Tuesday 13 December: NHS spending on agency staff reflects a failure of workforce planning

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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735 thoughts on “Tuesday 13 December: NHS spending on agency staff reflects a failure of workforce planning”

  2. Morning everyone. I don’t like the new colour scheme. Is it an attempt to trivialise the threads?

    4. I don’t mind the scheme. I dislike the lack of information density and that the mod to expand is struggling.

  5. Medical Assistance In Dying

    The article from the Spectator on MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying), posted on December 11th by Sam Ashworth-Hayes made me angry. My own dear Wife of 57 years’ marriage is hovering at End of Life and will almost certainly not last the week, or even tomorrow.

    I contacted a very close friend in British Columbia, who had recently attended the MAID of an elderly friend. She gave me permission to publish her reply on NTTL, below the Spectator article.

    First the Spectator item. I couldn’t make the link work, but skip to the end of Italics if you’ve seen it. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a long post for NTTL:

    Sam Ashworth-Hayes
    Canada’s assisted dying catastrophe is a warning to Britain
    11 December 2022, 11:08am

    In 1936, King George V lay on his deathbed. As his final hours drew near, the royal physician administered two injections of morphine and cocaine to hasten his passing, ensuring that his death would be announced in the morning papers, and not the ‘less appropriate evening journals’.

    The King’s death was quick, painless, and utterly illegal; British law continues to view assisting suicide in almost any form as a criminal act. With the news this week that the House of Commons is launching an inquiry into assisted dying, this may soon change. For now, what was fit for the King remains, in the eye of the law, unfit for the common man. And thank God for that. Because before any change is made, lawmakers should seriously consider the catastrophe unfolding in Canada.

    Canada is a country much like our own. It shares a common cultural inheritance, language, and system of law with its parent nation. It differs from the United Kingdom in at least one crucial respect; unlike our hidebound and reactionary parliament, it has moved with the times. It is on the right side of history. And, accordingly, Canada is euthanising the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly, and those who are costly to treat, while Britain remains stubbornly wedded to the principle that poverty should not be a death sentence.

    In this brave new world, death is seen as a solution to many previously intractable social issues. Facing eviction and homelessness? Why not apply for assisted suicide? Suffering from chemical sensitivity, and unable to afford the specialised housing necessary for you to live tolerably? Assisted suicide is there to help. Need a stairlift in your home that you can’t afford? We might be able to help, but have you considered saving us the trouble instead? Surgery delayed? We can end your pain permanently, now. Cancer waiting times too long? Well, the waiting time for euthanasia is only a few days.

    There is a reason people have warned against legalising euthanasia time and time again. The incentives for individuals and the state to behave in diabolical ways are simply too strong to be ignored. Once the essential moral safeguard that murder is wrong is abandoned, the creeping normalisation of death by doctor inevitably expands.

    This is again visible in Canada, where 10,000 people were killed by their doctors in 2021 alone. The scope of the law has shifted now from people facing imminent death to those simply experiencing ‘intolerable’ symptoms in the view of the patient or doctor. And – buoyed by these successful outcomes – legislators are now expanding coverage to the mentally ill, who will be offered the option of ending it all. Move fast, break things, and ask questions later.

    The extent of this normalisation is astonishing. One clothing brand ran an advertising campaign centred on a young woman who had chosen to die; that she chose this in response to the failure of the Canadian healthcare system to treat her was left off-screen. ‘If I’m not able to access health care, am I then able to access death care?’ she asked in June; the answer, apparently, was yes.

    This case speaks to a fundamental problem with assisted dying. There are people in Canada who will have begged, time and time again, to be put into suitable housing, or to have other accommodations made for them. But these things are expensive, and involve significant effort on the part of the state bureaucracy. Assisted dying only requires two signatures and the depression of a syringe. And while it might be a terrible
    outcome for those whose lives could have been saved, euthanasia is a tremendous fiscal boost to the state. The mentally ill are costly, the disabled are costly, the sick are costly. They take up hospital space, they take up doctors’ time, they impose a burden on state services, they require state workers to work.

    As Yuan Yi Zhu has noted in these pages, all this was never intended to happen. The door to Canada’s dystopia was opened in 2015 when the Supreme Court declared that fears of ‘a descent down a slippery slope into homicide’ were just that: fears founded on nothing more than speculation and scaremongering.

    In other words, the slippery slope continues to be the best practical description of how social change actually works: once there is momentum behind a cause, once the essential principled safeguards that a course of action is utterly wrong are abandoned, once we agree in theory that the arguments which compel the first step apply equally to the second. Once, in short, we begin, it is very hard to find a stable place to stop.

    British policymakers considering following Canada’s lead should consider where it ends.

    WRITTEN BY
    Sam Ashworth-Hayes (a former director of studies at the Henry Jackson Society).

    My friend (a former Head Teacher in British Columbia) responded:

    “Canada is euthanising the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly, and those who are costly to treat” Not True. “The incentives for individuals and the state to behave in diabolical ways are simply too strong to be ignored” I do not accept that Canada is behaving in diabolical ways and the implication that Canada is killing people to save money really makes my blood boil. I believe that claim is, as you put it, “a gross distortion”.

    She continues:
    I learned the total Deaths per year in Canada is about 297 thousand. 10 thousand of which are Medically Assisted. Of these 65% had terminal cancer and over 80% were already in palliative care which means they had medication for anxiety and pain but no further treatment, and like Sue [my dying Wife] they had no real life at all.

    There are several steps in seeking Medical Assistance In Dying.
    To be eligible person must:
    • have a serious illness, disease or disability (excluding a mental illness until March 17, 2023)
    • be in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed
    • experience unbearable physical or mental suffering from your illness, disease, disability or state of decline that cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable

    You do not need to have a fatal or terminal condition to be eligible for Medical Assistance In Dying.

    People must also make the decision for the themselves and there must be evidence that they are not being forced into making that decision by others. For that reason mental illness was initially excluded. One could however, approve that the decision could be made by a named other in one’s will and I suspect this is what will be confirmed in March ’23.

    My friend was 84. She was not terminal but had COPD and Crohn’s Disease; was on blood thinners and was exceedingly deaf. After two rectal haemorrhages, losing enough blood so that a transfusion was needed she was told she would have to be moved to another hospital for extensive exploratory surgery in order to find out what had caused the bleeding. She refused and elected palliative care. After a week of lying in bed she requested MAID.

    There is a ten day waiting period and the doctor questioned her again regarding her request and then a day was set.

    As a Christian I believe in an after life although I have no idea what that might look like. Although I miss my late husband like crazy, I am not asking to die but I am certainly not afraid of it. The Anglican Church in Canada accepts a persons right to make the choice given the process above.

    So yes I do think the article is a gross distortion. MAID is for the consolation of an individual and their caregivers, not for reasons of economy and getting rid of street people.

    1. But it sounds as though those worthy aims would be easily manipulated. Dr Shipman springs to mind.

      1. I hope you never have to sit for hours next to your bed-bound spouse who has dementia and for whom Palliative Care consists of NO food or drink for the last 7 days because (a) she can’t swallow and (b) it’s not policy to continue intravenous hydration.

        1. It’s tough; MOH refused food and medicine (similar situation, being bed-bound and demented). I still don’t think that the risk justifies legalising killing. Probably because I don’t trust the bastards not to extend euthanasia to more categories (see Belgium’s experience).

        2. I hope not – it’s a terrible situation indeed. That seems to be the way end of life care is managed these days. I’m so sorry – it’s a hard thing for you to cope with after so many years together.

    2. It’s all very well in theory, but abortion was only legalised to save the life of the mother on medical grounds and needed two doctors to sign. Now, abortion is a) commonplace, b) doesn’t need two medics and c) in some cases is used to select the sex of the child. Mission creep is the name of the game. MAID (how nice and innocent that sounds unlike killing) will be no different. Once the door is open a crack, it will be shouldered wide open.

  7. Politico Europe, a publication marinated in green politics, has named Russian President Vladimir Putin as one of its “power players of the year” — for, in the publication’s words, “advancing Europe’s green agenda.”
    “By invading Ukraine and manipulating energy supplies to undermine European support for Kyiv, Putin has achieved something generations of green campaigners could not — clean energy is now a fundamental matter of European security,” the news outlet explained approvingly.

    Heaven help us.
    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-night-the-lights-went-out-in-europe/

  8. US sends first power equipment to Ukraine; EU breaks Hungary stalemate to approve €18bn aid plan. 13 december 2022.

    The United States has shipped the first part of its power equipment aid to Ukraine, US officials said on Monday, as Washington works to support the country’s energy infrastructure against intensifying attacks from Russia.

    The first tranche was power equipment worth about $13m, one of the officials said. Another source familiar with the matter said two more planeloads of equipment would leave from the United States this week.

    We’re not getting any then?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/dec/13/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-sends-first-power-equipment-to-ukraine-eu-breaks-hungary-stalemate-to-approve-18bn-aid-plan

  9. US sends first power equipment to Ukraine; EU breaks Hungary stalemate to approve €18bn aid plan. 13 december 2022.

    The United States has shipped the first part of its power equipment aid to Ukraine, US officials said on Monday, as Washington works to support the country’s energy infrastructure against intensifying attacks from Russia.

    The first tranche was power equipment worth about $13m, one of the officials said. Another source familiar with the matter said two more planeloads of equipment would leave from the United States this week.

    We’re not getting any then?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/dec/13/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-sends-first-power-equipment-to-ukraine-eu-breaks-hungary-stalemate-to-approve-18bn-aid-plan

    1. I seem to remember headlines like that coming up to a general election. “Labour isn’t working”.

    2. Britain *IS* working. It’s too much of the heavily unionised ‘da bruvvas!’ who are making excuses for political reasons.

      Just make unions culpable for strikers wages, set at say £500 per worker. The RMT gets 50,000 out on strike ‘da bruvvas!’ and finds itself slapped with a bill for 25 million quid a day until the strike ends.

    3. 368939+ up ticks

      Should have happened 30 years ago when the rot was triggered, phase out
      lab / lib / con.

    4. No problem, the taxpayer will stump up the cost like everything else that is wasted by government.

      ‘Morning Rik.

    5. And that’s just the result of the hot air that emanates from the inmates – via any orifice.

    6. A National Grid spokesman was on the radio yesterday saying that starting up these power stations was nothing to fear…

    7. Learning from the current experience is obviously not allowed to interfere with the agenda of running the Country and its people into the ground. The people organising this debacle have to be disposed of, and quickly.

    8. Well, they’re promoting the scam of climate change. Best turn the heating off entirely. Why should they have something they’ll hppily deny us?

    1. Good morning, Paul. You know what they say: “Red script at night, cold blue script in the morning”. Lol.

      1. Pretty blue this morning. -12C on the way to work. A wee breeze as well, just to be sure you get the full, refreshing benefit!
        Morning, Elsie.

    1. Good morning, BoB. Snow fell here on Sunday evening, but roads were well gritted in advance so no problems driving so far. I might phone Korky and visit him later today if he plans to be in. Lol. PS – Korky, my purpose in visiting is to thank you for doing my “shopping” for me a couple of weeks ago, and NOT to enjoy your home heating at your expense. Lol.

      1. Elsie, I’m in until about 1:15, then I’m off to town to do a few errands. You will be welcome, coffee available but scones are ‘off’.

    1. I work with some dodgy ex military security fellows. On asking his opinion on how the government (because they’re all the same) treats the military it was a short, curt ‘tankers’. I’ve subbed a letter. I’ll let folk decide which one.

    1. That is one bloody good, keen collie.
      I bet he’s as daft as a brush when he’s not working!

        3. It was interesting watching Clarkson’s farm and his attitude toward his sheep. He described them as suicide machines, desperate to kill themselves.

