Friday 16 July: For the sake of emissions targets, we must pay extra to do as we’re told

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/2021/07/15/letters-sake-emissions-targets-must-pay-extra-do-told/

671 thoughts on “Friday 16 July: For the sake of emissions targets, we must pay extra to do as we’re told”

  2. Ranger Regiment’s first task likely be fighting Islamists in East Africa, says Defence Secretary. 15 July 2021.

    The Army’s new Ranger Regiment’s first deployment will likely be to fight Islamists in East Africa, said the Defence Secretary.

    Warning of the danger from the Islamist al-Shabaab group, Ben Wallace said: “We have to help Somalia [and] we have to help Kenya be resistant.

    Morning everyone. Though Wallace is a relentless self–advertiser you have to wonder at his announcing this while the US and NATO are legging it to the Afghanistan Border as fast as they can manage. One of the eternal verities of western involvement is that those they seek to help are as corrupt as can be imagined and usually deserve to be overthrown. The irony is of course that while Westminster seeks to oppose the Forces of Islam abroad they grow daily stronger in the UK itself!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/ranger-regiments-first-task-likely-fighting-islamists-east-africa/

    1. I don’t think our military should be sent there. Lives will be lost in horrendous ways with little to show for the sacrifice.

        1. Wallace is talking complete bollocks and deluding himself. It’s all about Somali elections due on 10 October 2021 and propping up the current septic proxy puppet who has zero support outside of his own courtyard, the clans have their “candidates” ready and further North, Somaliland are going their own way with Chinese funding. There are no major issues in Kenya from Somalis now post the septics having got their slap at their drone base in Manda Bay [Mombasa Coast] and Erik Prince’s cohorts getting repeatedly slapped in lower juba. For Kenya it’s about propping up Uhuru as he’s tied to Western banks and an attempt by Western Governments to create via illusion of widening problems that don’t exist. Some basic coverage from Nick Turse who’s intel is rock solid https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-us-militarys-best-kept-secret/ which is still relevant of what’s on the ground

          4. Thank you. NOTTL has more foreign correspondents in situ that the Beeb; and we trust their local knowledge. We don’t send Uncle Bill to report when something big happens so he can mouth off while standing in front of photogenic wreckage.

          8. Ooops! At a first reading I thought you were suggesting that Uncle Bill was the photogenic wreckage. Silly me.

  3. Ranger Regiment’s first task likely be fighting Islamists in East Africa, says Defence Secretary. 15 July 2021.

    The Army’s new Ranger Regiment’s first deployment will likely be to fight Islamists in East Africa, said the Defence Secretary.

    Warning of the danger from the Islamist al-Shabaab group, Ben Wallace said: “We have to help Somalia [and] we have to help Kenya be resistant.

    Morning everyone. Though Wallace is a relentless self–advertiser you have to wonder at his announcing this while the US and NATO are legging it to the Afghanistan Border as fast as they can manage. One of the eternal verities of western involvement is that those they seek to help are as corrupt as can be imagined and usually deserve to be overthrown. The irony is of course that while Westminster seeks to oppose the Forces of Islam abroad they grow daily stronger in the UK itself!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/ranger-regiments-first-task-likely-fighting-islamists-east-africa/

  5. Mng all, Friday’s “literary emissions”: “Simon Shneerson” flashes his woke credentials to become an MP:

    SIR – The United Kingdom emits about 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases, yet we are mandated to provide “world leadership” in reducing carbon emissions.

    To achieve these targets (politically arrived at), we are told we will have to heat our homes expensively, to travel less – and if we do, expensively. We are also told what to drive and now what to eat, all accompanied by higher taxes.

    We won’t save the planet, but the control freaks will have won.

    M J Salter
    Banchory, Aberdeenshire

    SIR – We have been warned that meeting the aims of “net zero” is forecast to cost £469 billion in borrowing over 30 years (Business, July 7), and that taxpayer funds will be needed to support electric vehicle manufacture by Nissan and Vauxhall in Britain, in addition to the state aid they have already received.

    All this for the impossible dream of net zero production of carbon dioxide – a vital trace gas that makes up about 0.04 per cent of total atmospheric gases, without which all life would cease – now demonised as a “pollutant”.

    Huge factories are to be built to manufacture electric-vehicle batteries that need lithium mined abroad and imported, or maybe mined in Cornwall, and a vast infrastructure of charging points established across the country. Old batteries, it is reported, could create a mountain of dangerous waste larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

    This is called “environmentalism”. To many of us, it is more like insanity.

    Roger Payne
    London NW3

    SIR – Whatever sort of car you drive, some form of road tax must be levied. The easiest way is to retain the current vehicle tax system but do away with the “zero rated” band (which electric cars currently enjoy).

    The number of miles driven would be hard to assess, but no car should be using our roads payment free.

    Paul Caruana
    Truro, Cornwall

    SIR – How should we replace fuel tax that will not be collected when electric vehicles become common? In some countries, vehicles are taxed on the number of wheel revolutions. This is fairer than paying a set amount no matter how much the vehicle is used.

    Peter McPherson
    Merriott, Somerset

    SIR – Without funding, the shipping industry simply won’t reach the Government’s decarbonisation targets. The Prime Minister must act now to level-up shipping with its automotive and aerospace counterparts, and invest in new projects to support the industry in decarbonisation.

    Bob Sanguinetti
    Chief Executive, UK Chamber of Shipping
    London SE1

    SIR – There is enough rhetoric from politicians, scientists and advisers to give each of us a hot-air balloon.

    Simon Shneerson
    Chorleywood, Hertfordshire

    Afghanistan as ally

    SIR – It is said that interventions in Afghanistan always end in disaster, with America’s recent experience proving the point again. Britain’s record in the 19th century disproves it.

    Far too much prominence is given to the massacre of a portion of the British forces – composed largely of Indian sepoys and civilian staff – during their retreat from Kabul in January 1842 after being assured safe passage. Few images are more haunting than that of the sole survivor, Dr William Brydon, immortalised in a painting by Lady Butler. However, that vividly remembered incident was followed by a swift, brilliantly executed campaign – now largely forgotten – which convinced the country’s ruler to become a staunch ally.

    In 1878, the British intervened in Afghanistan once more in response to suspected Russian intrigues. There followed two years of victories under a great commander, the beloved “Bobs” (later Earl) Roberts.

    Against a lesser British general, and with overwhelming superiority in terms of numbers, the Afghans gained their one and only victory in the field during the 19th century at Maiwand, near Kandahar, in July 1880.

    However, this was redeemed at once by Roberts’s famous great march of 318 miles in 23 days from Kabul to Kandahar with 10,000 men – one of the classic military achievements of the century. He routed his opponents so convincingly that the British Raj had little further trouble from its northern neighbour.

    Lord Lexden (Con)
    London SW1

    Pensions triple lock

    SIR – Twenty-four rebel Tory MPs, led by Sir John Major and Theresa May, voted against the Government’s foreign-aid budget cut on Tuesday. I look forward to them running an equally strong campaign when Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, announces the cancellation of the pensions triple lock. After all, charity begins at home.

    Aidan Zeall
    Crawley, West Sussex

    SIR – I hope that Rishi Sunak remembers how dramatically pensioners have lost out as a result of reduced interest on savings.

    Many saved all their lives to try to ensure a reasonable lifestyle in retirement, but the income from savings has been decimated over the past few years. Not long ago, the income on £20,000 of savings would be about £1,000 to £1,200 a year. Now it is about £100. An increase in house value is of no benefit as you have to sell it to realise any increase, while having to buy another property at a similarly inflated price.

    Chris Burdon
    Rushmere St Andrew, Suffolk

    SIR – Britain is the sixth largest economy in the world yet has one of the lowest state pensions among industrial nations.

    Moreover, since April 2016 we have a two-tiered system based solely on a pensioners’ date of birth. If you were born before April 6 1951 you receive the basic state pension, if after, you get the new state pension. The difference, with yearly percentage increases, is now about £40 a week. And I thought age discrimination was illegal.

    Colin J Butcher
    Brecon

    Aid gone astray

    SIR – If we ensured that foreign aid (report, July 14) wasn’t siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts, the recipient populations would have no idea that we had made any reduction.

    Ken Rout
    King’s Lynn, Norfolk

    The Church’s vision

    SIR – I was puzzled by Allison Pearson’s recent broadside (“The Church of England is abandoning its flock”, Features, July 14).

    Much of the article was about the Bishop of St Davids. The see of St Davids has not been in the Church of England for just over 100 years. Ms Pearson will find a Church of England church waiting to welcome her when she is on holiday in Istanbul – it’s part of the Diocese in Europe; but not in Pembrokeshire. The Church in Wales celebrated its centenary of separate existence last year. She will also find parish churches and parish clergy ready to welcome her all over England – now and in the future.

    She makes some startling claims about the Church of England, which would be terrible if accurate. But thankfully it is not true that we intend “getting rid of the clergy with their tedious theological knowledge”; nor that “very soon, there will be no trained priests to preach, teach, to marry couples, to christen their babies or bury the dead”; nor that we will “allow 12,500 listed buildings to fall into disuse”. In fact, we are enjoying the biggest increase in vocations in living memory. Nearly 600 people were recommended for training for ordination last year, including the highest number expected to take up paid posts for a generation.

    The Archbishop of York presented a hopeful vision to the General Synod. It is about revitalising our parishes, increasing the numbers of clergy and lay ministers, encouraging new forms of church, attracting more children and young people to worship in our churches, supporting the clergy and the laity in their discipleship and outreach – being a church with Jesus Christ at the centre, and a church for all people. When Ms Pearson is back from her holiday, perhaps we could show her some of the places where the real vision for the future of the Church of England is springing into life.

    William Nye
    Secretary General, Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England
    London SW1

    Onus on owners

    SIR – Keith Ougden (Letters, July 13) may fear dogs, but to compare their behaviour to that of a criminal is ridiculous. Where else does he think dogs should urinate if not by a tree or a lamppost?

    There are no badly behaved dogs, only poor owners who do not train them to behave in a friendly manner.

    Helen Jeffers
    Axbridge, Somerset

    Gulls are colonising urban roofs at a rapid rate

    SIR – The two gull species (“Sick note needed to move on nuisance gulls”, report, July 10) nesting on rooftops in Britain do the same in France, Netherlands,
    Portugal and elsewhere. Local authorities in those countries take humane measures that prevent the eggs from hatching. No one outside Britain believes these gulls are endangered, nor does the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

    Our near-total ban on using such measures is based on a flawed statistical analysis, which has never been peer-reviewed.

    These opportunistic species enjoyed a huge population boom that peaked in 1970, due to abundant food waste from small fishing boats and open rubbish tips. Numbers have since fallen to a more sustainable level, but there is no risk of them dying out.

    Meanwhile, urban gulls multiply more successfully than others because there are no foxes or other predators on rooftops.

    Readers who do not yet live with nesting gulls, be warned: they are spreading further and further inland. The method that Natural England favours – netting roofs – cannot help us. Net one roof (at huge expense) and the gulls will choose another. There are millions of suitable rooftops across the country.

    The Government needs to take responsibility for this matter, rather than leaving licensing in the hands of a few idealists at Natural England who simply don’t understand what they are dealing with.

    Cllr Richard Cook (Con)
    Leader, Gloucester City Council
    Cllr Laura Mayes (Con)
    Deputy leader, Wiltshire Council
    Cllr Tim Ball (Lib Dem)
    Bath and North East Somerset Council
    Zofia Lovell
    Chair, National Association of Residents’ Associations
    Robin Kerr
    Chair, Federation of Bath Residents’ Associations (2014-2020)
    Linda Gamlin
    Scientific consultant
    David Kemsley
    Alliance of Canterbury Residents’ Associations

    To claim that Britain is a racist country is unfair

    SIR – Thank you to Calvin Robinson for his article, “Time to end this toxic narrative that Britain is a racist country” (Comment, July 14).

    He speaks for many like us who, unfortunately, have no voice. We are retired and feel left out of the debate. It is so refreshing to know that our feelings about what is happening in Britain are being published. At times we despair because although we know that this country – like many throughout the world – is not perfect, accusing the majority of British people of racism simply does not reflect reality.

    Gloria Hatton
    Bristol

    1. Bu88er. I’ve just bought some new wool for my next tapestry. Have I wasted my money?
      Morning, Willum.

  7. Pings ain’t wot they used to be…..

    I do my very best to isolate myself from government interference but their poxy actions are now reaching plague proportions

    Morning all

    2. From the Daily Tellygraff:

      “Neighbours are being told to self-isolate because the NHS Test and Trace app is “pinging” people through walls, it has emerged.

