Thursday 17 March: Russia isn’t the only despotic state to have been enabled by the West

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

767 thoughts on “Thursday 17 March: Russia isn’t the only despotic state to have been enabled by the West”

    1. Both of these cartoons are some kind of brilliant. They have reduced the idiocy of the UK’s geopolitical policies down to their absolute essentials.

      1. Good afternoon, Bob.

        On 1st. April a few of us are meeting up to take Geoff out to lunch,
        to celebrate the sixth anniversary of The NoTTLers.
        We would like you to join us, if possible.
        If you are interested please e-mail me at
        jillwhatton@btinternet.com

    1. We here in the UK often have a vague knowledge of geography. Most people could not find Watford on a map, let alone Ecclefechan. Looking abroad, our knowledge drops with distance on a logarithmic scale. I have to confess that my studies in geography have been quite insufficient. I confess to not knowing that the Ukraine was in Africa.

    2. Also strange that Ukraine claim that they are keeping all men of fighting age in Ukraine yet these “refugees” are able to leave? I smell a very large rat – someone is getting rid of their unemployable dross under the guise of “Ukrainian refugees”!

  10. Good to see that they’ve cleaned up their act since my day {:^))

    Ampleforth College is rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted: ‘Serious’ failures at £38,000-a-year Catholic boarding school as report finds sex between pupils, boozy parties, Class A drugs and concerns over safeguarding pupils from monks
    Ofsted inspected Ampleforth College, in North Yorkshire in November last year
    Their report, published today, detailed a number of concerning incidents
    These included 81 students sneaking off for a party which left a child in hospital
    The report also said vulnerable students were having sex in PE changing rooms
    Ampleforth College disputed the findings, calling them ‘incorrect assumptions’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10620321/Ampleforth-College-rated-inadequate-Ofsted-failures-Catholic-boarding-school.html

    2. “Ampleforth College disputed the findings, calling them ‘incorrect assumptions'”

      A monk in a funk!

  11. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A dry and sunny day in prospect, with 12°C in prospect.

    SIR – Boris Johnson’s visit to Saudi Arabia (Leading Article, March 16) is a laudable attempt to secure Russia-free oil for the West. But he could have spent his time more effectively by resolving the problem at home.

    We have vast amounts of oil and gas under the North Sea, and in shales. However, as we march towards a zero-carbon future, we should be planning for other sources of electricity, which we will need in large quantities if it becomes the main power for transport and heating. Deep offshore wind and more solar must also be developed.

    However, nuclear energy – which is both carbon-free and stable – should be the major initiative. With volatile markets and subsidy-driven forms of energy, nuclear is also becoming cheap.

    The current strike price is £92 per megawatt-hour (MWh). The price of gas has recently risen to £300 per MWh. Renewables, with subsidies, are about £100 per MWh, and deep offshore wind will cost more. In Rolls-Royce, we have a British manufacturer of small, modular 660-megawatt pressurised water reactors. Just 100 of these units would generate another 60 gigawatts of power – about the additional amount Britain needs to reach the zero-carbon target.

    Professor R G Faulkner
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    I was almost with Prof Faulkner until his final sentence. The term ‘zero-carbon’ (sic) hould be banned because it is completely unachievable, and any attempt to get there will impoverish generations to come.

    1. He also gave himself away when he said “Renewables, with subsidies, are about 100 per MWh…”
      So, not a hundred pounds then, but considerably more!

    2. Google reckons that Roy Faulkner is aged 79 and has experience in nuclear materials research over a 30 year period.

  12. Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 22 of the invasion. 17 march 2022.

    Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, suggested talks were making progress despite continued bloodshed and fears from some EU leaders that the Kremlin was toying with Kyiv. Lavrov told RBC News” “There is some hope of reaching a compromise … “Neutral status is now being seriously discussed seriously along, of course, with security guarantees.”

    The appeals to China, the recruitment of foreign mercenaries, loss of senior officers at the front and the lack of progress suggest that the Russian attack is in difficulties. This of course does not mean defeat; they still have enormous resources. It does however mean an extended war and that opens the window for disaster to fly in and screw everybody’s calculations.

    It’s worth considering why this has happened. My own view is that Vlad never intended to attack Ukraine at all. He was essentially goaded into it. Worse still the troops didn’t believe in it either. This is borne out by the lack of preparation both psychological and militarily among Russian forces. There was no reconnaissance (they were briefed only two days before) or practice for the taking of specific targets, an absolute essential in modern war. The stiff resistance and the prevalence of drones and smart missiles has made tanks almost redundant. This has resulted in a collapse of morale among ordinary Russian Soldiers. They will get over it but it will mean a longer and nastier war!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/17/russia-ukraine-war-what-we-know-on-day-22-of-the-invasion

    1. That theory would tie in with the information from the independent European monitors that attacks from Ukraine into the Donbass region increased sharply in the week before Russia’s move.

    2. Yes, he must have reached a point of no return and as that sort of leader tends to be surrounded by yes-men, he made an unfortunate decision.

  13. SIR – A free and simple way to cut fuel consumption is to reduce the 70mph and 60mph speed limits by 10mph.

    Dr Keith Freeman
    Wickenby, Lincolnshire

    For business travellers time is money, so it certainly ain’t free!

    1. Absolutely not! People can choose to reduce their speed independently; cutting speed limits by law is already happening by stealth on ‘smart’ motorways and must be resisted.

    2. Well, around here the speed limit is 20mph. The car engine complains about being in second gear.

  14. SIR – The quoted price for heating oil of £1.99 per litre, plus 5 per cent VAT, makes it £2.09 per litre – more expensive than car diesel, which has less sulphur and is greener. Fill your heating tank from car pumps.

    Keith Allum
    Christchurch, Dorset

    Is it that simple? And if so good luck with getting yer average diesel tanker to drop by with 500 litres every so often…

  15. SIR – The National Museum Wales is quite right to link steam power and colonisation (report, March 16). It is also clear that Welsh mineworkers were responsible for the coal that powered these engines of slavery. I trust the NUM will apologise.

    John Taylor
    Hammerwich, Staffordshire

    I think my sarcasm meter is thinking about this one…

  16. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with blooded axe and pursed longbow.

    A sunny but cold day . Beautiful deep blue sky .

    1. I think I need some tips on efficient bow storage from you! Even a small crossbow is proving awkward to keep in a caravan; that you fit your longbow stylishly into your handbag engenders respect from me!

  17. More than 900 people intercepted crossing Channel in busiest day of 2022. 17 March 2022.

    Tom Pursglove, minister for justice and tackling illegal migration, said: “The rise in dangerous Channel crossings is unacceptable.

    “Through our nationality and borders bill, we’re cracking down on people smugglers and fixing the broken system by making it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally and introducing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for those who facilitate illegal entry into the country.

    “Our targeted work with French authorities led to over 500 people [being] intercepted before attempting this treacherous journey to reach the UK.”

    Words without meaning! A country without borders! Rulers without integrity!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/16/more-than-900-people-intercepted-crossing-channel-in-busiest-day-this-year

    2. Even if these figures are believable (not by me) this is just the start of the boating season! And who has verified the nice round figure of “500”??

      These vacuous pronouncements are pathetic.

    3. introducing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for those who facilitate illegal entry into the country

      Does that mean the Home Office civil servants will be working from prison instead of from home?

    4. Is, “…a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally…” attributable to those Channel hoppers that this treacherous government currently defines as refugees? If not, then Pursglove is using sleight of words to deceive. Well, he is a politician in what is the greatest nest of liars and deceivers ever brought together in Westminster. And that really is saying something!

    5. Is, “…a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally…” attributable to those Channel hoppers that this treacherous government currently defines as refugees? If not, then Pursglove is using sleight of words to deceive. Well, he is a politician in what is the greatest nest of liars and deceivers ever brought together in Westminster. And that really is saying something!

    6. When was it ever legal to arrive in the UK without any papers and dodging Customs? Kicking the can down the road is a sop to the enraged populace of the country, but without doing anything to curtail this activity.

    7. It’s not a busy day, they’re criminals. They are illegal immigrants. It’s not a sodding ferry service, it’s state actors intentionally bringing criminals into this country.

      There is no service, it’s an invasion. An assault on our entire society and way of life. Here’s an idea.Every guardian reading tofu eatinig boiler scrapping electric car twonk pays for them, the rest of us get a rebate of 30% on our taxes. All the crews salaries for a year for every criminal gimmigrant. That’d stop them sharpish.

  18. SIR – One consequence of the scheme to switch off the analogue phone service is that all monitored burglar alarm systems will cease to function.

    From talking to my supplier, it appears that the solution is either to convert existing analogue equipment or to replace the whole system – at a cost of several hundred pounds.

    Trevor Bullock
    Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – It is clearly a waste of effort trying to correct BT’s lack of understanding of the position of their rural customers.

    Efforts should instead concentrate on persuading Ofcom to step in and make BT put an immediate stop to the removal of landlines in areas where there is no reliable mobile signal or where electricity is provided by weather-susceptible overhead lines.

    A D Oldershaw
    Richmond, North Yorkshire

    The conversion of telephone equipment to digital operation continues unabated, and also to a deafening silence from OFCOM.

  19. 351343+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 17 March: Russia isn’t the only despotic state to have been enabled by the West

    Is this to be the day of party leader / politico’s cleansing self confessions ?

    1. It’s the wretch stapleford again.

      Western leaders have this high and mighty sense of their own superiority that we are simply not worthy of. We’ve caused terrible conflict through our intervention or lack of. Perhaps if we let these failed states burn we’d be better off.

      But then, that inaction caused the Rwandan genocide.

      Sometimes – just sometimes – I wonder if we don’t deserve annihilation. We’re a revolting species at heart.

    1. He cannot go to war because we simply cannot afford war with the people providing our energy.

      He is desperate to have America act but Biden is a weak, senile old man without the will or spirit to stand up to Putin. Biden is also desperate to destroy his own economy with tax and waste policies.

      We are being governed by people who are useless. Deliberately malevolent, spiteful, backward, hateful, deceitful, abusive, evil scum.

  21. Headline in today’s DT:

    Nazanin free Deal will ‘smooth nuclear negotiations between the West and Iran’

    And so it should with a going rate of £200m a time. The Iranians must be high-fiving to the point of injury at the thought that they can illegally imprison any British visitor and receive a huge payment after years of fruitless ‘negotiations’. Woe betide any British visitor to that hell-hole as they are all now at risk it would seem.

    1. Another DT headline:

      Exclusive ‘I want mummy to take me to the toy shop’: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family jubilant on her return

      Better than this country being taken to the cleaners!

    2. It would appear that NZ-R went to Iran under her Iranian passport rather than a British passport. A self-inflicted injury, over and above her ‘work’ for the bBC.

      Edit; her ‘work’ for bBC/Reuters.

    3. And we are worried about Putin and nuclear. I assume that people here are aware that the Shi’ite mullahs in power in Iran have an apocalyptic mentality. Their aim in having a bomb is just as much to do with aggression, forget defence, as it is to blowing us all up for an ecstatic knees up with Allah. They are the last people who should be allowed to have the bomb. It is insane to aid and abet them. Seems the only ones that understand that are the Israelis.

