Wednesday 1 September: It’s not just in Britain where fear has eclipsed reason on face masks

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

795 thoughts on “Wednesday 1 September: It’s not just in Britain where fear has eclipsed reason on face masks”

  2. Mng all, the homework illusions have been handed in:

    SIR – I agree with Tim Stanley about face masks but can confirm that the British are not alone in continuing to wear them.

    On holiday in Portugal – reported to have the highest vaccination rates in Europe – I am amazed to see people of all ages dutifully wearing masks while strolling along the promenade in the fresh sea air.

    I shudder to think how long it will take for the fear instilled by politicians and certain medical experts to recede, so that we can return to normality – free from wholly unnatural muzzling.

    David Barnett
    Newark, Nottinghamshire

    SIR – I agree with Malcolm Wheeler (Letters, August 26) about the benefits of face masks.

    There were fewer cases of influenza last winter. Friends and family also reported far fewer common colds. Since both are transmitted in the same way as Covid-19, it seems highly likely that masks were responsible. Surely it would be sensible to continue to wear them during the winter, particularly in confined places.

    Dr Robert Simpson-White
    Coleford, Gloucestershire

    SIR – A paper published in 2016 by the American National Institutes of Health reviewed previous clinical trials of the use of face masks in operating theatres. It concluded: “Wearing a face mask neither increases nor decreases the number of wound infections following surgical operations.”

    A simple experiment will show why: if a lighted candle is held in front of a mask the flame cannot be extinguished, no matter how hard one blows. However, if the candle is held to the side of the mask it is easily extinguished.

    Moreover, the obstruction of exhaled air by the mask increases its pressure and the distance it will travel. Hence the wearing of a mask will increase the area in which the exhaled air is dispersed. In this context it is interesting that in one clinical trial a slight but not statistically significant increase in infections was associated with the wearing of masks.

    There simply is no sound scientific evidence for the wearing of masks to prevent transmission of infections. On the other hand, a controlled trial is not required to show their dehumanising effect.

    Dr Max Gammon
    London SE16

    SIR – I remember when public transport and entertainment venues such as cinemas had separate areas for smokers and non-smokers.

    Perhaps a similar system should be introduced to cater for those who wear masks and those who don’t.

    Michael Bull
    Grimsby, Lincolnshire

    SIR – After more than 60 years of wearing jeans, I have just discovered that the small pouch in the right-hand pocket is designed to hold my face mask.

    Eric Slater
    Stockport

    Our Vietnam moment

    SIR – The US army reinvented itself after Vietnam. Will there ever be a “Vietnam moment” for the British?

    We seem to have survived a series of military disasters – Northern Ireland, Basra, Helmand – and each time we tinker but do not accept the need for fundamental institutional change.

    Our soldiers are the best but our system does not produce effective leaders. A Green Jacket/SAS forcing house is not the answer. Special forces are important, but it is the bulk of an army that determines success or failure in any serious conflict.

    We are in danger of becoming a militia with no teeth. Two new aircraft carriers offer local air superiority but the Army needs to be able to put more than just boots on the ground.

    Lt Col Richard Hoare (retd)
    Gillingham, Dorset

    SIR – Taliban is a catch-all word for something with a complicated history. In Pashto it means “students” or “seekers”. They developed their beliefs in Pakistan, where many were educated in madrassas and training camps. Many fought as mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

    Their unchanging purpose is to create a purer and more conservative Islamic state run on a strict interpretation of sharia, monitored by religious scholars and enforced by armed groups. The Taliban claim in recent statements that if Afghans live according to this interpretation, they, including girls and women, have nothing to fear – except, of course, the oppressive restrictions that such an interpretation implies.

    It would have helped if the rest of the Islamic world had publicly disowned and discredited the Taliban. This would have been a better way to defeat them than using guns.

    Rev Canon Robin Morrison
    Laleham, Middlesex

    GP system failure

    SIR – I rang my GP at 8am sharp last Saturday. After a 20-minute wait being told I was “second in queue” then “first in queue”, a receptionist answered.

    There were no phone appointments that day, she said, as they had been taken by “emergencies” – all referrals by NHS 111.

    As it seems the only way to access a GP now is via 111, this route will quickly be exhausted too. We’ll then be left with 999 as the only option. And after that?

    Virginia Douglas
    London SW12

    SIR – We have been very grateful that, throughout the pandemic, plumbers and other tradesmen were willing to make face-to-face home visits.

    Catherine Castree
    Fetcham, Surrey

    DVLA efficiency

    SIR – Regarding delays to driving-licence renewals (Letters, August 30), last week, with unerring accuracy and speed, the DVLA managed to pass on my details to an enforcement agency for my first ever parking charge.

    Sue McFadzean
    Swansea

    Why post first class?

    SIR – Why is a first-class letter treated differently from a second-class one (Letters, August 28)?

    Surely both must ultimately be delivered, so is the second-class item purposely delayed by a day?

    I could understand there being a difference when there were two daily deliveries, but that is no longer the case.

    Christopher Lucy
    Cliftonville, Kent

    Fed up with cookies

    SIR – It is right that we are now going to sweep away large amounts of unnecessary EU legislation that burdens businesses and makes us less competitive in the world, but any changes to general data protection must be approached with care (“UK’s break from Brussels over data harvesting”, report, August 27).

    Web cookie requests are a case in point. I can hardly believe that most people just click “accept all” without looking at the options. Some cookies are needed to make a website work properly, for example, by enabling the site to remember what is in your basket before you finalise your order.

    However, most are either to enable the site to create a profile of you from what you look at or search for, or to collect data to sell to “trusted partners” – in other words, any company prepared to pay for data about you so that it can bombard you with advertisements or sell that data on to more shadowy figures.

    It is all rather intrusive. As existing websites already ask for cookie permission, businesses will have to change them to remove that request, but I suspect that they will happily pay for this to be done so that they can collect more data to sell. The public will just have to put up with the consequences.

    Andrew Rixon
    Hertford

    SIR – Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, has said that the new Information Commissioner’s Office will be asked to get rid of “endless cookie pop-ups”.

    The best way to get rid of these pop-ups is to ban cookies altogether. Their only purpose is to gather personal information, and there is no way an individual can control what information is gathered or how it is used.

    Glyn Rodgers
    York

    Vroom with a view

    SIR – Donald MacKenzie’s preference is for reversing into a drive (Letters, August 27).

    I find it safer to drive forwards into my drive, which has high front walls, and reverse out of it. My car, like many, has a boot-mounted wide-angle camera. This allows me an early and good view of the pavement and road. I can see pedestrians (and scooters) before I am out of the drive, rather than poking a bonnet length of car 
out first.

    Neil Ashcroft
    High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

    When did our house become the doghouse?

    SIR – At the age of 74, I can remember, in my childhood and youth, seeing dog kennels outside houses.

    Where have they gone? Dogs seem to have moved inside houses and even bedrooms and are now counted as “members of the family”.

    Anthony Weaver
    London WC2

    Choosing the people to vaccinate against Covid

    SIR – Britain has done very well to vaccinate even those groups beyond the most vulnerable against Covid-19.

    Rather than wasting doses on teenagers who are unlikely to suffer serious illness, shouldn’t we be sending all of our spare vaccines to struggling countries?

    There was a huge Covid surge in Brazil, then a Brazilian variant. Next, there was a huge surge in India, and the delta variant.

    It’s not hard to see where this is going, and indeed that it’s not over until it’s over everywhere.

    Katie Dawson
    Oxford

    SIR – The benefits of vaccinating children against a disease that may well be fatal and cause serious illness in adults is clear.

    There is little benefit to individual children in vaccinating them against Covid-19, as it is almost always a mild illness in this group. However, for decades children have been immunised against rubella. Again it is almost always a mild illness for children but of course it can produce devastating consequences for the unborn child, if contracted by the pregnant mother.

    Surely the incorporation of rubella into the MMR vaccine, where the benefit is to those not receiving the jab, sets a precedent for Covid-19 vaccination.

    Andrew Lyons FRCS
    Chichester, West Sussex

    SIR – I am ambivalent about requiring care home and nursing staff to have vaccinations against Covid-19. But to require one group and not the other to have them is nothing short of double standards.

    It could be argued that as care home residents and NHS patients have the choice to be vaccinated then staff should also have the choice. I have no argument with the prospect that compulsory vaccination will result in the loss of care home staff.

    I despair at this increasingly interventionist and spendthrift Government masquerading as a Conservative Party.

    Trevor Pepper
    St Austell, Cornwall

    1. Wasn’t the Brazilian Variant an endeavour by the US-backed Jair Bolsonaro to clear out the indigenous population, so that gangs of logger, miner and rancher settlers could move in on the jungle and make some serious money?

      Nobody mentions what effect this policy has on British attempts to be “Zero Carbon” by 2030.

  3. Morning everyone. I watched my recording of Agatha Christie’s The Moving Finger last night; the BBC 1985 version with Joan Hickson. These things ought to be turned into Historical Treasures (though it is more than likely that they will be destroyed) since they depict a Lost World. Aside from the lack of Immigrants, Gays etc. there was a peculiar quality of Englishness about it, leafy lanes, rural villages; an Idyllic England. There will be no more of this, no more Christie or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, since they are variations on this theme and soon there will be no one left who remembers what has been. We Nottlers and our ilk are the last of our kind. One would wish that what has been done had resulted in something better but alas Beauty has been replaced with Ugliness and Truth by Lies. Still it was good to have seen it and been a part of it.

    1. The younger people will never know what they have missed as they will not look and listen. Just walk about with their hand held brain.

    2. When I grew up in the 60s and 70s , all the non-indigenous faces were in the Chinese and Indian restaurants, one of each in each of 2 Midlands towns of 50,000+ people that I lived in. I can remember just one non-White face in several thousand school kids over the years. Race didn’t raise its head. All my school friends were White.

      My kids, now in their 20s, grew up in outer London where almost half of their schools was non-White. Race was never an issue to them. Their junior school friends were a mix, but as soon as they hit senior school all of their friends were White, according to them because others preferred their own kind out of school.

      I dislike how my country is being changed against my will, but at the end of the day we are primarily responsible for allowing it to happen. I believe in democracy, but I often wonder if Chinese communism is better long-term. My only consolations are that the young, those happiest with and driving all the nonsense that is going on, will be the ones that suffer most from their actions and that I will be gone before I see my heritage destroyed.

    3. “The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on …….”

      I remember reading Edward FitzGerald’s 1859 translation from Persian to English of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám when I was a boy in the Sixth Form.

    4. Joan Hickson was my favourite of all the many who have played Miss Marple. (e.g.s Margaret Rutherford, Angela Lansbury, Geraldine McKewan, Julia McKenzie etc.)

    6. I like watching old films (pre-1970) that were made on location, especially in the UK. How it was and how it might have remained. How we were, and could still have been.

    7. I thoroughly enjoyed the Joan H. on Monday. Look out for more to come over the following weeks.

      Btw, if you read the original AC novels, you will find a male or female gay character in nearly every one of them.

    1. ‘Morning, Annie. Excellent cartoon!

      Noting that it is set in the Oval Office reminds me to recommend to other Nottlrs the programme 9/11 The President’s War Room shown yesterday evening. It’s a fascinating record of Dubbya’s actions in response to the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon. Particularly poignant is the contribution by Theodore Olsen, whose wife was on the Pentagon aircraft and briefly in contact with him during the hijack. A superb documentary, and presumably still available on iPlayer.

      Afterwards Mrs HJ wondered how it would have gone had Sleepy Joe been in the hot seat. I shudder to think…

  6. Good morning
    some not so bad news…
    I just checked the press releases from New South Wales in Australia, and the one posted here yesterday about digital currency is not among them
    https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases
    So it seems that it is a hoax, though probably anticipating reality by no more than a couple of years….given that Sunak has already started bleating about abolishing cash in the UK, and that he might very well end up as the next Prime Minister.

    1. 338342+ up ticks
      Morning BB2,
      That sounds like the addiction to supporting / voting
      tory (ino) still seeking another Bob Walpole while continuing in its political death spiral, is to continue unabated.
      The whole political shebang tory (ino) led, is i’m afraid,
      leading to beer mats out, prayer mats in.

  10. Good morning, all. Pinch and a punch.

    Good riddance to August, though September has stated grey and went and windy.

    Suits the political shambles that we are living through, really.

  11. No Channel migrants removed from UK this year as enforced returns hit record low. 1 September 2021.

    None of the record 12,500 Channel migrants who have reached the UK so far this year have been removed, with official figures showing enforced returns of all illegal migrants are at a record low.

    Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has been unable to remove Channel migrants even to “safe” third countries where they should have claimed asylum.

    Surprise!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/31/no-channel-migrants-removed-uk-year-asenforced-returns-hit-record/

    1. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has been unable unwilling to remove Channel migrants…

      Closer to the truth.

    2. Why did people vote for these charlatans and liars?

      Of course if no one is ever deported then it is certainly worth the minor inconvenience in good weather of a rubber dinghy channel crossing for more and more illegal immigrants to come to Britain and stay there forever.

      Priti Patel and Boris Johnson are proving to be as incompetent with dealing with the problem as the senile Biden has shown himself to be over Afghanistan.

  13. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Not exactly a fascinating batch of letters today, so I thought I would post an excellent (in my view) BTL comment instead. For me this simply reinforces everything that is wrong about the crazy attempts by this relatively small country to lead the world in the alleged ‘man-made global warming’ nonsense. It seems to me to stem from a combination of virtue-signalling and the ‘green delusion’ that mankind can stop, and even reverse, the changes in our climate that have been happening since time began. Unfortunately our stupid and spineless politicians are completely unable to think for themselves, even when something as obvious as the worst scam in history is staring them in the face:

    Edwin Pugh
    1 Sep 2021 6:22AM
    I posted this very late last night. It is so thought provoking that it’s worth repeating for a wider audience.

