Wednesday 10 August: Low speed limits are now used as a ploy to make Britons give up cars

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

633 thoughts on “Wednesday 10 August: Low speed limits are now used as a ploy to make Britons give up cars”

  1. ‘Morning, Peeps and Geoff.

    A delightful 15.5°C here at 06:00, but an excessive 29° forecast for early afternoon.

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – With the announcement of the possibility of A-road speed limits of 60mph being reduced to 20mph in Surrey (report, August 8), and other counties likely to follow, it is only right that the British public is made aware of the intentions of both the Government and local authorities in reducing, and eventually phasing out, our access to personal transport by pricing people out of cars and by making driving such a huge inconvenience that we simply give up.

    Trudy Harrison MP, the transport minister, has already said that owning a car is based on outdated “20th-century thinking” and that the country should move to “shared mobility” to cut emissions. All around the country, evidence of this aim is clear to see.

    Unless the British public wakes up and starts to rebel, we will shortly be in the same position as our ancestors, for whom travelling more than five miles from home will be a hugely expensive and unappealing undertaking.

    Trevor Holman
    Podington, Northamptonshire

    Look no further if you require proof that we have a Conservative government in name only.  

    The BTL responses are predictable:

    J McMenemy21 MIN AGO

    If a Transport minister has declared that owning a car is based on outdated thinking, then it is time for MPs to lead by example.

    No allowance paid (from our money) for travel by private transport, taxi or hire car for MPs or their staff.

    No allowance paid for flights or foreign travel.

    Public transport use will continue to be reimbursed. Walking and responsible cycling to be encouraged.

    Payment for horse and/or cart could be considered as a possibility in rural constituencies.

    Mrs M

    Roderick Cooper12 MIN AGO

    Reassuring to see that everyone is finally waking up to the fact that our freedom of movement is under threat, under the confected excuse of “man made climate change”. The war on cars is real, and the once we have been forced into buying EV’s (only those who can afford to do so) then electronic tracking of these vehicles is simple and therefore imposing a surcharge tax on number of miles driven becomes much easier.

    2. We should also wake up to the vandalism and expense of unnecessarily replacing gas boilers with Heat Pumps in our homes.
      Our politicians are determined to make our lives more miserable than they are now.

    3. How can anyone contemplate voting for the authoritarian extremists masquerading as Conservatives?
      I haven’t heard either Truss or Sunak vowing to bring in 20 mph limits on main roads or a CBDC in their speeches to party members.

  4. SIR – Speed limits need to be based on road conditions and hazards. It is highly debatable that blanket 20mph rural speed limits will improve road safety, and they are certainly no deterrent to racing joyriders.

    It seems the authorities have a hidden agenda to stop people driving by making it as difficult as possible and criminalising safe drivers.

    Mike Finnis
    Hinchley Wood, Surrey

    It’s no longer hidden, Mike Finnis!

  5. SIR – I live in a 20mph zone. Friends have been fined for driving between 23mph and 26mph. Twice I have seen a policeman with a speed gun in the bushes near where I live, so I try very hard to maintain a speed of 20mph.

    A cyclist passed me on Tuesday as I was driving at 20mph. At the lights I told him about the police with speed guns, but he wasn’t concerned because cyclists are exempt. They may ride at 30mph on our roads.

    My 6ft 3in husband was recently knocked down by a speeding bike as he crossed the road. The cars had stopped to allow him to cross but not the cyclist careering down the centre of the road. No apology. He was yelled at as he dusted himself down in a now torn suit jacket and the foul-mouthed cyclist just went on his way.

    Belinda Stone
    Commondale, North Yorkshire

    A fine example of the current crop of Lycra-louts!

    1. Fifty years ago, while taking my first driving test, I was driving down a hill at 30mph (the limit for that road), when I was overtaken by a cyclist. I failed.

    2. We drove along the A68 yesterday. A few miles south of St Boswells there is a fixed speed camera in operation. Fifty yards further on there was a mobile police speed camera van.
      Elsewhere in Scotland, drug deals are taking place, people are being assaulted, homes are being broken into, shops are being lifted…
      This is a police force that has continually failed to deal with serious crime. Murders go unsolved.

  6. SIR – Now the reservoirs are at historically low levels, have the water companies mobilised workers and mechanical equipment to remove all the silt that has built up in them over the years, to increase capacity and reduce flood risk?

    Edward Gray
    Edinburgh

    I like your thinking, Mr Gray.  And silt is fertile and a good soil conditioner too.  Its removal might also help to reduce the algal bloom that we see at this time of year.

  7. A conspiracy of silence about the impact of mass migration has cost Britain dear. 10 August 2022.

    Failure to plan for the extra millions of people coming to Britain is behind many of our current woes.

    One point that Migration Watch was making in 2002 was that if no one talks about immigration then no planning can be done for the inevitable pressures that it brings.

    The fact is that, until the mid-1990s, the actuarial assumptions that underpinned government forecasts of public service requirements were based on an almost steady population. For instance, officials assumed that more homes would be needed because of the break-up of families; but they vastly underestimated the rate of new household formation because the impact of immigration was not taken into account.

    They could never plan for it because it would have been a de facto admission to the British People that they were being replaced!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/09/conspiracy-silence-impact-mass-migration-has-cost-britain-dear/

    1. I read a report recently that said millions of people in the world are on the move from their countries and that immigration will be with us for a long time. The UK must draw a line on this ASAP and limit immigration. At the moment illegals are apparently not checked for anything on arrival in the UK, Our Borders are an open door.

      1. There was an extremely self-important (and very unpleasant) Oirish politician who – natch – became a big wheel in the EUSSR called Sutherland – who kept banging on and on about the need for people in Europe to take in billions of wanqueurs from yer Africa….

        Looks like he got his way….

  8. Good morning, everyone.

    In my post yesterday I said that I planned to re-watch (after over ten years) my DVD copy of THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY’S starring Jason Robards, Britt Ekland, Norman Wisdom, EDIT: Harry Andrews and Bert Lahr (The Cowardly Lion from THE WIZARD OF OZ). And I discovered a lot of fascinating further information from the re-watch and consulting the IMDb site afterwards.

    For example the film featured the following extra actors: Forrest Tucker, Rudy Vallee, Herbie Faye (Corporal Fender from TV’s SGT. BILKO), Elliot Gould and Joseph Wiseman (the original DR NO from the first James Bond film). MINSKY’S also featured four songs composed by Charles Strouse & Lee Adams (ANNIE and BYE, BYE BIRDIE) and it was directed by William Friedkin (THE EXCORCIST and THE FRENCH CONNECTION). What an amazing collection of cast and crew!

    CORRECTION: I also mentioned Harry Andrews in last night’s post, hence the edit/correction above.

  9. SIR – Last week, I rang the Pensions Regulator regarding a compliance issue with the auto-enrolment scheme, and was delighted to be connected to a person within minutes.

    Imagine my fury when I could only understand about two words of the other person’s answers to my questions. It transpired that he was working from home, presumably using a mobile phone with bad connection. I had to end the call none the wiser as I simply could not understand him.

    Back to the paper and envelope option – I wonder if there will be anyone at the address to open the letter. When are these government agencies going to go back to work?

    This country is on its knees due mainly to this idiotic shirking-from-home culture.

    Carol White
    Northwold, Norfolk

    Contact your MP, Carol White.  One day, when they are fed up with being bombarded with complaints, they might just do something about it…

  12. 355005+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 10 August: Low speed limits are now used as a ploy to make Britons give up cars.

    Should read as ,
    Wednesday 10 August: Low speed limits are now used as a ploy to make Britons give up.

    Another issue regarding car bon, as illustrated
    could also be applied to the current electoral voting numbers, showing Albert the only sane
    voting unit within.

    https://twitter.com/PeterDClack/status/1557176504664354816?s=20&t=qXB4qrjQOWuCXUYknwWXZg
    .

  13. Good morning, all. Sunny – again. Very heavy dew this morning. I mean really heavy – almost as though it had rained. A sign??

    1. Already 15.5C here, and a clear blue sky. Zero wind. The windmills offshore aren’t turning.

  15. Email from British Gas.

    Hello Minty.

    With everything going on in the energy market right now, we want to make sure you know about all the tariff options available to you – and why now could be a good time to switch to a fixed tariff.

    Fix your energy prices for peace of mind.

    You’re on a variable tariff right now. This means if energy prices go up, your bills go up too.

    With a fixed tariff, your gas and electricity rates are exactly that – fixed. So your bills will only go up if the amount of energy you use increases.

    Why fix now?

    We know the recent price rises are putting an extra burden on homes across the country.

    There’s so much uncertainty still in the energy market, and industry sources have advised that the price cap in October is expected to go up by £1500 taking the national average to £3,500 a year, and could increase at the next price cap in January 2023 to £3,850.

    So fixing now means you don’t have to worry about these price rises in the months ahead.

    Variable vs fixed for you.

    Here’s your estimated yearly cost if you stay on your current tariff, and if you switch to fixed. As you can see, the fixed tariff is more, but you’re then completely protected from price rises.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ee4b9a53177ba7df87157c56a54c6565728f88c2308aee5cc5cbfdfee45f4dd.png

    These estimated costs are based on your energy use from last year and include 5094kWh of gas. We’ve added a more detailed breakdown further down.

    I have to confess that this gabble is as alien to me as colloquial Martian. My instinct is simply to ignore it but Allison Pearson in her article today says that I should sign up to a fixed rate. Does any Nottler have any advice about this?

      1. Thank you Hugh.

        And remember, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ here. So…

        If you want price certainty, the cheapest fixes now give you that, but you’ll pay more in the short term. If in doubt though, there’s nowt wrong with playing safe and sticking on the price cap.

        And it should be noted if wholesale rates drop, cheaper fixes could be available in future, so by locking in now you miss out, especially if your fix has higher exit penalties.

        So…Stick with where I am?

        https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/-are-there-any-cheap–fixed-energy-deals-currently-worth-it–/

        1. Fixed tariffs could be discontinued. I don’t know if they constitute a contract or if the Supplier can just bring them to an immediate end when they choose?

        2. With all the uncertainty I think it is best to hold off fixing for now. So much can change in 6-12 months.

        3. All the indicators are that prices are going to go up rapidly. Personally, i would go for the fixed rate. Which indeed i have. You need to set aside some time and think about this carefully. IMO

      2. Thank you Hugh.

        And remember, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ here. So…

        If you want price certainty, the cheapest fixes now give you that, but you’ll pay more in the short term. If in doubt though, there’s nowt wrong with playing safe and sticking on the price cap.

        And it should be noted if wholesale rates drop, cheaper fixes could be available in future, so by locking in now you miss out, especially if your fix has higher exit penalties.

        So…Stick with where I am?

        https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/-are-there-any-cheap–fixed-energy-deals-currently-worth-it–/

      3. Thank you Hugh.

        And remember, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ here. So…

        If you want price certainty, the cheapest fixes now give you that, but you’ll pay more in the short term. If in doubt though, there’s nowt wrong with playing safe and sticking on the price cap.

        And it should be noted if wholesale rates drop, cheaper fixes could be available in future, so by locking in now you miss out, especially if your fix has higher exit penalties.

        So…Stick with where I am?

        https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/-are-there-any-cheap–fixed-energy-deals-currently-worth-it–/

      4. Thank you Hugh.

        And remember, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ here. So…

        If you want price certainty, the cheapest fixes now give you that, but you’ll pay more in the short term. If in doubt though, there’s nowt wrong with playing safe and sticking on the price cap.

        And it should be noted if wholesale rates drop, cheaper fixes could be available in future, so by locking in now you miss out, especially if your fix has higher exit penalties.

