Thursday 22 July: Dominic Cummings revealed as rejecting the workings of democracy

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/21/letters-dominic-cummings-revealed-rejecting-workings-democracy/

739 thoughts on “Thursday 22 July: Dominic Cummings revealed as rejecting the workings of democracy”

    1. I think that’s rather misleading Rik. People aren’t being forced to have vaccines. There might though be limits on what you may do if you are not vaccinated.

      1. Like going to the supermarket to buy food??

        Because that’s exactly whats happening in Cyprus right now!!

        No vaccine,no entry but that’s fine,get jabbed or starve??

        No,no no compulsion there

        “Grocery shoppers in the Republic of Cyprus may no longer shop at a

        supermarket if they do not have a Safe Pass, based on the latest decree

        published on Monday by the health ministry affecting all domains of

        social life in response to last week’s surge in daily infections.”

        https://knews.kathimerini.com.cy/en/news/safe-pass-for-supermarket-made-official
        Edit
        Or continue to work at your chosen job of course,after the passage in the Lords Care home workers HAVE to have the jab to retain their jobs
        Edit
        “Up to 70,000 care home staff in England could leave the workforce or lose their jobs because the government is insisting they must be vaccinated against Covid, with women and ethnic minorities disproportionately affected, according to an official estimate.”
        https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/21/english-care-homes-could-lose-70000-staff-over-mandatory-covid-jab

        1. Norway has legislated that you cannot be barred from entry if you don’t show a Covid pass.

      2. 335700+ up ticks,
        Morning SindC,
        Do the peoples know that and understand it fully ?
        I do not believe these governing overseers would go to any great lengths to say this is
        NOT a compulsory issue.

    2. Even indirectly, i.e. by the person losing their job, home, etc. if they refuse it? It’s going to open up a veritable gold mine for the sharks aka lawyers.

    4. That is brilliant.

      It’s illegal to require people to be inoculated, hence this amoral government’s immoral actions at coercion. Changing the law to enforce inoculation is a step too far for Johnson. Too many questions would be raised and the impact of side effects would receive greater publicity.

    5. We could just tell the MPs that a valid vaxx passport is required to submit an expenses claim?

      1. I did, but then i got up again. This has become a pattern since about 3 weeks ago. I read the News and many of the newspapers and crawl back to bed at about 7 am and sleep until midday.

  4. Morning to those up and about. Another collection from the 77Bde homework filed under “must do better”: The positve is that while virtue signalling from their rented portaloos, they’re not fouling the public highways with marks from taking a knee:

    SIR – Dominic Cummings emerged from Laura Kuenssberg’s brilliant interview as someone who does not understand or accept the workings of constitutional democracy and will either fade into oblivion or, if confidence in the political process should be lost, become the most dangerous figure British politics has yet known.

    Richard Lloyd-Jones
    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    SIR – I do not think the Bash Boris Corporation is correct in its continued attack on the Prime Minister. If its attitude was shared by most of the electorate, he would never have been voted in with such a stonking majority.

    James Griffin
    Hayling Island, Hampshire

    SIR – Dominic Cummings and Laura Kuenssberg: if ever two people were made for each other.

    Ken Bates
    Chesterfield, Derbyshire

    SIR – Mr Cummings probably sees himself as a whistleblower. He is nothing of the sort, and his revelations say more about him than about those whom he seeks to discredit.

    It only goes to show that superior intelligence is no bar to stupidity.

    Richard Tinn
    Boston, Lincolnshire

    SIR – Dominic Cummings is succeeding unintentionally in his aim of calling the Prime Minister’s judgment into question. What on earth possessed Boris Johnson to appoint an anarchic clown to a position of influence?

    Steve Black
    Keyworth, Nottinghamshire

    SIR – I assume that Dominic Cummings signed the Official Secrets Act before being allowed to enter Downing Street, so I am surprised that he has not been invited for a chat at the local police station to explain his outpourings regarding the inner workings of government (true or false).

    Chris Davies
    Woking, Surrey

    SIR – I understood that the constant placing of a hand in front of a person’s mouth was an indication of disbelief in the message being given.

    Roy McLeod
    Bexleyheath, Kent

    SIR – Why does the media give air time to the views of Dominic Cummings and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex?

    They are yesterday’s figures and appear to be decrying the very people and organisations that have given them their current platform.

    Where have the attributes of respect, honour and loyalty gone?

    Pete Matchett
    Shipley, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Dominic Cummings reminds me of Gareth from The Office, not in looks, but in his attitude of certainty as the injured party to whom nobody wants to listen. How long will it be before he discloses that somebody put his stapler in a bowl of jelly?

    Valerie Smith
    Sherborne St John, Hampshire

    Channel migrant crisis

    SIR – As a former director of the UK Immigration Service (Ports), I was interested to see that the Home Secretary has made a further payment of £54 million to the French (report, July 21) to help stop boats leaving their coast.

    If stopped, those involved are simply released, and will inevitably try again on another occasion. They need to be lucky just once, while the authorities have to be lucky every time.

    The Home Office should be highlighting France’s failure to tackle the problem, especially when there is a tragedy. It must also ascertain how many traffickers have been caught and successfully prosecuted by the French over the past three years.

    The only real answer is to get the French to accept the return of those who are intercepted. Migrants – and traffickers – would soon realise it was pointless to make the hazardous journey. It would also benefit the French, as the camps would disperse.

    Perhaps the Home Office could tell us why Border Force cutters are positioned mid-Channel, given that they are neither preventing nor deterring migrants from attempting the crossing – quite the opposite. My MP was told they were “trying their best” – whatever that might mean.

    Peter Higgins
    West Wickham, Kent

    SIR – It is in the UK economy’s interests to allow entry to these immigrants on a controlled basis. Many are young, highly motivated, intelligent, educated and speak English. They are willing to be flexible and do jobs that home-grown citizens will not or cannot do. They are also self-selecting and cheaper to organise than those allowed in under the points system.

    By paying France yet more to reduce their numbers, the Government is being disingenuous. It knows full well, as do the French, that together the two countries could put a stop to this unfortunate trade if they wished.

    The traffickers must be stopped, so let’s direct our energies and resources to that end.

    Dr Michael Spencer
    Adstock, Buckinghamshire

    Clubland’s family silver

    SIR – I was intrigued to see that the new Secretary of the Athenaeum Club has sent some of its silver to auction, including a curious kangaroo-foot cigar lighter.

    Does the sale of these hallowed objects herald the winds of change sweeping through Clubland?

    Tahir Shah
    Rhode-Saint-Genese, Flanders, Belgium

    Appeal of real cricket

    SIR – Looking at the crowds at recent England cricket matches, they seem to be admirably diverse across age, ethnicity and gender.

    The provision of so-called entertainment by “all-star DJs and rappers” will undoubtedly limit the appeal of the Hundred and, it is to be hoped, contribute to its failure. Then we can get on with more of the marvellous cricket witnessed recently.

    Peter Brierley
    Formby, Lancashire

    SIR – Last week, sitting in the café at Kent County Cricket Club in Canterbury, I realised there would be no first-class cricket on this old ground after the middle of July. St Lawrence is a ground first used in 1847 by an already established Kent side.

    Only wartime has matched the England and Wales Cricket Board’s success in destroying traditional cricket. It has achieved this by paying counties not to play cricket to promote a competition with zero support among existing cricket fans.

    John Hanson
    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – Eoin Morgan is for the Hundred, Simon Heffer against (Sport, July 20).

    Mr Heffer’s argument that white-ball cricket is “meretricious” and for people who “cannot handle a first-class game” is mere snobbery. The latter lasts for days and only lucky retirees like me can watch it, even on television. Before lunch at the recent Test series against New Zealand many there were only interested in prancing around and making “beer snakes”.

    In evening and weekend twenty20 games, when more people are free, there is less of that.

    Chris Barton
    Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

    Prince Harry’s truth

    SIR – Prince Harry says he is writing an autobiography (report, July 20) but the actual work will surely be done by a professional ghostwriter.

    What is true is that the book is likely to consist of some depressingly familiar psychobabble and self-justification, and will inflict yet more deliberate damage on his family.

    Doubtless it will also cause more people to wonder why the Duke of Sussex continues to be permitted to market himself under a royal title that he clearly does not respect.

    Charles Smith-Jones
    Landrake, Cornwall

    SIR – The Duke of Sussex says: “I am writing my book to help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.”

    I am struggling to imagine how many low-income families would agree with him.

    Irene Robertson
    London W4

    SIR – In Greek mythology, Narcissus became self-obsessed. He fell in love with his own image in a pond and, after continually staring at it, fell in and drowned. Thankfully, he did not have time to write his accurate and wholly truthful memoirs.

    Hamish Watson
    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    Thumping gym music

    SIR – I’d like to enrol in a gym, but can’t find one that doesn’t insist on blasting its users with thumping bass music.

    I’d like to swim, but can’t find a pool that doesn’t force swimmers to listen to the ramblings of local radio DJs.

    Wetherspoons has enjoyed great success with “music-free” pubs. If only it could open a chain of gyms.

    Stephen O’Loughlin
    Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire

    Toasting the World Cup with a services’ cuppa

    SIR – Your feature on motorway services (July 20) brought back memories of my time working at Forton services, which opened on the M6 just outside Lancaster in 1965. I was a 15-year-old schoolboy at Lancaster Grammar and I got a summer job there as a general runabout.

    Perhaps my best memory was being on duty when England won the World Cup on July 30 1966. The match was broadcast over the public address system and the cafe was full to bursting. I will never forget the cheer that went up when we won.

    Stan Kirby
    East Malling, Kent

    Threatening the young via Covid passports

    SIR – When is this government going to stop threatening young people? Any parent will tell you it rarely, if ever, works. Covid passports (Letters, July 21) are a recipe for division and disaster.

    Many under-30s have now been vaccinated, and I appreciate the sacrifices they have made to keep older people safe. They should be able to make choices for their own health. They are the ones whose future years could be blighted by “long Covid”.

    It is time to stop using deaths as criteria and to start using more positive messages about health and well-being.

    Esther Drewett
    Otley, West Yorkshire

    SIR – The Government’s decision to insist on double vaccinations for entry to nightclubs and high-risk venues is sensible. Older people, who have obeyed all the advice and rules, are getting increasingly irritated by the careless behaviour of many young, who seem oblivious to the urgent need to get jabs. There will be howls of protest, but it is the right thing to do.

    Mike Aston
    Stourbridge, Worcestershire

    SIR – Will the Prime Minister insist that MPs attending the “closed, crowded and close social contact” of Parliament show vaccine passports?

    Charles Law
    Hay-on-Wye, Hereford

    SIR – If we are to feel safe going out, Covid passports should be required in theatres, cinemas, restaurants, pubs, bars, hotels and anywhere spectator sports allow large groups of people.

    What is wrong with protecting the public?

    Chris Humphreys
    Bristol

    SIR – A local restaurant, one of a chain, has been open when possible throughout lockdown. Entry has always meant taking a temperature test.

    Yesterday morning, I asked how many customers, in any of its branches, had registered a high temperature since March 2020.

    The answer? Not a single one – which seems to sum things up.

    Veronica Timperley
    London W1

    1. Oh dear, Chris Humphreys, that Commie from SAGE has done a good job on you!

    2. What a bunch of moaning Minnies, carefully selected by the bed-wetter’s Editor to reflect the views of the left – particularly with reference to Cummings, Covid and Cricket.

    3. I always ask the check out staff in any supermarket I visit whether any of them have gone down with Covid.

      The answer has always been no.

      You’d think that with the amount of people they deal with that they would be the first to catch it.

  5. Kenya [Utopian Perspective]: ‘Who received that money?’ Report probes Kenya’s COVID-19 cash program https://www.devex.com/news/who-received-that-money-report-probes-kenya-s-covid-19-cash-program-100421?mkt_tok=Njg1LUtCTC03NjUAAAF-Z7W3a84gfAljlfpUUHO-Gz7Vg6-rFRkNmulVro3NPtfuc6DMDzdactp4u6bH2JsADsey6it7h_NKfiv-mtiQD1zBWxaJdhzevUPr4ny8cmE4cg&utm_content=cta&utm_source=nl_newswire&utm_term=article . Reality = sorry to detonate author Sara Jerving’s post but WB approved US$1bn to its own instruments and Kenya banks [debt in other words] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/05/20/world-bank-approves-1-billion-financing-for-kenya-to-address-covid-19-financing-gap-and-support-kenyas-economy Kenya itself got US$50m. Recently World Bank approved US$750m [more debt] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/06/10/kenya-receives-750-million-boost-for-covid-19-recovery-efforts Kenya Govt again got US$50m. For Kenya Govt read Uhuru solely has control and has pumped it into building up the military [KDF] as part of his legacy post end, at some point, of his presidential term. Sara Jerving needs to understand no one in Govt Ministries or families / relatives of those holding politically posts got zero, better still Sara needs to get off her matako and start talking to real people. Or remain in the permanent Utopian Shopping Centre where UN people etc dream a lot [Village Market Gigiri]

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        Morning AWK,
        He has form in the demolition game,this is old meat news that any credit building vulture would settle on.

        1. mng ogga, first Hurry up Harry and his gig = file 13. Re illegal immigrants, given report was from yesterday lunchtime isn’t old meat, it’s the core points what Priti Useless etc is not doing. And Gordon Brown News would not cover the issue other than having NF reporting live [at the time]. Which still leaves the Q hanging around Priti Useless / Mr Symonds’ neck which no one answers. That leads back to Brexit or in current form BRINO. then again, if you mean drowned illegal immigrant, it again would not be old meat as it’s instant fish food

          2. have seen that and am aware of views on NF. He’s never claimed to be a politician and within context, he’s live reporting from the channel with visual evidence and making the points of who’s accountable, given no one else is. If Gordon Brown news pull plug on coverage / NF, which is at some point likely, they will be finished as most already know, as a woke broadcaster.

          3. 335700+ up ticks,
            Steve Laws spotted “nige” in the channel now Steve Laws is a chap I would trust, Anne Maria Waters should be listened to regarding the mass uncontrolled immigration on these Isles &
            the odious effect it is having.

            “HE” was getting his life back whilst all the the while undermining a pro United Kingdom party that was successfully building in a very credible manner, check vid.
            A demolition job if ever.

          4. I don;t get any UK news here, aside Sly News which I don’t bother watching so I wouldn;t know any of those names. From afar and Geoff Graham and I [maybe the only ones on here] are of the same opinion NF, just as Frederick Forsyth was nobbled by the system. It’s the system that’s retreating, any names are merely the players

          6. Good morning. Yes, Ogga, we are all aware of your hatred for Farage but at the umpteenth time of posting, it doesn’t get looked at any more.

          7. Ogga got awfully repetitive about UKIP some years ago. That went well for them.

          8. 335700+ up ticks,
            Morning NtN,
            There is no “hatred” in my character make up, intense dislike yes ” hatred no, your words NOT mine.

            The bloke in question condemns himself.
            I have put up with repeated political sh!te over the last three decades via the results of the polling booth, I know you will appreciate that fact so I see no problem in giving out a well meant warning when I consider the occasion calls for it.

          9. Isn’t this rather old news?

            The trouble with Farage is a problem he shares with virtually all politicians – he is incapable of admitting that he was wrong and he is incapable of apologising.

          10. Incapable of forming a team, incapable of surrounding himself with competent folk, in fact, a typical politician. In it for himself & totally useless.

          11. 335700+ up ticks,
            R,
            I would say intentionally treacherously wrong, a value shared sad to say with a high percentage of the electorate.

          12. I often agree with ogga.

            I too have my doubts about Nigel Farage but I do not have the deep-rooted hatred for him that ogga has. Indeed, ogga’s feelings towards Farage are probably very similar to those I have towards Blair and May.

          13. I often agree with ogga.

            I too have my doubts about Nigel Farage but I do not have the deep-rooted hatred for him that ogga has. Indeed, ogga’s feelings towards Farage are probably very similar to those I have towards Blair and May.

    1. Dinghy Gate; Pingdemic Gate; NI Protocol Gate; Gibralter Gate; Mask Gate [and so it goes on]

      If and it’s a big IF, the “yoof” pull their finger out collectively and stand firm, the blowback on Govt will be there and they [Govt] will be in a corner of their own making

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        AWK,
        More to the point will it eradigate the voting pattern ? united people power could change this domineering political sh!te today, via UKIP it gave us the key to freedom, the referendum.

        I do believe that after a great deal damage is done by these
        very dangerous political overseers you will find that the corner they are seemingly painted into has an Odessa door at their back.

