Thursday 20 May: Travel chaos is just the latest consequence of muddled Covid messaging

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/05/19/letterstravel-chaos-just-latest-consequence-muddled-covid-messaging/

653 thoughts on “Thursday 20 May: Travel chaos is just the latest consequence of muddled Covid messaging”

  1. It feels quite lonely here. Good morning! to all arriving here today.

      1. No worries, it’s open house today. Just pop around and we’ll pop corks!

  2. Good morning, all. Sunny and almost Spring like….

    Harry’s salt suggestion worked a treat. No cramp – first time for years.

    2. Good morning Mr Thomas, what method did you use to increase your salt intake and by how much, Mrs VVOF suffers from the same complaint.

      1. Good morning to you. I put one saltspoon into a small glass and drank it all with my bedtime asthma tablet. Bliss.

        2. Good; articles on diets and foodstuffs that allegedly age – or even kill you – should be taken with .. er … a pinch of salt.

          1. It is partly because – in the 1970s – my then wife was working on government plans to reduce salt and sugar and fat. (They didn’t work – hence the latest furawree) So I virtually gave up salt (and sugar) except in cooking.

          2. During the 1976 hot summer, people were advised to take more salt because the scare tactics had worked too well. (Sounds familiar) “Eat a bag of crisps” was one way of encouraging greater salt uptake.

  3. Freedom of expression and safety of teachers should be front and centre of Batley and Spen by-election. 20 May 2021.

    The forthcoming Batley and Spen by-election gives the country a much-needed opportunity to have a long-delayed debate about freedom of speech in an age of religious intolerance. And if the parties want to avoid such a debate, the voters should force them to have it anyway.

    The constituency is home to Batley Grammar School, from which three teachers have been suspended following a religious education class in which pupils were shown cartoons of the prophet Muhammed that were initially published by the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The teachers were suspended and went into hiding, the school apologised – not to their staff but to angry parents who demanded the teachers’ dismissal.

    Morning everyone. The last thing that any Labour or Conservative candidate wants to hear at this by-election are the words Batley Man. You will almost certainly hear far more about the far-Right “terrorist” Thomas Nair than the as yet MSM unnamed (even though everyone in Batley must know who he is) teacher. We see here the realities of the modern UK. The two main political Parties; one with all the power of the State behind it, reduced to spineless jelly at the prospect of offending Muslim Opinion!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/19/freedom-expression-safety-teachers-should-front-centre-batley/

    1. Thank you for the inspiration:-

      Robert Spowart
      20 May 2021 7:19AM
      Thinking of the Teacher Furore in Batley and harking back to 1970 when Harrold Wilson coined the term “Selsdon Man” to ridicule Tory voters over Heath’s radical free-market agenda, I wonder if the term “Batley Man” could be used to describe the typical Labour voter of that parish as being a person who supports the ending of free speech in favour of the introduction of blasphemy restrictions?

    2. I used to think that this would end badly.

      Now I think it will never end and politicians will abase themselves before Islam eternally.

      1. Morning Richard. One doesn’t know when the present system will collapse, only that it is near. When it does so it will not usher in a World of Peace and Plenty. Rather the opposite. We Nottlers have had our time and overall it’s been pretty good. We must KBO like the High Lama of Shangri La in the hope that we are too humble to be noticed!

        1. One of my favourites. (I always empathised with the poor chap with an indolent expression and an undulating throat)

          The Llama is a woolly sort of fleecy hairy goat,
          With an indolent expression and an undulating throat
          Like an unsuccessful literary man.

          And I know the place he lives in (or at least- I think I do)
          It is Ecuador, Brazil or Chile- possibly Peru;
          You must find it in the Atlas if you can.
          The Llama of the Pampasses you never should confound
          (In spite of a deceptive similarity of sound)
          With the Lama who is Lord of Turkestan.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10039748ca00bace40cd9b3fcb7cee697d9c0c3a048315f1709c4cf4fa01f740.jpg

          For the former is a beautiful and valuable beast,
          But the latter is not lovable nor useful in the least;
          And the Ruminant is preferable surely to the Priest
          Who battens on the woeful superstitions of the East,
          The Mongol of the Monastery of Shan.

    3. Grammar school, again. Having failed to close them all last time, our establishment is trying another method; denigration.
      Teenage boys aren’t angels – I remember the Colchester grammar school boys on our buses back in the 1950s – but the recovered memories of Colchester High School ‘students’ who were in the 6th. form provides an argument for single sex schools. Our granddaughter was becoming an absolute feminazi while at the CHG and she has noticeably simmered down since leaving.

      1. Morning, AWK.

        Hodges should stick to his faux journalism and forget about moving up a few notches to become a door to door salesman offering poor quality government ideas.

        1. Hodges et al have all retreated into myopic media echo chamber as the sole remaining effort to “feel” they have a career to sound off. Doing a paper round or being a lollipop lady / man or whatever they think is in between, is way beyond their skill sets

    2. Yeah, but that’s Dan Hodges, the poster boy for nepotism.
      They are all falling into line, Jenni Murray is at it in the Mail today, and it was Sarah Vine the other day. I suspect they’ve been told, no promote the jab, no job.
      James Delingpole has some interesting musings on this subject, as he picks up almost no work at all from the mainstream media since opening his eyes.

      1. This morning I’ve been listening to JD’s podcast with ‘Nina’, a GP’s receptionist. Quite disturbing, the hold the government has over the MSM appears almost 100%.

        1. I’ve downloaded it, but not heard it yet.
          Yes, the fact that the march last Saturday got zero coverage was pretty shocking too.

          I heard a snippet of media from another European country yesterday. They did not tell any direct untruths, but they lied by omission. E.g. telling people that “a day of fever is better than dying of covid” to encourage them to get jabbed.
          They also said that everything in the vaxx will have left your body within a few weeks – this may be true for the Pfizer jab, but it certainly isn’t for the AZ.

      1. Silly me. I imagined that the Cabinet Office would have comprised around 100 people, PAs, secretaries typists and clerks. But 8000! Not in my wildest, most bureaucratic dreams.

        1. It makes it more obvious that, when the talking head is reshuffled or voted out and replaced, it matters not who is apparently ‘in charge’ the system always wins. It’s not just the multitude in the Cabinet Office, it’s the same in every dept.
          John Reid, upon his becoming SoS for the Home Dept, got his retaliation in first by describing the Home Office as ‘not fit for purpose’. Currently, we have Priti Patel pronouncing how she will stop the daily flood of illegal immigrants but the same Home Office is part of the problem

          1. The Civil Service is like ground elder; it’s impossible to eradicate unless every last thread of root is expunged.

          2. I appreciate the problem; I think I’ve just got rid of the last invasive piece only to find that another rears its ugly head. Thanks to the EU, it’s really difficult to find a weed killer that will actually kill it off. The same applies to the CS!

        2. It makes it more obvious that, when the talking head is reshuffled or voted out and replaced, it matters not who is apparently ‘in charge’ the system always wins. It’s not just the multitude in the Cabinet Office, it’s the same in every dept.
          John Reid, upon his becoming SoS for the Home Dept, got his retaliation in first by describing the Home Office as ‘not fit for purpose’. Currently, we have Priti Patel pronouncing how she will stop the daily flood of illegal immigrants but the same Home Office is part of the problem

  5. mng all and also to those arriving later on. John Blunt still wired to the moon. Simon Hubbard’s wife could fly with [and be dropped by] the RAF: Beverley Carr obviously lives in a yurt: And Spice Girl sister? Katie Halliwell’s obviously the CSO of the Vegan Branch of the Food and Drink “Federation”. Good news for Michael Cook, he managed to find directions to find the key:

    SIR – The Covid vaccination programme has been a success, as demonstrated by the falling rates of new infections and hospitalisations.

    By the time the summer holidays arrive, my German wife and I will have both had our two injections. She is desperate to go to Germany to visit her elderly parents, who she hasn’t seen in a year. Surely, with clear proof of her vaccination status, she should have the right to travel without quarantining. If not, why not?

    Britain is squandering the lead it had over other nations, due to mixed messaging and excessive timidity.

    Simon Hubbard
    Walsall, Staffordshire

    SIR – Your front-page headline, “Public told to abandon summer trips abroad” (report, May 19), was astounding.

    First, since foreign shores seem to be too dangerous, why were thousands of people allowed to land here from India?

    And secondly, this advice clearly has come too late for the woman shown on your front page the day before, leaving happily for Portugal. What a mess.

    Simon Crowley
    Kemsing, Kent

    SIR – While I agree that holidays are essential, foreign holidays are not.

    The amber list is for essential foreign travel. Our country is glorious in all weathers and seasons. Enjoy it.

    Chris Long
    Ivybridge, Devon

    SIR – I could not agree more with Allison Pearson (Features, May 19) that “there is no longer any justification for prolonging the brutal curtailment of individual liberty”.

    She is also right to predict that, should this be prolonged (proving once and for all that it is the zealots and control freaks who are now running the country), there will be widespread civil disobedience. I, for one, will not tolerate continued restrictions – and I doubt I will be alone.

    Philip J Ashe
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Recently I saw a young woman walking down the street wearing a face mask, which she intermittently removed to puff on her cigarette. She clearly thought the risks of Covid-19 were greater than those of smoking.

    Around 78,000 people die of smoking-related diseases in Britain every year, but the Prime Minister does not hold daily press briefings on these deaths. How many hospital bed days are devoted to these conditions is anybody’s guess, and the cost to the NHS is almost certainly greater than the tax income from tobacco use.

    Boris Johnson might consider the contradictions in his authoritarian position.

    David Nunn
    West Malling, Kent

    SIR – With regard to the roadmap relaxations, while I do not usually like mixing metaphors, I cannot help feeling that a rug is being pulled from under moving goalposts.

    Kenneth Templar
    Uttoxeter, Staffordshire

    Processed foods

    SIR – Dr Chris Van Tulleken (Features, May 18) is wrong to demonise processed foods. Food processing is often used to improve the nutritional value of food, including reducing salt and sugars in much-loved recipes, and fortifying foods to meet people’s vitamin and mineral needs.

    There is no plausible scientific mechanism for Dr Van Tulleken’s sweeping dismissal of a wide range of commonly consumed foods. It is right that we should help people eat healthier diets, and government polices should reflect this. However, these policies need to be grounded in established nutritional science.

    Kate Halliwell

    Chief Scientific Officer
 Food and Drink Federation
    London WC1

    Old medicine

    SIR – I recently had cause to open my medicine cabinet. After finding the appropriate medication, I checked the use-by date. It had expired by several months. Most of the other contents were of similar, if not older, vintage.

    I have now discovered that my local pharmacist will not recycle these medications; nor can I put them into my refuse bin, flush them away or bury them in the garden. How can I dispose of them with a clear conscience?

    Len Biggins
    Chorleywood, Hertfordshire

    Sack of the Saxons

    SIR – The RFU is to stop calling its second team the Saxons, for reasons of “diversity” (report, May 12).

    I was brought up in Sunbury-on-Thames, named after the Saxon Sunna, who created his burgh (fortification) on a mound by the river. Hence Sunna’s burgh: Sunbury.

    I now live near Frimley, named after Fremma, a Saxon, who created a settlement in a lea (a clearing). Hence Fremma’s lea: Frimley.

    Should countless towns and villages across the land be renamed?

    Denis Fuller
    Camberley, Surrey

    Open all hours

    SIR – With regard to house security (Letters, May 18), as a teenager I once came home to find the door locked, as my mother had to go out unexpectedly.

    She left a note for me, pinned to the door: “KEY UNDER MAT”.

    Michael Cook
    North Cadbury, Somerset

    ‘Simpler’ planning

    SIR – Robert Jenrick’s proposed reforms to promote a “simpler, faster and more predictable planning system” (Comment, May 18) will inevitably have the reverse effect and introduce more hurdles.

    Those of us involved in small builds know that it takes at least 12 months to obtain planning permission. When it is finally given, it generally includes so many “discharge conditions” – on landscaping, access, colour, utilities, conservation and design – that the development becomes unworkable.

    Grants are all reserved for major developers and spurious “trusts”. Such a process cannot be simplified.