    1. To have Smirnoff taken off the shelves, for my blasted hobby to not ship toys to Russia… it’s barmy.

      When the scum Blair invaded Afghanistan and Iraq I protested against it. It was wrong. Did I get a choice in it? This vaunted democracy where power supposedly rests with the people?

      A criminal, who lied to parliament openly, blatantly for his own agenda and profit. Who ignored the popular will. Who remains utter sewage who should be face down in a river of merde. Sounds a lot like Putin – except Putin actually gives a stuff about his country. The beeeepp Blair didn’t. How are we ANY different? Were we to blame for the war? No. We had no choice in it either because we are NOT a democracy any less than Russia is.

  23. Boris Johnson upbeat on Saudi oil supply as kingdom executes three more. 17 March 2022.

    Boris Johnson has hinted Saudi Arabia could speed up oil production to help calm spiralling energy prices for Britons, as he praised the country for improving its human rights record despite three more people being executed during his visit.

    With pressure rising at home over a cost of living crisis compounded by western countries trying to end their reliance on Russian imports, the UK prime minister made a dash to the Middle East to urge leaders to help stabilise oil prices by ramping up supply.

    Actually they have no intention of ramping up production at all. Why pump more to be paid the same or less? There is no doubt that these last three executions were a deliberate humiliation of Johnson personally! This is the Saudi equivalent of utter contempt! Beg infidel dog! WE have the whip hand now!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/16/boris-johnson-upbeat-on-saudi-oil-supply-as-kingdom-executes-three-more

    1. Was the PM invited to attend the executions? Sitting on soft, fat cushions, eating sweetmeats and sipping sherbet, while exchanging bon mots with the Lords of Arabia?

    1. Add on wasted hundreds of billions on a lie, forced taxes to their highest levels, through that forced rampant price inflation, punished business, pandered to a bunch of racists, pushed a Left wing message of weirdos, wasted an opportunity for real reform to smash the Left.

      He’s just the last in a long line of utter cretins. The lot need to be shown a gallows. Once the noose is around their neck and 600 of them swing, struggling to breathe they’ll understand how we feel.

      Get rid of the criminal gimmigrants. Execute them, let them drown, stop the captains going out, refuse them fuel, whatever it takes. Get rid of the scum.

    2. 351424+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      Lest we forget he was aided & abetted
      in a very pro johnson manner by
      maneuvering voters marching up & down hills.

  26. From today’s DT:

    Blow for Boris Johnson as he walks away empty-handed from Middle East talks

    Prime Minister had hoped to secure oil export agreement with Saudi Arabia and UAE in bid to reduce Britain’s reliance on Russia’s gas supply

    By
    Tony Diver,
    WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT
    16 March 2022 • 7:45pm

    Boris Johnson appeared to have walked away empty-handed from talks with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that were designed to encourage the states to produce more oil and export it to the UK.

    The Prime Minister had hoped to secure an agreement from Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, and Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, to ramp exports to help wean the west off Russian oil.

    Ministers have repeatedly argued that the war in Ukraine means the UK must secure “independence” from its “addiction” to Russian energy exports. They have banned the import of oil and gas from the country from the end of this year.

    But speaking in Riyadh after his meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, Mr Johnson could only report that he was optimistic that production would increase in the Gulf states and that it was in the interests of both leaders to avoid economic damage to the West created by inflation.

    Downing Street said that in his meeting with Mohammed bin Zayed, Mr Johnson had expressed “deep concerns about the chaos unleashed by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and stressed the importance of working together to improve stability in the global energy market”.

    The Prime Minister said Saudi Arabia had an “interest” in helping the West and that there had been “a lot of agreement that it’s important to avoid inflation” and that “we need to see an end to Putin’s war”.

    Asked directly whether an agreement for greater production and export of oil had been reached, he replied: “I think you need to talk to the Saudis about that, but I think there was an understanding of the need to ensure stability in global oil markets and gas markets and the need to avoid damaging price spikes.”

    The UK currently imports eight per cent of its oil and four per cent of its gas from Russia. However, it has pledged to phase out all imports by the end of 2022, in line with a similar commitment by the United States.

    The EU has presented a plan to phase out gas imports only.

    Downing Street said Mr Johnson and the Saudi leader had also agreed a “UK-Saudi Strategic Partnership Agreement” on defence, security, trade and culture.

    Number 10 pointed to an investment announcement by the alfanar group, a Saudi company, in green aviation fuel in Teesside on Wednesday as evidence of the countries’ relationship.

    Oil prices initially surged to a 14-year high after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but have fallen in recent days in anticipation of a ceasefire and the expectation that demand from China will fall amid a spike in Covid cases.

    But the price of fuel on forecourts in the UK has not subsided, hitting fresh highs of 164.98p per litre for petrol and 176.04p per litre for diesel, the RAC said.

    Labour criticised the Government for “going cap in hand from dictator to dictator” to secure oil supplies, despite Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

    Last week, the state executed 81 people in a single day – more than were killed in the whole of 2021. On Wednesday, it ordered the execution of a further three convicts before Mr Johnson’s meeting.

    Until now, Mohammed bin Salman has been largely shunned by the West after he was implicated in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a US-based journalist, in 2018.

    Mr Johnson said that despite the recent executions, “things are changing” in Saudi Arabia. However, he insisted that the contents of his discussion with the country’s leader on human rights should remain private, because his arguments would be “more effective that way”.

    Downing Street said that the UK Government did not “shy away” from the regime’s human rights record and was “firmly opposed to the death penalty in every country as a matter of principle”.

    The talks with Gulf states come ahead of the announcement of the UK’s energy security strategy. Mr Johnson has said this will come “next week” and involve a “massive jump forward on renewables, more nuclear, using our own hydrocarbons more effectively”.

    * * *

    Thanks to the stupidity of successive governments, and particularly this one, Johnson now finds himself scuttling around various unsavoury regimes to beg for new supplies of ‘hydrocarbons’ as he chooses to call oil and gas now, in the hope of keeping us solvent in the stuff.  Until he renounces the ludicrous and suicidal ‘net zero’ idea, this country will be hammered with high energy costs while sitting on reserves he refuses to touch.  It’s complete madness, and future generations will not look kindly upon such insanity, the cost of which will burden us all for many years to come.

    1. We have the stuff under the ground, here. Pretending we’re green because we’ve moved our pollution elsewhere is simply the act of a moron.

      Boris needs a punch in the face, repeatedly, his wife as well until he gets the damned message. Blackeyed, broken nosed he can stand up iand admit it’s a scam, a tax con to further rob the worker. He will also say he is building six new power stations and that no, they don’t take ten years to build and that yes, the energy fools in Whitehall have scammed, delayed and swquandered and are going to be hung later that afternoon.

      1. I don’t believe torture is an effective way of getting anything done. As waterboarding is not officially torture i think we should do it to all MP’s.

        1. As they’re actively fighting this country and it’s people we could label them enemy combatants. Do what we want with them then.

          Hell, these people are our servants. Their job is to do as we tell them.

    2. Who with any sense would cancel his oil deliveries first and then go looking for an alternative?

    3. Good.
      Now perhaps Boris will stop fanny farting about with this stupid Net Zero policy in favour of making the UK energy self sufficient.
      And no, i do not mean with Unicorn Farts.

    4. It was declared last week that the Government would concrete over the two gas wells in Lancashire producing gas from fracking.

      In present circumstances do you think this was a wise move?

      2. It’s never been a wise move. Nothing this government does is wise. It’s all stupid.

      1. I think Boris was hoping for a slice for pretending he had achieved net zero – braincells.

      2. If we do that we can’t pretend to be green and Boris doesn’t get his after office quango non-job.

      2. Not off my car it hasn’t! Apparently there is still some in the clouds, so I will wait another day before washing it. Again!

  28. Good morning all.
    A beautiful but chilly start to the day with a light frost from the -1½°C shewn on the yard thermometer.

    Computer crashed last night and I was surprised that it booted up this morning. Will have to ask Student Son for advice.

    1. For those of you that didn’t see Al Jazeera News this morning, they had a senior journalist bitterly complaining that a large amount of “news”

      from Ukraine is originating from the Presidential palace, without being checked by independent journalists for accuracy or even truth.

      1. Is the presidential palace located in BBC HQ?

        I don’t believe anything from this war. It’s bonkers. Hell, I’m fast reaching the point where if I’m told the weather by the media I’d check it first. They lie habitually, reflexively.

      2. I certainly didn’t see this social credit system in the mainstream “news!”
        It will be interesting to see what Putin does with it.

        If Russia leaves the social credit system in place, I guess that will be an indicator that they’re all on the same side, and this conflict was engineered by both for the goal of bringing the west down and implementing the great reset.

  30. The new expression “hydrocarbons” has been wheeled out to avoid using the words oil and gas, let alone coal.

    I am fairly sure the only reason for this change in nomenclature is that the Government think that if hydrocarbons is used, the general population will forget that we have sufficient reserves of both oil and gas to last decades.

    1. ‘Morning, Sos, and 300 years of coal right under Drax Power Station which is currently run on wood pellets, processed and shipped from Washington State on the West coast of the USA and travelling down the West coast and Central America, through the Panama Canal and across the Atlantic Ocean, up the English Channel , into the North Sea and disembarked at Hull/Immingham. A long and unnecessary journey.

      1. The marketing was changed when the global warming didn’t occur. Climate change is weather, can’t avoid that.

        1. But, Wibbles, it is not us changing the weather even, it’s that big yellow thing in the sky. Perhaps we are not worshipping it enough.

          1. More sacrifices needed. Let’s start with Holyrood, Stormont and Cardiff and, if the weather improves Westminster. The passengers on the Brussels/Strasbourg gravy train could probably run Drax on ‘animal’ fats.

  31. Stop blaming women for men’s crimes. Spiked. 17 March 2022.

    For a solid five minutes this week, I believed that an elderly woman in New York City had killed and decapitated another elderly woman. I believed it because it was in the papers. It was there in black and white. In the apartment of this ‘83-year-old Brooklyn woman’, the New York Times reported, cops found the decapitated head of Susan Leyden, a 68-year-old lady who had gone missing. Police became suspicious of the 83-year-old woman and so they ‘searched her apartment’, the BBC said, wherein they found ‘a human head’. A few days later, not far from this seemingly evil woman’s apartment, they also found Ms Leyden’s leg and torso. Grim. And surely unprecedented. When was the last time a very old woman was alleged to have killed and then gruesomely dismembered another woman?

    Then it hit me. I got to the very final line of the BBC report and saw these words – this 83-year-old ‘now identifies as a transgender woman’. I got further into the NYT piece, too. Its headline may have said ‘She Killed Two Women. At 83, She Is Charged With Dismembering a Third’, but then came this killer line, no pun intended: ‘[she] was listed as male in earlier court records but now identifies as a woman.’ So it wasn’t a woman. It wasn’t an 83-year-old lady who somehow summoned up the wickedness and the power to allegedly kill and horrifically mutilate a 68-year-old woman. It was a man. The NYT’s headline was a flagrant lie. So was the BBC’s entire account of this ‘woman’, she, allegedly killing Ms Leyden and then brutalising her corpse. I had been told, in no uncertain terms, that a woman killed a woman, and it was completely untrue.