        1. agree re Odessa analogy, they’re stupid but not that ignorant, they’ll always have a ratline established. But they’ll need to vastly improve upon the existing one used by Major, Blair, “Call me Dave” as they’ll find existing political parties won’t exist. They’ll be exposed and afraid as their Great Reset model will blowback on them and Westernised “New World Order” won’t involve them

          1. 335700+ up ticks,
            AWK,
            I also believe that the smoke from smoke & mirrors comes from burning bridges regarding the lab/lib/con coalition.

            ” But they’ll need to vastly improve upon the existing ” that is saying they will continue ? if that be the case then that means all that is held dear appertaining to these Isles has been tossed out the window, decency, integrity,self respect
            and to make it quite clear the people ie governance supporters should take their child daughters / sons down to DOVER as an appeasement offering.

            In short these politico’s in power via the polling booth are BLOODY dangerous.

          2. agree re political stomachs, smoke and mirrors and dangerous. What they certainly ignore, but cannot overlook, indigengous peoples’ allegiance is to the Sovereign not political parties. They’ve been building that narrtive since Major. And they cannot claim to “govern” with an overwhelming NOTA at the booth.

    2. It’s legal to refuse treatment – the Government says so.
      That’s why a sharp exit is your last option if you can’t stand the pain of living in your current situation.
      That is of course if you don’t drink a certain type of lager 🥃

        1. Link won’t copy but you can find it by searching harp lager Molly on YouTube.

  8. Good Morning Folks,

    Lovely sunny start to the day here.
    Weird how all the noisy parties start the minute we need the windows open at night.

  9. Highways England may have to reverse act of ‘cultural vandalism’. 22 July 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef4aa80e454cd61e6f8c8372bb030087ac70b48d5f517fe0a6820fe5bfaf2f34.jpg

    The government’s roads agency could be forced to remove hundreds of tonnes of concrete it used to fill in a Victorian railway arch in a project that was condemned as the first act of “cultural vandalism” in a nationwide plan.

    Eden district council told Highways England (HE) this week that it needs to apply for retrospective planning permission for a scheme that involved pouring an estimated 1,000 tonnes of concrete and aggregate under the bridge at Great Musgrave, Cumbria, at the start of nationwide programme to infill scores of historic structures.

    It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this yet another move to degrade the UK into a cultural, economic and multiracial slop bucket off the Coast of Europe. No attempt has been made to ameliorate its appearance; in fact the very opposite. It is not only ugly but has been carried out even to my untutored eye in the cheapest and most deliberately offensive fashion. Even the excuse for it is doubtful.

    https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jul/21/highways-england-may-have-to-reverse-act-of-cultural-vandalism

      1. Morning Bob. I’m not a Civil Engineer but I would have thought Shuttering and maybe Pillars inside would have made it more acceptable (outside of doing the job properly) and been more effective. It seems to me to have been done in the most deliberately offensive manner

          2. The Town Clerk? Ooops, sorry: forgot he’s now the Chief Executive and his salary has been multiplied by his phone number.

          3. Well one could compose a wish list but it would probably be over subscribed!

        3. AS in years gone by, the arch could have been bricked up. Or, just left freaking open!

    2. It reminds me of the early post-Roman era settlers squatting in the decaying buildings and using the stone work to provide shelters.

    5. So this is what it must have been like watching the remains of Roman civilisation disappear during the Dark Ages.
      They had a problem with illegal immigration then as well.

  11. Good Moaning.
    All very sad, but the apocryphal story about the fire brigade rescuing a kitten stuck up a tree springs to mind.
    From the DT.

    “A woman who shielded for nine months was killed on her first day out after being hit by a lorry while searching for a face mask in her handbag.”

    1. Gee… that*s a real bummer.
      To add to the misery, a parent ran over their little daughter yesterday, collecting her from the school playground. She died this morning.

      1. That often happens. Toddlers and small children are a nightmare. Years ago, our second granddaughter ran out into her quiet suburban road from between parked cars; luckily (!) she only got a broken arm. As cars are parked both sides of a late Victorian road, everyone has to park outside, leaving only one car width for creeping along the middle.

  12. Morning, all Y’all.
    Ten years anniversary of Anders Behring Breivik’s bombing & shooting of 77 people here in Oslo and a bit outside. Much hand-wringing on TV, radio and in the press.

    2. He saw the real threat of the Left. The indoctrination of the young.

      Good morning.

  15. Follow The Scent

    A stuffy old lady is with one of her lunching friends in a ritzy restaurant. Suddenly, as the waiter is serving the main course, the stuffy old lady cuts a roaring, rotten-egg-smelling fart.
    Trying to shift the blame onto an innocent bystander, the stuffy old lady turns to the waiter and shouts: “Sir! I demand that you stop that, this instant!”
    “Certainly, madam,” replies the waiter as he looks around the room. “Which way did it go?”

    Like the stuffy old lady, I thought I’d slip one in before I go for the INR blood test.

    Good morning, all, I’ll be back later.

    1. Joe’s interest in the under twelves has nothing to do with vaccination!

    2. The faltering unintelligible speech followed by an attempt at concentration and finally followed by a few words that approach lucidity looks suspiciously like he is being prompted.

      1. mng KtK, the only rationale is to prove he’s just about still alive, whatever prompted alphabet soup narrative he spouts. It’s a visual of the equivalent of Stevie Wonder doing the Times crossword

    3. What’s this?
      Poor old man, can’t keep a thought going.
      Is he really POTUS?

      1. I think that G.K. Chesterton’s phantom has messed up the GPS function in Johnson’s mobile phone!

        A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
        The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

    2. So WTF is this “Populist Opinion” he claims she is surrendering to?

      One presumes he is a pro-gimmegrant 🥃⚓️.

  18. Good morning after another night disturbed by the heat. 13°C and looking like another scorcher.

    Another run into Derby. My stepson needs a new mobile phone, 3rd in as many months, and t’Lad has a load of soil to get rid of.

    I presume, before paging through to confirm, the letters have already been copied across, so i’ll just copy this excellent BTL Comment from a regular contributor:-

    J McMenemy
    22 Jul 2021 7:20AM
    What a pompous letter from Dr. Michael Spencer. He states “It is in the UK economy’s interests to allow entry to these immigrants on a controlled basis….”. I suspect this is a common attitude in certain circles of our privileged establishment.

    The whole point is that these illegal immigrants are arriving on our shores in a totally haphazard, uncontrolled basis. As host country we appear to have no control whatsoever on who these people are, what skills they have, how many are criminals, how many are terrorists. It is an absolute disaster. In particular, a disaster for genuine refugees, many being women and children who these able bodied men have pushing out the way by their selfish and cowardly actions. If they were real men of good character, they would have stayed in their own country and protected and fought for their own kith and kin, rather than leech off others.

    “They are willing to be flexible and do jobs that home-grown citizens will not or cannot do….”

    How on earth does Dr Spencer know that? Unless he has been employing some of them at a cheap rate, and not bothering to help and train some of our own unemployed youngsters.

    Mrs M

    1. “They are willing to be flexible and do jobs that home-grown citizens will not or cannot do….”.

      Judging from the fact that many of them complained about the conditions in the Folkestone Napier Barracks, and that genuine refugees would be happy to accept any accommodation if fleeing from genuine fear in their own countries, I would hazard a guess that these people are of the ‘gimme’ mentality rather than being willing to accept any job that is offered.

      1. “… fleeing from genuine fear in their own countries”.
        Through those hotbeds of persecution, death & torture being Turkey, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, France… or by the wetter route, swim all round the Med to Marseille and walk through France, dodging bullets and bombs the whole way, until reaching the English coast.
        None of these countries are good enough for them… I wonder why not?

    2. Mrs M seems a sensible person; Dr Spencer on the other hand is a virtue signalling moron!

  19. For those with interest in the olympics – Mohamed Sbihi to make attempt in rewriting history, as Team GB’s first Muslim Olympic flagbearer

  20. Good morning all. I am afraid Pickles has been injured – one leg bad. So will be out all day at vet’s etc.

    5. Pickles in a pickle. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Hopefully it is just a sprain.

    11. Oh, dear. We both hope it’s not too serious and await a progress report as soon as you are able.

    1. It was not Trump that killed millions of people it was the people who dismissed everything he said because of who he was and not because of the possible truth of what he said.

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        I would have said factual truth of much he said, I can honestly see a triumphant Trump riding back into the winners enclosure.

    2. standard backtracking by big pharma, not reaching perceived numbers for fake jabs. Now in retreat, pose Qs around Invermectin, HCQ etc which everyone knew at inception, work

  22. Has anyone else suffered a very bad cold / virus since receiving the vax? the wife had her two doses some time ago now, she never used to get them, it was always me that had the man flu, yet touch wood I am okay and still unvaxxed. or it just might be coincidence, I suppose.

    4. I haven’t taken the potion but over last Winter I suffered more bouts of 24 – 48 hours sniffles and sneezes than I can ever recall having before. I never felt ill but continual blowing/wiping my nose was a nuisance.

  23. Had to pop to Morrisons for bread for my soon to be bacon and egg buttie,as you walk in there are the newspapers all headlining the pingdemic and food shortages pictures of empty shelves everywhere…….
    Apart from “Bagged Salad” everything was fully stocked(maybe the rocket and Italian salad had been snaffled by refugees from Waitrose)
    Sheer project fear in action again,one paper already been caught using piccies from 2020
    These people are NOT on our side!!

    1. ‘Morning, Rik, the food shortages and empty shelves are probably edits from the recent S Africa riots.

    2. Cue another MSM-inspired round of panic-buying. Toilet rolls no longer available.

  25. Good morning my friends

    Trouble with the Tokyo Olympics

    Kentaro Kobayashi, who was partly in charge of the curtain-raiser, was dismissed after facing anti-Semitism allegations over a comment he made in a comedy act in 1998 resurfaced.

    Without wishing to excuse or justify what this chap said I still find it creepy that he is being sacked for a tasteless and offensive joke he made 23 years ago.

    I wonder if there are special university courses being organised in excrement agitation and how students, after foundation years in woke, victimisation and anti-racism studies, will be able to specialise in anti colonialism and Muck Raking.

    I rather suspect that Oxford and Cambridge will be at the forefront of pioneering such dynamic new academic disciplines.

    1. Wonderful looking ship.
      Be-clamed ?
      There’s plenty of wind on the Thames at Westmonster.

  29. Morning all.
    I heard a new version of the old song and dance the Okey Kokey last night.
    It’s called the Dopey Wokey, you do the Dopey Wokey and you turnaround that’s
    what it’s all about………….left leg in left leg out knees bend arms raised blah blah blah………..

  30. Another one pinched from Going Postal:-

    Endeavour • 43 minutes ago

    As part of my continuing awareness of multiculturalism and particularly black British history, BLM and the BBC series Uprising, I’m being much more selective in my viewing.

    Tonight it’s a film which confronts British Imperialism full on, and whilst acknowledging the peaceful intentions of the Western Christian church, questions the imposition of religion on indigenous peoples particularly in light of the foibles and failings of those administering the teachings.

    A film that demonstrates the vital role the disabled, even when hospitalised, can play in the collective effort to stand for what you believe to be right.

    A film that acknowledges the important contribution that minority ethnic groups have played in British history and showcases their rich oral and particularly musical traditions.

    A film that shows that by putting aside divisive political issues such as land ownership, and acknowledging the diverse heritage and skills people from
    Minorities can bring to the situation, a group no matter how small can not only take a stand but overcome insurmountable odds in a just cause.

    A film that has not ‘a token black character’, cast as a stereotypical dealer or ‘gangsta’ but gives leading roles to 100’s, yes 100”s, of aspiring black actors and actresses and allows them to fully embrace their rich cultural identity.

    Yes we’re watching Zulu.
    🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧

      1. That they’re wearing covid masks when bullets are flying about… truly clown world.

      2. Remind me why the GBP were disarmed by the Blair creature.
        Apart from criminals, that is.

        1. So that Zimbabwe & Afghanistan can be brought to England’s once green & pleasant land by the savage hordes of Africa & the Mid-East . Only an armed citizenry is a free citizenry !

          1. Hence the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
            And that means free from internal as well as external tyrrany.

          2. Bought Firstborn a tee-shirlt for Christmas: “I support the right to bare arms” was the slogan.

          3. Digging around, found this – worth a read: https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/full-text
            It’s the text of the US Constitution.
            Particularly, in relation to the 2A, the following paragraphs:
            Article 1, Section 8: Powers of Congress
            To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

            To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

          4. Hence the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
            And that means free from internal as well as external tyrrany.

    2. Well, it’s certainly entertaining. Not informative or educating, as the reality is far, far less than the BBC would dearly love to promulgate.

  31. Is this the most unusual Double-Barrelled surname in UK

    Charles Smith-Jones Landrake, Cornwall

    2. Transgender label for the woke telephone directory. Wait til the rugrats appear, then it’ll also be Charles Smith-Jones Landrake Jnr, Charles Smith-Jones Landrake II etc. Add also rearrange names, claim benefits under the Skivers Charter and be permanently pinged

    3. Good morning OLT

      Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (born 29 January 1958), known as Richard Drax, is a British Conservative politician, journalist, landowner and former British Army officer, serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Dorset since 2010.

    4. Not August Hepplewaite-Partridge-Van-Rifle-Osborne-Oldham-Shotgun-Saint-John? which is both a Double Barreled & Single Barreled name ( sarcasm )

    2. Is the population of Essex 50% BAME? No? So, using these idiots metric of matching the racial makeup of the population, why are they all black?

    3. Essex is White Majority pro-Brexit county full of White refugees who fled Londonistan from the 1960’s to the 2000’s to escape the violent low IQ Black & Muslim invaders that the Labour party settled in London and now the Globalist puppet government wants them to police Essex, obviously as a prelude in settling hundreds of thousand of Black & Muslim recent arrivals to change the demographics of Essex back to pro-EU

      1. So that’s why they’re building masses of homes, mainly prime farming land.

    1. If – IF – Labour votes against the measure, it will be for reasons of pure opportunism.
      This will be the equivalent of an alliance with Uncle Joe when Adolf wanted Russian oil.

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        Currently do what the overseeing politico’s are doing to a dozy herd, use one against the other.

        Prior to the murder of common sense this quote held good,

        “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is an ancient proverb which suggests that two parties can or should work together against a common enemy.

    2. Wrong approach. Using fear to engender consent never works. The right thing to do would be to demand identification to vote and end the blatant Left wing corruption of voting.

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        Currently both wings are on the same side of the United Kingdom torso in treachery mode, and via the polling booth voting pattern will continue to fly in ever decreasing circles until disappearing up its own politically engineered
        treasonable black hole.

        Left / right have taken a hike leaving right / wrong having a turf war, pass that on to any of the herd you find awake.

    1. A better question is when did people become so utterly stupid as to let software tell them what they could and couldn’t do.

          4. Other hits were “Walking back to Happiness” and “You don’t know (the way I feel)”.

  38. Was I too male and stale to host Just A Minute?
    I am pleased, relieved and truly very happy that my friend Sue Perkins is going to be in the chair – she’ll be brilliant

    Gyles Brandreth : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/radio-presenters/male-stale-host-just-minute/

    BTL

    I am not a fan of Sue Perkins and I shall never intentionally listen to ‘Just a Minute’ again.

    Brandreth is a witty, clever and affable idiot but he is far too long-winded for a programme which should conform to Shakespeare’s Polonius’s dictum that: ‘Brevity is the soul of wit.’

  39. Dunno if this has already been posted…

    We’ve made a tragic choice to enter a new era of permanent Covid terror

    The irrational shifting of goalposts means there is no logical end to this debilitating state of fear

    ALLISTER HEATH
    21 July 2021 • 9:30pm

    Welcome to Britain’s reign of permanent terror, Covid-style. We have become a nation addicted to fear, that relishes turning every triumph into a disaster, every hope into a worry, every freedom into a danger.

    We should be celebrating humanity’s brilliant, speedy defanging of a terrible new virus, the drastic reduction in its ability to kill, the millions of lives saved globally; instead, we are driving ourselves mad with an absurd pingdemic, a botched “freedom day”, holiday chaos and utter, abject confusion about the current risk posed by Covid. For reasons that defy comprehension, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chancellor, together with countless others, are all simultaneously in self-isolation. If that is victory, or an armistice, against the coronavirus, then what does defeat look like?

    The reality is that thanks to the vaccines, Covid, including in its Delta variant, has been downgraded and is on the verge of becoming normalised. It will now surely become endemic like influenza, which kills some 17,000 in England in an average year and often a lot fewer. Covid’s ongoing toll is likely to be roughly similar; a mature, embedded virus would not require contact tracing and endlessly pinging apps, but the adult population would need to remain up to date with vaccinations, including jabs configured to protect against the latest variants.

