Thursday 26 January: Welcome resolve from the West in the battle against Putin’s barbarism

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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835 thoughts on “Thursday 26 January: Welcome resolve from the West in the battle against Putin’s barbarism”

  1. Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Here is today’s story:

    The Pearly Gates

    A Muslim dies and by some error in his handling, ends up in heaven.

    He’s stopped at the Pearly Gates by St Peter who says:

    “Sorry, but we don’t allow Muslims into Heaven”.

    “What?” replies the Muslim, “and why not”?

    “Well, we just don’t! And that’s it… we’re short on Virgins”.

    The Muslim complains and carries on until St Peter gets fed up.

    “Well” says St Peter, “have you ever done anything good in your life”?

    “Ummm” the Muslim replies, “yes, the other day a lady stopped me on the street collecting for a children’s charity so I gave her ten pounds. Last week I donated ten pounds to the Cancer Society and a couple of weeks ago a tramp asked me if I could spare any money…so I gave him ten pounds too”!

    “Alrighty then”, says St Peter, “wait here and I’ll have a quick word with God”.

    Five minutes later St Peter returns and says to the Muslim. “Listen, I’ve spoken with God and he agrees with me.

    Here’s your 30 quid back… now bugger off!”

  6. Morning all. A good letter I’ll post later, but meanwhile, Alistair Heath unfortunately nails it when he describes our dystopian nightmare future under Labour. And it’s this Govt’s own fault:

    “ …The Tories have refused to make the most of Brexit, aren’t even pretending to level up, are doing little to combat the woke revolution and are busily waging war on motorists with their idiotic 20-minute cities. Freedom of choice, aspiration and hard work are out, replaced by bureaucracy, central planning, dependency and state controls: the conservative dream has turned into a nightmare….”

    He reckons voters (surely only in England – the Welsh and Scots seem very keen on bureaucracy, central planning, dependency and state control) are thirsting for a true “conservative” party.

    “…Unlike in much of Europe, we must hope and pray that there is little appetite in the UK for extremists. Britain, I suspect, would be more likely to go the way of Canada in the 1990s, when a new centre-right group crushed the old conservatives, or France more recently, when President Emmanuel Macron destroyed the centre-right and centre-left.
    For the first time, with an increasingly volatile electorate desperate for change, such a dramatic upset might be possible in a British election even under first past the post. It would be relatively straightforward to construct an uber-populist, 20-point manifesto with every policy scoring 60 per cent or greater support. With the right leader, could such a grouping grab 35 per cent or more of the vote from a standing start…”

    The problem is we have is that Reform isn’t the party. What about Reclaim? Or maybe that Gina Miller woman’s party? Didn’t some Labour MPs flounce off a few years ago too?

    Who will save us from our Globalist Overlords and deliver genuine [English] freedoms and democracy?

    Edit. Araminta has also posted from the same article but different quotes. It’s a good article but too long to post all of it.

    1. It’s what I’ve been both dreaming of, and advocating, Mir.

      A centre-right party, an amalgamation of all the little vote-splitting parties with, as has been said, a 20 point manifesto with every policy scoring 60 per cent or greater support.

      Can it happen within the next two years, or earlier?

      I sincerely hope so and let us see an end to this Lib/Lab/Con/Green coalition.

      1. The most Margaret Thatcher ever achieved was 42% popular support.

        Any phoenix party needs to cast its net wider than that.

    2. Morning, all. Cloudy with a breeze and no sign of frost.

      …we must hope and pray that there is little appetite in the UK for extremists.

      Can’t agree with the above statement.
      We may not have the appetite for extremism but currently we have the most extreme government of my 73 years: lockdowns based on a false threat; mass inoculation of an unknown substance into the population using lies and fear as the inducements; an excess death rate that is ‘baffling’ the experts; mass illegal immigration via a seaborne invasion with well advertised comfortable treatment for the invaders; high rates of tax; destroying our energy generation on the basis of pseudo science; and deliberate managed decline of just about everything else that we understood our government should provide and protect.

      I’m sure that I’ve missed something or other but IMO that list is sufficient to qualify for extreme.

  7. A new party may soon destroy our clueless political class. 26 January 2023.

    It will now take a miracle for the voters to forgive the Tories. Our strike-addled NHS has imploded, with another 2,837 excess deaths in the most recent week. Some 20 per cent more people are dying than normal; there have only been eight worse weeks since 2010 and all of those were during the first two waves of Covid.

    Yet the Government’s lack of empathy is shocking, its refusal to admit that we are in a major emergency baffling. What is the plan? Why aren’t hospitals being put into special measures, or a supremo brought in to tackle the crisis? Do we even have a functional Government, or is it merely a Potemkin construct run by people who pretend to be in charge and enjoy the trappings of office, such as the chauffeur-driven cars and grace and favour residences, but are terrified of actually governing?

    They are like wilful children who have had their way and now, having found that none of it has worked out as they dreamed, sit around hoping that the adults will come and fix it! That is not going to happen. It is broke beyond repair!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/25/furious-voters-itching-sweep-away-incompetent-political-class/

    1. I explained elsewhere how Parliament lost its legitimacy in 2014, and we are effectively ungoverned today.

  8. 370373+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Welcome resolve from the West in the battle against Putin’s barbarism

    Can easily bring about welcome to world war three, as for barbarism the treachery of very dangerous political fools and supporters have brought it home to the Counties of England
    in no mean fashion.

    To die for your Country now is more likely to mean you have become yet another victim of the imported barbarism and has become a daily feature of modern England.

    No need of mandatory call up next time round a white flash
    ( maybe with a colour mix to keep the peace) will certainly solve the over crowding and keep the pharmaceutical merchants working well into the future, if a future is still to be entered.

    1. “Putin’s barbarism”

      Entirely brought about by Zelensky’s barbarism via his Azov Brigade.

      1. 370373+ up ticks,

        Morning NtN

        Takes two to tango, and within the United Kingdom politico’s there are certainly enough war dance partners.

      2. I think you will find that the Azov Batallion is a counter-insurgency reactionary force that came about after Maidan failed to control pro-Russian factionalist terrorism in the Donbas. They were vigilantes that were then requisitioned by Ukrainian Government. Most of them were wiped out in Mariupol.

        As for Zelenskyy – he was a TV comic at the time.

  9. Good morning all

    News ..500 boat people arrived on the beaches yesterday.. they arrived en masse. Using a break in the weather , smugglers must have made a mint .

    1. Problem is, by upticking your comment it looks as if I might approve of the continuing Paki & African invasion!

  10. Today’s Alex could have been drawn by my company’s HR department. Don’t know how to copy it but basically it’s saying that companies have given up trying to organise staff and client events because of the train strikes.

    Our Christmas dinner was postponed at Christmas because of the strikes and will be hit again next week due to strikes. I don’t foresee us having one again.

    1. Don’t worry, the way things are going Christmas won’t be around much longer.

      (I bet everyone is glad I got up this morning!)

  11. “ sir – I’m astonished that Ferrari plans to add the roaring sound of an engine to an electric car (report, January 25).

    Surely it is utterly selfish to impose unnecessary noise on others for the ridiculous satisfaction the owners of such cars may get. Any sensible government will ban such devices.”

    1. ‘Morning, Mir. Isn’t excessive noise an MOT failure? It would take 3 years from the date of manufacture, by which time I imagine that such a silly and childish fad may have worn off!

      1. There’s already noise added to electric cars, as otherwise people can’t hear them coming. Ferrari noise is better than that of a turbocharged refridgerator.

        1. ‘Morning Herr Obers! How you doing? By the way, the ferry I said was DFDS was actually Fred. Olsen!

          1. A pity that service was cut. The only direct ferries to Norway from the UK now being the Immingham to Brevik freight ferry which, because the UK Border Force refuses to do immigration checks for the service, means that general passengers are not allowed.

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps. Yesterday evening’s rainfall will be replaced (we are told) by sunshine and a massive 8°C today.

    SIR – Mike Bridgman (Letters, January 25) rightly identifies the Government’s hubristic net zero policy as responsible for discouraging the poor from heating their homes.

    As well as central heating, a great advance for all classes in the 20th century was the personal mobility provided by motor cars. This, too, will be made unaffordable to the less well off if electric cars are foisted on us. The chairman of Kia Motors UK, Paul Philpott, has said that car makers are finding it difficult to bring affordable smaller vehicles to market because of the high cost of batteries.

    Meanwhile, National Grid is urging households to save electricity at peak times but Government policy is to urge us all to move from fossil fuels to electricity. It doesn’t make sense.

    Michael Staples
    Seaford, East Sussex

    Well said Mr Staples! None of it makes sense, ever since the idiotic Milliprat dreampt up the Climate Change Act and the v-s occupants of the House of Clowns voted it through without a second thought as to practicality, cost or effect. Neither of the main parties will reverse it or even modify it, so we are well and truly stuck with it as this country bankrupts itself in pursuit of an utterly ludicrous aim. It’s a truly depressing thought.

  13. Supporting Ukraine isn’t ‘escalation’. Spiked 26 January 2023.

    The row over tanks suggests that some leaders have forgotten that Russia started this war.

    Supplying vast amounts of weaponry and turning Ukraine into a NATO proxy army is not escalation? Who would have guessed? The war itself became inevitable from the moment that the legitimate government of Yanukovych was overthrown in a western sponsored coup. This was in direct contravention of the Budapest Memorandum where both sides had agreed to Ukraine being neutral. Did anyone seriously think that Russia with its long history of being invaded by the West would allow NATO to come up to their borders without taking measures to prevent it?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/01/24/supporting-ukraine-isnt-escalation/

    1. We’ve had this conversation many times.

      For as long as Crimea and the pro-Russian parts of the Donbas were part of Ukraine, popular opinion in Ukraine was evenly divided between those preferring to associate with Russia and those who looked westwards to Poland and Lithuania, who are now active members of the EU and NATO, even though they were part of the Warsaw Pact a generation ago. As you argue, and as I did many times in the past, strict neutrality whereby Ukraine acted as broker between Russia and the EU was by far the best option to avoid destabilising the nation.

      Everything changed on 24th February 2022. Up until then, any military exercises by Russia could be seen as a bluff in order to improve their negotiating position. Once Putin’s forces and his artillery breached the sovereign borders, it became an entirely different struggle, and anything that transpired before this date becomes historical.

      1. Once Putin’s forces and his artillery breached the sovereign borders, it became an entirely different struggle, and anything that transpired before this date becomes historical.

        Morning Jeremy. The Russians were expected to stand by as Ukraine was subsumed into NATO and the EU?

        2. Since Russians were buying large swathes of property and businesses in the UK, two can play the game of subsuming. With Nordstream rapidly making Western Europe dependent on Russian fuel, and with the Russians taking over from the Americans as peacekeepers in the Middle East, it was just as likely NATO would have withered on the vine of US decadence, and Russia taken over as the main powerhouse for the EU.

          I saw the balance being tipped culturally in socially-conservative Vienna, deploring Western drift into woke idiocy and feeling reassured by the certainties offered up in Eastern Europe. Why else was English composer, stalwart of romantic neoconservatism, and darling of Viennese high society Alma Deutscher persuaded to perform personally for Putin during a State Visit in 2018? Already, she was starting to work her music into ballet form and may have gone to Moscow to work with the Bolshoi.

          All this was smashed asunder by this ill-judged and unnecessary invasion, attempting to reprise the victories of Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968, but without the ballast of loyal Ukrainians in the Soviet Red Army. Deutscher herself passed comment by busking the Ukrainian National Anthem in Vienna as a fundraiser for the Resistance.

      2. And if Biden had not shown his shambolic weakness in the Afghanistan withdrawal Putin would not have seen how weak and indecisive the West has become.

        Like him or loathe him I agree with those who think that the Ukraine War would never have started if Trump had been president.

        1. I really don’t know what the Merkins were on when they cut & ran from The Stan. Just dropped everything and left – didn’t even have time to destroy it. Looked like panic – I assume Biden wanted to show just how decisive he was, without thinking it through – but what about the military? Did they not advise a better method? Did some not resign based on professional honour? Now all kinds of secret stuff is with the Chinese and Russians being deconstructed and secrets / technology stolen. Never mind the weapons, fuel and ammo the Taliban will have kept.
          Utter fcuking shambles, so they are.

          1. Merkins panic easily.

            My Mother related an example in WWII.

