Thursday 10 September: Boris Johnson’s political decision to fight an endless ‘war’ against Covid

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/09/lettersboris-johnsons-political-decision-fight-endless-war-against/

689 thoughts on “Thursday 10 September: Boris Johnson’s political decision to fight an endless ‘war’ against Covid”

  1. Golly! (Am I allowed to say that word?) I’ve just remembered my Nottl password after 2 years. Morning all.

  2. What do the new Covid rules mean for gyms, pubs, restaurants and universities? 9 September 2020.

    Asked whether he felt comfortable separating families, Mr Johnson said: “Of course I don’t feel comfortable. It breaks my heart to have to insist on these restrictions on family gatherings.

    “No-one in Government wants to do these things. The trouble is people who think they can take responsibility for their own health and take their own risks are misunderstanding the situation.

    Mr Johnson said: “Fines will be levied against hospitality venues that fail to ensure that their premises remain Covid-secure. “We will boost the local enforcement capacity of local authorities by introducing Covid-secure marshals to help ensure social distancing in town and city centres, and by setting up a register of environmental health officers that local authorities can draw upon for support.”

    Morning everyone. There is no justification for these measures! I’m afraid that Mr Johnson is not an amiable buffoon but like Mr Blair a dyed in the wool Neoliberal psychopath. The Covid Marshals are the New Brownshirts.

    Some might be puzzled at the glacial pace of the takeover but this is a preliminary common to all Revolutions and Civil Wars. To be the first to move is to be the aggressor and lose public support and the moral high ground. The government and its allies can only provoke until the opposition appears on the field. When this happens they can then use all their powers to suppress any uprising and install the Committee for Public Safety or its equivalent.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/09/do-new-covid-rules-mean-gyms-pubs-restaurants-universities/

    1. The trouble is people who think they can take responsibility for their own health and take their own risks are misunderstanding the situation.

      It looks as though I have misunderstood the situation.

      I took responsibility for my own health when I queried the need for a procedure in the NHS which would have stopped my heart in the hope that it would revert what had been diagnosed as atrial fibrillation back into sinus rhythm.
      I had achieved sufficient knowledge from medical cardiac tuition on the internet to challenge the cardiac team in the cardioversion suite on the interpretation of my ECG that had just been taken.

      The consultant agreed that I had correctly identified that I was already in sinus rhythm and the procedure was aborted.

      Thankfully I was able to avoid the NHS taking responsibility for my own health and incurring unnecesary risks of inappropriate treatment.

      2. What the medical profession sometimes fails to appreciate is that it may well require many years specialist training to a very high standard and the intellectual capacity to handle it, in order to qualify to treat any condition in any patient that comes through the door.

        However, each patient has a lifetime of intimate knowledge of their own body and all its conditions that no doctor can possibly match. Combined with a reasonable amount of understanding and intelligence, and most people know what their body is telling them as well as any doctor can diagnose a condition at a distance.

        Many doctors know this, and treat the consultation as a dialogue between doctor and patient. NHS executives are primarily concerned with money, rather than clinical excellence, and do not care about patients. They are told by our governors to treat health care as a business with a quarterly return and adequate profitable renumeration packages and deals for the chosen.

      3. Judging by the current under-utilisation of the NHS, the NHS isn’t taking responsibility for anybody’s health.

    2. I never thought it would be possible to loathe a government more than those of Wilson and Blair.
      I positively hate this current administration.
      On the plus side, I now have time, money and energy to spare. Judging by the email I received from the agent a couple of days back, I suspect I’m not the only one refusing to do any donkey work.

  3. I heard a report from WWF this morning suggesting that the Earth’s wildlife has declined by two-thirds since 1970, and this decline is intensifying. It is entirely plausible.

    I despise wokeism, have personally suffered serious harm to my “human rights” (to a steady job, to family life and freedom from arbitrary, subjective and malicious judgement) as a result of feminism, and despair at the perverse redefinitions of institutions that have served humanity ever since it became civilised. Yet the worse aspect of all is how concern for the environment and for wildlife has been lumped in with woke perversions regarding race and gender, as if you support one, you automatically support the other. I regard wokeism as a serious malicious diversion hijacking attention away from the mass extinction of life by our hands and on our watch that we could still mitigate with a little political will.

    We can happily blow £100 billion on a railway that serves nobody but a handful of impatient executives and property developers in the Chilterns, or an untested programme of mass testing for virus that could be done much better and much cheaper by trained dogs. Yet we baulk at putting £100 aside to safeguard hedgehogs in Regents Park (and the reputation for the Leader of the Opposition hinges for me on these – they lie in his constituency and he pleged to protect them in the same spirit that “Sir” Nick Clegg once made his solemn pledge to students).

    Does humanity deserve the beautiful planet we inherited?

    1. Does humanity deserve the beautiful planet we inherited?

      Morning Jeremy. No! Though I would like to have been there at the beginning when it was a Savage Eden!

    2. Does humanity deserve the beautiful planet we inherited?

      Morning Jeremy. No! Though I would like to have been there at the beginning when it was a Savage Eden!

    3. I think some of us do deserve it. Problem is, there are many who don’t.
      The awful thing is the politicisation of everything, including sensible activities such as not polluting the environment and not wasting energy or food. Suddenly, some bastard is screeching in your face that unless you stop doing something you aren’t doing anyway IMMEDIATELY, we’ll all die horribly. It’s a branch of “Create a crisis and take over the world” politics seen otherwise exemplified by BLM and COVID crap. Anti_Brexit freamongering was (is?) a good example, too.
      Good example: Firstborn, who has over 400 acres of forest, was accosted downtown by a harridan dressed in a plastic rainproof, nylon clothes and jogging shoes, who just walked up to him and screeched that he was destroying the world by pollution and plastic, and handed him a leaflet out of a plastic carrier bag. He pointed all this out to her, and told her he was “greener” than she. Screeching rose several decibels and octaves, and he calmly explaoed that he has 1 200 dekar of forest, how does she reduce the carbon footprint, with her plastic wardrobe and commuting to harangue folk in Oslo?

    2. The streets here were crowded this sunny morning with children of all ages walking to school for the first time in months. Most, if not all, looked happy to be doing so.

  6. Morning all

    SIR – The Prime Minister has made a political decision and decided that he would prefer to continue to fight a “war” against Covid-19 than make serious efforts to save the economy.

    When we have millions unemployed and a generation of young people’s futures wrecked, Boris Johnson will say it has all been worth it to “defeat” Covid.

    Peter Little

    Herne Bay, Kent

    SIR – Unbelievable! We were hoping to get back to some sort of normality, albeit painfully slowly, but now the Prime Minister announces yet more restrictions on our freedom.

    It seems that the Government is determined to ruin the country and destroy everyone’s lives completely.

    For pity’s sake let us have our lives back before we all commit suicide.

    Charles Murray

    Botesdale, Suffolk

    SIR – This is a very discerning virus. It will not be present at weddings, funerals, schools or universities, but if it sees more than six people gathering outside you can be sure it will be there.

    Elvina Parker

    Overton, Hampshire

    SIR – The pubs are full, the hospitals are empty. Those with chronic or life-threatening conditions (other than Covid-19) desperately need their GPs and hospitals back.

    Meanwhile, the rest of us need the economy back.

    Graham Jones

    Guildford, Surrey

    SIR – Students returning to university would have a great opportunity to develop immunity by allowing Covid to run through their ranks – as seems inevitable.

    Building herd immunity among the young people before they return home at Christmas would in the long-run help to protect the elderly and vulnerable in.

    It would be better to allow our young some form of life since the virus represents no real threat to them. They after all, are going to have to pay for this mess.

    David Hugh Smith

    Bathealton, Somerset

    SIR – My son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren live in Ireland. I have not been with them for a year.

    Yesterday, I received a package of photographs, which mean everything to me. I will email my thanks, and will not be so doom-laden as to suggest I may never see them again.

    I think we older people should adhere to the rules. We may suffer at the moment, but what joy if a vaccine is found. I have already have bought an outfit for the day when I can “come out” and hug my family once again.

    Sheina Burns

    Shaw, Lancashire

    SIR – The next time I want to meet seven people I will insist they all come with sketchbooks and we will hold an art class in the living room.

    Monica Cornforth

    London W5

    1. The “war against Covid” is an unwinnable one in my view; the virus is always going to be with us and will mutate, like all ‘flu viruses. Time to stop fighting battles that can’t be won and concentrate on restoring normality.

  7. SIR – We do not want to be seen as a country that does abides by its legal commitments with regard to the EU. Why don’t we do what France, Germany and many others do – ignore rules we don’t like, when it suits us?

    This can earn them a rebuke from the EU, but very little seems to happen.

    Roger Cousins

    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

  8. This is inhumane.

    SIR – I am one of the thousands waiting for surgery – in my case a new knee. To say that I am in agony is no exaggeration, and the pain is not restricted to the knee. The other knee is rapidly going the same way

    My surgeon, in whom I have the utmost faith, tells me his hands are tied and that it has been decreed that no elective surgery is to be carried out on the over-70s – on safety grounds.

    How can a civilised country treat its senior citizens in this way? I was a useful member of the community. Now I am a wretched creature dragging myself around on two sticks, frequently in tears. It cannot be right.

    Mavis Howard

    Melbourn, Cambridgeshire

    SIR – We can only imagine what it must be like to have treatable cancer only to watch doctors standing idly by.

    Colin Laverick

    London WC2

    1. It seems pretty obvious that more people are dying of non-CV ailiments than the virus itself. Is this a policy of deliberate terror on those least able to protest?

    2. It seems pretty obvious that more people are dying of non-CV ailiments than the virus itself. Is this a policy of deliberate terror on those least able to protest?

  9. Good Morning Folks,

    The sun is out,
    The sky is blue,
    You can get a big fine
    If there is more than six of you

  10. Good morning all

    Smile: A Poem by Spike Milligan

    Smiling is infectious,
    you catch it like the flu,
    When someone smiled at me today,
    I started smiling too.
    I passed around the corner
    and someone saw my grin.