    Why, then, the continued panic? Why are so many still behaving as if we were in March 2020, when we looked on aghast at pictures of collapsing Italian hospitals, realising that our complacent world was about to be upended? The lure of turning back the clock, of the risk-free zero-Covid society, an impossibility even if every human being in the word were double-jabbed, looms large over our public consciousness.

    It shouldn’t. The radical reduction in the danger posed by the virus is primarily down to the fact that 68.8 per cent of over-18s in England are now double-jabbed. In addition, some 91.9 per cent of the adult population would test positive for antibodies, suggesting they have had the infection or are at least single-jabbed.

    Such elevated levels of protection 16 months after the start of the first UK lockdown would have been dismissed as hopelessly utopian last March, a time when some “experts” thought it might take up to a decade to invent, test and roll out a vaccine. The high rate of double-jabbing, and the programme’s massive bias towards older, more vulnerable people, is the reason why there are drastically fewer deaths at this stage of the third wave than there were last time around. There were just 68 fatalities in England announced on Wednesday.

    Yet this is still not good enough for the Zero Covid zealots. They deem even such low death numbers – which sadly, will continue to trend upwards for now – to be unacceptably high.

    Britain would never have locked down had the original wave been this mild, and yet there appears to be widespread support among swathes of the public for continuing with all sorts of precautions for as long as any risk of Covid remains – in practice, forever.

    The goalposts keep shifting in an entirely unreasonable, absolutist manner. We entered lockdowns because the Government feared 500,000 people would die; today, opponents of the “Freedom Day” measures would reimpose massive restrictions to avoid 1 per cent of that death toll or even less. Boris Johnson feared the NHS would implode, killing tens of thousands more; today’s Zero Coviders don’t want a single operation to be rescheduled or a single ward to be busy, even though the NHS’ structural flaws means this keeps happening.

    The original aim was to vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable, and then the over-60s before we could open up society again. Yet the more radical pro-lockdown voices first extended this to all over 40s, and then to everybody, including teenagers and perhaps even children, and in some cases not just in Britain but also abroad.

    They worry about Long Covid, and highlight that some of those who recover, including younger patients, suffer from persistent symptoms. While one must feel sorry for anybody in this condition, the scale of the issue doesn’t warrant maintaining or reimposing restrictions. The immuno-supressed are a greater problem, and more needs to be done to help them, but again not at the cost of reimposing restrictions.

    It is also possible that elevated case levels will accelerate the development of vaccine-escaping variants. This latter concern must be taken seriously, but the answer is for the Government to stand prepared to roll out further modified doses if this turns out to be the case. The jab needs to be authorised, mass-produced and distributed to millions extremely quickly.

    For such a rational, amazing species, we are singularly unable to assess risk correctly. This is at once a blessing and a debilitating pathology. We need mad gamblers: if Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk hadn’t believed, against all the odds, that they could be successful, the tech revolution would never have materialised, and neither would the age of private space travel. But errors work both ways: we can be too pessimistic as well as too optimistic. We were too relaxed about the risks of pandemics prior to 2020, and now many people are too scared about the threat of Covid today.

    Another quirk of our psychology is at play here, too. For good reason, we don’t treat all deaths equally. We are fine with some, but utterly outraged about others, depending on whether we believe the death to be in the “fair” category, or caused directly or indirectly by human agency. We are relatively relaxed about cancer fatalities, especially among the elderly; but will go to war for one single terrorist attack. This generally makes sense, but is a serious challenge when it comes to moving on from Covid.

    If we are to start learning to live with the virus, the public needs to accept that, like car crashes or heart attacks, some fatalities from Covid are inevitable. If Boris Johnson and his government keep being held responsible for every death from the virus, even when all those who want the vaccine have been double-jabbed, we will never break free from today’s fear-addled madness.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/21/made-tragic-choice-enter-new-era-permanent-covid-terro

  40. These are really disturbing figures for those who have been inoculated. A number of top independent doctors, scientists and virologists have warned that this scenario was probable and one or two have stated it as inevitable. If it is the onset of ‘antibody dependent enhancement, ADE’ then there is a real problem as all the evidence is that the inoculation and its effects cannot be undone.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1741bbdabe2f2f0520624264b44d7a736a2446c8235a1926a8cc966c5dcf37be.png

      1. I’ve just discovered (I missed a Zoom “reunion” for 50 years since graduation while I was stuck in traffic this evening) that Bercow is now Chancellor of Essex University!

    2. Morning! The VAERS reporting system in the US now shows 9048 vaxx fatalities. Vax programmes for genuinely deadly diseases have been shut down in the past for far less. Is there any wonder we speculate about the real motives behind all this?

    3. It might be because the most vulnerable are those who were the first to get two jabs.
      It isn’t encouraging, but then none of it is.

      1. It’s true that the unvaxxed are largely younger and/or healthier. Let’s hope this is the only effect.

  41. Good morning, everyone. Off to the Midlands tomorrow to celebrate Great Granddaughter’s second birthday having been locked down for her first.

    1. Good morning…so that’s two birthday presents and two birthday cakes. She will be delighted.

        1. When our grandson was being an absolute little tick – aged approx. 5 – he came up with the ideal excuse for his behaviour:
          “I’m having a sugar rush.”
          Cue grandparents desperately trying to maintain stern faces.

  42. Sigh…
    Attempting to communicate with Vale of Glamorgan council re Mother. She has mice. Vale SS have organised a rodent operative to go & fix, and I need to pay first. All good so far, but they have neglected to inform me of how much, and by what means (card, bank transfer, etc) I should pay.
    Called them just now as my emails asking this seem to cause nothing but a mailstorm of confusion, the main man is out, will call me on his return… except they don’t make calls to abroad. Why not? This issue comes up frequently, it’s like asking them to walk to Mars or something. So, I have to use email or hope to catch the man in the office.
    Oh, yes, and their email server doesn’t like my email address, either. 4/5 of my emails are blocked by the server.
    Does anything work over there?
    Sigh

    1. Why don’t you ask your Dorset friend if she wouldn’t mind making a few phone calls ..

      Delegating the task could be fruitful .

    3. Now imagine a situation where if the person doing the work didn’t get paid unless they did the work.

      Suddenly they’d respond to your messages. They’d mail you back, with a full email chain. And they’d do it quickly, and responsively. But you’re dealing with a council, where nothing is done because getting out of bed is hard work. Where serving the public comes long after making tea. Where emails go unanswered because having the morning half hour break is more important. Where the work will be there tomorrow because it’s 3:30 and they want to go home.

      1. Exactly.
        I’m working as a contractor just now. Paid by the hour worked, or part thereof. Me no workee, me no get paid. Simples.
        And that includes vacation, sick, training (unless demanded by Company)…

        1. At one time, the Sun employed more graduates than any other paper.
          Hence the punning headlines.

          2. Enjoyed the film at the time but surely Dustbin Hoffman was far too old to play the role.

          3. I enjoyed the film very much. So much so, that I kept asking my dad for a AR Spyder – no such luck’
            The stage production with Gerry Hall was rubbish, even though she took her kit off.

        1. that depends on whether the leash is removed on Abiy to send Ethiopian forces c/o Demented Joe into Nile Delta. Right now the focus is on Tigray

        1. Talking of female devils. I have known a few wicked ladies in my time but Theresa May is a She-Devil without any of the fun bits!

    1. My theory is ‘too rich to die’ Epstein is still very much alive, he simply had a dummy look alike stand in for him as the ‘body’ was removed from the jail.
      Why else would they have shown this scene.

    1. The devil doesn’t exist. Nor does a humanised god. Suggesting such allows man to avoid the fact that *he* is the source of evil. The biggest excuse man has is ‘god made me do it’. Hogwash. You, beardy pyjama wearer, wanted to kill thousands of people because you hate them. No other reason.

      1. I rarely wear pajama’s, and sleep nude or just in shorts most of the year except winter when I wear an old sort of long sleeved jogging shirt & trousers. As for killing people, last time I did that was in battle in October 1973 & they were trying to kill me ! Militant Atheists are of course among the biggest genocidal mass murderer’s on earth, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Min, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Jung-un Kim-Jung-il etc . As for God I have no idea if he exists or not, I want to believe that there is a good & loving God but I really don’t know if there is a God or not & nor do the worlds religious leaders, they just use his name to get money & power for themselves !

        1. “… sleep nude or just in shorts most of the year…” – waking only to briefly post on NTTL, before resuming slumber?
          ;-))

        2. Many people throughout the world simply use their god as an excuse for killing. The “my god is better than your god” syndrome is an extension of the school playground taunt, “my dad can lick your dad”.

      2. … and because they can.
        That feeling of power over people, literally over life & death… or even just being in a position to tell people what to do, and they generally do it!
        REmember that psychological experiment on students, where they gave electric shocks to victims – and kept on turning up the voltage until the tutors stopped it? That’s people: nasty, vicious, and no more civilised that a retarded chimpanzee.

      3. If you think “god made me do it” applies to the Christian faith, then you fail to understand Christianity.

    1. Stefan is well educated, most Americans aren’t. I was once told that England was off the coast of Kansas. For those not aware of their American geography, Kansas is landlocked

      1. At a swish gathering in California, the college educated wife of a very senior executive of Bechtel (the global Engineering and Construction company) insisted that the Sydney Harbour Bridge connected New Zealand to Australia. [The Tasman Sea, known as the Ditch, is approximately 1300 miles wide)

        1. Your comment is really right on. It is frightening when you think about it that these people are in control of the free world.

          1. Having a passport is unusual, too. Almost none leave the US to see what the rest of the world is like..

      3. I once told a friend in Norfolk that the fishmongers’ stalls, in my home town of Chesterfield, sold fresh cod and haddock daily.

        “Well, of course they do,” replied the friend, “They get them straight from the docks.”

    2. The slaughter of the indigenous natives was destructive, yes but it was 250 years ago, when Yankee land was barely a toddler.

      Since then it has come full circle to a free and prosperous nation the envy of the world to a ruinous, poverty stricken wasteland where the rich get even richer, the poor get poorer, the worker is forced on to a treadmill with ever fewer choices and the state gets ever bigger and authoritarian.

  49. 335700+ up ticks,
    The herd just prior to breaking into a full on gallop after receiving this
    herd manipulating prod from the overseers,

    Telegraph News Politics
    Live Politics latest news: Government ‘very concerned’ by supermarket empty shelves – but shoppers urged not to panic buy.

    🎵,
    See how they run…..

    1. Land of the free and home of the black bag brigade.

      Stalin did the same thing. As did Hitler, and Mao. Does she know this? Do they even realise just how vicious, spiteful and evil their regime is?

      1. Isn’t that Mrs. Clegg? Why would she worry?
        The nomenklatura are fine – thank you for asking.

        1. I admit i found it funny how ‘suddenly’ – the whatsapp fiddles and farcebook privacy controls were ‘exempt’ from the very GDPR laws people expected to protect them?

          What the hell did they think the corrupt Clegg is being paid £1m a year for?

  52. “Dominic Cummings revealed as rejecting the workings of democracy.” So, it seems, does Boris with his HS2 and crackpot Green policies that we never asked for as he merrily ruins the country with ridiculous pings project.

    1. Democracy is not a term governments are interested in. The UK certainly hasn’t got a democratic government run by the people and for the people.

    3. He is right though. Of all the industrialists, efficient, decent, honest and hard working people why do the effluent sink into politics?

      The wife considers the idea of running as a councillor equivalent to contracting some sort of fatal disease. They’re corrupt, nasty, useless, ineffectual, irrelevant and pompous half wits.

    4. I’ve watched a lot of his military history programmes. Every time I wonder why he’s presenting as he gets so much wrong. I wonder if he believes in the white privilege of nepotism and the media boys club?

    1. in 76 our houses were not insulated to the wazoo to ‘combat climate change’. There were also 25 million fewer people in the country.

  55. HMG in its entirety, all parliamentarians and most civil servants are technologically ignorant and financial neophytes (other than when it comes to lining their own pockets) as is illustrated by the story below.

    UK Microchip Plant Taken over by Communist China Was Developing British Military Tech: Report

    The UK’s largest microchip factory, which has been taken over by a firm backed by Communist China, has reportedly received millions in funding from the British government, including military research grants.

    Newport Wafer Fab (NWF), which was forced into selling its factory to Chinese-owned Nexperia after failing to meet its debt obligations earlier this month, has been reported to have been granted large-scale contracts from the British government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

    A whistleblower told CNBC that the semiconductor firm had received around £55 million ($75 million) to develop next-generation technologies, including defence contracts.

    “I don’t think anybody realized that there were a couple of defence-related projects in there,” the source told the news outlet.

    One of the contracts is said to have been a £5.4 million joint project with Cardiff University to develop radar systems for fighter jets. [i.e. HMG gave them a contract trying to keep them afloat but didn’t look at other components of the company’s finances – see underlined text below]

    The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, said: “Britain has paid for the research that makes Newport Wafer Fab a key partner in a U.K. government defence project. That’s why we need a complete review of the decision on national security grounds, including asking why the deal was initially waved through.”

    Mr Tugendhat added: “The U.K. and Welsh governments have spent tens of millions of pounds supporting compound semiconductor innovation in Wales — with NWF at the heart.

    “While there’s a global shortage, and Beijing has hopes to dominate the market, we need to be much clearer about our interests, not just company profits or rivals’ opportunities.”

    In 2019, the Dutch-based but Chinese-owned Nexperia entered into a contract with Newport Wafer Fab to support the firm in exchange for the British microchip putting up its factory as collateral.

    NWF reportedly attempted to raise the funds necessary to remain free from Chinese control earlier this year. However, they were unable to meet the terms of the contract and therefore had to cede control of their facility in Wales.

    Under the terms of the contract, Nexperia, which already held some stake in the firm, only had to pay out £63 million in order to take over the factory.

    An analyst at research firm Forrester, Glenn O’Donnell, said that the price tag for such a factory is “minuscule”, saying: “Most wafer fabs cost well over £1 billion. Even if this is older tech, this deal is ridiculously cheap.”

    Following widespread backlash and concern expressed about Communist China taking control of what many would consider a critical technology factory, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a review of the sale under national security laws.

    “We have to judge whether the stuff that they are making is of real intellectual property value and interest to China, whether there are real security implications,” Johnson said.

    Yet on Thursday, the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Research and Innovation Amanda Solloway said that the government is not currently planning on intervening to block the sale as it is not believed to be of national security concern.

    “It is right that commercial transactions are primarily a matter for the parties involved. The government has been in close contact with Newport Wafer Fab but it does not consider it appropriate to intervene in this case at the current time,” Solloway said.

    While the review has not been concluded, a Nexperia flag has already been hoisted above the factory’s entrance.

    Former Conservative Party leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said that the government is in an “unholy mess” in regards to the Chinese takeover.

    “I wonder in the course of this failure to make a decision did they look at what China thinks of semiconductors?” Sir Iain questioned.

    “China is the busiest exporter in the world and is busy buying up semiconductor technology everywhere it can find it,” he noted.

    The scandal comes amid increasing scrutiny over technology transfers from Britain to Beijing, with MI6 reportedly investigating “some of the most prestigious universities in the country” for working with Chinese weapons producers.

    Some 200 British academics are also allegedly under investigation from the security services for assisting the Communist nation in developing military tech, including cyberweapons, missile designs, and aircraft technology.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90da761026208209093601dcfe92245a839e33dfb9d45779ff3ac5acd0261c43.jpg

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/07/21/uk-microchip-plant-bought-by-china-developed-military-tech-report/

    1. Always obvious. When you make energy, fuel and food expensive, when councils see business as tax cows rather than employers, when state sees the worker as nothing but a tax statement, robbed for as much as they can get you’re going to have industry bought out and nothing can replace it. No one’s going to build a CPU manufacturer here, not with our energy prices and export and import duties, VAT and other such. We’re utterly uncompetitive.

    2. “Some 200 British academics are also allegedly under investigation from the security services for assisting the Communist nation in developing military tech, including cyberweapons, missile designs, and aircraft technology.”
      This could be unwittingly, or wittingly.
      Way back in the end of the 1980s, the lab I worked in carried out a great deal of materials testing for Sheffield Forgemasters. They sent us materials billets, we machined the samples, and tested them, and sent them the results.
      Turned out it was for the Iraqi Supergun… Oops. 🙁

      1. Remember the chorus of this song by my friend, Jeremy Taylor? Here is a version sung by a child. I see to my delight that he sang the chorus without it being expurgated. Poor old Jeremy had to call the sweets described in the chorus as bullseyes rather than the S A name for them. At one live performance he used the offensive term and instructed the audience saying: ‘I can see that some of you are worried by the ******-***** but don’t worry about them – just sing them’!

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC2aipsgLyI

        1. It took me a while to tune in, but I got it on the second chorus.

          In Germany, chocolate-coated marshmallows used to be known as ‘Negerköpfe’. ( Gibson’s dog-heads )
          or Mohrenköpfe ( Othello-heads ).

