Tuesday 23 September: Palestinian statehood and Labour’s foreign policy of reckless gestures

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting 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.

632 thoughts on “Tuesday 23 September: Palestinian statehood and Labour’s foreign policy of reckless gestures”

  1. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page. I got a Par with today's Wordle. And today I am first!
    Wordle 1,557 4/6

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

  2. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page. I got a Par with today's Wordle. And today I am first!
    Wordle 1,557 4/6

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

  3. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page. I got a Par with today's Wordle. And today I am first!
    Wordle 1,557 4/6

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

    1. Yeah right Nige, we have some old friends we met on the ship going to Australia in 1976 their home is under the under the letters RT in deportations.

    3. All slave descendants from the West Indies have what I call slave privilege. If their enslaved ancestors had been dragged across the Sahara, they wouldn't be here, as the men were all castrated. If their ancestors had never been enslaved, they would have been born in some third-world dump in Africa.
      As their ancestors were taken across the Atlantic, their immediate forbears were able to settle in the UK, thus offering them the opportunity to prosper as they would never have done in the West Indies.
      That is their Slave Privilege! Bear that in mind, David Lammy.

      1. I see you have upvoted Johnny, Sue Ed. I hope your journey back home today goes smoothly. Love from Elsie. xx

    2. What a load of cobblers our Prime Minister speaks – just days after recognising Hamas and the Palestinian state.

          1. I was skooled propa at the skool wear Geoffrey Willans (who rote the Molesworth stories illustrated by Ronald Searle) was and were he ware also a beke.

    9. Just because I have stabbed you and your children in the back and poisoned your Shana Tova Cocktail doesn't mean I can't wish you a happy future. I don't know where your survivors will live after the Hamas tribe have occupied the rest of Israel Palestine but I'm sure you'll find somewhere – Rwanda perhaps. Your friend Keir.

  11. So Trump is now tackling autism, blaming drugs and vaccinations given to young children.
    Should MMR bandit Blair be getting worried?

    2. Well obviously he's been well informed by the people in the medical profession.
      One of my nephew's was a fine intellgent young lad until he had the MMR jabs. Now 50 he's had a hard very autistic life.

  12. Good morning everyone.
    Interesting to read Alec's opinion yesterday of a musician with whom he once shared a school and/or classroom, back in the tranquil years of Monochrome.

  13. Relics returned to India after ‘colonial’ uproar immediately loaned to Russia

    The Piprahwa gems, believed to have belonged to the Buddha, were handed over by Sotheby’s after pressure from Narendra Modi’s government

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2025/09/22/TELEMMGLPICT000441283142_17585433817990_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqxUyqX_wn5RMR1e0_62zP1cLfiBcKGMo59hBckjwQSZY.jpeg?imwidth=1280 The Piprahwa relics, carried by the culture minister accompanied by Buddhist monks, arrive at the National Museum in New Delhi Credit: Hindustan Times/Getty Images

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/09/22/india-colonial-relics-return-piprahwa-gems-sothebys-russia/?recomm_id=b99c7e38-ee97-4f11-a4fb-075be7d20c14

    John Cutt
    17 hrs ago
    Time to treat these nations as a threat. Sanction India by removing visa access for a start

    Gaynor Price-Jones
    16 hrs ago
    How many billions of pounds of aid do we send to India? And why?

    Alfie Cooper
    16 hrs ago
    yearn for the day we stop treating Modi's India like a friend.

  14. Michael Deacon
    This is the maddest argument for assisted suicide yet

    What on earth has the so-called ‘right to die’ got to do with tackling climate change?

    23 September 2025 6:00am BST

    Malthusians think it’s actually good that birth rates are falling – because, in their view, failure to reduce global population growth will lead to war, plague and famine. Sadly, I for one have never been able to follow their logic. They seem to be saying: “To prevent people from dying, we must prevent them from being born in the first place.”

    A similar kind of logic appeared to be at work in the House of Lords last week. On Friday, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe – a leading trade unionist who was made a Labour peer in 1997 – delivered what must be one of the most mind-bogglingly bizarre speeches Parliament has ever heard. It was meant to be about why he supports the legalisation of assisted suicide – or, as he and his fellow advocates prefer to call it, assisted dying. Yet, for reasons that remain unclear to me, he suddenly veered off on a bewildering tangent about population growth.

    Since 2000, declared Lord Brooke, the total number of people in the world has soared “from 6.1 billion to 8.2 billion – a 25 per cent increase in 25 years. Just think what the 2025 numbers would be if abortion had not been legalised – or there had not been wide-scale usage and advocacy of contraception. Indeed, the growth of homosexuality throughout society has reduced the number of children that we would have had. Had the churches had their way, we would have had a very much bigger population than we presently have, facing the difficulties we have with climate change…”

    What on earth any of this had to do with the need for assisted suicide, I’m afraid I have no idea. Surely he wasn’t suggesting that assisted suicide would help tackle climate change, by cutting our population. Was he?

    Either way, I’m fascinated by his comments on what he called “the growth of homosexuality”. If this “growth”, as he put it, has indeed “reduced the number of children that we would have had”, that must mean homosexuality reduces climate change. After all, fewer people being born means fewer people eating meat, using petrol, flying abroad and so on.

    Well, it’s certainly a point of view. I only wonder whether Lord Brooke’s colleagues in Downing Street will follow it to its logical conclusion.

    In 1988, the then Conservative government brought in Section 28, which – until it was repealed in the early 2000s – banned local authorities from “promoting homosexuality”. Perhaps, as part of its efforts to avert climate disaster, today’s Labour Government could bring in a new Section 28, which will instead ban local authorities from promoting heterosexuality. That could potentially reduce the number of children we have to zero.

    As well as saving the planet, this would mean there’d be no need to legalise assisted suicide. Because, in due course, there would be no one left to request it.

    Why the Left needs a history lesson
    Adrian Hoyle, a Labour councillor in Blackpool, has apologised for sharing a mocked-up photo of Hitler wearing a football top with “REFORM UK” written on it. Mr Hoyle is of course quite right to say sorry. Not just because it was an outrageous smear. But also because it was so tediously unoriginal.

    For some reason, Left-wingers never seem to tire of likening their political opponents to Hitler. Nigel Farage is Hitler. Donald Trump is Hitler. In fact, pretty much everyone to the Right of Diane Abbott is Hitler. And frankly, I’m bored with it. If these people insist on wildly misrepresenting everyone who dares to disagree with them, couldn’t they do it in a slightly fresher and more interesting way?

    Personally, I blame our schools. The existing history curriculum is clearly far too narrow. Hitler seems to be the only historical tyrant our pupils learn about. And that’s got to change. We need to start teaching them about other historical tyrants – so that the next generation of Left-wingers can resort to a richer variety of smears.

    Admittedly, one unfortunate drawback to my plan is that many of history’s most brutal tyrants were Left-wing: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-Il, Castro, Ceaușescu, Hoxha and so on. Which is rather odd, given that, as we all know, Left-wing ideology is motivated by empathy, compassion, a simple desire for fairness and equality. Perhaps these gentlemen were only massacring their critics out of the kindness of their hearts.

    At any rate, not to worry, because there are still plenty of Right-wing tyrants our schools could focus on. So, instead of Hitler, children could be encouraged to liken mainstream conservatives to, say, António de Oliveira Salazar (dictator of Portugal, 1932-68), or Giuliano Gozi (fascist leader of San Marino, 1918-43).

    Obviously such comparisons would still be libellous, crass and risibly histrionic. But at least they would be marginally less boring.

    1. Even Alma Deutscher was once Hitler of the Week, from a Munich music critic, of all places. It seems that a dislike of music without beauty or melody is considered akin to destroying decadent, impure musical traditions, and indeed Hitler did prefer Wagner.

      There are plenty of latter-day equivalent tyrants, from both Right and Left we could draw on, and not even the Orange Darling of the Left, Donald J Trump, whom I feel is only a tyrant when he is in the mood, and nobody knows what mood he will be in tomorrow. By the law of probability, he might even save humanity one day.

      There are the obvious ones – Putin and Netanyahu are both carrying out gratuitous massacres of innocents to feed their hubris and paranoia. The objects of their desire – Zelenskyy and the nebulous Hamas – are likewise labelled by their apologists. I do not believe for one moment that tyranny does not exist outside Gaza and Ukraine, only that it attracts less attention.

    2. How can anybody say that Hitler was right wing?

      He believed in the suppression of free speech, the persecution of Jews, and nationalisation and he was a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party which became the Nazi Party.

      So Starmer shared most of Hitler's political views and his followers are far nearer to being Nazis than those who support the Reform Party.

    1. I'm not against crastination but I shall put off trying it a while longer until they find an antidote.

    2. I was awarded a gold medal in procrastination about twenty years ago but I haven't got round to collecting it yet – Tomorrow perhaps?

  16. Good morning.

    What are we to do when the people we thought were the good guys start spouting drivel.

    First Candace Owens turns out to be a penis obsessed Jew hater then Bobby Kennedy and the POTUS decide that it isn’t the injectable vaxxes causing autism after all. It’s paracetamol. Give me a break!

    Fentanyl, codeine and ibuprofen have a place but also produce very tangible and dire side effects. Any side effects from aspirin and paracetamol are more subtle and can be tolerated in the short term. That’s the advice I’ve received from the medics and my experience bears it out.

    1. I read that last night and wondered what they were on.
      We've always known pregnant women should avoid many things that can harm a foetus but paracetamol is not causing autism in people older than a baby. Whereas the effects of multiple vaccination are clearly harming babies.

      1. When I was pregnant, the thalidomide disaster was still very fresh in minds.
        I avoided all painkillers etc….. to be on the safe side.

    2. I am on blood thinners so taking ibuprofen makes my blood dangerously thin.

      Old and very feeble joke but maybe there is a Nottler who hasn't heard it before.

      Q. Why couldn't the budgerigars find the painkiller pills?
      A. Because the parrots ate them all.

    3. Every thing you eat and drink has the potential to kill you. How we survived school meals I'll never know.

      1. Hampton said: “The Spanish keeper had it (the penalty information) on her bottle, so I thought when she was going in goal, I'd just pick it up and chuck it into the English fans so she can't have it.
        13 Aug 2025

          1. C'mon now.. every player that takes a penalty is a creature of habit and places it 9 times out of 10 in the same spot. Watch Frank Lampard.. 10 out 10 same spot.

    4. The Yashin Trophy (French: Trophée Yachine) is an association football award presented annually by France Football to the best performing goalkeeper.

