Sunday 9 June: Fixing the housing market will take more than cheap election bribes

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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741 thoughts on “Sunday 9 June: Fixing the housing market will take more than cheap election bribes”

      1. "Remembering an Interview"

        The veterans at the Remembrance Service on the D-Day beaches are blown around by the downdraft from Rishi's departing helicopter.

  4. Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Today’s (Recycled) Story

    Amazing Parrot

    I was in a pet shop when I noticed a Muslim with the most amazingly coloured parrot perched on her shoulder.

    "Where did you get that from?" I asked.

    "Birmingham! There's f***g thousands of 'em!" said the Parrot.

  5. I’ll save taxpayers £12bn by beating benefit fraud and reforming welfare. 9 June 2024.

    Rishi Sunak has promised to save the taxpayer £12 billion a year by clamping down on benefit fraudsters and reforming the welfare system.

    The Conservatives will make a manifesto pledge to halt the rising costs of welfare by reforming the benefits system if they win the election.

    This is pitiful to hear. I think that this man is going to resign. The stress must be enormous. He’s the only one campaigning; if you can call it that.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/08/sunak-save-taxpayers-12bn-beating-benefit-fraud/

    2. Morning, and Happy Birthday, Johnny! Hope you got something nice as a present!

    6. Happy birthday.
      Get out there and destroy "the 77th" while enjoying yours.

    7. A belated Happy Birthday to you, Johnny. (Although I did wish you one when Rastus and his missus posted the information at the end of Saturday's NoTTLe site.) I hope you have a fantastic day.

      1. Thank you Elsie, A little too much wine with lunch I think and MrsNn is making me go outside to smoke a large cigar.

  8. A Eurasian Yorkshireman beating the usual suspects?

    British student Louie Hinchliffe runs Europe’s fastest 100m of the year

    Hinchliffe ran 9.95sec to win the college 100m title in America and will now focus on earning a place at the Olympics

    Jeremy Wilson, CHIEF SPORTS REPORTER
    8 June 2024 • 7:25pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/athletics/2024/06/08/TELEMMGLPICT000380979802_17178707212010_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Hinchliffe, right, won an American college title CREDIT: Getty Images/C. Morgan Engel

    Carl Lewis has backed Great Britain’s 21-year-old sprint sensation Louie Hinchliffe for an Olympic place after he became the first European to win the American collegiate 100 metres title.

    With his time of 9.95 seconds – the fastest this year by a European and among the top 10 in the world – Hinchliffe followed in the footsteps of Lewis himself by landing the prestigious NCAA title that is usually the preserve of the best young American sprinters.

    He will now head to the Olympic trials in Manchester later this month with an outstanding chance of a top-two finish that would guarantee his place in Paris following his move to the University of Houston, where Lewis is head coach.

    Hinchliffe, who is from Sheffield and studied at the University of Lancaster, teamed up with Lewis last August after getting hold of the legendary nine-times Olympic champion’s mobile number and sending him a WhatsApp message. “He reached out to me to transfer,” Lewis told Citius Mag. “He understood what we are trying to do – bought into the programme straight away. He’s a great kid who is running phenomenal and is going to do very well. From day one, I told him, ‘The goal is to get you in that Olympic team’ and he’s going to make it. I’m so proud of him.”

    Hinchliffe had also been a promising golfer but took the decision when he was 16 to concentrate on both his athletics and studies in Lancaster, where he would have to take a 30-minute bus ride to an athletics track. He now has another two years in Houston, where he can train daily with Lewis at their state-of-the-art facilities.

    Hinchliffe has also already run a wind-assisted 9.84sec 100m this year and Lewis said that it was now important to “stay away from all the madness” that might follow his breakthrough. “He’s the kind of guy who can handle it – a tremendous young man, very smart,” said Lewis.

    Hinchliffe, who calls himself a “late bloomer”, said that the pressure of the race had helped him and that he had simply stayed relaxed.

    “Everything was on the line – it brought out the best in me,” he said. “The main job is the Olympics and I will now shift my focus to the Olympic trials.”

    Of his message to Lewis last August, which asked “can you fix me”, he said: “He was just, ‘Let’s talk’. We had a long phone call and he saw a lot of potential in me – I was grateful for that.”

    Hinchliffe won the English national title in 2022 and spent the 2023 season with Washington State before transferring to Houston. Coming into 2024, his personal best was 10.17sec.

    1. Incredible for a lad that was partying hard a couple of years ago.

      Fun fact; Malcolm Macdonald, Arsenal & England footie player became the second fastest man in Europe in 1975, in spite of the wear and tear to his knees from being kicked blue every Saturday by the hardmen of soccer like Hunter, Harris & Bremner.

    2. Incredible for a lad that was partying hard a couple of years ago.

      Fun fact; Malcolm Macdonald, Arsenal & England footie player became the second fastest man in Europe in 1975, in spite of the wear and tear to his knees from being kicked blue every Saturday by the hardmen of soccer like Hunter, Harris & Bremner.

    3. Incredible for a lad that was partying hard a couple of years ago.

      Fun fact; Malcolm Macdonald, Arsenal & England footie player became the second fastest man in Europe in 1975, in spite of the wear and tear to his knees from being kicked blue every Saturday by the hardmen of soccer like Hunter, Harris & Bremner.

  9. Tice fury as Reform UK candidate pulls out of race and backs Tories. 9 June 2024.

    A Reform UK candidate who was due to contest Sir Gavin Williamson’s seat has withdrawn from the race and endorsed the Conservatives.

    Tom Wellings had been confirmed to fight the new seat of Stone, Great Wryly and Penkridge in Staffordshire for the Right-wing party.

    But it has since emerged that, despite apparently submitting his nomination papers on Wednesday, he has withdrawn from the contest, saying he was concerned that his candidacy risked handing victory to Labour.

    Obviously deliberate. It leaves Reform with no candidate. I wonder how much they paid him?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/08/reform-chairman-furious-candidate-pulling-out-conservative/

    2. There's nothing new in tactical electioneering; the SDP/Liberal Alliance were doing it in the 1980s, but the pundits never got their groupthink heads around it then.

      I have pleaded with Reform over recent weeks to broaden their appeal beyond the Thatcherite core. There is common ground with supporters of other political movements as much let down by their respective leaderships as Conservatives, and are votes to be harvested. It is one reason why the charismatic populist Nigel Farage has taken over from the besuited Thatcher purist Richard Tice. I think Farage can break into the Red Wall, disappointed with their adventure with the Tories, but with little appetite for the smarmy London lawyer and his thick spiritless lackeys that claim to be the Changed Labour (New Labour with all the goodness taken out and warmed up slightly).

      As the election proceeds, there will be a lot of local canvassing by party activists giving the current state of play and the feeling on the doorstep. It's what they do. Now, if there is a strong and sympathetic candidate that needs a hand to get back into Parliament, it is no shame for the junior party to withdraw and lend their support. The purpose is to achieve a result under the flawed system we currently suffer under. If the Tories can put up a candidate of such calibre that his or her election is a no-brainer for Reform, then it is right for Reform to withdraw their candidacy. The same could be said not just for an excellent Tory candidate, but one from any of the other parties. For example, if Gisela Stuart or Kate Hoey were standing for Labour, it would be tactically advantageous to give them all the support possible, especially if they were up against someone really dreadful. Reform should not stand against Kate Forbes of the SNP either, if she were standing.

      The likelihood though is that these are exceptions, and in most cases the candidates for the other parties are all as bad as each other, and so Reform should stand and be damned.

    4. There had to be some 'plants' among the recruits, probably still a few more.

    5. Gavin Williamson would be the Kiss of Death for the Reform Party – he is clearly a thoroughly corrupt viper – why else did he get a knighthood when he was completely incompetent as a minister.

      He must have had a considerable amount of dirt on Boris Johnson.

      1. Before he became Secretary of State for Whatever, he used to be the Conservative whip.
        H'mmmm.

    6. It did cross my mind that the Reform candidate here might pull out to leave no alternative, but we also have an Independent.

    2. Good morning ,

      Why do you call yourself Smiling Cobra , do they smile or do they spit?

      We haven't had wet weather for a few days now , have had to water the garden here in South Dorset .

      1. Just a hangover from my working days, somebody thinking I was like a smiling cobra, I smile and then strike. Days past obviously!!

  11. Morning, all Y'all.
    Glorious sunshine, after yesterdays torrentiak rain. Mist rising from the trees!

  13. 'Morning All
    It's all Kabuki theatre,one big club and we ain't in it……….
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c460bcb170607cbb5535e9d3770ba6574d9bc630be438f6c8c91011fd70a1e72.jpg
    Rest
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a001b90bff1c1442d89974e1db0da414fbf2bae68784c7feb9a706cfa1b445e.jpg
    https://media.greatawakening.win/post/Yx8sf8bKqQ2H.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1045ecb7fe44de9868e2b82fcc3ac5712c052253db0ebaacda1bd58aad2bd6a9.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84a994e602f86f2a2506c1cd8dbd1c9ae356f1360802b8ad7e97b894b2d30475.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee90e2fbf29d89d8b635d8b011f0e53b558c20a33261a97f7bff1e79fbb095bf.jpg

    1. A likely caption to the one of Rayner and Mordaunt might be "mine are bigger than yours".

  14. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,086 4/6

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  15. Europe defenceless and unprepared for nuclear war, warns Putin. 8 June 2024.

    BELOW THE LINE.

    STUART ROSS
    I fear that too many on here have made two dangerous assumptions, first that Putin will not carry out his threat to strike Europe and secondly, if he does, the US will retaliate with a nuclear strike against Russia.

    David versus Barbarians
    I fear that too many on here like you have no understanding of the true balance of technology, moreover also completely lack moral courage or backbone.

    I thank the lord, that there not many invertebrates like you around in the 1930s.

    STUART ROSS
    I'm sorry but I just don't understand why you have to be so rude in challenging my opinion. You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. You may be right, if I'm right, we'll all be toast. That's all I want to say now you can go away and be rude to someone else.

    Poor Mr Ross. He has no understanding with whom he is dealing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/08/russia-ukraine-war-putin-europe-nuclear-weapons/

    2. "It has an area of 55,247 km2"

      Now just how could we utilise an empty island of that size?

    2. Many don’t pay council tax either, just by saying their house is a place of prayer. No wonder they’re laughing at us.

      1. Many don't pay council tax simply by having no official income other than welfare benefits.

        1. I know of such houses in my local vicinity. One abode in particular has three shiny Mercedes Benz in the driveway. These are the people Angela Rayner was grovelling to in one of the local mosques recently.

      2. Interesting thought, but don't Norwegian Methodists also have prayer groups and bible study in their homes?

        1. Maybe, but they probably don't have murderous intentions towards their neighbours.

  18. The Observer – Space

    ‘We’re trying to find the shape of space’: scientists wonder if the universe is like a doughnut

    Rather than stretching to infinity and beyond, the universe may have a topology that can eventually be mapped

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/me… The Milky Way glows in a clear night sky above St Catherine’s Chapel, Abbotsbury, Dorset, August 2021.

    We may be living in a doughnut. It sounds like Homer Simpson’s fever dream, but that could be the shape of the entire universe – to be exact, a hyperdimensional doughnut that mathematicians call a 3-torus.

    This is just one of the many possibilities for the topology of the cosmos. “We’re trying to find the shape of space,” says Yashar Akrami of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Madrid, a member of an international partnership called Compact (Collaboration for Observations, Models and Predictions of Anomalies and Cosmic Topology). In May, the Compact team explained that the question of the shape of the universe remains wide open and surveyed the future prospects for pinning it down.

    “It’s high-risk, high-reward cosmology,” says team member Andrew Jaffe, a cosmologist at Imperial College London. “I would be very surprised if we find anything, but I’ll be extremely happy if we do.”
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.theguardian.com…

      1. Yup, I noticed that. I guess this folly is 'High Risk' to his taxpayers grant stream of funds.

      2. I suppose, if you see the universe as a doughnut with a möbius strip twist, we could do away with the concept of an infinite entity. Phew, think I need a lie down…

  19. Good morning all.
    A dry start today but windy with a cooler 5°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    1. As many of us said even before Farage entered the fray the flood gates would open once the polls started to show that Reform had caught up the Conservatives in the polls.

    2. The Conservative candidate in Rugby is Yousef Dahmash, whereas Reform is represented by Devenne Kedward and Labour by John Slinger.

      If you were an Islamosceptic voter in the constituency, which name would be more appealing, and how many Conservative supporters there are Islamosceptic?

      Taking a brief look at the candidates, it seems that Labour has a strong candidate – a local councillor. Reform has what seems like an Essex girl property developer, trout lips but is not bad either.

  21. 388338+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    There ain't no way ever,ever,ever,all the while we have holes on our sit down material that the housing issue can currently be fixed, more fodder for fools.

    Our greater life saving need is, ALL the while we are still doing the EUs bidding via the Dover invasion campaign, for a massive prison building program.

