839 thoughts on “Tuesday 27 August: NHS budgets simply do not stretch to gourmet catering in hospitals”

  2. Brexit: shutting down parliament ‘gravest abuse of power in living memory’. Mon 26 Aug 2019.

    [Chakrabarti] “Whilst it is alarming that lawyers for either Her Majesty’s government or opposition should have even to consider such a scenario in our cherished mature democracy, it is equally heartening that we may rely on our courts to protect it.

    “I have no hesitation in advising that any such attempted administrative action by the government would constitute the gravest abuse of power and attack upon UK constitutional principle in living memory.”

    Morning everyone. What hypocrisy! What of the refusal to implement the result of the referendum and the MP’s own manifesto promises?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/26/brexit-shutting-down-parliament-gravest-abuse-of-power-in-living-memory-legal-advice

    2. Ah, but note the language. ‘Constitutional prinicple’. The raging anger at the thought that all those years spent getting into posts, of setting the agenda could suddenly come to an end is terrifying to her.

      People like Chakribati don’t care aobut democracy. They care about control. No doubt she considers the referendum an annoyance to be dealt with rather than an instruction to enact.

    3. Parliament has a clear mandate to implement Brexit. It was not conditional on a trade deal

      What they are talking about as a deal has nothing at all to do with a trade deal. It just covers how we leave the EU. It does not cover trade at all but does tie both our hand behind our backs when it comes to trade

    4. The Speaker is on the side of the Remainers, not the people, and Corbyn is conspiring in the HoC today with other like minded Remain MPs to delay Brexit further until there is an agreement which in Corbyn’s case means we stay in the Customs Union. What has Chakrabarti to say about that? Any delay beyond 31 October 2019 will, in my opinion, be the end of Brexit. To kill Brexit has been the Remainers stated objective since the Referendum and Chakrabarti should consider that [edited to spare comments on my apostrophes]

      1. ‘Morning, Clyde.

        Quite right. Furthermore, this government has been charged with the task of removing us from the EU. I care not how it achieves this instruction. In the face of traitorous conduct by MPs, from both parties, and three wasted years, the time has come to use all available means to defeat the wreckers, including our fifth columnist of a Speaker. The date of 31st October has been written into law, so let’s get it done.

        2. The Remainers are lying in my view when they talk about a deal. What the EU is talking about is the conditions under which we leave the EU. It has nothing at all to do with a trade deal

          1. What they actually mean is a “deal” like May’s which keeps us so closely aligned to the EU we may as well not have left.

      2. What I find comical is tha they do this with impunity, without thought or care for our will because they think they’re above it.

        If the referendum has taught the people of Britain nothing it is that our voting is pointless. Manifestos irrelevant. Elections meaningless.

      3. I think that the Remainers have accepted (at last) that we are leaving, their attention has turned to the terms under which we leave, hence all this hysteria about ‘No Deal.’ If we leave free and clear and make a success of it (which we will) then we will never return, and indeed others may follow our example. But if we leave under a Treaty, the terms of which are so punitive that we were better off as members, then we can be convinced to re-join in the future. In the meantime, we would be like a prisoner who has been let out, but then voluntarily attached a 50ft chain to his leg which ties him to the door of the prison.

    5. ‘Morning, Minty. Chuckabutty wrote a favourable report downplaying Labour’s rampant anti-semitism in return for a peerage. Consequently, I refuse to listen to any legal opinion from her. She is not even a QC. This jumped-up third-rate lawyer can go and boil her head.

      1. “Chakrabarti” instantly lost all credibility when she said that there was no real problem with Anti-Semitism in the Labour party. All for a peerage. She will go through the rest of her life being dismissed as a liar before she even says a word. I wonder if she still thinks it was worth it?

        1. The Labour party can do no wrong in her eyes as she has elevated them to Sainthood status

    2. I am a Leaver but not really sure I want to live to reach 65, let alone 85. What’s the point?

        1. Indeed. I had that moment at nine. I was top of the class at everything except history and scripture, but then asked myself – why am I doing this? What is life other than getting up, eating, going to school, going home and then going to bed?

          I now look at what humanity has done to my world since 1965 and wonder is it really better for me having been here all this time?

      2. If you have any spare years ’til you reach 65, you could auction them off on here

        Yo JM

        1. I once went for a walk with a couple of friends. We are all morris dancers. One of us had a bad back, one of us a dodgy knee, and the other a weak ankle. If we’d cannibalised all the parts, we’d have enough between us to make up one fully functioning morris dancer.

          I’ve got 18 months if someone cares to shoot me.

          3. I used to Morris dance and I have all three ailments. I still dance occasionally when I get the chance.

        1. Never been able to. How can you draw on your past experience and plan for the future if you live in the moment?

          The moment is for children and those without responsibilities.

      4. “… not really sure I want to live to reach 65, let alone 85. What’s the point?”

        The point is to see what you would have missed were you not here.

        Morning Jeremy.

  4. Good morning all.
    Up early to take the van into the Vauxhall dealer’s in Derby. The engine monitoring system is shewing a possibly spurious fault indication of injection problems.
    Fingers crossed as I’ve been advised that because of a design fault that destroys the injectors when attempts are made to remove them for testing, I could end up having to pay for a new set of injectors.

    1. That might be the long term least-expensive option. But isn’t there a diesel specialist in the area, rather than a main dealer? With any luck it’s just a dodgy glow plug.

      ‘Morning Robert.

    2. Surely not planned obsolescence? It’s not passed its warranty, and therefore due for replacement with a new one?

      Surely if there are still metal bashers in Yorkshire, they could whip out the monitoring system and replace it with something that may not be so appropriately managed, but could keep it running for decades.

      1. #MeToo

        ‘Morning, Johnny – Not Vauxhall but Bayerisch Scheiss.

        Now driving a Toyota Rav 4.

    4. Yo Bob

      ……advised that because of a design fault that destroys……

      Being a bit Peddyantic, that is a Defect ie an error in design, not a Fault

      A Fault is a ‘unserviceability’ in an otherwise functioning system

      If made to ‘pay’ for new injectors, it may be worth raising the Defect angle.

    5. ‘Morning, BoB. It might just be a case of reprogramming the injectors.

      Yes, I too would be heading for a diesel specialist. I find it very difficult to trust (and afford) a diagnosis from a main dealer. Have you searched the Honest John website? You may well find that you are not the first to suffer this problem.

  5. Edinburgh Book Festival 2019: Mark Urban. The Scotsman. 26 August 2019.

    Urban has pieced together the story of events which led to the poisoning on March 4. But why now? Perhaps the Russians decided to make an example of Skripal at a time when it could influence the political discourse back home, just two weeks before a general election.

    Russians with fake passports claiming to be tourists visiting Salisbury Cathedral make a great tale, but it can’t be forgotten that the novichok attack – which Skripal and his daughter survived – did claim the life of Dawn Sturgess, who found the discarded perfume bottle in which the nerve agent had been transported. Questions still need to be answered about how the bottle came to be found four months later, causing this second tragedy.

    I don’t know whether the author of this piece, Ms Mansfield, has actually read Urban’s book or is simply paraphrasing the official line; though there is little to choose between them one favours the latter because Sturgess did not find the bottle; that was Charley Rowley. The difficulty lies in that both refuse to address the fact of the discarded perfume bottle being sealed when found, so it could not, (if one assumes that Novichok was used) have been the one used to apply the nerve agent to the door handle of the Skripal’s house. Needless to say considerable ingenuity has been deployed to explain this incongruity (there were two bottles, it was resealed) but all founder on sheer disbelief. Why would our two secret agents have bothered to do such a thing and why dump it four months later where it could be found? Ms Mansfield adopts the standard MSM self-protective mechanism and simply ignores this and assumes it will all be explained later. It won’t.

    https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/edinburgh-festivals/edinburgh-book-festival-2019-mark-urban-javier-cercas-kirsty-wark-1-4991006

  7. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Au revoir, everyone, let’s parlez Peckham as think tank suggests migrants learn English from Rodney and Del Boy

    Plans have been announced for a new TV channel to help immigrants learn English. It’s estimated that around 850,000 people living here can’t speak the language.

    A think tank called British Future is proposing they watch classic television shows, including Only Fools And Horses and Fawlty Towers.

    This would teach them not just the basics, but how to communicate in the vernacular, like wot we do.

    It would supplement over-subscribed English classes at local colleges — including this one, at the Nelson Mandela Academy, in Peckham, South London . . .

    Au revoir, Wilko Johnson, buenaventura. My numbre, name-o, is Del Garcon Trotteur. Toujours, that is, today, I will be your — how you say? — guido fawkes to spreken zie Creme Anglais.

    Je suez un entrepreneur, whatever that is in French, and I am effluent in the canarding and diving. Je don’t connais si any of vous have voyeured ze Soixante Neuf ITV series Mind Votre Language, mais if vous avez ever seen it you will getto the idee generale.

    To assist me, je suis joined by mon plonquer d’un frere Rodney et the plume de ma tante, Oncle Alberto, who is fluento in a numero des lingos, on account of having un oiseau in every port quand he was dans le marine merchand, as we say in the tapas bar Espanol formerly known as the Tete Du Nag, run by mon villain ami Michel — qui was aussi in Il N’est Pas Chaude, Mere, sur UK D’Or.

    Je comprende that some de vous avez jusque arrivez sur Margate in un grande inflatable swan from the par four de Calais, un Jolly Buoys Outing veritable.

    Fortunatement, je hablar le mots foreign like a native — of Peckham.

    In bom dia de tempo toulez de vous willo be sprecko dos Inglesi comme un gringo who grew uppo in le Sud de Londres.

    OK? Bonnet de douche. Are vous assez confortissimo? Then, we’ll commencez. Lesson numero uno is: how to parlez Peckham.

    Premiere de tout, vous willo desiro putto a few squiddly diddlies in your sky rocket — or Pochettino, as you appelle it sur le continong, dans le mots fameuz de le legionnaire jockey de disque Jimmy Jeune, sur Radio Deux.

    Qu’est que c’est le recipe aujourd’hui, Jim?

    Ze mucho importante mot sur votre vocabularo is ‘Croydon’. Cette is the clef majique which donner und blitzen vous the access instant to the old rock’n’roll et un maison council.

    Lesson una paloma blanca is how to allez shopping.

    When down le marche, if some geezer askez vous pour un ‘pony’, il doesn’t demandez un petit cheval. Est slango for vingt-five sovs.

    Similarlo, quand acheting un voiture second-hand from Senor Boycie, when he dits it will costez vous un ‘monkey’ he doesn’t mean a chimpanzee, he means 500 of your English squiddlies.

    If le patron Michel dans le former Tete Du Nag tries to floggez vous un plateau de Boeuf Bourguignon pour un tenner, tell him vous will avez le beef stew for £2.50. Meme difference, n’est pas?

    Any questions? Parfait. Royame Uni, nul points! Je handez vous over to mon Oncle Alberto, pour un lesson Britannique historique.

    During le Guerre . . .

    Not now, Albert. Bain marie! Vous avez un question, senor at the backo? A problemo with votre accommodation, you say? Uno for Monsieur Fawlty, je croix.

    This is typical. Absolutely typical of the kind of nonsense I have to put up with from you people. You ponce in here expecting to be waited on hand and foot, while I’m trying to run a hotel here.

    Have you any idea of how much there is to do?

    Do you ever think of that? Of course not, you’re all too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking around for things to complain about, aren’t you?

    Well let me tell you something — this is exactly how Nasti Germany started. A lot of layabouts with nothing better to do than to cause trouble.

    Well I’ve had 15 years of pandering to the likes of you, and I’ve had enough. I’ve had it. Come on, pack your bags and get out…

    Mange tout, Basil. I think that’s enough for today. Until next week, willkommen, bon appetit and bonjour!

    ********************************************************************
    Deprived childhoods

    Children are spending so much time on their iPads and other electronic devices that they are missing out on the joy of having imaginary friends, according to a new report.

    Oh, I dunno.

    What are so-called ‘Facebook friends’ if not imaginary, as I was saying to my giant rabbit mate Harvey only yesterday.

    **********************************************************************
    Noddy and Socially Challenged Ears
    Dear old Keith Waterhouse, much missed former denizen of this parish, would have enjoyed the story about Enid Blyton being banned from commemorative coins for being ‘racist’ and ‘homophobic’.

    When the PC witch-hunts began donkey’s years ago, Keithy penned a fabulous spoof Blyton rewrite in response to po-faced Leftie bigots going ape about the Noddy stories featuring golliwogs.

    He called it Noddy and Socially Challenged Ears.

    *****************************************************************************
    Flushing away your cash
    People who poured more than £4 million into an eco-friendly property scheme promoted by McCloud could lose up to 97 per cent of their investments +6
    People who poured more than £4 million into an eco-friendly property scheme promoted by McCloud could lose up to 97 per cent of their investments

    Property pornographer Kevin McCloud has been having a pop at people with too many bathrooms.

    The presenter of Channel 4’s Grand Designs said: ‘Bathrooms are extremely wasteful in terms of resources, yet people are putting more in their homes than there are actual occupants,’ he said. ‘Four people live in the house and put in six toilets. I don’t understand that.’

    He may have a point but, frankly, I’m surprised he isn’t keeping his head down right now. Or, at least, giving it five minutes.

    It has been revealed that people who poured more than £4 million into an eco-friendly property scheme promoted by McCloud could lose up to 97 per cent of their investments. When it comes to flushing other people’s money down the toilet, he really does know what he’s talking about.

    ***********************************************************************88
    Calorie counting crows
    Headline of the week comes from Her Majesty’s Daily Telegraph yesterday:

    ‘Birds fed on cheeseburgers develop cholesterol issues.’ Tell us something we don’t know, I thought when I read it, judging by some of the XXL lard-butts cluttering up the streets over the Bank Holiday weekend, stuffing their faces with fast food.

    Call me old-fashioned, but what is it about young women who think that letting it all hang out is a way to behave?

