Sunday 7 February: Stories to be proud of from the frontline of the vaccination programme

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/02/07/letters-stories-proud-frontline-vaccination-programme/

909 thoughts on “Sunday 7 February: Stories to be proud of from the frontline of the vaccination programme”

  1. The world’s bad guys are winning. Is anyone going to stand up to them? 7 February 2021.

    Putin has ignored resulting international uproar. He ignores nationwide street demonstrations, which have brought mass arrests. He ignores Russia’s own laws. Yet his effrontery is no surprise.

    After invading Georgia in 2008 Putin realised he could get away with almost anything. The lesson was reinforced when he annexed Crimea in 2014 and intervened in Ukraine, Syria and Libya. He even tried to subvert US elections – and got a free pass from Trump.

    Morning everyone. This is another thinly disguised attack on Putin though I had hopes when I read the headline that this would be about the new Marxist government in the US and the UK’s equivalent indifference to democracy or the opinions of the people in its measures against the virus.

    Tisdall’s accusations in the quote deserve some attention. We have ample demonstrations in the UK and so far as I am aware none of them have resulted in Government action ,while the most recent one in the US has resulted in the persecution by Federal authorities of those involved in it!

    Crimea has long been a part of Russia and the “annexation” was a result of the US and EU overthrowing the legitimate government of Ukraine. Syria and Libya are of course the most egregious examples of western meddling that have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents. We have Russia to thank that the former has not collapsed and sent half a million refugees to the borders of Europe to escape Jihadist rule. Libya has been reduced to murderous chaos and its prosperous residents to penury by the activities of France under Sarkozy and the UK under Cameron. Now where do the “Bad Guys” really reside?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/07/myanmar-china-russia-bad-guys-winning-stand-up

    2. Oh dear. If this is a “thinly disguised attack” what would an overt, full, strength attack be like?

        1. “Last summer, an undercover team from Russia’s FSB spy agency poisoned Navalny while he was touring Siberia. They applied the nerve agent novichok – used against Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury – to the inner seams of Navalny’s underpants.”
          That seems improbably precise. The inside seam. Not the pouch at the front? Is Novichok clear and invisible as well as non-sticky?
          Who are these hapless assassins? They go to extraordinary lengths to dream up the most Heath Robinson of murder methods, which not only exposes them to being caught while they deposit expensive perfume bottles in rubbish bins and go through underwear drawers like a teenager stalking Madonna, but also exposes them to ridicule when their attempts fail.
          Have they not read a few (decadent) Russian novels? Just shove Navalny in front of a train.

          PS Note to Guardian writers: Nelson Mandela was a convicted terrorist and murderer who escaped execution because the sentence was commuted.

  3. I see that the Telegraph allows Guardian contributors to write in to the Letters Page. Richard Mountford, who is advocating the decriminisation of all drugs, and that they be regulated like tobacco, is the same person who in 2017 said in the Guardian that the government should run brothels.

    And yet the Telegraph won’t print letters from genuine Telegraph readers concerned about the authoritarian moves behind the pandemic response or huge transfers of wealth and power from the public to civil servants and big business, particularly the tech giants, who are busy suppressing free speech in order to oust conservatives from political office, as they did in last November’s US Elections.

    1. Morning Andy. I note that the Telegraph has deleted all the posts on the article about the Holocaust Monument; probably because they lacked enthusiasm for the project!

      1. If they wanted to commemorate the Holocaust in bad taste on the Victoria Embankment, why not just issue MPs with striped pyjamas, lock them in and close down their tea rooms?

        There can be little shortage of those lacking enthusiasm for such a project, but it would be cheaper.

  4. Tory MPs want courts to block trade with countries guilty of genocide. 7 February 2021.

    Dozens of Conservative MPs will try to change the law to allow courts to pressure the Government not to trade with countries found guilty of genocide.

    Three dozen Conservative MPs are expected to try to amend the Trade Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday so that judges are given a bigger role in determining genocide, subject to a vote of MPs.

    Well that leaves France (Indochina) Spain (the Americas) Belgium (the Congo), Italy (Abyssinia) and Germany, (for obvious reasons), out of the running

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/02/06/tory-mps-want-courts-block-trade-countries-guilty-genocide/

    2. Then all they have to do is re-define the word genocide to include hurty feelings, and soon we won’t be able to trade even with ourselves!

      1. The definition includes expelling large numbers of people from the country eg Rohingya/Myanmar (aka Burma).

  5. Covid news today on BBC Radio 4.
    Doctors to get an extra £10 for every person they vaccinate at home. Do the doctors deserve this incentive?
    The AstraZenica/Oxford vaccine may not be very effective at protecting against the African mutated virus. Is this an attempt to make the Pfizer vaccine more acceptable?

    1. Yo cl

      Doctors to get an extra £10 for every person they vaccinate at home.

      I do not know where my Doctor lives!!

  7. Morning all. Snowing here.

    SIR – Last week, my wife and I received our first vaccinations, in Kenilworth.

    The whole process was swift and well-organised, and the staff were helpful and efficient. Well done to everyone involved.

    The Government has received much criticism of late, but the vaccination programme is a major positive for it.

    Trevor Marwood

    Lapworth, Warwickshire

    SIR – My wife and I had our first Covid jabs this week.

    The phone-booking service was first-class. We arrived at the pharmacy early and were both seen immediately – in and out in 10 minutes.

    We can be truly proud of all those responsible for organising the vaccination process.

    Phillip Jones

    Winkfield, Berkshire

    SIR – My mother will be 90 in a few weeks’ time.

    She has still not heard when – or even whether – she will receive a vaccine. She is frail, has mobility issues, is housebound and does not know if, were she to be offered a vaccination, she could get to a centre. Frankly, she is frightened.

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    I find it unbelievable that, amid the current back-slapping over the vaccination programme, there are still vulnerable old people who have plainly been forgotten.

    Matt Carter

    Great Milton, Oxfordshire

    SIR – If the UK has spare Covid vaccines, sharing these as part of the proposed trade deal with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would be a great place to start.

    After all, the partnership includes some major Commonwealth countries, including Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and Brunei.

    Tim Beattie

    Fitzroy North, Victoria, Australia

    SIR – In a time of draconian travel restrictions – and who knows how long they will last? – little has been said about the effect on scientific progress.

    Some of my research relies on carrying out experiments at facilities only available overseas. All this work has been stalled. In the short term, health has been (and remains) the priority. In the medium term, it’s the economy, and some exemptions from travel restrictions will be granted to those planning to make multimillion-pound investments in the UK.

    However, in the long term, we need new knowledge and understanding to adapt and survive, and the very small number of people engaged in generating this knowledge – who are almost by definition likely to be sensible with regard to their exposure to hazards – should be given the facility to travel for their work without hindrance.

    Jeremy Ramsden

    Honorary Professor of Nanotechnology

    University of Buckingham

  8. Thank you, Sir Tom

    SIR – In his early life, Captain Sir Tom Moore was a brave soldier fighting in defence of our country.

    In his final year he inspired us all as a remarkable and compassionate man who brought enjoyment and love into this dark time in our lives.

    He was a hero in the truest sense of the word. We owe him a great debt of honour and must never forget what he did for us.

    Ted Shorter

    Tonbridge, Kent

  9. HS2 disconnect

    SIR – We have all learnt a lot during this awful pandemic.

    One saving grace has been the internet, with its ability to keep – among others – schools and businesses connected.

    Why, then, is it necessary to destroy homes, businesses and the countryside (which can never be recovered) with HS2?

    Jayne Robinson

    Andover, Hampshire

    1. First Class Business people who want to get from Euston to Curzon Street in a straight line will be more connected. Is there any better way of spending £100 billion of public borrowing?

  10. Cumbrian coal

    SIR – Roger Gentry (Letters, January 31) is mistaken to suggest that the proposed new coal mine at Whitehaven in Cumbria is environmentally “unfriendly”.

    What is left of our steel industry still requires a lot of coal to operate. It is obviously preferable to use Cumbrian coal rather than importing it from overseas, with the huge transport pollution that this entails.

    Peter Froggatt

    Dorking, Surrey

  11. Martina Navratilova joins challenge to Joe Biden’s transgender athletes policy. 7 February 2021.

    The US president indicated he would move to allow more transgender athletes to take part in school sports and women’s competitive sports.

    Uncle Joe’s transgender policy = death of women’s sport! Just one of those minor problems that a Marxist Agenda raises.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/06/tennis-legend-martina-navratilova-leading-challenge-joe-bidens/

    2. People can protest all they want, but what is really needed to drive the point home is a male tennis player ranked at about 120 in the world having the, er, balls, to transition and win all four female Grand Slams.

      1. Well done, BB2, you’ve garnered number 10 downvote. Wear it it with pride – it means you’ve upset our resident Rickety-bridge dweller and gained an upvote in mitigation.

    4. Those Dem supporters (plus a lot of non-voting ones, if you get my drift) got what they voted for.

  12. Massive Avalanche Near Chamoli, ‘150 People Missing’; Rescue Ops Underway. & February 2021.

    The water level in the Dhauliganga River rose after a sudden avalanche near a power project at Reni village in Tapovan area of Chamoli district. The District Magistrate of Chamoli has directed the officials to evacuate the people living in the villages situated on the banks of the Dhauliganga River.

    Breaking news! This is being reported as a Glacier Collapse on Al Jazeerah so it may be even worse than this report!

    https://news.abplive.com/news/india/uttarakhand-glacier-collapses-near-reni-in-joshimath-villages-flooded-near-dhauliganga-rescue-ops-underway-1442997

      1. No man is an island,
        Entire of itself.
        Each is a piece of the continent,
        A part of the main.
        If a clod be washed away by the sea,
        Europe is the less.
        As well as if a promontory were.
        As well as if a manor of thine own
        Or of thine friend’s were.
        Each man’s death diminishes me,
        For I am involved in mankind.
        Therefore, send not to know
        For whom the bell tolls,
        It tolls for thee.

        John Donne.

      2. It is the disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas that has been reported as responsible for the failure of water supply systems in Northern India and Bangladesh. Another source of migrants, particularly to the UK, where many of these people have relatives.

        It is also another piece of evidence pointing to catastrophic global climate disruption caused by over-exploitation of resources by humanity that is often denied by some here, who believe this is a conspiracy theory, and that nonogenerian National Treasure Sir David is fretting unduly.

        2. People are not disputing climate change, they are disputing the claim that it is man-made, and reversible by man.

          The Alps provide copious amounts of water to their surrounding countries including large cities like Munich, despite having very few glaciers, so why does this affect the water supply in India? The amount of water falling in a given year will presumably not change.

          1. The Himalayas are on a similar latitude to Egypt or Florida, whereas the Alps are in a temperate zone with different seasons.

            Furthermore, Europe is a maritime continent, and few places are far from the sea, with moisture-laden sea currents. The Himalayas are continental and rely on the glaciers to maintain the monsoon.

          2. there may be climate change, there always has been. However, we humans may not control it but we can ameliorate the effects. We do not need to travel around the world in jet planes, and we do not need to use plastic. We do not really need 80% of the trash we buy from China.

          3. Jet planes probably don’t make a meaningful difference. Look up the sun spot activity / temperature graph, and you soon realise how pointless it is to try and change the climate by banning plebs from going on holiday.

          4. That may be true on a macro level, but pollution is bad news. I don’t expect to change the climate. I’d like the planet to be cleaner and healthier, save the rain forests and agricultural land, use atomic power, remove wind turbines, stop the use of plastic. Minimise tourism. – look up Skye.

          5. Wow, Horace, you’re really pissing something off. 2nd downvote, taking the total to 13 but gaining you an extra up-job.

          6. ‘Evening, Horace, you have the delight of completing the round dozen downvotes. So far it is up for FGM and now supports China but you have an extra upvote. Be happy.

  13. Still funny!

    At St. Peter’s Catholic Church, they have weekly husbands’ marriage seminars.
    At the session last week, the priest asked Giuseppe, who said he was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he had managed to stay married to the same woman all these years.

    Giuseppe replied to the assembled husbands, ‘Wella, I’va tried to treat her nicea, spenda da money on her, but besta of all is, I tooka her to Italy for the 25th anniversary!’

    The priest responded, ‘Giuseppe, you are an amazing inspiration to all the husbands here! Please tell us what you are planning for your wife for your 50th anniversary?

    Giuseppe proudly replied, “I gonna go picka her up.”

  14. Phew! Here at last!
    I don’t know what that Windoze update contained or was downloading off my PC, but over ½ an hour is a bit of a ballsache! At least I managed to get the chain put back onto the chainsaw after it chucked its self off yesterday!

