Tuesday 10 December: These latest planning reforms ride roughshod over local government

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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691 thoughts on “Tuesday 10 December: These latest planning reforms ride roughshod over local government”

    2. He is a very rich man. It's not like he needs the money. It would have been better PR, though, if he'd said 'I don't want any notice for that, could we change the subject to policy?'

  4. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,270 3/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Multiple possibilities strikes again here…
      Wordle 1,270 5/6

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  7. These latest planning reforms ride roughshod over local government

    All this Nimby stuff is really just the government getting ready to take totalitarian measures to house their mass immigration and impose the 15 minute neighourhoods

    1. It's not so much to override local councils – who are bad enough – but to really go for the people who complain.

      That said, some of the complaints are truly, mind numbingly pointless and self serving, with one plan to build on an old mining pit, an eyesore in the ground a reservoir, basically to make it a lake was along the lines of 'my dog can't swim'.

      1. We had someone come to our parish council meeting to protest about a housing development (which in all fairness, is too big, unwanted and the egress is frankly unsafe) by saying he'd moved there to get away from the noise of building and to live in the country. We rejected it anyway (on the grounds I'd bracketed); I didn't have the heart to tell him that such things were not "material planning considerations". I did make the county councillor admit in everybody's hearing that even it the development went to appeal (which it will) and was turned down, the government would step in and ensure it went ahead anyway. He said, "only if they change the planning laws" whereupon I reminded him that they fully intended to do so. Nobody can say there was no warning of what will happen.

    1. Never been to one, although we did buy a garden storage cupboard from them which was (thankfully) delivered to the Dower House.
      Do I assume it's a vast hanger, currently stuffed with inflatable santas and twinkly light infested reindeer? And Mariah Carey on a loop?

      1. That could be many a super market.

        I asked the shop staff if they got sick of Slade and one told me that the radio is often vandalised.

      2. Morning Anne ,

        As you know Lulworth is just 4 miles away , I went down there for a sniff of cold sea air , and to visit their nice little visitor centre shop which sells rather expensive bits and pieces , local pics on boxes of fudge , and that sort of thing .. to buy something for the raffle ..

        Stupid me almost burst into tears when George Michael singing Last Christmas on the shop's music loop , something about his voice and the rhythm that sets me off !

      1. If he still bakes his pies when all about him
        Are baking better pies than he can bake …….

      1. Mince pies from COOK are the best you can get from a shop. They're pretty good and better than I can make.

      2. Ready made mince pies, Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding are not an option for us as Caroline has coeliac disease so she makes them herself using gluten free flour.

        I can say that her cakes, puddings and pies are the best I have ever had!

  11. Morning dear Geoff and also dear Nottlers – especially the older ones
    Today's Tales – a few bits from Wit and Wisdom of the Oldies

    At Least I Have My Health
    I’ve just become a pensioner so I’ve started saving up for my own hospital trolley.
    Tom Baker
    The time will come in your life, it will almost certainly come, when the voice of God will thunder at you from a cloud, ‘From this day forth thou shalt not be able to put on thine own socks.’
    John Mortimer
    When I wake up in the morning and nothing hurts, I know I must be dead.
    George Burns
    I don’t need you to remind me of my age, I have a bladder to do that for me.
    Stephen Fry
    At 75,1 sleep like a log. I never have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I go in the morning. Every morning, like clockwork, at 7am, I pee. Unfortunately, I don’t wake up till 8.
    Harry Beckworth
    When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.
    Hugo Black

    1. It was said that you're only as old as the woman you feel. That's not true. Her slap aged me 20 years and my hair fell out.
      Greg Wallace

        1. I took a minibus full of Sixth Formers to see Fred Wedlock – and they loved it.

          After the performance I bought a copy of his LP The Oldest Swinger in Town from him and my pupils urged him to write that this applied to me on the cover. Fred kindly wrote : This does not apply – YET!

        2. I took a minibus full of Sixth Formers to see Fred Wedlock – and they loved it.

          After the performance I bought a copy of his LP The Oldest Swinger in Town from him and my pupils urged him to write that this applied to me on the cover. Fred kindly wrote : This does not apply – YET!

  12. What now for Asma al-Assad – the former British public schoolgirl turned international pariah. 10 December 2024.

    What must Asma al-Assad be thinking right now? Bright, beautiful and British-born, she could be living an affluent life in England, with friends, family and a fine career, had she not sold her soul to the devil. As it is, she is an international pariah, the wife of a monster responsible for more than half a million deaths, and she faces – along with her three children – the very real prospect of spending the rest of her days in joyless exile in Vladimir Putin’s Russia

    A gloating sideline in the Assad feeding frenzy. No one connected to them is allowed to be innocent.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/09/what-now-for-asma-al-assad-british-schoolgirl-turned-pariah/

    1. Well, at least she won't be surrounded by the same people who hated her.

      The Left really don't understand the extent to which this country has been invaded by foreigners, do they?

  16. Not exactly the Palmerston de nos jours. Add geography to Lammy's epic GCSE fails.

    “None of us want Syria to become like Libya next door,” he said, nor indeed like its closest neighbours, Poland and the Isle of Wight."

    Tim Stanley in the DT.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/09/lammy-liberated-syria-asylum-claim-processing-suspended/

    "Hammy Lammy steps up when someone else’s country needs to be fixed

    Foreign Secretary is a bit behind on Yvette Cooper’s suspension of Syrian asylum claims processing

    09 December 2024 8:42pm GMT

    Foreign Secretary David Lammy needed some catching up to do Credit: UK PARLIAMENT/AFP via GETTY IMAGES
    Westminster is excited about the rainbow coalition of Islamists who liberated Syria over the weekend, dusted down for the cameras. No hooks or eye patches in sight; very few women, either, but then I don’t think there are many feminists in the Holy Army.

    Fortunately, our Prime Minister was in the Middle East to share energy-saving tips with the Arabs, so was able to express the British position on events to wife #42.

    How cruel to send such a tedious guest to a country where the hosts can’t drink.

    Alas, the UK’s stance wasn’t 100 per cent explained to our Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who delivered an improv statement to the Commons. This was preceded by urgent questions on “the plan to reform the planning committees” – a plan that turns out to be in the planning stages. Petty rules are Parliament’s favourite subject, next to “fixing other people’s countries”.

    Lammy started strong: the “Lion of Damascus”, aka Bashar al-Assad, had turned into “the rat of Damascus, fleeing to Moscow with its tail between its legs”. He urged caution, noting that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is an “alias of al-Qaeda”, and how one regrets they didn’t choose a snappier drag name, like Malibu Hamza.

    Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, replying to David Lammy's statement to the House on Syria
    Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, replying to David Lammy’s statement to the House on Syria Credit: UK PARLIAMENT/AFP via GETTY IMAGES
    There wasn’t much more to say than that, but Lammy loves his ham, so staged a passionate oration stuffed with facts he’d learnt that afternoon: Syria’s tragedy, history, highest peak and deepest lake. “None of us want Syria to become like Libya next door,” he said, nor indeed like its closest neighbours, Poland and the Isle of Wight.

    Brendan O’Hara offered thoughts and prayers to “those families” who escaped Syria “to settle on the Isle of Bute”. Yes, it must be ruddy cold. O’Hara criticised Israel for invading the south; Jeremy Corbyn joined in, though was hard to hear for Gareth Snell rudely talking over him.

    Hawks think their constant demands to topple Assad have been validated; Lib Dem Richard Foord suggested this was proof that MPs shouldn’t vote before military action, but after. Neocons favour democracy everywhere, except here.

    Yet this was a rare occasion where a Middle East country freed itself without America first bombing its civilians. As if frustrated at having no part to play, MPs competed to offer big wonga for reconstruction: Barry Gardiner helpfully reminded the House that it cost around “$2 trillion” (£1.6 trillion) to fix East Germany, which of course is now largely Syrian.

    Lammy, acting as if award season were approaching, started to list how Britain could help – and appeared to suggest we secure salaries for Syria’s public officials. If they hold out like the doctors did, they might win a 22 per cent raise!

    But when Richard Tice asked if the Government would suspend asylum applications, Lammy acted horrified. “I have to say that had not been put to me,” he answered, adding in a later reply to Nadia Whitthome: “These are not the first issues that come to mind.”

    Not to his mind, perhaps. But to Yvette Cooper’s, yes, for the Home Office, contra the statement of the Foreign Secretary, had suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syria.

    It won’t last. I give it a week before Assad and his family are checking in to the Doncaster Premier Inn."

    1. "…to fix East Germany, which of course is now largely Syrian. …"

      Hurrrh hurrh. that's good.

      And sadly true.

    2. Very good, but it is beyond awful that we are represented by Starmer and Lammy on the world stage. I guess the evil hierarchy do have a sense of humour after all, they inflicted Biden on the Americans and …. well, look at the succession of clowns and puppets over here.

    3. From my understanding, she's a PoW under the guard of the Peshmerga victors in Eastern Syria and their problem where to send her since she renounced her British citizenship on her 18th birthday. Much depends on how the new regime in Damascus deals with their Kurdish provinces where the PoW camps are situated.

      In the meantime, she is free to apply for citizenship to anywhere that will take her, but I fear she has much to do in the form of rehabilitation. Certainly, she dresses like a Westerner (T-shirt and baseball cap), and she does let the world witness her lovely hair, rather than keep it under the hood, but is this transformation merely skin deep? John Lennon once sang "one thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside". Highly detrimental to her cause is the Muslim practice of Taqiyya, since she may do sincerity, but who would believe her?

      Christians have a tradition of reconciliation and redemption, and is indeed one of the Catholic Church's seven Sacraments. Unfortunately, history is littered with Christian "converts" deceiving their new hosts, but their hearts remain as dark as ever. It would require someone with the psychological talents of a Mossad interrogator to get to the truth and possibly save her from eternal exile.

      1. Interesting, if she renounced her British citizenship what is all the argument about???

    1. Good morning Bob, a wretched picture before breakfast 😉

    2. She has nothing worth listening to. Their 'change' is for the worst. They're simply incapable of understanding that they – the entire political class – are the problem.

  20. Drifts in like a scented breeze, for my birthday today, I'm to start horse riding lessons, mid winter and at my age, clearly I'm very eccentric .

    2. Happy Birthday !

      "The most important thing is to enjoy your life. To be happy. It's all that matters".

      Š A. Hepburn.

    6. Happy Birthday to you , enjoy your day.

      Back to a childhood memory for you .. something our parents used to play ..when toddler sat on a parents knee ..

      This is the way the Lady rides,

      Nimble-nim, nimble-nim, nimble-nim,

      Nimble-nim, nimble-nim, nimble-nim!

      *

      This is the way the Gentleman rides,

      Tritty-trot, tritty-trot, tritty-trot,

      Tritty-trot, tritty-trot, tritty-trot!

      THIS is the way the Farmer rides…….

      GALLOPY, GALLOPY, GALLOPY,

      GALLOPY, GALLOPY, GALLOPY!

      DOWN ….INTO THE DITCH!!

      Nursery Knee games were great fun , so I expect this why you really want to learn to ride a horse .?

      1. In the version I knew as a child the farmer went slowly amberly, amberly, amberly, amberly and the gentleman who went violently gallopy, gallopy, gallopy until the rider fell off Mummy's or Daddy's knees!

        1. Good evening Rastus. Back after an absence.
          With our boys it was, 'Over the hedge, and into the ditch.' (Lift child up high, then lower quickly to the floor.) Now playing this with little grandson – no prizes for who gets tired of the game first.

      1. Happy birthday, Audrey. I agree that you may need to take your ladder to your riding lessons, but for goodness sake don't take private lessons from Uncle Bill. Lol.

    8. Have a lovely day today I hope you have something special in mind.
      Enjoy 😊🥂🍾

    11. Hope your special day is going well!

      Is Dunster the eponymous character in John Mortimer's novel, is it the village in the North of Exmoor which is illustrated in the birthday greeting or is it something entirely different?

    12. Remember to breathe! 🙂 Riding is to do with relaxation. Go with the movement (and if you are well endowed, wear a really good sports bra – the sights I've seen!).

  22. 398536+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Due process was used to install them and teach others a lesson,the only lesson learnt was a costly one to the undeserving brigade, the elderly.
    As dictatorships go I do not suppose this is the worst but give it time to improve and it is showing signs early doors that it will, rapidly under the WEF / NWO / RESET tutelage .

    https://x.com/pauldug59118129/status/1866148208319119814 Grow along with kier is their order of the day

    3. My message.. Stick to your guns.. don't U-turn.. carry on as you are.

      Gentle reminder to populace: New Govts usually manage two terms unless their popularity & policies are unusually abysmal.

        1. Labour would have to fracture into three groups. That aint going to happen. 174 seat majority.
          Military coup? Nope.
          Riots on the street? Prison awaits.
          Scandal? Couldn't care less.
          The King dissolves parliament? He is part of the problem.

          The only hope is Starmer & Lammy overreach that threatens US security, and Trump imposes crippling sanctions instigated by Farage & Reform.

          4. Agreed, the option to raise and sign a petition is nothing more than an opportunity to vent. Now if 10% of Keef Stalin's constituency could be persuaded to vote him down, there would be traction.

          5. It won't work, but not quite for the same reasons as the Brexit re-run didn't. There was no need to worry about that; they were determined never to let Brexit happen anyway, so no need to risk an even bigger vote to leave.

          6. The new intake of Labour MPs are too idealistic, too greedy, too stupid, too lacking in courage, too brainwashed by evil to deliver the rebellion necessary to stop the juggernaut.

          7. Can political assassination ever be justified?

            I remember we read Albert Camus's play Les Justes in a Sixth Form General Studies class when I was at school and this stimulated thought and discussion.

