Tuesday 4 January: Schools will not return to normal until masks are cast out of classrooms

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

678 thoughts on “Tuesday 4 January: Schools will not return to normal until masks are cast out of classrooms”

  3. Finally saw the rest of the family yesterday to complete the Christmas celebrations. I was given more reading material, they said it reflected my contempt for the buffoon and his cronies.

      1. Love the artist’s sense of perspective in the lower cartoon. The foreground jockeys are much smaller than the background spectators.
        Surrealism?

        2. It’s like mediaeval paintings; the largest figures are the most important.
          The crowds were drawn larger to make the point that they were (allegedly) the spreaders of infection. The race is a mere explanatory details, like very small clerks sitting at a much larger monarch’s feet.

          The rediscovery of perspective had the potential to reduce rulers to the level of the ordinary man. Unless the artist knew on which his bread was buttered and/or preferred to keep his neck on his shoulders.

          1. I understand that Ucillo was among the first of the Medieval and Renaissance painters to use perspective.

      2. Why is a horse numbered 69 (there is a limit on the number of runners of 40 and most races are considerably less) being ridden by a huntsman?

        2. Also there are about 5 times as many BAMEs in the crowd as are usually found in racing (even at Cheltenham) and the only remotely black jockey is Sean Levey who rides on the flat (so never at Cheltenham). It fails on so many levels!

  4. Good morning all.
    Now this is quite amusing.
    https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article236005760/Corona-Impfungen-700-Schafe-und-Ziegen-werben-als-riesige-Spritze.html
    A sheep farm in Germany got their sheep and goats to pose in the form of a giant syringe, in order, says Die Welt, to get people to take the jab.
    Could it not be seen in quite the opposite way though? sheep lining up for the jab?
    I have the feeling that someone is having a laugh, but nobody dares to be anti-jab in public, including Die Welt, so they are all going along with it. Or are they really that stupid?!

      1. Yes, I’ve just read them too!
        That means that the journalists did post it as satire – and perhaps the sheep farmers did it as satire too – yet neither of them dares openly to mock the government’s agenda. That’s pretty worrying, that one of Germany’s biggest newspapers has to resort to these tactics.
        But I have the impression that the Daily Mail is doing the same. They sometimes post articles that pay lip service to the government, but actually report quite the opposite from what they pretend to.
        I find this level of censorship quite frightening.

      2. Yes, I’ve just read them too!
        That means that the journalists did post it as satire – and perhaps the sheep farmers did it as satire too – yet neither of them dares openly to mock the government’s agenda. That’s pretty worrying, that one of Germany’s biggest newspapers has to resort to these tactics.
        But I have the impression that the Daily Mail is doing the same. They sometimes post articles that pay lip service to the government, but actually report quite the opposite from what they pretend to.
        I find this level of censorship quite frightening.

  6. Morning all

    Schools will not return to normal until masks are cast out of classrooms

    SIR – Ministers have suggested that stricter Covid controls are unlikely to be introduced in the coming days, due to a fall in infections and the mild symptoms of omicron, especially among children.

    Yet Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, has defended the re-imposition of masks in schools, despite little evidence that they protect pupils.

    I presume Mr Zahawi will not be wearing a mask all the time in his office. Why, then, does he think it is acceptable to prevent normal human interactions between children, and discriminate against the deaf – or partially deaf – who lip read, by forcing them to wear damp rags on their faces throughout the day?

    Michael Staples

    Seaford, East Sussex

    SIR – What is the point of face-to-face teaching if you then cover up the faces of the pupils?

    Should I perhaps take my classes to the pub and teach them over a pint or two instead? Remote teaching is far from ideal, but we shouldn’t imagine that muzzling our increasingly vaccinated young people is somehow an acceptable alternative.

    Either it is too risky for schools to return at the moment, so we should focus on high-quality remote education, or we should be allowed to return to teaching and learning in a free and civilised way.

    Mark Waldron

    Ryde, Isle of Wight

    SIR – There appears to be an expectation that certain areas of the public sector are going to have a shortfall of 25 per cent in their workforces due to Covid infection.

    Are we going to see a similar shortfall in the private sector?

    Stewart Grainger

    Saltburn, North Yorkshire

    SIR – We are now being told that if we have a cold, it may well be Covid.

    No, it is probably a cold. We are in the middle of the cold and flu season. And the way to treat it is to do what we have always done. There is no need for endless tests and isolation. We must get on with life – because, if we don’t, we will never escape this nightmare.

    N J Stokes

    Devizes, Wiltshire

    SIR – From December last year we restricted our activities quite severely. However, despite seeing far fewer people during this period than many of our friends, we still caught Covid and have had worse symptoms than others. We are fully vaccinated.

    Meanwhile, we have friends who have taken sensible precautions, such as getting boosted, but have otherwise lived normal, sociable lives. They have either not got Covid or got it lightly.

    It’s most unwise to generalise, but I do wonder whether humans have evolved to come into contact with each other’s viruses and bacteria regularly, meaning that restricting contact between people too much or too often actually harms our immune systems.

    Alexandra Campbell

    Faversham, Kent

    1. I had such a cold just before Christmas. It was a classic cold – runny blocked up nose, headache, and cough. I spent the weekend in bed and was better by Wednesday.

      I went to an event where one person tested positive, forcing the conductor to abandon a gig on Christmas Eve and to socially isolate himself. I could easily have caught my cold there. I had to wear a mask in an overheated room, and felt decidedly unwell at the end of breathing in my own spume all evening, as well as gasping for air.

      However, I lateral-flow tested negative all week, and also tested consistently negative all through my cold and after. I was damned if I was going to book myself in to a PCR spreader centre, driving there whilst feeling yuck. It didn’t feel like Covid; it felt like a cold.

      Am I now to be added to the statistics?

  7. SIR – Nick Timothy (Comment, January 3) describes only part of the mess that Tony Blair made of Britain.

    He omits his politicisation and destruction of the moral force of many of our great, previously neutral, national institutions: the police, the Armed Services, the judiciary, the Civil Service and the Speakership of the House of Commons. He also ignores the fact that, on leaving office, against all past precedent, Sir Tony exploited the contacts he had built up as Prime Minister to enrich himself by advising a range of odious foreign regimes.

    Many of us would agree with Mr Timothy that the Conservatives could and should have revised the Blairite legislation that has poisoned our nation, but he is not the one who should be saying it without a huge mea culpa. He was Theresa May’s main adviser, along with Fiona Hill, at the Home Office from 2010 to 2015, and then, in 2016, at 10 Downing Street. He had ample opportunity to attack the Blair agenda.

    Why his appreciation of the disastrous consequences of Sir Tony’s 10 years in power leads Mr Timothy to support his knighthood is a mystery.

    Gregory Shenkman

    London W8

    SIR – The Order of the Garter is for chivalry. Perhaps Tony Blair could display some by politely declining this honour.

    Claudia van der Werff

    London SW1

    SIR – For those considering the rights and wrongs of awarding Tony Blair the Garter, I would remind them of Lord Melbourne’s remark: “I like the Garter; there’s no damn merit in it.”

    I am astounded he has not claimed his earldom as well.

    Maxwell Craven

  8. Morning again

    Folly of net zero

    SIR – Between November 2021 and April 2022 there will have been a net increase in heating costs for each household of around £2,400 per annum. Our nation will then realise that it is divided between those who can, and those who cannot, continue to heat their homes.

    This Government’s failure to ensure adequate and affordable energy will be transparently obvious. Voters will link this catastrophe directly to Britain’s net-zero policy – and to its principal proponent at Cop26, our Prime Minister. He will not survive this epiphany; the only question is whether the party that he leads will endure.

    Dr Tony Parker

    Ringmer, East Sussex

    SIR – In the next election I will vote for whichever party commits itself to digging coal and fracking for gas. Will anyone join me?

    John Smallwood

    West Auckland, Co Durham

    SIR – There have been several letters supporting shale gas extraction, often citing its use in the United States.

    What they have failed to mention is that the areas fracked (in Pennsylvania, for example) have a population density as low as one person per square mile – whereas here in South Yorkshire, 25,000 people live within one to two miles of a proposed fracking site, and the nearest houses are less than 500 yards away.

    This is a rural area with no transport infrastructure to support the movement of more than 100 heavy goods vehicles per day, and the fracking process has been shown to be massively polluting to the local environment in numerous ways.

    Adrian Waller

    Woodsetts, South Yorkshire

    1. Mr Waller, you raise very very good points. As fracking is clearly dangerous and you don’t want it, here’s my gas bill.

      More sensibly, all industry is polluting. We should build roads that properly allow the egress of heavy machinery.

      And yes, we are grostesquely over populated. If the massive influx of illegal gimmigrants were stopped, and the welfare system intentionally opposed to providing for the 70% ethnic population dependent on them, the country would have far fewer people in it. You should, for example have a population 2/3s what you do. Blame Blair for starting the tsunami.

    2. No need to frack on land. It is cheaper to do so. However, all of the controversy about earthquakes my be avoided by fracking in the North Sea.

        1. New Year Greetings Oberst, ‘fracking’ was first used in the industry in 1949 and was used in the North Sea from 1980 onwards. In the last few decades the methodologies were greatly improved, both in safety and efficiency.

    3. What utter balls, Adrian Waller!

      Edwin Pugh
      7 HRS AGO
      I notice a letter from Adrian Waller that states that fracking causes a great deal of disruption. It didn’t and hasn’t in Dorset where fracking has been going on for many years without disturbing the locals at all.
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/10233955/The-town-where-a-form-of-fracking-is-already-happening.html

      Well said, Edwin Pugh. If we can frack for years, successfully, in such a sensitive area like Poole Harbour…

      1. I grew up in a village in Surrey, a few miles from Dorking.

        A couple of years ago, proposals for an oil extraction site at the village of Coldharbour were abandoned largely because of the effect of heavy vehicles on local roads.

        Now, I know the area very well. The problem is Boar Hill, where the local bus (MXX 342, last seen in a museum) used to break down regularly. It is narrow, very steep, overshadowed by low-growing trees and quite impassible when it is icy.

        It also has pretty well every statutory protection thrown at it, being an AONB, SSI, Conservation Area with a total embargo on building, Green Belt, and stuffed full of migrant City folk. Politically, it used to be True Blue Conservative, but these days is Liberal Democrat.

        If they can industrialise Coldharbour, they can industrialise anywhere.

        1. “…the effect of heavy vehicles on local roads.”

          Only during the initial drilling and establishment of the well-head.

    4. What utter balls, Adrian Waller!

      Edwin Pugh
      7 HRS AGO
      I notice a letter from Adrian Waller that states that fracking causes a great deal of disruption. It didn’t and hasn’t in Dorset where fracking has been going on for many years without disturbing the locals at all.
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/10233955/The-town-where-a-form-of-fracking-is-already-happening.html

      Well said, Edwin Pugh. If we can frack for years, successfully, in such a sensitive area like Poole Harbour…

  9. 343562+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    The wearing of the mask has IMB many more serious connotations health being the least of all.
    The mask is the pathway to the burka and most definitely a barrier to free speech.
    The infrastructure for the final solution takeover is in place the instruction manual rest between the dispatch boxes and halal is on the parliamentary canteen menu.

    The forts ( mosques) are in the main, in place, that leaves the staffing via DOVER the overseers are seemingly running a successful campaign.

    It is now just a matter of time.

  11. Putin’s attempt to control the past follows the Xi model. 4 January 2022.

    “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell was writing in the late 1940s — but that extract from 1984 is a perfect guide to how Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the leaders of Russia and China, treat history.

    In the dying days of 2021, the Russian and Chinese governments both took dramatic action to censor discussion of their countries’ history. In both cases, the decision to “control the past” sends a bleak signal about the future.

