Thursday 5 December: Home-working could boost Britain – but only with performance checks

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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632 thoughts on “Thursday 5 December: Home-working could boost Britain – but only with performance checks”

  2. Good morning all, especially Geoff
    Trigger Warning – smut ahead
    Today's Tale – more Shopping

    She was gazing in the window of the shoe shop, admiring a beautiful pair of black Italian stiletto-heeled shoes, priced far beyond her capacity to pay.
    The shoe salesman in the shop beckoned her in. “You can have those shoes if you come to bed with me,” he said.
    “O.K.,” she replied, “but I should tell you, I don’t like sex very much."
    He gave her the shoes and they booked into a motel room. They took off their clothes and jumped into bed. He humped away while she lay passively, missionary style. Suddenly, she threw her legs up into the air and cried, “Wonderful! Beautiful! Oh my God, so lovely!”
    “I thought you didn’t like sex,” he panted.
    “I don’t,” she replied, “I’m just admiring my beautiful new shoes.”

    1. Quote of the day

      ‘The country needs conviction politicians, not politicians with convictions.’

      – Kemi Badenoch attacks Keir Starmer at PMQs following the resignation of Louise Haigh.

    2. And didn't they crow about Trump's non-sensical politicised 34 felony charges for taking out a bank loan.

  11. 397093+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 5 December: Home-working could boost Britain – but only with performance checks

    Complete and utter tripe, that would mean yet another level of chubby checkers growing fat via the tax payers financed trough.

    Get the idol bastards OUT of their scratchers and into their daily workplace absenteeism on the first designated day of return to office =s dismissal.

      2. Chubby Checker, Fats Domino, Fats Waller, Fatty Arbuckle .

        There is rather less adipose pride about nowadays. Avoirdupois has gone out of fashion.

        1. Oh, I don't know so much about that.

          My weight has gone down by 2 quarters and 1,793 drams since I commenced my diet.

      3. 1963, I was filmed ,along with others, doing the twist at a Canadian TV studio with local girls – in full No2 Dress uniform. I was mobbed on the streets of Calgary the following day by a tall, gammy legged woman shouting "The Brits are coming, the Brits are coming. Obviously seen the clip on the tele the night before.

  12. Good Morning Folks,

    Wet start here.
    Had to log in this morning and managed it first time, bit of a record for me.

  14. This Grauniad article would be a prime candidate for a winning Pseuds Corner back in the days when Private Eye was funny

    Turner Prize: Jasleen Kaur’s winning, welcoming ode to Glasgow

    Pleasure and politics collide in Kaur’s work, which invites our curiosity again and again
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/eb2cac49d236d99f0d4527ea8216ff6a80f21942/0_213_3200_1920/master/3200.jpg?width=700&dpr=2&s=none&crop=none
    Adrian Searle
    Tue 3 Dec 2024 21.15 GMT

    http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/03/turner-prize-jasleen-kaurs-winning-welcoming-ode-to-glasgow

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/12/04/TELEMMGLPICT000404095086_17333496465730_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=640&imdensity=2

    2. Ah, the London art establishment sneering at the working class again. So reliable you could set your clock by it.

    4. I liked the modern art where the cleaner swept all the junk into a bag and threw it away.

      Then there was the funny one where folk came into a room with benches in it and sat down to look at the walls, not realising the benches were the 'art'.

    5. The five jury members chose Kaur for 'her ability to gather different voices through unexpected and playful combinations of material locating moments of resilience and possibility'. Kaur's exhibition featured worship bells, Sufi Islamic devotional music, Indian harmonium tunes, and pop records, while a suspended ceiling made of blue glass, which is strewn with objects including half-drunk bottles of Irn-Bru, Scottish pound notes, a long wool scarf and fruit pastels, hangs above.

      Fart, not Art. Whot 'abart the pink Jag-u-arse then? We wuz robbed!

    7. Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doilies!

      (John Betjeman: How to Get On in Society)

      Forget the afternoon teacakes and scones (however you pronounce the word scones!)

  15. Home-working could boost Britain – but only with performance checks

    I wonder how the nationalised railways will do with all the staff working from home

  16. Good morning, all. Diverse as your hat outside. I thought I'd got up an hour early.

    We managed seven minutes of the Richard III "show" and then deleted; then three minutes of th "Michaelangelo "show" – then deleted that, too. What crapulous programmes are made these days.

    Finally watched the second part of the Iranian Women Rioting show. Made us think. How come none of the leftie "middle class women of a certain age" – who get so het up about a rude word 15 years ago – are NOT out protesting loudly against young women being killed by the regime? Funny that. Not.

    1. Morning, Bill.
      Gave up with broadcast TV ages ago. Bought a gadget that plugs into the TV taht can receive YouTube streamed from the PC. Now there's typically one thing a day (even if it's a video about the financial problems at Quantas or a garage fixing cars) that's worth watching.

        3. I watched the raising of the Mary Rose before I went to work. Apart from that, I've not watched it.

      2. 'morn. I spent an entertaining hour watching a man restoring an Allen Scythe on YouTube a couple of days back. I probably had better things to do but I was totally absorbed.

  18. 'Morning All
    Medley Time
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      1. In 2013, Adams' brother Liam was found guilty of 10 offences, including rape and gross indecency committed against his own daughter. After the allegations of abuse were first made public in 2009, Gerry Adams alleged that his father had subjected family members to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Liam was jailed for 16 years.

        A family of turds!

      2. In 2013, Adams' brother Liam was found guilty of 10 offences, including rape and gross indecency committed against his own daughter. After the allegations of abuse were first made public in 2009, Gerry Adams alleged that his father had subjected family members to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Liam was jailed for 16 years.

        A family of turds!

    2. Many very true representations of life today in our once safe country.
      All brought about by our effing idiot political classes.

    1. Good idea…..but.
      We have only four grandchildren nine yeaes is eldest. They all already have everything possible that suites their age groups.

      1. We have not yet got any grandchildren but the best thing we gave our sons was a love of reading books.

    1. Many. Well, like I say. Many. I spoken to them. Many. Round table. Many round tables.

      As always, like that Elon Musk/James Clayton 'interview'.. Lefties can never name one of the many many so many.

      1. Raynor is a mental vacuum. There are a series of videos on YouTube 'No Brainer with Angela Raynor' in which a comedienne impersonates the muppet. In the latest I saw, she describes herself as a 'Basic Instinct enthusiast'. 😂

    2. Dangerous, too.

      Do we come to the conclusion that she was suffering from a memory lapse during the interview or was she not being open and honest about her claimed actions. To me, it sounded like she was repeating a rehearsed script.

      We have another four and a half years of this tripe unless something serious occurs that is powerful enough to dislodge Labour from power and expose the Tories and LibDums as being equally disingenuous and not worthy of the people's support.

      1. No sane company supports this tosh. She's a typical student socialist. Having never had a job (and being unemployable) she has a skewed idea of how businesses work. She doesn't realise that if you are low skilled you can't do much and don't deserve much, but if you are low skilled and want to get up and out you should have a wide pool of employers offering better salaries, options to choose from.

        She's opposed to this because of her obsession with 'green' and massive uncontrolled gimmigration which prevents the market from working.

        She's dumb, useless, incompetent, inexperienced, a parasite her entire life.

    5. Does this silly woman seriously believe that even the most gullible and stupid of people will be taken in by her total evasion?

    1. Isn't the total waster going to announce some sort of 'reset' today? Let me guess, everything will get worse, none of his policies or idoelogy will be the slightest bit different.

  24. The West cannot miss this opportunity to topple Assad. 5 December 2024.

    Israel and the West should capitalise on Assad and Khamenei’s moment of vulnerability. They should act militarily through targeted airstrikes to weaken Assad, the IRGC and its Shia jihadist proxies even if this temporarily opens a potential vacuum for the Islamist elements of the Syrian opposition.

    It wouldn’t be temporary at all. If Assad falls Syria would become a Jihadist state. There would be a blood bath and a massive refugee exodus.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/05/the-west-cannot-miss-this-opportunity-to-topple-assad/

    1. The atrocities and beheadings have already started oi laffed when the good old "Syrian Observatory For Human Rights" poked its head up again how long before thw White Helmets reappear??

    3. Under Assad, the legally elected President of Syria, all religions were safe in the country. Middle Eastern countries require a different kind of leader to those in the West. Iraq under the horrible Saddam was not the mess that it is now.

      1. These countries are like the East End under the Krays.
        Don't get involved with the boss class and your life will be peaceful.

        1. The Middle East doesn't do democracy; it needs a strong leader to keep the lid on the warring tribes. Something Western governments find impossible to comprehend (judging by the number of times they mistakenly remove the only force for cohesion in Middle Eastern countries).

    4. The BTL comments seem to be along the same lines as the NOTTL reaction – here's a representative comment:
      "Yes topple Assad and see Syria go the way of Iraq and Libya, death and chaos with a helping of radical Islam will be the result. The West seems to wreak destruction with its infernal " regime change " nonsense."

    5. Don't tell the wasters in office. They'll force nationalise P&O and sail over to take the entire population of dindu land.

    6. As usual the UK chose the wrong side in Syria. Why did our politicians choose a group of Jihadist terrorists over a stable, elected government?

  25. The West cannot miss this opportunity to topple Assad. 5 December 2024.

    Israel and the West should capitalise on Assad and Khamenei’s moment of vulnerability. They should act militarily through targeted airstrikes to weaken Assad, the IRGC and its Shia jihadist proxies even if this temporarily opens a potential vacuum for the Islamist elements of the Syrian opposition.

    It wouldn’t be temporary at all. If Assad falls Syria would become a Jihadist state. There would be a blood bath and a massive refugee exodus.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/05/the-west-cannot-miss-this-opportunity-to-topple-assad/

  26. The idea of gynogenic climate change holds that the planet is warming up, but that it is women who are to blame

    Rory Sutherland
    The Ginger Rogers theory of information
    From magazine issue:
    07 December 2024

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Wiki-Getty.jpg

    I had a friend whose approach to entrepreneurialism was to take two separate things that seemed stupidly popular and somehow find a way to combine them. He thought karaoke was ridiculous; his friend thought 24-hour rolling news channels were daft. The two of them created a 24-hour karaoke channel in Asia – and sold it at a sizeable profit.

    Following this model, I wondered if it might be a useful thought-experiment to contrive political theories which are annoying to people on both the left and the right. The theory behind this is simple: there must be a number of good ideas floating in the ether which will never be adopted simply because they repel everyone with either political affiliation. Ideas of this type, whatever their merits, are hence unlikely to be proposed by anyone with the power to enact them – which is precisely why they merit greater consideration. To qualify, any such idea must lose you friends at every point on the political spectrum.

    My first attempt at this was to propose the concept of gynogenic climate change. This is a theory which holds that the planet is warming up, but that it is women who are principally to blame. Not only do they heat homes to an annoyingly high temperature (the gender divide in temperature preference is scientifically proven), but it is women who drive the greater part of all senseless material consumption. The amount spent worldwide on female fashion and beauty products exceeds worldwide expenditure on education. It is also women who are responsible for valuable resources which could be devoted to making ever larger televisions or craft beer being squandered on making Farrow & Ball paint and rosé wine.

    I don’t see this idea gaining much traction, to be honest, though it would probably be more popular than my proposal that all pensioners are deported to Rwanda. The social care costs would be low, and the combination of high altitude and an equatorial location would mean no need for a winter fuel allowance. Replacing pensioners with immigrants would also solve the housing crisis: with immigrants, you seem to get ten people in a four-bedroom house; with pensioners, it’s no more than two. And while we’re on the topic of space, what about farmers? They produce 1 per cent of GDP but use 85 per cent of available land.

    I should make it clear that the point of these ideas is not to enact them: it is simply that, in expanding any solution space, it is much easier to start somewhere ridiculous and rein things back than to start somewhere sensible and try to expand things. Think of it as an Overton skylight.

    I’ve been influenced in this endeavour by what my friend Paul Bloom calls ‘the Ginger Rogers theory of information’. In any information system, some ideas will propagate much more than others simply because they appeal to people’s existing prejudices. Information which runs counter to one or other world-view will be repressed or discounted unless it reaches a very high standard of proof – which is exactly why it deserves extra credence. If you see a report in the Guardian suggesting that widespread gun ownership reduces the rate of domestic burglary, you can assume it is an unassailably robust finding. The same goes for a finding in the Daily Telegraph that raising the minimum wage is a good thing, say, or that working from home boosts productivity.

    It’s called the Ginger Rogers theory for a reason. As someone astutely pointed out, Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. In assessing the significance of any event, it pays to correct for the degree of difficulty involved in its performance.

    Online readers are invited to submit their best Ginger Rogers ideas in the comments. A jar of garlic-flavoured Marmite to the best entry.

    1. I do like that idea.

      Used to be that there was a shower gel and a shampoo in the shower, with soap in a dish. Now there's 30 odd bottles. Some glass, which is just silly in a bathroom.

      When we go away for a weekend to visit my sister, Junior and I shove our kit in a rucksack and we're done for the 3 days and a change of clothes for the inevitable mud bath of a walk. Even the dogs have more stuff than we do.

      The Warqueen packs a suitcase for clothes, another for 'stuff'.

      On the thermostat at my old offices the thermostat was disconnected – left on the wall, but disconnected. It was controlled by an app instead and kept at 20'c. The wimmin would keep tapping it up until it got to 25 or so, not knowing this made no difference to the temperature.

    1. We reached a tipping point in 1997 when Blair poured a million of them on us every single year.

      There used to be one well known asian fellow in my home town. Now it's crawling with the diversity and an absolute toilet, litter, crime of all types is now common place because the diversity don't care. They just soak up welfare and contribute nothing.

      1. I wonder how much he made out of all that. And when the content of all his D Notices will be released.

  28. Good Morrow good people!
    A tad under 5½°C on the yard thermometer as the clouds break up after last night's rain.
    Not a lot of wind to shake the trees either.

