luxembourg is in it for the perks; the capital of the EEC, all that foreign money pouring in.
The new RSPCA shop in Bury
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2ef9629201dd7085eaecc8bb8ca7fed3e1d7a8aa48295af6f997264c87eeb59.jpg
That’s dead funny…..!
I can donate a spade
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4591eade2015636fecdb508891ede9c9599d43e800b313621d86aedc87043a19.jpg
Inadvertently true. I understand that they only keep strays for a relatively short time (unlike other rescue organisations) and then they destroy them. Got to keep their CEO’s six figure salary topped up and that gold-plated HQ in London isn’t cheap to run.
A ghastly organisation. They have had the ‘put down’ policy for a long time, and I was pleased when the SPCA split from them. They are a much kinder bunch up here!
I forgot to mention the money wasted on full-page adverts in the national press and useless lawsuits persecuting people going about a lawful pursuit/occupation. The minute that foreign woman appears on TV soliticing money the air turns blue here at chateau Conway.
They lost sight of their true aims a long time ago. My grandmother set up the Gateshead branch of the RSPCA many years ago after enduring the sight of the pit ponies being dragged up the hill to the pit head, and the coal horses slipping and being thrashed. That was the C in the name, not the woke stuff which does nothing about halal slaughter, wind turbines and unfit dog breeding. She will be turning in her grave at the cruelty.
Endless repetitions for weeks on end of Sky adverts on their own channels for their Christmas movie offerings has me similarly apoplectic. I must have seen the ads hundreds of times. By now, there can only be one or two viewers at a time who are seeing them for the first time. That suggests a poor return for the advertising space they are taking away from paying customers.
An easy Bogey Three.
Wordle 925 3/6
🟨🟩⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Par here.
Wordle 925 4/6
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Complements, or should that be condiments. Par four here.
Wordle 925 4/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Complements, or should that be condiments. Par four here.
Wordle 925 4/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I didn’t manage the hat-trick. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5a38a5994451478222bf7663543bb2b8caae684d67fb41cc7f275a5347edaab2.jpg
Better luck next year, RT!
600 games played 4 failures.
Four here
Mind not in gear today
Wordle 925 5/6
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Metoo.
Wordle 925 3/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Same here
Wordle 925 3/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
381047+ up ticks,
NOT if the current lab/lib/con/current ukip coalition have anything to say about it.
Dt
Beginning of the end’ for EU as we know it after surge in hard-Right support
Euro 2024 elections seen as a battle to end Brussels overreach into national sovereignty
Please keep in mind the majority politico / voter are pro eu and are currently in rodent mode gnawing at the innards of
the Country.
The U.K. government is anxious to give away all our sovereignty to thenWHO via the IHR. Just as the Conservatives did when we joined the EEC as was.
We really don’t need MPs at all.
The current lot are utterly useless. Do they realise that the Snivel Serpents now rule everything? I hate that the CS has been utterly taken over by the Long March through the Institutions / Common Purpose / what have you. But that’s where we are.
In her New Years Speech, Queen Margarethe of Denmark has announced that she will abdicate on 14th January.
She’s been ill a lot, and had her back operated, so I can see her point.
https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/danmark-1.14824394
Would that the JWK would do the same…
Barely got his feet under the table.
Much too comfy for my liking!!
Much too political for my liking!
Get divorced? Camilla is good for him. Ah, you mean abdicate. Be careful what you wish for. Wills is no better.
Quite – worse, in many ways. Even thicker.
And much younger. He’d be around for a long time.
So Prince Frederik and Princess Mary will become King and Queen?
Are they not getting divorced?
Eek! I don’t know. That muddies the waters?
https://www.tatler.com/article/lcrown-princess-mary-is-philosophical-in-christmas-statement-amid-affair-allegations
Something like that.
That poor woman must be cursing those who introduced so many aliens into what was once one of the most harmonious countries in the world.
As are the rest of us.
Our grandson – he has dual citizenship – is contemplating doing Danish national service as a taster to see if he likes Army life.
