Tuesday 5 January: If 33 million can vote on a single day, why is vaccination so slow?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/01/05/letters-33-million-can-vote-single-day-vaccination-slow/

671 thoughts on “Tuesday 5 January: If 33 million can vote on a single day, why is vaccination so slow?”

  4. A Lesson In Democracy

    A black kid asks his dad, “Dad, what’s democracy?”
    (Wait…the kid doesn’t know his Dad…let’s start again…)

    A black kid asks his mom, “Mama, what’s a democracy?”
    “Well, son, that’s when whites work every day so we can get all our benefits!”

    “But mama, don’t the white people get pissed off about that?”
    “Sure, they do but that’s called racism!”

  5. Having given you the story for today, I must away to my bed, Good night and God bless we Gentlefolk.

  7. Good morning all.
    Woke up early, so sat up in bed with laptop and a mug of tea after relighting the Rayburn that had decided to turn its self off last night.

    So because Lockdown has not worked, we must have more Lockdown.
    As I’ve Tw@ted a few times, a bit like when Vehofstadt demanded more powers for the EU to solve problems that EU’s own policies had caused in the first place.

    1. Yep. Let’s do again what didn’t work the previous two times. I think at this stage the absurdity has got through to even the thickest.

  9. Lockdowns do not work – why are we having another? 5 January 2021.

    The sound and fury of the lockdowners cannot disguise the fact that it is under the policies they advocate that hospitals are filling up and deaths are rising. There have been more than nine months of restrictions in some form. And yet Britain still seems to be in a worse state than before they came into force.

    Perhaps we ought to have “LOCKDOWNS DO NOT WORK” tattooed on the foreheads of all TV news presenters but I doubt that even that would get through!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/05/lockdowns-do-not-work-why-are-we-having-another/

    1. You just can’t reason with a lockdowner, that is just the way it is, they cannot think past the next episode of project fear on the tv, and basically I think they are enjoying seeing the collapse of our Western civilisation, they have always secretly wanted to live under a police state.

      1. I’m sure the guy I work with won’t be satisfied until there are armed gangs of soldiers patrolling the streets summarily executing anyone they find.

        1. In the UK, I would not be at all surprised if there is a very strong correlation between being a lock-downer and being a remainer.

      2. Sadly, many people do find taking responsibility for their own lives a tremendous burden.
        Tragically for the free world, they have a vote.

    2. As far as this case is concerned I have now had time to think it over and I can strongly recommend a course of leeches.
      Dr Hancock

      1. We don’t need any more leeches. Parliament and the public sector have far too many already.

    1. Good morning. The thermometer has actually sneaked above zero here on the Costa Clyde. Though I still had to scrape the ice from the car windows in preparation for a towed start later, as the starter motor is no longer living up to it’s billing. Thankfully I know a couple of decent mechanics who work at less than dealership prices.

    2. Good morning. The thermometer has actually sneaked above zero here on the Costa Clyde. Though I still had to scrape the ice from the car windows in preparation for a towed start later, as the starter motor is no longer living up to it’s billing. Thankfully I know a couple of decent mechanics who work at less than dealership prices.

  12. Manners! Morning all!

    Bin end present
    SIR – The senior management in this household decided that a new set of dustbin numbers were my Christmas present (Letters, January 1).
    Peter Hulme
    Gawsworth, Cheshire

    What a coincidence! After last Thursday’s bin men (sorry, Refuse Technicians) had been, my small grey food waste caddy, marked with 5 inch high (sorry, 12.5 cm high) house numbers, had disappeared, being replaced by an anonymous bin that lacks a handle. So somebody has my bin, with a large split down the back repaired with Gorilla Tape as well as the number 48 blazoned on the side.
    No neighbour has yet owned up.

    I had already acquired a new caddy to replace the cracked one and now need a fresh large white number to identify it. And it is my 80th birthday on Friday 8th. So now I have the perfect idea for a present from my little granddaughters aged six and four. Serendipity!

  13. Good morning all. As we embark on another period of enforced house-arrest, there is a little word niggling at the back of my mind. Starts with a d… Oh yes, democracy. Sorry, it’s been so little-mentioned this year that it’s easy for it to slip my mind.

    Wasn’t there supposed to be a vote in parliament before the imposing of more nation-wide measures?

    1. There probably was, but that isn’t democracy. It’s officialdom choosing how they will act.

    2. Believe the vote is retrospective (however that works). Be interesting if the vote is “No”.

      1. Do you know when the vote is due to take place? I know that It is just a pointless rubber-stamp, but at least it is an opportunity for our useless MPs to do their jobs and hold the government to account by asking questions.

        With the vaccine being rolled out as we speak, I hope that they really press Johnson on the timetable and criteria to end all this. Is it when the elderly are vaccinated? NHS workers? Every man and woman-jack of us in the country?

        Every promise that this government made has been broken, every deadline missed. Remember when they said we would need five days of lockdown for every one day of freedom over Christmas? We got the lockdown but not the freedom! We need to know how and when this ends, I would hope at least some of the Tory backbenchers will have the guts to stand up to this tyranny.

  15. SIR – The NHS is excusing delays by commenting on the “huge difficulties in creating an army of vaccinators”, and saying that “you cannot just vaccinate two million people a week from nothing” (report, January 4).

    But they shouldn’t be starting from nothing – the NHS has had all summer to prepare for a roll-out that obviously had to happen in 2021. What on earth have the NHS managers been doing?

    Chris Phillips
    Seascale, Cumbria

    Good question, Chris. Without a proper enquiry when this is all over, we may never know. Turning away thousands of former doctors and nurses who would like to volunteer but who cannot produce a couple of dozen certificates covering such vital courses as ‘diversity’ and ‘conflict resolution’ might, however, have something to do with it…

  16. SIR – A dear friend missed Christmas with her family because she was isolating before a very serious lung operation. Having passed her Covid test, she was told yesterday (when expecting to be collected by a driver) that the operation had been cancelled.

    G T Higgins
    Gravesend, Kent

    Most unfortunate, but once again I would like to think that the op has been postponed, not cancelled.

    1. Depending on the seriousness of her condition, it wouldn’t be just her operation that has been cancelled.

  17. SIR – Boris Johnson said he believed that schools were safe.

    My wife is a teacher and mixed with up to 140 different households a day (seven lessons with 20 pupils each), five days a week.

    Yet being in Tier 4 we could not invite a single family into our home because that was deemed not safe.

    Peter Fowles
    Solihull

    It’s a matter of priorities, Mr Fowles.

    1. And how many families did the lass at the till in Tesco’s mix with – on low pay, little distancing, and bugger-all respect from the general population? I’d also be willing to bet that shopworkers haven’t threatened a strike because they are frightened, either.

      1. They’ve all got big plastic screens now which keep the customers at a reasonable distance; and most of us have sufficient good manners to have some consideration for the staff and wear our masks when shopping. Having talked to one or two food shop workers they are glad not be furloughed (like those who work in the “unnecessary” shops, hairdressers etc) but some of them are frightened – and one of the ones I used to see regularly, and know slightly outside her work, has given up her job pro-tem because she lives with and cares for a very frail elderly mother. Fortunately she’s been a regular for a long time and the shop is giving her furlough payment and will give her the job back when everything settles down.

        I have to say that in all the years I’ve been shopping I’ve only ever seen one incident of rudeness to a checkout operator (a young lad as it happened and the woman was very, very rude to him because she had to wait when he insisted on getting a supervisor to check an alcohol sale – as the law requires if the cashier is under 18). I can’t speak for every shop everywhere but most people seem to have a pleasant chat or to be at least civil. Of course in the small towns where I mostly shop the supermarket staff are more than likely to be their customers’ neighbours and their children almost certainly go to the same schools – so perhaps it is different in big cities.

        That’s not to say that I’m sympathetic to the arguments being put forward by some teachers though, the ones in the hub schools which catered for key-workers’ children managed to keep going all through April, May and June. As did the child-minders who provided the wrap-around care or early years care for those same workers.

        1. The staff in our local Morrisons have all kept going, and there’s no queuing system now as there was in the summer. Unless of course the latest lockdown means they bring it in again. The perspex screens keep the customers at arm’s length except for the people restocking the aisles.

          1. Our local supermarkets have traffic lights which go to red after a certain number of people are in the store. There hasn’t been much in the way of red lights for a while and hopefully, if people don’t all go shopping at once, they won’t be needed too much in the next few weeks – because it’s really not the best of weather for queuing in the car park.

            The small Tesco where my parents live gets full rather quickly – so their shopping is being done for them again, until the weather improves. They both finding standing around difficult now and they don’t need to be out in the cold and wet. Mum’s mobility is also too poor for icy car parks and pavements so they are best at home again for a spell. Even if they are vaccinated soon (they should be) the weather still won’t be doing them any favours for a month or two.

          2. I did have to queue outside the small Tesco the other week for the post office which is in there. Shoppers were being let in, but not people for the post office, which I thought was odd.

          3. I am very lucky. We have a Post Office in the village shop – about 200 yards away. There are usually other customers there (it is well run and much used as the next shop in most directions is 10 miles away) but never so many that we have to queue outside. We’ve had a lot of local bank closures and the PO is now doing so much work that they’ve been given a second computer terminal (they put in the space for it when they modernised the whole place a few years ago) and as they’ve trained up quite a few of their staff there is now almost never a queue at the PO. In the interests of keeping our rural facility I do all my postal work there as well as paying in most of my income since most of my clients still use cheques for everything.

  18. If only…teachers will not do anything of a medical or clinical nature, Dr Humphrey…

    SIR – Why did we not teach teachers to vaccinate pupils in their class? It would have all been done in two hours. People are taught to give injections to their partners when it is necessary.

    The procedure is simple, requires a few easy checks first, and minimal training. The risk-benefit ratio is enormously favourable.

    Dr Peter Humphrey
    Caldy, Wirral

    1. I had a friend who was a teacher, but didn’t like children much and became a gardener. Around half term in the autumn, he’d get out his voodoo dolls and needles and get stuck into a number of charges as a form of recreation.

      Surely teachers already have the skills to vaccinate pupils?

  20. While seated on the throne I had a little ponder (it’s still legal – I think) and this is the result:

    Thoughts on Covid 19

    Listen to the Boris bird
    Calling from the brake –
    “You must obey the lockdown
    Tho’ Covid might be fake.”

    No schooling for the child,
    Just obey the rule.
    For I am legal Boris bird
    And I am just a fool.

      1. My alma mater, UEA, has a special department dedicated to distorting statistics about climate change.

    2. Good morning Cochrane and everybody!
      Skimmed through the article, thanks. Immediately upset to note that the NHS has adopted the Americanism ‘specialty’ instead of ‘speciality’, also bothered that the writers have used 2 adverbs when the adjectives would have been appropriate.
      Last February/March in the Spanish press, ICU Covid admission statistics were accurately listed on a daily basis, then at some stage they simply disappeared; my suspicion is that the public were able to deduce the probable concomitant mortality*, and that counted as ‘bad optics’. (loathsome expression)

      * probably gibberish, please excuse me.

      1. I do know that the Spanish at around that time did not include any Covid death if if wasn’t registered before the 24 hour deadline for such matters. I know this because the Spanish Ambassador was interviewed on the World Service when he – very reluctantly – confirmed that this was so. He did agree, however, that this practice was to be reviewed, so it may have changed by now.

        I have refrained from any criticism here, because our figures probably fall into the ‘pot and kettle’ category!

    1. That report seems to be a load of horse-effluent!

      I’m not having any problems in locating up-to-date TalkRadio output on YouTube.

