Tuesday 23 May: Only the wealthy can afford to meet the Tories’ net-zero expectations

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

661 thoughts on “Tuesday 23 May: Only the wealthy can afford to meet the Tories’ net-zero expectations”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Get It On

    Two midgets are in a hotel bar talking to a couple of girls. They ask them back to their rooms and the girls agree.

    The one midget is having a horrible time. He can’t get it up and the girl, who is very drunk, pukes and passes out. But from the other midget’s room he hears “One, two, three, HUH! One, two, three, HUH!” all night long.

    The next day, over breakfast, they compare notes.

    “How’d it go last night?” the first midget asks.

    “Terrible,” replies the second midget. “The equipment wasn’t working, if you know what I mean, and she was sloppy drunk anyway, pukin’ all over the place.

    But at least I could hear that you were having a good time!”
    “Good time?” the first midget replies, “I spent all night trying to get on the bed!”

  3. Now I’m waiting for the 8 o’clock melee to try and get a doctor’s appointment, as I appear to have screwed up my left knee (it hurts like hell to bend my leg).

    1. But, Sir Jasper, you’ve already go your knighthood, why would you want to bend the knee again? Lol. (Sorry, Tom, I just couldn’t resist that. I am, of course, really sorry to hear of your excruciating pain, and I hope you get a speedy appointment with your GP.)

    2. Knee problems…….you’ve got no chance Tom, 30 years I’ve had a problem with my left knee.
      My last appointment was cancelled due to petulance by junior doctors. Still waiting for another. They don’t do anything about it anyway. Since FOAD has taken preference.

      1. Especially as I told the receptionist that I will be 79 tomorrow. I was surprised she didn’t tell me to FOAD!

  4. Good Morning Folks

    Nice bright start here, the sky would be blue if it wasn’t for the joined up contrails
    Should planes be paying a form of ULEZ

      1. I wonder when we’ll get the promised 16° and the sun. The forecast says 13:00.

  5. ‘Morning All

    Bah

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/19e42063b6e19f7d535037ace5344c9cf8ee76d299bbe1e1e867fe5453e3e3df.jpg

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dbf8b8ebce47d87e7392ec197973c8a760f042629389186ce754c13497c00ed1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1cc20e1edc03fb7cb31109b03006e21246e159bbc1a3bc826613bd408dec5bd8.jpg

    https://preview.redd.it/become-ungovernable-v0-38da88n928391.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=5208830ae8f58228d381f272763c87b03fadee38

    https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/121/878/faf.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0609cc97a2c320924750d22404ba0e72320a5324de2938195a63df55c2a49a6.jpg

      1. I have never had a poor nights sleep.7to8 Hrs. per night. Turn in at 10PM up 5.30am to 6am.

        1. Yet, I seem to have a continuous spate of them. I have yet to find an effective sleeping pill.

          1. Sleep is a habit, as is sleeplessness. Training yourself to sleep when you want to is the hard part. If you want to sleep at night you have to avoid sleeping in the daytime.
            Damask Rose is right.

          2. That’s why I’m looking for a soporific to get me back into the habit.

          5. I have never taken one I just make sure I am never in bed more than 8 hours in 24. I never read in bed.

        2. You’re a lucky chap, Johnny. I find recently that I am like Homer in the above set of memes but nevertheless somehow don’t hear the 6 am alarm and wake up an hour later!?!?

          2. Well, competing with you, Sir Jasper, is an extremely difficult task. Lol.

          1. I did sme shift worK for about 2 years when i went to beb I set the alarm for 7.5 hours and was up when it went off.

          2. I’ve done shift work all my life. Night shift in summer was a nightmare with all the light, heat and noise outside. Since I retired, and adopted a normal routine, I sleep like a log every night. Having a sensible diet and lots of exercise helps.

          3. Some people have naps during the day and are not very active, sleep in for an hour or two and wonder why they cannot sleep at night.

        4. Everyone needs 8 hours sleep per day, and whatever you get at night is a bonus?

          1. I never lie in or stay in bed too long. I am always busy and am tired when I go to bed.

          2. I am often tired when I go to bed, but I can’t always get to sleep straight away. After I’ve got up and let the dogs out, however, I’m fast asleep – just before it’s time to get up.

  6. Teacher who ‘misgendered’ pupil banned from profession. 23 May 2023.

    The TRA found it was “more probable than not” that he publicly referred to the transgender pupil using female pronouns on other occasions while working at the school between 2015 and 2018, which Mr Sutcliffe denied.

    As well as the allegations of misgendering a pupil, Mr Sutcliffe was found guilty of misconduct for expressing his views against gay marriage when questioned by a pupil, and for failing to “consider the potential impact” on his pupils, particularly those who may be from the LGBT+ community, of a statement that being gay was wrong.

    A heretic! Young! White! Male! Christian as well. Perfect! Not quite burning at the stake but the same principle. Pour encourager les autres!

    No comments allowed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/22/joshua-sutcliffe-teacher-who-misgendered-pupil-banned/

    1. Once again, the comments appear under the letters.
      People have learnt how to dodge the DT censors.

  7. Only the wealthy can afford to meet the Tories’ net-zero expectations

    The only way to make a small fortune out of net-zero is to start off with a large one.

  8. 372537+ up ticks,

    He has I believe and am glad to say, fallen foul of the decency & patriotic virus that is beginning to gain strength throughout these politically odiously blighted Isles.

    The FRTC ( finger round the collar) is seen to be currently more active within the ranks of the political overseers infesting the HP sauce factory.

    Dominic Raab to stand down as MP
    Former deputy prime minister will quit at next election, citing ‘increasing concern’ about pressure placed on his young family

    1. The state of the Tory Party, his majority and his recent tussles with the Blob, have probably played the greater part in his decision!

      1. 372537+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,
        You are most likely correct but I no longer think that way, they have had decades to straighten up & fly right but chose the WEF / NWO RESET path, currently ALL within the party are ALL tainted to some degree.

      2. I think he’s done his bit to get his next leg up and has signed the paperwork. He will leave office, claim a pile of gold, hold his hand out for the 30 pieces of silver and then step into his next non-job where he will use his connections and influence to buy the votes his master wants, all to the detriment of the nation.

  11. Good moaning.
    Does this count as good news or bad news?
    “Sadiq Khan suffered ‘minor heart attack’ that left him ‘barely conscious'”
    How did anyone know? Did his mouth stop moving? Was there a few seconds of blessed silence?

    1. Pity it wasn’t a straight line VF as I had in 2002, only in his case, you’d want somebody to fumble the battery charger.

    2. I have no idea, Anne, but considering the current state of his ULEZ expansion, crime and murder stats, etc., etc., my suspicious mind makes me think this may be a ploy to allow him to “step down gracefully” when faced with an unhappy electorate at the soon to be held (re)elections for London Mayor.

      1. Surely the votes have already been posted from his “community” voting bloc.

    3. I wouldn’t want him to have a heart attack. That’d waste NHS resources on excrement.

      His being barely conscious should come about only by very large, heavy, steel capped boots impacting at velocity into his bones until he is no longer ableto remain conscious.

    1. Understood, Bill, but how is the weather in your neck of the woods? Lol. (Good morning, btw.) PS – I hope that the MR is making lots of Lemon Curd ready for the August church fete, as I hope to visit and buy a few jars. Any idea of the exact date yet?

    2. Alexa, what’s the temperature inside? 21.4’c.

      Too flippin hot. Doesn’t feel it as all the windows and doors are open, but it’ll take ages to cool down.

  14. Good morning all.
    A dry but overcast start with 7½°C outside and I’m feeling a lot better.
    Still snuffling, wheezing and sneezing, but at least had some reasonable sleep last night.
    One bonus, because I’ve not been eating a great deal, I’ve finally got my weight below 13st 10lb! Not that it will stay there for long though!

    1. Glad you are feeling a bit better. Catching a cold to lose weight is not recommended. :@)

    2. Lots and lots of protein will both keep the weight off and your energy levels up. Folk might not approve, but 6 sausage rolls for breakfast will do you no harm!

  15. Ha ha ha ha..wait.. what?
    They’d better not come back here. They could live from country to country a year at a time, moving as soon as the indigenous have had enough of them

    Americans ‘want Prince Harry to leave’

    Kevin Roberts, the president of a leading Washington think tank, says ‘two to three per cent’ of the US population like the couple

    2. These are the same percentage who mae all the noise, fuss, protect the gimmigrants, promote trans and are genuinely a nuisance, annoyance, narcissistic, lazy and spoiled wasters.

      1. It’s a pity that NTTL is not required reading for ALL snivel serpents. They might just be aware of the contempt we hold them in.

  16. Ray Stevenson – RRR, Thor and Star Wars actor – dies aged 58. 23 May 2023.

    Ray Stevenson, the Northern Irish actor who played the villainous British governor in RRR, Volstagg in the Thor films and a main antagonist in the upcoming Star Wars series Ahsoka, has died aged 58.

    Representatives for Stevenson said he had died on Sunday, four days before his birthday. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported he had been hospitalised with a sudden illness on the island of Ischia, while in production on the film Cassino in Ischia.

    I’m sorry to hear this! Stevenson was one of my favourite actors. Not because of his thespian qualities; he invariably played Ray Stevenson on screen, but because he was of a type that is almost extinct now. Despite claiming to be Irish he was English in spirit and appearance. I’m not even sure that he was famous in the modern sense. Whenever he appeared you would be puzzled for a second and think who’s that? And then you would twig. It’s the guy from Rome. I watched the Book of Eli the other night (my second viewing after twenty years) and who was there but Ray giving it his usually charming, villainous and good humoured homicidal best. I for one shall miss him!

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/23/ray-stevenson-rrr-thor-and-star-wars-actor-dies-aged-58

    3. He always played the thug from central casting but, as you say, there was always a twinkle in his homocidal eye.

      1. And there lies the problem.
        Even now, with all the damage that has been done, too many people just DO NOT WANT TO KNOW, hence these mentally ill delusionalists have been allowed to push their perverted propaganda unopposed.

        1. 372537+ up ticks,

          Morning Bob,

          The same can be applied to us rapidly losing a nation.

        2. I keep thinking ‘There’ll be a backlash – that black man waving his willy in front of children will start it… and the complainer is silenced. Then surely, with that man beating those women in that sport this will stop?’ And on and on and on and the controlling bodies seem determined to pervert the entire world, to pander to the mentally ill.

          That’s all trans is – mental illness.

    2. If blokes want to put their willy in a pseudo vagina, surely they’re not gay?

      Or maybe they’re just mutilation fetishists?

      1. It is a conundrum. One best suited for puzzling out in a secure facility. Care in the community doesn’t.

      2. It is a conundrum. One best suited for puzzling out in a secure facility. Care in the community doesn’t.

      3. “If blokes want to put their willy in a pseudo vagina, surely they’re not gay?”

        Well, that pseudo-minge is still in a bloke. F•cking another bloke is queer no matter how you look at it.