        So…Stick with where I am?

        https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/-are-there-any-cheap–fixed-energy-deals-currently-worth-it–/

    3. I know nothing about lots of things. Like Ofgem. Ofgem is supposed to prevent wild profiteering by energy businesses, to protect energy users. Energy users includes business and industry, areas that require to budget on a five year plan, as well as domestic consumers. Ofgem are not protecting us. Suppliers wish to raise prices so Ofgem obliges by raising the “cap”, or permissible limit, on high prices. The cost of getting oil and gas out of the ground has not gone up. Prices have gone up because of political interference? So why are energy producers allowed to make huge profits while we face blackouts, misery and death?
      Ofgem is focussing on Net Zero, which is, as most of us know, a barmy dream of children, stupid people, being exploited by the unscrupulous.
      Ofgem: “We are a non-ministerial government department and an independent National Regulatory Authority. Our role is to protect consumers now and in the future by working to deliver a greener, fairer energy system.”
      How is that going, then?

      https://www.ofgem.gov.uk

      1. I note the words ‘secure’ and ‘affordable’ don’t feature in their virtue-signalling statement!

      2. It’s going perfectly! What could be fairer than nobody being able to afford to heat their home?

  16. Email from British Gas.

    Hello Minty.

    With everything going on in the energy market right now, we want to make sure you know about all the tariff options available to you – and why now could be a good time to switch to a fixed tariff.

    Fix your energy prices for peace of mind.

    You’re on a variable tariff right now. This means if energy prices go up, your bills go up too.

    With a fixed tariff, your gas and electricity rates are exactly that – fixed. So your bills will only go up if the amount of energy you use increases.

    Why fix now?

    We know the recent price rises are putting an extra burden on homes across the country.

    There’s so much uncertainty still in the energy market, and industry sources have advised that the price cap in October is expected to go up by £1500 taking the national average to £3,500 a year, and could increase at the next price cap in January 2023 to £3,850.

    So fixing now means you don’t have to worry about these price rises in the months ahead.

    Variable vs fixed for you.

    Here’s your estimated yearly cost if you stay on your current tariff, and if you switch to fixed. As you can see, the fixed tariff is more, but you’re then completely protected from price rises.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ee4b9a53177ba7df87157c56a54c6565728f88c2308aee5cc5cbfdfee45f4dd.png

    These estimated costs are based on your energy use from last year and include 5094kWh of gas. We’ve added a more detailed breakdown further down.

    I have to confess that this gabble is as alien to me as colloquial Martian. My instinct is simply to ignore it but Allison Pearson in her article today says that I should sign up to a fixed rate. Does any Nottler have any advice about this?

  18. Low speed limits are now used as a ploy to make Britons give up cars

    Well you could have knocked me down with a feather there, who would have thought that was what they were up to.

    1. I wonder if running at low speed in a low gear damages the engine. Modern vehicles were designed to spend most of their working time in a high gear, 4th or 5th. As all our local towns and villages have 20mph limits we notice the engine grumbling both in our manual diesel van and automatic petrol convertible. Modern vehicles are not designed to travel at 20mph.

      1. I’m sure that I read that towns which had introduced 20mph limits earlier were now restoring normal speed limits as emission levels rose when vehicles were pootering about at low speed.

      3. Speed limits – and rules of the road – are ignored utterly in Southampton so there’s no point forcing yet more. Hell, found out the other day the gormless council have slapped another dozen traffic lights on less than a mile of road – did it never occur to them to build a blasted pedestrian footbridge?

    2. More idiocracy from the same old useless hierarchy.
      Meanwhile being as useless as chocolate teapots, on top of their salaries and corporate bungs, they’ll help themselves to 200 grand a piece ‘living expenses’.

      2. As I walk to the gym there’s a wide-ish road just after a little humpbacked bridge. It’s a 30mph limit as there’re lovely Victorian houses on both sides.

        Scum still roar up and down it at 50, the brattish yobs think it a race track and treat it so. Reducing the speed limit will make no difference. As a friend said the other day they spent so much time sitting in traffic jams that doing 20 would be a godsend. She’s a cleaner, and goes to folks’ homes. The more time spent driving, the less time she has doing and earning money and the more it costs her in fuel. The assault on the motorist by lazy councillors sat in air conditioned offices driven there by taxis or chauffeurs needs to end, and those useless fat cats defenestrated and kicked out of a high window.

    4. Bonus is that once they have caught you twice doing 23 in a 20 – which they are doing – you have points on your (possibly otherwise unblemished) licence and if you are a law-abiding person, which you probably are, you will be worried about garner further points, so now they have you cowed as well. It’s genius, when you think about it.

      Edit. And for Plod, it’s even easier than arresting someone for posting pictures of flags.

  19. From today’s DT:

    UK could face managed electricity blackouts under worst case energy crisis scenario

    Possibility raised during war-gaming discussions at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy over supply concerns

    By Dominic Penna and Ben Riley-Smith, POLITICAL EDITOR
    9 August 2022 • 8:00pm

    Managed electricity blackouts could be seen in Britain over the winter if the “worst case” energy supply crisis hits, according to scenario planning conducted by government officials.

    The possibility was raised during war-gaming discussions in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) over looming energy supply concerns.

    One exercise saw officials map out what could happen in the “reasonable worst-case scenario”, which would see an extreme drop-off in UK energy supply this winter.

    The possible next steps discussed, according to a report from Bloomberg News – not denied by BEIS – included organised blackouts for industry and households.

    Below-average temperatures and reduced electricity imports from Norway and France could expose four days in January to such a scenario, according to the report.

    Government plans for what steps would be taken to conserve gas have been made public in the past, and include deliberate and targeted blackouts in times of emergency.

    A government source familiar with the discussions on Tuesday played down the likelihood of the scenarios becoming reality, arguing that the exercise included “imagined” worst case examples.

    But the fact that officials have spent time considering the implications of such a possibility reflects a wider concern across Whitehall about the energy crisis this winter.

    By the start of 2023, energy bills could be triple what they were a year earlier, according to industry forecasts, as the impact of the Covid pandemic and Ukraine war escalate.

    A BEIS spokesman said the scenario was “not something we expect to happen”, adding: “We are not dependent on Russian energy imports, unlike Europe, with access to our own North Sea gas reserves, steady imports from reliable partners, the second largest LNG [liquefied natural gas] port infrastructure in Europe, and a gas supply underpinned by robust legal contracts.

    “Households, businesses and industry can be confident they will get the electricity and gas they need.”

    Earlier this year, the Government announced a new strategy to increase the UK’s energy independence, including investing more to build nuclear power plants in the UK.

    But at the time Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, played down the likelihood of the strategy reducing energy costs in the near future, telling Sky News in April: “The strategy is more of a medium-term three, four, five-year answer.”

    * * *

    No, we may not be dependent on Russian gas, but alternative sources may not be able to meet demand, and may well become even more unaffordable during winter.  Norway is already making noises about reducing or stopping the gas they supply to us if the situation becomes a matter of survival.  During high summer we have, almost unbelievably, found it necessary to burn coal on occasions, and therefore I have the uncomfortable feeling that blackouts may well be unavoidable.  Today, for instance, in relatively benign weather, and with demand of 25.7GW, gas is producing 60% because our 11,091 wind turbines can only manage 10%. Even inefficient OCGT is being used.

    I fear that this article seems to indicate a degree of complacency.  The BTL posters are not amused:

    olan bayawo10 HRS AGO

    As I have said many times for many years this is the culmination of 30 years of failed energy policy by all parties.

    It’s what happens when you put thick-as-mince politics and humanities graduates in charge of anything and let them listen to ignorant eco twerps who think that countries can be powered by windmills and fairy dust.

    A M Faloone8 HRS AGO

    These are the same politicians who are banning new gas boilers, in favour of heat pumps, which require large amounts of electricity to operate. The same people who are banning the sale of cars with petrol or diesel engines, so the only new cars available will run on electricity. The same electricity we are likely to run out of even before the heat pumps and electric cars take off. They are either stupid or plain evil.

    Andy RoadKing2 HRS AGO

    The Net Zero nutters have been busy blowing up decommissioned coal power stations.

    Wee Kranky pressed the detonator on Longannet the largest coal power station in Europe last December.

    Ms Sturgeon said: “Today’s event is a symbolic reminder that we have ended coal-fired power generation in Scotland, as we work in a fair and just way towards becoming a net-zero nation by 2045.”

    RT PT10 HRS AGO

    Pay for Our NHS – but don’t use it or it’ll break. Pay for water – but don’t use it or it’ll run out. Pay for electricity – but don’t use it or we’ll switch it off.

    Nice one. 👍🏻

    1. Whatever else may be being said about this, I am pleased to see that the fools in charge are examining and planning for such scenarios.
      Looking at the ever succeeding shambles in all areas of public life I am surprised that they actually are!

      1. If they’d planned ahead to meet demand, there would be no need to plan the scenario for the lack *of* that demand.

        But hey. Forward planning is not something government does – mainly because it appears chock full of half witted morons.

        1. AND they continue to listen to so-called experts who have been proven to be wrong time and time again.

    3. Same old same old…..everything they come into contact with……..
      Not an effing clue between the lot of them.

    4. Interesting that these worst case scenario’s are being dismissed but the scamdemic scenarios were taken as gospel.
      W⚓️S.

      Edit interesting not interstate

      1. Of course they are. The state can’t have people actually realising the plan all along has been to simply stop you using a resource our entire economy relies upon, can it?

    5. One person at work said they would not be working from home once the cold weather returns, there are some pluses..

    6. It is not failed energy policy, this is deliberate. They want to run down our energy supplies to meet their ‘climate change’ targets. Frankly, the first people to lose out should be the eco mentalists. They should be forced to be cold, in the dark. Shut down the department for climate change first and foremost. Sack them all, just as bills are soaring.

      Then do the same for the department for business. The role of government is to supply essential shared services. It has refused to do this. Therefore, government must be dismantled. It is an obese corpulent, corrupt and useless edifice of waste and inefficiency. Burn it down.

  20. 355005+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Can any current supporter/member/ lab/lib/con coalition voter tell me how on Gods green earth, with a 1000 p/w potential patients entering this country are the NHS even with the best of intentions, going to “katchup”

    May one also ask WHY are you, the supporter / member / voter supporting / voting for political overseers that as “in your face ” can be clearly seen, NOT supporting you ?

    1. You’re missing the bigger picture, ogga. The Left want massive uncontrolled gimmigration. That makes for a huge state to deal with their crimes, welfare demands and so on. They’re also in favour of reducing crop growing and imports, which will lead to starvation, and forcing down energy use, creating rationing. It is an insanity only the Left wing mind can process – force more people in, reduce output massively increase costs and pretend it will work.

      However these people are paying someone to bring them over, so they’re effectively slaves. The Left, both demanding an ever bigger state are also enforcing slavery. The hypocrisy and doublethink of the Left wing mind is a bizarre and truly psychotic place to be.

      1. The migrants still think that the money tree will carry on ad infinitem.
        It’s not even the Left, they are just the tools of the foreign billionaire technocrats.

        1. Yes. All captured by the ideology. Uncontrolled immigration is a great way to get those on the right to support a digital ID.

      2. 355005+ up ticks,

        Morning W,

        The way I see the biggest scam picture of ALL time is that the political current left now comprises of, nigh on ,a 650 membership.

        I no longer see left / right politics but
        Right / wrong politics.

        1. It’s not the politicians. They’re just wasters who go to meetings. It’s the entire civil service. The whole administration, the whole bureaucracy. The mandarins looking for that eurojob, the latest quangocrat troughing away. It’s a comically over funded pit of waste. Government says it needs more money but that is simple admittance that it has spent what it has been given badly.

