Thursday 30 December: Heating bills are rising but we still import gas when we have our own

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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670 thoughts on “Thursday 30 December: Heating bills are rising but we still import gas when we have our own”

  3. ‘Morning All

    As the coof fades away it’s back to Greeniac Scams…………….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca904243fe9151be83aed5a816cd6ada1cfe30e225f21a69d8e8c39bb8a31018.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d55c31c5e9df6b9655368734fbcb72bc83f770f3479fceef2b60c6b77889050f.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95eb9b162610e99c7b0105c6ac3f4d4f861c615981172cdd785751e76e9075e4.jpg
    But,but,but I thought the Arctic was supposed to be “Ice Free” already??
    Oh Wait
    Not pesky crap models again!! (See Covid for more detailks)

  4. #CovidClownWorld

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  7. Heating bills are rising but we still import gas when we have our own

    I’m coming to the conclusion that we are saving our resources for when are so broken and impoverished that the Chinese will just walk in and take them or that some billionaire plutocrat will buy them for some magic beans then sell them to the Chinese.

    1. This shower in government will continue to either give away or ruin everything that isn’t nailed down and therefore destroy the cash earning potential of the UK. The huge sums that have been frittered away during the last two years under the guise of a pandemic could, and should, have been used to better effect and thence benefit the people.

      The failed jab-fest has cost untold billions and just how grasping and controlling are the latest “vaccine” contracts? If the 🤡 in Number 10 has contracted to buy millions more doses then he’s sure to try and push more jabs on the people to justify his financial incontinence. The government is totally out of control and the so-called Opposition is literally cheering the government on to commit even greater follies. >500 and < 650 complete prats are destroying our way of life while the 100+ who are starting to see sense are powerless.

  8. Well fellow Nottler’s I’m sitting here looking for something to write about; which, considering that the World is going to the dogs at Warp Factor Ten, is a not unremarkable feat!

    1. Morning Minty, I don’t have that problem, I was given a book of Dad Jokes for Christmas.

      e.g. A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office wearing see-through shorts.
      The psychiatrist says “Well, I can clearly see your nuts”

    2. That’s why I’ve spent the last few hours releasing golf balls back into the wild. I wanted to de-stress before heading to my local in Troon for a beer…or two.

  9. Well fellow Nottler’s I’m sitting here looking for something to write about; which, considering that the World is going to the dogs at Warp Factor Ten, is a not unremarkable feat!

  10. Morning all

    Heating bills are rising but we still import gas when we have our own

    SIR – The approach of the New Year is a good time to reflect on our current economic position.

    For domestic heating, despite the small and intermittent contribution from wind and other renewable sources, we presently rely on natural gas purchased from other countries at high – and growing – prices. We could easily source our energy from the undeveloped oil field in the North Sea and by fracking to release the huge resources beneath our ground.

    While we continue to close all our own coal pits, there remains a need to import coal for our steel industry. This means that someone else has to dig it up and that we pay for the mining and to transport it across the world.

    I did not vote for these “green” ideas – and nor did more than a tiny minority – but their acolytes now wield far more power than their numbers justify.

    Major Colin Robins

    Bowdon, Cheshire

    SIR – Frank Smith (Letters, December 29) asks why Britain is not making its own bricks. The answer is quite simple. You need cheap energy to make bricks, just as you need cheap coal to make steel. This is why Britain continues to contract out its manufacturing base to countries such as India and China.

    Until the Government has a proper integrated energy policy, this country will continue to lose out to foreign manufacturers – and the importation of Indian bricks will continue.

    Tony Cross

    Sevenoaks, Kent

    SIR – I have received an email quote from Octopus, my energy supplier, informing me that my current annual cost of £1,600 will rise to £3,600 when my contract renews in February.

    As a pensioner living in a relatively small house, I am distressed as to what will happen – apart from my freezing to death.

    Paul Archer

    Bognor Regis, West Sussex

    SIR – Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, is hardly in a position to criticise the Government over the price of energy.

    As secretary of state for energy under the coalition government, it was he who made sure that fracking for gas was discouraged, and he who championed a policy of shutting down coal-fired power stations.

    Chris Lewis

    Widnes, Cheshire

    SIR – I sympathise with the actor John Nettles (Nature Notes, December 24), who worries that proposals for a solar farm risk destroying the natural splendours of Devon.

    It would surely be more sensible to locate solar farms where the land is already covered in concrete – the large car parks of shopping malls, railway stations and similar areas.

    A sympathetic design would raise these higher off the ground and utilise the electrical infrastructure already in place.

    David Chadwick

    Minehead, Somerset

  11. Cricket is being crowded out of the curriculum

    SIR – The shortsightedness of the England and Wales Cricket Board does not fully explain England’s failure in Australia (Letters, December 29).

    An analysis of the educational background of the latest team reveals an over-reliance on players with an independent school education. I do not blame the selectors for this apparent bias, which is caused by the failure of state schools to take cricket seriously.

    No doubt there are exceptions, but in the later years of a state education, cricket hardly figures in the games curriculum because examinations or study leave crowd it out. If any time is left over for practice at home, one finds that there is too much competition from one of the televised football or rugby championships. Independent schools eliminate these distractions by fitting cricket into the summer timetable. They also prepare good grounds and allocate staff for coaching and supervision.

    As things stand, the raw talent simply is not there – irrespective of the ECB’s drive to popularise the sport with limited-overs matches.

    Nicholas Nelson

    Iwerne Minster, Dorset

    SIR – The humiliation of the England cricket team reflects the inexorable decline in interest in cricket in our society.

    Not so many decades ago, The Daily Telegraph included regular reports of schools and university matches, and it was no coincidence that the names of the top players recurred as they progressed from schools to the universities and then to the counties.

    Oxford and Cambridge no longer value achievements in sport when selecting undergraduates. This important stream for the recruitment and coaching of the best cricketers has now been lost. Those universities with excellent sports facilities should reconsider schemes for the admission of first-rate sportsmen and women.

    Adrian Crisp

    Weston Colville, Cambridgeshire

    1. I used to follow Test cricket enthusiastically when it was available on terrestrial TV channels. The TMS radio coverage is not always available in France so I now follow it even less.

      Few children grow up with the passion for cricket that many of those of my generation had.

      1. Listening to Rex Alston on the wireless with scorebook in hand to “keep score”. Then checking with the paper the next day!

  12. Good morning, all. Grey and breezy day. Wivno trip cancelled. We both have barking coughs which kept us both awake much of the night. It is quite a relief to be vertical. Still, the “wet” aspects of the cold and the sore throat have gone.

    Never had any doubt that Miss Maxwell would be convicted. Foregone conclusion.

    1. Drat and double drat, Bill. Was it my suggestion that we meet up for a drink and a chat that is the real reason for you cancelling the Wivno trip?

      But seriously, I hope you both get well soon. (After all, “barking coughs” might frighten Gus and Pickle! Lol.)

  13. A blurred distinction between refugees and migrants is a recipe for chaos. 30 December 2021.

    Thinking everything is the fault of the West is the new narcissism. It deprives others of political and moral agency. After all, history is full of people who screw things up all on their own. As it happens, I think we have an obligation to help those Iraqis or Afghans who worked for us. And I think legitimate refugees need to be given refuge in an orderly fashion. But there are two ways to do this: legal and illegal. It used to be the job of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help decide which was which. What happened to that?

    Actually it is at the heart of Cultural Marxism and the ideology of the Elites. They deliberately blur the distinction because it allows them to pose as World Saviours and Nobler Beings, the very essence of the Social Justice Warrior. There are in reality very few genuine refugees. The vast majority are economic migrants seeking to throw themselves on the mercy of the UK’s Social Security system. The attractions are obvious; coming from the Middle East this is tantamount to winning the lottery! Free health care and accommodation and the possibility of off the books employment. What’s not to like? Well the indigenous population who pay for all this in cash and who have to deal with the fall out are not happy. This doesn’t matter to the Elites who have a captive political system that cannot be overturned!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-blurred-distinction-between-refugees-and-migrants-is-a-recipe-for-chaos

    1. The savages also feel entitled to ‘use’ young white girls and women. It’s their culture, innit!

  14. I thought this was a spoof, though it’s hard to tell these days. It’s like something from a Chris Morris production.

    Climate change: Mechanical trees that suck C02 out of the atmosphere set for major first trial
    Professor Klaus Lackner says there could be one billion of the devices worldwide within two decades

    Sir David King, the former chief scientific adviser to the UK Government, who is not involved in the project, said: “I have a great deal of respect for Klaus but the problem is that with mechanical trees you capture carbon dioxide and then you have to do something with it. That’s the challenge.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e527553fb14449d40f3d86e3ab41cfc541053964c025d96f8a77146177529ecc.jpg
    https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/climate-change-mechanical-trees-suck-c02-out-atmosphere-trial-1361189

    1. Putting King’s point re what do you do with the carbon dioxide to one side.
      Why not use real trees rather than concrete over useable land? Trees know what to do with it.
      Presumably the carbon emissions created in making these uglipiles and powering them will take decades of their use to recoup.