        4. No, I like and respect sheep.
          They can live outdoors and eat humble stuff such as grass or seaweed.

    1. The only way to curb the global ‘élite’ and stop hi-tech feudalism is for everyone to stop voting. Get rid of all politicians (at all levels) and go back to listening to wise tribal elders in each locality. This system worked very well, all over the world, for millennia.

      And then I woke up!

      1. A much easier way is to impose direct democracy, referism and recall on them. If they cannot act or spend any money without our permission, if we can remove them and their laws on demand then it doesn’t matter who is in office. heck, you could put Blair back for all I care. He’d be unable to do anything and would find himself jailed very quickly.

    2. Christmas goes back far further to the harvest festivals where the town would get together to gather and eat the last of the winter crop. Same as Christianity subverted our mythology of the green man (made into the Devil) and Mary (the earth goddess) so were our rituals converted alongside them. Christianity did much the same to Norse mythology under Harald Blatland.

        1. I does fine thank you, young Grizzly. After a bit of NoTTLing this morning I drove to Korky’s for an hour’s cup of coffee and chat. En route I popped into the local Lidl (made a change from my more usual Aldi) to top up on some basics. He showed me some of his home-made pork pies and, to be frank, you and he would be neck-and-neck in any home-made cooking/baking contest. Then home to do a bit of reading until my eyes began to droop. So upstairs for a short zizz. (Spell-checker changed my “zizz” to “fizz” – does Disqus think I have a distillery upstairs?!?!? Lol.)

  20. SIR – Whenever the Conservatives have tried to make changes to the health service, the Labour Party has shouted that the Tories are going to privatise “our NHS”.

    Now, at long last, Labour “vows war on the health unions”. Does this mean we can actually have a sensible discussion about this and finally do something about the money pit that the NHS has become?

    Ann Wright
    Cambridge

    That was yesterday, Ms Wright. Today could be the opposite. That is the luxury of Opposition. It is also typical of the shower that is lead, apparently, by Sir Kneel Hindsight, so I wouldn’t hold your breath.

  21. SIR – Simon Heffer (Hinterland, December 3) is correct that there is “simply too much trash” on the BBC.

    He rightly singles out for praise David Attenborough’s “stunning wildlife series”, but even these are marred by excessively loud background music.

    One way to restore the BBC’s intellectual heft, while achieving its goal to “inform, educate and entertain”, might be to revive The Brains Trust. There was an attempt to do this some years ago, but as it was given the graveyard slot at 11.15 pm it failed to reach its viewing targets and was prematurely cancelled.

    Thanks to the BBC, older generations were able to watch and listen to Bertrand Russell, C E M Joad, the Huxleys, Jennie Lee, Jacob Bronowski, Isaiah Berlin, Marghanita Laski and others. Do younger generations not deserve something similar today?

    John Birkett
    St Andrews, Fife

    I suggest that, these days, those broadcasters would be seen too deep, and quite possibly intellectual snobs who inhabit a different planet, excellent though they were. Froth and shallowness are the order of the day now, Mr Birkett. The masses simply
    aren’t interested in the ‘heavy’ stuff anymore. Instant gratification with minimal thought is probably the aim of most broadcasters now..

    2. Just IMAGINE what a modern day Beeboid “Brains Trust” would be like. Olosuga, the bint who set up Lady Hussey, Angela Rayner and a token “far-right” extremist.

      Leave it out!

      1. … and of course that rapper that calls himself a “poet”, especially if he identifies as a lesbian.

    3. I received this response today from a commenter that I presume is somewhat behind the recent redesign on Disqus that may be prettier, but does limit the amount of usable desirable information on one screen:

      “kandy canes and elfs, i guess 9 hours ago

      Okay, so my 15 years of professional experience are all just wrong and built on lies. Got it.”

      I expect these BBC types that insist on loud music, credit squeezing, cuts every second, formulaic writing, acting and direction, and money diverted to good causes such as executive and celebrity pay, would take this approach to public criticism.

      We viewers and listeners are stupid. Get it!

    1. Without knowing all the detail, perhaps that’s a little harsh?
      She might have been abandoned by her husband and she certainly seems to be making an effort for her children.

        1. I read your post but did not click on the link, so did not appreciate there was a video.
          I’ve now found it and watched it, and I’m even more convinced that your post is harsh.
          That woman seems to be being a good mother and budgeting as best she can.

          1. Yes, she may be budgeting, but with my money. Why didn’t she stop at one child when she clearly couldn’t afford it? I’m sick and tired of such people. Here’s Mongo’s vet bills. Why won’t someone pay those for me? I chose to have him, he’s my responsibility. She’s dumped all her life on other people.

          3. No idea; perhaps she has religious reasons not to use contraception, in which case the legs observation might be appropriate.

            What struck me about the clip was that she didn’t seem to be complaining, she was explaining how she coped, she was grateful for what she had, for what she was getting, and was counting her blessings.

            A far cry from all too many cases in the UK nowadays.

      2. Maybe, but she left school at 17 and went straight on to welfare. She’s been there for ten years. Her solution wasn’t discipline and self control, it was dependence and breeding – as you get more money for each child.

        One assumes the father’s can’t pay, yet she seems to have a garden and a decent sized home – which I’m paying for. She had choices and chose the easy route, the selfish one. Note there is lots of talk of relying on charities, foodbanks, vouchers – never getting off her backside and working for a living.

          1. Most of the poor live off the toil of workers and most pensioners are chronically ill.
            So there is a statistical probability that Wibbling is correct.

          2. That may well be true, but you cannot be certain. And from what little one can gather, she seems to be acting to support her children as best she can with what is available.

            What would you do? Force them to work and leave the child care to someone else? That worked well all over the UK .

            Perhaps you would cull them as useless eaters as soon as their costs exceed their production.

          3. She said from 17 when she fell pregnant she has been reliant on….

            For the next ten years. She’s had 4 other children in that time. She makes repeated reference to welfare, charities and family – never ‘I’ve struggled to find work’ or ‘I want to work’.

            The home and garden I assume is hers from the video.

          4. It’s never ever the fault of the bastards who could use condoms is it?
            If the system worked as it should those fathers (assuming there is more than one), should be paying towards the upkeep.

            She appears to be a damned sight better mother than most.

    2. We still have the spreadsheet of costs when we had Junior. We’d tried to account for most things down to school trips, and over estimated everything. We were still miles out. Apparently a small boy really is constantly hungry. The docs reckon he’ll be 6’7 fully grown!

      1. So you chose a Newfie as his lapdog, good planning.
        A child’s eventual height without taking illness into account can be estimated as twice the height of when he/she is 24 or 18 months. About two years old for boys.

        1. At some point I’ll have to talk to Junior about Mongo’s lifespan. How do I say ‘he’s got 6 years left if we’re lucky? He’s known him all his life. Practically from birth, the great beast was there.

          1. That is the problem with having pets. They have shorter lives than we do. I had Charlie for seventeen years, just over. That’s a big part of my life that died in my arms.

    3. Shouldn’t need food banks with the amount she thieves off the taxpayer in child benefit alone

  23. SIR – According to the National Grid, at 2.30 pm on Sunday the electricity demand was 39.6 gigawatts and the generation was 33.3 gigawatts.

    The demand was balanced by transfers from the EU. Just over 60 per cent of generation was supplied by fossil fuels, 18.7 per cent by nuclear and biomass, and 5.2 per cent by renewables. Coal generated 3.3 per cent and wind 3.1. The cost of generation was 42p per kWh.

    I am not a Luddite. I installed 18 solar panels (mostly Chinese-manufactured) in August  that have produced between 1.2 and 38 kWh per day, and my electricity supplier will pay a “generous” 3.5p per kWh for any excess electricity supplied to the grid.

    I am aware that wind produced 20.9 gigawatts on one day in November; however, on Sunday it produced 1.21 gigawatts. Wind is an unreliable source of generation. Politicians of all parties need to stop gaslighting the public and acknowledge that our electricity supply and demand are at a critical juncture. Britain will need gas to balance the demand for at least a decade, otherwise the lights will go out.

    Colin Seymour
    Skegness, Lincolnshire

    It is encouraging to see that some DT readers are finally getting what the rest of us have been banging on about for quite some time.  All we have to do now is to persuade politicians that net zero and a vastly expensive  electricity generation system is driving out our prosperity and, in some cases, causing untold misery to the less well off.  I am not confident that this will happen in our lifetime.

    1. The only method of persuading politicians is at the ballot box and unfortunately not enough voters have seen the light.

      1. Which shows just how wrong the system is. Why do we have to wait four years between their screw ups? Why can they say ‘we’re not doing that to us? It’s not a request, you simpleton. It’s an instruction. I am telling you how you will vote and what you will say. Don’t like it? Then step down.

        1. I agree with what you say but those in power, ie elected as MPs will not willingly give up their power.
          I had an exchange of email’s with my MP regarding his support of May’s Chequers agreement, the outcome from him was I vote on your behalf as I see fit, my reply was I would never give him my vote in future. That is still the case.
          The utter electoral wipe out at the ballot box will be the only way to make them think twice.

    2. Not the EU, sir, Europe. Otherwise you’re entirely right. Not for no reason are ‘not at all green’ windfarms called unreliables for that very reason.

      We need energy. Lots of it.

    3. As someone who accepts current theories about anthropological global warming leading to disturbances in climate patterns sufficient to cause mass destabilising migrations of people, and a likely mass extinction of species in my lifetime, I do share the reservations here about Net Zero.

      I see it like the feckless borrower who promises to return the loan in full on pay day. When pay day comes, this person blows it all down the pub and there is nothing left to repay the loan. “Get over it and give me some more” is the response to protestations from the lender.

      In the case of energy policy, we assume that we have developed the technology required to give reliable sustainable energy to meet essential needs without threatening the climate by 2030. 2030 comes, and does this actually happen? So sorry. Get over it.

      In real life, there are no good solutions, and we really do need to evaluate properly, and without agenda presumptions, the consequences of using existing proven methods of energy production, and balance these with the consequences of what would happen if we gave some or all of these up or pushed up the market price beyond all but the super-rich celeb types, footballers and corporate decision-makers can afford.

      1. Good morning Jeremy and others.
        There are good solutions and there are final solutions.

        One type originates with engineers and capitalists , and the other comes from politicians.

      2. I don’t believe there is any interest in meeting the energy targets or net generation fuels. The intent is solely a trougher non-job. Say they’ve done it and damn the consequences for those they leave behind and move on to ruin somewhere else, collecting their 7 figure salary for doing so.

        1. Now, if they got a qualified brain surgeon such as Harry Hill to do a show “Knitting for Britain”, and we all learnt to wear woolly hats and turn down the thermostat five degrees, now that would be a good use of celebrity funds.

    4. 16 panels is the maximum for a domestic property so if he has 18 then he is a commercial property which attracts a lesser FiT

  25. I thought I had posted this yesterday, but no sign of it so here goes again:

    SIR – I’ve cancelled my subscription to Netflix in protest over the obscene reported payments it made to the Sussexes. So far, the episodes have been disrespectful to our Royal family, including our beloved late Queen.

    The Commonwealth is a great institution that brings the world closer together, commercially and culturally. I feel sorry for those living in the Sussex counties, as the Duke and Duchess appear by their titles to represent them. The time has now come for these titles to be removed.

    Christopher Lewis
    London W9

    Quite so, Mr Lewis.  This resident of Sussex passed the pi55ed off stage long ago with the antics of Ginge and Whinge, so I’m hoping that the next Netflix grenade will finally prompt old jug-ears to ditch his son pronto (or Hewitt’s son if you prefer, I care not).  Just disown him, there’s a good chap.  And don’t forget an early re-drafting of the will while you’re at it.

