Wednesday 11 August: Letting teachers decide A-level results made grade inflation inevitable

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/08/10/letters-letting-teachers-decide-a-level-results-made-grade-inflation/

687 thoughts on “Wednesday 11 August: Letting teachers decide A-level results made grade inflation inevitable”

  2. Apocalypse porn. Spiked 10 August 2021.

    Apocalypse porn is everywhere. You can’t open a newspaper or switch on a tablet right now without being confronted with images of fire and floods. Plagues of locusts can’t be far behind. The front page of this morning’s Guardian is devoted to an image of an elderly Greek woman in a state of distress as an ‘inferno’ nears her home on the island of Evia. (Funny, I don’t remember the Guardian rallying behind the elderly Greeks who were pummelled by the distinctly manmade horror of EU austerity, but let’s not dwell on bygones.) Footage of Greeks sailing away from a raging fire has been shared hundreds of thousands of times. ‘Very apocalyptic’, said one journalist. Not just apocalyptic, but really apocalyptic. We’re beyond Revelations – this is worse.

    And yet here I sit, as through the Covid Pandemic, utterly unmoved. Why is this? I think it’s because this is so unlike all those Catastrophe Books and Movies I have read and watched throughout my misspent life. When Ragnarok approaches they don’t have BBC Journalists succumbing to hysterics but actually deny the coming horrors. “Nothing’s happening folks. Carry on” is Morgan Freeman’s cheerful message as an Earth Killing asteroid the size of Boris Johnsons ego heaves into sight. In the novel Fail-Safe the authorities do not simply avoid informing the population that they are about to be nuked but actively prevent it. “They would just panic”, observes an apparatchik with a sniff of disdain at such wimpishness. This is not because the creators of these examples were sadistic monsters but because they had experienced the reality of Government. They knew that the PTB would censor anything that would in any way close off or influence their options. They had been through WWII where you couldn’t find out what day it was without a Security Clearance from God. The Vice President of the United States knew nothing of the Manhattan Project until he succeeded to the Oval Office.

    Now here we are; the greatest Doom Spreaders on the Planet are Governments and their accomplices in the MSM. Worried about the future peasants? Don’t be. You don’t have one unless you give us all your money. Bake or Freeze Climate Change is Reality! The Covid Omega Variant will arrive in 2035 so be prepared and get vaccinated1

    And they wonder why I am sceptical!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/10/apocalypse-porn/

  4. Oral Sex

    A young fellow was about to be married and was asking his grandfather about sex. He asked how often you should have it.

    His grandfather told him that when you first get married, you want it all the time… and maybe do it several times a day.

    Later on, sex tapers off and you have it once a week or so.

    Then as you get older, you have sex maybe once a month.

    When you get really old, you are lucky to have it once a year… maybe on your anniversary.

    The young fellow then asked his grandfather, “Well how about you and Grandma now?”

    His grandfather replied, “Oh, we just have oral sex now.”

    “What’s oral sex?” the young fellow asked.

    “Well,” Grandpa said, “She goes to bed in her bedroom, and I go to bed in my bedroom. And she yells, “Fuck You!!!”, and I yell back, “Fuck you too!!!!“

  6. Latvia and Lithuania act to counter migrants crossing Belarus border. 10 August 2021.

    Latvia has declared a state of emergency and Lithuania is mulling a razor-wire fence to stop record numbers of migrants crossing their borders from Belarus, amid claims Minsk is using the arrivals as leverage on EU states to reverse sanctions.

    Authorities in the two Baltic states and Poland have faced increases in illegal migration so severe they have appealed to Brussels for help, accusing the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, of orchestrating the crossings in a form of “hybrid warfare”

    You couldn’t make it up! If it was the UK they would have sent buses to save them the effort of climbing the wire!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/latvia-and-lithuania-act-to-counter-migrants-crossing-belarus-border

    1. 336625+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Just proves that supporting & voting for mass uncontrolled immigration party’s LLC brings results in getting what you vote for.

      1. 336625+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        In a minute if he thought that the tory (ino) mass uncontrolled immigration supporting / voting members
        would accept it as they have accepted policies of a dangerous nature in the past.

        His & the box of treachery ( the cabinet) engraved number would of course be on a wrist bracelet, whereas
        the herd members would be skin deep.

    2. mng Ogga, they may be a tad more “slick” [read humanitarian approach] and use MUAC [Mid Upper Arm Circumference] “bracelet”, any woke organ you like; UNICEF, Oxfam, Save the Children [shoot the mother]

      1. 336625+ up ticks,
        Morning AWK,
        On past actions taken I believe a great many of the electorate would go for ear notching, combining it with a fashion statement.

        1. If, and it’s a big IF, they can engage and use what passes for their brain and get off their arse. Give it a year, as Elsie put above, and they’d become a colander. At least the brain cells would be aereated

        2. If, and it’s a big IF, they can engage and use what passes for their brain and get off their arse. Give it a year, as Elsie put above, and they’d become a colander. At least the brain cells would be aereated

    3. Ogga, good morning. This is just the latest fashion wheeze. To sell more clothes each year a different “this year’s new colour” is introduced by fashion shops. A bright blue wristband is just the latest in a long history of “latest fashion”. The “this year’s new colour” used to be yellow – in the form of a star worn on your jacket as I recall.

    4. The French were enthusiastic collaborators in the last purge of undesirables. Even living in Vichy France couldn’t save you.

  10. Censored by Big Tech. Shut down by Big Banks. 10 August 2021.

    An email from Richard Tice this morning

    Dear Minty,

    At a press conference in London yesterday, I revealed that Metro Bank, who we have worked with since our inception, had suddenly announced that they were closing our accounts and that we were to go elsewhere. No reason given, no justification provided. You can watch the speech I gave here.

    First we were censored by big tech and now we’ve been shut down by big banks – proof that we’re already starting to rattle the establishment

    Thankfully we have other arrangements in place that will mean donations from our amazing supporters are unaffected and believe me, we need your support now more than ever. You can continue to donate via the website and every penny will be spent on helping to push back against those seeking to silence us.

    Taking on the establishment was never going to be easy but already we’re seeing the lengths that some are prepared to go to in order to protect the status quo.

    The Borg haven’t gone away!

  11. Censored by Big Tech. Shut down by Big Banks. 10 August 2021.

    An email from Richard Tice this morning

    Dear Minty,

    At a press conference in London yesterday, I revealed that Metro Bank, who we have worked with since our inception, had suddenly announced that they were closing our accounts and that we were to go elsewhere. No reason given, no justification provided. You can watch the speech I gave here.

    First we were censored by big tech and now we’ve been shut down by big banks – proof that we’re already starting to rattle the establishment

    Thankfully we have other arrangements in place that will mean donations from our amazing supporters are unaffected and believe me, we need your support now more than ever. You can continue to donate via the website and every penny will be spent on helping to push back against those seeking to silence us.

    Taking on the establishment was never going to be easy but already we’re seeing the lengths that some are prepared to go to in order to protect the status quo.

    The Borg haven’t gone away!

  12. Good morning, all. Bad mood here – was woken at 4.30 by one of those blame cats peeing on the duvet. Totally unnecessary – just showing displeasure at the absence of the MR (who spoils them both). And I had thought I was doing them a favour in letting them have the run of the house…

    Sort of sunny – so I’ll hang out the washing that went on at 4.45…. GRRRR

    1. Cats, eh?
      Ours like to come indoors to be sick – I expect they feel safer inside than outside, but Jayzuz!
      Lock the furry buggers away at night.
      Morning, Bill.