    A detailed analysis of the BP data on CO2 emissions by Ed Hoskins comes to these conclusions –

    1. Weather Dependent Renewables, have made very little contribution to CO2 emissions reduction, if at all. When looked at in the round, from their manufacture to demolition, they are hardly CO2 emissions nor energy neutral over their service life.

    2. The use of Biomass for electricity generation, although considered to be “carbon neutral by policy”, actually increases the immediate release of CO2 to the atmosphere, producing almost twice as much CO2 as the use of Coal for power generation. It has been assessed that the whole exercise to substitute Coal firing by Biomass at the UK Drax power plant has negated all the possible CO2 savings that have been made from the extensive installations of Wind and Solar power in the UK.

    3. Western industrial companies will seek more congenial energy / business environments, with laxer attitudes towards CO2 emissions to maintain the performance of their businesses. So, the futility of the expenditure of vast resources on Green activities in Europe and throughout the Western world is clear.

    4. The self-harming actions of the Western Governments in response to Alarmist Green thinking are already causing gross risks to Western energy security by the imposition of unreliable and intermittent Weather Dependent Renewables. These policies will result in substantially increased costs for private energy users and in addition they will severely damage the economics of all Western manufacturing industries.

    5. When the changes in Global CO2 emissions over the past 30 years are set against the measured of Global CO2 concentration records from Mauna Loa, it can be seen that changes in Man-made CO2 emissions have not caused any appreciable inflection in the Keeling curve. [The Keeling Curve is a daily record of global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration maintained by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.]

    Bear in mind that despite protestations from certain quarters evidence for man-made warming exists only in computers.

    Finally let me say that I have no problem if people disagree with this providing they say what it is they disagree with and why. What I have a big problem with is those who disagree and use the difference of opinion to abuse both my intelligence and motives.

    1. Can’t, won’t argue with Edwin Pugh’s scientific analysis, however, I see the drivers for climate change as political with control of people’s lives as the end game. CV-19 and climate change, two cheeks of the same arse.

      1. Precisely. Greta Thunberg has already linked her potential attendance at the climate conference conditional on all attendees being double vaccinated. The climate agenda will be foisted on us by the same medicos responsible for the vaccines.

    2. 338342+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,

      Unfortunately our stupid and spineless politicians are completely unable to think for themselves, even when something as obvious as the worst scam in history is staring them in the face:

      Why are they and their parties lab/lib/con (ino) returned to power time after time after time after time with NO opposition being built ?

      In numbers who has the highest number in the stupid / spineless department, the politico’s / electorate ?

      1. Stone me, the rest must have been a bit rubbish! Nevertheless, I accept your congratulations, BoB.

  14. UK pledge to take 20,000 Afghan refugees could create ‘pull effect for migrants’. 1 September 2021.

    Britain’s commitment to rehome 20,000 Afghans risks creating a “pull effect for migrants”, Germany suggested on Tuesday as it ruled out plans for an EU-wide target.

    Britain has promised to rehome 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan in the coming years, with 5,000 arriving this year.

    The eventual numbers will far exceed this!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/31/uk-pledge-take-20000-afghan-refugees-could-create-pull-effect/

    1. 338342+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      The numbers will equate with the number of £ notes
      regarding the final tally of HS2, then some.

      1. There was a piece on the local news about a builders’ merchant in the Black Country grumbling that HS2 has been sucking away his supplies, along with the big developers on preferential Government contracts, and that he has precious little stock for his customers at a reasonable price.

      1. Morning Stephen. It will like Cuba offer the possibility of getting rid of all the worst elements from the prisons!

    3. Is the time coming when Russia and China will consider bombing ISIS terrorist targets in Britain ?

      1. Morning Harry. I would not be at all surprised if China took the opportunity to seize Taiwan.

        1. Its not something i’ll lose a lot of sleep over.
          It will just be reclaiming what was once part of China.

          1. Yes… but most of our CPU manufacturing is in Taiwan.

            And storage. And RAM. As well as a huge amount of PC and electronics manufacturing generally – such as routers, firewalls, telecoms kit.

            We trust Taiwan because it’s not Chinese. Would you trust a core router made with a Chinese chip in it and – because it’s China; a remote update back end?

    4. And then they’ll start breeding.

      Where will they live? Junior’s primary school has 24 pupils in his class, and his is quite small. Add in another couple of Afghan children – who won’t likely speak English and you’re just adding a burden to an already overstretched system.

      Here is the wrong place. Financial support, maybe but to an Arab country, like Dubai.

      1. A teaching assistant will be assigned to each child.
        Hey ho – it’s only taxpayers’ money.

    5. And nobody thought to ask the indigenous population if this is what they want or need.

      The Taliban is not entirely alone in thinking that democracy is a waste of time – all our politicians think so too.

      .

      1. Very true. Did you happen to listen to the full version of the interview which Cummings gave to Laura K? Third part he says that our Democracy is broken and our Party system is broken. The present politicians will not mend either because it is in their interests for the status quo to remain as it keeps them in power.

          1. I am thank you kind sir. Moved house – No 1 Son living with me (his partner threw him out), Grandkids here last week. I did discover that on Grandma between three kids at the adventure playground does not work – especially when the smallest is a determined 2yo girl who thinks she can do whatever her big brothers do.

    6. I was never aware that 20,000 Afghans were assisting the British forces in Afghanistan.

      Did I miss something?

  17. Good morning Nottlers, it’s blue skies and sunshine through my kitchen window. I’m off to Walsall (via Cumbernauld to pick up the groom’s parents) for the weekend, as my friends Tam and Nessa finally get the chance to celebrate their nuptials.
    Looking forward to seeing friends old and new. Just hope I can remember my password when I check in again next week.
    Have fun in my absence, I intend to!

      1. I don’t wear one as I read and understood the massive loopholes in the Government website. 😉

    5. I have been to Cumbernauld. Not on purpose. I took a wrong turning off the motorway and ended up in the deserted car park at the back of the Shopping Centre. I sat and cried until a nice man came along and told me how to escape get back to the motorway.
      In 2001 the judges of the Carbuncle Awards for bad architecture described the Shopping Centre as “a structure that would not look out of place in Kabul”. See for yourself, below.

      For more information, please see “The Idler Book of Crap Towns”, Jordison/Kieran, pub Boxtree 2003. Be it noted that Cumbernauld is ranked as the next-to worst Crap Town in the UK.
      Good Luck and Best Wishes.

      https://multipliciudades.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/cumbernauld_multipliciudades_2.jpg

      2. Fortunately his folks live on the northern edge of the Old Village. It’s a quick in and out

  18. ‘Morning again.

    Alison Pearson on very good form:

    Has Gavin Williamson failed his next big test before schools have even gone back?
    Parents are steeling themselves for yet more chaos and disruption, as unions make ever more unreasonable demands of a government they hate

    ALLISON PEARSON
    31 August 2021 • 7:00pm

    There are some battles that are waged from generation to generation. Take that perennial source of mother-daughter conflict: school shoes. My friend Clare – who took an excited 11-year-old Olivia shopping at the weekend for this week’s big return to the classroom – considers shiny leather brogues to be appropriate footwear. “Mu-uuum, get real!” sighed Olivia (major eye-roll). The daughter pointed out that everyone wears black trainers to school. Which her mum hates, obviously, because trainers in school look slovenly, or slatternly, words our mothers used to shame us into conformity but are probably banned now, on account of them being true.

    Clare didn’t put up much of a fight in the Shoe Wars this year. Like millions of parents, she thinks her children have suffered enough over the past 18 months. Before lockdown, Olivia’s big brother was mad about sport. Freddie loved vice-captaining the school football team and going to the gym with his dad. When all that was banned, the 14-year-old gradually stopped eating because he was worried about putting on weight. Five months ago, Freddie was admitted to an eating disorder unit with anorexia nervosa. He weighed two stone less than his little sister, just one of the hundreds of thousands of previously happy, healthy youngsters eaten up with anxiety during lockdown.

    According to shocking NHS figures released this week, in 2020 there were 231,791 prescriptions for antidepressants issued to children aged between five and 16. Those youngsters have temporarily been numbed with drugs because there simply aren’t enough mental-health professionals to cope with them all.

    You can see why Clare isn’t making a fuss about inappropriate footwear, can’t you? One angry mother, she says she is keeping her powder dry to fight the school, the teaching unions and the “spineless” Gavin Williamson (one of Clare’s politer words for the Secretary of State for Education), if and when they try to deny her son and daughter access to a normal education.

    Clare has lost track of exactly how many school days her kids have missed, but she knows that, what with the constant ‘pinging’, Freddie and Olivia have spent more time at home since March 2020 than in the classroom. Before the schools broke up for the summer, around one million children were in forced isolation, although only 47,000 had tested positive for Covid.

    The start of this new term should be a chance for kids to put a miserable year and a half of disrupted education behind them… but not if the teaching unions have anything to do with it.

    Before the first school gate has even squeaked open, families have been warned to expect “significant disruption” and a reintroduction of tougher Covid measures by the end of September, because of a rise in “cases”. Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: “We have much higher prevalence now in the community […] so we’re going in with much higher rates of prevalence into schools where we are relying on one mitigation, which is lateral flow testing. In Scotland, they have not abandoned the safety precautions: they have still maintained social distancing where possible, they are still, in secondary schools, using masks.”

    Yes, Mary, Scotland has certainly kept stricter measures in place and has been rewarded with the highest rate of Covid in Europe. England and Wales could quite reasonably put Scotland on the red list and I’m sure readers would agree that a period of isolation for Nicola Sturgeon is devoutly to be wished. Perhaps a wee berth could be found for the First Minister in that nuclear submarine on Vigil?

    “My prediction,” cackles Bousted, stirring her cauldron of eye of newt and heavily unionised toad, “is that very shortly we are going to see schools all over the country in their hundreds having to operate contingency frameworks. But what you’re doing there is shutting the stable door after the Covid horse has bolted.”

    Well, at least she’s right about one thing. According to the Office for National Statistics, back in May, some 40 per cent of children of school age had had Covid, most of them without even noticing. That figure could be well over 50 per cent by now. The Covid stallion has not just escaped the stable, it is gambolling about the fields, tossing its mane, neighing the theme tune to Champion the Wonder Horse and generally spreading pathogens like billy-o.

    What the dunces of the NEU don’t understand – or rather, for political reasons, what they are choosing not to understand – is that this is A Good Thing. The infection survival rate for the under-19s is 99.9973 per cent. A child is more likely to be struck by lightning than to die of Covid. The damage from losing months more learning, however, is incalculable and life-long.

    Why are we still mass-testing healthy children with Innova’s rapid lateral flow test, which is about to be discontinued in the US after a scathing FDA report found it was so unreliable it should be thrown in the bin? The test’s apparent inability to distinguish between Covid and flu will, all too predictably, cause havoc in the winter months ahead.

    As Carl Heneghan, Oxford’s professor of evidence-based medicine, tells this week’s Planet Normal podcast (which you can listen to below), there will inevitably be a spike in cases within two or three weeks of schools going back. “If we hold our nerve, that won’t be a problem. If we panic and introduce restrictions again, cases will flatten for a bit, but then we’ll be in the same old pickle as before.”

    You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that keeping case figures high, by this constant testing of school children, is quite convenient for certain people’s agendas. The unions are delighted because they can use it as leverage to make ever more unreasonable demands of a hated Tory government. After a vociferous campaign by staff representatives for better classroom ventilation, Gavin Williamson has just given schools £25 million to spend on 300,000 CO2 monitors to alert staff and students “if fresh air is failing to circulate”. Gav may not be not the brightest bulb, but did no one think to tell him about the traditional, free method of infection control? It’s called “Opening the Window”.

    Don’t be ridiculous, Marjorie, that would be far too sensible, and it might give the (correct) impression that Covid was now no worse than any of the handful of viruses that Heneghan says a child can be expected to get every single year as it develops a first-class immune system.

    For a Government that is unaccountably keen to push through the vaccination of 12-to-15-year-olds, high case numbers are also something of a boon. They sound scary, when they really aren’t, if Covid hospitalisations remain manageable. The latest research from Israel found that the twice-jabbed can both be infected by Covid and pass it on – so vaccinating kids, who don’t require protection against severe symptoms as older people do, is doubly futile.

    According to that same study, vaccine-induced immunity starts to wane after six months. In which case, why waste millions of vaccines on youngsters who don’t need them and who could suffer rare side effects? Let’s push on with an urgent booster programme for residents of care homes, who are among our most vulnerable citizens and account for a third of all Covid deaths.

    Believe it or not, it is perfectly possible to end the UK’s pandemic panic. Germany has announced that it will no longer count the number of positive cases as a reason to introduce restrictions. Denmark will lift all remaining Covid measures by September 10, after the country’s health minister said the virus was “no longer a critical threat to society” because of the country’s high level of vaccination.

    Both those nations are moving into the next phase, which is accepting that the virus is endemic and they must learn to live with it. Fortunate German and Danish children continue their schooling as usual. Even though a staggering 94.2 per cent of adults in England have Covid antibodies, such a mature, evidence-based approach seems to be beyond our own nation. Teaching unions are allowed to behave like spoilt brats, effectively demanding zero Covid so their members feel “safe” and sod the pupils suffering from depression and eating disorders while standards of education plummet.

    So Williamson has put on his Iron Man Y-fronts and told the teaching unions that they have delighted us long enough with their juvenile antics and he will impose severe measures on any school which dares to send its pupils home on the basis of one positive case, where the sick child hasn’t even got any symptoms?

    Er, no. The Secretary of State has passed the buck onto parents, saying they have a “responsibility” to make sure that their children are tested regularly. The parents I speak to are utterly confused about the latest guidance, wondering whether contact with a positive case (a festival-going elder sibling, natch!) two days ago matters when the LFT daily test they have to show at school on Day One says their child is negative. A colleague with younger kids sums it up thus: “Do they need this test or that test? Can’t we just send them in and bugger it?”