            American bombers were circling to land at Seething without realising that, having stowed all their guns and ammunition a German fighter was circling with them and picked them off, one by one.

            The screams and panic could be heard nearly 7 miles away at the Beauchamp Arms Hotel, near Claxton.

          2. Gee…
            Read a story about how a joint unit of US and UK stormed and over-ran an Iraqi position. The Brits then set out a defensive perimeter and dug in, whilst the Yanks were jigging around high-fiving each other.
            Hmm.
            Hysterical.

  16. SIR – Your picture (January 24) of skaters on the ice of Whittlesey Wash reminded me of the World Fen Skating Championships, which started in 1879 and were once dominated by local men with such memorable names as Turkey Smart and Gutta Percha See.

    It is so sad that global warming and restricted public access to the frozen shallow water washes have apparently ended this event, which enlivened the Fens for a few brief days in the coldest part of winter.

    Tom Bliss
    Sleaford, Lincolnshire

    Don’t be silly, Mr Bliss, these days the nanny state would ban it!

  17. SIR – I believe Mike Moliver (Letters, January 25) is incorrect when he states that people have never been incentivised to take out private medical insurance.

    In fact, tax relief used to be afforded on private medical insurance premiums but was removed by the Labour government in 1997 – one of Tony Blair’s first acts when he came to power. It is interesting that the Conservatives, after more than 10 years in office, have not sought to reintroduce it.

    Terry Lloyd
    Derby

    I think Mr Lloyd is correct regarding the tax relief point, and if Labour get in at the next GE – which seems increasingly likely – the politics of envy and spite will make an unwelcome return. The only comfort is that if they impose VAT on private education most of their front bench will face even bigger bills!

    1. Perhaps tax relief for the people who still earning because alongside their national insurance contributions they would have been paying twice. Meanwhile there hundreds of thousands of people living in the UK now who have still never paid a penny for their treatment. And this would be the reason why the NHS is short on funds. It’s not even difficult to work that out.
      But as usual it’s extremely difficult for our useless ruling classes to understand the predominantly obvious facts.

      1. That is the down side to the universal franchise.
        In order to stay in power, politicians use the voters’ own money to buy their votes.

    2. And one of the other things that Blair did in his first year of office was to remove the assisted places scheme which enabled bright children in state schools which did not cater for their needs to be able to go to private schools which could do so.

      And why have the repulsive Cameron, May, or Johnson not done anything about this? The Conservatives have completely lost their whole reason for existence.

      2. I recall Brown invented “slab” SDLT (instead of the previous 1%) and removed the ACT credit on dividends, thus pulverising private pensions.

        He merged the IR and C&E and they’ve never recovered.

        And he “freed the BoE” / gave it “independence”

        None of which have helped us. This just off the top of my head. I was still inly 30 and had been out if the country for a few years so wasn’t aware of the significance of his move at the time.

        Who finally got rid if MIRAS?

    3. My father used that perk for several years to contribute towards private health cover.
      It was absolutely typical that he only benefitted from it in the last week of his life, which was spent in a local private hospital.

  18. Good morning all.
    Another less cold start today, only just below 0°C and rather overcast.

      1. Morning Jules,
        To the title, I must say I am very disappointed how much Richard is rooting for this war.
        I don’t understand how he can be in possession of the facts and historical context and still support the western suicide in pursuit of this thing which undemines us all economically and puts us in grave peril.
        I challenged him very respectfully (I thought) by email and he hasn’t responded so I suppose I have annoyed him for which I am sorry.
        Very puzzling.

        1. Yes – it is surprising. I tend to keep a bit quiet on that topic. Though Ioulia talks to her Russian contacts every day he says so they both know what goes on.
          It’s not our war and we should keep out of it. It won’t end well. I think Richard expects it to drag on for a long time.
          He does usually answer emails very quickly. You could try again.

    2. Good morning, BoB. Well above zero here although with very high (bitingly cold) winds that will make temperatures feel a couple of degrees lower.

  21. Edit to remove spoiler

    Ukraine expects tank deal will lead to West delivering long-range missiles capable of striking Russian supply lines as Zelensky begs for more heavy weaponry – but angry Kremlin brands increased UK, German and US aid to Kyiv ‘extremely dangerous’
    ‘We must open deliveries of long range missiles to Ukraine,’ Zelensky declared
    He also called on NATO countries to send jets to beef up Ukraine’s air superiority
    The Ukrainian president thanked Germany and US for sending battalions of tanks

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11676851/Now-Zelensky-begs-West-JETS-long-range-missiles.html

    What next, you stupid fools, why not give him tactical nuclear weapons and have done with it.

    God help us all.

    1. Yep, Sos, if the West heeds Zelensky’s begging, it’ll be the beginning of the end.

      Ukraine won’t be the only area nuked by Putin.

      Stand to, US, EU, UK and every NATO country.

      That’ll suit the WEF.

      Globalisation and depopulation all together in what won’t be a floral dance.

      1. Let’s hope that when all the elites flee in their private jets to a place of relative safety, (ha bloody ha) that the locals who welcome them string them up with piano wire.

    2. BBC Radio 4 news reporting that US tanks might not be available for Ukraine for up to a year.

    3. I find it astounding how, little more than a year ago, newspapers like the Telegraph, Mail and especially the Guardian, who are now calling for further escalation of the war, were publishing articles critical of how the Ukraine was acting against the peoples of the Donbass region.

    4. Put someone untrained in an F35 and they’ll not be able to turn it on, let alone fly the damned thing.

  22. Good morning all

    I don’t want to depress any of you further , but my tender minded younger son , who broke his ankle and bones in his foot in December after falling down London Bridge station steps in a crowd surge , has now also witnessed the death of his partner’s father from pneumonia 2 days ago..

    His partner carted my son off in son’s own car to visit the gentleman who was taken into hospital with a chest infection which turned into pneumonia , the 82 year old was treated for 3 days before treatment was withdrawn .. and 24 hours later died . His family are shocked .

    Son is shocked , his partner is devestated and furious with the NHS. Is pneumonia now being regarded as a soltion for freeing up hospital beds?

    Nearly five years ago when we had the Beast from the East. I took in to our house an 82 year old man , who refused to go to hospital . Ray had pneumonia . I put him in our spare room and looked after him , he was really bad for a week , no oxygen required , nor a drip but , tepid sponging , 2 hourly sips of drink and antibiotics , then a few days later, soup, apple puree , scrambled eggs later .. proper nursing , making people better is what nursing is all about .

    Son said nurses were not tending to their patient .. I guess he was just an elderly man who was very ill and needed too much nursing .

    My son is not a snowflake .. but the whole time line of events has traumatised him, and his own particular leg pain isn’t helping . His partner is grieving and very angry .. and the clear up and arrangements necessary is time consuming .

    I forwarded the link that one of the Nottlers put on here last week, https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/organisations-you-need-to-contact-and-tell-us-once, which was recieved with grateful thanks .

    1. A sad and sorry tale, Maggie, not only for the patient and his family but also for the NHS to take such callous steps.

    3. What a ghastly saga, Maggie.
      Once again post code lottery seems to enter the equation; MB is a couple of years younger, but he was admitted with double pneumonia and spent a week in hospital. I can criticise some of the ward organisation, but at least he was treated and cured.

      1. Good morning Anne

        Son’s partner’s father lives near Tilbury. a proper born and bred Londoner .

        Thank goodness your Moh recovered, and I daresay you were forever vigilant and questioning .

        I think some elderly members of the public feel the authority of the NhS, in particular partners , wives / relatives etc is too intimidating , and daren’t question decisions .

        We found the same problems when Moh’s elderly mother was in and out of of hospital .

    4. I can believe that about the nurses- the nurses on the ward my husband was on were indifferent to the patients.

      1. Hello Lottie

        The nurses were indifferent to the old man as well,as my son commented , and by which upset him so .

        I really think something wrong was enacted, like the Liverpool pathway or what ever it is called .

      2. It isn’t a new thing; I was talking on the phone tonight to a friend who used to work in care. Lots of those looking after the elderly and demented did the bare minimum and didn’t engage with the patients at all and this was nearly ten years ago!

    2. 370373+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Is the 27 years a collective sentence or each, would not surprise me if it was the former.

    4. Yo ogga

      Each, or in total (I know it is a daft question)

      They will be up for Parole and/or Early Release before they have even been entered into prison system

    5. Don’t jail them, flog them. Beat them until their bones break. Then castrate and cut off their hands. Then beat them more.

  24. A new party may soon destroy our clueless political class
    With neither Labour nor the Conservatives offering solutions, furious voters are itching to sweep them both away

    Allister Heath : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/25/furious-voters-itching-sweep-away-incompetent-political-class/

    BTL

    I thought Reform might be the answer but if Richard Tice does not support Andrew Bridgen’s demand that the risks and dangers of the Covid 19 gene therapies are properly assessed then I fear that his party is already finished.

    The only answer is for about 100 Conservative MPs to resign their seats and either join one of the small right of centre parties or form their own new party. The Conservative Party as it is will be completely wiped out at the next general election.

    1. Won’t happen. The wee parties are all content to huff and puff on the sidelines, and their leaders to feel important, rather than actually get on and do anything useful. They only have passion for their own self-importance.

        1. Too late for the upcoming GE. The fighting for position, or even discussing amalgamation, hasn’t started yet.

          1. UKIP is in talks with all the other non-mainstream parties (except Reform) with a view to a concerted, if not amalgamated, campaign.

      2. Typically they do nothing honest or tangible for a full five years, then suddenly rush around like the proverbial BA Flies when an election is forthcoming.
        I won’t be wasting my time and efforts on any of them.

        1. Most people are too thick to notice. It’s truly sad that we’ve had this vertical degradation in politics as the citizen has become so damned thick. People are morons. They don’t understand *anything*.

    2. Tice made a grave error in his treatment of Andrew Bridgen. Rather than taking a cautious and informed stance, Tice jumped in and basically repeated the now not quite so believable government mantra. With all of the data and support from eminent doctors and scientists worldwide casting great doubt on the potion’s efficacy and safety Tice should have been sufficiently informed to not make what appears to be a rash decision re Bridgen. It was a calamitous error that any aspiring politician of note should have avoided.

  25. Good moaning all,

    A bit warmer at McPhee Towers this morning, 3℃ and rising. I’m running out of excuses for not going out to wash SWMBO’s car. Maybe the hosepipe is still frozen.

    Over at the DT Allister Heath seems to be the only opinion writer who is anywhere close to ‘getting it’ but he stops short of mentioning their involvement with the evil World Economic Forum and the Trilateral Commission.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/25/furious-voters-itching-sweep-away-incompetent-political-class/

    The real problem of course is the party-system of government itself. We need to get rid of all these self-seeking, corrupt money-grubbers who don’t reperesent us. We need to return to the true constitution based on Magna Carta and the Common Law with a Monarch who actually honours the Coronation Oath.

    1. Good luck with the Monarch bit, too. The late Queen would have fitted that role to a T, but I have my doubts over her eldest son. Maybe her daughter should have become the new Queen. Much sterner stuff, in the image of her Father.

      2. I have to disagree about the late reverered HMQ. She raised not a peep when her sovereignty was given away by Heath in 1973. That was unlawful.

        Have to agree about the Princess Royal – The Right Stuff.

        1. Without calling for a revolution, EIIR’s position as a constitutional monarch meant she was powerless in the face of a ‘popular’ mandate; albeit a mandate achieved through lying.

          1. The real revolution had been the parties’ seizure of the executive from about 1900-1910 onwards.

      3. I have to disagree about the late reverered HMQ. She raised not a peep when her sovereignty was given away by Heath in 1973. That was unlawful.

  26. Good moaning all,

    A bit warmer at McPhee Towers this morning, 3℃ and rising. I’m running out of excuses for not going out to wash SWMBO’s car. Maybe the hosepipe is still frozen.

    Over at the DT Allister Heath seems to be the only opinion writer who is anywhere close to ‘getting it’ but he stops short of mentioning their involvement with the evil World Economic Forum and the Trilateral Commission.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/25/furious-voters-itching-sweep-away-incompetent-political-class/

    The real problem of course is the party-system of government itself. We need to get rid of all these self-seeking, corrupt money-grubbers who don’t reperesent us. We need to return to the true constitution based on Magna Carta and the Common Law with a Monarch who actually honours the Coronation Oath.