    You need blinkers to write such stuff in the UK! Statues are being removed; whole tracts of our history are being erased and re-written . Free Speech has been abolished. State Propaganda pervades the MSM. Thought Crime is already on the Statute Books! If anywhere resembles Xi’s China it is the UK! Russia, Hungary and Poland are now the only Free Christian Nation States in existence. It’s significant that all are former Communist States who know the reality of it and that the Globalist glove puppet and anti-democratic EU is opposed to all three!

    https://www.ft.com/content/9f6a2efb-2c15-4086-8085-5d5ed79219d3

    2. No ft, it’s an example of how the *Left* treat this country. They’re the ones who want to erase everything they disagree with.

      Busy troubled minds with foreign quarrels, I think is the phrase!

          1. It isn’t exactly balmy here, either. Yesterday, when it was mild, the Rayburn was running hot, so I turned it down. Today, when I need it to run hot, it’s sluggish!

    3. Dear life, the third one in.

      Could we stop making this country look like that country, please?

      1. I’m pretty tired, thanks for asking. Please see my reply to Sue above. We have not had the children here together for over two years, and last year was a complete wipe out because of Covid travel restrictions, whereas the previous year the children’s work commitments did not allow time to return here all at the same time. This year we ate the Christmas pudding made in September 2020. “No lock on the fridge” we told our children thirty years ago. Now it’s “No lock on the wine cupboard”.

        1. That’s a bit early to eat Christmas pud surely?
          Best kept for at least 5 years, preferably longer!

          2. It’s the regular administration of rum and brandy to keep it moist that works the trick.

      1. Our children stayed with us over Christmas and the dining room/office was cleared to allow for use as a dining room. Computer put aside for a week. I was cooking three meals a a day for six (and our new grandson). Now that they have all left we have almost tidied up the wreckage, washed all the linen, returned all the furniture and rooms to normal and relaxed. Still in the process of the relaxation and normality return.

        1. Oh that sounds wonderful! You must be knackered now! We had 14 here yesterday, and the place looked like bomb-site! All clear now and we are relaxing with a load of food in ‘fridge and freezer!

          3. My old man was so convinced we didn’t have enough food, made a chicken balti yesterday morning! I spent a lot of years in catering….but hey ho!

  15. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c52e2c866298d0d1a800ff1e9a9b6c9ff7eb5fc29244941ad9dc605f6da13aa.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0c8c85834945c0eb23f35b23de595811d02a0d26dfcfdc9186bae5cb3ac6885.png I am so happy for you, Isobel, that someone has, at long last, found a legitimate use for bloody bay leaves!

    This damn pointless herb is generally used by every half-witted telly cook in all their recipes, sweet or savoury. You watch them describing the recipe with anticipation before, every time, they “chuck in a couple of bay leaves”. Why? They have absolutely no effect upon a recipe that generally contains many other strong herbs and spices. In milder dishes, their random use has a deleterious effect and utterly ruins the dish. Stop using the bloody things. Your food will taste much better.

        2. They impart a subtle taste; no good, as you say, chucking them in with lots of other herbs. I do a slow-cooked pork with milk, using those and a small amount of pepper; if you were nearer I’d cook it for you to try!

          2. Ah Grizzly! I’ve made this point before pet, but you cannot make a decent bechamel sauce, bread sauce or boiled gammon without bay leaves! I made a pasticcio yeasterday for the family party, and my Greek nephew said it was as good as his mothers! All down to the subtle and sweet bay flavour!

          3. Well done you.

            I normally steam veg now but if you take some florets of cauliflower and simmer in a little water with a bay leaf it improves the taste.

          4. Well done you.

            I normally steam veg now but if you take some florets of cauliflower and simmer in a little water with a bay leaf it improves the taste.

          5. Ah, Mrs Macfarlane. “…you cannot make a decent bechamel sauce, bread sauce or boiled gammon without bay leaves!”

            Wanna bet? 😘

          6. I was taught at school to pierce a bay leaf with a clove then into an onion for the warm milk to make a bechamel.

            None of my cook books including the great Escoffier mention doing such a thing.

          7. Here! Listen pet! I’m now using a hand-me-down iPad instead of my old mini, and I have a load of new emojis! Oh boy! Are you in schtook! 🧟‍♀️

          8. It’s a pity Sue, that Apple emojis don’t appear properly on Windows machines.

            I think I can use wingdings characters but that’s it – No I can’t, not on disqus.

          9. Oh I’m very excited NTN! I can also read Twitter stuff and check my replies etc on here, without resorting to my old man’s laptop! 🥳

    2. I love bay leaves in apple pie. Much nicer than cinnamon.
      How do you use them to preserve carpets though? scatter them randomly over the carpet? I am sceptical.
      I had a terrible plague of moths a couple of years ago, tried lavender, it did nothing. I put the carpet outside over several frosty nights, and chucked out a load of old hogshair paint brushes left over from when my children were in primary school.

          1. I’ll desist thank you, Spikey on the grounds that I like neither cloves nor cooked apple.

      1. I love them. I was fascinated by their smell when I first came across them at primary school (I still love it). They are an essential ingredient of mixed spice. They are useful for reducing the pain of neuralgia (toothache) and clove oil is good for keeping artists’ oil paints workable for a long time.

        Ergo, I’m a clove fan.

        1. You asked the point of bay leaf…

          When dried it tastes like a cross between mint and spice.

          Health benefits.

          Antibacterial effects

          In lab studies, bay leaves have been found to have
          antibacterial properties, which means they stop bacteria from growing
          near them. More specifically, bay leaves inhibit the growth of both Staphylococcus aureus (the bacteria behind Staph infections) and E. Coli. An early lab study also shows that bay leaves fight off H. Pylori, a bacteria that causes ulcers and even cancer.

          Blood sugar health

          One study found that consuming capsules of ground bay leaves
          can decrease blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes. More
          research is needed to determine if this effect is present when people
          consume much smaller quantities of bay leaves — a recipe serving four to
          eight people may only call for one leaf, after all.

          People who don’t have diabetes experience lower blood sugar levels after eating a meal when they’ve also consumed bay leaves.

          Cancer prevention and treatment

          Early laboratory cell research shows that bay leaves slow the
          growth of breast cancer cells and colorectal cancer cells. Further
          studies are needed to understand how effective bay leaves are at helping
          cancer patients.

          https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-bay-leaves#1

    1. Tory Establishment turncoat, Charles Moore, goes against the zeitgeist.

      Of course Tony Blair should be knighted. [Notebook, Daily Telegraph 04/01/22]

      Sometimes the Right, when outraged, can be as ridiculously narrow-minded as the Left. Indeed, on the subject of Tony Blair’s knighthood, they seem to be united.

      Of course Mr Blair should be made a Knight of the Garter. Unlike most honours, the Garter is the personal gift of the Sovereign, not part of the patronage-controlled Honours “system”. Each prime minister is so called because he or she is the Sovereign’s first minister. If the Queen decides Mr Blair deserves it, that should be good enough for the rest of us.

      Besides, he does deserve it. This is not because he was necessarily right: I personally have written tens of thousands of words about the numerous times he was wrong. It is because he was successful. He was one of only three of his party’s leaders ever to win overall Labour majorities in Parliament, and the only one to win enormous majorities all three times he fought. He brought Labour out of an 18-year wilderness.

      He fulfilled a key condition for our democracy’s functioning, which is that more than one political party should be capable of government.

      Tony Blair was patently up to the job. He outclassed all his Tory opponents and all his own party’s rivals, a fact which drove his eventual successor Gordon Brown (will he accept the Scottish equivalent, the Order of the Thistle?) round the bend. He was capable of leading, deciding, explaining, persuading. He made more difference than any other post-war prime minister except Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher.

      My only criticism is of Sir Tony himself for accepting the honour. Part of his “New Labour, New Britain” riff was an uncritical admiration of “modernising”. He was abysmally ignorant of history and careless about our institutions – hence his bungled reform of the House of Lords and his mishandling of devolution. The Order of the Garter is a medieval, religious and monarchical institution. If Sir Tony were consistent with his Year Zero beliefs, he would disdain the Queen’s offer. (There is precedent: Harold Macmillan, of all people, refused it twice.)

      1. As far as I am aware an honour is offered to the potential recipient and is accepted or declined. The honours list is then published, only showing the names of those who have accepted the honour. If people choose to declare that they have refused the honour, rather than keep it private, that is their choice. Obviously some cases of honours being declined do get leaked to the press.
        Blair has certainly accepted his.

        1. More likely that Cherie opened the envelope and accepted before she told Tone anything about it.

      2. It is because he was successful.

        Under this criteria Stalin would be a recipient!

        1. I fear Charles Moore has completely lost the plot now! He’s been hovering on the brink for several months but he’s finally tipped into lunacy!
          Oops! Good morning all!

      4. 343563+ up ticks,
        Morning G,
        By the same token couldn’t something posthumously be worked out for hitler, his death count did exceed the bog mans and he did also bring germany out of the twilight zone.

      5. CM is getting an absolute pasting BTL. I wonder how long comments – and their visibility – will last?

          1. Just think: if Blair had been any other species of animal, apart from a human, he would have been culled.

      6. ‘Morning Grizz. I fear that CM has been overtaken by senility. There is so much wrong with this piece there isn’t time to list them all. Besides, they leap off the page without any assistance from me! I used to have great respect for his column, but this is well beyond the pale. The nearly 900 BTLs seem to be universally hostile, too.

      7. {He was one of only three of his party’s leaders ever to win overall Labour majorities in Parliament, and the only one to win enormous majorities all three times he fought.}

        What does that say about voters….?

      8. {He was one of only three of his party’s leaders ever to win overall Labour majorities in Parliament, and the only one to win enormous majorities all three times he fought.}

        What does that say about voters….?

      9. H!tler was pretty damn successful as a politician, too, although is military prowess left something to be desired. Maybe he should be Gartered too?

  19. Good morning all. The overnight rain has ceased and it’s a dry but chilly -1°C out there.

  20. A BTL Comment:-

    Cuthbert Clotsworth
    44 MIN AGO
    Now that the kingdom declines in throes of terminal mock conservative absudity ,the enoblement of Sir Tony is something of a masterstroke : Reductio ad absurdum.
    A tale of woe used to show that the substance or essence of British politics has finally come to a terrible end
    Led to such a nadir of unmeaning emptyness , our very existance is now an unsustainable sort of pointlessness.
    Now, read on, new serial in The Telegraph ;
    the chronicles of a clueless short, pot-bellied peasant whose gross appetites and vulgar half-witted vainglory serves as a foil to the mad idealism of his master,
    The tales of Sancho Bojo, and Sir Tony Quixote !
    Witness the saviours as they do battle with anyone hapless enough to have believed anything they said to gain power, only to fight the rule of reason.
    Spoiler : there is no good ending.

  22. Yo All

    Exclusive: Sadiq Khan to begin decriminalising drugs in London

    Mayor plans to end prosecution of young people caught with cannabis and launch counselling scheme for people found with Class B narcotics

    I know that I am unworldly and live a 5 Minute walk from the edge of civilisation (well the walk to the North Sea), but how can Sad Dick order the perlice to ignore our drug laws.

    If this goes ahead, he MUST be arrested on conspiracy charges

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/03/sadiq-khan-begin-decriminalising-drugs-london/

    2. Perlice have “discretion”. Always have had. They will use that “discretion” to avoid investigating slammer child molesters and knife wielding gangsters; but use the same “discretion” to beat up peaceful protesters and pursue hate “crime”.

      Cynical, me? Never.

    3. My brother is institutionalised in a mental hospice in North London, so knows a thing or two about drug culture.

      What bothers me about Khan’s determination to divert the police to administering “Hate Crime” contraventions, in line with instruction from well-meaning media types there, is that he fails to make a distinction between the sort of cannabis taken recreationally in the 1960s, which was fairly mild (although it could induce schizophrenia in the developing brain, as my brother found out) and “skunk” which is a particularly nasty variety of cannabis, with horrible psychotic side-effects and a much greater potency, that is predominately favoured by today’s street dealers. In particular, anyone holding a knife after taking skunk is more than likely to embed it in someone.

