Sunday 31 October: The Government should heed the lessons of the tax-and-spend 1970s

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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629 thoughts on “Sunday 31 October: The Government should heed the lessons of the tax-and-spend 1970s”

        1. To explain my confusion over the change from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time last night, I eventually went to bed at 11 pm BST and set my alarm for 7 am BST, i.e. eight hours’ worth of sleep. When the alarm went off at 7 am (which was now 6 am GMT) I switched off the alarm and had a lie-in, which lasted a further 3 hours, i.e. I had a total of 11 hours’ sleep. Clearly, I needed it; clearly my tiredness caused my mental confusion last night. (Well, that’s my excuse theory!!!) :-))

  3. SIR – In order to better understand the billions promised in the Budget, I find it helpful to average the figures out over the total British population.

    The Government’s spending for the year works out at nearly £15,000 per head, of which over £2,000 per head is to be borrowed. That is the magnitude of the sums involved.

    Sir Neville Trotter
    Newcastle upon Tyne

    Del Boy and Rodney’s uncle can see it but the Buffoon can’t

  4. Good morning all from a cold, wet & miserable and, dare I say it? wintery Derbyshire with 4°C on the yard thermometer.

    2. ‘Morning, Bob.

      Could you go out & check that temperature again, please? Here it’s a balmy 9C.

    1. I vote we crane the moronic Bunter to the top of it and lash him on. It would be a fitting end, bearing in mind what he is doing / has done to our energy policy.

      ‘Morning, BoB. Wet and windy in yer East Sussex, brighter later (allegedly).

  9. Cop26 failure could mean mass migration and food shortages, says Boris Johnson. 31 October 2021.

    “You produce shortages, you produce desertification, habitat loss, movements, contests for water, for food, huge movements of peoples. Those are things that are going to be politically very, very difficult to control.

    “When the Roman empire fell, it was largely as a result of uncontrolled immigration. The empire could no longer control its borders, people came in from the east, all over the place, and we went into a dark ages, Europe went into a dark ages that lasted a very long time. The point of that is to say it can happen again. People should not be so conceited as to imagine that history is a one-way ratchet.

    Heedless of his own thoughts, Deaf to his own words. Blind to his own vision!

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/cop26-failure-could-mean-mass-migration-and-food-shortages-says-boris-johnson

    1. Good to see some light shed on Welby’s behaviour. He came from nowhere when he was appointed AoC by Cameron. Everything I’ve heard about him suggests that he is not a very nice person.

      1. Justin Welby was put in position by David Cameron with the specific instruction to destroy the Church of England which he has done very effectively.

        Just because Justin was literally born a bastard there is no reason why he should have behaved metaphorically like one as far as Bishop Bell was concerned.

  11. Deadline looms to solve Channel fishing row as Britain threatens legal action. 30 October 2021.

    In an escalation of the dispute, Lord Frost has warned Brussels that the entire bloc will be in breach of the post-Brexit free trade deal terms with Britain if France carries out its threats.

    The Conservative peer, in a series of tweets on Saturday, said the UK was “actively considering” triggering legal proceedings included in the trade agreement to solve the issue.

    He said: “These threats, if implemented on November 2, would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement.,

    Wow! That’ll teach them!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/david-frost-ursula-von-der-leyen-french-channel-g20-b963485.html

    1. Boris is using Frosty as his attack dog. 🐕 Then he will climb down and call him off as usual.

  13. Supposedly the seized scallop dredger is owned by a Scottish shell corporation (ho-ho-ho) which is wholly owned by a Canadian company

    ROD LIDDLE
    Go on, Macron — blow up that boat and shock us out of our shellfish behaviour

    Sunday October 31 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    I heard some French politician talking on the radio about how they need to put a “steek in the sand”. She had been talking about feesh, endlessly. Her people’s right to feesh, especially our feesh. The cri de coeur from a beta nation that has in its armoury only petulance, histrionics and historical envy.

    Taisez-vous, madame, I thought to myself. You don’t have a steek. You scarcely have a tweeg. You have nothing but the ability to shrug in an annoying manner and a tendency to compensate for your inadequacies by annoying the grown-ups next door.

    The French had just impounded one of our trawlers in Le Havre. My first thought was that this would be an excellent opportunity to try out some of those Trident missiles on Paris — to see if they work or not. Up the ante a bit, PM. But then I read a few more details about the boat they impounded and decided that the French authorities should give the crew members a Eurostar ticket to the UK and then torch the vessel.

    The irony of it. At Cop26 this weekend I dare say the oleaginous Macron and the perpetually bewildered and cheerfully amoral Johnson will discuss the rights and wrongs of this petit spat, ignoring the entire purpose of this supposedly crucial conference: to save the planet.

    The boat in question, the Cornelis Gert Jan, is a scallop-dredger. Short of dynamiting a pristine coral reef, there is not a more environmentally damaging means of fishing than dredging for scallops. These boats rake up the entire sea bed to a depth of ten centimetres, destroying vast numbers of other creatures as they go and leaving behind a desert. In my naivety I thought we had long since stopped doing that stuff. But no. Both we and the French continue with what the charity Open Seas calls the most harmful form of fishing imaginable.

    I have nothing against people eating scallops. I remember a meal I had about 15 years ago that consisted of seared foie gras, scallops and black pudding. Add an assiette of baby elephant and that’s probably the most right-wing meal ever invented. But nobody actually needs to eat scallops, and if they feel an overwhelming urge to sate themselves on that bland, cloying, faintly ozone-flavoured flesh, let them pay a whole lot extra for a scallop caught by a diver.

    But no: we cleave to the right of crap bistros to serve scallop and chorizo starters for seven quid and hang the consequences for our environment. In a sense this is my problem with Cop26: it is all about us. Making the planet better for us. For our children; for their future.

    In her excellent new book Welcome to the Woke Trials, Julie Burchill describes eco-warriors as being people who dislike humanity. Well, my old friend has got me bang to rights on that one. I have no doubts about manmade climate change and the disasters that may ensue. But I do not much care if our homes catch fire or are submerged by water. My concern is for the other inhabitants of our planet, the wholly blameless creatures that will continue to be eradicated from the Earth, or hideously exploited, even as we humans, suddenly a little contrite, decide that we may have messed things up a bit and that we should now install heat pumps every 15 metres.

    I have children: do I not care about the Earth they will inherit, you ask. No. Screw them. In the developed countries there has never been a generation more affluent, pampered and environmentally unfriendly. We ghastly boomers were not ferried to school and after-school clubs in four-wheel-drive cars; we walked. We did not fly across the globe on holiday. We did not spend our leisure hours tapping away on the internet. It is not the boomers who are the biggest consumers of environmentally costly manufactured goods, but the next generation.

    In short, every generation of humankind does what it thinks it can get away with and cares very little about the consequences — and is always able to blame its forebears for everything that goes wrong.

    Here’s a suggestion for Johnson if he wishes to appear green this weekend: end scallop-dredging. And force that preening mannequin Macron to pledge likewise. We have a duty to protect the planet not for our own survival but for the survival of all those creatures that share it with us and do not have a voice in Glasgow this weekend.

    Inuit confirms global warming

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fb51c3fba-398a-11ec-a14e-75e3a4bcdc4c.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1010

    Slaving for Santa just ain’t very elfy
    Never mind the fuel shortage — this Christmas we face an elf crisis.

    The big shops are having trouble hiring people for this seasonal occupation because for some reason young people do not want to dress in red-and-green nylon outfits and lead ghastly pampered brats called Poppy and Ludo into Santa’s grotto for about five quid an hour.

    Still less will they put up with some pervy old pisshead in a red coat and white beard continually making jokes about his sack, ho-ho-ho.

    I’ve always said that our children deserve better than this, and that grottoes should be state-owned, universal and free at the point of entry.

    The NES, in other words.

    I smell a rat in this Thatcher excuse
    I was shocked to learn from Susan Aitken, the SNP leader of Glasgow city council, that Margaret Thatcher is responsible for the fact that Glasgow is a stinking, rat-infested dump with piles of rotting rubbish strewn across the streets.

    I have always had my doubts about Thatcher, but I didn’t think she would stoop to covertly releasing live rats in Glasgow and engaging in fly-tipping.

    However, seeing that this is apparently true, I wonder if Thatcher is also behind the fact that almost every Glaswegian is addicted to methadone and cannot eat a single item of food without immersing it first in boiling fat.

    It wouldn’t surprise me. Isn’t it time this awful, divisive woman was removed from power?

    1. Firstly Rod, you are bang on target as regards scallop dredging and, incidentally, the foreign ownership of “UK” fishing vessels. However you are wrong about “every Glaswegian…cannot eat a single item of food without immersing it first in boiling fat.” Every item of food is first coated in batter and only then is it immersed in boiling fat.

  14. Russia to see budget surplus this year, Putin says. 31 October 2021.

    MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. Russia will see a budget surplus in 2021, President Vladimir Putin said in a video conference address to a G20 summit on Saturday.

    “Russia’s budget deficit grew to four percent of GDP in 2020 amid large-scale measures to support the country’s people, small and medium-sized businesses and the healthcare system. It particularly allowed us to ensure the recovery of the labor market and this year, we normalized our macroeconomic policy so that we will see a budget surplus this year,” he pointed out.

    It’s like going back in time! Thus once were we!

    https://tass.com/economy/1355971

    5. Satire is us. Supermarket manager Bert Scroggins (61) has been sacked for his insincere handling of ‘Black History Month” displays.

  16. Britain cannot give in to France’s blackmail. Someone must uphold the international order

    When such rows blow up, it is tempting to think that there must be a dollop of blame on both sides. But not this time

    DANIEL HANNAN
    30 October 2021 • 2:00pm

    You know what? Remainers were right. They always said that Brexit would lead to an upsurge in populism and demagoguery that would undermine international relations, and it has. But it has happened in France, not the UK.

    The fisheries row follows a familiar pattern, with French ministers blustering and threatening while their British counterparts urge both sides to follow the rules. We saw the same thing over Aukus, over illegal migration and over vaccines. In each case, France threw a tantrum while the UK tried to behave like an adult.

    Over the past week, British ministers have been appealing both to their French counterparts and to the EU (which controls France’s fisheries agreements) to stick to the deal that the two sides signed on 30 December, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).

    French ministers, by contrast, have been threatening all manner of semi-legal and illegal measures, from a go-slow on checks at the Channel ports to a ban on British vessels landing their catches in France.

    France’s Europe minister, Clément Beaune, speaking as one might speak of Iran or North Korea, says that Britain understands “only force”.

    “Ce n’est pas la guerre, c’est un combat,” adds his colleague, the fisheries minister, Annick Girardin, as if making some sort of concession. But picking fights that stop short of outright war is hardly the act of a friend.

    Make no mistake, France is crossing the road to have a fight with us. When such rows blow up, it is tempting to think that there must be a dollop of blame on both sides. But not this time.

    Let’s recall the sequence of events. Under the Common Fisheries Policy, fish stocks were treated as a “common resource” to which every EU state had “equal access” according to a quota system worked out in Brussels. Jersey was not in the EU, but its foreign policy was run by the UK, and it was covered by a supplementary treaty, the Granville Bay Agreement.

    When Britain left the EU, it resumed control of its territorial waters, out to 200 miles or the median line, as laid down by marine law. In theory, it could have reserved an exclusive right to fish in those waters for its own boats, but almost no country does that.

    Britain secured a larger quota for its skippers – a phased increase of some 25 per cent – but also agreed to recognise the rights of vessels that had historically fished in its waters, some going back to pre-EEC days.

