Tuesday 22 December: No thought for a girl alone for Christmas in a rented room in London

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/12/22/lettersno-thought-girl-alone-christmas-rented-room-london/

839 thoughts on “Tuesday 22 December: No thought for a girl alone for Christmas in a rented room in London”

  4. Flash Gordon’s Ming the Merciless is a ‘discriminatory stereotype’, says UK film censor. 22 December 2020.

    Matt Tindall, senior policy officer, said: “Flash’s arch-nemesis, Ming the Merciless, is coded as an East Asian character due to his hair and make-up but he’s played by the Swedish actor, Max von Sydow, which I don’t think is something that would happen if this were a modern production and is something we’re also aware that viewers may find dubious, if not outright offensive.

    Obviously an actor from Mongo was required to play the part. You know the joke here? We are paying this moron!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/21/flash-gordons-ming-merciless-discriminatory-stereotype-says/

    1. Morning Minty et al.

      It’s just normal for the C21st. It won’t be long before Flash Gordon is banned from appearing after some numpty deduces he must have got his name from flashing…..

    2. Yesterday I watched an excellent film, LET HIM GO, in which a number of the characters were shot and killed. Is Matt Tindall suggesting that the actors should have used real bullets?

    3. The Yellow Peril were frequently portrayed by white men. Otherwise it might have been too frightening. Fu Manchu is an example. Charlie Chan was the friendly face of the Orient.

    4. Beat me to it! Henceforth, the shortest day will now be known as April 1st.
      My present to poor NOTTLERs.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/21/flash-gordons-ming-merciless-discriminatory-stereotype-says/

      Flash Gordon’s Ming the Merciless is a ‘discriminatory stereotype’, says UK film censor

      The BBFC said having Swedish actor Max von Sydow as a villain of East Asian appearance could be deemed ‘downright offensive’

      21 December 2020 • 9:30pm

      To the generation that grew up watching Flash Gordon, Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless was one of the great screen villains.

      He was also a “discriminatory stereotype”, according to the British Board of Film Classification. The censor has added the warning to its rating for Flash Gordon, saying the casting of a white actor in the role could be considered “dubious if not outright offensive”.

      Ming hailed from the Planet Mongo but, the BBFC said, was clearly of East Asian origin.

      The organisation will conduct research in the New Year to establish if other old films contain racial stereotypes that need to be caveated for modern audiences.

      In a newly-released podcast, the BBFC explained why the stereotype warning had been added.

      Matt Tindall, senior policy officer, said: “Flash’s arch-nemesis, Ming the Merciless, is coded as an East Asian character due to his hair and make-up but he’s played by the Swedish actor, Max von Sydow, which I don’t think is something that would happen if this were a modern production and is something we’re also aware that viewers may find dubious, if not outright offensive.

      “The character of Ming himself comes from the Flash Gordon comic strips of the 1930s and let’s just say that attitudes towards the acceptability of discriminatory racial stereotypes have moved on considerably since then, and rightly so, of course.

      “While the presentation of Ming in Flash Gordon, the 1980s film, isn’t what we would consider a category-defining issue, we’re sensitive to the potential it has to cause offence. So we’ve highlighted it [to ensure] audiences are aware it’s there, and can make an informed decision about whether to watch the film themselves or to show it to their children.”

      He added: “This is something we have bear in mind often when we see older films coming in for re-classification: films that might contain discriminatory depictions or stereotypes that are not acceptable to modern audiences, including films where discrimination wasn’t the work’s intent, just a reflection of the period in which it was made.

      “This is an issue that we’re currently planning to explore more through research next year, speaking to the public to check that they’re happy with the ways that we’re classifying such films and the way that we classify each use of discrimination more generally.”

      The film, originally released in 1980, was re-classified earlier this year. It was originally A-rated, a classification which does not exist today but which equated to a PG.

      The BBFC has raised the film’s rating to a 12A on account of its violent scenes, sex references and language. It includes the memorable line of dialogue from Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin: “Freeze, you bloody b——s!”

      Tindall said: “Things have moved on some way since 1980 and we had to look at Flash Gordon with fresh eyes, and in doing so we came to the conclusion that for modern audiences it is much more appropriately rated 12A than PG.”

      Von Sydow died in March, aged 90, after a career that included playing a medieval knight in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, and the Messiah in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

      Flash Gordon’s director, Mike Hodges, said of von Sydow’s role as the evil emperor: “He loved doing it. He was charming and funny, and just relished the whole thing. I think it was a kind of relief for him, because all those other heavy roles he’d been playing must weigh upon you as an actor.”

      The film also starred Sam Jones as Flash, Topol as a scientist and Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan.

      Blessed has claimed that the film’s fans include The Queen. “It’s her favourite film. She watches it with her grandchildren every Christmas,” he once said, insisting that she had one asked him to bellow his famous line from the film: “Gordon’s alive?!”

      1. How about the BBFC giving a warning about Dale Arden always cowering behind Flash, or Emperor Ming’s daughter lusting after him (Flash). This perpetuates the myth that women are not feisty but simply airheads. And the enormously large dinosaur-like monsters are played by small lizards – why is this? I could also mention the spaceships which seem to travel suspended by strings instead of the studio props department building a fully-sized spaceship, but we won’t go there.

      3. “…films that might contain discriminatory depictions or stereotypes that are not acceptable to modern audiences…”

        Well, one should understand that stereotypes are an essential part of human understanding of the world. Placing an item in a pigeonhole is how we deal with things quickly, often permanently. It is a vital part of our managing our interactions in our lives. For example, we classify, that is stereotype, scorpions as dangerous. We then avoid them.
        We do not examine every item every time. We do not make a new assessment over every scorpion that we see.
        As for condemning the use of stereotypes, what about the routine pigeonholing of job applicants by HR departments?

        How do these dummies get these jobs, that allow them to censor the past and interfere with the lives of millions?

      4. Not that I ever watched FG – but why is it acceptable for a black actress to play Anne Boleyn, yet white actors portraying fictional characters are unacceptable “discriminatory stereotypes”?

    5. Yep. If they’ve nothing better to do we really don’t need them.

      What I’m actually more surprised at is that they didn’t complain about Flash himself – the athletic, tall, blonde man saving the world. These days the Left would take more offence at that than Ming.

  5. The hypocrisy of the climate change green new normal politicians and media moguls going on about the risk to the public of shortages of fresh fruit and other foodstuffs from abroad, this outcome is exactly what they have always wanted, transporting luxuries around the globe was always part of the great reset and considered a waste of resources.

    1. Yet the same greenies want to despoil acres of good food-producing arable land, here in Mid-Suffolk by covering it over with Photo–voltaic panels and calling it a solar ”farm”.

      Needless to remark there is a large groundswell of opinion against it.

    2. However, some of that ‘gender program’ could simply be women’s rights which I sort of agree with.

      Equally though: India won’t change – and shouldn’t – until the Indian people choose to. Arguably instead of pushing womens/gays/democracy we really should be concentrating on clean water.

  8. Calling the man that is promoting these latest series of life changing lockdowns as Britain’s ‘Top Scientist’ doesn’t exactly inspire confidence..

      1. ‘Morning, Elsie.

        I time my only G&T of the day for the 6 pm News. With ice & lemon, of course. In fact the ‘ice’ is frozen tonic water.

      2. I panic bought an extra lemon from the village shop when I went down with virus last Spring. It’s still in the fridge, and might come in handy if supplies are held up trying to get into Dover, but pushed aside by migrants and blockading French fishermen.

        The question is, if the skin is green and furry, would the juice inside still be ok for medical use?

        1. Definitely not. The whole lemon would be infested with the fungus.

          If you open a jar & see a few bits of mould on the surface of the contents, what you are seeing is the “flowering head” of the fungus, the body of which will lie deep within the contents. That is why you should never be tempted to remove the “heads” with the tip of a knife & assume that the rest is OK to eat. It isn’t.

          1. So that apple I picked that has gone all brown and wrinkly is a bit suspect too? Best kept for visitors.

  10. Some Christmas cheer from one of Santa’s Selves……

    BTL Comment
    Martin Selves
    22 Dec 2020 7:14AM
    I listened to a radio programme on the Port Authority at Dover. Don’t tell anyone but it has been upgraded, and electronic customs is running. The BBC and Sky never told us, because Kay Burley always found people who had no idea what to do. So what did the authority man say ….

    £45 million has been spent on this Port and others. He said the Truck waiting time will be very much the same as before. Importers and exporters will have all the paperwork in an “electronic wallet”. The number plate will be scanned and the paperwork downloaded. When problems occur, the Truck moves to a Holding Area for more scrutiny. You know this could work in NI, and has been working in Felixstow, our biggest Port, for years and years….
    It has also works around the EU, and I saw it first hand last year in a Port near Barcelona. We were moored up in the Cargo Rea, and a large Cargo ship focked opposite us. Within minutes trucks arrived and containers were quickly lowered onto them. They simply drove out of the main gate. Not a single Customs Man in sight. I can personally verify electronic customs works, but not on the French coast.
    Dover is a small Port, but important for leisure, but not these days. It is our 9th biggest. It is promoted as vital to us by the Beeb, when it really is just a tiddler.

    1. That’s where mankind is rapidly heading: an unstoppable course back to the primordial swamp from whence it emerged.

      Humanity: the cleverest organism ever to have evolved, but also the least intelligent.

      1. the cleverest organism ever to have evolved

        You never know Grizz. Somewhere, sometime, this may have all happened before. String theory and twelve dimensional multi universes open up infinite possibilities.

        2. I forget who said it but it went something like ‘Mankind was gifted the greatest brain evolution could manage. It’s just a shame so many of them don’t use it’.

    1. “Keep sane. Read what you like, but don’t believe it all – or indeed any of it – without first engaging your brain.” There, Johnny, fixed it for you. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. Thanks BoB. Saw a great film (LET HIM GO) with some chums. Most of the rest of the day was sent thanking NoTTLers and many others who phoned or posted on YouTube to wish me the best. Somehow my appetite left me in the evening so a simple glass of milk and a chicken roll sufficed. Back to normal today.

          1. Belated birthday wishes from me too, Elsie. I’m truly pleased that many others remembered and greeted you.

          2. I think that the list of NoTTLers’ birthdates which someone (Rastus?) started a couple of months ago has been copied and acted upon by most of us here. Nonetheless, I am very grateful since most years my birthday has not been acknowledged in the tsunami of Christmas preparations.

      2. Belated birthday greeting, Olaf’s Relict.
        Without stirring the dirty minds of certain NOTTLers, I hope the Master gave you a nice present.

        1. As I reported yesterday, Annie, I haven’t heard from The Master for some considerable time. I suspect he is in lockdown in some Viennese sewer labelled by the authorities as Tier 4. Thanks for the birthday greetings, btw.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – In July you published a letter from me in which I pointed out that “working from home” for our daughter in London meant working from her bed in her rented room.

    Now that the new Tier 4 rules apply, she is apparently supposed to be staying in that one room throughout the so-called festive season. In the absence of the friend with whom she has officially “bubbled”, she is expected to remain there on her own.

    Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, described as “irresponsible” the weekend scenes at London railway stations, as people tried to get out of the capital. I suspect that many of these travellers are in the same position as our daughter.

    Once again, the rules have been made by middle-aged people who do not mind spending Christmas in their family homes in London, where they have space and company. Nobody seems to have considered single young professionals living in a rented room.

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    Moreover, I suspect that these middle-aged people are all male. May I suggest that they should request the opinion of a woman – preferably a mother – before they make any decisions in future.

