Thursday 25 November: It does not feel right to discuss symptoms with the GP’s receptionist

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 not as good as 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.

598 thoughts on “Thursday 25 November: It does not feel right to discuss symptoms with the GP’s receptionist”

  1. Good morning, Gentlefolk – a smelly tale:

    What’s That Smell?

    A man and a woman are in a lift.

    The man asks the woman, “Excuse me, can I smell your pussy?”

    The woman was startled. “What did you just ask me?”

    “I said,” replies the man, “can I smell your pussy?”

    Extremely upset, the woman spits out her response, “No you most certainly cannot!”

    “Oh,” the man says. “Then it must be your feet!”

  2. Good Morning Folks,

    Cold start here, off to golf, I’ve already warmed my balls in a bucket of hot water in preparation.

  3. Morning folks.

    I’ve used the wee hours to read the internet. For those who may be interested here are three recommended videos on the manufactured ‘Climate Crisis’
    All three make for interesting viewing. I commend them to you.

    Medieval ‘Weather Cooking’ Thousands put to death for ‘causing extreme weather’ (Length 7 minutes):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAy4sOcS5M&t=430s

    ‘Unsettled’. Professor Koonin uses the contents of official Government & IPCC Climate reports that acknowledge there is no ‘Climate Emergency’
    (Length about 40 minutes – Start at 4 mins 30 secs):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tz1MiX1p5I&t=31s

    Finally Jordan Peterson answers the question: Will working to solve the Climate Crisis bring us all together? His very blunt answer is No!! But his reasoning is sound. (Length 6 mins 30 secs):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBFmMI2wgiU

  6. Morning all. Home from Spain today. Masks everywhere here. On the Paseo when running,on the beach, everywhere frightened people.

        1. Similarly, I complied until I read the Govt website on face coverings a couple of weeks into the scamdemic. It has so many loopholes in it that I took the opportunity to exempt myself and download the exemption notice to my phone.
          Other than being questioned by hospitality staff on a couple of occasions – no doubt, as per instructions from their managers – I have never met any resistance.

  7. It does not feel right to discuss symptoms with the GP’s receptionist

    SIR – I have just spoken with the receptionist at my GP and am left somewhat unnerved. She asked me several questions about my symptoms and wanted me to email a photo for a report to pass on to the doctor.

    I am reluctant to discuss a medical matter with any receptionist, let alone email a photo. This is something that should only be discussed in the privacy of a doctor’s office. Am I alone in feeling this is not right?

    Marcus Lawrence

    Uxbridge, Middlesex

    SIR – GPs should be ashamed to hide behind their computers as colleagues in A&E are overwhelmed. Patients are dying in queuing ambulances.

    The Hippocratic Oath says: “Do no harm.” Yet GPs are causing significant harm and, what is far worse, they know it. Yet they double down and hope to ride out the storm of protest.

    I have to ask: what is the point of a National Health Service if the gatekeepers have closed the gate?

    If Boris Johnson doesn’t reverse this situation, he will lose the next election as sure as night follows hours of listening to recorded messages from our GPs’ surgeries.

    Kevin Mann

    Bosham, West Sussex

    SIR – Every year, the number of newly registered doctors trained in the United Kingdom (about 5,400) is more than 30 per cent less than those who pass their university degree (about 8,500). This loss of almost-trained manpower in the last 20 years has only been partly balanced by immigration of doctors from other countries.

    A study by Goldstone and others in 2014 found that many junior doctors complained that their academic training had not prepared them for the challenges of medical practice. This disconnect may be related to a curriculum overloaded with science at the expense of learning clinical skills.

    It is time we had a total review of the medical curriculum, with input from graduates. Medical schools should be required to audit their output, by demonstrating that the students who graduate fulfil their chosen career.

    Robin Wilding

    Bovey Tracey, Devon

    SIR – Fraser Nelson wrote an excellent piece (Comment, November 19) about the need for NHS reform.

    It is apparent that throwing money at the present system will never meet the needs of the population.

    The cost of a modern health care system is too great for central funding by any government. Most other developed countries have realised this and made alternative arrangements.

    The rapid increase in private medicine already points to a readiness by many to pay more for a system that gives choices.

    Less tax-led health care, with insurance-backed medicine, works well in other countries. I believe it is time for a serious debate about the future of health and social care in this country.

    Ian Wiseman

    Ivybridge, Devon

    1. Tomboyfoolery

      SIR – A friend and I read with some amusement that “girls who do not like dolls are treated as transgender” (report, November 23).

      Neither of us liked dolls or the colour pink. We wore trousers, preferred animals and cars, and were entirely happy with the body we had been born into. We were called “tomboys”.

      Jane Harratt

      Earls Barton, Northamptonshire

      1. I think I’ve always been a tomboy. Can’t remember the last time I wore a skirt. I don’t like pink and I never played with dolls. Animals are more honest than people.

        1. TBF animals don’t actually speak! A bit of a sweeping statement saying animals are more honest than people.
          Morning all.

          2. Have you ever heard an animal lie? They are very good at expressing their needs and likes/dislikes. They make it clear when they are happy or not happy or angry.

        2. Me too. I was given a doll one Xmas and I drew a mustache on it with a biro. I don’t mind pink though, especially bright pink but I do prefer jeans.

  8. Why are Europe’s far-right parties so opposed to compulsory vaccination? 25 november 2021.

    Thanks to soaring infection rates in Europe, the war against Covid has entered a new phase, with the prospect of tougher restrictions and compulsory vaccination. Tens of thousands marched in protest through the streets of Vienna and Brussels at the weekend, with many chanting ‘Freedom’ and ‘Down with Dictatorship’. Prominent in their ranks were supporters of the far right, a.k.a. fascists.

    One is tempted to ask how he knows this? All I see is the random violence of Police Snatch Squads and Masked Protestors.

    What is really going on in this article is an attempt to link the so called “Anti-vaxxers” with an unacceptable political movement and thus disenfranchise their objections. What this and all the compulsory measures; a vaccination regime that doesn’t work, a lockdown program that does no good, is that the Elites are becoming afraid. They have done everything that could be tried and it isn’t working. What they want is to make us their accomplices and to ensure that if they go down, the rest of us will go with them. Gotterdammerung for the Elites!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-europes-far-right-parties-so-opposed-to-compulsory-vaccination

    1. Far too many people think governments should run their lives for them. They will not stand on their own two feet.

      1. In the U.K. people have been encouraged to believe that government knows best. Even our MOs don’t think for themselves.

        1. Problem is governments cannot run or control anything properly. More private less state.

    2. A friend who is a nurse respiratory specialist told me that she was at a recent lecture where a British professor announce to the whole audience that vaccine hesitancy was a matter for white supremacists.
      No-one challenged him.

      1. I was under the impression that it was the BAME members of the populace who were hesitant of taking the white man’s vax, hardly ‘white supremacists’.

        1. The most covid vax hesitant are both black people and the highly educate, oddly enough.
          As for highly educated and black, I don’t suppose they’d touch it with a bargepole.

  9. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Boris Johnson does, indeed, give the impression that he is floundering (report, November 23). There are, however, a few things that would give him a boost if they were to happen. He should cancel HS2 and allocate the money budgeted for it to social care; cancel “smart” motorways; cancel the Northern Ireland Protocol; and remind the EU that we are no longer one of its satellite regions.

    Clive Green
    Bristol

    All well and good, Clive Green, but you are overlooking an inconvenient problem: Johnson isn’t a Conservative, he’s a high-spending liberal who is not about to change his spots. The party elected a dud and needs to put that right before the whole outfit goes over the cliff.

    2. That party has been taken over by Common Purpose globalist types. Expect nothing by way of change from the majority of its ranks.

    3. HJ, why stop the already ‘dead in the water’ Tory party from destroying itself? There are few left in the party whom I see as worth saving, those people could realign and join one of the, hopefully, emerging parties. The Tory and Labour parties are both rotten to the core and need to fade away.

      Good morning, by the way.

  10. SIR – Lord Evans (Letters, November 23) said “nor do we live in an elected dictatorship”. Sorry, but that’s exactly what we are living in.

    Take heat pumps. I don’t remember being consulted or the Government pushing a leaflet through my door on the issue. It is yet another Johnson diktat. We do live in an elected dictatorship, it’s just that the majority of the population doesn’t realise it.

    Brian Curd
    St Ives, Dorset

    Quite so. The ‘net zero’ bolleaux will become an infamous slogan to describe his premiership if he persists with his idiotic plans.

    2. Net Zero should be his vote when we are next allowed put a cross on a ballot paper for a party worth voting for.

  11. SIR – Why has it taken the tragic deaths in French waters of would-be migrants for the Prime Minister to call a Cobra meeting, when more than 25,000 have successfully been welcomed to Britain by the Government this year? The horse has bolted.

    John Pritchard
    Ingatestone, Essex

    Good point, well made! Another ineffective gesture, no doubt. And yet he still talks about “our partners”, which probably winds up many more than just me. How about a similar emphasis to address the shameful problem of rough sleepers? So many promises, and yet from my observations they appear to be increasing. Charity begins at home,

  12. UK and France trade accusations after tragedy at sea. 25 november 2021.

    British and French leaders have traded accusations after at least 27 people died trying to cross the Channel in the deadliest incident since the current migration crisis began.

    In a phone call with Boris Johnson on Wednesday night, French president Emmanuel Macron stressed “the shared responsibility” of France and the UK, and told Johnson he expected full cooperation and that the situation would not be used “for political purposes”, the Élysée said.

    They’ve both been caught out; one for refusing to bite the bullet and stop the Cross Channel traffic and the other for encouraging it. Now it’s, I’ll cover your ass if you cover mine!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/25/channel-drownings-uk-and-france-trade-accusations-after-tragedy-at-sea

    1. True.

      By encouraging these people to come on the understanding that the French and English would enable them to seek sanctuary by the intercession of ruthless criminals they very much share the responsibility.

      Is that what he meant?

      Edti to emphasise the last sentence of the article:
      It was widely expected that the number of crossings would reduce in the winter. Instead, bigger boats have been used to bring people to the UK in greater numbers.

      Well there’s a surprise.

    3. It has been gesture politics for years, all the while the invaders arrive, are cosseted and merged into their communities. UK governments have forked out millions on fences, personnel, more fences and all for nothing because the will is not there to stop the invasion. Quite the opposite, in fact. Patel must have a solid neck of brass to be able every few months to come out with her empty platitudes about stopping the trade and sending them back before she disappears again into wherever it is in the Home Office that she wastes her time.

  13. Can’t easily find details of when the next batch of the Insulate Britain twerps were due before the Beak – thought it was about now.