    The BBC? Who would ever have guessed?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/03/17/stop-blaming-women-for-mens-crimes/

    1. All kept quiet and hidden to avoid the truth less the facts get in the way of the narrative.

    1. Sunak says that cutting taxes wouldn’t help people. Well, if it won’t help people, then why not do it and see?

      I imagine if fuel were 82p rather than £2 people would find that quite helpful indeed.

      Of course, he’s lying. We all know it. What he means is he doesn’t want to cut fuel duty because it’s a nice little earner for the useless state machine. Same with energy – of which, combined, a third is now tax.

        1. There’s nothing they can promise that would possibly, ever have me vote for those fools ever again.

          Never, ever again.

  36. About to go to market. Spent five minutes cleaning the sand off the kitchen windows. One couldn’t see out!

    See you later.

  37. The swarm of illegal Muslim migrants into Europe has not decelerated with the Ukraine war. Just the opposite. The phenomenon Muslim migrants flowing in from France to Britain via the English Channel has been ongoing. Now the world faces a new migrant crisis from Ukraine, and it is being exploited by Muslim migrants.

    It isn’t only in France. It’s the entire EU that is at risk, as Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan Muslim migrants are passing themselves off as international students in Ukraine in order to enter the EU.

    An eyewitness report revealed that “Muslim migrant ‘students’ tried to rape fleeing Ukrainian women, calling them ‘Christian sluts.’”

    Earlier this month, another report from a French newspaper revealed that thousands of Iraqi refugees, Syrians, Kurds, or Africans, almost exclusively men, are described trying to enter Poland.

    One needs to remember that when dealing with immigration that compatibility between immigrants and the country to which they are immigrating is critical. Immigration is a two-way street. Immigrants must respect the rule of law of their new country. https://robertspencer.org/2022/03/euro-mp-african-migrants-are-exploiting-ukraine-war-to-illegally-enter-eu

    2. Yesterday’s ‘Moral Maze’ included Moany Siddiqi suggesting that the contrast in attitudes of the British towards Ukrainian refugees and Channel invaders was simple prejudice. Two of the guest speakers were from the ‘world of open borders, let em ‘all in’ school of thought (both women) while the two others were David Goodhart (featured here several times during the EU referendum debate for being on the right side of the ‘somewhere, nowhere’ argument) and the Telegraph’s own Patrick O’Flynn, whose defence of the principle of nationhood and border controls was so forthright that Berk tried to silence him more than once. The appalling Giles Fraser was provoked to squeaks of indignation. If only one of his parishioners (if he has any) were to acquaint him with a copy of the King James bible, preferably an old and heavy copy dropped from a great height.

      Here’s the blurb:

      Nearly three million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian tanks crossed the border at the end of February. Some say the UK was slow to respond but many thousands of people are now signed up to a government scheme to turn their houses into homes for Ukrainian refugees – the first should arrive soon. There has been an outpouring of generosity and goodwill toward those suffering in this conflict, but uncomfortable questions remain. Are we really doing enough? Why such generosity now, when we have spent years discussing how to keep migrants out? Is it morally acceptable to feel more comfortable welcoming large numbers of Ukrainian – rather than Syrian or Afghan – refugees? Is racism a factor, or is it simply that these people are fleeing an enemy who threatens us too?

      Shortly the Nationality and Borders Bill will return to be voted on in Parliament. Campaigners say the bill is at odds with rhetoric about welcoming refugees as it could criminalise those who arrive to seek asylum in the UK without first filling in the correct forms. Is it right to put up yet more barriers? Perhaps it is a failure of moral imagination to turn away any individual who wants to make a better life? Some economists argue that the free movement of workers makes nations prosperous, but there’s more to Britain than its economy, and not everyone wants to do away with borders. How, without fierce gate-keepers, can we protect the places where we feel at home? With the human rights campaigner Bella Sankey; David Goodhart, who researches integration at the centre right think-tank Policy Exchange; the Chair of Britain’s oldest Immigration Museum, Susie Symes; and the former MEP and journalist Patrick O’Flynn.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015bfn

  38. 351434+ up ticks

    Peace envoy,
    Iraq War Architect Tony Blair Says NATO Should NOT Rule Out Military Action Against Russia

    Peace of shite envoy more descriptive methinks.

      1. 351434+ up ticks,
        Morning JH,
        To me that would smack of the mafia
        bringing it ‘s soldiers to task.

  39. Good Morning. Bright sunny morning and very cold. More sunny days to come. BBC recently reported record high price of fuel at 176/ltr. Up here it is 179/ltr.
    There is this. A man confronts young men making a racket outside his home. He confronted them verbally. He was killed. The person responsible is sentenced to four years in a Young Offenders Institution for “manslaughter”.
    It looks to me like that he was not charged with murder because he was a muslim. The dead man called the troublemaker rude “racist” names, which is being treated as a justification for murder. (In Scots Law words alone cannot justify or excuse physical violence.)
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-60755609

    3. The muslim was probably a mouthy git who said this is my country now and I’ll do what I want and the bloke told him to go back to where he came from.

      The muslim shouldn’t have been locked up. He should have been deported – released at 10,000 feet.

  40. Funny Old World

    I used to thoroughly despise Russell Brand as a typical Leftard hypocritical tax dodger ( he really doesn’t like questions about who actually owns the house he “rents” hint it’s an overseas trust)

    Now he has reinvented himself as a political/social commentator who asks bloody awkward questions of TPTB.

    He must be doing something right because TPTB are after him with a hit piece in the DT

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/russell-brand-became-mad-hatter-conspiracy-theories/

    BTL are having none of it………..

    “Abysmal article. I watched his latest video on Justin

    Trudeau and there was no “conspiracy” about it, just a devastating

    critique of Trudeau’s nauseating hypocrisy and authoritarianism that

    surpasses anything the supposedly the supposedly

    conservative/libertarian DT has published on the same subject matter.

    This article is just typical of the lazy, smug MSM groupthink that Brand etc. are exposing.”

    “What a childish article. Brand has done some excellent
    interviews with people like Jordan Peterson, Eckhart Tolle and Vandana
    Shiva. Each have been respectful and insightful.

    Shame on you for putting down a man who is doing the job
    you should be doing. You are severely lacking in integrity. As is this
    rag.”

    1. I don’t mind any effort to avoid tax these days. I simply don’t care. The state would destroy the property given the chance.

      Russel Brand, once you get past the hand waving is actually quite reasonable and makes some good points in a humanist way. There’s no pretence of grand understanding and he doesn’t present himself as a wizard aware of all the issues. If he were less exuberant I’d listen to him more often.

        1. Lefties like paying tax. Oh, hang on They want *other people* to pay more and give it to them to waste. There is never the consideration of just leaving people alone to spend their own money how they want to. It’s always ‘give it to me to spend on you as I see fit, because you can’t be trusted.’

    1. ‘Moaning Annie. This chap sounds very sensible to me and certainly should not be on the receiving end of abuse for being so.

      If anyone is looking for a promoter of racism I suggest that BLM and their ilk fit the bill.

      1. We are a Racist Country,

        White,

        Heterosexual or quietly otherwise

        Pay Tax and NI (or have),

        follow Christian Ethics,
        etc
        You are hated and abused by the Alphabet Soupers

      2. It simply demonstrates what appears to be a truism. That the racists in this country are the “liberal” left.

    2. Nottingham University should be ashamed of themselves, especially given some of the other people they have actually given honorary degrees to!

    3. Hi Anneallan. It really is a lovely morning. Sat down at the computer and kept seeing this curious phenomena on the periphery of my vision. It turned out to be the sun reflecting off the water in my lotus tub producing patterns on the rooms ceiling. The lotuses are dormant until we start warming up but they look like this. https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=1820×1280:format=jpg/path/s07909bd9c136320b/image/i35501aa411f0a4ab/version/1490568576/image.jpg

      Nelumbo komarovii They are from the Amur region in Eastern Russia, survive in temperatures as low as -25ºC. They are exactly the same as the tropical lotus but adapted to the cold climate of East Russia.

    4. What an awful rag the Daily Fail has become – I refuse to read anymore after scanning its ‘news’ items. All pro Ukraine and Zelensky – bigots.

  42. If you cannot stand the Flashing Image of Jo Brand’s son on the first page of the DT, use your adblocker

  43. I do hope the little Radcliffe daughter manages to bond with her mother , she has after all been Daddy’s girl for such a long time .

    1. I have every sympathy for her because I have no doubt she has suffered greatly. But I really do not understand how she could have been so stupid in the first place. From that point of view I have no sympathy for her at all.

  44. Most unusual,a front page apology………

    “In an article “Rachel Riley deserves every bit of compensation for the
    hard-Left abuse she’s endured” (23 December 2021) written by Ian Austin,
    we suggested that Laura Murray, a former staff member at the Labour
    Party, was an “anti-Jewish racist” and part of the “vile anti-Semitism
    of Corbyn’s Labour” who had been stood up to by Rachel Riley during a
    recent court case. These allegations were and are untrue. We accept that
    there was and is no basis to suggest that Ms Murray is anti-Semitic. On
    the contrary; the court heard in unchallenged evidence that Ms Murray
    devoted significant time and energy to confronting and challenging
    antisemitism within the Labour Party whilst she was employed there. The
    Telegraph and Ian Austin apologise to Ms Murray. We have agreed to pay
    her substantial damages.”
    Must have been part of the settlement,such corrections are normally buried at the bottom of page 32………

    1. Today, if you pop over to the Telegraph there is an outrageous hatchet job on Joe Rogan and Russell Brand. Reading the letters under the article people are quite disgusted. The only reason I read that rag is because I like to see the letter in its entirety that is posted here each day and to read peoples comments on things they are allowed to comment on by the people who assume they are our masters.
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/russell-brand-became-mad-hatter-conspiracy-theories/

      1. I always try to be balanced, fair and reasonable in my comments but I must say that that woman Amanda Platell is a disgusting piece of excrement. On GB News last night she was saying that we should persecute Russian individuals just because they are Russian and stop any ordinary Russians from coming to England and kick out all those Russians who are already here.

        Would she have dared say that we should persecute Africans and Asians just because they are Africans and Asians? What makes ordinary, unpolitical Russians fair game to ignorant female bovines like Platell is that they are white.

        1. I didn’t see that Rastus. If you happen to have a link to a recording I would be most grateful. But yes, Amanda Platell, another racist who is allowed to get away with it because she is the “right” colour.

        2. Surprising how many lefties get into powerful positions in the Conservative Party – Boris’ bedroom bitch for one.

          1. Have you not seen the promo with him and his GBN co-host? It’s nauseating and she says to him, among other ghastly quips, “Belly laugh me.”
            We both think he’s a creepy individual.

          2. I saw him once or twice years ago – and I thought he was decidedly odd, then.

          4. Yes he is still improving thank you. He is not yet back working full time but has been doing 3 days full hours so getting there. He gets tired a lot sooner than he used to because his lungs are not back at full capacity just yet. I don’t suppose it’s known if they ever will be but we all hope.