      1. Sunday morning, making coffee for breakfast, woke up being picked up by SWMBO & Second Son from kitchen floor. Some memory problems, went to A&E, admitted as likely stroke. After tests (and much blood pressure measurements), it seems not – the small bleed in my brain was likely from my head hitting the floor. Still no answer as to why, expect to go home today.
        (The short version)

          1. The punishment was a stay in horsepiddle. With crazies, in Geriatric & stroke ward. Ah, well.

          2. Why can’t you follow the example started by the late HM the Queen, Auntie Elsie? She was born April 26 but her ‘official’ birthday was June 2.

            January 26 can be your OFFICIAL birthday!🤣

          4. Maggie certainly started something today, Grizzly. I am veering between laughing my socks off and tearing my hair out. I am now off to get a life – and I don’t mean to eat jellied eels!!!

          6. I thought she was born on the 21st April. It was my parents’ wedding anniversary and they always said they shared it with the Queen.

        2. Thank you Alec. At least someone was awake when Rastus and Caroline wished me a Happy 77th Birthday.

          1. Now avalanche your way to the Famous Star.

            Be aware the ‘The Famous’ is in very small letters, Sue.

      1. You silly sausage, Maggie! My birthday was a few days before Christmas. I wrote 68th because I wasn’t first, nor second, nor third this morning!

        2. Strictly speaking, you weren’t 68th either, I doubt that when you first posted even half that number had contributed.

          Move up the class several places!

          1. Strictly speaking, Sos, I WAS 68th. When I went on to the page it said that there were 67 posts, and when I finished my post, it said that there were now 68. I know that The Powers That Be are trying to kill us all off by forcing us to have no affordable heating and to stop us using cars, but never in a thousand years did I ever think that NoTTLers would try to force me out of the NoTTLers club. (Lol!)

        1. I think that this morning’s mixed messages suggest that you should think before you post!!!

          1. Well, Bill, you were away for three days and during this time I once wrote “1st – yippee!” so to post “68th. Doh!” today should have been clear to all others. After all, I posted “68th” and not “68”. I am turning into a Grumpy Old Person, so I shall now depart until later tonight.

  29. This is additional interesting information re the use of masks. Upshot is that using a mask for prolonged periods of time raises the pulse rate and has a detrimental impact on the immune system. Why then was masking children for the length of the school day thought to be a GOOD idea? The stench of deliberate mis-information re the pandemic increases with every revelation.

    https://twitter.com/TheFreds/status/1611280965204168704

  30. Morning all 😉 😊
    Not pretty out there.
    Still coughing and spluttering. Fed up with it all.

    1. It’s only going to increase. Every single one must be removed. Any more must be stopped, at gunpoint. Shoot the scum.

  32. We say goodbye to another courageous wartime aviator.  (A great Dane in fact!)

    Flight Lieutenant Peter Fischer, Danish airman who flew with Bomber Command attacking doodlebug launching ramps – obituary

    He was involved in attacks on the V-1 flying-bomb launch sites in support of ground operations, and on German industrial targets and cities

    ByTelegraph Obituaries25 January 2023 • 6:30pm

    Flight Lieutenant Peter Fischer, who has died aged 99, flew 52 operations with Bomber Command, the most by a Danish national.

    Fischer joined his first squadron in May 1944 just as Bomber Command was beginning to support the Allied landings in Normandy. After two sorties, his crew was transferred to 35 Squadron, a Lancaster squadron in the Pathfinder Force.

    Shortly after D-Day, the Germans began launching the first V-1 flying bombs (“doodlebugs”) against London from sites mainly in the Pas de Calais region. Bomber Command began a campaign of attacks against the launching ramps and the weapon-storage facilities.

    Fischer was one of three Danish airmen to participate in these operations. His first operation was against the launch site at Saint-Philibert on July 14, and over the next few days, he attacked four similar targets.

    His last operation against the V-1 threat was carried out on August 9, when the target was the storage site at the Forêt de Nieppe south of Dunkirk. This was the first time the crew operated in the Pathfinder role, illuminating the target for the main bomber force. In early September, advancing Allied troops reached the last launch ramps that were within easy reach of London, and the immediate threat was over.

    In the meantime, Fischer and his crew attacked targets in support of the ground operation in Normandy, including attacks against Caen, Saint-Lô, and in the Falaise area. By mid-August, the Allied forces had finally broken through the German defences and Bomber Command were able to resume the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, still assisting ground forces from time to time.

    The son of Danish parents living in London, Peter Frederik Fischer was born on July 6 1923. He attended Regent Street Polytechnic and in 1941 entered Trinity College, Cambridge, rowing in the first eight of the First and Third Trinity Boat Club in 1942. In February 1943 he was part of the Cambridge crew in the second unofficial wartime Oxford–Cambridge Boat Race, which Oxford won.

    He volunteered to be a pilot in the RAFVR and enlisted on September 24 1943. It soon became clear that there was a surplus of pilots under training at that stage of the war so, anxious to see action, Fischer agreed to be an air gunner. He completed his training, was commissioned, and joined Flight Lieutenant Ken Gooch and his crew to convert to the Halifax bomber. In May 1944, they were posted to 10 Squadron.

    By the end of the Normandy campaign, Fischer’s crew were well established in the Pathfinder role. A primary target thereafter was Germany’s oil industry, while the transportation system and tank and motor-vehicle production became a second priority. Only when weather or tactical conditions were unsuitable for missions against these targets would operations against important industrial areas take place.

    Fischer took part in the daylight attack on the Nordstern synthetic oil factory in Gelsenkirchen. Two more attacks followed on the oil factories at Wanne-Eickel and Koblenz. In the New Year his crew marked numerous targets, including the synthetic oil factory at Leuna, near Leipzig.

    In early 1945 the Air Ministry had developed Operation Thunderclap for a series of heavy raids against German cities in the east to disrupt the increasingly hard-pressed German war machine. With the Soviet army advancing from the east, it was decided to implement the plan with an attack against Dresden on the night of February 14/15, followed by an attack against Chemnitz. Fischer’s crew operated as a blind marker in the second wave on each mission.

    On February 20 he took off on his final operation, when the target was Dortmund. He had flown 52 missions since joining 10 Squadron, had completed more operations in Bomber Command than any other Dane and was awarded the DFC. His pilot, Ken Gooch, received a Bar to an earlier DFC.

    After a period as an instructor at a bomber training unit, Fischer left for Germany, where he worked with a Missing Research and Enquiry Unit, responsible for searching, identifying and the reburial of those Missing in Action, a harrowing task.

    Fischer trained as a teacher and moved to Canada, changing his name to Falstrup. He taught at St Paul’s School in Ottawa, where he resumed his interest in rowing. He later moved to California and taught at the Bishop’s School in La Jolla. He spent his final years on Coronado Island, a suburb of San Diego, where cycled into his early nineties.

    Peter Fischer is survived by his third wife, Claire, and their son.

    Peter Fischer, born July 6 1923, died December 4 2022

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac577bd9b3dbb149982cd86e024826caf2f4292400000bb19a1d1f74cbc5def1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b80d43c524ede34163b11c49d658f161ee422717cca1924f2d2baee1ef5d013c.jpg

    Flt Lt Fischer is third from the left

    A fitting BTL:

    John Huddlestone
    42 MIN AGO
    In the first photo those young men look like they have a hard task to do, and will do it to their best ability. Many never made it back, so we must never forget that they made our future possible.
    RIP. Many thanks for a job very well done.

    1. I simply do not know how these young men – most much younger than my grandchildren – got into a plane, flew 500 miles through flak and fighter attacks – day after day.

      They have always had my deepest admiration.

        1. And they did so knowing the odds were stacked against them. I knew a chap, pilot, who flew 3 tours – 90 trips. He was a very calm, level-headed chap. He said that when he finished his 90th sortie – there was no one alive who had been with him when he flew his first.

          1. Yet, the political class and their media lackeys are gung-ho to start another war in eastern Europe, over the business interests of the US

      2. It takes a very special courage. Average age was 22, I believe. The amazing thing was there were so few cases of LMF (Lack of Moral Fibre); judging by some conversations I’ve had with ex-bomber crew, they were more afraid of letting the other crew members down!

    2. I always read these obits with a great feeling of loss. My father was a bomber pilot who flew 120 missions, yes 120! I have his medals and log-books. He was a Hampden medium bomber pilot on 50 Sqn in 1941 then a Mosquito Pathfinder pilot on 109 Sqn as the war progressed. He bombed Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in Brest (or tried to) and on the nights of 6th and 7th June 1944 was marking targets in and around Argentan and Fôret de Cerisy. He died young at 53 when I was only 21. Like almost everyone else of his generation he didn’t talk about it.

      I still feel robbed as we would have had much to talk about as I went through my own RAF career. I feel sure I could have teased something out of him.

      2. That’s an extraordinary record, bearing in mind that a standard tour for RAF bomber crews was 30 sorties, before being rested. Some went on to do another 20 or 30, straight after the first 30. At the end of which that was normally it.

      3. That’s an extraordinary record, bearing in mind that a standard tour for RAF bomber crews was 30 sorties, before being rested. Some went on to do another 20 or 30, straight after the first 30. At the end of which that was normally it.

      5. But your father will forever be missing one award, because politicians would not authorise a campaign medal.
        Bomber Command fatalities: 55,573 killed.

      6. Pathfinders had a tour of 30 ops as opposed to the usual 20, I believe. He must have done several tours!

    3. I always read these obits with a great feeling of loss. My father was a bomber pilot who flew 120 missions, yes 120! I have his medals and log-books. He was a Hampden medium bomber pilot on 50 Sqn in 1941 then a Mosquito Pathfinder pilot on 109 Sqn as the war progressed. He bombed Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in Brest (or tried to) and on the nights of 6th and 7th June 1944 was marking targets in and around Argentan and Fôret de Cerisy. He died young at 53 when I was only 21. Like almost everyone else of his generation he didn’t talk about it.

      I still feel robbed as we would have had much to talk about as I went through my own RAF career. I feel sure I could have teased something out of him.

  34. Yo All

    SIR – I’m astonished that Ferrari plans to add the roaring sound of an engine to an electric car (report, January 25).

    In the year 2035, when petrol engines have been made illegal, the Le Mans 24 Hour Race will be held over 24 days to take
    into account battery charging.

    Ultimately it will be 24 months to cover batttery changing

    1. Batteries are the wrong technology, and ignore the real intent of banning ICE vehicles, namely to stop people driving entirely.

      However, no matter how much the state legislates, fights, argues, squabbles, rules and dictates, technology will improve to ensure personal vehicles continue to exist. We’re already looking at solid state sodium batteries.

  35. Vladimir Putin and his cohort are gangsters, robbing the Russian people and enriching themselves

    And Biden and his family are different?

        1. This might help:

          Why Putin Invaded Ukraine Pt I

          Too many people obviously have no idea as to why Putin invaded Ukraine.

          Here is the first reason:
          It was Zelensky’s Azov Brigade, ruthlessly slaughtering over 14,000 Russian speakers in Donbass and other Eastern Ukrainian provinces, that made him feel that someone should endeavour to put a stop to this slaughter of his near neighbours by a despotic tyrant.
          The sad thing is that the US, the EU and NATO all joined in on Zelensky’s side.
          I take it they all agreed that the slaughter was a good thing!

          Why Putin Invaded Ukraine Pt II
          Russia invaded Ukraine (a part of its country) in order to expose and eliminate U.S. funded bio labs. We are referring to US funded ‘gain of function’ research into bio-weapons research.
          This exposure was the objective of the Russian ‘special operations’.
          The US ‘gain of function’ research laboratories were placed in Ukraine for the reason that Ukraine, neither a country nor an independent state, is not subject to international weapons conventions and control of weapons.
          The ‘vaccines’ are proven to be gene therapies produced by companies specialising in the introduction of specific known pathogens into the world populations. These ‘vaccines’ aim to infect every recipient with synthetic mRNA nano technology. This renders human recipients as trans human in much the same way that mice, rats and ferrets are rendered transgenic in our research laboratories.
          My own research evidenced that Malaysia has already convicted George W Bush and our own Tony Blair as war criminals. Regrettably Malaysia has no international clout and these two criminals are above our decrepit international law, a law, if properly instituted, would condemn these war criminals to a life of servitude in gaol.
          The Truth will always out. Just give it a few more months and these fuckers will be exposed.