  15. Muslim hikers receive overwhelming support in response to racist comments
    Pictures shared from the group’s Christmas hike were met with ‘disparaging and mocking comments’.

    The organiser, Haroon Mota, said his group had chosen the 25th of December as the area would be quieter than usual. “One of the reasons why we set up Muslim Hikers was so that we could stand together and for greater diversity and inclusion. We’ve been working extremely hard to create a culture of confidence in the outdoors.”

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/muslim-facebook-peak-district-coventry-serengeti-b974235.html

    Nothing to do with your own sense of cultural separateness, eh, Mr Mota?

      1. I was about to say the same. He has really given away what “diversity” is all about, i.e. the promotion of islam.

    4. Oh yes another attempt at a subtle way of testing the resolve of a nation they have had their eyes on taking over for a few centuries.
      It can’t be ignored, that every where they are or go they appear to stir up some sort of underlying contrivance, in this case the disguise (diversity) is not very convincing.
      Not long ago they were marching through our capital (with a police escort) calling for the beheading of people opposed to their own ‘good taste’.

    5. Can we set up a Christian hiking group? This is similar to having a Black Police federation but no white police group being permitted.

    6. Greater diversity and inclusion? Deliberately chosen so there would be fewer people around? Taqiyya and kitman, chum.

  16. Grab Life As It Passes

    Three old women are sitting in a park, feeding the pigeons.

    Suddenly, a man in a trench coat runs out from behind a tree and flashes them!

    The first old woman has a stroke!

    Then the second old woman has a stroke!

    But the third old woman, try as she might, just couldn’t reach him!

    1. Good day, Harry. As you will see, our Wivno trip is off. We were going to see my sister-in-law for a light lunch – and to get home before dark. So any socialising would not have been a runner. But thank you for the suggestion.

          1. Sorry, it’s so close to the border that I mistook it to be in South Suffolk rather than N Essex.

        1. Because if she remained silent she was in with a chance of avoiding epsteinicide, now she isn’t.

    2. The authorities were majorly miffed that Epstein ‘committed suicide’ and wanted to take out their anger on a nearby object.
      Maybe the CIA and the FBI don’t talk to each other. (No doubt other Merkin killer organisations are available.)

      1. You surely mean “The authorities were majorly miffed that they were forced by higher powers to ALLOW Epstein to ‘commit suicide’?

      1. …as is the appearance and disappearance of the solar panel on the left leg of the notice board.

        ‘Morning, J.

    3. “You may think that this Church is full of hypocrites, but you are WRONG!
      There is always room for one more.”

    1. It’s interesting (and frightening), but the author is not really thinking clearly with sentences like this:
      “In contrast with the U.S. – or European countries with long colonial pasts such as France, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom — Scotland has no history of domestic slavery and very little of the kind of racial tensions or racial obsessions that are central to American history.”

        1. On similar lines; I wrote to my local Nationalist MP regarding the influx of ‘refugees’. I received some cookie-cutter blah about Jews in WWII. So I replied that her party were bringing in laws regarding sectarian football songs, whilst importing religious bigotry that would make the ‘Old Firm’ look like Laurel and Hardy. Further correspondence has been delegated to one of her minions.

      1. It strikes me increasingly that Covid is a very flexible illness. It identifies as whatever your symptoms are. A lazy diagnosis.

        Chucked up bile this morning but I’m told the infection should play itself out within the next 24 hours. Water and low fat food needed. Water mostly. I’ve got bottled water, lean chicken and salad veg. Fingers and toes crossed.

        2. Is your illness caused by covid? Or is it incidental and you tested positive? What you describe sounds like a gall bladder problem. Painful and nasty but you should be better soon.

        1. Thanks, Bleau and Good morning.

          Another useless product from China, contributing to the plastic ocean.

  28. A couple of BTL Comments including one from the much missed Tartan Pimpernel:-

    Robert Spowart
    13 MIN AGO
    Message Actions
    So, as expected, the jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty in a trial where NONE of the many documented passengers on the Lolita Express nor the visitors to Epstein Island were ever called upon to give evidence.
    Am I the only one who raises an eyebrow with thoughts of “Kangaroo Court”?

    REPLY
    3 REPLIES9

    S Wilson
    12 MIN AGO
    Reply to Robert Spowart
    I’ve removed my post. You are not alone. When a character like OJ Simpson walks free, you know there is something wrong with the justice system. It’s not Law and Order by any stretch of the imagination.

    REPLY 3FLAG

    JC Jennifer Carter
    5 MIN AGO
    Reply to Robert Spowart – view message
    No, you are not.
    But in a ‘justice’ system where the President of the country tells a jury, who are named and not sequestered, ‘You know what you have to do.’, what do you expect?
    Trials like this are tried in the media before, during and after, with lawyers and judges giving opinions on the day’s court proceedings.
    We should be very grateful for the English way of media silence about court proceedings until after the event.

    REPLY 4FLAG

    1. Today’s silly question? BTL??? Qu’est-ce que c’est?

      I feel that I am missing out on a valuable databank?

      1. Below The Line – referring to Telegraph Letters’ comments, which is where we all started.

      2. BTL = Below The Line i.e. a comment added by a reader. Incidentally, S Wilson in the above is Susan Wilson who we NoTTLers know better as Tartan Pimpernel.

        1. Or, in Miracle Max’s case – mutton, lettuce and tomato, although that of course loses the B!!

  29. Not a moment too soon….

    Steerpike
    David Cameron winds his office up
    29 December 2021, 6:01pm

    In 2021 we bid many things farewell: Philip Green’s retail empire, England’s Euro chances and Donald Trump’s presidency. And now, joining them on the ash heap of history, appears to be David Cameron’s short-lived career as a lobbyist, after months of damning revelations about his multi-million pound efforts for Greensill Capital. After the conclusion of the Brexit wars, the onetime Prime Minister might have harboured some hopes of a retrospective rehabilitation but the collapse of Greensill and the release of the Old Etonian’s accompanying cringe-worthy texts has put paid to that.

    It’s not just Greensill that suffered in 2021 of course: since leaving office Cameron has acquired something of the reverse Midas touch. Last month he was forced to quit his role at the software company Afiniti after a 23-year-old former employee accused the firm’s multimillionaire founder of sexual assault. It ends a rotten year for Cameron, whose lowest point was probably when MPs on the Treasury select committee concluded that his persistent lobbying to have Greensill included in a government-backed Covid loans scheme had ‘demeaned’ the position of the prime minister and left his ‘reputation in tatters.’

    And it seems that Cameron has tacitly accepted that judgement, as he has now quietly begun proceedings to wind up his eponymous unlimited company, filing a first gazette notice for compulsory strike off to commence on 4 January next week. The ‘Office of David Cameron’ was launched in October 2016, a month after the ex PM stood down as MP for Witney, and boasted an impressive £873,000 in net equity when it last filed accounts in April 2019. The company’s one director is Laurence Mann, Cameron’s Chief of Staff who was referenced and copied into the leaked Greensill emails splashed across the Sunday Times earlier this year. He previously served as Cameron’s Political Secretary and Political Private Secretary during his six-year premiership.

    Still, given Cameron made £7 million from Greensill and has claimed almost half a million in the ‘public duty cost allowance’ which former premiers get after leaving office, doesn’t look like he’ll be short of a few bob anytime soon.

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

    BTL:

    Geoff Graham • 13 hours ago
    David who?

    1. As usual, he gets off lighter than Owen Paterson for ‘excessive lobbying’.

      One law for me…

          1. Never could understand why a ‘lobbyist’ actually lands his paymasters with higher costs.

          2. Never could understand why a ‘lobbyist’ actually lands his paymasters with higher costs.

      2. Owen was (despite his voting against giving us a referendum in 2011) in favour of leaving. Cameron, on the other hand …

    3. “…doesn’t look like he’ll be short of a few bob anytime soon.”

      And I’m sure he’ll pay his taxes (Corporation and Income) like the good little boy he is.

