Tuesday 21 December: Hospital readiness and vaccination capacity could have been prepared much, much sooner

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here

765 thoughts on “Tuesday 21 December: Hospital readiness and vaccination capacity could have been prepared much, much sooner”

      1. Festive film flop
        SIR – Graham Croft (Letters, December 20) declares White Christmas (1954) to be the most boring film ever. I couldn’t agree more.

        The song White Christmas, sung by Bing Crosby, was first aired in the superior musical Holiday Inn (1942), with music by Irving Berlin.

        The later, execrable film White Christmas was nothing more than a lame attempt to capitalise on the song for commercial purposes.

        Alan G Barstow
        Onslunda, Skåne, Sweden

        And

        SIR – If Liz Truss manages to invoke Article 16 and resolve the Northern Ireland problem, it will show that she could be a worthy successor to Boris Johnson as Prime Minister; if she fails and caves in to the EU, it will scupper her chances.

        Richard Tracey
        Dinan, Côtes-d’Armor, France

    1. Morning Bob. Western civilisation has essentially collapsed. It’s only survivor is the Russian Federation!

  8. Good Morning Folks

    Dark start again, dare I say this is the shortest day of the year, waiting to be corrected.

    2. Shortest hours of DAYLIGHT.
      The day is the same length as every other day.

      There you are, corrected!

      1. But that is the traditional way of saying it. We know its not correct but we know the meaning of it. Its the shortest day today.its the longest night.

        1. Scandis have different words for day (24 hour period) – døgn – and day (light) – dag.

        1. Tomorrow’s daylight here is two minutes longer than today’s, apparently.
          Sun-up today: 09:18, sundown 15:14.
          Except – no sun, just a lighter shade of grey in the clouds.

    4. The Winter Solstice occurs at 15.59 GMT today; thereafter the nights will no longer be drawing in but the mercury may still plummet over the next few months.

    1. “To protect the innocent?” Or, maybe it is a photo from another incident, or just actors.

    2. Hmm “Offered £500 compensation”
      If I recall correctly a bloke got done for £100,000 recently for “invading someones privacy” merely for installing one of these video doorbells incorrectly,he certainly didn’t burgle his neighbours home which these goons appear to have done……
      Some “invasion of privacy”

      Just saying……….

    3. I had a cold call purporting to be from the debt collection agency favoured by Government and privatised utilities, which ended up on my answering machine demanding that I replied to their “important message”.

      It came out of the blue, and the only likely debts were either from the company that had taken over my electricity supply when my chosen one went bust last month, but had not yet sent a bill, or the French Government after me for property taxes for a derelict property in Menton that I and my siblings inherited from my father in 2005, and have now decided to abandon. The first new tax bill was issued in October. I keep returning their tax demands “deceased, return to sender”. On the last one, I helpfully gave as a forwarding address a cemetery in South Australia. I expect to be whisked off to an internment camp in Calais by the authorities the next time I jump the Channel, but it seems the favour is not returned going the other way.

      I did 1471 and looked up the number of the cold caller, which turns out to be a well-known scammer from Glasgow. However, it is impossible to tell apart the methods used by a scammer and those used by the Government-approved debt collection agency, especially if they got their judgement in camera, and the first any debtor would know of it would be the cold call or the bang on the door.

  10. A couple of BTL comments:-

    Max France 1 HR AGO
    About to enter day six of ‘less than optimal’ conditions for the subsidy guzzling (£8,000/minute) farce of wind power. A particularly fine start to the day with burning trees at Drax (subsidy £2,000/minute) making four times the power of the entire fleet of virtually stationary whirlygigs and coal making over 2.5 times the power. The ‘Green’ solution to this … more stationary whirlygigs… There is no battery and never will be a battery of any type to cover this vast hole in generation for more than perhaps an hour never mind days on end and Boris wants to decommission every coal plant which despite having fuel for hundreds of years under their feet are forced to import from countries using far dirtier means of extraction than would be used in the UK.
    Forget Partygate, even Covid and lockdowns, fishing rights, HS2, N Ireland and the vast money pit that is the NHS. Getting affordable electricity to homes, business and industry is going to be the greatest failure of this government and I honestly don’t know what can be done about it as every party and government department has succumbed to the Cult of the Green Goblin. It is going to be a disaster. This is despite the answer staring us in the face, want to see the ‘cleanest’ industrialised country in Europe that doesn’t have vast hydroelectric capacity? Check out https://app.electricitymap.org/map It is France with its electrical generation capacity based on nukes.

    REPLY 2 REPLIES 25 FLAG

    RS Robert Spowart
    13 MIN AGO
    Reply to Max France – view message
    Message Actions
    Patience, Sir!
    They are just about to ramp up production of top grade Unicorn Farts to take up the slack.

    1. These disgusting rags have displaced prostitutes in my pantheon of things to detest: down there with the likes of lying, self serving politicians.

  12. Yes, Ken had to have his two pennorth as well:

    A Letter From Ken

    Dear Santa,
    It has come to my attention that one of my colleagues has petitioned you for changes in her contract, specifically asking for anatomical and career changes.

    In addition, it is my understanding that disparaging remarks were made about me, my sexuality and some of my fashion choices. I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of issue concerning Ms. Barbie, as well as some of my own needs and desires:

    First, I, along with several of my colleagues, feel Ms. Barbie DOES NOT deserve the preferential treatment she has received over the years. That wench has everything. Neither I, nor Joe, Jem, nor The Raggedys, Ann & Andy, have dreamhouses, Corvettes, dune buggies, evening gowns, and some of us do not even have the ability to change our hairstyle.

    I have had a limited wardrobe, obviously designed to complement but never upstage Ms. Barbie. My decision to accessorise with an earring was immediately quashed, which I protest, for it was my decision and reflects my lifestyle choice.

    I would like a change in my career to further explore my creative nature. Some options which could be considered are “Decorator Ken,” “Beauty Salon Ken,” or “Broadway Ken.” Other avenues which could be considered are: “Go-Go Ken,” “Impersonator Ken” (with wigs and gowns), or “West Hollywood Ken.” These would more accurately reflect my interests and I believe, open up markets that have been underserved.

    As for Ms. Barbie needing bendable arms so she can “push me away,” I need bendable knees so I can kick the wench to the curb. Bendable knees would also be helpful in other situations of which you are aware.

    In closing, further concessions to the Blonde Bimbo from Hell, while the needs of others within my coalition are ignored, will result in legal action to be taken by myself and others. And kindly tell Ms. Barbie she can forget about G.I. Joe. He’s mine; at least that’s what he said last night.

    Sincerely

    Ken

  14. Morning all

    Share

    Hospital readiness and vaccination capacity could have been prepared much, much sooner

    SIR – I wonder how many readers were infuriated by Sajid Javid’s article “We should respond early to omicron trends” (Comment, December 19).

    If the Health Secretary was to level with the public now, as he claims he did on taking office, the headline would have said: “We should have prepared for this much, much sooner.” He would have said that this situation was predicted many months ago.

    He would have said that Dame Kate Bingham’s brilliant turbo-charged vaccination programme should have continued and that it should never have drifted back under NHS control.

    Instead of congratulating his department for being the first to procure antivirals, he would have said that the procurement fell tragically short of what is needed and demanded a Bingham-style approach.

    He would have said that a high-risk policy of running the NHS at 95 per cent capacity proved a disaster in March 2020, and that nothing has since been done to follow Germany’s example of keeping permanent overcapacity for just this kind of crisis.

    Instead, he defends measures to cripple sectors of our economy and ruin the festive season, which would never have been needed if he and his colleagues in Boris Johnson’s dysfunctional administration had done their jobs properly in the first place.

    Terry Higham

    Haywards Heath, West Sussex

    SIR – If another lockdown is imposed to save the NHS being overwhelmed, now that over 90 per cent of the population have Covid antibodies, this must represent a massive failure of the Government’s only Covid policy (mass vaccination) and a massive failure to prepare for the predicted winter surge.

    We have fewer hospital beds than last winter, and sacking thousands of care workers means that one in eight beds are blocked by elderly patients who cannot be discharged for lack of care services. The plan to sack NHS workers next will make things worse.

    Dr Fiona Underhill

    Woodford Green, Essex

    SIR – A significant number of top footballers are evidently against Covid vaccinations. Their fans are expected to prove immunity to enter stadiums, so why are the players exempt?

    Dr Martin Shutkever

    Pontefract, West Yorkshire

    SIR – I was disgusted at Camilla Tominey’s article (Comment, December 18) suggesting that only the very selfish better-off can afford to stay at home and effectively have poor people kowtowing at their door, after arriving with all their deliveries.

    My two lovely daughters feel relieved that we are taking precautions like this. We are in our seventies and thought we were supporting young people to experience a normal life going out and about. By our staying home we hope we cannot be infected and therefore be a burden by needing the services of the NHS.

    We have used Amazon and QVC deliveries for years and have continued Tesco food online shopping since the start of the pandemic even when not locked down. I stopped shopping in the high street years ago. We thank and tip anyone delivering to us as a sign of our gratitude.

    Barbara Marshall

    Helmdon, Northamptonshire

    SIR – The use of the word mandate applied to an order, for instance to wear masks, seems to be an attempt to soften the harshness of what is really a new order, regulation or law.

    Perhaps it is an attempt to make us believe it is something we voted for, as the word used to be mainly used for an electoral mandate for a policy as a result of winning an election.

    Dr Treve Willis

    Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Boris Johnson may once have had the ability to charm the birds from the trees. However, if he now knocked on our door and tried to explain the rationale of Plan B he would get a “Frosty” retort from Mrs Evans.

    David Evans

    Wilmslow, Cheshire

    1. Terry Higham remains in sleepwalking mode but he isn’t alone, sadly. Clearly the “vaccination” programme was a success, it’s a pity that the product being ‘sold’ is not only proving to be close to useless it has proved to be downright dangerous.

      If Javid the Bald had been determined to prepare for a future problem he could not have done better than deciding to initiate early intervention with known, safe drugs and supplements. That the Health Secretary stuck rigidly to a failing “vaccines” programme is indicative of 1) he’s incompetent, 2) he’s following a pre-set plan or 3) both the former and the latter apply.