  23. A mockery of wokery for you, from the Tellygaffe:

    COMMENT
    Let this be the year we delight in ‘woke’ daftness

    Pastor Emanuel Cleaver’s words at the US Congress opening were ignorant but also comedy gold – just what we need in these grim times

    CELIA WALDEN
    4 January 2021 • 7:00pm

    If you’re wondering what that low rumble from the heavens was on Sunday, I can help. It wasn’t another Storm Bella brewing, but God laughing his head off at the opening prayer of the 117th US Congress – a prayer that concluded: “Amen and awoman.”

    If the man who delivered the address – Democrat representative Emanuel Cleaver – were a stand-up comedian, he’d be being feted across the world right now. Give the man his own prime time TV show! Dispatch an Excellence In Global Comedy gilt statuette for his mantelpiece this minute! Instead, Cleaver – who, bafflingly, is an ordained United Methodist pastor – will go down in history as one of the biggest PC clowns of 2021, just three days into our new year. Quite the feat.

    Already, social media is awash with memes; the mocking T-shirts are being printed as I write. And if you haven’t yet seen the clip, I urge you to watch it now and enjoy your first belly laugh of the day as the Missouri congressman concludes in reverential tones: “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God… God known by many names and by many different faiths. Amen, and awoman.”

    Clearly, Cleaver was so excited by the idea of introducing a nod to gender neutrality in his prayer – after a senate committee proposed to “honour all gender identities” and eliminate gendered words like “mother,” “father,” “he,” and “she” – that he chose to disregard the fact that “amen” means “so be it.” Or perhaps I’m being generous here. Perhaps Cleaver is simply a dimwit of the highest order. Either way, this felt like a seminal moment in our new woke world. But above and beyond my anger at his shameful ignorance and the insult to all people of faith that this nonsensical guff was, I found his words hilariously funny.

    That’s when it hit me: what if this year, when we all so desperately need laughter to diffuse the ever-mutating strains of Covid rage running rife across the country, we decided to use ‘woke’ nonsense as a bottomless pit of amusement? As the gift that keeps on giving in this most barren of times? What if we chose to view it not as provocation and a sure way to send our blood pressure skyrocketing every time we chance upon an article that leaves our jaws gaping, but a real-life comedy show in which unwitting woke comedians keep on delivering ever bigger laughs?

    Granted, this is easier said than done. Being told what we can and can’t say, think, eat, watch or enjoy has built up a lot of anger over the years, and we’ve seen many cherished things cancelled. But when you think about it, the kind of hot woke air that powers Twitter isn’t deserving of anything more than badaboom-style laughs. Yes, the BBC’s decision to issue a ‘discriminatory language warning’ before the airing of a 1971 Dad’s Army movie on Saturday night (the film features gags about the Nazis and refers to the French as “frogs”) was bound to prompt outrage, but when pieces about this are sandwiched between stories of genuine human tragedy, we should be able to laugh this off as the absurdity that it is.

    So instead of reacting with outrage to the ‘snowflake cautions’ before old films and TV shows, instead of being consumed with indignation at the notion that Grease – which was condemned for racism, “rapey” sexism, homophobia and “slut-shaming” when it aired on Boxing Day – wouldn’t it be great if we could just delight in the imbecility of it all?

    We could and should, right up until that hot air moves the powers that be into cowardly action: until the BBC removes Dad’s Army from iPlayer – as it did with “offensive” Fawlty Towers classics last year – and Grease is actually banned from our screens, as some still-traumatised viewers are demanding it should be. Until we hear reports that schoolboys have been left asking “Is it OK to be a boy and like rugby?”, as one Eton boy was revealed to have asked last month after a session on ‘toxic masculinity.’ Until universities are drawing up lists of banned words, like the University of Michigan did when its Words Matter Task Force put together more than two dozen words and phrases that could be seen as offensive – one of which was “picnic”.

    You’d hope that institutions of higher education might know that the word “picnic” actually comes from the 17th century French word “pique-nique” (and not erroneous internet suggestions that it originates from the racist, extrajudicial killings of African Americans), just as you would hope that a pastor might know the origins of “amen”.

    But as a wise 92-year-old once told me: “The modern world is a land of people looking for reasons to be offended.” Amen – and awoman to that.

    1. And it gets worse ….

      It Snowed Last Night

      8:00 am: I made a snowman.

      8:10 – A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.

      8:15 – So, I made a snow woman.

      8:17 – My feminist neighbour complained about the snow woman’s voluptuous chest saying it objectified snow women everywhere.

      8:20 – The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snow men instead.

      8:22 – The transgender man..women…person asked why I didn’t just make one snow person with detachable parts.

      8:25 – The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.

      8:28 – I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white.

      8:31 – The middle eastern gent across the road demanded the snow woman be covered up.

      8:40 – The Police arrived saying someone had been offended.

      8:42 – The feminist neighbour complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.

      8:43 – The council equality officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.

      8:45 – TV news crews from BBC, ITV, CNN and SKY showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I replied “Snowballs” and am now called a sexist.

      9:00 – I was on the News as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.

      9:10 – I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.

      9:29 – Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding for me to be arrested.

      By Noon it had all melted

      Moral:
      There is no moral to this story.
      It is exactly what we have become…..all caused by Snowflakes.
      God help us!

    3. I may have mentioned before that the Plymouth County Council stopped using the word manager because they decided it was sexist.

      When people in office who want to change language have neither respect for nor knowledge of etymology we are doomed and cannot continue to think of ourselves as an intelligent species.

      1. And meanwhile further down in the west-country the labour, ‘Blame’ (one too many letters) the Mayor of Penzance has taken it upon herself to remove the union flags that were in place to celebrate Brexit.
        I expect their have been more than a few regrets since she was put into place.

          1. Years ago I was ticked off for addressing a formal invitation for a service function to the ‘Lady Mayoress’. I was informed by her secretary that both male and female Mayors are addressed as ‘Mayor’. Apparently the term ‘Mayoress’ is for the wife of a Mayor. And before anyone asks how one should address the husband of a female Mayor…no, I haven’t got a clue.

      2. Apologies – we are an intelligent species, but the Left keep trying to make us stupid. Going backward is all part of being ‘progressive’

      3. …and, Richard, if Plymouth County Council (I didn’t know Plymouth is a county) employ females in that role, then they are Manageresses.

          2. “…and your host, Miss Cilla Blaaaack“. I always cringed when that came on as, to me, since she was female she was a Hostess – like Victoria Wood’s trolley.

  25. Chris Russell complains that there is no record of a webform completed and sent to an organisation, he mentions a spoof completion which will (sometimes) reveal the email address of the recipient.
    Why doesn’t he just press CTRL and PRINT SCRN then open Paint and paste the image then save?

    1. The text box on screen may be smaller than the actual text in it, so some words may not be visible.

  26. Good morning all

    This wonderful BTL comment from the DT letters.

    MELVYN COWEN
    5 Jan 2021 10:39AM

    Does Lockdown work?

    Yes.

    So why do we need to keep repeating it.?

    Does Lockdown work.?

    No.

    So why do we keep trying.?

    2. It must be vlad season. He is apparently threatening Biden about his new nuclear weapons that the US defenses cannot detect.

      Well the occasional boom will provide relief from the lockdowns. Maybe not Luxemburg first time round, how about Nauro?

    3. The Express loves to terrify its readers with its ‘The End is Nigh’ stories: from Jupiter ‘hiding behind the sun!’ (this one really made me laugh) and waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting Earth; to obliteration by the Earth’s processes – ‘the big one is about to blow! – it is years late !!’ (the Yellowstone caldera) – then onwards to the Nostradamus prophecies and then back to imagined scenes of apocalypse caused by what is actually normal winter weather.

      1. I remember the days when The Daily Express was a newspaper.

        I also remember the days when The Daily Telegraph was a newspaper.

  28. SIR – I must protest at Ofcom (Letters, January 4) increasing the number of hate-speech subjects from four to 18 with no mention of the word intention.

    I know of a recent case of a young female doctor entering a staff room full of women and saying the words: “Good morning ladies, can I get anyone a cup of tea?” She was reported to human resources for hate, and was given an official warning. Apparently one of those present did not wish to be addressed as a lady.

    What reasonable person could object to such a greeting? Surely this way of handling such innocent and polite speech is getting out of hand and should be stopped before we are banned from any comment on a subject that somebody may not like.

    Christopher Piggins
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    Sick

    1. The ‘opportunity’ to take offence arbitrarily to any word or phrase is nothing less than censorship. Orwell knew his stuff.

    2. The individual who took offence at a greeting should be the one fined – for not using common sense and failing to realise the world does not revolve around them.

    3. This presents a difficulty if one gives a damn. I do not. Long ago I was told that the expressions ‘darling, dear. sweetie, …’ and few more such, were no longer acceptable. So I adopted them.

  29. Good Moaning.
    If we had anything approaching a normal life (as in ‘old’ not ‘new’) I would now be snuggling down in a chair at the hairdresser’s to spend a couple of hours being restored to my former glory.
    Instead, a day of Christmas decoration demolition awaits me.

      2. Brave Fizz

        Are you on about visiting the Laydeee Barber, or taking down the decorations?

    2. Couldn’t you just say you’re a lefty politician VIP to get the salon to open specially for you? Pretend you’re Nancy Pelosi? 🙂

    4. I thought they didn’t have to shut till tomorrow? All these changes are confusing…….. I suppose Tier 4 means they have been shut since Christmas.

    5. I have packed away the tree and the trimmings. The only things left are the decorations from the outside tree and the candle bridge – I’m leaving the latter until the timer has finished and it has switched itself off. I still enjoy the light in the darkness.

    1. ‘Morning, C1. We visited Selborne a year or two back to see Gilbert White’s former home. What a remarkable naturalist he was, too.

        2. The first time I had to prepare a hare for cooking, I was surprised at its size and weight. No confusing it with a rabbit.

          1. The white hares (we had both where I grew up, brown hares in the fields and white ones up on the Ben) are not quite as big but still much bigger than a rabbit.

            When I was in Yorkshire it was tradition to have hare stew for the dinner after the court leet. The keeper never shot more than four or five hares to feed about 40 people. For the rest of the year we mostly didn’t shoot hares as numbers were dwindling and we were regularly invaded by long-dog men from a bit further north who took a toll.

    5. Wonderful, Citroen.
      Michael and I used to watch them ‘dancing’
      in a field which sloped down towards the
      quiet road.

  31. Australian advert featuring man eating a ‘bat sandwich’ investigated. 5 January 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1bcee3a72601d0b4498de0bbe3024d8675fcb4c6dc3552222269c96e25c024dc.jpg

    The bat in question.

    An Australian advertisement depicting a man eating a bat sandwich has been reported to the country’s advertising watchdog.

    The advert, which has been viewed more than a quarter of a million times on YouTube to date, has attracted “a number of complaints”, a spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Bureau told the BBC.

    One of the hallmarks of Marxism is its absolute lack of humour or perspective!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/05/australian-advert-featuring-man-eating-bat-sandwich-investigated/

      1. The best bit is you don’t need to order them to be delivered – -they’ll fly themselves to your house.

      2. If I had bats on the menu I wouldn’t be baking them, I’d be belfrying them.

        I’ll get me cape.

          1. There’s not enough meat to bother about on a British bat – and I’m speaking as someone who has taken the trouble to cook and eat a snipe (though I don’t think I’d do it again).

          3. I’ve not eaten curlew or any of the plovers. Just the breast is the best bet with pigeons too unless you have fondness for the art of plucking – I don’t.

          4. Plucked & drawn pigeon, roasted with a couple of thick rashers of fatty bacon over the breast. Lovely.

            But where does one find fatty bacon today??

          5. Over here. We cannot get nice meaty bacon, just thin strips of fat that would make UK streaky bacon look appealing to Jack Spratt.