    Part of the treaty dealt with waters between six and 12 miles from the coast. Here, Britain and the EU agreed to grant access to boats which could demonstrate an existing presence.

    In practice, that part of the deal applied only one way, because almost no UK vessels fish on the other side of the Channel. None the less, Britain interpreted the rules generously, defining “presence” as having fished at least one day a year over four years.

    Both sides – Britain and the Channel Islands on the one hand and the EU and its coastal states on the other – understood what was being signed. The deal was intended to cap foreign access to British waters at its existing level, a common enough concept in fisheries agreements, resting on what is known as a “reference period”.

    The UK and the Channel Islands have been immensely accommodating within the terms of that deal, admitting any reasonable evidence of past access to their waters, even offering their own electronic records, and granting interim licences to skippers who struggled to complete the paperwork in time.

    Jersey has licensed more than 160 EU vessels, almost all of them French. But a further 50 or so have not been able to provide any evidence of a presence in Jersey waters – almost certainly because they have not fished there. On any conceivable interpretation, the terms of the TCA exclude them.

    In this sense, France’s dispute is not so much with the UK as with the EU, which signed the treaty on its behalf – a point made acidly by Marine Le Pen. The EU has not disputed Britain’s contention that it is acting within the letter and spirit of the TCA.

    The question is whether, in the last resort, Brussels will uphold the law, or whether, like an unreformed trade union, it will take a “my member right or wrong” approach.

    You might think, given that it is currently suing Poland for an alleged refusal to uphold the EU legal order, that it would prioritise the rule of law. France, after all, is being quite open in its threat to flout international agreements.

    There are, for example, rules governing customs and borders procedures that allow for increased checks only as a proportionate response to an identified threat. The EU, as the signatory and guarantor of the TCA, has a responsibility to enforce it.

    But legality is usually trumped by what in Brussels is called “solidarity”. France’s prime minister has written to ask the European Commission for support, not on grounds that France is in the right, but because it must show that “leaving the Union is more damaging than remaining in it”.

    My guess is that the EU will be receptive to that argument. In the 21 years that I was an MEP, I witnessed dozens of spats between Greece and Turkey.

    Sometimes Greece had the better claim and sometimes Turkey had, but Eurocrats were never much interested in the rights and wrongs. It was Athens, not Ankara, that had the power to make their life awkward, so they invariably backed Greece, however petulant or unreasonable its position, to the point where Turkey lost interest in the Western alliance and turned its face eastwards.

    Is that our future? To be Turkey to France’s Greece? To be drawn into one needless spat after another until we abandon our strategic partnership with Europe? Or is there a chance that things will settle down after the French election?

    While we can’t say for sure, the omens are not encouraging. It is true that Macron can be more Anglophobic in his language than his Right-wing rivals. He knows that foreign quarrels play well at home. The issue itself is secondary – Astrazeneca, the Northern Ireland Protocol, an energy blockade, bah – what really matters is being seen to bash the old foe.

    Macron, who recently looked unelectable, is now leading the polls in any putative presidential run-off. Why should his tactics change if he wins?

    The most depressing aspect of the row – though, after five years of similar antics, hardly a surprising one – is the number of British commentators who have had their heads so turned by Brexit that they automatically back any EU state against their own.

    This requires some painful intellectual contortions. For example, the demand that Britain reward unprovoked blackmail is framed as a call for “maturity” or “de-escalation”. France’s blatant threats to act outside the law are excused on grounds that Britain has supposedly done the same thing over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

    (In fact, there is no comparison between a legal measure – Article 16 is expressly part of the Protocol, and the EU was quite ready to trigger it – and openly ignoring the rules; but, even so, Britain has sought a negotiated settlement rather than invoking the clause.)

    As for the claim that all this is happening because of Brexit, it is true – but not in the way that Europhiles mean. French blockades were a frequent occurrence when we were in the EU. As an MEP representing Kent, I would regularly pursue compensation claims on behalf of hauliers and other afflicted businesses – usually, I am sorry to report, without success.

    But there is a sense in which this row was indeed prompted by Brexit. Britain has, as promised, taken back its territorial waters. The EU, rather than face a no-deal outcome that would have resulted in its total exclusion from those waters, signed a treaty in which it agreed to a phased reduction in its share. France does not like the consequences and so pretends to be shocked – shocked – by what the treaty means in practice.

    Britain cannot begin its relationship as an independent neighbour of the EU by giving in to patently illegal threats. Someone must stand up for a law-based international order.

    Boris Johnson should take inspiration from his predecessor Lord Palmerston, the priapic patriot who dominated our mid-nineteenth century foreign policy. When his French counterpart put it to him that the English had no word equivalent to “sensibilité”, the great Whig replied, “Yes we have – humbug!”

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

    FreXit United
    30 Oct 2021 2:27PM
    Trigger Article 16 go to WTO and rebuild the UK in our own interest. The EU is a snake.
    Macron is a tiny poisonous snake.

    Themistoklis Zilmar
    30 Oct 2021 2:24PM
    Nearly all the Euro press is backing Micron and the US/ Canadian/ South American press is trying to mirror that. It is all very well saying that words can’t hurt us, but I am afraid constant lies do stick unfortunately and Micron is doing huge harm to brand UK daily. This affects investment, prestige etc. Boris, by doing nothing (as with NIP, Extinction Rebellion, channel migrants etc) is not being stoic, moderate or clever. He is just being a Blairite and using his favourite tactics of long grass and Danegeld.

    This is a time for leadership, the French need to be put in their place, firmly. We pay a lot of taxes here to make sure we have the infrastructure to punish France properly. Sadly Carrie/Boris won’t do anything. They still refuse to embrace Brexit..

    Martin Selves
    31 Oct 2021 7:05AM
    Boris is “Chair” of COP 26, and at some stage he will have to go off script and describe to every Country present what the truth is in relation to Fishing. We have granted 98% of all potential fishing licenses. He will have to remind those listening what the truth is, because Macron is going to use COP 26 to embarrass the UK in front of a World audience. Boris must be prepared for it.

    This will infuriate Beth Rigby and Kay Burley who clearly live on the wrong side of the English Channel, as they batter HMG with the same Troll language as Macron, but we can live with that. Kay Burley interviewing the Chancellor last week was simply amazing. I notice she went missing the next morning, and a pleasant young lady I had never seen before took her place.

    Why these 2 women hate the Conservatives and Brexit so much has been clear for several years. As they treat them as “scum” only fit to be humiliated on TV, so they damage their own reputation for fairness, if that is possible.

    The time has passed where “guests” on their programme remain polite as these women pour scorn and often lies onto our screens. Our Politicians should respond in a much firmer way, and challenge them for evidence, presented to the “Regulator”, for examination, and an apology given to the viewer at the earliest opportunity when found guilty.

    1. Under the Common Fisheries Policy, fish stocks were treated as a “common resource” to which every EU state had “equal access” according to a quota system worked out in Brussels.

      More commonly known as stealing!

      1. The second book in Roberts Adam’s Charlemagne Trilogy, ‘On the Green Hill of Tara’, explains how the ‘Common Market’ cobbled the CFP together at the last minute (the ink was barely dry), as the politicians of UK, Ireland, Denmark and Norway were signing our lives away on the EEC Ascension papers in 1970.

        This was the civil servants third attempt to drag us into the quagmire, having been knocked back by De Gaulle in 1961 and 1967!

        Anyone suggesting that these civil servants were not fully aware of what freedoms were being signing away should view Ted Heath’s speech on 2 Jan 73 (courtesy of YouTube), it shows that he had been brought fully up to speed on the Brussels/Strasbourg gravy train’s direction of travel.

    2. Having a clown as PM and an eco-zealot as our effective Head of State isn’t doing our country any good.

      1. Good to see all the lackeys masked up to remind them of their inferior – and scrofulous – position.

          1. Russia and China showing some principles?
            So different from the self regarding troughers that represent the ‘free’ world.

          2. Their leaders probably have more important things to do than pander to this farce. If the President of the US were in his right mind, they would probably come along to meet him.
            It was always unrealistic to expect them to go along with the lie that Biden is compos mentis.

            In the Neil Oliver clip linked by Citroen above, there is a short bit with Biden meeting officials in Italy. You can clearly see him being pointed in the right direction. It’s pathetic that everyone is going along with this sham.

          3. It was always unrealistic to expect them to go along with the lie that Biden is compos mentis actually won the election.

    2. That we should be entertaining Ursula Fonda-Lying and her cronies (in particular), no doubt at vast cost, is beyond the pale! I hope that British fish featured heavily on the menu…

      ‘Morning Annie.

      Edited for finger trouble.

      1. This is Rome.
        Johnson and his Puppet Mistress have popped over for a couple of days prior to poncing around Glasgow.
        Seems a long walk; maybe it will reduce Bozza’s waistline.

    2. My grandmother was famous in our family for unfailingly detecting some brightness on the western horizon, however hard it was pelting down.

      Remember, the sooner the rain arrives, the sooner it will give way to sunshine!

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – The Prime Minister’s and the Chancellor’s policies, which underpinned Wednesday’s Budget, of high expenditure and high taxation most closely resemble those adopted by Edward Heath and Anthony Barber in the early 1970s.

    It should not be forgotten that these culminated in the electoral disaster of February 1974, high inflation and five years of Labour government.

    Clive D Thorne
    London SW1

    SIR – The Budget demonstrated that this Government has only one belief: in doing anything, at whatever cost to the electorate, in order to stay in office.

    It has no philosophy or principles.

    Simon Snape
    Elton, Cheshire

    SIR – In order to better understand the billions promised in the Budget, I find it helpful to average the figures out over the total British population.

    The Government’s spending for the year works out at nearly £15,000 per head, of which over £2,000 per head is to be borrowed. That is the magnitude of the sums involved.

    Sir Neville Trotter
    Newcastle upon Tyne

    SIR – We should not be alarmed by the Government’s strategy.

    The opportunity to secure the Red Wall constituencies should not be missed. Moving the balance of economic growth should relieve the South of the blight of incessant housing development, while relieving parts of the North of their own blight of underemployment.

    I applaud the Government’s boldness.

    Anthony Pick
    Newbury, Berkshire

    I have arranged for the men in white coats to make an urgent visit to Mr Anthony Pick of Newbury…

    1. Moving the balance to China won’t help the British red wall, but the Chinese one will be happy. And pollute like billy-o.

    2. We can’t have another Labour government. We haven’t had the Tories yet to restore the economy to health!

        1. Good morning Hugh. Yes, for a whole new generation, I should think. We’ll be washed up long before then!

    3. Edward Heath’s Conservatives polled more votes than Harold Wilson’s Labour Party in the February 1974 General Election. Hardly fair, but perhaps payback for Labour’s defeat in 1951, when they polled more votes than the Tories.

    4. Why can’t we demand to get rid of all these morons in parliament they cause such extreme problems for all and sundry. If they had to live out side and away from their protective bubble for five years they might have a different outlook.
      But after breathing a vast sigh of relief I suspect they would soon take on their previous stance. Or the realisation of the fact they cause more problems that solve, be shut out for ever. Let the public try and enjoy their live FFS.

    2. That’s excellent. I believe that every word he says is correct, and nobody who is going along with this class war on the peasantry can ever be trusted with any position of power ever again.
      Thanks for posting. As we don’t have a TV, I hadn’t really heard Neil Oliver up til now.

    3. I don’t normally watch video clips (I suffer from a very short attention span) but that should be required watching on the National Curriculum.

    4. Well done Neil Oliver. Gives the best commentaries on the hypocrisy of the degenerate powers that be of anyone in media. Long may he have a platform.