          1. The higher unemployment is the easier it is to control inflation. They want immigrants so the unemployment rate soars and there’s less pressure for wage rises like over the past 25 years.
            To kill this inflation throw 12-15 million people onto the dole. That’ll do it.

    2. Morning Ogga

      We have sacrificed the quality of postwar life here in Britain , and the richness of our countryside because British political parties have embraced diversity.

      We are overcrowded , drought ridden , and overwhelmed by debt.

      1. 355005+ up ticks,

        Morning TB,
        The electorate majority must comprise of a certain type of person who cannot survive without a regular beating

        Many would perhaps find it more enjoyable visiting Madam SYN for a good lashing than visiting the polling booth.

  21. Reposted from late last night:

    Wednesday 10th August 2022

    ourmaninmunich

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/710c2987ae81762f4f199101cd067757e28002b854bef38f33081315172335ac.jpg

    And many joyous returns of the day

    (We need more young blood – you are one of the young ones so you must visit the forum more often!)

    With very best wishes

    Caroline and Rastus

    Do you remember this song by Al Stewart with Laurence Juber on the guitar?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pB9zuS4Ay8

    3. Good Morning all and thank – you for the birthday wishes.
      I can assure you that I am a regular visitor, albeit an infrequent poster / upvoter. Both family and work life are extremely busy ate moment.
      I always appreciate good guitar work – so loved the above as a reminder of my time in Munich – I’ve only been able to pass through a couple of times since Covid in order to replenish my stocks of Augistiner (Helles and Edelstoff)

      All the very best to all!

      Nick

      3. 🎶🎂🥂Happy Birthday, ourmaninmunich! Have a great day! (You share the day with oursoninglasgow at this moment.)

  22. Thoughts from the Bath no. 647.
    There is a North Pole and a South Pole. Why not an East Pole and a West Pole? Magnetic North is not fixed. It wanders about a bit. Our planet rotates about a North-South axis.
    What if that is changing? If the Earth rotated about an East- West Polar axis our Equator would move and our climatic regions would change very considerably.
    How would we recognise this beginning to happen?
    Typically changes take place moderately slowly then suddenly. Like sliding off a pitched roof, it is quite slow then it speeds up and then one is over the edge and hurtling to earth.
    Maybe the slide has begun.

        2. On ther hand it means that climate change is being caused by other than anthropogenic causes.

        1. I’m using references from Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’. Hubwards and Rimwards, Widdershinns and Turnwise. As would be the four directions of travel on a disc. :@)

  23. Good Morning. Yesterday turned sunny and warm. It was cooler at night, but not very cold. The sun is shining and a warm day is in prospect. A taste of summer.

    1. This is the Left wing way. Don’t change the tax code to reduce and simplify, take more tax to attack those people trying to make the money the Left are using to destroy them.

        1. VAT and the cost of local taxes should be listed on till receipts.
          In GB, taxes are set nationally, so spendthrift county and borough councils don’t get the back lash.
          VAT is only shown on trade receipts; it should be shown on supermarket and shop receipts as well (which i think ALDI did, but you needed to understand the coding).

  25. Good morning all

    Water is one of the most important elements in construction but people still ignore quality aspect of this element. The water is required for preparation of mortar, mixing of cement concrete and for curing work etc during construction work. SAVE WATER, stop building houses .

    1. Save water, stop people drinking it. Personally I’d like to see sewage filled water sat on the desks of every mandarin, every minister, everyone who has ever blithered on about climate change. Here you go. That’s your future. What, you want something else? No kiddo. This is what you’ll drink, and you’ll like it. After all, it’s what your psychotic ideology demands for the rest of us

        1. Well, before the clean water we have today we’d put wine in it so the alcohol would kill the bacteria.

          I’ve wondered if that’s why we’ve a drinking culture that Japan lacks… but how did they get over the clean water issue?

          2. Tea. Countries that developed an early taste for drinks involving boiled water were the ones that thrived.

  26. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

    Tory New Labourism has condemned Britain to a socialist nightmare

    Since 2010, Conservative leaders have consistently embraced the Brownite approach to energy and growth. Now there is no way out

    NIGEL FARAGE • 9 August 2022 • 12:20pm

    Gordon Brown is back, winning accolades and airtime to whip up the politics of envy on the back of a looming economic crisis. Boris and Rishi, for their part, have done much to revive Brown’s economics of big debt and big government. And the Tories have handed him the conditions for a return to the public stage by leaving a vacuum of leadership only a familiar, if not failed, face like his can fill at such short notice.

    The country is quite literally without a leader. Boris Johnson has only just returned from sunning himself somewhere in Slovenia, just as we face up to the reality of a winter fuel crisis. The Chancellor, meanwhile, is to my knowledge “working remotely” in an unknown location just as his economy slips into a 15-month recession, according to the Bank of England.

    A campaign of civil disobedience is already up and running. The new Prime Minister is going to need great skill to get through this period without being overcome by a Poll Tax-type revolt, when the people feel the sudden pinch in their pockets as they did in 1989. Brown is right, of course, to highlight the impact the energy crisis will have on working people, and families in particular. He correctly identifies the scale of the problem, which at least half the nation will struggle to financially confront this winter – even if his stretching of the definition of “poverty” makes the word increasingly meaningless.

    But for him to make it through a sprawling Guardian essay and major speech without even mentioning the self-inflicted wounds of net zero fanaticism underpinning the crisis he speaks of is, well, impressive. And for him to call for such extensive state action with little attempt at costing, is reckless. His Blairite rallying cry for new strategies, targets and handouts does nothing to explain how the nation will pay for the support people clearly need. And he said nothing at all about solving the fuel shortage and moving the UK towards energy independence in the long term. He is spreading false hope to win short term praise.

    And praise he has won. For Brown is being hailed for his supposed compassion and concern for struggling bill-payers. But if he really cared, he would not completely skirt around the elephant in the room: Britain’s under-investment in energy production, our unwillingness to use the shale gas under our feet, and the unreliability and abject failure of “renewables” to meet our energy needs. Brown is not brave. He is a coward for running scared – during and since his time in government – of middle-class green campaigners at the expense of working people. His silence says more than his words.

    Yet the economy he helped create, of wrong-footed regulation, low productivity and high immigration, was wholeheartedly embraced by Johnson and Sunak, who pushed taxes higher still. More than simply legitimising Brownite economics, they preached and in many areas expanded it. Theresa May, meanwhile, extended the self-harming environmental commitments (originally dreamed up by New Labour) in the dying days of her administration, tying future governments’ hands.

    This consensus, which might be branded Tory New Labourism, has for two decades sleepwalked the nation into the current energy crisis. But more than that, it has removed genuinely conservative solutions from the table altogether. Any serious state action plan would immediately remove the extortionate 25 per cent surcharge on electricity bills for social and green commitments and move to cut five per cent from VAT, whilst slimming down the state to pay for it.

    Amusingly, Brown proposes electricity and heating rationing in government departments (which is likely to render them even more ineffective) when he could just admit many of them need to be cut back generally. In a crisis, bureaucrats will always arrive with a spreadsheet of new taxes and handouts, as well as some futile tweaks and numbers tricks. But they are not brave enough to confront the underlying issues they help to create.

    But ultimately, this Tory government deserves all it gets. Brown’s narrative is appealing because they gave credence to his socialist politics.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/09/tory-new-labourism-has-condemned-britain-socialist-nightmare/

    1. To solve the fuel crisis everyone should be given a free tank of petrol every week, regardless of need. To solve the energy crisis everyone will be given £10,000. To fund this a levy of £800 billionsmillions will be made of the evil energy companies (and £4 trillion of borrowing)..

      See? It’s easy to spout bolloix. I do it all the time. Brown just has. It’s all his government did. They’re the reason we’re in the mess we are.

      The solutions are not to spend more, but less. To not ration government building energy use but to cut it off entirely. Sell the buildings, make the staff redundant and rent them out to private business. To get building new gas, coal and nuclear plants. To cut off subsidy to the windmills entirely, permanently. To demand they pay for the grid upgrades – currently a socialised cost.

      Frankly the energy suppliers should be building the power plants. Maybe use public money to do that, then until the loan is repaid levy a tax against them, once it’s gone levy no taxes but demand a significant share of profits be invested in the next generation of energy to ensure maintenance and perpetuation. That would put a kibosh on green permanently. No doubt officialdom would screw that up, too.

      All green levies, all taxes on energy to be abandoned. Allow the market to work freely. It is an essential good that underpins everything else. It’s provision should be in surplus, with demand met in excess with the minimum of interference from the state machine.

      1. Don’t forget those green policies are cross-party and fully supported by the Tories who went more green than Labour even considered.

        Taking the green tax and even VAT off fuel bills will not solve the issue.

        We’ve recently moved. We’re paying £371 per calendar month for dual fuel, that’s about 4500 per year for a 3 bed semi with 3 people living in it.

  27. Here are some of the latest images we have been sent from inside Ukraine and Crimea over the newswires. 10 August 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/459b00eb2bfd594fb7e580b305b2ef07d3396221cd1f172ebcf459c8c8d5273d.png

    A woman visits an outdoor poster exhibition titled ‘The Victory Day’ in Kyiv. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/EPA

    Why I ask myself (figuratively speaking) are so many images, labels and slogans in Ukraine in English?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/aug/10/russia-ukraine-war-live-news-moscow-plans-to-link-zaporzhzhia-nuclear-plant-to-crimea-operator-warns?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-62f33d798f084d500ca228a8#block-62f33d798f084d500ca228a8

      1. But from what I gather English is no longer the main language spoken in Boston but I am still stumped for a better answer.

      2. Especially given that the Azov brigade badge is based on runic symbols used by the SS, including the double-Z depicted above.

  28. The Tories must abandon this vanity contest and act now on energy prices

    With public fears mounting, it feels like we are all aboard a captainless ship of state heading for the iceberg

    ALLISON PEARSON • 9 August 2022 • 7:00pm

    So often it’s the small signs that are harbingers of disaster. A friend got up in the middle of the night to go to the loo last week. Normally, at that time, through the bathroom window Sarah can make out the dozen or so houses in her village because of a yellow glow from all the landing lights left on for reassurance. Not anymore. The village was in total darkness. “It was a shock,” Sarah said. “I realised everyone was trying to save on electricity and that brought it home. How bad it’s going to get.”

    It’s still summer, but the lights are already going out. As usual, the public is way ahead of our political masters when it comes to grasping the full horror of the coming calamity. Almost everyone I have met this week has been resounding like a cartoon character struck by a mallet, and that’s just after seeing their updated energy direct debit. Forecasts which are the stuff of nightmares predict bills will exceed £3,600 when a new price cap comes into force at the start of October, almost double today’s already record level. And in January, the price cap could reach – deep breath! – £4,400.

    At Pearson Towers, under our new “energy plan”, we will henceforth be paying almost £500 a month for the privilege of heating and lighting a not particularly palatial terraced house. (I was advised to call up our provider and ask to be put onto a fixed rate for a year. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you do it today.)

    At least we can afford to take the hit. Jo, a Planet Normal listener, spoke for millions when she wrote: “I’m coming to the end of my fixed price energy tariff. In the last year, I have paid £1,224 for my gas and electricity. In the coming year, I will pay £5,444 – an extra £4,220. I am a single parent on a relatively low income. Where is this extra £4K supposed to come from?”

    Good question, Jo. Meanwhile, with public fears mounting, it feels like we are all aboard a captainless ship of state heading for the iceberg. The two Conservative leadership candidates argue about why one particular formation of deckchairs will offer more protection against the iceberg than the other. (Neither has begun to explain how they will prevent millions of just-about-managing families from plunging into fuel poverty.) Our demob-happy Prime Minister appears to be working his way through a nine-year-old boy’s bucket list (fighter jets! hand grenades!). Labour accuses him of “just shrugging his shoulders” (unfair, Boris’s hands are tied) and the Tories of “losing control”. The leader of the Opposition is, of course, on holiday.

