Tuesday 12 October: An oasis of face-to-face consultation in a desert of GP appointments

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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572 thoughts on “Tuesday 12 October: An oasis of face-to-face consultation in a desert of GP appointments”

        1. Yo sos

          Donate you bedding to a Refugee Transit Refuge to UK , so the travellers arrive here refreshed

          If of course, it includes Feather Duvet, Feather Pillows, Silg Sheets and bedside phone

  4. La Palma volcano eruption update. 12 October 2021.

    After the 4.2 quake two days ago, there have been episodes of spasmodic tremor with many earthquakes in a row that indicate movement of magma in depth.

    Since yesterday, the appearance of strong volcanic tremor at around 18 Hz frequency thought to be caused by depressurization of fluids at great depth around 10 km;

    If these interpretations hold, there should soon be noticeable ground uplift visible in the GPS stations (which, so far, is not the case). What will next happen, when this new magma pulse reaches the surface, is unknown. In the best scenario, the current conduits will continue to cope with it and the magma will erupt from the existing vents. In the worst scenario, magma could open new fissures in a different area, even after another potential pause of the eruption should it occur. In a scenario in between, new fissures might open near the existing vents, and new lava would erupt onto existing lava fields.

    No one can predict the future, but for sure the evolution of the eruption will be a highly interesting one and the experience intense for everyone involved, in one way or another.

    Morning everyone. This thing shows absolutely no sign of slowing down. The very opposite in fact!

    https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/la-palma/news/144005/La-Palma-volcano-eruption-update-high-lava-effusion-rates-new-lava-arm-at-the-sea-speculation-about-.html

      1. Morning Bob. That would seem so. It is difficult to avoid the impression that we are in the End Times!

        1. I suppose that’s what the people of Pompeii were thinking when Vesuvius went up, I bet they were called conspiracy theorists at the time by the experts.

        2. I read the apocalyptic consequence of an Atlantic tsunami if that mountain collapses that could push the Severn Bore up around ten feet.

          I do have this constant feeling of trepidation though. When the Prince of Wales said that he understood how the Extinction Rebellion protesters felt, and that he has felt that way for forty years (as I have), he also pleaded that we find a more constructive way to deal with it than gluing ourselves to the M25.

          1. ‘Morning JM. I would find the antics of Insulate Britain more convincing if they were to glue themselves to Tiananmen Square…

          2. They’ve got to get there first though. Nothing wrong with blocking the main entrance to the Chinese Embassy though.

          4. We could fly them there in a Hercules C130 and, while over the Bay of Biscay, open the rear (clam) doors and usher them out.

    2. And still the authorities do not evacuate the entire island. (Has all the spare accommodation in Spain been occupied by immigrants from Africa?)

        1. Anne, I’m e-mailing the text of a letter to the mental unit my stepson is currently on for your comments.

  6. Ministers seem powerless to stop the coming energy crunch. 12 October 2021.

    The country is heading for an energy crunch that ministers seem either not to understand or are powerless to stop. Gas prices are rocketing, impacting on the cost of living and the profitability of manufacturing companies hit by higher bills.

    Consumers are protected by a price cap, but industry has to bear the full brunt and some may be forced to shut down. British manufacturing has long complained about having to pay some of the highest energy prices in Europe – but their disadvantage is being compounded by the gas price hike.

    They are not powerless but paralysed. They have talked themselves into a political cul-de-sac of their own making. Having invented Net-Zero they cannot now renege on it. This means no Shale Gas, no Mini Nukes, no Vlad and no Coal. Thus they are going to (supposedly) make up the shortfall with renewables and as yet uninvented technologies. That they have no time is of no consequence. The PM has gone on his holidays and all is well with the world. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/10/11/ministers-seem-powerless-stop-coming-energy-crunch/

    1. Farage had another globalist type expert on yesterday, he wasn’t fazed at all by the shortage, he said that if we had fracking here that the price would still be just as high, he could not seem to comprehend that if we had our own production here we would have some energy independence.
      He wasn’t a bit worried if businesses closed or mover abroad.

      1. What did we do when we last had energy independence, between 1980 and when it peaked around 2004?

        I’m sure we’d flog off our productive capacity to the Americans, who would then play the market. He is dead right in suggesting it would make little difference to what we are charged by the companies. They will continue to charge what they can get away with or be forced out of business or taken over.

          1. Didn’t we sign up to the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties during this time, and initiate the Single Market, during the UK’s presidency of the EU?

          2. After Thatcher was dumped when she started to turn against the EU, the globalists really took hold, things were never the same again.

          3. Thatcher was quite cosy about the Soviet-style centralisation and globalization (sic) of economics and the means of production in favour of crony speculators. What she could not stand though was Jacques Delors insisting that it be tied up to international standards of environmental and worker protection.

          4. She learned on the job, she was the last PM that was proBritish and fought to keep jobs here
            Shutting the coal mines was a big mistake.

          5. To a large extent an inevitable result of the damage done by lack of working during the strike.
            NACODS did their best to maintain the pits, but a coal face needs to be worked to keep it stable.

          6. It probably was from an energy security point of view, but if my memory serves correctly she was against the significant and ongoing subsidies being provided to keep some of them open. Besides, we now know that we would not have been allowed to use their output today, because their main market – that of power generation – has been strangled out of existence.

            Mrs T certainly was pro-British, and a true Conservative. We won’t see her like again.

          7. She was a liberal actually, not a ‘true Conservative’. She was often accused of being a Whig, long after the death of the Whig party. The Tory party has been infested by liberals since the early sixties. All of their administrations since Heath have been liberal.

          8. “Shutting the coal mines was a big mistake.”

            Mrs Thatcher left the mining industry in good shape, though reduced in size. Coal was cheaper than before the miners strike, although still more expensive than some imported coal. It was Heseltine who accelerated mine closures. He returned to government on Thatcher’s fall and embarked on the UK’s ‘dash for gas’, managing to bring forward by 25-30 years not only the closure of coal mines but the exhaustion of North Sea gas reserves.

            Mrs Thatcher’s great failure was to refuse to authorise the building of new nuclear power stations.

    2. 339902+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      The fat turks appenditure is surely going to cost these Isles a pretty penny, him & his mob cannot be seen as serving two masters.

      Brexit WILL be blamed for much of this as with covid & flu same strategy being used, they will, the tory (ino) group have the herd hammering on the reentry doors of brussels yet.

  7. Watched the rerun of Farage this morning, we have one doctor per 2,000 people in this country, Germany has 5 per 1,000 and that is not counting the fact they are doing a three day week and not seeing anyone, so the figure could be one doctor per 10,000 people here at any one time.
    They had a doctor on who said we have fewer doctors because they delegate it out to specialists like nurse as physiotherapists.

    ( notice I said fewer and not less) although I wanted to.

    1. It has been my frustration ever since lockdown not being able to get to Germany to get more supplies of my antidepressant that are denied me by the British Department of “Health”.

        1. Most folk around me would be happy to see me in Treblinka or such like being experimented on by Mengelese German medics. The ensuing tin of chum that comes out of whatever they do to me prolongs active life, so the ads told me when I was little. Always keep away from children.

  9. Morning folks.

    I’ve been wondering about the surge in ‘cases’ amongst teenagers long after the older population:

    This chart composed by Travelling Tabby is for one day but it is typical of the past few weeks:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cb175219a5aec75ab8bd7ce2978b3f0643536679b2cbd5e7f96cb2ef1f5feb78.png

    False positive lateral flow tests in children double in a week
    Government scientists launch investigation after almost 14,000 tests came back positive in week to Sep 22

    2. Morning Stephen. This whole thing is the most Colossal Scam. Nothing about it can be believed!

    3. Why has the government not published a formal assessment of the various tests? Either they haven’t done one, which would be an appalling dereliction of duty, or they have and buried it, presumably because it shows them as, at best, incompetent for pissing billions – £ thousands per taxpayer – away and causing immeasurable harm to the economy and our kids’ education and futures.

      BTW Private Eye has published that the University that tested and approved lateral flow tests, Liverpool, shortly afterwards received a £10m ‘grant’ from the manufacturer.

  10. France and Germany in talks with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine amid gas crisis. 12 October 2021.

    Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel held talks over Ukraine with Vladimir Putin on Monday night, as it emerged the EU could buy emergency gas supplies from Russia in a bid to drive down rocketing energy prices.

    Vladimir Chishov, the Kremlin’s ambassador to the EU, had earlier suggested Europe could get more gas if it stopped treating Russia as “an adversary”.

    Tory Treasury minister Lord Agnew of Oulton told parliament on Monday that spiralling energy costs were nothing to do with supply shortages, but were due to a “geopolitical move” by Russia to put pressure on Europe to clear the North Stream 2 pipeline.

    The “Emergency Gas Supplies” are of course an attempt to buy directly from source and bypass the stitched up Spot Market that is being manipulated by the globalists. That France and Germany are prepared to throw in Ukraine shows just how desperate they really are. They can see an absolute Energy Catastrophe coming up in the forthcoming Winter. Since it buys no gas from Russia the UK imagines itself above the fray and the PM has gone off on holiday as a sign of his indifference. Lord Agnew’s contribution is simply stirring the pot. The Russians have not engineered the crisis and the opening of the Nord Stream Pipeline would vastly increase the amount of gas available and cure the problem immediately!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/11/eu-countries-could-buy-emergency-russian-gas-bloc-drive-price/

      1. Morning Jeremy. Vlad is certainly taking political advantage here by dragging in Ukraine but his job is to represent Russian interests, not those of Germany and France. In fact one might think it sweet revenge since they and the EU were complicit in the separation of the country from Russia.

        1. Ukraine has for many centuries been a divided nation. Much like Belgium, or the UK. There is a range of hills close to where I live where the cultural divide between Saxon Worcestershire and Celtic Herefordshire is quite marked. Even Tolkein hinted on it when describing them “Queer Folk” of Buckland as seen from The Shire.