    2. 77th Brigade have clearly been busy on DT Letters manouevres today. The description of Kate Bingham’s poison jab programme as ‘brilliant’ is so jarringly weird – what normal person would use the word about a jab ? – that it always sets the bells ringing loudly upon its frequent appearances.

    3. 77th Brigade have clearly been busy on DT Letters manouevres today. The description of Kate Bingham’s poison jab programme as ‘brilliant’ is so jarringly weird – what normal person would use the word about a jab ? – that it always sets the bells ringing loudly upon its frequent appearances.

  15. Morning again

    A Christmas crisis at the heart of government

    Randolph Churchill depicted by Edwin Ward working on the Budget he never delivered

    Randolph Churchill depicted by Edwin Ward working on the Budget he never delivered

    SIR – Major political crises rarely erupt during the Christmas season.

    The last one occurred 135 years ago when, on December 22 1886, Winston Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, resigned as chancellor of the exchequer in a letter delivered both to Lord Salisbury, the prime minister, and the press, to ensure the sensational news appeared the following morning.

    Salisbury observed wryly: “Not much, I am afraid, around us of ‘peace and goodwill’.”

    Ostensibly the issue was public spending, but as the cabinet minister Lord Cranbrook noted in his diary on Christmas Day: “He was a growing rival of the prime minister and wished to wrest the lead from him.”

    Salisbury knew that he could ill afford to lose his talented chancellor, writing that “our front-bench power in the House of Commons is so weak that we run a very great risk of being broken to pieces”.

    However, Lord Randolph’s hopes were to be dashed because, in a phrase that quickly became famous, he “forgot Goschen”. The brilliant Liberal financier, George Goschen, was induced to take on the Treasury and the Christmas crisis passed.

    Could this be a lesson for the current Chancellor and his undisguised leadership ambitions?

    Lord Lexden (Con)

    London SW1

    SIR – We cannot afford to lose Lord Frost. Boris Johnson should go. Lord Frost should be asked to come back.

    Stuart Moore

    Bramham, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Perhaps the best summation of where Boris Johnson and his colleagues find themselves is provided by the Book of Common Prayer. “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.”

    Rob White

    London N3

    SIR – It would seem that the “oven-ready” Brexit deal is actually in the process of being de-Frosted.

    L Cadwallader

    Oswestry, Shropshire

    SIR – There have been, there are and there will be reasons to vote Conservative. Liz Truss (“Truss takes over Brexit brief”, report, December 20) is not one of them.

    Charles Foster

    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – If Liz Truss manages to invoke Article 16 and resolve the Northern Ireland problem, it will show that she could be a worthy successor to Boris Johnson as Prime Minister; if she fails and caves in to the EU, it will scupper her chances.

    Richard Tracey

    Dinan, Côtes-d’Armor, France

  16. Wishing a very Happy Birthday (Grattis på födelsedagen) and a Happy Shortest Day to my Auntie Elsie.

    Don’t overdo the plum crumble! 🥧👍🏻😉🥂

  18. New Zealand man, 26, with no health problems died after Pfizer Covid vaccine ‘probably’ caused rare heart problem, authorities say. 21 December 2021.

    A New Zealand man has died after the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine ‘probably’ caused a rare heart problem, authorities have revealed.

    Rory James Nairn, 26, died in his Dunedin home on November 17, less than two weeks after taking his first dose on November 5.

    A preliminary post mortem examination identified myocarditis, a rare inflammation of the heart muscle, as the likely cause of death and New Zealand’s Covid-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board said the issue was ‘probably’ brought on by the jab.

    This is probably the future. An entire generation with heart defects brought on by the Vaccination Program. It has to be remembered that all this; the delays for cancer patients, the destruction of Civil Liberties, the calamitous damage to the economy, are all the result of the Political Response to a minor ailment that only affected the very old.

    It is a disaster that has not yet run its course.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10327825/New-Zealand-links-26-year-old-mans-death-Pfizer-COVID-19-vaccine.html

  19. Present and correct

    SIR – As I was a boarder, my school reports against attendance (Letters, December 20) always said: “Good.”

    Diana Downe

    Blandford Forum, Dorset

    SIR – After a term in which I spent six weeks in hospital, my biology master’s comment on my report was: “Absent a lot.”

    John Challiss

    Bisley, Surrey

    SIR – “Zipha sings sweetly in a crowd.”

    Zipha Warcup

    London SW1

    SIR – I still have a report from my prep school that says, under sport/football: “Plays in goal with occasional movements.”

    John Kennett

    Hadlow, Kent

    SIR – I am reminded of my brother’s first term report at secondary school.

    Summarising all of the other subject reports, the form master wrote simply: “It doesn’t look like Iain will be getting a new bike for Christmas.”

    He didn’t.

    Andy Brown

    Nottingham

    1. Oi! I lived in Highbury for the first 19 years of my life and am a supporter of Arsenal. How very dare you!

      Mind you it’s a long time since I knew all the players’ names. But still …

      1. Mind you it’s a long time since I knew all the players’ names.

        Or could pronounce them…

        1. You a4e so right. Bit like the “England” team really, they’re not home grown any more. No local lads made good.

    1. Patience Rik, patience!
      The production of high quality Unicorn Farts is but a whisper away!

      1. BoB, I can imagine that the elusive Unicorn Farts could start the windmill blades moving but I’m at a loss to see what effect they could have on solar, unless of course they glow with unimaginable intensity.😎

  25. President Biden predicts a dark winter of death for the unvaccinated. This comes after two Presidential candidates- Warren and Booker tell the world that despite being double vaxxed and having boosters, they have Covid although they proclaim it to be mild. Of course, we don’t know how serious it would have been had they not been through the mill. Anyway, this is a good rant from a great channel on YT- Viva Frei & Barnes- well worth following.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7DamQJucM

    2. O/T

      BTL comment below Rod Liddle’s article on Sunday

      Southern Cross
      2 DAYS AGO

      I can confirm that NZ is slowly (if it hasn’t already) lost the plot – we have now been told that it is ‘likely’ that Maoris were the first to ‘discover’ Antarctica. Quite how people in an open canoe and dressed for a South Pacific excursion would or could have got that far south, wittingly or unwittingly, and returned to tell the tale, has not yet been articulated, but hey, who’s counting anyway?

      Yes, it’s getting more bonkers here by the day; employees at our largest department of state are now instructed to attend two day courses on ‘white privilege’ and our media broadcasters are firing off volleys of incomprehensible sentences and aphorisms in Te Reo Maori to demonstrate their adherence to the new (being kind and hugging) zeitgeist.

      Happy days.

        3. I think they thought we would be terrified and roll over very quickly. Unfortunately for them ‘the virus’ was not as lethal as they were hoping (bodies were scarcely piling up on street corners, we didn’t even know anyone who had had the dreaded cv) and ‘the vaccine’ turned out to be a lot more lethal in the early stages than they were probably expecting, which has rather given the game away for those of us who have failed to be hypnotised by the whole proceedings. As quickly as they attempt to shore up the wall it crumbles somewhere else. God works in mysterious ways.

          1. A few family members (not living locally) have had the virus and survived. I know or know of nobody who has died either with or from it.

        1. English is the lingua franca of the business world.

          It really annoys the French. Which can only be a good thing.

        2. The Dutch could get a bit touchy were Klaus Schwab to address them in his native German. He was born the year before the outbreak of the most recent hostilities.

          1. If i saw what is purported to be an official letter to a Finnish Minister written in the English language,i would be a tad suspicious about its origin.

          4. My department is part of a German company, with personnel from Finland, Sweden, Norway, UK and Australia.
            All discussion and written communication goes in English. Or Merkin.

          6. It depends who sent the letter, not who the recipient was. I correspond with many foreign archive footage suppliers in the course of my work. I address all of them in English because it’s the only language I know. The Bundesarchiv reply in German and I have to use Google Translate but they’re uniquely bloody minded.

          7. Addendum: A foreign payments form was recently sent to an individual who’d supplied footage and he duly filled in all the requested fields – in Chinese characters!

      3. “Postbus” rather than “P O Box”, “Den Haag” rather than “The Hague”. Ik ben altijd tot uw dienst.

    6. Have a wonderful day, Elsie! Happy Birthday to you! 🍾🎉🎁 Couldn’t find an emoji for Baileys!

  35. I don’t know if anybody read that article in the Telegraph about Charlotte Church? I had forgotten about her many years ago but she has now graduated from Wild Child to being an “Earth Mother” so that’s all right then.

    “Now she is back with a reality TV series, Charlotte Church’s Dream Build, documenting her ambitious plan to convert Rhydoldog, the 16th-century former home of Welsh designer Laura Ashley in Elan Valley, Powys, into an off-grid, eco healing retreat.”
    And:

    “The real jeopardy of Charlotte Church’s Dream Build, though, is that Charlotte – who is totally hands-on with ‘everything from the size of the windows to the planting in the grounds’ – is risking all her remaining money on her dream to make Rhydoldog fully sustainable, powered by a hydro-mill and solar panels.”

    “Inevitably, within a matter of months she was hugely over-budget. The off-grid batteries alone cost £300,000, wiping out her entire original ‘spend’ money.”

    So, the Green Mania has nearly wiped her out financially but true believers don’t seem to mind. How much would a diesel generating set have cost? Mind you, that’s not part of the Green Fantasy, is it? Wiping yourself out- or that matter the whole nation to worship complete nonsense is the way to go.
    Sadly, there was not a comment section- for obvious reasons but it is really alarming that someone can do this- no matter how well-intentioned. How long do those batteries last I wonder? When will this madness end? I suppose when we have been transported back to the 1700s or worse.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/charlotte-church-people-have-impression-years-ago-want-claw/

    2. I’ve just seen a piccy of the place https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9388339/Charlotte-Church-splash-1-5m-fashion-icon-Laura-Ashleys-former-home.html

      It has a nice big hill perched just behind it. Perfect for putting a reservoir at the top, which can feed the hydro mill. Any excess electricity from the bird muncher can pump water back up from the mill pond to the top reservoir, and probably last longer than any battery. She could also keep trout in there, and organise hunting parties to keep the fish fed with tourists and migrants.

