Tuesday 3 October: Welcome signs that the Government is finally seeing sense on HS2

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

476 thoughts on “Tuesday 3 October: Welcome signs that the Government is finally seeing sense on HS2”

    1. The comic irony demonstrates the fundamental problem. If Khan could make cash out of ending Blacks stabbing one another he would, but they haven’t got any money so there’s no point.

      He would also have to accept that he’s an incompetent failure who is so consumed with spite that he lies continually to hide it.

  5. Bear kills hikers and their dog after rescuers unable to reach them in time. 3 October 2023.

    Bear attacks are rare in North America, with only 14 per cent resulting in fatalities, according to Kim Titchener, a wildlife expert.

    “Often when people have encounters with grizzlies, usually the grizzly goes one direction and the people go in the other,” Ms Titchener said.

    “So we rarely do see cases where we actually have everyone involved killed. They could have surprised a bear at close range and had an encounter that led to a defensive attack.”

    Pretty sure the dog had something to do with this. Started yapping which would be enough to set the grizzly off.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/02/couple-dog-killed-dead-by-bear-canada-banff-national-park/

    1. It’s almost impossible to imagine being attacked by a bear.
      Those poor unfortunate people.

      1. Bodily integrity torn asunder, internal organs and viscera spread far and wide. How’s that?

  6. 377290+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Letters: Welcome signs that the Government is finally seeing sense on HS2

    Much nearer the truth,

    Danger signs that the Government is finally seeing sense on HS2 and that the eu appeaser, United Kingdom scam, had at long last hit the buffers, and a great deal of monetary greed been sated, safe in the knowledge there will be another scam along in a minute.

    1. The literal gravy train hasn’t stopped. Nor will it. There are a lot of politicall connected wonks getting very rich off the tax payer, not to mention the endless trough for the DIE damn you, DIE brigade. I imagine they’re the ones really pushing to keep it going.

  7. Morning all 🙂😊
    More rain forecast and possibly a better rest of the week.
    I have a ‘treasured’ phone call from my GP this morning. Perhaps he’s going to invite me along sometime.
    And an eye test this arvo, first for about three years. Another expensive pair of specs on the way ?
    And HS2, this is the problem with our political classes, long after the financial and physical damage has been done, they sometimes come to their senses. And far too late.
    How much longer can this country afford to take in law breaking criminals from safe European countries and feed, cloth and organise accommodation for them all. 7 million pounds spent each day, it’s got to stop.
    Something else Westminster has now wrecked. Our social structure and long established culture.

    1. I bought specs from Asda. They normally cost about 180-200 quid for two pairs but Asda did none of this “two for one” stuff. One pair of varifocals for £45. When I was happy that the first pair was suitable, I just ordered a second spare pair.

      1. Fortunately I don’t have any major problems but I have to go for another test. Because my pupils are small. And they can’t see inside properly.
        Probably caused by medication.

  8. Good morning all.
    A dry start with a clear blue pre-sunrise sky this morning with a gibbous waning moon hanging high and a cool 6°C on the thermometer.

    A visit to the optician for my new glasses is going to wipe out today’s offering from ERNIE, I’ve received £200 and the DT’s got £50.

        1. Still painful in the chesticles but I had to get out of that Horse Piddle – so I lied. Thanks for asking, Jules.

    2. My new specs were supposed to be ready today but they phoned yesterday to say they haven’t arrived yet.

        2. I didn’t, but thought ‘what the hell’ and just set it up. And yes, my response is ‘what the hell?’ as their approach to security is interesting to say the least. It didn’t take too long, all told, was just fiddly.

        1. True Bob – at least it’s paid for my electricity this month with a few quid left over

  9. Good morning, all. Light overcast and damp from last evening’s rain.

    While on the subject of rain here’s something to ponder from the Daily Mail:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5cdd702b49303589f1bb67b03da215c79290f576daf2b707606a4a94f0fa8c9.png

    This is a picture of the Strood on the road to Mersea Island about six miles away from where I’m typing. The Strood is a causeway between the mainland and the Island and is prone to flooding at high tides around/above 4.5 metres. High tides at the moment are >5 metres. Weather…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef409d693111e64f2a8b1b91cb3af47211e8e825477aca698034fa3f0979b39b.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0ee9893f0eaa3895ccbd47cd37b9d002442c0bb9ee0fa6bd746d3229e37ddbc.png

    2. I just hope the authorities have been taking advantage of nature’s gifts and they are storing the water.
      Essential now that our population is rising very rapidly.

      3. Don’t be silly. Building reservoirs is forbidden by the EU. We could leave the EU and ignore that ruling, but we havne’t, so we don’t.

        1. Yes, yes, htat’s what climate change is! Doomed, I tell you, doomed! Why don’t you know this! Everything is cliamte change! We must stop the climate from changing or we’re doomed!

          We can stop the cliamte from changing if you’re forced to pay grostesque amounts of tax, now cough up. See? It’s already changed as the flood has subsided. Pay more tax!

  10. Good morning, all. Heavy rain in the night. Thunder and lightning, too. Supposed to be sunnyish today.

    3. Just back from Matlock and it’s been cool, but sunny with a shower for a short time.
      Now bright sunshine.

      1. Nahh, he’s a luvvie well known for his Left wing views. He even runs his career through a tax haven.

    3. When they re-did Picard and twisted it from everything Star Trek upheld, he was apparently very happy with destroying what had gone before.

      He rarely does conventions and when he does, he is met with rapture you wouldn’t believe yet behind it all is a cynic cashing in on a fat pay cheque. OK, most actors do those things for the cash. That’s fine, but they’re professional and decent about it, realising why they’re there and who is paying the bills.

