Tuesday 7 September: A life-or-death object lesson in availability of resources in the NHS and private medicine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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749 thoughts on “Tuesday 7 September: A life-or-death object lesson in availability of resources in the NHS and private medicine”

  1. Good morning all, and Happy Birthday, Araminta!

    Does anyone else think it’s odd that these stories involving Charles are being published in the press in the run up to the Glasgow conference when Charles is probably going to go full on WEF, telling us all to accept slavery to save the planet?

      1. What I find intriguing, is who is behind it?
        Traditional aristocracy?
        William?
        The Queen?
        I am heartened by what looks like evidence of a meaningful fight back against the WEF takeover of Britain.

    2. Good morning, everyone, and a very Happy Birthday to Minty. Could someone please write and publish a dictionary of acronyms. I am totally confused by many posts on this site. For example, what on earth is WEF? West End Forum? Winkles Eat Figs?

      2. Sorry Elsie! World Economic Forum. The ones who say you’ll be happy when you own nothing (and they own everything).

        1. I thought that “Scientia Inventium Virtus” was SIGSIV and not WEF?!?!? PS (Post Scriptum) Who is Uncle Klaus?

          Signed: Confused of Colchester.

      4. An onerous task, Elsie, as new acronyms & abbreviations are appearing all the time. Such a volume would become obsolete in the wink of an eye.

        1. Well, an incomplete book with some strange acronyms would be better than no book at all.

  2. The ‘war on terror’ has been a disaster. Spiked 7 September 2021.

    Perhaps now, after the West’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the era of post-9/11 interventionism is finally drawing to a close. After all, who, looking at the ruins of Basra or Aleppo or Tripoli, could say these were good, moral interventions? They may have been launched with do-gooding intentions, but they have paved the way for all kinds of hell.

    Morning everyone. Strange I seem to have been posting much the same as far back as the Telegraph Threads when the MSM was forever cheerleading this process. Even now they avoid the consequences which have been utter defeat and what must be the eventual Conquest of Europe. The armies of occupation are already moving in and will soon take over the administration and governance of what was formerly Christendom.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/09/07/the-war-on-terror-has-been-a-disaster/

    1. It wasn’t a disaster for Bush and his cronies who made fortunes out of it. Remember the contract for running the port of Basra being given to one of Rumsfeld’s companies, if I remember rightly? There is an elite who runs the USA as a giant mafia organisation.

    3. Good morning Mighty Minty Monarch of the Birthday

      Of course you, I and many other Nottlers came to this conclusion years ago.

      Now that the penny seems to have dropped that we should leave the Middle East Muslims to create their own Hell without interference from us how long will it be before we also come to the conclusion that they should not be encouraged to create that hell here too with their mass immigration?

    6. Good day and happy birthday Minty. It’s deja moo; the feeling you’ve heard all this BS before. I’m sure Mr Symonds and co will be grateful for the threat of further Kung Flu-related restrictions on our lives as he hopes they deflect from these massive political failures.

  3. Good morning Nottlers, and a very Happy Birthday to Araminta!
    Hope the day is fun-filled and joyful, and you make the most of it! 🎉🎂🍾

  5. Reposted from midnight:

    Tuesday 7th September, 2021

    Araminta Smade

    Three Quarters of a Century!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e281877e66f9640965428cfaf7612b736a56b10f037dc7830d6ff3f7e0f8aba9.png

    With very best wishes for very many more excellent returns of the day.

    Rastus and Caroline

    We found this when looking for something relevant:

    Imperial Pale Ale : Originating from Smade’s brewery it is best served by the taciturn yet artistic Araminta Smade.

    Any way I am sure we shall all raise a glass to you today!

    1. Thank you Rastus and Caroline and the rest of my friends on Nottl; for so I regard you all, regardless of whether it is returned. In my youth I never dreamed of reaching such a vast age. Thirty seemed an horizon over which I could not peer. I would like to think that like the Athenian lawgiver Solon I have used this excess and grown old learning something new every day, though this has not always been something that I would wish to know. That land into which I was born and which haunts me still and whose memories we own together is no more. Still it is good to share them occasionally among those who appreciate what once was.

      1. Good morning again. Can you give me any info about Smade’s Brewery and the taciturn yet artistic Araminta Smade who serves the beer – a reference which I found when googling?

        1. Morning Richard. Smades Brewery has no connection to my Avatar. Araminta Smade is a character in Jack Vance’s book The Star King where, Gersen signaled, and young Araminta Smade brought whiskey on a white jade tray, upon which she herself had painted a red and blue floral border.

          The tavern in which she serves this beverage belongs to her father and is the sole residence on Smade’s Planet; a notorious haunt of interplanetary criminals.

      5. Good morning Araminta and a very Happy 75th Birthday to you 🎂🎁🥳. Have a wonderful day.
        ETA: From Alf and me.

      6. Good morning Araminta and a very Happy 75th Birthday to you 🎂🎁🥳. Have a wonderful day.
        ETA: From Alf and me.

    2. Thank yuu Rastus and Caroline and the rest of my friends on Nottl; for so I regard you all, regardless of whether it is returned. In my youth I never dreamed of reaching such a vast age. Thirty seemed an horizon over which I could not peer. I would like to think that like the Athenian lawgiver Solon I have used this excess and grown old learning something new every day, though this has not always been something that I would wish to know. That land into which I was born and which haunts me still and whose memories we own together is no more. Still it is good to share them occasionally among those who appreciate what once was.

  7. The Auckland stabbings: a preventable tragedy. Spiked. 7 September 2021.

    The Islamist stabbing attacks in Reading and Auckland were on different sides of the world. But both were the result of fundamental failures of the highest order. There were plenty of warning signs before these ideologically motivated acts of violence took place. The bloodshed was preventable.

    Ardern has announced plans to toughen New Zealand’s anti-terror laws. But more lessons must be learned. Liberal democracies must reckon with the problem of failed integration. And judicial systems and border-security services must know when to prioritise collective public security. They cannot put the rights of terrorists over the safety of our communities. Until they realise this, there will be more avoidable bloodshed.

    The fundamental failure was to allow them in in the first place!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/09/06/the-auckland-stabbings-a-preventable-tragedy/

    1. This is ridiculous.

      Does Ms Ardern really think that there are no laws against violent and deadly assault.

      It’s just empty platitudes to pacify the sheep………….of which there appear to be a great number in NZ.

    3. The audacity of politicians of Arden’s stripe makes one’s mind reel. First they either initiate or keenly support the policy of encouraging the immigration of a culture totally inimical to that existing in their country. When the inevitable situation they knew would arise i.e. a clash of cultures that would unsettle the status quo happened, they take to the podium and make vacuous statements re terrorism, tough new laws, integration etc. The damage is done, only time will tell what the outcome will be and whichever way the fight goes it will not be pretty.

      1. These “tough new laws” are not required to deal with the problem. For that, we need tough new politicians, not laws. We have laws.
        These “tough new laws” are to exert even greater control on the generally law-abiding majority. In the past the laws we had dealt very well with the Glasgow razor gangs, the Siege of Sydney Street and similar. We had tougher police dealing with things appropriately. At the same time we did not need armoured riot police to handle Aldermaston marches.
        Who are these politicians trying to kid?

    5. These idiots don’t care. They’ll continue to import the psychos with abandon, al to force ‘diversity’ on us.

      And what a joy it’s been. FGM, paedophilia, child abuse, an intolerable death toll from knife stabbings, painful slaughter of animals, drugs from Bulgarian organised crime .. the list goes on.

      What does the state do about it? Passes laws preventing people talking about it. Passes laws that go easy on such sewage. Hides and protects the rapists. Writes a report ignoring the truth. Pathetic. We deserve better. Round them up, move them on.

  8. The Auckland stabbings: a preventable tragedy. Spiked. 7 September 2021.

    The Islamist stabbing attacks in Reading and Auckland were on different sides of the world. But both were the result of fundamental failures of the highest order. There were plenty of warning signs before these ideologically motivated acts of violence took place. The bloodshed was preventable.

    Ardern has announced plans to toughen New Zealand’s anti-terror laws. But more lessons must be learned. Liberal democracies must reckon with the problem of failed integration. And judicial systems and border-security services must know when to prioritise collective public security. They cannot put the rights of terrorists over the safety of our communities. Until they realise this, there will be more avoidable bloodshed.

    The fundamental failure was to allow them in in the first place!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/09/06/the-auckland-stabbings-a-preventable-tragedy/

  10. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4ccc7c5b1b51bf731e97229c27abe4611cc09993176b110c748a6c6c1bf6760.png
    SIR — Dr Michael Blackmore (Letters, September 7) commends adding sugar lumps to an orange, an already sweet fruit, before sucking out the juice.

    Since sugar —among other carbohydrates — has now been proven to be the prime cause of obesity, not to mention diabetes, surely his advice
    will alarm every other doctor (and dentist) in the country.

    A Grizzly B.

    1. We used to eat oranges like that when I was a child. I’m guessing oranges were probably less sweet in earlier times, because I’m sure it was something my mother was given as a child in the 30s!

      1. My mother used to smother strawberries with sugar, ostensibly for the same reason. Thinking about it, today, makes me shudder.

        1. Mostly I eat them without anything else or with yoghurt, but if they are with cream, they have to have caster sugar on them!

          My mother used to put two teaspoons of sugar in her coffee, and smother her cereal with sugar too! She brought us up to do the same.
          I have now ditched both habits, and cereal too.

          1. I hull & halve my dawdies, sprinkle them lightly with something like Cointreau and leave them for an hour before eating.

          3. Fresh English (or Swedish) strawberries, straight from the garden, and served with Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice-cream is an unimprovable dessert.

            Even (slightly) better than spotted dick, English trifle, vanilla bavarois, cherry pie, or plum crumble.

          4. Hmm, I’m not sure. I’d have to try them all again before I could make a decision. Will get back to you next week 😉

          5. My mother didn’t use much sugar & I use even less but I do remember sugar sandwiches as a child. I think I must have picked that up from somewhere else.

          6. I think the generation that were children or teens during rationing went crazy when sugar was freely available again. Or maybe it was just my family! The older generation all ate way too much sugar.

          7. Neither of my parents had their own teeth by age 50. My father told me about their sweet ration. More sweets than i ever had as a child. I still have most of my teeth.

          8. She didn’t take sugar in tea or coffee and nor did I, except for a short time. I was six years old when rationing ended.

          1. We still eat that! Though much less than before.
            We used to put it on cornflakes instead of milk, as children. Bleughh!

          2. Treacle tart is made with syrup. Can be used as a glaze on roasty things. Topping for steam puddings. Mmm-mmm.

          4. We still eat that! Though much less than before.
            We used to put it on cornflakes instead of milk, as children. Bleughh!

          5. Lyle’s Golden Syrup is the best of its kind. I allow myself a spoonful of it (with freshly squeezed lemon juice) on Pancake day.

            That biblical reference is still on the tin.

          6. Morning Grizz. I have a small bottle in the Fridge which I apply to sponge puddings. There is no reference to the Riddle on the label!

          9. It keeps forever.
            I assumed you had taken the picture as a memento on arrival and were still using the original, as one spoonful a year would take quite a time to get through the tin.

          12. If I forget I go and look in the cupboard where the syrup is next to the Black Treacle, labelled special edition tin, “Trick or Treacle”,

          1. Has it become sweeter (pink grapefruit seems to be sweeter than white) or have people’s tastes changed? I can remember when I stopped putting sugar on, when I was a student, it caused amazement amongst my friends. I stopped sugar in beverages and on cereal at the same time.

    2. Good morning Grizzly

      Aficionados of P.G. Wodehouse will remember the story of the Fat Uncles Sweepstake organised at the Drones Club. I believe it was Bingo Little who had a stupendously fat uncle and he hoped he would be able to cash in on the fact until the obese uncle met, fell in love and married another club member’s even more adipose aunt and proprietorial disputes clouded the issue.

      Incidentally I hope you are fit and trim and have now reached the weight you were hoping to reach!

      1. Good morning, Rastus. I am now entering the third stage of my diet. I was advised not to lose too much weight in one go. For that reason I commenced a Ketogenic diet for a few months to lose three stones. Last year I embarked upon my One Meal A Day (OMAD) diet in which I only eat one meal (at 13:00 hrs) each day and only drink tea or water for the rest of the day.

        Last week I commenced a period combining the two. I am now eschewing carbohydrates and eating more protein whilst remaining on OMAD. So far it is suiting me. I shall report back when I reach my attained weight loss.

        [BTW, another (anonymous) NoTTLer is also successfully following a not dissimilar régime to me, and we each give one another encouragement.]