          1. We were snoring our heads off by 10.30. Both knackered and relieved that the day was over. Off again this afternoon for a doc visit for MH, presumably to discuss what happens next.
            Tonight’s celebration might be a little more intensive 😉

      1. Jethro was also a fairly competent rugby player and played prop for the Pirates team in Penzance.

        Steve Tomlin, the father of one of my godsons, who was captain of the UEA XV and the British Universities Team in the 1960s, propped alongside Jethro. Another prominent prop who played for England and the Pirates was Stack Stevens – Steve now spends his retirement writing books about Rugby and Rugby players. He has written about Stack and the Pirates and also about former English captain John Pullin.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/745cbfe21d212d1c83bfa1225625f3a88cd6936ab44dabf8701b84bbab0f2936.jpg

  47. Is Putin really losing? 17 March 2022.

    On Friday, I took part in the BBC’s Any Questions? In the charming Northamptonshire village of Ashley. It was a good evening, everyone speaking freely, though politely. The one constraint, emphasised both on and off air, was the need to take care when commenting on Roman Abramovich and all other Russian oligarchs rich enough to afford London’s best legal advice. As a journalist and former editor who has sometimes suffered as a result of Britain’s libel laws, I bristled at their restrictive power, but as a citizen I feel proud of the fact that the rule of our laws is not completely suspended during hostilities. For similar reasons, although I instinctively rejoice at the idea of Ukrainian refugees occupying our empty oligarchical palaces, I also want to hold on to our liberal idea that property rights are not suspended just because we hate the owners.

    The accusations of blatant theft must have percolated through the rhinoceros skin of the BBC!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-putin-really-losing

  48. Is Putin really losing? 17 March 2022.

    On Friday, I took part in the BBC’s Any Questions? In the charming Northamptonshire village of Ashley. It was a good evening, everyone speaking freely, though politely. The one constraint, emphasised both on and off air, was the need to take care when commenting on Roman Abramovich and all other Russian oligarchs rich enough to afford London’s best legal advice. As a journalist and former editor who has sometimes suffered as a result of Britain’s libel laws, I bristled at their restrictive power, but as a citizen I feel proud of the fact that the rule of our laws is not completely suspended during hostilities. For similar reasons, although I instinctively rejoice at the idea of Ukrainian refugees occupying our empty oligarchical palaces, I also want to hold on to our liberal idea that property rights are not suspended just because we hate the owners.

    The accusations of blatant theft must have percolated through the rhinoceros skin of the BBC!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-putin-really-losing

    1. They WANT Net Zero and the social credit system…until you acknowledge that, we won’t move forward.

  51. Rosemary Thompson says here orthopaedic surgeon said her left leg appeared clinically shorter by 1cm – I’m no medical expert but could it be that her right leg was 1cm longer than her left?

    1. Limbs of different lengths:-

      It has been known for many years, Haggi (plural of Haggis) have legs of differing lengths

      The front and back legs of the “aristerá haggi” arelonger on left hand side of the body, so they can run clockwise round
      mountains, to escape Scottish Butchers

      On the “sostán haggi” the long longer legs are on the Right, as they go anti-clockwise round the mountain, for the same reason.

        1. Don’t shoot the damned thing. Net it and then drown it in whisky !

          I never particularly enjoyed haggis. I didn’t like the texture. It tasted grainy to me.
          My neighbour planned her annual Burn’s Night and i volunteered to do the main course.

          I sourced a haggis from Piper’s Farm. Quite expensive compared to other places but it was superb.

          1. A local Norfolk butcher regularly wins prizes in yer Schotland for haggi. Very good. We served on to some French chums – they loved it.

          2. The frogs do like their organs.

            My haggis cost £22. How much does your Norfolk butcher charge?

            I say i say i say…what does a 6’5″ butcher weigh? Meat.

          5. If they can eat cassalout then they deserve all they get – next time serve boiled tripe and onions.

          6. I lurve haggis.
            Black pudding, liver, kidneys, hearts …… though the straight offal does have to come from sheep; ox and pigs is just too tough or rank. Ox kidney is fine for stews and casseroles.

      3. That’s how you catch them. You hide behind a bush and as they come around the hill you jump out and they turn around in fright and immediately fall over.

    2. When I had my hip done, the surgeon added/replaced a missing half inch on my left leg.
      I have no idea whether I was born with it or if it was the result of erosion over the years.
      Funnily enough, my right knee protested for a few weeks at having to ‘walk proper’.

  52. Hoodagestit!

    Blow for Boris Johnson as he walks away empty-handed from Middle East talks
    Prime Minister had hoped to secure oil export agreement with Saudi Arabia and UAE in bid to reduce Britain’s reliance on Russia’s gas supply

    Start fracking. Get back to drilling in the North Sea. It might not stop the lights going out this year but it could stop them going out next year and beyond.

    1. Good Morning Rastus and everyone else. When you foist your own need for oil, gas etc onto other people you can’t honestly claim you are pursuing a policy of net zero. All you are doing is playing slight of hand and dumping the problem on someone else’s lawn. I assume that our own Fat Controller believes that the public are to stupid to understand that and don’t realize he is a first class hypocrite.

    2. Good Morning Rastus and everyone else. When you foist your own need for oil, gas etc onto other people you can’t honestly claim you are pursuing a policy of net zero. All you are doing is playing slight of hand and dumping the problem on someone else’s lawn. I assume that our own Fat Controller believes that the public are to stupid to understand that and don’t realize he is a first class hypocrite.

      1. Same principle as zero emission cars that required 500 000 tonnes of stuff to be mined from the earth’s crust for their battery.

        2. Mask rule lifted in France this week. At supermarket this morning 25% had liberated themselves; 75% were still masked.

          1. Similar in this part, although closer to 50/50. What was noticeable and surprising was how many still wear them in the street.
            There was an age correlation, younger people didn’t, older ones tended to.
            HG wanted to wear hers because she thought it was being polite to those wearing them!
            I explained that perhaps it was ruder to those not wearing them to continue with promulgating the fear. She agreed and got rid of her mask.

          2. The only person who mentioned a mask to me at the hospital yesterday was the receptionist. I pointed to my mush and told her I couldn’t bear anything touching it. Oh, she said but they may give you one to wear in there. Nurses and docs all masked, I wasn’t but no-one else said a word. They didn’t ask about vaccine status either which was sort of a pity as I wanted to show off my remaining big red spot;-)
            They also said that the mask stuff was likely to be lifted in hospitals soon. Good.

          3. I visited Elderly Chum today; first time since the last panicked lockdown (started before Christmas).
            Nursing staff were wearing masks; visiting tradesman wasn’t. There were notices about PPE, but I went in as normal and nobody said anything other than to check that I had an appointment (which is quite handy as you have a room to yourself without other residents wandering around and butting in. I rather enjoy chatting with them but EC tends to get left out.).

          6. Yes, tired now as we’ve just come in from a hospital visit for my husband and, foolishly, we went to Asda also. Still, we’re exhausted but won’t have to go anywhere for a few days.
            I have had the first almost totally pain free day in ages. Still have the dressing on as advised but it’s OK. Guess I will hear soon about the biopsy results and then….
            Thanks for asking Paul.

          7. On behalf of us all, we’re concerned for you. One of the original Nottlers, as well as a valued person in your own right.

          8. At the funeral at which Caroline played on Tuesday only about 10% of the mourners were wearing masks.

    3. I understand that while Johnson was crawling to SA another another 3 people were executed.
      Nothing like a bit of local colour to make the tourist feel at home.

    1. Yes indeed, let’s act – put B Liar on trial! Here’s a typical BTL “It is a different time but why does he thinks anyone wants or needs to hear his opinion? Think of all the personnel who lost their lives or were injured under his watch.”

      1. Indeed. That is the sort of action I would like to see. Not some stupid war-mongering call from the man on whose watch David Kelly died against Russia!

  54. Back from market. Very busy. Almost no masks; in Morrisons there were a few – but only those people whom one would avoid anyway! And most had their noses exposed, thus defeating the whole point.

    And in other news – one of the trays of seed that I sowed 3 weeks ago has AT LAST produced some signs of germination. Phew.

    1. Folk often don’t realise the point of a mask and just wear on badly thinking it helps them.

      It’s daft. A mask doesn’t protect you from others. It protects others from you.

    2. A lot of my garden and all my new plants have been destroyed by a vine weevil infestation. I have spent about £100 on treatments. I have given up. I made the mistake of buying some fuschias from B&M. Never again. I’m devastated.

      March 23rd the professionals are coming in to sort it all out.

    1. They’re not trying, they’re succeeding. Comically, far too many people seem to support their insanity.

  56. This wonderful news has made headlines and driven imminent world war and the Covid pandemic off the front pages.
    It’s so sweet that the family is together again. She was flown to the UK by the RAF. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has now been able to embrace her husband and hug her child.
    Where does one start? If a person with dual nationality breaks the law in one country should the other country rescue them? If someone provokes arrest in a country with somewhat erratic and sensitive police and justice systems, is that a reason to rescue them? Are grown-ups not responsible for their actions and the consequences thereof?
    Now, compare and contrast. Some poor old lady on holiday in Rome gets mugged. Her handbag is stolen and she loses her money, her money cards, her plane ticket back to the UK and her British Passport. She is now stranded alone in Rome with no accommodation, no money and no way to get home. She is the blameless victim of a crime. Does anyone here, or anywhere else on the planet, think for one nanosecond that if she goes to the British Embassy that they will arrange for an RAF plane to take her home, or do anything useful at all?

    1. And if Rastus is right, the stupid b*ger didn’t even get an oil deal with Iran in exchange…We are run by buffoons.

      1. He is a witless oaf. The idea that Saudi would give a stuff about our inflation – caused by his taxes – and thus not be able to afford the oil was truly moronic.

        We’re one small customer. There are other nations. His ruining us for the altar of green is irrelevant to them.

    2. If you have dual nationality and you get into trouble in one of your countries, the general deal is that the other country doesn’t give you any assistance.

      1. 351434+ u[ ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        How about Mrs Brock victim of the Entebbe airport rescue, she was taken to hospital in uganda and I believe a DNR notice was served on her either via pillow or gun.

        She had a dual passport, German British.

  57. The actor William Hurt died in a hospice on March 13th. He had prostate cancer and refused all pain killers until the very end. He died in a great deal of pain. Get those bottoms checked out people !

    RIP William.

    1. Not sure if I’d be so brave under that circumstance – think would ask that they pump me full of whatever drug is needed for a pain-free (as far as possible) ‘drift-away’.

        1. One source I read said that he’d had years of sobriety and refused to even consider drugs etc. Don’t think I’d be so brave.

          1. Actually, I would say ‘so stupid’. As I say above. If caught early all it takes is an injection. It is given every three months so it is hardly an inconvenience.