    3. The one with the “voice of an angel and the mouth of a sewer”? That Charlotte Chhurch? Fools and their money come to mind…….

    4. The one with the “voice of an angel and the mouth of a sewer”? That Charlotte Chhurch? Fools and their money come to mind…….

    5. I found Laura Ashley’s reasonably priced nostalgic frocks very healing. Especially during a couple of v. hot 1970’s summers.

  36. North Shropshire wasn’t all bad for the Tories — just look how Labour fared
    Rod Liddle
    Sunday December 19 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    Those little villages of Shropshire are no longer the quietest places under the sun, as AE Housman had it, but filled with a people in seething ferment, desperate to rid themselves of a government that only two years ago they voted for en masse. They are sick of Boris Johnson, with his parties and his apartments, his grasping friends, his Peppa Pigs and his porkie pies, his inviolable, unshakeable incompetence.

    In the seventh-biggest swing in UK parliamentary history, the Conservatives were dumped for a party led by the charismatic intellectual colossus that is Ed Davey. Housman would have been most surprised by this rebellion in one of England’s bluest counties.

    Or perhaps not. Perhaps they were never the quietest places under the sun, even in Edwardian times. Housman had never even set foot in the county when he wrote the (at times unbearably pompous) cycle A Shropshire Lad. He scribbled almost the entire thing from the very un-rural surroundings of London N10: Hampstead borders. In other words, he took a kind of Labour Party approach to poetry: these places, beyond London, sound absolutely marvellous, provided one doesn’t have to actually go there.

    Nothing that follows here is intended to diminish the import of this by-election for the Conservative Party and its present leadership, which seems to be progressing towards a state of putrefaction with every day that passes. The deal in the party is very clear: we have grave misgivings about you, Boris, but you can win elections. You have, somehow, an attractiveness with the electorate. That deal is scuppered when you’re beaten 8-0 on your own ground by the least effective third party (in England) in 50 years.

    Ranged against him now are not just the pragmatic, blue-Labourish red wall Tories, but also the Covid-doubting libertarians who rebelled last week, the Remainers (who have never forgiven him), the liberals and those who think that Johnson et al are nowhere near conservative enough when it comes to the culture wars. The reason a coup is still some distance away is that these factions all cordially loathe one another.

    But what possible comfort can you take from this result if you are a Labour supporter? In 2019 Labour came second in North Shropshire, with Graeme Currie polling a vaguely respectable 12,495 votes. On Thursday Labour came a dismal third with a scant 3,686 votes, down more than 12 per cent. OK, it has never been terribly strong in the shires — but then, where is it strong?

    The suspicion is that it did not even try to win, and some Labour supporters are consoling themselves that this was a surreptitious deal with Ed Davey’s convocation of woke oddballs: they’ll give us a free run in Old Bexley and Sidcup; we’ll ease off in North Shropshire. This has all been denied by Labour — but then it would be, wouldn’t it? The problem, though, is that Labour came nowhere near winning in Bexley and was utterly humiliated in North Shropshire.

    It also managed to lose its deposit in the suburban pleasantville of Chesham & Amersham. Where, then, can it win — beyond a few seats representing affluent, well-educated, inner-city metropolitans? It possesses only a single seat in Scotland, down from the 59 achieved in 1997. It is in the process of being wiped out in the northeast of England. When Keir Starmer looks at a constituency map of the country, where does he think those wins are going to occur? Because I can’t see them occurring anywhere beyond the posher parts of London, Cambridge and Oxford and maybe Manchester and Liverpool.

    It is hard to dislike Starmer: he has a kind of pathetic eagerness to please that I always find endearing. But each election result suggests that his strategy, such as it is, is not working. He has jettisoned the economic radicalism of John McDonnell — which had genuine appeal in those red wall seats — but retained the knee-bending identitarian garbage that appeals only to students and terminally deluded middle-class professionals. Nothing of Labour’s message appealed in those Shropshire towns.

    The caveat that both Labour and the Tories will cling to is that the vast majority of the great, tumultuous by-election victories of the past 50 years — maybe 60 years, all the way back to Orpington — have been won by the Liberals or Liberal Democrats. It’s what they do.

    This may persuade both party leaders not to bother reading the writing on the wall — writing that seems, to me, pretty clear.

    •The latest victim of cancel culture is Facebook’s laughing emoji.

    A New Zealand (yes, it’s them again) magazine has demanded it be banned because a writer cannot bear seeing “that little yellow ball of derision sitting at the bottom of news stories and posts, cackling at the pandemic, climate change, inequality — actually anything where someone is trying to make the world a better place”.

    This followed an article in The Guardian in which another furious leftie shrieked: “When I look at its yellow face, I see the detestable, carefree smirks of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson as they merrily dance through the current chaos.” Yes, they want to ban us from even laughing at them.

    “Humour, the last refuge of the bourgeois,” said someone many years ago. “Laughter, the last refuge of the sane,” said me, just now.

    Partygate — cabinet secretary explains

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F81223ac2-601b-11ec-8ca2-4e56f587e18b.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=860

    The only rule in the BBC building: keep to the left

    Some of my former BBC colleagues appeared before a House of Lords committee last week addressing the corporation’s impartiality, or lack of it.

    Only a few days earlier the perky little actor David Tennant had explained how the BBC’s new Around the World in 80 Days would portray Phileas Fogg as a “damaged” individual in a horrible imperialist Britain that should evoke no sympathy. Sounds a hoot, doesn’t it? Oh, and also last week members of the Jewish community protested outside Broadcasting House against the totally unsubstantiated allegation made by the BBC that an antisemitic attack in London had been provoked by an “anti-Muslim” slur.

    There have been 4,762 independent reports on BBC bias now, all concluding that Auntie is further to the left than a fish fork. And nothing ever changes, except to maybe get a bit worse. But whenever anyone leaves the BBC, they are struck, in a blinding epiphany, by the realisation that the institution they served perhaps was, after all, a little parti pris on certain social issues.

    No, Esther, I assure you that is the snowman’s nose

    Esther Rantzen has been urging people to give the elderly a phone call on Christmas Day.

    Would she mind awfully if I was spared? Christmas morning, the phone rings at 9am and it’s Esther telling you about a carrot she’s found that looks slightly like a penis. It might just push me over the edge.

    1. To drop to 3 686 votes from 12 495 is not a 12% fall, Mr Liddle.
      Should have tried harder at school.

        1. They used the same statistical presentation to lessen the defeat the Conservatives had received.

    2. Don’t worry. The editors on the Today programme this morning cut off some professor in mid-flow talking about depression in order to have someone tinkling ‘Chestnuts on an Open Fire’ from a holiday destination in Moscow, followed by a bit of pre-pips filler chatter.

      If a feminist was speaking, they wouldn’t dare cut her off unless she has addressed the nation for twenty minutes, and then only for their Sports reporter or another feminist on ‘Thought for the Day’.

    3. The one positive thing for which I gave the full credit to Nick Clegg was his crippling annihilation of the Lib/Dems. If he could now bankrupt Facebook that would be another bonus.

      What to do with Ed Davey? I do not know: he is surely one of the most odious members in his political party who, in his first pop at the party leadership, was beaten by Jo Swinson who then lost her parliamentary seat just as Nick Clegg had done in 2017.

      Mind you, when Davey loses his seat the hope of the Lib/Dems will be in safe hands when this strange woman called Layla , who beat up a former boyfriend and now identifies as ‘pan-sexual’, has taken over.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9dbb628bb04caf48a0fb2ed23ece80aa608b702a68c828ec91d91d7578c65eae.jpg

    4. Ron, Ron, did you not realise that Labour in North Shropshire indulged in tactical voting? Anything to get the Tories out. That’s why they didn’t mop up as many votes as they normally would have.

      1. Plus, the Labour candidate was 26 but looked 17 and appeared never to have left his home town. The LDs threw everything including the kitchen sink at it (people complained they were inundated with LD leaflets). Even a Labour supporter said to me that Starmer had no credibility. Get out of your metropolitan bubble and talk to the people on the ground here to understand why Labour did so poorly. Graeme Currie bad-mouthing the party because he wasn’t selected didn’t help, either.

    2. Peter Bone seems to have missed the fact that most MPs haven’t been scrutinising the government since the lockdowns began! On one memorable occasion they couldn’t be bothered to actually vote!

  39. On this dull, damp, grey, sunless morning, I thought I would brighten your day by posting three pictures take by my mate Henri on the 18th December in the Pyrenees. In the one with the two small skiers on the far slope – Henri had just descended. He is 70 – fit as a fiddle. And a rescuer of cats.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ec765cb18586777707bc45152825ae389d0788287ca988e659bc404f65f49d2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f649c7ca30afdfc58b270b49f2ddec810fbecc891292d75a15c15b0b2f29d12.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12bd96585d01a05dca567a784706e5bd89390c62bed75e17fcb1d565d71c6212.jpg

  41. Say what you like about Johnson, but at least he got rid of London’s bendy-buses – every clown has a silver lifeboat.

  42. Andrew Tettenborn
    Harry Miller’s ‘transphobic tweets’ victory is a win for free speech
    20 December 2021, 5:39pm

    Court decisions don’t often call for three cheers, but today’s Court of Appeal determination in the Harry Miller case is an exception. Essentially the judges have told the police to rewrite the rules on recording what they see as hate incidents.

    However technical this looks, this is actually an enormous blow in favour of the freedom of ordinary people to say what they want. It is also an admirable Christmas present for anyone seriously concerned with protecting free speech, not to mention a high-profile triumph for the Free Speech Union, who stood squarely behind the appeal. Fighting cases like this needs moral and financial support: and in tandem with Fair Cop, the FSU has very commendably provided both.

    In case you’ve forgotten the background, a guidance document issued to all police forces says the following: if someone says something which anyone else sees as embodying hostility based on race, religion, transgenderism or a number of other characteristics, then even if no crime whatever is indicated, police must record it as a so-called ‘non-crime hate incident’ (or NCHI). It matters little if the incident is trivial or its classification fairly obviously misguided, or if the complainant is a victim: it must still go down. There is little discretion, nor is it necessarily just a matter between the speaker and the police: NCHIs can feature in the enhanced criminal records certificate that anyone must produce to work with children or the vulnerable.