          8. W/rose does one which is completely additive-free. Can’t remember the brand name but it’s always in stock.

          9. I used to have a source, but they retired.

            I still think that removing the breasts and discarding the rest is the best plan with pigeons… but then again the last time I was dealing with pigeons I had nearly 3 dozen to deal with at the same time.

          11. Guy used to shoot pigeons for one of my clients. He new I enjoyed game so he would usually put a couple in my car if I was around which was much appreciated.

            One day I found a bag with 33 pigeons in it and as he had gone home I had to do the best I could, which was cutting out and freezing the breasts (and they were all eaten up and enjoyed). Turned out his wife was in the habit of dressing his catch for a local hotel, but she had a broken wrist and couldn’t manage it, so he left them all with me. Sadly he had stroke a few months later and had to give up his gun, so I’ve had no pigeons since.

            Feathering is not my favourite part of the job at any time, and pigeons are such very feathery birds.

          13. No it’s not one I know.

            I’m no longer involved, sadly, as the last little DIY shoot I used to “play” with packed in when their rent went up again and one or two of them had health problems. I’m too old and arthritic for a big shoot, and most of them don’t shoot Saturdays anyway. My present cocker is an old lady now and I’m not sure what I’ll do when she goes.

          15. Missed that one. I don’t often find much that interests me on Going Postal. I’ve saved to study later.

            I’ve never done tidal dawn flights, but I used to feed two duck ponds in Yorkshire with tail-corn and loved night-flighting, especially as at that time I had a labrador who would swim forever.

            One night after we’d picked up at the moorland pool and gathered all we thought we had shot she was still missing. Knowing she was a bit wilful I was afraid she had gone off on the trail of a grouse (we had heard them scolding as we walked across the moor to the pool so I knew they were not far away) and my whistling was becoming increasingly exasperated as the minutes ticked away. When we heard her coming through the (by now pitch black) darkness it was clear that she was carrying – and when she arrived she had live (but winged) mallard. My friend the keeper called by the next day to tell me that he had followed the little outflow stream to where she had picked it (give-away feathers) and she’d gone over half a mile, half swimming half paddling but always with her nose in the right direction.

            She was hopelessly headstrong on a pheasant shoot but great fun on a duck pond and turned out to be a lovely house dog and companion when I left Yorkshire and was living alone. Sadly I lost her at 5 to a liver tumour.

          17. Certainly not very many and you need to be prepared to nibble round the bones rather than using a fork.

            But having managed snipe, woodcock, grouse, black grouse, red-legged and grey partridge, and pheasant as well as mallard, teal and greylag and Canada geese, my gastronomic list of game and wildfowl is quite a comprehensive one and I’m firmly of the opinion that, with the exception of vermin, if you shoot it (or participate in the event, I don’t actually shoot) you should make sure that someone eats it. I’ve also eaten lots of rabbit and both brown and “white” hares.

            I’ve seen both ptarmigan and capercaillie (just once for each) in the wild in Scotland but given their numbers I am quite happy not to have eaten them. I wouldn’t be too keen to eat black grouse now as they have become much more scarce – but they used to come to raid the corn-yard (for which crime they would be shot for the pot) when I was a child and I remember watching them lekking in the field below the house from my bedroom window. Sadly the massive over-planting of useless coniferous trees was the end for most of them.

  33. Good morning, all. Just dipping in – exacting morning ahead.

    We are all doomed, I see…..

  34. ‘What I’ll look like when we FINALLY get out of lockdown’. 5 January 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89202579ed5020404e572823933c05f9d9a62a195d060093e26811847a2091b4.jpg

    This is a spoof but no one should stake everything on the premise that our exit from this pandemic will come soon. The stockpiling of vaccine, the South African Strain and the possibility; perhaps probability would be a better word, of more lethal and infectious forms occurring say a large amount of caution would be wise. Stock up the cellar and the pantry while you can!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9112023/Weary-Brits-social-media-dark-humour-prospect-new-national-lockdown.html

    2. I think we are in for the long haul. Twenty years? Those freedoms given up so easily and thoughtlessly will not be relinquished quickly by government. We are in for an interesting time!

  37. SIR – For her annual flu vaccination in November, my wife was in and out of the surgery in five minutes – about the same time taken in a polling station.

    On June 23 2016, 33.5 million people voted in the referendum. If, as Pfizer and AstraZenica say, there is no shortage of vaccine, why is the Government targeting no more than two million vaccinations a week by the end of this month?

    Rolling out this vaccine is the single most important event in our lives this year. We can accommodate half the population voting in a single day but apparently can only vaccinate fewer than 300,000. Is this acceptable?

    Henry Hare
    Wellington, Somerset

    I think ‘naieve’ might best describe Henry Ware. Take GP surgeries – they are at the end of a very long and very bureaucratic chain and can do nothing until approved and selected by the NHS for this mammoth task. The Astra Zeneka vaccination has a short shelf-life, so storage is important. My local surgery is the only one considered suitable in this area with sufficient space to vaccinate about a thousand people in the first group in just a few days. And don’t forget the necessary space to accommodate everyone for 15 minutes before they leave. This is very far from being just yer annual ‘flu jab, matey!

  38. Morning all. The Times on line and Mail on line have broken the story of the most effective treatment for corona the denial of which has killed many thousands. I so hoped the DT would do it but no reply from Allison Pearson. What’s happening to us that we refuse to offer life saving medicine ?

  39. Sequence of comments from Lockdown Sceptics. I believe Adamsson’s comment is right on the money. Johnson, moving 180 degrees on school opening in 24 hours just adds to his nasty pillock rating and throws more doubt, if that is possible, on his inability to put forward coherent policies and to tell the truth. It appears that Johnson is being directed by SAGE and others and so we see inconsistencies across the lockdown rules e.g. golf clubs are closed but garden centres are open.

    On the issue of golf clubs, I believe that people are permitted to walk around the courses but not allowed to strike a small ball with a piece of steel or wood. What is the situation with a walker having a small ball and throwing it up the fairway and walking after it and then throwing it some more? If it’s permitted to throw and follow the ball but not strike it and follow, just how does the intervention of a piece of steel or wood make the ‘virus’ more dangerous? Just a silly thought in an attempt to try and make some sense out of the nonsense.😎

    Annie

    49 minutes ago

    Reply to Viv

    I know someone who helped to test the marooned lorry drivers. His group tested 3000 tests, had 3 positives.
    Wonderful how the numbers crash down when it’s in the Fascists’ interests that they should do so.

    NickR

    44 minutes ago

    Reply to Annie

    Exactly the same phenomena when LFT tests used in Liverpool, Merthyr, Cambridge Uni. High levels with PCR, 25% of that with LFT.

    Adamsson

    7 minutes ago

    Reply to NickR

    Which is why schools are closed rather than mass testing it would have revealed the truth

    Lockdown Sceptics

    1. 328151+ up ticks,
      Morning KtK,
      He is sifting through the options as in no no’s, maybe’s, can get away with, to come up with an semi acceptable program for
      future controlling lock-downs.

      Also long term planning for the next GE
      if seeming acceptable the past voting pattern will carry the day.

      No hiccups, governance guardians in place
      on standby, ratchet primed, target re-set,
      trigger lock-down.

    2. My golf club on the Costa Clyde is still open for play, but with restrictions; the clubhouse (which has been closed for some time) remains ‘out of bounds’, games are reduced to two-balls only with no guests, all previous restrictions – do not turn up more than 10 minutes before your tee time, non-removal of flags, rake-free bunkers, no handling each others balls – remain in place.

      Over a normal year around 6,500 rounds are played on the course. Due to furlough, lack of travel opportunities etc. there have been almost 10,000 rounds played since the course re-opened in May!

    3. I would imagine there could be health and safety issues involved in throwing a golf ball. Hard hats cevlar gloves goggles and safety footwear would have to be worn. Public liability insurance certificates must be shown on the first tee.
      The golf club would be liable for any injuries.
      That’s a sarcastic reflection on how bloody daft this country has become.

      1. Anything to stop us enjoying ourselves. The new normal will be institutionalised misery for the plebs. The elites will be continue as always with no restrictions.

        1. Pro golfers are subsidised by all the advertising. And never seem to play in foul weather 😉
          And those who kick a round ball about for a living are still receiving their massive salaries. With no attendees at the grounds where does all the money come from to pay their ridiculously high wages ?

          Meanwhile not long back from maternity leave one of our daughters in-law is currently working her socks off 12 hours a day, working from home with a 10 month old son and a husband who has lost his job, now trying to support them and her company department where most of her staff are on furlough. How is this happening.

          1. It’s happening because we have a government that is not governing for the people that elected it but controlling us for the benefit of outside interests. With non-essential shops/stores closed who is it that makes more profit? If you believe it’s online firms then you wouldn’t be far off the mark.

  40. SIR – The NHS is excusing delays by commenting on the “huge difficulties in creating an army of vaccinators”, and saying that “you cannot just vaccinate two million people a week from nothing” (report, January 4).

    But they shouldn’t be starting from nothing – the NHS has had all summer to prepare for a roll-out that obviously had to happen in 2021. What on earth have the NHS managers been doing?

    Chris Phillips
    Seascale, Cumbria

    Good question, Chris. Without a proper enquiry when this is all over, we may never know. Turning away thousands of former doctors and nurses who would like to volunteer but who cannot produce a couple of dozen certificates covering such vital courses as ‘diversity’ and ‘conflict resolution’ might, however, have something to do with it…

      1. I found the same, early this morning, Tom.

        It is apparent there is a massive amount of (mis)managed false news out there about this subject. On one hand TalkRadio has been banned: on the other various TalkRadio videos are still being shown. WTF is going on?

      1. You’ve evidently never visited the US of A.

        I’ve seen whole families of that body shape wobbling around whilst stuffing their faces from a bucket-sized tub of popcorn … each!

        1. Regular size. When I went to Walmart’s to buy a pair of jeans, I could get two of my legs into one of the shop assistant’s.

          I went for a pre-show snack, which was a 30 ounce steak with fries and the usual trimmings. Main course being popcorn, and then there’s the dessert, and bucket of coke (the fizzy brown sugar syrup, not the white powder favoured by London celebs).

    3. God could you imagine the problems whatever that is has when buying clothes that fit?

  44. Far too sensible!

    SIR – It is good to learn that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, will authorise the applications of 25,000 retired doctors and nurses which have been ignored. Will he also confirm that distribution of vaccines is now under the direction of the private sector and the military, not the NHS, which is overwhelmed? The lack of urgency and competence is shameful.

    Martin Greenwood
    Fringford, Oxfordshire

    1. Morning all.
      If my wife and I could in 5 minutes walk to our local GP practice for prearranged vaccinations against flu back in November, why do people now have make a round trip of 8 plus miles, including payment for awkward parking to receive a covid jab ?
      Our neighbour’s had to do that yesterday after receiving ‘the letter’.
      As I have along waited hospital appointment this afternoon (fingers crossed) and this vaccine can be kept safe in a working fridge, why can’t they vaccinated me while I’m there ?
      They’ve already know I’m coming for months.

  45. Yo all

    I have just seen posts, elsewhere, that say if you are a ‘Chosen One’ and called forward
    to be stabbed in the arm with Sharp Needle

    YOU NEED YOUR NHS NUMBER

    I doubt if it is true, as it would disenvaccine half the population

    1. Given that the number of NHS numbers in circulation is reported to be many more than even the highest estimates of the UK population I doubt that the centre will be able to use that information to discover who has and who has not been vaccinated with any degree of usefulness.

      1. I remember some politician admitting that there were several million more NI numbers than people.

        1. No surprises there HP.
          Over the past 30 years its become fairly obvious that the political classes including the civil service, between the many thousands of them couldn’t run a bath.