    Katharine Nell

    Great Boughton, Cheshire

    SIR – For Boris Johnson, author of The Churchill Factor, a quotation from a speech by Churchill in the Commons from May 2 1935: “Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

    Sean Butler

    Newmarket, Suffolk

      1. There is no denying that Johnson, Hancock, Vallance, Whitty, Ferguson (and most, though not all, of the rest of SAGE) are men. So yes, in its broadest sense, 99.99% of the mess that is currently being made of our lives is, indeed, the responsibility of men. But of specific men, rather than men in general.

        Unlike Ms Nell, I’m not convinced that many women would have done much better – though I can think of a few who might… but then I can think of a couple of men who would probably have done better too. 😉

  14. SIR – Jonathan Sumption (Commentary, December 19) lucidly argues that, in examples taken from countries in Europe and from North America the policy of lockdown, has demonstrably failed. He also states that we are pursuing a policy from which many will never recover.

    The need to impose draconian lockdown restrictions in this country is, as Lord Sumption says, the “destructive consequence of decades of government action.”.

    The apparently unspeakable truth is that, irrespective of the government in power and despite continuous increases in inflation-adjusted funding, the NHS has been closing hospitals and losing beds since its inception in 1948. It inherited 10 beds per 1,000 of population. It now admits to 1.9 beds per 1,000. Japan has 13, Germany eight and France six.

    Dr Max Gammon

    London SE16

    1. I was wondering whether the wholesale demolition of all these pretty Victorian hospitals, in order to create brownfield opportunities for developers, were being matched by PFI-funded new builds. I know that the new hospital in Worcester has most of its clinical areas in airconditioned cubicles with no natural light or ventilation, but the retail concessions there are in a light and airy foyer that would grace Heathrow.

    2. Our cleaner’s stepfather was tipped out of hospital 24 hours after his hip replacement operation (for which he had waited 3 years). Apparently he was even given a staple remover so he could DIH if nobody else had the equipment.
      I know enough about the family situation to know that the household is not exactly suited to managing the early post-op days.

      1. That’s appalling Annie. I am proud of the fact that I never spent any Thursday evenings by my front door applauding “our wonderful NHS”.

        2. Neither did we.
          Sadly, the NHS has become the Juggernaut that requires a regular supply of taxpayers to be chucked under its wheels to ease its progress.

          1. If only, HMG had the foresight for the NHS to be in control of HS2, no-one in UK would be unemployed.

            Every 10 yards, there would be .nurse’s stations, where the ‘workers’ would gather and discuss whatwork they had not done

          2. A chum is a project manager for HS2. Has been for nearly 6 months. He faces intense opposition to lengthen timescales and complaints that reporting weekly that nothing is being done to return tax payer value are unhelpful.

            He’s near giving up – it’s never intended to deliver. Heck, with IR35 he’s facing having to charge £1200 a day instead of £800. What’s annoying most is that he is a very very good PM. Sadly, he’s one of dozens and about the only one trying to achieve anything.

          3. Juggernaut – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

            The first European description of this festival is found in a thirteenth-century account by the Franciscan monk and missionary Odoric of Pordenone, who describes Hindus, as a religious sacrifice, casting themselves under the wheels of these huge chariots and being crushed to death. Odoric’s description was later taken up and elaborated upon in the popular fourteenth-century Travels of John Mandeville.[5] Others have suggested more prosaically that the deaths, if any, were accidental and caused by the press of the crowd and the general commotion.

          4. And yet the NHS still has many good points.

            When my retinal tear was discovered by my optician in August I was seen, and treated, with 2 hours by the on-call opthalmologist. I’ve been in regular contact with my GP this year for an ongoing problem, whether face to face or per telephone my appointments invariably exceed the 10 minute “maximum” which is supposedly allowed. When one of my clients overturned his quad a couple of months ago he was airlifted to North Wales and his treatment was exemplary. The friend who spent 17 days on a ventilator in March/April has nothing but praise for everyone from physiotherapists to ward cleaners who were part of his care and rehab… With all its faults and failings the NHS continues to do a great deal for a great many.

            I’m sure that it could be changed for the better, and any organisation run by human beings will, inevitably, have flaws. But we need to be very careful about how it is changed, lest the baby go out with the bathwater.

          5. I’ve no complaints about the service I’ve received over the years. I’ve not had to test it this year.

          6. Like any other large organisation there are problems, and some people will encounter them. But I have to say that, on balance over a lifetime, I’ve got little to lament – and a good deal for which to be thankful.

          7. The ‘action end’ does well – often in the face of obtuse box ticking.
            It’s the lumbering bureaucracy that drains energy and money from a very worthwhile organisation.

          8. You can’t run any organisation without office-wallahs. There could, perhaps, be fewer of them (though number are not nearly as high as gossip would have them) and some of them could undoubtedly be a bit more flexible; but the idea that everything can be run by matron and her secretary in the 21st century with a population in the vicinity of 70 million is just as crazy as some of what goes on now.

            I remember waiting lists of 2 years for hip replacements in the 1970s because the clinical team in charge didn’t think that hobbling old people were terribly important. Managers managed to improve that, for a while at least.

          9. This is the fundamental problem. It is a furnace that like all state machines cannot exist without burning ever more money. It keeps consuming cash in ever vaster amounts while returning no new value.

            It can change, but the bit of the NHS that isn’t medicinal simply cannot conceive there isn’t a role for them.

        3. I spent those evenings ‘praying” for those who’s treatment had been withdrawn by the NH bloody S.

        5. To add to the shortsightedness of early discharge, he has had persistent hiccups since last Thursday.
          Another 24 hours in hospital and a doctor would have spotted the problem (anaesthetic/medication change/ something worse?) and dealt with it there and then. Now various expensive agencies and bods will be required to deal with it.

  15. I wonder if the mask wearing succumbers, obeyers and serial mask wearers are waking up yet to the fact that if they keep doing what they are told that things will carry on getting worse and not better.
    It must be clear to everyone by now that the Globalists are not going to give up until they have destroyed Western civilisation and put us back hundreds of years in regard to living standards.

    1. It isn’t the mask wearers – I do when I go shopping – I take it off immediately afterward – it’s the pointlessness of it. That simple truth that they are useless.

  16. SIR – I am waiting for a report of an investigation into breathlessness to arrive by post (Letters, December 19) at my doctor’s surgery. I was promised it had been posted 11 days ago.

    Fiona Boyles

    Appleby Westmorland, Cumbria

    2. When you hear panting outside your door – it’s the African messenger boy with your letter in a forked stick.

  17. Morning again

    SIR – On Friday the Government put an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph telling readers how many hundreds of millions of pounds it had spent on the development, purchase and distribution of Covid vaccines.

    However, the primary care health group to which my GP surgery belongs has no idea how many vaccines it will receive, or when. My wife is over 80 and would like to know.

    Dr Martin Henry

    Good Easter, Essex

    SIR – Further to Lesley Wright’s letter (December 19) regarding invitations for Covid vaccination being sent by text, what of those of us over-80s who do not own a mobile phone? How will we be told that a vaccination awaits us?

    John Buffin

    Sompting, West Sussex

      1. One thing government continually asks for is an email address and phone number. It never uses them.

        I waited for a report from DVLA – ringing them almost daily – and when I left it a bit was told ‘Oh, we made that decisions two weeks ago. We’ve written to you.’

        For goodness sake. Why not send me an email at the same time? Surely you’re logging that I’m ringing? It’s absurd. They simply can’t conceive of efficiency.

        1. Yet their renewal of VED website is very neat and easy to use. And they send an auto email to confirm.

  18. SIR – After having no luck volunteering locally to help administer the vaccine, I turned to the NHS website.

    I completed the form, received a confirmation and three weeks later have not heard another word.

    I find it astonishing. Am I the only doctor whose services are apparently surplus to requirement?

    Dr Dee Dawson

    London N20

  19. Good morning, all. Made it! Th scan only took an hour and a half. Only downside – it was VERY cold in the clinic where the scanner was. And my back is improving – AND the kittens are roaring round the house greeting us!

    Glad I am not on the way to France…

    1. Glad to hear about your back. Keep popping the pills – washed down with red medicine, natch.

      1. Thanks, pet. In fact, (and you may find this difficult to believe), I haven’t touched a drop since Friday night. May risk a glass this evening.

        I eschew painkillers (I know you are meant to swallow them). They don’t seem to work much with me. Odd – that’s me…!

        1. I avoid pain killers as much as possible. They often cause as much inconvenience as the pain.

        2. You’re absolutely right, Peddy. A result of my advanced age is that these days I struggle to find the right word, hence my query in parenthesis in my post. I only hope it isn’t a sign of incipient dementia.

          1. I find that the best way to get a clear passage when pushing one’s trolley in a supermarket is to stare into the distance with a demented expression

          5. No, that’s for when someone gets in my way when I’m walking. Works like a snow plough.

      2. I used to carry Claudius on my shoulder. That worked until she was fully grown and nearly 7kg.

  21. What a bleedin’ coincidence!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2020/12/21/duke-duchess-cambridge-accused-inadvertently-flouting-rule-six/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1318052&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_ES&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_ES20201222&utm_campaign=DM1318052

    They had been given consecutive slots to enter the mile-long illuminated trail, but fellow visitors said the two families were clearly mixing and chatting together.

    The whole of Surrey, bar Waverley, is in Tier 4, meaning that residents should not travel into another tier.

    1. But, but, but… they had done it “inadvertently”, Peddy, whereas had it happened with any other families it would have been “deliberately”.

    2. Consecutive slots because they were starting their trip before it opened to the public; therefore they were probably the only ones in that category.

      The Cambridge family was reported as having left London for their home in Norfolk (where they spent the spring and summer) before tier 4 regs came into place and the Wessex’s did the same. After all, they normally go to Norfolk at this time of year, don’t they? If you had the option of central London in lockdown or the Sandringham estate I’m sure you would make the same choice.

      It was stupid to mingle, but everywhere except England ignored primary school children in the rule of six, so the amount of harm done is almost certainly nil.

  22. Good morning, is it time for posts on this forum to carry warnings (as per Twitter) if the ‘facts’ they contain are demonstrably incorrect?

    I ask having just read last night’s claim, that “this year there has been less deaths than in an average year.”.

      1. So when I saved you a considerable expenses by telling you about the free Excel add-in for VAT, I was ‘trolling’!

          4. Morning Polly, how’s the SCOTUS action going? Do you think Trump will declare Martial Law? What are the chances of the House voting against Biden’s appointment (I think that was the last prediction I saw DR make)?

      1. No Paul, it should be “more”. ONS today saying it is now 80,000 excess deaths over the 5 year average, the figure I quoted last night was 65,000+ (but that was from the end of November).

        Deaths from 30 – 40 years ago are not remotely relevant.

        1. GB has left the customs union and single market. NI has left the single market. That’s in addition to leaving the political institutions set-up at Maastricht and Lisbon. That represents Brexit.

    2. Many British Prime Ministers have grovelled and surrendered to the Europeans.

      Why should Boris be different?

    3. I would normally have a similar view to that through my Questar 3½” catadioptric telescope with 80x eyepiece (sometimes boosted by the inbuilt Barlow lens to 130x).

      Unfortunately after 3½ weeks of constant cloud cover that view can only be a pipedream!

      1. Hi Grizzly,
        When I was a teenager I always lusted after a Questar 3½” telescope as I had become very interested in Astronomy. For this Christmas and my 80th birthday in January 2021 my wife bought me a 5 inch Celestron 5SE Schmidt Cassegrain scope so that I had a chance of seeing (or at least photographing) Jupiter’s cloud belts and Great Red Spot, which had been on my bucket list for decades.

