Thursday 24 November: The NHS needs to focus on waiting lists – not flexible working schemes

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

534 thoughts on “Thursday 24 November: The NHS needs to focus on waiting lists – not flexible working schemes”

  1. Thank you, Geoff. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s funny

    Condom Orders

    A young girl started work in the local chemist shop and was naturally very shy about having to sell condoms to the general public.

    The owner was due to go on holiday for a couple of days and asked if she would be willing to run the shop on her own, so she had to confide her worries about selling contraceptives.

    “Look,” he said, “My regular customers don’t ever ask for condoms; usually they just ask for a 310 [small], a 320[medium], or a 330[large]. The word condom is never actually used…”

    The first day was fine, but on the second day this black guy came into the shop, put out his hand and said, “Er, 350 please!”

    The girl immediately panicked, ran into the back of the shop and phoned the owner on his mobile to tell him of her predicament.

    “Go back in and check to see if he’s got a yellow bucket hanging between his legs,” the boss calmly told her.

    She peeped through the door and saw the yellow bucket hanging between his legs. “Yes!” she said, “He’s got one hanging there!”

    “Right,” said the boss, “Now go back in and give him £3.50…

    “He’s the window cleaner!”

      1. They’ve been collected over many years from many different sources. If they make you (and others) laugh, they fulfil their objective.

  4. Households must slash energy use to defeat Putin, says Hunt. 24 November 2022.

    The Chancellor said: “For most people we need you to play your part in reducing our energy dependency on what Putin chooses to do in Ukraine. And that’s why we’ve got this national ambition to reduce energy consumption by 15pc.

    “We’re a couple of per cent higher [than the EU] but other countries are doing the same kind of thing. That isn’t just at a national level but that’s for every household.”

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Nicholas Jackson.

    He can stick the peak demand up his backside. If they had a proper energy policy we wouldn’t be in this mess.

    Well said Mr Jackson. On a personal level I have no wish to defeat Vladimir Putin who so far as I’m concerned poses a lesser threat to the people of the UK than Westminster. The only thing that prevents my turning all the lights on and setting the thermostat to thirty degrees is the cost and the knowledge that we don’t use Russian gas. The off -loading of responsibility to Vlad, for what is the sole fault of these cretins with their Globalist Agenda, is assuming infantile levels of intelligence among the public.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/23/households-must-slash-energy-use-defeat-putin-says-hunt/

    1. Morning, all. Clear, calm and chilly in N Essex this morning.

      Hunt exhorting ‘most people’ to sacrifice their comfort and health in a patriotic deed to defeat a non-enemy really is trawling the depths of political depravity. A home grown problem initiated by the political pygmies in Westminster; some of whom are too thick to understand the repercussions of their blind obedience to the charlatans, who for whatever reasons have trashed our power industry.
      Who, by the way, are most people?

    2. I’ve just watched a very interesting Palisades Gold Radio episode which was a discussion about peak oil.
      Their thesis was that we have already hit peak oil; that it is becoming more expensive to get every barrel of oil out of the ground and that the human population grew absolutely in synchronisation with the number of barrels of oil extracted from the ground.
      They discussed various mitigation factors. It was so refreshing to hear a discussion about batteries and alternative energy that wasn’t poisoned by the CO2 fraud ideology.
      They didn’t mention the elephant in the room (depopulation), but their conclusion was that society would have to go back to simpler ways of doing things, rather than get ever more complex, as increasing complexity is a sign of a collapsing civilisation. They also highly recommended that individuals should try to make themselves more independent of the system that depends on cheap energy.
      I didn’t agree with everything they said, but it was an interesting talk.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kUZUfxfSUg

      1. Our society doesn’t have to be complicated though. That implies someone has to manage it all. Why could society not be managed by what the individuals want and need? No need for central planning. All government need do then is provide absolute minimum basic services, efficiently.

        There are very few people who cannot survive without government funding. The rest should be left alone to live – or destroy – their lives as they choose.

    3. Once again we’d like to point out the complete media blackout in Britain about Cabo Delgado. Very strange when so

      many other nations are showing such an interest.

      It appears from a recent report that BP has purchased 132 tanker loads of LNG from Cabo Delgado.

      What hasn’t been announced is where BP is delivering the shipments to.

      As the Chancellor has recently been issuing blood curdling warnings about shortage of gas, should we assume that

      he has been informed that the gas will be delivered to Europe, and not Britain?

    2. Crypto isn’t a bad idea. The reason the FTX thing fell apart is not down to blockchain technology but the usual problems of corruption, fraud, incompetence, treachery and deceit.

  8. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    From the DT:

    UK experts helped shut down Covid lab leak theory – weeks after being told it might be true

    Sir Patrick Vallance among scientists behind paper that stifled debate into the origins of the virus

    By Sarah Knapton, SCIENCE EDITOR and Ashley Rindsberg23 November 2022 • 9:10pm

    Top scientists including Sir Patrick Vallance were warned that Covid-19 could have evolved in laboratory animals, but collaborated in a paper which shut down the lab leak theory, it has emerged.

    The paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published in Nature Medicine in March 2020, argued that a natural spillover event caused the pandemic, and was hugely instrumental in stifling debate into the origins of the virus.

    But newly released emails from early 2020 show that in the weeks before publication the authors held lengthy discussions with experts, including Sir Patrick and Sir Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust.

    In those discussions, experts were advised that the unusual features seen in Covid-19 could have evolved in animals in a lab, as well as in the wild.

    They were also warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been carrying out research on bat-coronaviruses at worrying levels of biosecurity.

    Yet by the time the paper was published, all reference to biosecurity problems in Wuhan had been removed, and the authors argued that lab evolution of the virus was unlikely.

    Questions have arisen around the drafting and formulation of the paper since its publication.

    The lead author of the paper, Prof Kristian Andersen, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, had earlier told colleagues that features of the virus looked as if they’d been engineered in a lab.

    However, no mention of this was made in the paper.

    ‘Important to stay open-minded’

    Commenting on the new emails, which were released under Freedom of Information request, Dr Jeremy Farrar, the director of Wellcome, said: “It is important that we understand how all pathogens emerge so that we can prevent future pandemics.

    “In my view, the scientific evidence continues to point to SARS-CoV-2 crossing from animals to humans as the most likely scenario.

    “However, as the efforts to gather evidence continue, it is important to stay open-minded and work together internationally to understand the emergence of Covid and variant strains – to end this pandemic and reduce the risks of future events.”

    A Government Office for Science spokesperson said: “The Government Chief Scientific Adviser ensures that policies and decisions are informed by the best scientific evidence.

    “The GCSA promotes full transparency and an open exchange of ideas and scientific opinion as the email exchange reflects.”

    The emails were released following an FOI request from James Tobias, a freelance journalist.

    More reason to believe scientists were trying not to upset China

    In March 2020, just days before Britain entered its first Covid lockdown, an influential scientific paper was published in the journal Nature Medicine.

    The paper, entitled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” argued that the new deadly virus sweeping the globe was of natural origin, having jumped from animals to humans.

    Covid had emerged just a few miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) where scientists had been collecting and manipulating bat coronaviruses, leading to widespread speculation that a deadly experiment could have leaked from a lab.

    Yet after the research paper was published, serious probing into the lab theory effectively stopped.

    Now new emails show that some of the authors had indeed suspected a laboratory leak, and had discussed it in the weeks before publication with leading scientists including Sir Patrick Vallance and Sir Jeremy.

    In an email chain debating the original draft, one of the authors even admitted that the virus would look the same whether it had evolved naturally or in lab mice in a process known as “serial passaging”.

    In an email on February 8 2020, Dr Robert Garry, from the University of Sydney, pointed out that similar effects had been seen when bird flu had been passaged in laboratory chickens.

    Yet by the time the paper was published the authors dismissed the possibility, concluding: “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus”.

    One of the reasons the authors gave in the paper for dropping the lab theory was that the Covid-19 contained sugars known as “o-glycans” which help the immune system.

    In the Nature Medicine paper they said it showed that the virus could not have been a lab creation.

    However they failed to point out that if the virus had evolved in lab animals it would also contain o-glycans, a fact they had discussed in the emails.

    In fact, in the emails Sir Patrick said that the “glycan point” could be used in the paper as “further weight against a passage origin”.

    The original draft also pointed out that research to alter Sars-like bat coronaviruses had been taking place for many years in Wuhan at dangerous biosecurity levels – a fact that was later removed from the finished paper.

    In one email exchange, Sir Jeremy even warned that research in Wuhan was like the “Wild West”.

    The email release will add more fuel to accusations that eminent scientists effectively publicly shut down investigations into a lab leak so as not to upset China, while believing privately it was possible.