  11. Good morning all. 44 years ago today I pitched up at RAF Swinderby to begin over 30 years of service.

    Training which held me in good stead as I managed to survive the weekend’s celebrations, as a few old faces turned up at the wedding of one of our former colleagues.

    A good time was had.

    Off out now to release some golf balls back into the wild and attempt to get back to normal.

    1. it must have been round about today when, as a callow 16 year old, I rolled into Beachley to begin my mere 11½y in your parent corps, The Sappers.

  12. Scott Morrison defends Father’s Day trip to Sydney during lockdown. 7 September 2021.

    Scott Morrison has defended a trip to see his family on Father’s Day, arguing he went home to Sydney then returned to Canberra under an essential work exemption.

    In an interview with Sky News on Tuesday, the prime minister said he understood people’s “frustration” given many Australians are unable to travel but claimed he had been the victim of “misinformation” about the issue.

    Morrison remains a resident of Sydney and his travel to Canberra was covered by the same essential work exemption granted to all parliamentarians.

    Do as we say! Not as we do!

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/07/cheap-shot-scott-morrison-defends-fathers-day-trip-to-sydney-during-lockdown

  13. Good morning all. A clear bright morning, but with a light mist hovering a hundred feet above the valley bottom. 10°C on the thermometer in the yard.

      1. Light mist intensified soon after I wrote that, but is not burnt off and it’s bright sunshine!
        I need to get up the garden to sort stone out for building up what I call the Front Wall that I began 20odd years ago and now need to do a bit on.

  15. Morning all

    SIR – In 2010 a Grade 3 tumour, dangerous and aggressive, was detected in my left breast during my three-yearly NHS mammogram.

    When I was discharged from hospital, the oncology consultant told me in grim tones that the NHS would continue to offer me a scan on my intact breast every three years, but I must pay myself for the intervening years because, had the tumour not been found when it was, the outcome would have been very different.

    The next year I contacted the closest private hospital for an appointment and was told to bring a letter from my GP. I took this to the hospital, the receptionist read it and asked: “When would you like to come?”

    I said: “When can you offer?”

    “We can do it now.”

    We are told of a shortage of radiographers and radiologists in the NHS, which puts pressure on detection and treatment, resulting in Britain’s cancer outcomes being poorer than in comparable countries with different methods of paying for healthcare. Yet clearly those resources are floating around. If, when someone just walks in off the street, a private hospital can provide a service that is only available once every three years in the NHS, something is wrong with our system.

    Advertisement

    Politicians on the Right of the Conservative Party (for which I voted in 2019 because I abhor Jeremy Corbyn and his Left wing) need to get off their “no higher taxes” bandwagon and accept that, if you want a health system which excels, it has to be paid for, a fact of which voters are probably aware.

    I have lived in America, where healthcare is superb – if you have good, employer-provided insurance, which I did. Not so good if you don’t.

    Incidentally, I paid £165 for the private hospital mammogram, an amount I could, fortunately, afford.

    Elizabeth Balsom

    London SW15

    SIR – There is now a move to meet the ever-increasing demands for elderly residential care through state funding. Most current care for elderly residents is of a high standard and this is driven – at least in part – by many residents being self-funders (maybe a third) and therefore having a choice.

    If the position changes to one where the state funds all such care, standards will inevitably fall and the homes will return to the standards of old “council care homes” where residents sit round the edge of a room all day long with a television blaring from one corner.

    We must be very careful before moving down the road of state provision – it never works well.

    Philip Honour

    Aldbourne, Wiltshire

    SIR – Increasing taxation, however it is done, will not resolve the social-care problem. It will be the beginning of another endless demand for more money over the years, not to mention a government breaking its promise and losing the goodwill of the Conservative-supporting electorate.

    There are alternatives, and Jethro Elsden’s article is one of the few suggesting as much. There is already a compulsory pension scheme, so why not at least a recommended insurance scheme for social care? This does not cover the problem immediately but it is a long-term answer. The immediate problem could be resolved by ditching vanity projects like HS2.

    Dr Russell Steele

    Exeter, Devon

    SIR – Not so long ago, scrawled all over the Vote Leave bus, we were shown the vast amounts to be funnelled to the NHS as a benefit of our leaving the EU. The benefit was to last in perpetuity, day-in, day-out, year after year.

    Has it all been spent now or has it all gone wrong somewhere?

    Paul Vlcek

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Now that the Tories have firmly repositioned themselves as the party of tax and spend, what is the point of Labour?

    Roger Ward

    London N1

    1. I had annual mammograms on the NHS under the ‘blue card scheme so something odd about that letter.

    3. Paul Vicek, the wording was “let’s spend it on the NHS”. In no way did it state that vast amounts would be funnelled to the NHS.

  16. The Taliban and China

    SIR – The Taliban have announced that China is to be their “principal partner”.

    China’s publicly stated policy is that domestic Uyghurs, who have been “deceived by religious extremism”, need to be “assisted” by re-education and resettlement.

    If the Taliban are prepared to overlook this, can we take it that their fundamentalist interpretation of sharia is simply political propaganda?

    Peter Hardy

    Loddon, Norfolk

    SIR – Now that the risk of terrorism in Britain has almost certainly increased due to the Afghanistan withdrawal, isn’t it high time for our Government to invest in significantly more resources for the border forces and our domestic intelligence services?

    David Hanley

    Ware, Hertfordshire

    1. The Taliban have announced that China is to be their “principal partner”.

      This is simply realpolitik! A recognition that while they have defeated the West at home it still remains a potent enemy.

        1. You mean take loans off the Chinese to pay for the Chinese developing those mineral deposits? Then, as soon at they fail to keep up with the payments on the loans, the Chinese take FULL ownership of said mineral deposits?

    2. ‘China’s publicly stated policy is that domestic Uyghurs, who have been
      “deceived by religious extremism”, need to be “assisted” by re-education
      and resettlement’.

      I believe them…strangely enough.

      Islam has been in China for the last 1400 years.

      The Uyghurs are the same type that rape and bomb in Europe. Radicalised.

    4. I think you’ll find that Uyghurs are more alligned with ISIS /Al Qaeda .
      The Taliban are their sworn enemies.

    1. Excellent – although I thought that saucepan-beating was conducted with the spoon striking the base…or is this perhaps a subtle comment on Johnson’s general performance?

    2. Excellent – although I thought that saucepan-beating was conducted with the spoon striking the base…or is this perhaps a subtle comment on Johnson’s general performance?

    3. I’d love him to get Clap (like Al Capone, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gaugin, Edouard Manet, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Baudelaire…).

    4. The early morning mist has cleared and the sun is shining.
      I’ve already put one load of washing up the garden and there is a 2nd load ready to be hung out now.

    1. It’s a shame that this cartoon perpetuates the myth that all of the care budget is spent on the elderly, whereas in fact it is only half. Easy targets, I suppose.

      ‘Morning, C1.

    1. Stop the Trans-exclusionary language, you bigot. Terms such as straight and love are products of white cis-gender supremacy.

    2. Born in Canada, Romanian father, Chinese mother, British national?

      Pretty woman and sportingly gifted (unlike most of our footballers), but how is she British?

  21. Confronting our ancestors’ links to slavery

    SIR – There might be a way through the cancel culture that seeks to take down statues for their links to slavery.

    It seems that, in the current drive, any historical figure who had any familial or direct links to slavery must be abolished. This has even included the defacing of a statue of Lincoln – who never owned slaves, though his wife’s family had – when he fought harder than any president in US history to abolish slavery.

    Maybe Britain needs a Truth and Reconciliation process, much like the process in South Africa after the fall of apartheid. Here we could all examine our ancestral trees and would probably establish that most of us who have been on these islands for generations may have past links to the abhorrent business of slavery. Britain was after all a dominant force in the slave trade, as well as being (lest we forget) a dominant force in its abolition.

    If we could establish that, then maybe we can collectively forgive ourselves and our forebears, ask what we have learnt and how we can combat modern-day slavery, put our efforts into building a future of opportunity for our pluralistic society, and tackle prevalent racism at every level today.

    Let our historical heroes be the flawed humans that we all are, so that they may rest in peace and be acknowledged for the contribution they made at their moment in history.

    Thoby Solheim

    Peeble

    1. Maybe Britain needs a Truth and Reconciliation process…

      No we don’t since it implies that the Truth was lost and the Reconciliation of those who played no part will assuage their non-existent Guilt!i

      1. Yes, and remake it in their image. This country has accomplished great things. What has his ever done for the world?

    3. Get lost! Nice Borders name, that, Mr Solheim. But maybe you need some coaching in Britishness. We have found that appeasement, such as you suggest, does not work.

    5. Feck off. Start with yours. Don’t like this country? You are free to leave. In fact, here’s a ticket. You’re a guest. One outstaying his welcome.

    6. Let’s start with all the Nigerians here, whose ancestors were involved with the slave trade in their country.

  22. 338605+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Once bitten twice shy should apply, but never does as with many other old sayings that proved to work.

    Many of us in the real UKIP watched in horrific fascination as the Brexitexit we had worked so hard to set up was handed to the tory (INO)
    cartel who’s first reset move was introduced by treacherous treasa, the nine month delay, to be followed eventually by johnson & the “deal”

    And this political mob still finds support / funding via the herd.

    Now him & like are undermining family infrastructure by coming for the kids to further the dubious jabbing campaign whilst allowing thousands
    of potential troops, patients, convicts, never ending foreign accommodation seekers in via DOVER, no attempt at stemming the flow
    far from it, it is encouraged.

    And this political mob still finds support / funding via the herd.

    Dt,
    Boris Johnson to raise tax to help clear the NHS backlog

    True meaning to fund the DOVER reset / replace campaign.

  23. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Another overpaid and incompetent Beeboid appears to be heading for the exit. One down, a few thousand more to go. And don’t you just love the final sentence? The BBC’s piety will bring a hollow laugh to many lips. They obviously don’t ‘do’ irony.

    BBC’s director of news ‘to quit’ amid row over proposed appointment of Jess Brammar

    Fran Unsworth is reported to be stepping down as the BBC’s relationship with the Government worsens

    By
    Anita Singh,
    ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
    7 September 2021 • 6:00am

    Fran Unsworth, the BBC’s director of news, is to quit the corporation amid worsening relations with the Government, it was reported on Monday night.

    Unsworth has been embroiled in an internal row over the proposed appointment of Jess Brammar in the newly-created role of executive news editor.

    Sir Robbie Gibb, the former Downing Street communications director under Theresa May, is said to have texted Unsworth to voice concerns about the appointment and what it would say about the BBC’s impartiality. Brammar has publicly criticised the Government on social media in her previous role at the Huffington Post.

    Sources told The Guardian that Unsworth, 63, is about to announce her retirement plans.

    A lifelong BBC employee, she took charge of the corporation’s news and current affairs division in 2018 and also sits on the executive board, with a salary of £342,000.

    She was ultimately responsible for one of the costliest errors of BBC News judgment: the decision to film a police raid on the home of Sir Cliff Richard. The BBC was forced to pay out £2 million after the star won his privacy case.

    The proposed appointment of Jess Brammar has raised questions over the corporation’s impartiality
    The proposed appointment of Jess Brammar has raised questions over the corporation’s impartiality
    Unsworth conceded after the High Court judgment: “In retrospect, there are things we would have done differently.”

    BBC News is also pushing through with hundreds of job cuts under new plans to “modernise” and respond to changing audience needs, with local news services heavily hit.

    Unsworth is due to address staff on Tuesday about the cuts and a restructure which will involve a large number of jobs moving out of London.

    In her most recent interview, Unsworth struck a defiant note when asked about the row over Brammar, who was previously deputy editor of BBC Two’s Newsnight and editor of the UK’s Huffington Post news site.

    She insisted that BBC management had sole responsibility for appointments in “an independent process which is free from any corporate interest”. She added that BBC News must “withstand any kind of pressure that comes from anywhere.”

    A BBC spokesperson said on Monday night: “We do not comment on speculation.”

    1. This was the wretched Beeboib who initiated the whole Cliff Richard fiasco, she should have been fired on the spot and lost all pension rights right then but she seems to have trundled on quite happily until now, good riddance .

    2. Yes, independent and free from corporate interest does not mean foaming Left wing communist.

      It does mean that when Amazon come on TV, you do ask them how they’ve been successful and you do stipulate that they use several successful tax vehicles to ensure prices are low. You then DO suggest that the route of competition is to scrap all taxes on small business to allow them to compete. You see? That’s pro business, wealth and growth and because you’ve no cash from Amazon, you can demand that they exist in a market.

      Instead what do you do? You blither on about why Amazon must pay more tax ignoring that this puts up prices, ignoring that this won’t happen and refusing to point at the incompetent Brown who created a mess of a tax code.