      That said, having been to some of the Warqueen’s few appearances some blokes simply do not wash and think they can manhandle as they like.

    4. Bullying womaniser or charming rogue?

      Probably both, depending on who you were talking to and, perhaps occasionally both opinions from the same person.

    2. Complex systems will not survive the incompetence crisis. If you continue to lower the standards of entry for high speciality roles, you’re going to get problems like this.

      See also the civil service, government.

    3. In my extremely limited experience, some types of land or buildings have characteristics that attract lightning strikes; attraction could be due to mineral deposits, underground springs or some type of ionisation process. Anyway, it takes two to tango and ground-to-cloud lightning is rare but is known to exist. As for the biogas centre near Oxford I wonder if there was an undetected leak.

      1. Rosedale, up in the North Riding, used to have an outcrop on the hillside that attracted lightening strikes until it was quarried away for the iron ore that caused it!

    4. I’m very surprised that metal container(s) containing flammable gas are not required by law to have a lightning rod.

    2. Delboy, I thought Mrs Dales’ Diary was cancelled by the BBC years ago! Lol. But seriously, glad to see that it was a good rest and that you have returned feeling very relaxed.

    1. There’s a very old folk song called “Where have all the flowers gone”. It sort of sums up all this covid BS in the last line. “When will they ever learn”.

  17. So much for the forecast of sun. Raining again. Cats livid. They were out last night when it poured. Managed to lure Gus in – through the torrent – he was sopping! Kept him indoors. Pickles was sheltering somewhere and didn’t appear until breakfast.

    1. Context would be helpful – who are those receiving the prize, and which Nobel did they win?

      1. 377290+ up ticks,

        Morning W,
        Did you open the link or do you also want their underwear sizes ?

  19. ‘Morning, Peeps. A day of full sun today and a bearable 18°C will be our lot on yer sarf-east coast. Just right for my least favourite job – that of cutting the church grass. Some rain would be nice, but only after I’ve finished.

    SIR – The original justification for water privatisation was that it was necessary for raising the capital required to fix our Victorian water infrastructure.
    Thirty years later and water companies now seek a further rise in bills to deliver what they promised all those years ago.

    A Holgate, Derby

    Well now A Holgate, this is the entirely predictable result of a monopoly in all but name and a regulator that is beyond useless.

    If I can choose who supplies my gas, my electricity and my broadband to my house using existing networks, why can’t I choose my water supplier? That is the question you should be asking.

    1. And even after all that capital being raised, the pipes really haven’t changed that much and are leaking just as they were before.

      Nothing will change – the money will continue to flow back to the company board. The regulator works for the water companies. 30 years of EU policy hasn’t helped. Folk don’t seem to understand that they control our water use. Trading arrangement my backside. It was a system to control, nothing else.

    2. Business customers have been able to do that for several years. The same scheme was supposed to be introduced for households a bit later but that seems to have disappeared.

    1. We use to live in Morphet Vale. 🤗
      Main South road and 100 Richards Drive. Opposite the school.

  21. SIR – Schools are to be told to ban pupils from using mobile phones (report, October 2).

    It is astonishing that they do not already do this. That these devices are a potential distraction is blindingly obvious. It should be standard practice that pupils hand them in on arrival and have them returned at the end of the day.

    Peter Boon
    Didcot, Oxfordshire

    I’m pleased to report that our grandson’s new (to him) senior school bans all pupils’ phones. It sounds as though it has the right idea.

    As it happens, we shall find out more about the place later this week, because we have been invited to a ‘grandparents’ day’ (actually a half-day) where we can go just about anywhere we like, the tour being conducted by the children. It should be fascinating, although I suspect that we may be somewhat envious of the facilities he has told us about so far when we think back to our first year at senior school – in my case that’s 61 years (gulp!)

    1. And if the handing in and collecting after process is made really long-drawn out and boring – perhaps the blighters will be less inclined to bring them to school.

      2. There’s no ‘handing in’ procedure at grandson’s school, phones are not allowed anywhere on the premises. No doubt some will flaunt the ban, and it will be interesting to know what punishment awaits if they do!

    2. Teacher’s can’t. They’re simply not allowed to. We monitor Junior’s mobile use. We tell him this but the number of times he just doesn’t bother taking it with him or show any real interest is vastly outweighed by the times he does.

      He’d far prefer building lego or making things – or, and this is my great hope for him – writing code for robots. In that maybe he’s spoiled as if he asks for something we get it for him. It’s never massively expensive and he’s likely following an Adam Savage idea. Folk thought I was mad getting a razor saw for a 7 year old.

    3. Not just a distraction but a serious danger when used to video classroom incidents set up purely for the purpose of causing trouble for the teacher.

        1. My short time at the Chalkface predated the explosion in “smart” phones, but when I look back and how much worse my time could have been had they been available, I shudder.

  22. G’morning all,

    Clear but cool at the McPhee’s, wind in the West, 12℃ going up to 16℃ today.

    So Dame Sharon White is to stand down from her wrecking career at John Lewis – but not until 2025 so the company limps on as a lame duck. A strong board of directors would remove her now and put things back they way they were with top-class customer service “never knowingly undersold” with the staff back in suits and the female equivalent. That’s all that needs to happen and JL will be on the road to recovery.