    5. Brilliant Neil, absolutely brilliant.
      I think the general public understand what a load of useless W⚓ we have in the political scene these rather dour days how long might it take before they catch up and understand the public impressions regarding they continuous monstrous nonsense.
      This clip is going global right now.

  22. SIR – The leaders of China and Russia will not be attending Cop26 in Glasgow.

    A government source has stated that the attendance of world leaders is not essential to the success of the conference. If this is so, why not just hold the whole thing on Zoom and avoid the carbon footprint, as we are encouraged to do?

    Or is this just an opportunity to strut on the world stage?

    George Kelly
    Buckingham

    I think we all know the answer to George Kelly’s question…

    2. Strut on the world stage, and enjoy luxurious banquets, photos of which are released for the edification of the serfs, to teach them to respect their betters.

  24. SIR – I propose a ban on leaf-blowers, which pollute the air as well as the ears.

    Ros Hurn
    Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire

    That’s fine, Ms Hurn – provided you have the time to travel to this part of East Sussex every few days to clear by hand the mountains of leaves in the front garden from my huge (and protected) oak tree. (A broom will be provided.)

    2. Just leave the leaves wher they fall. Strong winds will blow them into the same positions every time, where you can go along and shovel them up into a container. its called thinking and waiting.

      1. Good morning Johnny

        The falling leaves are quite an artistic event .. I am always amazed by the variety of leaves that need clearing up in the garden , because many of them aren’t ours , and from which ever tree they have fallen from , the mystery trees are nowhere near our garden .

        Most of the larger leaves I can identify , but there are hundreds of leaves that look like a cross between privet and birch , really tiny leaves though .

        The colour of fallen leaves on the ground look just like an abstract painting .

      2. Easier said than done, JN. Our driveway is sufficiently steep for our Postie to see the accumulation of leaves and to hurl himself to the ground when he fancies some compo. Plus the fact that what passes for a lawn will not thrive after being being suffocated by leaves for weeks on end. And this is despite Monty Don’s insistence that unless I stop tending it and let it go wild, the world will collapse.

  25. Hear, hear!

    SIR – The American author and journalist Lionel Shriver, the Hampstead headmistress Victoria Bingham and the American linguist and author John McWhorter, all featured in last week’s Sunday Telegraph, are each to be commended for robustly defending the importance of free speech amid the wearisome, contrived furores of cultural appropriation, cancel culture, curriculum decolonisation and other language-mangling manifestations.

    The tyranny of woke bigotry and intolerance has to be challenged and refuted whenever it rears its ugly head – in political life, business, schools, universities, churches, charities, book and newspaper publishing, and broadcasting.

    Political correctness is a posture behind which lies a desire for power, and the wish to control what people say and think while appearing to do so for virtuous reasons.

    Duncan McAra
    Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire

    Edit: Excellent BTL comment:

    NJ Ratnieks
    31 Oct 2021 7:45AM
    “The tyranny of woke bigotry and intolerance has to be challenged and refuted whenever it rears its ugly head – in political life, business, schools, universities, churches, charities, book and newspaper publishing, and broadcasting.”

    A former journalist from this newspaper has a saying:

    “Unless you are happy to surrender everything, surrender nothing.”

    There is a belief among many that you can appease the Wokesters and make concessions but as can be observed, their lust for power and complete control is insatiable. It is futile to offer any more ground to these activists unless you want to be pushed to the cliff’s edge.

  26. Another excellent BTL letters comment from Carolyn Bates; we should all bombard our MPs with similar thoughts:

    Carolyn Bates
    31 Oct 2021 3:13AM
    In response to Clive D Thorne of London.

    It is now clear that Boris Johnson, while leading us to believe he would try and emulate his hero Winston Churchill when in Government, has failed miserably and will go down as the worst Prime Minister since Edward Heath. Why, because his reckless tax-and-spend policies have shown us his intent.

    When you then add to this his reckless borrowing, with the eye-watering £1 trillion he is willing to add to the deficit for the ridiculous Net Zero, and it is obvious he is on a clear path to destruction, for which he has no mandate from the British people, no matter what the ambiguity of the Manifesto said.

    If it was only this recklessness it would be quite bad enough, but he is blatantly reckless and untruthful in every area of governance. Nothing he says can be trusted, as we are now learning to our cost, for it is us, those who put him where he is with the added bonus of an eighty seat majority, who will pay the price.

    The winter that we are currently facing will be harsh – too harsh for some, who will struggle to survive from an energy crisis, cost of living crisis, supply chain crisis, food shortages and possible power cuts. I remember the last comparable winter of discontent and this will clearly be much worse as the feckless Johnson did not have the intelligence or concern for the British public, to foresee and plan for where we would be coming out of a pandemic crisis that he was also reckless with.

    Edward Heath was undoubtedly our worst Prime Minister in living memory, but Boris Johnson will now take that infamous title away from him as he ploughs on with his socialist-green policies, with no one in the Party willing to make a stand against him.

    It will be those, at the top of the Party who, by their blatant inaction, must take responsibility for what now awaits us during the long, cold, winter months for, it is only they, not the electorate, who can do anything about it. By the time the next election comes, all will be lost for the Party, and the country. That will be the unfortunate legacy Johnson will leave us, and the worst part is, he obviously does not care.

    2. “it is us, those who put him where he is with the added bonus of an eighty seat majority, who will pay the price.”
      And us, who did not vote for the bastard, who will pay the price.

      1. A couple of days ago I remarked on this forum about how odious a man Stanley Johnson is. His son, Boris, has inherited all of his thoroughly foul characteristics with, as Philip Larkin might have put it, a few more added just for him.

    3. 340713+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,

      For the last near four decades it was plain to see by various actions taken the route the tory ( ino) party was taking while receiving full support ALL the way from the “vote in to keep out brigade” party before country.

      Mentioned is the 80 seat majority many of which was gifted from farage in the marching to the top of the hill
      then down again mode post vote splitting, taking out a decent leader & credible party on the rise, treachery via the ukip party nec with “nige” input.

      The fat turk is just an additive to a long line of brussels assets.

      The electorate must shoulder a great deal of blame for our present odious state as a state.

      1. But for whom do you vote when there is no sensible alternative? Most people choose the least bad because they cannot pick anyone else. Many of us would vote NOTA (None Of The Above) if those votes were actually counted.

        Come on ogga. Put your money where your mouth is. Give the poor old voters a chance – form your own party and run for parliament yourself!

        1. 340713+ up ticks,
          Morning R,
          Many thanks for qualifying what I have continued to say all along as in
          ” Most people choose the least bad because they cannot pick anyone else.”

          That’s sensible ?
          To me, these last nigh on four decades,that in many cases is precisely what they have been doing via the polling booth cum political cesspit, voting on the party that has the least paedophile, acid tossing knifers in it’s past recent history, encapsulate those actions under the label
          ( heavy sh!te).

          So voting currently in the United Kingdom
          using the same voting pattern is in point of FACT sh!te grading, consequently finding out ONCE AGAIN that you cannot put a tux on a turd.

    4. I did think that such things were pointless. One might as well write to a litter bin, where it would probably end up anyway. But then I rethought that and figure it is in someway worth it. If it just makes these bar stewards understand that we are on to them that is something. Perhaps too, the more sensible amongst them will start realizing that they can’t keep it up for ever, that sooner or later, people will take revenge. Whether it be at the ballot box or on the streets.

    1. Good morning. I hope the rain and stormy weather keeps going. My dog doesn’t like the sounds of war. (fireworks)

      1. We’ve never had a dog that was remotely bothered.
        Just the occasional warning ‘woof’ if they thought it was encroaching on their property.

        1. Dolly hasn’t been bothered in the past. These went off after 11pm when all was quiet. Very loud and producing a concussion wave. I put her under my quilt.

        2. Charlie used to be terrible until he went deaf. He’d climb on my shoulders or try to hide in cupboards. Oscar, thankfully, doesn’t seem to be bothered at all.

      1. As it was a test I wasn’t sure of its global accessibility.
        Thanks for your comment.

    2. Can you see it? Can you hear it tick? Can you feel it on your wrist? Three out of five suggests you’re alive.

  31. Idiot politicians and greeniacs repeatedly create farcical tax distortions such as this which foul up the countryside.

    Matthew Paul
    The small Welsh village taking on the tree planting industry
    31 October 2021, 7:00am
    The small Welsh village taking on the tree planting industry

    The village of Cwrt y Cadno sits in a particularly pretty and unspoiled valley in Carmarthenshire, south west Wales. The steep sides of the Mynydd Mallaen plateau rise to the east; the foothills of the Cambrian mountains look down from the other side, and the Cothi river cuts a path between the two.

    But in this quiet village a scuffle has broken out over the fate of a tree planting scheme in the area. It’s a fight that may well reveal the folly of mass tree planting in Wales, the side effects of ambitious carbon targets, and the futility of government subsidies.

    Large forestry plantations have been a feature of Wales’s landscapes for nearly a hundred years, ever since the Forestry Commission was created in 1919. At the height of its conifer planting in 1975, the Commission acquired a third of a million acres of Welsh land; much of it by compulsory purchase. This conflict in land use between tree planting and sheep grazing has always created tensions in Wales. But in recent years, thanks to carbon offsetting schemes and new government subsidies, tree planting has become fashionable again and more profitable even on high quality land. And Wales is shouldering the burden.

    Over the summer, a private equity firm called Foresight – resident for tax purposes in Guernsey and with gleaming offices high up in London’s Shard – began looking at property around Cwrt. It snapped up a local farm called Frongoch, paying a premium on the asking price that took it past the reach of local bidders.

    If Cwrt can be said to have a centre, Frongoch is right there, just past the Methodist chapel on the village square. Some of its land runs north up the Allt Goch bank; more lies across the valley floor.

    Foresight bought Frongoch to cover the land – and so a substantial part of Cwrt – with trees, for which it will receive a hefty pay-out from the Welsh government as part of the Glastir land management scheme. Foresight is creating the UK’s first forestry-based investment trust, which locals suspect is part of a deal to offset CO2 emissions for some leviathan polluter. As Foresight put it, it’s ‘an opportunity for companies to offset their carbon emissions in tandem with climate change mitigation.’

    In their puff to potential investors, Foresight describe their asset as ‘a strategic economic resource, as well as an invaluable asset to be protected for their inherent ecological value.’ People around Cwrt are less convinced about the ecological value of the scheme. Foresight haven’t yet confirmed what kind of trees they want to plant in the area, but Glastir subsidy rules only require 25 per cent of the planting area to be made up of Wales’s native broadleaf woodland.

    Native woodland grows slowly, while Scandinavian species like Larch and Sitka Spruce shoot up fast. These non-native species turn the soil acidic and support far less wildlife than native trees. This means that Cwrt is likely to become a thick conifer forest covering the valley floor, taking valuable farmland out of production and turning the area into a dense green desert.

    People in and around Cwrt y Cadno are furious about the threat to their village. One of the village’s defenders is the former Lord Mayor of London Sir David Lewis, who lives nearby and is from a local farming family. He and others are raising hell to stop the valley being ruined: ‘We will never ever permit anyone to ruin our village, our places of worship and our valleys by this type of indiscriminate planting.’

    At the farm next door to Frongoch you can find John Mercer, director of the National Farmers Union in Wales. While more political in his language than Sir David, he is clear that these are the wrong trees in the wrong place. ‘As farmers, we are strongly resistant to the planting of trees on our best land. The loss of farms for complete afforestation is highly emotive.’ He accepts the importance of increasing tree cover in Wales, but wants to see targeted planting, that complements productive agriculture.