      The award is named after former Soviet Union goalkeeper Lev Yashin, and the winner is selected by football journalists as part of Ballon d'Or ceremony since its creation in 2019.

      Well done that lass. The male winner was a bloke called Álisson Ramsés Becker, a Brazilian who plays for Liverpool.

    5. The Yashin Trophy (French: Trophée Yachine) is an association football award presented annually by France Football to the best performing goalkeeper.

      The award is named after former Soviet Union goalkeeper Lev Yashin, and the winner is selected by football journalists as part of Ballon d'Or ceremony since its creation in 2019.

      Well done that lass. The male winner was a bloke called Álisson Ramsés Becker, a Brazilian who plays for Liverpool.

  19. Morning all 🙂😊🤗
    Grey and rather nippy outside.
    I know I keep saying this, but what starmer is doing now is just another example of our political idiots effing up every single thing they come into contact with.

  21. Good Morning!

    Money Money Money! Think you've got money in the bank? Read Iain Hunters highly informative article and find out what you've really got, and its tenuous relationship with wealth.

    Make to read Paul Sutton's follow up to his piece on the million plus patriots march on 13 Sept, exposing a Class Division in the Fight For Free Speech , with middle class conservatives looking down on working class ones, and Starmer Rewards Terror , a condemnation of the shameful recognition of a state that does not exist and does not want to exist.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's average power requirement was 31.2 GW, sourced from Gas, 23.9%; Solar, 9.6%: Wind 28.1%; Imports, 18.1%; Biomass, 9.1%; Nuclear 8% and Miscellaneous, 3.1%.

    1. There are some numbers that reflect a balance from which other numbers are paid for. There's no wealth there. We exchange a valueless amount to pay for goods and services. We're all just passing numbers around.

      The actual value of the money has been destroyed by government. This, more than anything else is why it must be brought to heel.

  22. we had a lovely day yesterday in County Kerry and were blessed with wonderful weather. My poor mum has a dodgy hip though – she really needs a nes one – but at 81 is understandably reluctant. We are going to wend our way to Rosslare today, to catch the ferry back tomorrow morning.

    1. I have had to bite the bullet and use the dreaded shower. But I am going to run it for the half hour that I would have spent in the bath

        1. Bob Monkhouse was pleased when his grandchildren called him Spiderman. "That's great!" he thought, "that they think I am like a super hero!" And then he discovered he had acquired the nickname because he had difficulty getting out of the bath.

          I love a good soak in the bath from time to time but now I always shower because I have become like Bob Monkhouse.

        3. That’s fine if you want quick and “easy” (which i dispute). I don’t – i want relaxation and the therapy that comes with a soak in Epsom salts. Do you clean your own shower? Much easier to clean a bath, and i’ve never had a bath leak and take down a floor (which happened in a previous house).

          1. I have a window-cleaner's squeegee hanging over the solid transparent shower doors. When I've finished my shower I give the taps a wipe with a cloth then wipe down all the doors with the squeegee before emerging.

            It makes the weekly 'proper clean' much easier.

      2. Why don't you like showers? Junior has one, we have one in the comedically named 'en suite' (a cupboard), and there's the bathroom one that we replaced the bath for. Having something that both bruises and burns you first thing is good for the body and mind.

        1. You can’t lie in a shower and read a book and have a cup of tea and relax and soak your poor back or hurt feet. I object to being forced down the “showers only” root “to save the planet”. Some people only like showers, and that’s fine, but i just hate the assault of the water on my body and face and trying to avoid getting my hair wet.

          1. That's what I missed when I moved to Sweden. 14 years later I seldom think about a bath since it has been showers all the way.

            I do miss a bath, though, when my back aches. Nothing beats a good soak in a hot wet tub to ease those aches.

          2. With you all the way.

            Baths also warm the bathroom in winter, make washing my (long, unruly) hair a pleasure rather than a battle, and allow for proper care of the feet.

      3. All hotel showers should be checked thoroughly , why , because I know 2 people who have been laid low by Legionnaires disease, which is a ghastly infection .. something to do with bacteria in the shower head!

          2. Only when you have a decent amount of water coming out.
            Some of the offerings I've had in hotels were pitiable.

  24. Good morning all.
    I had a bit of a lie in this morning, but it's a beautiful start to the day, dry, blue sky with scattered cirrus cloud, almost calm air but still a bit on the cool side with 8°C on the thermometer.

  25. "Instead of the grandeur of Windsor Castle the Blairite politicians are convinced Trump would have been equally enthusiastic & awestruck by a detailed choreographic account of the NHS."

    LOL David Starkey

  26. "Instead of the grandeur of Windsor Castle the Blairite politicians are convinced Trump would have been equally enthusiastic & awestruck by a detailed choreographic account of the NHS."

    LOL David Starkey

  27. "Instead of the grandeur of Windsor Castle the Blairite politicians are convinced Trump would have been equally enthusiastic & awestruck by a detailed choreographic account of the NHS."

    LOL David Starkey

    3. When will the next bandwagon come along so that the Lib Dems who missed this one can jump on the next?

  29. ‘That young man . . . I forgive him’. (says Erika Kirk)
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/that-young-man-i-forgive-him/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-09-23&utm_campaign=TCW+Daily+Email

    "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
    [Luke: XXIII xxiv]

    But Charlie Kirk's murderer knew exactly what he was doing.

    Forgiveness is a two way process – there must be a forgiver and a forgivee. How can a person who feels no remorse, no regret and no guilt be forgiven?

    And from the Book of Common Prayer:

    Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live, has given power and commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. He pardons and absolves all those who truly repent, and with sincere hearts believe his holy Gospel.

    Therefore we beseech him to grant us true repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do on this day, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

    1. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us” sums it up. Forgive and repent in equal measure.

      1. But should those who trespass against us be forgiven if they go on and on trespassing against us? Starmer seems completely committed to trespassing against all of the British people and continuing to do so. He shows no interest in the people forgiving him!

          1. Heh, 270 + years later and it's still true. We don't need a new political party. We don't need a change of government.

            We need a new system of government where the political and administrative class are controlled by those paying for the country.

          5. The main turds in the ocean of corruption:

            As of 2024, the WEF board of trustees is composed of: Queen Rania of Jordan, Mukesh Ambani, Ajay S. Banga, Marc Benioff, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Thomas Buberl, Laurence D. Fink, Chrystia Freeland, Orit Gadiesh, Kristalina Georgieva, Fabiola Gianotti, Al Gore, Andre Hoffmann, Paula Ingabire, Joe Kaeser, Christine Lagarde, Yo-Yo Ma, Patrice Motsepe, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Lubna S. Olayan, David M. Rubenstein, Ulf Mark Schneider, Klaus Schwab, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Jim Hagemann Snabe, Julie Sweet, Feike Sijbesma, Heizō Takenaka, and Zhu Min.

            Some familiar names in that lot.

        2. Yes not seven times but seven times seventy I think is the quote. Turn the other cheek. And you ask that God forgive in the same way that you forgive others No question here of I only forgive those who apologise to me. Christianity is all about your relationship with God not the other person's.

      2. It Seems starmer has adopted something like that recently.
        I wonder if he'll force Hamas to apologise. To Israel.

      4. “An eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Exodus 21:24. This phrase is repeated with subtle variations in Leviticus 24:19-20 and Deuteronomy 19:21.

        Obey the Lord's commands.

    2. The murder for ideological reasons was bad enough. The Leftist squealing as they desperately tried to blame those they hate for it, then crowed over it was even worse.

      That some people think killing someone solely because you don't like what they say is acceptable tells you everything you could ever want to know about the Left wing mind.

      1. Precisely. There is the stench of a Kennedy type assassination about the Charlie Kirk killing. We are asked to believe that a high velocity (supersonic) round of high calibre entered the body and stayed there. Unbelievable!

    3. I don't do forgiveness.

      I am much more of an unreconstructed revenge merchant. Eye-for-an-eye is my motto.

      1. I might forgive but I don't forget and when the opportunity arises………………………..

    1. "Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
      Think not of them      ."

      Always reminds me of Sinatra:

      But now the days are short
      I'm in the autumn of the year
      And now I think of my life as vintage wine
      From fine old kegs
      From the brim to the dregs
      It poured sweet and clear
      It was a very good year

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

      1. Got to leave pocket money at Mother's care home, but man! It's difficult to find a cash machine.

    1. Certainly if the oaf Reeves slaps yet more taxes up the economy will implode. I appreciate she's thick and ideologically obsessed with wasting money but she simply has no choice. The scalpel cuts no longer work. We need real reform. She must cut state spending not by tiny bits, but with a flippin' broadsword. They are already doomed. They may as well do some good for a change by falling on their sword and doing right by the country.

      That means cutting off her beloved gimmigrant class, the chav welfarists. Pensions should move to price inflation and that evaluation should be returned (from Brown's rigging) to include those things government makes expensive – fuel, energy, housing.

    3. Britain spends roughly 0.5 per cent of annual gross national income on overseas foreign aid. Between 2020 and 2023, the UK spent £54bn on “official development assistance.

      Which countries receive British foreign aid?

      Ukraine
      Ethiopia
      Afghanistan
      Syria
      Yemen
      Somalia
      Sudan
      Africa Programmes and Expertise Department
      South Sudan
      Occupied Palestinian Territories
      Nigeria
      Democratic Republic of the Congo
      Sahel, Sudan and South Sudan Department
      Pakistan
      Overseas Territories
      Caribbean Development Team
      Kenya
      Jordan
      Myanmar
      Bangladesh
      Nepal
      Lebanon
      Tanzania
      Malawi
      Mozambique
      Uganda
      Indonesia
      Indo Pacific Regional Team
      Zambia
      Zimbabwe
      Rwanda
      Middle East & North Africa Regional Team
      Sierra Leone
      Turkey
      Ghana and Liberia
      Eastern Neighbourhood
      South Africa
      Western Balkans
      Central Asia
      Iraq
      Egypt
      Other South East Asia and Pacific Countries
      India
      Other African countries
      Colombia
      Other American Countries
      Other Eastern European & Central Asian Countries
      Other South Asia Countries
      Brazil

      The latest figure I can find is £13billion – £13,000,000,000 – thirteen thousand million.
      Aid to countries richer, more corrupt and actual enemies of the British people. Beyond belief.!

  34. I will confess to not being especially warm, so going to close the windows up.

    Hmm, that'd be why. Thermometer says 16'c.

    1. My flat will be cold when I get home because I left the windows open. Mind, at least it’ll hopefully not smell musty. I’ll just have to close the windows and wear an extra layer. The central heating season begins next week. Hoping I don’t need to bleed the radiators but if I do, so be it.