    We are, in point of fact NOT repelling boarders in any shape or form in voting for mass uncontrolled / party controlled immigration parties we are consenting with a kiss X even.

    Then unbelievably we set about giving them temporary succour in 5* hotels until suitable , tailor made in many cases to suit family sizes is offered.

    Every alien that steps ashore at Dover the indigenous take a step back in ALL departments, housing, schooling, incarceration.

    Sunday 9 June: Fixing the housing market will take more than cheap election bribes

    1. Labour used to be about worker's rights & opportunity, but now it’s all bile and venom towards the working class..
      oh, and migrants & dimocracy & trans ishooos.

      2. There were always champagne socialists though. Virginia Woolf was a Labour Party supporter who despised working class women but thought she had a duty to hold her nose and lecture them.

    2. It would be more correct to say that the Greens used to be able to hoodwink people successfully that they were all about bees and hedgehogs. They've always been about marxism and islam.

      1. Peter Hitchens suggests that all roads lead back to a comrade called 'Michel Pablo'.. the revolutionary critical eco-pedagogue that came up with the idea to connect the exploitation of nature with the alienation and exploitation of workers under a class system.

        A keen Trotskyist, but eventually adopted his own more modern creed, known (if only to the very small number of people who understand these things) as 'Pabloism'. Its supporters are called 'Pabloites'.
        Sir Keir is in fact a Pabloite.

        No no say the BBC. Sir Keir is a respectable 'moderate' who will do nothing radical. And The Tory Party think they can risk letting him into Downing Street.

        Well, you just wait.

        1. Even more sinister, it fits in with the old babylonian religion that the Jews spend so much time and energy fighting against in the OT. They had a concept of an elite with special rights, and the masses who were treated no better than animals, and they also had a sickly earth worship owl cult. Both these elements are present in the Green party.

      2. Peter Hitchens suggests that all roads lead back to a comrade called 'Michel Pablo'.. the revolutionary critical eco-pedagogue that came up with the idea to connect the exploitation of nature with the alienation and exploitation of workers under a class system.

        A keen Trotskyist, but eventually adopted his own more modern creed, known (if only to the very small number of people who understand these things) as 'Pabloism'. Its supporters are called 'Pabloites'.
        Sir Keir is in fact a Pabloite.

        No no say the BBC. Sir Keir is a respectable 'moderate' who will do nothing radical. And The Tory Party think they can risk letting him into Downing Street.

        Well, you just wait.

    1. 388338+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      It is a genetic material, gene changer
      BIG BROTHER goes internal.

    2. As this dangerous crap doesn't do what a traditional vaccine does it has to be described as a treatment. Now, the purveyors of these treatments will have a more difficult job in selling the them as vaccines. The Avian Flu scam will need watching.

      How soon this knowledge spreads over here to the " CV-19 vaccine" cheerleaders will be interesting.

      1. But, but, but ….. that covid jab saved millions of people from getting seriously ill when the 'tested positive' for the plague …… well that's what the BBC and the msm and Saint Boris told us so it must be true.
        Regardless of how the mRNA jabs are classified, it won't stop the sheep demanding the next one.

        1. And the average age of death was 82 – a year over the overall average for Blighty.

          1. Shush! You're not supposed to say that. Nor that virtually every supposed covid death was in those (elderly or not) already weak/frail/had other co-morbidities, and those who had recovered from the lurgy but had tested 'positive' within the last 28 days (or whatever the random time was back then).

      1. Unless it's to prosecute them for doing their duty in very difficult situations.
        Something you will rarely find in today's politicians, doing their duty that is!!

    2. That man/thing on the left is in need of professional mental health treatment. Imagine being confronted by that deviant in the female's changing rooms at the swimming pool or at the ladies toilets.

  26. It's clear from his running away, that Sunak has decided to move to the US. He demonstrated that by his contempt for the remembrance – "Nowt to do with me, guv!". SWMBO pointed out that that action won't go down well in the US, as they place great value on remembering veterans.
    Lets hope the little shit is screwed there, as well.

        1. Two and a half million Indians fought with the Allies.
          Did that register with the billionaires?

        2. Two and a half million Indians fought with the Allies.
          Did that register with the billionaires?

      2. Judging by the BBC publishing a hit piece on him, Narendra Modi seems to be one of the good guys. Will he want Sunak?

    1. Happy Birthday to both of you, have a lovely day and celebrate 🍻🥂🍾🍺 cheers to you both.

  31. Good morning all,

    Clear blue chem-trail-free skies overhead McPhee Towers this morning, wind West-north-West, 11℃ but the forecast is fo no more than 16℃ as it clouds over mid-morning.

    The ST has published the former jabber-in-chief, Nadhim Zahawi, to entertain us all today.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87da9e8fc272db476c39ddad4ad9aa774cb90d45065b88838fa930bb4a71030c.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/08/tories-must-now-pledge-to-abolish-inheritance-tax/

    They've had fourteen years to do it. And get rid of the vicious tapering of the Personal Tax Allowance above £100k. The Tories' manifesto is the best chance to show they stand for families, fairness and wealth creation, he says. Cue hollow ironic laughter. Families? Nope. Done nothing about the anti-marriage, anti-family structure of Income Tax. Fairness? Co-habiting homosexuals getter a better deal under the tax system than single-earner families. Wealth creation? Done nothing about abolishing the taxing of savings and investment and made stamp duty on house purchase more onerous for the ambitious and moderately successful section of the population.

    I see that there are nearly 4,000 comments on Nigel Farage's piece already and the anti-Farage army is trolling away like mad. They're worried, they really are.

    1. Tories must now pledge to abolish inheritance tax.

      Yes. The problem is will anyone believe it?

        1. Osborne and Cameron said they would do it before the 2010 elections. They also said that they would reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.

          Major, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak.

          Amazingly Truss now looks to be, if not exactly the best, by far the least bad.

          2. That the country is overflowing with people doesn't seem to occur to them. Where are all these people supposed to live, where do they get food from, who pays? (The last is obvious, of course…)

      2. 388338+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,

        It would be the BEST issue to pledge and would get a multitude following,

        ALL lab/lib/con pledges/promises/vows are equal in their worthlessness, so on this occasion we cold be on a winner,
        gift horses and all that.

      3. I think raising the threshold would take the heat out of the issue and reduce the workload at HMRC. My IHT process is now subject of a complaint. Their service standard to issue a code to begin the probate process is 20 working days. About 45 have elapsed so far. Having submitted everything ahead of the required time and paid a not inconsiderable amount of tax, I have not received a single communication from them. Next will be probate, who are actually acknowledged to be way behind their workload. Sheesh..

        1. Something else to look forward to, when Mother croaks. Just completed and sent off the "Do Not Resuscitate" form, so feeling a little fragile just now.

        2. Something else to look forward to, when Mother croaks. Just completed and sent off the "Do Not Resuscitate" form, so feeling a little fragile just now.

    2. They're always 'pledging' to do stuff. They use more 'pledge' than the cleaners at Buckingham Palace.

    3. GCSE – Applied Mathematics

      This paper will score 100 marks
      Do not use a calculator

      Q1) If it takes Penny 40 minutes to roll 5cwt of rocks up the hill to Bob of Bonsall's 'back garden', how long will it take Ange to roll 4cwt of rocks up the same hill?

      Q2) How long would Ange and Penny take to roll a ton of rocks up the hill if they worked together or would they come out on strike?

      Q3) How many pint mugs of tea would Bob consume whilst watching the ladies work up a sweat?

    2. Mr Burnside, how quickly you have forgotten Blair.

      Nothing Johnson did could have been achieved without the foundations of Blair and the wrecking crew.

      1. This is true, and Blair belongs in hell, the sooner the better, however I shall never look at Boris again without thinking “gigantic shape-shifting sociopath.”

      1. And he also got rid of Christian Concern’s adverts on the side of the buses saying “Some people are ex-gay. Get over it!”

  35. How Ukraine’s missile onslaught rattled Putin – but failed to wake the West. 9 June 2024

    BELOW THE LINE

    Michael O'Kane.

    No bad thing if there were a brief war between the West and Russia. It would shake our youth out of their lethargy, end woke, gender centred LGBTQ+ nonsense and reintroduce the concept of genuine hardship instead of the whiny self pitying nonsense promulgated by the BBC and other msm.

    Lol. There’s a whole raft of these inane comments below the line. I’m pretty sure, judging by their juvenile nature, that they are 77 Brigade. This is part of a concerted effort by the PTB to keep disenting opinion off the threads

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/09/ukraine-gamble-himars-missile-onslaught-inside-russia/

    1. A war with Russia, particularly non-nuclear, would leave Europe for the Muslims and Africans as the vast majority of deaths would be amongst white males..

    2. I'm sure they would all have a jolly laugh as one of Russia's hypersonic missiles dropped in to London to say hallo.

      1. Chipping Norton would be my preferred target.
        Not all of it, just one specific area.

    3. How can they be so cavalier with young lives? And a war would not be brief (WW1 – Over by Christimas?). The repercussions would go on for generations.

    4. My lads are fine, upstanding men; kind, caring, hard-working and clever. Totally unwoke, they understand how life really is (This is mostly SWMBOs doing – she even taught them how to be really good cooks, too!).
      They most certainly do not need a war to realise where things are in life – with all the death, destruction and poverty that would result. Anyone wanting war should be immediately shot, with a medal for the one to actually carry out the deed.

  36. Had a pleasant afternoon yesterday at the village fête conducting people up the church bell tower for a talk on bell-ringing and a go at pulling the ropes. We may have recruited a few new bell-ringers which would be good news if they turn up as promised on practice nights in the next week or two.

    The Reform candidate for North-West Hants turned up at the same time as I was entering and was asked politely to remove his party rosette – no politics here today, thank you. I introduced myself and engaged him in converstion.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccecfa0596aa7a412b65164ccdb27996ead6797259b538b4d4a74689d2ee1388.png https://www.reformparty.uk/…
    He seemed like a nice chap. Worked in oil and gas for BP and is keen on sorting our energy policy. Despite believing the party system must be ended, I pledged my support. You have to start the Great Take Down somewhere.

    The useless Conservative tub of lard, Kit Malthouse, was there too. Didn't bother with him.

    Our village fête is no small event. Hundreds, maybe thousands, come from miles around. As a once-infamous TV executive once said, it was "hideously white" too. The new arrivals stay away. Funny, that.

  37. Had a pleasant afternoon yesterday at the village fête conducting people up the church bell tower for a talk on bell-ringing and a go at pulling the ropes. We may have recruited a few new bell-ringers which would be good news if they turn up as promised on practice nights in the next week or two.

    The Reform candidate for North-West Hants turned up at the same time as I was entering and was asked politely to remove his party rosette – no politics here today, thank you. I introduced myself and engaged him in converstion.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccecfa0596aa7a412b65164ccdb27996ead6797259b538b4d4a74689d2ee1388.png https://www.reformparty.uk/…
    He seemed like a nice chap. Worked in oil and gas for BP and is keen on sorting our energy policy. Despite believing the party system must be ended, I pledged my support. You have to start the Great Take Down somewhere.

    The useless Conservative tub of lard, Kit Malthouse, was there too. Didn't bother with him.

    Our village fête is no small event. Hundreds, maybe thousands, come from miles around. As a once-infamous TV executive once said, it was "hideously white" too. The new arrivals stay away. Funny, that.

  38. Had a pleasant afternoon yesterday at the village fête conducting people up the church bell tower for a talk on bell-ringing and a go at pulling the ropes. We may have recruited a few new bell-ringers which would be good news if they turn up as promised on practice nights in the next week or two.

    The Reform candidate for North-West Hants turned up at the same time as I was entering and was asked politely to remove his party rosette – no politics here today, thank you. I introduced myself and engaged him in converstion.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccecfa0596aa7a412b65164ccdb27996ead6797259b538b4d4a74689d2ee1388.png https://www.reformparty.uk/…
    He seemed like a nice chap. Worked in oil and gas for BP and is keen on sorting our energy policy. Despite believing the party system must be ended, I pledged my support. You have to start the Great Take Down somewhere.

    The useless Conservative tub of lard, Kit Malthouse, was there too. Didn't bother with him.

    Our village fête is no small event. Hundreds, maybe thousands, come from miles around. As a once-infamous TV executive once said, it was "hideously white" too. The new arrivals stay away. Funny, that.

  39. Good morning, all. Cloudless blue sky and a light breeze at o6:00. Cloud forecast for later this morning.

    One of my neighbouring families bought two roses for me in memory of my dear wife. One, Olympic Flame is a climbing variety and is growing well on trellis I erected. The second rose they told me was a specimen for a bed, and white, as that is what they asked for. It isn't white but a peach colour and it didn't look happy in the bed that I planted it in. Not wanting to lose the plant I went to the internet and searched for the variety, Scent from Heaven. This variety is in fact a climber with a nice scent and needed to be allowed to do its thing i.e. climb.