  18. Marianna Spring is claiming the response to her Tw@ter post of yesterday includes misogynistic slurs, threatening and hateful messages, yet going through the responses myself, though I find many that disagree with her, I’ve yet to find one that fits the description above.
    Why do I get the impression that she actually takes ANY criticism as being hateful and thus threatening and, because she is a young woman, automatically misogynistic?

    https://twitter.com/mariannaspring/status/1660721346731450399

      1. Especially as she appears to be trying to justify her well-paid non-job! The sycophantic comments are nauseating!

    2. All the responses I could see were respectful and polite even when they disagreed with her. That’s hardly misogynistic trolling.

      1. There also seem to be a tidal wave of responses saying how great the BBC is and how important the Verity [sic] team will be — I wonder who all those people really are?

        2. I think that judging by the numbers and the response to criticism that the MSM have hired in their own trolls to add to the strictures of the Nudge Unit and 77 Brigade!.

    3. The easiest way to shut down debate is to attack the messenger.

      If she confronts the message – that her ‘fact’s are hard Left opinions manufactured to tell people how to think she has to prove they’re not, which she cannot do, because they are.

      Thus her only choice is the messenger. By silencing them with slurs and abuse she clears her platform and gets her own voice heard by claiming the moral high ground – that she has no right to, by virtue of slurring her detractors.

      It’s very clever, really. What it shows most is how terrified the Left are of truth.

    4. I commented about the irony of the masters of ommission becoming the filter for disinformation. There was no need to mention Spring, as the whole idea of the bBC being arbiters of the ‘truth’ is the stuff of fantasy.

    1. They don’t care. They have an agenda and that’s to get the next non-job. As a result they’re hell bent on permanently retarding the progress of this country solely to do so.

      It’s all a con. Massive uncontrolled immigration and destroying our infrastructure are incompatible. They’re like spoiled, stupid children screaming in the supermarket, long having forgotten what they’re doing or why.

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps. Mostly sunny today but a miserly 16°C is forecast. Simply not good enough..

    Someone at Leicestershere must have been sniffing some powerful stuff:

    “Council defends cycle lane road accused of being like a ‘magic-eye picture’

    Critics have branded £10m redesign of road in Leicester as ‘confusing’ with a bus lane in the middle of the road”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13ca5d4809e8056d41bd41ca0deb443184b8ded5610a9a61e751f73390521143.jpg

    Ten million quid, eh? Wow, what a bargain…

    2. Looks like a death trap has been lined up for someone.
      Double yellow, no parking, another brain wave.

      1. In Soton such markings are to be optionally obeyed. Especially if you’re a chav or foreigner. Some moron had parked his car on a motorway slip road – ignoring both the no stopping and no parking signs. He then proceeded to have a long shouting swearing conversation on his telephone until the point a lorry rear ended him. He couldn’t help it, he needed the whole road and couldn’t see the parked car.

        Comically, the bloke got out of his now ruined trafficked hookers and drugs bought mercedes and started screaming in foreign at the driver of the lorry.

        I know this as I was in the 5 hour queue the mercedes onanist caused.

        I mostly remember plod telling me to get back in my car when I got to out to toilet Ozzie.

        1. We seem to have far too many drivers on our roads now who have no idea of the traffic regulations. Or will have never even seen a copy of the highway code.

          1. …and too few police patrols to enforce them. You can do much as you please these days with minimal interference from Mr Plod. Just another aspect of a fast-failing country that once led the world.

          2. I saw a woman who had parked her car on the hard shoulder of the M3 and was allowing her toddler to have s pee by the side of the motorway.

            Doubtless she would have blamed everyone else if she had been ploughed into.

            Grrrrr. A pet hate of mine. Your child needing a wee is NOT a reason to stop on the hard shoulder. If necessary your child should pee his pants. Ig might even learn a lesson.

        2. I remember the tale of two guys who were in a truck on a toll road on the Continent. Suddenly there was a queue ahead, miles, due to a previous version of gilets jaunes etc. Many hours, possibly 2 days. They found the box of ring spanners, loosened some nuts on the central metal barrier and while the younger one pulled back hard on the corrugated length of metal the driver squeezed the truck through, & they headed back to freedom at the previous exit, where the toll people were somewhat puzzled.

    3. It makes me wonder what they set out to achieve. What were the failure standards? What were the success criteria?

      After all, they surely didn’t waste th emoney without having a clear idea of what would determine if they had met their objective, did they?

    4. People, who are getting stupider by the second, then elect politicians from among their number. The resultant deadly combination of stupidity and being pissed with power results in crass idiocy such as is clearly displayed in the above photograph.

      ‘Morning, Hugh.

      1. ‘Morning, Grizz. A company I once worked for encouraged the section heads to interview and appoint their own staff when vacancies arose. One of them was borderline useless, and not unexpectedly she appointed people of similar ability. My first task as their manager was to inform them that I would sit in on all such interviews and would ‘guide’ them to the best candidate. Said section head decided that this was undue interference and left. I believe that is known as a ‘win-win situation’!

      2. ‘Morning, Grizz. A company I once worked for encouraged the section heads to interview and appoint their own staff when vacancies arose. One of them was borderline useless, and not unexpectedly she appointed people of similar ability. My first task as their manager was to inform them that I would sit in on all such interviews and would ‘guide’ them to the best candidate. Said section head decided that this was undue interference and left. I believe that is known as a ‘win-win situation’!

    5. That’s a bike lane? It’s absurd. California is full of bike lanes that function perfectly well, not bigger than the sidewalk.

      1. The cycle lane and the footpath could have been made half the width. But that would not have fulfilled the real agenda. Squeeze the traffic and inconvenience the motorist is the order of the day.

        1. Indeed. My county council is “consulting” (ie going through the motions and ignoring everything that is said that doesn’t agree with what they want to do) about more cycleways. They plan to widen the cycle tracks on the road near my house; it’s a very busy road (about to be made much worse by profligate house building), but I can’t recall ever seeing a cyclist using the tracks (one in each direction). I have, however, frequently been nearly mown down by cyclists riding on the pavements.

        1. Much like the cyclists here who ignore the cycle lanes and ride on the pavements.

  21. Morning all 🙂😉
    Was sunny and hour ago, perhaps it’s still up there.
    I wonder who are considered wealthy these days. I imagine people in politics would qualify, top civil servants etc. Perhaps this why between them all they so often manage to stuff up everybody else’s life and well-being. Because the considered wealthy are so out of touch with reality.

  22. Anti-Putin militia claims to have overrun village in Russia border region of Belgorod

    Fighting has broken out along the Russian border with Ukraine after self-described Russian partisan forces claimed to have overrun a border village within Russia for the first time in the war.

    The Freedom of Russia Legion, which describes itself as an anti-Kremlin militia seeking to liberate Russia from Vladimir Putin, said it had crossed the border and overrun the settlement of Kozinka, while sending units into the town of Grayvoron in Russia’s Belgorod region.

    This is a sham! One suspects to distract from the non-appearance of the Ukie counter attack!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/22/anti-kremlin-militia-freedom-of-russia-legion-overrun-russian-border-village-kozinka

  23. SIR – The obesity epidemic (Letters, May 20) follows government-backed advice from health professionals in the 1970s, when we were encouraged to avoid fat in our diets and carbohydrates were promoted as healthy.

    Carbohydrates are metabolised into sugar, which is processed by the liver and stored as cholesterol and deposited as fat both under the skin and, more dangerously, around and in the body’s organs: visceral fat.

    The massive preponderance of sugar leads to excessive insulin production, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.

    It was also by government edict that school playing fields were sold off, thus discouraging exercise.

    Dr Steven R Hopkins
    Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.

    Well said, Dr Hopkins; best letter of this millennium by a country league.

    People still labour under the delusion (perpetuated by untrustworthy health ‘professionals’ and idiotic governments) that it is unhealthy, for example, to eat a hamburger. The fact remains that the only unhealthy things about a hamburger are the bread it is wrapped in and the sugar-laden sauce. The fatty meat is the most nourishing and healthy thing about it.

    The huddled masses continue to be mesmerised by the pull of bread, potatoes, pasta, pastry, rice and other carbohydrates (starches). They the cannot understand why they are ill, obese, and perpetually unhealthy Yet still they munch on the stuff, whilst telling all and sundry that “fat will kill you”. It won’t!

    1. Where butter is concerned i thought at the time when they were saying it was unhealthy that vested interest was playing a part.

      1. Margarine is the most potent poison to the system that was ever invented to masquerade as ‘food’. And still people buy the shit and eat it! All margarine does is make money for the manufacturers.

    2. “…whilst telling all and sundry that “fat will kill you”. It won’t!”

      Being fat or obese will certainly shorten your life if not attended to.

      1. Eating fat does not make you fat. All fat consumed is dealt with immediately by the digestive tract. It removes the nourishment then disposes of the rest: none is retained in the body.

        The fat that accumulates in the body comes from the sugars from the consumption of sugary foods and carbohydrates that are converted to the type of fat that is laid down in the body, especially around the organs and in the liver.

        Eat fat (especially animal fat) to be nourished. Eat sugar and carbs to be malnourished.

    3. It’s uncanny, but how come that politicians and their experts are always wrong about everything, whether it be economics, health or climate?
      And we all know what they are doing is wrong but still let them do it anyway.

      1. Funding. When the global corporations who make all the ersatz crap food, bung massive sums to governments, health authorities and universities (step forward, Harvard School of Public Health) then the bunged will sing the song that is written for them by those fat cat corporations.

    4. And yet they are still determined we will not be allowed to eat meat, because Climate.

  24. 372537+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    As far as the current tory (ino) party is concerned is there any other types of peoples ?

    Tuesday 23 May: Only the wealthy can afford to meet the Tories’ net-zero expectations

    1. I think the Tories are aware there are many types of folk in the UK, but they seem determined to make us all poorer, unhappier and miserable.

      Certainly the green agenda is rigidly focussed on assuming everyone is the same – has a big house, garage or plant room and a driveway. For the vast majority this simply isn’t true.

  25. I’m sure this BTL post by Martin Selves will chime with many Nottlrs:

    Martin Selves
    1 HR AGO
    Nigel Farage thinks Braverman will be gone by the end of the week, and he is uncannily nearly always right. Raab is standing down at the next GE, and I suspect Braverman might as well. Why hang around in opposition when your own Prime Minister didn’t stand up for you on a trumped up charge, and its no fun sitting on the opposite benches, with the Ginger Growler on a train wreck that is the UK.
    The Bar for sacking keeps lowering, and the only people who should have been sacked was the guy who wrote the Raab Report, and the civil servant(s) who stabbed Braverman in the back on the smallest of incidents. Why shouldn’t the Home Secretary get a special course, or a modified one because she is a very busy and important politician?
    We really are living through an extraordinary period where the Opposition do not know what a woman is, and the Conservative Party do not know what a Conservative is. Meanwhile, the private sector and our Armed Forces get up for a cold heat pump shower, try to avoid the speed cameras in the traffic jam to work, try to dodge the ULEZ zone, toot at the public sector strikers outside of their place of non work, drive around all the pot holes that are joining up, drive past the Police Station with all doors locked and no means to talk to anyone inside, or give up calling an empty Town Hall because they work from home and are tucked up in bed, fume that no one answers the telephone at the IR, Passport Office or any public service, and generally make the best of life while they read the Newspapers and are amazed that some things are still left the Government can screw up.
    I exaggerate of course, but sometimes it feels like that, doesn’t it?