      Sadiq Khan seems fairly relaxed about this, since it is clearly now normal behaviour in London today.

      1. We’ve nursed a good few schizophrenics who started on cannabis in their teens. And that was the old wimpish stuff in the 1960s and 70s.

        1. Good afternoon, Anne

          Have you read Sebastian Faulks’s novel : A Week in December?

          The description of the strength of specially modified cannabis is enough to put most people off the drug for life.

          1. I haven’t, but I can well imagine.
            Students from Essex University were a particular problem; as they recovered and were allowed outside in the hospital grounds, their friends from Wivenhoe would wait for them in the more wooded areas and start the blasted cycle all over again.

      2. In the psych hospital where I work at weekends, I note in practically every set of patients’ notes that there is drug taking mentioned in their history.

  25. Do You Really Want This
    Two sailors standing on a street corner are approached by a lady of the night who tells them, “Boys, I’m gonna give you something you ain’t never had before.”

    So one sailor looks at the other and says, “Oh my God! Leprosy!“

  27. Another Gem from Arizona:

    VACCINATION CARD
    Hello.
    -Hi, table for two, please.
    -Sure, and your name.
    – KK
    -Great. And do you and your guest have your vaccination cards?
    -Hmmm well first..Can you tell us who our server will be?
    -Um, looks like Brad will be your server tonight.
    -Great. Can you show us Brad’s vaccination card?
    -Um…
    -And also, can you provide me with proof that Brad is not a carrier of HIV, Hepatitis A or B, or any other communicable diseases? Same for you and the kitchen staff.
    -Um…
    -Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc, so if you could provide us with Brad’s most recent tox screen, that would be great. Matter of fact, imma need to see all of your employees medical history.
    -Um… Let me get the manager for you.
    -That would be great, thanks. Make sure they have their vax card and medical records please.

    Here’s the thing, nobody needs restaurants. And other places. But they need us. Start standing your ground.
    Stolen and passing along….

      1. And an excellent use of it, too.

        Do enough of those tests and you’ll end up looking like Mrs Murrell.

  29. I posted this yesterday evening. The MSM has been keeping well clear of this bombshell news. Steve Kirsch is looking at other insurance companies to corroborate this surge in deaths.

    ” Unprecedented: Deaths in Indiana for ages 18-64 are up 40%”

    From the site of Steve Kirsch- a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and commentator on Covid- who became concerned when he saw anecdotal evidence of health crises in newly vaxed people he knew.

    https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/why-are-non-covid-deaths-at-historic

    In the article is a link to Dr Robert Malone’s take on this. He is the man most responsible for the mRNA developments that led to these new vaccines and he has had major concerns and also been banished from various platforms for publishing Pfizer’s own data in a very good Canadian overview of this vaccine’s testing regime and efficacy- or lack of it..

    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/what-if-the-largest-experiment-on

  30. Good Moaning:
    News from the frontline of our ‘hard pressed’ NHS.

    “Covid has claimed more casualties than first thought. In lockdown, we were encouraged to exercise outdoors.

    But according to new figures, this caused 5,300 people to seek hospital treatment after falling off playground equipment.

    A further 962 fell out of trees and 349 were injured by lawnmowers. Eighteen people were struck by lightning on their daily constitutional.

    If the response to this news matches the over-reaction to Covid, it can only be a matter of time before ministers order all slides, swings and roundabouts to be dismantled; mowing your lawn is banned; and climbing trees becomes a criminal offence.

    No doubt Wee Burney and Dismal Drakeford are already planning to go a step further and force everyone to wear a lightning conductor down each trouser leg every time they leave the house.”

    3. To be fair, Johnson et al did close many outdoor exercise spaces, thus saving many from injuries. Shame about the early deaths from suicide and shortened lives from sedentary ailments and the media’s failure to cover them.

  31. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Comedy classes on the NHS? You’re having a laugh… and the joke is on us

    Just as well the NHS hasn’t got much on at the moment. Patients are to be prescribed free comedy lessons to help them overcome trauma.

    GPs are being encouraged to send them on a six-week course, where they will learn to write jokes and perform stand-up routines.

    A pilot scheme is being launched in Bristol this month, designed to help people suffering from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress ‘see the funny side’ of their predicament.

    The courses are being run by comics including Angie Belcher, who is described as Comedian-in-Residence at Bristol University.
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/03/21/52508441-10365831-The_courses_are_being_run_by_comics_including_Angie_Belcher_pict-m-32_1641246895517.jpg
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10365831/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Comedy-classe

        1. I saw an old tramp walking down the street wearing one shoe. I said: “Hey, you lost your shoe.”
          He said: “No I found one.”
          Tommy Cooper.

  32. Ian Brent-smith should learn to reverse a trailer using his mirrors, this will negate the need to loosen his seat belt and open his tailgate and door. He then wouldn’t have to listen to all his ‘confusing’ beeps

    1. I could do that when I was nine; I can’t at 80!

      One of the tasks that the MT chaps at RAF Abu Sueir set me – at that age – was to reverse a 45 ft “Queen Mary” between goal posts. When I had done that, they promoted me to the 60 ft version! The first vehicle I drove properly was a 10 ton Crossley lorry. I had to put both feet on the clutch to change gear.

      1. Good man, sometimes I have to reverse the recovery truck carrying a car and towing a caravan or another car on the spec lift. Easy peasy even at 80. However you can’t always see the car on the spec lift and it’s advisable to seek help

          1. I can do both ways Triers, using mirrors or turning round (when in the car). Skills learned when reversing Lightnings and other aircraft into tight spaces in a hangar – I was the only one ever to get all the Lightnings into the hangar and still close the doors on detachment at Valley

          3. When I was stationed in Germany we could only get 2 Canberras into the hanger but I got 3 by lowering the tyre pressures on the last one and getting it past the other 2 then blowing the tyres up again. This was at the end of a night shift. I was dragged out of bed the next morning because they couldn’t get the aircraft out again. I had to own up on how I got the 3rd one in and got a big bollocking

          4. We were on the old Ark Royal, with 12 ‘Tooms

            The aircraft were always moved by Aircraft Handlers, vey skilled men, who were not always polite to us maintainers.

            To make sure the Nosewheel Steering worked, we had two plates, with grease betweeen them, and then could check all was OK as the wheel turned

            One quiet night, after the Handlers had gone to bed, using a number of greased plates, we ‘slid’ an aircraft 5 feet sideways, so that the Stabilator was under a bulkhead mounted rack

            It was fun watching them the next day, watching them try to move it out

            Childish, but fun

          1. As long as I don’t have to wear my underpants outside my trousers.
            Morning Richard

    2. Good morning, Spikey

      I have a small trailer and when it is attached to the minibus I cannot see it in the mirrors at all which makes reversing very difficult.

      Incidentally, the question of mothers came up : my mother got to the age of 97 but I said that I thought that amongst the Nottlers you have the oldest mother – am I right.

      1. At least with a small trailer you can always unhitch it and push it back manually.
        Not sure about others aged mothers – mine was 105

  33. 343563+ up ticks,
    What the electorate must ask themselves is, are we doing enough as the last two by elections show in aiding & abetting a seamless transfer of
    power from democracy to islam.
    Consult with “your” local mp highly likely to also be a rubber stamper in waiting he will point out to you the path to the mosque.

    Exclusive: More than 400 churches close in a decade amid ‘shocking’ threat to parishes

      2. .io is a domain (a suffix, like .co.uk) popular with high tech start-ups and it refers to British Indian Ocean Territory.
        Many British Indians work in the tech industry, therefore it is as appealing as a good hot curry.
        (yes, i/o also is an abbreviation for input/output)

      1. Open that link in a new tab. You will see a box. Copy and paste the web address that you want to view into the box.

        I don’t know how safe it is but it looks okay.

  35. Itchy beard. Does Mr Gledhill expect us to believe he checks his car mileage every time he parks it? (I might believe it of a Porsche left in an airport ar park as I’ve heard some stories there.)

    SIR – In 1972 I bought my first car, a green second-hand Ford Anglia.

    Once, after returning to where I had left it in a multi-storey car park in Birmingham, I drove out – only to notice about a mile down the road that the car’s mileage was different. I then realised that it wasn’t my car.
    In a panic I returned to the car park to find, next to the space I’d just left, my own car. The vehicles looked identical – and the door and ignition keys must have been the same, too.
    Stephen Gledhill

    1. If the mileage was very different he would have noticed – but not if it was just nearly the same.

    2. My father did it, a long time ago though. No coded immobilisers or remotes, and keys often worked several cars due to wear.

    3. Door locks those days were notoriously sloppy. SWMBO used to use her thumbnail…

      1. I did that to one of my BiLs, reparked it around the corner, I had to stop him phoning the police he thought it had been stolen.

    5. I did that at Christie’s Beach Squash (now shops) club after a league night and a couple of beers. Unlocked and opened the door jumped into the Dark Blue Holden and couldn’t make out where the column change gear lever had gone. It was an Auto.

    6. I did similar walking out of the local during a blackout on the 3 day week.
      Door and ignition all worked with my key, unfortunately my car was 3 places down the road.

      1. A week or eo after I passed my test my parents let me drive to Swansea to see a schoolfriend. I parked outside her house and promptly locked the keys in the car.
        Her father flagged down another Allegro (awful car btw) and we borrowed the keys to that and got into mine with no problem.

    7. I’m amazed the door and ignition keys were the same; I parked my Mini in the University car park (unlit) and when I came back to it after midnight, I couldn’t understand why the key wouldn’t work. As it was an old car, I thought the lock had given out. Then I noticed the car next to it was actually mine!

  36. Good morning Nottlers all.
    The temperature drop here has produced a snow flurry. Some already complaining about it.
    Clearly it’s the flurry with the whinge on top.

    2. Good morning Issy.

      A belated HNY to you, I hope things are ticking over pleasantly for you ?

      Bit chilly here this morning , the AA have jjust arrived to transport my car away to a garage . The offside front spring graunched and immobolised the car .

      A million drats to that .. Early N Y expenses we don’t need .

      At least it is an old Peugeot 307 Sw, excellent little workhorse, and not an electric car.

      The AA are wonderful , if only they were the NHS , you know , easy access to facilities.

      1. From where I stand Maggie the AA are useless, a nightmare to deal with as an agency and expensive for the member. You can get the same cover with Britannia Rescue for half the price. We deal with all the agencies and believe me the RAC and AA are the worst because they are run by accountants from remote call centres

        1. They once came out to me in Glasgow when I had a dodgy battery in my Mini. The bloke fiddled about for a while then got out the jump leads and whacked 24volts across my electronic ignition, which he hadn’t noticed! After a long battle with them, involving a lovely lawyer who was a regular at the hotel, I got compensation!

    4. Boo….. get orf the stage …..
      (Bu88er ….. NOTTL jumped while I was upticking someone else.)

    5. I saw my BiL yesterday they are just back from the north Pennines for the hols. 6 inches of snow already.

          2. The last time I saw people delivering the local papers in our road the people were in their thirties. My boys used to do the same when they were 12.

          3. One of my golfing buddies, recently retired, is currently delivering papers for a newsagent as the newsagent’s 78 year old father decided he’d had enough of doing deliveries. My buddie said he’d stand-in until a replacement was found or the end of January, whichever came first. The other paper ‘boys’ are all in their 60s.

          4. I can understand that, youngsters aren’t interested even in the money they can earn.
            i use to help the baker deliver and sometimes the milky.