    In the newly released email chain, Prof Ron Fouchier, a Dutch neurologist, warned that even investigating a lab leak could harm Chinese research.

    “An accusation that (Covid-19) might have been engineered and released into the environment by humans (accidental or intentional) would need to be supported by strong data, beyond reasonable doubt,” he warned.

    “It is good that this possibility was discussed in detail with a team of experts. However, further debate about such accusations would unnecessarily distract top researchers from active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.”

    Many scientists now agree that a lab leak is highly plausible, but most of the supporting evidence was found by hackers and rogue scientists who were branded conspiracy theorists for challenging the accepted narrative.

    The latest email release shows that scientists who dismissed a lab leak accepted it was possible behind closed doors.

    In an email on February 8 Prof Edward Holmes, one of the authors of the Nature Medicine paper, from the University of Sydney, acknowledged that many people believed the virus had leaked from the Wuhan lab.

    He wrote: “Ever since this outbreak started there have been suggestions that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, if only because of the coincidence of where the outbreak occurred and the location of the lab.

    “I do a lot of work in China and I can tell you a lot of people there believe this and believe they are being lied to.”

    Another on the same date from Prof Kristian Andersen, of Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, said it would be wrong to dismiss a lab leak “out of hand”.

    He wrote: “Passage of Sars-live coronaviruses have been going on for several years and more specifically in Wuhan under BSL-2 conditions.”

    BSL-2 laboratories are used to study moderate-risk infectious agents or toxins such as salmonella. Serious diseases should be handled in BSL-3 or 4 labs.

    Evidence has shown that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was importing bat coronaviruses from areas of China which hold the closest viruses to Covid-19.

    The institute had also applied for funding to manipulate viruses by inserting a furin cleavage site (FCS) which is what makes Covid-19 so infectious in humans.

    A recent report by the US Senate Committee concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic was “more likely than not” the result of a laboratory accident, arguing that no candidate for an animal spillover had ever been found.

    In the emails, Sir Jeremy said the purpose of discussions was to come to a consensus view and “lay down a respected statement to frame whatever debate goes on, before that debate gets out of hand with potentially hugely damaging ramifications.”

    The results of the study were considered so perilous that it led the US government to put a moratorium on research to enhance the lethality of viruses.

    The email chain also involved Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), an organisation which was funding research at the Wuhan lab.

    To date the “Proximal origin” paper has been accessed more than 5.7 million times and cited in 2,627 subsequent papers.

    DT readers are not impressed – and I copied the first of these late last night because I didn’t think it would stay up for long:

    Greg O’Neill1 HR AGO

    Lest we forget the Telegraph’s role in shutting down the COVID lab leak theory. From the Telegraph article of 29th March 2020, co-authored by Paul Nuki, and I quote:

    “8. Coronavirus was leaked from a high security lab in Wuhan and China is trying to cover it up

    FALSE. About as likely as the Salisbury novichok attack of last year emanating from our own high security laboratory at Porton Down which is not more than a stone’s throw from the historic city. In short it’s total nonsense, up there with wacko theories about 9/11, the Holocaust and the death of JFK. The coronavirus is just another zoonotic infection – a virus that jumped from animals to humans. The Spanish flu, HIV and Ebola are others.”

    From the above article : “Many scientists now agree that a lab leak is highly plausible, but most of the supporting evidence was found by hackers and rogue scientists who were branded conspiracy theorists for challenging the accepted narrative.”

    Yes, you, the Telegraph, did this. You labelled people ‘conspiracy theorists’. Own it. The Telegraph and their colleagues in the media are front and centre in this. If you entertained the idea this came from a lab the Telegraph was only too happy to label you as a ‘wacko’. It’s high time the Telegraph issued an apology.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/coronavirus-myths-scams-conspiracy-theories-true-false-lab-leak/

    Zeno the Stoic1 HR AGO

    The cover up has profoundly damaged the public’s belief in the integrity and honesty, not only of scientists and other experts, but also the government and the various offices of state. In short, the media, the state, the scientists and medical experts all lied. That genie won’t ever go back into the bottle. Trust has been lost.

    * * *

    The moral of this story is – never trust a scientist.

    Now, about all that MMGW malarkey…

    2. David Martin pointed out early on that there are 72 patents on the spike protein. Medical patent lawyers like him are not given to “conspiracy theories.”
      It was widely known, including by the Telegraph, that the spike protein was developed by a consortium of scientists from the US, Europe and China.

    3. The sheer ferocity the state put in to shutting down any discussion over the Chinese lab was laughable.

    4. It seems to me that there is an issue with modern collaborative scientific research in that it is moving towards being “by committee” and the end publication contains what they can all agree on. This removes areas of conflict and makes the paper appear as if the conclusions are beyond doubt, resulting in such stupidities as “the science is settled”.
      A significant feature is the fact that so much funding relies on grants from companies/organisations/Governments with vested interest/conflicts of interest and the scientists being compromised by fear of losing their funding if their conclusions don’t supports their sponsors requirements.

      The much maligned supreme court of the USA has the facility for dissenting viewpoints to be published in full and for the dissent to be seen by everyone.
      It is a great pity that our so-called scientists won’t accept similar dissent being published alongside their prognostications.

  9. Morning all.
    Every year we are asked to fill in a staff survey. Every year, one of the questions is ‘Do you think this NHS Trust flexible working policy is satisfactory?’ Answers are Agree strongly, Agree, Disagree, disagree strongly.

    I have complained each year that the question presupposes that you want an FW policy. I want to answer disagree but that is because I find the FW policy far too lenient. It means there is never anybody in work when you need them.
    I’ve long maintained it should be called the Inflexible Working policy as those who have working agreements under it will never deviate from thier set work patterns and it is their colleagues who work full time are the ones that have to be flexible and cover for them.

    1. Yep, there’s a difference between being at home and working from home. You have to be available and work.

  10. Good morning all.
    A dry but cold start today. A tad under 2°C outside with a blue sky streaked with pink clouds as they catch the rising sun.

    I think I have the day off to do my own thing today. A bit of gentle tidying up up the “garden” may be on the agenda.

    1. How did your trip to Derby yesterday to “sort” your stepson’s accommodation go, BoB?

      1. It’s ready for him to move back in to, but whether he does or not is still up in the wind.

          1. To be honest, I’m very close to being past caring.
            Also, partially due to t’Lad’s accident a few weeks back, I was a day late in getting some info Derby Council Housing Benefits Office wanted for Stepson’s housing claim so they’ve cancelled the claim.
            HOPEFULLY, the appeal I’ve managed to put in will mean they will reactivate it rather than begin again from square one.

  11. SIR – Amanda Pritchard, the head of NHS England, says menopausal women working in the health service will be allowed to work from home (report, November 23).

    This is despite the fact that the NHS is in turmoil, and staff shortages are a major factor. Ms Pritchard’s thinking is that it will benefit the service in the longer term. But menopause doesn’t just last for six weeks, or six months – it can go on for years. Are frontline nurses and other medical and auxiliary staff to be included in this deal? If so, how will it work?

    Thankfully, there is now medical help for women going through the menopause, as well as more understanding of the condition, enabling most women in this situation to work through it. That said, Ms Pritchard’s idea of lighter uniforms is excellent – though who needs lighter uniforms when working from home?

    Joyce Bellingham
    Hassocks, West Sussex

    Crazy, isn’t it? And what happens when some of the chaps decide to join in and identify as wimmin?!

    1. SIR – In one sentence Amanda Pritchard destroys her case for allowing menopausal women to have flexibility in their working patterns: “Menopause is not a health condition, it’s a stage of life.”

      Unfortunately, the people most likely to suffer from the absence of a large cohort of middle-aged women in the NHS have life-threatening health conditions such as cancer, heart disease and others that leave them with very little flexibility.

      Eve Wilson
      Hill Head, Hampshire

      Spot on, Ms Wilson!

    2. Why just menopausal women? What about those with heavy periods, pregnant ones, people with childcare issues?

    3. Whoever made that suggestion would appear to be totally ignorant of the actual supposed function of the NHS, i.e. providing health care. How can a nurse, radiologist or anesthetist carry out their duties from home?
      This is yet another indication of how top heavy the NHS is with bureaucrats.

  12. I see that reform of the House of Lords is featured in Today’s DT Letters. My BTL response to one such, calling for the abolition of The Lords, is

    David Johnstone Pewsey, Wiltshire clearly doesn’t understand the reason for a bi-cameral parliament,

    Originally the Lords were there to oversee the bills that the Commons were proposing but today the Lords have been overwhelmed by an influx of party-political hacks, each with their own disruptive agenda.