      1. Aye, I haven't got the heating on – it's a downside of the heat pump that once it's on, it's on. You can jus get a burst of heat and then turn the thing off. Closing windows is pushing temp up, so that's a positive.

        A window open a tiny bit always helps air a room out.

        1. No, they have their own infirmities and they’d have to stay in a hotel, as I only have a studio flat. We’re in touch though – immediate family in York and Pittsburgh.

      3. Have you ever used bean bag 'hot water bottles' Sue? You heat them up in the microwave. I swear by them – I went through the whole of last winter without turning the heating on (except to dry the occasional bit of washing).
        I reccommend them as a way to keep warm, and less faff than filling a HWB.

      4. We have heated synthetic fleece wraps bought for about £40 each from a garden centre in Long Melford. But then our house dates in part from the C15 is timber framed and draughty.

        Heritage (like a Rayburn) stove does the hot water and central heating but kerosene is increasingly expensive so we often rely on warm clothing and heated blankets.

  35. Farage has really goofed. Revealed his true colours. He may get the Facha vote but he's lost so much support. Doesn't seem to realize this is a country built on migration and people are not going to betray their relatives and friends. One thing is securing borders and controlling immigration. Quite another creating a reign of terror. Glad we've found out in time

    1. "Doesn't seem to realize this is a country built on migration…"

      I'm surprised none of the regulars have spiked this Guardian/BBC mantra. The country certainly wasn't built on post-Blair migration. Eight million people have arrived in this country since 1997. Recent figures show that 1.2 million are on UC, 700K of them Europeans. They've worked long enough to qualify for benefits and now live on them. That's cheating.

      1. Indeed. The “migration” of the last 30 years has added nothing to greater good of the country. iMHO

      2. I didn’t say post Blair migration. I was thinking of long tradition, Robinson Crusoe, Farage’s French ancestors, the kids I went to school with in the 60, the foreign medical staff when I was in hospital in 1967, my neighbours all married to foreign people back when I was a teenager, my relatives, my siblings’ partners, the list goes on. He wants a Trumpy reign of terror and make no mistake that is what you’ll get if you elect this man. He’s just letting us know what we’re letting ourselves in for.

        1. You linked the phrase to the current discussions about immigration. The post-1997 numbers are enormous, dwarfing all that went before, even in the post-WW2 period. The comparison is utterly false.

          2. "Farage has really goofed."

            His concern, shared by many millions, is with what's happened since 1997.

            You made the link.

            Whether his proposals are practicable is another matter.

          4. Millions of people worried by immigration are not extremists. Some of them might even be immigrants.

          5. Millions is not a lot in a country like the UK. Millions are also alarmed by Farage's rhetoric. Indeed Reform has been trying to soften it saying they've been somewhat misinterpreted. Too many people are gearing a Trumpy reign of terror, affecting people they care about

          6. Really, knock it off. "A Trumpy reign of terror,…" Now you're being ridiculous. You obviously have no clue what has been going on in the USA except in the most superficial way. That is to do with a Democratic Party attempt to create a dictatorship of their party. Of course Trump is fighting back and he is fighting back on the part of the Americans against those extremists. The sort of extremists who supported the murder of Charlie Kirk and who were bent on destroying the Constitution.

          7. Charly Kirk?
            No nothing to with that.
            I was in Los Angeles just before Trump's inauguration since then I was horrified to hear how ordinary people were being harassed, officials lying in wait at public schools. That isn't securing the borders. As always it's the little guy who pays, and Farage has revealed how he intends to act if he gains power

          8. I lived in California for 40 years. Sorry but your lefty guff will not pull the wool over my eyes.

          10. You’re talking about LA. Try Orange County , Contra Costa County or Lassen. You obviously don’t know California at all.

          11. “Millions is not a lot in a country like the UK.”

            Utter nonsense. And only a small proportion of the adults are working. Weren’t they supposed to be here to save us from our laziness?

            Here are some population densities for you (per square mile): England 1,100; Germany 620; France 330.

          14. Really, so you have gone back to the Bell Beaker People and the Early European Farmers? Have you taken a DNA test? I'm about to take another from a different company to see if it confirms the first. I'm 100% English but for one ancestor who was, apparently Dutch.

          15. Yes I took one at ancestry.com some years ago. It's actually changed quite a bit over time and I'm sure yours has too but more or less reflects what I know to be true. Also built a family tree with the help of ancestry.com .
            Back in the seventies being used to the racial and cultural diversity of London, I went to an inner London school, teachers and pupils from many different backgrounds, it was quite a cultural shock to begin living in a country like Spain where a foreigner was a visitor from another region like Catalonia. But I'd also experienced other insular continentals like Italians who were obsessed with the differences between the north/south.
            West Germany and France were more similar in having more historical diversity. Britain has always depended on migrants which is why Tony Blair thought he could introduce more and more.
            Protect the borders by all means. Introduce sensible restrictions. But the people who already live here must be respected and protected.

          16. There is a great deal of difference between London in the 70’s, it was cosmopolitan as are all great cities and the London of today. Take a stroll around Whitechapel and then tell me about diversity.

            It is absurd to say that all the people who now live her and are not British, should stay. Only the extremist indifferent to his own culture, history, and customs, would say such a thing. Indifferent to the fate of his children who would become a minority in their own land. Frankly, such an attitude to me, is deeply evil.

            I have lived my life abroad, that people are different is no shock to me, it is natural. But, at the same time, I do not expect or want them to subsume their culture into mine or anyone else’s. I would, to be quite blunt, accuse you of lack of respect for other cultures and your own. You don’t honour them or care for them at all. I know exactly what they would have to say to you if you carried your attitude to their countries and, frankly, you wouldn’t like it at all.

    2. "Doesn't seem to realize this is a country built on migration." Is factually nonsense as those of us who are older know. I always suggest the same thing as proof that this is a leftist fiction. Go to You Tube and put in 'London in the 30's' or as far back as you wish to go. Then go forward, London in the 1940s. and so on up to the present decade. Even in the 1990's it is still an overwhelmingly native English city with hardly any ethnic people in sight. The rot becomes obvious in the 2000. Of course, when people of my generation are gone. I'm sure history even in archival form will be scrubbed out of existence, kept under lock and key, only available to researchers loyal to the party. At that point the population of Oceania will know, with utter certainty, this has always been a multicultural country and that there is no native population of these islands.

      1. I say that because I'm older. Most British people can search family history and find some of their ancestors came from abroad. Liverpool, Manchester full of Irish, oh you don't count them. Well they were considered the enemy years ago. Continentals including Farages escaping persecution and looking for a better life during hundreds of years
        Britain is on fact almost unique amongst European countrie due to its traditional diversity.

        1. It was a very limited diversity. And not the sort off diversity that is conveyed by the term now a days and, of course I count the Irish. They differ very little from the rest of the British despite what they like to think. And I am aware of the Huguenots etc. But the reality is that most of these type of people came in very small numbers, not by any means enough to effect the native people of these islands. There is, for example, almost no trace of the Romans in the genetics of the people who have lived here for thousands of years an they were around for over 400 years. People coming into these islands in what amounts to handfuls does not mean the disruption and even destruction of the native people, they were easily absorbed. That is, in no way, the equivalent of what is going on now in which we will become a minority in our own land. Now people are waking up to that. Why do you think that over a million people turned up in London for the Unite the Kingdom rally. We are, I think, a welcoming and very tolerant people, perhaps more open than any other people on earth. But we do not want to be erased which, it seems, is what is expected of us.

          1. No There have been many errors committed but that doesn’t justify a reign of terror for respectable people who’ve lived here for years fulfilling all legal requirements. Farage has told us what to expect and it is not acceptable.

          2. I don't think that Farage is on about people who have fulfilled legal requirements. I do not support Farage, I think he is a chancer, but I would suggest you have been listening to the hysterical propaganda of the MSM which is almost 100% false.

          3. No I never listen to hysterical propaganda. I find the proposals alarming and yes frankly Trumpy. Trump came to power promising to secure the borders but once in control went against nice respectable people in gainful employment. I was in California at Christmas and months later discovered that businessess I had user, people I had known and even schools had been subjected to dire reigns of terror. Horrifying especially as presidential power seems to have no limits although I imagine even in America it does. Farage seems to be preparing something similar only limited by the limits in the UK. But as always happens the people who will suffer most under Draconian laws will be the respectable middle class. We don't need this.

          4. This is not what Farage is proposing (nor, to the best of my knowledge, what Trump is doing). And are you really saying that the "respectable middle class" who exploit cheap illegal (slave) labour, who will suffer the pain of having to actually pay a decent wage to those they exploit, will "suffer most"?

            I suppose it's what you mean by "$u££er"

          5. No. I’m talking about the people who live here, some of whom were born abroad others who have relatives friends neighbours in the same situation, people who believed their legal status to be well settled suddenly finding themselves harassed.
            That is the reality envisaged by Farage’s rhetoric.
            Trump wanted to control his borders. But this has extended to harrassing ordinary people lying in wait at public schools anything to up the numbers of deportations.
            That is what is happening in the US.

          6. I don’t know whether or not this is true as regards the USA. It is not what Farage is proposing.

          7. They’ve tried to soften their initial remarks but they’ve talked about hundreds of thousands of deportations. People who’ve spent years in the country with all legal requisites fulfilled will suddenly find themselves in limbo. That’s what he is proposing. Not all of it will be possible, legally and so we will see ordinary people, easy targets for bureaucrats eager to please their masters under threat. Make no mistake about that. And your own experience of conflict with authorities in the UK must convince you I am right.

  36. I realise now why Trump is so hated by the globalists, the Left and mainstream media.
    He is the antidote to everything Blair brought upon us and still wants to inflict on us

    1. Yep. They hate him not only because he proves the hegemony utterly wrong, but because he actively undoes the damage.

      Both Trump and Milei are demonstrating that cutting state spending returns massive gains in quality of life.

  37. Just a thought , and perhaps a frightener !

    Fears are mounting that an ancient Biblical event where countless Christians disappear from Earth is just hours away.

    Believers on social media platforms like TikTok have reached the point of hysteria over this prophecy, expressing their excitement for the end of days and even offering tips on how to handle being lifted into the sky to meet their maker.