    * * *

    That is no exaggeration, matey!

    That’s enough from me, off to mow a meadow that is otherwise the church grass (“hooray” they all cried).

    1. I believe the Home Secretary should have a special course if for no other reason than her security

      1. It seems to me to be a fair enough question to ask – is it possible to have a private speed awareness course. The bone of contention seems to be that she asked a civil servant. I don’t see why this should be so controversial, unless she was trying to apply pressure to arrange something which is not available to anyone else, and there doesn’t appear to be any suggestion that this is the case.

        1. The civil service are just using it as leverage to force her out because they hate what she stands for.

          At the moment the civil service is clearly dysfunctional.

          1. At the moment the Civil Service is functioning extremely well.

            This is the second Conservative they’ve got rid of within a month.

            Soon there will be no effective ministers left, allowing the Civil Service to steer the nation leftwards.

          2. If it gets to move any farther towards the left, it will end up going full circle.

        2. So called ‘celebrities’ commonly ask for and are given one-to-one speed awareness courses.

    2. It was probably something as innocent as asking someone in the office if they could arrange it for her because she didn’t have the time. but now politicians behave like sharks circling each other hoping for a wound and blood in the water so they can go on a self interested feeding frenzy. screw the fact that their behaviour and incompetence is damaging the country.

    1. Looking at Braverman’s face recently and her reactions to questions I doubt that she will be standing in the next election!

    2. Looking at Braverman’s face recently and her reactions to questions I doubt that she will be standing in the next election!

    3. “If only the Reform Party had a more convincing leader!”
      That is its major problem.

      2. It’s a piece of Tranny filth that appears on TV quiz shows frequently with its father and brother (who are, ostensibly, normal). It is galling when all-and-sundry prostrate themselves before this gruesomely butch cock-in-a-frock and call it ‘Emma’.

        It needs a swift, hard, uppercut.

          1. The cocksure little baitch should be asked:

            “Biologically speaking, are you a woman, yes or no?”

          3. Of course it wouldn’t, it would be exposed for what it is.

            Either a liar or an ignoranus (sic)

          5. Except that the exceptions prove the rule, more German men sit than stand.

            And in the middle of the night I sit rather than turn on the lights, so I don’t wake HG.

  29. At 8.15 this morning, I told the MR that the wound on my back (which was seen yesterday by a practice nurse, cleaned and dressed) was hurting. The MR removed the dressing, squeezed out yet more gunge, took snaps and told me to contact the surgery. I did that by their e-mail system at 8.30, attaching the photos. At 8.45 I was phoned and invited to come in at 9.10. Got there on the dot – and seen immediately first by an assistant then by the delightful nurse whom we saw yesterday. New dressing (different sort) applied – apptmt on Friday morning (as well as one next Tuesday). Back home by 9.35.

    I don’t think one could have done any of this any quicker in any health system. As I have said before, we are extremely fortunate in this part of Norfolk for the attentive medical care we receive.

    2. Good , good , good .. so pleased you are receiving the treatment that is so important , Bill.

      Fingers are crossed for a swift recovery x

    3. If the new dressing doesn’t work try a dressing coated with honey….

      Should have added – MiL admitted to hospital and judged by the Consultant to be in need of end of life care was discharged to a Nursing Home where to their credit the nursing staff dressed both her legs which were covered in sores and weeping gunge and traces of blood. Before the bandages were applied her legs were covered in honey (I thought they were marinading her). About 10 days later her legs were completely healed and have, over three years later, remained in v.g. condition.

    4. Blimey, Bill! Here, they don’t monitor the email address, don’t answer the phone and when you go in to request an appointment, the earliest you can get it six weeks!

      1. The Senior Partner is a very old-fashioned GP. Young (late 40s) acts like GPs did when we were young. Stands no nonsense in the Practice.

        Saved my life in 2020.

        1. I hope you give them a decent bottle of something at Christmas. They need to be cherished and made to feel appreciated! They are rara avis indeed.

      1. Thanks Bill!
        London & South East England
        Tuesday 23 May
        Early season grasses are currently emitting pollen during good weather, affecting some hay fever sufferers. Fungal spores include Pleospora & Cladosporium.

          2. Try to breathe just through your nose and out through the mouth. Also, spectacles/sun glasses help.

          9. I once worked with a diminutive chap who everyone called ‘Vick Sinex’.

            He was the little squirt that got up everyone’s nose.

          11. We had a guy in the factory in Bury St Edmunds who we called Bogie – because he got up everyone’s nose

    3. You ought to try marching at that pace!
      I wonder if they were influenced by the Light Brigade during the Napoleonic Campaigns in Spain?

      1. Durham Light infantry (DLI) were/are the fastest marching in the Army. 120 steps per minute as opposed to the normal 60.

      1. Yes, that Monty Python sketch crossed my mind too when watching the above video of overly butch, or trying to be, soldiers.

    1. Bacon and eggs sizzling in the galley for brekkers. What more can be asked?

    2. Bacon and eggs sizzling in the galley for brekkers. What more can be asked?

  34. Phew! That worked up a bit of a sweat!
    Another dead tree stump to get up. First tried a large crowbar and, as expected, no bloody chance.
    Then tried crow bar augmented by a large ratchet strap pulled up VERY tight. Again no chance.
    Ditto with a 2nd strap augmenting the crow bar.

    So then did what I ought to have done 1st time, lugged the Tirfor and 6m strop out. At least I was able to use another stump in place of the holdfast to secure the end of the Tirfor.
    And again, once the heavy humping and heaving the wire rope strop through the machine, the stump virtually leapt out of the ground! Though surprisingly, it did take a heavier pull than the one I did on Saturday!

    Still coughing and wheezing, but I think I’m over the worst of whatever lurgy I’ve just had.

  35. 372537+ up ticks,

    Our village bobby are no longer in existence, the voting pattern erased them replaced by a blinkered force of miscreants working to an ante English agenda.

    Protecting the forces of evil nastiness while suppressing decent folk,

    Miscreants = murderers, rapist and a large contingent of the
    eyes tight shut / deaf as a post brigade, factual proof, rotherham plus.

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1660935822059683841?s=20

    1. That would have never happened in my day. My colleagues and I would have assisted that lorry driver in dragging those scrotes off the street by the scruff of their necks.

      1. Good morning, Grizzly

        You must have similar feelings towards today’s policemen and women as I do towards some of today’s teachers.

        1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

          To be fair I feel sorry for them since they are no longer taught to use their initiative; speak with and get along with the public; use their detective skills to solve crime; or make the place a better place for the public.

          Since the police were sequestered by the government for their own nefarious ends, this modern lot are simply following orders and kow-towing to government diktat.

          I certainly could not do the job in this day and age.

      2. People should have got out of their cars and piled onto the police, they are just as bad as the protestors. If people were to rebel in such fashion perhaps the police would realize they are becoming the enemy of law and order and the people. Perhaps that would wake them up and they would do something about being useless pillocks.

  36. Lady of Shalott sent to storage and BLM moves in under Tate Britain’s ‘inclusive’ rehang

    Gallery takes classic works down for more contemporary ones and also updates labels to emphasise roles of slavery, colonialism, and racism

    By Anita Singh, ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
    23 May 2023 • 7:00am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/05/22/TELEMMGLPICT000227946932_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqWBJtJeccdqvnlHOcnloFShBVvBxOsWcvndpfMlDIAzo.jpeg?imwidth=680
    *
    *
    *
    **************************************************

    david morgan
    3 HRS AGO
    When the civilizations of the classical era fell the barbarians did their best to destroy monuments and art.
    Our barbarians are already inside our gates helped by our enemies within the Establishment.
    Not much imagination needed to see where we are going, the signs are all around.

    Peter Beninger
    5 MIN AGO
    So basically they are replacing British culture with non-British culture. And we are told ‘The Great Replacement’ is a conspiracy theory.

    david bushrod
    2 HRS AGO
    If the Tate cannot display these paintings why can’t we have them in the provinces where people would love them.

        1. I had a face-to-face chat with Fran Hals’ best mate, just four years ago, in the Wallace Collection where he tends to hang out.

          His aura was spellbinding, but he did have a bit of a Cavalier attitude.

    2. There was an article in the Sunday Grimes describing the substantial fall off in visits to galleries…..blamed on the Plague, of course and lack of foreign tourists – but the reality is that normal people are pissed off with the BLM/wokery bollox and vote with their feet.

      Dear old Waldemar Polishname was having a go (for the second time in a month) at the ridiculous relabeling etc….

      1. Waldemar Januszczak won’t be making any more docs for Aunty then? Perhaps Marlene Headley would like to give us her appraisal of the history of western art? I’m sure the King would love to invite her to peruse his collection at Buck House? All friends of his mum to be barred of course.

      1. She has a lovely face;
        God in his mercy lend her grace,
        The Lady of Shalott

        1. The mirror crack’d from side to side
          “The curse is come upon me!” cried
          The Lady of Shallot.

    1. The Lockheed Constellation – in the background – was a much more elegant aircraft, Maggie!

    1. Did you ever fly in or out of Warri, Maggie? I remember they would have to stop traffic on the main road as it ran across the runway.

      1. Yes I did , MM, by Islander and on another occasion , Helo, either a Whirlwind or Wessex equivalent .. Bush flying , wasn’t it .

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd8442edbf7a912b753ebf34a474b69d236e1775e7194030f8608f7d8a217f9a.png Would you want this man to teach your children? After all he looks normal, is a professional, and evidently cares for their education and wellbeing.

    Unfortunately he will not teach your children because he has been banned from teaching … for life … for ‘disrespecting’ a silly little girl who wants to be called a boy. He ‘misgendered’ her and ‘failed to treat her with dignity and respect’. He was also found to have ‘failed to protect the pupil’s wellbeing when he did not use the preferred pronouns of a girl who identified as a boy’.

    My teachers failed to to treat me with dignity and respect whenever I was caned. Who should I complain to?

    I know that I would like to get those who have ruined this chap’s career in a locked room for half an hour! I would say to them: “Hello, twats. I am here to advise you. The room is locked so you will not be able to leave until you have been fully, and thoroughly, advised. Any questions?”

    2. Does the ban exclude him just from teaching in state schools or could he get a job in a private school where, in the past, many of the better teachers did not have the P.G.C.E or other teaching qualifications?

      (One of the ushers at our wedding who was in my English department was a brilliant teacher – he had a degree in Theology but no teaching qualification but he was very well read and helped ensure that the English “A” level results in the school were always excellent; the organist, who also did a bit of lower school English teaching, had a Ph.D but no teaching qualification and he went on to be the director of music in a very good school and was rated by Ofsted as completely Outstanding)

      1. A CHRISTIAN teacher has been banned from the profession for “misgendering” a pupil in a case believed to be the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.