    Dan Lloyd
    Telford, Shropshire

    SIR – Having been a member of our council’s planning committee, I was interested to read that Mr Jenrick lays no blame for the current problems on previous government legislation.

    When Whitehall admits that randomly set housing targets and the failure of the 2011 Localism Act were just as liable, we might finally see homes that are fit for purpose, in the right place, of the right size and built swiftly after gaining permission. We may then be able to start repairing community trust in the system.

    Cllr John Hinton
    East Bergholt, Suffolk

    SIR – Mr Jenrick says the Government will continue to protect the green belt, conservation areas and areas of outstanding natural beauty, where democratically elected councillors will continue to help provide homes. He did not mention national parks.

    I live in the South Downs National Park, where the planning committee is made up of members of the South Downs National Park Authority. None were democratically elected, nor are they answerable to voters for unwise planning decisions in a large area that is supposed to have the highest protection from development.

    David Pain
    Cheriton, Hampshire

    Policing potential

    SIR – Nick Adderley is right (“Graduates lack ‘hardiness’ for front line, says police chief”, report, May 18): honesty, integrity and common sense make a policeman. A degree is irrelevant.

    I started my police career in 1981 with an engineering degree, but university did not teach me any policing skills. My years travelling and working abroad were more useful.

    We need a better recruitment process to seek out the life skills required to be a good officer.

    John Hardmeier
    Cretingham, Suffolk

    Nuclear funding

    SIR – I am pleased that a consortium led by Rolls-Royce is developing small modular (nuclear) reactors (Business, May 18), but alarmed that it still needs £300 million. Why is the Government not supporting it? As we cannot depend on wind and solar power for the bulk of our electricity, this surely should be a matter of priority.

    Dr David Denby
    Altrincham, Cheshire

    Doggy day trip

    SIR – When I lived in Romsey, Hampshire, a boxer dog called Mark used to catch the bus each day to Southampton (Letters, May 19).

    He was warmly greeted by everyone on board and, after his day out, he would catch the afternoon bus home.

    Helen Selby
    Moorooduc, Victoria, Australia

    Size up your knitting needles the Victorian way

    SIR – Marilyn Norman’s problems with knitting needle sizes (Letters, May 14) can be solved by acquiring a knitting needle gauge. This is a flat piece of metal or plastic pierced with holes that gives measurements in both imperial and metric sizes. They can be obtained online or from haberdashers.

    Gauges first appeared in the late Victorian era, when knitting became a popular drawing room pastime. As the needles of steel, wood or bone could not be marked with their sizes, gauges of various materials and shapes became available.

    Many of these have survived and are now collectors’ items.

    Sheila Williams
    Ascot, Berkshire

    Triage by phone helps both patients and GPs

    SIR – Our GP practice has been using telephone triage for many years (Letters, May 19) and it works really well. If you ring in the morning the GP on triage
    duty rings you back, often within an hour. If they feel you need a face-to-face appointment, they have a block of reserved appointments, usually for the same day.

    Quite a few patients – such as the elderly with mobility problems or young mothers – often don’t particularly relish a journey to the practice unless it is really necessary, and find that a telephone conversation with a GP can be very helpful.

    Beverley Carr
    Rothley, Leicestershire

    SIR – I belong to the droves of senior GPs who have recently retired. In my last year, I went part-time after three decades of full-time work, but found that the inability to offer continuity of care made this unsatisfactory, so I left.

    Effective general practice is a full-time job. The introduction of remote consulting – often pushed by GPs in administrative roles, some of whom have not seen a patient for years – is a recipe for misdiagnosis and the erosion of trust in doctors.

    Dr R G Thomson
    Dulverton, Somerset

    SIR – Is there a north-south divide when it come to GP surgeries? From recent letters, and from my own personal experience, it would 
appear so.

    I have seen my GP twice in the last two weeks, both times after a telephone conversation.

    D H Todd
    Ripon, North Yorkshire

    SIR – The varying experiences of your correspondents regarding GP surgeries mirrors our own here in Leicestershire. Just as young families move house to be near the best schools, will grandparents be moving to the catchment area of a well-recommended surgery?

    John Blunt
    Staunton Harold, Leicestershire

    1. Kate Halliwell, Chief Scientific Officer
 Food and Drink Federation

      Today’s MRD award.

    2. Dr Thompson doesn’t appear to understand the plan.

      Once the peasants have got thoroughly used to triage by ‘phone, it will be outsourced to India, and the NHS can get rid of a lot of expensive GPs.

      That will save a lot of money, and a lot in pension payments.

    1. Good morning Citroen

      Excellent cartoon, and so near the truth, homes are coming on the market here and are sold within days , all very worrying really, as if the village is undergoing the great Reshape !

      If any of you have visited a garden centre recently and been shocked at the price of shrubs, trees and perrenials .
      We paid a visit to Dobie nursery a few miles down the road from us , and we were staggered to see how much plants cost .. why they are so expensive , well I can guess!

      1. I went to a local garden centre and, like you, I was gobsmacked by the price of everything. Is it me or is everybody on the make after lockdown?

        1. On the make I think , they must be really screwing us down .

          I bought an orange Geum to replace a dead one , medium size pot , £11.. I felt foolish , but all the other perennials were similar prices , and of course , lupins etc were really high .. Even geraniums are costly. I really don’t know what is going on .

          Last year during lockdown , I managed to divide my plants , but the frosts we had this year caused some damage to hydrangae and other plants.

          The gale is blowing at present , but it is a drying wind , so if we don’t have any rain , I’ll have to water pots tomorrow .

          How are we going to get on with out peat?

  7. Good morning all. A dull but dry Derbyshire with 3°C in the yard with rain forecast in a couple of hours.
    Off to pick up t’Lad from Derby then drop down to Bursledon via Hook Norton Brewery! I’ll be away until Monday, so it’s me on the laptop for the next couple of days.

      1. Sadly, it’ll be buying bottles stuff and a mug of tea whilst t’Lad samples a pint.

    2. A lovely brewery and beers. Don’t miss the static steam engine, it probably won’t be running but it is in working order.

  8. Blinken and Lavrov polite but firm in first face-to-face encounter. 20 May 2021.

    The US secretary of state and Russia’s foreign minister have sparred politely in Iceland in their first face-to-face encounter, which came as ties between the nations have deteriorated sharply in recent months.

    Antony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov spoke frankly but calmly of their differences as they held talks on the sidelines of an Arctic Council meeting in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, a city with deep history in US-Russian relations.

    The American Problem here is to remove as much as possible from the table of a summit agenda before Putin and Biden actually meet; though even then they cannot be left alone. This because one of the participants would be the smartest statesman on the planet and the other unsure what day it is. What the Americans are seeking is a handshaking ceremony (worthless) or a News Briefing together where Joe can look at his cue cards. To this end the US has laid down a little bait to tempt the Russians in the easing of sanctions against the Nordstream 2 (which can be reversed in short order) Pipeline.

    The essential Russian Problem, (though unmentioned) is what would a meeting with a senile Biden, who is going to be replaced shortly by Kamala Harris be worth? It is true she would be mostly focused on turning the US into a fully functioning Marxist State but little would change outwardly without specific agreements.

    Russia and China are growing closer; (largely as a result of American foreign policy) such a combination with Chinese money and Russian know how would be formidable, they could each take care of their own end of Eurasia and act unilaterally elsewhere. It would be the greatest threat to the American Hegemony since its rise in the early Twentieth Century.

    I think that were I Vlad I would postpone any summit until Harris becomes POTUS, that should only be eighteen months or so and his position should have improved even further in the interim!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/20/blinken-lavrov-meeting-us-russia-iceland-arctic

    1. If I may:
      It is true she would be mostly focused on turning the US into a fully functioning Marxist State

    2. If I may:
      It is true she would be mostly focused on turning the US into a fully functioning Marxist State

    3. Blinken v Lavrov is basically watching Just William v any Mastermind winner. And I’d like VVP to actually debate with both Demented Joe and Harris at same time – it’ll be no different to a compactor rolling over a tube of toothpaste – quickly, even with US MSM trying to cover up their idiocy with additional advert breaks

  10. After a closure of more than six months, the gardens at Giverny that inspired Monet’s world-famous paintings of water lilies and other masterpieces reopen on Wednesday

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/86e1f7335327e20f3f247c1e56aeeb2640383708/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=4b8ae189d8181409196e05f1c085064a

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b84332772b7a654c96d8014e21ae4bac5e5e966c/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=08e2d2b8d7aa3fb7805d464307a01673

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/de6bfe5022fb34458b56cbbcc4ee2f45277c0a62/577_0_2888_3648/master/2888.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=bc823849e2065a40a70b57183f9ad128

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c86c7e6a1aea8dfffa815acf02484a4d7c9956ea/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=23ca1fcbc5612e0fe450ab8b00536c88

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/04cbc21aac4954becfa4c1887c86ced25038d002/0_0_5472_3648/master/5472.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=dc31a9fbb432effe4581d68b3d1e7d59

    1. Where are all the bames? Excluded, obviously. I expect Monet came from slave owning stock.

  11. 332994+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    In my book the electorate are on something far more addictive & dangerous than crack cocaine and the results can been seen catalogued in the JAY report.

    The mindset of tory (ino) party members surely is ” well priti is saying
    she is going to do something ,at least” that and that alone eases the conscience.

    I was in Uganda when big dada booted the asians out, the following day nothing that broke down worked again, that went also for social services, the country was totalled, we could very well be using that as a
    prototype agenda.

    These priti johnson types are encouraged in their, plain to see,
    reset / replacement campaign and given carte blanche with every vote
    followed by the voters rhetorical whinge to sooth the uneasy mind.

    https://twitter.com/DavidPoulden/status/1395253485927649281

    1. not surprising Patel ignores she came from Uganda because of Idi, so is merely tweaking the same mistake. Nothing to do with Tory party, she’s a footsolider and doing what she’s paid to deliver on and has “prior experience”. Classic deception

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Morning AWK,
        I do beg to differ it has EVERYTHING to do with the “in name only tory party”, she was / is the perfect passenger activist type for their reset / replacement / party boosting agenda as seen via DOVER on a daily basis.

        I was in Himi Uganda when they were at war with Tanzania
        and it all kicked off.

        1. she’s tweaking or if you prefer, reverse engineering the same model, hence prior experience. It’s no longer politics and I never bought into any psychological / info warfare from any of them, least of all Patel. Although feeding her and all the others, to crocodiles I’d sign up to

    2. 332994+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      ” It is vital we smash up these criminal gangs”

      A moment of truth via lips that lie, in regards to the lab/lib/con/greens close shop coalition, you can certainly hum that tune again baby.

      2. Steven seagull doesn’t understand the law about refugees.

        Why not? It’s not complicated. If he did, he would know that these people are not refugees.

    1. Why DO these chaps wear such ludicrous (and eye-wateringly expensive) clothes?

  13. Culture wars, identity politics and free speech: Rod Liddle and Peter Tatchell in conversation. 20 May 2021.

    PT: Well, that may be the case in this instance. Quite clearly it was untenable for black people to be denied the right to vote and for a system of quasi-apartheid to exist in Zimbabwe, so to have black majority rule was the right thing‚ and initially, of course, Mugabe did lots of good positive things for the poor and the landless.

    RL: But he was a totalitarian Marxist, Pete.

    PT: Well, you can have Marxists who are democratic.

    RL: Name me one?

    PT: Well, there aren’t many.

    Lol!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/culture-wars-identity-politics-and-free-speech-rod-liddle-and-peter-tatchell-in-conversation

      1. He inadvertently let that slip on one occasion Hatman and has denied it ever since. It is of course Gay Policy but denied as it would lose them sympathy!

        1. A member of the Sharia morals police armed with a meat cleaver should have paid Tatchell a visit long ago & chopped off his 3 piece suite !

          1. as you know Elf, Millwall’s Bushwackers offered the cheaper option but “Ms Tatchell” declined to non attendance

          2. Would that be before or after the Moral Policeman had paid a visit to his 9 year old concubine?

      3. I believe that Hewitt and Harman have now withdrawn from the battle for the perverts’ right to have sex with children although they were begged to stay on side by certain groups in Rotherham.