    2. And since that is my problem I double urge you all. If you have the slightest problem in peeing hot foot it to the doctors. I just thought my problem was age. It turned out that it was Prostate Cancer stage Gleason 8. Which meant that it had probably metastasised and I was going to die. Got several solemn talks from doctors making it plain that I was probably in a great deal of trouble. Suitable funerial looks on their faces and delicate choice of words. As it is I, fortunately, got away with it and it was still confined to my prostate. But leaving it for so long has given me no end of trouble. I go to bed at 9.00pm and I’m up at 9.00 am, because throughout the night I have to get up at least 7 to 8 times for a very painful time of it in the bathroom. Eventually it will stop but the pain is incredible. So don’t faff about and don’t pretend you are to macho to bother with trivia. It will kill you and it will be incredibly painful. If I had gone much earlier I would probably have it under control with simple hormone injections. As it is I am subjected to torture and I’m not exaggerating. To urinate is a screaming clawing up the walls performance throughout the day and night, metaphorically speaking. So go. You only get one chance at life and you don’t want your final years to be one of incapacitation, wasting away, and pain. Here endeth the lesson.

      1. Thank goodness, Johnathan I had the finger-wag and the discovery of an enlarged prostate.

        A subsequent biopsy and 12 sample snips revealed no cancer – that was about 12 years ago.

        Guess I should go again but, as I told the clinician doing the biopsy, “I suppose there are people who enjoy this.”

        2. Doesn’t your doctor check you out for that? He should and if he isn’t then he is negligent. Ask for a test.

          1. That was when I lived in Essex, since then I’ve been in France, Spain, Australia and Norway. Only back in the UK since 2017 and more problems with COPD, heart disease and recurring PID.

            Maybe, at 78, I figure I’ve had enough but I’ll think about it with our new doctor – only been with him since November last year.

          2. We could be twins. I also have COPD, it doesn’t help, does it? Last week they had a look at my lungs via a CT scan. Haven’t seen the report yet. The annoying thing about that is I have never smoked. The two together i.e. COPD and Prostate Cancer are not exactly joy!

        3. I remember my first time and my GP said “I hope you’re not going to enjoy this”. I replied I rather hope your not either.

        1. Well fortunately for me, I will recover. But having a taste of it is enough for me to become a bit of a crusader for men and this problem. Prostate Cancer kills more men than women die from breast cancer and the main reason is that men tend to not rush off to the doctor, women do. So by the time the men go, they have had it. But if it is caught early on, a simple injection every three months of hormones can keep it under control. What went wrong with me is that I ended up having radio therapy, which appears to have caused damage. They are going to deal with that at some point. Had my preliminary talk with the consultant and I’m on the list for a cystoscopy so they can decide what to do.

      3. I can echo that plea – I rushed OH to A&E on 2nd January 2021 – he couldn’t pee at all. He had a procedure in March to open up the urethra so he no longer had to wear a catheter & bag. He has prostate cancer and there are some metastases – but it’s under control with hormone injections.

        Johnathan – go back to the urologist and oncologist and see what they can do to improve matters for you.

        1. I have Ndovu and they are. After I kicked up a screaming fit in order to get them to move. For me it was that I had the Radio therapy, then nothing. no follow up at all. Then a couple of weeks ago I had enough and threatened to come into the hospital and shout at them at the top of my lungs, embarrass them in public. Hey Presto! An appointment to see a consultant the following week. I wrote about it on here and how I learnt a depressing lesson in the USA: “The squeaky wheel gets the oil”. Unfortunately it works, although such behaviour should not be necessary when dealing with the medical profession.

          By the way what was the procedure. I’m very reluctant to have TURP because after radio therapy it can make you incontinent. So I want to know what alternatives help.

          1. I was catheterised for 7 months before having a TURP. I was not completely in control of my bladder so my GP prescribed Solifenacin to stop the bladder going into spasm. I now have complete control and am peeing like a 20 year old. I will be 86 in July. Sorry about the necessary detail.

          2. On the contrary Delboy, thank you for the details. I want to go armed with all possible information before they do anything to my plumbing. Do you have to take Solifenacin on a daily basis from now on?

          3. At the moment, yes. I am on 10mg but the GP (pre Covid) asked me if I would like to try 5mg after a period of assessment. I agreed but I haven’t seen him since. I assume that if I am still OK on 5mg then the next step will be no drug as the bladder will have been taught to behave.

          4. It was a TURP but of course he hadn’t had radiotherapy. I don’t think it’s routinely used here as a first resort – not till other methods of control are no longer effective. In OH’s case the hormone injections are keeping things under control and he’s well enough to play tennis, table tennis and run up and down ladders.

      4. Prostate cancer killed the husband of one of my school friends. It was a particularly nasty way to go.

  59. Its been announced that the actor Peter Bowles had died. A fine actor and gentleman.

    1. The end of an era of some fine acting and William Hurt as sen below.
      I’ve ben cleaning up the dust that was dumped on almost everything horizontal in our garden, rubbish bins and window cills. Dog’s water bowl and her feed dish all had a thin layer of the orange sludge in them.

      2. I’ve just seen the poet below. Wasn’t aware that William Hurt has passed away too.
        Its certainly the end of an era of fine actors . I’m pleased you’ve been busy 🙂

      3. I’ve just seen the poet below. Wasn’t aware that William Hurt has passed away too.
        Its certainly the end of an era of fine actors . I’m pleased you’ve been busy 🙂

    3. Met him a couple of times at parties in Dorset. Very nice and knowledgeable about theatre history. No luvvie nonsense.

  60. Once more I’ve had a bit of an NM trying to log in on Nottlers i had to change my password for the third time this year. And it wont work on my mobile that suddenly stopped me logging in about a week ago.

      1. I wish they’d knock at the front door the oil is already and had been simmering for some time.

    2. I accidently pressed a button a month ago, so therefore disqus has my password and I don’t need to type it into my laptop ( but I do when using this Samsung tablet).
      I can remove my password from disqus if I want to, bur it seems okay.

        1. Oh yes. Google sent an e-mail to my gmail address telling me that my work network password is too simple and may not be secure. (It actually consists of a made-up word with a mixture of capitals, lower case, symbols and numbers – what more can I do?) I notified the IT dept and was told not to worry but how the hell do Google even know?

      2. Something that I can not understand is,……….. if i request a password change on my mobile and they email me the attachment i then look at it on my PC and make the alteration and it woks but it doesn’t work on my Mobile ??????

      2. Oh Lordy, Lordy, Lordy.

        More tedious work for the lawyers.

        How/why do we put people such as this on the front page of our newspapers?

      4. Is there no bar against people spending their money frivolously when they are so indebted? She would be better off paying for psychiatric help to wean her off repeatedly undergoing these needless surgical procedures. It would be cheaper in the long run.

    1. The biggest theme of Warhol’s art was image/mass marketing vs reality, so it would be entirely consistent if he had created a fake alter ego

      1. But someone else had to carry it on. Did you read to the end. He supposedly died in a Tsunami 11 years ago in Sri Lanka. But your thought about who is actually the painter is the same as mine too.

        1. Yes, I did, but I don’t know what to make of it. There’s nothing in the way of references or proofs in the article.

        2. A friend of mine was on holiday with his wife when that hit. She went in to town to do some shopping leaving him in the beach chalet. He was up to his armpits in water but was determined to rescue the suitcases.

          They managed to get a flight out and he immediately re-booked a holiday elsewhere. Completely unflustered.

    2. He was just one of Andy Warseholes receptacles for his favourite paint brush. He changed them regularly.

  64. RSPCA issues warning to pet owners after cat gets head stuck in rat bait box in County Durham. 17 march 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e36cea4340c75c97afc28f0d88219b42beb72b5127b9ff1ac59c4884af7b0323.png

    On Monday, the female cat was found in a yard at Paddock Farm Nursery and Water Garden in Dalton-on-Tees, near Darlington in County Durham, in a distressed state after she became stuck with her head almost completely encased inside the box. She was rescued by RSPCA Animal Rescue Officer Ruth Thomas-Coxon, who managed to calm the poor moggy down.

    She then took her to a veterinary hospital in Darlington where staff were fortunately able to free her. In an intricate and difficult procedure they used a saw to cut away the plastic frame of the device while the cat was under anaesthetic.

    Horror story. Strange how these things affect us more than others.

    RSPCA issues warning to pet owners after cat gets head stuck in rat bait box in County Durham (msn.com)

    1. Leave the rats alone – never put down poison or you will kill other creatures – hedgehogs, cats, whatever comes into the garden.

      1. While I agree about the poison, Jules – WHAT does one do when – as we were 18 months ago – overrun by at least a dozen rats?

      2. One of our neighbours use to keep chickens and having kept them my self on an allotment I know that rats are attracted to the coups and if you try and actually succeed in keeping them out, they don’t actually move out of the area. We’ve had rats in our house they nested in our airing cupboard upstairs. Chewed some of the items of clothing and our own bedding. They chewed through climbed up a waste pipe ducting from outside entered the bathroom room through a small hole in the wall. One of them died inside some other pipe work ducting behind a cupboard in our study, it’s rotting body stank for weeks. Good job for aerosol. They are not too fussy where they defecate either. We still have them in and around our garden and if I do manage to humanely trap them I try to teach them to swim in a (sarc) water butt but often forget they are in there and I then put them to dry out on the shed roof when red kites come and carry them off. But other than that I just have to try and poison them but only selectively as in the places where they have gnawed through our compost bins.
        I made a little hedgehog winter hibernation ‘cabin’ and put straw in it, we use to have at least one in our garden, but due to the afore mentioned evidence, the rats had moved in. I only place the blocks of poison out of harms way and where the rats run and there is no danger of this effecting cats or hedgehogs. It’s just something that has to be done. Soz Ellie.
        We have about 4 huge toads in our pond right now and it’s filled with spawn they sing at night time as well. I just hope the Heron keeps away.

    2. This story lays to waste the old wives’ tale (perpetuated by my mother) that a cat will never attempt to put its head into a hole that its whiskers will not fit into.

    2. Why would a company commit suicide? More senseless stuff.
      What agency staff? What agencies are full of cross channel ferry staff?

  66. ROOM WANTED: Need to find a room for blond Ukrainian stunner immediately. Due to wife unexpectedly returning home.

    Contact Mr. Richard Zaghari-Ratcliffe

  67. Is Mr Viking still around these parts ? I’ve not seen him. Hope he’s okay, he gave me a nice lamb recipe when I last saw him.

    1. He hasn’t been here since before Xmas. I have emailed him a few times but no response. He did say at one point he was having internet issues….
      I really hope he’s OK but I can give no more info.

    3. I called to see him in January, Æthel. As I live nearer to him than others – south Cambs – I volunteered to check on him to see if he was ok and if I could help with anything. He said he was fine but his internet was down and was having problems with his phone. He lost he beloved cat Missy to old age a few weeks before Christmas. Losing a much loved furry long-time companion does take the wind out one’s sails. They get direct access to our hearts in a way that humans do not.

      1. Hello, thank you I’m sorry to hear that Mr Viking lost Missy, its horrendous when losing our pets, they are part of our family. It sounds as if he’s decided to shut himself off from the world for awhile- which isn’t good but understandable. But when he’s ready he’ll hopefully will know he’s friends like yourself and others who care . Hopefully it’ll be soon .