    A story in the Daily Telegraph suggested high cholesterol is being seen in crows thanks to hamburger consumption +6
    A story in the Daily Telegraph suggested high cholesterol is being seen in crows thanks to hamburger consumption

    The minute the temperature goes above 70F in old money, they seem to think it’s acceptable to squeeze themselves into flimsy crop tops and spray-on Lycra shorts, flaunting more rolls of fat than a Sumo wrestlers’ convention.

    On closer reading, the story wasn’t about heart-attacks-waiting-to-happen Hattie Jacques wannabes in Britain, it was about crows in California having high levels of cholesterol in their blood after feeding on leftover McDonald’s.

    Mind you, there’s no danger of it spreading to crows in this country. There’s not a cat in hell’s chance of any of our gut-busting young women leaving so much as a crumb of a cheeseburger for the birds.

    *************************************************************************
    Saving the world, one bag of charcoal at a time
    Speaking of Del Boy (see elsewhere) you can’t help admiring the latest wheeze aimed at fleecing mug punters overcome by ‘green guilt’. A company has come up with a ‘carbon offset’ scheme as ingenious as any of the tree-planting scams designed to pander to the private jet set.

    They are promising, for a small consideration, to bury bags of charcoal at the bottom of a quarry on behalf of anyone who feels queasy about killing polar bears every time they take a journey by road or air.

    Don’t you wish you’d thought of that first? It turns out that they’re importing the charcoal from Namibia. You couldn’t make it up.

    Mind you, in the name of saving the planet, we’re getting rid of coal-fired power stations and shipping over millions of tons of woodchips from the U.S.

    No wonder the Brazilians have decided to cut out the middle man and set fire to the rainforests instead. Saves a lot of bother, and if they feel guilty they can always pay someone to bury a bag of Namibian carbon at the bottom of a redundant coal mine.

    Peckham Spring waters all round!

    1. ‘Morning, Citroen. I particularly like the last item about charcoal. The greenies are slowly but surely destroying their cause by dreaming up complete guff like this.

    3. A sure way to encourage immigrants to learn English is to stop translating all benefit forms!

  8. Good morning thinkers.

    Just wondering why the Notting hill carnival was allowed to run this year..

    How is it that thousands of police were available to be on hand to patrol it, yet many of them were injured not mentioning the chaos and the litter and filth left at the end to clear up.

    Why has a bad black stabby drug ridden thieving culture been rewarded yet again?

    2. What would Nelson have said?

      I was up in Greenwich yesterday and the the Maritime History Museum is proudly displaying one of the painted XR boats outside the entrance.

      Funny, I thought there were laws against littering ….

  9. Morning all

    SIR – I worked in hospital catering for 33 years in, 25 of those in management roles. Every year I over spent my budget. If I didn’t, it would be cut the following year. I was never once asked by management to submit sample costed menus for approval.

    There is also the matter of pay. Hospital catering managers and staff earn about 20 per cent less than those with similar responsibilities in the private sector. So how can the NHS expect to attract the best?

    Many hospitals and their kitchens are also big, old and badly designed, with out-of-date, inefficient, equipment. Food trolleys have to travel a long way to the wards. It is just not possible to send out meals for about 1,000 people within an hour and have those meals arrive in top quality.

    That said, there are hospitals with very good standards of catering. What is needed is an in-depth review of these in order to ensure that others are managed in the same way.

    Michael Hartley
    Kendal, Cumbria

    SIR – Food plays an enormous part in the healing process. I once had a friend in the Rome Policlinico, a public hospital, where meals are worked out by a clinical dietitian to suit each patient’s condition. Hospitals are not hotels or restaurant cars. Prue Leith, who has been brought in to advise on NHS menus (report, August 23), is a gourmet specialist but not the right person to reform hospital meals.

    Wendy Field
    Hayling Island, Hampshire

    1. SIR – The prime duty and purpose of the NHS is the treatment and cure of physical ailments, providing of three free meals a day.

      Those who are working or of sufficient financial means to feed ourselves at home should pay for meals while in hospital. Imagine the transformation in quality if patients were asked to contribute just £5 a day towards the food budget, and how could anyone argue that this is unreasonable or not a fair representation of the daily costs outside the hospital environment to any individual, regardless of background?

      Michael R Gordon
      Bewdley, Worcestershire

    2. After having my appendix out in Singapore, I was asked to fill in a satisfaction questionnaire in Changi Hospital about the food.

      My condition was that, except for the last day, all I was allowed to eat was very thin chicken soup with precisely one crumb of chicken the size of a grain of rice. Then they gave me some medication that had the effect of making everything they gave me on my last day, in theory a delicious fruit salad based on mango and papaya, taste like battery acid.

      I had to say I might not be the best person to pass judgement.

        1. I probably wouldn’t have done if my appendix went down a few days earlier, and I would have to brave the local PFI Special Measures acute killing machine in Worcester, sparing the NHS the cost of keeping me sane in my old age.

          2. Standing in the sun in qigong pose (arms stretched out in front) for twelve hours each day is supposed to be curative. All it requires is to be mindful, eliminating all desire, and suffering will cease.

          4. But, but, but, you’ve already said earlier that you don’t want an old age.

            I suppose if you’re insane at that time, it won’t matter.

        2. ‘Morning, Mags, Cockroaches scraped from the side of the latrines were considered very high protein food.

        3. My grandfather was interned at Changi at the age of 55. He went in weighing 180lbs and came out 3 years later weighing 95lbs.

    3. I agree with vw about airline food. When you think that on an A380 there could be 550 passengers and hot food of a reasonable standard is served in about an hour. I’m sure the cost of modifications to hospital ‘kitchen’ would be reasonable. You may scoff at the idea of airline catering but have you seen the dreadful congealed mess that patients are expected to endure.

    4. As long as J Oliver stays is kept away Editted

      Jamie Oliver Net Worth: Jamie Oliver is a well-known media personality, master chef and restaurateur who has a net worth of $300 million. Jamie Oliver has earned his net worth through his television shows, cookbooks, restaurants and endorsements.

      He has sold more than 40 million books worldwide to date.

    5. Morning all. In the matter of pay for hospital catering staff – we should not be going down the route or “to attract the best staff we have to offer similar to the private sector … “ we went down that route with all the mutual building societies and just end up increasing salaries to “compete for the best” – nice work if you can get it.
      In Spain I believe that families are expected to take in food for their relatives! Not practical, probably. In ROI, our son was in hospital for a few days and he had to pay 130 for the first few days. It’s a long time ago so not sure if that was per day but perhaps we expect too much from the NHS. But what we could do with is just fairly plain but well cooked food. Maybe the airline industry has something the NHS could learn from?
      Edited: In Spain I believe

      1. Years ago , where there were such places as long wards in hospitals, besides treatment rooms and the usual, there were also ward kitchens .

        Tea and toast , Bovril or coffee, eggs, milk, cheese , marmite, and rice crispies or cornflakes and essence of rennet for making junket for delicate diets. Nurses were capable enough of rustling something up for a hungry patient who needed something light to eat . Light nutrition was part of the healing process!

        1. My local Spire hospital has ward kitchens. I was supplied with fresh tea and toast after a diagnostic investigation some months ago.

        2. Absolutely Belle. It seems these days the nurses spend most of their time around the computer in the ward, have seen it myself when gg was hospitalised. And patients’ food left out of their reach on a tray so they end up not eating anything and then the tray is whisked away without anyone making a note that nothing has been eaten or no attempt to find out why not.

          Edited: apologies for the grammar, Grizz, or lack thereof – rushing to get out and didn’t read wot I rote!

          1. Nursing is not nursing these days . What is the point of hourly Ts and Ps checks , if the basics like slaking a thirst or addressing hunger are ignored .

    6. The nub of Mr Hartley’s letter, surely, isn’t so much the catering but that for 33 years in the job he knew what was wrong but nothing changed.

  10. Imran Khan should stop making empty threats: Naqvi on Pakistan’s nuke warning. August 27, 2019.

    Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has hit out at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan over his nuclear threat to India on Monday. Naqvi has said that Imran Khan should quit making such empty threats over and over again.

    Speaking to India Today TV, Naqvi said, “He should stop issuing such empty threats time and again and look at the condition of his own country. He will have to decide if he wishes for the support of terrorists or the world.”

    Well in my view it’s not an empty threat. This is an existential threat to Pakistan and if Khan will not fight they will replace him with someone who will and since they cannot prevail against India’s conventional forces it will escalate very quickly to a Nuclear Standoff and then who knows where?

    https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/mukhtar-abbas-naqvi-imran-khan-empty-nuclear-threat-1592038-2019-08-27

  11. Morning again

    SIR – From villains, 67 all out, to heroes, chasing down a record 359 to win, England pulled off a victory that few, if any, pundits or spectators could have foreseen.

    Ben Stokes was the main man, and his innings will remain a monument in the history of Ashes cricket for ever. However, success could not have been achieved without the contribution and support of other members of the team.

    Norman Macfarlane
    Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

  12. Good morning all. What’s all this “log in” malarkey?

    I see Archprick Welmeaning is under fire for meddling in politics – again.

    2. BTL:

      wat tommyrot,

      Full time Remain campaigner and committed socialist Welby always pokes his nose into religion, reading from the Bible in public every Christmas and Easter and jabbering about spiritual things he knows little about.

      ‘Morning, Bill

    3. These days bishops want to talk about politics and politicians about morality.

      To paraphrase Yes Prime Minister, The Bishop’s Gambit.

  13. SIR – Might I suggest that Ben Stokes’ss superb courage and refusal to give up oin winning the Ashes Test against all the odds could not be a better example to all the doubters who don’t think that the United Kingdom is capable of withstanding the strains of Brexit and coming out on top.

    Anthony Snook
    Petworth, West Sussex

    SIR – Several years ago you published my letter suggesting that “cricket highlights” were the two most depressing words in the English language.

    In the light of the events at Headingley, please allow me to retract this view publicly.

    Ruth Corderoy
    Hagbourne, Oxfordshire

    1. Ruth, the ten most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”.

  14. SIR – To hear some of the recent student rants, one might suppose that the British had invented slavery, yet it is as old as history.

    In Genesis, Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, as a result of which the Israelites were firmly under slavery in Egypt by about 1700BC. In Exodus 20, after delivering the Ten Commandments to Moses, God gave him a set of rules for the treatment of slaves, implying that slavery had already been around for long enough to have become abused and to need some regulation.

    What we must now recognise is that in the early 19th century our national conscience was woken by such figures as Thomas Clarkson and John Newton, who persuaded the influential Member for Hull, William Wilberforce, to fight for the abolition of trading in slaves through Parliament. This was finally achieved in two stages in 1807 and 1833, against the most powerful self-interest.

    That Britain, which at the time was probably deriving more benefit than any other nation from the fruits of the slave trade, should have had the courage to lead the world in renouncing the practice, while accepting the enormous economic penalties, is something of which we should be proud.

    Ted Wilson
    Hucclecote, Gloucestershire

    1. We could do with a William Wilberforce to lead the charge against the vested interests in the Climate Change scam whereby the poor pay the Green Tax and the landowners are paid subsidies to put useless windmills on their land.

  15. Lots of login! Is this because GCHQ is annoyed that we have escaped the Disqus Channels Extinction Event?

    1. Aren’t all our writings from before about a month ago about to go into the incinerator?

    2. No, it’s because the authorities have finally latched on to the fact that you don’t use commas. 😉

  16. The business of ageing

    SIR – Further to Bob Wydell’s letter (August 24), let us not forget gender-neutral beige cardigans, basket-weave shoes and interrogation-style high-beam reading lamps.

    I was almost tempted by the home stairlift, however, as the salesman looked gorgeous.

    Jane Brown
    Caterham, Surrey

  17. Sky News has just described the Black Country as a part of Birmingham. When the Yam-Yams work it out there’ll be trouble.

      1. In Lincolnshire, peeps from Leicester are called Chisitts, from there need to say

        “How much Chisitt” in every shop they go into

        Mablethorpe even has a shop named after them

    1. It rained here briefly. I thought it was supposed to be dry for weeks to come! I had to retrieve my decrepit Barbour from the car to avoid a wetting.

  20. ‘Morning All

    “The only reasonable reply to these self-styled doughty defenders of

    parliamentary democracy is: who do you think you are kidding? If these

    people cared one jot about parliament, they wouldn’t be devoting so much

    political and moral energy to trying to keep the UK inside the EU,

    an institution whose chief accomplishment has been to water down

    national parliaments through the pooling of sovereignty and the removal

    of key political and economic questions from the grubby sphere of

    national democracy. The EU supports parliamentary democracy like an

    electric chair supports your back. To pose as warriors for the rights of

    parliament in one breath and then weep and wail for the return of the

    UK to the anti-democratic bosom of the EU in the next speaks to a

    serious infantilism of the mind.

    More pressing is the question of what these supposed defenders of parliamentary democracy want parliament for. What do they want it to do?

    They are standing up for parliamentary democracy for one reason and one

    reason only: because they see parliament as the arena in which they

    might thwart the will of the people. These Brexit-loathing elitists have

    come to view parliament, not as the representative body of the people’s

    beliefs, but as a chamber in which the people’s beliefs might be

    overthrown”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/08/26/a-battle-of-two-evils/
    Ain’t THAT the truth

    1. Kenneth Clarke wants the House of Commons to become no more important than a parish council.

      There is an up-side to this – most parish councillors are not paid so we would be able to strip all our MPs of their salaries and their perks.

      1. Parish Councils carry a huge load these days, more stuff has been diverted from district councils, but we still have no real say so in important matters, just more bureaucracy and tick boxing…. and litter picking !

        1. A group of folks wanted to do a litter pick in a park recently. Previously they’ve gone to the council for advice and basically gave up. This time they didn’t bother and just got on with it.

          All government does is get in the way.

          2. Yes, I’ve just been reading all the docs related to the planning cases that will be presented on Monday. There’s also a load of other documentation I have to get my head around as well.