    2. PT lost the hearing in one ear after being beaten up by Eebagum’s thugs. Maybe Rodders was sitting on the wrong side.

  14. Meanwhile, in other news:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d079071a5dccef743fa3182d5760275980e1ef91398fbb3fa740197005a241ab.png

    This discovery, involving corruption at the highest levels in the Brazilian government, came to light after a log-book detailing payments to officials was found in a taxi in Brasilia.

    A wooden-faced government spokesman said today, “We are determined to root out these criminals. The matter has been passed to the Special Branch of the Brazilian police who will be working undercover for their own protection, since it’s always raining in the forest”

    3. 332994+ up ticks,
      Morning DM,
      Heard tell it was a splinter group of a bigger organisation.

      1. Indeed it is. It’s reported that the international smuggling ring stretches all the way to the Republic of Ireland, where detectives from the Garda Síochána are questioning tree fellers who they believe may be able to help with their inquiries.

  15. 332994+ up ticks,
    Any truth in that the complaint was they were more of a hindrance than a help with the nets.

    Jersey patrol boat intercepts French trawler as fish fight with EU continues
    Complaint to be lodged with European Commission after boat from Normandy was told to stop fishing in protected area

  17. GB News will smash the BBC’s biased, Left-wing broadcasting hegemony. 19 May 2021.

    In all such cases, I expect GB News to be a breath of fresh air when it launches, and to gain a significant audience, assuming that its programming is of a sufficiently high quality. The company’s challenges will be commercial: unlike for the BBC, there will be no taxpayers’ cash. GB News believes that it could grab a bigger audience than Sky News by the end of the year, and a couple of hundred thousand viewers at peak time, a plausible target.

    Let us hope so! The demise of the BBC “is a consummation devoutly to be wished!”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/19/gb-news-will-smash-bbcs-biased-left-wing-broadcasting-hegemony/

      1. The grapevine tells us that it is close but no date has yet been announced Nan!

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Afternoon BB2,
        Many a family tree will catch the double dutch politically, treacherously, orchestrated jab disease, passed on via the left legacy of grandad.

        If still with us could see many a grandad getting a hug around the throat area when the legacy content is realised.

    1. Max. of 16C here in central Finland yesterday.
      An expected high of 12C today.

    3. I guess this is their cunning plan for convincing us of the global burning EMERGENCY while we are in the middle of the Eisheiligen and a very cold Spring.
      It’s not as though there are many witnesses to this +30, are there.

      1. As I realised the heating oil had run out and it was not much warmer outside than in, I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to “global warming”.

        1. I’ve lit the stove again today, and there’s about two more days’ worth of wood outside.

          1. I did contemplate lighting the Rayburn, but I reminded myself that it was nearly June. I’ll have to order more oil tomorrow. They are pretty good when it comes to deliveries.

  20. Everyone Is Awesome: Lego to launch first LGBTQ+ set. 20 May 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d7767415ef8de0898306f1ff4c6f4e9f873016f1d5f8b91f4f39216df9470b9.jpg

    In the “spraying room” at Lego HQ, tiny figurines are layered with bright, glossy paint before being placed on a rainbow-esque arch. The result, a waterfall of colour with 11 brand new minifigures striding purposefully towards an imagined brighter future, is the Danish toymaker’s inaugural LGBTQIA+ set, titled Everyone Is Awesome.

    The colours of the stripes were chosen to reflect the original rainbow flag, along with pale blue, white and pink representing the trans community, and black and brown to acknowledge the diversity of skin tones and backgrounds within the LGBTQIA+ community.

    Another five or ten years and the Chinese should be able to just walk in and takeover!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/20/everyone-is-awesome-lego-launch-first-lgbtq-set

    3. 332994+ up ticks,
      AS,
      The voting pattern via the herd dictates that that would be over the dead bodies of the imams then.

    5. If not an April fool spoof, that is Danishly discriminating: where are the light greens, and why is the black figure wearing a Rasta hat?

    10. It’s a cunning plan.

      The Chinese will walk in, tread on the Lego and never return for more…

    11. And there was I thinking the brown stripe on the LBGT rainbow represented….

    13. And they’ll sell… bugger all of them.

      Other kits might NOT sell as people really don’t like being lectured.

      There comes a point where this nonsense actively infuriates those who otherwise were not interested and creates the very situation it was trying to avoid.

      We’ve got to stop pandering to the mentally ill. We’ve got to stop bloody labelling and just leave folk alone to make their own decisions – free from abuse, but also with others free from those decisions.

  21. 332994+ up ticks,
    Views of a long term now ex member of REAL UKIP.

    Farage Slams ‘Prince of Cancel Culture’ Harry for Condemnation of U.S. Free Speech

    Thats rich when regarding his condemnation of the REAL UKIP party.

  22. Think Before You Speak

    A cop pulls over a car and asks the driver why he isn’t wearing his seat belt.

    The driver says, “Officer, I always wear my seat belt. I must have just forgotten.”

    The man’s wife says, “Aw come on honey! You never wear your seat belt!”

    To which the husband replies, “Shut up you old cow!”

    The cop asks, “Does he always yell at you like that?”

    To which she replies, “Only when he’s drunk!”

    1. At a travel agency in Peking, a tourist asked the Chinese woman behind the counter if she could escort him on a city tour and asked her for her mobile number so he could call her to make arrangements.
      She gave him a big grin, nodded her head and said,

      “For sex sex, wan free sex, for tonight free.”
      He replied, “Wow, you Chinese women are really hospitable”

      A man standing next to the tourist overheard, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t get excited. What she said was: 466-136-4293 “

      1. “Hello, You have reached the ‘Men’s Help Line.’ My name is Frank. How
        can I help you?”

        “Hi Frank, I really need your advice on a serious problem. I have
        suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me. You
        know, just the usual signs; The phone rings and when I answer, the
        caller hangs up. Plus, she goes out with ‘the girls’ a lot. I usually
        try to stay awake to look out for her when she comes home, but I always
        fall asleep. Anyway, last night about midnight, I woke up and she was
        not home. So I hid in the garage behind my boat and waited for her.

        When she came home, she got out of someone’s car, buttoning her blouse,
        then she took her panties out of her purse and slipped them on. It was
        at that moment, while crouched behind the boat, that I noticed a
        hairline crack in the outboard motor mounting bracket. Is that something
        I can weld, or do I need to replace the whole bracket?”

    1. Add on the environmental damage from processing the rare earth metals (rare = not found in pure form; earth = dissolvable in acid).

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Morning D,
        Agreed, plus abuse of children every hour every shift.
        Ignored by many under the selective charter.

    2. It’s good for them. Taking responsibility for maintaining thei family and all that. Just like here in the UK. We used to have children in mills, down mines and up chimneys. Did ’em good. I says.

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Morning HP,
        Can you reach a phone, call emergency just say if able, “slipped into a b liar mode”, that odious malady can be reversed.

        1. No jokes here. Sometimes we need to recognise that we may joke about things we have no control over. However awful. The problem is not my joke, but is our governments who think importing items made from the fruits of slave labour and child labour is permissible, even actively encouraged by trade treaties.

          1. 332994+ up ticks,
            Afternoon HP,
            Precisely, may one ask how do “our governments get into power again,again,& again ?” my question ain’t no joke either
            do the electorate realise what is being done in their name
            again,again,& again because after the third again it, IMO becomes with their FULL consent.

      2. Children were wonderful during castle sieges. Get them to swim the moat, crawl up the sewer pipe to the latrines and then nip down to open the gate.

  26. Good morning & Happy Thursday all Nottlers. We had 8 hours of quiet overnight but Ham-Arse has resumed rocket firing on our southern communities again today. The press in Israel are speculating that a ceasefire is only a few days away. I personally feel that we need to re-take Gaza & kill every Hamas member but America wont let us achieve victory as America has lost all its wars since the end off WW2 & is jealous of anybody else winning wars! Now for some music:
    Pink Martini performs “¿Donde estas, Yolanda?” with lead singer China Forbes on vocals at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon, 2005.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFNntd48II8

      1. Morning Dale, yes you are correct, the victory has tarnished America’s hard earned post WW2 reputation for losing wars at great cost of blood & treasure!

    2. Good Moaning, Hatman. (edit – bu88er ortokrekt)
      Since its partial success in the Korean War, every time the US has become involved in local squabbles it has made matters worse.
      The Messianic belief that each and every country is gagging for democracy (stop that snorting at the back) is a delusion; just look at Blighty with its ‘Mother of Parliaments’ and its sheeplike population.

      1. Good Morning Anne, America has in fact won very few wars since 1776 & only entered both WW1 & WW2 when it saw who was going to win !

  27. Salut les copains

    The IEA’s Damascene conversion: net zero makes us richer and cuts energy costs for the poor
    The era of oil and gas will soon be over – the industry must now reinvent itself to find a place in our new world order

    Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/20/ieas-damascene-conversion-net-zero-makes-us-richer-cuts-energy/

    A BTL comment with which I agree:

    Covid has been used for pilot tests to try and see how much people are prepared to put up with and, from the politicians’ point of view, these tests have proved most satisfactory. People have proved to be acquiescent beyond all expectations.

    Freedom to move about has already been severely curtailed and people have accepted this with an encouragingly small amount of resistance so, with excessively expensive electric cars with limited range and an insufficient number of readily accessible charging facilities, the freedom to travel about in one’s own car will become a privilege only affordable and available to politicians and the very rich.

    1. This:

      “…Slashing CO2 emissions and switching to renewable energy is not a ‘cost’ or a constraint on rising affluence: it lifts global GDP growth by 0.4pc a year over the course of this decade. World output is 4pc bigger in real terms by 2030….” is a lie.

      The state is forcing a market demand for these energies. We didn’t want them. We were told we were getting them and to lump it.

      These resources are also monstrously expensive. Without state enforcement and abolition of what was, there would be no demand and no jobs created. The jobs that are being created exist solely on government subsidy. Without massive subsidy windmills are pointless. The energy they generate is utterly uncompetitive so one can only surmise that the intent is to make electricity so incredibly expensive that it is unaffordable.

      That makes industry pointless as it’s costs grow massively. It has either the choice to put up prices or fold. In that case it will go elsewhere where there are not such high energy costs. However, that demolishes our local economy. After all, if there are no jobs, then there’s no income for the state to force subsidy for all these inefficient green engineering so the jobs in that sector vanish as well.

      We will be left with no industrial base, no energy, with a massive, unskilled population that cannot be fed, without adequate heat, light, fuel or food. That’s basically a command economy enforced by communists. I, for one, do not want to live in that demented world.

      1. Well, OK, it may be true in purely statistical terms, but anything which relies upon government force and subsidy is, by default not new wealth.

        It is the removal of choice – it is all stick, a kicking of the tax payer, a beating like no other to ensure our cracked ribs, smashed skull, broken eye socket, compound fractured corpse is finished off properly by an abusive, arrogant state machine with an agenda that simply does not match the truth.

    2. Apologies, another one that made my head explode:

      “…
      It does not raise energy costs: it cuts the average bill for households on heating, cooling, electricity, and car fuel from $2,800 to $2,300 a year by 2030 in advanced countries. From then on it is a canter. The energy share of disposable income halves from 4pc to 2pc by mid-century. It is tantamount to free energy….”

      BOLLOX.

      Why then are windmills being given such massive subsidy? Why have electricity bills almost doubled? All my bills have gone up, year on year and will continue to go up. Pritchard used to be a decent, honest writer, but this is a pack of lies.

    1. Morning, Maggie.
      Nothing will be done; freedom of speech is a one way system.

      1. Like all pro-Palestinian propaganda, nothing could be further from the truth.

    3. It’s difficult to know where to start.

      The Nazi party was a Left wing organisation that used force to attempt to annihilate many thousands of innocent lives. Much like Hamas.

      The Jewish people were one of the most high profile groups the Nazi’s attacked.

      That flag is that of Israel so….. the person defacing that flag is wrong, and doesn’t seem to accept reality – that he is at every, single, level; evil.