  56. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    Clean, potable water, for which you pay your water rates, comes out of a tap … in gallons!

    Even thinking of buying expensive water in a plastic bottle — which are produced daily in their billions, and which end up in landfill sites or choking the oceans — marks the species down as the most crassly stupid and idiotic organism to have ever evolved. No contest!

    Grizzly.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e45eedf235ff59cf0607dd01e6cb8252536d8ff4bcb9556d7145ad0012a26239.png

    1. To be perfectly blunt: I hope the butter, cream and confectionary aisles are empty.
      For her own good, natch.

        1. None of them make anyone fat. Even disregarding that, with a very small number of exceptions for genuine medical conditions, individuals make themselves fat by their choices, fat is due to the quantity that people eat not the food itself.

          A biscuit full of flour and sugar every day won’t make you fat. Eating a couple of packets everyday will.

          1. My very active, very small, wiry & light husband loves his biscuits, sugar and chocolate…….he never puts on any weight.

          5. Problem is, not many people eat sensibly. My point is that eating carbohydrates and sugars, in quantity, get converted, then laid down in the liver as brown fats. Any excess gets carried on the waist.

            When eating animal fats, they are processed by the body and excreted. They do not contribute to obesity.

    2. I remember in my yoof when I went to France for the first time, we had to buy water in bottles. It seemed that foreign countries had not perfected the supply of clean water and I was quite surprised. Now the whole country and oceans are littered with plastic and idiots are prepared to pay more for water than petrol. Pity St Greta does not have a view on something that could actually be solved.

      1. Now everywhere is littered with those cheap, blue plastic face masks. Greta is silent on this pollution.

        There’s no “climate emergency” but there’s definitely a pollution problem.

        1. Greta hasn’t anything about anything for quite a while. If she has, it passed by under my radar.

      2. On my first trip to France in 1953, I came across this Perrier water stuff . . . all fizzy with a funny taste
        I couldn’t understand why the French bought bottles of water to drink when it came out of the taps . .

    3. We could recycle 99.999 % of them. We barely recycle any.

      However, I am smug. I have re-used the same bottle for about 4 years.

  59. 335700+m up ticks,
    Firstly stop building on flood plains, secondly firstly, accommodate indigenous on social housing waiting list,

    We have always lived with floods & died,

    Louth flood of 1920
    29 May 1920
    The Louth flood of 1920 or Louth “cloud-burst” was a severe flash flooding in the Lincolnshire market town of Louth which occurred 29 May 1920, resulting in 23 fatalities in 20 minutes. It has been described as one of the most significant flood disasters in Britain and Ireland during the 20th century. Wikipedia
    Date: 29 May 1920
    Location: Louth
    Total number of deaths: 23
    Area affected: Louth

    1. Yes – it’s normal. Regrettable – but normal.
      The floods in Germany – disastrous for the people involved but a normal event exascerbated by the damming of rivers and the density of population.

      1. As we all know It’s happened here several times.
        And now in China. And deliberately no mention of climate change in that news item, they are the biggest single nation polluters on the planet

        I suspect when all the remaining rain forest have been obliterated from the planet, the clouds will gather where ever. There is no escape for the moisture in our atmosphere.

  60. My email to the minister Rishi Sunak and my local MP over two weeks ago.
    Reply to their email ‘Our Plan for Jobs is Working’ Possibly a typo might have meant Wokeing

    Dear Minister,

    Thank you for you communication.

    Would it be at all possible for the current government to please explain why there have been many, many thousands of illegal migrants allowed to land in the UK. I would imagine as genuine migrants would have, none of them never submitted one known application for legal residency or have any known way of self support what so ever, between any of the ten thousand plus arrivals. They have no verifiable Identity, only verbal explanations of where they have come from and what they might offer the country for the privilege of getting on the free housing ladder and their feet under the benefits tables. And British tax payers (as you know there is no such thing as government money) like the many Brits who have had their earnings severely cut and are expected with out any consultation whatsoever to support the illegal arrivals. Remembering your election promises, the Conservative party promised to stop all illegal migrants from entering the country and promised to return them to their countries of origin. The only people who are benefitting from this debacle are ‘human rights’ lawyers filling their bank accounts and now weighing down the many band wagons with the fake support, only to take advantage of the British tax payer funding by the back door. It has to stop Minister and most people expected it never to continue under the conservative government. The ‘lump under the proverbial carpet’ is certainly beginning to cause many, many future problems certainly stopping the exit door from opening.

    And of course there is the added and much discussed Carbon emissions problem, as people move from warmer climates to parts of northern Europe, their carbon footprints would immediately exceed all previous expectations. Adding to the know daily well publicised problems we all ready have in the UK. Building more homes on green belt and ‘brown field’ sites destroying long established wild life habitat will never be the answer, only the long term problem. Construction is as you probably know, is one of the least carbon friendly activities on the planet. Electric vehicles are not the answer, i think you already know this. For the survival of the human race this migration and building boom has to stop. The British isles has to focus on realty and become self sufficient.

    Buying in cattle from Australia is not the answer its and established fact the the Chinese have fallen out with the previous austral in cattle suppliers and have now been allowed to clear millions of acres of rain south American forest in order to increase their supplies of cheap beef. How does this help the planet ???

    Thanking you in anticipation and eagerly awaiting your explanation.

    Still waiting for an answer

    Now a hovering conservative voter, like many other people I know.

    1. A corker. I’ve reached the stage where I’m so angry, that I (temporarily) cannot be @rsed to write anything.

      1. I think their joint silence reflects that as I often say, they are all totally and utterly ‘effing useless.
        I hope the Whitehall spies are logged in to here now and read it. (pass it on chappies) 😉😎
        I have to ‘break cover’ and go out now to water our middle son’s (on holiday) tomato plants, as the well known saying goes. “I may be some time”.

        1. Very strangely enough a few minutes ago my PC shut down without any warning all.

          8. I’m not knowledgeable enough to even think what might have happened i did a Norton security scam as son as i could and nothing untoward was shown to have happened.

    2. We don’t need to become self sufficient. Trading globally is a positive thing.

      However on the population explosion that is a very serious issue – the people having children are not the ones you want to have children. They are doing so because of child benefit and housing benefit.

      Both need to end.

      1. This country could be but will never become as self sufficient as it once was, those political bastards are encouraging houses building all over the green belt and farm land. It’s has to stop. Their green carbon neutral rhetoric is all absolute BS.

  61. My email to the minister Rishi Sunak and my local MP over two weeks ago.
    Reply to their email ‘Our Plan for Jobs is Working’ Possibly a typo might have meant Wokeing

    Dear Minister,

    Thank you for you communication.

    Would it be at all possible for the current government to please explain why there have been many, many thousands of illegal migrants allowed to land in the UK. I would imagine as genuine migrants would have, none of them never submitted one known application for legal residency or have any known way of self support what so ever, between any of the ten thousand plus arrivals. They have no verifiable Identity, only verbal explanations of where they have come from and what they might offer the country for the privilege of getting on the free housing ladder and their feet under the benefits tables. And British tax payers (as you know there is no such thing as government money) like the many Brits who have had their earnings severely cut and are expected with out any consultation whatsoever to support the illegal arrivals. Remembering your election promises, the Conservative party promised to stop all illegal migrants from entering the country and promised to return them to their countries of origin. The only people who are benefitting from this debacle are ‘human rights’ lawyers filling their bank accounts and now weighing down the many band wagons with the fake support, only to take advantage of the British tax payer funding by the back door. It has to stop Minister and most people expected it never to continue under the conservative government. The ‘lump under the proverbial carpet’ is certainly beginning to cause many, many future problems certainly stopping the exit door from opening.

    And of course there is the added and much discussed Carbon emissions problem, as people move from warmer climates to parts of northern Europe, their carbon footprints would immediately exceed all previous expectations. Adding to the know daily well publicised problems we all ready have in the UK. Building more homes on green belt and ‘brown field’ sites destroying long established wild life habitat will never be the answer, only the long term problem. Construction is as you probably know, is one of the least carbon friendly activities on the planet. Electric vehicles are not the answer, i think you already know this. For the survival of the human race this migration and building boom has to stop. The British isles has to focus on realty and become self sufficient.

    Buying in cattle from Australia is not the answer its and established fact the the Chinese have fallen out with the previous austral in cattle suppliers and have now been allowed to clear millions of acres of rain south American forest in order to increase their supplies of cheap beef. How does this help the planet ???

    Thanking you in anticipation and eagerly awaiting your explanation.

    Still waiting for an answer

    Now a hovering conservative voter, like many other people I know.

  62. Class [mail included if anyone uses Virgin – the company that is]:

    An open letter congratulating the CEO of Virgin Media, Lutz Schueler for perfecting the art of completely ignoring customers.

    To Mr Lutz Schueler, CEO Virgin Media

    Email lutz.schueler@virginmedia.com

    Dear Lutz

    We must congratulate you on perfecting the fine art of ripping off consumers. It’s astounding what you’ve achieved in terms of making Virgin’s grand scam sustainable – to over-employ the market’s current buzz-word. Your plan is blindingly simple and obvious, no one has noticed: don’t let customers communicate their complaints, therefore giving the impression Virgin all works perfectly.

    Your customer communications policy is genius, and I wish I’d thought of it…

    Its so simple: If a customer is unhappy, guide them into an endless labyrinth of meaningless chat-bot discussions, leave them on terminal death hold waiting to speak to customer service staff, and remove any and all ways for customers to contact the firm. It’s the cap-stone of a marvellous business model; suck in the punters with the promise of high speed Broadband, fit equipment that doesn’t work, don’t give them any opportunity to complain, keep charging full fees and don’t ever let them leave.

    Customers can only respond in one of three ways:

    Get so frustrated they have a heart-attack and die.

    Get so frustrated they give up and let Virgin keep ripping them off

    Or

    Get angry and write lots of very angry letters telling Virgin how angry they are, which isn’t a problem as Virgin will just ignore them anyway.

    The way you’ve handled our problems has been almost perfectly frustrating.

    Let’s see, what have been the highlights of our 3 month Odyssey of frustration and pain? Deliver us a new broadband system in April, which didn’t work. Send round an engineer to repair it – which he didn’t. Send round another engineer to repair it again, who said it was a cable problem. Send round some contractors to look at the cable – which they didn’t because it was under the ground and it’s not their job to dig it up. Send round another team who did dig up the cable and said it was bust. Send round another team to fix the cable, which they didn’t. Send round a team to fix the cable – which our builders had done for them by putting it in an armoured sheath under the drive – and pronounce it does work. Send round an engineer to agree the cable works, but the hub doesn’t. Send round another engineer to replace the broken hub the previous engineer had fitted. Send round another engineer to put new bits on to make that hub work.

    When the broadband still didn’t work – an intermittent fault said the chat bot before switching me off – another engineer was sent round. He didn’t show up – a neat refinement in raising my frustration level to 11 after taking a day off work to wait for him. Despite not showing up he still managed to complete a “problem resolved” report on the internal automated customer problem report site – which is remarkably efficient. I was told that by a chat-bot, which then switched me off. Case closed.

    Equally efficient is the speed at which you have addressed the multiple customer complaints we filed – each one has been diligently investigated by Virgin and recorded as “resolved” – sometimes within minutes of us making the complaint – which from Virgin’s perspective is a massive confidence boosting verification the system works, but is less satisfying for us as our Broadband still doesn’t work.

    We’ve tried to communicate – and congratulations to your whole team for not giving a flying feather. We’ve spent hours being asked pointless questions online by chat bots – using our phones as mobile hotspots (which works perfectly adequately by the way). The ultimate in self-flagellation is to actually call – in which case we’ve been treated to a 40 min hold listening to punishment music before being put through to some poor-tele-worker who explains it’s not his fault before putting us on terminal death hold waiting to put through to a technical department we don’t believe actually exists. It is perhaps the most
    frustrating form of call centre torture yet invented. Its brilliantly painful, costs Virgin little and reduces customers who dare to complain the frothing-at-the-mouth imbeciles.

    What makes the Virgin coms scam simply perfect is nowhere on the multiple websites is there any mention of customer complaints, an email to send emails to be ignored at, or even an old fashioned address. Instead every single customer engagement is carefully scripted to be circular and maddening. Genius, pure genius.

    It’s perfect… In Virgin Media no one can hear you scream because no one is listening.

    So Lutz, how can we profit further from Virgin’s success in divorcing itself from its paying customers? Perhaps you should think about taking your skills to be CEO at a bank, an airline or an online retailer. All of them are pretty good at ignoring customers, but your skills would take them up to Virgin’s level – actually removing customers from the equation. As I said.. genius.

    The only small fly in the ointment.. is… well, we actually do need Broadband so we can work from home, keep in contact with family, and well, buy things from the internet. Just thinking out loud… but if we, and all the others of equally frustrated Virgin customers, can’t access the net to spend our furlough pay… then other companies and investors might suddenly twig that Virgin is causing the collapse of Western Capitalism, in which case the stock market price will collapse, and you, dear Lutz, will be out on your ear..

    Let us hope things don’t ever get so bad you have to use Virgin Broadband…

    So, please accept our congratulations on your contempt for your fellow humans – it’s the only way forward for modern media and tech – and feel free to keep up the good work by ignoring this letter in the same spirit as your company has ignored us…

    Fondest wishes

    Bill and Nicky Blain

    1. Respect. I wish I’d written that. Though without being involved with Virgin Media in the first place.

    2. Cancel your contract? I guarantee they’ll never leave you alone then. Another option is to ignore the Virgin syste and just go to the ombsudsman. As it’s stuffed with BT types they’ll love attacking a rival.

      All utilities are rubbish. The smaller ones are better than the bigger, but fundamentally their sole intent is to ignore the customer as much as possible.

  65. Lightening things up a little.

    If you believe all this will end and we will get back to normal once we reopen everything…raise your hand. Now slap yourself with it.

    Having some states lock down and some states not lock down is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.

    Another Saturday night in the house and i just realised, even the garbage goes out more than I do.

    Day 27 at home and the dog is looking at me like to say, “See, this is why I chew the furniture.”

    I think i’m finally being grounded for everything i didn’t get caught for when i was a teenager.

    The spread of COVID 19 is based on two factors:

    1. How dense the population is.

    2. How dense the population is.

    I’m so excited to take the garbage out I wonder what i should wear?

    Remember all those times when you wished the weekend would last forever. Well, wish granted. Happy now ?

    Anyone else getting a tan from a light in the fridge?

    Day 7 of social Distancing: Struck up a conversation with a spider today. Seems nice, he’s a web designer.

    It may take a village to raise a child, but i swear it’s going to take a whole vineyard to home-school one.

    1. Has Grizz posted his daily human stupidity piece yet? The population is remarkably, irredeemably dense.

      1. Afternoon, Sue.

        It has an accompanying photo of a woman buying bottled water in a supermarket.

  66. Caroline has just returned from the hairdresser.

    Her coiffeuse runs her own business with one assistant trimmer and is very pissed off. However her assistant has tennis elbow and cannot work and so is on sick leave. For the past three months 50% of her wages are being paid by the state and 30% by her employer but, without an extra hair cutter the business is making far less money and it can ill afford paying for a person who is not there. Meanwhile the employee is loving Covid – no work to do and 80% of her income still coming in. She has been seen swimming and, ironically, playing tennis.

    The great reset clearly wants to stamp out small businesses entirely both in France and the UK. In April 2023 corporation tax will rise to 25% in UK and HMRC has already declared that they propose to hit the self-employed especially hard.

    Does anybody still believe that the Conservative Party is the party for business and private enterprise? But if it is not then what the hell is it for?

    1. They’re all playing the same tune, Rastus.

      This is what global governance has done. Forget small businesses (sorry) the global governance party is only in it to line their own pockets – they care not a jot or a tittle for the likes of us.

    2. A friend from a car club is having a large area block paved by a builder he knows. He tells me he’s saving money because 2 of the 3 workers are on furlough from a construction company. I didn’t believe him at first, there seeming to be no shortage of demand near me, and I was gobsmacked to learn that there are some 250,000 construction workers being paid by me and other taxpayers to sit on furlough, a large proportion almost certainly working cash-in-hand.
      Eg https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/hr-skills-news/furloughed-construction-workers/89886/

    4. Politicians only do what hey feel like doing, they are paid for doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.
      It’s very painful I had tennis elbow years ago and was self employed I had to get to back work and the Doc who gave me the cortisone injections said, you will be amazed how quickly self employed people get over their ailments. Still good from the treatment over 25 years ago.

      1. I had golfers elbow some years ago which was treated with an injection as you were. I had to go back for a 2nd jab about 5 months later when it flared up again, but it has been OK for 30 odd years now.