  21. Re NHS food,the pictures of the greying gloop are entirely typical of the meals and liquids dumped out of reach of my failng father,requests to the small swarm of nurses playing with their smartphones grouped around the computer at the ward entrance for them to do some actual nursing were met by blank sullen stares.
    The contrast with the nursing my BiL received when the NHS contracted out his operation to a private hospital are stark,menu choices ordered the previous day and willing help available at all times
    The NHS doesn’t need more money it needs an attitude change

    1. It is a roll of the dice with the NHS from my experience when I was taking care of my father. 15% of the nurses were superb and acted far beyond the call of duty. 75% were good/competent. But that last 10%… They were dangerously disinterested or full of an unjustified arrogance. I needed to take one by the hands and move her away from my father after she ignored 3 clear instructions to stop what she was about to do, as it had caused an injury to deteriorate every time it was done.

      I believe the words “If you ever do that again then I will have you charged with assault” may have passed my lips. Happily I then discovered that I could stop her coming to the house if I wished, and did not see her again. The really good Nurses carry a lot of the weight of clearing up the mistakes of the bad ones.

      1. I wonder if our friend Peddy is interested in the difference between uninterested and dIsinterested?

        1. I think he’s too busy eating his breakfast: Fried turtle with quinoa sauce a la Meredith, washed down with a cheeky little Chateau Vieux circa 1865 and finished off with a strong cuppa of Builders’ Brew.

          1. A split & toasted currant scone with butter & cheese washed down with apple juice. Good morning, Elsie.

          2. Morning, Peddy. I’m off now to the local picture house to watch Almodovar’s latest film (Pain and Glory).

        2. I know the difference & think uninterested would be the correct one in that context.

          1. …but it would spoil the alliteration, as in dangerously disiniterested.

            ‘Morning Peddy.

        3. Heh, you can take an interest in the history of Languages too far. It’s base fuction is to communicate information and ideas, and getting too bogged down in archaic nuance defeats the purpose of the tool. 🙂

          I thought that I had used the “correct” one in any case:

          “Definition of disinterested: not having the mind or feelings engaged (see engaged sense 1) : not interested.”

          It is a definite lack of feelings for the patient that I was pointing to. But I digress. 😉

          1. Disinterested means impartial, not taking sides e.g. a judge in court (in theory).

            It is the use of “archaic nuance” which enables precise communication. Modern language has a tendency to be far too sloppy & that is one reason misunderstandings occur.

            I agree with your point about lack of feelings for the patient in many cases after observing at close hand during last year’s stay in 3 local hospitals lasting 3 months.

          2. I have had long and involved conversations that have lasted a whole evening in a local watering hole, which were continued as we left to get home when they still had “last orders.” We would ignore the taxi rank and walk home as that would give us another 2 hours to continue the debate. But those discussions were on “Life, The Universe, And Everything” rather than which prefix was more accurate to a given word. 🙂

            Language does deteriorate, and is even under attack in some corners in order to limit the horizons of those who have a reduced vocabulary, but defence of it can reach into the realms of the unnecessary. 🙂

          3. This of course is one of the points raised in ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ where the Big Brother state deliberately set about reducing the language’s vocabulary because, with fewer words at one’s disposal, one could not develop or express one’s ideas so clearly. Newspeak seems to have become quite popular in today’s Britain.

          4. Exacto.

            In my early days in Sweden, before I developed fluency, I insisted on holding any serious discussions with my boss in German (she spoke pretty good German). I repeatedly told her that I could convey only “black & white” in Swedish, whereas in German I had every shade of grey at my disposal to express nuances.

            It wasn’t until 3 years later, after I had handed in my notice to quit, that the stupid cow revealed that she spoke reasonable English.

      2. Sadly that’s not just nursing. There are a lot of professions where the diligent carry the loafer.

    2. I argued all this with Andy much to the dismay of almost everyone here.

      Circle did a great job at Hinchingbrook !

    3. I have to say that when I stayed in the RSH for a week, I was able to order my meals (once I felt well enough to eat them) the day before and there was a good choice.

  23. These scum are laughing at us,time to get a grip Priti,any party that campaigned for any foreigner or dual national sentenced to more than one year in prison to be automatcally deported with no right of appeal,I fully support the “Right to a family life” deport the bloody lot

    Of course we would have to sack the liberal judges first or there would be an explosion of 11 month sentences.

    “Albanian

    criminals are brazenly mocking British justice by mounting increasingly

    violent burglaries and issuing defiant social media posts from inside

    jails

    The Daily Telegraph has obtained Instagram images from the private

    accounts of Fabion Kuci and Azem Dajci, currently in Wormwood Scrubs

    jail for aggravated burglary during which they were caught with a gun

    and ammunition.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/08/26/albanian-gangs-mock-british-justice-mount-violent-burglaries/

    1. Were they caught with the gun on the prison or were they sent to prison for having the gun in their criminal activity?

    1. It’s about time that the NHC was allowed to run without any police presence whatsoever.

      Then we would get a much better picture of what criminal forces are really at work there.

    1. Morning Plum

      So he is decluttering his handbags and his gladrags ♪♫♬

      Everything gathers dust. I have to say that I would really appreciate the minimalist life we had when we first got married.

      We need to declutter badly , and I haven’t a clue where to start.

      2. Morning, M.

        Handbags and Gladrags?

        Written by: Mike D’Abo.
        Best version: Stereophonics.

  28. BBC Radio 4 News this morning reporting that Boris is planning to add a fairly large number of Leave MPs into the House of Lords in batches of 6 to balance the number of Conservatives in the House. When will this madness end, the HoL is overcrowded as it is or is it to placate the Leave contingent if Boris fails in his attempt to leave the EU in a clean break on WTO terms?

    3. I’d gladly accept one; I manned street stalls, delivered leaflets, made speeches at meetings, liaised with GO and Leave.EU as well as UKIP. There won’t be any grass-roots activists honoured, though.

  29. These were posted on an Australian
    Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website
    officials, who obviously have a great sense of humour (not to mention a low
    tolerance threshold for cretins!)

    Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV;
    how do the plants grow? (UK).

    A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them
    die.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? ( USA )

    A:Depends how much you’ve been drinking.

    __________________________________________________

    Q:I want to walk from Perth to Sydney – can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)

    A: Sure, it’s only three thousand miles, take lots of water.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a
    list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? ( UK )

    A: What did your last slave die of?

    __________________________________________________

    Q:Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia ? (USA)

    A: A-Fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe.

    Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which does not…

    … Oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross.
    Come naked.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)

    A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and
    we’ll send the rest of the directions.

    _________________________________________________

    Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)

    A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do…

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys’ Choir schedule? (USA)

    A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is… Oh
    forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings
    Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? ( UK )

    A: You are a British politician, right?

    __________________________________________________

    Q:Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)

    A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is
    illegal.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense
    rattlesnake serum. (USA)

    A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian
    snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

    __________________________________________________

    Q:I have a question about a famous animal in Australia , but I forget its
    name. It’s a kind of bear and lives in trees. (USA)

    A: It’s called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum
    trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them
    off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

    __________________________________________________

    Q:I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell
    me where I can sell it in Australia? (USA)

    A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? ( France )

    A: Only at Christmas.

    __________________________________________________

    Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)

    A: Yes, but you’ll have to learn it first
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2516a383b88d39167b7d429c7acb4d89e4aad4fe619c43811cc7306b2f0aaa2.jpg

    2. ‘Morning, Tom.

      I’m saving that last picture. :•)

      On the flip side, the teenage daughter of Swedish friends of mine went to Oz and got bombarded with similar halfwit questions.

      Sample:

      “Sweden? Do you get polar bears in your garden?”

      “Do you live in igloos?”

      “Do you have electricity and running water?”

      “Has television reached you yet?” [Answer: “Yeah, in 1954. Two years before Australia!”]

    2. Please record the following details:

      * A clear photograph

      * Date of capture or sighting n Location of capture (grid reference if possible) and details of the site

      * Method of capture

      *How did it taste?

      So, the Dorset rivers aren’t drying up after all.

    3. Good news. Nice fishes. I’m surprised a good news story involving Russia managed to get passed the censors.

      Good morning, Belle.

  31. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    This is how Welby and his bishops plan to achieve their ‘conciliation’ exercise:

    “Based on the model

    used in Ireland in 2016 to debate abortion, the assembly would be made

    up of a representative group of 100 people. It would meet several times

    in Coventry Cathedral next month, before putting its proposals to

    parliament.” (link, paywalled)

    One hundred people? Selected by whom? Welby?

    Will they all be Anglicans or will it be an ‘ecumenical’ group? You

    really couldn’t make it up! At least it got Welby into the headlines …

    And finally: “Boris Johnson unveils plans to flood Lords with dozens of Leave heroes to secure Brexit” (link). Please let me know if your name is on that list! After all, the truly unsung ‘Leave Heroes’ – that’s us!

    So, in the hope that you might end up in the HoL –

    KBO!

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-tuesday-27th-august-2019/
    Me please,with 300 quid a day I could revert to my former lifestyle!!

    2. ‘Morning, Rik. Just finished reading yesterday’s (free) Murdoch Rag (I’m obviously a slow reader) wherein Welby is reported to have spoken out against a no-deal exit and has told the H of L that such an exit “…would not only be a political and practical failure but a moral one, equally as serious as ignoring the result of the referendum entirely.”

      This is exactly what many of the cross-party group of MPs are aiming for, or is he too stupid to realise this? Listen, Mr Welby, if you want to get into politics then resign and stand for election to Parliament. Alternatively, spend your time trying to rescue the Church of England from a slow but certain death. You can’t have it both ways.

      What a terrible disappointment that man has turned out to be.

      1. Well the MP’s rejected the only Withdrawal deal on the table(Remember this has nothing at all to do with a trade deal)

        So what is this mysterious deal they want us to leave on?

        1. I think you will find, Bill, that all of this is a smokescreen, because they don’t want us to leave at all.

      2. Welby is a globalist. Religion is very much a side issue, even just a hobby for him. I read one interview where he said that the bad things happening in the world have sometimes made him question the existence of God at all. That statement from from the head of the Church of England tells you how much trouble they are in.

  32. Pru Leith to look at improving hospital food. How many of these so called celebrity chefs have played around it Jamie Oliver had a go with Hospital & Schools food and both were failures

    These people in my view do not have the required skills or expertise. Knocking up a few meals in a restaurant is a very different ball game to mass catering

    1. The difference as we can derive from shows like Masterchef, is that the chefs take a side of beef weighing several kilos and dish up four portions of 5 ounces.

      2. Well Lammy old chap, why don’t you try the the Edward II experience?
        Celebrate bigly.

          1. He might enjoy them and he could call in the Abbottagottalottabottomus to assist and we might nor have a sufficient surfeit..

  34. Why are TV presenters paid so much? It is hardly a highly skilled job and with al the reality programs it can be seen many people can do a presenting job. How can they be paid more than say a surgeon? or say a private company boss (Not talking about big corporations or Multi nationals here)

    2. Bill – They need to find people who will sell their soul for money. To look into the screen and read the disinformation and lies that the station owners put in front of them. They need to be prepared to verbally attack, undermine and dismiss the arguments of honest people who are trying to make the world a better place. They need to help drag people and society into darkness and still smile at the camera.

      There is not enough money in the world to make me act that way.

      1. “There is not enough money in the world to make me act that way.”

        Tell me you’re kidding…..

        2. Plum – There is nothing that the globalists can offer me that I want. Many people feel the same way. 🙂

          1. She: What kind of woman do you think I am?
            He: We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.
            GBS

  35. Violent Albanian gangsters taunt UK police

    Albanian criminals are mocking British justice by mounting increasingly violent burglaries and issuing defiant social media posts from inside jails.

    The Daily Telegraph has obtained Instagram images from the private accounts of Fabion Kuci and Azem Dajci, currently in Wormwood Scrubs jail for aggravated burglary during which they were caught with a gun and ammunition.

    They are part of a worrying new trend where Albanian gangs have turned to violent raids on homes in the south of England to steal cash and jewellery, which is smuggled back to Albania to be fenced on the black market.

    Police in London, Kent and Surrey have issued “wanted” alerts for at least five Albanian criminals behind a string of aggravated burglaries. The violent tactics are the trademark of so-called Albanian “Falcon” gangs that have terrorised families in southern Europe but are now being adopted in the UK.

    Chief Insp Jim Corbett said: “These offenders have callously robbed, stolen or burgled from communities, commuters and tourists within London, often using violence and weapons, for their own financial gain.” THEY are known as the “Falcons” in Albania where there is even a popular comedy show that has a dedicated slot each week about their ability to break into houses to steal goods.

    Their tactics of violent burglary, often while their victims are in, have terrorised homeowners in Italy and Spain but appear to have now spread to the UK, according to police.

    Fabion Kuci and Azem Dajci are two such Falcons, currently in Wormwood Scrubs jail for aggravated burglary during which they were caught with a gun and ammunition.

    Police in London, Kent and Surrey have issued “wanted” alerts for at least five other Albanian criminals behind a string of aggravated burglaries across the south of England.

    Of course, it goes without saying (but I’ll say it regardless) that if I were in charge of the country (or the EU, or the world), then proper punishment would be reinstated to deal with scum like this. Touch-feely Liberal “punishments” would be consigned to the dustbin of history as I reinstated the birch rod, the cat o’ nine tails and the rope.

    I would get mediæval (nay, biblical) on their arses!

    Decent, law-abiding, citizens would then be able to reclaim their country and live happily ever after.

          1. National psyche, ingrained corruption, and a paucity of the rule of law.

            [I’ve already said “Morning, M” below :•) ]

          2. …or above, if you read chronologically.

            Better to say earlier and then it matters naught which way up you read.

            I think I too, wished you a Good morning, earlier.

    4. Why are they allowed to post on social media with their phones presumably? Phones should be confiscated as soon as someone is jailed IMO.

    5. Forget the biblical punishment, Grizzly. Wasn’t there some English king on whom punishment was meted out with a red hot poker? Much more effective, I would have thought.