4 months is normal, but it’s 9 months if you are a royal guard. We had visions of him guarding Daisy. If only she’d hung on for a few months!
I hope she has a long and happy retirement. She deserves it.
Well, chaps. That’s me for this miserable year. Have a spiffing evening welcoming in the next miserable year.
I’ll see you in the New Year.
Happy New Year, Bill!
We’ve had much worserer years, I’m sure, Bill. I just can’t think of any off the top of my head. Oh, and the fireworks have just started here.
Happy New Year to you, the MR, Gus and Pickles…
1942 was pretty bloody, I recall. I spent Christmas in hospital (for three months).
Since I failed to be born for another 15 years, I deny any responsibility…
I was promised six months in Horsespittle to ‘fix’ one ankle. Ampuation = 3 months. Went for the latter. ‘Tis a shame that the ‘good’ foot came out in sympathy, but it was the best BOGOF deal ever. OK – 90% of my organ repertoire is now out of reach. And who wants to climb ladders anyway. Bill? 🙄
I read that as Mr Gus and Pickles, fo a moment I thought Bill had lodgers….!
Happy New Year to you, Geoff, cheers!
And to you and Jack. Best wishes…
Happy New Year to you, the MR, Gus and Pickles!!
Ah bless! The old curmudgeon makes the rest of us look optimistic! Best wishes to you and the MR! 💕And the glorious ginger ones!
Ah bless! The old curmudgeon makes the rest of us look optimistic! Best wishes to you and the MR! 💕And the glorious ginger ones!
Having curry tonight,
I may not see the new year in,
but I might be first in the morning
I’ve long outgrown seeing the New Year in. You won’t be first in the morning – that’s my job. You might be second. Happy New Year, Bob3…
Happy New Year, Geoff,
That wasn’t what I meant
I know, Bob3. Besrt wishes…
Best. Can’t spell… 😟
Happy New Year and a thousand thanks for all you do, Geoff.
Back at ya, Conway. All the best…
Happy New Year Geoff, and thank you for everything! Thinking of you.
Et tu, Sue.
Gosh, Geoff, you’re a poet! Lol. (Happy New Year when it arrives, btw.)
Crispy aromatic duck for us.
Just had mine. Antipasti: cured meats, various cheeses, freshly-baked dinkel bread, and a nice Churchill’s LBV port.
Ooo… now you tell us!
We’ve had a normal Sunday dinner – roast lamb, roastie spuds, leek & carrots.
Three boiled eggs for me.
Banger, mash & gravy with a cabbage that never got used before Christmas and needed using up.
Very nice too!
‘Night All
Happy New Year to one and all
Watching Zulu
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bbbc3c4519c899009e1c2f508aa0c22a7634d9259a6fa1f8030eeccae0803cc4.jpg
Nice one, Happy New Year to you and yours.
Guffaw!
I’ve just watched a couple of episodes of Yes Prime Minister. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I also sat through the film version of Dad’s Army. I’d previously tried Carry On Girls (Bernard Breslaw as a woman in a beauty contest was a bit too prescient for my liking so I switched over) and Sharpe, but I didn’t care for that, either. Is it me?
We’ve just finished watching Goodbye Mr Chips we bought on Netflix. Lovely film.
The Robert Donat one I hope. Always loved his voice.
The version with Fred Astaire, Petula Clark and Tommy Steele was spoiled by studio executives who chose to crop the top and bottom of the picture so that they could boast that it was a widescreen film. They forgot, of course, that Fred Astaire was a superb dancer and by their action they “cut off” his feet.
Is that what happened to Geoff?
No. Can’t remember anyone else although Alf says we have seen it before.
Which version of GOODBYE MR CHIPS, vw?
The one with Martin Clunes. Have you seen more than one?
Which version of DAD’S ARMY, Conners?
The full length version rather than an amalgam of clips. I didn’t know there was more than one. It had Bernard Archer in it as the Colonel. I suspect that Bridlington stood in for Warmington on Sea.