    2. 338605+ up ticks,
      Morning C,
      They ( the afghan’s) must be made to realise that the lab/lib/con coalition,supporters, member / voters are doing their bit to forfil the afghan request.

    4. I can only say, “Eff orf, back to your extended family and your Afghan mansion. Don’t let the door bang your ar5e on the way out.”

    5. Yep, the families should be moved to safety. Uzbekistan. The fathers can go live with them there.

      In addition, the accommodation is inadequate? Do you want to go back?

  25. Lottery Winner

    Sammy Cohen, having luckily survived the Holocaust as a young man, moved to England and worked hard as a tailor for many years, just barely making a living.

    One weekend he decided to buy a National Lottery ticket, and was thrilled when he won 10 million pounds!

    He gave up work and had a wonderful country home built, with a swimming pool, ballroom, marble columns, statues and chandeliers… He invited all his friends to a sumptuous housewarming party.

    At one end of the ballroom there was something on the wall covered up and Sammy got everyone together to see it unveiled. He pulled a cord and there was a gasp of horror as a life-size portrait of Adolf Hitler was revealed!

    “Sammy, for God’s sake!” they said, “This money must have lost you your sanity! How can you, a Jewish person, have a picture of Hitler on the wall?”

    Sammy grinned, pulled up his sleeve, pointed to his forearm and said, “Who do you think gave me the winning lottery numbers?”

    1. Just to mention, my mother has chandeliers in her bungalow. There are 2 in the hall way. 3 foot drop abominations, 12 100w light bulbs apiece. The ceiling is only 9′ high.

  26. https://order-order.com/2021/09/06/hancock-events-ticket-sales-flop/

    Hancock’s attempted return back to the Tory fold isn’t going as smoothly as he may have liked. Back in recess he made his first appearance on the Commons’ backbenches, though didn’t make a speech as he instead attempted to schmooze colleagues in the tea room. At least one of his colleagues told Guido they found it pretty uncomfortable…

    Last week, he made headlines after announcing his participation in a sponsored run for a local hospice, only to see plenty of online trolls pay money just to throw abuse at him in the donation comments section.

    https://i2.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Hancock-charity-comments-copy.jpg?w=709&ssl=1

    Matt clearly didn’t see the funny side to this; while he can’t stop the trolling entirely, he’s forced all donations to now come from ‘anonymous’. Meaning jokers can no longer pose as his mum or Gina Coladangelo.

    His luck isn’t set to improve this week either. On Thursday he’s to be a Tory association’s guest of honour for the first time since The Sun turned him into a persona non grata. Tory members in Chipping Barnet will be the first to enjoy his company at venue. Guido hears the room can cater for up to 350 bodies. The number of ticket sales so far? Around 70…

    1. He cheated on his wife, betrayed her, has deprived his children of a father and proved himself a hypocrite to the country.

      He shouldn’t be an MP at all.

      3. And we haven’t seen any real sign of an investigation into those contracts he placed – were they value for money? Did what was supplied actually work? Were there any financial inducements offered/accepted? I’m not holding my breath – apparently no one seems keen to have a good look at Halfcock’s own computer which he apparently used instead of the proper official IT system as it might violate his privacy!

      4. Gone are the days when a man who treated his wife in this way was blackballed because half the people in Westminster are adulterers or fornicators.

  27. ‘Morning again.

    This item is woefully innacurate (and no comments allowed, either). It fails to mention that gas is in short supply and our storage capacity is seriously inadequate. The alarm bells are already ringing in the event of a cold winter. All we need now is several weeks of a high pressure system with little wind generation for the wheels to come off our wretched green lunacy. And the likelihood of ever-growing energy prices is already with us, with our industrial competitiveness already damaged. The government in office when the lights go out won’t be there for much longer.

    COMMENT
    What happens when the wind doesn’t blow?
    We need to mitigate against the downsides of renewable energy

    TELEGRAPH VIEW
    7 September 2021 • 7:00am

    Last year, the Prime Minister said he wanted to make a “big bet” on renewable energy and turn the UK into the Saudi Arabia of wind power. “We’ve got huge, huge gusts of wind going around the north of our country – Scotland,” he said. “Quite extraordinary potential we have for wind.”

    That is all very well, but what about when the wind does not blow? As we report today, National Grid ESO, which balances Britain’s electricity supply and demand, has had to ask EDF to fire up two coal power units in order to meet a shortfall in part caused by low generation from wind. There is some irony in the inadequacies of green power forcing a return of coal.

    Part of the concern about the move to greener forms of generating energy involves the likelihood of ever-higher prices, both for consumers and industry. The likes of China have continued to build coal-fired power plants, because it remains a cheap means of producing energy. Absent a carbon border tax or similar, the race to net zero threatens to render large parts of the country’s industrial base uncompetitive.

    But the other issue is security of supply. The UK is progressively shutting down coal-fired plants, and future nuclear capacity is probably not going to be ready in time. At present, the country is reliant on gas to meet the shortfall, but global gas prices have risen sharply in recent months which again is likely to put pressure on household bills.

    In advance of the climate conference this year in Glasgow, all of the attention has been on the environmental benefits of the shift to renewable energy. But what is the plan for mitigating against the downsides?

    2. When the wind doesn’t blow – which is often – the diesel backup generators start. Comically, the government calls this renewable as it’s part of the windmill nonsense.

      That gas is getting expensive is again, the green agenda. The state doesn’t care. It is using the lie of climate change as an excuse to hike taxes. Beyond that, that we’ll be working a 3 day week soon, that our industrial base will collapse – it’s irrelevant. They’ve not thought ahead and wouldn’t care anyway.

    4. I’m sorry but was he referring to himself? “Quite extraordinary potential we have for wind.”

  29. The Graun doesn’t rejoice…

    UK and EU extend post-Brexit grace period over Northern Ireland indefinitely

    Government source says UK wants to ‘create space for talks to happen without deadlines looming’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/78f489e8072256c6bdaaba941a7213b969954c80/581_0_2419_1453/master/2419.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0adb7b97b8a22f49de4590cc6bcaa5f4
    David Frost, who is leading the negotiations with the EU, announced a fresh extension to the grace period. No new deadline has been set for the completion of talks.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/06/uk-and-eu-extend-post-brexit-grace-period-over-northern-ireland-protocol

    2. That the EU would use Northern Ireland in this way, as leverage to punish Britain and ignore the country and it’s history is disgusting and shows how abusive they are.

    3. Welcome as far as it goes, but certainly not a breakthrough (according the the DT); merely a loose agreement that the EU won’t turn nasty at some time in the future when we are judged to be troublesome again. Sword of Damocles, anyone?

    4. No deadline set for completion of talks.
      Well, wheel, weal…

      We haven’t left fully and it looks as though we never will, until the whole rotten edifice collapses into the sewer it stands upon.

      1. Lady Macbeth:

        Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once.

        I am anticrastination not pro!

    5. For God’s sake let’s get it over and done with.

      Sir Francis Drake may not be much liked by the Wokists but at least he knew how to repel the Spaniards but our politicians don’t know how to repel the daily arrival of immigrants or the EU. We should remember Drake’s payer:

      “There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.”

      Very little glory is coming our way until the whole issue is resolved for once and for all.

  30. BTL Comments:-

    Glass ChessSet
    7 Sep 2021 7:07AM
    @Peter Wareing
    We used to have Customs and Immigration to police our shores, but then changes were made and responsibilities redefined.

    So Border Force was created. New sexy name suggesting strength at repelling any unwanted, undesirable intruders – that worked well didn’t it.

    Flag14UnlikeReply

    Penny Heal
    7 Sep 2021 7:26AM
    @Glass ChessSet @Peter Wareing

    My late father worked his whole life (apart from his wartime RAF service) in Customs and Excise, in the Waterguard Branch. When it was reorganised shortly before his retirement in the eighties he thought it a very bad step and couldn’t wait to retire.

    The original system worked well. I remember when I worked on the QE2 he would be one of the officers who boarded on our return to Southampton. He did various spells of Detached Duty where he would be posted away for 6 weeks at a time to places where he would check incoming private yachts or airports to check private planes. Where are those checks now?
    Flag4UnlikeReply

    Robert Spowart
    7 Sep 2021 8:52AM
    @Penny Heal @Glass ChessSet @Peter Wareing The amalgamation of HM Customs & Excise with Inland Revenue was an exercise in schlimmbesserung if ever there was one!

    The old style Excise Rummagers like your Dad were left out in the cold and forgotten about.

  31. Morning all,

    Drat and double drat. I’ve got a cold. Sore throat has turned to rattly cough and runny nose. Slight temperature, 37.6c. Can’t hide it so rang my boss and staying home today. This means that they won’t let me back without the dreaded pcr test, which I’ve successfully avoided until now.

    1. Could get you a few days off to enjoy the fine weather! Hope it goes off without you feeling any worse.

      1. Yes, I think I can. I just fear that ramming things up my nose is bound to find mucus and what’s to stop them calling it Covid?

        2. Could you do a home test? Spit on it? Don’t allow anyone to shove something up your nose, that is an assault. Tell them you will do it yourself if you have to.

          Hope you’re feeling better soon. I expect it is ‘covid’, even when it is really hay fever. They need those numbers for an October lockdown.

  32. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a2d666d546ad093eea9270caa0eed912b95deb71163b41d50538ae9e6b5ba2e.jpg

    Upon this man lies the responsibility of saving what is left of European Christian Civilisation and its people. Fortunately he is of a rare ability and astonishing insight. He has hardly put a foot wrong in the twenty years that he has ruled Russia. Still mortality haunts us all. Let us hope that he can outlast the coming crisis and bring his country and the burden that it bears through to a New Beginning!

    2. I’ll drink to that.
      Trump used to shout “America first” from the rooftops.
      Putin has quietly lived the “Russia first” mantra since the start of his Presidencies…………………And it shows.

      1. Convert to Russian Orthodox.
        Conversion kits available at all Russian Embassies and Churches dotted around England.
        London,Manchester,York etc.

        2. At the risk of sounding religious, which we all know is rather vulgar for an Englishman. My stepfather was a White Russian and due to him I am Orthodox. It was the best thing he ever gave/taught me. It is the true Christian way that the West lost centuries ago to be replaced by a faux Christianity. It is why Christianity is failing in the West while Orthodoxy is gaining strength everywhere. Western Christianity is not built on the rock but on the shifting sands.

          1. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx

            All religions are based on fallacies. I have spoken to God (He spoke to me first*) but I didn’t have the heart to tell him he didn’t exist. If there is a creator, he is beyond our comprehension. I don’t know all the religions in the world but the essence of Christianity, stripped of its ‘miracle’ nonsense, is possibly the best. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself – but get your revenge in first!

            *A near death experience.

          2. It is actually a quite meaningless quote because it is based on a premise that is false as are most atheistic comments about God. And since it is a quote by Marx who’s parting wish was that he hoped his “philosophy” would be a carbuncle on the arse of humanity. It demonstrates what type of person made such a quote. Not the sort of person that decent people would want to follow or put up as an example of decency or philosophical wisdom. But the attitude of a spiteful and arrogant man who made the life of his family utterly miserable with his false sense of privilege and who’s ideas have caused incalculable harm to humanity. You may as well quote Adolf as a valid authority!

          3. I have to put myself up as an agnostic, i.e., I don’t know – and I wonder if anyone can know.

            I used to, until recently, believe in re-incarnation but, given the way the world is going, I’m not sure I want to come back and learn another one of life’s lessons; however, I cannot think that our lives are meaningless, that when one dies, that’s it, finito.

            There has to be a purpose behind our reason for being here – look how we interact with one another.

            That is probably why, without accepting a holy trinity, I do think that there is something bigger than us.

            End of philosophical rant.

          4. You might want to look up Jordan Petersons attitude to God. He says he acts as if God exists. But then goes into detail about why he does that. It is fascinating, to say the least.
            Jordan Peterson: Do You Believe That God Exists?
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0O8Jw6grro
            And
            Jordan Peterson: Jesus is “too terrifying a reality to fully believe”
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZvjZoqhiuw

            And last but not least

            Jordan Peterson – The Problem With Atheism
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi9Q9apHGI

          5. If there is an after-life, it is in the hearts and minds of those who are left behind. Jesus’ teachings are a good act to follow, though.

          6. I haven’t read Marx but his comment that ‘religion is the opium of the people’ is pertinent. There is little point in discussing differing beliefs with zealots. The world has suffered enough of religious fanaticism. Marx, Schicklgruber, Mo and his donkey, just three in a long list of ‘religious’ fanatics in their own way. Gods aren’t evil, it’s the people that force you to believe in them who are evil.