          One half of Ukraine had close historical links with Lithuania and naturally looks westwards. A large part of it was part of Poland in the last century. The other half of Ukraine chased off Genghis Khan and founded Russia. It is not surprising they feel a close fraternal bond with Moscow there.

          As for fuel supplies, and that deal trading free use by the Russians of Sevastopol in exchange for cheap energy. Kiev exploited by selling it on to the Germans, and the Russians got wind and felt ripped-off. Their response was to take back Sevastopol and make it part of Mother Russia, in violation of international law about sovereign states.

          What both Brussels and Moscow should appreciate is that it is quite reasonable for Ukraine to look both ways. Instead of insisting the place plumps for one or the other, why cannot they simply make Ukraine a handy trading post?

          1. What both Brussels and Moscow should appreciate is that it is quite reasonable for Ukraine to look both ways. Instead of insisting the place plumps for one or the other, why cannot they simply make Ukraine a handy trading post?

            I think that Vlad was quite happy with the original arrangement and then the US and the EU came along and decided it should be a member of one and a partner in NATO! This is of course unacceptable to Russia for reasons of its own Security. Hence the Donbass and the War there!

      2. Morning Jeremy. Vlad is certainly taking political advantage here by dragging in Ukraine but his job is to represent Russian interests, not those of Germany and France. In fact one might think it sweet revenge since they and the EU were complicit in the separation of the country from Russia.

    2. We do buy gas from Russia, and oil too. We also buy gas from countries buying gas from Russia.

      1. Carbon Brief.

        “Russian LNG from Yamal has supplied approximately 0.4% of the UK’s gas demand so far this year,” Ed Cox, editor of global LNG markets at ICIS, tells Carbon Brief. The three Russian LNG shipments have actually delivered around twice this volume into the UK system. However, the other 0.4% remains in storage and may never enter the UK market, instead being sold overseas.

        This gives continued backing to the line from BEIS ministers, who have previously said that much less than 1% of UK gas comes from Russia. Quoted in the Financial Times story on Russian imports, BEIS repeated this line, which is confirmed by the ICIS data.

        In other words, it is stretching credulity to suggest that the UK is “relying on Russia, a hostile power, to heat our homes”.

        https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-less-than-1-per-cent-uk-gas-supplies-come-from-russia

  11. ‘Morning All

    #CovidClownWorld…………..Rich crop this morning

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1de2b4b0d88a693ec0b1af402a25e1a509c34fef88e176f4b17ecae7afe3b70.jpg

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBc1vs1XsAgxzHe?format=jpg&name=small

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7092b4559edc7d069acfd2b4c8ddfcd93288ad171f8a07acd837f146c169be7d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b3bf9079b34b942b215a07b2101d2d79321f3a1f44f6ef7ae2b3f97b9404c17.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5966f5ce39edac193524341f6c503886081352ba02b4749ae071f8fbb2e6b029.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0850c67dae58400183d4fe99eb2c767e4052bfc692f05110da15f5cbafd1f384.jpg

    And finally………….that’s really Awkward!!

    https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1447567688130338818

  12. Morning all

    SIR – I have just received information from my local GP surgery that “all appointments will now be face to face”. This from a surgery where face to face has continued to be available even during the onslaught of the virus.

    Are we just lucky in Whalley or is it that GPs don’t all have the same attitude to their chosen profession?

    Rod Wilkins

    Whalley, Lancashire

    SIR – I am a retired veterinary surgeon, but I come from a large medical family and have witnessed first-hand the evolution of working practices of GPs, who used to be the backbone of the health service.

    My sister recently retired as a practice nurse in South Wales. There were nine GPs in the practice, of whom only one worked full time.

    The updated 2004 GP contract led nearly all GPs to outsource weekend and night out-of-hours service provision, requiring additional doctors to do what used to be done by them.

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    One doctor in our family makes a comfortable living working just six nights a month.

    Radical change is needed.

    R Jonathan Richards

    Baughurst, Hampshire

    SIR – Laura Donnelly portrays GPs as part-time workers (“Average GP working three-day week after ‘worrying’ drop in hours”, report, October 11), yet in the same report she states that they are working 40 hours per week. A typical full-time employee in the UK works 35.7 hours per week (according to the Office for National Statistics).

    Dr Marcus Gleave

    Oxford

    SIR – A customer of Marks & Spencer or Tesco who had to wait 1 hour 57 minutes at a till to be served would soon take their custom elsewhere.

    This is the time I had to wait on Friday to speak to someone at my GP’s. For 30 minutes I was told by the automated voice that I was third in the queue. After 50 minutes on the call, I was told I was next in the queue. I then waited a further 1 hour 7 minutes before a member of staff took my call.

    Sadly, my experience is common. Why do we tolerate this when the answer is so simple and obvious? GPs do not employ sufficient staff to answer calls from their patients, so they need to take on more staff.

    Advertisement

    GPs do a wonderful job (and, in my experience, always in a professional and polite manner), but it is reasonable for patients to require GPs to make the process of contacting them acceptable.

    Susan Johnson

    Ilford, Essex

    SIR – My local practice, which is held in high esteem, provides patients with a “care navigator” (formerly a receptionist), as the first contact point when they seek an appointment with a GP.

    It is not the easiest way to get to advice and treatment. It often feels as if this is a means of protecting the “three-day week” for the GP.

    John Illidge

    Northwich, Cheshire

    Free speech at Sussex

    SIR – I have been following Dr Kathleen Stock’s battle against those demanding her departure from Sussex University on the grounds of her views on gender (report, October 10).

    I was one of the 52 founder student members of the university back in 1961. The founding ideal was a many-sided approach to knowledge and a far-ranging spirit of inquiry.

    Nearly 10 years later I wrote a book advocating the expulsion of students who attacked free speech. In 1972 I was invited by a dons’ committee at Sussex to be the guest speaker at Oration Day and was promised “a Praetorian Guard”. Then caution prevailed and the invitation was withdrawn.

    Advertisement

    So today’s conflict is just an episode in the flight from the ideals of 1961.

    Margaret Brown

    Burslem, Staffordshire

    Travelling to America

    SIR – Two weeks ago, Joe Biden said that America would reopen its borders to travellers from Britain and Europe in early November.

    This was welcomed by people like me, desperate to be reunited with family they had not seen for two years. Hundreds of flights were quickly booked.

    We are now hearing that the American border may not be opened up until the end of November. If so, thousands of people’s hopes will have been raised, then dashed. Hundreds of flights will have to be cancelled.

    Steve Black

    Nottingham

    1. Maybe Tesco could adopt the “Triage” system of evaluating the customers according to need and protection status? That way only the truly hungry (you can fill in the application form online these days), LBGT, BAME, career wimmin and oligarchs-with-rights would get served. The others can form an orderly queue and wait to be waited on.

  13. Funny Old World
    Can anyone explain how come all those oh so virtuous energy suppliers who boast “We only supply 100% renewable energy” in their thousands of tv ads are putting their prices up??
    After All they only use “renewables” don’t they?? Or are their ads bunkum??
    I think we should be told…………….
    Certainly every customer of theirs should be demanding answers (snigger)

    2. Well, for some reason the Advertising Standards folks have never challenged them. Just as the “Classic Recipe” statement on many food products is never challenged, despite the fact that no palm oil was used in the UK prior to WW2.

    3. I laugh at their stupid claims and consumers’ naivety. Do these consumers have a reduced or no supply when the wind drops and the sun doesn’t shine?

      In any case, how can you renew something when you’ve consumed it? Doesn’t all heating warm the Earth, with all that heat getting out to the atmosphere eventually (even heat pumps, transferring rather than generating heat, produce extra heat from their machinery)? Surely Greens should stop heating their homes instead?

    4. ‘Morning, Rik. My choice of Pure Planet (stupid name) was based solely on their rates in February, and therefore how long I could avoid bankruptcy after using the heating again. The “100% renewables” cobblers has always been regarded as a fraud anyway. We finally gave in today and turned it on, so the meter will now be clocking up lots of digits again.

  14. Good morning all. Almost full daylight on an overcast and, at 7°C, somewhat autumnal morning.

    Went onto R3 just now in time to catch the opening chords of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s
    Five variants of Dives and Lazarus. An excellent start to the day.

      1. What is the difference in CO2 footprint between burning American wood to generate electricity or to keep the mountains warm in California and using it to build homes? Shouldn’t this be part of the calculation when evaluating biomass as an alternative to fossil fuels?

        2. End to end analysis, including cost/benefits, opportunity costs, and environmental effects, kind of thing?

          1. I often wonder what became of Chris Patten’s ‘Pearce Report’ from the early 1990s, which altered the whole way we do economics, broadening it out to cover non-tangible non-financial assets. The King of Bhutan did much the same sort of thing by adopting “Gross Domestic Happiness” as the primary measure of a nation’s wealth.

        3. Oh, do stop being logical!
          Eco is the new revealed religion. It doesn’t do logic, only blind faith.

    3. It’s neither a coincidence nor conspiracy. The modern world is so interconnected that an event or situation somewhere quickly impacts somewhere else. Eg timber prices in US rise to 5 times their level, producers around the world get offered more money to divert to the US, US shortages reduce and the price drops to a quarter of the peak, the shortages elsewhere from losing deliveries drive prices up elsewhere and the old delivery patterns return, leaving everyone as before but at higher prices.

      It’s all just a conflation of interests.

    1. 339902+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      A rerun of late last nights post please excuse,

      French Conservative Condemned for Comment on ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Native French

      That certainly looks like the campaign the United Kingdom tory’s (ino) are busy running with a 1000 in two days reset replacement units hitting the beach, that is certainly NOT instilling confidence in the herd as they watch their children’s legacy being undermined on a daily basis.

      1. I’ve heard that even Cedric Charlton the tax collector has been ethnically cleansed of his white privilege.

      1. 339902+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        Most certainly is, the fat turk along with the pillow whisperer is taking a holiday on the strength of it.

        Never put a foot wrong since the 25/6/2016 when
        reset, repress, replace, reentry was triggered.