The original version starred the original cast and was filmed in Chalfont St. Giles. The later version starred Catherine Zeta Jones and came out in this century.
It must be the original version then. The usual suspects were all there. Mind you, I wouldn’t recognise Catherine Zeta Jones if I tripped over her.
Michael Douglas has the same trouble.
Good evening. For a long time John Pilger was given the foil hat flannel by the media. His real virtue and integrity is now blindlingly clear. Sorry to see him go.
.https://open.substack.com/pub/tarableu/p/john-pilger-rip?r=10qzvs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true
John Pilger was one of a very few journalists who defended Julian Assange. He fell silent because a mainstream media composed of fake ‘journalists’ sidelined him.
Pilger was a great man; those who opposed him minnows.
Are the first 24 years of this centuray better than the last 24 years of the previous.?
Evening, all. Seems odd to realise we’ve reached the final day of 2023. Where did the year go?
Husband and I have just said the same thing. I think time passes more quickly the older you get! Either that or you forget more! Good evening Conway, and Happy New Year, when it comes (as they say up here!)
It was explained to me that, as we age, each year is a smaller portion of the time we have lived through. When we are 7, a year is 1/7th of our life span. When we’re 70, it’s 1/70th. Seems reasonable enough to me, mathematically challenged as I am 🙂
It’s like the unrolling loo roll goes quicker when it gets near the cardboard tube.
A year seems to be just three months in old money these days.
That’s inflation for you!
It definitely goes quicker.
Now you’ve done it ! Anne will be putting her sprouts on soon !
I’ve already seen Easter offerings in Tesco.
have you looked in the fridge, Conners? Lol.
Not much in the fridge, Elsie.
have you looked in the fridge, Conners? Lol.
Some interesting facts about the Underground in London:
https://youtu.be/pbDe7m2RgWQ?si=MxLNNxsxmM9bccaT
Fewer tunnel miles than Hamas has in Gaza.
Think about that, as the Israelis try to do something about it!
The Hamasmyth & City Line?
Edited.
Daisy is abdicating.
A lovely person with a gorgeous, mischievous smile.
I wish her and Denmark well.
The first three words that you see reveals what 2024 has in store for you….
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8138756e12d40a8cc0c0d27761563cec4a2e68b132ad82e87e3b786903293ad.jpg
Fulfillment, plop and tare. It’s not going to be a good year!
Fauci. Really?
That was my 1st. 2nd was prosper, looking better. Looking for a 3rd.
My first was carbon credits
3rd is change.
fulfilment, plop and nob
Doesn’t bode well here either…
Fulfillment, courage, abundance.
Carbon credit fulfillment.
I’m going to see the scam eradicated?
And they can’t even spell fulfilment!
Fulfilment, carbon credits.
Fulfilment FU
Sex change ?
I had to pull the plug then.
I just see a sea of unconnected letters – much like my mindreally.
Add empowerment to the list of found words.
Happy New Year, neighbour!!
We will be waving in your direction as we drive down 81 at the end of January. It’s going to be an interesting year for politics in the states.
If anyone mentions politics to me when we are in Myrtle Beach, I just tell them that we have enough troubles with Trudeau!
You have Trudeau, we have Biden, let’s turn the whole thing off!!
Enjoy your visit to Myrtle, how long is it going to take you, assuming you are driving? It took 9hours when we went down there last year, I’d rather fly! Daughter has flown from Hagerstown airport before now.
“THE SEAN TUTS”. Well, that’s helpful, BB2. Lol.
The oiks are in there, too, Elsie 🙂
Quite a few words, but they are either backwards or misprinted.
Fulfillment, Power, Health.
I don’t yearn for power but, if it comes my way, I hope I use it for human betterment. Fulfillment and Health I will very much welcome.
I’ve just found Lizard. As it’s the fourth find, I guess I won’t be getting a chameleon or gecko.
The fifth find is Sean. Mr Connery has already departed this world, so I’m betting on not getting Mr Bean.