          1. Very good.

            That was Teddy one, an early example of the Democratic penchant for unfortunate “accidents” befalling the inconvenient ones.

    6. I have said this before but the police seem to be confining their action to hand-wringing and wailing like Cassandra in Up Pompeii, with just about as much effect.
      No Albanian has any right of abode in the UK. Round them all up and deport them, without access to lawyers, or time to let their feet touch the ground.
      They can sue us from Albania, or wherever we choose to dump them.

  36. Delingpole,he’s right,Brexit is not the end,it’s the beginning of the pushback

    “There is no shortage of similar examples of the ‘political

    correctness gone mad’ which has hijacked British culture. But the people

    enforcing it are a tiny minority of committed Social Justice Warriors —

    most of them educated in some worthless degree subject like gender

    studies, often ‘working’ either in the human resources department or one

    with ‘diversity’, ‘equality’, or ‘sustainability’ in their title —

    entirely at odds with the way most of the country still thinks.

    Like the Soviet Politburo or China’s Central Committee, they are the

    very few who exert extraordinary — indeed, terrifying — power over the

    many.

    True to Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s call for a ‘long march through the

    institutions’, these people have gained key positions of power the

    length and breadth of British culture.

    The Traitors’ Chart illustrates the scale of the problem. The leftist

    web of influence extends from avowedly socialist organisations like

    Labour, Momentum, Sinn Fein, the trade unions to an organisations that

    pretend they’re about something else — Stop the War Coalition; Stand Up

    To Racism; Hope Not Hate, etc — to organisations that in theory ought to

    be above politics but are in fact largely in thrall to left-wing values

    (eg Channel 4 and the BBC; the universities; the British Medical

    Association; etc).

    If and when Boris Johnson delivers Brexit, it will be only the

    beginning of Britain’s retreat from the abyss. Britain cannot be truly

    great again until these issues — and so many more — begin to be

    addressed.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/08/27/british-culture-thrall-radical-left-boris-over-to-you/
    Tackling Common Purpose would be a bloody good start,ban any public funding of their courses

    2. Can we start by binning the word issues and reintroduce problems, as that is what they are.

    3. Seb Gorka: in the 1930s, “the pessimists went to America. The optimists went to Auschwitz…”

        1. But Greta Iceberg says it’s all melting. Difficult being on the wrong end of facts, isn’t it.

    2. Such a bugger when facts get in the way of a Beeb scare story. No doubt they will propose to increase the licence fee to overcome such trifling problems.
      Time it was made a subscription service.

    1. Your agapanthus are still in flower? Mine finished a couple of weeks ago.
      My garden is also suffering from a lack of rain. The grass looked great early last week, but a week of 30+C is starting to dry it out. 😞

    2. You have such a beautiful garden Plum. Ours is looking very thirsty just now and it’s not again today.
      Edit: It’ hot s again today.
      BTW, is that the bike shed? 😊😊😊

          4. Thank you 🙂 It’s been a good year for pears this year; trees that haven’t fruited before have now got a crop. Ditto hazelnuts. On the other hand, the plums, gages and grapevines aren’t as laden.

  40. When burning down an ancient cathedral, is it more worthy to knock the cathedral down first, so one is only burning builders’ debris?

    1. I am amazed and disgusted that these people get great thrills from thrashing boys.. why oh why.

      Were they in turn thrashed as lads as well.

      The church has a sadomasochistic streak, and it appears that these people want to crawl to hell paying penance.

      1. It’s not the Church.
        It’s the perverts that use it as a cover, or excuse, for their behaviour.

        1. Corporal punishment was legal and common in Scottish schools for the entire time I was there. I was a fairly frequent recipient in accordance with the mores of the times. Barbaric. I’m not sure that it was particularly effective. Disciplinary problems may be more related to lack of standards demanded of pupils rather than any particular enforcement methods.

          1. It was “on the books” when I was at school, but rarely used as extra work and/or detentions were lot more effective. You definitely did not want to be “disciplined” by the Head of House, who might well have been Captain of Rugby or a top athlete, with an arm much stronger than a doddery old Latin master.

      2. They probably were beaten in their youth, and what they do later is some sort of “payback” for what happened to them. Same with the “kiddie fiddlers”, they were usually abused as children. The problem with churches as organizations is that they in effect provided cover for such activities, as for many years parents would never have accepted that the good Father or Reverend would touch up young boys or girls. At least today, people’s eyes are open a lot wider and the lid has come much of the abuse done.

        Of course the RC Church does not help with its rules on celibacy – those urges will come out somewhere.

      1. Morning, Belle. Warm and sunny here. I am fine and going into Royal Bournemouth for a prostate op on 6th September. I have been waiting for 7 months.

        1. Sorry you have had to wait so long , that is a real nuisance .

          I had to attend their eye clinic last week re a retinal tear repair, and it took an hour to get there, the traffic was terrible .

        4. I hope you make a full and speedy recovery

          My wife had to wait nine months each time my prostate functioned properly

  43. Why is Mr Johnson sending a bloke to Brussels?

    Why doesn’t he tell the EUSSR Commissars that if they want to talk, 10 Downing Street SW1 will find him?

    1. You said that before. Or maybe it was someone else…………
      He’s obviously sent the guy there to get him out of the way.

      1. Of course I did. I am always repeating myself.

        That the bloke is called “David Frost” is worrying. I thought he was dead.

        1. Well a dead negotiator is better than one who rolls over and agrees to everything demanded.

  45. Just heard on the wireless, the BBC is to bring out an all-singing, all-dancing device to compete with ‘Alexa’ and ‘Siri’. It will be activated by using the word ‘Beeb’.

    WTF are the beeboids playing at? According to the BBC Charter, it’s supposed to be a public service broadcaster, not a private tech company in competition with Amazon and Apple.

    And yet it constantly complains of a lack of money and seeks to increase the TV tax. High time Lord Hall-Hall and his minions were reined-in.

    3. The BBC’s aim is to rule the media world, pure and simple. And with a guaranteed income it can afford to splash the cash.

    5. They are completely barmy.

      Siri took 2 decades to develop with Apple’s considerable resources being thrown at it for a decade. Cortana took more than 5 years to develop with the considerable resources of Microsoft behind it. Google assistant took more than 5 years to get off the ground and is linked to one of the largest and most finely tuned neural networks in the world. Alexa has over 5000 staff working on it and took at least 5 years to be production ready. The Beeb reckons it can do it in 18 months despite not having the resources of the American giants or the number of developers of Amazon.

      What are they thinking? Who would even use it?

    6. Because as ever, the BBC will watch a new development, see that it is successful and say: “That’s our job, then muscle in with the licence fee, despite having taken no commercial risk.

      After the debacle of the Digital Media Initiative (£100 million wasted) you might think that they had learned their lesson but that’s not the BBC way.

    4. It must be 2 years since I went to Lidl. The only one of those many delicious German dishes listed which I’ve seen there is the Sauerkraut.

      I thought it was a very ignorant & biased report.

  47. LBC reporting that 40,000 failed asylum seekers remain in the UK. These are people that have applied for asylum and failed to gain residency. Why are they still here when the law has decided that they do not have a case to stay?
    With an unknown number of illegal immigrants in the country, swelling by each day the Channel remains reasonably calm or trucks land here and unload their “cargo”, it remains clear that the protection of this country’s shores and those legally living here is a very low priority for Governments of any stripe. One can only suspect that our elected representatives are working to an agenda that they are not prepared to put to the electorate.

    1. Because the wazzocks who refused them permission to stay don’t know, now, where they are.

  49. I expect most of us will say this is photoshopped. It may well be simply a piece of art.

    This year, 95% of the budget for forest protection in the Amazon has been transferred to agricultural development. It is a deliberate political decision to return to the level of deforestation of the 1990s and 2000s because they can, and Bolsonaro is backed by Trump and Netanyahu, who think this sort of thing is bigly beautiful.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f12c9138a3f71fbaf2a8a7fe041ab90e69542e738a3d6bb30a2542adea6c7805.jpg

      1. What claim? That Netanyahu is the only person Bolsanaro will accept aid from – all others (a pathetic £20 million on fire extinguishers to put out 75,000 fires spanning half a continent, much of which being recently-felled timber) are considered a form of “colonialism” or that Trump’s whole empire was built on real estate development.

        Evidence will be ignored anyway. It doesn’t fit the agenda.

          1. I don’t think he cares. It’s just a form of site clearance for a development programme. Nice to keep the trees, but not that important. He’s not President of Brazil though.

          2. So now you’re backpedalling.

            You have no evidence at all to claim Donald thinks Amazon fires are “bigly beautiful”.

          6. “You have no evidence at all to claim Donald thinks Amazon fires are “bigly beautiful”.”

            But the development programme is.

          7. You made a claim that Donald thinks Amazon fires are “bigly beautiful”.

            Do you withdraw that claim ?

          10. He wants it comprehensively redeveloped, which on a practical level is the same thing.

        2. I read yesterday that Bolsanaro thought it pathetic that the entire help that the G7 nations could offer him was around £15 millions. Since Boris pledged £10 million from the UK, that suggests that that we are to be twice as generous as the rest of the G7 put together – we must be mad!

          1. I don’t think Bolsonaro was fretting about the small size of the aid on offer.

            He didn’t want foreigners interfering at all with what he wants to do to the great forests. He regards it as a form of colonialism for others to tell him not to slash and burn the Amazon, and everyone else can go and get stuffed, and damned well put up with the smoke, the disruptions to climate patterns and the mass migrations that must follow failed harvests. He’s doing all right, and that’s all that counts.

          2. I agree – it is like throwing good money after bad, but as the Duke of Windsor once said – something must be done.

            I once gave £20 for the planting of olive trees in Bethlehem, knowing full well that five years hence, just as they are about to come into fruit, gangs of settlers protected by armed militia would descend from the hills and cut them down.

    2. I can believe that, I really can, and the world must wake up to the disaster inflicted on animal life and plant species .

      The world is on fire , so much has been lost, and our weather patterns will become even more skew wiff when our equatorial forests are ruined.

      1. Indeed, you and I are like the monkeys here, terrified and huddling together.

        It’s not just the Amazon – apparently it’s even worse in Africa right now, and the smoke from Indonesia’s forests long blanketed much of south-east Asia a while ago, rendering the orang utan (perhaps the most intelligent and gentle of all the great apes) an endangered species.

        How can 7.7 billion people aspire to the lifestyles of Americans?

        1. “How can 7.7 billion people aspire to the lifestyles of Americans?”

          Because they are told it is Nirvana and Shangri-La all rolled into one, by the MSM; and the fools believe it.

      2. It’s a grotesque claim without any evidence at all that Donald thinks Amazon fires are “bigly beautiful”.

    3. Horrific though this is, does it occur to you that the eco-loons and the bleeding hearts might be an underlying cause of this.

      They are the ones who want to impoverish the West by the climate change scam to enrich the developing world. They are the ones who demand eradication of “poverty” to bring the world’s masses’ living standards to those of the developed world, but not over centuries as it took the “West” but as fast as possible.

      The UK’s miniscule contribution, relative to that of China, India and probably Brazil, isn’t going to change that.

      The developing world’s population is growing exponentially, partially as a direct result of aid.

      Brazil’s population has grown by over 150 million in my lifetime.

      1. You hit the nail on the head here.

        The catastrophic degradation to the Earth’s natural resources is real enough. Unlike you, I do not believe that climate change is a scam. If anything, we have underestimated the problem. Does it matter though? I am sufficiently satisfied that all is not well with the world, and think that to get detailed information, item by item, about what is causing the trouble, all backed up and legally verifiable, is wasting time and tantamount to Nero fiddling.

        Yet it could well be aid that is fuelling the population explosion by decimating the death rate in these countries, while they are still breeding like mad, and their offspring surviving and breeding themselves, thanks to aid.

        There was a cultural time lag of a couple of centuries in our own continent between the Industrial Revolution and the prosperity that brought, and the new gender puritanism of the present age that means that even in my sixties, I do not have any grandchildren. Japan is largely populated by pensioners today. During the interim period, Europeans colonised much of the rest of the world. I also have to say that the world’s population as late as 1927 (less than a century ago) was 2 billion. My mother was born in 1925.

        1. There are several reasons why I am convinced it is a scam.
          The climate “scientists” have been wrong time and time again.
          They have been found changing data to suit their case.
          They will not accept any questioning of their “science” and shut down debate with “denier” being the equivalent of the medieval blood libel.

          The IPCC has been saying for some time that its principal aim is wealth transfer.
          A lot of people are making huge amounts of cash on the back of it.

          1. And with every day that passes our electricity supply becomes less reliable and more expensive.

          2. True. As it was when the power stations and the grids were built a century or so ago, human ingenuity need not stop now.

            I remember reading not long ago about the wondrous properties of graphene (a layer of molecular carbon one atom thick, and easy and cheap to make) when it comes to storing electricity. Storage has always been the issue with intermittent sources of power (such as solar or wind). Graphene, perhaps sprayed into the frames of cars using cheap 3D printer technology, provides a storage capacity widely distributed and accessible simply by providing charging points everywhere. These are provided free of charge in Norway in return for using private cars as storage for the grid.

            What happens is that everyone’s car batteries are used to power up the telly and cook the evening meal, are charged overnight enough to get to work in the morning, but then get a full charge during the day when the car is parked. It’s not perfect and needs some tweaking, but it’s better than not doing it. Much will depend on working out a pricing structure, so that travelling and charging needs are optimised – something a computer could work out better than I could. All it needs then is the business incentive to make it happen, and we are away.

          3. Solar and wind are useless – and ugly. Even if storage technology becomes available, these pointless devices remain pointless because of the tiny and irregular amounts of energy they produce.

          4. The panels on my roof are not that useless. Over the year, I generate about the same amount of electricity as I consume.

          7. How many householders can afford them? How many have enough roof space? How many householders use gas? Solar won’t replace that. And how does industrial and commercial usage compare with residential?

            Scratching the surface.