          7. Well
            I am no “zealot” as far as I’m concerned you can take it or leave it. But it is only a very narrow mind that lumps all religion into the basket of “opium of the people”. Because as Sam Harris, a prominent Atheist, has pointed out. The category Religion is as meaningless as the category Sport, which encompasses everything from Chess to Football.

      2. Sarah Rainsford: My last despatch before Russian expulsion

        I’m writing this in the middle of the night at my kitchen table in Moscow, looking over towards the dim red stars and golden domes of the Kremlin. But by the time you read it I’ll be on my way back to England, expelled from Russia as a national security threat.

        After more than 20 years reporting from Moscow, I still can’t believe it.

        I suspected I was being singled out around a year ago when the Russian foreign ministry started issuing me short-term visas. Even those would be approved at the last minute.

        At one point I was told I’d been given my last-ever visa, before the official claimed she’d been mistaken.

        But on 10 August I was taken aside at passport control at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and told I’d been barred from Russia by the FSB security service.

        The officer reading out the order had all the words, but no explanation.

        “Sarah Elizabeth,” – he kept using my middle name – “You are being refused entry to the Russian Federation – indefinitely. This is for the protection of the security of Russia,” he clarified and then said I was being deported.

        I told him I was a journalist: “Do I look like a threat?”

        “We’re just the implementers,” the border guard repeated multiple times. “Ask the FSB.”

        Short presentational grey line
        I’d flown into Moscow that morning from Belarus where I’d been reporting on the suppression of mass protests against Alexander Lukashenko.

        Vladimir Putin’s close ally was hosting his annual giant “conversation” with the press and I’d used the chance to question how he could possibly stay on as president after the torture and imprisonment of peaceful protesters.

        media captionLukashenko: “You can choke on your sanctions… you are American lapdogs”
        First, he slammed me as a Western propagandist, then his loyal supporters rounded on me, live on Belarusian television.

        That night, as we edited the exchange into our report, the foreign ministry back in Russia announced new sanctions against the UK: a group of unnamed British citizens were accused of engaging in “anti-Russian activity”.

        It was Moscow’s delayed response to UK sanctions over human rights abuses in Chechnya and high-level corruption. With the latest visa in my passport close to expiring, I felt nervous.

        A few hours later, my colleagues cleared the border in Moscow as usual but I was stopped.

        I was eventually left to wander freely in the departures hall, though without my passport, as others negotiated frantically to halt my deportation.

        I was sure they’d fail: the order against me came from the powerful FSB.

        That’s why I’d signed the form that said I understood I’d be breaking the law if I entered Russia ever again. I’d protested, but I had no choice.

        At one point, I sat on a broken airport bench and recorded my feelings, crying into the camera.

        Then suddenly, 12 hours after landing, I got a call telling me I could cross the border – just once, to pack up my life in Moscow.

        Short presentational grey line
        My expulsion means cutting years of ties here.

        Russia has been a major part of my life ever since I travelled to Moscow at 18 as the USSR fell apart.

        I witnessed the chaos first hand: the endless queues and shortages, even the wars. In the mid-1990s, as a student, I lived through the gangster days in St Petersburg when the bar I worked in had men check in their guns at the door.

        They were tough years for many Russians but it was a time of new and exhilarating freedoms, too.

        Then came Vladimir Putin.

        Ever since his election 20 years ago, I’ve been reporting from Moscow – charting the slow erosion of those freedoms, the increasing suppression of dissent as Mr Putin manoeuvres to keep power.

        (I believe the BBC bint was there as an activist totally different to a woman like Lyse Doucet, who I really admire who reports facts bravely .)

        1. The BBC’s Marxism is not the same as present-day Russia’s Marxism. It was the same in the 1930s when Schicklgruber’s socialism differed greatly from Stalin’s idea of socialism. Come to think of it, the BBC’s version is much like Adolf’s. if you don’t agree with our version we haf vays of making you persona non grata – non vivo even.

        2. Well, now she knows how those people feel who are made non-persons by the UK establishment for which she works. Crying because her visa was refused – what a child.

      3. Sarah Rainsford: My last despatch before Russian expulsion

        I’m writing this in the middle of the night at my kitchen table in Moscow, looking over towards the dim red stars and golden domes of the Kremlin. But by the time you read it I’ll be on my way back to England, expelled from Russia as a national security threat.

        After more than 20 years reporting from Moscow, I still can’t believe it.

        I suspected I was being singled out around a year ago when the Russian foreign ministry started issuing me short-term visas. Even those would be approved at the last minute.

        At one point I was told I’d been given my last-ever visa, before the official claimed she’d been mistaken.

        But on 10 August I was taken aside at passport control at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and told I’d been barred from Russia by the FSB security service.

        The officer reading out the order had all the words, but no explanation.

        “Sarah Elizabeth,” – he kept using my middle name – “You are being refused entry to the Russian Federation – indefinitely. This is for the protection of the security of Russia,” he clarified and then said I was being deported.

        I told him I was a journalist: “Do I look like a threat?”

        “We’re just the implementers,” the border guard repeated multiple times. “Ask the FSB.”

        Short presentational grey line
        I’d flown into Moscow that morning from Belarus where I’d been reporting on the suppression of mass protests against Alexander Lukashenko.

        Vladimir Putin’s close ally was hosting his annual giant “conversation” with the press and I’d used the chance to question how he could possibly stay on as president after the torture and imprisonment of peaceful protesters.

        media captionLukashenko: “You can choke on your sanctions… you are American lapdogs”
        First, he slammed me as a Western propagandist, then his loyal supporters rounded on me, live on Belarusian television.

        That night, as we edited the exchange into our report, the foreign ministry back in Russia announced new sanctions against the UK: a group of unnamed British citizens were accused of engaging in “anti-Russian activity”.

        It was Moscow’s delayed response to UK sanctions over human rights abuses in Chechnya and high-level corruption. With the latest visa in my passport close to expiring, I felt nervous.

        A few hours later, my colleagues cleared the border in Moscow as usual but I was stopped.

        I was eventually left to wander freely in the departures hall, though without my passport, as others negotiated frantically to halt my deportation.

        I was sure they’d fail: the order against me came from the powerful FSB.

        That’s why I’d signed the form that said I understood I’d be breaking the law if I entered Russia ever again. I’d protested, but I had no choice.

        At one point, I sat on a broken airport bench and recorded my feelings, crying into the camera.

        Then suddenly, 12 hours after landing, I got a call telling me I could cross the border – just once, to pack up my life in Moscow.

        Short presentational grey line
        My expulsion means cutting years of ties here.

        Russia has been a major part of my life ever since I travelled to Moscow at 18 as the USSR fell apart.

        I witnessed the chaos first hand: the endless queues and shortages, even the wars. In the mid-1990s, as a student, I lived through the gangster days in St Petersburg when the bar I worked in had men check in their guns at the door.

        They were tough years for many Russians but it was a time of new and exhilarating freedoms, too.

        Then came Vladimir Putin.

        Ever since his election 20 years ago, I’ve been reporting from Moscow – charting the slow erosion of those freedoms, the increasing suppression of dissent as Mr Putin manoeuvres to keep power.

        (I believe the BBC bint was there as an activist totally different to a woman like Lyse Doucet, who I really admire who reports facts bravely .)

  33. Mail to a Con MP’s blog…. rejected…… please mail him your opinion…….

    Corruption Alert. You’re in a Soft War with Big Money !

    https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/09/07/do-we-fight-too-many-wars-2/

    All very well said, yet you always ignore corruption which has been destroying your country for years just as completely as a war.

    In fact, if you hadn’t been busy looking the other way, the Tony Blair hot wars might never have happened because Tony Blair is clearly corrupt and should have been removed from office decades ago.

    The same applies to David Cameron. The removal of Gaddafi was almost certainly instigated by George Soros. Yet you never asked the right questions or wondered what strange force was suddenly driving Mr Cameron. The explanation is here……….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/08/encounter-george-soross-bright-eyed-missionaries-left-deeply/

    It’s the same now. A soft war is under way by Big Money against the UK and you don’t even realize or understand what’s happening. It been in the works for years and is brilliantly directed.

    Corruption is the weapon being deployed and lies, stealth and propaganda are the tactics.

    Do wake up before it’s too late.

    Polly

  34. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d98c51e1df682cd7808ac5604f631820a6b4f524b14a96cee8b3565ca99ad701.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e70a290867e88680b97b2f6d251516e1a9e712de68ca43b63fc8c79348bb3fc7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5fca20f84d77e0c67db6c7d24c00b7f72d1e4021649ee2211cf1dab7c05c683d.jpg Yesterday I managed to get some cracking shots of a common whitethroat Sylvia communis in the garden. Today it was, again, the turn of a lesser whitethroat S. curruca to entertain me, and this time it was more obliging than it had been the other day.

    I do wish that Bassetedge was still around to discuss these snaps with.

  36. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Back to school, back to work – and back to the future… Britain is finally awakening from its long, debilitating Covid coma. And not before time
    *
    *
    *
    A few weeks ago, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak was insisting it was imperative staff returned to normal. Yet now we learn the Treasury is advertising jobs which will allow people to carry on working from home.

    The Bank of England is just as bad, with staff being told they don’t have to turn up even one day a week. And these are the two Government departments charged with reviving the economy.
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/09/06/21/47580107-9963733-image-a-73_1630960758697.jpg
    *
    *
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9963733/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-school-work-future.html

    1. I’m not a fan of zoos. If we had rhinos in our climate they would be woolly, like the ones that used to live here.

    3. She should be in Africa – I don’t like zoos, though Whipsnade is one of the better ones. At least the mother hasn’t been dehorned.

      1. She would last a fortnight at most before she and the baby were part of a bar-b-que and the remains ground up and on a Chinese herbal stall a week later. Zoos are not the best places for animals but are necessary for the survival of some.

  38. Good morning to all! Another nice day. This must stop, thank god there is rain on Wednesday and we can get back to a normal summer!

    Surely the most dreadful thing in the Telegraph today is the tragic news that: “Is this the end for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage?
    The TV cook created an empire from his rural idyll but, asks Gordon Rayner, might the Good Life dream be over… and is Covid to blame?”

    His ideas on self sufficiency are surely an invaluable lesson for the upper middle class once we have saved ourselves from fossil fuels and the lower orders are freezing in their caves while we live the life of our well deserved privilege.

    1. Middle class self sufficiency is fine as long as you have a million in the bank to live on and a bunch of slaves to do the work.

    2. Middle class self sufficiency is fine as long as you have a million in the bank to live on and a bunch of slaves to do the work.

  39. Whitey is being blamed for everything , did any of you watch that disgusting Live at the Apollo on the Black Broadcasting Corporation last night .

    Moh was asleep , I watched and listened and thought … we have had it , we are all victims of our tolerance and kindness to the imported species who hate us..
    They roared with laughter at a black female comedian, and the audience seemed to be mostly black .

    The racist insults she hurled about , the audience was noisy and the camera panned to black grinning faces .

    The ones in charge of the BBC are blacks and coloureds , and everytime we turn on the box we are confronted by black racists reducing all of us to the dustbin .

    There seems to be more of them than us now .

    1. How on earth did you manage to sit through rubbish like that? Talk about punishing yourself! Just turn it off!

      1. Yep, I wish I hadn’t , if Moh hadn’t nodded off , he would have turned it off, but I couldn’t find the controller to switch it off , he was stretched out on it .

        1. OH here is in charge of the controller – but I don’t think he would have slept through that rubbish. We generally record anything we want to watch as the schedules don’t match our schedules too well. So last evening after we’d finished dinner we watched the Prom from Sunday evening and very much enjoyed it.

          1. I was suffering from a blond lazy moment , and didn’t want to disturb Moh or the dogs .

            Fine excuse for watching pure rubbish , but you know , I felt that I had witnessed what the BBC are all about , and it wasn’t nice.

            Earlier on in the evening there was a prog which we switched off , it was about kids molesting each other in school , no mention whatsoever about the dangers from adults especially the groomers doing their filthy stuff.

            Where on earth do young children learn these things from , the bods on the TV ( experts ) said mobile phones and the net ..

            We turned it off .

          2. Didn’t you ever play “doctors and nurses” when you were a child? Some of that amounted to molestation.

          3. Bandaging and that sort of thing , and of course examining our belly buttons , and wondering why we all had a hole in our tummy , and wondering whether babies came from the the tummy hole . Then some one said that babies came from your bottom , and we all thought that was horrible !

      1. I was naive .. I thought it would be something like Dave Allen , or the Palladium or Leeds City Varieties (Leonard Sachs).. well actually I lie , because I suspected it would be terrible , Anne .

        It was more than terrible , those people do not like us . Their comedians are the type to incite a BLM riot.

        Moh was sitting on the remote , and If I had disturbed him , the dogs would have jumped around as well.