    The mood among mothers and fathers is increasingly mutinous. Stacks of tests, brought home from school last term, gather dust in the kitchen before being sent to landfill. “We get the cat to take our family’s tests,” joked one reader. “He does not like it, but we always test negative.” At least I think he was joking.

    Tomorrow morning, when Olivia starts secondary school in her new black trainers, I hope she has a lovely day, talking to her teachers, playing with her friends. She deserves a normal education. Every child in the country deserves a normal education after what they’ve been through. Freddie, Olivia’s brother, is out of the eating-disorder unit and doing well, thank goodness. Mass testing in schools will only prolong their nightmare. If they miss any more school, Williamson should be sacked faster than you can say “Open a window!”

    I have seen this described as the Government’s NUM moment. We know how Mrs Thatcher dealt with Arthur Scargill. Boris must stand up and show Bousted who runs Britain or children will go on being sacrificed to appease the insatiable gods of the teaching unions. Enough is enough.

    1. Then you’d have kids getting cold, or some other wheeze.

      You think… it’s only £25 million. Not a lot really. The NHS burns through that in about 11 seconds. Yet then you think…. hmmm.. did we need these things? What’re they for? Who benefits? Who’s paying?

      1. Too often certain types associate freezing, hurricane draughts with “fresh air”. I loathe them. They frequently sit holding tissues to their red runny noses, coughing coughs like the great liquid burps of sperm whales.
        When one points out that Eskimoes live at a constant temperature of 72 Degrees Fahrenheit, they look at you blankly.

    2. This subject came up in conversation at Allan Towers yesterday.
      We also compared it to Maggie having to take on the unions.
      And then became very depressed.

  19. 338342+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Very little changes, if anything, remember the two female MPs conversing with PIE in the 70s NO good comes from this type of rhetoric it’s final outcome is innocent children / adults get injured / killed.

    Dt,
    MI6 holds talks with Taliban to prevent terrorists plotting attacks from Afghanistan
    Exclusive: Move comes amid growing concern over threat posed to British security by Afghanistan’s new militant regime.

    Way to go is to trigger with serious intent, a political deportation program,
    when judged to be down to a satisfactory level, say around 650 OUT then
    begin with the mass uncontrolled immigrants numbers.

    People power WILL work, just need the conversion kit, from stinkers to thinkers within the polling booth.

    1. Britain is not going fast enough on the third shot. I reckon they don’t want people to wake up, so it will be mandatory by next year, with the tacit assumption that an annual jab is normal.
      Even the most gullible might get suspicious at 3 shots in one year in order to keep their privileges!

      1. 338342+ up ticks.
        BB2,
        I see it as the yearly covid jab will eventually morph into
        6 months, going on 3 months then monthly,leading to
        weekly then “You do NOT leave the house without your daily jab”

        They, the political know betterers will STILL find the support of fools.

  21. This morning the house martins were again swirling and birling outside. I made one further attempt to photograph them. Mostly useless. Here are a couple that begin to convey what was happening, but not that there were a couple of dozen martins involved.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b18a7dbe702b199a11b5d8ff7047e8e7693f9e766c26e1836ebbbbeadc4572e4.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/461873aafb317164e93ec3a385547b42582d06477e1a5d2793439336e3766c1e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/512bc45babd6bc2c42761daf1845bf1baf234f02e66cef5064f82e9cc984eb2d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eedd2d50b978c233375d2b1eecb9f1c358ba17dad99912657257c5291a3bd0e7.jpg

      1. Good morning TB.
        We also noticed that there are fewer than last year. The numbers do vary. Fewer arrived than usual. The journey takes its toll. With luck we will be able to count them on the telephone wires as they sit contemplating their departure, as they also make sure that they are all there. Usually they leave around the 16th September. It has not been a good summer and they may leave a little earlier. This year the sparrows harassed them, destroying at least one nest.

        1. We don’t have them nesting but they always used the wires and practiced their flying skills for a week or two before leaving.

          1. It’s wonderful to see. We had four nests this year and one swallow’s nest. We have had six house martin nests some years. With two broods the departing flock from our house numbered over forty.

        2. There haven’t been many insects around, farmers spray their fields , mega dairies who keep their dairy cattle in huge sheds, which then create slurry , which stinks like hell, probably affect moth/butterfly/ bees/ and any insect that relies on scent .

          We have had no flying ants, no wasps and no ladybirds. A neighbour and I had a long discussion about this .

          The countryside is full of traffic, people stay cationing , littler, people trampling everywhere , yet what percentage give a jot about their countryside , no they don’t and the evidence of the tons of rubbish left behind after music festivals , on the beaches and our green spaces is shocking .

          I have a garden full of sunflowers , and blossoms that insects love , broadleaf trees line the various driveways here .. but there are fields probably over a hundred yards from us . The have been hay making over the past few days , later on in the year sheep will graze, and probably before Christmas early lambs will be bleating for their mothers .

          1. The Scottish government is spending a fortune encouraging tourists without spending a penny on infrastructure or facilities. The locals in places like Skye and Ross-shire are fed up with the mess, and the roads blocked by motorhomes and caravans.
            We have not seen coloured butterflies, only cabbage whites. We planted buddleia a few years ago and we have usually seen Red Admirals and Peacocks, but nothing this year. The weather was bad just at the time we might have expected them to appear, I think. The air is full of the stuff farmers spray.

          3. Remind me not to take my motorhome up to Skye and Ross-shire to spend my money in the local economy in that case.

          4. Depends when you go. Some times will be busier than others. I’ve never seen any real evidence that tourism money improves the economy for ordinary people. The “studies” and “business plans” are mostly conjecture, and are often prepared to justify a planned decision. I’ve read the case for the Border Railway. It does not really stand up.

        3. There haven’t been many insects around, farmers spray their fields , mega dairies who keep their dairy cattle in huge sheds, which then create slurry , which stinks like hell, probably affect moth/butterfly/ bees/ and any insect that relies on scent .

          We have had no flying ants, no wasps and no ladybirds. A neighbour and I had a long discussion about this .

          The countryside is full of traffic, people stay cationing , littler, people trampling everywhere , yet what percentage give a jot about their countryside , no they don’t and the evidence of the tons of rubbish left behind after music festivals , on the beaches and our green spaces is shocking .

          I have a garden full of sunflowers , and blossoms that insects love , broadleaf trees line the various driveways here .. but there are fields probably over a hundred yards from us . The have been hay making over the past few days , later on in the year sheep will graze, and probably before Christmas early lambs will be bleating for their mothers .

    2. Every year at the end of August we had hundreds of Martins gathering on the wires here. Until last year. What has happened to them?

      1. I don’t know. The chosen route will present risks. Malta and the Mediterranean coast present real dangers as migrating birds are deliberately trapped in nets. (Some sport!). Also the sparrows have been getting more aggressive year on year. After the martins leave the sparrows destroy their nests. This year the sparrows got started earlier.

      2. Exactly the same here, Ndovu. We hardly saw any last year. A few more though this year. Perhaps it is a dearth of insects that is the problem? And the hazards en route.

    3. When I was staying on a nature reserve near Pukon in Southern Chile in November (Chilean Spring) I was fascinated every day by the antics of the martins. A flock of about 100 or more would gather in a particular tree by the lake. Then suddenly, as if responding to a signal, they would take off, fly around for a few minutes, then reassemble in the tree. This was repeated all day, every day, all the time i was there.

  22. Dear God!!
    It gets sillier by the minute…..from the Express.

    TALIBAN spokesman Suhail Shaheen faced a tense grilling from Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid on the criminal conduct of members of his organisation since the retaking of Kabul.

    1. Did she ask him about their green credentials and when the Doom Goblin was rocking up in Kabul to put them on the path to enlightenment?

  23. And a 2nd Good Morning to all.
    A bit bleary eyed after my early morning session, but it’s an overcast dry & dull Derbyshire with 10°C in the yard.

      1. Woke up to pump bilges and, as the DT was also awake, decided to do a mug of tea each.
        Very enjoyable, but it does leave one knackered in the morning.

  24. Good morning all,

    14C here , dull and grey with low clouds , the sort of bumpy looking clouds you feel when reducing in height coming into land (in an aircraft)

    On a more cheerful note , we heard the church bells ringing , their first practise last night since last year .

    I have to say I felt quite tearful , why I don’t know , the same sort of feeling when you hear the night jars chirr or the first cuckoo, or the toot from a steam train , normality , and hoping now that all is well .

    1. Ours started ringing a few weeks ago, Belle, for bell-ringing practice. Such a timeless sound, very English, it made me emotional when I heard it for the first time again in over a year early July. It sets Poppie off barking when she hears it “it’s the bells again!”

  25. 338342+ up ticks,
    They only have to look across the pond to the UK to see a world leader in Country’s treacherous rapid decline, politically orchestrated from within , then support & vote accordingly.

    Dt,
    The US may struggle to recover from Joe Biden’s weakness
    The US is a country with an enormous capacity for renewal, yet its dynamism and confidence are fading

    2. Operation Warm Welcome eh? I thought that was a spoof when I first read it.
      Operation Didn’t Ask Voters more like.

      1. very approximate figures: 5% of UK population is muslim, but 15% of the prison population.
        15% of UK population is BAME, but 25% of the prison population is BAME.
        Figures are approximate because convicts are allowed to ‘self identify’.
        Very few Hindus in jail.

        1. I have not seen any breakdown of the 8000? Afghans brought back here. How many men under 35, how many women and children under 10.

    1. Unfortunately, the Australian team can only leave their houses for an hour a day – so the 5-day Test will take some months.

      1. Providing Soma for the masses. Rules don’t apply to them. And if they collapse on the pitch, they will be scraped up very quickly and everyone must know that they have not had the vaccine!

    2. A few of the Afghan lads have been playing white-ball cricket in England this year.
      They have one really good leg-spinner.

    3. Any Australian who scores a boundary when batting or gets an Afghan out when fielding will be shot with an US firearm!

    4. Any Australian who scores a boundary when batting or gets an Afghan out when fielding will be shot with an US firearm!

  30. Reading Lesson

    Read this out loud one sentence after another…..

    This is this cat.
    This is is cat.
    This is how cat.
    This is to cat
    This is keep cat.
    This is an old cat.
    This is idiot cat.
    This is busy cat.
    This is for cat.
    This is forty cat.
    This is seconds cat.

    Now go back and read only the third word of each sentence one after the other

    1. Gus and Pickles manage that by demanding that I open the front door and then NOT going out.

        1. Always on the wrong side of the door…!
          Good morning all! Beautiful sunny start to September! Very mellow!

          2. Sorry about that, Ndovu! It makes up (a teeny bit) for having Nikeliar doing crazy deals with the loony, Marxist green nutters!

      2. My cat does exactly the same thing but then, on opening the door, rushes back to the front room and waits for treats. Caticus Khan, which is his name, is addicted to Felix Crispies.

  32. An answer to a question I have long wondered about is to whom the interest on our National debt is paid . On the BBC radio 4 programme which checks official and private claims on various topics the answer is that the Bank of England is the recipient. I am sure that the interest rate in this case is not 0.01%.

    2. I thought it is the interest paid out on government bonds? So, the owners of bonds issued by the British government, or as Bill says, probably mostly China.

      1. It was the National Debt they were discussing and the the taxpayer was paying the accumulating interest on. The government is able to delay the payments as long as the BoE allows. This apparently happens in other countries.

  33. Completely OT. I had to use an anagram finder this morning.

    The jumble of letters produced the answer: “Destructiveness”. But ALSO “Student services” – which seemed very apt!!

  34. The sad reality of politicians prescribing “medication” as opposed to medical professionals doing so for people’s health. Sadly, medical professionals are going along with inoculating people even though these professionals cannot deny that a risk of serious injury or death never before seen from an inoculation campaign can result from their actions. Mind boggling!

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1432654153252212737

    1. I had a text just now telling me our surgery would soon be inviting me for my ‘annual’ flu jab and covid booster. As last year was the first time I’d bothered with the flu jab I’m not inclined to make it an annual event.

      1. I’ve never had a flu jab. Some 3 (?) years ago, I agreed to a shingles jab which lasts a lifetime.
        We took two for the team last winter to help free our grandchildren. We’ll not be bothering again.

        1. A letter from my Pharmacy arrived this morning. Telling me as a valued customer i only need to make an appointment for a Free Flu jab.

          Straight in the bin.

        2. I had the shingles jab a month ago – so did OH. I had it in 2019 and it was quite unpleasant so I don’t want it again. Last year I had the flu jab for the first time but I won’t this year.

      2. I’m not taking this year’s flu jab: I cannot in all honesty trust what this government is peddling as health care.

  35. 338342+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Will the UK really begin animal testing again?

    I thought the animals were now safe seeing as the political elites had transferred the testing to peoples.

  36. Does anywhere have sunshine at the moment? We have had low, thick, stratus type, all over clouds here for days and days. Is it just East Anglia?

    2. Morning PM

      As I said earlier , the low cloud here has that bumpy look. No sign of any sunshine .

      We are still watering the gardenplants , hasn’t rained for ages .

    4. Morning all and poppiesmum! West Sussex here and it is gloomy grey clouds. We had about two hours of sunshine yesterday, in the evening but that’s about it for several days now. But it’s not to cold here. Unlike several people here I have yet to turn the heat on.

    8. Warm (23ºC) and sunny with clear blue skies here all week in southern Sweden. Set to continue into the weekend.

    9. Extreme heat, wild fires, mosquitos, ebola, all grannys dead by the end of the week, oh hang on, thats the met office observation. Looking out of my window, dull and cold in South Wales, some would say its like that all year round.