  29. Did anyone see the picture of the huge banner put in Parliament Square reading “Yes, it’s genocide”?

    I am going to report it as a hate crime. We have to fight them with their own weapons.!

    1. What is, though? The replacement of white people throughout Europe? Here at home? The erosion of our property, freedoms, individualism? Or if just in pallywally, oh well. Perhaps the next lot to live there will not be such violent, savage thugs hellbent on killing Israelis.

      1. Good points. I automatically assumed they were referring to Israel defending itself against the Islamofascism of Hammas. But maybe i am wrong!

        1. Lefties don't like to see both sides of a story. It's how they ensure their hypocrisy remains unchallenged.

    1. I had an advert from Lakeland today; it featured a black family and a white woman with a black man in the background of the kitchen. I chucked it in the fire. It had no relevance to me whatsoever.

  31. Good morning, chums – I overslept a little – and thanks, as usual, to Geoff for today's site.

    Wordle 1,265 3/6

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    1. I remember Dr. Kelly sitting on his own in front of a range of MPs. Nobody sat beside him to give him any support. It was a very upsetting sight.
      And I remember Blair's face when he was told, during a news conference in the Far East. His face went literally white; all blood and colour drained from it. I had read about the phenomenon, but it was the first time I had seen it.

      1. 398093+ up ticks,

        Morning Anne,

        b liar, AKA and will forever hold the title miranda the treacherous bastard.

      2. One of the cruellest ironies of fate is that Dr David Kelly and hundreds of thousands who fought in the Iraq war are dead while Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell are still alive.

        Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
        And thou no breath at all?

        King Lear holding the body of his beloved dead daughter Cordelia, whom he had wronged, in his arms.

  33. If what you say is true, wibbling, then don't hold back. Call her a Very Silly Sausage! (good morning, btw.)

    1. Morning Elsie! There are many things I could call Raynor but she does enough damage every time she speaks. The woman is an utter, complete cretin.

      When you look at great folk throughout history and their contributions the duff men seems to get forgotten, but the useless women do untold damage – and they're always Lefties.

      1. I hold 5 crypto currencies. 3 of them are expected to surge. Dogecoin already is doing so.

        The beauty of it is that all 5 were bought with profits from bitcoin.

        Even if it does go pop i haven't lost a penny.

        1. I was paid £200 in Ethereum for a couple of hours proof reading for a crypto marketeer two years ago. It's now tripled. I think I'll hang on a bit longer. After all, as you said, if it all goes pop, why fret?

          1. What i have been doing is skimming to the point i have all my money back and then just sit and wait.

    2. Have you read about the racket with Tether and US bonds? They will keep this bubble going for as long as they can!

  35. Morning all 🙂😊
    Oh there's a surprise it's raining again. But 12.
    I'm sure all the arm waving tv weather forecasters must be frustrated, they have been telling everyone its going to snow for at least two weeks.

  36. Free Speech has two new articles today, one short one by Nanumaga on the closure of the Luton car plant Nut Zero and a slightly longer one by the G rumpy Old Git on unnecessary and idiot signs . Please do read them and leave your make by dropping a comment.

    The Big Petition , the one demanding an early election, is stuck just shy of three million, at 2,059,535. If you have not signed it please do so, and try to get your friends and family to sign up as well. It will not lead to an election, but three million signatures is a major embarrassment to the Labour tyranny.

    Energy Watch: Demand at 0800: 39.455 GW. Supply: Hydrocarbon = 28%; Renewables = 46.6%; Nuclear = 2.9%; Biomass = 5.6% and Imports 5.4%.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

    1. What is the real figure, Tom? 2,059,535 is nowhere near 3 million. I believe you have made a mistake; it ought to be corrected. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. It creeping up.

          Maybe there'll be another surge when the next governmental outrage comes along!

      3. Good Morning! Sorry, missprint Elsie – it’s 2,959, 539, 40,462 shy of the three million.

  37. Good Moaning.
    Happy Duck Day.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/12/04/supreme-court-protester-trans-surgery-means-cant-breastfeed/

    "I regret trans surgery that stops me breastfeeding my baby, says mother

    Prisha Mosley, who reversed her teenage gender change after meeting her boyfriend, speaks outside Supreme Court as it debates landmark case

    Hordes of demonstrators crowded outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, clutching banners and chanting slogans as its justices debated arguments for and against legalising access to transgender healthcare for minors.

    Among them was Prisha Mosley, who transitioned from female to male only to regret the decision and revert to her birth gender.

    “I will suffer for the rest of my life for believing in my confusion those who perpetuate these cruel lies,” she told the crowd.

    “When I was too young, people tried to warn me, and those people were painted as transphobes by the very medical professionals who were poisoning me.”

    Speaking to The Telegraph outside the court, the 26-year-old from Michigan revealed the impact of her transition.

    Having been prescribed hormone therapy and puberty blockers and then undergoing a double mastectomy as a teenager, Ms Mosley has been left with lasting health problems.

    She is reliant on hormone treatment, experiences chronic pain and, after giving birth to a son six months ago, has milk “trapped” in her chest and is unable to feel her baby when she hugs him close.

    “My chest is numb, and I don’t feel my baby when I hold him there,” she said.

    Ms Mosley said she first began questioning her gender identity as a teenager after speaking to gender dysphoria activists online.

    At the time, she was experiencing anxiety and depression and suffering from anorexia.

    When she raised with her doctors that she felt she was born in the wrong body she said they immediately “medicalised” her as transgender.

    She said the reaction from doctors was: “Okay, your body is wrong. Let’s give you medicine for it.”

    Her parents were supportive of the treatment at the time but now feel they were “lied to by the activist doctors who were treating me”.

    Two camps emerged outside the court in Washington, DC on Wednesday.

    On one side, a sea of rainbow flags flapped in the icy wind, while protestors held signs aloft which read “protect LGBT Conversion” and “Fight like a Mother for Trans Rights”.

    On the other, neatly partitioned by metal railings and dozens of wary police officers, rival demonstrators bore signs saying “stop the harm” and chanted “leave kids alone” through a professional sound system.

    The case, US v. Skrmetti, concerns a Tennessee law that prohibits minors from accessing gender-reassigning treatments.

    It has been widely viewed as the most significant case on transgender rights to come before the country’s highest court and could have profound consequences for federal policy on gender rights.

    Although the justices’ decision is not expected for several months, early indications suggest it will rule in favour of Tennessee.

    “I really thought that my doctors were my saviours and my heroes, and I trusted them. But through growing up and facing the effects of gender-destroying harm, I lost my health and found myself completely alone,” Ms Mosley said.

    Aged 16, she was prescribed Depo-Provera by her nutritionist to stop her periods.

    The following year, she was prescribed testosterone, which she said had an “almost immediate” and “permanent” impact, leaving her now reliant on progesterone and oestrogen supplements to regulate her hormones after detransitioning.

    Operation was ‘butchery’

    At 18, she was given an irreversible and medically unnecessary double mastectomy — known colloquially as “top surgery”.

    The operation, which she described as “butchery”, has left her with enduring health problems,which worsened after she gave birth six months ago.

    “I wasn’t warned what could happen,” she said. “I had milk trapped in my chest that couldn’t get to my nipples because my nipples were grafted. They were removed and reshaped and sewn into the wrong spot so that my chest could look like a boy’s chest.”

    It was only after meeting her boyfriend two and a half years ago that Ms Mosley decided to de-transition, aged 24.

    At the time, she still dressed like a man and had a beard, but spending time with her partner’s young daughter encouraged her to revert to her biological sex.

    “She called me mommy,” she said. “Her mother isn’t in her life, but that was the way I cared for her.

    “She told me the truth, and that’s how I came out of it.”

    Ms Mosley now works as a full-time campaigner against hormone treatment and puberty blockers and said the reason she continues to speak out is so that “other kids don’t have to go through what I went through”.

    “My son never got to have milk. There are a lot of things this impacts that last forever,” she said.

    “No one has the right to harm a child, and I will continue to advocate for truth, love and for science to protect our children, our nation’s children. I’ve been part of the experiment. The experiment is a catastrophic failure.” "

    1. "There's a lot of people who can't move on this. And a lot of people have done the worst thing that you could do, which is to harm their children irrevocably. Those people will have to believe that they did the right thing for the rest of their lives.. for their own sanity and for their own self-respect. So they'll still be fighting. And if we don't there's no way back for them and their child.

      They sold their child a Bill of Goods that they can't deliver on. And I'm the one that has to bullied to try and force me to deliver on that. So they are the people that will be keeping this bloody movement going. I'm sorry to say because they've everything to lose. And it's a fight to the death as far as they're concerned."

      Helen Joyce.

    2. "There's a lot of people who can't move on this. And a lot of people have done the worst thing that you could do, which is to harm their children irrevocably. Those people will have to believe that they did the right thing for the rest of their lives.. for their own sanity and for their own self-respect. So they'll still be fighting. And if we don't there's no way back for them and their child.

      They sold their child a Bill of Goods that they can't deliver on. And I'm the one that has to bullied to try and force me to deliver on that. So they are the people that will be keeping this bloody movement going. I'm sorry to say because they've everything to lose. And it's a fight to the death as far as they're concerned."

      Helen Joyce.

    3. Buyer's remorse.
      She got what she wanted and then found she didn't. She won't be the last to come to her senses and find she's been irrevocably damaged.

      1. There will be some interesting court cases.
        Is it too late to train as a 'hooman rites' lawyer?
        (So we can afford our energy bills!)

        1. Granville Sharp trained as a lawyer to fight a specific cause. I think he was self-taught, which was possible back in the 1700s? One of Sharp's brothers was a doctor who on certain days held surgeries free of charge for the poor and on one occasion a badly beaten African slave presented himself. The brother restored the man to health only for him to be reclaimed by his master and Sharp fought to establish the principle that a man cannot be held as a slave on English soil. Sad that such a sound premise has been so badly twisted and the morality inverted?

          1. Have the Sharps apologised for having anything to do with slaves? Perhaps they'll be made to pay reparations …

      3. The things that we have to protect our children from are sometimes things that we didn't even dream existed in our worst nightmares.

  38. Grey and wet:
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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Wordle 1,265 4/6

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

  39. Grey and wet:
    Wordle 1,265 4/6

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

    1. Yes, and after all those official inquiries.

      What a surprise….so many surprises from the Biden administration !

    3. Hercules Fifth Labour was to clean out the Augean Stables : sheer child's play compared with flushing out all the excrement in the White House and all the Democrats' offices.

  41. Foreign-funded NGOs & agitators.. such as National Endowment for Democracy & USAID took to the streets in Georgia to fiercely protest against suspending talks on accession to the European Union.

    A carbon copy of the Ukrainian Maidan Uprising, right down to foreign embassies handing out bread.

    2. This is the second time in Georgia, but it didn't work out well the first time. You forgot to mention the CIA though, who are also clsaley involved in the Syrian outbreak, in a war started by the US and which has killed far mor Muslims that the IDF has, to no protest at all by the mophead mobs chanting from the river to the sea.

      And the MSM constantly ramps up the anti-Russian (and Chinese) propaganda with ever more preposterous claims.

  44. Yo all and Good Moaning from a damp C d S

    OAT is 10.8

    I absolutely detest parsnips, and wondered if these too could be given an honourable mention.

    There is only one word I can add to this

    BRUSSEL SPROUTS

    1. I tried some frozen baby Brussel sprouts a couple of years ago, they were actually delicious which quite surprised me since I hate B. sprouts. You might want to try them. Parsnips. Ugh!!! Yes irredeemable. Top of the list for awful, Kale.

    2. Er, but that is two words, just like the "word of the year", which is apparently "brain rot"?

      1. Shucks, SB

        You caught me out

        I did not notice it was two words

        Naughty me.

        Trap removed

      1. So do I

        Secretly, sprouts slowly fried in butter are lovely.

        It should be said, that the normal sprout eater should have them in the pressure cookr now, to make sure that they are cooked for Xmas 2028

  45. Allister Heath
    Starmer’s staggering incompetence makes him the worst PM in 50 years

    This is the most dangerous government for generations. Will Nigel Farage be the winner from its collapse?

    04 December 2024 7:04pm GMT

    Keir Starmer has been in office for only five months, but it is already clear that his Government will be the worst in half a century. The die is cast: the Prime Minister is doubling down on every mistake, every prejudice, every tenet of the failed orthodoxy that has ruined Britain, probably because he is a true believer. He cannot and won’t change, seemingly oblivious to his abominable poll ratings, yet his inability to get anything right is truly staggering.

    Even those of us who predicted Starmer would be a disaster have been stunned by the speed of his implosion, the lies, the shamelessness of his pandering to the public sector unions, his lack of basic political skills, his ineffectual communications, his abysmal strategy and tactics and the low calibre of many of his ministers.

    His relaunch this week will merely prove that he has no ideas other than to serve as the Blob’s emissary. There is no hope of a comeback, no chance of a meaningful change of direction or sudden outbreak of inspiration. He has hired the most insidery of Whitehall insiders to be his new Civil Service chief. He has surrounded himself with human rights lawyers who believe that handing over the Chagos Islands and the Elgin Marbles, freeing criminals, pushing up the price of energy and motoring in the name of net zero, restricting the advertising of porridge, and persecuting Israel amounts to a coherent, attractive policy agenda for Middle Britain.

    If that were not bad enough, he will keep legal immigration at extreme levels, has no plans to meaningfully tackle illegal arrivals, cannot conceive of “improvements” to state services that don’t involve massive pay splurges, will never wage a real war on crime, is too timid to reform the NHS, won’t address the scandal that there are six million adults on out-of-work benefits and will reverse the hard-earned progress in state education.