    2. This country is so badly organised you’d only have to look at the obits and go on line to get a previously used NHS number.
      You can bet your boots that all the current detainees in HMP,s will be vaccinated before the registered over 60s.

    3. ‘Morning, Tryers. You are right; patients will be contacted by their surgeries. Since when has anyone needed to produce their NHS number when keeping a GP appointment??

  46. The Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the past half century. 5 January 2021.

    If 2020 felt like a drag, you may be surprised to discover it actually went faster than you thought … and this year is set to be even speedier.

    The Earth has been spinning unusually quickly lately, and July 19 saw the shortest day since records began, with the planet completing its rotation in 1.4602 milliseconds less than the usual 86,400 seconds.

    No wonder I keep seeing my life flash before my eyes!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/04/earth-spinning-faster-now-time-past-half-century/

        2. Surely climate change = meting ice = water, which will then flow to the area where the centrifugal force is greatest due to the rotation (the equator), thereby increasing the diameter of the planet and so slowing the rotation down?
          EDIT: As a spinning skater slows down when they spread their arms.

      2. You may be right, B3 – I had a bonfire a couple of evenings ago. Perhaps this single, thoughtless act has tipped us into yet another ‘climate emergency’?

  47. With all the comparison between Voting and Vaccinations, where would Mr Rashid (and his teams) fit into the system

  48. Oh dear, Mr Loneskie, it is even worse than you thought…brace yourself for this…there are plans to take power from electric vehicle batteries if demand exceeds supply.

    SIR – As with smart meters, “smart” electric-vehicle wall chargers will allow suppliers to disconnect the electricity supply remotely.

    All domestic electric-vehicle wall chargers have to be smart, and it is likely that, following the Government consultation, all roadside chargers will be smart too.

    This means that in a situation of high demand and low supply you would not be able to charge your electric vehicle.

    William Loneskie
    Lauder, Berwickshire

    1. Will all ambulances have to be electric and when there is a grid power shortage will emergency patients just have to die?

  49. SIR – Like Chris Wood (Letters, January 2), I am annoyed by organisations that give no email address and just provide a web contact form, as this leaves me with no record of my sent message. However, there is often a solution.

    Type random letters into each box of the web form and include a dummy phone number and email address in the normal format. Press send and, in many cases, the email address of the recipient will appear, which can be used to email in the normal way.

    Any time wasted by the recipient of my nonsense web contact form is a suitable punishment for not having provided an email address.

    Chris Russell
    Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

    Might try that…although some systems reject info that is obviously incorrect.
    Until now I have copied the box containing the complaint or whatever and pasted it into a Word document, for safe keeping. A minor faff but quickly and easily achieved.

    1. “…include a dummy phone number…”

      Forms usually won’t accept a number unless it is in the correct format. How does Mr Russel know that his random numbers are a dummy number? It is quite likely to be assigned to someone somewhere.

      1. Not necessarily. When I have to give a dummy number, I put in the correct dialling code, but follow it with an ‘impossible’ 6-digit number such as 100000, or 999999.

    2. “…include a dummy phone number…”

      Forms usually won’t accept a number unless it is in the correct format. How does Mr Russel know that his random numbers are a dummy number? It is quite likely to be assigned to someone somewhere.

  50. First migrants cross The Channel since Brexit as dinghy carrying 10 people is intercepted by Border Force patrol. 5 January 2021.

    The first migrants to cross The Channel since the UK’s new Brexit deal came into force have been brought into Dover – after more than 8,400 made the dangerous crossing last year.

    One boat carrying around 10 people was intercepted and brought into Dover Marina, Kent shortly before 5am on Saturday.

    Border Force towed the blue and white rigid hulled inflatable boat into the harbour before escorting the migrants up the gangway to be processed.

    There’s lockdown for some but not for others!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9110907/First-migrants-cross-Channel-Brexit-dinghy-carrying-10-people-intercepted.html

    2. Why, in the name of trousers are these people being let into the country at all, let alone while we’re all locked up?

      Don’t quarantine them, get rid of them!

    4. It is always reported as “the dangerous crossing” . . . .If over 8000 made it in rubber dinghies it cannot be THAT dangerous.

      1. ” before escorting the migrants up the gangway to be processed. ” – -should be “before escorting them up the gangway to a life of free everything – on the taxpayer”.

    6. Why were they brought into Dover? They should have been dragged back to France whence they came.

  51. Charles Moore has just removed himself from the Fishwife’s Christmas card list…assuming he was ever on it of course:

    The next referendum on Scottish independence should be in 2055

    All who care about the survival of the Union are racking their brains. Should there be a new devolution settlement, or even wider constitutional reform?

    These are important, difficult questions, which need answers; but before getting into them, we should pause. If, as polls indicate, the SNP has an overall majority after the Scottish Parliament elections in May, then Nicola Sturgeon will demand, even more loudly, a second referendum on Scottish independence. She will brandish the result as her mandate.

    It will not be, though. The decision on whether to legislate for a referendum rests with the Westminster Parliament – rightly so, because the consequences affect the whole United Kingdom. And it is not right that another one be held in Scotland only seven years after the same question was asked by the same means.

    The basic point of referendums is to decide something constitutional in which the people’s views are essential. They are therefore serious, and should be rare. Because they are serious, they have the potential, as Boris Johnson put it on Sunday, to be “not particularly jolly events”. We saw that with Brexit and, indeed, with the Scottish referendum of 2014. They are even more divisive if they become a frequent political tool. It would be terrible to have “snap” referendums, as we sometimes have snap elections.

    A second referendum on Europe was first seriously mooted in 1990 – 15 years after the previous one. It eventually took place, after numerous arguments and iterations, in 2016. That once-in-a-generation chance to bring about (or prevent) change was a reasonable gap. On that basis, we should hold the next referendum on Scottish independence in 2055.

    1. I sympathise with Charles Moore and on balance want to preserve the union (now only on balance compared to me being a passionate Unionist in 2014). But, regardless of the legal detail, the country of Scotland voluntarily joined into a union with England & Wales in 1707, so logically either entity can decide to leave without anyone else’s permission. Boris or Moore arguing over the legal fine detail of Westminster being required to consent to a referendum is a tactic doomed to fail.

      1. Things have moved on since then. When Scottish independence goes wrong, England will have to pick up the pieces. Also, splitting the finances and the currency gives shorting possibilities.

        So the English must vote because they are the financiers of last resort.

      2. “voluntarily joined”
        Somewhat of an overstatement. The aristos/politicos voted. The aristos/politicos were bribed. The people were not asked. The people could not vote. They could only riot in protest, and they did.
        Dissolution of the Union may be in the remit of Westminster. That’s not too clear as the Treaty of Union says nothing about ending it. However, the UN Articles disagree, as the UN supports independence when desired by the people. (see Kosovo.).

      3. Good morning Cochrane

        Somebody mentioned yesterday that you were not on the Nottler Birthday List I have compiled so that we can be reminded to give our good wishes to our friends on their birthdays.

        Of course it is entirely voluntary and you only give the date of your birth if you want to do so. If you would be happy then please let me know and I shall add your birthday to the list which I published on this site yesterday.

    2. Christmas card list? Wash your mouth out with soap. Season’s greetings card list if you please.

  52. Does any medical person know how the UK mutation can be identified by the mass tests in service. I can understand that it can be detected in a lab but the PCR/LFT will surely just show positive or negative, yet we seem to immediately know the numbers of the new variant. Any ideas?

      1. Precisely.

        Variant 1: Cough, cough, sneeze, cough, cough.
        Variant 2: Sneeze, cough, cough, cough, cough.
        Variant 3: Cough, cough, cough, cough, sneeze.
        Variant 4: Sneeze, cough, sneeze, cough, fart.

        1. Sure that’s not a vocalisation of a group of old open crack engines with “hit & miss” ignition?

    3. Here’s one Lateral Flow Test I doubt could distinguish between these ‘strains’;
      “False reassurance
      Jon Deeks, professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham and leader of the Cochrane Collaboration’s covid-19 test evaluation activities, told The BMJ, “These are the first results for this test in asymptomatic people. Normally, we would ascertain how well a test works before rolling it out in a nationwide programme. These findings raise concern that both the government’s and individuals’ expectations about how well this test works are not going to be met.

      “Clearly, there is a risk of giving false reassurance to people who get a negative result. You also have to question whether mass screening using a test that performs so poorly is the best use of our limited resources.”

      The research compared the classifications of 3199 patients using military supervised self-administered lateral flow tests with those obtained when the same asymptomatic person used a second swab and a PCR test. A full dataset is expected to be released this Friday.

      A false positive result occurred in two of 2981 PCR negative people—a specificity of 99.93% (99.76% to 99.99%). But lateral flow tests missed 23 of the 45 PCR positive participants, giving a sensitivity of 48.89% (33.70% to 64.23%).

      The lateral flow tests missed a third of people with high viral load who had Ct scores (cycle threshold, a measure of virus) below 25—but seven of 15 cases with Ct scores of 20-25 were missed, giving a sensitivity of only 47% in this group (21% to 73%). In people with Ct scores of 25-30, six of seven cases were missed—a sensitivity of 14% (0.4% to 58%). Deeks remarked, “We are seeing that it is really very poor at detecting covid in asymptomatic cases, even those with a higher viral load.”
      https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4848
      My bold.

      1. Obviously LFT can’t tell us of different strains. As for the slower PCR tests, just how many tests are being carried out?

      2. Sorry, Mola, with my limited knowledge of testy speak, that makes as much sense as a Jehovah’s Witness talk.

        Is it a case of testiculation – waving your arms about while talking bollox?

    4. Not sure but the tests only identify DNA or rather bits of dna left over from an infection with a corona virus. I cannot imagine identifying a new virus sequence which it is not designed to do. As the inventor of PCR said, don’t diagnose covid with my test. Diagnose it clinically. Most mutations are less deadly otherwise the virus would make itself extinct.

      1. Not DNA, but RNA and yes, the RT PCR test does pick up fragmentary & dead RNA from past corona type infections, including The Common Cold.

  53. 328151+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    🎵
    Somethings gotta give,
    I should know by now
    You should know by now
    We should know by now
    Something’s gotta give
    Something’s gotta break

    Live Politics latest news: Country in’ race against time’ as lockdown to last until March at earliest, says Michael Gove

    2. They don’t want us to see the coachloads of Migrant’s families being bussed into the UK.

    3. “Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by.”
      For all those suffering from something boring that’s not covid, change the first word to ‘Face’ ….

    1. 328151+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Ere Og it will certainly put the BLm in a frenzy what with everyone being a slave.

    2. We are surrounded by madness and delusion. We are living out the wet dreams of social inadequates.
      I feel like a Berlin inhabitant in Spring 1945, hunkering down in a cellar and praying that the Allies, rather than the Russians arrive first.

      1. The difference is that in our present situation, we may be better off if the Russians arrive first

      2. 328151+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Anne,
        Funny that, I felt just the same way when the “allies” treacherously closed down the real UKIP
        under Gerard Batten leadership, I just knew mayhem was afoot, big time.

  58. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Good news – for those who like slow, gentle and thoughtful telly, and who may have missed it yesterday evening, Winter Walks on BBC Four is for you. It was Selina Scott walking in Wharfedale…her own brief commentary, no music and often just the sound of birdsong and the River Wharfe alongside. Oh yes, and just an occasional, short conversation with a few people she met along the way. Delightful.

    1. I’d like to have seen that. I was born in Wharfedale – on Ilkley Moor, in fact.

  59. Well, still here. Morning spent wasting a lot of time at the GPs. First to give some blood. Takes three minutes. Waited half an hour while an empty surgery was entertained by four nurses laughing and gossiping. The returned two hours later for a Nigerian GP to stick his finger up to “check” the prostate. Such larks. Gave me some tablets…..very curious “warning sheet” – made and printed in Bucharest…

    A quick lunch then to the vet – only kept waiting 20 minutes there…for them to weigh G & P and say they were ready for their neutering.