    When he smiled I realized
    I’d passed it on to him.
    I thought about that smile,
    then I realized its worth.
    A single smile, just like mine
    could travel round the earth.

    So, if you feel a smile begin,
    don’t leave it undetected.
    Let’s start an epidemic quick,
    and get the world infected!

    1. Could be Belle, they look like hired thugs. I personally am waiting to see the ethnic composition of the Covid Marshals!

        1. A victory for the Powers of Darkness would see an ethnic minorities Police Force and Security Services to over awe the White Population and supervise their descent into true serfdom!

          5. Good morning DM

            Please correct my rusty Latin translation:

            This is the truth: Satan is on the rise. The shadows are spreading and a dark night is approaching. I wish you good luck in the war which is coming

      2. More billion buck contracts for G4S, Cisco Kid and other acronyms owned by Tory connections. (Did someone say Soames, or Reid*?)

        Not Tory but from a similar mould.

    1. 323562+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      One surely must ask oneself “which cowboys ” put these political indians in power again,again,& again.

    2. 323562+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      One surely must ask oneself “which cowboys ” put these political indians in power again,again,& again.

  14. 323562+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    ” The johnsons political decision to fight an endless war against covid”
    Bring to mind two things, that when one door closes another opens &
    a politico scorned is a treacherous critter.
    One door ( deal construct) closing = the EU.
    Multiple scorned MPs = 24/6/2016.
    A replacement scam ongoing can very well prove to be very lucrative for many concerned with a never ending supply of potential cases, product of the Dover Campaign, migrants / troops escaping from free nations for the rewards of a house & weekly financial payments.
    This is NOT a conspiracy theory, this is every day bloody FACT.

      1. 323562+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        I hear what you are saying BUT, the downfall bunker was constructed five decades ago, the construct had a thin veneer of honesty about it right up until the political knife went into M. Thatcher.
        The major, the wretch cameron, leg over clegg, may, & now seemingly johnson have clearly shown the route they are taking, seemingly their supporter / voters need more proof of their duplicity.

    1. They will make sure we pay for it with one tax or another, combined with a haircut of our savings …..

    1. With “friends” like that….etc ! Does she think that whatever dread disease Laurence has might be catching and muck up her future luvvy work? What a charmless woman!

  21. Can anyone list those countries that have implemented oppressive laws against free assemblies of people without Government permission?
    I’ll start the list:
    United Kingdom,

    Note. Free assembly is guaranteed in the US by the First amendment to the Constitution. Free assembly is guaranteed in Russia by article 31 of the 1993 Constitution.

  22. Homo sapiens sapiens is now a spent species, made self-redundant by its own stupidity, self-interest and greed. An over-preening, over-breeding over-confident organism that deludes itself that it is omnipotent and which still believes in fairy-tales.

    Time to move on. Time for extinction. Time for something far more intelligent to take over.

    1. Cats.
      Cats will take over.
      They are just biding their time, saving up their energy by sleeping on sofas…

          1. Ahh! Looks so like my previous cat Sue. I am unable to post photos for some reason or I’d post it’s current position taking up the whole of a 3-seater settee inspite of being just over a foot in length :o)

          2. Our smaller cat does that – but with a 4-seater sofa. The bigger one curls up and wedges himself under the coffee table or in a shelf on the sideboard.

          11. He does, however require a regular bath, as he cannot regulate his temperature without fur and gets quite sticky and, frankly, mucky! Sometimes he likes it ……

          4. Little Cat has been banished from the bedroom. He likes to stretch out on the bed, and much hair falls off. It’s very light hair, so you end up breathing it in when snoring… waking up with mouthful of ultra-fine pussy hair is baaaad… difficult to remove from your mouth.

  23. “Next time you trawl through the Netflix schedule”

    ???

    There won’t be a next time; there wasn’t even a last time.


    The Duke and Duchess of Sussex — the international embarrassments formerly known as Prince Harry and ‘Princess’ Meghan — have signed a Netflix production deal worth a rumoured $100-150 million.

    But not a cent of this money will be spent on anything any of us would dream of watching, as you can tell from the couple’s ominous statement on the kind of programming they intend to create:

    “Through our work with diverse communities and their environments, to shining a light on people and causes around the world, our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope.”

    I hope they didn’t pay anyone to write that execrable, sub-literate bilge. But I don’t think they did. I reckon that drivel came straight from the marshmallow brain of Meghan herself, especially the last outrageous lie at the end about “informing” and giving “hope”.

    It’s a lie — or, let’s be generous, an utterly self-deluded untruth — because, of course, there won’t be any actual information in any of the stuff they put out. It will be pure woke propaganda.

    And because it will be pure woke propaganda, any hope it gives will be entirely illusory. There is nothing hope-inducing about woke because it is an ideology — a Weltanschauung, if you prefer — fundamentally opposed to the very things most of us consider to be what make life worth living and our civilisation civilised.

    The notion that “all men are created equal”, for example. Woke has no truck with this outmoded concept. Black Lives Matter, for example — which both Harry and Meghan support — is a Marxist, ethnocentrist, separatist movement which plays on the notion of “white privilege” to argue that ethnic minorities should not be treated the same as white people, but better, in order to compensate them for some made-up thing called “structural racism”. How is this possibly a recipe for a just society, for social cohesion or indeed stability and peace of any kind?

    It would be easy to shrug off the Sussexes as just another pair of outrageously privileged celebrity airheads doing what outrageously privileged celebrity airheads do but not really harming anyone.

    I think that lets them off the hook too lightly, though.

    For a start, I suspect most of us here take the view that rewards in life should be a function of talent and hard work. But the only reason Harry and Meghan landed this gig is because of the royal cachet Harry conferred on his minor-league actress spouse — which, in turn, must have impressed some starstruck Netflix executive.

    I expect, like the Obamas, Harry and Meghan will be able to draw on an extensive contacts book which will enable them to give the impression that they are luring lots of high-end celebrities into the Netflix programming stable. But seriously, wouldn’t those high-end celebrities have come in anyway — and for fees considerably smaller than that rumoured $100-150 million?

    Next time you trawl through the Netflix schedule, wondering what the hell you’re going to watch when it’s all so dire, just stop and imagine bitterly for a moment how many more bangs for its buck it would have got if it had given say, a million dollars each to one hundred or one hundred and fifty writers and directors to develop something cool and original.

    But the really disgusting thing about the Sussexes’ Netflix deal isn’t that it’s unfair — life IS unfair — and it isn’t that it’s a waste of money (Netflix has money to burn, after all), but that ultimately it will make the world a more toxic, dangerous place.

    Sure, Harry and Meghan aren’t actually on the streets of Portland, chucking Molotov cocktails at cops or assassinating people they claim to be Nazis. But they sure as hell share and promote the same cry-bully victimhood politics of those who are. The reason the radical left is out of control and itching for civil war is because for years it has been brainwashed by Hollywood movies, by their teachers, by their college professors, by the latest agitprop bestsellers into believing that America is racist construct, that capitalism is wrong, that Western Civilisation is something of which we should be ashamed — and that cleansing revolution is the only solution.

    Harry and Meghan — not that they weren’t already to a degree — have now become fully paid up members of that woke propaganda industry. It’s time they were held to account for it.

    Obviously Meghan deserves her share of blame for being the predatory gold digger who infected poor Harry with the zombie bite of woke politics.

    But Harry is the more culpable of the duo because, without his princely status, without his connections to the world’s grandest and most glamorous royal family, Meghan would still be languishing in well-deserved obscurity as the fading B-list celebrity who used to be in the later seasons of Suits. It was Harry that weaponised the Meghan monster, thus contributing far more than he should have done to the sum total of human misery.

    At Eton, where Harry was educated, the boys are continually reminded how important it is to repay society for the extraordinary privilege they have enjoyed spending five years, surrounded by 15th century and Georgian architecture, at the world’s best school.

    Not so long ago, Harry more than did his bit, laying his life on the line with two tours of duty in Afghanistan — first with the Gurkhas, later as a helicopter gunship pilot.

    Funny, laddish, irreverent, approachable, he was the kind of royal who, even if you were a republican who wanted the Royal Family abolished, made you think: “Hmm. Well maybe, there is a point to them after all.”

    One of the things you always used to be able to imagine about Prince Harry was that, if ever there was a civil war, he’d have been on the right side. He’d be on the side of liberty, common sense, freedom, tradition, national sovereignty — as well as on the side of fun and not taking yourself too seriously. The old Harry would have despised woke and recognised it as the modern, updated successor to the ideologies that gave us Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and Mao’s China (as he would no doubt have realised from lectures at the officers’ training academy, Sandhurst).

    That Harry has vanished. I still don’t think he’s as bad as Piers Morgan because literally nothing is as bad as Piers Morgan. But I do think America needs him like it needs a hole in the head or a victory in the presidential election by Joe Biden or, indeed, a civil war.

    If the world goes tits up in the next few months or years, as I seriously worry it might, then the Duke of Sussex will have done his bit to make it happen. History will not look kindly on him.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/09/06/prince-harry-is-britains-most-toxic-export-since-piers-morgan/#

  24. We have relied on vaccines in the past to rid the world of fatal communicable diseases and this had lead both non-medical scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians to believe that COVID-19 can be beaten in the same way.

    It seems possible that the only means of getting back to normality is for the pathogen to work its way throughout the global population and ‘filter’ out all those who cannot survive it and thus naturally withdraw them from the gene pool.

    “Vaccines will allow us to make small steps to return to a sense of normality, but will not be, on their own a magic or instant end to the pandemic,” said Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/oxford-vaccine-trial-suspended-not-doomed-uk-woman-hit-rare/

    1. How many years before it was disbanded, did the Common Cold Research Laboratory pay for people to have a sniffly paid holiday on Salisbury Plain?