    A chilly -2°C on the yard thermometer, but a dry morning so not too bad, but what happened to all that snow we were promised?

    1. Morning Bob! Have been saying that for days! All we have on the lawn this morning is the buzzard and a flurry of small hailstones! I wish it would make up its mind!

    2. ‘Morning, BoB, the snow has arrived here in Suffolk, blown sideways on a very blustery East wind.

      While some hack news writers will refer to it as ‘The Beast from the East’, given the Graudian’s current hate-fest against Russia, I won’t be surprised to hear it labelled there as ‘Putin’s Revenge.’

    3. ‘Morning, BoB. Son2 and I cut and split just short of a couple of tons yesterday, now recuperating! Grateful that the weather yesterday was a good deal better than today’s.

    4. It’s comin’, Bob! For me in East Anglia (ish), it’ll be here momentarily, and, on and off for the remainder of Sunday.

        1. Confess I had to look the meaning up Duncan but I’m surprised you didn’t go the whole hog vis:

          “ANTIQUI COLANT ANTIQUUM DIERUM”

    2. Oddly enough, the same ‘climate activists’ and their rich friends never think climate change applies to them, given how often they fly around the world to go to eco conferences and protests, when video and telephone conferencing is available.

      1. Read that as “…to go to eco ego conferences and protests…” – and I think mine is more accurate.
        Morning, Andy.

        2. Young people tend to be idealistic until they have experienced real life. Such as supporting themselves, having children and paying a mortgage.

          I have heard students from Aston University say they see it as a rite of passage.

          I see them as a bloody nuisance.

  17. 329165+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    It would benefit these Isles more so if as much zest & zeal going into the virus incarceration campaign was shown in eliminating the countrywide paedophilia virus.

    This odious issue is not new but does get worse daily with the likes for example of the Dover door remaining open allowing more grist for the vice mill to gain entry.

    Labour’s unsavoury slice of PIE – Christian Concernhttps://christianconcern.com › comment › labours-unsa…
    24 Feb 2014 — Harriet Harman, Deputy leader of the Labour Party, has refused to apologise … allegations against Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt following an … Anyone who spoke out against them feared being called a …

    https://twitter.com/Bee42681881/status/1358121961222774784

    It’s your call on the 6th May.

    The indigenous multitude should bare ALL this in mind when entering the polling booth on the 6th May & before kissing X any mass uncontrolled
    immigration party agents.

  18. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Headline in today’s DT:

    He’s started… so he’ll finish: John Humphrys quits as Mastermind host

    Presumably there is now a frantic search in progress by the BBC for a blik, disabled, multi-gendered female. It won’t be easy, given the crippling workload for such people in the advertising business…

    1. Don’t forget lesbian, if such creatures are allowed under the new trans-friendly regs.

      Interesting to hear on the BBC this morning that David Beckham has come out as a gay icon. Has he rowed with his missus? Or is he now becoming a woman so as to get the Mastermind gig?

      1. ‘Morning, JM. Yes, I somehow missed the ‘lesbian requirement’. Come to think of it I also failed to include ‘leftie’ although I think most of us here take that as read, given that it’s the BBC we are talking about. As for Beckham, I imagine that it’s now anything with a pulse??

      4. Humphrys himself was pushing Mishal Husein, who succeeded him on the Today programme.

    3. ‘Morning Hugh.

      Whoever (or whatever) they choose it will mark my debut as a former watcher of the programme.

    1. Morning BB2. That’s really nasty! Didn’t 77 Brigade leap in to defend Ms Watson?

      1. She is not very popular among DM readers, most of whom were disgusted by her attitude last year towards the woman who made her rich.

        1. Actually these two have history, and a cat fight between them is inevitable.

          In the books, Hermione Granger had bushy, unruly tangle of frizzy brown hair and felt very bitter towards to gorgeous Ginny Weasley, who was Harry Potter’s love interest, and had beautiful long shining red hair.

          Rowling was against the casting of Emma Watson, suggesting this was a Hollywood imposition, since their leading characters must always be more attractive than their side characters, in order to attract the stars.

          When Rowling approved the casting of a black actress to play the character in the stage play, she said that Emma Watson does not have the right to claim the identity of Hermione Granger.

          After Potter, Watson chopped her hair off and became a feminist.

          1. I never picked that up from the books, I must say. Still, as you say, the comment from JK Rowling does rather suggest a bad relationship between them.

            Also, Emma Watson comes from a well-to-Oxford family, so being a left wing idiot is practically required in order to hold her head up!

      1. Having done dry January, I’m not prepared to give up alcohol for Lent this year. Trouble is, there is precious little luxury left for me to abstain from, as the government has restricted my life in so many ways, already. Going to the pub? Nope. Going out for a meal? Nope. Travel? Nope. Meeting up with friends? Forget it!

  21. Misogynists are trying to silence me: abuse bill commissioner. 7 February 2021.

    Claire Waxman, who is campaigning for amendments to the domestic abuse bill, says her work is prompting an increasingly coordinated online response from largely anonymous social media accounts designed to discredit and intimidate her from continuing. “Particularly around the area of the family courts and domestic abuse bill I have received a huge amount of abuse which has misogyny at its root, people who are trying to create a gender war,” she said.

    This would be from the National Front for the Liberation of Men then!

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/06/misogynists-are-trying-to-silence-me-abuse-bill-commissioner

    1. which has misogyny at its root, people who are trying to create a gender war,” she said.

      Best you go and talk to Joe Biden and his Democrats.

      He’ll explain all about gender.

        1. Blown over for the time being. It’s quite pleasant outside now, even the sun is showing an appearance; to show the sand to its best advantage…

    2. I still find it amazing that these leftists think that any critcism of their agenda/policies is some kind of ‘ism’ or ‘phobia’ from evil white men. Funny how the campaigners on this topic conveniently forget that (if I recall correctly) 30-40% of known domestic abuse is towards men, and yet they get very second-class treatment from the system compared to women.

      In addition, the authorities have swung from one extreme to the other in their ‘believ all women’ policy, exposing many innocent men to false accusations, plus the courts nearly always siding with the woman in divorce cases, especially as regards access to children. A level playing field of ‘believe credible evidence’ should be the one to go for, not siding with any particular side or group by default, especially if that is done to pander to certain groups for politically-correct reasons and seemingly good media coverage.

      That the Telegraph gives carte blanche to Joan Smith (and with no reader comments allowed) on a regular basis to write he drivel rather shows what the paper’s attitude is, amongst many other articles about ‘the patriarchy’ and ‘the gender pay gap’, etc.

      1. It’s standard Left push-back tactics. Call names such as racist, sexist, genderist, fist… to close down the argument. FFS, don’t explain, as you cannot, just insult.

      2. Quite agree. Women have some appalling, but more subtle, ways of bullying. Often those methods are far more destructive.

      1. Well, they wouldn’t have been allowed to sing “Swing low, sweet chariot” as it’s racist.

        2. Indeed, it was intended as a form of boasting about the size of one’s love sausage compared to lesser races.

      3. 329165+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        One would have hoped turned their back on the submissive display.

  23. Good morning, all. A gale blowing in yer Norfolk.

    Thankful I missed the Twickenham travesty. When you are losing, the best tactic is to kick the ball to the other side – lots of times.

    Could someone point out to the RFU that the BLM shytes want to destroy capitalism and stop the sort of malarkey such as sport?

    1. Strong wind from the North East with some light snow flakes in North Yorkshire. At 9am I had to drop a gear when cycling into the wind but it was a glorious top gear ride with the wind behind me on the mile long homeward stretch

      2. When I was a child and regularly cycling round the countryside near my home, I used to get to the top of a high hill called “World’s End”. Once on the downward slope and pedalling furiously, I tried to reach take-off velocity! Fortunately for me, I never could quite manage it, even with a following wind.

  24. Liz Cheney censured by Wyoming Republican party for voting to impeach Trump. 7 February 2021.

    Liz Cheney, the third-highest-ranking Republican leader in the House, was censured by the Wyoming Republican party on Saturday for voting to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol.

    The overwhelming censure vote was the latest blowback for Cheney for joining nine Republican representatives and all Democrats in the US House in the 13 January impeachment vote.

    On Saturday only eight of the 74-member state GOP’s central committee stood to oppose censure in a vote that did not proceed to a formal count. The censure document accused Cheney of voting to impeach even though the US House didn’t offer Trump “formal hearing or due process”.

    It would take one of our American contributors to speak authoritatively here, but surely this is an indication that support for Donald Trump has not diminished among the grass roots? They are demoralised no doubt, but it is a sign that there is going to be no rollover to the NeoMarxist government in Washington!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/06/liz-cheney-censured-by-wyoming-republican-party-for-voting-to-impeach-trump

    2. Neo implies new. From what I’ve seen and read Neanderthal-Marxist seems more appropriate.

    3. Cheney? Are all American politicians there because they are related to other politicians? Cheney, Bush, Clinton… worse than royalty, so it is.

      1. Classless society. They don’t have an hereditary ruling class; or so they tell themselves.

  25. The naming of cats
    SIR – It’s not just dogs that have catchy names ( Letters, January 31).

    We have always had fun naming our motley collection of cats and kittens, many of them rescued from a local pig farm. One kitten used to launch himself from a tree, fly through the air, and land spreadeagled on our lattice window, hanging on until we let him in. We called him Piggles.

    Another stray we brought home was found in the garden of the respected anthropologist Dr Shirley Strum. We called the kitten Strumpet.Unfortunately, I don’t think Dr Strum saw this as much of a compliment.

    Lesley Thompson
    Lavenham, Suffolk

    I am sitting here wondering what on earth can be wrong with the letters I have submitted to the DT?

    1. Maybe the Letters Ed knows his T.S. Elliot;

      “The Naming Of Cats by T. S. Eliot

      The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

      It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

      You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter

      When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

      First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,

      Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,

      Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–

      All of them sensible everyday names.

      There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,

      Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:

      Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–

      But all of them sensible everyday names.

      But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,

      A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,

      Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,

      Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

      Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,

      Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,

      Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-

      Names that never belong to more than one cat.

      But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,

      And that is the name that you never will guess;

      The name that no human research can discover–

      But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

      When you notice a cat in profound meditation,

      The reason, I tell you, is always the same:

      His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation

      Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:

      His ineffable effable

      Effanineffable

      Deep and inscrutable singular Name.”

      3. They did Old Possum as Radio 4 Book of the week a few decades ago so I went into several bookshops in Southampton to buy a copy only to find no one had one in stock and none of the bookshops knew it was on R4 every day!
        A missed marketing opportunity!

        1. I’ve bought several copies over the years for the children of friends and never had a problem finding it. I don’t know whether the BBC advertise the books they will be broadcasting very far beforehand, but it would make sense if they did.

    2. My daughter had a white and grey long fur tabby named Caspurr.
      Her current rescue cat is a small black cat named Shadow.

      1. We had a male ginger tabby , we named him Scud , he did very well for fifteen years .. He had a lovely relationship with previous spaniels , in fact he was more like a proxy dog .. sadly he wasn’t a cuddly lap cat.

    3. I have given all my pets (cats and dogs) proper human names and not silly ones. Ted, Ken, Geoff, Billy, Polly, Dennis, Dorothy, Veronica and Milly never complained.

          1. Pip is 8 years old , almost . Named him that because I had high expectations which actually were fulfilled .. Jack will be 13 years old soon .. his name suits him !

          2. When I got my current pooch (he was going to go to the local dogs’ home because the people who had him couldn’t cope with him), he had already been named. We didn’t change it because it suited him perfectly.

          4. Exactly, John! When we got him (and we were pretty used to training dogs) we understood only too well why they couldn’t cope with him. Mind you, after 17 years of persistent training, he has finally turned into the lovely dog whose potential I saw in that juvenile delinquent all those years ago. 🙂

    2. Oh dear, it doesn’t like you taking the mickey out of dear Adolf, so you get downvote number 14 and my upvote to mitigate,

    3. Oh dear, it doesn’t like you taking the mickey out of dear Adolf, so you get downvote number 14 and my upvote to mitigate,

  27. Punishing my self watching Marr.. Moh is upstairs watching the cricket

    Marr is interviewing the gobby spitty Milliband , I can detect his spray extending further than 2 metres.

    Milliband is far too animated and looking terribly brown. I wish Marr would ask him about that huge stone tablet .

      2. Morning Phizzee,

        I still have that image of Millband chomping into his sandwich . Yeugh!