    Time to clear out ALL the ‘Life’ Peers and return the Lords to hereditaries only (they tend to have the long-term good of the nation at heart, even if only to ensure the survival of their estates) and the Law Lords, who must replace the so-called ‘Supreme Court’ as the final appeal, apart from the Monarch.

    1. Labour rigged the Lords to get it’s miserable legislation through. The Tories then used it for the same reason and stuffed it with cronies, donors and other dossers.

      For 24 miserable years!

      Rather than 200 efficient, dispassionate, uninterested, patriotic individuals working for the public to stop 90% of the rubbish the fools spew out we have 800+ wasters troughing away thanks to patronage, corruption and fraud.

      1. Thank you, Wibbles, you’re right, the Lords has become a hot-bed of short-termism, just looking to the next election and help those who put them there to obtain an advantage.

    2. The idea that someone can have a say in the government of our country simply because of who their parents were is absurd.

      1. I would tend to agree, but on that score I would also prevent all children and grandchildren of politicians from becoming MPs as well; there are far too many political dynasties.

          1. CONSERVATIVE James Arbuthnot, Richard Benyon, Dominic Grieve, Ben Gummer, Nick Hurd, Andrew Mitchell, Nicholas Soames, Mark Pawsey, Laura Sandys, Robin Walker, Bill Wiggin LABOUR Hilary Benn, John Cryer, Lindsay Hoyle, Anas Sawar, Andy Sawford, Alison Seabeck d.u.p. Ian Paisley Jnr

      4. I have a say in government, supposedly via the ballot box, because of who my parents were. Indigenous English.

  13. Russian generals ‘systematically planned and ordered sexual violence’, says war crimes investigator. 24 November 2022.

    There is evidence that Russian commanders in several instances were aware of sexual violence by military personnel in Ukraine “and in some cases, encouraging it or even ordering it,” according to an international criminal lawyer assisting Kyiv’s war crimes investigations.

    Wayne Jordash, a British lawyer, told Reuters that in some areas around the capital of Kyiv in the north, where the probes are most advanced, some of the sexual violence involved a level of organisation by Russian armed forces that “speaks to planning on a more systematic level.” He didn’t identify specific individuals under scrutiny.

    This is just more propaganda designed to demonise Russia and Russians, mostly one suspects for public consumption in the West. If it actually existed what would be the purpose of such a program which would be counterproductive to say the least? It would not only be a gift to the Ukrainians and the West but would be fatal to military discipline. How would it be implemented? Lectures? What officer would stand up and give them knowing that it would be a criminal act against both Civil and Military Law. Pamphlets? Who would be so foolish as to put their name to something in writing? It also supposes that the troops with wives, girlfriends, sisters, and mothers would be receptive to it.

    There is absolutely no evidence of such a policy which would not be some vague suspicion but be glaringly obvious and impossible to conceal.

    Individual acts of rape and other criminal activity are an inevitable consequence of war where troops in danger of their lives try to escape the terrible realities of the battlefield. Several reasonable cases have been reported but they in no way add up to deliberate military intent. All this must be set against the Ukies complete lack of credibility. The False Flag attacks. The fake mass graves. The non-existent Genocide. The phoney War Crimes agenda. All speak to a polity that lacks even the rudiments of truthfulness.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/23/russian-generals-systematically-planned-ordered-sexual-violence/

    1. Well, we’ve had Putin’s dying, Putin’s not got long left, Russians are bombing Poland, Russian bombs have destroyed roads – where the cars and windows are untouched…

      There’s no mention of Ukraine bombing the Donbass region, nor of the sectarianism. It’s tiresome that so many lies are told so easily about so amny things.

  14. SIR – Regarding ID cards, please spare a thought for the oldies.

    As my mother approached her 90th year, she stopped travelling and didn’t renew her passport. Then she surrendered her driving licence.

    How, then, to prove her identity?

    Margaret Winterton
    Queniborough, Leicestershire

    That’s easy, Ms Winterton – apply for an older person’s bus pass. It’s free, it includes a photo and, you never know, she might find it useful, too…

        1. Yes Hugh, I suspect so.

          She’s obviously not been warned of identity theft from documents posted.

      2. It isn’t. I sent a photo of mine (that had expired) as proof and was told they couldn’t accept it because it was not current.

  15. SIR – Regarding ID cards, please spare a thought for the oldies.

    As my mother approached her 90th year, she stopped travelling and didn’t renew her passport. Then she surrendered her driving licence.

    How, then, to prove her identity?

    Margaret Winterton
    Queniborough, Leicestershire

    That’s easy, Ms Winterton – apply for an older person’s bus pass. It’s free, it includes a photo and, you never know, she might find it useful, too…

  16. 368342+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    UK experts helped shut down Covid lab leak theory – weeks after being told it might be true

    Sir Patrick Vallance among scientists behind paper that stifled debate into the origins of the virus

    the question is, WHY,

    Old pat has seemingly, out of court & with a number of
    “experts” in tow condemned debate that surely MUST be in the peoples interest to know just WHO is trying to
    maim / kill them, if any, in the name of
    manipulating control / business ( could very well be ).

    One fact that is clear to see, the majority supporter / voter
    are kneeling in a submissive manner, bowing their heads in shame not earned, their necks extended to overseers that have the Quran resting between the two dispatch boxes.

  17. SIR – Nicola Sturgeon vows to continue to fight for an independent Scotland (report, November 23). This despite relying on the Greens to claim a mandate for her now very boring aspiration.

    The fact is that she is presiding over the steady decline of all services to the people of Scotland, despite receiving more, per capita, from the Exchequer than other parts of the UK. She holds on by inciting the vocal minority to condemn anything that is British or, worse, English.

    It is time to curtail the oxygen of her coverage. The vast majority of UK passport holders don’t want to hear the same old song being tunelessly sung on repeat.

    Robert Barlow
    Felpham, West Sussex

    Yes, Mr Barlow, the Whiner-in-Chief is exceedingly tiresome!

    1. I wonder if she does it in the hope that the English will become so fed up with them and the extra cost of them that they will say to Hell with them, let’s get shot.

      I know that I have moved from being pro the Union and the countries therein to cheering any sports team to beat the Scots.

      1. I’m sure you’re right – the idea is to piss off the English so that they will bring pressure to bear on the UK government to grant another referendum on Scottish independence. It has been said many times that if the referendum were to be extended to all UK citizens, Scotland would be out of the Union before you could say Jack Robinson.

        This is a great pity, as the SNP doesn’t speak for the majority of Scots.

        1. I used to get into heated arguments with ScotNats on various blogs, by my supporting the Union. The hatred was towards the English far far more than that against the Union per se.
          My limited experiences of visiting Scotland have shown the people almost invariably being hostile towards me the instant they hear the English accent.

          1. With a friend we arrived at a hotel and restaurant in Scotland. 8pm on a thursday night. I asked at the Bar if we could have a table for dinner. The answer was No. Nothing else. Just No. We left.

          2. It must be the Auld Alliance, Philip. I would get a similar response in Paris, “Parlez-vous Anglais?”

            “Non” was always the terse reply.

          4. Morning sos – I have learned not to argue with the SNP fanatics. They don’t like Scots who are unionists but most of us keep quiet.

          6. The majority don’t but the opposition is split between the Con/Lab/Lib voters. Yet, the nationalists had to bribe both of the Green party MSPs with a minesterial position to push their agenda through. This when their combined green vote was miniscule. Much like Carrie Antionette in No 10, the tail is wagging the dog.

            It is telling though that Olga Krankie feels the need to employ a 50 strong PR team to push her poison through the supine Scots meeja. It won’t end well when the spinning plates finally begin to fall.

          7. And sooner rather than later.

            She is a perfect example of what happens when one party’s votes are reliable and the other parties are split, sufficiently to put what may well be the fourth choice into power.

          8. That has been my recent experience, also, sos. When I was stationed at Kinloss 1960-62 the Scots were very pleasant.

          9. Attitudes have changed enormously over that time-frame, it seems to me that people have become far more polarised and intolerant.

            Reasonable debate with acceptance and respect for differing/ dissenting opinions has all but vanished.

      2. I’ve always said that if they truly wanted independence (as opposed to Devo-Max with increased English funding), all they had to do was to let the English vote. They’d be gone in an Augenblick.

    2. I don’t understand how Scotland’s educaiton can fall so far, so quickly. All Sturgeon has to do was leave it alone and keep funding it in line with inflation.

      Ah. Leave it alone…

    1. Read that in Aftenposten yesterday. They see no point for healthy adults to be injected again.

        1. Excellent idea bb2.

          Once they’ve finished their productive tax-paying life they can be vaccinated.

          What a clever idea.

        2. Excellent idea bb2.

          Once they’ve finished their productive tax-paying life they can be vaccinated.

