Sunday 5 December: Omicron panic has put the journey towards normality into reverse

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

518 thoughts on “Sunday 5 December: Omicron panic has put the journey towards normality into reverse”

  2. Mel Brooks on losing the loves of his life: ‘People know how good Carl Reiner was, but not how great’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c13015953fa0addab289c861ef94764377a8794c/0_140_6860_4796/master/6860.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=c66d7c76ce5c2a422faef6c36f6c559f
    ‘We didn’t become comics out of misery. We became comics because there are a lot of laughs in Jewish households.’ Photograph: Andy Gotts/Camera Press

    From best friend Carl Reiner to wife Anne Bancroft, the great comic has had to face great loss. But even in the middle of a pandemic, the 95-year-old is still finding ways to laugh

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/04/mel-brooks-on-losing-the-loves-of-his-life-people-know-how-g

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/04/mel-brooks-on-losing-the-loves-of-his-life-people-know-how-g

    1. Good morning Michael. Albeit against my religion, I clicked on the above link and got an Error 404 play message…..

      1. Can’t figure out why it’s not working. Go to Observer/Guardian front page and click on it

    1. Good morning, Bob3. Here the rain is predicted to last all morning, stopping at midday.

  4. Omicron panic has put the journey towards normality into reverse

    Now who could have possibly predicted that would happen?

    2. The SA doctor who identified this variant said it was no worse than the common cold. The government is lying to us again. Well, there’s a surprise!

  5. These pics are well worth a look

    2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year – People’s Choice Award

    The Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is inviting fans of wildlife photography from around the world to vote for the winner of the People’s Choice Award. This year’s 25 unforgettable scenes were shortlisted by the Natural History Museum from more than 50,000 image entries from 95 countries

    The images are currently on display at the Natural History Museum in London, until the voting ends on 2 February 2022. The winner will then be showcased until the exhibition closes on 5 June 2022
    Wed 1 Dec 2021 07.00 GMT

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2021/dec/01/2021-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-people

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ac70840ad91a28a563a060c9d2d0efa9e429fd47/0_0_4375_2917/master/4375.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=4f2f64b75a8afeacdac4ae8dfff4aa70

    1. How very apt. The People’s Choice Award – Drawing attention to all the elephants in the room!

    2. Mrs Dumbo – “we elephants have long memories, you are not coming anywhere near baby Dumbo with those vaccine jabs”.

    3. Good morning, Citroen1. Here’s another Guardian link which gives Error 404 when clicked on.

        1. In the past I have declined to accept their cookies. Perhaps that’s why the link won’t open until I submit….?

  6. Morning all,

    This piece postulates that Omicron could have teamed up with ‘snippets’ of the human cold virus. As far as the virus is concerned this could be a good move as it would have increased its mobility and ability to replicate in its host. At the same time however it could well have weakened its immunity which ironically could be better for it to survive in its host because it wouldn’t kill it.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/omicron-variant-may-have-picked-up-piece-common-cold-virus-2021-12-03/

    1. Oh my goodness, the common cold! Runny noses, sniffles, or worse, full blown sneezes. Double up on masks, get a ‘booster’, isolate yourself from humanity. You’re unlikey to die but PANIC, you know it makes sense.
      Seriously, the symptoms of this “variant” started as mild i.e. a feeling of fatigue with some muscle/joint aches that lasted fora couple of days and was simply treated at home: no mention of respiratory problems. I saw a segment of Channel 4 news trying to ‘BIG’ it up a few days ago and now…
      …awaiting a serious faced and serious toned speech from Johnson telling us it’s the worst yet or has he already done that and I wasn’t paying attention? Can’t see this shower in government giving up on a variant any time soon.

  7. Posing in one of our few tanks, Liz Truss, is not the same as being an Iron Lady. Peterr Hitchens. 5 Decemberr 2021.

    Now, as we posture as the defenders of Europe against a much-touted Russian threat which may or may not exist, Britain has a mere 227 Challenger tanks and is busy reducing its Army from 82,000 personnel – already a record low in modern times – to 73,000.

    If we really believed the speeches we made, would we actually be cutting our Armed Forces as we are?
    You tell me, but I have always thought that actions spoke louder than words.

    I note there is also an official drive to double the number of women in the British Army and to ‘tackle its male-dominated culture’. Well, such quotas usually lead to a lowering of physical standards, and, as most women aren’t especially keen on being soldiers, the main outcome is that more weedy men can join up.

    I can promise you that the Russian Army continues to have a ‘male-dominated culture’, to put it gently, and does not plan to tackle it any time soon, and I am concerned about what might happen if our feminist forces ever actually clash with it.

    Morning everyone. The UK’s Real Defence Policy in a nutshell!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10275333/PETER-HITCHENS-Posing-one-tanks-Liz-Truss-not-Iron-Lady.html

    3. Russians boasting of their male-dominated armed forces? Whilst they have a point I support, it’s ironic given Russia/USSR used so many women in front line roles in both WW1 and WW2 whereas the other nations had none, something that Russians have delighted in with a multitude of films covering their exploits, from WW1 infantry to WW2 fighter and bomber pilots.

    1. Morning Stephen. Fauci, as is common in America, is subject to considerably more hostility than here!

      1. Dr Martin claims:

        “Over the past two decades, my company – M·CAM – has been monitoring possible violations of the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (the Geneva Protocol) 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction (the BTWC). In our 2003-2004 Global Technology Assessment: Vector Weaponization M·CAM highlighted China’s growing involvement in Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology with respect to joining the world stage in chimeric construction of viral vectors. Since that time, on a weekly basis, we have monitored the development of research and commercial efforts in this field, including, but not limited to, the research synergies forming between the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Harvard University, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Tsinghua University, University of Pennsylvania, many other research institutions, and their commercial affiliations.”

        1. Anyone who has not seen Dr David Martin on video laying out the decades long trail back to the original patents for the development of these dangerous pathogens should do so. It is revealing and frankly, terrifying what has been done in the name of research.

  11. Morning all

    Omicron panic has put the journey towards normality into reverse

    SIR – The reaction to the omicron variant has shown us what will happen when another mutation emerges, and another one after that. We have seen the panicked imposition of restrictions on our freedoms, without proper parliamentary scrutiny.

    All Covid developments should be taken seriously, but this does not justify the illiberal policies advocated by zero-Covid fanatics. The journey back to normality has stalled.

    David Muir

    Bristol

    SIR – I have had enough of the way this Government panics whenever a new variant rears its head.

    I’ve been triple-jabbed and flu-jabbed, yet still the powers that be are not satisfied. This nonsense must stop.

    John Baker

    Crayford, Kent

    SIR – My children are currently forced to wear masks at school for six hours a day all week. At break times they have to go outside, whatever the weather, so that the year groups don’t mix, while the teachers sit in the common room unmasked drinking coffee.

    Their clubs, end-of-term concerts, nativity plays and sporting fixtures have now (once again) been cancelled – and all because of a virus that affects them no more than a common cold. How can this be right?

    Archie Graham-Palmer

    Wrexham

    SIR – No 10 has told us not to cancel our Christmas celebrations. I’m sure we can rely on it to do that for us.

    David McManamon

    Highworth, Wiltshire

    SIR – Thank goodness the Government has made “face coverings” mandatory in crowded situations.

    These should be proper masks, consisting of at least three layers of a close-woven, absorbent material such as cotton, and fitting comfortably over the mouth and nose. A mask made in this way will intercept a decent proportion of the saliva droplets. It will also protect against other saliva-borne viruses such as influenza.

    I hope that these rules are in place throughout the winter.

    Robert Simpson-White

    Coleford, Gloucestershire

    SIR – It seems I must wear a mask on London transport and in shops but not when I do a pilates class or play bridge at my club.

    Linda Major

    London SW15

    SIR – I tried to book a booster jab. All the options were miles away, so I left it.

    Later, I tried again and secured a venue that I could walk to. When I arrived, I discovered that the clinic had been cancelled. Nobody had told me.

    I then booked another venue but that involves standing in a long queue for some 45 minutes outside at 6.30pm in the freezing cold. What is going on with our once fantastic vaccination programme?

    Stan Grabecki

    St Albans, Hertfordshire

      2. Living in Coleford – one of the lowest areas for covid.
        Must be fanatical if he thinks a bit of cloth is enough to stop a virus.

      3. Living in Coleford – one of the lowest areas for covid.
        Must be fanatical if he thinks a bit of cloth is enough to stop a virus.

  12. Public sexual harassment could become criminal offence in England and Wales. 5 December 2021.

    A review of hate crime legislation is expected to ask the government to consider criminalising public sexual harassment after a years-long campaign by women’s rights organisations and lawyers.

    Those campaigning for a change in the law welcomed the news. “The principle behind what I drafted is about the fundamental right that women and girls have equal access to public spaces,” said Dexter Dias, a human rights lawyer who has been working for the last three years to draft a bill to criminalise street sexual harassment with the youth-led campaign group Our Streets Now and the barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman..