    Rachel Reeves killed the economy stone dead after she broke her promises and massively increased taxes. There is no money, and there will soon be even less. Reeves will end up breaking her latest promise not to increase taxes again, and will go after property wealth and pension tax relief, plunging the country into a doom loop.

    Even sacking Reeves won’t change anything: Labour’s pensée unique, its hatred of the private sector, will condemn Britain to impoverishment regardless of which non-player character inhabits No 11. Starmer’s skills appear limited to internal politics: he is purging his extreme-Left, and stacking Labour with loyalists who will never rebel, even if the polls plunge further.

    All of which raises a critical question: who will benefit politically from Labour’s collapse? Many self-satisfied Tories assume the pendulum will naturally swing their way, that Reform peaked in July. Yet we live in a world where the centre no longer holds, where all the energy is on the populist Right, where radical parties have displaced old centre-Right ones or where they have been taken over by the likes of Donald Trump, and where squishy, “grown-up”, “sensible” technocrats à la Macron stand no chance, regardless of voting systems. There is no reason why the UK should be any different.

    Kemi Badenoch should aim to emulate Canada’s Pierre Poilievre, one of the few conventional leaders of a traditional conservative party that is on course to triumph. He has shifted drastically Right-wards on immigration, on tax, on woke, and promises to build massive numbers of homes for young people. He is extremely pro-Israel and anti-Islamist.

    Badenoch has had a good start. Her speech on immigration was spot on. She understands the magnitude of the task ahead, as do some of her lieutenants, such as Chris Philp, shadow home secretary. But plenty of her MPs do not: I keep encountering mind-boggling complacency among the Tory establishment and staff. Too many still believe that 300,000 net migration is fine, that the best that can be hoped for is stabilising the tax burden, that the coalition of 2019 can no longer be recreated. These people should join the Lib Dems. They are the fools who have destroyed the country and will destroy the Tory party, unless Badenoch crushes them first.

    The situation in Wales, where elections are being held in 18 months’ time under new rules, should give them nightmares. Welsh Labour has turned the nation into a laboratory for failed socialist experiments. Yet the Tories have slumped, and their leader Andrew Davies, bizarrely seen as too Right-wing by his stupider colleagues, has resigned.

    Seat projections derived from a YouGov poll show Welsh Reform as joint first at 25 or 26 Sennedd seats out of 96, up from zero in 2021, neck and neck with either Labour or Plaid Cymru. The third-placed party – either Plaid or Labour – is on 24 or 25 seats. The Tories are in fourth place, at 17-19 seats.

    A Right-wing victory could be just some five seats away – but it would probably involve a Reform-Tory coalition, with Farage’s party the dominant partner and Badenoch’s the juniors. This would trigger an earthquake in British politics, permanently shift perceptions and pave the way for cooperation at UK level.

    Farage faces several challenges if he wants there to be “hundreds of [Reform] newcomers in Westminster” soon, a goal which no longer sounds mad. He needs to really, really want it. He must democratise. He needs Reform to be seen as an alternative government, capable of efficiently running and reforming the state, not just a protest vehicle.

    Trump, a billionaire entrepreneur, is seen as a doer, an executive, as well as someone who will teach the corrupt elites a lesson. Farage is a charismatic communicator, a one-man protest mega-brand, rather than an obvious manager, so he needs to surround himself with a strong executive team (in addition to Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf). This might include high-ranking Tory defectors, business founders and doctors. Reform will need to vet its candidates carefully, blocking both fascistic extremists and amoral, unprincipled, Lib Dem-style careerists.

    Labour will fail catastrophically, but who will rescue us? The Tories, Reform or a combination? Are we heading for another 1924, when Labour broke through, or another 1979, the start of the Thatcher ascendancy? Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, faites vos jeux.

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

    1. For incompetence, I reckon he ties with Cameron.
      The others were just downright bought and paid for.

  46. Massey Ferguson
    13h
    The EU's Brexit negotiator has said he sees the process as an opportunity to "teach" the British people and others what leaving the single market means.

    It means I can sit on my sofa with a bag of popcorn on this side of the channel laughing my nuts off, Michel.

    1. Bill Quango MP
      13h
      I do have a solution for poor Macron.
      We know what he likes in a PM.

      A technocrat.

      A tax raiser.

      A strong supporter of France

      Very pro EU.

      Pro open borders and immigration

      Dislikes Trump and America.

      Hates Brexit and Britain.

      Annoys the farmers and pensioners.

      loves expenses and freebies.

      A legislative bureaucrat.

      It just so happens we have just the chap right here.

      And we don’t even want him!

      TTK!

      Ta Ta Keir.


  48. The Prime minister calls to mind Stevie Smith's famous poem:


    Nobody heard him, the dead man,
    But still he lay moaning:
    "I was much further out than you thought
    And not waving but drowning."

    (Skip the second verse : He doesn't do humour so he doesn't like larking and he doesn't like poetry so he probably doesn't like Larkin either!)

    As far as his job as PM is concerned he should leave office saying:

    "I was much too far out all my life
    And not waving but drowning."

  49. Good morning. Damp, drizzly, dank, dark and cold. Could almost be summer weather.
    Apart from France falling to pieces, quite predictable if you try to muscle out the most popular political party. Nothing much of interest happening in the world today. I suppose that's good? Der Starmerfuhrer being the most dismal PM in 50 years is also predictable. The only advantage to all of that is hopefully the government will not last to long and we can go back to the comfortable lies and deceit of the Conservative Party in alliance, perhaps, with the not so crypto-Conservative Nigel Farage in charge, who's repellent attack on Ben Habib was as nasty as his attack on Gerrard Batten. Seems to be fond of stabbing people in the back does Farage.

    1. Absolutely correct. Reform is not a member led party. It is a limited company with 15 shares of which Farage holds 9! He doesn't want democracy, he wants power, which he now has.

      1. With much trepidation I joined Reform a couple of months ago because I saw no alternative. I regret it now and will not be renewing my membership.

      2. "If you know their name, they're in the game" (MiriAF)
        Reform got oodles of media coverage since they were founded.

    1. Ah butt.
      Every different iteration of Mohatred is treated as a separate name, if you add all the iterations together the situation is far worse.
      It's been top your years.

      1. Variations of the name Mohammad
        Mohammed
        Mahomet
        Muhammed
        Mohammad
        Mahammad
        Mohamad
        Mohamed
        Hamed
        Mehmet
        Ahmad
        Hamid
        Muhamet
        Mokhmad
        Muhammadu
        Mehmed
        Magomed
        Muhammet
        Mamadou
        Muhamad
        Ahmed
        Mahmoud
        Mihhammad
        Mahometus
        Məhəmməd
        Məmməd
        Mukhammed
        Mihemed
        Magomet
        Mahamadou

  51. Here's some more fecal matter in the Cuisinart about Starmer.

    Starmer’s contempt for pensioners is staring us all in the face
    The Prime Minister refused to engage with a 99-year-old war veteran about her state allowance – further proof he doesn’t care for retirees

    As if any further proof were needed that Sir Keir Starmer is utterly hopeless at politics, consider the following story. This week, a 99-year-old British woman who won two medals for her service in the Second World War flew nearly 5,000 miles to London from her home in Canada.

    The woman, Anne Puckridge, did this to protest against the fact that almost half a million British retirees don’t receive annual increases in their state pension because they’ve moved abroad. Having emigrated to Canada in 2001, she calculates that she personally has missed out on around £60,000.

    Yet, incredibly, the Prime Minister rejected her request to meet.

    Now, obviously it’s not possible for the PM to meet every single person who wants to talk to him. If he did that, he wouldn’t have time to perform the most crucial parts of his job, such as flying thousands of miles to attend summits on climate change, and trying on free designer suits.

    But, given how much trouble Sir Keir’s already in with pensioners, after summarily stripping 10 million of them of their winter fuel payment, surely his aides would have urged him to set aside five seconds for a token photo op, in which he could be pictured shaking Ms Puckridge’s hand and promising to “listen”.

    After all, headlines such as “Starmer Snubs WW2 Heroine, 99” do not represent ideal PR. And when voters read headlines like that, they’re liable to conclude that Sir Keir’s contempt for pensioners runs even deeper than they’d thought. “Ye gods,” they’ll murmur. “What’s the man going to do next? Ban Werther’s Originals? Impose swingeing new taxes on sudoku, lawn bowls and Gardeners’ Question Time?”

    Even if Sir Keir has no intention of helping those half million pensioners who live abroad, therefore, he should at least have met Ms Puckridge, and pretended to look interested. So what on earth was he thinking when he turned her down? Personally, I can see only one possible explanation.

    Traumatised by the full screaming horror of Gordon Brown’s experience with Gillian Duffy in 2010, Sir Keir has decided that angry old women must be avoided at all costs. The dangers they pose to Labour prime ministers are simply too great.

    Getting caught calling Mrs Duffy a “bigoted woman”, let’s not forget, helped lose Mr Brown a general election, and therefore his premiership. Voters kicked him out of Downing Street little more than a week later.

    So perhaps Sir Keir is terrified that, in similar style, he’d be caught on microphone, grumbling about this 99-year-old war veteran the moment she’s out of earshot.

    “Grasping, whiny old bag. Thinks that just because she helped to save this country from annihilation by the most evil dictatorship in world history, she deserves the same increase to her state pension that everyone else gets…”

    It may sound improbable. But given how hopeless Sir Keir is at politics, I wouldn’t put it past him.

    2. Remember that, despite Gordon Brown's microphone "gaffe", the "bigoted woman" did eventually vote for him.

    3. Remember that, despite Gordon Brown's microphone "gaffe", the "bigoted woman" did eventually vote for him.

    4. OK, as much as I detest Starmer and his ilk and agree that this highlights his contempt for pensioners, can I just point out that the freezing of pensions to ex-pat pensioners is an old problem that ought to have been dealt with YEARS, if not decades ago?

      1. I’m aware of that and there is no excuse for it. But this story is about a very old lady who travelled a very long way and, to whom, he was very discourteous. He has enough time to go galivanting around the world but can’t spare 10 minutes for this lady.

    5. If she had moved to Ireland or the USA, or the EU she'd have had the increases. It isn't "living abroad", it's living in a Commonwealth country as I understood it when I looked at what would happen to my pension if I emigrated.

  54. I've just seen a suggestion on tv that all dogs must be kept on a lead at all times.
    If your dog is known to be under controll you are responsible for it. Our old dog was well trained and understood the rules. Unfortunately many people theses days are too silly to understand this sort of thing.
    Government licences will be required soon.
    Perhaps our more dangerous political idiots should be on a lead.

    1. It’s the first step to making dogs haram throughout the country. Don’t be under any illusion as to the intent.

    2. Never mind the dogs and would that include ( four-legged) bitches?

      There are wide sections of the population, of non British heritage, that also need to be kept under control.

      Daily, these people are taking over our lives

  55. I think it is more simple than that. Starmer's head is in Davos, where voters are irrelevant, and he is too stupid to realise that he's supposed to be keeping the democracy fiction alive.

    Just before Khan was elected in London, he was attending an event and there was a small demonstration of people who wanted to keep a library open, who hoped to have a word with him. All they got was video footage of his expensive car driving away.
    Khan wasn't interested in ordinary voters, especially white people who weren't rich. Same mentality; they don't need your crummy little vote because bigger forces are at play.

  56. I'm not under any illusions any more in my country. We have the most annoyingly ignorant political classes on the planet. As I and many others have said, they eff up everything they come into contact with. All of them.
    He's making his 'reset, emergency relaunch' speech this morning.

    1. " Blah blah blah. The more we look, the more we realise that it's all the fault of Brexit and the Tories. Blah blah blah. Black hole, blacker hole. Blah blah blah. Trump"

  57. What I don't understand is why only Barnier is being removed from the French government?
    Does this mean Macron is completely
    innocent ?

    2. Macron is the Head of State, Barnier is the head of government. To compare it with the UK, it's like removing the King (Head of State) who appointed the Prime Minister, if the people ever get rid of Sir Keir.

  61. Good luck to you, keep taking profits.

    I can’t be sure what will trigger the explosion, but, for example, imagine if someone discovers a way to “mine” crypto for next to nothing and produces countless billions in secret over a short period, sells as many as possible for real money/gold, before flooding the market and the market collapses utterly.
    Rather like forgeries sometimes harmed paper money.

  62. In reflective mode (and mood) – I suppose the real problem facing France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other EU countries is the, er, EU. The main levers of power, that used to reside with sovereign governments, are now in the hands of Frau Fond of Lying and her henchmen. The economic turmoil in France, for example, would once have been tackled by devaluing the franc. As they are in the eurozone = impossible. I wonder when the penny will drop?

    2. As they are in the eurozone = impossible.
      A centralised tax system with fiscal transfers would solve that.
      However, the money always drains to the epicentres. That would be Nederlands, Paris & Germany. Then you would have about twenty odd SNP types in perpetual angry mode demanding a UK industry to be relocated to their backyard.

  63. Good morning, all. Wet.

    Researching the 'Bovaer' scandal I've discovered that Müller are linked with Arla and Tesco in trialling methane reduction feeds, although the 'B' word isn't used.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/24ec9aabbd806a7b5f6a68199d3e343ad22de9def776e937f0c086bec825e73a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f19a846c881f85f03ec2b6e4016ff3946bdbf6303b1ed2720d8844d339aa6541.png

    Tesco, Arla and Müller

    How this relates to Lidl dairy items – my recently purchased products from Lidl are marked with Müller – isn't clear. Tesco appear to be at the forefront of this 'green' revolution. I can't see how mixing a toxic substance with other fodder and feeding it to cows can be considered 'green'. But that is the sorry state of the World we currently inhabit.

    To be fair the Müller website does mention that the company is investigating other methods to reduce emissions and monitoring anti-biotic use.

    My searches have resulted in finding a local Dairy that delivers, I think Anne may have mentioned this before, Colchester Dairy. Obviously, they are on the ball as their website has this pop-up on their home page.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f1437c12190de7cf03d4bff15b62ff4d60dba255a54bff27e83f35871cea0ba.png
    It only mentions milk and no other product but it's a start.

