Sunday 6 March: The West can’t keep looking on from a distance as Putin lays waste to Ukraine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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742 thoughts on “Sunday 6 March: The West can’t keep looking on from a distance as Putin lays waste to Ukraine”

  2. One glorious day in Sevastopol 12 years ago, I saw what was coming. Peter Hitchens. 6 march 2022.

    I have heard a respected MP calling for the deportation of all Russians from this country – all of them. I have heard crazy people calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ in Ukraine.

    If they got their way it would mean a terrible and immediate European war. I suspect they do not even know what they are calling for. Can you all please call off this carnival of hypocrisy?

    I cannot join in it. I know too much. I know that our policy of Nato expansion – which we had promised not to do and which we knew infuriated Russians – played its part in bringing about this crisis.

    There it is in Black and White though I doubt Hitchens will receive any thanks for it! The truth is that having provoked this war the Western Elites instead of seeking to contain it are spreading and deepening it. The demonization of a whole people and the persecution of individuals is all too recognisable in Woke ideology. We are slowly, but quite perceptibly, proceeding to an existential struggle where there will be no limitations. Soon someone will make a move in response to the pressure of events that will eventually unleash forces that have been held in abeyance for seventy years by wiser men. This is all going to end very badly indeed.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10581335/PETER-HITCHENS-saw-coming-Thats-wont-join-carnival-hypocrisy.html

    1. OMG – you mean, you mean there won’t be any honey for tea!?

      Morning Minty et al.

      1. God! I will pack, and take a train,
        And get me to England once again!
        For England’s the one land, I know,
        Where men with Splendid Hearts may go…

        Morning Stephen. That was the land of my birth. May it Rest in Peace.

        1. Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
          And is there honey still for tea?

    2. If the wokes thought that Russians were beyond the pale, then what did they make of Ukrainians making chimp noises at football matches whenever England was playing?

      Total annihilation of Ukraine is the remedy under way. Putin’s troops are only obeying orders.

    1. Mr Farage, who has established Britain Means Business with Richard Tice, his co-founder at Leave Means Leave and the Brexit Party, describes the ‘Net Zero delusion’ as ‘a scandal of epic proportions’ which must be challenged.

      Morning Anne. I would probably sleep easier if Nigel were Prime Minister!

      1. If he were, I suspect you’d find him a disappointment. He’s a wonderful orator, but he doesn’t do detail and he isn’t a team player.

    1. SAGE’s remit was to advise the Government.
      I would love to know who authorised them to brief the Press directly and thus keep the fear narrative going.

      1. Johnson did not control it at all.He just let them say what they wanted.

        1. Exactly.
          When SAGE first leaked to the Press he ought to have read them the riot act and sacked anyone talking directly to the Press.
          Especially the Marxist behaviourologist Susan Minchie who was not only part of SAGE, but the deliberately confusingly named “Independent SAGE”.

          1. Interesting that the two openly admitted Marxists on SAGE were the two with the scariest predictions.

            Funny that !!

      1. The ‘predictions’ from SAGE fitted the narrative of the time.
        Now that the truth is emerging (especially the truth about the serum – sites in the USA e.g. Steve Bannon’s War Room, are going to town on Pfizer’s first 55,000 pages**) the guilty are attempting to deflect blame, Johnson and Co, or obfuscating, Walensky at the USA’s CDC. Fauci has been silent for some time, unusual for someone who is normally so voluble.

        **Bannon, Dr Naomi Wolf, Dr Robert Malone et al. are organising web access to the Pfizer release. The release is so large that to trawl all of it in as short a time as possible help from the public is required. Bannon & Co are requesting that interested people read extracts and highlight any gems of information back to the originating website for further investigation. Legal cases will be very interesting.

          1. The ‘globalist cabal’ including the WEF and their acolytes in government. Schwab has openly bragged that his group have infiltrated governments at the highest level. The amount of lockstep in governments’ actions around the World is indicative of some form of collusion.

  7. Good morning all.
    A bright start this morning, but rather chilly with -½°C outside. Dry with scattered clouds.

  8. Just looking at our local weather station data. 2021 was much cooler than 2020. The current trend is cooler.

    1. But, but, but… What about Global Warming, Johnny? Oh, I see where I went wrong, it’s not Global Warming anymore, it’s called Climate Change. So the climate has changed from warmer in 2020 to cooler in 2021. So it does make sense after all. (Manners, good morning Johnny.)

      2. It’s Global Warming/Climate Change/The CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!/A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE!!!!!/{insert latest panic & scare mongering catch phrase here}

  9. The West can’t keep looking on from a distance as Putin lays waste to Ukraine.

    So just as the SAGE scientists and the covid experts shift out of sight on our tv screens to the left on the conveyor belt on come the war monger experts from the right

  10. Morning all

    Share

    The West can’t keep looking on from a distance as Putin lays waste to Ukraine

    SIR – I am utterly astonished that, even after Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack the largest nuclear power station in Europe, we are still sitting on our hands. Sanctions appear to have had no effect on this madman.

    Ukrainian refugees arrive in Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, eastern France, on Thursday

    Ukrainian refugees arrive in Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, eastern France, on Thursday

    The whole of Europe watched Russian troops amassing on Ukraine’s borders. What did we think was going to happen?

    Something has to be done – before it really is too late.

    Jane King

    Vienne, Isère, France

    SIR – My family lived in the beautiful city of Odesa for more than 150 years, having been invited, like many other Germans, by Catherine the Great to cultivate and prosper in the lands she had recaptured from the Ottoman Empire.

    Except for my great grandfather, who escaped, my whole family of three generations were slaughtered by the Bolshevik Russians.

    Plus ça change.

    David Wirrich

    Torquay, Devon

    SIR – In the absence of hard evidence, it would be foolish of the West to assume that Mr Putin is mentally or physically unwell.

    In fact, it surely only pleases him that some might consider him even more unpredictable as a result of illness; he may even be playing up to it.

    Mr Putin is, however, demonstrably ruthless and ambitious. His immediate tactical objective is to restore, by force if necessary, the former buffer states between Russia and Nato.

    The West largely ignored the Kremlin’s recent rearmament programme. This has left Mr Putin free to bully others, judging that the prospect of “mutually assured destruction” would deter Nato from intervening directly, even with conventional military force. What to do?

    The cocooned West is currently relying, with surprising unanimity, on economic sanctions. But we ignore Mr Putin’s application of raw military force at our peril. We must not forget that China too is rearming at an alarming rate. The nuclear “umbrella” is no longer leakproof, if it ever was.

    The Ministry of Defence is doubtless already reassessing the threats both to Britain’s security and to world peace. When the case for increasing defence expenditure is put to Parliament, MPs of all parties will be failing in their duty to defend the realm if they do not support it.

    Britain’s voice on the world stage will continue to depend on the credibility of our nuclear forces, but conventional military capability is an essential counterpart to economic sanctions.

    Air Cdre Michael Allisstone

    Chichester, West Sussex

    SIR – Vladimir Putin imagined that Russian soldiers would be welcomed as “liberators”, but it now looks like they will have to level Ukraine in order to subjugate it.

    Mr Putin’s actions are also leading to the economic isolation of Russia, and hardship for its people. He is seeing the world unite against him: the opposite of what he had expected.

    While a speedy victory might have emboldened him to push further westwards, the world now faces a potentially far more dangerous situation. Mr Putin, increasingly deranged but safely ensconced in his nuclear bunker, cannot lose face and withdraw, so like a cornered beast he may lash out.

    It is conceivable that he will use his nuclear arsenal to attack Europe and the United States. Russia’s own population – about which he clearly cares little – would then be devastated, but he and his advisers would survive.

    The only way out of this nightmare scenario is for those advisers, who hopefully still retain a grain of humanity, to depose Mr Putin before it is too late.

    Phil Mobbs

    Kendal, Cumbria

    SIR – Emmanuel Macron’s call for an EU army (report, March 3) must be seen for what it is: baseless political drumbeating for a further federalised Europe. It is the collective weight of Nato, not the EU, which is holding the eastern European flank intact.

    President Macron is shamelessly using Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine to promote once again his lofty ideas for EU collective defence, claiming that Europe must now become independent of both America and Nato. This is to waste European political energy on an ultimately disastrous ideological agenda.

    It is the several thousand American and British soldiers who have recently reinforced Europe’s fragile eastern flank, augmenting the Nato battlegroups, that provide Europe’s deterrence – not President Macron and his ideologically driven dream of an EU army.

    Robert Clark

    Defence fellow, Civitas

    London SW1

    SIR – I feel helpless in the face of war, but would like to do what I can. Where can I find a list of Russian goods and services to boycott?

    I also wonder if ordinary Russians realise that Vladimir Putin’s actions may well result in them being cold and hungry for the rest of their lives.

    Martin Moyes

    Holt, Wiltshire

    SIR – With power cuts and fuel shortages potentially on the horizon, the Government needs to stop contemplating its navel and start a major information campaign on how we can make major energy savings.

    Many will not remember the miners’ strike in the 1970s, when we were on a three-day working week. It was in February, our coldest month. We may be moving into spring now, but that does not get us out of this crisis.

    Bridget Garvin

    Preston-under-Scar, North Yorkshire

    SIR – When I worked in Cleator Moor, in Cumbria, I was told that during the Second World War it was decided that, should the fighting continue for another year, the town would have to be “moved” in order to extract the iron ore from the ground beneath it.

    With the conflict in Ukraine, our gas supplies are now in a precarious position. I cannot understand why our Government is not ordering the reopening of Britain’s fracking wells at breakneck speed.

    We need to be self-sufficient in as many energy resources as possible, and in dire circumstances compromises have to be made.

    Nick Hadfield

    Windermere, Cumbria

    SIR – While I imagine Vladimir Putin does not allow much Elgar to grace the airwaves of his serfdom, that is no reason for us to engage in such childish tit-for-tat behaviour (Letters, March 3).

    If you want to listen to dictator-defying music, you can do a lot worse than Dmitri Shostakovich.

    Penelope Band

    Finstock, Oxfordshire

    SIR – I have in previous years enjoyed choral concerts by the Boyan Ensemble of Kyiv, during its autumn tours of Britain.

    I recommend that other readers listen to this authentic music – both secular and sacred – which can easily be found online.

    Since the choir members’ lives are among those now under threat in Ukraine, we must hope for their safe return to these shores in better days to come.

    Mike Lewis

    Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire

    1. I am utterly astonished that, even after Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack the largest nuclear power station in Europe, we are still sitting on our hands. Sanctions appear to have had no effect on this madman.

      I am utterly astonished that anyone could believe such tripe let alone post it in a public forum Ms. King!

      1. Well, there is rubble and a burnt-out shell of a training block a few hundred yards away from the reactors. Someone must have done it.

        I blame the caretaker.

        1. Morning Jeremy. No one doubts that there was fighting but to imply that it was attack on the reactor itself is typical of the half-truths that are being propagated!