      Figures show more than half a million alerts were sent through the app last week – the most since records began – raising fears of a “pingdemic”, with businesses, transport and schools brought to a standstill.

      But The Telegraph has learned that some people are being forced to self-isolate for 10 days despite never having come into face-to-face contact with a positive Covid case.

      According to sources close to the Test and Trace app team, the Bluetooth signal used is known to be strong enough to penetrate walls.”

  8. Is the dream of South Africa now in tatters? 15 July 2021.

    Corruption and despair undermined the promise of the ‘rainbow nation’, but there is still hope.

    But there are signs of hope. In the last day or so, communities in Johannesburg, reeling from the destruction, have come together to begin the long process of cleaning up and rebuilding what was lost. They, with Ramaphosa, deserve all our support as he tries to assert control over the threats against South Africa’s hard–won democracy.

    No there isn’t. South Africa like Rhodesia is actually a victim of Hain and his ilk with their Neoliberal fantasies. He is an object lesson in the unteachability of Socialism. Having seen two prosperous and well run countries reduced to a shambles by Black Rule he still adheres to the policies that created them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/15/dream-south-africa-now-tatters/

    1. reports filtering in death toll in RSA now well over 100. And businesses and adjoining like minded communities entering Rourkes Drift mentality, via more ammunition stocks bought and dsitributed. SAFA have cancelled all womens football, presumably its difficult to take a knee without a head

    2. And the SA politicians are encouraging the destruction of their country.
      A friend over there writes: “There is still sporadic looting and torching and I expect the worst is yet to come.
      Supermarkets, discount stores, pharmacies, clothing outlets and financial institutions have abandoned the areas destroyed resulting in the loss of 100,000 jobs. R15bn in damage
      Eleven Communication towers destroyed
      Logistics in chaos with no resupplies of food, petrol, water and medication. The N3 supply route in a shambles littered with burned trucks.
      In a very short time the destitute looters are going to demand back what they have destroyed and stolen
      They will be met with stony silence.
      With no jobs, no cash and no banks, no cash in transit facilities and 300 ATMs destroyed we are looking at a disaster.
      The Rand has taken a drubbing and South Africa is not seen as a place to invest by the international financial community.
      Dozens of vaccination clinics were destroyed and have to be rebuilt.”

      It sure looks grim.

      2. Citizens groups have formed to do the job of the police and army, ie. stop looting and arson. Initially looks good, but already there’s talk of them barricading people into their home districts and preventing them going out to look for food, so I expect it won’t be so positive for long.
        Poor SA. They don’t deserve this shit.

        1. wait for the woke spin obl, instead of adopting a refugee, people in the UK will be able, for £5 to adopt a south african rioter. this won’t be be far behind on MSM / SM. the usual “Erroll lost his machete and has to walk 10 miles to steal a 42″ TV. For only £5/month, you could pay for him to take an Uber”

  11. Al-Beeb and other “news” providers have been accused of having helped provide the fear factor during the ‘pandemic’. Lying by omission i.e. not reporting what is happening here and from around the World is now commonplace, expected even. At this moment, when the “irreversible” end to lockdown was promised and Johnson is trying to backtrack, again, two examples of reporting that is being presented as fact. The timings cannot, in my opinion, be coincidental with the 19th July date and Johnson’s attempts to row back from his, as usual, worthless promise.

    You will need to follow the threads to get the full impact of the lies and propaganda.

    https://twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/1415718465000902661

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1415712755215175691

    1. I’m terrified. Look how ill he looks. How incoherent. (still, he is a Northerner)

      That ‘nurse’ should have complained to the people who hired her. She should have told her Agent that no nurse would speak like that and refused the part.

      Good morning, Korky.

      1. Good morning, Phizzee.

        How are you progressing after your scare? On the mend, I hope.

        1. I think the Doctor who looked at the results of my blood test over reacted. I was dangerously low on potassium but that is easily remedied.

          They have already ruled out my Meds being the cause.

          They are only interested in prescribed drugs and don’t take a holistic approach.

          I have been taking omeprazole for years which i know can interfere with absorbtion of vitamins and minerals.

          They were looking in the wrong place.

          Having a check up on Sunday morning.

          Thanks Korky.

  13. Dork Of The Week

    Monica Lewinsky (on CNN’s Larry King Live discussing her miraculous Jenny Craig weight-loss): “I’ve learned not to put things in my mouth that are bad for me”

    2. An ‘Oooops’ moment or deliberate headline seeking?
      (Oh dear. English is full of traps for the unwary.)

      1. ‘Morning, Anne.
        No, it was a rare event: an American delivering irony.

        1. Morning, PA.
          She’s gone up in my estimation. Maybe – apart from other matters, Bill Clinton was attracted to her wit. I doubt Hillary is exactly a laugh a minute.

        1. Morning Mr Hat. Hope you got/get that checked out. It might be more than muscle/disc pain.

          Which reminds me: Devilled kidneys for breakfast today.

          1. I was diagnosed with Sciatica when I was 40 & every few years I get bouts of severe nerve pain emanating from my lower left back , as I have aged the pain bouts have got longer because in the last few years I also have other general health issues that came with aging such as high cholesterol, low blood pressure, an enlarged prostate & migraine attacks. I have been prescribed medication for most of what ails me so I will live, but I am of course not enjoying my so called “Golden Years”

    1. Good morning. I have been busy harvesting strawberries before the birdies get them.

  19. Did anybody else watch “The Importance of Being Ernest” last night? Very good, I thought, and what an original way to deliver its most famous line!

    1. Tom Wikinson, Judith Dench and Colin Firth. Throw in an Anthony Hopkins and you’d have all my faves in one place.

    2. grrr I missed that, too busy unpacking the TinTent and using up the leftover wines , one of my favourites – which channel was it on , I can generally coax these things out of the internet. TIA

    3. I was too busy trying to recover my email, 3 hours , very frustrating .

      The spaniels 😉 were taken for a nice late evening countryside scamper .. where they sat in awe watching bunny rabbits scamper around during their evening hazzelrah..

      Good morning Peter.

      2. You recovered them? You’re lucky. My ex-wife persuaded BT to delete my account, which they did, back-ups and all, without bothering to check with me. I lost 15 years of contacts, stored emails and legal evidence. It took me 3 days of solid work to get my new email working with the essential data and I lost 90% of my data, emails and non-essential contacts.

        Mind you, after a few weeks of rage at BT and my unrepentant ex-wife, I felt strangely liberated as if losing a dead weight of past history off my shoulders. My enjoyment was doubled when I heard from mutual friends that my ex had the smile wiped off her face when they told her of my obvious pleasure.

    4. Rupert Everett played the bounder Algy, and very well. The thought occurred to me that some gay actors are saying that only homosexuals should play homosexual roles. Well, Algy is a heterosexual role, and Everett is a homosexual, so…

      2. They’re ignorant attention-seekers as a moment’s thought show their aim is counterproductive. Homosexuals vastly over-populate the acting professions and the Arts in general, so by their argument we need to reduce their number.

  20. Morning all.
    I mentioned a few days ago that we have a new member of staff who identifies as neutered and presumably schizophrenic in that she wants to be plural (she has said her pronouns are they/them).

    It got me thinking as to what pronoun she would use in yer France, as ‘they’ also takes an M or F gender.

    Perhaps there is a new conjugation
    Ils, elles, knobbes

    2. Such people are morons. She is mentally ill and instead of confronting her inability to cope with life is indulging her fantasy and worse, demanding eveeryone else reinforce it.

    3. good morning everyone.
      Stormy, I keep my gossip vague because a) often about real living people b) the internet can turn round and bite, hard.
      Chatting to a tradesman t’other day, he told me about a crazy chick who had once dated one of his family. A bunnyboiler. Naturally, she was employed by the NHS. Make a guess where: Mental Health.

    4. Good morning, Stormy
      I was admitted to Queen Alex recently and noticed that every member of staff called everyone Sweetie, Darling, My Love except for the consultants who used peoples proper surnames.

      I have no problem with this but i wonder how the Alphabet people will cope.

      3. That was so that the consultants identified themselves! Otherwise, you might have thought they were ward orderlies!

        1. There is no need for people to identify their rank with me. All are treated with respect and good humour.

          Though i must say Her Majesty was somewhat taken aback by my cheeky chappie attitude to life. :@)

          1. Don’t tell me, you slapped her on the back, gave her a kiss and said “You are the tops, Ma’am”.

          2. Unlike Frankie Dettori who forgot about the protocol and asked HM, “‘Ow ya doin’?” 🙂

      4. That would irk me, Phizz. ☹. I don’t like being called by an endearment by a stranger. I reserve such terms for family and friends.

        1. Well it is Pompey.

          Nearly all were elderly gentlemen in serious ill health. I don’t think any of them would have minded.

    5. There is already a grammatical gender in English for neither masculine nor feminine – it is termed ‘neuter’. The pronoun is ‘it’, possessive ‘its’. These are the terms which this person should be using about itself.

      1. “To nouns that cannot be declined
        The neuter gender is assigned”

        Kennedy’s Shortbread Eating Primate – c 1951… I can remember that but not the Latin!

    6. What about the French for one – “on”? cf German man, as in man sucht den Bahnhof

    1. They ‘ll rename the animals next and then watch out they’ll rename all the people.

      1. What’s the difference between a Blackbird and a Raven? One has black plumage and a yellow beak – the other has frizzy hair, a big arse and flat feet

    3. This came up a few weeks ago. Just another stark staring mad bit of wokeism, but this time for the birds.
      Edit; sorry, you basically said the same thing.

    4. They’re renaming “Auntie Mary’s Canary” – which Auntie Mary kept up the leg of her drawers – because activists have said that no canary should be named for a woman that treated it so cruelly.

    5. I liked someone’s remark yesterday about renaming the Gypsy Moth. The suggested new name was Pikey Moth

    1. It seems the first one knew what to do but didn’t stop the other one getting it wrong.

    2. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was over worked.

      However, do they not have ladders, or did he simply not want to get one?

      Oh, hang on. He’ll claim discrimination for his height and get compo, despite being a menace.

      1. He probably hadn’t been trained to use a ladder. You need a sustificate to draw consecutive breaths nowadays.

        1. Breaking:

          BA to take steps to ensure all personnel are trained in ‘at height’ procedures.

          I’m off out now, I may be some time…

      2. He proved his stupidity by entrusting the task to a more inexperienced colleague and then not checking afterwards that the task had been done safely and correctly.

    3. Right, let us get to the truth.

      When the pilot lowered the undercarriage, he would have’Green Lights’ confirming the gear was down and locked.
      (the MECHANICAL locks are internal to the oleo, which is shrunk, or extened by the use hydraulic pressure)

      The nose ‘landing gear was ‘Down and Locked’, otherwise there would have been much excretia around the passenger section as the aircraft slid, nose-down, along the runway

      It was locked, when it taxied to its’ parking space.

      Once parked, an manually fitted ‘pin’ device is fitted, on the belt and braces concept, by ground crew.

      So, ther are two problems,

      Why the internal lock failed
      Why the ‘pin-fitter’ did not confirm the pilot, before engine shut down, that external safety devices had been fitted

        1. Me too, except if they’re total strangers and I have to sit next them in parties.

      3. From aviation-safety.net https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/264144. My bold.
        Type: Silhouette image of generic B788 model; specific model in this crash may look slightly different
        Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
        Owner/operator: British Airways
        Registration: G-ZBJB
        MSN: 38610/111
        Fatalities: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 3
        Other fatalities: 0
        Aircraft damage: Minor
        Location: London Heathrow Airport (LHR/EGLL) – United Kingdom
        Phase: Standing
        Nature: Cargo
        Departure airport: Moskva-Domodedovo Airport (DME/UUDD)
        Destination airport: London-Heathrow Airport (LHR/EGLL)
        Narrative:
        A British Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner suffered a collapsed nose gear at London Heathrow Airport (LHR/EGLL). Safety pin in front landing gear in wrong hole while changing some parts, was the cause of the collapse. No reported injuries and the aircraft had last performed cargo flight BAW881 from Moscow on June 16th. It had been parked out on the airport ever since its arrival. The aircraft was loading freight prior to departing for Frankfurt, Germany (FRA/EDDF) on Flight BA906.