      I understand that they’re fanatics and insane. I understand the reality distortion field of who they are is blocked out by who they *think* they are (a common problem Lefties have as who they are is nasty, bitter, spiteful thugs and they think – and are utterly mistaken – they’re righteous heroes).

      Frankly you want to reach out, grab him by the skull and squeeze until he either accepts every point I have made and his malice, or his head pops like a grape.

      Also, these people seem to be everywhere. Spreading like a cancer around the West. Now they’re all gathering together, could we not put them on an ark and.. send them away?

      1. Then you looked at the massed ranks of politicians and police … and went to lie down.

      3. As Hamas and the Palestinian cause are pretty much interchangeable (I’m a bit simple) many of those in these mobs, car demos etc are guilty of breaking the anti terrorism laws. Yet the police do virtually nothing, despite the disruption to normal life which is also an offence.

        1. I differentiate because somewhere there might be a deent bloke who doesn’t believe that same things and just – like all of us – wants a better future for his child, not to bury him.

  29. In case any of you fancy watching a lucid and well-researched theory of what’s currently going on, I can recommend this video:

    https://youtu.be/D2t4u_tEefM

    (The narrator speaks very slowly so if you’re an impatient creature like me you might like to speed it up a bit!)

  30. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d21fcedb1f92ece2d71111620b486dfbf8dcbe392196190fbbdf83985121a23.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7f70541144f7698c77e1df05cf738c981f002ac5e26dc1f3de19f99b3fb41db.png

    Chief Constable Nick Adderley is a worthy successor to the most successful and innovative police chief of the past century; Captain Sir Percy Sillitoe, who famously smashed the razor gangs of Sheffield and Glasgow in the aftermath of WWI. He inhabited a completely different universe to some of his successors, notably the Common Purpose-indoctrinated ingenues now running the British police, among them hapless ‘modernist’ creatures such as Cressida Dick and Rachel Swann.

    Sillitoe gave his appraisal of what makes an ideal police officer: “It does not seem to me essential that a police constable should be a man of more than average intelligence or that he is necessarily going to be a better policeman if his standard of education is higher than the next man’s. My view was—and still is—that the police force needs not exceptionally high standards of education, but very great integrity and strength of character, combined with very great wisdom which comes to some—though not all—men when they have had wide and varied practical experience of human nature.”

    Sir Percy went on to dismiss claims that the concept of a graduate-entry scheme, way back in the 1920s, was a good idea: “To me it seemed absurd that these young men should be sent out as the superiors of superintendents twice their age who often had a great fund of real knowledge acquired through their years of service, and who were now, as a result of this scheme, debarred from any chance of promotion beyond that rank.”

    The sooner we return to having proper, streetwise, and dedicated public servants running the police in the UK the better off everyone will be.

    1. Criminals tend to have plenty of street cred and when caught have enough time to take the relevant degrees.

      “Mother of God! – they’ll end up as either UCOs or AFOs or at least a Reg 15!”

    2. Often the best psychiatric nurses were the middle aged nursing assistants. No training, other than half a lifetime’s experience. They could see through the patients’ manipulations – especially the psychopaths. Highly trained nurses with just about every letter after their name were like babes to the slaughter.

      1. A good friend of mine had a stroke , hit her badly but she could speak and use the right hand side of her body , but with huge weakness.

        The nursing staff were appalling re cleaning her and doing tender stuff that nurses used to do years ago .
        I visited her several times , and I noticed that incapacitated patients didn’t recieve mouth care or any other tender care , dried gunk around their poor mouths and and unkempt hair and just lying there looking uncomfortable.

        Life in hospital appears to be as cruel to recipients , and nurses probably don’t understand duty anymore ,university training again has created grandeur and no need for smooth caring touches any more .

        1. I had an humungous row with the opposite shift on a geriatric ward back in the 1970s over oral hygiene procedures (there were other issues but that blatant neglect was the final straw). There was a poor old dear who had a special denture to alleviate the problems following mouth cancer treatment. It was obvious that the opposite shift were not going through the cleaning routine. After the air had been cleared, one nurse – who had caused aggravation on every ward where she had worked – went off sick for a week (and treated me very carefully thereafter) and her accomplice rushed off the ward in tears but crept back the following day.

          2. My mother died in 1989, after a week of neglect on a geriatric ward while undergoing ‘tests’. She couldn’t manage solid food and the stuff they gave her she couldn’t eat, also it was left out of reach, and she was very weak. She was perfectly lucid, and spent her time watching the demented old dear in the opposite bed tearing up tissues.

            When we went to see her in the ‘Chapel of rest’ I noticed they hadn’t even wiped the blood from her mouth.

            As we become older, the thought of dying in hospital becomes more and more scary.

    3. After a year when students have had to pay huge sums of money for sod all , or been confined to their rooms, many young people might decide it’s not worth bothering to get a worthless degree.

      1. That’s my second granddaughter. She started at University in the autumn of 2019. First the lecturers went on strike; they had hardly dragged their sorry @rses back to work than the covid hysteria struck. That’s the first 2 years spent studying at home.
        I haven’t liked to cause her parents further grief by asking about finance. No doubt we will find out at some stage.

      1. Morning Anne

        I am car less at the moment , glitch in the engine . The car is a Peugeot, the reliable chap who sorts problems out for me , says he cannot get the spare part for a while , it has to come from France .

        Wish each illegal maigrant could earn some respect by bringing car parts over with them, it would be a darn sight quicker than the usual routes!

        1. At one time, garages could get spares that were compatible with the branded items. I think the EU stopped that.
          Maybe, though probably not quickly enough for your purposes, Blighty could resume that excellent practice.

          2. Ta ever so. As my VW is ‘mature’ I hope my very useful garage knows that one. As they deal with all types of cars, rather than being locked into one company, I think they do.

        2. I wonder how many of the illegals pretend to be disabled – and end up getting a brand new taxpayer funded Mobility car to drive around in. Doubt we will ever be told.

        3. Same here, Mags, Toyota RAV4 waiting for sensor from Toyota Germany. It’s been two weeks now.

          1. My car is an old car , 12 years old , the coolant system is leaking , some pipe or other , cannot remember the name , but difficult to access, availability has caused our amiable mechanic great grief!

        4. Morning Maggie

          Not entirely off topic, some ‘parts’ can be used for multiple purposes

          Henry VI’s arm bone used as drinking vessel after being stolen by monks, research suggests

          The king immortalised in William Shakespeare’s Henriad was found to have an arm bone missing when his body was exhumed in 1910

          By Craig Simpson 20 May 2021 • 6:00am

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/05/19/TELEMMGLPICT000200423820_1_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqQgZ35IH_qFuivp0kJRGEK2_XLjYBPlybZESVT23jR7Q.jpeg?imwidth=680
          Henry VI ruled between 1422 and 1461, and again from 1470 to 1471

          Henry VI’s missing arm bone was stolen by monks and used as a wine vessel, National Archives research has suggested, solving a century-old mystery.

          The king immortalised by William Shakespeare as a “faint-hearted” victim of Richard III was likely killed in the Tower of London 1471 after being deposed in the Wars of the Roses, then buried at Chertsey Abbey.

          Richard moved his dead rival’s body to Windsor in 1484, and it was here in 1910 that experts exhuming Henry found that one of his arm bones had been replaced by that of a pig, with the fate of his lost humerus remaining a mystery

          But the monarch’s missing bone may have been secretly stolen by monks then passed off as the arm of the popular St Blasius, new research suggests, and pilgrims would have drunk wine through the king’s limb in the hope of a miraculous cure.

          National Archives medieval specialist Dr Euan Roger unearthed evidence of the theft in Henry VIII’s 1535 audit of relics, the Compendium Compertorum, which records that the monks at Henry VI’s original burial site suddenly came into possession of a human arm bone.

          He told The Daily Telegraph: “This struck me as very strange. We’ve got a missing bone, then a few decades later, they’ve suspiciously got this relic, which is an arm bone.

          “And yet I’ve found no evidence in the records of them being given an arm relic at any point in their history.”

          St Blasius was a popular medieval saint famed for his miraculous healing of throat complaints, and monks would have dispensed wine to pilgrims through the bone.

          “Passing the wine through the relic the idea was that the wine would take on some of the saint’s blessing and healing powers,” Dr Roger said.

          Henry VI was also revered as a healing saint following his death, and had his own cult which may have been lucrative to the monks at his original Chertsey Abbey burial site.

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/05/19/TELEMMGLPICT000259027971_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgmFsEjQK2M33nnfQ31Q2_6Mr0t7-tWp3mWf_CMz8V_E.jpeg?imwidth=680
          Henry’s body was moved to St George’s Chapel at Windsor

          But his body was appropriated by clergymen at St George’s Chapel at Windsor, along with the income generated by pilgrims’ donations.

          Dr Roger has suggested that the sudden appearance of an arm bone relic may have been an attempt by the monks at Chertsey to recoup the income they lost by secretly repurposing one of Henry’s bones.

          He said: “For them, the bone would have had spiritual benefits”.

          The National Archives expert believes that St Blasius’ role as a patron saint of wild beasts, whose key legend centres on the homecoming of a missing pig, suggests the pig humerus may have been symbolically placed in Henry VI’s tomb by monks in the hope his body would return home to Chertsey.

          His body remains at Windsor Castle, but the missing arm bone that was potentially used as a drinking vessel was likely destroyed during the Reformation.

          Henry VI’s cult died out in centuries after his death, but during this period miraculous headache healings were attributed to the dead king, and a hat .

          Dr Roger research will be presented in his talk Readeption and Revenge: The final years of Henry VI taking place on May 21.

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

          Having spent some evenings drinking with monks (some of them my cousins) it comes as no surprise to me that they could have abused relics.

        5. Some companies buy up accident wrecked and write off cars and strip parts off them for sale to garages. Your garage might be able to get the part from a company like that.

          1. There’s a place near us (in Nantwich) called Car Transplants. They do exactly that.

    3. Something had to be done to put a stop to the 21st June lifting of the regulations. A nice little fresh outbreak will safeguard them until autumn kicks in with the usual colds and flus that should now keep them going until 2022. They’ll think of something else then.

  33. O/T. I bought some pastry cases via Amazon. When they arrived i could see that many of them were broken.

    I logged on to Amazon and went to my purchases and opened up chat on the one i was complaining about.

    It was obvious that i wasn’t speaking/typing to a human.

    I explained what the problem was. Answered a few questions and it told me it would refund my money and not to bother sending the parcel back.

    The parcel contained 140 separate items and enough of them survived for my purposes. So i got it for free.

    The customer service which actually came from a machine was better and easier than making an appointment with my GP.

    Receptionists watch out !

    1. “Your call is important to us…”

      What it means, of course, that some poor sod of a retailer, who is ripped off by Amazon’s levy on his sale, loses out even more. The price you paid and which we be refunded means that the retailer loses twice.

      1. The retailer should be insured against such loss and pass the cost onto the customer.

        I had another parcel due to arrive via DHL. It was smashed to bits. Looked like they had driven over it. I refused to accept it. It was an £800 saxophone. Which i was certainly not going to pay for.

        Good morning, Bill. Hows ya Trombetti?

        1. Three large plants; ten small ones growing by the hour.

          Not all retailers are insured for that sort of loss.

          1. Not really my problem.

            I have some tomato plants coming along. The big beef tomatoes and little Picollo’s.

          2. Had to move my toms (they’re in pots) to a lower position today; they are growing so fast they would be reaching the ceiling if I had left them where they were!

        2. I had a delivered computer monitor that the delivery buy lumped on to the doorstep. As it landed, I heard the glass and snapped plastics.

          I must have had a good day as I asked why they’d bothered to deliver it in that state. ‘Not our problem’, the man says, then pushes the sign for pad forward. I wrote arrived damaged al over it. Bloke pockets it and walks off. I know from a chum that monitors and certain Apple devices come in for a kicking from delivery folk. Makes you wonder why.

      2. A chum used to tell me that when he’d order 30 or so books from a supplier you’d throw away the corner ones and those under the tape. No effort in packaging from some suppliers.

      1. I never found “Mr Pastry” remotely funny when I was a child. Having said that (and now having seen this clip), it is abundantly apparent that Richard Hearne was an exceptionally talented entertainer. Moreover, he was lithe, athletic and a very skilful dancer; an utter contrast to the talentless, stiff as a board, and personality-free Ed Sullivan.