  27. So what do we know about Acute transverse myelitis?

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/09/astrazeneca-covid19-vaccine-trial-hold-patient-report/

    At present we do not know the best way to treat ATM, and you may be asked to help us in researching this.

    https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/conditions-and-treatments/conditions-we-treat/acute-transverse-myelitis

    Acute transverse myelitis
    Acute transverse myelitis (ATM) is an attack of inflammation (swelling) of the spinal cord. It is caused by the body’s immune system becoming mis-programmed and activating immune cells to attack the healthy myelin covering the nerves in the spine.

    2. I thought that ATM was a hole in the wall that you got cash out of. (Morning all NoTTLers, btw.) Today is a very busy day for me so it’s “Hello and adieu” from me for today.

  30. Fakenham market was nice and busy.

    Tried to get a string for my glasses in Boots Optician. Door locked. A chap was standing outside – I asked if he was waiting and he explained that the obese and uncouth woman inside would eventually open the door but not allow him in. I said – jokingly – that it will only get worse. He replied that we have to be patient until the vaccine is available. I said that might be years and he said, “And…?” Then I said that the vaccine would prolly kill us. He did have the grace to larf.

    I then tried another shop, by enquiring from an assistant. “Keep your distance” she shrieked. They don’t stock the things anyway.

    Thank God for Morrisons – all perfectly normal. No queues to enter. No daft one-way system. Plenty of staff and checkouts working. Funny how ones view of a shop (which previously I had avoided like the, er , plague) can change overnight.

    1. I have a lot of time for Morrisons. The only chain that will deliver to my Mother, them and Valley View grocers at Dinas Powys.

      1. Only insufferable snobs don’t shop at Morrisons. They would rather pay inflated prices for inferior goods at Waitrose.

        1. Not sure where Mothers local Waitrose might be – Barry, I guess. Anyhow,, Morrisons are good. They also stock Thatchers cider.

          1. I once bought a ridiculously overpriced fresh ‘organic’ loaf of bread from Waitrose’s own in-store bakery. It was limp, stale, and without any discernible flavour. Other items I have bought from that store are overpriced and under-flavoured.

            I never had that problem with Morrisons’ products.

          2. I once bought a ridiculously overpriced fresh ‘organic’ loaf of bread from Waitrose’s own in-store bakery. It was limp, stale, and without any discernible flavour. Other items I have bought from that store are overpriced and under-flavoured.

            I never had that problem with Morrisons’ products.

          7. They used to do a Doves Farm organic wholemeal loaf that was so good we’d go miles out of our way to buy. They stopped stocking it about 10 years ago. Which was a blessing as I started baking bread myself, and still often use Doves Farm flour.

          10. Agree with you Griz. Both M&S and Waitrose have gone down the pan. The fresh food in Morrisons is far better than most.

          11. I remember being happy when Morrisons took over the old Safeway store in Fakenham (at the same time that Waitrose took over the Swaffham store).

            I did a dance for joy because Safeway was the worst supermarket in history: dire quality, poor selection of produce and sky-high prices.

          12. I wish more of their vegetables would be not packed in plastic, but I guess there are issues with wastage.

          13. The plastic is used to protect the food from damage in transit, as well as preserve freshness. It’s an essential part to getting most of the food picked at the farm to the shop counter – the wastage in India, for example, from unpackaged food, is enormous – and they are much less fussy than we westerners as to how the food looks.

        2. We shop at both.

          For day to day items Morrisons is often cheaper.

          For pennies more you get much better quality in our local Waitrose, shop much cleaner and staff more courteous and helpful.

          1. There are some things we buy from Waitrose that aren’t available in Morrisons, but for most everyday things Morrisons are good. The staff in both local stores are invariably polite and helpful.

          2. One problem I have with our local Morrisons is the car parking spaces. So damn small. Park the car in it. shop. Come back to find someone is parked next to you and their isn’t space enough to get any bigger than an anorexic skeleton in the door. I once had to ask the chap manning the AA kiosk to get my car out for me.

          3. I hate supermarket car parks – one reason why I always go late in the day to do my shopping, when there is more room. But locally, the Waitrose one is worse – badly designed so that cars are reversing out in front of you as you drive in, trying to find a space.

            I once managed to damage soemeone’s car reversing out – I paid for the damage. I’m very careful these days as I find it quite hard to judge how far away things are in the mirror. I have matching dents in the front wings of my car which appeared when I had parked at Waitrose. Nobody bothered to own up.

          4. I hate supermarket car parks – one reason why I always go late in the day to do my shopping, when there is more room. But locally, the Waitrose one is worse – badly designed so that cars are reversing out in front of you as you drive in, trying to find a space.

            I once managed to damage soemeone’s car reversing out – I paid for the damage. I’m very careful these days as I find it quite hard to judge how far away things are in the mirror. I have matching dents in the front wings of my car which appeared when I had parked at Waitrose. Nobody bothered to own up.

          6. I think Morrisons fresh food is far better than Waitrose. not all but most. Compare Morrisons fillet steak to Waitrose far far better from M.

    2. Morrisons has been good all the way through – and now they have dropped the queuing system and the security man is back inside it’s all back to normal apart from hand sanitisers everywhere. I was even able to have a chat with my favourite checkout man the other day.

    3. I needed a new glass string and can normally pick one up at the local optician.

      You must now book an appointment which would be several days of waiting before I could arrive at their hallowed grounds and then call them on the phone before they would unbolt the door.

      I ordered through Amazon, a pack of twelve straps delivered two days later for less than a single strap at the opticians

    4. Morrisons have been the leader in common sense since this whole coronapanic/scamdemic started. Staff always pleasant and we do more shopping there now that anywhere else.

        1. I go maskless and there’s usually one to two others. Most of the staff have given them up. The best behaved supermarket by a long way.

          1. “Excuse me Sir, why are you not wearing a mask?”

            “Oh, didn’t you know?

            The Government has stated that people with Covid are medically exempt, because they have breathing difficulties”

      2. I would, too, if there were one closer than 10 miles away 🙂 Lidl is pretty good – no queues to get in and the queue to pay is in the booze aisle so one can continue shopping while waiting 🙂

    5. Blood taken at the doctor yesterday. Cute nurse stood quite close (surprise – when will they develop blood tests by Skype/Zoom??) and the only virus action was a notice asking patients to turn their head to the left so as not to hurr on the nurse. Most polite, unhysterical, and effective.

  31. Seems that, due to “HSE issues”, my Mother’s carers are not allowed to look at the sight glass on her central heating oil tank, to see if she needs to order some more oil for the winter (now the price is low). What kind of half-arsed system is that? My mother can’t do it, so I guess the carers will ensure she freezes to death over the winter, as there will be no oil.

    1. I’ll try to get Godson [ builder ] to help out, if you like.

      You can get my contact details from Hertslass.

      1. That’s very kind of you, Issy. Much appreciate the offer. A reliable builder in that area is like hen’s teeth.
        :-))
        Hopefully Mother’s friend can do it Sunday (she usually goes round on Sunday) – after I’ve slagged off the carers for being useless. I did ask what the problem was that not reading the level was solving, but as usual with this kind of person, there’s no answer.

        1. I just wondered whether there was a local church with a priest of some sort who might be able to help, Paul. If all else fails.

          1. Good thought, Bill, I’ll remember that.
            The carers are supposed to help, that’s what they get paid for.
            But it seems, like much of the UK, they work on a “can’t do” principle. But, they are local authority, so what can one expect?

          2. I found the Church most helpful when i was concerned about someone who lives a long way away. They sent someone round to check. The person in question wasn’t even a member of that Church.

            I sent them some money as a thank you.

          4. I was talking to the Vicars wife. He was in a Zoom confo at the time. I said i wasn’t sure if the person was a member of their congregation and she said not to worry. We care about everyone.

      2. That’s very kind of you, Issy. Much appreciate the offer. A reliable builder in that area is like hen’s teeth.
        :-))
        Hopefully Mother’s friend can do it Sunday (she usually goes round on Sunday) – after I’ve slagged off the carers for being useless. I did ask what the problem was that not reading the level was solving, but as usual with this kind of person, there’s no answer.

    4. Order some anyway. Minimum order is 500 ltrs, so assuming you need more than that, if you ask them to fill up the tank they will do so and bill you for the total.

  34. C’mon then Nottlers,it’s time to do our duty and join the Masktapo as jobs become available and clog the system
    30k,free uniform,cliboard and hi-viz jacket,possibly a radio and we get to walk around telling people to ignore these cretinous regulations…………..
    What’s not to like

      1. I was a Quisling master for 20 years or more. People came from as far away as 40 miles just to listen to my inane question and answer game. I refused to award prizes to the winners (it was nearly always the same teams that won) instead I drew a team name at random. Sometimes those who came last went home with the prize. I loved it.

    2. Where do we apply? We could sign up, fill the ranks, and spend our time and their money locked in a pub. Just saying.

  35. BBC Radio 4 currently broadcasting an IRA propaganda programme under the guise of a gay songwriter composing songs about ordinary people…

    …ordinary people?

      1. It’s the only English language station I can receive. It’s God’s way of punishing me for my many transgressions. He has a way of wreaking terrible revenge.

          3. It’s the Canadian CBC overnight filler for the hours when no one should be listening.

            Programs are always about wimins struggles, absolutely ghastly.

          4. When i lived in Birmingham the local radio station would have a phone-in after the Pubs had closed for the evening.

            The best unintended comedy show i have ever heard.

            Half drunk Brummies bemoaning being dumped by a girlfriend or some other such heart wrenching agony. It was hilarious.

            In the mornings i listened to Jimmy Young and our most famous Nottler on more serious subjects from people who were having real problems. God bless you Bill.

          7. I still have a 1970s Jasper Carrott album on which he does a routine about Butler and his style. Love TB or loathe him, he was the pioneer of the post-match phone in.

          11. The best download speed here is 2.1 Mb – but I think they are lying. Upload speed 495kb. It’s like living in Afghanistan but without the modern technological conveniences and friendly neighbours.

          1. I could probably get several stations on line but it would be distracting. I have tinnitus and I have the radio or tele on in the background to hide the whining, whistling noise.

    1. My response:
      No probs, Emily. Granddad is probably the most vulnerable, so he better stay away from the party. Be sure to send him pictures, though!