    7. Another PM who subjected this nation to his whims and fantasies and doing much damage as he did so.

    8. W-what ??? So upon stepping down as PM, the travails and exertions of shuffling four yards to the Back Benches* garners one half a million quid ? A banana republic without the uniforms, that’s what we are.

      *Of course, Call Me Dave, the dilettante’s dilettante couldn’t even do that.

  34. Good Moaning.
    It’s aksherley rather nice out there. Time for Spartie (and me) to walk off a bit of Christmas flab.

    4. Lucky you! Here it’s wet, dull, dank, miserable and Oscar definitely didn’t want to be out, despite wearing a mackintosh!

  35. Morning all, more seasonal wind it appears.
    Nothing planned for today, just taking things as they come. I suspect Erin has something lined up.
    Any one know how to chivy up a cardiologist ?

    1. Write a very polite message. Wrap around a housebrick and throw it through his window.

      I think my Vascular surgeon has been abducted by aliens.

    6. Turn up at the local hospital…..collapse in a heap on the floor grabbing your chest, as you hit the ground…

      You won’t be ignored…….or just maybe, you will!
      Let us know if it works…….

        1. To all who replied above and below, I’ve already ben to A&E twice this year and seen the cardiologist I stayed over the second time all they did was fiddle with my medication. What is happening seems to be a concerted effort to ignore as many of he older generation as they possible can. As I have suggested before they have adopted a FOAD (F Off And Die) mode to their once second to none attention and following treatment. Including GPs. Now it seems despite their claims they are over worked because of covid. But it now seems if you can afford it they will treat you in the private (possibly the same surgeons) sector within a few days or weeks of a request. We know some one who had a hip replacement I think it cost about 13 grand.

          1. I have to say – OH has had good treatment from the GP surgery and all the hospitals we have been to since the midnight dash a year ago. He’s seen three consultants, all more than once. It was his choice to pay for the recent hernia op so he could get back to playing sport, rather than waiting till sometime next year. Heaven knows there hasn’t been much else to spend money on in the last two years.

      2. Actually that reminds me of an incident that happened many years (90s) ago one of my nieces was working at a London Hospital as a Physiotherapist. She told me a story of a ‘chap’ who had arrived from Lagos into Heathrow he took a cab to the hospital, specifically chosen for it’s specialist treatment. Collapsed in the A&E was taken to a ward operated on with follow up specialist care and spent around three weeks in bed on the ward, got up one day, dressed and completely disappeared. Estimated cost at the time 20,000 plus pounds.

      1. It’s terrible, I’ve emailed my contacts in Perth and Victoria to get an opinion.
        The Ozzie hierarchy have taken leave of their collective senses.

      1. We will miss him when he goes. He’s surely the most hate-worthy caricature of a French leader since Napoleon.

          3. Who cares?
            Who knows who cares?
            Who cares who knows?
            Who knows who cares who knows?

            etc etc

    5. For those in Spain, Santander – Poole

      For those to the east of France,, Ostend/Knocke/Vlissingen – Harwich

      1. Act of Terror? As I recall, when living in London and being bombed by the IRA, that was an exclusion from the policy. You had to sue the police. Terrible palaver.

        1. No, no, it was an accident, surely? The bomber didn’t mean to set it off! Will be interesting to hear how that one turns out.

          1. Went to a lecture at Fort Halstead many years ago, given by a Bomb Disposal person. Very black humour. One IRA bloke, arming a pipe bomb between his legs, bomb goes off – bits of IRA man (pictures…) everywhere, lots of ribald jokes.

          3. The other one I remember was of a poor secretary who opened a letter bomb. She was dead, too. I won’t describe it, it was horrible.

          4. I remember a young couple who opened a letter bomb in Spain, basically lost their hands. Somehow I knew people who knew them well, but I was kind of desensitised by endless Provo bombs in the UK.

          5. Read “Braver men walk away” – apart from being killingly funny, it’s also poignant, when the author enters the (Burger King? Wimpy?) in Oxford Street to check that there were no more bombs left and what was the mistake, after the one that killed his Best Man who was trying to defuse it.
            I wasn’t far away at the time of that particular piece of nastiness.

          6. That is serious courage; no heat of the moment stuff, you have to be cool, calm and collected when every fibre of your being is telling you to behave otherwise.

        2. During the IRA campaign in the 60s I was at school not far from Borough High st. and my dad worked in the City. I often got to London Bridge station to see crowds outside as there had been a bomb threat- ditto tube stations. Dad also travelled via London Bridge. We were both frequently very late home by which time my mother would be white faced with worry.

          The school I went to also received regular bomb threats and we were evacuated to the far side of the playground which would have been useless if there had been a bomb. Anyway, it turned out that the threats were being phoned in from the boys school over the road. Once the culprits were caught the “threats” ended.

          1. Was working in London when the Canary Wharf truck bomb went off.
            Amazing deep BOOMMM!! and the building shook, prompting “What the fcuk was that??”
            The cho went on forever…
            It wasn’t the blast that worried me, given a moment you could take cover from that, it was the falling glass that scared me.
            Peter Gurney has a nasty description of glass effects in his book “Braver men walk away”. Glad I wasn’t there, although experience shows that crisis prompts appropriate action, it’s onøy afterwards one gets the collywobbles. Great drug, adrenaline.

          2. It is only afterwards….I was on recess duty in CT when a large boy found a broken bottle and came to the line of kids who were waiting to go back inside as I’d blown the whistle. He was waving this jagged edged bottle close to my face and around the other kids. I was determined that he was not going to get near the other children so kept changing my stance so he had to move away. For some reason, the doors into the school were locked. I saw a girl going down the hallway and banged on the door and beckoned her- run and get the vice principal and Mrs. Bell- head of special ed. Run I shouted.
            Seemed like hours but a few mins later both these women appeared, the door was unlocked and the bottle brandisher was removed. The kids filed into the building and it was only then that my knees buckled and I had to lean against the wall.

          4. Yo Lottie

            Situations like that produce Adrenlin

            Adrenlin is warm, brown and wet & flows down the inside of the left thigh

          8. My German boss, when I tried to explain ‘6 of one and half a dozen of the other’, eventually murmured, “We have a saying like that in Germany. When you shit your trousers it doesn’t matter which leg it runs down!”

          9. When I was working on the locked ward, I was chatting to one of the more compos mentis patients.
            Suddenly, a roar like T Rex on steroids erupted behind me; as I turned I saw the largest and most dangerous patient bearing down on me.
            Impossible as it sounds, I leapt over the back of an Ercol chair from a standing start. Adrenaline gave me wings.

          11. Funnily enough, that was about the only sports day race I did enjoy. Until I skidded on wet grass and became inextricably entangled with a hurdle.
            A trifle uncomfortable, so it was.

          12. I was the primary school egg and spoon champ. Other than that, I was hopeless. I could do a really fast sprint and swim well but forget the other stuff.

          13. When I was at school, our biology teacher was a Cambridge graduate. She recounted the tale of how, one day, she and a friend took a walk through a field, only to find it was occupied by a bull that took exception to their presence. She said she vaulted the hedge and then had to detour several miles as she couldn’t get over the hedge into the next field to get back. That, she concluded, is what adrenaline will do.

          14. I gave Peter Gurney’s book to our army nurse’s current partner, a bomb disposal chap (he called the job something else though), when they came to visit on Boxing Day. He’d heard of it but hadn’t read it, apparently.

    1. I think that was the last straw for many people. After the life of service HM has led to treat her like this was wicked. Especially now all the stories about partying in Downing Street are common knowledge.

      1. That was the saddest picture I’ve seen this year, and boy, have we seen some!
        Poor little soul, and still some ghastly bits of her family let her down.

        1. The politicians are still unwilling to learn.

          At all levels, our government is bringing back restrictions on visits to care homes and hospitals. That standard obituary line at peace, surrounded by family is becoming rarer and rarer.

        2. At my late wife’s cremation service last May the family were allowed to sit fairly close to each other and thankfully hugs were able to be exchanged in the car park.
          To treat our Queen like that was nothing short of criminal

          1. Not sure how to put this, but it’s good to read that you managed to get together (even in the car park) to say good-bye. If you see what I mean…
            We couldn’t get to England for SWMBOs Brother’s funeral. Zoom version instead – thank God, because I hate funerals with a passion. Maybe it’s the Adieu, not the Au Revoir bit. Always hated goodbyes, never say it myself, always “See you around some time…”

          2. I understand Paul – i don’t like funerals at the best of times. In fact I doubt if I’ll go to my own. The service was also transmitted on some zoom thing so those who couldn’t attend because of the distance involved could see it. The sound however did not come through well and they did not hear the 2 tunes I played on my keyboard (recordings).