      1. I have just discovered that – to my relief – the duvet is washable.

        Naturally, the bright golden sun at 6 am has been replaced with solid cloud cover.

        Thanks, Gus and Pickles…..

  13. Is it coincidence that the UN report on climate armageddon was issued to coincide with lots of forest fires in the developed world?

  14. Morning all, pole sana, another power rationing here [the old normal]. Today’s distraction waffle. Mr Dolphin arrives at correct conclusion everyone on here did on appointment of Education Secretary. Presumably Clive Willam’s kid is a light bulb – novel:

    SIR – My son is bright, did no work for his GCSEs and sailed through. When he adopted the same approach for his A-levels, years before the pandemic, I expressed my concerns to his form tutor, who told me I was worrying unnecessarily – he would do fine.

    I was then proved right and his form tutor wrong. You are bound to get grade inflation when results depend on teacher assessment.

    Clive Williams
    Upper Basildon, Berkshire

    SIR – Simon Lebus, the interim chief regulator at Ofqual, may well be right when he says that teacher assessment gives a “more accurate and substantial
    reflection of what their students are capable of achieving”. (Was he saying that, I wonder, when he was chief executive of an exam board?)

    The results in 2020 and 2021 make it very clear, however, that teachers’ grades require standardisation in order to avoid a descent into meaninglessness through inflation. I feel sure that an algorithm could be devised to do that.

    Neil Sheldon
    Former chief examiner
    Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire

    SIR – Why bother holding the Olympic Games when medals could have been awarded by the coaches?

    Martyn Pitt
    Hardwicke, Gloucestershire

    SIR – As W S Gilbert put it in The Gondoliers, “When everyone is somebody, then no one’s anybody.”

    Peter Newbury
    Melbourne, Derbyshire

    SIR – To encourage more realistic exam grades, scrap school league tables.

    Roy Todd
    Former headmaster, The Duchess’s High School
    Alnwick, Northumberland

    SIR – My granddaughter worked hard for her A-levels. She had exams and did extra work that her teachers submitted to the assessors to support predicted grades. I think it most unfair if she is now told she does not deserve them.

    Judy Adamson
    Driffield, East Yorkshire

    SIR – Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, says A-level pupils “deserve to be rewarded” with high grades after a year of disruption. But not everyone got an A. Presumably the B and C grades went to children who had suffered less disruption.

    Which means the more schooling you get, the worse you do.

    Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
    Northwood, Middlesex

    SIR – I am a university lecturer. The essence of success in an exam is to answer the question put. Yesterday I listened to the worst education secretary in half a century interviewed on Today. He failed to answer any of the questions addressed to him. I therefore fail the Education Secretary.

    Richard R Dolphin
    West Hatch, Somerset

    Cost of going green

    SIR – The Government wants to reduce Britain’s carbon emissions significantly by 2050. For householders, this means replacing gas boilers with either a heat pump or a hydrogen-powered boiler.

    I do not believe that running volatile hydrogen to all homes is a practical proposition in the medium term, so we are left with heat pumps. These are eye-wateringly expensive: besides the upfront cost, there are costs relating to design, surveys and installation. In my case, the total outlay was £16,562.

    I also have an electric vehicle, so needed an at-home charger, which cost £945 (after a government grant). Add my solar array and battery storage device and the cost of such a linked-in system runs to £30,000 to make a real difference.

    My solar panels are Chinese, my heat pump is German and the storage battery is American.

    If the Government is serious about reducing domestic carbon emissions, it needs to be honest about the costs. It should also incentivise British production of the necessary components to reduce these costs.

    There is much to do – and 2050 is really not that far away.

    Steve Oakley
    Epsom Downs, Surrey

    SIR – Britain is spending a lot of money to reduce its comparatively small carbon emissions.

    The world’s 20 biggest polluters account for four fifths of global discharges, and most are emerging economies. China is responsible for a quarter of all global emissions, and its proposals for cutting them, impressive on first reading, will actually see it producing more by 2030.

    Britain is hosting the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this autumn. Surely its main objective should be to persuade the biggest polluters (and particularly China) to take meaningful action. Will this be possible?

    Christopher Robson
    Bedale, North Yorkshire

    SIR – I notice that acquaintances concerned about climate change become less chummy when I mention that feeding their average-size pet dog emits more than a ton of greenhouse gases a year.

    Should these pets not be taxed on that account?

    Anthony Greenstreet
    Camberley, Surrey

    Underwater internet

    SIR – Having worked in the water industry for many years, I am sceptical about the proposals to route fibreoptic broadband cables through the water distribution systems that go to “every home and business in the country”.

    Don’t people realise that this infrastructure is riddled with control valves?

    Martin Smith
    Brimpsfield, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Here in rural Devon, I and many of my neighbours do not have mains water. We have to rely on boreholes and springs.

    Will we be able to get broadband through those?

    R K Webb
    Axminster, Devon

    The B-word

    SIR – Until this week I had never heard of the renamed indie band Sea Power (“Band drops ‘British’ over nationalistic fears”, report, August 10).

    From now on I shall fly only on Airways and watch only the Broadcasting Corporation.

    Charles Foster
    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

    Saving Afghan lives

    SIR – I share the despair of all former Afghan interpreters and local staff rejected for resettlement in Britain. It is an extraordinarily bitter irony that our Armed Forces fought with such courage and determination for the advancement of human rights in Afghanistan, only to see so many of our interpreters now denied theirs.

    The Government has an obligation to protect all whose lives are threatened because of their service to the Crown. To do otherwise is an abrogation of its political responsibility.

    Major General Charlie Herbert (retd)
    Bishopstone, Wiltshire

    SIR – The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy distinguishes between jobs worthy of asylum and jobs that aren’t.

    Afghans who worked for the British Council don’t qualify. The silly (and heartless) civil servants who dreamt up this nonsense must assume the Taliban are equally nitpicking. The Taliban tend towards murder, not abstruse aspects of international or contract law.

    There is no time to lose. The Taliban are at the gates and Afghans are about to be sacrificed for some Whitehall pedantry.

    Nicholas A Bird
    London W3

    Proms puffs

    SIR – The BBC is to be congratulated for its Proms season. But am I alone in deploring the incessant advertisements for future Proms concerts on Radio 3, which feature excerpts of the pieces to be performed, followed by enthusiastic cheering?

    Given that these events have yet to take place, such trailers must use archive material, most likely featuring other artists’ performances. Far from whetting the appetite, this ploy surely insults our intelligence.

    Dr Millan Sachania
    Chertsey, Surrey

    SIR – Conducted by Jonathon Heyward, the National Youth Orchestra (who seem to get younger each year) played as superbly as ever in their Prom concert, with Beethoven’s Third Symphony as a fitting finale.

    But I believe many listeners, and maybe also the musicians, would agree that such a magnificent climax as in the Eroica should be left ringing in our ears rather than being followed by an encore of any sort. This unwelcome practice has become more common.

    John Birkett
    St Andrews, Fife

    What’s the real reason for the shed shortage?

    SIR – Regarding the shortage of timber sheds, the supplier Shedstore says that “a major issue is the UK is cutting down more trees than it is planting”.

    This makes no sense. Whatever the planting rate now, this would not affect current prices or supply. In any case, it is very unlikely that the UK is planting less than it is felling since, with few exceptions, all woods cut down have to be replanted.

    A second explanation is given for high prices: “More and more forests are also being taken over by private companies and their owners are not willing to sell their wood, in order to drive up timber prices.”