    1. Heard that Charlie is going to promote all faiths in his coronation. Which bit of ‘defender of the faith did he miss?

      2. ‘Morning, Wibb. He made this known some years ago, and we said then that it would only lead to trouble. With Billy Wales’ infatuation with elephants, ‘mentaw elf’ and so on (but not that of his father apparently) the future of the monarchy has never looked more uncertain in my lifetime.

  26. 368939+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Tuesday 13 December: NHS spending on agency staff reflects a failure of workforce planning

    Old news rehashed the politico’s know, and the
    multi managers know that, and the peoples know that, but there is comfort in accepting the devil you know, even accepting the fact it is killing .
    you and your kin.

    The dumbest act ongoing currently is continuing to finance /support and vote for this political crime syndicate.

    The terrifying thing is these political overseers on reflection will be seen as nearly acceptable compared to what is surely coming via the English Channel, through the entry door held open by the
    ruling overseers and serviced by the rnli.

    Bare in mind,
    Shortly, any approach to some town councils will have to be made by indigenous peoples well versed in arabic / chinese.

    1. The Chinese are very welcome. We took on a Chinese contractor – oddly calling himself Geoff – and he while we don’t hang around that bloke was a monkey. Climbing every ladder, pinning loops at a terrific rate. He did good work, not just fast; too.

    2. I don’t like the barmy spacing. Before you’d have five or six comments on a screen, now you get 3 or at most 4.

  28. SIR – Is it too much to hope that the cold weather and high fuel costs will send people back to work, to luxuriate in the warmth that the boss is paying for?

    Janet Harris
    Adelaide, Australia

    Ms Harris, only bosses in the public sector have the luxury of running plenty of heating in the premises they occupy because we are the mugs paying for it.  For the private sector, the wealth-earners if you like, the bosses will be watching their energy meters with a mixture of fear and alarm, and wondering if they can survive for much longer.  If not then their staff will be out job-hunting, and that is likely to be a very bleak and depressing experience now.

    1. Our ‘office’ is a couple of rooms rented from a big stately manor type place. It’s very old world. Usually the place is too hot for me, but there’s some folk like going in to get away from husbands/wives.

      Our biggest concern is, as you say the energy bill. We have a couple of very big machines doing all our work, housing most of our services (support system telephones, even the desktops are virtualised in there). That’s gone from being a few quid every month to a few hundred.

      Government is utterly moronic. I cannot fathom a more stupid and gormless decision as to deliberately make energy unaffordable, solely to force down usage to meet an irrelevant, agenda driven goal. What irks me most is having the majority of the money stolen go to waste on lefty green nonsense which has no interest in having to make the cuts we are going to have to.

      Again we look at simply moving away to more rational climes but Maggie, who’s nearly 70 and ‘the office manager’ can’t do that. Another can’t move because there’s no way he’d be able to afford the insurance premiums for his wife’s osteoarthritis – yet has found the NHS to be slower and slower and slower to respond to treatment and operations.

      I hate them. I hate them all. Such an opportunity and all wasted. 12 years of mendacity, malice and self interest, waste and incompetence. Burn the thing down with the vermin inside it.

      1. Gassing vermin in a building would leave the physical structure undamaged.

        (I phrase that very carefully, because as a matter of principle I don’t wish injury illness or death to anyone. )

        1. Certainly not the insects, rats, mice, birds and so forth in the building .

          The politicians can go. Don’t care about them.

    2. The local small supermarket close to Firstborn’s farm is closing down on 31 December. They can’t afford the cost of electricity. Very sad, a number of folk lose their job in an area where there are precious few jobs.

  29. Is anyone els(i)e having problems giving Upticks?

    Some will be accepted, others ignored and that is for the same poster.

    1. Make sure the cursor is surrounded by the oval outline. Then click. It works better if the cursor is above that frightfully common thumbs up sign.

  30. Morning all.
    I see Nottl rebounded itself in my absence yesterday. Looking good, Geoff. I never did like the red.

  31. Germany now reporting a massive surge in unexpected and sudden deaths. Are the German authorities as baffled as all those others reporting similar events?
    Google tells me that ‘Todesfälle’ translates to ‘mortality’, ‘plötzlich’ to ‘suddenly’ and ‘unerwartet’ to unexpectedly.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2beb5abb5b0e1e6d19cc9f475039b9f13eb3af09fe4973ef0149af9307577ebb.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b88427b569656c9ec037c5f78c952472cf6c905624af4acd58dcc2fe73116f66.png

    1. Amazing how many of these unexplained deaths we’re having. even more comical is the feverish denials that it has anything to do with an experimental untested vaccine that didn’t work.

      1. From ‘Sur in English’ (english version of a Spanish regional newspaper

        “Shock as young footballer dies during game in Malaga

        The 13-year-old collapsed on the pitch five minutes before the end of the match and efforts by Local Police officers and paramedics to revive him were unsuccessful.
        ANTONIO GÓNGORA MALAGA.
        Monday, 12 December 2022, 11:34

        The death of a young footballer during a match on Sunday, 11 December, has sent shockwaves through the Puerto Malagueño club and the sporting sector in general in Malaga.
        Five minutes before the game against Los Prados was due to finish, 13-year-old Marvellous Onanefe Johnson collapsed and efforts by Local Police officers and then paramedics to revive him were unsuccessful.”

        A tragedy, made even worse by being so close to Christmas.

        However, a few years ago one might have suspected an undiagnosed cardiovascular condition, but since Covid was introduced, who knows.

        1. You’d think if they actually gave a stuff the state would abandon the disguise and find out if the vaccine is responsible or not.

          1. If the full truth came out the state would collapse and anarchy would reign so the PTB delude and justify themselves by saying that they are withholding the truth for the good of us all.

          2. Spanish government has just renewed its mask mandate on public transport. The politicians listen to experts, but make sure that they have their own cars.

          3. From what I understand, a post mortem would be find out if there was inflammation caused by the spike protein.
            Big question, had this young boy been jabbed?

  33. Russian money sets Dubai’s property market alight. 13 December 2022.

    Unlike in the rest of the world, prices will buck the downturn and soar 13.5pc in 2022.

    The buyer of the villa on the Palm Islands was Russian, said Yasin Valimulla, a private client adviser in Dubai, who sold the property. This new owner was one of many who have moved their money to Dubai since Russia invaded Ukraine and came under heavy global sanctions. The UAE is one of the few places where Russians are free to move their money.

    “When the war in Ukraine started in February, we had a huge influx from Russia. From February, the whole market has just gone up and up and up,” Mr Valimulla said. “Of all of my deals this year, half were with Russians. Normally, it would be 20pc.” Russian-speaking real estate offices have proliferated.

    As we shiver in our hovels and watch our savings decline under the Aegis of the Sanctions the rest of the world booms!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/abroad/russian-money-sets-dubais-property-market-alight/

    1. It’s important to remember the reason why these other countries are continuing to grow – it’s all down to energy. While our lot insist on destroying our energy generating capacity, Russia, China, Brazil continue to expand theirs.

          3. Rodney ‘plonker’ from Only Fools and Horses? Mange tout, mange tout? I’ll get me coat!

          4. Didn’t watch it. Never found it funny. I was more of a Porridge or Fawlty Towers type of chap.

    4. Morning flower, Snowed during the night, I don’t know how cold it is but there’s a couple of round brass objects in the garden. Heating on, cat under the duvet 😘

      1. Very wise cat! Unfortunately the boiler has failed again to get through the cold! Bluddy trace heating box Is full of ice and it’s a now a good job I lit the stove! At least one room is warm! One cat wrapped in his fleeces and the other half way up the stairs glaring balefully at us! 😾💕

    5. I am tempted to find out about getting a wood burner. We have an open fire place (never used it in 26 years) so presumably that could be used. One of our sons reckons having a wood burner increases insurance premiums (because of raised risk of fire). Not sure if there’s any truth in that.

      1. I wouldn’t think that was true because they are enclosed so no risk of sparks etc onto the carpet

        1. Maybe it’s chimney fires? Only a guess. We seem to get Neighbour’s woodsmoke entering the house via cooker hood vent – time to get our own back when the wind blows their way :)) Mind you, I don’t think they would notice, not the cleanest looking house inside.

          2. That’s what I was hoping to be the case.
            Before decorating the sitting room when we first came here, we had the chimney swept. The previous owners used the fire regularly. The sweep said the amount of soot and other muck suggested it hadn’t been swept for years, possibly since they altered the position of the fireplace some 5-6 years before.

      2. I wish we’d done it years ago! 37 years of the Baxi and it’s vagaries! Now almost instant heat! Certainly not a problem with insurance – it’s definitely safer than bits dropping off the hearth! We discovered beautiful sandstone behind the chimney breast and the stove chamber is an added bonus!

    1. Barry, they’re too busy shovelling their our cash out to the Caymans.

      However, more seriously – the only thing surprising about this is that folk are surprised. What the bloody heck did they think a bunch of lazy, failed, communist Lefties wanted the EU for in the first place? To create a better world? Don’t make me laugh.

      Mandelscum sat on the board of some bank (I forget which) and miraculously that bank got the contract to bring Greece into the EU. Now, by any rational measure, the Greeks would never qualify, but as he was also the commissar responsible for the say so quelle sur flippin prise, they got in. He got £8m quid, Blair gave him a peerage and we got saddled with Greek debts for 30 years.

      The entire edifice is corrupt to the core. It runs on graft. Hell, they couldn’t even buy vaccines without wanting to skim off the top. That’s why they were delayed!

    3. Bent as nine-bob notes, every last one of them. Tony Benn was bang on the money when he asked the EU his famous five questions, none of which they gave him an answer to:

      1. What power do you have?
      2. Where did you get your power?
      3. In whose interests do you exercise your power?
      4. To whom are you accountable?
      5. How can we get rid of you?

      1. ‘Morning, Griz. I always had a sneaking regard for Benn snr, whose intellect must be the envy of the present lot.

        1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd7NzQgHLn8 ‘Morning, Hugh.
          I think politicians of all parties, in the past, had more intellect in their toe-nail clippings than the present lot can muster between them. Another formidable Labour cabinet minister of the 1970s, Peter Shore, gave what was, in my opinion, the biggest, most eloquent, and best put-down of the EEC I have ever heard.

    4. Whatever crimes the EU commits they will shrug them off and the MSM and most of our politicians will not want to react to it and the corruption will go on just as before.

      Remember the MPs expenses scandal – are MPs any less corrupt now than they were then?

  38. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, Let’s make up some lost ground. Friday’s story here

    Fixing The Dog

    My neighbour found out that her dog (a Schnauzer) could hardly hear, so she took it to the vet.

    The vet found that the problem was hair in the dog’s ears. He cleaned both ears, and the dog could then hear fine. The vet then proceeded to tell the lady that, if she wanted to keep this from recurring, she should go to the chemist and get some “Nair” hair remover and rub it in the dog’s ears once a month.

    The lady went to the chemist and bought some “Nair” hair remover. At the till, the pharmacist told her, “If you’re going to use this under your arms, don’t use deodorant for a few days.”

    The lady said, “I’m not using it under my arms.” The pharmacist said, “If you’re using it on your legs, don’t shave for a couple of days.”

    The lady replied, “I’m not using it on my legs either. If you must know, I’m using it on my Schnauzer.”

    The pharmacist said, “Well apply the minimum amount and don’t ride a bicycle for about a week.”
     

    Good morrow, Gentlefolk, Saturday’s lectures here

    WICOE
    (Women In Charge Of Everything)

    is proud to announce the opening of its EVENING CLASSES FOR MEN! OPEN TO MEN ONLY. ALL ARE WELCOME

    Note: due to the complexity and level of difficulty, each course will accept a maximum of eight participants. The course covers two days, and topics covered in this course include:

    DAY ONE

    HOW TO FILL ICE CUBE TRAYS
    Step by step guide with slide presentation

    TOILET ROLLS – DO THEY GROW ON THE HOLDERS?
    Roundtable discussion

    DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A LAUNDRY BASKET & THE FLOOR
    Practising with hamper (Pictures and graphics)

    DISHES & CUTLERY: DO THEY LEVITATE/FLY TO KITCHEN SINK OR DISHWASHER BY THEMSELVES?
    Debate among a panel of experts.

