An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning. Persistent offenders will be banned.
Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.
Good morning, chums.
Good Morning, Elsie
Good morning, Bob3.
Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story
GET YOUR ‘CRUSHES’ RIGHT
The pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for an answered prayer. Suzie stood and walked to the podium.
She said, “I have some praise. Two months ago, my husband, Frank, had a terrible bicycle accident and his scrotum was completely crushed.
The pain was excruciating and the doctors didn’t know if they could help him.”
You could hear a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagined the pain that poor Frank must have experienced.
We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation, and it turned out they were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Frank’s scrotum, and wrap wire around it to hold it in place with metal staples.”
Good morning, Sir Jasper.
Good Morning, Elsie
And Frank stood up and told the congregation:“It was my Sternum that was crushed…..”
Easily confused.
Funnily enough I know a chap that happened to. Hes 60 now. And he’s still cycling.
Morning everyone.
Good morning, Minty.
Good Morning Folks
A bright start here
Wordle 929 3/6
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Aargh! You beat me to it. (Well done!)
Thanks
Wordle 929 4/6
I did it in 4 today – a splendid result.
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– Fourmidable
Same here
Wordle 929 4/6
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A par today.
Wordle 929 4/6
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The Tories have only themselves to blame for the rise of Reform UK
I think they have had enough of the old nation state self destruction malarkey, they want to get away and make some money and get their rewards and lucrative jobs
Good morning.
Tories (In Name Only) you mean.
Good morning.
Tories (In Name Only) you mean.
Well it’s the Tories own fault. For fourteen years they’ve been conducting wishy washy leftie policies to the annoyance of all Tory voters.
If the voters had wanted ineffectual leftie policies they would have voted LibDem.
Certainly not LibDems, Janet, also too wishy-washy. I shall vote Reform if I vote at all.
As my hitherto solidly true Blue constituency went to the LD candidate, it seems they do want wishy washy ineffectual leftie policies 🙁
Well then they are doomed…..but they happily voted for their destruction.
In Oswestry the Green councillors have jumped ship and joined the LDs. Perhaps they can see the way the wind is blowing (but if the Green loons are happy to be LDs, that means the LDs are not a viable proposition for sane people!).
Good morning, all. Black as yer hat outside. Can’t tell the weather. Chilly, too.
Good Morning, all
https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/responsive-image/content/2024/01/03/1704302696737.jpg
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F7ba60c2a-051b-41ac-a4d2-1fbca21ec932.jpg?crop=2751%2C1834%2C589%2C181&resize=1027.5
Many a true word eh.
Can’t Beat ‘Em, Ban ‘Em: Governing German Party Suggests Banning Surging Populist Opposition AfD
The leader of the left-wing Social Democrat Party (SPD) of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has suggested banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party amid the right-wing populist party’s surge in the polls.
SPD leader Saskia Esken said this week that an outright ban of the AfD should not be off the table to protect democracy, claiming that the party uses “every topic to incite people” which she said is “clearly anti-democratic”.
“Such a party ban is rightly subject to high hurdles. But I am convinced that we should keep reviewing it,” Esken told the German dpa news agency. “It is important that we talk about banning the AfD and that voters are shaken up.”
The left-wing leader’s comments come as the AfD has overtaken her party — which also happens to be the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz — in the polls, with the AfD becoming the most-supported single party in the country and only lags behind the combination of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), which given their strong partnership are typically counted in the polls together.
At present, the AfD, on the back of rising resentment over the failures of the past decade of open borders policies in Germany, stands at 23 per cent in the polls, compared to the SPD at 14.8 per cent, and its government coalition partners, the Greens at 13 per cent, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
*
*
*
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/01/03/cant-beat-em-ban-em-governing-german-party-suggests-banning-populist-opposition-afd-amid-surge-in-polls/
Nothing espouses the spirit of democracy more than the banning of political parties / candidates for election…..
Good morning Michael and all.
SPD leader Saskia Esken said this week that an outright ban of the AfD should not be off the table to protect democracy, claiming that the party uses “every topic to incite people” which she said is “clearly anti-democratic”.
Lol! You have to admire that for double-think!
SPD leader Saskia Esken said this week that an outright ban of the AfD should not be off the table to protect democracy, claiming that the party uses “every topic to incite people” which she said is “clearly anti-democratic”.
Lol! You have to admire that for double-think!
Germans have never quite got a heft on this democracy lark.
TBF – the past four years have displayed Blighty’s Teutonic streak in spades.
Britain was happy for roughly around a hundred golden years with the monarchy and the House of Lords providing stability, and most adults having a vote once every five years.
The HoL and the five year vote ensured that the benevolent dictatorship didn’t get out of hand.
Two things upset that: votes for women, which is a long slow process of destabilisation as women tend to vote for policies that benefit individuals over policies that keep the borders strong, and Blair’s constitution wrecking at the turn of the century.
Totally agree.
Speaking as a girlie, I find all too many of my fellow xx chromosome owners are an embarrassment.
All too many seem incapable of realising that feelings are no substitute for rational thought.
The feminisation of teaching has given this development wings and is destroying western culture.
The balance between the sexes – they are the complementary halves of humanity – has been destroyed. We are daily facing the results of that emasculation. Other cultures have gone to the other extreme with equally squalid results.
Agree 100%. The church, teaching, politics, the police…feminising these branches has done us no favours. Don’t know about the armed forces but suspect it’s the same.
Wow. I find that generalisation about women voting for “policies that benefit individuals over policies that keep the borders strong” really quite amazing. What makes you think that? I’d love to know how you. Reached that conclusion.
It’s pretty well known that women tend to vote more for left wing parties and left wing parties tend to offer policies with benefit to individuals, eg welfare benefits, free healthcare, support for single mothers. I don’t think there has ever been a long and comprehensive study of how female voting patterns have changed countries over the twentieth century, for obvious reasons. It would be heresy to suggest that Votes for Women and the sainted Suffragettes might have contributed to the downfall of the country!
Following Hitler’s lead in 1933.
Ze Germans reverting to form.
Ban a popular party. Only the Left could think that would protect Democracy.
So, let me get this right – to “protect democracy” the German Left want to ban an opposing party!?
Morning all.
That’s the way to do it!
Ve haf vays of making you vote the ‘correct’ vay.
Good Moaning.
Well, that was 3 hours of my life I will never get back.
The Mercury pantomime this year is “Sleeping Beauty”. Nowadays that story is a problem because the girl falls asleep and is woken with a kiss; so it’s all passive and rapey; the ultimate sins of modern theatre land. So the story was twisted to make SB ‘feisty’ i.e a shouty non-entity and the prince a figure of wet fun. So far, so predictable.
To make matters worse, under pressure from teenage sprogs, Sonny Boy booked the ‘adult’ performance. I can now understand how easily teenagers are hooked by perverted social media.
Adult was not the adjective I would have chosen. Constant use of the ‘f word’, mimed self-abuse and a penguin with a detachable phallus are not ‘adult’. Puerile, tedious, adolescent …… be my guest: the thesaurus is your friend.
I felt sorry for our son; he had booked this outing last September because the pantomime is the guaranteed sell-out and you have to book early.
Even without the ‘adult’ performance, the hounds of wokery had produced a gutless storyline that ruined the entire tale. The irony, the ability of pantomime to subtly work on two levels was totally lost.
Sounds as if Sonny Boy made you pay for your own G&T in the interval. Not a good move. {:^))
Last time i was at the Theatre i started with a large G&T and had another in the interval. Cost more than the ticket !
I will take a hip flask next time.
That’s what I carry, Philip, only with Whisky as opposed to G & T.
Katy was offloading some of her possessions before deserting us all for Buenos Aires and gave me a rather nice hip flask. Don’t know where she got it but it has a Papal Seal on it. :@)
My lips are Sealed 😉
Balancing a Papal ball on it’s nose perhaps?
Sounds awful. I’ll stick to Dad’s Army.
Good morning.
I must admit, that at the start of the Gaza/Israel conflict, I was a bit surprised to learn about the number of foreign hospitals from Christian and Muslim countries that were operating in Gaza. The text below is probably Israeli propaganda, but I think it is essentially true.
Of course, terrorists (on both sides) hate it when their people are happy and prosperous….
Olia
@oliaklein
An Arab blogger, Hoda Jannat, writes:
🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza, which is inhabited by 2 million people has 36 hospitals.
There are Arab countries with 30 million citizens and they do not have this number of hospitals.
🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was getting water, electricity, gas, and fuel for free from Israel.
Of course, there is no other Arab citizen who does not pay water, electricity and fuel bills.
🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was receiving $30 million a month from Qatar alone
And $120 million a month from UNRWA
And $50 million a month from the European Union
And $30 million a month from US
There are Arab countries drowning in debt and they can’t find anyone who would help them even with one million dollars.
🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was not besieged, and all goods were entering it, as were foreigners and people of foreign nationalities. Its residents were traveling to Egypt and from there to the rest of the world, and Fafo is the biggest example.
🔴 Suddenly we discovered that Gaza was living better than many Arab countries…and its people were living better than many Arab people.
🔴 Suddenly…we discovered that our minds were besieged by a programmed lie…by the (Muslim) Brotherhood media.
7:31 AM · Dec 25, 2023
from Chicago, IL·
TCW New Year Reads: Bill Gates, the quintessential false prophet
There is no such thing as a GOOD billionaire.
HomeNewsTCW New Year Reads: Bill Gates, the quintessential false prophet
Not sure he’s a prophet. He’s dangerous because he can enforce his beliefs through sheer spending power.
Governments are desperate to get into bed with such wealth because they’re parasites.
A true false prophet is Thunberg.
Good morning.
3°C outside, overcast but not raining at the moment and very light winds.
A BTL Comment:-
I don’t think it was either Mossad or Iran that dun it.
The Israelis have never gone in for suicide bombing – they like life too much, and if it was one of their missiles, there would be video footage gloating over its sophistication and destructive power. I know they’ve been itching to have a go at Iran, but really it can wait until Gaza and Lebanon is properly dealt with. Then they’ll toss whether to go for Iran or the neo-Ottomans in Turkey, according to where the greatest threat is. Might be wise to get Turkey expelled from NATO first though.
I cannot for the life of me see why the Iranian regime should go for their own, especially in a memorial service symbolically precious to them. If there were going to be any false flags from there, it would be closer to where Israelis are lurking, so that they could be properly blamed. Or they would knock out a few dissidents, such as those pesky women taking off their hijabs.
Most likely, considering that Israel had already established a covert alliance with ISIS in Syria, and that there have been cordial talks with the Saudis about the threat from the Houthis and Hamas (both allied with the Iranian regime), that it was an ISIS attack, possibly supplied from Saudi Arabia, which was set up with a nod and a wink from Jerusalem.
A couple more BTL Comments:-
Mr Geddes, by all means eliminate the reign of terror in the middle east but what about the pending reign of terror successive governments have imported into our cities? The pro-Palestinian demonstrators, complete with non-comprehending Britons doing a perfect performance of being useful idiots, have shown their support for terror and are here amongst us. It’s not going away anytime soon.
I do not understand why they did it. Why import millions of barbarian savages? They’re utterly incompatible with this country. They’re the source of all terrorism. Why does the state blithley stand by and allow these murderous savages free reign to rampage through our streets?
Why are they so protected? Were they brought here deliberately by the vicious, evil Left to destabilise this country and our society?
Yes.
Next …
Won £25 on the Premium Bonds!
£250 for me. Sadly the DT got nowt.
You could give her some of yours… :@)
I’ve won nowt in 68 years! Not a single brahse fahrthing.
Same as me, I split our parents bonds with my two sisters. The eldest rich sister is always winning.
I am going to win the jackpot this month.
I’ve £50 of them.
Same here with MOH’s bond.
Decided lack of diversity on the NS&I homepage.
https://www.nsandi.com/
Good morning all,
A nice start to the day at McPhee Towers but its going to be a day of two halves. Clouding over by early afternoon and heavy rain shortly after. Wind in the West going around to the East and a tad cooler at 5-7℃.