    Yet another law against quite normal, though to some irritating or offensive behaviour! This one, as so many, is unsurprisingly aimed at the relationship between Men and Women by Lesbians. Personally I would like to outlaw all sorts of things; Speaking Loudly or People Groping in public are two, talking into your mobile in the presence of others another, and being, Impolite, Scruffy and Smelly yet others. Sadly I realise that these are not only unachievable but the inevitable consequence of living in an overcrowded and overpopulated Society where the Good must perforce rub shoulders with the Bad! The idea that we should all have our own little Private Worlds where everyone else lives according to our personal dictates is appealing but it is also the sign of the monomaniac who has abandoned Common Sense or any idea of Tolerance.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/04/public-sexual-harassment-could-become-criminal-offence-in-england-and-wales

    1. It strikes me that there must be strong lobbies at work from the Unified Congress of Dating Agencies. If anyone is seen to be showing any interest in sex in public then this must be stamped out and punished.

      But as it is impossible completely to stamp out the sly biological urge (as Noel Coward called it) people will still try and find opportunities furtively by using the services of dating agencies.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykan2f1I0pc

  13. A cold coming

    SIR – During the Winter of Discontent, when there were long-term power outages throughout the country, my father bought a small portable generator, fuelled by petrol.

    This supplied enough electricity to facilitate the operation of the gas-fired central heating and power the TV, along with a couple of lights. As it is now obvious that we are heading for another winter of power outages, I have recovered it from the attic and checked that it still works. I feel sorry for the residents of all-electric homes.

    Alan Belk

    Leatherhead, Surrey

    SIR – Sitting by my wood-burner last weekend, I was reminded of a tour guide in Tromsø, Norway, who told us that all houses had to have one of these. The guide added that, in a power cut, you can give your neighbour a bag of logs – but not a bucket of electricity.

    Dave Mason

    Elgin, Moray

    1. Good thinking Mr Belk. It’s pretty obvious that generators and the link to the domestic supply will soon become ubiquitous those among us who can afford them!

    2. But we didn’t have “Power Outages” during the Winter of discontent, we had “Power Cuts”. Why have we adopted yet another Americanism?

  14. Good morning all!
    A dull grey start with 1°C outside. At least it’s not raining yet. If the rain stays off I might get those trees I began logging yesterday finished.

  15. The BBC has a page, “O’Micron: How do you detect it?” The page seems to lack the obvious advice, so it does. If you are infected by O’Micron the signs will include; a craving for Guinness, a need to dance about rattling your feet on the floor without any music. Speech is also affected. You will find yourself repeating yourself, to be sure, to be sure. You will also mumble meaningless expletives, such as “Begorrah!’ None of this is serious or life-threatening, although it may affect your lifestyle. It can become serious, you can tell when this happens as you begin to tell jokes involving Pat, Mick and Stick, while waving a shillelagh. At this point it will have become incurable and you should think about moving to Mullingar (that Great City).
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59460252

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APO97Hvr30w

  16. The Climate Change Committee has vastly overplayed its hand. 5 December 2021.

    The UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) this week published a report on the outcome of COP26, predictably calling for government to “walk the talk” and implement policies that will deliver net zero by 2050. True to form, the CCC is acting like an eco-activist NGO rather than offering balanced and independent advice. And, as usual, its recommendations are being treated as beyond questioning.

    To grasp the scale of influence this independent advisory body now holds, look no further than Parliament’s decision in 2019 to wave through the net zero target without even a Commons vote. In a move that one expert described as a “failure of politics,” our elected representatives bypassed the opportunity to scrutinise the policy and associated secondary legislation, because they relied on the CCC’s improbable assessment that net zero was “necessary, feasible, cost effective” and “achievable with known technologies”.

    The economic analysis in the Committee’s 2019 Net Zero Report has been subsequently criticised for a lack of rigour and transparency. Detailed economic analysis on net zero pathways was absent, but the CCC nonetheless concluded the cost of achieving it by 2050 would be 1-2 per cent of GDP. The underlying calculations weren’t published until long after the legally binding target had been legislated. But deference towards bodies like the Climate Change Committee allows government departments to introduce potentially costly or disruptive policies without taking full responsibility for their decisions – or full accountability if things go wrong.

    This autumn it became starkly apparent that, with current technology, our small island can either be net zero or have secure and affordable energy. It cannot, at present, have both. In guiding us towards very specific targets rather than planning for a range of outcomes over a lengthy period, the CCC is helping shut down the market discovery process, meaning we may never uncover the most cost-effective solutions to decarbonisation.

    In the 13 years since the CCC was established, its scope has expanded enormously to include ever-increasing areas of the economy and our way of life. This latest briefing, for instance, makes pronouncements on foreign aid, insisting we should “restore the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP”. The report also takes a view on our diets, seeking to cut meat and dairy consumption by reducing demand not just to reduce emissions or pressure on land for deforestation, but also to benefit “public health”. It was F A Hayek who wrote that “the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good”.

    The Committee’s solutions are statist, interventionist and lacking thorough cost-benefit analysis. And though it was set up to provide quality advice including on the economic and social implications of climate policies, it is monomaniacal about decarbonisation.

    What’s more, almost all of its resources are devoted towards mitigation rather than adaptation – a gamble when our contribution to global emissions is so small that meaningful success in the former relies on the kind of international action COP26 hoped, and failed, to guarantee.

    The idea that, if we are to halt climate change then we need to start doing things differently, has become mainstream in a way that eco-warriors from the 1990s only dreamt of. That the climate change challenge is being taken seriously by politicians is a positive development. But if the body advising the Government on climate change does not learn how to make balanced decisions pegged to rigorous cost-benefit analysis, then we will soon find ourselves in deeply troubled waters.

    Serfdom and Starvation in one package!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/04/climate-change-committee-has-vastly-overplayed-hand/

    1. All of these things should be premised on the fact that stopping climate change is impossible.

      1. Your very sensible suggestion lacks a little bit of the control factor and financial chicanery that both politicians and big business require.

      2. Climate change has always happened. It always will and there is little that proud humankind, dressed in a little brief authority, will be able to do to change those changes.

  17. Just in case you were wondering!

    A useful manual for the man who doesn’t have a clue!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94063b1a68bbc2b1a08c0078edc8085de584d39fd77e80c2497238cb8d52039e.jpg

    It’s not difficult to make a woman happy.
    A man only needs to be:

    1. a friend
    2. a companion
    3. a lover
    4. a brother
    5. a father
    6. a master
    7. a chef
    8. an electrician
    9. a carpenter
    10. a plumber
    11. a mechanic
    12. a decorator
    13. a stylist
    14. a sexologist
    15. a gynaecologist
    16. a psychologist
    17. a pest exterminator
    18. a psychiatrist
    19. a healer
    20. a good listener
    21. an organiser
    22. a good father
    23. very clean
    24. sympathetic
    25. athletic
    26. warm
    27. attentive
    28. gallant
    29. intelligent
    30. funny
    31. creative
    32. tender
    33. strong
    34. understanding
    35. tolerant
    36. prudent
    37. ambitious
    38. capable
    39. courageous
    40. determined
    41. true
    42. dependable
    43. passionate
    44. compassionate

    WITHOUT FORGETTING TO:

    45. give her compliments regularly
    46. love shopping
    47. be honest
    48. be very rich
    49. not stress her out
    50. not look at other girls

    AND AT THE SAME TIME, YOU MUST ALSO:

    51. give her lots of attention, but expect little yourself
    52. give her lots of time, especially time for herself
    53. give her lots of space, never worrying about where she goes

    IT IS VERY IMPORTANT:

    54. Never to forget:
    * birthdays
    * anniversaries
    * arrangements she makes.

    ….and in case you wondered ….
    HOW TO MAKE A MAN HAPPY
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5909a6c83f0695df93d63d020a12d676742292267a4c20d20254eaebc193f0e7.gif
    1. Show up naked
    2. Bring alcohol

        1. Oops, sorry, I got it wrong again, Dad.

          I shall now go out and thrash myself with a birch twig.

          1. Be careful not to catch cold. Please see the warning above. (A sauna is OK, but skip the plunge into the ice pool.)

    2. I’ve posted this before but it’s good:
      Advice to Husbands

      To keep your marriage brimming
      With love in the loving cup,
      When you are wrong- admit it,
      When you are right, shut up!

      Ogden Nash.

    2. As I mentioned last night – if that theory were true then it’s surprising that anyone remains alive in Norway, Finland, Siberia etc!

      1. It’s the Nordic lifestyle that gives Scandanavians such a high life expectancy.

        Siberia? That has the lowest life expectancy of all the Russian regions!

    3. Ah, you should check before posting. Although not a medical man, I have for decades been involved with medical statistics. I can assure you that there is a long-standing relationship of blood clots and heart attacks with the season, winter and January in particular being bad.