          6. Jim would agree with you, it’s rolling out of bed at 4.30 that’s doing him in. By the time we’re on the back nine, on a tee after 10am, he’s thinking about having a nap. Whilst his trolley is battery operated, there’s no passenger facility.

    2. Misleading. It will only affect those from 60 to 66, i.e. State pension age.

    3. Misleading. It will only affect those from 60 to 66, i.e. State pension age.

    4. If this is the case that will mean not only the elderly suffering because of the cost of heating (next on the menu council taxes) has risen in an unpresented manner. But for some people it could mean 1,200 pounds per year to pay for their medication, that taken from a basic pension would leave them with very little to live on.
      Something else the political classes have Effed up, millions of peoples lives.

        1. As i have said many times it’s become FOAD, they have made it harder and almost impossible to receive any necessary hospital treatment using covid as an excuse for everything. I was told by a cardiologist i needed an Echo cardiogram, how can co-void effect this ? What has actually happened is, right at the start of this manufactured crisis the government employed about a dozen new ‘managers’ on massive salaries to reduce the service to a minimum, it’s part of the plan to make it pay to use.

    5. Badly worded headline – in the article it says that the eligibility age for free prescriptions could be raised to the same as state pension age, i.e. 66 currently.
      Edit: A_A had already made the same point.

  39. Morning all.
    Another day where I wished we had stayed in Oz in 1980. But it’s been over 40c recently and too darn hot.

    1. He wouldn’t be allowed on the club house of the golf club TB.
      I had an MG but a BGT.
      In the late 60s we always wore Mohair suits or Levi stay pressed trousers when we went out on the razzle.

        2. Very nice, I know a chap who still has one Richard.
          My old BGT is still on the road, I’m a member of the MGB club on FB but its hasn’t turned up yet.
          The story behind it is strange,………. the guy in our village who owns the MGA was chatting to someone about his prized car, passing his home who was out for a walk. And had just had an extension carried out on his home. The stranger asked who built the new smart extension and my name was mentioned because the walker wanted an extension built. To cut a long story shorter, I got the new job and we had just been signing the paper work over a cup of earl grey and we started talking about music and clubs in London. He had lived in Chelsea, we moved on to cars and I told him about my black mini with alloys fat tyres and a souped up engine. He told me about 35 years ago he had owned an MGB GT. Something clicked and I asked if it had wire knock-ons, twin spots and a sun roof he confirmed all of this, I asked him the colour and he told me bronze yellow.
          I took a piece of paper and wrote down the reg number. And showed it to him, he nearly had a heart attack. I had bought it from him in 1972 at his flat in Chelsea. He then went inside and came back with some photographs of it with a young lady sitting on the bonnet.
          He lives ten minutes walk away and we are good friends today.

        3. 587 UYM is down as SORN and appears to have changed hands recently.
          Date of last V5C (logbook) issued 20 May 2021

          Sadly, PJB 122 Vehicle details could not be found.

      2. I still have a Midget (’79 Triumph Spitfire engine, 1500cc, rubber bumper), which hasn’t been on the road for decades. Today I made enquiries chez my mechanic about getting it on the road again (it’s been kept in a dry garage). I’ll investigate further in April to see if it’s feasible. The money is doing no good in the bank; I might as well get some fun from it.

        1. I really wanted a Triumph TR 2.5 PI but the cars I looked at had problems with rust under the tops of the front and read wings. And the boot space was minimal. The Healey 3000 was my next objective, but all round too expensive. So I opted for the more practical BGT. My wife and I made several camping trips in that roof rack and the tent in a trunk on the top. And as a chippy I could get my tools in the back.
          I had to sell it not long after we were married as the price of fuel went through the roof and we had a mortgage.
          6 years ago in Perth WA, I was taken out in Steve’s MGB, but had a a lot of difficulty getting in and out of it. 😅

          1. I’ve put in motion (i e made tentative enquiries) plans to put it back on the road. I remarked this afternoon that it had crossed my mind whether I would still be able to get into it – and, more importantly, get out of it again!

    2. I wear jeans all the time. Last time I wore a dress was when we got married 3 years ago.

      2. I last wore a dress on a carnival float back in the late 70’s.
        I had such a draughty experience I swore once was enough.
        However in these days of self identifying, as James Bond once said, never say never!

      3. Caroline has given up wearing trousers and now only wears dresses or skirts. I am never accused of being a natty dresser so now I often wear a kimono around the house as I find it more comfortable.

      4. I always wear trousers – cords at the moment – can’t remember when I last wore a skirt.

      5. Yo Lottie,

        Change one letter to upper-case, swap a full stop for a comma, add an apostrophe and we have a different story

        I wearJjean’s all the time, last time I wore a dress was when we got married 3 years ago.

      1. This morning on breakfast TV, BBC of course, they featured a woman in a Hijab referring a male football match.
        I didn’t hang around.
        They just have to try to make some sort of point don’t they.

    8. In Edinburgh in the mid-60s, Cockburn Street off the Royal Mile had some 30 shops, and around 28 of them sold denim clothing mainly jeans.
      I had a pair of jeans, tight as was the fashion. The day after I left school I went to France. In Avignon I headed for the youth hostel. It was in the middle of the Rhone outside the town and I had to cross the bridge to reach Ile de la Barthelasse.
      It was quite open country almost and as I walked to the hostel I noticed that there were a couple of people sitting outside. They watched me as I approached. A couple of young ladies, they were the first to speak. “You’re British.”, they announced. I asked how they could tell and they replied that “British boys wore the tightest jeans”. After I returned to the UK a few months later I never wore jeans again. (A German boy, a boxer, slightly older than myself, turned up and the four of us had a nice weekend.) Charmed times.

      1. I went through a jeans phase just because I was trying to be fashionable but if I’m honest, I find them extremely uncomfortable and would really rather wear a long skirt.

          1. Bluddy smellchocker! Are you feeling better today, Sue?

            I haven’t worn proper jeans for many a year, but always trousers. You do have to watch out for the ones that are too short in the crotch, though as they feel like they’re cutting you in half.

      2. I went through a jeans phase just because I was trying to be fashionable but if I’m honest, I find them extremely uncomfortable and would really rather wear a long skirt.

      1. Just for that comment, Johnny, I might have to come and “fix” the washers on your taps…

      3. Somewhere there is a b&w photo of me on Clacton (or it could be Walton on the Naze) beach in a reefer jacket and blue jeans. I was 20 at the time.

        1. Tell that to the family of the young woman who killed herself, or the families of those evicted because they can’t pay their mortgages having had their “breadwinner” sacked for not being jabbed.

          If he broke his ankle playing in the first round would that have devalued the eventual winner?

          I’m sorry, but I have little sympathy for him.

          1. I can’t say I like the guy at all – but if they want him to be there, he set his terms and they’ve capitulated.

            The young woman’s death cannot be laid at Djokovic’s door – he’s responsible for himself alone. I don’t know the story behind her suicide but I doubt if it was over a tennis match. The people to blame for all those troubles are the ones who lay down the law about mandatory jabs.

          2. I’m not blaming ND for her death but when you suggest the lack of his presence devalues the thing I disagree and I do think that it is reasonable to ask why he gets special treatment when others with equally compelling cases, such as that woman, do not. He’s taking advantage of his position and he should be asked just what makes him so special. That applies to ALL the exceptions to the rules.
            I do find it infuriating that there is one rule for the rich and powerful and another for the rest.

            You have stated previously that you took the jab to travel, why should you be forced against your own better judgement when he doesn’t seem to be? I’ve just had my third today, purely because the life I wish to lead isn’t possible without it.

          3. Nobody should be forced to take these jabs – either by coercion to lead a normal life (including travel) or mandated to keep your job – it’s clear now that they neither stop infection nor transmission, and can also cause a lot of harm.

            As for forcing them on children – that is nothing short of child abuse.

    3. Oh dear the hypocrisy of the Australian government is so far reaching.
      How ridiculous can this Co-Void nonsense become.
      But you can’t take an apple across State borders.

      Has any one been watching The Tourist on TV ?

      1. I was waiting at the luggage carousel at JFK and a family with two young children were next to me. A guy with a Beagle sniffer dog came round and the dog stopped by the family’s hand luggage. The mother had got some apples in the bag in case the kids got hungry on the ride home. They had to hand them over. I was hoping the dog would move on before my case came round- it had a lot of pork pies and other items that would have been confiscated if discovered. Dog moved on, my case appeared- phew!

    4. The young woman with depression who was refused a visa to see her family then suicided.

      1. He claims to have coeliac disease. Caroline has coeliac disease so she will claim that if Djokovic can be exempt then surely she must be too?

    6. The whole farrago is already a bad joke – but he held out and said stuff them – he wouldn’t go if they forced him to be vaccinated – If they’re going to now let him in that’s good – he’s won. In any case he should have natural immunity as he had the bug some time ago.

      Of course it’s one rule for him and one for the rest – but nobody should be forced to have these jabs.

  43. Folk people, is it usual to have to deal with multiple tradespeople to get a kitchen sorted?

    Perhaps I am naive and thought I could deal with one person who would then sub contract, but instead i seem to be dealing with every individual involved. If I wanted ot do that, I’d do it myself!

    1. Surely the supplier of the kitchen should have electrician, plumbers etc….. to do the fiddly bits. Depending on the price you paid and what is listed in the contract, it shouldn’t be up to you to hire the tradesmen.

      1. I spoke to the fitter and he gave me the numbers for the sparky and plasterer.

        Maybe I am naïve, but I rather hoped he (the fitter) would tell them what I wanted, they’d quote him then he’d quote me including their costs. Running about wangling multiple trades people just seems a recipe for disaster.

        1. That would be exactly what I would expect. Do you have a written quotation listing the services supplied for the price?

          1. I’m getting one from the electrician, another form the parts supplier, another from the fitter, another from the plasterer….

            If I were honest, I’d be described as ‘not very happy with this arrangement.’

          2. Be careful; at this rate you could become a bit miffed.
            All joking aside, I’d not be a happy bunny, either.

    2. I spent about 8 years fitting kitchens at the time i was a member of Gorgi (now defunct) and was able to carry out most of the electrics by extending the ring for new appliances and add ons. Plumbing was fairly straight forward but unfortunately unless you are now a licenced operator you can not cross the borders into other trades. H&S, licencing especially electrics and Gas, a person making alterations now unless holding correct official documentation could end being heavily fined or in jail. Also public lability insurance is essential these days. Although many overseas workers in the UK don’t bother, I know from what I have heard if they get into trouble, it’s easy to leave the country.

      1. That’s really useful to know Eddy, thank you.

        I could just be being lazy and hoping I could speak to one person who’d ‘do’ (by subbing out) the work.

        I mean, when someone asks me to install a network I spec it and configure the kit, but I don’t run the cables, fit the sockets. I charge the customer the cost, then I pay my contractors.

        1. If you know of or have a plumber/gas fitter already show them the plans for the kitchen and they can get their first fix in and the sparky can get the pre-wiring done. Most units had a service gap of about 60 mmm on the backs of the floor units. The kitchen units can be fitted and the connections made before completion.

          1. This I believe is the plan, as the electrician visited today to have a look at what needed doing.

            My concern is that it’ll all become a bit of a mess, with no one person in control and setting out deadlines and expectations.

          3. This I believe is the plan, as the electrician visited today to have a look at what needed doing.

            My concern is that it’ll all become a bit of a mess, with no one person in control and setting out deadlines and expectations.