        The aircraft was being loaded with cargo in preparation for a flight to Frankfurt, and whilst carrying out a Dispatch Deviation Guide (DDG) procedure to clear maintenance messages relating to an existing Acceptable Deferred Defect (ADD), the Nose Landing Gear (NLG) retracted. This caused damage to the lower nose, NLG doors and engine cowlings. Door 2 left (Door 2L) struck the top platform of the mobile steps, positioned at the door, which resulted in the door separating from the fuselage and one person, operating the cargo loader positioned at the forward cargo hold, received minor injuries.

        The DDG procedure required the cockpit landing gear selection lever to be cycled with hydraulic power applied to the aircraft. To prevent the landing gear from retracting, the procedure required pins to be inserted in the nose and main landing gear downlocks. However, the NLG downlock pin was installed in the NLG downlock apex pin bore which was adjacent to the correct location to install the downlock pin. When the landing gear selector was cycled the NLG retracted.

        An Airworthiness Directive had been issued, with a 36-month compliance from 16 January 2020, to install an insert over the apex pin bore to prevent incorrect installation of the downlock pin, but this had not yet been implemented on G-ZBJB.

      4. There’s more to this that what’s printed. Not only ground locks prevent the undercarriage retracting on the ground there is a microswitch attached to the main U/C legs which, when the weight of the aircraft compresses the leg, it breaks the electrical circuit to the U/C UP valve although there is an override switch.

        1. See below for the explanation. Clearing a fault code unvolves moving the undercarriage selector lever with hydraulic power on (What eejit thought that a good idea?), and since the pin was in the wrong hole, the nose gear duly retracted as commanded.
          Bonk.
          Oops.
          Why were there two holes in the same location that could be confused? Issue not properly thought through at the new, cheap ‘n cheerless Boeing works. They used to be good, until they took on those corner-cutting shysters at McDonnel Douglas.

          1. Missed that bit Paul – begs the question why was that necessary? If it was then why was the pin designed so it could fit in either hole?

          2. Egg zakly.
            Messrs Boeing effed up. They are a shower, now they have been reverse engineered by McDonnell Douglas.

          3. I did a systems course at the OU. One aspect was ergonomics. Another was disasters. The two came together in the cockpit of some passenger airliner. The power lever was next to the “shutdown everything lever” (whatever it was called)*. Only noticed after the crash. Redesign required.

            *Technical stuff?

          4. MOH heard from a friend that Virgin Atlantic heard about the 2018 incident, and insisted that the correct modification be promptly

            carried out on all their 787 aircraft.

            …so why didn’t BA do it?

          5. MOH heard from a friend that Virgin Atlantic heard about the 2018 incident, and insisted that the correct modification be promptly

            carried out on all their 787 aircraft.

            …so why didn’t BA do it?

    6. Let me spoil a good story with the facts (or did you fail to check?): the access ladder was correctly positioned to the parked aircraft then some eejit technician raised the nose leg when carrying out a maintenance procedure that overrode the ground safety features except the pin, which wasn’t in the correct holes.

      1. Did I fail to check what?

        I don’t waste my time researching the veracity of reports in newspapers: otherwise I’d be spending my entire life doing nothing else.

  23. More worthless waffle from Johnson i.e. no tax rises for hard working families. Coates’s take on the statement, knowing Johnson’s propensity to not tell the truth, is pure pie in the sky reporting. Compare to JHB’s obvious conclusion i.e. someone will have to pay. Who defines ‘hard working families’ anyway?

    https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1415629761246908417

  24. The person to ‘weaken’ America: what the Kremlin papers said about Trump. Luke Harding. 16 July 2021.

    Our investigation has revealed that western intelligence agencies have known about the papers – and have been examining them – for some time.
    Independent experts approached by the Guardian have also confirmed they are consistent with the Kremlin’s thinking and chain of command.

    Their fascination in material that appears to have come from within the heart of the Kremlin is easy to understand.

    This is the Steele Dossier Part Deux. The writer of them faced the perennial problem of all authors of fiction; how to convey their ideas to the public while maintaining some plausibility. Steele managed this by creating imaginary informers sending him information in real time. That they didn’t exist didn’t matter because no one could prove it. Here they’ve resorted to the Secret Document scenario familiar to anyone who has read Conan Doyle’s The Naval Treaty or The Second Stain. Top Secret documents from the Kremlin, incriminating them in nefarious activities with Donald Trump, have mysteriously appeared in Luke Harding’s letter box. The papers and their accusations appear eerily familiar because they are simply the reiteration of the original.

    There is a Rule of Thumb that governs all accusations and that is that their rebuttal takes ten times a much effort as their propagation. This being so it is quicker and easier to look at the Main Theme of the story. What you have to ask yourself is; is it really credible that the Russians overcame Hillary Clintons $1 Billion Dollar Election Expenses with a few Twitter Posts and how come they didn’t do the same against Biden?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/15/the-person-to-weaken-america-what-the-kremlin-papers-said-about-trump

    1. And why would they send material to a person whose credibility is compromised, when they could leave it at a bus stop so someone can forward it to the BBC?
      It’s too silly even for a cheap spy thriller.

    2. how come they didn’t do the same against Biden?

      Because he is regarded as an even greater danger to America than Trump could ever be, perhaps.

    4. Anyone who knew anything about Trump before the dossier became public knew instantly that it was a false piece of propaganda. It contains so called information on President Trump that is so obviously in conflict with his attitudes and behaviour that it is a clear fake. So, like many others, as soon as I read it knew it was fraudulent. What amazes me is that the Democrats were allowed to play fast and lose with the truth and get away with it. To my mind it was little short of, and probably was, criminal and they knew it. If Trump gets back in then prosecutions should be had. No politicians, regardless of party, should be allowed to get away with what they did. Abuse of power and blatant lies to the public on a non stop basis daily for three years.

  25. The person to ‘weaken’ America: what the Kremlin papers said about Trump. Luke Harding. 16 July 2021.

    Our investigation has revealed that western intelligence agencies have known about the papers – and have been examining them – for some time.
    Independent experts approached by the Guardian have also confirmed they are consistent with the Kremlin’s thinking and chain of command.

    Their fascination in material that appears to have come from within the heart of the Kremlin is easy to understand.

    This is the Steele Dossier Part Deux. The writer of them faced the perennial problem of all authors of fiction; how to convey their ideas to the public while maintaining some plausibility. Steele managed this by creating imaginary informers sending him information in real time. That they didn’t exist didn’t matter because no one could prove it. Here they’ve resorted to the Secret Document scenario familiar to anyone who has read Conan Doyle’s The Naval Treaty or The Second Stain. Top Secret documents from the Kremlin, incriminating them in nefarious activities with Donald Trump, have mysteriously appeared in Luke Harding’s letter box. The papers and their accusations appear eerily familiar because they are simply the reiteration of the original.

    There is a Rule of Thumb that governs all accusations and that is that their rebuttal takes ten times a much effort as their propagation. This being so it is quicker and easier to look at the Main Theme of the story. What you have to ask yourself is; is it really credible that the Russians overcame Hillary Clintons $1 Billion Dollar Election Expenses with a few Twitter Posts and how come they didn’t do the same against Biden?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/15/the-person-to-weaken-america-what-the-kremlin-papers-said-about-trump

  28. ‘Nobody should trust Wikipedia,’ its co-founder warns: Larry Sanger says site has been taken over by left-wing ‘volunteers’ who write off sources that don’t fit their agenda as fake news. 15 July 2021.

    Wikipedia can no longer be trusted as a source of unbiased information since the online encyclopedia has left-leaning volunteers cut out any edits meant to provide balance, according to the site’s co-founder.

    Larry Sanger, 52, co-founded Wikipedia in 2001 alongside Jimmy Wales, said the crowdsourcing project has betrayed its original mission by reflecting the views of the ‘establishment.’

    Thanks for that Larry but I think most people have twigged that Wikipedia is no longer what it was. It’s OK for checking dates but outside that it has been extensively rewritten to reflect the “Official Accounts” where these are deemed to be important. At one extreme the Indian Mutiny has been renamed the The Indian Rebellion of 1857 and shorn of any “anti-Indian” or “Colonialist” sympathies while the Salisbury business is now listed under The Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal with some omissions to aid the official narratives difficulties.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9793263/Nobody-trust-Wikipedia-founder-Larry-Sanger-warns.html

  32. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter. This newsletter is a brief round-up of the free speech news of the week.

    Free Speech Bill clears second reading

    The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill passed its second reading on Monday. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson wrote in the Telegraph: “Staff and students should be free to discuss, debate and debunk the views of others without fear of censure, and I am deeply saddened that this is increasingly not the case.” We’ve campaigned for this legislation, as the Daily Mail noted, and you can read our briefing about it – written by Deputy Research Director Emma Webb – here. Labour called the legislation the “hate speech bill” and voted against it.

    The Fabian Society has published a report which claims that rows over race, cancel culture and gender are “fabricated fights” whipped up by opportunistic politicians. FSU Chair Professor Nigel Biggar and Advisory Council member Dr Arif Ahmed rebutted this claim in a joint article for the Telegraph. About 50 people a week contact us for help, fearing cancellation or serious consequences for having said something controversial or unfashionable. Similarly, Professor Eric Kaufman, also a member of our Advisory Council, challenged the idea in UnHerd that the “culture war is a Right-wing plot to win votes”.

    Meanwhile, the Online Safety Bill has been delayed, but only temporarily. This legislation will be a disaster for free speech online. FSU Director Douglas Murray writes in UnHerd about the sinister influence of Twitter, and its practice of “shadow-banning” users, whereby their posts are suppressed without their being notified. Meanwhile, concerns have been raised that police officers are being silenced on social media to comply with European rules.

    Batley teacher fundraiser tops £50,000

    Thank you to all those who donated to the crowd-funder for the Batley grammar school teacher and his family. Nearly £60,000 has been raised. You can donate here. The electoral fallout of the Batley cartoon affair is explored in Spiked.

    Please contribute to the fundraiser of Debbie Hicks, the anti-lockdown campaigner who is currently trying to defend herself against three separate prosecutions, all of them free speech-related. We now think one of those cases – involving her right to protest – may end up in the High Court, which means she’ll need to raise about £7,000.

    Scotland’s free speech clampdown

    Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act will cost more than £1 million to enforce. We campaigned against this legislation and, despite some amendments, it remains a critical threat to free speech.

    Senior MSPs have demanded that journalists undergo training on “on the role that the media play in fostering Islamophobia”, jeopardising press freedom. Recent events show that the Scottish government “is implacably opposed to the right to free speech, the most essential human right in any democracy”, writes Alistair Bonnington in the Times. He adds: “In his dystopian novel even Orwell didn’t envisage someone being prosecuted for saying that men self-declaring themselves to be women are still men. But that will happen this month when Marion Millar appears at Glasgow sheriff court.”

    Decolonisation and Critical Race Theory

    Professor Graham Virgo, Cambridge’s Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, has said “there is no place within our community for those who do not share our values”, sending a clear message to dissenting academics. He defended the Report + Support snitching portal that was removed after our intervention. The site was saturated with Critical Race Theory – such as the claim that only white people can be racist. The Cambridge historian David Abulafia has written in the Spectator that these concepts are now being trotted out by people “unaware that this is the language of a subversive theory about society and history, a new way of deploying arguments and disputing facts”. Critical Race Theory has even got its claws into bird-watching: “offensive” species names are to be dropped, after a review from the Entomological Society of America.

    The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is changing its curriculum to make it “anti-racist” and is revising some of its course content because of its links to “colonialism and racial discrimination”, the Telegraph reports. Pearson is adding four new plays to its GCSE Drama curriculum to “decolonise the syllabus”. Professor Matthew Goodwin, a member of our Advisory Council, asks in UnHerd if Britain will survive the “woke wave”.

    Andrew Doyle, another member of our Advisory Council, spoke to Colin Brazier on GB News about the claims that Britain is a racist country, following the racist abuse of England players on social media. Andrew discussed a piece of analysis by the Guardian and Hope Not Hate which found that only 44 of the 585,000 Twitter comments about the England players during the group stages of the Euros were explicitly racist, or 0.0075%. Andrew said: “What these stats also show us is… that racists are still very much on the fringes of society… We live in a society where to be openly racist makes you a pariah and rightly so.”

    Eric Kaufman writes that Canada is the world’s “first woke nation”, entirely captured by the “religion of antiracism”. Justin Trudeau’s government has introduced legislation that would define hate crime as a “communication that expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination”.