          What a clever idea.

        3. Falling back on the original idea of only jabbing the ‘vulnerable’. Why? Too many younger people dying or being disabled by the jab, 65+ deaths and disabilities are more easily explained away. Both you and janetjH are right on the money.

          1. I used to get regular texts and phone calls but blocked each number. Haven’t had one for 6-9 months.

    3. That cheap crook from the US conveniently forgets that Dr Peter McCulloch, one of the US’s leading physicians, has been on of its strongest opponents to the vaxxes.

    2. Why bother? Dublin will advise them of the CTA and push them up to Belfast and Larne for onward travel.

  20. Shamima Begum a bigger danger to national security if left in Syria, former MI6 chief says. 24 November 2022.

    Richard Barrett, former director of global counter-terrorism at MI6, has now described MI5’s assessment of Ms Begum’s national security risk as “superficial and inadequate”.

    In a report prepared for Ms Begum’s legal team, he wrote that it was “seriously open to doubt” that a pregnant teenage girl – as Ms Begum was when she resurfaced in 2019 – “presented a physical threat so great as to overwhelm the resources of the state”
    .
    He continued: “She has been deprived of her citizenship as an individual without any explanation of how a giggly and impressionable member of a group of schoolgirls might have turned into a singular and uncontrollable monster.”

    If she is indeed as innocuous as Mr Barret states then how can she be a greater danger in Syria? I have never thought her a threat to the UK. She is a traitor who renounced her allegiance to this country and gave it to a terrorist organisation. In that sense her exile is self-inflicted. Like any other hostile alien she should be prevented from taking up residence in the UK!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/23/shamima-begum-poses-bigger-danger-uk-national-security-left/

    1. Ah, of course shee would. A rallying cry, perhaps to the gimmigrants here?

      Of course, we should bring her back! Yes, let’s bring her bac. Because who cares about another terrorist?

      Shoot the bitch. Solve everyone’s problem. Then start on her lawyers, troughing on legal aid.

    2. Bringing her back would set a precedent. It would encourage others to take the same course of action as she did, knowing that they could return to the UK after their period of jihadi service. She must be made an example of.

    4. Eh? Shamima Begum was born in the UK. She is no more an ‘alien’ than Tony Blair or Rishi Sunak or Boris Johnson or Suella Braverman or Priti Patel. Far from being a traitor, she was betrayed by the incompetence and/or maliciousness of the British Government and the Home Office, and possibly the security services.

        1. Correct. I read a couple of years ago that she was enforcing muslim women’s dress code and carrying an AK47.

      2. Perhaps the UK should take the same stance as Qatar, as far as birth right is concerned.

        Do you really think that if Islamic State had been on the winning side that she would still be wanting to return, except as a fighter in Britain for that same rotten murdering organisation?

      3. British Citizenship should not just depend on you being born here. It should be based on where your four grandparents were born.

        Births, deaths and marriages have been recorded since 1837 so your grandparent will most likely be in there somewhere.

    5. If the idiot really believes that Begum is “a giggly member of a group of schoolgirls” then surely we should really worry about the fact that such a credulous moron was a Director of Global Anti-Terrorism?

  21. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/523587d2a756bd9d58cf1e08d5fc3001a153ce5f4fd0c3f2f9cae215829332bb.png Aw, diddums, likkle Babsy-Wabsy, teachie-weachie. Did a whole hour at work make you so knackered that you needed to sit down and have a coffee? [I say an hour because the first half hour you attend a school is taken up with marking the register and morning assembly]. Maybe if you’d instilled old-fashioned discipline on your PUPILS* then they wouldn’t tire you out so much.

    I wonder how you would fare if you’d had a proper job that involves the concept of hard graft?

    *Yes, I was right first time.

    2. Good morning Grizzly and everyone.
      Just making a guess that you have never actually taught in a British primary school. Most teaching staff will be on the site at around 0800, and after 150 minutes looking after other people’s children, in loco parentis, with said youngsters ranging from delightful to less delightful, from normal to not-quite-so-normal, (you get the picture), coffee is welcome but is nevertheless a poor substitute for brandy.

      1. Come off it they have more time off than most.i would not have teachers that have not worked in the real world of the private sector. Non would be under 30.

        1. I am a great believer that ALL vocations should only hire candidates who have worked for a while in the real world and got their hands dirty.

      2. I don’t think Grizz has taught in any school. Old-fashioned discipline? The parents would be in to sort out the teacher, the child would be putting in false accusations against the teacher and the Head would be reprimanding the teacher for causing distress!

  22. BTL Comment I suspect many here will agree with:-

    tom frederick
    4 HRS AGO
    The House of Lords (like it or not) was at its most effective before the bogeyman Bliar reduced the hereditary peers down to 92. The Life Peerages Act of 1958 began the rot as it did not limit the number of peers an individual government could nominate nor prevent career politicians retiring from the Commons to the Lords.

  24. The English Spelling Society — set up in 1908 by a group of educational reformers, including George Bernard Shaw — has voted on a method for streamlining the English language. Under its proposed system of “traditional spelling revised”, redundant letters would be eliminated from words such as (k)night, snor(e) or – Beano-lovers beware – (g)nash. Spelling irregularities would be ironed out, and only one combination of letters approved for each sound. Thus, wash would become wosh, good would be guud, and cough would be coff.

    All this is necessary, says the society, because our spelling has been mucked around with over the centuries by “scribes, printers, invaders and others”, so that it no longer matches the way we speak. “English spelling is broken.”

    Broken? What a preposterous (pre-puster-us) notion (no-shun). English spelling is only enhanced by its oddities. I love the fact that it contains layers of history, like the rings of a tree. A flourish of French vowels here, some clattering Anglo-Saxon there, a little Hindi or Yiddish to keep things interesting. It’s a mess – and all the better for it.

    Shaw — the Irish communist, socialist and ardent member of the Left-wing Fabian Society — must have been an ardent follower of the American idiot, Noah Webster, since they were both in the vanguard of the clamour to reduce English to gibberish. Webster was successful: this clownish Shavian crew will never become so.

    1. Aaargh! Not this again. To denude the English language of its multilayered, evocative spelling, flattening regional accents, infantilising us… I despair. Damned well hope you’re right that they won’t succeed.

      1. Good morning, Katy. How on earth can they succeed? To do so they would have to force me to write in their gibberish. Neither they, nor anyone else, have the capability of doing that.

        1. Morning, G! Oh, I don’t know – they could frame their despoliation in terms of inclusivity and convenience, ‘protecting’ those who for whatever reason fin spelling difficult… We’d be in a minority. Again! 🤣

      3. The strength of English is that there has been no managing committee, it has grown organically. That ensured health and vigour, much more to than the dead hand of a committee could ever do.

        1. These fools don’t seem to realise that 9 times out of 10. Leaving sleeping dogs where they lie, is the better option.

        2. L’academie francaise is losing the battle to keep French pure. People borrow words they find useful; le weekend, le batiment de grand standing, le parking, etc, etc.

    3. As Isaiah Berlin observed, there are those who put the stars themselves into straight lines if they could.

    4. If cough became coff, then coffer would have a double meaning and words with multiple meanings are, I’m told, what makes English difficult to learn.

      2. “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”

        1. “A ruff-coated, doe-faced, thortful plowman strode throo the streets of Scarburrah; after falling into a sluff, he coffed and hiccuped.”

  27. Laurence Fox is being given a slot on GBNews on Fridays at 7pm. He is leader of one of the 3 new parties. Little is heard on GBNews of Neil Hamilton, leader of UKIP. Nigel Farage was interviewing potential Reform party candidates last night, a disgruntled Conservative MP and an ex Con MEP. The Reform party appears to be on the move. It’s about time.

    1. We can only hope. Its now of never to get rid of this terrible mess called Westminster and the HoL. If they all turn up on the same day there would be around 1500 in the same building costing the taxpayers 2 million plus pounds per week. And For doing absolutely sweet FA.
      It all needs a massive rethink. But not by any of them.

      1. ” If they all turn up on the same day… ”

        ‘twould be a good day for a Guy Fawkes plot or, better yet, a nuclear missile.

    2. The current state of the affairs must end. My solution is for every single disgruntled Conservative MP to stand down now and stand again at by election under different colours if this does not force an immediate general election.

      I know I keep banging on about this – but has any one here got any better ideas as to how to get rid of the monstrous government?

      1. 368342+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        For starters burn the toxic trios membership card, they have been not only useless these past near 40 years but also dangerous when used.