    This is equally unconvincing. Since some 70 per cent of timber in the UK is imported, it is the imports that are the main price-setters.

    Robert Thomas
    Dumfries

    Britain’s inglorious tactics during the Boer war

    SIR – Writing about a memorial for soldiers in the South African War of 1899-1902, Robert Tombs suggests that the war against the Boers was humanitarian in intent.

    This strains credulity. His reference to the “severe impact on Boer civilians” avoids the fact that the British Army employed devastating scorched-earth tactics, including concentration camps, which amounted to a war on women and children – and blacks. Henry Campbell-Bannerman famously called these “methods of barbarism”.

    Professor Tombs dismisses the European volunteers who fought with the Boers as “extreme nationalists”; mostly they were motivated by principled opposition to the British empire at its jingoistic height. Far from being the aggressors, the Boers launched surprise attacks only after sustained pressure orchestrated by high commissioner Alfred Milner, and following a botched attempt sponsored by Cecil Rhodes to overthrow Paul Kruger’s government in 1895-6.

    Professor Tombs omits to mention the large body of historical opinion which holds that the real motivation of mining magnates like Rhodes was to gain control of the huge gold wealth of the Transvaal. His argument that Afrikaners went on to establish apartheid against Britain’s protective embrace neglects the fact that members of Milner’s “Kindergarten” were instrumental in designing racial segregation, apartheid’s forerunner.

    Many leading Africans (and Mahatma Gandhi) supported the British cause, hoping that their loyalty would be rewarded by the retention and extension of franchise and citizenship rights. Yet Britain reneged on its promises and allowed the Union of South Africa to be constituted in 1910 as a white supremacist state.

    Professor Tombs is proud to be on a government advisory panel helping to navigate the “minefield” of public memorials and statues. He shows himself here to be anything but a reliable or balanced guide.

    Saul Dubow
    Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History
    Cambridge University

    1. Why bother holding the Olympic Games when medals could have been awarded by the coaches?

      Indeed, Martyn Pitt. Nail, head, hammer

      1. they have to have a “Sports day” [loose term] to celebrate weakness. No surprise next “non sporting event” will be in Paris, then Los Angeles

    2. It is the assumption that pupils ‘deserve’ higher grades for ‘putting up with’ disruption.

      You don’t deserve anything. You earn it. This fundamental confusion permeates everything these days. ‘I deserve a pay rise/a bigger house/new clothes/a new car/recognition/a huge pension’ – well, have you earned it?

  15. Doom, gloom and the end of time – the apocalypse is always at hand. 11 August 2021.

    But there are enough nukes still in existence to wipe out mankind. At the height of the Cold War, a must-have addition to the home of the over-anxious was a fall-out shelter. Many public buildings had bunkers reserved for those bureaucrats and politicians whose existence was judged critical to the continuation of the human race.

    Presumably they still await the nuclear winter, though judging by the preparations for the pandemic, Boris and his entourage will arrive to find nothing there save a few tins of Spam and some powdered milk. Moreover, while these shelters were being made ready for the great and good the rest of us were being told to put brown paper over the windows and sit under a table to await Armageddon.

    This is the thing is it not? If the Climate threat were real massive projects would already be underway to defer the Apocalypse. A financial package would have been arranged to compensate India and China for shutting down their coal fired power stations. The sale of Agricultural Land would have been prohibited. The Channel would have been closed off to prevent importing mouths we cannot feed. Feeding stations would have been set up in Africa and the Middle East!

    None of this is contemplated let alone initiated. What we have instead are insouciant Ministers jetting around as they please.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/10/doom-gloom-end-time-apocalypse-always-hand/

    1. My brother and sis-in-law bought a house where the previous owner had installed a very make-shift nuclear bunker (I would have rather taken my chances).
      They have converted it into a very comfortable en suite extra bedroom.

  16. Government climate tsar’s dirty secret: he still drives a diesel car

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/10/government-climate-tsar-still-drives-diesel-car/

    Alok Sharma, the Tory cabinet minister and Cop26 chief drives a type of car that the public now regard as dirty. It explains the move to takeup of petrol vehicles whilst electrics have still got a long way to go.

    The reason why clean diesel cannot be used in existing passenger cars is because there is just not enough space in them to retrofit the technology.
    Instead the Government is considering a scrappage scheme to take them off the road to meet the overoptimistic planet saving emission targets.

    It is now accepted that cow farts and burps are more damaging to the climate than the latest diesel technology.

    Alok could actually promote the use of clean diesel to save the planet instead of this idea of using electricity that we don’t have to power the future:

    Today’s cleaner diesel fuels, advanced engines and effective emission controls combine to achieve near zero emissions for fine particles and smog forming compounds like oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Clean diesel’s proven energy efficiency and ability to use renewable fuels position diesel as a key technology achieve cleaner air, lower greenhouse gas emissions and a sustainable environment around the world.

    Cleaner diesel fuel, advanced engines and effective emissions control make up a new generation of diesel. It’s clean diesel

    https://www.dieselforum.org/about-clean-diesel/what-is-clean-diesel

    2. Any development of cleaner, more efficient diesel and petrol engines will now cease. When governments suddenly realise in a few years time that the switch to electric vehicles is completely unachievable, and the cessation of production of diesel and petrol-engined cars is deferred, the technology behind these vehicles will not be as up-to-date and efficient as it otherwise could have been. Result – emissions from these vehicles will not be as low as they might have been.

      1. Yep. Green will force us backward in every way. Worse, it will keep us there further behind every day.

      2. They know perfectly well that we can’t switch to electric cars.
        The plan is that the peasants won’t have a car. One per street, book it in advance by app, and use your bike the rest of the time.
        Billionaires don’t want us cluttering up their roads.

    3. For the sake of diversity, would it be possible for Boros to have some White Brit Cabinet Ministers

    4. we’ll keep using diesel. What else will power the generators when the windmills don’t turn?

  17. 336625+ up ticks,
    In reality the question that should be asked is how long should the incarceration sentence be for carrying
    matches / lighters into churches / cathedrals, woodlands / forests.

    Why isn’t the world ready for wildfires?
    Our technology is improving but as the Earth gets hotter and drier, inferno-controlling strategies are the subject of fiery debate

    1. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Macbeth.

      Morning Oggy

      1. Much of the flooding and fires is a result of ecological policies and yes, over population. We are where we shouldn’t be, and because the state won’t let us dredge rivers, clear banks, create firebreaks we end up with nature sorting itself out.

        We just get in the way.

        It’s odd that the state keeps bashing on about re-wilding, and leaving habitat alone, but then happily destroys massive plots of land to build houses for gimmigrants.

    3. Thing is you’ve two types of people: those who smoke, and thus litter everywhere, and those who do not.

      While wandering about I remember watching a mother put a baby down who had a clear smokers cough – at the age of a few months. Mother and father both go off and light up, smoking 3 or four poison sticks one after the other. The baby’s choking. Mother bends down and breathes poison directly into the child’s mouth. Child very clearly tries to avoid this flood of toxic chemicals.

      Now, faced with that ignorance from the smoker, you just extrapolate to some gormless smoker lighting up next to flammable material – no smoking signs mean nothing in France, Italy or Turkey. One bint even lit up on a train station underneath the no smoking sign. I asked her to leave and she got upppity – as smokers do, because they’re morons.

      Throwing a lit poison stick or match away once done with it, straight on to a chemical stack is just something smokers do.