      1. ‘Morning KP, “… dull and cold in South Wales”

        ‘Twas ever thus when I lived in Pencoed

  37. Another question on the Radio 4 programme this morning was challenging the £millions of pounds cost to the local authority of an Extinction Rebellion protest . When looked at carefully the cost was found likely to have been more than the advertised cost when taking in the collateral costs.. The police seem to be taking more effort to control the protest today

        1. Natch!

          PS Re the tomatoes – I don’t know whether Carolyn said this but the end product is about half the original. 5 lb of toms = 2½ lb of sauce.

          1. They seem to have stopped ripening now the weather’s turned so miserable and cold. I will see how much I have.

          2. If they DON’T ripen – pick (with green bit on) – place in cardboard box between sheets of newspaper.Close box – look each week. You’ll be amazed!

  38. Good Morning Friends,

    I thought I would just pop in and make sure that you are all well and happy 🙂

      2. Hiya Phizz.

        My back is an ongoing problem – not helped at all by my insisting or heaving bales of hay around 🙂

        Nevermind – keeps my chiropractor in business.

        1. Have you tried stretches? Up dog and cat stretch help my lower back.

          Of course, losing 20 kilos would help a lot more.

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a79c8fab12584753efc1df23c0eaf5c2ccbbb312083ceeb582332bbe23d5c59.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98dd36d253f4f20544c3e4ac8334bdff6e284e3282fd168c085bc2d78b664464.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d6a7e31b7401327982fdd55fafd358a5616ab3d0baab9fb236dbc76ccc2bb80.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/36b0c0c3f52eff7a7c97bb6abb5e4786e63ea38bfa6630143f97a2aa1ee65ab4.jpg
    The female pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca that has been entertaining me in the garden all week has moved on. It seems to have been replaced by an equally delightful female common redstart Pheonicurus phoenicurus. We’re enjoying gloriously warm weather all this week so snapping them was not problematic.

        1. We’re promised some rain for the weekend. It’s been dull and dry for almost a week now. Last Thursday was the last sunny day.

          1. That’s not so certain now. The dry weather looks like hanging on a bit longer.

            August has been dry here in Northants. It’s only because it’s been so cool and cloudy that the countryside hasn’t turned brown.

    2. Little feller, George, in the first photograph, looks like he’s got the right hump with the world.

      Probably why he flew away.

  41. DM Story
    Ofcom CLEARS Piers Morgan over his criticism of Meghan Markle: Watchdog calls attempts to silence him a ‘chilling restriction on freedom of expression’ after he said he ‘didn’t believe a word’ of her claims in Oprah interview

    The Daily Mail is claiming that this is a great victory for free speech but my impression is that free speech is the last thing our politicians want us to have.

    “Piers Morgan dismissed Meghan Markle’s claims about suffering racism and being suicidal as a serving royal. He said: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she says. I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report’

    More than 57,000 people including the Duchess of Sussex complained to Ofcom about the GMB presenter. The Regulator rejected complaints on racism, being unsuitable to children, as well as suicide and mental health.

    Ofcom has ruled the programmes on March 8 and 9 ‘contained sufficient challenge’ and protected viewers ITV’s CEO Dame Carolyn McCall is under pressure to explain why she failed to defend the star broadcaster.”

    Piers Morgan apparently asks if he will be given his job back!

  42. Following on from Andrew Adonis and his ‘Rejoin’ campaign, here’s another piece of indulgence.

    Andrew Adonis declares Brexit settlement unstable during The Independent’s referendum anniversary event

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-andrew-adonis-referendum-eu-b1871893.html

    Few would argue that there is much wrong with the deal that needs to be put right but not by rejoining. David Gauke, champion Remainer, thinks there’ll be another referendum. The panel agreed “…that Theresa May took a wrong turning early on in her premiership by defining Brexit as its hardest form, which made it hard to compromise thereafter.” WHAT?!

    Retarded, the lot of ’em.

      1. There isn’t much to read (it’s a link to a video) but it isn’t necessary to do so. It merely serves to demonstrate that some have been completely unhinged by Brexit (if they weren’t beforehand).

      2. Besides which people clutching at straws like Adonis are obviously mentally unstable. There is no way that Britain is going to re-join the EU, anymore than the Titanic is going to be re-floated. He is a Don Quixote tilting at nothing.

        1. Any government could rejoin without a referendum.
          There is a precedent, there was no referendum in 1972, and we joined formally 1st January 1973.
          Look at the way governments have ridden roughshod over our rights for years. There are plenty of people in power and in the media who would rejoin with alacrity, given half a chance.
          Our best hopes remain the collapse of the EU under its own steam or the likely refusal to allow us back except on terms that even Adonis wouldn’t agree to.

          1. I’ve given the EU 2 years before it implodes – the Euro will be first, devalued to naught within a year and then the EU becomes unsustainable.

            Am I just wishing?

          3. In which case it would be time to leave the UK forever.

            I was thinking of rejoining terms that included total free movement, compulsory allocation of refusegees (sic), the Euro, higher contributions, loss of UK parliament, loss of veto, independent Scotland Wales and NI to break up the UK, Jersey Guernsey Alderney etc allocated to France, Gibraltar granted to Spain, A President rather than monarch, appointed by Brussels as head of state for England.

    2. And clearly intent on sabotaging this country. May’s Brexit was so much a capitulation it was comical. I suppose the only Brexit those two would accept is rejecting it and full blown Eu membership.

      It’s tiresome that such people infest politics. Why can we not sack them and revoke their accesses, should they be found doing back room deals then they’re punished.

    3. Why don’t we have a ‘bump them off brigade’ of ex robust SAS or trusty marines.
      This country needs a good clear out.

      1. I honestly believe that a vast amount of our population, now, on hearing of a plot to rid us of our treacherous govt by permanent means – would NOT report it. A lot of people would not “see or hear ANYTHING.”

        1. That’s the major problem, Walter, we are ripe for a revolution but the sheepish, brain-washed populace cannot or will not see it. They are afraid.

      3. Increasingly it seems no one is allowed to die. Maybe that’s because the state sees death as a way to claw as much of the dying person’s assets as possible.

    4. Is it really only two years ago that I would have thought “how great, a new advance in medical treatment?”
      How quickly one becomes cynical! and how hard it is to regain trust, once lost.

    5. …and if you don’t have a cholesterol problem…?

      Does this mean that Statins, pushed by Big Pharma, through your GP, don’t work?

      1. A medic on BBC Radio 4 this morning was asked your question. He said there will still be a need for statins.

      2. Nope, my cholesterol was zero last check, but the NHS have now run out of Blood sample tubes or something equally as daft.

    6. And the salt replacement saving ???? lives too – – very soon it coild lead to an overcrowding problem.

    2. Last time I was there, Bill, it was the Castle Museum (1950s) Crome and Cotman were an adjunct to the rest of the Museum.

      Does the Castle still function as a museum or is this English history that must be suppressed?

    1. On the BBC London News two evenings ago it was widely announced that a lot of now farm land in Essex was deemed to be built on, Basildon and Harlow. I’m not sure how these apart from secretive devious boundary changes became London Burroughs but his is what we are all up against, slime bag lying politicians who don’t seem to care a jot for other peoples traditions principles and established social structure.
      As i have pointed out many times previously, this is not conducive to cutting carbon emissions. These horrible devious treasonous and out-rightly dishonest people in Westminster and Whitehall are all in this together, they don’t care about anyone else’s opinions.

  46. Thankyou all for the good wishes yesterday we had a 3 hour lunch at a Thai restaurant with our number three and his lady. The others were previously occupied with work. So it was much less expensive for Daddy.

    Aeneas.
    What a coincidence about the MGs. Mine had quite a story to it. It was bronze Yellow with a sunroof and my sister husband, as in brother-in-law, put his arm in the passenger window as we were about to drive off to leave the reception and guests’ tipped bags of confetti in I don’t think i ever got rid of it all.
    I had to get rid of mine, soon after we had married along side the home improvements the mortgage etc. It was also when the price of fuel went through the roof as well. There is a FB MG section I’ve been on the lookout for mine for a few years i’m not sure it’s still on the road. YYT 6H.
    Before i met my now wife I bought it from a guy in Chelsea I lived in Whetstone Narff Lunnon at the time. I Paid 1200 pounds for it it was just under two years old.
    Back in 2007 when I was still working as a carpenter/builder, I had been recommended to a guy in our Hertfordshire village. He wanted a tricky ground floor extension built under a mile from where we live. The guy’s brother was an architect and we had to sign a contract, after doing so, we sat in his garden with some tea and cake and started chatting about music. I told him about all the bands and clubs i had seen and visited in the 70s we got onto cars i told him i had owned a souped up wide wheeled black Mini. He told me he had owned a MGB GT and something about him in particular clicked in my head. I asked him a few questions, did it have a sunroof, spot lights, wire wheels. And he said yes, I then grabbed a piece of paper and wrote YYT 6H on it turned it around and showed it to him. He nearly had a fit and it was indeed the guy I had brought the car from 35 years plus previously. He rushed in and came out with a photo album and showed me several pictures of it out side his Chelsea flat. Some with young ladies sitting on the bonnet. We are still good friends today, I have carried out quite a few other jobs for him.

    1. Eddy, I bought my MG (FTK 676E) when it was 7 years old. I was green then (like the car!) and didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. I had it for four years and had to sell it not long after I got married as I couldn’t afford the constant expense!

      I parked it near the reception venue in the hope that the wedding guests wouldn’t find it and ‘decorate’ it. No such luck – they found it and tied tin cans to the rear and wrote ‘Just married’ in shaving foam on the bonnet. Bad idea – the soap burnt its way into the paintwork and it took me ages to polish it out!

      The good times in the car just about cancel out the thought of the constant expense. Driving down country lanes in the Summer with the cloth sun-roof back brings back happy memories. Sigh.

      1. Did you check to see if it’s still on the road, you would be surprised to see how many still are.

        1. It looks as though it was last taxed back in 1984, so probably was scrapped 6 years after I sold it.

      2. I bought my first MG when I was 25 (insurance on a sports car was unaffordable before then and I drove Minis!). It was blue and I still had it when I got married five years later. It was “decorated” with a heart and “just married” plus tin cans, but fortunately, my sister-in-law used Windolene.

      1. The Vitesse was a decent car, one of my mates girlfriends had one, bright Red, she used to take 6 of us to country pubs, coming home was always a bit hairy she liked to prove she could handle the drink and drive in those days.
        I was hoping to buy a TR5 2.5 pi but the boots are too small. And the wheel arch wing tops rusted too easily. My real goal was an Austin Healey 3000 but way out of my price range.
        I took lessons in Herald and passed my test in it.

        1. The Vitesse was a Herald with attitude. I do remember being at lights just outside Staines with a BMW revving like an idiot next to me – lights change, I boot it and BMW is left in my dust. 2 litre straight six with twin webers was awesome.

  47. 338342+ up ticks,
    Not long now thanks to the voting pattern we will have a leveled out society, then along with FGM, ritual murder, the ” party Member ” after showing proof of 27 jabs will be accepted as a prime candidate for facial scarring ( tribal marks) IDs as “party” logo, needed to obtain a higher position within.

    https://twitter.com/NKrankie/status/1433003518462398466

    1. Aha, the truth will eventually out – the PTB want a European Caliphate – on your knees folks, bums up in the air, 5 times a day.

      My answer – short, succinct and to the point, “Fuck Off.”

        1. Complaints earlier on radio about the time taking to house those coming. One family, arrived June with SIX kids are “still in hotel”. QUICK – massive 6bedroom house building program for immigrants. How about taking a pair of semis, evict both English families – then move the non working, translator needing NHS using, benefit getting preferred replacements in there as more important than the English born and bred working, tax paying contributors. WE will be the losers – because THEY have piles of kids – WE have to pay for them??

      2. 3338342+up ticks,

        Afternoon NtN,

        That has been the aim openly for the last three decades so it is being done with a majority of peoples consent.

        Currently the electorate is angling for, via the polling booth, a nation size nation bike park.

        When you have an instruction manual resting betwixt the two dispatch boxes not the be touched by Hans Christian ,it is getting on for being later than you think.

      3. I don’t really understand why, either. The vast majority of Muslims are unemployed – and unemployable due to language or lack of skill.. I appreciate the state likes these sort of folk, but the welfare system is already grotesquely overburdened (thanks to the stupid ‘relative poverty’ nonsense. We simply cannot afford any more people. In fact, we need to change it, sharpish.

        1. vast majority of Muslims are unemployed – and unemployable due to language or lack of skill. . . . why work – just getting here gets them a rise in living standards – while watching whitey work, pay taxes which are used to provide yet more replacements with free everything lives.

          1. It does seem somewhat unfair that the amount of money the worker pays provides so much for people who haven’t earned it.

            By somewhat I mean egregiously offensive.

        2. Their medieval culture is totally opposed to any other on earth.
          What has been happening over the past 30 odd years is revenge for all the historic battles and wars and the ousting of them from mainland Europe and our stupid politicians are aiding and abetting in the ruination of European and all western more cultured nations. It’s not a religion as such that they engage in, it’s closer an out and out ritual act or even a purge.

          2. The way things are going Conners you are absolutely right, i m am thinking of carrying a garden fork around with me and if it am questioned i’ll say i’m going to help out with some gardening.

    2. Yes Ahmed, As claiming you come from Afghanistan, but can’t speak the language, OF COURSE you and your family are fully entitled to come to Britain, You will ALL be entitled to everything free, be prioritised and of course, entitled to punish any infidel you like as you enforce Islam on us. Just one last Question – how many relatives do you have – 50 million? but the population is only 40 million – of course – I forgot about the instant 10 million relatives found in Pakistan that want to come to. Should be a great family reunion party, plenty of noise, bangs and cheering . . . .Welcome to Freebie land !!

      1. p.s. And we promise to move on that scruffy Army veteran sleeping on the pavement outside your taxpayer provided house.