        1. Good afternoon, Grizz. Similarly with Dick Van Dyke having seen his shows from 1961 on Amazon Prime. He’s a good mover… now aged 95.

          1. Hi, Issy.

            Because real talent is in short supply these days, we tend to overlook those who had it in abundance when we were younger.

          2. Hi, Issy.

            Because real talent is in short supply these days, we tend to overlook those who had it in abundance when we were younger.

      1. There is a specifc room, in a dark dungeon, down a long, low, narrow tunnel carved through still molten rock on the last layers of Hell for people making puns that bad.

        You’re in the basement of that room -just above me for laughing my socks off at it.

  35. OT – I’ll make no bones about it, the lecture on Rome’s catacombs was fascinating. There are 140 km of tunnels. That is the distance from Fulmodeston to Harlow New Town! Extraordinary thought.

    Being a naughty sort of person, I did find it slightly funny that the discussion on the disposal of large numbers of dead bodies was by a German….. But a very well informed one. He has done laser-mapping (like the documentaries about the Pyramids, Istanbul, Athens etc that were on telly a year or ago).

    Another extraordinary revelation was that in the 1850s, an archaeologist called De Rossi invented a device for measuring lengths and angles underground – which was very accurate.

          1. Nope. Just joyful that I was – for the first times in YEARS – cramp free.

      3. I thought he drove motorbikes rather fast like Shane Sheen and Barry Warne.

      1. I think the catacombs were developed to meet Christian burial requirements. Before that, yer Romans (including those in England) were pagan and cremated the dead.

        Tunnellers? Like the Palestinians….

      2. We went to see the catcombs in Alexandria, on a visit to Egypt a few years ago. Fascinating.

    1. Morning TB, whilst I can agree with your sentiments regarding the conditions you have highlighted, the fact is it is a Conservative, at least he is supposed to be, driving (no pun intended) people down this path. A fact that does bear mentioning as often as possible.
      I hope “Old Tory” and other like minded voters turn their anger towards Johnson and his clowns.
      My Conservative MP maintains a deafening silence on the zero carbon targets folly, no doubt unconcerned as he will move on from being a MP to another troughs before this comes back to bit him and his colleagues.

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        As I pointed out early doors minors being miners is child abuse.

      2. Morning Jules

        About 10 of our swifts have now returned ‘properly’. They first appear intermittently, then go away to feed on the insects at a couple of old gravel pits further down the valley, before returning to take up residence and muck out their nests. We had some 40 last year.

        1. Is that the Chew Valley lakes? They are renowned for being a swift feeding site.

          We still have only one pair nesting here but one arrived on 7th May, and she had a long wait for her mate, who finally turned up sometime between Monday and Tuesday this week. So all’s well in box 3 now. You are lucky to have a big colony.

          In box 8 there is a recalcitrant starling chick which refuses to leave the nest, although his siblings left on Monday. Still being fed though, and he spends time wing-flapping and looking out at the grey world outside.

    3. They just had to put a Bame in the picture

      More to the point, the above is basically slavery,, why are not things that the cobalt is used being thrown away in disgust.

      I know: it only happens in the Ununited Kingdom

      1. It’s somewhere else. The woke Left don’t care as long as they get what they want. Then they can signal their virtue to the world as the great and the good – ignoring the reality.

    4. They just had to put a Bame in the picture

      More to the point, the above is basically slavery,, why are not things that the cobalt is used being thrown away in disgust.

      I know: it only happens in the Ununited Kingdom

    5. They just had to put a Bame in the picture

      More to the point, the above is basically slavery,, why are not things that the cobalt is used being thrown away in disgust.

      I know: it only happens in the Ununited Kingdom

    6. They are not children, but pygmies, and they enjoy the comradeship and are proud to work for a greener future.

  37. Removal of Traveller camps pledged in Tory Facebook campaigns. 20 May 2021.

    Pledges to remove unauthorised Travellers’ camps in Britain featured prominently in Tory Facebook adverts ahead of the local elections during May, prompting accusations that the party has used Gypsies and Travellers as “political footballs”.

    The Guardian identified 47 Facebook adverts bought by local Conservative candidates since January that promised to oppose unauthorised pitches. The adverts were placed by about 20 different Facebook pages and have been seen at least 440,000 times since January, according to transparency data from the social networking site.

    This is much like stopping Cross Channel Immigration! Much promise:No delivery. Even if the intention were real, which it’s not, (It’s just vote catching) Human Rights Legislation would kill it stone dead!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/20/removal-of-traveller-camps-pledged-in-tory-facebook-campaigns

    2. 332994+ up ticks,
      AS,
      ” Vote catching” you mean there are peoples out there who will actually vote for the…….

  39. 332994+ up ticks,
    Ex members of the REAL UKIP have built up resistance to this having
    suffered over the decades at the hands of those building up the problems we are now facing.

    breitbart,

    Delingpole: UK Media and Celebs Gang Up to Vilify Vaccine ‘Refuseniks’

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,

        I did ask some time back which of the current MPs has the franchise for the button to the chin gray tunics.

    2. Perhaps there should include a sexual health check on the App for our progressive generation who think that foreplay is exchanging a telephone number. Some very nasty conditions about which can easily be transmitted to an unsuspecting contact.

    3. That will make it interesting for visitors to the UK. Will I now be expected to have a compatible phone and download a UK specific app?

      My wonderful government are having trouble buying and distributing the vaccines, let alone coordinate records with other countries.

    4. They are already there in continental Europe. Enter a shop with either a negative test result or proof of vaccination. Not a murmur from the media.

      Anyone who thinks domestic vaxx passports won’t arrive in the UK is very naive.

  42. Well, serve me right for being optimistic first thing, Sun disappeared; chilly; had to light the stove. Spring, eh?

    1. Been grey and windy all day here………we’ve got the heating on.

      I had to bring my young plants back in yesterday after the beating they’d had from the hailstorms. I planted up the baskets on Monday with some healthy young geraniums I’d raised from seed – then I saw what had happened to them – all battered and bruised and some leaves broken off. Hopefully they will recover.

    3. Our oil has just run out 🙁 We’ll just have to be cold until I can order some more, then.

    4. Our oil has just run out 🙁 We’ll just have to be cold until I can order some more, then.

  43. 332994+ up ticks,
    May one say,
    What I have difficulty getting my head round is the legacy thing as in,
    “we miss our grandkids so much” then turn around and vote for the jailers, could it come under suffering from hartlepool syndrome ?

    1. If they don’t bow down to the agenda, whether it is on climate alarmism or Covid, they lose their funding.

    2. Wasn’t there a song in a musical adapted from one of Charles Dicken’s novels in which an undertaker called Mr Sowerberry sings a song called “Who Will Buy My Beautiful Mourning”?

        1. No. The title of Lionel Bart’s musical, Oliver!, had an exclamation mark, not a question mark.

          😉

  46. Just enjoyed a Steak & Hooky Pie at the Brewery Cafe.
    Very nice! t’Lad’ enjoyed a half pint of Double Porter whilst I’ve stuck to tea!

  47. Prince Harry called the First Amendment “bonkers”, alluding to his hatred of the press and desire to limit it.

    When it comes to straight, white men using their power and privilege to “silence” people, I’d be much more worried about a Prince attacking freedom of speech than a comedian waxing lyrical about woke.
    Ella Whelan: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/podcasts/twitter-mauling-joe-rogan-shows-cultural-contempt-straight-white/

    Prince Harry made a poor start. He was one of the lads in the army, full of mischievous charm with a ‘devil may care attitude to life. And of course he was much loved by the British people.

    But then he found his real vocation when he met his mixed-race paramour and he decided he must change and become woke. He started on the beginner’s Rodney Trotter Plonker’s Course and soon passed that with flying colours; he is now enrolled on The Advanced Andrew Marr Complete Pillock’s Course and the the omens are – and the augers predict – that he will pass this with flying colours and be awarded a distinction.

    1. ‘Afternoon Richard
      I note the article is bravely open for comments……..
      Oh Wait,no it’s not
      What a farce,what cowards the DT are

      1. Afternoon Rik. You can almost tell the Fake News stories without actually reading them by the lack of a Comments section! Lol!

    2. I see that Wills has had the first jab; heaven help us if that lets Harry into the succession.

    3. Nope, PH couldn’t have passed the Plonker’s Course because a) Rodney had a heart of gold and b) he cared about his Uncle and his Grandad.

  48. Putin Orders Voluntary Evacuation of Russians From Gaza. 20 May 2021.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a voluntary evacuation Thursday of Russian and ex-Soviet republic citizens from the Gaza Strip amid deadly violence between its Islamist rulers Hamas and Israel.

    Putin’s decree orders Russia’s SVR spy agency, the Emergency Situations Ministry and the Foreign Ministry to set specific evacuation timeframes.

    The logical explanation for this is that Israeli’s are going to carry out a ground invasion of Gaza and Netanyahu has slipped Vlad the word on the QT!

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/05/20/putin-orders-voluntary-evacuation-of-russians-from-gaza-a73963

      2. Apparently this is the result of some Russian citizens asking to be evacuated. I think the voluntary bit means that they are preparing to evacuate those that want to be evacuated.

    1. If this mad jabbing of children goes ahead will those in the know in the medical fraternity keep quiet about deaths and other adverse reactions? Evidence leaking out that that is happening with adults. Where have all the ethical people with a backbone disappeared to?

      2. 332994+ up ticks,
        Afternoon KtK,
        The paedophile ring in rotherham ran successfully for 16 plus years under cover,
        protecting the governance parties good name.

  51. Funny Old World
    When the grand debate between cock-up and conspiracy is held the answer I most want is why HCQ was withdrawn from over the counter sales and banned from export
    Also why Aussie doctors were threatened with 6 month jail sentences if they prescribed a drug that’s been used for more than 50 years to treat hundreds of millions of people………

      1. Apart from ‘Veni, vidi, vici” that is the other Latin quote I can remember without checking.

    4. We stayed at Gytheio once for a week, but the accommodation was a bit spartan.

  59. NHS

    Over 60s feel abandoned by their GPs…. Daily Mail.

    At long last, the Health Secretary, Matthew Hancock, has made it plain that we all need to be able to see our GPs in person. It is, he’s said, our right. Now all you have to do is to get past the GPs’ receptionists.
    Take my friend Anne, for example. A couple of months ago, she had a knee replacement op and was told to have her stitches out in ten days’ time and begin physio two weeks later.
    She called the GPs’ receptionist.
    No, they didn’t have any district nurses. Why not hire a private nurse? Cost? £150. She couldn’t afford it. She would have to come to the surgery. In pain and on crutches, she waited outside in the rain — she’s 76 — for 20 minutes. The removal of the metal stitches was agonising.

    Queries about physio were dismissed. Anne felt abandoned. She called the hospital and physio on Zoom has begun, six weeks after surgery.

    Age UK says one-in-four people over 60 have seen their health decline in the past year.
    GPs must remind themselves of their duty of care. At once.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9597011/JENNI-MURRAY-Ill-never-plane-again.html

    1. Plus they should have a talk to their over-pompous receptionists. A stern talk – reception is part of the GPs service.

      1. When I had to find a new GP because the old one was shut down by the CQC, I checked out one where I found a very large empty reception room with a very long desk behind which sat a small fierce woman whose presence I didn’t even notice till I bent over the counter. She gave me a sample bottle and a 20 page questionaire and told me to fill and return both. Reading through the questionaire, it was unnecessarily intrusive and ended with, “Do you ever feel like killing yourself”. At that point I laughed till I nearly wet myself and ditched the whole lot in the recycle bin.

        1. That’s very funny!
          At my last gynaecologist visit, the receptionist (aged about 14) bellowed at the top of her voice to a crowded waiting room “DO YOU STILL HAVE PERIODS?” in a tone of voice that confidently expected the answer “no.”
          Medical care be blowed, I’m never going back to that practice! The doctor was a jerk too!