    3. No one mentions the EU of course.

      It’s like that BBC headline: Bullfighting and other sports responsible for 500 deaths a year! when bullfighting is really only due to 2 deaths. The rest come from the others. It’s all about forcing a narrative for effect.

    4. Biden Jr and his Bursima dealings are neck deep in this fracas. The US intelligence agencies are panicking in case Biden Sr’s lax filing of classified information runs to communications regarding business deals in the area.

      Fauci also found Ukrainian biolabs useful to support his claim that no bioweapon research took place in the US.

    5. The Russian people are richer now than at any time in their history. One cannot say the same for Americans, Europeans or the British whom I do not put into the category of ‘European’ . Our politicians have made us poorer while destroying democracy, minor things like free speech removed while the destruction of our various cultures for their false vision of the future relentlessly continues. The ‘gangsters’ are not Putin and his cohorts, it is the venal politicians of the West who lie to us 24/7 and seek to enslave us with their false gods. If I were well enough I would much rather live in Putin’s Christian Russia than I would live in an England being systematically destroyed by our enemies, our politicians.

  36. Legalising assisted suicide (yet again a focus of consultation) would cause fear to the vulnerable elderly and the
    disabled who are against a change in the law.

    The Governments initial response to Covid was a form of euthanasia.

    They segregated the old and let them die in ‘Care Home

    .
    Covid Kills a high % of those infected

    Fear of Convid instilled in the rest of us

    WEF aim achieved

    1. I am reminded of Oscar Pistorius who swore blind that his prosthetics could not possibly give him an advantage over able-bodied athletes, but who later complained bitterly about an athlete who beat him because he claimed the opponent had better ones.

      And unless the marathon course is extremely hilly, I would back top wheelchair athletes, male or female against the best able-bodied men every time.

      If the Paralympics can do it, so should the trans people.

      1. If the ‘Paralympics’ are made up of people with various disabilities, then why can’t the trannies compete in those events? After all their ‘affliction’ is nothing more than a disability per se.

    2. The other solution is to scrap the male and female categories and just have one, open to all. As most of the Transgender activists appear to be women (certainly seem to be in the majority waving placards), this should be acceptable. Shouldn’t it?

    3. “A pansy who lived in Khartoum
      Took a lesbian up to his room,
      And they argued all night
      Over who had the right
      To do what, and with which, and to whom.”

      I’ve always wondered why that particular flower was chosen as a reference to …. the word Disqus won’t let me use.
      What’s wrong with hollyhock or rudbeckia?

      1. I have plagiarised this well-known limerick. (see above)

        A good friend of mine used to live in Mells so I know the area well and Frome rhymes conveniently with whom and room and I was born in a small village called Irkowit which is to the North of Khartoum.

    4. Any people here from Somerset?

      There were two trans people from Frome
      And in Radstock they rented a room,
      In Midsomer Norton
      They continually fought on
      What to do, and with what, and to whom.

    5. Mentally deluded: so Prince Harry would be the obvious choice as organ-iser.
      The events could be promoted as the Indictus Gaymes, (or should it be ‘Undictus’?)

    6. Mentally deluded: so Prince Harry would be the obvious choice as organ-iser.
      The events could be promoted as the Indictus Gaymes, (or should it be ‘Undictus’?)

  38. King ‘orders Prince Andrew to stay away’ from Buckingham Palace

    The Duke of York has been told he can no longer use his suite of rooms at Buckingham Palace, having been forced to close his office there.

    Prince Andrew’s possessions have been moved out while the Palace is renovated and will not be put back. The duke, 62, has been told that if he wants to stay in London he must move elsewhere, according to The Sun, which said St James’s Palace was an option.

    It comes nearly a year after Andrew’s multimillion-pound payout to Virginia Giuffre, whose claims of sexual abuse ruined his reputation.

    A source told the newspaper: “The King has made it clear that Buckingham Palace is no place for Prince Andrew. First his office closed last year and now his sleeping quarters. Andrew loved having a suite at Buckingham Palace, where he not only set up for marital life with Sarah Ferguson but used it as a bachelor pad after his divorce.

    “He brought back a string of new girlfriends to his home in the palace – even [the] model Caprice. A bachelor’s flat in St James’s Palace doesn’t have the same allure for a single man.”

    Andrew is said to have been kicked out of Buckingham Palace in December. He was told that he would no longer be permitted to hold an office inside the building or use it as an address for correspondence. The King has made clear that Andrew cannot return to the front line of public life because of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

    The Palace is undergoing a £369 million ten-year rebuilding project.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/king-orders-prince-andrew-to-stay-away-from-buckingham-palace-bk9ldtb35

      1. Good morning Bill

        A comment printed from the article

        They’re throwing him out of Buckingham Palace

        It’s Charlie’s orders, it’s brotherly malice.

        “It’s him” said the King, Andrew’s to blame…

        “Mamma looked after him – but I’m not the same”,

        Says Alice

          1. Just as long as he doesn’t follow up his “brotherly malice” by publishing a book called “What I think about my Spare brother”.

        2. I hold no particular brief for Prince Andrew but he is innocent until proven guilty as far as I am concerned. He needed the support of his brother who was more than happy to jump on the bandwagon against him.

          King Charles may be an incompetent, boring, bumbling idiot but he cannot be entirely blamed for that if he was born that way. But his treatment of his brothers, Edward and Andrew, and his treatment of Lady Susan Hussey show clearly that he is a total shit and I do blame him for that.

          1. Regretfully, I’m with you on this one, Rastus. If Charles were my friend, I would say that his denial of his brother was shameful at best.

          2. And we must not forget that the Queen and Prince Philip especially wanted the title of Duke of Edinburgh to go to Prince Edward because he was the member of the family who did the most to help the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme for young people.

            That the King should steal it for his own direct line shows just what an unspeakable turd the dim-witted and insensitive moron is.

          4. He has back-tracked on giving the title to Charlotte; but the idea should never have appeared in his brain to begin with.

    2. Prince Andrew’s possessions have been moved out while the Palace is renovated and will not be put back.
      I have a mental picture of Andrew’s furniture, clothes etc. being unceremoniously dumped on the pavement outside Buckingham Palace.

          1. You keep Hippopotami in Alan Towers, Annie? Or is Diane Abbot currently a lodger appearing at the Mercury Theatre?

    3. The King is a hypocrite. He’ll continue to hob nob with other Epstein clients. His brother has not been proven guilty, in fact the evidence is in his favour. His accuser is a prostitute whose story is inconsistent and who was of the age of consent when she was associated with Prince Andrew. The incriminating evidence against other Epstein clients, with whom the King has no issue, is far more damning.

    4. Andrew is the epitomy of white, privileged, entitled, bad tempered, arrogant prick.

      His only stand out is his service in the Falklands where his helio acted as decoy for the exocets.

  39. Good Moaning.
    As in the temperature’s not below zero and it’s not raining instead.
    At the moment.

      1. Good morning Elsie and everyone else. I thought someone keeps a record of everyone’s birthday?

  40. French officials demand UK cracks down on British charities that help migrants who are planning to cross the Channel
    Charities were accused of ‘frustrating’ efforts in intercepting Channel migrants
    Authorities in France have requested urgent action to curtail their activities
    The French added that charities assisted migrants on their journeys to the UK
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11677305/French-officials-demand-UK-cracks-British-charities-help-migrants-cross-Channel.html#readerCommentsCommand-message-field

    Can you see Rishi Sunak cracking down on the charity which does the most to help illegal migrants by providing a free ferry service between the England/France sea border and England? This of course is the RNLI which is funded by donations.

    1. Nothing to stop the French from arresting them, thus stopping the charity aid in all its forms.

    2. Not my donations, it isn’t. Told them they were no longer in my Will, got a “Wodevah” response.

    3. The camps on the French side were crawling with chariddee facilitators.
      They should be charged with aiding and abetting people smugglers, slave traffickers and paedophiles and be suitably fined and imprisoned.

      1. Nor do I – but I suppose there are some men of a different sexual orientation to mine who do.

        Talking of which I never want to have another prostate examination as long as I live.

        1. Nothing wrong with the old finger-wag – always provided he doesn’t have both hands on your shoulder.

    1. Have a pint for me, Tom.
      Good, dark winter ale would be my choice. Since you are in yer Scotland, St Magnus Orkney ale would be the idea!

    2. Enjoy your lunch, Tom, and give my best wishes to the other NoTTLers. You have my full permission to sing “A very happy Unbirthday to you” (from Disney’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND) over the dessert. PS – if anyone (Rastus?) can post a clip from this film it would be fun for us all to watch.

      PS – You know, I thought it was “A very Merry…” rather than “A very Happy…” which should teach me to trust my instincts.

      1. I enjoyed The Aristocats but some of Disney’s adaptations of traditional English stories were rather less successful. Mind you, Cherie Blair starred as Cruella de Ville in the Disney version of 101 Dalmations

        https://www.google.com/search?q=A+very+happy+unbirthday+to+you+youtube&oq=A+very+happy+unbirthday+to+you+youtube&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64l2.40591j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f0399eda,vid:iL2Wm-PcfPo

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a523d699c23c916c549348ae0d442ab72dbe4c4cc756527370b12f2b6bae1250.jpg

  43. Morning all,

    Before you buy a vehicle EV with a high voltage battery you should see these links first:

    Family gets stuck in EV after fully charging it;

    https://youtu.be/8r_BZHDXKcc

    Guy finds crap 12v battery in EV:

    https://youtu.be/te6i6Z0zvbk

    High voltage EV traction battery restorer finds crap 12v battery integrated with Lion battery:

    https://youtu.be/94gxM4Tp_Ig

    When getting a stand alone replacement 12v battery for an EV you should ensure that you understand battery coding:

    https://youtu.be/_5lJtgy0vTo

    1. If only we had a reliable system of propelling cars, with a tried and tested infrastructure to support it…

  44. Who say’s the American Police do not have a sense of humour?

    Department Says Police K-9 Won’t Face Charges for Stealing Officer’s Lunch

    The police in Wyandotte, Michigan, know who stole the lunch of one of their officers from the police department’s break room. They even know it was a dedicated member of the department.
    But after a vast public campaign on behalf of the culprit, no charges will be filed.
    The department issued a tongue-in-cheek post about its dilemma on its Facebook page.
    “Stealing is not only a crime but it is morally wrong too. Some jobs, like that of being a police officer, require you to take an oath prior to starting. Within the officer’s sworn oath is the promise to protect person’s property. That being said, it saddens me to report that a current officer of the Wyandotte Police Department is under investigation for stealing!” the Jan. 12 post began.
    “It’s usually not something another officer would do,” Officer Cade Barwig, who suffered the loss of his salami muenster sandwich, said, according to WXYZ-TV.
    He recalled the events of the crime.
    “I get out my lunchbox, get my sandwich out, have one or two bites of it,” he said, noting he was called to assist with a troublesome prisoner. No sandwich awaited him upon his return.
    “Then I realized Officer Ice was here, and I kinda knew that was his track record,” he said.

    https://twitter.com/Racy1Eva/status/1616178773455704064

    https://twitter.com/JKasuba/status/1615827892981882882

    1. Donkey’s years ago I recall sitting on an aisle seat in a local bus when a large Guide Dog & his person stepped aboard. I happened to be munching a biscuit, and as the dog approached, it calmly took the biccie from my hand without altering pace in any way. When I remonstrated with the blind man, he replied simply “Yeah, he does that.”

    1. There’s something about Biden’s face that makes me instinctively check my wallet and not trust him for a millisecond.

      1. What man cries on TV? Not even worth the insult of being called a big girl’s blouse. Hara-kiri on TV, now you’re talking!

        1. But sadly Seppuku requires a sense of both guilt and honour, so unlikely to appeal to Halfcock!

  47. Morning Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e79e0715f363828c48ca9ef355640e0e3215e53c99a352c1ec8e13cc77d6a3e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/664f5a85ad4b208313381414bea418832147ae0f4854f2ead83b8a8a85a63cc9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/089b93c3fa847bdbc34d1d5fde447d02500582e974309b8a0f7ee2cfbdeebb3e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff90cec6e7fadf424c9f32195eb6347c703bdd9007c2a5e708096af9e8123dfe.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d6b373ace00558012d9f8d72047b851cfb0850bba0276fe740ea7a8ff89d477.jpg

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/125/824/382/original/d28a313e7a510782.png

    2. Too bloody right on the call volumes! I know you bleepers don’t want to answer the damned phone because it costs you money. I know you’d rather I did it myself through your bleeping website but it DOESN’T WORK. Answer the damned phone!