    4. I wonder if any of these teachers have joined the dots and stopped paying dues to a militant Union.

  37. Pompeo: ‘substantial chance’ senior Russian officials behind Alexei Navalny poisoning. 10 September 2020.

    The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said there was a “substantial chance” the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was ordered by senior Russian officials.

    “I think people all around the world see this kind of activity for what it is,” Pompeo said in a radio interview with conservative host Ben Shapiro. “And when they see the effort to poison a dissident, and they recognise that there is a substantial chance that this actually came from senior Russian officials, I think this is not good for the Russian people.”

    Pompeo reiterated that the United States and its European allies all wanted Russia to “hold those responsible for this accountable” and said Washington would also try to identify the perpetrators.

    Since “Senior Russian Officials” can only be a pseudonym for Putin and the Democrats are seeking to draw a link to his boss in the election, this accusation is crass at best, and sinister at worst. One wonders if Pompeo is smart enough to have realised that the guaranteed winning move here is to assassinate Trump to ensure the victory of the New World Order. This move has become almost a necessity since the gap in the polls is closing and there is no way that the Powers of Darkness (already committed in the UK and Australia) can stand idle for another four years. Just the risk of it may be too much to bear. Trump has to go! Of course any plot would have to have Putin as the Fall Guy so to appear to have been suspicious would be a useful defence in the aftermath.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/pompeo-substantial-chance-senior-russian-officials-behind-alexei-navalny-poisoning

    1. I wonder how long before anti-Covid activists will have to check their door knobs and underpants for Novichok contamination? Unless Porton Down has come up with something more reliable.

    2. I wonder how long before anti-Covid activists will have to check their door knobs and underpants for Novichok contamination? Unless Porton Down has come up with something more reliable.

  38. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Have been a bit busy the past few days, hence my absence (hurrah! they all cry) so apologies if AP’s article has already been posted. I wonder what our lady Nottlrs think of this programme? As a mere male I see it as anti-male, rabid feminist and PC Central as it strives to out-woke even the most fervent woke-ists…

    Congratulation to the new presenter of Woman’s Hour, Emma Barnett, who takes the control of the Mothership following the departure of Dame Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey. The gifted 35-year-old broadcaster, soon to be partnered with a suitably diverse co-presenter identifying as They no doubt, has her work cut out. The programme, which I first listened to when the BBC was still broadcasting something called Housewives’ Choice (yes, really), doesn’t make a lot of sense in 2020. If you support equal opportunity then every hour should be women’s hour.

    The last time I was on the show it was to discuss some new procedure that could enable women to delay menopause for over a decade. Take a bit of your ovary, bung it in the freezer, have it re-implanted in your fifties or sixties and then, Boom! Pop out a baby at your own convenience.

    One of my fellow guests was arguing that it was unfair for women to only be able to conceive in the years when biology dictated they could get pregnant. Well, that’s Mother Nature for you; the ageist old bat!

    “Women could always make babies by, you know, having sex with a man,” I suggested controversially.

    “That has been known to work quite well,” admitted Jane Garvey, or words to that effect.

    It was a rare moment of humour. One of the oddest things about Radio 4’s 74-year-old programme is how rarely it’s funny. The best thing about any actual woman’s hour – one spent with girlfriends over a cuppa or a glass of wine – is the hoots of laughter and the spluttering of Sauvignon Blanc through your nostrils as you share the daily absurdities of the female condition. Instead of viewing men as the jackbooted oppressor, as Woman’s Hour so often does, we find endless comic material in their curious habits and endearing mysteries.

    How long, for instance, before a man would realise that the pile of stuff left at the bottom of the stairs needed taking to the top of the stairs?

    I’m sorry, there is no recorded instance in human history of this happening. Man is far too busy in his cave arranging his books/LPs/trains/mammoth tusks in chronological order (within alphabetical). At least mine is.

    Women love to laugh at that stuff. It’s the laughter of the slaves while the Master is away, if you like, but it’s marvellously therapeutic. Female friendship is one of life’s best medicines. Woman’s Hour is more like cod liver oil; good for you but not delicious.

    I rarely listen to the programme any more, unless I happen to be driving and, even then, I sometimes crossly jab it off. It’s a bit too pious for me and there is a weary inevitability to the fact that an item on singing or Arctic exploration will shoehorn in a diversity or BAME angle. A recent hyper-Woke discussion about something called “allyship” featured a blizzard of politically-correct terms like “systemic oppression” “intersecting identities” and “decolonising your mind”. Anyone tuning in to find out what to do with foraged blackberries would have been bemused.

    Dame Jenni’s soothing Bournville tones could smooth over the spikiest intra-feminist fallings-out and, at the age of 70, she belongs to a generation which tends to be pretty unanimous in the view that women don’t have willies. While Dame Jenni reigned, older listeners still felt they had an ally who talked their language.

    Emma Barnett will appeal to a younger generation of women. The trouble is most won’t be at home listening to the radio. They will be out pursuing the jobs that they can take for granted because seven decades of fervent campaigning by an iconic female radio programme, among others, has given them all the opportunities their grandmothers never had. Woman’s Hour has made itself redundant.

    1. A dissent-free zone, in my (limited) experience. It’s almost as if women are more obedient than men. (Runs for cover.)

    2. Good morning Hugh

      I stopped listening to Jenny Murray years ago. The programme became so devoid of good cheer.
      If the BBC are trying to appeal to younger women , will they actually tune into BBC4.

      Are they trying to mop up the lost audience who followed the Jeremy Kyle show.

      I am certain that unless one is a Radio 4 fan , younger listeners will still tune into other stations.

    3. “How long, for instance, before a man would realise that the pile of stuff left at the bottom of the stairs needed taking to the top of the stairs?”

      In Bonsall Towers it’s the DT who fails to realise that dried washing etc. need to be placed on the stairs if people are going to pick them up as they are passing. Leaving them in the kitchen means they get by-passed.

    4. “Dame Jenni’s soothing Bournville tones, at the age of 70”

      I think you’ll find that 70 is her weight and ‘Bourneville tones’ is a euphemism for talking sh!t. Murray is probably nearer 90 – almost double her IQ.

      As for Barnett, her father, Ian Barnett, was jailed for three years and eight months in 2008 after admitting running a string of brothels. The police presented evidence that Emma Barnett was aware of the criminal activity (and probably co-operated). Her mother was convicted of money laundering in relation to earnings from the brothels and given a suspended term.

      Just a typical BBC family girl and eminently suitable for heading a programme for and about women.

    5. Good morning Hugh

      I stopped listening to Jenny Murray years ago. The programme became so devoid of good cheer.
      If the BBC are trying to appeal to younger women , will they actually tune into BBC4.

      Are they trying to mop up the lost audience who followed the Jeremy Kyle show.

      I am certain that unless one is a Radio 4 fan , younger listeners will still tune into other stations.

    6. “How long, for instance, before a man would realise that the pile of stuff left at the bottom of the stairs needed taking to the top of the stairs?”

      In Bonsall Towers it’s the DT who fails to realise that dried washing etc. need to be placed on the stairs if people are going to pick them up as they are passing. Leaving them in the kitchen means they get by-passed.

      1. Things on the stairs here are called “go by”s. SWMBO’s directive is take them up the stairs as you go by.

      2. Things on the stairs here are called “go by”s. SWMBO’s directive is take them up the stairs as you go by.

  40. Good morning, all.

    More bloody doom and gloom, I see. And I thought I was voting for a conservative government, not a Nazi lookalike party.

      1. 323562+ up ticks,
        TB,
        Surely there were clear signs via this in name only tory party, and their recent pedigree from
        major ongoing ?
        Unless one judges the party first to be of more importance than the Country.

    1. They were awe-inspiring buildings, I went out on the roof several times and ate in “Windows on the World” a few times.

  43. The EU must climb off its Irish high horse

    It is imperative that the EU attempts to understand the problem Britain confronts and starts talking about ways to overcome it

    CHARLES MOORE

    In 2018, the European Union demanded an Irish “backstop”, and cornered Theresa May on the subject. Now the British Government wants its counter-equivalent and will legislate for it at once. You would not know this from the way the story is being reported.

    The danger the Government wants to protect against is as follows. We reach December 31 without full agreement on the implementation of the Irish Protocol. At this point, the EU tries to invoke its sacred doctrine of “direct effect”, by which its law is automatically imposed on us. This means that tariffs could be slapped on goods passing between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.

    This would cut the one off from the other. It would contradict the basic fact – reiterated in Article 4 of the protocol – that “Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the UK”. It would also cause outrage to majority Unionist opinion in the province. When Michel Barnier kept demanding no hard border between North and South, he did so in the name of the peace process. I very much doubt he is right that peace is at stake, but if it is, it must apply West-East as well as South-North. So far, it is Unionists who have had to make all the sacrifices.

    Our Government therefore says that its decisions about implementing the Protocol must be made through “ministerial empowerment”, rather than direct effect. There cannot, in any circumstances, be tariffs within the United Kingdom. This is a backstop, in case negotiations break down; it is not an attempt to collapse them.

    Now the EU needs to choose. It could get on its high horse – a steed it has often mounted in the past – and gallop off over what it says are breaches of the protocol. Or it could express an understanding of the problem which Britain confronts and talk about ways to overcome it. This sort of stuff is not something at which M Barnier excels, but there are more skilful and important leaders in the EU than he.

    How strong is the British stance? I am not sure. On the one hand, we conceded too much over Ireland in order to hasten agreement last year. Hence some of the current difficulty. On the other, the EU is much clearer than it was then that the Government means business and has an electoral mandate. Britain is not bluffing about no deal. It has even invented a euphemism for it – an “Australian deal”. A free trade agreement would be “a Canadian deal”. It would prefer the latter but would be happy with the former. This is quite a strong position, which Brussels would be wise to respect.

    Trading insults

    The Government has survived the wrath of Sir Ian McKellen, Russell T Davies and others. They wrote an open letter saying how disgraceful it would be if Boris Johnson were to make Tony Abbott an envoy for the UK Board of Trade. The Prime Minister went ahead regardless.