    Harry Miller, a retired policeman with a habit of posting gender-critical (but entirely lawful) views online, fell foul of this system in 2019. One tweet he posted questioned whether transgender women were real women. Police subsequently turned up at Miller’s workplace after receiving a complaint and a NCHI was recorded against his name, seemingly on the basis that the guidance required it.

    Armed with a healthy dose of bloody-mindedness, Miller objected to being labelled as a suspected hate-monger on evidence at best slender and at worst non-existent: and it was at his insistence that the Court of Appeal this morning said this was indeed unacceptable in law. Even if a person was not prosecuted for what they said, the prospect of having even lawful speech recorded as a matter of course merely because someone somewhere saw it as hateful had a gravely chilling effect on their exercise of robust free speech. It followed that it was contrary to the protection of free speech in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and unlawful.

    This is pretty unalloyed good news. The protection of free speech under the Strasbourg convention is normally pretty patchy, because of the qualifications hedging it round: but here it has unusually come up trumps. Automatic recording of NCHIs, first introduced in an excess of zeal following some incautious recommendations emanating from the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, is a dead duck. To record what someone has said, the police will now need at least some rational connection with crime-fighting or keeping order rather than the mere say-so of a possibly misguided complainant.

    As a by-product, pressure groups and the easily-offended will find it more difficult to silence those they do not like by reporting them to the police. Instead of having to show excessive respect to a complainant just because they are a complainant (or in police-speak a ‘victim’), the latter will now have a great deal more reason to do what they should have done all along and tell complainants, tactfully but firmly, that they cannot become embroiled in the policing of political or social argument.

    An attraction of the Court of Appeal’s decision today is that it protects the free speech of the ordinary tweeter or social media user, rather than only that of high-profile campaigners or journalists. But it may also go further. The idea rejected by the Court of Appeal as contrary to free speech, that hate speech is fundamentally a matter of victimhood, and hence that all that matters is how it is perceived by those affected, was not limited to the College of Policing. Many public authorities, not wishing to be left out, have embraced the idea wholeheartedly in their own codes of conduct and equality and diversity policies. They may now have to show some care in how they seek to moderate the speech of those who work for them if they are not to fall foul of the courts.

    There is one other person who as a result of all this will, one suspects, be quietly happy: Priti Patel. The judges have incidentally got her out of an awkward bind. Instinctively pro-free speech, aware of the problems of NHCIs and heavily pressured by free speech advocates to do something about them, she has nevertheless had to do a careful balancing act.

    The police establishment, rightly or wrongly, support NCHIs, and wise Home Secretaries do not want to alienate the police or to take steps which could be seen as cramping their style in suppressing crime. But now that the difficult (and correct) decision has been taken for her, she could even be forgiven for discreetly cracking open a socially-distanced Christmas bottle with her officials somewhere in the Home Office out of the sight of malicious journalists.

    Andrew Tettenborn is a writer and professor of law.

    2. I can’t be the only person who finds the whole concept of the police being involved with what is, by definition, a “non crime” absolutely ludicrous! Perhaps they might spend more time trying to stop violence on the streets?

      2. I find it ludicrous that the pathetic excuse of a mayor in London declares a state of emergency over a flu outbreak but does nothing at all about all the knife/machete crimes or the drug gangs.
        There is not one competent or intelligent politician in this country.

        1. Well, his mantra about the black stabbers and the slammer bombers is, “Learn to live with it”…

          4. I believe the sawn-off khlown used the phrase ‘part and parcel of living in Londonistan’.

            More than 100 murders – and many hundreds of stabbings – have been committed in each year he has been in office.

    5. The relevant Public Order legislation will require amendment i.e. to be put back to what it was before the idea of ‘hate crime’ was incorporated into it.

      1. No, William, we, the UK, need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and repeal Bliar’s Human Rights Act.

        Only then will we, the UK, be free to express our thoughts without fear or favour. And we can rid ourselves of the Gimmegrunts, currently sucking at our (the taxpayer’s) teat.

        1. I agree about the ECHR and ‘immigrants’ but it was the convention that was used to win Harry Miller’s case.

          Public Order legislation was amended to accommodate ‘hate crime’. It must still be corrected even if the ECHR and HRA go.

  45. Gavin Mortimer
    Boris Johnson’s betrayal of conservative values
    21 December 2021, 9:51am

    Two years ago this week I wrote a piece for Coffee House entitled ‘Corbyn may be a goner but his ideology is as strong as ever’. The thrust of my argument was that gloating over the demise of Magic Grandpa and his Momentum mob was premature, and what we call woke culture was ‘no passing middle-class fad that will blow over in a year or two.’

    Blow over, it didn’t. On the contrary a cultural storm swept in across the Atlantic that upturned ideals and, quite literally, toppled statues.

    There was far more to last week’s by-election shock in North Shropshire than sleaze and Ms Stratton; it was a cri de coeur from conservatives who feel betrayed, who believed the landslide victory of 2019 was the start of the fightback against the world view that has dominated Britain since New Labour came to power in 1997.

    Instead they have watched in horrified bemusement at Boris Johnson’s administration. Who in North Shropshire would have imagined in December 2019 that 18 months later their leader would refuse to say that only a woman has a cervix? The old Boris would have roared with laughter at such an absurd question; the new Boris dodged it and mumbled some inanity about treating people with dignity and respect.

    In 2019 I mentioned a former KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov. In an American television interview in 1984 he explained how for many years the KGB had waged a war of ‘ideological subversion’ against the USA exploiting the self-loathing of the counter-culture generation. The long-term objective, he explained, was ‘to change the perception of reality of Americans to such an extent no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their family, their community and country’.

    Mission accomplished. America is now an ideological basket case, and Britain isn’t far behind. The evidence is everywhere: vicars gluing themselves to motorways, a police officer chanting pro-Palestine slogans, a university professor hounded from her workplace for stating that people cannot change their biological sex, the head of the UK Border Force belittling borders ‘as a pain in the… arse’, the chief of the defence staff prioritising diversity above efficiency, a best-selling author ostracised because she believes only women can menstruate, and, most disturbing of all, an entire political class that blamed the diabolical murder of one of their own on social media instead of Islamic extremism.

    In the last two years Britain’s ideological subversion has seen institutions from the Ministry of Defence to the Royal Opera House to the National Trust to the Imperial War Museum submit to this spurious dogma that puts progressivism before patriotism.

    Those who don’t yield are targeted. The East German communist party had a name for this strategy: Zersetzung, literally ‘decomposition’, whereby ideological dissidents accused of ‘subversive incitement’ were publicly discredited. Today we call it being ‘cancelled’.

    I ended my article in 2019 with a warning: that those in Britain crowing over the ignominious defeat of Corbyn at the ballot box were naive. Corbyn may have been vanquished but his ideology ‘will continue to grow until the Conservatives take back control of Britain’s education’.

    Alas, in the last two years the left’s grip on education has further tightened. This year alone has seen schools drop houses named after Churchill, Nelson and Drake and rename them in honour of people who aren’t even British, such as Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg. Johnson’s Alma mater, Eton, hasn’t escaped the ideological cleansing with an English teacher sacked for challenging the idea of toxic masculinity.

    And what has been the response of Johnson to this concerted attack on Britain’s heritage? A half-hearted defence of Winston Churchill, via twitter, and an undergraduate gag about Insulate Britain. He may laugh them off as ‘irresponsible crusties’ but the family of the woman who suffered a paralysing stroke because Insulate Britain blockaded motorways probably don’t see the funny side.

    Johnson appears to have no stomach for this culture war fight, unlike his nemesis, Emmanuel Macron, who has ridiculed the radical progressives and made it clear that there will be no revision of French history.

    Lord Frost resigned at the weekend because he could no longer tolerate the government’s ‘direction of travel’. The people of North Shropshire share that sentiment. So do millions of other Britons, a great many of whom ‘loaned’ Johnson their vote in 2019 because they recognised that Corbyn did not have Britain’s best interests at heart and so rejected him.

    Boris’s political career will go the same way as the former Labour leader’s if he doesn’t ditch this world view and begin to do what’s best for Britain. He could start by revisiting the cervix question. Surely a man who has fathered seven children should know the answer.

    1. But does he know the answer to the final question in this piece?

      I should imagine that he bumbles and fumbles and, as with most things, he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing.

    2. It is disgusting how far back the hateful, bigoted Left, and their so called ‘progressive’ agenda have forced us backward.

      Their racism, spite, malice and ego have done huge damage. Damage that will be undone at the cost of blood – they’ll learn that twitter isn’t the real world.

    1. Frankly, were I charged with that sort of offence, a sex-trafficking jury would be fantastic!!

    2. It seems she is taking the can for all his misdemeanours, but as I said the other day when his supposedly ‘his body’ was removed from the cell where he was supposed to have committed suicide. The face covering was conveniently turn back but it did really resemble the alleged victim. Far too rich to commit suicide.
      Why would a supposedly ‘dead body’ being removed have been displayed to the TV news camera’s and then to the public ?? I personally think he’s still alive and kicking somewhere and she will disappear from her prison cell with in six months of being sentenced. And they will both live happily ever after. Plastic surgery works wonders look at some of our own ‘celebs’……….😄😆

  47. Deliveries of Russian natural gas to Germany through the Yamal-Europe pipeline have been completely halted, data from the country’s transport operator, Gascade, revealed on Tuesday morning.
    The suspension of the flow comes after a weekend in which the volume being sent through the network dropped significantly, just as demand for energy in both Russia and the rest of Europe reached its winter peak. On Monday, it was reported that state-owned giant Gazprom, the system’s operator in Russia and Belarus, had booked no capacity at all for transiting natural gas on Tuesday.

    The Yamal-Europe transnational gas pipeline runs from northwest Siberia to Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in eastern Germany via Belarus and Poland. Last year, around one-fifth of all natural gas sent to Western Europe went via Belarus. Energy supplies through the system vary based on consumption, including within Russia, which Gazprom prioritizes over sending fuel abroad. Temperatures have plummeted in Moscow and other large Russian cities this week.
    Speaking to the Financial Times, Ronald Smith, senior oil and gas analyst at Moscow financial group BCS, explained that the drop in supply may be due to Russia having prioritized its storage to keep its own citizens warm as some parts of the country endure frigid temperatures.

    https://www.rt.com/russia/543844-yamal-europe-pipeline-halt/

    1. Russia is looking after the interests of the Russians and giving them priority over foreigners in foreign countries. We could do with that attitude here.
      I suppose that the supply contract is being honoured?