        1. I think I had a top up. At the early stages I couldn’t pick up anything with my right hand.

      2. I had tennis elbow when I was a schoolmaster. This was caused by windsurfing. I didn’t take any time off work but went to a physiotherapist who gave me a sort of sonic treatment. A metal plate connected to an electricity source sent tonal vibrations through my body but it took over a year to clear up completely.

    5. Politicians only do what hey feel like doing, they are paid for doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.
      It’s very painful I had tennis elbow years ago and was self employed I had to get to back work and the Doc who gave me the cortisone injections said, you will be amazed how quickly self employed people get over their ailments. Still good from the treatment over 25 years ago.

    7. 335700+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      OK, wheres the bloody ship gone says the parrot to the magician,
      What conservative party is that then ?
      There is nothing in the governance political structure
      nor has there been for the last three decades even
      approaching a genuine Conservative party.

      The sad thing is in many cases the peoples are
      knowingly supporting / voting for a ersatz tory (ino) party.

  67. I had to laugh at Japan’s being quick off the blocks in the virtue-signalling olympics: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/22/tokyo-olympics-opening-ceremony-director-fired-old-holocaust/

    As much as jokes about the Holocaust are distasteful, the founder of the Paralympics being a Jew adding spice, perhaps Japan would be better off sorting it’s vicious behaviour during WW2, the continuing veneration of its most brutal war criminals and repeated snubbing of apologies and reparations to its innocent victims.

  68. I had a phone conversation from a good old child hood buddy. I asked how his family were and one of his daughters is a sixth form teacher………..her and hubby as well. They are taking their children and going on a well deserved family holiday to the west country after the trauma of being not just teachers but ‘resident social workers’ (maybe wokers) and shrinks.
    Both fed up to the eyeballs with it all.
    As we both agreed, when we were younger still at school people had enough inbuilt determination and just got on with it.

    1. It must have been a nightmare over the last 18 months just trying to make some attempt at education with all the disruption that been imposed. There’s now a generation of children with a huge gap in their education which will probably never be filled.

  69. Most of the Royal Navy’s destroyers are unavailable for deployment
    LONDON – Five of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers are unavailable for deployment, leaving just one warship in the class capable of operations, defense procurement minister Jeremy Quin acknowledged this week.

    Four of the Type 45s currently unavailable are in various stages of maintenance or upgrade. The remaining warship out of action, HMS Diamond, ran into technical problems earlier this month while escorting a Royal Navy–led carrier strike group on a deployment to the Indo-Pacific region.

    The one operational destroyer in the fleet, HMS Defender, is helping provide air defense cover to the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and other warships in a group which includes U.S. and Dutch vessels.

    At present HMS Daring, HMS Duncan and HMS Dragon are docked, undergoing maintenance.

    HMS Dauntless is undergoing an essential power improvement program. The first of the class to be fitted with the power propulsion update, the ship is expected to start sea trials later this year.

    Although the MoD has not specified the exact cause of the problems which forced HMS Diamond to head for port it’s likely to be related to longstanding power and propulsion reliability issues with the otherwise highly capable anti-air destroyer.

    Several reports in recent years have detailed propulsion breakdowns leaving Type 45s without power when the ship is deployed to areas with high temperatures.

    Read the full article here: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/07/21/most-of-the-royal-navys-destroyers-are-unavailable-for-deployment/

  70. DT headline

    Government ‘very concerned’ by empty shelves – but shoppers urged not to panic buy

    IDIOTS – what does HMG think the GBP’s reaction to that plea will be?

    2. MB has just returned from a trip to the tip: no queues.
      At the petrol station however ……………

      1. Good afternoon Anne – Diesel up another 1p /litre this morning Now £1.37/litre. Petrol £1.34. We are getting the boil a frog treatment.

        1. I’ve just topped up the camper after I got home – diesel was 128.9ppl. Far cheaper than in Lincolnshire!

    3. 335700+ up ticks,
      Afternoon C,
      Just a herd preparatory prod to stir the herd,watch for the pattern. ( when mini deflection is needed) next is the trot, ( amber) leading to the full gallop triggered by an instant chaff alert ( major treachery cover) the
      toilet tissue issue was in that category,

      The electorate was put into full gallop on a fictional
      sh!te storm occurring only to have some of the herd
      returning ( unused) rolls for refund once they stopped running in fear.

    4. Just had my Waitrose order delivered by an unmasked driver.

      Two of the Charlie Bighams items were short date so i got them free. A beef Bourguignon and a Chicken and bacon pie. £15 off the bill. Result.

    5. They want us to panic, I reckon, to push the whole drama. Another loo paper stampede is what they’re after.

  71. Cat news:

    Thank you all for your comments. Pickles was badly bitten on his off-side rear leg. A fight, we suppose, during the night. He can’t put any weight on the injured leg.

    Went to vet at opening time. Nothing broken. Anti-biotic to reduce swelling (and kill bacteria). Pain killer. Needless to say, he does not take easily to “being quiet and having bed-rest”.

    Gus was clearly concerned – and tried to help by patting him…

    Carolyn and I are the worst affected…. Takes it right out of one.

    1. But… but… why didn’t you have to wait a week for a telephone triage, Bill? Do you have some secret hold over the vet taht got Pickles seen within the morning? Please tell!
      Glad it’s not a break – he’ll be fine shortly, I hope.
      Medicine for the two of you, though.

      1. It’s called a credit card, Paul. At vet for 20 mins – two small packs of pain-killer and antibiotic = £87.

      2. Our Springer has an injured leg and we had an immediate consultation with the vet.

      1. Strangely enough, ’twas no problem with Dotty. She thought they were “treats” and just gobbled them up.

      2. We fed Big Cat his pills by using Cat Toothpaste (he loves it!) to stick the pill to a cat treat and give him the two together. He’d scoff them down without a thought.
        No claw marks nor bites – and, as a 10kg cat, he could likely rip off our heads and shit in our necks if he wanted to!

      3. The good news that they are a “palatable” fluid – just stick a dropper in the mouth. He is rewarded with a snippet of cheese.

        Pills would have been a nightmare. A former cat, Bob, needed a tablet every day. One day I swore he had swallowed it…he even licked his nose – which is a sign. Then found the damn tab under the washing machine….

        1. Bill, get one of these, they work really well. Since I got one pill taking for my cat has been pretty easy compared with the battle royal it used to be.
          https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/383941431391?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=7101533165274578&mkcid=2&itemid=383941431391&targetid=4585169652812020&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=&poi=&campaignid=412354547&mkgroupid=1305120599331881&rlsatarget=pla-4585169652812020&abcId=9300541&merchantid=87779&msclkid=ae9b2f4833a3185e271a4fb16bc6a0ba

          2. Even with one of those you will still find the pill under the washing machine. With the added danger of choking on the pill.

            Crush the pills and mix through their favourite treat.

          3. Marmite worked with earlier cats – unless the medication tasted horrible.

          4. Cats wont choke on the pill because the structure of their throat is different from ours. I know that because I was concerned about exactly the same thing until I looked it up. So if you place the pill to the back at the root of the tongue they can’t spit it back up and have to swallow it. Before I used one of these things it was, spitting, growling and claws. Now he is used to the pill dispenser it’s as easy as pie.

        2. When Oscar needed paracetamol it came in liquid form, thankfully. I didn’t fancy having to force a pill past those teeth!

    3. Thanks, Bill. So pleased it’s not too bad. Reminds of Dotty at about 6 months, whose (poorly-executed (long story)) spaying resulted in a hernia. “Keep her still and quiet for a month.” Fat chance!

          1. I think Gus is suffering from shock.

            I am convinced that he saw what happened to Picks.

            Gus hasn’t been more than 20 yards from the house – and always wants to be near his brother..

    7. The anxiety knocks you for six, doesn’t it. Poor Pickles! Hope the wound heals quickly. Can he be kept indoors?

      1. Thanks, Sue,

        He will be – he isn’t keen – but the antibiotic makes him drowsy. So far, so good… Five days to go…

    8. Glad to hear he’s been treated and will be ok.
      We had two visits to the vet in one day when we first moved here – both cats (Pat & Joe) had been badly beaten up and bitten by “the grey bruiser” from the farm below which had taken over the territory of our garden while the house was empty.

      Lily spent the night outside last night for the first time since we adopted her almost two years ago – we’re still paranoid about her being out in the dark since Suzie disappeared one evening. Lily refused to come in and nothing was going to change her mind.

    9. His first fight! What a rite of passage.
      I trust you have ordered him a suit from Burtons for his first court appearance?

    1. We had a U3A day trip to Sandringham a few years ago and my first impressions of the building were similar to that of a Victorian asylum. I liked Charlie’s old Royal Blue MGC GT in the garage ’round back’. And the grounds were very pleasant.

      1. I visited Sandringham. As you turn off the A road on to the estate one can see what our country could look like. Beautifully cut verges. A diverse assortment of ornamental trees. Peaceful and quiet.

        1. It’s such a massive estate perhaps they should encourage a few migrants to live there………………..

        2. I’ve only visited the Sandringham Stud, but it’s even better than Dalham Hall and Shadwell (in terms of quality of boxes, buildings and general tidiness).

  74. Oh, market day news. Only handful of masks in the streets. But virtually everyone masked in both Tesco and Morrisons. Except me.

    2. Had that in Tesco yesterday. I didn’t stick out too much as masklrdd but I was in small minority.

      Nobady standing at the door being officious, though, so that was a plus.

    3. The National Health Charity vultures are parked outside the main doors of the local Morrisons and indulging in aggressive begging. Which I ignore!

    4. The National Health Charity vultures are parked outside the main doors of the local Morrisons and indulging in aggressive begging. Which I ignore!

    5. Ditto only me Tesco in Royston, (very north Herts) and one other 30-ish year old woman. Quite a few members of staff without them though.

      1. I was the only one indoors at the Petwood unmasked! You had to book a table and the people arriving for their appointments were masking up outside. Freedom day at the Dambusters’ Mess.

    6. Westfield White City mall appears about a third unmasked but we have a lot of “BAMES” around here and they’re more defiant than the cowed and docile natives.

  75. The Pope has taken an almighty risk. 21 July 2021.

    In the past week, the arguments have begun again with Pope Francis’ announcement of tight restrictions regarding what is called the Old Rite of Mass. This was the Mass that people were familiar with before the Second Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s, namely the Mass said in Latin with the priest celebrating with his back to the congregation. Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, made it much easier for people who preferred Old Rite Masses, rather than the service said in the vernacular, and with modernised rituals, to attend.

    This guy is a Catholic as Welby is an Anglican. They are both Globalist moles!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/22/pope-has-taken-almighty-risk/

    1. I used to think that nobody could ever we a worse Archbishop of Canterbury than Rowan Williams. How wrong I was – Welby is truly the antichrist.

    2. Thanks for posting Minty

      A generous and growing number of BTL comments ranging from the bumptious to the blasphemous.

      Quentin Quentin
      22 Jul 2021 8:42AM
      What I find troubling is that Francis goes out of his way to wrap his arms around just about anyone. Oh you’re a pagan? No problem, come on over here let me give you a hug. See we can all be friends. Oh you support abortion? Buddhism? Islam? LGBT? Same applies come over here, warm hugs, the mercy of Christ, permissible will of God etc etc. Then he sees those pious catholic’s with their Latin mass, dressed nicely, kneeling for communion, saying their rosaries, praying, chanting and singing in Latin and then it’s “away from me you rigid breed of malcontents, away I say, begone to where you are unwelcome and unseen. This is pretty much it. He fits the leftist world view perfectly and that is as a leftist he cannot tolerate conservatives. That is and i It is so saddening but then leftists cannot stop themselves injecting their politics into everything. The man has done enormous damage.

    4. I wonder which global philanthropist/foundation is funding this nonsense?

  77. This rather obsure article is of little relevance to anyone other than left-footers, active or lapsed (e.g. moi). However, many NoTTLers will be delighted to hear that the Argentinian Marxist is getting a bit of a bloody nose. [With unlimited apologies to Stig for the slur against Stevenage]

    Tim Stanley
    Pope Francis is losing his culture war
    22 July 2021, 11:11am

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blte0263cc851092482/60f94397429fb95880e58cd5/PopeFrancis.png?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

    Since I wrote about the Pope’s declaration of war on the Old Rite, something unexpected and beautiful has happened. Many bishops have held the line. Far from all: some have gleefully welcomed the opportunity to extinguish the pretty rite, and intellectual justification has come, predictably, from the Jesuits, who haven’t been sound since The Exorcist. But so many other bishops have judiciously, almost seditiously, chosen to interpret the Pope’s instruction to the letter while ignoring its spirit, and given immediate dispensation to the priests who already say it to continue. Others, I’m told, have written or telephoned Old Rite-saying priests to offer personal comfort and reassurance. This is how you quietly turn the tide in a culture war. Ignore the bullies.

    Why would the bishops – including friends of Francis – do this? Because he took them by surprise. He insulted them. Francis always said he wanted a ‘synodal church’ that proceeded by debate and consensus, but this was a bolt from the blue: could it be that all along synodality was a way of imposing liberal reform from the centre under the guise of consultation?

    Second, whatever these men thought of the Old Rite 14 years ago, it’s been active in their dioceses for a while now and they can no longer see any harm in it. In fact, so-called traddy priests are some of the hardest working. Why should an overburdened bishop want to upset or antagonise good priests or laity over a debate that was resolved yonks ago – or so the Vatican has long insisted?

    Some readers of my previous column complained that I didn’t explain for a non-Catholic the distinctions between Old and New Rites, but that’s sort of the point. Beyond the externals, the official line is that they don’t exist. The Old Rite is all-Latin, the priest faces away from the people, the congregation, one might say, witnesses rather than actively participates, yadayada – but though much of the liturgy was reformed in the 1970s, the genius of Catholic tradition is to keep and advance ancient principles through new methods, to tweak the outward appearance of a liturgy, by saying it in English or facing the congregation, while maintaining internal meaning and historical coherence.

    This was Benedict XVI’s reading of it, anyway. In 2007, when he issued the Summorum Pontificum, permitting wider use of the Old Rite, he didn’t mean it as a comment on the New Rite but, on the contrary, to reassert that the two Rites have the same heritage, same validity and can even enrich the other – and Heaven knows, aspects of Church life had grown utilitarian and sterile. I am personally of the view that one of the best qualities of Catholicism, one of the things that attracted me to it, is that it is beautiful. This is not mere aesthetics: like St Thomas digging his finger into Christ’s side, humans have a desire to see in order to believe, and religious beauty helps us come closer to God through sensual experience. This is the philosophy of most of the Catholic priests saying the Old Rite: far from being Looney Tunes schismatics, as Francis seems to imagine, they want to restore and revivify the whole Church, and by encouraging the Old Rite in a whole new social context, add something to our appreciation of the New.

    Benedict, in short, gifted the Church the conditions for greater unity. It is Francis who has threatened disunity by assuming there is controversy where for 99 per cent of Catholics there was none, and Francis who has reignited debate about the liturgy, not the trads. The Benedictine consensus was that the New Rite had strong roots in the Old, but if one disinherits the Old, then what is the basis for the New? Are we saying that sometime in the 1970s the Catholic Church just invented an entirely new liturgy, that this was Year Zero in the history of Catholicism? Such an idea has profound implications for the Church’s authority today.

    Francis behaves like a man in a tree, angrily sawing off the branch upon which he sits. It all defies common sense. He could’ve wedded Benedict’s theory of the development of tradition to his own, superb project of stressing the Church’s pastoral role, but he turned out to have limited regard for the pastoral needs of priests and no intention whatsoever of ‘accompanying’ those who want the Old Rite, or probably even those who simply want a bit of beauty. Throughout history, theological radicals have assumed that they know what the poor want better than they do themselves, and in their eagerness to remake the world to suit the image in their mind of a poor person’s utopia, one always ends up making everything look drab and depressing (consider Stevenage). The end of history, if the progressives have anything to do with it, will have no colour, no perfume, no gilt, no joy. I am reminded of Mark Twain’s insistence that if there’s no smoking in Heaven, he’d rather not go.

    The bishops have shown greater sensitivity for human need, particularly that of their priests, some of whom – I know this because they’ve told me – feel their relationship with their bishop has been renewed. More bishops, I hope, will proceed in this fashion. There is however, one very important extra thing to do.

    They must commit to giving the Old Rite a future. The diplomatic response to the Pope’s instruction is to preserve it in the present by giving the green light to priests who already say it, but the seminaries are bursting with young men who want to say it, too – and if Benedict was right, and if tradition flows like the River Tiber from the Old to the New Rite, one cannot logically deprive them of the right to do just that. Cardinal Zen made the crucial point that what rite people attend is far less significant than the fact that fewer and fewer Western Catholics attend church at all, and reversing that trend will require genuine unity, pastoral care and a much greater concern for liturgical excellence. The Church should draw people to it, like the sun.