        1. Who the public ?
          I had a few people who tried to rip me off on my PL insurance. They didn’t get a way with it. I only had to make two claims both for leaks, one due to faulty copper piping and a tap that leaked. Both products came from China.
          I knew some people who tried to over ride my authority as a contracts manager building extensions and became impatient with the plasters who had gone to other work due to hold ups. Insisting that they came back and rendered the outside of the back all. It was all in hand and made no difference to the actual progress of the job. They personally employed a couple of Polish plasterers and had their recently installed floor to ceiling doors ruined by massive scratches on the glass. They only had a mobile number for the plasterers,……….. live and learn, their impatient we know best attitude cost them around 3 thousands pounds to replace the glass. Tuffened by the lesson they might have learned. Of course as usual it was everyone else’s fault but their own.
          Another one was in our own road, some people had some Romanian ‘builders’ in and they washed surplus concrete into the road drain. Which is a soak away. It had to be dug out and replaced, doing so the other contractors cut the BT underground cables. That was another 500 quid for repairs.
          Public liability insurance is very relevant. always check the builders or contractors.

      3. Afternoon Eddy and all. I worked throughout the New Year holidays to install all the kitchen cabinets so was able to speak to the electricians on site this morning as the hob extractor fan is in position, the oven housing is ready to take the electric ovens and all being well the kitchen worktops and induction hob will be in place next week along with the waste disposal and one of those ridiculously named taps that also require a power supply….

        1. Those taps weren’t available when I was fitting.
          I did jobs for a few well known public figures as well.

          1. I’ll have you know that Stephenroi is a very well known public figure. He’s forever making an exhibition of himself, to his family’s great embarrassment.

          2. So well known that he has to go everywhere by water, to avoid the massed crowds of well-wishers…{:¬))

    2. The Scottish Government are liars and this is a big lie….. just ask around. Eeven if this is representing only the cohort of people who had the first jab it is a gross exaggeration.

    3. Not all the 70-74 group has been done, judging by that; if you’re in that band, they’ll get you in the end 🙂

  46. Good afternoon folks!

    I’m back at work and felt awful first thing but as I suspected, once I stopped thinking about myself and concentrated on the business of licensing archive footage and greeting those few colleagues who are also in the office, I began to revive! I have some awful bruises from all the blood tests taken in the hospital – both from my arm and my left hand (no-one asked if I’m left handed – I am) – but that will of course fade in time. At least, as the doctor put it, now my “bloods are pristine”. A colleague asked if my illness was post-jab, as he suffered for a few days after receiving his last one. Actually, the nurse who did my ECG asked the same question, as she clearly wondered if there was a heart problem induced by a jab. She was very sympathetic to my not wanting the jabs.

    3. Glad to hear that, Sue! It’s a bit of a shock feeling ill when you’re by yourself! Stay well!

    4. Being home alone and feeling terrible is such a frightening prospect . You have braved it out very well .

      So pleased your bloods were good. I am sure the jabs have introduced an overload on our immune system , I had a very severe reaction to the 2nd Oxford jab , and was under observation in A+E for about 6 hours .

      I still don’t feel 100%, but the doctor says , well it is better than the alternative .

    5. Good to hear you’re on the mend.
      Re IBS our son suffers with that and onion is a big no no but he uses Asafoetida, sold in Sainsbury’s, as a substitute and says he can’t tell the difference in taste but a big difference in reaction. He’s also gone gluten free and that’s helped.

      1. I suspect that the Chorley Wood method of producing bread is responsible for coeliac disease and IBS.

        When flour is milled traditionally most of the outer layers of wheat are lost in the process.

        The Industrial method used to make bread for supermarkets uses a lot of the outer layers of the wheat germ. The wheat also is of poorer quality.

        As i say. Just a suspicion as we have seen a big rise in sufferers of these conditions in modern times.

        1. The Chorleywood “bread” process is as bad as those filtered, chilled and pasteurised “beers” that are then stored as an inert (flavour-free) liquid in kegs and then served under pressure from canisters of CO₂ (step forward, Whitbread, Watneys, and all those continental “lagers” brewed concocted under licence).

          Plastic food and plastic drink for a plastic generation.

    6. Hi, Sue.

      Happy to hear that you are feeling much better. Talking about acidic stomachs; a few months ago I started a daily routine of drinking, first thing every morning, a cup of lukewarm water into which I had placed ¼ teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda and ½ tablespoonful of organic apple cider vinegar, and then drinking this mixture on an empty stomach.

      It is not as bad-tasting as it sounds since the tiny amount of bicarb removes the ‘bite’ from the vinegar. This routine has cleansed out my system and I have not experienced a single episode of heartburn since I commenced it. I also feel much better.

      1. I have to take omeprazole daily or i’m in agony. I have to take several meds before that and also before eating. When would you suggest i try your bicarb and vinegar?

    9. Ooo… blood from the hand… OW! Poor you, Sue. I hope you’re improving in leaps and bounds!
      They tried the arm, the hand and finally the foot, to get some from me some years ago. The foot is the worst, by far.

  48. 343563+ up ticks,
    Not only have the dangerous doughnuts in the electorate allowed their places of worship to be closed / burnt down but have also allowed their personal temples to be abused
    by a manipulating vaccine on the words of, wait for it, politicians who’s track record for honesty has yet to have a starter unit.

  49. Prince Andrew’s accuser signed $500,000 deal with Jeffrey Epstein agreeing no legal action against ‘second parties’
    Agreement signed by Virginia Giuffre is at the heart of Prince Andrew’s bid to have the sexual abuse case against him dismissed
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/01/03/duke-york-accusers-500000-deal-jeffrey-epstein-released/

    I should imagine that this hush payment was more to protect passengers other than Prince Andrew on the Lolita Express. Maybe Andrew’s best hope is that if he goes down then so will Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and many other high profile people in the USA.

    1. Well I for one would be glad to see the likes of Gates (“vaccine” murderer) and Clinton (I did not have sexual relations with that woman) brought down. Particularly Gates.

  50. Britons have been warned to expect freezing conditions in the coming days, as the record-breaking mild weather over Christmas and the new year is replaced by sub-zero temperatures.

    BTL Comment:

    kellys_eye:
    “Here in the UK we usually refer to this as WINTER. Contrary to this article, most people kind of expect it to happen say, once a year and for it to run on for a couple of months.

    In other news, water is wet, bears sh1t in the woods and, I suspect, Biden is still a cnut. Boris, Wakeford and Sturgeon certainly are….”

        1. I wonder if it made the owners laugh or they were enraged.

          A very good way to psych profile your neighbours.

    2. I left my top windows in the kitchen and bathroom slightly open this monring because it gets very stuffy but the central heating for the whole block of flats is on full blast so it won’t get very cold inside. Yep, winter!

    3. Snow all around us today but not here although it’s bleedin’ freezing and gale force winds

    4. -2°c outside at the moment.
      Mind you, it had a struggle to get above freezing in the first place!

  51. Pondering on buying a mandolin (kitchen, not music making).
    Some reviews crack me up: “Not used it yet”. Then why bother to post a review, you numpty.

    2. We find it works well, but be extremely careful when using it, assuming you like keeping your fingers intact.

    4. It’s like the “reviews” that say the packaging was disappointing. I sometimes wonder whether such were written by cats…!

    7. Only worth it if you do a fair bit of fine slicing.
      Firstborn has one tha mekes slices and strips – perfect for sauerkraut.

  52. ‘This is a matter for the Queen’. 4 January 2021.

    Sir Keir today defended the appointment, telling ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme: ‘I think Tony Blair deserves the honour. He won three elections. He was a very successful prime minister.

    ‘I haven’t got time this morning to list all of his many achievements which I think vastly improved our country, whether it’s minimum wage, Sure Start for young families.

    ‘But the one I would pick out in particular is the work he did in Northern Ireland and the peace process and the huge change that has made.
    ‘I worked myself in Northern Ireland for six years with the police service over there and I saw for myself the profound impact it had on peace, on both communities in Northern Ireland.

    ‘So, I don’t think it is thorny at all, I think he deserves the honour. Obviously I respect the fact that people have different views.’

    He added: ‘I understand there are strong views on the Iraq war, there were back at the time and there still are, but that does not detract from the fact that Tony Blair was a very successful prime minister of this country and made a huge difference to the lives of millions of people in this country.’

    I do sometimes wonder if these people inhabit another reality! The Northern Ireland quote is particularly interesting. Most; if not all, of the donkey work was done by Mo Mowlam who was then promptly sacked while Blair assumed the credit!

    !https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10367169/Keir-Starmer-backs-knighthood-Tony-Blair.html

    1. One can ‘make a huge difference to the lives of millions in this country’ by making them poorer.

    2. He did – most of those millions he force imported from foreign to live on the welfare of working whites to create a voting block.

      That’s not a positive change – which, admittedly they didn’t say – but it’s a change for the worse.

    3. His achievement in Northern Ireland – along with ‘Shag It If It’s Moving’ Clinton and the fatuous Senator whose name escapes me – consisted of resurrecting the all but dead carcase of the IRA, who’d been so penetrated by the Army and security services by the early 1990s as to be rendered operationally useless. But then along comes Mr Hand Of History Fotherington-Thomas, quite the most ignorant, pollyanna-ish SOB imaginable, to give them the kiss of life. Maybe he’ll die before the investiture. We can but hope.

    4. Successful? I suppose if you’re a Britain-hating socialist you’d think so. Those of us who live in the real world would call it disastrous.

  53. https://twitter.com/True_Belle/status/1478373984148336642

    More than 400 churches have closed in a decade, posing what a senior clergyman warned was a ‘shocking’ threat to parishes.

    Analysis of Church of England data found that 940 of its churches were shut between 1987 and 2019. And the figures show that 423 were closed from 2010 to 2019.

    Across the Church’s 42 dioceses there are on average almost 6 per cent fewer churches, The Daily Telegraph reported.

        1. I suspect that that is the registered ones, I’m sure there will be many under the radar.

    3. [Yo Maggie

      From The Times. Will this make your OH fume more than usual [I like the name Dragan]

      “Southampton set for £100m takeover by Serbian media tycoon

      Southampton are set to announce that they are the subject of a £100 million takeover led by Serbian media tycoon, Dragan Solak. Senior figures at Saint Mary’s were due to hold a meeting this afternoon before an official announcement about a deal that has been approved by the Premier League. Sources at Southampton said Solak was not the only…]

        1. Maggiebelle will confirm whether Dorset is part of Britain’s Wild West!

          “The Wild West Is Where I Wanna Be”:

          Along the trail you’ll find me lopin’
          Where the spaces are wide open
          In the land of the old A.E.C. Yee-hoo!
          Where the scenery’s attractive
          And the air is radioactive
          Oh, the Wild West is where I wanna be
          ‘Mid the sagebrush and the cactus
          I’ll watch the fellows practice
          Droppin’ bombs through the clean desert breeze
          A-ha!
          I’ll have on my sombrero
          And of course I’ll wear a pair o’
          Levis over my lead B.V.D.’s
          I will leave the city’s rush
          Leave the fancy and the plush
          Leave the snow and leave the slush
          And the crowds
          I will seek the desert’s hush
          Where the scenery is lush
          How I long to see the mush-room clouds
          ‘Mid the yuccas and the thistles
          I’ll watch the guided missiles
          While the old F.B.I. watches me
          Yee-hoo!
          Yes, I’ll soon make my appearance
          (Soon as I can get my clearance)
          ‘Cause the Wild West is where I wanna be

          1. Very good R.

            Blooming cold here this evening 6c. I actually feel cold .

            Elderly dog needs to be let out for a wee every few hours , he hates the dark , so I am popping out in the garden with him , brrrr.

          2. Would be lovely if youse could visit us in the winter, Belle, and experience -20C or cooler… snow… and good Yorkshire hostility hospitality! Yer Weegies even brew excellent IPA, the range of wines is superb, and we have a freezerful of free-range pork… ham… bacon…

          3. Is it the same sort of dry cold as you get in northern Sweden? Utterly magical experience there. Not like the damp, miserable cold you get in the UK.

          4. Yes, but just once or twice we get a damp chill. That goes away once it’s below -12 or so.

      3. “The UK is open for business“available to buy on the cheap.” Gangsters Oligarchs welcome, free permanent resident status.