          8. Every little helps.

            What’s wrong with a bit of inventiveness, rather than putting all the eggs into one French-owned, Saudi-financed, Chinese-run nuclear basket case?

          9. Every little doesn’t help if it comes at great cost for minimal return.

            What is your bit of inventiveness that is going to produce the large amounts of electricity we will need when our squandered gas supplies run out 25 years early? Hinkley (I assume you are referring to that) has certainly been a good example of the abject failure of energy policy over the last 30 years (and the incompetence of government as a whole) but there isn’t yet any alternative to large scale electricity production in conventional power stations, whatever the fuel.

            ,

          10. It won’t, and yes it is a big problem.

            One answer is to magic enough electricity to supply the aspirations of 10 billion people. The other is to need less electricity yet maintain a similar quality of life.

            IT and the internet certainly reduces the requirement to commute to offices to run our affairs. Yet the internet also consumes quite vast amounts of electricity to keep the servers and the global data transmission grid going. Going to work also provides human companionship that is denied us, a social animal, when we stop at home staring at screens for a living. We might well need to learn to get on with our neighbours once more, as we once took for granted long ago before we got smartphones.

            One simple device I encountered in the Philippines was the nipa hut. By weaving alternately light and dark palm leaves into wall panels, homes there are kept ventilated with microcurrents of air, similar to the way zebras do it. It reduces greatly the reliance on air conditioning to maintain comfort, required when homes are made from concrete and roofed with corrugated iron. Traditional nipa huts are expensive though, and there aren’t the palm trees there once were because of deforestation. There needs to be a way to synthesise the same thing artificially and cheaply.

            Back home, the problem here is more keeping homes snug in winter. Sheep’s wool, straw, shredded and fireproofed recycled paper and building blocks made from waste plastic held together with lime blown through with CO2 to assist curing are proving quite effective insulation materials and much better than concrete.

          12. Are you incapable of understanding that some folk do not rely completely on the BBC for their understanding, but can work things out for themselves?

        2. What you believe Jeremy is that climate change is anthropogenic rather than reliably unpredictable and that one molecule of co2 per hundred of other molecules is a harbinger of doom rather than a fortuitous plant booster that is greening the planet? What I cannot understand is that people like you have imbibed this wholly without experimental evidence as a truth that defies physics and corrupts millions.

          1. I do believe it is complex, and we have not even begun to unravel all the ways it could go. Of course there are natural forces at work, as there are anthropogenic. Some may mitigate; others may exaggerate; and many might carry on regardless overpowering any human intervention.

            What I do know is that there are many more endangered species at risk of extinction today than there were when I was a child. Do you deny this? I also think it is madness to interfere on a global scale with the CO2/O2 balance between plants and animals and no good will come of it. To exploit CO2 as a plant booster, we need the plants to boost, not a burnt out desert that can grow soya or raise cattle for a few seasons and then dry up for lack of rain.

            The wilful ignorance of people appals me.

          2. Me too. I think it wilfully ignorant to imagine that anywhere in this world at any time has man’s influence on global weather been identified. I think it wilfully ignorant to reverse the relationship between CO2 and temperature and I think that a trace gas at 0.04% of the atmosphere cannot physically do what is claimed for it and to imagine it can is to ignore the laws of of science, wilfully

    4. This reminds me of poor old Shylock whose cruel daughter, Jessica, stole the ring of his wife, Leah, in order to buy a monkey. As the poor old Jew exclaimed , he would not have traded his late wife’s ring for a wilderness of monkeys.

  50. Was sunny, now cloudy and down to 19.9C… Actually, I’d like some rain to provoke budding on the hedge I’ve just decimated.

  51. Corbyn and fellow conspirators have agreed a plan to stop a NoDeal Brexit [The Independent] I hope someone has the details.

    1. Nigel Farage unveils 635-strong army of Brexit Party MP candidates as he warns Boris Johnson not to ‘sell out’ Leave voters
      Nigel Farage unveils slate of 635 Brexit Party MP candidates at event in London
      Came after he said Boris Johnson would get ‘big majority’ by working together
      But he suggested an alliance was unlikely because of PM’s current Brexit stance
      Mr Farage vowed to ‘fight Tories in every seat’ unless they back a No Deal Brexit

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7398303/Nigel-Farage-claims-Tories-Brexit-Party-unstoppable-worked-together.html

      1. Afternoon T-B – I think Boris is cracking. His idea of making a lot of Brexiteers Lords is a sign he wants rid of them and on Radio BBC 4 News there was a hint that the conservatives would support the WA if the Backstop was removed. Boris needs to clarify what is going on in 10 Downing Street and inside Boris’s head. I would like to see a list of who are attending Corbyn’s meetings. Is Bercow there and Hammond?

        1. Good Luck with getting a list.
          I asked the No 10 office for a list of the people present when Mrs May made her Lancaster House speech all those years ago. They told me they did not have a list. (Think about that. Terrorists wandering in, Russian agitators, Hawkers, Lottery sellers, school parties on a day out…)

          1. I would like to know if Bercow was present. His involvement in the plan is critical if it is to succeed.

      2. T-B – Boris has got to deliver a No Deal Brexit as that is all he will get from the EU until we have left the EU completely with no strings attached.. A vote before Brexit should not be on the table.

        1. Not strictly true; it is possible that the EU could suddenly decide they would re-open the backstop and make some minor tweak which Bojo would then hail as a major breakthrough. The backstop has been solved! May’s deal is now okay (only we all know it isn’t). I have no faith whatsoever in that lot in Westminster.

  52. We have had heavy rain for about 2 hours, now dry

    We are now back in the tropics, it is hot and steamy .. really warm , high 20’s I would imagine.

  53. Social media-loving schoolgirl, 15, killed herself after spending hours in her bedroom posting photos and statuses from her phone in a quest to get ‘likes’

    I think a lot of this comes from over protective parents who try to shelter their children from the real world. I dont think she can blame social media for this

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/children/social-media-loving-schoolgirl-15-killed-herself-after-spending-hours-in-her-bedroom-posting-photos-and-statuses-from-her-phone-in-a-quest-to-get-likes/ar-AAGiYKG?ocid=spartandhp

    1. That is just an advertising spiel, asking for money …donate, donate, donate…..
      The suicide is sad, but the evidence goes the other way; the parents didn’t know how to handle her.
      They didn’t know what to do because kids are addicted to a game played in an unreal world instead of growing up in the real one.
      The social media providers are laughing all the way to the bank.

      1. The earlier news had him found in an off shore wind farm. More invaders today. Not many get returned to Europe.

  56. Nigel Farage today signalled that his Brexit Party would be prepared to make a General Election pact with the Tories if they back a no-deal exit from the EU.

      1. That’s why they’ll probably lose, and we’ll either get Labour (God help us) or a hung parliament.
        Boris needs to wake up and do a deal with Farage…

        1. Yes, the greatest danger currently is splitting the right wing vote. All party leaders always insist that there will be no pacts, but as the date draws nearer that may well change. Still, BoJo is well ahead in the polls and I sense that TBP could be well down come a GE. Many voted for them on the basis that the EU didn’t really matter so let’s rub the Tories’ noses in it by giving them a bluddy good thrashing. I can’t see that happening again unless they really foul it up again, i.e. if someone as bad as May was running the campaign.

      2. If Boris Johnson tries to get any part of May’s surrender WA through then that will be the end of the Conservative Party and the end of Boris Johnson.

        If a general election resulting in a totally new composition of the House of Commons is needed to get a proper Brexit then both Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson must forget their personal hubris, decide that Brexit is more important than either of them and form an electoral pact between the Conservative and Brexit parties with the Brexit Party contesting seats where deselected Tories used to sit before being sacked and seats where the Conservative Party has no chance of winning.

        I am sure that Nigel Farage truly wants the best Brexit possible for Britain. I am less sure that Boris Johnson does.

  57. The temperature on the computer here is 27 centigrade, or celsius or whatever.
    That’s 80 Farenheit (German word?) as we would have said years back. That is hot.
    Used to call it weather. Now it’s climate change. Time to get on a yacht and get some wind in your face at sea.

        1. 73 now – 71 at the time of the photo which was taken off the coast near Bozburun. Our second son, Henry (23), and his girlfriend, Jessica,(24) will be joining us aboard Mianda for a couple of weeks which will be fun. We shall probably go to Symi an island in the Greek Dodecanese islands. (In the photo Caroline is on the gangplank in Symi harbour.)

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e1b420d2bc540f681d9edc8ba3b8483d50533fd508897f82660cd99739e785c.jpg

          2. Wonderful. Have a great time as i’m sure you will.

            You make Caroline walk the gangplank !

  58. Bit of nostalgia

    Back in the days of tanners and bobs,
    When Mothers had patience and Fathers had jobs.
    When football team families wore hand me down shoes,
    And T.V gave only two channels to choose.

    Back in the days of three penny bits,
    when schools employed nurses to search for your nits.
    When snowballs were harmless; ice slides were permitted
    and all of your jumpers were warm and hand knitted.

    Back in the days of hot ginger beers,
    when children remained so for more than six years.
    When children respected what older folks said,
    and pot was a thing you kept under your bed.

    Back in the days of Listen with Mother,
    when neighbours were friendly and talked to each other.
    When cars were so rare you could play in the street.
    When Doctors made house calls and Police walked the beat.

    Back in the days of Milligan’s Goons,
    when butter was butter and songs all had tunes.
    It was dumplings for dinner and trifle for tea,
    and your annual break was a day by the sea.

    Back in the days of Dixon’s Dock Green,
    Crackerjack pens and Lyons ice cream.
    When children could freely wear National Health glasses,
    and teachers all stood at the FRONT of their classes.

    Back in the days of rocking and reeling,
    when mobiles were things that you hung from the ceiling.
    When woodwork and pottery got taught in schools,
    and everyone dreamed of a win on the pools.

    Back in the days when I was a lad,
    I can’t help but smile for the fun that I had.
    Hopscotch and roller skates; snowballs to lob.
    Back in the days of tanners and bobs.

  59. It was so warm last night .. Couldn’t sleep properly . Moh and I glimpsed that Peaky Blinders .. we had been dozing downstairs, patio door open , and woke up to the most horrific scene on the TV re the play, it was horrible . Truly horrible . The BBC have no need to be so graphic .. they are out of order, and the swearing is indecent . What on earth are we paying our licence fee for .. they are plunging this country into further degradation.

    The weather is very warm this afternoon . Slight breeze , unnatural heat though.

    1. A brilliant speech from Nigel. He knows what is going on and his Party is Ready. Anne Widdecombe is up next.

      1. It was a good speech and he made some very interesting points about May’s Withdrawal Agreement.

        Whatever one’s opinion of the man, he’s certainly a good and enthusiastic orator.

  61. Strange sound outside.. plink plonk plink plonk and a nice earthy smell , it is rather dark as well .

    Moh playing golf later .. will the rain be a five minute wonder or is it in for the rest of the day?

    1. Lucky you, Belle, and your part of Darzett. We are heading for another 29-30 degs C scorchio today and I, for one, have had enough. (Also had enough of the media’s obsession with hot weather, but that’s another story – I turn it off whenever they use this so-called ‘news’ as a filler for not bothering to find real news.)

      1. Morning Hugh

        Just a drizzle now, dust has been dampened down .

        They are baling in the fields near us, and harvesting continues.

        I am sick to death of the ugly spectacle of tattooed bodies and inappropriate clothing . I am fed up with weather forecasters going on about the sun , and pics of crowded beaches.

        Raining heavily now, really heavily .Vertical rain..

        2. Lovely! Please redirect any surplus to yer dry sarfeast; I could do with a break from watering parched vegetables.

        3. I agree about the tattoos we see everywhere now, so ugly. I wonder what they will look like when the wearers are in their 50s and older? Probably far worse!

          4. The pert ones of yore had “his” tattooed on them.

            She’s had to a have few more letters inserted.

            They now read “hippopotamus”

      2. It’s the high humidity (65%) that’s the drainer of energy not, particularly, the temperature, IMHO.

        1. You are probably right, Grumps. Unfortunately it seems to be the case that high humidity tends to accompany high temperatures in this country.

      3. It is “only” 19-20 degrees down here in Cornwall today. After so many years of working in the middle of the country, in offices that were little more than heat traps, it was a wise idea to move down to a county that is surrounded by water and refreshed by cool off-shore breezes. We can get some stunningly powerful storms that roll in down here as well. 🙂

    2. Grey and humid in Laure. I have been watching the rain clouds coming up from Spain….they are now virtually overhead but have, clearly, run out of water. Not a drop…. Maddening!

    3. Morning Belle – it’s still fine and sunny here, after a foggy start.

      We’re off to Bristol again for the second consultation with the surgeon. Hopefully, we won’t get lost this time! Trying out the new satnav.

        1. Thanks Bill! When the satnav first went wrong I downloaded an app – but when it asked for all my contacts, photos and everywhere I’d been in my life I uninstalled it.

          1. Just trying to help! Never used a satnav in my life – I swear by maps. Military training, you see.

          3. We used a hand-drawn map last time we went there, and missed the turning! I do prefer maps, but needs must, these days.

          4. Google Maps, downloaded to your mobile telephone will do a good job.

            Pronunciation of local names may be a little weird but I can live with that, even if, in Tasmania, she insisted in calling Bass Straits… Base Straits. That’s America for you.

      1. Oh dear, sorry , it has been raining on and off , very tropical . Moh playing in a golf competition at 1pm .. He says he will wear shorts no matter what!

        Mine haven’t been out yet.

      2. I hope you checked any tarmac wasn’t too hot for him to walk on. If you can’t bear to keep the back of your hand on it, it’s too hot. I took mine out early this morning and even then, I kept him to the shade as far as possible.

        1. He’s not much of a road dog (if he sees anything worth chasing he’s gone, whoosh), so we take him along the river or to Kit Hill, where he can be unleashed. He has a black coat as well and absorbs the heat of the sun even on a cool day. I carry water for him with me to be safe.