        My goodness, 0800hrs when I opened the kitchen door for the dogs to dash into the garden, a mild breeze was blowing , now the breeze has picked up and turned into a nithering wind … brrrr

        1. Good morning, Belle

          I open the door for Dolly when it is cold and wet and she runs the other way and hides. I pretend to not know where she is.

    2. How many times have I told you off for watching politics on the telly?

      STOP IT!

      Get up them stairs and watch some decent cricket with your old man!

        2. Sorry to do this Belle, but is OH still sulking after Saints being beaten by 9-man Newcastle? The bozo Bruce had used all the subs, Saar got injured, so we played with 9 men for 18 minutes and still beat Saints!

          2. Tell him that at least they have a decent manager! We have one from the managerial merry-go-round!

        1. Morning, Paul.

          Oh? England 578 all out. India 225-6. We may be crap at rugby and football, but we’re currently the team to beat at cricket.

          2. Bess got good figures again. Let’s hope he and Leach find the fourth day pitch ideal for spin and can finish off India’s first innings quickly and then run through their second innings in the follow on so that England don’t have to bat again.

          3. The boy done well. I hope they can clean up the tail-enders soon to give all the bowlers a rest and plenty of time to bowl India out again.

    4. …and, Mags, here’s downvote number 15. It loves Marr so don’t say a word against.. My upvote should cancel it.

    2. We’re going to unite the country… by doing exactly whatever the hell we want to and if you don’t like it, we don’t care

  29. Such a pity that English Rugby has become racist. Its is a very sad day that this has happened. No wonder Scotland won.when they are against wets.

    1. Good morning, Johnny. Hope you’re keeping well.
      That’s one thing I like about your posts here – short, and absolutely to the point. No waffle, or beating about the bush. :-))

      1. He’s a fellow northerner like us, Paul.

        He leaves all the waffle and whingeing to the southerners.

          8. If I understand you correctly, it means a wee bit of skirt on the side. If that is so, what about the one in Belgium?

          14. There is, of course, no such person. British women are longer required to take the names of their husbands and she has never done so.

            Quite apart from the fact that a considerable number of Scots support her and her party and think highly of her (no, I don’t agree with them, but they do exist or she wouldn’t currently be First Minister) you should, perhaps, also consider that her parents are still living, and they undoubtedly love her… it’s what parents do.

          22. But that is not the City of Newcastle!
            Strictly speaking, to be a Geordie you need to be born within the Canny Toon!

          25. We used to hev shuggy boats on the Moor in Newbiggin when it hed a fairgroond theor.
            Used to enjoy them when aa wez a bairn.

    2. Time to get rid of Jones. His selections and tactics are woeful. His insistence on continually picking the utterly useless Youngs as scrum-half ensures that England will lose. Danny Care has been the best, most intelligent and most dynamic scrum half over the past decade yet Jones continually ignored him in favour of the execrable Youngs.

      1. For once, you are spot on, Grizz. Youngs must have enabled opposing sides to score hundreds of points by his endless kicking away possession.

        1. I was watching a YouTube video, the other day, of the exquisite David Duckham, one of England’s best-ever wing three quarters. He had the knack of running and twisting straight through defences and not directly into them as most modern-day players are wont to do time after time, ad nauseam.

          1. Morning, Grizz. I never played rugby as my grammar school, only having around 240 boys, couldn’t support rugby and association football. It settled on the latter and that suited me and as a result I never developed a following for rugby. However, I did admire some of the RU played 40 to 50 years ago. This video is of “The King” Barry John in his pomp. The ‘dummy throw, check and then accelerate away’ is sublime.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CEHt4n_Kz0

          2. The BBC had a short programme yesterday where Gareth Edwards was reminiscing about the Scotland Wales game 1971, where several of the clips feature on the one you posted.

          4. Gareth Edwards: “We’d better go out and train, Barry.”
            Barry John: “What do we need to train for? You just throw it and I’ll catch it’

          6. Virtually the same at my school, Korky. No rugby only football. I was only good enough (like Casper in ‘Kes’) to be stuck in the goals, but I was a more reasonable cricketer.

          7. The Welsh back in the 70s were poetry in motion . Beautiful rugby, so it was.
            Look at those passes & dummies, the man could dance between two blades of grass!

          8. It was watching that formidable Welsh side of the 1970s that first got me into rugby. JPR Williams, JJ Williams, Gareth Edwards, Mervyn Davies, Gerald Davies, Steve Fenwick, Derek Quinnell and the Pontypool front row (among others) were simply breathtaking.

          12. You might be surprised how big he was.

            He started his international career as a centre and would not have looked out of place in most modern (non-Jones/Gatland) three-quarter lines.

      2. Couple that with Jones’ obsession with relying solely on his forwards to batter their way through the opposition, rather using his backs to run with the ball.

    3. I think I shall transfer my allegiance to France where I live rather than continue to support a rugby team which abases itself to kowtow to those eager to promote racial hatred.

      Mind you, if any other team in the six nations competition kneels in subjection to a criminal who once held a loaded gun to pregnant stomach of a woman of his own race I shall abandon watching any rugby involving any team of self-abasers.

      1. At the Italy v France match yesterday the players did not kneel. They did, however, participate in a ‘Stand up to racism’ display before the match.

      2. I’ve decided to be a Jock from now on.

        Only because I prefer single-malt scotch to cognac!😊

          2. Nah, it involves a tab across Rannoch Moor carrying a cromach and a fully packed sporran. Those who successfully complete the tab will qualify for a large dram of single malt at the King’s House Hotel.

          3. I have 2 combi walking sticks provided by the hospital, and bum-bag! Will they do? See you in Glencoe!!

          4. Except in reality the Kings House is out of spirits and you have to tab back to start…
            ;-))

      3. This year I have stopped watching the Six Nations. The competition is not what it once was – when normal sized men played a game of picking up the ball and running. When the decision of the referee (however bad) was accepted without question. When there were no endless substitutes.

        1. I certainly won’t be watching this afternoons match – I can’t stand that whining Welsh pundit git Davies (no offence Bill)

      4. As I did yesterday, saw them engage in self virtue signalling so I turned the TV off, I have no wish to support them, they are not my England team.

    2. Allegedly Hamilton is in the top 5,000 UK tax payers.

      If that really is the case, why should he pay any more on top. We’re all far too heavily taxed as it is.

    2. And still people will argue that we must follow the science and trust the scientists totally.

      What is the difference between these experiments and the proposed mixing and matching of the various vaccines and drugs that we are being offered to fight war against Covid?

      1. In the absence of belief in God, people will believe anything.
        How’s that for a sentence to be used on Sunday?
        :-))

          1. Bugger!
            🙁
            Just when I thought I was being vaguely original.
            I think I’ll go down the garden & eat (frozen) worms…

          3. Think of it this way. Few things are entirely original. There is always argument about who invented what. I think that this is because the same context brings about similar thoughts. So you may have a thought that is original in the sense that you have not come across it before, but it may be in a dozen academic papers and half dozen novels. That does not make it any less your original thought. In this instance you are sharing a thought expressed by a literary genius.
            It should make your day!

            (Have I mentioned that I invented a luggage carrier with wheels a couple of years ago, only to discover that there are around 200 million or more in use?)

      1. No he wasn’t! Apparently pretty well all his “experiments” were wasted as he had lousy technique and no controls. In other words, they were exercised in sadism.
        There was a bit of learning to be taken from freezing people though, IIRC.

        1. MD from the University of Frankfurt and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Munich. Looks like a scientist to me.

          1. Anthropology isn’t science, it’s guesswork… abd it didn’t help his experimental method.
            But I’ll not fight you over it. :-))

        2. “Throw those Jews into the ice bath, Kapo …. that’ll learn ’em!”
          — Josef Mengele

  33. ‘Morning All

    Well WE all knew this was coming……………..

    A series of ‘modifications’ to the Smart Energy Code have been proposed by officials and look set to pass into law by next spring.

    These include giving networks the right to decide when they consider

    the grid to be in a state of ’emergency’ and the power to switch off

    high usage electrical devices such as electric vehicle chargers and

    central heating systems in British homes.

    Under the plans all homes would need to have a third generation smart

    meter installed, to include a function that allows meters in the home

    to receive and carry out orders made by the energy networks.

    This would dramatically alter the role of smart meters, which are

    currently capable only of sending data on energy use to energy

    networks.

    If passed unchallenged, these ‘modifications’ to the law would mean

    that electric vehicle owners could plug in at the end of the day and

    wake up without sufficient charge to travel the next morning.

    Similarly, central heating systems could be turned off in homes

    across a whole area if too many electric vehicles are plugged in to

    charge at once, for example.

    Currently, consumers are entitled to compensation if their power

    supply is cut off, but under these plans, this recompense would likely

    be scrapped.

    https://www.thegwpf.com/and-so-it-begins-uk-government-mulls-emergency-measures-that-would-enable-networks-to-switch-off-your-electricity-without-warning-or-compensation/

      1. Breaking News
        All supplies of Diesel have been sequestrated by the government to keep “priority” *generators running…………………….
        *MP’s houses

    2. Building more power stations is out, then?
      In the days of the CEGB, there was much focus on diversity and continuity of supply. I know, ‘cos I was there.

      1. That would be common sense – more power generation, more output to meet demand but no. Big state is obsessed with green. This is fine, but those pushing this agenda are precisely those who refuse to live in the world they want for everyone else.

        1. Those who are complaining about the new coal mine in the North West should go to China and complain about all the coal fired power stations thay are opening up. One mine here isn’t going to compare to what will be coming out of there.

      2. The electricity network was privatised so that private companies would invest in new power generation – but they were not held to doing so by the terms of the sale. Result – no private investment, no state investment, no new power stations (fuelled by anything at all) for far too long.

    3. I’m just glad I didn’t succumb to the PR to change my elec and gas meters to the 2nd gen so-called ‘smart’ meters. Many of them still don’t work properly (especially in areas of poor mobile phone coverage) and won’t work with rival suppliers’ systems.

      I’ve been talking about this issue as regards the government’s idiotic policy of bringing forward EV-only new car sales from 2040 to 2035 to 2030 on another forum, as it shows that they can’t do both and get away with it if most people have EVs, given they’ll be mostly charged at home overnight.

      Of course, all those uber-rich people won’t be affected, because they can afford to have systems like that Tesla home battery system and huge arrays of PV panels on their roof.

      1. One of two things will happen.
        Either the EV policy will flounder in the face of opposition.
        Or else it will be rammed through and people will have to get used to the idea that cars are for the rich.

        I can see a nice little crisis coming up to ensure that option 2 passes.

    4. Presumably they are only referring to electric central heating. My oil fired CH runs on about 100W which my generator takes easily

      1. Oil-fired heating pumped by oil-fired generator? Hmm.
        Time to buy a small piece of woodland and obtain a Stirlng engine generator, or drill your own oil well.

        1. It’s a petrol genny Horace but I get your drift. I could plant trees on my 13 acres in accordance with crofting rules but I can’t afford the initial price of deer fencing etc and the rules of upkeep. They offer a loan which has to be paid back so I’ll stick with my solar panels and stand-by genny

    5. For, well, over a year now the modem element of our ‘smart’ meters haven’t worked. There’s no interest in replacing them or updating the software – as that needs to be done remotely and… can’t be.

      While they might want to turn off the electricity supply, considering the incompetence, ineptitude and all round failure to adapt to this technology it simply won’t happen. They might want it to, but the truth is the state is useless. It can’t organise a knees up in a brewery if the casks were already tapped and glasses laid out.

      As for central heating, the enforcement will be to remove gas and put in only electrical supplies and then ensure there’s no enough capacity. It is policies like that which prove the state is pathetic.

      1. Pathetic – I can think of harder-hitting words. Comes of being run by people who have Firsts in Greats and other such breakfast cereals, rather than actually knowing anything useful.

      2. Pathetic – I can think of harder-hitting words. Comes of being run by people who have Firsts in Greats and other such breakfast cereals, rather than actually knowing anything useful.

    6. As we Nottlers suspected all along. It was never about the consumer having more control of their energy usage it was all about ‘them’ controlling us.

    1. 329165+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      Or forge a friendship with you local forger, or in the extreme for many consider changing their voting pattern
      to a pro English / GB party.

      1. The card doesn’t even have the holders name printed (you have to print it on the reverse side at the top) on it. Just the vaccine brand, a number and the date.

        1. I hope somewhere a vet, going for their jab, takes a scanner they use on animals, and scans the jab area. Imagine if it bleeped.

          1. A down vote eh !
            Guest who ??
            No sense of humour at all. Right over it’s head. Pathetic.

      1. All that fighting to keep this country free – and the govt open the borders to let in all those we fought to keep out. Then rewards them for coming – and destroying us.