    While people in Carmarthenshire are up in arms, the Welsh Labour government down in Cardiff Bay is relaxed about the plans. Planting up Frongoch advances the government’s plans for a National Forest for Wales, where ‘a connected forest ecosystem will extend the length of the country.’ To meet its climate targets, the Welsh government wants to plant 86 million more trees in Wales before 2030.

    If this blights Cwrt, it won’t worry Welsh Labour. It has no great love for the countryside, which returns few Labour votes. Labour don’t hold a single seat in mid or west Wales, either in the Senedd or in Westminster. And after the party declared war on farmers by making the whole of Wales a nitrate-vulnerable zone – imposing punitive costs and bureaucracy on farmers – the party is about as popular in rural Carmarthenshire as sheep scab.

    No surprise, then, that the Save Cwrt campaign has been taken up enthusiastically by the Welsh nationalists, Plaid Cymru. Plaid’s leader Adam Price has called tree planting by ‘foreign’ investors ‘the agricultural equivalent of the wider second homes crisis.’ He wheeled Plaid’s big guns out to Cwrt last Friday for a meeting in the square. The pressure seems to be paying off: Foresight let it be known before the event that they were re-thinking the Frongoch scheme, and would only plant trees on the hill, rather than the valley floor land.

    David Lewis, the former Lord Mayor, doesn’t think Foresight’s promise is worth much: ‘Why would you trust anything they say without proof? They can change their mind anytime or merely defer planting on the valley floor until after things quieten down.’

    Instead, it seems the solution could well be political. While Adam Price has complained about ‘foreign’ exploitation of Wales, the Senedd has the ability to solve this problem. Plaid Cymru announced proposals last month to co-operate with Welsh Labour (which just lacks an overall majority in the Senedd) to push through the Welsh government’s legislative agenda. If this collaboration with Labour gives Plaid any influence at all, they should use it to demand two legislative changes that would protect farmland from speculative investment.

    Planning laws are devolved to Wales and could easily be tweaked so that planting forestry on agricultural land (above a certain acreage) is treated as a change of use requiring planning consent. Agriculture is devolved to Wales as well, and Glastir subsidies could only be paid to landowners who actively farm their land. Otherwise, Cwrt won’t be the only Welsh village whose residents are swamped with conifers.

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

    Rob Dixon • 39 minutes ago
    Very interesting article. I speak as someone who lives in the Marches and have to suffer looking at wind turbines owned by a New Zealand-based consortium blighting one of my favourite landscapes. Foreign investors enjoying profits created from destroying the UK environment with so-called ‘green’ and ‘ethical’ initiatives. Boris and Michael…are you listening?

    Alison Houston Rob Dixon • 15 minutes ago
    No, of course they aren’t, how can anyone believe they or any of the corrupt crop of world leaders give a monkeys about the real environment? The idea that you can pay out tax payers money to subsidise rich people to help them make money by salving their ‘consciences’ by planting trees is such balls nobody can be fooled by it. And yet somehow it has become a thing and the only answer if any of this ess aitch one tee doesn’t work fast enough is to tax poor people more on the few little luxuries left in their lives or to ban them all together from indulging in things which have until now been considered necessities, like food and heating transport to work.

    Today in the MoS there’s an article about some people with a large listed building with a substantial amount of land and a new kitchen built in their barn conversion extension, in Rutland, a very expensive part of the country, who received £70 000 of tax payers cash to install a ground source heat pump, which doesn’t heat the house and is too expensive to run.

    This entire green movement is about redistributing money from poor Anglo Saxons and Celts to our rich Norman overlords. Time to start practising our archery.

    1. ‘Morning C1. Thanks for posting…depressing, isn’t it?

      The other day I came across a ‘news’ item where a smug greenie landowner has taken 500 acres of good agricultural land out of production to plant with trees. No more potatoes to be grown there for the next 100+ years I guess. Food crops or trees? Why, whichever produces the greatest subsidy I imagine?

      1. Maybe we could institute a TWA – the Terry Wogan Award for blighting the largest land area with pine forests.

    2. During the 80’s on a riding holiday, I rode through the Welsh Sitka spruce plantations.
      I’ve seen more light and life in a crypt.

      1. Same as the forests in the lowlands of Scotland. The trees are so close together that it is impossible to enter and all is dead on the forest floor. Nothing grows and nothing seems to live there. Basically sterile deserts so impenetrable that not even deer can move about in them.

        2. Rich people invested loads of money in trees in the 70s and 80s in the Flow country. It was another scam to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

    4. So, Wales being mostly rocky and hilly, why would you turn over the tillable land to trees, unless it’s to grow subsidies? This is something I’m with Plaid Cymru on.

  33. Prince Charles says private sector must help solve climate crisis as ‘moment of truth’ arrives

    The moment of truth for the United Kingdom may be coming sooner than we would like?

    When the Queen dies and this nincompoop becomes a king who cannot and will not stop meddling and boring everybody to death with his poppycock then it may become time for even the most dedicated monarchists to become republicans.

        1. When at Cambridge Prince Charles had access to both the Master of Trinity (Lord Butler of Saffron Walden) and the supervision of Glyn Daniel.

          I find it surprising that he has instead taken advice from charlatans such as Lauren’s Van der Post and a collection of dud ‘architects’. Poundbury is mere expensive kitsch.

          On a positive note Prince Charles seems to have been active and successful in his Duchy industries. I doubt that dropping his interests and hobbies for full time kingship would fit his interfering nature.

          Royalty might do well to skip Woke William, appoint George Prince of Wales and name Charles as Regent or Protector. Just an idle thought.

          1. Remember many years ago – an athlete called Lilian Board. She had cancer, but believed homeopathy would cure her. It didn’t. She died.

    2. At the point he ascends the throne he must go silent. Until then he is entitled to say what he pleases. Them there’s the rules. And I would dispute the idea that he is a “nincompoop”, he is anything but in fact. His work at Highgrove puts him at the very top in terms of landscape architecture. And as a horticulturist he is considered to be one of the best in the UK amongst horticulturists themselves.

      1. He has a wee house on the Queen’s estates at Balmoral. The gardens are very nice. (This is an old story. No-one was doing anything about Abergeldie disappearing into the Dee. It is private residence. I wrote to Aberdeen council the environment minister in the Scottish government* and various companies in the big concrete block business. Abergeldie was saved, but only just. I have no idea whether my urgent exhortations had anything to do with it.)

        *The Scottish government do not give a monkey’s about our heritage, our built environment, or the countryside.

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3384668/Washed-away-Prince-s-garden-memories-near-Balmoral-Castle.html

        1. What a beautiful garden! I can make out the meconopsis and salvia in the beds to the sides of the steps, but what is the pink plant, another variety of salvia, do you happen to know? The stumpery is wonderful too. I take it you have had the good fortune to see the garden in person Horace? Lets hope that the damage is not to extensive.

          1. Erm, no. I know precisely nothing about plants, other than they die shortly after I plant them. I have not visited the garden. My time up North generally is not tourism.

  34. Funny Old World
    When I was a youngster I don’t remember any of my mates being off school with a stroke or myocarditus……….
    #Rare……………my arse

    1. And yet – BPAPM, Charles the Mad and William the Woke will prostrate themselves before the Muppet – instead of patting her on the head and giving her a boiled sweet.

    2. Good, very gloomy, morning to all. There’s about as much daylight in West Sussex at the mo. as there is in a cave at midnight. Horizontal rain and wind howling through the woods here. Always keep one ear open waiting for the crash of a tree falling and something keeps banging outside but I don’t want to look.

      Onward and upward. With regard to Greta the Gremlin and her presence in England, blighting pumpkins that may still be in the fields. Did you see that her other half Joe the Senile is swanning about on his ecology tour in a motorcade of 75 vehicles. These people lecture us about climate change!

      1. Not to forget the helicopter that was flown to Glasgow. They could have at least tried to show some restraint.

        1. And Airforce One. You know that is used in case of an attack on the USA. A moving command post. Why they would use that with the addled Joe God knows. He wouldn’t be capable of making a sensible decision earthbound or airborne. But they must pretend that he is indispensable. Personally I would have told him to stay home and stagger around the White House. As it is he is, again, lecturing us and taking sides with the French about fishing. The miserable bigot.

      2. We got the majority of the rain while it was still dark – then a very bright and breezy interval – but now it’s looking dark again.

        Lower down on today’s page, Johnathan – have a listen to Neil Oliver.

        1. Hi Ndovu. I already listened. He says it’s 85 cars, I read 75! Either way it’s bloody absurd.

          I was living in Berkeley when President Clinton came to dinner at Chez Panisse. It was absurd. North Berkeley was completely cut off and there were at least a dozen helicopters flying about as if it were WWIII. Howling police sirens and noise that would wake the dead. The rest of the performance I did not see because I was at the Art Museum. But we watched all the coming and going from the roof. The American always over do it.

          Chez Panisse. Excellent food must book aeons in advance.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chez_Panisse

          1. I was in Istanbul when Clinton visited – whole place was shut down including all the trams. It rained on us as we walked back – the locals were very unimpressed!

  36. Extraordinary thing. Beeboid Radio 3 is ACTUALLY broadcasting religious programmes on a SUNDAY – throughout the day – following the Rule of St Benedict.
    Gorgeous music. I expect there’ll be a Slammer equivalent next week….

    Off to church shortly (a supporter, not a fan) as the Woke Woman “Bishop” of Lynn (“Call me Jane”) is here to do a Communion and a Christening (there is no priest at the moment).

    Pouring rain doesn’t make it a joyful prospect…

    Back later. Prolly. Pray nicely.

  37. Revealed: the towns at risk from far-right extremism. 31 october 2021.

    Of 336 councils, researchers identified 52 – including Harlow – where Covid is believed to have caused community tension and could inspire far-right activity. A report out on Monday from the Hope not Hate charitable trust says each of the places suffered a significant downturn in the pandemic, has a history of slow recovery from economic shocks and displays “less liberal than average” attitudes to migration and multiculturalism.

    Hope not Hate researcher Chris Clarke said: “This doesn’t mean these places will automatically be susceptible to far right overtures, but the risk may have increased. Economic hardship can fuel community tensions, and these may be articulated through the election of far-right politicians, spikes in hate crime or one-off flash points spiralling out of control.”

    Would that be people murdering MP’s and raping underage white girls? Thought not. Hate not Hope being unable to find any “far-right” organisation of any credible size or possible threat has decided to put up whole cities as latent evil doers; that’s just the white parts you understand?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/31/revealed-the-towns-at-risk-from-far-right-extremism

  38. Nicked

    Spot on from The Spectator:

    “We know the global warming movement is politics all the way down. Maurice
    Strong, the political genius who fostered this campaign against
    industrialised nations from the first UN Earth Summit in 1972, said,
    ‘Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized
    civilisations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that
    about?’ Strong channelled the ideology of the Club of Rome into the UN’s
    Agenda 21 and helped set up that great corrupter of climate science,
    the IPCC, as part of his stated goal to ‘control the agenda’. But
    Liberals shouldn’t trouble their heads with all that politics.

    Decades after Maurice, there’s Boris and his fatuous apology for an economic
    revolution that lifted billions out of poverty. Says PM Johnson: ‘We
    were the beginners of this crime. The industrial revolution started in
    this country. We owe it to other countries to support their move to net
    zero.’ His contrition gained no graces from Saint Greta, who still
    damned the UK as a ‘climate villain’.

    What a moribund spectacle:
    political leaders abasing themselves before psychologically troubled
    youth, flagellating their constituents for imaginary offences against
    Gaia and abandoning reason for a cult-like delusion.