      2. The problem with most of our politicians is, they have become and are too dependent on their expenses. And judging from the state of our country, most of them sit around and are doing absolutely nothing to keep this country safe and prosperous.
        I’ve just seen one of the idiots on TV news Gove. Housing sec. Blaming the landlords for the death of little boy who recently died of mould.
        No Mr Gove. It was the child’s parents fault that he died. They were trying to get up graded from the free property provided by the British taxpayers. They should have looked
        after the little fella and wiped the walls. But if they were taken to court and charged with gross neglect which is what actually lead to his
        death. There would be an uproar and shouts of racism.

      3. Surely you would think that someone from St Peter’s School, York, would be able to come up with an answer!

        1. Funnily enough one of my very closest friends who read the lesson (I Corinthians 13) at our wedding was at St Peter’s York as a boy. We went to see him in July at his home in Durham where, after retiring from schoolmastering, he lectured at St Chad’s at Durham University.

          1. Durham is a beautiful city, almost as nice as York. I hope you availed yourselves to some stottie cakes and pease pudding while you were there.

    3. 368342+ up ticks,

      Morning C,
      The farage chap will be holding foot checks on new recruits with hill marching in mind.

      The neil hamilton / farage duo are unbeatable in the treachery stakes check out 2019.

      I can honestly see tory ( ino) Mk2 taking shape, embodying the treacherous old with a spanking new head assembly.

      Once again inundated with members
      unwittingly continuing to further the
      RESET cause.

  28. Morning all 😊
    Surprise or not, another grey day. And even darker tomorrow. BF.
    It’s strange how it was only around 3-4 years ago when our beloved and increasingly useless government set in place around 6 NHS regional directors. And now look at what has happened.
    They’ll be in line for a fat bonus.

    1. Hi Eddy. Can you say what, if anything, specific has happened to make your comment .

      “ And now look at what has happened.”.

      1. There are now staff shortages almost everywhere you go in hospitals and Phone calls, even emails go un-answered. Appointments are cancelled and I have had recent experiences of appointments being more then 6 months ahead. Paperwork and contacts are known to go astray. GP practices are being over whelmed with newly arrive people coming to register at surgeries.
        Just for instance i had to ruing a private medical facility to enquire about knee surgery. The phone rang less than 5 times before it was answered. If you phone an NHS facility you have to wait ages, if you actually get an answer.
        It’s pretty obvious that many workers have recently gone across to the private (even specialists) sector because pay and conditions are much better. This is probably the reason for the increase in appointment waiting times.
        I recently had a notice of an appointment next June to see someone I have seen several times already and they have all the medical information they will ever need. It’s like banging your proverbial head against a wall.
        7 Recently installed (2021) regional directors and it’s not working at all.
        If covid was really the problem, it would have seriously have affected the private sector, which appears to be booming.

        https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=9322df389067b287JmltdHM9MTY2OTI0ODAwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZjg2YWFhOC00MjBiLTZjMDItMjI4Ni1iOGNlNDNlYjZkNGImaW5zaWQ9NTIwNg&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1f86aaa8-420b-6c02-2286-b8ce43eb6d4b&psq=Government+installs+new+NHS+regional+directors+&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZW5nbGFuZC5uaHMudWsvYWJvdXQvcmVnaW9uYWwtYXJlYS10ZWFtcy8&ntb=1

        1. I see what you mean. Those running a business have to get on with things or go bust. The NHS, as we all know, is the envy of the world and awash with money – hence Diversity/Inclusivity/etc. etc managers and Regional Managers. Talk about top heavy!

          1. On one occasion I had sort out a cancellation of an appointment. I went to the actual department to find out what was happening. And receptionist apologised for admin error and printed off the letter I should have been sent.
            Another told me that most of the admin ‘was up the creek’.
            It’s easy to understand why so many of the staff are leaving.
            And this has been happening for many year’s. An eminent back surgeon told me he had, had enough of interference from senior admin as long ago as 2005 he was at Stanmore orthopaedic. But only practice’s in London privately. I had so much respect for him he was brilliant.

  31. Back from busy market. It was on local telly last week – so there were lots of comments about “TV stars” – “As seen on TV” etc etc. VERY good value on Tony’s knock-off stall. Three goat cheeses (eat with spoon before they make a bid for freedom) = £1. Large block of pecorino = £3. The savings we make with his stuff are enormous.

  33. I have decided to become an influencer. All YOU need to do is send me lots of money. Then I can be photographed a lot and stay at the Savoy. Or Claridges. For nothing, apparently…

    Just give your bank details to my friend Mr Rashid. He’ll take care of everything.

    1. Can I be an influencer? I have all the symptoms – high temperature, an aching body, feeling tired, a dry cough. a sore throat, a headache, difficulty sleeping and loss of appetite.

      1. AARRGGHH. You must be the ONE person in the whole country with yer Covid. Please test yourself every hour. Remain in isolation till 16 January. And under no circumstances bother your GP.

      2. Me too. I think I have yer actual flu since returning from holiday. Lack of sleep and a dull headache all night, aches and pains.

        1. We are both recovering from Covid, we’ve been lucky, not much more than a glorified cold, we think we must have picked it up on the Remembrance or the oldies lunch.

          2. Positive lateral flow test.

            Had HG not insisted I would not have bothered to find out, the symptoms were so similar to a cold.

            Doubly irritating as she had picked up that nasty cough and cold that is doing the rounds in the UK and had only been clear of it a week. She tested herself for that one and it was negative for Covid.

          3. I banned all tests in this house. I neither know nor care what I am suffering from – I just treat the condition appropriately and wait for it to pass.

            I should probably be cancelled for that attitude. Or banned from receiving any medical treatment

          4. HG is terrified that she will pass it on to a vulnerable person. Unfortunately it seems to me that all our friends fit into that category.

            I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told her that if she’s concerned about something she should isolate, makes no difference she still wants a test, just in case.

            Fortunately she’s not a mask-maniac.

  34. I didn’t spend 25 years battling for Brexit only to watch the Tories give it away
    No more deals or standing aside: Reform UK will field a full slate of candidates at the next election
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/n/nf-nj/nigel-farage/

    I rather agree with this BTLiner’s reply to Nigel Farage!

    BTL

    I was glad to see Ben Habib on GB News expressing the view I often have expressed : that it was a disastrous decision of yours not to contest sitting Conservative remainer MPs at the last general election. The consequence of this is that the HoC is now stuffed with remainers on all sides of the chamber – Brexit has not been properly effected it is in grave danger of being overturned completely.
    My suggestion is that every single disillusioned Conservative MP should now resign. We must not continue with this catastrophic government any longer.

    1. 368342+ up ticks,

      Morning R,

      “We must not continue with this catastrophic government any longer”.

      With the electorate majorities capacity for successfully leaping from pan to fire we must swiftly move on with no evaluation of past actions, to the next catastrophic government as in tory (ino) MK2.

      For disastrous decision read blatant
      treachery.

      1. There will be no vote. There will be no offer of rejoining. It won’t be publicised. It will be done silently without press mention. The entire apparatus of state is dedicated to destroying this country.

        1. 468342+ up ticks,

          Afternoon W,
          The political overseers are certainly NOT for giving us a rendering of Land of hope and glory, far from it.

          Once again the decent peoples of these Isles were not prepared for war especially with their own likeness in looks but not actions.

      3. 368342+ up ticks,
        R,
        I posted the same yesterday

        ogga1
        a day ago
        368266+ up ticks,

        A view on 2019, imo a very,very, pro tory (ino) party / johnson view, from brexit party leader.

        The brexit party evolved into the reform party.

        I add MUST be treated with high caution.

    4. Danger? There’s no danger. It will be undone and the state will force us back in. Every single effort is being made to ensure it. Every policy aimed at it. No interest in growth, repeal of law, actual independence: the entire state machine is focussed solely on high taxes and an obese state while the country falls to ruin – as the euroscum want.

  35. Will any beloved classics be safe from trigger warnings?
    Precious university students beware – this poem may contain scenes of cruelty to daffodils
    University of Greenwich says Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem, The Ancient Mariner, contains scenes of ‘animal death and supernatural possession’,

    Allison Pearson :
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/11/23/will-beloved-classics-safe-trigger-warnings/

    BTL

    When I was a schoolmaster I helped the pupils organise an un official school magazine. The official magazine was called The Albatross – so we named the unofficial magazine The Crossbow.

    1. BTW – I thought it was rather unfair to call the school’s wicket keeper ‘The Ancient Mariner’ because he only stopped one in three.

    2. What next? Anger at the Terra Nova expedition because it depicts climate change in a bad light?

      Clucking tankers. Do they not remember what Winston’s job was?