          3. I don’t have the fortitude to stand up and declaim the life story or even my own experience of the departed. It’s too emotional. Not looking forward to Mother’s interrment – although it’s been an interesting execrise in project management setting up the details – wicker coffin, burial plot by edge of woods… but questions on the choice of music, who would bear the coffin – too difficult emotionally.
            And she’s not even dead! Tougher than old boots, my Ma. Aged almost 93, even fought off hospital-acquired COVID with ease,;her immune system could battle radiation and win!

          5. I did the eulogy and music for MOH’s cremation (saving money as would have earned considerable approval from the deceased, about whom I quipped that if it could have been avoided this funeral would not have been attended either). No hymns, no prayers (MOH being a proselytising atheist), so relatively straight forward. Ashes were disposed off in a favourite spot.

          6. Giving the eulogy for my mother was far easier than I thought it would be. We had an officiant(?) organize the service and just sitting together discussing her life was very calming. Come the big day, all went smoothly.

          8. I don’t have the fortitude to stand up and declaim the life story or even my own experience of the departed. It’s too emotional. Not looking forward to Mother’s interrment – although it’s been an interesting execrise in project management setting up the details – wicker coffin, burial plot by edge of woods… but questions on the choice of music, who would bear the coffin – too difficult emotionally.
            And she’s not even dead! Tougher than old boots, my Ma. Aged almost 93, even fought off hospital-acquired COVID with ease,;her immune system could battle radiation and win!

          9. With a bit of luck, Spikey, I shan’t attend my own because I’ve willed my body to Medical Science – hopefully I can give a few med students a laugh.

          13. I sadly had three friends die this year and although restricted, at all funerals we all stood together out side to chat and reflect. Some people relatives I had never met before. I wish I was till in contact with them.
            And what was rather ominous is, despite all the alleged deaths from covid (none of these were) there was no queue for the next service or any signs of hearses’ lining up to park out side the reception. Nor many cars in the adjacent car parks. It was all rather quiet and rather eerie.

          14. That is most unlike business as usual at our crem. In “normal” times, one hearse follows another with no break whatsoever.

          15. At the time the apparent deaths from Covid were very high. The Crems were in Hertfordshire and Northampton. And almost Empty.

          16. Good grief, Alec! Is it really that long ago? I do wonder where this year has gone, and not just from a personal perspective. So much sadness, grief and genuine worry about our future. Seeing what a small cabal of PTB has inflicted on the world has been very depressing. I can quite understand why some people lose all hope. There was a body found in Glen Nevis over Christmas, and the man was named as a guy from Falkirk. I looked at his name and his small company had gone bankrupt earlier this year. God knows what he’d gone through before he took that decision and he was only 55.

          17. This effing government’s actions have killed more people than it purported to save. Suicides, bankruptcies, mental ill health, increase in obesity, general unfitness and a worsening of the condition of those with dementia to mention just a few of the negative effects. Then there’s the inflation, the flat-lining of the economy, the deficit and the debt.

          18. You were allowed a service? MIL had nothing. No service, no gathering, no recognition beyond a small ad in the classified. Her ashes are supposedly parked on a crematorium shelf somewhere.

            One day we will be allowed back to the UK, I think that there will be a lot of tears from the boss.

      2. It impresses me that she didn’t override her advice. She knew she would be on camera, and walked the talk.
        What a pity the politicians won’t learn from her. Respect!

    2. That picture is disgusting.
      It should haunt the government and its apparatchiks in perpetuity.

      3. Never mind if she is Queen, or pauper. It’s the loneliest picture I have seen.
        And she still shows, very subtly, Leadership. What a Lady!

    3. That to me was a dreadful reflection on British society and it;s upper class often cruel but emotionally foe culture.
      What ever she is in the royal deity, she is a lovely human being, who has stood by this country and a whole lot of it’s inherent, ‘we know best’, upper class hierarchic Bull Shit since her father died. And she became Queen of Britain and the now shrinking empire.

    4. The saddest ever. That should have been the point at which the whole country should have stood upon and shouted, “ENOUGH!”

    5. And the scum in Westminster and Whitehall were troughing away at garden parties.

      I hate the entire bunch of them.

    2. If only more than three people would push back, all that crap would have withered away years ago.
      Good on John!

    3. The questioner was wanting to know the difference between banter and insult. The problem JC has in answering this question is that there is a presumption that there is no difference. This may be so in America, but not in Britain, where pointing out someone’s pecularities in jest is very often a sign of acceptance into the group, and even affection.

      It is best responded to in kind, rather than taking offence. The wittier the putdown in response, the better. In American culture, this sort of exchange is only seen as malicious, and is sadly being imposed here in Britain with the millennials.

      It is further confused since John Cleese’s career was built on the frustrated offence-taking exploding at unfortunate moments, to the hilarity of all around. Better still if the the torrent of returned insult is met by complete indifference by its target, enraging its issuer ever more so. In America, someone would be shot by now, but in Britain such mental breakdowns must be treated stoically.

      Where there is mutual affection for one another, despite disagreements and fundamental differences, then banter becomes like a sport, with no malice taken or intended, however dreadful it appears when read out cold by a hostile reporter. Even the n- word must be taken in context, and may well signify that a black man is welcome in a group of ethnic indigenous Brits, fully recognising the difference, and may even be a source of pride in the group’s reach. Guy Gibson’s dog was named with complete affection. More likely though such a fellow might be nicknamed “Snowman”!

      2. “but not in Britain, where pointing out someone’s pecularities in jest is very often a sign of acceptance into the group, and even affection” – it’s not just the US. My English boss made a joke about his Finnish subordinate not getting best marks in a certification exam, “only” coming second, and caused huge offence to the Finns, Swedes and Weegies in the team. It’s the “Praise by denigration” English humour, but doesn’t work elsewhere. I spent a deal of time explaining this, but it was difficult.
        Boss is an arsehole – he claims to be a great multiculturalist, but actually has no awareness at all of the differences. As typified by the above, and that I’m leaving his employ on 31st.

          1. Moving on to the firm I left to join the German outfit this plonker is local manager of.
            I learned many things:
            Most important: As long as the pay is OK, it REALLY matters who you work with. The firm I am rejoining have a number of people whose abilities I really respect, and also who have said that they are delighted I’m coming back, that I wonder WTF I was thinking about when I left. I was working for them as a contractor this last 14 months, on Saturday I’m staff – with a fancy title to boot!
            YAAY!!

          2. Well done, Lord High Poohbah.

            Good luck with it your most excellent excellency.

            ***walks backwards out the room…

          6. Although retired for the last 4 years, Paul, my basic tenet was to always do the work that you enjoy doing – otherwise it isn’t worth the pain of dragging yourself to work for just another day of shit.

            It sounds as if you’ve made a wise choice and I wish you well with it.

          9. I remember when my milestone of 40 years was reached and was the subject of verbal backslapping from my boss during a team meeting.
            I replied that the first 35 years was an absolute joy, the last 5 years has been a pain in the ass!
            The fact that my boss had been my boss for that 5 years was not lost on anybody, including the arse***le who was holding the meeting, my boss.

      3. At the local cricket club there is a young man who, due to a childhood illness, walks like a sniper’s nightmare and is a little askew even when stationary. Regardless, he has a great social life with his pals.
        I found it hilarious that, with all his woes, his pals have dubbed him ‘Bussie’, as one ear sticks out more than the other, as per a bus stop.

      1. Probably a mistook.

        But i don’t mind if people downvote me.

        Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

        2. Of course, no question there. What I don’t like is folk just downvoting for the hell of it without explaining why.

          That’s provokes discussion and debate to understand other people’s views.

  46. I was chatting to a friend of mine recently whose daughter had a cold. She was telling me about her lateral-flow test, confirmatory PCR, telling Test and Trace, ten day’s isolation…

    I asked her to imagine if we could record what she had just said, and play it back to herself from two years ago. How crazy would it sound in 2019, if a simple childhood winter cold resulted in a report to a government agency, and she and everyone she had been in contact with having to self-isolate for ten days, even if she was well again after 2-3?

    It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people are still following all the arbitrary rules and playing Covid Theatre with their families lives, when those who make the rules do not follow them. When will people start to say – enough!

      1. Seeing the fully masked outside on a breezy and almost Spring like day confirms your assertion.

        1. The thing that gets me is the drivers, completely alone in their car, who are wearing their masks! Who do they think (well, obviously they don’t) will infect them?