        Last Sunday I was starting to prepare supper an hour after sunset and suddenly remembered the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was due next evening, 21st Dec.

        There was a totally clear sky in the Southwest and a bright ‘star’ was just appearing in the darkening sky. I keep a little 3 inch refractor permanently set up on a windowsill upstairs, and quickly popped in a 25mm eyepiece to check the alignment, then a 10mm for detail.
        BOTH Jupiter and Saturn were clear on the same small field so I quickly drew them (and Jupiter’s 4 brightest moons – Io and Ganymede were almost ‘touching’) then dashed downstairs to finish meal prep. Half an hour later they had all disappeared behind a nearby roof.

        So I DID get to see the Grand Conjunction, albeit a day early as Monday 21st was totally overcast. I shall certainly not see the next one!

        1. Hi, Roughcommon.

          I’m certainly jealous that you saw the grand conjunction. It has been constant cloud cover, here, all December. Although I enjoy night sky gazing (I’ve seem Saturn and Jupiter quite close all autumn), I actually bought my Questar, way back in 1988, for birdwatching, since it is also the best terrestrial ‘scope available.

          I’ve lost count of the times I’ve picked up a rare bird with it when everyone else with their lesser-powered scopes have been struggling to find it. Once I was on the cliffs in North Wales with a few dozen other birdwatchers, looking over the Menai Straits towards Anglesey, trying to see a Surf Scoter. There were around 100,000 very similar Common Scoters (black sea ducks) but it was only the Questar that picked up the white nape of the solitary Surf Scoter present among them. The problem is, on such occasions, is that everyone at such events wants to look though the Questar and I’ve often threatened to put a coin-operated meter on it!.

          The Celestron Cassegrain you have is a very exceptional ‘scope, especially for astronomy.

    2. Ferguson has the uneviable reputation of having been wrong about almost everything he has forecast in his entire lifetime! This hasn’t of course impeded his career in any way!

    1. So long and thanks for all the fish.

      [Hitchhikers’ Guide?]

      But I doubt if the EU would even say thank you as they expect total surrender.

      How long will Boris be in Downing Street now? And when will the next election be. And will Farage have got his act together in time to field candidates?

  31. I noticed as I logged in this morning that last night there was a bit of a kerfuffle about annual UK mortality figures. Just thought I’d have a look historically. Would it be surprising that in the not too distant past, 2015 in fact, there were 38,000 ‘excess’ deaths to the previous 5 year average? I’m just trying to remember the lockdowns and masks that resulted from that shocking statistic.

    1. I was surprised how many months between lockdowns the number of excess deaths in the older age groups went negative. Presumably those who would have died anyway were taken slightly prematurely?

      1. It is not inconceivable that the true long-term average death rate should be above 10 per 1,000 resident population in the UK.
        If you look at the graph on this link, you will see that there was one Hell of a lot of “dead-wood” to be cleared out before that average would be restored.

        https://www.statista.com/statistics/281478/death-rate-united-kingdom-uk/

        Perhaps what we are seeing is not excess deaths at all, merely a restoration of normality. The fact that average ages of Covid deaths are much greater than their life expectancy when they were born AND that the age of Covid death’s is again higher than average ages overall would suggest that this explanation is as good as or better than any of the other guff we are being fed..

        1. The figures below are drawn from Gov.uk annual flu reports. You can find them here:
          https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-flu-reports

          They are long reports covering many aspects of the management and treatment of flu; the relevant figures are in summary tables near the end (but only in the reports for 2018, 2019 and 2020). The red numbers are provisional at the time of publication and not for the whole year.

          Earlier this year, an average of 17,000 flu deaths was widely reported; this figure was given in Parliament. It came from the 2019 report, not the 2020, and included the incomplete figure for 18-19. This was low and even for the complete year remains so. Last night on here, Walter mentioned the NHS advert for flu jabs which claims the average is 11,000. That’s based on the 2020 report.

          That low figure is significant because it shows that a mild flu winter can be followed by a bad one (see also 13-14 to 14-15) i.e. many of the vulnerable survive one winter only to contribute to a much larger figure than normal in the next. Cambridge University statto Professor David Speigelhalter showed that this was the case in other European countries and that the reverse was true: those more badly affected by flu in 18-19 were less badly hit by Covid.

          You’ll also note that figures for prior years are revised in later reports.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7190d4f1e6925cea7e4af817000d94186c2c5975beb6dd2760d01ea921119687.jpg

          8. The figures below are drawn from Gov.uk annual flu reports. You can find them here:
            https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-flu-reports

            They are long reports covering many aspects of the management and treatment of flu; the relevant figures are in summary tables near the end (but only in the reports for 2018, 2019 and 2020). The red numbers are provisional at the time of publication and not for the whole year.

            Earlier this year, an average of 17,000 flu deaths was widely reported; this figure was given in Parliament. It came from the 2019 report, not the 2020, and included the incomplete figure for 18-19. This was low and even for the complete year remains so. Last night on here, Walter mentioned the NHS advert for flu jabs which claims the average is 11,000. That’s based on the 2020 report.

            That low figure is significant because it shows that a mild flu winter can be followed by a bad one (see also 13-14 to 14-15) i.e. many of the vulnerable survive one winter only to contribute to a much larger figure than normal in the next. Cambridge University statto Professor David Speigelhalter showed that this was the case in other European countries and that the reverse was true: those more badly affected by flu in 18-19 were less badly hit by Covid.

            You’ll also note that figures for prior years are revised in later reports.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7190d4f1e6925cea7e4af817000d94186c2c5975beb6dd2760d01ea921119687.jpg

          9. Interesting how a simple statement of fact (made to counteract statement which was sadly inaccurate) can cause such a lot of pointless, inaccurate, and deeply unpleasant hot air both at the time, and hours later.

  32. ‘Morning, all. Here’s some “sage” advice for the Government, from the DT Letters page:

    SIR — Auribus percipite et audite vocem meam adtendite, nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quod in vita facimus, in aeternum resonat.

    Marcus Tullius Cicero
    Roma

    1. My three years of schoolgirl Latin can only pick out something about listening, birth and eternity 🙁

      1. “Listen and hear my voice, to not know what happened before you were born is to remain always a child. What we do in life, echoes in eternity.”
        ;¬)

        2. Just tried that, Bill. The word “nescire” – which means “not to know” – is mistranslated as “to know”.

          Google is notoriously inaccurate, when translating an inflective language like Latin.

          3. I was always telling my German students to avoid Google translate & I ribbed them when they obviously did. Turning +ves into -ves & vice versa is typical.

  33. From the Telegraph –
    “To the generation that grew up watching Flash Gordon, Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless was one of the great screen villains.
    He was also a “discriminatory stereotype”, according to the British Board of Film Classification.
    The censor has added the warning to its rating for Flash Gordon, saying the casting of a white actor in the role could be considered
    “dubious if not outright offensive”.
    HOWEVER – –
    “Black British actor Jodie Turner-Smith is to play Anne Boleyn, [white] wife of English King Henry VIII in a play by TV station Channel 5”
    Sauce for Goose . . . . ?

    5. Well when bugs bunny and road runner cartoons get warnings, what do you expect?

      There was an interview on the radio last night where in an effort to promote healthy eating by children, they were discussing a move to rename sesame street character cookie monster as carrot monster.

    2. We are not as unclean as you Tear4 victims, but I asked a friend how he would celebrate Christmas with his large family on his curtain-twitching estate. He replied “Hah, I will collect them in my EV (very silent) and so there will be no extra cars outside.”
      I recommended a pair of short ladders to allow the crowd to escape over the garden boundary if the rozzers appear.

  35. SIR – After the battle of Rorke’s Drift (Letters, December 19), apart from the 11 VCs for valour, the Dickens Medal was awarded to Dick, the fox terrier of Surgeon Reynolds VC (above, from Alphonse de Neuville’s painting, attending to the wounded soldier James Dalton VC). Dick’s citation spoke of his “never wavering as shots and spears fell around, only leaving Reynolds’s side once, to bite a Zulu who came too close”.

    Hamish Watson
    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    Don’t tell the re-writers of history, otherwise the poor mutt will find itself cancelled…

    1. If Hamish Watson is referring to the Dickin Medal, an award for animal gallantry, it was only instituted in 1943, 64 years after Rorke’s Drift.

      1. Might be a typo. Perhaps Hamish Watson meant the Dickensian Medal, awarded to animals that suffered “Hard Times”?
        ;¬)

  36. What does Brexit actually mean?

    Is leaving political institutions set-up at Maastricht and Lisbon, the customs union and the single market, not Brexit? Why does this get described as BRINO?

    1. Afternoon Cochran’s and all Nottlers.

      To me, Brexit means all those institutions set up as per your second sentence plus all other entanglements where the EU has a say over our affairs. I would wish for a trading relationship with them, nothing more, nothing less. WTO terms are fine, then we are all subject to the same rules and regulations.

      1. My personal preference is a Canada-type FTA (which was offered by the EU a couple of years back). If however, the conditions re fish or whatever are too onerous, WTO is ok as we’d adjust. I think what has been lost though, is that ‘leaving’ can be argued as only leaving the political institutions whilst remaining in say the SM (as per Norway) or in ‘a’ rather than ‘the’, CU (as per Turkey). These were/ are all second order questions which were not properly debated because the last few years were polarised between a hardcore of Remainers determined to overturn the result and a hardcore of Brexiteers determined for No Deal.

        1. I didn’t hear about the Canada type deal until many months later and I believe this was offered to us by the EU. Why it wasn’t accepted at the time I have no idea. Unfortunately the 4+ years since the referendum vote have been thrown away. For that I do blame “remoaners”.

          1. It was May who turned it down. She was still trying to keep us in. Of course, once the EU realised that, there was no real prospect of our actually breaking free.

          2. I’m very surprised I didn’t pick it up at the time. Maybe it wasn’t publicised that much? She and the other remoaners have a lot to answer for!

          3. It’s only because I was so closely involved with the Leave campaign that I kept close tabs on the “leaving process”. It was very clear almost immediately that May was determined to keep us so closely aligned that we might as well not have voted to leave in the first place and slipping back under the yoke would have been so seamless we would scarcely have noticed 🙁

    3. If you are still tied to the rules and regulations (aka “the level playing field”) and subject to the ECJ after having “left” the political institutions, it means you still do not have control. That’s why it’s Brexit in Name Only. It’s called Brexit, but to all intents and purposes, we’re still in.

  37. Even the idiocy has reached (other than the leftist trolls) the Letters Page comments section, now with people blindly believing that face masks prevent the transmission of viruses, rather than BACTERIA into open wounds in hospital operating theatres and wards, noting that the particle size of a virus is a minimum of 12x as small, often considerably smaller than that.

    The study from Denmark shows this, and yet none of the major scientific or medical publications will publish it, and nor will any of the MSM show its findings and most won’t even tell readers the study even exists. The same goes for a truly independent analysis of the accuracy of the COVID testing methods – all done by organisations that have a vested interest in the result being positive for them and getting more lockdowns.

    Now we also read (Summit News) that the government all along wants COVID passports/digital ID cards and has secretly brought on two firms to develop them, meaning all non-vaccinated people will be able to do is visit the supermarket and a few other shops – no leisure activities, no eating out, no public transport travel (especially abroad), possibly no work if they allow firms to not employ workers unless they are vaccinated.