  19. Good Moaning.
    Here is a sentence to treasure from an article by Madeline Grant:
    “And it’s hardly a glowing endorsement for schools if, for two years running, examinees out-performed all previous students when they were away from their teachers for months on end.”
    Union obsessed teachers may find their jobs going the way of coal miners’.

    Here is the article in its entirety:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/11/will-burst-toxic-higher-education-bubble/

    “Who will burst the toxic higher education bubble?

    Burdened by inflated A-level grades, the young are now saddled with a university sector not fit for purpose

    11 August 2021 • 6:00am

    A-Level results day is as much a Summer Season ritual as Wimbledon or Henley Regatta. Picture desks demand the time-honoured shots of photogenic girls jumping for joy from the school steps. Like clockwork, Jeremy Clarkson reminds his Twitter followers that, despite his C and 2 Us, he’s still a multi-millionaire “with a Bentley and many friends”. With all this, of course, comes surging grade inflation.

    Nearly half of teacher-predicted A-levels were awarded an A or A*, after exams were cancelled again, almost double the proportion before the pandemic. Grade inflation, and concern about it, is nothing new, but edging 50 per cent suggests a hyperinflation reminiscent of Weimar Germany. And it’s hardly a glowing endorsement for schools if, for two years running, examinees out-performed all previous students when they were away from their teachers for months on end.

    Faced with the fiasco, education leaders participate in a Peter Pan-style fiction. (“Clap your hands if you believe in fairies, don’t let Tinker Bell die”.) The head of exam regulator Ofqual says the “holistic” approach of teacher assessment might be preferable to the snap-shot picture of exams. Gavin Williamson prefers not to talk about it at all. “Any debate about the system we’ve used this year should not undermine or question the value of the grades students will be getting”, he huffed yesterday morning.

    No one wants to trash the achievements of young people who’ve suffered two years of disruption. But it is neither kind nor constructive to pretend that the system has served them well this year. The best students will struggle to differentiate themselves amid a galaxy of A*s. Misleadingly high grades could shunt others onto over-challenging university courses where they will end up dropping out. Grade inflation isn’t cost-free, because grades send out a signal. When that signal is wrong, it undermines the integrity of all results. If everyone has an A, no one does.

    From grade inflation to home-working, the pandemic has boosted existing trends – sadly it looks certain to perpetuate Britain’s toxic higher education bubble, the product of Tony Blair’s misguided crusade to send half of school leavers to university. The Times recently reported a surge in young people taking “panic Masters” degrees to make themselves stand out in an uncertain jobs market. And who can blame them? In The Case Against Education, the economist Bryan Caplan warns of precisely this “arms race of credentialism”; many jobs that never needed degrees now do, catapulting young people into a qualifications’ free-for-all. Your second-rate PhD trumps my second-rate Masters.

    The fraudster Charles Ponzi, in his eponymous swindle, tricked new arrivals into paying for early investors’ profits, alongside his own. Perhaps it’s a stretch to describe higher education as an out-and-out Ponzi scheme. But there are similarities. Both are self-perpetuating systems; surviving only by expanding the base of their pyramid. Tuition fees are universities’ primary means of servicing existing debts, funding basic spending and the vanity projects institutions use to differentiate themselves in a saturated market. A constant supply of students is crucial, one reason for the recent explosion of unconditional offers.

    Both depend on big lies – in the case of higher education, persuading successive generations that they need to attend university when they don’t and promising glittering futures which may never materialise. At 23 institutions, graduates earn less, on average, than people who never went to university at all. An estimated three-quarters of graduates will never fully repay their loans, with the remainder “forgiven” (i.e. covered by the taxpayer), yet second-rate universities continue to churn out graduates in such volume that the economy cannot absorb them – often while offering little in return.

    The system lacks any accountability, or mechanism for penalising poor performance. Many universities have continued to charge the same eye-watering fees and rents despite offering no face-to-face contact throughout the pandemic. Vice-chancellors, property speculators and university administrators have continued to fill their coffers. Where the Education Secretary was right yesterday was in declaring this a terrible deal; even immoral. The university bubble isn’t just a raw cost to taxpayers – and nor should we only view university in these terms. It is also a tragedy of missed opportunities for many young people.

    The triggers for the bubble are obvious; unpicking the terrible incentives which created it will be tougher. The explosion of universities has brought money into electorally-sensitive areas, including Red Wall constituencies, and helps massage the unemployment numbers. As Caplan noted, the credentialism arms race has permeated the labour market, too.

    If the Government is serious about tackling this problem head-on, it could start by removing the degree requirement from public sector jobs like nursing, policing, even social work. Universities should no longer be considered “too big to fail”. It will take resolve and political courage but in the long run we will all be richer for it.”

    1. If the kids are getting higher grades without attending school, couldn’t we turn those thousands of buildings into accommodation for our seaborne visitors?

    2. Next year 120% of pupils will get top marks. This 20% extra is to give those not yet arrived from Africa a good start in their new homeland.

  20. Getting a bit fed up about all these Remainers going on about every little thing that might be harder now that we left the EU
    I going to start countering with how much better things would have been had we kept the Empire.

      1. One notices the camouflage and that he is probably just holding the sign in place. These are not foolish precautions!

      2. Why are the hands a different colour to the face. Is this fellow a hybrid? Does it matter?

    2. The issue’s twofold. We were sold by politicians that it’d be easy. It never would be. Now, our entire state machine seems hellbent on making an absolute pigs breakfast of every positive opportunity. From binning green, controlling our borders, energy abundance, low taxes, business friendly policies – it’s doing the precise opposite. I presume out of spite.

  21. Delta variant has wrecked hopes of herd immunity, warn scientists. 11 August 2021.

    The delta variant has wrecked any chance of herd immunity, a panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team said as they called for an end to mass testing so Britain can start to live with Covid.

    Scientists said it was time to accept that there was no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful.

    Prof Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the delta variant could infect people who had been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach even with high vaccine uptake.

    Surprise. Surprise!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/10/delta-variant-has-wrecked-hopes-herd-immunity-warn-scientists/

    1. I don’t see how supposed scientists can say that a group cannot develop antibodies. Do they know from the entire population that no one can develop antibodies to it?

      Are they so desperate to force an invented vaccine on the population through fear?

      1. Are they so desperate to force an invented vaccine on the population through fear?

        Morning Wibbles. Yes!

  22. Biden takes the scenic route to the White House entrance.
    If he is unable to find his own front door, even when clearly directed, how can anyone believe he is capable of constructing complicated policy?

    The confused SS agent following the “Administrator”, as Biden is being called by a number of independent news presenters, is expected to take a bullet for this man.

    https://twitter.com/RealMattCouch/status/1425200092026482693

    3. I got the impression that the SS agent pointed something out and instructed Biden to follow him. Biden looks to his right as he passes to see whatever it was.

  23. And now for something completely different: Allison Pearson.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/08/11/woke-mills-boon-just-imagine-bad-will/

    “A ‘woke’ Mills & Boon? Let’s just imagine how bad that will be…

    I hoped romantic fiction was safe from the monstrous regiment of puritans, but it’s about to get even more excruciating

    11 August 2021 • 5:00am

    I ask you, is nothing sacred? The warriors of woke have infiltrated almost every area of our lives, this week making us scared to even order a “curry” after a food blogger decided the word should no longer be used, because it was a “British colonial” term for south-Asian dishes.

    At least romantic fiction is safe from the monstrous regiment of puritans. Surely the bodice-ripper, by its very nature, could never be woke? The stallion of the unbridled erotic imagination will never allow itself to be tamed by some Corbynist glum in a donkey jacket?