    What a self-indulgent, rotten spectacle it is. The country can’t afford it. About the only person who can afford another three weeks of Little Rishi Sunak’s Big Ambitions is Rishi Sunak. If Sunak has any sense of responsibility for the wellbeing of the nation, he needs to pull out of the contest today. It is clear that Liz Truss is going to be our next Prime Minister, and we must set aside any differences and put all our hopes in her now. Liz needs to be at her desk in Number 10 at the start of next week, not the beginning of September by which date there will be precious little time to help people choosing whether to heat or eat.

    All the petty point-scoring by the Sunak camp about Liz rejecting “handouts” in favour of tax cuts to help households will soon prove irrelevant. The truth is that to mitigate one of the worst crises in post-war British history, Prime Minister Truss is going to have to cut taxes and give handouts.

    She will need to remove the punitive green levies and VAT from energy bills, also slashing the VAT on fuel, which is raking in secret billions for the Treasury while maiming the motorist. Temporarily altering the threshold for benefits is one possibility to assist struggling, middle-income families, as is reinstating the £20 a week increase in Universal Credit. To be brutal, Truss will have to pull any lever she can to avoid people freezing to death. Even then, it may not be enough to avert Poll Tax 2 and riots on the streets.

    Public anger would be wholly justified. Personally, I am furious. The Net Zero agenda, the pet project of a pious panjandrum class, has led to a grotesque failure of energy security. Beneath the land and seas of these islands is enough energy to keep us warm for 300 years. A conscious decision was taken to rapidly reduce the supply of fossil fuels before green renewables – “unreliables” as they should be known – had enough time to be proved viable.

    Our coal-fired power stations were phased out, an almost uniquely futile gesture at a time when China is ordering 300 million extra tonnes of coal to be mined every year. Nuclear power was foolishly neglected (we were pioneers in the technology). The vast gas storage facility at Rough, off the Yorkshire coast, was closed in 2017. It held up to 100bn cubic feet of gas, which would have kept an awful lot of pensioners and children toasty. Oh, and fracking for shale gas (positively booming in the United States) was banned.

    A recording has been circulating on social media of Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, telling Channel 4 News’s Cathy Newman how proud he is to be the person who single-handedly stopped the UK fracking industry. Well, when the evening news in December is full of stories about families who can’t afford to use the kettle, we can all raise a mug of cold tea to Davey the Dolt.

    With our own energy supplies run down, the UK became perilously reliant on foreign supplies. Even the more reliable sources, like Norway, may not have enough to give us this winter. Norwegians will be acting in their own self-interest and putting their needs first, exactly as Britons should have done. Unfortunately, we have a green overlord class that cares more for the planet than the human beings in their own backyard.

    Never in history has there been such a failure to make sure that a new technology works before phasing out its predecessor. In the 1880s, when Thomas Edison wanted to start building central station power plants to supply electricity, he began with a prototype facility in London under the Holborn Viaduct. Next, came a larger demonstration plant in Manhattan that only supplied electricity to customers within a few blocks. Only after those projects were successful did a wider rollout begin. It was the same with nuclear power. The first large-scale nuclear reactors weren’t built until the late 1960s; it had taken twenty years for the feasibility of this new energy source to be safely established.

    You would have to be mad and reckless to take any other approach. Yet, most of our politicians have put their faith in a wind-solar electricity system at a time when no storage devices for such energy exist.

    To burnish their own green credentials, they have set an arbitrary date for abolishing fossil fuels regardless of the cost in money, or in lives. Look at where their hubris has got us. Welcome to the bleak winter of 2022.

    Liz Truss has already promised to remove the green taxes from energy bills. A good start. If our new Prime Minister has half the common sense we hope she has then she must announce that, while Net Zero may be a desirable goal, she will never allow it to be achieved at the expense of the warmth, comfort and safety of the British people. The lights are going out; we need a dynamo to switch them back on again.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/08/09/tories-must-abandon-vanity-contest-act-now-energy-prices/

    1. Waste of breath, Mrs Pearson….

      No one in a position of what we used to call “responsibility” will take the slightest notice.

    2. Why should folk on universal credit get more free money? Offer it to folk who’ve joined within the last 6 months, but anyone who’s been on it for years should get nothing.

      However, if there are tax cuts the state will ensure it gets the money from elsewhere or maliciously cut services. The first ones to go will be those for the elderly and disabled. The mandarins are vicious like that. Along with the tax cuts there needs to be a repeal of law – equalities, race relations, diversity. All burned and those dross feeding off those dreadful legalese sacked.

      I remember us applying for that insulation grant. I wanted roof insulation. The bloke would only provide it if I took 3 of the options. I only needed the roof done. Then, you apply and after a few months the government decides if you get the money back. Either way, you pay regardless. It is stupid. Just scrap them and cut taxes.

      1. The majority of people on UC are workers. The unemployment rate is 3.8%. Firms are complaining there’s no one to recruit.

        1. UC is a subsidy which allows employers to pay wages people cannot live on and still pay their bills.

          1. Sounds like a successor to Brown’s disgraceful tax credits (where he doled out money if you filled in the forms telling him all about your assets and income).

          2. It is – just various benefits rolled into one and rebranded. Income support, Jobseekers’ Allowance, Housing benefit, council tax benefit – all part of Universal Credit. The lower paid need to earn enough to be able to pay their way.

    3. Oh she’s on good form today!! About the only commentator on the DT staff who is worth listening to!

    4. I think the Civil Service is the political arm of the lib/lab/con tri mediocracy.
      The snivel serpents have replaced the EU as our politicians couldn’t think for themselves anymore.

        1. At one point I thought I wanted to be a vet. Thankfully the domestic animal population was spared and I went to Art School.

          2. I thought I wanted to be an army nurse- QAs- at one time. Blimey, what a disaster that would have been! Thanks to Mrs. O’Sullivan in the 6th form at school, I found my true path.

          3. I never knew what I wanted to be……. so I lurched through life and became an old woman.

          4. I think our generation of girls suffered from the limits of the time. I went to a grammar school where only 3 jobs were promoted; nursing, teaching or secretarial. Luckily,although I didn’t know it in the 6th form, teaching was the way for me. Looking back, I couldn’t have done any other job. No two days were ever the same.

          5. Yes. I fluffed my A levels and didn’t try again – so I worked for three years then got married. Eventually found my niche working 21 years for the DWP as a snivel serpent.

  31. Morning all 😃 .
    Belated because our car keys had vanished from the kitchen window ledge. It’s where I left them. But guess who got the blame ?
    Our 7 year old grandson found them, they were where his nanny left them yesterday.
    Not having played for 18months I had a good round of golf I had a par on the last three holes to come second. Three single putts. But thank goodness for golf buggies.
    The fair ways at The Point, Polzeath were understandably rock hard. And it’s very hilly. A tough test for an old geezer. After a couple of glasses of vino and a few slices of delicious pizza. I slept deeply for two 5 hour shifts. Just one visit to the bathroom. Resting today feet up. Phew.

      1. I wish I could post the picture of the sunset at the end of our garden Bill.
        I’ll try and get one of the family to post it later.

    2. All key blobs go on hooks in the kitchen (which is sort of after the hallway, the layout is daft). Thus if a hook is empty, someone has left their keys in the wrong place.

      The sleep I can concur with. I dosed myself to get through and feel better for the doing.

    3. My husband keeps his keys in his jacket pocket; I have a small dish on the hall window ledge where I keep mine, so I always know where they are.

  33. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/09/tories-have-run-ideas-save-economy/

    No, there are plenty of ‘ideas’, what they’ve run out of is will. The will to do what’s needed, and should have been done 12 years ago. The will to say ‘enough’ confidently, aware of the problem and wanting to change things for the better. To silence the yabbering voices. To stop saying ‘government will ‘do’ something. They’ve lost the interest in resolving issues by ‘going the feck away’ permanently.

    They won’t drag the green protestors off the road. They won’t tell the police to police. They won’t leave the NHS alone or, properly configure it to operate in a market. They won’t cut taxes to get out of business’ pockets. They won’t stop legislating and interfering. They won’t sack the mandarins for incompetence. They won’t repeal law to get the right things done even though it’ll lose them votes.

    They’re stagnant, frightened of real progress for fear of losing office. The time has come to accept that government is pointless and must be dismantled.

      1. Then I fear plod would be unleashed in desperate fever to ensure the state continued it’s agenda. Unless these happen everywhere, around the country nothing will change. Thing is, there are lots of places that absolutely rely upon the status quo – big government, high tax.

        It will take collapse to force change but, sadly, many people seem utterly ignorant of why we’re in this mess.

      2. It would be a socialist coup, with all the horrors that that entails. The left is simply more motivated than the right.

        1. They’re also stupider, and no Left wing assault ever works for long. Pot managed to kill millions, but he was got rid of eventually.

          1. Eventually is too late for many, that’s the difificulty for those of us who remember better times.

    2. You’re too kind to them.
      They don’t drag XR off the road because XR are their own little brownshirts. “They” being the foreign billionaires pulling our establishment’s strings.
      They arrested and dispersed a people’s protest against the invasion at Dover fast enough.

      1. Yep – the state machine is very specific in it’s application of law. However, that sets the precedent that if law is now mutable, then it does not apply.

      1. Still too short – her daughters would be OK but not a middle aged woman. Donna Sophia is wearing a skirt which reaches her ankles.

        1. I agree – when I saw it early in the DM I thought it was too short by far, she might have good legs but 49 is simply too old, it looks undignified and inelegant especially for a woman in her position. For any woman, actually. There comes a time when simply one has to accept gracefully that tempus fugit. Izzard just looks ridiculous.

          2. I disagree – she’s fine and age should be no bar to looking good, which she does!! You’re spot on with Izzard though!

          5. She was born September 1972 – looks good for her age – but has everything at her disposal for looking good.

  35. My father paid for my university education, Caroline’s father paid for hers and we both ensured that our two sons left university free of debt and not crippled by student loan interest. I have never objected to students or their parents being asked to pay for their university education – what I have always opposed is the way in which young people have been systematically exploited and robbed. In civilised countries student’s loans should be interest free.

    Student loan interest rates cut amid cost of living crisis
    Rates will be cut by 1 per cent to 6.3 per cent, a second reduction this year
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/10/student-loan-interest-rates-cut-amid-cost-living-crisis/

    A sensible BTL comment worth considering which, of course, politicians are incapable of condidering.

    It is nonsense to claim that students are not repaying their loans when they are being charged usurious rates of interest. If one is going to charge students more than the Bank of England base rate the amount of money paid above this rate should be considered repayment of capital. So if the BoE base rate is 1% and a student is asked to pay 6% then 5/6 of his payment should reduce his loan by this amount and only 1/6 be the interest component. For example on a £50,000 loan a repayment at 6% would be £3,000. £500 of this would be the interest cost of the loan and £2,500 would be repayment of the principal reducing the outstanding balance.

    1. My eldest went off to Uni last year so we did the whole student loan thing. I noticed the Student Loan Company is set up under the laws of Scotland i.e. it is a Scottish company.

      I find this wrong on lots of levels but especially because Scottish students studying In Scotland do not pay loans but English students studying in England have to borrow off a Scottish company?? So this year I am paying. I am dipping into my rainy day funds but I am not going to knowingly fund this loan company now I know about it.

      1. My two sons were fortunate in that in their day they still got grants towards their living expenses and the loans were quite small. There were no tuition fees then. They were both able to earn some money during the holidays and paid off their small loans quite quickly when they started work after graduating.