Two pieces about Nigel Farage in toiday’s DT. Camilla Tominey’s and this:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/533bd67bf11f8c4998e24e71b9d858db72c8145f9b21f5fee088007efb93a89c.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/03/farage-return-frontline-politics-tory-nightmare/
“One in one out” doesn’t quite cut it for me. I’d go for a complete ban on immigration for a generation and a policy of repatriation. Deport, deport, deport. Humanely of course. Once we’ve sorted out our internal problems (to include addressing the low native British birth rates) we can then restart it in a controlled ‘one in. one out’ fashion.
Why not start by deporting foreign criminals?
France does, so it can’t be against EU policy !!
No, but our fools are desperate europhiles and refuse to do anything that upsets the rechaining of this country to the hated EU.
Yes, I agree. However France deports foreign criminals and no one in Brussels disapproves of that.
….and Wibbling, why rejoin the EU at this moment?
A recent analysis warned that the Eurozone is currently experiencing a recession due to drastically decreased manufacturing output, with France seeing its lowest point in over three years.
Dr Cyrus de la Rubia, Chief Economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB), said what he called a “relentless slump” spells a “bleak picture”.
Furthermore, he asserted that the third quarter of last year saw the monetary union enter a recession.
According to the HCOB Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey, as of the end of 2023, the industry “remained stuck in contraction,” with output declining and factory job losses stretching into a seventh consecutive month.
I noticed in the finances this evening that our Parish Council is still paying a fee for GDPR registration. Why hasn’t that EU requirement been ditched?
Get back and lead, Farage – we need your type.
There’s an easier solution that helps everyone. Tax breaks for married couples with children. You receive a tax break if you have children – any number of children it’s the same amount.
If you’re on welfare, obviously you receive nothing. By scrapping child benefit the 10 kid muslim households simply stop. Do the same for housing benefit over say, 6 years. Get the state out of housing entirely. Stop paying people to breed. No need for deportation. The welfare class will leave of their own accord once the cash dries up.
Then introduce school vouchers to force up the quality of education – by getting the state out of it.
There’s an easier solution that helps everyone. Tax breaks for married couples with children. You receive a tax break if you have children – any number of children it’s the same amount.
If you’re on welfare, obviously you receive nothing. By scrapping child benefit the 10 kid muslim households simply stop. Do the same for housing benefit over say, 6 years. Get the state out of housing entirely. Stop paying people to breed. No need for deportation. The welfare class will leave of their own accord once the cash dries up.
Then introduce school vouchers to force up the quality of education – by getting the state out of it.
Deny emigration to indigenous Brits.
If this were a nicer place to live which rewarded hard work, there would be fewer incentives for indigenous Brits to leave to seek more congenial places abroad.
381347+ up ticks,
Morning Each,
Thursday 4 January: The Tories have only themselves to blame for the rise of Reform UK
One giant leap for the electorate, from the drying pan to the fire.
The tory (ino) party going into reset name change mode, sad to say lessons WILL NOT be learnt on reflection and in regards to the 2019 General Election.
As for this politico leopard ever changing his spots, no bloody way.
His odious urrerings regarding the peoples that gave and supported a platform for him for years is shown quite clearly
via his appreciation for their efforts.
https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk?si=NmXa9TCh72mOr3yO
But, Ogga, they will be the only type to get us out of this mess and back on the straight and Narrow,
381347+ up ticks,
Morning SJ,
Once bitten ……..
Bitten multiple times proves dangerous idiocy.
Ogga, you can’t demand we stop voting for one bunch of socialists and then complain about the alternative.
Heck, even the Warqueen is fed up with the state of things mainly because despite the tax avoidance constructs she’s a specialist in still see her clients hammered for stealth taxes.
381347+ upticks,
Morning W,
I can’t ?
The alternative ?That in my book is precisely the point “they” are of the same political bloody ilk.
A real alternative in the shape of a political party is NOT coming into its own as of yet.
All I can honestly see is a
name change, getting rid of the current governing overseers, their job is done in regards to RESET so the baton is passed on
Demand nay, warn Yea.
I love thought-provoking Freudian slips. When the term “dry” politically meant Conservative-radical, then a Conservative Government could be thought of as a “drying pan” (as opposed to a bucket, meaning the opposite).
I presume Farage has been enjoying a few episodes of ‘Naked Attraction’ when referring to our women that the media people are insisting we should be attracted to. The man himself seems to prefer Australian cockroaches.
381347+ up ticks,
Morning JM,
I did initially pick up on the typo error and thought I had corrected it.
No matter leave as.
In that video Farage does not call Brexiteers “tattooed skinheads, racist and thugs”.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c614bd4623af91435defc43123a6d51e805ff77a0ddead6649ecb54cba9eaed.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fcb082743ad15109a331cea64518c9e4c4c1b7b56b3547ab5952abbc3b7695a.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b4bf5cdebcda14b5b85b3296473e329b947359e0567d9efee658d850aefe15c.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f01c7831bc78ebdd043a5b4e1b15c27714e81102aadd529072e49096097dceca.jpg It’s a bit parky, outside, after a 24-hour blizzard on strong easterlies. 15″ of lying snow (deeper in the drifts) will remain for some time since the temperature will plunge to –14ºC over the weekend.
Bloody global warming!
It always looks beautiful Grizz, but no thanks. My memory still reminds me of 62/63.
Everything in moderation.
Happy New year.
Happy New Year, Eddy. I only remember, too well, walking to and from school, every day (none were missed) in that “spring” term of ’63.
Our low temperatures are not expected to last more than a week-or-so (I’ll keep you posted on how accurate that forecast is/was).
I had not long started work.
On the way home from Harrow to Mill Hill via two buses. The driver of the 18 couldn’t hold it on an ungritted road and we ended up stuck on a small roundabout. It took me more than two hours to walk home.
Dinner in the oven of course. Good old muvver.
Minus 20 at the top of Wormngford hill.
It took the bus 2 hours to get from Bures to Wormingford.
After that, I just sat there dumbly accepting we would get to Colchester … sometime.
At least you were warm. Imagine if it were a battery bus.
:-). Good old diesel. I can hear it wheezing up the hill.
The Maltese had a fondness for their old buses. Very bouncy ! Trouble is you could see particularly at night that the air was blue with fumes. All run by the transport mafia of course. Better now with the modern buses. Air conditioned too.
Brrrrr…
Nikkaluokta,
a small village inhabited by indigenous Sami people in northern Sweden,
recorded a temperature of minus 41.6 C (minus 42.8 F) early Tuesday, the meteorology department said. It added it was not unusual for temperatures to dip below minus 40 C in Nikkaluokta.8 hours ago
It doesn’t matter if it’s minus 40C or minus 40F, as they are both the same.
I can still remember our last year in Bavaria when, in early April no less, we had a massive last fall of snow – I think officially it was almost 2 metres that fell, although it did compact to about my waist height as it settled! I did have a photo of my wife, looking somewhat shocked by it – she’s only just 5 feet tall! Sadly I can’t find that photo at present.
Mine, today is two feet deep, on the level, with drifts between one and two yards deep.
We’re promised -25C at the weekend. Lots snow already – don’t forget to shift it before it freezes into a concrete-like clump.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/984b59d59004715c0d734cb939b2c9cdb6147c7d64091828c72d56f16706da17.jpg
Shovels have been out all morning. Also, my friend and across-the-road-neighbour, Bengt, has had his tractor, with fitted snow shovel, out clearing everyone’s driveways and paths.
It’s global boiling, and that’s climate change. The climate changes every year.
The weather varies from year to year but climate changes gradually and subtly.
Winter has yet to start here. It feels like a prolonged autumn. I’ll not be surprised if, once again, winter is just a few days sandwiched between autumn and spring.
About half an inch of snow in Ottawa last night, just enought to dust the car and the roads. We need a lot more snow before the pot holes are filled.
No doubt about there being a “Uniparty” now.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/794b8b362836b8283ecf1e4243a63a45e3eed308d343436df1ad0c4e2240eefe.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/04/tory-labour-power-transfer-talks-warning-general-election/
Peter Hitchens once said that he viewed the left, people like Owen Jones who was interviewing him at the time, as his opponents, not his enemies. I beg to differ. The left, which includes the current “Conservative” party are our enemies. It is they who have brought us to the place we find ourselves. They are the enemies of the good, honest, patriotic, native British people.
I didn’t realise Starmer is another short-arse.
What will they find to discuss?
They are in total agreement. Mutual back-slapping over coffee and bikkies?
381345+ up ticks,
Morning Anne,
“What will they find to discuss?”
Your & my demise.
Too true and that’s why we have a major problem.
Beer and sandwiches?
381347+ up ticks,
Morning FM,
Been a coalition since M Thatcher (rip).
The majority voter would not accept it,
As is now proving, fools and their Countries soon parted.
I’ll pinch your last line for twtter if you don’t mind, it’s VERY apt for our times!
I do wonder what they’ll talk about. I imagine Labour simply want to say how much more they’ll waste.
I do wonder what they’ll talk about. I imagine Labour simply want to say how much more they’ll waste.
As “good, honest, patriotic, native British people” are now a minority, maybe even amongst “native British people”, then the enemies have the upper hand.
Morning all 🙂😊
Not bad out side for early January, the garbos have been already and I didn’t hear a thing.
The Tories eh ! A bunch of complacent
self serving morons who can’t see any further than the ends of their stuck up noses, who have been ‘working hard’ at wrecking our country. A government now costing the British economy more than 60 million pounds a week. While it tries to cover up its still ongoing mistakes.
That doesn’t mean labour or the Limps are any better. Wastemonster is now filled with mindless ‘me’ idiots. Where’s an Oliver Cromwell when we need one ?
Guy Fawkes would be a better option.
Of course Alf but a lot of those useless political idiots aren’t in their every day.
Do it on a day when they are ‘debating’ their salary increase. They’ll all be there for that one.
.Is it coz i is black?
Claudine Gay has exposed the rot at the heart of the woke establishment
The former Harvard president failed to stand up against racism. The BBC and the Left are bizarrely treating her as the victim.
Douglas Murray
3 January 2024 • 7:07pm
Credit: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
Last month’s Congressional hearings on anti-Semitism on US
campuses will go down as one of the biggest disasters in modern academic
history. The presidents of three major US universities all proved unable to answer the question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews would be considered beyond the pale
on their campuses. The president of the University of Pennsylvania –
Liz Magill – managed to ride out the backlash for a few days. Harvard’s
president held on rather longer. But this week she, too, finally
resigned.
Claudine Gay might have weathered the storm because she
had the protective cover of being Harvard’s first black female
president, and in an age of identity politics that puts her very close
to the top of the oppression Olympics that now dominate everything in
American public life. You can be rich, privileged and the president of
Harvard. But it transpires that you can still claim to be a victim if
you are Claudine Gay.
That is what she tried to claim in her
resignation statement on Tuesday. She said that there had been “racial
animus” in the attacks on her. In fact, the attacks started because of
her glaring inability to stand up to racism, followed by allegations
that Gay’s distinctly meagre academic work, included a significant amount of plagiarism.
The plagiarism story had been around for a while, but after her
Congressional embarrassment, a larger number of people – including
Leftist media – started to look into these serious allegations.
At
first, Harvard tried to ignore them. Its board embarrassed itself by
repeatedly expressing its full support for her. Ordinarily, basic
academic failings like seeming to lift whole chunks of work – including
acknowledgements – from the works of others would have seen a student
censured. But not the Harvard president, apparently.
Finally it became too much. Gay’s resignation letter on Tuesday
could have confessed to her failings and apologised. But it did no such
thing. She went out the same way she had got in: on a blizzard of
victimhood.