            Indeed when I was at school we had to study certain subsidiary subjects in the Sixth Form which did not lead to an exam. I remember we did Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation, Play Reading, Current Affairs, and other options. Those who wanted to go to Oxbridge also did Latin Unseen which was part of the Entrance exams for some subjects.

    4. My message.. Stick to your guns.. don't U-turn.. carry on as you are.

      Gentle reminder to populace: New Govts usually manage two terms unless their popularity & policies are unusually abysmal.

    1. The damage is huge and will be repeated every year. A mass of glass in an open field? Come on. This was obvious.

      More it is the deceit that unreliables are remotely practical. That they are conequence free (the soil beneath those panels is ruined forever), the sea bed filled with concrete and steel for every windmill.

      It's all a scam. They're not green, not efficient, not reliable.

      1. I wonder whether who bears the cost of cleaning contaminated land? The landowner or the solar company (read; taxpayers). If the latter goes bankrupt, what then?
        You can't put animals to graze under the solar panels if there are shards of glass in the earth.
        Same with windmills, what if there's an oil leak?

        1. I'm not sure you can repair the ground. It's ruined by not getting sunlight. The biosphere beneath it is killed off, rain doesn't get to it evenly.

          From what I've seen there's no room under the panels for animals to graze – the grass would die anyway.

          For every unreliable installation the costs are lumped on the tax payer. The installer pockets the profits (whether they work or not) and the profits are huge. This is why two thirds of our bills are tax.

          1. They have small flocks of sheep grazing round the edges. One day, the lease on the solar panels expires, and if the ground is full of shards of glass it won’t be suitable for grazing twenty years from now.

        2. I'm not sure you can repair the ground. It's ruined by not getting sunlight. The biosphere beneath it is killed off, rain doesn't get to it evenly.

          From what I've seen there's no room under the panels for animals to graze – the grass would die anyway.

          For every unreliable installation the costs are lumped on the tax payer. The installer pockets the profits (whether they work or not) and the profits are huge. This is why two thirds of our bills are tax.

      2. And they still will not admit that solar farms and windmills are not fit for purpose and a total waste of money.

        1. Why should they? It's a massive money-spinner for most politicians, scamsters and rip-off merchants.

          2. I know that and you know that but dare I suggest that we are less stupid than the hordes of people who are taken in by the nonsense.

    4. And how many windmills will have been seriously damaged?

      My fear is that even if all the windmills and all the solar farms were destroyed by Storm Ermintrude? ( think E is next on the list) then, instead of admitting that neither are good and reliable sources of energy, the PTB would rebuild the whole lot regardless of cost or efficacy.

    5. The people planning this nonsense should have known how vulnerable these installations are to bad weather. A huge solar array in Texas was severely damaged by hailstones in the recent past.

      Is Miliband minor considering protecting these abominations by building walls around the sites to protect them from wind and roofing over to protect from snow and hail? Asking for a friend.

    7. An interesting BTL on green energy and Miliband – How do people that level of stupid end up in positions of power?

  24. The strangest, oddest thing happened today. Junior trundled into the bathroom and started to get organised and what not. The great beast hauls himself (by sliding and sort of slumping on the floor) off his bed and lets out a little woof – not the usual window shattering bark, just a 'woof' and pulls a towel off the bannister, holds it in his jaws and whuffs again.

    The bathroom door opened and Mongo hoofs up on his back legs, Junior takes the towel and door closes again and the shower starts up.

    I couldn't believe it even as I watched it.

    Too hot, so turned the heating off. I'd like to set it to about 18 but can't work out how to.

  25. Morning all,

    Today Free Speech has another article, ‘ The State Tightens Its Grip’ in psychologist Xandra H’s series on State involvement in a child’s development, and how its agents use child psychology to transfer the child-parent bond to the State. In Xandra’s new article she looks at some of the consequences of a switch that, for very many individual and society in general, are far from good.

    I personally find Xandra’s essays very informative, as they give an theoretical basis for things only suspected and little understood. And they really do explain a lot, so please read and leave a comment.

    If you would like to see FSB cover any other subjects or have any other ideas for improving the site, please let us know either by using the contact tab at the bottom of the home page, or by emailing freespeechbacklash@gmail.com.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

      1. Some Sundays I used to cycle from Tiverton to Dunster and also to Tarr Steps when I was at boarding school.

        1. We used to go by train from Coventry to Blue Anchor bay, to stay in a ‘gypsy’ type caravan for the summer hols.

    3. Grattis på födelsedagen, You (with a nod to both Audrey and Dunster). Hope it's a lovely day. 😊🎂👍🏻🥂😘

  27. Cooper Fails to Tell David Lammy About Syrian Asylum Claims Suspension

    A release from the Home Office has been issued in the last half hour:

    “The Home Office has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situation. We keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so we can respond to emerging issues.”

    This is along with other European countries like Germany and Austria. Not that anyone told the Foreign Office…

    Foreign Secretary Lammy is currently up in the Commons answering questions on his Ministerial Statement on Syria. Asked by Richard Tice if the government would do the same Lammy just said “that has not been put to me in the last few hours, the issue that has been put to me is humanitarian aid in country… the consensus of this House and the significant funds that we have supported Syria with should reassure people of our intent to support people on the ground in the region.” No one’s told him…

    Meanwhile Starmer has slapped down Pat McFadden’s claims this morning that a decision to de-proscribe Syrian rebel group HTS will be expedited. He says “no decision is pending at all” and “we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves.“ A communications maelstrom…

    9 December 2024 @ 17:50

    1. Paused..
      Home Office advises staff to sit, drink some water. Perhaps, use the time productively or enjoyably in various ways.
      Resumed.

    2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f555eab93104f9b4a3f7f6e0a2991345f116b31fa61a5d1271da83734f8b3822.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eee0058f8d071fa17421524e6c86c0009eb3787774b115ebaa1b309bc43c5a40.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de92d4bf171fe85ba8dfa6a7fe31bcf995e4ccbc25b6924aafd3813d5d5b4af7.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b465f2cc98482c01d2fd4787512eeb41c09ccd16e7629766b748ed8f9ca9c1e6.png
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e98de8f59c761fc9f8140a828f0994fbded4609a307abe10de94881b2a90407.png

      2. For years the above people have been encouraging Syrian Moslem refugees to come to Britain.

        Interesting that now there is the probability of Syrian Christians and Syrian Yazidis being genuine refugees

        there is a sudden stop on admitting Syrian refugees.

        Who would have thought it?

  28. It looks as if Luigi Mangione (healthcare CEO assassin) used a ghost gun.

    Ghost guns can be made using a 3D printer or assembled from a kit..
    The weapons can be produced for less than $200..
    YouTube, where you can see people doing it in record time — 20, 30 minutes..

    Blue Peter advises not to try this at home unless supervised by an adult. btw, you still need the 9mm ammo.

    1. Ammo is always the problem for conventional firearms however out there on the net are the plans for a .32 calibre air powered submachine gun the vid of it cutting down a small tree is very impressive
      (search for yourself in the current climate I don't want it in my search history)
      Hardly a new concept see Austrian army in the 1790's the only problem was making the air flasks to standard
      https://militaryhistorynow.com/2022/12/12/the-girardoni-air-rifle-why-didnt-more-18th-century-armies-rush-to-adopt-this-experimental-rapid-fire-infantry-weapon/

    2. A gun made from plastics would disintegrate, likely doing more damage to the wielder. There's a reason there's recoil. If that transfers back through the mechanism it'll simply shatter. Yes, there are materials you can make such equipment from but they're expensive and easy to track – you also can't 3d print with them as the heat involved is too high.

    3. Blue Peter are currently too busy constructing Advent fire hazards from wire coat hangers and tinsle. They'll have a 3D printing special, with ammo manufacturing using washing up bottles and sticky-back plastic in the new year.

  29. 'Morning All
    Medley Time
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e909f87a1f8f56f388b3f99d2dd38c5a495a4fff040c26ab993947b3fbbbc246.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6028538b2b7e8eb1b7ac5b1b9bc1c7b8d18f598a420c566be73b1a6629e06b71.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/955f4413cd2ca5a0e71195ac01c4a008032f6995ae690b56dba27b1b16a7dec6.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6879a0d1e672e24a6819bed689b73b15c2f1244c9ca4fec9dc8b19fab1190593.jpg
    Lighter Side
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41d9928c9ad2beb885f5c912b0d70b31155a279f8f82fa98033a35f87993cb67.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6b60a8a134739886cce8111725e0c06e82c968fd8647c2896e287198e4e1510.jpg
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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ad0f412180a375856cb3d860383de3aa4d8d8258bccfd7454a0060662fc0852.jpg

    2. If the Warqueen said 'when you get a chance' it wouldn't get done. Instead she says 'change the bedlinen'.

      In fact, she really doens't say that sort of thing at all as there's a schedule of when things happen and likely if there's washing in I've emptied and sorted it to dry before she even notices, so I'm sorry, in this house if it's to be done, I'll do it when I want to.

  30. 398536+ up ticks,

    maybe we should study ALL aspects with a "steady as she goes eye".

    Comparison, Gerard Baatten on taking leadership of UKIP ask for ÂŁ100,000 to get UKIP out of the red and in return received ÂŁ300,000 from genuine believers in the chap then running the party.

    The reform construct is coming into being very smoothly indeed
    and seemingly running in tandem with the DOVER invasion campaign, invaders landing / entering the
    welfare / accommodation office on a daily basis.

    Dt,
    Holly Valance’s billionaire husband to become new Reform treasurer
    Property tycoon Nick Candy says he has left the Conservative Party over ‘broken promises’

  32. Good morning Nottlers, -3°C, clear and becalmed on the Costa Clyde. I blame Nett Zero!

  33. Доброе утро, товарищи,

    Cloudy overhead at Castle McPhee but there are some blue patches, wind North-East, 5-6℃ all day. Having an 'away day' with offspring today.

    Some serious money arriving in ReformUK now.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e6d39d2a2d9183f0cec76ad39981042c30c12c022de937e17dee7f4158d2e3e.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/10/holly-valance-husband-nick-candy-reform-treasurer/

    We will need to watch like hawks.

    1. I should be very worried if either of the Candy brothers offered to finance my enterprise….

    2. While he's an improvement on most political appointees having some actual business acumen, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw the Candy brothers.

  35. Morning all 🙂😊
    Monotonous grey sky again and chilly.
    Our latest example of a British government has turned out to be revengeful and viscously vindictive towards the expectations of the general public. They are obviously trying to cause as much damage to our long established culture and general way of life as possible during the time limit.. As it is more than obvious this must have been planned long before the election and no mention in the lead up to the election or manifesto of any of the danage now being administered. It might be a good idea to call a halt and remove them before it's too late………hello,….. any one out there to save old blighty ?

    1. I think that Assad and his wife would have been far happier staying in England.

      Do those who think that those who replace Assad will be any better? If so they certainly don't see very clearly and need the services of a good ophthalmologist!

      Assad was not a natural tyrant – he only became a tyrant because that is what all the rulers in the Middle East have to become or they will not be considered strong but weak and ineffective. To Islamists the values of compassion, tolerance and peace espoused by the Christian faith and the Christian ethic are worthy only of contempt.

      Indeed, the fact that we in the West are not prepared to stand up to Islam will lead to our own destruction. The can of worms is now wide open:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b410e102353d775e68e72a387fcdc561499f64754bd6376ada9cfa464b5c05e.png

    3. English is spoken by 360 million people. No country can claim some sort of sovereignty over the language when arbitrating how it should be used. One can pay respects to England as the mother country of the language but that does not give it a unique right to decide how the language is used. There is no such thing as "deplorable Americanese" there is American English and it is for them to decide how they wish to speak what is, after all, their native language. The same goes for all those other nations for whom English is their native tongue.

        1. It isn't a problem. It is the inevitable consequence of communication and adaption. We don't complain about the English using Indianisms such as bungalow or pyjamas, do we? And, as I have pointed out several times, often the American is older English than British English and thus the British term is the innovation. A while ago I gave the example, among many, of the term 'truck' for a type of vehicle, in fact, 'lorry' is the innovation. American English is often far more conservative than British English having retained many peculiarities that were British English at the point where America became a new country. but the English, falsely assume that Americans are the innovators. Another example is the rhotic 'R' which the English, including King George would have used. He would find nothing odd about an American accent but would think of the modern British accent as positively bizarre.

          1. Agree. I used to be infuriated by “diaper” and “yard” (garden)…till i realised they were “correct”…

          4. It is the sound that Americans make when pronouncing the letter ‘R’. In British English we no longer make that sound and think of it as typically American. But it is the ‘R’ sound that English people made up until very recently, especially in West country dialects of English. The English will say ‘fa’ dropping the ‘R’ the Americas will pronounce the ‘r’ , thus, far.

    4. Whoever would have thought the French would include the English word cul de sac into their language or the Germans adopting schadenfreud from English.
      The English language has always been flexible and most people would find it difficult to read English from the Middle Ages as spellings have changed and will, no doubt, continue to do so. English seems to be able to create new words out of nothing such as Microsoft which is instantly recognised in all languages and that is the great strength of the English language.
      How did all those words change and become accepted over the centuries? They will continue to change and will become normal but continue to change.

      1. English has, indeed, morphed from the time of Chaucer to now. However in doing so it became enriched, right up to the time of Kipling (among others). Since then though, it has gone into a rapid retrograde deterioration in both the spoken and the written word.
        The growing influence of vapid American slang is accelerating that decline. Just listen to any American film of the 1940s or 1950s and marvel — in general —at the high quality of their spoken dialogue. Then switch on a contemporary film or TV programme and listen to the incoherent drivel.
        Are you really telling me that’s the way you are happy for English to ‘change’? I am certainly not!