    Mr Abbott’s alleged crimes bore literally no relation to questions of trade. They included misogyny (a matter of debate, not fact), opposition to abortion (true), scepticism about climate change catastrophe (true) and his voting, in common with 40 per cent of his fellow Australians, against single sex marriage (true). Mr Abbott is fully entitled to his opinions on these matters. The open letter of Sir Ian and friends was as irrelevant and impertinent as if Mr Abbott and pals were to get up a righteous round-robin complaining that Sir Ian had accepted an offer of the part of Othello.

    I find it fascinating that no one raised the only seemingly obvious objection to Mr Abbott in the British trade role – that he is not British. That dog did nothing in the night-time. This speaks volumes for the tacit but growing acceptance of one of the strong propositions behind Brexit – that this country’s closest cultural/political ties are with our former dominions, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, not with the EU. Hence the “Australian deal” mentioned above.

    Imagine the outrage and incredulity if a former prime minister of France, Germany, or Luxembourg (such as Jean-Claude Juncker) were invited to fly our trade flag across the world. Yet for all those who care more for British trade than for pleasing Sir Ian McKellen, ex-PM Abbott of Oz is an excellent catch.

    There’s nothing outdated about historic homes

    The National Trust is launching an appeal to “raise awareness” – but actually, as the press release admits, money. For example, “£5 will buy and plant a tree”.

    The trust has suffered large losses due to Covid-19. In full-page advertisements in last Saturday’s newspapers, the NT described its many activities – looking after coasts, peaks, parks, gardens, works of art and historic buildings. One important word, however, was missing from the advertisements – “houses”.

    The “homes” of particular people – Isaac Newton, Paul McCartney and Beatrix Potter – were mentioned (although not, of course, those of wicked imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling, Francis Drake and Winston Churchill); but the fact that the trust owns roughly 200 country houses was passed over in silence.

    This was surely significant. In the unnecessary culture war waged by some of the trust’s leadership and marketing people against its members, curators and volunteers, country houses are the most important victims. They were notoriously dismissed in a recent NT piece of blue-sky thinking as “the outdated mansion experience”. Now they are being edged out of the publicity altogether.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/08/eu-must-climb-irish-high-horse/

    1. Expecting the EU to understand Britain’s mindset (apart from the politicos’, of course), let alone our problems, is a step too far. All they are interested in is taking our money, controlling our lives and if they can manage it, as a bonus, wrecking the UK altogether.

  44. ‘Morning again.

    Here is today’s DT leader. I reckon this government won’t be content until our economy has been completely destroyed. Daily C-19 tests for everyone seems to me to be beyond insane:

    Whenever the Prime Minister appears on television at his most sombre, we know that bad news is coming; and so it proved. Boris Johnson staged a rare press conference yesterday to inform the nation that after a summer during which they were encouraged to let in the sunshine of normality, the shutters are coming down once more. The trigger for the imposition of new restrictions is a rise in the number of coronavirus cases in England to more than 2,000 a day, double what they were last week. This is a tiny number in a population of around 60 million but scientists fear an explosion in cases in the coming weeks. Confronted with the concerns of their advisers, ministers evidently feel they have no option.

    What had previously been guidance on the numbers allowed to socialise together is now to be a legally enforceable limit of six, an extraordinary restriction on our liberties that will last for months, wrecking Christmas for millions. Mr Johnson said it “breaks my heart” to do this, but it is still hard to believe that such measures are being introduced in peacetime by a Tory government, with marshals recruited to keep people apart, families unable to meet without risking arrest, curfews imposed on town-centre venues and a legal requirement to leave contact details at every hostelry visited.

    Even if what the Prime Minister called the “Rule of Six” may be clear, is it necessary? The reasons originally given for controls were to protect the NHS and reduce fatalities. But hospitals are eerily empty and there are fewer excess deaths from Covid at the moment than from other ailments – the so-called “collateral damage” from prioritising treatment of the virus almost to the exclusion of everything else.

    The apparent cause of the spike is young adults meeting in large numbers without observing mitigation requirements. Yet these are not “cases” as in hospital admissions or even GP consultations, but positive tests which in most instances will merely mean a mild illness or no symptoms at all. Older people are not being infected, as the graphs shown by Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, made clear. But the Government’s worry is that it will soon spread to them, hence the scrapping of the “two household rule”, which has allowed up to 30 people from two different homes to meet up.

    The latest crackdown is justified in the name of preventing a “second wave” but this is misleading. This is the same wave popping back up again because, as more people meet up, go to work, and attend university, there will inevitably be more infections. But does that matter? A paper published this week by Prof Paul Kirkham, head of respiratory disease research at Wolverhampton University, states that the “coronavirus pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete” and there is no expectation of a large scale “second wave”. It questions the modelling that continues to guide official policy and says the evidence indicates that “the spread of the virus has been all but halted by a substantial reduction in the susceptible population.”

    Yet the Government, wedded to a doctrine of believing the “reasonable worst case scenario”, bases its policy on the gloomiest predictions. Moreover, if ministers are gambling on a vaccine being available in the next few months, there was a setback when trials at Oxford were halted after a volunteer was taken ill with possible side effects.

    We must find a way to live with this new disease, as we have with others down the years, without shutting down social interaction. The country cannot lurch in and out of lockdown measures for the foreseeable future without ceasing to function as a viable social, cultural and economic entity.

    Mr Johnson said the aim of the new measures was to engineer normality, but a strategy of panic and fear is not sustainable. As a means of bolstering confidence, he held out the prospect of requiring the entire nation to carry out a daily 20-minute Covid test to prove negativity, though he did not expect this to be possible before next spring. He tried to sound optimistic, but few people watching will have been heartened.

    2. Who decides the figures and on what basis? Why 6 and not 5 or 7? Furthermore if these lockdown measures are that urgent why do they only start on Monday

  45. Winchester school bus crash leaves children seriously injured. 10 September 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f142abaf82d494beae35c8e1015bc09fdbdda15a8b7917d24ce6c0ebe6c3f28.jpg

    Three children have been taken to hospital with serious injuries while 13 others suffered minor injuries after the school bus they were travelling in crashed into a railway bridge.

    The collision caused “significant damage” to the top of the double-decker bus in the crash in Wellhouse Lane, Winchester, Hampshire, at 8.10am on Thursday.

    Such is now my nature that I wonder at the ethnicity of the driver!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/10/winchester-school-bus-crash-children-seriously-injured

    3. Makes you wonder if that was the normal route, or perhaps it was the first time in a double decker……..

      1. Probably confused by all the road closures, new one way systems and cycle routes now taking up half the highway.

    5. I’ve lost count of the number of times a similar situation has happened. Are these idiotic drivers completely unaware of the height of their vehicles?

      It makes you wonder how many times they do it deliberately out of spite to their employers.

  46. 323562+up ticks,
    May one ask will it restrict the incoming troops at the Dover bridgehead to 5 per landing craft ?
    If so will the governance politico’s open up another front ….. or two.

    1. Five years since Alf Dub’s “Save The Calais Children” scam and still no sign of resistance down there in True Blue/Purple heartlands. Maybe you need to put down your keyboard and get down there Ogga.
      “We’ll fight them on the beaches!” and all that.
      Post your video clips on Youtube so we can all follow you 🙂

      1. 323562+upticks,
        js,
        You’ll be to busy that’s for sure, polishing the brass on the new uniform, scrambled egg on the hat & three pips on the shoulder, suits you, dressed to grass.
        Ultimate threat to the kids, get to sleep you little sods or jack
        i’ll getcha.

  47. Can anyone list those countries that have implemented oppressive laws against free assemblies of people without Government permission?
    I’ll start the list:
    United Kingdom,

    Note. Free assembly is guaranteed in the US by the First amendment to the Constitution. Free assembly is guaranteed in Russia by article 31 of the 1993 Constitution.

  49. Navalny Recovering From ‘Deadlier, Slower-Acting’ Novichok Variant – Reports. 10 September 2020.

    Leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a new, deadlier variant of military-grade nerve agent Novichok, the German weekly Die Zeit reported Wednesday.

    Oh I see. He was poisoned with the deadlier non-fatal version. This story as with Salisbury becomes sillier by the day!

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/09/10/navalny-recovering-from-deadlier-slower-acting-novichok-variant-reports-a71400

    1. In the military nerve agent laboratories of darkest Russia the scientists call it “medlennaya i polzuchaya smert’ ili, vozmozhno, nebol’shoye nedomoganiye” (the slow and creeping death, or possibly just a bit of unwellness), or “Novichok” for short. This just happens to be the brand of ice cream in the laboratory canteen.
      The scientists are working on an even more virulent version, one that will produce pimples on the nose of any unfortunate victim.

  50. UK mathematician wins richest prize in academia. 10 September 2020.

    A mathematician who tamed a nightmarish family of equations that behave so badly they make no sense has won the most lucrative prize in academia.

    Martin Hairer, an Austrian-British researcher at Imperial College London, is the winner of the 2021 Breakthrough prize for mathematics, an annual $3m (£2.3m) award that has come to rival the Nobels in terms of kudos and prestige.

    Hairer landed the prize for his work on stochastic analysis, a field that describes how random effects turn the maths of things like stirring a cup of tea, the growth of a forest fire, or the spread of a water droplet that has fallen on a tissue into a fiendishly complex problem.

    A couple more years and he could become a NoTTLer!

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/uk-mathematician-martin-hairer-wins-richest-prize-in-academia-breakthrough

      1. I’m just thinking it’s a shame he didn’t put something lethal in Prof. Pantsdown’s tea, give it a good stir and then hand it over . “Milk and sugar, Casanova?”

    3. Well done that man!

      I’ve often sat, idly stirring my tea and puzzling over the stochastic analysis of the random effects of my actions – as you do – though sadly, I came to to no definitive mathematical conclusions.