    See a crowdfund has been started to pay the rent of one who is self-employed and may otherwise have nowhere to live when released. Suspect not many NOTTL readers will be contributing.

  15. A good morning from a bloody cold looking Basingstoke. I’ve not poked my nose out of the hotel yet, but it’s a beautiful clear morning and surprisingly bright compared to up home. Those hundred and whatever miles south make quite a difference in the sunrise.

    1. Morning Bob. I’m in Staffordshire, not far from you, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. A lovely bright, crisp morning. But bloody cold.

      1. Sun’s just creeping over the hill here – lighting up what’s left of the autumn colours. It’s a beautiful morning & frosty.

  16. During a moment of channel-hopping (definitely no pun intended) I asked the self-same question when I came across the BBC ‘news’ yesterday evening.

    A BTL poster:

    John Birkett
    7 HRS AGO
    What is the BBC doing, sending Huw Edwards to Glasgow again for “News” At Ten, and having Kuenssberg interview Sturgeon on her future as the second “news” item, then far too much about football needing a regulator?! And we thought things might improve with Tim Davie as the new DG, how naive we were!

    No, JB; the BBC ‘news’ is quite incapable of abandoning its bizarre and increasingly remote view of this country and its people. Its demise cannot come soon enough.

  17. SIR – Instead of demonising these men, women and children who want a better life for themselves, they could be given sanctuary and solve our labour problems as well.

    When Angela Merkel allowed Syrian refugees into Germany, she was castigated. But it appears that this policy has worked, because desperate people will pay their host country back in so many ways.

    Judith A Daniels
    Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

    In a nutshell, you have clearly illustrated what is wrong with the country today. There are far too many cretinous, vacuum-headed, Liberal, Pinko idiots — such as you — wishing ever more idiocy to be burdened upon an already overloaded country. If you feel so badly about your fellow countrymen and women, I respectfully suggest that you fuck off to Africa and wet nurse the over-fecund there.

    1. Is Judith Daniels labouring under the belief that the 2015 intake of refugees “worked”?
      I was talking yesterday to someone who is doing a German course in Germany. Many of the class are refugees, who have been there since 2015. It’s a B1 course, which is roughly GCSE level. They are taking the p, not doing homeworks, clearly not at their computers when they’re supposed to be attending remotely.
      In the past, I heard German teachers complaining about this too.
      Someone told me that it was said recently that they have such a lack of young people to enter apprenticeships, that they need more migrants. Weren’t a million enough then?

      1. I doubt that the woman is labouring under any belief. She evidently doesn’t possess the mental capacity to do any clear thinking.

        1. Good morning again.

          Here are some quotations I am sure you know already:

          I do not like the human race. I don’t like their heads, I don’t like their faces, I don’t like their feet, I don’t like their conversations, I don’t like their hairdos, I don’t like their automobiles.

          Charles Bukowski

          I wish I loved the Human Race;
          I wish I loved its silly face;
          I wish I liked the way it walks;
          I wish I liked the way it talks;
          And when I’m introduced to one,
          I wish I thought “What Jolly Fun!”

          Professor Walter Alexander Raleigh

          “I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.”

          Samuel Johnson

    2. Ms. Daniels isn’t thinking straight.

      These economic migrants need housing, medical care, welfare payments and pension payments.

      Their children need schooling, medical and dental care, and there is no requirement to learn English, get a job or support themselves.

      Lat year it was announced that of the many Somalis living in London, some 90% are unemployed, and 80% of Somalis have

      NEVER had a job in this country.

      If it is so important to her, why doesn’t Ms Daniels offer accommodation and cash to help to these economic migrants?

    3. My BTL comment (using Best Beloved’s sign-on:)

      I wonder how many illegal immigrants Judith Daniels will be taking in.

    4. A further comment on the daft bint moaning about maskless people putting her at risk:

      Jacqueline Hawkins’ misguided faith in face masks makes one wonder if her belief in material, extends to thinking her knickers will trap wind.

    5. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3b25d98117b701ef8459946918ff8c2997ea3235ee0399700ada4db7beb4d7b.jpg

      Just as most machinery that works under pressure has a gauge to warn you that it is near its limits we need a population gauge which tells us that we are near explosion point and no more immigrants should be allowed in.

      The level of people per hectare is about three times higher in England (the most densely populated country in Europe) than France and much higher than that in Spain so these counntries need to take far more immigrants before they are under the same pressure as England.

    7. BTL:
      Bryn Riley

      The Daily Telegraph letters editor always puts one letter in that is clearly a plant so that the focus is directed there. Today that one is Judith Daniels, yesterday it was Mike Wheeler, tomorrow just wait and see.

      Here’s that letter:

      SIR – Do anti-vaxxers oppose jabs for polio, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus, either for themselves or their children?

      Mike Wheeler
      Gosport, Hampshire

      Perhaps it’s not so much that the DT is trying to present a balanced view from amongst its readers as playing a game of ‘Spot The Loony’.

    8. BTL:
      Bryn Riley

      The Daily Telegraph letters editor always puts one letter in that is clearly a plant so that the focus is directed there. Today that one is Judith Daniels, yesterday it was Mike Wheeler, tomorrow just wait and see.

      Here’s that letter:

      SIR – Do anti-vaxxers oppose jabs for polio, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus, either for themselves or their children?

      Mike Wheeler
      Gosport, Hampshire

      Perhaps it’s not so much that the DT is trying to present a balanced view from amongst its readers as playing a game of ‘Spot The Loony’.

  18. London weather forecast: 80 per cent chance of snow this weekend. 25 November 2021.

    London could get its first winter snow this weekend after temperatures plummet.

    Forecasters are predicting heavy wind and rain to thrash the capital before the white stuff arrives as early as 6pm on Friday.
    Netweather shows a 30 per cent chance of snow on Friday followed by an 80 per cent chance on Saturday.

    Lol! So much for Global Warming! As Richard might say, “There is a tide in the affairs of the Elites where everything they do goes tits up! We can see it around us; it’s all going to the dogs! Covid, Immigration, COP26, Ukraine.

    Fasten your seat belts! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-weather-forecast-snow-this-weekend-b967963.html

    1. Even the Brass Monkeys are beginning to complain:

      From WUWT:

      “In Fairbanks Alaska, temperatures are likely to stay below zero (F) from later Tuesday through at least the next 7 days or so. The normal high temperature in Fairbanks this time of year is +8 degrees (F) and -10 degrees (F) is the normal low and this upcoming weekend could feature temperatures bottoming out at 25 (F) degrees below zero. [ -37C]
      Another example of the relentless cold comes from King Salmon (Bristol Bay region of southern Alaska) where the average daily temperature has ranged from 15 degrees to 31 degrees below normal for 13 straight days. In fact, it looks quite certain that this will finish up as the coldest November on record in King Salmon as relief is not expected anytime soon. Numerous Alaska towns have experienced record low temperatures this week including Bethel, Cordova and Alyeska with two days in each location and Homer with three days this week of record low temperatures.”

      I bet they wished they had some global warming….

      1. COP 26 was certainly a great success.

        I’m sure that the Elite are all congratulating themselves.

      2. Morning Stephen. Sitting here listening to my boiler going like a steam train I am inclined to wish the same!

  19. Good morning, everyone. (And tonight I shall post “Good night, everyone”.) The reason for my brief posts is that I am currently involved in a major pre-Christmas Spring Clean – maybe that should be more properly called a Winter Clean!

    1. Good morning, Auntie Elsie. I have commenced my Autumn cleaning over here. Today I shall wash, rinse and dry all my glassware (and their cupboards). Tomorrow I shall start on the crockery. I actually find the chore quite therapeutic, especially if I have some decent Blues or Prog Rock on in the background.

  20. What a character, and what a life!

    Victor Gregg, rifleman with a rebellious streak who was captured at Arnhem and searched for survivors in the rubble following the Dresden firestorm – obituary

    He was due to be executed for sabotage when Allied planes struck, while later he joined the Communist Party and drove for the Soviet embassy

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    24 November 2021 • 1:06pm

    Victor Gregg, who has died aged 101, was a rifleman, paratrooper and spy who survived capture at Arnhem and the bombing of Dresden.

    With two failed attempts to escape from PoW camps on their records and accused of sabotage, Gregg and a comrade, “Mad Harry”, were taken to a prison in the centre of Dresden. There they joined about 250 prisoners who had been condemned to death for crimes against the German state and were awaiting execution.

    The building was circular in shape with a large glass roof. In the middle there were large oil drums overflowing with excrement; the stench was appalling. The prisoners were crammed so closely together that it was impossible to sit down. Two inmates, who had been incarcerated for a few days and had been sentenced to be shot, told Gregg that every day 30 prisoners were taken out and never seen again.

    On the morning of February 13 1945 the air raid sirens in the city began to wail. Then came the rumble of an approaching air armada. Through the panes of the glass roof, marker flares dropped by the pathfinders could be seen drifting down to the ground.

    The whole building began to shake with the reverberation of the bombers passing overhead. Many of the prisoners were screaming and banging on the doors, begging to be let out. Two incendiaries came through the roof; huge shards of glass and globules of burning sulphur fell on the prisoners packed underneath.

    Gregg and Harry were crouching against the side of the building when, with a tremendous crash, the wall opposite them was blown inwards. Gregg was thrown some 40 feet by the force of the blast and heavily concussed. He recovered consciousness to find himself half-buried in fallen glass and masonry. Harry was dead.

    Gregg and a small number of survivors made a dash for the opening – and freedom. Outside, the heat was like a furnace and he was engulfed in smoke, dust and flames. Everywhere buildings were crashing to the ground. People, some clutching children, were emerging from the rubble of what had once been their homes and finding themselves trapped in a ring of fire.

    He joined hundreds of PoWs and foreign workers assembled around the perimeter of the devastated city. Equipped with picks and shovels, moving through heaps of smouldering rubble, they searched for survivors as well as retrieving bodies from cellars and shelters and laying them out for the often impossible task of identification.

    Road surfaces had melted and water mains had burst, flooding wide areas with boiling water. People caught looting were hanged or shot out of hand.

    Gregg worked with his team for several days – at night he slept in a wagon on the railway sidings. He was worried that as things returned to a semblance of normality he would be taken back to prison to face execution, and he slipped away from the group.

    After three days moving eastwards against the tide of refugees – unshaven, his clothes in rags, scrounging scraps of food along the way – he met up with leading elements of the Russian forces.

    Victor James Thomas Gregg, the eldest of three children, was born at King’s Cross, London, on October 15 1919; his father vanished when the third child arrived. His mother was a seamstress and the family was so poor that young Victor was sent out to scrounge for food at Covent Garden, Smithfield and Billingsgate.