        Joshua Sutcliffe, 33, was ruled by the Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA) to have failed to treat a pupil with “dignity and respect”. He was also found to have failed to protect the pupil’s wellbeing when he did not use the preferred pronouns of a girl who identified as a boy.

        Mr Sutcliffe, a former maths teacher at Cherwell School, a state secondary in Oxford, admitted he did not use the pupil’s preferred pronouns when he praised a group of pupils during a maths lesson by stating, “Well done, girls.” He claimed that this was not intentional and that he apologised immediately.

        The TRA found it was “more probable than not” that he publicly referred to the transgender pupil using female pronouns on other occasions while working at the school between 2015 and 2018. Mr Sutcliffe denies this.

        As well as the allegations of misgendering a pupil, Mr Sutcliffe was found guilty of misconduct for expressing his views critical of gay marriage when questioned by a pupil, and for failing to “consider the potential impact” on his pupils, particularly those who may be from the LGBT+ community, of a statement that being gay was wrong.

        A complaint against the teacher for showing pupils at a different school a video that contained “inappropriate comments”, including that a growing problem in today’s society was that men were not masculine enough, was also upheld. The TRA ruling stated: “The panel was satisfied that the conduct… fell significantly short of the standard of behaviour expected of a teacher,” and he was therefore guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.

        A decision on whether to impose a ban on behalf of Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, lay with Alan Meyrick, the TRA’S decision maker.

        He said: “It is necessary to impose a prohibition order to maintain public confidence in the profession.”

        The ruling comes as schools wait for the first detailed government guidance on how to respond to transgender pupils, which is due to be published this term. Head teachers have warned that without official guidance, schools were working “in a vacuum”.

        The guidance is expected to say that school leaders can refuse to use different pronouns demanded by pupils. Mr Sutcliffe was the subject of a disciplinary hearing at the school in 2017 after the pupil’s parent complained.

        The teacher appeared on a television programme to talk about the issue and was later dismissed. The TRA was told that the pupil feared being identified and felt suicidal after his television appearance.

        Mr Sutcliffe has been banned from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any education institution in England. He can apply for the ban to be removed in 2025. Mr Sutcliffe said yesterday that he was “devastated” by the ruling and plans to appeal. He is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre.

        He said: “I believe affirming children in gender confusion in the classroom is psychologically damaging for them. I refuse to go against my conscience and cause a child harm.” A spokesman for the Department for Education said it is supporting schools on the matter

    3. I think the growing army of home-schoolers would rush to employ him as a tutor.

    4. Apparently it was the mother of one of the girls who complained. Probably had purple hair, a nose ring, was on welfare until she married, works for the public sector, is a unionist – the usual sort of waster.

      1. Undoubtedly there will be some sections of the media which will concentrate on his Christianity and provide it as proof of his irrationality in ‘believing’ that there are two sexes.

      2. Drawings and appropriate bungs already submitted for the new hotel on the river front.

    2. How is our own comm-union- ist post office doing? They all been sacked yet?

  41. Regarding ‘net zero’ my own view is that the climate is probably changing, as it has done throughout history, but I doubt if human activity has much to do with it and I doubt if human attempts to change it will have any effect at all. The Sun seems to be the principal culprit. But the ‘net zero’ hysteria is far worse in the US than it is in the UK.

    I watched a Senate committee questioning one of Mr. Biden’s climate emergency experts the other day. Senator John Kennedy asked how much Biden’s goal of net zero by 2050 will cost. He had no idea. $50 trillion? No idea. He then asked what difference it will make to the world’s climate. No idea. All he could say was that all countries must work together on this. Some hope!

    But the cat was let out of the bag a couple of months ago when another of Biden’s spokesmen, (Brian Deese) discussing the climate emergency, said “This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm.”

    Just to show how ludicrous the climate’ experts are, Al Gore said a few weeks ago that “the oceans are boiling”!

    And yesterday the Guardian had these two headlines:

    Why I stopped arguing about the climate emergency and tried the silent treatment instead. The sensible methods didn’t work, so I became a member of the Red Rebel Brigade. Now I feel I’m doing something useful.

    $209bn a year is what fossil fuel firms owe in climate reparations. We want that paid. After a new study revealing the extent to which developing nations have been damaged, there is no excuse for further delay

    And that left-wing political organisation, masquerading as a charity, otherwise known as Oxfam, has this on its website: The climate crisis is a man-made disaster that is already reversing progress made in the fight against poverty and inequality. …. The voices of feminist organizations, youth, and indigenous peoples must be amplified in climate negotiations…”

    Is it possible that all left-wing newspapers and many western governments are right and that I and a few lone voices are the ones who are deluded?

    1. It’s all propaganda with the aim of impoverishing ordinary people and making the few even richer than they are already. If they tell the lie often enough they hope people will believe it and very many do, especially the young who have no idea of history.

    3. Along with the climate fearmongering we also have the equally stupid fallacy that men can become women and vice versa and the dangerous notion that children can choose their gender and become what they are not. It’s all brainwashing and dangerous nonsense. Sex offenders let loose on children – what can possibly go wrong?

        1. And that young teacher lost his job for not pandering to some kid’s ‘preferred pronouns’.

    4. Didn’t one of the UN climate wallahs admit that it has nothing to do with environmentalism and is, de facto, about the redistribution of wealth?

      1. Yes, his comments were widely publicised some years ago.

        Anyone still have the article?

    5. The only huge difference that the climate has suffered was due to the felling of millions of trees, it seems to have change rain fall patterns in south America,Africa and the far east. And possibly a change in the absorption of carbon.
      The voices of feminist organizations, youth, and indigenous peoples must be amplified in climate negotiations…”
      As far as the indigenous are concerned do we get a say about foreign drivers burning fuel ? And people settling in our countries, because they can’t be bothered ‘to put their own houses in order’ ? Do they want us all in developed nations to go back to the way people lived thousands of years ago ? As in the indigenous in Australia, ask them how they would feel about that ?

      1. The felling of huge numbers of trees in tropical locations could well have changed “convectional rainfall” patterns.

    6. Is the British National Party an organization (sic) representing indigenous people?

    7. When one can grow lemons, oranges, pomegranites, date palms and harvest olives from one’s garden for thirty consecutive years then I might just admit that the climate may well be on the cusp of change. Over this last winter, any plant with the slightest hint of anything mediterranean in its dna has been well and truly killed off. What we are experiencing is a change in the weather patterns as has happened since the dawn of time. I do not understand the hysteria, humanity has always thrived during its warmer periods.

      1. The olive I planted in my garden is decidedly grumpy after a hard frost this winter, but I hope for a decent harvest soon.

      2. My little orange tree died – and it was indoors! Must have become terminally depressed.

        1. I had a little nut tree
          Nothing would it bear
          But a silver nutmeg
          And a golden pear.

          The King of Spain’s daughter
          Came to visit me
          And all for the sake
          Of my little nut tree……

      3. I lost my lovely, mature Clematis Montana Rubens and a Clematis Alpina Alba. A hardy fuschia Rapture looked dead but has sprouted from the root – my friend who grows my tomato plants for me had the same happen to her Rapture, which is the parent plant of mine. The cold winter, relentless rain earlier in spring, and now the current dry spell and northerly wind is not doing the garden much good.

        All of this is weather, nothing to do with Climate Crisis or whatever it’s called today.

        1. I also lost two or three mature Penstemons. The one which appeared vulnerable last year has survived and is just coming into flower.

        2. Don’t tell the rabid fanatics. They’ll say climate change is not weather despite it being… weather.

      4. The climate always changes. That’s beyond doubt. It’s governed by the big shiny thing in the sky. What’s at issue is if mankind is responsible for that, which it isn’t.

        That’s why they called it climate change. It’s fact. They dropped the anthropomorphic very, very quickly as that was a load of tosh.

    8. I can’t find the Oxfam quote but there is this from the UN:
      Indigenous People’s Knowledge, Insight Needed to Address Global Climate Crisis, Speakers Stress, as Permanent Forum Opens Session
      https://press.un.org/en/2023/hr5476.doc.htm

      Read on and you find that the ‘indigenous people’ are those who lived primitive lives in primitive places before whitey came along and changed their world forever. Whitey owes them.

    10. There is much we can and should be doing to assist the environment. The first and most important is to stop paying people to breed, ensuring only the sensible and well off can. The second is brutal mutilation of litterers, graffiti scrawlers, pikeys and other such vermin. Then we must deport the majority welfare addicted immigrants permanently.

      Put all the ecomentalists – anyone blithering on about Co2 on to an ark and send them off into the distance where they can break rocks and live in caves, living off what they can grow. They’ll swiftly die off.

      The next is to permanently defund the state from any climate change drivel and remove the tax scam. Do the same for those funding the lie. Massively increase our energy and manufacturing capacity to bring it locally, away from China and India.

        1. No, and that’s the problem. A chum has suddenly gone hard Left and yet continues to bleat about waiting lists, pay, tax and inflation. It’s astonishing that he doesn’t seem to understand everything he’s whinging about is the fault of his ideology.

        1. Funny how the world was able to cope perfectly adequately with half the current population only 50 years ago.

          1. The world’s population has more than tripled … within my lifetime.

            It took 2 million years to reach 2.6 billion, then just an extra 72 years to exceed 8 billion. This is utter insanity and any clown telling you otherwise is beyond help.

          3. Why?

            AI will obviate the need, given the areas where the population is expanding the fastest.

          4. 50 years ago was a different world, I remember it well. It was a world without much technology but much disease and much poverty in which millions died of starvation in places like China & India. Even in advanced countries, such as the UK, life could be pretty miserable in lots of ways. You wouldn’t want to go back there at all.

          5. Odd then, that even more millions are dying of disease and starvation all over the world now than there were 50 years ago, entirely due to population explosion.
            There are many places over the advanced countries where life might well be a lot worse than it was 50 years ago.
            I suspect that you are looking back 100 years rather than 50.

          6. Actually no. far less people are dying.
            “But despite these ambiguities, it is nonetheless very clear that in recent decades the presence of major life-taking famines has diminished significantly and abruptly as compared to earlier eras. This is not in anyway to underplay the very real risk facing the roughly 80 million people currently living in a state of crisis-level2 food insecurity and therefore requiring urgent action. Nevertheless, the parts of the world that continue to be at risk of famine represent a much more limited geographic area than in previous eras, and those famines that have occurred recently have typically been far less deadly – as we will go on to show in this entry.”
            https://ourworldindata.org/famines

            And no, I’m not talking about 100 years ago. I think your age doesn’t have you appreciate how fast things have changed. My first journey on a plane was a prop plane, jets were unknown apart from the military. Phones were in kiosks, only the wealthy had phones. Houses were cold, frost on the inside of the windows, heating was coal fire. Food, very plain nothing like the variety you have now. Holidays abroad were also for the wealthy.
            No computers, almost, in Britain, everyone was white. Type into You Tube ‘London 50 years ago’. Technology was still pretty primitive.
            Here is a chart illustrating the rate of change.
            https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/ee/22/5aee22549377f6552e7da98ad11c2257.png
            and
            Timeline of historic inventions
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions
            skip to 1950 and go from there.
            also
            “Thanks to more than six and a half decades of remarkable scientific and technological innovation, 2022 looks very little like 1954.”
            The Most Famous Inventions the Past 69 Years Have Given Us
            https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g24668233/best-inventions/
            My self of 50 years ago would be utterly confused by todays world and unable to function at the mundane level.