    3. Oh, someone just ‘woke’ up to what has been happening here for years, hence the story of the guy who bought a puppy.

      He described it as black and brown with a few small patches of white and said he’d call it ‘Bradford’.

  17. If I understood the gentleman on BBC Radio 4 this morning his proposed plan for energy for London and the South East is to produce hydrogen using Natural gas, capturing the CO2, transferring the CO2 into a ship and transporting it up to Peterhead. The captured CO2 then then be taken to one of the multiple empty oil field cavities in the North Sea and pumped in and kept there for ever. Seems a bit complex, expensive and possibly ineffective. Is hydrogen a safe gas for domestic use?

      1. Morning Ndovu – That was exactly what I thought. I’m not au fait with all these energy complications and my son, a specialist in oil and gas matters , often pulls me up on these matters. Local nuclear power units might be a better option for London and the South East.

    2. Morning C. While I was on contract at Rolls Royce Derby one of the Americans decided to check if there was any hydrogen left in the combustion chamber by lighting a match. His body was repatriated free of charge!

      1. There’s always one testing Darwin’s hypothesis….

        “On contract” ….with the KGB?

    3. Firstly, I’ll quibble in that No fuel or power supply is ever ‘safe’; People die in their homes from them all.

      In context, Hydrogen is acceptably safe for domestic use provided suitable precautions are taken. It was, for example, a major component of town gas used for decades before natural gas came on stream.

      The issue I have with hydrogen is its cost effectiveness. Current technology has 2 major sources: either from fossil fuels where the process generates far more damaging methane and trendy CO2 than using electricity or natural gas would or from electricity where even direct electric heating would be more efficient.

      IMO hydrogen is bonkers for homes and cars. It may have a place in large vehicles, where the ability to carry loads of fuel at low weight make it more suitable than electricity/batteries, but even then it’s poor compared to fossil fuels.

      1. Hopefully energy storage technology is developing as we write. In the same way, LED lights replaced heating up bits of wire to make light, so too may more cost-effective ways than fossil fuels to harvest energy be made. We’re not there yet though.

        Electrolysis of spare electricity when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing is one way to store this energy for use in lean times. Batteries are another. Both are, as you say, considerably more expensive and possible less environmentally benign than simply digging it out of the ground, so there is room for improvement.

        Graphene (layers of carbon an atom thick) is showing great promise. It is a superconductor with remarkable properties, and can be combined with other materials to do splendid things, once our engineers get going on it. Already, the graphene capacitor is capable of storing electricity enough to power a light bulb, but so far it cannot hold its charge more than a week at a time. Room for improvement though.

        In the meantime, we could tackle the problem from the other direction. With a bit of imagination and doing things a slightly different way, we can live just as comfortably, or even more so, by using less, rather than more.

        One example of this is under-floor heating, using applied psychology rather than physics to this end. If your feet are warm, the body can tolerate a drop in air temperature of quite a lot – equivalent to turning the thermostat down five degrees or more. Heat rises, so to have the heat at floor level, rather than at ceiling level, also makes this way of heating a room more effective than radiators.

        Another is the nipa hut in the Philippines. Traditionally, they wove palm leaves of different colours to make the walls of their homes. It is a rather niche building method today because skills have been lost and the palms have been stripped bare in the name of “progress”, but there is no reason for either not to be restored until economies of scale kick in again.

        Copying the cooling effect of the zebra’s coat, which generates micro currents of air that fans the body, the nipa hut creates little currents of air that then work into the gaps in the wall, providing those inside both ventilation and some cooling. It is much more comfortable in a nipa hut than in the conventional concrete and corrugated home, even with air conditioning.

        1. All very interesting, but I’m a pragmatist and fiddling at the edges won’t solve anything. We have to reduce pollution and we have to find practical alternatives to fossil fuels, even if only because they will run out eventually, but good intentions and wishful thinking won’t solve the issues. I like the idea of Green energy and Green aims in general, but despair at the pious stupidity of its proponents.

          Technological advances will reduce power demands. We could stop building houses to older designs and start building them to modern designs with insulation, heat pumps, underfloor heating etc, but people wont pay for the costs in extra land and construction and the issues of sorting existing houses are enormous.

          Humans will say nice things, but when things affect them directly will normally act in their own self-interest regardless of how that contradicts their claimed views.

          However, advances will be dwarfed by the world’s expanding population – now 5 times what it was 100 years ago.

          1. For many years, Dale, I have wondered what that pollution is that we have to reduce?

            It cannot be CO2 since it only a trace gas (0.004%) of the atmosphere.

          2. In the mid term we need lots and lots of energy that’s cheap. We need low taxes and rampant capitalism.

            That needs to be poured into fusion or hydrogen power. Once those are on line and providing energy reliably and consistently then we can look at slightly higher taxes but the market must provide. Government can provide the funding, but the cash has to come from the private sector. That means government takes a kicking and does much, much less.

          3. Maybe the pandemic lockdown and now the huge hike in the price of gas is a form of tough love – to do the necessaries, when to do it democratically or to rely on the conscience of the people simply isn’t working?

      2. Town gas (putting one’s head in a gas oven) used to be the method of choice for depressed housewives to commit suicide.

      1. The Hindenburg is often touted when hydrogen is mentioned, but arguably the real cause was probably aluminium in the doping. The burning hydrogen made a wonderful sight and sped things along, but even with helium the Hindenburg may have been doomed.

        Zeppelins were very difficult targets to bring down despite the hydrogen.

          1. He wasn’t the first British airman to bring one down though. The pilot bombed the Zeppelin, was awarded the VC and sadly died 10 days later whilst gently climbing away in a newly-built aircraft he was delivering.

            As an aside, he like Leefe Robinson (later shot down, imprisoned then died almost immediately from Spanish Flu) died tragically early in jarringly mundane ways. Such are the fates of war.

          3. And good it was. I was trying to add colour to your post for the benefit of others rather than imply anything wrong with it or your knowledge.

        2. My understanding of both the Hindenburg and R101 is that, while Hydrogen was the original ignition, the fire spread rapidly because of the cellulose dope applied to the envelope.

          A Helium filled envelope without the cellulose dope would neither ignite nor burn.

  18. Former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal slammed Tory MP James Gray after he declared two of his party’s most senior Asian ministers Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid ‘look the same to me’.

    Mr Afzal said the Conservative politician ‘looks like a racist to me’ after the 66-year-old made the derogatory remark at an event he hosted at Parliament for the cause where both cabinet ministers were guests.

    In a tweet the ex-CPS chief wrote: ‘First you had Williamson mistaking one black sportsman for another. Now you have James Gray MP saying he can’t tell two of his own ministers apart because Asians ”all look the same”.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10082289/Ex-CPS-chief-slams-Tory-confused-ministers-Sajid-Javid-Nadhim-Zahawi.html

    I daresay Asians and Africans think that us Whiteys look alike .

    Funny isn’t it that Former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal is so quick to pull out the racist card.

    1. Savage Jabid is a bit younger and doesn’t have a beard – so it’s quite easy to tell them apart.

  19. Ahem…………..

    The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) has criticised the government’s

    decision to halt further natural gas development in the North Sea, in

    the middle of a worsening energy and gas cost crisis, as bizarre and

    irrational.

    https://www.netzerowatch.com/government-refusal-of-north-sea-natural-gas-field-is-irrational/

    Hmm so the creation of an energy crisis is quite deliberate………..

    Time for this

    https://media.greatawakening.win/post/6kkHpfyg.jpeg

  20. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/10/12/prince-charless-pointed-message-china-polluter-must-pay-save/
    Why do people like Prince Charles prattle on about ‘saving the planet’?

    FFS stop this Green hyperbole. Humans won’t destroy the planet. It will adapt to anything we do and carry on as before, suffering whatever indignities the Sun throws at it until, some 7.5 billion years from now, the Sun consumes it. Well before then the Sun will have destroyed all chance of life, probably making life impossible for humans within a billion years.

    We humans are a footnote to Earth’s history, having been here for less than proportionally 2 seconds of 24 hrs of Earth’s history. The Sun built the Earth, will destroy it and anything we can do to the climate is pitifully irrelevant compared to the Sun’s whims in heat and radiation. We can reduce pollution to make the planet cleaner, but trying to affect the climate is a full’s errand.

    2. Judging by what it’s doing in the Canary Islands right now, the planet is attempting suicide. Like most suicidals though, it rarely actually succeeds in going through with it.

      William Hague once famously said “half of you are not going to be here in twenty or thirty years”. He said that in 1977, so we had time now to see if he was right about his prediction. I wonder how many of us are still going to be here in a billion years? I fear lonely twilight years for Dale if few others of us make it.

      I actually think Prince Charles is right, and have long been a fan of his. However, “saving the planet” is better expressed as “saving civilisation” or “averting a catastrophic mass extinction of other life in this century”, which are both fair comment. We don’t always choose though which of our soundbites stick in the mind.

      Much as human ingenuity has the capacity to do great harm to the ecological infrastructure of this planet, and the ability to pervert its institutions where the safety and comfort of citizens can no longer be assured, so too has human ingenuity the capacity to make wonderful things for ourselves and to be genial and generous hosts to our fellow creatures on this planet. We have claimed from God the right to choose. Let’s make it the right choice.

      1. We can influence people to use less pollute less, reuse more, recycle more- but none of that will change the climate.

        1. But it’s a start. You’re right, and I agree that we can’t change the world, but we can change our bit of it and re-use and recycle more. In my draw is a hat and a mini golf game I got for Christmas on year. And about 5 keyboards, mice and assorted cables, parts and gumph.

          I won’t throw them away, I like to build the other bits up then give them to a local charity as working machines.

          1. We don’t throw much away. If you were brought up in the post war austerity years you don’t waste food or anything else. It’s all make do and mend.

          2. What are the chances you could build me a 4:3 aspect ratio m/c of some sort? Happy to pay or donate.:-)

        2. For that we need to plant more trees. Even a pine tree in a desert creates a microclimate that will keep moisture near the ground where it is most useful.