          1. That’s good. Mine has to walk on pavements to get to the green bits (and they are getting fewer and farther away thanks to building). I used to have a black dog (a Patterdale cross) who loved to lie in the sun. When the sun moved round, so did he! He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, to say the least.

    5. Morning, Maggie. It’s a balmy 68°F here with just a gentle breeze. May go for a refreshing swim in the loch this afternoon.

      (Can’t be doing with that damn’ Celsius scale – don’t know why it’s favoured these days. Fahrenheit is a far more precise measurement of temperature)

        1. Morning, Bill.

          I find that ‘wild’ swimming (as they call it nowadays) keeps me fit and concentrates the mind …… amongst other things.

      2. Morning DM

        Sounds gorgeous.. er but lochs.. does that loch lead into other lochs.. beware of little beasties who may want to nibble more than your toes ;0)

        1. No problem with beasties! We get the odd plesiosore-arse but they don’t make trouble for me and I don’t make trouble for them.

          It’s a good arrangement!
          ;¬)

          1. Afternoon, Belle!

            Well, the White City council estate should really be renamed Brown City as it now appears to house mostly African immigrants. It derives its name from the 1908 Olympic site, I think?

          2. Broadcasting and Greyhound racing?

            I am not really familiar with London sadly.

            Although I did visit London zoo once when I was younger , and met Desmond Morris and his chimp!

          3. They knocked down the greyhound stadium in 1985.

            BBC Television Centre was closed in 2013 and what was left of in-house production moved to Broadcasting House and to Salford. Most of the studios and offices were knocked down or turned into prestige flats, leaving a token couple of studios still in use as an independent facility.

            Desmond Morris, who presented ‘Zoo Time’ in the early 1960s, is still alive. I don’t know about his chimp.

          5. On my work meanderings round South London I remember the Catford greyhound stadium going from racing to decline and finally demolition and waste ground.

      4. I prefer to go with Fahrenheit for temperatures above 61F/16C, and Centigrade below that temperature.
        32F sounds as if it could be quite nice, it’s still a positive number, but 0C sounds cold. Because it is cold.

    6. Rain in Norf Zummerzet this morning, just a few drops on the way walking back from town. Not enough to justify seeking shelter in the pub with a pint unfortunately.

  66. “Climate scientist Roy Spencer had another term for the fires: “normal agriculture.”

    I

    think the media focus on this is misplaced and exaggerated, as is

    virtually every weather-related story that appears these days,” said Mr.

    Spencer, a former NASA scientist who does consulting on global

    crop-market forecasting.The driest years in Brazil will

    have the most fires set by farmers,” the professor at the University of

    Alabama at Huntsville said in an email. “That isn’t a climate story,

    it’s normal agriculture in a country where 50 million people living in

    poverty are trying to survive.”……

    https://www.thegwpf.com/content/uploads/2019/08/Screen-Shot-2019-08-27-at-11.59.53.png

    It’s not going well for them is it

    https://www.thegwpf.com/amazon-fires-scare-backfires/

    1. “Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That’s more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years.

      Experts say that it will take at least two centuries to repair the ecological damage done by the fires, while at least 500 species are said to be at risk from the flames.

      The Chiquitano dry forest in Bolivia was the largest healthy tropical dry forest in the world. It’s now unclear whether it will retain that status. The forest is home to Indigenous peoples as well as iconic wildlife such as jaguars, giant armadillos, and tapirs. Some species in the Chiquitano are found nowhere else on Earth.

      Distressing photographs and videos from the area show many animals have burned to death in the recent fires.

      While the media has focused on Brazil, Bolivians are asking the world to notice their unfolding tragedy – and to send help in combating the flames.

      It’s thought that the fires were started deliberately to clear the land for farming, but quickly got out of control. The perpetrators aren’t known, but Bolivian President Evo Morales has justified people starting fires, saying: “If small families don’t set fires, what are they going to live on?”

      The disaster comes just a month after Morales announced a new “supreme decree” aimed at increasing beef production for export

      https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-not-just-brazil-s-amazon-bolivia-s-vital-forests-are-on-fire-too

      Of course, Evo Morales is a socialist, unlike Brazil’s Bolsonaro. But I am sure that had nothing to do with the BBC’s lack of interest in this story!”

        3. The Ford Capri that preceded THE Ford Capri.
          Just like the pre-Ford Escort Ford Escort I saw in Cyprus in ’78.

          4. I remember visiting Malmo in the late ’70’s and American muscle cars riding around town in the evenings were a common sight. Never really understood that phenom as really good European cars could be had cheaply back then. At one point I picked up a Jag MkII 3.8 for a couple hundred quid, and a Scimitar for I think £300 or so. The good news with the Jag was that we lived near a main dealer…an essential at the time for Jag ownership.

          8. Impressive.
            Does he do his own panel beating? I presume there must be rust problems in cars of that age.
            I was in Havana many years ago where they had lots of what at first sight appeared to be vintage American cars. Their problem was that the bodies were so cannabalised that the car bore little resemblance to the original, and in some cases appeared to be a “body” riding on a tractor chassis.
            Do you recall “Grantchester Meadows” who used to post here? He was a keen car restorer.

          11. He does everything that needs to be done in restoration. He has his own paint shop and sources for genuine spares. His fully-equipped workshop means that he can turn spares on his lathe to replace broken components. He even restores the upholstery. It’s very rare that he buys a car that is in poor body condition. His Swedish friend, who resides in Virginia, seeks out decent specimens for him before he arrives over there. Once the vehicle is placed into a shipping container and all the legal documents are filed it generally takes a month to six weeks for it to arrive.

        1. My first car was a Mini…swingin’ London 1960’s.

          I now drive a MM 1000 black convertable called Moriarty…Great driving in Cornwall hopeless on the M4/5…

      1. A chap I knew had a brand new one of these but his was a de-lux. i asked him what made it delux, he said it has a heater.

      2. My first car was an East German Goggomobile. My first father in law owned a shoe repaid shop in Monmouth Street, WC2. One morning, the car stopped outside, and the two young men in it, entered the shop and asked if he knew where they could leave the car – as they were abandoning it.

        To cut a long story short, FiL gave them a tenner, got the car re-registered and gave it to me. I used it until 1968 when I went mad and bought a very old Morris 1100 Traveller.

        This is a much cleaner version of the Goggo – a bastard to start…

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/79b9b870cfe1ea5a9d422ea9c4e07ad58cece0c651a67f5637fedb6481d451b3.jpg

    1. Thank you. I am grateful to your father’s (and my father’s) generation.

      That’s about the size of the whole Army today….

  70. This is The Guardian headline

    Jeremy Corbyn agrees to prioritise legislation to stop no-deal Brexit
    Labour leader tells opposition parties he will not seek early confidence vote in government

    This is The Speccie headline…

    Jeremy Corbyn capitulates in cross-party Brexit talks

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3c7a3a863ed155818d42e3512a0dba21016d5f92/0_131_3927_2356/master/3927.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=320520fa22a4fc8022b4e541cb0c9d20
    The one not wearing a tie is Jim’s tumble-dryer salesman sister, Valerie Vaz

    Isabel Harman – Coffee House – 2:19pm

    Jeremy Corbyn’s cross-party talks to stop a no-deal Brexit have broken up, with opposition leaders and MPs releasing a statement saying they ‘agreed on the urgency to act together to find practical ways to prevent no deal, including the possibility of passing legislation and a vote of no confidence’. The Labour leader opened the meeting by saying he would prioritise legislation, rather than a vote of no confidence, which will be kept as a last resort.

    Calling a vote of no confidence in the first few days of Parliament sitting next week might have been a dramatic way of Corbyn trying to show that he was serious about stopping a no-deal exit and that he does really want a general election, but it is also very unlikely to have succeeded. For the Conservative MPs who might consider the huge step of voting against their government, it would have come too soon, as they would rather see whether there is likely to be a deal before turning against their party.

    Given other opposition leaders such as Jo Swinson have also made clear that they would not instal Corbyn as a caretaker prime minister, the legislative route allows the Labour leader to avoid – for now – accusations that he’s less serious about Brexit than he is about his own party’s hunger for power. So this is an admission of weakness from Labour, artfully disguised in the consensus between those at today’s meeting.

    What does the legislative route involve? MPs want to take control of the parliamentary timetable and pass a bill which rules out a no deal exit, possibly also extending Article 50. They also want to block the conference recess, which is due to take three weeks out of the Commons calendar. There are various different factions working on different mechanisms, and some are may coy than others about what they have planned. Each faction disagrees with the others to a degree on the best tactics, something that will be much harder to hide once parliament returns next week. But it seems clear from today’s meeting that while Corbyn might facilitate talks between some of the groups, he has insufficient power to lead parliament into battle with the government.

    *************************************************************************************

    Thus it’s all as clear as mud….except that Bercow must be in on the plot if the parliamentary timetable is going to be seized …….Margaret Becket was spot on.

    3. Will someone please explain to me: what’s the difference between this treacherous shower of shìt and Lord Haw Haw?

    4. The four horsepersons of the apocalypse. The ugly munter in the frock looks like she spends her holidays in Hell.

    6. BTL:

      Lamia • 15 minutes ago • edited
      What does the legislative route involve? MPs want to take control of the parliamentary timetable and pass a bill which rules out a no deal exit, possibly also extending Article 50.

      They can’t pass legislation to extend Article 50. That’s only in the gift of the PMs of their beloved EU. So much for the ‘Sovereignty of Parliament’ they’ve recently decided they are defending. And it requires unanimity. That includes Johnson himself agreeing to it. And he’ll only do that if he wants his own party to be wiped out (I’m not saying he won’t do it anyway, it’s just very unlikely).

      Re the Bill, the government can also refuse to enact that, and challenge Parliament to VONC it if it’s not happy about it. And then set a GE to suit Leavers, e.g. after October 31st.

      Remoaners have tried almost every anti-democratic trick in the book, and they are running out of new schemes. The only way they can succeed is if Johnson and his government simply fold and play along. They don’t have to do either.

      Mr Johnson: the public are watching you and your government very closely. If you resist our Quisling Parliament and get us out of the EU, you may be well-rewarded. But if you try to stitch us up again, as Mrs May did, we’ll bury your party.

      dramocles • an hour ago
      Which faction is the Peoples’ Front of Judea?

  71. 16 children develop ‘werewolf syndrome’ after taking contaminated medication on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Mail. 27 August 2019.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa51843ac27396bbb7a7f6f718a90277bb529079ae836b62852e7fe1e23bfc5e.jpg

    Sixteen children have developed ‘werewolf syndrome’ after taking contaminated medicine in Spain.

    The infants have hypertrichosis – hair growth throughout their bodies – after taking a formula tainted with minoxidil, an alopecia remedy.

    Make a pack then?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7398267/16-children-develop-werewolf-syndrome-taking-contaminated-medication-Spain.html

    3. Don’t worry, Minty. We’ve stockpiled plenty of EU-sourced medicines to see us through the period after we have crashed out over the cliff edge.

      1. Unfortunately, that is the Theresa May, too-many-wet-Conservatives, legacy.
        But I think the Commons may reject the WA – certainly, I have no insight into what will be a very uncertain vote.

    1. Setting light to the roof of Notre Dame makes the burning of cut down trees in the Amazon ok then? Since when were roads, loggers, miners, armed gangs, slash and burn settlers and Government forest protection funds diverted for “agricultural development” a natural phenomenon?

      If the man denies any responsibility towards the welfare of his neighbours, then why on earth should we continue to trade with him and his wretched pariah superstate? I have written to Lidl asking them to consider a boycott of Brazilian corned beef Europe-wide. I expect the Chinese will buy it though, and so will the Americans because they really don’t care.

      He might have got in because the Opposition were either corrupt or useless. If that is the case, then he might have a point about pots and kettles when it comes to how we elect our governments. Still doesn’t excuse him.

      Is the only reason I am panned here because his children are close friends of Jared Kushner, and powerful friends control what we are allowed to say online? Or do the uptickers here really rejoice when they see forests burning because it’s a way of getting back at the tree huggers? Didn’t some US environment spokesman in the Reagan era once say of national parks “the only good park is a car park”? They’d feel at home inside Belmarsh then. No trees there.

      2. No – I’ve no idea who his childrens’ friends are and I certainly don’t rejoice at forests burning…….. but the reaction to this seems to be out of proportion to what is happening, and the photos that have been circulating appear to have been around for many years.

        Perhaps read ths piece for a bit of balance.

        https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/08/26/why-everything-they-say-about-the-amazon-including-that-its-the-lungs-of-the-world-is-wrong/#15e617fa5bde

          6. Shouldn’t that read “I didn’t read the article so, If it’s in that, the answer is no”? Just asking.

          8. I believe the way you have placed so is incorrect. If “if it’s in that” is removed from the sentence said sentence makes more sense.

          9. You just watch it, We have all saved your appalling “YOUR” posted the other day….

          10. You missed my other typo – ths.

            When there is a delay between my hitting the keys and their appearance on the screen, I can’t always be bothered to go back and correct them all before posting.

          12. Instead of picking up on everyone’s grammar, why don’t you add some value to the debate?

          15. Yes and yes, but given that most posters here are using automated spell-checkers, which substitute words, sometimes irrationally; getting “jumped” on is annoying.

            Also, given that most regular posters are replying fairly quickly, they don’t necessarily see the mistake until after they press “post as”.

            Often they then return and correct the errors.

            I suspect that you don’t refresh the page every time before you post your “oh I am so clever” corrections, just in case the OP has spotted the error and corrected it.

            Give it a rest.

          16. Sounds like you’ve got low self esteem. Next thing, you’ll be calling in the rotweiler.

            Go & look after your hares & orchids

      3. https://reason.com/2019/08/23/dont-panic-amazon-burning-is-mostly-farms-not-forests/

        Interestingly, when NASA released the satellite image on August 21, it noted that “it is not unusual to see fires in Brazil at this time of year due to high temperatures and low humidity. Time will tell if this year is a record breaking or just within normal limits.”