    6. Just another good old brit bites the proverbial dust eh. A salt of the earth Lovely Chap.
      He was once on Blankety Blank back when Wogan compared it.
      This morning on the BBC they were discussing something like is being British almost over. It was when i hit the right button.

          1. Don’t recall he was that craggy.
            Respect. A good man, and there’s not that many about any more.
            Respect.

        1. I had to larrf Saturday when the Doc administering the jab asked me how i would describe my self……my up turned hands and raised eyebrows conveyed the message.

  36. Nicked

    Combining a few of the stories in the MSM today:

    – Vaccine passports are coming but won’t be compulsory. Unless you want to travel internally or externally.
    – Vaccine teams to be sent to workplaces.
    – Semi-annual booster vaccinations.
    – Councils, with police & military support to go door to door to ask why you aren’t vaccinated.

    “Just 3 weeks to flatten the Sombrero”. “Its just a mask”.
    Funny old world,you can tell TPTB are gagging to make all this compulsory,the only thing stopping them are the incomers who would riot and burn at the drop of a hat if it was imposed on THEM
    Finally they are good for something……………

    2. I thought we left the EU so we would never hear the phrase (outside of wartime) ‘Can I see your papers, Sir?’ The government, no doubt cajoled by their ‘medical and scientific experts’, the media and the WEF crowd like Bill Gates, have likely been pressurising the travel companies (including airlines) to essentially make this compulsary by threatening to shame them if they don’t.

      You’ll see if no-one complains that the operation to get the private sector to do their ‘dirty work for them’ will then spread to operators of UK-based entertainment, holiday places/hotels, sporting establishments and maybe even pubs and restaurants.

      If that goes without a complaint, then expect it to reach the workplace generally. Nothing formal, though, but unofficial blacklists will be available.

        2. Prior to covid and lockdown it had already been mooted that no one should travel more than 15 miles for anything. The idea of a mini town or city.

          All you need in your own zone.

          Well we know that is patently untrue but i can see it coming.

      4. Unofficial blacklists do exist and have done for decades. A company thinking of hiring someone can consult speciality consultants and find out the potential employee’s history, politics etc.

        1. Think Positive Vetting – not a blacklist but a minute background check, I’ve been through one.

          1. When I was at Biggin Hill for my RAF selection they were very interested in the fact I’d studied in Moscow. In the end, the medical thwarted them – I failed and was unfit 🙂

        2. I remember a tv program years ago on a firm ( cannot remember the name ) that had offices, very secretive – they collected every bit of info on anyone – no matter if it was true or not – and had companies secretly subscribe to them to check any potential employees. At the end a list of companies were whizzed up the screen at speed, but several of my workmates saw our company name on it.

      5. It will be hard to get many jobs if you can’t travel outside your country of residence.

    3. Travel is the reason I’ve accepted the vaccine. It may not be mandatory but I think it will become a requirement.

        1. I corrected it immediately after posting. I often press send too soon. Are you now the resident pedant? I thought we’d all had enough of that.

          2. Not unless somebody searches for him in the very many spammers in the banned list. I can’t see Geoff or Garlands doing that.

          3. Not unless somebody searches for him in the very many spammers in the banned list. I can’t see Geoff or Garlands doing that.

  37. Finally over the side-effects of the AZ vaccine. That’s 48 hours of my life I’ll not get back…

      1. It mentions ‘mild flu-like symptoms’ in the list of side effects. It was far worse than any ‘flu I’ve ever experienced. And the additional back ache and sinus pressure meant I got precious little sleep at night. To rub it in, my OH only suffered mild nausea for a couple of hours afterwards.

          3. I think (hope) they might have surfaced by now if I have. The AZ vaccine is a normal one and I’ve had many over my life, mostly in the last 20 years or so.

          1. Last Friday at 11am. Side effects didn’t start until the late evening, ten hours later.

      2. There was a very amusing “article” by her yesterday (in the DT) describing her fave work of art. The MR and I wondered which of her PR people had selected VB’s fave picture and who had written “her” article. The language was far too sophisticated for VB to have attempted…..

    3. Middle east life crisis, just bringing home the bacon…………..or not.
      But a quote from Frances Urquhart, Every one has their price eh Dayfidd.

    4. There ought to be an extremely heavy tattoo tax levied on all those who vandalise their bodies with body graffiti unless they have served in the armed forces.

  39. The most insulting, patronising thing that I’ve heard so far in this pandemic is that pubs may reopen, but not be allowed to sell alcohol.

    Who on earth do these people think they are talking to, 12 year olds?

      1. As i said the other day perhaps our drongo government have done a deal with the MCoB ……….slammers.

    4. 329165+ up ticks,
      Morning ITP,
      Testing new weapons of people control & a multitude are condoning it.

      You will see how much the peoples are supporting via how the party’s agents do on the 6th May.

      1. It will be a biased outcome – only one party can be judged on the way it has handled the pandemic.

        1. 329165+ up ticks,
          Afternoon SIADC,
          My belief is mass uncontrolled immigration makes the toxic trio a coalition party.
          The lab party opened the floodgates the ersatz tories continued the practise with the wretch cameron, after pledging to reduce numbers promptly raised them.

        2. Lab haven’t exactly opposed though, have they? They are only ever heard bleating that the measures aren’t extreme enough.

    5. We always have to cater for the lowest common denominator, in this case, pub goers who act like twelve year olds.

    6. No, the 12 yr olds are all the 6ft bearded Islamic “children” coming here in dinghies. They, ( supposedly ) don’t drink alcohol – but many of the Police programs on tv show otherwise – as well as driving under the influence of drugs, with no license MoT or insurance. Import the 3rd World, become it.

    7. According to the ‘experts’, people who imbibe are more likely to not socially-distance. If that’s the case, then why is booze still on sale at (online) offies and in supermarkets? Of course, the ban doesn’t apply to MPs, who can still drink in the HoP bars and eateries, which are quite nice and numerous (I’ve seen them myself).

  40. 329165+ up ticks,
    May one ask, and not being disrespectful of Captain Tom, good bloke, did he have a current tv licence ? only asking because many of those approaching the same ilk agewise also stood and served whilst suffering a
    daily dose of bombs guaranteed to kill, things on the home front continued as near normal as possible.

    The Radio 2 is running a dedication program as we type for Captain Tom while the Bbc are sending out threatening letters to the elderly, in the royal mail.

    https://twitter.com/DefundBBC/status/1358020338387402753

    1. A Bbc wonk published a letter in the DT the other day claiming ‘the Bbc has never imprisoned anyone for non-payment of the TV licence’, without mentioning that it is the failure to pay the additional fines and court costs involved that actually get people banged up.

      1. and that related to England and Wales – no mention of Scotland where the law is different

        1. I recall an interview with a female magistrate who clearly had the same kind of sympathetic heart as Judge George Jeffreys. When she was asked if she didn’t think that sending an impoverished single mother to prison for non-payment of a fine in relation to a licence fee offence was a bit disproportionate, she smiled. When it was pointed out that that she would likely lose her house, her children would be taken into care, and she might never be reunited with her children, sh smiled again. This fine magistrate replied, “she should have bought a TV licence”.

          1. What an unpleasant woman that magistrate is, to be sure.

            I hope her tits turn square and fester at the edges.

          3. Comfortable middle class retirement, Community Council, WRI, Parish Council, knitting guild…Lord Lieutenantcy…

          4. …and here’s the ninth and an upvote to mitigate. With these old ones, it must be getting desperate.

        2. Mr Thomas, I only beg you to consider what this thread would look like if we female NOTTLers started making similar jokes about men…

      2. What it actually means is “We absolutely do not tolerate FGM (but do not worry, we have no intention of prosecuting any brown or black skinned person for a practice that might conceivably be argued to be cultural or a part of Islam)…..Oooh look! a squirrel!”

        2. I fear you are right, BB2.
          What worries me is that, some few years ago, I became out of my head with rage about it, and in-laws just referred to my rant as “fuelled by bile”. They lost my respect at that point.
          Too f*cking right it was! How can anyone in their right mind tolerate the mutilation of small girls? Or, small boys for that matter?
          Crapola, now I’m furious again!
          :-((

          1. It is one of the most appalling scandals of our time that our oh-so-caring-and-tolerant society turns a collective blind eye to the many cases every year.

          2. I had thought about enquiring from the weird woman who is in charge of he Derbyshire Perlice Farce how many investigations and prosecutions they had made in the last 12 months.

            But I don’t tweet or facebook or anything. Anyway, I’d get no reply.

          4. Sorry re the posting of memes, but the bullying and subjugation of others reduces me to incoherence. Prepared pictures are easier.

        3. 74% of females have been ‘circumcised’ in Ethiopia, which is an overwhelmingly Christian country.

          https://www.who.int/teams/sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-research/areas-of-work/female-genital-mutilation/prevalence-of-female-genital-mutilation

          Various religions are adhered to in Ethiopia. Most Christians live in the highlands, whereas Muslims mainly inhabit the lowlands. Adherents of traditional faiths are primarily concentrated in the southern regions. According to the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (2007 census), the national religious composition is Ethiopian Orthodox 43.5%, Protestantism 18.6%, Roman Catholicism 0.7%, Islam 33.9%, traditional 2.6%, and others 0.6%.

          2. It’s pure paganism, cutting parts of sexual organs.
            Allah woul be ashamed of them.

          4. Allah was more than happy to incorporate it into his religion. the only dispute is whether it’s mandatory or not.

        4. Wow, the phantom down-voter has now scored 8. Fear not, an upvote – mitigates. It obviously is up for FGM. Ah, that’s the problem!

      1. It was the other way round, the TV licence was free if you had someone over 75 living in the same house. I wonder whether she got one when the rules changed?

          1. Sorry Ellie, I meant to get back to you yesterday you are right he did live with his daughter and her family. When we saw him filmed doing his paps of the garden it looked like a care home and when the army arrived on his birthday it seemed to confirm it all . But I checked with my old mate who lives in Marston Mortaine and he lived with his daughter. My mate DP sent me some pics of the flowers left out side the house in his memory. The locals are breathing a sigh of relief as the media have moved on now.

          2. He was able to go on holiday with them in Decenber – that would probably not have been possible if he’d been stuck in a care home. No visits and definitely no going on holday. Not much for the old dears to live for.

    5. Bin every single one. Don’t engage, don’t reply, just put them in the bin. If anyone visits, tell them to go away. Better, charge them a fee for entry and arrange a time.

      It’s private property. They can make an appointment.

      1. Some years ago I received a similar letter in error. Our house had been known by two different names and the Licence people assumed that they were different properties. I wrote to them to put them right. I also enclosed an invoice for £10 for “Administration Fee”. They paid it.

      2. You are not obliged to talk to them or let them into your house. There’s plenty of advice on Youtube. I wouldn’t even make an appointment, just ignore them.

      3. Of course nobody here would break the law, but I know a family that were fined for not having a tv licence (they had recently moved) and the visiting enforcer rang the doorbell in the middle of the day and pushed past the woman who answered it to photograph the tv. I think this is why most fined people are women, because they don’t try it on with men.

        1. They do not have statutory right of entry, so there is no way the enforcer had the right to do that. Owning a TV is not an offence; it’s using it to receive programmes that requires a licence, so unless it was receiving a transmission at the time, that was no offence.

          1. Of course he didn’t have the right to burst into the family’s house, but they always rely on people being ashamed of being taken to court for not paying the licence.

          2. They also bank on people not knowing they don’t have the right to enter property without being invited (or a warrant issued by a magistrate).

  41. One van load of woods for the fire collected and my tiny hands are frozen!
    A few stray snowflakes falling, but the bulk of whatever may be falling elsewhere is missing us so far, but a number of cars have gone past covered in snow.

          2. But at least you do see some return on your money…

            The problem in the UK is that we get so little snow most years that it isn’t worthwhile spending the tax on the kit to deal with it on the rare occasions when we do need it. Councils, whose budgets have been slashed, can’t justify buying kit for a one year in 10 snowfall.

          3. Oh no complaints. It makes sense for us to equip all council equipment with snow ploughs, they get used enough.

            Strange weather this weekend, we had maybe three inches of snow. About fifteen kilometres away they recorded a foot.

          4. We had about an inch a couple of weeks ago, which had all disappeared into the wet underfoot within 36 hours. We’ve seen nothing over the weekend, but they’ve had a little bit further up the hills and a bit more is forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday. In this immediate area we have far more problems with road closures due to water – and no amount of ploughing or blowing (or wishing) can do anything about those… you just have to wait for the level to drop.