    4. [Yo Maggie

      From The Times. Will this make your OH fume more than usual [I like the name Dragan]

      “Southampton set for £100m takeover by Serbian media tycoon

      Southampton are set to announce that they are the subject of a £100 million takeover led by Serbian media tycoon, Dragan Solak. Senior figures at Saint Mary’s were due to hold a meeting this afternoon before an official announcement about a deal that has been approved by the Premier League. Sources at Southampton said Solak was not the only…]

    6. It seems to be deliberate policy, Maggie. They are making it very difficult for parish churches to stay open.

  54. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac710f8eca2ce5f27d70f42397687e2d883b01affc118418be92621d41522d30.png Is anyone else getting repetitious adverts for this utter crap on Disqus? If any of you are, please don’t be tempted to waste any money on the rubbish: it is nothing more than a scam.

    I possess a number of top-quality optics in the form of expensive binoculars, telescopes and camera lenses. All of them costing a pretty penny. Anyone telling you that you can get similar results from a piece of plastic crap costing £40 is just looking for another sucker.

    1. That particular product has been reviewed on many reputable sites and found to be utter carp.

      1. I’ve had Adblock + for years (frequently upgraded) but I still get idiotic adverts top and bottom of page on Disqus.

          1. Quite a few of the ads coming my way are tailored by location. Unfortunately they normally get the location wrong. I don’t need to know the amazing price of foundation repairs in northern New York or distant Ontario.

        2. #Metoo. Mine usually involve the “worlds most beautiful woman” – there seem to be lots of them.
          Edit – and the stack of unsold cars in the neighbouring suburb…

    3. When Firstborn bought his first rifle (1944 manucature Mauser with new wood), he put a Zeiss telescopic sight onn it. My God, what optics, they are truly amazing – bright even in dusk, clear, I just wish I could get my eyeballs relaced with two of those.
      Mind you, the sights did cost over £1 000. The rifle – £120. You could shoot the arsehole off a fly at 100m with that combo!

      1. You can’t beat top optics, but you have to pay for them. My first binoculars were Leitz Trinovid 10 x 40 BAN (£520 in 1988) and my telescope a Questar field model, 50x–80x, boosted by a Barlow lens to 80x–130x (£2,000 in 1988). Since then I have bought a second ‘scope: an Optolyth TBS65 30x (£400 in 1955), and a pair of Leica 10x 42 HD bins (£1,600 in 2009). I still have them all and use them a lot. I would never part with any of them. This year I invested in a new camera, a Nikon D500 and a matching Nikkor 200–500 zoom telephoto lens (£2,500).

  55. Just in from pruning the first three of 18 apple trees. Despite the sunshine, it was jolly cold. We gave up when we lost all sensation in our hands!

      1. I tried that. Just produced a brownish, unappealing liquid. We use the fruit for eating – and storage over winter.

          1. Our home brewed apple juice ended up stronger than wine. It had a very nice
            taste of a dry cider but also had the kick of a pint of calvados.

            In addition to grape based wine we are using some of our peaches to make peach wine this year. So far so good and it has a nice golden colour.

  56. And before you ask, I am not familiar with the previous works of the journalist, perhaps he finds being up BLiars ass a comforting place and has never left it!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/tony-blair-s-knighthood-is-long-overdue

    Tony Blair’s knighthood is long overdue

    Stephen Daisley

    Arise Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Yes, that should give a fair few people a more punishing than usual New Year’s Day hangover. Britain’s most successful Labour leader, despised by all the worst aspects of the British character, honoured at last.
    Blair made three great mistakes as prime minister: he introduced devolution, he set a target for 50 per cent of young people to attend university, and he didn’t sack Gordon Brown. For some these will render him unworthy of his knighthood. For others it will be his decision to join the United States in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who, it transpired, no longer had stockpiles of WMDs.
    There is a small thinking that afflicts Blair’s haters — a man like him doesn’t attract mere critics — and it undermines reasonable cases against him. Yes, he was unduly presidential, contemptuous of Cabinet government and scornful of Parliament. Yes, his New Labour project spun the country dizzy, disillusioned some who had stored their hopes in it, and gave birth to a ferocious new cynicism about politics. He left too much on the surface, put too much faith in language, and seldom encountered a problem he didn’t think could be solved by setting up a new quango and putting a politically on-message technocrat in charge of it.
    That Blair is a wrong’un may be the only point of unity between lefties and Tories, Lib Dems and Scots Nats
    All are sound critiques which can be buttressed with reference to his political and policy follies. But Blair Derangement Syndrome will not allow the sufferer to be quite so equanimous. The man must be a war criminal, a mass murderer, Bliar, Bush’s poodle, a bloodthirsty neocon, a Europhile traitor and the monster who introduced lying to the noble vocation of politics. That Blair is a wrong’un may be the only point of unity between lefties and Tories, Lib Dems and Scots Nats.
    What explains this irrational and irrationally enduring hatred for a politician who left office 14 years ago? Blair’s gravest sin, what he cannot and must not and will not be forgiven for, is that he won. The left sees this as the ultimate betrayal. He courted and allied with the most dogged enemy of socialism: the voters. The right resented his electoral success because it confirmed that their Britain had receded and that the treacherous waves of modernity had washed over the land. Blair was and remains a focal point for the frustrations of political mythologists at a country that stubbornly refuses to vote their way.
    Unable to beat him within the Labour party or at the ballot box, the left and the right are as one in their determination to trash Blair’s legacy. Doing so, however, requires them to disavow an important truth: Tony Blair was a great prime minister. Not just good, but great. Greatness isn’t judged solely and perhaps not even predominantly on policy outcomes and so we need not even broach matters like the minimum wage; civil partnerships; tax credits; paid paternity leave; free nursery for toddlers; more doctors, nurses and teachers; reductions in NHS waiting times; and children lifted out of poverty. We can contain ourselves to the qualities of leadership that saw him transform the Labour party, secure three consecutive election victories, and change the terms of debate in British politics.
    Contrary to the accusations that he is intellectually shallow and believes in nothing, Blair is a thinker, albeit a practical one. He has an ‘ism’, a philosophy of politics and government that is identifiably his, and while his detractors have tried to define ‘Blairism’ as mere spin and triangulation, there is more to it than that. Blairism is an attempt to reconcile the good intentions of the Labour party with the practicalities of the market and those facts of life that are conservative. It is a set of personal instincts (respect matters, responsibility can’t be shirked, self-righteousness is self-indulgence) yoked to a political analysis (reform not revolution, modernity over tradition, openness is the future and closing up is the past) and guided by a close strategic reading of the British public.
    There is vision with Blair. He saw where Labour needed to be and took it there by taking the members with him. He saw in Kosovo a resurgence of ethnic conflict in Europe and outlined his Chicago Doctrine of liberal interventionism. He saw public services that had benefited from significant injections of resource without enough in the way of reform. There is courage with him, too. It would have been easy for him to do a Schröder or a Chirac in the aftermath of 9/11 and pander to domestic anti-Americanism. He would have won plaudits from his own party, the media and the liberal intelligentsia. Instead, he stood by the US, not least over Iraq, because he considered it a moral struggle and thought by America’s side was where Britain ought to be. Approve or revile his decision, he made it aware of the political costs at home.
    Though his critics will never concede the fact, Blair led with moral imagination and personal fortitude and left Britain fairer, smarter, healthier, more modern and more at ease with itself. He embedded liberal instincts about lifestyles, family arrangements and private morality that, while not unquestioned, remain undisturbed after 11 years of Tory government. In short, he made Britain modern.
    Does he deserve a knighthood? Of course he does: for service to our country, for service to his party, for the wise counsel he provides on everything from the Middle East to Covid-19. The only question is why it took so long for him to become Sir TonY.

        1. All the Disqus ads I see are click bait and never provide the promised info, just a few lines about something else then Next, Next, Next buttons that go nowhere.

          1. I was looking up a particular piece of antique furniture and am now haunted by a site called 1stdibs. It pops up everywhere.

          2. Oh that’s a coincidence, sos! I was looking at a Clarice Cliff charger, and I have also got 1stdibs!

          3. To be fair to them, the stuff that is popping up is very relevant to my initial search, but I’m getting fed up with the images, knowing damned well that I won’t get a fraction of what they are trying to achieve for what appear to be inferior pieces to mine.

          4. When the initial search was over a month ago, the ad becomes more annoying than helpful.
            We stayed at a Sheraton hotel in December, I still get inundated with ads for a Sheraton in Toronto. Enough already!

          5. We sold a couple of chairs at Lyon & Turnbull in London a couple of months ago. They sold above estimate. The same model of chairs at 1stdibs are being offered for around four or five times the hammer price. This seems to be about normal. My research which included looking at 1stdibs resulted in regular ads from them popping up.

    2. Blair’s certainly getting his spin doctors out in force.

      One might put up a similar argument for a suicide bomber to be honoured.

          2. I am sure that many will agree that they are about to pin an award to a piece of shit when Blair gets his pressy.

            Now listen here spell checker, I wrote shit, Imeant it and I did not mean suit.

    3. What a revolting piece of sycophantic, vomit-inducing tripe! Out of touch doesn’t begin to describe this creeps witterings!
      Edit:smelling!

      1. Thank you, I had to look twice, I thought he looked a lot like the wee krankie the first time I followed the link!

    5. So basically he should be “gonged” simply because he won 3 elections in a row. For party first, not country – just as Ogga says, party first. He’s ruined our judiciary system, politicised the snivel serpents, the police, not just encouraged immigration but pursued it to the nth degree – and so much more, a list too long. And not sacking Gordon Brown was a good thing because GB would not let us join the single currency (countered by the fact that he sold off our gold reserves after giving the world 6 months notice). I could go on but I won’t.

      Tony Bliar is vile.

      1. The powers must think that just being PM qualifies for a gong, no other qualification needed!

        Just like awards going to senior civil servants who are less than successful in their careers. As long as they can maneuver their way to the top of the heap they get the prize, no need to ever do an honest days work between tea breaks.

          1. Just for being PM, no honours but if the PM had done something exceptionally valuable for the country (like successfully steering the country through the covid rubbish), then they deserve an honor for that feat.

            Just dreaming, has any leader done anything useful?

          3. Yes. He couldn’t stand the idea that his wastrel of a son (Randolph) would inherit the title ‘Duke of XYZ’ and bring shame on the family or diminish Winston’s preeminence

          4. I have mentioned this before but John Colville’s book The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955 is superb. You get a realistic picture of Churchill and some of the behind the scenes stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

          5. Just finished reading Voices of Courage, about the Dam Busters; almost without exception, the Flight Engineers received no gong. Why? They were there, they shared the horrors and the danger, without their contribution the aircraft might well have run out of fuel and they were instrumental in ensuring the right speed was reached to drop the Upkeep. Plus, in a Lancaster, they had to stand the whole way! I was lucky enough to meet a flight engineer (I have his book about his career) and he laughed when I said, “you stood all the way to Berlin” (not once, but many times, in fact).

          6. Especially since he gets 24/7 protection at our expense. If he wants to accept the honour, he should also accept the loss of his “protection”. Honourable people don’t need to be protected from the results of their actions, surely.

    6. The same article, by teh same author I think, was in the Mail. It was pretty short and unconvincing.

    7. Up for the latest discussion on the Trollograph page – so pop over and give it your opinion.

    8. 343563+ up ticks,
      Afternoon VVOF, could these be one & the same chaps,
      one anthony
      charlie lynton (Bow ST fame) has I believe been granted the order of the pink garter for services to cottaging
      which I believe to be some estate agents award.

  57. Another two off the list…………….

    “People with asthma are not officially exempt from wearing face coverings.”
    Saying that shows they are part of the scam. The exemption for anxiety
    would more than cover an asthmatic being worried they can’t breath
    properly.