      1. I remember seeing her on stage in one of the comedies at Stratford. I have always admired her.

      3. Yes, very true. She had style.

        Her last role i remember her in was in Game of Thrones as Lady Olenna Tyrell. She was mesmorising. She poisoned a nasty leading character and when the assassin came for her to wreak revenge she thought it a price well worth paying.

        A great Actress.

    4. Diana was a much better choice for a professional name than Enid. What were her parents thinking of?

        1. Ooh, steady on! They’d hate to be called a ‘pop’ band. They had pretensions to greater things but weren’t always taken seriously because of their leader, Robert John Godfrey, one of the dying band of English eccentrics who was a bit, er, emotional.

          During the late 70s and early 80s their shows featured noisy and chaotic versions of the Dambusters March and Land of Hope & Glory but they dropped them because they were ‘attracting the wrong sort of fans’. Like me…

      1. It’s the timid, 9-stone snowflakes handed a lot of power which worry me for the first time since this Covid scam began.

    2. Nowt wrong with Quislings if there’s money to be made. Though I may be changing my mind soon. 🙁

  54. Just spent quarter of an hour search the garage and my workshop for a galvanised clothes line hook., I KNOW that the damned thing is there – but it refuses to be found. Grrr.

    5. Bill, first ask yourself, ‘Why do I need a galvanised clothes line hook?’

      Then proceed accordingly.

    6. Items are always found in the last place you look – why would you continue looking after finding it?

  55. I often attempt to put something in the microwave instead of the fridge (they are next to each other) and here’s a useful tip; if you put a half finished cup of tea in the fridge, be prepared to wait a long time for it to warm up.

    1. I remember when The One Show first started, one of their production assistants put a cup of coffee in a microwave at Television Centre one evening and it resulted in Hammersmith Fire Brigade turning up en masse.

      1. A question for you Sue. Why is it BBC Scotland produces the only decent non-PC comedy these days.
        I’m thinking “Still Game”, “Two Doors Down” etc?

        1. I wish I knew. I’m told Landward is a rather good documentary series too – made in Scotland and only broadcast there.

          1. I was a bit disappointed with “Bob Servant Independent”
            If Scottish comedy goes then there’s nowt left.

      2. Many years ago, towards the end of my misspent yoof, I was involved in the running of a mobile disco. One Saturday night during a wedding ‘do’ in Carlisle, the door burst open, and several firemen in full kit burst through the door, axes at the ready, in what was clearly a false alarm.

        What should be playing at the time?

        Disco Inferno…

  56. Mail to a Conservative MP………..

    I haven’t finished researching John Major and all the other relevant UK politicos yet but his statement ”Britain’s Word is Sacrosanct” below looks to me like pure hypocrisy in view of his affair with Edwina Currie…….

    ”Britain’s word is sacrosanct’: Sir John Major says Boris Johnson’s plans to override the Brexit divorce deal risks losing ‘something beyond price that may never be regained”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8712999/Ministers-DEFEND-breaching-international-law-Brexit-divorce-deal.html

    Hypocrisy not just because of his affair with Edwina Currie but because he sued the ”New Statesman” which, unknown at the time, apparently only made the mistake of revealing the wrong woman and the wrong dates……..

    ”Sue, grab it and run the country: The Major libel case was a farce with a darker side, says Steve Platt, editor of the New Statesman”

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sue-grab-it-and-run-the-country-the-major-libel-case-was-a-farce-with-a-darker-side-says-steve-platt-1483606.html

    ”He said: “John Major’s claim against my clients, their printers and distributors was on the basis that it was a serious attack on his reputation to accuse him of adultery.

    “It’s apparent from what has become public in the last day that this was a false premise.”

    and…..

    ”Now I can actually hold my head up high and say it was nothing to do with me” Clare Latimer

    ”Ms Latimer, the 10 Downing Street caterer falsely named as his lover, has also joined the fray. She claims Mr Major used her as a “decoy” to prevent what would have been the more politically damaging exposure of the affair he had with Mrs Currie from 1984 to 1988.

    Ms Latimer told the BBC that she believed he had allowed the rumours about his affair with her to circulate unchecked to cover his real affair with Mrs Currie, which could have destroyed his chances of becoming prime minister.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2286916.stm

    So I think John Major emerges from the foregoing story, the legal action and it’s aftermath looking decidedly ragged and one would think he would have quietly disappeared from public view forever to save himself further embarrassment………

    Not so, John Major has apparently courted the limelight for many years since in connection with the EU.

    I wonder why?

    More soon!

    Polly

    1. Some one told me he lives near Kelling in North Norfolk.
      I had just then spent the day with our three sons fishing on the beach at Weybourne.

      1. I saw on a rich list somewhere that John Major is worth about $65,000,000.

        If that’s true, I wonder where it all came from?

        1. For obedience.
          Signing documents with out reading through the small print.
          Soft loans from the ECB ?
          Mafia Laundered, UK tax payers hard earned.

      1. 323562+ up ticks
        Morning JN,
        The major chap wiping M Thatchers blood from the knife was followed in the treachery line by the wretch cameron ( pig husbandry spec,) & leg over clegg, all put in the shade in the treachery stakes by may-day, who is now being nudged aside by johnson ANA amnesties R me & the turkish delight.

    4. John Major is a hypocrite and a liar.

      Why doesn’t Boris Johnson make a very public and loud statement in the House of Commons pointing out Mr Major’s dishonesty and hypocrisy.

      Major is a twerp and a twat so he probably does not have any understanding of Shakespeare’s great tragedies. But it was Iago who said hypocritically and false piety:

      “…. he that filches from me my good name
      Robs me of that which not enriches him
      And makes me poor indeed.      ”

      having just told Claudio that reputation is worthless and oft got without merit and lost without deserving

      John Major may have forgotten the lies, deceit and betrayal when he had an adulterous relationship with a colleague but many people have not forgotten it.

  57. At last: after a couple of buckets of coffee and a healthy breakfast, I have tweaked my email and letter to my MP. I have also sent it to the MP for a neighbouring constituency who is rather broader in his thinking than most of the Cabinet (not hard!)

    “Dear Will,

    For the past six months, I have kept my counsel; mainly because I did not wish to add to the volume of mail that you no doubt receive on a daily basis, but also because I was aware, last March, that events could overwhelm an unprepared NHS. However, I can no longer keep quiet when I see my country and my fellow countrymen being subjected to such arbitrary rule for a disease that actively affects an infinitely small percentage of the population.

    The freedoms for which this country has striven and for which it as been respected over the centuries are now being threatened by muddle and uncertainty that would do credit to the old soviet bloc.

    Not only have these past months been unbelievable when judged by the standards of any British political party, they have quite incredibly been inflicted on this country by a Conservative administration.

    To say that I am disappointed with this government and its leader is a masterly understatement. In the course of my life, I have witnessed dire administrations – some of them sadly were also Conservative – but this current one, for sheer ineptitude and unreasoning pig headedness, tops the lot. Nobody is capable of seeing the broad picture; nobody is showing any leadership or any form of commonsense; all the Cabinet appear to be mindlessly reciting the mantra “we are following the science” to avoid taking any blame for the injury their actions are inflicting on this country. Any notions of individual liberty or personal responsibility are brushed aside in a manner that would not seem out of place in the late, unlamented GDR.

    I would like to think that individual Members of Parliament, on all sides of the House are aware of the economic, psychological and social damage being done to Great Britain; much of which will not be put right in our lifetimes.

    As you well know, on 27th. September, MPs will be voting on extending the Coronavirus Act 2020 for another two years. That means another two years of the fear and uncertainty to which this country has been exposed for the past six months. I sincerely hope there are enough liberty loving members to stop an extension of this damaging legislation.

    Yours sincerely,

    Anne Allan”

    2. How long do you expect to wait for your patronising pat on the head and your expected “There, there, dear.”?

        1. Not in the least, why do you say that?

          I’m just warning her not to expect a positive reply from an MP. I’ve never had one … ever!

    3. It will be very interesting to see whether this is a whipped vote. If they do whip to extend we truly are lost.

      1. “we truly are lost.” – I now think that was the idea all along. £2Tr in debt – spending out of control, thousands losing their jobs ( and inevitably their homes and some their small businesses ) – -and open doors for unemployable freeloaders – to be followed by their families for a life on us. Now the govt seem to be heading us toward another nationwide lockdown.

        1. I fear that we’ll be seeing US Democrat style “peaceful” demonstrations in our cities and rural crime will skyrocket.

          2. Given that we here in rustic parts never see a police “presence”, you mean rural crime will continue to increase exponentially.

      2. I have circulated it; all my Conservative contacts including the MP in the next constituency.
        On the advice of my son, I’ve sent a slightly amended version to the DT letters. Watch this space.

        1. This one really should be a free vote across all parties, but I fear you’ll be correct.
          Too many ministers with skin in the game.

  62. 323562+ up ticks,
    Now there’s a threat we could have done with hearing uttered four plus years ago.

    Live Brexit latest news: EU tells UK to back down on controversial legislation or face trade talks collapsing

      1. My neighbours overweight cat gave birth to 6 kittens – all different colours. Apparently it got stuck in the cat flap coming in.

    2. “Mommy, there was a strange looking cat trying to get through our catflap.

      But don’t worry, I’ve just bitten it.”

  64. Well – fixed the clothes line – by using an electric fence gate insulator – which I happened to have in the workshop drawer where the missing pulley ought to have been.

    I wasn’t a Boy Scout for nothing…{:¬))

    1. That would be enough to give pause for thought when they see that the clothes line is insulated. To complete the illusion, just run a spare piece of electric wire behind a convenient hedge or shrub from the other end of the line .