      1. Yep, and they’d rather not take any lessons from WSC’s playbook but rather consult Goebbels or Lord Haw Haw.

  36. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c36f839c2f7e075a72f0b3d1f8f649d7f06ac4eda73e8e703cdc4988498be5ce.png A drone captures scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and the World Wide Fund for Nature nearing a “haulout” of walruses on a spit in Svalbard, Norway. The marine mammals normally rest on sea ice between dives but global warming means that they are increasingly forced to congregate in large groups on land instead.

    Yet more false news [i.e. lies] from an increasingly desperate MSM on behalf of their dangerous globalist puppet-masters. They will be reminding you all not to forget to have your latest “Covid jab” [sorry: “euthanasia-shot”] next!

    What’s up, DT? Did you forget that ‘global warming’ (a Freudian slip?) has long been replaced by ‘climate change’, ‘climate emergency’ and ‘climate catastrophe’? Or are you getting increasingly desperate to foist these crass lies on a stupid and gullible public?

    1. That’s summer. Look how short those shadows are. Less ice in hte summer (clue in the name).

    1. Half a million. Dear life. That’s two Southampton’s every year. While some of these people are valuable, the vast majority are not and are simply freeloaders.

      It is utterly unsustainable, especially as the state is desperately trying to shut down our economy in the demented obsession with gren (which really is an EU policy, thus required for re-entry: that’s why they won’t abandon it).

    1. I talked to a person whose grown up son is living with her since last winter being treated for prostate cancer, last week he had a new lump on his chest and went to the oncology unit who delayed further appointments by 4 weeks saying they had lost his records. The whole bloody system is a disgraceful shambles, on purpose is my suspicion.

    2. Err…. I’ve not had the vaccination and I was treated in hospital. They did a covid test, but nothing beyond that. Certainly not hectoring to be vaccinated.

  39. Good morning again – what is left of it…

    Came accross this just now:

    https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/police-notified-gay-muslim-speaker-25545309

    Officers have been alerted to a bitter row between staff and students at a Black Country school following a talk from gay Muslim speaker. The outburst was said to have been sparked by a student’s reaction to Khakan Qureshi sharing his experience – with Wood Green Academy later apologising “for any upset or distress that has been caused by this incident”.

    The LGBTQ+ activist visited the Wednesbury school on Tuesday, November 15, and opened up to sixth-form students about the prejudice he had faced due to his sexuality. However, things were said to have ‘got a bit hostile’ during a Q&A session, when a student challenged his views of Islam. Khakan said he felt some were ‘dissecting his identity’ as they questioned how he could be both Muslim and gay.

    I have to ask – what is a gay Muslim speaker, described as an LGBTQ+++++ activist, doing in our schools? Anyway, it seems that the puplis are fighting back! is the tide finally turning??

    2. I think he should be allowed to speak to senior students, otherwise the young adults won’t get all viewpoints.

      What ticks me off is that he then has the temerity to question their right to challenge his position.

      Where I do draw the line is proselytising to primary school children by LGBetcetc..

      1. As long as all viewpoints are allowed.

        I do not see an anti gay activist being allowed to speak, no matter how many ++++ are after their title.

  41. Jack and Jill went up the hill
    To fetch a pail of water.
    Jack lost his b*ll*cks half way up
    And came down as Jill’s daughter.

    1. Jack and Jill went up the hill
      To fetch a pail of water.
      Jill came down with half a crown
      But now she’s got a daughter.

      1. Mary had a little lamb
        That was always grunting
        So she tied it to a five bar gate
        And kicked its littlehead in

    1. While we are busy testing Russia’s military capabilities, does it occur to those donating our hardware that doing so might actually be giving Russia a good insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the equipment supplied and that that knowledge may be used against the UK itself in due course?

      1. As the Chinese got a good intro to the US finest weapons and vehicles when Biden abandoned them in Afghanistan.

        1. He probably arranged for a Hunter to collect them for them and the consultancy fees will have been paid in Switzerland

    3. Conservatives, pah! Lackeys of the WEF that’s all, trying to destroy Russia; because Russia and Putin, are the impediment to their wish for World Domination.

  43. RIP John Peter Wilkinson, a good ol’ Essex lad.

    aka ‘Wilko Johnson’, lead guitarist with Dr Feelgood.

  44. https://twitter.com/True_Belle/status/1595755614780944385

    After WW2, my father and mother went to Africa , Sudan , Egypt and Nigeria .. Dad worked for civil engineering companies as a quantity surveyor , they had a house in England .. during the 60’s , he was tempted by an offer of a job on the Dungeness A nuclear power station project .. family moved to Littlestone on sea from Surrey ..

    The only politician he admired was Churchill , and was furious with Eden and Macmillan ( the Suez debacle involved us all, sister and mother and I were evacuated , and all the expat men , engineers , priests , experts on everything were taken prisoner for 3 months by the Egyptians and released at Christmas 1956)

    When Harold Wilson came to power and embargoed Rhodesia , Daddy had many friends in Africa , and he decided to dump the UKin 1967 and take the family to South Africa , by then I had a twin brother and sister 11 years younger than me , including a sister 4 years younger than me . I stayed in the UK , student nurse in the RN.

    What exactly do politicians achieve .. they never ever learn by previous mistakes ..They are so disconnected and do not understand reality ..The country is ruined . https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bbc0931d3aa7310885859d0bbad093ce553b38e4c6a511fd6fb7d9713f1b39b.jpg

    Mother, younger sister and I, Egypt 1955.

  45. Watching first ministers lying…oops…questions and have discovered that this useless administration has paid out £4.2 million and rising, to buy and maintain mobile phones for prisoners, since the beginning of Convid! Apparently the poor little souls were missing their visitors! Meanwhile, in care homes and hospitals….! What a bunch of absolute sh*ts!

    1. Ah cannae ken why the wee wifies of Caledonia don’t just gang up on the fishwife and knock her lights oot! 🥊

      2. Her lady friend tried that with her at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, using an iron! All very hush hush, D notices and all that!

        1. One knows about the “friend from Europe” – but is there any actual proof lurking about?

          5. I quote from “Quora” – google it:*

            Well the rumour and it is just a rumour is that Nicola lives in Bridge of Allan with her lesbian lover. Recently it has shifted to Dunblane.

            Personally the main issue with these claims is that no one has ever seen her swanning about Bridge of Allan. Its not a big place, one chippy and one tesco. It’s not like she is inconspicuous.

            I reckon the stories are exaggerated but her and Peter do not look like a happy couple.

            * google “N S + Lesbian”

          8. He must know – he’s a journalist – and we know they are incapable of telling an untruth…

        2. 🤣 It would need more than an iron to remove all the creases from that shrivelled gargoyle’s gruesome physog!

          2. Theodore Dalrymple makes a good point about that. These people are reconvicted rather than reoffenders, since many of them by their own admission are not convicted of anywhere near as many crimes as they commit.

          6. Saying that Uncle Fred was a guest of her majesty used to be a euphemism for the fact that he was in prison. The current invaders are probably best described as stake holders.

  46. I didn’t spend 25 years battling for Brexit only to watch the Tories give it away. 24 November 2022.

    No more deals or standing aside: Reform UK will field a full slate of candidates at the next election.

    Even before the rumoured new Swiss-style sell out to the European Union, the Conservative Party was already in deeper trouble than it knows. The game of musical chairs in Downing Street may be over for now, but the party is stuck at about 20% in most opinion polls. After twelve years of Tory rule, the only concrete achievement it can point to is that it “got Brexit done”. (In fact, even this claim barely stands up to scrutiny when you take into account the way Northern Ireland has been left in limbo).

    Nigel’s coming out to play That should liven things up!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/24/no-deals-tories-reform-uk-will-field-full-slate-candidates-next/

    1. If Boris Johnson had wanted a proper Brexit he would have got it. The only conclusion I can come to is that his Brexit was meant to be a bodged mess.

    2. Far from getting Brexit done, these fools have deliberately wasted every possible opportunity intentionally to force us back in to the hated EU. That’s their plan and intent and they won’t stop until they achieve it. Then they’ll swan off into tax payer funded non-jobs.

      1. They have denied that we will be having EU laws forced upon us, apparently. That means we’ll be getting them (only there’ll be no force involved – the PTB will be welcoming them with open arms).

  48. Following growing tensions between Italy and France over the issue of boat migrants in the Mediterranean, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has resorted to extremely harsh rhetoric, referring to the Italian government as “enemies of France.”

    Presumably if (I know it is a big if) we blocked the Channel migrants the UK too would become an ‘enemy of France’!

    2. All that nasty reaction over 125 immigrants. The Frog politicians are turds. The real cause of the trouble is that the leader of the Italian government is an extreme ‘RIGHT-Wing fascist’ who turned away a single ship with about 250 on board. The Krauts have agreed to take half of them but the Frogs don’t want to take any. Why Gladys Macron is worried, I don’t know. They will all end up in five star hotels in the UK anyway.