      Edited 11:10 as I missed out ‘and heart attacks’

      1. This is why letting the elderly get really cold can be fatal; it isn’t the getting cold so much as the heart attack that follows a short time later.

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Headline in today’s DT:

    ‘Star chamber’ to wage war on Whitehall’s wasteful spending

    Move designed to put pressure on ministers to achieve value for money for billions of pounds of spending on public services

    Well, I’m still still waiting for the much-vaunted ‘bonfire of the quangos’ promised by Dodgy Dave.

    Meanwhile, how many Snivel Serpents will be required to oversee this load of meaningless waffle? And what has happened to the Public Accounts Committee? Are they asleep on the job?

    The cynic in me regards this announcement as just another lie from a government that has embraced profligacy, and it will be forgotten about in short order. Let’s face it, any government department that could hand over millions to Stonewall is terminally stupid and not about to change its ways!

    1. “A senior government source said: “The Prime Minister and Rishi want to change the mentality of departments to ensure they are constantly focused on delivery and efficiency.””

      The concept of delivery is alien to Government, they are process driven. Government departments do not work to delivery, they work to the process laid down in the rule book. A change to this would require a culture change which is against everything this woke, left leaning multiculturalist loving, trade unionist driven civil service stands for. It would require accountability. Ha!

    3. “Bonfire of the Quangos” always transmogrifies into “Quango of the Bonfires” and other selected causes such as Replacement of Gas Boilers. Any subjects too hot or Gov not keen to handle are covered by “kicking into long grass” (ie commission long-term research study at a University where academics have interest in prolonging with follow-up granted research projects).

  21. I cannot believe the Telegraph front page should so endorse the greed and medical malpractice of the last months by enthusiastically welcoming a drug that will make more millions whilst ignoring those that work well for Covid. So many now dead for want of Ivermectin Hydroxychloroquine and fluvoxamine, the latter proving better and better. Telegraph journalists don’t even mention them nor ever have.

    1. In a comment published in the Lancet Global Health the same day as the study, Otavio Berwanger, a clinical researcher and director of the Academic Research Organization at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Brazil, tempered praise of the research with the conclusion that “the definitive answer regarding the effects of fluvoxamine on individual outcomes such as mortality and hospitalisations still need addressing,” and called “the inconclusive effects on patient-important outcomes such as hospitalisation and mortality” one of the study’s main limitations.…..???

      1. I understood that the Lancet is now tainted in pretty much the same way as the rest of the msm?

  22. 342475+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Sunday 5 December: Omicron panic has put the journey towards normality into reverse, fact.

    Sunday 5 December: Omicron panic has put the journey towards normality into reverse via yet another layer of treacherous manipulation courtesy of the once again, elected overseers / pharmaceutical palm greasers.

    Keep in mind that 48% of this nation wanted misguided mothering, a return to the womb via brussels and many of the 52 % wanted a cosy return to the old pre brexit party’s lab/lib/con knowing they were pro eu rubber stamping assets up until the 24/6/2016 result.

    Using the results of by elections the future looks very dark indeed, and as for the GAY stance the latest political creation, ( by election victor)
    was taking then there is plenty to worry about.

    The whole country’s security is a reverse sieve powered by party ZOMBIES unable to acknowledge that they are supporting the very politico’s / party’s that are working to a treacherous anti United Kingdom agenda.

    The sure sign of a fool ” I voted for the best of the worst”
    The sign of a COMPLETE idiot is ” I have always done that for years”

  23. Good morning, all. Grey skies: northerly wind.

    I see spamhead slammer has countermanded Shitts and insisted on tests BEFORE one leaves the country. Bet he doesn’t have shares in any airline.

    1. I have shares in Jet2, having held them for well over 25 years since they were Dart, a transportation company with some aircraft transporting flowers from the CI. The share price bombed with every arse-covering ban or cost thrown in the way, repeatedly recovering only to be hit again. I can accept a fall due to Covid, recovering to 75% of the pre-Covid price by this summer, but the government’s dithering and cowardice have knocked another 1/3 off the share price.

      I count myself lucky to have the shares in the first place and their strong rise since I had them, but even so I’m furious with Johnson and his mob for the unnecessary carnage on my finances.

    1. It’s coming, Ogga, slowly. I have just made the same comment above to Rik – apologies, I didn’t see yours first. I no look underneathery!

  26. Yo All

    Number 10 speeds up deliveries of antivirals as omicron variant forces return of pre-flight virus tests

    Stop Press

    200 GPs sent to Calais, to carry out Pre Flight virus tests on, and give jabs to, all potential Doveristas, before they are allowed to embark in the little rubber boats

    Border Farce, will become Boarder Farce and check the Gimmegrants have had the correct tests and jabs

    After Three weeks, the GPs will be new buyers on “Escape to the Chateau: DIY”, havng earned enough money from jabbing

    1. As someone recently suggested, they must have spent years stockpiling these “vaccines”. There must be huge warehouses somewhere with all of this stuff packed and labelled and ready for despatch.

    2. So THAT’S why GPs are nowhere to be seen. Are they assuming every one of these savages will get here?
      What an unacceptable waste of OUR money. Why not simply incarcerate them in secure, basic compounds when they get here, maybe test and jab while they wait to be deported …. oh, wait, they will never be sent packing.
      The way to end this nightmare of hundreds of thousands of illegals coming in is to make it known, and to stick by, that illegal arrival will mean never being allowed to remain and only basic, SECURE (very tall, electrified barbed wire perimeter fences, hungry dogs patrolling etc) accommodation (and non-halal food). The message would soon get back to their homelands.

    1. The truth will out one way or another. “The never before told stories that will shock you to the core….” I don’t think anything will shock me now.

  28. #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1cb7d58c2a81bc2128ebb5af372eb9184b04a486425f0bf84954adbb209ee37.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1339843b0408360bd901431317d88975c16a058e743724108e6631104343d465.gif

    https://twitter.com/delbigtree/status/1467136254886219777?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffc6367c811039d9b20a78027ccbd3e45dcef9352336c2d6e620112391192cd2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd0c1705394831907d671b4de07d8317107e3183908450a1a9196b9c0c30ad7c.jpg

    2. Do the Frogs have a maritime rescue service, cos they don’t seem to do a great deal of rescuing.

  30. Vitriolic France seems intent on trashing the precious Franco-British relationship
    French politicians use the sort of language that one might expect from a tinpot dictatorship

    DT article by Robert Tombs
    (I shall post the article below this post)

    We have not experienced any anti-British sentiment in Brittany – but, owing to Covid restrictions, we don’t get about as much as we did. Some BTL comments suggest that Macron is violently anti-British because his Napoleonic vision is to be the president of Europe (just as both Hitler, and recently, Blair, had similar narcissistic visions) and he feels that if Brexit is a success this egotistical ambition will be thwarted

    BTL: Ben Gerstein

    According to their own polls, the French don’t think much of Macron. His hysterical insults and desperation to be re-elected no doubt reflect this.
    Grown up countries like the U.K. should just ignore him but be willing to withdraw any assistance or cooperation until France has elected an adult.

    RCT: Reply to Ben Gerstein

    Macron is as unfit to lead France as Johnson is unfit to lead Britain.

    Peter Bolt : Reply to Ben Gerstein

    It would seem a fair amount of support (and encouragement ) for the posturing by the French political elite emanates from ” rabid remainers ” this side of the Channel

    1. DT article by Robert Tombs

      As someone who has spent most of his adult life studying and writing about France, who has a partly French family, who speaks French and could reasonably be described as a Francophile, I admit that I find it difficult to understand the stream of bile aimed at Britain that now issues almost daily from the French political elite.

      Now, I understand the anger, the disappointment, the frustration, the humiliation. Brexit threw a giant spanner into the works of France’s greatest project, European integration – something the French state has worked at for nearly a century. Its politicians and pundits proclaimed that Britain after Brexit was heading for economic disaster and political isolation. Despite the best efforts of the Remainer die-hards to talk up every problem, and even labelling every success as ‘despite Brexit’, we have been outpacing Europe over Covid and hence economically too.

      Casting off the EU’s cumbersome medical regulatory regime enabled us to develop and use an effective vaccine at lightning speed – a vaccine Emmanuel Macron did his utmost to discredit. Then came the humiliation for France – and particularly for its present politicians – of the Aukus agreement, in which they were summarily dropped from a new alignment of Anglophone countries in the Pacific. This after President Macron had boasted that France was Europe’s leading naval power and a major presence in the Pacific, the new centre of the world, in a century in which, he said, the great issues would be decided not on land but at sea. So all in all, one can appreciate that the French are very annoyed and that they intensely dislike some of their British counterparts.