        1. I agree that the spoken and written language has taken a downturn but what can I do to arrest that decline.
          When TV presenters speak what is called ‘estuary English’ the the feeble public will think it’s OK. Thing that get to me are the lack of understanding about the difference between ‘amount and number’, the use of commas and apostrophes because someone thinks they should just lob one in because there aren’t many. Yes it is also a problem when so called ‘reality’ shows appeal to the lowest common denominator both visually and grammatically .
          The correction needs to begin with education but as long as teachers lack any understanding of grammar we are fighting a losing battle.
          How would you arrest the decline?

          1. I think we’re past the point of no return since no one in authority seems to show the slightest interest.
            You are annoyed by the confusion between the use of ‘amount’ and ‘number’. Similarly, I grate my teeth each time I hear (or read) ‘convince’/’convinced’ used when persuade/persuaded is correctly called for (this is getting more and more common).
            [You convince someone that he should believe, but persuade him to act.] “I convinced him to buy the car.” is catastrophically wrong on so many levels.

  40. “Rayner to ‘end nimby chokehold on house building’”, report, December 9

    The answer is very simple, we start of by building irby

    irby In Rayner's Back Yard

    and so all the guvunment can feel inclusive, in all Libore MP's backyards

    1. She and the 'they' don't have a clue how many millions of tonnes of building materials and land resources this huge amount of new homes would require.
      They are quite a few square's short of the real crossword.

  41. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f75d1e3b8247d44f2f976ce2fed85aab1832435d881091d573d099fdad03c17.png Left (2019): The result of eating a recommended "balanced diet" with its residual manifold health problems.
    [Insomnia, gout, obesity, joint pain, arthritis, cataracts, acid-reflux, 'brain fog', etc, etc … (despite daily medications).]

    Right (2024): The result of eating a proper carnivorous diet, with no health issues whatsoever.
    [Physically fit and strong, mentally sharp and alert, sleep like a log, pain-free, no stomach issues, etc, etc … (no medications required).]

    2. Same for us. We doubled our meat intake and we feel so much better. All this drip drip veg & plants diet is designed to weaken the population.

    3. Grizzly, that is impressive. Congratulations. I am following the Holy Church of Lard, now please give a good explanation of your diet. I would love to try it.

      1. Thanks, Johnathan. It's quite simple. The diet is classified as being: High-(animal)–fat; medium-protein; low-carbohydrate; no-sugar.

        I eat lots of meat, the fattier the better (lamb, pork, beef, duck, goose, chicken, liver, kidney) and lots of fish (cod, haddock, shellfish, flatfish, mackerel, sardines etc). I add fat to meals that are depleted of them. I buy pork back-fat, mince it, then render it into lard in the oven. I then salt the cooled 'scratchings' for munching on later. I use fatty cuts of pork for my pork pies and sausages. Fatty pork also makes the best bacon (my current project is halfway through cold-smoking, right now).

        I use onions and garlic as flavourings but the only vegetable I eat regularly are peas. I love home-made mushy peas and I've just had a bowl of home-made pea-and-ham soup for my dinner (the main course was three tiny cod fillets, sautĂŠed in butter with a small packet of shrimps added). I will eat broad beans when in season but little else.

        I no longer take sugar in my tea or coffee and I only nibble on the tiniest sliver of dessert on social occasions.

        I shall enjoy a wee dram or two of single malt scotch over the fesstive season but for the remainder of the year I am as near as dammit alcohol-free. My tipple of choice is tap water.

        It amuses me, no end, when people pipe up and spout that "living a life with no desserts or alcohol is not worth living". Well, I have just come back from my annual OAP's "MOT" with my GP (this morning) and he has given me a clean bill of health. He also noted how much happier and vibrant I seem to be on my new dieting rĂŠgime.

        Hope this helps.

        1. Thanks Grizzly. I have cut and pasted it to save. One question. How long was it before you noticed a difference in your health So I can establish some sort of criteria. for progress?
          And. No eggs or cheese?

          1. Sorry, I forgot the eggs and cheese. I eat a lot of both.

            The improvement in my general health was quite stealthy and not really noticeable immediately. It was the weight loss that was readily apparent, right from the start. I keep a weekly record of my weigh progress on a speadsheet. I was 116 kg at the start of my journey. Currently l am at 89 kg. My target weight is between 75–80 kg.

            As I progressed I started to notice the health benefits come along quietly. It was then that I stopped my medications.

          5. Again, thanks for that Grizzly. Will be interesting to see how i go with it. With Emphysema I can’t exercise but I badly need to lose weight. I hope this does the trick.

          6. Again, thanks for that Grizzly. Will be interesting to see how i go with it. With Emphysema I can’t exercise but I badly need to lose weight. I hope this does the trick.

    5. I eat a carnivorous diet, although I do eat veg as well (because I like them). I am not pain-free.

    2. Try lots of refreshing the screen?
      I am still managing to play it without an account.
      If they push me to create one, I'll use a throwaway email address, which protonmail allows me to generate at will.

    3. No, it seems happy to let me play. It offered me an account the other day and I declined and carried on.

    4. They get you hooked and then they make you pay: it reminds me of Tom Lehrer's song 'The Old Dope Pedlar':

      "He gives the kids free samples
      Because he knows full well
      That today's young innocent faces
      Wil be tomorrow's clientele."

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWxrOQg9WI

      (Why do the Americans spell pedlars peddlers?)

      1. Probably because a rather clever man, Benjamin Franklin, set out to reform the absurdities of English spelling. I spell it peddlers, it is more consistent with how it is pronounced. Do you hear an 'a' in the word when you pronounce it?

  43. 398536+ up ticks,

    Letters to the Editor
    These latest planning reforms ride roughshod over local government

    Surely,surely, surely, the electorate knew that that is the way dictatorships operate

    And so it came to pass,

    "What is that green stuff in that showcase mummy" ? In the dark days before RESET & King milliband it was known as turf.

  44. Good morning to you all. Gloomy and cold outside, 5c,.

    I see the Telegraph doesn't bother to mention it, why would it, it's just not fashionable or Woke enough. But the persecution of the Christians by the new regime has already started in Syria. I find it incredible that when it comes to the most persecuted religion on earth no body bothers to mention it. But this, a Christian country, has just done "Islamophobia" month, as if they are a put upon group rather than being the main perpetrators of religious persecution in this world. It is detestable.

    1. Must have got the wrong judge – they are usually given "work in the communiyt" or suchlike, as prisons are surely too full of people who wrote naughty things on FB.

        1. I wonder if anyone wants to form a Nottlers' Lodge?

          We have a French friend whom we have known since we first came to live in France 36 years ago. He still gives us a funny handshake each time we meet though he must know that I am not a freemason.

          I wonder how many schools have "lodges"? I know that my old school has one but I am not remotely interested in joining it.

          What is Freemasonry?

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d58b1809ede20906f0b856426b15469c601771fd31c8e9d6f807418cdae15eb.jpg

          Freemasonry can lay claim to be the world's oldest secular fraternal society, being an association of men concerned with moral and spiritual values. Members are taught its precepts by a series of allegorical plays or lectures, which follow ancient forms, and use stonemasons' customs and tools as symbolic guides.

          Freemasons believe that these principles represent a way of achieving higher standards in life but gain from Masonry only as much as they are prepared to put into it by way of commitment.

          By joining a Lodge, you become a member of one of the largest organisations in the world with Lodges in most countries, all of which will warmly welcome you should you ever visit them. You will also gain much enjoyment from visiting other Lodges in this country, and, in many cases, make lifelong friendships.

          2. I don't think that's strictly true, Phiz. As Bill says, there are Ladies' Nights and ladies can go to things like Masonic Carol Services and Fund-raisers. They just can't take part in the ceremonies.

          4. Not my bag!

            I should imagine that there are several policemen who belong to freemason lodges.

            Unfortunately freemasonry is fairly common in the legal profession in France which can badly affect impartiality.

          6. A lot of top-ranking police officers were Masons, in my day. They were all rankled when they found that a lowly constable was a top-table Mason who outranked them all at lodge meetings.
            This didn’t do him badly, despite being unable to climb the force’s rank ladder. He always, somehow, managed to find a lot of cushy sinecures.

          8. Rossell has a Lodge and I think Ellesmere College used to have links with Freemasonry, if it didn't actually have a Lodge. A change of Headmaster meant the links were ended.

    2. Must have got the wrong judge – they are usually given "work in the communiyt" or suchlike, as prisons are surely too full of people who wrote naughty things on FB.

    3. And we keep them in business by paying the compulsory TV licence fee. What the actual. A pleasure to see Bruce chewing a wasp when she introduced Farage.

      1. Not all of us do. I stopped paying the TV tax last August to offset losing the WFA. I haven't missed the trash that passes for programming these days.

        1. I cancelled ours around three years ago, but husband re-instated it (possibly for MotD). Seems to be dominated by females now. I used to listen to WS but somehow too many other things now. Btw…dog greatly improved, more or less back to what passes for normal in his case – recommend plain yogurt, thanks again Conway 🙂 x

          2. I tend to think so, he’s resolutely avoiding going behind garage…bit suspicious. Hoping to take a look in the morning, no time today, but likely a fox taken it anyway. Unless it was a fox he found – farmers sometimes rumoured to put poison down. I’m relieved he’s OK, been my shadow for almost 15 years.

  46. "As Assad falls I will be making arrangements to swiftly leave my luxury home and my benefit funded lifestyle leaving behind my upmarket motability car to return to Syria to rebuild my country"
    Signed
    Mohammed Asif

    2. Quote from tody's news:

      "In fact, Austria is actually starting a program to deport people back to Syria right away. And Germany
      is already offering chartered flights".

      Should we ask if the Labour Government is starting to repatriate those on benefits?

  47. My father, who died forty years ago, often used the phrase selective indignation when commenting on the stories in the news

    We have not changed – we choose to be indignant about Gregg Wallace but not about Muslim rape gangs; we choose to be indignant about Assad and not indignant about many other tyrants in the Middle East who are probably even worse.

    An interesting article in today's Conservative Woman by Laura Perrins

    Why report the mass rape of white schoolgirls when you can pick on Gregg Wallace?
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-report-the-mass-rape-of-white-schoolgirls-when-you-can-pick-on-gregg-wallace/

    A BTL under this article by a person who calls himself Anglophile:

    Wayne O'Rourke is in prison for stating the fact that followers of Mohammad are r@ping white girls. As this horror is ongoing, this means a white British man is in prison for saying Muslims are rap1ng white children, while Muslims are rap1ng white children.

    Why aren't there protests?
    Why aren't legal NGOs fighting his case against the tyranny that jailed him?
    Why are cases like his shrugged off?

    This cannot go on.

    As Anglophile says: "This cannot go on" – but I very much fear that we shall continue to be very selective in our indignation.

  48. Perhaps the best way to avoid property developers and their train of corrupt politicians with business interests is to make your home somewhere nobody wants to live?

  49. OT

    Bluss it is cold out this morning. Just went to the post office – "Closed for medical emergency" – so had to go to Fakenham PO. Queues out of the door. 15 minute wait. Still, in Lidl – five people at checkout – a new one was opened and I seized it – and was out before the first person at the other queue had finished!!

    Back home and turned CH back on. The MR has a work zoom until 1 pm.

  50. GB News Hits Back at Report Claiming It “Hates Muslims”

    The Centre for Media Monitoring, a project of the Muslim Council of Britain whose stated aim is to “promote fair, accurate and responsible reporting of Islam and Muslims,” has handed a report to the Guardian this morning which claims “that GB News hates Islam and Muslims.” The CfMM says over the last two years Muslims or Islam were mentioned “more than 17,000 times in its output, accounting for almost 50% of total mentions on UK news channels. BBC News and Sky News accounted for 32% and 21% respectively.” According to BARB viewer figures GB News has begun consistently beating both of those rivals…

    The report also complains that “GB News stories overwhelmingly are geared towards rubbishing the concept of Islamophobia” and “consistently hostile reporting” on the channel “risks inciting violence and discrimination against Muslim communities.” One of the BBC’s chief presenters Clive Myrie was promoting the report’s coverage this morning on X. Might raise a few eyebrows…

    The report of course calls for Ofcom to intervene. A GB News spokesman this morning dismisses it as “nothing more than a cynical, self-serving attempt to silence free speech. It proves exactly why a news organisation like GB News needs to exist and why it is succeeding.” The channel adds that “at no point did this project of the Muslim Council of Britain contact GB News or its presenters”. Efforts against the new channel are far from over…

    10 December 2024 @ 09:32

    1. Abdul Karim – the head of Ofcom – said that he would be delighted to investigate any complaint.

    2. This is the ladyeee that proclaimed in the space of 30 secs;
      1/ We have an acute housing shortage..
      2/ Mass invasion of Irregular Migrants? No problemo, we have lots of houses available..

    3. This is the ladyeee that proclaimed in the space of 30 secs;
      1/ We have an acute housing shortage..
      2/ Mass invasion of Irregular Migrants? No problemo, we have lots of houses available..

    4. Once the Muslims feel strong enough they will abandon the Labour party and establish their own Islamic Party,

      funded by contributions from mosques, which will certainly hold the balance of power in the HoC.

      2. Already is a Muslim Party of Great Britain, janet – perhaps they'll go there, think they may even have a couple of seats.

  55. Well, that's Eldest Daughter en-route back to Basingstoke after he visit here.
    I did plan going to Belper for the greengrocer's, but left my blooming wallet at home!

    1. Under attack simultaneously on seven fronts by a hodge-podge of People's Popular Front militia & rebels.. then Russia went home.
      Now watch Kurd SDF, Alawites & Druze take on the HTS.

          2. All of them. 2TK couldn't make up his mind which hated us most. After all, it's only taxpayers' money anyway.

    3. Syria fell when Assad went psychotic in 2011. Netanyahu can claim the credit though for his downfall though, and so can Putin.