    He had to dodge the gangs in Hackney or Shoreditch, but there were forays into the West End, where he enjoyed teasing the doormen in their uniforms and shiny top hats at the big hotels. On Saturdays, threepence would get him into one of the fleapit cinemas. He played cricket and football in the streets and learned to box, though with little regard for the Queensberry rules.

    His mother was so overworked that he and his brother went to live with his grandparents in Bloomsbury. Victor earned sixpence a week warning the street girls and their pimps of the approach of a policeman.

    Aged 14, he left Cromer Street School in St Pancras. He had gained a scholarship to the London School of Music, but he had to earn his living. He worked for a firm of opticians and, in his spare time, washed cars for pocket money. Sometimes he was taken to Brooklands to watch the racing cars.

    Gregg joined the Rifle Brigade when he was 18 and signed on for 21 years. After basic training at Winchester and Tidworth, in December 1938 he embarked for India with the 2nd Battalion (2 RB). The troopship berthed at Karachi and he and his comrades entrained to Meerut. Big blocks of ice in the carriages served as primitive air conditioning.

    Nine months later, they moved to Haifa in Palestine on internal security duties, and then to the motor training base at Sarafand. In early 1940, 2 RB, a fully mechanised battalion, was in a tented camp at Mersa Matruh, Egypt, a forward military base.

    Gregg saw heavy fighting at Beda Fomm in Libya in February 1941 before being ordered to escort Italian PoWs to Durban in South Africa. He rejoined his unit in October and took part in the battle of Sidi Rezegh, Libya. The tanks, he said afterwards, were ordered to charge the German 88 mm anti-tank guns, a futile and costly operation.

    A few days’ leave took him to the night clubs in Cairo: whisky was served in pint glasses and bands playing Western music were protected by wire mesh from the beer bottles that were thrown at them every time they played a wrong note.

    Lodgings were easy to find. On arrival in the city, they would be surrounded by natives shouting, “Best bed in Cairo, Johnnie!”

    Gregg was fast making a name for himself leading reconnaissance patrols, sometimes several hundred miles behind enemy lines. He was ordered to report to Major (later Lt Col) Vladimir Peniakoff at Fort Maddalena in Libya. A patrol of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) acted as escorts.

    He was seconded to a secret unit called the Libyan Arab Force Commando, led by Peniakoff (who was known as “Popski”). The Force toured the outer reaches of the desert visiting small groups of Bedouin and gathering information about enemy formations, ammunition and fuel dumps. In return, they handed over sugar, salt, tea and equipment. Gregg’s task was to deliver these supplies to the Bedouin, pick up information and relay it to the LRDG, who would use it to harass the Axis units.

    In the course of a month, he covered some 4,000 miles in his pick-up truck; had he been captured wearing Arab dress he would have been shot as a spy. On one occasion he became stuck in a traffic jam of enemy vehicles on the Benghazi-to-Tripoli coastal road. Fortunately, he was wearing general-issue khaki uniform and was not recognised.

    From May to October 1942, driving an old American Chevrolet, he collected wounded members of the LRDG and took them back to base at the Siwa Oasis in Egypt. Sometimes the men were so badly injured that he had to risk travelling by day, and he had several narrow escapes from confrontations with enemy aircraft.

    Gregg rejoined 2 RB in time for the battle of El Alamein. During the advance his carrier hit a mine and one of the tracks was blown off; he and his crew were unharmed but they had to repair the vehicle while under constant shell and mortar fire. During the battle itself he took part in further fierce fighting around Kidney Ridge and Outpost Snipe. Lt Col Vic Turner was awarded a VC in that action.

    After 2 RB were pulled out of the line, Gregg volunteered to return to Palestine, where a new Parachute Battalion was being formed. Based at Sarafand, he trained jumping from Hudsons and Dakotas. On one cold night he used his parachute as an extra blanket, but next morning, when he jumped, the shrouds of the parachute had stuck together. He was down to 250 feet when he finally forced it open, and he landed heavily.

    Following a move to a camp near Tunis, 10th Bn The Parachute Regiment (10 Para) boarded the British cruiser Penelope and landed at Taranto in southern Italy. In November 1943, after a short campaign, the Bn arrived back in England to train for D-Day.

    Gregg met up with Freda Donovan, whom he had only known for a few days before going overseas almost five years earlier. They got married, but he overstayed his leave and was sentenced to 28 days’ detention. He was, however, released early because 10 Para was “warned” for Normandy shortly after D-Day.

    In September 1944, he took part in Operation Market Garden, the ill-fated attempt to shorten the war by creating a large salient into Germany with a bridgehead over the Rhine. Gregg and his comrades formed part of the rearguard of 10 Para after many of the survivors had withdrawn across the river, and he was taken prisoner.He was sent to Stalag VI-B, north-west Germany, but after volunteering for work, he and a few others were moved to a camp in a suburb of Dresden, where he shovelled coal or picked potatoes. One day, he and three others left a working party that was clearing snow. It was freezing cold and they followed a disused railway line, heading for the border with Czechoslovakia. Within a few miles of the frontier, they stumbled into an army checkpoint and were recaptured.

    After a second escape attempt failed he was put to work in a soap factory. Out of sheer devilment, he and “Mad Harry” mixed cement into the soap powder. It set solid overnight and the next day, when the power was switched on, it jammed the machinery, blew the electric circuits and set the factory ablaze. The culprits were quickly traced and the local Gestapo was called in. Gregg and Harry were thrown into a police van and taken to prison in Dresden for sentencing and execution.

    After his escape from the city, for the next six weeks he travelled with forward elements of the Red Army, heading for Leipzig. When they met the Canadian forces, he was handed over to them and taken to the British lines. Germany had surrendered and he was flown back to England and re-united with his family.

    Gregg reported to Tidworth, Wiltshire, for de-briefing. He wanted to return to 10 Para but the interrogators at the assessment centre were suspicious of the fact that he had escaped eastwards from Dresden and spent several weeks with the Russians. Why, they asked, had he not gone westwards towards the Allied lines?

    His explanation that the Russians provided food, shelter and relative safety amid the chaos did not satisfy them and he was posted to a Royal Artillery unit at Tregantle Fort, Cornwall. Two months afterwards, aged 27, he was discharged from the Army.

    When Gregg was serving with Major “Popski” he became a temporary sergeant. After that, he returned to the rank of rifleman, refusing promotion several times because he wanted to stay with his mates. He also had a pronounced “anti-authority” side to him and did not like the idea of giving orders to subordinates.

    The bombing at Dresden, he said afterwards, had made him feel like a murderer and had altered his whole concept of war.

    The comradeship of serving in the same unit as his friends had, he felt, also been taken from him by unfeeling bureaucrats. On his way home, he threw his Army kitbag containing his medals out of the window of the train. He walked out of Paddington Station, he said, with a chip on his shoulder the size of a house and a grievance against authority that was to shape his life as a civilian.

    After a job with the Post Office, he worked in the building trade. In his spare time, he trained obsessively as a racing cyclist. He was short-listed for selection for the Empire Games but a shoulder injury put an end to that ambition.

    When the fortune of the German steel magnate, Alfried Krupp, which had been confiscated, was returned to him, Gregg joined the Communist Party and took part in marches and protests against German re-armament.

    He was convicted of assault and sent to prison for two weeks after laying out a man who was hitting his son. While driving lorries, he started to make trips on an old motorbike to Yugoslavia, behind the Iron Curtain.

    When the local area committee of the Communist Party was asked to find a politically reliable chauffeur and bodyguard for the chairman of the Moscow Narodny Bank in London, Gregg got the job. Increasingly he drove for the Soviet Embassy and the Russian Trade Delegation while keeping the British Security Service informed of any people or locations that might be of interest to them.

    In 1962 he left the Bank and got a job driving buses in London. His long, unexplained absences from home undermined his marriage to Freda and they divorced. He subsequently married Betty, who had become his bus conductress.

    They moved to Taunton in Somerset, where he worked for the local bus service. In his spare time he went on motor cycle trips all over Europe, usually staying at campsites. His connections with East Germany and Hungary resulted in approaches from shadowy figures on both sides of the Iron Curtain and undercover courier trips to both countries enlivened his long years of retirement.

    With Rick Stroud he wrote Rifleman (2011 and 2019), King’s Cross Kid (2013), Dresden (2013) and Soldier, Spy (2015).

    Victor Gregg lived in Winchester for many years before moving into a care home. He married, on New Year’s Day 1944, Freda Donovan. After their divorce, in 1969 he married Elizabeth (Betty) Barnet. She predeceased him and he is survived by a daughter and two sons of his first marriage.

    Victor Gregg, born October 15 1919, died October 12 2021

    A couple of BTL comments (of many):

    Robert Hope
    13 HRS AGO
    Every so often the DT produces an obituary which is an absolute Gem, and this is a gem amongst gems. What a life! Sitting in a traffic jam of German military vehicles in British uniform – and not being caught – he must have had balls of steel. I am in awe of this man. EDITED

    NJ Ratnieks
    16 HRS AGO
    I have been waiting for this obituary for a while and now it has been published. I bought his autobiography after I heard him talk on the radio. Quite an incredible life and an incredible man. What was also so amazing is the “Uncle Albert” character who he first saw after he had been captured at Arnhem. A German officer who had various bits amputated and spoke English with a Yorkshire accent as that was where his mum was from, and how he met him again in Central Europe as the Iron Curtain fell. Victor Gregg describes how he was able to work with the Saxons and how much he liked them until his mate persuaded him to do some stupid things that led to the soap factory they were in burning down- and being sent to Dresden for that fateful air raid. You could not make up such a fascinating life .RIP.

    1. I bought his book a few years ago.
      Respect. Here’s an opportunity to take the knee.
      RIP, Victor – and thanks.

      EDIT: An example of the essential goodness of people. To help your enemy, who was just waiting to take you away and shoot you.
      He joined hundreds of PoWs and foreign workers assembled around the perimeter of the devastated city. Equipped with picks and shovels, moving through heaps of smouldering rubble, they searched for survivors as well as retrieving bodies from cellars and shelters and laying them out for the often impossible task of identification.

      Road surfaces had melted and water mains had burst, flooding wide areas with boiling water. People caught looting were hanged or shot out of hand.

      Gregg worked with his team for several days – at night he slept in a wagon on the railway sidings

  21. 342001+ up tic ks,

    Morning Each,
    The snake pit have came up with the answer more funding for more police patrols on the french side read as tory (ino) party still doing business & funding, with the eu.

    This tragedy in the English Channel is direct consequence of the orchestrated mass uncontrolled immigration political coalition, solidly consented to by these party supporters since the bog man, anthony charlie lynten lifted the United Kingdoms entry latch.