  49. Warqueen comes bounding down the stairs looking much like Kate Winslett crossed with a cat just introduced to a bath. Screams follow as I try to understand what the ruddy problem is.

    Apparently it is a simple as ‘having nothing to wear’. She’s got a ruddy room full of clothes! What more is wanted? My entire get up consists of 10 hangers, 2 shelves and my three pairs of shoes. My entirely sensible collection is dwarfed by the thousands upon thousands of outfits, hats, bags and shoes that woman owns.

    I didn’t say this though. I kept very quiet, as I value my neck.

  50. Pope inadvertently quotes Vladimir Putin in Afghanistan comment. 1 September 2021.

    Pope Francis has criticised the west’s recent involvement in Afghanistan – inadvertently quoting Vladimir Putin in doing so.

    The pope said he had been moved by a quote from the Germany chancellor, Angela Merkel, whom he described as “one of the world’s great political figures”.

    He said he would attempt to translate the quote into Spanish: “It is necessary to put an end to the irresponsible policy of intervening from the outside and building democracy in other countries, ignoring the traditions of the people.”

    The words, however, were not uttered by Merkel but rather the Russian president last month as he demanded that countries stop meddling in Afghanistan during the chancellor’s recent visit to Moscow.

    Well he was quoting the world’s only great political figure. The only one that still rules an independent nation. A State based on the values of the Rennaissance and European Enlightenment. The rest are lost to Islam!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/01/pope-inadvertently-quotes-vladimir-putin-in-afghanistan-speech

    2. The booster, isn’t that the device that burns fast and is then quickly jettisoned as of being no more use?

      1. As the early 70s graffiti in one of the original CAMERA pubs (The Barley Mow, Tyttenhanger) near St Albans, had on the wallboard in the gents.

        Why can Watney’s red barrel be compared to making love in a punt ?

        ‘Cos it’s fucking close to water.

        1. I know that one, Eddy, and it is so true. Whitbread Tankard was made from the same canal bilgewater!

          1. I think i told you about that in a previous Nottler life Grizz.
            I always called on tap Larger Alka seltzer with a tea bag dipped in it.

          3. I was working in a school in Hammersmith in the mid 70s and the care taker was from Sydney. He told us about his mate who came over for a visit and moaned about everything from stepping off the plane at LHR. Traffic TV radio the weather you name it. On the opposite side of the Thames is the Fuller brewery and the pub at the end of the road was the care takers local. He and his mates took him out for the evening and before he even got there he was moaning about bloody pommey piss beer. They gave him a barley wine with an ESB top up , two of those and he was out of it they had to almost carry y him back to the flat. He stopped moaning after that.
            I also remember and old boy back in 1966 Trafalgar square on the evening when England had won the World Cup. This chap from Yorkshire was moaning about southern beer but was drinking pints of Fullers ESB as he got up from his bar stool to go to the loo he ended up in a heap on the floor. I always drink it if it’s available but not if driving of course.
            https://www.fullers.co.uk/explore-our-beers/esb

        2. One pub I was in many years ago, neat Glawcester, had a brightly lit orange pump labelled “Eurofizz lager”, situated in the middle of a forest of pump handles.
          Stayed there on my “Nuclear Power” couse, so this must have been 1988 or so.

        1. I stopped drinking that, as a youngster, when I noticed it was dissolving my teeth! It is good for cleaning coins!

  53. Biden is spinning the Afghan disaster faster than a Blackhawk’s rotors. 1 September 2021.

    Joe Biden has lost touch with reality, and that’s the way he likes it. The man who campaigned on empathy and a return to normality seems bizarrely disconnected from the American public and the wider world. He is quick to anger when challenged – and quicker still to take liberties with the facts.

    Why did I not read anything like this in the MSM prior to the election!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/01/biden-spinning-afghan-disaster-faster-blackhawks-rotors/

      2. Meanwhile they are making us all sterile and will classify opposition as mental illness. Can we see that?

    2. Because Biden was the gloiv-puppet needed to get the election done with all its fun and games. Harris would have been a non-starter. But now they are in the White Fortress he is being binned – the media are so obvious it’s grotesque. the DT is one Biden burial after another,.
      As both are fronts for the psychopaths posing as philanthropists it’s not a matter to concern us save that their programme is proceeding aas planned.
      Welcome to the new world of earless power and eugenics. Half a billion population by 2050, that’s the aim.

    1. Interesting link, thank you. It adds a little more evidence to support the thesis that vaccine passports are the end goal, and that it’s a plan of big finance.

      Whether anyone has had the vaccine or not, or whether it works or not is irrelevant.
      Crucial for our future is that people don’t accept a digital id linked to vaxx status for some tinpot little privilege that the government graciously grants you today.

      1. Something I read yesterday, I can’t remember where – extra ‘treats’ (!!!) may be available for a good record of social credits such as a free cinema ticket or…… wait for it……. extra water allowance!! This is what they have in store for us. Resist, resist at all cost.

  56. Strange definition of ‘refugee’, visiting the very country they were seeking refuge from…

    ‘The Sacramento school district is home to over 1,400 Afghan refugee students and previously believed that up to 150 students were stranded in Afghanistan, according to an earlier news report from Sacramento Bee.

    Of the more widely reported Cajon Valley students, one family remains in Afghanistan of the eight families that were in the were in the country when Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15

    Sixteen parents and more than 24 students, ranging from preschoolers to high schoolers, had traveled from San Diego to Afghanistan over summer break to visit grandparents and other relatives’

    1. You aren’t being fair. For all you know they could have fled when the Taliban were previously in power and, when they visited Afghanistan though it safe to visit. A reasonable supposition on their part considering that the regime was not supposed to collapse within days, according to American propaganda.

      1. Nothing’s fair in this world. If you return to the country you sought refuge from then you don’t come back to the one that gave you refuge. The alternative is just opportunist tourism.

        1. Perhaps it is because I come from an older generation in which fairness was inculcated along with a sense of justice and not a desire to throw people to the wolves on a supposition. It all boiled down to the Christian value of not judging less you be judged. Perhaps it is me but frankly, I find that the discourse of modern Britain is considerably coarsened and rather bereft of compassion and decency.

          1. It is all red-team blue-team bigotry and bias. However, any truth and responsibility and agency can be suppressed on this notion of what compassion and dedency should actually mean.

  58. Good afternoon all.
    Listening to the pro-Afghan news and the report of government talks with the Taliban. I am constantly reminded of the legend of the frog and the scorpion.

    1. They are trying to look good on the world stage so the billions in Aid start flowing in again.

      That will suit the globalists. Any excuse to waste Western taxpayers money.

      1. Once whitey taxpayer has been exterminated and the UK is a 3rd world immigrant ****hole – where is all this giveaway Foreign Aid going to be coming from.

          3. #MeToo – at 77, I’m almost welcoming death – just so long as I don’t have to re-incarnate into the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World that’s coming.

    2. 338342+ up ticks,
      Afternoon I A,
      I am reminded of the two female MPs conversing with
      PIE in the 70s this type rhetoric rarely ends well.

  59. When they say that the life span of a wind turbine is 20 to 30 years. What exactly do they mean? Is it the turbine and the paddles but not the supporting pillar or is it the full assembly?

      1. It looks as if the tower and base last a bit longer but maintenance and repair of the turbine and paddles is very expensive.
        The offshore farms are more massive but produce more power per turbine and get more wind than the on-shore turbines. There is a name for the paddles but I keep forgetting it. Wind farms don’t seem to be competitive.
        Having had a look on-line there are a multitude of answers for the time it takes for a turbine to pay for itself from just a few months to many years.

          5. My mate was working at Rolls-Royce in Brizzl quite a long time ago, and made the first single-crystal turbine blade.
            The Trade Minister visited, and was shown this wonder, the first one ever, looked at it, put it down… and it rolled off the bench and shattered on the floor!
            That was the end of well over £1 million investment.
            The next one took much less time & effort to make.

          9. No, George, I was Air Radar and Air Wireless – collectively the trade was re-assigned as El Fitt (AC) i.e., Electronic Fitter (Air Communications)

          10. Whatever they are called I think they cannot be recycled and in the USA the broken ones are buried deep in the ground. I think they are made in a plastic of some sort so are not “environmentally friendly”.
            It makes you wonder why our PM ignores these adverse features of wind turbines and of electric cars and heat pumps.
            His whole climate policy is an economic disaster waiting to happen

      2. But…but… we’re always told that windmills pay for themselves and are always working producing 90% of our energy for nothing!

        Was the government… lying? And in fact wind mills are ecologically pointless, environmentally destructive, economically expensive, inefficient, useless as an energy generator, a waste of energy, materials that are never returned and wouldn’t exist without masses of tax payers money?

        Whodathunkit!

        1. Agree wibbling. One of the most dishonest and hypocritical acts of all time the pretence that windmills are a viable ecological alternative to traditional forms of power. Have a look at solar panels too, even worse in terms of the environment. The answer is obvious, fracking and nuclear. But the Green frauds are to dishonest to admit that.

  60. The majority of people believe that the most washed body part in 2021 was the hands.

    But in fact it was the brain.

        1. They are the same as the idiots in every country, I can think of, who voted in the cretins leading the entire world.

          And please, no hero worship about Putin: he is a single-party dictator who wasn’t voted in.

    1. Hopefully this will make the penny drop for a few people.
      Wonder how many billions Pfizer’s profits are standing at now.

      1. And all the rip off testers that the government still haven’t sorted – I wonder how many are “friends” of theirs?

    2. People don’t want to think because it frightens them. Responsibility and integrity are frightening to the weak minded.

      We are not helped by how much the state has taken from people that many probably don’t think they can.

  64. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/do-not-travel-here-illegally-afghan-refugees-crossing-channel-will-not-be-resettled-in-uk-says-minister/ar-AANYbhx?ocid=msedgntp
    And yet more –
    – BBC News

    Home Office minister Victoria Atkins

    – BBC News
    Refugees fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan will not be resettled in the UK if they come across the English Channel in small boats, a Home Office minister has said.

    Afghan resettlement minister Victoria Atkins said refugees would have to come via “legal” routes pre-agreed with officials if they want to access support in Britain.

    A minister ?? – just for them – sounds like a LOT more is coming than stated. Well into sx figures? maybe into 7s ??

      1. Kabul in some corner of a home field. Wonder which British city will be the lucky recipient of the well known snowball effect whereby people move to be close to others from their own culture.

  65. 338342+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    On this subject trust destroyed this chap is a connoisseur,

    Trust is Destroyed: Nigel Farage Predicts UK Won’t Join Biden’s America in War After Afghanistan

      1. Yes. Now it is wasted bringing the Taliban here, paying them, housing them, looking after them, then once enough of them, they’ll slaughter us.

    2. Well that’s the stupidest prediction I’ve ever heard. Next time the US says jump, can anyone see Britain not asking how high? Unless Trump is the President of course, in which case Johnson would be giggling in the corner with his EU mates laughing at the fat ginger kid.

  66. Who says electing a comedian is a bad idea?

    As well as money for the military, Zelensky revealed on Wednesday that he is looking for Washington to contribute up to $277 billion for “more than 80 projects” in what he has dubbed a “transformation plan for Ukraine.”

      1. Not so sure about that.There will be other tactics in play now that Afghanistan is out of the picture.
        The MIC still need their profits.

  67. Just ended my research on Oliver Cromwell. I conclude that he was our equivalent to Hitler or Stalin. He ruled with a rod of iron and after his death we could not wait to replace with a King.In the end most people hated him.

    2. Such is the fate of all tyrants. I shall be a benevolent tyrant as aside from banning lunges and wearing a hat indoors, I will do absolutely nothing whatsoever.

  68. 338342+ up ticks,

    Is there an official body that could suggest that johnson & co should start seeking other forms of employment because the moment the bulk of the electorate awaken ( if ever) the politico’s will be unemployed if able to walk.

    breitbart,
    Boris Johnson’s Government Doubles Down on Vaccine Passport Pledge

    1. Why isn’t there a law to stop people owning snakes in the UK.

      Look what is happening in Florida where people abandoned their pythons and boas, and the blinking things bred like mad in the Everglades, and started causing havoc by eating everything .

      1. “Why isn’t there a law to stop people owning snakes in the UK?“

        Because snakes have far more intelligence than idiotic humans.

        MUCH more!

  70. Principal, Peter T. Howe says

    “UWC Atlantic is proud to develop a unique peer group of potential changemakers, groundbreakers, bridge builders, risk-takers, future shapers, idea generators and innovators drawn from all levels of society and drawn towards a shared purpose – to embody the UWC spirit, to challenge cynicism with courage, action, and belief, to shape the future and to make the world a better place to live.”

    We aim to reclaim our position as the flagship College of the UWC movement, recognised for the radical and experimental spirit that defines our history and drives our impact on the world. The UWC mission – to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future – runs through everything we do and the way that we do it. UWC Atlantic Experience and the experience we create, deliver and manage is about us living the UWC values in one way or another.

    Our focus for the future is to build an even stronger educational offer, to attract the best employees and to preserve the fabric of our historic buildings – what we call our People, Purpose and Place approach. Having the opportunity to invite more people around to our ‘Place’ for a range of unique experiences, is a hugely exciting way forward.

    https://uwcatlanticexperience.com/about-uwc-atlantic-experience/

    I found this rather wonderful image of nearly perfect Utopia where young minds are guided towards leadership quite fascinating , but sadly many of the youngsters will progress onwards to University where their young minds could become addled and raddled , and all the good work wll become undone,.

    What do you think?

      2. And those doing the most protesting about carbon emissions are themselves a carbon-based life form.

    5. Isn’t the Chinese embassy in London just a few doors down from Broadcasting House, in Portland Place? You won’t even get XR there, much less Tiananmen Square. Soft targets only.