    3. More than 99 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. What makes us a little different is our ability to change our immediate environment. A small number of us could survive an extinction event for a period of time, but to what purpose I don’t know.

    4. Well said, Dale. Just as our actions have not brought about climate change, it is idiotic to think that we can somehow slow down the process or even reverse it.

      1. One look at the volcano in La Palma should remind us of the muddle-headedness and sheer arrogance of idiots like the Prince of Wales who think we can have any effect on the climate compared with nature:

        But man, proud man,
        Drest in a little brief authority,
        Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d;
        His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
        Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
        As make the angels weep.

    5. There is more we could do. I am not a greeniac, but we don’t exactly help.

      There’s too many of us by far and we’re using up resources at an incredible rate. Why? So we can have cheap stuff.

      We need to recycle and re-use up to 97% of our resources. We could. It just takes energy and effort. Instead of card for packaging, let’s use bamboo? Instead of plastics, glass. Instead of palm oil, let’s use real ingredients like butter and sugar! Let’s build reservoirs and fix the leaking pipes. We could standardise connectivity. We could all adopt that new intel standard and halve idle power consumption. We could mandate that devices are held together by screws of the same type not necessarily for repairs, but for recycling – but Apple (because they’re an easy target) want you to buy a new device from them so it makes them more money – and no amount of gushing adverts and 4 hour waffling promotions (that could be done in 15 minutes) will make them any less than just a greedy corporation. They’re not alone, of course, far from it.

      But… the state loves to meddle and dictate, so we get controlled substances in our diet and companies like having to use cheaper ingredients. Devices wear out and cannot be repaired.

      We could be better caretakers but I passed dozens of bits of rubbish on my walk yesterday. All the same sort of litter. Someone had even thrown a bottle down when there was a bin not 5 feet away. They don’t care. Until people are physically punished for their behaviour, it will continue.

      1. Trouble is that while I agree with all you say, your last sentence invites what they’re trying to introduce, I.e. a social credit system. Difficult. (I say this as someone who has been as green as possible most of my life.)

    6. I have always thought that Prince Charles is an extremely stupid man. Recently I have come to the conclusion that he is not just extremely stupid, he is a meddling old fool who has no idea of when to keep well away. I fear that his elder son is beginning to show similar meddling propensities and his younger son – if indeed he is his son – has been exposed as not only stupid but completely malignant.

      1. 339902+ up ticks,
        Morning HP,
        When the dusts settles they will be found alternative positions as with say
        rotherham, that is the nature of the beast the electorate insist is best for the Country & peoples welfare.

    3. Don’t jail them, flog them. Just beat the living crap out of them for 6 months and send the scarred mess back to Eritrea.

      There’s thousands more arriving, all bent and on the fiddle. This is why taxes go up.

  25. Yo All

    It is that time of the year again, all you Tintenters and those with Luxury Inland Waterway Yachts,
    had better get your onboard water systems drained down, until you go out in your tents again.

    Jack Frost can be expensive

    1. Thanks for the reminder. The CH system has 50% antifreeze. The engine 25%. Nevertheless barge ‘Winterisation’ is scheduled for 21/10/21.

    2. ‘Morning Tryers. That is one job I won’t have to do any more. After 30 years of tin-snailing ours has been sold. (We felt we had to do our bit to help meet the over-heated market…)

      1. All we have to do now, before webecome National Coachistas, is drive around the Cotswolds and hold Clarkson for a few miles

      1. Yo B o B

        Just make sure, that you take the cemant, breeze blocks and tools out before to Wild Camp!

        1. breeze blocks???
          High density concrete blocks if you don’t mind.
          And I have them and the sand and the cement and the concrete ballast delivered by Salisbury & Wood as I need them!

  26. Joe Biden underwater in polls amid Democratic squabbles over domestic agenda. 12 October 2021.

    More Americans now disapprove of Joe Biden than approve of him, with the latest polling showing the Democratic leader’s approval rating at the lowest point of his presidency.

    Mr Biden’s national approval rating plummeted to a new low of 38 per cent in the latest Quinnipiac poll, one of the country’s most respected surveys.

    He ought to be underwater in the pool!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/10/12/joe-biden-underwater-polls-amid-democratic-squabbles-domestic/

      1. Trump derangement syndrome makes those who suffer from it believe that by keeping Trump out he’s done a good job. They tend to be too stupid to look beyond that.

        1. Trump was an idiot for making politics personal. His policies on tax were the right ones. On the economy, on energy. All the right ones.

          He played to his gallery amidst a thoroughly negative, antagonistic, hateful Left wing press, a press that hated him – they didn’t care what he did, they just hated him.

          America deserved better. It deserves better than Biden, than Obama. Hell, we deserve better.

          But then you read some of the comments on the Wail or the gauridna and you realise that actually, no, we don’t. People are thick. Genuinely, of low intelligence. Not simply the insult. They cannot grasp nuance, they think at one level because that’s what they fear. They can’t go any deeper than their own base instincts.

          1. The trouble with Trump is that he is NOT a politician, never has been, hasn’t been through the cheats and liars school and just says it as he finds it.

            As with most of the left – they don’t like hearing the truth and much less like having it rammed down their constricted throats.

          2. Trump had no choice other than to make politics personal. It was specific individuals contemptuous of the vote that went after him. All he was doing is pointing out who these corrupt individuals were. His mistake was over estimating the power of the Presidency. As a non-politician I think he thought he would have far more power than he really did. And although he spoke about the Swamp. I don’t think he understood how deep and how fetid it was, or that the denizens of the swamp were all corrupt ‘gators. I think he thought that the decent would rally round, only to find that there were no decent individuals. They had long gone from what, broadly speaking, we can call the American civil service. The decent had been ousted or had left. The swamp had been festering since the 1950’s, it’s what Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex”.

          3. It was not Trump who made politics personal but his enemies, both Democrats and Never Trumpers in his own party, in their personal attacks upon him.

          4. But you have to agree he was brash and unpleasant in his personal manner, which did not endear him to women in particular.

    2. “Cheats never prosper.”

      It is always interesting when a cliché actually proves to be true!

    3. The reason that he is not “under the water” is that the MSM lies and covers up his blunders. Having denigrated and been largely responsible for Trumps fall, they can do nothing else, their fortunes are now tied to the senile old fool.

      The only MSM in the USA that tells the truth is Fox, it why it has an audience greater than all the others put together including CNN which used to be a reputable source of information and now has a hard time mustering as many viewers as the Cartoon channel in the USA, ands that is not a joke it is the truth and demonstrates how far they have fallen. More people in the USA now turn to sources on the internet for information because they can no longer get the truth from the MSM. MSM is mostly government propaganda and malicious propaganda at that. Such as now criminalizing parents who speak out about ‘Critical Race Theory’ being taught in schools, the FBI is now treating them as “domestic terrorists”. America, as I keep saying, is on its last legs and if the Republicans do not win an overwhelming victory during next years mid-term elections and if Trump doesn’t win the next Presidential Election, then, I truly believe, the USA is finished. The Democrats will continue to let in illegal immigrants to achieve a permanent majority, thus create a one part socialist state. At which point I can’ imagine anything else other than either capitulation on the part of Americans or civil war, one or the other. The real trigger, I suspect, would be the Democrats abolishing the second amendment.

    2. I don’t want a petition. I want to tell the government this is what it will do, and for the state to have no ability to refuse me.

      Should it try, then it is removed. Physically dragged out of office if necessary. That’s a democracy. Not a petition they’ll ignore. Hell, these people are our servants. The hired help. Temporary project managers, not our rulers.

  28. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Headline to an item in today’s DT:

    Lord Frost: EU at risk of making ‘historic misjudgment’ over protocol concessions
    The Brexit minister will urge the European Commission to bend its rules and accept that the ECJ’s involvement in Northern Ireland must end

    I can post the full article if anyone is interested. However, it was the leading BTL comment that really caught my attention:

    Giles Allison
    11 Oct 2021 9:39PM
    “I voted Leave and I’m full of regrets. I regret that I thought the EU would respect the referendum result and work for a mutually beneficial post-Brexit arrangement. I regret that I thought those who voted Remain would get behind the UK instead of undermining negotiations and, even now, taking the EU’s side some 5 years after the vote. I regret that I trusted our MPs to do their best to implement the referendum result, instead of doing their utmost to frustrate the vote and stop us from leaving. I regret that I thought the EU could remain a friend and ally to this country once we left its autocratic little club.

    One thing I don’t regret is voting to Leave; because with every passing day I feel more convinced that this was the right thing to do.”

    Spot on!

    1. Mr Alison is right. Sadly there is a fifth column – either willfully or simply spitefully determined to do this country down.

      These people are nasty, ignorant and malignant.

      1. ” I regret that I thought the EU could remain a friend and ally to this country once we left its autocratic little club.”

        I wonder how old is Giles Allison…?

        2. If he is young then that is a good thing. Perhaps they are finally waking up to what the EU really is.

    2. “I thought the EU would respect the referendum result and work for a mutually beneficial post-Brexit arrangement. !”

      How naive……why do you think we voted LEAVE…

    3. Good Morning, Big Bum

      Thank you for posting this excellent comment.

      I went to the article and saw that there are a multitude of BTL comments which are in tune with Giles Alison’s comments.

      Another BTL comment by a William Webb:

      What is the point of having article 16 if you are too frightened to use it?

      This is a very key question. Boris Johnson is obviously terrified of doing so.

      I would like to see the likes of Dominic Grieve, Lord Adonis and Ken Clarke prosecuted and given long prison sentence for High Treason.

      1. Grieve and Clarke are suitable for high treason but listening to Adonis I honestly think the man is mentally ill, absurdity doesn’t even begin to describe his delusional attitude.

      3. Prison wouldn’t help. Send them the bill for their expenses and estimated lobbying costs at taxpayers expense. Hit them where they wanted ot profit – in the pocket.