    Well, think again. Mills & Boon are said to be making efforts to diversify, encouraging novels with softer, more socially progressive heroes. Just imagine how excruciating a Mills & Boon written in woke would be…

    Venus Virtue had been seeing Dr Igabod Ching, the celebrated climate-change campaigner and human rights lawyer, for three years. Although Venus was attracted to his vast compassion and legendary emotional intelligence, sometimes she found herself wondering why Igabod hadn’t yet done more than kiss her on the mouth. The doctor’s words resonated in her large but surprisingly firm breasts, which heaved with a long-suppressed frustration she was struggling to contain.

    “You know, Venus, I respect you too much as a fellow human who identifies as a woman to make demands which you may find inappropriate or which violate your sense of personal safety.”

    Venus frowned. She kept trying to tell Igabod that she was very much a woman and was happy for him to take off his fluorescent Extinction Rebellion jacket and invade her personal space. But the doctor didn’t take the hint. It was off-putting when they went for sushi and he spent the entire evening talking about female genital mutilation in sub-Saharan Africa, although she knew it proved how serious and good he was. Venus just wished the female genitals were hers and not being mutilated, but caressed in a pleasing manner. This lack of intimacy was a painful secret she’d shared with nobody.

    Not even Henrik. Henrik, the shallow billionaire with his tanned, gym-honed torso and his handsome face somehow made ugly by his dreadful capitalism and lack of social conscience. Venus had to cancel Leo after he laughed at an episode of Are You Being Served? and made a sexist remark about Miss Brahms. It was one step from that kind of thing to Nazi Germany.

    For a treacherous moment, an image of Henrik looking gorgeous and behaving very inappropriately popped into Venus’s mind, but she dismissed it angrily. His proposal of marriage proved he was part of the hegemonical patriarchy that had kept women prisoner for generations. No, she and Henrik could never have a future together – at least not until he promised to cut all his carbon emissions.

    Venus sighed and wondered if she would have to sign a consent form before Dr Ching stopped respecting her boundaries and made a move…”

    1. 336625+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      So in point of fact
      john major was way ahead of his time by showing his disdain and ripping a strip off
      of curry

    3. Mills and Boon are not stupid. The have a formula that works. They’ve used that formula for decades and it works, because they know their audience. They won’t change it.

      Firstly because they know wokists don’t read their books – or any book, because wokists are ignorant – nor will their audience care about the greeniac mentality or Left wing credentials of their characters.

      At least, one hopes they won’t. We thought the same of comics and those have collapsed under the weight of whinging, spiteful, identarian communists. The Marvel franchise forced this with the horrific Winter soldier tv series – 90% of the audience dropped off when it started promoting racism. They don’t tell you that.

      Ah well Go woke, go broke. It’s odd that even with the millions in marketing they still don’t get it: Lefties whinge, but they don’t buy – even when you pander to them. They just want to destroy what you have, like petulant, nasty, jealous children.

    4. All popular fiction has been wokified. I don’t think the publishers allow anything to go out until a few cardboard diverse characters have been added – never portrayed in a bad light, it goes without saying. Several big sellers, who previously produced good stories have succumbed and their latest books are full of woke drivel.

      My protest is to stop buying new books. I only buy second hand now, as that way, if I discover I’ve bought some ghastly piece of propaganda, at least I haven’t enriched the pushers.

      It’s sad for authors to lose income this way, but it’s their own fault for letting this stuff go out under their names.

    1. I have to admit, I don’t get it.

      Oh, hang on. It’s one of those ‘put your head through the gap’ things. I thought that was a mirror on the wall!

    1. Absolutely spot on, that newcomer. He could have added the giant tractors that block his 4 x 4; the damned cattle bulling and yelling – to say nothing of spreading their muck on the road; the bird scarers going off every ten minutes; shooting parties; the hunt – and on top of that – the wretched church bells AND clock. These yokels have no thought for townsfolk….

      (Anon – only lived here 38 years…don’t let anyone know my feelings…)

        1. That’s a combine harvester without the cutter bed – taken off so as not to overfill the road.

          1. Indeed. My photo of the really big tractor was missed while I fiddled with the camera as it moved up the road. I should have said “agricultural vehicle”.

      2. We had a Clerical Assistant who moved from Bristol to a village near to where we worked. She bought a nice bungalow close to a working aggregate quarry that blasted every weekday at noon (they used to ring us to warn us so we could turn off/tie down some of our more sensitive instrumentation) and yes she petitioned to get the quarry closed down ( it’s still working 35 years later)

        1. There’s a house in the middle of a filed at the eastern end of the runway at Gatwick – about 1/3 of a mile from the runway. The owner bought it for about 50p, and bitches regularly to ATC about aeroplanes flying over hos house…

  27. Imagine the scenario: teachers (now there’s a misnomer if there ever were one) have, for some time now, been responsible for failing to properly teach — i.e. impart knowledge to — their pupils (yes, they are pupils; students are much older); this is the very basis of education.

    This abomination is directly responsible for the production of at least a couple of generations of thick, uninformed, gormless, illiterate and innumerate school-leavers.

    Now — and this is where it gets highly improbable (to be kind to them) — those very same serially failing schoolteachers are now given the extra responsibility of awarding the ‘A’-level grades for their charges’ coursework. Consequently those teachers doing the grading — none of whom would wish to come across as less than an inspirational guru — are dishing out A and A* grades like confetti.

    Teachers, who cannot impart knowledge (they themelves know very little and are too thick to be permitted to teach) are giving top accolades to the very pupils they have failed to educate properly. This is one of many reasons why each successive generation of humans is becoming more stupid than those preceding them. I am left wondering what this programme (for that is precisely what it is) of keeping our youngsters devoid of knowledge and life skills is ultimately designed for.

    2. It would be interesting to arrange for a couple of dozen top A grade pupils to sit the Scottish Higher papers circa 1964. Just for fun.

      3. My Mother was at school during the 2nd WW and matriculated, I think the word was, towards the end of that period. She lived between Birmingham and Coventry and spent 4 years of long nights in a cold and damp Anderson Shelter as death and destruction rained down killing her immediate neighbours and taking the roof off her house, I have little patience with the notion that today’s pupils have suffered anything other than an irritating inconvenience.

    3. Conflict of interest.

      Caroline and I stopped teaching in England in 1989 and moved to France to set up our own business when we were expected to decide the GCSE grades that should be given to our own pupils.

  28. ‘Morning All
    Code Red Code Red !!
    I won’t be around much for a few days,the sheer bedwetting hysteria of the doom merchants in every media outlet makes them even more unreadable/unwatchable,time for a short break.
    I may drop off the odd laff (if I come across any)

    3. I’ll miss you Rik…oh i will,i will.
      I haven’t decided what to throw yet but i bet i’ll miss you!

    5. There are several Nottlers whose posts I always read and you are one of them so I implore you not to stay away for long.

    6. Please do, your laffs are very welcome!
      The media is awful at the moment. Someone said NOTTL is only anti-vaxx now, but really it’s just a reaction to the mainstream media and their doom-laden propaganda stories.

  29. Russian Historians Alarmed As Putin Creates State Body On ‘Historical Education’. 11 August 2021.

    MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin last month ordered the creation of an interagency commission on historical education, and his reasoning was clear from the preamble to the decree, which said it was “in order to ensure a planned and aggressive approach to the matter of defending the national interests of the Russian Federation.