    See also British Heart Foundation’s shutting down of
    debate on the risk of heart related jab side effects. Almost all of the
    big charites are now just left wing pressure groups / money laundering
    operations.

          2. Well – actually it used to be

            “Snot & bogie custard, green phlehm pie,
            All wrapped up with a dead dog’s eye…….”

          3. It’s curling their upper lip to expose their teeth. It’s supposed to make it easier for them to get the aroma into their nostrils. I have a share in broodmares to breed racehorses.

  61. Daily testing for key workers………. sigh……… if they’ve run out of tests, where are they going to get them from? China of course……..

    More testing = more cases – got to keep the scam on the road, folks.

    1. Won’t be tested, won’t wear a mask, will socialise as I wish. The government can go and chase itself down a slippery pole into oblivion.

      1. We may disagree on many issues Lottie but on this I’m totally with you
        They can go swivel!!

        1. I have never been a little “yes” person. Many’s the time I have had to fight for what I wanted and I don’t intend to stop now. Not quite a hell’s granny but that could come…

        2. Oh and PS Rik….I don’t care whether people agree with me or not. I do not agree with many of the views posted here. Don’t care and never have about what people think about me. As long as I have self esteem and MH’s regard, that’s all that matters. And current husband treats me with far more respect and consideration than the previous one ever did.

    2. The situation is allegedly so critical that daily testing doesn’t need to start until next Monday anyway.
      Supposed case numbers (most of who probably aren’t even unwell, just ‘found’ by tests) simply doesn’t matter.
      It is deaths from covid (very low, especially considering high ‘case’ numbers) and numbers seriously unwell (again, very low in actual numbers as well as proportion of ‘cases’) which matter.
      Such a massive over reaction.
      At least Doris hasn’t closed schools. Ontario, with little notice though rumours were rife, won’t reopen schools. Son is fuming, and his employer is being bl00dy minded about him wanting to WFH, demanding either he or his colleague go in ….. colleague just booked 2 weeks off in anticipation of schools shutting. Closing for 2 weeks but nobody expects them to open for at least a month.

      1. He should go in but refuse to enter classrooms with children and use the school’s IT to teach remotely.

        1. He’s not a teacher.
          What do employers expect staff to do with little children? The wife works from home (mostly did so before Covid anyway) so could do at least some of the child minding though didn’t seem to do much of it while schools were shut in Spring 2020.

          1. Why does he have to be there then?
            Bizarre, unless it’s the employers trying to regain control away from the scare mongers.

          2. There is no need whatsoever for him to be there. He has many weeks of work that can be done from home. He might very occasionally need to go in, and he can work round that (ie the wife will just have to watch the children while they do the online learning tasks) Just the pen-pushing little hit lers in the admin dept.
            Edit. No problems in their 2020 lockdown – he worked in a different department.

          3. Fight fire with fire?
            He should insist that all the little Hitlers meet him face to face, ideally at times that are difficult for them.

      2. Had coffee this morning with next door neighbour who had covid over Christmas. I took her the rest of the box of tests I got before Christmas – I only used the one. She said she felt rough – but then that’s pretty normal with a cold. She wasn’t bed-ridden and managed to cook a Christmas dinner of sorts…… but that’s another story. I do despair of her sometimes.

    2. They don’t give a damn what we think.
      They gave him this honour just to prove who they are and who we are.

      1. Well, it has precedent; Blair’s government did what it could to wreck the country “because they could”.

  64. That’s me for today, folks. How the year is rushing by. Looks like being chilly tonight. Sunny tomorrow. So the Wet Office says; though they have no warnings about putting on sun block…

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  66. Regarding the decline of the Church, picked up off Faceache:-

    What are the distinctive marks of Christianity?
    They stem not from the social but from the spiritual side of our lives, and personally, I would identify three beliefs in particular:
    First, that from the beginning man has been endowed by God with the fundamental right to choose between good and evil. And second, that we were made in God’s own image and, therefore, we are expected to use all our own power of thought and judgement in exercising that choice; and further, that if we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us. And third, that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when faced with His terrible choice and lonely vigil chose to lay down His life that our sins may be forgiven. I remember very well a sermon on an Armistice Sunday when our Preacher said, “No one took away the life of Jesus, He chose to lay it down”.
    The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long.
    To assert absolute moral values is not to claim perfection for ourselves. No true Christian could do that. What is more, one of the great principles of our Judaic-Christian inheritance is tolerance.
    People with other faiths and cultures have always been welcomed in our land, assured of equality under the law, of proper respect and of open friendship. There’s absolutely nothing incompatible between this and our desire to maintain the essence of our own identity. There is no place for racial or religious intolerance in our creed.
    When Abraham Lincoln spoke in his famous Gettysburg speech of 1863 of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, he gave the world a neat definition of democracy which has since been widely and enthusiastically adopted. But what he enunciated as a form of government was not in itself especially Christian, for nowhere in the Bible is the word democracy mentioned. Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians, to take counsel together their purpose is not (or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit—something which may be quite different.
    Nevertheless, I am an enthusiast for democracy. And I take that position, not because I believe majority opinion is inevitably right or true—indeed no majority can take away God-given human rights—but because I believe it most effectively safeguards the value of the individual, and, more than any other system, restrains the abuse of power by the few. And that is a Christian concept.
    But there is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves. Political structures, state institutions, collective ideals—these are not enough.
    We Parliamentarians can legislate for the rule of law. You, the Church, can teach the life of faith.
    But when all is said and done, the politician’s role is a humble one. I always think that the whole debate about the Church and the State has never yielded anything comparable in insight to that beautiful hymn “I Vow to Thee my Country”. It begins with a triumphant assertion of what might be described as secular patriotism, a noble thing indeed in a country like ours:
    “I vow to thee my country all earthly things above; entire, whole and perfect the service of my love”.
    It goes on to speak of “another country I heard of long ago” whose King can’t be seen and whose armies can’t be counted, but “soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase”. Not group by group, or party by party, or even church by church—but soul by soul—and each one counts.
    That, members of the Assembly, is the country which you chiefly serve. You fight your cause under the banner of a historic Church. Your success matters greatly—as much to the temporal as to the spiritual welfare of the nation. I leave you with that earnest hope that may we all come nearer to that other country whose “ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.”
    _____
    1988 May 21 Sa, Margaret Thatcher.
    Speech to General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

    1. Very good but not all religions espouse the Judaic-Christian beliefs, especially regarding tolerance. We live in different times.

          1. Perhaps he needed the RC sacraments of confession and remission of sins. I can’t see him managing any necessary contrition, though.

          7. He disgraced himself yesterday, but apart from that, he’s coming along. He’s lying on his back for belly rubs more often and coming to me for cuddles. It’s still early days, given that I’ve only had him six months. That’s no time at all compared with his 12 years on this earth to get the wrong idea about people. I flung my arms wide yesterday and he cowered and ran off (even though I was nowhere near him at the time). He’s a slow learner, I think!

          9. I have needed that after a return to toe biting yesterday! I thought we’d cracked that one and he’d made it a new year resolution to give it a miss 🙁

          10. Oh no! That’s why I didn’t ask about the toes! Ah well, he’s getting there! I’m sorry, but the thought of it makes me smile!

          11. It was only the once and he stopped after I shouted at him. Such a shame because I thought he’d made real progress; I woke him up as I walked past his bed and he lunged at my toes then stopped himself. Yay! I thought. Alas, he forgot himself yesterday.

          12. Well, few humans manage to keep such resolutions for more than a few days – we can’t expect more from our dogs! 😉

          13. Poppie will dramatically hunker down and cower on the footpath, as though we give her a good wallop from time to time. Nothing could be further from the truth. She does this if she doesn’t want to take the path we are proposing to take, getting into the car, going past the groomer lady’s home further down the green, anything she doesn’t want to do, really. She performs this act to perfection when there is an audience on hand, glancing round to garner assistance. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb814135e57642f049de70b2a70bd497765b0bba8d4e533ec41f48dc97918393.jpg

            After several years of not been able to post photographs, since we moved to the ‘new premises’, I suddenly found the other evening that the system now enables me! I don’t know when this occurred. I know other nottlers have complained of not being able to post photos, so it might be worth having another try, if any of you photo-disabled are reading this.

      2. So far as I am aware, there is, generally speaking, only one other religion which has issues with other beliefs.

    2. May 1988, only a few months before the UK’s Islamic uprising began with the burning of books on the streets of Bradford.

  67. Evening, all. Nothing will return to normal unless Project Fear is halted. Hearteningly, I had a conversation with my mechanic this evening as I collected my car (it, like Oscar, is high maintenance and costly!). He is unvaxed, doesn’t believe the propaganda and thinks money is at the heart of all the dictates. We are not alone, folks!

    1. All this extra fuss and totally unnecessary controls – massive numbers of covid deaths today – 48! And most of them will be deaths caused by something else.

      1. 48 compared with what usual daily number of deaths from other causes? Nowadays, if you get run over by a bus within 28 days of a positive test, you’ve been killed by Covid!

        1. With 100,000 ‘essential’ workers expected to test DAILY from next Monday, numbers of alleged cases (just alleged, most won’t be in the least bit unwell) will, no doubt, creep up – just what project-hide-under-the-bed needs. keep the psych-ops going.

          1. And suddenly there will be an endless supply of tests – just when we thought they’d run out!

          2. Pure coincidence I tell you.

            Like the science behind coming up with a three month wait between jabs over here. The fact that they couldn’t get enough vaccines to stick to the suggested one month interval is just another coincidence.

            They have now restricted testing to at risk groups but they can still come up with covid case counts for the whole population.

            Now they struggle with why we don’t believe them.

          3. Read this morning’s post from MumisBusy – she’s very upset at the vaccination of her young grandchildren in Canada.

    1. Blimey, so early?
      How many have you enjoyed??
      Are you competing with Lotl or Phizzee???

      1. I couldn’t sleep too well last night, so I got up at 5 am. With a screening of THE KING’S MAN at the local cinema with the u3a Wrinlkies I was unable to have my usual afternoon nap. So, since I am feeling rather sleepy, I have decided on an early night tonight. See you all tomorrow.

        2. Sleep well, Elsie. I had to be up early to take my car to the garage, so I was shattered in late morning, but had agreed to meet friends for coffee, so couldn’t have a siesta, either.

  69. Jesus H Christ!|
    Just got an ice lolly for pudding.
    Bloody thing falls to bits all over my clean clothes, sofa and fcuking PC! Even my fcuking socks are sticky!
    Now there’s sugar water every place, and I’m furious!
    AAAA!

    1. Our granddaughter and our great-niece had ice lollies yesterday! I found the remains this morning!😱

      1. But they will remember being allowed ice lollies in the middle of winter! You’ll be their favourite relative!

          1. I long for the day when we can be with our grandchildren again ….. can’t wait to spoil them 🙂

          2. I never thought I would be like this! Other peoples tales of their grandchildren bored the pants off me! Now, I admit to being a convert and one of my sons in law thinks it’s hilarious! “You always said you’d done your bit with your own children….blah, blah, blah!”
            How long is it since you saw yours? I really feel for you.

          3. Thanks Sue.
            Brief visit of 2 days March 2020 (had to get out as borders were shutting and flights would be reduced within days) Only 2 days, but such precious time! Before that, it was July 2019, so 2 1/2 years so far. None of us expected we would still be kept apart. Children develop so fast at their ages. Thank goodness for video calling!

          4. I just can’t imagine how awful that must be! They change so quickly and learn so much in such a short time, and to miss it all is very sad. Our granddaughter is nearly 3, the twins were a year in August and the other boy is 14 months. As you say, thank heavens for video calls! How old are yours?