            There’s a lot of debate going on at the moment about new flood protection on the north-west side of Shrewsbury – which will hold the water back in our area, and may render some properties (not mine unless they do far more than they are talking about) uninhabitable. The planning people in Shropshire have modelled the outcomes in Shropshire as far upstream as the border – but so far they have failed to either model what will happen further up river in Montgomeryshire, or to provide Powys with the necessary figures to do their own modelling. It’s causing rather a lot of tension in the lowest lying areas around the Severn and the Severn/Vyrnwy confluence.

      2. Is that in Norway? There is a road like that in Austria, but they just leave it closed all winter. It’s only open for a few months in the summer.

    3. Might I be forgiven if I down voted that for the effect it’s having on me 😉😨😱 V

  43. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2677ff5846af40297b5232f975b522af68952b454e98b645da46d47d4ae0463.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ce1a8b7512d86aabb4e3b89f9e8d3f4433c17646743aa533509c33df4c879e5.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cfbb9c8be3493744e3b38d1aafff984faa5a5954b057b6d5e493c0cbb97a4d63.png Spikey is experiencing problems posting photographs on this site, so he’s asked me if I can post these scenes of the roads in the area he lives on here for him. I’ll leave it to Spikey to explain more about them.

    1. Looks like my area is now getting the snow around early evening rather than around lunctime. Still, at least I managed to get a good hour-long walk in this morning whilst the going was good (but very chilly in that wind).

      3. Something similar happened over here at the weekend.
        A friend posted a photograph of the nice light fluffy snow that had accumulated on the deck and railings around her house. We are less than ten miles away but the wind has ben so strong that snow is not settling anywhere.

        Spikes on the west coast isnt he? Could the snow have ben dumped as the air worked up over the hills before reaching his place?

        1. I think it was Richard although there’s the same 20 miles south and further north at Ullapool and you can see there’s a load on Skye to the west. I guess by the end of today all the roads will have been cleared

  44. There is a bizarre forecast for the next 24 hours around these parts. 35 to 45 mph winds plus FOG. My pore brane thinks that gales would, er, blow the fog away…

    Any meteorologists present?

    4. Afternoon Bill. One of the oddities of hill walking is to be stood in a full gale and not able to see beyond six feet!

  45. Good afternoon all

    Today I saw a dwarf climbing down a prison wall.

    I thought that’s a little condescending.

  47. You may be forgiven for being confused. Peter Hitchens today.

    Putin is a tyrant, but his rival is no saint…

    Why do we seek so often to reform other people’s countries, while making such a mess of our own? Is it because we don’t think very hard about either?

    I watched in despair the applause for the Arab Spring, especially in Cairo, where the ‘freedom demonstrators’ were often nasty antisemites, and the outcome was bound to be an Islamist regime. This duly followed, as did a savage and gory military coup which it’s not polite to mention.

    Now the West likes to despise Russia’s sinister tyrant Vladimir Putin. But who do they think will replace him? Before him, we had Boris Yeltsin, who (everyone now forgets) called up tanks to shell his own parliament.

    Yeltsin, having come to power on a pretence of hating corruption, was so corrupt it shocked even Russians, who, shall we say, are no strangers to corruption. While I was living there you could do hardly anything without a bribe.

    And now we are supposed to admire ‘opposition leader’ Alexei Navalny. Yet the very people who promote Navalny would shy away from any Western figure who had his record of militant nationalism and bigotry.

    He has appeared at rallies next to skinheads. He once took part in a video where he appeared to compare people from the Caucasian regions, often unpopular with ethnic Russians, to cockroaches.

    While cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he said, for humans he recommended a pistol. His defenders dismiss this a joke. Well, maybe.

    He has also spoken in favour of Russia’s repossession of the Crimea, saying ‘the reality is that Crimea is now part of Russia… Crimea is ours’ – a view I think reasonable, but which is hated by the BBC and liberal types who currently laud him.

    I have my own view on Russia’s miseries, which is that you cannot immediately recover from nearly 75 years of Marxist terror and stupidity, and that the West did little to help when Communism fell.

    But I also think that we rage against poor, weak Russia mainly because we are scared to take on rich, strong China. If President Putin is overthrown by Navalny or someone like him, we may come to wish for the devil we knew.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9231889/PETER-HITCHENS-Sir-Keir-Starmers-view-monarchy-really-changed.html

    And then there’s this. Marvin Rees is the Mayor of Bristol.

    Marvin Rees’ concerns for his friend, Alexei Navalny

    https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/bristol-mayor-concerns-for-russian-opposition-leader/

    He’s also been speaking on Radio 4’s ‘The World This Weekend’, telling us about the lovely afternoon they had picking apples ‘in the fall’.

    1. Navalny is obviously a western intelligence stalking horse attempting to destabilise Russia by attacking Putin. He would not himself attain power since he has no support. It would either be another leader from the Independent or Communist Parties!

  48. You may be forgiven for being confused. Peter Hitchens today.

    Putin is a tyrant, but his rival is no saint…

    Why do we seek so often to reform other people’s countries, while making such a mess of our own? Is it because we don’t think very hard about either?

    I watched in despair the applause for the Arab Spring, especially in Cairo, where the ‘freedom demonstrators’ were often nasty antisemites, and the outcome was bound to be an Islamist regime. This duly followed, as did a savage and gory military coup which it’s not polite to mention.

    Now the West likes to despise Russia’s sinister tyrant Vladimir Putin. But who do they think will replace him? Before him, we had Boris Yeltsin, who (everyone now forgets) called up tanks to shell his own parliament.

    Yeltsin, having come to power on a pretence of hating corruption, was so corrupt it shocked even Russians, who, shall we say, are no strangers to corruption. While I was living there you could do hardly anything without a bribe.

    And now we are supposed to admire ‘opposition leader’ Alexei Navalny. Yet the very people who promote Navalny would shy away from any Western figure who had his record of militant nationalism and bigotry.

    He has appeared at rallies next to skinheads. He once took part in a video where he appeared to compare people from the Caucasian regions, often unpopular with ethnic Russians, to cockroaches.

    While cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he said, for humans he recommended a pistol. His defenders dismiss this a joke. Well, maybe.

    He has also spoken in favour of Russia’s repossession of the Crimea, saying ‘the reality is that Crimea is now part of Russia… Crimea is ours’ – a view I think reasonable, but which is hated by the BBC and liberal types who currently laud him.

    I have my own view on Russia’s miseries, which is that you cannot immediately recover from nearly 75 years of Marxist terror and stupidity, and that the West did little to help when Communism fell.

    But I also think that we rage against poor, weak Russia mainly because we are scared to take on rich, strong China. If President Putin is overthrown by Navalny or someone like him, we may come to wish for the devil we knew.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9231889/PETER-HITCHENS-Sir-Keir-Starmers-view-monarchy-really-changed.html

    And then there’s this. Marvin Rees is the Mayor of Bristol.

    Marvin Rees’ concerns for his friend, Alexei Navalny

    https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/bristol-mayor-concerns-for-russian-opposition-leader/

    He’s also been speaking on Radio 4’s ‘The World This Weekend’, telling us about the lovely afternoon they had picking apples ‘in the fall’.

  49. Coronavirus latest news: Restrictions on large gatherings likely to be in place ‘for next few years’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-covid-vaccine-lockdown-end-latest-cases/

    Experts have warned that restrictions on large gatherings could remain in place for “the next few years” as the world learns to live with the coronavirus.

    Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, told Times Radio that he “can’t see us suddenly having another Cheltenham Festival with no regulations again”.

    “I can’t see us having massive weddings with people coming from all over the world, I think for the next few years those days are gone,” he added.

    Prof Spector also suggested that basic infection control measures – including physical distancing, face masks and handwashing – should remain in place as they “don’t cost really anything to do”.

    They want to keep us locked up indefinitely.

      2. that is all the excuse that they ned to bring in scan codes tattooed on foreheads. Keeping track of one vaccination is beyond the bureaucrats but annual licenses are beyond them.

        At least it doesn’t effect Canadians, the latest estimate is that the pretendy pm will need seven years to get enough vaccine for the first round.

      3. Of course they will be. How else will they keep the money rolling in for big Pharma (and keep us suitably controlled if our papers are not up to date)?

    2. 329165+ up ticks,
      Afternoon A,
      Eventually common sense will return regarding the polling booth not enough dead yet, took a world war last time still as long as it is not to late and we haven’t a Country to save.

      There are “MORE” of us than there are of “THEM” they only oversee by consent of the peoples, do the peoples know this ?

      Among decent peoples hand washing is a norm, masks
      are in this instance a defining line between sanity & stupidity.

    3. Banning large gatherings will bankrupt event venues and organisers. How is that not a cost?

      1. No cost to the state. Saves them money on policing.

        Of course, when they lose money on air travel taxes – which they already are – they’ll hike them.

        Eventually, comically, there will be so few people paying and so many troughers drawing cash from it that the state will be utterly bankrupt and in debt up to its eyeballs and devaluing the currency to allow them to keep borrowing to ensure the waste contin…

        Feck. Already there.

    4. Spector does not live in the real world. The cost of restrictions such as he mentions is the quality of peoples’ lives. I cannot see people being excluded from sporting events and religious gatherings much longer. We need to get people back to work, theatres and holiday resorts back to normal asap. World travel needs to be sorted out by countries to enable people to move about safely. The world leaders have frightened each other into the state we are in today. If it means Vaccine passports – so be it, but we have to get our freedoms back or there will be serious repercussions for the politicians

  50. That’s better!
    Mug of tea, unloaded the van, then a nice hot bath!!
    Just about to do another mug of tea, then it’s a bit of brisket done in the slow cooker with a load of veg packed round it! I’m starting to get hungry!

  51. 329165+ up ticks,
    Four reasons why they cannot return and MUST stay & suffer as many of the indigenous innocents have to, the four reasons being the lab/lib/con coalition & members / voters.

    breitbart,
    Illegal Migrants Unhappy with Free Accommodation in ‘Racist’ UK Want to Return to EU

  52. Jesus appears regularly in a friends bathroom. He’s never seen or spoken to him but his wife has USUALLY JUST AFTER HE’S LEFT

    1. Ahem – I’ll have you know, that I have contributed to mobile phone standards.

      Just don’t get me started on feminism and positive discrimination in engineering – it’s one of my biggest rants of all time.

      1. Don’t need it over here. The girls are good, no doubting it. Don’t shirk, no asking for special favours, abd bluddy clever.
        But then, weegie girls have manned up years ago (if you see what I mean) and cut the mustard.

      2. I read your comments under the article – life is hard enough for single parents without the added lockdowns, home schooling and living in a tower block.

        1. Add to that they wanted only one person to go to the supermarket. Just how a single parent is supposed to manage that with small children i don’t know.

          3. Nothing so cruel. A large cupboard in the hall (a “press”). How they appreciated being let out after lockdown. Good training for the modern world

        2. Thank you for the upvotes. Yeah, I may have lost it a bit with the thoughtless person…I only have one child left in the school, and she has actually opted out of school for a year, the better to organise her own home-schooling! but I know several who are in the thick of home schooling.
          One has just parted from her violent husband, which was obviously a very difficult time – he made it difficult with tricks like cutting off the internet connection – at the same time, she has got her first major promotion at work, and had to home school her children through all of this – in another European country – she is a native English speaker, so doing everything in a foreign language. To see people like her referred to as “failing single parents” by the ignorant makes me pretty angry.

          I’m just thankful the lockdowns didn’t happen in 2007, it might have been the final straw for us!

          1. If it’s not too rude, what European country? There’s many on here scattered about, might be able to give advice… :-))

          3. As you know, my mother was widowed when I was very young. So I know what it’s like to be an only child of a single parent. I had a lot of freedom which would be difficult for children these days. I spent a lot of time on my own, but as a bookish child that was no bother.

            My own marriage came to an end when my sons were in their teens, so they were old enough to manage before I came home from work. I did stick it out for several years when a break-up was inevitable, as I didn’t want them to lose their father. They are in touch with him but have lttle in common.

    2. 602 now with Alf and me. I agree with black box below, all schools should be opened. And in fact all normal life should be resumed.

    3. It won’t make any difference. Fundamentally what’s the argument? That children aren’t getting the education they deserve or that they haven’t enough space? How many people were let in the country yesterday? 10,000 last year?

      Have you seen new build homes? Yes, I’m big, but one room – ostensibly a double – I couldn’t fit into the short corridor without turning sideways. If junior keeps growing the rate he does then neither will he. They have pitiful gardens, low ceilings and cost 250K. Those are ‘starter homes’, by the way, for first time buyers.