    The phenomenon, dubbed RaptureTok, has exploded in recent weeks after faith leaders started pushing the idea that the Rapture will begin on September 23, marking the Second Coming of Jesus and Judgment Day for non-believers.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15122683/Religious-believers-Biblical-signs-rapture-TOMORROW.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawM_PD5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBzV2twaHpmeG5KUFVRc2FTAR4Fdp2-Wcqw5i1obPIJOiYlY9MZZ01Nz4hCHZl9RErnjFjcmwAQyoft9XPqXg_aem_ANisxdwEna7FFFReMF65qg

    1. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be taken up to heaven without the pain of death and to witness the Second Coming? Most theologians point out that such predictions have been made many times before and not materialised so why would we take this one any more seriously?

      1. Morning Sue ,

        Yes , here I am sitting in my own rapture , sunny morning .. tasks to do later .

        I am gazing out across the garden as I type this .

        2 days ago I filled my bird feeders.. No sign of hungry birds .. not one visitor , where are they , are they being sustained by other means .. Did the great heat kill them .. No bird sounds , no skylarks , no squabbling magpies/ jackdaws / starlings / sparrows ..

        One eviscerated bird , perhaps a long tailed tit under the holly tree .. A near neighbour has 8 cats .. but she has had them for a few years , a few visit my garden ..

        Bad year for insects, butterflies and not even seen a ladybird .. why?

        1. Same here. We have had a multitude of sparrows, jackdaws and starlings most of the summer. All disappeared in the last couple of weeks.

    2. Good morning Maggiebelle.

      "….September 23, marking the Second Coming ….. "

      Anyone up for a bit of slouching?

      The Second Coming: William Butler Yeats

      Turning and turning in the widening gyre
      The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
      Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
      Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
      The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
      The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
      The best lack all conviction, while the worst
      Are full of passionate intensity.

      Surely some revelation is at hand;
      Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
      The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
      When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
      Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
      A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
      A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
      Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
      Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
      The darkness drops again; but now I know
      That twenty centuries of stony sleep
      Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
      And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
      Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

      1. A terrible poem and I do not mean that in an insulting way. The very opposite in fact, another prophecy that has been ignored.

      2. Thank you Richard , much appreciated .

        WBY must have known about the considerable problems in the Middle East, what on earth would he have thought of Eire being invaded by Muslims ..

        Just repeating your offering .. poets are such gloomy people , especially so with Irish poets , they are deeper and darker .

        My mother came from a well known educated South West Irish family, her stories and poetry terrified us as children .. dark gloom , but as she appreciated the sunnier climate of Africa , which I didn't , fate saw her end .. the saddest ever ending to her youngish life at sixty .. died alone in her car when involved in a bad collision.

        The Second Coming: William Butler Yeats

        Turning and turning in the widening gyre
        The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
        Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
        Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
        The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
        The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
        The best lack all conviction, while the worst
        Are full of passionate intensity.

        What did Yeats predict?

        Surely some revelation is at hand;
        Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
        The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
        When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
        Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
        A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
        A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
        Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
        Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
        The darkness drops again; but now I know
        That twenty centuries of stony sleep
        Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
        And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
        Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

        His poetry scares me !

        1. I repeat my comment of posts passim that I don't understand the point of poetry. Its justv text with the lines chopped up

          Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

    3. The 'Rapture' is a misinterpretation of 1 Thessalonians by a 19th Century theologian, John Nelson Darby. It had never been propounded in the preceding 1800 years of Christianity.

    1. On what flippin' charge? It really is absurd. Plod have just become the enforcement arm of the hard Left.

        1. It is the intentional infiltration of the Left of the police and other agencies to undermine their autonomy and rationality to suit the agenda of the hegemony.

          Thus all the common purpose, woke, 'community' policing, diversity twaddle. None of this matters the law must be blind to who is committing the crime and it isn't. Plod are pursuing Leftist policies to suit the state's dictat.

          That is fundamentally wrong.

    2. The fact that England has an established Church of which its Head is also the Head of State confirms that England is a Christian country

      If the Idiot King does not side with this woman who supports her country and its religion then he is a traitor and should be locked up in the Tower of London for treason.

      1. 413457+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        Could it also be said that ” this is a Christian Country” be a hollow rendering as in viewing
        acres of empty pews.

        Ps did you check out anthony charlie lynton?

        1. I think it is a mistake to think that this is any the less a Christian country because of empty pews. That, I believe, has more to do with the utter failure of a church that has hollowed itself out with Wokery and other heresies. A failure to teach. The reality is that most people have no idea what Christianity offers but if they did, they would realize that after 2,000 years of its teaching in these islands, they live and breath Christianity and it is by the grace of Christianity that they can reject it. And, in their ignorance, they are leaving our children to the fate of Islam and a decaying civilization. Because what Islam thrives on is the ruins of civilizations it destroys. It is utterly incapable of building a civilization of its own as the parasite is incapable of life without killing the host.

          1. 413457+ up ticks,

            Morning JR,
            if truth be told and being a Celtic supporter I
            lean towards Rome on Sundays,never did go a lot on enerys lot.

          2. Orthodoxy is better, it still lives and breaths the ancient tradition and has not lost the oral tradition of the church. That has been entirely lost in the West, It is what we call, 'the Tradition' There are two wings to Christianity that enables it to fly, The Tradition and The Bible. Sadly, in that respect, Western Christianity is crippled. But, I recognize that Orthodox churches are few and far between, if I were younger I would try to do something about that. But, all the same, any Christianity is better than none. I watched the entire service for Charlie Kirk and must confess, it was rather good. Especially Tucker Carlson. What is remarkable about him is that he does not memorize anything. He is simply a great orator and, revealed, in his speech, that he is far more of a Christian than I certainly realized.

        2. I think that many non-religious Christians believe in the Christian ethic without being remotely devout.

          As a little child my mother came and said prayers with me after story telling every night before I went to sleep. I was at a boarding prep school from the ages of 8 to 13 where each day started with prayers and a reading from the Bible and we walked in crocodile formation to Bath Abbey on Sundays and sometimes had a church service in the school with a priest from Bath Abbey coming to the school. And when I went to Blundell's each morning started with a brief chapel service. On Sundays there were matins, communion and evensong. At the age of 15 I was confirmed at school by the Bishop of Exeter. I was usually top of the class in Scripture!*

          My wife is a very committed and devout Roman Catholic who edits the parish magazine, plays the organ and spends much of her time helping in the parish. Ironically she was brought up by atheist parents and did not become a Christian until she was 24 while I was brought up by Christian parents and am not at all devout though a good deal of Christian teaching has rubbed off on me.

          *Bertie Wooster won the Scripture Prize when he was at his prep school!

    3. 413457+ up ticks,

      O2O

      Countrywide all the local allah follower, and there are plenty of them, has to do is to shove his head into the local church on Sunday to ascertain if ready for conversion, sad to say from a "christian" point of view many will be.

    4. They couldn't even handcuff her , totally incompetent cowards. The police have really lost it, and deserve no respect from the public.

  39. Morning, all Y'all. Beautiful day, if chilly, here in Penarth. Just about to visit Mother, delayed due to late delivery of flowers to flower shop. But – sun's shining, could be worse.

  40. Regarding the post on personal number plates – I have a personalised plate because it can only apply to me and nobody else. It is made up of my entry number as an RAF apprentice and my initials, something which can't apply to anyone else as there was nobody else in my entry with those initials

  41. Oscar is pawing at the walls to go out, and despite having had a good run this morning is having a mad five minutes in the garden. If he isn't calmer will take them all for a walk to wear them out.

    It's 2 hours after they ate so should be ok.

  42. Good Morning all! Cold but sunny here. This is what I wrote over on the Telegraph in response to Starmers recognition of the fictitious state of Palestine. Also a video below.

    I regard Starmer as utterly evil. Some of you may have seen the video of the young Jewish man kidnapped at the music festival in October of 2023 being forced to dig his own grave in a Hamas tunnel. He has been deliberately starved to the point he looks like a victim of a WWII concentration camp. There are still over 40 Jewish prisoners of Hamas, all of those still alive being treated the same way, according to those who have been released. The torturers of these people, behaviour reminiscent of the SS, are those that Starmer has recognized as having a legitimate right to a state. Already they have redrawn the map of Palestine. It is from "the river to the sea" Juden free. In other words Starmer has encouraged Hamas and the rest of the Palestinians to continue their never ending attempt to destroy Israel and every jew in the Middle East. What a degenerate legacy as PM this man is leaving, the worst PM in British history and a shame to our nation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGlASE7vTok&list=TLPQMjMwOTIwMjUGi75gsptE4w&index=1

    2. Yeeeees! Crank it up.
      It's the only way to get the mid-wits on board.
      Like I say they're quite capable of looking the other way when white children get raped on an industrial scale.. but show any intolerance towards Whisky & Soda it's gameover for Mo and his benefits army.

      1. I think, in the west at any rate,most Muslims don't care. But that is because, unlike the fanatics in the streets, they don't realize that dogs are haram. According to Mo the fake prophet, he was hanging around waiting for a visit from the angel Gabriel but he didn't turn up. When he did arrive a day or to later, he told Mo he was blocked from a visit by a dog at Mo's door. Because according to Gabriel a character in Mo's schizophrenic fantasies, dogs were unclean and he could not, therefore pass the miserable creature to drop another rancid pearl of hate for Mo's Koran. To this day, in the eyes of good Muslims, dogs are worthy of persecution and killing by any means you wish. So much for the Compassion of Allah.

    4. With you, Johnathan. My first reaction when I heard what he'd done was utter depression that anyone could do that.

    6. How can one person be able and get away with committing so much damage and progressive hate to a modern long established culture like he is?
      He's obviously suffering from some sort of mental health disorder.

  43. Late start. Cold but sunny. Lucky threesome:
    Wordle 1,557 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Centuries of fortification defending our borders and in the last 3 decades we've been invaded by millions of foreigners who hate this country and want to kill us.

      2. Most of the castles we have come across – and there is one in each village, seemingly – stem from King John’s time (i.e. 1200s). There was a big thing on it in Limerick castle but we (dad and I had to run through at a million miles an hour or mum gets cross. But a fascinating history of the Vikings, Anglo-Normans (who became the Old English)…

  48. It should have been a quick run into Matlock just now, but there's temporary traffic lights in Cromford which must have been set up by an alumni of the Ken Livingstone School of Traffic Management.
    Backed up nearly to Ball Eye and, in the Matlock direction, to the middle of Matlock Bath.
    Came back up Salter's Lane.

    1. Welcome to life in Colchester.
      Just as you think it's safe to go out again …… they've moved the lights round the corner where you can't see them until it's too late.

  49. Gradually the conversation ever so slowly shifts from:

    Diversity really is our strength to..
    Islamophobia to..
    Stop the invasion to..
    Cap on migration to..
    Deportation can't be done to..
    650K Deportations is possible to..
    I reckon a quota of 2,5% for stable Muslims & mass deportations of the unstable, to..
    Outright ban on Muslims in position of power..