    I removed the rose from its original bed and replanted it in a more sheltered spot with a supporting trellis – created from recovered materials – for it to climb on. Back in early March the rose was reduced to four short stems, given a good feed of fertiliser and three months later has delivered this bloom. There are twenty additional buds on this modest plant, I don't know how it's going to cope!

    A beautiful flower in memory of a beautiful lady.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de97f0b95d36321d2d6b46ad02b033246d6c62381c58f9f0892911b3c64410cd.jpg

  40. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny start, but not going to last unfortunately.
    We wouldn't have a housing problem in mainly England if our idiots had taken notice of public opinion and stopped the still ongoing invasion.
    It's past the total stupidity stage. It's been turned into warfare against the indigenous population.
    It's not just housing It's benefits schooling hospitals and all the rest of our present infrastructure everything. That's what our parliamentary morons have done to our country. Wrecked it and now without a single word of explanation they want us to vote for them, so they can carry on with the wrecking process.

    1. Yes and how b…..y stupid importing males from a different culture who are by and large misogynist cruel punishment orientated breeders .

      1. I seriously believe that these morons in Wastemonster and Whitehall have committed treason against our constitution.
        I'm hoping Reform becomes a majority and gets to work on this one. And help the sensible people in Britain rebel.

    2. 38833+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,

      Far from being morons the political top rankers are well educated, WEF / NWO active, in your face agents.

      When " the reckoning" is triggered there is no way they can plead temp. insanity, or just following orders, they have been for a very long time working to an anti British, well orchestrated agenda.

      1. I know, but morons and idiots gets people's attention Ogga.
        I and I guess along with millions of others, hate all of them.

  42. 388338+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    Labour’s net zero plans ‘risk blackouts and public unrest’
    Energy Secretary says Starmer pledge to convert Britain to clean power by 2030 will put energy security in jeopardy

    Of course , Was anyone thinking otherwise of ANY of the
    WEF / NWO coal ition parties.

    Know your place currently, recognise your betters, you can put on another jumper easily as they can bank up a coal fire

  43. Fixing the housing market will take more than cheap election bribes

    The housing market is already fixed, isn't it?

      1. Where we are plans have already been set up for building new homes on green belt and agricultural land. Around 200 spread around the village.
        But despite all the 'Vote for us we are wonderful' notices that arrive through our letter box. There is never a mention of how these bastards are going to ruin our current local.environment.

        1. Three tower blocks nave sprung in the middle of my town, more are promised. And then there's the office blocks converted to flats.

    1. Grattis på födelsedagen, John. Have a nice pint of Harvey's Best Bitter to celebrate with.👍🏻🍺🎂😊

      1. Ooo… drool.
        Not available over here, although I can get London Pride in my local boozer (natch, filled with Brits due to the beer).

  45. My adblocker has found Disqus attempting to load up 14 nasties. These are:
    disqus.com
    14Trackers & ads

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    https://obgpm76tt0a0sgozk8l.npdredinuid.imrworldwide.com/narr?gdpr=1&gdpr_consent=&url=https%3A%2F%2Fio.narrative.io%2F%3FcompanyId%3D19%26gdpr%3D1%26gdpr_consent%3D%26id%3Ddisqus_id%3Ac7bfgmmh58di9k%26id=md5_email%3A0d3f2d9212138414ebfc293fed6ae9e3%26id=sha1_email%3A00263896155c20010bfd73d641d9bfcc21ed6340%26id=sha256_email%3Aa8aaf78219b91d1a5082bbe0f18dbe12bd29d8513f258d5ba5de39e2445c60a2
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    https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=GTM-MRHN8JCT

    2. Which adblock do you use, please, Jeremy? I thought Microsoft installed them already on their computers but I am getting loads of ads at the moment. I don't know much about computers but I think they are horrible to use compared to about 10 years ago. So many pop ups and ads. Maybe I am the problem for not knowing haw to use computers properly. Anyway, I would be grateful for a recommendation.

      1. This list came up using Brave browser on Win7. Brave is a stripped-down version of Chromium and is no longer updated on W7, but I use it anyway.

    1. Does that apply to me, or only to people who have actually won an election?

    2. running a bunch of…
      hence my moniker, describing my view of them all and their so-called "civil service".

      1. We have anchored Mianda in both Symi town and Pedi.

        There is a bus which runs from one place to the other and it is only a hours walk at most – Caroline has done it often.

        I cannot believe that Dr Mosley could have missed his turning as it is perfectly clear. I can only think that he deliberately chose a more difficult and dangerous route as he was a keen vigorous exercise enthusiast.

      2. We have anchored Mianda in both Symi town and Pedi.

        There is a bus which runs from one place to the other and it is only a hours walk at most – Caroline has done it often.

        I cannot believe that Dr Mosley could have missed his turning as it is perfectly clear. I can only think that he deliberately chose a more difficult and dangerous route as he was a keen vigorous exercise enthusiast.

          4. Blighty in July. Not a blistering bit of rock in the eastern Med.
            Unless you think MM had just given inconvenient evidence to an inquiry.

      2. Last week, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders died in plane crash whilst doing solo aerobatics. He was 90, I think there is a time when you have to acknowledge life's limitations.

        1. At 90, I suspect almost any death is preferable to dribbling the days away in a care home.

      3. Last week, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders died in plane crash whilst doing solo aerobatics. He was 90, I think there is a time when you have to acknowledge life's limitations.

    2. I did once say to a young lady at Tottenham Royal when she turned down my request to dance with her. Okay, Can you give me a lift home on your broomstick?
      Belated apple oggies if you're still out there.

    3. Even my 20 year old granddaughter (for whom D-Day is as distant as the Zulu Wars are for me) was shocked when she heard about the early flight home.

    4. 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

  56. If, as the scientists have maintained in recent decades, the universe is constantly expanding, what is it expanding into?

    4. Perhaps the other creature's we haven't discovered yet, are increasing the distances between us and them.

  59. WHO are evil. There will, however, be hordes petrified by any scaremongering about bird flu being a deadly threat to mankind, and they will be clamouring for a jab to save them (and granny), then queuing up to get their bird flu jabs as soon as they are available. All for your own good, of course.
    https://x.com/PeterSweden7/status/1799537025193853336

    1. The jabs will be going into the animals now, I'm guessing, so that our entire food supply will be contaminated with mRNA. Plus mass culling so that there's no meat, eggs or milk to buy for a while.

      1. Enforced vegan diet. Job done. Then, 'Nobody is buying meat, eggs or dairy, therefore those farmers aren't needed…'

    1. A terrible ruination of one of the exciting series we grew up with.
      What on earth are all these Dopey Wokies trying to achieve.

          1. And it is being attempted around the Western world with a concentrated venom that even I find hard to comprehend.

    2. Doctor Who makes history with first ever same-sex kiss between actors Ncuti Gatwa and Jonathan Groff as fans praise their 'electrifying chemistry'

      Fans?

      3. In the article all the tweets are full of praise. The BTL the exact opposite. Cherry picking the comments.

    3. Sod'em in Gonorrhea.

      In fact sod'em everywhere!

      ( It's odd of me to mention it!)

    4. Totally repulsive, a supposedly children's programme. Just wondering how low the bbc can go, not scrapping the bottom of the barrel they are underneath it now.

    5. I couldn't be bothered to read all of that…… and I certainly would not be bothering to watch that series either. How low they have fallen.

    6. I am glad that the beeb are trying to make money and the decision r ux only available on premium channels.

      It wax good once.

  62. Don’t flirt, Cambridge tells students as it bans sexual relationships with professorsStaff have also been advised to report any advances under new policy https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    According to Labour people are old enough to vote at 15 but according to Cambridge University they cannot choose their lovers even though they are over the age 18 if they are students!

    I think this poster, Percival Wrattstrangler, has his tongue in his cheek which is probably the best place for it to be!

    BTL
    Some people think that the age of sexual consent should be reduced to 14 or 12 as it is in some parts of Africa. And in some countries sexual activity is restricted to marriage but children may marry at the age of 10.
    Maybe the English are too stupid to decide with whom they should or should not sleep. Would it not be kinder to protect them by raising the age of sexual consent to 30?

    1. Rastus, I believe that you are about the same age as me. I was between the two ages when the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18. Looking back, do you think that it was a good idea?

      1. I see that you were born on 4th September 1948 and was born on 1st July 1946 and so you are two years younger than I am. I was not able to vote until I was 21 which was a better age to achieve majority in my opinion.

      2. I was married at 20. Not long afterwards, a mobile library called in the village where we were living. I went on to the van and asked to join. When the librarian saw that I was under 21 she said I could not join without my husband's consent.
        I disagreed with the lowering of the voting age. How could someone who was a child till 21, suddenly become competent to vote?

    2. I seem to remember that Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt were in favour of the age of sexual consent being reduced to 14 or even 12. Didn't they have some connection with PIE – the Paedophile Information Exchange?

      1. Only as supporters, if I remember correctly Hewitt had the decency to apologise, and I don't think Harman has. I not so fondly always think of her as the PIE woman.

        1. …a close relation of the pieman whom Simple Simon met on his way to the fair….enough about Lord Porn.

  63. Has anyone heard from Horace Pendleton today?

    He shares his 77th birthday with Johnny Norfolk. Johnny is contributing to the forum today but where is Horace?

    2. He disappeared long ago Rastus. He last commented here on Tuesday 26th October 2021.
      Interestingly. in the light of recent revelations, he was against being coerced into taking an unproven, untested vaccine.

    1. I don't know where those now admitting he's incapable were 4y ago. That his cognitive facilities were on a steep decline was obvious even then.

  65. According to Reuters, Moseley has been found dead near the beach at Agia Marina on Symi. Spotted because of his purple parasol.
    RIP.

      1. If that reply is indicative of the date of his comment, the vaccines had really only been authorised for about a year and I strongly suspect that those in intensive care had significant underlying non-Covid conditions as well.
        10% of those ending up in ICU being vaccinated suggests the vaccines were not the total cure we were being told at the time.

    1. He was following the party line. How many telly slebs said anything negative about the vaccine?

      1. I wouldn’t know as I never watch celebs on telly – but probably very few. He sounds like a good man, really.

  67. Fixing the housing market is straightforward: get the state out of it and let markets work.

    When big government can come in and buy half the houses for 'social housing', pay a subsidised rent on those properties what you've got is socialism, not a market as someone else is forced to pay for someone to have something they otherwise could not.

    Now, yes, you can argue that people need homes but as soon as you're given something you value it less than if you had earned and were paying for it yourself. This is why social tenants are often bad neighbours.

    By getting the state out of housing and restoring a market if people cannot afford the tenancy price then the price must fall. The fundamental problem the UK has – and why everything is broken – is the government has massively increased demand which drives up prices. Rather than letting the market (for anything – including children as if you can't afford them, you can't have them) work here comes the lumbering carcass of big fat state to force socialism.

    Now we're in a mess as house prices are unaffordable due to demand, but those of us with houses want to see the price appreciate so our asset gathers value leaving the political class in a mess of it's own making. It's rigged both supply and demand and for electoral reasons is now lumbered with the costs.

  69. Alan
    @A1an_M
    A psychologist I knew once told me that the terminology around depression was all wrong.
    "People say 'that person has depression'. When really what's happened is that 'depression has that person'".

    In other words when you are depressed, you are in a state which causes you to be unable to be sufficiently detached to recognise the state you're in. If you have suffered depression yourself and managed to recover from it, you may well recognise this.

    I was reminded of that during the coronapanic because it seemed to also describe the mental state of many people who fell for the propaganda. They weren't aware they had been hypnotised by it and were inside a bubble full of mostly irrational fears, because the hypnosis rendered them incapable of the detachment needed to get out of the bubble and see what was happening.

    And I'm reminded of this again with the effects that propaganda has on the mind. If you have a TV licence, and you have the BBC on in your home on the screen all day as the soundtrack to your life, you are blissfully unaware of the extent to which you are being unconsciously hypnotised by their propaganda about climate change or the Ukraine war or whatever the latest thing is.

    Only when you escape from the grip of the propaganda (by switching off the screen or cancelling your licence) and actively go out looking for news rather than be a passive recipient of it can you view the situation with the detachment necessary to see that propaganda is exactly what it is.
    2:41 PM · Jun 8, 2024

    1. We haven't cancelled our licence because my OH, at 81 wants to watch the sports programmes. He was a keen tennis player until just a few years ago. However, we rarely watch any other programmes these days. He puts the news on but I hardly listen , and I don't think he does, really.

      Re: your point about depression – my main experience of that was 50 years ago – following the birth of my second son, not post-natal depression but we all had mumps – me, my three year old and my three month old – it was painful and nasty to have that at 25. It left me very depressed, which became my persona as it was unrecognised and untreated. Eventually, after it had gradually lifted, I realised that I was not a naturally miserable person. It had lasted for many months, possibly over a year, as it lifted very gradually.