        Facing them each with a ten million quid bill would nicely focus their minds.

    4. …and I regret that it is taking too long for the EU to implode and collapse in its own heap of dung.

      Maybe Poland and Hungary, together with Holland and Italy might cause its downfall – here’s hoping.

  29. Good morning, everyone. Back from a great long weekend in lovely Sidmouth. Sunshine every day but …..
    Arrived at Grade 1 listed hotel and reversed into a parking space against a wall. Went in to register. Came out to collect luggage and realised that I would have to move the car forward in order to open the tailgate. Car wouldn’t start. Couldn’t access luggage via rear door because of metal dog barrier. Called Britannia Rescue.
    Chap arrived after 20 minutes. After another 20 minutes he managed to remove the dog barrier and get our luggage out. After another 30 minutes he was unable to start the car.
    Arranged for the recovery truck to arrive Monday morning and take us and the car to Hendy Jaguar in Christchurch. On arrival they kindly offered to take us home.
    Apparently it is a known fault on Jaguar/Landrover cars. The steering lock comes on and immobilises the vehicle. Their opulent showroom suggests I am in for a hefty bill.

    3. Be aware, that the Electric handbrake can play up as well, and will not release (Loud graunching noises as you drive)
      it has done Twice now, on my Disco 4, happens in Reverse at slow speeds

      When getting your car serviced, ensure that the brake assemblies are cleaned. (Advice from Indpendent LR mender)

      I try not tou se the hand brake at all now, a n Automatic in “Park” has all four wheels locked by the transmission system
      (Advice from another LR mender)

    4. Couldn’t you release the handbrake and push the car forward to access the boot? However if the immobiliser is activated and you have an electric handbrake you can’t do that although there is a mechanical release for the handbrake if you know where to look. Hope the bill isn’t too big

      2. Yo Alec, not if it is an Automatic

        The handbrake release is under the ‘cupholder’ between Two Front seats (in a Disco)

        A bowden cable type wire needs to be pulled out, using a metal rod (if you use your finger, Dav Allen will have a have a Mate)

        1. Morning Triers – if you’ve left it in park, but there’s a way of releasing that too (I had to do this the other day on an Alpha Romeo)

    5. Good morning, Delboy

      Which hotel was that?

      The old boys at the school in which I used to teach had their annual dinner at the Victoria Hotel, Sidmouth. I was invited on a few occasions for some very jolly evenings.

      However, as I mentioned last week, Sidmouth is far too naice a place to have any fish’n’chip shops

      My sympathies about the car.

      1. We stayed at the Royal Glen. Queen Victoria’s parents stayed there when V was a toddler.

    1. Gas and coal are heavily taxed. Wind is heavily subsidised.

      Gas and coal provide energy. Wind doesn’t. Without subsidy, windmills wouldn’t exist.

      Windmills are also not environmentally friendly. They’re not efficient. They kill wildlife. They use toxic rare earth metals. They have to have 400 tons of concrete poured into theground, they kill birds, bats and all manner of other flying creatures. They disrupt air movement. They never pay for themselves in energy terms.

      Why then, given their pointlessness, destructiveness, ecological and environmental harm, their cost and inefficiency, does government force them on us? It defies logic and reason. Surely, in the case then, the government is mad?

      2. 339902+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        In short the monitory rake of is substantial
        & as for the government’s madness we cannot get two doctors together to confirm.

      3. Well because we want to be a ‘world power’ and ‘of the west’ and have a place at the international ‘top table’ so our politicians decided we had to go heavily green, then they found out we didn’t have much suitability for geothermal plants, or massive hydroelectric plants, and tidal is too expensive and unproven, and solar takes up too much land space, and we forgot to build nuclear power stations because Heseltine was a dickhead that liked gas power plants. Only really left us offshore wind.
        At the same time we willingly gave up massive amounts of gas storage so that we could be ever so more reliant on other countries, and the absolutely crazy idea of just in time supply which of course fails miserably for any number of reasons because the system is totally fragile.
        We voted for idiots because only idiots attempted to get elected which has given us 50 years of idiotic policies getting more and more insane as years went by and all we do about it really is whinge in newspaper comments or on forums like this one then elect more idiots.

          2. I often agree with ogga but I cannot agree that it would be fair to blame a starving child who is offered either a piece of bread or a piece of meat rather than something that was not even on offer. The reality is that the alternative to not voting for the least bad candidate from Lib/Lab/Con is often not to vote at all or to spoil one’s ballot paper.

            This would be fine if NOTA (None Of The Above) votes were counted.

        2. We use just in time because keeping stock on shelves is incredibly expensive due to tax and wasted goods. We *can’t* feed this massive population without JIT resourcing.

          Wind’s pointless. We should have pushed for fracking, but for some reason the state has made that ‘illegal’.

          1. Fracking is just natural gas again. More fossil fuels. Not a renewable. Not green. And we’re living in a country full of NIMBYs.

        1. It was the turbine stalks simply being dumped into the sea that bothered me. All that steel left to rot away, the concrete never removed, just even more ecological mess.

  31. Good Morning all – Today we’re off to The Great Wen to see “Anything Goes” at the Barbican , the show has had universally positive reviews and I’m hoping it will be a welcome contrast to the wretched business of day to day news and life, all being well I’ll be back tomorrow wallet and person intact. It must be a good 10-12 years since I last visited so I think my Oyster card is no longer valid.

  32. Short & Sweet – But Not Very PC – 4

    I was explaining to my wife last night that when you die you get reincarnated but must come back as a different creature.
    She said, “I would like to come back as a cow.”
    I said, “You’re obviously not f–k–g listening.”

    Under new E.U. law the word “Gypo” is no longer politically correct.
    They have to be called (caravan utilising nomadic travellers) or C.*.N.T.S. for short.

    Doctors have just identified a food that can cause grief and suffering years after it’s been eaten.
    It’s called a wedding cake.

    I was in the pub with my wife last night and I said, “I love you.”
    She asked, “Is that you or the beer talking?”
    I replied, “It’s me talking to the beer.”

    The wife has been missing a week now. Police said to prepare for the worst.
    So I have been to the charity shop to get all her clothes back.

    Hi mate I don’t want you to panic but I’m texting you from Casualty.
    Turns out that the new Dyson Ball cleaner isn’t what I thought it was.

  33. While most of the Catholic Church and the majority of the members of the Hierarchy were not merely supine in the face of the impositions of authoritarian governments, many were fully and actively supportive as was seen with the closure of churches, tapes on floors, blocking off of pews, mask-wearing and encouragement to wear masks, exhortations to get vaccinated and cancellation of services.
    However, Archbishop Vigano is forcefully against all of this. Quite long, but on target.
    https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/abp-vigano-a-pandemic-sanhedrin-is-spinning-a-labyrinth-of-covid-lies/

    1. Given that vaccination only helps the vaccinated, what possible concern is it of a teacher if a child is, or isn’t vaccinated?

    2. Both have put their names down as contestants in the ‘Kojak Lookalike Competition‘. We wish them well and hope they will get through the preliminary Middle Eastern heats.

      They had hoped to enter the competition which had more kudos attached to it: The Yul Brynner Lookalike Competition but their entries were blocked as they lacked the necessary charisma and good looks. However, the entry officials said the shininess of their bald pates was commended and wondered what grease they used to improve the lustre of their domes.

          1. 339902+ up ticks,
            Morning SM,
            The lab/lib/con supporter / voters have tried hard enough over these last three plus decades.

      2. Morning! Yul Brynner came from Siberia. These two couldn’t be involved in anything named after a Russkie? (I saw Brynner in the The King and I at the London Palladium. Virginia McKenna was just so-so but he really did make that role his own.)

        1. I met Telly Savalas when I was working at Edinburgh Airport! Now don’t laugh, but he was possibly the sexiest man I’ve ever met!

          3. What was your job at Edinburgh Airport, Mrs Macfarlane?

            I was screening supervisor and manager at Norwich Airport and we had three flights a day into Edinburgh.

          4. Hi Mr. Grizz! I was deputy catering manager, with a company called JL Catering, which was originally Lyons Corner House. We ran all the bars, restaurants, cafeterias and franchises like Baskin Robbins in the terminal, and the VIP lounge, which connected to airside.

          5. It’s a shame I didn’t jump on the NWI–EDI one day to sample your coffee and shortbread. ☕️🍪

        2. I only saw the film with Deborah Kerr in the female lead.

          One of my favourite jokes/riddles from a Nottler appeared on this forum a few months ago.

          Q. Why did they think the actor who played the King of Siam never used after-shave lotion and supported Liverpool Football Club?
          A. Because Yul never wore cologne.

        3. Yul Brynner was a class act. His charisma eclipsed all his co-stars in The Magnificent Seven.

  35. Good morning, my friends

    ‘I was forced to end my pregnancy at 7 months’: Inside the worst scandal in NHS history
    The new series of The Telegraph’s Bed of Lies podcast explores the contaminated blood tragedy and looks at the lives it destroyed
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/forced-end-pregnancy-7-months-inside-worst-scandal-nhs-history/

    The scandal of contaminated blood was raging in France in the early 1990s soon after Caroline and I came to live here. Caroline has posted this Below The Line comment under the DT article:

    “In France, three ministers were charged with manslaughter and one was found guilty.”

    The general public in France have always considered this a whitewash. One of the ministers charged and let off was the former Prime Minister, Laurent Fabius, a protégé of François Mittérand. The other minister who was let off was Georgina Dufoix – she was the equivalent of a cabinet minister, responsible for Social affairs and what was then called “national solidarity”. The only minister who was found guilty was Edmond Hervé, the health secretary whose role, in those days, was part of Georgina Dufoix’s department.

    So it was deemed that the buck stopped with a junior minister who was sacrificed on the altar of keeping up the appearance that “justice had been done”.

    Totally reprehensible.

    This ghastly affair goes a long way in explaining why the French have been much more sceptical about the Covid vaccine than the British – they have already experienced the cynicism and irresponsibility of their leaders in health matters.