    This is also possible in Ireland but not France or Germany. They're way past the tipping point of no return.

  50. The Envy excelling itself today. I was telephoned last week to come in today to see someone about my hearing aids.

    When I was called in, a charming lady Nigerian told me she was on the medical equivalent of work experience. She had Dr in her title so I expect she was learning about how a GP surgery works.

    Her opening gambit as: "What brings you to the surgery today, Mr Thomas?" I said I had been called in. She searched the computer and eventually found a letter from Specsavers saying that I had less hearing in one ear and that perhaps I should be referred to the Audiology Clinic. I explained that I had been waiting for nearly a year for an apptmt at the Clinic, that I had phoned and was told that the best bet was to go to Specsavers.

    A lot more chat and I said I was happy with the present situation. She gave me a lovely smile and I left.

    Fifteen minutes of my life frittered away! Still, moving on, I was able to park in front of Boots and then, at Tesco, in my favourite – extra wide – parking space. As I turned into the drive, it started to rain. It has now stopped.

    Life's rich tapesty, eh?

    1. I heard lovely smile, which these days is pretty much the most hoped for outcome.

      I have a very difficult customer who I tried to handle by matching his volume and invective and finally by walking away. We reached a détente when I took him out for a drink and asked what his bloody problem was.

      We get on well now. A smiling customer is always a surprise.

    2. Did your lady look inside your ears ?

      Are you prone to ear gunk.. ear clinics here charge £40 for a clean .. disgraceful considering nurses used to clear ears at the GP surgery , and no longer do, so lots of infirm deaf and fed up elderlies and youngies have to fork out a fortune for an ear examination and clean .

  51. I bought a couple of new bras on t'internet (foolish, ladies, I know) They have arrived and they fit, but I didn't realise they are padded!
    I may need to change my name to StormInaGCup 🙂

          3. It was M&S of course. Does anyone buy bras anywhere else?? I did buy some in Bravissimo some years ago – they were very pretty but very expensive!

    3. I wear soft non-wired lightly padded bras and as luck would have it, that’s pretty much what’s advised after heart surgery. Some support is essential but nothing that rubs or digs. Mind, I’m quite small. There was a lady on my ward who was considerably larger than me and was made to wear a special bra, which she hated!

          2. I have seen some very elegant women who were bigger than average. A lot depends on how the woman dresses. These days apparently, hanging it all out is considered acceptable.

          4. It is generally easy to spot the women with fake boobs, as they just look like they have 2 big footballs inserted. Nothing natural about the shape.

          6. Sometimes, I wonder if the trout-face/football boobs/tramp-stamped women will one day look back at their photos from decades previously and finally realise how ridiculous they look.

        3. My first wife has large boobs. She hated them, she complained that they were painful. Had to have her bras made for her. Bit odd because boobs are not a fetish of mine. But people always assumed it was. In fact I married her for her intelligence, independent spirit and New York Jewish humor. The boobs were an also ran. I miss her everyday even though it has been years since she died.

          1. Nahh. I married the Warqueen for her boobs.

            Which, of course, isn't true. I married her for her money.

        4. The wife One of my friend's had massive boobs not a tall or large woman. She had reductions but ended up with severe breast cancer. Now the poor lady has nothing.

  52. I have the day off today – car maintenance. The garage just called to say its ready to pick up – £360 for MOT and full service. I was expecting it to be £500-600 so I'm quite pleased.

    1. Presumably that means it's passed.

      Always a relief, particularly when it comes in at under "budget".

    3. Stormy

      Thanks for your link

      Just ordered my new M+S bra , a white one .. but the sizes aren't bust sizes .. so I hope I haven't ordered a hammock!

  53. This couldn't be about 'population reduction' via the use of 'Assisted Suicide' could it? There would be fewer pensions to pay out, fewer benefits and shorter hospital waiting lists! Win! Win! Win! for the government. Govt always achieves its aims by a thousand cuts, a little bit here and a little bit there…. govt does not seem to be wasting much time. It will be advertisements on tv, commercial radio, smiling faces on billboards…. 'have you thought about Assisted Dying to solve your pain/financial problems?…. etc

    I have not read the following article in the DM as I do not subscribe, but the comments are available.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-15123205/Experts-BAN-codeine-chemist-chronic-pain-doctors.html?ico=comment-anchor#comments

  55. New mouse and keyboard arrived. The Mx Master series from Logitech. Call me a shill but I do like their kit. Key travel is very good – deep but not mushy. Resistance is just right, so you're not pressing key by accident. I got the wireless ones for both as I tend to shove stuff around all day long and a cable gets in the way.

    Expensive, but worth it over my prior cheapo Cherry keyboard and my 10 year old mouse.

    2. I was at Headingley once when he took the teams off for bad light. The crowd (being Headingley) got a bit fractious about it and started barracking him.
      Unperturbed, he stood on the boundary edge and argued his corner for about 10 minutes before waving his hands manically and stomping off in a fury.
      What a character! RIP Dickie…..

    1. One of the things I see here is a large number of one or two person small businesses, offering all kinds of services, especially in the home and garden maintenance area. The equivalent of "white van man".

      This is the kind of thing that Americans encourage, and it's not until a company gets up in size that the reporting side of it needs much work. And most small businesses operate with their "employees" being self employed anyway – better tax deductions. About the only thing they have to do is make quarterly estimated tax payments, and there are extra forms at tax time to report business P&L, and to make Social Security payments, etc., etc.

      In contrast, I remember the "war" the British government started against owner driver truck drivers years back, with a clear goal of eliminating them altogether. A constant drumbeat against "cowboy operators". Interestingly there are a lot of owner drivers here – it's not at all unusual outside the big towns and cities to see a big Kenworth parked on someone's front drive.

      An awful lot of the US GDP – and employment – comes from small business, and everyone knows it, and it is encouraged.

      1. In my almost 10 years living in the US, my impression was that a poor man seeing a rich man would think “if I work hard, I can be like him” whereas, in the UK, the poor man would think “I’ll do my best to bring him down to my level”. That’s a generalisation, of course, but true, I think.

  59. And so it starts..

    Israel 'could be kicked out of the World Cup amid pressure from Qatar.

    What next? Just a little more sponsorship and..
    Football powerhouses Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia & Palestine to be given a Bye to the Quarter Finals.

  60. There is a story in The Times about an English couple who were burgled and beaten up at their house in France. The assailants are on trial:

    "Two of the defendants, Moroccan-born Tarik El Malouani, 34, and Fouad Faize, 39, have admitted carrying out the attack.

    A third accused, Yslem Adib, 29, said he did not enter the couple’s bedroom but went into the garden while it was happening.

    If convicted of armed robbery and assault, they could receive prison sentences ranging from five years to life and be fined up to €150,000.

    A fourth man, Abderrahmane Gomri, 30, who did not take part in the robbery, is charged as an accessory. He had met the couple while carrying out plumbing work at their house several years earlier, and is accused of suggesting the burglary to the others and taking them to reconnoitre the property."

    I only mention this because of the very French names of the accused men….

    2. Are they all from Asterix's tribe of Irreducible Gauls?

      I thought they had all died out after Getafix mistakenly reduced the strength of his magic potion.

  61. Labour MP Steve Reed takes over role to push through the new definition of Islamophobia.
    Labour's website currently says there is "no single agreed definition of Islamophobia", but points to one that described it as "a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness".
    Labour argue they must provide a definition to tackle the very real anti-Muslim hate that people face because of their     religion.. neverendum terrorist attacks.

    • 1979-2000: 2,194 attacks and 6,817 deaths.
    • 2001-2012: 8,265 attacks and 38,187 deaths.
    • 2013-April 2024: 56,413 attacks and 204,937 deaths.

    3. Steve Reed:

      Islamophobia – In general a fear of being blown up or decapitated. More particularly for young girls and boys, a danger of sexual assault.

      You're welcome….

    4. Steve Reed:

      Islamophobia – In general a fear of being blown up or decapitated. More particularly for young girls and boys, a danger of sexual assault.

      You're welcome….

    2. Early I saw a Facebook clip of a middle age white lady telling some gobby git off for standing in the street shouting verses from the koran.
      Strangely as it may not seem. Two of our brave and dedicated police officers were quickly on the scene to handcuff and arrested her. For what was after all her brave defiance.

        2. I don’t think it was the same clip Richard the lady in the clip I saw had short hair and looked like on old friend. She didn’t have a dog and a male and female nasties cuffed and took her away.

  63. In a moment of extravagance this morning, I bought a pack of Trebor Extra Strong Mints. I was astonished at how short the tubes now are compared with a few years ago; and that the diameter of the mint is smaller than I remember. Price has gone up, of course….

      1. Alongside the refusal that anything has changed.

        Government keeps making it harder and harder to make money so companies hike the price and reduce the quantity. Only when this nonsense stops and government beaten over the head with an axe and forced to cut taxes, waste and regulation will this nonsense stop.

    2. My lad when about 5 came home from school singing "Trebor mints are a minty bit stronger – stick 'em up your arse and they last a bit longer" , kids eh?

      1. Excellent quality when Mackintoshes, then Rowntrees, made them. Like all their former products, utterly trashed by Nestlé.

      2. The best part of Quality Street is the toffee, sugary, caramelly, chocolatey smell and the gleam of the cellophane wrappers when you open the tin. They've ruined the wrappers now.

    4. They used to be manufactured in my home town of Chesterfield.

      Every Monday morning, when the factory was boiling up the vats of sugar and peppermint extract, the sweet sickly stink used to carry all over town.

      1. A bit like when the Courage Brewery was still operating in Maidstone in the early '70s, the Fremlin's brewery having been closed by Whitdread before I arrived there.
        Every Thursday if I recall correctly!

  68. 413457+ up ticks,

    There are no words to……….

    Man and woman charged with murder of two-year-old
    Hartington Close is made up of terraced red-bricked houses. There is a yellow ambulance parked up, along with a white "crime scene investigation" van.
    Image caption,
    Emergency crews were called to Hartington Close in Thornaby

    Published
    17 September 2025
    A man and woman have been charged over the death and rape of a two-year-old girl.

    Police were called to Hartington Close in Thornaby, on Teesside, at about 16:20 BST on Saturday after the concerns about the child, who later died in hospital, were reported.

    Alexandra Walker, 25, from Hartington Close, Thornaby, and Harrison Simpson, 21, had been charged with murder and causing the death of a child, Cleveland Police said.