      Had a message from First Direct. Please call us (we’ve spent more than we brought in. No over draft, just savings activity). Three rings ‘Hello, First Direct…’

      And then security, and done. No waiting, just phone. Answered.

    2. Grizzly,

      I always thought my children were probably taught by ex left wing hippies .

      Boarding school for eldest at least had traditional teachers , but young son was not so lucky, and that was the time in teaching when dyslexia wasn’t recognised , and I also felt that teachers in the 1970s/80s/ didn’t speak our language , meaning .. male teachers with long hair and flares ., and female teachers squeaky voiced arty types !

      1. Yes, Maggie. We get the leaders (and the teachers) we deserve. As a society, we simply doth not protest enough — neither long nor loud enough.

      2. We homeschooled our boys up to GCSE level and put them into boarding schools for their Sixth Form studies.

        Christo went to Gresham’s, an independent ‘public’ school at Holt in Norfolk, but Henry chose to go to Ashby-de-la-Zouche – a state boarding school..

        The teaching at Ashby was on a par with Gresham’s but there was a vast difference in the number of excellent extra-curricular activities Gresham’s offered. For example Christo was in two school plays; he was in the choir and went on a tour of Southern France where he acted as translator and compere in the concerts they put on in various churches and cathedrals; he led the Gresham’s Model United Nations group and went twice to the Hague and spoke at the Peace Palace; he played a bit of rugby, did a bit of sailing and was in the swimming team; he was the sacristan in the chapel; he was a regular speaker in the Debating Society and was invited to join the School’s French Club and the Cultural society. Of course these activities required that the teaching staff had to give up a lot of their time to organise or supervise

        Very few of Henry’s teachers in the state school were prepared to give up their time after lessons to get involved in extra-curricular activities.

  49. Jacob Rees-Mogg joins GB News as he hails ‘bastion of free speech’. 26 January 2023.

    Tory MP will tackle political issues as well as ‘good Somerset cider’

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Cabinet minister, is joining GB News in a major coup for the outspoken broadcaster.

    The Conservative backbencher will host his own show on the network, debating current affairs and interviewing guests.

    He will also take his show on tour, broadcasting in front of live audiences in towns and cities across the country.

    I’m sure this must be in contravention of all sorts of Parliamentary and Tory Party rules. Mogg must think that they no longer matter!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/26/jacob-rees-mogg-joins-gb-news-host-tv-show/

    1. If only Tice had not shown himself to be a plonker over Covid 19 gene therapy damage I would have recommended JRM to join the Reform Party.

      As I keep saying, unless at least 100 Conservative MPs resign from the party whip then The Conservative Party has no chance of survival.

  50. I don’t know if you could see the text of the petition I submitted but here it is:

    “Cancel Net Zero.

    Cancel all expenditure and tax takings related to Net Zero, stop the proposed ban on Internal Combustion engines, and remove the proposed ban on gas fired central heating.

    Net Zero is based on false premises in that it does nothing other than move emissions from UK to other parts of the Globe. It involves significant expenses, which will fall on those who cannot afford such increases, and it is completely unmeasureable so the impact of effort involved cannot be assessed.”

  51. French protester has testicle amputated after being hit by police.

    Now what tune, to do with a River, should I (tunelessly) whistle?

  52. Just back from leafleting each house in the village for a church event this Sunday.

    BLOODY letterboxes with murderous teeth and killing spring covers. GRRRR.

    2. Move to Sweden. We have boxes fastened in a row to a post, just along the street. You could have popped them all in there, safely, in a couple of minutes.

      1. Er, I don’t think Swedes (Swedish people) have a vote in UK elections, Grizzly. Lol.

      1. I left the choice of new front door to the DT when it came up for renewal and was absolutely horrified to see the letterbox at the bottom.
        Her excuse? Ohh, I didn’t think!!!!!

      2. Not to mention the tiny ones that wouldn’t even take a postcard! Lots of Victorian houses with original front doors round here.

    5. When leafleting I used a home-made paddle to push the literature through. Saved savage springs and dogs’ teeth from meeting my fingers.

    3. I’ve little time for Zahawi – I’ve never thought of him as being kosher – but I’m not sure HMRC should be commenting on a case, particularly one that is under investigation.
      A nasty dose of guilty until proved innocent compounded by the political angle. The civil service is supposed (SUPPOSED) to be neutral.

    3. Problem with giving the Ukes US gear is that they have a different philosophy regarding their fighting equipment, based on the Merkins huge supply arm – so, the Abrams has appalling fuel consumption, for example. No problem if you have a Merkin supply chain, but big problem if you don’t. An a fuel-less Abrams is less use on a battlefield than an Austin Mini.

          1. Jan Luba QC is a Circuit Judge. He sits at the Royal Courts of Justice in the County Court for Central London. He was formerly a barrister practising from Garden Court Chambers in London. He was called to the Bar in 1980 and in 2000 was made a Queen’s Counsel and Recorder (part-time judge). He is a Bencher of the Middle Temple. He has specialised in housing law with particular emphasis on housing management law, homelessness, allocation of social housing and housing conditions.

            He is the co-author of Housing Allocation and Homelessness: Law and Practice.

            Google him – white as white. Don’t let odd sounding names fool you.

          2. It’s not the judge who I have an issue with: it’s the idiotic DT for calling him a “KQ”.

          4. That is my point. This happens several times every day in the DT and ST these days. The journalists and editors are no longer fit-for-purpose.

    2. When I was nobbut a young solicitor, there was a shibboleth that we were urged to advise clients: “Arbitrate don’t litigate…”

    1. My two sons enjoyed this joke when they were little. Maybe a bit too puerile for grown-up, serious-minded Nottlers!

      An amateur dog trainer taught his dog how to speak and thought this would be a good way of making some money so he took his dog to an impresario for an audition.

      Impresario: Go on then show us how your dog can talk.

      Dog Trainer: Certainly. Let me ask him a few questions. Tell me Bonzo, how was I feeling last night after I had had ten double Scotches?

      Bonzo Dog: Rough!

      Dog Trainer: The other day I got a ladder and some slates to make a few repairs to the house. What was I repairing?

      Bonzo Dog: Roof.

      Dog Trainer: Tell me Bonzo, what do you call the frilly thing an actor in an Elizabethan drama might wear round his neck?

      Bonzo Dog: Ruff

      Dog Trainer: If a Hi-fi speaker has a tweeter for high pitched sounds what component deals with the low pitched sounds?

      Bonzo Dog: Woofer

      Impresario: You are both frauds . Get out of my office immediately!

      They leave the office:

      Bonzo Dog: I really think you could have asked me some better questions to show off my talking skills!

  57. Terror investigation after Church worker killed in ‘stabbing spree’ in Spain
    Suspect in custody after the attacks in ‘at least two’ places of Christian worship in Algeciras, southern Spain
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/01/25/one-killed-samurai-sword-attack-spanish-church/

    The assailant was described by witnesses as wearing a traditional robe from the Maghreb region of North Africa and holding a machete
    A church worker was killed and a priest badly injured during a stabbing spree in ”at least two” places of Christian worship in Algeciras, southern Spain, which police are investigating as a terror attack.

    Diego Valencia, sacristan at the church of Nuestra Señora de La Palma, was killed, while Antonio Rodríguez, priest at San Isidro church, was last night in hospital, seriously injured but stable, the town’s mayor said in a post on Facebook.

    Police said last night that a suspect was in custody. Three other people were also injured in the attacks, local media reported.

    The attacks began at shortly after 7pm when a man wearing a traditional north African djellaba entered San Isidro church and began striking religious objects with a large machete.

    Mr Rodríguez is reported to have ordered the attacker to leave the building, and was stabbed in the neck outside the church.

    In the nearby church of Nuestra Señora de La Palma, the same assailant is reported to have entered shouting and throwing crosses and candles to the ground with his machete, jumping on the altar in front of churchgoers who were attending Mass.

    Mr Valencia approached the man to demand that he leave the church and was reportedly attacked with machete blows to the midriff and head, which proved fatal.

    According to reports, the assailant also entered the Europa chapel, which is next door to the church of Nuestra Señora de La Palma.

    Police said last night that they had arrested the suspected attacker after assaults on “at least two churches”.

    According to police sources cited by the newspaper El País, the assailant is believed to be “of Moroccan origin”, although he was not carrying identity documents.

    The Mayor, José Ignacio Landaluce, has declared today an official day of mourning in honour of Mr Valencia.

    Flags will fly at half mast, and there will be a gathering at midday to “reject” the attacks.

    “Algeciras has always been a city where harmony and tolerance reign, despite the fact that situations like this show an image that does not correspond to reality,” he said.

    The president of the Andalusia region, Juan Manuel Moreno, also condemned the attacks.

    “Terrible and heart-breaking. A sacristan has been murdered and at least one other priest has been injured in an attack that took place in Algeciras,” Mr Moreno said in a post on Twitter.

    He called for caution on drawing conclusions while the facts of the attack are being investigated. “Intolerance will never have a place in our society,” Mr Moreno said.

    Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: “I want to convey my most sincere condolences to the relatives of the sacristan who died in the terrible attack in Algeciras. I wish those injured a speedy recovery.”

    Late last night, police searched an address close to the churches of San Isidrio and Nuestra Señora de La Palma.

    Cardinal Juan José Omella, president of the Spanish episcopal conference, an official assembly of bishops, said he was shocked by the attacks.

    “I pray for the victims of this atrocity and their relatives,” he wrote in on Twitter.

    Algeciras is a port town in the province of Cadiz near Gibraltar, with a population of about 120,000.

    Now, I wonder what religion this man follows…

    Edit: The migrant suspected of killing a caretaker and injuring a priest during a machete attack across two Christian churches in Spain had been served with a deportation order last year, officials said.

    According to witnesses, the suspect named locally as Yasine Kanzaa, a 25-year-old from Morocco, shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he attacked victims with a machete in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras.

    2. Good heavens. The Spanish authorities are as useless as their British equivalents when it comes to protecting their citizens.

  58. D TEl headline:
    We are witnessing the destruction of the state pension as we know it
    We need a national conversation about how to rescue this unsustainable benefit
    by Ben Wilkinson (my bold)
    It’s not a benefit!

    1. The proof being that if you do not have enough contributions to the system you will not get a full state pension. But you can make up for this by putting a cash sum into your account to make up the shortfall.

      The state pension is a contributory system. The politicians are keen to spread the lie that it is a benefit – presumably so that they can renege in the future when they want to.

      1. I thought the state pension would come under fire at some point, admittedly is sooner than I expected.
        I extracted all my pensions from State and Conpany control, and own the capital and manage (with advice) the investments. I hold all the risk as well, but when I croak, there’s likely a capital sum for my family left over.

          1. It was interesting how much the Company schemes were willing to part with to be quit the liability.

          1. At the moment, no but the Labour-led government want to increase tax to increase tax, so expecting reintroduction soon.

          2. More taxes – it’s what Labour do best (although the current lot of “conservatives” are not far behind).

      2. I did just that. Because they changed the rules in 2016, I found that I was six years short, after being assured in 2010 that I had made enough contributions (36 years) to qualify for the state pension. I was going to go down £30 a week,so I paid the top up of £4000 for five years, which brought it to within £3 a week of full pension. They only work in full years, and since I was born in February, I could not make any extra contribution for the part year.

        1. Jeremy, I know of people who had contribution issues, but as they have no assets, the Department of State Generosity gives them some sort of top-up pension credit AND pays their poll tax. Result!!

    2. Indeed! The state took a fair amount of dosh while I was working. Now I expect to get at least some of it back.

  59. How to find out the best career path for
    Candidates

    Recruitment Agency: “Sir, we found 3 candidates as
    per your requirements. How do you want their placements?”

    Manager: “Put about 100 bricks in a closed room.
    Then send the candidates into the room and close the door, leave
    them alone and come back after a few hours and analyze the
    situation:

    If they are counting the bricks, put them in
    Accounts department.

    If they are recounting the bricks, put them in
    Auditing.

    If they messed up the whole room with the bricks,
    put them in Engineering.

    If they are arranging the bricks in some strange
    order, put them in Planning.

    If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put
    them in Operations.

    If they are sleeping, put them in Security.

    If they broke the bricks into pieces, put them in
    Information Technology.

    If they are sitting idle, put them in Human
    Resources.