      1. Four star please Ped.

        We don’t want to think that the Government is being wasteful with taxpayers’ money

        1. That is a book I would openly read on the Metro when commuting to La Defense on the outskirts of Paris in the 1990s.

    1. “...and I hope I can continue for another 5 years.”

      Short-term thinking in the extreme – you won’t.

    3. I’ve watched work on Warren Hill many times (I have a share in a racehorse trained in Newmarket). Never seen the MP (but I’ve seen Sir Mark Prescott many times).

    1. I remember Benny Green saying – with disgust – “and the American Academy gave the best song that year to ‘Three Coins In The Fountain’??? “

      1. As well as being an aficionado of jazz music Benny Green wrote a literary biography of one of my idols, P.G. Wodehouse.

    2. The pianist is chewing gum! I bet Spikey doesn’t chew gum when he’s playing to his fans in the nursing homes!

    3. Never heard of him but his songs were some of the best and still familiar to many. An incredible list:

      Major songs

      “A Sleepin’ Bee” – lyrics by Harold Arlen and Truman Capote
      “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “As Long as I Live” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “Blues in the Night” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Come Rain or Come Shine” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “Down with Love” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “For Every Man There’s a Woman” – lyrics by Leo Robin
      “Get Happy” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “Hit the Road to Dreamland” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Hooray for Love” – lyrics by Leo Robin
      “I Could Go On Singing” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “If I Only Had a Brain” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “I Had Myself A True Love” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “I Love a Parade” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “Ill Wind” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “I Never Has Seen Snow” – lyrics by Harold Arlen and Truman Capote
      “It Was Written in the Stars” – lyrics by Leo Robin
      “I’ve Got the World on a String” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “It’s Only a Paper Moon” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, Billy Rose
      “I Wonder What Became of Me” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Last Night When We Were Young” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “Let’s Fall in Love” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block” – lyrics by Ira Gershwin and E. Y. Harburg
      “Like a Straw in the Wind” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “My Shining Hour” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “On the Swing Shift” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Out of This World” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “Over the Rainbow” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “Right As The Rain” – lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
      “Sing My Heart” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “So Long, Big Time!” – lyrics by Dory Langdon
      “Stormy Weather” – lyrics by Ted Koehler
      “That Old Black Magic” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “The Man That Got Away” – lyrics by Ira Gershwin
      “This Time the Dream’s on Me” – lyrics by Johnny Mercer
      “What’s Good About Goodbye?” – lyrics by Leo Robin
      “When the Sun Comes Out” – lyrics by Ted Koehler

    4. Let it rip 😊
      Fantastic, when I was in my early years somebody presented a huge mahogany cased gramophone to our family.
      The cupboard below the deck was full of 78s. I became very fond of that type of music at an early age. Jazzy brass content and stories in the lyrics.

    1. The Twitter bird is called Larry it was named after Larry Bird, the hall of fame NBA forward who played thirteen seasons with the Boston Celtics.

  52. Par four here today

    Wordle 523 4/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Dreadful Double Bogey for me

      Wordle 523 6/6
      🟨🟨⬜🟨🟨
      🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
      ⬜🟩🟨🟨🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Bogey for me, nasty little one.
      Wordle 523 5/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      nyt.com/wordle‌

  53. ..A Lawyer representing a wealthy art dealer called him and said,
    “Saul, I have some good and some bad news for you.”

    The art dealer replied,
    “I’ve had a terrible day. Give me the good news first.”

    “Well”, says the Lawyer. “I met with your wife yesterday and she told me
    she had purchased two pictures for £5,000, but she thinks they might be
    worth £5-10 MILLION!’

    “Fantastic woman, my wife, and a very smart businesswoman too” says the
    art dealer.

    “What’s the bad news?”

    The Lawyer replied,

    “The pictures are of you banging your secretary.”

  55. After a dry and pleasant for the time of year morning, the next band of rain arrived an hour or so ago and it’s bloody chucking it down at the moment.
    Noted that the mailbox for the Bungalow next door whose owner died over a month ago was stuffed with post for her, so I’ve dried it off, put it into a couple of large envelopes and shoved into the postbox up the road with the message “Addressee deceased, please return to sender” written on it.

  56. And all of a sudden, the rain has stopped and it’s brightened up!
    Looks like it should be with Bill in an hour or so.

    1. True – about 5 pm – though we often just miss rain: it’ll fall three miles away but not here. Anyway – tomorrow is supposed to be very sunny.. So they say.

    4. Ah yes, I remember Hemp. Used widely by the Royal Navy to make ropes. Hence the expression: ‘Spliff the Main Brace’!

    2. And all so easily resolved except…. adherence to net zero is demanded on admittance to the hated EU.

      Anyone else noticing a pattern?

    2. ” The last time I saw a wazzock wearing those was in Cambridge, chap calling himself peddytheviking”

      1. Personally, I am more concerned about Peddy’s well being than what type of shoes he chooses to wear!

        1. It was a joke, possibly in bad taste, but it was a joke.

          I can’t help fearing that he’s gone on to better things.

    1. Like making love in a punt.

      It has a similar 99·99999999999% water content to what Grotney’s ‘Red Barrel’ had.

      1. Cos’ it’s ‘king Close to water.

        First seen on the white board in the gents at the camra pub The Barley Mow, Tyttenhangar Herts. Now sadly long closed.

  62. Rt Hon Chloe Smith MP to stand down at next election

    Author: Chloe Smith, Updated: 22 November 2022 09:34

    Rt Hon Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, has announced she will stand down at the next general election.

    Chloe has represented Norwich North since 2009, winning the marginal seat five times. In 2023 she will become the longest serving MP for either Norwich constituency in modern history. If the term ends in 2024, she will have served for 15 years.

    Chloe is most proud of founding the Norwich for Jobs project, helping thousands of young people into work in the city, and securing major investment such as the new carriages on the Norwich-London train line while co-chairing the Great Eastern Mainline Taskforce.

    In Westminster, Chloe has worked alongside five Conservative Prime Ministers as well as Labour’s Gordon Brown. She has been one of the longest serving ministers, having joined the Government in May 2010 when she may have been one of the youngest ministers since Pitt. Continuing her passion for helping people into jobs, she served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions after stints in five departments.

    She has been proud to work cross-party such as with Rosie Cooper MP in putting the British Sign Language Act into law; for Chloe this was significant because of a deaf family member.

    When first elected, aged 27, she was the youngest MP in the Commons. Now 40, she has also had her family while an MP – and a bout with breast cancer.

    Chloe states:

    “I have been honoured to be Norwich North’s MP. It’s a fantastic job for a fantastic place, and it’s a particular privilege to be able to represent Norwich and Norfolk where I come from.

    “I am grateful to the thousands of Norwich citizens who placed their trust in me so many times. I would also like to thank my team of volunteers who work so hard alongside me to help the community, and who have been so supportive, including during tough personal times.

    “I hope I’ve been able to make a difference, locally and nationally. In 2024, after fifteen years of service, it will be the right time to step back, for me and my young family.

    1. Nothing to do with the certainty that she’ll lose the next election to a Labour candidate, of course.

      Apparently, she is going to walk into a “consultancy” where she will be paid half a million smackers.

      1. Those bulging political address books don’t come cheap, Bill. Expect some further non-job consultancies, payback for past favours perhaps?

      2. If she had contested the seat and lost she would have been eligible for a golden handshake, Bill.

  65. VERY Disturbing:-

    The monstrous Dr. Gallagher
    An Irish doctor is using TikTok to Advertise Double Mastectomies to Minors. “I have yeeted 100s of unwanted teets””
    3 hr ago
    (My thanks to Sasha White for permission to repost this from her Substack)

    Several months ago, the New York Times generated a lot of buzz when they ran a piece about teen girls getting “top surgery,” featuring a picture of the woman who has come to be called the TikTok Surgeon, Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher. Dr. Gallagher is a Miami-based surgeon who openly admits to performing top surgery on minors, and advertises her services on the short video app TikTok. “Top surgery” is a euphemism for a double mastectomy, an operation usually reserved for women with breast cancer, but now being performed on the breasts of healthy girls as young as thirteen, because they no longer wish to be girls. The number of teens seeking medical transition is up 4000% in the UK, and in the US, an explosion of gender clinics across the country indicates the trend is here as well. Of all trans surgeries, mastectomies are the most common, and while exact numbers are not known, this surgery was performed on at least hundreds of minors in the U.S. in 2021. Earlier this year, a complaint about Gallagher was filed with the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly engaging in deceptive marketing to minors. Specifically, she is accused of claiming that double mastectomies on healthy breasts are “proven safe, effective, and medically necessary.” It isn’t hard to understand why this accusation was made once you take a look at the surgeon’s social media presence.