          2. Wow! That must be the result of standard training. I was a blood donor. They came to our workplace and set up in very large room (usually used for entertainment). Camp beds took up most of the space. The registration desk and waiting area with seats took up the remainder. So a room with around 20 random work colleagues and the registrar bellows the questions at me , “Have you had VD?, Do you have AIDS, Hepatitus? Have you ever had TB? Do you suffer from asthma, high blood pressure, haemophilia?”I was so embarrassed I just said yes to everything, very quietly. I did complain to the Blood Tranfusion Service, and they said they would do something. But they did not.

        2. Yikes! Good for you – that surgery obviously didn’t want any patients.

    2. I went down to the surgery twice and tried talking to mine. It was a waste of breath! She had been told to let no one in short of a Cardiac Arrest and I’m not certain that would get you in! I had a hyperglycaemic spike and the chemist (she checked my blood sugar level) rang the surgery and actually managed to speak to a doctor. He told her to call an ambulance!

      2. A cardiac arrest most certainly would not let you in – you’d be told to call 999!

          1. At the very beginning of the long spiel when you get through they say “if you have a life threatening condition, hang up and call 999”. My immediate thought is, yes, otherwise you’d be dead before you got to talk to anyone, if you ever did.

    5. Sounds par for the course. My surgery is more difficult to access than Fort Knox.

      2. He has a lot on his conscience, that is why he is looking ill. The lies are getting to him.

    4. So, why are you not inoculating smokers with a death-defying jab?

      Smoking is obviously a greater pandemic than Covid.

    5. Smoking, sugar, red meat… gah, just get on with it.

      Add £50 to the energy bills, forbid us using petrol and made anything that isn’t cabbage or recycling mushrooms illegal.

      Best get rid of the lampposts – which you won’t be able to light – as well though.

    1. Nice one, Mags, good to see these people getting nicked, which is more than plod does on his own initiative.

    2. And the police….. arested the hunters and charged them under the race relations act for not allowing him to rape a whilte child.

    3. Judging by his surname, he isn’t a Muslim. Maybe Gateshead is more diverse than Rotherham.

  63. Another day of Heathrow border chaos: ‘Bottleneck’ queues form at passport control as ‘red list’ passengers are led through terminal just yards from ‘green’ travellers who are ‘forced to share same water fountain’
    Staff said there is overcrowding as travellers from different lists form bottleneck
    Security services workers said red list arrivals mix with green and amber arrivals
    Terminal 2 saw travellers from Covid-stricken India just yards away from others
    Grant Shapps urged flyers wanting to travel to amber list areas to have ‘patience’
    By JAMES GANT

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9600393/Another-day-border-chaos-Heathrow-Bottleneck-queues-form-passport-control.html

    Pictures from Terminal 2 today show travellers from Covid-stricken India just yards away from other flyers as they were escorted to quarantine.

    It comes as Grant Shapps urged holidaymakers wanting to visit countries on the Government’s amber list to have ‘more patience’.

    The Transport Secretary appealed for people to have ‘a little more patience as the world catches up with our vaccine programme’.

    But Mr Shapps gave a glimmer of hope for sunseekers as he held out the prospect of expending the ‘green list’ within weeks.

    Meanwhile passengers from red list hotspots are travelling to the UK via amber countries to avoid paying for costly hotel quarantine.

  64. Interactive map shows how virus fizzled out last month with Covid dropping to the NINTH leading cause of death – so how many people died in YOUR area? 20 May 2021.

    I’ve just checked the number of deaths in my area by the interactive map in this article. Over the last 12 months there have been 21 fatalities, That’s two a month! Hardly worth getting out of bed for! Pandemic my Aunt Sally!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9599697/Covid-Map-shows-virus-fizzled-month-people-died-area.html

    1. Virulent – toxic – highly infectious. As many as TWO people died from it in this neck of the woods.

      Gosh – I am sooo glad we were locked down. Otherwise, it might have been three.

    2. Eight deaths from covid in this area over all months from March 2020, For that we have been locked up for most of the year and banned from doing anything.

    3. 5 deaths over all months in Shepherd’s Bush South. There’ve been 3 other deaths in my building (175 flats) – two from untreated cancer and one poor guy who overdosed on his depression meds.

    4. I’ve been aware of these ONS statistics since last summer.

      The district I live in comes under two separate NHS areas in those statistics and I couldn’t understand why the COVID-19 deaths were 3 times higher in the one than the other. After some digging I discovered that the anomaly was down to a concentration of care homes in the northern part of the district.

      The point is that if you’ve got care homes then you have got lots of Covid-19 deaths. No care homes and you have very few deaths. In other words it’s not a very good way of comparing death rates in districts.

      1. I’ve played around a bit with the cursor over adjacent areas where I know there are care homes, and the figures are still very low.

        1. One half of my district has had 45 deaths and the other 17. The one with the larger number of deaths has four large care homes and the other none. I did my own research and identified the care homes as the source of at least twenty of the deaths and all in the early part of the first wave. Looking at the dates it is quite possible that most of the deaths were from a single outbreak.

          The high number of deaths in the district is a little surprising all round. Neither I or anybody I know is aware of any COVID-19 deaths whatsoever. It’s not a very big district either. It’s actually just a few square miles.

          The figures could have been worse though. I am looking out of my window at the NEC where the largest Nightingale hospital in the country was constructed. Now if that had got used….

      1. Piglet thought how really lucky he was to have a friend in Pooh, while Pooh thought that if the pig sneezes, he’s dead. Pretty much sums up life, I would have thought.

          1. I opened it in a new tab and then pressed ctrl + caps (the upward arrow to get upper case) and +.

  66. Afternoon, all. Still failing to find a new dog and being messed about by my GP; had to get up at the crack of dawn to field a telephone call which didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know (it’s probably arthritis – well, considering I was diagnosed with it when I was 30 and had it confirmed by an X-ray years ago, that’s probably correct; keep taking the tablets – as if I wasn’t; and use heat – I apply a hot water bottle, but it doesn’t seem to help) and said there was an 18 month waiting list for hip replacement. I suppose that’s progress, because last time I was told I wasn’t bad enough to have a replacement. They rang me back while I was in town paying a bill and left a message that I would have a video conference at 09.45 on Monday. I rang back and left a message to say I wouldn’t because I didn’t have the equipment. I do think there might be another X ray in the pipeline, but I haven’t had the results of the last one yet. I am beginning to wonder just how bad things are going to get.

    1. At least he rang. Is the RAF Benevolent Fund any use? Stupid question, I know…

      1. I can’t see how I’d qualify (yes, I know I did a couple of years in the ROC, but I’m not in financial need – at least, not yet).

        1. Sorry, Conwy I always though you were ex-RAF. he ROC must have a regimental association – NOT for financial help, but to help one through hoops, such as those in your way.

          1. The ROC and the RAF BF have merged, so ROC members access the RAFBF (for which I have fundraised on occasion). Reading the bumf it seems to be that money has been given to adapt homes, supply wheelchairs, etc. I have been donated a wheelchair (via the Masons) and the NHS/social services have supplied hand rails up the stairs. I’ve just put up a handle I supplied myself on the outside of the back door to assist in stepping down to get into the wheelchair.

    2. The MR had a suggestion – Age Concern (and similar) may know of older people who can no longer manage a dog, but want it to go to a good home.

      Worth a phone call?

      1. I contacted them, but they just referred me to the local dogs’ home (which I’d already tried without success).

          1. Thanks, Bill – and the MR. I suppose Gus and Pickles haven’t got any ideas? 🙂

          3. I do confess to going back to bed after I’d manned the phone for the useless call. Maybe I have some G&P genes 🙂

    3. Sympathies on both the continued lack of dog and the continued pain and frustration.

      1. Thank you. As I said on the phone, I just want to be pain free. I meant physical pain in that instance, but it would be nice to be without the pain of loss, too.

        1. (Oops; was going to reply in a timely fashion but had actual guests IN the house!!!)

          “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”.

          I sent a postcard to my late mother in the hard times after my father died. It said “I try to take each day as it comes, but sometimes several attack me at once”.

          KBO.

        2. (Oops; was going to reply in a timely fashion but had actual guests IN the house!!!)

          “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”.

          I sent a postcard to my late mother in the hard times after my father died. It said “I try to take each day as it comes, but sometimes several attack me at once”.

          KBO.

    4. Time for drastic action?
      Go to the surgery, hammer on the door with a real hammer, and demand to be seen.
      Be sure you have a friend filming the event, ready for all the social media.

      They will either call the police or see you.
      or both

  67. That’s me done for. A cold, miserable day with very strong winds, as well – just to make one feel worse. Tomorrow rain and gales. Can’t wait…. And the MR is on carpark duty at the GP surgery – yet another day of jabbing….

    Have a jolly evening realising that hardly anyone really died of covid where you live.

    A demain. I hope.

    3. I love the way young folk keep on inventing environ-mentally ‘friendly’ gadgets!

  70. Earlier I was going to congratulate people here on contributing to the DT’s change of policy, now having comments on contentious issues and leaving them on. Alas, the many comments on Prince Harry have disappeared. Ah well, it was good whilst it lasted.

    1. “Croak, I’m a cunning linguist, give me a kiss and I’ll give Camilla a lick; croak”

  73. If I have to carry a “passport” and download apps on a phone and show them to all and sundry if I want to travel abroad, why don’t all those with STDs including HIV not have to do similarly?

    2. yO SOS

      and why are illegal immigrants tracked in the same way…………

    3. Maybe the app will track everything, th3y are just not saying. It just needs a link to your health records for everything to become available.

      1. I could only opt out of research and planning. Where did you opt out of organ donation?

          2. They emailed and said they didn’t have much call for ones as large as that.

          3. Nor did they want mine. Apparently there would be a problem getting it out of the church.

        1. The first page is off-putting – they want all my details so they can send me a security code.

          1. I think they only need the security code if you don’t know your patient ID (which I didn’t).

    1. Good God – I’ll avoid it like the plague until I have to use it for boarding my flight to Kenya – then it will be deleted once I’m back.

    1. A shame we’re deporting Sikhs. Nice fellows those. Why haven’t we deported, oh say… Luton, London, Sparkhill?

      1. After 13 years, the Sikhs that are worth keeping have learnt to speak English.

        1. And applied legally.

          And really? 13 years and border force only now get around to deporting them? Dear fricken life. How about they’re paid per deportation? Would that stop the 4 hour coffee breaks?

      2. Ah, the perils of generalising. We used to have a Sikh family as neighbours. As my ex said furiously one day “they (this family) were tramps in their own country, and now they’re tramps here.”

        That said, I have nothing against Sikhs, quite the contrary.

    3. That hilarious camp running away! What a poof!

      If only he had the courage to stand still and burn properly as he deserved.

    1. Ummm,

      Surely, five shot politicians is the best attack since 1812.

      Just askin’

  79. 332994+ up ticks,
    Seeing as the governance parties are intent on importing potential
    warriors we can look forward to different foreign factions worldwide
    being housed in the UK and the welfare helping their war efforts.

    breitbart.

    ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS IN UK INCREASE BY 500% SINCE START OF ISRAELI CONFLICT: ANALYSIS

    Then they came for us.

      1. Nope, why would they? They need to keep us bulled, (that’s cowed but shittier).

        As I noted yesterday.
        100% of all cases in one area were new variant.
        Gawd that’s scary.
        100% you say? wow that’s everybody who caught it.
        We’re all gonna die.

        It was 100% of three cases, none of whom were hospitalised or died as far as I am aware

        They’ve been reporting similarly all over the UK

        1. It is all total bullshit. The script is straight out of the Goebbels’ play book. Tell a lie often enough and promote the lie through boughten media and repeat the lie ad infinitum and most fools will believe it.

      2. We never see the number of deaths or hospitalizations in news reports nowadays, all we get is the number of new cases.

          1. It’s not the false positives that you want to worry about but rather the false negatives.

            Testing standards vary a lot by test type and manufacturer but the figures that I have seen suggest a 5% false positive rate. Conspiracy theorists point out that 5% is also the positive rate for all testing. That is true but then you have to take into account the fact that false negatives are known to be as high as 30%. That’s nearly a third of all people with COVID-19 being told that they haven’t got it. That’s really scary taking that those people are happily not quarantining as a result.