    1. Good timing after yesterday’s we all need to play the HIV lottery announcement.

      The odds of getting it will have been improved to a point significantly better than winning the other life-changing lottery.

        1. “What experience and history teach is this – that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
          Hegel, I think!

        3. It’s not a mistake. It is clear evidence of the clamour the ruling classes have to reduce the indigenous population by fair means or foul.

    3. There was an article in the Telegraph magazine at the weekend about the scandalous use of contaminated blood products for haemophiliacs. The ingredients came from American drug users who were paid to ‘donate’ their blood. This is why it must always be tested for safety and freely donated.

      2. I did, and I also saw the photograph of the smug, unfit-mother, plastic, vacuum-brained cow (how many more vividly-apt adjectives may I use?) in today’s DT.

        If she is not a clear advertisement for compulsory spaying, then I don’t know what is.

          1. In the way bookies were called “turf accountants” what would you call a hooker – “sex accountant”?

    2. Be that as it may, the magistrate can only use what they are given. You cannot appeal because you screwed up your prosecution.

      The real issue for me is how the magistrate can say that the defendant and her witness, translated from judge-speak, were lying through their teeth and that the CPS witnesses were completely believable yet decided that there was insufficient evidence to convict. All I can think of is female privilege, with the magistrate’s being a woman and the defendant’s being a woman and mother, typical of a system far less likely to convict a woman and give her less than half a man’s sentence if convicted.

      1. The fact that the CPS made a pig’s ear out of the prosecution is why this lamentable excuse for a human was found ‘not guilty’.

    4. If the police couldn’t put a solid case together to lock her up, throw away the key and beat her around the botoxed face every day, then they’re inept, and this dangerous criminal will continue to drive while drunk and will, one day kill someone.

    1. Doesn’t surprise me poppiesmum. This country has one of the worst pensions, if not the worst, in Western Europe. And the way it treats the old and vulnerable is little better than treating them as suitable only for the scrap heap. Allowing old people to freeze to death is just one of a long list of crimes committed against them. Elder abuse is institutionalized as a beurucratic attitude in this country.

      1. Not sure that this is correct. The basic pension is low, but, provided you have low (below £20k odd) levels of financial assets, there is an income supplement … In 2008 this very much upped my mother’s income to a level where she was well able to heat her bungalow …. the difficulty was getting it into her head that it was cheaper to use the c/h than to concentrate all the heating into the gas fire in the living room …

          1. That is true … Unfortunately, she kept switching it off with its remote and was unable to restart it. Later, it turned out that its malhandled fitting was the cause of a large crack in the wall

          1. It has gone up since then – that’s the old basic rate before the new one came in in 2016. Of course, anyone now over 71 will still be getting the old rate.

      2. The pension for those retiring after April 2016 is considerably better than for older pensioners, and for fewer contributions too. Unless you have other income, it’s certainly not enough to live on.

        1. They also insist on drawing their pensions – drain on the tax fund
          Utilise housing that could be better used for gimmegrunts
          Make more use of the NHS – to the point of bed-blocking
          Walk, drive and think too slowly, to the detriment of speed-merchants

          Solution – kill them off
          Method – engineered pandemic like Covid 19.

        2. A lot of elderly people are still working – in a voluntary capacity – for all sorts of charities, groups, clubs etc – just not getting paid for it.

      4. IMHO the vast majority of elderly people in the UK would be better off in jail. It’s a just a question of finding the right sort of crime where a decent type of accommodation might be offered. As things stand it seems as if it’s become a crime to be over 7 in the UK right now.
        I can remember a few years back when my father had a long stay in hospital and unless myself and my two sisters could could help, my mother was not able to get to his bed side to see him due to her physical condition. And the bloody government stopped his pension payments. People who arrive in rubber boats or on flights from Afghanistan are better off than the average British pensioner.
        How does a phone call from a once GP help any one ?
        That’s why I say that the most recent logo from the NHS seems to be FOAD unfortunately the spoiler is not working but the AD stands for And Die

    2. It doesn’t reflect the fact that the fiddling with the way deaths were counted means the statistics were, well, not really robust statistics. It is unlikely we will ever know how many people died FROM this virus rather than with it.
      This report seems to be making all the right noises but does not criticise the false accounting of deaths. It’s a bit like making it look as though you’ve really investigated it but left out the most important part. Similar to some of the Met police investigations.

      2. Adding deaths from two years together seems to be just to add to the scare factor.

        Why not add all the heart disease deaths or cancer deaths over two years?

        As for counting all the deaths “within 28 days of a positive test” no matter whether they died of their other illnesses is just taking the P**s.

    1. I am frequently reminded of that exchange between Gatsby and Nick Carroway in Scott Fitzgerald’s novel:

      “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”

      It is not so much a question of repeating the past but of rewriting it as far as the racial composition of past society is concerned. Most of the MSM is determined to do so and distort the truth.

      “Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out
      When Lady the brach* may stand by the fire and stink”

      [King Lear]

      (Brach = female dog)

    1. We are ALL in Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials, as it has never been tested, had a peer review or any attempt to find any long-term effects.

  43. Oh my goodness my cards are being used a lot – I had three messages on my mobile yesterday from HSBC that sent me codes for the authorisation of online transactions and today I’ve had a landline call to tell me an international transaction for £1000+ is about to go through. Should I press 1, 2, or 3?

    1. It appears that this isn’t fake news:

      “Chloroquine, a relatively safe, effective and cheap drug used for treating many human diseases including malaria, amoebiosis and human immunodeficiency virus is effective in inhibiting the infection and spread of SARS CoV in cell culture. The fact that the drug has significant inhibitory antiviral effect when the susceptible cells were treated either prior to or after infection suggests a possible prophylactic and therapeutic use.”

      https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69

      1. Yes – but Big Pharma and corrupt and bribed politicians can’t make any money out of chloroquine.

        But, what’s a few hundreds of thousands of deaths to these people?

      2. Never thought it was fake news. Have known this for at least 18 months. There was a report in the Daily Telegraph around that time that disappeared. A graduate student had the bright idea of comparing deaths in countries that used chloroquine for endemic diseases against countries that didn’t use it. It demonstrated that countries that used it on a regular basis for their population were hardly effected by Covid at all or deaths were minimal. Whilst the rest of us were pining our hopes on a “cure”. Odd that after the article was published, little, if anything, came of it.

        1. JR, I wasn’t querying the use of Chloroquine – just checking that the article existed in the Virology Journal. Which it does. I wasn’t able to verify the claim about Dr F’s knowledge of the subject others may be able to demonstrate the link.

          1. Actually Stephen I didn’t think you were. I was just remarking on the fact that it is actually old news that has been well hidden.

            Also Barry Marshall, the doctor who discovered that stomach ulcers were caused by a virus, I think he got a Nobel for that, specializes in the repurposing of old drugs for new diseases, that’s his field. He also said a long while ago that the best cure and preventative for Covid was Chloroquine. You can actually find him talking about that on You Tube, if that also hasn’t been disappeared.

        2. Something came out of it Johnathan:

          The Government banned its export by putting it on the “List of Medicines that cannot be parallel exported from the UK”

          That ban was dated 26/02/2020

          …………….so somebody in Government knew exactly what was going on !!

          1. Still got a few tablets left in the cupboard from earlier travels. Plus doxycycline from more recent trips. May have some ivermectin in the hedgehog kit.

      3. This has been know for years but it is cheap and would undermine all the new rubbish vaccines. Trump was right again.

  45. Unrelenting on attempts at coercing children to take the potion. If only these ‘ministers’ were as unrelenting when it comes to clearing up the mess that their predecessors made of the job.
    Will Javid listen to the science re natural immunity and leave the children alone or will he follow the agenda and attempt to rubbish the gift that after millions of years of evolution Nature endows us with.
    Advice to Health Minister: Dr Geert Vanden Bossche is the leading vaccine scientist in the World and knows what he’s talking about, Mr Gates is not that thing and therefore cannot speak with any authority on the subject. Follow the science!

    https://twitter.com/AllisonPearson/status/1447650133211066373

  46. 339902+ up ticks,
    Will this affect the overseers reset replace campaign operating via DOVER regarding incoming “guest’s

    Dt,
    Live Cargo ships diverted away from UK amid supply chain crunch – live updates

    .”

  47. Splendid!

    As EV owners are starting to unfortunately learn, electricity to power your “green” vehicles has to come from somewhere.

    This is a tough dose of reality that many EV owners in the U.K. could be facing next year now that a new law has been proposed to switch off home EV chargers during peak hours. The law seeks to prevent excessive strain on the grid, according to a new article from Inside EVS.

    Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the proposed law that stipulates that EV chargers may not function for “up to nine hours a day” to prevent overloading the grid.

    Beginning May 30, 2022, all chargers that are installed must be “smart” chargers connected to the internet, allowing their functions to be limited between 8am to 11am and 4pm to 10pm.

    Authorities will also be allowed to impose “randomised delays” of 30 minutes on individual chargers in certain areas to prevent grid spikes, the report says.

    Public use chargers will be exempt from the law.

    The government has brought up that there is a projected 14 million EVs that will be on the road by 2030. Many will be plugged in on home chargers, during peak hours, placing the grid under “excessive strain”.

    The proposed legislation would push drivers to charge during off-peak night hours, when rates are cheaper.

    1. Mr Rashid will have ‘a work round’ the Smartmeter App, before ShAPPes can bring his rules in

    2. Hmm, no time limit on filling up with petrol or diesel – yet.

      Future plans might say only between 11:59 and 12:01.

    4. “Smart” chargers with “smart” meters. Just like the “smart” meters that people install in their houses? Meters that the electric companies can use to turn off the electricity supply? Ah, yes, I get it.

        1. Smiles modestly. I usually say that I am as smart as Jayne Mansfield. That stops people in their tracks. We watched “The Girl Can’t Help It ” on Talking Pictures a few days ago. Wonderfully daft!