      Putin has been pushing his campaign in Ukraine so hard, he has run out of soldiers to fight there and had to appeal to Kim Jong Un for some more. How could he spare any backing up Assad again?

      However, it was the prospect of Iran supporting Shias sheltering under Assad's protection that was severely weakened by Israel's onslaught on its allies in Lebanon and Palestine, so that Assad could no longer rely on Iran either to come up with the cavalry.

      It was only a matter of time before opportunists in Idlib saw their chance and struck. They had the advantage of the Kurds, with American air support, seeing off Islamic State and not setting up a second front that might have saved Assad. Unlike in the 2010s, Israel could no longer reach as far as to supply Islamic State with what they needed to keep the pot boiling, and so had to content themselves with a bit of missile chucking over the border.

      1. That reads like you've been paying attention, Jeremy. Much more than pretty well anyone else.

  61. Five more years.
    Hoping Starmer doubles down on everything; Martial law, Gibraltar & Falklands negotiations, Rejoin, power cuts and 7 Islamic mini states formalised.

    1. I don't often defend Starmer, but I think he is right here. 11 million is not a huge amount, and considerably cheaper than housing refugees, and an inducement for the ones we've got to go home and rebuild their country.

      Whilst Assad certainly had malign intentions on Israel, I am not so sure about these Turkish toned-down-for-now Islamists from Idlib. They may well take the attitude of letting Israel stew in its own juices and have better things to do. Israel's own behaviour is reprehensible, and I do feel strongly about us spending public money so that they can bomb their neighbours up with our heavy weapons.

      I said yesterday, and I repeat it now, that the West needs to attend a summit in Ankara with the intention of reconciling the Kurds and the Turks, and for them to concentrate on rebuilding Syria rather than picking fights with Israel. Syria should limit itself to self defence, to which it has as much a right to as Israel, and Israel would be wise not to play the Putin in the Eastern Mediterranean if it wants a quiet life.

      Then perhaps we in the West could do likewise.

  64. Buongiorno tutti.
    I made the Christmas cake yesterday. We'd half decided not to bother this year but I was cleaning mother's kitchen cupboards on the weekend and found about 50lb of dried fruits of varying use by dates.
    Chucked em all in a bowl with a generous slosh of brandy and they came back to life.

    I'll make Eccles cakes today.

  67. I was watching one of my favourite surviving episodes of 'Public Eye' on Talking Pictures last night, which like all good drama brought up a whole seam of thoughts.

    Set and made in Brighton in the late 1960s, it featured the old West Pier, which was still fully functioning then. I remember playing the 'New Amusements' slot machines, and riding on the ghost train, but never made it as far as the theatre at the end, a glorious Victorian Gothic masterpiece. All gone now, apart from a tiny arched iron skeleton in the sea.

    The story was about a girl leaving her suburban home for fame and fortune on the stage. A story line as old as the hills, and the source material for many a music hall song. They gave the actress playing her a character named after her real life then-boyfriend, a very successful radio disc jockey (who in later life became the King of the Jungle in 'I'm a Celebrity'). Frank Marker, the down-at-heel enquiry agent on probation after a stretch in prison, was given the task of finding her.

    The girl became a supporting act for a middle-aged comedian who had never made it past the end of the pier and pantomime at Christmas, and was utterly cynical about show business, and did all he could to warn this girl off following the same path. In the end, she gave up her dreams of the stage and went home to obscurity.

    I went down the very same path at the age of 14, albeit in a top theatre with quite a few famous names who still pop up from time to time in films and on TV. I remember very well the warning given to me by a number of them (including one or two who went on to considerable stardom) who said that I should not be giving so much of myself to the theatre, and I need to have other interests and another life outside the stage. They were right of course, as I found out when the season ended and the bottom dropped out of my world. Like the girl, I decided to give up the theatre and concentrate on getting my GCEs.

    I often wonder what became of those actors and actresses I played alongside, who didn't make it to stardom.

  68. Let me in this time but it was hard work:
    Wordle 1,270 6/6

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

  69. Talking of Talking Pictures – we have been watching repeats of "Out of Town" with Jack Hargreaves. Brilliant, simple, memorable stuff. They don't do telly like that any more.

  72. My father used to go by train to London each Monday for the weekly meeting of the Directors of a private company of which he was the family representative.

    He regularly shared his First Class compartment with Jack Hargreaves on the train home from Waterloo to Brockenhurst. They got on extremely well together and had very interesting conversations.

  74. I believe you need to thank Dave Knowles, as Editor he kept a copy. I understand Southern TV erased the lot.

    1. Obv. Jack Hargreaves would be cancelled in this age. A bit of a womaniser, and he once demanded a sales assistant in a hardware store be sacked for having long hair & ponytail.
      Ponytail.. ugh.. turns out Jack was ahead of his time.

  75. Thinking of the naming of storms and the recent publicity about the most popular boys' names in the UK, do anyone reckon we'll ever see a Storm Muhammed?

  76. Thinking of the naming of storms and the recent publicity about the most popular boys' names in the UK, do anyone reckon we'll ever see a Storm Muhammed?

    1. 398536+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      I believe this warning is aimed at the tribal lab/lib/con member / voter who, in the last 30 plus years have been successfully trying to give a Country away.

      2. 398536+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,

        With a majority intelligent electoral you would change governments, with the UK electoral the change is always,self inflicted and for the worst,
        ALWAYS.

  79. Ooh Karma.

    Just received a whole side of smoked salmon from the Lancaster smoke house. No note or card with it.

    It must be from Garlands !

        2. It's not just the prisoners, it's their friends and family visiting, using the opportunity to "case" the village.

      2. Prisons should only be built on islands.

        I favour the Isle of Sheppey. The Isle of Thanet. And the Isle of Shite [sorry: "Wight"].

        4. The IOW had two prisons, Albany and Parkhurst, now combined. I remember seeing working parties from them cutting back roadside growth and litter picking.

      3. We could stop importing criminals.

        And stop jailing/gaoling people Starmfuehrer dislikes politically

        1. Or even repatriate foreign criminals once they have completed their prison term MiR.

          Despite protests from the Left, it is acceptable under EU law, and Macron

          claims to repatriate 30,000 criminals a year.

    1. I wonder if this has anything to do with a favourable tax regime?
      Many countries, for example, do not permit digital nomad tax status.

      1. My chum is still waiting to be told what tax he is due to pay on his visit through the country.

        He was here for 3 months in 2023 pottering around and has since been to about five or six other countries. HMRC are just inept.

      1. Tried to get an appointment for a haircut earlier was told the earliest would be January sometime. I told them that by then they’ll need a combine harvester to do the cut!

        1. My haircuts are booked a year ahead! When diaries for the following year go on sale, my hairdresser and I go through her availability.

        2. Is there no local barber who'll cut you hair without an appointment or is this particular establishment famed for tackling troublesome barnets?

          1. This particular one is from a recommendation. I’ve tried the Kurdish barbers where you can point to one of 6 photographs showing different hair style and I tried a traditional barber shop whose forte is short back and sides – (I’d rather come out with more hair than most folk go in with!) So I can wait if necessary (the extra insulation will help offset the loss of the winter fuel payment!!!

        5. I have not had a professional haircut since we got married 36 years ago.

          Caroline cuts my hair and when I was a boy my mother cut both my father's and my hair.

          (However I would not be allowed to cut my wife's hair!)

        6. I have not had a professional haircut since we got married 36 years ago.

          Caroline cuts my hair and when I was a boy my mother cut both my father's and my hair.

          (However I would not be allowed to cut my wife's hair!)

          2. I have a set of electric clippers with variable length combs. ÂŁ10 about 10 years ago…

  84. Worth reposting…

    "Here’s what Michael Crichton had to say about “scientific consensus” back in 2003 when he gave a lecture at the California Institute of Technology titled “Aliens Cause Global Warming”:
    "I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
    Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period."

    1. There was a consensus around leeching that went on for many centuries? In truth, virology has been proven to be no more scientific, yet the consensus persists. At the same time, many modern synthetic medications and surgical procedures clearly do work.

      1. Leeches have been brought back into use to improve blood low and healing to certain skin wounds….

        1. And maggots which thrive on eating rotten flesh are used by surgeons to clean up wounds.

          2. I found out yesterday that leopards won't eat hyenas because the latter eat rotten flesh so they themselves aren't fit for consumption.

    2. As we try to enter the adult world we must decide whether we are:

      i) Useful idiots who are those excellent people who do not ask awkward questions and will go along with everything the PTB tells them to go along with;

      ii) Conspiracy theorists who are those annoying people who question things such as Covid vaccines gene therapy, global warming and Net Zero, critical race theory and gender nonsense and spread misinformation, disinformation and fake news..

      Most of us here find ourselves in the second group.

    3. Aliens, eh? The only aliens I'm aware of are those routinely arriving by the boatload every day on southern beaches.

      Just suppose, for one second, that there is an advanced population of beings on the next planet outside our solar system. The nearest system is the one of Proxima Centauri, just a trifling 4½ light years away. If they could defy the laws of physics and create a craft that could speed some of their population, in complete safety, and be full of their required and necessary sustenance and waste disposal, it would still take them decades, if not centuries, to arrive here. Presumably those arriving would have been born en-route just as those initially departing would have long been disposed of (somehow) along the way. This is before we even start to consider the education of successive generations whizzing through the unimaginably vast volume of space in a tin-can

      Science fiction is full of wondersfantasy. Science fact not so.

          1. Certainly a better choice. Even so, some things that would have seemed fantastic 100 years ago are now with us in everyday usage.

  85. Labour's bankrupt Birmingham City Council finally settles equal pay claims for 'hundreds of millions of pounds as residents still face another 10% tax hike and services cuts..

    He did warn you..

    "Blair deliberately removed as much power from parliament as possible. Parliament & ministers don’t set rates. Don’t control budgets thanks to OBR. We don’t control this gathering rush to Net Zero because we don’t control the Net-Zero committee. The economically deranged Equality Act 2010 writes into English law the Marxist theory of value and gives judges the right to determine whether men or wimmin are properly paid. This is the reason we've driven Birmingham County Council into bankruptcy. And next every council across the land. The sheer insanity of this stuff. We've created a created a malfunctioning government that does not work. And Starmer passionately believes in it."

    David Starkey.

    1. According to the Local Govt Info Unit – around 51% of councils think they will become bankrupt within the next five years. Housing, adult and children's social care are their main outgoings. So they have to house the newly arrived non-contributors. 53% of the UK is on welfare. If on welfare you will likely get a huge council tax reduction. The main source of income for councils is council tax. Immigration has ramped up, as has illegal immigration. Just under a third of the 900,000 net immigrants came for work (according to some sources only around 15% came for work). Join those dots and you begin to realise just how bad things are. And if you say anything at all, an ignoramus will call you a 'racist'. Hmm, more like a practical economist than a racist methinks? And our government is so thick that even they refuse to join those dots. Yvette prefers colouring in books.

      2. Was discussing our County Council (hugely in debt and floundering about trying to do something about it) with a friend who's a Parish Clerk of another council this evening. We both concluded they hadn't got a clue. They aren't ditching the right things yet still splashing the cash on "climate emergency" rubbish.

      1. Report in today's Daily Torygraph that ready-made mince pies will be expensive this year due to a failure in the crop of sultanas.

        [Personally speaking: I was not aware that there were 'crops' of sultanas. I lazily assumed they were simply dried white grapes!]

  90. Another comment from Energy Brief which strangely hasn't been broadcast by the BBC:

    Is Iran Close To A Functional Nuke?

    Iran’s uranium enrichment program has, not so secretly, been moving closer to enriching weapons grade uranium.
    The IAEA warned yesterday, that Iran’s actions could lead to the production of nuclear weapons soon.
    So why would any nation, especially the U.S., ignore Iran’s active uranium enrichment program over the last 4 years
    and allow the nuclear risk to heighten in an already dangerous world?
    It doesn’t make sense and increases geopolitical and nuclear risks around the globe !

    .

    MOH points out that Iran could produce noticeable Global Warming.

  91. Another comment from Energy Brief which strangely hasn't been broadcast by the BBC:

    Is Iran Close To A Functional Nuke?

    Iran’s uranium enrichment program has, not so secretly, been moving closer to enriching weapons grade uranium.
    The IAEA warned yesterday, that Iran’s actions could lead to the production of nuclear weapons soon.
    So why would any nation, especially the U.S., ignore Iran’s active uranium enrichment program over the last 4 years
    and allow the nuclear risk to heighten in an already dangerous world?
    It doesn’t make sense and increases geopolitical and nuclear risks around the globe !

    .

    MOH points out that Iran could really produce Global Warming.

    1. Ye gods – she really is thicker than a very thick thing [Š Baldrick]! Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up! See also Sad Dick denying that London is now less safe than when he became Mayor!!

          1. And then tell everybody that violence is part and parcel of living in a big city that is full of the diverse and Muslims.
            Fixed it.

          1. That and taqiyya. Kitman is lying by omission (as Cameron did, quoting the peaceful bits of the koran but stopping before the "behead the kuffar" part) while taqiyya is deliberate lying – like Starmer when he opens his mouth.

      1. Lefties can't do anything that involves education or common sense.

        They are the greatest failure in the history of mankind.

      1. She's too thick to realise how stupid she sounds. Apart from the fact that she has no manners, just talking over what anyone else tries to say. Why is she on programmes?

  95. Steel is just the start: Britain is now incapable of producing anything physical
    Bringing the benighted steelmaker back onto the Government’s books would make Whitehall accountable for high energy costs
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/10/steel-is-just-the-start-britain-cant-make-anything/

    BTL

    "As I have always said, and I have made it perfectly clear, that the Labour Party and my elected government are entirely committed – and will not vary from this commitment – to destroy the British economy and seek out any new green shoots and extinguish them before they can grow into anything profitable and substantial and beneficial to the economy in any way."