          1. Indeed. If the troops did indeed intend not to fire on the reactors, then we can be thankful that they aimed straight and/or the missiles’ guidance systems were functioning properly.

        2. The training block was damaged as part of a Ukrainian attempt to recapture it. According to the Russians.

          You pays your money and you takes your choice…

          1. That is indeed quite plausible.

            It does beg the question, who put the place in the middle of a war zone in the first place? Stupid Ukrainian planners!

    2. The DT has outdone itself today. Are there no letters from sane people?

    3. Jane King appears to think herself a military expert. “Something must be done” …. yup, Monty or Napoleon would be dead impressed with her powers of analysis.

        1. “Something has to be done.”
          That is it.

          “SIR – I am utterly astonished that, even after Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack the largest nuclear power station in Europe, we are still sitting on our hands. Sanctions appear to have had no effect on this madman.

          The whole of Europe watched Russian troops amassing on Ukraine’s borders. What did we think was going to happen?

          Something has to be done – before it really is too late.

          Jane King
          Vienne, Isère, France”

      2. When I read the headline I guessed it would be a woman (sorry, but they seem to be first in line for the bleeding heart reaction). After you, Jane.

    4. David Wirrich seems to imply that Vlad and his cohorts are Bolshevik Russians.

      The Air Commode (sic) seems to be living in the past: “The Ministry of Defence is doubtless already reassessing the threats both to Britain’s security and to world peace. When the case for increasing defence expenditure is put to Parliament, MPs of all parties will be failing in their duty to defend the realm if they do not support it.”

      The Ministry of Defence is probably worrying about the uniforms being vegan enough and ensuring the food is halal and vegetarian – oh, and making sure the loos are gender neutral. MPs of all parties haven’t supported defence of the realm for decades.

      No, Bridget, not propaganda about making energy savings, but following Nick Hadfield’s suggestion that we become energy self-sufficient; a far better idea.

  11. SIR – The message given out by the requirement to wear masks on public transport and in other areas is that these are still dangerous places to be. Anyone feeling vulnerable may therefore conclude that the safest thing to do is stay away altogether.

    I was pleased to read that Jet2 has understood this and removed the requirement to wear masks (report, March 3) – as a result of which we booked to fly with the airline that afternoon.

    Bruce Carlin

    Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

    1. The worst thing about my recent trip was wearing a mask for hours on the plane and in the airports.

    2. Our son and his wife are on a week’s sunshine and veg out week.
      Their first choice, Morocco, was still too restrictive, so they went instead to Gran Canaria which has few covid rules.
      If many potential visitors are put off by the continuing farrago, then possibly economics might trump hysteria.

      1. I’ve a fishing trip planned there in May. I believe they’ve just lowered the ‘Level 4’ (very high restrictions) to Level 3.

  12. Morning again

    Rapid response

    SIR – On Monday I had an email query from the National Rail team regarding my application for a veterans’ railcard.

    I replied, and this was acknowledged in 15 minutes. The card was then posted to me first-class and arrived on Wednesday morning.

    How many banks, insurance companies and other services can match this efficiency?

    Brian Tanner

    York

    1. I paid for two senior railcards last September which never did arrive. I complained twice on their website to no avail. I got no acknowledgement of my application nor the complaints but they took my money and I received no refund.

          4. You have protection against fraudulent transactions (or at least mine does). Whether not getting the goods you paid for would qualify I’m not sure, but it’s worth a try.

      2. MB has been trying to organise his new card. The website won’t accept any form of his DOB, so he will nip down to the station and see if he can sort it out there.

        1. My senior railcard has expired and I haven’t renewed it. Seeing as I almost certainly won’t be travelling by train in the near future there seems little point.

    2. How many banks, insurance companies and other services issue veterans railcards?

  13. If Putin is overthrown and Russia withdraws, I hope that the West will withdraw its sanctions immediately and assist in any Ukrainian rebuilding necessary.
    I would also like to see the West extend the hand of friendship to “New Russia” and also guarantee the security of the Russian parts of Ukraine and refuse entry of Ukraine to NATO or the EU.

    What I expect, is that if Putin goes and Russia withdraws, is that the West will gloat, carry on with sanctions, and admit Ukraine to both, while encouraging the expulsion of Russians from the Russian regions.

    1. Morning Sos. Even if Putin were overthrown the problem of the security of Russia from attack would still remain. It is a geopolitical reality. His heirs would see it no differently.

      1. Agreed, but if the West demonstrated, by sealing the Ukraine from NATO and the EU, some willingness to recognise Russia’s concerns a rapprochement might begin.

        2. That is pretty much all that Putin is asking for. Of course, a coterie of dolts are suggesting that Finland joins NATO. I think that the UK should leave NATO.

          1. Perhaps the USA should leave NATO.
            It would certainly concentrate the minds of the remaining members over how much they should poke the bear.

        3. Not so far as von der Leyen is concerned. She can’t wait to get Ukraine into the EU.

          1. Quite.
            It amuses me when people state that the EU isn’t socialist like the USSR.
            They take from the wealthy countries and give to the poorer ones, always after taking their cut and always with strings attached.
            The people in Brussels run it all, and that is the real EU. The countries are merely members of their club who follow the rules set by the nomenklatura.

    1. Morning Rik. Ramping up nicely. Perhaps we should run a raffle on what day it will all kick off?

        1. Well, we don’t have cellar. We will just have to put a thicker oilcloth on the kitchen table. I’ll bet the “Cambridge expert” was not around when we were doing “Protect and Survive.” We knew then that it would not work. When the whole street is blown away in a cloud of dust, hiding under the stairs won’t save you. Even if it did, there won’t be any food, or water. Bang. The End.

          1. You mean ….. I won’t get to enjoy all the fall out that floats around makes a tinkling sound like … er … like Tinkerbelle?

          4. Back to the old question. “If you only had one hour left to live, what would you do?” “and who would you do it with?”

          5. I’d sit cuddled up with Spartie and think about happier times.
            (Much like now, really.)

          6. Bugger the stairs; get under that kitchen table!

            Oh, shit! No one has kitchen table any more. It’ll be a hard job to get under those pretentiously idiotic kitchen “islands”!

          7. Hah, I’m all right – we kept the old kitchen table after the island was installed and it’s downstairs – mind you we’ll have to move the wine to get under it!?

        2. Well, I’m not going down that bluddy hole in the ground again. My knees would never cope with the ladder these days.

  15. 351265+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 6 March: The West can’t keep looking on from a distance as Putin lays waste to Ukraine

    My take on it is that ALL current politico’s are ,in the main of the same ilk
    we in the United Kingdom are at this moment going through the velvet glove period.

    Their ( the politico’s) real intentions break through the veneer of acceptable policing time & again, the rotherham long term cover up, the
    Ian Tomlinson (RIP) death, etc,etc.

    Beat into submission is a tool in every politicians briefcase that in the past has been used and WILL again be used.

    The DOVER politically overseen illegal invasion is aimed at undermining
    the indigenous stance of decency, integrity, & common sense diluting the Country’s culture and it, with the electorates majority help is working out
    just fine, the reset, replacement campaign will slide into place via the polling booth as smooth as silk.

    1. Let me ask you a question:

      If Britain was being laid waste, say by invaders, would Ukraine send arms and financial assistance to us?

      Once you’ve considered your answer, you’ll know what to think about the Ukraine situation.

      1. Good point. But, “If Britain was being laid waste, say by invaders, would Ukraine anyone send arms and financial assistance to us?”

        2. The EU?
          ha ha
          NATO, possibly, unless the invaders were originally from ME and NA and Muslim

        3. would anyone send arms

          The Irish would, but Blair’s Chosen Ones would be attached to them

        4. would anyone send arms

          The Irish would, but Blair’s Chosen Ones would be attached to them

        5. France sends the invaders to lay waste to Britain. Some ally. Some chicken…

        6. France sends the invaders to lay waste to Britain. Some ally. Some chicken…

      2. 351265+ up ticks,
        Morning J,
        I see it as the decent element of the indigenous
        peoples are currently fighting on two fronts as in the
        Russian / Ukrainian front
        & the domestic home front.
        Charity on ALL issues begins at home first & foremost.

          1. ‘Morning, Sue. I seem to recall an American General declaring that he’d rather face two German Divisions, rather than have one French Division behind him.

            Someone else remarked that going to war with French allies was rather like going to war with an accordion.

          4. Of course I don’t – but that what the French seem to think (certainly De Gaulle encouraged that view).

      4. No, but the Russian oligarchs would. They love living in comfort here and sending their kids to British schools.

        1. Good morning, Mrs Macfarlane. Still recovering from a day of jolliities? 😊

          [Arquette is also a rabid Demonrat.]

          1. Wonderful day, thank you Mr. Grizzl! And the weather is lovely again today!
            She doesn’t have a lot going for her, does she?
            Didn’t she used to be Monica’s sister in law?

          2. I reckon that Patricia Arquette should have been around in WWII.

            She could have shortened that war by advising us to kick Japan and Germany out of the Warsaw Pact.

        1. I’ve seen True Romance.

          [She claims to be naturally “mousey” and tints her hair to look more blonde.]

      3. Yo Mr Grizzle

        I Truss(t) that you are correct.

        Imagine the mess we would be in, if Labour were in power and The Abbotopotamus were a blonde

        1. Same here. Has been for the past fortnight with more of the same expected in the next week.

  19. Hmm.
    A pick up from Going Postal and undated so far as I can see, but very interesting:-

    NEW FACTS OF INTERNATIONAL CORRUPTION AND EXTERNAL GOVERNANCE OF UKRAINE (7 press conference)

    Press conference is dedicated to new facts revealing international corruption and external governance of Ukraine.

    Because of the leaked information about today’s press conference last week it was announced that I was being sanctioned by politicians from the US Department of the Treasury under the request from Democratic senators. They really didn’t want us to publish what we are going to release today.

    But we did not refuse a press conference: the state independence and sovereignty of Ukraine are at stake. And most importantly, the opportunity, on the basis of documents, facts, material evidence and now the testimony of witnesses, to return billions of money to Ukrainian citizens.

    I will definitely comment on the issue of sanctions later today. But I would also like to note the following.

    DemoCorruptionists are very afraid because documents, numbers and shocking recordings support every word that we will voice today.

    With each new fact, a new entry, new posting of accounts, we are convinced that external governance and international corruption are Siamese twins with many faces of senior government officials, oligarchs, schemers and many other actors who steal from the Ukrainian people.

    WHAT WILL BE DISCLOSED TODAY?

    Evidence of withdrawal through financial “holes” of millions of dollars stolen from the Ukrainian people, laundered with the help of banks and laundromats in various jurisdictions and their subsequent transfer to the accounts of the company belonging to Biden family.
    New recordings of conversations between the persons who appear to be the fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and former US Vice President Joe Biden, testifying to external governance.
    We will also unveil colossal corruption schemes related to the procurement of coal and gas, due to which Ukrainians pay 30% higher utility tariffs. At that time, the highest officials of Ukraine and the United States participated in these schemes.
    We will also make public the facts of embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars of technical assistance provided to Ukraine by the US state, as well as evidence of deliberate sabotage of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.
    I repeat once again:

    Every word that we will voice today is supported by documents, numbers and records that were given to us by investigative journalists, as well as people who have information about corruption schemes and witnesses who are directly involved in a number of processes, which we will talk about today.

