Thursday 6 January: Parishes have borne the brunt of the Church’s unchecked bureaucracy

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

687 thoughts on “Thursday 6 January: Parishes have borne the brunt of the Church’s unchecked bureaucracy”

  2. ‘Morning Peeps, from a beautiful, frosty-white Sussex:

    SIR – There is an old saying that the first duty of government is defence. Today, one might say that the first duty of government is security: territorial, economic, domestic, of person and property, food and energy.

    Energy security has been a weak point for the past few administrations. Wind and solar power, and carbon reduction, are an easy sell, but hard reality dictates that we require more nuclear (and micro-nuclear) power, and our own secure gas supplies. Householders, businesses and industry need affordable energy.

    Recent global supply-chain problems and EU posturing highlight the dangers of relying on foreign sources of energy. The Government needs to stop playing to the gallery of pressure groups and easy political wins, and take its responsibilities seriously.

    Dr Richard Austen-Baker
    Abbeystead, Lancashire

    Well said, Doc. As every day passes Johnson flounders around, completely oblivious to the huge problem of energy security and cost, and seems to think that frequent appearances at various vaccination centres will suffice. The man is a complete bumbling fool, for whom reality is about to engulf him and the party.

    SIR – I am puzzled by Boris Johnson’s rejection of the abolition of VAT on energy bills (report, January 5) on the grounds that it would be a blunt instrument, helping those who do not need to be helped.

    That does not stop him paying the winter fuel allowance to everyone born before September 26 1955, regardless of wealth. Nor does it stop him exempting all retirees from paying NICs, though they long ago ceased to be contributions to a pension fund. Today they are a revenue-raising tool for the Treasury, payable only by those in work even if they have lower incomes and heavier living costs than some retirees who are exempt.

    The only conclusion is that the Prime Minister is in favour of blunt tax instruments provided that they help older voters, who are more likely to vote Conservative.

    David Cockerham
    Bearsted, Kent

    Older voters more likely to vote Conservative? Not this one, not any more.

    1. Good morning, Hugh, and thanks for posting two letters from today’s Telegraph. In answer to Mr Cockerham’s letter I can tell him that Boris Johnson’s “blunt instrument” is a load of codswallop. The real reason for continuing with the VAT is to ensure that the Government’s tax take continues to fill the coffers of his government. Mr Cockerham seems to think that all pensioners can well afford the VAT on fuel costs, whereas it is the “working poor” who will suffer most. I can tell him that those who will suffer include pensioners as well as working people. If Boris really cared about older voters “who are more likely to vote Conservative” then he would not have changed the “triple lock” rules about pension increases to a “double lock” for this year.

      1. ‘Morning, Elsie. We live in strange times, when a government with an 80-seat majority seems intent on political suicide.

      2. Pensioners, unlike workers, have no means of putting in overtime to increase their income.

    3. I haven’t voted Conservative for decades. If there’s been no alternative to the big three, I’ve spoiled my ballot paper.

  5. Dear Mods. Yet another troll called “Londyn” has landed on our NoTTLeland shores. Please deal with this a.s.a.p.Thank you.

  6. ‘Morning again.

    The news yesterday evening that the Colston vandals had been found not guilty made my blood boil, and I suspect other Nottlrs felt the same. Every statue in this country is now at risk from those with the slightest excuse for dislike. Unbelievable.

    A couple of BTL comments:

    Martin Selves
    3 HRS AGO
    The silent majority remain silent on a number of important issues, like the Statute, Blair, Green, BLM, BAME,…. you can add your own. The craziness of our energy policy, of the boat people, our endless patience and compliance with Macron, our Police taking the knee, assisting “intelligent” protesters to glue themselves to motorways and asking them if they want a cup of tea, our Judiciary system that amazingly is getting it so wrong, our Universities taking money from China, our Armed Forces at its weakest since WW2, our NHS awash with money but not a reorganisation in sight, our population growth of around 9 million since Tony Blair opened the door, Tony Blair, Corbyn, Sturgeon … where do they all come from, and why does the silent majority remain silent.
    Vandalism is vandalism. They pleaded guilty but were found not guilty. It is astonishing what we are witnessing, and we cannot lift a voice because racism is thrown in our faces. We are a fantastic country, but the minority in the country, bent by hubris and mission creep, want to change our way of life and they are winning.

    Edward Arthur
    6 HRS AGO
    So left wing undesirable characters that caused criminal damage to a legally situated statue in Bristol are let off scot free by our judicial system. I recall a protestor at a march in London to ‘protect statues’ 18 months ago got imprisonment for relieving himself near to a police memorial as he was made an example of by the then Tory Attorney General – what a difference between the two situations.
    The Tories have stood by as the courts and judiciary system have lurched to the far left, unforgivable.

    * * *

    Not sure how you can plead ‘guilty’ but be found ‘not guilty’ so I do wonder if this is accurate. Nevertheless, the outcome is what counts, and it stinks.

    1. What is more worrying and is what i have believed for some time is that the establishment is behind all of this and is funding it.
      The police stood and watched while the statue was torn down and thrown in the river, now the law has sanctioned it.
      All our institutions appear to be following the BLM agenda, just look at the national trust and our museums.
      Is this all just another part of the building back better agenda.

    2. Let us pulldown and/or rename each and every statue, road, building etc named Nelson Mandela etc and his like

    1. ‘Morning, JN. It’s just a temporary blip in global warming. It is winter, after all. Not far from you we here can look forward to a balmy 10°C on Saturday, but it will be accompanied by heavy rain – allegedly. Think I’ll settle for today’s cold start, and to hell with my gas bill!

  8. An impressive letter, followed by an equally impressive BTL…

    Russia’s resurgence
    SIR – Much of what Michael Pelly (“Russia and the West”, Letters, December 29) writes is unarguable, but the idea that we must be more understanding of Russian neuroses, derived from a Weimar-style national crisis of confidence and a fear of Nato expansionism, is dangerously close to the appeasement of the 1930s, which brought about a world war.

    When, in the face of supine democratic nations, Hitler took the Sudetenland, it could end only in the full invasion of Czechoslavakia. With its strong fortifications and critically important defence industries, the Sudetenland was the bulwark against Nazi aggression. Once it was lost, Hitler could move when he wished.

    Vladimir Putin’s demands that Ukraine and Georgia be forever forbidden from joining Nato, and that Nato remove all forward-deployed troops from the Baltic states, are the same: they reduce these independent nations to vassal states which, without any realistic defence, must appease Russia until they are absorbed after a propaganda campaign that uses ethnic Russians as a pretext – just as Hitler used Czechoslovakia’s ethnic Germans.

    As for Nato “aggression”, only a pro-Russian “useful idiot” could describe Nato’s forward deployment of “trigger troops” as such. Even if these were trebled, they would be nowhere near sufficient for action against Russia. The forces required would take months to build up and be impossible to hide, as the Gulf war – fought against a far lesser foe – demonstrated, and as Putin knows. The only nation with the capability for sudden territorial aggression in Europe (and proven record of it) is Russia.

    We must not misread Putin; he, like Xi Jingping, is not in the game for himself, and so appeals to the man are always likely to fail. He believes in a greater, world-dominant Russia, just as Xi believes in a greater China.

    Unencumbered by the moral self-flagellation that is weakening Western democracies from within, both are taking a multilateral approach, undermining the West’s ability to act economically – Russia through gas blackmail, China through a “belt and road” policy that is putting the wealth of Africa in its hands without the need for a single shot to be fired. Both are strengthening their military at home while engineering parallel weaknesses in the Ukrainian borderlands, Baltic states and South China Sea.

    These men do not expect to see all of their dreams fulfilled, but if they leave behind the beginnings of their thousand-year empires, they will die happy. Weak sanctions undermined by the likes of Germany are no deterrent. The West needs to wake up – and fast.

    Victor Launert
    Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

    Don Coyote
    1 HR AGO
    Some good letters there, but the gold star must go to Victor Launert, for an excellent dissection of what happens when the interests of the West are negotiated by a man with dementia, facing a ruthless KGB-turned-mob-collection gangster.
    The West is tearing itself apart with self-loathing whilst our enemies get stronger, but only a tiny minority supports the views of these lunatic New Puritans.
    We elected a man in the U.K. who could have demonstrated to the world that democracies need no longer hate themselves, a man with a track record of poking fun and speaking truth to power.
    He turned out to be a cowardly liar, with no interest in defending our values.
    And so The United Kingdom continues to tear itself apart. Now, following the ridiculous Bristol court ruling we are not allowed to comment on, literally.
    Will no-one defend British values? Are London values all that is left of a once great nation in freefall?
    The lights are going out, literally and figuratively, on the United Kingdom.

    1. Well, Mr Launert, have you asked the Finns if they are, or feel like, vassals of Russia?

      1. I must admit, I couldn’t agree with that sentence either. Would the United States be happy if Mexico joined a defence pact with Russia?
        Some geographical realities must be faced.

    2. The fundamental problem is that the Left maniacs started world war 2 and are now continuing their oppression through our institutions still.

      The Nazi’s didn’t lose the war. The civil service and state is continuing it.

  9. Good morning, all. Clear skies – a touch of frost but not (so far) as hard as was suggested.

      1. Cold and windy up here – just off on a 160 mile round trip recovery in the snowbound highlands – oh joy!

        1. When you get back home and – if you are no longer on call – warm yourself up with a wee dram, Alec.

        2. Turned into 2 recoveries and 179 miles, luckily all the roads were black but there was torrential rain

  10. Good moring all from a rather colder & frostier Derbyshire. a -5°C start, but at least it’s dry at the moment.
    Snow forecast around lunchtime.
    The Telegraph Comment:-

    The Colston statue verdict is a monumental mistake
    For juries to think that statues are on trial and not the defendants in court would be laughable if its consequences were not so serious

    TELEGRAPH VIEW
    6 January 2022 • 6:00am
    Trial by jury is a glory of the British constitution. On occasion a jury has conscientiously given a perverse verdict in defiance of a judge’s direction. That happened in 1670 when two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, were acquitted by a jury of preaching to an unlawful assembly in Gracechurch Street, City of London. The jury stuck to its verdict even when the judge had them locked up for two days without “meat, drink, fire and tobacco”.

    The case was rather different yesterday when a jury at Bristol Crown Court acquitted four defendants charged with criminal damage when a statue of the 17th-century merchant Edward Colston was pulled down in June 2020, battered, splattered with red paint and thrown into the dock. The defence counsel had invited the jury “to be on the right side of history”; the judge had told the jury to disregard such rhetoric about the weight and consequences of their decision, and to try the case purely on the evidence in front of them.

    One defendant had said that because the statue represented a man involved in the slave trade, toppling it was “an act of love for my fellow man”. But where will this kind of love lead now?

    As we report today, English Heritage has said that Sir Joseph Banks, the great botanist and founder of Kew Gardens as a scientific institution, was an “enabler of slavery”. Does that mean the plaque to him in Soho Square may be splashed with red paint or his house in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, assailed by a mob? Are the very glasshouses of Kew Gardens safe from the stones of those who hate its great patron?

    Some people think that Sir Winston Churchill was a racist. We know they think so because in 2020 “Racist” was scrawled on the plinth of his statue in Parliament Square. A man convicted of damaging it then was fined £200 and told to pay £1,200 in compensation. Justice was done, though in a magistrates’ court with no jury.

    Last year, six Extinction Rebellion protesters were cleared of causing criminal damage, despite a jury being told by the judge that there was no defence in law for their actions. Environmental activists now regularly argue that a climate “emergency” allows them to stop trains and traffic in protest and to cause damage.

    It is an insidious argument that undermines the safety of property and the public’s right to go about their business, whether it’s to get to work or to attend a hospital appointment. For juries to think that statues are on trial and not the defendants in court would be laughable if its consequences were not so serious.

    2. I would love to know the demographics of that jury in Bristol. I truly fear for my grandkids future in this country if the cancer of stupidity has spread so far in the population. Is it only we Nottlers who are the last bastions of integrity and decency?

      1. I would love to know the demographics of that jury in Bristol.

        Yes and so would I VVOF. There are more ways to pack a jury than just slipping a few Mi5 members in there!