Others joined in her defence. Ibram X Kendi (author of the mistitled bestseller How To Be an Antiracist)
claimed that “Racist mobs won’t stop until they topple all Black people
from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the
structure of racism.” Nikole Hannah-Jones (who initiated the New York Times’s
lamentably ahistorical “1619 Project”) claimed something similar. She
said in the wake of Gay’s resignation that “Academic freedom is under
attack. Racial justice programs are under attack. Black women will be
made to pay.”
In its coverage of Gay’s resignation, even the BBC
claimed that the embattled former president had been a victim of
America’s “campus culture wars”. The broadcaster also said that “For her
Right-wing critics, Dr Gay – who is black – represents much of what
they loathe about modern American higher education, which they view as
being dominated by a Left-wing ideology that places a greater emphasis
on ethnic and gender diversity than on academic rigour.”
Which is a
typical BBC smear. Note the way in which the report implies that Gay
being black was the problem here. And that the idea that identity
politics trumps academic rigour is some kind of phantasm from the
fevered imagination of the Right. The trouble is that identity politics
does trump academic rigour in the modern American academy. Gay’s own
appointment last year was testimony to this. Although in her bitter
resignation statement she claimed that academic excellence and standards
are central to who she is, they have never been obviously so. She
herself is almost entirely without academic distinction.
She has
written no published books and only has 11 journal articles to her name.
Nearly all of these are about the usual modern American sociology
obsessions about race and status. It is an embarrassingly thin output
for anyone expecting any academic preferment. The idea that someone with
such paltry achievements could ever have risen to be president of
Harvard would until recently have been preposterous.
The very
idea is ridiculous. But it doesn’t mean that the Left in America and
further afield will not continue to excuse Gay. The truth is that as
well as being a moral catastrophe, she was a walking disaster for
Harvard. It was high time she went. But nobody should feel sorry for
her. This already very privileged woman is going to remain on the
teaching faculty of Harvard with a nice pay package of around $900,000 a
year. Victimhood turns out to be nice work if you can get it.
Douglas Murray
Not only the more obvious but, Claudine doesn’t wear the usual wig, frowns a lot and dresses like a male.
Oh well, that’s fits in very nicely with the bbc adgenda.
They very much like to squeeze a moaning victim into our lives.
And we are forced to pay for all their invented insignificant rubbish.
Another failure caused by appointing an inadequate candidate because she ticked the right boxes.
Did anyone mention the word token?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17ce4f139a6760af3b4fbe5ed3cfa1cb59b2346d85636c2b007062cbfba2680a.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/860fedec91aa945042bce571298330dce9bf4052f44026ce727042b8f241a1b2.png Has “line up” replaced queue in proper standard English in the same way that other crass Yankee idiocies, such as how “one time” and “two times” has supplanted once and twice; and “convinced” has routinely replaced persuaded, especially in DT reporting?
And ‘h’aitch and train station…………..
Cue vis: ‘erb. No, there’s an H in it. It’s herb, not ‘erb’.But they also call a router a rowduh, and pronounce any word with a t in it as a D. Battle becomes baydull.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/959df7495c0cd2bda0f64e22c86ec3c60683f69b45b0d1d339a00fb0336ae5a4.jpg
If so, then “It’s German, not ‘Swiss German’. There is no such thing as ‘Swiss German’. There is German and there are mistakes.”
Choristers have long had this argument about the silent ‘h’ in French when singing the Cantique de Jean Racine.
Words such as ‘hotel’ are derived from the French and therefore follow French rules as to whether the ‘h’ is a vowel or a consonant when anglicised. It was considered U for a while for it to be a vowel, and one of the things that sorted out whether one sat on a couch or a settee.
My interpretation is that the French ‘h’ at the beginning of words is a glottal, and therefore a consonant, even though superficially it is silent. Therefore, when anglicised, “a hotel” is better than “an hotel”, but I am sure folk will continue to argue about it for as long as there is a class system in England.
Americans seem incapable of distinguishing the English vowel sound ‘o’ and ‘aw’ from ‘ah’, and American actors attempting a British accent usually fall down as soon as they say ‘hot’ or ‘caught’, which comes out as “haht” and “caht”.
Actually, in French (and I sit on a sofa) H can be either aspirated (as in le haras) or not, as in l’homme.
Stations are illogical in both languages!
In US English…
“The train stops at the train station.
The bus stops at the bus station.
On my desk, I have a work station…”
In English, we have a station on the railway (railway station), but we also have a bus station. Why isn’t it a road station?
Then we have a petrol station, which is even more confusing! Where the petrol stops???
“…and work stops there?“
Exactly!
Isn’t the English language wonderful rather than the American language. It’s being eccentric that sets us apart.
A station is a recognised place to stop. Unlike a car trains do not stop at any point on the railway for people to board and alight. The trains, on rails, only stop at set places. A bus station is, normally, a place more like a garage where buses stop overnight etc. the petrol station is where you stop to take on fuel.
Seems quite simple to me but then, as you know, I’m a simple fellah.
Train station is actually more logical than railway station. The Germans use Bahnhof which is railway station too.
It’s all Bahnhof to me…:-))
Hinter den bahnhof was always the exciting place!
Agreed, Alf.
How does that explain the dreadful sentence “the next station stop is X”, as heard persistently on our trains?
How many Englishmen work on the railways?
I suppose it’s to distinguish them from those stations which the train will pass through without stopping, even though those are never announced.
UK and the US
Two nations divided by one Language
It’s a laziness along with ‘hope you’re doing good’. Who is good, and what is it you are doing to them?
Americans struggle with the basics of grammar. It’s their television shows.
“good” instead of “well” is a direct translation from German, which doesn’t have adverbs. American English borrows a lot from German.
‘wohl”?
Good catch! It’s just not used in the same way that we use adverbs in English though!
In answer to “How are you?” they say “Mir geht’s gut” not “Mir geht’s wohl”
Interestingly, I looked on the dictionary page for wohl, and found some relationship with the English “well”
“Er hätte sehr wohl mitkommen können.” – he could well have come along.
Perhaps wohl is left over from past days when they did use adverbs?
I’ll forgive the Germans, but not the amuhricahns. They are wrong by default.
I don’t like knee-jerk anti-americanism. The US was hijacked in 1913 by a corrupt cabal of bankers, and has been run as a mafia ever since. But the American people have a lot of energy and love of liberty. There are things that the obedient, defenestrated Europeans and Britons could learn from them!
Similar to the one time one two times is the ‘second year anniversary’ etc.
Nobody seems able to use ‘multiplied by” these days.
Even Mark Twain used “don’t” in place of “doesn’t”, as in “don’t it just…”! I often have to explain “one time usage” to people at work when they see that expression in American licencing terms. It means use in one project only and isn’t intended to limit the scope of the usage to a single broadcast, which is always the worry that’s expressed. I don’t think the authors appreciate the ambiguity.
That’s passable but then we get the horrible threepeat and fourpeat words they have invented to describe when a sports team is vying to win an event for the third or fourth time.
Sends shivers right down me back it does.
DT is forced to, you know (sorry: it’s a pet peeve of mine, the insistence of the Terriblegraph to use the word “force” when literally hundreds of others words would be more apposite).
At school during the 1950s, we used to line up; end of break time, going into classrooms etc…
We didn’t. We formed a queue.
I would suggest that there is a subtle difference between “lining up” and “queueing”. Forming a line to enter a doorway does not necessarily constitute forming a queue (to obtain goods or pay, for instance).
With regard to the excess deaths and the valid points raised by sosraboc, here is another (slightly blurred, sorry) relevant chart of the number of people registered with a disability in the US. This tends to bear out the idea that there has been a catastrophic harmful event since 2021 and it’s not just part of a wider trend.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8cd65aefa880df4c58f477a90ffef0e46f22de4bb5ac0250e079e74aaa9fa86b.jpg
Very possibly down to Covid and vaccinations.
But here’s an alternative explanation:
Biden and the Democrats gain power. The best way to qualify for social security care and/or to gain a job if you are a white male is to have a problem to get you a little bit of positive as opposed to negative discrimination.
er…is there any proof of that, or are you merely exercising your imagination?
I’m just demonstrating that other answers may be equally possible.
Every year that passes produces more and more available excuses to get preferential treatment. The Floyd effect and BLM have exacerbated the problems, look at US University admissions bias on affirmative action as a key indicator.
My hypothesis fits the graph at least as well as, if not better than the claim it’s down to vaccinations.
Where’s your proof that it is the vaccinations or are you merely exercising your imagination?
A gentle reminder, correlation does not prove causation.
But Sos, correlation did prove causation if you got run over by a bus within 28 days of a pcr test.
Quite, which rather proves my point.
Various men and women who have spent long and illustrious careers in the vaccine industry predicted in advance a tsunami of heart disease, neurological problems, cancers and sudden deaths after the mrna jabs were rolled out, based on their knowledge of what mrna jabs have done in tests before. When such a wave of these conditions appears, I think it is justfiable to assume that the mrna jabs have had something to do with it.
Indeed, and that is where I would be placing my bet.
But there are too many instances where esteemed scientists, with illustrious careers, have been proven to be wrong for me to refuse to accept that there might be other explanations.
One can also take into account that scientists are only human and it is as easy to buy one as it is to buy a politician…
381347+ up ticks,
We, as a Nation are proving, on a daily basis, his statement to be true and we will once again add substance to the statement via the polling stations at the next General Election.
https://x.com/IpechMuseum/status/1742115328409403462?s=20
Russians advance near Avdiivka. 4 January 2023.
Russia has made a confirmed advance near the heavily-attacked Ukrainian city of Avdiivka.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank, said it had geolocated footage showing Moscow’s forces pushing back the Ukrainian army.
Avdiivka is a partially encircled industrial city in eastern Ukraine that has been the focus of Russian attacks in recent months in a bid to take a major settlement for the first time since Bakhmut in May.
A complete collapse of the Ukrainian Army is not beyond the realms of possibility. We know from history that this can occur suddenly and is particularly likely to happen to demoralised troops. The problem is that we don’t really know what condition the Ukies are in due to the lies and fabrications of the MSM. We do know that it is old army and that there must be considerable resentment that they are being asked to carry the load while vast numbers of younger men have declined the opportunity to serve by bunking off to Foreign Climes. The recent measures by the Zelensky Govermneme to round up these people might be seen as panic measures to prevent a debacle at the front.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/04/ukraine-russia-war-live-advance-avdiivka-latest/
“If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined up”.
Ginger, you’re barmy. You should’ve joined the army! 🙂
And without Biden – enthusiastically encouraged by Boris Johnson – war could have been avoided altogether at outset and the Ukraine would have got a better deal than it will get when it has been defeated in the war.
And of course, something that is irrelevant to our politicians – hundreds of thousands of lives would not have been lost.
This is presumably where all the MPs will be while the debate on excess deaths is going on….
wonder whether Bridgen has been to these sort of things in the past? It sounds like something that an MP with finely tuned antennae would avoid like the plague.
https://twitter.com/ABridgen/status/1742634889843782082
A quotation from last Sunday’s Sunday Times:
“World Economic Forum, a body that promotes cooperation between the
public and private sector”
–so now we know, they are all nice guys !!
One could describe any authoritarian political party in the same general terms!
Perhaps – but he might want to know what is going on as well. Attending doesn’t necessarily mean supporting.
This is presumably where all the MPs will be while the debate on excess deaths is going on….
wonder whether Bridgen has been to these sort of things in the past? It sounds like something that an MP with finely tuned antennae would avoid like the plague.
https://twitter.com/ABridgen/status/1742634889843782082
Afternoon, all Y’all
Nearly sunny.
Summers day here.
But it’s only 10:34 am
My word television is taking a new dive today.
Vine has been suggesting that darts should be the UKs top sport. I aways understood to be considered a sport the participants at least due to the given activities, had to become breathing a bit harder.
Guardian journo Finnius Harper is firmly suggesting more men should be wearing skirts.
How effing stupid can our journalism become.