    We will transfer all facts about international corruption and external governance of Ukraine at our disposal to the law enforcement agencies.

    Today we will present to your attention only part of the testimony by witnesses. I emphasize – part of the testimony by witnesses. I want to assure you that we have other witnesses who can confirm the facts of international corruption, including citizens of foreign states.

    WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, the first part of our press conference:

    Evidence of the withdrawal through financial “holes” of millions of dollars stolen from the Ukrainian people with their subsequent transfer to the accounts of the company belonging to the Biden family.

    At one of the first press conferences about a year ago, we showed bank transactions for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the family of former US Vice President Joe Biden, namely to his son Robert Hunter Biden. The latter was a member of the board of directors of the infamous gas production company Burisma.

    Read more at https://nabu-leaks.org/new-facts-of-international-corruption-and-external-governance-of-ukraine/

        1. Well, my poor old man went out to get a carry out for us and one for our daughter and husband, and dropped theirs off on the way home. Parked at their house, hand over the nosh then, as he was getting back into the car, smashed his cheek on the car door. When he got in here he told me he’d been beaten up in Falkirk! Blood everywhere and a huge gash in his cheek! Steri strips and Mepore applied, we had a really excellent Nepalese meal! Haven’t checked the gory car yet!

          1. OUCH!
            At least you still had the meal!
            After my falling face first into a barrow load of logs a couple of weeks back, I sympathise!

            Got any photos?

          2. He looks a bit like a pirate, but it’s not as bruised as I expected! The problem is that he has a Cpap mask for his sleep apnoea, which interfered with the dressing! Just waiting to see what happens in the shower! How are you now?

          4. ‘ Morning, BoB, falling seems to be the new old. I fell over the Dotty gate the other week and tripped on a rug the next day – ended up in the Hosty Piddle.

            My right side still aches.

          8. Some of the Nepalese have been involved in ‘take out’ for two hundred years, and they are experts.

          11. You jest. When I first heard the word (over the tannoy at the Colchester tattoo) I wondered why the Gurkhas had so many many homicidal chefs.
            I know kitchens can be places of explosive emotions, but even so …..

          12. In WWII there were some Ghurkhas in North Africa. There had been some thieving of supplies by locals (probably dirt poor & hungry) so the Ghurkhas were called in. That night as someone started to climb over a tailgate, there was a swish and the intruder fled empty armed.

          13. Oh we’re dead innovative round here, pet! Apparently all the staff come from Glasgow, and the owner is from Stirling! It was a very good meal!

          14. Morning Pip! There is one down the road from me in Aldershot. Try one of my favourite things if you happen across a Nepalese Restaurant, Mo mo’s. Sometimes spelt Moo moos. they are a sort of meat filled dumpling. There’s also sha-pa-le which are similar but have a hard crust, They are used as ‘iron rations’ when travelling, they are delicious too.

          16. Well, Sue, if he will go to Nepal you must reckon with the kukri (Ghurka knife).

          18. The nepalese make the best curries. I travelled there on three separate occasions, on expedition in ’91, ’95 and ’96 and learned to make curry their way.

            In ’07, in Afghanistan, I had to spend a couple of days on the front line with a Ghurka company. They had supplemented their rations by buying a goat from the locals and we had goat curry that night. One of the best meals I’ve ever had.

      2. Helo Sue,

        Wasn’t on here yesterday and missed your birthday. So hope you had a very Happy Birthday and many happy returns!

    2. Be still my beating heart.
      Musso and Clara treatment or merely a very close haircut?

  21. Good Morning All. Very cold and frosty. The frost seems to have finally finished off the snowdrops. We have a few and the edge of the village has large drifts.

    1. The comments below have been moderated in advance.

      So much unsaid in so few words!

    2. Another benefit of the Blair Brown years, running down the Services and building white elephants. Then followed by more of the same.

      Peace dividends, ha bluddy ha, all the savings were totally wasted.

      1. It began with Major. It was he who began the run down in the wake of the collapse of the USSR, including the closure of the Army Apprentices Colleges.

        1. He believed the EU kept the peace. Major was a disaster.

          Like so many problems, eg the attack on independent pension schemes, it was a Conservative who started the rot, but it was Blair and Brown who exploited the start to devastating effect.

          1. And even now people forget how the EU supported premature recognition of Croatian Independence by Germany precipitated the Yugoslav Civil wars and subsequent EU actions exacerbated the violence.

          2. Yep.
            And Von der Leyen is already banging the drum for the EU to accept the Ukraine as a new member.

          4. She really is an incredibly stupid person. The quality of leaders in the West, now a days, has sunk below the toilet into the cess pit.

      2. British politicians of every stripe have played an ignoble role in disarming this country.
        I wonder if they fail to pay their insurance premiums every year?

        1. Indeed. But Blair didn’t just lay waste, he then salted the earth with his politicisation of all UK institutions.

    3. Read the article, Anne, but can find no reference to ‘mustelids’ walking in any direction? Articulate s’il vous plais.

  25. YoAll

    And a Happy Unbirthday, to those eligible

    The people who work on articles in the middle pages of the Tellilaff, do not read the front page

    10 beautiful Scandi summerhouses perfect for a stress-free break

    Summer sees Scandinavians flock to their summerhouses in an annual celebration of open-air living – here’s how to stay in one

    Not for me, for now, thanx

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/scandinavia/10-beautiful-scandi-summerhouses-perfect-stress-free-break/

  26. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A couple of headlines in today’s DT:

    MPs issue eleventh-hour plea to Boris Johnson to reverse fracking ban
    A letter to the Prime Minister claims the ban would play into the Kremlin’s hands and ‘stop us following this path to energy independence’

    and

    Britain is sleepwalking into a catastrophic energy crisis
    We need a Kate Bingham of energy to end the groupthink that has left us reliant on imported oil and gas

    My irony meter has just exploded at the thought that, almost at a stroke, the swaggering Russian thug looks as though he has brought about the destruction of the ‘climate emergency’ and all its endless opportunities for self-harm. So he’s not all bad, then?!

    1. …..and yet so few people have signed the petition to remove the fracking ban.

      Most Brits are obviously happy with the price rises of gas and electricity.

        1. Not the bills perhaps, but the notifications of huge increases in monthly DDs thudding into my inbox is just as bad. With more to come, too.

          ‘Morning, Minty.

      2. ‘Morning, Janet. On 15th of March the Cuadrilla fracking site at Preston New Road, Lancs is due to be concreted over. No doubt the soap-dodgers will be rejoicing!

    4. MPs issue eleventh-hour plea to Boris Johnson to reverse fracking ban…

      Boris will have to ask Carrie…..

    1. Now that really is disgusting, considering that the said injuries were caused by government policy.

    1. A Eureka moment for me , a very informative article , and an excelllent read .

      PETER HITCHENS: One glorious day in Sevastopol 12 years ago, I saw what was coming. That’s why I won’t join this carnival of hypocrisy

      In the long-ago summer of 2010, I found myself in the beautiful harbour of Sevastopol, surveying the rival fleets of Russia and Ukraine as they rode at anchor in the lovely Crimean sunshine.

      One great fortress was adorned with banners proclaiming ‘Glory to the Ukrainian Navy!’ Another frowning bastion across the water bore the words ‘Glory to the Russian Navy!’

      In the streets of that elegant city, with its porticoes and statues and monuments to repeated wars, sailors from the two fleets mingled on the pavements.

      The Russians looked like Russians, with their huge hats and Edwardian uniforms. The Ukrainians looked more like the US Navy on shore leave in San Diego. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10581335/PETER-HITCHENS-saw-coming-Thats-wont-join-carnival-hypocrisy.html

    1. Does the Downing Street garden have a new rockery?
      (Says she – pathetically hoping against hope.)

          1. I thought the bastards had been doing a bit of rock-breaking, whilst wearing ankle chains and orange jumpsuits!

          2. Fauci is allegedly under witness protection. Expect the same measure for Whitty, Vallance, Van Tam, Susan Hopkins, Jenny Harries.

            Nowhere to hide given the many ‘on the record’ pronouncements.

    3. Does the “vaccine” remain being ‘pushed’: I think ‘pushed’ is the correct word to use in the case of this particular dodgy drug dealing.

      1. I thought it was pretty confusing as well. One’s mind expects the horizontal lines, not those strong vertical lines.

      2. Our cash starved local NHS hospital has treated itself to a rainbow coloured pedestrian crossing.
        Strangely enough, the private hospital has felt no such artistic urge.

        1. I always cross at another point in the road, not those bldy rainbow crossings! If anyone challenges me, I shall say that I did not want to disrespect the gay flag by wiping my feet on it.

      1. The staircase is anything but inclusive. It pushes the interests of a group that already enjoys more protection under the law than other groups, despite representing about 1.5 percent of the population. The list of groups that it excludes is too long to mention!

        1. Are there any reliable figures giving the percentage of people in Britain who are homosexual? I would have thought that it was more than 1.5% but the 10% that some people claim seems far too high.

          1. They always claim 5-10% or higher, but when the first census came out where they asked about people’s sexuality (2002? 2012? not sure) it came out as 1% homosexual, 0.5% bisexual.
            I find this credible, because it reflects my friend/acquaintance circle.
            Representation in the House of Commons is considerably higher, of course.

          3. And in the Media. There are a disproportionate number of homosexuals on GB News – e.g. Dan Wootton, Andrew Doyle, Darren Grimes and others whose names I forget.

          5. I have read 2% at most. Never read a higher statistic unless it was in something like ‘Screaming Queens Magazine’, where of course it is 100% because all those who aren’t out of the closet are repressed homosexuals.

      2. I don’t have any sympathy with her but I am confused about someone calling her homophobic? Stupid, yes, but homophobic??

        3. I think the stairs are in LGBT colours and the Pro-LGBT Lobby are the vanguard of the Trans-Gestapo.
          As such, (and this does begin to get a bit complex and, dare I say it, totally insane) they will support any man-pretending-to-be-a-woman who also claims to be a Lesbian (Do keep up at the back there) in the claim that real Lesbians who refuse to have sex with him are somehow “transphobic”.

          Also, they will support the 3rd & 4th rate male sportsmen who suddenly declare that they are really women in their efforts to force real women who have trained and sweated blood since childhood out of women’s sports.

          I could throw other lunacies into the mix such as men-pretending-to-be-women being entitled to use woman only facilities and the promotion of what is euphemistically called “top surgery”, but I shall leave those who are appalled to do their own websearches.