          5. Nearly 3 – a delightful age! Babes of 1 lovely as well.
            Mine are 6 and just 4.
            On our little visit in 2020 (crikey, almost 2 years ago) they were only 4 and just turned 2.
            Not sure we’ll see them this year unless travel restrictions are lifted, end of tests too. With journey to airport, airport time and flights, it would be around 14-15 hours masked – no thank you!

  70. If Mr Blair was a gentleman, hearing about the degree of opposition to his Knighthood, he would have no hesitation in politely refusing the recognition.

    3. I hate Blair.
      I hate the fact that he was given the honour.
      BUT, if the mob wins on this one, every other little thing that a mob can be encouraged to sign will also use the precedent to win.
      It’s actually only another part of the cancel culture.

        1. Indeed, it’s one of many reasons I hope it backfires on him. But not via this petition.

      2. Isn’t it more a case of a complete loss of confidence in the man. Similar to a company chairman pissing off shareholders but doing the honourable thing and resigning?

      3. No worries, sos, no chance of the mob getting its way and certainly no chance of the Blair getting cancelled.

        1. There is talk of a debate about this “honour”. It will not be rejected because the people of this country do not count any more. This is only the latest government to treat its voters like shit! I am sorry but moderating my language is a thing of the past.

      4. The ‘mob’ is now the establishment. What was the unwashed mob, are now the enemy unless they remain on message.

        1. I am assuming you mean “mob” as in Mafia. In the case of Blair it was the establishment putting up two fingers to the unwashed.

    4. If he were anything but a scurrilous, unscrupulous rodent there would not be such outrage at the at the pretence that he is worthy of this honour.

    5. Exactly what MH said this morning. Problem is that Blair is not a gentleman and has no idea of the meaning of said word.

  71. From the brain of Williamb7

    ‘About CoupTube—Our mission is to give everyone who conforms with our views a voice and together build a compliant world. We believe that everyone we agree with collectively deserve to have a voice, and that a compliant world is a better place when we and our partners and stakeholders run it, and subjugate dissenter communities through our strained but extremely profitable narratives.’

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e82fdff15ff60c36790c14080d15002bf9932c0ca2bc5c8b445ab4972f2c4fb.png

  72. A slightly muddled piece by the writer. She is correct about the West’s moral weakness, especially at home, but supports the idea of overseas interventions.

    As for “…a development which will come home to roost on our soil soon enough…”. It’s already here, incubating its spawn.

    The West shouldn’t be ashamed of having a moral compass

    Our squeamishness about sticking things out and using military might properly has plunged an entire nation into a reign of terror

    ZOE STRIMPEL • 2 January 2022 • 9:00am

    I rarely read non-fiction, preferring the engrossing plots of a novel over stark analysis of the world’s generally depressing, stressful hurly burly. But with Western moral and political meltdown in full swing – wrong posing as right, deviousness and irrationality everywhere – I’ve been lately drawn to books that diagnose our world’s problems.

    Two of the best I’ve read recently are feminist activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Prey, released this year, and Michael Gove’s Celsius 7/7 from 2006. Both were slammed as Islamophobic by leftist pundits, an absurd charge and predictable distraction from the point of both books: that the West has given up on itself and its values and embraced moral relativism, and that this has dire consequences for domestic, personal and global security.

    Hirsi Ali argues that mass migration of men from Muslim majority countries is causing grave social problems in a Europe that refuses to insist upon integration. Gove, writing shortly after the 2005 terrorist attacks in London, presents a damning picture of Western governments, especially Britain’s, appeasing or ignoring rather than rooting out and punishing terrorists, and enabling – in the name of serving multiculturalism and avoiding the appearance of racism – whole networks of plotters. As Gove insists, this is down to the ‘sapping of confidence in Western values’, particularly by the left since 1968, and a ‘prevailing moral relativism’ that has stopped us defending our culture properly. Depressingly, the problem has only deepened in the 15 years since his book was published.

    Last week we were offered a reminder of the perverse effects of this inverted thinking. Unbelievably, more than 90 terrorists, all “active and ongoing” cases, are being considered for release by the Parole Board. Among them are a gang that was planning to blow up the London Stock Exchange in a 2010 pre-Christmas “spectacular”. A target list found in the homes of one of these plotters included the addresses of two rabbis, then-mayor Boris Johnson, and the US embassy.

    Also expected to be up for review are three acolytes of the extremist Anwar Al-Awlaki, while the case of Rangzieb Ahmed, who ran a three-man Al Qaeda cell plotting mass murder, is set to be ruled on in March. He was jailed for life but with a minimum of just 10 years in 2008. A would-be Isis fighter, an extremist visited in prison by the Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi and dozens more men who have grossly violated the right to a free life in Britain, are among the others.

    The reasons for this dangerous leniency are invariably portrayed as “complex” by the Ministry of Justice: a fine balance between rehabilitation and further radicalisation, and of course the need to keep costs down.

    But it’s hard not to scent the same rot that let – for instance – Abu Hamza, the Finsbury Park Mosque jihadist, go free for so many years. Namely: the sense that it’s better to take a softly-softly, wait and see approach in order to avoid the appearance of hostility towards a minority community. Among some, especially those on the left, this anxiety to be gentle is rooted in a belief that we, a nasty ex-empire, really are a guilty party who deserve to be punished for our hubristic imposition of liberal values on others – past and present. It is this belief that has, for instance, led British politicians to apologise for offence caused by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers, which led to retaliatory violence and murder, rather than stand up for the West’s signature value of a free and uncensored media. It’s the same story among the many who insist that terrorist murder on British and American soil is just and direct payback for military action in the Iraq and Afghanistan, and for ongoing dealings with Israel.

    Afghanistan is a potent example of what happens abroad when the West gives up. Our squeamishness about sticking things out and using military might properly has plunged the entire nation into a reign of terror and the smashing of basic human rights for women. Our departure has also turned Afghanistan once more back into a breeding ground for global terrorist plots, a development which will come home to roost on our soil soon enough.

    The situation is so bad that even Gordon Brown condemned the withdrawal last week, railing at the irony of nations who vowed to end absolute poverty this decade catapulting a whole nation straight into it.

    I’m not suggesting that it is practical for us to go around the world, forcibly installing democracies in all non-democratic countries. No minority – or majority – should ever be demonised for the crimes of individuals. People and society are complex, and not all issues can be boiled down to goodies and baddies, and just or unjust desserts. But our response to terrorism, no matter what community it comes from, can and should be declared and understood in clear moral and practical terms.

    As long as we continue to self-abnegnate, muddy leniency, not justice, with prevail. Far more lives will be lost, and our society will be weaker, thinner and far more dangerous.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/01/02/west-shouldnt-ashamed-having-moral-compass/

    BTL:
    David Hussell

    For long centuries the west used the standards of Christianity as its benchmark. Much of the time it fell woefully short of those standards, but at least they were there and, very importantly, acknowledged to be there, as reference points.

    But since the general rejection of western culture’s historic faith, and the adoption of Marxist moral relativism, the situation is even worse.

    Only a rejection of the rootless, anchor-less destructive philosophy of moral relativism, plus regaining our Christian moral framework, as a pubic benchmark, will save the west.

    Margaret Gouldsbury

    The state of the world is simply appalling; hardly assisted by the lack of any discernible moral compass form either our political or religious leaders. For an intelligent species that ought to know better our general behaviour is obscene. Our culture is based upon narcissistic intolerance and our economy dominated by rampant short term material consumerism.

    In essence we create showy limited-life products – many of which are entirely unnecessary or of marginal efficacy e.g. wind farms and solar panels. Having used them we then litter and pollute the planet with the cast-off detritus; and in the process we continue to rape the planet’s natural resources for the outrageously enormous profits of the corporate cartels and dynasties under their pretence – signed up to by the ignorant ‘Greens’ – that their profiteering is for our future wellbeing.

    The ‘Great Reset’, ‘Build Back Better’ and levelling-up initiatives are part of this global scam by Gates, Soros, Bezos, et al (including Boris and Prince Charles!) to introduce a form of capitalist totalitarianism which places the ownership of everything in the hands of the uber-wealthy few: the proles reduced to owning nothing but nonetheless happy!?

    1. My moral compass is all ahoo, so; The terrorists to be released who planned to blow up B Johnson in 2010, any chance they’ll know his current address?

  73. Apologies if this was commented on earlier today or is already public knowledge.
    On Monday night’s Farage programme he NF said that he was working with Richard Tice’s Reform Party though he has apparently no power within the hierarchy. He said they are concentrating on the Red Wall electorate for the next General Election.
    His talking pint session was with Eddie the Eagle tonight and was quite amusing and refreshing

  74. Boris Johnson is a lazy, weak, entitled man who wants to coast through life on his dubious ‘charm’ having as much fun and doing as little work as possible. No doubt an entertaining writer and after-dinner speaker, he is utterly unsuited to the hard work, discipline and occasional requirement to make sensible but unpopular decisions that being Prime Minister requires.

    I do suspect that he was ‘made an offer he couldn’t refuse’ whilst in hospital with Covid. He isn’t a true WEF/Gates/Schwab disciple such as the likes of Macron, Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern. It probably wasn’t planned that he would become PM, so he had to be ‘persuaded’ to enact the WEF agenda, whereas the others had been groomed for this role. That is why he looks so haggard – he knows what he is doing is evil, but is trapped and unable to escape. He lacks the courage to take the honourable way out – the bottle of whisky and the revolver.

    One could almost feel sorry for him. Almost…

    1. Sorry, I don’t find him entertaining at all- even I was to hear him speak at an event. He’s a charlatan and deserves nothing but contempt. He only listens to that silly little wife- to our detriment.
      Edit- I don’t even believe he had covid…PR stunt.

      2. Jennifer Arcuri reckons that he has been isolated from everyone close to him except Carrie. She is perhaps not unhiased, but she’s sharp and well connected, so she might be right.

    2. “No doubt an entertaining writer and after-dinner speaker”
      I haven’t read much of his written words, but I do know that his speech is abominable and that listening to him is appalling.

      1. Sound clips of speeches do him no favors.

        In his defense though, I would expect the BBC to find the worst examples. Peppa Pig and all.

      2. What few clips I’ve seen of him speaking are truly atrocious. Of course, they may be the selected bad bits, but they did NOT inspire any confidence.

        1. I think they went down well enough when he was just a boozy journalist. My take is that he’s a cornered rat, under orders on threat of the media doing a Trump on him, and that’s why he’s playing a caricature of himself now.

    4. Have you heard the Delingpod with Jennifer Arcuri, where Delingpole discusses this question in depth with her? She reckons Boris had The Conversation much earlier.

  75. Nicked Modern Life…………

    “Private, self employed delivery drivers are working flat out to deliver
    food, flat screen tvs, new phones, games, clothing to the shattered and
    exhausted public sector workers, lying in bed absolutely wrecked from
    having to do a lateral flow test every day.”

  76. Blair followed by Brown was bad enough. Cameron and May followed by Johnson is truly the nadir, rock bottom and the pits, if not deeper. I’m off to read my book, goodnight all.

    1. Yes, it’s kind of funny but it doesn’t make me laugh any more. Am sick to death of bloody covid, covid updates and covid BS. It’s all lies.
      NO MORE.

    2. Maybe I am still naive, but I am still shocked that a politician can say something like that, especially when we know it’s all about not exposing big pharma to liability for the gene therapy jabs. Disgusted to the bottom of my soul.

    1. “Tony Blair’s Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon says he was told to BURN secret memo that said Iraq war could be illegal in incendiary revelation that will fuel campaign to strip former PM of knighthood”.

      At last someone in government at the time is prepared to tell the truth. Blair was and remains a fraud and a chancer, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the deaths and maiming of our military via his foreign adventures.

  81. Too many new comments to keep up so, Goodnight my fellow Nottlers and God bless.

    We will all meet again in the morning’s light.

  84. Good night y’all. Gas inspection tomorrow so a slightly early night…for us any way.

Comments are closed.