          7. I make 70 million deaths higher than 50 million deaths. Most deaths are still down to starvation/malnutrition and diseases, unless you include abortions in your calculations.

            I think your memory of 50 years ago is incorrect. 50 years ago passenger jets were commonplace Concorde was about to enter service and first flew over 50 years ago. Personal computers, whilst nowhere near as advanced as now were also available in the early 70’s. Mobile phones, whilst large were also available in the 1970’s. I flew on a commercial jet aircraft in 1958.
            I agree everything is changing rapidly but my recollections of the 70’s are clearly different from yours.
            I think you are remembering the 50’s rather than 50 years ago.

          8. I am indeed remembering the 1950’s and these are the sort of planes BOAC had.
            https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/about-ba/history-and-heritage/photographs/photos-1950-1959

            As for Concord. The first flight was 1959.
            I did say: My first flight”. I did not say 50 years ago.

            What I’m pointing out is the rapidity of change that you don’t seem to appreciate. As the chart shows, progress is going at such a fast rate the line is now practically going straight up. Look up “The Singularity” which we are rapidly approaching. AI is the catalyst for that is my guess. Before WWII the line of progress was a sedate gradual incline quite easy to walk, today you would need to have climbing gear to tackle it, to take the line as a literal thing.

            I don’t know where you get your 70 million from. If you are comparing now with then, you are still wrong given the population increase. Are you aware that most of the developing world is now where we were in the 1950’s? The doom mongers are propagandists with a nihilistic agenda driven by politics not facts. The global warmers are lying or rather selective with their facts, likewise the population propagandists who ignore certain important facts, developments in agriculture, speed of communications thus delivery of goods, a 1000 things. LBQTERSTUV, etc The racists such as BLM, they are all driven by neo-Marxism and a hatred of the West, hence their misrepresentation of slavery etc. Britain did not get rich on that, the factors for Britain’s wealth originate in a small population coupled with a warming period that drove the necessity for innovation to bring in crops, hence the industrial revolution. Slavery was the antithesis of the Industrial Revolution, not its driving force. That is why in the USA the South was behind the North and its emphasis on technology and no slavery.

            Poor is a relative term. Look up Professor Jordan Peterson on that. He is not only a professor of psychology but worked for the UN on population and development. Whether we start in the 1950’s or exactly 50 years ago. What I said still stands. My self of 50 years ago would be totally lost in todays word. It’s only because we live along with progress that we are familiar with todays world. The first computer I used was an entire building of 5 stories at UC Berkeley. It had less computing power than a modern PC. All you have to do is look up ‘1970’s’ in Wikipedia and you will get a sense of the rapidity of change. 1970’s because that was 50 years ago , as opposed to when I was a child. That was the 1950’s and the change in one life time has been vast, as the quote I put up from the article indicates.

          9. Hold on here.

            You started off claiming it was 50 years ago and you’ve completely changed your tune.
            I don’t dispute times have changed dramatically, but you are constantly moving the goalposts on every aspect of this debate.

            End of thread as far as I’m concerned.

          10. No not changed my tune. I deid point out when I made the remark about prop planes that I was talking about the first plane I flew on, I was quite clear on that. You weren’t paying attention. . So no, ‘not hold on there’. What I said still stands as I pointed out, the graph does not lie. Accelerated change for which the 70’s were pivotal. And, as I said, if I had not gone through the changes brought about by living through and to the present day my younger self, 1950’s or 1970’s would still be lost and completely confused by the modern world.

    11. “…climate is probably changing..” Of course it is, we are coming out of an ice age. Guess what happens? Surprise surprise, it gets warmer. if people think that by ending the use of all fossil fuels they can control that, they are delusional and falsely believing that man is above nature, the word for that is ‘hubris’. Humanity and all its works could vanish from the earth tomorrow and the climate would still continue to warm up.

    12. We are entering a mini Ice Age or more years of cooling. The sun and planets are responsible.

      Astrophysicists know this but are never consulted.

    13. Nope. You are the voice of sanity in the lunatic asylum. That you even voiced that thought means the propaganda is working. Don’t weaken!

  43. Nothing says Summer is coming like an announcement from the police that
    they’re heading off to Portugal for a few weeks to search a new
    location for Madeleine McCann.

        1. The weather has been too cold – all those onshore winds, too much sand in the sandwiches.

        2. Weather’s been a bit cooler than usual. Just getting ready for a nice trip.

    2. I really do wonder if all this is about chipping and surveillance and her remains (or an amazing reveal) will be dragged out of a reservoir or somewhere like Brazil to persuade us to accept a tracking-and-everything else chip under the skin, in an ‘all-this-could-have-been-prevented-if-only-the-chips-had-been-ready-in-time’ manner. Of course, it won’t be her remains, it will be someone else’s, but they will be verified by the usual ‘experts’. I really do wonder if there was ever a ‘Madeleine Mcann’ in the first place, or if there is a ‘Chris Brückner’, he seems a very shadowy, ephemeral fellow. He is just a means of keeping MM in the public eye for some reason. Compare and contrast with other missing children.

      1. It’s a bit more complex than just implanting a chip – you have to get a reader close enough to read the chip to identify the location of the chip. Satellites won’t be able to do that, you’d need a chip reader on every gateway & door, for example, and that will be a) noticed, and b)expensive.

  45. For sale. Newfoundland. Large. Thinks he can drive.

    The great oaf was sat in the door well and booted the blasted gear into neutral.

      1. I’s a big shiny button that he can put his paw on, and did. I love him dearly, and he’s a good car dog being used to it but blinkin’ heck I wish he’d stick to putting his head out the window.

          1. We had a robot hoover, but the Warqueen stood on it with her boots on. We were both a bit distracted to care.

    3. A pal of mine has one of those – I’ve never seen any dog that big.
      I asked him how much food it ate a day – I could live for a month on that.
      I asked him where it slept – he said “Anywhere it bloody likes”

      1. Mongo sleeps in Junior’s room. In fact, wherever small boy is, Mongo will be found not far away. It comes down to training them. Wiggy would always sleep beside me.

        Mongo has his bed at Junior’s bedside floor since he’s had his own room.

        He doesn’t eat ‘that much’. It’s:
        1kg of mince,
        4 chicken breasts
        1 salmon
        250g of pasta
        250g of rice
        broccoli stick, 3 carrots, some peas, a parsnip.

        A week. It’s made in a giant cauldron and he gets a mug full twice a day.

        Ozzie gets a bit more as he’s younger and Mongo is on a slight diet as he is getting too many dog biscuits, so those are 3 a day whereas Ozzie has as many as he wants, which isn’t many as he goes to the Warqueen for them and she doesn’t know where they are (or what he wants).

        He also has a sausage roll as a treat but these are about 3cm on a side with carefully chosen sausage – if I can stop him getting the tray.

  46. We are closer than ever to arresting Putin, but the US must play its part. Gordon Brown. 23 May 2023.

    A new grassroots campaign calling for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to be tried for war crimes represents an escalation in the demand for justice for the people of Ukraine. Already 2 million have signed a petition calling for Putin’s indictment.

    This from Blair’s accomplice to his crimes in Iraq.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/23/arrest-warrants-petitions-tribunals-pressure-mounting-vladimir-putin

    1. …and how many of those 2 million are in a position to not only find him at any given moment but to actually cuff him and arrest him?

      Thought not…

        1. He racked up 12 trillion of our debt. The failure of the Tories to reduce that spending has led to compounded interest whacking it up to over 18 trillion.

  47. Well, I never…a story on the lunchtime BBC news about youngsters using damaging vapes featured three boys. Yes, you’ve guessed, not a non-white face to seen! Is this a first??

  49. Rolf Harris, disgraced entertainer, dies aged 93. 23 may 2023

    Harris had been one of the UK’s most popular entertainers with a career spanning more than 50 years, but his reputation was left in tatters when he was unmasked as a serial paedophile who had carried out sickening attacks on children.

    Am I the only one to entertain doubts about Harris’s guilt?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/23/rolf-harris-dead-paedophile-presenter-neck-cancer/

    1. No Minty, you’re not! I read his bio/autobiography years ago and thought he was a thoroughly good chap!

      1. His autobiography is hardly where you’d find admissions of kiddy-fiddling…

        Just saying…

        1. I know that Bill, but he certainly didn’t display any odd traits. He was a national swimming champion and seemed to be an all round family man. I’ve just listened to a diatribe of hate for him, by a journalist on Talk TV. To hear him speak you would have thought something would have emerged sooner. Dumb Esther Rancid – eat your heart out!

    2. I don’t know one way or the other. I think it was a different time. What’s the saying? The past is a foreign country.

      I didn’t know Rolf Harris so I see no reason to mourn his death. Equally I think other people should leave his family alone to grieve.

    3. I am sure he was guilty, but I am equally sure that what he was guilty of is no different from what “Pride” is trying to achieve with its antics and which to numerous “Pride” supporters is perfectly acceptable today.

      1. Homosexuality ceased to be a crime in UK in 1967 but this was not total and universal.

        When will paedophilia not be against the law. Some people are already suggesting that it should be.

        Sodom in Gomorrah – in fact Sod ’em everywhere!

        1. I’m not referring to that, I’m referring to the child abuse masquerading as sex education in primary schools and pre-schools encouraging children to have early sexual experiences with each other under the guidance and with the participation of adults as well as the trans movement, mermaids, Tavistock and the like.

        2. I agree with your heavily edited comment, significantly different from the one I originally replied to.

        3. That’s what they’re pushing. Next it’ll be made a crime to refuse it. That’s what they’re trying to push with the straight men won’t shag a tranny. This is what moral depravity, the subversion of society and obliteration of Christian culture and Left wingery brings us – child abuse.

    6. I liked Rolf – he was all over my childhood. I’m saddened by his conviction, and more so by his death.
      RIP, Rolf.

      1. At one time he lived in the area of sarf London I did. He knocked two semis into one house. He was seen out and about, in the Express Dairy, butcher and so on. Polite and no problems or complaints.
        As to the rest, I don’t know anything about it so won’t comment.

  50. Juliet Samuel on talking about families…

    “… speakers at last week’s National Conservatism conference were widely mocked for talking about marriage and family, on the grounds that this might exclude or shame single mothers. Even if one assumes the existence of non-nuclear families precludes talking about the benefits of conventional ones, which it shouldn’t, this misses the point. The problem isn’t single mothers; it’s men who abandon or abuse them. When some on the right talk of “bringing back shame” to contain human excess, they should be careful to make sure it is deadbeat males who are the target, not the women.”