    Why do these people make appointments and then not keep them? Grrr.

    I hope to have a bit of a sit down and do the crossword before attacking the ironing. Mighty Maureen- who has “done” for us for 33 years – is unwell. She has missed three days. She has only ever missed one day in all that time – so she must be poorly. But NOT the virus. Seasonal ‘flu, I reckon.

  60. The BBC ran a story that many EU businesses are now refusing to send products to the UK because of VAT problems. Apparently the UK is insisting that the EU businesses,, shops, etc must register for UK VAT. The sellers then have to charge VAT on the item they are selling to a UK customer and then send the money to HMRC.
    If true it is insanity.
    Before Brexit if you bought an item from a Third Country, such as Canada, the item was eld by the Post Office until you paid the Duty and VAT.
    This apparently new system was surely devised by civil servants who are Remainers and obstructionist.

    2. I think it’s only “on-screen talent”, OLT. I’d be delighted to find someone in the BBC who’d do my hair but I should be so lucky lucky lucky (courtesy Kylie M)! MP’s, SAGEys etc are also well groomed. As with the Soviet Politburo, equality is for the plebs.

    4. Immediately after Boros had made his statement last night, it seemed to me the Huge Edwards continued the/his presentation on the same vein, but then seemed to be expressing his own personal opinion. There was no way even the ‘bbc vultures’ could have constructed such a rapid opinionized conclusion to what the PM had just stated. Mr Edwards last night was presenting the news not being asked to express his opinion.

    5. Maybe we could proclaim ourselves ‘journalists’ and so be able to do as we please, including travel all over the place, filming in hospitals, haircuts, going to birthday parties indoors and smooching, etc, etc. No arrests for them, it seems. And on full pay.

  62. One treat for the new year is to see who’s on the new Death List – 50 celebrities predicted to kick the bucket before the year’s out.

    Last year, they had a major clear-out, doing for twenty of them, leaving them with a shortage of favourites who go on the list year after year. It took 15 years to kill off Clive Dunn in 2011, and 18 for Kirk Douglas, who irritatingly hung on to 104, but they got him in the end.

    Unfortunately for them, because of 2020’s cull of their favourites, the most popular on this year’s has only been on nine times so far, an honour shared by Henry Kissinger and fellow diplomat the Duke of Edinburgh. They’ve even put the Queen on the list, which shows a bit of desperation, since she shows no inclination to give up the throne quite yet, for whatever reason.

    Anyone can predict the imminent demise of someone aged around the ton, but it’s the youngsters they choose to put on, who are the most intriguing. There is this American actress, who appeared on ‘Little House on the Prairie’ who is only 49 and has had terminal breast cancer for nearly six years, but being put on the list seems to be one of many therapies that seem to be working for her.

    I’d really like to find someone turning up predicted to die of misadventure or murder. Now that would be fun! Any suggestions?

        1. I think he’ll stand down on medical grounds just as soon as the period for Harris to get two full terms as well as ~ two years as stand-in.

  63. My first acquaintance to die from Covid 19 had phoned me just days before Christmas to ask what was wrong with my young brother. He told me that when he phoned my brother he was shocked by the response he got and were people there to assist him? I reassured him that my brother, being given “end of life treatment” ,had his family and carers to look after him. This morning my brother phoned to tell me his old school friend had been rushed to hospital at Christmas but too late, he died soon after he got there. The Grim Reaper is busy.

    1. Sad to see that.

      The Grim Reaper is always about his business, but he’s been just a bit busier in 2020 than usual. As someone here mentioned yesterday, we shouldn’t underestimate this nasty little bug.

    2. Sad news so early in the year, Clydesider.
      Edit: I should pay more attention! Sorry.

      1. Clydesider, not Conway.
        Sad news indeed.
        As I mentioned earlier, in a reply to Stig – an old friend of more than 60 years died just before Christmas.

  65. Margaret Ferrier MP has now been arrested by Police Scotland for an offence that allegedly took place three months ago. Why has action only just been taken? One might question why any action is being taken at all, but lay that aside for a moment. Ms Ferrier has apparently admitted that she travelled from London to Scotland after a positive Covid test, when she should have self-isolated.
    Ms Ferrier is an MP for the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP and First Minister has repeatedly urged Ms Ferrier to resign her seat and leave Parliament.
    Ms Ferrier has refused to do so, as she is entitled to do. She was elected by her constituency. But, an election for the Scottish Parliament is coming up shortly in May 2021 and Ms Sturgeon almost certainly wants Ms Ferrier gone by then.
    Ms Ferrier is to be charged with “culpable and reckless conduct” which is a very wide-ranging catchall. Also referred to as “reckless endangerment” it can carry a sentence of life imprisonment, although that would be very unusual. (One case did result in 5 years.). A sentence of, say, 13 months would be very satisfactory however as it would result in the automatic expulsion of Ms Ferrier from Parliament. Did Ms Sturgeon influence the police? Has Ms Sturgeon had a wee quiet word with the Lord Advocate? Scotland is very small, very cosy.
    As someone of my acquaintance might say, “I smell sh1te”.

          1. Blimey, I thought you’d googled ‘Witches’, then I looked her up. I’ll bring the faggots.

    3. Perhaps Nicola should be arrested for a similar offence by not wearing a face mask in an enclosed space. It would demonstrate how impartial the Scottish Justice system is.

  66. Since the media are in most peoples bad books, here is a headline from CNN

    Los Angeles County ambulance crews told not to transport patients with little chance of survival

    Reading a bit further into the article it summarizes the instructions which are not quite so draconian. Apparently if they are called to an incident involving cardiac arrest, they need to do their best to resuscitate the patient for twenty minutes. After that time if no heart beat is detected, they can give up on the cause.

    After twenty minutes without a heartbeat, wouldn’t your brain shut down and leave you a lot doo lally? (Twenty minutes resuscitation attempt time plus the initial waiting time for an ambulance plus the drive to hospital plus the time for the ER doctors to revive you)

    1. I believe the whole point of the pumping/pounding on the chest is to keep blood flowing to vital organs.
      I’ve read various ratio changes over the years but 30 pumps to two breaths seems fairly common now. The pumping/breath would continue in the ambulance.

        1. Rarely?
          Ah.
          But.
          Save one life and it’s all worthwhile.
          Rather like Covid, win one, don’t change.

        2. The anaesthetist who came to the practice every year to give us a CPR refresher told us that 5% survive.

          1. Well that is 5 in every hundred who without the intervention would have died along with the other 95…..

          3. The British Red Cross guy who took the last course I was on (which included using a defibrillator) said that even with the machine it was only about 2%.

            I confess to having absolutely no idea whether 2%, 5% or something completely different is accurate and it may well vary between urban and rural regions… the time lags are longer in rural areas however hard everyone tries to shorten them.

    2. I don’t think it unreasonable, Richard.

      When your wife is lying dead/dying at
      your feet with two paramedics doing their
      very best to save her, with an ambulance outside
      which after ten minutes of intense treatment,
      transports her to hospital with lights flashing,
      [no siren it upsets the patient] the lady ambulance
      driver stopping at nothing, [her assistant + the two
      paramedics with the patient]…. ten miles in slightly
      less than ten minutes; when you arrive at A&E
      the full Cardiac team are there on the forecourt
      ready to assist.
      It is then you realise, and are always very thankful
      to know, that everything that could be done was done,
      …. no lingering doubts!

  69. OT – a tale with a happy ending.

    Some five months ago, we noticed a small, very pretty kitten trotting through our garden on a definite route to somewhere. She always went the same way. We were concerned because she was far too small to be out and about. We asked all the neighbours and, though several had seen her, no one knew where she lived.

    The pattern of coming through the garden continued: the cat grew. Next door used to put food out and tried to lure her indoors – but it didn’t work. The MR noticed that the cat was pregnant, and contacted a lady two miles away who runs a cat refuge. She came today with a trap – which we set up at 2 pm. At 3.45 the MR noticed that there was movement in the trap. Bingo!

    The cat will be looked after properly until she gives birth. She will be able to nurse her kittens in comfort and warmth and with vet care. The kittens will go to good homes and the mother will be spayed and then re-homed (if she has been socialised) or re-released.

    All’s well that ends well… I gave the MR a pat on the back.

  70. Just had my home phone ring – -a VERY rare event. Picked up to hear a recording, saying he was “Jason from the BT fraud dept and due to illegal hacking etc my account would be ended tomorrow – please press 1 now” – I rebelled – ignored it – and put the phone down.

    BE AWARE.

    2. Any automated system ringing me about fraud gets hung up on. Santander did this for a long time – they probably still do – as a cost saving measure. I told them if they couldn’t be bothered to have a human being deal with fraud then they wouldn’t have my business.

      This they didn’t mind, as I had a pitiful amount of money in there.

      Then I moved the company account from them as well. *Then* they noticed.

    3. My wife had an attempt at a scam on her phone last night about the misspelt vaccine. It told her to ring a number and have her credit card ready.
      Jabba wokie eh.

    4. My parents got one of those purporting to be from Microsoft. They almost got caught out. Best response to these scammers – use the ‘Lenny’ approach to the call – it winds them up and gives them a nice big phone bill.

    5. I’ve just had an email from HSBC telling me that my credit card payment is due soon.
      Never had such an email before, so I’ve ignored it.

    6. I had an e-mail issuing the same threat. It’s been many years since I had a BT account. Similarly one claiming to be about my O2 account. I’ve never had an O2 account.

    7. I had a phone call today, too. A pause and then a female voice said, somewhat seductively, “hi, you have missed a call from your Internet provider …”. That was as far as I heard before I put the phone down. I have an answerphone, so if they had called there would have been a message.

      1. Back in the days when we had dialup service I ignored lots of spam email and phone calls from some unknown company. About six months later when the internet service stopped I called my original supplier to find that they had been taken over by this to then unknown company.

        Pay six months back charges and we wil reconnect you they said. We went elsewhere, the new isp had no penalties.

  71. A key question for today’s Georgia runoffs:

    What time is the pipe burst scheduled?

  72. Afternoon All

    Of course Talk Radio had to go,couldn’t have this sort of thing broadcast to millions…

    https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1346158927084462086

    People might get angry enough to actually do something….

    As for the smug gits like Piers Morgan who promote lockdown at no cost to themselves…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f426bfee9b7fbc5a221a36db61749280849114a2fe80bab9ad245e212d3ea63c.jpg
    If I ever pass him in the street I shall do a “Clarkson”

    1. Sargon of Akkad on his Podcast of the Lotus Eaters You Tube channel will be devoting part of today’s postcast to this topic, due at 1pm GMT:

      https://youtu.be/y_ISwf1-6r8

      Should be an interesting watch, especially with Carl’s own channels (under his other various named channels) being under threat by You Tube for some time now.

      1. For the same reason why most talk radio stations are now – they get far bigger audiences as visual podcasts, which is the same as a radio show except for seeing the people in the studio. Radio stations have been on Freeview since the beginning, amongst the 700s (channel numbers) on the channel list.

    1. Customer goes to optician for an eye test.
      Optician asks customer what they can see out of the window.
      “Why, it’s a one-eyed dog!” comes the reply.
      “Well…” says the optician,
      “…you are right in identifying it as dog – but it is walking in the opposite direction!”

      1. Looks like Jabba the Hut, just like my morning nurse in Sweden, except she was blonde.

  82. That’s me for this eventful day. Just had a nice Zoom with grand-daughter, who is livid at being prevented from going to school.

    I’ll join you tomorrow – all being well.