Go and live in dubai if you want to wear a skirt. …….But oh, hang on a bit…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHnBppccI0o
True story, A long time ago (early 70s ) on a tour of the beautiful Welsh coast with an old fried. We stopped in The Mumbles for a lunch break. Went to a pub and had a pint there was a hardly any one in so we played darts. I’m not a darts player, but my mate played for our local pub team. a couple locals arrived and chalked their names on the board which was a challenge to us. so we played them and won they had to by us each a pint. It carried on as more people came into the pub but nobody had knocked us off. We were getting a bit Brahms and List. It was my turn and My mate Pat said you’ve got a three dart finish. I of course ask what it was, 69 he said 17, double six, double top. Bang, bang, bang and a lot of the locals walked out. But i’m no good unless I have had a few. We had to sit out of the sun under the pier and sleep it off.
Strange isn’t it that darts and drinking go so well together when alcohol normally negatively affects coordination.
I’ve always had good hand eye coordination. Goalkeeper, squash. Not a bad golfer either.
Same thing happened once in Calliopi in QLD. Went to a pub with Alan, a guy I was working with. We played pool and the locals became involved the more I drank the better I played.
One of them accused me of being a pro. Ha ha ha.
Darts and snooker are games not sport in the true meaning.
Yo RE
may I point out a Topy (sic)
Whine has suggested
I can’t watch it for more than 15 minutes at a time. More so when he has those horrid far left DHs on the ‘panel’
I’m sorry, but what concern is this of the Met Police? Am i missing something?
Yes.
Better to sit in an office appealing for allegations than being in danger in South London:
https://republicanwatch.com/four-police-officers-injured-in-london-diversity-riot/
Back from t’Market. Quieter than usual. As were the shops. Sunny now. And the “tornado” has passed us by completely.
No news again, I see.
ARMAGEDDON : Labour is probably unbeatable at the coming general election
The Reform Party has an uphill task even to defeat the Conservatives; even if they got more votes they would probably still win fewer seats than Sunak’s pathetic party even in the unlikely event of Nigel Farage becoming Reform’s leader.
Too many diehard Conservative voters still cannot yet see that the Conservative Party is dead and too many Conservative Party MPs cannot see that it is now time to resign from the Conservative Party and join Reform. Not only does Reform need Farage as its leader but it needs a very substantial number of sitting Conservative MPs to defect now.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98796ff9e7067e1a8d0909216f39759ca1970aa835f3d9b94da2d49200f93a52.png
UKIP not only got more votes than the SNP it also got more votes than the SNP and the Lib/Dems combined.
SNP + Lib/Dem: 12.6 % 64 Seats (56 + 8)
UKIP : **********12.7 % 1 Seat
381347+ up ticks,
Afternoon R,
The ukip party along with farage input have shown their true colours back in 2019.
As for farage front & centre I do agree NEVER in the rear ranks, reason being via his own tongue his view on past loyal supporters.
https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk?si=rTBd1HoQ7dzjU35x
This is boring now. Stop posting it, ogga. If you don’t like Farage, that’s fine, but at least present a cogent argument.
381347+ up ticks,
Afternoon W,
I do sympathise in regards to your feelings but, I also have suffered via the polling stations for four decades through the actions of dangerous fools putting, repeatedly, in alternating fashion, ersatz parties before Country.
In short voting for a party name.
Sorry Rastus, but I have that feeling again, you know, the one where you’re sitting in the theatre and Mainstream Media Presents….an epic struggle betwen the Tories, Reform and Labour…and the parasite class doesn’t care who wins because they own all of them.
Meanwhile Reclaim, UKIP, Heritage, Britain First and all the other genuine opposition parties get nary a mention.
About time Reclaim, UKIP, Heritage, Britain First and all the other genuine opposition parties got their bloody act together – and that includes Reform; and amalgamated to form one united opposition party.
All the others, bar Reform, were willing to co-ordinate.
Why didn’t they? Twould have got Reform worried enough to join?
No, I think you’ve misunderstood. Reform was not willing to co-operate with the others. All the rest were quite happy to co-ordinate their efforts so as not to split the vote.
About time Reclaim, UKIP, Heritage, Britain First and all the other genuine opposition parties got their bloody act together – and that includes Reform; and amalgamated to form one united opposition party.
Breaking news
Pizza Hut has decided to close its franchise on Epstein Island
I’ll never forget this! Mother elephant cuddles her calf with her trunk as they are reunited days after the young animal was separated from the herd and got lost
This is the emotional moment a mother elephant cuddled her calf with her trunk as they were reunited days after the youngster was separated from its herd.
Aerial shots showed the animal, aged between four and five months, safely asleep and tightly pressed against its mother after a touching reunion.
Park officials found the calf and returned it to the herd after it disappeared on December 29. It spent a day lost and alone in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu, India.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/04/08/79605655-0-image-a-17_1704358772768.jpg
A calf and its mother lie together three days after the baby was separated from the group
*
*
*
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12925651/mother-elephant-cuddles-calf-tamil-nadu-india.html
How lovely.
I don’t know if anyone has posted this yet but it’s yet another example of how the big corporations conspire to screw us all. A simple device which has been around since 1941 which, if fitted to internal combustion engines, would save fuel, clean up emissions and dramatically improve engine component life. It’s not only been suppressed by the oil and motor industries but also by motoring organisations and government agencies in the UK. Too much benefit for the plebs, you see, not enough profit for them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhU6tR_GnoI
https://fuelspiracy.info
Yesterday the Condor ferry to Portsmouth from St Malo was cancelled and so, in the very strong winds, driving rain and in the cold and dark we had to drive to Ouistreham to take Henry and his girlfriend to a Brittany Ferries crossing at 2330 hrs.
The round trip was 380 kms. Given the weather conditions we would have been unwise to have made the journey in an electric car and had we done so we would have had the expense of an overnight hotel. As it was our diesel fuelled minibus used about a quarter of the tank for the there and back journey.
‘Morning All (just)
Medley Time
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/841e0c90150358d3470e785dedca24d6bc1ee2edff13b381d0508725c8d9465a.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f94dd7a7b0fbbdf65632d379663cd5b89f3220cca3dcb062db6bfae15749ef82.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f18f744d3c22174a01eecf3a79f2cbd6492770fc173669da4476880d9d660a9.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4847d3da4ac156e43af82a5e50560b3b575fe6741839a3eb81f030f7034f2e1b.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfa737aee3305f8023b01a9815a427ed91a29c2ac8ae5c5cfe955837d98321c2.jpg
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https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/615642720060a0cbd7615653f4fe696db05e25612c2fed7b10843c5a87822ae9.jpg
Hi Rik,
Just started reading Neal Asher ‘Owner series’. Try Abe books. Half price of Amazon.
Departure is the first in the series and speaks of all that is coming. Implants. Community credit cards. 15 minute cities. People regarded as Zero Asset and murdered. Surveillance backed up by armed robots. Control of resources.
Wotcha Pip
I’ll get them from here
https://libgen.is/fiction/?q=neal+asher+owner&criteria=&language=English&format=epub
Thanks for the tip.
“Free”, on Kindle Unlimited
That’s Prime isn’t it?.
Did you know you don’t actually own the books on your Kindle?
You borrow Kindle Unlimited, you own the one’s that you buy.
Good morning, Rik
Here’s the chap who should be in your group of global warming zealots who want to keep their private jets. The sad thing is that the laugh is on us – we who have to pay for Net Zero scams.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f59fc27405ce20c6e6cfec0124aa82a87730664490bc072232e3579ecd34a550.png
Ahem
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c4010c278319e4e00c2638a7459217f2d905a0196b75c717b41688d22c3c6fe.jpg
Afternoon Richard
Not just private jets. Rishi Sunak stepped in personally to save two taxpayer funded £40 million helicopters for his use.
Test cricket has just set a new record with the just finished South Africa v India match at Cape Town producing a winner in just 642 balls, the fewest ever. Although five days, as is customary, were allocated, this one finished in the second session.of the second day, 12 overs after lunch. Of note was Aiden Markram’s 106 runs in the second innings when neither he in the first nor any other South African in both bettered 15. Also, Mohammed Siraj took 6 South African wickets in their first innings for the loss of a mere 15 runs.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/india-in-south-africa-2023-24-1387592/south-africa-vs-india-2nd-test-1387604/live-cricket-score
A staggering scorecard.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/scorecard/ECKE1216256
Junior has had a SIPP from the day of his birth. We put in £100 a month into it as a joint £50 each. He has a junior ISA as well and gets £50 from there through Vanguard. The dogs are costing £500 a month now into their own accounts. There’s a difficult decision when Mongo and Oscar die to have another. I wasn’t sure when Wiggy died but we already had Mongo as a puppy then.
The electricity bill is £300 this month. We’ve really not used a lot and the complaints are mounting up. I think the carpets will rot due to damp. I’ve bought curtains for the back bedroom in the intent of trying to help that a bit. As we work in there it can be quite cold, and in summer is too hot.
I’m wholeheartedly sick and tired of the socialists in government. Everyone not paying seems to get whatever they want while those who pay get nothing. We’re borrowing some of her Swiss money to pay for the bathroom. We’re looking at how long that’ll last as between us, with nigh on £5000 coming in each month we are struggling. How, in the name of trousers can that income not be enough to live on for a family of three? We’re not over extended on our mortgage, we budgeted for the higher council tax and yet we look at the figures and it’s just depressing.
How, in the name of trousers can that income not be enough to live on for a family of three?
It’s a mystery to me Wibbles but I live very frugally and yet still deny myself nothing I want. Are you sure that there’s not some form of embezzlement going on?
We account for every penny we spend. I know we’ve had really big costs going out over the last four months but it just seems incredibly hard to get ahead. You do, then you’re hammered by something else.
I don’t know your personal circumstances Wibbles but could I suggest they you have an accountant run over your finances. They might spot something that you have missed!
I’m married to a chartered tax accountant! We’ve just got very high outgoings that have all gone up. Mongo’s insurance – of the £200 off quid 20 is tax when it used to be 2. Electricity is 30p a KW and it used to be 11p. Tradesman costs have soared because of energy, fuel and their own taxes. If our six person company pays itself more money in wages we pay more tax. If we don’t, we pay more tax. We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
And I’m sick of it. A friend is paying more in food for his family than he is on his mortgage. What sort of insane world are we living in when that happens?
I’m with you Wibbles. We paid our mortgage off just over a year ago (using money releases from my pension) and i was looking forward to saving some money but it just flows out, out, out. Which is why I get so exercised about the costs of the illegal immigrants, net zero, unfunded pensions, NHS bureaucracy, insane laws creating more non-jobs in the public sector (DIE officers) and supporting the costs of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Norn Iron.
That’s my biggest bug bear. We pay and pay and pay and get so little in return. Costs just keep going up for things we do not want or need simply because government wants them.
I’m counting the months til the mortgage is paid off. I’ll go bananas if I don’t have a bit of spare money!
Can you grow some of your own food, source it more cheaply or do more home cooking?
The gang are fed up with Chilli already. I’m annoyed that the oven is taking so long. I should sort that out in getting rid of the old one and putting the new one in. But that’s another cost in building a bally plinth.
Two of my cousins have these cookers and swear by them.
Not cheap to buy, but they run off a normal electric point.
There are other suppliers of these cookers.
https://www.dissironworks.co.uk/category/brands/everhot/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgcit5PPDgwMVDYpQBh1fIg0_EAAYASAAEgJ9b_D_BwE
Buy a mini oven. Much more efficient, No plumbing in necessary. https://www.amazon.co.uk/mini-ovens/b?ie=UTF8&node=1391050031
I haven’t used my main oven in over a year. I use it to store pots and pans now. I still have a gas hob though.
If you are making chilli you can also use different seasonings and make meatballs in a tomato sauce. Spicy Koftas and salad. Lasagne. Cottage pie. All from mince but all different in taste.
Microwaves are much, much cheaper to run than an oven.
Chillis are easy to grow in a pot on the windowsill and you can preserve/dry them in the micro. Lasts forever.
You say that Phizee but when we tried we failed miserably. Any tips?