        1. They seem to have a private offshoot there(in Brisol) posing as a private company that gives “security” talks to the young, I forget their name but I’ve seen one of theirs in action.

          1. A more useless, stupid and disgusting group I cannot imagine. I think they share that same neanderthal mindset – and exist in that same era.

        1. And stupid. Ignorant and mindless, with a self righteous conviction of their own moral superiority.

          One day they will be the ones in the wrong and they cannot see that. Such utter wasters need a beating, nothing else.

        2. Would the demographics of the Bristol jury confirm that or has the woke cancer spread?

    3. Well, “if love for my fellow man” is a good and irrefutable reason for committing a crime that approach could lead to some interesting activities. How about a posse to burn out gypsy camps and kill all within them? Or seizing black youths in London, tying them up and throwing them in theThames? The locals would certainly feel loved as a result. Other suggestions welcome.

    4. The vandals destroying statues should be tried for criminal damage, rioting and breach of the peace. They should then be hung. Have the first giggling and chortling as they think it’s all a mockery before the face bloats, turns purple and the tongue distends.

      I’m sick and tired of these wasters violating this country. They’ve earned nothing, done nothing, will never do anything. Such dross are not even suitable for mine clearance.

  11. Vladimir Putin sends troops into Kazakhstan to help curb riots over fuel price rise. 6 January 2022.

    Russia last night sent a peacekeeping force into neighbouring Kazakhstan to quell violent protests sparked by rising fuel prices.

    Despite the headline and the lead paragraph there is no evidence to support it and sound reasons for disbelieving it. Putin is at the moment enmeshed in his struggle with NATO and needs no complications. Moreover the appearance of Russian troops on the streets of Almaty would be far more likely to worsen the situation domestically and provide a stick to beat Russia with on the International Stage.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10373283/Vladimir-Putin-sends-troops-Kazakhstan-help-curb-riots-fuel-price-rise.html

    1. As I walked Oscar this afternoon I saw that one of my neighbours had put his artificial tree out for recycling!

  15. Doctor’s Orders
    A man went to see his doctor. He had a bad case of piles, causing him excruciating pain. The doctor gave him a case of suppositories. The doctor asked the man if he would like him to put the first one in for him. A little embarrassed, the man agreed. He bent over and held his breath. He felt a sharp pain, then the doctor said, “Right, you’re done. Insert the next one in about five hours. If you can’t manage it yourself, ask your wife to give you a hand.”
    The man went home and laid down to recover from the experience. About five hours later, he tried to put the suppository in himself, but he couldn’t get the angle quite right, so he asked his wife to help him. She told him to bend over, and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. When she stuck it in him, he let out a scream. “Sorry! Did I hurt you? I was as gentle as I could be,” his wife said.
    “It’s not that,” he said. He stood up and looked at her. His face was as white as a ghost. His wife asked him, “What is it then?”
    He replied, “When the doctor did it for me, he had both his hands on my shoulders.”

    1. As my then GP said when I had a prostate examination……….”I hope you don’t enjoy this”………. As I replied “I hope you don’t either”. 🤨

    2. One of our teachers had a bubble car, some of the six form boys carried up the 8 steps to the school main entrance and left it there.

    1. Assange embarrased the government (of the US). Blair is the establishment. If you’re one of them, you’re untouchable, rewarded, feited, praised and you cash in.

      If you’re not, you’re punished, robbed, mugged, ignored and irrelevant.

      And people think we live in a democracy. In a democracy there would be no petition. There would be a refusal of the honours list entirely. If MPs didn’t take Blair off, they would be sacked. It’s that simple. The reason the country is in a mess is because the state is running it for themselves.

      1. It’s HM who must remove its knighthood as the Garter (24 members only) is in the gift of the Monarch.

        1. Yet in reality, this list is compiled by the state machine. It’s then given to the Queen.

          As with most things, I don’t expect she has any choice whatsoever.

          1. She can choose between the candidates on the list. The government said yesterday that the choice of Blair was nothing to do with them – very ungallant of Boris…

          2. Well, wibbling, she does have choice. I think she is “frit” (© Margaret Thatcher) to do the right thing.

      2. We’ve never had much democracy, and we’ve always had an unelected elite running things.
        This is the closest any country in the world has ever come to a benevolent dictatorship, which as any fule kno, is the best form of government.

        The difference was that pre-Blair, our unelected elite was the aristocracy, and they would never harm Britain because they own a large part of it. Their inteests are ultimately our interests.
        Since the mid 90s, our unelected elite has been foreign billionaires, part of whose agenda is to run down Britain as a nation state. They don’t give a xxxx about Britain and their agenda appears to be to usher in a new era of feudalism, while they, the mighty know-alls, “heal” the planet.

  18. Morning all, frosty start in Norf Zummerzet today but the temperature is already above freezing so the forecast of rain later looks correct.
    I had a chat with the youngest granddaughter who tells me they have a shortage of teachers at the moment. I asked why, fully expecting Covid to be the answer but no, a few are pregnant she says. Thinking about it Covid could be the cause if they were home and not at school in the classroom.
    Today’s offering from the book of Dad Jokes,

    I just started a business where we specialise in weighing tiny objects.
    It is a small-scale operation.

  22. Much harder frost now – good to see. Just off to the market to buy a frozen pig. Back son.

  23. Morning all. Anybody else notice the deliberate Thurday that Geoff put in the header? He’s just testing us, Geoff does a fantastic job EVERY day.

    1. After yesterday’s farcical Colston decision, perhaps Geoff would like to remove the ‘h’ as well…

    3. He says, “This is a Public Health Emergency.”

      No it isn’t, it is children and parents coming to the conclusion that this is a scam and the gene therapy may cause serious illness or even death.

    4. One of the few good aspects of this scam is that teenagers have discovered concepts like freedom, and have realised that they need to fight for it!
      Well done kids.

    1. It’s just another nonsense buzz phrase – it means you’ll pay more tax and the state will get ever more corpulent.

      Big government can’t build anything. It certainly never makes anything better.

  28. EU Plan Declares Nuclear Power and Natural Gas ‘Green Energy’

    ROME, Italy — The European Commission has issued a draft recommendation including nuclear energy and natural gas on a list of investments that qualify as “green” energy.

    The proposal allows investments in nuclear power plants to be classified as green until 2045 while natural gas investments can be considered green until at least 2030 if their carbon emissions are under a determined limit.

    “Could this winter’s energy crisis be shocking Europe into climate realism?” the editors of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) asked in astonishment Monday in reaction to the proposal.

    “Someone please pass the smelling salts to the Sierra Club,” they added.

    The draft recommendation still needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, and highlights fault lines dividing differing energy policies.

    The German government registered its opposition to the plan Monday, a predictable move given it is in the midst of dismantling its entire nuclear energy program. Germany intends to decommission its remaining three nuclear power plants by the end of 2022 whereas France has taken the opposite tack, modernizing existing reactors and building new ones.

    “This is that rarest of cases in climate policy where the politics aligns with energy reality,” declared the WSJ editorial. “If environmentalists mean what they say about the urgency of cutting CO2 emissions, nuclear is the only widely available power source that’s zero-emitting and more reliable than wind or solar.”

    “In a world far from ready to wean itself off fossil fuels, natural gas stands out as much lower emitting than others,” the editors added. “The growth in natural gas to account for about one-third of United States electricity generation in 2019 helps explain the roughly 14% decline in gross CO2 emissions since the mid-2000s.”

    The draft proposal has provoked consternation from more radical environmentalists, who object to any fossil fuels being included in programs of sustainability and who reject nuclear energy outright.

    “Classifying investments in gas and nuclear power as sustainable contradicts the Green Deal,” said Ska Keller, the president of the Green group in the European Parliament, in reference to the energy initiative intended to make the EU carbon-neutral by 2050.

    2. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere. We hardly know that it is there. All plant life on the planet depends upon carbon dioxide and warmth to survive and thrive. All animals on the planet depend on warmth and plant life for survival. That includes us.
      So why is it that our leaders and “scientists” seem Hell-bent on reducing warmth and carbon dioxide?

      2. Is it because ‘our leaders and “scientists”‘ are actually silicon based aliens? Asking for a friend.

    1. I keep telling you – we need an archery club on Dover beach. If some Border Farce people get in the way, well, there’s fewer people to wave the illegal, criminal terrorist paedophile rapists in, isn’t there.

      Don’t let them get here. More will pour in, ever more and more. Get into the channel. Drag them back. If they won’t go, kill them.

    1. In general I am in favour of seat belts.

      Having said that 40 years ago one of my best friends would have been killed if he had been wearing a seat belt.

      A car which went across a red light hit his car hard at right angles. Because he was not wearing a seat belt he was thrown to the passenger side of the car but, because of the transmission tunnel, his his right leg was trapped on the drivers’ side and he had to spend months in traction in Frenchay Hospital as they tried to put his femur together again.

      1. Having had several crashes, though so far, none on public roads, I am very happy to have the protection seat belts offered me. And now we have airbags too!

    2. Agreed entirely and we will all find out what really has been happening in just over 50 years from now……………….
      Why would too big for their own boots pharma, have to do that ??? answers on a post card.

    1. We need a new prime minister without delay.

      But nobody in the current cabinet is up to the job. What is needed is an honest and philosophically committed Brexiter which Johnson never was.

      John Redwood? Steve Baker? David Davis? Perhaps we need a stalking horse to clear the decks so a good candidate can emerge. Failing that there should be a mass exodus of Conservative back-benchers joining Richard Tice in the Reform UK Party? Boris Johnson has betrayed his party and he has betrayed those who voted for him; he has also betrayed his own MPs.

      1. There is a precedent with the SDP, where the sitting members did not resign.

        A mass exodus to such a party might give the necessary impetus and they would have time to create a decent Conservative manifesto whilst demonstrating to the public that they really were a viable opposition and worth voting for. They certainly would do a better job of opposition than the current Labour rabble.
        Johnson almost certainly would not dare to call a snap general election as the current Conservative party might well be slaughtered in a vote.

  34. Border Farce

    “Priti Patel threatened with STRIKE: Border Force refuse to implement migrant crossing plan

    PRITI PATEL is facing a revolt from Border Force officers who are threatening

    to strike over her plans to stop migrant crossings.”

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1545660/priti-patel-news-border-force-strike-english-channel-migrant-crossing-latest
    Patel has taken a lot of stick on this forum but it is clear her underlings at the Home Office simply refuse to obey orders,any attempt to get them to act is simply “Bullying” and there is no support from the rest of the supine government!!
    I suppose we should expect her to resign in a blaze of glory but any replacement would be just as hamstrung until there is an overall political will to act (Aye Right)
    Sack the bloody lot and hire some Hungarians!!

    1. I know a Border Farce person who claims to be willing to turn people away but she’s now safely ensconced in an office at Folkstone. To be fair, she’s happy with that. Not having to travel to work at Calais and not doing an awful shift pattern has improved her personal quality of life.

    2. In August 1981 Ronald Reagan famously sacked over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Surely with a bit of preparation the same action could be taken against Border Farce strikers? After all, they seem pretty ineffective these days so probably not missed in the same way that the air traffic controllers were. I realise, of course, that such action would take both balls and spine, which is why they are quite safe…

      1. In September of that year, we were emigrating to US. At Heathrow, we had just given our dog his tranquilizer and sent him off to the plane as the flight was due to be called. Almost as soon as our poor pooch had gone through the gates, they announced a 4 hour delay to our flight. Air traffic controller issues.
        We were very late in arriving at Boston Logan and apologised profusely to the people meeting us who’d had to hang around. The dog was fine but bursting for a pee.
        Things were better for him later…we stayed the night in the Framingham Tara hotel and they had no dog food. They sent up a large plate of sliced roast beef which he inhaled;-)

    3. In August 1981 Ronald Reagan famously sacked over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Surely with a bit of preparation the same action could be taken against Border Farce strikers? After all, they seem pretty ineffective these days so probably not missed in the same way that the air traffic controllers were. I realise, of course, that such action would take both balls and spine, which is why they are quite safe…

    4. Do what was done with the ATC strikers; sack the lot and replace them with indigenous who are keen to control our borders.