      1. My thoughts exactly. His body language during the attacks suggests that he thinks his opinions are mainstream.

  73. Copied off JR’s blog today.

    Yesterday on our local station they were asking for 4 and above bedroomed property to house the Afghan refugees. The local MP who is the government housing minister said it is fully funded by the government.
    This is a government who can’t afford social care or to rehome veterans.

    With the rate of imported people flood – how long till it becomes forced eviction of us – but STILL have to pay the bills?

    1. Considering we are something like 16 trillion in debt we simply cannot afford it now.

      What was interesting was airbnb were putting up many thousands of migrants. The flood of people removing their properties from that organisation was comical.

  74. Can I ask for advice from Nottler gardeners and homeowners please.
    If you find that a certain product, which many people warned you NOT to use, was very VERY bad for the lovely garden you’d built, would you, go out and buy/bring back loads more of the same product, or, get rid of that product seeing it as nothing but detrimental to all your hard work and efforts?
    Also, If you saw rats in your kitchen would you get rid of the vermin, or let them breed and invade, to the point where your house is no longer habitable?

    2. I had mice in the kitchen. In the short term I got a pest control company to put down poison. Longer term, I got a complete kitchen refit – stripped it back to bare brick, had the holes sealed up and a new kitchen built. I get the metaphor though. Guns at Dover and a clear out of the snivel service maybe?

    4. If I saw rats – and there are millions upon millions of them – I’d set about moving them on. I wouldn’t want to kill them outright as they’ve a right as well, but when we bought the place it seemed to come with a small tiger who’s name I’ve never learned. We call him Bruiser He gets fed formally when the dogs do, but otherwise spends most of his time in the stable intimidating the mare. .

      He’s the sort of cat who treats a 6 foot fence not as a high jump, but as something to knock down. We’ve also never had a rat problem.

      Oh, hang on. Was metaphor. The problem isn’t the rats. It’s the cleaner deliberately leaving the door open and putting down food.

    5. Important to remember that the rat analogy is in poor taste because it was widely used by propagandists from the 1930s until about 1945. Having said that, if the govt were to have forbidden all religious slaughter fifty years ago, the situation might be better.

    1. Same advice as “don’t put your hand in the fire” – is that “Victim-blaming” too, or good avice about not being a bloody fool?

      1. Being female, I have always taken for granted not going out in dark places at night. But somehow it goes against the grain that gay men must now follow the same rules in order to pander to migrant culture.
        It won’t just stop at gay men – how long before the police are advising us not to leave the house without a male relative?

        1. It should not be necessary to avoid places, whether woman or man, but due to the predatory scum out there, doing so is smart.
          Even if you carry a gun, there might be many of them, and you are the one being ambushed, so at a disadvantage from the start.

          1. We didn’t bally need to! We shouldn’t HAVE TO! It’s the useless state machine that has made this country so blasted dangerous.

          2. Adds to the high level of fear which suits all of ‘them’ as they travel in helicopters with their security guards.

        2. There’s a reason I meet the wife at the train station and have her telephone beep at all the crossing points – leaving office, getting on tube, off tube, on train and so on.

    2. Same as mentioned before. On beeb radio few weeks ago – Asians discussing grooming gang abuse here. The fault was PURELY the failure of the agencies that should be protecting them – – NO blame put on the disgusting imported scum 9or their culture ) that did the abuse. And still is.

    3. No, those would be ‘darkie’ areas.

      The only homophobic thing is that the killer targets gays. We all know which bunch of incomers do that, and we know they’re homophobic. They prefer goats or children.

    2. You could play Convid Bingo

      Your Bingo ard has all the Convid ‘strains’ on it and you cross them off, when a particular strain is called out and the first

      person with a full line of 5 wins a ventilator

    1. If the names are not published then they’re foreigners. It’s sad really. We know there’s a problem in that ethnicity, we know the state protects it. Perhaps if, instead of hiding the truth and bringing it into the open we could solve the problem.

      Thing there is that the newcomers see nothing wrong with treating women that way and we do. Big fat state is frightened of that coming to light as it’ll expose their abject failure.

      1. They are still “underage” for reporting, but I remember them being named in one of the original reports. Shame they weren’t caught by the victim’s relatives. The scum need holding down, legs spread and . . . . .

  80. I’ve had an invitation for the ‘flu jab. I read today that no-one knows what strains are likely as there have been so few cases.
    Why do I need a flu jab if they don’t know what to put in it?

          3. That’s a bit triggery….
            A friend of mine is a facilities manager for a big US multinational. Every picture that goes on the walls of their office has to be passed by a vetting committee in the US.
            Bridget Riley would not be passed because of the sharp black/white contrast, which would be construed as having to do with racial conflict.

            I am not joking!!

          5. I have noticed on Instagram that most artists post about 1 in 10 paintings featuring a person of African origin. Mostly it’s just “oh, let’s paint a black person, because, BLM” and they dump all their bigoted liberal prejudices of what black people are supposed to be like in the paintings, plus they just plonk black people into Western style paintings, blithely assuming that this is valid because of multi-culturalism.

            It’s very subtle, but if you look at Henry Tanner, who was black but had a classical Western art education (the only painter who did so?), you can see small differences in how he observed light and shadow falling on black skin – because he had grown up with it, and knew it inside out. Plus his figures are genuine African Americans.
            I am a great fan of Henry Tanner – he should have been on our Western Art syllabus, instead of his far less talented contemporaries Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Douanier Rousseau and the preposterous Gaugin.

          6. That’s a bit triggery….
            A friend of mine is a facilities manager for a big US multinational. Every picture that goes on the walls of their office has to be passed by a vetting committee in the US.
            Bridget Riley would not be passed because of the sharp black/white contrast, which would be construed as having to do with racial conflict.

            I am not joking!!

    3. I had one too in the post this morning. Shame it wasn’t the letter about my operation which i have been waiting for since February.

      I binned it.

      2. I had a text from the surgery to tell me they would be offering the flu jab and the covid booster – I think I’ll pass up the opportunity.

          1. And we don’t know what they are putting in these things. It is all based on trust, and I have completely lost my trust for govt and its agencies, they work in their own best interests, and to their agenda, whatever that may be at the time.

          2. And we don’t know what they are putting in these things. It is all based on trust, and I have completely lost my trust for govt and its agencies, they work in their own best interests, and to their agenda, whatever that may be at the time.

    4. I was reading just the other day that the ‘flu jab makes you more vulnerable to other respiratory tract infections going around….! Is that perhaps why they want to give us a ‘flu jab? Govt does not work in our best interests, it works always in its own best interests. Just saying….

  81. Back from Narridge – and the exhibition of paintings by the Norwich born John Crome. Very interesting display and informative. The guide was the museum lady who had put it all together and written the book.

    Unfortunately: (a) She spoke terribly quietly. (b) the room had a high ceiling and an appalling acoustic; (c) there were lots of other people in the same room talking loudly; (d) at one end of the room were two doors which opened onto a passage used by staff and visitors. When the doors swung shut they BANGED. The double “BANG – pause – BANG” happened roughly once a minute during the 45 minutes we were there.

    Apart from that, the paintings were nice…..

    2. A shame that – not that the guide was quiet, but that people were not more considerate with opening and closing doors.

    4. I loved the clear washes of John Sell Cotman and the watercolours of Thomas Girtin. JMW Turner said of Girtin, who died young, “Had Girtin lived I should have starved”.

      The Norwich based architectural firm for whom I worked for ten years, Feilden & Mawson, at one time looked after both the Cathedral and the Castle. I was seconded from the London Office and formulated the stone repairs to the Cathedral Tower in the 90’s and restored parts of the original Norwich Union Fire Assurance Headquarters on Surrey Street.

      The firm’s founder Sir Bernard Feilden was dubbed the father of British conservation. Much later his nephew ‘inherited’ the Castle projects but he died unexpectedly in 2019. Sir Bernard shared Stiffkey Castle with a brother.

      Norwich has a particularly strong and protective Freemasonic tradition. You had to be a Mason to prosper and most tendered contracts were awarded to the same contractor, R G Carter of Drayton.

    5. I loved the clear washes of John Sell Cotman and the watercolours of Thomas Girtin. JMW Turner said of Girtin, who died young, “Had Girtin lived I should have starved”.

      The Norwich based architectural firm for whom I worked for ten years, Feilden & Mawson, at one time looked after both the Cathedral and the Castle. I was seconded from the London Office and formulated the stone repairs to the Cathedral Tower in the 90’s and restored parts of the original Norwich Union Fire Assurance Headquarters on Surrey Street.

      The firm’s founder Sir Bernard Feilden was dubbed the father of British conservation. Much later his nephew ‘inherited’ the Castle projects but he died unexpectedly in 2019. Sir Bernard shared Stiffkey Castle with a brother.

      Norwich has a particularly strong and protective Freemasonic tradition. You had to be a Mason to prosper and most tendered contracts were awarded to the same contractor, R G Carter of Drayton.

      2. You’re probably aware of this. Winsor & Newton’s student range of watercolour paints is named after Cotman.

  82. Judges?? We don’t need no stinkin’ judges

    Australia: Unprecedented surveillance bill rushed through parliament in 24 hours.

    Australian police can now hack your device, collect or delete your data, take over

    your social media accounts – all without a judge’s warrant.

    https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/australia-surveillance-bill/
    Uff Da that spoof from earlier is looking spookier and spookier
    Edit
    Oi Laffed
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fcad6531951f40aee7f28f2226a61acc89c01ec3d16e65a00837b55aabb9310.jpg

  83. That’s me for this miserable day – made bearable by the constancy of the MR and those Blame Cats. And the Crome paintings. And the stove going nicely.

    And the good news that the joiner is coming to do half a dozen small carpentry jobs on Friday morning at 8. We have only been waiting six months!

    I hope Draab got a good kicking this arvo – but rather doubt it.

    A demain

    1. We have been waiting six months for our painter decorator. Is this the new normal? We accepted his estimate, we sent him our colour choices which we confirmed, and we have since heard: nothing. Do we remind hime we still exist and are, um, waiting or do we sit back and await an email in due course? I am all for the former and p’psdad is for the latter. It is a fairly big job, the outside of the house, the inside downstairs and the outhouses.

      1. Yes – Trevor the painter was booked two years ago – told us that there would be at least 18 months before he was able to come. And was true to his word. I’d text him and ask for some news.

        Any painter who is available quickly will be rubbish!

      4. I would just let him know that you are still alive…the chap who did our sewage (extremely competently!) was silent for several weeks, then called me one day at 7 am saying he would be there in half an hour.
        He works very concentratedly, and very long hours, so I can see why he doesn’t do much calling to keep customers happy.

          2. No. They just charge extra. Have you not watched Personal Services starring Julie Waters?

            They pay tax now. More than their clients do.

          4. People have always been exploited where paying customers for sex are concerned. An old and new form of slavery.

            Probably why the arrogant shithead Prince Andrew feels he has nothing to answer to.

          5. What on earth makes you think that shit paid? He”ll have been an “influencer” to encourage others.

          6. And Clinton, but the payment for these young impressionable people is flights on private jets to exotic locations, drink and drugs. Then we have the fixers who then use psychology and make the young ones feel guilt and should…..put out.

            The reason why Ghislane is being tortured is because she can finger (pardon the expression) the guilty.

            They are using on her the same psyco shit as she used on the young and innocent that she netted.

            The only reason she is still breathing is because it would cause too much of a stink if she were to be ended so soon after Epstein.

          7. 10/10 in my view.
            I also suspect that there are a lot of very rich and powerful people who hope and pray the Royal Rogerer doesn’t get on the witness stand. He’s such a pillock he might well spill the beans and bring them all down.
            I hope it happens.

          8. His aircraft will develop an inexplicable fault and crash into the Atlantic.

            Similar to the woman that released the Obama birth certificate. A small plane with six passengers. She was the only one that died.

            A Tesla car with someone going to work to expose corruption died by crashing into a bridge stanchion.

            There are so many others.

          10. PS

            It’s a new take on an old song;
            I’ve slept with a girl who slept with a man who slept with the Duke of York.
            And yes, the order was intentional.

          13. PS

            It’s a new take on an old song;
            I’ve slept with a girl who slept with a man who slept with the Duke of York.
            And yes, the order was intentional.

          14. What on earth makes you think that shit paid? He”ll have been an “influencer” to encourage others.

    1. There are two l’s in bollocks
      There are two l’s in bullshit
      They both start with b
      They both have eight letters
      They both have two vowels
      They both are accurate…

      PS edit it was quite a set of coincidences

    3. The current Freemasonic rituals are being conducted by Klaus Schwab.

      In my experience there are Freemasonic networks, the highest echelons of which are old banking families, industrialists and royalty then filtering down via Bilderbergers and lawyers (Think Templars).

      The lower echelons comprise Police and the Judiciary and any crumbs from the High Table are hoovered up by County and District councillors in local authorities.

      In essence the organisation is set to assist its brothers, principally in matters of commerce through preferment.

      1. My Grandfather was invited to join, but turned them down – so they bankrupted him, the bastards, by preventing him getting spares for the machines in his factory.
        I spit in their eye.

  85. Reading about that poor man who was tragically bashed to death in a dimly lit cemetery park, I do wonder that gay people have not yet got the message. You could have improved the lighting, but the victim would still have been a ‘dimmi’.

  86. For those who are interested in the final outcome of a previous post, my mother died last week in hospital after falling at home nearly 3 months ago. Unfortunately, those suffering from dementia will not get the constant prompting to eat and drink and the fussing that can be provided constantly at home. I have no criticism of the hospital care but there was little left of her at the end and the eventual organ failure took some time to play out. The world is full of tragedy although in this case I see it as a blessed relief. I think that we are all aware of the ravages of dementia and its effects on those that suffer and those who are around them. I hope she appreciated the comfortable home environment we provided for 3 years rather than life in a care home. We were lucky in that my first grand child born 12 Jun this year was able to meet her great grand mother.
    There is too much black in the world, so colours will be worn for a celebration of life and I hope that the only cough-in in the chapel will be hers.