    Education consultants and activists in California are poised to make a fortune from a new curriculum that advocates for the “decolonization” of American society. That is the sort of thing that has prompted a group of US academics to sign a Commitment to Academic Freedom and Tolerance. The statement affirms “that our primary purpose as an institution of higher learning is to foster the pursuit of truth by means of free, open, and rigorous intellectual inquiry”. Meanwhile, the US Navy has been told to focus on its core mission –sinking enemy ships – rather than woke training programmes.

    Cancellation corner

    Jess De Wahls wrote for the Spectator about her experience of being cancelled (and then un-cancelled) by the Royal Academy. “A bunch of enraged embroiderers went for the jugular and published a screenshot from my website showing all the places that stock my embroidered floral patches”, she wrote, after which she was dropped by the RA. Following a furore, she was given a public apology and the decision was reversed. Suzanne Moore writes in the Telegraph that “every week another woman heads for the ducking stool for challenging gender ideology and its ever more reductive language”.

    Former Mumford and Sons guitarist Winston Marshall wrote of his amazement at the overwhelmingly positive response his statement about leaving the band received: “It seems as if, in explaining why I felt I could not carry on, I had articulated something that many people feel in their daily lives: self-censorship. In the current febrile political climate, many of us are just too scared to say what we think.”

    FSU founder Toby Young has co-edited Panics and Persecutions, a collection of essays and stories that “lay bare the human toll of modern ideological inquisitions” and cancel culture. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her review, wrote: “We are living through an intellectual crisis. The woke ideology is overwhelming our cultural and political institutions, as well as captivating many of the young minds in our society. But, in these pages, you will find ordinary people standing up for what is right.” You can order a copy of the paperback for £12.99 here.

    Zoe Dubno writes about the rise of “sensitivity readers”, now employed in vetting novels and student newspapers that cover racial or transgender issues so that novelists and journalists can avoid saying anything that challenges prevailing orthodoxies. Didn’t that used to be part of their job?

    Censors permit swearing in 15-certificate films

    The British Board of Film Classification has concluded that the most offensive swear-words can be tolerated in 15-certificate films if it is done for comic effect.

    Come and work for the Free Speech Union

    We’re looking to hire a Membership Director. Do you have an excellent track record of managing member relationships and growing a membership organisation? Have you got strong experience in member communications and administration? Are you able to develop and deliver not-for-profit, digitally driven strategies? If so, and if you care passionately about free speech, please apply. The job will initially be for two days a week, but will grow as more members join. The salary is £45,000 – £50,000 per annum, pro rated. You can find out more here and you can apply by sending a CV and introductory letter to jobs@freespeechunion.org.

    Helping children discuss contention issues in schools

    Not The Easy Way is a project led by educational and child psychologists Dr Claire McGuiggan and Dr Peter D’Lima which aims to support free speech and promote diversity of opinion in schools. They have released a video with Calvin Robinson discussing how young people can respectfully discuss contentious issues, and why this is important. The video is short and can be used as a stimulus for discussions in schools with young people. Visit their website for more resources or get in touch with Peter and Claire if you or your school would like to get involved.

    Sharing the Newsletter

    We’ve received several requests to make it possible to share these newsletters on social media, so we’ve added the option to post them on a few different platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. Just click on the buttons below.

    If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Remember, all of our work depends on our members and donors. Sign-up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against the censors.

    Best wishes,

      1. How can we tell that the “pregnant man” isn’t just a bloke with a beer gut?

    2. Go’morgen, Bamse!

      One of the great things about Nottl is the fact that so many of us visit different sites, and are to bring to Nottl articles and posts that we might not otherwise see. Thank you.

      1. My pleasure, Dukke. I don’t find this on the internet, though. I am a fully paid-up, badge-wearing, member of the Free Speech Union and I receive this weekly round-up by email every Friday.

        1. Yes, Many of us are subscribers (whether paying or not) of various sites, and tke what we send from round-ups. Hence the varied input from everyone. :ox

          1. I get a limited edition of the Herts advertiser emailed to me and that has a discuss attachment. But I never see any comments.

          2. Who’d bother with that? Though I must say that peridicals like that are quite good at telling one where developers intend to desecrate next.

          3. That’s true we use to have it delivered each week and it was free, advertising paid for it all. But like many other things it no longer happens.

          16. Think courgette without the bitterness There are no seeds along the flesh – they all sit at the end opposite the flower.

            They’d grow a treat on your neighbourhood kibbutz, Hatman. They adore sunshine and DRINK gallons. You could start a new fashion and make a fortune…

          20. It just could be that no one has heard of them. They are not grown outside Liguria (except where I have campaigned!

  34. From today’s papers . . .

    “The BBC and ITV should be legally required to reflect the “diversity of
    the UK” under sweeping reforms proposed by the broadcasting regulator” . . .

    Well . .! Maybe they can start by having some more White broadcasters/presenters . . ??
    Could also suggest to ITV, that the population of Great Britain isn’t 50/50, white/coloured, as portrayed on their adverts?

    1. Amongst my anger at having ridiculous, divisive and counterproductive virtue-signalling shoved in my face, I laugh at the far worse racism of the virtue-signallers having so many black and so few brown Asian faces when the latter outnumber the former by over 2:1 here.

    2. The Nottingham company that I worked for for a few years had a workforce with a split of ⅓ whites, ⅓ Afro-Caribbean, and ⅓ Indian sub-continent.

      If a white worker was asked to reveal the contents of his bag to check if he was leaving the company, after his shift, in possession of contraband, he would shrug and hand the bag over. If the worker was Indian or Pakistani, he would smile when he handed the bag over. However, if the worker was of Caribbean origin, he would snarl, shout, throw the bag to the ground in a tantrum, and demand to know why he was being picked on.

      My Jamaican colleague was angered by this show of petulance by his fellow countrymen much more than the rest of us were.

  35. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.”

    Voltaire (on religion).

    2. In a similar vein, George,

      “First they burned the books and then they burned the people.”

      Nazi Germany 1933 – 45

  36. I am hearing of massive demonstrations in France tomorrow…. there will be nothing in the msm. Ruptly?

    1. These events – which were once all over French papers and TV – are only mentioned in the peripheral press.

      A cynic might think that the MSM has been got at – but that wouldn’t be possible, would it?

      Edited to try to clarify.

      1. 335432+ up ticks,
        Afternoon A,
        Sad to say the mass uncontrolled immigration, ( ongoing ) paedophile umbrella is an odious fact and has been so for decades, yet the political purveyors / parties still find support / votes and have done for decades.

      1. 335432+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Bob,
        Looks that way,

        It was macron saying from August 1st “no jabbers” will be denied supermarket entry.

  38. A very late Good Morning to all.

    In case anyone missed it, once again our Baritone Bob topped yesterday’s DT letters comment charts with 245 upticks

    Robert Spowart

    15 Jul 2021 1:28AM
    Am I the only person to think that The Runnymede Trust is a fully paid up leading member of the Race Relations Industry with a vested interest in exaggerating and exacerbating race problems, thus justifying their own existence?

    Anyone in government office taking notice of this Marxist shower deserves a good kick up the backside.

    1. Voterigging! I always upvote BoB, and I expect another 20 or 30 nottlers do likewise.

      1. Of course, he is a well-known, far-right, foam-flecked commenter…as is that A Allan chap, who also pontificates BTL on the Torygraph…!!

    1. We are a Sovereign country (snubs nose at the E.U)

      We don’t need to invest billions in the North. Just designate it as a special zone. Give preferential rates and low tax to businesses, Industry and employers and they will beat a path.

      1. For that we would need a government comprising people with a) some experience of running a successful business and b) at least a passing acquaintance with conservative principles.

  41. Damned sunshine – forcing myself to go out and profit from it…

    Back later. Prolly.

  42. Good News/Bad News

    Met Office issues Level 2 alert.

    But this alert applies to viruses as well as humans – its just a question as who can survive longer.

    Could global warming be a blessing in disguise particularly if we must keep our windows open over the winter.

    LEVEL 2: ALERT AND READINESS
    This is triggered as soon as the Met Office forecasts that there is a 60 per cent chance of temperatures being high enough on at least two consecutive days to have significant effects on health. This will normally occur 2 to 3 days before the event is expected. As death rates rise soon after temperature increases, with many deaths occurring in the first two days, this is an important stage to ensure readiness and swift action to reduce harm from a potential heatwave.

    https://heatalert.org.uk/Forecast.aspx

    1. NEWS JUST IN…
      Extreme heat kills
      Extreme cold kills.
      Why has nobody mentioned this before.

      1. More mosrerester importantly, SAGE says COVID Kills more people in Hot weather,

        except when Winter comes and SAGE says COVID Kills more people in Cold weather,

  43. 335432+ up ticks,
    Dt,
    ‘Religious Obligation’ UK Mosque Leader Abu Bakr Deghayes Charged With Encouraging Terrorism

    Dt,
    Austria Becomes First European Country to Ban Islamist Muslim Brotherhood

    The question is will they, en masse, be acceptable at DOVER by the governance overseeing party, tory ( ino) ?

  44. Phew! It’s hot out there……….. just come in and collapsed in a heap. Sometimes it’s good that our house stays fairly cool inside.

    2. 22 C in the house today (26 C in the north-facing (insulated roof) conservatory.

    3. I watered the tommie’s earlier in the green house, a steaming 48 degs and rising.

    1. Six months or a year in jail for not having a bit of paper that didn’t even exist this time last year, because it wasn’t needed, and still isn’t.
      If anyone doesn’t spot that they are being had, there is no hope.
      I am a naturally law-abiding person, but I am actually tempted to break this law because it is so manifestly wrong.

      1. 335432+up ticks,
        Afternoon BB2,
        Peoples must surely by now spot once again they are being had, as the last time and prior to that going back decades,
        but it is NOT the actions of the party however odious they may be, it is a demented power play, one MUST vote for A to keep out B no matter the consequence.

        1. Most people appear to have an endless ability to believe contradictory stuff.

  46. Went for a stroll along the towpath earlier. The first photo is the middle section of the Widcombe flight of locks in Bath.

    I spoke to the owner of the boat in the second photo and pointed out to him that as soon as the ducks start fowling his cream cabin roof he might want to make a slight change to the boat’s name……

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e96cccf9c9377af8c94f93f4d0f5f1dab56e54129fc8c3ba563f74338d0093b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5e85e7f321f8553a93b00e72bca9eee180209a9c583d19685f356396046a69e.jpg

  47. Two diseased ash safely dropped this morning.
    The first is a 3″ x 22′ and the second a 5″ x 35½’. The latter was dead from the 18′ point upwards. Other than tidying up a load of dead 1″ & under saplings, I’ve one more, about a 3½” dia. to do on that bit of the bank then it’s another half dozen a few yards along going up to a decent 10″ diameter that will probably need double roping to pull it to where I want it.

      1. They’ll be logged then left to season until one of the woodshelters has been emptied this winter then get cut, chopped and stacked for next winter.

          3. I’m sure Bob’s supplies are safe from the locals and tourists but when society collapses next Tuesday about teatime (©BBC) The dark hordes from the burning cities will rampage across the countryside and take everything.

            Don’t believe me? Take a look at South Africa.

            :@)

    2. Do you deliver to Suffolk, BoB?

      Our woodshed needs filling at summer rates. I cannot persuade Best Beloved to start ordering – even on my card.

      1. No ash trees dying in your area?
        All you need is permission from the landowner and a chainsaw!

        1. Sorry, BoB, but I have neither and will have to buy crates of logs from local vendors.

    1. Oh I love it…how to get banned from social media. My BLM loving friend is going on about the racist tweets but her relationship with her black boyfriend is off. They fell out over the football. Actually rather sad as I thought she’d finally found the right partner.

        1. No, fortunately too old for that! Mind, by the same token, old enough to know better.

          2. Yes, it seems the crack was already there. He likes footie, she’d rather watch Sky Arts. I had the impression before that they were on the same page but it now appears not.

    1. Afternoon Sue.. Hope you’re getting some rays today Last chance for a vitamin D top up.. :@)

      1. It is ackshally lovely out. Gardening all afternoon. Plus a spot of ladder work…

        Hope you are buggering along nicely – remembering to take the tablets…

        1. Weell…the weather forecast said it would last all month so i have my brolly ready.

          Thanks for the under duress email. Nice but not my thing. I’m more used to the big house.