  35. Novak Djokovic is no victim but it’s hard to stomach Scott Morrison’s cynical opportunism
    The world No 1 is being punished for political gain because Australia is now Covid-central
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/01/06/novak-djokovic-no-victim-hard-stomach-scott-morrisons-cynical/

    I must say I am in two minds about this: on one hand I think that the power grab that politicians have taken is obscene; on the other I think that celebrities and sporting stars should not use their status to evade the rule when ordinary people cannot. But far worse is the way that politicans feel the rules should not apply to themselves.

    I came across this in the BTL comments:

    Keir Starmer has tested positive and has had to isolate six times in spite of the fact that he has always kept fully up-to-date with all the jabs. Indeed he had the booster just 4 weeks ago and he is positive yet again.

    Maybe he is fiddling these tests to ‘pull a sicky’ so he does not need to go to work – after all, unlike some of us, he is still paid whether he works or not? Or maybe he is incapable of seeing that the vaccine is a total dud and the programme must be scrapped.

    1. Or is it that the tests are dud, repeatedly throwing up a positive result on people that are carrying fragments from when they first had it and showing no symptoms?

      1. Or fragment of dna from any old winter coronavirus long since past? The tests do not specifically show ‘covid’, alive or long since dead. It can tell only that you have, or have had, a coronavirus. It cannot tell whether it is a live, or dead fragment. Which is why Kary Mullis, the PCR test’s inventor, said it was unsuitable for diagnostic purposes and hence unsuitable for government’s requirement. It went ahead anyway.

        Our lives and economy have been trashed on a deliberate government fraud.

        2. It also explains why so many who test ‘positive’ are not in the slightest bit unwell. A deception being carried out all over the world, and used to justify continuing removal of rights to a normal life. .

          1. A cynic writes:

            Th Chinese made tests may – by design – contain covid dna in order to ensure a “positive” test.

      2. I had to have a test before I was allowed to see MOH for the last time – I was negative, yet I am convinced I had Covid in February 2020 before all the panic started. I ticked all the boxes, but no test then, obviously. If the tests were throwing up a positive result from previous infection, I would have thought it would have picked up on mine.

    2. Morning! I doubt that Starmer has taken anything more than saline solution in the jabs. He’s hiding. Djokovic should just stand his ground and tell them to stuff the tournament. It’s diminished without him. I do wonder if any of those who’ve had the jabs will collapse on court.

      2. Every single member of the cabinet should be tested to see if they have actually had the vaccine or whether they are bluffing and just had saline solution.

        All trust in our rulers has gone.

        1. ‘Afternoon, Richard, “All trust in our rulers servants has gone.”

          Pity we can’t fire them from their sinecures and train a new lot.

        2. Every single member of the cabinet should also be Drug & Alcohol tested under a similar regime to the one I was under on the Railway.

      3. I wonder if that is part Djokovic’s reasoning.
        I know the MSM latches onto themes and flog them to death (!), but are the number of sudden deaths and heart incidents among young, fit sportsmen higher than usual? We certainly appear to be hearing more about them.

    3. And another article on the same topic:

      Why some people keep getting Covid – and others never at all
      We all know somebody who seems untouchable while all around them fall ill, but that may be down to more than sheer luck
      Luke Mintz : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/people-keep-getting-covid-others-never/

      BTL

      “Researchers in Britain and Brazil are looking at whether some people might possess a natural immunity to the virus. ”
      Surely this natural immunity could be destroyed by having to have repeated jabs of gene therapy.
      Indeed we have several friends who have not had the jabs who have been in contact with people with Covid and yet have never caught the disease themselves. We also know those who have been double-jabbed and have suffered badly from the disease.

      1. Germ Theory vs Terrain Theory. The time may come when Germ Theory is viewed as on a par with using leeches.

    4. Morning all.
      I imagine Novak Djokovic has previously had sound advice on this matter and therefore made his own decision to arrive in Australia now he’ll have to live with the decision he made. Where as Australians have had to live with a severe draconian form of lock down with heavy fines for seemingly to other parts of the world, minor breeches.
      Surely he should have sought advice from the Government and not just turned up.

  36. 343649+up ticks,

    Could this be so ? keeping in mind that ​this observation is from a so far right,
    knuckle dragging, fruitcake ex UKIP leader of mine.

    Even when people power proved it’s worth via the UKIP designed / triggered
    referendum and was successful right up until “others” took a hand,leave it to the tory’s (ino) still treacherously echos.

    I know that united people power CAN & WILL beat the political gobsh!tes
    that many a fool refuses to recognise, on account it could ” damage” the party.

    Facts to be faced,
    https://twitter.com/AgainBraine/status/1479020491713265665

  37. USA officials false reporting of “vaccine” take-up? Similar here as latest figures indicate ≥ 23 million people who have not taken one jab? USA up to August 2021.

    USA % Jabbed???

  38. Robot carer anyone?

    Rethink Population, Living in a young country
    – BBChttps://www.bbc.co.uk › … ›
    Some countries face a huge growth in young people – will it be good or bad for them? … Today 09:00. BBC Radio 4 …

    An aging population……..yeah we know! Suffering from loneliness in an uncaring world…

    Many lonely people in Japan are committing minor crimes to go to prison.They will
    receive care,food,heating and company.

    The alternative……. a Robot carer!

    1. That’s a man desperately trying to avoid saying what he thinks and not having the time and language to properly frame the answer.

      At least the BBC raised it. Most of the time with Muslim terrorism, rape and paedophilia they just wheel out an excuse bloke.

      What needs to be said can’t be said. That these Pakistani muslim paedophiles are putrid, Labour imported them and they are a poison in this country that should be expelled.

  41. Good morning! I thought this overall perspective from Kevin Ryan on the situation generally correct, though the jabs scam is coming apart at an exponential rate, with the demonstration of collusion of the pharmas in coordinating distribution of jab batches of widely differing character and toxicity. We seem to be reaching the final cataclysm of a century or more of ruthless endeavour. Quite why I feel so optimistic for the future is simply the stupidity that the greed of our tormentors confers on their otherwise keen intelligence. They over-reach. Always. They have zero sense of humour. Loyalty, integrity and empathy are foreign countries to them. How could we fail with such crippled creatures blundering along in the long run?

    https://off-guardian.org/2022/01/05/covid-a-collision-of-historical-and-scientific-illiteracy/

    https://www.tarableu.com/the-work-of-craig-paardekooper-on-variations-in-jab-batches/

    1. Yes, the Left always over extend and think they’re respected and in position. Then there’s a war and we kill them and they go underground, weaponising our very decency and tolerance. The next time there cannot be such tolerance. Any sign of the viper of the Left means killing it.

      The state machine must be collared and chained and forced to serve rather than simply exist.

      1. Tribal rants about Left and Right is part of the Globalist playbook. This sort of stuff allows them to get on with their parasitic activity undisturbed, Over the last decades the parties have been reduced to identity politics quite deliberately, in the same way that our universities have been polluted by what we call wokeism. There are right-living people on both sides of the Chaos/Order line. The viper is talking about killing either group.

  42. Back from market. Bright sunshine. Temp hovering around zero. Only three stalls – but fortunately, the three we wanted.

    I lost all feeling in my hands and, unloading the car, managed to bash my hand against a concrete post and skinned a square inch. Very painful and messy – especially as the plasters had decided to hide themselves away.

    Sitting quietly with a coffee.

    2. Lots of sympathy from me, and Nottlers will surely be sending you cases of thermal gloves made from recycled face nappies.

      1. Gee – can’t wait! Lots of masks in evidence this morning, especially in the wide open empty streets….{:¬((

    4. Warm water, scrub horribly with nail brush, then dry with a pad, then dry it again. TCP and then a plaster.

  43. Calling all parents. I am reading a book about an American family on a working trip to Rome. The father writes (of his six month old twins):

    “Having a baby is like bringing a noisy, inarticulate foreigner into your house and trying to guess what he likes to eat.”

    A pretty good description; I guess we all identify!!

    1. Surely at that age ‘Breast is best!’
      My favourite definition of a baby is: ‘Noise and one end and a complete lack of responsibility at the other!’

      Morning M. Thomas and to you all.

    2. Surely at that age ‘Breast is best!’
      My favourite definition of a baby is: ‘Noise and one end and a complete lack of responsibility at the other!’

      Morning M. Thomas and to you all.

      1. Tricky for the father to do that.

        The mother had breast fed for several months but was completely exhausted by having to supply double rations.

      2. Typo corrected ( Except some smart Alec is going to refer to the word Beast in which case I suggest Double DD cup!!!)

    3. Good morning Bill

      Dark cold morning here, 8c.

      Sometimes , only sometimes , one’s husband can be like an inarticulate foreigner .. and it is easier to read the spaniels than one’s own spouse .

      Enjoy your book , please tell us the title .

        2. Caroline has read it and it is by my bedside waiting for me to read it. We both loved the All The Light We Cannot See which was first recommended to us by the mother of one of our students who was delighted when she learnt that her daughter would be doing a project in St Malo when she was with us.

      1. It may well be exploding now as the news of high numbers of “vaccinated” and ‘booster’ recipients falling ill leaks out. Are these jabbed souls suffering solely from a variant infection or has ADE, induced by an infection, broken out? Long projected by many independent scientists, ADE cases could overwhelm the medical services.
        Wearing my conspiracy theorist titfer I have wondered why the desire to jab every living soul has moved up several gears recently. The probability that ADE was looming, and as it only affects the jabbed, the non-vaccinated would stick out like the proverbial. How to explain away the difference would be nigh on impossible for the perpetrators.

        1. Our lovely doctor, Françoise, would agree with you about ADE.

          My lovely wife has two auto-immune diseases – Coeliac Disease and DSAP (a rare skins problem). Françoise is very insistent that Caroline must not, on any account, have the vaccine, but in Brittany at the moment it is almost impossible to be granted an exemption certificate.

    2. It will give them fantastic protection if they haven’t already been vaccinated. If they have, their bodies will only ever produce the spike protein antibody.

  45. Someone called Deborah Turness has just been appointed head of BBC News & Current Affairs.

    1. The same one?
      She’s a job hopper if it is.
      Deborah Mary Turness is a British journalist who is the CEO of ITN, and took post in April 2021. Prior to this she held two of positions in NBC News International where she was president of NBC News and later President of NBC News International. Wikipedia

      1. Yes, they are all in it together…

        On 26 August 2011, she married John Toker, the Cabinet Office’s Director of Communications for Security and Intelligence,

    2. Ahem

      “Deborah Turness, CEO of ITN, has been appointed as head of BBC news.

      In a statement, Turness said there “has never been a greater need for the
      BBC’s powerful brand of impartial, trusted journalism”.True to BBC form, her very first statement is an outright lie”

      1. Yo Rik

        A fiddle

        “has never been a greater need for the BBC ‘s powerful brand of to broadcast impartial, trusted journalism”.

    3. Doesn’t seem inherently Left wing, but is mostly an NBC, C5, C4, Vanity Fair career path.

      At least she’s not worked for the Guardian and been a trade union activist.

  46. Good morning everyone

    A flurry of birthdays coming up this month – ten on my list for January starting tomorrow with four consecutive ones.

    Are there any Nottlers who would like to be added to the list? If anybody would like me to post the list here again then please let me know.

    As you know, I usually try to send Caroline’s and my best wishes after midnight and again the next morning. But I am not sleeping very well at the moment so please bear with me if I am not as efficient as I used to be.

  48. Man jailed for sex assaults in the water at Bournemouth beach

    Please read this story and take a deep breath .. it is the same old same old .

    https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/19826739.man-jailed-sex-assaults-water-bournemouth-beach/

    Machhal came to the UK from the Punjab state of India in 2015 and he has always been in the country illegally, the court heard.

    The defendant, whose wife and two children are supported by his sister in India, has lived in Southall for the past six years, being supported with accommodation and manual labour work by somebody who came from the same village as him.