    1. Once again there is deliberate neglect by Arla in mentioning that elderly dairy cows, who

      traditionally were slaughtered for mince, will now have to be buried or burnt.

      I'm sure that the Government will be compensating the dairy farmers for this considerable

      loss of income.

        1. ITV claims that there is no contamination of the milk, and claims that there have been many trials.

          Which brings us to the obvious questions: If there have been many trials, why do we need another one?
          Why does a Danish company need to do their trials in Britain rather than Denmark?

          1. And how would ITV know this with certainty?

            The company informed them? That’s alright then, just like the “vaccine” companies told us that their potions were safe and effective.

  65. They are capped. You can’t mine crypto indefinitely. The less available the more difficult and expensive the mining becomes.

          2. I hope you can sue.
            If there is a legal agreement between the UK and his tropical hideaway…

  66. 2023 data out.
    And the winner of the most popular name for baby boys in England is.. drumroll.
    And the winner of the most popular name for baby boys in Ireland is.. drumroll.
    And the winner of the most popular name for baby boys in Wales is.. drumroll.

    1. A glimpse into the crystal ball of the future..
      One day a teacher calls out the name and the whole class raises their hand, that's if they understood what had been asked.

      1. In those schools, increasingly in all the others too "asking" is prohibited. You attend to be told and not to ask.

    2. A glimpse into the crystal ball of the future..
      One day a teacher calls out the name and the whole class raises their hand, that's if they understood what had been asked.

  68. Apparently crumpets, porridge and roast potatoes are now classified as "junk food" according to the government's latest advertising pre the watershed banning machine 🙄.

    I'm officially putting the government on notice that it's a 'junk thinker' and is now banned from my hearing. We truly do live once again in the age of those who ban Christmas and carols.

  69. Ross Clark
    The triumph of England’s maths lessons
    4 December 2024, 4:59pm

    Hold your hats, but Britain is doing rather well in something – or at least England is. Our children are achieving more at maths than in any country outside South or East Asia. According to the latest Trends in International Maths and Science Study, conducted by the Dutch-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), English 13 to 14-year-olds come out with an average score of 525, sixth behind Singapore (605), Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) (602), Korea (596), Japan (595) and Hong Kong (575).

    To put that into context, a score of 550 indicates that students ‘can apply their conceptual understanding in a variety of relatively complex situations’, while a score of 625 means students can ‘extend understanding beyond working with integers alone to solve a variety of problems in novel contexts’. As for English 9–10-year-olds, they came ninth, behind Macao, Lithuania and Turkey as well as the above countries. Scotland and Wales do not appear in the rankings.

    The findings confirm what last year’s PISA rankings told us. In mathematics, Britain came tenth, behind Macao, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, Estonia, Vietnam and Poland. Breaking down scores within countries, England is strongly outperforming Scotland and Wales. The findings were especially concerning in Scotland given that, until 2012, Scottish schoolchildren were scoring more highly than English ones.

    While the findings are a credit to the English education system – which doesn’t always attract plaudits – they also show a widening educational gulf between East Asia and the rest of the world. When PISA tests were first conducted in 2000, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea were top, but they scored only narrowly higher than the best non-Asian countries – with New Zealand, Finland and Australia next. Now, the Asian countries are taking off, with a significant gap between them and the rest.

    Significantly, the countries which are doing best in teaching children mathematics are also the countries which have undergone the fastest economic transformations in modern times, with Singapore and South Korea both making the jump from third-world to first-world economies within the space of two generations. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that there is a correlation between economic success and maths education, as numeracy becomes ever more fundamental to skills required in technological societies. Any country which is tempted to ‘decolonise’ its mathematics curriculum by making it easier does so at its peril.

    Yet there is one oddity: the US, which is leading the developed world on economic growth at the moment, and which has outstripped Europe for most of this century, has always come out relatively poorly in these tests. On the IEA table, the US comes 21st for 13–14-year-olds and 22nd for 9–10-year-olds. On the PISA 2022 tables, it comes way down the list at 40th, squeezed between Serbia and Kazakhstan. The United States, it hardly needs to be said, leads the world in technology. It possesses most of the world’s largest and most successful tech companies. What makes it able to do this in spite of apparently poor knowledge of maths among its schoolchildren is something of a mystery.

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

    Septic Sceptic
    18 hours ago
    Here in Wales, the kids aren't doing so well under Labour. Same in Scotland under the SNP I hear. Progressives don't seem to be very good at the education thing being, as they are, in the thrall of the education unions. I guess it'll only be a matter of time before Labour do the same in England.

    JamesR
    18 hours ago edited
    GCSE Arithmetic exam : If you are on Universal Credit, have two children, both of whom have ADHD and autism, live in rented accommodation and suffer from mental health problems, how much money would you be entitled to per week?
    "Well done Shanelle! That's the exact amount. We'll get you into the University of Stow on the Wold if you keep this up. OK everybody that's enough for this morning. You can go home now. It's my well-being afternoon."

    Richard Beck
    15 hours ago
    For the US it's easy, they import their mathematicians from Asia….

  70. Ross Clark
    The triumph of England’s maths lessons
    4 December 2024, 4:59pm

    Hold your hats, but Britain is doing rather well in something – or at least England is. Our children are achieving more at maths than in any country outside South or East Asia. According to the latest Trends in International Maths and Science Study, conducted by the Dutch-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), English 13 to 14-year-olds come out with an average score of 525, sixth behind Singapore (605), Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) (602), Korea (596), Japan (595) and Hong Kong (575).

    To put that into context, a score of 550 indicates that students ‘can apply their conceptual understanding in a variety of relatively complex situations’, while a score of 625 means students can ‘extend understanding beyond working with integers alone to solve a variety of problems in novel contexts’. As for English 9–10-year-olds, they came ninth, behind Macao, Lithuania and Turkey as well as the above countries. Scotland and Wales do not appear in the rankings.

    The findings confirm what last year’s PISA rankings told us. In mathematics, Britain came tenth, behind Macao, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, Estonia, Vietnam and Poland. Breaking down scores within countries, England is strongly outperforming Scotland and Wales. The findings were especially concerning in Scotland given that, until 2012, Scottish schoolchildren were scoring more highly than English ones.

    While the findings are a credit to the English education system – which doesn’t always attract plaudits – they also show a widening educational gulf between East Asia and the rest of the world. When PISA tests were first conducted in 2000, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea were top, but they scored only narrowly higher than the best non-Asian countries – with New Zealand, Finland and Australia next. Now, the Asian countries are taking off, with a significant gap between them and the rest.

    Significantly, the countries which are doing best in teaching children mathematics are also the countries which have undergone the fastest economic transformations in modern times, with Singapore and South Korea both making the jump from third-world to first-world economies within the space of two generations. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that there is a correlation between economic success and maths education, as numeracy becomes ever more fundamental to skills required in technological societies. Any country which is tempted to ‘decolonise’ its mathematics curriculum by making it easier does so at its peril.

    Yet there is one oddity: the US, which is leading the developed world on economic growth at the moment, and which has outstripped Europe for most of this century, has always come out relatively poorly in these tests. On the IEA table, the US comes 21st for 13–14-year-olds and 22nd for 9–10-year-olds. On the PISA 2022 tables, it comes way down the list at 40th, squeezed between Serbia and Kazakhstan. The United States, it hardly needs to be said, leads the world in technology. It possesses most of the world’s largest and most successful tech companies. What makes it able to do this in spite of apparently poor knowledge of maths among its schoolchildren is something of a mystery.

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

    Septic Sceptic
    18 hours ago
    Here in Wales, the kids aren't doing so well under Labour. Same in Scotland under the SNP I hear. Progressives don't seem to be very good at the education thing being, as they are, in the thrall of the education unions. I guess it'll only be a matter of time before Labour do the same in England.

    JamesR
    18 hours ago edited
    GCSE Arithmetic exam : If you are on Universal Credit, have two children, both of whom have ADHD and autism, live in rented accommodation and suffer from mental health problems, how much money would you be entitled to per week?
    "Well done Shanelle! That's the exact amount. We'll get you into the University of Stow on the Wold if you keep this up. OK everybody that's enough for this morning. You can go home now. It's my well-being afternoon."

    Richard Beck
    15 hours ago
    For the US it's easy, they import their mathematicians from Asia….

  72. Prepare yourself for a major nasal whine-fest gush at the lectern..
    Lots of stress on these important wordies with both hands out in chopping board fashion, and cabinet nodding in background in unison.

    six clear promises..
    milestones..
    change..
    reset & refocus..
    mission-led government..
    borders safe.. LOL

      1. IMHO this country started its down-ward slide with with Heath 'common market' application and accelerated with Wilson and so on and so forth.

  74. Need to reboot drop these off
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e6cd52f079172f7716ca1200ebdd1407f1f77d9c772e36b01fa87b50d85714f.jpg
    https://scontent.fbrs4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/468241894_583082790904017_7598771768286504652_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=Kb4tA_MmCgQQ7kNvgFiwag1&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fbrs4-2.fna&_nc_gid=AHUtePh3fJBvf0OTLkDJ5lU&oh=00_AYA71juCZ5adtggwo6mxrvjWJRdsydmFJ3F_Y5-3nODx5A&oe=6750AAF2
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b6ee697ad2ffd68b5cfc9be815c9c2e0be95981227511b938f08abc69ee3294.jpg
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    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6647d7074e2a42a42e51404d022ff6258389793e17faa5c9fa190066506a3f55.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3b79ba3f7379a2753895c4930faed352cb8ef53da7f7f2a218b9582947f1a83f.jpg
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  75. Yes I realise, but even with sugar it's, a) not a junk food, b) the parents' business and not the government's. The telly is getting much like the London Underground where you can't advertise a burger but you can advertise to get donations to charities that want to marginalise Israel. Either they haven't thought this through, or more likely they have ..

    2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Looking back on the Queen’s 1992 ‘annus horribilis’, the events involved – though surprising at the time – seem almost staid now. The wife of her favourite son was photographed canoodling with an American. Her daughter divorced. Her daughter-in-law was the co-creator of a frank book about the sorrows of her marriage to the Queen’s eldest son, and to top it off, Windsor Castle burnt down.
      There’s a whiff of Sunset Boulevard about the isolated pair as they flail around wondering where to go next
      Three decades on, there’s a marked difference between the Queen’s awful year and that of her grandson, Prince Harry. The Queen’s year might have happened to anyone who had a bit of bad luck and a lot of castles. Harry and Meghan’s ‘annus horribilis’ is the direct result of them being, as that Spotify exec said, ‘fucking grifters’.
      Last year, when the ‘grifters’ remark was made, we all thought the Sussexes could go no lower. This was the year of the South Park episode wherein two characters obviously meant to be H&M embark on a ‘Worldwide Privacy Tour’. It included a genuinely chilling moment when the Prince suggests to his wife that they might actually embrace a life of privacy and do good things rather than just talk about how good they are. When she doesn’t answer, he opens her head and finds that she is hollow, like a Russian doll.
      Yet 2024 has, amazingly, been even worse for them. For starters, their supporters now look like bullies, no matter how much they present Meghan as a victim. Meghan’s obsession with Catherine, Princess of Wales, already seemed like a case of sour grapes. But when it transpired that the Princess was absent from public duties due to chemotherapy for cancer, Meghan’s supporters still spread nasty rumours.
      Perhaps finally acknowledging that her acting career is over, Meghan has cooked up a lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like a urinal cake. Entirely unsurprisingly, American Riviera Orchard has failed to take off. While people don’t need to like you for your lifestyle brand to be a success (see Paltrow, G. and Stewart, M.), they do have to be slightly envious of you and think: ‘I wish I had what she’s got!’ No one wants what Meghan’s got – except perhaps possibly poor plastic-faced Omid Scobie. When Tina Brown said this year, ‘The trouble with Meghan is that she has the worst judgment of anyone in the entire world. She’s flawless about getting it all wrong’, it sounded like an understatement.
      Most popular

      Meanwhile Prince Harry is faring no better. The man who once proudly wore medals earned from a decade in the army now travels the world collecting toy-town tributes like a baffled child playing at being a grown-up. At the start of the year he was inducted into something called Living Legends of Aviation, which sounds like a hipster pop group. He ended the year in the ‘Titan’ category of Time magazine’s list of the 100 ‘most influential leaders driving business to real climate action’. Helpfully, in October, the Express totted up the number of air miles gobbled up by Harry and Meghan thus far this year, which amounted to 82,908 for just ‘work events’. The figure does not include internal flights on their visits to Nigeria and Colombia, nor private holidays. This equates to more than three trips around the world. That’s some climate action.
      And two things this year have made Harry appear not merely daft, but callous. The first was when he accepted – against the wishes of the dead man’s mother – the Pat Tillman Award from Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly. Tillman was an American football player who gave up a £3 million contract to enlist in the US army. His mother Mary said: ‘I am shocked as to why they would select such a controversial and divisive individual to receive the award. There are recipients that are far more fitting. There are individuals working in the veteran community that are doing tremendous things to assist veterans. These individuals do not have the money, resources, connections or privilege that Prince Harry has.’ Meanwhile, there are ongoing horror stories emerging from the wildlife charity African Parks in the Republic of Congo, where Harry is a board member. The charity is investigating allegations that ‘guards’ working for it have been involved in the rape and torture of indigenous people.
      What’s the perfect way to correct the impression that you’re an out-of-touch playboy prince? Why not be the ‘executive producer’ of a five-part series about polo, starting on Netflix next week? See what I mean about their judgment? Though both Harry and Meghan’s names will appear on this highly relevant project, it’s likely the muck will stick to the Prince. Polo is his ‘thing’. Next on Netflix is Meghan’s show about cooking, so we can all see how down-to-earth she is.
      It seems likely that Meghan has decided that her husband is holding her back, which may be the reason that the once inseparable pair have been travelling mostly solo this year. When a folie à deux gets old, the lovers often turn on each other in their loneliness and frustration.