    If they say they have tried different combinations
    yet not a single brick has been moved, put them in Sales.

    If they have already left for the day, put them in
    Marketing.

    If they are staring out of the window, put them in
    Strategic Planning.

    And…
    If they are talking to each other and not a single brick has
    been touched, congratulate them and put them in Top Management.”

  60. The state pension is either a welfare benefit or a £100bn Ponzi scheme. 26 January 2023.

    Unfortunately for Britain’s weary taxpayers, the state pension is not a savings scheme that allows you to simply collect your cash when you decide you are ready to retire.

    Indeed, the state pension is looking less and less like a pension nowadays. The age at which you can claim the state pension is now expected to increase by two years in little over a decade.

    On the face of it, it is a gross betrayal of all those workers who have been paying their National Insurance contributions with the expectation that they will receive a good pension in return.

    Oddly enough I understood all this within a few months of starting work on a pittance and being taxed on it. I wanted, even at sixteen, to opt out and look after myself. It wasn’t because I was a financial wizard but because I figured that way there would only be one person to blame if it went wrong. They wouldn’t of course allow me to. The reason is not difficult to fathom. Those who wish to drop out are in the long run those most likely to pay for it. The pension is a Ponzi Scheme, there’s no doubt of this. It is also the archetypal example of Socialism in action. It sounds wonderful. Your worries are written off at a stroke. A carefee existence looms before you. Except that inevitably the money runs out. As it is doing here.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/state-pension-either-welfare-benefit-100bn-ponzi-scheme/

    1. Yes indeed. But states are allowed to run Ponzi schemes because they mint (or their central bankers mint) the money. You and I aren’t. That’s the difference. They’re stealing it back with planned inflation and tax rises anyway.

      1. Afternoon McPhee. One of the things that keeps me going is that every day I get back twenty quid of what they stole from me when i was working! Lol!

        1. Twenty quid. Per Day. As Valjean’s line in Les Misérables goes “That wouldn’t buy my sweat”.

          1. An actuary worked out that I’d need to live to be 487 to get back the massive theft of income during the Brown years. Life knows what it’d be now.

      2. The silent tax. No one really understands what inflation means, so government gets away with using it as policy to continue borrowing and wasting trillions.

    2. Yes indeed. But states are allowed to run Ponzi schemes because they mint (or their central bankers mint) the money. You and I aren’t. That’s the difference. They’re stealing it back with planned inflation and tax rises anyway.

    3. Who expected “a good pension”? Must have been an idiot, it’s easy enough to see the payouts these days, and they are pathetic.

      1. The laws on pensions should be absolutely iron clad and forbid any government from touching it, including private pensions. Brown’s theft of our money solely to fund his disgusting habit – specifically to punish Conservative voters – ruined the savings ethos in this country.

          2. Waiting for the medical papers for discharge. Then home, and a beer, sat in my sofa.
            😀

        2. If the public pension scheme was run by the same people who look after government and civil top service pensions. Every one would be happy.

          1. I agree, although MPs should be moved into IR35 and told to sort out their own pensions and to deal with HMRC as if they are contractors – which they are.

            If they have to use the same services as the rest of us, they might start to realise that their incompetent, mindless, grubbing malice is stupid and should never see the light of day.

          2. It’s the same old story every time. Every thing they come into contact with….
            And all of them are in it for what they can get out of it.
            Everything else comes further down the list. It’s all so obvious.

          3. That’s one of the 20 points to be made in the manifesto to be put forward by the AMALGIMATE party.

            Come on, guys, just get on with it before time runs out.

          4. It’s not a scheme, todays pensions re funded by todays taxpayers. No saving or investment involved anywhere.

    4. A chum’s wife doesn’t work. Due to his income, they don’t get child benefit. However, so that she qualifies for the state pension, welfare put her down as in receipt of child benefit, but at £0.00.

      Now, we al pay a lot of tax, but the lass doesn’t. Has never worked in her life. There are countless others, welfare addicts especially who having never worked a day will get the full state pension.

      That smacks as utterly wrong. Why bother if someone else gets what you have worked for?

      1. Please be a bit fairer to the ordinary people in welfare offices: your chum’s wife’s child benefit situation may change*, in which case it is better for her to be within the system in advance. (*unemployment, illness, death, divorce, politics) Also, the chumlets will automatically receive a NINO at about 16, as opposed to having to show ID and attend an interview in some diverse city.

    1. Reclaim, reform, rebuild… what are these berks? Work together, form a single, right wing government and get on with it.

      2. 370374+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,
        Must disagree somewhat , many of those “berks” that would include me, have been in opposition to the electoral majority for years.

        Also many of those peoples want to
        unite into one party, would be on par with giving the kiss of political life to those they supposedly want killed off .

        For many the lab/lib/con coalition party
        are the crack cocaine vote via the family tree, once sampled no turning back.

  62. Mrs Murrell capitulates.

    “Ms Sturgeon said she believes it is not possible to have a rapist in a women’s jail”

    Well, well – they way she made the “statement” to the pretendy parliament, one would think that she was shocked tha such a thing could have happened.

    Lying cow.

    1. It is interesting how easily her hypocrisy hammers home. She should either stand by her convictions or accept that she is wrong and publicly state it.

      The wretched woman must be fored to her knees.

          1. A German, Frenchman and Irishman were about to be executed by the firing squad. The German was brought forward and before they could shoot him he yelled “avalanche”! The firing squad panicked and in the confusion, the German jumped over the wall and into freedom before the firing squad could regroup. The French man thought what the German did was clever and when he was brought forward for his execution, he yelled “earthquake”! Again, the firing squad panicked and the Frenchman took advantage of it to jump over the wall and into freedom. The Irishman thought he saw the pattern: yell a disaster and jump over the wall. When he was finally brought forward, with a smirk on his face he yelled “fire”!

    1. Stopped reading the mail when Liz Hurley told them to stop publishing pictures of her in her pants.

    2. This is the trouble these days. There is no way of knowing whether the news is True or False without spending ages on the Internet, trying to find out the background of the posters.

      1. Yo Elsie

        Easiest way to find which story was truthful,

        If you keep looking for it and cannot find it.it is

        1. It’s the Ukes trying to pretend they’re not Russki. I asked a Polish friend, how can it be that there is a language called Ukrainian when the Ukraine didn’t exist prior to the creation of the Soviet Union. Surely it must a dialect of Russian. She calmly replied, “Yes, of course”.

          6. I’ve just had sausage, egg, chips and beans. My favourite on duty, afternoon shift, canteen evening meal from the 1970s.

          7. Certainly the type of food to keep you going in those days. Now i just lounge on the chaise and let other feckers do the grafting. 12 hour shifts are a killer.

  65. Every time the Government supports people who are struggling financially and outside the regular.payment schemes for living essentials there are a scrupulous opportunists who abuse these handouts and they often get away with it.
    The Government is well aware of this so the needy are going to have to wait until a way of giving justifiable support can be found:

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/money/new-energy-bill-help-portal-29047325?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

          2. You are never free until you are on the road!

            Take it easy…personally, I’d lay off the beer, for today, anyway.

    2. How about just reopening the coal mines, the oil rigs and stopping all subsidies to wind farm owners? Just as a start.

      1. That was the last thing I heard before I went off grid for a couple of months. I think it’s about time the C.C. revved up their enquiries. Perhaps she could share a cell with that nice Mr Nadhim Zahawi.

        1. King Charles and The new Prince of Wales showed that they are not fit to reign by the way in which they treated Lady Susan Hussey and took the side of Ngozi Fullanus.

          Princess Anne should be declared the queen of the realm in their place.

  67. Good afternoon, Gentlefolk, just back from a very pleasant 2 hour Northern NoTTLe Luncheon.

    A photograph was taken and may well be published later.

    Very good company and so nice to be able to put faces to names.

    We should do this more often.

    1. I hope that you were all wearing masks and kept 2 metres didtance from each otther

      Nursey, Nursey I need help

  68. Six (edited, spelling checker made it sox first time round). inches of snow last night. Oh well, the pot holes are filled and the roads are smooth for now.

    Word is that Canada is ending four tanks to Ukraine. Not that we are being cautious, that is all that work!

  69. Re the Leopard and Abrams tanks.
    We are told that they are probably the best and most effective battlefield tanks in the world.
    As a matter of idle curiosity, where have they been testing under full battlefield conditions including against an opponent with almost total air superiority?

        1. Well, you certainly do NOT want a tank whose track links are weak….

          I’ll get me howitzer.

        2. Indeed, but if you don’t know how to use the machine to it’s best effect, then you’re on to a loser. No tank is invulnerable, and each side does it’s best to exploit the other side’s weaknesses. Train, train, train is part of the solution, and the Ukes may well not have that, unless they are experienced tankies in the first place so they can concentrate on the machine & not the tactics.

          1. The idea of serving in a tank or submarine is my idea of hell.
            I feel quite ill just thinking about it.
            There is a quite special level of bravery amongst those who fight in either machine.

  70. Driving along the M4 earlier I caught sight of a number plate that appears to have snuck through the censors at the DVLA ‘s vehicle registration department:

    AY 69 FKG

      2. I believe it was an Irish coleen who thought that Cunnilingus was an Irish Airline and that Fellatio was a character in Romeo and Juliet. But what have they got to do with Kentucky Fried Chicken?

    2. My favourite, from my boyhood, was a woman neighbour who drove a Mk I Ford Cortina, BRA 38B.

      1. Most registrations issued in Birmingham had an “O” in the middle. There was a bread van which parked near our house which had the letters WOG which amused us kids somewhat.

  71. A quiet day today.
    I acquired a couple of scrap pallets from Twigg’s t’other week and spent a couple of hours dismantling and de-nailing them. They yielded some blocks for going onto the fire, a small, about 4′ square, sheet of plywood and other bits of wood that will either be found a use for or will be used as kindling.
    Not too bad a day either, it even got up to +3°C this afternoon!!!

    1. De-nailing pallets is very tedious. I don’t know where they find the nails but they are buggers to remove.

    1. Why? To move those who shouldn’t be there in the first place to be sent elsewhere?

      The adults who’ve no doubt gone out to vanish into the black market, sell drugs, rape children shouldn’t even be here in the first place, Cooper, you useless oaf. Until you and your ilk are held criminally responsible for this you have nothing to say. Be silent, you pathetic cur.

    6. Balls and Cooper Property Investments Ltd. are going into the business of housing illegal immigrants. “Why,” said Ed, “should the traffickers be the ones to make the most money out of the booming trade? We want a slice of the action. “You bet!” replied Yvette.

    7. The Palace of Westminster should be shut immediately and all those working from there transferred, en masse, to Rockall.

  75. How do NOTTLERs intend to spend St. Valentine’s Day?
    MB and I will be moving from Allan Towers to the Dower House. Our passion wagon will be a Good Move pantechnicon.
    After 9 months – yes, the duration of a human pregnancy – we have finally exchanged contracts.
    At the moment we are just grateful that the process covered a human rather than an elephant gestation period.

      1. Phew ….. we and our buyers had hoped to move at the autumn half term; mother is a professor at Essex Uni and they have two enchanting daughters at local schools.
        We have all been living out of boxes while numpty solicitor was not doing his job.

    5. Many a slip…….!!

      Thank goodness your ordeal is nearly over. When you DO move, do post snaps …

        1. Of course. I would be delighted….except for my bad back!! I am good at directing ops, though..

          2. Talking of which, there is an old pear tree that needs reshaping and a manky holly tree that needs to be felled.

      2. Happy grand children. We are bribing paying them to help.
        Less for the taxman (spit) to take when we pop our clogs. Let the sprogs benefit while we’re able to witness their pleasure.

      1. We are sitting here – in state of total collapse – with a bottle of rose.
        I was about to say that I would not wish the past eight months on my worst enemy; but actually it would be the perfect revenge on whoever I seriously hated.

          1. Little?

            “And useless para-legals
            Who left their clients pissed.
            They’d none of them be missed.
            They’d none of them be missed.
            Or town hall bureaucrats
            Who on paperwork insist …..
            They’d none of them be missed
            They’d none of them be missed …….”

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW_Ukl71OH4

    7. Congratulations, Annie. Please email me with your new address once you and Bill have moved.

  76. Moh and I watched the film The Banshees of Inisherin .

    Moh fell asleep , and I yawned , beautiful scenery , but my goodness , it was a Hollywood film .. For American tourists !