    The torys (ino) far from being in opposition have been / are in collusion.

    The wretch cameron pledged to reduced numbers … and promptly raised them.

    Did support for the party waver…did it hell.
    Did support for lab waver after the JAY report revealed … did it hell.

    The lab/lib/con are a mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella close shop coalition, the past actions ongoing have showed us this is fact.

    Indigenous kids getting raped & abused en mass consequences of
    mass uncontrolled immigration party’s, supporters / voters.

    2. Good morning Bill

      Wrap up warm , and take good care of yourself .

      Several Suez veterans are in this area for a few days , so I have arranged a meet up with the rest of the Dorset group to gather together in a local pub , I do hope they turn up !

      Not a Christmas meal .. that happens next month , fingers crossed !

      One of them is 94, and what a character..

      1. Have a lovely time, Maggie.
        I started the day well; forgot to drop the Noddy car at the garage for her winter service and MOT. Knowing smiles when I whizzed her down the road. Maybe you could add me to your list – except that the veterans probably have a better memory than I do.

      2. Morning, Maggie. We carried 22 troops at a time to Malta for onward transmission to Egypt. This was in a Maritime Shackleton, no seats, soldiers lying two deep on the floor. Transport Command did not have enough Hastings aircraft.

  23. 342001+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Boris Johnson tells France to ‘step up’ and stop smugglers after 27 migrants die in Channel

    Prime Minister says criminal gangs ‘getting away with murder’ as hundreds rush to reach England ahead of winter storms

    Read that as “political gangs colluding & getting away with murder” ALL
    appertaining to reset.

    Don’t forget, YOUR vote counts for more of the same.

      2. 342001+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        I do not believe it is yet mandatory to vote for a close shop party.

        People power via a fringe party is the only answer apart from a civil war.

        People power works 24 / 6 / 2016 showed us that for about a day, then the victorious peoples went right back to supporting / voting for the very pro eu party’s that are running the country into the ground.

        Remember, you cannot have your kayak and heat it as the Eskimo found out on lighting a fire in the bottom of his kayak to cook dinner.
        ,

    2. What information has MI6 obtained on the people smuggler trade? Surely it must know where the boats are made and how they are distributed. They must also know who some of the middle managers are, if not the master criminals.
      If they don’t know any of this, what have they been doing about it, if anything? If they have any knowledge about the smuggler activities , have they taken any action to disrupt the people smugglers?

  24. Good morning all

    Clear sunny breezy day here.

    No frost overnight , but there were two tawny owls fluttering around on our roof and trees near us, they were calling for quite a while , I just hope they were finding something to eat.

    1. I left my trip-trap on the kitchen table after spotting some droppings there. Hopefully, if I’ve caught a mouse, there would be a nice snack waiting upon its release.

    2. Good morning, Belle.

      My neighbour opposite throws out loaves of bread in the mornings. It’s like Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ round here.

    1. This you would know, George because of the great care you took of your two-bob truncheon with extensive before flight, after flight and turnround maintenance. No amoeba’s on you, eh?

          2. The OED prefers Richard’s version – though it concedes the modern spelling as “early 20th Century”.

      1. Exactly, Spikey, being bright red and stuck over the air intake, it’d be hard to miss.

        In our day those covers were hard, fitted just inside the intake and I doubt they could be sucked into the engine and start-up would identify that that engine was labouring.

        2. If you’re talking about the Concorde that crashed, it ran into some metal that had dropped of the previous American aircraft that had just taken off. I believe that the metal (Foreign Object) was sucked into one of the intakes but it may have caused other havoc.

          It wasn’t a spanner.

          1. I stand corrected. It was, of course, carelessness by French airport authorities in failing to ensure the runway was clean.

            I do remember a “spanner” incident, though. Must have been elsewhere.

          3. It was a strip of metal on the runway which was flicked up by one of the wheels on take-off. This in turn struck the underside of a wing tank. The leak ignited, and the rest was history.

            Correction – the strip of metal probably punctured a tyre which then broke up. It was debris from the disintegrating tyre that is said to have ruptured one of the port wing tanks.

          5. If you recall, the Concorde fleet was then fitted with under-wing protection, at considerable cost. Concorde was scrapped soon after.

      6. Or the crew chief.
        Do they let pilots water round on the flight deck of a carrier? Too easy to get splattered / blown over the side, I would think.

        1. A n aviating friend of MOH told us that some years ago Heathrow wanted to ban pilots doing pre-flight

          walk rounds “for security reasons”

      1. Yet… when they get here aside from consuming vast amounts of public money they do nothing to integrate and continue their practices, culture and attitude here.

        Why leave?

        Oh! It’s the free money. Let’s stop that, we stop the tide of gimmigrants.

      1. That’s the agenda Plum, but our DH politico’s don’t seem to understand what is happening. If they do it makes it far worse.

          2. Ah, Eddy, there you’re wrong. The state provides services. Expensive ones inefficiently. Which group demands the most of the state in terms of welfare, translations, social services, police, domestic violence, criminality?

            The state encourages Muslim gimmigration because it’s a surefire customer base. More than that there’s terrorism to keep the police busy.

          3. The ‘state’ have let things go so far down the rutted road they are scared shitless to try and get a grip.

      2. With no elected Parliament, Plum, hence no MPs, so they’re engineering their own (and our) doom.

      1. Only because of child benefit and housing benefit. If we scrapped both of those the majority 70% odd would have to work – and they’re unemployable.

  28. Britain is too ‘attractive’ for illegal migrants seeking work, says French minister

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/11/25/politics-latest-news-brexit-boris-johnson-priti-patel-calais/

    Bait a trap with honey and you will catch your heffalump. Offer a harem of naked houris to the British prime minister and he will find it imposssible to resist. Give in to a child’s every whim and he or she will grow up to be a spoilt brat.

    Do we really do ourselves or the illegal immigrants any good by spoiling them with luxurious accommodation, full board, health care, clothing and pocket money and effectively telling them they will never have to leave?

    The French minister is right.

    1. Of course he’s right. However, as we are no longer in the EU (hollow laugh) why is Parliament not changing the benefit system for any immigrant – to discourage their coming to live here in the first place.

      We are indeed a soft touch for these gimmegrants. But the population as a whole would change the rules like a shot, I’m guessing, if we had the chance or the MPs had the will to do it.

    2. Some people in France, watched by the French police, launched an unseaworthy vessel in France and drowned near the French coast, Why should this be a British problem?

      This was a BTL comment under a DT article which, on the face of it, seems very reasonable.

      However if Britain baits a trap (free luxury accommodation, free board and health care, pocket money, nor fear of deportation) which lures these people to try and get to Britain then Britain must bear some of the responsibility until such time as the bait is removed and there is no longer any incentive for these people to come to Britain.

      1. As soon as Australia set up the offshore detention centre gimmigration collapsed to barely double digits. We should do the same. Buy a floating prison, house them in that. We don’t want them.

        They’ve had to pass through 80 odd countries to get here. Why must we do the work?

  29. Well – what a surprise. G & P go out at 6 am. At 8.30 I opened the front door to invite them for breakfast – and there, on the mat, was a bloody great (dead) rat for our delectation! Must have been a joint effort – it was very heavy. Went out to dispose of it – to find G & P busy killing mice and other small rats. Left them to it!

    1. About 30 years ago I had 2 cats. We got home from shopping and found them sitting on top of the ‘kennel’ I made for them in the garden. I wondered why they weren’t sheltering inside. I found out why when I looked inside – there was a huge dead duck – they must have got it from a nearby pond and dragged it over the fence and into the kennel for later consumption

      1. Our last two, Bob and Thompson, dragged a hare through the (standard size) cat flap…Made a bit of a mess of the flap!

  30. RAF F-35 jet crashed into the sea ‘because plastic rain cover was left on’, 25 November 2021.

    An F-35 fighter jet plunged into the sea because a plastic rain cover was left on, it has been reported – as MPs warned that classified data on the aircraft could be at risk.

    Investigators are said to be concerned that the cover was sucked into the £100 million fighter jet’s engine, causing the pilot to eject upon take off from HMS Queen Elizabeth
    .
    The jet plunged into the sea close to the ship on November 17, shortly after 10am. The pilot was safely rescued and was taken to hospital for a routine medical check-up in Greece.

    One imagines the US Navy are laughing themselves sick!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/24/raf-f-35-jet-crashed-sea-plastic-rain-cover-left/

      1. We could have bought dozens of helicopters for that.

        And if the plane sank near the boat, why doesn’t teh Navy know where to look?

  31. “SIR – Migrants who undertake these perilous journeys across the Channel must be endowed with a steely determination, courage and a can-do attitude.

    Instead of demonising these men, women and children who want a better life for themselves, they could be given sanctuary and solve our labour problems as well.

    When Angela Merkel allowed Syrian refugees into Germany, she was castigated. But it appears that this policy has worked, because desperate people will pay their host country back in so many ways.

    Judith A Daniels
    Great Yarmouth, Norfolk”

    Indeed, Mrs Daniels – often by blowing them up, stabbing them to death or running them over.

        1. What a complete shambles our police and judiciary are, It’s so effing painful and they are so effing useless.

        2. Of course they’re not. The state wants them to go away and shut up. They’ve caused enough trouble for them already. For goodness sake, they exposed an incompetent social care system, welfarists, the council, police corruption and laziness and through it all the desperation of the state to force diversity at any cost – rape, murder, stabbings, assault, fraud, theft – all turned a blind eye while the Pakistani Muslims were at it.

          For goodness sake. These brattish kids have made it very hard for officialdom. Now people want to talk about the problem they’ve been hushing up! The temerity!

        3. The book, Violated, by Sarah Wilson should be made compulsory reading for all MPs and Councillors.

    2. My word, there was a lady from Kent (sounds like a limerick) this morning on the BBC news portraying the illegals as wonderful people and assets to our country in every way. WTF ? for example 90% of somalians in London have never had a job and so it goes on around the whole country as soon as these people land they are financially better off than the average British pensioner, why would they bother to get jobs. I once read that same about many eastern Europeans, Romanians in particular, they even have their own community mayoral elections.
      I really pisses me of when i see how hard my family and millions of others, are working to stay afloat in the jobs and keep their homes. Whilst every tax you can poke a stick at is rising to pay for all these scroungers.

    3. Which were the best Syrians to have ? Kurdish Syrians ? Somali Syrians ? Vietnamese Syrians ? Bangladeshi Syrians ? Sudanese Syrians ? I hope a good sample of each move in right next door to Judith The Utter Fathead and give her a full taste of the way they “pay their host country back in so many ways.”

  32. A puzzled pensioner writes: Am I the only person never to have heard of Peppa Pig? Until BPAPM referred to it last week.