        1. But will still get an A from the electorate at the next election!
          The Tories will pull the old trick of re-branding, probably with Rishi Sunak as PM, and all the mugs will fall for it YET again!

          1. After this debacle and what must follow, I can’t see the Tories winning again in my lifetime, unless Labour bankrupts the country.

          2. Urgh, they will carry on tossing the baton from one to the other – now that Farage is a busted flush, I can’t see anyone else challenging the status quo. The days of Tories who might have resisted the billionaire dollars are over unless we get a British Trump – Sunak, perhaps? In any case, “they” own the civil serpents so we’re trussed up like a turkey.

          4. Farage was a good orator, charismatic even, but fell at the first hurdle being a committed neoliberal.

            We desperately need a Georgist government. The electorate have had neoliberal propaganda rammed down their throats now for 45 years. For many it’s all they know. Everything is pitched as a battle between capitalism and socialism which is just wrong, it has people looking in the wrong places, worried by the wrong things. Our biggest issue is our stupidly insane fiscal system that needs a complete do over. Nobody even looks at it, they think it’s generally right when it is the very thing that is harming them.

            Georgism makes for healthy capitalism. Neoliberalism makes for feudalism, a very unhealthy form of capitalism.

          5. I think Rishi is doing that already. He’ll be able to leave a note for his Labour Successor: “There really isn’t any money left this time. Oh and by the way no bank or country in the World is prepare to lend GB any….”

          6. It’s a great shame that all politicians are not required to put ALL their wealth, their wife’s/husband’s wealth and their extended family’s wealth on the line against the decisions they make.

            It might concentrate their minds if they were hurt as badly as their constituents.

          8. As funny as that would be given their propensity to call themselves the party of fiscal responsibility it’s not really possible.

          9. Which as you know is near impossible for the UK.

            It doesn’t matter who you vote for these days, all parties are wedded to the neoliberal shitstorm and will be for the conceivable future. These lessons generally take 100 years to sink in.

  84. It never rains but it pours…….. though actually it’s quite a nice day for a walk today…….. just as well as I had an unscheduled walk, having abandoned my car. Now waiting for recovery and fixing. What else will go wrong this week?

  85. Enrique Tarrio, leader of rightwing Proud Boys, arrested ahead of rallies. 5 January 2021.

    The leader of the Proud Boys, the violent far-right group, was arrested in Washington DC and charged with destruction of property and a firearms offense, according to local polic

    The property destruction charges are related to Tarrio’s admitted role in burning a Black Lives Matter banner torn from a historic Black church during a previous pro-Trump protest in Washington on 12 December, which DC police and the FBI said they had been investigating as a potential hate crime. Police said Tarrio, who lives in Miami, Florida, was arrested after his arrival in the District of Columbia on Monday.

    Looks like they are taking hints from Mi5’s Tommy Robinson Playbook here! Antifa and BLM have torched whole neighbourhoods in the United States with no real restraint or investigation into their activities.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/04/enrique-tarrio-rightwing-proud-boys-arrested

      1. Shirley, there are no violent left wing groups? That must be true, otherwise plod would have arrested some instead of taking the knee [or running away]?

      1. I have always thought that Hispanics were white, suntanned, but white. The Spanish are white aren’t they?

        1. ‘Hispanic’ is an almost meaningless category. It lumps together almost anyone from south of the US border. It can include people who are wholly European/Spanish in origin but includes people who are black, Brazilian (so not Spanish speakers) and of course large numbers of assorted amerindians some of whom have no European ancestry whatsoever and don’t even speak Spanish. And of course people of every combination of those groups.

          Its hard to keep track but sometimes actual Spanish people from Spain seem to qualify, other times not.

          Its useful for nation-wrecking progressives however since it creates an environment where privileged white women like Eva Longoria can pretend they are oppressed PoC. In other words it creates extra division and confusion.

      1. The conversation between me and my GP a few years ago as he slipped the gloves on. GP. “I hope that you’re not going to enjoy this”. 🙂
        ME. “And I hope you’re not either”. 🤔

  87. Just watching Ian Hislop’s ‘history of fake news’ programme, in which he claims the last bastion of ‘true news’ is the New York Times and even interviews Mark Thompson, ex-Bbc head. Presumably Hislop was unaware of the recent fake news scandals involving the NYT and that its boss Thompson was persuaded to ‘step down’ as a consequence, having turned what used to be a relatively conservative news outlet into the US equivalent of the Grauniad.

    3. It rather calls into question the impartiality and agenda of his rag, Private Eye. Sounds like rank hypocrsy to me. See my post above about Tim Pool’s latest video about fake news and the MSM lying.

      1. Not impartial at all.
        The eye took on the EU shill role, calling everyone who might vote Leave stupid. That’s not satire, it’s politics, and not funny at all. We cancelled our subscription of nearly 30 years as a result. Damned if I’ll pay for that toilet paper.

        1. I don’t buy it any more either. No point buying a satire mag that is run by the establishment.

        2. I subscribed from 1985 for over 25 years. When it expired, I didn’t bother to renew.

    6. Hislop, obviously, is easily taken in by fake news and, what’s more makes money by pushing it.

      The man is a fake himself.,

  91. At Dundas Wharf a point of Transit for the Somersetshire Coal Canal

    The Quayside Stones

    So how many bows have kissed these stones?
    Clumsy Cupid kisses carving countless runes.
    Once solid black gold flowed past this quay
    Coal for the ancestors of you and me
    Fires quenched, that trade’s no more
    A thing of the past – days of yore
    But kisses still rain on these stone laid banks
    As bows of pleasure craft kiss their grateful thanks.

    2. Well, apart from ONS reckon there are 66,8 million in the UK, and the infections are about 2,7 million, that is, 4,1% as opposed to his 2%, he nakes a case easily picked apart by inaccurate numbers. Hell, these statistics are all published on’t web. Can’t comment on the accuracy, though.

    3. And this means, in line with that statistic, that 98% of our population do not have covid, in any form, asymptomatic, false positive or the full-blown virus.

    4. Corana? You mean that awful beer that tastes like gnat’s pee? At least, that’s what I’ve heard…

  93. Good morning, my friends

    DT Story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/05/donald-trump-joe-biden-hold-rallies-eve-key-georgia-election/

    “Donald Trump has called on his vice-president Mike Pence to intervene to incorrectly hand him a second term in the White House, as his baseless claims of mass voter fraud dominated a rally in Georgia meant to boost Senate candidates there.”

    I do not know whether or not the ‘result’ of the US presidential election was true or not. The only evidence I have is what I see in the MSM which is often renowned more for its bias and mendacity than for its veracity.

    However, it does seem true that the DT correspondent who wrote this article from which I quote is not an impartial, unbiased reporter.

    1. it is the same everywhere isn’t it? It they left out incorrectly and baseless, the item would still show us the unusual lengths Trump is going to in his efforts to retain power.

      Big riots anticipated in Washington in the next few days as the Proud Boys do their thing. It will make the demonstrations four years ago seem quite mild if they get going.

    3. If we’re going down that route we have the BBC proclaiming that his allegations are baseless and that he ‘clearly’ lost the election. Odd though, as when they lost the brexit referendum continually challenging it was perfectly acceptable. After all, a 4% majority was irrelevant.

    4. At the very least the election needs a full invstigation, that the swamp is trying to avoid at all costs.

    1. The Federal authorities should seize the machines and demonstrate that either they are or they are not honest and accurate.

    2. Strange how none of the traditional media are reporting this nor is Trump making a fuss. It is just this extremely right wing poster.

    1. 328151+ up ticks,
      Afternoon C,
      Lets be honest does everybody WANT to recover ?

      There are a multitude in
      great submissive / zeal mode playing political follow the leader, unquestioning.

      Reminiscent of tribal lab/lib/con coalition voters, vote, no questions asked, party first,regardless of consequence.

    2. They should move to bitchute or another platform. youtube, twitter etc are only powerful because people keep using them.

  99. A body representing heritage railways in the UK has issued a stark warning after planning permission was refused for a coal mine near Newcastle.

    The Heritage Railway Association (HRA) says English coal supplies will run out in early 2021, with Welsh supplies lasting until 2022.

    Chairman of the West Somerset Railway Jonathan Jones-Pratt said:”The whole industry is in jeopardy over this.

    “We’ve got so much coal here but the problem is that we can’t extract it.”

    Steam locomotives rely on bituminous lump coal to burn, which is relatively smokeless and comparatively clean.

    The opencast mine at Dewley Hill, near Newcastle, would have produced this coal but it was rejected for environmental reasons.

    ‘Dashed hopes’
    The HRA said the decision “dashed the hopes of Britain’s heritage railways, who need affordable coal to continue operating”.

    The only remaining mine producing lump coal in the UK is Ffos-Y-Fran near Merthyr Tydfil, which is due to close in 2022.

    It is estimated the heritage railway industry used 26,000 tonnes of coal per year pre-Covid, accounting for 0.02% of the UK’s carbon emissions.

    Coal on a steam train
    IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES
    image captionHeritage railways rely on a particular type of coal to run their engines
    Once stocks run out the industry will be reliant on foreign imports as demand from the steam industry would not be enough to sustain a domestic coal mine, according to the HRA.

    Ian Crowder, from the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway, said: “We’ve burned Russian and Polish coal in the past, but it was filthy stuff and difficult to run the engine without producing a lot of smoke.

    “Bringing it from overseas will be more expensive in the future and will generate a huge carbon footprint.

    ‘Political thing’
    “We pay £200 per tonne of coal now. In normal circumstances our engines use three to four tonnes a day, even with footplate crews being economical.”

    Mr Jones-Pratt said the “public perception” of coal was the reason new mines were refused.

    “The industry keeps being hit by these planning application refusals, but steam railways are so popular and we’re always overbooked, it’s just a political thing,” he said.

    Trains at Minehead station
    IMAGE COPYRIGHTGEOGRAPH/GARETH JAMES
    image captionThe West Somerset Railway suffered trading losses of more than £800,000 in 2019
    Tom Bright, from Steam Railway Magazine, said the issue was another “nail in the coffin” for the industry on top of Covid-19.

    “I’m an environmentalist, but they have to burn coal and it has to come from somewhere.

    “The problem is that it’s a visible burner and it looks worse than it is, but if an engine is fired properly the exhaust is very clean.

    “We face a future where the Hogwarts Express, The Flying Scotsman and other famous engines will be reliant on foreign coal.

    Lower emissions
    “Overseas sellers could charge what they want, it genuinely puts these engines at risk.”

    Some attractions, like the Severn Valley Railway, have already switched to overseas supplies.

    “We’d been using British coal the past ten years but our supply ran out in mid-December,” said Duncan Ballard, the railway’s contracts manager.

    “We are currently sourcing coal from abroad and are working with other railways to secure a sustainable and reasonably-priced source.

    “One of the unexpected benefits of this is that its CO2 emissions are significantly lower than those of our previous coal.”

    R

    2. The museum railway where I was fireman, then driver, on the steam loco uses coal from Svalbard.
      https://mia.no/lommedalsbanen/lokomotiver#
      Bloody awful stuff, like compressed cement dust. Gives an adequate heat, but lots of sulphur fumes, but at least didn’t clinker up the firebox – sod-all tar in it. It was also a bitch to ignite, too, and very dusty. All in all, YUKK! Get decent steam coal.

        2. That’s really terrific. Have sent your post and pictures to friend in Nebraska who loves steam and worked for many years for Union Pacific. He marvels at our history.
          Thank you.

          1. ‘Morning, Paul.

            I visited when I was a student. My flatmate was madly keen on steam.

          2. The engineering metal work alone is a pure work of art far better than anything Mr Hirst can produce. When you do visit make sure it is on one of their steaming days and be amazed at the simple stunning beauty of all the components at work.