    1. When I first read that, I assumed that the woman would be gone by next Monday. All that is happening is that she will not be renewing her contract which ends in 2025 So she carries on picking up £50,000 a month (after tax) for another 18 months. Nice work…

        1. One wonders just on what these people (who seem such dull personalities) spend all their money

          1. Bill, usually buying a retirement mansion outside the country which they’ve damaged.

            That also has the added bonus of being outside the jurisdiction so you can never be held

            responsible for anything you did (a ploy recommended by Cairncross).

          2. Bill, usually buying a retirement mansion outside the country which they’ve damaged.

            That also has the added bonus of being outside the jurisdiction so you can never be held

            responsible for anything you did (a ploy recommended by Cairncross).

    3. I’ve never seen Lewis staff as not being very smart. I quite like the women in trousers and those just a bit too tight blouses…. ahem.

      The board isn’t strong because White has very powerful friends who installed her. She is, remember, an ex civil servant, who bounced pinball like, accomplishing nothing, doing nothing, taking responsibility for NOTHING until she bounced into Lewis where she will now bounce off to some quango or internationalist venture where she will achieve nothing and fail yet again only to move on swiftly before anyone notices her utter lack of competence or achievement.

      However, eventually she will achieve one thing. To walk up to the gallows, stick her head in the noose and, beside scwab and the other wasters, dance one final time.

      1. She must have so much dosh…..With plenty more to come. Remember she wrecked OffCom… So destruction runs in her veins.

  23. This is a much nicer place than TCW, where I normally rant, and you lot are a much nicer bunch – though its nice to see some of you there as well…
    But when I read that the government is finally doing something because it sees sense, it is hard work to block the stream of invective which bubbles to the surface.
    Effing government seeing sense???
    Effin sense?
    As they send our effin money to gangsters to bring Albanian peasants and Kurds to take over tobacconists in the south of effin England and pay Soames to house the others.

    This bunch of effin shysters?
    Telling kids who can’t tie their effin laces they can choose whether they are boys, girls or effin squirrels.

    Burning money with lockdowns and war and still trying to poison its tax base with this effin dangerous safe and effin effective soup?

    HS2?
    We’ve got serious fish to fry as the country spirals down Effluent Creek.

    Sorry. You are a nice bunch and Geoff has to start us somewhere so why not with the Telegraph?
    But – sense?

    3. It’s ‘sense’ only when you realise that what they’re doing has been ‘permitted’ by their masters.

    1. Bloomin’ welfare dogs. All far too well behaved.

      Worst you’d get from Mongo is drooled on. Speaking of, he has his therapy dog gear on and we’re off to the old people’s hospice today.

          3. Ho ho…Pets As Therapy – visiting hospitals, schools, hospices etc. At the Hospital Day Centre near our previous house we used to take her predecessor in once or twice a week on our duty days and many of the patients would brighten up when she walked in. One blind lady in particular adored her.

            https://petsastherapy.org/

        3. Oh you.

          He’s surprisingly gentle with them and puts up with the fuss. There’s one cranky old fellow there who – we thought – hated dogs. Turns out he’d lost one as a boy and never had another, so Mongo was a reminder of that loss. When he did succomb I think there were lots of tears.

          1. My late hound (died 1991) would have been wonderful in that role. Even people who hated dogs were fond of him.

      2. Do dogs have to have background checks like I had when I volunteered for care home visits for my keyboard?

      1. Unlikely unless it’s Eastern European or has been in contact with dogs from that area.

    1. Tut, tut – it would only be illegal if the requirement was for applicants to be white, native born English.

      Do try to keep up…!

    4. A white person should apply for the position, claiming to be black. When rejected, sue the company for racism (‘cos I is black).

    5. positive discrimination surely is illegal. If it was “only white’s need apply” there’d be one big hoohaa

      2. This sort of thing must surely damage harmonious race relations.

        Positive discrimination for some is negative discrimination for others.

  26. Electoral politics begin to bite into Ukraine support. 3 October 2023.

    Ukraine is fighting Russia on many fronts. And just as progress on the battlefield is hard won, so too these days are its diplomatic gains.

    Since Russia’s invasion last year, Western support for Kyiv has remained largely strong. But cracks are beginning to form in the pro-Ukraine alliance.

    Cannot be too many or too large. A Russian victory would be a Godsend for Freedom and Democracy in Europe.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66981840

      1. Morning Wibbles. I of course do not regard Russia as any threat to the UK. The indigenous British people and Russia share the same enemies. The Globalist factions that are attempting to extinguish both. In that sense we are allies with Putin. Victory in Ukraine for Russia would be a set back to those forces and thus reduce their influence here.

  27. Electoral politics begin to bite into Ukraine support. 3 October 2023.

    Ukraine is fighting Russia on many fronts. And just as progress on the battlefield is hard won, so too these days are its diplomatic gains.

    Since Russia’s invasion last year, Western support for Kyiv has remained largely strong. But cracks are beginning to form in the pro-Ukraine alliance.

    Cannot be too many or too large. A Russian victory would be a Godsend for Freedom and Democracy in Europe.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66981840

      1. She tried, but was defeated by Sunak and Co. After he had first lost to her in an election lasting several months.

  31. Interesting………….

    Eating in the 50s

    Pasta was not eaten
    Curry was a surname.
    A takeaway was a mathematical problem.
    A pizza was something to do with a leaning tower.
    Crisps were plain; the only choice we had was whether to put the salt on or not.
    Rice was only eaten as a milk pudding.
    A Big Mac was what we wore when it was raining.
    Brown bread was something only poor people ate.
    Oil was for lubricating, fat was for cooking.
    Tea was made in a teapot using tea leaves and never green.
    Sugar enjoyed a good press in those days, and was regarded as being white gold. Cubed sugar was regarded as posh.
    Fish didn’t have fingers.
    Eating raw fish was called poverty, not sushi.
    None of us had ever heard of yoghurt.
    Healthy food consisted of anything edible.
    People who didn’t peel potatoes were regarded as lazy.
    Indian restaurants were only found in India.
    Cooking outside was called camping.
    Seaweed was not a recognised food.
    ”Kebab” was not even a word, never mind a food.
    Prunes were medicinal.
    Surprisingly, muesli was readily available, it was called cattle feed.
    Water came out of the tap. If someone had suggested bottling it and charging more than petrol for it, they would have become a laughing stock!
    And the things that we never ever had on our table in the 50s and 60s: elbows or phones!