        1. Henry had a false start at UEA. He started off studying Law with French but decided to abandon this after a term and a half and so had to start again on another degree course this time in Philosophy and Politics which he loved. We had wasted 4½ terms of fees at £9,000 pa and, as the Cat in the Hat said, we didn’t like it not one little bit!

          However we agreed to continue to pay Henry’s course fees and his rent but he had to pay for all his living expenses himself and so he got a part-time job in a call centre and became very proficient at this and made more than enough money to survive without getting into debt and the work experience he got by having to ‘work his way through college’ did him a great deal of good. He managed to get a 2.1 in his first degree and had no difficulty finding a good job in the computer business as soon as he graduated. He then decided to study for an external M.Sc in Computer Science at the University of York and was awarded a Distinction. He now writes sophisticated computer programmes in artificial intelligence, owns his own property with his girlfriend who is about to finish her Ph.D and he earns considerably more than his parents.

          1. When i left school in 1980 jobs were scarce. Living in a small village without my own transport i had difficulty getting work. My parents advice was to sign on the dole. I did that. Then my mother demanded i hand over all the money. I asked how i was supposed to get a job if i couldn’t pay for transport to the nearest town. She wasn’t interested.
            I did get a job where transport was provided and when i received my first pay check she demanded all of that. I left home at 17 soon after and slept under the pier in Southsea. Met some folks who i knew from the village and they allowed me to sleep on their living room floor. It wasn’t long before i found work again and could afford to rent a bedsit.
            Different worlds.

          3. Just posted something similar.
            My parents had six children and were mercenary. The money i had to pay them from my unemployment benefit gave them two nights out at the Pub every week.

          6. Well mine were adoptive parents, from Denmark. F was called “Harry” and M was “Helle” – the latter caused a bit of difficulty sometimes.

          9. Lordy, mate. That’s tough. You need hugs to try to compensate. I can contribute…

          10. 🎵Keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers coz i am Sandra Dee !🎵

            It got better quite quickly. Then a lot better.

          11. He’s done very well – they both have – and they are a credit to their parents.
            My elder son had a false start too – doing maths – having failed the first year he started again with computer science and eventually also gained a masters. He does contract work for his own company as a sole trader.

          12. Although no fun at the time, a touch of hardship brings good lessons about the value of money, the need to sort it out yourself, and (through practice) the confidence to do so.

        2. My father earned enough for me only to get the then “minimum grant”: my tuition fees + £50/year. This was in the early 1970s. So when I said I needed money to live on, he gave me £7 a week – I got far less than students on a grant and had to work evenings all the time I was studying for a degree.

          The old system didn’t help students with well-off, but mean parents. Mind you, my F. was an old git who later bequeathed his £1.4 million fortune to a gold digger wife 27 years younger than he was, leaving my brother and me with nothing, so I guess I should have realised then.

          1. When i applied to the College of Food in Cosham to study, my parents told me i was unsuccessful in the grant application. When i asked why, they told me that they had earned too much money the previous year. Him a labourer and her a factory worker. Yeah right. They pocketed the money and i had to take cheese sandwiches for months. At that time i was too young to work in a Pub.

          2. I know, it’s hard, but we have to put those bast*rds behind us. I am sorry to say that I shed no tears when my F died.

          3. When my mother died in a car crash it was a major shock. She was 52. Even though i felt i had been mis-treated in my youth i was bereft. When my father died 20 years later after we had been expecting him to die years earlier because of emphysema i couldn’t conjure up any emotions.

            My gaslighting elder sister was able to though. Not only did she steal the body so the service would be near her so she could grandstand at the funeral the people who believed he should have been cremated where he had lived for the last 20 years had their cars keyed.

            Still angers me now. Which is why i ghost the fucking lot of them.

          6. People like that don’t deserve your time or attention in any way.

            I was upset when my mother died, but her life with my narcissistic father was so miserabe and she was suffering from a kind of dementia (although she was still on the ball in many ways) that it was a blessing for her that she did die. Leaving the field for his much younger gold-digging mistresss to muscle in.

            Edit|: the one thing that is good is that she made him absoutely miserable, but he was too frightened of her to leave anything to anyone but her. Apparently she made various promises to him, which of course, the minute he died, she broke. A veritable Markle-kind of character.

          7. That’s a sad comment. I’m sorry about that, and hope that, some day, you can forgive him his weakness and stupidity.

          8. To be honest I don’t really think about him – it’s only when I do when I think what a git he was (he was also a narcissist, which meant among other things that he was a prolific liar – one of his lies to his friends was that he had looked after my brother and me and hadn’t disinherited us. Which he had – not only from his own estate, but through him everything that had come to him through our mother’s family. Which he had inherited totally on her death by lying to her while she was alive, and giving everything to the woman he was having an affair with.)

            But he was SO charming – all his friends thought the world of him. But I just forget about him as much as I can. He lied to the family (well they are all dead now so it doesn’t matter) and to all the family friends. And his poor little rich widow got herself into the newspapers by allegedly having an affair with a married Egyptian doctor, and then sued him when her investments with him went wrong. Some people and things are best forgotten!

          9. Gee… I’m always wary of charming folk, to the extent of doing them a disfavour. Rately proven wrong, though.

          11. As an introvert in spades, I’m always observing how people behave. It’s usually different to what they say, more so for those who say lots of words…

          12. I was too young to work in a pub too, but I lied about my age and was paid cash in hand. I also lied when applying for the degree course as I was 16 and they only took students of 18 and over. So I changed my age to show a very curly 6 (for some reason I don’t remember having to show my dob, just my age) – needs must, you know!

          16. Whilst working for an IT company at a South African bank, I had an Indian woman on my team. She was by far and away the best team member I had – until it was discovered she had faked her matric results, due to her last year’s schooling having been suspended due to riots in the townships. The bank insisted that they could not have a dishonest person working on their premises and this led to her sacking. I still get angry when I think of it, forty years later.

          18. Lost track of where she went but having been dismissed for dishonesty, it was never going to be easy getting another job. It didn’t help that the country was in recession at the time due to sanctions.

          20. £7 a week wasn’t much even then! By the time my younger son

            went to Oxford I was a single parent earning not a lot so he got the full grant which wasn’t really enough to pay his rent etc, but we managed. He worked during the hols so at least he more or less paid his way.

            Your father was certainly a mean old git! Did you contest his will?

          21. It would have cost a fortune potentially, and I did look into it in quite a lot of detail (even asking for Counsel’s opinion) but the law hadn’t developed to the extent it has today – and of course she had all the money.

            Plus the fact that my children were going for secondary school transfer (different schools although they were twins) and I was putting together a case to take to the Special Needs Tribiunal for my little girl who had autism, together with a pretty unpleasant divorce all at the same time meant that my mind was on other things.

            Never mind – as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

          23. Oof, that’s hard, H.
            SWMBO & I married part-way through studies. The grant authorities both said the other should pay the married grant, and so neither paid. Nor did my parents (I only got minimum grant), and SWMBOs weren’t well enough off to contribute. We were poor for a couple-3 years. We lived in a falt due for demolition, and the treat for a week was 1 pint ale).

        3. My father earned enough for me only to get the then “minimum grant”: my tuition fees + £50/year. This was in the early 1970s. So when I said I needed money to live on, he gave me £7 a week – I got far less than students on a grant and had to work evenings all the time I was studying for a degree.

          The old system didn’t help students with well-off, but mean parents. Mind you, my F. was an old git who later bequeathed his £1.4 million fortune to a gold digger wife 27 years younger than he was, leaving my brother and me with nothing, so I guess I should have realised then.

      2. Scottish students at a Scottish University do not pay tuition fees. If a Scottish student goes to an English University they do not get their tuition fees paid. Scottish students in Scotland can apply for a loan for subsistence, Halls of Residence, food, books etc. This loan is assessed on parental income. If it is not repaid, interest continues to accrue in perpetuity, or until written off.
        (Universities prefer foreign students as they can charge them high fees.)
        In my youth students had their fees paid and received a non-repayable grant for subsistence. Students, the “brightest and best”, were considered a worthwhile investment. The numbers attending University at that time were much lower than now. Tony Blair changed all that, with more students and no grants.

  36. Good morning all.
    Sat in a cafe on the A38 just North of Tewkesbury. Hope all are keeping well.
    Did a circular walk of the North end of the Malvern ridge yesterday afternoon, then an evening walk up the hill to watch the sunset.

      1. Sat back in the Talbot in Droitwich enjoying a pint and trying not to fall asleep!
        I’ve a tool cabinet to pick for t’Lad tomorrow morning, then it’s off home.

    4. And when, as will inevitably happen, she pronounces as disinformation something that later turns out to have been true will she resign?
      No?
      Thought not!

  38. Just stumbled on this tweet. It’s not just the amount of propaganda being splurged about by the government and its useful idiots; the number of dumb people who are incapable of thinking for themselves are equally at fault.
    The copy has deleted the first part of the tweet – “Imagine the amount of propaganda it took.”

    https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1556772649036091392

    1. Looking at that image it’s a bit silly – we need all 4. We need oil, we need energy generation (those clouds are water vapour) and we need cars – personal transportation.

      As without farms we can’t eat, true, but without energy we can’t create the materials that build the farm. Without fuel we can’t power the farm vehicles. Without cars folk can’t shop to buy the food to pay the farmer.

      Yes, without question we’d all love sustainable energy – which is not windmills. We’d all love a true net generation fuel for vehicles – which is not batteries.

      I’ve posted it before about Harry Metcalfe and JCBs hydrogen. OK, it’s expensive and not commercially viable, but we could say the same about most anything until we get on with it.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Q7nAYjAJY

    2. People like that don’t die, they live on in the hearts and minds of children and all former children. Jim and the Beanstalk was another good one.
      RIP Raymond Briggs.

  40. Afternoon All

    Nicked

    “All children under 10 to be offered polio booster as virus discovered
    circulating in the wild in multiple hotspots across London”

    BBC:
    Polio was seen as a disease of the past in the UK after the whole of
    Europe was declared polio-free in 2003. However, what is happening now
    is slightly complicated and not straightforward to explain.

    Translation: It’s because of unchecked and unscreened immigration from third world shit holes, but we can’t say that.

    1. We don’t have to say it, we just know. I suppose if we did say it out loud we’d be accused of hate crime. However, if records prove polio was eradicated in Europe in 2003 there’s nothing left to say LOL. A bit like TB really.

      1. Isn’t there research suggesting that it always was? Thinking of the stuff pumped into us and taken on trust overy the years, it’s astonishing that we’re all still here. The human body and the will to live is quite amazing.

    2. I won’t be rushing to book a table. Another one opened where you sit in the pitch dark and eat your food. Faddish desperation springs to mind. Still, anything goes in SoHo.

  42. Anyone who has access to the Terriblegraph, today’s “100 years ago today” is fascinating- about the trial of a man for murdering postmen in Berlin, I assume for the valuables they were delivering. Grisly! There was also a good one on Monday I think about events in China. Worth keeping an eye on – occasional gems into a different world.

  43. Phew! Only just today. Wordle 417 6/6

    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
    🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I nearly screwed it up.
      Wordle 417 5/6

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

      1. Par Four for me.

        Wordle 417 4/6
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
        🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I did my regular trick today. Where there are similar options, I choose the wrong one!
      Wordle 417 5/6

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

  44. Good afternoon. Nottlers may already have this understood, but I was shocked to to told that 40% of all US dollars in existence have been printed in the last year. If that is truly the position we are in deep, double-dug doodoo.