    Keir Starmer

    1. I can't imagine Starmer did say that, but that is what he's doing. The funny bit is he can't understand why.

      If you got a straight answer out of him he would likely honestly believe that increasing state spending and hiking taxes creates jobs. He cannot understand the basics of economics that being the best, most efficient use of scarce resources.

  96. Go back whence you came..

    Steerpike
    Watch: Independent MP opposes first cousin marriage ban
    10 December 2024, 2:51pm
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-10-at-14.48.33-copy.jpg?resize=1536,867
    To the Commons, where this afternoon a rather odd intervention took place. The Westminster rumour mill was in overdrive today as word spread that a Member of Parliament was planning to speak against a bill calling for a ban on marriages between first cousins. Not long after speculation began, it was confirmed that a new parliamentarian did indeed want to make his opposition known: one Iqbal Mohamed, Independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley and a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s pro-Gaza group. Good heavens…

    Speaking to fellow parliamentarians today, Mohamed first accepted: ‘There are documented health risks with first cousin marriage and I agree this is an issue.’ He remarked that while ‘forced marriage must be prevented and the freedom of women must be protected,…the way to redress this is not to empower the state to ban adults from marrying each other, not least because I don’t think it would be effective or enforceable’. How curious.

    Going on, Mohamed urged politicians to avoid ‘stigmatising’ couples who are first cousins – and instead called for ‘advanced genetic test screening for prospective married couples’ like that which exists in many Arab countries, alongside ‘health education programs targeting those communities where the practice is most common’. Not like the NHS isn’t under enough pressure, eh?

    Calling on the House to vote against Richard Holden’s private members bill, the Independent MP concluded:

    We should try to step into the shoes of those who perhaps are not from the same culture as ours, to better understand why the practice continues to be so widespread. An estimated 35 to 50 per cent of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefer or accept cousin marriages, and it is extremely common in the Middle East and in South Asia. The reason the practice is so common is that ordinary people see family intermarriage overall as something that is very positive, something that helps build family bonds and helps put families on a more secure financial foothold.

    It’s certainly quite the take…

    Watch the clip here:

    https://youtu.be/lEr-vHNJaU4
    ******************************************

    Blindsideflanker
    39 minutes ago
    We should try to step into the shoes of those who perhaps are not from the same culture as ours,

    Why should we? If they want to do what they do they should remain where they are , but if they are seeking to step into our country, then that means abiding by our cultural values, and certainly not dumping their genetically damaged children on the British tax payer.

    Keir Starmer's Skiddy Y-Fronts
    an hour ago
    An estimated 35 to 50 per cent of all sub-Saharan African populations either prefer or accept cousin marriages, and it is extremely common in the Middle East and in South Asia

    …where a population of dim, drooling quasi-vegetables is ideal soil for planting the tenets of Islamofascism.

    1. ‘advanced genetic test screening for prospective married couples’

      Provided free by the NHS?

      2. A LOT cheaper than 50 or 60 years on disability benefits.
        However, if they want to marry cousins they should go back to their ancestral homelands and stay there.

      3. I don't see what "advanced genetic test screening" would achieve anyway. It's not a magic silver bullet. It can only test for certain things.

    3. While you can love any child, regardless of their disabilities if such can be avoided at any cost then it should be.

      Add this nonsense to the other muslim wanting to stop people insulting mohammed and his snack bar (an act that should be compulsory on a daily basis) the muslim menace infiltration must be reversed.

    4. "We should try to step into the shoes of those who perhaps are not from the same culture as ours".

      Er… shouldn't it be the other way round? Immigrants should be stepping into our shoes if they wish to integrate.

      1. That is a very big if. How many of these I comers integrate and how many rush off into their incestuous divisive enclaves.

        1. They don't want to integrate. As muslims see all non-muslims as Untermensch they have no intention of joining them, only subduing, enslaving and living off them.

    5. 30-50% of all sub-Saharan Africans? Really?
      Is that the muslim ones? because I don't know any africans who are married to their cousins. All the Africans I know are Christians though.

  97. Roger Kimball
    Why Americans fear for Britain
    10 December 2024, 7:56am

    As an American Anglophile, I find it difficult not to look upon the news emanating from Great Britain and despair. ‘Terminally ill pensioners could end their lives earlier to spare loved ones six figure tax bills, experts have warned,’ says the Telegraph. A Christian preacher in West London has just had his conviction upheld for standing in silent protest too close to an abortion clinic while holding a placard displaying a Bible verse.

    The old England, which cherished liberty, is dying and a more sinister society is emerging in its place. Keir Starmer, your Prime Minister, just gave an extraordinary speech in which he admitted that Britain’s open immigration policies were an ‘open borders experiment’. He blamed the Tories, even though the floodgates were opened under Tony Blair.

    Preserving the emotion of virtue is paramount to Labour, which is why Britain under Starmer, while signalling that he understands the concerns over immigration, has upped the ante on wokeness and censorship.

    Following the summer’s violent riots after the Southport attack, a House of Commons Committee on science and technology announced that it wanted to call Elon Musk, who owns X (formerly Twitter) to give evidence on ‘social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms.’ Musk responded that the committee members ‘will be summoned to the United States of America to explain their censorship and threats to American citizens.’ Good for him.

    Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, noted that police officers would be ‘scouring social media’ to identify and arrest people who had the temerity to write things the Crown Prosecution Service deemed ‘insulting or abusive which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred.’ Several people, including a 55-year-old woman, have been arrested for reposting words that fell afoul of Britain’s new censors. A woman in Newcastle, meanwhile, was arrested for standing quietly on the street while holding a sign that read ‘Fight The Government Not Each Other.’

    How about the people distributing notices in Jewish neighbourhoods with the legend, written in Hebrew, ‘Every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be Slaughtered’? The police are apparently too busy with other threats to pay much attention. Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force, threatened to extradite foreign citizens who violated Britain’s speech codes. ‘Whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,’ he said. Good luck with that, Mark.

    It looks as if you might have to be awfully careful about what you say or write in Britain. The latest wheeze is the possibility of instituting blasphemy laws. Speaking in the House of Commons recently, Labour MP Tahir Ali asked: ‘Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions?’ Starmer did not indicate that he opposed it.

    Earlier this year, Vice-President elect J.D. Vance speculated that ‘the first truly Islamist country’ to get a nuclear weapon might not be Iran or Pakistan but Britain under the Labour leadership of Keir Starmer. James Murray, the Treasury minister, responded that ‘in Britain, we’re very proud of our diversity.’ Noted. How about the substance of your history and your civilisation? Are you proud of that, too?

    Meanwhile, Rachel Reeves, Starmer’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, has issued a draconian budget that calls for confiscatory taxes on farms and farmers. In response, 20,000 farmers marched on Downing Street with celebrities such as Jeremy Clarkson joining the protest. Others helped circulate a petition calling for a new general election. As of this writing, more than 2.9 million people have signed it.

    What if you are old, sick, or just plain inconvenient? Starmer’s government has a plan for you, too. It’s called euthanasia, sometimes known as mercy killing, but what unsophisticated rubes like me would call state-sanctioned murder. Lawmakers in the House of Commons voted by 330 to 275 to support the assisted dying bill. The idea was outlined in by Evelyn Waugh in his brief novel Love Among the Ruins. ‘In the New Britain which we are Building,’ one of Waugh’s characters says, ‘there are no criminals. There are only victims of inadequate social services.’

    Waugh’s protagonist is Miles Plastic, a sort of porter at one of the scores of euthanasia centres dotting the country. Although not part of the original 1948 health service, Waugh explains, such facilities had by degrees become ‘key’ departments, ‘designed to attract votes from the aged and mortally sick. Under the Bevan-Eden Coalition the Service came into general use and won instant popularity. The Union of Teachers was pressing for its application to difficult children.’ Of course, Waugh was a satirist. Children would never be eligible for this ‘service’. But how about the Canadian judge that this year cleared the way for a 27-year-old woman to end her life with the help of her doctors? Perhaps this was the sort of thing that Nigel Farage had in mind when he wrote that ‘I voted against the assisted dying bill, not out of a lack of compassion but because I fear that the law will widen in scope. If that happens, the right to die may become the obligation to die.’ Welfare and palliative care are so expensive. A pill or injection, though, is quick, painless – and cheap.

    It is that sort of thought that prompted one wise academic to observe, ‘Assisted suicide bills are always sold to the public as increasing autonomy and preserving dignity when we all know they do the opposite: they prey on the weakest and most vulnerable among us, precisely by denying their inviolable dignity and seeing them as better off dead.’

    How long will the PM last? His approval rating has collapsed from plus 11 immediately following his election this summer to minus 30 at the end of November. It is said that Donald Trump and his team are paying close attention to what has unfolded in Britain since Starmer took office. They regard it as an object lesson in what not to do. So far, Team Trump’s main response has been to object to Starmer’s plan to hand over the Chagos Islands, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, to Mauritius. The strategically important airbase on the atoll of Diego Garcia is leased to the United States and Trump wants to keep it. As of this writing, there is unhappy hand-wringing from the PM’s office. Some say Starmer has his eyes on pleasing China, which would certainly like more access to the Indian ocean. But the possibility of a ‘humiliating’ reversal on the deal under pressure from the US flutters through the press.

    The adults in Whitehall might want to look to Trump’s team for hints about how to turn their country around. There are at least three issues that need to be addressed.

    One is migration. Millions upon millions have entered Britain over the past two decades. They must be assimilated or expelled. We won’t be able to spare Tom Homan, Trump’s newly appointed border czar, for a while, but Britain needs to cultivate a home-grown alternative.

    The second issue is government spending. Trump has pointed the way out of that fiscal death spiral by instituting a Department of Government Efficiency and putting Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in charge. ‘Unlike government commissions or advisory committees,’ they wrote, ‘we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.’ Britain must do the same. It must also reject the smothering interference of the hypertrophied regulatory state. ‘Entrepreneurship’ and ‘innovation’ must be the new watchwords, not ‘diversity’ and ‘climate change.’

    The third issue is free speech. Britain, the land of Milton’s Areopagitica and Mill’s On Liberty, has come close to embracing Orwell’s 1984 as a how-to manual instead of as a stark warning about encroaching tyranny. Political liberty depends upon liberty of thought and speech. This is something else for which Elon Musk has argued. Britain must reject the rancid pities of wokeness and multiculturalism or it will be consumed by that narcissistic ideology of intolerance.

    Following Trump’s lead on immigration, the economy, and free speech will be a tall order. Taller still will be replicating the cultural confidence Americans feel about their country. ‘MAGA’ is no longer a negative epithet, it is the name of our desire. This newfound cultural confidence is poised to be America’s biggest export.

    Britain is teetering on a precipice. Keir Starmer or his replacement needs to reclaim the animating current of genuine liberalism from the from the diseased clutches of socialist accommodation. The example that Donald Trump is setting in America, not least his robust policies on illegal immigration, can help. Lord d’Abernon once observed that ‘an Englishman’s mind works best when it is almost too late.’ That time is now.

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

    Anitawales
    7 hours ago
    Excellent piece, Roger. Our PM is a vain and brittle technocrat with very little self-awareness, who has a problem with telling the truth or sticking to his promises. He will jump on any bandwagon that comes along if he thinks it will benefit him (see taking the knee for BLM, 99% of women don't have a penis, promising to uphold the referendum decision and then doing his utmost to overturn it etc.).

    This is because he is unable to distinguish the moral difference between right and wrong. He has no instinctive feel for this. He believes ethics, morality and freedoms are derived from law, when in reality the law is derived from ethics, morality and freedoms. But when conflicts arise about what is good or right, it is the law that must change and not the souls of good people. Starmer doesn't get this, and as his behaviour following the Brexit referendum demonstrated- he is no democrat and will happily defy majority thought.

    He will not succeed unless he recognises these very basic faults, and the more he manipulates the law to suppress the people, the sooner he will fail. The two-tier policing we see all the time now is causing deep anger among Britons. We will see how he responds to the farmers tomorrow at their rally.

    Meanwhile, thank you for your support, and thank god for Trump and Musk who have a far greater understanding of what it means to govern justly, with the right of the pursuit of happiness. Starmer is doing the opposite, and the resultant misery is palpable.

    Replacement Bus Service Anitawales
    7 hours ago
    That’s the best description of TTK I’ve ever read. It is also why he thought it ok to load up on gifts from Lord Ali – ‘perfectly legal’, ‘within the rules’ etc but totally lacking any sense of right and wrong.

    Zeeland Replacement Bus Service
    an hour ago
    He believes ethics come from the law. That’s classic Soviet logic: 'If it’s legal, it must be moral!' Tell that to the Gulag architects.

    Prognosis – negative.
    7 hours ago
    It's not the UK, go into any town centre, get on any bus or train, it's just full of military age men, yapping away in a myriad of languages into their taxpayer funded mobile phones. How many arriving today with no ID, no questions asked. To be housed and fed with money the government has took from pensioners?
    It's insane.

      1. From the Daily Telegraph

        Putin’s regime may be closer to a Soviet collapse than we think
        Russia’s resurrected military industrial complex is cannibalising the rest of its economy

        Ambrose Evans-Pritchard10 December 2024 3:45pm GMT
        Ukraine is slowly losing the three-year conflict on the battlefield. Russia is slowly losing the economic conflict at a roughly equal pace. The Kremlin’s oil export revenues are too low to sustain a high-intensity war and nobody will lend Vladimir Putin a kopeck.

        Russia’s overheated, military-Keynesian war economy looks much like the dysfunctional German war economy of late 1917, which had run out of skilled manpower and was holed below the waterline after three years of Allied blockade – as the logistical failures of the Ludendorff offensive would later reveal.