  40. I’m almost certain I posted about this variant a while ago and similar numbers were quoted then.
    Strange how this is being pushed again now, when schools are going back and half-term is potentially going to be extended to two weeks and a justification is being sought.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9965113/PHE-says-spotted-53-cases-Mu-variant-UK-feared-resistant-vaccines.html

    Place your bets for the date of extended lockdowns recommencing.

    If it isn’t late September, I’m betting it will be around the time that the climate change conference starts, just so the special people can rub our noses in their exemption to the rules that apply to everyone else, you can certainly bet it won’t be cancelled.

  41. The push to vaccinate kids shows our moral compass is askew

    The pandemic has put paid to the long-held idea that adults should put children first, and protect them, not the other way around

    JOANNA WILLIAMS

    The boundaries between childhood and adulthood have long been blurry. Shops sell skimpy clothes for pre-pubescent children to parents wearing the latest jeans and trainers. Mums and daughters share make-up, dads and sons Spotify-playlists, and teachers are quick to say that – just like the children in their classes – they too are learners. Adults no longer automatically assume authority over children or garner respect from them.

    But one distinction between children and adults has, until now, held tight: adults, collectively, are supposed to protect children, and not the other way around. Sadly, coronavirus seems to have put paid even to this most basic moral certainty. It has become acceptable for adults to demand that children act to protect them. This shameful state of affairs turns traditional moral values on their head.

    The latest example of this role reversal can be seen in the pressure to vaccinate healthy children against Covid despite almost complete agreement that the vaccine is of little medical benefit to them. As vaccinated children will still be able to transmit the virus, the sole purpose of the proposed roll-out seems to be to make teenagers provide psychological reassurance to fretful adults.

    Exploiting vaccines in this way has real consequences. Tragically, the number of teenagers getting vaccinated against fatal conditions fell by 20 per cent after the first lockdown. Experts blamed ‘vaccination fatigue’ for the drop in numbers coming forward. The UK’s childhood vaccination programme is one of the biggest successes of modern times and administering vaccines at school makes the annual roll out straightforward. Politicising vaccines causes parents to question their trust in the system and pushes responsibility onto children to consent to a vaccine with a complex mix of benefits and risks they may not be able to comprehend.

    But it’s not just vaccines where children are now expected to make sacrifices to protect adults. Right from the start, we knew that Covid posed very little risk to young people. Yet, during lockdown, playgrounds closed, along youth clubs and leisure centres. Dogs had more freedom to exercise than children. Most shamefully of all, schools shut their doors too.

    Once, schools were considered a vital part of an inter-generational social contract. At school, children not only learnt about the world but were also cared for and taught how to fit into society. The philosopher Hannah Arendt described education as ‘the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it.’ Sadly, Covid has shown an entire cohort of children that adults no longer think this way. When schools closed it sent the message that children were not worth educating, that they must remain at home in order to protect adults.

    Now, the Chief Medical Officers have been instructed to consider potential disruption to education if children are not vaccinated. The threat – made clear from the pronouncements of the teaching unions – is that if children do not line up to be jabbed then schools may close once more. Between January 2020 and July 2021, British children missed more school days than any other country in Europe, bar Italy, despite the fact that teachers were never at greater risk from Covid than other adults. Using education as a bribe to coerce children into taking a vaccine they have no medical need for is morally reprehensible.

    But this intergenerational about-turn is of a piece with the government’s proposals to fund adult social care. Increasing National Insurance will push the financial burden onto younger people already struggling with student debt and eye-watering housing costs, rather than older people who may own homes outright and now be benefitting from generous pension schemes. Rather than older people collectively assuming responsibility for society, once more it is the young who are expected to step up to the plate and safeguard the old.

    Back in March 2020, children were called upon to make sacrifices in order to safeguard the elderly and the vulnerable. Now, 18 months on and with game-changing vaccines at our disposal, it is time to stop. Adults must once more assume responsibility for the next generation. Rather than looking to young people to protect us, we must protect them. Abandoning our collective responsibility for children is to reject our stake in the next generation and to give up on the future of society itself. This does not bode well.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/05/push-vaccinate-kids-shows-moral-compass-askew/

    Elsewhere in the DT, Judith Woods argues “It’s not up to my 12-year-old daughter to decide whether she gets jabbed” but is still in favour of vaccination – or, at least in principle, not against it.

    1. You don’t have to be an anti-vaxxer (I’m not) to disagree with vaccinating children against a disease that is less likely to harm them than the vaccine.

      1. I don’t understand why the state is so eager to promote vaccination in children.

        It flies in the face of previous best practice, manipulates the vulnerable and places the state above the citizen.

        1. It’s a good thing for dangerous dieases like TB, Scarlet fever, etc, that used to kill so many. But for this virus that hardly even makes children ill, it’s not a good thing at all.

          When we were young, we had measles, mumps (in my case not till I was 25) chicken pox, etc. I had Whooping cough when I was five or six and that was nasty.

          1. We used to have parties when we were young, to ensure that we caught some of the less deadly diseases so that we didn’t catch them as adults, when they would have been much worse.

        2. That’s what the state has been doing all along in this scamdemic. I cannot fully express my loathing and contempt for this government and MPs for not making the most almighty fuss about what’s been going on. Human rights? Where are they!

        4. Because the end goal is a digital currency that must be based on digital ids, and that will only work if children over the age of around 5 are part of it.
          A Chinese style social credit system won’t work if children aren’t included.

          As Joanna Williams says, they’ve politicised vaccines. Gates has been doing this for years, he is behind the ID2020 website as well as the vaccine industry.

          1. Yet when someone litters, what decreases their social credit score? When a chav decides to pick a fight or throw a tantruim, or push a trolley by the side, or blocks a supermarket aisle, or parks their trolley in front of the thing I want to get at, or ignores roundabout rules that you don’t enter unless you can exit (try that in Southampton: you won’t move, someone will push in front of you).

            How are those recorded?

          2. Taken to court in the same way as they are now, I suppose. Isn’t that how it works in China?
            My son told me some story that was doing the rounds on t’internet last year, about a boxer in China who got on the wrong side of the government by criticising tae kwando in public, and then had to travel to matches on slow trains, because his fast train privileges were withdrawn.

    1. At the rate of people coming, knowing they’ll never be going back, with all relatives coming ASAP, then the UK will soon be full. Every house will be filled and the immigrants will be expecting everything WE have to work and pay for, for free.

      1. It’s been full for many years, Walter. That’s why the green belt is being sacrificed for white flight.

      1. ‘The BBC’s director of news Fran Unsworth is to leave the corporation early next year, it has been announced. A lifelong BBC employee, she took charge of the BBC’s news and current affairs division in 2018….

        “Fran has taken BBC News through one of the most testing periods in its history, providing a vital service during the Covid-19 pandemic, when record audiences turned to BBC News,” director general Tim Davie said.‘

        1. Ha! it’s her fault then that we get opinions instead of news, and what they leave out is worth more than what they tell us.

    2. That’s the equivalent of 2158 old age pensioners TV tax contributions each year – not including her expenses which will probably be in three six figures too. There are another 35,401 BBC staff (including part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff) on the payroll. That number probably does not include thousands of senior staff and celebrities who claim to be ‘private companies’ and not technically employed by the Marxist propaganda service. Effing scandalous! Close it down.

      1. It isn’t all doom and gloom for the BBC, her replacement is even more left-wing (is that possible) and hates Boris and the Tories.

        Left-winger Jess Brammar who tweeted rants against Brexit and Boris Johnson is set for top role. D Fail

  44. BBC Scotland 8:00pm tonight. “The Making of Scotland’s Landscape 5/5
    How, after scientists and engineers unwittingly set of a chain of events during the Industrial Revolution that are now known as climate change, the country is on the verge of transforming from a carbon-based economy to a green one.”

    What next? “The invention of clothes was the first milestone in establishing white privilege”?

    1. The astonishing idiocy of the last sentence proves the ignorance of these fools.

      We are a carbon based life form. Wasting tax payers money on windmills and solar panels just moves the material waste around.

        1. The problem is they align themselves with experts, I really had no idea that this country had so many experts as we have heard of or seen on TV recently, but really………you might be forgiven for thinking they might be able to get a few things in the right order between them.
          I heard Robert Peston talking about his (Novel) new book yesterday it sounds like a best seller.

    2. Every Tory leader of the party in the past 50+ years has been put in place by the fat boys in the back room. Each has been selected because they were easily manipulated by the said scumbags. Each has implemented the policies dictated to them with two exceptions – 1, Maggie Thatcher – she had more balls than all of them and did what she, herself, believed in. She was her own man, so’s to speak. 2. – Boris Nobody – he is under the control of his personal dicktaker dictator. Two tough women who knew what the wanted and how to get it. Unfortunately. the boys in the back room will have to wait until Boris’s bowlocques have ceased to twitch before they can retake control. In the meantime we shall all have to suffer the slow, gangrenous green putrefaction imposed on us by caring Carrie. God help us all (whoever he is).

    3. Every Tory leader of the party in the past 50+ years has been put in place by the fat boys in the back room. Each has been selected because they were easily manipulated by the said scumbags. Each has implemented the policies dictated to them with two exceptions – 1, Maggie Thatcher – she had more balls than all of them and did what she, herself, believed in. She was her own man, so’s to speak. 2. – Boris Nobody – he is under the control of his personal dicktaker dictator. Two tough women who knew what the wanted and how to get it. Unfortunately. the boys in the back room will have to wait until Boris’s bowlocques have ceased to twitch before they can retake control. In the meantime we shall all have to suffer the slow, gangrenous green putrefaction imposed on us by caring Carrie. God help us all (whoever he is).

    4. The only thing missing from that alarming photograph is the big red nose the prat should be sporting.

  46. 338605+ up ticks,

    Well, all current supporting members of the lab/lib/con coalition have very ably assisted the governance coalition to pull off a very unbritish coup.

    The attacking force so far today numbers 12.5 thousand this year alone
    at a approx. cost of 70 mill.upkeep to date.

    That means this year alone has deprived the indigenous oldies of £70 mill
    to date, now I believe you can get an awful lot of smarties, glasses, teeth,
    new hips etc,etc,etc and alleviate a great deal of pain & suffering for £70 mill initially then ongoing to increase to billions.

    Why are there still lab/lib/con politico’s ruling the roost ?

  47. Gosh it is warm.

    After two hours in the garden I have had to have a shower. Yesterday evening, the MR discovered a damson tree which I never knew we had. I suppose it was self sown. Anyway, unlike the main damsons which bore no fruit – this one was laden and I picked a bucketful Then she saw a greengage – just about past it – but a couple of pounds of fruit. The ladderwork to remove a branch from one of the very (too) large copper beech trees..

    I may even treat myself to a beer.

    1. I froze several pounds of greengages last month when they finally ripened – but many were riddled with maggots. It took ages picking out the good bits.

        1. I didn’t have any trouble finding them! I cut each fruit in half to remove the stones and scanned them carefully.
          That’s a good trick with blackberries though, and OH deals with those but i have a feeling it’s a step he forgets to do. Still, after months in the freezer, i don’t suppose the odd maggot in the crumble will do us any harm.

          1. As some one told me when i mentioned that in had found some in apples the last time i made cider…….well they eat the same materials as you make the cider with and would probably taste the same. And of course there is the sanitising effect of the alcohol.

          3. Blimey that’s like potcheen.
            I once saw a bottle of something from Mexico with a lizard in.

          4. A friend of mine, decades ago, was talking to some locals in an Irish bar, somewhere in the middle of Ireland. They told him they had a secret still of poteen and asked if he’d like to try it. When he said ‘yes’, they took him out to their car and blindfolded him for the journey to the secret location.

            I asked him what it was like, and he told me that the after-effects were roughly similar to being mugged. He said that it was like being ht behind the knees with a sledgehammer.

    2. Hello Bill,

      Very warm here as well, they were firing on the ranges earlier on.. Dog shivering and shaking!

      Ladderwork , be careful

      Did you recieve the CZ mag last month .. Huge article in there .. don’t know where she got the article from , but me as a little girl, sister and mother and my father featured , I feel quite faint ..

      No mention of the evacuation a year later though !

      Dogs are snoozing , Moh has had to have an emergency dental appt , he hates needles!

      He will probably come home with antibiotics .

      Funny really how some trees have fruited and others haven’t .

      Crab apple trees haven’t fruited this year in the village, some years the tress have been overladen.