      1. Post natal deression is an appalling affliction.
        Some mothers become trapped in a cycle of despair – which can recur for decades afterwards. Others develop a demonic energy and you have to protect the baby from the seemingly possessed mother.
        The mother and baby unit was a horrible place to work; hours of boredom, but you could not relax as a child's life could be in danger.

        1. I don’t think I put my children’s lives in danger, but I was a very lax mother and housewife. i barely coped with the essentials. I remember thinking one day that if I were to commit suicide, my children would be too young to remember me. That stopped me doing anything stupid.

          1. I'm talking about mothers who chucked their babies across the room.
            Rare, but not something that anyone would want on their conscience because of a momentary lapse of attention.

          2. I very nearly leapt over London Bridge on my way into work but my will wasn’t up-to-date and the thought of that stopped me. It was a very powerful urge to jump off, which is odd as one of my fears is death by drowning.

          3. I keep meaning to update mine – I hope I get round to doing so before it's too late.

          4. Same here. I want to make things simple for my children. and am on borrowed time. But things seem to get more and more complicate.

        2. Our daughter in law was very ill after her son’s birth. Don’t think it was depression or postnatal blues as such. I’m convinced it was the trauma of the birth. I think the midwives let her go on pushing when she should have had a caesarean. We helped out an awful lot and, at one stage, she took herself off back to Ireland to family thinking that would solve things. It didn’t, of course, in fact her family said they couldn’t cope with her. She came back and was eventually taken to a mother and baby unit in Basingstoke, the only one in the south we were told. Alf and I drove her, son and baby on 8th December 2003 on a foggy night. Very upsetting for all. She was the only mum in the home to have the baby in her room at night. They presumably did not think she was a danger to the baby. She was there for 3 months.

    2. The convid era was a hyperchondriacs' Nuremberg Rally.
      Synchronised masking up instead of raising the right arm.

    3. I wonder if having had depression and then got over it it helps protect you from having it again. I suppose it depends on the cause.

      I had a bout of black dog some years ago. I received a telephone call on a Sunday at 9.15 pm to tell me my mother had been killed in a car crash. I lost the ability to speak and found it impossible to begin the grieving process. Shock probably.

      I got in such a state a friend asked the Doctor to visit. She prescribed me some antidepressants. It took a while but it did give me the lift i desperately needed. It was many years ago now so i am back to my old self.

      There is a difference between being a bit sad and upset and real depression. I think the young folk today feed off the negativity of those around them.

      1. Calls like that one can really do without. I'm sorry you received one… but glad you got past it.

        1. Thanks. It gets easier to cope with over time but you never forget.

          35 years ago now. She was 52. My father blamed himself as he didn't want to go out that evening so she drove herself. My friend who taught her to drive also blamed himself. I couldn't cope with their grief let alone my own.

          I think it's a terrible thing to do over the phone. They only lived a few miles away. But then my sister has always taken a perverse delight in such things.

          1. Your sister may have been upset as well. She also may not have been thinking very straight – and was not considering her effect on you. Something similar happened with T-B's mother.

            It's a shocking thing to happen – at least, when I got the phone call I knew my mother was ill.

      3. It isn't something you are immune to after having had it. It's a collection of chemicals in the brain that almost feed off one another to create a perfect storm.

        I've been there, when you simply can't see the point of getting out of bed. You read a paragraph and then a page and have no idea what you've read. Food tastes of nothing. You keep going but it feels like your answers are someone else's as you sit in that institution grey, cold room on your own.

        Anti depressants even out the peaks and troughs, but you just have to keep going, more than anything else.

        I think the constant need to be acknowldged is a part of our society now. It shows more than anything else how lonely and isolated we have become.

    4. It's very true that when you're depressed you don't realise what's happening to you. I was ill for years and just thought I was disorganised and if I only worked harder I could get control of things. It was only when I came to the edge of a breakdown and was forced to stop that I started to realise it wasn't me, it was the situation I was in which was, in fact, impossible to get control of because the pressure was being applied by other people. No matter how hard I worked, it would never have been enough.

      1. Ah yes, I remember that feeling well, if only I tried harder I could be successful like everyone else. I had very poor gut health. Depression, aches and pains, fatigue etc. But if you are young, everyone just assumes you are lazy.

  72. Good Moaning.
    What have Maggie and I started?
    MB's first action this morning (after tea making) was to check the Poole Harbour ospreys.
    Thank goodness the smallest chick is eating and sleeping properly, otherwise a pall would have been cast over the entire day.

    1. From the Spectator

      Reform wants the Tories destroyed
      * Comments Share
      There was a very excitable young man on Sky News last week, talking about the Sky/YouGov MRP poll which suggested that the vast majority of Conservative MPs would lose their seats on 4 July and that those who didn’t would be stung to death by invasive killer Asian hornets which, reputedly, can eat up to 50 Tories in a single day. This would leave the Labour party and the unimaginably ghastly Ed Davey with the sort of majority reminiscent of those regularly recorded in the USSR or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
      They are looking for their pound of flesh from a party they believe has gone awry and reneged on principle
      ‘This is a poll of such staggering consequences that all of us will remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when its results were made public exclusively on Sky News. In a sense it is much more important than the general election itself, because it tells us what might have happened if people voted the way we have suggested they will vote,’ he didn’t quite say, but came close to on a couple of occasions. If I had been producing the programme I would have put an arm around his shoulders, handed him a magazine procured from the top shelf of one of our less scrupulous newsagents and suggested he take himself to a cubicle to exorcise that priapic fervour before resuming his psephological elucidations.
      I’m sorry, but the journos are beginning to get right on my wick in this campaign even if I am one myself, of course. The humourless sanctimony of Mishal Husain and the endless smuggery of Nick Robinson, for example. The elevation of the ephemeral and meaningless into talking points. The sheer glee with which the broadcast section of the fourth estate reports the projected Conservative debacle – it almost makes me sympathise with the Tories.
      But not quite. They are beyond rescue. They cough up last-minute, owl-pellet policies on immigration and transgender stuff, forgetting that they have had 14 years to address these issues and yet did close to naff all, instead allowing the country to record hugely damaging levels of inward migration and watched, unmoved, as all that shocking Tavistock Clinic business continued unhampered. It’s a bit late in the day to suddenly find yourself with a conscience, a bit like a Buddhist drug dealer and people-trafficker with a terminal illness splashing out millions on charitable projects in order to bolster his karma before he kicks the bucket. I have grave doubts about that poll, incidentally: the polls in general are all over the place and I suspect that the shy Tory phenomenon is still having an effect, regardless of whether or not those opinion polls have the letters MRP affixed.
      What does change the tilt of the election, however, is the entry of Nigel Farage from stage right. What had been, until Monday, a decidedly downbeat Reform campaign, with the party probably on course to record 5 or 6 per cent at best on polling day, its powder having been doused by the surprise decision of a July election, has been utterly transformed. Now the party can – and I suspect will – cause the Conservatives real problems, especially up the eastern seaboard of our island and also in the so-called Red Wall seats where the Tory wipeout will be close to totality.
      What is happening is politically fascinating. Both the Conservatives and Labour had tacked to the centre in order to convince that crucial tranche of floating voters that they were not extreme and could be trusted to be congenial, consensual and boring. As a consequence of this we have two parties – one on the right, one on the left – determined to snaffle the votes of those who believe that this drift to the middle has been a betrayal.

      ‘I’m training Dad to vote Labour…’
      Please do not for a moment underestimate the political nous, intelligence and charisma of George Galloway and his Workers Party of Britain. He is about the only politician in the country who can come through an encounter with Andrew Neil and emerge at the very worst level and perhaps with three points in the bag. Left-wing he may well be, but he also understands – unlike Labour, the Lib Dems and the likes of Penny Mordaunt and Caroline Nokes – that the overwhelming majority of the country is not socially as liberal as our establishment might wish it to be.
      Pursuing a radical McDonnellish economic policy along with a conservative social policy will win Galloway’s party votes over and above those from the Muslim community who have been drawn to him because of his support for Palestine. Likewise, while the polls looked as though they might be narrowing as previous Reform voters migrated back to the Tories, the triumphant emergence of Farage from the sidelines will convince a good million or so voters that they were right all along and that the Tories have betrayed every bit of goodwill they ever possessed with the electorate. The question then becomes which of these two parties will have the greatest effect. My suspicion is that Reform will do a little more damage to the Tories than George and co. will do to Labour.
      The remarkable thing about these two supposed fringe parties is their reasons for standing. Galloway, during that interview with Neil, could not disguise his utter loathing for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party. Meanwhile, I have had plenty of meetings with the Reform activists, hither and thither, and the thing which unites them is a wish to destroy, totally and irrevocably, the Conservative party. Their hatred for the Tories is unquenchable. Therefore the sensible argument – that a vote for either of these parties leaves a greater evil, in the mind of the voter, more likely, does not really matter. Both are looking for their pound of flesh from parties which they believe have gone awry and reneged on principle. I am still not convinced that Labour’s majority will be quite so big as the priapic man on Sky News suggested, but the arrival of Farage into the room makes that a lot more likely.

      1. When the country goes to the IMF and is forced back into the EU, will the Left celebrate this as a victory, or will they finally realise what horror they have perpetuated?

  75. The organist at this morning's 9:00am Communion at St. Michael & All Angels, Shalbourne (CofE) was so horrified by Rishi's behaviour on 6th June that he gave unexpected renditions of The Dam Busters March followed by Nimrod.

      1. Can't sing in tune or play any musical instrument. Get Ashes to log-in on Zoom and she can serenade the assembled company. {:^))

      1. Wonderful! I think more pieces ought to be arranged for organ and cat.

    1. "This reporter failed horribly…" But of course she did; she works for the BBC.

      1. Channel 4 actually – Cathy Newman – famous for being totally destroyed by Jordan Peterson.

    2. Libtard Cathy Newman ".. you sound proud of not taking in any hairy a rsed fighting aged men that want to destroy your country?".
      Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński.. "Of course, that's what our people expect of our govt."

  78. 388338+ up ticks,

    Just musing,

    They are ALL putting sunak down for leaving the commemorations early, I have no time for the bloke but how about that he left unable to handle any more two faced tripe
    from those that, on returning to England next day once again picking up the reins of destroying ALL that was put in place in 1945.

    https://x.com/AgainBraine/status/1799737538887987459

    1. That is no excuse.
      If you are a politician, you are there to represent your country.
      Meeting sleaze bags is part of the job.

  82. Yo and Good Afternoon to all nottlers

    Mr Trump and his enablers are a clear and present danger to democracy. I hope Americans will see this and vote for Joe Biden.

    Nurse……..

  83. This was referenced earlier:

    The Greens used to be about bees and hedgehogs, but now it's all bile and venom

    ROD LIDDLE

    https://www.thetimes.com/co…

    Unusually, it's a Times article that can be read without a subscription. This paragraph caught my eye:

    In short, the Greens have drifted to the very far left of British politics and swallowed all the necessary delusions while doing so. It is all a little ironic, given that the roots of the Green movement lie in fin-de-siècle proto-fascism, the blood-and-soil notions of purity that so commended themselves to Adolf Hitler and became, in the end, a stirring Nazi slogan.

    Let's be clear what Liddle is referring to – Blut und Boden, an idea that sprang out of early/mid-19th century German romanticism that was taken up by the Nazis and turned into some thing sinister. Is there something bad in defending one's patch on this Earth? There was after this.Here's Neil Oliver from three weeks ago in his video on 'the little people with hearts of oak' and their treatment by the powerful:

    …if anyone raises their voice to object, they have their noses rubbed in the fact there's not a damn thing they can do about it.What breaks my heart is that those people, descendants of hundreds of generations of others, like them, deeply rooted in the soil of this place, are overlooked as though they don't matter, as though they never mattered, as though they have nothing to give as this country and the world would be better off without them.They're even ridiculed for that sense of belonging...

    I posted this at the time:

    Oh, this is dangerous territory, Mr O. Roots are one thing, soil is another. The mere mention of soil and attachment will have the mob shouting 'Blut und Boden', an ordinary human desire turned bad by you-know-who.

  84. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The troubling truth about the Greens
    Comments Share 8 June 2024, 12:00am
    Wind farms. Heat pumps. Hamas apologism. It’s a curious combination, but one that an alarmingly high number of Green party candidates seem keen to pursue at this General Election.

    Yes, the political party nominally devoted to a single issue – ‘saving the planet’, at the cost of ordinary people’s living standards – has landed itself in another anti-Semitism scandal, after a bunch of its candidates for parliament were caught posting pro-Hamas or Israelophobic things online.

    The Greens’ anti-growth, anti-fossil-fuel, anti-car agenda would immiserate the working classes
    Around 20 would-be Green MPs have made rancid statements about Israel, Hamas and 7 October, according to a devastating report in the Times. Adam Pugh, candidate for Deptford and Lewisham North, took to X on the day of the pogrom, saying ‘there is no peace without freedom. Resist.’ Kefentse Dennis, candidate for Birmingham’s Perry Barr, praised a ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstration that disrupted a Holocaust remembrance march. At Auschwitz. ‘It’s because never again means never again’, Dennis said. To add insult to injury, he’s also the Greens’ equalities and diversity coordinator.