Buy small plants rather than seeds. Good soil/compost. Lots of light. Ask at your garden centre.
OK sorry in advance for the lecture – I am a single mother with four children so qualify for the world championships in saving money…(it all went on Au Pairs and private schools…yes I know….)
If you want to be really warm, get a wood stove. I use mine for cooking as well, thus saving the leccy for cooking. Got rid of the toaster and the electric kettle too. You can burn pallets or firewood.
I never buy any of the following, they are all far too expensive and/or unhealthy; breakfast cereal, juice, crisps, biscuits, cakes, fancy puddings, ready made sauces, frozen dinners, mayonnaise, salad dressing, out of season fruit, fancy sliced meat. I only buy wine when we go to France.
In particular breakfast cereal – children will eat as much of this darn expensive product as you are ready to buy them. It’s a rip off. Just don’t buy it at all. Ditto sliced ham, they will make expensive sandwiches til it’s gone.
Most of what I buy is ingredients – meat, veg, fruit, bread, olive oil, vinegar, oats, milk, butter, cheese, plain yoghurt, baking ingredients, lard, coffee, tea, jars of preserved fruit. Dark chocolate is one of the main food groups, so buying it doesn’t count as a luxury.
I only cook twice a day, breakfast and lunch. We don’t eat dinner.
Get rid of any entertainment packages, and the TV licence too. Waste of money, as is gym membership if you don’t use it often. Go jogging and do planks, it’s free.
Drive at 50 mph, it saves fuel.
Buy most of your clothes on Vinted or at charity shops.
Get curtains and furniture from ebay small ads, junk shops or charity shops. Car boot sales are good for gardening equipment and expensive stuff like camera tripods and home gym stuff. Let some other mug buy it new and pick it up from them for a couple of pounds!
Turn down the thermostat on the hot water for the shower, and wash your clothes at 40° (not 30, they will start to smell after a while)
Forget the oven, it costs way too much to run. Learn recipes that don’t require baking. People swear by air fryers, haven’t tried them yet myself.
Split pea soup with one pork steak chopped up in it, egg and chips, marinaded and stewed beef, hamburgers, meatloaf, spag bog, pumpkin soup, chicken soup, english style chicken curry, liver and bacon, sausages and mash, fish and chips.
Grow anything in your garden that gives you a good return for the amount of effort you put in, eg runner beans, tomatoes, year round salad. We’re just eating lettuces that I planted in August from seed, plus we’ve got cavallo nero and some savoy cabbages and leeks in the garden. Herbs are another good example of something that costs relatively a lot compared to growing it yourself.
Throw out the tumble dryer, it costs an arm and a leg – I dry clothes by the woodstove or under the porch or in the sun in summer.
Gosh BB, we should get together and share tips. Its a pity you cant send children up chimneys any more, you’d be quite wealthy..
I sent my daughter into the loft to do the Rockwool in the far corners – she is tiny, and it is a small space. Suitably masked and covered up of course. I said to her that I felt as though I was sending her up the chimney!
My daughter has eventually grown into a reasonable sized adult at 36 but being at twin at birth, she was only 1.2 kg and could be shoved up chimneys for quite a while. She is now a very good skier and I hack along in her spray. If I’m not wrong, you are keen on the sport also. We are off to the Dolomites in March. My son, being a larger banker, beer quaffing type, is somewhat bigger.
How, in the name of trousers can that income not be enough to live on for a family of three?
It’s a mystery to me Wibbles but I live very frugally and yet still deny myself nothing I want. Are you sure that there’s not some form of embezzlement going on?
I think no matter which type of government we are left with after an election White Hall will never change their tunes, they are our major problem, as they advise the governments on most things.
That’s the fundamental problem. Clawing back to saving is crushed by inflation, debt and sheer incompetence.
Councils whine and demand more money for their work but they don’t provide any more or remotely better services.
Agreed, but not only that Wibbers a lot of elderly people now have to survive on a pathetic amount of the basic state pension and may of them worked hard and paid in for many years. some elderly people would be better off in jail these days, even illegal rubber boat crooks are given more than the basic state pension, just for turning up here. Our politician’s never get anything right do they.
Although you may not be over extended on your mortgage, does it and the council tax consume much of the £4k over and above your mentioned costs. If not, I suggest sitting down and listing expenditure and looking for those non essentials that you can do without. My essential expenditure with no mortgage is about £1k a month; holidays, gifting, house projects will be on top. I. dont live the high life but am happy with my day to day existence. Weatherspoons this evening for one of their great beers to celebrate a recent birthday. No fancy restaurants for me, I can’t stand places with waiters and table cloths! Other Nottlers may have a different view…
Spoons is okay but i consider tablecloths and waiter service a treat. I have budgeted for once a month but i barely manage that. So sometimes i treat others.
February is my 60th and i’m taking five friends out with me to commiserate. :@)
All swings and roundabouts really as they regularly invite me to Sunday Lunch.
What date? 22nd. February is our 60th.wedding anniversary. (DV)
Eek …. how did THAT happen?
11th. But don’t tell anyone.
Day after MB’s birthday.
Wow Anne that’s a real landmark. It’s our 56th in March. Congratulations.
Good Grief – were you a child bride?
Thank you, Kind Sir.
My parents’ 60th on 31st March. Note to self as will undoubtedly forget.
Funnily enough, it might have been you I was thinking of! I know there are many who enjoy a smart place and each to his own how they enjoy their cash. Maybe it was too many years in boarding school where I saw food merely as functional. Having said that, we have a lovely bistro in our town, good food, just 20 seats and run by a husband and wife team. Prices reasonable and no table cloths.
I like Bistros and Brasseries because you can order as little or as much as you like. None of this 3 course nonsense.
Congratulations for February Phil.
Aw…don’t. I’ve asked Rastus to remove me !
So I’ll wish you happy birthday now in case I forget 🙂
Mortgage is about a third, council tax another hundred – outgoings are about £2600, all bills, then there’s the dogs.
Our spending card has a grand on it and we’re finding we’re running out of money at the end of the month. I know the frustration is all the changes – curtains, a new oven, the bathroom, the water tank, the windows… and once those go it’ll slow down but then clawing back up the chain is just emotionally wearying.
To be clear though the amount includes an 18% overpayment (as I really want to pay down the debt) and our savings.
I stopped the doggie insurance and put £100 a month in to a separate account. Also when i had my last cat cremated the charge for euthanising her and the crem was £500. The dogs will be buried in the back garden.
I’m nervous of that as Mongo is 4 now. 5 this year. He’ll need the help. Which is why there’s this ‘do we get another one?’
I suppose in the same way there is never going to be another Wiggy for me, Junior will never have another Mongo? It just wouldn’t be right not to have a dog about the house.
I know what you mean. It’s why a stuck to little dogs. I could feed from from my leftovers if necessary. Given the joy they bring at least one is an essential expense.
I have a spinster cousin in her 60s who has 2 dogs similar to yours and they are a real comfort to her.
My friend/neighbour said there was a marked difference in me when i got Dolly. He said i seemed a lot happier.
Happiness is a warm dog 🙂
I review my online bank statements – it’s easy to spot high, or rogue, payments.
Be sure to check back more than a year though, to catch the forgotten and uncancelled charity or insurance payments.
Does your loft need more Rockwool?
I recently had a look into mine, realised it was completely inadequate and piled in about half a metre more. Result: a noticeably warmer house! And we haven’t even done the middle bit yet!
Apparently what we have exceeds regulations and we wouldn’t get any advantage from more. The bedroom windows are being replaced at the end of the year, which is something.
I asked about triple glazing but that’s mean new frames. The glazier said ‘if you’re going to be here forever, then do it, otherwise, don’t.
I want to move in 5 years (and that gets shorter every day) so just replacing the glass.
Thick and lined curtains help. Though double glazing is good the cold still radiates from the glass.
The ones we have in the bedroom have all blown and are condensing on the inside. Replacing them probably won’t help but changing them won’t hurt.
Or adding more layers.
I understand that too much loft insulation can cause damp. Perhaps you should seek expert advice on that.
We have a lot of draughts still….!
Council tax is my biggest outlay per month at £120, electricity £35, food £80, oil £50, LPG £2, Broadband and phone £40 inc LR, Cat £10
What do you use the lpg for? I think that’s the real heart of my frustrations. The cost of energy is painful. We’re cold. I want to be warm. I want the Warqueen to be happy, not swaddled in clothes like the Michelin man.
I know, it’s winter. I know, in summer it was too bally hot. It’s just bonkers.
I have a gas hob which uses LPG, used once a day. Electric oven which is only used during sunny days using the free electricity from my solar panels. Air Fryer or microwave cooks the rest of the meal. The oil fired CH is on for an hour in the morning and 2 1/2 hrs in the evening if necessary supplemented by lighting the woodburner using the free wood from the last gale. It gets too warm at times.
If you looked at it in summer and it was too hot that should have flagged up a warning signal. I looked at a house before I moved here; the dormer style attic bedrooms were boiling in summer. I reckoned they would be freezing in winter and chose somewhere else.
Sunak saying he wants to cut taxes – while keeping the allowances frozen. Taking credit for reducing illegal immigration when that’s down to weather. Wants to grow the economy while crushing it with green ideology.
I’m sick of these scum. He’s a liar. I don’t want an election in the second half of the year, I want them all gone tomorrow.
– I see the old Bond films are going to have a trigger warning to protect the cabbage eaters
Warning some people might be upset by seeing a white man as the main protagonist, this is just a reflection of the times when these films were made.
Sorry for causing any upset
Do you remember the days when TV was only black and white and those of us who wanted to watch in colour could buy a coloured transparent film that was two thirds green at the lower part and blue at the top?
Well now you can buy a ‘blackout’ filter https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/af5a2de317ed4709e3e22a56b9543bc329763bd24ec24bf8c9a2b8eb03149169.jpg that, when applied to your TV screen, wlll instantly turn all your 007 characters into BLM film celebrities.
I should have thought it would immediately remove most, if not all, of the adverts!
This letter is worrying, in that if out Mandi thinks it, you can bet your life other half-wits do too:
“Sir – I, for one, am highly impressed by the ethics shown by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in turning down donations from a fox hunt in Ireland (Letters, January 1).
Unlike some, I actually care where the donations come from, and would boycott a charity that gains donations from disgraceful funding, such as by blood sport, just as I would not buy from brands that support modern slavery or exploitation.
Such barbaric practices belong in the past, and the RNLI will gain more support from me for its moral attitude. Other charities should follow its lead. Mandi Martin
Ryde, Isle of Wight“
In the comments…
Shellby Wright
40 MIN AGO
Fox hunts were bad enough, but Drag hunts are worse because the poor transies being chased are hobbled by being in high heels and wearing long dresses. The hounds soon find them because of the strong smell of cheap perfume.
Amanda Malas
1 HR AGO
Re; The RNLI, they have gone down in my opinion since they’ve become a taxi service to bring illegal immigrants into the country. This has in effect politicised the RNLI. That is not the purpose for which most people support them with their donations.
Reply.
richard packer
1 HR AGO
Exactly, no more donations from me for that very reason.
Sharon Price
2 HRS AGO
“SIR – I, for one, am highly impressed by the ethics shown by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in turning down donations from a fox hunt in Ireland.
Unlike some, I actually care where the donations come from, and would boycott a charity that gains donations from disgraceful funding.
Mandi Martin
Ryde, Isle of Wight”
I, for one, actually care where donations are spent. Providing a taxi service for illegal immigrants is not acceptable. RP
Reply.
Mark Berry
18 MIN AGO
And not being tasked on ‘taxi’ duties by HM Coastguard!
Well, Sharon Price hits the nail on the head.
Shelby Wright.
A million upticks.
Screaming all the way so even blind hounds can catch them.
I have been a Shoreline member of the RNLI for over 50 years and I pay an annual sub.
But I am not at all sure that I should continue. My heart and my head are not in agreement.
I wonder how the view would change if a member of their family was assaulted, or worse, by a gimmegrant brought in by the RNLI.