    2. I hope that the galvanised hook you were looking for hasn’t been fitted somewhere where an insulator should go.

  65. Arbeit Macht Virus-Free??
    Yet again the sheer genius of the ‘Rona is revealed as the workplace is exempt from the new “Rule of Six” so you and your nine colleagues can work together all morning safe in the knowlege that neither the ‘Rona or the Masktapo will trouble you in the slightest……..
    However if you all dared to have a pub lunch together after your labours………………not only will the ‘Rona swoop in and kill you that’s £100 fine per head
    Fuckwits,fuckwits everywhere
    Now,about Christmas and the ban on more than six family members gathering,my sister who is hosting this year is a stickler for obeying the law so she has formed a company “Crimbo ltd” and sent contracts of employment to eleven “new employees” (Hope she doesn’t fall foul of Child Labour laws)being a cruel boss she has informed them all there is a mandatory meeting commencing 11am on the 25th of Dec which may run very late…….
    Stay Safe
    Stay Legal

      1. Will they be regarded as civil servants , Bill or will their salary be added to our Council tax, I don’t understand .. this is getting very dangerous .

        Will they have tasers and truncheons and radios , I expect they will be heavyweight thugs . Not nice .. I wonder whether they will use migrants to control the different races in communities , Indians , Blacks , Pakistani’s and Eastern Europeans?

      1. Oh I don’t know, the power to exhibit spontaneous human combustion on themselves might be quite entertaining

        1. Such large amounts of waste fat alight in public spaces would constitute a danger to innocent civilians – but I an prepared to accept that risk.

  67. ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson tells people to ‘hesitate’ against ‘headlong rush to get everybody back into offices’ in warning tougher restrictions could come if deaths start to surge again. 10 September 2020.

    ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson has urged workers not to rush back to offices because it could propel the current rise in infections and force tougher restrictions.

    And of course we should all listen because Professor Ferguson is as we already know never wrong!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8718065/Professor-Lockdown-Neil-Ferguson-tells-people-hesitate-against-rushing-work.html

  69. 323562+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    Will these establishment covid wardens be known as kapos doing the bidding of the politico’s ?

  70. As feared, news reporting of the Birmingham stabbings has gone the way of the way of the murders of Cannon Hinnant, the Reading three and countless other innocent people, and has all but disappeared. However, we are constantly reminded of the death of an American drug-addled career-criminal three and a half months ago.

    Anyone would think there is some sort of agenda here.

      2. 323562+ up ticks,
        G,
        Uncalled for but excusable you’re an ex plod, old ways a ?
        Old beat around rotherham was it ?

          1. 323562+ up ticks,
            G,
            You really do belittle yourself, you are truly one of a kind & that kind is revealing itself to be rather nasty.
            Personally I don’t give a damn about what you think of me, but to castigate Tommy Robinson prompted my reply as to was your beat inclusive of Rotherham ?

  72. That’s me for the day. No drink (for me) tonight – I am having a spirometry test tomorrow at 4 pm – no alcohol for 24 hours. Still, I’ll enjoy watching the MR knocking it back!

    A demain.

      1. …and a Stylophone?https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrExo84YVpfJwYATeyJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIzMGwwMzVkBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZAM5N2I2NjBmMzcwMmNiYjlkOWFiODgzM2FlOGE1YThkZQRncG9zAzc3BGl0A2Jpbmc-?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3DStylophone%26fr%3Daaplw%26nost%3D1%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D77&w=576&h=768&imgurl=3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Q25_af_ynJk%2FTorncw0ruwI%2FAAAAAAAAAFU%2FhhDkdWE9qRA%2Fs1600%2FStylophoneandpackaging.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmrweirdandwacky.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F10%2Frolf-harris-and-stylophone.html&size=106.3KB&p=Stylophone&oid=97b660f3702cbb9d9ab8833ae8a5a8de&fr2=&fr=aaplw&tt=Mr+Weird+and+Wacky%3A+Rolf+Harris+and+The+Stylophone&b=61&ni=220&no=77&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=8uPloRXNNYk0&sigb=0MsBm_hLSGKn&sigi=S8lXorI7J_Ul&sigt=C4fHSNtL2PKw&.crumb=5WkKJpfeBG8&fr=aaplw

      2. I have an original in its box, given to me by the designer Denys Fisher. He was a friend of my great uncle Wilf!

        1. You might be pleasantly surprised by its potential worth.
          EDIT Particularly if you have the provenance.

    2. That’s very interesting Bill. Alf is supposed to have that test but has been told the surgery are not doing them at the moment and has been fobbed off with a DIY flow meter instead. May I ask where you’re having it done?

      1. Good old Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. The asthma nurse arranged it prior to my discharge. It will be four weeks since I was admitted.

        1. It’s good that they’re on the ball. Good luck for tomorrow. Perhaps you’ll let us know the result. The flow meter Alf has is mostly for asthma he thinks. He will be telephoned so he can read out the results for the past 10 days or so. (They obvs CBA to actually see him!).
          P.S. Bummer about the alcohol!

          3. I will have a phone call from the NNUH asthma nurse on Wednesday wen I will report my flow meter results for the last three weeks. The nurse said that if I could reach 470 I’d be doing well. The average for the(nearly) three weeks is 530….!!

            I’ll certainly report the result when I receive it. It is being sent to Dr Stupid – so it will be early next year before he gets round to telling me…(sarc). In theory, the result will be on my online record – and I can look for myself.

          4. Alf’s readings are very similar to yours so far. Wonder what the next step is if it’s not asthma causing the sob.

    3. I have just one glass of single malt, every Saturday night, whether I need it or not. That’s all the alcohol I consume!

          2. I understand you can buy frozen pastry, then you only have to roll it out, cut it into rounds, fill it with mincemeat from a jar and cook for the required time. Even I could do it, if I liked home baked mince pies (my mother’s were notorious, so I steer clear!).

          4. It’s only four operations when it comes down to it – apart from the final eating and the original shopping.

        2. They are. All you need is some shortcrust pastry (ready-rolled will do); a jar of Duerr’s (or Robertson’s) mincemeat, and an oven.

          Sorted in half an hour.

          2. Good advice.

            I’m still eating the previous year’s toasted.
            And, when coated in lots of melting butter, very good they are too.

      1. Mice haven’t got a grater. It doesn’t stop them nibbling mince pies and hunks of cheddar and appreciating the contrasting sweet/savoury delight.

  74. Which local authority areas have seen the most, and fewest, recorded rates of Covid-19 infection since March?
    MOST | Cases per 100,000
    Leicester | 1,623
    Oldham | 1,251
    Blackburn with Darwen | 1,242
    Bradford | 1,178
    Wrexham | 1,037
    Rochdale | 1,031
    FEWEST
    Na h-Eileanan Siar | 26
    Highland | 102
    Moray | 110
    North East Lincolnshire | 152
    Fermanagh and Omagh | 162
    Devon | 169

    Discuss…….

    2. Cases are irrelevant of course and only reflect the level of testing. How many hospitalised and how many deaths?

      2. Sorry to disagree, but cases are cases, regardless of whether or not they were preceded by or discovered by a test. But I do agree that deaths and hospitalisation numbers are more relevant.

        1. But shirley, it must be possible to be a ‘carrier’; i.e. host the virus yet not be affected by it.

    2. There once was a girl from Devizes
      whose tits were of two different sizes.
      The left one was small
      And of no use at all.
      The right one was huge and won prizes.

      OK, not the case here, but you get the drift…

  76. If Boris Johnson insists on going down the totalitarian route, he should be reminded of what happened to Nicolae Ceaușescu and Slobodan Milošević.

    1. Just what is he playing at. He is being led by the nose by the health freaks. As PM he should not just di as he is told by these people but look at the far wider picture. I wonder if he has taken drugs in the past and they have scrambled his mind.

    2. At least they were only nation state totalitarians.
      Boris is only the puppet, this is worldwide globalist totalitarianism.
      I don’t beleive he is not under orders to do what he is doing

    1. Covid might or might not kill you,

      Inshallah…

      Although I have it on good authority that that might mean FOAD in Gaelic.

  78. Evening, all. Bojo just seems to want to see how far he can push us. If I’d booked an hotel (as some people clearly had from the pictures on TV this afternoon) to go to Doncaster for the Leger Festival and then I was told that I couldn’t attend after the first day, I think I’d be apoplectic.

      1. The opportunity to wear a white gown, skull cap and red shoes might appeal 🙂 On the other hand, that if I were speaking ex-cathedra my words would be considered infallible would be more of an attraction.

    1. “How can this country stand by as Churchill’s statue is defaced again…”

      Keyboard patriots managed to avoid supporting the Veterans defending Churchill’s statue last time round TB.

          1. Does this mean anything?

            Who are the ‘Further/Far Right’ and what is it that they agree with me on? That you are a sly little stirrer?

          2. Further Right = Maggie fans.
            Far-Right = AMW and her rebranded BNP.
            Anything else I need to explain to you.

          3. Simple categorisations that indicate a simple mind. Life’s more complicated than that.

            Carry on as you are though. You won’t last long and we’ll be spared your noise.

          5. What does this have to do with the defacing of Churchill’s statue and your implicit accusation of cowardice in your ‘keyboard patriots’ jibe?

          6. On the day, where were all the keyboard patriots supporting the Veterans in London?
            Leaving it up to the Football Lads Alliance played right into the Left’s hands.

          7. ‘Playing into the Left’s hands’ is lazy journalese but I can understand why some who might have wished to attend decided to stay away.

            I think the country has enough sense to know that the FLA are not the only defenders.

          8. There may be many reasons why those who support the Veterans could not attend; frailty, distance too far/cost too great, family obligations …

          11. “…some who might have wished to attend decided to stay away.”

            “The Left might call us hurty words” seemed to be enough to deter them WS.

          14. There’s barely a Right wing at all. Any further Right than that is pure fantasy, made up to scare people.

          15. “There’s barely a Right wing at all….”
            Of course there is, we’re just lacking a party to vote for.

    3. This is so distressing, words fail me. I have, in the last few minutes, been listening to Plum’s post Hymn to the Fallen, posted earlier, and accompanied by photographs of the war graves around the world. What sort of people gave been bred and educated in the last 30 years in this country? They seem to be made of the sort of stuff one would scrape from one’s shoes.

      1. With the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain next week, RAFA is asking people to write in with their Salute to the Few, a tribute which will be included in a time capsule to be buried in the National Arboretum at Alrewas. My thought is that their sacrifice was in vain, sadly.