    1. If you’ve got young grandchildren, it’s impossible not to have heard of Peppa Pig and her family.

        1. The cartoon first aired in 2004, so your elder grandchildren wouldn’t have seen it. The younger ones might have (it’s aimed at very young children).

    2. I looked it up on Freesat and watched an episode. They all have appallingly slovenly accents. And an Elephant-man-like deformity that places both their eyes on the same side of their heads.

    2. They’ll take the boats back but want compo for the one that didn’t make it.
      Maybe that’s what Border Farce are doing, taking the boats back and being caught out over there with more ‘pickins’. But Where have the boats gone they have pick the illegals from ?
      Very suspicious.

      1. They sell them back to the traffickers. Like the plod sell the”confiscated” drugs back to the dealers.

        1. That’s the norm after one of our elections ……”We’re in for 5 years now, the voters can get stuffed”!
          During our Fjords visit to Norway a few years back, I can remember a chap telling me Norwegians vote for the same government each year because the politicians run the country in a safe and beneficial manner. Thus pleasing the electorate.

    4. “One can always tell an OE by his understated elegance and smart dress sense.”

    5. “One can always tell an OE by his understated elegance and smart dress sense.”

  36. Morning all.
    If it costs 3000 pounds to get a place in a dodgy rubber boat why don’t they take the Ferry it’s much cheaper…………
    Oh of course they’re all illegals with no official documents or any other form or means if ID.

      1. Blimey form what I have seen of the arrivals, Black Friday bargains have been happening for years.

    4. It’s got to be a well known TV presenter with those high heels.

      Obs not real, the beds too close to the floor to have someone alive under it. Or………….🤔

        1. Well there a quite a few who wouldn’t fit under there it is was two feet off the floor. …..Ohhh i’m such a biatch hinit bro.

    7. A friend of mine used to have a pair of mannequins legs like those – he carried them in his car. If ever he broke down he used to place them partially under his car and within seconds some bloke would stop to see if help was needed

    1. Replied to a tweet by Patel that the blood of those that drowned recently was on her hands, as her inaction encourages them to cross, and her welcoming parties and hotels even more so.

      1. More so on the French “police” who stand and watch and do nothing as thousands of illegals make ready to cross the Channel.

        1. But the French police aren’t blaring out statements in the UK about how they are going to stop this invasion, Patel is.

          3. Did they even get out of their police cars? They did not stand and watch – they sat and watched.

          4. It was chilly, n’est-ce pas? And, anyway, one of the illegals put his hand out to stop the flic car getting in their way.

          5. Yes but the French are being paid to stop the invaders, not to stand around on the beach watching them.

    2. I don’t care. I’m sorry, it’s heartless but the deaths were also inevitable. They could apply legally. They don’t so they take the risk and that’s the consequence.

      We should, as soon as the nonsense began have dragged the boat back to France and destroyed it. We get the wreckage, they go into the water and swim for it.

  39. Well, that’s got the Fuchsia Thalia pots indoors for the winter. They were simply fabulous this year – and kept on and on. In May they were burned back to the stems by the same unexpected frost that did for the orchard. I thought they were dead and made enquiries about replacements. I needn’t have worried – they came back in greater profusion than ever!

    1. Good morning Bill. Have you ever tried to grow Fuchsia Boliviensis alba? I have tried several times with no luck, it always looks miserable, drops its leaves and never flowers. Got any advice?

      1. Afraid not. I know nothing. I am merely a toiler in the vineyard under the orders of the MR.

    2. Good morning Bill. Have you ever tried to grow Fuchsia Boliviensis alba? I have tried several times with no luck, it always looks miserable, drops its leaves and never flowers. Got any advice?

      2. Currently In the UK the other variety of Homeless i.e. those of a certain age, who have been forced to sell their homes to further their existence. It costs them well over one thousand pounds per week to be home and dry. …So……….Please give more generously.

        1. I’m happy to support several charities although the list is
          shrinking rapidly, I object to being told how much to donate.

          1. The only charity I support now is MS, I just wish they could find a cure for it. One of our DiLs has it and she suffers very badly.

    2. Up until recently there were apparently many empty hotel rooms that with all the largess that’s being spread around probably could have solved homelessness….

      2. They will bend over backwards to find housing solutions for free-loading bames but not for honkies who have actually paid into the system over the years.

    3. Halving the council managers saalries would provide enough money to not only provide a home for every homeless person, but also feeed and clothe them for a year.

      That’s the extent of state waste.

      Sadly, a lot of homeless people cannot cope in ‘normal’ society. They don’t want even sheltered accommodation because that means rules, such as no drugs, so they prefer to live on the street.

      I’d still advocate making council managers pay viciously capped.

      1. After my father died and when my mother had to move in to care in St Albans and out of her Mill Hill council flat I had to be held back from punching the housing department manager at Barnet council. Who charged my dear old mum over 400 pounds to replace the kitchen door, that was missing since the day she moved in. And due to a prior arrangement with the inspectors we left the carpets and all the curtains in four rooms that were in very excellent condition. Then the nasty (Scuz the stutter) bbitch charged us 300 plus a skip for removing the carpets and curtains. She probably sold the carpets etc to the new tenants.

        1. Yep, it’s utterly disgusting. You should have challenged her in court to demand she prove there was a problem with the carpets.

          The whole charade needs to be squeezed until it’s on it’s knees, begging.

          1. To late now Wibbers the old lady died aged 90,15 years ago. You could never imagine the phone calls I made and the way I was treated. It was out and out thinly disguised racism from the council side. I was pushed from pillar to post. But also Settling her in to a more accessible flat more locally. I had a hip replacement and was trying to run a business at the time as well, a very difficult few months.

          2. I’m really sorry to hear that Eddy – even more reason why future generations must have absolute leverage over these pettifogging wasters. They change their mind when you can call a referendum and remove them on a whim and control their salaries.

      1. I must admit I have gone off William.

        They talk about skipping Charles and making him the next king but why not skip William too and go for George.

        He would have to have a regent and he would have to be moved from the malign influences of his father and his grandfather.

        Who should we have as regent – a good Nottler could fit the bill!

    3. The very idea of a world economic forum is idiotic. It’s the sort of global communism that simply never works. it attracts wasters, dossers, half wits and endless bureaucracy and absolutely no activity.

      The proper approach is internationally competitive nations. Compete on tax and services. The lower the first, the more the latter and you get the business. High taxes and nothing on offer, you don’t. If the West wants to force this insane socialist idiocy then we’re simply in for ruin.

  43. All options fraught with risk as Biden confronts Putin over Ukraine. 25 November 2021.

    That does mean that Putin would not ultimately launch an invasion if Russian red lines were crossed, Menon said.

    “We should not think that, push comes to shove, when they say we will not allow Ukraine to join Nato … that they’re just bluffing. I don’t think they’re bluffing at all.”

    Me neither!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/25/all-options-fraught-with-risk-as-biden-confronts-putin-over-ukraine

    1. Lets say that China had made France a satrapy of its Empire and moved rockets and other threats to its border, threatening the UK. Do you think we would take it lying down, I seriously don’t think so. The Americans would come galloping along to help bolster aircraft carrier UK and NATO would be on call.

      Russia has every right to defend its borders in the same way as the UK. It has even more of a reason. It has no natural borders and for the hostile EU and the Americans to deliberately use Ukraine to provoke Russia with a threat of invasion, they are goading Russia deliberately and maliciously. I think the Russians have every right to threaten to attack Ukraine for their own security. Ukraine is deliberately provoking Russia because it believes it has the USA and EU at its back. Besides that the behaviour of the West violates long standing promises made to Russia that we would not park NATO slap bang on its borders.

      1. It would not be “attacking” the Ukraine – simply recovering the territory Khrushchev stupidly gave way.

        1. Well Bill, I would agree with you because, in my opinion, and in the minds of most Russians and, I suspect, many Ukrainians, Russia and the Ukraine are really one country divided by politics and on the Ukrainian side, probably the most corrupt government in the entire region. There is even less difference between Russians and Ukrainians than there is between Scots and English.

          1. My paternal grandparents were born, raised and married in Odessa. I looked at a modern map once and suggested to my father that his parents came from the Ukraine. Dad hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. His family were Russian Jews. End of.

      2. Morning Johnathan. I don’t have any doubts in my own mind that the US and EU are the aggressors here. They are undoubtedly trying to get Ukraine into NATO by any means possible. Putin has made it patently clear that he will not tolerate this in any way and when the redlines are crossed there will be war! He could hardly be plainer than that!

        1. As I said above Araminta. People don’t seem to know or have forgotten that there is a long standing agreement between Russia and the USA not to park weapons on each others borders. I think it goes back to the Cuban missile crisis. But I know that agreement was reaffirmed when Russia got rid of the Communist regime. So the fact is that it is the West that is violating a long standing agreement and threatening Russia. Frankly I think the West is doing it in order to distract from the real problem, China. It is also being done to distract people from the internal problems of the West. That is to say, it has grown decedent and is ruled by crypto-Communists who are well on their way to destroying democracy. Russia, still a bastion of Christianity and common sense, ironically perhaps, represents the possibility of a healthy Europe and a healthy West against the corrupt like of our politicians, the oligarchs that we pretend don’t exist in the West, the likes of Soros and Bill Gates who are strangling what little freedom the West has with their lackeys in the corrupt media that shills for them.

          I know that if I was young enough and healthy, I would in retrospect have gone to live in Russia. I regret that, although my stepfather, a White Russian, would really have liked me to visit at least, I never did and now it is to late. But like many, I am disgusted with what the West has become as we watch our own country being strangled to death by these same politicians who pretend to be on our side and take us for fools.

      3. Morning Johnathan. I don’t have any doubts in my own mind that the US and EU are the aggressors here. They are undoubtedly trying to get Ukraine into NATO by any means possible. Putin has made it patently clear that he will not tolerate this in any way and when the redlines are crossed there will be war! He could hardly be plainer than that!

      4. Morning Johnathan. I don’t have any doubts in my own mind that the US and EU are the aggressors here. They are undoubtedly trying to get Ukraine into NATO by any means possible. Putin has made it patently clear that he will not tolerate this in any way and when the redlines are crossed there will be war! He could hardly be plainer than that!

    1. It sort of sums up the political classes in a nut shell. They eff up everything and walk off.

      1. Carrion,……… Crows food hopefully.
        Reece Mug asleep, the thing is Jacob it’s every one else who drops off when you start your incessant hollow meaningless rabbit.

        1. Totally disappointed in Jacob Grease Smug. I thought he was a genuine Conservative. Turs out to be nothing more than another errand boy for the neo-Marxist establishment.