      Please be careful, hope those cats don’t follow you up the ladder x

      1. When I used to work in the garden with a step-ladder, Missy would often scale it to admire the view.

  48. Just made the morning all, I went to switch the kettle on for a cuppa at 7:45 no power. Check the in box on the main, RCD was down switched it up and it went straight off. Lit the gas with a match to boil some water, investigated nothing apparent. Had a cuppa rang my electrician mate Kieth. He got back to me but is busy all day on an important job. He told me later to unplug everything and try to switch back the power no joy ….oh dear ! Sat having a coffee and the realised the only thing I had not switched off was the rarely used Dish washer. Turned it off at the wall switch out of vision behind the toaster and the power was ok again. Took the fuse out of the wall switch. Possible fault in the switching our little grandson was playing with the front panel switches yesterday, but the machine switch was in the off position. Some thing wrong with the old dish washer then,………. leccy popping in on his way home from rom work. He thinks h it could be something to do with neutrals or an earth.

      1. I did get ‘a Belt’ as i was rewiring the oven supply I thought the isolator box was the original problem. And the cooker supply trip was off, i’ll get sparky to replace the consumer unit, it’s looking a bit worse for wear and marking is certainly misleading.

        1. It did make me jump and swear, but it tripped our instantly. Not like the old electric supplies before RCDs. I have a pair of souvenir plyers with a scar to remind me.

    2. Depending on your consumer unit you may need a 40amp trip fuse.

      Don’t let the kiddies fiddle with the appliances !

    1. All well and good to point out the broken promise, but he would probably have kept to it without the unexpected Covid crisis, where he overspent by some £15,000 per taxpayer in one year. If only MPs were concerned with that much greater sum.

      2. “but he would probably have kept to it without the unexpected Covid crisis”
        I’m presuming that you’re being ironic, Dale.

        1. No, as Covid was unexpected and a crisis, even if self-inflicted. He’d have been able to borrow or print money to hide the care issues until after the next election.

      1. “An Australian-style points-based lockdown system to control immigration you mindless plebs.”

    3. As nobody has been sent back then it signals the others can come too. The system overloads, so yet more come, and more, and more etc. All their relatives and anyone claiming to be – – in fact BoJo has effectively signalled the whole world can come.

    5. Brown went to court to prove the manifesto wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

      Quite simply, never again.

  50. I can’t display the link ?? But someone sent me a clip of a French lady looking at a poster on a fence regarding the regulations on covid restrictions, the posters were printed three months before the outbreak !!!
    I’ll email it to Rastus and Caroline they might be able to help.

    4. For living wild and sleeping rough, they’re looking rather smart.and clean. Like the ones coming off the BF, Coastguard and other boats.

    5. Glaringly obvious where do they charge their phones and who are the in contact with and why ?
      And why is our bloody government so effing useless at every thing they do or come into contact with ?

      1. 338605+ up ticks,
        Afternoon RE,

        Depends which way you view this governance
        cartel if from brussels then they cannot be faulted.

        They are currently putting the finishing touches to
        bringing DOWN the UK as we knew it in times of decency.

      2. Somebody at church mentioned the phones (and leather jackets) on Sunday and concluded that whatever they were, they were NOT refugees. It isn’t only Nottlers who can see what’s happening.

        1. And I wonder who pays for their keep, they don’t look as if they want to get their hands dirty by carrying out some needed menial and useful jobs.
          Earlier this year I noticed for the first time a black guy working with our usually ‘hideously white’ rubbish collectors. As the bins were taken from the grass verges out side of our houses he didn’t appear to have a lot of interest in a what he was doing. Later that day i took our dog for a walk in the woods at the end of our road and found his green collection bin in a ditch. I know it was his because the collectors are slightly different, larger, to the domestic bins.

    7. He’s made an error there, if he’s claiming he’s 18. He’s no longer a child so gets no special treatment.

  52. Boris’s Johnson’s tax rise is described as a 1.25% rise. What does this mean?

    Is this a rise in the rate of the tax or a rise in the amount of tax to be paid? The actual tax rise depends on what the original rate was.

    Say for example a tax rate rises from 20% to 21.25%. If this is based on a principal of £100,000 the tax to be paid will rise From £20,000 t0 £21,500. You do not have to be a mathematical genius to see that a rise from 20 to 21.5 is actually a rise of 7.5% in the tax to be paid.

    Now if the initial tax rate rises from 5% to 6.25% then the actual tax rise in tax would be a whopping 25%.

    Be very wary of politicians and the MSM when they give statistics involving percentages because these are often deliberately misleading.

    2. We didn’t calculate a tax hike in to our latest tender and I’m taking a pay cut to allow the other guys to get the full amount.

      Utter sewage. I hate government.

  53. Ah, only 1.25% on taxes, who could possibly complain. Anyone remember parking charges being introduced, about 20p an hour, uni fees £1k a year, APD, ETC ETC. nothing to see here.

  54. Ah, only 1.25% on taxes, who could possibly complain. Anyone remember parking charges being introduced, about 20p an hour, uni fees £1k a year, APD, ETC ETC. nothing to see here.

    1. So another complication to the tax structure. There is the 2% extra NI on all earnings, but not pensioners, then there is the 1.25 this year on all including pensioners. But the following year it will separated out with its very own cuddly name, something like social care charge. Cripes, its a National Insurance charge, so call it that and paid by all. Apart from the work-shy and invaders, who will get it for free. Simples eh….

      1. Yep more lumped on the already bloated tax code.

        This government needs to be kicked in the nads as a matter of urgency. Cut taxes, reform the state. Fecking well sack people!

      1. Noted, should just about cover hotel bills and benefits for our guests and the other 40 million (minus a few Taliban) on the way.

  55. The predominant religion in Russia is The Russian Orthodox Church.
    It seems to me that….
    The predominant religion in Britain is The National Health Service.

    2. I would say, to those who are sceptical of Christianity, which in the context of our Western experience, is quite understandable, that they consider this. Orthodox Christianity parted ways with the West 1000 years ago when the Catholic Church put a Papal Bull excommunicating the Orthodox on the Alter of Saint Sophia. An act of outrageous hubris since it was the Catholic Church that decided to promote a false teaching in the first place.

      The Orthodox Church is the continuity of the original Christian tradition and, in that respect remains unchanged as it was from the very beginning up to now. The result is that it is quite a different kettle of fish to what the West considers to be Christian. It is, therefore, unfair to dismiss it by putting it in the same category as Roman Catholicism or Protestantism. In 1000 years a great deal has changed in the Western versions of Christianity to the point that from the Orthodox perspective, it hardly seems to be Christian at all. Almost all objection I see to Orthodoxy are based on assumptions that apply to Western Christianity but are not valid when applied to the Orthodox Church. Not valid because of a radically different understanding of Christianity that has nothing to do with the Western version or understanding of Christianity.

      I will shut up now on the subject!

  56. Mongo’s been sat in his paddling pool outside. He is now too hot even for that – I dumped half a truck of ice in there for him to bundle against.

    He’s now indoors and pawing at the fridge. Either he wants to get in, or he’s hungry. Either way, he’s going to knock it over and disturb me, who is already sat in it.

  57. ITV’s ‘Endeavour’ returns on Sunday. Here’s the blurb from the Radio Times:

    It’s the start of 1971 – though wearied from the events of the past year, there’s no chance of ‘light duties’ at the CID. Crestfallen and rarely without a scotch in hand, Endeavour finds himself right back in the thick of it when an explosive murder at an Oxford college has potentially far-reaching political ramifications. Meanwhile, the IRA have made a threat against the life of the Oxford Wanderers’ star striker, and Endeavour is tasked with the duty of acting bodyguard.

    The footballer is played by Julian Moore-Cook – the actor’s name is a giveaway. Black and mixed-race players were rare in the English game in the early 70s. Is this about racism or IRA extortion and, if the latter, wasn’t it rather later than 1971 that the IRA was active on the mainland?

    ‘Endeavour’ has been of rather mixed quality over the years and has too often shoehorned PC politics into its stories in a clunking and heavy-handed manner. Is this another little Oxford lecture from the scriptwriters?

    Set the controls for 8pm!

  62. The creep running the “vaccine” programme is threatening a “firebreak” lockdown if the booster jab isn’t done well. What does ‘done well’ actually mean in reference to sticking a needle in someone and pressing the plunger? IMHO, he means if the take-up meets the globalists’ target. Here we go with more coercion i.e. if you don’t come forward to take your jab you will be locked down. As for a “firebreak”, who believes that this proven liar is telling the truth. The “firebreak” will continue for as long as it takes to satisfy the globalist masters. How much more coercion will the unthinking take before coming to their senses: this isn’t about a virus, especially as the booster “vaccine” is for last year’s infection and not the Delta variant: whatever that may be.

    https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1435163326439378944

    1. If the vaxx works as predicted then there will be no need for the extra NI tax rise for social care.

      1. The tax is for the new replacements houses, (6 bedrooms} their furniture, clothing, schooling, education, NHS, etc etc. Expect more rises. All those coming will end up in better houses than we are in.

      1. I don’t believe that they have.

        What has happened is that the infections have become less serious, but even that has not always been the case. I know of several people who have been double vaccinated and still caught Covid, some very seriously.

          1. Previous encounters have not given me the impression that MA is a troll.
            I’m always slightly wary of “private” profiles, but there are many Nottlers who I like who choose that route, so I give the benefit of the doubt.
            Hell’s teeth, I am accused of being a stalker by at least one Nottler, because I have the temerity to challenge their posts, so who am I to complain?

  63. The creep running the “vaccine” programme is threatening a “firebreak” lockdown if the booster jab isn’t done well. What does ‘done well’ actually mean in reference to sticking a needle in someone and pressing the plunger? IMHO, he means if the take-up meets the globalists’ target. Here we go with more coercion i.e. if you don’t come forward to take your jab you will be locked down. As for a “firebreak”, who believes that this proven liar is telling the truth. The “firebreak” will continue for as long as it takes to satisfy the globalist masters. How much more coercion will the unthinking take before coming to their senses: this isn’t about a virus, especially as the booster “vaccine” is for last year’s infection and not the Delta variant: whatever that may be.

    https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1435163326439378944

  64. 3338605+up ticks
    ,The priti orrible was dropping more rhetorical chaff early on, ” we will not pay the £50 odd million incentive to stop the illegals coming over”.

    ALL rhetorical chaff, lullaby speak for the herd, the french are finding it a far better to double up on the numbers and cut down on their domestic welfare bill

    The whole reset campaign is ALL, without doubt. pro eU.

    4. I don’t want to sign a petition. I want sodding democracy. I want to kick Boris Johnson and his useless cabinet in the face, hard. Then I want to do it again and again until these useless sewage do the job they are expected to do.

    5. “Do not require Covid vaccination passports for crowded events”
      I agree totally.
      It would be good if they stopped and searched young men with beards and backpacks at these crowded events too.

      1. Or even bothered to act on intelligence received. The Manchester arena bomber was reported to the Police for acting suspiciously wearing a large back pack. The Police did fuckall.

        Police Scotland have just had to apologise for not attending a reported car accident on a motorway. 3 days later she was still alive but later died in hospital. They instead acted on another call reporting her missing and set up a missing persons alert. Fuckwits.

    7. Vaccine passports are being used in France, every time you go into a restaurant or at public events and masks are obligatory in shops. People are not complaining, and restaurant staff are managing it easily, but most important of all, infection rates are falling fast, unlike in the UK where they are rising. They are the best way to avoid further lockdowns and they are no more than a minor inconvenience. (You can also enter with a recent recovered from covid certificate or an even more recent PCR test.)

      1. There are huge demonstrations in France – they are complaining.
        They are doing three times as much testing here, so of course they will find more “cases”. The only ones to worry about are the people who are actually ill enough for treatment.

  66. I wonder how much the overall cost of “social care” actually dropped as a result of the covideradication of so many care-home residents. Many hundreds of millions I suspect.

    And I wonder how much stamp duty and inheritance tax the government raked in from those who were paying for their own care or died before even getting to care homes. Again hundreds of millions.

    And I have no doubt that hundreds of millions are being saved in pensions, both state and ex-public sector.

    Explain the figures Boris, where has it all gone?

    1. We could always stop paying, it will be interesting to see how much the illegal immigration goes up, of course thanks to the brexiteers we can no longer send them back to France, they can only be sent back to their country of origin if if is safe to do so. Brexit the gift that keeps on giving.

        1. That would be zero. A competent diplomat was given the job. He resigned as he could not get anyone past the “human rights” lawyers.

          4. I don’t blame you. I wonder how she found us – I hide my profile for that reason – someone unpleasant once followed me here.

            edit: I think she came via TCW.

          5. She’s been here before – but she wasn’t so blatantly trolling, though Sue M had flagged her on a previous visit. Anyway she certainly didn’t fit in here.
            I made my profile private several years ago when I was being followed and trolled – actually that was by Hatman. He can be amusing but also very nasty.