    Additions welcome.

        1. My Ma used it in our ears to loosen the wax so she could dig it out with a crochet hook

    2. Currency control rules limited you to fifty pounds a year, nowadays you couldn’t park your car at the airport for that amount.

    3. My sister was at home after teaching English in Paris for a year which made he enviously worldly. Once, she brought home a packet of long rigid strands which she announced were spaghetti. I was astonished. Spaghetti comes in a tin from Heinz!

      1. Great, I can remember my lovely mother making spaghetti bologniase for the first time, she cooked the spaghetti in the sauce. 😊
        Who knew 🤔

    1. No, we don’t need a billion fewer souls on this planet. We need to obliterate the one percent and allow everyone esle to pursue the natural instinct to stake out their territory and look after their own.

    2. We need fewer arseholes like her Dad flying around the world telling us to save the planet by not travelling

        1. First, the hundreds of thousands who have entered the UK illegally. Followed by all the blacks who pontificate on how much they loathe the UK – but live here and benefit from their loathing… Then all slammers.

          That’s a start.

          1. That’s a bit of a long list Bill.
            But I agree.
            I’m fed up to the eyeballs with black people who jointly never stop moaning.
            They wouldn’t last a week in thier so treasured home lands.

    2. She’s inherited the looks, charm and (utterly unjustified) conceit of her loathsome father, a man whose sole achievement is to have married the Heinz heiress. I look forward to the gladsome day when the Kerry family are hunted for sport.

          4. I was musing on the bad grammar. Perhaps she means to reduce the “lesser souls” on this planet?

    3. She’s inherited the looks, charm and (utterly unjustified) conceit of her loathsome father, a man whose sole achievement is to have married the Heinz heiress. I look forward to the gladsome day when the Kerry family are hunted for sport.

  34. Is there an expert here on Christmas choral music? There is this Christmas song that I often hear on commercials ‘He’s Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Hitler’ (I think that’s the title) written by Meredith Wilson.

    In the arrangement from Kevin Shen just handed out to the choir, the men’s parts in the second verse goes “Bum, bum, bum, bum – the wish of Barney and Ben”

    Anyone knows how this relates to Christmas?

    1. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-confusing-christmas-music-lyrics-explained-video

      “‘It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas’

      ‘A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots is the wish of Barney and Ben’

      A pair of hopalong boots” kicks off the list of Christmas presents for pairs of children that are rattled off in “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” The boots in question have no particular spring or bounce—the song refers to popular costume boots from the ’40s and ’50s modeled after the ones worn by the cowboy Hopalong Cassidy in a series of books and films. Originally conceived by author Clarence E. Mulford in 1904, Hopalong was crude, rough-talking, and dangerous. For the 66 (!) films starring William Boyd that came out in the ’30s and ’40s before re-running on TV and finding an even wider audience in the ’50s, Hopalong was rebranded a clean-cut, valiant hero—and his boots were the prize of little boys everywhere”.

    1. Without taking anything away from David Icke, if you read the Book of Revelation, St John the Divine got there first.

    1. The voice of a civil servant; someone who listened to his contemporaries’ accents at Winchester, but then decided to talk metropolitan.

  37. Ah!! Back from Matlock, stores put away and have just finished a mug of coffee.
    Not often I drink coffee, but as I have a cafetiere and just bought some cream, I thought I’d but some grade 6 ground coffee to go in it.

    New glasses collected & paid for and old glasses consigned to the glove compartment in the van as an emergency spare pair! Whenever I’m out in the van, my one fear is loosing or damaging my glasses as, without them, there is no chance I’ll be able to drive!

    I’m seriously thinking of writing an article for Conservative Woman or Going Postal about what should have been done instead of HS2. Will have to dredge through some letters to my MP and saved BTL comments to get started.

    2. Nothing would have done instead of HS2. The state doesn’t think what the country needs and then spends the money, like normal people. It does whatever it wants and then sends us the bill – usually multiple times over.

  38. An unexpected treat. My daughter is taking me to the Royal Opera House tonight after work!

      1. The ROH website has…
        “L’ELISIR D’AMORE.
        Conducted by Sesto Quatrini
        CAST
        Nadine Sierra, Liparit Avetisyan, Bryn Terfel, Boris Pinkhasovich, Sarah Dufresne”.

        2. Saw Bryn Terfel when he won the Lieder Prize at Cardiff in 1989.

          We went to Vienna in 2012 and saw Juan Diego Flores in “L’Elisir…..”
          A good memory at the ROH was seeing Dmitri Horostovski in Faust. Also JDF in La fille du Regiment.

          1. Oh that would put this heathen off the performance. Lieder is like caterwauling German moggies fighting over a scrap of leftover Surströmming.