          1. I shall write a thank you for the sacrifice and tack onto the end my hope that the current lot in power don’t waste it.

        2. Nonsense. Not in vain.
          They stopped the Nazis, so that they could later be pushed back into the hole they came from.
          That allowed 70-odd years of reasonably free life to very many.

          1. Not in vain at the time, but post-1945 the Nazis have been steadily consolidating their position by stealth, so ultimately we lost. You cannot claim in all honesty that we have a reasonably free life currently. We are controlled; we’re told whom we can meet, what we must do (wear a mask, keep six feet away, sanitise our hands, etc, etc), where we can go. All that’s lacking is the need to produce a piece of paper in order to exist (and don’t think they aren’t working on that).

      2. Good morning pm

        The law must throw the full force of the book at the people who have defaced Churchill’s statue .

        Those people are destructive anti white and dangerous .

        They have lost the right to be residents of the United Kingdom .

        They are committing blasphemy against the state .

        Send them back to the tribal lands of their grandparents .

  80. Covid cases “surge”, and all the other hyperbolic adjectives are being reintroduced to the lexicon of MSM reporting.

    Hunker down, you’ll all be dead by Monday.

    Please God, where are the people who have access to the MSM who will challenge all this crap?

      1. My view is that the world should let it rip.

        Let it kill the vulnerable (I’m way up that category) and then start again.
        If it’s as deadly as the panty-wipes think it is,so be it, if it isn’t what have we lost?

    2. It’s like the relentless anti-Brexit language; we were never just leaving, we were “crashing out” and “going over a cliff edge”. Bar stewards, the lot of them.

      1. Follow the money.
        Cui bono?
        Gates, Blair, Soros and every other slimeball politician and billionaire out there.

        Dear God, please let BLM/ER/Antifa turn on their masters.

    4. “99 year-old dies of Covid!”
      Daily Mail headline a couple of weeks ago. That’s how low they sink to inflate their figures.

      “19 year-old dying of Covid!” would have been a story.

    5. The only important statistics are hospitalisations and deaths. The number of cases is generally irrelevant.

    2. It’s very simple. A woman is a woman. A man is a man.

      A man suffering from the delusion he is a woman, who takes drugs and mutilates himself to indulge the fantasy is a mental patient but still completely, permanently a man. Nothing will change fundamental biology.

      Now. If Colin wants to call himself Corinne, that’s find. I’ll call him Colin. I will refer to him as a man. He can wear a dress and take drugs – and should be monitored, at his own expense by a clinical professional prescribing those drugs to prevent his body doing what it naturally does. When he fills in a form, he must state he is a man- because he is.

      Mental illness and fantasy does not change reality.

      1. The point is, why so many headlines about women having to adapt to in life men who thi I they are wome Why is there no lobby for the rights for women who think they are men?

        I mean, I’m not defending either, but fair’s fair.

  82. Latest breaking News – After studying cave drawings scientists have discovered that 350,000 years Neanderthals went green to save the planet then all died of covid.
    Well not exactly from covid but from the measures they took to isolate themselves in caves from the disease.
    Which only really existed in their minds.
    Besides that their snouty faces were unsuited to masks

    1. The difference in corruption here, and say an African country like Nigeria, is that it occurs at the top levels (government and business) but not at ground level of the general public.

    2. Well that’s one way of looking at it suppose…….. but Moonboot had to get the slavery bit in at the end, didn’t he!

  84. HAPPY HOUR – the continuing saga of the Norah Batty stockings.

    Had a right ding dong with repeat prescription wallah at the chemists.
    I asked for a pair of stockings previously prescribed apart from the colour which was tan when I had asked for natural. I was promptly told by the little shit I had to have the same as prescribed by my doctor! WTF difference does the colour make to the NHS….?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48dca09718b83cb77dd8fb9f8850cbc8bd6ef723d150c884088047c29f0c8fd8.jpg

        1. Next time put one of them over your head and demand ‘natural’ in a Somali voice whilst waving a large double edged knife. You’ll get as many as you want.

    1. If it is, why didn’t parliament simply squash the Miller creature’s desperate attempt to overturn the referendum?

      2. The Miller argument was whether HMG could approve the notice to withdraw (Article 50) without reference to Parliament. Hannan’s extract isn’t relevant to that.

  86. Wokery is infecting the racing industry now; they spent ages waffling about “Pride in Racing” this afternoon. I went off and made a drink until they’d finished. For goodness’ sake – what does it matter who your bedmate is? Just choose the best person for the job and get on with life. I caught Ed Chamberlain saying “we want to make racing inclusive for all those at home” before I hurried out of earshot, thinking, “there are those of us at home for whom this sort of wokery will be anything but inclusive”. If they are trying to stop me following a sport I’ve been involved in, as an owner, owner-breeder and working for a NH trainer, for decades, they are going the right way about it.

      1. There have been instances of geldings being “best friends” with other geldings who share their field, but as far as coupling on a regular basis goes, not as far as I know (except some colts would mount anything when the mood took them).

        1. That was an early attempt at feminism and equality; it caused outrage because the bloke was fully clothed.

          1. So he is thinking “Wow! I admire the boobs on that visitor – it really shows up her cleavage and is a far greater statement of feminism than the nudes I’m stuck with in this painting!”
            and she is thinking “Wow! I admire the boobs on that visitor – it really shows up her cleavage and is a far greater statement of feminism than i can manage with all my clothes off!”

    1. Whatever happened to Maggie? Apart from the 18 October 1990 Eastbourne by-election result obviously.

    2. “But if any foreign power should attempt to mess around with our Government then then you know what I will do with my index finger!”

      1. 323562+ up ticks,
        Evening AOE,
        To protect our governance political fraternity in armed conflict I would first cut of my trigger finger.

      2. When I look at the threatening pronouncements of Ursula the German I contrast with the facts that the Germans murdered millions of Russians, Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian Jews, shooting them and burying in pits, gassing them in gas chambers and starving them to death.

        They did all this along with seizing property, art works, coal mines and oil rich areas of their conquered countries. They inflicted immense damage on London and many of our historic cities, destroying infrastructure and many fabulous historic buildings.

        Why on earth given our very generous contributions to rehabilitating Germany after Hitler should we kowtow to this silly bitch?

        Germany was rescued from famine by our Berlin airdrops, rebuilt at our expense with new factories and infrastructure whereas we just struggled on trying to cope with the destruction meted out to us at the hands of Germans.

        I have friends in Germany but doubt that they are informed about the Nazis and the despicable history for which there can be no atonement. The subject is not taught in their schools. If atonement is thought to be enacted by welcoming a million and more blacks from Asia and the African sub-continent they have made a massive mistake.

        Most of the influx welcomed by Germany will gravitate to the UK where we are already bloated with arrivals from failed states.

        Germany can deal with their people imports. We in the UK want none of them. There are too many black layabouts here already. We can no longer afford to subsidise these aliens. Let Germany pay for their folly for the first time. It is time the Germans woke to the new reality.

  90. Boris Johnson Has Led a Fascist Coup Against the United Kingdom. 10 September 2020.

    Who exactly is that dishevelled oaf on the rostrum issuing all these fascistic ordinances?

    Definitely no relation — apart from the dishevelled oaf part — to the shambolic but benign, witty, amiable freedom-loving figure we re-elected as prime minister in December last year.

    Yes very odd. And then there’s Priti Patel spouting Fire and Brimstone against the Home Office and the next day she’s a doormat. It almost makes you think that Icke or Geoff Graham might be onto something!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/09/10/boris-johnson-has-led-a-fascist-coup-against-the-united-kingdom/

          1. Apparently the stairs are the most lethal, closely followed by the kitchen. Stay upstairs and don’t eat, then you’ll live forever 🙂

          3. Relax! If you haven’t got any stairs, you can’t kill yourself falling down them unless you make a special effort to install some 🙂

          4. Eventually. At the moment I’m trying to work out how to fit a washing machine, tumble dryer and a dishwasher into a single 60 cm space. And a worthwhile cooker into a 50 cm ditto. The housing society are reasonably gcooperative re. the latter. I can remove a spacer panel and shift a base unit 100 mm to the right. They’ll provide a matching length of worktop, and I’ll take my rather splendid induction hob with me. The gap in the current kitchen can have a used ceramic hob. It’ll prolly be ripped out by the eventual purchasers anyway.

            My current washer and dryer will end up on eBay, Gumtree, or Nextdoor. I need a new washer/dryer and an oven, and I’ll be sorted. Oh – and a fridge freezer. I’m leaving all these behind, since they’re built in. Along with the combination oven/grill/microwave and the bean-to-cup coffee machine. I might even leave a few coffee beans. I’m generous like that…

      1. 323562+ up ticks,
        Evening PT,
        I did ask early doors did the overseers stipulate
        that troop carriers using the Dover bridgehead
        must only carry five illegals and a registered smuggler.

          1. If that were the case all the rubber boats would have sunk because they cannot resist stabbing all and sundry.

  93. I don’t know if this item was featured on here last week. The magazine to which Peter Hitchens refers is American but it shows how comprehensively the brainwashing and fear-mongering of the world’s health authorities has penetrated society, including those parts of it that ought to be the most resistant to it.

    Please Protest against the Censorship of ‘First Things’ Magazine
    https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/08/please-protest-against-the-censorship-of-first-things-magazine-firstthingsmag-.html

    The article:
    https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2020/08/this-should-have-been-my-monthly-column-for-the-anmerican-magazine-first-things-.html

  97. You might find solace in the Alberta government response to two outbreaks of CV in schools this week.
    We cannot micromanage lives, we are not going to change the covid back to school rules .

    An outbreak by the way is two or more cases within two weeks. Just as well they don’t use the same criteria for lost homework or flu outbreaks.

    1. As the covid bug poses little risk to children or adults of working age – then schools should have been back to normal months ago, or never closed at all.

      However, the latest edict from Boris is certainly micromanaging people’s lives.

  100. We wish our resident pedantic peddy a very happy birthday, on this otherwise sombre anniversary.

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