    2. Crikey I remember than woman screaming in the street. A more pathetic wretch I cannot imagine.

      Petulant, immature, selfish, egocentric, stupid and fundamentally arrogant. Now, enough about me.

      2. One of the loonies filmed during the scream against Trump action on his inauguration day.

  50. Where have all the Nottlers gone?
    Long time passing.
    Where have all the Nottlers gone?
    Long time ago.
    Where have all the Nottlers gone?
    Has Disgust banned them every one.
    Oh, When will you ever learn?
    Oh, When will you ever learn?

      2. So is Mongo. I’m wondering where his proclivity for hiding is coming from. He’s always been an absurdly happy dog.

    5. Nipping into Matlock for some envelopes and a quick bit of limited shelf life shopping.

    6. I am here .. just arrived home relaxing wth a cup of coffee

      Feeling really overjoyed .. my veterans group , all now in their late eighties , arrived over this way for lunch this morning at the RBL. Our first meeting since Feb 2020.

      Every one chatterered excitedly , lamented over long lost pals and had a good lunch , simple but tasty , followed by a raffle , and catching up with news of other members .

      Moh phoned absent veterans so that we could all say hello to them individually , he has a better phone than me , and then we had a group photo , and made arrangements for the Christmas lunch in December .

    1. A really passionate appeal for data review. At least something is happening in US. But not over here.

  52. I found this earthquake browser which gives a visualisation of recent global quake activity complete with an animation that shows how the cracks in the earth are developing.

    The one in Crete this morning was a big one – six on the Richter scale.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14ffcbc45973bf8d76e43b39afa9475d7b09ca3627c11ce6125fde5575732db0.jpg

    Here’s the starting link:

    https://ds.iris.edu/ieb/index.html?format=text&nodata=404&starttime=1970-01-01&endtime=2025-01-01&minmag=0&maxmag=10&mindepth=0&maxdepth=900&orderby=time-desc&src=usgs&limit=1000&maxlat=70.26&minlat=-70.26&maxlon=133.42&minlon=-133.42&zm=2&mt=ter

  53. 339902+ up ticks,

    There can surely be no doubt now as to what a continued lab/lib/con support & vote gets you,

    No Jab, No School: UK Threatens to Bar Unvaccinated Children from Face-to-Face Learning

  54. We did all our food shoping today without problem. What are all the lies about in the MSM.

    1. Besides some people panic buying and clearing shelves i believe most problems are in high density population areas. They can’t get the deliveries in quick enough.

      I haven’t had any problems either.

    3. Same here. There was one item, which is normally available, which wasn’t there, but things which had been missing for weeks were suddenly back on the shelves.

  55. 13lb of apples picked off the Aldi Special this morning.
    No idea what the variety is, but the fruit is crunchy, juice and quite sweet. Pleasant, but a bit bland.

      1. It started to produce fruit the year after I planted it, only a couple of pounds, but more than the russet that I planted at the same time and a couple of years quicker too..

  56. David Jenkins, 31, who had worked with diving star Tom Daley was part of Team GB’s Tokyo 2020 training squad – which helped secure a joint-record medals haul at this year’s Olympic games. David’s death was confirmed by British Swimming on Monday, although the cause source of AIDS/HIV remains unknown. D Fail

    1. And they don’t have to filter out the buffalo piddle. Well, not at the point of consumption.

          2. I know. Mum used to buy a tin of Crawford’s shortbread every Christmas. There were petticoat tails, triangles, crescents, discs and rectangular ones in the tin, and all tasted lovely.😘

  61. The road to hell is paved with Prince Charles’ good intentions over climate change. 11 October 2021.

    Although not pressed on this in the interview, he continues to make lavish use of fuel-greedy and carbon producing airplanes and helicopters in the course of his duties.

    Last year, for example, the prince flew to meet teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg in Switzerland.

    In the preceding 11 days, he had taken three flights on private jets on official government business and one on a helicopter, notching up many thousands of air miles. Perhaps he had no option.

    This of course is the problem with Net-Zero; it is a regimen for the peasants! The elites simply pay lip service to it and carry on as per normal; witness Con 26 the latest fly in binge for the better offs! No one should comply with its hypocritical strictures!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10081681/STEPHEN-GLOVER-Road-hell-paved-Prince-Charles-good-intentions.html

    2. I don’t know why he doesn’t stick a pole up his a**e and point himself towards the west. His ears could gather enough wind to power a couple of palaces.

        2. But we need the Royals. They are cheaper than a presidency, they provide income through gawping tourism, they also provide money from the Crown Estates, sometimes they are good for a laugh and, best of all, stop tossers like Blair, Brown and Boris becoming dicktakers for life. Sorry about the typo.

          1. I agree, but they are lining themselves up for exile through their foolish bandwagon jumping and general wokeness. I fear that Minty is correct unless they wake up and discover the mood of the country. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely as they are so cosseted and kept away from hoi polloi unless carefully selected.

    1. Given these figures I’m just surprised there isn’t a knife grinder on every corner of inner London.

      1. Ahhh! I can remember when they used to come around the houses Stephen. Went straight though my heart that!

  63. Driver taken to hospital as London Overground service goes through station buffers. 12 October 2021

    Sadiq Khan told ITV: “Thankfully there aren’t the kind of casualties that we could’ve had. Just the one driver taken to hospital with shock. There will be a full inquiry to get to the bottom of this.”

    A resident who was due to catch the train that crashed at Enfield Town station said he’s “never seen anything like it before”.

    No I don’t suppose you see many trains whizz past you and jump the buffers as you stand there!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/enfield-overground-crash-london-b960017.html

        1. Wasn’t implying any fault or blame. My take was a safety one from the driver’s perspective – No driver no driver injury….

    4. She’a a very successful dietician. She visits people’s homes, wearing that dress (?), for $500 a pop and stays an hour. Appetites are supressed for up to 3 weeks.

  65. Just sent a would-be scammer packing from the front door. Recognised his Spiel about ‘loose roof ridge tiles’ straight away. I can still shout NO! very loudly when I have to.
    Be warned, they’re about. It was the same this time last year.

    1. They used to be an absolute plague when Elderly Chum was still in her home.
      On one occasion I had to get really stroppy with Zenith windows. I had got her out of one muddle, only for them to pester her again.
      I phoned their regional office in Ipswich and the manager pretended he didn’t understand why I wanted his salesman called off. He then made the mega mistake of calling me ‘dear’. Let’s just say, my reaction rendered the phone line between Colchester and Ipswich redundant.
      Lurking salesman was called off from his parking spot on Elderly Chum’s driveway.

  66. University of Sussex Students on campus.
    The University of Sussex’s vice chancellor has defended a professor after protesters tried to have her sacked for her views on gender identity.
    Staff “have an untrammelled right to say and believe what they think,” Adam Tickell told BBC News.
    An anonymous campaign included posters accusing Professor Kathleen Stock of transphobia, a claim she rejects.
    Prof Stock tweeted that students shouldn’t “just expect to hear their own thoughts reflected back at them”.*
    Posters put up near the University of Sussex campus and an accompanying social media campaign claimed the philosophy professor “makes trans students unsafe”.

    But

    University of Sussex Students on “University Challenge”: 10 points**

    *https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-58841887
    **https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010kp4/university-challenge-202122-episode-14

    1. How many ‘trans students’ does Sussex University actually contain? The ones who have actually had bits lopped off/reassigned and are on hormone treatment for the rest of their lives? As opposed to those are are bit bored on a Tuesday afternoon and fancy some attention?

      1. They are all bravely anonymous.

        PS I cannot get “edit” to work for me.
        Oh wait, fixed typo.

      2. They are all bravely anonymous.

        PS I cannot get “edit” to work for me.
        Oh wait, fixed typo.

      4. They’re on the rise as it becomes something ‘fashionable’.

        It’s edgy and cool amongst the weak and immature.

    2. Perhaps they should try to alleviate their anxieties by practicing Trans-anecdotal meditation

    3. If I had a TV Licence, I would have watched that

      My neighbours had their curtains drawn (well their Telly is in the bedroom)

  67. The “You couldn’t make it up files” goes mainstream………….

    “Doctors should think less about the health of

    their patients and more about the health of the planet, an editorial in

    the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) has urged.

    The editorial, published as part of a special edition dedicated

    to the forthcoming COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, says that

    medical treatment contributes significantly to “greenhouse gas

    emissions” and that this carbon footprint can be reduced if only “health

    professionals” can learn to reduce “overdiagnosis” and “overtreatment”.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/10/11/delingpole-bmj-urges-doctors-to-cut-back-on-treatment-because-climate-change/
    Damn those pesky cancer patients wanting early diagnosis and treatment won’t they think of the planet……….
    Selfish bastards

    3. And as a matter of interest, just who do you think has been advising the hypocrites on the places that will cause the maximum disruption?

    4. It’s the typical middle class woke sucking up all climate/eco/trans/racist crap, but without wanting to let go of the money.

    3. A wittle girl goes into a pet shop and asks for a wittle wabbit. The pet shop owner asks her would she like a wittle bwack one or a white one. She says my anaconda doesn’t give a fwuck.

  72. The government is getting criticised in a report about the pandemic, they say if we had locked down earlier then more lives could have been saved, I wonder how long it took them to come to that straw man deduction?
    Will Boris use this as an excuse for another lockdown if cases suddenly rise?
    Parliament cannot possibly argue against another one now.

    2. FFS. “Cases” are totally irrelevant. These cases are as a result of completely unreliable tests. PCR tests were never meant as a diagnostic tool and lateral flow tests are even more unreliable. Just another way of keeping the public in fear and under control.

      And plan B will be implemented sooner or later.