    3. Are they supposed to convert them to electric? A stack of AA batteries where the boiler is should be enough to power a motor.

      Another woke overreaction to climate.

    2. Dentists are unaffected by the lockdown. It was only in the first lockdown that they were instructed to close down.

      1. Not in Scotland it seems. My dentist is shut for anything that requires aerosol procedures, whatever they are. If you need a filling etc you have to go to a special centre where some random dentist will treat you.

        1. My dentist has an aerosol sucking device that looks a cross between a toy snake and a ship’s speaking tube. The snag is he and his nurse can’t hear each other when it’s on.

          2. In summer in Sweden, if we had nothing better to do, we used to suck wasps up into the aspirator & keep a tally on the wall.

    3. Your dentist may still be working? I had confirmation of my final appt today on 14 January for the last appt in the series for a cracked replacement canine crown.

    4. My wife was supposed to go to the opticians on Friday, we just heard that one of their patients last week was flagged by the covid tracking app. There goes our day out this week.

      I am back off outside to discuss world affairs with the squirrel, it sems to understand and not criticize.

      1. My dog is now an expert on world affairs 🙂 In fact, he’d do a better job than Boris if he were in No. 10.

        2. And Biden has two dogs moving to the white house with him. Maybe there is hope after all.

    5. I have about 6-8 dental appts coming up over the next six months. Next one is supposed to be next Tues. My dentist hasn’t cancelled anything yet, but the way she and the assistant are dressed does look as though they have come straight from the Porton Down lab.

  101. Written before TalkRadio’s ‘reprieve’. The ITV broadcaster was Adil Ray.

    To ban TalkRadio for criticising lockdown is to suppress healthy debate just when we need it most

    YouTube’s censorship of the station for ‘violating guidelines’ is bourgeois panic at its most patronising and dangerous

    ELLA WHELAN

    The pandemic has dampened many things – our spirits, our sunlight exposure, our social lives. But one thing that hasn’t been squashed by the weight of Covid-19 is the commentariat’s penchant for censorship.

    Just take a look at the praise for Google’s decision to remove talkRADIO from YouTube for allegedly breaking its “COVID-19 medical misinformation policy”. One author tweeted: “It’s what they deserve @talkRADIO has become a sewer.” An ITV broadcaster (who realised he should know better and later deleted his comment) tweeted: “Banning is always tricky but this appears to be a good thing. Working against the efforts of the NHS for advertising money isn’t free speech – its greed and lunacy.”

    In fact, the only people coming out in support of talkRADIO have been their own presenters and contributors – a handful of other journalists and commentators have come to the defence of a free press.

    This is just the latest ban. The desire to censor lockdown-critical arguments throughout the pandemic has been nonstop. Paul Mason – who has clearly not made any New Year’s resolutions to lay off the Twitter tirades – called for Boris Johnson to “order social media platforms to suppress/label Covid disinformation”. Last week, the journalist Owen Jones attacked Professor Karol Sikora (and people like me who gave him a platform) for “helping to spread disinformation and discrediting the legitimate voices of scientists, doctors, nurses and paramedics”.

    Am I the only once with déjà vu? Not just because we woke up this morning to another lockdown, but because we’ve heard this bourgeois panic about disinformation before. Those of us who remember what it was like when the country’s commentators were gripped by fear of Brexit are used to being told that information that isn’t given the official seal of approval leads to disaster.

    At the heart of the desire to censor talkRADIO or the Great Barrington Declaration signatories or Vote Leave or Donald Trump or anyone who is critical of the status quo (rational and irrational) is really a fear of the public.

    What cheerleaders for censorship are often unwilling to admit is that they distinguish between themselves (educated, enlightened and rational consumers of information) and the rest of the public (child-like sponges incapable of doing anything other than parrot the last thing they heard). It’s snobbery, pure and simple.

    Despite the fact that, according to most polls, the majority of the British public support following government rules to combat the virus (including lockdown), these people have no trust in the average Joe or Jane to make sensible decisions. Instead, the general public is seen as too stupid to be able to deal with opposing views in a time of crisis. Allowing us free access to all sides of the argument is deemed dangerous.

    It’s not just talking heads being banned on social-media platforms that we should worry about. This morning, Labour leader Keir Starmer told breakfast viewers that he would support the government in creating emergency legislation to tackle “anti-vax campaigns”. Does Starmer understand how these groups work? Banning conspiratorial views gives them the legitimacy they crave.

    And what would constitute an anti-vax campaign? Boxer Anthony Joshua said he was “opening up a healthy convo” among his 1.6million followers on Snapchat yesterday by questioning what the “other solution” would be if the vaccine “doesn’t go to plan”. Would Starmer’s law come for him for asking questions? If talkRADIO gets banned for questioning government strategy, who will be next?

    Freedom of speech must be defended – and it’s especially important to do so during times of emergency. One if the biggest failings of this government throughout the pandemic has been its inability to harness public trust and support. Instead of maintaining the “we’re in this together” approach that made a brief but wonderful appearance back in March, most people’s goodwill is all but run out. Treating us like children, who can’t be trusted to read or listen widely and come to our own conclusions, will only entrench our cynicism further.

    Anyone who tells you that they know exactly what to do to fight this virus is lying – that goes for SAGE experts, mouthy journalists, lockdown sceptics, lockdown cheerleaders and epidemiologists alike. The reason why this virus is so terrifying is that it keeps defying what we think we know about it. We are currently in a race between the vaccine and the virus. And because of poor government resources and a stretched NHS, many of us have accepted that restrictions are necessary to beat this thing.

    But there is nothing acceptable or desirable about lockdown – and those who continue to point to the consequences of restrictions (from kids losing out on education to mental-health deteriorating) are providing a necessary reminder that this cannot become the norm. Criticism, questioning and a healthy amount of eye-brow-raising is crucial when it comes to every decision taken to beat this virus.

    “Follow the science” is the favoured slogan among the Covid censors – but blind faith has never been scientific. We have been forced to give up all sorts of things in the last nine months, but we should never give up our freedom to question, call out and criticise those who think they have all the answers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/radio-presenters/ban-talkradio-criticising-lockdown-suppress-healthy-debate-just/

    1. There is nothing certain about science. Science evolves generally in accordance with and as a response to challenge. If we are unable to question “follow the science” we are become a dictatorship.

      I like others had high hopes for a Boris Johnson government. I now have nothing but utter contempt for him and his management of this manufactured flu epidemic. I believe there is a particular place in hell for Hancock, Vallance, Whitty, Gates, Soros, Schwab, Blair, Fauci and the EU and their cohorts.

      Edit: As regards censorship by the MSM they too are a collective disgrace and need to be “defunded” by whatever means and that includes the ludicrously biased BBC.

    2. There is nothing certain about science. Science evolves generally in accordance with and as a response to challenge. If we are unable to question “follow the science” we are become a dictatorship.

      I like others had high hopes for a Boris Johnson government. I now have nothing but utter contempt for him and his management of this manufactured flu epidemic. I believe there is a particular place in hell for Hancock, Vallance, Whitty, Gates, Soros, Schwab, Blair, Fauci and the EU and their cohorts.

      Edit: As regards censorship by the MSM they too are a collective disgrace and need to be “defunded” by whatever means and that includes the ludicrously biased BBC.

      1. There is plenty certain about science. Some things are known. It’s not all hypotheses and theories.

        Epidemiology, the branch of science everyone around here seems to think is snake oil, is a branch of science where less certainty is involved. There’s far too many variables to model well. It’s a science of extrapolation, one that only lets us make best educated guesses.

        How could anyone have had ‘high hopes’ for a Boris administration. He’s an utter tool that’s failed in every position he’s held. Did you think he’d suddenly gain competency for becoming PM?

        The MSM have always been a collective disgrace. They largely got away with it pre-information age. Much harder now.

          1. 328151+ up ticks,
            Evening C,
            Especially since major the
            lab/lib/con coalition party
            have been revealed to be a band of political treacherous @rseholes
            yet still finding support.

        3. Of course, after many years, some things are known. One of the things which is known is that epidemiology is not science nor a branch of science nor even a relative of science. The first thing a scientist learns is not to extrapolate, break that rule and you have no science.

          Epidemiology breaks that rule and is, therefore, simply not a science. It’s a branch of mathematics which, as it is mainly used, is almost completely “snake oil”. It can be used to study data, at which point it becomes worthwhile but the dark art of extrapolation bears no relationship to science, and “modelling” is mostly the work of the devil. The words “educated” and “guess” just don’t go together and least not in any scientific context.

          1. There are always risks with extrapolation but it makes it no less valid. It is widely used in science, perhaps because at the root of most science is maths.

          2. Sorry, extrapolation simply isn’t science and isn’t valid. Simply because it is, almost invariably wrong. It is not “widely used in science” but it is widely used by non scientists.

            Maths is far from being “at the root” of most science though it is useful for the study of what proper, unextrapolated, science has shown.

          3. How do you think hypotheses are formed? Science isn’t the study of the firmly known, it’s also the search for understanding of the unknown. Estimations, extrapolations, these are the basis of old hypotheses that became theories, and new hypotheses that are yet to be tested.
            Mendeleev created a periodic table containing 63 known elements. The existence of other elements was extrapolated from that. We now know of 118 elements, we’ve even been able to create some because we could predict their existence from extrapolating trends in data.

          4. No, the existence of the other elements was not extrapolated. They were discovered and then added. No, elements were not created by prediction – but by trial and error and not without a few disasters.

            Hypotheses do not come from extrapolation they come from observation and are confirmed or refuted by further observation; never by extrapolation.

            I’m a science graduate. Scientists do not extrapolate. Stop trying to teach your Granny to suck rotten eggs.

          5. Yes it was. From Moseley’s law. There were missing elements when the table got reorganised from atomic weight to atomic number thanks to Moseley’s X-ray experiments. Missing elements were predicted, their chemistry predicted, their structure predicted for the later ones, their weights predicted, melting points and boiling points predicted, then they were discovered painstakingly as at least two of the missing elements have no stable isotopes. They were astatine, technetium, hafnium, rhenium, francium, promethium, and protactinium.

          8. Go teach your Granny to suck eggs. Without extrapolation we wouldn’t have disgraceful non-scientists calling the shots.

            What you describe as extrapolation is nothing of the sort. One step forward at a time is observation and testing, not extrapolation. Scientists take one step at a time.

            Extrapolation is drawing a mile long line from 3 inch axes.

            You are mis-using the word. The first rule of science – never extrapolate beyond your data Experiment, observe, one step by one step.

          9. How do you think Mendeleev predicted densities and melting points for elements that weren’t ‘discovered’ for another 50 years yet their existence could be assumed, and became understood once Alpha decay was identified. He used extrapolation.
            He predicted the existence of Francium calling it eka-caesium sometime around 1870. It was the 1930’s I think when francium was finally identified. He predicted the existence of technetium calling it eka-manganese. That wasn’t found until the late thirties.
            He predicted metallic character, densities, melting points, chemistry of compounds all by extrapolation long before these elements were discovered.
            You should also look at the work of Glenn Seaborg.
            Extrapolation is simply estimating what will happen outside of a data set if trends in the data set are assumed to continue. It’s not drawing a mile long line on 3 inch axes.

          12. Written
            Intended
            Standing by

            And I’m not the one dragging last night’s debate into today with a bunch of fanciful fiction.

          13. Finding stars and planets is mostly predicted based on the behaviour of others, giving a clue of which direction to look and roughly what size/mass you’re looking for.

          14. But it isn’t done by drawing a mile long line from 3 inch axes.

            Step by step is not “extrapolation” as the word is used. First rule of science says “never extrapolate beyond your data”.