      ‘I’m confused. Is not getting the winter fuel payment the same as assisted dying?’
      I doubt whether the Sussexes can turn their prospects around. Just as a marriage can survive loathing but not contempt, so it goes with public perception of the famous. We don’t even hate them any more. These drama queens could probably finagle actual hate into fuel for their persecution complex. We just think that they’re ridiculous.
      There’s a distinct whiff of Sunset Boulevard about the isolated pair as they flail around wondering where to go next. Is Harry living in a hotel? Are they moving to Portugal? Will they attempt to follow their friend Ellen DeGeneres to the Cotswolds now that their nemesis is set to become president? Could there be a welcome in Blighty yet for Harry? Tina Brown summed it up: ‘She’s kind of run out of road – I don’t know where Meghan goes. Harry could still, as I say, make a comeback. He’ll always be Prince Harry. He’ll always be the grandson of the Queen and the son of Diana.’ It’s feasible that the marriage could implode and Harry will come limping home. But whatever next year holds, it’s hard to imagine that it could be worse than 2024.
      Julie Burchill

  78. Douglas Murray
    Beware the Qataris
    From magazine issue:
    07 December 2024

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Douglas-Getty.jpg
    I feel some sympathy for the British royal family because of the ghastly people they are forced to meet. The late Queen had to greet Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. This week the King and Prince and Princess of Wales had to meet the Emir of Qatar and his wife.

    True to form, the state media in Britain managed to miss every major problem with this. The BBC did say that there might be protests around the visit because of Qatar’s record on ‘LGBT rights’. But more troubling is that Britain should ever have welcomed the leadership of such a sordid, terrorist-supporting statelet.

    For two decades now Qatar has been one of the leading supporters, funders and hosts of the proscribed terrorist group Hamas. They have transferred billions of dollars to Hamas, and the Emir and his family continue to host the group’s leadership in luxury hotels and apartments in Doha.

    Of course at this point the ‘wise heads’ in Whitehall will point out that Qatar is a major investor in the UK, owning as they do such properties as Harrods. Funnily enough, even before the recent revelations about Mohamed Fayed, ownership of Harrods is not a demonstration of anything good, apart from having oodles of money.

    Qatar certainly has that. Over recent years they have used it to pollute some of our first- and second-tier institutions, such as King’s College London. In the US they have been even more munificent. There is no coincidence in the fact that almost every American university that has played host to pro-Hamas protests over the past 14 months is also the recipient of wads of bribes from Qatar’s slush-fund.

    And it isn’t as though any of this is far from the palace. The Emir’s family are intensely tied up with the terrorism. On the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar this year, the current Emir’s mother – the gruesome Sheikha Moza – mourned and praised Sinwar. Her reaction to the killing of the mastermind of the 7 October massacres was to say: ‘The name Yahya means the one who lives. They thought him dead, but he lives on. He will live on and they will be gone.’ She accompanied this post – written in English– with a verse from the Quran: ‘Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead. In fact, they are alive by their Lord, well provided for.’

    A visit to London by this family ought to be a good moment to raise a couple of objections. For instance the Emir’s friends in Hamas are still holding – among 100 other hostages – the British-Israeli citizen Emily Damari. Now 28 years old, she has been held captive by Hamas for 14 months. One of the very few countries in the world which has any leverage at all over Hamas is Qatar. But the Qataris play a game of double-dealing so simple that even David Lammy ought to see through it. That game is to pretend to be a broker while all the time being an enemy. The Qataris pretend that thanks to their support of Hamas, they are in a wonderful position to influence the group. Which is like saying that because I have a gang of blood-thirsty thugs on my payroll, I am in a perfect position to act as a deal-maker with them. It is a mobster trick.

    Also worth noting is that the Qataris are the founders, funders and propagandists behind the terrorist-employing channel Al Jazeera. Its reporters, ‘journalists’ and others from Qatar’s propaganda networks have also spent recent weeks mourning the death of Hamas’s leaders. The network’s leaders and anchors praised Sinwar as ‘a role model’ and ‘a peerless leader’. But that may be because so many of Al Jazeera’s ‘journalists’ are themselves terrorists.

    For instance, during this war it turned out that Al Jazeera’s Muhammad Washah was moonlighting for Hamas in rocket development. Their ‘journalists’ have been found in Hamas vehicles while they were firing drones at Israel. When another of their number – Ismail Abu Omar – was hurt in Gaza this year, the network claimed that he had been ‘deliberately targeted’ because he was a journalist. What they failed to mention was that Omar was also the deputy commander of Hamas’s eastern battalion in Khan Yunis. He was also on camera on the 7 October, screaming support for the terrorists and boasting that Palestinian children would ‘play with the heads’ of the Jews he was watching getting murdered.

    And just for good measure, one of Al Jazeera’s contributors was recently found to be writing articles about the plight of Gazans while holding three Israeli hostages in his own home where they were tortured. Al Jazeera is not just another television station. It is a propaganda network which employs terrorists to spread lies around the planet.

    But western countries – including this one – find it very hard to turn down that Qatari cash. Just last week the Oxford Union played host to a debate in which Arab students screamed support for terrorism and again lamented the death of terrorist leaders. Interestingly enough, the Oxford Union has been the beneficiary of a highly lucrative deal with the Qataris.

    What to do about all this? Well, the US has a military base in Qatar which they should move to the Emirates as fast as possible. Leave the Qataris to whichever winds of the region decide to blow over them. And as for their royal family? From Sheikha Moza down they should become pariahs. Sanction them, prevent them from travelling, seize their assets. Let them continue with their slave state and their terror-sponsoring. But not with our blessing. The stench that followed Yahya Sinwar should follow the Qataris around on their trips to boutiques in London, Paris and other western capitals. Not all the perfumes of Arabia – or stores in Knightsbridge – should be able to sweeten their bloody little hand.

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

    Sir Graphus
    9 hours ago edited
    The other reason we have to play nice is LNG. Since we’re so reluctant to develop our own gas reserves, we are at the mercy of those who do, if we want to stay warm, and the Qataris are major players

    Anglomicronesian Sir Graphus
    4 hours ago
    Yup, despite extracting our own gas being: (a) good for our economy, (b) better for the climate as it does not need to be brought here, (c) we're not enriching a terrorist-supporting state.

    Furthermore, Qatar sponsors l'Arc de Triomphe and Goodwood Races so remain untouchable {:^))

    1. Yo Citroen

      I know, that there are International Time and Date Lines, but papers printed two days ahead is a bit risky, unless, likeStarmer and co, you control the Press

    2. Am I mistaken, I was under the impression that Qatar has expelled all the members of Hamas from the country?

    3. Detestable State. No wonder our government feels perfectly alright with cosying up to it.

    4. Detestable State. No wonder our government feels perfectly alright with cosying up to it.

    1. And there, right there, is the very pinnacle of the Home Secretary's intellect. That's the sort they have put in charge of an actual country.

  85. Firms of All Sizes to Raise Prices and Lower Employment After Reeves Budget

    The Bank of England’s long-running Decision Maker Panel has released its latest responses just now. 2,255 Chief Financial Officers from small, medium and large UK businesses have reported on various indicators – including this time on the impact of Reeves’ Budget. It paints a picture…

    59% of firms expect to lower profit margins.
    54% expect to raise prices.
    54% expect lower employment.
    38% expect to pay lower wages than they otherwise would have done.
    No Labour politician has repeated Reeves’ promise of last week not to raise taxes again when prompted, including the Chancellor. Gulp…

    December 5 2024 @ 11:33

    2. It's not exactly rocket science to understand what will happen if you up the tax on employment, particularly for those businesses with part time employees.

  86. Starmer’s ‘Plan for Change’ is His 19th Relaunch

    Starmer has just finished delivering yet another change of plan, marking the 19th time he’s relaunched himself since becoming Labour leader in 2020. Guido gives you a list of all the rebrands he’s done so far…

    September 2020: Starmer used a ‘new leadership’ slogan to try and relaunch his leadership.
    January 2021: Starmer used another speech to launch the slogan ‘Secure, Protect, Rebuild’
    February 2021: Starmer launched his ‘New Chapter for Britain’ with a ‘policy blitz’.
    June 2021: Labour changed slogan to ‘Stronger Together’.
    September 2021: Starmer wrote a 14,000 word ‘mission statement’ with no new policies in an attempt to ‘reset’ his leadership.
    December 2021: Starmer claimed that after a year and a half of leadership, he would be setting out his ‘ideas’ to ‘build a new Britain’ throughout 2022.
    January 2022: A year after ‘secure, protect, rebuild’, Starmer reset his leadership with a ‘security, prosperity, respect’ slogan.
    April 2022: Starmer relaunched his leadership with a new slogan, ‘On your side’.
    June 2022: Labour confirmed another ‘policy blitz’ after their failed ‘blitz’ in 2021.
    January 2023: Starmer used a speech to reset his leadership and pitch himself as the ‘candidate of optimism.’
    February 2023: Starmer set out his own Five Missions for Britain.
    March 2023: Starmer launched his local elections campaign with his twelfth slogan: ‘Build a better Britain’.
    May 2023: Starmer set out his plan to reform the Labour Party, going ‘further and deeper than New Labour’s rewriting of clause iv’.
    October 2023: Starmer changed his Five Missions for Britain – ditching his commitment to the highest growth in the G7 to ‘get Britain building again’.
    January 2024: Starmer used his new year speech to pitch the general election as a change to ‘turn the page, lift the weight off our shoulders, unite as a country, and get out future back’.
    May 2024: Starmer relaunched Tony Blair’s 1997-style pledge card.
    July 2024: Starmer changed Labour’s primary mission again to ‘securing economic growth’.
    October 2024: Starmer was forced into relaunched his Number 10 operation following the resignation of Sue Gray.
    December 2024: Starmer delivers his “Plan for Change”.
    How many resets will Starmer get to by 2029?

    5 December 2024 @ 11:56

      1. The man would be out of his depth in a puddle – mind you, with the state of our roads, perhaps that isn't the best analogy!

  87. That's me for this afternoon. Shortly leaving to go to a "music and words" tribute to our chum who died in July.

    May look in later – otherwise

    A demain.

  90. Just in case anyone missed it, in the USA the final make-up of Congress has been settled. The Republicans had already won the Senate by 53 to 47 (they gained four seats). The last seat in the House went to the Democrats but the Reps held it by 220 to 215 (lost one).

    2. Sea Levels
      Bob3, it's nothing to do with rising or falling sea levels. In 1962-1963 I lived in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, actually) and have visited several times since. I will put this in captals: THE DUTCH BUILT ALMOST ALL THIS EXTRA LAND THEMSELVES.

      l lived in a first-floor flat that was about 10 feet (3+ metres for you younger folk) below sea level. The Dutch are probably (no, definitely) the best hydrological engineers in the world.

    3. Sea Levels
      Bob3, it's nothing to do with rising or falling sea levels. In 1962-1963 I lived in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, actually) and have visited several times since. I will put this in captals: THE DUTCH BUILT ALMOST ALL THIS EXTRA LAND THEMSELVES.

      l lived in a first-floor flat that was about 10 feet (3+ metres for you younger folk) below sea level. The Dutch are probably (no, definitely) the best hydrological engineers in the world.

    4. Sea Levels
      Bob3, it's nothing to do with rising or falling sea levels. In 1962-1963 I lived in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, actually) and have visited several times since. I will put this in captals: THE DUTCH BUILT ALMOST ALL THIS EXTRA LAND THEMSELVES.

      l lived in a first-floor flat that was about 10 feet (3+ metres for you younger folk) below sea level. The Dutch are probably (no, definitely) the best hydrological engineers in the world.

    2. Oh, you poor thing! IBS is horrible even without being presented with a dying rodent!.

      (Mine disappeared when I went low-carb, by the way. )

      1. Husband ditto, Kathie – just posted above, worth trying. Oddly, medics just want to prescribe meds….

    3. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians – all come to the UK and, other than for a few exceptions, work hard, obey the law, contribute to society and integrate well. Now, I think that I have missed another group and can’t think what it is.

    4. So sorry to read this, Belle…hesitate to give any advice, but here's my better half's history….Type 2 for many years, explosive diarrhea (he thought caused by meds (Metformin). He found much improved by cutting out carbs, and similarly to Grizzly of this parish now on full carnivore diet. Possibly take a look at any meds you're on, and your diet? Good luck to you, Kate x PS spaniel sounds a good pal, least it wasn't a rat!

      1. Yep!
        Metformin does have a bit of an effect!
        Bunged up for a couple of day, then a ring-splitting bog-blocker, followed by a day of being too nervous to break wind when not sat on the bog, then back to normal!

        1. Bit tmi, Bob…:-DD although a scenario I recognise. OT – I have two terriers, similar age, one can eat any old thing cast iron stomach – the other have tried all brands of carb free dog food, no luck so far…

    5. Pip obviously concerned for you, Belle, and wanting to cheer you up. brings a present.
      What a lovey gesture!

  94. Just back from here, Milton Abbey:

    The first church was established in 934AD by the Saxon King Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great. Whilst camping on the hill overlooking the area, he had a vision that he would defeat the Danes. The vision came true, and in gratitude he founded the church. Thirty years later King Edgar installed monks in place of the secular priests and made the church an Abbey.

    In the 11th century St Catherine's Chapel was built on the spot where Athelstan is said to have had his vision. It is a plain building built by monks as a pilgrim's chapel. A short but steep walk will take you there.

    After centuries of use, the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 led to the Abbey and estate being bought by John Tregonwell, a lawyer for Henry VIII in his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The estate was again sold in 1752 to Joseph Damer, afterwards Lord Milton and Earl of Dorchester.