    All while the government indemnify drug companies for the vaccines because they won’t cover their own products because long term testing has been avoided when rolling them out. We are to be the guinea-pigs, whilst the great and good may not even get the vaccine (fake jabs) we have to (don’t forget that Hancock is STILL ‘considering’ making it maditory) and have ZERO comeback if we get serious/long term debilatating side effects.

    My money’s on sterility being one if any do appear, or something where other (expensive) medicines then have to be taken for life to avoid more side effects. £££ and power for the billionairres, control via their puppet governments, the UN/WHO and international firms.

    1. Build back better, build back greener, build back fairer

      Build bigger businesses, build bigger bureaucracy, build bigger billionaires.

    2. Why is Johnson so keen to have everyone vaccinated (coercion appears to be on the agenda even after a denial, who would have thought?) now and with repeats in the future? What are the repeats designed to ‘protect’ the people from? It is a sinister move, especially when the current ‘vaccine’ contains genetic material constructed in a laboratory. People should be very wary about anything Hancock and Johnson prescribe for their health.

    3. Just back from a short bike ride – I was passed by three cars whose occupants were all masked up.

      It is a well known fact that cars are a breeding ground for the Plague – especially when they are empty.

      1. I gather the putrifying zomby minks are rising up and are now going to be burnt – why the hell didn’t they cremate them in the first place?

    5. And they could pull the plug on your life any time they wish if you are dependent upon them (and by extension the government as they are hand-in-glove with pharmaceutical firms). Who in their right thinking mind would give that ultimate control to pharma/government/UN/WHO/CCP?

      1. We may no longer have any choice in the matter. Last December’s election may be the last for ever.

        1. Yes. We have the example of Germany of how an elected Chancellor legally became a dictator.

  38. Today’s first world dilemma. Just phoned a hotel cum serviced apartment block at Barbican which would take a booking from me for one night on Christmas Eve. The alternative is a mini cab on my own at one in the morning on Christmas Day plus two more double price cab journeys later in the day. It may seem extravagant but I think the hotel room is the safer option and may not even be that much more expensive?

    2. Go for the hotel booking. Your taxi may not turn up anyway, as has happened to us at a busy time.

      1. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve turned up at Huntingdon station late in the evening on the final leg of a trip to Germany, worn out because the last day of the trip is always the most arduous, & the booked taxi hasn’t shown up & I’ve had to wait for over 1/2 hour in the cold.

          1. On the last day the sequence starts with an early train from the depths of Germany. Change trains in Köln (one hour’s wait), then change trains in Brussels on to Eurostar (at least 2 hours’ wait involving Passport Control & Security). A small snack on the train. Continental trains are generally not disabled-friendly & climbing in & out is difficult for me. Walk from St Pancras to Kings Cross (difficult with my arthritis, if I’m lucky I get wheelchair assistance). Wait for train to Huntingdon. It’s a long, tiring day.

          4. Ah yes, I had forgotten about the return journey. In the olden days (as my grandchildren call it), I was stationed at RAF Wyton so know Huntingdon railway station well.

          5. Did a track go through to St Ives & further on to Cambridge in those days? The Guided Busway is built on the bed of the old track.

          6. Not that I recall but I would probably not have ever needed to use such a rail line so there might have been one that I didn’t know about. Trips to St Ives were always to watering holes!

      1. No, my relatives only want to see me on zoom. They’re scared and soaking up the official narrative. This is to and from church, which is 5 and a bit miles away.

        1. If only five miles, then a taxi there and back prob cheaper than hotel but you may want the peace of mind of not worrying if the taxi will turn up.

    4. Yo Sue

      Get a cardboard Box…. inexpensive and everyone will look the other way, when they see you

      1. True but I’d rather have a shower and breakfast before the Christmas Day mass!

        There’s a poor lad who often sits with his dog in the entrance to Barbican station. Young and white and sad.

        1. Good grief, Our Susan. Are you allowed to do this in Tier 4? I understood that you had to stay at home.

          I’ll just ring Scotland Yard to check on your behalf…{:¬))

          3. Hi Bill. Travel to attend worship is allowed. The problem in our parish is that most of the clergy live in Tier 2, and the churches are in Tier 4 now. So one Christmas Morning service has had to be cancelled. Midnight Mass was always going to be a Zoom affair, since we either have to clean every bit of the building between services, or leave 72 hours between them. Sigh…

          4. Tell it not in Gath and publish it not in the streets of Askalon, but, as far as I know, we do not have this cleaning malarkey in a “church near me”…. nd no one has expired from anything, let alone the virus.

  39. Over three months have elapsed since we sent our (paper) driving licences to the DVLA to register our change of address. The telephone greeting message points out that they are of course exceptionally busy due to Covid (it must be driving them nuts). It goes on to say that expect delays of 6-8 weeks before receiving your new licence.

    I’m so glad I took a screen shot of both documents before posting them in the DVLA return envelope.

    1. I had to renew on reaching 76, in September. I normallu use the local Post Office, but because of COVID, did it on line

      The new one was arrived within two days

      Are they trying to put another nail in the coffin of local Post Offices?

          4. I renewed mine online 2019. It was a bit of a palaver as our post code had changed and the system did not recognise it – the address hadn’t changed though. The new post code is very, very similar. I had to phone the DVLA for assistance and I was told to write in and explain that although I still lived in the same property as previously and the address was still the same, the post code had changed. My licence did turn up eventually but it took longer than I was first exoecting.

          5. Golly! I renewed my licence and the DVLA changed the address for me. However, as I was still at the same address, I had to go through some palaver to get it fixed.
            Our house was not on the Postcode Look-up so they had simply picked something similar. I received the licence as the postman knows us well as we’ve been here for over 20 years.
            To get our house added to the post code list I had to contact the local council and get them to do it. Apparently councils are responsible for post codes.

          7. I could have done it on-line, but I wanted to keep my C1 D1 entitlement (big campervan and a possibility I might still drive a minibus on a voluntary basis). Had I done it on-line, I would have lost that.

          2. Good Lord – you are young enough to have had to take a test?….{:¬))

            I did mine in January 1957 – and because of the petrol rationing caused by Suez, was allowed to drive unaccompanied with L plates after I had failed it first time. In bloody Cambridge with the sodding bicycles everywhere….

          3. After a while you don’t notice the bicycles. I remember driving my mum into Cambridge, it was “mind that cyclist!”; “watch out! – cyclist ahead!” and I had scarcely noticed them but my subconsciously biased brain must have been taking account. You just get used to them.

          5. It’s like changing gears. Something I do without thinking. It is not a good thing to think about.

      2. The MR applied online for a new passport two weeks ago. She had to send back the old one. They e-mailed her to confirm that (a) her application was in order (b) that the old PP had arrived, (c) that the new one had been sent out. It arrived yesterday, 14 day turn round.

        I was impressed.

        1. I gather they are no longer giving any credit for the unexpired portion these days, though. Did she get a blue one?

          1. Yes to both. Her old one would have expired in February. So would have been useless for travel had travel been possible!

      3. The MR applied online for a new passport two weeks ago. She had to send back the old one. They e-mailed her to confirm that (a) her application was in order (b) that the old PP had arrived, (c) that the new one had been sent out. It arrived yesterday, 14 day turn round.

        I was impressed.

      4. Good morning OLT

        I have several Birthday Nottlers on the list for September – but not yours: (4th Joseph B Fox; 7th Araminta Smade; 11th Peddy the Viking; 12th Ready Eddy: 13th Anne Allan; 15th veryveryveryoldfella; 26th Feargal the Cat).

        I take it that your year of birth was 1944? But if you would like to give the day of the month I shall be able to add it to the list.

        The prevalence of September Nottlers indicates that their parents celebrated their respective new years in a productive manner.

        1. ‘Morning, Rastus.

          It struck me only yes’day that many Sept. ’47 births are down to increased bedroom gymnastics during the cold start to the year.

          1. I was the result of my parents’ joyous reaction to the end of the war. As I was born on July 1st 1946 I must have been conceived in September or October 1945 but my parents did not need cold weather to spur them into action as I was both conceived and born in the Sudan.

            May I add your year of birth as 1947 on the list?

          4. So was I; according to my mother – gee, thanks, ma! – they over-indulged on Boxing Day. I was never the child they wanted (that was my brother).

        2. Yo mr t

          mine is the 30th,

          Mum had to go to Stratford, as the Germans wanted to coventrate me at birth

          1. Added to the list of Ko Ko,

            (No, I am nor referring to the Clown Boris but to the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado)

    2. Good Morning Stephen

      As you know, I’m not far away from you in your new abode and would be happy to lend you my drivers licence if you want to pop over for lunch – nobody has asked to see it in years. Nobody will ever notice.

      SIR – On the subject of names (Letters, December 21), I saw on the all-white side of a narrow boat on the Grand Union Canal the name “Intentionally Blank”.

      Colin Cummings
      Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire

      1. Very good of you Michael. It is through such acts of kindness that I retain a small glimmer of hope for humanity!

        1. Reminds me of being a solicitor. I qualified in January 1965. At no time during the following 45 years did ANYONE ask for evidence that I was actually on the roll of Solicitors.

          1. In my forty(ish) years of work I was only once asked for transcripts of my degrees, that was when IBM took us over and tried to assimilate us into their organisation.
            By the time that they announced that I could not retain my position without a masters degree, my retirement papers were well on the way through their system.

          2. I don’t think I have ever been asked for proof of my qualifications in a quarter of a century teaching, plus time spent translating/interpreting and then working in the office of a racehorse trainer.

      2. SIR – On the subject of names (Letters, December 21), I saw on the all-white side of a narrow boat on the Grand Union Canal the name “Intentionally Blank”.

        Colin Cummings

        I’m not sure I can see the point of this letter. Am I supposed to find it amusing?

    3. I have told the tale before of the SIX months it took before I got my new licence back once I turned 70. I had to threaten to get my MP involved – once I did that the woman from the DVLA who rang me up got an earful before I drew breath and she could tell me that my licence was in the post 🙂

    1. This morning I (and everyone else in my town) received a hand-delivered letter (in colour) from our very environmentally-friendly, COVID-safe, woke Lib Dem councillor (he only got in at the 2019 local elections because Mrs May was still PM due to voters just not voting Tory in protest) is now advocating more taxpayer funds for the already debunked ‘policy’ of councils closing off roads and/or making them narrower to benefit the tiny number of cyclists using them.

      This is the same Lib Dems who WANTED to cancel Christmas and a whole lot more, yet complain when Boris gets pushed into doing so, then they send out letters (not green) to everyone in the area (15k people) that potentially could geive the virus to every resident – and for what – a party political message based on (IMHO) falsehoods.

      Absolute class the hypocrisy of The Left.

    2. Unfortunately they are not just gibbering away. Trudeau leads the rush and he is leading the charge, bringing in policies that are going to wreck the economy. For heavens sake, just when the economy is down he hits us with a carbon tax.

      I am sure the UN are proud of him.

    3. For those of you not old enough to remember Giordano Bruno. He stated that the Earth revolved around the Sun, but as “the science had been settled”

      that the Sun actually revolved around the Earth, he was burnt at the stake.

      Please keep this in mind when discussing things where the science has already been settled.

  41. In today’s Letters:

    SIR – Like Fiona Wild (Letters, December 19), we have had food deliveries for months, as we are on the vulnerable list.

    We are only allowed one a week: fair enough. But after our delivery last Thursday, we tried to book another for this Wednesday or Thursday, only to find that no slots were available.

    Had we been warned of this, we would have ordered more. We will now have to take the risk of going to a shop to buy our turkey crown and other Christmas food.