    Then there’s Simon Anthony (Barking), who compared Hamas to the Home Guard and the French Resistance (he has since said he condemns ‘all forms of violence’); Nataly Anderson (Woking), who wondered out loud if 7 October was ‘orchestrated’, presumably by Israel; and Chris Brody (Chingford and Woodford Green), who shared an article claiming the worst atrocity committed against Jews since the Holocaust may have been a ‘false flag engineered to open the way to the genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza’. The post has since been deleted. Incredibly, I could go on.

    A Green party spokesman has said the allegations are ‘serious and are being treated as such’. But that’s a little hard to believe, given the Greens’ recent form. Last month, Mothin Ali, a Green party councillor elected in the May local elections, was exposed for his own despicable comments about Israel and 7 October, and he still doesn’t appear to have been suspended.

    Most popular
    Alexander Kolyandr
    How Putin plans to fund a forever war in Ukraine

    You remember Ali, he was the gentleman who declared his election a ‘win for the people of Gaza’ and chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ at his count. Shortly after his victory speech went viral, it emerged that he had posted a video on 8 October, saying ‘Palestinians have the right to resist occupying forces’.

    It got worse. Ali had also joined in an online campaign against Zecharia Deutsch, a Jewish chaplain at Leeds University. This was because Deutsch, a reservist in the Israeli Defence Forces, was called up for three months following 7 October. Ali falsely claimed Deutsch had deliberately tried to kill women and children in Gaza and called on Leeds to sack him. ‘You should be protecting students from this kind of animal, because if he’s willing to kill people over there, how do you know he’s not going to kill your students over here?’, he said. Deutsch returned to the UK to a bombardment of death threats, forcing him and his family into hiding.

    Green party co-leader Carla Denyer has called Ali’s comments ‘very concerning’. Ali has made a vague, utterly unconvincing apology. An investigation is ongoing. But what is there to investigate? Hounding an innocent rabbi and whitewashing an Islamist, anti-Semitic pogrom as ‘resistance’ are hardly on the subtle side. As it stands, Ali is still listed as a Green councillor on the Greens’ and Leeds City Council’s respective websites.

    Most disturbingly, the Greens were presented with a dossier of evidence about Ali, by the Daily Mail’s Guy Adams, in February – and seemingly did absolutely nothing about it. We are within our rights to raise a sceptical eyebrow at Denyer’s shocked response after Ali’s comments resurfaced following the locals.

    So this is the niche the Green party is keen to fill now, is it? And how do these views square with the Greens’ particularly fanatical embrace of misogynistic transgenderism? How is any of this remotely ‘progressive’, the political tradition the party claims to represent?

    In a way, it all makes a perverse kind of sense. That extreme environmentalism has come to be seen as even vaguely left-wing is crazy when you think about it. The Greens’ anti-growth, anti-fossil-fuel, anti-car agenda would immiserate the working classes – and kneecap the poor of the developing world – to salve the consciences of bourgeois, Farmers’ Market aficionados. It is an ideology of knowing one’s place.

    What’s more, British environmentalism has many – often unacknowledged – historical connections to disturbing movements. Jorian Jenks, co-founder of the Soil Association, was a card-carrying member of Oswald Mosley’s Fascists. Writer and naturalist Henry Williamson, best known for his book Tarka the Otter, was an admirer of Adolf Hitler (another early eco-nut), and believed ‘usurial moneyed interests’ not only caused war but were also destroying the British countryside.

    How grim that today’s Greens have been caught making excuses for the primary fascistic, Jew-hating threat we face today – namely, radical Islamism. Indeed, Islamofascism – like plain old fascism – has always had a strong environmentalist bent: Osama bin Laden would often rail against ‘catastrophic’ climate change, which he laid at the feet of ‘Satanic’ American capitalism.

    Perhaps the rampant Hamas apologism among the Greens’ General Election candidates isn’t all that surprising after all.

    1. Of course, absent an asteroid colliding with the earth and shattering it to smithereens, the planet will continue revolving round the sun long after humans are extinct. So talk of “saving the planet” is inherent nonsense. But these folk are not so bright…

  85. Spectator comments thread
    The troubling truth about the Greens

    Rod Evans
    an hour ago
    Anyone still holding onto the idea the Greens are sandal wearing bean munchers who want to save the planet, have not been living in the real world this past decade and more.
    Evil people fixated on destroying society is what they are, and they don't mind who they partner with to do it.
    Share ›
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    D
    Dani Kulka
    2 hours ago
    They just hate people in general. Taking their sick world view to its logical conclusion, the most effective way to save the planet is to reduce humanity's size significantly.
    One of their thought leaders recently suggested how to do it, on Twitter. He said that humanity needs "culling" and that the best way to do it is by releasing a deadly virus. These wackos have genocidal maniacs in their midst. We should seriouly prepare for biological terrorism (like in the 12 monkeys movie).
    Share ›
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    L
    Laurence Bury
    3 hours ago
    Feels like a Green Reich and an Islamic Reich in prospect, both taking on the mantle of 1930s/40s authoritarianism while 'progressively' egging each other on in accordance with their cultural and ideological prejudices.
    Share ›
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    A
    Ant
    4 hours ago
    Interesting that Channel 4 News is wetting its knickers over getting two Reform candidates (rightly) struck off, and devote a whole segment to their pioneering reporting, only to add at the end of the segment that FOUR Green candidates have also been struck off for anti-semitism…Talk about burying the lead.
    Share ›
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    H
    Huw Parker
    4 hours ago
    'The Greens’ anti-growth, anti-fossil-fuel, anti-car agenda …'
    You forgot anti-sex. Almost no party has remained immune to the creep of gender identity ideology, but the Greens are more wholly captured than any other party.
    Share ›
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    M
    Mark Witney Huw Parker
    an hour ago
    How ironic – embracing transgenderism and pro Hamas. Talk about conflicting ideologies!
    Share ›
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    H
    Hominoidal Tendencies Huw Parker
    4 hours ago
    He made passing reference to "the Greens’ particularly fanatical embrace of misogynistic transgenderism" but yes, it can't be emphasised enough just how fanatically devoted to pushing gender ideology the Greens (pink & blues) are.
    Share ›
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    H
    Huw Parker Hominoidal Tendencies
    3 hours ago
    You're quite right, he did.
    Share ›
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    L
    Lynne
    4 hours ago
    I am guilty of once voting for them.
    In my gullible and idealistic days, I genuinely believed they were the party to show us what flowers attracted bees, buy a water butt and grow seeds in egg boxes rather than plastic.
    Share ›
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    B
    Big Dog
    11 hours ago
    An unfortunate trend across this publication of late is the reduction of all matters to their relation to Palestine. The troubling truth about the Greens is that they want to insitute UBI, ration dairy, and openly oppose economic growth. In short, they're utterly mental and – more worryingly – might actually win some seats. Their stance on Palestine is one of the more normal aspects to their agenda – at least it's a real conflict over a real place, unlike their war on carbon emissions to reach the promised land of Net Zero. Rather than focus on their position on a war some several hundred miles from here, can we maybe critique their plan to entirely deindustrialise Britain in order to make the weather better?
    Share ›
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    M
    Mark-S
    12 hours ago
    Perhaps it's because Labour will be a bit stricter on this kind of thing since the EHRC report a few years ago. The Greens might have seemed like a natural new home to loony lefties forced out or rejected by their former home party
    Share ›
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    R
    Roger Hudson
    14 hours ago
    The Greens (ex-Ecology Party) used to have a simple clear set of environmental policies but have strayed into the world of social marxism, very sad.
    The last couple of paragraphs started to get a bit wild, I was expecting a 'blood and soil' trope to be dragged out at any moment.
    Share ›
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    B
    Big Dog Roger Hudson
    11 hours ago
    I noted at the 7-party debate the other night that they didn't speak much about environmental issues. This at a time where water companies are pumping literal faecal matter into people's taps up and down the country. You'd think an environmental party might feel that should warrant some kind of governmental action but apparently advocating for immigration takes precedence over faeces in the drinking water.
    Share ›
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    E
    Eddie B
    16 hours ago
    The Greens are simply the ultra far left, but don't expect the BBC to say as much!
    Share ›
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    A
    AA Locrian
    17 hours ago
    An underlying misanthropy.
    Share ›
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    P
    Prince Modicum of Decorum
    18 hours ago
    I expect Gaza has been net zero (carbon) since 2006, and that's because it doesn't produce anything except terrorist ideologues.
    Share ›
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    A
    AA Locrian Prince Modicum of Decorum

  86. In these dark days, a snigger provided by our islamic brothers.
    DT. A Pakistani man who tried to set up the country’s first gay club has been detained in a mental hospital by local authorities.
    Maybe he was after a free flying lesson…

    1. And in Woke UK

      DT. An Englishman who tried to set up the country’s first heterosexual club has been charged with a Hate Crime detained in prison by
      local police

  87. How Ukraine’s missile onslaught rattled Putin – but failed to wake the West. 9 June 2024.

    BELOW THE LINE

    Barry Tomkins. 37 MIN AGO

    The paid Putin trolls are out in force today. It's all orchestrated; Putin makes this statement, and the trolls are told to go in with their lies; we have seen it all before.

    Common sense tells us that there are no Russian Trolls on the DT threads. There are however indisputably many from 77 Brigade. The quality of the propaganda of these is so poor and the support from the DT so blatant (I’ve had two posts removed this morning) that I wonder if there is not a timetable running here.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  88. How Ukraine’s missile onslaught rattled Putin – but failed to wake the West. 9 June 2024.

    BELOW THE LINE

    Barry Tomkins. 37 MIN AGO

    The paid Putin trolls are out in force today. It's all orchestrated; Putin makes this statement, and the trolls are told to go in with their lies; we have seen it all before.

    Common sense tells us that there are no Russian Trolls on the DT threads. There are however indisputably many from 77 Brigade. The quality of the propaganda of these is so poor and the support from the DT so blatant (I’ve had two posts removed this morning) that I wonder if there is not a timetable running here.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  91. Robert Wilkinson
    @robertwlk
    Growing up we didn’t have a lot of money.
    I had to use a hand-me-down calculator with no multiplication symbol on it.
    Times were hard.

    1. I had an abacus. There should be a follow up line to make that a joke but I actually did have an abacus not a calculator, except for ye old brain, which was good at sums back then.

    2. I had at least two summer jobs with John Laing in Carlisle. The QS dept had at least six staff. And one calculator.

      I rocked up with Sir Clive Sinclar's offering in the second year. It was somewhat better than his "Black Watch". Mine didn't understand the concept of "Time".

  92. It’s bluddy cold and the forecast has been the same for at least six weeks. It’s always going to be cold next week but warm the week after, except it never happens.

    Eucharist this evening with The Midwife (Bishop Sarah) coming to baptise and confirm twenty two adults. Choral Mattins with Baptism, both Book of Common Prayer (the Devil and all his works) this morning. The baby is Cato Benjamin (he’s Chinese). A very vocal little chap.

    The canticle settings and anthem were Benjamin Britten this morning and the mass setting this evening is Schubert. Should be nice, though I’ve yet to hear Madam give a good sermon!

      1. Keep yer Canticles to yerself. It's 15:50 and I'm still waiting for the start of the 15:30 at Punchestown.

        1. Since you didn't ask, it is the 'Lily and Wild Mares Maiden Hurdle' over 2 1/2 miles. I have money on both the winners

        2. Since you didn't ask, it is the 'Lily and Wild Mares Maiden Hurdle' over 2 1/2 miles. I have money on both the winners

    2. Since Maggie's post re. Trinity, Cambridge (and the news about poor Ann), I seem to be subscribed to their channel. I'm not complaining…

        1. Hi Paul. True Belle posted a link to Trinity College, Cambridge, choir. It so happened that the organist wasn't their usual one. But his name rang a bell. Poor Ann had frequently mentioned her organist nephew in private emails, and here he was. I tracked down his email address, and asked the – rather sensitive – question.

          His Aunty Ann had sadly died. Which was hardly surprising. Lottie came to the site as left of centre, but I think we persuaded her otherwise. I firmly believe that she was let down abysmally by the NHS.

          1. Oh. Shit.
            That's a facer, Geoff. I thought she'd just left NoTTL, nothing as sad as leaving life.
            That takes the shine off the day. Thanks for the info.