      But this is not the same as using the violent and provocative language that has become the norm in French pronouncements on Franco-British relations over the past few months. Although the anti-Boris / pro-EU media in the UK try to put the blame for deteriorating relations on both sides, or indeed on Britain, there has been no similar slanging from Whitehall. But French politicians now use the sort of language that one might expect from a tinpot dictatorship, not from a mature democracy and ally. Insults (directed personally at ‘liar’ and ‘clown’ Boris Johnson), threats, and (to be polite) inaccurate statements have become the norm. Some of this comes from rank-and-file members of parliament or local politicians, and if it stopped there, it could be discounted.

      But we now regularly hear Anglophobic comments, public and pseudo-private, from senior figures, such as would-be president Xavier Bertrand, and even from ministers, including the veteran Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, the Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, the young Europe minister, Clément Beaune, and from Emmanuel Macron himself. Indeed, the president has just caused a minor stir by reportedly calling Johnson a “gougnafier” – an amusingly archaic term, much favoured by my wife’s grandmother, and which my dictionary defines as good for nothing, insignificant, and without manners or social graces.

      The cynical might put this down to political game-playing in the run-up to an election. If so, it doesn’t seem to be working very well, as the French press shows little interest, and even comes close to siding with Britain on occasions. But in any case, it has gone far beyond the usual politicking. It seems to show that the French political class will risk sacrificing their (very important) relationship with Britain to other priorities – such as Macron’s desire to show himself as the EU’s strong man.

      But speculation aside, let us look briefly at some of the recent outbursts.

      First, over fishing. The EU signed, on behalf of all its members, an agreement on fishing rights which gave much to the EU, and especially to France, which has taken the lion’s share of licences to fish in British waters. Britain has been applying the agreed rules, which require that EU boats wishing to fish in British waters prove that they have done so in the past. The French government, with bluster and (arguably illegal) threats to cross-Channel trade and power supplies, demand that this should be set aside, and licenses given in effect to any French boat that asks. They ignore the terms of the agreement, including that which gives the EU the sole right to negotiate.

      Next, Northern Ireland. On this matter, in contrast, they insist that nothing in the Northern Ireland Protocol can be altered, although the text itself says the opposite. On fishing, the agreement is rubbished as a mere scrap of paper; over Northern Ireland, Paris’s interpretation becomes Holy Writ.

      Macron has now taken a serious and dangerous step further, proclaiming that the Single Market and hence the EU itself is at stake (it isn’t: the amount of cross-border trade is tiny), and that it is a matter of peace or war in Ireland – a recklessly inflammatory inflation of language in a situation in which pro-EU politicians have long insisted that peace was their ultimate aim.

      Finally, the question of illegal cross-Channel migration. First, the French claimed that they were doing everything they possibly could to stop it – until videos appeared of French police standing by watching embarkations. This in a country in which even an old-age-pensioners’ rally would be escorted by an ample force of riot police. Also it emerged that people traffickers had long been buying rubber boats at Decathlon – and no one had noticed? So then the tone changed: it was all Britain’s fault, alleged the Interior Minister, for having such an attractive labour market (unlike France’s, one presumes).

      Perhaps realising that this was not a wise argument to pursue, especially given the official line that post-Brexit Britain is (in Macron’s words) ‘catastrophique’, Clément Beaune then weighed in with the grossly insulting accusation that working in Britain was ‘modern slavery’ (so migrants are attracted by slavery?) This is an old French trope: France has regulations, Britain has anarchy. So, according to Beaune and others, the only reason migrants go to Britain is that they have no identity papers and can work illegally – so says the Mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, backed up by the Minister of the Interior Darmanin.

      The problem with this argument is that it is untrue, as MM. Beaune and Darmanin, if they are up to their jobs, must know, as studies by the EU have shown it. In fact, Britain has the third lowest level of illegal working in Europe, behind only Germany and Luxembourg, and slightly over half the EU average. The European Commission has even commended Britain’s 2015 law against modern slavery, and one French newspaper recently praised action against sweat shops taken by Priti Patel.

      So why the unprecedented level of public insults and provocation? As I said earlier, I find it troubling to explain. Emmanuel Macron’s personality must be a large part of the story. He is widely disliked in France for what is perceived as arrogance, and he has a long record of tactless comments. He could tell his ministers to stop this language if he wished. But the most persistent offender, Clément Beaune, is a close associate and little more than Macron’s mouthpiece. I have to conclude, with regret, that the present French government is deliberately trashing the Franco-British relationship, at least as important to France as to us.

      The only logic I can imagine behind this is that they think that if they keep the pressure up, Boris Johnson and his government will be damaged enough so that eventually some pro-EU replacement will turn the UK back (however long it takes) towards docility with regard to Brussels and Paris. That would indeed be a huge prize for which they might be willing to take huge risks. So they apply General de Gaulle’s formula for dealing with the British: “Bang the table and they back down.” Unless of course the motive is nothing more than Macron’s petulant vanity.

      1. When I allowed for their idiosyncrasies I liked the ordinary French people I’ve met over many years of foreign travel for both work and pleasure.

        France has seen itself since Napoleonic days as the cultural and political leader of Europe, only dented by the disgraces of the Franco-Prussian war and capitulation in 1940. They set up the EEC then EU as a Franco-German run system to use their weight to overpower the rest of Europe and the expectation that they would be the dominant partner.

        Since Margaret Thatcher, France’s elite have manoeuvred the U.K. to where they wanted it, controlling it through the EU and our naive and lazy behaviour, milking it for money and setting up a huge trade surplus. These French elites saw Brexit as an almighty snub and have behaved like a scorned woman ever since.

      2. European integration – something the French state has worked at for nearly a century.

        Twice, in the lasr Century, Britain and her Commonwealth Allies, stopped the French integrating with Germany and a few other Axis countries.

        They have never forgiven us for that

      3. The only result of Micron’s posturing is that I, a confirmed Francophile, no longer buy French products. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Emmanuel.

      1. My observations suggest that many animals are quite smart. They just don’t let on.

        3. My second Golden taught himself to undo the bathroom door and to open the latch on an oustside gate. We had to warn guests to make sure they closed the bathroom door tight if they went to the loo or were in the shower. Otherwise they got a visitor!

          1. I had a friend who taught her dog to close doors.

            Brilliant.

            When she was carrying something with both hands, Fido would run ahead and close the door she was approaching!!

          2. One of our cats could open the fridge door…….. he was also first into the shopping bags in search of goodies. When he wanted to come in from the garden, he let his brother do all the work attracting attention by banging on the windows – and then he would just shoot past when the door was opened. His brother would also rattle the door knocker. They were quite a pair – now long gone but never forgotten.

  34. Morning all, a middling day, can’t make up its mind to be one thing or another.

    From Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday.

    “I wonder why hardly anyone has pointed out that the anagram of ‘Omicron’ is ‘Moronic’. It is quite easy to work out, and I suspect that the reason is the sort of hushed reverence everyone has now for everything to do with Covid.”

  35. Good Moaning. If your taste runs to overall sogginess with a soupçon of cold, as well.
    Well, am I impressed or am I impressed?
    When I check my junk mail I am amazed at the number of Asda, Tesco and Post Office employees who can send lengthy texts in Chinese. Supermarkets employ polyglots; who knew? As a bonus, they worry about my sex life and tinnitus as well.

    2. They don’t happen to have a suitcase of Nectar vouchers, do they? I received an email from a chap who wanted me to help him move them out of the country.

        1. This is very odd. I get – perhaps – one spam a week. Perhaps you need some better filter?

          1. You get lots of spam by visiting dodgy sites.

            Anne has clearly been looking at too much porn.

            I, of course don’t get any spam at all.

          2. Just deleted 220 spam – and one which I replied to from a local person who had found a dead hedgehog. I was polite.

          3. If you use gmail it does a good job of filtering them out into a spam folder. They are deleted automatically after 30 days. I usually have a look every week or two to see if anything went in there by mistake and then delete the rest. I get hundreds.

    3. I used to get lots in Chinese but lately they are mainly French or German.

      I never open them, instantly delete all.

    1. Reminds me of an old joke……………
      The l
      Lone Ranger and Tonto caught by an ambush, hiding behinds some handy rocks. The Lone Ranger says “Injuns Tonto we’re surrounded”…..Tonto Waddyou meen we Kimosabi ?

    1. ‘Morning Phil
      Thanks for the recommend on Adrian Tchaikovsky deep into “Shards of Earth”
      Very good so far

  39. 342478+ up ticks,
    I did post covid pills would follow on some time back, then to really wring the last little drop from the, mainly scam how about a granny musical snuff box holding covid powder ?

    Covid pill to be rolled out before Christmas
    Number 10 speeds up deliveries of antivirals as omicron variant forces return of pre-flight virus tests

      3. 342478+ up ticks,
        Afternoon G,
        First you find a very.very long queue,he will be situated at the front singing all I want for Christmas is me two front …..

    2. Neil Mackay is… not a normal human being. He is displaying ignorance, stupidity and absolute fascism.

      The sad thing is, he’s the sort who would have those he disagrees with in camps, tattooed.

      He needs an adult to sit with him and have him explain his reasoning, then to point out that he is a verminous toad who needs a beating. Done properly, he’ll do it himself.