      1. The problem stems from a directive from Brussels last year urging EU countries NOT to renew long-term contracts but to buy on the spot markets.Most European reserves are less than half full…a few week’s supply.

        1. Thanks for that. The EU is not very smart, but I think we knew that as we have seen Guy Verybadhair in action..

          1. In a mild Winter the directive would make sense as there would be an abundance of gas on the market keeping the price low.
            Not so in a harsh one….and its looking like a harsh one.

          2. I am not too bothered about businesses betting on the stock market and the like. I do not think that Governments should place bets, on energy availability and prices, that will determine the safety of their people and the economy of their countries.

  48. Morning all, Happy shortest day Birthday Elsie, take care with all those candles. 😎🤗🤩

    4. Good for you, I have a telephone call with the cardiology department later today and I want to nail them on whether I should or not have the booster. To my way of thinking the previous jabs have caused me two A&E visits and 6 months of heart problems. But after agreeing with me that I should not have the booster my GP has now become none committal, saying “It’s up to you”. I think I have decided not to have it as it seems more risky than catching the current strain. Three of our family members have had it and a friend of mines son and DiL it was very mild, just as described, as similar to a common cold.

      1. No booster for me. I’m relying on immune system boosted by vit C, D, and Zn, and so far, it’s working well.

        1. The problems is Obs it;s spreading like wild fire in the UK now and I can’t go out, but it’s my choice not to.
          I know some people who traveled from Cape Town one to France via Amsterdam and Paris and 4 to the UK they isolated but had no signs or any symptoms of the this most recent variant unless it’s been deliberate I fail to understand how this has spread so quickly in the UK, as it failed to spread in the same way in SA. But it was in full flow here in a trice !!! How ?

          1. The symptoms seem to be like a cold. Maybe nobody in SA who thought they had a cold could be arsed to get tested? And – I’m assuming that testing costs money, and there’s a lot who don’t have money to splash around in SA just on the off-chance that their “cold” isn’t a cold, but something else presenting as a cold.
            Apart from a few, I can’t see the excitement over catching what we used to call a cold, but now seems to be a guaranteed death-sentence, according to the meejah and gummint.

          2. I mentioned earlier some or our family have it, but they are feeling okay after two – three days, but still have to isolate.
            My wife is dropping off some shopping for them. I’ve also been busy making whole meal bread, I can’t be without it toasted for breakfast. I’d better take doggo out for a run around.

          3. Perhaps it is spreading faster here because the weather conditions are different. It is summer in SA, it is cold, damp and miserable here in the northern hemisphere, with low and short levels of natural light. Read Rose’s article, it’s not a long read and very informative.

          4. I might be but I wonder how it actually arrived here to be so potent so quickly. When if you consider the isolation procedures most travelers had to under go.

          5. I am beginning to think somebody is wafting a can (or medical equivalent) of it around somewhere. I read a few years ago that, every few years, China sets something like this loose on their people because it simply cannot cope with the vast numbers of its ageing population, and this was one way of dealing with it. Perhaps that is where Johnson got the idea from when he said that he was going to solve the social care crisis here.

          6. Given the fact that the Russians managed to inflict a deadly poison on to the UK, I believe this covid was man made and probably transported to Europe. Look at when it started in Italy, thousands of people were taken ill but there was never any explanation as to how it became so prevalent so suddenly.
            I simply do not trust any one in authority any more, their main qualifications seem to be habitual and pathological lying.
            And of course effing up everything they come into contact with.

          7. Like Player’s Cigarettes. “It’s the tobacco that counts.”

            Today it’s Omicron that counts, however many numbers we ascribe to it.

          9. Yes Conners, I don’t believe anything the MSM pump out especially the BBC they are dreadful ans seem to think they are a political party.
            But as i mentioned previously three of our family have just had the ‘variant’ but it only lasted two to three days.

        2. Good day, Obs.
          I take the same and continually refuse to have the booster
          ….. I have had three ‘phone calls from the Surgery and four
          letters from the NHS.

          2. I thought the damsons too good to throw away, so after I had pressed out the gin, I made a pot of jam with them. Of course the alcohol was dispelled by boiling, but it worked well and tastes very nice indeed on my home made seeded wholemeal toast.
            Jam made with a little added sugar of course.

      3. Absolutely NO vaccination for me, as none give immunity as a vaccine should, no-one knows the long-term effects and now it it induces myocarditis that my chronic heart disease couldn’t withstand.

        Now un vaccinated, I’m labelled a pariah.

        2. The cardio said I should have the booster despite all the problems i have had this year. I’m sure he might have a different opinion if he had suffered the same way as many people have after these jabs.

    6. Sadly Katy, they arent going to give us the choice. No amount of protesting will change this authoritarian lunacy.

    1. Really HRH……… ‘to act’ is seemingly allowing hundreds of thousands of people with very low carbon footprints to move to other established western countries and destroy wild life habitat and agricultural and green belt land building new homes for them. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

    1. Never mind prosecute, they should be rewarded for ensuring a few more potentially dangerous and definitely undesirables didn’t get here.

        1. I would add that I believe that even if this case isn’t successful the people smugglers will ensure that all boats contain at least one primary school aged child or younger, precisely because they know the British will be sentimental and that dead children fund rescues.

        2. None of them deserved to die.

          They *could* have applied legally and arrived safely. They didn’t. They were in a safe country. They wanted the freebies we give them.

          They passed through dozens of safe, same culture countries. They could have applied for leave to stay in any of them.

          Our state should have returned them.

          We should have forced France to do it’s duty under international law.
          We didn’t.

          They didn’t. They paid smugglers thousands of pounds to get a boat to merry ol’ England to live a life on welfare thanks to us.

          Hell, the ones who are here aren’t exactly shining examples of excellence – rapists, paedophiles, thieves, murderers.

          No one did what they should have done to stop this and this is the result.

          1. I disagree, those adults knew exactly what they were undertaking and took a calculated risk. They lost.
            I think those who are “rescued” in the channel should be sent back to their point of origin immediately.
            The children were pawns.

          2. …and do I give a flying, Wibbles?

            To me it is down to self-inflicted injury and nobody but themselves to blame.

          3. I saw a govt advert asking if we could help Afghan refugees who were at risk from the Taliban. My thought was, it’ll be US at risk from the Taliban if they’re let in.

    2. Sorry, this may not be popular in this blog but there are agencies here that do need to answer for this.
      We have been signalling to ruthless criminal gangs that we will welcome all comers for months. Some of those coming will have been themselves criminals, others hapless victims of conmen and brutal gangsters. We have been encouraging this madness. “We” because we did vote in the cynical incompetent baboons running the country at the moment.
      The navy and the coastguard have been picking them up half way and the French escorting them. And now a decision was made not to.
      As a result a 7 year old died. And 26 others.
      Were the coastguard and navy told to stay away to make a political point because Farage was showing Patel up too badly? Did they obey an order knowing they would not be held to account for lives lost?
      Did the traffickers deliberately hole that boat to force a scandal like Hamas firing at Israel from residential areas?
      There needs to be full disclosure about this including whoever made the decision to encourage the traffickers in the first place.

      1. I agree that somebody needs to be held to account, but where do you start?
        Everyone is culpable, from the charities and refugees welcome mobs through the criminal gangs and up the political ranks and the civil service and even the Press..

      2. The thing is, the public don’t give a crap.

        There’s a minority who’ll kick up a fuss, but the vast majority want the dross gone, and never to return.

        That’s pretty bloody awful – after all, these are human beings. Yet the state has encouraged this by not refusing them entry and returning them to France.

        Whiile I appreciate the intent of your suggestion, the state will find that it needs to spend more on bringing the gimmigrants in. It’s heartless of me, but I cannot care. Deaths were inevitable. If it deterred more I’d be grateful. If big fat state were to say ‘you’re dying, we’re towing you all back from now on’ that would be the best solution but the boats won’t stop and the state won’t return them.

        When more die I will say ‘Oh dear, how sad, never mind.’ because we could have stopped it.

        1. If we had stopped them coming in and sent them straight back, the boats would have stopped because it wasn’t worth it. It’s as simple as that. Australia proved it. No boats, no risky crossings, lives saved.

      3. Thank you, you have saved me some time. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? When you consider the effort that individual people make, and have made throughout history, in order to save those in peril on the sea, it is horrifying that shore based authorities ignored the calls.

      5. I don’t agree. They died because they made the decision to put to sea in an unseaworthy craft. The child died because its parents made a decision to risk its life. Despite what is written in the press, nobody brought them to France and forced them on the boat. They paid thousands for the privilege of breaking British law in order to benefit from other people’s hard work.

        The only people I blame for the child’s death are the child’s parents.

        1. There are powerful vested interests in keeping this supply of very cheap workers and potential terrorists to scare us into further infringements on our liberties.
          We have our own swamp which needs draining.

        2. “The only two survivors of last month’s disaster told Kurdish media that the migrants on the boat made distress calls that were ignored as their canoe deflated and their engine broke.”

          How? By mobile phone? In mid channel? How can they possibly know that the calls were received?

          1. They all have mobile phones, fully charged courtesy of the big hearted charities that support them. The 999 service will have recorded any calls to them, so the truth is out there.
            I heard on the grapevine about a migrant who came across the Mediterranean. They were drifting for ten days, and their phone batteries ran out.

    1. The moment it was announced that the flight had been delayed, there was no doubt that the cause was an explosive device; obviously timed to explode over the ocean.

      Some of the American students on board were based in West London, and a friend used to grumble about them delaying the regular customers at his bank branch. Probably Barclays, but I can’t be certain.

    3. I regularly drove past Lockerbie at that time – working in Glasgow, family in S Wales – 420 mile in 420 minutes.

      1. Profanity is the only response to such outlandish hysteria. Plenty will se that ad and panic even more than they already are.