          2. Yes, I know the one you mean. Last line,
            “Who does what and with what and to who?”

          3. “A pansy who lived in Khartoum

            Took a lesbian up to his room,

            And they argued all night

            Over who had the right

            To do what, and with which, and to whom.”

            I bet my parents are glad they beggared themselves to pay my school fees.

    4. I would enjoy walking up those, having previously searched outside for as much dog-shit as possible to tramp up them.

      1. I think the left hand stripe is dark blue followed by purple. It’s not very well done.

        1. My meaning was that the flag adopted by those strange misfits has six colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. The putative seventh hue of the recognised spectrum, indigo, has been summarily discarded.

  31. A BTL

    Life in UK is terrible at the moment.

    In an effort to support the Ukranians, I spent 8 hours of my valuable time and used a tankful of petrol, a cost to me
    timewise and financially, to find Russians goods to boycott.

    There were none, so just how is one expected to support these people?

    I suppose that I shall just have to look on the Internet and send money to one of the many websites asking for Charity donations
    for them. It is good that foreign countries allow these people to use their Internet addresses

      1. The most erotic pop video ever….!

        (All in my very humble opinion, of course.)

    5. Morning Anneallan! And here is Vlad cowering in the Kremlin at his two tanks length table, surrounded by his grim yes men and isolated against ordinary people in fear of Covid and babbling incoherently as he goes goes mad. Really does look like he’s falling apart, doesn’t he?

      Employee of Russian airliner to Putin: ‘Couldn’t the Ukraine war be avoided?’

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui2WZj2H7QA&t=19s

      1. He does seem a bit choosey as to who he has near him.
        Mind you …. Macron or Aeroflot stewardess; difficult one to call.

  33. As the bloke on Bullseye might have said, “Iiiiiin three”.

    Wordle 260 3/6

    ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Dash Citroen

      You have released a picture of the only Air Defence aircraft in our armoury
      And I mean, that there is only one of them

  35. Re: the discussion further down the page about when/if Putin gets “replaced” or overthrown; here is a potted history of recent Soviet/Russian leaders:

    Vladimir Lenin (October 25 (November 7), 1917 — January 21, 1924) [Kremlin hawk]
    Joseph Stalin (January 21, 1924 — March 5, 1953 [Kremlin hawk]
    Georgy Malenkov (March 5, 1953 — September 7, 1953) [Stop gap]
    Nikita Khrushchev (September 7, 1953 — October 14, 1964) [Kremlin hawk]
    Leonid Brezhnev (October 14, 1964 — November 10, 1982) [Kremlin hawk]
    Yuri Andropov (November 12, 1982 — February 9, 1984) [Kremlin hawk]
    Konstantin Chernenko (February 13, 1984 — March 10, 1985) [Kremlin hawk]
    Mikhail Gorbachev (March 11, 1985 — December 25, 1991) [Reasonable, intelligent moderniser]
    Boris Yeltsin (July 10, 1991 — December 31, 1999) [Clown: Joe Biden’s inspiration]
    Vladimir Putin (May 7, 2000 — May 7, 2008) [Kremlin hawk]
    Dmitry Medvedev (May 7, 2008 — May 7, 2012) [Putin’s temporary puppet]
    Vladimir Putin (May 7, 2012 — present ) [Kremlin hawk]

    Putin loathed Gorbachev’s modernisation so commenced the trend to reverse it. If he is deposed, you may rest assured that the Kremlin is full of like replacements. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

    1. Kremlin Hawks they may have been, but how many of then since Brezhnev actually extended Soviet and/or Russian territory during their Presidency’s in the way that the EU and NATO have extended theirs since the break up of the Soviet Union? What the EU and NATO did and continue to try to do is provocative in the extreme.

      1. It’s certainly interesting to speculate what may have happened had not Andropov, and then Chernenko, both shuffled off this mortal coil after just a year in the hot seat. After all they were both cast in the mould of Brezhnev and his forerunners.

        This speculation would also suppose that Gorbachev would never have risen to lead the nation given such circumstances; consequently the USSR would possibly not have fallen.

        1. Possibly not, but I can’t help wondering if the arms race, to keep up with the Americans, was bankrupting the Union.

          All the reports one reads suggest that large parts of the USSR were in a state that compared with East Germany that we saw most closely at the fall. There was a tendency for all to be well for those holding the reins of power, not so good for the people under their thumb, somewhat similar to what one is seeing in the West now.

    6. Are you referring to the Wests attitude because it is not only solipsistic it is also suffering from reification of its fantasies about Russia. Intellectual enough?

    1. All this bollox about a “no fly zone”. Do the proponents actually think that yer Russians would agree to go along with it?

      Barking.

      1. If the ‘no fly zone’ is sucesful, can I have details please, so I can install it in my Kitchen
        Next No Spiders, then No Ants

      2. That is why the Yanks won’t agree to it, because they know that world war would follow about 2 minutes later.

    3. It’s genuinely pathetic and frightening because it shows just how ignorant most people are in the West concerning that area. I see today that the propaganda of Russia being the USSR is still going strong and that there are calls on the part of the public to militarily interfere. These idiots have no clue of the consequences, do they? If cooler and non -ideological heads were prevailing they would be doing everything they could to make peace happen, not fan the flames of war. Honestly, people really are fools with no clue about consequences.

        1. Extremely similar.

          The EU has been expanding East, North, West, and South as fast as it can, and continues to undermine the sovereign states that it has consumed in its ravenous maw.

          3. Those who refer to the European Union as ‘the EUSSR’ are in error. The European Union is not Soviet. The European Union is not Socialist. The European Union is not a republic. There are several kingdoms within the membership of the European Union. There is a need to get one’s facts right.
            .

          5. The concepts are identical.
            The EU is precisely the type of organisation the USSR was.

            In this case it’s a European Union of Technocratic Globalist States. The nation states within its control have little real say, as its laws over-rule those of those states, its economic and trade policies determine what the members can and cannot do.

            You should take off your blindfold and look at exactly what it is.

          7. We voted to leave the EU in a once in a lifetime vote. You should respect the outcome of the vote, stop whinging and get on with life.

          9. So it’s only binding vote if it’s the one you want? How very typical of the EU! You certainly don’t favour democracy if you can’t accept the result of a vote!

          10. The UK is a parliamentary democracy. If the House of Commons, as elected by the people, decides to reverse that stupid 2016 ‘decision’ I’m a happy bunny.

          12. Of course you do.
            You hate the idea of having to set your own way in the world and work for yourself.
            You remind me of the civil servants who gold-plated directives rather than actually worked around them.

            The way the EU has treated the UK since Brexit shows just what a disgusting organisation it is.
            Rather like the UK net contributions, all take no give. They pretend to give money back, but always, but always with strings attached.

            As to “sensible people”; I look at those people, Blair, Major, Miller, the BBC, Woollard and the like and it is clear that if they want it, it is only for their personal benefit.

          14. Plum, for me it’s fun and there’s always the possibility Geoffrey will come up with something original.

          17. Hate list?

            All those people love the EU, I have no doubt you regard them as sensible.

            EDIT, I don’t “hate” them, with the exception of Blair, a man I do hate with a passion.

          24. Frankly, Geoffrey, if people still wish we were back in the EU, they are clearly NOT “sensible people” because we had a poor deal before but we would certainly get a worse one if we crawled back. The EU apparatchiks have hardly covered themselves in glory since we voted for freedom. They have not acted in good faith or even done what their own legislation said they should, which is seek amicable relations with neighbours. On the contrary, aided and abetted by remainers in our government, they have sought to punish us.

        2. I believe it was Gorbachev who expressed alarm that with the demise of the USSR the EU was seeking to emulate it. This is why we refer to the EUSSR.

          2. In EUSSR, a booklet written with Pavel Stroilov and published in 2004, Bukovsky exposed what he saw as the “Soviet roots of European Integration”.

          5. Actually it did, the main objective of the party was escape from the clutches of the EU.

  38. Good morning, my friends.

    Virtually all of SAGE’s predictions have been based on hypotheses.

    If it could be proved that the death penalty prevented 1,000 people being murdered each year and only one innocent person executed for a murder he had not committed then could you not argue that statistically speaking the death penalty would be a great life saver?

    Of course this is an argument that we would never even think of considering – but why would we be reluctant to consider it ?

    Perhaps this is why the PTB and the statisticians are so reluctant to make an accurate assessment of the number of people who have died as a result of receiving the Covid gene therapy?

        1. Ah, the sea front at Morracambie

          I see, he is standing on one leg, to show support for the Ukraine

    2. I find their arguments about a net saving of lives very distasteful. Time we reverted to First, do no harm.
      PS Don’t mention Ivermectin!

          1. My cats would do a better job than Drakeford…and Nikeliar…and everybody!

  39. I made the error of looking at the trailor for ITV’s fake Ipcress File. Ugh.

    The lad playing Michael Caine’s part looks about 14. And acts rather like a gawky adolescent who didn’t really want to be in the school play.

    Certainly one to miss.

    1. It would be hard to find one with Caine’s presence.
      Hope they have avoided offence by changing the cast to be mostly black or female, and introduced a gay sub-plot.

      1. As I understand it the role for the female spy has been considerably expanded and we also have an African American CIA man! I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen episode 1!

        1. There was a negro CIA man in Len Deighton’s original book and the first film.

    2. Rather like the current supposed head of MI6, the one who authorised the display of the Ukranian flag on the MI6 building by the Thames. Immature buffoon. Bring back Maurice Oldfield.

    5. In 1965, many of those involved in the film had direct experience of WWII, whether as combatants or on the home front.
      Michael Caine had been an evacuee.
      Many had had direct dealing with Communists and the various betrayals by establishment figures were fresh in their (and our) memories.
      Actors and telly types of the ‘right’ age now have no idea of deprivation, dearth or fearing for their lives.

    6. Although unspoken, you always felt Harry Palmer had an interesting – and probably iffy – back story.
      But then he didn’t look like a 14 year old middle class boy with the latest mobile phone.

    4. I was rather pleased with an oxymoron I used when my lovely wife got a smut on her nose this morning: flawed perfection. Caroline responded with a pun that floored me.

      1. There is a song that has a line in it the goes something like the.

        I love all your perfect imperfections.

        I like that.

          1. Has been going on for 100s of years.
            I was only referring to the lyrics of the song that I like.

  42. Already mentioned earlier, but that is an excellent piece by Peter Hitchens in today’s Mail

    “I remember, that boiling hot, almost silent afternoon, enjoying a
    Russian beer there, while listening to music from a Russian station on
    the radio. I wrote rather vaguely at the time that the people of Crimea
    and Donbas were hoping for – and expecting – a Russian future”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10581335/PETER-HITCHENS-saw-coming-Thats-wont-join-carnival-hypocrisy.html

    1. Thanks jdgarfunkle. I just read Hitchens article. I will cut and paste it here because, as always, his opinions on this mess, are always valuable and thus well worth reading.