    Lord Milton employed 'Capability' Brown to create a new landscape to encompass a new mansion, the Abbey church, St Catherine's chapel, and the new village of Milton Abbas (which replaced a medieval village, considered to be an intrusion and demolished). The breath taking landscape is one of the finest and most extensive Capability Brown landscapes in England.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04e6b5a956734285033eec62cf4d448cad0c2d6563caaaf05b19a7516f586eaa.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a293e3fce2e632e7d579c35cd65bb97f85c18edc1c26c58c3447c8ca2327592.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd892ff0a3478bef6cb422df55aba78460be45e8d083cedf85e742bc44506b9f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76998e68aad34d0d60dd2f70bc47f643f795cf44b483753a2d1bc850c65aee00.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e241da0f297dd10d2b96c68ea3a569b234cd60965f6bc6ffe83eb36e9bc1990.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f79cbd5bbe824764ba25710d01798e1f0458bb44cb1ba610417d3d3a4dac0b98.jpg

    1. When I was at Allhallows I used to take my Junior Colts Rugby side and my Cross Country Running Team to Milton Abbey School for matches. Caroline took some boys there to play on the school's 9 hole golf course.

  96. Britain’s state pension Ponzi scheme faces a catastrophic collapse. 5 December 2024.

    Britain is sleep-walking into financial Armageddon and no government or politician has the knowledge, ability or will to stop it.

    The state financial system is one big pay-as-we-go Ponzi scheme. Those at the bottom, workers and businesses, contribute through taxation, while those at the top, pensioners and those on benefits, immediately withdraw the money.

    With just a smidgen of luck we Nottlers will be out of here just before the whole lot collapses into total ruin.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/state-pensions/state-pension-ponzi-scheme-britain-financial-armageddon/

    1. Private pension funds the same, so I have heard.
      People should now think one step further. If there are too many pensioners and not enough money, the government/pension companies have two choices; they can increase the amount of money or they can decrease the number of pensioners.

      Oh but they would never do that!

      1. Brother is reading pension statements, and their growth is worse than pathetic. Really unimpressive.

  97. We’ve had a wonderful day chez nous! The loo backed up this morning, so Alan and I have spent a happy couple of hours cleaning out the drains with a keep net and a high pressure hose! Oh how we larfed! Several large cooncil nappy sacks, 2 pairs of heavy duty gloves and a load of disinfectant and there we are! Plus a load of washing done, as the detritus travels quite a long way!😵‍💫

    2. You are not alone. My downstairs loo wasn't emptying properly a few days ago. Much rubber plunging and poking with a serrated stick to agitate the gunk finally got it working. Oh joy!

        1. I was very relieved to see the water (and the rest) disappear! Fortunately I have more than one loo, but even so …

  98. I keep seeing references on this forum to a 'Greg' Wallace. Never heard of him.

    Occasionally someone writes about an author called 'Neville' Shute. Again, a mystery to me. Similarly, a Jimmy 'Saville' and a Fanny 'Craddock'.

    Who the hell are these fictional characters?

    1. Folk wot didn't spell their own names proper. I was made to read "A Town Like Alice" in school. Hated it and never noticed how the author spelt his name. Didn't care. Savile and Cradock, who cares. As for Gregg. Surely Greg is short for Gregory, which is not spelt Greggory, so how does he get Gregg? Does he name himself after the bakery?

      2. Shute was one of my favourite authors, as being of an engineer bent, I could empathise. My other favourite is Len Deighton.

      3. That still doesn't excuse people for printing things which mark them out as an ignoramus.

        George Bernard Shaw famously said (in Man and Superman), "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." How many times have you seen that quotation correctly spelt and punctuated. I would venture the answer is 'never' since most people put their own (erroneous) take on it.

        1. The real ignoramus is the one who hasn't the wit to work out who is being referred to from the context.

          And they move up a letter from ignoramus to ignoranus by being so disparagingly supercilious regarding their own perceived but not actual intellectual superiority.

        3. Those who can't teach become headmasters; those who fail as headmasters become lecturers in Teacher Training Colleges and universities – and those who fail at that enter politics and work in the Department of Education!

          What do successful policemen do? And what do incompetent ones do?

        4. I think the updated version should read: 'He who can, does. He who cannot, goes into management.' It's referred to as 'failing upwards'.

      4. A Town Like Alice is a lovely story, but I found Requiem For A WREN more than slightly emotionally gripping.

      5. I read – and liked – all of Neville Shute's novels, Sue.

        In his No Highway, I was intrigued with his forecast of fatal metal fatigue in aircraft frames before the De Havilland Comet started falling out of the sky!

    2. Nevil Shute was the pen-name. Real name Nevil Shute Norway, career as an aeroplane designer. Worked for De Hvilland, and then designed the R100 airship before going to Airspeed, where he was a co-owner. He wrote about aeroplane design & development in his novel "No Highway".

      1. I was reading "The Trustee from the Toolroom" while I was in labour 54 years ago this week. I don't think I actually finished it though.

          3. I started very late. I am 78 but Henry is only 29 and Christo turned 31 a couple of days ago.

            My father was not such a late starter as my two elder sister were born before WW but he was a late finisher as he was 48 when I was born.

            My two sons and my father were all born in the 90s!

      3. As the novel appears to presage some later real-life disasters – De Havilland Comet etc -and is based on just-emerging knowledge of metal fatigue, it is said to be one of few novels to reveal a new engineering truth!

      2. And A Town Like Alice

        The film starring Peter Finch and Virginia McKenna was very disappointing and a travesty of the novel as it omitted the last part of the story completely.

        2. However I did enjoy the bit where the Japanese prison camp was made of silver birch.

          Wherever did they find the silver birch in the jungle?

  99. Some lights up, to celebrate Advent – inside & out. Big, illuminates star in one window. 6" snow forecast overnight (Yellow snow warning – oo-er yukk!). Since when was six inches of snow worth getting excited about – the place used to cope fine, but I guess now we're overrun with wogs, they all need to panic.

  100. Steerpike
    Reform polls ahead of Labour for first time
    5 December 2024, 2:56pm

    When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot, it pours. In the same week an Ipsos poll revealed that over half of all Brits feel disappointed by Labour’s achievements so far, now another poll brings more bad news for Starmer’s army. The FindOutNow voting intention poll has demoted Sir Keir’s crowd to third place – overtaken by none other than Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Talk about a turnaround, eh?

    The survey, using data collected on 4 December, shows the Tories in first place with 26 per cent backing Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue. Next, for the first time, Farage’s lot have beaten Labour. Reform has seen an uplift of two percentage points since polling on 27 November to come in second place with 24 per cent support, ahead of the current government which – after just five months in office – is in third place with just 23 per cent of Brits backing the Starmtroopers. Good heavens. How times change…

    Mr S would caution readers that this is just one survey and similar results have not yet been replicated elsewhere, but it’s certainly rather telling about the mood of the nation. Jubilant about the new data, Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf has lauded the poll results noting: ‘Reform has all the momentum in British politics.’

    Going on, Yusuf added:

    Reform is now polling at 24 per cent and for the first time we are now polling ahead of Labour. We recently surged past 100,000 members, are adding members at a record pace, and we are just getting started.

    The British people want real change after years of failure and deception. Reform will form the next government of the United Kingdom.

    Strong stuff. Time for Sir Keir to sit up and take note…

      2. Oh, he has many ideas. They're just all wrong because he thinks he, and his idoelogy are the solution rather than understanding they're the problem.

      1. The Seven Pillocks of Wokedom?

        Starmer – Reeves – Rayner – Lammy – Cooper – Kendall – Phillipson

    3. Labour ‘relaunches’ again… for the thousandth time

      Whenever someone points out a flaw in his plan, the PM reaches for the reset button

      Madeline Grant
      PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER
      05 December 2024 3:59pm GMT

      The Prime Minister was at Pinewood studios – appropriately, home of the Carry On films – to set what felt like his thousandth “relaunch” into action. The format for these ever-increasing moments of rhetorical Viagra is always the same. Get one of the cabinet who is still speaking to him to come and slag off the Tories, wheel on some moaning heads from the general public and then have the PM himself tell us about policies he’d announced several times before.

      The nominated cabinet member this time was Big Ange, who delivered a faltering speech, direct from the teleprompter. “Clearing up the mess we inherited feels like a job for a superhero”, she said. The implication was clear: cometh the hour cometh the saviour of the moment: Adenoidman, The Grey Goblin, Captain Hindsight, Sir Oinky himself!

      To introduce the world’s most boring superhero was a lady who called herself a “low carbon heating support engineer”, also known as “a plumber”. It was the perfect intro for the man whose superpower is never using one word when a strung-out blast of jargon will do.

      The message of this particular cheerfest was clear: Britain was broken. But don’t worry, our superhero had just the cure. That’s right, the kryptonite our inert and dying state apparatus needs – another policy document. His Plan for Change brochure would hit desks in Whitehall with “the heavy thud of a gauntlet being thrown down.” I suspect it will just be neatly filed by civil servants in that very special place called ‘“the shredder”.

      The PM promised to “renew the contract with the people” which made him sound a bit like a Vodafone cold caller. However, hidden in the nonsense were also rare and welcome concessions to reality. Ed Miliband’s promise to decarbonise the grid by 2030 had been quietly ushered into a Leadbeater pod.

      There were still more revealing moments amid the waffle. Westminster was regularly disparaged as “a distraction”. There is absolutely nothing the PM hates more than scrutiny, which perhaps explains why we keep returning to these surreal relaunches: every time someone points out a flaw in his plan, he reaches for the reset button. Hence why we now have, courtesy of the government; three Foundations, five Missions, six Milestones and the peerless twaddle “Seven Pillars of Mission-led Growth” (TE Lawrence meets Rachel from accounts). As one of my lobby colleagues observed, all we need now is a partridge in a pear tree.

      While the B-team were continuing their Carry On at Pinewood, the A-team were thrashing out what all of this actually meant in the Commons. The Government’s very own omen of ill-fortune Pat McFadden was trying to put some skin on the bones of “milestones for mission-led government”; which given he has the look and demeanour of the Grim Reaper, is ironic. Opposite was Alex Burghart, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who congratulated the Government on its “most recent reset”, observing that there are “only a few more resets left before Christmas”. McFadden sat there looking like both Burke and Hare at once. He did not laugh.

    4. Only a civil servant could consider that rational. Thing is, they do. They think that's a practical way to achieve things.

      At no point is actually doing anything positive present. There are no outcomes. No timelines, no costs.

      Let's say you want to create jobs.

      First you have to have industry that needs people. To do that it needs to want to make something in a market – there needs to be a lack. Governmen doesn't need to worry about this, it just needs to create the regulatory framework that business can thrive in. That means low regulation, low tax and cheap energy and loosened employment rights.

      Starmer is incapable of doing that. Suggest he abandon IR35 and he'd likely explode.

      Now let's go the other way and a company that makes things is losing sales. It's losing them because it's prices are high because it's costs are high. Again, energy, employment and regulation need to be cut.

      Starmer cannot conceive of a world where he isn't needed. The only way he and his coteries of gormless cretins will improve things is by cutting regulation, cutting tax and going away.

    1. Well done. Par here.

      Wordle 1,265 4/6

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

    3. Well done, Lacoste, birdie here too.

      Wordle 1,265 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
      ⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  105. Hallelujah. I was afraid that a girlie lunch and gossip with a chum would make me into a nice person (well, for the rest of the day).
    Then I came home and caught this headline. Normal service has been resumed.

    Do you tell her – or do I? How do you spell deelooded?

    "A supply teacher sent naked photos and sexual videos to a 15-year-old and told him “I bet all the boys fancy me”."
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cefd65d86bbc5965a57865a7524f53f2ad582b4daf3d290ec2f289b524c97cd8.png

      1. Teacher on short-term contract – to fill in for someone on maternity leave, for exmple.

      2. Thank goodness Herr Oberst answered first.
        Otherwise I would have made a suggestion as to what she was supplying.

      5. If you have a vacancy – say, someone has left and you haven't managed to appoint anyone yet – you would have a supply teacher in to teach the lessons for as long as it takes. If a member of staff was absent for interview for another job you could get a supply teacher in for the day. Supply teachers get paid more than permanent staff because they don't get paid for holidays.

        1. Even a man on a galloping horse could see that she’s not the bonniest thing on the planet….
          Deluded or what?

        2. Even a man on a galloping horse could see that she’s not the bonniest thing on the planet….
          Deluded or what?

    4. Stupid bloody woman!
      Do they NEVER learn? Even if the 15yo enjoyed being sent these pictures, how the foxtrot didn't she realise that he'd never keep it to himself???

      1. It just shows the execrable standard of human that are selected to take care of juveniles these days.

        The same shit standard of human that tells those juveniles that it's OK to chop your dick off and grow plastic tits.

  106. I have received a reply. Of sorts.
    p.s. Spelling my surname correctly would be a good start. Especially when word games are the issue.

    "Dear Anne Allen,

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      1. The consultant I saw a couple of weeks ago invited me to 'reach out' to his secretary regarding dates for my knee op (no 24 month nhs waiting list for me). I would much rather 'contact' her, thank you very much. Wherever did this 'reaching out' come from? And why has 'persuade' being dropped from the English language in favour of the ubiquitous 'convince'? I suppose the subtlety between the two is too much for the younger generations to grasp.

          2. Because stakeholders bring traction to benchmarking….

            The jargon is used in offices – so all good employees start using it – spreads and spreads. My otherwise delightful eldest grandson “reaches out” to me. The good news is that soon that phrase will be history and some other dumbism will replace it!

    2. My wife finds it intensely annoying to have people use her surname as her Christian name!

    3. I've just been taken to task — by a few on here — for criticising people who don't give a toss about correct the spelling of names.

      I'm glad to see that you also think it matters.