        Putin’s strategic victory in Ukraine was far from inevitable a fortnight ago and it is less inevitable now after the Assad regime collapsed like a house of cards, shattering Putin’s credibility in the Middle East and the Sahel. He could do nothing to save his sole state ally in the Arab world.

        “The limits of Russian military power have been revealed,” said Tim Ash, a regional expert at Bluebay Asset Management and a Chatham House fellow.

        Turkey is now master of the region. Turkish forces had to step in to rescue stranded Russian generals. Even if Putin succeeds in holding on to his naval base at Tartus – a big if – this concession will be on Ottoman terms and sufferance. “Putin now goes into Ukraine peace talks from a position of weakness,” said Mr Ash.

        When Trump won the US elections in 2016, corks of Golubitskoe Villa Romanov popped at the Kremlin. There were no illusions this time. Anton Barbashin from Riddle Russia says Donald Trump imposed 40 rounds of sanctions on Russia, belying his bonhomie with Putin before the cameras. He has since warned that Putin will not get all of the four annexed (but unconquered) oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia.

        The Kremlin had banked on a contested election outcome in the US, followed by months of disarray that would discredit US democracy across the world. The polite interregnum has been a cruel disappointment.

        Barbashin says Russia’s leaders expect Trump to issue ultimatums to both Kyiv and Moscow: if Volodymyr Zelensky balks at peace terms, the US will sever all military aid; if Putin drags his feet, the US will up the military ante and carpet-bomb the Russian economy.

        That economy held up well for two years but this third year has become harder. The central bank has raised interest rates to 21pc to choke off an inflation spiral. “The economy cannot exist like this for long. It’s a colossal challenge for business and banks,” said German Gref, Sberbank’s chief executive.

        Sergei Chemezov, head of the defence giant Rostec, said the monetary squeeze was becoming dangerous. “If we continue like this, most companies will essentially go bankrupt. At rates of more than 20pc, I don’t know of a single business that can make a profit, not even an arms trader,” he said.

        The resurrection of the Soviet military industrial complex – to borrow a term from Pierre-Marie Meunier, the French intelligence analyst – is cannibalising the rest of the economy. Some 800,000 of the young and best-educated have left the country. The numbers slaughtered or maimed in the meat grinder are approaching half a million.

        Russia’s digital minister says the shortage of IT workers is around 600,000. The defence industry has 400,000 unfilled positions. The total labour shortage is near 5m.

        Anatoly Kovalev, head of Zelenograd Nanotechnology Centre, said his industry was crippled by lack of equipment and could not replace foreign supplies. “There is a shortage of qualified specialists: engineers, technologists, developers, designers. There are practically no colleges and technical schools that train personnel for the industry,” he said.

        Total export earnings from all fossil fuels were running at about $1.2bn (ÂŁ940m) a day in mid-2022. They have fallen for the last 10 months consecutively and are now barely $600mn. The Kremlin takes a slice of this for the budget but it is far too little to fund a war machine gobbling up a 10th of GDP in one way or another.

        Oil tax revenues slumped to $5.8bn in November, based on a Urals price averaging near $65 a barrel. That price could fall a lot further. Russia is facing an incipient price war with Saudi Arabia in Asian markets.

        Putin is raiding the National Wealth Fund to cover the shortfall. Its liquid assets have fallen to a 16-year low of $54bn. Its gold reserves have dropped from 554 to 279 tonnes over the last 15 months. The fund is left with illiquid holdings that cannot be crystallised, such as an equity stake in Aeroflot.

        The long-awaited rally in oil prices keeps refusing to happen. JP Morgan said excess global supply next year would reach 1.3m barrels a day due to rising output from Brazil, Guyana, and US shale. Rosneft’s Igor Sechin has told his old KGB friend Putin to brace for $45-$50 next year. Adjusted for inflation, that matches levels that bankrupted the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

        The purpose of the G7’s convoluted oil sanctions was – until a month ago – to eat into Putin’s revenue without curtailing global oil supply and worsening the cost of living shock in the West. This has been a partial success. Russia had to assemble a shadow fleet of tankers and ship oil from Baltic and Black Sea ports to buyers in India and China, who pressed a hard bargain.

        The International Energy Agency estimates that the discount on Urals crude has averaged $15 over 2023 to 2024, depriving Putin of $75m a day in export revenues.

        Russia can get around technology sanctions but its systems are configured to western semiconductors. These chips cannot easily be replaced by Chinese suppliers, even if they were willing to risk US secondary sanctions, which most are not. The chips are bought at a stiff premium on the global black market and are unreliable.

        Ukrainian troops have noticed that Russian Geran-2 drones keep spinning out of control. The Washington Post reports that laser-guided devices on Russia’s T-90M tanks have “mysteriously disappeared”, greatly reducing capability.

        The industry ministry has been trying to develop analogues to replace chips from Texas Instruments, Aeroflex and Cypress but admitted in October that all three tenders had failed. Alexey Novoselov from the circuits company Milandr said Russia could not obtain the insulator technologies needed to make chips of 90 nanometers or below. It is the dark ages.

        The US tightened the noose three weeks ago, imposing sanctions on Gazprombank and over 50 Russian banks linked to global transactions. This has greatly complicated Russia’s ability to trade energy and buy technology on the black market. It briefly crashed the ruble, now hovering at around 100 to the dollar.

        Chinese banks have stopped accepting Russian UnionPay cards. The Chinese press says exporters have pulled back from Russian e-commerce sites such as Yandez or Wildberries because payment fees through third-parties no longer cover thin profit margins. Some have been unable to extract their money from Russia and are facing large losses.

        Few foresaw the sudden and total collapse of the Soviet regime, though all the signs of economic decay and imperial overreach were there to see by 1989.

        Putin’s regime is not yet at this point but it would only take one more change in the Middle East to bring matters to a head. If the Saudis again decide to flood the world with cheap crude to recoup market share – as many predict – oil will fall below $40 and Russia will spin out of economic control.

        The Ukraine war may end in Riyadh.

    1. Is that all you were taught at your local cop shop, Grizzly? How to make your own Danish bacon? Lol.

    3. We had a Mk 1 Ford Escort. The paintwork skin outlived the bodywork.

      When parked up in Caldervale Road in Clapham it was occasionally stolen by the chocolate coloured brethren in Brixton. We once reported it stolen and a fortnight later the police advised that it was found abandoned outside Brixton Police Station.

      The garage recovery man found the fuel pipe severed and the battery removed not by undoing the nuts but by severing the cables. Nice people those ‘chocs’ not!

      1. That was when car makers had to buy British Steel products in order to get Government contracts and, due to vast over production, the steel sheet was likely to have been rolled 1½ to 2y earlier and would already have started to rust in storage.

      1. It could happen either way with the tree 🤗
        I’ve heard of a log burner but a slightly different delivery. 😂

  101. Apropos my earlier comment:

    "LIVE Turkish-backed fighters attack Kurds in Syria"

    a case of "Beating the Kurds away"?

  102. That was tough, just under two hours ago I walked to the local school, about a mile and a half. Crossing lady very busy. Picked up the little fella walk him back to our house via docs surgery to put in a prescription request, he just about managed to post a letter in a red letter box. Crossed the busy road and back up the Hill home. Poor old granddad's knackered now.
    He's helping nanny with a jigsaw puzzle now.
    That's life for us oldies,…… love it.

      1. It was, what was really funny, I had a woollen hat on and it has a Red band around the bottom edge.
        He saw me standing out side in the playground while he was putting his coat on. He told me that I looked like an arsenal supporter.
        He is, but I’m spurs. We all way’s have a laff about that. He’s not 5 till February.

    2. Jealous over the grandchild, Eddy. Very much hoping for one meself, but neither of t'lads have their own lady yet.

    1. Nice one Rene, my first two starter words were so helpful it was a 'nailed-on' birdie! (I like that sort….)

      Wordle 1,270 3/6

      🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. As I have said several times, I don't understand this Womble malarkey (even though I have seen a video explaining it!)

        Is there only ONE Womble each day? If so, how is such a monopoly permitted in these liberal days?

        1. There are many word games on Apple or in the case of Wordle and Spelling Bee on the New York Times site. I do both of the NYT puzzles simply as an exercise in wordplay.

          With Wordle there is an element of luck because much depends on the starter word. Even if the starter word draws five blanks you have eliminated five letters so the next word will give a good chance of finding letters that fit the word search.

          With Spelling Bee you simply find as many words as you can from nine letters but including a central letter. You have to be aware of some American spelling aberrations and sometimes words we use in English are not recognised.

          2. By the way, Bill, in case you didn't see my sign off last night, I'm very grateful for the link you sent for the Messe a la cathedrale Notre Dame. Very interesting. I am not sure I like the modern stuff, though. Maman looked as though she'd been botoxed to the gills (and very unsteady on her pins).

          4. She is in her 70s, an age where you are pathetically grateful to be able to walk and daily bless shoe companies like Hotter.
            She is wearing high stiletto heels and thin tights.
            Of course she is wobbly. Her feet are killing her. Her ankles ache. Ditto her knees, back and shoulders. And she was absolutely frozen.

        2. There is another website somewhere else where you can wordle away to your heart's content if you so desire.

    4. A miraculous 2 today.

      Wordle 1,270 2/6

      🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Did it look like this ?

      Wordle 1,270 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. I left work early and went to my local laundry, where they’re very kind and do the lifting and carrying for me. The office was packed with people I’ve never clapped eyes on before and the whole building was throbbing with very loud “music” for a “festive party”. Cardiac clinic in the morning.

        Wordle 1,270 4/6

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

        1. Par four here too
          Wordle 1,270 4/6

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

          All the best for tomorrow.

  104. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/crap-husband-guide-to-gifting/

    You find out what your wife/husband wants by some magic words : "What would you like for Christmas?"

    The Warqueen said 'a surprise' one year so she got a crowbar (to prise things). One year 'nothing'. And that's what she got – I nagged for weeks, but the answer didn't change.

    Now she gets precisely what she asks for – no cost considerations, but she has to tell me what she wants.

    1. I buy my own presents and am never disappointed.

      Unfortunately my husband doesn’t return the favour and so is always disappointed

      1. I think of a present Caroline would like and if she says: "Yes, that would be lovely!" I ask her to choose. Last year I said I wanted her to have a leather handbag – she chose it and so I bought the one she had chosen.

        I chose the actual gift and paid for it* – she chose the actual item so I knew she would not be disappointed and everyone was happy.

        * Actually we have joint accounts so it makes no difference who nominally pays for anything!

    2. I only buy random presents now and give them to random people (Nods to Mrs Kobeans).

      Expectations are rarely met.

      Other than that. People who have invited me at a special event or i have invited them get a basket of goodies.

      This year a few people are getting nice wicker baskets filled with pickles, chutneys, and selections of mini jars of Tiptree jams and marmalades. Hidden within each hamper is Harry Potter all flavour beans.

  105. Breaking News
    Cowes week has been cancelled next year
    They say due to the effects of Bovaer producing 20% less wind

  106. I'm very worried about Reform.

    They're growing up and posing a threat. In doing so they're attracting investment. Thing is, folk don't give a political party lots of money for nothing. They want something. Reform members probably want the muslim menace controlled and immigration halted. They want a different tax code. Their chairman isn't really going to want that. A lot of muslim won't want that. Big business isn't going to welcome a simpler tax code because they love the loopholes.

    Let's not be naive: anyone can be bought but when rich donors buy policy the party members are forgotten. What's ÂŁ25 against ÂŁ2.5m? That makes Reform another establishment party where absolutely nothing improves.

  107. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d5d04e9b9dc2e3f6592089064049934dca2ce9c2a9add10596f7d6109d8e251a.png From the internet:

    Asked my Dad (who has been a bricklayer all his life) what he thought about the brickwork on the viaduct at our local railway station; he didn't disappoint:

    "Railway bridges, viaducts & stations have some of the best brickwork in the world. The arches in the photo are Staffordshire blue engineering, expensive but very strong and waterproof. Also not good to work with in the wet, you'll never see them again. Next time you go under one look up because the arches run diagonally for strength."

    I doubt that level of skill (or engineering know-how) still exists anywhere today.

    1. Speaking to a proper builder I think the skills do, but they're not called for. Modern engineering uses different materials that're cheaper and more efficient.

      However – from someone who drives under a massive railway bridge at least 8 times a day I will say the engineering and skill of Victorian work is staggering in it's beauty and resilience.

      1. There was a bridge collapse on a freeway in the US. Several cars and their occupants crushed to death.
        It had been picked up and reported there were cracks but it being a Friday it went to voicemail.

    2. A lot of brickwork skills went down the drain after Joseph Bazalgette designed the new London sewers.

    3. The original towers at Essex University were built in Staffordshire blue bricks for strength. Don't know what the new ones are made of.

    4. My garden wall was made from Fareham brick. It was knocked down by a lorry that didn't stop. I chased the fucker up the street with my camera.
      Complained to the higher levels and all i got was delays and excuses over a period of a year.
      When they eventually rebuilt it it was from some crap brick they use to build new houses.
      Fareham brick adorns the Albert Hall. Sadly no longer my bungalow.

      1. My house is fronted with red Ruabon bricks. The sides and backs are cheapo bricks. All show here!

        1. #MeToo. I have Pistachio rendering at the front. And green paint down the sides. All show here too !

        2. T'Lad built a new workshop in his garden and designed it as a freelance brick faced building based on typical railway buildings.
          The bricks he used were 2nd hand old standard, slightly larger than modern ones and salvaged from skips and other places. He became very interested in the different brickworks that produced them so put a selection in a row with the frog facing outwards!