  43. Good Morning to all. I thought because it was Sunday that I would post something appropriate with reference to what was going on in Ukraine/Russia from the Orthodox Church, my Church, but I couldn’t find anything that actually fit. But this is short and the title is appropriate. Peace to all on Sunday and for the future.
    ‘In The Dark Night’
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h5YBrcbEHY

  44. Customer in Sainbury’s told me to “give [him] some space” as he was “still protecting” himself. Two year not a long enough sentence, then.

  45. PETER HITCHENS: One glorious day in Sevastopol 12 years ago, I saw what was coming. That’s why I won’t join this carnival of hypocrisy

    In the long-ago summer of 2010, I found myself in the beautiful harbour of Sevastopol, surveying the rival fleets of Russia and Ukraine as they rode at anchor in the lovely Crimean sunshine.

    One great fortress was adorned with banners proclaiming ‘Glory to the Ukrainian Navy!’ Another frowning bastion across the water bore the words ‘Glory to the Russian Navy!’
    In the streets of that elegant city, with its porticoes and statues and monuments to repeated wars, sailors from the two fleets mingled on the pavements.

    The Russians looked like Russians, with their huge hats and Edwardian uniforms. The Ukrainians looked more like the US Navy on shore leave in San Diego
    It was almost funny to see. I hoped at that time that it would work out well. For the Ukrainians had begun to be silly.

    In a country crammed with Russians, they were trying to make Russian a second-class language.

    Russians who had lived there happily for decades were pressured to take Ukrainian citizenship and adopt Ukrainian versions of their Christian names.

    The schools were promoting a national hero, Stepan Bandera, who Russians strongly disliked and regarded as a terrorist.

    And they were teaching history which often had an anti-Russian tinge. Quite a few people told me they felt put upon by these policies. Why couldn’t they just be left alone?

    Until that point, Ukraine had been a reasonably harmonious country in its 20-odd years of existence. After that visit I saw big trouble coming, both in the Crimea and in the Don Basin, where I also travelled that year.
    Far out among the abandoned slagheaps of the dying coalfields, I found the decaying semi-deserted town of Gorlovka, now in the midst of an unofficial war-zone, where it has been since 2014.

    This town had been officially renamed Horlivka by Ukraine in its high-handed way, though hardly anybody I met there called it that. Gorlovka in those days still hosted the rather pleasant Cafe Barnsley, the last echo of the Soviet days when Gorlovka had been twinned with Barnsley in a gesture of Communist solidarity with Arthur Scargill’s miners.

    I remember, that boiling hot, almost silent afternoon, enjoying a Russian beer there, while listening to music from a Russian station on the radio. I wrote rather vaguely at the time that the people of Crimea and Donbas were hoping for – and expecting – a Russian future.

    I thought that if Ukraine wanted to be a rigid ethnic nationalist state, then some sort of peaceful deal with its Russian minority was going to be needed. Little did I know what passions I had touched on.

    I was amazed to find that I had done something wicked and subversive. The article was attacked as a ‘dismaying lapse’ by my old friend Edward Lucas, a fine journalist with whom I had spent happy times reporting the collapse of the Soviet Empire, way back in the 1980s.

    I especially recall a joyous celebratory dinner with him and others in the decayed 1950s splendours of the Jalta Hotel on Wenceslas Square in Prague, on the freezing night when the Communist regime finally died there.

    I replied to his rebuke by warning that ‘the conventional wisdom is mistaken, that the open-mouthed sycophantic coverage of such events as the ‘Orange Revolution’ has done us no favours, and that the future in this part of the world is far from settled and we should perhaps prepare for further turmoil rather than imagine that we have opened a Golden Road of peace and prosperity for ever’.

    I asked: ‘Are the Anglosphere nations right to treat Russia as a perpetual threat and pariah long after its global ambitions have collapsed and its military power has rusted away? Its regime is miserable. But then so is that of China, with which we seek good relations.’

    You see, I have been making this point for a very long time. But it never seems to do any good. In fact, I am accused of being a ‘Russian shill’ or even a traitor, of parroting Russian propaganda, or things of that kind.

    These insults make little impact on me personally because I know they are not true and I have, over the past 30 years been insulted by experts of all kinds. It is normal, if you do what I do.

    But such behaviour makes it harder for the country to keep a level head. In the atmosphere of the last few days, I half-expect to be presented with a white feather on the street by a beautiful young woman, because I refuse to join in the war hysteria now gripping the country. And it is hysteria.

    I have heard a respected MP calling for the deportation of all Russians from this country – all of them. I have heard crazy people calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ in Ukraine.

    If they got their way it would mean a terrible and immediate European war. I suspect they do not even know what they are calling for. Can you all please call off this carnival of hypocrisy?

    I cannot join in it. I know too much. I know that our policy of Nato expansion – which we had promised not to do and which we knew infuriated Russians – played its part in bringing about this crisis.

    1. He spent years as a correspondent in Moscow and I think this is one of his best pieces.

    2. So now they’re trying to make out that he was a half-wit who starved himself to death?
      I don’t think so. While our Shane might not ever have won a Nobel Prize for Physics, he had spent his entire life in and around professional sport, and it just isn’t credible that he would be unaware of basic nutrition or how to keep his weight down safely. He wasn’t a twenty year old jockey trying to make the weight for a race.
      It has been said that more sportsmen are dying from the jab side effects because they are doing more exercise than the average person, so if there was any side-effect, increased exercise could have triggered it.

    1. Threads? Not familiar with it. A war movie or TV programme and is it available anywhere? I assume I was in the USA when this came out and so missed it.

    3. The deaths of 500,000 Iraqui children Plus Dr David Kelly of course but that was down to us)

      1. All because Saddam Hussein wouldn’t play ball.

        Madeline Albright is burning in HELL.

  50. Stand easy, Folks. Mrs. Biden is on the case.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/06/jill-biden-holding-breath-russia-ukraine-crisis-does-not-turn/

    “Jill Biden ‘holding her breath’ that the Russia-Ukraine crisis does not turn into ‘world war’

    ‘The phone just never stops ringing, all through the night, and Joe is up, trying to help solve this crisis,’ she said

    By Jamie Johnson, US Correspondent6 March 2022 • 6:00am

    US First Lady Jill Biden says she is “holding her breath” that the Russian invasion of Ukraine does not turn into a full scale world war and wakes up every morning praying that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still alive.

    Speaking at a private fundraiser in San Francisco, Ms Biden said that she has been following the crisis closely on the television and insists her husband is “the right man for this moment in history.”

    Her husband, US President Joe Biden, is working day and night with Nato allies to find solutions, she said.

    “The phone just never stops ringing, all through the night, and Joe is up, trying to help solve this crisis,” she said.

    On Saturday night, Mr Biden held another call with Mr Zelensky, the White House said.

    The first lady was introduced to the group of around 25 people by disability advocate Janice Lehrer-Stein.

    “We are facing a challenge to world democracy and maybe to humanity itself,” she said. “Never before have we needed you and your husband, your leadership, your insight and your compassion as much as we do in this very moment.”

    Dressed in a light blue suit with a navy scarf tied around her shoulders, Ms Biden opened her remarks by seemingly straying from her prepared speech, covered in notes handwritten in pen, to discuss “what’s on everybody’s mind,” she said — the war in Ukraine.

    “We don’t know where it’s going to go. We just don’t know,” she said of the conflict, according to the pool report.

    “And we’re all just holding our breath, aren’t we? That something, some answer will come so that we don’t get into this world war.”

    “It’s unbelievable, right?” she added, as listeners shook their heads. “To think that that could happen in our lifetime.”

    But she assured the group that the President is capable of handling the moment.

    “I feel, and I think you must as well, that he is the right man for this moment in history,” she said, noting her husband’s experience with the Soviet Union during the Cold War as the group nodded in agreement.

    Ms Biden also said that she’s been closely watching images out of the war-torn country, which are particularly difficult for her to see as a mother, she said.

    “I just have to turn on the TV every morning and pray that Zelensky is still alive,” she said.

    The first lady had been in San Francisco for the memorial of Richard Blum, the San Francisco financier and philanthropist who was also the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Friday night.

    California lieutenant governor Eleni Kounalakis, the former ambassador to Hungary, spoke up after Ms Biden’s remarks to reiterate the first lady’s trust in her husband’s ability to navigate the Ukraine crisis.

    “As a former ambassador, I have absolute confidence that your husband and this administration will keep this conflict from spreading and will keep our allies safe,” she said, as attendees applauded. “He truly is the right person at the right time.” “

    1. Disgusting hypocrite. Her husband is the culprit that started this war.

      1. Her husband doesn’t know what day of the week it is. She should be prosecuted for elder abuse.

    2. Oh dear gawd! What a load of guff! I’m just off to the bunker, to hunker down!

        1. Or the even funnier version of that song, sung by The Blue Brothers in the film of that name, when they had hijacked a gig at a country & western bar.

      2. You’re not wrong! ‘Sleepy Joe’ could barely leave his bunker to campaign against Trump, now, 18 months on we’re to believe that he’s awake all night solving the World’s greatest current problem. His latest mixed up statements give the lie to his claimed clarity of thought and negotiating skills during Russia’s adventure into Ukraine. Do they think the people are stupid…?

    5. It’s probably not Zelensky but sleepy Joe that she prays will wake up.

      No problems, pretendy PM Trudeau is in Europe this week, he will have the military correctly gendered and in the correct fancy dress ready to to … ah well he probably hasn’t worked that bit out yet but don’t worry, those WW2 pistols are being replaced next year.

  52. Good morning. The Telegraph keeps up the Cold War Cowboy hysteria. The deep stupidity is hard to believe given the intelligence of those who are doing this.But perhaps they are really malign in intent. Who knows or cares? If we listen to them we have only ourselves to blame.

    This 2015 lecture by Professor John Mearsheimer not only sets out the basics as to how we got into this mares nest, but also how to get out of it. If the parasites driving Western current policy continue as they are, they are playing with the future of humanity. The one thing that has become clear as daylight since this lecture is that the West’s claim to be the evangelist of democracy has in the intervening time been shot down in flames by the same parasites.

    https://www.tarableu.com/this-lecture-was-given-in-2015-it-is-still-correct-the-present-stupidity-is-stark/

    1. That was taken from a climate change demonstration, none of the “bodies” were dead, they were making the point that people were going to die.

      It’s been hijacked to be presented as fake news to pretend it’s fake news. Complicated ain’t it?

          2. We did- the good old sparring about Old Noll and Good old Dixie! Life has changed and not for the better in many ways.

    2. London well prepared for a nuclear attack!
      Why has this gem from Sadiq Khan not received more ridicule?

        1. Afternoon Phizz. There used to be one under every Council Office. I assume they are still there. He’s probably had it cleaned out!

      2. Well the Underground system can be used for shelter

        Sad Dick Kant has made sure no Tube Trains run

    3. I have been listening to his podcasts on You Tube- A Love Letter to the British Isles. Very interesting and enjoyable.

  56. Elon Musk has provided antennae to Ukraine so people can access his StarLink satellites and stay connected to the Internet.