A German officials daughter was raped by a migrant. They both asked the judge not to send him to prison.
Did they want him executed instead?
No. They were Christian Democrats. (deluded)
If their wish was granted, I wonder how his next victims will feel about that.
Did they want him executed instead?
‘Tain’t a “blood sport” you pillock. They follow a trail. The only blood spilled is that of lambs and chickens when the foxes kill them.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1742697546168848659
Oh look! He’s black!
The bloke in the suit is punching like a ruddy girl.
I’ve worked with some girls who can outpunch many men.
Only time I ever thumped someone, he went down like a felled tree. I do not wish to repeat the experience (but it’s nice to know just in case!).
All about centre of balance to get an effective punch. Of course you know about that. I believe all women should learn these techniques to be able to defend themselves from opportunist rapists. A rapist by definition is a coward and will run away. Mostly.
Yes. Just the knowledge that one could, and would, defend oneself alters one’s entire bearing, making an attack less likely. A virtuous circle.
I read somewhere that victims of muggings adopted a subservient stance. Those who were confident were less likely to be attacked.
🤣
You can get mowed down by girls with a punch from Suffolk!
That’s an old mare’s tale!
Just on my second book about the WLA (Women’s Land Army) at the moment 🙂
Oh look! He’s black!
The bloke in the suit is punching like a ruddy girl.
Deobra?
Can’t he spell or is he/she/it transitioning?
He is a diversity.
I cannot help but think that some of these strange names are constructed from letters taken from a Scrabble bag.
Where were the armed deputies?
Judge: “Take him down.”
Deputy: Bang!
Judge: “Next case.”
A violent suspect with a long criminal history. Yes, a bullet to the back of the head.
It looks like it’s been removed now Sue ??
I thought still had guns in America.
Did the Judge add 50 years for contempt?
381347+ up ticks,
May one ask, are peoples really going to vote any of these political reptiles back into power
https://x.com/Carole45744510/status/1742898583697825902?s=20
Continuity Bliar.
That busturd will be sticking his nose in somewhere.
Whoever you vote for or don’t vote for there will be another government after the next election.
Whoever you vote for or don’t vote for there will be another
governmentshambles after the next election.Thanks for the correction. :-((
381347+ up ticks,
Evening S,
Being that is almost a guaranteed certainty following an odious trend, that then begs the question why do the electorate do it again & again.
All they need to do is take on board and act on overall majority public opinion, they don’t have a clue between any of them.
381347+ uo ticks,
Afternoon ATG,
At this stage in regards to the polling stations I believe self respect should play a major role.
Other than “WOW”, what else can you say?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/01/04/major-mike-sadler-last-wartime-sas-originals-rogue-heroes/
Major Mike Sadler, last of the wartime SAS ‘Originals’ – obituary
He astro-navigated 18 jeeps across 70 miles of desert without lights or maps – then inadvertently drove through the pursuing German column
4 January 2024 • 1:23pm
Mike Sadler, who has died aged 103, was a former MI6 officer and an honorary member of “the Originals”, as men of L Detachment of the early SAS are known. He was believed to be the last survivor of the Long Range Desert Group or LRDG, without which the fledgling SAS might not have thrived. He also has a piece of the Antarctic named after him.
The origin of Sadler’s adventurous career was a pupil in his prep school who had been bought up in Africa and entertained his fellows with adventure stories. Intrigued, Sadler left school in 1937 to work on a farm in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he joined a Rhodesian Army artillery unit equipped with howitzers from India’s North-West Frontier. Despite not being strong at maths or geometry at school, he took a keen interest in the angles of fire needed to engage distant targets, and was disappointed when his unit converted to an anti-tank role “where you could look through a telescope straight ahead.”
They were dispatched to Somaliland and Abyssinia, before being shipped to Mersa Matruh in the Western Desert, where they dug defences. Sadler refused the offer of a commission because, as he told the historian Gavin Mortimer: “I didn’t fancy the idea of abandoning my friends… I wasn’t at all keen on the extreme aspects of militarism, marching up and down, although I did my best to be reasonably smart.”
In 1941, by then a sergeant, he “fell out marginally” with one of the unit’s two British officers, neither of whom commanded respect. Standing orders were that the men should sleep fully dressed in their sleeping bags, in case of attack. Sadler allowed his men to sleep in sand shoes, because Army boots made it difficult to get out of sleeping bags. The officer insisted on boots. Sadler refused. Marched before the commanding officer, he was ordered either to apologise or risk being reduced to the ranks. “Oh, that’s all right, I’ll reduce myself to the ranks,” he said, and did.
The LRDG was already operating as a covert reconnaissance and raiding unit behind enemy lines, navigating across vast expanses of desert that their Axis enemies regarded as inaccessible. It was manned by volunteers, many of them New Zealanders and Rhodesians.
Sadler, at a lively social gathering in Cairo, met an LRDG member who invited him to join. They thought he might be useful as an anti-tank gunner; his transfer was swiftly granted and he journeyed in a convoy to the LRDG base at Kufra. On the way he became fascinated by the art of navigating by stars, and when they arrived at Kufra he was offered the role of navigator.
Sadler had a fortnight’s practice before his first patrol, helped by a former merchant seaman, Tom Merrick. He proved an adept pupil, accurate in dead reckoning by day and with the theodolite at night, soon becoming the principal navigator for the LRDG and SAS. He worked by notes and calculations rather than untrustworthy “feelings”, or guesswork. They often travelled when exhausted, he said, and “you could suddenly think, God, I never did that, and you don’t know if you’ve been 10 miles or 50… and it’s probably a few seconds in fact.”
Initial SAS operations – parachuting on to remote targets – were costly failures, but success came when the LRDG agreed to ferry and aid the assault teams. Sadler’s first SAS operation was a raid on an airfield at Wadi Tamet in December 1941. They were bombed on the way (“We could see the bombs leaving the aircraft,” Sadler said), but evaded further scrutiny and dropped the SAS team three miles from the target.
Sadler then waited for them on the outskirts of the airfield itself. The raid was a significant strike, with about 30 German officers killed, 24 planes and a fuel dump destroyed.
The way back, however, was not straightforward – Sadler always said that his main worry was not the operation itself but “how the hell we were going to get away afterwards because the Germans were on to us”.
On this occasion they evaded pursuit and headed in their Jeeps for a rendezvous 150 miles west. One Jeep sustained a puncture, the captured German pump did not work and they had to stuff blankets into the tyre. But the wheel disintegrated to the point where they were running on the brake drum and had to abandon the vehicle.
The other Jeep needed water, but the spare jerry can had been accidentally poured into the petrol tank, leaving the men too without water, and the Jeep stalled. They all peed into the radiator and, at Sadler’s initiative, rigged up a siphon feeding petrol from a spare can into the carburettor. When they reached the rendezvous “some Stukas came down and did a bit of a strafe”.
Another raid was on the airfield at Sidi Haneish, which involved astro-navigating 18 Jeeps across 70 miles of desert without lights or maps. Sadler delivered them to within a mile of the runway. Firing about 26,000 rounds of ammunition from their Vickers machine guns, they destroyed an estimated 37 aircraft in a spectacular display which he photographed (unfortunately, his camera and film were stolen later in the war). During the escape they inadvertently drove through the German column that was pursuing them – “They were standing around their vehicles… They were not alert… I drove through German columns a few times.”
Following this episode Sadler was notified by radio that he had been awarded the Military Medal. Later in the war, after commissioning, he was awarded the Military Cross for actions in France.
Not all the raids were successful. During an operation led by David Stirling, one of the founders of the SAS, the party unknowingly camped next to a German unit. Stirling and most of the patrol were captured but Sadler and two others escaped into surrounding gullies, lying low until nightfall. Then, on foot, without food or water and with Sadler navigating, they followed the lie of the land, aiming for the Allied lines 100 miles away: “We walked between salt lakes and mountains in the direction we hoped might be occupied by the Free French and therefore friendly.”
They ran into a group of Arabs who gave them dates and a goatskin of water, then into another group who stoned them. Eventually, exhausted and dehydrated, they reached the Free French who treated them well and handed them over to the Americans.
The Americans were initially suspicious, given that the nearest British were many miles away over the Mareth Line, but were soon reassured. An American war correspondent who saw them described Sadler: “The eyes of this fellow were round and sky blue and his hair and whiskers were very fair. His beard began well under his chin, giving him the air of an emaciated and slightly dotty Paul Verlaine.”
Sadler had earlier had an appendix operation in Cairo – “It was a grumbling affair and they thought it would be better to have it out before I was sent on patrol.” He had also been commissioned by David Stirling before his capture, a promotion confirmed by the military secretary in Cairo with the words “I hear you’re masquerading as a military officer.”
In late 1943 Sadler was recalled to Britain and sent on a publicity tour of America. He was next posted to Darvel in Scotland to help set up an SAS training centre for new recruits preparing for D-Day. On August 10 1944 he parachuted into France to join A Squadron of 1 SAS in Operation Houndsworth, part of the effort to sabotage German reinforcements heading for Normandy. His MC was awarded after an encounter with an enemy patrol in which he and the Maquis boy guiding him drove through the German column before firing backwards into it.
He also set up an SAS intelligence unit and travelled across county to the Forest of Orleans to take part in another operation. Returning to Britain he was given the job of accompanying SAS paratroopers to their planes and debriefing crews on return. However, he joined the flights himself, taking the bomb-aimer’s seat – “I still liked a little bit of adrenaline.”
Following hostilities, Sadler – by then a 26 year-old captain – was adjutant to Paddy Mayne, one of the SAS founders, assisting in the temporary disbandment of the service in October 1945. A letter arrived from the Colonial Office seeking volunteers for the Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey (later the British Antarctic Survey).
Sadler said: “I went into Mayne’s office and said, ‘I’m the first to volunteer’ and Paddy said, ‘I think I’ll come too.’ During the next year Sadler helped set up a new base on Stonington Island, where a glacier (since melted) connected to the mainland. In 2021 the area was named Sadler’s Passage in recognition of his work. Sadler – by then 101 – was gratified by the honour, but saddened that global warming had melted the glacier.
After Antarctica, he married his first wife and spent time sailing, largely in the West Indies. He then ran the US Embassy’s information film programme for two years. During further sailing he was invited to join MI6, where he spent the rest of his career.
Willis Michael Sadler was born in Kensington on February 22 1920, the elder of two boys. The family soon moved to Sheepscombe in Gloucestershire, where his father became director of an early plastics factory, Erinoid, in Stroud. Sadler was sent to Oakley Hall prep school in Cirencester and later to Bedales, which he left aged 17 for Rhodesia.
He was popular in MI6, recalled as helpful, calm, modest, soft-spoken, gentlemanly and “rural smart – more country tweed than Saville Row”. He enjoyed unusual cars, including three Bristols, and for many years owned a serviced apartment in Sloane Avenue where he shared his London life with a long-term partner.
When he retired he took up sailing again and co-authored with a former colleague an edition of the classic nautical guidebook, Atlantic, Spain and Portugal. Later, by then a widower, he moved to Cheltenham to be near a former girlfriend who became his companion for almost 20 years. After she died he was supported by his former secretary from MI6, before finally moving to a care home in Cambridge to be near his daughter.
Apart from a period in the Far East during the Confrontation with Indonesia, Sadler’s MI6 posts mostly involved training and operational security, often with a technical bias. Never pompous or self-important, he had a keen sense of humour and enjoyed being teased. On his 60th birthday his staff presented him with an exquisitely wrapped 60-watt light bulb.
In retirement Sadler co-authored, with Oz Robinson, Atlantic Spain and Portugal, a guide to sailing in those seas.
At the age of 98, in 2018 Sadler was appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. After the war he married Anne Hetherington (later Baroness Anne von Blixen Finecke). The marriage was dissolved after two years and in 1958 he married Pat Benson, who died in 2001. He is survived by their daughter, Sally.
Michael Sadler, born February 22 1920, died January 4 2023
Quite a man! His passing is a loss to humanity.