          3. Grizzly posted this some months ago:

            Grizzly
            5 months ago

            THATLLDO

            Those NoTTLers who were previously frequent and habitual contributors to the old Daily/Sunday Telegraph Letters' Comments Forum, before it was discontinued (and NoTTLe took over), may recall a regular contributor who went by the username of Thatlldo. That was the main avatar of Stephen Roy Cook, whose acquaintance I first made well over a decade ago. This came about due to me being subjected to a great deal of very nasty troll activity from a few people whose vitriolic presence appeared, now and again, on that forum. Frequent requests to the DT's editorial team failed to deter these creatures-of-the-night. Around the same time a few other well-respected members also received nasty troll activity. Prominent among them were Toots and Thatlldo.

            I contacted those two chaps by temporarily posting a (now long defunct) email address for a short while on that forum. Both contacted me, privately, and we commenced an online friendship. Not long after, three other regulars (two of who are still valued and much-loved NoTTLers) joined our merry little throng who we nicknamed "Musketeers". This went well for quite some time until Thatlldo started to become more and more irascible and eventually he fell out with all of us, upsetting a few with his nasty and highly personal comments, so we asked him to leave. This was a shame because in his lighter moments, he was intelligent, thought-provoking and erudite on a number of topics, especially his love of jazz and devotion to the words and music of Frank Zappa. He also contributed to that old DT Letters' forum under a number of other humorous aliases, the main ones being watermelonineasterhay, onourwayome, and honkinginawardrobe.

            At that time, Steve was living in Kiel, Germany and ran a successful business as a freelance technical author and translator with a worldwide client base, and he was fluent in English, Dutch, German, French and Spanish. He lived with his Turkish/German muslim wife, Farita.

            Coincidentally, during the short time my old email address was online, I was also contacted, briefly, by another regular and much-loved contributor: Ladyofthelake. 'Lottie' — Ann Morris — was still living in Georgia, USA with her husband of over 30 years. She contacted me to ask a few questions that she hoped I could answer; some I could, others I couldn't. It was during one of our brief exchanges that she accidentally let the cat out of the bag that she was in a long-distance relationship with another man. She made me promise, while she was still alive, that I would keep that secret to myself, which I did.

            To cut a long story short, 'Lottie' left her husband in the USA and moved back home to England where she moved in with, and eventually married, her new man in England. It is sad to relate that her husband passed away after suffering from ill-health last summer and, as we are all aware, the much-loved and respected 'Lottie' herself died a couple of months ago.

            Ladyofthelake had become, after her new marriage, Mrs Ann Cook. Her new husband, Steve, was the former Thatlldo from the old DT forum, who had moved back to the UK from Germany after divorcing his wife. Ann and Steve remained together for over five, very happily married years, looking after each other during periods of acute and chronic illness.

            RIP Thatlldo and Ladyofthelake, both of whom I was honoured — for a while — to call my friends.

          5. Worse for me. I used my usual dull sense of humour and upset Lottie. After a couple of attempts we did get get back to friendly postings, and then.

          6. I’m glad you’ve seen it now. I thought I’d saved it on my laptop – but couldn’t find it. Did a search this afternoon….. I’ve saved it this time.

          7. It was quite a while ago, Paul. But not entirely unexpected. But for Maggies post, we'd never have had closure.

            It was one hell of a coincidence, though.

          8. Back end of September.
            I remember it as I had emailed her to see how she was.
            My email must have arrived the day before she died.

    3. Lucky you.

      From a Ministry Team comprising one Rector, one Assistant Priest and three LLM's (formerly Lay Readers), we're now reduced to one Rector, who has only just beem discharged from horse spittle. I'm not wearing terribly well, but the Rector is two days younger than me. I dare say that those two days could be translated to ten years older, realistically.

    4. Not now, Cato! There were three baptised this afternoon, but unfortunately I couldn't stay for either the buffet before or the service after as I had a meeting near Connah's Quay.

  94. Phew!
    The door off the safe removed and securely loaded into the van.
    At a guess the carcase of the safe has been reduced from 380kg down to between 250 and 280kg.

    Then had a tea break before we start cutting some heavy galvanised handrail into 34" lengths to act as rollers.
    Safe now loaded with remarkable little difficulty and, hopefully, securely strapped down.

      2. Mistaken auction purchase.
        I’ve already sold it once, but the buyer changed his mind but did not demand his money back!
        Bloody glad to get rid of it.

    3. Don't do what someone I knew did when he was delivering a chest freezer; it was in the back of the van and the chap pulled up at a road junction. Impatient of waiting for a gap, he saw his opportunity and gunned it. The chest freezer slid back, pushed the doors open and embedded its castors in the road!

      1. The safe and door are securely strapped in with ratchet straps and built in anchor points.

  95. Nick Robinson: If I broadcast like Farage I’d be sacked
    The BBC presenter gives his take on the Reform leader and Boris Johnson – and argues why this election is so crucial
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/09/nick-robinson-interview-panorama/
    If he actually spoke the truth the BBC would sack even more quickly.

    Ofcom and Verify have been put in place to stamp out the truth wherever they can find it and the BBC is now running special courses for new recruits in misinformation, disinformation and sexual deviancy.

    Which Robinson is more likely to tell the truth? Nick or Tommy?

    (I would believe that Yaxley-Lennon chap!)

    1. Farage doesn’t work for the BBC and his job doesn’t depend on his doing what he is told.

    3. He refers to Trump as a "demagogue", and "the first thing demagogues do is attack the media". But when he himself criticises GB News, "it's not a game I'm playing. The roots of our democracy are in a proper national conversation. And a proper national conversation means that the people who are asking the questions are not politicians."

      It is why, he says, it is worth remembering that weeks ago, Nigel Farage was lobbying for people to refer to him as a former politician, "because he was having an argument about whether he could stay on air [on GB News] during the election under Ofcom rules that don't allow politicians to broadcast. I was one of those people saying, 'There are rules in this country. If you want to change the rules, have a public debate.'" But, he adds, "if I did what Farage did – broadcasting uninterrupted, unedited, unchallenged, his view of the world at length – for a tenth of the time, I'd be sacked for it."

      Farage was not an elected politician.

      What we can – and should do more of – in this country, he says, "is look around the world, and see the rise of populism. I don't like the phrase 'far-Right'; it's got connotations of a sort of neo-fascism." But, he says, "there is a rise of new forces on the Right – right across Europe, ranging from the very traditional Marine le Pen to Meloni, to Geert Wilders, to the AFD. So it would be amazingly small-minded to think that those forces that are at play – anger about declining real wages, anger about immigration, concern about identity in the face of globalisation – are not at play here [in the UK]."

      Listen out for him using the term…

      2. For "far right" and "populist opinion" read "the views of ordinary people as expressed in the pub, the supermarket queue and chatting while out walking the dog".

    4. If Robinson broadcast like Farage people might actually listen to him.

  96. It's unravelling…

    Yesterday's France-Soir reports an appeal court judgement in the USA that the Covid vaccine is not a vaccine if it does not prevent transmission. As the jab was meant to reduce symptoms and prevent hospitalisation, the court considers that the injections were a treatment, and not a vaccine. This means that compelling employees in certain job sectors to have the injections was contrary to their fundamental right to refuse treatment.

    For the French speakers amongst you, here is the article : https://edition.francesoir.fr/societe-faits-divers/jugement-important-aux-etats-unis-par-la-cour-d-appel-elle-accepte-l

    And for those who are prepared to read a 33-page legal document (in English!), here is the judgement of the court : https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2024/06/07/22-55908.pdf

    1. They ravel more, still less resolv'd,.
      But never find self-satisfying solution

      (John Milton: Samson Agonistes)

    2. Nothing that we didn't already suspect/know, Caroline. But thanks for posting. It is indeed unravelling, but it won't be allowed to unravel completely. I fear that a huge squirrel is about to distract us, long before 5th November, if not 4th July. Aged 67 and "somewhat disabled", I'm prolly safe from conscription. I hope I'm wrong.

      Still playing, sans pedals. I find the three-stave stuff can generally be shared out between two hands and no feet. Not ideal, but most folk have no idea. More problematic when a wedding couple choose – say – Widor's Toccata…

      1. I remember that at my late cousin's wedding…. there was some controversy about the organist….

          1. Something to do with his behaviour but I think I probably didn't hear the details.

      2. Do I assume the pedal action is all ankle-based, rather than lifting the leg up & down, at the hip? Like an accelerator in a car? And – are the pedals off or on, or does the distance pressed change, for example, the volume? Again, like an accelerator pedal.

        1. Yes. Bach used to use only the toes but since then organ technique has evolved to include both heel and toe. The opening section of the Widor has the organist's feet two octaves apart and can be played with either just the toes or heel and toe as preferred. The volume cannot be controlled by how hard the pedals are pressed, but only by the stops and any swell pedals which may be available.

          It is also a curiosity that the Widor Toccata is always played much faster than Widor envisioned it. How do we know? If you look at the marked phrasing for the RH part the first three notes of the distinctive pattern are slurred whilst the remaining five notes are marked staccato. That is impossible to do at the speed it is always performed (and would not make an audible difference even were a robot to do it).

          1. You sound like an organist, SW. Good on yer…

            My problem is that – as a bilateral below-knee amputee – the pedals are somewhat problematic.

            Without ankles, pedal accuracy is nearly impossible.

          2. I imagine it is! Also you have the problem of a lack of bass unless you are lucky enough to have a plentiful supply of 16’ stops on the Great and Swell.

        2. Quite. Three stave organ music has right hand, left hand, and feet. While I generally ignore any fingering suggestions, one has four points of contact with the pedals. Namely heel and toe x 2. Trouble is, that rather needs ankles. Since mine – plus my'feet', are rigid, it becomes more difficult. I did manage to add a pedal note to a couple of hymns today. Though I doubt whether anyone noticed.

          1. Indeed. I haven't a musical bone in my body, and find it fabulous! Imangine, being able to make music – let alone music like this!

          2. All those keyboards, pedals, and hundreds of knobs! A great skill of coordination….

          4. My Mum bought a 45 record of that when I was young… she complained that you had to turn it over in the middle of the fugue.

          7. With dinner tonight we had a cd I bought in Leipzig – orgelmusik von Bach played on the organ at St Thomas’.

          8. Knobs? Stops, please. That's an exceptional instrument. My post-retirement project has 43 physical stops. When I finally build it, I'll base it on this.

            For obvious reasons, pedals are something of a stretch. Though I can occasionally throw my prostheses in the general direction of the right note.

          10. I don't think Geoff looks like a knob, Ndovu, although a marvel we can agree 🙂

          11. You clearly haven't seen me. With very little thinning grey hair, my visage coud reasonably be described as spherical. As are knobs. And the closest I come to Marvel is the coffee whitener stuff, which I woudn't use if you paid me. Thanks, anyway…

          12. We would still love you, Geoff even if we had to push you around in a wheelbarrow.

            Guy Fawkes night okay for you? :@)

          14. I have a party coming up and you could have an opportunity to polish his er ..sphericals.

          24. I see the organ he's playing has a Solo manual. My first encounter with one of these was at Peterborough Cathedral in my late teens and resulted in an embarrassing moment at the climax of Mulet's Carillon-Sortie………unused to the extra manual I had not set any stops for it and jumping up to the top manual (which I was accustomed to being the Swell) I was greeted by silence! 🙄

        2. Good steady tempo, like the full organ sound, but I still prefer the recording by Simon Preston for his immaculate fingering technique.

      4. I have a horrible suspicion that all "hwaites" will be the first to go. The official "unprotected" group.

    3. Ha! That will put the cat amongst the pigeons! How long till the politicians like Hancock etc start finding themselves in court I wonder?

      1. It's already coming out at the Scottish Covid enquiry that people were killed with Midazolam…

  97. Having a short break from being on the Costa del Skeggy:

    Going to the Costa del Benidoom for 14 nights (and days)

      1. My accountant, MD, weather forecaster, clothing chooser, diet controller, aka SWMBO, says the weather is going to be good.

        God dare not go against that

        1. You have a SWMBO like that, too, eh?
          Mine's from Sarf Lunnon, but you'd think she came from the North East UK … even the birds do what she says!

    2. Have fun, OLT! We’re leaving the country tomorrow, as well! Leaving the house at 4am!

  98. I'd love a drawing table of that size, Grizz, with a big parallel rule spanning the whole table. Unfortunately, SWMBOs hobbies occupy every space in the house except for the small corner with my gunsafe.
    <i>Sigh…

      1. His barn is full of cars in various states of dismantlement, and I enjoy that, but it's a 2 hour drive away, so some planning needed. I'd like a space for modelling, so cleaner than a barn…

  99. "Call me Dave" told everyone, loud and clear, just before the Brexit vote that he was not for quitting. The day after the results of that vote were announced, he quit.

    I wonder for how long, in his post as leader of the Tory Party, Rishi-Washi will remain after July 5?

    2. He'll be off on a plane once the results come in. He's got form with D-Day, remember.

    5. I posted late last night, my journalist friend (Grimes) says his kids are already enrolled into a school in California for next school year.