    3. I hope she was well cared for while she was in hospital. I think if they see that the patient is on the way out, it seems to be common policy to withdraw food and drink and let nature take its course. Though in this case it seems long drawn out.

      I hope she didn’t suffer too much, but it was a very stressful time for you. As you say, a blessed relief. I’m sure she did appreciate the care you gave her, while she was able to.

    4. Well done you for taking such care of her. I have done that. It is not easy especially if, like me, you are impatient.

      1. Mrs Pea, being from a culture where they look after their parents, kept the lid on my impatience and was the main carer when I was working.

    5. May I offer my sincere condolences. You were a wonderful son for making an enormous effort to look after your mother at home. Your Mum is someone who knows more about you than anyone else on this earth.

    6. Condolences to you and the family, Kaypea. I’m sure your dear mother was very happy to be in familiar surroundings with her family around her, even though she might not have been so aware. Thinking of you.

    7. Condolences and sympathy, Kaypea. It is hard even when it is expected, although the sense of relief that you do not have to see her suffer any more blunts those edges, coupled with the memory that she saw her great grandchild and was able to pass on the baton of life to another generation. May your grandchild grasp it firmly.

    8. A moving post.

      You and your family were rocks in a difficult time. I salute you, I’m not sure I could do it.
      Please accept my condolences.

    9. I am sure she was aware of being surrounded by loved ones on some level. I’m sorry for your loss; she is at peace now, but it must have been a very hard time for your family.

    10. Condolences Kaypea.

      My wife and I could not bear to see her parents in a home. We employed live in carers for both in order that they could remain in their beloved home. We were obliged to visit three or four days each week and my wife stayed over several days to order food for house and carers and to be in attendance for nurse and chiropodist visits and to relieve the carers.

      I have to say it was a troubling few years and took a toll on both of us but we feel we did the best possible for them both and can have no regrets.

      1. It used to be the way of things, but society changed, and not for the better.
        People like you and Kaypea are in the minority.

        I sometimes think we are too afraid of death, it can be a merciful release.
        Covid might be a blessing in disguise.

        1. My father in law had dementia and it was very sad to witness his demise. He had several ‘lives’ from surviving a serious motorcycle combination accident in France, then contracting pneumonia on MTBs conducting coastal patrols and then on the fleet minesweeper HMS Pique in WWII. He spent months in Papworth with tuberculosis and lost a lung.

          In his later life we were forever taking him to Addenbrookes for removal of skin lesions and he often came out bandaged to resemble a mummy.

          Mother in law passed peacefully in bed at home in the presence of her two daughters.

          4. Yes…
            Whilst I wouldn’t have wanted a stroke, it did reveal a lot about myself and other people to me.
            Overall, the experience was positive – but I’d prefer to go back to pre-stroke status.

          7. That would piss me off royally.
            I want to notice me croak – an experience you only get once!

      2. Trying to do the same for my mother, Corim. Not living in Wales makes it complicated, and we’re looking to paying for care in her home with the intention taht she stays at home for the rest of her days, if at all possible. She’s comfortable there, and would miss her garden. Also, she doesn’t get on in crowds, and would hate to be shepherded around with a load of old crumblies.
        Costs a bit, though. So far, about £100 a day.

        1. But that’s a lot cheaper than the type of care home you would be prepared to put her in.
          Good luck.

        2. If you own your property out right, the fees would be around a grand a week Obs. It’s a total rip off.
          I thin we have the worse record in the western world for the way we treat the elderly.

    11. Lord, I’m sorry, man.
      Nice that great-grand daughter met GG Mother.
      I like the idea of colourful funeral – see her off properly!

      1. As I don’t want to put anyone through the total nauseum of a funeral, I have gifted my body to medical science – they require the body within 4 days of death.

        I just hope to give the med students something to laugh at.

    14. My condolences, Kaypea. I’ve been through it myself recently and it is definitely a relief that suffering is at an end. MOH refused food and medicine at the end. Think about the positives.

  87. Pause the vaccine rollout !

    Very sadly, and as predicted, the vaccines don’t work as advertized.

    Here’s the evidence from the ”Telegraph”. It’s very likely that many of these sad fatalities are a result of clots and A.D.E., Antibody Dependent Enhancement………..

    ”Weekly Covid deaths four times higher than this time last year, figures show.

    Weekly registered deaths involving coronavirus are four times higher than this time last year but appear to have levelled off, figures show.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-covid-vaccine-passport-nhs-cases-deaths-today/

    There were 571 deaths in England and Wales where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate in the week ending August 20, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

    This is four times higher than the 139 coronavirus deaths registered in the week ending August 21 2020.

    It is a fall of just one death from the previous week, and equates to around one in 18 of all registered deaths over the seven days.

    Last August, society was not fully opened up and several areas were in local lockdowns.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement

    That’s right. A much higher death rate in the UK in August 2021 with high take up of vaccination than in August 2020 with zero vaccination.

    It’s becoming increasingly noticeable how highly vaccinated nations are now performing worse than nations with low vaccination.

    1. The vaccines may not work as advertised but they definitely work as intended. These are poisonous jabs designed to kill.

      The medico promoters of these jabs such as Fauci in the States, Whitty, Vallance and Van Tam in the UK are criminals and eventually will be brought to account along with the politicians and those administering Test and Trace, Vaccination Certificates, the enforcement of mask mandates and the medicos and politicians who have failed to stop the madness and acquiesced in it.

      The paymasters for these criminals viz. the Bankers, Davos masters and Big Tech billionaires will also be taken down in short order.

    2. There is also the factor of vaccinated people acting as super-spreaders because the virus isn’t keeping them off the streets.
      The whole thing is such a mess, and there is probably a lot we shall never know, due to sheer incompetence as well as bad news being hidden as far as possible.

  88. Earlier today I walked through a very busy Bath City Centre. I judged 90% of folk walking in the open air were not wearing masks. However, on public transport and in shops it seems over 50% of folk are still wearing them….

    1. This is why Labour lie all the time. ‘They did it!’, or the comical ‘the debt is horrific!’ – well you damned well ran it up!

      It’s just constant, desperate abuse. deceit relying upon weak people. Infuriatingly, it works!

  90. To all those worrying about vaccinations, side effects, the economy, friends and relatives, etc.

    Aim to live to be as old as I look,to be as cheerful as I am miserable, to be as positive as I am sceptical and you won’t go far wrong.

    And as an added bonus, I’ll be your enemy for life!

  91. Had bloods taken yesterday afternoon by a very pleasant nurse who has jabbed me several times in the past. She chats and chats and she mentioned that she’s a great fan of Jordan Peterson. I said I’ve got his ’12 Rules’ book’ and seen some videos.
    Alcohol came up in the questioning and she seemed shocked when I mentioned a bottle of wine a night, if I didn’t go out. I didn’t say that if I go out (2 or 3 nights a week), then I’ll have 5 or 6 pints of Guinness each night. She mentioned JP having an opiate addiction, which I knew about. She said, after I mentioned understanding the addiction if it springs from bad pain, that during a recent bad toothache, she’d taken 30 x 30mg codeine tablets and almost died. She smokes like a chimney but doesn’t drink.
    A very nice youngish lady with several children. I actually get the impression she is also addicted to opiates. I was with her 25 minutes for what was a 5 minute routine blood taking.
    She let me remove my obligatory mask
    Strange times.

    1. I suspect that the old adage of the doctor thinking you drink twice what you admit to but that’s OK as long as it’s less than he drinks still stands.

      1. I mentioned the fact that most people probably lie about their alcohol imbibing quantities and that I could have done. I didn’t mention the fact that I was lying on the 1 bottle a night by about 50%. My bad (is that what they say?).

        2. It’s luck of the draw as far as health is concerned, I suspect.
          At a rough estimate I would guess I’ve drunk 12,000 bottles of red, probably a lot more, and that’s since I gave up regular beer drinking.

          Beer? At least 10,000 pints.
          Not to mention other booze.

          If I had stuck to water I would be a very wealthy man.

          4. There’s a joke about a woman hectoring her boyfriend about buying beer.

            Her: If you didn’t drink, you’d save thousands.

            He: Well, you don’t drink – where’re your savings?

          7. Don’t try buttering me up with that old load of cheesy milk.

            If the idiots didn’t keep sanctioning Russia for political nonsense they would have a market that would buy everything made.

          8. Don’t try buttering me up with that old load of cheesy milk.

            If the idiots didn’t keep sanctioning Russia for political nonsense they would have a market that would buy everything made.

    2. Do you mind my saying that I am shocked too? I couldn’t function if I drank half that much.

      3. I seem to manage 1 litre of whisky per week – and, what the hell, I’m 77 – worked all my life and made two bum choices with wives.

        I’m happy.

        I still managed to write my autobiography.

    3. And they always reckon that patients are underestimating their intake of booze.
      I had an ECG appointment today after waiting in the waiting area the nurse came to take me into the treatment room after pointing the temperature device
      at my head she had to wipe the chair down ??? I said you missed a bit she laughed, i said it’s always good to have a bit of humour, she agree and job done i left but she couldn’t tell me the results only a doctor is allowed to do that…………..well that will be another two weeks of not knowing anything.

    4. I’m asked if I drink or smoke. Been with the same bloody surgery for over a decade.

      I did have a problem with painkillers. In my defence, I was in pain, and they don’t really stop you buying from multiple different places. But even when my back went properly the most 60mg codeine I’ve taken is 8 in a day. I remember mostly not being able to poo.

        1. Had that -lost my job and my then fiance. My body set about killing me.

          As a treatment I’d suggest prednisolone.

          2. I thought prednisolone was for people who had had transplants (one of my friends who had a kidney transplant was on it) or for squamous cell carcinoma (my dog was on it for that).

          3. I thought prednisolone was for people who had had transplants (one of my friends who had a kidney transplant was on it) or for squamous cell carcinoma (my dog was on it for that).

      2. My painkiller of choice for chronic backache, is Tramadol but I take it rarely as it is opiod based and could be addictive.

        1. I take co-codamol, but I don’t take it for more than three days at a time. As I should avoid alcohol when I’m taking it, on the days I’m not taking the drug, I’m drinking 🙂

  92. Well Canada is joining in the ranks of the permanently restricted.

    Several provinces are introducing vaccine passports, despite many assurances from politicians that it will never happen. Proof of vaccination will be required to enter restaurants, theatres, gyms, sports arenas or to play on a sports team.

    Too early to say what is going to happen, the announcement was just made and naturally there is no real detail about enforcement and penalties. Comments on readable news sites are less than enthusiastic. People have been fairly accepting of masks but the ongoing restrictions have been impacting people, this latest assault on freedom may be too much.

    They are definitely out to get us in every way they can. Our curling club liability insurance policy now includes an exclusion for covid.

    1. I don’t get it. Is it simple semantics? Much vs lot? Why does it matter on their agreement? Much of america thought that Biden was better than Trump. Are they are Muslim fanatics?

      Why is the reply above the original post?

  94. Dark outside now, and rather cold .

    We discovered the source of the cobnuts deposited on our lawn over the past few days, this afternoon.

    I went up and down the various driveways looking at the trees, which I am very familiar with , selection of Sycamores, Ash, Mimosa, Birch and Hawthorne . Not one cob/Hazel tree.

    Our next door neighbour whose property backs onto the field was out and about , and I asked him about the nuts, because I had never ever seen nuts on the grass in our garden before .

    He laughed and told me they had an assortment of fruiting trees in their back garden including a cobnut tree, and the squirrels were playing merry hell removing them and storing them everywhere .. including our garden .

    No wonder my prey driven spaniels have been racing around the garden hunting for something !

    My neighbour hinted that we could be facing a harsh winter, because the squirrels were very busy NOW!

    Oohh argh and all that .

    1. I’m not so sure, I think we have a good movement of air up from the south. Surely a cool, wet summer is unlikely to be followed by a very hard winter? What was the summer of 1962 like? and the summer of 1947(?)

        2. Never mind the Summer, I was three years old during the Winter of 47 and I remember being dressed in a miniature siren suit (like Winny’s) and the snow came up to my chest. Here is milk delivery in 1947.
          Hhttps://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e4b911d16024dd25bd28b182cdd07c098caa663cb2f56722c67310954da4b00.jpg

          1. We were talking about the Summer, but it is true the Winter was harsh. I was 3 months old & the family emigrated to Kenya via the Med & Suez.

      2. I think the summer of 1947 was glorious – at least it was for Compton (18 centuries) and Edrich, FOLLOWING the shocking winter of 46/47.

          1. Summer ’46 …. On Tyneside it was a good summer for playing in cleared bomb sites, and, as yet, nobody guessed that the irreversible and accelerating decline of the UK coal, shipbuilding, and fishing occupations was a mere few years away.

      3. I think the summer of 1947 was glorious – at least it was for Compton (18 centuries) and Edrich, FOLLOWING the shocking winter of 46/47.

      4. Good question, I only remember the 62/63 winter. In those days as a schoolboy all the summers seemed endless.

        1. Obese pigeons get my cherries. They hop off the wall and crash into my little tree and eat everything.

          Next year i am going to harvest slow fat pigeon rather than cherries.

          1. I suspect the pigeons got my cherries, too. They were frustrated about getting the peas (I netted them straight away) and now they are lying in wait for the grapes. The blackbirds and thrushes have been stripping the cotoneasters.

          2. I have been doing it all wrong. The cherry tree is the bait. And i know how to catch that pigeon.

      2. Pigeons usually get mine (they nest in next door’s trees). I’ve netted the vines this year in the hope I’ll get at least a few grapes. I’ve had a bumper crop.