    Read more at:-
    https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-monstrous-dr-gallagher

    4. Torture. It is the only way to deal with scum such as this. Torture. Prolonged, intense, torture.

      I believe in mediaeval punishments for mediaeval scumbags.

  66. Evening, all. Very dark and very damp here; there was such a downpour that the roads have flooded.

    1. Evening, Conwy. Rain here, too. It’s yer global warming. But tomorrow will be gorgeous. They say.

  67. Wendyball haters, close your eyes now.

    Like him or loathe him, Christiano Ronaldo has achieved a record that I doubt will ever be beaten:

    He’s now played in 5 world cup final rounds. He’s scored each year, he was his country’s youngest scorer in the finals and now he’s also his country’s oldest.

      1. Not this time, but he wasn’t impressed when the opposition scored immediately after he’d gone.

    2. I watched some of it, I’m convinced that the games as far as possible are fixed.
      The referring is appalling.
      The fouling and diving is horrendous.

  68. That’s me for this day of two halves. OK this morning – though chilly. Rain from 4pm onwards.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain – if I am spared.

  69. I know I of (sic) gone – but just to keep your cockles warm – Project Arab Fear LIVES:

    “World Cup ‘camel flu’ warning: Experts list MERS – which kills up to a THIRD of everyone it strikes – as one of eight potential disease threats at Qatar tournament”

    2. Bit of an own goal, I’m sure they’ll tackle that.
      If that is true.
      Joking aside, I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole set up has been arranged for the the purpose of furthering the destruction of mankind.

    1. While the music, the words may all enhance the dance, I find that the fierce concentration on the dancer’s face, detracts somewhat from her, maybe, natural beauty.

  72. Sadly, Gentlefolk, I’m very, very tired so I shall wish you all Goodnight, Gentlefolk and God bless until the morning’s light.

      1. Thank you both, Maggie and Paul, I’ll do my best but that bastard black dog keeps haunting me. I’m seeing the quack in Morgan Fruh but I doubt he even knows how to help.

        2. He can recommend someone who can I’m sure, Tom. Give him a chance, be straight with him and let him help you. Who knows? He might amaze you!

        3. My Brummie friend John Lowe has this nugget of wisdom in dark times “Ait’s a boogger! ‘Ow about a noiss coop of tay”.

          I like to fantasise comforting things – I go to bed thinking that tonight I will sleep and not wake until 7am. No having to get up to drink water or pee, no numb hands, no sticky eyes, no worrying about the world. I imagine a machine wherein I could deposit myself for three weeks and emerge full of energy and stamina so I could do a full day’s work, and even become attractive to beautiful women, and then go to bed full of happy thoughts to dream with. Or I am a robotic engineer and I get busy designing and programming my perfect robot wife. Intelligent, kind, honest, naturally lovely and full of imagination and wonder. Oh what joy can be found confounding the feminists, and coming up with a human version of the faithful dog that I can marry legally. One Love.

          And they have knobbly knees in Butlins and all is happy happy happy for Black Friday (what’s that all about?) and I need never contribute again to Not The Nightly Grumpies web page.

          Instead, it’s 6.30am and time to make a pot of tea before the Today Programme says “misogyny”.

          [edit fo correctr the usual senior trait of thinking one word and typing another]

        4. Who knows?
          One doctor we had, in newport Pagness, didn’t have a God complex and was a bit dim – best doctor we ever had, he could doct from a position of having to work it out rather than jumping to conclusions because he was so smart.
          Fingers croxxed… 😉

  76. Today I drove over to the hospital, taking some bits over to my husband – clean shirt, pyjamas, pants, etc. I put the dirty ones in the bag for taking home and washing. He prefers to wear daytime clothes and walk around the ward, rather than just sit in bed – he hates being inactive. My phone was in the bag as well. Today he had a CT scan of his carotid artery – they are doing all sorts of tests.

    I’d driven half way home when I realised I hadn’t got the bag – so I had to turrn round and drive back again – and the traffic was horrendous by then. I retraced my steps but didn’t want to pay again in the main carpark, and also the route was not quite the same due to the one-way system. I found a space in a nearby street and walked back to the hospital. So I had an unscheduled mile or so’s walk as well today.

    I assumed I might have left the bag in the ladies’ loo, but nothing there. The chap on the desk said nothing had been handed in. I asked in the charity shop, if a blue cloth bag had arrived by mistake – a grubby shirt could have been mistaken for jumble. Nothing there. I went back through the maze of corridors to the ward – lo and behold, I’d left it on the arm of the chair by his bed. He was fast asleep so I didn’t disturb him. I told the Lithuanian nurse, Olga, with whom we had been chatting earlier on.

    Then I fought my way back through the rush-hour traffice that I’d hoped to avoid – it was dark by the time I got home and I hate driving in the dark these days as the lights are so dazzling.

    Such is life these days – I’ve driven more miles in the past week than I normally do in months now.

    1. I feel for you- appointments tomorrow and also 2 days next week for us. Hope you get some news about your husband’s op soon. Waiting is often worse than anything else.

      1. I hope your appointments go ok. Tomorrow is the dreaded dentistry day, so he thought I should give the visit a miss. I also have things to do here – get the car loaded up for the charity event we’re at on Saturday. So my next hospital trip will be on Sunday.

    2. Poor you! What a trail around you’ve had! Best of wishes for tomorrow and hope all goes well.

    3. Dear lady, you are a good wife, the sort I’ve been seeking all my life. I honour you.

      Ha, Olga, my maternal grandma’s name. Sadly I never met her.

    4. You must be exhausted Ndovu. It all sounds very stressful at a time you could least do with being stressed out. I hope your husband gets sorted quickly and is back home with you where he belongs. I hope you get a good night’s sleep.

      We drove back from Northants late afternoon, the weather, wind and driving rain were awful, appalling conditions all the way with headlights reflecting off the road, I don’t think we’ve driven through such awful rain since we were in France, where it really knows how to rain.

      1. The weather here has been atrocious for days- a brief glimpse of sun and then rain and gloom again. Windy too- outside of course;-)

      2. Yes – I was very stressed. Gone to bed early now.
        I hate driving in the dark and if I hadn’t left the bag behind I’d have been home by 4. I’d have left the bag if it had been just the grubby shirt but my phone was in it too.
        The rain was torrential yesterday with sleety stuff too and steady today.

  78. And that’s me off to bed.
    The DT’s heading up to Dr. Daughter’s for the weekend so it’s just me & S@H for the next couple of days.

    1. That’s funny in a way, I know you mean, Son at home but it always conjures up an old service meaning as, “Sick at Home”. no offence meant.

  84. I received two reports today – Month 7 SITREPS from HR and Finance.
    The HR report told me that our dept had 7% vacancies and was not meeting its staffing target, the finance report told me the dept pay budget is £38K over spent.
    How the f*** am I supposed to square that circle?

      1. We aren’t allowed to use agencies – there will be a small proportion that was spent on NHSP Bank staff but as that organisation is useless and never has any staff available it won’t be much.

        No, the reason for the overspend is that a few years ago, when covid was just a misspelling of rooks and ravens, the bean counters cut out staffing budgets without meeting any of the budget holders to see how many staff the service actually needs to operate. I have spent over budget every year since!

    2. Report just now on the news regarding the NHS, but I am sure this policy is applied generally. While nurses’ real pay has been cut substantially in order to make sacrifices following the bankers’ bailout, pandemic fraud and energy sector profiteering, and the effect that had on the economy, payouts to executives and shareholders have been maintained to global market standards. That may account for the overspend in times of labour shortage.

  85. When a schoolboy my year in Junior school were judged by our handwriting and matched with American schoolchildren on that basis. I had good handwriting and was matched with a boy from Texas (Fort Worth), Drew Allen, and we became pen-friends.

    I recently rediscovered his letters and photographs. Each year we would exchange gifts at Christmas. I still have a Kennedy half dollar, a lovely book entitled ‘The Face of Texas’ and a small book of Drew’s favourite work of literature entitled ‘The Man Without a Country’. It is inscribed: John, This is a story which is one of my favourites in American literature. I hope you like it too. Merry Christmas, Drew Dec. 25, 1966.

    A dust cover note remarks thus: ‘The Man Without a Country’ sounds its call to patriotism across the years. The rewards and demands of citizenship may not be the same as they were a century ago, but the need for loyal, intelligent, active citizens remains as great as when ‘The Man Without a Country’ was written.

    The author is Edward Everett Hale and the message of this little book as prescient now as it was in 1966 when my friend Drew sent me my cherished copy.

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