  45. Just picked, very gingerly because of the nasty thorns on the tree, this colander of black bullace, a native wild plum. I will attempt to make some jelly from this picking, the second picture is of those that will end up mixed with sugar and gin in the next few days. A very tasty concoction that will be ready around Christmas.
    Plenty of fruit high up but I don’t think I’ll tempt providence and get a ladder to them. Then again… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90cfd6e8747a88464ee2ab73aca906ca090a6a4630a0fda96a430f0c3e7810dd.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b18b119cdbd9af0b452b5af039f0d6ca91b95fa802ac55f6ae72b0f7aff6b2be.jpg

        1. If you make jelly, you don’t need to worry about the pips.
          The jelly bag will do the job for you.

        2. For jelly you don’t need to. Boil up the whole fruit in the usual way. Put mixture in jelly bag overnight. Make jelly from liquid. 1 lb of sugar to 1 pint of liquid.

          1. I boil the fruit and then sieve out the stones. I do not care if the jelly isn’t translucent as the recipes state. It’s volume and taste I want and the pulp goes in the pan along with the juice. Same for all my fruit jellies and nobody I give a jar to has complained.

    2. Hit the branches with a stick. Any bruised ones can be used for your jelly or Gin.

      They look great

          1. I have a long reach branch “clipper” which I could bring round, Korky, if you wish.

          3. Thanks for the offer, Elsie but I have one of those. I will prune the high branches back in the Autumn, leaving the lower ones to, hopefully, fruit next year.

      2. They are good this year after a hard pruning two years ago. Little or no fruit last year. Under the tree there is rather a lot of bits and pieces of wood etc. that I haven’t found time to deal with so recovering fallen fruit could be a problem. Still, I might give it a go if the jelly is as good as I’m hoping it will be. Thanks for the tip.

        1. Do what they do when harvesting olives. They put a tarp down.

          They also have a machine that shakes the tree. Not that i recommend you do that.

          1. I have found with our Worcester Pearmain apple tree, that a long grabber (the one which closes round what is meant to be grabbed but doesn’t always bring it down) plus a child’s fishing net seems to work. Because I can bang the fruit with the grabber, down into the net…

          2. I have found with our Worcester Pearmain apple tree, that a long grabber (the one which closes round what is meant to be grabbed but doesn’t always bring it down) plus a child’s fishing net seems to work. Because I can bang the fruit with the grabber, down into the net…

          3. I have found with our Worcester Pearmain apple tree, that a long grabber (the one which closes round what is meant to be grabbed but doesn’t always bring it down) plus a child’s fishing net seems to work. Because I can bang the fruit with the grabber, down into the net…

          4. Firstborn plans to adapt an old tractor-driven saw to shake trees, for apple gathering.

          5. Excellent idea. Doesn’t matter if the fruit is damaged if you are making…er…apple sauce !

          7. I am not a fan of Carol Drinkwater, too bosomy and simpering for my liking but she did write a trilogy of books about her olive farm. I read them all and enjoyed them very much. She’s easier to take in print

          8. I know someone who would be far easier to take in print – preferably an obituary…

      1. I don’t have one but I will test the internet for one or three and then choose.

          1. I prick the plums (or bullace, greengage or damsons) all over with a needle then place them in a large jar. Cover them with a gin or vodka of your choice. Seal, keep in a dark cool room and agitate the jars every week or so. After three months, remove the plums (eat as they are or make a boozy crumble with them). Stir some sugar into the jar (the amount you use depends on how sweet you want the liquor to be) then return the jar to the pantry for a couple of weeks.

            Plum rum is a tasty alternative made by the same method.

          2. Thanks. I like boozy crumbles ( i know most of the alcohol cooks out but you get the enhanced flavour). I also make a mean bread and butter pud using raisins steeped in Rum.

          3. When it was still open, The Red Lion pub, at Upper Sheringham in Norfolk, did a superb bread and butter pudding called “Scotsman’s Delight”. Yep, you can guess, it was laced with whisky.

            I make mine in a bain-marie as instructed to by Anton Mosimann.

          4. You have a bain-marie? Or do you do what us rich Southerners do and put the water in a roasting pan? :@)

            I’m taking Ashes out to lunch tomorrow!

          5. Have a lovely time – and please send our warmest regards to her. (Our being D and me, of course!)

          6. I will. Shame Ashes wasn’t able to make it to my last shindig but given what we were offered she swerved a bullet.

          7. I still have to say that ours was fine – but then we didn’t have what you did. So follow our example next time!

          8. Yes Miss ! 3 out of 11 is terrible! Thanks to Stormy laying it on we got refunded all the roasts.

            How a country Pub can get roast beef and trimmings so wrong on a Sunday is beyond me.

            Speaking of which…If you choose to come down for a shorter visit the Cob and Pen at Wallington is excellent.
            If you were to holiday here the Yarbridge Inn has been wriitten up in the Sunday Times as one of the best in the UK. Train, hydrofoil and taxi !

          11. Bollox – I am taking my grandson out on Friday evening. Walk along the beach and then fish ‘n chips.

          15. Simpsons on the Strand. But i have already forewarned them of anyone speaking in a Norfolk accent with a piece of straw in his gob.

          17. Hope so. Besides the nonsense i said to Bill i’m hoping we go skinny dipping after lunch. The beach is 50 yards away. I expect Ashes has a song for that !

          22. Mum used to have a bain-marie type double-saucepan that she called a “porringer”. She only used it to make lemon curd.

    4. I used to have a bullace tree in my back garden when I lived in Norfolk. They made a superb crumble.

    5. Hi there, Korky. Annie and her Bill and I shall be around for a glass of your Christmas Concoction come December. Lol! Seriously, though, any chance of your picking a few surplus black bullace plums for me to make some plum crumble? (My remaining home-made gooseberry crumble is almost ended.)

      2. I’ll have a close look tomorrow and let you know. These are wild small plums with a low flesh to stone ratio. My late neighbour used to make chutney from them: getting the stones out is a bit of a task.

  46. I found this video a refreshing change from all the hype being promulagated about the increase in effeciency gained by upgrading your gas boiler to a heat pump. Any investment to improving your propery depends on a large number of factors and so this architect’s comparison costings are very personal and also depend on emerging trends in the energy market.

    However, this does not detract from his major finding that storing energy in a battery bank could payback his investment in his property in a tenth of the time it would take for a heat pump.

    https://youtu.be/IzPu3HJE3rE

    1. Thank you Neill for some revelations. To add to your comments:

      The people down the road have discovered that their air source heat pump died of old age after 8 1/2 years.

      They are replacing it with an oil boiler.

      1. I noted that due to the forthcoming recession the demand for fossil fuels will fall dramatically and fuel costs are already dowing a downturn.

  47. I found this video a refreshing change from all the hype being promulagated about the increase in effeciency gained by upgrading your gas boiler to a heat pump. Any investment to improving your propery depends on a large number of factors and so this architect’s comparison costings are very personal and also depend on emerging trends in the energy market.

    However, this does not detract from his major finding that storing energy in a battery bank could payback his investment in his property in a tenth of the time it would take for a heat pump.

    https://youtu.be/IzPu3HJE3rE

  48. In the work canteen today I saw the largest human body I’ve ever set eyes on. The width of at least three average, not skinny, people. I can’t gauge the weight but I’ve known of 20 stone people who look smaller. However it identifies, its days must be numbered well below three score years and ten.

    1. Afternoon Sue. I know. Some of these people you see now are gross and when they have tattoos they are even worse!

    2. I have a friend who has to turn slightly sideways when she walks through a standard doorway. Her thighs are enormous. She does dress well though. I worry for her health.

      1. We had a huge German man staying in the cottage one year, who had to duck to get through the door and he turned sideways and squeezed his way in. Too broad in the shoulder and only just able to get his stomach through. I wondered if the bed was going to take his weight.
        He loved the place, but from then on used the double doors to get in and out.
        Oddly enough, because he was so tall 2m+, he didn’t look out of proportion and moved very lightly on his feet.

        1. They learn that in their youth. Don’t hit anyone because you will kill them and walk lightly so you don’t crack the flags. It’s the ones below 5 foot 6 inches who are the problem.

    3. Just be glad he/she/it/they were not in beachware….. I was shocked at the number of obese adults AND their fat children (poor things) on East Ruston beach on Monday.

    5. The nurse who supported me during second facial surgery was huge- made Hattie Jacques look like Twiggy. My husband said she was there to hold me down if I tried to make a run for it.
      She was really nice though- just enormous.

      1. Apparently, heart and lung consultants are BANNED from suggesting that fat staff lose weight.

  49. Went into the bakers earlier to get some lunch
    I asked for three cold sausage rolls,
    We only sell heated up ones, said the old lady serving.
    Okay I’ll have three warm one’s then thank you.
    Gets home, opens paper bag,
    Only to find three warm sausages, I’m looking round in the bag to see if they have slipped out of the pastry.
    I’m going to get that woman some batteries for her hearing aid next time I go there.

          4. It’s Southampton, isn’t it? The place is an overrun toilet. Overrun with traffic wardens.

          5. If you look at the article, they are not surprising – the places with much enrichment, of course. Both in the same “county”.

        2. I am desperately wracking my brains to see whether there is some sort of common feature…..(sarc)

    2. I’m surprised those stats were recorded in Bradford given the Police have white sticks and guide dogs.

  52. Net Zero is coming home to roost this winter,the increased energy costs are going to utterly destroy small businesses,pubs,restaurants shops etcetc,our city centres are going to become boarded up wastelands

    As for the pitiful remains of industry?? We can kiss that goodbye as well

    https://twitter.com/NatalieAHood/status/1555946745774866440
    No Fuel
    No Food
    No Work(except for the bloated public sector obs)
    We will fall into chaos,no doubt with Blair to ride to the rescue with a government of “National Unity” to manage the descent into serfdom and UBI for the lucky survivors
    If I could I’d be spending my savings on guns and ammunition because when our new arrivals realise the gravy train is over it’s going to get real feral out there………..

      1. Unfortunately it hasn’t ended, yet. The pain of it in its death throes is yet to come – for us and our children.

    2. The elites will be protected. I suggest everyone informs themselves how to make a particular type of cocktail.

          3. I thought that was the M cocktail – haven’t heard of the Brompton one (sheltered, me).

          4. An end of life “cocktail” with heroin, gin, honey to ease the pain of terminal cancer patients. Anne or Belle will correct me as I doubt I’ve got it right.

        2. You can make them using practically anything that burns. Bleach is especially nasty.

          Frankly I want them to know why I’m going for them. I want to see them know the misery and helplessness they force on us.

      2. [Forgive me if I am repeating myself.

        My son and His Lady who live in Cleveland, Ohio acquired a less-than-pure-bred Maine Coon dawg a couple of years ago and named him Molotov. To my great joy, they announced their engagement some six or more months ago shortly followed by a joyous announcement of their pregnancy which slightly knocked the plans for a late summer wedding for six. The poor little mite, my eighth grandchild, has spent her first seven weeks in a perilous state protected by an incubator contraption in the hospital. So far so good and she is due home today to meet Molotov and Sammy, the cat.]

        1. Thank God the incubator stuff is over. How ABSOLUTLY FANTASTIC she is well enough to go home!
          Shriek it to the stars, Citroen1! How wonderful!

          2. Nothing wrong with any of those. Rarely, this evening, I am having a weak Scotch. There is so much now that totally pisses me off and it’s getting to me. Trying to calm down.

          4. Ain’t easy though. I read a book once where one of the main characters always said, “Booze is the answer.” When asked what the problem might be he said it didn’t matter.
            Thought it was a bit daft at the time but now seems one of the most sensible things I’ve read!

    3. There will be no money left in pockets for discretionary spending and hospitality businesses will go to the wall in droves. I can only imagine what the power costs for a pub will be but when they have all closed a slow stroll around Tesco on a winter day is going to be as exciting as it gets.