      1. Without thinking, I bought some yellow and blue bedding plants this morning. I shall have to plant them in different parts of the garden…

  69. And so it goes on………….. and on and on. More than a year down the line.
    Today I had a letter from the hospital telling my my long awaited cardio appointment next month has been cancelled until a month later. I am truly absolutely sick of all this infernal nonsense, they are totally useless. From records they already know what the problem is and it takes a few hours to fix it.
    I have spent 40 minutes on the phone trying to find out why and you get nowhere, nice lady, but can’t really help. She’s getting the department to email me ……….

      1. Tried that already Phiz, no joy. I just wish i had Gone back to Watford Hospital (difficult to get to) where i was sent 6 years ago. But this present situation was a follow up from the local A&E visits i had to make after the reactions to the covid jabs.

        1. See my comment way below. I threw a screaming fit over the phone to the hospital and told them if they didn’t do anything within 24 hours — it turned out to be weekend forgot it was Friday, but anyhoo — I would come in and create a very loud fuss in public and embarrass them for dragging their heels. On Monday they phoned me with an appointment for Tuesday. Miraculously a slot had opened up!

    3. They do that because very few people complain.
      Start at the top, CEO, and you should, in my experience, get things moving quite quickly.

    4. They do that because very few people complain.
      Start at the top, CEO, and you should, in my experience, get things moving quite quickly.

  70. Looks nice , full sun, and the outdoor temp is 12.8C, but there is a strong wind chill so it’s down to zero as far as I’m concerned.

  72. I tried to unclog the the drip tray inside the fridge this morning ..

    I decided to give everything a very good clean out .. oh dear , it is a large tall fridge .. and it took me ages to sort things , then Moh gave me a hand , it took 2 hours to sort clean and de bung .

    I found a jar of anchovies .. use by date 2011.. How on earth was that one overlooked .. jars of opened jam and mint sauce , picalilli, lemon curd .. oh dear and a piece of cheese identified as Manchego .. actually by the label .. Moh hates Manchego .. some Dorset Blue Vinney that nearly crawled out of the cheese shelf .

    A very soggy courgette and a some capsicum that were rather off.

    The fridge was on low setting , but stuff still managed to attach itself freezing to the back . Green gunk from lettuce or similar .

    I hope that by having a good clear out it will work more efficiently. It is probably about 16 years old .. a spacious Hotpoint .

    Has anyone here any recommends for more up to date fridges and where to buy? Price matters of course .

    2. For God’s sake, Belle, don’t look in any of you drawSers! 😂😂

      Edit spelling correction:-))

    3. For God’s sake, Belle, don’t look in any of you drawSers! 😂😂

      Edit spelling correction:-))

    4. We have a large Beko fridge/freezer we bought to go in the garage. It’s one of the only models suitable for a garage.
      Suggest you look at Ao.com or Curry’s or other online stores who will also take he old one away.

      1. We have a small fridge in the kitchen and a fridge/freezer in the garage.
        ETA: This reply meant for Belle!

      2. We have a small fridge in the kitchen and a fridge/freezer in the garage.
        ETA: This reply meant for Belle!

          1. I have 3 freezers, 2 fridges and 2 wine chillers. I’m thinking of buying another one.

    5. If you do buy a new fridge just beware of the possible different size if you pr existing one is between other appliances. We had to buy a new fridge some while ago and, thanks to the EU, it was not the standard 60cm any more. But our is not a tall one. Give yourselves a big slug of something for a good job out of the way. (Although, if you’re getting rid, was it worth the effort!).

        1. A few weeks ago, I bought replacement larder fridges for the kitchen. Externally, they were the same size as their replacements; internally, there is much more space. Presumably the manufacturers have fined down the insulation and chilling units.

    8. Belle. I second Alf. AO I buy all my electrics and gas from them. Plenty of choice and a lot is cheap. I tend to buy cheap because things are so cheap it is just as easy to but a new something than it is to get it repaired or pay insurance. But so far nothing I have brought from them has broken down. Very happy with them.

  73. Me and my mate went to London to become sperm donors.

    It was a disaster!

    I missed the tube and my mate came on the bus. :@(

  75. After the divorce I was left with nothing, so I decided to end it all. I
    stole an dingy in Folkstone, and paddled it as far as I could into the
    English channel, hoping that I’d get sunk and killed by one of the huge
    ships that pass there. After hours of paddling I was done. I just laid
    down in the boat and waited for death.
    I must have fell asleep, because hours later I’d washed back up on the
    shores of Folkstone. I was dejected, and borderline hypothermic. I could
    feel my mental state worsen by the minute. I’d become a jibbering
    wreck… Then some guy’s in uniforms gently lifted me out of the boat,
    and carried me to a mini bus. They gave me coffee and a blanket, then
    started talking to me. I was too far gone to really understand what they
    were saying though. TBH, I was sobbing like a child and couldn’t really
    get any actual words out.
    Anyway, that evening they brought me to this hotel, and I’ve been here
    for 3 weeks now. It turns out that they’ve organised a free furnished
    council flat and spending money for me too, so I should be getting the
    keys to that in the next few days !
    And to think, I used to say the British government didn’t give a shit
    about it’s citizens !

  76. Gorgeous afternoon. Useful hour spent gathering winter fuel. A small Japanese in the air, though. One needs to wrap up in the shade.

  77. Dem Nightmare: What if the War Ends Before November?

    https://www.takimag.com/article/dem-nightmare-what-if-the-war-ends-before-november/

    Great news for Joe Biden. After months of abysmal public approval numbers, President Biden’s favorability among registered voters has soared by 2 points to 45%! And all he had to do was bring us to the brink of World War III.
    The media are thrilled with the possibility of nuclear war with Russia. Catastrophes are terrific for ratings, and flood-the-zone coverage of a war between two faraway countries that has almost zero effect on the lives of most Americans allows journalists to act like deep-think, geopolitical strategists (after having quickly looked up “Ukraine” on Wikipedia).
    They dragged out the COVID panic porn for two straight years. By now, the only people still interested in pandemic updates are hysterical liberal women in Manhattan claiming to have “long-haul COVID.”

    1. Soldiers dying, as usual, at the behest of politicians.

      Put Putin and Zelenski in a boxing ring and let them slog it out.

      Winner takes all?

      2. It should be a tag team. Putin and Xi up against Zelensky and Macron I’d pay to see that.

        2. I have. I was given as a present a small wheel of Cheddar and one of Stilton. About a kilo each. It freezes okay.

        3. Yes, I did a cheese and wine fund-raiser and had a lot of cheese left over. It froze okay and was fine to eat when defrosted.

    3. Properly stored butter can be frozen for up to four months if frozen prior to the USE BY date on the package.
      Butter may begin to lose its fresh butter taste and pick up flavors and
      odors from the freezer if stored for longer than four months. Once the
      butter is removed from the freezer, use it within 30 days.

      Freezing, Thawing & Baking Frozen Butter | Land O’Lakes

    5. We buy around 20 packs at a time and put them in the freezer, taking them out as needed. One pack every three days or so, depending on cooking/baking requirements. We use President unsalted and it is not always available, that’s why we started buying a lot when we could get it.
      No problems with freezing and defrosting. No noticeable difference from fresh.

  79. Not long since we had dinner. Roasted vegetables, chorizo and bacon, Mediterranean style, with fusilli.
    Luvverly grub.

        2. Yes, but you are an adult now. Children have dinner and Tea in that order. Grown-ups have dinner at eight. :@)

          3. No, these grown ups have dinner between meetings. And try to have ‘dinner’ as otherwise it’s gone 9 before I’m eating.

          4. We have dinner at dinner time and we have tea at tea time.
            Second childhood 😂😂

          6. My right eye is now very bright and is nearly in focus. The left eye is duller but it will be quite a while before that cataract will be ready to operate on.
            Much better than I imagined.
            Funny, weird, having ops on eyes. Think it’s going to be worse than it really is. A bit grainy.

  80. RE the comments below about lunch etc..

    Breakfast ( 7 / 8am )
    Morning coffee 10am )
    Lunch ( which can be a roast ie cooked or sandwiches .. 1PM )
    Afternoon tea ( 4 PM )
    Dinner ( 7 ish )

    Supper ( late night snack .. 10pm )

    There is no need to eat all the above but ” tea ” is an afternoon drink and not an evening meal unless from the North .

          1. 🙂 You could have a second breakfast if you popped out of the Lord of the Rings .

          6. Especially as a special treat for a birthday, anniversary or when you decide to take me… :@)

          7. I’ve had quite a few birthday meals, but the one that always stays in my mind is afternoon tea at the Balmoral in Edinburgh.

          9. It looks nice, but if you’re a pedant, like me, you’ll notice there’s not really a lot of cake there.

          11. Actually i think it is £75 per person with the cocktail. Cheaper without. I still think it good value…considering.

          14. I see. Remember that for us yokels, it would cost the best part of £150 just to get to Lunnon and back – leave alone eating…!

          16. They don’t do cake. It is the finest of patisserie. You want lardy cake…go North young man.

        3. In our house (northern mother), high tea was when we had kippers with our bread and jam in the evening.

      3. I thought High Tea was ordinary tea but eaten at a table, rather than on one’s lap, which allowed things like boiled eggs.

          1. Ah ! Forgot that one . Also forgot cocktails in Raffles ( if including Colonial habits:-)

    3. And millions of English people ARE from “The North”. We still use the ancient nomenclature for mealtimes. i.e:

      Breakfast (first meal of the day).
      Dinner (main midday meal).
      Tea (late afternoon light meal).
      Supper (a light-to-main meal early-to-late evening).

      When the main meal migrated to evening from midday (due to changes in working practices), some took its name with them. `They did the same here in Sweden where the midday dinner (“middag”) curiously became an evening meal also called “middag!”

      Southerners (except Cockneys) moved their dinner to the evening and took its name with it. This meant they had to invent a new word, “lunch”, to fill in the midday loss.
      Northerners (and Cockneys) retained the name dinner for the midday meal.

      Schools, everywhere, always have a midday dinner tended by dinner ladies.

      The upper classes always call their main evening meal “supper”.

      Just because some people have a different naming system for meals (and other things) doesn’t mean that you are wrong if you don’t conform to your own expectations.

      I asked the girl with dulcet tone,
      To order me a buttered scone.
      The silly girl has been and gone,
      And ordered me a buttered scone.

      One man’s meat is another man’s poison; just as one man’s tomahtoe is another man’s tomaytoe.

      Choose one: eether or eyether will do! 😉

      1. Yes okay I do understand but where is lunch ? When you eat out you’ll be given a lunch menu which is mid day and a dinner menu which is in the evening.

      2. Yes okay I do understand but where is lunch ? When you eat out you’ll be given a lunch menu which is mid day and a dinner menu which is in the evening.

      3. “And millions of English people ARE from “The North”.

        Yes but like when the dog does a doodoo on the rug we pretend it doesn’t exist. :@)

          1. Yes. Not forgetting the faggot floater with mushy peas and a slice of white on top. Those Northerners with their sense of humour lol. :@)

          3. Johnny Norfolk will tell you that black pudding from Bury (he is a Lancastrian) is the best in the world. I’ve not tried it yet but it remains on my “to do” list.