  46. The Covid vaccines are working. Spiked. 25 November 2021.

    Lockdowns are back in continental Europe. Austria has been at the forefront, first locking down just those who have not been vaccinated, then imposing a national lockdown for everyone. Other governments have imposed new restrictions with the possibility of full lockdowns if the situation does not improve. Weren’t vaccines supposed to put an end to all this?

    Firstly, vaccines can only directly protect those who have actually been vaccinated. Moreover, it has been clear since the Delta variant of Covid became dominant that a single vaccine dose does not really cut it – two doses are required to give a good level of immunity. For many countries in Europe, between a quarter and a third of the population have not been fully vaccinated.

    There’s something faintly comical in all this! The author keeps on making blasé statements about the success of vaccination et. al. and then keeps telling us why they are not working. Lol!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/25/the-covid-vaccines-are-working/

  47. We did a visit to a local school this morning – first time since beginning of March 2020! Good interactive session with 23 enthusiastic 5 and 6 year olds – good to get back into the swing of things as normal.

      1. No – not us, not the teachers, nor the children. When we arrived, there was a notice on the door “please wear a mask” – we ignored it and were not asked to put one on.

  48. ‘Morning All
    Hang on a minute,I used to employ a volunteer Lifeboat Coxswain and a couple of his crew,more than happy to support them dashing away when the Maroon went off…..
    So who exactly is crewing these migrant taxis??
    Can’t be volunteers these boats are out every day it’s a full time job!!
    Hang on a minute 2 I stand to be corrected but a swift scan of the MSM makes no mention of survivors from this attempted crossing,no witnesses then,how very convenient for the Globo agenda…………
    Cynical?? Moi??

      1. I must have missed that,even more curious in a way,every picture I have seen shows everybody with life jackets on I was assuming death by hypothermia or were they given duff life jackets

  49. 341001+up ticks,

    breitbart,
    Forth reich members are showing out more & more of late,are the parents in agreement ?

    UK School Asks Pupils to Wear ‘Yellow Badge’ to Show They Are Mask-Exempt

      1. 342001+ up ticks,
        Morning PA,
        My belief is it could come from anybody vying for a position in the new order.

    1. I do like a spoonerism, some times I like to Bead my Rook or Share my Warts, but it not warm enough today, so i’m taking the Dog for a Walk.

  53. Vladimir Putin and his mysterious love life. 25 November 2021.

    Pictures of their wedding day on 28 July 1983, “show Putina draped in a long white shawl and Putin squeezed inside a black suit”, said the newspaper.

    The pair went on to have two daughters in the mid-1980s; one is now a 36-year-old geneticist and the other a 34-year-old mathematician. Putin has never “publicly identified his children other than to say he has two daughters”, reported The Post in a separate article.

    In 2019, BBC Russia reporter Farida Rustamova asked the Russian leader to admit that the two women were his daughters. “Your old friends, managers of state companies, are helping these two women with their business operations,” she explained. Putin refused.

    The mystery of Vlad’s love life as opposed to the collection of Senile Paedophiles, Perverts and a Priapic Johnson that we have as leaders, is that he appears to be depressingly normal!

    https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/russia/954911/vladimir-putin-mysterious-love-life

      1. Not the marrying kind used to be a euphemism for saying that a person was a homosexual. What euphemism should we use now that homosexuals are allowed to marry?

      1. They are both holding a fan in their left hands.

        Given how full her knickers look i would say her lunch.

    1. Get me a bottle or two please to supplement the Vitamin C, Vitamin D and zinc tablets I am taking!

  57. “At least one girl and five women drowned, a group of 27 in all …….”
    And other 21 were?

  58. Let’s say that I am a people smuggler to trade. I have been in the business a few years. I know now several things. There is no comeback. I will never be arrested. No one wants to know who I am. No one is investigating. The British cannot do it in France. The French do not do it because they want to be rid of the migrants as soon as possible. So no one is chasing me. Although it may be technically illegal for me, no one appears to know what law I may be breaking. Perhaps only the one I break is where I bribe French policemen and similar to look the other way i.e to do nothing at all. I am therefore pretty safe. Looking at the business aspect, in summary, I supply a group of people with a boat and a motor, and a set of lifejackets, fuel, water and a finger pointing to England. I do not travel in the boat. I, or one of my ten assistants, select a couple of likely looking migrants and show them how to steer and how to start and control the engine.
    The boats are specially built for me, to a price. Nothing fancy, just necessary and sufficient. A specialist boat builder has become very rich because he builds me fifteen boats a week.

    Costings:

    Income (per day):

    30 migrants @£5000 = £150,000 per boat
    3 boats, total income = £450,000

    Expenditure :

    3 Boats @ £60,000 = £180,000
    90 life jackets @ £30 = £2700
    Bribes = £10,000
    Personnel/assistants = £5,000
    Total costs. = £197,700

    Net profit , per day, = £450,000 – £197,700
    = £252,300

    Of course we do not work every day. We work an average of 5 days per week (just like office workers), and we have four weeks holiday per year.
    We work 240 days per year. So our net profit for an average year is 240 x £252,300 or £60,552,000. (I now have an offshore company in the Caymans so I don’t pay tax!)
    It was not always so profitable. I started with one small boat and did all the work including taking the boat across the Channel and back. I had to work hard to get where I am today.
    Now tell me, please, if you can, why I should give up this business?

    2. You’re not taking into account the weather. The poor man probably loses out on half the days of the year.

      1. Ah no. My calculations are based on 240 days a year. We rarely lose more than 125 days, even on Leap Years.

    3. You are being ripped off if you pay £60,000 for an inflatable boat.

      You can buy a 10 foot rubber dinghy of a very good quality for a retail price of under £1,000 (Avon or Zodiac) and one of that size of lower quality for under €400. A 30 footer of poor quality which would take up to 30 people at a time would not set you back more than €3000.

      (We have an Avon Redcrest dinghy which is 18 years old and still in very serviceable condition and we bought a 6 foot collapsible rubber sailing boat for the boys to sail around in in harbour when they were little.)

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/198cce8b5932ea5ee732a6fcb887952844a159ca4cb0411881c20c83658d8add.jpg

      1. Well, maybe. I use 30 foot boats They are safer and generally more seaworthy and stable than the small ones. Also, I lose fewer operational days because of poor weather. Moreover, I am an ethical smuggler of people. I like my emigrants to arrive safely. I now have a reputation for being trustworthy, reliable and safe. They pay, I deliver. I do not have to tout for business. People come to me. I am the Harrods of people smuggling.

    4. “…I bribe French policemen and similar to look the other way i.e to do nothing at all…”

      Do they need bribing to do that? A chum tells me he steps around the human waste excreted on to Parisian streets.

  59. Let’s say that I am a people smuggler to trade. I have been in the business a few years. I know now several things. There is no comeback. I will never be arrested. No one wants to know who I am. No one is investigating. The British cannot do it in France. The French do not do it because they want to be rid of the migrants as soon as possible. So no one is chasing me. Although it may be technically illegal for me, no one appears to know what law I may be breaking. Perhaps only the one I break is where I bribe French policemen and similar to look the other way i.e to do nothing at all. I am therefore pretty safe. Looking at the business aspect, in summary, I supply a group of people with a boat and a motor, and a set of lifejackets, fuel, water and a finger pointing to England. I do not travel in the boat. I, or one of my ten assistants, select a couple of likely looking migrants and show them how to steer and how to start and control the engine.
    The boats are specially built for me, to a price. Nothing fancy, just necessary and sufficient. A specialist boat builder has become very rich because he builds me fifteen boats a week.

    Costings:

    Income (per day):

    30 migrants @£5000 = £150,000 per boat
    3 boats, total income = £450,000

    Expenditure :

    3 Boats @ £60,000 = £180,000
    90 life jackets @ £30 = £2700
    Bribes = £10,000
    Personnel/assistants = £5,000
    Total costs. = £197,700

    Net profit , per day, = £450,000 – £197,700
    = £252,300

    Of course we do not work every day. We work an average of 5 days per week (just like office workers), and we have four weeks holiday per year.
    We work 240 days per year. So our net profit for an average year is 240 x £252,300 or £60,552,000. (I now have an offshore company in the Caymans so I don’t pay tax!)
    It was not always so profitable. I started with one small boat and did all the work including taking the boat across the Channel and back. I had to work hard to get where I am today.
    Now tell me, please, if you can, why I should give up this business?

  60. Princess Diana was the first to stray during her marriage to Prince Charles, says ex-aide
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10240233/EDEN-CONFIDENTIAL-Princess-Diana-stray-marriage-Prince-Charles.html

    So as far as we know Charles just put one spoon in the honeypot while his first wife put in the whole canteen of knives, forks and spoons!

    Of course they should never have married in the first place – it was the difference in temperament and interests in life that made them incompatible and nothing to do with the age difference.

    I am two years older than Prince Charles and Caroline is one year younger than the Princess of Wales so the age difference between us is 3 years greater than the difference in age between Charles and Diana was. Yet we are compatible, very happy and have had nearly 34 years of unadulterated wedded bliss.

    1. Glad to hear about the unadulterated bit Rastus!

      Congratulations to you both. So, she says, being nosey, what is the difference in your ages, it will save my brain working it out!? Alf and I have been married for 53 years, also unadulterated, I’m delighted to say.

        1. Marriage is a bit of a lottery, don’t you think? We were both 21 when we married and neither of us had any idea of what the future would hold, the same as everyone really. It’s a journe6 full of ups, downs, thrills and disappointments. But in my mind liking each other is a great base from which to work.

          1. One of my nieces met the great love of her life at primary school when they were both 5 years old. There is a lovely photo of them holding hands then. They married when they were both 22 and have now been married for 40 years.

            My younger son met his girlfriend at the age of 17 on his first day at university. They have now been together for 8 years

    2. I’ve the wedded bit for 32.5 years … but not the unadulterated bliss …. but my wife and I are very good friends and she laughs at my jokes.

      1. I was married to my late wife for 35 years and never a bad word passed between us – there were no ‘downs’ , only ‘ups’.

        2. Well done. We have both been truly blessed to have had such wives. I had the luck of the devil – you had the just reward of the virtuous!

    3. The war queen and I celebrated 8 years this year (we married late, she from distrust, me from being a fat bugger). The longest hostage negotiation in history, apparently.

        1. The silly uneducated natives have survived there for about 50,000 years. The European settlers about 300 years, and even back in Europe they only went back about 7000 years. That might suggest that the aborigines had better survival traits than Europeans.

  62. Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends!

    I post here the abstract or the Circulation article that really opens up the pssibility of prosecution of people promoting or giving the jabs. Needless to say the creeps are doing their best to discredit it. Both are up on my post here:

    https://www.tarableu.com/circulation-warning-this-is-the-abstract/

    We should do our best to stop any person taking the jabs without seeing this, I think.