    REMOTE CONTROL
    Losing the remote control – Help line and support groups

    LEARNING HOW TO FIND THINGS
    Starting with looking in the right place instead of turning the house upside down while screaming – Open forum

    DAY TWO

    EMPTY MILK CARTONS: DO THEY BELONG IN THE FRIDGE OR THE BIN?
    Group discussion and role play

    HEALTH WATCH: BRINGING HER FLOWERS IS NOT HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH
    PowerPoint presentation

    REAL MEN ASK FOR DIRECTIONS WHEN LOST
    Real life testimonial from the one man who did

    IS IT GENETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO SIT QUIETLY AS SHE PARALLEL PARKS?
    Driving simulation

    LIVING WITH ADULTS: BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR PARTNER
    Online class and rôle playing

    HOW TO BE THE IDEAL SHOPPING COMPANION
    Relaxation exercises, meditation and breathing techniques

    REMEMBERING IMPORTANT DATES & CALLING WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO BE LATE
    Bring your diary, tablet or smart-phone to class

    GETTING OVER IT:
    LEARNING HOW TO LIVE WITH BEING WRONG ALL THE TIME
    Individual counsellors available

    Send this on to all your girlfriends who may need a laugh and to guys who you think can handle the truth!
     
    Good morrow, Gentlefolk, Sunday’s thoughts here

    Why Men Are Seldom Depressed:

    Men Are Just Happier People – What would you expect from such simple creatures?
    Your last name stays put.
    The garage is all yours.
    Wedding plans take care of themselves.
    Chocolate is just another snack.
    You can never be pregnant.
    You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
    You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
    Car mechanics tell you the truth.
    The world is your urinal.
    You never have to drive to another petrol station toilet because this one is just too icky.
    You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
    Same work, more pay.
    Wrinkles add character.
    Wedding dress – £5,000. Dinner Jacket rental – £100.
    People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them.
    New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
    One mood all the time.
    Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
    You know stuff about tanks.
    A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
    You can open all your own jars.
    You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
    If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
    Your underwear is £4.95 for a three-pack.
    Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
    You almost never have strap problems in public.
    You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
    Everything on your face stays its original colour.
    The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
    You only have to shave your face and neck.
    You can play with toys all your life.
    One wallet and one pair of shoes — one colour for all seasons.
    You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
    You can ‘do’ your nails with a pocket knife.
    You have freedom of choice concerning growing a moustache.
    You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.
    No wonder men are happier. Men Are Just Happier People

    NICKNAMES
    If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
    If Mike, Dave and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Bubba and Wildman.

    EATING OUT
    When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in £20, even though it’s only for £42.50. None of them will have anything smaller and none will actually admit they want change back.
    When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

    MONEY
    A man will pay £20 for a £10 item he needs.
    A woman will pay £10 for a £20 item that she doesn’t need but it’s on sale.

    BATHROOMS
    A man has six items in his bathroom: toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel.
    The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify more than 20 of these items.

    ARGUMENTS
    A woman has the last word in any argument.
    Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

    FUTURE
    A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
    A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

    MARRIAGE
    A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
    A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, but she does.

    DRESSING UP
    A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail.
    A man might dress up for weddings and funerals.

    NATURAL
    Men wake up looking the same as when they went to bed.
    Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

    OFFSPRING
    Ah, children A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favourite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
    A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

    THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
    A married man should forget his mistakes. There’s no use in two people remembering the same thing!

    1. Brilliant!
      On a different note, I trust your move went well. (You probably reported on the move elsewhere, but I haven’t spotted it.)

    2. A triple dose of funnies today, Tom. Thanks so very much, even if I missed them until just now (4.10 pm).

      1. Good to know that I kept you on tenterhooks for the funnies.

        As I’ve said, earlier, back to normal, the morn’s morn, provided this temp mini-hub doesn’t die on me. It’s BT, doncha know.

  39. I couldn’t help reading this BTL post and agreeing wholeheartedly with it.  It concerns the young, legless boy who was stranded for several hours at an airport – and when they finally found his wheelchair it had been damaged:

    Steve Jones5 HRS AGO

    Has there been a more nauseatingly meaningless, self serving piece of tripe pumped out by a business in recent years…………………………..

    “A spokesman for Jet2 said the company would like to “sincerely apologise to Mr Hudgell and his family for the delay on receiving his wheelchair” and for any inconvenience caused as a result.

    The spokesman added: “As an award-winning airline that prides itself on industry-leading customer service, we take matters such as this extremely seriously and are working with our ground handling agent to investigate how this happened.

    “We can confirm that the delay was due to Gatwick Airport being temporarily closed due to snow, which meant that the baggage handler experienced severe delays offloading luggage. Unfortunately, this included Mr Hudgell’s wheelchair.

    “We recognise that this should not be the experience that our customers receive when travelling with us and can confirm that we have been in touch with Ms Hudgell to offer both our sincere apologies and to do everything we can to rectify this situation.”

    I don’t know anything about Jet 2 but would have nothing to do with them – not because of the error, which is bad enough – but because they employ people who pump out swill like this clearly thinking their words have a moral purpose.

    These types are the lowest of the low.

    * * *

    Our only experience of Jet2 did not go well…

    In 2015 we flew to Tromso.  The return journey was delayed 25 hours because ‘our’ aircraft had gone u/s.  During that time, which included an overnight return to our hotel, we were repeatedly lied to, with the weather being blamed – despite the fact that other 737s were arriving and leaving quite normally.  Tromso has modern and plentiful snow-clearing equipment so such excuses were clearly rubbish.  Our relief aircraft, flown out from Scotland, was 3 hours late, and when we boarded we discovered that the heating had failed, so flew back to Gatwick wrapped up in most of our Arctic gear.  No hot drinks available, either. When one of the cabin crew started the sales patter she was drowned out by the boos of 90-odd passengers, and sensibly gave up mid-address.   Months of frustrating correspondence afterwards got us nowhere, and the CAA were equally useless.  Eventually I issued a county court summons, whereupon the claim was settled, including our costs.

    That was our first flight since 2002, and the experience of Jet2 ensured that it was our last.

      1. I think this video should be used as a public service film to show these twerps that what they are doing may have personal consequences for life.

    2. Hey, Dean. I glued my mitt to an old caboose, way back, Hombre. Railroad yardies had me unhitched before you could shake a bottle of moonshine at them, Dude.

      1. Hey Beatnik, friction welding your ass to the rails is no way to stop the iron horse for a ride , Dude!

          1. You need to read On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, in order to get hip to this way-out lingo, Man.👍🏻

          2. Hey Beatnik, how many Dudes rap with this 50s lingo, Man? There ain’t many now in the Big Sur congregation, Hombre.

          3. Hey, Dean. Them Monterey Dudes need to get out, get down, and get with it, Brother.

            Me? I tried to bum a lift down that new Ventura highway, Man, but the charabanc was too outmoded to take on this old ‘bo.

    1. Odd how folk think people they disagree with are a threat to democracy. It’s almost as if they want the slogan to stick to give weight to their own prejudices.

  42. …and then here’s today’s effort:

    Wolverhampton Hurricane Appeal

    A major hurricane (Hurricane Shazza) and an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter Scale hit Wolverhampton in the early hours of Tuesday with its epicentre in Whitmore Reans. Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering “fukinelll”.

    The hurricane decimated the area causing almost £30 worth of damage. Several priceless collections of mementos from Majorca and the Costa del Sol were damaged beyond repair. Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were woken well before their Benefit Orders arrived.

    Wolverhampton FM reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Wolverhampton.

    One resident – Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said, “It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Victoria-Storm slept through it all. I was still shaking when I was skinning up and watching Jeremy Kyle the next morning.”

    Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried on as normal.

    The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Special Brew to the area to help the stricken locals. Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, including benefit books, jewellery from H Samuel and Bone China from the Pound shop.

    HOW CAN YOU HELP?

    This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is most sought after – items most needed include:

    Fila or Burberry baseball caps
    Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers)
    Shell suits (female)
    White stilettos
    White sports socks
    Rockport boots
    Any other items usually sold in Primark.
    Food parcels may be harder to come by but are needed all the same. Required foodstuffs include:
    Microwave meals
    Tins of baked beans
    KFC
    Ice cream
    Cans of Special Brew.

    22p buys a biro for filling in the compensation forms
    £2 buys chips, crisps and blue fizzy drinks for a family of nine
    £10 buys fags and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

    BREAKING NEWS

    Rescue workers found a girl in the rubble smothered in raspberry alco-pop and were worried she had been badly cut…
    “Where are you bleeding from?” they asked,
    “Bilston” said the girl, wot’s that gotta do wi yow?”

    1. Very good! Though last i looked the ethnicity in Whitmore Reans was lot more “diverse” than this lets on.

    2. When I was at prep school we all felt sorry for a boy whose surname was Jane because we all called each other by our surnames and his was a girl’s name. In those days nobody called their daughters Tracey or even Tracy so I was all right and was not teased.

      But by the time I married Tracey/Tracy had become a popular name in some circles and we decided that if we had a daughter we would certainly not call her by this name. However Caroline finds that to her great annoyance that some people once they hear her married name think it is her Christian name and she always corrects them as frostily as she can.

  43. Good morning Nottlers, it’s a clear, becalmed 25°F on the Costa Clyde.

    Whilst perusing elsewhere this morning (DiogenesMiddleFinger), I came across a link from 2010 regarding the behaviour of our supine #ScumMedia and how they covered for our would be rulers.

    As a bonus, it includes my ‘Word of the Day’;

    Totschweigetaktik

    A word which encapsulates the behaviour, over the past few decades, of the bBC (but is not restricted to that media monopoly).

    https://gatesofvienna.net/2010/08/totschweigetaktik-death-by-silence/

  44. Good morning all.

    I read this DT letter out to MOH this morning , we were both interested in the origins of 2– 6– heave .

    Heaving Navy guns
    SIR – The origin of the encouragement “two, six, heave” (Letters, December 12) lies in the drill for manhandling a muzzle-loading gun on the deck of a British warship.

    Every man had a specific role – to load, swab out and so on – and was numbered for ease of reference. Crew members two and six would be required to ensure the gun was hauled “close up” to the gun port once the order “two, six, heave” was given by the gun captain.

    The phrase remains part of the folk memory of the Royal Navy, despite advances in gunnery technology.

    Cdr Ian Whitehouse RN (retd)
    St Tudy, Cornwall

    Moh said it had cannon origins , and quite strangely when I was a student nurse in the Navy, that expression was also used by the SBA’s when they used to help us to lift heavy patients on the ward .. so that we could lift carefully and in unison … 2—6– heave .

    2. “At the order to fire, number 7 will double smartly to the front of the gun and report ‘cordite burning brightly, shell slowly on the move’ – this will be his final report”

    3. In the Sappers the command was “Hands on, Lift UP!” followed, if necessary by, “And again so, Lift UP!”

    4. I am only familar with “two-six” meaning, “get a move on” – but then, I was never in the RN.

    1. That’s remarkable, Tom. I can’t smell it…

      I thought it had been designed for the visually impaired…!!

      1. I went to the stag night of Joe, my niece’s husband to be.

        Joe had just left Cambridge where he had rowed in the Goldie boat and studied medicine before continuing his studies at the Radcliffe; my niece had just finished her studies at Oxford where she had won blues at both rowing and gymnastics.

        When Joe addressed us at the party someone called out:

        “What will be like being married to a woman who is even fitter than you are?”

        To which the budding doctor replied: “She’s even got muscles in places where I haven’t even got places!”