    That old word, ‘reason’, has nostalgic overtones of commitment to facts and
    truth. In the light of reason, we could bear glad tidings to Glasgow:
    that there is nothing in the climate record of the last two centuries
    that falls outside natural variation; that our Barrier Reef is in rude
    good health, cyclones are milder, polar bears are booming, the Antarctic
    is cooling, the globe is greening (that’s what CO2 does) and those
    Pacific islands are waving, not drowning. Every scare-mongering campaign
    has come to nought, this whole boondoggle is about global governance
    not global warming; it’s Abbott’s ‘socialism masquerading as
    environmentalism’.

    1. this whole boondoggle is about global governance not global warming…

      It’s about Tyranny and Control!

        1. And nowhere more so than in Australia and New Zealand.
          The last places I would have expected this to have taken root.

      1. I have thought that for sometime – that Johnson is insane. It would not surprise me if he has syphilis, I suppose he cast his net more widely than has been made public.

        Edit: Good morning, vw and everyone on this very wet 31 October morning.

        1. If there is any consolation, it is that Johnson is not an extremist of any kind. By temperament and by upbringing, Johnson is a metropolitan liberal: pro-choice, pro-immigration, tolerant of diversity, educated about the world, and prepared to accept the consensus on climate change. The problem is that he is also so unserious and so unprincipled that it is impossible to know if he would maintain any of those positions under meaningful duress.

          https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/just-how-crazy-is-boris-johnson

          1. Unfortunately for us he also has no particular political convictions. He just is swept along on the wind.

        1. I think he is lazy, rather than crazy.

          He has a good brain but he’s easily distracted and latches onto whatever is the latest whim of Carrie.

          While Cousins was in his office, he had some direction – ‘Get Brexit Done’ but now he’s woffling and wavering about climate change and getting nothing done.

  39. https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2021/10/collins-cartoon_16-oct_post.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=820&h=550
    Virtue signalling in the 1940s
    https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2021/09/collins-cartoon-11-sept_post.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=820&h=550
    Unconscious bias in the 1950s
    https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2021/08/collins-cartoon-21-aug_post.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275
    Being woke in the 1990’s
    https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2021/08/collins-cartoon-14-aug_post.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275
    #Metoo movement in Macedonia, 75 BC
    https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2021/08/collins.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275
    Cultural appropriation in the 1960s

  40. That’s the chores done for today.
    Paper recycling in the bid, plastic recycling in the plastic bin, and 8 lightbulbs changed! (including one over the stairwell… I hate shifting that one!). New crockery installed in the cupboards, old looking for a new home…

  42. If Charles and William don’t shut up I can see it leading to the end of the monarchy. Then we will ony have politicians at all levels and God help us.

    1. They are bored out of their minds, that is the problem. They don’t have the day-to-day worries that we have, treading the thin line between a reasonably comfortable life and just about surviving. Bored minds meddle.

      1. Charles has built settlements reflecting his strange architectural tastes, and William jousts at windmills , gawd, I wish he had had his tonsils removed .

        2. William was born a generation too late for that. Most of my age group had their tonsils and adenoids removed. For some, their short stay in hospital was the first time that they tasted ice cream.

          2. I had my tonsils out at the age of 40. For a few days I was hoping to die, but the pain was worth it.

      2. They should get back to the military, then, and do something useful like get in the way of a bullet. Then we can have a tearful state funeral, enjoy all the nice parades, and not have to listen to their whining. Give me strength!

    3. Unlike Brenda, Brian and son Billy Wales never know when to stop.

      In fact, Brenda never starts.

  44. B&Q Job Application

    This is an actual job application that a 75-year-old pensioner submitted to B&Q in Tunbridge Wells.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c6a62495a53fa0eb2e876bf109b3668ba35b39ea83ae630cddfe9844be0bd0e.jpg
    NAME:
    Kenneth Way (Grumpy Bastard)

    SEX:
    Not lately, but I am looking for the right woman (or at least one who will cooperate)

    DESIRED POSITON:
    Company’s Chief Executive or Managing Director. But seriously, whatever’s available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn’t be applying in the first place – would I?

    DESIRED SALARY:
    £150,000 a year plus share options and a Tony Blair style redundancy package. If that’s not possible, make an offer and we can haggle.

    EDUCATION:
    Yes.

    LAST POSITON HELD:
    Target for middle management hostility.

    PREVIOUS SALARY:
    A lot less than I’m worth.

    MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT:
    My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes.

    REASON FOR LEAVING:
    It was a crap job.

    HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK:
    Any.

    PREFERRED HOURS:
    1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

    DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?
    Yes, but they’re better suited to a more intimate environment.

    MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?
    If I had one, would I be here’?

    DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 lbs?
    Of what?

    DO YOU HAVE A CAR?
    I think the more appropriate question here would be “Do you have a car that runs?”

    HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITON?
    I may already be a winner of the Reader’s Digest Timeshare Free Holiday Offer, so they tell me.

    DO YOU SMOKE?
    On the job – no! On my breaks – yes!

    WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?
    Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy Swedish supermodel with big tits and who thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I’d like to be doing that now.

    NEAREST RELATIVE?
    7 miles

    DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?
    Oh yes. absolutely.

    They hired him …
    But…

    After landing my new job as a B & Q “Greeter” – a good find for many retirees. I lasted less than a day.

    About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting tattooed babe walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

    As I had been instructed, I said, pleasantly, “Good morning and welcome to B & Q.” I then said, “Nice children you have there. Are they twins?”

    The woman stopped yelling long enough to say, “No, they ain’t effin twins. The oldest one’s 9, and the other one’s 7, why the hell would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just effin stupid?”

    I replied, “I’m neither blind nor stupid, Madam. I just couldn’t believe someone shagged you twice… Have a good day and thank you for shopping at B & Q.”

    My supervisor said I probably wasn’t cut out for this line of work.

    1. We were in B&Q last week and the very elderly employee pointed us to what we were looking for (it was the last one) so we bought it. £6.00 reduced from £10 for a non-slip shower mat. I’ve always found the staff there very helpful.

      1. Funny you should say that Ellie I was in B&Q only last week, i bought two for a fiver………….🤣😄🤗no only Joe King

    2. 😂😄
      I was in B&Q a few years ago and a young guy obviously a Kiwi asked me if I needed decking, I just had to ‘give him a slap’ and walk out.

  45. Hypocrisy Corner: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/10/30/sky-defends-new-chiefs-private-jet-commute/
    “The chief executive of Sky, one of the main sponsors of the Cop26 climate conference, has been regularly commuting by private jet from her home 3,500 miles away in the United States. Dana Strong was appointed in January but remained based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, close to the headquarters of Sky’s parent company, the American cable operator Comcast. It owns a fleet of private jets, which it says in regulatory filings it encourages senior executives to use for reasons of security and productivity.
    According to industry sources, the long-distance arrangement has meant frequent trips back and forth for Ms Strong on one of Comcast’s jets every few weeks until she moved to the UK in June.    ” There is a lot more, including Sky’s defence of the arrangements
    The full article concludes “Sky said it has reduced its carbon footprint by 23pc since 2018 and that air travel makes up 0.3pc of its emissions.“

    1. I suppose the rest of its emissions includes its programmes. As I’ve never watched anything on Sky nor ever paid a subscription i cannot tell whether they were crap or not.

    1. They are a bit near the knuckle but that’s why they hit the spot.
      In Thatcher’s day nobody cared they were a bit cruel but now everybody is far too sensitive.

      Time the Woke went back to sleep.

    1. I think Nottlers realised that years ago – it’s all theatre to crush the masses and enrich the already rich.

      Why don’t most people see this?

          1. I think it’s a reference to 007 and how he might have handled it.

            For me, I’ll check my Frederick Forsythe and get a high-powered machine-gun.

            Is Google my friend?

          2. I actually did Google, “Buy high powered machine gun”

            and had 200, 000,000 responses.

            Who’d a thunk it but at £20,000 to £30,000 I declined.

          3. The passing version of James Bond could well be the last and become a Black female. Unless the film was a bit of a wind up this time.

    1. “…the dear Lord moves in mysterious ways…”

      Indeed. The so-and-so blew down my garden fence.

      1. Invitation to lebensraum?
        “But God told me to take over the neighbouring country…!”

      1. I see my dear friend Zena Woodley waded in on that one too. I’ve tried to coax her on to Nottl but she figures being on Twatter and FB is quite enough social media.

        1. Twatter’s such a snakepit I seldom stay there more than a couple of minutes. On FB I avoid politics.

          Nottl is where I know I’m amongst like-minded people.

    6. If it had been God who threw down the tree it would have landed on the poofter’s head… or up his a***. It must have been something/someone else. Any suggestions?

  51. Yo, Techies! In its early days, we were told that the Internet piggy-backed on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Now we learn that the PSTN is to give way to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP).

    Eh?

    1. It means they are phasing out landlines (which our internet service relies on) in favour of Voip which means our dodgy service will be total carp.

      1. It will make it easier for ‘them’ to track what you say and to whom you say it. Probably why our secret squirrels needs more storage capacity in the Cloud.

        Welcome to Chinese censorship.

    2. VHF radio replaced AM radio as VHF typically had a short range. This coincided with the Cold War period when the UK was divided up into territories, each with a Regional Seat of Government in an underground bunker. The idea was that in event of nuclear war each territory could be controlled separately with the population in each area being kept in ignorance of the conditions in other areas. Each area would be run independently and control the VHF radio broadcast for their area, AM radio, Long/Medium Wave would have been closed down.
      The idea of total control has not gone away. Smart phone networks and internet, smart meters, smart cards mean that the government can close down communications, energy supply and access to money at the flick of a switch. Ever wonder why this has been done, and why they took away guns from the citizens?

  52. There are about a dozen or so hunting dogs on my front lawn at the moment. I hope they get that barsteward Macron – many of the Frogs round here don’t like him either.

  53. https://twitter.com/SikhForTruth/status/1454093966715019282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1454093966715019282%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dtheconservativewomant_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.conservativewoman.co.uk2Fthe-guardians-shameful-pro-vaccine-checklist2Ft_d%3DThe20GuardianE28099s20shameful20pro-vaccine20checklistt_t%3DThe20GuardianE28099s20shameful20pro-vaccine20checklists_o%3Ddefaultversion%3D476c68be0ef9b136177aa11ed8dc9365

    1. 22 years but served only six. Which perverted officials authorised that? Should be castrated and sent to a mental asylum for life – and the do-gooding idiots too.

      1. 340713+ up ticks,
        Afternoon P,
        What looks bordering on good to decent peoples is he got 22 years initially, when the dust settled, and so as NOT to cause offence among the PIE fraternity /lab/lib/con coalition supporter / voters the sentence was amended, could have compo
        following , hurt feelings etc,etc.

  55. I am still simmering. The Woke Woman Bishop (masked, natch) was even worse that I imagined. Communion was combined with the christening of twins.

    The Woke One praught – managing to eviscerate the Beatitudes by combining each set of “the Blessed” with effing climate change and the great joy of CRAP26. I kid you not. I suppose the one good thing was that she didn’t bring in Brexit.

    Unbelievable.

    Time for a calming drink. Back later.

    1. Relish a bottle and thank your lucky stars that you didn’t lose a yew tree such as happened to the ghastly and creepy Rev Richard Coles when he invoked CRAP26 (see postings below from Maggie and Jules). God is pissed orff bigtime.

      2. I am glad that we agree that the homosexual Richard Coles is a particularly, smug, self-satisfied and repulsive man.

    2. Why did you bother to go? With all due deference to the women Nottlers here, there is no such thing as a woman Archbishop so you can expect nothing else than low grade nonsense.