  41. 342478+ up ticks,
    The dangers of islamic ideology as pointed out in 2005 by Gerard Batten rhetorically & in book form, in the pursuit of following the lab/lib/con paedophile umbrella coalition NO heed was taken.

    Consequently via the polling booth we have a sample of islamic followers in parliament, taking oaths on an instruction manual NO unbeliever can touch, and foddering in the parliamentary canteen on
    food no decent peoples would touch,given choice.

    https://twitter.com/TarekFatah/status/1467224372972855303

  42. Iran’s bare-faced lies have finally been exposed
    Tehran’s nuclear ambitions are anything but peaceful. It is time for the West to take a firm line

    DT Article by Con Couglan

    The trouble is that it no longer matters how bare-faced the lies are on any question; the PTB and the MSM will promote mendacity while supressing the truth when it suits their agenda to do so. The barer-faced the lie the better!

    Look at the the bare-faced lies that were, and still are are, being told about Brexit; look at the bare-faced lies that are being told about Covid where the truth is labelled as fake news; look at the way J.K. Rowling has been ‘cancelled’ for her bare-faced truth in saying that women have female reproductive organs.

    Peter Mandelson pertinently said “We are living in the post-democratic era.” We are now living in the post truth era.

        1. That’s how Hamas get all their rockets they fire into Israel. Iranian deliveries.
          And that’s why the yanks went to Iraq to try and quell the intense bad feeling between Saddam and Israel. Israel were about to launch a nuclear strike on Bagdad as more an more missiles were being fried into Israel. Now Iran has fill that position.

      2. At the time of the Balkans crisis in the early 1990s the Major government was thinking of sending a gunboat to Czechoslovakia until John Smith, the then leader of the Labour Party, pointed out that Czechoslovakia was completely land-locked and didn’t have any coastline!

    2. Weapons of mass destruction in Iran? No proof, but they just know they’re there?

      Haven’t we been here before?

    3. I note that Con has changed the spelling of his surname so we won’t recognise that it’s him?

    1. Virtually doubled in 20 years – that’s a staggering increase. Suffering from droughts and poor crops ….. but still able to breed explosively.
      How much foreign ‘aid’ does this country get, either from us or other countries?

  45. Politics For All twitter timeline on Panic Johnson’s 18th December deadline for cancelling, or not cancelling, Christmas, is rather anti Panic’s idea. No surprise there and this short comment rather summed up the opinion of the majority. However, with his belief that he can influence the climate this comment isn’t too exaggerated at all about Panic’s self belief that he can ‘fart wonders and sh!t miracles’.

    https://twitter.com/CmaCreek/status/1467443829544558597

    1. “Cancel Christmas” may have been a memorable line in an otherwise dull movie, but no Government can Cancel Christmas any more than it can cancel someone’s birthday or tomorrow’s weather. Lazy tabloid cliché.

      2. Strangely that’s not the first time that has happened from that site. I’m not sure they always do their homework properly.

    1. But what proportion of those offenders are followers of the RoP? I suspect it is significantly higher than the proportion of them in the population. They are untouchable, mustn’t offend their ‘culture’.

  48. Welcome to NHS Digital. We don’t work weekends.
    No Pharmacy
    No Surgery
    No E-Consult

    Consultant not contactable at any time.

    Don’t fall ill on a Sunday.

      1. Thanks. No change. I’m okay. Been waiting all day for a telephone consult. Vascular probs.

        Did you identify the footballer at the wedding?

        If i had known i would have gatecrashed it !!!

        1. Oh Phizzee! I know who he is! He’s our son-in-laws daughters partner, and father of her younger child!
          I assume you’re kidding?

  49. Watery sunshine. Scattered showers. The AGA’s ability to work draws peacefully to a close. Dagnabbit. I just hope that the AGA man will be in touch on Monday. Thank God for the stove and the baby Belling hotplate. And the immersion.

    May risk a walk shortly. I may be some time….

        1. The wind has change direction again Bill and tomorrow rain again right across the south east. Mud island once again.

  50. 342478+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    What will happen if Suffolk falls into the sea?

    Whether devoured by water or smothered in carbon dioxide, Britain’s landscape is facing oblivion – and only writers can preserve it,

    As with any other part of the Country, courtesy of lab/lib/con coalition,
    current members / voters thousands of illegals / paedophiles ( foreign)
    and assorted scammers will be drowned.

  51. Why there is more Omicron than we know. 5 December 2021.

    All of this means that, as I said, Omicron is already with us in much greater size than we know. There will already be significant transmission within communities.

    And in the absence of knowledge of how dangerous or severe Omicron is, the precautionary principle must apply – that both government and individuals have a powerful responsibility to take the necessary steps to protect ourselves and each other.

    So whenever or whatever threat emerges, however vague or nebulous, we are to assume the very worst and go to panic stations? Under such a regime we would never have ventured out of our caves, embarked on the ocean, or set foot in virgin territory! It is a recourse to absolute cowardice!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-there-is-more-omicron-than-we-know

    2. What a bedwetter. I wonder if the person who scripted this piece of nonsense employs a little man with a red flag to proceed in front of his/her car?

    1. I think cats just think that we provide Christmas trees for them to climb because we love them so much!

      1. Missy used to attack Christmas trees, when I had them, also dried flowers, grasses, etc. Strangely enough, she leaves fresh flowers alone.

    1. That is a very beautiful photo. I never paint from photos, but I’m strongly tempted to copy it, and see what I could make out of those reflections….

      1. Thank you bb2 – I wanted to pan around a little to the left but there were a group of people standing around that I’did’t particularly want in the shot.
        I’m sure we would all welcome seeing your painted rendition of the image!

      2. Watercolour for the reflections using a large Hake’ brush aka Ron Ranson.
        I’m tempted to paint again as it looks like tennis is orf!

      3. Watercolour for the reflections using a large Hake’ brush aka Ron Ranson.
        I’m tempted to paint again as it looks like tennis is orf!

        1. So did I. I was invited to one of their book launches (scuz the pun) but it was not convenient, shame really.
          Their channel crossing was very Brave.

          1. ‘Tis an unheeded variant
            that goes to his seed
            things gross and rank in nature
            possess it merely….

          2. ‘Tis an unheeded variant
            that goes to his seed
            things gross and rank in nature
            possess it merely….

          1. He promotes those that think they do and then leeches off any success they may have. That kind of producer.

    5. It will be a cold day in Hell before I watch “Britain’s Got Talent”.

      Oh – I see it already is.

    1. Who the hell do the civil service think they are, who votes for any of them or any of their BS. They live entirely off the funding of the British tax payers and produce absolutely nothing viable.

      1. As a CS retiree, I have to say – we did work hard to follow the stupid rules and guidance and continual instructions and changes imposed on us from above. I’m glad of my pension though.

    2. Dear lord alive. If you put on a wooly coat you’re not a sheep. I appreciate they want to pander to the cultists, but frankly, no one has the right to control how you address them. A lie cannot be forced. What you’re doing then is making one person the master of another.

      And considering the people wanting that power are mentally ill, that’s not a sensible attitude.

      1. I haven’t watched Graham N. since he had J. Ross on his show after the Andrew Sachs business.

        As for Yola, she won’t win any prizes for lip-synch.

          2. I can’t stand that little squirt Hislop. He is a regular (and extremely tedious) posted BTL on The Grimes. Always brings Brexit into any disucussion.

          6. Shut ya face. I’ve been drinking since lunch. How am i supposed to know anything about anything.

            Sheesh !

  57. I’m totally bored ….anyone else?

    Come on admit it…………….

    “Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass”.

    ….who said that? (no Googling, Nottlers))

    8. Well last night my good lady and I went to a 30th birthday party, our youngest sons lovely lady friend (partner), her family organised it at their home near St Albans and it was absolutely fantastic.
      They had a friend of their’s in change of music and as a live performer singing, he is also an Elvis tribute artist and was great. Much dancing took place. The food was fantastic next to their shop and post office is a pizza shop and we were treated to freshly made produce, actually watching the pizzas being baked. Latter we had the choice of different types of curry.
      This at home morning we had a visitor in the form of a really pleasant gent who use to run an advertising business in the city. I built an extension for him a few years ago and I still help him with a lot of DIY in his extended farm cottage. We sat for an hour laughing and joking drinking fresh coffee.
      One thing comes to mind when I had won the quote for the extension. He brother was the architect and wanted everything carried out in a professional manner. Contracts were signed as we sat and had tea and biscuits in his garden. We talked about music and the different clubs we had both been to in London. Then we talked about cars, i told him about the souped up fat tyres black Mini I had. He then told be that he had owned an MGBGT and something clicked in my mind. I asked him some questions about the car then i took a piece of paper and wrote down a registration number. I showed him the number and he nearly passed out. It became apparent that 35 years earlier when i lived in Wheatstone NW London I had seen the car advertised in the Standard and after arranging a visit to Chelsea where he was living I bought the car from him. He went into his lounge and came out with a photo album and showed me photographs of the car one with a young lady sitting on the bonnet. Now he lives ten minutes walk from me.
      I have just been busy putting up Christmas lighting across the front of the house my fingers were very cold. And now I am sitting playing Elvis (You’ve lost that Loving Feeling now) recordings on the PC while I type this, I might even play along in a moment when my fingers have recovered.