    Mr Simpson, from Greenham Close, Middlesbrough, has also been charged with rape of the child. Both are due before Teesside Magistrates' Court later.

    These pair via a guilty verdict must NOT be isolated from other prisoners and their feelings.

      1. And her real father. She had presumably been given into the custody of the mother, and her boyfriend.

        1. Reading between the lines, that was my deduction.
          I suspect the poor little mite was doomed to a bleak existence the moment she was conceived.

    4. If this chap is convicted of what is alleged … he is going to enjoy a wonderful life courtesy of His Majesty.

      I wonder what surprises his fellow inmates will have in store to make his confinement a little more 'interesting'.

  69. On the dreary afternoon, I decided to try to make sense of a large box containing family photographs and other material.

    Jeez…. The STUFF. While I recognise many of the people – there are dozens who are strangers. And virtually none has a date!

    Do I really need to keep my late father's private pilots licence – c 1936? Or his passport? It's a nightmare!

      1. I imagine they are inundated with that sort of thing. It wasn't as though my old man was a pioneer aviator! The real irony is that he learned to fly before the war, got the licence etc joined the RAFVR – but was turned down from flying because he was colour blind.
        Just as well, really. I might not have been born had he flown in the Battle of Britain….

        1. Don't throw it out – write teh anecdote on a bit of paper, attach it to the pilot's licence and your great, great, great grandchildren will cherish it!

    2. Yes, keep them. You could donate the PPL to an aviation museum. I visited Sywell today. They had things like that.

  71. Just had lunch in the Iron Duke in Wellington. Steak & ale pie with suet pastry, mash, mushy peas. Abbot ale for 1.75!
    Trad pub. No music. Wonderful!

      1. Loss leader? If businesses were only left alone what people enjoy would be affordable and then they'd go on to spend in that same business where they did not feel ripped off

  72. "In his much-awaited speech at the summit, boycotted by the US and Israel, Mr Macron warned that peace could no longer wait as “we are moments away from no longer being able to seize it”.

    In a rebuke to Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration, he said: “Nothing, nothing justifies the continuation of the war in Gaza”."

    I suppose the lives of 40 or rather at least 20 hostages who might be alive. Don't count to the little Frenchman.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/macron-phones-trump-after-being-hemmed-in-by-president-s-motorcade/ar-AA1N8baL

  74. Did you know a blue whales arse can stretch to 3 1/2 ft making it the second biggest arsehole on the planet next to Kier Starmer

    1. A blue whale has a use though. Starmer is a 'human rights lawyer'. The most oxymoronic concept coupled to the most annoying profession.

  76. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/23/boss-bq-owner-warns-reeves-against-unfair-property-tax-raid/

    Below the line:

    47 min ago

    Why did the Conservative Party ignore all members comments on the unfair situation for THREE YEARS and disadvantageous high business rates of shops etc when on line shopping gets of Scot free ??. The sheer stupidity of the No 10 SPADS in the last Government refused to rectify this situation and Reeves will as well

    – they ignored it for the same reason they ignored everything else going on: it was too difficult to do something positive. A positive outcome would have been to just scrap business rates. They're just, like all taxes levied on business – passed on to customers.

    2. A professional journalist, a professional cricketer and a professional umpire
      Three professional Yorkshiremen

  78. Trump goes on unhinged rant in wild UN speech
    Ok.. such as…?

    The US president warned that Britain’s immigration policy, and its “suicidal energy” policy “will be the death of western Europe if something is not done immediately.”
    "What is the purpose of the United Nations?"
    “Your countries are being ruined", said Trump. “The United Nations is funding an assault on western countries and their borders.”
    “Europe is in serious trouble. They have been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”

    unhinged indeed. LOL

  79. Trump goes on unhinged rant in wild UN speech
    Ok.. such as…?

    The US president warned that Britain’s immigration policy, and its “suicidal energy” policy “will be the death of western Europe if something is not done immediately.”
    "What is the purpose of the United Nations?"
    “Your countries are being ruined", said Trump. “The United Nations is funding an assault on western countries and their borders.”

    unhinged indeed. LOL

  80. Phew! Knackered now after planting most of the dwarf daffs on the sloping patch. I've saved a few for a much easier spot to do tomorrow, and a few went into pots.

    The planned power cut took place from 9am but ended a bit earlier than they said it would and we had power back by 2pm. This was for a tree trimming operation by the National Grid people as they were too close to power lines. Fortunately it's been a lovely fine day to be outside doing stuff in the garden.

    The good news is that my neighbour Jo, who has spent 12 days in Bristol RI following a heart attack is home, and very glad to be home she is.

  83. Fair play to the Labour Boyos in their upcoming fight against Reform.
    Strategic consultancy firm RedQuadrant presented its 233-page report & recommendations to Eluned Morgan’s administration considered crucial in the fight against Reform next May…

    Hire an anti-racism expert for up to £85,000 to “oversee this work, including the implementation of the recommendations from this report. The post-holder is required to have a proven track record of facilitating measurable progress on EDI and anti-racism within a complex organisation.“

    “Develop a formal sponsorship programme for ethnic minority talent… This will ensure that ethnic minority staff have had the appropriate stretch and other relevant experience so they can compete equally to majority group staff who are benefiting from informal sponsorship.”

    “Recruit and train a pool of diverse equity advocates to be part of external recruitment panels with a focus on the levels with significant underrepresentation of minority ethnic staff. Equity advocates to be given the power of veto over any decision they feel may be unsafe.”

    “Elevate the position of the Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group (DISG) to be a committee to the executive committee, jointly chaired by the permanent secretary and an EDI subject matter expert.”

    In development sessions “include explanation of micro-aggressions, how to respond when you experience or observe micro-aggressions and how to be an active bystander in induction and ongoing training around culture and inclusion.”

    Review external “application forms from an inclusivity lens” and stop asking for full employment history details.

    Let's face it.. it's a winner.

  84. In the Waterford Crystal shop (Waterford). When did cut glass become so expensive!!!!

        1. Our wine glasses were bought in a supermarket in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia in 1993. A box of six and – amazingly – after 32 years there are still six.

          We have others inherited from my parents – some Scortish glass "crystal". They must be 60 years old. That old time, he do fly.

          1. We have some old ones………eg the hand -blown ones my parents bought in France in 1946……..they come out at Christmas time. We have some left from the 1980s garage freebies – everyday use. Four slightly nicer ones free from Reader's digest about 30 years ago – everyday use. Some we were given by my uncle forty or more years ago – occasional use……….. and that's just the wine glasses.

      1. Same as when went to Morano a few years ago, you would have needed a mortgage to buy anything. But the free trip through the smaller canals in a small leather lined private launch and guided tour was lovely.
        We must have been mistaken for a wealthy couple.

      1. I have a cupboard full of Thomas Webb 'St. Andrews' design which was first produced around 1906. But the design was abandoned in the 1990's. At the time the old replacement glass could be obtained from Harrods for a mere £25 These days if I'm mooching around an antique shop I keep an eye out for the Whisky tumblers. I don't know why but they seem rare…..hic..

        As to use, cut glass doesn't tend to like being placed in the dishwasher so its a pain having to wash them up by hand. However, they do look good on the Christmas table.

      2. I have an extensive collection of Stuart and Royal Brierley due to family connections with the companies. I use them. In fact, I'm quaffing port from a Stuart glass at the moment.

        1. We always served wine to our closest neighbours in Waterford glass. Regrettably one is now deceased and his wife has recently moved to a care home at a distance from us.

          I often think it would be great to have large parties again to utilise all of the stuff we have but we have probably missed the chance since so many are no longer with us or else infirm.

          I have a lovely collection of Limoges White Ivy ware which is no longer produced. I also have Finnish Tuska ware (a sort of brown ironstone no longer produced) but a design classic. A teaset designed by Walter Gropius of Bauhaus fame and produced by Rosenthal, a set of earthenware pottery made by John Leach in his pottery in Mulchelney (Somerset Levels) and pieces from his grandfather’s pottery in St Ives.

          I suppose I am a sort of accidental amateur collector who simply likes well designed and creative items for daily use. These lovely things, along with others collected over the years, are now mere “tangible assets” according to others.

          I weep for the lack of appreciation of beautifully designed artifacts by the philistines now affecting our traditional values.

          I love potters and traditional craftsmen in whatever materials they excel.

  85. Wordle No. 1,557 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 23 Sep 2025

    Smirks for Birdy Three?

    2. Birdie here also, about time!…..fairly straightforward as I had the key first letter in my second starter word.

      Wordle 1,557 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. NNot Golfing today, par here instead

      Wordle 1,557 4/6

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

    4. I surprised myself today. Just got lucky with my 1st 2 lines.
      Wordle 1,557 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. I got lucky this morning. Came home this afternoon and need to sort myself out but it drives up my pulse so will have to go slowly.

      Wordle 1,557 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    6. Good one, a similar result for me this morning.

      Wordle 1,557 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  87. (Deep breath)
    All together now ………..
    "BE KIND"

    A Labour council leader is under fire after claiming St George flag campaigners were “nonces”.

    Jeremy Newmark, the Labour leader of Hertsmere borough council, Hertfordshire, described Operation Raise the Colours as “an attempt by a bunch of criminals, extremists [and] nonces to hijack our national flag”.

    He made the comments, which triggered gasps from his fellow councillors, at a meeting on Sept 17 in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

    1. Just another of the now many farrrr leffft morons that can't see the wood for the trees. And when they do see the wood they burn it..

      It's probably also got something to do with Borehamwood being inside the M25 and still being Hertfordshire and not taken over kahnt and his own mob.

  88. Why did the BBC call Charlie Kirk 'far right'?

    The mainstream media are still demonising a man who was killed for his beliefs

    Georgina Mumford
    22nd September 2025

    'Mr Kirk built a huge and devoted following for his far-right views', said the BBC's North America editor Sarah Smith on Sunday. The statement came during the BBC's coverage of Charlie Kirk's memorial in Arizona, which was attended by tens of thousands of mourners and was addressed by US president Donald Trump.

    Smith's statement is nothing short of astonishing. It would be one thing for blue-haired keyboard warriors on Bluesky to be referring to dead conservatives as fascists. But it is quite another for the UK's state broadcaster to toe that same line. The BBC pays Smith more than £200,000 a year to report impartially on American affairs. We would hope someone in her esteemed position might pause for thought before smearing a man who was killed for his beliefs.