            I’ve studied the statistics extensively and concluded that they are only really useful as a general indicator of transmission. It’s very much like wetting a finger to see which way the wind is blowing. What they are not useful for is diagnosing whether a particular individual has COVID-10 or not. Better than nothing is a term that comes to mind.

          2. Whilst I fully accept that from a risk perspective false negatives are a greater worry, one has to ask whether those “negatives” are getting tested as a result of feeling unwell or as a result of general large scale testing.
            If it is the latter one might ask the question whether these people are carrying a weaker version of the disease and that in fact having them spreading this weaker version might actually be a good thing.

            A new name to me. Welcome to Nottle.

          1. If deaths within 28 days of being vaccinated was reported in the same way, very few people would accept vaccination.

          2. That would certainly be an interesting statistic to see published.

            I have one for you though. At the beginning of May more people in the UK had died of Flu this year than COVID-19. This is based on the mentions on death certificates methodology used for reporting COVID-19. The ONS started reporting Flu deaths the same way in January and it has statistically driven such deaths up 20 fold.

          3. Interesting. I have long suspected that many of the early Covid deaths were actually ‘flu and that fear was causing Covid to be blamed rather than confirming whether it was an alternative with similar symptoms. At the time it seemed very strange that ‘flu all but vanished overnight.

          4. All above points more than valid. Now agenda’s gearing up for next phase. C-19 et al has run its “corporate course”, so mind game’s gearing up around the G7 circus in Cornwall

          5. All above points more than valid. Now agenda’s gearing up for next phase. C-19 et al has run its “corporate course”, so mind game’s gearing up around the G7 circus in Cornwall

          6. Yes I can find the numbers but the media like to give us those nice big number of cases figures.

      3. Joh Ward:

        “And then this final arse-patch:

        ‘A report of a suspected ADR to the Yellow Card scheme does not necessarily mean that it was caused by the vaccine, only that the reporter has a suspicion it may have been….It is important to note that Yellow Card data cannot be used to derive side effect rates or compare the safety profile of COVID-19 vaccinations, as many factors can influence ADR reporting.’

        In short, we have devised a pointless, ramshackle and irrelevant monitor of safety to offer balm to those who are easily persuaded that pigs with wings are a major threat to airline safety.”

    2. Do doctors prescribe HCQ or ivermectin? They work you know.
      I put my trust in those tried and true meds. They’ve been around for decades and are safe and effective even for off label use like covid. My family had been healthy but just in case, I know where I can get it.

      2. Er… asking for a friend…. where can one obtain these? Serious question….. thanks.

          2. Thank you – it is useful to have – the americasfrontlinedoctors do not ship to the uk.

          3. Someone put the site up on here and I kept a shortcut, never knowing when it might come in handy. Glad to share.

          4. Thanks so much – have you used the site? ‘Daddydragon’ does not inspire confidence! I used to give our boys the drug lecture – ‘don’t forget these things don’t come with the British kite seal of approval mark, they may well have been knocked up in someone’s garden shed using fertiliser to bulk them up!’ I have the same sort of wariness about Daddydragon! I might just treat myself to some ivermectin next month…!

          5. No, I’ve never used it and can’t vouch for it. I do think it’s a UK site, though, despite the name.

          6. Someone put the site up on here and I kept a shortcut, never knowing when it might come in handy. Glad to share.

          1. Thank you – I emailed them this evening but unfortunately they don’t ship to the UK.

          4. You can refer to americasfrontlinedoctors.org as a wonderful resource for accurate info and get your meds from the UK source.
            Peace and All Good

        3. My answer went into pending.
          I will try another way.
          This is a website with a plethora of correct and helpful info.
          Just string the words together, no uppercase, no spaces, no punctuation [except . org]
          americas frontline doctors . org

      3. HCQ works fine and is trusted. It does well here in Kenya as it’s also used as an alternative for malaria. HCQ was removed from the supply chain here in March 2020. Kenyans being resourceful, went the other way round and collectively paid the distributor under the radar and shelves remain stocked. Since Jan 2021, Kenya Govt have been attempting to roll out a vax campaign which went nowhere from the get go. A few elders were jabbed, and background checks into content confirm it’s Glucouse and sterilised water. This was merely a money game for the jabber Dakataris [Drs] until they got exposed. As of yesterday, anyone needing jab / tabs take HCQ c/o trusted and well known medics in local communities

        1. I’m surprised authorities, whoever they are, medical or government, undertook killing people by initially removing effective and safe treatment, HCQ, from availability. That’s criminal behavior. Ivermectin works extremely well if you can get it. Both are excellent therapeutics.
          It is understood by many ethical and honest doctors and researchers who have come forward at great cost to themselves professionally and personally, that the gene altering vaxxes have nefarious purposes to alter the natural immune system and make it permanently ineffective in protecting against pathogens but will cause gross overreaction to exposure and attack the body itself causing a cytokine storm which will prove fatal.
          The nefarious purpose behind the vaxxes is population reduction world wide. I’ve done ample reading and research and found many papers to support this theory including one by a retired, not fired, executive reasearch doctor at Pfizer, [Dr. Michael Yeadon], who has come forward.
          People who get mRNA vaccines are essentially Genetically Modified Organisms. I’m very concerned that correct information is available

  82. Worth a read:
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/focusing-on-the-correct-answer-in-maths-is-racist-96gcztfs2
    “There is a new frontier in the war on racism: maths.
    In California a state education panel is to consider curriculum reforms designed to support “equitable” mathematics instruction for all six million schoolchildren outside the public sector. If approved, getting the “right answer” in a maths problem may no longer be a pupil’s main objective.
    The framework sets out to tackle the ways that students’ “mathematics identities are shaped in part by a culture of societal and institutionalised racism”. It argues that this partly explains the history of underrepresentation of black, Hispanic and indigenous people, as well as women and low income students, in “mathematics and mathematics-related domains”.

    2. Come too late for me; I could never get the right answer. Still, I passed – just about – because I got marks for working out. I proved I could transpose formulae, apply the correct theorem and work out the trig. Actually getting a correct answer would have been a bonus 🙂

      1. I managed to scrape a bare minimum pass at O-Level, in my fourth year. Unfortunately, that meant I was put in for Additional Maths O-Level in the fifth form (without being consulted), with predictable results.

        1. I had a similar experience re History when I went from the fourth form to the sixth – as I had failed History O Level (anybody who knew the problems I had with numbers could have predicted that re dates!) it came as no surprise to anyone but the PTB that I failed A Level, too.

        1. The F35A is an extremely reliable & effective strike fighter in IAF hands. We have added additional Israeli electronics to it which give it a capability boost over the standard 35A in USAF service. I can’t say what the reliability is of the F35B model that the UK is buying is but I feel it would be a big mistake if the RAF does not buy the F35A version & relies only on the F35B with its much shorter range & less payload which is fine for carrier operations but a disadvantage for long range strikes from UK air bases

          1. F35B it is then. Not that our carriers can launch planes. They’re catapult reliant, I thought. Which the F35 doesn’t need.

            By the time our carriers are able to fly the planes we’ve bought for it – and those planes delivered and flight worthy the carriers will be obsolete. So will the planes.

            But, it won’t matter as the planes won’t be armed anyway.

            And the carriers will not pass Lefty climate change targets and there will be no fuel for the fighters, either.

        2. The F35A is an extremely reliable & effective strike fighter in IAF hands. We have added additional Israeli electronics to it which give it a capability boost over the standard 35A in USAF service. I can’t say what the reliability is of the F35B model that the UK is buying is but I feel it would be a big mistake if the RAF does not buy the F35A version & relies only on the F35B with its much shorter range & less payload which is fine for carrier operations but a disadvantage for long range strikes from UK air bases

    4. They’ve been doing woke maths for a few years now in Blighty, I thought.
      “June and Samantha have 70 guests at their wedding reception. If each guest eats four canapés, how many canapés will have to be ordered?”

    1. Oh, oh, ffs. I’m left speechless. Wish I’d learned some Russian at school. I’m sure ours are as bad, in fact I’m sure of it. FFS.

  84. ‘And after a prolonged spat with Europe over Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian demeanour, the European Parliament voted on Wednesday to formally urge the EU Commission to formally suspend accession talks for Turkey to join the EU, a process that has been ongoing for years. MEPs demanded that Turkey’s membership talks be suspended until Turkey agrees to abandon its “hostile” policies.’

    1. “MEPs demanded that Turkey’s membership talks be suspended until Turkey agrees to abandon its “hostile” policies.'”
      They continued; “We have enough of those ourselves.”

    2. And what on earth makes you think that the EU commission pays the slightest attention to what the EP Votes?

      1. It’s a ‘formal urging’ and you know how ardent MEPs can be when there’s an urge to claim undocumented expenses…

  85. Breaking News: After 11 days of fighting a ceasefire between Israel & Hamas was announced at 22:10 PM Israel time ( 20:10 PM UK ) the exact details have not yet been announced . I both welcome the ceasefire & oppose it, I wanted us to go in on the ground in Gaza & kill the top leadership of Hamas & destroy their weapons but alas that is now unlikely to happen.

  86. Ham-Arse have just announced that the ceasefire will go into effect at 02:00 AM on Friday morning that’s in 3 3/4 hours from now giving them plenty of time to launch more rockets right up to the last moment, which was the case with the 2014 ceasefire!

    1. On the DT article on this they have a picture supposedly showing an unexploded Israeli missile in a house on Gaza. It doesn’t look like a missile, neither does it look like a bomb, and I recognise this ‘missile’, including the marks on it, from an image a few days ago supposedly of an unexploded bomb in a Gaza street. Why do journalists fall for Hamas’s pathetic propaganda?

      1. Dale they do not fall for it, they collaborate with Hamas & help them with anti-Israel propaganda. Since 1964 with the creation of a fictional Palestinian people in Cairo by Pres. Nasser of Egypt, his agent Yasser Arafat & the Russian KGB, the international left have adopted the Palestinian cause as their own & done all they can to advance the goal of the destruction of Israel & its replacement with yet another unstable Arab regime.

        1. It’s ironic that so many leading socialists and communists were Jewish yet Jews are the targets of choice for Lefties’ hate, envy and self-loathing.

    2. On the DT article on this they have a picture supposedly showing an unexploded Israeli missile in a house on Gaza. It doesn’t look like a missile, neither does it look like a bomb, and I recognise this ‘missile’, including the marks on it, from an image a few days ago supposedly of an unexploded bomb in a Gaza street. Why do journalists fall for Hamas’s pathetic propaganda?

    3. On the DT article on this they have a picture supposedly showing an unexploded Israeli missile in a house on Gaza. It doesn’t look like a missile, neither does it look like a bomb, and I recognise this ‘missile’, including the marks on it, from an image a few days ago supposedly of an unexploded bomb in a Gaza street. Why do journalists fall for Hamas’s pathetic propaganda?

    4. On the DT article on this they have a picture supposedly showing an unexploded Israeli missile in a house on Gaza. It doesn’t look like a missile, neither does it look like a bomb, and I recognise this ‘missile’, including the marks on it, from an image a few days ago supposedly of an unexploded bomb in a Gaza street. Why do journalists fall for Hamas’s pathetic propaganda?

      1. No, not with that hill behind.

        Muddy tidal creeks and harbours with hilly backdrops are very Devon, Cornwall and South Wales but I can’t place this one.

    3. No 1: There is a church like that at Cullercoats (I have played football in some pitches there) , and sandy banks like that above the Tynemouth Long Sands.

      Sorry – looking more closely at the expanded photo I can see that it is NOT Cullercoats/Tynemouth.

        1. Never been there. It was obviously evening time and the sunset showed where the west was.

          1. Sunset isn’t a very good guide. There’s a big difference between the angle of summer and winter sunsets and similarly the coast. It could just have easily been on the west coast of GB.

          2. There’s an offshore wind farm in the photo too. Plus the large headland beyond.

          3. Hardly a a headland, just a bit of a curve!

            The wind farm had me searching the NE coast at first but I couldn’t place it. I even went to East Anglia.

            The photo is quite deceptive, giving a false impression of wide and extensive rugged sand dunes.