    He also said he takes a hard line where free speech is concerned and refuses to block Russian News Services.

    Let’s see them try and cancel HIM !

    1. A few years ago, I thought Musk was the anti-Christ’s first lieutenant, but I’m sort of coming round to liking him a bit more now.

      1. He dislikes Bill Gates and thinks he’s an orifice of a certain type. To me that makes him the good guy. I like him and he doesn’t lecture down to the people. I would recommend people watch him talking to Joe Rogan. He may well be on his way to being the first trillionaire in history but he come across as an obviously incredibly intelligent man, mischievous and with a sense of humour, and perhaps the most important thing of all, a guy not suffering from megalomania like Gates and the other fascists, the Mark Zuckerberg’s of this world.

        Joe Rogan Experience #1169 – Elon Musk
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI

        1. Thanks, I’ll certainly watch that. Seeing through Gates earns him a few brownie points from me too!

    3. I can’t read the name Elon Musk without thinking it’s a cheap perfume once sold by Woolworth’s.

  57. Is King Rat suddenly realising that if Putin is tried for war crimes so must he be?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10582733/Sir-Tony-Blair-I-thought-Iraq-invasion-right-thing-do.html

    Sir Tony Blair admits he ‘may have been wrong’ about decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan… but insists he thought it was the ‘right thing to do’
    Former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair defended decision to invade Iraq in 2003
    He told Archbishop of Canterbury he thought that it was the ‘right thing to do’
    But Blair admitted he ‘may have been wrong’ about the controversial war
    ‘In those really big decisions… you’ve got to follow, in the end, your own instinct’

    4. Self promotion, self aggrandisement and to Hell with the others are Blair’s strongest instincts.

        1. Extrajudicial killings are outsourced to Mossad. You can add the Scripals to that list.

    5. As long as someone else does the suffering and dying, it’s OK with me. Apparently.
      Bastard, he is.

    6. Yo sos

      You must not keep on about Bliar feathering his own nest Net Worth £45,000,000+

      He also feathered that of the Bliar Witch (and the Tax Payer Paid Defence lawyer cronies, ) who, using Legal Aid successfully stopped many foreign Criminals/Terrorists being extradited from UK,

      1. Matrix Chambers; coincidentally founded in the same year as the passing of the Human Rights Act.

    7. A casual mistake, a few million dead and a knighthood.

      There was an anti war demo in Regent Street this pm. I saw a few hundred stragglers. Bound to be reported as hundreds of thousands standing up to Pootin (©️ the US of A).

    8. Oh that’s all right then.
      His Tonyness thought he was “doing the right thing”.
      What? Thousands died? Pah, details, details ……

    9. Do all politicians just follow their instinct? No wonder the world is such a mess!

  58. 351265+ up ticks,

    Listen up, for those suffering bowel blockage the ultimate in bowel rapid release is on radio four NOW , welby interviews the bog man b liar.

    1. That would be bad for my blood pressure. I would have fantasies of being let loose with a machine gun.

    2. Relevant to your point – I have quoted from the lyrics of this song I wrote about Blair over 20 years ago:

      The People’s Party, People’s Dome, The People’s Lottery
      I am the People’s Laxative so The People swallow me.
      Pragmatic opportunism has given me success
      A sad girl died and so I dubbed her ‘The People’s Princess’.

    3. Relevant to your point – I have quoted from the lyrics of this song I wrote about Blair over 20 years ago:

      The People’s Party, People’s Dome, The People’s Lottery
      I am the People’s Laxative so The People swallow me.
      Pragmatic opportunism has given me success
      A sad girl died and so I dubbed her ‘The People’s Princess’.

  60. 351265+ up ticks,

    BORIS TO USE UKRAINE WAR AS EXCUSE TO AVOID STANDING UP TO EU ON NORTHERN IRELAND

    ” Stand up to the eu” he is an eu asset in place, bloody idiots, he is near on par with kim philby in my book.

    1. Looks as though there is a no-fly zone above Ukraine…enforced by the Russians….

    3. Good afternoon Harry
      Totally O/T. I see that a young lady, Courtney Meneely, has been selected to play bowls for NI in the Commonwealth Games. Is she any relation to you?

      1. Don’t know the name AtG.I suppose she might be…its not a common name.
        Its derived from McNeill .We’re descended from the McNeills of Bara.

        1. I repeated an idiot remark made by one of our legal trainees at work once to a friend who’s a lawyer. With a straight face he said that what you have to understand is that you don’t have to be intelligent to be a lawyer. It does help of course.

    2. People who were never involved in physical punch-ups as children (whether they won or lost) should be forbidden from shooting their mouths off about international conflicts or defence.

      1. I’m OK. I was duffed up at 9 years old by a girl who was jealous of my (then) blond curls.

    1. Judging by the records of the scumbags who tried to say that that US teenager was a murderer, wife-beating should be added to the list.

      1. That article makes some comments about the famous photo of Schwab in some weird insignia and robe. Does anyone know where that photo was taken?

        1. I don’t. There were also two flunkies flanking him in the same galactic overlord costumes.

          Took me a while to find that site.

          1. I do not like the references to gnosticism. It is not hard to make the leap from gnosticism to technocracy. People still do not realise how dangerous it is to jettison Christianity, and what real world consequences that has.

          2. The part where it says ‘without the interference from God’ tells me he is evil.

            One does not have to be a believer. But Christianity is a supporting pillar of our society.

          3. One can afford the luxury of not believing in Christianity as long as one lives in a society run along Christian principles!
            Agree with your first line.
            Gnosticism includes the idea that only a small elite are allowed to have access to knowledge – you can see how dangerous it is to have leaders that believe in that concept.

      2. I think the writer is finding connections which are rather tenuous merely to fit his narrative. The star of Ishtar is an ancient depiction of Venus, whereas the Enneagram is a fairly recent theoretical, psychological self-help technique. Its also a bit of a stretch to put Mithras anywhere near Freemasonry! It seems to be a bit of bull, with or without the cross between the horns!

          1. Well it’s not a great photo, but the star of Ishtar represents Venus, the morning star. The bull was overcome by Mithras (a god) and is an analogy for Rome overcoming the barbarian. The cross certainly didn’t come into Roman religion until after Christ! The rest of the symbolism is probably similar to what you can find on a US dollar bill! I think it makes Schwab look an even bigger and more dangerous nut job!

    2. Noah Harari is quite an interesting writer.

      I have tended to read his writings as warnings not recommendations.

    4. What a bunch of sour-looking bastards.
      I hope they all have awful piles.

  67. Moh and I and the dogs took a short ride out a few miles from here .. walked the dogs , very cold wind . The NT/ RSPB heathland has been fenced off and huge gullies dug to stop the few cars that frequent the area , parking .

    The RSPB at Arne have car parks , and they charge for parking .
    Looks as if the adoining NT will follow suit.

    The sun was shining and the little town near us was very busy with day trippers .

    On the way back home we called into see old pal , now almost 87yrs old .. He is well and always keeps busy.. He wears a Para insignia baseball hat to keep warm .

    He loves building model aircraft .. He is building one out of light ply wood and another one is a very complicated metal Spitfire , loads of bits and pieces .

    Moh and I admired his worksmanship, and then we asked him what he thought of events in Ukraine ..

    He was absolutely puzzled and asked , why what has happened .. He was throughly shocked when Moh told him about the invasion ..

    He said he hadn’t watched the news for weeks , and only watches films and police chase stuff!

    Oh I wish that had been the same for us , the news is terrible .

        1. I’m busy sorting out my holiday pics. Much better for the soul.
          OH is in the kitchen – he made some chocolate tiffin this morning. I hung some washing out in the cold wind. It’s brightened up again at the moment.

          How is your older dog who was poorly last week?

          1. Chocolate Tiffin? He obviously missed you.

            I made similar this week with rice crispies !

          2. Jack has finished his antibiotics and is alot livelier now , thank goodness.

            The wind is at least a drying wind . It is bright cold and sunny here as well.

            I expect your holiday pics are amazing .

            Don’t you wish you were back in Kenya ?

          3. Yes – though the news this morning was so………so sad.

            Everybody’s favourite leopard – Fig, beautiful Fig, 10 years old and about to give birth again, was killed yesterday by a lion. I haven’t yet looked at all my photos but I took a great many of her last week.

            I bought a new hard disk and am in the process of loading them on for sorting and will share some eventually.

            I’m glad to hear Jack is much better.

            The washing dried pretty well and the undies are airing now.

          4. I saw the F/B with regard to the death of Fig.. how very terrible .. poor Fig, and I don’t sppose she had a tree to climb to escape .

            I have no idea why a lion could do such a thing except if it was competing for food.

            Shocking news , so tragic.

        2. We have very good old friends who live in Marnhull. Is that anywhere near you, Belle? It’s Jackies birthday today and I’ve been thinking about them. Dave is our elder daughters godfather and they came up for Vic and Simons wedding.

          1. Marnhull is so pretty, it is in North Dorset, near Sturminster Newton , nr Blandford .

            We are in South Dorset , rural as rural goes , 4 miles from the sea , loads and loads of tourists , we hardly ever visit the coast , expensive parking etc .

          2. Residents who pay council tax in the county should get discounted parking. Write the council an email and have a go at them.

        3. Part of the sermon this morning (First Sunday in Lent) was that we should not feel anxious about things we have no control over or influence on.

          4. That is counter-intuitive; I am most anxious about things over which I have little or no control …

            If I control it, I fix it!

          5. I take the view that what I can control, I fix. If I can’t do anything about it, there’s no point in having sleepless nights because it won’t change anything, just make me ill.

  68. Some financial information

    Buffet and Soros

    https://www.gurufocus.com/news/100993/stocks-that-buffett-and-soros-share-2-johnson-johnson-moodys-corp-the-washington-post-company-nike-inc-republic-services-costco-wholesale-corp

    Finally, Here’s a quick recap of the top 30 richest people in the world in 2022:

    (out of deference to The Nottlers From Narfark, I have omitted them from the list. Mr Rashid is also missing

    1 Jeff Bezos 2.Elon Musk 3. Bernard Arnault 4 Mark Zuckerberg 5 Bill Gates 6. Larry Page 7 Sergey Brin
    8 Larry Ellison 9 Warren Buffett 10 Steve Ballmer 11 Francoise Bettencourt Meyers 12 Mukesh Ambani
    13 Carlos Slim Helu 14 Amancio Ortega
    15 Jim Walton 16 Alice Walton 17 S. Robson Walton Own Walmart
    18 Zhong Shanshan 19 Gautam Adani 20 Phil Knight 21 Michael Bloomberg 22 MacKenzie Scott 23 Michael Dell
    24 David Thomson 25 Francois Pinault 26 Charles Koch 27 Julia Koch 28 Ma Huateng 29 Jack Ma 30 Daniel Gilbert

    Jeff Bezos’ reign as the richest man in the world continues.

    https://wealthygorilla.com/top-20-richest-people-world/

    1. Wot? No Schwab or Soros?

      Are they paupers ‘ cos of their support for WEF – You’ll have nothing and be happy.