    Actually Juliet, no, it’s both. The woman can take the same responsibility for birth control as the man. Typically such get pregnant solely to claim welfare so there’s no responsibility there. They then say they don’t know who the father is so he gets off Scott free as well.

    The solution? End welfare. Stop paying the wasters to breed. You get pregnant? Your problem.

    1. That utter shit should be put under an intense scrutiny over everything he and his department did over Covid.

  54. Eldest son , electrician , runner , motor/biker , hobbyist , gym user and general energetic good health 54 year old , arrived home fairly earlier than normal . yesterday afternoon , looking shocked and shattered .

    He was working on an industrial complex , that is the sort of work he does , high work and cables and all that sort of thing .. he was on his own , others were else where , and a scaffolding tower on uneven ground toppled over onto him , pinning him to the ground .

    He yelled for help , and after about five minutes or more , the other bods realised through the back ground of heavy work noise what had happened .

    He was shocked , bruise on face , and he said his neck was stiff this morning .

    Accidents happen when you least expect them and can least afford them .

      1. I do hope so , FA.

        I had a feeling that all was not well yesterday when I was shopping , those strange shivers that I feel sometimes .

    3. Sorry to hear that, Belle. I hope he gets checked out and that H&S are involved. If not, involve them!

    4. Sorry, I hope he had a good examination, x-rays etc. and that he is okay. Such a worry for you.

      1. ♬’Cause little Willy, Willy won’t go home
        But you can’t push Willy ’round
        Willy won’t go, try tellin’ everybody but, oh no
        Little Willy, Willy won’t go home.♬

    5. I think she did nothing wrong (apart from speeding) – she paid the fine and got the points so that should be the end of the matter. Can’t blame her for not wanting to spend several hours discussing why speed is dangerous.

      1. I think she is trying to take the option of the driving awareness course in place of the fine and points on her licence, but recognises that, as a member of Government with controversial opinions, her presence in the usual multiple attendee course could be disruptive and was trying to find a way of working around that.

        1. Nothing wrong with that. I did one some years ago and it was half a day with several others and would have been a waste of her highly paid time.

          2. Yes – it was ok and not too onerous. I was already retired so it didn’t entail a half-day off work. Cost about £80 I think so equivalent to a fine.

  56. Am I right or wrong to think that if Dominic Cummings was still advising , that none of this current atrocious political nonsense would be sending us all into a deep dive .

    Why has the ruling that foreign students WOULD NOT be allowed to bring their relatives into the UK after January 2024 been delayed until then , what the blazes is wrong with NOW

    1. Not sure, to be honest. I think the state has become so big it has simply ceased being effective. If Cummings were here he’d have to have fought the state and the problem is… there’s a lot more of them.

      Unless he could sack them, openly, close entire departments he would simply be overwhelmed in a constant fightwhile the state carried on doing whatever it wanted in the first place using public money.

  57. Just had the last part of my Dunelm Mill order delivered today. As he was fiddling with his phone to take the proof of delivery picture i looked down and saw he was wearing an ankle tag.

    1. Ahhh i love Dunelm. I spend a fortune at our local one when i go back home.

      1. I have some friends visiting next month. For convenience (to me) i am giving up my bedroom. Husband and wife with baby and another due in November. I will take an army bed for the night in the conservatory.

        Two new pillows and pillow cases. New sheets, quilt and cover in white waffle. £62.50 plus free delivery.

          1. They happen to be vegetarian and she is coeliac too. I’m making a veggie biryani. I do hope they drink !

      1. My MP is Suella Braverman. For the moment. In her favour she did kick the arses of the local GP’s and shame them into hiring more staff.

  58. Is anyone else having trouble with today’s page? I’m finding it very slow to load as I scroll up and down, with the screen going blank for several seconds.

      1. I regularly clear down and I’m not having any trouble with other sites.

  59. That joke book gets about…….

    My Chinese neighbour says he has just opened a crow’s shop. Speaking slowly I said “Do you mean clothes shop?”

    “No!” he replied “It is crow’s shop. Come in and have a rook.”

    3. It does indeed…..

      Wife- C’mon, let’s run upstairs and make love.
      Husband- Good grief woman, I can’t do both.

    1. And people will vote for this pos and his party as a punishment to the CONS and LIEbour. Stop the world. I want to get off.

    3. This is a man who tells us to “Trust the science” regarding Global Warming/Climate Change/The CLIMATE EMERGENCY!/ CLIMATE CATASTROPHE!!!!!/CLIMATE ARMAGEDDON!!!!!!/{insert latest panic & scare mongering catch phrase here} yet he does not even recognise basic biology.

    4. He needs explain precisely how the “transwoman” can remove the y chromosome from every one of the thirity seven trillion cells in his body.

      1. And replace those pesky ‘Y’ chromosomes with an extra ‘X’ so as not to spoil the pairs.

      1. Just started watching it on bbc unplayer. The quality is atrocious. I am downloading the Hi-Def version now. 12 minutes.

          2. Extended cut, I assume? It’s a hell of a film, especially the helicopter assault.

          4. Did someone offend you, Phizzee?? Or are you just upset with the world in general?

          5. Very perceptive of you my dear.

            No one can offend me. Except perhaps Bill Thomas… :@)

            The second part of your post hits the nail on the head.

          6. It’s not worth it Phizzee! Worry and moan about things you can change, the rest of it …..meh! If it happens, you die! If it doesn’t….well, you die anyway! 😘

  62. Just had one of those heart-stopping moments.

    Finished the tricky job I needed to do in the garden. Thought I’d sit in the sun and read. Put everything away. Felt for my front door keys….. NOT THERE. When I’m gardening with over trousers on, I put keys in my shirt pocket – for easy access. No trace. Searched through the limited part of garden where I was working. Nothing. Tried at the bonfire where I dumped the prunings. Nothing. Rang the GPs – as I had to take my shirt off there. Zilch.

    Tried to keep calm and started again……..there they were in the middle of the terrace. Must have fallen out when I took my jacket off. If I was a drinking man, I’d have a small glass…. But I won’t as the MR is out and I wouldn’t want her to find a drunk when she returns…!!

    Horrible feeling for 20 minutes, though….

    1. That you’ve locked yourself out? Yes. I open a window when I go outside as one time the wind banged the front door shut.

    2. I did something similar. Then, after I’d got into the house via unorthodox means, went out again and found them less than 10 yards from the front door!

      1. Thanks. Trouble is, I wouldn’t hear it when it bleeped! Deaf as a post, me.

    4. What sort of idiot/Norfolker puts their keys in a top pocket whilst bending over gardening…Don’t tell me…i’ll get it in a nanosecond…..

      1. I have been doing it for 30 years and this has never happened before. So there!

  63. We have a thunderstorm and a half at the moment, everything is being flattened by hailstones, fortunately only pea sized at the moment.
    The wind is howling and the gutters can’t cope and it sounds as if we’re under machine-gun fire.
    The lightening brightens the sky and yet I can’t see more than a few yards down the garden.

  64. Husband: When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?
    Wife: I clean the toilet.
    Husband: How does that help?
    Wife: I use your toothbrush.

    2. Reminds me of the infantile joke doing the rounds in kindergartens 75 years ago!

      “Mummy, mummy – May I lick the bowl?”

      “No, Darling, pull the plug like everybody else.”

  66. Afternoon, all. Chilly start to the day here – we were wondering where the heatwave had got to. It’s warmed up a bit now, but I’m still wearing a fleece. I should have been having my eyes examined earlier, but the opticians rang up and cancelled it because their machine had broken down. The promised phone call to reschedule has not yet materialised. It took me six weeks to get this appointment. Who knows how long it will be before I can get another. One thing that never gets a mention in all this talk of net zero is whether it is desirable.

      1. It goes without saying that it won’t be affordable (nor achievable). We just need to get people to start questioning whether it’s a good idea.

  67. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/05/23/rolf-harris-obituary-entertainer-art-child-abuse/

    Why did Rolfe Harris commit so many bad things .. why on earth did he do what he did to youngsters .. He is no different to a bad Mussie ( that appears to be in their culture ) or a black where such things are rampant in Africa .. IOL.ZA newspapers are full of such things .

    Rolfe was a brilliant entertainer and artist .. why was he given so many talents , but was really a Satyr of the worst kind , how can that be ?

    1. He seems to have been mainly a crotch -grabber, quite mild by today’s standards. I feel sorry for his daughter.

    2. He seems to have been mainly a crotch -grabber, quite mild by today’s standards. I feel sorry for his daughter.

    3. Someone has written a book about the case that rips the prosecution case to shreads.

        1. Apparently the BBC nor Jimmy Saville or Dame Ester never once entered the Green Room where gossip was rife………………

          1. Can you blame them? That creepy BBC Lawyer, the legal something or other was always on the prowl…

          2. The creepy BBC lawyer – Mr del Medico – was only interested in libel.

    4. Perhaps he realised, every time he looked in the mirror, that he was far from being a desirable p•ssy-magnet. A lot just like him — Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall, Jonathan King, Gary Glitter et al — think that being famous gives them carte blanche to commit any atrocity they can think of.

      Allegedly!

  68. A litl’ Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 703 3/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    🟩⬜⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par four but very slow today.

      Wordle 703 4/6

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

      1. Likewise, bad start

        Wordle 703 4/6

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

    2. Me too.
      Wordle 703 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
      🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Solitaire, 4th out of 50, but in the top 14,000 out of over 800,000.
      I joined the wrong group.

        1. Microsoft Solitaire daily challenges for speed of completion.

          It’s the equivalent of the daily wordle posts, of no interest whatsoever to those who don’t play…

          1. It’s the equivalent of the daily wordle posts, of no interest whatsoever to those who don’t play…

            I agree.

  69. Ed Davey says………….Yes of course a woman can have a penis.

    Everything you need to know about whores touting for business.

  70. Senior SNP MP who forgot his phone at home while travelling to Westminster had it couriered to London and landed taxpayers with a £130 bill by claiming it on expenses

    Records show Chris Stephens made the claim of £129.88 on December 12, 2022

    Sunday Times/ Daily Mail

  71. That’s me for today. Useful gardening done. Keys lost and FOUND. Am about to sit in the sun and have a glass of medicine.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain.

    2. Who among us would own up to having an imaginary friend? I was a solitary child, so I had one, but never let on at the time.

      1. I was a solitary child, but I never had an imaginary friend (this may be because from being very young I didn’t see other children around). However, I discovered books….. And even now, much as the child with the imaginary friend, I live my life inside my head. I am an INFP (Turbulent).

      2. For me an imaginary friend would have been the last straw. As the eldest of five noisy siblings, I could never find peace and quiet.

      3. I was a solitary child but I did have human friends and books, I don’t remember having an imaginary friend.

  73. Damn, the storm has flattened my vine frame and of course the vines were looking very promising for fruit.

    I’ll need a wander-around to see what else has been smashed down.