          3. Depends what you’re listening to. They call it the Song Prize these days so not all German.

      2. Sadly I will be in my work clothes as it’s a last-minute affair.

        L’elisir d’amore by Donuzetti (no, me neither but I’m a peasant and it has a good write-up).

  39. Oscar studiously ignoring me, Mongo having a sleep in Junior’s empty room. He was, as usual, brilliant and was spoiled with a piece of shortbread.

    We did build him a little stage so he could sit with a very disabled lady but it was clear after 2 hours he was getting very weary, so we pootled off, saying our goodbyes and to come again soon.

  40. I’ve reached a technological barrier after being forced reluctantly to accept digital banking.
    My local town’s bank branch is scheduled to close in two months time and the only teller left today at the counter referred me to to the one personal banker left in the branch to make an account transfer.

    It didn’t take me long to discover that the personal banker was having trouble trying to explain to a couple of customers why they couldn’t understand the process of a setting up digital banking account.

    I walked over to the big digital banking notice where there was a big digital banking app QR code only to realise that my smart phone was too old to scan the code and even if it did there wasn’t any mobile phone signal to access the internet.

    I went back to my EV in the car park before the battery ran out only to find MOH with the shopping who had discovered that all the shop keepers in town were ditching cashless digital payments because of the exorbitant cost of hiring card readers.

    https://youtu.be/qWQfsx9Fj3A?si=Sken8-rsK9j39J3d

    1. Well, here in old fashioned WV, we still have a branch bank, open 9 to 5, 5days a week and Saturday mornings with helpful staff!!

    2. We have four bank branches in our little town of less than 5,000 inhabitants.

      Who knows why but another bank is building a new branch in town.

  41. Afternoon All

    Late lunch at Pip’s??

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35d022a564e358f81ecdaeb9c73b061ee7a9a44173a91a131fff8dca7a872302.png

    Rest of a very belated medley…

    Awkward

    https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1708066610291077422?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42b98ee1321ffa560cc7bdac5af10b1cdb6c405267d3138c818e3b9e43938447.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6f5d3a7036333354af3ecd48c2883e7563c4c4cdc2c5eabf552561c5cc6414a.png

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ab5eeee4e1072ee87ce920258a5e6c155548dc00e283963b61afba81ae04a40.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/efe134b89f636243a1ad9e537c7972c825e47b26ac4c7c16a3c0d03b21beb09e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec43858e1a1d16bc288f53620ff8d5ff0b4211c0cea70fbb39f9332ec20d2816.jpg

    2. Where do they think that disgusting tatto came from? Everything about it is oil based. But hey. They’re cool because he has a bin bag hair cut.

  42. My Lifeboat magazine arrived today.

    Surprise, surprise – again there were no accounts of the remarkable heroism shown by the RNLI volunteers in rescuing illegal immigrants on calm days in the English Channel.

    But I am sure that this item will encourage people to donate heavily to the cause:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1914d0c457aa3054cb967419a1ca1354a712edced899645dc25fc082bb7a01bf.png

    Caroline wants me to stop my subscription and support the French sea rescue service instead.

    1. I too would support the French Sea Rescuer Service if they operated off the North Coast of France to bring back all those poor people ill-advised trying to cross the Channel in a rubber boat!

      1. You could say that the RNLI is poaching business from the French Rescue Service by rescuing illegal immigrants very near to the French coast and then taking them to the UK rather than to France!

        Like many things in Britain the RNLI used to be the best organisation of its sort in the world but it now wants to show that it would prefer to be the worst. Why is it so determined to destroy itself with wokery?

      2. Of course the difference is that when the SNSM (the French lifeboats) rescue migrants, they take them back to France. There are tragic stories of migrants who were rescued and taken back to Calais, and then found drowned a couple of weeks later.

        The RNLI pick up these migrants and take them to British shores, effectively aiding and abetting illegal immigration. I would be perfectly happy if they picked them up and took them back to France!

        The SNSM only intervene if the migrants’ boats are in trouble – if they’re fine out on the water, then it’s a policing problem, not a lifesaving one. It would appear that the RNLI are asked to intervene by the Coastguard when lives are not necessarily in danger.

    2. I too would support the French Sea Rescuer Service if they operated off the North Coast of France to bring back all those poor people ill-advised trying to cross the Channel in a rubber boat!

    3. They missed a trick not highlighting the contribution of all the black volunteer lifeboat men throughout the ages (given it’s – oh joy – black history month. All month).

    4. I’ve no interest in the sexual proclivity of the lifeboat service. Being gay is nothing to celebrate, same as being heterosexual is. It’s a life choice. Startling as this might be to that group, no one gives a stuff about them.

      Well, no one in *this* country. The vermin they import do, because they’re alien to this culture.

      1. I didn’t choose to be heterosexual – I had no choice in the matter, I was just made that way!

    5. I’ve just looked it up: it would appear that the Stonewall annual membership fee for “Diversity Champions” is £3000. I can only presume that the RNLI pay their sub regularly.

          1. Having sailed all my life – and even though I never had to use their services – the fact that the RNLI existed was always a comfort.

          2. Forgive me for being blunt. That was then. This is now… They’ll never get a penny from me again.

          3. Did a number of charity/sponsored events for the RNLI when younger – like, swim the length of the canal from Bedford (unjammed a lock gate on the way).
            No more, due to their collusion in illegal immigration.

      2. We’ve a bunch of clients who signed up to that. All public sector reliant. All to buy a logo for a hateful, bitter, nasty organisation.

  43. The post office is doomed.

    This stamp swap out nonsense. I was in the post office and the chap said ‘go on line. Print off a form. Fill the form in. Post the form off. Wait for the stamps to be returned.’