    When I kissed the Blarney Stone in the year dot , the place was full of Americans , all pretending to be Errol Flynn , jumping around the walls , pretending to sword fight .

    There must have been something in the local water because one does feel rather light headed and fey!

    To be sure …

    2. My younger daughter and husband watched it last week! I’m babysitting the twins on Saturday and intend to watch it then!

      1. The Irish invented the condom out of sheeps innards but the English took it out of the sheep

  77. That’s me for this day that never lived up to the Wet Office’s promises of sunshine and a bit of warmth. That said, it is (so far) the first day for over two weeks that I have not been wearing two pullovers.

    Sunshine is forecast for tomorrow – which is just as well as Colin the Tree Chap is coming round after lunch. He has been a tree chap for 40 years but told me that he had to “go on a course” all this week…. Ye Gods.

    Anyway, have a spiffing evening building your nuclear bunker.

    A demain.

    1. Plenty of sunshine and warmth in Moffat this afternoon.

      Maybe the sun was shining on the righteous.

        1. No, Sue, I’ve been fiddling with that photo. I’ve managed to crop it a bit and lighten it a tad.

          6. Wouldn’t we bloody all! After this last couple of weeks- never mind 69, more like 99;-))

          10. I’m the same – I feel the exterior does not represent at all how I feel on the inside – I have to psyche myself up for a photograph! I’m always surprised (that is, shock/horror) when I first see it, but I look back on them several years later and think, well, actually, you (meaning me) don’t look all that bad after all, almost (but not quite, obviously) normal!

          11. I rarely like my photograph (but then, I rarely have them taken). It usually highlights the fact that I stand with one shoulder higher than the other and my head on one side. Quasimodo style!

          16. I can hardly see you eyes, never mind any bags under them.

            Anyway, I probably lead in that field.

    3. Ha, Bill, if you’d hung on a little longer you’d have seen the picture and the names of the guilty parties.

      1. We had sunshine, too. It had a little warmth in it for a change (11 degrees C here). I got out into the garden to do some trimming (the hedera had gone rampant!).

  78. France looks for excuses NOT to send tanks to Ukraine: Pathetic Paris claims ‘Zelensky hasn’t said he needs our vehicles’ – despite him pleading for weeks – as they try to wriggle out of sending Leclercs
    France has so far agreed to send AMX-10 RCs armoured combat vehicles to Kyiv
    But diplomatic sources said Paris’ Leclerc tanks are too maintenance heavy
    Emmanuel Macron’s government appears reluctant to join allies in sending tanks

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11680569/France-looks-excuses-NOT-send-tanks-Ukraine.html
    Is the real reason that the last thing Macron wants is for the world to realise that they work best in reverse?

    1. Italy has offered some tanks but the Ukraine will have to wait while they fit forward gears

      1. That is untrue. Yes, they do have six reverse gears, but they also have a forward gear, in case they get attacked from behind.

    3. The prospect of a ‘motley crew’ of British, German and American tanks – of unknown vintage – to be delivered in the Spring – will be regarded with amusement by Putin.

      The prospect of training and commanding that assembly would be a tank commanders worst nightmare . . .

      And highly unlikely to succeed.

  79. No, really!
    Who’da thunk it?

    Another £6BILLION of PPE and Covid tests down the drain: Critics slam £14.9bn of ‘extraordinary waste’ on overpriced, faulty or unused pandemic-era equipment
    DHSC has lost £14.9billion on over-priced, faulty or unused PPE, tests and drugs
    Labour MPs described the financial blackhole an ‘absolute scandal’
    Lots of Covid kit bought in 2020/21 was faulty or not used before its sell-by date

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11680521/Another-6BILLION-PPE-Covid-tests-drain-Critics-slam-14-9bn-waste.html

    ANY Government minister who has even the most tenuous link to the suppliers should be banned from public life forever, have their pensions voided and be fined 75% of their and their wife’s/husband’s net worth

    2. I can’t quite put my finger on it but those names seem to have something in common … ponders?

  81. Wonderful news that Paul is home and Anne finally has a moving date.
    Things are looking up at Lake Lodge too.
    Husband made it up the stairs last night on foot, albeit hanging onto both hand rails. He has stood unsupported twice today and continues to eat well.
    And- the district nurse came today and changed the dressing and she said it’s healing very well. His BP and temp were both good. A lovely lady with a sense of humour.
    And better still, she obviously got on the phone when she went back to base and the result is a physio is coming tomorrow and the OT has phoned also. She will be back early next week to do blood work and remove the staples in his leg.
    We had a copy of the letter sent to our GP from the Specialist Nurse who works with his consultant. She’s got it all on board and has requested all sorts of things followed up.
    What a difference from the indifference and neglect in the last place.
    Both of us feel more encouraged today than we have in a while.

    4. Through every adversity lies the seed of greater benefit .. and how heartwarming and pleasureable your encounter with the district nurse , so pleased for you both , Anne .

      1. She was simply great- no nonsense but efficient and a robust sense of humour. Her name was Soran which she said is Irish as her dad was Irish.
        She puts those other nurses into deep shame.
        (No e on Ann.)

    5. Excellent news, Ann! How good is that? How energising for you both!
      Wraps a good day up well!

        1. You’re too kind!
          (So am I glad… shower soon, couldn’t take one whilst covered in sticky electrodes…)

    6. Good for you both, Ann! Thank goodness he came home when he did! Bless you both and best wishes to you!🍷💐🐉

    7. Well done Ann to both of you. You deserve some good news after the pain and anguish you’ve both been through.

      1. Thanks Grumps! It really helps when you feel that people are on your side- that nurse was great!

      1. “My” Carribbean nurse was lovely. What a voice! And so black, she was, not the blue-black of Congo, but a very dark brown-black. Nice, bright lass with a great sense of humour, the kind you’d like your son to marry…

    10. I was wondering how the mendacious health system would take your hubby walking out on them.

      1. More like hobbling out on them but it was best. He looks better and is doing better. And the physio tomorrow will show us what exercises to do.
        Heck, they might help my arthritis also.

        1. Don’t get your hopes up on the arthritis front; years of doing physio did nothing for mine 🙁

  82. Plingy plong … plingy plong … plingy plong … plingggggg ……
    Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll bu88er up your evening.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/26/almost-15bn-wasted-unused-covid-supplies-two-years/

    “Almost £15bn wasted on unused Covid supplies in two years

    National Audit Office gives damning appraisal of Department of Health spending as billions in taxpayers’ cash written off

    By Laura Donnelly, Health Editor26 January 2023 • 6:20pm

    Nearly £15 billion was wasted on unused pandemic supplies including PPE in just two years amid “astonishing and unacceptable” failings.

    The head of the National Audit Office (NAO) has issued a damning appraisal of Department of Health spending, with billions of pounds in taxpayers’ cash written off and government accounts so poor that they could not be audited.

    The accounts for the department and its agencies show £6 billion wasted on PPE, vaccines and medication that will not be used or were overpriced in 2021/22. Combined with almost £9 billion written off the previous year, that amounts to £14.9 billion of waste in two years.

    The NAO highlighted such poor financial control that auditors were unable to even sign off the accounts for the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), part of the Department of Health.

    Meg Hillier, the chairman of the public accounts committee, which scrutinises public spending, said the scale of waste was “extraordinary”.

    She added: “It is astonishing and unacceptable that the UKHSA – an agency within DHSC that absorbed the work of Test and Trace – could not provide the National Audit Office with enough information to carry out its 2021/22 audit.

    “The Department and UKHSA must get a grip on fundamental failures in governance, oversight, and financial controls so UKHSA’s accounts can be audited.

    “Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent, including on Test and Trace. DHSC’s 2021/22 accounts also lay bare the extraordinary waste on PPE and related Covid-19 expenditure, which now amounts to £14.9 billion across the last two years.

    “It is another reminder to Whitehall about the vital importance of proper controls in public procurement, including during a crisis.”

    ‘Money literally going up in smoke’

    The documents show that as recently as last March the Department of Health was spending £24 million a month on storing PPE, much of it unusable, with total storage and disposal costs reaching £319 million.

    Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said a lack of sufficient appropriate audit evidence and significant shortcomings in financial control and governance meant he was unable to provide an audit opinion on the accounts of UKHSA.

    “Even taking into account the challenging context, it is unacceptable that UKHSA has not been able to produce auditable accounts and provide the transparency and assurance that Parliament needs,” he said.

    “When setting up new bodies, it is essential that basic governance arrangements are put in place. DHSC and UKHSA must work with HM Treasury to get on track to produce auditable accounts.”

    Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “The Conservatives can never again claim to be the careful stewards of the public finances. While Rishi Sunak had control of the purse strings, a staggering £15 billion of public money was wasted on useless PPE – enough to fund the police force for an entire year. Instead, that money is now literally going up in smoke.

    “Taxpayers will rightly judge the carelessness with which the Conservatives treat their money to be an absolute scandal.”

    ‘Lack of formal governance arrangements’

    The NAO found that there was a lack of adequate governance, oversight and control at UKHSA. Throughout 2021/22 there was no board or audit and risk assurance committee in place, meaning UKHSA did not comply with HM Treasury and Cabinet Office guidance on governance arrangements.

    Non-executive directors were not appointed until April 2022 – seven months after UKHSA became operational – and the advisory board and audit and risk committee did not meet formally until June and July 2022 respectively.

    “This lack of formal governance arrangements exposed UKHSA to a high level of risk, with no clear oversight structure in place for its first six months of operation,” the auditors noted.

    A government spokesman said: “It is misleading to say that £14.9 billion of taxpayers’ money has been wasted. In the face of an unprecedented pandemic, we had to compete in an overheated global market to procure items to protect the public, frontline health and care workers and our NHS.

    “Buying vital Covid vaccines and medicines also helped save countless lives and keep NHS and care staff safe. Our approach meant that we were the first country in the world to deploy an approved Covid vaccine, with 144 million doses administered, and we have delivered over 25 billion items of PPE to the frontline.” “

      2. I’m not holding my breath!! It will be the old “punish the innocent; trebles all round”.

          1. Lots of testing, no idea why I went over backwards. I suggested stress, and they agreed that might be a cause or a contributor. In meanwhile, apparently my heart is like a 30-year-olds, all elastic and flexible… my carotid is in execllent shape… in summary, I’m a collection of top-quality spare parts.
            :-((

          8. Lucky save, mate! It is quite surprising how things such as we have been through recently do make you feel older.
            You’ve been through it so I am sure you get where I’m coming from.

    2. People have made heaps of dosh claiming money for their businesses..

      There has been aload off activity from people who had modest incomes and small businesses, selling their homes for homes with land , boats , new cars and more property investment .

      Am I jealous , nope .

      People will be found out eventually.

    3. But, looking on the bright side, lots of people are very happy including Halfcock’s buddies! [/sarc]

    4. What actually constitutes personal protective equipment in this context? £15 billion is a helluva lot for stakes and garlic.

    5. As with many other things over the past 3 years – The greater the crime the lesser the punishment.
      Nothing to see here, move along otherwise I’ll arrest you for obstruction.

      Nobody will be prosecuted nor held to account.

    6. Well someone made a huge amount of money at our expense – hey-ho! Countless lives were saved……. so that’s alright then!

    8. There is a mindset amongst senior civil servants “My willy budget is bigger than yours.” The bigger their budget the greater the level they are seen to operate at, all for their record of employment which counts towards promotion to the bigger trough. The concept of accountability is alien to them, no one is ever going to say “I don’t need a budget as big as this”. Once the budget is granted they have the mindset of “I must spend this, otherwise I’ll not get as big a budget next year, and if I underspend I’ll be seen as someone who can’t manage finances.” The NAO should be looking at how budgets are set and approved, not just the expenditure itself.

    9. There is a mindset amongst senior civil servants “My willy budget is bigger than yours.” The bigger their budget the greater the level they are seen to operate at, all for their record of employment which counts towards promotion to the bigger trough. The concept of accountability is alien to them, no one is ever going to say “I don’t need a budget as big as this”. Once the budget is granted they have the mindset of “I must spend this, otherwise I’ll not get as big a budget next year, and if I underspend I’ll be seen as someone who can’t manage finances.” The NAO should be looking at how budgets are set and approved, not just the expenditure itself.

  83. Good evening. I assume everyone has seen the Project Veritas video of the Pfizer boss admitting that they are preparing new covid mutations in advance, so that they can be ready with the matching “vaccine?”