    3. The shape of the frame around one’s avatar still clips the tip off my dome-like cranium.

          1. Funnily enough my dear old godfather gave us a marvellously warm duvet well filled with duck down – we still have it on our bed.

          3. I have mine on now: I wouldn’t be without it in this weather.

            I also have a very light duvet (king size) for summer use. I bought it 20 years ago for £19 in the sale at Betty’s of Holt and it is still going strong.

  46. New layout too big for you? Hold down Ctr and use the thumb-wheel on the mouse to shrink it.

          3. Old-fashioned ‘size’ was made from rabbit skin glue. Modern variations are a chalky preparation called ‘Gesso’.

    2. Desperately seeking Ctr and thumb-wheel on my iPad, but I will try it on my PC. Thanks.

  47. A BTL under yet another DT article about Harry and how he has been changed from a cheerful and jolly young man into the miserable, moaning, self-obsessed puppet of a nasty and manipulative woman with a far stronger personality than he has.

    A man married is a man marred – especially when the i goes into the word.

    1. WH Smith offering pre-orders of ‘Spare’ at half price – £14. Hopefully most copies will be pulped.

      1. We are all beginning to tire of the spare.

        Indeed, many new cars do not come with a spare tyre – the spare is considered redundant.

  48. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6418c40edd35a9d0976a10888a174c3934af260c0d74707cd3344801051e6d69.png Perhaps I ought to offer myself up to the courts for justice, even though it is now 45 years later.

    I too was bitten (on the arse, as it happens) by a drunken prisoner, who refused to stop ‘kicking off’ in the patrol car, so I sat on him. After he’d sunk his teeth into my buttock I persuaded him not to repeat the action, by giving him a swift uppercut. He didn’t complain though.

    Some months later, the same chap (sober this time) was arrested for another offence by a different officer. He said to that officer, “I don’t mind coming with you because you are much nicer than that other bastard who arrested me!” When that officer enquired about the case his prisoner told him that I had punched him. This reminded the officer of the case and he replied, “Well, I have to tell you this: if you had bitten me on the arse I ‘d have bloody punched you as well!” At this the prisoner just burst out laughing.

    Different times.

    1. Why would anybody volunteer to be a police officer in the present social climate? Whatever they do is wrong.
      It would be interesting to know what, if any, punishment was given to AA.

    3. Ooh! Mr. Grizz! What a naughty chap you were!
      OT I’ve just identified a bird in the garden as a fieldfare! Never seen one before yesterday and it’s come all the way from Scandinavia! Beautiful looking and seems to love the apples on the grass!

      1. Bad lad, me, Mrs Macfarlane! 🤣 I don’t mind lending you a fieldfare or two (or a redwing, or a waxwing), they are always welcome in my garden.

        1. It’s quite funny but my aunt and uncle lived in Fieldfare Lane on Teesside for years, and I’ve never seen one before!

          3. “Fieldfares are sociable birds and can be seen in flocks of more than 200 birds”
            I had quite a few here a while back!

    4. Met police officer says she was ‘unaware’ her husband was a drug lord

      She claimed to be oblivious to her husband’s operation after drugs, scales and £15,000 were found at their home
      A former Metropolitan police officer was fired from her job on the force after claiming she didn’t know her husband was a major drug dealer.

      Despite earning a police constable’s salary, officer Rasvinder Agalliu enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle involving a £5,000-a-month rental property, a £70,000 Audi and a lot of designer clothes.

      https://www.joe.co.uk/news/metropolitan-police-officer-says-she-was-unaware-her-husband-was-a-drug-lord-370523

  49. A message from Dr Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA methodology:
    Congratulations. As we approach 2023, you are now completing and have survived the third year of the largest, most globally coordinated psychological warfare operation in the history of mankind. During this period, on a daily basis, you have experienced the US Government and many western nations deploying highly refined, military-grade fifth generation warfare technologies against their own citizens. For those who have avoided the jabs which are neither safe nor effective, you deserve a medal for your ability to see through the fog of information warfare. Those, like me, who trusted the FDA and took the initial jabs only to suffer the adverse effects of same, perhaps a purple heart for being wounded in battle. For the millions of battlefield dead, the excess mortality documented by Ed Dowd and so many others, a moment of silent mourning is in order.

  51. Brighton University urges staff to not say ‘Christmas’ because it’s too ‘Christian-centric’ – and instead call it the ‘winter closure period’
    Staff at the university were sent a nine-page document on phrases to avoid
    Other ‘offensive’ phrases in the document includes ‘millennial snowflakes’
    Spokesperson for the university said: ‘The guidance is exactly that – guidance’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11532363/Brighton-University-urges-staff-not-say-Christmas-Christian-centric.html?ito=push-notification&ci=-yCWe04i3f&cri=wrr68M18Lw&si=xYJ0MlrMyMmf&ai=11532363

    1. The amount of energy and effort that went into this pointless document should have students complaining that their fees are being wasted.

      1. I think the words ‘Brighton’ and ‘University’ in the same sentence rather sum it up!

    4. This institution had to pay for some diversity, equality etc. wallah to come up with the document and then issue it to staff. May I presume that this institution also has its full complement of green nutters on the payroll? It is in Brighton.

  52. That’s the last 9 blocks hoiked up the hill and stacked ready for use.
    Also shifted the last bit of soil I’d left in an oversized plant pot and got that tipped.

    Jobs to do now?
    Sawing up and chopping firewood for next winter
    Digging out for the footings for the next bit of wall
    Doing general tidying up

  53. Watch: Jacinda Ardern caught calling rival an ‘arrogant pr–k’
    The prime minister’s comment was picked up by her microphone and broadcast live on parliament television
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/12/13/jacinda-ardern-apologises-caught-calling-rival-arrogant-prick/

    It is beyond my comprehension as to why the Kiwis voted for this monstrous pudendum.

    BTL

    If it is acceptable for a woman politician to abuse a man by calling him a monosyllabic slang term for male genitalia would it be acceptable for a male politician to call a woman by the monosyllabic word for female genitalia which rhymes with the UK’s chancellor?

    3. “It is beyond my comprehension as to why the Kiwis voted for this monstrous pudendum.”

      Mons veneris, please, mons veneris!

        1. I’ve just watched her (inaudible) faux pas on The Guardian’s YouTube channel.

          The detritus who actually read that rag are queueing up, below the line, to praise the vile gruesome witch.

  54. Radio report this morning had that some organisation has researched and come up with that Jihadists and extreme-right wing terrorism shares a large number of similarities.
    Got me thinking.
    Why is there never any extreme left-wing terrorism, or do they practice it on a different scale (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot & more)? or is this just yet another failure to mention the elephant in the room and pretend that the Left are all cuddly-wuddly and don’t go in for that kind of thing?

    1. Of more concern is how such a disturbed young man could get a responsible job in the first place.

      1. Ticks boxes.

        He’s not very bright either if he was unaware there are security cameras everywhere at airports.

    3. I don’t understand.
      The article implies that there were at least two alleged thieves; what is the name of the other alleged pervert?

  56. Boo hoo…
    4 lonely Christmas cards sit on one of the window sills .

    We normally receive quite a few in the early weeks of December ..

    The Post Office said we could use the stamps from last year.. so I have sent a few .. and the cards for overseas went mid November .

    Snail mail and the cost of stamps is quite upsetting .

    1. So far, we have one card. Sent electronically, printed out and origamised to stand in lonely splendour on the mantel.

    2. We have received three cards. I’ve not written mine yet, winter sore throat virus thingy has put paid to that.

    3. I don’t think we’ve had any by post yet, just a few by hand. I posted some out last week, but didn’t finish writing them and I may not bother with any more.

    4. The physical cards went on Dec 1st, electronic cards a couple of days later. Have received 8 up to now

    5. Take a leaf from my book and make your own to fit on an A4 sheet of paper.

      Make it in PowerPoint for ease of alignment and flexibility.

      Attach it to multiple e-mail addresses and send it with this little ditty:

      Your DIY Christmas/Birthday Card

      Download attachment, clickety-click,
      Where did you save it? No idea.
      Ah, there it is, you’d best be quick
      ‘Cos the printer maybe playing queer.
      Now, the hardest part for you
      Is print, and fold in four along the crease
      On thickest paper, white or blue.
      And pop it on your mantelpiece!

      PowerPoint Template Available but I’ll need your e-mail to send it – HertsLass will give you mine.

      1. I doubt you received mine, Maggie, as I don’t have your e-mail.

        I know Oberstleutnant (Paul) got mine – see his comment earlier

    6. I send you a virtual card, Maggie. I only have 14 (mainly delivered by hand). Normally I’d be looking at around 60. The high cost of postage and the strikes (plus many of the people who would have sent one are no longer with us, of course) are mainly to blame.

  57. The curious case of the bag-snatching nuclear expert. Spiked 13 December 2022.

    The issue here is not so much that a man has allegedly stolen two women’s suitcases. It is more that a person of such clearly questionable character was ushered into a senior government role in the first place. It’s hard to escape the suspicion that Brinton’s professed ‘genderfluid’ and nonbinary identity, as well as his reputation as an ‘LGBTQ+ rights’ campaigner, prevented legitimate questions from being asked about his suitability for a government role. Because suspicion has long followed Brinton’s career – somewhat like a vigilant airport official.

    Is this any worse than the Tory MP Jamie Wallis who has multiple traffic violations and fled the scene of a car crash in high heels and female underwear? Neither of these “men” should be holding any public office or position since although their sexual inclinations are their own business they are also indications of profound instability!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/12/13/the-curious-case-of-the-bag-snatching-nuclear-expert/

  58. The curious case of the bag-snatching nuclear expert. Spiked 13 December 2022.

    The issue here is not so much that a man has allegedly stolen two women’s suitcases. It is more that a person of such clearly questionable character was ushered into a senior government role in the first place. It’s hard to escape the suspicion that Brinton’s professed ‘genderfluid’ and nonbinary identity, as well as his reputation as an ‘LGBTQ+ rights’ campaigner, prevented legitimate questions from being asked about his suitability for a government role. Because suspicion has long followed Brinton’s career – somewhat like a vigilant airport official.

    Is this any worse than the Tory MP Jamie Wallis who has multiple traffic violations and fled the scene of a car crash in high heels and female underwear? Neither of these “men” should be holding any public office or position since although their sexual inclinations are their own business they are also indications of profound instability!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/12/13/the-curious-case-of-the-bag-snatching-nuclear-expert/

  59. Another thing .. and isn’t this strange .

    I have been topping my bird feeders up a couple of times a day.. mixed feed , suet balls , coconut , apples etc ..

    A variety of seagulls have spotted me , different types of gulls .. and have actually been hanging around the house .. and waiting for me when I get out of the car .. squaking ( have I spelt that correctly )

    So I put a few extras on the lawn for them .. and the jackdaws are there also .

    As ou know , we are 4 miles from the sea.. birds do seem to be very hungry.

    2. I remember seeing a programme about seagulls, a young man who cared for them in the UK – he said they will travel great distances and then – ‘look, that’s one of mine up there, he’s recognised me’ – and sure enough, the gull was stalking along the edge of a five storey building, head down, watching and following him. He was only in Morocco…. I was never completely convinced that the bbc (this was back in the day) hadn’t transported the poor gull out there to make the point.

      1. I’m sure that while other animals hibernate or fly south, Seagulls just go to some sort of ‘git university’ where they train to be even more annoying. Their lecturers, of course, are wasps.

        In fact, a seagull becomes a wasp only after 1 year of complete git-dom.

    4. Squawking. “They squawks, Fagin, they squawks” [Bill Sikes to Fagin in Oliver!]

      BTW: What is a ‘seagull’? Do you mean a gull? 😉

        1. Yup! 😘 But calling a gull a “seagull” is as daft as calling a crow a “landcrow”, a robin a “hedgerobin”, a swift a “skyswift”, a heron a “riverheron” or a duck a “pondduck”. Know wha’ I mean?