    7. Because people would have voted for his resignation, not for how they felt about the UK's membership of the EU.

      1. I don't think they would, had he discharged his duty to the electorate in good faith. He didn't – he chose not to – and none of his successors (with the possible exceptions of Boris in the beginning and Truss) have even tried. Which is why the party he has again hijacked is finished.

          1. To deliver the will of the people – ie to leave the EU and all its institutions as promised, to regain our sovereignty, to erase the raft of pettifogging rules to which the people of the UK have never given assent, to control our borders to the advantage of our own people and to defend the realm. For a start.

          2. You wanted him to stay on as Prime Minister and do that. You wanted a man, with no enthusiasm for the task, to carry it out.

          3. No. I was idiotic enough to believe that someone in such a position of trust would carry out their duty. I wanted someone with balls and the integrity to keep his word and implement the will of the people of the UK, to honour his promises to them.

            It turned out that "Call Me Dave " has no substance nor integrity whatsoever, neither has any subsequent puppet. And he's back, like a squatting toad, as unwanted and unelected as ever, at the behest of an even more disconnected globalist.

          4. Of course you do. It was to enact the will of the people as promised by him when he called the referendum. To get us out of the fucking EU and all its institutions

      1. Nah! Son in laws daughter from previous marriage is marrying a footballer!

        1. Strewth!
          Enjoy, Sue! Great place, Portugal. Good people, with a history very similar to England in seafaring, conquest, and travel. Great food and drink, sunshine… and I barely understand a word of the language. Have a great trip and visit!

          1. Obregado! And that is the sum total of my Portuguese! A bit like Colin Firth!

          5. My wife is Chinese, and tells me that she will play for Falage’s erection.

          6. Girls (women) say “obrigada”. Men (and boys) say “obligado”. Heaven knows what the men who wear dresses say.

          7. Oh! Thank you for that! They make recognise me as a woman in a very sparkly dress!

          8. Obregado is the origin of the Japanese 'arigato' (thank you. I thought you should know.

            Try the sardines, washed down with vinho verde.

        2. Don't forget to get him to sign a football shirt for you. Worth thousands. Hundreds of mugs would bid for it.

          *follow me for more embarrassing tips to do at a wedding !

          2. I am sure of that. Just don't wave the shirt as they are going down the aisle, okay! :@)

    2. Lucky you, where are you going in Portugal?
      It's cold hers today, part of the family came to visit, after sitting out earlier we all came in for a cuppa and a warm up.

      1. We’re going to an air bnb outside Braga, and the wedding venue is about 15 miles away. We’re there for 5 days then a couple of days in Porto! We’ve only been to the Algarve in the past and loved it! Looking forward to it all, except the early start!

        1. Excellent have a lovely time.
          We’ve only been to Algarve area previously. Portugal always seems more relaxing than Spain.

        2. If you have the opportunity to go to Villa Nova de Gaia where all the Port Houses are and have a sample it’s worthwhile.

          1. And they should try Burmester if they can find it.

            I was given a couple of their 1955 and it was unbelievably good.

          2. Yes absolutely, discovered Burmester tawny in Porto a couple of years ago. Not easy to find in the UK.

          3. I think the old man has that pinned in his diary! Very fond of port he is!

        3. If you have time and nothing else to do, go to Viana do Castello, about 50 miles north of Porto. Smashing little town, off the tourist track.

    3. Lucky you, where are you going in Portugal?
      It's cold hers today, part of the family came to visit, after sitting out earlier we all came in for a cuppa and a warm up.

  102. India playing Pakistan in New York T20 Cricket World Cup. Off for rain currently, but I'm just wondering if some thuggish behaviour might occur in the British enclaves of Asians.

    1. "… I'm just wondering if some thuggish behaviour might occur in the British enclaves of Asians…"

      Come on. Which of you called out from the back "I hope so"?

  106. June week 2: Reform overtake Tories.
    June week 3: Reform 10 points behind Labour.
    End June: Reform neck and neck with Leftie Labour migrant party.

    2. Reform wins more votes than other parties.

      The House of Commons first-past-the-post electoral system bites the dust.

      1. Heaven help us if that becomes the case.

        PR gives far too much power to significant but worthless minorities, who gain far more for their adherents than the rest of the population gain from any coalition.

        1. Not true. Farage would never have won the European elections with a FPTP system.
          PR gives more power to the people and less to indolent traditional parties. Yes you might have a Frankenstein coalition, but it will be more democratic than Sunak or Starmer.

        2. Not necessarily so: a Single Transferable Vote 'STV' system ensures 'proper' representation of the electorate. There are numerous bad PR systems – as used in Scotland!

          3. Show me a country that has one in practice.

            Your premise ignores the fact that minorities can still go into coalition and hold the whip hand.
            And, in the case of the UK, I would put good money on a Muslim minority under STV having a totally disproportionate influence on government actions/legislation, particularly religious and foreign policy.

  107. An oversubscribed Par Four?

    Wordle 1,086 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Here too.

      Wordle 1,086 4/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. What are the odds?

      Wordle 1,086 2/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Busy busy – thought I was in a bit of trouble here….

      Sneaked a Bogey!

      Wordle 1,086 5/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
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      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  108. And remind me, just what was the turn out?

    Just because one’s particular favourite party does well out of it does not mean that an overall small minority doesn’t gain disproportionate power.
    And even in that case, which groupings actually control the European parliament?

    1. Just imagine ghastly, artificial couplings of Momentum, Greens, Rainbow party and Slammers. With a majority over the (so-called) normal parties….

        1. Judging by how Green policies are being foisted upon us I would suggest they already are.

      3. Couplings of the Rainbow party and the Slammer party would be interesting.

    2. To see how it leads to a totalitarian kleptocracy one only has to jet a coup of the eye over Scotland, and now Wales

    4. The triumph of UKIP in the European elections represented the will of the voters.
      If PR existed in the UK there is every possibility that Reform might win the General Election. As it is, it doesn’t stand a chance in spite of huge support because the system is weighted against it.
      It isn’t a question of your favourite party but of democratic choice, of fairness. This orthopedic FPTP system does nothing but favour the two traditional parties and often gives disproportionate majorities.
      Have a representative Parliament. Oblige the political factions to negotiate with each other. Reject the notion that one dictatorial PM be able to introduce constitutional change without popular consent.

      1. I note that you daintily stepped around my question, wherein lied the crux of my argument.
        What was the turn out?

        Reform might, but it would still be in a minority overall, particularly when one considers that even with PR a very significant proportion of those entitled would still not vote.

        The rest of your argument falls apart in the face of apathy.
        I actually believe that the apathetic deserve all they get, but it doesn't change the fact that a coalition of minorities will control what is enacted.

        1. ‘What was the turn out?’
          I have no idea, but I consider it irrelevant. Lots of elections are won and lost with different turnouts and the losers almost always attribute their defeat to people preferring to stay at home to watch some popular TV show or because of inclement weather.
          People come out and vote if they consider it important to do so.
          Farage got his seats in Europe because of the voting system, hence the government felt obliged to hold the referendum and the rest is history.
          The possibility of a large Labour majority, enough to leave Starmer with unlimited power, is because of the outmoded FPTP system.
          It wasn’t fair before, it’s not fair now.

          1. The turnout was ~35% of which UKIP got ~ 27% slightly more than Labour and the Conservatives in 2nd & 3rd.
            ie none got anywhere near a majority and all would struggle to gain a coalition majority to govern.
            And in all probability that would be the case in any election under the same system.
            Chaos.
            I’m now at the point where I think a Starmer government is what is needed to utterly break the UK so that if there is anything left, building back better to use a cliché in a different context, is the result.

          2. A death wish? Well I think you’re on your own there. A kind of James Bond villain imagining the earth must be destroyed in order to start again. Burn Rome and reconstruct it.
            Foolish and unpatriotic.

          3. Says the man who wants to tear up our tried and tested voting system to give disproportionate power to minorities who hate us and everything we once stood for.

          4. The FPTP voting system, tried and tested, found to be severely lacking. It allowed Tony Blair to spend years with his grandiose plans to allow mass immigration,constitutional changes which crippled historic protection of civil rights and a costly, destructive war which destroyed the hopes and dreams of so many.

          5. True, but those who followed Blair could have undone the damage, but chose not to.
            We deserve what we are about to get.

          6. Bring them back from the dead in Iraq? Bring back the House of Lords as the last court of appeal? Repatriate all the new EU citizens Blair allowed to come against EU advice in 1992? Reintroduce the double jeopardy protection? And that would only be the beginning. These weren’t really options and certainly not on the cards.
            Also FPTP simply brought in another group withers own agenda, Blair having opened the way.
            Very probably, the political history of the UK since the sixties would have been very different without your tried and tested FPTP system. Successive Labour governments with high taxes, disproportionate trade union privileges which ran the country down until it was regarded as the sick man of Europe. Then Heath foisting a Common Market on the country. The list goes on. Of course the big parties favour FPTP. Democracy always frightens politicians.

  109. That's me for today. A dull, dreary one, made even more so by feeling just a bit unwell. Nothing serious but just down getting. I hope a glass of medicine will help in eight minutes.

    Rain expected overnight and for a lot of the week.

    Have a jolly evening trying to keep warm.

    A demain.

  110. Well that is the French Open tennis done and dusted.
    Didn't see one Pride Flag either.
    All those Remainers must be a bit disappointed.
    I see that Farage wants a system similar to the French health service adopted here, it works much better than ours.
    I'm surprised that EU Remainers are against this, it seems they have a xenophobic attitude to the NHS becoming more European

    1. Be fair, everyone knows that the NHS is the system to die for and to DIE for and to die in.

      Envy of the third world dont'cha kno…

  111. It looks very likely the right of centre are having a very good result over the channel. It just needs our electorate to be brave. Some chance I know.

    1. We've had our moment and ever since the Left have fought it and the state has ensured that absolutely everything they said would happen has – by their own hand. sadly, the public don't realise this as they're all too busy being told 'Look! Squirrel!'.

      Europe will be no different unless the political class take on the administrative and force sensible, Right wing, pro growth, wealth policies.

      1. I pointed Space X's successful take off and landing to a greeniac and he thought it was awful. I saw our future, out into space. He couldn't comprehend it. To him it was just evil.

        The luddites are still throwing clogs into the machines.

    2. The paper straw people are the same folk who wasted mountains of plastic pretend testing for covid.

      1. I enjoyed the fact that under EU regs they each had to be covered in plastic for H&S reasons.

  113. Evening, all. Wet, very wet in North Wales 🙁 Cold with it. I'm attempting to light the Rayburn. Had a head in hands moment at church this morning; a different person leads the intercessions each week. Today it was the turn of a full-on Climate emergency catastrophe greenie who spoke about Palestine-Israel (no, dear, it's hamas – Israel) and Russia vs Ukraine (again, you've got it wrong; there would have been no conflict if the Ukies hadn't bombed their own Russian speakers and the EU and NATO had kept out of it). I had to duck down below the pew line or my face would have been a provocation. Instead of "Lord, hear our prayer" I was reduced to "Oh, God, help us!".

    The housing market needs to have demand drastically reduced by a) controlling the influx of immigrants (legal and illegal), b) getting rid of foreign criminals, c) encouraging families to stay together (by not making it more lucrative to live apart, for a start).

    1. Is there a crypt? Are you able to acquire cable ties and Tesco life bags as hoods? If so then show those deluded fucks videos of what went on at Supernova. Then make them watch all the available videos of the mutilations and beheadings of babies in cots and then ask the most important question….Jam or cream first on your vegan scone.

        1. Barts has a crypt. We use it as a vestry for the servers and it’s become a repository for junk and, at present, building materials for all the repairs going on. We currently have to pick our way through, round and over the builder’s stuff to get to our cassocks and cottas.

          2. I suppose means must and all that ………………….but i feel storing old paint tins etc in the crypt is disrespectful. Sorry.

    2. "I had to duck down below the pew line or my face would have been a provocation."

      That's not you, Conners.

      Why don't you stand up and declare: Effing Rubbish!

      1. I have too much respect for the priest to disrupt the service. It isn't like having an argument in a pub.

          1. Nothing wrong with having an argument in a pub. Having a stand up row in church is another thing entirely. I wouldn't even do that with the wrecktorette.

        2. She has no business being/ Pontificating about:

          "a full-on Climate emergency catastrophe greenie who spoke about Palestine-Israel (no, dear, it's hamas – Israel) and Russia vs Ukraine (again, you've got it wrong; there would have been no conflict if the Ukies hadn't bombed their own Russian speakers and the EU and NATO had kept out of it)."

          What is the basis for your respect, Conners?

          2. It was a member of the congregation. They choose somebody lay on a roster to lead the intercessions. Not the priest who is generally sound and non-political. I see, looking at my original post that it wasn't clear it was a member of the congregation who was "someone different".

    3. We've had a few of those. We had a lovely priest some years back who was also a good friend and he told me that sometimes he had to remind those leading the intercessions that the congregation have already had the sermon!