    5. For some reason best known to himself, the builder of our house in Stafford had internal walls using SBB.
      I wanted to put some cupboards on the kitchen walls. My drill was ruined before I got past two lots of holes for the screws.
      Unbelievably hard, the drill bits just couldn't get purchase. There might be diamond drills available, but I am very much a cack-handed workman so didn't know at the time.

      1. I lived in a brick-and-flint cottage in North Norfolk. I lost count of how many tungsten-carbide-tipped masonry bits I destroyed attempting to drill into flint.

        1. The chateau is constructed with sandstone, any softer a material and it would be a mud hut.
          Even the birds peck bits off to get grit for their digestive processes.

          1. Firstborn's house is from late 1700s, matured pine logs with the consistency of RSJs. Can hardly touch them with a drill.

    2. Well, it didn’t involve hurty words against the most Favoured Religion, so of course he did.

  109. That's me for this chilly day. Hope it is better tomorrow – though NO sun expected. Grrr.

    Have a jolly evening

    A demain

  111. today’s Secret Prisoner:

    “Prisons, being full of criminals, are also full of crimes. In fact there is a constant stream of internal misdemeanours, or “nickings”, which prison governors have to keep up with. Yet the stuff that comes to their attention is merely the tip of a vast iceberg of criminality in daily prison life.

    Many senior wing officers prefer to use the IPF system (Incentive Policy Framework) than to send you for a nicking. Basically, you have privileges as an Enhanced Prisoner (at the top of the scale) – such as the use of a TV, more visits and a higher weekly canteen spend. As you misbehave and commit offences you are pegged down the IPF to Standard Prisoner, and worst of all, to Basic Prisoner, where your privileges are stripped.

    Prisons prefer to deal with inmates’ crimes themselves. Six mornings a week, one of the prison governors will chair an adjudication panel, based in the hearing room of the Seg (the Segregation Unit, a no-frills environment where around 20 cells are reserved for inmates who commit serious offences, especially if they are considered a risk to staff).
    Serious charges, however, trigger a legal process before an Independent Adjudicator (a judge), who attends the prison monthly. Some crimes, like assaults on officers, lead to Crown Court trials.

    Most prisoners feel they are better off with internal justice: your actions in a fight with another prisoner – eg a grip leaving marks on someone’s neck – could lead to prosecution by the CPS for strangulation or even attempted murder. But if there is a reluctance to press charges by either prisoner, a stern internal punishment for fighting might be a month in the Seg and the loss of privileges. Better than an additional six-year sentence.

    So who are the offenders inside? The outliers are the super-violent – men like Charles Bronson, so violent that he required a “six-man door open” – and who may never leave prison because of the mayhem they create inside.
    Then there are the escapees: an attempt to break out results, we are told, in 10 years being slapped on our sentences.
    More frequently, a prisoner may find his sentence extended, or early release postponed, as a result of one or both of two principal offences: drugs and violence.

    Drug offenders are not just the users of drugs: about two-thirds of the prison population, I reckon, use prohibited substances, including prison-brewed alcohol. For users, punishments are relatively lightweight. The bigger fish are those taking delivery of contraband which they then sell on.

    In recent weeks there has been a huge amount of weed on our spur and the drone traffic is constant. The offence which the governors have come to see as ever more serious, in the light of the drugs crisis, is possession of a mobile phone. The phone is the main tool for ordering and guiding in deliveries, so being caught with one can result in a trial and add a year to your sentence.

    Recently, the main dealer on A-wing borrowed my box of Ecover washing powder (we often clean our own clothes). Chronically naive, I thought he wanted it to do some washing and was surprised when he was reluctant to return it. But he was not, it turned out, using my powder for laundry, but as a canny place to stash a mobile.

    There is debt-driven violence, but beyond that there is the sullen, brawny type simply looking to bully more eccentric or unpopular prisoners – like those who kick off in the night and wake everyone up.

    And so prisoners enforce their own justice. For example, a surprisingly common prank, which prisoners perceive as worthy of punishment, is someone flooding or setting fire to their cell. By sealing the door with wads of paper it is possible to smash up a sink or loo and get a full foot of water quite quickly. Though I have never duffed anyone up, I can understand how you would be enraged when the overflow from a flooded cell spills into your own, or, locked in your own confined space, the smell of burning nearby terrifies you because you can’t get out.

    On our spur there are currently two (out of 60) prisoners who seem to be the targets of prisoner “punishment”: new bruises, cuts and welts appear just as the old ones are yellowing up and healing. Often the beatings are dished out by a group rather than an individual (making deniability easier). And they are inflicted with an element of control, as injuries are rarely so serious that officers feel the need to investigate.”

    Next week the Secret Prisoner writes about a murder plot next to his cell

    The writer is an inmate at a Category B jail – the second highest level of security – which the Independent Monitoring Board found to be chronically overcrowded and understaffed, with self-harm and drug use rife. A professional entrepreneur on the outside, he is on remand awaiting trial charged with non-violent crimes, which he denies

  112. Evening, all. Went to the Post Office to send a card to Canada and the bloke said, "I can't accept it because the Canadian Post Office is on strike. I can sell you the stamps to send it and you can post it yourself." Okay, I'll do that and it can wait in whatever limbo the Post Office here decides to put it until the Greve Canadienne is over. "I think they all know that they aren't going to get any Christmas cards this year," he added. So, Canadian buddies, here's wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

    The planning "reforms" aren't so much reforms as taking a bulldozer to protections against over-building, particularly on the Green Belt. I bothered to send in submissions to the "consultation", but it was obvious that the intention was to make it easy to build, build, build and the Green Belt was fair game. I loathe these idiots with a passion I never expected to experience.

    1. If you have friends/family in Canada send a package by Fedex and get a nominated person/friend /family member to send it on. Fedex are cheaper than Royal HA Mail anyway.

    2. Post office has been on strike for over four weeks now and publicly they are still no where near a resolution.
      The industry minister has said that he will not get involved and order the posties back to work. Not that he has much choice, the minor party supporting the liberals are strongly ppposed to back to work legislation and legislation might trigger a no confidence vote.

      1. Our son over there told us about the strike, and has told his children we won't be able to send them cards this year (and vice-versa). I have designed a card each for the children (on Word, I'm not very technical) and will send that doc for him to print out. I'm hoping he will get them to draw a card for us to similarly print out – their pictures are such treasures.
        Thank goodness for the internet!

    1. Did anyone see how the Bidens reacted towards Kamala and hubby when their paths crossed at the Kennedy Centre this weekend?

      None of this maybe fake but apparently sociable chitchat, instead of civility, the Bidens turned their backs on Harris and completely ignored her and hubby..

      https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/did-joe-and-jill-biden-ignore-kamala-harris-at-the-kennedy-center-honors-clips-of-the-awkward-snub-goes-viral-on-social-media-watch-video/articleshow/116177317.cms

      1. Sesame oil is a condiment, not a cooking medium. Three drops (no more) on fried rice won't do much harm.

        Guzzle it like it's going out of fashion and you will die in agony.

        Methinks.

        1. I am inclined to agree with you. I don't like the taste myself but if i am cooking an authentic recipe i use it. When cooking for others.

          If i do stir fry or a noodle dish i use groundnut/peanut oil.

    5. Also she, and the children likely walked to work – because you could. Computers were a glint in the eye so children played outside. Far less traffic too due to fewer cars.

      I don't doubt our diet has changed as the demand for cheap, easy food has led to additives and unhealthy amounts of fat and sugar.

      However that demand came from busier lives with less time to cook – because two parents were needed to support a family rather than just one as taxation expanded (mostly to pay for those who chose not to work).

      Now amongst our friends we're a bit of a rarity in that we do still sit down for dinner but if I don't do it, it doesn't get done.

      Therefore the reason people are fatter these days is down to taxation.

      2. An interesting hypothesis but I don't buy into it.

        People are fatter these days because they are too bone idle to cook (or haven't got a clue how to) and prefer to buy shit full of crap and call it 'food'.

        BTW Animal fats are not unhealthy; quite the opposite. You evidently listen to unsound nutritional advice. Sugar is bad but fat is not.

    1. But the Archbish was 150% everything that Welby wasn’t – and never could be. Very refreshing (in this lapsed Anglican’s view).

      1. Yes, I agree. He was also very clear in his articulation, as were the speakerine who did the introduction and the readers – the same readings as we had on Sunday. Oddly enough, our sermon started in a very similar way.

  117. After the war children ate more sugar than they ever had. As part of the ration my parents ate more sweets than i ever did. They lost all their teeth before they were 50. I still have most of mine.

    1. My parents in law (both sets) lost almost all their teeth. My husband lost many of his teeth due to being fed candyfloss and toffee apples by his grandparents.
      My mother was very keen on dental hygiene and I was hardly ever allowed candyfloss and suchlike. She kept her teeth to the end of her life and I hope to as well.

          4. When we were introducing them to a bit for the first time we used to smear it with molasses; they couldn't get enough, chomping and trying to lick it off!

      2. I've never been a fan of beef dripping on a sandwich, it has a weird consistency and flavour.
        As for pork dripping, nothing tastes better.

    1. You mean it's worse than that and only deserves a 1 for location?

      Still, it's her own fault, she shouldn't have invited Phizzee.

    2. Altogether now…

      Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness
      And when the ball was over there were four and twenty less….

      Singing Balls to your partner
      Arse against the wall
      If you've never been f*cked on a Saturday night
      You've never been f*cked at all (continues ad nauseam….)

      Apologies to those of a sensitive dispostion…….

          1. Taste, good or bad must be approved of G. It’s what separates is from the beasts of the field.

        1. Phew, that’s a relief, ashes – in that case I might really let rip next time with some of my favourite Rugby songs (hint; that isnt one of them!!) 😉

    2. A Spectator speciality. I have never seen the point of the verses that the Spekkie use to fill up a corner of an inner page.
      Pseuds Corner always springs to mind.

  123. SARAH VINE: There's a special place in Hell for people like Mrs Assad. I hope the devil is keeping a seat warm for her
    She could have done so much good; she could have improved the lives of millions of Syrians; she could have used her influence to transform a part of the world where women’s rights are at best shaky, at worst non-existent.
    But Asma al-Assad chose a different path. As her husband’s henchmen flayed their victims alive in the torture chambers of the notorious Sednaya prison, she clothed herself in designer labels. As Bashar murdered his citizens with chemical weapons, she shopped for expensive fripperies at Harrods. As the children of those deemed ‘enemies’ of the regime were left orphans, her three wanted for nothing.
    Now she and her family are believed to be in Moscow, safe and sound, enjoying the fruits of their tyranny, insulated by their embezzled millions (some of which comes from stolen humanitarian aid siphoned off by Asma via her bogus charities) and protected by their dictator chum Vladimir Putin. They’ve been joined by her parents, Fawaz and Sahar Akhras, who until recently lived in Acton, west London.
    I wonder, do Bash and Vlad compare notes over their Champagne and oysters about the relative merits of sarin gas and cluster bombs? Do Asma and Alina Kabaeva, Putin’s alleged gymnast girlfriend who is 30 years his junior, do Pilates together? Does Fawaz, once a respected cardiologist, commiserate with his son-in-law about his recent setbacks?
    After the Second World War, witnessing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief implementors of the Holocaust, the Jewish writer and thinker Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ to describe his unsettling ordinariness. She was struck by Eichmann’s lack of charisma, intelligence or purpose. He was living proof that evil is more common, more everyday than we think, and that the most unlikely people can commit the most terrible acts without giving them a second thought.
    We expect evil to look and sound nefarious, like in the movies: a menacing swagger, a threatening word, an ugly flash of temper. But very often it’s none of those things. It comes without warning, when you least expect it, from the least likely places.
    Dominique Pelicot, the man currently on trial in France for drugging his wife, Gisele, and then inviting numerous strangers to rape her while he filmed it, is a classic case. Just an ordinary bloke, getting together with a load of other ordinary blokes to commit unspeakable crimes. It’s the humdrum lives of those accused – a soldier, a nurse, a lorry driver – that makes that case so shocking.
    Asma al-Assad falls into that same category, as does her husband. Bashar has never possessed the kind of face one normally associates with a violent strongman: he has a weak, receding chin, a gangly puny body. He looks more suited to his original career choice, an ophthalmologist, than to the role of despot.
    He certainly managed to fool some people. The BBC’s John Simpson has described him as ‘weak rather than wicked’, adding that ‘in person, I found him meek and anxious to please – the reverse of the traditional dictator’. Like Eichmann, Bashar never seemed as though he had it in him. But he did: 13 years of brutal conflict, almost 600,000 dead. Hardly most people’s definition of ‘meek’.
    Murder and torture were Bashar’s birthright; he was born into a brutal dynasty, his father Hafez already notorious for the 1982 Hama massacre and numerous other crimes. But Asma is different. She followed her own path. She could have lived any life she wanted; instead, she chose this.
    That’s what makes her so especially repugnant, maybe even more so than her chinless dictator husband. Here is a woman who grew up in an ordinary English suburb, went to private school and university in London, worked in finance in New York and the City. Her parents were middle-class professionals, her home a terraced house with bay windows.
    She could barely have had a more civilised start. Every opportunity, every advantage of a young woman living in a liberal democracy. And yet she chose to marry a despot and support him in running his murderous regime.
    If Bashar really were as weak as everyone claimed, ‘as anxious to please’ as Simpson so naively believed, then she could have used her influence to steer him towards a different path. Instead, she appears to have done the opposite, revelling in the status and power and even boasting, in emails leaked in 2012, that she was ‘the real dictator’ in their household.
    That, to me, is the worst kind of evil. One not born out of pain, misfortune or misunderstanding, not driven by ideology or ambition or revenge – but just a simple, small-minded kind of selfishness, evil for the sake of evil. That’s the kind the Devil enjoys the most. I hope he’s keeping a seat warm for her in Hell.