    2. A young lass I met yesterday, who is very calm, nicely law abiding, has had family members with covid and has recovered from cancer herself said ‘I’m a bit fed up with it now. I just want to get on with my life.”

      It was quite encouraging to hear that normal folks are now fed up, not just us grumpy.

      1. But is she fed up enough to ignore the rules and just get on with her life? Or will she grumble, but go along with the latest set of random restrictions?

        I believe it is only the rebellion of the 100 MPs, the resignation of Lord Frost and the loss of the safe seat which prevented Johnson from cancelling Christmas and New Year. People comply because they want it to end, but it is because they comply that this will never end.

        1. Being a decent human being she’ll likely comply. It’s not a bad thing.

          I’d like to not wear a mask at Tesco. Other folks are not any more, but they’re the minority.

          1. We are far too ‘decent’ for our own good. We have to accept that the people doing this are not motivated by the common good, but by profit and power. To comply is to assist them in these objectives.

            I just came from Tesco, I didn’t wear a mask and nobody batted an eyelid. It is still effectively voluntary.

          2. Declare yourself exempt, wibbles. Download the badge from the .gov.uk website if you feel you need backup. It just takes the first step and then you’ll be emboldened (and encourage others).

    3. They love it when they get a positive lateral flow test. At last, the waiting and the fear is over – they can spring into full covid-fighting action, notifying the Gubmint and everyone they know, staying in quarantine, ordering a confirmatory PCR test, and feeling a warm glow about having done their bit to raise covid case statistics.

      2. Was at my sisters for Christmas dinner; along with my folks, B-i-L, niece and her two wee ones – boy 4, girl 2 – and a fine time was had.
        My niece’s husband, a paramedic on nightshift, pitched up out of his scratcher as we were heading for the door.
        Yesterday, as I dropped my folks ‘heavy’ shopping off, my dad informed me that said paramedic had tested positive – I think this is the 4th time he’s managed this.
        My folks were thinking of getting tested but I suggested that they just treat it as if it’s a cold, should any symptoms show.
        As they are both 82 they have been flu-jabbed for the past 20 years but insist on watching the tv newz. I explained that all their tests would do is add to the stats. Their choice of course, it still pretends to be a free country.

    4. My cousin’s husband (whose positive test for Covid meant Christmas was cancelled) has apparently tested negative so is allowed to go out and about as of tomorrow (the rest of the family still have to isolate). He’s still coughing like nobody’s business. I did gently try to point out that hacking all over people used to be considered rather rude, but insanity prevails.

  48. We import gas because the state intentionally wants to limit supply. If supply is limited then prices go up. High prices mean less is used meaning the state can meet the pointless net zero targets.

    We should be fracking and mining coal. We won’t because the state wants this. That’s the big, disgusting lie. Big government *wants* us paying more tax and more for energy. It’s a scam.

    1. Same applies to expoting industry to China – including brick production. Just fiddles the figures, if you think CO2 emissions important, ‘cos the Chinese don’t care.

      1. My anthracite comes from China – it’s cheaper than Welsh anthracite from a few miles down the road! Ditto my neighbour’s roof slates; they were imported from Spain at about half the cost of Welsh slates. This country needs a good shake up.

        1. Spanish or Iberian slates are sub standard and prone to discolouration from high iron content. They delaminate, fracture when holed and have a far shorter life than Welsh slates.

          Curiously, Chinese slates are preferable to Spanish slates but not as durable as Welsh slates.

          You get what you pay for. It was ever thus. The largest markets for superior Welsh slate are Germany and Japan.

          1. I have tiles, but his cottage (actually two knocked into one) required slates and that’s what he went for. The windows came from Eastern Europe somewhere. Mind you, his mother is Dutch so perhaps that explains his lack of desire to buy British 🙂

    2. I read this morning that it’s creepy Macron making his mark again with his childish revenge program.

  50. Flash of Self Knowledge?

    On the way back from the tip I was behind a lorry labelled “Steve’s Rubbish”.

  51. Been putting off a foray to Morrisons…….. with two extra men here there’s not much food left.

    See you later.

  52. Just being nosy.

    Have NoTTLer pensioners received their £10 Christmas bonus from the DWP yet, and what are you all going to spend that windfall on?🤣

          2. Afternoon BB. I’m sure that we are all on file for extermination at the first real opportunity!

      2. I recall that initially it was £250 for me, but it was reduced to £200 after a couple of payments – can’t remember which government (Labour or Conservative) reduced it.

    3. I have thank you Mr Grizzly. I am afraid it is gone, an extra 30 mins heating the house and poof, it’s spent.
      Not even enough leftover for a glass of wine and a lump of cheese to have in the garden after an exhausting budgetary planning meeting with Mrs VVOF!

      1. That’s a shame, Mr VVOF. If plastic straws had not been banned you could have shared that glass of wine.👍🏻🍷

        1. There was no wine nor cheese, who do you think I am, a snivel serpent with a golden pension, tut tut.

    5. What’s the point? It hardly buys anything. Better to scrap it. Having said that, I’ll take every penny to which I’m entitled – I’ve paid enough tax in my time (and still do).

      1. I agree. I am particularly aggrieved by my CQC who won’t fund a treatment that has worked in the past. Instead, I’ve wasted half an hour on the phone with a woman who told me to “pace myself” to manage pain. Quite how one does that when one is the only person available to do the essential jobs is an issue she didn’t address. I forbore from pointing out that if I wanted gender reassignment, no doubt there would have been plenty of money available for that nonsense rather than a simple injection that would have rendered me pain-free and able to live a normal life for at least six months. Over the years I paid loadsa dosh through NICs, but now if I want effective treatment, I’m expected to fork out again at a time when my income is reduced.

    6. I seem to remember seeing a couple of tenners turning up in our joint bank accounts ……..Erin’s popped to the shops, i’d better make sure she doesn’t spend mine eh 👀

        1. over 80! and I also got a 25p a week increase on my pension – I’m at a loss what to spend this new found wealth on

    9. Oddly, I’d prefer the alternative – that green taxes were scrapped. You know, the obvious option.

      3. Nope, look at her replies. Apparently querying her murder of her pet to stop herself getting a cold has unleashed ‘Nazi, Drumpf supporters’ on her sweet self. Somehow she’s anointed herself the victim in this situation.

        2. And how could it be tested positive for Omicron? A vet couldn’t do that. She’s just winding normal people up so can claim victimhood.

      2. I think she’s just a looney who craves attention, and abuse counts, as long as she can crow about it. She shouldn’t be worth ‘twatting’ to, not that I do ‘Twatter’.

  55. Made a shopping foray to Morrisons earlier. Maybe a little light at the end of the tunnel. 7 or 8 people of different ages without masks. I was encouraged.

    1. I only saw one other but I wasn’t challenged. Two of the checkout ladies also unmasked, but they still have the perspex screens.

      1. The floor staff in our Morrison’s (the ones who block the aisles with their trolleys of online shopping orders!!) don’t have masks on.

    2. A few days ago, a newspaper article had photos of people shopping in London’s Oxford Street. There were a couple of ‘very large’ women (gluttons) wearing mask-exemption sunflower lanyards – I suspect their only reason for not wearing a mask was being too fat.

    3. The local minimart doesn’t seem to be worried, but I tried a branch of J Sainsbury without sporting a mask, and no one made any comment.

      1. Good for you. A guard/marshal should be aware he couldn’t query your lack of a mask, hopefully.

      3. Give them time. But it will have to be temporary tattoos because ‘fully jabbed’ status is only for those with the latest booster – let’s face it, this won’t be the last booster, got to keep the profits flooding in.

        1. I have not verified this, but I was told that the latest NHS e-sheeptag has space for 8 injections.

          1. Good grief!
            No way am I having that many.
            If the plague is weakening, then it seems unnecessary for all but the medically vulnerable. Those who catch omicron will develop some longer-lasting natural immunity which should be more effective than jabs which fade after a mere 10 weeks.

  57. Why Britain shouldn’t regret Brexit
    The vaccine victory and Aukus have already proven Brexit’s success. Britain can now look forward to long-term strategic autonomy.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/britain-shouldnt-regret-brexit/

    BTL

    Those who wanted a proper Brexit must not tolerate Johnson’s complete spineless weakness and capitulation over Northern Ireland and Fishing. No deal was what was needed and with an 80 seat majority Johnson could have and should have removed the obstacles that traitors like Benn had put in the way.

    We have been betrayed – that’s what Johnson does: he betrays people in both his political and personal relationships. Ask his ex-wives and mistresses. And when Lord Frost feels more free to speak openly, ask him.