    “Currently he is facing deportation,” said Ms Manley. “A notice has been served upon him and he is hoping to seek legal advice in relation to his immigration position.”

    Read more: Forensic officers seen outside murder investigation property
    Ms Manley said he still has debts to the people who helped him get documentation to enter the country and he was fearful for his safety should he return to India.

    In sentencing the defendant, Judge Melville QC said: “There was a degree of planning and you did of course have your friends with you as well.”

    He added: “I do no accept that you are remorseful. When interviewed you accepted no personal responsibility at all.”

    Machhal was placed on the sex offenders register for five years.

    If you are interested in court and crime news, stay up to date with all our latest updates in our dedicated Facebook group. To find out more and to join click here.

    The filthy b###### should be deported asap .

    2. So Machhal is fearful for his safety if he is deported back to India? Well, women in the UK, especially the two whom he assaulted, will be fearful for their safety if he is allowed to remain in Britain.

    3. So Machhal is fearful for his safety if he is deported back to India? Well, women in the UK, especially the two whom he assaulted, will be fearful for their safety if he is allowed to remain in Britain.

    4. What and deprive, decent, honest and hard working lawyers the opportunity to earn further crusts?

    6. He probably assumed he’d be allowed to remain here regardless of how serious his crimes were.
      If he was so fearful for his safety back home, then he should have behaved in a civilised fashion.
      Any non-UK creature who commits a serious crime, whether here legally or not, should always be deported with no right of appeal and a permanent ban. Any family who came with them should accompany them.
      Once that became the norm, it would likely help stop many foreign criminals.

  49. Inside the race to leave electric car ‘range anxiety’ in the rear-view mirror
    Carmakers, including Mercedes, are closing in on the capabilities of combustion vehicles
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/06/inside-race-leave-electric-car-range-anxiety-rear-view-mirror/

    I can go over 1000 kms on a full tank of diesel in my old minibus. I’m not currently in the market for an electric car. Any Nottlers with favourable experience on electric cars?

    BTL

    With headlights, GPS, hi-fi, heating/airconditioning full on, gadgets on charge and windscreen wipers going at full speed then what percentage loss of distance would there be?

    1. It’s smoke and mirrors. I do not believe these numbers are reachable with real use, as you say. And if they are, how many child miners were involved?

    2. I dont see the price of batteries reducing with increased demand which will mean that these cars will not drop in price that much. The second hand market will be the crunch, as a 3 yo ICE car is quite cheap and last for years thus giving mobility to the masses, the economics of a second hand EV model are going to be questionable.

        1. UK Fuel duty raised £28bn in 19/20. Those ‘smart’ motorways are going to have to collect more than speeding fines in the EV revolution.

  50. A strategist at Goldman Sachs suggests that bitcoin could become the new ‘Store of Value’ this year.

    Store of value is where wealthy people put their money in times of economic uncertainty. Like gold and gemstones.

    He suggests that bitcoin price could rise as much as 50% taking it to $100,000 per coin.

    Just this story alone will see the price rocket.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-10372789/Bitcoin-hit-100k-five-years-predicts-Goldman-Sachs.html

  51. Have you heard of PalombiGate? https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalombiGate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    Old news, but so revealing…

    Palombi, an avowed Macron supporter (he has set up a Macron support committee in the département of Lozère) has been a great advocate of vaccination this year.

    In December, he was filmed by BMFTV leaving intensive care after a bout of Covid. In the ensuing interview, he claimed that he wasn’t vaccinated and that he now, after having nearly died, deeply regretted this. His message to the television audience: get vaccinated!

    He was subsequently exposed as having been vaccinated, and not having had Covid. The whole thing was a lie.

    Not only was BMFTV complicit in this exercise in misinformation, but also the hospital.

    Welcome to the New World – and Happy New Year!!!

    2. Vive les menteurs! As, Toy Boy would say, “I’d like to piss them off”.

      Bonne Année à vous deux.

    3. And they talk about Perfidious Albion!

      Why has this story not been splashed all over the MSM?

      It is becoming increasingly difficult to say what is and what is not a conspiracy theory. Is a conspiracy theory to suggest that the vaccine is part of a deliberate plan to cull the population, or is it a conspiracy theory to claim that it is not?

    2. In fact I was talking last weekend about some unfortunate person who suffers from OCD, and that is exactly the sort of behaviour that such people enjoy, or suffer from.

      1. It’s a while ago but I recall that the actual message was only produced after the cake had been ordered.
        I might be thinking of a different case as I think there were quite a few similar instances of bakers being targeted deliberately.

    1. While this may seem good news, as virtually all countries demand evidence of pre-departure tests, as well as tests on arrival – it is all rather pointless.

  56. 343649+ up ticks,

    Nigel Farage Predicts 60,000 Boat Migrants Will Reach Britain This Year, as First of 2022 Land

    This very same chap for personal vested interest purposes
    treacherously maligned the UKIP party under the Batten Braine leadership, the only party to ever call for controlled immigration, lest we forget.

    https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk

      1. 343649+up ticks,
        Afternoon R,
        As with many who are wont to acknowledge that the nige acts
        as a tory (ino) coxswain) he had added immensely to our political problems
        Well meant advice, get use to seeing it.

  58. I’m watching the “Russia” debate in HOC.
    The House is united one and all…
    Russia/Putin …bad.
    Ukraine/Zelensky…good.

    FIGHT!!!

    2. You can almost see him saying “get off! get off! I can do it all by myself!” Watch his little mouth moving.

  60. A BTL comment about the chap in charge across the Channel…

    Bobby47 on January 5, 2022 at 9:22 pm
    Isn’t he a little piss pot. The tiny, wee, insignificant little Emperor who I doubt has hit puberty and who’s testicals have yet to drop is just the sort of European leader who’d bring about war.
    Like Blair, he’s got the same far away, holier than thou, I yearn for the marks of the stigmata eyes that beckon you to believe in any old bollocks he might offer up.
    God, I dislike the little weasel. Worse, he’s a toucher. Yes. He’s a leg, knee and arm toucher. He can’t stop himself. Whether it’s Trump, Johnson or some other global leader he has to touch them in some intimate, I’m your bestest Saturday night buddy, way that implies I’m your bloody friend.
    The little shit bag. Just let him cross the threshold of my ale house and start his touching of our limbs and he’ll soon discover that the lads I sup ale with don’t appreciate his bloody fondling and touching of our limbs and joints. More is likely, he’ll get a bloody good kicking, the Kirby kiss on the bridge of his yet unbroken nose and a few choice words that amount to, ‘fuck off and take your old drama teacher with you’.

  61. The Netherlands going down the ‘insanity’ route i.e. repeating the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. It’s that or the government there is determined to destroy its people’s immune systems completely and thereby eradicate the majority of Dutch people. What is driving politicians to put their people in extreme danger?

    https://twitter.com/ajcdeane/status/1479057967928561667

    1. I think I’m right in saying that a population projection study undertaken a few years back forecast that the native Dutch would become a minority in Holland by around 2030…..

    2. 343649+ up ticks,
      Afternoon KtK,
      Whats driving the politico’s is the peoples continuing support.

    3. Well, our masters have ordered 100 million Phizer doses for us in 2022. Two more each if they can persuade a dwindling cohort.

      1. Is there a get-out clause? From what I’ve read, Pfizer know how to draw up contracts.

    1. Of course it would be quite out of the question that his general boorishness and histrionics might have motivated the Australians to keep him out….

          1. Is it time for the Nottlers to have philosophic debate about the morality of obeying immoral laws?

      1. I would imagine there are a fair number of men who have discovered that the hard way.

  64. Tender loving words from that pathetic Trudeau

    In a recent speech he described “These people” – the anti-vaxxers, as often being women-haters, racists and science-deniers, as well.

    But still people voted for him.

    2. Or did they? I know the mass psychosis has worked but the electoral system is broken right across the board. We were allowed to vote Conservative (not that I personally have voted for any mainstream party for a very long time) because it made not a blind bit of difference. The system is rigged. The old slogan, whoever you vote for the government gets in, is actaully true!

  65. Interesting, the first two paras of Ahmed’s Wikippedia entry:

    Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed (Urdu: نذیر احمد , born 24 April 1957) is a former UK Labour politician. He was created a life peer in 1998 on the recommendation of Prime Minister Tony Blair. He faced expulsion from the House of Lords in 2020 on account of sexually exploiting a woman and resigned from the House ahead of the explusion. The House of Lords Conduct Committee recommended expulsion after his resignation.[3] On 5 January 2022 he was found guilty of child sex offences committed when he was a teenager.[4]

    Many of his political activities related to the Muslim community both in the UK and abroad. In 2013, he alleged a Jewish conspiracy for a prison sentence he received following a fatal motorway crash. He was suspended from the Labour Party.[clarification needed].

    Yes, fancy getting a prison sentence just because of ploughing into a motorist stranded by broken-down vehicle in the fast lane … just because you were texting and still doing 70+ … well it was dark.

    I notice he was born in Pakistan and the family came over in 1968 (during a Labour government) . He had to wait a bit before being ennobled in 1998 by another Labour PM … Blair …. who, if asked, I can imagine saying (still) …. “it was absolutely the right thing to do”

  66. Pope: having pets instead of babies is selfish.

    Pontiff provokes anger by saying the world is losing the richness of parenthood as couples remain childless.

    Deciding not to have children and lavishing affection instead on pets is selfish, Pope Francis has said.

    At his weekly general audience at the Vatican yesterday, the Pope lamented the fact that some married couples opt to remain childless but transfer their love to cats, dogs and other animals.

    “Today… we see a form of selfishness. We see that some people do not want to have a child,” the Argentinian pontiff said during the audience.

    “Sometimes they have one, and that’s it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh but it is a reality.”

    He said that couples who do not procreate deny themselves the joys of parenthood, a decision that “diminishes us, takes away our humanity”.

    The result is that “civilisation grows old without humanity because we lose the richness of fatherhood and motherhood”.

    While his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, is an avid lover of cats, Pope Francis does not have a pet living with him in the Vatican.

    He has shown affection for animals during his papacy, however – in 2016, during an audience with circus performers, he was introduced to a baby panther and patted a six-month-old tiger cub while it drank a bottle of milk.

    His remarks about parenthood provoked anger on social media, with many people pointing out that the Pope had chosen to remain childless by entering the Catholic Church as a priest.

    One woman wrote on Twitter: “Well, what does that make me, as I have neither [pets or children]? People have very valid reasons for choosing not to have children. The planet will be just fine with my decision and that of others like me.”

    Predicting that the Pope’s criticism would upset a lot of people, one user joked: “Hey guys, check out the Vatican’s new atheism ad.”

    The pontiff was also accused of being “out of touch with reality and humanity”.

    The Italy-based International Organisation for the Protection of Animals said it was “strange to think that the Pope considers the love in our lives limited quantitatively”.

    “It is evident that for Francis, animal life is less important than human life. But those who feel that life is sacred, love life beyond species,” said Massimo Comparotto, its president.

    In 2014, Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero that having pets instead of children was a “phenomenon of cultural degradation”, and that emotional relationships with pets were “easier” than the “complex” relationship between parents and children.

    He has in the past denounced the falling birth rates in the developed world.

    Italy has struggled with population decline for decades – long gone are the days when women had four or five children. The birthrate has fallen to its lowest since Italy was unified in the 1860s, recent figures show.

    It has prompted warnings that the country’s population will shrink by a fifth over the next 50 years.

    BTL Comments:

    There is nothing that could benefit our planet more than a drastic cut in population.

    A comment from another fiddler …

    Another example why religion should be banned – what a idiot.

    Strange coming from a man who has no children – how selfish is devoting oneself to God (and your career)!

    Just goes to show that religion is a form of mental illness.

    And from me: I am not “childless”, you halfwit. I am child-free by choice. Has this fool not noticed that there are nearly eight billion humans on a small planet that has the capacity for no more than two million? Has the idiot never heard of biodiversity, or the natural balance of nature?

    Edit | Delete

    1. Deluded old fool. It is because of population explosion that there is so much death, disease and misery.

          7. He tried that this morning and bled all over a poor post, which is having antibody tests as we write, just in case it’s caught something nasty.