      Before we moved here just after the war queen rose through the ranks we lived in a box in London. Constantly struggling for space, with no room to function. It was a bedroom, somewhere to get away from and live outside of as much as possible.

      This country is overcrowded, cramped, expensive, deteriorating and dirty. It has become like this because of a massive state machine more interested in lining their own pockets than spending tax revenue on services and provision. Tax is wasted on welfarists, brats and criminals – including those in Westminster.

      1. I looked at a new build apartment on the Thames. Cut down furniture. No doors. Communal garden (patch of grass).

        You could have fitted two of those apartments into the 1940’s bungalow i live in.

      3. The thing I noticed when looking at new build houses (a while ago now, thankfully) was how tiny the rooms were, with low ceilings. Some of the “show homes” had scaled down furniture I’m sure because I would never have got my normal-sized furniture in some of those rooms.

      4. Congratters, Wibbles you have garnered the 5th downvote of the night. However, I have given you the necessary upvote to mitigate that nonsense.

  58. MPs urge British Olympians to boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Games. 7 February 2021.

    Senior political figures have called for British athletes to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to widespread human rights abuses in China.

    Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Labour MP Chris Bryant, a member of the foreign affairs select committee and a former junior foreign minister, said the government and the British Olympic Association should act.

    Of course Ed and Chris; after a lifetime of training I will be quite happy to forgo my one chance at an Olympic Medal so you can jerk yourselves off on the back benches!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/06/mps-urge-british-olympians-to-boycott-2022-beijing-winter-games

    1. After all the years of training, politicians want them to give up their dreams to score a political point. There is only a short window of opportunity for these athletes.

      I know what my response would be and it begins with F.

  59. Gin & tonic with home-grown lemon, just tweaked off the tree – currently indoors, sheltering from the -10C or so it is outside (despite the sunshine). Nice! Flavour all through the drink, and lvely to eat afterwards!

  61. No kneeling before the Wales v Ireland match, but a few seconds silence ‘against racism’. So why do the England players kneel when no-one else does?

  62. At the welsh game it seems that they have rolled Sir Tom up with Blicks and had a minute’s silence. The shot of the players at the time was long distance, I suspect to prevent us seeing any who bowed to marxism. But from what I could see, no one did. After England were down on their knees from the start, I suspect that neither team wants to repeat that performance.

    2. I notice the Irish have discovered an innovative way to tackle. They’re going for the legs. :-))

      Perhaps England might take note.

    3. In Wales we don’t take the knee, or tug the forelock come to that. Can’t think why the English do it, perhaps it’s some form of modern self flagellation?

  65. Just returned to my study having abandoned the TV coverage of the Wales v Ireland rugby match. They didn’t actually kneel but we were given a little lecture about racism followed by a silence ‘for reflection’. So I have reflected on a friend of mine who used to wear a shirt with 8 on the back.

    I remember the days when rugby was not political and not professional. I went to see this chap in his first match for England at Twickenham. I had arrived early to get a good place in the stand and he spotted me when he came on to look at the pitch and we had a chat and I wished him well. He went on to win several caps and he also played for the British Lions, and performed in the TV Superstars competition. He wrote a couple of humorous books about Rugby – but of course he gave the proceeds of these activities to charity as rugby was strictly amateur in those days – he actually earned his living as a chartered accountant and worked for a bank in the City. We spent a couple of summer holidays sailing together in Cornwall after we left UEA.

    Here he is with our sons Christo and Henry at Le Grand Osier. He died in his early 60’s from prostate cancer having brought light and joy to a better time than that in which we now live. We went to his memorial service in Southwark Cathedral in 2010. It was held on his birthday, 3rd December which is also our Christo’s birthday.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12800aae564bf57e19b5c074c8e0721ce3fdfd61f0a9678c63d2b831f45ccdc4.jpg

      1. The brilliant, glorious, lumbering cart horse of a no 8! He was my hero and I cried when he died. He was a wonderful man and I was privileged to meet him. I was completely blown away by him. He was a truly special man.

        1. The only unfeasibly huge lumbering cart-horse of a back-rower that I ever met was Scotland’s John Jeffrey. Another man-mountain.

          2. I only met him in passing so unable to form an opinion apart from his brief “thank you”.

          3. My SiL is a Borders farmer/rugby player from not a million miles away from where Jeffries farms, and even he says he’s not too popular!

          4. He seemed to play in Engerland’s back three as well in Calcutta Cop Matches!!!!

            Infact in all games

          9. Me neither! My father lost his voice one Calcutta Cup game, screaming at the TV and the ref!

        2. Not that lumbering – he could do 400 metres hurdles in 51 seconds – only 3 seconds slower that the world record of 48.1 set by David Hemery in 1968.

    4. I worked with Andy for a couple of years. I recall that when he went on to study for a PhD at ?Cambridge in his fifties he was so fit that he trained as a possible selection for the Boat Race! Great bloke.

      1. He came to stay with us on his way down to train for his rowing in the French training facilities at Le Bassin d’Arcachon between Bordeaux and Biarritz. He had hoped to be the oldest man ever to get a blue and he very nearly did so. He had the strength and the fitness but he needed to work on his style and so he set his mind on achieving this and in the process managed to get some world rowing records for people in his age group.

        He was certainly one of the finest men I have ever known – he had a marvellous self-mocking sense of humour which put everybody who met him immediately at ease.

        The regular 1st XV rugby coach at the school where I taught was not able to accompany the team on the annual trip to watch the Varsity match and the following day play a game against a school where a former Old Boy of our school was the master i/c rugby so I was put in charge of the trip. I set off with the minibus and fifteen boys and went to Twickenham to watch the match and then to Clapham where my 19 year old niece, Sarah, had a large flat which she shared with some girl friends. We had brought sleeping bags with us so everyone could doss down for the night on the floor or on sofas and Sarah provided food and I bought some beer so we had a party. During which there was a ring of the bell and a very large chap in leather clothes and a 1,000 cc BMW motorbike was there to join in the party – he was the current England No 8 at the time and I think Rastus’s kudos did not suffer from the fact.

        Anyway, the following day we set off for Magdalen College School in Oxford where the boys played a match before I drove them all back to Allhallows near Lyme Regis.

        I think it must be impossible nowadays for a teacher to have the fun I used to have when I was a schoolmaster. I used to organise several concerts and theatre trips for my Sixth Formers as well as sporting events and I made all the participants agree to my terms:

        “I promise not to behave like a schoolmaster if you promise not to behave like schoolchildren”.

        They never let me down.

        2. I’ve been very fortunate to have played sports with and against some top class sportsmen. Almost without exception, the better they were, the more approachable and modest they were.

      1. In case anyone missed it when I mentioned it before : Boris Johnson was absolutely terrified of being interviewed by Andrew Neil before the general election as he knew he would have to reveal just how awful his WA was and, had he done that, he would have lost all credibility.

        And now we can see very clearly just how bad the WA was and how disastrous the trade deal is and why Mr Johnson is probably still frightened of Mr Neil.

        1. I think probably we all realised the WA was not what we all really wanted but I doubt there was another way of “getting Brexit done”. Bad news is going to come out fairly regularly I’m sure over the next few years but I’m relieved we are no longer yoked to the EU. It was never going to be perfect. I can’t think anyone other than Boris could have finished the job.

          1. 329165+ up ticks,
            Afternoon VW,
            A viable course was charted in 2014 by a
            founder member of UKIP the party that designed & triggered the referendum one
            Mr Gerard Batten he also put it into print
            “The road to freedom”.
            But being cast as a far right racist the peoples put their trust , once again into the
            lab/lib/con coalition.
            The johnson chap tried his best to keep us tied to brussels via the deal & succeeded.

            Trust johnson as far as you can throw abbot.
            Ps,
            ” it was never going to be perfect” many of us knew that as we heard in dismay,
            “job done leave it to the tory’s”.

          2. No, we could have said we are leaving in July 2016. we could have left then. It is perfectly obvious that the Customs and admin cock-ups could hardly have been worse. We would have kept NI in the UK. We would have traded on WTO terms which would have been the same as before Brexit for two years. During those two years we would have arranged deals on an item by item basis.
            There would have been none of this vicious imposition of “no agreement until it is all agreed”. A maxim that has cost us NI and our EEZ and very much more as time will tell us, shortly.

          3. Sad, Horace, you’ve garnered a downvote from the Almighty JSP but My upvote should cancel.

  67. I enjoyed the Brian Rix reference.

    Hypocritical Brussels can no longer claim the right to meddle in Northern Ireland

    The EU’s invocation of Article 16 has shown that we need not put up with the flawed protocol governing the province

    DANIEL HANNAN

    The Northern Ireland Protocol should never have been agreed. The logic on which it rests – that a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would threaten the peace, but a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is fine and dandy – is preposterous.

    Morally indefensible, the protocol is also economically burdensome. Northern Ireland sells more to Great Britain than it sells to the Republic of Ireland, the rest of the EU and the rest of the world combined. Yet there are now rules impeding that commerce – not symbolic rules, but actual barriers that have led mainland suppliers to cease deliveries to Ulster. Both communities suffer the economic impact, and all Northern Ireland’s parties are unhappy.

    In the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, no one in Brussels proposed placing Northern Ireland under a separate regime. Nations are not in the business of renouncing jurisdiction over their own populations and the idea that the UK might simply cede part of its territory to EU regulatory control was unthinkable. Instead, the British and Irish governments began exploratory talks on practical ways to keep the border invisible. [NB Talks which ended when the Bombay Bogshite took over The Teashop.] Only at the end of 2017 did the European Commission begin to argue that it should keep the Province within its legal orbit.

    What had emboldened it? One thing: the 2017 general election, which – despite the promises made by candidates on the doorstep – soon turned out to have returned a strongly anti-Brexit majority. Suddenly the prize of reversing the referendum result seemed to be within Eurocrats’ reach. If every possible Brexit option was unpalatable, as Donald Tusk put it, then the UK would have no option but to remain a member. By insisting that Northern Ireland stay inside the single market and the customs union, EU negotiators hoped to capsize Brexit altogether or at least to keep the UK within their customs territory, thus preventing it from trading freely with other countries or developing a more competitive economy.

    To the delight of Brussels functionaries – and the incredulity of Irish officials – Theresa May accepted their demands. The Northern Ireland Protocol was included in the Withdrawal Agreement before work on the ensuing trade deal had even started. When Boris Johnson became PM, he found that he had inherited both Mrs May’s lack of a parliamentary majority and her exit terms. Despite the former, he very mildly improved the latter. But there was no way, with the Commons as it then stood, that he could junk the protocol altogether.

    Last week, though, everything changed. The EU tore up the argument it had used to justify the protocol, namely that an Irish border of any kind would risk a return to violence. That argument was always bogus – the idea, for example, that cameras, near-ubiquitous on highways throughout the UK, would somehow trigger a resumption of terrorism if also placed near the frontier, is too silly to merit serious refutation. But the EU managed to convince itself and much of the world that the protocol was necessary to uphold the peace process.

    By imposing a border from no higher motive than pique because Britain’s vaccination programme was faster than its own, the EU spectacularly undermined that contention. It won’t do to say that, because the decision was swiftly reversed, it somehow shouldn’t count. A man can drop his trousers in a pub for only a few seconds, but he will always afterwards be the man who dropped his trousers.

    Brussels has advertised to the world what we suspected all along – that its stated concern for Ireland was pure hooey. Its subsequent attempts to justify its decision make its position even weaker. Throughout the negotiations, the journalist with the closest insight into the official thinking in Brussels has been RTÉ’s Tony Connelly. Here is how, following a briefing, he expressed the Commission’s justification: “However, the practical effect would simply have been that vaccines destined for NI – in a hypothetical scenario – would have needed export authorisations before they left the factory in Belgium (or wherever). There was nothing in the regulation which stated such vaccines should be stopped at the land border.”

    In which case, as we kept trying to tell them, there was no any need for a land border in the first place. Northern Ireland could have stayed in the same regulatory zone as Great Britain, with any necessary authorisations happening at “the factory in Birmingham (or wherever)”.

    Britain could relentlessly use that logic now. It could say to the EU: “We are scrapping the protocol, but we have no intention of erecting any new infrastructure at the border. If you also want to avoid infrastructure on your side we suggest you talk to us about exemptions, trusted trader schemes, behind-border checks, mutual recognition deals and all the other things we need to keep the frontier intangible.”

    This line, though legally and morally justified, would be politically costly. Nationalists in Northern Ireland would be unsettled, Washington would be suspicious and the EU would turn openly hostile – though, frankly, it is hard to see how much more hostile you can be than threatening to cut off vaccines during a pandemic.