        So why are there so many fires? “Natural fires in the Amazon are rare, and the majority of these fires were set by farmers preparing Amazon-adjacent farmland for next year’s crops and pasture,” soberly explains The New York Times. “Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use.”

        It is routine for farmers and ranchers in tropical areas burn their fields to control pests and weeds and to encourage new growth in pastures.

        What about deforestation trends? Since the right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president, rainforest deforestation rates have increased a bit, but they are still way below their earlier highs.

        https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/08/25/bolivias-wildfires-ignored-by-the-bbc/
        Bolivia’s Wildfires Ignored By The BBC
        AUGUST 25, 2019

        “Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That’s more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years.

        Experts say that it will take at least two centuries to repair the ecological damage done by the fires, while at least 500 species are said to be at risk from the flames.

        The Chiquitano dry forest in Bolivia was the largest healthy tropical dry forest in the world. It’s now unclear whether it will retain that status. The forest is home to Indigenous peoples as well as iconic wildlife such as jaguars, giant armadillos, and tapirs. Some species in the Chiquitano are found nowhere else on Earth.

        Distressing photographs and videos from the area show many animals have burned to death in the recent fires.

        While the media has focused on Brazil, Bolivians are asking the world to notice their unfolding tragedy – and to send help in combating the flames.

        It’s thought that the fires were started deliberately to clear the land for farming, but quickly got out of control. The perpetrators aren’t known, but Bolivian President Evo Morales has justified people starting fires, saying: “If small families don’t set fires, what are they going to live on?”

        The disaster comes just a month after Morales announced a new “supreme decree” aimed at increasing beef production for export

        https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-not-just-brazil-s-amazon-bolivia-s-vital-forests-are-on-fire-too

        Of course, Evo Morales is a socialist, unlike Brazil’s Bolsonaro. But I am sure that had nothing to do with the BBC’s lack of interest in this story!”

        1. I was extremely disturbed by deforestation in the Amazon from the 1980s until there emerged a slightly more enlightened approach to forest protection around 2012 that has now been turned over by Bolsonaro, who has taken Brazil back to its old ways.

          I agree with you that Bolivia’s government too should be held to account for the destruction of Chiquitano. Al Jazeera also reports that the situation in the African jungle is, if anything, even worse than what is going on in the Amazon. The destruction of the forests in Borneo is also well advanced, and the great coniferous forests in Russia are being threatened by human destructiveness – a lot of the wood there goes to China.

          There seems to be a direct correlation between population expansion and deforestation. The place most likely to keep its forests is Europe, which also has the most stable population size, although inward migration is not helping. The temperate forests of Europe cannot match the biodiversity of the tropical rainforests.

      4. First you mention Netanyahu, now it’s Jared Kushner ? Who’s next – the Jew of Malta ?

        1. There is a connection between Bolsonaro whose son is close to the younger Trumps, including Ivanka and Jared, and Jared Kushner is close to Netanyahu. Netanyahu travelled to the States during the presidential election in 2016 to campaign actively for Trump in return for substantial diplomatic support. Netanyahu is the only leader Bolsonaro is prepared to accept assistance from in fighting these fires.

          They are as thick as thieves. They all seem to have a pathological hatred for environmentalists. When the settlers in Israel starting cutting down olive trees in the West Bank, I was quite shocked. I had always believed that Jews had a great reverence for trees, and were on a mission to create a green and pleasant land out of what was barren desert.

          I don’t know what connection you make with the Jew of Malta (I’ve never actually heard of this person). I don’t think he or she has stood to lead a country.

          It leaves my own country’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a bit of a quandary. He is close to Trump, and yet is also an environmentalist and very sympathetic to the stand being taken by Macron. Despite Brexit, it may well push him closer to the EU when it comes to future trade arrangements. We cannot in any clear conscience trade with Brazil right now.

          1. I’m not an expert on politics, but I have 80 years’ experience of anti-semitism. Pleased to meet you.

          2. Aha!
            I out you as “Hat’s” Mossad infiltrator and I claim a return ticket to Tel Aviv.

      5. Phew! Good job we have stocked up enough corned beef for the Brexit blockade and rationing crisis.

          3. Not necessarily, I used to be very partial to spam fritters.

            A light batter, and served with beans and chips, delicious.

        2. I always keep plenty of corned beef in the cupboard – so handy for a lazy cook’s spag bol.

      6. Elites Caught in Amazon Wildfire Lie as NASA Confirms ‘Average’ Fire Season
        BY JARED HARRIS
        PUBLISHED AUGUST 25, 2019 AT 8:18AM

        After news of an Amazonian wildfire hit headlines worldwide, elites were quick to jump on the fearmongering bandwagon, telling their followers the “lungs of the world” were on fire.

        A recent media release from NASA, however, shows just how little these elites know. Soccer stars, Hollywood idols and even a European president were caught pushing the lies earlier this week.

        The language is full of fear, with one proclaiming “our house is burning.” Others pushed the “fact” that the Amazon produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen.

        https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/elites-caught-amazon-wildfire-lie-nasa-confirms-average-fire-season/

        1. We all know how easily the word “average” can be manipulated.

          Both the Bolsonaro Government of Brazil and the Morales Government of Bolivia have recently passed laws encouraged slash-and-burn land clearance by migrant farmers in the Amazon, to the catastrophic detriment of the integrity of the forest, its wildlife and its forest dwellers. Deny that if you can, but that alone condemns both governments as much as anything coming out of NASA suggesting “average” deforestation.

          I am now determined to boycott any produce coming out of Brazil or Bolivia (that puts paid to cheap corned beef, but so far my favourite Peruvian coffee is spared), with the exception of Brazil nuts, which are the produce of the forest, not of the migrant farmers.

          Yes, our house is burning and we are right to be full of fear. Stupid not to be.

      7. Would you care to comment on the Arctic ice and Polar bear links below,or perhaps the NOAS data showing no warming in the USA for the last 14 years
        Maybe the loss by the fraud Michael Moore in the Canadian courts over his infamous hockey stick??
        Every warmist hysterical prediction has been an utter failure,you are of course free to make whatever comments you like and trying to link criticism of you viewpoint to some strange Jewish conspiracy frankly doesn’t do you any favours
        I leave you with the NASA satelitte data that has stated
        “The Amazonian fires are below average”
        Link
        https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil

        1. Stats are easily manipulated by skilled spin doctors from both sides, so I don’t place a great deal of trust in any of it.

          I am actually a committed pro-semite, and grew up with a thoroughly positive stereotype about Jews that is being somewhat disappointed by the antics of Netanyahu and his gangs of settlers. I am dismayed, since I really want Israel to be an oasis of enlightenment, civilisation, music, biodynamic agriculture, intelligence and resourcefulness at a time when the rest of the world seems to be going mad.

          Above all, I always thought Jews revered trees perhaps more than anyone.

    1. Most of their children would be too thick* to marry a Tory.

      [*As in: “thick” as pig effluent!]

  76. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8f15163d5d0ac3c38d25c1396e2030bc1a0c89ebe1dd66883328a4572bb80e0.jpg Multi-Culti Grizz in Malmö

    I was invited to the christening of a good friend’s grandson in Malmö on Saturday. Viveka (my friend) is the lady in red top and white trousers on the front row. Next to her, holding her baby (William) is her younger daughter, Janette. Next to Janette is her Ghanaian/English husband, the 6′-6″ Richie.

    Richie is a well-spoken, highly educated and very friendly man with a sonic boom of a laugh. A wonderfully lovely guy. His brother Francis (behind him) is even taller and has the well-toned physique of a heavyweight boxer. A smashing and very welcoming family.

    The service took place in a Lutheran (Protestant) Church in a clean (and muzzie-free) part of Malmö. There were a good number of Swedes present as well as English, Ghanaian, American and a couple of Japanese and a Balkan.

    I hid myself away at the back of the group and you can just about see my head obscuring the right foot of the cross-bearer on the left of the large mural behind the group.

  77. A nice story from D-Day which I hadn’t completely heard before is reported in the September/October Boundless magazine for CSMA members. John Millin,the son of Legendary Piper Millin said in an interview with the magazine ” He was personal Piper to Lord Lovat, commander of 1 Service Brigade, and Lovat asked him to lead the Commandos on to Sword Beach with the pipes. He duly played Hieland Laddie through the surf and, on reaching the beach, Lovat turned to him and said , ‘ Ah, Piper, play us another tune’ Dad looked at him incredulously and replied,’ I suppose you’d like me to walk up and down the beach as well? .’ Lovat replied,’ Yes that would be nice'” Piper Millin lived until he was 88 but unfortunately died before they unveiled his statue at Sword Beach in 2013.
    The story of Piper Millin was one of the legendary storys we boys grew up with in the 40s and 50s.

    1. Farlowe would never win win a beauty contest.
      I never did understand what the wimmin saw in these ugly guys.

  81. With God knows what happening – perhaps it is time for LEAVERS to arrange to show some muscle – just to warn Johnson – by having a few dozen strategically placed HGVs blocking key roads. You don’t need hundreds – just a few at each roundabout or major junction. Bring London (other cities are available) to a standstill in about 20 minutes.

      1. Yer Remainiacs would love that – because leavers are pensioners who deserve to die for having had the nerve to vote to leave,

        Next.

        1. There were quite a few younger people at the Brexit Party meeting as seen on the clip of Nigel Farage and Ann Widdecomes speeches..

        2. What was that wonderfully compassionate saying from the Remainers camp that highlighted why they should never be allowed to get near the levers of power:

          “The Remain vote is increasing, one funeral at a time.”

          Such darlings they are. Completely missing the point that when little students grow up, many of them see the world as it really is, and not as the lecturers tell them that it is. Then they become Leave voters themselves.

          You would need to have a soul as black as the Ace of Spades to look at what the EU wants to become and think that future is good for the people.

  82. I am reeling.

    The local French TV weather forecast (on France3) is sponsored by an insurance company.

    Before and after the (inadequate) “forecast” they run a little filmette showing the sort of people they like as clients.

    NOT ONE PERSON OF COLOUR.

    I had to sit down with a larger glass than usual to recover from the shock and shame….

      2. The man on the right appears to have mastered the art of levitation. That is noteworthy in itself.

      3. “Country dancing” in any form is great fun.

        In my experience it needs a good caller and several participants who really know what they are doing so that everyone can join in.

        1. All-in Free Style Country Dancing as performed at the White Hall during a College Valley Hunt Ball is a spectacle to behold!
          Asian Martial Arts displays come nowhere near!

          1. I’ve attended numerous wedding receptions where country dancing was the party side.

            I’ve enjoyed every one of them, even though I make a dancing bear look like Fred Astaire

        2. I represented my university at country dancing! Not a lot of people know that 🙂 Country dancing and fencing – an odd mixture.

        3. Afraid I find it utterly humiliating, having no rhythm whatsoever.
          I normally get (d)ejected pretty quickly.
          :-((

          1. That’s a pity.
            I was born with two left feet, and the dancing ability of the Warwickshire bear.

            That’s why you need people who know what they’re doing, they can easily and unobtrusively guide people though the steps and make the mistakes part of the fun.

  84. Completely OT

    On a dull and humid day in Laure, with rain threatening but never arriving – I wasted a lot of time on Flight Radar 24 – watching a aircraft fly very slowly from near Coimbra (Portugal) to Bucharest (Roumania). Took eight hours. It was one of the few aircraft of something I didn’t know existed – the Romanian Air Force.

    Average speed 275 knots.

    Displacement activity can be very rewarding when the alternative is “the news”.

    3. You can track me on the BRS JSI tomorrow, airborne about 7:30 for about 3hrs; then JSI KVA, but you’ll have to be quick for that one, its 25 mins.

  85. Got so fed up with Disqust, I have started from scratch to see if that swill top me having to login every 5 Minutes.

    Ho hum. Back to work.

  87. Opposition leaders agree pact to try and block no-deal ‘through legislation or vote of confidence’

    No real surprise that the anti democratic parties are trying to block Brexit

    Opposition leaders led by Jeremy Corbyn have officially formed a pact to try and block a no-deal Brexit.
    In a joint statement, the Westminster opposition leaders said they “agreed on the urgency to act together to find practical ways to prevent no-deal, including the possibility of passing legislation and a vote of no confidence”.

    1. Why don’t they come into the daylight and admit that it’s not the no-deal at all; they are just tring to reverse the result of the referendum ?

  88. 5G: Rural areas could see bigger and taller masts

    The height of the mast makes little difference with 5G . It is the local terrain that is the issue. 5G is very much line of sight. Height will help a bit but not a lot

    $G in my view is more hype than substance. Yes it has more bandwidth butt you would need very tiny cells if people started using that bandwidth

    3. Can we just not put lotsa transmitters on lotsa Wind Turbines

      They are tall and everywhere

      The primary use of these White Elephants would not be affected, as they do not seem to produce electricity anyway

  89. Anyone noticed this BTL post on the Letters page?

    Martin Iles 27 Aug 2019 8:01AM
    Letter – Kirsty Blunt

    Aside from the people exposing their tattooed blubber on the high streets, and in the park hipster fathers with bushy beards, t-shirts and shorts, display ink on every anaemic cheese-blue limb, I see beautiful young women proudly parading their once pre-Raphaelite, ethereal, porcelain skin, since transformed into something resembling a pair of old curtains or a cheap ceramic dinner service. These girls, full of self-styled liberation and individuality, now in their early twenties, with arms, hands and fingers smothered in meaningless permanent graffiti, facially attractive and slender into their fifties and sixties, will sit sleeveless at dinner parties in years to come with a cleavage and arms that will look like the smeared pages of a wet school exercise book.

          4. An undercover agent, eh.

            Anyhow, I must dash, I’ve a pint to catch. It’s still short-sleeve weather so I’ll be showing off my transparent tattoos in town.