    2. He doesn’t do irony, does he? All those celibate, kiddy-fiddling priests of his Church of Rome don’t contribute much to the population, do they?

    3. You don’t do your case any favours when you make comments like:

      “Has this fool not noticed that there are nearly eight billion humans on a small planet that has the capacity for no more than two million?”

          2. Did he? Look at his response to anneallan.

            He’s delighted to jump all over mistakes made by others and I suspect that you had read billion when you replied:
            “Nothing wrong with that statement.”

    4. It’s all very well to say “capacity for no more than 2 billion”. But I notice those in favour of a smaller population never volunteer to give up their own life. ‘Twas ever thus. Do as I say not as I do?

      1. I think I’ve done my bit by not procreating and by spending my life in the positive service of the species.

      1. I’m happy with million. Why does the earth need so many humans? All they do is trash the place. No other species has poisoned its own environment; invented and used guns, bombs and nuclear weapons; used up all the resources; and fouled the water supply. Only the cretinous species on two feet has done all that.

        I could go on.

    7. Obviously worried about the subsequent drop in income into the Catholic coffers. Have more babies pay more pennies for black babies – or similar scams.

    8. Some Western couples cannot AFFORD to have children. Taxation, the cost of child-care (to pay the mortgage needs two salaries these days) and the rest. There are plenty, however, who pop out sprogs for the bennies and then don’t care for their offspring.

  68. Interesting local comment (British slang) showing surprise on streets of the UK to Lord Ahmed’s conviction on rape charges:

    “Well, bugger me”

      2. Time off to go shopping, Bill. National past-time, innit, together with “fishing” – carping at everybody and everything!

  71. I phoned my local surgery earlier hopefully to make an appointment with a doctor.
    I was offered a telephone call with a nurse.
    When asked if doctors were still working……..I was told only 2 days a week!

    I’ll keep you posted….

    1. This is precisely why the A&E departments are so busy. There’s no other way to seek real face to face treatment.

      1. I didn’t know NHS doctors were part time…..

        If you have Covid they don’t want to see you …..
        …..if you don’t have Covid they don’t want to see you.

        I didn’t dare ask when they were prepared to see their patients……when they are dead perhaps? To sign the death warrant!

        2. GPs are self employed and contracted to the NHS but seem able to break that contract at will. At our surgery the senior partner is only in the practice 1 day per week. Not one of them works for 5 days.
          Cushy little number, it seems.

        3. And even then….. ‘because of covid’ only one doctor required to sign the death certificate. There is another reason, of course. ‘Covid’ is the palatable one.

          1. Is that still the case? It’s a disgrace if it is.
            I shudder to think what might have escaped scrutiny, I doubt Shipman was unique.

          2. As I understand it is still the case. Matt Hancock is not known as ‘Midazolam Matt’ for nothing.

          6. Hi PM

            I had my booster a good while back now , since then I have had aching legs and painful knees , and my lower legs seem to burn painfully under the duvet at night .

            Whereas before first lockdown I used trot along happily and speed walk to keep up with Moh , who is a bit of a hare . now I feel like a hobbling old lady . My hips and knees and ankles feel terrible , in fact I ache all over.

            I managed to get an appointment with my doctor who sent me in the direction of bloodtests etc. She discounted the booster , and thought it may be my Statins at fault , so she changed my statins and I feel worse than ever , agitated , itchy , tired and aching all over .

            I really don’t know what to do, I visited a garden centre this morning after walking the dogs and really and truly feel all in after just carrying some bird food and a couple of pots of hyacinths. Cleaned the kitchen floor yesterday, yes it needed a good scrub , and then cleaned out the fire , I was all in by the time Moh had played 18 holes of golf .

            Have the doctors written my age group off , I feel as if that is the case , and am just wondering whether that is it , and that is all there is for me .

            Pre Covid days , things ticked along nicely .

            Could it be that my jab enhanced immune system is eating away at my muscles ?

          7. I haven’t had the booster for reasons already stated here. However, after my second jab, besides the red spots ( sounds like something the Goons would invent!) my right foot and ankle are swollen and quite sore; the other night in bed, said foot was painful. I already have an arthritic right knee and that is much worse. Of course, that could be weather related.
            Right now, I am not going to attempt to see the quack because I do not want to pick up any bug in a surgery or hospital.

          11. Our GP came out to see me twice when I had a gall bladder flare-up in 2015. I was quite surprised he did…..

          13. I doubt that very much – but I think he was interested in the hedgehogs and had a look in the hedgehog shed.

          15. Sorry to hear that Lotl.

            There are not alot of pain relievers apart from prescription pain relief which an be an absolute knock out.

            Me neither, thought I should have an xray because at first I assumed my hip was playing up .

            It is such a nuisance for everyone , one just doesn’t know what is going on .

          16. I confess to self medicating slightly but only nerve tonic- won’t take pills of any sort; an occasional ibuprofin if desperate but otherwise no.
            Sorry that you are also going through stuff. Mind you, it’s pissing it down here and is very cold which probably ain’t helping.

          17. Sorry to hear that, Maggie – has the aching got noticeably worse since the booster?

            Statins are known to cause muscle aches, so the Doc could be right. Have you been on them for along time?

          18. Evening J

            Yep for about 4 years ..Lipitol , but the new one is Rosuvastatin, and not too keen.

            Yep, aching has got worse since booster , could be me being nuerotic , but it seems so strange .

          20. I think our GP is a non-invasive kind and that suits me. I don’t take any prescription meds – but I do take VitD3 and C+zinc and I think they have made a difference. No bugs or any other problems for two years now. (Touches wood).

          21. I heard on this site that statins can block the uptake of a certain enzyme that powers the cells. I am without energy by 1pm and collapse on the bed. I have seen some improvement by taking Co-enzyme Q10.

            Research it.

            In the short term try berocca.

          23. Every damned doctor tries to give you statins. They must be paid by the tablet…

            I was coerced into trying them. They made me feel very unwell. The GP tried to change them for a different one. I declined.

          25. They are paid for every patient they get on statins. It seems to proffered or suggested as a cure-all for everything, it was even suggested at one point it *may* be a cure for covid…. Govt and gps seem desperate to get it down everyone. Just one low-dose (to start off with, the gp said) made me feel absolutely awful. It took 48 hours for the effect to wear off. Never again.

            Yes, I was offered a different brand. I also declined.

          26. I was similarly coerced, Bill, but soon found that they mess with my head – memory particularly so have stopped and subsequently rebuff all overtures from medical people to take them.

            Another Big Pharma sales drive through doctors with a pay-off for each new prescription.

          27. Belle, you need to get a second opinion. Go private if you have to. Costs around £100 but they give you more time.

          28. Listen to this, and read the replies and the comments to those replies, you are not alone. I now know why doctors are being evasive – they couldn’t cope with the deluge and they have no answers, and they don’t want to know. They are in fact agents of govt and pharma. The vaccine must not be blamed in any way at all, that comes across quite clearly.
            https://youtu.be/lB5oR2gFQEw

            Are you taking vit D+K2, vit C? I am taking those and zinc and quercetin also through the winter months. It is possible that Ivermectin may help you. I read loads of stuff and it has been noted that the vaccine tends to be ageing of a person’s cells. Also try natural remedies – pine needle tea, n-acetyl cysteine. I’ll get back to you with more information as an edit here. Statins seem to do terrible things to people as well. Perhaps you would be better taking the one you were taking.

            I am so sorry you are suffering like this.

            Edit 1: Ivermectin is obtainable from here and they do ship to the UK.
            https://www.reliablerxpharmacy.com/ivermectin-6mg-austro.html

            I think Phizzee’s suggestion of seeing a gp privately is the best course of action first of all, though. You are the piper and can call the tune.

            Edit 2: https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/resources/spike-protein-detox-guide/

          30. Yes. He was pro-jab, pre-jab! Unless he is running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

          31. I haven’t watched that one yet – I quite like his videos but he’s very long-winded and could cut them by half and still get the message across. I find him quite circumspect about his jab opinions, probably because he’s still practising.

          32. Vit D has made a lot of difference to me this winter, I am not as tired, I can walk further and I am not getting my usual winter carbohydrate food cravings.

            Yes, the video with John Campbell could have been halved and he was very patient with the young woman who has obviously had a terrible time. I did notice that he said nothing anti-jab, but I was surprised that she had been given a platform to give an account of her symptoms, she came across as so relieved that someone was listening to her at last.

          33. Looking at the titles of at some of his videos that I haven’t watched – it seems he is fairly open -minded about the vaccines and also other treatments such as ivermectin. I guess he has to be careful not to ‘misspeak’.

          34. We both have been taking VitD3, VitC+zinc this winter and last. We’re both fit and well, in spite of all the problems he’s had since this time last year. He recovered very quickly from the surgery he had in November. He played a long match at table tennis last night, and won all his games. I had quite a long walk yeaterday afternoon.

          35. Statins ….. h’mmm.
            Apart from that, have you tried turmeric?
            I take a daily capsule; I started taking it because I felt just vaguely achy and all the time seemed to be pushing against an invisible wall of tiredness. I tried it and within a few days, I felt much better.
            I discovered it wasn’t a psychosomatic trait when I ran out over Christmas 2020, and given the chaos at the time, my fresh supply arrived late and I had a month without it. My symptoms returned, but disappeared with a few days of resuming the dose.

            https://www.healthspan.co.uk/shop/opti-turmeric/30-capsules?sc_camp=45D135A7499946FBA2C91577BED7799C&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5ODOp-ed9QIV04BQBh1UnQr9EAQYASABEgJ2RvD_BwE

          37. I’m unable to say whether the statins are causing your problems; I’ve heard different accounts form people, so It may be a very individual reaction. It may even depend on the type you are taking.
            I don’t take statins.

          39. Anne
            Many many thanks , I have read all the stuff about Tumeric , and have ordered enough for Moh and I .

            Delivery in about three days ..

            Will let you know how we get on .

          40. I felt the difference in about 4 days.
            I wasn’t sure if the improvement was in my mind; the unplanned month’s hiatus proved that there was something beyond the mental effect.

          42. You could stop taking the statins – from a piece of research I read about, they apparently make no difference to life expectancy – I can’t remember now where I read it. The general impression I have gained about statins is they are essentially another means for big pharma to rake in the cash.

          43. Thank goodness only one was required or I’d still be waiting to register MOH’s death now! It took long enough to get one doctor to sign.

        4. Salaries for GPs these days are such that a great number of them can afford to work part-time. The more that do leads to a shortage of GPs, so group practices desperate to recruit are forced to consider candidates who only want to work part-time.

          (See O level economics for a brief explanation of the Supply Curve of Labour….)

          1. They also get paid according to the numbers on their books, not the numbers they see – hence, plenty of patients but no incentive to see any of them.

        5. Death certificate, rather than warrant, hopefully! Mind you, it took weeks to get the death certificate out of our local surgery when MOH died. The Registrar kept ringing me up to apologise for lack of progress (you’re supposed to register the death within a fairly tight time scale).

      2. I didn’t know NHS doctors were part time…..

        If you have Covid they don’t want to see you …..
        …..if you don’t have Covid they don’t want to see you.

        I didn’t dare ask when they were prepared to see their patients……when they are dead perhaps?

      3. It’s also the reason why ambulances are not available in a reasonable timescale for emergencies and accidents. They are queued up outside A&E waiting to discharge their patients.

  72. Rod Liddle
    My dog and the NHS have a lot in common
    From magazine issue: 8 January 2022

    We are considering privatising or selling off our dog, Jessie. She seemed a rather wonderful idea when we got her nine years ago. But since then she has become a hideously bloated, entitled creature who almost by herself determines how we live our lives.

    In winter she is particularly tyrannical — she has three walks a day, and with darkness falling at four o’clock that means almost every hour of daylight is spent servicing her needs. We cannot go out by ourselves without ensuring she will not be unduly inconvenienced, and as she has grown older so the costs of keeping her have spiralled — and will continue to spiral.