    5. My house in Yorkshire was about 20 miles from the sea so I was surprised to see seagulls at the local tip. I now live in Birmingham where it is difficult to get much further from the sea and yes, there is no shortage of the damned things here too.

  60. Mortgage payments are to surge by £3,000 a year says Bank of England..

    Millions of Britons on fixed-rate mortgages face an average payment increase of £3,000 a year from 2023, the Bank of England has warned.

    Around four million mortgage borrowers are set to see their monthly payments jump over the next year as the risk of Britons defaulting on debt has risen, the Bank said.

    People with a fixed-rate loans due to expire by the end of 2023 are facing average repayment hikes of around £250 a month as they are forced to move onto a higher interest rate.

    Serfdom Beckons!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/mortgage-payments-2023-bank-of-england-b2244218.html

        1. Sod them, I’ll spend it on wine women and song and if there’s any left I’ll just waste it

          1. Laundry and heating (£45 heating and £118 Services) only I buy my own food but SSAFA gave me a Christmas Food Parcel.

          2. Wow, a relative has a flat in a retirement complex near Preston. pays £400 a month inc food, cleaning and laundry.

    3. There are rumblings of a shallow recession. I think we will be in a death dive by the time people have paid their winter lecee bills and mortgages. Falling house prices and sales bring the knock on effect of slowing a large part of domestic spending. “There may be trouble ahead…”

      1. I’m not an economist KP but I don’t think that it will be a Shallow recession! I’m expecting something more in the line of the Thirties!

        1. The Canadian government are definitey trying to force a major recession.

          Increased interest rates and increasing carbon taxes are really stretching finances of the working class.

      2. Shallow? We’re in recession now if my receipts are anything to go by. Work has simply collapsed as folk simply can’t invest.

        One company we were working with for some 1500 ports has scaled back so much they may as well not bother. We withdrew and told them it simply isn’t going to work for you. I try to be honest with folk and pretending they’ll get the same performance and stability with consumer kit simply isn’t fair.

    4. Stop printing money then! Stop allowing the state to spend more than it raises in tax. Force tax cuts for a change. Good grief, the BoE is complicit in this mess, why isn’t it doing something about it rather than making things worse?!

      1. The people in power are ideologically driven and cannot concede that their ideology is wrong so the response to failure is to dig in and do more of what caused it.

        It strikes me as odd because I see every day that things I previously accepted are actually wrong and I adjust my view point accordingly but give an ideologue wealth and power and somehow adjustment seems to become impossible.

        1. Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.
          KJB: Jeremiah 5:21

          An ideologue will never be persuaded that their beliefs are wrong.

    1. I was asked what I thought of ESG as it was returning lower yields. I said I don’t want a penny invested in a pointless boondoggle. Invest in things people need and want.

      The state is desperate to force private money into green projects to claim success, but as the unreliables never operate without massive subsidy it’s robbing people through tax and returning a pittance in returns. In short – inflation based theft through destroying the value of currency.

  63. For some reason this new layout reminds me of the Daily Mirror. It is very plonky, and inhibits conversation. I think that is its purpose. Disqus have employed the Nudge Unit.

    1. Yes! Psychological warfare. I’ve been expecting something. The Trolls have been quiet recently!

  64. Weather tracker: what is behind Europe’s cold spell? 13 December 2022.

    The current cold spell in Europe will persist this week as high pressure continues to stagnate over western Russia. The cold weather is linked to a weak, split polar vortex in the stratosphere, which allowed high pressure to build across Greenland last week. This in turn led to Arctic air flooding south across the UK on northerly winds. The polar vortex is due to strengthen, eventually helping to end the cold spell with low pressure to the west of the UK becoming dominant.

    You have to a laugh. Absent a heat wave, hurricane or tornadoes all explanations revert to pre Climate Change science.

    https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2022/dec/12/weather-tracker-what-is-behind-europe-cold-spell

    1. I’m surprised, given the the High Pressure is stagnant over Russia, they didn’t blame it all on Nasty Vlad. Perhaps Climate change Emergency is more lucrative.

  65. Could you believe that the liberals won a by election in Canada yesterday?

    Almost daily disasters, ministers that are blatantly lying to cover up misdeeds and we have a healthcare system on the point of failing completely but still the idiots vote for village idiot Trudeau.

    There can be no hope.

    1. Whoever voted for him deserves no sympathy and has no right to complain about whatever nasty controls get imposed. Turdeau has a track record over the past nigh on 3 years that all Canadians must be aware of.
      Edit: Fairly sure son and DiL over there voted for him at the last general election; they seem to think the sun shines out of his derriere.

      1. “…son and DiL over there voted for him at the last general election; they seem to think the sun shines out of his derriere.”

        Their glasses must have totally black lenses then.

        1. They are fools. Totally convinced by the climate scaremongering and by all the convid hype. Think they have had 5 jabs by now (their 4th ones were back in the Spring)

          1. Group hysteria. The media are continually pushing the liberal line on covid and climate, dissent is put down.

            Worry about the future, there is an internet censorship bill working its way through parliament, unless Trudeau approves if what you say you will get silenced.

      2. Clicking on the “Up” vote produced nothing, so I tried a “Down” vote to see if I could remove it by clicking it again. All that has happened is that the “Down” vote can NOT be removed. Please ignore my “Down” vote.

        PS – Now I tried a third time and the “No” vote disappeared. What is it with this new Disqus “improvement”?!?!?

    2. Whoever voted for him deserves no sympathy and has no right to complain about whatever nasty controls get imposed. Turdeau has a track record over the past nigh on 3 years that all Canadians must be aware of.
      Edit: Fairly sure son and DiL over there voted for him at the last general election; they seem to think the sun shines out of his derriere.

  67. UK sanctions Russian commanders and Iranian businessmen. 13 December 2022.

    The UK Foreign Office announced it was sanctioning 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Major General Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles.

    The Foreign Office view the dozen as the most senior officers directly involved in the assault on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The sanctioning makes them prime targets for war crimes tribunals in the event of such trials ever being held.

    Is there anyone we haven’t sanctioned yet? Rising Cost of Living, Rocketing Energy Prices. The only people it seems to have affected so far is us!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/dec/13/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-sends-first-power-equipment-to-ukraine-eu-breaks-hungary-stalemate-to-approve-18bn-aid-plan?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-639863588f0834f3c0578229#block-639863588f0834f3c0578229

  68. UK sanctions Russian commanders and Iranian businessmen. 13 December 2022.

    The UK Foreign Office announced it was sanctioning 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Major General Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles.

    The Foreign Office view the dozen as the most senior officers directly involved in the assault on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The sanctioning makes them prime targets for war crimes tribunals in the event of such trials ever being held.

    Is there anyone we haven’t sanctioned yet? Rising Cost of Living, Rocketing Energy Prices. The only people it seems to have affected so far is us!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/dec/13/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-sends-first-power-equipment-to-ukraine-eu-breaks-hungary-stalemate-to-approve-18bn-aid-plan?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-639863588f0834f3c0578229#block-639863588f0834f3c0578229

    2. It occurs to me that China has no quarrel with Russia and continues to trade in energy thereby allowing China to continue manufacturing goods which we continue to buy. It seems that sanctions work in much the same way as carbon footprints…and money laundering of course.

    2. There is no need to hold an inquiry, and we will not do so. The vaccine roll out was a great success, be silent, the state has spoken.

      What they wish to hide, they do, and there is nothing we, the master can do.

  70. That’s the bit of roadside verge that I removed the excess soil from given a good raking and tidy up, pulling brambles and getting rid of stones and putting the leaves into the garden waste bin.

    We had a brief appearance of that strange yellow thing in the sky, but not for long before it dipped below the side of the valley top, with the consequential rapid reduction in temperature.

    1. You are incredibly industrious. About the most use I’ve been today is changing the bath mats.

  71. Made myself a hot chocolate and tipped the obligatory quadruple of Bailey’s in it before realising I’m taking Mongo to do his therapy dog thing this afternoon.

    6. For one horrible moment I thought this would be a reference to oral sex, vvof. Now I can see that it is a photo taken on February the 29th when women are allowed to propose to men. (Or is that on Valentine’s Day in a Leap Year?)

      1. The latter I believe although I wasn’t allowed to wait 4 years to find out. I manned up when she told me I would be ecstatic with joy when she says yes to my forthcoming proposal.
        I’m told I have never been so happy after 48 years of wedded bliss.

      1. The book is superb and very disturbing. I watched the first few series of the TV show but gave up on it….too like what is going on in real life for me.

  74. That’s all this weeks gigs cancelled because of travelling conditions, only 4 left this year now

    1. Why is it that I can upvote most posts on here today, but every now and then clicking on the “Up” thumb has no effect at all? Anyhow, a big upvote to you, Alec.

      1. Upvotes work when the votee has none or a few, and doesn’t work when they have 7-10 or more.

  76. Rishi Sunak promises new laws to stop illegal migration and ‘spurious’ appeals. 13 December 2022.

    The PM says those who enter the UK illegally will be “swiftly returned” and MPs will set an “annual quota” to determine how many asylum seekers can come to the country.

    I can’t even raise a wry smile any longer. These people are beyond lies. They are in their own world. In an odd way they remind me of the inhabitants of the Fuhrerbunker in 1945. As the Russian shells crashed down above their heads they talked of hurling them back and reinvigorating the Reich. Both leaders caught in a fantasy of denial as their world collapses around them.

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-announces-plan-to-fast-track-removal-of-albanian-asylum-seekers-12767266

    1. 368969+ up ticks,

      Afternoon AS,
      Lest we forget these parties / leaders have their faithful misguided supporter / voters again & again.

      1. ‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

        Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947.

        Unfortunately, it seem that the alternative is something like either the unelected EU or full blown communist Marxism – although maybe that is already being tried by the EU.

      2. How could we forget, ogga1, when you remind us several times daily – day after day after day from one year to the next? (This is a rather unkind post, but you do go on a bit, my friend.)

          4. I seem to have been blocked by Lewis Duckworth but I can’t think why. I don’t recall having any crossed words with him!

        2. 368939+ up ticks,

          Evening EB,

          Many of us suffered day after day after day, for year after year, for decades at the hands of the party before Country brigade ( the lab/lib/con coalition) and that is still very much ongoing.

          Tis very much a case of “if the cap fits”

          Lest we forget

      3. How could we forget, ogga1, when you remind us several times daily – day after day after day from one year to the next? (This is a rather unkind post, but you do go on a bit, my friend.)

    2. We do not need more law, we need to repeal the appalling ones that stop us preventing them landing.

        1. You have to put your cursor over the thumbs up sign and ensure it has a border round it. Then you can uptick. Schlimmbesserung at its finest!

          1. A better word for my feelings on disqus is p[erhaps, backpfeifengesicht’ – A face badly in need of a fist.

      3. And apply the laws we do have to get rid of ALL those who have committed crimes (of which landing illegally is a crime, never mind what they do afterwards).

    3. It is all the same to Sunak whether the Conservative Party wins or loses the next election Either way it won’t affect him personally at all. H may go and live in the US – he may go and live in India but wherever he goes he will live in great comfort.

      He is not committed to his job as PM; he is not committed to Britain; he is not committed to his party. When he is bored he will just move on and be equally uncommitted to whatever else turns up.

      1. A bit like company executives who take a job, but have no interest in the company, other than it being another line on their CV.

  77. Rishi Sunak promises new laws to stop illegal migration and ‘spurious’ appeals. 13 December 2022.

    The PM says those who enter the UK illegally will be “swiftly returned” and MPs will set an “annual quota” to determine how many asylum seekers can come to the country.