    1. Infuriating, depressing, but true.

      It was obvious that the state would never let us leave and is doing everything possible to destroy this country with the eventual goal of ramming us permanently back into the EU.

  58. Afternoon, all. Heating bills are rising due to an ideological attachment to a flawed idea, namely that puny man can affect the forces of nature as the climate continues to change in response to sunspot cycles.

    1. Although I think the sub benefit that the state is vastly more interested in is the tax revenue from the green nonsense.

    2. I wonder if BPAPM and Carrion have to pay their ow electricity etc bills at the Downing Street flat….

      1. Of course not. They’ll slap every bill on expenses.

        I think Boris should be forced to pay for Chequers’ heating. Damned swine might get the message then.

  59. Liz Truss: Britain can help Ukraine wean itself off Russian oil and gas. 30 December 2021.

    Britain can help Ukraine wean itself off Russian oil and gas with access to leading green technologies, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Thursday amid military tensions with Moscow.

    Ms Truss wrote in a piece for Ukraine’s leading publication Ukrainska Pravda that London stood behind Kyiv and was willing to help it diversify its energy sources to reduce its reliance on Russia.

    “We can make the most of Britain’s leading green innovative technologies such as wind and hydrogen energy so that Ukraine will be able to cut down its dependence on Russian fuel and spur up trade and investment,” she said.

    Great God Almighty! Is there no one with an ounce of sense in Western Government? Is this really the Civilisation that conquered the World? At the most basic level the Ukrainians have no wish cut their “dependence” on Russian fuel because it taxes their transit through their territory! As to the Green Stuff, that’s about to reduce the British people to penury and serfdom!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/30/britain-says-can-help-wean-ukraine-russian-oil-gas-leading-green/

    2. Oh looky, here we are YET AGAIN interfering in something abroad that’s NOTHING to do with us. One might have hoped that the debacles of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan would have cured this meddling tendency, but clearly not.

    3. Ukraine doesn’t want green, it wants reliable, persistent, sustained energy production.

      That Truss is writing this twaddle shows how inept she is. Of course, no comments allowed.

    4. Ukraine doesn’t want green, it wants reliable, persistent, sustained energy production.

      That Truss is writing this twaddle shows how inept she is. Of course, no comments allowed.

    5. Ukraine doesn’t want green, it wants reliable, persistent, sustained energy production.

      That Truss is writing this twaddle shows how inept she is. Of course, no comments allowed.

    1. I am surprised Mrs Murrell hasn’t put the Polis on the border crossings to arrest these people.

          1. That was not on the sign I passed the last time… It involved only 3 words, two of which were ‘English’ and ‘off’

        2. If I can’t go out and celebrate my 30th birthday- things will get ugly;-)) Not the 5th.

          2. I have been keeping my fingers crossed for the 2nd, Lotl, it looks like I might just do it now… fingers crossed for you too.

        3. Not quite…

          ‘Iffy the Prez
          3 days ago
          About 10 days ago, Allison Pearson in the DT passed on some info she had received from a reader who is close to someone in SAGE:-
          ‘The next lockdown starts on 5 January 2022….’

      2. Emergency Coronavirus Act coming up for renewal in March, so they’ve got to get those positive ‘cases’ rocketing… so along with an absence of tests and most of the inmates of Scotland and Wales pouring over the border….. cynical me too.

  61. The Mail’s leading article is about the ghastly Ghislaine woman. Nothing about today’s alleged convid case numbers, hospitalisations or deaths. Should we suppose the figures don’t support the fear-mongering story that Doris, Sage & co want?

    1. Had her bloke not been killed in chokey, she would never had been on trial. Whatever she did (or did not do). I found the evidence that the “victims” were quite happy to be paid hundreds of dollars lots of times made their stories less credible….

      1. Agree. The ‘girls’ were hardly young, all were in it for what they could get (probably hoped for fame and riches) and knew exactly what they were doing.

        1. Some of them were certainly under-age.

          Similar defences were offered for UK Paki grooming gangs.

          1. What age? UK? US?

            The girls who really WERE victims of the disgusting slammers were barely in their teens. Epstein’s young women were late teens/20s – and came back again and again…………for loadsa dollars.

            Had they really been “devastated/lives ruined” etc etc – they would never have returned.

            They were simply prostitutes.

          2. Both.
            I agree that they kept coming back, and I have relatively little sympathy.
            But I have little doubt that girls, not young women were groomed, seduced and used.

          3. Agreed. The claim of ‘sex trafficking’, when they went back numerous times of their own volition is hard to square. Then again, I’m not a psychologist, who could perhaps explain their behaviour.

          1. No, most of them from vulnerable backgrounds, in the ‘care’ system, effectively abandoned by parents, truanting and were barely into puberty, not 17 year old girls.

          3. Yes. The inconvenient truth is that the adults who were allegedly involved were committing statutory rape, as well as supplying alcohol and narcotics. And many of the teenagers were in Local Authority care.

      4. As were the ‘victims” parents while their 14 year old daughters disappeared for days at a time.

  62. Our son is now back home with his family.
    Great relief all round.
    No meds and no oxygen.
    Wonderful feeling.

    4. So pleased for you all! Home surroundings with family will be a massive boost for his recovery too.

      2. And potential buyers are urged to make their own enquiries about the structural condition….
        Perfect for an unscrupulous landlord to shove several illegals into and rake in the housing benefit. Luxury for them, so handy for the radical local mosque – they’ll be right at home.

      1. Shame. Perfect size property for the downsized – you may never get another such opportunity. 🙂

  66. That’s me gone for the day. Never a glimpse of sun – though it was very mild.

    I think all NoTTLer’s will agree with me (for once!) that the news about Alf’s and vw’s boy is the best we have heard this month. It made me go all gooey.

    Have a jolly evening- I hope my cough doesn’t keep you awake.

    A demain/

    1. We’ve just had a WhatsApp video call from him and family. They were opening Christmas presents and he had a bottle of beer in his hand.

      Wonderful sight. Plenty of wet tissues.

      1. That’s wonderful! Being at home surrounded by family (and a bottle of beer 🙂 ) – the best medicine!

    1. We have a drain like that down the road from me. It’s higher than the surrounding road which, unsurprisingly, floods when it rains heavily!

    2. She is white. She is rich. She is privileged.

      Meanwhile we will be releasing 92 convicted muslim terrorists in the UK next year.

  70. A Colt following? Six rounds at least….

    And as Israel doles out a second round of booster jabs to the most at-risk patients, the Netherlands is entertaining giving people as many as six shots.
    In a Wednesday letter to parliament, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge suggested that the Netherlands should consider additional rounds of booster jabs to fight new variants, with two in 2022 and another shot in 2023, according to Newsweek.

    No doubt they’ll be using Dumb, dumbs….

  71. One that’ll please HM:

    “On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany is fully ready and prepared to start pumping gas exports, amid a continued hold-up in regulatory approval on the German side.

    Hailing the completion of the $11 billion natural gas pipeline which the US had long worked to block, Putin told a government meeting which was attended by Gazprom head Alexei Miller, “I’d like to congratulate Gazprom and your partners in Nord Stream 2 on the completion of work and the creation of this additional large trunk-route and that it is ready for work,” according to Reuters.

  72. Our current electric and gas supplier, OVO, is offering us a new fixed rate charge 2⋅7 times our current rate, which ends in February.

          4. Plastic clothing is chilly and sweaty at the same time. Ugh – me no like. Only wool will do.

          5. Same here. Just about everything (although I do own a couple of fleeces) is made of natural fibres.

    2. If only millions would forgo their TV licence to help fund their energy Bills – the BBC would begin to squeal!

      1. Exactly, Bob3. I was thinking get more coal and wood supplies, cut down on central heating, wear more clothes etc. But burning anything except approved, and by approved they mean more expensive, fuels is becoming financially prohibitive.

        1. I don’t think they are planning for us to exist for much longer, I suppose this is the only way to save the planet if one is mad enough to believe that climate stuff.

      2. It’s just fortunate that the world is getting so warm we won’t need to heat the house soon.

    4. I have to submit my own reading for gas and electricity to my supplier, perhaps I need to start charging them for my time, efforts and energy used in doing so. 100 quid a shot might be a start. Let’s face it, it it will cost them a lot more than 200 quid to send someone out to do it.
      And you never know, we might just not be in at the time.

      1. I, too, have to submit my own electricity readings (I don’t have gas). I should charge them danger money considering the mountaineering feat I have to perform to reach the meter (at ceiling height) and press the buttons to obtain the readings.