    For goodness sake. *I was IN THE POST OFFICE.*! Now I’ve got to find an envelope. Such a backward waste of time.

    1. I purchased a stamp yesterday from my local sub post office. But before doing so I asked the chap behind the counter if he had a Mortgage Application Form!

      1. You’d think it’d be simple. Maybe they’re worried about mail fraud? Why can’t it be done ‘in the post office’? Or the collection hubs? It seems I have to always do the legwork – but then, there are inevitably people who’ll steal stamps. Simple! Don’t let them into the blinkin’ country!

  45. Let there be light…..albeit very, very, very briefly!

    “This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics rewards experiments with light that capture “the shortest of moments” and opened a window on the world of electrons.
    The award goes to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier.
    Their work demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to capture and study rapid processes inside atoms.
    The winners will share prize money of 11m Swedish krona (£824,000).
    The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the three laureates’ experiments produced “pulses of light so short that they are measured in attoseconds”.
    One attosecond is a quintillionth of a second – it is to a second what one second is to the age of the Universe.
    This work demonstrated that these almost unimaginably short pulses – like an ultra high-speed shutter – could be used to study how electrons behave.
    Electrons are particles inside atoms and they move incredibly fast – in billionths of a second. Prior to the laureates’ breakthroughs, they effectively appeared as blurs under the most advanced microscopes – their movement and behaviour was too rapid to follow.
    Eva Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said: “We can now open the door to the world of electrons. Attosecond physics gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons.”
    “Attosecond physics” is bringing important processes inside atoms and molecules into sharper focus. The development is likely to lead to even more accurate electron microscopes, much faster electronics and new tests able to diagnose diseases at a much earlier stage.

    1. The same length of pulse as a politicians attention span. How cool to be able to measure that!

    2. An attosecond is the attention span of the average Brit when serious subjects are under discussion but for some reason never seem to make Tik Tok….

    3. “New tests able to diagnose diseases at a much earlier stage”. Perhaps the past four years have made me a touch paranoid about these things but I smell a rat. If this detects cancer early then all well and good but is the technology described actually needed for that? Can’t it be done already? Tests can provide false results, as we now know all too well. Will healthy people be diagnosed as ill on the basis that you may feel fine but this super duper new test sees what you can’t possibly detect because it’s w-a-y–t-o-o small.

  46. We need trans-only wards. Debbie Hayton.. 3 October 2023.

    The Health Secretary Steve Barclay is expected to announce plans to ban transwomen like me from female hospital wards today. Let’s be clear, the privacy, dignity and safety of women in hospital have been overlooked for too long – but Barclay will also need to offer separate wards or rooms for transgender people. Yes, women should not be expected to budge up and make room for men who identify as transgender, but nor should the Health Secretary make the lives of those who transitioned – perhaps many years ago – more difficult than needs be.

    We are to have separate wards in every hospital for an absolutely miniscule proportion of the population? This is true insanity.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-need-trans-only-hospital-wards/

    1. Didn’t “trans-only” wards used to be called psychiatric units? There must a be a nice Victorian or Edwardian country house somewhere that could be turned into an asylum for such people. Somewhere with good facilities and nice grounds where they could be happy living in trans-land and have their medical and psychiatric needs met without infringing on the rest of society.

    2. From recent visits to hospitals it seemed to me the concept of privacy in the NHS was abandoned years ago with visitors of all flavours turning up on wards at any time…..

      1. When I was in custody in August 2020, one of my fellow detainees said how young my daughter looked. The MR was very flattered!!

    3. Let’s have male wards, female wards and mental patient wards. These special wards for the mentally ill can be split into male and female as well.

    7. ‘Trans-only’ wards have existed for centuries. They are known as asylums.

      Straitjackets and chains come as optional extras.

  48. Apparently the odious Fishi’s “speech” tomorrow will be “packed with new policies”.

    Odd that a so-called government that has been around for 13 years – suddenly needs “new” anything.

    1. So-called government and its so-called opposition will soon need a new contract of employment ( with additional benefits), which will be subject to a performance review by the great unwashed.

      1. Of course. None of the policies will ever see the light of day, let alone be implemented.

    4. Every single thing these fools do is the wrong one. He might keep inventing policies, but they’re not positive, useful or wanted.

      The only thing Sunak could do that would be worth anything to anyone is radical tax cuts. Don’t hike the min wage. It makes no real world difference. Instead, raise the tax thresholds and scrap the higher rate. And the upper rate. It’s hilariously simple, but because big fat state wants to keep wasting money it won’t, never accepting that lower taxes raise more revenue.

    2. Following the end of WWII my friend’s father was given the task of destroying tons of surplus munitions gathered up from Egypt and surrounding areas. I’m told much of the munitions were loaded onto barges and dumped in the Med…..

      1. Large amounts went into Beaufort’s Dyke in the Irish Sea.
        Then there was Operation Deadlight, the disposal of the U-Boats.

      2. Large amounts went into Beaufort’s Dyke in the Irish Sea.
        Then there was Operation Deadlight, the disposal of the U-Boats.

    4. Imagine if the SS Richard Montgomery blew up when fully laden.
      Even now it might make one Hell of a firework

  50. It seems Mr Terfel, who was due to be performing at the Royal Opera House tonight in the production of L’esisir d’amore, which my daughter is taking me to, is ill and Giulio Mastrototaro will be making his Royal Opera debut (having previously performed the role in Milan, Stuttgart, Duesseldorf and other roles in other European cities).

    I am quite excited.