      1. Latest Flame………….. now brilliant takes me back years. As I told ‘Elvis’ last night I had a girlfriend when I was 13 whose elder sister had all the latest Elvis records.

          4. I think there was enough alcohol to stop the possible spread of anything . It’s much better when you drink it rather that spray it on yer hands.

    9. Geoffrey Chaucer may not have urged people to go and kick donkeys but he wrote it in the fourteenth century:

      This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,
      And we been pilgrymes passynge to and fro.
      Deeth is an ende of every worldes soore.”

      [The Knight’s Tale]

          3. We had Waitrose Steak red wine and mushroom pie, sliced leeks and spring greens with a few garden peas pan cooked in olive oil and thyme, sliced and oven Roasted potato’s carrots and parsnip. And Dijon Mootard 🤗

    11. The Angelou woman, paraphrasing a much better fellow.

      I prefer ‘It’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I’m all outta gum.”

    2. I cannot see a picture – only a lil white cloud labelled ‘cdn.embedly.com’s server IP address could not be found.’

  59. Pinched from the Sunday Grimes. Long read – but it is an Indian telling Africans (in a very polite way) that they are useless.

    “he world has stockpiled more Covid jabs than it can use, according to the globe’s largest vaccine manufacturer.

    Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, warned that stocks may go out of date because demand has dipped below supply. Distribution and infrastructure challenges — along with significant vaccine hesitancy worldwide — have now replaced manufacturing as the key factor limiting global vaccination, he said.

    His intervention comes after months of warnings that inequitable vaccine distribution leaves developing countries vulnerable to Covid. The issue has been thrown into sharper focus since the Omicron variant was detected in African nations.

    Last week Gordon Brown said the West’s “arithmetic of failure” on delivering vaccines had been “embarrassing”. On Wednesday, Prince Harry described vaccinating the world as a “test of our moral character” and lamented a “spectacular failure when it comes to global vaccine equity”.

    But Poonawalla, whose plant in Pune, in the western state of Maharashtra, produces 280 million doses of Covid vaccine each month and 80 million jabs for other diseases, said vaccines were ready to be delivered but even the most vulnerable countries were not placing orders. He said he was particularly bewildered by politicians in Africa, where only 11 per cent of the population has been vaccinated and yet orders had been slow to materialise. “It’s a combination of vaccine hesitancy and nations not coming forward and placing orders in the way in which they claim they would, particularly the African nations. I’m happy to say that on record and I hope they read it because maybe they’ll get activated and do something about it,” he said.

    “Everywhere I hear the World Health Organisation and others talking about vaccine inequality, but the African nations are refusing to place orders. We’ve barely got 20 million doses worth of orders from the African nations. They’re going very slow, claiming that they’re waiting for donations from the US and other reasons. So there’s a bit of a disconnect.”

    Poonawalla said: “We’ve got so much vaccine now that we’ve got more than we can vaccinate on a monthly basis in India. The concern is very much that in a month or two shelf life could be an issue.”

    He said the same problem was seen the world over. While in the spring and early summer vaccine manufacturers struggled to meet supply — to the extent that India imposed a temporary export ban — they are now struggling to shift their stock. “It has completely reversed,” he said. “There is more supply, in the short term, than countries can absorb on a monthly basis. I don’t think there’s a single country that needs more vaccine but can’t get it. It’s just a matter of them being able to put those jabs in arms.”

    Only 246 million of 384 million doses delivered to African countries have been administered, according to data from Airfinity, a health data firm. This suggests a third of Africa’s vaccine deliveries — or 138 million doses — remain in storage.

    Britain has administered 117 million of the 141 million doses that have now been delivered, 83 per cent of the total.

    By contrast, many countries have given out less than half of their delivered stocks. In South Africa, thought to be the origin of the Omicron variant, only 25 per cent of the population have been vaccinated. Yet 11 million doses delivered to the country are yet to be administered amid significant vaccine hesitancy.

    Nigeria has taken 20 million deliveries, but administered 10 million doses. More than 16 million have gone to Kenya, but 7 million have been used. Libya has taken 54 million deliveries, but given only 24 million jabs, 44 per cent of its stocks. In Djibouti, that figure is 22 per cent.

    The Serum Institute struck a deal with the Oxford vaccine team early in the pandemic to manufacture its jab on licence. So far it has made 1.3 billion doses, compared with roughly 700 million made by AstraZeneca. Last month Pune resumed global deliveries on behalf of Covax, the alliance set up by the WHO and leading health charities to provide jabs to the developing world.

    Poonawalla, whose plant also manufactures the Novavax vaccine, said he believed the existing formulations would work against the Omicron variant, but said jabs could be tweaked and rolled out in “two months to three months, maximum” if necessary.

    It comes as Tony Blair, writing for The Sunday Times, said: “For much of the crisis, the wealthy part of the world was shamefully slow at providing vaccines for the less developed nations and it is right to question the unmet commitments of western governments and ad hoc donations of near-expired vaccines. But supply is no longer the most critical challenge. Instead, it’s the ability to get vaccines into people’s arms — so-called absorption capacity. There is stark evidence of this across the continent.”

    Professor Adam Finn, who sits on the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation, agreed. “The debate until now has been about who has all the doses,” he said. “But we’re soon reaching the point where there is no longer a shortage of vaccines. Instead, they just haven’t been given. Having doses sitting in a warehouse doesn’t solve any problems. In Britain we have the infrastructure for mass rollout, but a lot of countries are not able to mobilise. We’ve got to think beyond just supplying doses, and start thinking about how we actually give them to populations who need them.”

    Poonawalla emphasised that in the long term the world still needed to produce more vaccines, to meet the World Health Organisation’s target of giving two doses to 70 per cent of the population. “We obviously as a vaccine industry haven’t produced enough vaccines to meet that. But on a monthly basis, if you look at the production versus the uptake, we’re definitely on the plus side in terms of supply,” he said.”

    1. Well from his point of view they are “useless” because they don’t want to buy his products! I think if Africans were dropping like flies from covid, they would be getting jabbed quickly enough.
      The way I heard it from a friend, in Zimbabwe they said jabs were compulsory to go to church at one point, and a lot of people went out and got jabbed for that reason.

      1. I wonder whether the tyrants running these countries are flogging the vaccines to other tyrants. As they do with food aid.

        1. It was reported that the SA government had flogged some, I think. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

    2. What happens to the out -of-date vaccines?
      Apart from the Harry Lime solution, how are they destroyed?
      Surely, if covid is a deadly as is made out, the process must be on a par with expired smallpox or polio vaccinations.

  60. I managed to get in touch with our neighbour today, she was stuck in Cape Town because of the new but seemingly BS ‘African variant’ but she manged to get a flight to Amsterdam and then one to Paris then a train to where they live part time in central France. She has tested herself and is negative but she managed all this with out one check and not having to show her certificates of proof of ‘Vaccine’. And my niece and her family have also managed to fly from Cape Town to Gatwick but are having to stay put in the hotel for a few days. So it’s not all it seems to be as the MSM love broadcast the all said complications.

      2. The price is to punish people. Even Lefties like Richard E Grant don’t get it and he has been complaining about the quality of food he has been receiving at £228 per night.

          2. Indeed. They’ve already paid thousands to get to Dover, they can afford a couple of thousand more.

    2. Another life time coincidence similar to the one about the MGBGT I mentioned earlier. Another strange experience of Serendipity.
      Was this particular niece was spending a year traveling and working around Oz. She was in a bar in Alice springs and started chatting with the people on the next table. One of the guys asked where she was from and she told him Hertfordshire ….oh right he said but where she told him near St Albans then he pushed her for the location when she told him he relied you don’t know Ready Eddy (my real name was mentioned’ Oh yes she said, he’s my uncle. He was a chap called Martin he had been my apprentice he use to cycle from Hatfield each day and leave his bike at my house.

  61. Ah!
    I’ve been listening to this over the past three evening and having just come to the end, had to play the final piece twice.
    Perhaps one of my greatest regrets is never being able to take part in a performance like this:-

    https://youtu.be/ocktBnecnC0

        1. Her mannerisms are as irritating (in a different way) as those of Mitsuko Uchida – whom I simply cannot watch.

          1. I haven’t put the video on as the sound on this laptop wouldn’t do it justice. Will play the cd of highlights on Christmas Day.

    1. The hypocrite. This is the man that fully supports the Covid oppression and shouts down the dissenters.

      1. Exactly, and now has the cheek to make out he’s the first to spot an authoritarian government!
        Mind you, he probably means attempts to curb the trans lobby’s takeover, or something like that.