    Lynne and Mike Gibson
    Swanmore, Hampshire

    Well, Lynne & Mike, being on the vulnerable list I have been doing the same as you, but each Thursday, as soon as I wake around 05:30, I log in to my Online Grocer’s website and make a booking for a Thursday 3 weeks ahead as soon as it opens. I then order 5 packs of Dishwasher tablets at £8 each in order to ‘hold’ that booking with at least £40 of goods. At my leisure during the ensuing weeks I replace these tablets with the groceries that I find I really need.

    But when I tried the same gambit early on Thursday December 3rd, I found that there were absolutely NO delivery slots at all from December 17th until December 27th, after Christmas. They had all been taken by ‘earlier birds’, who had probably logged in just after midnight on Wednesday.

    Our estate of mostly retired neighbours has developed a flourishing WhatsApp texting group whose members shop on line from different grocery stores on different days. That way, if any of us run out of anything before our next delivery, we can put out a text and piggyback on someone else’s order. It works well.

    Incidentally, some of my neighbours order several bottles of red as a weekly place-keeper so that if they forget to update their order as I do, they can enjoy a nice surprise.

    In the RAF I learned the six P’s: ‘proper planning prevents piss poor performance’. Lynne and Mike should take heed.

    1. Good morning, RC. Our version was the seven Ps: Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Either way, it should be writ large everywhere for ministers and snivel serpents.

    2. I organise delivery for my mother, from the local grocers shop (Valley View, of Dinas Powys), who are happy to oblige where Morrisons (other chains are available) won’t help. I send sms with the shopping list, and they deliver, usually the same day. Payment by international bank transfer. This spring, they really got mother out of a hole, so for Christmas I organised a delivery of champagne for them. Similarly, mothers microwave went bang, her kettle broke, and her TV was on the blink – bloke went round with the necessary and replaced/repaired, I paid by credit card, absolutely no troubles at all.
      Can’t speak highly enough of the local small businesses in South Wales.

    3. I sympathise, but they should have had the nous to realise that the closer to Christmas we got, the more slots would be booked.

    4. I was surprised to see Waitrose Christmas delivery on-line booking available at the end of October advertised, when booking my usual two-week-ahead slot, reserving it with three or four bottles of red wine – so I decided to have a look (no tiime like the present). I was even more surprised to see that all delivery slots had been taken, and the nearest click-and-collect slot to Christmas was on on Sunday, 20 Dec, and that was just one of two remaining. Food was duly ordered and collected. We now have far too much because late Saturday afternoon Johnson, aided and abetted by his henchmen and partners-in-crime, issued his edict. So PD and myself will be having (not enjoying) Christmas by ourselves. Meanwhile, our elder son and his wife (who is vulnerable) have no food in to see them over Christmas so I expect he will be scampering around to forage what he can from wherever whilst working in Hampshire. Meanwhile, our younger son, who was travelling up to North Yorkshire with his wife and little son, to see his in-laws has had his plans cancelled as he lives in 4 tier Bedfordshire, so they are without Christmas food as well.

      The Christmas decorations are all starting to look somewhat hollow and without substance.

      1. I haven’t used online deliveries because I prefer to see what I’m buying and also it’s my one weekly outing at present.
        I haven’t bothered with any decorations this year apart from the cards, as the potted Christmas tree is showing its age and the effects of the spring drought, and the decorations are in the loft – so OH was glad to not have to go up and get them.
        The two sons both decided to stay at home – and travel is now not allowed for either of them. So we have a duck in the freezer which should be enough for two.

        1. My niece has been having her shopping delivered for a month or so – she’s over 8 months into a difficult pregnancy – she says she would prefer to shop herself but with a lively toddler too, she just doesn’t have the energy. She now, like poppiesmum, has a house full of food as she was expecting her sister, b-i-l and 2 children for a 5 day visit; but now they can only visit for 12 hours on Christmas day (that will mean a 17/18 hour day for them including the travelling). Fortunately she has space in her freezer for the extra.

          1. It’s a good job she has – ours is rather small and wouldn’t have the space for much surplus.
            Not surprised she hasn’t much energy left – hope all goes well for her.

          2. Thank you.

            She had some problems with her first though baby was fine but then she lost one half-way along just over a year ago, so we are all crossing everything this time.

          4. Thank you. Good wishes, even from strangers, are surprisingly supportive.

            We have now reached the stage where, even if she goes into labour baby should be very viable, so we are past the worst bit, but it’s been an difficult time for her and for my sister (her mum) who lost one of her own at full term and has been understandably anxious throughout the pregnancies of both her daughters. Fortunately she has an excellent consultant and Borders General is not a huge hospital so her care has been quite personal and very committed – despite the SARS-CoV-2 issues. Lots of extra anti-natal visits, and scans and a “ring at any time if you are worried” attitude.

            Delivery will be by mandated c-section on 12th January if she doesn’t go into labour sooner (she did the last time). I may not know how things go immediately but I will post the news when it comes.

  42. Just back from w/rose. Arrived at 09.15. First surprise was the long q around the carpark – back to the good old days of April-May & it was cold & damp waiting outside. Inside a bit crowded, despite the marshalling. I told one shopper who was going berserk with her trolley that she needed L-plates. She giggled. Told the young checkout lad that the first bottle of milk was leaking, so what does he do? Turns it upside down & sprays it everywhere.
    Still, home safely having got everything I wanted & the drawbridge can go up until the 27th.

  43. The ‘Miracle of the Vistula’ saved millions from tyranny. We must remember it. 22 December 2020.

    As we mark the centenary, there is again conflict in the debatable flatlands of Ukraine and White Russia. Now, as then, the orientation of the East Slavic peoples is in the balance. Do those long-settled populations belong in a liberal order or a Eurasian autocracy? The quarrel is an old one, and it may never be definitively settled. Still, we should find a moment this week to pause and thank those Polish volunteers of a century ago who, in defending their homeland, incidentally saved Europe.

    Poland (and Hungary) are saving Europe again only this time the same threat is from within. .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/22/miracle-vistula-saved-millions-tyranny-must-remember/

      1. I can recommend ‘White Eagle, Red Star’ by Norman Davies as a good account of the Polish Soviet War.

    2. “…Do those long-settled populations…”,

      I thought many of the people living in this area were anything but ‘long settled’ having seen waves of ethnic cleansing in the c20th. Morning Minty!

    1. With apologies to the words of Fairytale of New York

      You’re Hancock
      You’re Whitty , we’re not from York City

      May inspire someone to do better.

      1. I refuse to play any version of that appalling dirge; especially the famous one by those two gormless and tuneless creatures, MacColl and MacGowan!

          1. Walter, I’m full of goodwill to most men all year round. I don’t crank it up at this time of year.

    1. It’s hard to believe that he can look even more of a cretin than before, but he seems to manage it pretty much every day!

    2. And they’re also to be trained to attack anyone who doesn’t stop, in a really friendly fashion, I suppose…

      1. And they’re trained to go for the throat of folk who they detect to be vaccine “refuseniks”.
        :¬(

        1. Dogs’ ability to detect a variety of conditions is becoming much better known. The detection of some cancers is now very reliable, but dogs can also detect the approach of a seizure in some types of epilepsy, allowing people to seek a safe place before it happens.

          The scoffers here will scoff, but this is real work and it looks like showing dividends.

    6. As a teenager I was one pinned to the wall by a lab standing up on his hind legs with his front paws on my shoulders. Mum figured he was being randy because I was “on”.

      1. When I was a fully grown up and quite substantial policeman I was once knocked off my feet by a large and excitable Great Dane. It pinned me to the floor whilst taking great delight in licking every bit of aftershave from my chops!

        It’s owner said, “I think he likes you!“

        1. While loveable giant breeds, they don’t know who’s fragile and who isn’t. Mongo regularly bowls junior over. The dog is twice the weight of the boy yet the boy just gets up and charges back at the beast. I oftten wonder if they’re jousting…

          1. Yes they clearly don’t know their own capabilities! Our Lab has knocked 18 month old granddaughter over with his tail!

    9. Probably more effective than the suspect non-medical PCR test. Have you thought of that, Stopcock?

    3. Great article – I very much liked this bit “In the alphabet soup of the COBRA war room decision-making process, NERVTAG now joins SAGE, the outfit headed up by Whitty and Vallance, the Two Ronnies of Doom, which has been thrusting a poison-tipped umbrella into our economy and civil liberties for the past nine months.” Quite why Fergusson, with his track record of disaster, is still allowed to pontificate, is beyond me – if Boris listens to him, he is even stupider than I thought!

  47. Child Care Advice From A Pilot

    Most people nowadays think it improper to discipline children, so I have tried other methods to control my kids when they have had one of ‘those’ moments. As I’m a pilot, one that I have found very effective is for me to just take the child for a flight on the plane during which I say nothing and give the child the opportunity to reflect on his or her behaviour.

    I don’t know whether it’s the steady vibration from the engines, or just the time away from any distractions such as TV, video games, computer, IPod, etc. Either way, my kids usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our flight together. I believe that eye to eye contact during these sessions is an important element in achieving the desired results.

    I’ve included a photo (below) of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique. It also works well in cars and with grandchildren!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8109f1f4f1d194d1bbfaaba99ea20072fdc2ca0e6edd13d3879508f449accb3b.jpg

  48. Gus and Pickles news. They are turning into teenage kittens. Tell them off and the reaction is a stare and a “Yeah, right, you and whose army” expression.

    Apart from that…..they just go on giving pleasure. Varmints!

          5. The radiator bed, winter jumpers and down the bed during the night! He actually goes blue when he gets cold and rosy pink when warm!

    2. It does make me laugh with my two PCs – they are about 7yo but still young enough to behave kitteny sometimes. They play around with each other quite oblivious to the human in the room but when they suddenly see that you are watching them and you catch their eye, they come over all sheepish and self conscious.

      Theres another look entirely, one of guilt, if you catch their eye while they do something like scratch at the furniture.

      1. “when in doubt, wash”

        from Paul Gallico’s “Jennie” a lovely, if whimsical, story which gets inside the mind of a cat.

    3. I get a similar expression from Spartie. As he walks off in high dudgeon, I tell him ‘and take that expression off your bottom’.

  50. The French wont be laughing when they run out of lorries because they are all here, we should impound them all

  51. ‘Morning, Peeps. We say goodbye to another courageous aviator. The fact that he was in his hundredth year when he died is nothing short of miraculous:

    Lt-Cdr Graham Patrick, Naval Air Squadron observer who tracked German convoys – obituary

    He was involved in some 70 night-time patrols, attacking enemy shipping, and after the war oversaw the refurbishment of Holyrood Palace

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    21 December 2020 • 3:08pm

    Lt-Cdr Graham Patrick, who has died aged 99, flew the “Applecore” and the Avenger as an observer, and later helped to refurbish Holyrood Palace.

    In 1942-43 Patrick was an observer flying with Lieutenant-Commander Sam Walsh, the commanding officer of 841 Naval Air Squadron. They flew the Fairey Albacore or “Applecore”, as it was nicknamed, which was intended as a replacement for the Swordfish; however, it proved unsuccessful as a dive- and torpedo-bomber except at night.

    From bases at Manston, Tangmere and Exeter, their black-painted Albacores stalked the Channel, controlled by RAF radar, while Walsh and Patrick strained their eyes for the tell-tale track of a wake which signified a German convoy. Then, throttling back, the Albacore would begin a silent dive from 800 feet and, after a few seconds, release its bombs.

    In 16 months, Walsh and Patrick undertook some 70 night-time patrols and made 18 attacks on enemy shipping. The squadron claimed 22 enemy vessels sunk, one beached, 15 damaged and 43 probably damaged, of which Walsh and Patrick’s personal tally was four sunk.