    2. A similar full-page advert has been put on the back page of every Daily Telegraph for the past fortnight!

    5. I just had my conversation with the cardiologist and I asked him if he thinks that given my circumstances I should have the booster.
      I think i’l sit tight for the time being and maybe go in the new year. After the Echo Cardiogram he is organising. If i’m allowed in with out having it of course.

      1. I know of a seven year old who needed essential surgery. He was only allowed in after a seven day isolation for him and his Mum, and daily testing for them both. But his siblings could still go to and from school (and anywhere else that their dad took them) and the dad could still go to work, shopping or anywhere he chose..
        If the virus was as deadly as is made out, the child and his Mum would have been completely isolated. Completely illogical.

    6. Should I panic about the covid emergency first, or the climate emergency? Decisions, decisions…

      1. An impossible choice. We are doomed, and all the unjabbed (i.e. not had three) will catch the deadly Moronic variant, become seriously ill and die. (According to some). If we’re dead, we won’t need to panic about the climate ’emergency’.

      2. An impossible choice. We are doomed, and all the unjabbed (i.e. not had three) will catch the deadly Moronic variant, become seriously ill and die. (According to some). If we’re dead, we won’t need to panic about the climate ’emergency’.

  54. Was I seeing things, or have I just watched on the BBC One o’Clock News a hospital patient (with face blurred out) just being loaded up into a bin lorry?

  55. Daytime running lights on vehicles may be causing unintended confusion for other drivers, according to research carried out by the RAC.

    I travelled in the fog last Friday from, Loughborough to near Skeggy and was astounded by the number of cars just using these crap lights

    At times, visability was down to less than 25 yards: it was hairy

    Until I checked on the net, I did not realise that these lights existed

    Fog = Dipped Head Lights/Front Fogs and Rear Fogs turned OFF, when a car appears in Rear View Mirror

    https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2018/12/03/daytime-running-lights-causing-confusion-claims-rac

    1. I admit to cheating. I put my lights on, but I also have the car’s radar thingy on as well. Tells me who’s around me.

  56. British and French rescue services may be charged with manslaughter over channel migrant drownings

    NGO Utopia 56 files legal complaint against British and French services for allegedly ignoring distress calls from 27 migrants who drowned

    What was known as a self-inflicted injury

    If the ‘charidee’ is so caring, why has it not got its’own rescue teams out in the Channel 24/7

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/20/british-french-rescue-services-may-charged-manslaughter-channel/

  57. Right, that’s the tree decorated, lights up, strange furry wreath in the bay window, Christmas barbed wire in the dining room window, outside lights installed.
    Time for sherry & a mince pie.
    :-D)

      1. #2 sherry… need a new bottle, dammit!
        :-((
        Traditional in this house to consume sherry whilst decorating the tree. And to leave a carrot, mince pie & BIG glass of sherry for Santa. Amazingly, he drinks the sherry, eats all but the crust of the mpie, and the reindeer eat half the carrot. Every year! No wonder Santa is a fat b’stard. And has a red nose – if that’s his alcohol consumption, that is…

          1. Perfect with mince pies.
            Salmiakki is one of my faves, as is their ginger gin. Excellent! Even better, soundly disliked by the rest of the family, so I get to enjoy my own booze until it’s empty! What’s not to like?

      2. Opened the Stones Green Ginger Wine. That’s my festivities on their way.

        Six x chicken thighs (bone in) marinading in the fridge – my task for tomorrow – Coq au Vin.

  58. Just back from my local ASDA (in Co. Antrim) where they are, for the first time in over 6 months, asking the unmasked if they want a free mask. Mask wearing in retail is mandated in NI and has been for some time although the Police have issued 5, yes five, fixed penalty notices for breaches since the mandate began. This led me to think about the timing for all this. Remember for the first 6 to 8 months of the pandemic we were told by Boris and that (un)sage Whittey that masks were not necessary and that tests proved they did not work. Then one day they did work and we all had to wear one. Suppose the Pfizer and other vaccine producers told Boris that a vaccine was 6 to 8 months away and to hold on the masks until the roll out was ready to start. Then the mandate – nudge to wear masks upped the fear factor and hey-presto, everyone gets vaccinated. Ker-ching. We are being played like a cheap violin.

  59. Christmas plans thrown into confusion, S-I-L had a works do at the weekend and now 70% who attended test positive with Covid, himself included.
    He has no symptoms and only done a LFT because the wife of the chap he was due to work with is scheduled for an operation and who understandably wants no complication of Covid in her plans.
    As a child, I think chickenpox parties were looked on favourably, perhaps Covid parties should be the order of the day, at least for those not considered vulnerable.

      1. Most of them are I’m told, we are waiting for the PCR result. I know the sort of person he is, even showing no symptoms he will not do anything other than hide away for 10 days. How the rest of the household are affected depends on the latest guidelines, bringing up my kids on the straight and narrow has its downsides now we are ruled by the WEF and their bought and paid for politicians.

  60. I have no idea whether the allegations against Mr Noth are true or false, but once again just the mention has been enough to get him sacked from one show and dropped from other contracts and advertisers. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?? I see one allegation dates from 2004! Also nice to see his co-stars standing by him – Not.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-59738053

    1. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”??

      Just terribly twentieth century. You really must try to move with the times.

    2. He must sue, and immediately. If he really is innocent.
      Then, when proven they lied (if they lied…) he can get some financial support. If they didn’t lie and he over-rode their protests, then…

  61. Christmas Special for the Organists

    I used to select YouTube videos of organ recordings for my father-in-law to play on his hi-fi enhanced TV.
    He particularly enjoyed seeing young ladies’ abilities in mastering the complex fingering and pedal work of this demanding instrument.

    As a former church organist he became so excited at seeing Dr Carol Williams’s rendering of this Flight of the Bumblebee that he almost fell out his armchair exclaiming: “Good on you girl!”.
    https://youtu.be/hHZvMAJUN5g

    Here are recordings of three young ladies playing Gigou’s Toccata with differing levels of accomplishment, audio video quality and directing.

    Which one do you think he would have appreciated most?

    Anne-Isabelle de Parcevaux
    https://youtu.be/gcG0qe755UU

    Carina Sturdy
    https://youtu.be/inALYuIcfEk?list=RDinALYuIcfEk

    Katja Sager
    https://youtu.be/JxnBil0UG8U

      2. I suppose onanists don’t have to discriminate between using white, black and brown keys.😉

    5. Q: “Which one do you think he would have appreciated most?”

      A: The one with the biggest t*ts. (punchline from old joke about choosing a secretary.)

        1. It doesn’t make it any better – particularly in light of your alternative stodgy pudding – much on a par with mushy peas.

          2. A Yorkshire fish cake (fish fritter) is two thin (6mm) slices of a large spud sandwiching a fillet of cod, battered and deep fried. They are very popular, especially for those who don’t want a large meal and can get “fish & chips” in one unit.

          7. Disgusting, George.

            What a barbaric way to treat home-grown and fresh caught meat.

            Typical Yorkshire – that looks good – how can we f**k it up.

            Almost as bad as Glasgow’s deep-fried mars bars.

          8. Nowhere near as disgusting as that congealed cold vomit you Neanderthals from the east call “bread pudding”.

          10. Very well weaned, George, on home-grown vegetables and meat. No mushiness here, just good old home-grown food without maltreating it.

  63. Good afternoon.
    A tea break before I make the door wreath an MB decorates the tree. (The lights work: huzzah!!! Onward and upward.)

    1. I’m having a Nottl break to gather my strength for finishing hoovering upstairs and making up beds.

  64. Gas price in Europe smashes all-time high

    European prices for natural gas exceeded $2,100 per 1,000 cubic meters for the first time ever, on Tuesday, according to Intercontinental Exchange’s London clearing house.
    The January futures on the title transfer facility hub in the Netherlands traded at $2,120 per 1,000 cubic meters, marking a 23% increase from Monday.

    On Tuesday, Russian gas exporter Gazprom halted gas transit to Germany via the Yamal-Europe pipeline. According to the presidential press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, the decision was purely commercial and not related to the delay of the Nord Stream 2 project.

    Europe has seen an unprecedented growth in energy prices as Germany continues to postpone the launch of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, citing concerns that it doesn’t meet EU regulations. Germany insists the delay is not political, despite strong opposition to the construction of the pipeline from the US, Poland, and Ukraine.

    1. Boy am I glad I didn’t pay to have gas central heating installed when everyone told me it was the cheapest option about eight years ago.

  65. Covidmas greenery arranged tastefully – and anti-catfully. Lights work. So far. The MR does all this – I just admire. She is about to embark on the decorations

      1. Eye thangyew.

        Pickles had a go at the cable for the lights… I think we have that sorted now…. I put him outside – he retaliated by leaving the innards of two mice on the door mat…

  66. Feminist professor leads fury as MPs say trans people should be able to self-declare their legal gender despite warnings from campaigners it could make it impossible to implement single-sex spaces

    The Woman and Equalities Committee report called for change in transition law
    It said the current process is unfair and should move towards ‘self-declaration’
    However, campaigners claimed this change could damage single-sex spaces
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10331801/MPs-say-trans-people-able-self-declare-legal-gender.html?login#readerCommentsCommand-message-field

    Willy or wowntie?

    BTL Comment

    The old riddle was: Q. How do you tell the sex of a cromozme A. Pull down its genes.

    Don’t worry how you classify people – just use a simple examination on which lavatories and changing facilities a person uses should be based. Those with a penis should use one set of facilities; those without a penis should use the other.

    So if a burly masculine looking person tries to enter a space reserved for those without penises the attendant should say: “Excuse me, please show me you wowntie”

    1. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad – they are doing a good job on the Women & Equalities Committee!

          2. I can remember when we got bacon rolls brought up to us if we had the morning watch – sadly the bean counters latched on to that and, as most of them didn’t keep watches, they stopped it!