          7. No reason why you would. But it made me wary of him when he came back in one guise or another. He never did it again.

          8. Oh, indeed. You got me! 231 illegal immigrants deported in 21 months is about one every 3 days. They are arriving at a rate of several hundred a day. You must know the story about “the population of China walking past you in single file, a line that would never end because of the rate of reproduction”.
            Illegal immigrants are now arriving here at the rate of one city the size of Edinburgh every year.

          1. But we don’t have to send them to their “country of origin”. We can do what Australia does. – except back to France.

          2. As they refuse to give their country of origin in the first place then if they suddenly claim a certain one IS their country – then refuse ANY claim from them. This country will be bankrupt and wrecked in fifty years.

          3. I’ve always claimed that we give them a choice – return to you country of origin (by parachute if necessary) or, if you have no country of origin, The RN will take about a thousand a time and deposit them, at midnight on a Somali Beach with only their underpants (or otherwise) that they might be wearing.

            Take a choice buster – NOW.

        2. I don’t get your point, we used to be able to send them back to France thanks to the Dublin agreement. “First safe country”

      3. The money was given and not for the first time for the French to step up patrols. They haven’t.

        Your attempt to include Brexit gives you away.

        1. Not just include, but blame Brexit. How has Brexit changed the fact that we can send them back to France?

          2. We don’t have to rely on Dublin Agreement. European Convention on Human Rights – thee people are not “refugees”.

  68. ”Our efforts to address the Global PLANDEMIC”….. direct from the White House…………….

    https://twitter.com/TheFreds/status/1435158974467354626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1435158974467354626%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dtheconservativewomant_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.conservativewoman.co.uk2Fdr-david-martin-on-the-covid-vaccine-racket-part-12Ft_d%3DDr20David20Martin20on20the20Covid20vaccine20racket20E2809320Part201t_t%3DDr20David20Martin20on20the20Covid20vaccine20racket20E2809320Part201s_o%3Ddescversion%3D9bdb65de27b881f62b84ef54f46d1575

  69. Is it still the case that NI contributions stop at a certain income level?
    If so, the Government should have removed that cap.

    The reality is, that if a hatchet was taken to the NHS, getting rid of all the non-jobs and fat departments that there would be no need for tax rises.

    When they speak of assets of over £100,000, I’m willing to bet that private pension pots will be included to calculate ones wealth.

    1. Track and Trace cost £37bn, just saying… and Those gimmigants are not going to pay their own mini bar bills are they.

    2. It’s the lack of … anything.

      What will the money buy?
      Will the hike be a failure if….?
      What services are expected to be improved?

      What’s the timeframe for getting these changes?
      Will the money be hypothecated or just rolled into more state waste?

      No answers. Not a thing. No interest. Just more debt, more waste more tax and the poorest hit hardest by an unnecessary, abusive tax hike.

      F him. Never, ever again.

    4. The reality is that we pay less than nearly every other first world country for our health care. And a lot less than the Americans do.

      1. That may be, but how many other health care systems allow people who haven’t contributed to use it for free?

        1. The Canadian system does BUT there are minor conditions, like being a permanent resident.

          I don’t know why they bother calling your government conservatives, I looked through the DT letters this morning and the complaints about the government could apply equally to the incompetent mob over here.

          1. A nine months pregnant woman can land at Heathrow from anywhere in the world and our NHS will send an ambulance to meet the flight.

          2. They might manage that here as well but after the emergency, expect an invoice for services rendered.

      2. And it shows.
        Give me quality every time.
        My experience in France suggests that the NHS is inferior in almost every way.

        I suspect that if you add in all the money spent on private medicine, prescriptions, hearing, eyesight, dentistry etc etc you will find that we actually pay a LOT more than you think compared with other countries.

      1. Thank you.

        I was wondering the other day where you were. Welcome back if you’ve returned, apologies for missing your pearls of wisdom if you’ve been posting and I’ve been lolling in the pool.

    1. Hard-hearted, I know but…

      …it is one less ‘breeder’ for the Caliphate, which is MY prime concern.

  71. So, if I read it right:
    @ There is an additional tax of 2.5% on earnings (1.25% on each of employers’ and employees’ tax rates).
    @ Dividends will be subject to the same tax rate hikes.
    @ Scotland, Wales and NI will be given more money than they raise, being subsidised by English taxpayers.
    @ The money initially won’t go to care services, but to the NHS for the backlog it caused.

    Johnson is gambling against history. If raising taxes like this would raise more money than it loses, why haven’t even Labour governments brought them in before?

    1. That will be the starter for ten. When its all been washed down the black hole there might be a little tweeking of the values and thresholds. Surely not….

      1. It is getting less and less worth it. Look at what the immigrants get for just turning up. Roof over their heads. Now that has been upgraded to “appropriate” housing if you have ?? children. NHS, benefits, educated, etc etc. Translators for everything, paid for by us. Why work?? WE have worked to build up a better place – for us. Now BJ has opened all that – to anyone who turns up here. No contribution – just arrive. Pity we all can’t just up – – and walk away. Take all we have, Then see how long till they all follow us to freeload again. They would – – why bother build it themselves – – let whitey work, pay tax and build, then invade – – and sponge off them.

        1. Why do they have translators for the immigrants that were supposedly translators for the army in afghanistan?

  72. 300 British troops offered hearing loss tests after £5.5bn Ajax tank trials halted over noise complaints

    More than 300 British soldiers are being offered hearing loss assessments after trials of the £5.5 billion Ajax armoured vehicle programme were halted due to an excessive number of noise complaints, a minister has admitted.
    In a written statement to Parliament on Monday, Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin said that the Ajax tank programme, already beset by failures, had engendered adverse health effects among the troops trialing the hardware.

    Quin said that while 121 personnel had previously been identified as requiring urgent hearing assessments, that number had now risen by a further 189, bringing the total to 310. In June, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) halted trials of the Army’s new armoured vehicle amid complaints that the noise of the tanks was impacting the health of troops.

    He said that 248 of the 310 had already been tested and the MoD was in the process of determining the extent of the damage caused. Six personnel who had recently left the service were also being traced. A report on the issue is being compiled by the department’s director of health and safety.

    https://www.rt.com/uk/534150-ajax-tanks-health-noise/

    1. Yet another combat vehicle being bought for the last war, not the next one.

      It’s a fecking tank. Let’s buy the Israeli one.

  73. Protesters throw gravel at Justin Trudeau during bitter Canadian election campaign. 7 September 2021.

    Anti-vaccine protesters threw gravel at Justin Trudeau in the latest of a series of increasingly ill-tempered protests that have marred Canada’s general election campaign.

    The Canadian prime minister, who last month called a snap general election for September 20, was boarding his campaign bus after an event at a brewery in the town of London, Ontario, when the incident occurred on Monday evening.

    Mr Trudeau said afterwards that some of the gravel “might have” hit his shoulder. Video of the incident showed him in the middle of a crowd carrying Canadian flags and screaming “f—- you”, when a handful of small projectiles spattered his security team.

    It’s hardly noticeable on the video though the crowd sounds hostile. One wishes that it had been a few building bricks!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/07/protestors-throw-gravel-justin-trudeau-bitter-canadian-election/

          3. It appeared as ‘to’ the first time i read it. Which is correct.

            I’m doing fine thank you. How about you?

    2. Smiles sweetly at the image.

      Little emporer was on TV last night (the liberals didn’t give the media a multi million dollar investment bribe for nothing) with his daily attack on the conservative leader, he looks unhinged and has started talking about the secret messages that the conservatives are sending.

      As long as the conservative right wing splinter group do split the vote, there might be hope yet!

        1. But you are skilled! I expect that it is hidden so as to make it difficult to find – quite deliberately

          4. Thankyou – I’ve had the AZ jabs but I strongly object to having to show my medical status for any event. It seems you can just self-exempt the same as for mask-wearing.

          7. Thankyou – I’ve had the AZ jabs but I strongly object to having to show my medical status for any event. It seems you can just self-exempt the same as for mask-wearing.

    1. I see that Halfcock has publicly emphasised that he has neither shame nor honour.

      I’ll bet his long-suffering wife was delighted.

    3. Ducked? No, it hasn’t been ducked. You’ve ignored it. You’ve preferred to give private wealth away in foreign aid. You wasted billions on test and trace. You poured billions into a pointless green agenda. You refused to reform public services and face the waste in the state. Instead, you’re creating more unemployment, more debt, more waste.

      Look at fat cat trougher salaries. Cut those. Take a sodding blender to the council management as they are the ones incapable of managing a force back, fixed income fund. Damnit! They are scum.

      Even after all this theft – and we know it’s paying for the illegal gimmigrants – the state will still destroy my mother’s home to pay for her care – even though she has paid for it throughout her life.

      I hate them. The whole edifice needs bombing.

      2. Don’t forget the billions of taxpayers’ cash paid to Pfizer and AZ for their pretty useless #clotshots. Oh, I suppose it did have the advantage of raising shares in Big Pharma to astronomical levels…. I wonder who benefited from that??

    4. I think we’ve already heard enough from that little git – why isn’t he in quarantine after his trip to the Alps? Let me guess – it’s a trail scheme open only to certain groups!

  76. Just back from the beach – another long Paddle. There were six people actually swimming. Not for me. A chilly onshore wind made sure of that!

    Clear blue sy – nice and quiet – until a wazzock in a light aeroplane started looping the loop and doing rolls and diving. Once was entertaining – but the tenth time, I’d hve shot him down.

      1. A dog – -Facing nearly towards camera blue collar – head tilted to rightand tilted back about 30deg.

    1. Now imagine a situation where those power stations don’t exist.

      Rolling brown outs, blackouts and a 3 day week folks. We’re going to be made poorer by our own stupid government.

        1. I do – my toddler had a bite out of my gin glass one dark evening when we were sitting by candlelight making shadow faces on the wall.

    2. On the brighter side, they use less dirty oil to transport coal from Russia than they do to transport dried trees from the US.

      Russian coal OK but Russian gas is bad? .

  80. We have had a very enjoyable afternoon , a real treat , Moh’s golfing friends and wives chilling out , eating a delicious buffet lunch and putting the world to rights in a lovely quiet location , very warm afternoon, but umbrellas provided shade from the sun.

    Moh napping again .

    1. In reply to your earlier post. Yes I did see the Aug CZ mag – and hadn’t realised that you were little Margaret Knight!!

      The sea was cold – though there were puddles of nice warm water where the tide had remained and been warmed. Clear, clear blue sky. Very 1950s feel to Overstrand. No one seems to go there except a few hundred who know about it. No shops, arcades – nothing. Wonderful!

      1. Afternoon Bill
        So happy that your afternoon was memorable and peaceful , and I can just imagine the puddles of warm water you dabbled around in .

        Did you wear your shorts , it is short wearing weather , Moh lives in his , and has various colours from pink to blue , cream etc.

        I have no idea where Miss Jezzard obtained that article from .. I have a copy of Illustrated magazine from that period , but it is battered and yellowing .. and I am certain I didn’t submit the copy years ago ( nearly 18 years ago when I offered to do my Dorset thing .

        Sadly one of the main contributors of some of the articles left us a couple of weeks ago , he was a very elderly stalwart , and he will be missed hugely .

        Oh well, I don’t suppose any one in the CZ group will have twigged on .

        Still very warm here ..27c amazing .

      2. Way, way back in the 1980s we used to take our little tin tent and two small boys to a woodland touring park at Trimingham which is close to Overstrand. That had a very 1950s feel to it, almost 1930s. It was a very Enid Blyton sort of place. If I could turn the clock back, I would in a trice. And keep it there.

        1. I watch old films*. Last night there was a film on Talking Pictures, called “Next to No Time” starring Kenneth More. It was a lightweight, gentle comedy. Mostly set on the liner Queen Elizabeth it was thereby dated. The cabins were the epitome of a middle class home dream, that is to say with mimsy patterns and plain. Nothing that we would now consider luxury, but this was 1958. In colour with subtitles, I just sank into it.

          *Yes, it is nostalgia. Tonight I may watch “A Bout de Souffle” with Jean-Paul Belmondo. I do have to maintain my pseudo intellectual pretensions, you know!

          1. ‘The Admirable Chrichton’ was one of my favourite KM films, also ‘North West Frontier’.

          4. ‘The Red Balloon’ makes me snivel every time. I cannot believe I end up in tears over a balloon.
            The boy must be about 70 by now.

          5. Last night I watched the “Railway Children” which I hadn’t seen. It was a nice gentle film set in the early 20th century. It was on BBC I player and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

          6. It is a perfect film. When you can watch a film and not be able to think of any improvement of any aspect, then it is perfect.