  50. So I see 1200 members of the communist party that happen to be scientists want to keep us in dystopian lockdowns.
    Lets just face it, all these far left scientists do not like us, they see us as the primary cause of destroying the planet and using up all the resources, why wouldn’t they want to lock us down, use us as lab rats, they want to save the planet, everything that causes CO2 has been calculated down to ten decimal points.
    I bet they have done calculations for humans that are no longer productive, retired, elderly, the sick and are thinking if only we could cull them a bit we could reduce our CO2 production even more, after all they keep on about sustainability all the time.
    I bet they are thinking that if only we could shrink our economies, cut our use of the worlds resources, force people to live like we did a millennia ago then we could heal the planet.

    1. We could globally improve mental health by sending all those scientists and academics into the fields to raise tofu.

      I think that might have been tried before but it probably wasn’t proper tofu so let’s try it again.

    2. Talking of which: One or two may recall we managed to buy a wreck of a property a while back (albeit with fantastic views). As part of its renovation it was decided that a single storey rear extension would enhance the viewing experience. Architect & builders appointed and work commenced. At this point it was established that a corner of the extension would be above a 4″ sewer. Structural Engineers were therefore appointed and an acceptable solution was developed. At this point the water authority having viewed a dirty video recording of the sewer decided that as it was a public sewer that had evidence of historical cracks they needed to replace a section of it (free of charge) . However, there is a snag as it is on private land we are responsible for excavating the soil. No problem except the pipe is at a depth of 10′. Back to the Structural Engineers to devise a safe trench for the Water Authority’s staff to work in. I swear I’m going to call this house ‘Pay to View’….

  54. Now returned from a three week trundle in the TinTent around Shrewsbury, the Lake District and Buxton and I’m delighted to say the old “Green and Pleasant” didn’t fail to lighten the spirits, all the folk we met on the sites and the towns were delightful and were represented as you would expect i.e. 90% wasp.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a1301172240a563b1c38e4237aea49f63b5ee2b881d752ae2f3e926464b2316.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/33cdc9dbce8d4006fb9dfc4fbdfc84446c8b8f5caa9dfd00ac9ceed76afd5731.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fcbed8b33432a0cb78fad358bbb67d358a1607b931e44ba4fa219631d6c2c755.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8301eefee127e7e6f10eff9bf743c62ef2f2013d16f1219b3e9d6361b2f0d64f.jpg

    1. If you’d have dropped down the A515 Lichfield Road from Buxton and then turned left onto the A5012 Cromford Road at Newhaven, you could have called in for a cup of tea.

      1. We were in the CMC site on the southern side of Buxton and also had a stunningly good meal and beer at The Royal Oak at Hurdlow, never mind we’ll catch you next time 8^)

        2. I’m currently using a battery powered lightweight which, as well as being a lot lighter to handle, is also a lot quieter.

  56. I’m sure we all know one pinger.

    Old-fashioned common sense conslusions from Vivian Evans at Independence Daily

    You have pingitis! Be afraid, be very afraid!

    We have a new ‘disease’! It’s called ‘pingitis’. It has now become a ‘pingdemic’. Depending on you reading preferences the numbers of those pinged vary from a coy ‘huge numbers of staff’ in the DT to ‘500,000 pinged’ in The Times to a truly enormous ‘900,000 alerts’ in the DM.

    This morning we learn that people have been pinged who hadn’t even been out that day because the NHS app even pings through party walls. We learn that pingitis is affecting the NHS, that rubbish isn’t collected in some local areas, that guests in hotels in Cornwall are being asked to help clean the premises – they’re getting a £15 voucher per day for that -, that factories like Rolls-Royce and Nissan are ‘on the verge of shutting down’ and that Trade Union leaders demand that something must be done (paywalled link).

    What is going on? According to government sources, lovingly reported in the MSM, this is all due to the bluetooth facility in the NHS App being ‘too strong’ and thus picking up all those contacts even through walls:

    “That is understood to have been raised as a concern in the initial stages of building the technology – now being reviewed amid concerns it is too sensitive – although Whitehall sources said on Thursday that any changes would not be made for some weeks.” (paywalled link)

    The covid government is clearly not taking this seriously because those ‘changes’ won’t come before the middle of next month. Perhaps all those who should work on those changes have also caught pingitis and are self-isolating?

    There are some questions which should be asked – by Trade Unions, by factory CEOs, by local councils and not least by all those fabulous ‘health and science’ correspondents. For example: why has this pingdemic taken off in the last couple of weeks but not before? After all, if pings can go through walls this should’ve been noticed before, no?

    A cynical observer might think that this is a ploy by the covid dictators to force people into demanding the ‘solution’ which Gove ‘trialled’ when he came back from Portugal a few weeks ago, having duly been pinged. He simply took a PCR test after two days and was ‘released’.

    Might the pingdemic simply be used by the SAGEs to herd people into getting more PCR tests? Never mind that ‘more tests’ equals ‘more case numbers’! After all, haven’t our SAGEs let us know their alarms about that ‘Freedom Day’ coming too soon and driving up yet another ‘wave’? A ‘wave’ which must be shown to happen, by more tests?

    Another question not asked is: why didn’t we have a pingdemic before? The NHS app developers knew about this ‘strong bluetooth signal’ – so, were people not pinged properly? For example during the ‘wave’ at the beginning of this year? After all, case numbers were rising but, even though we were locked down, those who kept the country going during that time, the shop assistants and rubbish collectors surely must have been pinged during that time?

    No answers to be had anywhere as of yet. Perhaps the ‘health and science’ correspondents are working on articles for the weekend editions! Meanwhile comment posters below all those pingitis articles are practically unanimous in their advice: switch the thing off or better, uninstall it.

    The Times has dedicated one of their ‘analyses’ to the ping-issue. After explaining in loving detail how anonymous these apps are, that no data are collected (yes, I too am still believing in Father Christmas), they write:

    “the app is voluntary to download, free to delete at any time, and there is no legal requirement to adhere to it if you get an alert — and no one would know if you didn’t. This is in contrast to testing positive for Covid or being told to isolate by an NHS Test and Trace official where there is a legal requirement to do so. The app is designed to protect people and self-isolating after getting an alert may be the best way to prevent more members of the public getting Covid.” (link, paywalled)

    Ah. So there are two apps – but how do we know which one causes pingitis? The next explanation shows that even the mighty minds of those health correspondents are somewhat confused:

    “Do I need to keep self-isolating if I have received a negative Covid-19 test result? The app guidelines say you should still isolate for ten days when pinged, even if you test negative for Covid-19 as you could still get symptoms after being tested. Again, there is no way of authorities knowing whether you have complied with this and no legal requirement to do so.” (link, paywalled)

    So ‘the authorities’ have no way of knowing if you’ve tested -ve but do know if you tested +ve? Interesting! Perhaps the pingdemic is simply the result of large numbers of people being terrified out of their minds, doing as they’re told by an app? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit!

    Meanwhile here’s a new conundrum. We read in Lockdown sceptics that, according to data presented by Professor Spector who runs the ZOE data collection,

    “symptomatic infections in the unvaccinated have been dropping since the start of the month, whereas those in the vaccinated (with at least one dose) continue to surge – though are perhaps slowing towards a peak now.” (link)

    Now isn’t that … interesting! How can it be that the unjabbed are no longer catching covid but the vaccinated ones do? Read the whole thing – it might have something to do with that ‘horror’ called ‘herd immunity’ in the non-jabbed.

    There’s another interesting phenomenon, this time observed in Israel which was the front runner in jabbing their population with the Pfizer jab:

    “With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID. By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.” (link)

    Yes, these are small numbers, but surely our covid researchers ought to ask if such disparity might be found here in the UK? Moreover, doesn’t this at least raise the question about the usefulness of all those jabs and if a ‘booster jab’ even makes sense.

    Our SAGEs however prefer to look at which jab people received, the ‘experts’ being from Imperial College London – the place which brought forth Professor ‘Lockdown’ Ferguson. They found that:

    “Britons double-jabbed with the AstraZeneca vaccine may be three times more likely to get symptoms of the virus than those who got Pfizer and Moderna, according to SAGE figures. Scientists at Imperial College London estimate two doses of AstraZeneca’s jab is 55 per cent effective at blocking symptoms of the Indian ‘Delta’ variant. But the efficacy figure for two doses of either Pfizer or Moderna is thought to be in the region of 85 per cent, they say.” (link)

    ‘Tis strange though when one recalls that the Israelis used the Pfizer jab for practically everyone. Of course, it would be totally appalling were I to remind myself that Profs Vallance and Whitty are alleged to have some sort connections with Pfizer – financial ones, allegedly.

    I leave you with a remark by Professor Spector who explained to Lockdown Sceptics that the main worry now must be about ‘Long Covid’ (link). Now there’s scary! Especially since the ever helpful Times has just reported that:

    “Long Covid has more than 200 symptoms that affect ten organs, the largest international study of “long haulers” suggests. British health experts are calling for a nationwide screening programme to help identify the condition in people who may be suffering in silence. The study, led by University College London (UCL), has identified 203 symptoms of long Covid affecting the organs, with 66 lasting up to seven months.” (link, paywalled)

    ‘Suffering in silence’, is it? I recall acres of pixels having been dedicated to ‘Long Covid’, for a year. But of course we need more screening! Another nice little earner for the covid ‘experts’ who might run out of funds or become unemployed should the waves of ‘covid casedemics’ turn out to be no worse than the pingdemic created by pingitis.

    Is it the aim of the SAGEs to turn us into a nation of hypochondriac skivers? Perhaps someone ought to have a word with Rishi Washi who will ultimately have to distribute our money …

    If you caught pingitis it’s your own fault, for being a good little covid lemming. So my non-medical advice is: ditch your smartphones – and if you can’t do that, at least ditch the NHS apps and refrain from getting tested. Life can be so easy!

    KBO!

    1. Hear hear Vivian. Why on earth install the app in the first place? I’d like to know how they “know” you’ve been in contact with someone with a virus in the first place. Not that I’m cynical!

    2. What a buggers muddle.
      Delete the app, and if you must have it, switch off the bluetooth and gps in the phone.

      1. I don’t have the app. I recent bought a second-hand i-phone and I don’t take it out of the house except if it is important for me to be contactable – and that ain’t often!

  57. Afternoon everyone.

    Have received an email from the dentist.

    “To all our patients,

    With 19th July approaching and England preparing for the remaining legal restrictions to be lifted, we wanted to update you about what can be expected in the coming weeks and months at the practice.

    Firstly we would like to assure you that our dental practice remains a safe environment to attend for treatment. However we do need to ensure our vulnerable patients are protected.

    With this in mind, we will be continuing certain procedures so you can be seen, assessed, and treated without concern for your own safety.

    Face coverings must be worn unless medically exempt
    Social distancing is necessary in the waiting room
    Pre-appointment health checks

    These measures have played an important role in dentistry throughout the pandemic to help protect you, our staff and allowed us to continue to provide emergency dental care for patients most in need.

    We cannot thank you enough for your co-operation throughout the pandemic, and we hope to return to normality soon.

    We look forward to seeing you at your dental appointment.”

    I’m sorry to say I have reacted rather badly. “I would like to make a comment on your latest communication.

    Legal restrictions are lifted as from Monday 19th July.

    Yet you still intend to keep them – masks, unless medically exempt, social distancing and pre-appointment health checks (what is that?).

    You have obviously followed all legal requirements faithfully. Now they are being lifted you are still enforcing them. Why is this?

    Surely your surgery is always kept clean, particularly your dental
    equipment?

    You “hope to return to normality soon”. What then is your normality?”

    I’m pretty sure they will decline to be my dentist in the future. And ignore my missive!

    1. Good afternoon Maggie.

      When i asked for a hygienist appointment back in May they said they didn’t see any return to normal until at least the end of the year. So no sonic or speedy water but a scrape would be available.

      1. Hi Phizzee, how’s things today? Better I hope. I must say I’m a scaredy cat when it comes to dentists so it wouldn’t upset me too much if I was crossed off their List! I only go if I absolutely have to.

        1. Panic over. Stabilised now.

          My Dentist is brilliant. Never any pain. Not even from injections to the roof of the mouth. I’m quite nonchalant about going to the Dentist now.

          1. The last time I went and had to have a filling I asked for some gauze soaked in anaesthetic on the area before the injection!