  51. Our wonderful Royal Mail imposed a sneaky price rise yesterday. The cost of posting a single one of our calendars has gone up from £1.85 to £2.40. Which means, until our website man has time to tweak the postage price on PayPal, we lose out for every one we post.

    This morning we had a postal delivery – the first for a week or two – one item was my Barclaycard bill, dated 18th September, and the other, dated 21st September, was a hospital appointment for OH – for 29th July 2024……….. at least that has arrived in good time. I think it’s a pisstake.

      1. I could if I could get into the website to do it – and our website man would love to hand it on to someone but neither we nor he has found anyone yet to do it. He doesn’t charge us for updates but it’s not his priority task. I was hoping not to bother him for a while but I couldn’t ignore that one.

        1. I notice Ebay sell calendars mostly with free postage to the buyer. Have you considered selling them through them?

          1. The postage has to be paid for somehow. It would mean including it in the price of the item. I don’t really know how it works via Ebay.

    2. I support the IJF (Injured Jockeys Fund). They have said that in future, rather than sending out individual items and then the calendars (not ready until November) separately, they will keep the items back to send with the calendars unless customers pay for the extra postage.

      1. Postage is rapidly becoming an unfunny joke. £1.5s.0d for a stamp on a letter?????

        The society of which the MR is the new secretary is finding ways of delivering membership stuff by hand.

        1. Perhaps she could find local Newsagents and employ some of their paperboys and girls at newsagent rates.

          1. We are six miles from the nearest newsagent. They charge 50p per house per day…

            What a quaint, old-fashioned and rather lovely image you create of “paperboys and girls”…..

            I can detect that you live abroad!

          2. Still cheaper than a stamp.
            Put an advert in the Newsagents window for recruitment.
            Although doubtless the hoops you have to jump through would make it impossible.

          3. I failed to make my point.

            There are NO “paperboys and girls” The one and only firm for ten miles around has mostly retired blokes who deliver by van.

            It is not cheaper than a 15/- “second class” stamp when you add the costs of us having to drive and hand in the stuff. Anyway, the newsagent charges £40 for extra deliveries/inserts etc

          4. I would have suggested that the MR learned to operate a drone, but then I realised she already has one.

          6. Our paper “boy” delivers from a car, a beat-up piece of automotive crap without exhaust – at 04:00 or so. The accelerator is welded to the floor… morning, all.

      2. I produce the calendar each year and it’s been our main winter fundraiser over the years. We sell far more to people far and wide than we do to locals but the postage cost is getting silly. The rise for heavier items is proportionately lower.

    3. For sometime I have argued that the incessant rises in postal charges have stopped us sending as many Christmas cards as we used to do.

      I suggested that it would be an excellent PR exercise to reduce the cost of postage over the Christmas period to encourage people to start sending Christmas cards to each other again to regenerate the Christmas spirit.

      So what has the Post Office decided to do? It has decided to raise its prices over the Christmas period.

      The big question now is will they reduce the postal rates each time the moveable feast of Eid comes around?

  52. Afternoon, folks. I’ve got another meeting to go to tonight, so I’m dashing in and out early. The government is not actually seeing sense (if they were they would actually do something to get the ball rolling in terms of stopping the cash flow); it is more they have realised what a vote-loser it is and are pretending that it will be stopped, when in fact it will be put on hold to be resumed at a later date. Meanwhile, the bills will continue to rack up.

    1. Why can’t the government listen to the many eminent scientists who have shown with irrefutable proof the truth that carbon dioxide is good for the environment and that Net Zero is achieving nothing other than impoverishing us and destroying Britain?

    2. Why can’t the government listen to the many eminent scientists who have shown with irrefutable proof the truth that carbon dioxide is good for the environment and than Net Zero is achieving nothing other than impoverishing us and destroying Britain?

      1. It’s not really seeing sense on anything it’s doing that is ridiculous and harmful. All it’s doing is pushing out lies that it will actually do something useful.

        1. Oh dear – how out of touch you are. The spades (and their woke, eco-freak, limp dumb allies) will cancel you. Context is irrelevant. It is merely the use of an innocent word that will condemn you.

    2. “Shovel ready” is I believe the customary building phrase….

      “I come not to praise HS2 but to bury it….”

  54. The airline SAS, been in financial trouble for years, have suspended share trading, and will cancel all their shares. That means shareholders now own nothing of value with SAS – and share certificates are too stiff to wipe your arse on, the only thing they are worth now.
    A “New SAS” will apparently arise from the ashes, but I’m not convinced they will get very far, and I’m certainly not buying their stocks. Forget it. Some will have taken a heavy loss as both businesses and private investors.

  55. Another five

    Wordle 836 5/6

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

    1. Par today.

      Wordle 836 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Me too.

      Wordle 836 5/6

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

    3. Par today

      Wordle 836 4/6

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

  56. That’s me gone for this day of several halves. Torrential rain in the night. Dry – then showers – then a sunny afternoon, but chilly.

    Glad to say I discovered why the porch gutter was overflowing like Niagara at 11.30 pm. Blocked in two places. All now cleaned despite ladder work being needed.

    MR out at a PCC meeting so supper will be delayed. A brief outing tomorrow to see two friends both of whom speak very quietly…so that’ll be fun for me!!

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain

    1. Jif – pronounced “yiff”. In Skandiweegian, anyhow.
      Like some kind of hair arrangement…

      1. 🤣
        Swedes get so confused by English words beginning with either a ‘J’ or a ‘Y’ they routinely call the colour yellow, “jellow“. 😬

        2. Same with Germans pronouncing an English “V” and “W”. They tend to say “Wery good”.
          Also, as per brand names, Vick vapour rub is Wick in German – pronounced Vick, but as a German V is a soft F sound, “Vick” would be very rude in German.