      1. Today's sermon was on the Old Testament reading (Adam and Eve blaming each other for eating the forbidden fruit).

  115. We went as a family to UK Games expo. Junior and I had huge fun looking at bits and pieces. The warqueen was somewhat bored and kept doing that pouting, hair curling slouched on one hip thing she does rather well.

    Turns out she got recognised and did some selfies. At this point we were off playing with toy soldiers so didn't really notice anything. She eventually finds us and tells me on the way home she wants to go back to modelling for a bit.

    What do I say? We could do with the money and she wants to do it. Not sure I want her to, but she's never kept her life secret or anything.

      1. Knickers probably.

        She did some glamour work. Nothing hardcore just solo stuff. The internet never forgets so her 23 year old self is still shaking out of lycra somewhere. It'd just be that.

          1. More likely 'Oh look, I'm all undressed and only wearing improbably silly strappy shoes/boots/tape… I'd better not bend over…oopsie!

          3. That leggy goddess in her daisy dukes and that top looks wonderful, but she poos like everyone else. She's hoovered and made a hash of it, watching her change the beds is funny. Folk forget that fantasy first thing in the morning has breath like the rest of us, farts, poos and uses all the hot water.

          6. Victoria's not so secret?

            Even you could earn lots on 'OnlyFans'. Big bloke like you wearing her knickers. Gold mine.
            Can i be your agent? :@)

          7. I did have an onlyfans. My 'friends' set it up. People paid me to keep my clothes on. We made drinking money!

          8. Strange that. I was going to suggest we pixellate your body and just show your face….

          11. Worst bit! Although… although! She did say I looked a bit like 'that bloke in SEAL Team after a bad accident.'

          12. No pics please. Plus i don't get the reference.
            I just pictured you as a grizzly adams type but i think i may have confused you with the doggies.

          13. I'd always be happier being compared to Arkwright (Ronnie Barker) in Open All Hours.

            If folk want to meet people, get a Newfie or two. .

      2. Knickers probably.

        She did some glamour work. Nothing hardcore just solo stuff. The internet never forgets so her 23 year old self is still shaking out of lycra somewhere. It'd just be that.

  117. Blimey! I’ve just been out to water the garden and fill the pond, and the wind has gone down! The midges were horrendous, and I’m still itching! They’re in my hair and round my forehead!

          9. I remember Allis so well.

            This is an odd coincidence. SW Water and the EA in conjunction with EU money (ie money the UK gave to the EU prior to our non-departure) combined with Natural England have been trying to change our weir at Gunnislake. This is to allow Allis shad to get upstream via a new ladder to be built, despite the fact that they and their eggs are already found upstream and downstream of the weir.

          12. I think if you're weird, cold to the touch and slimy whilst sailing the seven seas solo a love bite might not be appropriate

      2. I don't. I have fly-screens fitted over all my windows and skylights. I breathe fresh air all night long and don't get bitten (or annoyed by flies).

    2. I live in a fairly marshy area (on the moors) and the midges are horrendous – we use Jungle Formula (just google it, it's available widely including Amazon), it's excellent at keeping the little buggers at bay!

      1. The best is Avon's "Skin So Soft" (I'm not kidding and I use it abroad and on the horses – it is the only thing that works). It does, though, make you smell like a tart's parlour.

        2. I've never been in a tart's parlour, O – honest! Sounds good, though…..

      2. I’ve never seen them this bad here and I’ve lived here 45+ years! It’s nearly as bad as sailing on the West coast! The Jungle Formula has already been packed!!

    3. A bucket of vinegar, honey and fairy liquid up the garden will attract and drown the beasties.

    2. According to the Speccie, a macron has called a snap election for the end of June/first week of July.

        1. We inhabit interesting times, don't we? I'm trying to be careful what I wish for

  123. There has to be a catch. Are there really sensible people in the GMB?

    'Nothing but zealotry': Union sources condemn Labour's net zero plans
    –
    GMB members say the Left-wing party is risking power cuts over plans to convert UK to clean power by 2030
    –
    Camilla Turner, Sunday Political Editor, Neil Johnston and Fiona Parker • 9 June 2024 • 8:16pm

    Labour's net zero plans are pure "zealotry" and "nothing else", union sources have claimed.

    Sir Keir Starmer's party has been accused of taking a "ridiculous" stance by GMB union insiders by risking power cuts over plans to convert Britain to "clean power" by 2030.

    The union, which represents more than half a million workers including many in the oil and gas sector, will on Monday debate a motion urging Sir Keir to revisit his 2030 commitment and to put before the electorate a viable plan for a net zero electricity generation.

    A similar motion was carried last year and the move comes after Claire Coutinho, the Energy Secretary, told The Telegraph that Labour's pledge to convert the country to clean power five years before the Conservatives would risk leading to blackouts and public unrest.

    She said her major concern about Sir Keir's "unrealistic" target was that the country did not yet have the renewable energy infrastructure in place "to make sure we can keep the lights on".

    Union sources have criticised Sir Keir's position saying the policy was taking "unnecessary risks".

    "The motion implores labour to drop the target," a source said. "The union has been doing its damndest to try and stop them from going ahead with this. There is a big load [ho! ho! ho!] of people in the union who are very concerned that this debate is not being driven by energy specialists. There is no need for Labour to do this at all. There are real grounds for optimism but we are just taking unnecessary risks. We don't need to do this."

    Under the Conservative's plan, the electricity grid would be decarbonised by 2035 using home-grown, green technologies such as offshore wind and nuclear energy to support the transition away from the reliance on fossil fuels.

    The GMB source added that Labour's policy of doing this five years earlier would risk power cuts and was based purely on political beliefs.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/09/labour-net-zero-plan-condemned-by-union-sources-zealotry/

    1. That's good news about the GMB. Unfortunately, Kier Starmer hasn't the intelligence to understand . . .

      2. Surely sustainable energy would be if you burnt wood. Chop a tree down and plant a replacement.

        Not that our greenies would agree with that logic.

        1. Not a hope.
          I worked on the safety case for Hinckley point C in the late 1980s (materials and fracture studied) back in National Power (ex CEGB) days. And it hasn't generated a milliwatt yet.

    1. Yes but no but – it makes not a centime of difference either to the EUSSR or to the way 17 countries are run.

      Just saying

      1. But she's really not "Far Right"! She's a leftie with a few pragmatic policies that are pro the interests of France and the French in general

        1. There you are, the interests of her country so obviously far right.

          Now if only she would bow to the wef and eu gods, they might be more respectful.

      1. The 10pm BBC1 news led with the death of Michael Mosley. When it got onto the EU elections, Clive Myrie spoke of 'the gains of 'centre-right and far-right parties' while Katya Adler spoke about the 'big gains of the hard-right and the far-right'. She didn't explain the distinction…

        1. Quite. It is unadulterated crap. i have also replied to you above, because disqus took a view earlier,

        2. What on earth is centre right? I assume something like the lib dems would qualify for that category.

    2. Cretins. They are like an old neighbour's dog that never tired of chasing it's own tail.

  126. Just watching The Darkest Hour .. on the box BBC1

    Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour is a piece of historical fiction that undertakes a serious historical task: to present Winston Churchill and the British people’s choice to stand up to Hitler as just that … a choice. In hindsight, after eventual victory, the decision to fight against the Germans can appear a foregone conclusion. Since we all like to imagine that we personally would never fold to the Nazis, it can be hard to understand that reasonable people, most of whom had no love for Hitler, seriously considered a truce in spring 1940, during the days depicted in the film. To their eyes, fighting on after the approaching fall of France would only delay the inevitable at the cost of mass civilian slaughter. Better to come to terms now while they still had the leverage of an army and aircraft factories.

    “Then out spake brave Horatius,
    The Captain of the gate:
    ‘To every man upon this earth
    Death cometh soon or late.
    And how can man die better
    Than facing fearful odds,
    For the ashes of his fathers,
    And the temples of his Gods,

    ‘And for the tender mother
    Who dandled him to rest,
    And for the wife who nurses
    His baby at her breast,
    And for the holy maidens
    Who feed the eternal flame,
    To save them from false Sextus
    That wrought the deed of shame?

    ‘Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
    With all the speed ye may;
    I, with two more to help me,
    Will hold the foe in play.
    In yon strait path a thousand
    May well be stopped by three.
    Now who will stand on either hand,
    And keep the bridge with me?

    Then out spake Spurius Lartius;
    A Ramnian proud was he:
    ‘Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
    And keep the bridge with thee.’
    And out spake strong Herminius;
    Of Titian blood was he:
    ‘I will abide on thy left side,
    And keep the bridge with thee.’

    ‘Horatius,’ quoth the Consul,
    ‘As thou sayest, so let it be.’
    And straight against that great array
    Forth went the dauntless Three.
    For Romans in Rome’s quarrel
    Spared neither land nor gold,
    Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
    In the brave days of old.

    Then none was for a party;
    Then all were for the state;
    Then the great man helped the poor,
    And the poor man loved the great:
    Then lands were fairly portioned;
    Then spoils were fairly sold:
    The Romans were like brothers
    In the brave days of old.

    Now Roman is to Roman
    More hateful than a foe,
    And the Tribunes beard the high,
    And the Fathers grind the low.
    As we wax hot in faction,
    In battle we wax cold:
    Wherefore men fight not as they fought
    In the brave days of old.”
    ― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Horatius

  127. Right, that's me for the night.
    Got to take Stepson's clothes back to Stoke for him tomorrow and, as the safe is still in it, will be taking it very carefully.
    Safe is due for dropping off Tuesday evening after Welder Son has had something to eat after he gets back from work.

  128. We've been enthralled watching The Darkest Hour.
    It's mind blowing how that man managed to get all those people singing from the same song sheet.
    And hard to imagine what would be happening in this country now.
    But if it hadn't have been for Winston's dedication to this nation most of us wouldn't have even been born.
    But I'll have to do catch up tomorrow because it's bed time and I'm very tired.
    Good night all.

    3. A great film.
      I was 10 at the end of 1964 when my parents decided to leave the US to resettle in England. Churchill died in January 1965 my school life was full of war anecdotes, readings from Churchill’s experience as a war correspondent and relatives and neighbours recounting the dark days of the blitz.
      He was regarded as a national hero, people spoke of him with the greatest respect and grieved his passing.
      So different from the disparaging remarks so often found in the media nowadays.
      We have much to be grateful to him. At a time when a leader of his caliber was needed, he was there.

        1. I know Elsie, but you weren’t around! And it is a very good line!💕

      1. I do wish they were only that, AA, but believe and do fear that they are driven by active evil

  131. I wrote this in reply to a comment re that poor doctor who died on a Greek island just now. The comment was disallowed because the one to which it was replying was removed. Nevertheless, i want to say it:

    A personal tragedy for his family but hardly world – or even national – headline news, however famous he was (though it's the first I've heard of him). Why is this so newsworthy? Families are bereaved in similar tragic circumstance every day.

    Look what has just happened in Israel , for example. They have rescued four hostages, one at least of which was held by a UN employed doctor and his "journalist" son. You can find further incontrovertible evidence of the misinformation distributed by the likes of the BBC in many other places,

    1. I wonder if the 'higher ups' kept muslim police officers out of the loop regarding their whereabouts.

      1. 388373+ up ticks,

        Morning Pip,

        I would have thought "need to know only" was applied otherwise they would have been dealt with by now.

        1. Good morning.
          There must be some specialists within the force who know how to make people vanish. Would muslims be excluded from these teams? Surely that would be racist? (rhetorical)

          That then would be an admission they are not to be trusted.

          1. 388373+ up ticks,

            Pip,
            I do believe that the police have a very active CATCH 22 DEPARTMENT.

    1. ' Morning, Geoff and thank you for all the great work you have lavished on us, on our behalf.

    1. It might have encouraged people to vote. Many , probably the majority of people living in districts with ‘safe’ seats, rarely saw much point in going to the polls.
      It would have changed the tyranny of a system where the two parties were in collaboration to give more of the same. This only changed with Thatcherism which developed into Blairism.
      FPTP leaves the road open for the despotic PM.

      1. As opposed to the despotic minority getting power out of all proportion to their numbers. Show me a country where PR doesn’t leave the tails wagging the dog.

        1. That isn’t true. A coalition might oblige the other parties to give leeway, pass one law, but to call it a despotic minority is pushing it.
          No system is perfect, of course, but the FPTP system is very far from that ideal.

          1. Look at what the LibDems squeezed out and then reneged on on their side.
            And if you think a Muslim minority holding the balance of power won’t squeeze every last drop from its partners then you are in for a very rude awakening.

          2. The Liberal party in its time represented a sizable percentage of the population with a very small representation in Parliament.
            Had it held the number of seats proportionate tp its support Harold Wilson would never have been able to rule footloose and fancy free. Ted Heath May never have been able to bounce the country into the EU. The country may have experienced prosperity in the 60s and 70s instead of the sad misery caused by endless conflicts.

          3. And England may have won every Euros and world cup, and the Common market might not have morphed into the EU.

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