    “Undoubtedly the question of history, in my opinion, is a crucial question for the existence of the state within its current borders,” Pozhigailo said. “If history is rewritten, then the state will no longer exist.”

    Because Russia is a “multinational” country, the need for a “unified” version of its history is urgent, Pozhigailo said. There cannot be a presentation of history that “tells how great the people of the Far North are and how bad the Russians are or how great the North Caucasus are and how bad the Russians are” because “Russia would simply collapse into an enormous number of tiny states.”

    “In order to prevent this, undoubtedly, we need some agreement in society and in the state regarding our history,” he added.

    There is of course no body of opinion that represents historians. The Author might just as well have written Street Sweepers alarmed nevertheless it does tell us something. Putin has noticed the attacks on White Western History and has determined to prevent it being used against Russia. Once Russian History is “Unified” legislation can then be introduced to prevent it being undermined. We should of course already have such a scheme in place in the UK to counter the Woke narrative.

    https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-history-commission-putin/31403236.html

    1. 336625+ up ticks,
      AS,
      We had such a pro UK group successfully building under Gerard Batten leadership as in UKIP only to witness it being taken out via treachery.

      1. First it got colder then it got warmer.
        Please may I have my starred first?

        The probability is that the sun was involved.
        Please may I have my PhD in climate science now?

      2. 336625+ up ticks,
        Morning JN,
        I would hazard a guess & say the sun eventually broke through the sun block, sun block = dust, debris from natures building blocks settlement.

      3. Well it was clearly due to climate change caused by neolithic men keeping cattle and eating meat. They were probably white, too.

  31. A-level grades could be scrapped to end top marks ‘free-for-all’
    Ministers look at replacing alphabetical system with numbers after teachers’ predictions result in surge in As
     DTStory

    Since even some A grade students have difficulty with both letters and numerals how about this new system for grading exam results?

    Former A* grade – 💩
    Former A grade – 💩💩
    Former B grade – 💩💩💩
    Former C grade – 💩💩💩💩
    Former D grade – 💩💩💩💩💩
    Former E grade – 💩💩💩💩💩💩
    Former F grade – 💩💩💩💩 💩💩💩

    Does anyone remember the Asterix books?

    In Asterix at the Olympic Games they work out that if Asterix takes the magic potion he will be disqualified for taking performance enhancing substances. So the Armoricans manage to convince each of the other competitors to take it as it will make them invincible while only Asterix is ‘clean’. But since all the others are equal first and Asterix is a long way behind he is given the gold medals as those who took the magic potion are disqualified.

    The current inflated A level grades are completely useless and an insult to all those who took the exams.

    1. Norway uses 1 through 6 – where 6 = A.
      When currency is devalued, get a new one.

    3. Can you imagine the huge debts some of these students will never be able to pay off, because their employment and salaries will never be up to the mark. I suppose there is always politics if they obtain a degree in scumbagarey, skulduggery and habitual lying.

      1. I have never – even for a second – regretted not going anywhere near a university.

        1. Our youngest went to Leeds Uni but had a terrible accident in a car, it put him in a very difficult position, he lost track of the Construction Surveying Course he was on and had to give it up. Left with a huge debt and obvious other issues, but paid off and in a decent job now.
          His two elder brothers both did courses at the local techs and have wonderful well paid jobs now.

        2. Yes, but in those days you could enter the professions such as law and chartered accountancy by serving a period of 5 years as an articled clerk during which time you studied in the evening for your exams using a correspondence course. This option is no longer available and young people have been betrayed so now they have to get a degree – usually with the concomitant debt it will entail – if they wish to enter virtually any profession.

          I have often aired my views on this Nottlers’ forum of the scandalous way young people have been treated with regard to student loans.

          In a nutshell all student loans should be repaid but these loans should be interest free as they are in many more civilised countries. Also students should be allowed to set off their repayments against tax and employers should be able to do the same in helping their employees get debt free. Those working in the state education and state health services should be forgiven their student debts after 8 – 10 years service to encourage them to stay in their jobs.

          Is it really sensible to have young people enslaved by debt which they will never be able to repay? Surely all this can do is to generate resentment?

  33. I have downloaded the report https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf which has even called Code Red by the MSM.
    I have started to go through the “Summary for Policymakers”. Almost everything is assigned what I would call an “estimated reliability status qualifiers”, e.g “Likely, or “Very Likely”.
    In the first section Paras A1.1 to A1.8 I have counted these “reliability status qualifiers”.
    Medium confidence 3 times, High confidence 4, Likely 5, Very Likely 6, Extremely Likely 6, Virtually certain 2.
    I have considered these terms as verbal fractions, so Likely becomes 0.66 and Very Likely becomes 0.75 and Extremely Likely become 0.9. When I was at school I learned that multiplying fractions together did not result in bigger numbers but smaller. So Likely x Very Likely x Extremely Likely can be expressed as 0.6 x 0.75 x 0.9. and the result is 0.045. If someone told me the the chances of dropping dead before I am 90 years old was 0.045 I would be quite happy.

    Anyway I am sure that there are Nottlers more schooled than I am who can look at this and share their thoughts, please?

    2. language [in woke terms] via word pairing, is based around supposition, speculation / best guess “understanding state of current climate / the role of human influence / Based on scientific understanding, key findings can be formulated as statements of fact or associated with an assessed level of confidence indicated using the IPCC calibrated language.etc”. In simple language = no proof / factual evidence

      1. That’s sort of what I am getting at. I have yet not got to the scientific stuff with their analyses of climate in eons past based on evidence of palaeontology.

          1. They look like something quite large stood on them and squashed their shells. I wonder if there is a hidden valley somewhere in Argentina where these animals still survive?
            There is a valley in France that was only discovered about 100 years ago, apparently. New Zealand had some very big strange creatures until humankind killed them. Imagine being an explorer and sitting down on a bare hillock to eat your sandwiches and the hillock walks off!

          3. I love that idea , some enormous tortoises still alive .

            The strange looking creatures could have been swamped by mudslides , it looks as if they were rushing somewhere perhaps for safety?

        2. they’re using language and selective data manipulation to fit the politcal agenda, or they don’t get paid. Making a square peg fit a round hole

        3. they’re using language and selective data manipulation to fit the politcal agenda, or they don’t get paid. Making a square peg fit a round hole

    4. None of their previous predictions have come true and it will be the same again with this lot.

    2. Happy Wednesday Belle, nothing but the best 5 star dining for the UK’s thieves, terrorist’s, murderers, rapists, drug smugglers, people smugglers burglars, con-men, pedophiles & other assorted criminal scum. I’d execute most of them & the rest I’d give hard labour with bread & water for life!

  35. About 50% of all the dry weather fires are of criminal origin on the Continent and Algeria..

    When we have had fires here on our heathland and forests , all have been deliberate or carelessness.. Spent BBQs, glass bottles , discarded ciggies etc

    1. There are certain people out there TB who will seek advantage when the opportunity arises.
      I remember the fires in Spain a few years ago and people were arrested on suspicion, but no charges were mad to stick.
      It was certainly established that fires were set by humans in the eastern areas of Victoria a couple of years ago. As was found to be the case in the north of England last time there were ‘wild fires’.

    1. Here in Finland today..
      sunrise..05:15
      sunset..21:28.
      but we start to accelerate so that by Christmas we are down to about 5 hours of daylight.
      On the plus-side,they haven’t put the snow poles out yet!