    1. I can’t help thinking that bitcoin and any other similar digital currency can be turned off.
      Those that can do so won’t be advertising the fact.

      1. Afternoon Sos. This man appears to believe that bitcoin is immune from any sanction.

        1. The theory is that it is protected by unbreakable code. That may be true, but if you can’t access the systems that allow you to undertake transactions you’re somewhat stymied.

          1. You can create your own systems of course. Russia already had an alternative to SWIFT. One suspects Vlad will be delighted with these developments. His argument has always been with the American Hegemony. He may, with the invasion of Ukraine have inadvertently brought the whole system down!

    2. Though I’m not an economist in essence this man is telling us that the freezing of Russia’s financial assets are also the death knell of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency since no one will want to own something that can be turned off on the whim of the United States. I strongly suspect that the rest of the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation will also prove to be double edged. The final winner from all this will probably be China who will leapfrog its way to the top of the financial food chain.

        1. Afternoon Ndovu. Yes! The World as we have known it is disintegrating before our very eyes!

  72. Just back from 2 hours in garden. Chilly – but gorgeous sunshine. 25ºC in greenhouse. To my surprise, the bonfire wot we had on Tuesday was still warm and, with a little help, managed to get it going again to burn the new stuff.

    Should be nice for the next few days of global bombing warming . Make the most of it….

        1. :@)

          Easier to work in the garden when it’s not so hot. But then, i pay someone else to do it.

          1. Thank goodness MB enjoys gardening; to me, it’s outdoor housework.
            I’m excellent at the floating around with drinks, food and socialising bit.

          2. Again…i do the socialising bit but someone else is carrying the tray. I do on the whole cook dinners for my guests but things like Afternoon Tea is bought in.. Speaking of which…i have just discovered The Lanesborough.

          4. I much prefer gardening to indoor housework. I hated it when MOH was no longer able to do the housework and the lot fell to me (as well as the gardening, of course) 🙁

          5. These things don’t really matter much. I employ a cleaner and she is actually crap at the job but i like the visit twice a month and the chats. In fact i gossip so much to her she gets less time to break my ornaments.. :@)

          6. My cleaner really is a gem. She’s hard-working and careful. Plus, I, too, enjoy the chat and seeing someone.

          8. Ours, too, is a gem – 33 years she has been pushing the dust round. BUT – she insists on wearing a mask – and says that she’ll be doing it for the rest of time. “It’s comforting, isn’t it?”

            My lips are sealed by the MR…..

          9. Our Polish racing snake of a cleaner moves too fast to talk to… I think she’s a pretty lass, but she’s usually just a blur of movement.

          10. Have you considered the reason why the lady is so fast? Perhaps she is allergic to er..um… cats. :@(

          11. Saving for her first million, I guess. Should achieve that in about 3 weeks…

          12. MB and I find we end up revisiting our old jobs as psyche types; I would like to think (money aside) our cleaner gets as much out of her visits as we do.
            It is very easy when you live in that cliche – the leafy suburb – to forget how grim other people’s lives can be.
            Nobody’s life is straightforward, but the sheer hopelessness of some people’s existence is a powerful reminder to Stop Whingeing.

          13. I am beginning to think I need to start looking for a reliable gardener who doesn’t charge the earth.

    2. I did a bit of tidying up in the garden, too, Bill. It was very pleasant in the sun.

  73. I have read that there is a report in Le Figaro that Macron is suggesting that big businesses should be in no hurry to cut themselves off from Russia.
    I cannot find it, but that would be interesting.

      1. He has nuclear power stations, and France exports more wheat than Ukraine! What’s he got to be worried about?!

        2. He’s in a really good position.

          With luck he can mess up the planting season in Ukraine, which means high prices for France’s wheat exports.

          Despite him prancing around on the world stage, you’ll notice that there has been no publicity about him giving

          any aid to Ukraine, or offering to give refugee Ukrainians a haven.

  75. HAPPY HOUR
    Hi NoTTlers

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg

    Earlier today I heard from an old girlfriend who recently returned from holiday. We briefly discussed politics, energy crisis and the cost of fuel.
    She is a confirmed ‘Greenie’, saving the planet relying on wind power and solar energy.
    When I asked how she returned from her recent holiday
    ” Oh. I flew First Class, she replied.

      1. I’ve just filled up this morning. 157.9ppl (170.9ppl for diesel). Last week it was (only!) 149.9ppl.

      2. They will start selling petrol by the pint next.
        “Look, it’s only 1.23 again”

    3. You should have told her how La Palma volcano emitted about a billion times more CO₂ than her flight did,so she doesn’t feel too guilty.

    4. PT – there was a prog on Sky Arts about Ronnie Wood (of the Stones); and earlier this week, one about the rise and crash of the Beatles’ “Apple Corps”.

      I am sure you would like them – some lively interviews and contemporary film.

      Took one back….!!

  77. Just picked this off the comment column in TCW.
    This German commenter is new to me, but he is funny. I had seen the DM article about the racist Polish border guards discriminating against African students, this little podcast sheds some light on that…
    Incidentally, he doesn’t show his face, probably because he would get beaten up by antifa if he did, or his car set on fire, or his flat trashed, or his employer told that he’s a nazi, all of which has happened to other people who have challeneged the status quo.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQLVwFoG8U&t=1s

    1. His accent sounds like that adopted by Paul Scofield in “The Train“…!!!

    2. The Black Sea is an “ocean”? This fool sounds like a Yank pretending to be a Kraut!

      No German would call the Black Sea an “ocean”. No German would be as geographically-challenged as this chump is.

      1. All salt water is called “ocean” in merkin, Grizz. Sea is something to do with looking…

  78. Prevening, all. Let the headline letter writer be the first to do something rather than “looking on from a distance”. Not in my name. I’m quite happy to look on from a distance; the farther away the better as far as I’m concerned!

  79. A laptop with intelligence data has been found at one of the headquarters of the Right Sector* (Ukrainian nationalists). The computer allegedly has a licensed NATO registry number, Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) head Denis Pushilin said on Sunday.
    “The militants of the nationalists battalions have a special level of security clearance from the North Atlantic Alliance. This laptop contains a detailed map of the area with the location of our units,” Pushilin said at a press conference.
    In addition, he said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine planned to attack Crimea and Donbass in the spring of 2022.
    “According to our intelligence and the testimony of prisoners, an offensive operation was supposed to begin on 8 March of this year. The facts indicate that the invasion was planned simultaneously both on the territory of the republics of Donbas and in Russia’s Crimea,” Pushilin went on.
    The head of the DPR showed a map of Crimea with the locations of troops marked on it.
    On 24 February, Russia began a military operation to “denazify” Ukraine in response to calls for help from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR) in countering the aggression of Ukrainian troops.
    Prior to that, on 21 February, Russia recognised the sovereignty of the LPR and the DPR.

      1. Both sides are as bad as each other. Fake news; fake “victims”; fake “weeping Russian soldiers”; fake wounded civilians;

        The Ukes have murdered one of their “cease fire negotiators” because he was a Russian spy – though the Reds says that he was a Uke spy.
        I don’t believe a word of anything that I read (or, very rarely, hear).

        It is a ghastly nightmare – and that arch ignorant bitch, Fonder Lying, insists that “the Ukraine is part of Europe and must join the EUSSR”. The silly cow fails to notice that it is her gang of corrupt, failed Euro “presidents” that caused most of the trouble.

          2. He’s pished.

            Anyway, we can disregard Young Phil I was serious in my comment.

          4. As I wrote a couple of days ago: I believe the press about the ugliest potato in the local vegetable show, but that’s about all.

          9. Your analysis is spot on!
            It’s getting more and more complicated, murkier and murkier…best not to encourage either side by listening to their narratives.

            I think the US and the EU will try and spin it out for as long as possible, which I find morally indefensible because the outcome is in no doubt and they will just prolong the suffering – not that they care – and effectively, the Russians have probably already won.

          11. I would expect no less from your Buckfast party….>>>>>>>>fully bunkered now !

        2. ……………..and Baroness Ashton.

          Probably the most talented diplomat in Brussels.

        3. Snap. We appear to have the state of ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’.
          All trust has completely gone.

          1. I loved my one-time German boss’ riposte when he heard that phrase, “You know, in German we have a similar saying, ‘When you shit your trousers, it matters not vitch leg it runs down'”.

        4. …and that ‘Europe’ (the continent) consists of that part of Russia up to the Urals.

          Thick, failed Arms Minster, bitch.

      1. Don’t know where the info came from, but it’ll be a cold day in Hull before I believe anything from either side, Geoffrey.
        Good evening, by the way! Had a good weekend? Sunny, warm (+6,5) and sleepy here.

          1. What, when we didn’t have what was probably a manmade ‘pandemic’ and now the possibility of a nuclear war? A bit more fun before that, yes, probably.

          5. Before the manmade pandemic we had suffered 40 months of parliamentary trench warfare. That wasn’t fun. So much did it occupy everyone in government that they all took their collective eye off the ball…

          7. I met MB during the Cuba crisis week.
            Both then, and now, I have other matters on my mind. And both of them MB related.
            Our lives together book ended by nuclear crises.

          8. I met MB during the Cuba crisis week.
            Both then, and now, I have other matters on my mind. And both of them MB related.
            Our lives together book ended by nuclear crises.

          14. I miss fun; spontaneity; laughter. Not having to worry about visiting friends in case they’ve gone all covid hysterical. Pussy footing around when talking to them.
            The experience of my normally casual cousin shushing us from talking in the garden in case neighbours heard us is seared on my memory.
            Bring on the GDR (deceased!?!).

          15. I was trying to think what it was that is bringing us down so much, and I ended up with the lack of spontaneity as well.
            Fear of snitches is a terrible thing 🙁

          17. Yes,
            I fondly remember discussions on tartan toilet paper, and how to make toast properly…

    3. March 8th. International Women’s Day.
      About which I knew nothing until I visited St. Petersburg and was presented with a sprig of mimosa.
      And there were lots of dishy young Russian men carrying cake boxes en route to visiting their mothers.

  80. That’s me for this day of two halves. Grey morning – sunny afternoon.

    Funeral tomorrow – neighbour. Nice chap. Lorry driver and ace gardener.

    When I asked him how he managed to get his veg patch so immaculately weed free, he said: “It is easy. I get up at 4 am – an hour before I need – and hoe it; then have breakfast and leave with the lorry at 5.15…”

    Anyway – have a jolly evening digging your bomb shelter.

    A demain

  81. France’s “Lack Of Humanity” Dig At UK…..
    Russia-Ukraine War: Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to Calais in the last days after fleeing the Russian invasion of their country hoping to join relatives already established in the UK

    1. While I believe the country is full to bursting, better Ukrainian Christians than islamic jihadists.

    2. That story is frankly unbelievable. Britain never turns anyone away at the Channel!

    3. LATE POST. Does that mean BOTH our planes will be shot down?.

      Just IMAGINE the propaganda coup for Vlad when RAF aircrew are paraded on Russki TV.