    The BBC isn't alone in painting Kirk as 'far right'. In the days following his murder, mainstream media rushed to portray him and his views as beyond the pale. The Guardian, like the BBC, described Kirk as 'far right', as well as a man who 'stood for the darker themes of… US nativism'. The New York Times accused Kirk of leading a 'hard-right youth movement'. It was also forced to make a correction after falsely attributing an anti-Semitic quote to him.

    Needless to say, this is all pretty grotesque. Kirk has just been murdered – seemingly by a genuine extremist. Wittingly or not, smearing him as a fascist, dehumanising him in death, comes dangerously close to justifying or at least sanitising his killing.

    In truth, none of Kirk's political stances could be seen as 'far right' in any other time except the strange epoch we live in. Defending the US First Amendment, opposing abortion, being in favour of meritocracy and insisting that men cannot become women are not unusual stances for Christian conservatives or US Republicans. You do not have to agree with these positions to recognise they do not make someone far right.

    In most cases, terms like 'far right', 'fascist' and 'Nazi' have become utterly detached from their original meaning. Smith unwittingly exemplified this in her coverage of Kirk's memorial. In the very same sentence she derided him as far right, she also noted that he was popular for his 'eagerness to debate'. That is not a trait you'd normally associate with a goose-stepping authoritarian.

    Indeed, Kirk certainly had strong convictions, but he was always willing to hear them challenged. When appearing on college campuses, he offered the mic to students, often saying: 'If you disagree, you go to the front of the line.'

    If it is this commitment to free speech and debate that made him 'far right' to the likes of Sarah Smith and the BBC, then that says far more about them than it does about him.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/22/why-did-the-bbc-call-charlie-kirk-far-right

    Why? Because it's no longer a mere broadcaster but a political organisation.

    2. Living here in the US these many years, I think the issue is that most British people see some of the things that Americans fervently believe, like the right to gun ownership, as inherently "wrong". And that's not just your lefties either. Politically the Republican party is well to the right of the Conservative Party, even as it was. Always has been, without Trump's influence.

      So if you are a typical left of centre inclined British media person, yes, you could easily label the GOP as Far Right – simply because they are well to the right of what such a British person believes. As examples, the US right also supports capital punishment, harsh punishment for crime, and the concept of an NHS is viewed as Communism. Inherent here among the right wing thinkers, is the belief that if you need benefits you are a failiure, and should bear the consequences, rather than getting any tax payer help. What is somewhat at odds is the fact that Trump's MAGA supporters are from the demographic that is most likely to be on benefits, due to not enough education to get a decent paying job any more, which feeds their anger. Even Trump has referred to them as "my poorly educated supporters".

      Sarah Smith, however, is suppoed to be intelligent, and has lived here some time, so she should have known better. Or at least not tried to score political points over Kirk's death.

      1. It seems to me that that dear old Auntie only employs people with speech impediments and bad diction these days. It's a quality that seems to trump even skin colour or general sexual perversion.

      2. I know one should never speak ill of the dead, but… A week before that famous election, John Smith's popularity was higher than Kinnock who it seemed was destined to become PM. Then Mr Smith announced his "Tax Bombshell" so Kinnock didn't become PM and John Smith assumed leadership of the Labour Party. Did he calculate it was worth a 4 year wait to become PM? He didn't factor in the possibility of a heart attack. Of course the most surprised person in the Country was John "Who'd have thought it?" Major …. the rest is history ….

    4. Exactly. BBC disengaged from the people who pay them. Kirk was killed by a young man who didn't know if he was trans or not, and scared by the thought of it and how his father would react. RIP a good man.

      1. Hang on Kate. It's the accused's boyfriend who is Trans and is also into the fluffy animal costume sexual fetish "Furry".

        1. Thanks A A…had to read that twice, got it now… I think….was it the killer’s dad turned him in, he found the weapon? Kirk was one of the good guys imo, I liked to hear him.

          1. It’s confusing as ever. A linguistic dot to dot, but my subject construction might not of helped. I have remembered the boyfriend name. Lance Twiggs. It is Twiggs who thinks he is a woman. It is Twiggs who has a sexual fetish for wearing cartoon furry animal costumes. Some people need to get out of the house more.

    2. Is this the best bar?

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83426c9b2a44fae3c8179e5c68399a157a5681b95573b6acb864f8b2ad878544.png
      The headmaster of the school in which I used to teach had been Prince Andrew's housemaster at Gordonstoun and so Andrew and Sarah, who had been married for just one year, came to open the the school's new sports hall in 1987.

      Caroline and I had only recently started courting and were to marry the following year.

      To be honest Sarah was very smartly dresses and looked very good and her husband did not disgrace himself, behaved properly and said what he was expected to say!

      1. I think she is regarded amongst the snobbish PTB as a vulgar little arriviste – which , of course, she is (as most of them also are = takes one to know one, afterall), But she is also good hearted, a trifle thick and up for fun (not something prized in those circles unless one can produce a well-turned snub, which I don't think she ever did). Hence she was always to be erased.

        I believe she got on very well with the late Queen and has been honoured by her late Majesty with the custody of the remaining corgis and dorgis. Not a negligible accolade.

        1. Exactly, she and Diana brought a sense of life to the RF, it was their husbands who were duds. How did QE2 and Phil ever produce them….

          1. Yup. I am not a fan of hers, nor of the "Divine Dianna", btw. I just think that the castigation of these ill-equipped, fundamentally normal but silly little girls is cruel and ridiculous.

          2. ‘ill-equipped’…nailed it, neither horsey nor doggy…bound to fail…mind, imagining being chained to either Chas or Andy…aaaarghhh….

  91. Some of you will remember the report a week or two ago about the walk-out at a Bristol City Council meeting at which some councillors were upset by 'gender critical' [sic] remarks from normal people. There's more…

    Council insists women be called 'people with ovaries'

    Bristol authority accused of 'virtue-signalling madness' over its call to replace sex-based terms with gender-neutral language

    Hayley Dixon, Special Correspondent
    22nd September 2025, 10:01pm BST

    A council has become embroiled in a transgender row after insisting that women should be called "people with ovaries".

    Bristol city council has been accused of offending women with "virtue-signalling madness" after claiming that legally defining sex as biological "misgenders trans people" and could lead to discrimination.

    Officials also argued that the term "maternity" should be scrapped and replaced with "paternity" to avoid offending trans people, despite the latter meaning "the fact of being a father".

    They also demanded support for biological men who wanted to "chest-feed" babies, despite questions about whether the practice is harmful.

    <…it goes on like this for another 500 words and then…>

    The issue of lesbians being able to form associations excluding biological men was a key part of the Supreme Court ruling, which noted that including trans people was having a "chilling effect".

    In response to the claim that the words gay and lesbian risk "misgendering" people, Kate Barker, chief executive officer of LGB Alliance UK, said that the terms gay, lesbian and bisexual "could not be clearer".

    "Only one group is trying to sow 'confusion': the TQ+ lobby, who seek to rob us of our language, our associations, even the ability to define our sexuality," she said.

    "It's another example of the 'new homophobia' that has taken root in our society, and it's especially galling when this delusional nonsense is egged on by elected representatives."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/22/council-says-women-called-people-with-ovaries

      1. What about the unfortunate women who have had their ovaries removed? Or people who have had hysterectomies?

        1. Well, of course, I was aware of the meaning, but not the derivation. Amazing what you learn on this site.

        1. I haven't visited Bristol that many times but from what I have observed is that the well endowed young ladies do tend to dress Bristol Ship Shape fashion!

    4. I have long thought as a Bathonian that there is something in the water in nearby Bristol. I suppose having a keen interest in Architecture has led me to this conclusion and more recent events in that city have strengthened my view.

      For example in the C18 the city fathers were obliged to import stonemasons from Bath because their own masons were Jerry builders.

      The magnificent Corn Exchange designed by John Wood (of Bath) is a particularly fine example.

      It was much the same with their architects. The best Bristolian architect in the C19 was obliged to seek work befitting his talents elsewhere and designed large parts of central Harrogate and such splendid buildings as Hull City Hall when he became city architect. For some reason that great architect was shunned in the city of his birth, wrong handshake presumably.

      All of the exceptional buildings, public buildings and the odd bridge (!) were designed by outsiders in stark contrast to Bath.

      In more recent times we witnessed a bunch of fools throw a statue of one of Bristol’s principal benefactors, Edward Colston, into the harbour and insist on changing the name on Colston Hall. The fools I read are presently removing stained glass windows from St Mary Redcliffe because of some association with Colston.

      When I was a young man I found the area of St Paul’s in Bristol to be close to a no go area on account of its occupation by aggressive Caribbean youths. I experienced a similar atmosphere many years later when I lived in Clapham Common and visited the market stalls on Electric Avenue in Brixton. Make of that what you will.

    5. I have long thought as a Bathonian that there is something in the water in nearby Bristol. I suppose having a keen interest in Architecture has led me to this conclusion and more recent events in that city have strengthened my view.

      For example in the C18 the city fathers were obliged to import stonemasons from Bath because their own masons were Jerry builders.

      The magnificent Corn Exchange designed by John Wood (of Bath) is a particularly fine example.

      It was much the same with their architects. The best Bristolian architect in the C19 was obliged to seek work befitting his talents elsewhere and designed large parts of central Harrogate and such splendid buildings as Hull City Hall when he became city architect. For some reason that great architect was shunned in the city of his birth, wrong handshake presumably.

      All of the exceptional buildings, public buildings and the odd bridge (!) were designed by outsiders in stark contrast to Bath.

      In more recent times we witnessed a bunch of fools throw a statue of one of Bristol’s principal benefactors, Edward Colston, into the harbour and insist on changing the name on Colston Hall. The fools I read are presently removing stained glass windows from St Mary Redcliffe because of some association with Colston.

      When I was a young man I found the area of St Paul’s in Bristol to be close to a no go area on account of its occupation by aggressive Caribbean youths. I experienced a similar atmosphere many years later when I lived in Clapham Common and visited the market stalls on Electric Avenue in Brixton. Make of that what you will.

      1. The whole business of constantly talking about women's private parts is completely horrible. it is bullying, plain and simple

    7. Now I'm really confused. If you call women 'people with ovaries', aren't you netting in trans men too, thus managing to offend literally everybody?

      My head hurts.

  93. Tucked inside this month's electricity bill was our local West Virginia rate schedule.

    Customer charge – $6 per month

    Energy charge – All kilowatt hours (kWh) – $0.11555

    Exchange rate is £0.74 per $1, so the energy price is £0.0855 per kWh

        3. Last month I used £12 worth of electricity, the standing charge was £17 – daylight robbery

  94. That's me for today. Bluss – it has been chilly all day, despite the sun. I am almost tempted to light the stove now, rather than after supper. I'd ask the MR but she is out picking raspberries… Then I had a two hour trip down memory lane sorting out the family photographs etc.. Very few of them will mean anything to my son and the grandchildren – so I suppose I could just have a bonfire.