        1. I’m looking forward to the new Covid season.Its been too quiet here during the Summer.

    3. For the first time this year I felt a touch of autumn in the air yesterday evening when I went to bring the washing in.

        2. Hopefully some Nottlrs will remember Ray Moore who used to refer to her as ‘Nana Moussaka’!

        3. Happy Onsdag, Pud.

          Feta (foetid) cheese is already sour and foul. You would never get me to eat that disgusting Greek Fisherman’s Smegma!

          1. Happy Wodensday Grizz, its not well known but Feta is made sweet & then they play Nana Mouskori songs during the packing process to turn it sour & foul in an instant.

  38. A British diplomat working at the country’s embassy in Berlin has been arrested by security services on charges of spying for Russia. Prosecutors claim that he forwarded on materials to officials in Moscow in exchange for cash.
    In a statement issued on Wednesday, the office of the German Prosecutor General confirmed that a UK national, known only as David S., had been detained.

    According to the authorities, “until his arrest, he had been an employee at the British Embassy in Berlin. On at least one occasion, he forwarded documents obtained in the course of his professional activities to a representative of the Russian intelligence service.”

    As part of this scheme, prosecutors allege, “in return for providing information, the accused received an unknown amount of cash.”

    The operation to capture the purported spy was reportedly planned jointly by British and German intelligence agencies. A case will now be brought against David S. for supposed espionage, and his home and workplace have been searched.

    In June, Germany announced it had detained a Russian scientist working at a university in the country on charges of spying for Moscow. Investigators claim he received payment to pass on information. In accordance with the country’s privacy laws, which prevent the disclosure of full names of suspects, the researcher was identified only as Ilnur N.

  39. Lost at sea…

    British Sea Power sunk: Band blames ‘antagonistic nationalism’ as it changes name

    Indie rock group, formed in Reading in 2000, modifies name to Sea Power to avoid risk of association with ‘isolationism’

    By Craig Simpson • 9 August 2021 • 7:54pm

    An indie band has dropped “British” from its name after 20 years, blaming a rise in “antagonistic nationalism”.

    British Sea Power formed in Reading in 2000 and enjoyed two decades of albums and tours under the name – a wry reference to an already vanished naval supremacy. Now the six-piece band has decided to drop the term “British”, with an online statement saying: “The band formerly known as British Sea Power have modified their name to simply Sea Power.

    “The name British Sea Power had come to feel constricting, like an ancient legacy we were carrying with us. In recent times there’s been a rise in a certain kind of nationalism in this world – an isolationist, antagonistic nationalism that we don’t want to run any risk of being confused with. It’s become apparent that it’s possible to misapprehend the name British Sea Power. We always wanted to be an internationalist band, but maybe having a specific nation state in our name wasn’t the cleverest way to demonstrate that.”

    The band, which began as British Air Power before moving to Brighton to take advantage of the local music scene, hopes fans will accept the name change. Members including founding brothers Yan and Neil Wilkinson have said the change does not reflect their views on Britain as a whole.

    The statement said: “We all feel immensely fortunate to have grown up in these islands. Several of our songs are filled with love and awe for this place. We do love these lands. We all still live within the British Isles, but we are now just Sea Power.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/09/band-drops-british-name-blaming-antagonistic-nationalism/

      1. Ageing 40-somethings need the publicity for their third-rate band?

        As for ‘antagonistic nationalism’…what?

  40. I wonder how many of the major powers are making plans to convert their warships,bombers,tanks etc. to electric propulsion

    1. Far too erratic. Wind power is the new diesel….only two days to cross the Channel; six weeks to the States etc etc. Brilliant. And free….

      1. We are off to invade France.!!!!
        ERRRR – – winds in the wrong direction sir, its blowing us North not South.
        OK – anyone fancy invading Iceland?.

      4. You jest, but the first steamer to cross the Atlantic, the SS Great Britain, was converted mid-life from coal to all-sail despite the longer sailing times.

  41. Morning all………….i have been reading Confucius quotes, one that stands out is ……
    Naked man who walks through narrow door way side ways is going to Bangkok.

        1. Good morning.

          Confucius say, foolish man give wife grand piano, wise man
          give wife upright organ. :@)

        1. Perhaps it is yer Chinese who are sending away all the natives that arrive in Calais

          3. The Americans already have plans for internment camps. They say it is to protect high risk groups against nasty viruses.

  42. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34f2f6e9e318318b2144c233b34f78d872f08370722a0010fa206495ff538bd9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0310b0084d59555b991653c17fa898d17f81979e6e05cfe121aa3a813eb41d6b.jpg On Monday night my good friend, Bertil, took me out to celebrate my 70th birthday [my 70½th in fact!]. He had promised to take me out back in February (I had forgotten) but he had been so busy it had to wait until summer.

    It was a huge surprise to be picked up in his 361 in³ (5·9 litre) 1958 Ford Edsel Pacer, a huge ugly beast of a car that he had imported from the USA last year. Bertil runs his own garage but his passion is Americana. He normally takes a 5–6 week holiday every autumn to visit his beloved States and he invariably buys an old, 1950s Ford (he has Thunderbirds, Mustangs, Galaxies), which he renovates and sells on to an ever-growing waiting list of Swedish customers. He bought his first Edsel a few years back (a station wagon) but that is still in an extended renovation process.

    It was strange to be sitting in the front of such a behemoth not wearing a seatbelt. We had an excellent evening at a local buffet restaurant.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel

      2. They had truck engines.
        When we were in Oz our LWB Land Rover had to go in for some repairs, the garage gave us a Chevy Impala for a few days and as you drove you could see the fuel gauge dropping.

    3. When I lived in the USA I ran a 1981 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. I loved it but my American neighbours took the p!ss.

    5. Rather like the American language, George, garish and wrong.

      I understand that the Ford Edsel was the biggest flop in the Ford stable. Named after Henry Ford’s son.

  43. Orwell prizewinner to rewrite ‘racist’ memoir after backlash
    Kate Clanchy has been accused of offensive descriptions in her book ‘Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me’

    An Orwell prize-winning author is to rewrite her memoir after criticism that her portrayal of schoolchildren was “racist”.

    Kate Clanchy, a Scottish poet and writer who has taught in schools for more than 30 years, has been accused of offensive descriptions in her 2019 book ‘Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me’.

    The book, which last year won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, was accused by Twitter and Goodreads users of racial stereotyping because of a reference to the “chocolate-coloured skin” of a black child, who was described as “African Jonathan”.

    Separate criticisms of the book focused on Ms Clanchy, 56, having used the term “almond-shaped eyes” and writing that two autistic pupils were “jarring company”.

    She last week claimed that the passages in question had been taken out of context and it led the author Philip Pullman to defend the book as “humane, decent and generous”.

    ‘I am not a good person’
    But on Monday Ms Clanchy said in an updated statement she was “grateful” for the chance to “do some re-writing on Some Kids”.

    “I know I got many things wrong, and welcome the chance to write better, more lovingly,” she said.

    “I am not a good person, I do try to say that in my book. Not a pure person, not a patient person, no one’s saviour. You are right to blame me, and I blame myself.”

    Ms Clanchy has separately published an anthology of her students’ work and in 2018 was awarded an MBE for her services to literature.

    Picador, Ms Clanchy’s publisher, said that it was “profoundly sorry” for any offence that ‘Some Kids’ had caused to its readers.

    A Picador spokesman said: “We understand that readers wish to know specifically what will be done about the book, we’re actively working on this now and we will communicate this as soon as possible.”