      1. I still call ‘Snickers’ (idiotic word!) Marathon.

        I have decanted the contents of the second bottle into the Jif bottle.

    3. We had a WRAC girl in one unit whose name was Syph. She insisted it was “Sife”. We had a lad in another unit called Pigott who naturally was nicknamed Lester. He insisted his name was Pygott, so the nickname changed to Lei-ces-ter.

  58. Here’s one for you.
    Local Weegie pub has a regular lady, who is now quite unwell. She’s a Spurs fan (and yes, that’s enough to make anyone unwell…)
    When I dropped by this afternoon, the Publican was rearranging the corner where she likes to sit, with Tottenham Hotspur decorations – scarf, pictures of players, badges, shields and the like, for her next visit. How kind is that? The Publican who should be called Sir. And I do.

  59. Good evening all.
    Reporting from Gran Canaria where it’s 31C and likely to be that until we come home in 10 days time.
    Have fun all of you.

      1. Two beautiful large infinity pools overlooking the Atlantic. Very calm. No sweating.

    2. Have a lovely holiday! My central heating came on yesterday. It’s written in to the lease that it will and sure enough…

  62. The sh!t known as Vallance is trying to distance himself from the calamity of Covid. Extracts from his diary at the inquiry: “Number 10 chaos as usual. On Friday, the two-metre rule meeting made it abundantly clear that no-one in Number 10 or the Cabinet Office had really read or taken time to understand the science advice on two metres. Quite extraordinary…” and also “…[scientists were] used as human shields [by ministers]”.

    It was reported by the BBC earlier that once again Lady Hallett had asked for members of the public to come forward with their tales of woe, thus playing on emotion. I fear that this inquiry will heap all of the blame on Johnson & Co with a let-off for the ‘experts’. I haven’t heard yet whether the death count has been challenged or if it will be. As it’s an inquiry and not a trial, the likes of Vallance will not be cross-examined. I think we already know what the outcome will be – next time must be sooner, harder, longer. And with extra powers for OFCOM.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66998218

    1. These creeps all seem to keep their diaries, painting themselves in the best possible light.

      They should all be cross examined under oath, and if even relatively insignificant lies surface they should be prosecuted.

    2. “The science advice on two metres”. The arbitrary six feet six inches. Voodoo science.

      2. It sounds as those in-fights have begun. (‘No honour amongst thieves.’) Popcorn time fast approaching.

      3. It sounds as those in-fights have begun. (‘No honour amongst thieves.’) Popcorn time fast approaching.

    3. I blame Johnson, as PM he should have a duty of care for the population and he had none. He was weak and should have stood up to them and not given in to them. As PM he was the only one who could have changed things and he totaly failed

      1. I always had a feeling that he was against it all but was outvoted by the invertebrates who surrounded him.

          3. Do you seriously think they’d have gone through a leadership campaign during that?

          5. They’re making PM changes more quickly than they used to, bypassing GEs and party members.

  63. The DT has taken SiL to Chesterfield possibly to pick up BiL.
    Not expecting her back soon, so off for a bath.
    In case I don’t come back on line, I will with all a Good Night.

  64. It’s not much more than a week since our village idiot closed off his dealings with India by claiming that the Indian government was behind a murder in BC. A few days later, he then announced that he wanted to improve the relationship between the two countries.

    In response, the Indian government have just expelled another 42 Canadian diplomats. Way to go Trudeau, you really have this under control.

    Just a miserly 28C here today and bright sunshine. Absolutely perfect golfing weather.

    2. That picture reminds me – why do blacks have 2 holes in their top lip? So they can see where they are going when they’re whistling

  69. Oh well I’m off.
    Eye test went quite well but further investigation is necessary.
    Waiting for further contact, but not lenses.
    Apparently because of my cardio medication my pupils are smaller than normal and could be the cause of not being able to read some of the smaller letters on the test cards.
    Night all. 😴

      1. Morning obs.
        The opthalmist wanted to carry out further tests but was unable to do so I have another appointment elsewhere in three weeks.

  71. Peter Hitchens, November 2012:

    It is amazing the way people delude themselves about politicians of all sorts. For instance, I have been getting letters telling me that Alexander (Boris) Johnson is some sort of new Churchill. But as Mr Johnson showed on Sunday during his trip to India, his fabled ‘Euroscepticism’ amounts to two parts of nothing at all in practice. In any case, as I have often warned here before, a referendum on the EU is a worthless promise. What we need is a party committed unconditionally to secession from the EU, winning an election on the basis. Any government can ignore a referendum, or wriggle out of it, always assuming the BBC doesn’t rig it in the first place. I so wish people would grow out of demanding this dubious vote, and see ‘Euroscepticism’ for the worthless fence-sitting that it is.

    https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/

        2. 377290+ up ticks,

          M,
          Plenty, remember ” make boris PM, he makes us laugh!.”….. they ain’t laughing now,

    2. I don’t think anyone can be put forward as a candidate in the four top political parties who is not in thrall of the EU and all the other climate/gender/CO₂ et al. A party ‘committed unconditionally to secession from the EU” will not be allowed a platform.

      1. 377290+ up ticks,

        Morning M,

        Then we build them one, as we were succeeding in doing with Gerard Batten and UKIP until treachery took a hand.

  72. An early good morning to the insomniacs.
    Sat up in bed with the DT enjoying our mugs of tea!

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