    4. It wasn’t the Bishopette of Birkenhead, was it? We had that for “harvest festival” only it was the Gospel where Jesus said “consider the lilies of the field”, which the Bishopette interpreted as “we’re all doomed with climate change unless YOU stop using your ‘gas guzzlers'”, then after the service she got in her sporty Porsche and drove off.

  57. Just watched my recording of the Andrew Marr Show. The BBC are really pumping out the propaganda on the CRAP26 Jamboree. It was Wall to Wall. Deserts, animals wiped out. No horror too trite to quote. Not one dissenting voice. They are going to sell this if it kills them; or us!

    2. Don’t forget the BBC’s impartiality (enshrined in its charter) includes no dissenting voices on climate change and a board level editorial decision to allow their reporters to conflate ‘Europe’ with ‘the EU’ in the run up to the referendum.

    3. At some point, the hype will be too great and the evidence lacking sufficiently that the lie will be exposed for all to see. Then the disadvantaged will rise up and choke the living shit out of the perpetrators.
      I have alredy reserved a ringside seat.

      1. I think people are beginning to see through it. Was chatting to someone this afternoon who said that if China didn’t do anything, whatever we did was a waste of time.

  59. Hmm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1481c8e7805f1e48a2839e4acd8e065c447a1877a16a33a150049fb99f94e761.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45b8674f2a31b0817ede7d513612c14274b5263dace7d46a857428a8a0a6403b.jpg
    The globalists have absolutely no belief in Globollocks Warming or Climate Emergencies Bellamy gives them far too much credit,they are not deceived they are happy to pretend as it suits the agendas they wish to pursue!!
    The ever ramped up MSM propaganda is succeeding in brainwashing all to many incapable of critical thinking or doing their own research……….
    (See covidbollocks for more details)

    1. He died a couple of years ago. Has he any successors who share his views and can communicate them successfully to our repulsive politicians or are they all in on the great scam? I wonder what he would make of the absurdly rhyming nonsense of

      THE FIASCO IN GLASGOW

        1. Robin Page was deplatformed by the Beeb – he used to present “One Man and his Dog”. He used to write good articles in the DT as well. Silenced for not following the agenda.

  61. Rise in budget deficits worldwide carries risk of high global inflation, Putin says. 31 October 2021.

    “Excessive stimulus programs have led to overall instability and an increase in the prices of financial assets and goods on certain markets, including the energy and food markets. A serious budget deficit facing developed economies is the basic cause of these processes,” Putin pointed out, adding that it “creates the risk of high global inflation in the medium term.”

    The sole remaining voice of Moderation and Sanity in a mad world!

    https://tass.com/economy/1355993

  62. Neil Oliver: ‘We the people need constant reminding that the world is in a dreadful mess, and that that mess is all our fault. And now we must marvel at those special people, to whom rules do not apply, and who have come to save us from ourselves.’

        1. Their actions are carried out to rub our noses in it.
          You may not fly anywhere or heat your dwelling, but I, so important that I am, may use as many planes and vehicles in my cavalcade as I wish. Peasant.
          Bastards, the lot of them. I hope their private jets all collide in a massive, fiery ball of armageddon.

        1. Perhaps, J, I should have said, “,,,those ‘special people’ believe all that guff, because it enhances their bank balance.“

    2. Good afternoon T-B The Industrial Revolution was apparently bad for the Universe and we are being asked to pay the poorer countries for our sins. Cop26 appears to be looking for massive contributions in $trillions to these disgruntled poor countries. Our PM should be looking after this country before squandering money on these poor countries which at least must have gained something from the industrial revolution but have sat back and not built on the opportunities which the industries offered. The Climate change people are asking too much and the PM should ignore their pleas but I am afraid he is leading the charge

      1. ‘Afternoon, Clyde, “…contributions in $trillions to these disgruntled poor countries.” so that their oligarchs can afford new Mercedes, dancing girls and new Shag-a-lot ladies to entertain them.

        Why don’t the oppressed fools rise up and reduce the world’s population?

  63. About an hour ago, a mini whirlwind (no, not the helicopter) went acrossthe side of our garden

    It took ridge tiles off the roof of the house directly behind us and our next door neighbour.

    We wer untouched, including my partly built plastic bunker

    I wish I had bought a Lottery Ticket, with th kuck that we have just had, we surely would have one the Jackpot

  64. The story of The Rev Richard Cole’s church being hit by a thunderbolt when he was praying for the success of the Fiasco in Glasgow reminds me of the story of the golfer who went out for a round with his friend the vicar.

    When he fluffed his putt on the first green he exclaimed: “Oh, damn, I missed.”
    The vicar who was easily shocked and said: “My friend you must moderate your language or God will send a thunderbolt to punish you.”

    At the third hole the chap had a double bogey and in exasperation and his language grew more extreme: “Oh, bloody Hell, I missed again!” Once more the vicar warned him about God’s thunderbolt

    At the ninth hole he added obscenity to blasphemy: “Oh bugger it, holy shit, Oh Christ, I screwed up here. I missed again.” Once more the vicar told the chap that the Lord his God was an angry god who had a quiver full of thunderbolts and mixed metaphors in his pocket.

    After the final hole as he walked towards the clubhouse after the worst round he had ever had he uttered the most obscene flow of obscene and blasphemous invective the poor vicar had ever heard. Suddenly a thunderbolt came down from heaven and struck the vicar dead. And then a voice from the sky said: “On the life of my virgin mother, fuck, fuck, fuck – I missed.”

    2. What happened to Richard Coles?

      I arrived at church this morning to find soldiers guarding the door. They stood to attention and the guy giving the orders said good morning as each of us went in.
      We had BCP Matins with the annual act of remembrance for the City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders), hence the soldiers. The back page of the service booklet lists the names of 104 who fell in action in WWI and 53 in WWII.
      As we sang the national anthem at the end, I did wonder if I’ll be as happy to sing God Save the King for Charles. Not that he’ll be the first bad king but will he be the last?

    3. About fifty years ago, the local vicar was struck dead on the golf course by a bolt of lightening.

  65. Queen is ‘on very good form’: Boris Johnson says he has spoken to royal as she works from her desk after being told to rest for two weeks. 31 October 2021.

    Boris Johnson has said the Queen was on ‘very good form’ when he spoke to her this week after doctors told her to cancel any official visits and rest for at least another two weeks.

    The Prime Minister gave an upbeat tone while talking about attending his weekly conversation with the 95-year-old monarch as she takes medical precautions after a working through a busy schedule.

    He was undoubtedly sniffing around hoping to get her to come to his CRAP 26 Jamboree in Glasgow because no one else of importance is. Unfortunately she’s woken up to this fiasco and conjured up a few sickies to get out of going.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10147077/Queen-work-desk-doctors-told-rest-two-weeks.html

    1. But, but, but.. Joe Biden’s going to be there! (assuming he can find his slippers that is)

      1. Well when Joe agreed he thought everyone else was coming as well! I’m expecting him to do an early bunk, probably with the same reasons Her Maj used!

        1. Yep, I’ve been to parties like that. Looking at your watch, wishing you’d never turned up, wondering if you can get away with being the first to leave…

          Clever Queenie, spotting a boring party before everyone else (well, apart from Xi and Vlad that is)

      2. Well when Joe agreed he thought everyone else was coming as well! I’m expecting him to do an early bunk, probably with the same reasons Her Maj used!

        1. I believe you and Carolyn were in Monte Carlo when Gumboil came to Gresham’s and gave the worst Speech Day speech I have ever heard (and I have heard some pretty dire ones in my time as a schoolmaster) and so you were lucky enough to miss it. He just peddled pro-EU and pro-bogus climate change bollocks which to my mind was a disgraceful attempt to indoctrinate schoolchildren.

          At least I could feel proud of my son, Christo, who sought him out during tea and harangued him in French and we treasure the memory of the nasty little squirt running away from Christo who clearly intimidated the little coward.

      4. I listened to Lord Deben otherwise known as John Selwyn Gummer announce on R4 that under Biden the United States of America had rejoined the real world.

        Gummer was always a ghastly little man who once forced his daughter to take a bite out of a beef burger during the Mad Cow Disease crisis. He is totally wedded to the Climate scam having financial interests in its continuance.

        With the syphilitic dolt Boris Johnson describing Biden, a lying rotting dead eyed corpse of a man, as a “breath of fresh air” we must conclude that we are in deep shit as a country.

      5. I listened to Lord Deben otherwise known as John Selwyn Gummer announce on R4 that under Biden the United States of America had rejoined the real world.

        Gummer was always a ghastly little man who once forced his daughter to take a bite out of a beef burger during the Mad Cow Disease crisis. He is totally wedded to the Climate scam having financial interests in its continuance.

        With the syphilitic dolt Boris Johnson describing Biden, a lying rotting dead eyed corpse of a man, as a “breath of fresh air” we must conclude that we are in deep shit as a country.

  66. “The killing of Sir David Amess is starting to slip from public

    consciousness. You can feel it. Just two weeks after the Conservative MP

    for Southend West was allegedly murdered in a suspected Islamist terror

    attack, it seems like this horror is fading from national memory.”

    “This is extraordinary. Here we have the media conscience of the liberal

    elite – the Guardian Media Group – inciting the politicisation of one

    fatal assault on an MP and forbidding the politicisation of another

    fatal assault on an MP. Demanding a focus on far-right extremism

    following the killing of Cox and denouncing any focus on Islamist

    extremism following the killing of Amess.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/29/david-amess-and-the-terrorism-amnesia-industry/
    Spiked bang on target again………..

    1. Well, as usual, that was something of nothing.

      So much nothing that I snoozed through most of it – back to NoTTL and a large whisky and water.

  69. Just adverting (in my boring way) to the service in Christ Church Fulmodeston this morning. As I have explained in the past, I have no longer any religious belief (except in climate change, natch). Thus, what happens in CoE services is entirely a matter for the faithful. I go, from time to time, to accompany the MR, and always for Remembrance Sunday (because it is a national parade) and funerals.

    Thus, I look on what happens as a performance – and I judge it as such. For example, this morning (in addition to the christenings) there was Holy Communion. The order of service was based loosely on the Book of Common Prayer (with which I was brought up and great chunks of which I know by heart). There was even the prayer for The Queen (which many previous rectors have deliberately omitted). Odd “extras” appeared from nowhere.

    When it came to the propers for All Saints Day – they read the 1662 Collect – and the Epistle and Gospel were those laid down in 1662. However – the versions read (the epistle, wrongly, by a member of the congregation) were taken from the Janet and John Bible – which completely destroys the cadence and meaning of the original.

    So it was like going to see The Marriage of Figaro in a weird production where the libretto had been altered to make it more”relevant”.

    I know the short answer is not to go – but – on the VERY rare occasions that an order of service DOES follow the Prayer Book – I find it oddly comforting. Can’t explain why; familiarity, probably – and a link to childhood.

    Sermon over!!

      1. The Nunc dimittis was my favourite.

        Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.

        For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,

        Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

        To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

      1. A couple of comments:-

        Aaron Chociaj
        1 day ago
        And whom did the Latin Mass bother?

        sapper82
        1 second ago
        The Pope.
        Like the Anglican Church, Roman Catholicism is being deliberately destroyed from within in a decades long campaign.

      2. We sang this Stanford setting of the Jubilate Deo on Old Boy’s Day at Blundell’s. Its opening two words
        O Be
        were thoroughly appropriate!

        The Choir and the rest of the school worked together to practise and the result was truly inspiring.

        This Covid Isolation version which I found on the Internet does a pretty good job too.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OtfdOo_178

    1. Should you require a jar or two, please apply below!
      The recipe book is my wonderful Mothers! Recipe is my grandmothers!