          4. Wind farm is offshore Redcar and stretches from 54.63530N 1.08670E to 54.650321N 1.119081E

          5. The wind farm only starts 4.1 miles from where the photo was taken, very deceptive.

  88. Some piccies of my Hook Norton visit:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/121ef9e6e8339d2995d28f3e0c8bd88c4329b30ffcc7f6d6ab9fdd1fd22fe68e.jpg?w=600&h

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3df8eeb7b3178751dd7ebc3cd0efa3f98f1bbbe7d67efa5286fa0af5d22413f2.jpg?w=600&h=764

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/385845a9c9f0908acc7ae217134921029f353198baa9418764e37013946482ab.jpg?w=600&h

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1dea99a3d5043f6b5aaf5dee2ee2a4267492b7f72b162d1c470581850d454ba0.jpg

    2. The Young’s drays and shire horses were a common site in South London until the Ram Brewery closed in 2006.

      1. 332994+ up ticks,
        Evening A,
        On a contract job in the Ram brewery Wandsworth, tea break in the maintenance shop with Ben the brewery fitter, container of draught guinness marked as dirty oil use to go down a treat.

          1. 333191+ up ticks,
            Morning A,
            Guinness addiction is a wonderful terrifying thing to behold.

      1. Thank goodness for that, lacoste. For one minute I thought the photos were of Bill’s ever-growing Gus and Pickle!!!

        :-))

    5. Smashing photos Bob.
      When I was a child I lived a stone’s throw from Whitbread in Chiswell street EC1 where all the dray horses were stabled.
      Magnificent animals.

    6. Vaux’s used to deliver by drays in the NE. I don’t know if they still do.

      1. Sadly Vaux brewery was shut down 20 years ago at the same time as they shut Wards Brewery in Sheffield.

    1. Do catch up. It’s now Climate Change to be “Heads I win, Tails you lose”.

          1. When it becomes proven beyond all reasonable doubt that man-made climate change is a complete fraud and has been a hoax since the moment the subterfuge was firstlaunched then will anything happen to those who have deliberately lied to us?

          3. I think that day will be beyond the time line of most if us here. The claims will become more tentative as time goes on whist trying to protect their ideas. Where, exactly, does one measure the temperature of the globe?

          4. I know that it doesn’t need saying but – No, they will move onto the next scam.

            I can accept that the climate is changing, man needs to adapt. I can accept that man has mad a pigs ear of the environment and needs to clean up.

            I don’t accept that one caused the other.

    2. Good for him. He can yet do the public a great service by helping in taking down the BBC. We are all heartily sick of their ‘holier than thou’ attitudes and denial of the necessary impartiality which should have been the very basis of a national broadcaster.

      The BBC are as corrupt as CNN and the other major US broadcasters. We need genuine reporters of facts, not jumped up apologists for political parties. We need investigative journalists not amateur deceitful hacks with a political axe to grind.

      Oh, and by the way, the BBC could save us all a few bob by doing away with their absurdly biased ‘fact checkers’.

  91. Perhaps it is time for the BBC to apologise and declare voluntary liquidation.

    There should follow cancellation of all senior executive pension rights.

    All Directors General, since 1995, should be subject to investigation, appropriate retribution and disgrace.

    There should be separate report on inappropriate political and Prime Ministerial influence in senior appointments including Chairmen and Directors General.

    Our once great national and world-renown broadcaster – has fallen into disgrace.

      1. commentated on a Royal Navy Fleet Review. For a few minutes, until they faded him out

        An RN Fleet Review now would be over in Five minutes, Ten if they include thr preserved warships, Victory, Warrior etc

  92. Goodnight all Nottlers, Ham-Arse true to form are still firing rockets at our southern communities & I expect they will continue to do so right up to the 2AM ceasefire deadline. They did exactly the same in the 2014 conflict including firing a few salvos at Tel Aviv at the last moment, so I will not be surprised if they do it again this time. Its 01:17 AM right now in Tel Aviv so they might still fire more rockets at me ! Enjoy some good music: Summertime – Stringspace Orchestra & Jazz Band
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcK446vD80A

  93. Has Boris been selling the services of your covid advisors over here?

    Starting Saturday, we can play golf and tennis or even risk going on a hiking trail..
    Maybe by the middle of June we will be allowed to eat and drink outside.
    By July we will be allowed to get a haircut but that treat will only be possible if 70% have had their second vaccination.

    As for living again, not in their plan apparently.

    And this is a conservative government?

    1. Personally I am more concerned as to why British farmers can’t compete taking the cost and difficulty involved in transportation.

      1. They don’t run such a massive operation as in Australia, with few people. Economies of scale and all that.

  98. Am still catching up ploughing through yday’s exchanges. Not seen anyone posting this yet [apologies if it has been]. but sent to me from DT subscriber, and article’s behind their paywall, copy / pasting / posting in full :

    The proportion of people dying in England fell in April to its lowest level since records began, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

    Just 851.2 people per 100,000 died last month, the lowest figure since the ONS started recording mortality rates in 2001. In contrast, at the height of the first wave pandemic peak in April last year, death rates were 1,859 per 100,000. The latest figures show that 38,899 people died in April, 6.1 per cent fewer than the five-year average. Just 2.4 per cent of all deaths mentioned Covid on the death certificate, a 77.6 per cent decrease from March, the largest month-on-month decline since the pandemic began.

    The new data provide more evidence that the NHS is in little danger of being overwhelmed in the near future, with deaths from most causes lower than normal. Latest figures from King’s College London’s symptom tracker app also suggest that coronavirus case rates are flat, despite the Indian variant making up an increased percentage of cases.

    Last week the ZOE Covid Study team estimated there were 2,750 new infections per day in the UK, compared with 2,782 the previous week.

    Experts believe the risk of a Covid infection is currently 1 in 17,205, falling to 1 in 31,184 after a first vaccine, and 1 in 41,579 after a second.

    Although there are localised hotspots where the Indian variant is spreading, it is not leading to rising case numbers overall, according to King’s data which
    tends to be a more up-to-date measure of the state of the pandemic than other figures.

    Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College, said the team was monitoring the variant closely, but there was nothing to suggest that the NHS was in danger of being overrun or that the lockdown release would need to be postponed. So far we see only localised outbreaks or hotspots,” he said. “Not only in Bedford and Bolton, which we saw a week ago, but our data shows Newport in Wales, Glasgow and neighbouring areas like East Dunbartonshire or Lanarkshire in Scotland, Aberdeen, Leeds and neighbouring authorities like Kirklees and Wakefield too.

    “We noticed the same trend previously with outbreaks of the South African and Brazilian variants, but these remained local and didn’t translate into wider cases countrywide. We also saw similar rates last summer in the Midlands which never produced widespread outbreaks. I expect to see rates stay at similar levels for a while.

    “There’s no clear evidence yet that the new Indian variant is significantly worse than the old Kent one.

    “While the outbreaks remain localised and UK numbers are steady and most cases appear mild, it’s highly unlikely to cause the NHS to be overrun or stop us coming out of lockdown.

    “So no need to panic, but do stay vigilant and keep logging with the ZOE Covid Study app to stay ahead of the curve and help us monitor outbreaks like these.”

    Coronavirus is now just the ninth most common cause of death in England and Wales, behind conditions including heart disease, dementia, several cancers and influenza.

    1. Morning, AWK.
      You know the trick of defeating the Telegraph’s paywall? As the article starts to load, tap frantically at the esc key. Most of the time that stops the paywall, and if it doesn’t work, reload & try again.
      Always assuming there’s anything worth reading back there, of course.

      1. Obl mng, my main issue here is frequent power rationing / cuts. That said I do have 2 options, one as you stated above and two – networks who contribute to paywwll that will send pieces I request. The overrriding issue, as you say, assuming they’re worth reading. But better to be aware rather than out of any loop

    2. Morning, AWK.

      …and influenza.

      Surely some mistake, we were told that influenza and the common cold had been eradicated this last Winter.

      1. Tim Spector [Imperial College or Collage, whatever], clearly went “off message” or simply never realised he was telling the truth exposing the whole approach for what it is. Unless it’s part of deception plan with virtue signalling “mixed / conflicting messages” to attempt to hide the truth. He’s in a hole given there’s no Mhindi, SA, Brazil variants merely imposition of economic strangehold on those nations for other reasons

    3. Morning AWK, thanks for posting.

      Is Bojo still thinking about taking us down the ‘Old Kent’ Road for an ‘Indian ‘ takeout?

    4. Over the whole 13 months from March last year, in this area there were 8 deaths from covid. That’s hardly a ripple – let alone cause to impose so many restrictions on our lives.

      1. mng, and that’s the core information re deaths. But the imposition [illegally under Coronavirus Act with no accountability] on restrictions doesn’t match the reality your end

        1. It certainly doesn’t justify the controls we’ve been living under for more than a year.

          1. agreed, again playing the system under Coronavirus Act [which was supposed to be for Emergency use only] now expanded to full control. But with “opposition” neutered, a complaint MSM, no accountability

  99. Decent piece from Douglas Murray https://unherd.com/2021/05/our-politicians-no-longer-care-for-freedom/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=56ccefaa34&mc_eid=f8bf59e7dc and below the latest comments:

    Claire Dunnage

    I think the problem is whether we get all our liberties back or whether, once the state has gained greater powers of control, it will want to give them up.

    Elizabeth Hart

    We are now in very serious danger with these rogue governments and politicians, who are enforcing medical tyranny and refusing to be accountable. These are not legitimate governments in my view. People are being deliberately misled by fear-mongering propaganda initiated by these governments and their often seriously conflicted ‘advisers’.

    Alternative opinions are being censored everywhere, apparently at the behest of these rogue governments and the vested interests they serve. Mainstream media is a propaganda machine – how much money is the mainstream media making from government to fear monger and promote the Covid vaccine products and vaccine passport agenda?

    Again, we are in very serious danger. We must urgently seek effective representation and defence from this crime against humanity currently in process.

    1. 333161+ up ticks,
      Morning AWK,

      We HAD effective representation under construction.

      The last serious attempt in the fight against the internal political enema, tribal members / voters was via Gerard Batten and the REAL UKIP, the party in the black and gaining members daily.

      It had to go, and duly went via treachery orchestrated
      by its concealed serpents within its nEc / farage,

      The “leggit nige” input was to split the vote, rev up
      the brexit group ( £25 a pop to be a non member)
      supposedly oppose johnson with an array of candidates who, when the time came a good percentage were stood down, johnson had a walk in.

      Never forget early doors post 24/6/2016, the cry from many allied party members was ” we have won leave it to the tories”

      Then the salt was added the herd went BACK to supporting lab/lib/con.

      1. ogga mng. It’s slowly building up a head of steam which MSM / “Govt” will ignore, that no current political party has any support aside from those in its inner coterie and their fake funders using ponzi scheme money. The EU Referendum was their calling notice, no political party allegience mattered. they never learn from their mistakes, merely repeat them with a different MSM coat / lick of paint

        1. 333161+ up ticks,
          AWK,
          The REAL UKIP up until it was, along with the Gerard Batten
          successful leadership brought down was proven to be a
          success on two major issues, winning the eu elections & designing & triggering the referendum.

          The tories (ino) knew all their eids had came at once when it was left to them to continue along the path of success UKIP had taken 25 years to construct against all odds and abuse from lab/lib/con political coalition / members & voters.

          1. any threat to existing systems have to be marginalised / removed. UIP, Brexit, Limp Dems, Labour all gone. Crosshairs are locked onto what passed for Conservatives now. Using their favourite phrase, lessons learned – have been learnt. The new normal won’t be what they expect

          2. 333161+ up ticks,
            AWK,
            There were plenty of signs along the path of treachery notably major, clegg, the wretch cameron, the treacherous may but the tory (ino)
            supporter / voters along with lab/lib
            refused to acknowledge them and continued their inhouse vote to keep in / out voting pattern appertaining to the political close shop coalition.

            The new normal will, if given the same peoples consent that got us into this countrywide quagmire of sh!te will be a shocker to many when the new overseers are revealed and the imam says ” this is the way it is going to be”
            ………. Amen.

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