    1. I am British and living here now but lived in the US for 30+ years. We are having a T/giving dinner tonight and I’ve just made the stuffing. Next, to wrestle with the chicken- such fun 😉

        2. Luckily it is a deceased chicken but I stuff it with sausage meat and that can be slippery. Hence the wrestling. Worth it because it tastes yummy.

      3. Ha! That explains a lot. I noticed the other day you used the term ‘movie’ and I was going to ask you if you were American. I have started to use English terms but it doesn’t feel right to me after living in the US for 40 years. So if you are going to use American in preference to English, I will follow suit. Do you sometimes feel that certain English terms are sort of ‘pretentious’? That isn’t the right word for it but I can’t think of another. Trousers sounds odd to me, pants sounds right. And some English spelling I find absurd, centre instead of center, etc.

        1. I try to use English English but some words have stuck and some words I can’t recall how to spell in English. So what you will get is a mixture.

        2. Oddly, it is Britons who find the american phonic spelling absurd. It’s almost as if they can’t cope with words that don’t sound how they look.

          American English is a dialect, an a depressing one at that. For goodness sake, pronounce your H’s and T’s properly! It’s a herb, not an erb, a battle, not a baydul. A router, not a rowduh.

          Infuriating people.

  63. With all this palaver about gender self-identification are there any male Nottlers who use a female nom de plume or female Nottlers who use a male nom de plume?

    After all George Eliot was a pretty funny sort of bloke as was George Sand. And what about Danielle of the Street?

      1. My niece Harriet calls herself Harry!

        There’s nothing queer about her if you discount the fact that she is a doctor and a clinical psychologist and was the captain of the Oxford University Ladies’ Rowing VIII.

      1. Truly liberal times. Now, no doubt, some mental Left wing wokist nutter is trying to destroy the film simply because he – pretending to be a woman – finds that scene offensive.

        1. The Bishop wasn’t offended and didn’t think it a threat to religion. Much to the chagrin of the media.

          2. The notion that a man can become a woman (or woman become man) is indeed disturbing. Thank goodness the warning was issued :))

          1. I admire their work ethic and lack of faith (in government), and am sure, because of their non-reliance on technology, they will be winners when society collapses. They also appear financially astute, but what do they do with the dosh, buy top of the range manual butter churns?

          6. Actually, a lot of the Amish have moved from PA to Ohio because of tourism. They don’t really like having their photo taken and, because they use carriages and horses, they cause traffic back-ups which used to bring them some abuse from ignorant visitors. PA is not that far from NJ, NY state and New England so easier to access than Ohio.

          2. I’ve been to Lancaster County, PA where Witness was filmed. It is beautiful country with lovely people and wonderful restaurants serving home cooked food. Only downside, it was dry on Sundays. Stopped in a town called Intercourse and bought postcards to send to friends;-)

          4. Maybe;-)) I think the scene where Harrison beats up a bloke in Witness was filmed in Intercourse.

          6. What do you mean? The men are all wearing jeans and a shirt. The women long dresses. It really is worth watching the whole series, its about 6 programs all together and you really come out of it with the impression that they have retained the sanity and peace we have lost in our culture. They are rock solid and appear to largely be free of neurosis.

      2. They certainly aren’t odd. See the video I just posted. You will come to the conclusion that they are saner than the rest of us.

      1. Totally overwhelming Saint NHS. Patients packed out at two to a bed with symptomless convid. GPs just can’t risk seeing anyone (though they are happy to delegate the minority of appointments that are face-to-face to practice nurses or a pharmacy assistant. Good to know we are in such safe, qualified hands.

    2. I take it this is a joke, although I wouldn’t put it past the charlatans that want to control us to come up with such nonsense.

      1. If you get symptomless Covid then don’t worry – Bill Gates will make sure a vaccine is available that gives you all the symptoms and side effects you are afraid of.

      3. No, as I understand it we have gone full circle back to the symptomless covid again – they are desperate now. Everyone is laughing at them. But, but, it worked so well back in March 2020….

          1. Wait a moment. You live in Norway. Don’t you just put your skis on and go for a walk in winter? Why do you need to go to an overpriced ski resort?

        2. I’ve noticed that at the least mention #lefties tended to break out in masks …. only to discard them at private gatherings where cameras were not in sight … but the many sheep afflicted with #projectfear have remained stuck in mask mode … perhaps they wear them in bed …

        3. Just been watching a 40 minutes presentation by Dr Peter McCullough from the Texas CV-19 Summit. Brilliant talk, not technical and therefore easy to follow. Lots of facts but this one late in the presentation struck me: the ‘booster’ take-up in the USA is miniscule.

          Doubling down and forcing the issue is probably being driven by the take-up slowing down. Threats from both Johnson and Javid to our Christmas likely have the same cause.

          I’ll put up the link to the presentation tomorrow, it is well worth watching and listening to a man who is on top of his brief as opposed to ignorant agenda driven politicians and their medical/scientific lackeys.

      4. I’m beyond the point where I’m surprised by anything these desperadoes claim to be true. They will say anything to try and convince the gullible to carry on accepting their lies.

    4. In the unlikely event that it exists the PTB should be trying their damndest to ensure everyone gets it, because it should give some immunity against other variants.
      Be cause they aren’t it suggests it’s yet more bollocks

      1. I didn’t have to chase the chicken very far. It was dead when i came across it.

        I think the best in haute cuisine comes from peasant dishes. Funny that.

  74. The clock has just struck wine. So I am off. Managed to do some fiddly, heavy but necessary garden work.

    I hope you all have a peaceful evening – battening down against the shock winter weather. I read that Bedford may be cut off by 1 inch snow drifts.

    A demain.

    1. Titter ye not. I remember Plymouth grinding to a halt, schools closed etc with a full 1″ of snow.

    1. The stuff my father’s natives all smoked in the Sudan was relatively harmless but the modern stuff from Skunk onwards has been mind damaging. The novel A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks gives a pretty harrowing account.

    2. Legalising cannabis in the same week they are discussing whether or not to make an experimental medical treatment mandatory!!
      This is ALL about big pharma, not about freedom, though the dumb FDP believe the latter – probably addled brains due to too much weed!

    3. Given how many knife,car,bomb terrorists have a history of cannabis abuse are they sure it’s a good choice

    2. I had to be somewhat forthright with MB this afternoon.
      We took a load of stuff to a local charity depot. He had a wander around with my dire warning ringing in his ears; basically we did not need more crud to replace the boxes of crud we had just donated.

  79. Botswana variant is worst yet!
    Yeah, of course it is, we’re all gonna die yesterday.
    We’ve already seen alpha,beta,gamma,delta,epsilon……through to mu.
    Come on you scientific and medical arseholes, admit it, you’re making it up as you go along.

    2. I said that they chose the wrong alphabet for these scary variants. They will run out soon, they should have chosen Khmer , that would let them scare us well into the new year.

    3. Fauci and his co-conspirators need to be stopped. The jabs are experimental therapies against a bio-weapon designed by China and funded by Fauci.

      If Fauci is not stopped he will arrange for more lethal viruses to be released. Fauci and the billionaires have weaponised a virus against the human race in order to make yet more billions from ‘vaccines’ with a depopulation spin-off agenda.

      All of the public health narratives are lies promoted by a corrupt world media in order to strike fear into the populations of planet Earth. There will be hell to pay for these criminals in due course.

      Edit: https://rumble.com/vpqhux-felony-crimes-end-pharma-immunity-us-criminal-conspiracy-strikes-root-of-co.html

  82. ‘Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a8dc0a9898be0f12ed4493223e85f6a03e6aa7c8ca9c95753990d5e3d0d454c2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/047d35708a2114d88d6a92173a49080c95d7916d2f4e30e859c49aa525df15ff.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f41309fcab6c6f08b7bbe6cde2c11c542a2f9b1c2f737bb6cfe953e4104db3aa.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/251d149b26cdee9fde7029f0d0408b9ae20d608b9715632a10451d787027cdd5.jpg
    Happy Thanksgiving all

    2. At first, I thought it was a suggestion to bring them over here.

      The whole of the UK should get on down to Dover and make their feelings felt. A ‘hello and goodbye’ committee.

  85. We all had an excellent lunch , 14 of us , window slightly open both ends of big room. Lovely sunny but cold day. The pub grub was delicious .

    Eldest was 96, and Moh and I were the youngsters .

    The numbers were down on 20 years ago when 110 were accommodated in a huge military complex , but since then security became more rigid and life altered considerably for all of us with the terrorism threat .

    People get older and fall away gradually.. for several years I attended many funerals and shed lots of tears , I still do .

    Everyone sparkled , chatted away about happy things , and decided that the rest of world would not penetrate their happy bubble , because as far as they were concerned, they had done their bit for Britain, served the Queen and King , then worked in civvy street , paid their taxes , and their bills and not asked for a penny from the state .

    They blessed our Queen and lamented the succession . There were brief words spoken about the cricket fiasco, football and taking of the knee , and the woke BBC.. Yes brief words of amazement at the Muslim infiltration of the UK, why are they arriving in the UK only to cause a fuss about racism when they become settled .

    Other than that , everyone was happy to say cheers and glad to be together .. and feel blessed that they are still mobile and able to drive and move around .

    Fingers crossed for a repeat next month for the Christmas lunch .

      1. That is a kind thing to say, Lacoste.

        I love writing things down as they were.. and even though there were fewer of us , I still feel the warmth and the buzz of being in such good company .

        The pub landlord rang me up to thank me for our company, and I told him that the food we all chose was the best ever .

        Everyone was delighted with the freshly prepared food and presentation, and I have had several phonecalls this evening from happy people who loved coming miles from B’mouth and Poole for a great get together .

        Moh ordered whitebait .. large sprats really and a lovely light salad, and so delicious ( I tasted one ) fresh grainy crusty whole meal bread and butter, and then a sticky toffee pud and icecream .

        I ordered smoked salmon, crayfish and prawns , the salmon was more than just delicious with a very pretty green salad , and for pud , creme brulee and a tasty freshly baked almond biscuit. Coffee for all etc.

    3. You should be a journalist, Maggie; you convey the atmosphere – as well as the facts 🙂 …

  86. Vitamin D levels advised in this presentation. And far more information than just Vitamin D. If further evidence were required that our politicians do not have our best interests at heart, here it is. It is worth 15 or so minutes of your time.
    https://youtu.be/V5g9AVqRsjo

      1. That is why you need to take Vit K2 with it. Perhaps these rumours are passed around because they don’t want us to take it.