      2. Indeed, there’s quite a few branches down and some land drains are blocked..
        I suspect it’s a lot worse down the valley.

  74. 372537+ up ticks,

    Not only raab bailing before the General election then, across the card seemingly, I do hope it is the start of something big in political meltdowns.

  75. What a bleedin’ surprise. In a report published today, Trudeaus long time family friend has found that there is no need for a public inquiry into the extent of Chinese interference in Canadian life.

    In any democracy, a no confidence vote would be called.

    1. I could never understand how seemingly intelligent people such as Canadian’s appear to be, would vote for such an obvious divot.
      Mind you we voted for Blair twice.

  77. SIR – At Cambridge in the early 1960s, I went to a lecture by Oswald Mosley.

    Although I despised his politics, I was impressed by his oratory. This gave me an insight into how easily people can be manipulated. The woke of this world do not recognise how their thinking has been manipulated; they never hear a counter-argument.

    George Acheson
    Fakenham, Norfolk

    1. A good letter. The CSE Language course for 4th and 5th years was a great exam programme now lost along with O levels. The pupils had to present a folio of writing, be able to give a short speech, debate and all the other stuff that goes with English Language. Plus they had to pass the exam. It made them think and it was always encouraging to see the more shy pupils cope quite well with giving a speech, their subject choice and also to enter into a debate.
      These weren’t long sessions but it was, I and other teachers felt, a useful learning skill.

    2. George Acheson was the “GP” who, on the day my father died – having eaten nothing for 15 days – , told me he could easily live for another six months. The District Nurse’s face (she was there sorting Father out) was a study……!! She just looked straight at me and shook her head. Father died that evening.

      Acheson is an idiot. He was – as a side line – a potato farmer. Knew more about potatoes than people, I guess.

  78. SIR – Years ago my late husband and I were driving in Italy and made an overnight stop near Asti. We went to a restaurant, where a very old man was dining. He had a loud, rasping cough.

    During our superb meal a wonderful bottle of red wine appeared and we were told it was from the cougher, by way of apology. It was from his special reserve that he kept at the restaurant, where he ate daily. To accompany our pudding a half bottle of Château d’Yquem was presented.

    We exchanged a few words (he was Italian but we limped along in bad French), and he said it gave him great pleasure to watch young people enjoying something so delicious, as he had been forbidden by his doctor from drinking and was not much longer for this world.

    Talk about the kindness of strangers (Letters, May 22).

    Jane Saltmarsh
    Weston-sub-Edge, Gloucestershire

  79. Obesity epidemic
    SIR – The obesity epidemic (Letters, May 20) follows government-backed advice from health professionals in the 1970s, when we were encouraged to avoid fat in our diets and carbohydrates were promoted as healthy.

    Carbohydrates are metabolised into sugar, which is processed by the liver and stored as cholesterol and deposited as fat both under the skin and, more dangerously, around and in the body’s organs: visceral fat.

    The massive preponderance of sugar leads to excessive insulin production, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.

    It was also by government edict that school playing fields were sold off, thus discouraging exercise.

    Dr Steven R Hopkins
    Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire

    1. Amazing I can only remember two very fat people from my teenage years at school. The cycle sheds were rammed. With bikes that is. But the two fatties came and went by bus.
      As I did during bad weather.

          1. I learned of it when the idiot Corbyn said that a train was “rammed” – so he had to sit on the floor. (There were, of course, plenty of seats..he was trying and failing to make a point). At first I believed he had been in a train crash – that is, something had “rammed” the train.

            I assumed he meant that the carriage was “crammed” with people.

  80. SIR – British Gas was privatised in the 1980s, alongside electricity and water utilities, to ensure that the capital investment required by these industries was paid by the consumer and not the taxpayer. Consequently, the cost of decarbonising gas and electricity will fall on the consumer through the grid operation charge.

    The £120 average annual bill increase for decarbonising domestic heat using hydrogen (report, May 19) is relatively small compared with the cost of new nuclear, which has been guaranteed by the Government to be sold to the grid at twice the current price of electricity, which the consumer will pay. It is also cheap relative to the cost of decarbonising domestic heat through heat pumps, where the consumer will pay the higher appliance capital cost, as well as the grid cost of doubling the domestic electricity supply, which will be required if all 25 million dwellings connected to the gas grid are heated by electric heat pumps.

    Currently, the consumer is paying for the replacement of cast iron gas pipes with yellow PVC pipes, begun in 2004. The last Labour government forced the gas companies to mend the leaks in the gas network, with the cost being met by the consumer (a charge that is still there in gas bills, as the programme is ongoing). In total, the investment will be roughly £100 billion when it is complete in 2032.

    The new pipes are suitable for hydrogen, which is why conversion to hydrogen comes at such a low cost to the consumer, as only the generation of hydrogen is new expenditure.

    Gordon E Andrews
    Professor of combustion engineering
    University of Leeds

    So, where does the hydrogen come from, Prof? Unlike gas, coal or oil, you can’t mine hydrogen, just create it using electricity, and so the hydrogen becomes an energy store or transport medium, not an energy source.
    In any case, the yellow PVC pipes were installed from the 1980s – I was part of the mechanical testing of the fused joints in labs at Cranfield in 1985.

    1. “…the cost of decarbonising domestic heat through heat pumps, where the consumer will pay the higher appliance capital cost, as well as the grid cost of doubling the domestic electricity supply, which will be required if all 25 million dwellings connected to the gas grid are heated by electric heat pumps.”

      That’s doubling the amount of electricity required for not very much heat. As we run out of gas because we’ve burnt our reserves prematurely in power stations , we need something to replace our use of it in the home – effectively. That’s not a heat pump. And then there are the homes with gas cookers. Replacing gas boilers, hobs and ovens with the electric equivalent would be cheaper and more practicable, especially with the boiler, where an electric model can be installed simply in the place of the gas boiler in a wet heating system. Unfortunately, this would require at least three times the generating capacity and a brand new grid capable of taking the extra load.

      1. Yup.
        It’s not just the generating capacity, but the transmission as well.

      2. Why does the system need to be “decarbonised” anyway? CO2 is plant food.

        1. “Why does the system need to be “decarbonised” anyway?”

          Indeed. Heat pumps are a deceit – they are a tacit admission that we are running out of gas and that we cannot generate, let alone transmit, enough electricity for a straight gas-to-electric boiler swap.

  81. Well that’s nice Erin has a ladies circle meeting at ours this evening. One of the ladies is being dropped off by her hubby Stuart and I’m taking her place in his car and we’re going for a pint or two. Then he’ll drop me off later and pick up his missis. Perfect. 🍺🍻
    So it’ll be an early good night from me.
    While I’m at try this Jamie Oliver recipe smoked salmon spinach and pasta. It’s delicious. I use penne, one finely sliced and chopped leek. Greek yoghurt and cream cheese for the sauce with the Parmigiano.

  82. A tout a l’heure, mes amis. I am off to the local Twinning meeting shortly. I may or may not log back in when I return. Be good – and if you can’t be good, be careful! 🙂

    1. The police were actually doing their job for once, no wonder they are in trouble

    1. As you suggest distraction politics. The inference must be that some other major disorder is being covered up. Probably the fact that Ukraine have lost the West’s war and that the Russians have prevailed.

      Needless to say, in retaking the productive Eastern Ukraine, Russia has secured the most productive regions, not only agricultural value but the industrial base and those areas rich in mineral resources.

      Yet again our stupid feckless political class have chosen the wrong side in this US driven conflict in Ukraine. Heads should roll but regrettably the Johnson’s and Sunak’s will blunder on as though nothing untoward has happened.

  85. 372539+ up ticks,

    They say honest self awareness is good for the soul

    Dt,

    Lib Dem leader Ed Davey claims a woman can ‘quite clearly’ have a penis

    I take it he was born of woman was he not.

    3. “The power of man, for none of woman born, shall harm MacBeth.”
      But we find out that MacDuff was ripped untimely from his mother’s womb- ie not born of woman.

    6. Hopefully all this stupid nonsense might die a death in a couple of years time.

  86. Off topic but following on from an earlier post.
    Drainage that works.

    Twice every year, spring and autumn, the commune clears the vegetation away from the side of the road and once a year clears the leaf fall from the ditches, and every other year they clear out the ditches down to hard-soil. Normally this is done in the spring when the growth is vigorous and the ditches are full of the previous winter’s leaves. They always ensure that the cuts into the ditches are cleared, spring and autumn. This is very important.
    We had a torrential down pour today, well over an inch of rain in under an hour and the system worked, had it not done so the neighbours down the valley would have been flooded out.
    The ditches are still flowing with the land run-off but the whole has worked exactly as intended.

    Regular, cheaper, maintenance saves a small fortune if done correctly. Oh that the UK realised that.

    The road itself is covered with branches and stones and leaves but at all the access points to the drains the system has worked.
    This is on a “commune” class road. In UK terms that is two or three levels below a “B” road.
    Do the small things well and save a fortune because the big things don’t happen.

    2. Your commune is obviously well run!

      We have a ditch that runs along the top of our garden. When it floods, the water swishes down our drive which turns into a sort of a river and ends up in our students’ house. We have put in an extra drain at the corner of the house to cope with it, but we still get rather nervous when the ditch floods.

      Until a few years ago, the ditch was cleared at least once a year. But now we have a fight on our hands every time this ditch needs to be cleared out. A couple of years ago they prevaricated for so long that I ended up picking up a shovel and doing it myself.

      Last autumn they sent over the conseiller délégué à la voirie to check out the veracity of our claims… and I had sent them a photo, too! At least it got done. But now that we no longer have one of the municipal councillors living down the road from us, we are being rather neglected. Our new village mayor is a determined and energetic woman who is doing great things for the village centre, but she is not interested in the periphery, that is clear.

      2. We are very fortunate.

        At the house we had to put in some drainage to stop the underground pump room flooding. It was just a few ditches containing slotted pipes, covered with stones, to run the water away faster and further down the boundary, (the garden is fairly sloped), . It’s effective and was a quickish and easy solution to the problem. Periodically we Karcher the pipes to clear any silt backup.

  87. Here’s an anecdote for you….
    Went to the supermarket today and the cabbie was one I had not met before. Youngish and tattooed but such a nice guy.
    Anyway, on my travels around I, for some unknown reason, ended up in the booze section, and was stocking up on Kanga. A woman approached me and asked if I knew where the Buck’s Fizz was. I said that I didn’t think it came in a bottle but you had to mix a sparkling wine with orange juice. Oh, she said. I met her again and asked if she’d had any luck- no but an employee had suggested she just bought a bottle of cheap fizz.
    So to the check out and the cashier was an Indian lady and very nice. A male employee passed and said “Hello my darling.” She went into peals of laughter and said she’s told people she’s Barbara Windsor and how much she loves the Carry On movies. “Ding, dong, ” I said and she got it.
    To cap my outing, for the first time I set the security alarms off at the door. Had my receipts and showed them but I had bought steaks and they were security labelled and the cashier hadn’t scanned them off.
    Return cabbie the same one and, as they all are, very helpful and courteous. Who says you can’t have fun at the supermarket? ;-))

      1. Thanks and I am sorry about your storm damage. Hope it’s not too devastating.

        1. As far as I can tell, apart from the cellar, all is well thank you.
          The old place has seen far worse over the years.