        1. You should be wearing a hi-viz eye protectors and a hard hat Conners you know that.
          But be careful my suppliers sent me a letter earlier this year to suggest we have our meters’ re-sited on an out side wall for easy access.

  73. In Chester City Centre yesterday and saw two twats with shoulder mounted 21″ TV screens above their heads with a display urging folk to get boosters. It makes my blood boil to see the effing waste of taxpayers’ funds and biblical government borrowings on these pathetic ‘good ideas’ . Meanwhile a walk through the main Boots store revealed that the cordoned off ‘Vaccine centre was completely empty. Tossers!

    1. This is what happens when government has too much of our money.

      Taxes must be cut until the state is starving, then cut some more. When there is nothing left but the bones, we smash those and sift the powder.

      And mash that in a pestle and use an even finer sieve.

      1. The government doesn’t spend our money. It’s a currency creator not a currency user.

        Taxes could in theory be cut to nil and still the government could spend on what it wants to.

        Taxes don’t function the way you believe. They are not about giving the state money to spend even if it does seem that way to an accountant.

  74. Oh Bugger!

    “The cryosphere is failing to cooperate with the anthropogenic global warming narrative that says rising greenhouse gas emissions should be catastrophically melting Arctic ice.

    Scientists (O’Regan et al., 2021) report Ryder Glacier in north Greenland has advanced 2,881 m from 1948-2015 given its advancing rate of 43 m/yr-1. Its modern ice extent is about 50 km greater than 6,300 years ago.

    Nearby, the ~60 km-tongued Petermann Glacier, didn’t even exist during the Roman Warm Period.”

    As Rik would say: “Well that’s Awkward!”

      1. Only those that are in a coma!

        Oh /sarc in case anyone takes it seriously.

        Isn’t euthanasia a bit harsh for an asymptomatic victim?

    2. The next headline will be that New Zealand announces that there are no cases of what other countries call long covid.

  76. England has a duty to welcome Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid refugees

    Sturgeon has used the virus as a propaganda tool, seeking a divide with England, to the detriment of ordinary Scottish people

    JENNY HJUL • 30 December 2021 • 6:00pm

    Billy Connolly might have annoyed the Scottish Nationalists when he said there was not much difference between Scots and the English from similar backgrounds, but his observation was, as usual, spot on. Tomorrow, Scottish revellers will be just as determined as their English neighbours to celebrate the New Year, with many planning on heading south to dodge the harsher Covid restrictions imposed by Nicola Sturgeon north of the border. And England should welcome them with open arms, whether they pile into the pubs of Berwick-on-Tweed, board the TransPennine Express to Carlisle or descend in their droves on Newcastle or London.

    One of Boris Johnson’s ministers, Chloe Smith, rolled out the red carpet yesterday, telling BBC Radio 4’s World at One that “we are one country and people are more than free to move around”. The PM has signalled his own support, saying “everybody should enjoy New Year”. Their hospitality will enrage the SNP, which has killed off hopes that Scotland might return to normal this year, after Hogmanay was cancelled at the height of the second wave of the pandemic last year.

    Sturgeon has ordered nightclubs to close their doors for at least three weeks from December 27, and limited the number of people who can take part in events to a maximum of 500 outdoors, with smaller numbers permitted indoors. Pubs and restaurants must enforce social distancing and provide table service. She has also banned New Year’s Eve street parties, including Edinburgh’s extravaganza, and is urging Scots to “stay at home as much as possible”, with gatherings restricted to a maximum of three households. Only Wales matches Scotland’s po-faced approach to pandemic curbs.

    Sturgeon’s deputy, John Swinney, said that although there was nothing to stop party-goers from travelling to England for Hogmanay, this would go against the spirit of his government’s regulations. But Scots will be rightly aggrieved at such draconian diktats, especially during what has traditionally been their biggest night of the year – and when the rest of Britain (bar Wales) is at last emerging from a lockdown mentality. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce said the new restrictions represented “another hammer blow” for businesses, but the SNP administration has long exploited Covid at the expense of the economy to further its political objectives.

    Although the coronavirus has not respected regional boundaries, Sturgeon quickly seized on the crisis to forge a divide with England that does not exist and make her case for Scottish exceptionalism. Last summer, she insisted on futile travel quarantines at odds with the rest of Britain and she locked down Scots for longer than necessary. At their silliest, the Nationalists, egged on by their so-called scientific advisers, tried to close the borders altogether, harnessing the hermetically sealed mindset and zero Covid goal of New Zealand.

    Having failed to secure independence through the proper democratic channels, here was a chance for the secessionists to break away unilaterally, on supposed public health grounds, and create a response to Covid that separated Scotland from England. From the start, Sturgeon deployed the pandemic as a propaganda tool, with her daily broadcasts and slick (compared to Johnson) communication skills resulting in soaring personal popularity ratings.

    The problem is that omicron has treated Scots much the same as the English, and while transmission may be higher in Scotland, having seemingly peaked in other parts of the country, there is no evidence that deaths and hospitalisations will be worse.

    Unlike in the early days, before vaccinations and natural immunity protected the bulk of the population, the SNP strategy brings no benefits. The signs are that the virus will continue to spread, symptoms will be mild, but life will be shut down anyway as 10-day isolation is enforced, again out of step with England.

    Who can blame the Scots if they not only want to flee south for the New Year festivities but also for future freedoms, unobtainable at home, if Sturgeon persists in her go-it-alone pandemic pig-headedness? And it will be England’s duty to embrace Scotland’s Covid refugees, whether they are embarking on seasonal first footing expeditions or planning more permanent asylum from the encroaching state control of Nat rule.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/30/england-has-duty-welcome-nicola-sturgeons-covid-refugees/

    1. NZ does at least have the advantage of being surrounded by sea. Scotland shares a land border with England – although I daresay Wee Krankie would like to dig a huge trench across from sea to sea and flood it, then fill it with sharks.

          2. Do we really want to take on the White Man’s Burden? More than we already do with the Barnett Formula, that is 🙂

    2. I have said this before but my late, and loved Scots uncle was a RN veteran and had been a teacher in the Glasgow school system. The only person I have ever heard him sound off about was Sturgeon. He simply could not stand her or anything she stood for. He was otherwise a mild mannered and gently spoken man and all this stuff right now would greatly distress him. I miss him but am kind of glad he’s out of it all.

    3. “The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!”

      2. It’s a known fact that there are more people who associate them selves with Scotland that live out side the borders of Scotland, than born and bred Scots who actually live in Scotland. With people like Olga Krankie in charge it’s easy to understand why.

    4. Well, given a choice between the Scots Covid refugees and the “refugees” invading the southern shores, the Jocks would get my vote any day.

  77. On the topic of dating sites – a BTL comment from tHe Slog:

    “Bobby47 on December 27, 2021 at 12:57 pm
    In the unlikely but joyous event that my personal tormentor of forty seven years decided to up sticks and announce, ‘cheerio fatso I’m off’, then I’d go on a dating site and openly present my naked self to humanity.
    In the hope that the responses would be of the female type and not a bunch of self identifiers or others who’s genders are detached from biological reality, I’d photograph myself perched naked on a comfortable chair clutching a glass phial that contained a good measure of my still rampant semen.
    What’s more, my photographic image, that would have me and my fat face transmitting a glorious look of loving angst to the admiring or disgusted viewer, I’d then
    sit and wait for my InBox to start filling up with all those women who’d all be waiting to see whether or not they have been selected to violate me and have the opportunity to kiss my toothless mouth.
    And they would. They’d be online in a jot. Because I’m irresistible to women who all find it nigh on impossible to keep their hands off me.”

  78. Oh dear. Thought I’d take a break from Bluff King Hal’s disappointment with this fourth bride and dip into the BTL comments in the Tellygraff.
    The bots have taken umbrage and stopped all comments. I had noticed a liberal sprinkling of red cancellations earlier in the day.

    2. His disappointment? Can you imagine what she thought when she laid eyes on that fat, smelly man? I would have run screaming in the opposite direction.

      1. She didn’t recognise him, apparently, or she would have disguised her distaste. He didn’t behave as she was led to expect a King to behave.

        1. Everything I have read about Anne of Cleves indicates a clever and caring lady. The fact that she is buried in the Abbey, at Princess Mary’s request apparently, shows the high regard the family felt for her.

      2. Apparently, the Vikings didn’t need to rape very much, as they washed often and were clean, with combed hair & beards… so unlike the indigenous men, they had no problem with “pulling”!