    The 814 Squadron disbanded in December 1943, when its aircraft were transferred to 415 RCAF squadron. Patrick was awarded the DSC.

    Graham McIntosh Patrick was born in Dundee, where his father was an architect, on October 17 1921. He was educated at Dundee High School before beginning to read science at St Andrews in 1939. However, at the end of his first academic year he volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm and joined No 44 Observer course to learn the art of air-navigation and Morse at Arbroath.

    Patrick was appointed to 828 Naval Air Squadron in Malta, where he arrived via the battleship Malaya and the submarine Olympus. The squadron’s task was to intercept Axis supply convoys between Italy and North Africa. Patrick’s task was to find Malta after five-hour night-time sorties over the Mediterranean, sharing the cockpit with an overload tank filled with high-octane fuel.

    In early 1944, Patrick crossed the Atlantic in RMS Queen Elizabeth to retrain on the Avenger dive-bombers of 856 NAS. For the return to Britain in the “jeep” carrier Smiter, the Avengers were taxied to the jetty and hoisted on board by crane, so tightly packed that it was difficult to cross the flight deck.

    A few days later in New York, waiting to join a home-bound convoy, Patrick met two dockyard workers, one of whom exclaimed: “You Navy guys are marvellous. We can see how the first plane landed on, but how the hell did the last one?”

    In late 1944 the squadron embarked in the carrier Premier for operations off the Norwegian coast. Later, after a six-month course to be Air Signals Officer, Patrick joined the Ministry of Aircraft Production which led him postwar to the Ministry of Works.

    In 1952 he assisted with the Coronation arrangements, and on the day was chosen to be Gold Staff Officer in Westminster Abbey. Afterwards, he moved to Edinburgh to manage government-owned historic buildings there.

    In 1965-67 he was regional director Property Services Agency, Middle East, based in Aden, was present during the Aden Emergency, and was heavily involved in the British withdrawal. He was appointed CMG.

    After a further spell in what became the Department of the Environment, Patrick was appointed Director, Scottish Services, PSA, in Edinburgh, during a major refurbishment of Holyrood Palace. The Queen’s keen interest in the work led to Patrick being summoned to audiences, and he was appointed CVO in 1981.

    Patrick retired to the South coast, to garden, practise silversmithing, work with model boats and paint.

    During the war he married Barbara Worboys, a WRNS cipher officer. She died in 2013 and he is survived by their two sons.

    Lt-Cdr Graham Patrick, born October 17 1921, died November 20 2020

    * * * *

    This BTL comment caught my eye:

    Keith Webster
    21 Dec 2020 11:16PM

    They always appear so ordinary, don’t they? Yet they do extraordinary things without making a fuss about it. I wish we had a few more in our country’s leadership today. Lt. Cdr. Patrick earned his eternal peace and rest.

  52. Yesterday I went out shopping and, for the first (and last) time, I succumbed to the advice of wearing a face-nappy! There was a small box of them in the glove compartment of the car.

    I took one out and fitted it when I left the car to go to the Systembolaget (Nanny-state alcohol shop) to buy some port and gin. I got a number of strange looks from Swedes (the wearing of face-nappies is far from routine here). My immediate problem came from the instantaneous fogging-up of my specs. As a consequence I had to roam around the store with my glasses in my hand, squinting to see the labels and prices.

    When I arrived at the check-out, I then realised that I needed my specs back on again in order to see where the card-reader was in order to pay. Putting the specs back on immediately caused them to steam up again. I couldn’t wait to get outside and rip the damn thing off. I then drove to the supermarket and had a similar experience there.

    Ah well, I’ve now “been there, done that”. I’m loving being back in (relative) normality.

    1. A good surgical face mask has a metallic strip along its upper border – if it hasn’t, it’s useless – a bit like the old collar-stiffeners in shirts. The strip enables the border to be adapted closely to the face & pinched tightly across the bridge of the nose, the specs being worn outside the mask. As one who has worn such masks professionally for over 40 years, I can assure that specs will not mist up if the mask is worn correctly.

      1. I’m aware of that. The one I was presented with, yesterday, was one of the mass-produced, useless variety.

        I’m also a seasoned wearer of proper face masks, which I wear when woodworking. I have a selection of various types. If the use of face-nappies becomes compulsory I shall simply wear my woodworking masks when out and about.

      2. At this time of year they mist up whenever you go from outside to inside – mask or no mask – unless you are entering a very chilly building.

  53. Sweden’s new epidemic – clan-based crime. 22 December 2020.

    ‘We have an obvious problem,’ admitted the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven recently. He was referring not to the Covid pandemic, but to a summer of crime that has left even jaded Swedes reeling in disbelief. There are regular bombings, hand grenade attacks and shootings. Young men are killing each other at a horrific rate — ten times that of Germany. The feeling is growing that the government has completely lost control. Yet, while Löfven has finally acknowledged the existence of the problem, he still seems in denial about its true nature.

    The Swedes prediliction for self-delusion surpasses even our own but that may simply be because they are ahead of us on the path to extinction1

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/most-read-2020-sweden-s-new-epidemic-clan-based-crime

    1. From your last sentence, especially the bit about self-delusion, I could believe that you had lived in Sweden for some time.

    2. 32766+up ticks,
      AS,
      We have three obvious problems,
      The three pronged political virus in the UK is gaining strength daily & until the peoples acknowledge what a deadly scourge the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella coalition party is, nothing will change.

    3. Government hasn’t lost control it’s encouraged it.

      The groups killing each other are foreigners. Migrants the Swedish government wanted there. You reap what you sow.

    5. The Swedes’ biggest predilection is for sequentially electing useless leaders. In that respect they are worse then the UK and the USA and on a par with France, Germany and Canada.

      Fredrik Reinfeldt was the twat who opened the doors to unregulated immigration. His successor, the clueless Löfven, is another who hoodwinked Swedes into voting for him.

      Donkeys led by sheep is the picture that comes readily to mind. Swedes have been so brainwashed over the decades by promises of a socialist utopia that they believe everything that they are told. They are as far-removed from the French and Italians as it is possible to imagine. No marches, riots or storming of the parliament here. They simply shrug and look for the next herring to suck!

      1. ‘Afternoon, George, given the Swedish predilection for appeasement, can one wonder? This is the same country that, rather than stand up to Nazi Germany, opened their borders to let the invaders through to Norway on condition of their remaining neutral. Some neutrality, eh?

        My sister-in-law was half Norwegian and all her life, she held the Swedes in the greatest contempt.

        My experience of having lived and worked there for 18 months, subsequently married and divorced a Swede, is that even the most right-wing Swedes are quasi-communist.

        1. NTN a Norwegian Chorister I met is very much of the same view as your SiL for exactly the same reason. Clearly deeply felt.

        2. My experience is that the Norwegians are much friendlier than the Swedes, who are not really friendly at all, especially if you are trying to earn a living in their country. Your last sentence is right on the nail.

        3. To be fair, Sweden saved quite a few Jewish people and some Swedes were able to assist the Allies. RIP Raoul Wallenberg and Eric “Red” Erickson (1890 –1983).

        4. The Irish were also “neutral” during WWII, Tom, but they still erected beacons on their west coast to guide back allied bombers from trips out into the Atlantic to torpedo U-boats.

          Neutrality, during major conflicts is, at best, a tenuous condition.

  54. 327636+ up ticks,
    Would it be possible that when johnson openly confirms he has done the dirty deal inclusive of fish could he be deported to his plaice of spawning ? please.

  55. Ms Reeves,Labour Minister,
    “suggested lorry drivers should be taken to airports to get back home if the border is not going to be opened soon”.
    Hmm . . . problem . . . . They are the lorry DRIVERS . . ?

    1. Great – who’s going to pay for the air fares? Try sending the bill to the French and see how far you get with that, Ms Reeves.

  56. Katharine Nell – shove off. It’s not just women. There are plenty of men living in small flats who will be looking at Christmas alone. For goodness sake, stop your prattling whining. It’s not feminist, it’s not clever. It’s the obvious result of an over populated country suffering the effects of oppressive government restriction that apply to all.

  57. After that ninconpoop Hancock announced that the virus is raging unstoppable through the population, we now have the word “mutant” being
    bandied about –
    Visions of the old “x” rated movies featuring “THE MUTANT this/that or the other horror disease set to wipe out civilisation until the hero [Ferguson?] rides in to save us all

      1. She would never give me a shot twice; she shot that in far too quickly & it looks as though the needle went in up to the hub, which is very dangerous.
        He didn’t react, because where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling.

        I’ve given a fair number of tetanus shots in A&E.

        1. I actually wondered if the needle didn’t go in at all – and whatever, if anything, in the syringe went past his arm As for no reaction, there doesn’t seem to be any of the elite ( showing the rest of us how nice it is) have any reaction from the needle entering.

    1. Secret plans reveal top anti-vaxxers plotting to exploit Covid to launch huge misinformation campaign about vaccines. 22 December 2020.

      THE world’s leading anti-vaxxers are plotting to exploit Covid to launch the largest ever misinformation campaign about vaccines, secret plans have revealed.

      Undercover researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) managed to gain access to the private calls to reveal the dangerous anti-vaccination tactics.

      The world’s leading anti-vaxxers! Is this an offshoot of SPECTRE? Lol!

      https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13543540/anti-vaxxers-covid-misinformation-campaign/

  60. If true – interesting that the Hitlerine is getting anxious:

    “Brussels tells Macron to back down on ports chaos: EU Commission calls for end to blockade as Britain and France ‘are on brink of agreeing testing regime to get lorries moving’ – amid claims Boris will ‘send in the army’ to carry out rapid swab tests”

      3. Might just work. However if we stop buying EU cars, vans and lorries, it will have much the same effect.

  61. New South African Covid-19 strain is fuelling massive second wave, say experts. 22 December 2020.

    Over the summer, the pandemic hit South Africa harder than any nation in Africa. Hospitals were overwhelmed and at its peak, the authorities were recording more than 13,000 new cases a day.

    Now a new variant of the virus — known as 501.V2 — is driving a powerful second wave, making up about 80 to 90 per cent of new cases in Africa’s most industrialised nation.

    If this were a novel I would be nailing up the front door about now. The problem with lockdowns is not simply that they do not work (witness the fact that we have had three and here we still are) but that they allow the virus to advance by increments. This means that the individuals exposure to it is actually greater than if you just let it rip. It also allows the time for it to mutate which will eventually nullify vaccination but it is also quite possible that we will eventually end up with something like the Black Death!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/new-south-african-covid-19-strain-fueling-massive-second-wave/

      1. Yes, I’m quite sure that if Boris gave in to Barnier all our problems would disappear overnight.

        1. I wish…

          There’s an enormous amount of revenge still to be taken, as far as the EU is concerned

    3. Oh, yes. We should have closed the country up, no one in, no one out and let the virus rip. Worst case scenario, 500,000 dead including myself, obviously. Then it would be all over. We could still have half a million dead over the next three years or whatever. We will wreck the economy, ruin education for a couple of cohorts of children and do a lot of damage to society, mental health, and lots of people who are not getting NHS treatment for all sorts of serious problems. As a side issue our police have turned into thugs.

  62. I have Clash of the Titans on the tv – and I think it may give the govt ideas for the next scare tactic against antivaxers. Prepare for the Kraken to be released !

  65. SIR – Having been encouraged to contribute to Unicef after viewing the horrendous starvation of children in Africa and the Middle East, I am dismayed to learn that the charity has used £700,000 to help feed children in the UK (Letters, December 21).