    Well Sarah, I'm pretty sure that you and Michael would have done very similarly, given half a chance; a lot of your descriptions would fit the pair of you equally well, in my opinion.

    1. "After the Second World War, witnessing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief implementors of the Holocaust, the Jewish writer and thinker Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ to describe his unsettling ordinariness. She was struck by Eichmann’s lack of charisma, intelligence or purpose. He was living proof that evil is more common, more everyday than we think, and that the most unlikely people can commit the most terrible acts without giving them a second thought."
      That is what makes Starmer so repulsive. Beneath that grey carapace is a functionary with no imagination or empathy. The sort that will do anything to push through evil deeds in obedience to the law.

      2. Blank eyed sadists or sparklingly excited murderers .

        I hate to say this , but the new Chancellor has the same drippy lip and glistening eye as Michael Gove .. Miliband , then the tory mp that was made a Sir , the one who liked spiders in his office , Ed Ball , Tony Blair (maniac) …

        Goodness, I reckon many of us could smell badness out .. bad people .. some who reach powerful controlling positions . Like a few of those bad coppers who murdered women ..

        The dead eyed look of some children who deliberately tease and inflict pain .. whether they are boys or girls .. wickedness and cruelty exists.

        1. In the old days evil was acknowledged as a reality, personified by Satan. Nowadays it's denied and it's all down to "deprivation" rather than innate evil.

    2. And it has just been announced today that we have given ÂŁ11 million to the rebels who are none other than Isis and Al Qaeda. I get the feeling that we are being manipulated in all of this and that we are, indeed, supporting the baddies. The moral compass of Sarah Vine and co has been missing for a very long time.

  124. Back on earth after my busy mobile afternoon, although I loved our black labrador and we had to have her put to sleep two years ago next April. I know she would have been 11 years old now. I now could no longer give her the opportunity to take one of her beloved walks through local woodland and fields, at least five miles at a time. I'm off to bed soon, before I fall asleep in my comfy armchair.
    Goodnight all.
    😴

    1. So sad to remember those that passed before us – such as your lovely Lab, and our Magnificat.

          2. That’s a good age for a dog. My mother’s old dog, Nick, was 16 when he died. He was the one I grew up with as a child. She got him in 1940.

      2. I had to hold our lovely Lab Lottie while the vet injected the fatal dose and she collapsed on the floor.
        I can hardly believe it will be two years next April the first.

    2. I remember when I woke up and Wiggy was cold beside me. It was the saddest time of my life. They give so much and ask for so little. Such daft balls of fluff that are better in every way than people.

      2. At least you were there. Every time I've known my dogs were going for their last and one-way trip to the vet I spent the night with them (usually downstairs because they were too weak to be able to climb the stairs). They slept on my sleeping bag.

        1. I was out of my head when we took Magnificat to the vet for that last ride. I couldn't bear to be there for the last moments, so cowardly, I fled – even despite his attempt to hook me with a claw to stay. I was so selfishly wrapped in my own misery that I didn't see his.
          Won't do that again.
          He was a real cat. No pussyfooting about for him. Miss the old lad.

          1. I've been with most of mine as they died. Joe died here, on the carpet (since replaced – but not for that reason). He 'd been fading for a while, but waited for us to come home from work…….. and he died that evening.
            Suzie went out one evening and disappeared…….. she was deaf, so I hope the predator killed her quickly. Probably a fox.

          2. There are only two dogs that I haven't been with at the end and one didn't belong to me (he was my brother's). After the first time, when I wasn't there for my first adult dog, I vowed I'd never leave my pet alone at the last again. I was too much of a coward the first time and I have always regretted it. All the others have slipped away (except Oscar, who fought it) with me stroking them. I still stroked Oscar but his was not an easy death and that made me feel guilty. Although I made the final decision, it was the vet who convinced me it was the best thing.

          4. Ten minutes before Robinson (my late hound) was put to sleep in front of the AGA, Pluto Cat – who had known him all her life assiduously washed him from top to tail. And she died in her sleep two weeks later from a broken heart….

    3. When I was doing Mum’s birthday calendar last night, I had to make decisions on whether or not to use pictures of Jasper. I used to always put pictures of him with the children, and mum used to get a bit cross because of various reasons, I can’t remember why. I once made her two calendars, one of which was just pictures of Jasper, and gave her that; I waited a week between her birthday and Christmas before giving her the “proper” one.

      In the end I used 3 pictures of him in May’s slot – one with my daughter, one with my son, and one of his own. He died (was put down) in May.

      1. Sadly our pets don't live as long as we do. They're gone, but never forgotten. We have two beautiful tabbies now, but all their predecessors are still in my mind.

  125. Tomorrow morning. A 24 hour holter monitor. Also received a phone call today asking if I intend to keep my hospital appointment on Sunday. Er, yes, I do!

  130. I've not noticed any posts from Audrey, Me & Dunster since this morning.
    I hope her first riding lesson went well and that she didn't come to any harm.

    2. She is unlikely to have done anything more than walk, probably led at first, for her initial lesson. If she shows natural ability she might get to trot. Assuming she's going to a riding school and not relying on a friend's ex-steeplechaser (don't laugh, it's been done), she'll be riding a steady neddy.

      1. Agreed, but it's still easy to fall off.

        I'm OK on horses, but I got bucked off for no apparent reason, just before a pentathlon competition, by one thought to be steady neddy.
        I was comfortably seated and it just went crazy. It did exactly the same to the next rider.
        When the teams complained, even the owners couldn't get it to jump.

        Just bad luck, because you draw a horse and that's it.
        Null points!

        1. I agree. He probably had a bad back. That's why Coolio bucked me off. He'd never done anything like that before.

          2. A combination of circumstances means I'm now teaching dressage from the ground. I had broken ribs, which took time to heal, my arthritic knees gave me problems, along with my sacroiliac joint and lower vertebrae, all of which meant I couldn't take much exercise and I put on weight, not to mention shrinking still further. Coolio had back trouble as well, so it was a parting of the ways. I do have the opportunity to ride, but unfortunately, the mare is 17.2hh. Even assuming I could manage to get into the plate, I'd need a parachute to get back down and not end up in a heap given my dodgy joints. Hence my becoming a trainer. I really missed the contact with horses, so this at least has re-established that. I hadn't really realised just how much I'd missed it until I had the opportunity to get up close and personal again. I know I have my shares in racehorses, but that isn't the same.

    1. I have pictures of all my dogs, present and past, around the house. Just because they're gone, doesn't mean they are forgotten.

    1. I’m saddened to hear this. Her posts were always good natured and well worth reading. I had a nice exchange with her a few years ago about our stray cats who somehow sought us out. Peta referred to it as “invisible cat telegraph poles”. RIP Peta J. 🌹

  135. It was posted by someone who doesn’t post here, can’t remember who. Something like KJ2000

      1. Yes, that might be it. I just went back over to find the post but couldn’t…but I know I read it…..and I haven’t been drinking…

        {I remember her from my Spectator days)

    2. Kate was often in conversation with PetaJ (also Peta Seel at the DT).

      Kate is KJ here at Disqus. She blocked me at the Spccie site, tho' I suspect this was "fat finger" syndrome.

      Despite living in France, Peta was a practising Anglican.

      Speccie comments, compared to Disqus proper, are shiite.

      Had Govey not stepped down, and the Unlib Undems not taken over, he'd have been my MP.

  136. A lovely person. We didn't know her for long but she's missed. She shared a photo with me of the Last Supper – seen on the wall in Aquas Calientes in Peru. For some reason I'd omitted to take the photo some years earlier so she gave me hers.

    1. Good grief, BoB, that's just like my own day – very "iffy". So I too will head for bed now. An early Good Night to all on this site. I hope you all sleep well and awaken refreshed. Tomorrow (Wednesday) will include an afternoon Christmas party at a Local History group. And then on Thursday it's Curry Night at the local Gurkha restaurant. I trust that contact with some of my chums on those two days will buck me up a little.

  143. Quite. My late hound left me in January 1991 – but I still see him in the garden and on one of his favourite walks.

    1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      So according to the modern left, killing the fascists of Hamas is ‘genocide’, but killing a CEO and father of two is ‘justice’? How else are we to make sense of the creepy idolisation of Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting dead of Brian Thompson, chief executive of the American health-insurance firm UnitedHealthcare? Seriously, the swooning over Mangione is a new low for the ‘very online’ left.
      This was just desserts for America’s unfair system of health insurance, they insisted
      Thompson was slain on the streets of Manhattan last Wednesday. He was 50 years old, a dad and he’d been boss of UnitedHealthcare for three years. Almost instantly, even before we knew the identity of the suspect, leftists were swarming social media to make excuses for this barbaric attack on an innocent, unarmed man. Some even celebrated it. In some corners of the web there was, as one report described it, outright ‘ecstasy over [this] brazen assassination’.
      He had it coming, cried thousands of sunlight-starved online radicals. This was just desserts for America’s unfair system of health insurance, they insisted. They went on Wikipedia to edit Thompson’s page, branding him a ‘parasite’ and a ‘conman’ who is ‘currently burning in hell’. When UnitedHealthcare posted about their CEO’s death on Facebook, the comments section was clogged up with people posting the cry-laughing emoji. Seventy-seven thousand people posted that guffawing face in mockery of the dead dad.
      When it was revealed that the mysterious masked gunman had used bullets inscribed with the words ‘deny’, ‘defend’ and ‘depose’ – a slogan often used to describe health insurers’ tactic of delaying payments – the leftish web went wild. Some have even embraced those three D-words as a rallying cry in tribute to their hero killer. To the privileged toytown revolutionaries of Tiktok, the shooter, whoever he was, was nothing short of a 21st-century Robin Hood.

      Even some mainstream commentators, while not quite dancing in the streets over Thompson’s death, did wonder out loud if the ‘gleeful reaction’ to it made sense. Former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz posted a celebratory image saying ‘CEO DOWN’. She later told Piers Morgan that she felt ‘joy’ at his death. When Morgan pushed back, she dialled it down: ‘Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy.’
      Over at the Guardian, Arwa Mahdawi said the reason Thompson’s death ‘elicited so little sympathy’ is because he was ‘the face of an unfair system’. For those who are ‘shocked by the satisfaction Thompson’s murder has inspired’, she had a terse request: ‘Spare me the pearl-clutching…’ If it’s pearl-clutching to be concerned that we live in an era of such casual cruelty and digital spite that tens of thousands of people will happily taunt the colleagues of a murdered man with a cackling emoji, I guess I’m a pearl clutcher now.
      Then the identity of the suspect was revealed and things got really crazy. Luigi Mangione is 26, an Ivy League student from a well-to-do Maryland family, and cute. He’s being fawned over everywhere. ‘He can serve the sentence in my house, your honour’ – that’s been the tenor of the memes.
      In the eyes of the tragic leftists addicted to doom-scrolling, the kind of people who put the hammer and sickle in their social-media bio to piss off their rich parents, Mangione is a brooding one-man slayer of the capitalist order. Not since those wayward hippy girls got ensnared by Charles Manson have so many youthful members of the bourgeoisie obsequiously snuggled up to a suspect in a murder case.
      Until, that is, it was revealed that Mangione has some ‘unwoke’ views. He seems to be less a blazing revolutionary than a ‘centrist tech bro’. He appears to be a fan of the right-leaning entrepreneur Peter Thiel and a cheerleader for ‘traditionalism’. Some of his fans are mightily disappointed. In summary, being the suspect in a murder case – cool! Retweeting Jonathan Haidt – cancel him!
      Behold the 21st-century radical, who will melt into a puddle of tears if you ‘misgender’ him but who’s cool with murder if the victim is a CEO
      It should go without saying – and yet apparently it doesn’t – that killing people is not a reasonable response to social problems. I agree with Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, who said: ‘In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint.’ If that makes me an old square – worse, a pearl clutcher – so be it.
      The frenzied beatification of a murder suspect speaks to a serious moral malady in the digital world. That so many on the virtual left got a vicarious kick from the death of Thompson suggests they are increasingly unmoored from reason and decency. It’s a kind of juvenile barbarism, where confused, isolated leftists, bereft that the working classes have wholly abandoned them in favour of Donald Trump, get to feel alive and ‘revolutionary’ for once. The price of their fuzzy warm feeling? The life of a human being. For shame.
      Behold the 21st-century radical, who will melt into a puddle of tears if you ‘misgender’ him but who’s cool with murder if the victim is a CEO. The sea of online rage has dragged these people so far from the shores of moral reason. Here’s my moral code: Don’t murder people. And don’t celebrate when people are murdered. Boring and not very memeable, I know. But there we are. I

      https://www.spectator.co.uk/writer/brendan-oneill/

  146. Quite. sadly, I was unsurprised to hear the news re Peta, but saddened nevertheless. Since most Nottlers are of a certain age, it's not uncommon for regular posters to disappear.

    Contact details aren't always available. And lack of posting doesn't necessarily mean demise. Stig is a case in point. (Sorry, David).

    Granchestermeadows was one of the first to shuffle off. His partner, Helen of Tuskegee, had the decency to let us know, despite her grief.

    Dear Ann (Lottie) kept us on our toes, yet I think we eased her from left to right(ish) views. I had exchanged several emails. She was thrilled to tell me about her nephew, an aspiring organist. I'm merely a village version of that ilk.

    So, when Maggie (True_Belle) posted a link to Choral Evensong at Trinity College, Cambridge, the recitalist's name rang a bell. I tracked him down. He was that nephew. So we know the circumstances of poor Ann's demise. I miss her. Not least for her musio posts.

    1. I am sometimes rather fearful when posting birthday wishes to those who have not been on the forum recently..

      The next Birthday Nottler is Plum (on 16th December) who hasn't been here for some time. Does anyone have any news of her?

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