          4. No need to travel all the way to Lancashire. Just open a vein into a sausage skin and boil.

          9. Yes. I love unusual food names and Rumbledethumps makes me smile
            whereas bubble and colcannon is just that.

          14. Shurrup and eat your pond pudding.

            [Do you find newts and tadpoles in your pond pudding? 🤣]

      4. Good afternoon my friend:

        I wish I could succeed and be a social winner
        And my new found friends arrived at one when I asked them round for dinner
        I know I’ve got the brass
        But I haven’t got the class
        And the whole situation is getting up … I mean’s become a farce’

        (If you really try you can get ‘farce’ to rhyme with ‘brass’, ‘class’, ass (or donkey!)

    4. It was as I feared it would be
      I sat next to the Duchess at tea,
      Her rumblings abdominal
      Were simply phenomenal,
      And everyone thought it was me!

      2. The version I was ‘taught’ was:
        Her rumblings internal
        Were simply infernal…”

        1. It’s a good one because you can change the Duchess to anyone….e.g.
          It was as I feared it would be
          I sat next to Anne Allan at tea….& etc ;-))

  81. RE the comments below about lunch etc..

    Breakfast ( 7 / 8am )
    Morning coffee 10am )
    Lunch ( which can be a roast ie cooked or sandwiches .. 1PM )
    Afternoon tea ( 4 PM )
    Dinner ( 7 ish )

    Supper ( late night snack .. 10pm )

    There is no need to eat all the above but ” tea ” is an afternoon drink and not an evening meal unless from the North .

    1. £50 for 29 litres today. Utterly offensive. Over £30 of that is tax. The green fanatics need a thumping.

    1. Well, all that’s coming by making it unaffordable anyway.

      The real killer will be saying ‘Righty, off to the dentists….oh, and novocaine is made from oil…’

    2. The Taliban are fighting climate change, and they would certainly make appropriate husbands if that meme is a wish list.

  85. Just discovered that the Telegraph has removed all comments below the line on the Russell Brand and Joe Rogan article. More censorship from the cowards. They have also made it almost impossible to find the article.

    1. I was invited to fill in a survey on what I thought of the Telegraph. Well they got my honest opinion.

  86. I still have our 15 together duck feather duvet on the bed with the warm Norwegian cover on the bed. It’s warm enough to change for the lighter Norwegian but as soon as I do that it’ll snow !

    1. That’s based on a very very old joke that my father used to tell. There were probably always different variations too. If only I could remember.

      1. In the Darling Buds of May, the old Brigadier tells Pop that he ,Pop, could sell sand to the Arabs.

          1. Well, we are not long in from the hospital for a consult with the doc for MH. We now know what they are planning and when we can, sort of, expect to hear.
            The words life expectancy were mentioned today for the first time, which made me cross and unhappy. If we’d been able to see our doctor over the last two years, neither of us would be in the state of ill health that we’re in.

          2. Dreadful.
            How these bastards can look at themselves in the mirror and not be overwhelmed with guilt, is a mystery.

          5. When people within the NHS refer to “Our” NHS, they mean exactly that, THEIR NHS, not ours. We, the taxpayers are just the poor bloody fools that pay for it.

          7. Run for the nhs, by the nhs. Patients get in the way unless they can be used for a spot of virtue signalling.

        2. There used to be a company in Bedfordshire that used to do just that.
          Apparently it was a particular grade of sand needed for a specific purpose.

      2. Rumour has it that your favourite is the girl buried in the desert one.
        He says: “If I rescue you what’s in it for me?”
        She says: “sand”

    4. Boris convinces the psychotic murderers not to kill him after he bribed them with £200 million of taxpayers money.

    8. “We’d be grateful if you could lend us a hand – we need your hydrocarbons because we’re desperately trying to do without them!”

  93. 351434+ up ticks,
    I really would like to ask how many of those 100 troops are
    willing to die for this gaggle of political tripe that is in power
    and it could so easily happen.

    Britain Deploys Anti-Air Missile System with 100 Troops to Poland to Deter Russia

    2. That’s a hundred young Britons being used to protect the interests of the likes of Hunter Biden and Klaus Schwab in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Makes me want to vomit!

    2. I went on a school trip to France when i was in the 5th form. We coached up to the ferry port and embarked. Once we were on they called a strike. Not all the staff. The restaurants were still open. Because of the delay we had missed our meal at the hotel in Paris. Our teacher…. the fabulous Mrs Lord booked us all in to the restaurant. When it came to paying the bill she refused and gave her reasons why.

      That night she also showed her steel by demanding from the purser that we be given blankets (we were on the top deck inside where the recliners were). He refused. She told him she would find a axe and break into the cupboards herself. He eventually relented. The following morning all staff went and hid. Not sure if it was because they had heard Mrs Lord was on board but everything was open. The breakfast buffet cafe was open but no one on the tills. All free.

      God bless our teacher. She was a star.

          7. :-D)
            Hospitals I can’t do. Snakes – no worries. Pigs throat slitting – no!

        3. Whatever, Anne, she was certainly old school – unlike today’s ignorant, namby-pamby, woke snowflakes, who only can teach about the historic wickedness, in a time when might was right.

          1. You would be doing 100 lines right now , young man, for insulting teachers in such a way ;-))))

          3. Not at all- I am trying to retain my sense of humour. I was a fire breathing dragon, as Anne says.
            I wouldn’t last 5 mins in a school nowadays.

    1. Good old Rochdale names, eh? I used to live in a village not far from Rochdale years ago and it was a nice town. We never saw any people like that in the town shopping centre; there were gangs of skinheads though so maybe that’s what kept the others away. Who knows. It’s a shame because it really was a nice town then.

  96. Radio 4 has just had an interview with Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT. He was not in a good mood and has every right not to be given the manner of dismissal of the P&O staff, which is almost certainly illegal. He made the observation that the end of the UK’s merchant navy could be near after decades of decline, largely because of foreign ownership and foreign crews on the remaining UK ships. He claimed that Irish Ferries, operating out of Dover, recently replaced almost all of its crews with Lithuanians.

    He did almost fall over the port side with his remark that “this is the state of capitalism in the UK today” (to which we say “in the world, Mr Lynch, in the world”) but regained his balance by setting the alarm bells ringing about freeports, one of the government’s great ideas. He fears a deregulated and entirely foreign workforce. If the government allows that to happen, I fear for the state of public order in the country. It would be a betrayal that would eclipse the policy failures on immigration, covid and energy. Like P&O, the Thames Gateway is owned by DP World (Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem is chairman and CEO) which is looking to buy up the freeports. Will any part of our island be left under UK ownership in ten years time?

    Nevertheless, we must ask why UK merchant shipping is in such a state. And, in respect of foreign labour, what is Mr Lynch’s view of the UK and the EU?

    1. Nobody will want to travel on ferries staffed exclusively by foreign workers. Sailing into Dover has a very special place in English people’s hearts.

        1. And to think, we never knew that sixty percent of Ukrainians were black until this week.

          2. Gosh, that’s surprising for an African country; you’d expect the percentage to be higher.
            (What? it is? Well, there’s somewhere beginning with ‘U’.)

        1. I’ve always flown in or, when my brother took me for lunch in Boulogne, we went through the Chunnel in his car and on the train.

        2. Not these days, I suspect. The white cliffs, maybe (it was quite a thrill to fly over them in a Spitfire), but the town not so much.

          1. Well obviously I meant the port of Dover!
            The town has got Dover castle which is well worth a visit, some good fish and chip shops and in the vicinity, places where you can go on the cliffs.

        3. Yes it does. It’s not just me, every time on the Dover routes there are people just standing and watching the white cliffs, arriving or departing. Completely different experience from taking the train or any other ferry.

          1. I confess to watching the cliffs recede or approach when I take the ferry. It’s the cliffs that are iconic, though.

          2. It doesn’t do anything for me.
            What does it for me is how Britain has done the right thing in the past, although it’s been awful and painful – taking the kindertransport children, and fighting the Nazis. I knew two Jewish kids who came by Kindertransport, both became Professors – highly respected at that, and very nice guys both – whose families never made it except to become bars of soap… that’s how I see the UK, doing the right, if not expedient, thing.
            Nowadays, just doing shit.

          3. Brits used to be stoic and able to get on with things. I wasn’t alive in the war but I remember hearing about it and have read quite a bit about it. People got on with life and did what was necessary- as I have tried to do all my life.
            It is not my fault, nor my husband’s that our lives have been disrupted and somewhat destroyed because of the antics of this stupid, asinine government. Those twerps cost us our last place of abode, they have ruined our health and it is not just us!! Thousands of people are far worse off than we are and we are lucky to have a roof over our heads.
            Am planning on some comprehensive refreshment tonight so forgive any typos or bad language ;-))

          9. “Lives there a man with soul so dead
            Who never to himself hath said
            This is my own, my native land” – on seeing the white cliffs of Dover after travelling on the mainland of Europe. That sight is so evocative, an atavistic experience for every Englishman and woman.

    2. Ferry crews have long been a pain in the b*m for P&O management. Source: senior executive of said company, now retired.

    3. WEF/NWO: Cheapest possible workforce.
      “Union boss & Henry Ford are walking through a Ford factory. Ford is extolling the virtues of the robots assembling the cars; how they don’t take meal breaks, don’t take vacation, aren’t off sick, don’t need paid shift allowances – the Union man listens quietly, and at the end of the discourse, asked Henry “And how many of your cars will your robots be buying, Mr Ford?”

    2. Given that one pilot reads the speed and calls when the calculated take off speed is reached, I’m surprised they got airborne and didnt trundle into the bush.

    3. Given that one pilot reads the speed and calls when the calculated take off speed is reached, I’m surprised they got airborne and didnt trundle into the bush.

    4. RAF aircraft, when I was servicing them always had pitot head covers fitted – complete with a red flag hanging from them. Before Flight checks (BF) required the pitot head covers to be removed.

      1. Indeed, nd the red flag was so you couldn’t miss seeing them.
        So, Malaysian had unconscious people doing the preflight walkround – several of them – none saw the flags, so they didn’t do the walkround or were playing with their phones. I ain’t flying with that shower again.

    5. RAF aircraft, when I was servicing them always had pitot head covers fitted – complete with a red flag hanging from them. Before Flight checks (BF) required the pitot head covers to be removed.

  98. That’s me for today. Another nice one. Useful gardening done by the staff. A touch of Spring in the air – deceptive though it may be. And I know it won’t last. Global Warming means that we will have a long, cold, sunless Summer.

    Preparing for a trip to Long Melford on Saturday – the MR’s brilliant (and I mean that) IT-skilled nephew (who saved his company £2 million last year) is setting up her new laptop – her old faithful having died on Tuesday. (Laptop, not husband…!!). We have always gone to see them on a Sunday when the church is, er, busy and the town closed. So on a nice sunny day – it should be very interesting. Sandwiches and a flask of soup to enjoy in the churchyard.

    Have a jolly evening. I don’t know if any of you are watching the medical “drama” with Ben Wishaw – but that fat woman consultant just is NOT believable. At all.

    A demain.