    3. There is a great deal of reporting of shortages of everything from toilet rolls to HGV drivers, with shipping containers in the wrong locations and clogging ports all around the world.
      Has it not occurred to the fcukwits in governments that if you shut the world’s economy’s down there will be consequences, and another lockdown will only make things worse. Our only hope is that the situation becomes so dire, the buffoon is tossed out on his ear. 🙏🏻

  73. Evening all, been a busy few days but this caught my eye as the meal is cooking,

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1504718/Germany-news-uk-trade-cars-automotive-industry-exports-economy-Brexit

    Are they surprised, the way our European “friends and colleagues” has behaved since 2016 has led me to vow to buy EU goods only if there is no alternative, I suspect I am not the only one.

    As far as their motor industry is concerned, they are trading on past reputations, any customer satisfaction survey carried out for their more recent cars reflect how poor they have become.
    I for one will consider Korean, Japanese or even one from Musk before buying German.

      1. Nothing special, how can I make homemade Hungarian Goulash exciting worthy of your attention?

        2. I make it a lot in winter Veryvery. Like to use Hungarian smoked paprika. Recipe from the Hungarian cook book I use:

          2 Onions 1-2 tablespoons fat, 1 teaspoon of paprika, 1 teaspoon of vinegar, 1lb of beef, salt, marjoram & caraway seeds, 1 & ahalf quart of water, 2-3 Tablespoons of flour, half pound of potatoes.

          Slice fry onions in fat until slightly yellow. Add paprika and vinegar. Dice meat and add with salt, marjorum, and caraway to pan. Add 2 Cups of water, cook until meat is tender. Then add flour and stir in rest of the water. Dice potatoes add to soup and continue to cook until potatoes are soft. This is enough for 5 people.

          I usually make twice that amount or more and freeze most of it in individual serving size containers. It freezes perfectly but don’t freeze potatoes. I also use much more paprika and vinegar, a matter of taste, I also add Garlic. This is from a Hungarian cook book I have had since 1952!

          A sort of P.S. I often add Italian tomatoes in too and or sweet peppers.

          3. Note at the bottom peppers optional. I know it’s a stereotype but not everything has peppers in it that is Hungarian. I have three Hungarian cookbooks and peppers do not feature as often as you might expect.

      1. The skullduggery was the greens setting the standards at unrealistic levels that were impossible to meet!
        Engineers just did what engineers do, and found a workaround.

    3. Well don’t whinge to us about it. Speak to your Mrs Merkel.

      Because She. Caused. All of it.

    4. I’ve got a Japanese car and I now drink Chilean, South African or Australian wines. Don’t eat French cheeses normally anyway (outside France, that is).

      1. Used to buy a lot of French Brie and Roqueford, but now I simply buy Brie from Devon and Stilton. Love cheese could forgo meat for cheese if I had to choose. I do not buy anything made in France anymore. There are plenty of alternatives.

    5. I was not well disposed to Elon Musk until I heard him speaking about patents. Do you know that he will not take them out but anything he invents is open source. He argues that what he is doing he is doing for the general welfare and if anyone can build better on what he learns it is fine with him.

      1. He certainly seems to make his cars efficient in power to distance, not sure the build quality is up with the best but it is improving.

  74. Good Gawd Almighty.
    I’m trying to book a trip back to the UK.
    Covid hoops a plenty to jump through.
    It occurs to me that I could be carrying bubonic plague, rabies and Ebola and no-one would pay the slightest attention, as long as my Covid documentation is OK

  75. Evening, all. I had a face-to-face consultation and was given physio exercises to do. Needless to say, I’m crippled now, to the extent that it’s no longer even comfortable to ride, which has never previously been the case 🙁 I hope the Pain Management people, to whom I have been referred, can actually do something about managing the pain for once.

    1. Ouch.
      Not being able to ride must be a killer for you.
      I hope it gets sorted, either naturally or with assistance.

      1. I can still ride (I did so this afternoon, back on the Connemara again), it’s just painful.

    2. That’s shocking! I read the article in ConWom yesterday and can see why he was so upset. I hope the ‘good doctor’ is feeling somewhat ashamed – but given her virtuousness, I rather doubt it!
      Edit: spelling!

  77. Apropos of climate change and ecowarriors, I had a survey drop through my letterbox this morning seeking my opinion on the reintroduction of beavers (the sort that bring down trees and make dams, for the avoidance of doubt) into Shropshire. It was a done deal, but they wanted me a) to join their Wildlife Group and b) say how Glad, Surprised and Delighted I was at the prospect because the beavers manage environments for their own benefit (I can believe that) and the whole ecosystem benefits (I treat that claim with considerable scepticism). I told them I was concerned because who would control the numbers? I bet in their eco-enthusiasm, they’ve never considered that and we have enough problems with the bunny huggers when we try to cull anything that’s getting out of control and becoming a nuisance. Did I want beavers introduced into other areas of Shropshire and were there any other native species I’d like to re-introduce. I did give a vote for red squirrels (but they’d have to get rid of the greys first) and suggested otters. When they asked me to let them know what species I’d seen in hedgerows and in my garden I told them they were too numerous to list – they only gave me two lines!

      1. I don’t think beavers have a natural predator, which fuels my concern. They are introducing them into an old river bed to get rid of the trees and drew a lovely cartoon of a few beavers enjoying themselves in the water and building dams with just a line of trees round the shore. What could possibly go wrong? I’ve seen the work of beavers in Canada and in my experience, it doesn’t work like that.

        1. Firstborn has them on his land. They make a mess, block the streams and rivers, and in numbers are a royal pain. Big buggers they are, too. Fortunately, there’s a gaupe (lynx?) around that chomps them now and again.

      2. The brown bear was a common top predator alongside the wolf and lynx following the last ice age, after lions and hyenas had disappeared. It is calculated there were over 13,000 bears in Britain 7,000 years ago. We could re-introduce all the above and situate them on the south coast to welcome the new arrivals.

    2. Beavers were viable in Blighty when the population was about 5 million and there was plenty of spare land for them to flood. Now multiply it by at least 14.

    3. Otters
      https://www.ukwildottertrust.org/the-otters/
      This is good news but as the article points out, our rivers still need to be cleaned up. Perhaps rather that bothering with exotics like beavers , it would be wiser to concentrate on clean up. And I also agree with you about red squirrels. A mass culling of greys would not be amiss.

      1. Indeed; I’ve seen the stumps in Canada. This lot want the beavers to destroy trees (not very green) because the old river bed is having some of the water removed by the trees. Their idea is they will only remove the trees at the periphery. I’m not sure how that’s going to work once the beavers are released. They aren’t going to choose only the ones that the wildlife group wants, are they?

    5. The main function of beavers is in flood prevention. With their dams, heavy rainfall floods the woodland upstream, slowing down the run-off into the rivers, so that instead of getting a sudden rush that floods towns along the way, there is a steady release.

      In Catholic parts of Canada, where it is customary to eat fish on Friday, beaver was officially classed as a fish, since it could swim, and was a Friday delicacy there. I imagine a fox could take out a beaver.

      Red squirrels recovered where they introduced pine martens, which is a major predator of squirrels, red and grey. What happened though is that the reds, being smaller and lighter than the pine martens, would climb to the very tops of trees, where the pine martens could not climb. The greys, being larger though, could not use that technique, so had to outrun the pine martens. They ended up harassed and exhausted and an easy meal. The smaller size of the reds therefore gave them a competitive advantage over the greys.

        1. While our team knelt, the Hungarians, also under financial or some other threat, pointed to some anti-racial badge on their shoulders.

          3. I just counted. According to the last survey there are 30,802 Asians in Hungary they are Turks, Vietnamese, Chinese or Syrians. The place is practically 100% ethnic. Although there are white people, other Europeans mostly and 3,540 British.

    2. I’m not sure what games England have coming up at Wembley, but if I was an opposition supporter I would be seriously considering how to outdo the Hungarian supporters.

      Frankly, watching our (our?) police retreating down that tunnel was a national embarrassment.

      Turning back illegal immigrants? Don’t make me laugh.

  80. Clearly those in charge are attempting to re-wild Africa:

    Following his appointment, Mr Hancock’s official title will be “UN special representative on financial innovation and climate change for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa”.

    1. They are attempting to get Hancock and Midazolam off the radar in view of today’s report. Out of sight, out of mind.

    3. Could any more red flags of being a globalist shill be packed into one job title?
      “Financial innovation” presumably means imposing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

    4. I wish I had a job with ‘special representative on financial innovation’ in the job title.

      Talk about a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card…

    1. If anyone needs an example of that, look at the Canadian government. Ministers chosen almost solely based on sex, ethnicity and regional affiliation.

      A black female mp from Alberta would be a shoe in for a top job

      What a disaster

      1. Sorry, Moorland roads is culturally insensitive to all of the Moors.

        You know how people of the religion of peace can be so sensitive.

          2. Marion Ryan (Paul and Barry Ryan’s mother) used to be the co-presenter (with Jackie Rae) of ITV’s SPOT THE TUNE in the late 1950s/early 60s. (Not a lot of people know that.)

  88. And, that’s me folks, for tonight. Since it’s 00:00 hrs, I better turn in, or turn into a pumpkin.
    Nighty night!

  90. Smart meter disabled electric vehicles

    This Government document has been withdrawn:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/smart-meter-enabled-electric-vehicle-ev-charging-trial-beyond-off-street

    It describes an imaginary world where green electricity for electric vehicles can be supplied cheaply to (and switched off from) the customer by using smart metering controlled domestic chargers: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/959f444dacd97b563d7d279e0386b1af7697ed42bae043f52ae6b674bde246c3.jpg

    Here’s how your electric vehicle is intended to be controlled over the internet: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/057090bc571303cde8222ca674977676f6719b2c9c0d338290dce325e56816ee.jpg

    I think this is just another big turn off for people who think electrical transport is the way forward just like the idea that switching to diesel cars would be the answer to lowering CO2 emissions.

    1. I think the idea is that you plug your car in at 7pm when you get home from work, and the meter only sends electricity to the charging point when demand from the grid is at its lowest in the middle of the night. Or, at its highest, when everyone is charging their cars…have they thought of that scenario?
      Party members will get their cars charged first, presumably.

Comments are closed.