    These funds would make an enormous difference in really needy countries. I have now cancelled my monthly contribution and will instead support a cause that does what it says – feed the poor and starving – rather than one that makes political gestures.

    Paul Caruana
    Truro, Cornwall

    Another insufferable v-s outfit. Frankly I think their donation to this country was a bloody insult. They obviously have money to waste.

    1. This girl’s got some pipes on her.
      I’ve seen Floyd live four times and they never had a vocalist this good sing The Great Gig in the Sky. The best I saw was Sam Brown but she was mediocre compared to Bianca Antoinette.
      This is the Australian Pink Floyd Project with Bianca Antoinette. Not a great recording unfortunately…
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InOpOHfSt40

        1. Had a microchip implanted, you say? Judging by his erratic behaviour, I reckon he’s had an entire motherboard – corrupted with malware – shoved up his arse.
          :¬(

    2. Missy always attacked the Christmas tree in Sweden. She also attacks things like dried grasses in vases, but leaves flowers alone.

    1. I’d just like to say that I was stone cold sober when I had my battle with the adhesive tape the other day.

  73. 327636+ up ticks,
    By not demanding answers to these questions NOW there WILL come a time in the very near future, when we will NOT be able to ask them.

    Spain to have lists of those who refuse the vaccine. Then what? What will they do with the lists?

    If the vax is effective then why worry about those that don’t take it? The hospitals aren’t being overwhelmed with cases anyway.

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1341322934347030534

    2. Surely it harms them more than it harms us if that was the intent.
      Close down the tunnel for good, that will sort it.

  76. Daily Fail headline, No 10 believes France is using travel ban to strong-arm Brexit talks.
    It is so reassuring that we have a PM who is sharp and can see the bigger picture!
    It must have been a someone from this forum who told him, after all we knew this as soon as the threat was issued.
    FFS what needs to be done for Johnson to tell the EU to take a long walk off a short pier!
    I would post a link but why should you all have to suffer reading the Daily Fail.

    1. Too late for that. If he did he’d land on a French fishing boat. (It’s their fish now!)

    2. Interesting. I clicked on the link, and it opened, it wouldn’t play. It said try later. Tried again and now page won’t open. YT censors hard at work today?

  78. The gotta love the nerve of the DT and their Establishment controllers – suppesedly wheeling out an 87-year olf widow to guilt people into getting the vaccine:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/lost-husband-son-in-law-covid-anyone-refuses-vaccine-can-answer/

    Not forgetting her husband and son-in-law weren’t exactly young themselves. Or that the vaccines have been fully tested as all previous ones and medicines have, over 5-10 YEARS, not 3 months. Sorry madam, but I’m not subjecting myself to an untested vaccine for a family of viruses that has never had a successful vaccine made and administered successfully before (see Swine flu vaccine complications), and it’s ok for you, you’ve not got much to lose at 87 – we’ve got far more to risk. You take it if you want – I’m not stopping you.

    1. Hey look, if Margaret Keenan of Coventry can be vaccinated and do press pics when she’s been dead 12 years, this is some miraculous vaccine. Wots not to love?

    2. No comments allowed. That is usually a good indication of what the DT expects the BTLs will be.

    1. Not Christmas related……but I played the little cripple who got left behind when the Pied Piper took all the children……..

    2. Denied the rôle of Mary because your hair was too short, eh? Autres temps, autres mœurs – as the saying goes.

      Nowadays, it wouldn’t matter if you were as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat, and had a bone through your nose.

        2. I was to play Mary because I had the costume, as my older sister had played the part 4 years earlier! My mum was an excellent seamstress and the costume was beautiful. Unfortunately I developed German measles and never got to star!

      2. Actually, nowadays, being black with a bone through one’s nose would be a positive advantage 🙂

    3. Played an angel once in a school nativity play. I was told that angels don’t wear glasses, so the whole thing was a blur.

    6. I was a sailor for three nights, aged 12, at Chesterfield Civic Theatre in a production of the operetta Once Aboard The Lugger.

      ♬”We three jolly sailor boys were up aloft, aloft,
      With the landlubbers lying down below, below, below,
      With the landlubbers lying down below…”♬

    7. I was pleased my voice started to break.

      It was just in time.

      I was due to sing Buttercup in HMS Pinafore.

      2. Sing? Are you mad? Or just a murderer?

        Sorry. It seems that singing is allowed everywhere but the Church of England. My role as director of music is now reduced to choosing and downloading hymns/carols from Amazon. But the Church Commissioners apparently have a few Amazon shares, so it’s OK….

    9. Hated any form of acting, but I was (not all at once) stage hand, stage manager, sound technician and lighting director at the Uppingham Theatre a while or two ago. That was fun!
      Sigh… youth & fun… Sigh!

          1. The first time I have stopped and listened to it all the way through. Superb! She has a beautiful, wistful, nostalgic voice. Those really were the days, my friends.

        3. What annoys me is that I was too busy working to have much fun – now it’s a bit late.
          Bugger.
          :-((

      2. I used to source props and costume and do make-up for school plays, both as a pupil and as a member of staff.

    10. In my second undergraduate year, I had a professional part in the original production of John B. Keane’s Many Young Men of Twenty . It opened in Cork, toured several Irish cities culminating in a three-week run at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. The cast were all students and teachers; I was the only ‘young man of twenty’. For a student, the pay was great !

      1. I’ve been Mrs. Eynesford-Hill, a general dogsbody in Oh What Lovely War, an extra in a stage version of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, one of the fairies and Hippolyta in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lady McDuff … plus, in the dim and distant past, an Ancient Briton in a school play about Boadicea. But never appeared in a Nativity Play.
        Add in all the lying and dramatics involved in bringing up two sons and I’ve been thesping for a goodly portion of my life.

    3. I only had the misfortune to see her once, some years ago. I thought that she was the most disgusting, foul-mouthed woman I had ever seen. What a freak!

      Apparently she pretends to be a comedienne. I saw nothing funny about anything she said, merely an attempt to lower the standards of politeness and common decency.

      1. She was originally a psychiatric nurse. The only time when I found her amusing was in a comedy about nursing; in that she was relatively low key and authentic.

          2. I pray, that as I walk quickly down the road in search of a
            ‘Gentleman’s’ Loo

            I see that see Brand, and/or her ‘similar minded son ‘
            burning to death by the side of the road:

            I would not cross the road to
            help extinguish the fire

  81. 327636+ up ticks,
    Would it be possible that when johnson openly confirms he has done the dirty deal could he be deported to his plaice of spawning ?

    3. The French are not accepting Boris’s cave in on Fishing rights. Give them an inch and they will demand a mile or more. BBC Radio 4 News tonight.

      1. 327636+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        An inch plus a deal should never have been on the table, in point of fact there should have been no table.
        We must have two doctors willing to confirm insanity even if temporary.

  82. My young brother gave me a new Scottish saying when I asked how he was feeling after a severe relapse in his health. He said he was “away on the Crow Road”.
    This means away on the death path. I hope he is wrong . That was the first time I had heard it. I live and learn.

    1. Iain Banks’s novel “The Crow Road” may well have made more people aware of the expression.

    3. I only know the expression as a book title. ‘The Crow Road’ is a novel by Iain Banks.
      I read it years ago and, rather embarrassingly, can’t remember much about it other than it was heavy read.

      1. Just what I was thinking. ‘The Wasp Nest’ was more memorable, but he should have stuck to Science Fiction. His SF, with his initial (Iain M Banks), was excellent.

        1. The Wasp Factory was one of the most horrible books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read some screamers in my time!

          1. It was a little disturbing as I recall. Thanks for correcting my error, I thought something wasn’t right.

    4. I only know the expression as a book title. ‘The Crow Road’ is a novel by Iain Banks.
      I read it years ago and, rather embarrassingly, can’t remember much about it other than it was heavy read.

    6. Perhaps he was over-egging the pudding for dramatic licence and sibling concern. ‘Away on the Crow Road’ is not an expression I have heard, either.

      1. Evening Poppy – I googled it and it is genuine. My brother lived in Grantown on Spey and possibly it is used up there. He has gone from being quite active to being housebound in a fortnight. He now lives in South Lanarkshire, close to where we were brought up.

        1. Oh, I didn’t think it wasn’t genuine, just a touch (only a touch, mind!) of hyperbole to get your attention! At least, I hope so!

        2. I had a boyfriend from Alyth/Blairgowrie and he used the expression “shoot the craw” when he had to leave.

      1. Thank you Mola. His immediate family are nearby and the NHS and his GP are doing all they can for him despite Covid.

    8. Iain Banks used it as the title of a 1992 novel. There is some debate as to whether it was something he invented, or whether it does have a historic origin.

      On the other hand presence of the crow in a death story goes back a very long way. This was (by some reports) first written down in the early nineteenth century but is believed to go back to the seventeenth or possibly earlier.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQC8LOj9Dwg

  83. Evening, all. It seems to me there is no thought of anybody at home at Christmas, let alone girls in rented rooms in London. My 89-year old friend who is ex-RAF rang me up for a chat the other night and asked me if I’d received the usual begging letter from RAFA. When I said I had, he said, “you know, I live on my own [his wife died a couple of years ago] and I’m 89; nobody says I should have special care and attention at Christmas!” “That’s because you’re happy and well-adjusted”, I told him. Those of us who just get on with it are left to fend for ourselves. Mind you, his neighbours are very good with shopping and bringing him anything he needs.

    1. Reviewer: “1 star, on a good day. It wasn’t what we expected”

      Reply: Thank you for your kind review. If you had read the description of our car park you would have chosen somewhere else. Downing Street perhaps. Moron…”

    2. ‘Check in absolutely rubbish; rooms homely; great car park. Didn’t try the restaurant.’

  85. Congress passes a Cares Bill. It has 5,000+ pages …. yes nobody has read more than a 1000th of it. Nearly, 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. Bringing much needed relief to the population …. $600 per head …. so that’s (say) 210,000,000,000. So where’s the other 790,000,000,000 going ….. wonder how much is in there for friends, cronies, business associates of those in Congress?

    No wonder RINO Mitch McConnell likes his LeaderMcConnell moniker on Twitter.

    5. Oh just a billion here, a billion there and it soon adds up.
      50 billion on the vaccine otherwise half of the population couldn’t afford it, a few billion on food stamps and unemployment benefit and a few more billion to theatres.
      Don’t worry though, since it is a bipartisan bill, there is plenty of money left as payoffs and bribes for both sides of congress.

  86. An elderly man is stopped by the police around 2 a.m. and is asked where he is going at this time of night. The man replies, “I am on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking and staying out late.”

    The officer then asks, “Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?” The man replies, “That would be my wife.”

  87. I trust the Port of Dover will make the French and Spanish lorries wait and wait and wait while they “process” UK registered vehicles.

        1. My brother had a steam-powered (meths) boat named “Miss England III” which I “inherited”. That was painted BRG.

    2. Meanwhile, the European Commission has called for an end to blanket bans on travel to and from the UK so “essential” movement can resume.

      Phew I was really worried about the pigs in blankets.

  91. Seasons Greetings

    A very Happy Christmas and a much better New Year to you.

    SWMBO and I have decided to ignor the latest lockdown rules, I am sorry
    but this Christmas there is no way that I am not seeing family and
    friends. You can do what you like, but I will be seeing them.

    So, on Christmas Day, the following family will be at the table……
    Auntie Stella & Uncle Jameson, with cousin Bailey, Malibu &
    Smirnoff, & the twins Gin & Tonic.