    1. I read Robert Malone’s substack but haven’t yet watched the video – was out most of the day and not much internet when I got home.

  84. I heard a headline about this story on BBC news this week but was beginning to wonder if I had imagined it. I can’t find it on the BBC’s news webpages but The Times covered it. Here’s all that’s viewable online, even with 12ft Ladder:

    Stop training so many doctors, universities told

    Medical school places are capped to limit the cost of doctor training, with the taxpayer paying about £160,000 towards the cost of each medical student

    Universities have been told they must limit the number of medical school places this year or risk fines, a move attacked as “extraordinary” when the NHS is struggling with staff shortages.

    Medical schools have been told to curtail offers to ensure that there is “no risk” of them accepting more would-be doctors than permitted by a government cap, with universities saying they are likely to offer fewer places than normal to sixth-formers this year.

    Ministers have been criticised for holding firm to a 7,500 cap on new medical students in England while also acknowledging that a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses is contributing to long delays for NHS treatment.

    Robert Halfon, the universities minister, wrote to vice-chancellors last week telling them to limit…

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stop-training-so-many-doctors-universities-told-xd3p3p37q

    LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

    Government cap on medical school places

    Sir – Robert Halfon, the universities minister, accused Liz Truss last year of having “trashed the last ten years of workers’ Conservatism”. Now he is doing his bit to trash the next ten years with his barely credible instruction to UK medical schools to stop training so many doctors, and by the maintenance of the 7,500-place cap.

    Everyone active in clinical medicine knows that we do not have enough doctors in the UK and that it will take at least five years to start to rectify this, even if we start increasing the numbers now. There are many ways in which the costs of increasing medical school places can be mitigated, ranging from shortening the course, addressing the ridiculously stringent entrance requirements…

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/government-cap-on-medical-school-places-xszwbh0fl

    I expect there’ll still be an increase in the number of Chinese ‘language students’ and Indian software engineering undergrads..

    1. Perhaps it might have something to do with most of the students moving elsewhere on qualification?

      Study here, qualify here, give 20, yes 20, years to the UK in the NHS

    2. Hi William! I posted an apology to you here yesterday, as the Monday page was closed. Sorry to have been so dogmatic. You were right – it was Venus!

        3. That’s what Bill Thomas keeps saying to me, Sos. I think he confuses me with The Master (Mr Lime).

          1. or even a Britannia Class steam locomotive. One of the last built in the UK, beautiful & powerful.

          2. Nearly, Mrs Macfarlane. A pedant writes: It was a steam engine which towed a train. [The “train” is the carriages or the wagons being pulled.]

    3. Hi William! I posted an apology to you here yesterday, as the Monday page was closed. Sorry to have been so dogmatic. You were right – it was Venus!

    4. We just have to accept that we are at the end of the destruction part of the cycle, and everything will have to be rebuilt once the chaos part is over.

    1. You would be thrown in prison for doing that over here in Canada. It is against the law to pay for medical services that are supposedly covered by the health care system.

      Supposedly it is better to make people wait rather than allowing private services to provide the treatment.

  86. As I’ve a busy day tomorrow, I think I’ll head off to bed!
    After loading a couple of knackered Tirfor jacks into the van, I’ve a bit of driving to do.
    First to Derby to pick up t’Lad, then to Colsterworth to pick up a couple of things he got me to bid on for him, thence up the A1, turning Right onto the A42 to the outskirts of Lincoln to drop the Tirfors off for repair and home via Newark, Mansfield and the A38.

    2. Yo B o B

      I will take it easy tommow then , just wash road from Lickpenny to Matlock

      I doubt if anyone else knows wher that is

      PS We are now up by Costa del Skeg

    1. Always a favourite on our tv. When he went to the US later on, he stopped being the natural comedian he was.

  88. Have we done Wordle today? Got a par 4.

    Wordle 586 4/6

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

    1. Bogie for me.

      Wordle 586 5/6

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

        3. Well I never,
          Par 4

          Wordle 586 4/6

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

      2. Effin’ Double Bogey for me!

        Wordle 586 6/6
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
        ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
        ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
        ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
        🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  90. Just received a video on Faceache from Mother’s care home (they post one new one every day, plus stills). It’s of Mother having her birthday cake, a “Happy Birthday” song, and blowing out candles. Quite moving, so it is!

    1. How wonderful Paul! Kinda wraps up the day on a nice note. Birthday wishes to your mum.

      2. Just came in and looking at all that’s gone on today, happy to see your good news, such a relief for you both. Cheers, slurp, slurp!!

    2. SWMBO and her brother are in the same home in Wales, they send out daily pictures of events.

      They celebrated Slopehedd New Year, home cooked of course.

      No doubt Bern’s Night piccies will be about soon

  91. Evening, all. The “barbarism” is confined to our government who are intent on destroying our culture and flooding the country with hordes of savages who hate us and our way of life (but take our money as jizya).

    1. Don’t you believe it.
      There are thousands of apologists for the invasion, who genuinely believe that it, diversity, is progress.

    2. We are being Caliphanted, just look at our ‘government’

      More Multi-Culti than TV adverts

  92. That’s me. Bed calls. Next 10 days signed off work, lets see how that goes…
    Zzz..

      1. On the plus side Macron is hesitant about giving the corrupt clown French tanks. Meanwhile some girl minister in the German government has declared war against Russia and the misguided Poles wish to give their tanks to the clown.

        The Russians will simply destroy these tanks as they have already done with the tanks left to Ukraine by the Russians when leaving Ukraine post Yeltsin.

        We need a Trump to stop this needless US proxy war and reach a settlement. Too many innocent lives have already been lost while Zelensky and his chums siphon off aid money for their own personal use.

      2. On the plus side Macron is hesitant about giving the corrupt clown French tanks. Meanwhile some girl minister in the German government has declared war against Russia and the misguided Poles wish to give their tanks to the clown.

        The Russians will simply destroy these tanks as they have already done with the tanks left to Ukraine by the Russians when leaving Ukraine post Yeltsin.

        We need a Trump to stop this needless US proxy war and reach a settlement. Too many innocent lives have already been lost while Zelensky and his chums siphon off aid money for their own personal use.

  94. I’m off, when I’ve finished my coughing fit.
    It’s very wearing.
    I’ve got hold of some strong throat lozenges which seem to calm it down for a couple of hours. Our little 3 year old granddaughter now has tonsillitis, but refuses to take her medication. I’m sure her father will persuade her.
    Oh well slayders folks. 😖

    2. I cough a lot especially in the morning. It is a result of late diagnosis asthma made worse by cold weather. I have inhalers which taken at midnight allow me to sleep at night but the morning inhalation sets me off.

      A work in progress with the excellent consultants at Addenbrookes.

  95. I have found that the biggest problem with electrically propelled vehicles whether fully battery powered or with ICE (Internal Combusion Engine) assisted generators is the incompatibily of high voltage circuits with 12 volt circuits used in all ICE vehicles and EV’s needed to power just about everything except the traction motor.

    The biggest breakdown cause in ICE vehicles is the 12 volt battery and it is this battery that is also fast becoming the cause of EV breakdowns. The reason for this is not because of the frequent current surges placed on the battery by ICE Start/Stop technology but the existence of a large residual current drain on the EV’s battery which is no longer provided by an alternator on an engine drivebelt.

    Instead, this power must come from the EV’s high voltage traction battery which means that all the vehicle’s 12 volt load (e.g. entertainment system, lights, heating, cooling etc) will drastically reduce an electrically powered car’s range and stress the the 12 volt battery and circuits

    Not only that but users and service technicians don’t really understand that a 12 volt EV battery’s high current drain time (Residual Capacty) in minutes is more important than its Cranking Current Amperage capability.

    This could result in the demise of electrically powered cars whose lifetime may be measured as less than that of the main traction battery of about eight years.

    1. My local rag had a report about a vehicle fire that took out a couple of other cars nearby. It was “accidental ignition”. My thought was, EV?

    2. The majority of EV breakdowns I attended before retirement last year were the 12v battery and it controls everything

      1. Can you say if you were able to resolve the EV breakdowns at the roadside or did the vehicles have to be recovered and sorted out by the main dealer?

        1. Always recovered to wherever the driver wished. There isn’t much we can do at the roadside these days other than jump starts and wheel changes as anything else usually involves connecting to a computer to analyse faults, the AA and RAC might have those on board their vans but the second line agents like our small garage don’t and we recovery drivers are not qualified to work on EVs anyway.

          1. Thanks for reply FA as I have a Hyundai Kona that self reports an electrical problem after just three months of use and I highly suspect it’s the 12 volt battery that is not up to the job.

            My hunch is that the EV reckons its charge level of the 12 v battery is not being maintained ( Main battery is over 70% charge). This could lead to failure of the 12 volt battery to even supply enough current to energise the main traction battery contactor which is required for the EV to charge its12 volt battery from the main battery.

            Here is the starting up warning on the driver’s cluster before getting into drivable mode:

            Image to follow shortly:

            It may be on Friday’s page if I lose editing for Thursday 26th January 2023.

  96. Well, folks, I’m back and have read the excellent news from Ann, Paul and Annie. Also the wonderful meal shared by the four NoTTLers at Tom’s “local”. I’m so pleased for all of you. I myself am now off to bed, so I wish you all a very warm and refreshing night’s sleep. I suspect that Tom as usual will be first to post his morning funny. If I am lucky enough to follow him as being 2nd, please don’t send me “Happy Birthday to a 2 year old” greetings. Lol.

    1. Elsie, get it typed and ‘Copied’ now

      Do not waste time saying ‘Hello’ on today’s Page in the morning, which will be yesterday’s tommow

      Click the Boss’s link: Control V : and then come back and say ‘Hello”

      1. OK, OLT. I will now type “Hello”. I will then go to the top of this page and click on the Boss’s link, press Control V and then come back here and say “Hello”. Fingers crossed.

        Later: no, OLT, I just can’t get the hand of it. (Incidentally, where do I type and copy the words “Hello” (which is your first instruction) to?

    2. Well I did think you had had a few more birthdays over and above 68, the second thought was I must have mis-remembered!

  101. Palestinians have suspended security cooperation with Israel because some toe-rags in Palestine fired rockets from Gaza at Israel, who shot them down, then responded with bombs on the launch sites.
    Why didn’t the Palestinians stop the launches, if they are so upset about it all? Also, the Israeli response is so predictable – maybe they should try something else…

        1. Pretty good, thanks for asking.
          Seemd I’m fit as the proverbial, so it must have been stress. Been a lot of that the last 18 months, with Mother and house sale and the like. Who nose?

      1. Hi Bob. Home now. Had a reservation on the 1004 from Carlisle, but Trainline wated me to change at Crewe. I noticed that a 0948 from Edinburgh was running 20 mins late, but would still beat the Manchester Piccadilly train I was then supposed to get, to Euston. And would avoid changing trains. It was late because an earlier train from Glasgow was cancelled – ergo it was very busy. Reservations had been suspended, yet I found a vacant seat.

        At Wigan, I was confronted by a young chap who insisted I was on his reserved seat. By this time, the display above the seat had changed to “available if unoccupied”. I stood (or rather, sat) my ground, and he and his GF soon found better, adjacent seats just across the aisle. When the announcement finally came that we were approaching London Euston, 50 minutes late, he suddenly asked “Is this the last stop? We have tickets to Milton Keynes!”

        So, apart from catching the wrong train, he clearly didn’t listen to any of the announcements, especially the one at Crewe which said “our next stop is London Euston”. I ventured to suggest that this explained the confusion over the reservation – i.e. he had the right seat, just the wrong train. This went completely over his head.

        I marvel at the stupidity of the travelling public. I’ve been on the last train from Waterloo, when it split between Basingstoke and Guildford. Despite repeated announcements, I can almost guarantee there will be someone who reaches Guildford and can’t understand why they’re not in Basingstoke.

        Or folk who remain in the last carriage when the guard, the automated announcements, the onboard visual display, and those at every preceding station, all say that, due to a short platform you need to be in the front n carriages, then don’t manage to alight before the train moves off…

        Stayed at the Station Hotel, which at least is handy for the trains. Have to say though, that single-glazed sliding sash windows don’t provide much sound insulation. And, since Carlisle has trains throughout the night, it’s good to know at 0300 that ‘the train arriving at Platform 4 doesn’t stop here’… 🙄

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