        3. I can remember watching one of many Scan Drams on TV and something once stood out in the subtitles, the word for customer/receiver. The spelling is very different but the way it could be pronounced is open to debate. I don’t mean a lot people debating it, just a few of us.

  79. Could somebody, anybody, tell Doris that his gold standard CDC-PCR Test for Covid 19 has failed its full review and is a Class 1 recall in the States. Its emergency use authorisation has been revoked.

    This according to Candace Owens.

    1. We don’t use the CDC-PCR test, and their CDC-PCR test was replaced by a different PCR test. Essentially they weren’t looking for optimal DNA sequences.
      It absolutely doesn’t mean that PCR tests do not work or incorrectly identify SARS-Coronavirus-2.

      1. Merely reporting what I have read. I personally believe that any PCR test is a fraud in claiming to detect live virus.

        Its inventor stated that it was not a diagnostic test and its use should be confined to laboratory regimes seeking amplification of strands or fragments of DNA within the parameter of number of cycles.

        Likewise the Lateral Flow tests are as good as useless and similarly fraudulent.

        Time will tell as I believe we are now entering the End Game for the Covid scam.

  80. You might remember the reports of Highways England filling in railway bridges. It was quite one thing to give HE possession of road bridges on disused railways but why on earth was it given tunnels?

    You won’t get me down there…

    Disused rail tunnel gets green light to become Europe’s longest underground cycle lane

    Welsh railway line abandoned for more than 50 years gets new lease of life as ministers clear way for its transition to a bike route

    By Will Bolton • 30 December 2021 • 4:21pm

    A disused Victorian rail line is set to become Europe’s longest underground cycle path after the Government cleared the way for its opening. The two-mile long tunnel links the Rhondda and Afan valleys in Wales, but was shut down together with dozens of other lines and hundreds of stations in the Sixties.

    Earlier this year, the Government announced that it would halt the destruction of former railway lines and bridges in the hope that they can be repurposed to get more people walking and cycling. Despite being located deep in south Wales, the tunnel is actually owned and controlled by Highways England.

    Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, has now said he will hand over control to Welsh ownership so that the cycle lane project can continue. He said: “I would be happy to transfer it to a local group, the Welsh Government or the local council, with money for the purpose.”

    Campaigners are hoping to reopen the 3,443yd route and make it the longest underground cycle path in Europe. The Rhondda Tunnel Society was established in 2014 and has more than 850 members, with Michael Sheen, the Welsh actor, among those backing the project.

    The tunnel used to carry coal trains 1,000ft below the mountains from the mines of Rhondda to the ports of Swansea Bay, until its closure in 1968 and the entrances to the tunnel at both ends have long been buried.

    It was first opened in 1890 during the coal boom after a five-year building project overseen by the tunnel’s chief engineer Sydney William Yockney, a pupil of Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It would be the longest cycle tunnel in Europe, and second only to the 2½ mile Snoqualmie Tunnel near Seattle in the US.

    Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda, said: “If we are able to reopen it as a cycle path, as many people hope, it would be the longest cycle path in Europe. It would be a major local attraction, which would be good for tourism and jobs in an area of outstanding beauty that unfortunately has terrible financial deprivation.”

    Highways England has previously caused outrage by filling in Victorian railway bridges with concrete rather than repairing and maintaining them. In the summer, a 159-year-old bridge in Great Musgrave, Cumbria, had its arch filled with concrete, angering engineers and restoration experts, who said it could have been saved with just £5,000 of repairs.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8596cddf56220ffcccfd98cb66f53381a0cd8cfe61dd576dcd68e6b4404dd155.jpg
    The Rhondda railway tunnel prior to being drained in 2018
    CREDIT: Rhondda Tunnel Society

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/055efad0941a8d3a5c9f89cb5d4d848565aaf9f57f6086c099ecc67bd7fb3027.jpg
    Engineers at work turning the Rhondda Tunnel ahead of its transformation to a bicycle lane
    CREDIT: Forgotten Relics

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/106ab1a350ca28bf566c4d5d7f0e06e9b33be0eaa3a13dcf5ab6f6093a44b2e6.jpg
    The Rhondda Tunnel in its heyday, before being shut in the Sixties
    CREDIT: Forgotten Relics

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/30/disused-rail-tunnel-gets-green-light-become-europes-longest

      1. Some of the comments aren’t encouraging: “It’ll become the country’s longest urinal/drug den etc.”

        The Two Tunnels project in Bath has been a great success.

          2. When the line into Green Park was closed we kids would venture into one of the tunnels from Moorfields. We dreaded meeting older boys, hooligans mostly, and would hide in the refuges in the tunnel walls.

            As a boy I loved to see the tank engines from the bridge at the end of Coronation Avenue and the ultimate sight was the Pines Express by the sand pits near Morland Road where the stone bridge has been demolished.

            Initially a great black painted monster but replaced by a more modern steam locomotive before the line was closed.

  81. Oh, joy
    :-((
    Covid: Southern Rail cancels all services into London Victoria until mid-January as staff self-isolate
    All Southern Rail services into London Victoria have been cancelled until mid-January due to Covid-related staff shortages, the firm confirmed on Thursday.
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/southern-rail-cancels-all-services-london-victoria-covid-isolation-b974307.html
    No Southern services will call at Victoria, Battersea Park, Clapham Junction or Wandsworth Common until January 10 as the company struggles with a surge in Covid cases among employees.
    The routes from Clapham Junction to Milton Keynes, East Croydon to London Bridge, and Epsom to London Bridge will also not be running during this period.
    Routes from further afield will also be affected, with services from Southampton, Hove, Hastings and East Grinstead all being diverted. The Gatwick Express has already been suspended until January 4 due to engineering works.
    London Victoria is one of the UK’s busiest stations, and is normally connected by Southern to locations such as Brighton, Eastbourne and Portsmouth.

    1. Covid is the bloody excuse for everything these days.
      However, if I was still at grammar school and having to go to London Bridge every day…this news would have delighted me.

  82. Night all.
    Lats night at this time I watched a film that I had never heard of before, it was very dark and violent English comedy Called ‘Hot Fuzz’. Lots of well known actors in it. I haven’t laugh so much for ages.

    2. They’ve made some hilarious films “Paul” is another of my favourites,highly recommended

  84. Good night everyone, sleep well, and make the most tomorrow of the remainder of 2021.

    PS – Still no reply from Peddy to my email. He lives in the Cambridge area and I have his address, which I would be willing to pass on to any NoTTLer living in the area prepared to visit and knock on his door and that of his neighbours. I do hope he has not succumbed to any serious illness.

    1. Elsie, I can do that, I live half an hour down the A14 from Peddy but I do not have his address. Perhaps if you forward it to Hertslass she can send it on to me?

      1. Poppiesmum: I’m afraid that the only email addresses I have are for Annie Allan, Bill Thomas and Korky the Kat, so I will risk posting Peddy’s actual address here as an attachment to this post. Then I shall delete the attachment later this morning. Please let me know by replying to this post when you have received and noted Peddy’s address so that I can delete the address as soon as possible.

          1. Thank you, Elsie, I will get over there later this morning. We were late waking up, disturbed night with Poppie. Please delete now.

      1. He said that he was looking forward to Xmas being a quiet non event. Maybe he did change his mind but I think he might have mentioned it.

  85. Hi all, Just back from the hospital. With no functioning GP service, everyone is being directed to A&E and they’re incredibly busy. My blood and urine don’t indicate anything amiss with my organs, including the gallbladder. I’ve been sent home with anti-sickness and ant-acid meds and am trying to eat. The queasiness at the first mouthful does seem to have reduced. Night night!

    3. Pleased to hear that everything is ok as far as can be seen, Sue, and the results are not clouded by the vaccine, I think you are vaccine-free? So that is one thing less to worry about for you. A nurse I came into contact with in France from N/Castle recommended good quality fizzy-type clear lemonade, boiled then cooled to taste, sipped throughout the day, (not bolted down!). Then plain boiled white rice with a little apple compote (this from our French neighbours) if you can manage it.

      The nhs is in a terrible state, it is being deliberately dismantled in plain sight.

      I hope you’re feeling better soon.

      1. The medics are being incentivised to avoid patient contact and relying on telephone triage. Likewise with the administration of flu jabs which cannot be trusted. God only knows what is in them.

        Likewise the pharmacies are profiting from the vaccination sections in their stores where previously shelves displayed Tena pads and tissues etc.

  90. Now I lay me down to sleep
    A bag of peanuts at my feet,
    If I should die before I wake-
    Give them to my brother Jake.

    Night everyone- let’s hope we hear from some absent friends tomorrow.

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