    Is she grateful? Not a bit of it. The food and treats we give her are never sufficient and so she follows us around demanding more, outraged. The walks are never long enough. And when she’s not out on a walk or stuffing her fat face she lies in a corner looking resentful.

    Perhaps the worst thing about her is that she has been transformed from a dog into a cow, a holy cow. She can never be criticised. If I mention the enormous imposition she places on the rest of our family, I am immediately howled down in a torrent of misplaced sentimentality — even though my wife and daughter understand very well indeed that this is not how the family should work. It is the tail wagging the dog, for want of a better simile. But suggest this and it’s all: ‘Oh shame on you for having a go at Jessie! How dare you!’

    In other words, my dog is exactly like the National Health Service. Exactly. It would not surprise me if one of these days she insists that we go out on to our front doorstep and bang saucepans together in her honour.

    All of our lives are at the moment determined by the endless, fathomless demands of the NHS, an institution which will never have enough money or staff to meet our bloated expectations of it and which rejoices in insisting — at every turn, on every day of the year — that it is ‘in crisis’. Every announcement of extra funding is met with complaint and to criticise its ravenous maw is to bring down the wrath of the gods. Turn on the radio at any point during the day and I guarantee you will hear a nurse explaining that she can’t take any more stress, or a doctor criticising the government for not having us put in lockdown permanently and allowing us all out only once a week to the supermarket while wearing a face mask.

    Not much, these days, is to Boris Johnson’s credit, but refusing to indulge in another bout of self-imprisonment and self-flagellation — as demanded by our medical clergy — most certainly is. We are faced, at the moment, with a Covid variant which could be less harmful to the individual who contracts it than the common cold. And yet for weeks the health professionals and the government advisers contested the charge that Omicron was much, much milder than both the Delta variant and the original Alpha variant, despite the very clear evidence to this effect from South Africa and indeed from the early slew of cases in the UK. These experts are never challenged when interviewed by journos: their views are accepted as being utterly factual, much like those of third-sector charity bosses and Palestinian negotiators. But the mildness of Omicron was very, very clear at least three weeks ago.

    Nor have cases of Omicron ‘doubled every two days’, as we were assured that they would by the same experts: that may have happened in the first two or three days of its arrival here, but it has come nowhere near reaching that exponential spread since then. The doctors and those commie advisers in Sage also tried to tell us that even if Omicron was a ‘slightly milder’ form of Covid, its rapacious yearning for transmission would have the same effect on the demand for NHS beds. This has not remotely happened. Notice, they always said ‘slightly milder’ — of an illness which in many cases afflicts its victims with a bit of a sore throat and a case of the sniffles. In fact, there has been comparatively little increase in the demand for NHS beds, still less for intensive case beds. (Incidentally, when some quack is on the radio shrieking that 90 per cent of his hospital’s ICU beds are taken, why doesn’t the interviewer point out that this is what’s meant to happen? And that the occupancy rate of ICU beds in winter tends to be around the 95 per cent mark? And also ask how many ICU beds they have — the answer usually being somewhere in the region of eight.)

    It looks very much as if Omicron has passed its peak in London. At the very height of the supposed surge in the capital, between 21 and 28 December, the number of Londoners in hospital as a consequence of Covid rose by only 433 — there are more than 90,000 hospital beds in London. Meanwhile seven-day case rates have been falling in the capital since the high point on 20 December, although of course these figures may be less reliable than usual because of the holiday period.

    Our kids went back to school this week, much though the teachers carped and cavilled. They will be forced to wear face masks when in any communal area (i.e. the whole school). This horrible and pointless imposition is a sop to the medical lobby and also to the teachers, who seem to be itching to get back to the halcyon late spring of 2020 when half of the nation’s children went without any meaningful form of education for four months. It is more evidence that we are not being led by the science, if we ever were, but by people with a vested interest.

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

    charlieray15 • 11 hours ago
    Employees are now temporarily allowed up to 28 days off work sick without a doctor’s note in order to free up GPs as part of the vaccination campaign. What are the odds that just about everyone in the public sector will make use of this perk over the next few weeks?

    Jolly Radical • 4 hours ago
    And get ready for the inevitable tsunami of “Long Omicron” cases . . . a terrible syndrome which requires lengthy sick leave on full pay, but mysteriously affects only public sector clerical workers.

    1. Looks like Liddle has heard “I think my Dawg’s a Deymo-crat” which is wittier than his article.

      3. Same with Oscar – mind you, he’s knackered if he gets two walks a day for various reasons (to suit my needs, not his).

  73. Before you travel to England you must:

    take a COVID-19 test – to be taken in the 2 days before you travel to England
    book and pay for a COVID-19 PCR test – to be taken after you arrive in England
    complete a passenger locator form – to be completed in the 48 hours before you arrive in England
    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-to-england-from-another-country-during-coronavirus-covid-19
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3db50f9a81a1cce7bbe2271cc6dbfb388553c6cabe10771cf69b981bfebea7e4.jpg

    Yeah right….

    1. It would be good if they were all gathered up and taken back to France to complete the formalities, France could hardly object.

  75. HAPPY HOUR -Is Your Cat a Psychopath?

    A day in the life of a typical cat.
    THERE was a report out the other day titled, Is Your Cat a Psychopath? Well, of course : she’s a cat.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9eac55da848c67e6d03e3691f58d35058b4835a9930ebb554369b09dbe9640a5.jpg
    https://nttl.blog/thurday-6-january-parishes-have-borne-the-brunt-of-the-churchs-unchecked-bureaucracy/#disqus_thread

    Psychopath…yeah. Give me a dog a dog any day , man’s best friend……

    1. I’ve had both but the dogs were easier and nicer. The cat was called Basil for a reason!!

      1. In old age (well, me, anyway – the MR is still a child) cats are easier. I couldn’t manage two walks a day. My late hound would do 15 miles a day if permitted…

        Two cats – albeit they are turning into outdoor cats – give enormous pleasure and amusement.

      2. I’ve always had cats – the house was so empty after Suzie disappeared one evening aged 17, that about three months later we offered a home to an oldie from our local rescue – she’s still with us – Lily rules the roost here and she’s very much a lap cat – especially OH’s lap.

        1. You should sit on OH’s lap, just to re-establish the proper pecking order.

          Not for her, for him

        2. I’ve always had dogs since I was an adult. When I was a child, we had a succession of cats; none lasted more than a few weeks because we lived opposite a churchyard where they liked to go hunting. Unfortunately, the churchyard was the other side of a very busy road.

          1. That’s very sad – I’ve only once lost a young cat on the road – just after my first marriage, we lived in a roadside village cottage. The four month old kitten was very friendly and liked to socialise with the people waiting for the bus. She was knocked down and killed. I was devastated. She died on 4th July 1969.

  76. One for Plum:

    “And your name does the same for you
    By coincidence, truly Plumtious
    You’re truly truly Plumtious
    Scrumptious as a cherry peach parfait
    When you’re near us
    It’s so delicious
    Honest truly, you’re the answer to our wishes
    truly Plumtious
    Though we may seem presumptuous
    Never, never, ever go away
    Our hearts beat so unruly
    Because we love you truly
    Honest truly, we do
    truly Plumtious”

    Chitty Chitty…

  77. 343649+ up ticks,

    Would the overseeing politico’s do that ,say, for money power, is there anything in their past party history showing them doing anything of an adverse nature against the peoples of the United Kingdom if so & they are found to be
    guilty on a number of issues why are they constantly returned to power is the electorate so riddled with dangerous indigenous, family threatening, rear exits ?

    https://twitter.com/SusanMounce4/status/1478757914865250309ower

  78. I just met a Building Inspector from Braintree District Council for final inspection of my new sewage pumping station. He said his department had worked throughout the past two years with just one period of two weeks away from the office.

    I asked about the planning department attendance. He said that he sees one or two spend a couple of hours in the council offices but that most are ‘cowering’ at home.

    I am still waiting for an advertisement consent for external signage to Espresso Library at Grand Arcade Cambridge submitted over a year ago and operational since that time.

          1. Everyone who upticks a corrimobile comment is caste ( see what I did there?) to the wolves.

  80. Just spoke to daughter in Austria. They had a blizzard yesterday, and she was unfortunately driving up a mountain in it. Anyone without chains didn’t make it. She had to put the chains on her car in the blizzard for the first time.
    Then she came across what she describes as a young tree across the road. Hopped out of her car to pull it out of the way (she is tiny and slim). There was a police car nearby, they said “wait, the fire brigade are coming to deal with that”
    So she waited, cold, wet and fuming, and after a while, six big firemen drove up in a truck and cut the tree in half with a chainsaw. Several motorists were finally allowed to continue.
    Further up the mountain, there was a huge branch blocking the way. This time she slewed to a halt, skidding across the road, before pulling it to the side. Got home, started to dig out the parking space, just finished when boyfriend calls
    “Can you pick me up, my car won’t start?” (from the foot of the mountain)
    Cursing daughter turned her car round and started down again, only to meet him half way up. She threw a snowball at him when they got home.
    They have no electricity (40 cm snow in 3 hours).

          2. I know. I always have to carry a walking stick when i’m wearing it to fight off the Nottlerettes.

          3. This afternoon, I moved the Christmas tree from the sitting room into the garden.
            MB is torn between admiration and fear of what trouble this muscle bound woman might cause.

          5. Ours is still up, and will be dark tomorrow. Removal Saturday. Rest of the year to rid the house of pine needles…

          6. Yes…fear does follow admiration. Just don’t shock him the next time you wrestle pigs !

      1. I think the reason she was so cross was that she could have pulled it off the road by herself!

      2. Firstborn was pleased he’d just collected his chainsaw from service when driving home, the gales had blown a number of trees over the road. Chainsaw, truck & towline solved the issue.
        Country folk, eh?

  81. Last night, the MR and I watched a programme which turned out to be a glowing tribute – by herself – of some self-obsessed woman “professor” with inappropriate clothing and dyed hair – a couple of minutes of which were taken up by a VERY poor description of a huge romano-british mosaic found in a field in Rutland.

    For those interested, there is an excellent short YouTube which says far more about it in a few minutes, and shows the mosaic infinitely better.

    There was talk about how this was a complete surprise – totally unexpected etc etc.

    Though (for understandable reasons) the site is not named – five minutes on Google will find it. And also discover that in 1902 substantial fragments of a large mosaic were found a “few yards to the north of High Street” – the VERY place where this new find was, er, found.

    Funny thing; one would have thought that archaeologists and historians would have had a look back over the history (and detailed archaeology) of the immediate area…. Ah me…standards, eh?

    1. Would that be “Prof” Alice Roberts? She is a very good reason to switch off! Her voice drives me up the wall, and as you say, her hair…!

      1. And her constant references to her great skill and experience….

        The discoveries are well down the list of importance to be shown briefly in passing.

        Incidentally, I understand that in “universities” these days virtually anyone who teaches is called “professor” – following the US system.

        Loadabollox.

        1. I went, with my Latin master, whose tutor he had been, to a lecture by a chap who couldn’t pronounce his Rs. Unfortunately, the lecture was about wolls and scwolls 🙂 We’d got a bit lost on the way and were a few moments late arriving, which led to the greeting, “ah Wo… (his name began with an R), late as usual!”

    2. We were amazed to see such a beautiful set of mosaics , but were so annoyed by Alice Roberts’ hand movements , so distracting and not necessary . Moh thought she was spinning an invisible football.

      Why are these historians so lefty sounding and radical looking .

      Lots of questions I wanted answering , did the Romans cover over their mosaics for posterity purposes , there were layers and layers of rocks and soil ontop of the artefacts, so did the do it ?

      2. I suspect those rocks were the remains of the villa when it was pulled down in the Dark Ages after the Romans left.

      3. 99.9% of archaeologists are lefties/Marxists – I know I’ve worked with them all my life and there is only one other I know of who might be classed as more to the right (he occasionally had letters published in the DT).

        As for the overllying layers, they are probably the remains of the collapsed villa building as Conway has said, though many seem to have just been abandoned and left to collapsed by the owners. Robbing of the stone often didn’t happen till the medieval period or later, though tile often got reused during the Saxon period. Soil will form and accumulate fairly quickly once plants invade a site and it becomes overgrown, – humus forming, decay of other materials like timber, erosion of mortar and daub all add to the build up of soil.