    I can’t even raise a wry smile any longer. These people are beyond lies. They are in their own world. In an odd way they remind me of the inhabitants of the Fuhrerbunker in 1945. As the Russian shells crashed down above their heads they talked of hurling them back and reinvigorating the Reich. Both leaders caught in a fantasy of denial as their world collapses around them.

    https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-announces-plan-to-fast-track-removal-of-albanian-asylum-seekers-12767266

    2. Seems the English (using that word advisedly) and southern Irish are going through the same replacement.

      1. I was just thinking today that “British” had, in reality, become shorthand for “Britino” (British In Name Only).

          1. #Me Too. I’ve stopped all this “British” nonsense; that’s a catch all phrase for somebody who’s acquired a passport. I’m ENGLISH (apart from the Welsh bits of me, obviously) and PROUD of it.

          2. No Welsh, Scots, or Irish bits, Pure bred ENGLISH on my Father’s side since 1580. Mama’s side is a bit chequered but, going back 50 generations to AD 530 a little Norse, French, Spanish and Greek blood has crept in, but that’s the ladies for you – ever accommodating – and centuries ago

  79. The EV Scam?

    The Rev Simon Sideways discussses how governments have used tecnnological developments to turn our cars from at one time capable of lasting for ever into quickly becoming a dated piece of transport that we quickly need to replace to remain mobile.
    He reckons we’ve been stitched up by the PTB into into reluctantly having to accept new technology just to keep up with living normally.

    He illustrates his case by using the evolution of the car into the electric vehicle as a good example of something that we really need to keep up with in society just like the evolving smart phone without which we become housebound immobile citizens:

    https://youtu.be/5LpglAqa_14

    1. It is not Sweden that is banning electric vehicles, it is Switzerland! Why does everyone, these days, conflate Sweden with Switzerland? They are like chalk and cheese, to misuse a cliché. It is like conflating India with Italy; Iceland with Israel; Bulgaria with Bolivia; or Laos with Lithuania.

      Stop it!

      1. Thanks for pointing out the Revs misconception Grizz about banning electric vehicles. I have however seen a video where an eco vehicle tester has had to restrict the number of revs in his car whilst testing an EV because of EV speeding bans on autobans.

  81. 368939+ up ticks,

    May one ask, with the current odious situation continuing, come next summer will the indigenous holiday campers get any form of compensation payouts ?

    If you die in wartime for king & country you likely get a medal.

    If an ex forces veteran dies in peacetime under a viaduct on a dirt mattress will these political elites
    give some form of recognition as to WHY Tommy Atkins must do, and die in such a fashion.

      1. It’s blocked by me, so I cannot begin to understand your answer but…

        …more power to your keyboard.

        1. Confused: have you blocked me? which means I won’t get an answer or have you blocked ogg?

    4. And it only pays ~ 3 times the salary of a general nurse.

      The NHS FUBAR department is recruiting now.

          1. Well-remunerated? Nah – it’s only what an engine driver gets (if the Marxist Lynch has his way)

      3. Seems to me they want a woke jargoneer to pretend to help people cope with the NHS’ inability to deal with their illnesses.

    7. What on earth is “lived experience” in the first place?
      meanwhile, a cousin of mine is on a 10-12 hour wait at an A&E, taken there by a colleague. He was quoted 24 hour wait for an ambulance.

    8. I read it more than once and if I am honest failed to understand what the job was.
      Was it 1. just nice words strung together by Sir Humphrey or 2. written in a foreign language?

      I would apply for it if I knew what it entailed.

    9. It sounds as though they know exactly who they want for the job, and any interview would be a fait accompli. ‘Don’t bother applying’ is what all that rubbish says to me.

    10. Ad put up by Lucy Locket, who lost her pocket.

      Can’t remember the rest – it was in my childhood, many, many, many, many, years ago.

      1. Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

        Kitty Fisher found it;

        Not a penny was there in it,

        Only ribbon round it.

    11. “The post holder will be responsible for establishing and maintaining the highest levels of Lived Experience Practice and amplifying the voice of those using services within decision-making at all levels of the organisation. ”
      WTF?

    12. The job description is so nefarious you couldn’t question what was in it because it’s gobbledegook – I think an art critic wrote it

  85. Cambridge Dictionary has updated its’ definition of a woman
    to include anyone who “identifies as female” regardless of their sex at birth.

    Disgusting.

    Responding to the Cambridge Dictionary definition updates, which were made in October,
    Dr Jane Hamlin, the president of Beaumont Society charity which supports transgender and
    non-binary people, said: “This is such good news

    Would it not be ironic, if she was raped by a transgender “being”.

    Can a woman be prosecuted for raping a woman?

    ttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/13/cambridge-dictonary-definition-woman-trans-female-update/

        1. Indeed, Spikey. It is all part of the venomous Lefty concept Introduced by The Frankfurt School, way back in the 1920s known as Critical Theory or Cultural Marxism.

          The Frankfurt School refers to a number of Socialist intellectuals who, after realising that the Communist revolution in Russia was unlikely to be repeated in other European countries via force, dedicated themselves to developing more imaginative methods of advancing Socialism in the West.

          What they eventually settled upon is now known as Cultural Marxism, a strategy which can be defined as:
          The gradual process of destroying all notions of tradition, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, the family unit, and natural justice, in order to re-assemble society in the future as a Socialist utopia.

          A utopia that will have no notion of sex, race, morality, God or individuality, and where all the ideas of childhood, fatherhood, motherhood and nationhood are rendered obsolete.

          The method used to achieve this outcome is to gradually spread the ideology in a stealthy manner, by infiltrating all existing societal institutions including: schools, universities, unions, the film industry, the media, the church, the police, the judiciary, the health service, the civil service and all major political parties. This will be achieved with the ultimate aim of embedding it — largely without being noticed — in the popular mind, in the hope of eventually leading the masses to abandon their own cultural identity and national heritage, by their own volition, entirely without resistance or objection.

          If you ask me, this project is not only well under way to completion (I’d say around 90% complete) but it is also accelerating since all those Frankfurt School placements in every sphere of society are already in situ and are doing their damned best to complete the project in double quick time.

          Those of us who still consider ourselves to be normal, i.e. those of us who still retain an independent spirit against all the odds, are complicit in all this since we remained sitting on our arses and allowed this to take place without raising a voice in anger or taking to the streets with cudgels.

          1. It certainly worked a treat with the supine compliance with the (initially illegal) “lockdown” in 2020.

          3. Sorry, George, at 78 I would find it difficult to raise a cudgel above my head to beat out the last remaining brain cell of a Cultural Marxist, but don’t let that stop you.

            In fact, more power to your elbow. Do several for me.

        2. It is certainly a global plot. Anything I hear about in the UK is also happening over here in Canada.

    4. Yo Mr Effort.

      If “she” penetrates “her” with “her” dick, without consent, then the offence of rape is proven; however, what a jury would make of that bollocks is a moot point.

          5. Stop thinking, Woman!

            You’re a tough little Geordie who’ll take on anyone.

            That’s balls in my book and enough for anyone.

          1. What if the woman doing the raping grabbed hold of the bollicks of the woman being raped. How would that be adjudicated.

    5. I have looked this person up on the Internet and the pictures I have seen are of a person who is so physically unattractive as to make rape an extremely unlikely occurrence whether it be perpetrated by a man, a woman, a trans man, a trans woman or anything else.

    6. Yet patently false. If a dictionary is re-writing the truth, then we’re stuffed as a species. There are so many lies – man made climate change, the trans nonsense, globalism – Orwell warned about this nonsense.

      1. Has there ever been a political party or a country with the word democrat in it which has ever been even the remotest bit democratic?

      2. I took a neighbour to a hospital appointment this afternoon and while I was waiting in the cafe, the TV was on. Some git in a suit was spouting on about how the government was going to try to curtail the numbers, at least from Albania. Try? What effing good is that? We need them to do it successfully and deport those who are here illegally asap – preferably last year.

    2. Lies and more lies. None of this will happen. The illegal INVASION will continue to flood across the Channel until Albania – such a dangerous country – is empty. No one knows where most of the illegals have disappeared to – only the gangmasters and slavers have an inkling, and they’ll not be anxious to let on.

      The whole thing is a deliberate plot to destroy Christian England. And it is working. I despair.

      1. Scotland, Ireland, Spain, France and to a lesser degree The Netherlands have all tried to destroy England. The only one who had real success was the Jumped up Norman.
        Since 1946 and American desire for world hegemony by reducing us to penury: its been slow but positive destruction of English heritage, culture and self determination by internal and external influences that have taken no notice of what indigenous English (not British!) want.

        2. Curiously Germany and Denmark (Angles, Saxons, Jutes); Denmark again (Vikings*) and Italy (Romans) were positive influences on our culture.

          I doubt that the fourth coming of Germany (1940) would have been so beneficial.

          [*Norwegian Vikings travelled to Ireland and across the Atlantic. Swedish Vikings followed the silk route and spice road to the East.]

          1. Scandinavian cultural expansion is a fascinating subject.
            From the Americas to possibly China, if there was a river route, they would follow it. As for America: a hop, skip and jump was all it took.

          2. And did you know that it was the Vikings who introduced mushy peas, pease pudding and pea soup to the UK?

          3. 😋 no, but I’m glad they did.
            My Grandfather (mother’s side) came from Schleswig–Holstein (Danish!) would bring lots of goodies unobtainable in UK when he visited.

      2. He’ll achieve his targets by granting swathes of amnesties and by doing so will achieve what you describe.
        NO country they have passed through will take them back.

  90. Evening, all. The NHS is broken, but it won’t allow the changes needed for it to be fixed.

    Meanwhile:

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/telford/wellington/2022/12/13/490000-awarded-to-make-wellingtons-streets-safer-for-women-and-girls/

    Guess what the difference is between Shropshire as a whole and Telford in terms of concentration of those most likely to commit violence against worthless female kuffars women and girls.

    Engaging with “communities” won’t make a jot of difference unless they deport the ones most likely to do it or at least crack down severely on the perpetrators and bang them up in solitary for a very long time. They will, however, splurge a lot of taxpayers’ cash and sweep the problem under the carpet.

    1. My good lady belongs to several local leisure clubs. She’s been discussing my heart problems with another local lady who’s husband ( I don’t know him but he was also a member of the same golf club) has almost exactly the same problem as I do. The local cardiology department have done absolutely FA except dish out more drugs. To assist him in a possible recovery.
      FOAD is alive and well. Unless of course you have enough money to pay for treatment.

      1. I’ve had the same response about a solution (albeit temporary, but 6 months would be better than nothing) to my hip pain. Only if I cough up. As I’ve paid a fair bit of cash into the No Help Service during my working life I told them to go forth and multiply.

  91. Morning all 😊
    After a journey that took a little longer than
    expected, could have been due to the weather 😉 and diversions but hey ho. We made it to Warners Hotel Holme Lacy. Met up with our friends had mulled wine mince pie’s and a guided tour. A rest, changed and then dinner then a wonderful evening of entertainment. Brilliant band and a wonderful group of singers. Thourougly enjoyed it. Looking forward to the rest of the four day visit.
    Breakfast……..
    Silly Billy I was distracted and didn’t get around to posting this.

      1. It’s great Bill, fill with lovey chatty people of a similar age.
        We went to Nid Hall in Yorkshire about 20 years ago. And I can’t remember it being as good as this.
        I recommend it to all Nottlers. It’s a great experience.
        As your comment alludes to…….Perhaps the last chance saloon. 😏🥂 cheers all.

  92. Migrants to be encouraged to move to rural areas to boost economies and population
    Government advisers say a rural visa could help tackle shortages in lower-skilled agricultural jobs and replenish ageing communities
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/13/migrants-encouraged-move-rural-areas-boost-economies-population/

    Have the indigenous people living in rural areas been asked whether or not they want this or is it completely irrelevant what the indigenous people want?