      2. It matters to me. I am sick of people misspelling my Christian name (because they also mispronounce it). Mind you, I am also sick of people calling me by names that start with the same letter and thinking that will do. My surname also gets regularly misspelled. Grrr!

  109. Listern to Starmer's speech – if you can bear it. It won't be long before you're shouting at him. There was an almost threatening tone to it in places, accentuated by his strangled voice. I can just imagine his little piggy eyes narrowing even further as he lectured us on how Labour was going to do all these great things to make everyone's live so much better. At one point he was so critical of the sceptics (more than 75% of the population) that he sounded almost angry. It was as though he was telling the disbelievers to **** ***. Take your own advice, Max, you nasty little specimen. You don't win people over by talking to them like that.

    2. I reckon some disaffected Ukrainians having watched the destruction of their country at the direction of the collective west, and Starmer in particular, will likely assassinate the monster.

  114. " NHS chiefs are warning of a “quad-demic” of viruses this winter driven by a four-fold surge in flu."

    Millions dead by Christmas – again.

      1. Me? Watching telly news? You MAD or suffin’? It was an (sic – in case anyone in Sweden wants to comment) headline n the DT.

    3. Quite simply everyone who submitted to the Covid jabs will have an impaired auto immune system and be prone to multiple infections.

      I suspect other infections of a respiratory nature arise from the seeding of our agricultural fields with aluminium oxide and more recently exposure to dangerous carcinogenic additives to the milk we drink.

      All of these heinous activities are by design.

    1. There is little doubt that the Roman empire left a huge legacy.
      I am always amused by how it is acceptable for the woke to say it is greatest empire that the world has seen, but never, ever, to say similarly of the British one.

      1. Could be that the pagans who destroyed Rome (and its empire) DID say that. As in – "That'll teach them to rule the World".

  119. In words

    ‘So your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the US to the tune of $100 billion?’

    – Donald Trump tells Justin Trudeau that Canada is welcome to become America’s 51st state if it doesn’t like his plan to levy a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian imports.

      1. They'll be OK when Poilievre elected. I often watch him in debate, he whacks Trudeau every time.

    3. Probably just looking at the western bit with Oil and water. It would make a lot of sense to join Alaska to the mainland.

      Unfortunately there is no way that he wants eastern Canada with all of the lefty luvvies, they would make quite a challenge to keep the US from turning democrat.

      Trudeau is still saying that the visit to Trump was a success, many of us see it more like:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a07767c3aaa74db4d056071990c5737a6639f86037e2ae2ad79eb7f4915a2e3.jpg

  120. Good evening Nottlers. A previous post sighting Guido's breakdown of Starmer's Grand plan reminded me of the following document.
    It's the most comprehensive short hand breakdown and insight of The Wokeish I have seen so far. It's a few years old now. It still stands up. So much for Lisa Nandy's claim of that there culture war being over.
    https://boghossian.substack.com/p/woke-religion-a-taxonomy

      1. Is there a link where one can blow up the print?
        Opening in a new tab doesn't seem to work.
        It may be my lack of computer skills

        1. Left click on image. When larger image appears -left click again. Makes it ENORMOUS!

          (There is no charge for this service…!!)

          5. Well, I can easily get an enlarged picture, Bill, but as I scroll down I forget the headings (What to believe, What not to say, etc.)

          2. Thanks
            It didn't work when I tried, and the magnification only made it worse.

            Good luck, you unlucky bleeder.

          3. Sorry to read that, Geoff…another one eh….him indoors had a number of those until he had his eyes lasered (was during Covid, only patient there, so clinician said 'let's do as many as we can, avert any future bleeds', none since. Hope you make a full recovery, are they still prescribing R&R? Kate x

        3. As I click on the picture, it opens in a new screen that can zoom. I have touch screen, but otherwise, the normal zoom controls sem to work.

          1. That didn't work, but BT's left click solution did perfectly.
            Perhaps I live in mirror world!

      2. If I click on the picture, it opens in a new screen that can zoom. I have touch screen, but otherwise, the normal zoom controls sem to work.

        2. I have just opened the uploaded jog on my touchscreen pad. The image was opened in a new window which I am able to zoom in and out of. The text is clear.

      3. Reply mark two

        That is so much "on the mark" that clearly I should be incarcerated forever, just for thinking such thoughts.

      2. Early on, I used to play organ pedals sans shoes. There was always a risk of the odd splinter, but shoes were quite wide in the Seventies.

        YouTube keeps offering organ videos, and I note that some play in socks.

        My one regret concerning my decision to dispense with the feet, is that having rigid prosthetic ankles, I can no longer play the pedals, accurately. I can throw a foot in the general direction of a long pedal note, but the days of Bach pedal solos are long gone.

        1. This image of this very highly skilled soloist is one of the more sober ones! Most of the time, he looks as though he has been let out for the afternoon!

        2. My woodwork master Raymond Jones who was also deputy Bath Abbey organist in the days of Dudley Holroyd cut a strange figure in drainpipe trousers and winkle pickers. He explained to us choirboys that the narrow pointy shoes were to give freer contact with the pedals.

      3. Bill, in both your clip and that of BoB, the music is gorgeous, as is the artwork on the inside of the harpsichord and the paintings hung on the wall. What a shame that the undoubtedly talented players spoil the effect by being dressed like scruffs.

    1. If I were a Knight my 'badge' would be back on its way to Buck House right now. Disgusting

      1. Absolutely. I nearly swallowed me teef on reading that. They must have a whole department devoted to thinking up events that can rile us the most, each one to be more outrageous than the last. I expect they get given end-of-year awards.

        1. Granting a knighthood to that piece of filth just about sums up the vapid nature of the Labour Party and of Starmer’s Labour government. It is as though we do not have sufficient charlatans and fraudsters in the knighted category already.

          When governments start throwing knighthoods around like confetti we just know they are in panic mode and rewarding their friends before imminent collapse. We see something similar in the US where Biden is flinging pardons around for his crooked friends even as none of them are yet charged with crimes.

          We need someone in charge with passion not this stiff suited stuffed shirt technocrat.

          1. Apparently that fragrant, diaphonous rose Emily Thornberry and the evil scheming Patricia Hewitt are also set to have a royal sword tapping their shoulders too. A large axe might be better

      2. that's why people like us will never be given these gongs! One has to demonstrate a certain willingness to compromise..

    2. Is this true? If so, and it is a part of the New Year's Honours List, then I must have nodded off and missed both my birthday and Christmas.

    5. Just when you think our country's honours system could not fall further into disrepute, this happens.

  125. I wonder if someone started a petition to cancel Khan's knighthood how many votes it would get

    2. Go for it Charlie boy. Treat him as his fellows in Saudi would, just a slip of a VERY sharp sword should do the trick…

      Go on, you know you Khan

      1. Hmm. The throat is quite thick with muscle. Far better to simply use an axe and publicly behead the swine. Shout bud bud ding ding, ulez scum!' and hack the screaming, soiling wretch's head off.

        1. They beheaded Ann Boleyn with a sword (the headsman came especially from Calais) because it was quicker and "kinder". An axe (see the fate of Margaret Pole) could be very messy and protracted indeed.

        2. My grandfather’s cut-throat razors were so sharp that one could have cut from ear to ear and the victim would have thought they had only been scratched.

  126. Good evening Nottlers,
    A headline in today's Le Figaro caught my eye and I chased it up to its source. It appears that 90% of the women and girls who go on the Mediterranean migrant route are raped on their way… We must be mad, literally mad, to take in these criminal men and expect them to respect our way of life.

    Quote:
    Women refugees and migrants moving on routes towards the Mediterranean continue to report that they face sexual violence and exploitation, enslavement and human trafficking. Humanitarians estimate that 90 per cent are raped.
    Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/11/1157596 , an article entitled: Millions of women and girls forced to flee face high risk of gender-based violence

    1. The Left do not care, Caroline. The intent is to create a voting block wholly reliant on the state, not beholden to the nation.

      It is simply cultural, social and economic rape forced by western governments of their own countries.

    3. It's the UN so unless Israel can be accused of acting badly, no one cares.

      How are the feminist womens rights groups doing at exposing this issue?

    5. I am not at all surprised by this. Most of the world’s population of men are scum. We forget in the UK that actually most men aren’t too bad. So the pile-on Gregg Wallace looks totally ridiculous, when seen in context.

    6. Strange that we don’t see lots of women arriving via small boats. They’re all men. Do they toss females overboard?

    1. Now stab him through the… whatever black organ moves blood around his body.

      (easier than going for the throat).

  129. Evening, all. Nice lunch – braised steak, which was very tender and tasty. I was expecting Christmas lunch, so it was a bit of a surprise, although not an unpleasant one. The next one won't be until February. I did manage to hand out some cards and thus saved a small fortune in postage and delivered some more local ones when I walked Kadi this morning.

    I'd like to see a list of the ways working from home could boost Britain, unless they are envisaging a return to cottage industries.

    1. One option is to have home workers work for companies in other countries and be taxed at those national rates rather than UK ones (imagine how that would force international tax competitiveness!)

      For example, development – one of our freelance devs lives in Canada. He works from home, all we have to be aware of is cross over times. Equally with significant cloud computing these days we can offer networking as a service to any country in the world. A recent client has asked us to set up a secure infrastructure environment for 4 nine resilience in Azure.

      Some folk have to go to an office to meet people, to 'move' things. This is a given. Some, the information workers, no longer have to. Today I pootled in to the office after hospital to find a twiddly bit and no one was in. Was only 3 ish. I hadn't known or cared as everyone was as responsive and chatty on line.

      When we had a 'snow day' before lock down we fired up a video conference and all sat there in front of our webcams. If we needed help, we simply asked. If we were away, we put the camera off. It worked really well.

      1. That may be fine for software designers, but what about actually making things as in manufacturing?

    2. Far as I know, many Civil Servants still WFH especially the DS ones – many of their offices are underground there, apparently quite a warren.

        1. Quite the reverse I should think – taxpayers paying for double heating costs, for one. Government seems unable to get them to return to office. What the actual.

          1. They should issue an ultimatum; return to the office by a particular date or pick up your P45.

          2. Completely agree, but it won’t happen – imo, they’re the real government, Thatcher had a number of battles with them. Starmer would never, they’re two sides of the same coin. Btw, Conway – was it you mentioned Japanese Art (Ukiyo-e to Shin hanga) – I can’t find the thread now, but I did find the book I have :-)?

    1. Being a good socialist (oxymoron?) he will no doubt refuse it just like Prescott refused his seat in the Lords… Oh wait…

    2. I thought honours were not supposed to be released before the date they were to be conferred.

    4. Oh, dear.

      "During the High Middle Ages, knighthood was considered a class of petty nobility. By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior."

      Will he have to denounce Islam?

      Edit; Renounce of course, denounce would be too much to hope for.

    7. Just wait until those, currently, Labour supporting London Muslim Enclaves depart the Labour fold and set up pure Islamic caliphates.

      1. Guess you know there's a Muslim Party of Great Britain, think they stood a few candidates last election. Labour still seemed favourite, possibly not as much next time.

  131. Well, after a pleasant morning the weather turned absolutely foul after lunchtime with some rather strong gusts of wind making their way down to the valley bottom.
    Eldest daughter is up for a few days and it chucked it down when I picked her up from Cromford.
    The rain has stopped now, but whilst it's fairly calm outside, I can hear the roar of the wind in the higher level trees as it passes over the top of the valley.
    And with that I'm off to bed!
    A couple of auction pickups to do and then drop down to Stoke so daughter can visit step-son.
    Good night all.

  132. I think I'll turn in. 😴
    Goodnight all.
    Not to be confused with Knight.
    Wadda joke eh.

      1. There is a current DoJ investigation into massive insider trading at United Health. Next News Network reckons it's an insider job (they KNEW his schedule) to keep his mouth shut.

  135. It's blowing a hooley here and the rain has been of Biblical proportions. As I went out to lunch, I put on a smart jacket and left my waterproofs at home. I even left my brolly in the car (which was at the far side of the car park). I was not amused.

    1. I fancy a pardon for Fauci would result in a worse fate for Fauci than that suffered by the United Health Insurance Division CEO in Manhattan early today ( gunned down in a contract killing).

  137. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Muhammad topped the list of most popular boy’s baby names in England and Wales last year, knocking Noah from first place. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, show that Muhammad was the most common name given to newborn boys last year; 4,661 boys were named Muhammad with 4,382 Noahs. The year before there were 4,586 Noahs and 4,177 Muhammads.

    When you analyse the names by different spelling, though, it becomes clear just how popular the name is. The spellings Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohammad and Mohamed combine for a total of 7,730 baby boys in 2023. That’s just over one in every 40 births.

    While today’s news perhaps seems a milestone demographic change in Britain’s story, it’s really nothing new. When you combine the various spellings of Muhammad it’s been the most popular name for nearly 16 years – it’s just that this year is the first that a single spelling has come out on top.

    As migration has increased and as the fertility rate for British-born mothers has decreased, demographics have changed and one in ten babies are now born into muslim households according to census data. A clear integration success story.

    For girls, the most popular names were Olivia, Amelia and Isla – unchanged from 2022. Olivia was the top name in five out of nine English regions as well as being top in Wales, while Muhammad was the top name in four of nine regions but only achieved the 63rd spot in Wales.

    Names appearing in the top 100 for the first time, according to the ONS, included Hazel, Lilah, Autumn, Nevaeh and Raya for girls and for boys: Jax, Enzo and Bohdi. Celebrities had an impact too with increases in Billies, Lanas and Reigns (a name shared by one of the Kardashian children).

    Interestingly, girls tend to have much more diverse names with statisticians registering 35,000 unique girls names compared with just 29,560 for boys – hence increasing the prevalence of each boy’s name.

    Britain is changing, but it is not changing quickly – Muhammad’s spelling have been the top name for over a decade – and today’s figures show that it’s always worth digging below the top lines in any data release.