  90. Nicked comment,needs spreading

    I have realised that the Remainers have been right all along when
    they say I did not know all the true facts before voting to leave, and
    it’s true! We WERE lied to apparently – as I decided to do a little
    research.
    I just voted to leave because I thought our sovereignty was
    being compromised by foreign unelected masters. That we were compelled
    to have unlimited uncontrolled immigration, our laws and export
    agreements dictated by Brussels bureaucrats – and had to pay
    eye-watering amounts for the privilege

    However…

    I did not know more than 10,000 EU officials get paid more than our Prime Minister.
    I did not know that, unlike the UK, 18 countries get more back from the EU than they put in.
    I
    did not know that the EU occupies over 45 buildings – 2 of which were
    purpose built monuments of grandeur and are the largest buildings in
    Europe.
    I did not know that the EU Parliament spends 150 million
    euros a year moving to Strasbourg every month for 4 days committee
    meetings – and any attempt to stop this madness is vetoed by France.
    I did not know that the EU has had a huge luxury shopping Mall built in Brussels for exclusive use of EU employees.
    I
    did not know that every day queues of chauffeur driven cars, with their
    engines running, wait outside EU establishments while their occupants
    go in, sign in for their attendance allowance and expenses, then come
    straight back out and are driven away.
    I did not know that many of them (like the Kinnocks) end up as millionaires as a reward for looking the other way!
    I
    did not know that Clegg was lying when he mocked Nigel Farage for
    saying that an EU army was being planned – and Brussels said all along
    that it would NEVER happen.
    I did not know that the EU had been financing the mass movement of industries from UK to mainland Europe.
    I
    did not know that every member of the EU Council has to swear an Oath
    of Allegiance to the EU – so they are not a country’s representative to
    the EU. They are the EU’s representative to the country!
    I could go
    on and on but suffice it to say that I have never for a moment doubted
    the correctness of my decision but I am now more sure than ever.
    I am so glad that the Remainers prompted me to look deeper into the bureaucratic absurdity of being in the EU.

    Apart from all that, everything’s fine!

    1. Other than a VERY light spattering, we’ve had several bands of rain either skirt round us, or disperse before they got over Middleton Moor.

  93. That’s me for the day.

    A demain – if I am spared – which seems increasingly unlikely.

  95. Obituary notice:

    Sheila Steafel, the actress who has died aged 84, was a comic performer equally at home on stage, television and radio, best known for playing the lion’s share of the female characters in David Frost’s sketch show The Frost Report in the 1960s and later in Radio 4’s weekly satirical revue Week Ending, in which she became one of the first regular impersonators of Margaret Thatcher.

    In her forties, at the height of her career, it seemed there was nothing she could not turn her hand to. “Sheila Steafel is sharp, witty, nimble, expressive, versatile and full of fun,” enthused The Daily Telegraph’s Eric Shorter in 1981. “She can sing, she can clown, she can dance, she can do almost anything to keep you entertained. And her timing is a joy.”

    Small, neat and precise, with hooded eyes and a crooked smile – she considered her looks to be an acquired taste, “rather like Gorgonzola cheese” – Sheila Steafel first came to national attention at the age of 31 in The Frost Report (BBC One, 1966), bringing her repertory of funny faces to her role as “the obligatory crumpet” alongside John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker.,,,

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/08/27/sheila-steafel-gifted-comic-actress-whose-career-highlights/

    1. Talk about a roll of honour!
      Comedy greats.
      My mother introduced me to TW3 and I suspect that that was the foundation of my sometimes bizarre sense of humour.

      RIP

      1. I started with the Goons. Many years later saw the wonderful Parkinson episode with the Goons. Great backstories. TW3 was our late evening watching when we were first “we”.

  96. Watching an old Pointless.
    Q: Name member countries of the Warsaw pact.
    A: Japan! (By contestant with recent history A level who admitted he’d never heard of the Warsaw pact…

    2. I frequently thrash Oxbridge students on University Challenge at general knowledge questions (though I don’t stand a chance with the more arcane stuff).

      I used to make a habit, for years, when I lived in the UK of going to pubs where the resident team of teachers always won the pub quiz. That is, until I moseyed along to spoil their fun. Many a time these teachers’ teams have wailed and demanded a recount whilst I sit there smiling smugly in their faces.

    3. A-level candidates, even those who work hard and do well, seldom seem to do any reading outside the confines of their narrow syllabus – this seems to be especially true of History.

      Mind you, Pointless does not seem to attract the intellectually curious.

  97. Evening, all. Gourmet meals or not, making sure the patients were able to reach the food would be a start.

    3. That reminded me of a supposedly true story about a blind person who, after an operation, was able to see for the first time in their life.

      Their nearest and dearest were sitting round the hospital bed and commented that the patient hadn’t touched their cup of tea (at the side of the bed). Never before having seen one, they didn’t know where it was.

    1. One of my remainer neighbours has popped his clogs and two remainers that I know are now leavers. Maybe history is on our side after all.

      2. My leftie neighbour a “Professor” of Journalism has a People’s Vote poster in her front window. I am worried about her (Remainer/Revoker) health as I noticed this morning her hips have widened considerably in recent months. Remainers may well be indulging in too much comfort eating … and that is known not to be healthy.

  100. According to Cristiano Ronaldo, 20% of the Earth’s oxygen is produced by the Amazonian rain forest. His learned opinion is backed-up by other luminaries from the world of science such as Madonna and Lewis Hamilton, while le président Micron and Führerin Merkel warn that the ‘Lungs of the Earth’ are on fire, creating an existential threat to humanity.

    I’m a cautious man by nature and just in case of shortages – especially after Brexit – I have been stockpiling. Now my large house is packed to capacity with breathable air.

    That should keep Mrs. Mac and me going for a while.

    2. Most of that ‘20% of the Earth’s oxygen’ is also consumed by said Amazonian rain forest. It’s the way trees and most plant life survives. They even generate CO2, but you don’t hear much about that from the enviro-nutters.

      1. One thing that did occur to me is that oxygen is necessary for combustion to take place.

        In the event of a shortage, how am I going to light my cigarettes?
        :¬(

    1. Will the media be treating the “savage knife attack on the streets of
      Gloucester” story with the same coverage as the “rude Chelsea fans don’t
      let Black bloke on Paris Metro” incident a few years ago?

      1. Barton Street in Gloucester is at least 90% black or Muslim. You’d hesitate to go there in daylight, let alone after dark.

  104. Sheila Steafel : RIP.

    Aged 84, The South African born gifted comic actress whose career highlights included ‘The Frost Report’ and Radio 4’s ‘Week Ending’.

    2. The media over here handled it carefully from the start, only stopping four times a day to remind us that the lads were Israelis.
      The Cypriots seemed to have weighed her up very quickly – she seems to have contradicted herself a few times.
      An interesting case.

  107. Am having trouble accessing here ..

    The page is dancing around .. goes blank and is all over the show. At last I can comment now to say goodnight .. It could be atmospherics/ the net/ or busy page.

    Feels thundery and heavy here, but no storm has materialised.

    Goodnight Nottl stragglers x

    1. I’ve also noticed that the title page is sliding off the left side of the screen…

  109. Fast like a caveman:

    Fasting every other day could be the secret to losing weight while staying healthy because it mimics humans’ caveman diet, a new study suggests.

    A trial showed that people who ate no food at all for 36 hours then anything they felt like for 12 hours lost more than half a stone within a month.

    Crucially, their immune systems remained stable, even after six months, in contrast to many diets which aim to restrict calorie intake consistently each day.

    Scientists at the University of Graz in Austria believe the strength of alternate-day fasting (ADF) may lie in its adherence to hunter-gatherers’ patterns of eating thousands of years ago, when food was not available every day.

    However, they warn that it may not be suitable for everyone and that further studies need to prove its safety over the long-term.

    Published in the journal Cell Metabolism, the study recruited 60 participants who were enrolled either into an ADF group or into a control group where they were were allowed to eat whatever they wanted.

    The ADF group were required to fill in food diaries and also underwent continuous glucose monitoring to ensure they stuck to the routine.

    The scientists found that, on average, the dieters ate normally during the 12 hours they were at liberty to eat an unlimited amount.

    Overall, they reached an average calorie restriction of around 35 per cent and lost an average of 7.7 lb or 3.5 kg after four weeks of the programme.

    “Why exactly calorie restriction and fasting induce so many beneficial effects is not fully clear yet,” says Professor Thomas Pieber, head of endocrinology at the Medical University of Graz.

    “The elegant thing about strict ADF is that it doesn’t require participants to count their meals and calories: they just don’t eat anything for one day.”

    His colleague, Professor Frank Madeo, added: “The reason might be due to evolutionary biology.

    “Our physiology is familiar with periods of starvation followed by food excesses.”

    A further 30 participants were put on ADF for six months to assess the safety of the diet over a longer period, with positive results.

    Previous studies had suggested that consistent calorie-restrictive diets can result in malnutrition and a decrease in immune function.

    In contrast, even after six months of ADF, the immune function in the participants appeared to be stable. They had a reduction in belly fat, which is increasingly linked to a higher risk of cancer.

    The group also showed lower levels of the hormone triiodothyronine, which has been associated with longer life-spans in previous research.

    The new study is likely to shift the ongoing debate in favour of intermittent rather than consistent dieting.

    Many people find consistent calorie restriction difficult to sustain and often succumb to “yo-yo” eating, where they end up consuming more than they otherwise would have done.

    Despite the apparent benefits, the researchers say they do not recommend ADF as a general nutrition scheme for everybody.

    “We feel that it is a good regime for some months for obese people to cut weight, or it might even be a useful clinical intervention in diseases driven by inflammation,” said Professor Madeo.

    “However, further research is needed before it can be applied in daily practice.

    “Additionally, we advise people not to fast if they have a viral infection, because the immune system probably requires immediate energy to fight viruses.

    “Hence, it is important to consult a doctor before any harsh dietary regime is undertaken.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/08/27/fasting-every-day-boosts-healthy-weight-loss-mimics-hunter-gatherer/

    1. And our bodies reflect that, teeth, digestive systems, all of it.
      Vegans/vegetarians, we ain’t!

          1. Q: what’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
            A: finding half a worm in your apple!

    2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6248cd47f5a502a85743f2f0e6a3d8364ef07f7fb2332b9ed457a7ffb5ab1885.jpg

      If you burn off more calories than you eat, over an extended period of time, then you use up stored energy in your body. You lose weight. If you eat more calories than you burn, then the excess ones are stored in your body for later. You gain weight.

      Go for a walk / take more exercise – burn more calories – lose some weight.

      Some people must be making a lot of money out of the diet industry to not simply come out with this reality.

    1. Without clear proof of this it will be fake news.As far as Boris is concerned the WA is dead.

      1. Johnny – I wish that were true but I heard this on the news earlier this evening:

        “Now, on the Withdrawal Agreement, there seemed to be a suggestion of a softening of Downing Streets opposition to it today. Previously Boris Johnson has said “The Withdrawal Agreement signed by Theresa May is dead, it has to go.”

        “But when a Downing Street spokesperson was asked about this today, they said “We have been clear that the changes that we are seeking relate to the backstop, and not the whole Withdrawal Agreement.”

          1. It was the ITV evening news where I rewound it to get the specific quote, but this has been building for days now on all of the media and from Boris himself. The only word you hear is “backstop, backstop, backstop” not “The Withdrawal Agreement itself is unacceptable and a trap.”

            Boris has said many, many times that he does not want a No-Deal Brexit. There is only one other option on the table, uness he pulls a new deal out of thin air. That would mean years in transition as well. 🙁

        2. I take it all with a pinch of salt. I have heard Boris say many times the WA is dead. You must never trust media reports unless there is clear proof. Of course only time will tell and we have to wait, that so many people find impossible to do.

          1. You put far too much faith in Boris the Buffoon who has said whatever it takes to make it to number 10. He’s not even a true Brexiteer.

    2. He had better not be thinking of ramming May’s surrender deal through Parliament. It’s totally unacceptable and leaves us a vassal state.

      1. “Ramming May’s surrender deal through Parliament” –

        That would be the end of the Conservative Party …

          1. Boris is a remainer who saw an opportunity to act as a no-deal brexiteer to give him a shot at becoming PM. Anyone that has read his articles in the DT before the Brexit referendum knows exactly where Boris stands on the EU issue. He’s no Baker or Francois.

          2. I agree that Boris read the runes and decided leave would win so he would be on the winning side. I don’t trust him an inch.

    3. Many have been saying it for a while now. We will know which side Boris is on, the United Kingdoms or the EU’s, in a short while.

      There is always the Brexit Party, if Boris is on the same team as Theresa May and Hammond. One term with them having lots of seats will see us out of the EU and give the Conservative party the chance to get rid of the rats that have undermined us all for years.

      1. I knew a man who was fined for calling a woman a b!tch. I asked him: “How much was that doggy innuendo?”

    8. May’s WA here we come again.

      It’s going to be the only way we’ll ever ‘leave’.

      Boris the buffoon is an untrustworthy waste of space.

    9. It’s entirely consistent with Boris’s approach to Brexit all along, and what set his campaign group apart from Nigel Farage’s purists. Both were required in order to carry the Referendum over the threshold, despite the dubious intervention of the Electoral Commission that only allowed one campaign group per side.

      Boris made it clear all along that he wanted a negotiated settlement that maintained our trading relationship with the EU, but dealt with their constitutional outrages that were unacceptable. David Cameron’s attempts to deal with these by negotiating for reform came to nothing, which is why he called the Referendum, and why Boris campaigned for Brexit. It was always a negotiating tool to push the EU into taking our concerns seriously, and unlike Theresa May’s limp worst-of-all-worlds effort, it was not a hollow threat.

      All along though, Boris’s preferred outcome was Reform not complete departure. His appointment of Dominic Cummins, who set out during the Referendum to exclude Farage’s purists, only confirms this.

      It’s up to the EU now. They have until the end of October to make serious reforms to their constitution and their approach to how we do business, or we are out.

      I back Boris in this. I have seen quite enough of the alternative thrown up by Bolsonaro, by Xi, by Trump, by Putin, to know that they are no improvement on the EU, bad as that is. As for improving national self-sufficiency – the “Dig for Victory” plan – that is a no-brainer.

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