    Does anyone have a link to the video of the cockney whose family had lived in the same part of London for generations who complained that nobody has asked them if they wanted to be invaded?

    1. Puts me in mind of a video clip of Soros slumped in a seat at the European Parliament muttering something about putting immigrants to work. These people shirley don’t seriously believe that the invaders want to work – at least not at anything that doesn’t involve violence?

      1. That’s why they are hell bent on making it “diverse”. They are going to punish the indigenous for being white and native.

    3. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e873b0be84f253b298f15ad1c2e0c4d0d88611d2960a4fef56cfa9bbf02f4b0d.jpg
      Professor Brian Bell, Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee

      On the subject of migration, I’ve just heard this fellow telling Radio 4 that if Albanians are processed more quickly, they can get to work sooner and save the economy. Well, that’s what it sounded like, though to be fair he did balance it by saying the lazy British might be inclined to work in those sectors desperate for employment (notably social care) if the wages were better. Where’s the money coming from, Brian?

      https://www.gov.uk/government/people/brian-bell

      1. If the wages were better? How about if the benefits were not so generous? Paying people for not working is an insult to those who have to work to pay for the benefits system.

        1. I shall go a bit Guardianistic and defend a lot of people on benefits who have been screwed over the last 15 years or so by housing costs rapidly rising (cheap money) just as wages fell (in relative terms) because of cheap immigrant labour. There has always been a lazy underclass but the scale of welfare dependency now is shocking and it predates Covid and the energy crisis. The relationship between earnings, taxes and the cost of living has been broken and is the cause of much of that dependency. It’ll take some fixing; how do you make life livable once again on modest incomes?

          Taking my Guardian hat off, Fat Gordy has a lot to answer for.

          1. Fat Gordy and B. Liar. He who wanted to “rub the noses of the right in diversity” provoked the flood of cheap immigrant labour and changed the welfare system from a safety net to a feather bed. Of course, those who get money without working for it will always scream if they are forced to earn it and they are going to vote for more money for nothing, so a client base is created. Let us not forget the laws of supply and demand when it comes to housing; importing the equivalent of a city the size of Derby every year is going to put a strain on the housing supply. Shortages lead to price rises. Same with imports; trash the pound and lo! imported food and goods are more expensive. Then there is the complete stupidity about the [lack of] energy supply … I frequently say I am reliving the seventies – strikes, inflation, devaluation of the currency, high taxes, blackouts, shops closed because there’s no power. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. What is truly disappointing is that, nominally at least, we have a “Conservative” government. You expect it of Labour.

    4. I live in a rural area and nobody asked me if I wanted invaders housed in Shrewsbury (and Oswestry – and probably lots of other places that they’ve hushed up)

    5. OT
      I have conveyed your ‘very affectionate best wishes’ to Plum, this evening, Rastus.

      Also Best wishes from Sosraboc et al.

      Plum was pleased hear it!

      2. Thank you – we do hope we shall see her here again soon.

        She loves the Beatles, The Travelling Wilburys and especially George Harrison. When I post birthday wishes for her later in the week I shall attach a song for her.

  93. Par Four today.

    Wordle 542 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.
      Wordle 542 4/6

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

      2. Me too
        Wordle 542 4/6

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

    2. Yep, moi aussi.
      Wordle 542 4/6

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

  94. Ate my last piece of cheddar yesterday.
    Today, it’s raining.
    Ain’t no sunshine when cheese gone…

    1. How convenient.

      Though several copies of the sex addicted drug addict of the President of the USA were made. The repair shop owner made them after a visit from the men in black.

      That shop owner has lost his business and a court case. And received multiple death threats.

      Welcome to the American Nightmare.

      1. You’re F.cked no matter which country one lives in these days.
        Conform or be cancelled.

      1. One of those planes flew over my house in CT. Many of the staff and kids at my school had family and friends working in NYC. It was an horrific event and the people responsible were terrorists. The border guard at St. Johns, Newfoundland committed suicide when she realised that she had let in the terrorist who flew over CT. His papers, of course, were all in order.
        It was an attack on the USA.

        1. Many questions still remain unanswered.
          Why was there no QRA fighter response when those aircraft deviated from the preplanned flightpath.
          Why no SSR 7500 code sent.
          Lots of conspiracy theories and most rubbish, but one or two have credibility.

          Similar to 7th Dec 1941.
          ‘A Date Which Will Live in Infamy’
          Franklin D. Roosevelt’s War Address

  96. That’s me for this dreary, cold day. I am thoroughly cheesed off (see below!!)

    Have a spiffing evening trying to keep warm.

    A demain.

    3. Paul! Moderator! Speak to me!

      Why do some (though not all) contributors have a tiny head-and-shoulders figure, followed by a plus (+) sign, to the right of their avatar, and what is it for?

      5. If you click on this figure, you can follow the person – i.e. get notifications when a post goes up by him or her.

        Nottlers who don’t have this figure by their name have marked their activity as “private” and can therefore not be followed.

        (Which explains, incidentally, why we can’t see such a figure next to our own name: you can’t follow yourself.)

          1. I know she’s multi-lingual but I don’t think Swedish is one of her forte.

            I do understand. Jag ochsa forstor. if I remember correctly.

      6. If you click on this figure, you can follow the person – i.e. get notifications when a post goes up by him or her.

        Nottlers who don’t have this figure by their name have marked their activity as “private” and can therefore not be followed.

        (Which explains, incidentally, why we can’t see such a figure next to our own name: you can’t follow yourself.)

    4. Paul! Moderator! Speak to me!

      Why do some (though not all) contributors have a tiny head-and-shoulders figure, followed by a plus (+) sign, to the right of their avatar, and what is it for?

  99. My doctor is concerned about my high blood pressure. I said, “Well, don’t leave me sitting in the waiting room for two hours!”

      1. Locate your coat and wallet and keys
        head to the off-license or supermarket.

        Choose wine, carefully.

        Queue and pay,
        arrive home, open door, remove coat
        find a glass.
        Struggle to open bottle. Why must it always be anti clockwise?

        I can see that the process might take up to half an hour.

    2. I vote “no”….I enjoy Christmas cracker groans and we all need a bit more of a giggle in our lives, these gloomy days, doncha think!!
      ;-))

    3. Apparently, as it is now sub judice, it prevents him from being questioned by Congress or the Senate. A cynical move by the US Department of Justice.

    5. Sounds like the ‘warm ‘ Bahamas might be worth consideration for emigration from this ‘cold’ silver Isle, set in a silver sea.

  104. According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington recently was faced with a unique problem.
    A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom.
    That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.
    Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day,
    the girls would put them back.
    Finally the principal decided that something had to be done.
    She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man.
    She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.
    To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors,
    she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.
    He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it.
    Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
    There are teachers, and then there are educators…

  105. Just wondered what the odds were for a Muslim country winning the world cup when it is held in a Muslim country.

  107. Damn the Woke, damn them to Hell.

    Christian teacher jailed following refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns is told he will remain behind bars for Christmas after telling court he should not be jailed for his views on ‘transgenderism’
    Enoch Burke will spend the festive period behind bars, a court has told him
    The teacher was jailed for refusing to obey a court order to stay away from his school in County Westmeath, Ireland
    His school told him to stay away after he refused to address a student as ‘they’

    If that had been a similar episode in an Islamic school over Eid do you think the teacher would have been jailed?
    Do you think it would even have gone to court?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11533581/Christian-teacher-refused-use-gender-neutral-pronouns-remain-bars-Christmas.html

    1. The Python team, what’s left of them, should remake the Jehova bit from ‘Life of Brian’, “But I only said ‘Christmas’!”

    2. He is a grammar martyr (like the metric martyr who insisted on selling fruit in pounds and ounces). “They” is plural and should not be applied in the third person to a singular individual.

        1. Sie (as opposed to sie) is a polite form and the grammar is that it can be used (should be used) in those circumstances to one person. That doesn’t apply in English.

  108. Evening all. Just a quick visit. We’re at a garden centre today looking for Vhristmas crackers and saw a guy there wearing a suit . It made me realise how long ago it was I last saw anyone dressed like that. It was really strange.

    1. ‘Evening all. Just a quick visit. We’re at a garden centre today looking for Vhristmas crackers and saw a guy there wearing a suit . It made me realise how long ago it was I last saw anyone dressed like that. It was really strange.’

      Perhaps he was the auditor/ liquidator?

      Merry Vristmas!

    2. It was something I noticed when returning to UK, how ‘casual’ everyone seemed to dress. Jeans and trainers (Track shoes?) even at work.

  109. Going through the ECM music catalogue, I came across this:

    https://youtu.be/8O8MsSI9gGQ

    I will need to look for more on Deezer.

    Ps.
    He has some very: for want of a better description, interesting albums, a 14 string guitar on the one I’ve just posted.
    Hopefully I can find downloadable FLAC files.

  110. Goodnight, all. I’ve stoked the Rayburn, Oscar is snoring for England, Kadi is curled up on Charlie’s mat (Oscar is too deeply asleep to have noticed and objected) and I shall be filling my hot water bottles shortly. It’s freezing outside so the thought of curling up under my down duvet is increasingly attractive!

    1. Same for me, old troop. No Hot-water bottle but I’d appreciate a nice female form to stroke and go to to sleep with.

  111. I’ve had my supper, and had my supper and had my supper and all;
    I’ve heard the story of Cinderella and how she went to the ball.
    I’ve cleaned my teeth and said my prayers
    And I cleaned and said them right….

    And on that note I will wish you goodnight.
    Hope all is well for those with problems, I really do.

  112. It’s been a steady -4°C this evening with a light cloud cover stopping it dropping further, but the Met website is forecasting the cloud clearing through the night, so it’ll be interesting to see when we get in the morning.

    However, I’m off to bed so good night all.

  113. Goodnight and God bless, Gentle NoTTLers. I’ve a book to finish so, until the mornings’s light, Bon Soir.

    1. It is disgraceful that our MPs are not remotely interested in those who have been damaged by the dangerous, untested gene therapy they have tried to force people to take.

      2. Earlier this year I was referred to Addenbrookes for a respiratory problem and spent 5 nights there whilst the issue was being diagnosed. I had been in the hospital previously for bilateral pulmonary embolism and in West Suffolk for DVT so I knew what to expect.

        The medical attention I received was exemplary and both consultants and nursing staff were kind and excellent.

        When asked on admission whether I had received the Covid-19 clot shot I stated that I had not. I explained that about 25 years previously I had been the Architect of the then new Immunology and Signalling Laboratory at The Babraham Institute in Babraham near Cambridge. I added that my experience from my involvement in that particular project at a BBSRC Animal Testing Institute, left me with the understanding that no new drug should be released on the market without thorough research and testing. I saw no evidence of the rigorous testing, including animal testing, as far as the manically produced so-called vaccines were concerned. That was the primary reason for my refusal to submit to the blandishments of the Politicos and Medicos to submit to the inoculation(s).

        The Registrar I spoke to simply remarked that she was unable to discuss this topic in conversation. Later I spoke to a nurse about the jabs she had been mandated to take and she told me that they made her ill, that she had to take a fortnight off work as a result, and that she regretted having to take the jab and hoped she would not be required to receive more of the same.

        Those responsible for this evil
        Medical jab imposition shall be prosecuted, tried and convicted for this obvious massive fraud and Crime against Humanity.

        I spit on their graves.

      3. 368972+ up ticks,

        Morning R,
        Surely much to mild in describing their “reign of terror”, that would be nearer the mark and something like Corporate manslaughter the charge.

        Corporate manslaughter is a crime in several jurisdictions, including England and Wales and Hong Kong. It enables a corporation to be punished and censured for culpable conduct that leads to a person’s death.

  115. Having just enjoyed a loverly dinner of Boeuf Bourguignon with a nice bottle of red wine, I shall now bid those still awake, good night and hopefully, see you in the morning, night night.

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