Now I’ve just found Naan. I like a naan bread now and again. I’d rather have that than Empowerment. 2024 is ruined already.
Silly me! It’s not Power. That was embedded within Empowerment. Now I’m confused. Does this mean I will get only partial Empowerment?
Mr Wainright for President!
This is the only President for me.
https://d1etyq5vfwwjqy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/8oz-Brie-round-copy.png
Clotshots and empowerment and serenity
Some good news at the end of 2023. Of course, we always knew this. But will it shut them up or will they go into overdrive?
https://youtu.be/EpSuuFlHHZk?si=e5igL11byv9a1k4J
Just think how much better it could have been if we’d really had Brexit! WTO rules, trading globally, deregulated and the state slimmed down. No HRA, no “Supreme Court”, no ECJ … We would have been flying.
381047+ up ticks,
Evening C,
Precisely.
Wishing all on here and their families a bright new year. I’m off to the local.
Thank you molamola! Sending good wishes to you and yours.
Cheers, Sue.
I was considering doing my pub circular via Middleton, the Hight Peak Train and Cromford, but the weather was too wet so just sampled some tangerine flavoured Glayva I picked up in Lidl whilst listening to the 2nd half of Mahler’s 9th.
Lidl were playing the second half of Mahler’s 9th? Makes a change from piped musak 🙂
“the weather was too wet so just sampled some tangerine flavoured Glayva I
picked up in Lidl whilst listening to the 2nd half of Mahler’s 9th.”
Tactfully asking if you have ever read a long running corner section in Private Eye; no, not The Cloggies.
Will have to look it up.
381047+ up ticks,
Pillow ponder,
(The truth hits home ),
https://x.com/AmericanFWoman/status/1725514217669751205?s=20
Very good, helps to click on the longer story.
We’ve just had a round of fireworks! The dogs were a bit noisy. There’s plenty of time to go yet. Why are they starting so early? It isn’t even a decent night (heavy rain pretty much all day; the roads were flooded). Whatever happened to creating Mediterranean gardens because droughts were to be the norm?
Global wetting coz climate change, obviously.
Watched Goodbye, Mr Chips starring Martin Clunes. A very gentle emotional story. Thoroughly enjoyable. Bought it from Amazon for £1.89.
Now watching The Intern with Robert de Niro and Anne Hathaway. Another very good film with a moral.
Thinking about my foray into TV watching this arvo, I’d like to mention the Tintin CGI adventure about the treasure. Snowy was a hoot. I don’t think Oscar was impressed, but Snowy (Milou) never picked up any dirt marks at all; his hair, and particularly his beard, remained pristine and white. I’d love to know the secret (other, of course, than that he was just a computer generated image) so I could apply it to Oscar.
Happy New Year all!
Just back from the Wigmore Hall. A wonderful concert with two amazing countertenors, Carlo Vistoli and Hugh Cutting, accompanied by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. Baroque music from Monteverdi to Handel.
Serving in church this morning and the congregation was much bigger than expected. There was an expectation that most people would be all churched out after Christmas.
Near the front was a couple who come regularly with their little black dachshund. The doggie makes me laugh because he likes to be cuddled in his mum’s lap but if any stranger goes too close to his humans, as small as he is, he flips instantly from softie baby to Very Fierce Animal!
The pack mentality. Cheers, Sue. Let’s hope next year is more sensible. x
I’m off to bed and with you all a Good Night and Happy New Year.
From the sound of it there’s already a lot of banging going on in the village to celebrate the arrival of the Annus Novus:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1105f25da913993b5da105eb0d4d232463b8b8cd298d6583cdcc2c61d1d5c519.gif
May next year bring everything that you might wish for.
I think it unlikely; I wish for the eradication of islam from this country.
#MeToo! You’re not alone Connors. Happy New Year to you and yours.
Happy New Year, Tom.
I wish to see Sir David Attenborough dance the samba with Naga Munchetty. I guess we’re going to be equally disappointed.
I venture to suggest that my wish might have more widespread benefit than yours 🙂
Inshallah.