          17. Modelling can work quite well, as long as a) you tested the model and it conforms to reality reasonably well (Ferguson, please note), and b) you don’t extrapolate beyond the limits of the model.
            Go outside those, and you’re on shaky ground at best.

          18. In other words you don’t extrapolate beyond your data… which is exactly what I’m saying.

            Proper research doesn’t use guesswork, though it may occasionally operate on a hunch.

        4. The hope could have been that Boris would gather a team of talented people around him and let them do their own thing. Of course, Carrie is also involved, which may have changed people’s hopes of Boris. I wonder how a Marina leadership would have looked, but of course, we shall never know that now.

      2. Dante’s Eighth Circle of Hell – Bolgias 5, 7 & 8 and the Ninth Circle, Round 2 (Antenora) would provide them with suitable accomodation in the afterlife.
        :¬(

      3. Science is a concept which, throughout educated history, is continually being proved and disproved. That is its very nature. New science comes along that disproves old science. This has always been the case and always will.

        2. Some things we think we know via science are more reliable than others, however, quasi-religious phrases like “follow the science” or “believe the science” are appalling. They are the logical conclusion of the arguments of that utter fool, Dawkins.

      4. Richard Feynman is quoted as saying “Better the questions that cannot be answered than the answers that cannot be questioned.”
        Amen (and awomen) to that.

  103. Has anyone seen any comparative statistics on hospital admissions and deaths for the three varieties of Covid?
    EDIT:
    “Main” first wave, new extra contagious wave and Sarf AfriKan wave.

  105. I would be interested to know the reasoning behind barring pubs and restaurants selling alcohol with a takeaway meal. If you want a beer with your takeaway, you will have to visit a shop to buy it – doubling the number of contacts you are exposed to and doubling the number of contacts exposed to you. Do they never think this stuff through?

    2. To answer the last first: No.

      I suspect that the reasoning, such as it is, is that people will consume the food and booze and cavort around the streets partying.

  107. How can people make informed decisions for themselves when they are grossly misinformed by the left-wing MSM?

    For example, I have just watched a few minutes of what they call a ‘debate’ on the subject of the containment of the coronavirus (more like a left wing diatribe) on France24.

    They had a British woman, one ‘Dr’ Allyson Pollock, as part of the debate, who said that the problem in the UK is the privatisation of the NHS!

    What’s the point of a debate when there is only one side of the equation under discussion?

    2. Did she mention that Labour privatised 38% of NHS services when they were last in power? Or the PFI debacle?

        1. I’ve no idea what might have been mentioned in the debate but Dr Allyson Pollock is a real doctor and has been very outspoken on the subject of PFI in the past.

          2. PFI is exactly what neoliberals like the Tories and New Labour wanted. Government funds, the private sector builds and maintains, and they want a healthy dose of profit to do that. Pure neoliberal this is great stuff theory. If you want these things done on the cheap don’t use the private sector but the public sector and charity sectors are woefully lacking in construction companies.

    3. ‘Dr’ Allyson Pollock?
      She can’t spell Allison so why would you expect her to know she’s a pillock?

    4. What planet does she live on? The NHS needs a drastic overhaul. It couldn’t organise PPE equipment even after having had a simulated medical emergency some years ago when Jeremy Hunt was Health Secretary. Great for A&E but not for routine stuff.

      1. We had pandemic stores but Hunt in his infinite wisdom decided to run them down. The NHS would be fine once its quangoed and taken away from the fools at the DoH whose job should simply be funding the quango.

        1. Oh no, not another Quango. PHE is a quango and equally as bad as the NHS.

          Trouble is when they create a quango like that it’ll be stuffed full of failed NHS managers who left the NHS with a Golden Bugger off.

        2. Well at least canada didn’t run down the pandemic stores, they just left the mountains of equipment to sit past its use by date.

          Then to make matters worse trudeau donated the usable stuff to China

          1. Equally as poor management. Simple stock rotation could have sorted that issue out very cheaply leaving Canada in a much more prepared position.

        3. Oh no, not another Quango. PHE is a quango and equally as bad as the NHS.

          Trouble is when they create a quango like that it’ll be stuffed full of failed NHS managers who left the NHS with a Golden Bugger off.

          1. It needs autonomy away from the bloody department of health. There’s nothing wrong with socialised medicine, in fact it is arguably the best way to deliver healthcare for universal public good. So yes the NHS should be turned fully into a quango and should be run by people that know healthcare services and not those chasing votes.

        2. You appear to have acquired a nasty tick.

          Are we about to have another spam attack do you think?

          5. ‘Evening, Sos, the last I heard of Greenham women (many years ago) was, “Woolly minds in woolly hats.”

          6. This one’s a sleeper – joined over 3 years ago & has been inactive ntil now.

          8. You can’t actually tell.

            He might be voting all over the place without posting at all.
            We have lots like that, who vote but never post.

  111. REAL journalism in action:

    Dave Cullen’s dive into the background of the ‘vaccine’ and Bill Gates involvement – VERY eye-opening, so bear with it as it’s a 40 min video:
    https://www.bitchute.com/video/uqu5rR8JK5YV/

    Tim Pool’s showing the MSM and the social media giants are covering up China’s involvement in COVID:
    https://www.bitchute.com/video/wgTwpOpEnFI/

    If you think they are good (especially the first, as it won’t be allowed on YouTube due to their censorship), please pass the links on to as many peopl as you can.

  113. There is an important election in the state of Georgia today. I wonder how many of Biden’s supporters have the slightest idea of what Biden’s intentions are that will let them, and the rest of the world, suffer.

    How many people are aware of a bill before Parliament that calls on governments to facilitate trade with Russia, China, Syria, Iraq, and Venezuela?

    But that’s nothing! The bill calls for the elimination of Israel within 20 years, among several other belligerent intentions.

    I hardly need to say that this bill is before the parliament of Iran, the world’s greatest threat to civilised society – the very country that Biden intends to appease!

    1. I thought for a moment that you meant Biden was planning to introduce that bill!
      He will be a disaster for the free world and a friend to tyranny, that’s for sure.

    2. He is promising $2,000 covid relief cheques if the dems take the senate.

      You want people to look further than that?

  114. The headline is a little unfair on Farage.

    Is the Government about to sell us down the river on immigration?

    Even post Brexit, Britain will remain part of the European Human Rights regime. And that could pose problems when it comes to border control

    NIGEL FARAGE

    The ability for Britain to control its own borders was the issue that won the Brexit referendum for the Leave side in 2016. It convinced huge numbers of people to vote to quit the EU. Almost five years later, reducing immigration into the UK remains a key requirement of the Red Wall voters, who helped to secure the Conservative Party its 80-seat majority in the 2019 general election.

    Yet despite the confident note on this topic struck by Home Secretary Priti Patel in the latest edition of the Sunday Telegraph, I see a problem with the credibility of her claims. Indeed, 2021 is not even a week old and already the first illegal immigrants have arrived at the Port of Dover.

    I have no doubt that Patel understands the importance of border controls and the central role it played in delivering Brexit. She has also shown that she is unafraid to take on “do-gooder” celebrities and “lefty lawyers” who have protested at the deportation of foreign criminals. They include Naomi Campbell, the fashion model, and David Olusoga, one of the BBC’s favourite presenters. They were part of a group of public figures, including 60 MPs, who wrote an open letter in November calling for a deportation flight to Jamaica to be cancelled. Convinced of the evil intent of the government following the Windrush scandal, these celebrities and politicians managed to help prevent some of the deportations from going ahead.

    That is why Michael White, a drug dealer who was sentenced in 2003 to a minimum of 18 years in jail for murder and attempted murder, remains in Britain. The same goes for Jermaine Stewart, a rapist who was sentenced to six years in jail in 2016.

    Patel knows that the Tory-voting public is appalled by this, prompting her to make it clear that from now on she will defy activist lawyers by making deportation flights to Jamaica a “regular drumbeat”.

    She faces similar depth of feeling over illegal immigrants crossing the Channel. In 2020, the official number of people coming to these shores via inflatable dinghies reached 8,500. (Remember, these are the people who are known to the authorities. It’s impossible to say how many more have arrived surreptitiously). Anybody who thought this flow would cease in winter is mistaken. Early on January 2, in freezing conditions, the French Navy escorted and handed over to UK Border Force a small vessel with eight illegal migrants on board. It was the first of the year and it most certainly won’t be the last.

    Time and again, Patel has promised that she will end this trade. British taxpayers continue to hand tens of millions of pounds to the French government so that it can do its bit to help with that effort. Chris Philp, the Immigration Minister, has engaged in a seemingly endless series of meetings with his French counterparts. Yet nothing changes. There comes a point at which a government which continually breaks a big promise loses the trust of its supporters.

    Until the end of the Brexit transition period, asylum claims were dealt with under the Dublin regulations. This meant that while Britain’s authorities could return those who had already claimed asylum in another EU state, they could not return anyone who sought to pursue their asylum claim in the UK. The fact that more than 80 per cent of those who arrive here are not eligible for asylum just adds insult to injury.

    The problem for Patel is that, Britain leaving the EU, the Dublin regulations have expired and have not been replaced with anything else. The French have successfully stalled us, so what will the British government do? It could simply return to France those who arrive in the UK illegally, but I see a legal problem here too. Britain has left the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and that is a success for David Frost and his negotiating team. What has barely been discussed since Boris Johnson struck his Brexit deal, however, is that the UK has agreed to remain part of the European Human Rights regime. Moreover, Britain is committed in the treaty to “give effect to the rights and freedoms in the ECHR”.

    The upshot of this is that if the UK is seen to have violated these terms, the whole of the trade agreement could be terminated by the EU. This is the mess in which Britain now finds itself. As things stand, the government will continue to face legal challenges if it tries to deport convicted criminals and the cross-Channel migrant route will be as busy as it was last year.

    It is going to take extraordinary courage and political will to deal with these problems, about which so many voters and taxpayers care so passionately. I wonder if this government has the will necessary to tackle this situation head-on?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/04/government-sell-us-river-immigration/

    1. Extraordinary courage has been evaporating steadily from the House of Commons in recent decades … courageous talk still reappears from time to time …

    2. Identified by NoTTLers months ago in many fewer words.

      Leave the EHRC immediately
      Repeal the Human Rights Act
      Deport ALL illegal immigrants.

      Get the message? Simples

  116. Evening, all. I am pleased to say that I can ride my Connemara as I’ll have him on loan and I can use the arena at the stables where he is at livery. I can exercise my dog and take him to the vets (“medical” reason). My cleaner can still come and so can my friend to help care for a “vulnerable” person. I can still go shopping (oh, joy!) and I don’t do much else, so I’m not going to notice a great difference from pre-lockdown restrictions. People are not happy, though; I met a couple of old friends who were out for a walk this morning when I was exercising my hound. They were annoyed about the damage being done to the economy and couldn’t see the point of the lockdown – especially if the borders weren’t being closed.

    1. At least you can get out. That’s good news compared to what you have been through recently.

      My brother is classified as an essential worker. It was suggested that instead of going home after his shift, his group should move into the workplace and do a contiguous two weeks at a time in the building. When it was pointed out that time at work after forty hours had to be paid at double time, management changed their mind. Much to brothers chagrin, he was already calculating how much he would receive each week.

  117. Be careful if you see messages from newcomers, we have received a few spam messages in the last hour with what could be dodgy links.

    1. Not the smartest move to advertise an unpopular spiteful little weasel as the best you’ve got.

  119. 328151+ up ticks,
    Just musing,
    “Tuesday 5 January: If 33 million can vote on a single day, why is vaccination so slow?”

    Can we at least face the fact that, if the vaccine jab holds the same consequences as the repeated voting pattern holds then we should NOT be to hasty.

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