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

    Jim Packer • an hour ago
    “and intellectual justification has come, predictably, from the Jesuits, who haven’t been sound since The Exorcist.”

    What do you get when you graft the head of a Jesuit onto the body of a Spiritual Franciscan? A Protestant who was at Vatican II when they were handing out guitars. Possibly a member of Pink Floyd or The Yoko Ono Band.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/pope-francis-is-losing-his-culture-war

  78. Thursday morning UK news briefing: Pingdemic disrupts food supplies. 22 July 2021.

    Shelves are beginning to empty. Supermarket supply chains are “starting to fail” because the “pingdemic” is sending thousands of workers into isolation, food industry leaders have warned.

    Basic supplies are running low in certain areas and some petrol stations are out of fuel as the NHS Test and Trace app threatens to bring parts of the economy to a standstill.

    Well I’ve just returned from a trip to Morrisons and they show no sign of shortages at all except for Highland Spring bottled water and that’s been short for nearly two weeks!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/22/thursday-morning-uk-news-briefing-todays-top-headlines-telegraph/

  79. 618,903 pinged to self isolate in Pingerland yesterday.
    It’s lockdown Jim but not as we know it.

    1. “I dannae if she can take any more, Captain!”

      I think we need a new bank of dilithium crystals!

      1. What do you think , Spock, Spock, where’s Spock?
        In isolation Captain with Lieutenant Uhura

        1. “Helm Officer Sulu, set warp factor 10!
          We must do all we can to outrun the Pingons!”

    2. “I dannae if she can take any more, Captain!”

      I think we need a new bank of dilithium crystals!

  80. Kurt Westergaard: champion of free speech. Spiked. 22 July 2021.

    Islamists tried to kill him over his infamous Muhammad cartoon. But he was uncowed to the end.

    Raise a glass this evening to Kurt Westergaard. He spoke his mind via his drawings and did not compromise or run away when confronted by the enemies of free speech. May his principled stand inspire others.

    Well neither his cartoon nor anything close to it has ever appeared in any Western MSM outlet since. If anything shows the utter decadence of the West it is this unwillingness, well blatant cowardice actually, to confront Islam. This has only been recently illustrated with the response to the events in Batley. Not one MP of any persuasion let alone a Cabinet Minister could be found to speak up on behalf of this teacher who did nothing more than follow his instructions. This in itself is quite staggering, they make the Appeasement Parliaments of the Nineteen Thirties look like unhinged warmongers.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/22/kurt-westergaard-champion-of-free-speech/

    3. As a boy I would cycle along the towpath from Widcombe locks to Bathampton. My bicycle was a Palm Beach with straight handlebars and white-walled tyres.

      My eldest sister worked at Harbutt’s plasticine Works by the canal on the other side. It has been a good year for Hollyhocks.

      1. I cycle that route fairly frequently these days and often on from Widcombe to Southdown (although I can’t mange the one mile uphill climb on the bike!)

        1. Ah, Ralph Allen’s Drive to Combe Down from Widcombe Manor was difficult.

          I reckon the new tunnel route from Lyncombe Vale through to Moorfields and then Englishcombe Lane to Southdown a possibility.

          I have not checked it out as have not been back to Bath for years but read about it. We were scared to walk too far into the abandoned rail tunnel as boys principally because bigger boys (Oldfield Rats) had the habit of fighting with outsiders.

  83. Oh dear. This cautionary pome sprang to mind.

    “Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
    Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
    It is the business of the wealthy man
    To give employment to the artisan.”

    “First death from mining Bitcoin

    Danai Makmek, 26, in Thailand is the latest in a string of industrial accidents caused by unregulated Bitcoin mining

    22 July 2021 • 7:00am

    It has been described as the digital world’s Gold Rush, a virtual Klondike where all comers can get rich.

    But despite sitting behind a computer terminal rather than digging in frozen Alaska, prospectors to the craze of “Bitcoin mining” are learning that it too can be a hazardous trade.

    In what is believed to be the industry’s first fatality, a bit-coin “miner” died has died after his computer exploded during an attempt to increase its power and allow him to mine more Bitcoins.

    The death of Danai Makmek, 26, in Thailand is the latest in a string of industrial accidents caused by unregulated Bitcoin mining, in which practitioners often rig up dozens of computers that then cause power overloads.

    Bitcoin mining is a process by which the virtual currency “crowdsources” hundreds of thousands of volunteers worldwide to verify digital transactions and ensure that they are legal. In return for completing sets of verified transactions, the volunteers – known as “miners” – earn quantities of Bitcoins.

    The cottage industry has attracted large numbers of recruits, some of whom claim to earn hundreds of dollars a day. But because of the heavy computer power required to verify the transactions, many “miners” harness multiple computers together to increase the earnings. That has to concerns that the practice, if unregulated, is only potentially dangerous but also harmful to the environment.

    Mr Makmek was reported to have been distraught after his sprawling banks of computers developed problems with their hard drives. Rather than waiting for a technician to fix the devices the following day, he attempted to repair them on his own, causing a blast that electrocuted him.

    His brother Apiwat said that he found him dead on Wednesday morning when he and the technician went to Mr Makmek’s room. He was slumped over a computer wearing only a pair of shorts.

    “The computer was modified to give it more power,” Apiwat said. “I do not think it was safe but my brother had built it himself for Bitcoin mining, which he really liked.”

    Santi Shoosheud, a local police colonel, said: ‘We believe he attempted to fix the broken machine on his own and was electrocuted.”

    The accident will highlight concerns over the lack of regulation of Bitcoin mining, the majority of which is currently done in Asia, which has cheap sources of technologically-literate labour. Although it can be a source of employment, China, which is currently home to around two-thirds of Bitcoin miners, wants to crack down on the practice, amid concerns about the amount of energy it consumes.

    According to one study by Cambridge University, Bitcoin uses more electricity annually than the whole of Argentina.

    Previous Bitcoin mining accidents have included an inferno that destroyed a block of flats near Vladivostok in eastern Russia, where one resident had illegally plugged his computers into the block’s main electricity supply.

    The value of Bitcoins has halved since its peak earlier this year, thanks to the Chinese crackdown on mining and the prospect of further financial regulation. On Tuesday, the European Union announced proposals that would oblige firms transferring bitcoin and other crypto-currences to collect senders’ and recipients’ details in order to counter money-laundering.

    Providing anonymous crypto-asset wallets will also be prohibited, just as anonymous bank accounts are already banned under EU anti-money laundering rules.

    EU states and the European Parliament have the final say on the proposals, meaning it could take two years for them to become law.”

  84. Oh dear. This cautionary pome sprang to mind.

    “Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
    Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
    It is the business of the wealthy man
    To give employment to the artisan.”

    “First death from mining Bitcoin

    Danai Makmek, 26, in Thailand is the latest in a string of industrial accidents caused by unregulated Bitcoin mining

    22 July 2021 • 7:00am

    It has been described as the digital world’s Gold Rush, a virtual Klondike where all comers can get rich.

    But despite sitting behind a computer terminal rather than digging in frozen Alaska, prospectors to the craze of “Bitcoin mining” are learning that it too can be a hazardous trade.

    In what is believed to be the industry’s first fatality, a bit-coin “miner” died has died after his computer exploded during an attempt to increase its power and allow him to mine more Bitcoins.

    The death of Danai Makmek, 26, in Thailand is the latest in a string of industrial accidents caused by unregulated Bitcoin mining, in which practitioners often rig up dozens of computers that then cause power overloads.

    Bitcoin mining is a process by which the virtual currency “crowdsources” hundreds of thousands of volunteers worldwide to verify digital transactions and ensure that they are legal. In return for completing sets of verified transactions, the volunteers – known as “miners” – earn quantities of Bitcoins.

    The cottage industry has attracted large numbers of recruits, some of whom claim to earn hundreds of dollars a day. But because of the heavy computer power required to verify the transactions, many “miners” harness multiple computers together to increase the earnings. That has to concerns that the practice, if unregulated, is only potentially dangerous but also harmful to the environment.

    Mr Makmek was reported to have been distraught after his sprawling banks of computers developed problems with their hard drives. Rather than waiting for a technician to fix the devices the following day, he attempted to repair them on his own, causing a blast that electrocuted him.

    His brother Apiwat said that he found him dead on Wednesday morning when he and the technician went to Mr Makmek’s room. He was slumped over a computer wearing only a pair of shorts.

    “The computer was modified to give it more power,” Apiwat said. “I do not think it was safe but my brother had built it himself for Bitcoin mining, which he really liked.”

    Santi Shoosheud, a local police colonel, said: ‘We believe he attempted to fix the broken machine on his own and was electrocuted.”

    The accident will highlight concerns over the lack of regulation of Bitcoin mining, the majority of which is currently done in Asia, which has cheap sources of technologically-literate labour. Although it can be a source of employment, China, which is currently home to around two-thirds of Bitcoin miners, wants to crack down on the practice, amid concerns about the amount of energy it consumes.

    According to one study by Cambridge University, Bitcoin uses more electricity annually than the whole of Argentina.

    Previous Bitcoin mining accidents have included an inferno that destroyed a block of flats near Vladivostok in eastern Russia, where one resident had illegally plugged his computers into the block’s main electricity supply.

    The value of Bitcoins has halved since its peak earlier this year, thanks to the Chinese crackdown on mining and the prospect of further financial regulation. On Tuesday, the European Union announced proposals that would oblige firms transferring bitcoin and other crypto-currences to collect senders’ and recipients’ details in order to counter money-laundering.

    Providing anonymous crypto-asset wallets will also be prohibited, just as anonymous bank accounts are already banned under EU anti-money laundering rules.

    EU states and the European Parliament have the final say on the proposals, meaning it could take two years for them to become law.”

    4. As I posted yesterday – I liked this BTL, one of many thinking that the loonies are running the asylum …

      I must visit Yorkshire again. If they’ve got money to waste on this sort
      of infantile nonsense their roads must be wonderful. Their public
      conveniences pristine. Their libraries, theatres and museums luxurious
      and abundantly stocked. Oh lucky people to enjoy such wealth.

  86. Medical experts in London today were asked if it is time to ease the COVID lockdowns.

    Allergists were in favour of scratching it, but Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.

    Gastroenterologists had a sort of a gut feeling about it, but Neurologists thought the government lacked the nerve.

    Obstetricians felt certain everyone was labouring under a misconception, while Ophthalmologists considered the idea short-sighted.

    Many Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!” while Paediatricians said, “Oh, grow up!”

    Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while Radiologists could see right through it.

    Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing and pharmacists claimed it would be a bitter pill to swallow.

    Plastic Surgeons opined that this proposal would “put a whole new face on the matter.”

    Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but Urologists were p***ed off by the whole idea.

    Anaesthetists thought the whole idea was a gas, and Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

    In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the a***holes in politics.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/70e581be27c855b7065e69daf52fa0cfa1e33d380989dbb6b0a9609ef13c3641.jpg

  87. What a great idea all this pinging is, the old people without mobile phones can still get out and about while the young working people are broke and stuck indoors.

    1. That’s right, That’s right
      I’m sad and blue
      ‘Cause I can’t do the Boogaloo
      I’m lost, I’m lost
      Can’t do my thing
      That’s why I sing

      Gimme, Gimme Dat Ping Ah…
      Gimme Dat, Gimme Dat
      Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Dat
      Gimme Dat Ping, Gimme Dat
      Gimme, Gimme Dat, Gimme Dat Ping

  88. What could possibly go wrong out?

    ‘The government plans to strip National Grid of its role keeping Great Britain’s lights on as part of a proposed “revolution’” in the electricity network driven by smart digital technologies.

    The FTSE 100 company has played a role in managing the energy system of England, Scotland and Wales for more than 30 years (Northern Ireland has its own network). It is the electricity system operator, balancing supply and demand to ensure the electricity supply. But it will lose its place at the heart of the industry after government officials put forward plans to replace it with an independent “future system operator”.

    The new system controller would help steer the country towards its climate targets, at the lowest cost to energy bill payers, by providing impartial data and advice after an overhaul of the rules governing the energy system to make it “fit for the future”.

    The plans are part of a string of new proposals to help connect millions of electric cars, smart appliances and other green technologies to the energy system, which government officials believe could help to save £10bn a year by 2050, and create up to 10,000 jobs for electricians, data scientists and engineers.

    The new regulations aim to make it easier for electric cars to export electricity from their batteries back on to the power grid or to homes when needed. They could also help large-scale and long-duration batteries play a role in storing renewable energy, so that it is available when solar and wind power generation levels are low.’

    This has been on the cards for sometime, with I suspect OFGEM playing the leading role.

    Reading between the lines, it appears that the National Grid have told the government that their decarbonisation plans are, if not impossible, highly risky and extremely expensive, as far as providing a secure and reliable electricity supply is concerned.

    The new system controller will have meeting climate targets as its main objective, and all else will be of secondary importance.

    Government will therefore throw out the knowledge and skills built up over many years by electrical engineers who know what they are doing. In their place, we will probably end up with the sort of eco loons who infest the Committee on Climate Change.

    Heaven help us all!”

    From Watts up….

    1. When the primary function is stated as “Meeting CO2 targets” then you know you can expect lots of dark.

    4. Of course, the gov could just re write the requirements and tell NG to get on with it. But why do it the cheap way when you can construct an entirely new empire.

    6. I never heard anything more stupid in my life.
      As the fools in power seem committed to Zero Carbon, everyone had better prepare for life without electricity or own transport in future.
      Look at everything that’s powered by electricity in your house and think about alternatives.

      Not hyperbole; unless something stops it, that’s where we are heading. I have no faith in a last minute outbreak of sanity; the poison is too deeply embedded in the fabric of our country.

  90. Let more workers in to ease staff shortages, says government adviser
    Migration Advisory Committee chairman warns rules may need to be relaxed to help firms recruit workers they need to keep operating

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/07/18/let-migrants-ease-staff-shortages-says-government-adviser/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3RKE3qJwg6HiQjQxzXjEnGuolN-GyynNbHajLK7yVzzBps6GX0aBagIk4#Echobox=1626611212-1

    1. They could always invest (!) in technology, not fingers. But that’s not the British way.
      How is it that it’s still economic to build cars in Germany, one of the highest labour cost countries in the world? Because technology does it all, and apart from an oil break, does it 24/7.
      But then, you have to invest in education (TBliar was right there, but did zilch useful about it), and since the days of Bismarck, Germany has invested in education (admittedly, to make better soldiers, but hey, there are spinoffs). Firstborn had a visit to a VW factory about 10 years ago, as part of his apprenticeship. He said that there were about 20 people in the factory, 10 in the control room and 10 on the floor, pressing reset buttons and oiling the oily bits.
      I saw thw same back in mid 90’s, in Roermond, NL. One man was operating a triple wire, multi-head submerged arc welder on narrow gap preparation, laying quality weld at the rate of 1 metre / second – that’s about walking speed – and compare that with “traditional” welding.
      That’s the way forward, not employing millions more hands to do work that should be done by a machine.

    3. I suppose that’s what Vortigern said to himself when he invited Hengist and Horsa in to act as mercenaries – “It’s to ease staff shortages”.

      That didn’t go well, either.

    1. Is this the source?

      Five arrested in Hong Kong for sedition over children’s books about sheep

      The first book, titled “Guardians of Sheep Village” explains the 2019 pro-democracy protests that swept through Hong Kong

      By Our Foreign Staff
      22 July 2021 • 1:04pm

      Five members of a pro-democracy Hong Kong union that published children’s books about sheep trying to hold back wolves from their village have been arrested for sedition, police announced on Thursday.

      The arrests are the latest illustration of how China is rapidly remoulding the international business hub in its own authoritarian image following huge and often violent protests two years ago.

      A sweeping national security law was imposed on Hong Kong last year to stamp out dissent and authorities have launched a campaign to purge those deemed unpatriotic or disloyal to China.

      Senior Superintendent Steve Li, from the city’s new national security police unit, displayed the three offending titles at an afternoon press conference.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2021/07/22/TELEMMGLPICT000265085220_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrXQPXGvM58CJoUBPwmOnP_4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680
      Senior Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah CREDIT: REUTERS
      Published by the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists, the books try to explain Hong Kong’s democracy movement to children.

      Democracy supporters are portrayed as sheep living in a village surrounded by wolves.

      The first book, titled “Guardians of Sheep Village” explains the 2019 pro-democracy protests that swept through Hong Kong.

      “Janitors of Sheep Village”, the second book, sees cleaners in the village go on strike to force out wolves who leave litter everywhere.