Happy New Year to all Nottlers and their families and loved ones! Hope 2024 is a good one! See you next year!💕
Same to you, Sue.
Lang may your lum reek everyone. Any may everyone have a healthy New Year ( prosperous is a bonus).
Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk.
We’re seeing in the new year in bed. We watched the first of three films of Scandi wildlife.
I hope I didn’t appear in the Scandi wildlife – we had some pretty hectic nights in Stockholm.
The best place to be…
Was there reindeer?
I’ve not long seen an urban fox.
Round here, I’ve seen them walking boldly along the pavement in daylight.
Utterly shameless and audacious, they are.
Must be Labour voters (Hunting Act 2005).
I’m off to t’pit, Happy New Year one and all
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b0eb3bd394230be8cd173fa7ffbe1a6c0da6204b97910e81181705c54d728a0.jpg
Evening all. Here’s wishing all Nottlers, past and present, a very Happy New Year for 2024. You’ve been wonderful company and a million thanks to Geoff for this site without which we’d all be poorer. Love to all and see you next year.
371047+ up ticks,
Put into effect on the 1/1/2024 at a minute past midnight,
the invasion will cease at 2 minutes past midnight on the 1/1/2024.
https://x.com/HollyChristma1/status/1741358178875462072?s=20
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38775f22417589121219b3c6cdde4a59024d4ddd6fe581316fcc5f52d6aa5eeb.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/52682c52b67339fd8da2525ecddcbf90468992d3306d52cafbd077d4ec606186.png
We are already in the New Year – most of our Nottler friends you will join us there in 25 minutes time!
HNY to you both ❤
Honey not Yoghurt?
Happy New Year, Rasmussen and Ms Rastus.😊
Good night 😴 and HNY to you all.
Happy New Year!
Three minutes to midnight, and I have just poured myself a wee dram to toast the New Year in three minutes’ time. Then off to bed to sleep until tomorrow. Good night all.
Should have been a big dram. 🥃🥃🥃
Back from the local before midnight. Chatted and drank with lovely people. Also found out my best neighbour ( and fishing friend) ain’t got long to live. Make the most of it, everybody.
Sorry to be morbid.
Having a slurp to Ann and hubby.
Sorry to hear the bad news, mola2. Carpe Diem. I was thinking about Ann and Steve just now. Happy New Year and a toast to Absent Friends!
Someone’s watch is two minutes fast, going by the fireworks which have suddenly begun to explode.
https://media4.giphy.com/media/91slJlppCOgaK85Edd/giphy-downsized-small.mp4
Happy New Year Nottlers xx
And to you and yours, Maggie.
Happy 2024 to all NTTL contributors and silent viewers.
Happy New Year everyone.
Happy New Year, Stormy.
It’s like the battle of the Somme round here.
It’s more like November 5th than November 5th.
It was very subdued here. Compare and contrast with Bonfire Night when the bangs and crashes make El Alamein look like sparklers! Talk about a Brocks Benefit!
Happy New Year to our NoTTLer friends and hope you all have a wonderful 2024.
If I can make myself heard aboe the fireworks, good morning, all – 2024’s first new page is here. Happy New Year!!
Where? Happy New Year!
Here here…
There, there! I found it by going to the main page 🙂
Thank you, Geoff, but we need a proper link.
If you go to the nttl home page, it’s there.
Thank you, Eric, and a happy 2024 to you.
The word “here” was the link, as usual.
Thank you and a Happy New Year to you too.
Fifty years ago, in 1974, Harold Wilson was returned to 10 Downing Street, confirmed by a second General Election later that year. Before that, Edward Heath’s government introduced the Three-Day Week to cope with the National Union of Mineworker’s industrial action. Tom Baker replaced Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who. Metropolitan counties were created. The IRA bombed pubs in Guildford. McDonald’s opened its first UK restaurant. Abba came to the wider world’s attention by winning the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_in_the_United_Kingdom
Yo all and a happy New Year
And to you and yours, OLT!
Fanx, jill