    1. 50 wheelbarrows full of cut and split oak logs shifted today. That should probably see us through to 2024, when the gash wood/ fallen branches which I gather up from around the garden as kindling are included.

      A great sense of achievement today but that merely means more time for grass cutting and pruning tomorrow and onwards
      {:-((

        1. Already well in hand!

          There is a certain pleasure in standing away from a lot of hard manual work and just resting and basking in the effort.

          Phizzee will be on soon, no doubt referring to hard manual work as his daily routine! };-0…)

    2. My niece lives in Long Melford.
      While you’re there, do you have any embarrassing tattoos that need zapping?

          4. Actually Sos, I may well get more rude as the evening goes on. I have had up to my bloody eyeballs with all the BS and it’s only a matter of time. I don’t mean your BS or any here….just all this shit that we have all been unnecessarily subjected to.

    3. Used to be able to get a good pub lunch in The Bull, but it’s fifteen years or so since I was up that way. Nan lived in Great Cornard.

  99. Evening, all. In his rush to virtue signal over Russian gas, instead of making sure we had our own supplies Bojo is cosying up to the Saudis – a regime which executes people and doesn’t allow women to drive or go anywhere without a male escort. I wonder how Carry Antoinette feels about that.

      1. Oh, it was Marrying him that gave her the power?
        Why ever did I come to a different conclusion?

          2. Totally off topic, Annie, I went to the Mercury Theatre this afternoon and watched BLACKMAIL, which you recommended. It really was excellent. Before too long I want to watch the Alfred Hitchcock filmed version of this play.

    2. At least your idiots are trying to find new sources, our idiots are just doubling down on the rhetoric around renewables – and they are increasing the carbon tax in two weeks.

      1. Isn’t it sweet (?) that we all have our own sets of idiots? The world is full of total idiots. And I do not mean the ordinary people.

        1. Not a word from our government about the cost of oil and the impact that it is having on the peasantry.

        2. Amazing how the world has almost turned full circle, we started off digging holes in the ground and cutting trees down to survive. And now it seems due the the education the developed western civilisation has bestowed on the world since the stone age period. We are suffering the reprisals of our ‘almost developed’ common sense. The hole diggers have taken charge and the hard work all the worlds peasants have contributed to the running of society is being wiped out but the usual useless overbearingly rich minority.

      2. Isn’t it sweet (?) that we all have our own sets of idiots? The world is full of total idiots. And I do not mean the ordinary people.

    3. Gold plated palaces and sofas with not a bottle of wine in sight – not a problem!

    4. The intersectionality creed is built on cognitive dissonance. CA will consider the Saudis to be victims BECAUSE they’re savages. She won’t see them as clear proof that civilisation is not a product of wealth from exploitation and patriarchal power, since they have both in abundance and are STILL savages.

  100. Forgive me, but as I watch the outcry over what the owners of P&O have done, I have to ask myself:
    What is the difference between this and what the UK govt has done to Russians and Russian companies?
    As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

    1. It’s all a bit daft. Wait until crime skyrockets, theft becomes common place, let laone tagging certain cars for other ‘agency staff’ to collect later. The service will collapse.

      1. And serve them right.
        That turd, sacking the crews by zoom; if they tarred and feathered him I would be cheering it on.

  101. I must say the Nazanin is looking in very good health considering all that she has been through

      2. I will be glad to see the back of her photos and those of her stupid husband. I feel much the same towards her and her spouse as I do towards the wretched Madeleine McCann parents.

        Thousands are held without trial by the minute and hundreds of thousands of children go missing. Instead we concentrate on a couple of entirely unworthy examples and throw millions at them. It makes me sick to think of the hypocrisy of our politicians in favouring a few oddballs and ignoring thousands.

    2. “Look East” have just interviewed Terry Waite. He had been in email correspondence with N Z-R for some time. I didn’t realise Iranian prisons were so ‘enlightened’.

    2. If my memory is correct, I think that was what Princess Anne and Mark Phillips walked out of the Abbey to on their wedding day.

    2. Could be worse.

      I see the bad moon a-rising
      I see trouble on the way
      I see earthquakes and lightnin’
      I see bad times today
      Don’t go around tonight
      Well it’s bound to take your life
      There’s a bad moon on the rise
      I hear hurricanes a-blowing
      I know the end is coming soon
      I fear rivers over flowing
      I hear the voice of rage and ruin
      Well don’t go around tonight
      Well it’s bound to take your life
      There’s a bad moon on the rise, all right
      Hope you got your things together
      Hope you are quite prepared to die
      Looks like we’re in for nasty weather
      One eye is taken for an eye
      Well don’t go around tonight
      Well it’s bound to take your life
      There’s a bad moon on the rise
      Don’t come around tonight
      Well it’s bound to take your life
      There’s a bad moon on the rise

      2. In fact I just listened to it on YT. It is still great. Followed by a couple of Scott Walker versions of Jacques Brel songs. Just brilliant. I cannot take all this “news” right now.

      1. The “grave breaches” of the conventions that amount to war crimes include wilful killing and extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity.

        By that definition, confiscating oligarch’s property is a war crime.
        By Boris, Macron, Biden et al..

          1. Rebuild those gallows at Tyburn,the Blair creature lives nearby.
            A two minute drag…..he will be whimpering all the way.

          2. Sounds like a good idea.
            He has a country plie in Bucks which he had an 8ft high brick wall built around about 6 years ago. Why would he have needed to do that ?
            And 24/7/365 armed protection paid for by the Tax payers.

    2. Off early Conners, I might do the same.
      I feel drained by the hospital decision to cancel my long awaited cardiology appointment.
      Thanks for the advice peeps, I’m going to send an email to my MP in the morning, any advice on what i might need to say to him? He usually side steps any issues with the help of his office full of advisers.

        1. I hope you are okay now good lady. 😊
          I remember reading just before the ‘pandemic’ that the government had employed several new regional NHS managers and they are being paid shed loads.
          I’m sure this was set up to divert patients and wear them down so they give up. I call it FOAD ….eff off and die.
          There is no other explanation for any of it.

      2. Give him a small, easy to solve problem? eg getting you an appointment?
        Good luck.

        1. I have just hand written an A4 letter which will be sent by email in the morning thanks all for your help and support.

      4. Have you tried contacting the PALS officer (Patient Advice and Liaison) at your local hospital – their job is to expedite things when things go wrong…

        1. I did that about a month ago because all I originally had was a bloody telephone appointment, scus my french but how HTF was that going to be helpful for cardio problems. PALS stirred it up and it was changed to a face to face. But I have a sneaking suspicion the dastardly management has intervened and canceled this one, now it’s been reset for the end of May, but who knows what will happen between now and then, another fob off ? it’s been going on too long. I’ve had enough of it.
          I’m really off to bed now, Night all and thanks again.

  108. I met a new tradesman (sic) today – the Silicone Sealant man. His tool kit (no filthy inyourendhos sos), consisted of two buckets of various coloured sealants, a sealant gun, sharp knife and a pointy stick. His job was to seal the bathrooms tighter than a duck’s arris. Very good at his job and clearly in great demand. He was employed in Croydon early morning and working in Bristol from 8pm until 2 am tonight. Nice chap wasn’t at all stuck up…..

    2. Gordon Bennett. That chap is as black as coal. Even coal from Silesia is lignite and brown. Filthy stuff compared to our own unexploited stuff, the better anthracite.

      Could someone, anyone, just shoot Johnson in the balls and send him off to Ukraine or some such hell hole designed for hypocritical oligarchs pretending to reason? It would suit the lying bastard to be among others of his pursuasion(s) and a Russian bullet might just do for the fat farty bastard and solve so many of our problems at a stroke.

      1. This video of the Donbass is worth watching. It shows the utter banality and bleakness of civil war. It is shocking, very disturbing. I slept uneasily after watching it. It has been going on since 2014, started by the neo-nazi Ukraines to rid the country of the Russian Ukraines and the persecution has continued under Zelensky. The only thing I have to ask of Putin is what kept him so long. The video is about 50 minutes.
        https://twitter.com/nancyskies/status/1504191712821972996?s=20&t=6_iahs8j6082rukp0LJ46Q

        1. Putin was forced to react to the attacks on Russian speakers in Donbass.

          As far as I can discern, Putin and his armed forces have been treading carefully in seeking to expunge the evil Nazi arm of the Ukrainian army.

          The reaction of the EU and UK to the inevitable response of Putin to blatant provocation is absurd. Putin is the single politician who does precisely what he promises to do.

        2. Putin was forced to react to the attacks on Russian speakers in Donbass.

          As far as I can discern, Putin and his armed forces have been treading carefully in seeking to expunge the evil Nazi arm of the Ukrainian army.

          The reaction of the EU and UK to the inevitable response of Putin to blatant provocation is absurd. Putin is the single politician who does precisely what he promises to do.

  111. I made the mistake of watching Lumley in Paris – she really has lost it – what a hypocrite.

  112. I made the mistake of watching Lumley in Paris – she really has lost it – what a hypocrite.

    1. Forgive me, it has been a long and hard couple of days but…why does one face say 12 and the other 11.45? Guess I could read the article but am running out of steam- maybe tomorrow.

      2. What’s the point of having more than one face to a clock if they say the same time! 😅😅😅

        2. The clock on the Corn Exchange on Corn Street in Bristol would show London time and Bristol time. The introduction of the railways put paid to such distinctions.

          Likewise the Commercial Rooms in Bristol, now sadly an effing Wetherspoons but previously a private club, showed both London and Bristol times and in addition on a wall opposite the main clock a dial showing the direction of prevailing winds (think sailing ships).

          1. Christchurch Cathedral Oxford starts its services according to Oxford time, which is I recall about 6mins different.

    2. Once upon a time a bunch of us schoolboys were lucky enough to be shown around the Clock Tower. Interesting, though a bit draughty at the top. They used to use old pennies to adjust the pendulum, IIRC.
      Possibly one of the guides was an employee of Kendal & Dent.

  114. My wife just asked me who is the most repulsive man I can think of. I unhesitatingly replied : Boris Johnson.

    Asked for a second choice I unhesitatingly replied: Tony Blair.

    My list of the most obnoxious persons known to mankind both include these two monsters but encompass so many others, Bill Gates and his evil wife, Jeff Bezos and his space program, the weird Bearded Git from Twitter, Fuckerburg and his crappy media influence and corrupt election involvement, Fauci and his buddies in Pfizer, Modena, Astra Zeneca, Glaxo Smith Kline, Johnson & Johnson and other criminal pharmaceutical enterprises.

    Needless to say there are many other truly repulsive individuals I would wish to see behind bars. These include Merkel, Trudeau, Macron, Ardern, Morrison, the Netherlands plant, and any number of globalist actor plants placed in position by Klaus Schwab and his cohorts.

    I just hope the world will finally awake to the abominable crimes perpetrated by the global elites on the rest of us, the little people, without whom those fat bastards would starve.

    Time to starve the bastards and put them
    In their place.

        1. The older I become, the more cynical I am about everything I read and see. I find it hard to believe in anyone, on either side of the Atlantic, sad to say.

Comments are closed.