      2. “The decision to remain unvaccinated incurs a cost to others”, wrong and it is totally the reverse.

  84. Now this is interesting, we just need to close the borders to Wales, Ireland and Scotland, bank on Micron to stop all travel in and out of France due to the next variant and we could end up as 2 Nations Rugby Grand Slam champions. (Assuming Italy is true to form).
    Every cloud can still have a silver lining.

    Jonathan Davies exclusive: Move Wales’ Six Nations home games to England for Welsh rugby to survive
    Telegraph Sport understands moving home matches to England, where there are no crowd restrictions, is being considered by the WRU.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/01/06/jonathan-davies-exclusive-move-wales-six-nations-home-games/

      2. If Duckfart allowed them, we should immediately close all borders. If the tactic is successful we could adopt it for the Australian cricket Ashes team in 2023. It would ensure the English does not suffer another drubbing.

      3. More to the point (for me), would English annual members of Welsh racecourses (cae rasio) be able to cross into Wales, and, even more crucially, will racing take place in Wales?

  85. Gosh – PROJECT FEAR the gift that goes on giving.

    “A human case of a potentially dangerous strain of bird flu has been confirmed in the UK for the first time.

    The person, in the southwest of England, had been in close contact with a large number of infected birds and are now in isolation but not ill. There is no evidence of onward transmission to anybody else, officials said.

    The person had contracted an H5 type of avian influenza. It is likely to have been the H5N1 strain that is circulating in wild and farmed birds, though this has not been confirmed.”

    In fact, the person has been given a lethal injection – and every member of his family has also been put down. Professor Ferguson told the press that this was the tip of a very serious iceberg. “Millions of cases will have been discovered by Sunday – DEFRA staff will be fully engaged for weeks in a programme of mass destruction and incineration,” he added.

    Happy New Year…

    4. Yikes – don’t let Ferguson loose on estimates for avian flu….!
      According to his models we’ve already died once from BSE, twice from foot and mouth disease and six time each from Covid!

    5. Sometimes a great pity that Jennifer SP is no longer traipsing along the beach with NTTL.
      IIRC post the foot&mouth ‘demic in 2000, the Guvt introduced a measure, or PROPOSED to introduce a measure, which would have compelled agricultural workers to assist the DEFRA in tasks involving death and destruction. At the time it sounded to me like forced labour under NewLabour.

  86. Fury as BBC demands teenagers who suffered anti-Semitic abuse in Oxford Street bus attack should reveal their identities before it responds to legal complaint over report suggesting victims used ‘anti-Muslim slurs’
    Video earlier this month showed men hurling abuse and spitting at Jews on a bus
    Incident treated as a hate crime by police and condemned by the Prime Minister
    In its original report, BBC News said ‘racial slurs about Muslims could be heard’
    Independent report by forensic audio experts and linguist said this was untrue
    Responding to victims’ lawyers, BBC asked them to identify their clients

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10375225/Fury-BBC-demands-victims-anti-Semitic-abuse-Oxford-Street-reveal-identities.html

    1. I am 150% sure that the new leftoid woman in charge of BBC News will cave in toot sweet.

    2. Great idea, let’s see the names and addresses and the mosques they attend for the Muslims too.

      1. Finsbury Park was always a hotbed of extremists. These young Muslims are clearly still being taught to hate the Jew. Perhaps Maureen Lipman could investigate.

  87. That’s me for this chilly day. Cats loved it – bright sun and quite a white frost. Good hunting weather.

    Raining now – better tomorrow – heavy rain all day Saturday when the MR is doing her volunteer stint at the GP outfit or a jabbing session. Just imagine NHS employees volunteering to stand in a carpark in the rain… For no pay…. Makes one smile.

    Have a jolly evening choosing which bame person’s statue you wish to throw into the harbour with impunity.

    A demain.

      2. There was a young man called Ghandi
        Went into the bar for a shandy,
        With his own loin cloth
        He wiped off the froth,
        And the barman said, “Blimey, that’s handy.”

        1. And as unhygienic as the rest of them.

          I was once in a Bar in Sitges and watched the Bar man wipe the slobber from the chops of his big dog and then later wipe the Bar with it.

    2. Tell the MR to wrap up warm – it was raining here most of the day, and although the frost had gone, it still felt perishing.

  90. The petition to remove Blair’s knighthood has now more than 900,000 signatures.
    I realise that our rulers will ignore it, but such a quick response might give them pause for thought on top of 100 revolting Tory MPs and the Shropshire North election result.

    2. Thanks for the update, Annie. I wish I could vote twice in order to help it break the one million barrier.

  91. Boris Johnson’s bombshell private messages about the Downing Street flat refurb were finally revealed today as his standards chief delivered a devastating rebuke about being kept in the dark for months.

    Lord Geidt vented fury at the PM in an exchange of letters after discovering he personally WhatsApped a Tory donor about funding for the lavish £140,000
    overhaul.

    I wonder what the flat looks like . Well, it must have cost quite a bit courtesy of Lulu Lytle!

    Some of the designs on the video are glorious , and if the taxpayer were paying for a revamp of tired looking Chateau Maggie and Moh . I would grab some ideas to compliment our huge Jurassic Purbeck fireplace , like Fred Flintstones , in our modest abode

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtW6fgrUIMI

    1. How can they live with that profusion of clashing colours and patterns? That flock wallpaper looks as though it would be more at home in a 1970s Indian restaurant.

      1. I agree! It screams “I’ve got money and no taste” or in their case, rich friends and no taste.

      1. When we moved here 22 years ago , the walls were deep pink contrasting with pistachio , it looked very decadent .. We got the paintbrushes out and calmed things down .

        2. When I moved here, in the early eighties, the rooms had coloured (not white) ceilings and huge-flower-patterned wallpaper on one or two walls, with striped wallpaper on the other walls in garish orange and lime green! Plus the bathroom suite was “harvest gold”. In no time, the bathroom suite and the ceilings were white and the walls plain!

          1. Aaaaargh! Not Harvest Gold- that was the colour in the kitchen and main bathroom in the house in CT. And there was green and silver metallic wall paper down the long stair well wall. It certainly motivated the decorating process.

      1. There is no way that could be a consensual choice; which begs the question: who called the shots?

        And who conceded?

      2. Yes of course it is , and of course people who live in grand houses murder them with colour and style , it is similar to beautiful bodies covering themselves in Tattoos .

        3. I thought of the dusting and cleaning whilst I was watching it… the fewer ornaments the better. I like to be able to see reflective, polished surfaces.

    6. What is it with this American ‘interviewer” dressed in red? She asks questions then interrupts before the Englishwoman has finished answering her questions. (This seems to be typical of most interviewers these days, regardless of their country of origin.)

      1. I’m on his side as far as the vaccines are concerned, what I object to is that he’s expecting special treatment because of who he is.
        The laws/rules should apply to everyone equally, whoever they are.
        I hope cases like his wake up those in control so that things change.

        1. “The laws/rules should apply to everyone equally, whoever they are.” Tell that to girls in Rotherham or animals in an abattoir.

          1. I’m not arguing against that.

            Therein lies the problem, the rules/laws are not being applied equally, without fear nor favour.

          2. I’m not arguing against that.

            Therein lies the problem, the rules/laws are not being applied equally, without fear nor favour.

    1. Say what one might, is there any other religion that has produced so much art, music, literature and architecture as Christianity?

  94. Evening, all. Happy Epiphany. Well, that’s Christmas packed away and boxed up for another year. The house looks bare!

      1. Apart from getting under my feet and sticking his nose into every box, he took it in his stride.

        1. Presumably that means he’s getting more and more settled.
          Onward and upward, he’ll be riding the Connemara before you know it!
          };-))

          1. The Connemara is going exceedingly well at the moment, I don’t want to upset him! Oscar is getting more settled on the whole. He likes his tummy rubs and even let me go over him with a grooming mitt this afternoon – until he got fed up and threatened me. It does seem to be more of a threat than an actual attack these days, which is definite progress (apart from the return to biting my feet).

          2. Biting your feet, now that really is taking his life in his paws, that should give him pause for thought!

          3. He’s been doing that since I got him. I thought he’d realised it was counter productive and stopped, but he’s restarted recently. He does stop if I shout at him, but I need to break him of the habit.

          6. We are in for a long haul, I think. I thought my Patterdale cross was slow on the uptake (I used to complain he’d only got three brain cells and none of them was networked!), but Oscar seems to be by far the dullest knife in the drawer so far!

          7. I’m no expert, but I’d say having a dog in the house is always about the long haul.

          8. Some (like my GSD crossed with a wolfhound) are extremely quick on the uptake. He had a vocab of about a hundred words. He would show me what he wanted when I asked (biscuits – go to the cupboard, walk – point to the lead, out – go to the back door, food – point to his dish, water – ditto with his water bowl, bed – go to the door to the hall …). He was a year old when I got him.

          9. To be honest, I think my Oscar has trained me. To be fair, he’s constantly trying to improve my behaviour, a bit like my missus.

          10. Night, Conway.
            Back to watching Lawrence of Arabia, a film I haven’t watched for more than 50 years.

          11. Night, mola2.I saw that in the cinema (in Colchester, of all places) when it first came out.

          12. We use a squirty plant sprayer with the nozzle unscrewed a bit to make a water pistol to indicate to the cats when they are doing something they shouldn’t. A jet of water soon reminds them… and is needed every so often, as they seem to “forget” about not being on the kitchen worktop, on the dining table…

          13. I tried that with a previous dog who wasn’t a foodie. It didn’t turn him around unfortunately. With Oscar, withdrawal of cuddles seems to work. After he’d shown his teeth when I was grooming him, I refused him cuddles when he came back asking. Then, afterwards, I sought him out and stroked him and he was happy. He will do lots of things for rewards, thankfully.

          14. Might it be a sign of affection rather than threat?
            If it doesn’t hurt you, perhaps you could respond in a way that shows you appreciate the attention but might prefer a different approach?

          15. Um, I don’t think it’s affection! It’s a habit he got into with his previous owners – it’s related to guarding his food and keeping his space. He will do it if he’s woken up when he’s asleep, even if I’m not actually anywhere near him; although the last time, he lunged but stopped before he bit. He’s a lot better than he was. After all, it’s only six months to the day (I got him on D Day) that’s he’s been mine and has had to live by my rules.

          17. I keep telling myself that (when I’m not reminding him he could have done a LOT worse than come to me!) 🙂

          18. My Oscar just adores playing ‘Who’s the boss?’. Great fun, even though a stranger might think I’m being attacked by a rabid wolf. I do end up with some nasty bruising and scratches due to my meds though.

          19. With only six months relationship in the building, I can’t afford to let him question my authority at the moment. I need to reinforce the fact that I am the pack leader and he does what I say. If he gets the upper hand (he is, after all, an alpha terrier with a ferocious set of teeth), I’ve had it! When he’s fully happy with the situation and accepts it, we can be a bit more adventurous. I get the impression you’ve had your Oscar somewhat longer than I’ve had mine.

          21. If I’d had Oscar since he was a puppy, the ground rules would have been established by now (as they were with my alpha terrier Charlie), but he was nearly twelve and set in his (bad) ways when I got him. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but he’s learned a few already! One being, that he gets absolutely nothing by begging at the table, especially if he’s barking and trying to climb on my lap! He does forget occasionally, but it’s constantly reinforced. I expect my dogs to have manners. In fact, the usual comment is, “your dogs are better behaved than some children!”

        1. I think we should be punching out lights, Johnson, Whitty Fergusson, Valance etc etc et bluddy cet.

          1. I can’t recall a time when I was so despairing of our government. I expected dross under Labour – after all, it’s what they do and it comes with the territory (Atlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Blair, Brown), but this is supposedly a “Conservative” government elected to get Brexit done and make the most of it. Epic fail on all points 🙁

          3. What do you think of the idea that farmers are being encouraged to re wild their land ..

            What are we going to eat , import rubbish from the States?