    4. And what fighter jets is this? Does Ukraine have the skill, parts or resource to operate F-16s?
      Norway gave them some man-portable M72 antitank shoulder-fired missiles. You still need to train with them.

    1. Just promoting herself, virtue signalling and spouting bullshit, Belle, just like they all do.

    2. That is not a plan but a worthless wish list formulated by a very stupid man evidently with no understanding of realpolitik. The conflict in Ukraine is not black and white and no one side is ‘better’ or more honourable than the other.

      Johnson is toast at the next election.

      1. The calm, considered, statesman-like senior politician is conspicuous by his absence. (Or “her” for the PC minded).

    3. Shouldn’t she be having a plan to shut the BBC, or make it subscription only?

    2. 351265+ up ticks.

      TB,

      Will it be the regular £25 a pop, and mountain marching boots a must

  87. I wrote 20 minutes ago, “It’s been a pretty miserable 5½ years all told.”. Then I thought to myself just what happened in mid 2016 and the start of 2017?
    The Brexit Referendum upset an awful lot of people around the world, not just our resident Remainers. Then not too long afterwards Donald Trump became POTUS, to the shock and horror of almost worldwide MSM and governments.
    Were these 2 major upsets catalysts in the worldwide disruption we have seen in the past 5½ years?

      2. Just shows how stupid the left is, no vision, just a myopic hopeless hope that socialism will work next time around.

      3. Just remembering the BBC’s tears on both occasions makes it worth the misery caused by you lot.

    2. I wondered that, MM.
      Are TPTB getting their revenge on the little people who refused to do what they were told?

      1. I have believed for the last two years that the pandemic was nothing to do with health; it was all about control. Making us reliant on govt decisions and telling us where we could go, what we could do and etc. The police assumed powers that were not issued to them and everything was done to make our lives, and the lives of children, as miserable as possible.

        1. I will never forgive them for sacrificing the children. That alone shows the utter vileness of the the authoritarian great resetters.

    3. Yes and no. I was talking to my daughter about how divided society is compared to, say, the 90s, which is the last time when I didn’t feel like a stranger in my own country.
      While the open divisions appear to have grown since Brexit, in fact, they have been present all my life. I have felt alienated from the agenda that was being pushed on us ever since I became aware of it.
      But we weren’t allowed to complain. We were shushed with insults like Bigot and Racist, and the left cruised merrily onwards, believing that the country would remain strong and united if they just didn’t allow the opposition to speak.
      We’ve been alienated, demonised and categorised as sub-humans since at least the 1960s. The splits in society developed the moment they closed down free speech on mass migration and other contentious issues.

      The only difference since 2016 is that the left didn’t get their way for once.

    4. 351265+ up ticks,

      Evening M,
      The odious threesome were very pro eu on the 2016 prior to the result,,when I heard post result “leave it to the tory )(ino)_ party” I knew we had a fight on our hands.
      Political leopards are the same as run of the mill leopards, they DO NOT change their spots.

      1. I too was a bit disappointed with Nigel Farage’s immediate stance after the result, but it would not have got that far without him.

        1. 351265+ up ticks,
          M,
          I still see him on hearing the result walking away muttering, his actions since the referendum
          have confirmed to me he has been a tory (ino) party
          coxswain from the outset.

          As with kim philby he hurt a multitude of decent people.

    5. No, what’s being done to us began with the Frankfurt School being triggered by the obvious resistance to communism in Russia. The proles were expected to lap up enslavement. There began the plotting.

      1. Agreed that it all stems from longer ago, but I just think those 2 happenings made them come out into the daylight instead of skulking in the darkness.

  88. That was a really good dinner.
    Roast beef, Yorkshires, Lithuanian horseradish strong enough to strip paint, peas, roast spuds, sprouts, followed by apple & rhubarb crumble. Bottle of nice Chianti.
    Sitting here, fat & full, finishing the bottle. Excellent SWMBO production…

    2. Roast chicken, roasties and assorted veg.
      Rather a lot of wine.
      Plenty of stuff left around for a stonking fridge soup tomorrow.
      p.s. roost chicken = crack cocaine in the dog world.

    3. For me it was a roast leg of lamb with garlic and crushed coriander seeds, cauliflower cheese and peas, washed down with a glass of Argentine Malbec. Dessert was a handful of South Efrican grapes.

      1. We had roast lamb shoulder, roast King Teddies, beans, broccoli, leek, wine, preceded by smoked salmon, prawns & leaves. Music was Bach organ recital. No room for dessert except a square of chocolate.

  89. Never mind Twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/us-fighter-jets-ukraine.html
    U.S. is exploring how to send Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine.
    The Biden administration is discussing how to supply Polish Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, American officials say, after President Volodymyr Zelensky made a passionate plea to American legislators on Saturday for assistance in obtaining more lethal military aid, especially Russian-made jets that Ukrainian pilots know how to fly.

    The White House said a deal with Poland was being discussed that would replace Poland’s planes with American F-16s, but Polish officials seemed less than enthusiastic. After President Andrzej Duda said last week that Poland would not supply planes, the office of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter on Sunday: “Poland won’t send its fighter jets to #Ukraine as well as allow to use its airports. We significantly help in many areas.”

    A jet-supply arrangement would require congressional approval and is being discussed with other NATO countries. But any such supply would be a sovereign decision of the country involved, not a NATO decision, because NATO wants to avoid any direct conflict with the Russian military in Ukraine or over its airspace.

    On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, visiting Moldova, said the United States was exploring the idea of supplying jets to Poland should Warsaw choose to send its own to Ukraine.

    “We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes that Poland may provide to Ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill, should Poland decide to supply those planes,” Mr. Blinken said. “I can’t speak to a timeline, but I can just say we’re looking at it very, very actively.”

    There are numerous practical questions, including how to provide replacement planes to Poland and how to get the Polish planes to Ukraine. The next tranche of F-16s for export are set to go to Taiwan, American officials said, and they are reluctant to delay them.

    Mr. Zelensky has regularly asked for NATO to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to prevent Russian aircraft from bombing, but NATO has been adamant that it will not confront the Russian military in or over Ukraine.

    Weapons to shoot down Russian planes, like ground-to-air Stinger missiles, are being sent into Ukraine in large numbers through its western borders, but it is not clear how easily they are being distributed to Ukrainian troops elsewhere in the country.

    The European Union had explored the idea of supplying Soviet jets to Ukraine, and its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, even promised them. But the idea was dropped. Among E.U. countries, only Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria still use Soviet-era jets.

    Bulgaria and Slovakia said last week that there was no deal to send fighter jets, and Mr. Duda, appearing Tuesday at a Polish air base alongside the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said, “We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict.’’

    “We are not joining that conflict,” Mr. Duda said. “NATO is not a party to that conflict. However, as I said, we are supporting Ukrainians with humanity aid. However, we are not going to send any jets to the Ukrainian airspace.”

    Russia on Sunday did not comment directly on the possibility of the West providing fighter jets to Ukraine, but it threatened countries that allow the Ukrainian military to use their airfields.

    Any use of other countries’ airfields “for the basing of Ukrainian military aviation that is subsequently used against the Russian armed forces may be regarded as the involvement of those countries in the armed conflict,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

    2. It looks like the owners of said Soviet planes are not at all enthusiastic – not surprisingly. I wonder if the suggestion was made in the fairly sure knowledge that it would fail? But even so, it ramps up the tension, and that isn’t clever at all.

    3. Is ‘President’ Volodymyr Zelensky the legitimate ruler to be receiving this armed largesse from the dopiest POTUS ever?

  90. Right, over 400 posts to read to I must not upvote any of them otherwise I’ll be White Screened.

    I think today was the first bit of springlike weather this year. After finishing off filling the wood shelter I emptied last Saturday, I got the chop-sew set up and cut a load of sticks, up to 2″ or so, for filling into plastic mushroom trays. Got about 2 dozen done and stacked at the back of the house.
    A bit of an aching back after that.

    1. Well done. I have an inkling of how you feel.

      Today I finished shifting all the various bits of the large oak into piles. I’m cutting off the small stuff for the bonfire. I’ve cracked a few of the proper logs, each weighs well over a hundredweight, and I have roughly sixty left.
      The medium stuff is easier, roughly four to six hits to produce fire sized pieces, the branches can be cut to logs, the bigger bits need splitting, but only one hit, sometimes two.
      The bits down to kindling are lopper and hand axe size.
      At current rate of progress I hope to be finished by the end of the month!

        2. I like it when the axe goes through cleanly, not so much when the wood fails to split and wedges and a sledge hammer are required.

    2. “After finishing off filling the wood shelter I emptied last Saturday, I got the chop-sew set up and cut a load of sticks, up to 2″ or so, for filling into plastic mushroom trays. Got about 2 dozen done and stacked at the back of the house.
      A bit of an aching back after that.”

      Never mind, Bob:

      I feel that Vlad will be petrified …

    1. 351265+ up ticks,

      Evening TB,
      If you ask me I would say we need Ukrainians help with a Country that is in the latter stages of being decimated.

    3. Tobias Ellwood’s days are numbered. The fool just does not realise it yet.

      Putin has can no desire to wreck Ukrainian infrastructure. He wishes to clear out the Ukrainian militia who have been attacking and marginalising Russian speakers for a decade and more.

      Russia has energy independence, vast mineral resources and has massive exports and export potential. Russia also has vast reserves of gold and currency. It has a very large and well equipped military and command structure.

      Our politicians have lost the plot. Their threats against Putin are idle threats. We are weak and dependent on others for maintaining our energy grid. We also have phenomenal debts owing to government incompetence, the pandemic rip-off, the green energy con and quite staggering fraud.

          2. Gawd, I must be tired. Sorry, Ann, I was just starting a book and not concentrating. I’d also just stopped watching ‘Threads’ halfway through, the 1984 docudrama about a nuclear attack on the UK. Quite disturbing as it was meant to be.

          3. No problemo. I am very tired also but having a couple of quiet days chez Lake.

    2. That is horrific- and yet another one slips through the cracks. When is something going to be done to protect these innocent children from these thugs and monsters?

      1. 351265+ up ticks,

        Evening LotL,
        Not all the time lab/lib/con coalition finds support & votes.

  97. I found petrol at £1.43 in Saunsbury’s earlier where almost other places were between £1.55 and £1.68.
    I put half a tank’s worth in then did the going to pay for petrol’ walk; four steps toward the booth, look back to check the pump number, carry on walking.

      1. Sainsbury’s is being very lethargic in its converting to pay at the pump pumps.

  100. How do you tell the difference between Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill?
    Ask them to pronounce ‘unionised’.

  101. Monday’s Wordle…iiiiin three (again)

    Wordle 261 3/6

    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟨🟩🟩🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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