          1. We had a major storm in CT- not tropical or a hurricane- but water poured into the basement which was a finished area apart from the garage. That’s when we bought a wet/dry vac to suck all the water out of the carpets.
            Weather can be a right bugger.

          2. My cellar pump and land drain would appear to need a clean up..
            Ho Hum; more work.

          3. Has the flood soaked the labels off your wine stash, so you’ll have to drink it all to see what you have?
            (volunteering to help out, BTW)

          4. I no longer buy wines for “the future”. I can’t afford them.
            There’s space down there for a few thousand bottles yet fewer than 20 are in there now and all above the water line, so tough; but thanks for the offer.

          7. Hey, wait a minute, wot about me then, don’t leave me out, I can always ‘help’ out….:-)

    3. Fun in a supermarket is slipping condoms and stuff into peoples trollies when they’re not looking

      1. Spikey, I am very naughty but not quite that naughty…..yet! Will bear it in mind.

  88. No reporting I see on Boris Johnson’s trip to Texas to give a pep talk to US citizens and requesting they donate more to the war in Ukraine which Bunter predicts will see Zelensky as victor.

    You have to wonder what planet the gross git lives on. Then again it could be simple gouging to keep him in a life of undeserved luxury.

  89. What a bloody waste!
    Quite a huge ignorance of the law displayed by a lot of commentators.

    Inside millionaire’s forgotten mansion: Urban explorer reveals abandoned home of mysterious Greek tycoon who fled lavish UK property six years ago and never returned
    The mansion was abandoned in 2017 when the owner is rumoured to have fled
    By MATT POWELL

    PUBLISHED: 11:58, 23 May 2023 | UPDATED: 15:19, 23 May 2023

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-12114481/Urban-explorer-reveals-abandoned-home-mysterious-Greek-tycoon-fled-UK-property-six-years-ago.html

    BTL Comment

    Are there others who feel that allowing this property with it’s contents to fall into disrepair is an obscene waste of valuable resources? The property has been abandoned together with it’s contents for six years. Cases like this could easily have been resolved under the “Adverse Possessions” rules, wrongly called “Squatters’ Rights” where someone could have move in to take possession of the property on the understanding that, should the owner appear to exert their right of ownership, they immediately vacate the premises. If, after a set period, which was once 7 years and is now 12 years, the owner failed to exert their right of ownership and take possession of the property, the irregular occupier could then claim full possession of the property. The vandalism being suffered is another obscenity but, given the damage to the contents that has already been done, is the removal of those contents really “looting” or could it be looked upon as salvaging items in danger of being destroyed?

    1. Why on earth do the vandals wreck it?
      If I was homeless and knew about it, I would protect it while living there.

      1. If I lived in the area I’d be salvaging many of the smaller items and donating them to charity shops.

        1. Indeed, it’s such a waste and I have little doubt that some of the items should be worth hundreds at auction.

    2. If you look on You Tube there are many urban explorers who go through many abandoned houses. Many are still full of furnishings and stuff. Very sad and, as you say, the vandalism is obscene.

  92. Well, after my morning exertions of getting another tree stump up, I’ve had a rather quieter afternoon pottering about and doing the dinner for DT & S@H getting back from work.

    The coughing and wheezing have subsided significantly, but throat has gone croaky.

    So I’m off for a bath!

    1. Oi, don’t you dare croak, we all exercise vicariously on the back of your efforts!

    1. Gosh, that was a wake up call, so many that seemed to be alive only yesterday, yet yesterday was 20 years+ ago.

      1. It’s all a bt sad, really. People who definitely added a shine to life no longer with us.

        1. My heart broke when Scott Walker, formerly of the Walker Brothers, died. I always loved the guy. And his voice!

    3. When I exercised polo ponies at Ham Gate Stables, Richmond Park, on Saturdays in 1968-69, John Le Mesurier was a regular visitor at the local pub at 10 am!

    4. When I exercised polo ponies at Ham Gate Stables, Richmond Park, on Saturdays in 1968-69, John Le Mesurier was a regular visitor at the local pub at 10 am!

  94. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12115983/CCTV-shows-police-van-following-boys-e-bike-fatal-crash-sparked-Cardiff-riots.html

    I don’t care. I know this isn’t PC, but they were clearly thuggish scum. Good riddance. The only failure of the police is in using live rounds to stop the other thugs who took advantage.

    These dross will do nothing but cost the public time and money. Their families are welfare dependent, unemployed and wasters. Burn them out.

    1. A double Darwin award to the erks on the bike, and bonus points to the brain dead who trashed their own turf..

  95. Top officials at the Bank of England today admitted they have undershot the strength of inflation, with governor Andrew Bailey confessing the central bank has some “very big” lessons to learn over how it sets interest rates.

    MPs on the influential treasury select committee slammed members of the monetary policy committee (MPC) for failing to accurately foresee the sustained upward inflation march.
    [City A.M.]

    Longest-serving Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Hunt, appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, by Rishi Sunak, has never run a successful piss-up in a brewery.

    Little wonder that we are in an economic nightmare – with little prospect of waking up to something better . . .

    Unless we get rid of Sunak, Hunt and Bailey et al.

    1. The state refuses to acknowledge that continually running down the currency has caused this problem. It refuses to accept that continually borrowing more and more money to fuel welfare (government spending) is fundamentally stupid. It refuses to accept that you cannot tax yourself out of debt.

      Every single thing they are doing is wrong because they start from the wrong premise – one that suits them rather than the economic reality.

        1. And if Starmer is elected and follows through on his ban on smoking? That’s where the govt gets much of its tax £ from. So what then?

    2. Bailey was lucky that he just screwed up the major predictions regarding the nation’s economy. Now, if he had misgendered someone, he would have been banned from banking. Strange world..

  96. Me voici de retour, mes amis. Meeting went on a bit despite my being chairman, but in fairness there was a lot to report about the visit that took place last month.

  97. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/23/rishi-sunak-controlled-migration-fairer-students-visas/

    He’s… not doing well. Of course, fundamentally to stop and reverse gimmigration requires repealing the human wrongs act. The Left wing state simply won’t let them do that. Thus they’re not in office. They’re not willing to do anything. The decisions they are making are entirely the opposite of what needs to be done. They’re pointless.

    As a commenter states, we’ve grow by 17%. Singapore by 138%. More than ten times over. Why? Low taxes, small state. It’s pointless. Labour are simply miserable. The Tories wilfully spiteful. The Lib Dems authoritarian fascists. There is no one to vote for.

      1. My neighbours came round the other night at 3 in the morning to complain about the noise.
        Luckily, I was still up and playing the drums.

  99. Well, that’s the end of another full and enjoyable day. So it’s Goodnight from me, chums.

  101. Am numb enough now for some sleep- also very tired. Jobs to do the rest of the week as who knows what might come after Friday?
    I wish you all a good night.

  102. Controlled legal migration is fairer and better for everyone
    The Prime Minister explains why limits are being put on dependents coming into the country with foreign students
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/05/23/rishi-sunak-controlled-migration-fairer-students-visas/

    BTL

    When I went to university my parents and other members of my family were not with me and I was very happy about that; my wife, a Dutch woman whose parents lived in Spain, went to university in England and did her post-graduate degree in France – her parents and other members of her family did not accompany her either.

    We live in France; both our sons went to university in England and I am sure they were very happy that we were in France and did not interfere with their studies.

    Why on earth should foreign students’ family feel they have to accompany their children when they come to Britain to study?

    1. Because none of them have any intention of ever leaving having stumped up the funds to get an entry route into the UK. simples..

    2. I attended University College London in the seventies. More than half of my year were feepaying foreigners, desperate to obtain a British qualification.

      There were Australians, a chap from Sierra Leone whose father was an ambassador or some such, a Canadian on Speed, a fat American woman who judged men by their chest measurements, an Iranian follower of Ayatollah Khomeini (then in exile in Paris) who consumed Pistachio nuts in the manner of a parrot (shelling the nut in his mouth with his leathery tongue and spitting the shell into a paper bag), an Australian wine heiress, (McWilliams), a shifty Arab from Egypt I think, a mad woman from Malaysia whose design for a new Town Hall in Milton Keynes was a dead ringer for an enormous rabbit hutch and several others who had no right whatsoever to have a place at a School of Architecture.

      Those fellow students had their places because their wealthy parents could afford to pay for them.

      I mention all of this because our universities have been pandering to the importation of wealthy idiots since the seventies. I imagine the situation is a whole lot worse today.

    3. I attended University College London in the seventies. More than half of my year were feepaying foreigners, desperate to obtain a British qualification.

      There were Australians, a chap from Sierra Leone whose father was an ambassador or some such, a Canadian on Speed, a fat American woman who judged men by their chest measurements, an Iranian follower of Ayatollah Khomeini (then in exile in Paris) who consumed Pistachio nuts in the manner of a parrot (shelling the nut in his mouth with his leathery tongue and spitting the shell into a paper bag), an Australian wine heiress, (McWilliams), a shifty Arab from Egypt I think, a mad woman from Malaysia whose design for a new Town Hall in Milton Keynes was a dead ringer for an enormous rabbit hutch and several others who had no right whatsoever to have a place at a School of Architecture.

      Those fellow students had their places because their wealthy parents could afford to pay for them.

      I mention all of this because our universities have been pandering to the importation of wealthy idiots since the seventies. I imagine the situation is a whole lot worse today.

    5. Once you get child benefit it is payable anywhere in the world up until the child is 16.

      Really useful income when you return to your home country.

        1. Happy Birthday Tom! I hope the sun shines on you and you have a wonderful day! Lots of hugs! 🎂🍾🍷💕

    4. I heartily endorse these good wishes, Richard and Caroline. So I hope you have a very, very enjoyable day, Tom.

    1. Stop being so intemperate.. Bugger orff and leave the poor young lad alone. He needs his beauty sleep, even if you are beyond help.

  109. 372598+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Letters: Does Labour really have what it takes to solve the crisis in the NHS?

    There is NO WAY on this, Gods green planet that ANY of these current political lying,deceitful, treacherous rabble the lab/lib/con
    mass controlled/uncontrolled immigration mass paedophile umbrella coalition party are out to solve anything appertaining to the NHS,they are purely a facade for the WEF/NWO RESET agenda.

    Anyone believing otherwise especially after witnessing these past two plus years of their odious actions, are seriously mind sick and with a second opinion thick as hogs shite.

    Please ,please,please adjust your mindset to ” The political overseers / pharmaceuticals do NOT HAVE the peoples / herds
    welfare first & foremost at heart, far from it”

Comments are closed.