          2. My Dentist will use a gel if required but i haven’t felt the need. He has a very steady hand and goes slowly.

            And if Bill Thomas is reading this i am talking about Dentistry !

          3. I haven’t needed much dental treatment in my life. My dentists years ago were father and then son…… the father never offered any anaesthetic – he was careful and I never needed any. When the son did a filling for me years later, he offered an injection – i was a bit surprised and told him his father had never offered one. He said “My father’s patients were very brave”. I did have the injection…… sadly both are long dead now. The son died on holiday in Corsica, saving his son from difficulties in the sea.

          4. My first dentist – Mr. Matthew, as I knew him, only had one of those of those slow, foot pedal drills. It was horrible. It was only when I was old enough to do my own searching (around age 15) that I discovered dentists with high speed drills and injections.

    2. What do they mean by pre-appointment health checks? That sounds ominous – unless it’s just the temperature check gun.

      1. When my Dentist sends me my appointment reminder there is a small health survey to fill in. It asks q’s about covid symptoms.

        1. I usually just get asked by the hygenist if there’s been any change in my medical history. It’s always no.

    3. All these places are frightened of legal action if someone who has even briefly been inside, happens to test positive for C-19 subsequently. The businesses are more frit than the sheeple.

    4. All these places are frightened of legal action if someone who has even briefly been inside, happens to test positive for C-19 subsequently. The businesses are more frit than the sheeple.

    5. I have an appointment on Tuesday for the dentist. I have received a very similar email, no longer triaging phone call the day before, the door will be unlocked so walk on in, no more ringing to tell them I am standing outside, but they ask patients to continue to wear a mask unless exempt.
      I suspect the dental association has issued this guidance to all their members, as Hertlass said, to minimise the risk of legal action. In fairness, I am prepared to carry on with masks in such places, GP’s, hospital, dentist and even the pharmacy, for these are the likely places vulnerable people are likely to cross paths with me. To my mind a small inconvenience, twice a year for the Dentist, once every few years for the GP and hopefully every decade or so for the hospital. Not a big deal for me, I have lots of other things to get wound up about, but each to their own.

        1. Answer No1 (Sensible)
          Yes, but I would not consider the hygienist and dentist to be in the vulnerable group.
          Answer No2 (Non sensible)
          With my mouth, they can work from the inside outwards. 😃

          1. My last appointment with the hygenist was cancelled because one of her children was sent home from school. Rearranged for 7th August. Meanwhile the dentist has left. A new one for the December appointment. No continuity there now – I never see the same one twice.

          2. I am lucky, my dentist has been the same one for a number of years now and has been open whenever he has been allowed too by law during the Covid fiasco. A good dentist and a good GP is one of life’s bonuses, pity there are so few left now in the country.

          3. The couple who bought the practice after Nick drowned (see my other post) were good but they sold up to BUPA and retired two or three years ago. The hygenist has been there for quite a few years – but the last appointment was nowhere near as thorough as she usually is because of the restrictions. The dentists now are young and straight from university.

          4. My dentist used to try and employ a newly qualified dentist under NHS terms as a third dentist in the practice. They had to abandon this idea as all newly qualified dentists wanted to go straight into private dentistry to make their fortune. As I was told, they are no longer interested in starting at the bottom rung of the ladder.

          6. Maybe they just don’t want to work in a nationalised industry. I wouldn’t blame them.
            People have to bite the bullet and fork out for dentistry!

          7. I for one do fork out for my dentistry, however I believe much like a newly qualified driver, the learning only really starts after qualification. There is a case to be made to fully learn your trade before charging top dollar.

      2. Seeing as the injections do not give immunity and that you can still spread it after having had the jabs if you have it what are they really for? The WHO said originally that masks are not effective. And “boosters” are on the horizon.

        These small “inconveniences” are being encouraged by the government. It helps them avoid mandating anything if they “encourage” businesses to carry on with their restrictions. And as we get nearer to Sutumn and Winter the fear levels will be pumped up until we are in yet another lockdown.

        I hope that everyone will discard their masks and social distancing from Monday. But I fear they will not. Control is what it’s all about. And the public is making it more likely.

    6. That is the standard response and identical to the message I just received from my Sudbury dental practice.

      I am presently going to BUPA Colchester for dental work.

  58. And that’s the 3rd ash tree dropped.
    4½” x 32′ all ready for logging and seasoning. I’ve a stack of logs beside the house, where I usually have the saw horse, and another stack up the garden that is getting bigger as I go through the trees I need to drop.

    I’ve noticed a couple of 1″ or so ash in amongst the silver birch and goat willow that will need to come out at some time, but that’s me finished for the day. Sat enjoying my 5th mug of tea and will go for a cold bath after that before doing the dinner.

    Pork Pie, cheese, salad and my own pickled onions & chutney.

      1. Mug of tea at the moment. Still a few light jobs to do.
        The bottle of ale will be this evening.

  60. Top tip for those with doggies suffering in the heat. An ice cube. Dolly loves hers. I think i might put a meat treat in the next batch.

    1. Yo Fizz

      Think a head, put a couple of Ice Cubes in all the food that you cook for Dolly…..

    2. So does Oscar. I accidentally dropped an ice cube as I was preparing a Pimms and he was onto it in a flash, so next time I kept a cube aside for him.

      2. I have just filled a jug with ice. Quarter bottle of vodka and a litre of fruit juice. 37c in my back garden in the shade. Dolly ain’t getting any…all mine !

  61. If any Nottler has tried to do this, would they care to share their experiences?

    Man suffers permanently disfigured penis after getting it stuck in a padlock for TWO WEEKS: ‘Embarrassed’ Thai mother tells medics – ‘he likes putting it through small holes’
    The man, 38, clamped the padlock around the base of his penis two weeks ago but he lost the key and his genitalia began to swell
    He tried and failed to remove the metal device so left it until it became infected
    His mother said her son did not have a girlfriend and he was ‘bored’ because he had been staying at his home in Bangkok, Thailand, during the pandemic

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9794559/Man-suffers-permanently-disfigured-penis-getting-stuck-padlock-TWO-WEEKS.html

    7. Caverject works well and lasts for 4 hours – no need for padlocks, just a jab in the willy – it doesn’t hurt.

    8. Replying for a friend, having the means to unlock the padlock is key to a happy ending…..

  62. Afternoon, all. Scorchio here for a change. Too hot even to lie out in the garden! I did manage to get a few things done, but then I came inside to cool off.

      1. Wednesday, Bill. Very good, thank you. We did trotting pole work (collected trot, walk, extended trot) getting him to bend his hocks and pick his feet up. He found it easier to do the extended trot, walk, collected trot exercise because going from walk to extended trot was a “put in the too difficult tray” moment. 🙂

          1. We do different things each week, but all exercises are aimed at helping his suppleness. Last week it was increasing and decreasing the size of circles.

    1. I picked mine this morning before the birdies woke up and ruined them. No photo though because i’m not one of those sad people that takes pictures of food. :@)

          1. Strawberry Seed Beetle – possibly. Eats it from the inside, so what looks like a luscious fruit is just the husk.. Bastards!

          3. The irony is that the net placed to deter birds, also prevents them eating the beetles. Catch-22

          5. But but but…if the beetles are eating the strawberries from the INSIDE how are the birdies suppose to get to the beetles without eating the berries?

            That’s a proper catch-22. :@)

  65. Dolly just ran out to me going apeshit barking.

    Turns out we have had a visit from a slow worm. She couldn’t see it because it was in a gully and she was in another room. I ssssuppose it ssspoke to her.

    2. I’ve got slow worms in the garden, we’re a bit of a hotspot for them and I often find them in the compost bins.

  66. An article which may be of interest to any Nottler thinking about returning to employment. (Does such a creature exist?)

    A carp job for carp pay, the public may always be right, they can always be a pain in the arse, why is it called hospitality sector, sometimes a most inhospitable sector in my experience. No wonder there is a shortage of staff.

    The real reasons for Britain’s labour shortage

    By Louis Ashworth and Russell Lynch, Economics Editor 15 July 2021 • 7:00pm

    Britain’s exit from the EU appears to have stuck at the wrong moment for companies trying to capture pent-up demand from Covid-19 unlocking
    For many employers, the labour market isn’t working.
    As Britain inches closer to the full lifting of restrictions, a widespread staff shortage has triggered wage rises and inflation.
    Adam Handling is just one of many victims of the change. The chef, who was named Restaurateur of the Year by magazine GQ last year, has seen a sharp plunge in interest for roles at his restaurants.
    “Usually, a post about hiring or whatever would get maybe 100, 150 responses,” he says. “Now you’re lucky if you get five or 10.”
    Shortages force tough choices. Handling has already cut opening hours at his newest restaurant, The Loch & The Tyne in Windsor, at a “considerable financial loss”.
    For now, he’s holding out on raising pay to attract recruits, but he says its tough to get applicants for junior chef roles. His struggles reflect a job market in a deep state of flux.
    Unemployment is still stunningly low at 4.8pc, having been cushioned through the pandemic by the Government’s furlough scheme. Meanwhile job vacancies are soaring, standing at a record high nearly a third above pre-virus levels as of last week.
    For many businesses, that means it has seldom, if ever, been harder to get the staff they need.
    Companies in the transport, logistics and hospitality sectors are seeing the worst shortages. According to jobs site Adzuna, which underpins the Office for National Statistics’ data on vacancies, adverts for logistics roles are about three times higher than in February 2020.
    The Road Haulage Association, which represents lorry companies, says the UK is short 100,000 HGV drivers as a result of the pandemic and Brexit. The impact of this on supply chains and elsewhere is already becoming apparent, with even shop staples such as Haribo sweets missing from shelves.
    “I’ve rarely been in such a fast-moving environment where there are so many different factors at stake,” says Andrew Baxter, managing director at logistics group Europa Worldwide.
    Baxter has had to hike pay for his lorry drivers twice this year, leaving it about a fifth higher.
    Britain’s exit from the EU appears to have stuck at just the wrong moment for companies trying to capture some of the pent-up demand unleashed by the country’s Covid-19 unlocking.
    “We’re just not bringing the amount of labour in from the Continent that we were before,” says Baxter.
    Measuring the impact that both Brexit and the pandemic has had on the EU population in Britain has proved troublesome for statisticians. The ONS’ latest best guess is that the number of non-UK nationals from the bloc dropped by about 200,000 between the start of 2020 and March this year.
    Exactly who those workers were, what they did – and whether they’ll come back – is unknown, but the pain their absence is causing is clear.
    “From the chef point of view, it’s the hardest it’s ever been,” says Ed Vokes, managing director at Evolve Recruitment, a hospitality agency with offices across England.
    He says some hospitality workers shifted to other sectors during the pandemic to find they received more steady pay and predictable hours. Many don’t want to go back, or have higher demands when they do.
    “Pre-pandemic, you would tell a guy: ‘this is where you’re going to work and this is what you’re going to do’,” says Vokes. “You now have to listen to what they want, and match what they want to the job.”
    Eventually, Britain’s new immigration scheme should plug some of the gaps.
    “In the short-term you would expect immigration numbers to stay low as a result of Brexit and the pandemic,” says Jonathan Thomas, a senior fellow at the Social Market Foundation, a centrist think-tank.
    “In the medium term, you could say conditions have been set up for continued and potentially quite substantial migration to the UK, and there are various reasons for thinking those immigration pressures in the UK would likely come from outside the EU.”
    That’s cold comfort to British bosses, many of whom now face a painful choice: raise wages, or cut their operations. Adding to their cocktail of woes, many are seeing staffing levels disrupted by ‘pings’ from the NHS Test and Trace app, which alerted half a million people to self-isolate last week.
    As the shortage of workers bites, Britain is experiencing some heady wage numbers. Stripping out bonuses, average wages were 7.3pc higher in May than a year before.
    There are some specific factors in play, however. The concentration of job losses in lower paid areas such as hospitality has served to push up average wages. The ONS’ deputy national statistician, Jonathan Athow, draws a comparison with measuring height: if the shortest person in a room leaves, the average height of those remaining will rise even though nobody has grown taller.
    Adjusting for that effect, as the impact of peak furlough last year – when many of the 9m people in the scheme were being paid just 80pc of their salary – the ONS’ best estimate of “underlying” wage growth is between 3.2pc and 4.4pc.
    The Bank of England’s Michael Saunders yesterday suggested that Rishi Sunak’s cocktail of labour market painkillers had partially numbed wages, freezing salaries and causing pay to be less responsive to worker availability.
    That problem should ease slightly in the autumn as the furlough scheme – still covering one in 20 workers according to ONS estimates – is wound down.
    But with vacancies close to 1m, Kallum Pickering, senior economist at Berenberg, warns the labour market will need months or even years to respond to a skills mismatch as demand for new digital skills rises after the pandemic in a shifting economy.
    “It might take 18 months, maybe two years, for all those workers to retrain and get back into the labour force”, he says. which would put more pressure on pay and lead to structurally higher unemployment.
    Pickering flags the fiscal and monetary firepower unleashed in response to the pandemic, as well as sustained supply shortages, as inflationary “red flags”.
    Baxter, the logistics boss, sees an upside: “The reality is that this is driving up pay rates for the least well off people in society. There are plenty of people that would say that that was a good thing, particularly people who end up getting paid more.”
    Hospitality may be feeling the pain now, but Vokes warns this could be just the beginning, with the possibility of deeper shortages in the coming months as stadiums reopen and contract catering resumes.
    “This is going to be the craziest September the industry has ever seen for staff shortages,” he says.
    As both vacancies and wages soar, lights are beginning to blink red on the Bank of England’s dashboard. As Saunders hinted yesterday, policymakers will only be willing to tolerate inflation risks for so long.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/15/real-reasons-britains-labour-shortage/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. Catering jobs always were the hardest to fill. Now the young eastern Europeans who came over have probably gone home.