      The book’s introduction explains it is a reference to Hong Kong medical workers striking last year in a bid to force the government to close the border with mainland China at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

      The final book in the trilogy – “The 12 Braves of Sheep Village” – is about a group of sheep who flee their village by boat because of the wolves.

      It is a direct reference to 12 Hong Kongers who made a failed bid to escape by speedboat last year to Taiwan but were detained by the Chinese coastguard and jailed.

      Flicking through the pages of the books, Li said the content was deemed seditious because it was aimed at “stirring up hatred” towards the government and judiciary and “inciting violence”.

      “These stories beautify violent acts, paint fugitives as heroes and justify the strike by the medical staff. It is trying to poison our children,” he said.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2021/07/22/TELEMMGLPICT000265091862_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
      Hong Kong’s senior superintendent holds children’s books which allegedly try to explain about the city’s democracy movement CREDIT: AFP

      He said police decided to act because the union was planning upcoming public reading events and called on both parents and any shops that might stock the book to throw them away.

      Two men and three women from the union had been arrested while HK$160,000 ($20,600) in funds had been frozen under the new national security law.

      Sedition is a colonial-era law that until last year had not been used since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China.

      It carries up to two years in jail for a first offence.

      Mass arrests. Newspaper raids. Banned protests. Exiled activists. The Telegraph’s new podcast, Hong Kong Silenced, documents how life in the city has been turned upside down in the past year. Listen to the first and second episodes now on wherever you get your podcasts. telegraph.co.uk/hksilenced

      Police and prosecutors are now regularly using it alongside the national security law to clamp down on political speech and views. Those arrested for such crimes are denied bail.

      Over the last year, most of the city’s best known democracy figures have been jailed, prosecuted or have fled overseas.

      Under a “One country, two systems” deal, Beijing promised Hong Kong could keep key freedoms and autonomy after its 1997 handover.

      As a result it flourished as the only free speech bastion within China, becoming a regional media and publishing hub.

      But China has ramped up its control over Hong Kong and brought in mainland style censorship controls after 2019’s huge protests.

      The security law has resulted in certain books being removed from schools and libraries, an overhaul of school textbooks to be more “patriotic”, new censorship rules for all films and the closure last month of the outspoken Apple Daily newspaper.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/22/five-arrested-hong-kong-sedition-childrens-books

  92. More good news…
    The US dollar’s share in Russia’s military contracts with other countries is approaching zero, according to the country’s main defense contractor Rosoboronexport.
    “Most of Rosoboronexport’s contracts are currently concluded in rubles or in the national currencies of partner countries. The share of dollars in our contracts is steadily approaching zero,” the company’s CEO Alexander Mikheyev told reporters at MAKS-2021 air show.
    He noted that Russia has been deliberately abandoning the dollar in payments for its export arms contracts, which, for the past few years, have brought the country about $15 billion annually in US dollar equivalent, TV channel Zvezda notes.

    This follows a broader trend towards de-dollarizing the Russian economy, with the country’s Central Bank and National Wealth Fund recently cutting use of the greenback in their transactions to zero.

    The state arms-export company has had a successful week, nailing 13 international contracts totaling some $1.2 billion on the sidelines of the MAKS 2021 international air show, currently underway in Zhukovsky, near Moscow.

    1. Awful idea, contract in a 3rd currency. Multiple currency risks is baaaad. Don’t go there.
      One currency risk is bad enough.

      1. I’ll pass on your message.
        Stupid Russian Central Bank…whadda they know..eh.

        1. I’ve been woring international contract for several decades. Currency risk makes the risk matrix light up and go Tilt!

        1. Yes you can hedge & buy forward, but it increases the complexity and uncertainty. And management cost.

          1. Indeed it does, but if one is doing as the Russians appear to be, changing the make-up of their currency reserves, it makes sense.
            Small companies should be very wary, but as far as Russia is concerned, they are big enough “players” to skew the markets in their favour.

          2. I’m sure they have done their SWOT & risk assessments, and have a strategy, but I’ve never been a cebtral banker.
            (and you can interpret that as you will!)

  93. 4) The Department for Environment announced that a new electric car is to be withdrawn from the market. A spokesman said: ‘It was a failure. It could only travel three yards as the flex wasn’t long enough.’

      1. It will never be out of date with the morons that use it. Shows that they are stuck in the 19 century pretending that leftist idiocy has solutions for the 21st.

    3. The solution all Lefties come up with is to take what other people have earned and for it to be given to them.

  98. Spent another hour at the dentists….my pocket is feeling rather numb!

    The dentist asked if I was going on holiday any time soon…..I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry…

    2. Apparently they do teeth in Turkey, cheap. And if you are in luck, you can bring home a teenage Turkish waiter who will profess undying love (until he gets residency).

  99. Tommy Robinson LOSES High Court libel case brought by Syrian teenager. 22 July 2021.

    English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson today lost a libel case brought by a Syrian schoolboy who was filmed being attacked at his school – landing him with a £100,000 bill for damages.

    The English Defence League founder – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – was sued by Jamal Hijazi, then 16, who was assaulted in the playground at Almondbury Community School in Huddersfield in October 2018.

    I suppose that I shall have to wait a couple of years to find out the truth!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9814551/Tommy-Robinson-LOSES-190-000-High-Court-libel-case.html

    1. It’s Nicklin again, the same judge who has prevented local authorities enforcing a ban on travellers forming enclaves on public land. Hard Left ‘Human Rights’ lawyer…

      1. Of course – traitor Blair spent much of his time sullying,desecrating and wrecking our legal system and our judiciary.

    2. It’s Nicklin again, the same judge who has prevented local authorities enforcing a ban on travellers forming enclaves on public land. Hard Left ‘Human Rights’ lawyer…

    3. Why does the Daily Mail not explain that Tommy Robinson had changed his name in order to safeguard his family against attacks. Elton John – whose real name is Reginald Dwight – changed his name for commercial reasons not in order to protect his husband and children.

      1. Afternoon Richard. They do know this which is why they delight in tormenting him with it! On the bright side the comments are overwhelmingly in support of Tommy so they will probably be shut down shortly!

        1. Robinson is clearly someone with a very short fuse: that does not help, even when he has a case. It’s a shame he is one the few prepared to stick his head above the parapet.

          1. Afternoon JD. Yes. I do make some allowances for Tommy’s idiosyncrasies but did he not possess them they would have succeeded in shutting him up long ago!

          2. He doesn’t particularly remind me of someone with a short fuse, maybe when he was younger. But now he is deliberately harassed and lied to by the establishment. Witness when he went to Hyde Park in support of a woman talking at Speakers Corner, he was told it would be OK by the police.. He did nothing but talk to her. Then the police arrested him as he was leaving. No reason other than trumped up charge that he was carrying a weapon. An accusation that was dismissed as soon as he got to the police station.

    1. Seeing we are (or were) the most vaccinated country in the world, that is really interesting.

      1. Don’t worry, we’ll be locked down even harder on the back of it as seasonal respiratory diseases kick in this winter.
        If it’s not Covid it will be ‘flu or even heavy colds; and now the lunatics are in charge of the asylum it will get the same reaction.

        1. WE will be lockdowned again – under threat of arrest court fine and life ruining criminal record – while the replacements are openly brought in. The govt know we are aware of what is happening, we also know PPs new laws are a joke – and as we MUST be running out of hotels – the replacements – families arriving – will need houses – so WE are in the way. – – it started off as ONE jab, then two, now a booster AND a flu jab???? get ready for the deaths. As said many times – – we are seeing our taxes used to pay for our own extermination.

          1. Apocalyptic? Yes. True? Quite possibly, but not to worry, when all the evil whiteys have been wiped out the world will be a much better place as the chosen peoples take over and turn the planet back into jungle.

    2. Given the populations of the US, India and Indonesia versus UK and the number of ‘cases’, its a wonder that anyone is left standing in the UK. Something is not quite the full shilling.

      1. We are testing huge numbers of people and I am fairly sure we are also using particularly sensitive tests. No doubt people who have been vaccinated are showing up as positive precisely because they have been vaccinated.

    3. Worldwide confirmed deaths: 4 million in 181 million infections. So, 2%.
      And who believes statstics from Africa, China, India…

      1. It’s probably more than 4 million deaths, but of those the vast majority of those dying will have underlying conditions and/or already have been very old.
        It’s not even making a dent in the world’s population which has increased net by several million since the disease appeared.

        2. The average age of death from Covid is actually higher than the normal age of death. This is what’s called coning the public.

    4. Worldwide confirmed deaths: 4 million in 181 million infections. So, 2%.
      And who believes statstics from Africa, China, India…

    5. ‘New infections’.

      Never been tested before or never had a negative test before? And how many have been ill?

    6. ‘New infections’.

      Never been tested before or never had a negative test before? And how many have been ill?

  103. The Daily Human Stupidity (second dose).

    “There is no greater equaliser than the stupidity of men, especially when those men have power.”

    Dario Fo.

  104. The Daily Human Stupidity (second dose).

    “There is no greater equaliser than the stupidity of men, especially when those men have power.”

    Dario Fo.

  105. Brexit: Von der Leyen rejects Boris Johnson bid to renegotiate Irish protocol. 22 July 2021.

    The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has rejected Boris Johnson’s move to renegotiate the Northern Irish protocol, raising the temperature of a simmering Brexit row.

    “The EU will continue to be creative and flexible within the protocol framework. But we will not renegotiate,” she said after a call with the prime minister on Thursday.

    There’s a surprise.

    I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/22/von-der-leyen-rejects-boris-johnson-bid-to-renegotiate-irish-protocol

    2. The EU have only ever been creative and flexible in looking after their own elite!

    4. Why should the EU renegotiate a treaty that took years to settle?
      The UK signed it!

      1. Indeed.
        The UK are rank amateurs. No wonder the EU regularly hands them their arse.
        :-((

        1. Yes, but the EU also added a clause to allow them to change those treaties whenever they wanted.

          1. Gates’s interference with the weather? One of his little experiments refused by Sweden?

      2. If it is really man-made it’s poetic justice that it’s hitting the biggest polluters hardest.

        1. Afternoon Sos. Well there’s the Fires, the Floods, the Heat Waves. You have to wonder!

          1. I have no doubt that the climate is changing; my view is that it is a cyclical and essentially natural phenomenon and that “man” is a fart in a thunderstorm.

            I doubt that had that happened in China not all that long ago we would have heard about it.

          2. Well essentially it wouldn’t matter if it was man made or natural! The result would be the same!

          4. The problem will be when we need to do something to adapt to the changing climate, we will be hamstrung by green initiatives that make it hard to respond.

            Need new sea walls along the coast? No problem, just fill out this environmental survey and apply for quota to charge your electric powered digging machines.

          5. Correct.
            I probably won’t live to see it, but I certainly suspect and hope that “green” initiatives come back and bite the Greens.
            HARD.

      3. Hi Minty – In 2019 prior to the emergence of the Wuhan Flu, China lost half its swine herd due to African Swine Fever. One or two people have drawn parallels with the Maunder Minimum for the unseasonal weather. However, if one looks back to 1315 – 1330 around the time of the Wolf Minimum, not only were there very wet summers across Europe but there was a respiratory disease amongst oxen, cattle and sheep which wiped out half the herds across the far east and Europe

    2. I shudder to think of the pollution that will eventually make its way into the oceans.

    5. Why is the water brown? It floods here. The water tends to be , well, water, with a fair bit of mud in it. Mud, litter, fag buts.. the usual detritus of lazy, spoiled people.

  107. My challenge to the BBC – if you’re not biased, face your critics and prove it

    A former BBC journalist asked the Corporation to take part in a film about impartiality. Its silence speaks volumes

    ROBIN AITKEN
    22 July 2021 • 11:55am

    One of the most enraging aspects of the BBC is its disdainful attitude towards its critics. In broad terms this can be summarised as “we do not hear you, we do not see you, we do not recognise your complaints. Go away.” I say this at the end of a film project about BBC bias; for the last couple of months I have been putting together a programme detailing allegations of bias made by some of the Corporation’s critics. And at the start of the process I contacted the BBC to say I would like to put these criticisms to someone who could answer for the Corporation.

    The man I contacted (who once upon a time was my editor) is now very high up in the organisation’s hierarchy and an eminently suitable person to answer questions about bias. To give him his due he seemed personally keen to talk to me, emails went back and forth, and we actually got as far as discussing what topics would be raised (and which would not). So it seemed for a while as if the interview might actually happen.

    But of course it didn’t. Towards the end of this traditional journalistic courtship ritual he said he would have to clear it with the BBC press office and then ensued a long silence. So the film is now out there on YouTube without any BBC input.

    This is somewhat ironic when you think about it. The BBC considers as its absolute prerogative its right to put any institution under the microscope. Anything from care homes to the Crown, from the police to the pub trade, absolutely nothing is off-limits to the investigative journalists within the Corporation’s ranks. Which is exactly as it should be. We, the public, rely on journalism ( and not only the BBC’s) to highlight areas of concern and alert us to wrongdoing. But when it comes to the BBC itself? Now that is an area that really is off-limits to outsiders as far as the Corporation is concerned.

    When things go wrong at the BBC – which they have with alarming frequency in recent years – the BBC has a standard response which is to set in motion the grinding gears of an internal investigation. At the end of this process what then happens is that the BBC produces a report which is published, various senior executives then appear on the BBC’s own programmes to offer profound apologies, and it’s a case of “sackcloth and ashes all round”. And then that’s the end of the matter and we are supposed to accept that whatever it was that went wrong is now put right.

    But the point to grasp is that – even though, as in the Martin Bashir scandal, the BBC might have appointed an outsider like Lord Dyson to chair the investigation – the process is internal. This is not a response the BBC’s journalists would accept as appropriate if wrongdoing was discovered in some other important institution; then the cry would be for a public inquiry. Internal investigations just don’t cut it. And the BBC would be outraged if a public institution under investigation refused point-blank to answer questions; quite rightly because public accountability is essential. But when the questions centre on what goes on behind the revolving doors of New Broadcasting House a different set of rules are applied. What you get is a bland ‘no comment’.

    I made a conscious decision at the start of the filming project to invite the BBC to take part. There was no compulsion or legal obligation on me to do so – I was perfectly at liberty to make whatever allegations I liked about the Corporation’s lack of impartiality. You can take the man out of the BBC but you can’t always take the BBC out of the man; as an old BBC-hand, I decided to play by the BBC’s own rules.

    There is a bulky dossier called “Producer Guidelines” which is issued to every BBC producer and sets out how every BBC programme-maker should proceed. One of its central precepts – one of the “10 commandments” if you like – is that whoever/whatever is under investigation they should be given the right of reply. So my request was exactly in-line with BBC best practice. Their response , alas, was not.

    You have to wonder why the BBC is so reluctant to engage with its critics. My film contains sharp criticisms from a range of people who have all had dealings with the BBC over many years. These are thoughtful people, not hotheads, and there’s not a QAnon conspiracist among them. They are people who have thought hard about the BBC and its credo of impartiality. They have come to the conclusion, as have I, that the BBC’s “impartiality” is a myth and that, in practice the Corporation promotes an agenda of its own with a very distinct political flavour. Socially liberal, woke and broadly of the left.

    One of my interviewees is Charles Moore, former editor of this newspaper, who has argued for BBC reform for many years. He describes BBC people as a clerisy – that is to say an intelligentsia who share an outlook; as these people are now in charge, Moore argues, they can see little wrong with the organisation. In fact it looks just peachy to them. They simply don’t understand the complaints of those who see the BBC’s world-view as inherently partisan.

    I also spoke to John Pontifex, head of press at a small charity called Aid to the Church in Need which attempts to alleviate the suffering of persecuted Christians across the world. His testimony is poignant because it shows how bias can have a real real impact on individuals. Pontifex says that getting the BBC to cover the persecution of Christians is an uphill battle. Even the worst cases – for instance a young Christian girl in Pakistan, shackled and raped and forced to undergo conversion to Islam – are ignored by the BBC.

    He believes the reason for this is that the BBC somehow sees the persecution of Christians as a “right-wing issue” and thus not for them. And because the voices of these Christian victims go unheard, nothing alleviates their suffering. And this despite the fact that an investigation by our own Foreign Office in 2019 concluded that Christianity was the most persecuted religion in the world to an extent that often verged on genocidal.

    So one of the questions I would like to have put to the BBC is this: how do you justify repeatedly reporting on the terrible plight of Muslim minorities like the Uighurs in China or the Rohingya in Burma whilst at the same time ignoring the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, or India or Nigeria? Why do we hear so much about the suffering of Muslims, so little about that of our Christian co-religionists in many parts of the world? What is the explanation for this indifference, this blindspot?

    But as I said at the outset, the BBC blanked me; predictably so because I cannot recall a single instance where the BBC has put up a senior person to participate in open, public debate about its own journalism. I can remember plenty of BBC people appearing on the Today show, for instance, and then there is that simulacrum of accountability, Feedback on Radio 4.