      1. It was clear that Johnson’s lockdowns were targeting the hospitality sector and also small businesses by forcing them to close, where as the ‘big’ companies e.g. Tesco’s were allowed to trade alongside the online giants. This is WEF policy i.e. only the large corporations will be allowed to survive. It will be interesting to see how the new PM handles this crisis, if he/she sides with the ‘big boys’ then we will know that the WEF problem hasn’t gone away.

        1. The WEF problem won’t go away until we man the barricades and even then they may still win

      2. If there’s no power, Tesco will be closed. That happened during the three-day week and more recently when we had a long power cut.

    4. The new arrivals’ gravy train will only be over when the last of the ordinary taxpayers have died. SO they are welcome to go for the PTB.

    5. And mostly because the idiots in charge decided to support a corrupt regime with huge subsidies and sanctions.

      Greeniacistan

    6. Why do you think the British have been systematically disarmed over the past thirty years?

  53. Ukraine fights on

    Daring Ukrainian special forces raid is revealed as cause ‘behind explosion at Russian airbase in Crimea’ as Zelensky vows to liberate the annexed peninsula while Russians FLEE in huge traffic jams

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11098067/Russians-FLEE-Crimea-Large-traffic-jams-form-annexed-Ukrainian-peninsula.html

    So

    Europe decides to surrender to Russia.
    Germany leads the way as white flag factories burn

    The Rhine runs DRY and is set to become impassable to crucial coal barges, with Europe on course to suffer worst drought in 500 YEARS and ‘extremely violent’ wildfires ravaging France in 100F heat

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11098545/The-Rhine-runs-DRY-impassable-crucial-coal-barges-Europe-suffers-record-drought.html

          3. Talking of “disinformation”, I have been invited to a talk at the RAF Museum Hendon. One of the themes is history misremembered. I’ll pass. I can imagine what sort of “misremembering” they will be taking a stand on.

          4. How the frightful imperialist British attacked innocent, defenceless Germany on 3 Sept 1939.

    2. “Liberate” Crimea? Ha! Zelensky cut off their water supply because the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to be shot of his regime. Erdogan is emerging in the Ukraine fiasco looking more statesmanlike than Zelensky.

      1. “After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, President Boris Yeltsin (the then Russian premier) unexpectedly did not attempt to regain Crimea for Russia during negotiations with Ukraine. Thus Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine.”

        This was announced by a drunken Yeltsin – whose mother was Ukrainian – at a festival in Kiev …

        I consider Zelensky to be a phony – a proxy, Obama-esque joke and comedian.

        1. You are right about “comedian”. That was his job before he “seized power”…

  54. Phew wot a … etc.

    Still, the greenhouse temp has fallen from 49.9ºC to a modest 36ºC. And, there is a breeze which has a very slight chill to it – making it OK to be outside.

    1. Cold side of the comp says 34’c air temp. Hot side is 43. Fan is running bally hard.

      I am too hot.

        1. I have been outside under the umbrella for much of the afternoon- it’s lovely. Warm and sunny but with enough of a gentle breeze to stop you getting too warm.
          Suits me.

          1. Just had a 2 mile bike ride – oddly enough, very agreeable. There is this breeze and the lanes are very leafy, so there is much shade.

          2. It was stifling in the indoor arena when I rode my elementary dressage test this afternoon (but even hotter outdoors). The Connemara got a wash down afterwards – and I needed one, too!

          3. I just want to enjoy this weather as long as it lasts because it probably won’t be long before it’s pissing it down and chilly again.

  55. 344005+ up ricks
    Can any supporter / member / voter of the mass uncontrolled immigration lab/lib/con coalition tell me the benefits of reintroducing
    Polio to these Isles, as for the reintroduction of TB there again, one may ask, what benefits ?

  57. The MR is off to her “keep fit” class – the very idea of which is too much for me! I do my own fitness training by lugging 10 litre cans of water – and manipulating a hose (which has a bloody mind of its own…) And that is what I am about to do.

    1. I’m quite sure that you have earned a reward of a medicinal glass or summat. It is truly unpleasantly hot on my Wiltshire hilltop this evening. Hope other NoTTLers are coping better.

      1. It took 45 minutes. Thank GOD for the well. Without it we would be truly snookered.

        There is a pleasantly cool breeze that cuts the heat.

        I never drink alone (except when I AM alone, of course!) So I am looking forward to the MR’s sweaty return in about 10 minutes – to pour a glass or three.

        1. Make sure you drain your existing glass and wipe it clean such as to eliminate any incriminating evidence of your having indulged in a tincture. My local bit of totty is at her weekly village ‘Arts & Crafts’ evening so I understand the need to be very careful and devious. Good luck.

      1. 355005 + up ticks,

        Evening B3,

        To many chiefs, to many foreign Indians
        no ketchup.

        1000 potential patients a week coming ashore
        Dover / Dungeness is what the politico’s want

        A queue at the factory gate climate, in ALL departments as in education, medication, incarceration, accommodation , currently with
        electoral consent.
        .
        The tool kit of dictators.

    2. A classic example of an ignorant person handing the arsonist the lighter fluid to put a fire out.

      All energy comes from the same place by the same people. There’s no differentiation. There’s also little differentiation between the energy type costs either as the state has intentionally made energy from gas, coal and nuclear as expensive as windmills.

      True markets would have no taxes on energy. Energy types would live and die on what they provide at market rates – so wind would cost £50 per KWh and nuclear £1. Then greeniacs would buy expensive wind and have energy for 3 hours a day – paying for a full day – and the sane would abandon it.

      Yet no, the state rigs the maret. The tate has forced down energy generation. The state has made energy expensive and has intentionally ruined a market. Same as it did with railways. And water. And Teephones.

      Put it this way. If we’d had BT provide the internet the country would be on dial up still, and decades behind the rest of the world. As it is, it is milking the antique copper PSTN by actively refusing to invest in fibre roll out.

    1. This has really pissed me off, so it has: I hope they bastards in the NHS who have some control over the work get terminal bowel cancer, and burn in hell for eternity.

          1. This poor lady was let down by the most expensive health care system in the world, and will die an early and painful death because a bunch of useless shits couldn’t be arsed to do their “holy” job.
            Too right, I’m oissed at them.
            Fuck them all with a burning crocodile.

          3. As I have said so may times- this government and others have blood on their hands.

      2. How right he was. Socialised health eventually becomes politicised health, lying as it does in the hands of meddling governments.

    3. Nor should my neighbour. They ignored her raised levels indicating the presence of cancer and the fact that a history of ovarian cancer ran in her family.

  60. Not so good today

    Wordle 417 5/6

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

    2. Par Four for me.

      Wordle 417 4/6
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  61. Untrussworthy vows to be “robust” with yer French and the EU.

    That should be fun to watch.

    1. Untrussworthy is the most dangerous woman in politics just now. Massive ego. Complete ignoramus. No understanding of basic economics, or foreign affairs, or defence or…(insert your own subject).

      Catastrophe if she wins.

      1. Agreed….might I add, Dumb and completely sans Ruth. There are no good/acceptable outcomes on the horizon.

      2. The real problem is that it’s a catastrophe if she doesn’t!
        Hi Risk Anus is even worse.

  64. That’s me for this hot day. Watering completed. 2 mile bike ride.

    Eldest grandson coming on Friday (his request – which is always heart-warming) so am preparing list of heavy things that need doing. He is a very very strong young man – who at the age of 29 earns far more a year that I ever did at any time in my whole career. He regularly has “bonuses” in five figures – twice a year at least. What a curious world….

    So I’ll bid you adieu. Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Wow Bill

      Your energy level is amazing .. bike ride in the heat .. it is 27c here , we feel flattened , the dogs need their run soon , and it just has to be a bit cooler first .

      Your grandson is clearly as clever as you are .. Money money money.

      Does he work for BP?

      2. 27? We’ve finally dropped to 33 and it’s unlikely to get below 27 before midnight!

  65. Sadiq Khan’s hatred of cars is out of control

    A tax on motorists who can only afford old cars is an outrage

    ROSS CLARK

    I fully understand why the Green Party is worked up by Sadiq Khan’s plan to allow police to access data from the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras installed to enforce his Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ). Indeed, I don’t want to live in a Chinese-style surveillance state any more than they do.

    But shouldn’t Greens for a moment stop to consider their own role in this? For years they have been lobbying for motorists to be hounded with new rules and taxes. Back in March, Green Assembly Member Zack Polansky (he would have to be called Zack) complained on LBC radio that Sadiq Khan’s plans to expand the ULEZ don’t go far enough – they should have been combined with a road-pricing scheme, too, with Londoners charged for every mile they drive. The cameras, of course, are the means by which the whole thing is enforced. You can’t have road-pricing without mass-surveillance.

    And neither can you have Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ without pricing large numbers of motorists off the roads. Of course we all like clean air, but the ULEZ rules aren’t really based on how much smoke is spewing out of the rear end of your car – they use age as a proxy for pollution. You could be pottering about in a well-maintained Fiat 500, but if it is more than 17 years’ old it will, from next August, be subject to a £12.50 daily charge over the whole of London, backed up with a £180 a day fine if you forget to pay. Meanwhile, the louts who turn up every summer to rev up their brand-new supercars around the streets of Kensington will be exempt.

    ULEZ takes it out on most petrol cars registered before 2005 and virtually all diesel cars registered before 2015. It does so on the grounds that newer vehicles are theoretically cleaner – which ignores the fact that Volkswagen was caught cheating on its emissions tests and many suspect that other manufacturers were doing the same. No prizes for guessing which demographic group tends to own non ULEZ-compliant vehicles. Labour squealed blue murder when Rishi Sunak told an audience in Tunbridge Wells last week that he didn’t think it was fair that all government funding went to deprived urban areas, yet here is their own Mayor of London thumping poorer motorists with a huge extra tax. It doesn’t just hit people who could be taking the bus – it also hits nurses working late shifts and tradespeople who need vehicles to carry around their tools.

    “We only have a small window of opportunity left to cut harmful emissions to help save the planet,” explained Sadiq Khan in typically fatuous fashion when explaining why he was expanding his ULEZ right up to London’s borders. But if he wants to cut carbon emissions he should be encouraging motorists to keep their cars for longer. If you cover few miles, a large proportion of the lifetime emissions of your car will have come in the manufacturing process.

    Imposing taxes on the poor which the wealthy don’t have to pay is something which wouldn’t be tolerated in any other context. But when it comes to the climate, normal rules of politics don’t seem to apply. So long as they take care to mention climate change, as Sadiq Khan does at every opportunity, politicians seem able to get away with the most regressive taxes imaginable. Sorry, but it stinks – even more so than battered old Ford Transit with a leaking gasket. If the air in London isn’t clean enough (although it is a lot cleaner than when I was young and a day in the capital meant black water in the sink next time you washed your hair) then let’s beef up the MoT test to make sure vehicles are being properly maintained. But a tax on motorists who can only afford old cars is an outrage which will steal from the poor while doing little to clean the air.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/10/sadiq-khans-hatred-motorists-control/

    2. Bluntly, stop paying them to breed. Stop paying for their houses. Make them work. If they don’t want to work, deport them.

      Welfare should last a maximum of 3 months. After that, nothing – or you get back in only what you’ve paid.

    1. Weary banker…. takes all the credit
      Beery wanker…. tells you he deserves all the credit

          3. Reminds me of a joke – why do all Japanese men have slanty eyes and buck teeth?

            The answer has to be physically demonstrated.

          8. What’s the difference between a Japanese and a European girl sliding down a bannister naked?

          10. One makes a sound that goes “shluurrrrrrp!” The other makes a sound that goes, “flub–lub–lub–lub–lub!”

          11. I think I got the general idea – but no, the buck teeth and slanty eyes joke requires a physical demonstration (no words required).