          3. Some years ago magistrates had their tea & biscuit allowance removed. The one i knew was incandescent.

          10. Egg banjo on the range after a dawn attack then fall asleep on the kit in the back of the four tonner on the way home and back in time for tea and medals.
            Such fun

  71. The winter solstice has just passed (1559hrs GMT).

    Happy Winter everyone. The sun is on its way back north! :•)

  72. Barrister puts the wind up CPS with flatulence claim
    A barrister sued senior prosecutors for harassment after a fellow lawyer asked him to stop breaking wind in a small shared office.
    Tarique Mohammed worked at the Crown Prosecution Service and blamed his severe flatulence on medication he took after suffering a heart attack.
    He told an employment tribunal that his bosses and colleagues targeted him after he returned to work from medical leave, which not only embarrassed him, but also violated his dignity.
    The tribunal rejected his claim, ruling that it was reasonable for his colleague to request that he stop breaking wind due to the size of the office and the repetitive nature of his farting.
    The flatulence allegation was part of a series of disability-related claims brought by Mohammed against the CPS,
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/barrister-puts-the-wind-up-cps-with-flatulence-claim-23mzbxj7r

    What an arse.

    2. Well that’s his job prospects gone with the wind. I wouldn’t like to be kneeling behind him in the mosque.

    3. It wouldn’t have been so bad except he farted constantly to the tune of the William Tell overture.

    5. “…request that he stop breaking wind due to the size of the office…”

      Predictive text failure?

    2. Prior to 97 when Blair and his coterie of sewage overran this country with gimmigrants and foreigners with no interest in the country.

      When the military was respected and valued rather than derided by the state. It’s long past time to rid ourselves of the vermin infesting Westminster. They’re not fit for purpose.

  74. Merry Christmas !

    I like to have a Martini
    Two at the very most
    Three i’m under the table
    And four i’m under the host.

    *Dorothy Parker.

    Cheers !

  75. Sport is taking another hit in the devolved domains. No spectators in Wales, 500 in Scotland:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/wales/59700087
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/59745054

    You can still go shopping in the sales…

    Some football matches have gone in England tonight due to Covid testing, though I suspect one or two of these might be:
    “Boss, Johnno’s got a nasty groin strain. We don’t have any more fit strikers. Call it Covid?”
    “Do it!”

    One of the minor leagues, the Eastern Counties (East Anglia) has already called off its Christmas programme (Dec 27), which is a bit hasty.

    1. I suspect the same about the rail cancellations and the “NHS overwhelmed with staff off “sick”..”

      “Gosh – I’ve got a bit of a sniffle; Christmas in four days – tell you what, I’ll take a sickie…”

  76. Good afternoon as the days start to lengthen! I thought that this contribution from Swiss Policy Research is well worth bringing to readers’ attention. It’s a striking compendium of videos charting the dismal history of the last decades of vaccines, and with RFK Jnr’s The Real Anthony Fauci puts so much of the truth out there that the hunted animal may soon become the hunter!

    https://www.tarableu.com/superb-resource-from-swiss-policy-research/

  78. Call me an ignoramus – and many do (especially round here) – but how can foopballers and the like kick a bladder about and travel the world but yer plebs are not allowed to go and watch them, let alone travel anywhere?

    1. I nipped out for lunch today and was delighted to see the place busy! There have apparently been cancellations but other people [including me I suspect] have benefited by being able to get a table at short notice. Owners really fed up with all the dithering!

  80. An outbreak of common sense in South Africa.

    https://dailysceptic.org/2021/12/21/south-africas-sage-tells-government-end-contact-tracing-and-self-isolation-for-covid-because-its-not-worth-it/
    South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on COVID-19, a similar body to SAGE, has written
    to Health Minister Joe Phaahla recommending that all contact tracing
    and self-isolation of contacts for Covid be stopped because it is
    unnecessary and ineffective. South Africa is the original epicentre of
    the Omicron outbreak so this advice should be a strong signal to Boris
    Johnson and the rest of the world that the panic about Omicron is
    unwarranted.

    1. Au contraire – it will be a signal to Witless to urge BPAPM to INCREASE the restrictions…”5,000 dead A DAY” was his latest bollox. Carrion will instruct BPAPM to go along with it.

    2. If this information was widely available e.g. on MSM it should cause more people to ask, ” …what the hell is going on?” Sadly, the bought and paid for MSM will put this information to bed and demand more lockdowns and restrictions. Like the politicians who should have a duty towards the welfare of the people but instead have a duty towards outside influences, the MSM have abandoned the truth and do as they are told.

    2. Why not start that idea in HM Prisons.

      Veggie diet only – it’ll save the taxpayer millions.

  82. Presumably Mrs Murrell believes that no one in Scotland observes Covidmas so the usual activities can carry on regardless until New Years Eve – when omicron will be geared up to kill millions a day. But no one before. Funny old world, eh?

  83. That’s me for this grey day. No sight of any sun or brightness. Tomorrow is the same… Anyone would think that Nature is part of the World Economic Forum…

    Anyway – decoration go up tomorrow. Have a suave evening…

    A demain

      1. To his credit at least he stopped at the scene.
        However, “Ressaf, from Wembley”, yeah of course he is.

      2. Detective Constable Davina Nash, the investigating officer from the Met’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit, …said, …“I hope Ressaf’s sentencing makes people think twice before driving recklessly and going through red lights, which are red for a reason – to keep all road users safe.”
        Heaven help us! He will be out in 2 years. T. he girl is maimed for life.

        1. What the hell is a detective constable (remit: crime) doing working in a road traffic department? Traffic is a uniformed department, not plain clothes. No wonder the Metropolitan police is in such a mess: no one knows what they are doing!

        2. Typical Islamist function, “it is my God -given right to travel wherever I want and to hell with kuffers who get in my way.”

          My ideology trumps your law.

  85. Man of the Year….gets my vote

    Pen Farthing: ‘I was called disgusting over Kabul animal rescue’
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59652240

    As a former Royal Marine, Pen Farthing is used to stressful situations. But the events of the last few months would have pushed anyone to their limits.
    Fifteen years ago, he set up the animal shelter Nowzad in Afghanistan, to care for animals suffering the fallout from war.
    During the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August, he realised he needed to urgently get his staff and animals out.
    So Mr Farthing, who grew up in Harwich, Essex, launched Operation Ark, a fundraising campaign to charter a plane to transport them to the UK.

    1. I don’t suppose the animals have been complaining about their accommodation and benefits, ever since they arrived.

        1. Bravo Plum! I’m fed up with uncaring folk saying he was out of order. As humans we are judged by how we treat animals.

      2. The evacuation should have been in this order:

        Animals, equipment, soldiers.

        Once they’re out, gather the BBC reporters and snitches together and say ‘well, perhaps next time you’ll stop fighting for the enemy.’

  89. Does anyone else hate duvets as much as I do? 6/10 times you get the duvet in the cover, no problem; 3/10 you have a bit of a struggle but eventually win; 1/10 you have a nightmare like wot I did yesterday. I am only now strong enough to relate the experience.
    Stripped old linen off, no problem; fitted sheet and pillow cases, no problem. Spread the duvet cover out and put in the first two corners and shook it out- as I always do and it normally works. Not this time….the bloody quilt refused to cooperate and was twisting itself within the cover. I tried to sort it but it refused to comply. I swear the thing was trying to suck me in to devour me. After some time of futile attempts and considerable bad language, I pulled the duvet out the cover and threw it on the floor and jumped up and down on it. At this point MH shouted upstairs, “Are you all right up there?” My reply is not suitable for this forum.
    I warned the quilt that if it didn’t do as I told it it would be the bin…this time I got it into the cover and finally fastened the studs. Grabbed the linen for the washing machine and left the bedroom; I am sure I heard a loud snort from the bed.
    Got back downstairs and MH asked if I was OK…I felt like I’d been wrestling half a dozen Sumos. MH poured me a glass of wine and I sat down. At bedtime, he said he was going up and was I going too. You go first, I said, I’ll be up in half an hour….just in case….
    What’s wrong with nice crisp sheets and warm fluffy blankets?

      3. Piece of cake here in Scandyland. The duvet covers here have a small hole in each corner. You simply grab the corner of the duvet through them and pull on the other end. It slips on in no time at all and is always neat and tidy.

    2. Of course……..they’re foreign dahling…….

      ‘Duvet’ comes from the French word for ‘down’. They may have originated in China, but became popular in Germany and Scandinavia ……

      Wool blanket and fresh cotton sheets…zzzzzzzzzs . Perfect…

    3. OK! LotL! Now try doing it with a demented Sphinx cat and a lunatic cockerpoo ‘helping’! It’s a real joy…

      1. Have had dogs and a cat in the past but then I had sheets and lovely blankets. Still an issue if the cat is sitting in the middle of the bed and is disinclined to move.

    5. Well done on overcoming the formidable duvet cover Lottie. Our quilt covers are a pain in the arse too partly because they don’t open all the way across and have a pocket to tuck the duvet inside, a bit like the pocket on pillow cases.

    6. Had a long weekend in Prague in the depths of winter some time ago. In our hotel we had a king sized duvet but it was sown down the centre creating two sections which resulted in no cold air wafting in when Mrs VVOF turned in her sleep.
      I was impressed but then it didn’t take much to do that in those days. How they put that together I had no idea, nor interest to be truthful.

    8. A few years ago I stayed in the hotel in Harrogate where Agatha Christie went to hide. Their beds had sheets, blankets and an eiderdown. A real treat.

      I still have a bedspread at home, with the duvet etc underneath. Hate the unmade bed look.

    1. He knew that most people would have told him to get stuffed if he had tried to impose any restrictions on families gathering for Christmas.

  93. Just trying to find a bit of sport and saw the start of Arsenal vs Sunderland (EFL or something). Arsenal took the knee but Sunderland didn’t. The commentator was most put out. Up the Geordies.

    2. Good heavens molamola! I’m extremely offended! I am a Geordie and to put me in the same bracket as the dreadful ‘Mackem and takems’ has wrecked my night! Wrong bleedin’ river, pet!

          5. Geoff, I’m desperate to sing ‘Keep ya’ feet still, Geordie hinny’! I hope you don’t mind?

      2. Yo, Sue. That faux pas didn’t escape my notice. But one must make allowances for Southerners…

        Incidentally, was chatting to a neighbour earlier, more or less for the first time since I moved here 14 months ago (Covid and all that). Her accent seemed awfully familiar. Turns out she hails from Siddick, near Workington. Not to be confused with the Mayor of London. There are quite a few Cumbrians in this part of leafy Surrey that I’m aware of. Guess there are many more. We’ll civilise the place, eventually…

  95. Evening, all. It wasn’t as though Operation Cygnet didn’t give them a warning that the NHS couldn’t cope with a pandemic, is it? They did nothing, then panicked and we all suffered from their ineptitude.