He probably didn’t even think of himself as brave. I can’t see a Trans accomplishing any of what he did.
Thank you Sir, Stand Easy.
What a man!
Not sure we’ll ever see the likes of him again.
Well, you can just imagine the risk-assessments, elfin safety etc that would prevent the establishment of anything remotely like the LRDG.
Current politicians afraid to make a decision unless they can follow the rest of the sheep.
Inspirational. Thank you for posting.
Have you moved in with Milei yet?
🤣🤣
Hi Ashes.
Happy New Year – I might be doubling up here, but having a doubleplushappy new year has got to be a positive thing!
How’s it going dahn sarf? You’re missing rain, snow and (for us this weekend) -25C… (just trying to make you jealous… ;-))
Nice try! 🤣🤣 (My family and friends all start off calls with “You really don’t want to be here”, and I concur).
Haven’t a clue whether we’re doubling up, but who cares? Happy New Year!! I am, I think, the happiest I have ever been consistently. 🙂🙂). Sending some joy and sunshine up and right x
How lovely! More power to your elbow!
What he looked like having been lost in the desert and finally back with his unit:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/855dc035389391c245ef8077ca95c7029a1f3fd5c59fec60420f02c75d7e9b1e.jpg
What a wonderful life.
Ordinary men, achieving extra-ordinary things. A lesson for us all, there…
http://i3.cmail19.com/ei/j/27/9DA/AD0/csimport/wilbur_060124_1_sg00.jpg
‘It’s so hard going back to work after Christmas.’
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40014595e94820f2cda6c9ccd02290a0642e5568051c4e3ceaf8d48d062c02da.jpg
My neighbour puts on her blouse, uniform jacket and hat but doesn’t bother with much else. Knickers and fluffy slippers below the desk.
Do i spy a peeping Tom?
Oh yes but she doesn’t mind. She sunbathes topless and i told her she looked like she was hugging two baby seals.
You do have a way with words….
Her daughter refers to me as a social bomb. All the wrong words in all the right places.
Get your hearing tested
Scroful bum was what she said…
We have known each other as neighbours for over 30 years.
I feel for her…
You wouldn’t if you met her. But you never will, will you will.
S.S. Polarland.
Complement:
22 (17 dead and 5 survivors).
1,200 tons of fluorspar.
About 17.00 hours on 4th January 1945, U-1232 (Kurt Dobratz) attacked convoy SH-194 four miles off Halifax and reported two ships sunk. The Polarland was sunk and the Nipiwan Park damaged.
The Polarland (Master Finn N. Abrahamsen) in station #31 was hit on the port side by one torpedo and sank within 15 seconds. Two men rescued themselves on a raft which floated free and were later joined by three others that came to the surface after the ship sank. The four crewmen and one gunner were picked up about one hour later by HMCS Kentville (J 312) (T/Lt F.G. Rainsford, RCNVR) and landed in Halifax. The master, one gunner and 15 crew members were lost, including all officers.
Type IXC/40 U-Boat U-1232 was taken out of service at Wesermünde, Germany in April 1945.
https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/nw/polarland.jpg
The need for fluorspar and other minerals led to a lot of commercially exhausted mineral rakes being reopened on Masson Hill between Bonsall & Matlock to reduce the amount needing to be shipped in against the U-boats.
As soon as the war ended those mines & quarries were shut down.
381347+up ticks,
RIP Major Sadler, I have a nasty feeling we the peoples have let you down.
Dt
Major Mike Sadler, last of the wartime SAS ‘Originals’ – obituary
He astro-navigated 18 jeeps across 70 miles of desert without lights or maps – then inadvertently drove through the pursuing German column
They are certainly off, the gruesome twosome.
https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/01/04/10/39/ADAMS20240104.jpg.jpg?crop=8:5,smart&quality=75&auto=webp&width=960
Has Starmer been piling on the pounds of late? I can’t say I’ve noticed.
I suspect it’s more artistic licence to emphasise their physical dissimilarity.
I think we are seeing what he is full of.
Wishing they were both off, gone for good.
Time for a New Reformation.
Lieutenant George Albert Cairns VC (12th December 1913 – 19th March 1944), The Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s), attached South Staffordshire Regiment.
On the evening of 16th March 1944, the South Staffords dug in near what would become a main hinge of the Chindit operation, the block at Henu and Mawlu, known as the White City. A nearby hill crowned with a Pagoda dominated the horizon. It was not occupied by the British or, so far as those present could tell, by the Japanese. The following morning a number of unsuspecting Japanese soldiers were discovered in the area. It was plain that the South Staffords had dug in their positions adjacent to a small Japanese force without either learning of the other’s presence. At about 11:00am, the hill erupted with enemy fire.
Brigadier Michael Calvert (Mad Mike), who led the attack in person, wrote “On the top of Pagoda Hill, not much bigger than two tennis courts, an amazing scene developed. The small white Pagoda was in the centre of the hill. Between that and the slopes which came up was a mêlée of South Staffords and Japanese bayonetting, fighting with each other, with some Japanese just throwing grenades from the flanks into the mêlée.”[3] Calvert added, “there, at the top of the hill, about fifty yards square, an extraordinary mêlée took place, everyone shooting, bayoneting, kicking at everyone else, rather like an officers’ guest night.
The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the VICTORIA CROSS to:
Lieutenant George Albert CAIRNS (198186), The Somerset Light Infantry, attd. South Staffordshire Regiment.
On 5th March 1944, 77 Independent Infantry Brigade, of which the 1st South Staffordshire Regiment formed a part, landed by glider at Broadway (Burma).
On 12th March 1944, columns from the South Staffordshire Regiment and 3/6 Gurkha Rifles established a road and rail block across the Japanese lines of communication at Henu Block.
The Japanese counter-attacked this position heavily in the early morning of 13 March 1944, and the South Staffordshire Regiment was ordered to attack a hill-top which formed the basis of the Japanese attack.
During this action, in which Lieutenant CAIRNS took a foremost part, he was attacked by a Japanese officer, who, with his sword, hacked off Lieutenant CAIRNS [sic] left arm. Lieutenant CAIRNS killed this Officer; picked up the sword and continued to lead his men in the attack and slashing left and right with the captured sword killed and wounded several Japanese before he himself fell to the ground.
Lieutenant CAIRNS subsequently died from his wounds. His action so inspired all his comrades that, later the Japanese were completely routed, a very rare occurrence at that time.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/George_Albert_Cairns_VC_IWM_HU2052.jpg
.
I have been thoroughly idle. After lunch, I beat one of the cats for a place on a settee – covered myself with a duvet (for JN = eiderdown) – and slept for most of two hours!
Now enjoying refreshing cup of tea.
SWMBO has a sheepskin for that purpose, Bill.
Nice ‘n warm, and very sexy with her little face peeking out from under!
I expect the MR felt the same about me!
:-))
“I beat one of the cats for a place on a settee .”
You do understand that staff can be replaced?
I bet the cats went straight to the warm patch you left.
Gus joined me on the duvet. He is still there.
An easy Birdie Three.
Wordle 929 3/6
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Par today.
Wordle 929 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Metoo
Wordle 929 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Par was good today.
Me too, amazingly!
Wordle 929 3/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Nice Eagle here. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a495233094c7184640692ce03debc063b7835bf1152465826f039bb38349a1eb.jpg
Instead of paying the effing French to do the square root of FA why not commission British Fisherman to rescue the occupants of rubber dinghies in the Channel take them in tow and do a 180 degree turn and escort them back to their point of departure?
“For I will make you Fishers of Men”
Or cut them up for rubbydubby.
OT – we have almost finished listening to the excellent reading by Michael Palin of his recent book about his Great-Uncle Harry. A very well researched book.
One thing that has staggered me is the efficiency of the Army Post Office. During the appalling Gallipoli campaign* – when thousands were being killed or wounded by gunfire, dysentery and worse sicknesses – the APO would deliver (as shells and bullets flew) parcels containing cigarettes, socks, food…you name it. Quite remarkable. I wonder if there is a book describing this service which must have meant so much to the troops.
* Other battlefields are available…
That’s me gone for this day of several halves. I eventually recovered from my rage in the supermarket where the woman in front of me deal with and paid for all her shopping – then started another load for someone else. I could murder such people – if only for their lack of courtesy.
Have a spiffing evening. There is a prog on Channel 5 about Malta which the MR is recording – we are going there in April.
A demain.
Shopping for an elderly neighbour perhaps.
I don’t care. She could have had the decency to say, “When this huge load is done and dusted, I have another one. You might like to try another checkout”
Where did she put the other load when she was packing her first load?
Sneakily piled up in the trolley.
I rest my case, m’lud.
That’s the one!
When I worked for the local council doing shopping for elderly and housebound, I had 4 or 5 loads in one trolley. I always suggested to anyone behind me that they might like to go to another till! And the packed shoppings were kept in the trolley and marked with the old biddys name!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bea57ff74cb531a005853aa5e29f6a2db91d5660035ace99e950a30b4ec3bad1.png
https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/malta/malta/valletta/valletta-republic-street.html
Looks like a den of vice – exactly where you would be found….
Only on Tuesdays. Pensioner discount day !
Good plan, Bill.
We visited Malta in the late seventies. There was a water shortage and initially we relied on a Bauser until we found a live mains tap in the hallway of the apartment.
The place was crawling with fat smelly Libyan soldiers, especially in Valletta. The Chinese were operating in the Grand Harbour but the Stothert & Pitt cranes, manufactured in Bath, remained on the dockyard quayside.
I bought several Alec Tiranti architectural books from a small bookshop in Valletta. The author and professor of architecture at Malta University at the time was Quentin Hughes, formerly of Liverpool School of Architecture.
Bowser?
Dom Mintoff didn’t do the place any favours.
Thank God I only spent a couple of days in Malta staging through back to Germany from Malaya, even the Gut couldn’t keep me there
Flooding Focus Today:
The rain is meant
To fall mainly in the Trent.
But we’re in Heaven because it’s all gone in the Severn 🙂
A man is sat on his roof with his house surrounded by a raging torrent.
After a while a motor boat pulls up and the man is invited to get in, but he says, “No, no thank you the Almighty will save me”
So the motor boat pulls away and disappears.
Several minutes later another boat pulls up, but gets the same result as the first, so again it pulls away with a shrug from the boatman.
An hour later with the flood now halfway up the roof, a helicopter flies over and a crewman comes down on a wire and says “Quick put this over your head and under your arms and we will winch you up.”
Again the man says, “No, no thank you the Almighty will save me.”
The winchman says “Well, we don’t have time to waste because we have others to rescue, so on your head be it.” and the helicopter flies off.
Eventually the inevitable happens and the house collapses pitching the man into flood, where he promptly drowns.
Up in Heaven Gabriel says to God, “That was a bit tight of you, you could have done something.”, so God replies, “What do you mean? I sent two boats and a bloody helicopter.”
Just watching Father Brown, series 9
Man in pub “Pint of Mild, please”
Barmaid “Sixpence, Please”
Many effnicks in the BBC’s 1950s rural England?
98% at least.
Just watching Father Brown, series 9
Man in pub “Pint of Mild, please”
Barmaid “Sixpence, Please”
Just finished watching Mr Bates and the Post Office. If anyone deserves a Life Peerage it is Mr bates.
I started watching it this eve, and knowing the story found it excruciating. As others have said, those responsible for this mis justice should be
hanging from lamppostsbanged up.I started watching it this eve, and knowing the story found it excruciating. As others have said, those responsible for this mis justice should be
hanging from lamppostsbanged up.We’ve just finished watching and what an epic David versus Goliath battle Mr Bates fought. There should have been prosecutions of Senior Post Office Directors and Managers for Perverting the course of Justice.
Perverting the Course of Justice
Common law
Guideline effective from: 01 October 2023
Triable only on indictment
Maximum: Life imprisonment
Offence range: Community order – 7 years’ custody.
Tonight on ITV 10.45 The Real Story : Mr Bates v the Post Office.