      I worked part time for twenty years in outside catering – the wages were not brilliant but we had a lot of fun and made good friends. People in this country don’t see waiting as a career, as they do in France, for instance, so it’s a low-grade job, although it does require good people skills. Most youngsters probably don’t want the long hours, split shifts and hard work.

      1. I started off in hospitality. If i worked more than 25 hours a week the taxman halved my wage. He also estimated my tips and took £10 more.

        If i worked a forty hour week i ended up with less money than if i worked a 20 hour week. There were no top up benefits in those days.

    2. The big issue is the sheer cost of living. Remember that the state continually fiddles the figures to ensure unemployment cannot be compared one year to the next.

      We hired a developer chap for a contract – 6 months, long skill list, high day rate. Usually I’d expect 5 or so decent CVs. We got sent 30 odd. Most are good, one was a literal begging letter to take a chance on a guy – so we did, and brought in the contractory guy.

    1. Our Rod got it badly wrong with his prediction for Batley and Spen.

      I guess the ‘Hancock Affair’ had an unforeseeable affect?

          1. He probably is, John. Trouble is, I get confused and can’t tell which is which!

  69. Earlier this week, an investigative journalist (remember them?) was murdered in The Netherlands. A suspect is in custody.

    The murder was believed to have been ordered by ” Dutch public enemy No 1″. He is a Moroccan Slammer – who kills anyone who gets in his way.

    The press tends not to overstate the “Moroccan” part – nor the “Slammer” part of the story.

    Funny that. Anyway, coming to a town near you quite soon.

    1. According to official population projections in a round one decade the Dutch will be a minority in their own land.

        1. They are being positively promoted in the English and Scottish Parliaments to the highest levels. Obviously they were the best people for the jobs……………

          2. It used to be the case that you had to lock up your daughters. With this lot even your sons aren’t safe.

            Multiculturalism…don’t you just love it…

  70. Sickening:

    From the Beeb:

    “England is experiencing an unseasonable rise in winter vomiting virus, officials are warning.
    Public Health England (PHE) says 154 Norovirus outbreaks have been reported in the last five weeks, compared to an average of 53 over the same time period in the previous five years.
    Most have been in educational settings, particularly in nurseries.

    2. Bradford, Luton, Rotherham will be the hotspots. Wiping a shitty butt with your hand will guarantee transmission.

      1. Always after a dodgy curry. Those stains are a nightmare to get out of someone elses sheets…so i’m told. *whistles….

  74. Jonathan Thomson, a young golfer from Rotherham, has just sunk a hole-in-one at The Open.

  75. That’s me gone. Drink in the sun. More watering tomorrow first thing.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Beetle watch duty? I go out at night with a torch and a flamethrower. Instant jam.

      1. I’ve just given Oscar his last walk for the day and have opened a bottle of Merlot. Cheers!

        1. I’ve had a bottle of West Berkshire’s “Good Old Boy” best bitter and one of Loose Cannon’s “Abingdon Bridge”.
          Both excellent ales.

          1. I’m afraid I’ve never been a beer drinker (I spent too much time in France to acquire the taste).

  77. Yesterday on BBC Scottish News , Jason Leitch the National Clinical Director of The Scottish Government was on a segment of news that very few young people were coming fore=ward to be vaccinated. He said,”please, please, please”* get vaccinated. Very edifying, the Chief Medico begging for people to be vaccinated.
    Today he appeared in segment to confirm what the First Minister, Mrs Murrell, had put in writing to a young lady coming back from Dubai to see her father.
    The girls’ father is about to die and wants to see his daughter before he dies. If she goes into the compulsory “quarantine”, he will die before she can see him.
    Mrs Murrell stated that this does not qualify as a “compassionate exemption”.

    Lovely people, a nice pair.

    Now about the Glasgow climate conference… oh, wait, they are all VIPs and their bodyguards, secretaries and bag-carriers…

    * actual quote.

    1. I could well fall into that example – there will be a call one day, to say that I need to get to Cardiff soonest, mother is dying and hasn’t much time to go. The admin is bad enough, but refused entry by some jumped-up shit of a politician would really get me steaming.

      1. Be insistent. Be polite. Be assertive.

        If all these things fail…punch their lights out.

  79. I have been invaded, thousands of flying ants. It is almost as if “Piti useless” has been put in charge of defending our gardens against them, same result as the Channel beaches.

    1. Is it flying ant day? Yes, it’s about this time of year. Don’t worry, it only lasts a couple of days.

    2. 1. One cannister of fly spray.
      2. One hour in nearest pub.
      3. Hoover.

      For the other invading species….Automatic weapons.

      1. Nah, the great majority of flying ants are outside, none are wearing masks, I’ll leave them be, who knows they may decide to go on holiday in France.

    3. The ants under our doorstep are very active. We’re on old heath land, so ants are persistent problem.

      1. A spokesant for the colony says that Anne Allan is a persistent problem. 👎🏻☹️

      3. Old maps show the land for our house was a pig farm in the past, I’ll say no more!

        2. The land my house is built on originally belonged to the Big House estate (it was a late sale, hence we don’t have a number, which confuses the heck out of delivery drivers – “… but that’s number 6!” they exclaim as they point to the house next door. “So it may be, but we are NOT number 8.”).

      4. My old house in Southampton was built on an old watercress bed, complete with spring that made the foundations of the place soggy and oozed out into the kitchen drain at the back of the place.

        1. Well, he is the tosser who boasted that he’d had bacon and egg for breakfast, before dawn, on the first day of Eid!! He even twatted about it!

    4. Ed Davey – a man who thinks windmills and solar panels are the answer to everything when any fule kno it’s 42!

      1. Even the Lib/Dems cannot stand the odious Mr Davey. He is only there by default because the previous leader, Jo Swinson, lost her parliamentary seat just as Clegg had done before. It is high time that Davey lost his seat too.

    5. He got the date wrong in the letter too – the initial lockdown started on 23rd March 2020, not May.

  81. Oh bugger.
    Went up the garden to cut the trees I dropped today into 2½’ lengths, did a bit of ground elder pulling and am sat relaxing with a 2nd bottle of ale catching up with the backlog of posts.
    Then went and clicked to upvote one of Anne’s comments and got bloody Dusqused.

  82. Stop press. Great news. A wedding today in the village – in church – with music and singing and 120 people. Stuff the rules….

  83. Will Boris ever defy the doom and gloom scientists?

    The Prime Minister has shown a dismal lack of resolve in standing up to the Covid fearmongers

    CAMILLA TOMINEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR • 16 July 2021 • 6:00pm

    Theresa May hit the nail on the head a month ago when she questioned why “we’re more restricted than we were last year”, despite over half the population being vaccinated. The former prime minister was talking about the Government’s “incomprehensible” travel policy, but the query also applies to the ludicrous rules on self-isolation that have resulted in many of us more controlled than we were last summer.

    With NHS Test and Trace sending alerts to people who have never come into contact with a positive case – and in some cases “pinging” people through walls – businesses, transport and schools have been brought to a standstill. We were promised freedom from Monday but instead we’ve got FRINO (Freedom In Name Only), a watered-down return to nothing remotely resembling normal. The legal requirement may have been lifted, but our being “encouraged” to continue wearing masks and socially distance means we remain in a perpetual state of lockdown limbo, seemingly with no end in sight.

    Boris Johnson had hoped to leave it to our discretion – but has instead succeeded in devolving the decision-making to the most risk averse members of our post-pandemic United Pingdom: headteachers; council leaders; London’s virtue-signalling mayor Sadiq Khan. So much for the Churchillian spirit of having “the courage to continue”. Instead of a British bulldog, the Prime Minister is starting to resemble one of those preposterous Pomeranians that ladies who lunch carry around in their handbags.

    To make matters worse, his failure to put his foot down in the face of repeated fearmongering means we have no clear idea when we are ever going to get out of this. If it wasn’t bad enough that Mr Johnson has once again been captured by zero Covidists pushing worse-case scenarios, it’s a trap he has repeatedly fallen into over the last 16 months.

    The thing to remember about scientific modellers is they can never really be held accountable. (Prof Neil Ferguson resigning over his lockdown lover, rather than his models, being a case in point.) If they forecast imminent doom and it doesn’t happen, people say: “Thank God for that.” If it does, people say: “Thank God you warned us.”

    Lo and behold, we now learn that the modelling that helped persuade the Government to delay the June 21 reopening was overly pessimistic and the lockdown lifting should “possibly” have gone ahead on time. It turns out Britain was actually in a much better situation than the scientists made out when they suggested third wave deaths could hit 72,000. Not only did they underestimate vaccine effectiveness but they also misjudged how cautious the public would be after earlier restrictions were lifted.

    Yet even with data from the ZOE study showing that the third wave may have peaked already, and the link between infections and hospitalisations and deaths having been significantly weakened, still the Government insists on relying on the most Grim Reaperish of forecasts. Mark my words, when the numbers eventually do come down, which they inevitably will, it won’t be attributed to our vaccinations, antibodies or herd immunity but to mask wearing and other measures.

    We are stuck in this situation not merely because the powers that be have failed to tweak the sensitivity of the app but also because fearful ministers delayed until August new rules for the double-jabbed. And why did they do that? Because balanced thinking once again collapsed in the face of a scientific onslaught that followed that all too familiar pattern.

    Forget the four steps of the Prime Minister’s roadmap. You don’t need a PhD to understand the formula of how every single government U-turn has come about.

    Step 1: Mr Johnson, conscious of the economic calamity being caused by lockdown and mindful of the timebomb of non-Covid conditions waiting to explode, calls for restrictions to be lifted.

    Step 2: Modellers release a worse-case scenario suggesting the NHS is in danger of being overwhelmed, if not now, then certainly by winter.

    Step 3: Scientific group thinkers perhaps motivated by a self-interest in lockdown that may have been influenced by socialist tendencies take to the airwaves insisting that the “irresponsible” Prime Minister is unnecessarily putting lives at risk.

    Step 4: The unions and opposition mobilise to suggest the #Toryscum of a Government is getting it wrong, aided by a largely Left-leaning Twitterati of middle-class armchair experts who quite like working from home.

    Step 5: Those with a dissenting view who dare to suggest the modellers may be overegging it are denounced as quacks while a letter, signed by their detractors, is submitted to the BMJ or The Lancet warning against the “dangerous and unethical” ditching of masks and social distancing.

    Step 6: Increasingly concerned by the growing media backlash, and persuaded by polling which unsurprisingly suggests that a terrified public is afraid of being lifted out of lockdown, Mr Johnson backs down.

    Time and again the Prime Minister has fallen down this rabbit hole, only to trap us all in a parallel universe where thousands can watch the Euros at Wembley but parents are banned from sports day, millions are forced to self-isolate without testing positive and card-carrying communist Prof Susan Michie is a mainstay of the BBC.

    Even Alice might be forgiven for wondering whether our nation ruled by nonsensical policies had completely lost the plot. Albert Einstein famously said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. How on earth can we learn to live with coronavirus if we are still being encouraged to live in fear of it – even though 53 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated?