          4. The rewilding idiots should be penned in with the animals they want to reintroduce (wolves, lynx, bears etc) and left to it. Maybe, if they survive, they’ll come to their senses and get a taste of reality.

          6. I think vegan food should carry a health warning reminding them that we are omnivours. They should not use meat terms to describe their food either.

          10. They are trying to starve us. Commies always kill their populations one way or another.

          5. “If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, winter will take another flight.
            If Candlemas Day be foul and rain, winter is gone and won’t come again.”

            Groundhog Day…if the groundhog sees his shadow, another 6 weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, winter will come to an end.

  95. Boris the Twerp has called out people for spouting “mumbo-jumbo” re vaccines. Well, in all fairness, if anyone should recognise mumbo-jumbo for what it is….

  96. I had a car like this – a Mini Traveller, with “lacy” sills…
    SIR – My first car was a Morris Minor convertible.

    My lady friend at the time was impressed by what she took to be my old-world courtesy: when parking I would dash round to open the passenger door for her.

    What she did not know was that the car was so rusty that opening both doors caused a sag in the bodywork, and the middle of the car would have to be jacked up in order to shut either door.

    Bruce Clark
    Pinner, Middlesex

  97. I had a car like this – a Mini Traveller, with “lacy” sills…
    SIR – My first car was a Morris Minor convertible.

    My lady friend at the time was impressed by what she took to be my old-world courtesy: when parking I would dash round to open the passenger door for her.

    What she did not know was that the car was so rusty that opening both doors caused a sag in the bodywork, and the middle of the car would have to be jacked up in order to shut either door.

    Bruce Clark
    Pinner, Middlesex

  99. We are/ the nation is/ confronted by several ‘challenges’:

    Insufficient/ inappropriate resources to defend the realm;
    Insufficient/ inappropriate resources to provide reliable energy for the industrial economy;
    Insufficient/ inappropriate resources to provide reliable energy for the consumer economy;
    The urgent need for a coherent and reliable taxation policy to stimulate a viable economic future in these islands …

    Someone needs to sound the drum tomorrow …

    Otherwise, there likely will be a modern-day revolution …

  100. Following his earlier commentary on Napoleon, a ‘Reluctant Swede” (Grizz perhaps?) suggested Booby 47 ought to be put in charge to sort things out.
    Bobby considered this proposition and here’s his reply:

    “Bobby47 on January 6, 2022 at 1:21 pm
    @ Reluctant Swede.
    I’ve been pondering my friends suggestion that it may be me who can seize National and even global power in order to put right all the things that are pretty much all fucked up.
    I do tick a lot of boxes if I were to ever consider becoming the benign dictator that we all need. I’m no threat to men. Women can’t keep their hands off me and despite my many vices, namely drinking, smoking, betting upon uncertain outcomes and constantly logged in to Red Hot Wirral Housewives, I am by nature a good and kind person who’s keen to recycle my rubbish and do no harm.
    That said, I’m lacking in one specific area of need. To become the ‘one’, the one we all need to unravel all the bollocks we are now wading in, I need to be capable of domination.
    To become the man The Swede wants me to be, I do need to be able to dominate everyone. It’s essential to hold world domination so as everyone bows to my will. It’s this ability to dominate that I believe I fall down on.
    I’ve tried it out. In my street I’ve knocked on all the doors and tried my dominating ability out on my neighbours. Without exception, once the front door is opened and I say, ‘hello. Happy New Year. I’m here to dominate you’, they all scream, ‘fuck off fatso’.
    Hardly the positive responses you need if you want to pursue any domination of your neighbours. If they’d answered the door and said, ‘thank the Lord you’re here. Please come in and dominate me’, I’d have been more convinced that The Swede was right and I’m the one to sort all the shit out.
    So. No. It can’t be me. More’s the pity…..”

  101. I’m not religious, but I dread a future where our churches are gone and St Paul’s is a Wetherspoons

    Even though I have no faith myself, I am able to see the good that faith can do – and also to see what can go wrong in its absence

    MICHAEL DEACON • 5 January 2022 • 7:00pm

    Reading our front page on Tuesday morning, Philip Larkin would have been horrified. Back in 1955, he finished writing one of his greatest poems, Church Going – in which he explained why, despite being a firm non-believer, he feared a future in which churches “fall completely out of use”. To him, religion was nothing more than a “vast, moth-eaten musical brocade / Created to pretend we never die”. Yet, on Saturday afternoons, when he could rely on them to be empty, he often visited churches, because it “pleases me to stand in silence” in a “serious house on serious earth”. As he did so, however, he would glumly wonder who “will be the last, the very last, to seek / This place for what it was…”

    He didn’t live to find out. But I have an uneasy feeling that I might. Seventy years ago, when Larkin started drafting that poem, weekly attendance in the Church of England stood at a healthy three million. By 2019, the last year before the pandemic, the figure had plummeted to 850,000. In that light, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by our story from Tuesday that, in England, more than 400 churches have closed in less than a decade. But even if we aren’t surprised, I think we should be worried. And when I say we, I don’t just mean the religious among us. I mean the non-religious, too.

    I’m non-religious. I prefer to put it like that because in the past couple of decades the word “atheist” has gained some unhappy connotations. In the wake of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, atheism seems almost to have become a religion itself, and not a very pleasant one. So many of its followers behave like missionaries, preaching their dogma, hectoring heretics and endlessly questing for converts to their creed.

    But, even though I have no faith myself, I am able to see the good that faith can do – and also to see what can go wrong in its absence. The world of 21st-century political activism, for example, teems with people who, though not religious in practice, are certainly religious in temperament. They seem to have an innate need for a messiah to acclaim, and unbelievers to denounce. Anyone who has encountered Corbynistas on social media, or at one of their many exultant rallies between 2015 and 2019, will know exactly what I mean.

    In any case, as Larkin suggests, you don’t have to be Christian to appreciate the beauty of churches. When I say beauty, I don’t just mean visually, although they invariably are magnificent buildings. There’s also beauty in what they represent.

    Last month, I went to our local church to watch my son sing at his school’s annual Christingle service. It was a wonderful occasion. But an observer from out of town would have noticed something striking about it. Something like a quarter of the children present were Sikh.

    For more than 50 years, Gravesend, the town where we live, has had a sizeable Sikh population. Naturally, these children and their parents wouldn’t normally attend a CofE service. Yet every Christmas, they come and join in the singing of hymns and carols – just as I did. And it was lovely: the feeling of unity and community it created. Even if we didn’t all believe every word we were singing, we could feel as much joy as those who did.

    My son and his class have occasionally been taken on day trips to the church, to learn about it. At a parent-teacher evening in Year Two, I got to see a report my son had written about his experiences. “I went to St George church,” he wrote. “Reverend Jim showed us the vestry. I saw the special cassok and stole. I lernt that the candle is a symbell of Gods light.”

    I loved that. Of course, it may be that my son wrote this purely out of scholarly duty, because it was what he’d been told. Or it may be that he genuinely believed every word. I won’t pretend that the two of us engage in much theological discussion. But either way, it’s fine by me. If he does believe in God, I have done nothing to disabuse him. He can make up his own mind.

    Even if he turns out to be as drably unspiritual as I am, however, I hope that in his lifetime the dwindling of our churches can somehow be arrested. I don’t want to picture him living in some nightmare future Britain where all the churches are boarded up, the stained glass windows are broken, and St Paul’s has been converted into a branch of Wetherspoons.

    Still, there is room for hope. Gloomy though Larkin was, I think he would tell us to have faith – and to believe, as he did, that our churches will always hold a mysterious and irresistible pull. A pull that can draw even a godless cynic “to this ground, / Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, / If only that so many dead lie round.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/01/05/not-religious-dread-future-churches-gone-st-pauls-wetherspoons/

    There was nothing beautiful or spiritual about our RC secondary school’s 1960s-built chapel. It was shaped rather like a Jubbly and almost as cold as one, even in summer.

    1. When a person stops believing in God, he doesn’t believe in nothing, he believes in anything.

      1. I don’t actually believe that. People believe in what might be pertinent to their own life and or situation. This last couple of years has told me that I do NOT believe in government issued propaganda; it has told me that there is no such thing as medical infallibility. Over the years I have learned more and more to trust and believe in my own judgement and not simply go with the flow. I have learned what sustains me and what brings me down. It would be easy to say it is god but it isn’t- not for me anyway.
        People should believe or not as they choose.

        1. It was more an observation about what replaces God in people’s lives than an injunction to religious belief, LotL.

        2. Spot on, LotL.
          Happy Birthday! Hope it turns out to be better than you could wish for yourself!
          :-D)

      1. True, but these days, the mosque is the more likely, unfortunately. My church gets lots of visitors (they write complementary comments in the visitors’ book) and most of them donate something via the Good Box (the majority of donations are not when services are on).

    3. “[A]theism seems almost to have become a religion itself, and not a very pleasant one. So many of its followers behave like missionaries, preaching their dogma, hectoring heretics and endlessly questing for converts to their creed.” MOH was one such, unfortunately.

      1. I prefer, Connors, to remain agnostic. I think that there is something bigger than us, otherwise what is the point in our being here.

        At the same time I recognise that the Bible has been bowdlerised by the various Christian Churches in an effort, (mainly successful) to gain control of the population for its own greedy ends.

        Curiously, despite all that, I am the Lay Chairman of our own PCC (Parochial Church Council – responsible only for the fabric of our beautiful little 13th Century Parish Church) and I will fight tooth and nail if the C of E decides to close it. I’m sure the village will back us and we’d take it into our own care.

        1. I’ve had too many instances of Divine intervention to save me from my folly to ignore, I’m afraid!

      2. David Starkey on Greta & Co: “They’ve got rid of God without getting rid of religion.”

    4. “[A]theism seems almost to have become a religion itself, and not a very pleasant one. So many of its followers behave like missionaries, preaching their dogma, hectoring heretics and endlessly questing for converts to their creed.” MOH was one such, unfortunately.

    5. I do not believe in god and would certainly not call myself a Christian. That said, I find churches, especially the old ones, to be so beautiful and full of tranquility. I was so disgusted on my last, and final, visit to Westminster Abbey to see the circus it had become. Instead of a place of prayer and contemplation, it had turned into a carnival and the noise was tremendous. I shall not be returning there which is a shame as it used to be my favourite place in London.

      1. I’ve only ever been when there’s been a service on. Otherwise, I think it would have been a case of getting rid of the moneylenders in the Temple!

      2. Old buildings, like old vehicles, develop a soul and a personality. Maybe it’s seeped in from their usage?
        Most old churches have a certain tranquility about them that new ones don’t. Seems that WA has had a lot of circus effects seep in to it’s soul.

    2. All ex-PMs are given knighthoods and usually an Earldom too. Eventually Camoron, Bozo and May will also get this.

      2. There are honorific titles. I doubt the war criminal Blair deserved such a title. He should rightly have been put on trial at The Hague for war crimes, not given the Garter, an historic title granted by Monarchs for chivalry.

        None of this adds up. We live in dystopian times where 4+4 =5.

        Edit: The fucker Blair did not even haul a cannon across a field, the historic precedent for an award in this case. He was found eating a doughnut in the bog (or eating something else) as battle commenced.

      3. But not all ex PMs sold their country out to foreign billionaires. Titles were a system for ensuring loyalty to the Crown – even the Crown is working for the WEF nowadays. They’re getting their reward from abroad – they don’t need domestic honours, which are just a slap in the face to the digital serfs.

  105. Goodnight to all my NoTTLer friends (both the happy and the miserable) and may God bless you.

    1. Happy birthday, Lady of the Lake!! I shall raise a glass of Pinot Grigio in your honour at the appropriate hour!!! Have a good one….Jill & Jack -:))

  110. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-59900037
    “A Russian-led force has arrived in Kazakhstan at the request of the country’s authoritarian president, amid a violent crackdown on anti-government protests.

    Machine gun fire reverberated through the largest city Almaty after days of unrest sparked by a fuel price hike.”

    Protests about fuel prices, well at least that’ll never happen here. G’night.

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