    Michael Simmons
    WRITTEN BY
    Michael Simmons
    Michael Simmons is The Spectator's Data Editor

    1. "A clear integration success story." Is Michael Simmons thick or something? This is not "integration", it's a takeover.

  139. Just a quickie: apparently the Welsh Conservatives have a new leader (someone no-one has ever heard from before). Is it my imagination, or does he not bear a striking resemblance to that chap who crashed his car whilst wearing a frock and high heels then ran away?

      2. Labour MP Carolyn Harris, Neath and Swansea East, showing great respect to Parliament.

  142. Just back home – met up with some old work colleagues, one retired, one on a year’s sabbatical fighting cancer (as they say). We were meant to have met up a fortnight ago but i was ill. Our rendezvous was Waterstones Piccadilly as it has a cafe and a restaurant and we like books. But tonight was the wrong night – it was book signing night, they had about 100 authors there over 5 floors signing books.

    We skedaddled to find somewhere quieter and found an empty “African” restaurant which i persuaded my friends to give a chance to – i do love a non-crowded restaurant.

    we weren’t going to eat but felt a bit guilty so shared some starters, and then a couple of mains. My friends had some mocktails and i had two proper ones.

    We were served by a lovely chatty mixed race lad and in the course if the evening it turns out he is 18, from Bradford and is studying economics here in London. He goes home as often as he can to help his mum (ingot the impression his mum and dad were separated). He wants to do well so he can look after her. He was such a sweet lad. Anyway my one friend has a son, as do I, so we were going googly eyed over this lovely lad – out third friend is childless and was rolling her eyes – but I had a tenner in my wallet which I gave him at the end because he was a good waiter and i want the kids who work hard to have a chance. This is meritocracy, not diversity.

    It was my first outing out on my new Brompton and I managed to get into work on the Tube and back out again, cycling to and from home/station and station/work via Piccadilly circus.

    They were switching the Christmas tree lights on in Trafalgar Square so i will see them tomorrow or Monday.

  143. Just back home – met up with some old work colleagues, one retired, one on a year’s sabbatical fighting cancer (as they say). We were meant to have met up a fortnight ago but i was ill. Our rendezvous was Waterstones Piccadilly as it has a cafe and a restaurant and we like books. But tonight was the wrong night – it was book signing night, they had about 100 authors there over 5 floors signing books.

    We skedaddled to find somewhere quieter and found an empty “African” restaurant which i persuaded my friends to give a chance to – i do love a non-crowded restaurant.

    we weren’t going to eat but felt a bit guilty so shared some starters, and then a couple of mains. My friends had some mocktails and i had two proper ones.

    We were served by a lovely chatty mixed race lad and in the course if the evening it turns out he is 18, from Bradford and is studying economics here in London. He goes home as often as he can to help his mum (ingot the impression his mum and dad were separated). He wants to do well so he can look after her. He was such a sweet lad. Anyway my one friend has a son, as do I, so we were going googly eyed over this lovely lad – out third friend is childless and was rolling her eyes – but I had a tenner in my wallet which I gave him at the end because he was a good waiter and i want the kids who work hard to have a chance. This is meritocracy, not diversity.

    It was my first outing out on my new Brompton and I managed to get into work on the Tube and back out again, cycling to and from home/station and station/work via Piccadilly circus.

    They were switching the Christmas tree lights on in Trafalgar Square so i will see them tomorrow or Monday.

    1. To be honest, it could be the other way round, I didn’t quiz him on it!!!! Nice young lad, restores your faith a little.

      1. Yes, it could be the other way round, but given the propensity for black fathers to desert the mother of their children …

  146. From the Daily Telegraph

    Reform UK has overtaken Labour in a national opinion poll for the first time, pushing Sir Keir Starmer’s party into third place.

    Nigel Farage’s party commands 24 per cent of public support, according to Find Out Now – up by two points on last week.

    The poll of 2,607 adults, conducted on Wednesday, shows Labour on 23 per cent – down two points on last week – while the Tories lead with 26 per cent.

    It is the first Westminster voting intention poll to put Reform ahead of Labour, prompting Zia Yusuf, the Reform chairman, to declare that it would win the next general election.

    Sharing news of the poll on his account on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday night, Mr Farage wrote: “And we’re just getting started.”

    But the findings are currently an outlier, with Labour having led Reform by between seven and 11 points in polls conducted by BMG, JL Partners and More in Common in recent weeks.

    Last week, Reform passed 100,000 members and unveiled Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory minister who lost her seat at the election, as a candidate for a mayoral election in May.

    Mr Yusuf said: “Reform has all the momentum in British politics. Reform is now polling at 24 per cent and, for the first time, we are now polling ahead of Labour. We recently surged past 100,000 members, are adding members at a record pace, and we are just getting started.

    “The British people want real change after years of failure and deception. Reform will form the next government of the United Kingdom.”

    Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said it was the highest score the party has had in any poll since its formation in 2020, while Lee Anderson, the party’s chief whip, said: “Staggering – Reform overtakes Labour in the polls. The political tsunami continues.”

    The poll had the Liberal Democrats at 11 per cent, the Greens at nine per cent and the SNP at three per cent.

    Support for Reform at the general election came largely at the expense of the Conservatives, but it came second to Labour in 98 constituencies, including many Red Wall seats.

    Mr Farage said recently that he was now more focused on winning over voters who currently support Labour or are not inclined to vote than converting more Tory supporters.

    Neal Lawson, the director of Compass, a progressive campaign group, said: “This is just one poll, but Labour slipping into third place behind the Tories and Reform should send alarm bells ringing.

    “The trend is becoming increasingly clear. Without a plan to deliver real and lasting change, and a mandate for it, Labour will fall prey to the incumbency curse we’re seeing across the world.”

    It comes as Sir Keir sought to move on from a series of scandals in his first five months with a major speech on Thursday in which he outlined six “milestones” for his Government.

    Reform returned five MPs at the general election and won just over four million votes. It has spent the past few months seeking to “professionalise” in the hope of avoiding a repeat of rows over historic comments by its candidates that dogged its election campaign.

    Mr Farage and Mr Yusuf are now focused on May’s county council elections. The party says it will have to win more than 100 councillors if it is to pose a credible challenge to Labour.

    1. Zia Yusuf? I won't be voting for that party. He might be a member of a grooming gang.

  147. End this recycling bin tyranny once and for all

    This fixation with sorting our rubbish into a dozen receptacles is making our country uglier, and its people miserable

    Jill Kirby
    29 November 2024 8:01pm GMT

    Has the mania for recycling finally reached its limit? The Government seems to have decided that sorting household rubbish into half a dozen different receptacles is not going to save the planet after all.

    Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, announced this week that councils must limit the number of bins or bags issued to homes and offices to "just" four. (Yes, four bins is now reckoned to be a modest number.) These are to include one bin for non-recyclables, one container for paper and card, another for food and garden waste and a fourth for all other recycling. This is intended to rein in the excesses of those local councils who currently provide up to 10 different containers and expect their residents to categorise every single item they throw away. I suppose it's progress, of a sort, and maybe a hint that reality is beginning to dawn on the green zealots.

    Anyone who has tripped over a food waste caddy, disgorging last night's curry and chicken bones onto the pavement, will be glad to know that this particular piece of performative environmentalism is coming to an end and that in future food leftovers will be composted along with garden rubbish. Were we really supposed to believe that the energy consumed in collecting all these caddies could be replaced by the bio-gas generated from their contents?

    It's not surprising that householders have been getting fed up with this time-wasting rubbish-sorting and have been failing to distinguish correctly between all the different categories. Recyclable material is apparently getting contaminated as a result and being discarded. Recent government statistics indicate that the proportion of waste being successfully recycled has been declining in recent years, which suggests that the complexity of many council schemes has been a deterrent and that increasing the number of bins outside every home has been counter-productive.

    As we devote time and energy to washing out our yoghurt pots, or grappling with the plastic tethers on the lid of every juice carton, we begin to wonder if we are being taken for fools.

    Reports of recyclable waste being shipped halfway across the world only to be burnt or dumped on some distant shore risks making even the most conscientious among us wonder if there is any point to all this effort. Meanwhile we learn that "Gen Z" – despite being subject to more environmental propaganda than any previous cohort – are the least likely to engage in this obsessive rubbish-sorting. Nine out of 10 young people (aged 27 or under) admitted in a recent survey that they throw stuff in the bin rather than bothering to clean it for recycling.

    All this suggests that the petty tyranny exercised by local councils, examining the contents of our bins and threatening to fine us for failing in our recycling duties, may be losing its effect. There is growing resentment of the ugliness of urban streets, where railings are festooned with bin bags and plastic boxes clutter up front yards and pavements. The one-size-fits-all recycling rules make no allowance for the difficulties of storing multiple containers in densely populated areas.

    Nor is the problem confined to towns and cities. On narrow lanes and village greens cottage gardens have had to make way for serried ranks of wheelie bins, sitting waiting for collection day. And while the bins have proliferated, street cleaning seems to have slid down the list of council priorities, presumably because the need to meet arbitrary recycling targets has absorbed an increasing share of local authority budgets.

    Yet there is surely worse to come, as the Labour government presses on with its "green" energy agenda, ripping up local planning controls in order to cover our hills and coastline with giant turbines and carpet green fields with solar panels. It's a strange and contradictory form of "environmentalism" that requires us to tolerate these eyesores, and to go on believing that this will make our world a better place.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/29/end-this-recycling-bin-tyranny-once-and-for-all

    Wet waste and dry waste. It's simple. The former into the biodigester, the latter sorted (mostly mechanically but some manually while methods improve) and sent to the appropriate processor. Nothing should be exported.

    1. They've tipped our recycling into one receptacle when they collected it for years now. About a year ago, they finally admitted it and gave us one bin instead of two boxes (to sort cans and bottles). We can also put plastic in it as well.

    2. Four bins here. Not a problem with us, but we don't open the front door directly onto the street's footpath. It's a quite different matter on cluttered streets. Even the best of intentioned households are likely to 'pollute' a bin with the 'wrong' waste from time to time. Perhaps sorting at the local waste and recycling centre would be more effective with pairs of trained eyes knowing what goes where.

      1. BBC East Midlands Today had a report on the recycling of electrical waste, with stacks of dead laptops and mountains of cabling prominent. Many appliances were simply broken up and the pieces sorted, partly mechanically, partly by hand. Even the smallest PCBs are valuable, containing as they do gold, silver, platinum and high grade copper.

  148. Well, chums, I'm off to bed now. Good Night, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow.

    PS – Has anyone got the latest figures regarding the petition to hold another General Election? Has it reached 3 million yet?

  152. “Please let’s not get into hysterics about climate friendly milk.

    So much nonsense is written about burping cows and climate change, I suppose it is inevitable – somewhat ironically – that when dairy farmers try to reduce methane from cow burps, even that should become the subject of febrile conspiracy theories. The UK’S biggest milk processor Arla has been widely criticised for trialling an anti-flatulent supplement on 30 British dairy farms: Bovaer, a synthetic organic enzyme inhibitor, 3-nitrooxypropanol.

    I should declare an interest. Our free range cows’ milk is made into Arla cheese. We are not part of the trial because the cattle cake containing the supplement has to be fed continuously, so it is currently only for indoor, “zero-grazing” systems, which make up a large part of the industry.

    Some criticism of Bovaer, from the King’s organic farming guru, Patrick Holden and others, is levelled at the whole concept of keeping cows indoors on artificial feeds. I sympathise with that viewpoint but the reality today is that you would not have much milk for your coffee without the large indoor systems.

    There is a slow release bolus under development for cows like ours, which graze the green fields of Galloway. Will we use it when it becomes available? Maybe, we’ll see how the trial goes. That, after all, is the point of a trial.

    So, a few facts. First, our cows do burp methane, which stays in the atmosphere for up to 12 years and during that time is a greenhouse gas 34 times more potent (GWP) than CO2. How much methane actually reaches the atmosphere is unknown: probably much of it is gobbled up by methanotrophs – bacteria in our pasture that turn it back into oxygen.

    What we can measure is the 1-3 tons of carbon per hectare per year we are locking up in the soil by grazing the pasture. I really don’t think we are causing net climate change. However, scientific opinion thinks we are and if the cows burp less, because they are fed the bovine equivalent of Rennies, it will undoubtedly reduce greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Zero grazing dairies, which don’t facilitate the carbon cycle as efficaciously as free-range systems, would certainly make a big dent in emissions by doing so.

    Secondly, Arla is not some global Big Food behemoth owned by shady private equity Bond villains, it is a farmer-owned cooperative which takes decisions based on what its customers want. The dairy industry has been blamed for climate change for two decades by everyone from governments to schoolchildren via Extinction Rebellion. Rightly or wrongly Britain has pledged to reduce methane by 30 per cent by 2030. This is an honest attempt to do what everyone wants us to do – reduce cow flatulence.

    Thirdly, British consumers are not the Bovaer canaries in the coal mine. It has been trialled for 15 years already and approved in 68 countries (including the UK actually) and is being used in 29 of them. It has so far proved to be safe and effective, reducing methane by 30 per cent. Consumers can be reassured that milk and meat are tested more rigorously in Britain than anywhere else in the world and any hint of risk would stop the trial. So, by all means let’s take a healthy interest in how our food is produced – but let’s not have an Edwina Currie-style egg hysteria about milk.”

    First, and most importantly, “This is an honest attempt to do what everyone wants us to do – reduce cow flatulence.” No. “Everyone” does not want you to reduce cow flatulence because most of us (outside the Liberal Luvvidoms of Islington, Oxbridge and Bristol, where they don’t drink milk anyway) recognise it for the scam it is. The main question is – why really?

    1. An extremely condescending piece. Wait until their lovely organic grazing herd is force fed "synthetic organic enzyme inhibitor, 3-nitrooxypropanol."

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