    Still, Britain should be a good neighbour. If we can fix the protocol with the EU’s acquiescence, that is plainly better than abrogating it unilaterally. Fixing it, though, must mean precisely that: not temporary exemptions or extended grace periods, but permanent solutions. The bottom line is this: goods that are for local customers and are not intended for onward export should not be subject to any checks. These goods are clearly enough identified: Amazon orders, produce that is to be sold in local retailers, medicine that will be dispensed by Northern Ireland’s NHS. The overwhelming majority of trade between the UK and the Republic of Ireland has always been East-West rather than North-South. Exempting items that are not meant for onward shipment would cover perhaps 95 per cent of goods.

    Purists might still object to the principle of EU involvement but, as I say, the UK should be prepared to compromise for the sake of cordial relations with its neighbour. And if Brussels is not prepared to countenance reform along these lines, we can scrap the whole protocol in good conscience.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/06/hypocritical-brussels-can-no-longer-claim-right-meddle-northern/

    1. It strikes me that Hannan is a bit late to the game. Many of us were warning you can’t trust the EU while he was still at the “our friends in ‘Europe'” stage.

    2. I would but every time i try to find it i only get previous articles. Sorry. I may have to form a brigade.


    3. During this ghastly pandemic, how many of you have looked to the Church of England for succour and support, recognising it as a vast and imperturbable ship of faith led by a spiritual and religious colossus? OK, I can’t see many hands going up.

      For almost the entire population our established church has become a complete irrelevance, a pitiable institution forever cringing before the most fashionable progressive causes and presided over by a man of such sodden vapidity that I feel an urge to wring him out and hang him up to dry every time I see him.

      The numbers of people with any investment in the CofE are now plummeting at an even greater speed than they were before Justin Welby took over the seat once held by the likes of St Augustine of Canterbury and Thomas Cranmer. Down by 200,000 worshippers in just the past five years — a huge acceleration on what was hitherto merely a steady decline.

      Other churches, meanwhile, are thriving — largely the you-will-burn-in-hell, writhe-on-the-floor gibbering chapters: the Pentecostalists, the new churches, the Baptists, the Seventh-day Adventists. Justin and his bishops have noted this and decided, somewhat counterintuitively, that what the CofE needs to do, then, is to become more liberal, more diverse, more right-on.

      And so it came to pass that they appointed the Rev Jarel Robinson-Brown to be curate at the City of London’s oldest church, All Hallows by the Tower. You may have read about Jarel. He is the clergyman who said he would not be clapping to mark the passing of Captain Sir Tom Moore because “the cult of Captain Tom is a cult of white British nationalism”.

      Here you have, in Jarel, the very personification of what is wrong with the Anglican church. Like the BBC, it is both aloof from its audience and averse to it, enthralled not by the word of God but by the trendy slogans of agitprop imbeciles.

      You will be pleased to know that Jarel has written a book. It’s called Black Gay British Christian Queer. It’s all about him, isn’t it? And for more evidence of this typical left-wing narcissism, check out his Twitter feed. Boris Johnson and Priti Patel are “oppressors”. The UK should be deluged by a flood because of colonialism. And “queerness” equates to holiness — an assertion with which Moses might contend, as he thought it was a bit naughty and deserving of death (in Leviticus, since you asked). I didn’t see much there about God. Not much about humility, either. Just Jarel spouting his incoherent idiocies to anyone who will listen.

      Try to imagine what the rapidly dwindling CofE flock makes of this divisive grandstanding. Does it draw them closer to God? Or does it make them wish to stay at home on a Sunday morning with their hands clapped over their ears?

      A petition has been got up to have Jarel removed from his sinecure and there has been outrage in the newspapers. Consequently, the church has rebuked the bloke and said it does not share his sentiments. The good reverend was enjoined to apologise for his “ill-judged” comments — and this is where the hypocrisy kicks in.

      He may have the IQ of an untransubstantiated communion wafer but he said what he thought with honesty. He said what he believes. And it is not remotely out of keeping with any of the other idiocies the man has shared with the world via his Twitter feed, which has now mysteriously been taken down.

      The church was OK with everything he had uttered previously and has reacted now simply because Jarel got it some headlines that it would have preferred not to have. But his apology was insincere. He does not, in honesty, repudiate his belief. And the church is complicit in this familiar deceit: the fraudulent apology.

      Given that his beliefs were well known when he was appointed, he should not be hounded out of his ministry. Have some guts for once, Welby, and stand by your man — all he did was express an opinion.

      We should not sack people for stating their honest beliefs, but praise them for doing so. Freedom of speech is not only for people like me, who are right all the time. It is for all of us, on the left and on the right. And both sides have a rather nasty tendency to close down things with which they disagree.

      Let Jarel Robinson-Brown continue to talk arrant rubbish to the congregants at All Hallows by the Tower and watch them, wistfully, as they drift away, never to return.

      Play a gay? No way, says actress
      Actress Seyi Omooba was sacked from her part in a stage production of Alice Walker’s immensely boring novel The Color Purple when it emerged that, as a Christian, she thought homosexuality was wrong. My sympathies were entirely with her. She should be allowed to think what she wants and be judged on her abilities as an actress, surely.

      My sympathy has now evaporated. She was to play a lesbian character — it is apparently now a legal requirement that every production has a lesbian in it, even Waiting for Godot and The Old Man and the Sea. But Omooba will not play lesbian parts, on account of her beliefs.

      You can’t have it both ways. (Well maybe, but only if you’re bi). And what is the point of an actress who won’t play a “sinner”? Isn’t it all about imagination?

      Omooba is suing for breach of contract and religious discrimination. I know whose side I’m on.

      Those sooty clouds had a silver lining
      My grandmother had an adage for when things weren’t going well. “Can’t do right for doing wrong,” she would say. When I was three I politely informed her that this motto of hers was axiomatic, postulational and a tautology, but she continued to deploy it, unabashed.

      It might be of some use now, mind. The journal Geophysical Research Letters has reported that high global temperatures in 2020 were partly the result of cleaner air because we were doing nothing during lockdown. Not enough soot to block out the sun’s rays.

      Say no to electric cars! Frack for the planet! Get on that aeroplane! The new slogans of Extinction Rebellion.

      •The Danes have kindly produced a consent app for citizens who may wish to have sex with one another.

      The app allows “permission for one intercourse, valid for 24 hours”, but adds that it can be “withdrawn at any time”. Well, indeed. Very swiftly, I would suggest, having met some Danes.

      And so we await the court case where one participant claims she was drunk when she tapped the button on the phone, thus rendering the consent meaningless.

      1. He asked for Liddle’s article not the thoughts of Bill Thomas.

        Oh, that was the Liddle article, sorry my mistake.

      2. “The app allows “permission for one intercourse, valid for 24 hours”, but adds that it can be “withdrawn at any time”. Well, indeed. Very swiftly, I would suggest, having met some Danes.”

        I made a comment on this piece of news a couple of days ago and said it would bring a new meaning to coitus interruptus if the ‘Time’s Up’ alarm went off before one was ready. It also reminds me of the rules and guidelines of contract bridge : Never withdraw too fast. Many good rubbers are lost in this way and suits ruined.

        1. 3rd Downvote tonight, Richard and an upvote in mitigation.

          Jennifer SP is hardly working tonight.

        1. Don’t get me started. There were two excellent articles in this week’s Spectator coruscating the CofE hierarchbishopry.

          4. Radio 3 now playing appropriately:

            Aka Pygmies
            Nzomba Dances And Songs II
            Performer: Aka Pygmies.
            CARBON 7 RECORDS C7-002. T

          7. 🙂 No they are Anglican, but not part of the C of E. Just traditional. Welby is very divisive.

          8. Do you, perhaps, refer to those
            Anglican, married Priests who,
            though married with families, have
            become Priests of Rome?

          9. No, it is a group of independent Anglican churches operating in the UK. I can’t remember their name!

      4. Welby is an Old Etonian,he’s never had a proper job.Just like his pals Cameron and Johnson….

  69. I see the DT continues it’s contradictory strap/head lines.

    Millions of people under 50 to get jCovid vaccine at work from spring. And
    Massive vaccine backlog could put over 50s target at risk

      1. I think it’s to demonstrate that the aerosol he’s using in the “experiment” is in fact flammable. It’s his control i.e. it’s flammable but when squirted at the mask the aerosol doesn’t ignite because the mask contains the flammable spray. I’m no expert but I believe the aerosols we exhale are miniscule compared to the jet of liquid he is spraying about: a virus is much smaller still.

    4. Kind of forgetting that the masks are to trap exhaled virus, not inhaled.
      bit of a difference, that.

  71. 329165+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    Brexit Britain ‘Towering Head and Shoulders’ Above EU on Vaccines.

    That is about the dizzying height of a porg nation,more so when taking the knee.

    2. Great idea, send Hancock, Whitty, Valance and all those “follow the science” experts for a long self-sufficiency break on Pitcairn Island.

      1. Indeed.
        Ireland were tremendous and I was pleased that George North scored.
        As soon as I watched the bad tackle I thought if that’s only a yellow card he’ll be lucky. He wasn’t and deserved to go off.

  74. I am off – books to read, jigsaws to look at – kittens to feed.

    A demain – in the snow. All this Global Warming is too much for my pore brane.

    1. Goodnight, Bill. We have a weather warning out, but the promised avalanche of snow didn’t materialise. All we had was a sort of micro hail. Looked impressive in flurries but didn’t settle and soon died out.

        1. ALL ‘time outs’ in sport are cheating. That’s why the silly sports they play in Yankland are so unwatchable. Five minutes play in each half hour!

          Rounders, Basket-case ball, American throwball and Ice-hockey are all the same.

    3. We missed a trick in 1588. England should have punished Spain severely for the Armada debacle, by invading the place and teaching them how to speak and behave properly.

      1. Has the current King of Spain got a beard that we can singe? Given their like of harassing our and Gibraltan fishing vessels, maybe we can knock off their entire fleet this time. Well, I suppose we did sort-of invade the Costas and give them warm bear and fish n chip establishments…

  77. Good news! The BBC has announced that one of its festering, pus filled boils is to be lanced in March of this year. The actual wording was ‘John Humphries is to step down from Mastermind after eighteen years as host’. I have merely translated it for those who have problems interpreting left-wing sophistry.

    2. Alas, he is now on Classic fm radio where he says things like “coming soon we shall climb a silken ladder” as a way of “cleverly” introducing Rossini. He also often talks of “tunes” instead of “music”.

    1. The Dermatologist……

      Edit to add: (as there is a direct link back to Black Head…..)

    12. I’d like to nominate “The Labour in Vain”, shewing a white nanny trying to scrub a little picaninny in a tub full of suds.

      There was one of these on the road “Stone Street” between Bungay and Halesworth. Probably long gone, I’m remembering the 1950s.

    14. How about “De Nigga Rappa”? They would just have to change the words but not the picture.

  79. For all of you citizens of Oxfordshire – lock up your pets:-

    ‘Geri Horner is rewilding part of her Oxfordshire estate and would like to welcome wildcats to her back garden, she has revealed.

    She also called for more “rewilding”, and revealed she would love to welcome now-extinct animals to her grounds. Ms Horner added: “There’s a lot of talk of rewilding, it feels such a generous respectful thing to do, if we can have the ability. I think it would be amazing to have beavers and wildcats on my land. Of course with wildcats there’s the Scottish wildcat, red squirrels would be amazing.” ‘

    (Although it is not made clear where these ‘now-extinct’ animals would come from.)

      1. It doesn’t say in the article, but I think she moves in the same circles as Cameron, Clarkson etc so I think that’s Chipping Norton?

        1. You can hardly move round there without bumping into a celebrity. Still, they’ve got very good charity shops for us proles!

          1. The women only wear an item of clothing once for fear of being seen wearing it twice. Twas the same with jockey’s wives in Newmarket, best Oxfam shop in the country.

      2. Hello magazine says she has a home in Banbury, and another in Hertfordshire!! Her kitchen features cream walls and a black Aga…

          2. Now you are cooking…. (A Hob is a Hobgobling, and those from Hell were supposed to be black)

          3. Actually, my Gran used to say “as hard as the hobs of Hell” and I never found out why!

        2. Herefordshire gets mixed up with Hertfordshire. by lots of incomers

          They buy houses (cheap) in Herefordshire, thinking that they are going to live near London in Hertfordshire

          3. Nice little racecourse (re-opened not too long ago) and the birthplace of Richard Johnson former champion jockey – what’s not to like? Hertfordshire can only boast Hertslass 🙂

      1. ♫ “There once was a woman who brought in wildcats
        She said that wildcats
        Would eat all the rats
        Which disturbed nesting bats
        That kept down the gnats …

        …The silly tw@” ♫

  80. For all super-sleuthers……..

    Recall in the run-up to the 2016 election, Obama, Hillary and Pelosi are on video record stating unequivocally, haughtily and derisively that Trump would never be President of the United States…………

    Pelosi even went so far as to say “you can take that to the bank”.