    Our Scottish cousins Johnny Walker and Glen Moray, & from across the
    pond, bringing some old fashioned Southern Comfort with them my old
    cousins, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam.

    Then my French mate Remy Martin & his friend Pernod, my Spanish mate
    Jose Cuevro & his cousin Martini & Bianco with her daughter
    Tequila and my Greek friends Ouzo & Sambuca.
    My friends Brandy, Fosters, Snowball & Mickey Slim.

    Our Neighbours Captain Morgan & the Grants, the Bells, & the
    Cointreau’s, & not forgetting the Henneseys, Uncle Rioja cannot make
    an appearance though…..not good around the kids… although Auntie
    Stella is on a warning!!

    Stay safe

    1. I’ll fly over in my Spitfire, but we won’t have room to land the Lancaster Bomber, unfortunately 🙂

    3. We’re living dangerously. Auntie and Uncle Chapeldown are coming up from Sussex to add sparkle to the day. I hope they manage to dodge the Stasi police on the way.

      1. Have you tried Elsie’s baked spuds?
        Prick all over, smear the skin with olive oil, rub salt in generously, bake at 220C for about 90/60, depending on size. Crispy skin & scrumptious inner.

        1. I just don’t really like potatoes – small, crispy roasties or very thin chips are ok. Not keen on boiled and mash makes me gag.

    3. Interesting, but like Enri I would appreciate a look at the numbers taken further through the year.

      I also note that there isn’t much about the care/nursing home situation mentioned there. Given that the median stay in a nursing home is less than one year I think that might change things a little.

      There is no question that SARS-CoV-2 has killed a number of people who would have “died soon anyway” – simply knowing some of the people who have gone. But also no doubt in my mind that such statements (like many other statements about this virus and its treatment) are massive generalisations – and generalisations are seldom without large flaws.

  94. 327636+ up ticks,
    I have just heard a report that, I take it to be, a stand by mortuary has opened up in Lincs. as the number of deaths for this time of year has doubled,the reason for the rise in numbers whether it be solely from the virus was not clear to me via the report.

    I do believe that anyone found intentionally deceiving the peoples on this issue should serve a mandatory 10 year sentence, if an MP, double.

    I do believe that to be purposely misled can lead to premature unnecessary
    deaths and that is surely manslaughter / premed murder.

    1. As my son-in-law asked today, “How can you tell if a politician is lying?”

      Answer, “Their lips are moving.”

  95. Wine and food is bought and delivered except for visit to local butcher to collect chicken and beef sirloin on Thursday.

    Client brought us a bottle of Boatyard Double Gin for my wife, a bottle of Prince D’Arignac XO Armagnac for me, a bottle of Pink Champagne and a few bottles of Rolf Binder 2916 Heinrich (Shiraz Mataro Grenache) Barossa Valley for Boxing Day.

    I have given each of the tradesmen working on renovating my house cash bonuses varying from £100 to £50 depending upon involvement activities.

    I mention this because everything is circular. If you deliver the papers morning and noon diligently and accurately for several years, as I did as a schoolboy, you receive those half crowns, florins, shillings and the poor folk’s sixpences at Christmas.

    Likewise if you do good work for clients you are paid and receive a little extra for your all round efforts in appreciation at Christmas.

    If folk do good honest and meticulous work for you, you reward them with something extra.

    Boris might have attempted to cancel Christmas but the rest of us carry on the established good ways.

  96. llama nanobodies

    Instead of trying to make vaccines to make human cells recognise and attack COVID viruses llama nanobodies are an interesting alternative that gums up the COVID spikes so that human cells don’t have to bother about having immunity.

    Given that COVIDs look like being with us for a long time seems to be a good way of living with them.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9079137/Asthma-style-inhaler-filled-powerful-LLAMA-antibodies-treat-COVID-19.html

    1. Ironic that Peru has been particularly hard-hit by Covid-19, since the country is full of feckin’ llamas.

        1. The one-L Lama, he’s a priest.
          The two-LL llama, he’s a beast
          And I will bet a silk pyjama
          There isn’t any three-L lllama.

          5. There is an Illora. It is a town in Southern Spain, but if you look closely, it starts with a capital I followed by two ls.

    2. Nothing; I haven’t been shopping today (what a relief!). I went yesterday and I shall have to go again tomorrow, but today was a bye day, thankfully.

    4. Lemons. I use them for Russian tea, baking, cooking, and lemon coke. I also require them to make up the Sultana’s G&T, G&T, G&T, G&T…

    7. My sister said her local Tesco was utter chaos when she went shopping before work at about 6.30am yesterday. I’m not looking forward to popping up to the shops tomorrow morning – and all I’m getting is some milk! The whole world has gone nuts, despite most of them not even HAVING COVID.

        1. It was very quiet in Sainsbury’s just after 6am yesterday morning. The shelves were full apart from the Harvest Grain bread which I was hoping to get. Probably still in the oven. I am now secure until the New Year. The elderly gentleman in front of the till queue had a load of vegetables in his trolley. Tesco are limiting the numbers for some items .

          1. What on Earth possessed the elderly gentleman to fill his trolley with Hancock Whitty and Vallance?

            I hope he gives them a good roasting…

          1. You’ll know the world has returned to normal when the only person wearing a mask is lacoste, when he accosts you…

      2. Lidl was fine yesterday afternoon. No hysteria or bulk buying, just a normal shopping atmosphere.

    8. Went to local Tesco this afternoon because I had a voucher – spend £90 – £9 off – got to use it this week. Now stocked up with stuff that time won’t make any difference. First time I had seen the traffic lights working on the entrance doors. That should be it till New Year now.

        2. Had an offer from Sainsburys today – if I spend £100 at a store which is no longer my nearest, they’ll give me 6,000 Nectar points. Trouble is, the offer expires today, and I’ve already done my Christmas shopping. 🙄

  99. I’m not sure that what Johnson has promised, “…a very different World,” is quite what the Tweeter has understood Johnson to mean. Johnson’s phrase is in no way specific, in fact it is open to interpretation and as we have come to understand that Johnson is an inveterate liar, a philanderer and all-round bad egg I tend to take the pessimistic view that it will be a very different World and one that will become increasingly nasty and authoritarian if Johnson gets his way. What has happened to the ‘New Normal’ and ‘Build Back Better’, those NWO slogans that were being bandied about a few months ago?

    https://twitter.com/A_Liberty_Rebel/status/1341126388032663554

    1. Its all very odd. Just seen the figures for CV in Wales. They must have had the same counting machines used to count Biden votes. Cases can not just increase vertically in a country that is empty for the most part.

      1. Nicola Sturgeon has had visits from Soros emissaries. Why not Mark Drakeford?

        I think the same people who are behind the US election steal are behind the UK C-19 hoax.

        1. I believe that you are correct.

          When Trump eventually confronts the liars and fraudsters with the shear might of The Presidency and constitutional law there will be hell to pay.

          If I was Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden I would top myself.

  101. Quelles Surprises…

    Michel Barnier has said we are in a “crucial moment” and the EU is giving a “final push” to try and get a trade agreement with the UK, just moments before he was due to brief EU ambassadors in Brussels.
    It comes as MEP Guy Verhofstadt tweeted a video of lorry queues at Manston Airport and said the UK “will now start to understand what leaving the EU really means…”
    Meanwhile it was revealed that Boris Johnson has been having secret one-on-one talks with EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock.

    Does anyone think that we are not going to be sold down the river? Boris will give it all away. Maybe he has already but it is being kept quiet until it is irreversible. He will do so at the last minute in order to avoid any change or interference by Parliament, or “hard line Tories” (assuming there are any).

    https://uk.yahoo.com/news/brexit-news-live-boris-johnson-081250218.html

    1. It’s been a long time in the making, but I’m sure we’re going to be stitched up like a non-Kipper, unfortunately. Still, at the risk of sounding like ogga, people will keep voting the same way and expecting a different result.

  102. That’s me gone for the day. Glass in hand (at last…) Kittens loitering … and plotting. Cook busy.

    I’ll join you tomorrow. Incidentally, I suggest a Friday offering (after prayers) of photographs of NoTTLers as infants….

    A demain.

    2. Unfortunately, my earliest picture is of me naked, being bathed by my mother.
      I was a very young 17.

    3. You’ll be disappointed, Bill. I don’t have ANY photos taken of me as an infant (or schoolchild, or teenager). I’ve always been camera shy.

  104. I hope Nigel is finessing his pitch to the erstwhile Red Wall voters (you know, the one’s who have voted for both mainstream parties over the years and been shafted every time) to convince them that a vote for him now is not wasted, certainly no more wasted than any of their previous votes have been.
    I don’t think he needs to worry about Tory constituencies, they have decided already. They are voting Reform next time.

    1. 327636+ up ticks,
      Evening ItP,
      If that be the case then the ersatz tory party will be back in play fully topped up business as usual, no lessons learnt.

    2. It would be great to have a “Reform” government or something similar.

      I really think ConLab have to be sunk without trace first.

      By telling the true story about what really happened since 1990.

      Otherwise I don’t see how it will work.

      1. 327636+ up ticks,
        Evening PP,
        Very hard to sink a hollow, balsa wood political construct such as the lab/lib/con coalition party.

        The three monkeys will be highly active regarding the “nige ” pedigree.

        To many genuine brexiteers have been bitten,
        twice.

    3. I am voting Reform or writing in “Farage” uf there is no Reform party. My vision for December 2024, Reform has 100 seats in HoC and enters coalition with Conservatives; AmericaFirst has majority in the Senate and the House and is about to enter 3rd Term of Trump Presidency – Jr as President and The Donald as his VP.

      1. Agreed there was “no room in the Inn’ The census may have been for Caesar but:

        “In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”

        Hence the pun on Track & Trace…

  107. Wine and food is bought and delivered except for visit to local butcher to collect chicken and beef sirloin on Thursday.

    Client brought us a bottle of Boatyard Double Gin for my wife, a bottle of Prince D’Arignac XO Armagnac for me, a bottle of Pink Champagne and a few bottles of Rolf Binder 2016 Heinrich (Shiraz Mataro Grenache) Barossa Valley for Boxing Day.

    I have given each of the tradesmen working on renovating my house cash bonuses varying from £100 to £50 depending upon involvement activities.

    I mention this because everything is circular. If you deliver the papers morning and noon diligently and accurately for several years, as I did as a schoolboy, you receive those half crowns, florins, shillings and the poor folk’s sixpences at Christmas.

    Likewise if you do good work for clients you are paid and receive a little extra for your all round efforts in appreciation at Christmas.

    If folk do good honest and meticulous work for you, you reward them with something extra.

    Boris might have attempted to cancel Christmas but the rest of us carry on the established good ways.

  108. Is it possible Boros Johnson is being blackmailed ? At times, he looks haunted and behaves like a hostage.

    Could it be the billionaires…… or is it China ?

    2. I think most of the politicos have been compromised. Certainly in America they now have the shits because they were compromised by the CCP and President Trump is on to them.

      I suspect a similar situation obtains in the UK. Certainly the adherence of Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson would suggest a similar compromise.

      Obviously Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson and their compatriots within the pharmaceutical industries have been bought for years. Their lives and income depend upon Chinese students snd Chinese bribes for compliance. The same phenomenon is visible in the USA.

      Time for a complete clear out of our institutions.

          1. 327636+ up ticks,
            Evening C,
            They are nurtured via the ballot booth
            employing the three monkey / party before Country mode of voting.
            The odious shite that has been covered up in the name of the party is something else.

            Mass paedophilia being one major issue & that’s a fact,

            That will jennyrate the usual response.

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