  81. So, the nhs think I’ve got Covid. I was feeling much better so I took my temperature again and it’s higher not lower. Home test kit coming.

    1. Hope you don’t get much more than a sniffle, Sue.
      Keep the vitamin C and D going, medicate pain with paracetomol alcohol!

      1. Fingers crossed you just have a summer cold.

        If it IS the plague – sue the BBC. That’ll be where you caught it.

        1. I’m on water. The nhs lady said fruit juice but that rots my teeth and besides, I don’t like it.

    2. Are they giving you anything to help or did they just send you home to await your fate? I second the alcohol cure!

      Thinking alcohol, US TV coverage of the Solheim cup victory was quite hilarious.
      “We are waiting for the European team to finish their celebrations before we interview them” An hour later, they were still waiting while the players continued to party.

      1. Not much in the fridge. Very tempted to go round the corner to the M&S Simply food but told I mustn’t. Might go downstairs and see if the duty porter can help.

        1. Don’t DO AS YOU ARE TOLD. Do what you need to do to look after YOURSELF.

          A solicitor writes.

          1. The porter has kindly offered to buy a few things for me. The building manager wouldn’t approve but I’ve known this guy many years here and he’s very nice.

        2. Don’t DO AS YOU ARE TOLD. Do what you need to do to look after YOURSELF.

          A solicitor writes.

    6. As there is no other illness available to the nhs at the moment, Sue, they are bound to think, and be hoping that, you have got it. It will bump their figures up for the October lockdown.

      Vit C with zinc, Vitamin D3 with Vit K2 and Quercetin for winter, folks. Start now!

    7. Dear Sue – oh dear!
      So now you’re in the hands of the dreaded Test & Trace system. They will phone you from 0300 013 5000 at all sorts of nutty times and you will get bullying texts, first saying they need your help – please logon to the Test & Trace app on your smartphone (I didn’t). An hour or so later you’ll get the first bullying text saying (I use my alias here):

      RoughCommon
      We noticed that you have not yet completed your online account with NHS Test and Trace. You recently tested positive for COVID-19 and must now stay at home and self-isolate for at least 10 days.

      We need your help to get in touch with people you have been in contact with whilst you were potentially infectious to provide them with health advice and support.

      Please visit your account Xxxxxx..
      Please do this without delay and help protect yourself, your family, and the NHS. If you cannot complete this information online, a member of the Test and Trace team will call you shortly (from 0300 013 5000).

      The information you give us will be held in complete confidence. If you’re unsure, please search online for “NHS Test and Trace”.

      This repeats on days 4 and 7 of your Isolation, as well as the phone calls from 0300 013 5000. If you ignore one you’ll immediately get one or two voicemail recordings from a nice Geordie voice. They don’t give up. One wheeze from our Carers (who see this all the time) was to get hold of some Lateral Flow Test kits on the quiet (pharmacies give out packs of 7 kits like popcorn) and self-test if you want to see if you’re clear but DON’T report on line until you are clear or else the 10 day Isolation clock (with all the texts & phone calls) starts again.

      My experience only started when I scrounged some LFT kits from our Carers just for interest (no symptoms except runny nose like you) but was positive at first (my wife was negative), then 4 days later we swopped over. So we’ve already had this lot of intrusive, repetitive calls and texts TWICE, hence my Nottl post yesterday.

      Good luck! Just shows that if you’ve been double-jabbed you can still get it, possibly multiple times.

      1. Yes, I realise I’m now in their system! The cold symptoms are familiar, even the barking, rattling cough, which I’ve had before. What freaked me was the fever temp. It’s only in the Covid era that I’ve possessed a thermometer so it’s entirely possible that too has happened before.

        1. In theory you should be doing your utmost to spread it far and wide to help with herd immunity.

          Just stay within the confines of the BBC

  82. Time to go and open a bottle. And to drink it in the garden in the evening sun.

    Have a jolly evening saving for your tax rises.

    A demain.

      2. I agree. I think he has been told that he cannot resign from his ‘job’ otherwise they (his handlers) will, er, deal with him. They need their puppet firmly in place to do their bidding. The only way he can go is to be ejected by the people…. I suspect Cummings is in the plot with him, to make him (Johnson) thoroughly detestable. I have long thought that Cummings was still in the employ of Johhson, just not in the manner one normally expects of an employee. I expect he is well rewarded.

        1. Boris Johnson being advised by Raab, Hancock, Nadwin, Rishi,

          I do hope Cummings has recordings of those meetings.

  84. Funny Old World
    State Pension for a couple approx £720 a month to live on
    Private Care Homes Surrey £8/12,000 a month for two
    Is it just me or is something out of kilter??

        1. Just had application for equity release for Mother’s house refused by one lender because “she’s too old”! I guess that means that they won’t get enough interest to make it worth their while.
          Sigh.

          1. Not recommended Paul, my sister had one and they took all the money from the sale of the house when she went into care, which was 3x the amount she raised from them

        1. HG is married to me. I get slightly less than she does, but it’s still in the £720 a month each range.

        2. Depends whether she paid her own NI conts or whether she paid the ‘married woman’s stamp.’ In which case she just gets an add on.

          1. Afghan grannies have a free pass. They get everything.

            I am still troubling the WFH for PiPs. After now 8 months of not being able to walk the dog…go round a supermarket… or even get given a scooter. :@)

        1. David Cameron did say he looked forward to the day that we had ………

          Such a shame he didn’t get his pay off.

      1. When our Queen Elizabeth passes I reckon it might be best to let the Royals go their own way and act in the way that European monarchies have accommodated themselves viz. riding bicycles and marrying film stars and other commoners. Only the immediate descendants should be funded by the State in reward for their carrying out specific duties of State.

        The Queen owns too much property much of it gifted by Winston Churchill, when the Royals were comparatively impoverished, such as the income from The Strand Estate.

        These rents could be put to better use than maintaining the vast staff and castles which are barely used.

        The honours system is now held in complete disrepute and should be either abolished or significantly reduced.

        We on the other hand would have to elect decent politicians as opposed to the grifting rabble that presents itself at every election.

        1. I know the Queen doesn’t have the powers of a normal head of state, but I suspect that compared with the costs of Macron, Putin, Biden et al she is both comparatively cheap and excellent value for the money.
          I agree that we should kick all the minor royals into the long grass.

          1. Could the royalty be replaced by an appointed president? Take your pick – Blair or May!

            Makes the royals seem a bargain compared to that prospect.

          2. Quite.
            But the number of unnecessary Royals is too great.

            However, I always look at other countries when thinking about this and so often the extended family of the President is as bad as our Royals for taking advantage.

          3. True. Demented senile Biden just gifted over 80 billion dollars worth of materiel to the Taliban which is now likely in the hands of China and Pakistan.

            By contrast Fataturk Johnson has squandered a mere 80 billion pounds on a useless Test and Trace system, billions of poisonous ‘vaccines’ and utterly useless PPE equipment. The real cost to our economy of school closures and lockdowns is presently unfathomable.

    2. Given the history of the aide in question I suspect Charles is the patsy in this.
      Strange timing, given the Green blob coming up.

      1. Charles has been a complete and utter twonk all his life. Married to a beautiful and vivacious woman and he trots back to the old mare.

        He won’t be King for long.

        1. Diana was also a complete and utter manipulative twonk. She wasn’t the demure shy little girl she was painted to be.
          In fact an utter tart.

          3. You think so?
            The Spencer family have been scheming for centuries and she will have been brought up with it from the off.
            She was an earlier day Markle, seeking the main chance and seizing it with both hands. Charles got caught, just like his son.

          5. Wannabet?
            Once a tart always a tart. As I say, don’t let the demure face fool you.
            Small wonder Dolly has you round her little paw.

          6. My thoughts lie half-way between yours and Phizzee’s, sos. I think the problem was both Diana and Charles had totally inadequate parenting, so without that blueprint in the background neither could give the other the parenting each needed to make the relationship work, it simply wasn’t there. Because of this, this lack of parental background in her life, I don’t think she was the mother she was made out to be by the press. I think she exploited her two boys for her own requirements when it suited.

          7. Interesting observations.
            It’s certainly a strange world they lived in.

            All things considered I think William has turned out well. His wife certainly helps to keep him grounded.

          12. Her father was very manipulative, using Diana and her younger brother as a weapon against their mother in the break-up. It is hard to believe that their mother just walked out on them but perhaps in their world of nannies the bonds are not there. Regarding Diana being a tart, well, yes she was but I think she would have gone with anyone who showed or promised her affection. She was too needy for Charles. I recall a quoted comment, a while after they were married, Diana wanted to get back to London, and Charles said “but I thought you liked being in the country” to which Diana replied “but that was before we married!” They simply were not right for each other.

          13. I have a terrible imagination, but I suspect that Charles was a rather wham bang thank you ma’am sort of lover , not terribly exciting and rather clumsy and boring .

            She probably just lay back and thought of England . I am sure I would have found him repellent and not much fun.

            I expect his valet cleaned him up afterwards , put the nozzle back on his tube , and that sort of thing .

          16. I recall an edition of the News Quiz on R4 about the time their marriage broke up where a comment by one of the panelists seemed to suggest that, not that many years before she was foisted off onto Charles, she’d suffered a traumatic event made worse by her family’s actions.
            The repeat the next day had that comment removed.
            A well known London Secret getting too close to the knuckle perhaps?

          19. I have it on good authority (someone who knew the parties involved) that she set her cap at him and intended to marry him.

          20. Yes but he and Harry should have had the common sense and the natural sense of self-preservation to steer clear of the harpies.

        2. Diana was as mad as a box of demented frogs. He should never have gone near her; she was a disaster waiting to happen.

          2. Maybe, but whilst she was a senior member of the British Royal Family she ran off with a Muzzie.

  88. Just caught up with events.
    If I can quickly interrupt your primping and preening for the birthday bash – Happy Birthday, Minty.

    1. Too late you missed it…We’re on coffee and Cognacs now ! You can wash up if you want… :@)

        1. What’s pedantic about using the correct word in sentences? If someone writes “Two and two makes five” and I correct that to “four” am I being pedantic?

    1. Was there a mention earlier PPM i must have missed that.
      Hope you have had a lovely day Minty. 🤩🥂 cheers.

  93. Utterly off topic.
    The Good Life is being repeated.
    The coveted senior job paid £18,000 a year and a company car and was jaw droppingly high.
    An Afghan asylum seeker would probably complain now if that was all that they were offered.
    How times have changed

    1. Not really off topic, Boros is busy raising money the keep the cabal escapists happy, he doesn’t want any trouble.

        1. I’ve been inside a Lancaster (Vera in Canada); it’s very cramped (and noisy, so people who’ve been in it when it’s been flying tell me).

          1. Noisy and drafty. I went on a one hour flight in Vera, it gave me even more respect for the airmen that flew in those things.

            I also had a look, round one of the B17 Flying fortress bombers that the US airforce flew, those airmen had it cushy in comparison.

    2. What ho, Squiffy. Top-hole. Bally Jerry, pranged his kite right in the how’s-your-father; hairy blighter, dicky-birded, feathered back on his sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harpers and caught his can in the Bertie.

  98. Evening, all. Been a glorious day today; hot and sunny. I had coffee with friends in town, then intended to go round Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumly) gardens, but when we got there (Oscar and I) they were closed, so I turned on a reciprocal and headed for Sleap (pronounced Slape) instead. Sat in the sun, eating an ice-cream and watching light aircraft land and take off. Dozed in the garden when I got home while all the dogs in the neighbourhood bar Oscar went berserk when a hot air balloon flew over.

  99. I heard this lovely poem on the radio this evening , especially as yesterday a couple of dragonflies whirled around me , so beautiful , green/yellow striped large creatures .

    The Dragonfly

    Today I saw the dragonfly

    Come from the wells where he did lie.

    An inner impulse rent the veil

    Of his old husk: from head to tail

    Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

    He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;

    Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew

    A living flash of light he flew.

    Alfred, Lord Tennyson

        1. I like the Swedish for dragonfly – trollslända, which roughly translates as ‘troll’s sleigh’.

        2. I have a wonderful book on all British damselflies and dragonflies by Steve Brooks and delightfully illustrated by Richard Lewington.

  101. Now Britain runs out of sewage treatment chemicals: Supply chain chaos causes a stink as Government eases rules on dumping waste in rivers
    Defra tells companies they are allowed to dispose of non-fully-treated sewage
    Temporary regulation comes amid fears over chemical supply chain issues
    Waiver specifically relates to ferric sulphate used to suppress growth of algae

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9966911/Supply-chain-chaos-causes-stink-Government-eases-rules-dumping-waste-rivers.html

    We are plummetting to third world standards.

    Our poor rivers and chalk streams , no one cares about anything .

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