    Tomorrow we are out for the day, visiting my sister-in-law who moved house last Friday. I'll take some basic tools.

    Have spiffing evening.

    A jeudi.

    1. Can't you simply write on the back of the photos a number and brief description, e.g. Photo No. 72: From left to right Auntie Mabel, Uncle Ernie, then me (Bill), the Most Recent (and her name) and so on. Then you could start to write a very brief explanatory family history for your children and grandchildren complete with a family tree to clarify who is descended from whom. I believe that when you have passed away your children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren will wish they had that knowledge. Just a suggestion, Bill – enjoy your away day.

        1. Got the same problem – a couple of huge old fashioned photo albums I saved from being thrown – but not a name on any of the pix. All look like very straight faced Victorian/Edwardian/ George V types from heir dress.

  95. It all sounds like Trump has had another good day.
    Causing a headache among the globalist elites over paracetamol and MMR scrambling the brains of western children before adulthood,
    While taking on the UN for repopulating the West with people from the third world.
    Well done to him for exposing the WEF pincer movement

    1. He has one more thing to do this week.

      He must stop the Chagos Islands betrayal at all costs.

          3. Understood, Conners, but UKIP aren’t even polling any % at all. We have to be realistic. I don’t fully trust Farage, but I’m putting my (last) hopes on Reform UK.

    2. Cynics suggest that they are only admitting that the aluminium causes health problems because they were planning to ditch it anyway for different technology.

  96. When the definition of Islamophobia is finally written will they then move on to legally defining:

    No-need-for-Religionophobia?
    Protestantophobia?
    Catholicophobia?
    Sikhophobia?
    Buddhismophobia?
    Hinduophobia?
    Methodistophobia?
    Zoroastrianophobia?
    Episcopalianophobia?
    Judaismophobia?
    Confucianismophobia?
    Bahá’íophobia
    Shintō-ophobia
    Rastafarianophobia?
    Jediophobia?
    Taoismophobia?
    Jainismophobia?
    TantricYoga-ophobia?
    Arianismophobia?
    Sethianismophobia?
    RussianOrthodoxophobia?
    Baptistophobia?
    BlackChurchophobia?
    Puritanophobia?
    Calvinismophobia?
    Presbyterianismophobia?
    Nontrinitarianismophobia?
    Ibadiophobia?
    Twelverophobia?
    Satpanthophobia?
    Gayomarthianismophobia?
    Bobo-ophobia?
    Hoodoo-ophobia?
    Shamanisnophobia?
    Guayupeophobia?
    Q’eqchiophobia?
    Tampuan animismophobia?
    Songsarekophobia?

    Or the hatred (or fear) of any other of the 4,000-odd other religions and ‘belief systems’ that permeate the planet?

    Or is the hatred (or fear) of only one of them held in such awe and in need of legal protection?

    I do not wait with bated breath!

    2. When I found out my wife was having an affair, I was heartbroken. I turned to religion to cope.

      Now I'm Muslim and we're stoning her tomorrow.

      1. Looks a bit 'brown', Sue? more like sparrow hawk? always think peregrines more blue-grey. Grizzly will know, tho'………

          2. Probably a peregrine because they are present on almost every continent. Merlins can have that hooded look, but are smaller than peregrines but are also present in the New World.

          10. A lot of fish species females do grow larger than the males. A survival trait down to more eggs and offspring and external fertilisation. I hope you know that some fish species can change sex if there's a shortage of one or the other.

          15. I had one here (wild)…but some farmers shoot anything if there’s even the slightest risk of lamb stealing.

          17. You’d think not, although I guess some really young lambs could be quite small. More likely fox, they don’t last long either.

          22. Kestrels hover. I have an App on my phone called Merlin which when activated accurately identifies birdsong.

            On a recent occasion it identified a Kingfisher, Long-tailed Tit, Kestrel, Red Kite, Buzzard, Wren and of course the Collared Dove and Wood Pigeon, the latter two species dominant in our garden.

          5. No, I don’t think so! It keeps the seaweed away from the beach, and boats!😁
            There’s a reef further out which keeps the sharks away!

          8. No, I don’t think so! It keeps the seaweed away from the beach, and boats!😁
            There’s a reef further out which keeps the sharks away!

      3. Where? I had a weird exprerience recently (and as usual i was on my own, hence no-one believed me) when i saw a large hawky bird hovering above our dutch barn. It was basically pale -to-white with serious black markings. It hoverred for ages. All my researches confirmed that it could only have been an osprey (as few other birds hover). I have now had it confirmed by an RSPB expert that it was most likely an osprey as they are secretly nesting locally.

        The bird above is a mystery

      5. Hey, Mrs Macfarlane,

        It could well be but there is little definition in that photo for a positive ID. It is certainly a falcon of some description (certainly not a hawk) but I'm not able to identify it with any certainty, Pet.

        1. Way thanks pet! It’s a bird watchers paradise here! Frigate birds, osprey, egrets, pelican, orioles and whatever that one is. I’m pretty sure it’s a juvenile peregrine and it was drying off!

          1. Could well be, Hinny. I've just looked up birds of the Dominican Republic and its markings look more akin to a merlin than a peregrine (juvenile peregrines have the same dark moustachial stripes as the adults). The only problem is rhe size since I can't judge the size of the post it's perching on.

  97. Singapore recognises the facts:-

    "Singapore will recognise the state of Palestine when it has an effective government that accepts Israel's right to exist. It must also categorically renounce terrorism."

    Unlike the West, Singapore seems to still have some common sense.

    Don't reward terrorism. Simple. https://x.com/NiohBerg/status/1970438414227943813

    2. It's a decent place for a visit. I heard that they don't put up with any argy bargy or obvious nonsense.

        1. We liked it, the hotel, transport Circular Quay. And all the other etcetera’s Twice on our way to good old Oz.

          1. All of these places are fun if you have money. We, as a nation, are about to find our how little fun it is when you don't have money. Except, of course, for the troughers who reign over us.

      2. Spent time there on business back in the '90's. One of the many places my "benevolent" employer dispatched me to, unusual in that I would happily have gone back for more.

        That was a long trip with a lot of glad handing in our various offices – first Tokyo, on to Hong Kong, then Singapore. Then New Delhi – for 6 weeks. Great hotel (the Maurya) and they tried very hard, but outside the hotel or the local office, not an attractive place. At least the company paid for 1st class flights all the way. And I did get to see the Taj Mahal.

    1. I’m on up to 4 grams of paracetamol per day. Sod Palestine.

      Got home this afternoon and had a chat with the building manager. He’s put me in touch with a neighbour who’s going to clean my flat. She does it for a living and is unfazed by the task. (Tiny studio flat full of books etc all coated in dust. Also an impressive collection of NHS equipment plus enough boxes of pills to stock a pharmacy – they’re piled up on the floor!) A friend from work went food shopping with me and carried my stuff back here. The duty porter then brought it upstairs for me. Everyone is being very kind and helpful.

      3. As they should…cleaner likely be good company, perhaps include her sayings/doings in your posts here? Very pleased to hear I'm not alone with piles of books coated in dust, even my dog gives me dirty looks…friend sounds a keeper too 🙂 take it easy x

      4. I'm also on 4 grams of paracetamol per day; I take them every six hours: keeps the blood- levels low.

        I am surprised that most paracetamol prescriptions are for: 'Morning', 'Mid-day', 'Tea-Time' and 'Bedtime'.

        I think that 09.00, 15.00, 21.00 and 03.00 makes more sense!

    3. Owing to the problems with my SIJ. I've been taking the max amount of paracetamol. Palestine is NOT a state!

  99. This is why Madeline Grant was snaffled from the DT by the Spekkie.

    Ed Davey’s speech at the Lib Dem conference began with a darkened stage on which you could just about make out outlines of people and quotes by and about him booming over the sound system. Like most things the Lib Dems do, it felt a bit like a self-consciously modern re-interpretation of Shakespeare by a group of earnest undergraduates. Two Gentlemen of Verona set in a Detroit smack den, Othello but everyone has feline HIV, that sort of thing.

    1. She's a gem, admired by all incl me. Spectator not quite what it was, but signs of improvement, MG being one.

      1. Gove is a rum cove. He has written in the Speccie about his huge admiration for Gramsci and Gentile = almost as a taunt. He has a tad of the Mandelson about him, to my mind.

  102. A small amount done today after my run into Matlock this morning.
    I've been sorting stone for facing off the lower terrace wall and partially backfilled the top retaining wall.
    Will need more soil for backfilling, so will probably start taking some of the surplus soil from the verge.

    Anyway, that's me for the day, so off to bed.
    Goodnight all.

    2. Yet the "Judge" that lectured the protester himself claimed that the very fact that he was stabbed showed that he had disturbed the peace. So he was guilty of inciting a nutter to stab him. Please make this make sense.

      1. If the boot had been on the other foot with a Muslim burning a Bible and Christian slashing at the Muslim; what would the outcome have been?
        No prizes for guessing.

  104. Evening, all. Back home now, sitting posting by candle and firelight. Not a power cut, but the bulb blew as I switched it on and I didn't fancy climbing up in the dark to change it. I had to light a fire because the house had been empty a few days and was cold. Labour never considers the consequences of its actions. It's driven by pure blind ideology.

    1. Did you have a nice few days away? The last few days have been sunny and quite warm out of the wind. A bit less windy today I think. I've been planting bulbs.

          1. Just one of the people who dressed up. There were nurses and policemen and lots of military of all sorts, civil defence, WLA, munitionettes plus wives and children.

          8. The 40s weekend. We went last year, great fun. Went to Downham Market heritage day instead this year.

  105. Seems someone threw two hand grenades into a street in Oslo. One detonated, one defused by the bomb squad.
    Good on the lads!

    2. She states that it is "Tuesday August 5th". That was seven weeks ago. Why is this being shown as thought it happened today?

      1. I have always thought this was the case, and the dinghy boats are simply a deflection to hide what is really going on.

      2. I was a bit surprised we hadn't heard more about importing Palestinians into Britain – this would explain why.

    1. And when I posted a comment that Sharia courts should be banned on The Conservative Woman it was taken down. Has Kathy Gyngell lost her nerve?

  111. Well, chums, once again my bedtime has arrived. So I wish you all a Good Night. I hope you sleep well, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

Comments are closed.