      2. Joined a failing project. Pointed out why it was failing. Got told to work weekend to catch up. Pointed out the reason project was failing. Was told to work weekend or else.

        Worked the weekend. Did useful stuff.
        Came in Monday, find the bit I’d worked on had been completely scrubbed and re-written by someone who refused to communicate with the rest of the team, or follow the guidelines, or keep to the board, or reference the design.

        See reason project was failing.

      3. One unfortunate chap at the factory of my first job was universally known as “One-off”, since it would be impossible to find another remotely like him anywhere you cared to look.

    6. A place I worked had 4 folk in the team. We shall cal them A, B, C and D. One of that number started our meeting with ‘I’ve nothing to do. I’m waiting for D.’
      ‘I said. You said that yesterday. And the day before.’
      ‘A Continues: ‘Yeah, I don’t get code delivered.’
      I look at D and say ‘What can A do to help’
      D said ‘Well, A could do this, but I need to do X and Y first.’
      I say ‘Why? Were these dependencies built in from the start, and did we flag them as issues?’
      D ‘No, but that’s how I’ve written it.’
      I say ‘You’ve redesigned the software, building in blockers and dependencies?’
      d ‘Yes, it’s more efficient.’
      A says, well, could we pair programme?’
      D ‘Yes, but you don’t get in til 10.’
      A’ So start later’.
      D ‘But you leave at 4.’
      A ‘That’s when my bus goes.’

      And round and round and round. I got bored eventually and reminded them the intent was to work as a team, each contributing a small snippet of code for the greater whole.

      D then launched – properly launched – into a monologue about how people could collaborate on a shared project and that if one person didn’t do everything nothing would ever get done because no one worked as hard, did as much as they did.

      By now, C is – despite being a placid sort – giving up and asking to move teams.The bickering and arrogance of both these tweerps is ruining the team. B has properly given up and is collecting a salary.

      This same group had a team working day and the exact same thing happened. Ultimately, we produced the wrong thing because D did their own thing, hogging all the Lego while A, B C and I all checked out. We were then whinged at for not contributing.

      It was boring. Contrcating as a project lead was pointless as the project was being sabotaged from within by people who, in good conscience and with genuine good wishes, refused to work together. I ran many projects for that company. All failed for the same reason. Ego.

      1. So, tell us all, given that you believe in firing all and sundry in the public sector, why were any of these people still working for you?

        Assuming that you didn’t dispense with their services or that it wasn’t within your remit.

        1. I didn’t have the power to sack them.I raised their inefficiency and cost to the business. My contract was to restore a project to time and budget. I couldn’t.

          And I don’t believe in sacking the entire public seector. Only those who provide no value.

          1. And I don’t believe in sacking the entire public seector. Only those who provide no value.
            That’s almost all of them

          2. oi! You can’t complain I want to sack them all and say things like that!

            My problem withe the state is that is is paid by tax payers and then actively sets about making the lives of their masters – tax payers – worse. Most of what it does seems to be giving government statistics to crow about. All unnecessary makework.

          3. My pet hate in life is “makework”
            Looking for things to do that don’t need doing…

      2. For me, that just went ‘woosh’ over my head – in my book a good kick in the nuts would havev sorted any problem…

  68. Hello, my much miissed gentlefolk who want nothing more than to screw the PTB: take an example from that ‘No to Nanny‘ has her own biteback. Here is the story so far:

    Well, here I am, the proud occupier of Flat 14 in the house where Air Marshal (stuffy) Dowding was born and (im)patiently waiting for BT to install the Internet.

    When I first rang BT Sales to identify what was wanted in late July, I was told that, in order for me NOT to be without t’internet, they – BT Sales – would arrange for me to receive a ‘Hybrid Hub’ that would tide me over until an engineer could arrive to fix everything properly. It never arrived, neither in Flowton nor in Moffat. The next thing I knew was a text message from BT telling me that a router was on its way to me.

    Surprise, surprise, another text message, immediately followed, saying it had been delivered – to Flowton – so Judy informed me.

    She then packed it all up and sent it express postage (post hastage) for next day delivery – it arrived just a day before the engineer was due!

    Apart from that furore, I’ve arranged for the boxes coming from Flowton to be offloaded and hauled up umpty-tump flights of stairs (£50 to expedite local help.). Bought furniture from British Heart Foundation in Dumfries and a fridge/freezer and cooker from Kevin Farish, also in Dumfries – a further couple of tips (£20 for each) for hauling the stuff all the way up.

    And here I am, fully functional – or I will be, when the BT Engineer gets back from fiddling with the ‘phone cabinet out there in the wilds of Moffat.

    Oh a what tangled web we weave, when first we managed to derceive…

    Suffice to say, gentle nottlefolk, that NTN is now back, online and determined to right the world’s wrongs. Should YOU need more, do not be afraid to tell me – I shall do the best I can. Love you all, goodnight and God bless, until the mornings light.

    1. Settle in, calm down, perhaps with a tincture or two, and admire your new surroundings!

    2. Howdy, Tom. 🙂 Good to see from you!
      Was just watching YT pipe bands, thought of you, then VIPS! Here you are!
      😀

    3. So glad to see you back and hope the settling in is going OK. We have been worried about you and you have been mentioned often.
      Good luck Tom- we are all with you!

      1. Thank you, Ann (Ruth? I’m still confused!). it’s good to know.

        Loved and missed you all, these last 10 days.

    5. Good to see you back with us, NTN. I cannot imagine the upheaval and its effects and the loss of all things familiar but it sounds as though you are getting things under control. Sufficient unto the day and night-night.

    6. Welcome back Tom! Glad you’re settled (nearly) in your new home! I hope you’ll be very happy there. It looks like a beautiful place and Moffat is a lovely town! Good luck to you! 🌹

    7. Good luck Tom with your new home .
      You have had a hell of a journey in your later years .

      Settle down , sleep well and be kind to yourself.

    8. Thank you for the update!

      Actually, I did want to ask you a question about righting the world’s wrongs…what happened over the solar farm that you were fighting, and what was the best argument against it? A place I know is similarly threatened.

      1. ‘Morning, BB2, I’m afraid I’ve wiped everything I had to do with this.

        I can only suggest you Google ‘CARE Suffolk’ to get to their home page, which is owned and run by Samantha (Sam) Main.

  69. Evening, all. I am on one of the laptops tonight due to memory problems (the main machine’s, not mine), so expect lots of typos as I’m not used to a flat, black keyboard. I was rather pleased with myself because I managed to sort out the strange configuration that had made using this machine so difficult. Welcome back to Tom (No To Nanny).

    1. Thank you, Connors and goodnight and God bless you, one and all. I’m tired and must go to bed.

      ’til the morning’s light.

      1. My Outlook connection at work went down this morning. All my work arrives via email so tasks I couldn’t get at were backing up. Darned annoying but IT Support established that the fault wasn’t with my ‘puter and fortunately the connection came back. Then I went to Westfield mall to shop on the way home and all contactless payments were failing. I had cash so no problem!

        1. Bloody technology! great until it fails.
          I remember many years ago – computers would revolutionise working practices – no more need for, what is now called ‘hard copy’ hummm… in their dreams.
          Computers have probably generated more ‘paperwork’ than could ever have been imagined when that statement was made.

          1. Try being in an elementary school library with 2 classes- 60 kids- lining up to check out their books, end of school day, of course. The system crashes. Aaaargh. And I had to go and set up all the AV to get the school buses rolling.
            Somehow I and my volunteers coped but it was a right old panic.
            As you say, technology is fine- when it works.

    3. Got the same problem. On my laptop in the Talbot in Droitwich. With all the corrections, it takes me nearly twice as long to post a message.

      1. I had to go to Dovedale recently for my Godmother’s funeral. Beautiful church.

  70. https://wesayenough.co.uk/

    Bunch of unionists, communists and wasters demand ‘something be done’. The problem is, they are deliberately looking the wrong way, for power for themselves, not for real change which requires free markets, deregulation, lower taxes and a small state.

    1. ‘Electric Vehicles’ is a misnomer; they are ‘Battery-carrying Vehicles’ charged by traditional sources of electricity: water, coal, oil, gas, nuclear power and – unreliably – by wind and solar farms.

      Battery power, requiring vast quantities of lithium and other elements – cobalt and graphite are needed for lithium-ion batteries, as well as metals like nickel, aluminum and manganese -are largely controlled by China – and mined employing African children.

      This is an international disgrace. China – and the green lunatics – are to blame.

      The future has to be nuclear and – long term thermonuclear fusion – the Sun does it that way!

      Short term – our domestic survival – requires emergency exploitation of domestic coal, gas and oil, reinstatement of mothballed power stations and gas storage.

      Nicola Sturgeon – who proudly blew up Longannet Power Station, the last large Scottish power station, should consider plans for her ‘final solution’ – a funeral pyre? – along with her lunatic SNP, Liberal and Greenie friends.

    2. Getting better. One of their previous big EV reveals was in a city where the electricity was generated in coal powered plants.

      Yuk, dirty….,

  72. Good evening all.
    Sat back in the Talbot in Droitwich enjoying a pint and trying not to fall asleep!

    Yesterday I did a circuit of the North part of Great Malvern, left hand path up past the Clock Tower, North Hill, Table Hill, Sugarloaf, drop down to the Sugarloaf cafe in West Malvern, then End Hill, including the pimple on its backside, before dropping down the the Clock Tower via the path on the other side.

    THEN, after a couple of hours crashed out in the back of the van, back up Great Malvern to catch the sunset.

    Today, a drive to Bredon, (not Breedon as I typed earlier,) and an anticlockwise circular walk from Bredon’s Norton via Banbury Stone Tower.

    I’ve a tool cabinet to pick for t’Lad tomorrow morning, then it’s off home.

      1. Nah! Just been chatting to a group and ended up doing a couple of songs for them!

    2. Lovely place Great Malvern, apart from the walk into town from the railway station – up hill!!
      Visited several times when my daughter lived and worked there.
      I loved the preserved gas lights on a cold winters evening (opening chapter of ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ plus Elgar.
      Malvern Priory and its gardens during the summer: early morning was most enjoyable, with a coffee and the Telegraph – when it was worth reading.

  73. Welcome back Tom. Hello and goodnight to others.
    I am off to bed, perchance to sleep and not to dream.
    Wish you all well. Sleep well.

  74. I am going to turn in, too. Goodnight, folks. I may be absent for a few days as I’m taking the camper on its travels – now with two dogs! I had a trial run with the youngster today but didn’t go anywhere. I just wanted him to get into the van and be hooked up to the restraint beside me. As he sticks to me like glue, he should be okay and Oscar will have to lie in the back, secured to the seat belt there. He’s travelled that way before, so he should be okay. I don’t know what internet coverage will be like while I’m away, so don’t be concerned if I disappear.

    1. Hope you have fun, Conway! You’ll have wonderful company! Enjoy your trip and come back safely!

        1. I missed it too, but doing a search on Conway’s posts I see that he has adopted a little Norfolk terrier belonging to his neighbour who has terminal cancer.

  75. French course ‘may be upsetting’, students told in trigger warning

    Parts of France’s history and culture covered in University of Aberdeen module flagged as ‘potentially challenging topics

    We are going to need a system where sixth formers dan apply for courses with or without trigger warnings, with qualifications awarded annotated accordingly. I bet I know which group will end up with the more successful lives and careers.

    1. Good morning, Bill – and all NoTTLers. Come on Geoff, we need a link to the new Thursday site!

    2. Good morning, Bill – and all NoTTLers. Come on Geoff, we need a link to the new Thursday site!

  78. Good morning all. Today’s new page (Thursday) is somewhat delayed., due to laptop which refuses to wake. I’m posting this on the phone. Hopefully I’ll get things sorted soon…

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