    Who would say, using even an ounce of moderation and circumspection, that about an unknowable future outcome?

    Unless they knew that they had it rigged like 2020.

    They just didn’t rig 2016 enough.

        1. It might not be, but I hope there is a lady in the wings who makes Diane Abbott look stringy.

      2. It’s ironic that the Dems in NY are now saying the GoP rigged voter machines (loved to know how, given who runs those firms) at a close local election that the Dem candidate is now going to lose after yet another recount. Funny how they denied all official investigations until their candidate loses.

    2. IMHO they were so cocky that Clinton would win and ‘surely not’ Trump, they didn’t go ‘all-in’ as they did this time around, bring in the big guns of the MSM and especially the social media/tech giants, who engaged in mass censorship and cover-ups, alonsgide the significantly larger vote-rigging campaign in the key swing states. Even with all the vote rigging, there was a poll after the election and when the Hunter Biden laptop story finally surfaced away from the NYP and Fox News that around 10% of Dem voters would’ve voted Trump had they known. It was the media and social media firms that stopped that story getting to them.

      They had to fix it, given they already knew that Trump had won over a lot of floating and traditionally Dem (e.g. black and hispanic) voters, even some Berniebros. That’s why he got ~11M more votes than last timeand more than Obama did in 2008 by some margin. That’s why, given the apathy on the Biden campaign (very poorly attended rallies, his campaign ‘calling a lid’ on the media at 9-10am, him hiding at home) that I still strongly believe Biden actually received votes to the tune of 62-65M tops.

        1. You must have been behind the massive gamble on three horses this afternoon, then. Shame about the third leg (the third horse got beaten – what were you thinking?).

          2. No use asking me for tips; I don’t normally bet. The last time I had a bet was when I went racing at Chester and some friends asked me to mark their card, so I went through the form beforehand. After the third race I quit while I was ahead and have never had a bet since. That was at least twelve years ago.

  81. mmm… mash with rosemary! Excellent combination! Try it next time you have mash with a strongly-flavoured stew.

      2. I thought it was just me who hated that stuff. M & S seem to think it’s mandatory in all their ready meals.

        1. For me, garlic is essential for Mediterranean recipes, but mash potato needs to be unadulterated by nothing more than butter and milk!!

          1. my wife was just told to try a Mediterranean diet by a nutritionist.
            Apparently Valpolicella and pizza was not what she meant.

        1. Agree, but I do not cook potatoes, mash or otherwise, very often so I am not inclined to have roasted ready to go.
          Hope all is well with you and Dolly, say hello….:-))

          1. If you are ever roasting anything you can chuck in an onion or head of garlic and use it another time. You don’t even need to peel them.

            Dolly is now my ball & chain. I think she imagines i might spontaneously explode into dog biscuits. :@)

          2. Dotty was introduced to (fairly) deep snow today. Offered an uncovered piece of lawn to do her business, she demurred and snuffled round in the snow trying to find her usual spot. Gave up but, when Best Beloved put her lead onto her jacket, she bimbled off to the churchyard, did big business and all the rest but then turned around and wanted home again.

            The snow is about 3″ deep and that gives her teats a quick cold erect, so no surprise that she wanted the warm sitting-room.

  82. Anyway, while on the subject of sleuthing………..

    In the parliamentary inquiry into the sale of QinetiQ (formerly Royal Aircraft Establishment and other UK state defense assets bundled together) there are phrases like ”all their Christmases came at once” and ”you couldn’t have done worse selling it on Ebay”………….

    I haven’t finished analysing the report yet but it’s already clear the chairman of the inquiry didn’t know about Tony Blair’s close financilal partnership with George Soros. He didn’t know about the 750 government buildings sweetheart sale in 2000 by Blair to Soros, he didn’t know Blair had met Soros in New York in 1996 or the financing of New Labor by Soros, and he didn’t know Soros was a $100,000,000 ”buy out” investor in private equity fund Carlyle Group of DC from 1994 where John Major was ”European Chairman” and director, probably utilizing part of his $2 billion win from Mr Major in 1992.

    When I’ve finished analyzing the report which will probably take a while, I’ll update further.

    Looking through the figures, I think Blair and Soros probably got away with at least $100,000,000 and possibly much more thanks to the $7.5 billion defense contract Blair awarded QinetiQ on the day of the initial 31% sale to John Major’s Carlyle Group. Depending on where that money ended up.

    Funny how John Major had a senior million dollar position at an organization where Soros of all people was the star client !

    I wonder if Soros got Major the job ?

          1. Soros is behind that too……..

            In fact, the Blair – Soros link up and their dodgy dealings is more evidence global warming is a fraud.

    2. Have to admire Soros, if he can keep track of all that is attributed to him, he must be a genius of the first order!! :-))

      2. Soros has a vast organisation which has over years infiltrated every aspect of society and of our lives.

        It follows that he has place-men globally from his second in command Lord Malloch Brown (of Dominion and Smartmatic Voting tabulators) to Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson at its most base level.

  84. Evening, all. Been watching the racing from across the Irish Sea this afternoon. While they are also keeping spectators at bay, they do seem to have a more sensible approach to dealing with the virus. There were notices reminding people that “soap kills Covid 19”. I find that self-evident statement much better than the hysterical “you are a killer if you don’t stay locked up and only go out to have the jab” approach our lot are pushing out at every opportunity.

          1. Thank you. They call the second month February Fill-dyke, but in my case, it’s February Fill-glass 🙂

        2. I find that Whisky and Highland Spring is an acceptable mix, otherwise WhiskyMac with Stone’s Green Ginger is warming.

          1. I have not long finished a bottle of Green Ginger, but I’m not terribly keen on whisky, so I don’t have any in the house unless I know I’m hosting someone who does like it.

    2. Good evening Conway.

      Guess which ‘community’ don’t use soap daily.

      Asking for a friend.

      1. Evening, Phizzee. Hope you’re feeling well and the meds are doing their job. We all know which “community members” don’t like hygiene, but if we dare mention it, we’ll need new front doors.

        1. The Meds are having their effect thank goodness. Still can’t walk much. The secondary condition is now also under control.

          Hope things are improving for you.

          1. That’s good. Hopefully you’ll be able to get out and about soon, inasmuch as any of us are able to get “out and about” of course. Yes, thank you. I’ve had a few good nights’ sleep, which is a great help.

        2. Our front door is shit – hey, it’s slammers and anything from Africa and the Middle or Near-east.

          Does that answer the question.

        1. That looks great. I think my brother would like the usual manual stops which I believe are possible but will show him anyhow.

          My brother phoned earlier today to complain about Songs of Praise on the BBC. I explained that this was now under the control of a ‘person of colour’ so he should not be surprised that the programme was composed entirely of blacks.

          To add insult to injury the show avoids the organ and now has the happy clappy guitars and drums with the odd (very odd) flute accompaniment and promotion of soulful Black American singing.

          How far we have fallen from the music of Boyce, Purcell, Handel, Parry, Elgar, Stanford, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Finzi and Rutter to name just a few of our greatest ecclesiastical composers.

          1. I agree. I am not a fan of what passes for music these days. David says it is “a full three manual Hauptwerk setup and he can load any of well over fifteen organs from around the world (many free), including a partial set of stops on the Salisbury Cathedral 1877 Father Willis Organ!

            He pointed out he couldn’t afford to buy that complete organ set, as it would cost over $2000 [Canadian]. He inherited this first part from a friend who passed away.

    1. I wonder how they know who had the virus and who didn’t, especially as the vaccine jab has only been available for 1.5 months generally. Are we really to believe that 40k people told their GP and then they collated the data and sent it back to the pharma company via the NHS in under a couple of months? From personal experience with my parents and getting GPs/hospitals to send out letters/emails conecerning results, etc, just ONE takes ages, and they often get it wrong. And that’s when face-to-face consultations were happening pre-coof.

      Sounds like more propaganda to me.

      1. Pretty much what I said about the BBC report that they had analysed 6m recipients and there were 3 notable side effects in 1000.
        I’m not paying any attention now.

    2. There are reports that some men, in the older age group, who received the jab suffered a stiff arm for up to two weeks.

      Scientists are looking at the possibilities of administering the vaccine in another part of the male anatomy as an alternative to prescribing Viagra.

      2. I once passed a moored speed boat on the River Thames in a somewhat dishevelled state. The boat was called Wet Dream and it looked like it had been over the Viagra Falls once too often!

        1. The funniest boat name I saw moored at San Francisco, was named, “A Friggin’ Queen.”

    3. We had our first dose of Pfizer vaccine yesterday, with no side effects so far. Appointment for second shot given when leaving.

    6. This is scaremongering, Horace. Nowhere in the article does it talk of fatal side effects.

      1. But, but, but, Elsie NO-ONE knows what the long-term effects may be. Think Thalidomide.

        That’s why I write to the NHS requesting they stop sending letters and texts asking me to select a jab date.

        1. Since the vaccines first appeared I thought about nothing but Thalidomide, NtN. But gradually, I was persuaded to take the risk because of (a) the Israeli experience and (b) fear (natch!) that if I didn’t then I’d never be allowed to visit my two sisters in New Zealand again before they died. Also, (c), a friend who had the virus early last year suggested that the virus was the last thing I would wish to experience. So gradually I decided that it was a worthwhile risk to take (AZ rather than Pfizer). So I had my vaccination last Saturday (9 days ago). So far, I am still alive – fingers crossed!

      2. https://vaers.hhs.gov/
        You can monitor some of the fatalities in the US here. Spoiler: the number is pretty low, currently about 1 in 70 000.

        It is a database of voluntarily reported adverse effects though, so probably underestimated.
        Also, the people vaccinated up til now are probably the least healthy, so might reasonably be expected to have a higher death rate than the general population.
        Conclusion: there is no reliable data at the moment, and we are unlikely ever to know the real figures if they put deaths after the vaccine down as covid.

      3. It is my little joke. A poke at the relentless scaremongering of the Government and the MSM et al. A “reductio ad absurdum” kind of thing. They are actually saying that getting side effects proves it is working as your anti things have responded.

  88. The Graun is having a moan,
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/07/british-importers-brace-for-disaster-as-new-brexit-checks-loom
    Wicked HMRC (actually, they can be) are introducing a slate of new customs checks. I think there will be an element of ‘see what they are doing on the other side, and match it’. Good thing too. “It is going to make things so much more difficult for importers” – that’s what happens in a trade war.

  89. Thought I’d look in quickly after a particularly toothsome ribeye and a bottle of Black Stump with the intention of a quick argument or to throw a few insults around – any takers?

  90. Illegal migrants’ vaccine amnesty: Up to 1.3million are urged to register with a GP for a Covid-19 jab in drive for herd immunity… and they’ll face no action from the Home Office
    Illegal immigrants will be granted an ‘amnesty’ to come forward for Covid jabs
    Move hoped to help Britain reach herd immunity and accelerate end of lockdown
    Estimates put the figure of foreigners with ‘irregular status’ as high as 1.3million

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9234581/Illegal-migrants-vaccine-amnesty-1-3million-urged-register-GP-Covid-19-jab.html

    2. This is an interesting development, rather than deny that a problem exists the PTB are actually trying to address the problem and sensibly mitigate the effects, if only they could do the same with the changing climate ( such as it may be ).

    3. Oh good

      Does that mean that we can nip over and get vaccinated?

      Trudeau has gone all socialist and achieved damn all.

    4. If only they would vaccinate them, register them and then send them back. Otherwise we’ll be further inundated with illegals coming here for the jab and the amnesty immunity on top.

  92. Good night (morning) my good friends, let’s see what the morning brings – a trip down a 3 mile single-track road that doesn’t get cleared, so that Best Beloved may deliver a sample to Ipswich Hospital Path Lab.

    May our God go with us.

    1. Go carefully Nanny, light snow overnight here probably frozen now. Take care. Good luck at the hospital.

  93. Before I gave up on the tally, the resident twerp had managed just 4 comments as opposed to 16 down-votes.

    Surely that cannot be reasoned argument or even, any form of debate.

    Once again, Good-night.

Comments are closed.