    1. Yet that was 2 years ago. Two years to adapt, change, re-work bed arrangements.

      I did some work bunging in a bit of fibre under the radar (borrowed from the school next door) for an office to give them more phone lines. A simple software telephone exchange (on a different number) and a blob of IP phones and they could field more calls.

      Yes, it was Heath Robinson, but it worked. The NHS is too big, too inefficient, too expensive to adapt. What has it done? Hired diversity wonks.

      1. Cygnus was 2016, wibbling! What the hell was Hunt thinking of? He ignored every red flag and did absolutely nothing!

          2. Oddly enough, no. I don’t know if he’s finally sussed out that he doesn’t get treats/fed/cuddles if he does that or if he’s merely lulling me into a false sense of security 🙂

          8. Hopefully he also has a short term memory of the application of RAF News to his bitey chops 🙂 I only have to wave the paper at him and he thinks better of it now.

    2. You are assuming that the NHS’s main goal is to provide efficient and effective healthcare to the people of the United Kingdom.

        1. 4 years after I was born.

          I guess they had to pay to have me but I was born in my Mother’s hotel so free board maybe.

  96. ‘Evening, all!

    Just a thought. Anti-Pope Jorge Bergoglio attacks the use of Latin in the Liturgy by issuing a motu proprio ( Latin for “of his own volition”) entitled Traditionis Custodes (Latin for “guardians of tradition”).

    And the Congregation for Divine Worship has stated in an official instruction that the Latin version of Traditionis custodes “is the official text to be referenced”.

    Is the Vatican suffering from a collective irony failure?

        1. The rich he hath filled with good things and the poor he hath sent empty away. In the text, it’s actually the other way round, hence “sic”.

          10. Why, is there a catflap, that allows Pussy to get under the bath

            Dogs have owners, Cats have servants

    2. You can only truly cancel yourself in your own language.
      or as google translate might say:
      Vere solum in lingua tua te ipsum tollere potes.

    3. Yep. We had a medieval themed carol service in church this evening. Musically quite folksy and rhythmic but all in Latin, including the communal singing. The building dates from 1123, so very appropriate?

    2. Boris asks himself: “If I did what might I catch?”
      Nicola asks herself: “If I did what might I catch?”

    4. NS: ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive, or be he dead. I’ll grind his bones to make my bread…’
      BJ: ‘I wonder if Carrie’s expecting me to change the nappies tonight….’

    5. NS: ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive, or be he dead. I’ll grind his bones to make my bread…’
      BJ: ‘I wonder if Carrie’s expecting me to change the nappies tonight….’

    13. “You and me babe, how about it?”

      (With apologies to Mark Knopfler, Romeo & Juliet)

  100. Not been around much lately , all 3 of us have succumbed to a cold , not very nice, slight temp, sore throat , shivery , bit of a cough, thirsty but still hungry enough to enjoy Coq au vin for supper, so no loss of taste . Moh and son quite sleepy .

    Hope all you Nottlers are happy and cheery ? x

        1. I’ve got a cold, too, Belle – just when I’ve loads of things to do before half the family arrive. I try to do an hour so at a time, then have a rest…! I was up t’ladder this afternoon trying to string the lights around the bushes, it was freezing cold, my hands got torn on the rose bush thorns, blood all over the place.

    5. J’ai le cook pour le Coq au Vin pour la demain.

      Chicken currently marinading in the fridge.

    6. If it helps, there is no virus Covid 19.

      There are cold and flu viruses every year. Those cold and flu viruses have been misappropriated and labelled Covid SARS 2. Why else are there no cold or flu reports but only Covid Alpha, Delta and Omicron. It is pure and deliberate invention to deceive on a global scale.

      The whole Covid episode is a complete and utter fraud. The ‘vaccines’ are the Bio-weapon, injecting synthetic spike protein into humans in order to destroy the innate immune systems’ defences and gradually kill off millions, often immediately or within weeks but also after a year or several years.

      The major ‘vaccine’ manufacturers are in cahoots and are designing varieties of jabs to confuse the intent with ‘vaccine’ phials of differing toxicity. A sort of deathly ‘Mix and Match’.

    7. If it helps, there is no virus Covid 19.

      There are cold and flu viruses every year. Those cold and flu viruses have been misappropriated and labelled Covid SARS 2. Why else are there no cold or flu reports but only Covid Alpha, Delta and Omicron. It is pure and deliberate invention to deceive on a global scale.

      The whole Covid episode is a complete and utter fraud. The ‘vaccines’ are the Bio-weapon, injecting synthetic spike protein into humans in order to destroy the innate immune systems’ defences and gradually kill off millions, often immediately or within weeks but also after a year or several years.

      The major ‘vaccine’ manufacturers are in cahoots and are designing varieties of jabs to confuse the intent with ‘vaccine’ phials of differing toxicity. A sort of deathly ‘Mix and Match’.

  101. Black Swan Events

    “The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, …

    These generally do/should not exist in the real world where people are doing proper jobs, for which they have been trained, promoted and
    then instilled their ethos, knowledge and ethics into those coming behind them

    It used to be called ‘a career’ and would include professionals, but not Professionals.

    If you apply for any job, the prospectus includes basic requirements ie
    to be an English teacher, being able to speak and write English MUST be a basic requirement

    To be a welder, that you can weld etc

    However

    This does not apply to Pollytishuns

    To be an MP, knowing Mr Rashid, the vote fixer cancels the above

    1. I thought that I posted several comments late on Monday night and early on Tuesday morning, molamola. I am well and have enjoyed a relaxing birthday today. Thank you for your good wishes.

  103. I took my car in for a service this afternoon. Normally it is a bit of a pain to find a parking spot on their lot because it is packed with new cars waiting for homes.

    There might have been two or three new vehicles sitting there today, I could have tried wheelies outside the service bay. Same applied to four other dealers on the strip. No salesmen hovering, they had been laid off. Heaven forbid you need a new part, parts are all stuck out on the west coast along with the new cars that are supposed to go into inventory.

    But the politicians are still saying that this supply chain problem is going to go away soon.
    Lying barstewards! It is not even a simple case of ports being overrun, because of the floods a month ago, western Canada is still largely inaccessible by road.

  106. I have concluded my opinion about the Covid Scamdemic.

    Repeat post :

    As I postulated months ago on here, the ‘vaccine’ is the actual Bio-weapon. The virus supposedly released from a Wuhan or American laboratory does not exist. The suggestion that the virus derived from a Wuhan Wet Market or alternatively a laboratory leak is a ruse, a distraction tactic.

    The vaccines have been developed to inject foreign bodies and synthetic spike proteins into humans. The aim is a graduated killing of the recipients. Some will succumb immediately, others after a few weeks and others at other times in the future.

    The PCR testing is not a test to detect live virus. It merely magnified and replicates old fragments from the cold you had in 2015 or whenever. The PCR test was misappropriated by Drosten in Germany, the German equivalent of our very own Ferguson, a dishonest psychopathic freak and charlatan.

    The Lateral Flow Test is utterly useless and a fraud.

    The masks are another fraud. They do not work and are harmful to people with breathing difficulties but because there is no virus are merely a scary tool of people control.

    We are witnessing the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the human race. It is about depopulation, the demolition of the Nation States and the transference of wealth from the many to the few, the global elite.

    Edit: Those maskless partying politicos know this is a fraud and expect to gain from it. Likewise their Cornwall leaders’ gathering left them maskless whilst the servants were obliged to wear masks.

    It is so bloody obvious, nobody but an Epsilon Semi-Moron would fall for the lies.

    1. Israel ready to start the 4th jab for over sixties. Think what you like about Jewish people, but they have plenty of grey matter.

      1. You are a deluded fool. Please desist from commenting on my posts.

        I have no problem whatever with the Jews as you imply. If you persist I will demolish your feeble stance.

        I am not sure why you are enabled to comment on this forum. Your assumptions are stupid and your comments at best objectionable.

    2. Gawd. The revelations about the Covid con are announced and you lot are to your beds. I give up, but just for the moment, wake up, clue up and take action.

    3. I have done a lot of reading on this subject and there appears to be two distinct schools of thought on whether or not the ‘virus’ exists and has been isolated. The story that the original sequencing of the ‘virus’ received from China, and used to create the “vaccines”, was a ‘best guess’ hasn’t, as far as I’ve found, been denied. Whatever the truth there is no doubt that the ‘virus’ was the catalyst to get the “vaccine” and hence, its spike protein, into the population’s bodies.
      Many eminent scientists/physicians/immunologists etc who are not sullied by government nor globalist foundation money have recognised the danger of the spike protein doing great damage to the human body, especially to the lining of blood vessels and the heart itself. Micro-clotting within the capillaries appears to be a potential medium term side-effect as the damage to the body’s organs, including the brain, will take time as they are slowly starved of oxygen and sustenance.

      People were easily terrified into allowing the government to inject a novel, largely untested, serum into their bodies, not once, not twice but three times in less than a year. Trying to talk to these scared people, as I have with family and friends, about the danger this “vaccine” presents has mainly fallen on stony ground. The usual response is a blank look and little or no response as they have no argument other than they believe that the government is concerned with their health. As is often the case, Mark Twain is spot on:

      ‘It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled’ -Mark Twain.

  108. Brigitte Macron to sue over false claims she was born male
    Rumours were started by a small, extreme-Right publication, sparking fears of a tide of fake news ahead of the French presidential election
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/21/brigitte-macron-sue-false-claims-born-male/

    BTL Comment

    The whole ridiculous story has been fabricated by Macron’s own team so that when it comes to the election people will vote for him out of sympathy for his wife.

    I seem to remember that there was a story that Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, was really a man and this increased the public’s support for the Obama family.

    2. When you’re a disgusting, thick totalitarian making up rules on the hoof just to annoy people, you are bound to make yourself look like a disgusting, thick totalitarian who hasn’t got the intelligence to see the flaws in the rules you make up on the hoof.

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