          2. Hmm! I’ll believe you.

            I am late with my chutney this year. The apples are still on the trees. I love making it – have done so for 60 years! Every batch is a bit different.

          4. Tons. It has been very mild (in a chilly sort of way). I use far less sugar and malt vinegar. No toms. 3 tbls ground ginger; 1 tbls paprika. Wodge of pickling spices, cloves and allspice. Were you interested, I’d send you my stained recipe…

          10. A friend gave me all the stuff left on her tomatoes vines; a real mish mash of sizes and colours.
            This is a good recipe. I left it for a month before trying a jar.

            Mixed Tomato Chutney

            Sublime mixed tomato chutney made with a variety of ripe and green cherry tomatoes with a kick of chilli!

            Prep Time 10 minutes

            Cook Time 1 hour

            Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes

            Ingredients

            900 g red, orange, yellow & green cherry tomatoes (use a maximum of 1/4 green tomatoes) chopped in half (leave a few tiny ones whole)

            90 g sultanas

            350 g red onions chopped

            225 g light Muscovado Sugar

            1 tsp salt flakes

            2 tsp mustard seeds

            1 large red chilli finely chopped + a few seeds or all if you like it hot.

            200 ml white wine vinegar

            100 ml red wine vinegar

            Instructions

            Prepare your jars & lids by sterilising (I like to dishwasher mine, put in oven at 140°C for 20 mins then turn off and leave to stay warm until needed).

            Add all the ingredients to a preserving pan including any green tomatoes but omit the red, orange and yellow ones.

            Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

            Add the rest of the tomatoes and simmer for a further 35 minutes. (Be sure to time from when the mixture starts to simmer again).

            Ladle into the hot, sterilised jars (see notes) and seal with lids immediately (makes enough to fill just over 2 large 500 ml jars).

            Allow to cool, then store in a cool, dark place.

            Best eaten within the first year. Once open keep in the fridge and consume within 4 weeks. Can be eaten straight away or keep for a few weeks to allow flavours to develop further.

          11. There are still apples on my Lord Derby – although the wind is doing its best to blow them off.

        2. Probably a couple of months, but I sent the last jar to my BiL for his 70th! My old man is down in Cheltenham for a booze weekend!

    2. Gosh – your cook book looks like mine! Though mine has lots of chutney coloured splashes!

    4. That pot looks big enough to cook a whole chutney (however big an imperial measure a chutney is) How much are you making?

      My wife has been cooking chutneys of various kinds for sale as part of the hospital fundraiser, she gets about a dozen jars from each batch and the pot she uses looks much smaller than yours.

      They have made about $25,000 so far this year that is going to the hospital fund. The Canadian system does not pay for hospital equipment, the local community has to raise the funds. Apparently they are buying cardiac monitors and stuff to be used in the upthebumoscopy clinic.

      1. Hi Richard! I use my grandmothers recipe and have upped the quantities! I generally get 20/25 jars!
        My sister in Greece uses the same recipe and they taste completely different! It’s a joy!

    1. What isn’t so funny is that, according to a News bulletin earlier today, the whole fiasco is going to last 2 weeks. Surely not?

        1. Bored already. What a turn off. Come friendly bombs and fall on Glasgow Airport. And if someone could sink the luxury liners on the Clyde it would be a bonus.

          The web is saying Biden shat himself at his audience with the Pope. Believable for a rotting geriatric grifter. I imagine the 87 car motorcade contains every conceivable aid, multiple body doubles, 3D printed masks, a hundred spare pants, suits and shirts and a ton of Anusol wipes.

          Several vehicles will have refrigeration for POTUSINO to gorge himself on his chocolate chip, pistachio and strawberry ice cream.

    1. Greta sent me an email:

      Dear friends,

      Humanity is failing to stop the climate crisis. It’s now beyond urgent — the planet is screaming for help.

      Right now world leaders are meeting for historic climate talks — but pledges without real action won’t cut it anymore. We need bold, visionary leaders to finally do what’s needed to pull us back from the abyss.

      I’ll be at the talks with inspiring youth leaders like Vanessa Nakate and Dominika Lasota. We’ll
      personally meet dozens of governments — it’s the perfect opportunity
      to deliver a giant call for urgent action. Join us now: add your name with one click and pass this on.

      Add my name

      1. Just send her an email asking how much carbon dioxide was used by all of those big jets flying to glasgow.

          10. In the land of Trudeaus liberals, normal behaviour is not a requirement. Trudeau has received many rebukes from the ethics commission, the lefties still love his pretty face. If that is the standard for top dog, the fact that Guibeault has a criminal record as a result of his protests is irrelevant.

        2. Not to mention 86 gas guzzling cars and their transport here for Biden, plus the fossil fuelled generators brought in to charge the electric cars for the ‘delegates’ to visit Gleneagles, plus the 2 cruise ships anchored in the Clyde with engines running on oil to provide accommodation for those which can’t get a room in Glasgow, then there’s flying in all the different foods which they would like because Glasgow can only supply fried Mars Bars

      2. Dear Muppet

        Just get on a train and pop over to China and tell Mr Xi what you think; then to Moscow and Mr Putin; next, India – and, finally, the USA (you may have to sail, again in that expensive pollutant derived yacht (whose crew flew to and fro) – remember?).)

        Then when you have reflected – run away and play.

      4. Google Vanessa Nakate and Dominika Lasota and you should, like me, be horrified at the brain-wash postings.

  73. Here’s the Rev Coles ‘tornado’ on the Met Office rainfall radar. The pointer is over Rushden; you can see to the west the hook in the rainfall. That vortex is not a tornado; they are small features. This is several miles across; Wellingborough, Kettering and Northampton were all badly affected. The hook looks very similar to Michael Fish’s non-hurricane and the similar storm that struck Paris in 1999, for which the term ‘sting-jet’ was coined at the time.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f1cb7344b7697623e73dc4f8e8ee7dbcfdc02977cea623c35b42de1cf4bc968.png

        1. Don’t know how to do that .

          Still one helluva gale blowing here , and I can’t believe we have drawn the curtains and debated whether to put the C/H on .. it will stay off for a while .

          We ate a delicious roast earlier on , free range chicken , strange to have the oven whirring away at mid afternoon .

          Lots of leafy trees have blown down across roads, people have been very lucky

          2. We’re having roast beef, Yorkie pud, small spuds and Brussels sprouts, avec gravy. The beef is roasting and smells so good.

          3. You spoil yourselves. And with reason.

            Pasta bake in yer Fulmodeston.

            (PS Miss yer Bear)

          4. This is the other half of a large roast we bought- ate half and froze t’other.
            I haven’t used my Teddy avatar for ages. I like the rose as it sums up my sunny and gentle personality. (No sniggering you lot!)

          8. In English, Lotl, that’s Boadicea.

            I cannot identify or recognise Boudicca. Spell checker gives me Boadicea.

          12. Anything called bake isn’t woth eating. It’s the name – we’re having mince fry and spaghetti boil for supper today.
            Sounds awful.
            Spaghetti ragu – now that sounds tasty!

          15. We’re having roast beef, Y puds, braised leek, butternut squash and roasties – also gravy for the first time since the spring. Must get on with it.

          16. Bon appetit. I admire your pluck. I simply could not eat a meal that size at night (or even mid-day) now…{:¬((

          21. I love egg fried rice. When I was alone in NC I used to buy a large portion of fried rice and it did me for two meals.

          23. OR – – be an asylum seeker” in a UK hotel and just turn the heating up – – cos SOMEONE ELSE is paying !!!!!

  75. Private Jets Swarm Glasgow for COP26:
    Emit more CO2 than Scots Churn out in a Year
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/10/31/private-jets-swarm-glasgow-for-cop26-emit-

    An estimated 30,000 delegates will fly in to the conference from almost every country in the world, with 192 parties signed up to the Paris Agreement.

    The Herald reports the influx of people requires a greater security presence meaning another 10,000 police officers will travel from various parts of the UK to support the running of the event.

          1. Wind blows too much = trees down taking electricity cables with them & sets wind turbines on fire. Hope they’ve had the same wind in Scotland as in Wilts & COP might be sitting in the dark.

        1. I think if you were there. Did you see the man watching and covering his ears? My thought was if only we, the English, could organize like that.

    5. Interesting! At 1.15 there are two senior coppers not wearing masks, but the junior ones in front of them are.

  77. Gosh – they were right all along about climate change. In just 24 hours the day length has changed – and it is now completely dark at 5.30 pm.

    I wonder what other disasters are about to unfold….

  79. 340713+ up ticks,

    France must ‘withdraw its threats’ in post-Brexit fishing row, Boris Johnson warns Emmanuel Macron
    Briefing war erupted after No 10 rejected Paris’s claims that the leaders had agreed to de-escalate the row in a face-to-face meeting

    The johnson chap gave the frog an ultimatum that if he keeps on he will only receive one kiss on the cheek where as usually two are given before the trousers are pulled up.

  80. I see Randy Andy has accused his accuser of being a recruiter of “slutty” girls.

    Funny thing – I’d have sworn that he said that he has absolutely no knowledge of her, or of ever meeting her…

      1. So did I – but the stupid boy has descended into the arena and accused the girl (whom he doesn’t remember).

      2. Typical controlling abusers, they encouraged the victims to seek out more victims. Oldest trick in the book.

    3. How does he know they were slutty? How slutty were they? Did he test each one individually?

  81. So it is not really about cutting CO2 overall, but levelling up or down, unelected elite people must be sitting in some world governing body somewhere deciding what is fair, if countries with huge populations with large sections living a peasant lifestyle not consuming much that involves CO2 creation then they can be allowed to produce huge climate damaging quantities of CO2 as it takes as part of a levelling up wealth redistribution process while industrialised countries have to de-industrialise or will end up doing so as part of an economic process, like we have been seeing these last few decades.
    What encouragement will these emerging countries have to share that wealth with their people? will they keep it just for their elites as they are not big on the democratic process.
    And if the planet has only 1.5 years to get it’s house in order to prevent the climate from being irreparably damage, has the planet got time to wait while the worlds elites play the wealth redistribution game.
    Dividing it all up based on each countries population and historic production of CO2 does not seem a very good way of saving the planet, if we do not have time to re-order the world in the process.
    The Left appears to like this idea of wealth redistribution no matter if it further impoverishes the poor that they are supposed to represent, because people in other countries are far worse off comparatively.
    This is why Labour is losing their traditional voters and why all parties are becoming more or less the same, people do not have a democratic choice at the ballot box, the climate change agenda is not negotiable.

    1. It’s been the last chance to fix the problem for 20 to 30 years, so another try to scare us is clearly just bullshonet. They can get stuffed.

    2. The statists don’t give a stuff. It isn’t remotely about green. It’s just a tax scam to destroy our economy and way of life.

  82. That’s me gone. Have a jolly evening enjoying the sudden, early darkness.

    These eco-freak Cassandras. They remind me of the “End of the World is Nigh” chaps one used to see in the 1940s and 50s. The were just sooooo right, weren’t they?

    A demain

  84. Private jets flying to COP26 in Glasgow will blast more CO2 than Scots pump out in a year
    The flights – which will produce more global warming gas than 1600 Scots burn through in a year – have been branded “rank climate hypocrisy” and the “nadir of carbon inequality”.

    More than 400 private jets carrying world leaders and business executives to Cop26 will blast 13,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, the Sunday Mail can reveal.

    The flights – which will produce more global warming gas than 1600 Scots burn through in a year – have been branded “rank climate hypocrisy” and the “nadir of carbon inequality”.