    1. We three Jabs of Pfizer are
      Bearing vials we traverse afar
      Field and fountain,
      Moor and mountain,
      Following yonder Dollar
      Dollar of wonder, Dollar of night,
      Dollar with right beauty bright.
      Westward leading, still proceeding,
      Guide us with thy perfect might.

      1. What Huxley got wrong was that Ford wasn’t the most powerful technocrat; it would be the manufacturer of Soma who was….

  65. HAPPY HOUR – my *rse…

    Anyone else hate Sundays…..?
    I remember when we sat down to a family Sunday lunch occasionally having to put up
    with MiLaw who was an excellent cook!
    I did my best but it wasn’t always up to her standards!

    However … I wish.

    1. I was expecting a homemade shepherd’s pie, got a homemade cottage pie instead, fancy having that sprung on you at the first bite.

    2. I never get bored.
      Ever!
      I have so many hobbies and interests with not enough time to devote to them all.
      Boredom is an affliction of the unimaginative.

      1. Boredom has the ability to enable our creative thinking by moving us into a state of daydream, which then allows our minds to wander and create without distractions.

      1. As the AGA is practically dead – would you all mind NOT talking about cooking??? !!! (We have a Baby Belling electric hot ring thingy upon which Cook will produce a feast.) We did have a microwave but it blew up…!

        1. Never had a microwave or an Aga but I did have a Baby Belling when I was first married (to the ex) and it was a bugger with just one hotplate and a tiny oven.

      1. Thanks Bob…boredom offers a time of reflection.
        .When disengaged seize the opportunity for creativity….poets,artists, authors often produced their finest work when bored..

        1. Boredom is the name for when no other stimulus is affecting the mind – thus giving an opportunity for uncluttered thought.

    5. Oh my goodness, what a roast we have just had! Turkey & stuffing, Pork and Beef with five vegs and Yorkshire (are we still allowed to use that adjective?) pudding.

      A local restaurant was in a stew because the owner had had to fly out to South Africa to help relocate her elderly mother into a care home and unfortunately had got caught up with the Covid restrictions and would not be able to be allowed back in time to cater for the Christmas parties that had been booked.

      She contacted my son who is a chef and asked him to step in. Hence the gigantic takeaway which arrived after he had finished service.

      Now I can’t move.

      1. I only eat one meal a day these days. Your little feast would have seen me sated until Thursday!

          1. Cameron enjoyed ‘Kitchen Suppers’ with Rebekah Brooks; perhaps his shed was inspirational …?

          4. Thanks, Lacoste. I’m not too concerned about target dates, as long as I get there early next year I’ll be happy. From then on it will be a case of a maintenance diet with, perhaps, a “treat” day (bread or spuds) once a week. Sugar is out for good.

  66. Just watching some exciting Wendyball on ITV4. FA Cup 2nd round, Salford City v Chesterfield. Chesterfield have just scored.

    Come on you Town. Come on you Spireites. 👏🏻⚽️

    1. If you are a Wendyball fan you may like to know that both Barry Davies and John Motson provided Eulogies for FiL’s funeral last week. Barry wasn’t able to attend but John was his usual loquacious self.

      3. Wonderful. Barry Davies is my second favourite football commentator after Kenneth Wolstenholme. Motty was a bit too strident for me but apparently he’s a jolly decent chap.

        I take it your FiL was well known in Wendyball circles.

        2. Apparently he was a sort of Godfather figure to the bright young sports reporters, John Motson pointed out FiL had been broadcasting for 20 years before he himself started…

          1. The “Socialist Republic of Clay Cross” you mean?

            T’Cross is the hotbed of the Skinner family (Beast of Bolsover and his clan).

          3. I never spent a lot of time in the southern half of the county; that’s why I am more at home in north Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

  67. Time for me to go. Just hoping against hope that AGA man contacts us tomorrow (he is very reliable – but may be on holiday). If he doesn’t we are truly f*cked.

    First Christmas card arrived yesterday. Sister in law – 87 – still playing tennis and badminton and gallivanting. Unlike my poor old brother – same age – in hospital after yet ANOTHER fall. So I feel quite a spring chicken.

    I mentioned that I was under the weather a bit – well that’s all over. But, the MR (who gets very anxious when I am less than 100%) asked soldier neighbour – medically qualified – to give me the once over. Fortunately I was allowed to keep my clothes on: she’s a big lady! A tremendously reassuring person who combines care, and skill and concern with rude banter. We are very fortunate indeed to have such a wonderful person 10 yards away.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Glad to hear you’re on the mend, Bill. Should have gone for a multi-fuel Rayburn. Oil-fired AGAs are extremely temperamental from what my friends who have them tell me.

      1. This was here when I bought the house in 1984. 99% of the time it is perfect: 1% it is a nightmare!

    2. Mr T, does your AGA burn gas, or does it burn oil? There are not many things that can go wrong with an AGA, so don’t despair.
      One of the spare parts used to be made individually by a bloke who has surely now retired; IIRC, gas burns hotter than oil, and consequently the heat gradually destroyed a part within the combustion chamber.

      1. Oil. It is clearly a fuel flow problem. The AGA was fully cleaned and serviced only 4 weeks ago by a very reliable AGA trained bloke.

  68. For motorsports fans, what is happening at the F1 race is fascinating.

    No spoilers. . .

    Edit: now turned up to 11 . . . .

    1. It was a tad. Even the highlights are interesting. The track is unfairly flat and well made though.

    2. Thanks for the lack of spoiler, I only got to the recording at about 10pm (your time).

      Much more interesting than a parade around the track.

  69. Evening, all. Surely the OMG fuss was designed to put the journey towards normality into reverse. Can’t have people meeting up and comparing notes about the illogic of if all, or discussing people they know who dropped dead after being jabbed, can we?

  70. OK Pope, why don’t you sell every single brass farthing, all the churches, every bit of land every treasure, and give it all to the poor?
    You could do so and it would all be gone as soon as you did, within a very few months.
    The ONLY difference would be that you will see even more poor peoples popping out of the wombs and they too will expect charity.

    2. As a grumpy sod wandering about the Vatican I grew tired of seeing the endless wealth and thinking ‘this could be better spent’ and, of course, a chap said that they do just that.

      A lot of genuinely social programs are carried out by the Church quietly, without fanfare directly helping the very poorest.

      It just so happens as the Swiss chap told me – that rich tourists like looking at the gold frames and that money goes to those programmes. That was me put in my place good and proper.

  71. Meet the man Labour thinks can represent Britain abroad: New shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the 2003 Rose Revolution took place in Yugoslavia, Marie Antoinette won the Nobel Prize and Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII
    David Lammy MP was promoted this week in Labour’s surprise reshuffle
    In 2009, he thought Henry VII acceded the throne after the death of Henry VIII
    He also got a football question wrong about his beloved Tottenham Hotspur
    The MP since 2000 scored just 13, with eight coming from his specialist subject
    This week, he said he was ‘honoured’ to be the new shadow foreign secretary
    By STEPHEN WYNN-DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE

    David Lammy’s unfortunate appearance on Celebrity Mastermind
    What was the married name of the scientists Marie and Pierre who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1903 for their research into radiation?

    Lammy: Antoinette

    Answer: Curie

    Cockpit Country is a rugged, inaccessible area on which Caribbean island?

    Lammy: Pass

    Answer: Jamaica

    Which former Conservative leader, in a magazine article in August 2000, claimed that while working as a delivery man’s assistant he downed around 14 pints of beer a day?

    Lammy: William Hague (correct)

    Which fortress was built in the 1370s to defend one of the Gates of Paris and was later used as a state prison by Cardinal Richelieu?

    Lammy: Versailles

    Answer: The Bastille

    In February 2008, which Tottenham Hotspur player scored the first goal of Fabio Capello’s reign as England football manager?

    Lammy: Aaron Lennon

    Answer: Jermaine Jenas

    James Gandolfini played a Mafia boss called Tony in which American television series?

    Lammy: Godfather

    Answer: The Sopranos

    What name is used for the highest gallery of seats in a theatre?

    Lammy: Pass

    Answer: The gods

    Which organisation was founded in 1909 as the home section of the Secret Service Bureau to counteract the threat of German spies?

    Lammy: MI5 (correct)

    Which American military award is given to those who are wounded in action and bears the inscription for military merit on the reverse?

    Lammy: Pass

    Answer: Purple Heart

    Chris Martin is the lead singer with which award winning British band?

    Lammy: Coldplay (correct)

    Which variety of blue English cheese traditionally accompanies port?

    Lammy: Red Leicester

    Answer: Stilton

    What term for a top floor luxury flat originally meant a shed or out-house?

    Lammy: Penthouse (correct)

    In 2006, Sandi Toksvig replaced Simon Hoggart as the presenter of which topical Radio 4 quiz show?