        1. I read some studies a long time ago that showed that people who take vit D tend to live less long. I’m only taking it over winter, and will stop when the days start getting longer.

          1. That may be before it was advised to take K2 as it seems Vit D3 without K2 is deposited in the arteries rather than the bones, which hardens them. Certainly I feel so much better this autumn than I have for many years. I am no longer tired, my limbs don’t feel heavy and although I am mid-70s I can run up our steep cottage stairs. I no longer have my autumnal carbohydrate craving. Two years ago I had my Vit D levels tested as I had fractured my ankle, they were 38, just above deficiency (rickets) level. I shall take a lower dose during the summer months, though.

  87. 342001+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    That really would be the ultimate in threats & fear potions.

    Creating safe routes for migrants could put Nigel Farage in No 10, says Lord Blunkett

  88. Evening, all. Time was, you could just go to the surgery and book an appointment without interrogation or being forced to wait ages to do it on the telephone.

  90. Frequently on here, attention is drawn to the letters from the loonies (“We need more immigrants/wind turbines/lockdowns/high-speed railways etc”). Here’s a complete article from one of them.

    Don’t listen to the gloomsters. Cop26 was a British success

    We often underestimate British soft-power, but in Glasgow it brought the world a step closer to eliminating carbon emissions

    AMBER RUDD

    The debate over Cop26 has prompted an explosion of talking heads, and the synergy between two groups of them is particularly curious. The radical wing of the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion seems to be in perfect harmony with staunch climate deniers, with both branding the climate negotiations a failure despite sitting at opposite extremes of mainstream politics.

    This isn’t a surprise, because successful climate diplomacy fits neither of their agendas. For radical protesters, diplomacy is too slow and involves careful compromise. For climate deniers, it works on a problem they pretend doesn’t exist. Both were always going to slam the outcome of the Glasgow summit.

    And yet, for people who trade on attention, both groups seem out of step with the public, for the public appetite for proper climate action is clearly growing. A recent YouGov survey found that the number of people rating the environment as a key issue facing the country has hit a historic high, with its importance standing in equal measure to the economy.

    Moreover, in positive news for the Government, the number of people who expect COP to have a successful outcome was higher at the end of the talks than at the beginning, and is highest of all among Conservative voters.

    Such optimism was not misplaced, since the Glasgow agreement did indeed turn out to be something of a success. Where the 2015 Paris Agreement set out the framework for slowing down global heating, Glasgow is forcing the world to pick up the pace.

    Just look at the hard numbers. Before Paris, we were on track for 6 degrees of warming. In the years that followed, we lowered that to 4 degrees. Before the Glasgow summit, we were on track for 2.7 degrees. Now estimates say we’re on track for between 2.4 degrees and 1.8 degrees.

    These numbers aren’t about temperatures gently rising and falling on a summer’s day. If this planet warms by 4 degrees, ice sheets will melt and virtually all coastal cities will be inundated. At 3 degrees, farmers’ food yields fall rapidly and marine ecosystems are likely to collapse. Every fraction of a degree matters, and the Glasgow agreement has successfully bent down the curve.

    Thanks to the extraordinary abilities of British diplomats, this is the first time that a reduction in coal use has been mentioned in an international agreement. They have brought India more into the fold, signing them up to an ambitious decarbonisation plan which includes a commitment to generate 50 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

    It’s time to ditch the defeatist, fatalistic idea that there’s no point in Britain going through such pains when other countries pollute more. Our country is one of the most influential in the world, and where we lead on climate, others follow. We can change world emissions through our finance, influence, and diplomacy.

    Since Britain became the first country to set out a detailed net-zero strategy, much of the Western world – and even China and India – have followed suit. Britain was also a first mover on ending overseas fossil fuel finance. Now, scores of other countries are doing the same, including China and America.

    Thus for all the shouting from the sidelines, this country’s environmental campaigns have proven to be a success. I would caution the small number of MPs who might be tempted to talk this down that in doing so they would not only be wrong, but unpatriotic. They would be dismissing a hefty British achievement.

    My time as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change taught me that people don’t want politicians and activists to be po-faced defeatists. They want pragmatists who crack on with the job and are grown-up enough to accept a compromise.

    When I was MP for Hastings, my constituents broke down into three groups after the Brexit referendum. A small minority were hardcore Remainers who wouldn’t accept any form of Brexit. Another small minority were hardcore Leavers who wouldn’t accept any deal. The vast majority in the middle wanted a compromise deal, brokered without fuss, which kept us trading and friendly with Europe but honoured the referendum.

    That same silent majority exists when it comes to climate change. People want international leaders to come together and deal with it. They are prepared to make changes and compromises, because they know that the cost of failing to act is steep. What they are not interested in is perfectionism or cynical delay tactics.

    Amber Rudd was secretary of state for energy and climate change 2015-2016

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/dont-listen-gloomsters-cop26-british-success/

    1. Is she demented or just deluded? There doesn’t seem to be the slightest hint of reality in that piece.

      1. Both? “China and India – have followed suit” Really? Why have the DT given this deranged woman the oxygen of publicity?

        1. Both China and India gave Boris the middle finger and good luck to them.

          Our Industrial Revolution is a piss in the pond by comparison with the Chinese and Indian industrial expansions.

          Without our Industrial Revolution the Chinese and Indians would still be pissing in the pond.

    3. Wonder how much she got paid for this nonsense. What a fool! One gets the feeling that she is going to live for the rest of her life on “My time as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change…” and “When I was MP for Hastings…”.

  91. Frequently on here, attention is drawn to the letters from the loonies (“We need more immigrants/wind turbines/lockdowns/high-speed railways etc”). Here’s a complete article from one of them.

    Don’t listen to the gloomsters. Cop26 was a British success

    We often underestimate British soft-power, but in Glasgow it brought the world a step closer to eliminating carbon emissions

    AMBER RUDD

    The debate over Cop26 has prompted an explosion of talking heads, and the synergy between two groups of them is particularly curious. The radical wing of the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion seems to be in perfect harmony with staunch climate deniers, with both branding the climate negotiations a failure despite sitting at opposite extremes of mainstream politics.

    This isn’t a surprise, because successful climate diplomacy fits neither of their agendas. For radical protesters, diplomacy is too slow and involves careful compromise. For climate deniers, it works on a problem they pretend doesn’t exist. Both were always going to slam the outcome of the Glasgow summit.

    And yet, for people who trade on attention, both groups seem out of step with the public, for the public appetite for proper climate action is clearly growing. A recent YouGov survey found that the number of people rating the environment as a key issue facing the country has hit a historic high, with its importance standing in equal measure to the economy.

    Moreover, in positive news for the Government, the number of people who expect COP to have a successful outcome was higher at the end of the talks than at the beginning, and is highest of all among Conservative voters.

    Such optimism was not misplaced, since the Glasgow agreement did indeed turn out to be something of a success. Where the 2015 Paris Agreement set out the framework for slowing down global heating, Glasgow is forcing the world to pick up the pace.

    Just look at the hard numbers. Before Paris, we were on track for 6 degrees of warming. In the years that followed, we lowered that to 4 degrees. Before the Glasgow summit, we were on track for 2.7 degrees. Now estimates say we’re on track for between 2.4 degrees and 1.8 degrees.

    These numbers aren’t about temperatures gently rising and falling on a summer’s day. If this planet warms by 4 degrees, ice sheets will melt and virtually all coastal cities will be inundated. At 3 degrees, farmers’ food yields fall rapidly and marine ecosystems are likely to collapse. Every fraction of a degree matters, and the Glasgow agreement has successfully bent down the curve.

    Thanks to the extraordinary abilities of British diplomats, this is the first time that a reduction in coal use has been mentioned in an international agreement. They have brought India more into the fold, signing them up to an ambitious decarbonisation plan which includes a commitment to generate 50 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

    It’s time to ditch the defeatist, fatalistic idea that there’s no point in Britain going through such pains when other countries pollute more. Our country is one of the most influential in the world, and where we lead on climate, others follow. We can change world emissions through our finance, influence, and diplomacy.

    Since Britain became the first country to set out a detailed net-zero strategy, much of the Western world – and even China and India – have followed suit. Britain was also a first mover on ending overseas fossil fuel finance. Now, scores of other countries are doing the same, including China and America.

    Thus for all the shouting from the sidelines, this country’s environmental campaigns have proven to be a success. I would caution the small number of MPs who might be tempted to talk this down that in doing so they would not only be wrong, but unpatriotic. They would be dismissing a hefty British achievement.

    My time as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change taught me that people don’t want politicians and activists to be po-faced defeatists. They want pragmatists who crack on with the job and are grown-up enough to accept a compromise.

    When I was MP for Hastings, my constituents broke down into three groups after the Brexit referendum. A small minority were hardcore Remainers who wouldn’t accept any form of Brexit. Another small minority were hardcore Leavers who wouldn’t accept any deal. The vast majority in the middle wanted a compromise deal, brokered without fuss, which kept us trading and friendly with Europe but honoured the referendum.

    That same silent majority exists when it comes to climate change. People want international leaders to come together and deal with it. They are prepared to make changes and compromises, because they know that the cost of failing to act is steep. What they are not interested in is perfectionism or cynical delay tactics.

    Amber Rudd was secretary of state for energy and climate change 2015-2016

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/25/dont-listen-gloomsters-cop26-british-success/

  93. Good night all.

    Butter chicken curry.
    A custard tart with lotsa blueberries.
    Bitter chocolate.

    1. We had salmon fillets, leeks, beans, potatoes. Melon to start, bit of chocolate afterwards. Pinot Grigio.

  94. Scary new variant found in South Africa!

    All must be vaccinated!! Even though it probably won’t work!

  96. Boris writes to the French president…
    Dear M. Macron,
    When you come to the UK next, make sure you visit Peppa Pig World. It’s your kind of place.
    Sincerely, Boris.

  97. The Channel 5 programme about the Great Escape [on 5+1] seems to have frozen – they haven’t noticed!

    Edit – now it’s happened 3 times, they must have the village idiot on watch! What does “professional” mean, Channel 5? The 3rd time seems terminal – it’s all gone blank!

  101. I visited the surgery to book my INR blood test. The phones are deliberately permanently engaged.

    I joined a small queue outside the surgery for the reason that they are only admitting one person at a time into reception.

    When I was finally admitted the receptionist, sitting behind a glass screen but with an additional 10mm thick Perspex screen recently inserted as ‘extra protection’ asked me to remove my mask in order to make out what I was saying. I believe she had to read my lips.

    This utter nonsense has now gone too far. I never rated doctors on the scale of achievements, simply because two of the thickest arsehole creeps at the Technical School became GP’s but thankfully practicing in Wales, Cardiff from memory, but both now retired.

Comments are closed.