Just filling in waiting for Digging for Britain. I couldn’t imagine using a pointing trowel to scratch around in the soil, on my knees for days on end. I don’t think I could even get into that position now. But fair play to them all. And some of the results are fantastic for all that hard work.
I’m Tempted to another glass of ozzie red.
But hopefully be here tmz.
Slayders.
Phizzee replies:
Just filling in waiting for Dogging for Britain. I could imagine using a pointed tool to scratch around in the carpark, on my knees for days on end. I don’t think I could even get into that position now but fair play to them all.
And some of the results are fantastic for all that hard work.
I’m Tempted to another glass of red.
We use to have a well known dogging area not far from where we live. It’s a large shrub and tree sheltered lay-by. With woods backing it up.
I use to walk our dog through there during daylight hours. Some of the items of clothing to be seen in the branches were amusing. It must have been draughty on the way home for some of them. But the even more filthy Gypo’s moved in and wrecked the whole area leaving great piles of rubbish behind. And huge concrete blocks are now at the entrance.
I might try some of my new sloe gin for a night cap.
Phizzee replies:
Damn, if only I’d known you were so close, we could have shared a sloe comfortable screw against the wall.
https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/1833/slow-comfortable-screw-against-the-wall
That’s a cocktail for you 😄
I had a liqueur infused with whisky and cinnamon. Very tasty it was, too.
When we sat with our neighbours before Christmas we had glasses of prosecco with a splash of brandy and a sugar cube. Very nice indeed.
Just found a box of After Eights in the cupboard that had been overlooked at Christmas
Hooow is that at all possible!
Well hidden. 🤗
Sell by date, 1989?
There will be caches of goodies all over the house that will be found during this new year.
I’m currently working my way, slice by slice, throught the entire Christmas cake – but not in one sitting! 🙂
Currantly? 😉
Are you the Sultan(a) of Swing ..er Tango?
Not in chateau Conway; I’ve been through the cupboards 🙂
Evening all – out most of today (lunch with old school friends) and now just catching up. It’s raining now after a mainly dry day. Younger son departed today so we’re back with just us and the cats.
Does anyone else think this Epstein stuff is really just a gargantuan mud-slinging contest now?
Guilt by association.
I can’t help thinking that Epstein was a well connected PoS who had a side-line in perversion, but also a very good contacts list for his “normal” business activities.
I think of it as something which doesn’t concern me. Whatever eventually transpires will make no difference whatever to my life.
Probably true.
But imagine if it resulted in Kamala Harris becoming POTUS
Or if she had been one of Epsteins “girls”…..
That would have been a bit of an Obummer…
I gather she’s not very competent, which makes her no worse than the incumbent. Other than that I know very little about her, nor do I much care to know any more than the scraps I’ve gleaned from this forum. I’ll certainly make no effort to find out more.
First bits certainly true, but she might be even more of a puppet than JB and if you fancy WW3: after you dear chap, after you…
If WW3 is to happen, there’s nothing I can do to alter the future’s course.
All that’s needed is the competence to choose competent, honest advisers, and listen to them. Even a parrot would be OK with that kind of backup.
She’s an Oozlum bird.
Perish the thought!!!
How can you say that David if politicians are being blackmailed to go to war or be destroyed themselves?
If I’m wrong, there’s nothing I can do about it.
All it needs for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
What makes you think I’m good?
Well, while you may like to put forward contrary opinions, you do not come over as evil 🙂
You’ll be surprised. Collateral damage will spread far and wide.
The source of Epstein’s wealth remains a mystery. Epstein provided a conduit for politicians and celebrities to gain influence and to be introduced to wealthy globalists. He was likely put in place as a gatekeeper or bouncer to sort out who was allowed into the global elite club and who was not.
His influence extended to the provision of children for the nefarious needs of the rich and powerful. He may also have abused his position to blackmail politicians on behalf of his masters.
We now see the extent of the corruption of globalist elites played out by almost every single politician and official in our government mirroring that of the US.
Worrying, isn’t it!
I’m hoping the PM found going is Blair. Hoping so eagerly.
What bothers is absolutely nothing will come of it. There will be no consequences because these are Lefties, and they close ranks.
That was my first thought too, but I suspect it might be an Israeli PM
Did Epstein provide boys?
If you don’t mind I am in more need of a PM being found to have played away from home than you are. It might finally convince some that trudeau is not a good un.
A rolling stone gathers no moss ad….
We need proof,, nothing else will do.
Also it is a distraction, as is the junior doctors’ strike from the high death rates.
Went to take the dogs out. Oscar stood there, sniffed then went back inside. Mongo looked at the rain, stepped out into it, shook his head and went back inside.
The Human with the huge brain and opposable thumbs though it was a good idea?
I like to give them the choice…..
That’s my excuse, and i’m sticking to it! notably the woodland we’re opposite is practically the Everglades right now (sans crocs).
I thought Crocs were de riguer in yer Luunon!
Reminds me of Peddy the Viking! I wonder what’s happened to him.
Yes, I have often wondered how he is.
I do not think he was a well man.
I remember he had quite a long spell in hospital some years ago, then I think he lost Missy, his cat.
Familiar…
Are you suggesting he was a Warlock?
No! IIRC, he fell out with another popular Nottler, had a row, and quit.
Edit: Spolling…
I don’t know about popular, but he was very unpleasant to me, got banned, reappeared under a different name and then disappeared.
Yes, He was a dentist. Trained in Germany and I think worked in Sweden.
Poppiesmum was worried and went to see him about two years ago – but he fobbed her off and continued to be silent and not answer emails either. I think he just got fed up with us. I do wonder how he is/was.
It was miserable coming home tonight but I had taken the motorbike in rather than the push-bike, in anticipation of the rain. London’s roads were totally awash.
Our two cats demand to go out (despite the cat flap), look at the snow & feel the cold, the tail goes down, and they turn round and go back in and lie on the heated floor. Not daft, those two furry monsters!
When I started to make the usual preparations for going for a walk (ie donning waterproofs), Oscar betook himself upstairs to bed. Only Kadi (who doesn’t care what happens as long as he’s glued to my side) was up for going out. As it happens I made a very poor choice of walk. The path I chose was flooded and, although my shoes were waterproof, the water was deep enough to go over the top 🙁 I should have put my boots on, but I wanted a change of footwear.
Brighten up a foul night. These are from couple of years:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cfcd0acfbf6a2bff4647adf416b3868f9dbc49bc5854eb0ec9a26b9af842ad30.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25dcfe1a519e91f52b76d7119cc43221ca7d708643a7f0fb2ae168a8cb48114e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86d876efba22b064a5bb8362ae1d511918e78b7c628196f3179c09bbf7048a09.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc2d08024dd9c530b02bd320c881109f154ffc43ba329eaa0ec7ec16aa537771.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c891126fc5257d36b4f28e3745e27e7bcab8ce002fb2a6213e84c9fc3545cb4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c52416588140b5a8a7e14e5c8ee2b1b05bb9cfd2f09d116a56da663d6d63d34.jpg
Lovely! Certainly more cheerful than the -15C darkness just now!
I spent a while browsing “bulb porn” this morning (the latest catalogue). I need to create one area of the garden that will be a winter flowering section.
Hellebores are nice.
Yes, I have a few in the back garden. I was thinking of concentrating winter flowering items in the border near the winter jasmine. It’s south facing and does get more sun than the rest of the gloomy patch. Things that like shade take up most of my planting.
Lovely.
The recent abdication of Queen Margrethe is being used to suggest King Charles has a get out clause.
I hope not.
I’m not a fan of the incumbent, but the position is what it is historically and I hope he sticks it to the end.
And yes, I do appreciate the irony of him being where he is as the result of an abdication.
But he would still have been king unless Wallis had had children.
A decent day today. A bit chilly, but pleasant for working out doors.
Quite a bit of wood sawn, chopped and stacked. The Pantry Stack is now a good three quarters full ready for next year.
Hopefully it will be finished off over the weekend.
I’ve a run to Derby with the van booked for tomorrow, t’Lad needs a tip run and, as he’s on earlies, I’ll probably head to Belper for a haircut and then carry on to his place.
Report from inside the JAL A350 that crashed at Haneds – from a Swedish lad. Some interesting points.
https://youtu.be/f5WyKa7P8ko?si=V0N5yogUD02FlTzv
Quite a shocking accident. There have been a number of similar senarios but the landing crew have seen the aircraft on the runway and aborted the landing. The rear light on an an aircraft is about the same as a sail boat, a small white light, difficult to see. It seems that the small aircraft erroniously lined up on the runway without checking for landing traffic. For the grace of god, as ever…
“A Dutch supermarket chain says the cost of shoplifting is higher than its annual profits as it warned that theft had increased by 60pc in a year.
Jumbo, the second-largest supermarket group in the Netherlands, said that it is now losing €100m (£86m) a year to shoplifters, but expects its 2023 profits to be below £80m.
The supermarket’s chief executive, Ton van Veen, said that the thefts, which account for 1pc of turnover, are putting staff into “unpleasant situations”. He said:
This is a growing problem and we are appealing to politicians to address this … People are becoming increasingly sophisticated in not paying for products. You sometimes fall over in shock to witness how creative people are to take products without paying.
The company is increasing expenditure on security guards and CCTV.”
Don’t worry in a few years Sharia will be in vogue in the Netherlands…..
Evening, all. Been at a Parish Council meeting and just got back. We discussed “Martyn’s Law” re making preparations for terrorist attacks (don’t let muslims anywhere near events didn’t seem to be the right answer!) and having a biodiversity policy (don’t build on green fields, don’t grub up hedgerows and don’t cut down trees wasn’t, it seems, an appropriate response, either). With all the publicity given to Reform, I am beginning to wonder if they aren’t controlled opposition.
If they’re not they soon will be if they continue to rise in the polls.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/75adcc36c59b5b48b89e1f69f290b6c8171a37e42ac1428fbd4922318dc033bd.png
“The climate grifters like Gore, Gates, Schwab, and the rest of the Davos billionaire cabal that fly to climate change conferences in their private jets and live in 25,000 square foot mansions with 13 bathrooms and multiple gas stoves, want to use this climate change tripe as the main thrust in depopulating the planet so they have it all and the surviving peasants own nothing.
Climate change is the cudgel the ruling elite are using to increase their own power, control and wealth.
It really is that simple.
I believe throwing billionaires into volcanoes will satisfy the climate gods.
That is more believable than their ridiculous climate crisis narrative”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7ab25d999cbb72d7dfd9aab3e53c7bf1e23300524f8b11d8d024c3afaece131.jpg
Goodnight!
Right, off to bed.
G’night all.
Good night, chums, I’m off to bed now. Sleep well, and see you tomorrow.
Good night all – got to be up for the plumber tomorrow.
Ooh-er, missus!
You in cistern an early start.
Sounds like a bit of a carry on.
German farmers – sticking to their guns.
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1743017732516331754?s=20
Good for them!
Goodnight.
Goodnight, all.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7114137f68fbed805a500a50e43e3ec9889f3ef58729b3355a6113d095dc40ce.jpg
You wouldn’t have thought it would stand up in couřt.
You’d expect a stiffer sentence.
In his defence did he claim it was caused by ‘a rush of blood to his head’?
Maybe he was hoping to get banged up. lol.
There is no question but that as with Obama/Biden Sunak is facilitating the open border and authorising the Border Force and RNLI to assist the invasion of the channel boat traffickers.
I rather hope and pray that the Epstein files disclosures will put a lot of these grotesque creeps behind bars. That includes the Royals who are sworn to protect Randy “Air-miles” Andy from prosecution and imprisonment.
Just as in the US the FBI is utterly corrupted likewise the security services in the UK are similarly compromised.
As regards the school shooting in Iowa yet again the shooter is an LGBT Trans freak. Expect the story to vanish from the News cycle.
Good morning, all – Friday’s new page is here.
‘Morning, Geoff, and thank you.
Thank you!