        1. I put netting over mine the the little pests get inside.
          They have panted three walnut trees in our garden i suppose i can’t really complain.

  95. Righty. I’m hiding in my office. Mongo and Junior are in their room. There’s a screaming match going on downstairs as, over an innocuous dinner, MiL announced:

    “She’s sold her house.”

    It took the next question – upon which ice covered the windows, floors and table cloth – to start the fight: “Oh, are you downsizing?” (as it’s a 3 bed house).

    MiLs reply was “Well, I want to stay here.”

    Warqueen slowly put down her cutlery. At that point, the men scarpered.

      1. She’s been living with us since the beginning of the pandemic.

        I don’t mind – if she were not usually drunk and hopeless but for the wife it’s like having a thorn in your head.

  96. I hope all Nottlers with older petrol cars checked the vehicles suitability for the E10 petrol change.. I was dreading checking , but went on the gov website and entered car reg – came straight up as OK – phew. Now, if only I was running as smooth as the car.

    1. I use Tesco premium which remains at E5 standard. I find the extra cost over ordinary unleaded is more than recouped in extra milage and probably more so now it is E10 standard.

        1. Momentum is 7 or 8p a lt more than E10 unleaded but I find it gives 10% extra milage (Focus ecoboost and MX5 cars).

          1. Wish i’d known that. When I first got this car (50k on the clock) I worked out it had only done an average 100mile per week, from new so put bottle of Redex treatment in every other tankful. About the 4th bottle and the car started to act a bit awkward, as if I was opening the throttle, which I wasn’t. Then 2 more bottles later and suddenly it coughed and spluttered – then took off like a scared cat. The difference from first buying it was incredible. The Redex certainly cleared something out. I got into the habit of waiting for Tesco to do a half price promo on them, then buying several bottles a time.

          2. Wish i’d known that. When I first got this car (50k on the clock) I worked out it had only done an average 100mile per week, from new so put bottle of Redex treatment in every other tankful. About the 4th bottle and the car started to act a bit awkward, as if I was opening the throttle, which I wasn’t. Then 2 more bottles later and suddenly it coughed and spluttered – then took off like a scared cat. The difference from first buying it was incredible. The Redex certainly cleared something out. I got into the habit of waiting for Tesco to do a half price promo on them, then buying several bottles a time.

    2. My Aygo is fine, my MG, who knows? There’s no information about it. Considering it doesn’t run very happily on unleaded (I had to put something in the tank to supplement it), I doubt it will cope with E10

      1. Get the valve seats fixed. Did that, with a head skim, for Firstborn’s Series 3, and the biggest cost was return shipping to the UK.
        Turner Engineering. Proper job!

    3. My Aygo is fine, my MG, who knows? There’s no information about it. Considering it doesn’t run very happily on unleaded (I had to put something in the tank to supplement it), I doubt it will cope with E10

    4. I have a 2CV and a Peugeot 205. Neither of them come up on the Government website, and both of them are way older than 2011 first registration, the Planned Obsolescence cutoff.

      As far as I know, the 2CV’s rubber gasket and fuel pipe connectors are vulnerable, and the parts supplier recommends a bigger primary jet in the carb, but then it should be ok. I have no idea about the 205, but probably it’s got to be E5 super unleaded until someone can tell me. Parts are impossible to get since they knocked down the Ryton factory.

      Always I am told that serious engine damage will happen to any car with fuel left for more than a month in the tank, so it is wise to dispose of it and replace with fresh once a month if not used up with normal running. So much for Government claims about Green-friendliness!

      I have got some fuel stabiliser (Classic Valvemaster Plus) which claims to keep the fuel fresh for a year, even that with added ethanol.

      Briggs & Stratton Fuel Fit claims to keep it fresh for two, and is essential for mowers and other petrol-driven garden tools. It used to be sold as a concentrated blue liquid, but they “upgraded” it to a pink formula that needs ten times the amount for the same protection.

    2. Well BTsport has Suzi Perry for MotorGP but she’s been doing it for years.
      She knows the sport inside-out.

  98. The thoughtful comments below are much appreciated. Aged parents are something many of us will have to deal with. I always felt that I would do what I could, but if the care was beyond my capability, a more suitable solution would have to be found. I found social services in my area extremely helpful when occasionally needed.

    2. I think at heart they try, but for us seems intent on destroying my father’s home out of greed.

      1. I think it is not so much greed (although they want it) I think it is more to deprive you, the rightful heir, of the parental assets – they do not want you to benefit in any way. The state sees it as their right to get what it can.

        1. I have been wodering if hospitals get a payback for shoving people into care homes. Mate’s MiLaw has just moved into care home . Shes 94 yrs, falls over. The speed he was phoned by the council was ridiculous – straight in with “Is it her own house – what value” – – like vultures.

          1. I once briefly worked in a legal section at County Hall. Our prime role was to ring up pensioners in care homes and threaten them with bailiffs if they did not pay up on time. There was a team of women solicitors who loved their work and sense of empowerment, a section manager who was not interested and just waiting for retirement (he transferred out soon after) and a director who was raking in several hundred thousand a year in remuneration package and didn’t want anyone rocking the boat for him. Without a shred of evidence, he lied to my face suggesting that I was the one on the fiddle.

            I didn’t last long there, since they objected to middle-aged men with beards and a public service ethic, and I was not the young woman they were expecting. They pushed me out, cancelled my pension and put up my Council Tax.

            In a way, I am glad to be out of the employment racket. It was a great relief when I turned 60 and it was no longer socially unacceptable not to be “actively seeking work”.

    3. My mum died 20 years ago. It doesn’t seem all that long ago. She had dementia. We looked after her in our small cottage-on-the-green home. At the time we had two teenage boys and full time jobs. I came home at lunch times to make sure she got her lunch. After two years I simply couldn’t cope any more and had to look for residential accommodation for her. I didn’t even realise she had dementia at that point, I didn’t know the personality changes were all part of it. I think I was in denial. I had no help whatsoever from social services. I felt I didn’t cope with the situation very well and there are things I regret.

        1. Thank you. Ours is perhaps the first generation that has had to deal with parents living to great ages.

          2. Mine too, all gone before I was born. My paternal grandfather survived the first three years of my life but he died from emphysema. I do remember him though. A generation later, my father’s sister lived to 103. She said that if she had known she was going to live so long she would have paid more attention to her pension….! Although she was left well provided for.

          3. My grandparents went when I was 12, 14, 16 and 26. My father died when I was 49. My mother, who had had a couple of near-death experiences with serious illness was not expected to live for much longer, so she gave away her home to the family (my sister was the main beneficiary, taking the London property) hoping to bring Inheritance Tax down to the 20% band at least, but not really expecting to live the full seven years. That was in 2005. I mentioned the 2012 Olympics to be held in London, and she said that she was not going to be alive then to witness it.

            She is still alive, now aged 96. It seems that the Grim Reaper has lost interest. My older brother once commented ruefully “she’ll outlive us all”.

          4. I think that’s the nub of it, pm. My mum died in ’79 and my dad in ’84. My first real experience of it was my OH’s mother who would stay with us for a couple of weeks at a time, some 10 years ago. Then my sister on Clydeside who died in a care home in 2019 at 72 .

      3. A couple of years ago, I tracked down a man, a year older than me, who lived alone and went down with dementia. He was the founder and only administrator of a Facebook fan club, but his postings dried up in the Spring of 2018, and we were all wondering where he had gone.

        I found a ‘For Sale’ board outside his home. A neighbour told me that Social Services had taken him away and put him in a home. I followed the trail, and three homes later, I found him, completely gone in a grim prison smelling of urine and the cries of the demented. All his belongings, other than a picture of his parents and a framed professional certificate had been cleared out and sent to the dump. The staff did their best for him, and were grateful for the information I could provide from the fan club. I also sent a DVD and a CD from our muse, and someone in the club got the lady herself to send him a short video greeting.

        Not all of us who go down with dementia can rely on family to care about them. Since my own divorce and estrangement from my children, I too live alone, and will probably suffer the same fate.

        I sometimes think that cyanide pills on the NHS are the kinder option.

      4. All the big, bad difficult things of life catch us unawares. When they’ve passed by, we have become experts – and then we never need the knowledge again. We all think of dementia symptoms like forgetting things – we aren’t so aware of other stuff like personality changes. Don’t blame yourself – maybe one day you will get the chance to pass your experience on and help someone else.

  100. Evening, all. Had my boiler serviced this morning – the chap who does it is sensible (and a Brexiteer) and was commenting on the way people seemed to have lost all reason over the pandemic and mask wearing. The chap who runs our RAFA sessions is only going to drop in briefly because he thinks the delta variant is too virulent to spend much time indoors. I’m glad I’m old!

    1. Yes, around noon I passed a local delicatessen and a couple (in 60s or 70s) were walking on (the very wide) pavement with very few people around … I was a bit shocked to see the light reflecting off her perspex visor … I am sure she also wore a mask.

        1. I know staff in local restaurants and such like still wear them because it is expected from their management.

          As usual the management don’t want to be sued.

          One would think they would be more concerned about catching a killer virus than standing up in a Court of Law but…ho hum.

    1. I read the total material left behind was $160 billion Dollars.

      Biden was speaking the truth when he said the Afghan Army of 300,00 was the best equipped.

      Other ..let us call them allies…left all their Kit too.

      The Taliban can now call to arms at least 500,000 warm bodies.

      The biggest and most well equipped in the world.

      Planned.

    1. This would not surprise me. He seems to be mental. They all seem mental. Perhaps they have been threatened. When you mute the sound to their speeches their faces look tortured. This isn’t normal. Four or five presidents to countries who have not gone along with their plans have died.

      Talking of which, Hilary Clinton is keeping a low profile these days.

      1. As more and more get jabbed, the chance of them meeting an unvaxed person gets less and less – – so if the triple jabbed start dying from Covid, then who are they going to blame for infecting them?.

      3. Trudeau is the son of a mafiosi. Pelosi is the daughter of one.

        These are truly evil people and should be arrested and imprisoned for their crimes.

        Hillary Clinton has let herself go completely and has become roughly spherical. She should be arrested and tried for malfeasance in public office, with her husband skimming millions from bribes for their Clinton Foundation. It would also be worth investigating the high numbers of unexplained deaths of their opponents down the years.

        Biden is just Biden, the head of a renowned crime family. Started out a relative pauper and as with Clinton and Obama now a multimillionaire through shady and corrupt dealings.

        It is much the same in the UK. Who ever thought that Blair would be ‘worth’ the millions he is now valued at or Theresa May able to command millions for her ‘speeches’.

      4. I watched Stew Peters (Red Voice Media) interview a USA ex-Army intelligence officer yesterday and the interviewee stated that Trudeau is being mocked almost everywhere he turns up. That so many “leaders” globally are looking and sounding demented as well as all following the same scheme is very suspicious. Our politicians are lost and the people will have to save themselves.

    2. His arrogant assumption that he could walk into a majority is not working out, he is becoming desperate and striking out at everyone.

    3. This is the biggest lie of all. It’s the vaccinated that are a danger to the unvaccinated, not the other way round.
      In Germany, I notice, some politicians have been saying “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated” – like they have the key to the great god Science!

      edit; just listening to the speech. It’s utterly lame. Everyone knows children have more chance of being struck by lightening than dying of covid. His lies ring utterly hollow, and the National Socialists of the 1930s would be proud of his rhetoric.
      eg
      “You need to condemn THOSE PEOPLE. You need to CORRECT THEM”

      What a f’g R Sole.

  103. Something I have been meaning to do for a long time is find the songs by Hoagy Carmichael on the internet and try and playing along with them. I have his centennial collection compositions in a large book but i wish i could read music shoodah paid more attention to Mr Williams. The book has all the chords with the music but it’s great to see him and other stars of his era playing and singing along with him. Georgia on my Mind is one of my favourites along with Star Dust, I have an old 80s vinyl album with Georgie Fame and Annie Ross singing a selection of his classics but no record player. I’ll put in a request for my forth coming birthday. But i’m afraid today Old rocking chair has got me. I’m off to lay may head down. And hopefully have a better night’s sleep than last night.
    Nite all.

    1. Ready Eddy: Matt Monro recorded a superb collection of songs (twelve in total including Stardust and Georgia on my Mind) by Hoagy Carmichael. Hoagy himself said that it was the best version of his songs which he had ever heard – praise indeed.

      1. I liked him and his voice was great for an old bus driver. I knew his nephew in London NW7, Reggie Parsons.

    2. Ready Eddy: Matt Monro recorded a superb collection of songs (twelve in total including Stardust and Georgia on my Mind) by Hoagy Carmichael. Hoagy himself said that it was the best version of his songs which he had ever heard – praise indeed.

    1. Yet this afternoon I found a clip of Kabul airport, saying it was filmed yesterday – – empty, with the reporter saying all the vehicles left behind had been disabled??Tried to find it again but failed. One clearly is lies.

      1. Why are the news sites that are protecting the old cont saying such obvious lies? Do they mean they switched a little lever to turn the fuel off?

    2. Yet this afternoon I found a clip of Kabul airport, saying it was filmed yesterday – – empty, with the reporter saying all the vehicles left behind had been disabled??Tried to find it again but failed. One clearly is lies.

      1. I’ve just booked a couple of nights away in the camper for the end of October – the same thought had crossed my mind. I bought my first Christmas cards yesterday!

        1. At this time of year i try to upset as many people as possible so they are not surprised about not getting a card. :@)

          1. Cards have started to appear in the charity shops. I bought these (I normally leave it until later) because I liked the designs and I reckoned, not unreasonably, that if I delayed, they’d get sold out.

          2. I know. I work on the principle that if I like it, someone else will also, so buy it when you see it.

    2. Good night, Tom. I hope that you were saying “God bless” to all NoTTLers, and not to Disqus.

      :-))

Comments are closed.