    Lammy: Pass

    Answer: The News Quiz

    Which American chat show host has business ventures including Harpo Productions and Oxygen Media which operates a 24 hour cable television network for women?

    Lammy: Oprah Winfrey (correct)

    Who acceded the English throne at the age of 9 on the death of his father Henry VIII in 1547?

    Lammy: Henry VII

    Answer: Edward VI

    In chemistry, what French word is used for a tube for transferring measured amounts of liquids?

    Lammy: Pass

    Answer: A pipette

    Which country’s so-called ‘Rose Revolution’ of 2003 led to the resignation of its president Eduard Shevardnadze?

    Lammy: Yugoslavia

    Answer: Georgia

    1. If the questioner had been as strict as he would have been for a normal contestant Lammy would not even have scored that many.

    3. Lordy… Next, you’ll be telling me that Joe Biden is running for President of the United States…

  72. The vaccine you’ve had is not what you wanted.
    The vaccine you wanted is not what’s needed.
    The vaccine you needed cannot be obtained….

    Despite every cruise line requiring passengers and crew to be fully vaccinated before boarding, a cruise ship returning from a sail across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea with thousands of passengers onboard detected an outbreak of COVID-19, according to AP News.

    Norwegian Breakaway, owned by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, departed from the Port of New Orleans on Nov. 28 and sailed to Belize, Honduras, and Mexico, with more than 3,000 people on board.

    Ahead of returning to its homeport in New Orleans, the cruise line detected ten COVID infections among its guest and crew. Those who were infected were fully vaccinated and were forced into quarantine.

    1. My god, what a shock. I’m actually shocked the figure’s not a lot more. Average age of the guests? Probably over 60.

    2. If we can keep our heads when all about us are losing theirs!

      If all the ifs I list below are dealt with I shall consider having the jab:

      If it was a vaccine rather than gene therapy;
      If it was like most vaccines and stopped you getting the disease it is meant to stop;
      (And if you did not get Covid you would not pass it on;)
      If you only needed one jab and not frequent top ups
      If Big Pharma had not insisted that no other treatments were allowed and got governments to ban them
      If the government and the MSM were honest about side effects
      If the makers were not free of all responsibility
      If the tests and its contents were not to remain secret for 55 years.
      If they did not try and blackmail you into having it
      If the PTB had any respect for your basic human rights.
      If politicians can explain why they think they know more about my state of health than my GP who has been my GP for over 20 years.

  73. Just had a call from my Han local GP. A very nice young lady who apologised for calling me so late. She has two small children and is obviously overworked by the equity fund that has now taken over my GP practice.

    She was completely unaware of the brain cancers caused by champix. I pointed out to her that these were known in 2010.

    She said she assumed these problems had been attended to.

    I said they may have been but this drug was withdrawn worldwide because of the same thing occurring.

    She said that area wasn’t her speciality.

    She didn’t address any of the points i had made about my lack of mobility and not being able to walk my dog or go around a supermarket but she did ask me if i had cut down on drinking and had given up smoking.

    I think i might start smoking Pot again and just admire the flowers.

      1. They are all so tick box nowadays. They won’t suggest anything other than an approved drug. Though that does seem to be changing. Prescribing Golf and whatnot. Fucking idiots.

    2. Oh Phizzee, you must be feeling desperate. Can you see a GP privately? The Nuffield in Cambridge does private GP appointments, the cost is about the same as private dentistry. There must be a private hospital near you which has GP appts. If no joy make one at the Nuffield and stay with us overnight or two.

      1. You are so very kind. I can afford a private doctor near me about £100 a time but it won’t really be resolved until i have my angio in my groin. Which is not on the horizon.

        There are so many people at the moment in worse straits than me.

        Maggie and John need our prayers.

        I’m just moaning.

        You really are so kind to offer.

        1. No problem Phizzee. If we can be of any help, any time, let us know. And that goes for any Nottler in distress or needing a helping hand. We are in the environs of Addenbrooke’s and the Papworth Royal. HLass has my email address.

          Yes, my thoughts are with vw & Alf, I have been thinking of them today, as I did yesterday.

          1. Would you like to connect via email through Herts? I can give you references ! Just don’t expect a Chrissy card !!!

          2. Yes, I’ll send HL an email… that’s fine, no problem. I’ll do that tomorrow, it’s getting a bit late now and I have indulged in a half bottle of Rioja (poppiesdad having drunk the other half). We have given up alcohol for almost, ooooh, probably 10 weeks prior to p’dads blood tests for diabetes, but a crutch was needed this evening for both of us.

            Thank heavens no Christmas cards!

          3. I second that, pm. I have been thinking of them since they told us about their sadness. I can’t imagine the distress they are going through.

          4. They are in our thoughts but you mustn’t let your joy be diminished. They wouldn’t want that.

  74. East German, Communist Chemist, Angela Merkel finally has gone; Gott sei Dank im Himmel… 🙂

    2. Pah. The replacement’s no better. He’s already signalled his desire to legalise cannabis in the name of freedom while making experimental gene therapy medication mandatory and thus removing bodily autonomy.
      The government will inject you with whatever crap they come up with next, but you can smoke a bit of pot to take your mind off it.

      1. Erm… I did suggest that that would be the only way for me to cope. As weak as it is.

        Did you hear that Berlusconni is entering the race again? Oh dear.

        1. I’m too libertarian to be against people doing what they need to Phizzee! But similar laws haven’t led to less crime in other places, and there is a media cover-up of criminals that are on cannabis, as well as the mental health costs. It’s either never mentioned at all, or it gets one line at the bottom, while 100 people self-righteously scream for more gun or knife control. There is very little in the media about the dangers of cannabis. Cannabis is soma in the new technocracy?
          If I try to express my misgivings in one line, it’s that we’re being manipulated by a sophisticated, multi-billion pound cannabis industry.

          2. It has been a very long time since I last tickled the ivories. It may have been as long ago as 1968 when I was in Moscow. I remember I played then (a Beethoven Concerto), but I can’t recall playing since!

  75. Good night all.

    Roast poussin, filled with garlic, thyme & rosemary, outside slathered in butter, salt & pepper.
    perfect roast potatoes, parsnip & horseradish gratin* White Rioja.
    Fresh grapes.

    *https://www.telegraph.co.uk/recipes/0/parsnip-horseradish-clotted-cream-gratin-recipe/

    A little goes a long way.

    1. Goodhight pet! I have replied to a comment of yours hours ago!
      Sorry I didn’t see it sooner. Hope you and Dolly sleep well! 😘

  77. I’ll probably post this again tomorrow:

    Back in October 2020, then-candidate Biden — or whoever was running his Twitter account at the time — proudly tweeted, “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.” That’s right. Joe was going to shut down the virus all while eating ice cream, wearing aviators and saying things like “God love ya.”

    Unfortunately that tweet has aged about as well as the president. The only thing Biden has shut down since taking over in January is the Keystone XL Pipeline.

    We are now eleven months into the Biden presidency and more people have died from Covid on Joe’s watch than under his predecessor. You might think that counting and comparing deaths in order to score political points is ghoulish and unproductive. I’d agree. But since Biden gladly used this tactic during a 2020 debate with Trump, it’s only fair he be held to his own standard.

    https://spectatorworld.com/topic/shutting-down-virus-joe-biden-quarantine/

  79. BBC apology sought for report suggesting anti-Semitic abuse victims responded with anti-Muslim slurs
    The Board of Deputies of British Jews said there were no anti-Muslim slurs, only a man speaking in Hebrew appealing for help

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/05/bbc-apology-sought-report-suggesting-anti-semitic-abuse-victims/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR09d6tiU00Ul4M2oNMmtWrq9tAHoOjOGSgp6ZmhuKMPjs9rkN0ZQnT3Al0#Echobox=1638736818-1

    1. Hmm. I am sure the Board of Deputies of British Jews are speaking the truth.
      Reality is that if you ask Jews, Sikhs, Hindus or Christians what they think about Islam, the replies are usually negative in my experience. The same is not true if you ask these groups about other religions.

    2. Hmm. I am sure the Board of Deputies of British Jews are speaking the truth.
      Reality is that if you ask Jews, Sikhs, Hindus or Christians what they think about Islam, the replies are usually negative in my experience. The same is not true if you ask these groups about other religions.

  80. Good night, everyone. I haven’t had time today to scroll through all of your posts, but it appears from a few of the latest posts that some NoTTLers are having a rough time at present. I do hope that – whatever the problem/issue – things do improve for you all. And a special “Good Night” to Missy and Oscar and their owners.

    1. I echo that thought. I too have not had time to scroll through all of the posts, but my thoughts are with all here.

  81. I am not a religious person in any way but my heart and thoughts are with all those here who are going through rotten things. It ain’t so great in our life as of now but we are better off than so many others.

    2. Wishing you a very happy birthday, Mr. Mac! Hope you have a good one! 🎉🍾🎂 Haste ye back!

Comments are closed.