    But these are in-house productions and it would be impossible for a Today presenter, for instance, to tackle the Director General hard on the question of impartiality. “Impartiality” is the BBC’s foundation-myth and it is never examined, explored or investigated by the BBC itself for the very good reason that it would not withstand scrutiny. As one of my interviewees says, BBC “impartiality” is a mass-delusion, and one which, incidentally, is used to justify the licence-fee privilege.

    I think this refusal to be held to account, this obdurate determination not to engage with its critics is a minor scandal. The BBC is a public institution – that is our money they are spending. How dare they refuse to answer questions about their shortcomings? So here is a challenge: my film makes certain allegations about BBC bias so I now publicly invite the BBC to put up someone to answer these questions.

    If the BBC is so sure that it really is “independent, impartial and honest” let it prove the point in open debate. Surely this proud and mighty institution is confident enough of its “impartiality” to defend it openly in the public square? If not we are entitled to draw our own conclusions about what its claim to be “impartial” really amounts to.

    Robin Aitken’s ‘Heresies BBC bias exposed: An Insider’s story’

    https://youtu.be/ATw_JGl5opY

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

    Bonnie Bolding
    22 Jul 2021 12:38PM
    The documentary was excellent. The problems you have with your BBC are the same as we have with the ABC in Oz, though the funding models are different. Both organisations have the same basic fault – they believe vehemently that their views are absolutely and unquestionably right and look upon those who disagree as people who are ignorant, uneducated and even a little immoral, certainly unethical.

    Robert Bishop
    22 Jul 2021 12:40PM
    @Bonnie Bolding In Canada we have exactly the same situation with the CBC.

    1. The BBC considers as its absolute prerogative its right to put any institution under the microscope. Anything from care homes to the Crown, from the police to the pub trade, absolutely nothing is off-limits to the investigative journalists within the Corporation’s ranks. Which is exactly as it should be.

      Except for the conclusions that it draws from its investigations…

    2. The BBC is reliant on the licence fee – they will broadcast whatever the govt tells them too – – or NOT too – – if the govt scraps the licence – – then what?
      I know of several times where the govt warning about how many have died ” within 28 days of a positive result” – but it does NOT say what they died OF has been put – – – -has been TOTALLY ignored.
      If 50 people – just tested positive – were put on a plane – which then crashed, killing them all – then they will ALL have died within 28 days of a positive result – -, just like the gov warning – just NOT of Covid.

      1. Scrapping the licence will do nothing.Now scrapping Government funding….that’s different.

        1. As I keep suggesting, make BBC subscription only.
          Scrapping the licence fee will only see them funded through an addition to income tax.

    3. Video well worth watching, I reckon. Confirms what many of us already thought about the corporation.

    4. When the BBC wrote about the uighurs I asked them why they had ignored the two decades the Muslims had spent stealing, assaulting and raping Buddhists, burning their homes and smashing up their businesses.

      The BBC went from disgustingly biased to just about presenting that the Muslims might not be entirely blameless. *Might*.

  110. That’s me for this worrying day. Gus has spent all the time (apart from quick dash out for a wee) sitting very close to Pickles. I wonder whether Gus was a witness to the assault….

    Anyway – enjoy the warm evening. And thanks again for your kind and helpful comments.

    A demain

    1. For solitary animals, cats seem to have strong attachment to their family & friends.
      We see it here. Last year, Little vanished for a few days. We reckon he was in someone’s garage whilst they were away on holiday, Big Cat pined until Little came home, tail up, all cocky like.

    2. Let’s hope that if it is a feral cat that G&P are plotting its demise as you sleep.

    2. Is there something in the US constitution that allows a state to reverse the certification of a vote six months after the election of a new president?

      This sounds just like empty rhetoric, it certainly will not make Trump president next month.

      1. I would happily sacrifice Trump’s future chances if it eliminated Democrat cheating.

      2. Still worth pursuing, as the election theft must never be allowed to happen again.

    1. I trust you have been testing the output to ensure the appropriate mix of essential nutrients for those plants you are micturating upon.

  113. The recent visit of China’s foreign minister to Damascus as the first foreign guest since President Bashar Assad was sworn in for a second seven-year term is significant – and signals a shift that will annoy Washington and London.
    Over the weekend the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Syria during a trip to the Middle East and met with President Bashar Assad. Yang is known for his highly proactive diplomacy, often dashing across multiple regions of the world to meet his counterparts, but this particular visit was particularly notable for a number of reasons.
    First of all, it was the first high-level Chinese visit to Syria since the civil war began. The chaos tearing the country apart and efforts towards regime change by the West made it untenable for many years. On the back of this, what made it on the second note more notable was that Wang attended on the day Assad was sworn in for a new term as president, following May’s elections.

    That’s a big endorsement, to put it mildly. The timing and symbolism of the visit was designed to confer legitimacy upon him as Syria’s president, which Beijing has not done before. After the visit, China then came out with an almost manifesto-like spree of pledges concerning Beijing and Damascus, again, something it had not done before.

    China pledged support for Syria’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty, affirmed its opposition to regime change and foreign intervention, set out opposition to sanctions and also pledged itself as an economic partner by inviting the Arab country to join the Belt and Road Initiative. In exchange, Assad gave his “unconditional” support to China on Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan.

    What happened in Damascus is arguably rhetorical; one can see it doesn’t pledge anything up-front, not even a penny of investment. But it is significant and has substance in that it marks a dramatic escalation of Beijing’s relationship with Syria in the midst of the controversy and assaults that Assad has experienced from the West over the past decade.
    While this is not actually a change in China’s position or diplomatic principles, it is a shift from being a backyard player on the Syria issue to being a frontline one, tilting away from a previous approach of being careful not to aggravate the West as the war there waged on.

    Now, China is placing itself in the driving seat and is expanding its diplomatic foothold right across the Middle East. This includes China’s recent strengthening of its relationship with Iran, including an investment pledge of an estimated £400 billion. Assad, so far, has received no such promise. Yet for Damascus and the Ba’athist Party, this is still a political endorsement which strengthens their hand after facing the brunt of sanctions and political isolation by the US and its allies

  114. My second post about the forthcoming E10 fuels that will have more bioethanol in them.
    Whist many of us with cars later than year 2000 will be unaffected with respect to possible engine damage there still remain issues of fuel efficiency and cost that will affect everybody with petrol vehicles.

    Revelator Alf explains:
    https://youtu.be/RcW5W2310Is

    1. I wouldn’t worry about it. It won’t affect most of us as Johnson/NutNut’s green agenda means that soon only the well-off will be able to run cars.

      1. Seeing as the National Grid is going to be replaced by a smart green one perhsps my next vehicle should be an EV charged from a diesel electric generator.

    1. I can only assume that once here they’ll do ANYTHING, even kill, to ensure they’ll BE ” PERSECUTED” if sent back – so get to stay then get the family here too – – if they never leave France then different outcome ( that will never happen.} – – France will take the cash and wave them Bon Voyage.
      The aim is to take this country – -and turn it into what they are used to, In a way I feel sorry for the idiots who want them all here – the truth, when it hits them will be horrendous. glad I will be history by then.

      1. #MeToo, Walter. In fact I find that I’m failing on a daily basis – and it’s frightening – I’ve so much to do and very little time to do it.

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        NtN,
        Why was may paid for speaking tours when she never
        spoke / made some, could it be payment for other services rendered ?

        The macron political fraternity & the johnson political fraternity are operating to a vastly different agenda than the one their peoples are expecting of them, we are seeing the English taxpayer financing the macron side of their covert
        agenda.

  116. Covid could topple the world’s worst regimes. 22 July 2021.

    If the developed world has struggled to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, its difficulties appear far less daunting when compared with the impact it has had on failed or failing states. From Cuba and South Africa to Iran and North Korea, the strain of dealing with the Covid virus has laid bare the staggering incompetence of some of the world’s most repressive regimes.

    In normal times, failed states can rely on the effectiveness of their security forces to contain popular anger at their inability to provide their citizens with even the basic necessities, such as food, fuel and medical supplies. But when the challenge of responding to Covid has been added to the everyday business of running a country, the pressure has proved to be too much for even the most autocratic regimes.

    It’s scarcely credible that someone living in the UK can utter such tosh! If these people have nothing to shout about the UK Police State’s response is not something to brag about!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/22/covid-could-topple-worlds-worst-regimes/

  117. As I can’t bear the heat, the warqueen went shopping.

    Despite being given a list… no. Never again. I’ll have to burn.

      1. If the supermarket is open all night – go in early hours – seems quite a lot already doing it.

          1. nope – -no city – amazing how many people about all hours. – think the shop works on the basis that some staff are there restocking, so let customers in. ive shopped at 2am before – certainly don;t live even in a big town.

          2. Now 23:56 and in rural Suffolk at least this one’s still awake – and wondering, thinking, despairing.

      1. 335700 up ticks,
        Evening B3,
        He is I believe an equity stand in, the real things are in short supply.

      2. He looks better than me
        and the female presenter is certainly showing some thigh !!!!!

      3. He looks as though he is glowing with health. To steal a word from the DM, it’s hilarious. He’s a crisis actor. He should have remembered he’s supposed to be ill. And deffo not short of breath! He can more than complete a sentence.

        1. When I took my father to have a photo taken for his Blue Badge, he sat in front of the camera with an inane grin. I told him, “Take that smile off your face; you’re supposed to look ill.”

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        Evening AA,

        Cashback in play,

        Computacenter’s founder, Sir Philip Hulme & wife have donated OVER £100K to Tory party
        They were also given £96,000,000 contract to supply laptops & routers to schoolchildren.

  119. Phew! That was a welcome cold bath!
    53 bags of topsoil from t’Lad’s, average weight 29kg, unloaded from the van and stacked ready for splitting into smaller bags and carrying up the garden!
    That’s 1½ ton I’ve still got to get up the garden!
    I might get a bit of help from the Still @ Home, who’s back from his Shap Quarry job for the weekend tomorrow and Student son who’s coming home for the Summer also tomorrow.

      2. …and you, Wm., have reached that conclusion without even meeting him, as far as I know, other than on paper/blog. He’s even more entertaining in the flesh. My previous landlady still has the hots for him after his visit a couple of years ago and always asks after him. {:^))

      3. I think I have to second that, Bill, whilst admiring BoB’s efforts – It would have killed me by now.

  120. Decent music on R3:-
    Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10

    St. Petersburg Philharmonic
    Yuri Temirkanov (conductor)

    1. Feet off the ground Boros you’re sliding all the way down the hill with no grip but a bit of wet tissue.

  122. ‘Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13700a28b0f534ca33c3ffd6825b8d85cede43859a8124f8d40461c69a3f0992.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/685417c6f100dbc156104e75a7c084c104569bde51b4e8e3394afe83e263546e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fa8e346dedcb1bdaa27be4f1d9b2f5cdfe894d7a8e3349ac4c6a3d6b799cace.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d802ce94c8956d44ae3fed76724e2d09e6b8f3f28cda60519cd0ce2405a54af.jpg

    Finally,for Willum

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e499aabc44cf672bb3fadc72b8d1e91a5d3345ac9f5cfdf18dcd899a4b80b330.jpg

  124. Quote of the day

    ‘However much training I get I will never value everyone.’

    Lord Willoughby de Broke on why he hasn’t attended the House of Lords’ ‘valuing everyone training’ (via Guido)

  125. 335700+ up ticks,
    Watching our yesterdays on “yesterday” on now, “the makings of a nazi”

    An awful lot of material from then can be seen moving into place today
    when one sees reset, repress, replace coming on line.
    The similarities are startling

    1. Many on here, Ogga, have seen the terrible similarity between what was Germany during 1933 to 1945, without recognising that we must rise up and fight against it, as we did from 1939 onwards.

      Many of us are now too old to actively fight and the young (potential) fighters are unaware of the dangers, having not been taught the lessons of history.

      1. 335700+ up ticks,
        Evening NtN,
        No spring chicken myself also been a pupil of the school of hard knocks, suffered deserved clouts from loving parents / teachers, NO mental scars, thanks was more in order.

        Read one comment today of students refusing the jab, calling themselves the jabby dodgers, so,on the right path of
        freedom thinkers.

        By the by they have today the means to call up the last 100 years without the hardship, not the same but nobody can say it is not at hand via the internet.

    1. Goodnight, Peter. Let’s hope it’s not so hot tonight, I didn’t sleep very well last night. The oppressiveness, and I couldn’t get out of my mind the thought that I might be carted off to a state camp somewhere for re-education caused by my vaccine-intransigence.

      3. My thoughts, Mum, last night revolved upon the differences how you and I (1944 – 1959) played outside and interacted with our peers; we fought, we laughed, we won, we lost and there was little or no animosity, ‘cos the next day we met up and did it all over again with equal hilarity.

        Today’s children seem to cower indoors, glued to their electronic devices with little or no interaction other than what the ‘Soshul meejah’ allows them and warps their minds into a twisted spectrum of their ‘World View’, as dictated by their (weak) heroes and heroines.

      4. Fear not. The vaccinated will realise that their immune systems have been damaged by taking the jabs, there will be multiple lawsuits, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of medical ‘practitioners’ will be brought before the Court in The Hague, renamed Nuremberg 2. Scumbag politicians including Johnson, Hancock, Blair and their limpet-like assortment of politico traitors, all of SAGE and the Pharma executives and ‘inventors’ of the ‘vaccines’ will also be brought to book.

        The German lawyers are onto Drosten and the utterly ineffective and misleading PCR tests. Likewise even the Yanks have discounted the cheaper Lateral Flow Tests as completely useless.

        I would not wish to be Johnson or a member of his cabinet nor a member of the SAGE committees advising the Fat Bastard. My utter contempt for the NHS executives and its rotten management will be shared by millions. We will never vote for conservatives again.

        1. I can’t wait for an end to all this. I am hearing rumours that it will all come to a head in August and September it will be over. However, I am not convinced of that, I think it will take this winter before people realise.

          The Labour party should be included in your list, a fat lot of good as opposition it has been. And where has the leadership in the church been in all of this? I hope to see them all go down.

          Thank you for your post, to see my thoughts in print from another gives me some reassurance.

  127. Just been watching a film on Netflix: sound bad, script worse. story worseresterer

    Then checked the programmes, that we have recorder

    We found an episode of “Two Ronnies”: we are still chuckling

    Colour, LGBT etc covered, all without an axe to grind

    Fantastic

    1. The Ronnies were fabulous. But I have taken to watching clips of Charlie Chaplin’s silent movies. No dialogue, just expression and comic genius has me in stitches. Compare with George the poet or feminist comediennes. Just no match, they are not actually funny.

      1. That, KP, is the one thing that I, and probably many here have noticed, is that their humour is NOT funny. The sad thing is that they, the great unwashed ‘woke’, think it is.

        Pathetic.

    1. The guy is actually advertising that he’s a criminal. Fast tracked to benefits, no doubt.

  131. Good night and God bless to all my friends here – see you all again tomorrow.

  132. Ave atque vale, amici. I had a journey from Hell to get home – 132 miles took me over four hours with roadworks, traffic jams and diversions 🙁 If that weren’t enough, the satnav suddenly decided to give up the ghost when I was heading for Nottingham with no idea of where to go next! Fortunately, I managed to revive it and stay on track. Then it fell off the screen. Aagghh! When I did get home, there were lots of messages on my answering machine, which I’ll have to deal with tomorrow. I think the moral of the tale is, “don’t go away!”

    2. Sorry for your bad journey, but did you actually enjoy the change, the time away, just you and Oscar?

      1. I think Oscar bonded more, with there being just the two of us. He let a woman stroke him on the back and never reacted and on the journey back he fell asleep with his head on his water dish (it was a Waterwell, one with a cover on it to prevent spillage) 🙂 I was actually quite pleased with him when we had tea on the terrace at the Petwood Hotel; he started off whining and trying to jump up, but when I reminded him that the rules applied outdoors just as much as indoors, he shut up, sat still, waited and was eventually rewarded. Getting him to have some manners at meal times has been a bit of a struggle, so fingers crossed, we’ve actually cracked it (unless he reverts to type tomorrow).

    3. Glad you got home safely despite the problems!
      I don’t have Tw@nav, I prefer to eyeball a route with maps and usually write down the roads and key points I need on a route card.
      I still take the occasional wrong turning though!

  133. Goodnight (or strictly speaking, good morning) all. It’s far too hot to sleep.

      1. No, just the after effects of a long, stressful journey and the high ambient temperature.

  134. An early Good Morning to all.
    Woke to pump bilges, again tried getting back to sleep, but only succeeded in getting hot, so another cold bath and half an hour on here.

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