    Joe Biden’s Air Force One is expected to touch down in Scotland tonight – one of two aircraft the US President’s entourage uses to travel around the world.

    The French Cotam 001, Canadian Air Force VIP, German Konrad Adenauer, Japanese Air Force One, Air India One and Israeli Wing of Zion are just a few of the others that could be arriving at the summit.

    Our carbon calculations are conservative as they are based on the emissions of the smaller private jets which used by hundreds of the business leaders attending the talks.

    Matt Finch, of the Transport and Environment campaign group, said: “The average private jet, and we are not talking Air Force One, emits two tons of CO2 for every hour in flight. It can’t be stressed enough how bad private jets are for the environment, it is the worst way to travel by miles.Our research has found that most journeys could easily be completed on scheduled flights.

    “Private jets are very prestigious but it is difficult to avoid the hypocrisy of using one while claiming to be fighting climate change.

    “To put it in context, the total carbon footprint of an ordinary citizen – including everywhere they travel and everything they consume – is around eight tonnes a year.

    “So an executive or politician taking one long haul private flight will burn more CO2 than several normal people do in a year.”

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/private-jets-flying-cop26-blast-25338840?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    2. And the volcano on La Palma spewing out a very large amount of stuff for the last 5 weeks? The jolly old Beeb aren’t even reporting it!
      These people are nuts!

        1. I actually find it very depressing and I’m not generally a doommonger! The sheer scale of lying and obfuscation is scary’

      1. Even though it’s meant to be funny – even in 2010 – it’s very near the knuckle, but it may happen – in reverse.

    2. None here.
      SWMBO even prepared sweeties in scary spider paper cups for them, but all to no avail.
      :-((

        2. No idea what goes on round here at Xmas, as we have only been living here since May. I do know there is a carol sing in the community hall near the big day; we may or may not go.

          3. And I reckon MH and I are the youngest here by about 15 years. We are retired however.

          7. I answered a question in a quiz once and was the only person the get it right.
            What have Rosa Klebb and the song Mack the Knife got in common ?
            Answers on a post card ………

          9. Close but no cigar Elsie. At the end of the Song there is a wind down of words and actors names mentioned including Lottie Lenya.

  86. There are lots of visitors in Scotland at the moment. The BBC covered the arrival by train of a dozen Belgians who have come here to protest. (I do not know whether they are for, or against.)
    I do recall that a preacher from the United States was refused entry to this country, as was a journalist from Australia. So.tell me true, why are people who have announced that they are coming here to cause trouble not turned back at the border, or deported as soon as identified?

    2. I wonder how many of those arriving from around the world will return whence they came. I suspect many will either seek asylum or else vanish.

      1. VERY hard question – – go home and PAY for everything in your life – – or – – claim asylum – and don’t. – – —

    3. I think you have your answer as to what their stance is right there – they must be protesting about all us nasty plebs using our cars and heating our houses.

      1. Yes, indeedy. Which is why they enjoy the full support of the chatterati, the MSM, the establishment and the UK and Scottish governments. The folk of Glasgow – not so much.

  87. Here’s a question, especially for the men here. All this fuss about cows etc and all the methane they produce…what on earth do these so-called bloody experts think is going to happen on Xmas day after all those sprouts are ingested? To quote The Goons, “It was hell in there.”

  88. Finally got my daughter married off on Saturday after three lockdown delays
    The weather turned out great in the afternoon and we all had a great day.
    And my speech went down really well, everyone said it was better than Joe Bidens.

    1. Speech was good because you didn’t mumble, fiddle with your notes and congratulate everyone for attending the funeral.

    3. Yay! Glad it went well. Yes, it was wet and lousy here yesterday morning but came out sunny in the afternoon.

  89. Early I know, but I shall take my bottle of French Malbec and read my Kindle book(s).

    Good night and God bless – awaiting the Thunderbolts pouring down on Glasgow – poor buggers, they didn’t ask for Cop-out 26.

        1. And you replied to my own post an hour before I made it. Sorry, Tom, but I find an Argentinian Malbec anything but “mucky”.

    3. Good night, Tom. Remember in future, though, that Argentina produces some excellent Malbecs. Save the French one for when they stop playing silly sausages with British Cockle Ships.

      1. Yellow Tail Australian wine does some very good reds, including Malbec. Shiraz also. I am partial to their Pinot Grigio which I am sipping right now.

      2. The yukkiness of the Argentinian Malbec is the main reason I opt (reluctantly) for the French.

  90. What an exciting time! Just back from strolling Hector round the block, to get waylaid by the Hulk! The local community centre was having a Halloween bash, and I got the exodus! He was vey impressive!

  91. This is a screen-shot of the BBC England website news page (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/england):

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d1eac4b0b2ff3a5503292b7c229604e5481f26110dfef2f284a05d6e474cbff.jpg
    Just take a breath for a moment as you consider the question “Is this when it all went wrong?”

    Click on the link to get this:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-59077502

    This includes the most extraordinary claim: “Analysis shows that for 800,000 years, atmospheric CO2 did not rise above 300 parts per million (ppm).”

    That sentence is a link to this:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58954530

    And what do we find there?

    “Scientists can reconstruct temperature fluctuations even further back in time [than 1850]. Tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments and corals all record a signature of the past climate. This provides much-needed context to the current phase of warming. In fact, scientists estimate the Earth hasn’t been this hot for about 125,000 years.”

    In other words, guesswork. That’s all it is. Which we already knew.

    I have an appointment with my bottle opener…

      1. 1538-1541 1. These four years apparently experienced drought, with 1540 & 1541 particularly dry – in both these latter years, the Thames was so low that sea water extended above London Bridge, even at ebb tide in 1541. Three successive fine / warm summers from 1538-1540: the weather in 1540 was so fine that picking of cherries commenced before the end of May and grapes were ripe in July.
        2. General warmth over Europe during the spring & summer of 1540. For England, there are several references to a hot summer, with great heat & drought; also many deaths due to the ‘Ague’. In this year (1540), there was so little water flowing in the Seine through Paris that people were able to walk across. (The next warm summer of equal worth is possibly that of 2003!)
        (also noted in usw via Holland .. ” 1540 is described in contemporary chronicles as the ‘Big Sun Year’; the lower part of the Rhine from Cologne into the Netherlands is ‘dry’ – it didn’t rain over Italy, with Rome dry for something like 9 months. Forest/city fires, with many people dying of heat stroke, heart failure etc.”)
        3. 1541: as indicated above, another drought year with rivers drying up (must have been quite extreme given that the previous year was notably dry). Cattle / other livestock dying for lack of water: dysentery killed thousands. 8, usw,
        LWH

        1. Can you imagine 1540 weather today! The BBC would be out there screeching that the end is nigh.

    3. Yo WS

      At least the BBC has an English News Website, more than the DT does

      UK News Dropdown Menu is:
      Scotland
      Wales
      Northern Ireland

    4. The Bbc are being incredibly disingenuous in choosing 800,000 years as the cut-off period. Going further back CO2 levels didn’t drop BELOW 1,000 ppm until going back to the Permian and Carboniferous geological eras. Beyond then CO2 levels exceeded 5,000 ppm.

    5. The Beeb news at 10 was a masterpiece of propaganda including Laura K ambushing Boris in Rome, Greta in Glasgow, floods in Bangladesh and refugees in Libya. What they expect us to do about it all escaped me.

  93. The name of one of the BTL posters has just made I laff

    Dwight Vandryver,

    as Labour MP Emily Thornberry said

    2. That electrolier will require transparent high temperature wiring which would be a trial to conceal.

      Edit: I have organised a number of chandelier installations including some early Dutch brass chandeliers from the 1630’s purchased by a client from his physician in Hamburg, and reproduction dishlights and glass chandeliers for several projects.

      The problem with wiring is that the oldest brass chandeliers have solid arms as they were suited to candles. The modern versions of historic brass chandeliers can be made with hollow arms as wire ways. We use flame twist bulbs in wax or simulated wax candles and bulbs simulating flickering flames.

      The C19 dish lights such as those made by Osler were often converted to gas and more easily modified for electric lighting. The original ornate urns containing oil may be retained as decorative features. Alternatively thin and transparent high temperature wiring can be employed clipped to the candelabra arms and tied with inconspicuous brass wire butterflies.

  95. Seems about right:
    “We must vaccinate the unvaccinated to protect the vaccinated who put the unvaccinated at great risk of being infected by the vaccinated who are at great risk of being infected by the unvaccinated who are at great risk of….

    1. This is from Twitter:
      “The ones who are terrified of dying, are terrified of living.
      The ones who aren’t afraid of dying, aren’t afraid of living.”

  96. Heard that 5+ year olds have been recommended for the Covid jab – – but it then said – this does NOT mean it will be – – – – (which means it WILL BE !!!!!! )
    Something SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO wrong with ALL of this. Glad i’m old.

  97. Evening, all. Been a terrible day weather wise. Rain of Biblical proportions, with a noise like a train and a curtain of precipitation, plus floods at the end of my road (fortunately not in the direction I was going when I went out). When I was in church for Songs of Praise the sun came out (the sun shines on the righteous, after all). Went to the local garden for the last day of the season. It was very breezy (perhaps the understatement of the month, if not the year) and as I was going to the chapel, the heavens opened again. Finished off the day with sung Evensong for All Souls. Now that we are back on proper time, I seemed to have plenty of time to do everything, whereas when I was living an hour ahead of my body clock, I always found everything a struggle and a rush.

  98. A very sharp rise in Covid cases occurred in Cornwall after the G7 binge in June.

    What’s the betting it will be even worse in Glasgow after the Great Bogus Climate-Change Hypocrisy Binge?

    2. Whilst I generally wish no ill on people, in this event I am inclined to pray for a new “variant” of the faux pandemic CCP virus which will infect the COP26 bastards and disrupt their evil Satanic mission to enslave us all. Let us call it the Gorbals’ variant as the occupants of that forsaken part of Glasgow are still impoverished and have long deserved better.

      On second thoughts we could replace the Gorbals’ variant with its true antecedent, the Goebbels variant. The ‘vaccines’ are after all licensed to kill, no less.

  99. I believe we are in unconscionable times driven by corrupt and irresponsible politicians who have sold us out to their globalist masters. Every single leading politician has for years profited from endorsements, pay backs for preferences and even the act of reciting speeches to a globalist cabal willing to pay millions for past favours.

    Does anyone truly believe that a speech by Blair, Cameron or Theresa May is worth more than a small bag of brass washers and not the millions these traitors have accrued.

    Our society is almost lost to the reprehensible activities and self interest of these bastards. Surely it is time to take our country back.

      1. Several people have commented on how the WEF and the globalists seem to have moved into a phase where they don’t care that we can see what they are doing, and even, they appear to think that they have got our forgiveness if they tell us what they are up to, for example there is nothing secret about the plan to restrict our freedoms via vaccine passports.
        It’s most odd.
        The closest parallel I can think of is a violent abuser who doesn’t hide what they are up to – they force other people to accept their behaviour by pushing it into their faces, with the implicit threat of violence if anyone protests.

        1. Morning BB. I would agree with that! They no longer care what we think. They go through the motions of course, the propaganda and the suppression of opposition but they’re not really bothered what we think or say. They have the whip hand and that’s enough!

      2. Given that they are hurling coins into the fountain I thought the headline writers would have used the caption:

        “A complete set of Tossers!”

        The asiatic chappie seems a bit disconcerted that the fountain doesn’t seem to want to accept his debit card….

        Morning Minty et al….

    3. They all look like sacks of shit tied in the middle with a piece of string. Except for Macron. Obviously his Maman dressed him.

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