    Only Mr Johnson can break this cycle, and yet one remains under the disturbing impression that even after the promised changes come in August, we will remain trapped in this unachievable quest for zero Covid, potentially forever.

    I think I’d rather be stuck in Wonderland than this.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/16/will-boris-ever-defy-doom-gloom-scientists/

    1. Petsy Wyatt (further down this thread) has given a most honest appraisal of Boris’s failures.

  84. Dear Supporter,

    ​​When 17.4 million patriotic Brits voted to leave the corrupt European Union five years ago, it was a magnificent triumph for our country. But it was never just about Britain. As Boris Johnson said in that final television debate: “If we stand up for democracy, we will be speaking up for hundreds of millions of people around Europe who agree with us but who currently have no voice.”

    And it appears at least one country in the EU has now found their voice, with senior Polish judges this week defying orders from the hated European Court of Justice by refusing to suspend new constitutional reforms passed legitimately by the democratically elected Polish government.

    The reforms will see a new disciplinary panel set up to remove legal immunity from Polish judges and hold them accountable to the public, with many concerned about the enduring influence of ​c​ommunist-era judges who remain on the bench decades after the fall of Soviet tyranny.

    Given British judges this week denied the Justice Secretary’s righteous plea to keep child rapist and murderer Colin Pitchfork behind bars, making judges more accountable to the public doesn’t seem like such a bad idea!

    The bold decision has been dubbed a legal Polexit by some experts, as swivel-eyed Europhiles demand immediate punishment in the form of crippling sanctions – ​all because Poland’s judges decided that ​their proud nation’s own laws should reign supreme. All very odd for a supranational organisation which, we were told endlessly by Remainers, is simply about regulating international trade

    We certainly hope European countries continue to find their own voice and hit back against the warped diktats of unaccountable European courts. Poland and Hungary – fight on, stay strong, and don’t give an inch!

    The kind of backbone seen in Poland was sorely lacking at home this week. We were hugely disappointed ​​to see a presenter at the newly-launched GB News station take the knee on-air, a stunt that not even left-wing activists at the BBC or Channel 4 News have dared try!

    Whilst we were encouraged by the broadcaster’s apology a few days later, condemning the move by Guto Harri as “unacceptable”, few would argue that GB News has yet to truly live up to the hype as an alternative news outlet to rival the biased mainstream media. Since Andrew Neil’s abrupt hiatus not long after launch, the broadcaster appears to have lost its way

    We hope for Britain’s sake that GB News can get back on track, but any more cock-ups like Mr Harri’s on Tuesday will erode the little confidence in the station that remains within its dwindling viewership.

    ​As an organisation, we warned about the inevitable human cost that would come with Angela Merkel’s open-arms approach to illegal immigration back in 2015. It was a fundamental element of our Brexit campaign and one that many of the establishment figures at Vote Leave (who happen to now be in government) felt was too fringe to call out.

    We were vilified by the left-wing press and the Remain campaign and accused of scare-mongering. Sadly, we were right.

    In the last month alone we have seen an Afghan asylum seeker in Sweden receive a life sentence for a stabbing spree which injured seven pedestrians. He came to Europe amid the migrant crisis in 2016.

    In Germany, we’ve seen deadly knife attacks in Hamburg and Greven, both of which were committed by young Afghan asylum seekers. A crazed knifeman stabbed three women to death in the German city of Würzburg – he was a Somalian immigrant who arrived in the country in 2015 at Merkel’s request.

    Across the border in Austria, four Afghan asylum seekers have been charged with the gang-rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Vienna who was found strangled and propped up against a tree by the roadside. One of those attackers was an 18-year-old who arrived in the country in 2015 – he would have been one of those children the mainstream media told us we were supposed to feel sorry for. It turned out he already had a string of drug trafficking offences and had a deportation notice after his asylum application had been rejected.

    Three Pakistani migrants were detained in Greece after gang-raping a pregnant woman who came to them for help after being raped by an Afghan refugee. A sickening attack!

    And in France, a court heard how an Afghan migrant had attempted to mitigate the fact that he had raped a 12-year-old boy, claiming that child sexual abuse was customary in his homeland.

    ​No-one in the mainstream media is covering this.

    And we believe it is vitally important that Brits are aware of what is happening in Europe and know the facts, because as we all know, this Conservative government has not yet truly taken back control of Britain’s porous borders, and as undocumented migrants continue to flood into Britain on a record scale from across the Channel, the problems facing Europe will hit our shores before too long.

    We make no apology for giving our readers ​the truth​ ​via our news site​,​ The Foxhole​, but we can only continue to do so with your financial support.

    If you want to support the work we do, both as a political campaign and as a news website, help us keep afloat by chipping in with a one-time or rolling donation at leaveeuofficial.com/get-involved, or you can become a Foxhole member at foxhole.news/membership to get ad free access to the site.

    ​Everything we do is powered by you, our supporters, and the support you give us keeps us going. Thanks for taking the time to read this email, and please do consider helping out to keep our campaign going on a sustainable basis going forward.

    Yours,

    The Leave.EU Team

    1. “The reforms will see a new disciplinary panel set up to remove legal immunity from Polish judges and hold them accountable to the public, with many concerned about the enduring influence of ​c​ommunist-era judges who remain on the bench decades after the fall of Soviet tyranny.”

      Naturally, this was presented by the much of the media a while back as an attempt by the ‘RIGHT-WING!’ Polish government to fill the courts with biased judges.

  85. ‘Night all

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86e35e72625e28bc64e34d3a9f2df24b8c65192d88954c481bf114e49df642b6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94bf4b645669009ef93dc4ce22c6344876d465c70e66bc011e7a925acc45d4f4.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/53386af8b9b968f49b53a800ec76f4e1f5b4e977c6d78373d04b0502781f6998.jpg

    Meanwhile………….

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/078/973/737/original/2199bf87039adcbb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccfae867a630a90b1b2f4e4637c4e7ce1b95b2402ccf97d5f25b1f9b92556a54.jpg

  86. Mark this day down in history, I was allowed to wash my balls today! The Ontario government have eased restrictions a touch and we are now allowed to use ball washers at the golf course. Oh heaven praise their magnanimous selves, such generosity.

    In other news, Trudeau is facing a fourth ethics inquiry but still the idiots vote for him.

  87. How nice for the Left to suddenly embrace Englishness since football made it fashionable

    Those of us who have always recognised England’s greatness can at least take some comfort that our cause is gaining traction

    ROBERT TAYLOR

    Blimey, the Left are suckers for wokery. A spot of knee-taking, three missed penalties and one Tyrone Mings tweet was all it took. And suddenly, the Left are all over “progressive Englishness” like a rash.

    What a stunning reversal it is. England has been a dirty words on Britain’s Left for as long as anyone can remember – certainly well before George Orwell described it as “something slightly disgraceful”. To the Left, right up until this week, England and the flag of St George were the preserve of regressive conservatives at best, and thuggish bigots at worst.

    So the otherwise excellent journalist Simon Hattenstone wrote in The Guardian in 2014 that whereas Britishness could be commended and embraced because of its inclusivity and multiculturalism, England, in contrast, was a nation of “contract-outers, public-school twits and twats, bigots and Bullingdon club bullies, snarling bulldogs and rapacious bankers.” The English-born, English-raised and English-educated Alastair Campbell (albeit with Scottish parents), wrote “I feel British first, Scottish second, Yorkshire – where I was born – third and English a long way behind.” Emily Thornberry famously sneered at a constituent with England flags all over his house. When Labour MP Tristram Hunt begged his party to connect more with English identity, or face further election heartache, he was effectively run out of the party.

    And now? Well, Hunt is still an exile. But Hattenstone wrote an admirable column last week entitled: “Win or lose on Sunday, England have given us something to be proud of”. Campbell wrote a similar piece, “Why the England team are one to be proud of”. And Emily Thornberry? Incredibly, she’s started using England flags on her Twitter feed.

    In fact, Englishness is now all over The Guardian, with Owen Jones and friends supping pints in front of the flag, amid columns about how the Three Lions are uniting us.

    Should we be cynical about this stunning leftish volte-face? Should we assume that once memories of our heroic Lions, and the final penalty-shootout tragedy, fade away, that Britain’s Left will revert to its standard English-bashing default?

    On the first count, no. Those of us who have been banging on about the importance of English national identity for years – decades indeed – could be forgiven for finding these leftish Johnny-come-latelies all a bit much, as they jump on board the English bandwagon the moment our admirable young team reaches the final.

    But if, as we have always insisted, England is about everyone, regardless of colour, creed or political persuasion, then we’d be no better than the lefties themselves if we took one look at the newcomers to the party and slammed the door in their faces. [No, Mr Taylor. An immigrant doesn’t become English the moment he sets foot on English soil sand.] If these lefties are sincere in their conversion, then I say come on in. You’re a bit late, to say the least, but you’re most welcome. Help yourself to some vindaloo.

    But on the second count, I’m not at all sure. Is Lefty Britain really going to give up the habit of a lifetime? Having, for years now, sought to portray Englishness as an embarrassment, while peddling that disgraceful term “the nations and regions of Britain” (that’s right: unlike proud Scotland and Wales, England is a mere collection of competing regions) is the Left really going to remain faithful to its new crush?

    Time will tell. We can but hope.

    Meanwhile, those of us who have always considered ourselves at least as English as British, if not more so; who have kept asking the West Lothian Question even when our political leaders long since stopped listening; who have embraced and celebrated a multicultural England football team ever since the first black player represented the Three Lions more than 40 years ago; and who regard England, for all its faults, as a fine old place with a bright future – we can, at least for the moment, take some comfort that our cause is finally being recognised.

    Football isn’t coming home just yet. But Englishness already has.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/16/nice-left-suddenly-embrace-englishness-since-football-made-fashionable/

    1. Anybody can acquire a British passport and become British, but to be English requires something else (hint, it isn’t multicultured).

  88. BLM shows its true colors in statement praising Cuba

    “Black Lives Matter condemns the U.S. federal government’s inhumane treatment of Cubans, and urges it to immediately lift the economic embargo,” BLM said. “This cruel and inhumane policy, instituted with the explicit intention of destabilizing the country and undermining Cubans’ right to choose their own government, is at the heart of Cuba’s current crisis.”

    The statement is, of course, exactly backward. The US sanctions Cuba precisely because its communist dictators prevent the Cuban people from “the right to choose their own government.”

    https://nypost.com/2021/07/15/blm-shows-its-true-colors-in-statement-praising-cuba/

  89. This is the special branch!

    Fiasco in field as police officers agree to use ‘talking stick’ while trying to move hippie group from encampment
    100 members of the Rainbow Family of Living Light set up an illegal camp near Blisland, Cornwall and asked police to use a ‘talking stick’ to engage with them
    Attempts to move them on descended into farce when officers gave in to demands on how to address them – prompting strong criticism from onlookers
    A clean-up operation took place as the hippy campers finally left last weekend

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9796563/Devon-Cornwall-police-slammed-agreeing-use-talking-stick-engaging-hippy-group.html

    1. I am a member HNBUTAS…if they want to speak with me they will have to assume the position.

  90. Goodnight all Nottlers. Bedtime music: Parlez-moi d’amour – Avalon Jazz Band . “Parlez-moi d’amour” is a song written by Jean Lenoir in 1930. Lucienne Boyer was the first singer to record the song. Vocals – @Tatiana Eva-Marie, Violin – Gabe Terracciano, Guitar – Vinny Raniolo, Rhythm guitar – Sara L’Abriola
    Bass – Wallace Stelzer
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcZCsVlhThU

    1. Sleep tight and sweet dreams. I’m off now as well.

      Sleep well and dream happily, Nottlers!

      1. Zuma was given 15 month imprisonment for the usual looting via his Gupta accomplice [US2.9m]. His zulu support base [his only one] stopped him being sent then went onto rioting mission KwaZuluNatal. The rioting “variant” spread to other impoverished areas near Joburg

  96. With Demented Joe hosting Mutti on her farewell tour [no knee bending by Demented Joe reported so far] – The US is fooling itself if it believes the EU backs its
    aggression against China. Serious transatlantic rifts over Beijing
    remainhttps://www.rt.com/op-ed/529271-us-china-europe-merkel/

    1. They need something to do while now they’ve left Afghanistan to be run by China.
      These people are so incompetent it is frightening.

      1. mng, they’ve been spinning Cuba for nearly two weeks and they can’t understand why no one believes them, let alone trust them.

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