    How do we describe colour , and why shouldn’t we .. I am fair skinned freckly, blue eyed. My dogs are , the older mostly black with a white bib , my young dog is foxy coloured with a white bib . My sisters are auburn as is my brother , my mother was dark haired , but not pink skinned , my father was auburn and pink skinned .

    The description on one of my old blue passports was fairskinned , blue eyes , English !

    Why are darkies so sensitive about their skin colour and ethnic description , What are they if not what they are?

      2. Just recently I had a large stroppy African ward Sister who was asking me questions whilst filling in the general questionnaire, I queried some the the questions and she didn’t like it at all. One of her seemingly predominate concerns was “How much alcohol you you consume on a daily basis” ?
        Why do you want to know that I replied, she told me that it was important because it could cause problems with your health. I told her about my best mate who had had exactly the same problems and more than I had recently endured but he does not drink at all so how can that be so ? I told her i usually drank about two glasses of red per day she told me that was too much so i replied what would you be saying to French or Italian people right now in these circumstances. I also mentioned that I had lost three close friends (not from covid) earlier this year and none of them were drinkers. She didn’t like that either. Fortunately I didn’t encounter her again.

          1. Back in 2009 I had hip surgery, when I came round in the recovery room a black nurse came to check if I was Okay, when she spoke to me I recognised the South African accent she had. In her own Xhosa language said hello and asked her how she was and what she was up to sort of greeting.
            She leapt around in excitement and was saying “he speaks my language, he speaks my language”! A lovely lady, she came to see me on the ward a couple of times as well.

          3. I only learnt a few words and phrases Obs, it’s strange that was the first thing that came into my head as I came out of the state of anaesthesia.
            I have a Zulu dictionary some where it seems that in translation a lot of the words an phrase where almost Shakespearean…………..i’ll leave you with that one 😉

        3. On a recent hospital stay i said if you don’t take this canula out i will do it myself. The nurse said ‘but you will get blood everywhere’.

          I said ‘not my problem’.

          She said they needed to do another ECG. I said ‘No, i’m leaving’.

    2. What are they if not what they are?
      What they are seems to have become a weapon to beat us with.

    3. Ah, the perpetually-offended. They use a scatter-gun-type approach. They are bound to hit some sort of target. Ignore them – pandering to their complaints only encourages them.

  44. Wondering whether to bother having booster jab?:

    Delta variant has wrecked hopes of herd immunity, warn scientists
    There is no way of stopping Covid spreading through the entire population, experts tell MPs as they call for end of mass testing

    By
    Sarah Knapton,
    SCIENCE EDITOR
    10 August 2021 • 5:30pm

    The delta variant has wrecked any chance of herd immunity, a panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team said as they called for an end to mass testing so Britain can start to live with Covid.

    Scientists said it was time to accept that there was no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful.

    Prof Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the delta variant could infect people who had been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach even with high vaccine uptake.

    It comes as Angela Merkel became the first major world leader to announce the end of free testing, with the provision set to stop in Germany from Oct 11.

    On Tuesday, the Department of Health confirmed that more than three quarters of adults have now received both jabs, and calculated that 60,000 deaths and 66,900 hospitalisations had been prevented by vaccination. But experts said it would never be enough to stop Covid from spreading.

    Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on Covid, Sir Andrew said: “Anyone who is still unvaccinated will, at some point, meet the virus.

    “We don’t have anything that will stop transmission, so I think we are in a situation where herd immunity is not a possibility and I suspect the virus will throw up a new variant that is even better at infecting vaccinated individuals.”

    Until recently, it was hoped that increasing the number of Britons jabbed would create a ring of protection around the population. As late as last week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said one of the reasons it had advised that 16 and 17-year-olds should be vaccinated was because it may help prevent a winter Covid wave.

    However, analysis by Public Health England has shown that when vaccinated people catch the virus they have a similar viral load to unvaccinated individuals and may be as infectious.

    Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia and an expert in infectious diseases, told the committee: “The concept of herd immunity is unachievable because we know the infection will spread in unvaccinated populations and the latest data is suggesting that two doses is probably only 50 percent protective against infection.”

    Prof Hunter, who advises the World Health Organisation on Covid, also said it was time to change the way the data was collected and recorded as the virus became endemic.

    “We need to start moving away from just reporting infections, or just reporting positive cases admitted to hospital, to actually start reporting the number of people who are ill because of Covid,” he added. “Otherwise we are going to be frightening ourselves with very high numbers that actually don’t translate into disease burden.”

    On Tuesday, Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, confirmed that third dose booster shots would be given from next month. However, Sir Andrew argued that, if mass testing was not stopped, Britain could be in a situation of continually vaccinating the population.

    “I think as we look at the adult population going forward, if we continue to chase community testing and are worried about those results, we’re going to end up in a situation where we’re constantly boosting to try and deal with something which is not manageable,” he said.

    “It needs to be moving to clinically driven testing in which people are willing to get tested and treated and managed, rather than lots of community testing. If someone is unwell they should be tested, but for their contacts, if they’re not unwell then it makes sense for them to be in school and being educated.”

    Dr Ruchi Sinha, consultant paediatrician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, told MPs and peers that choosing not to vaccinate children would be unlikely to cause problems in the health service.

    “What matters is the burden of patient hospitalisation and critical care and actually there hasn’t been as much with this delta variant,” she said. “They tend to be the children who have got their comorbidities, obesity, or severe neurological problems and those children are already considered for vaccination. Covid on its own in paediatrics is not the problem.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/10/delta-variant-has-wrecked-hopes-herd-immunity-warn-scientists/

        2. I think Prof Pollard was trying to tell the politicians that further interventions were pointless – but will they listen?

          1. I think they were also intimating that if you go looking for something then you will find it.

          3. Even my jab-obsessed you-can’t-come-in-my-house-til-you’ve-had-it brother number 3 has conceded that point. Brother number 2 who has already allowed me back in his house also agreed my point that likewise if you do more IQ tests, you’ll find more idiots! (Brother number 1 is in the US so no chance of visiting there at the mo.)

          5. Any admission that they were badly advised and made the wrong decisions will be tacit acknowledgement that we have wasted billions and billions on fool’s gold.

          6. They’ve ordered many millions of Pfizer booster jabs at £22 per shot. They are obviously intending to get everyone triple and quadruple jabbed for the next two years at least.

          7. That suggests there will be “mixing and matching”.
            I wonder how many other vaccination types, that require two or more doses, are quite so blasé about cocktails of different types?

      2. As someone looking from afar,it looks like the beginning of an arse-covering exercise.

    3. Millions dead by Saturday. Again. Please walk in the road to avoid falling over the piles of bodies.

    4. I’ll never have a booster, I’ve been through enough already. I don’t know how much two visits to A&E would cost and an over night in hospital.
      It’s clearly is not a ‘vaccine’ as is commonly know, as it doesn’t actually work and IMHO the variants have been invented to cover the *rses of the experts who spout their nonsenses all over the media at every given opportunity.

        1. Google are onto that already. No you don’t need to be vaccinated, yes you will need to work from home and you will earn less.

    7. Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on Covid, Sir Andrew said: “Anyone who is still unvaccinated will, at some point, meet the virus.
      Everyone will meet the virus.
      It’s now clear that the vaccination neither prevents infection nor transmission, it just makes you less ill when infected.

    8. After a quick read of the above it appears to me that CV-19 or whatever it is/was is being relegated to the seriousness of a common cold by this group of scientists. Has herd immunity ever been achieved for the common cold or a vaccine produced?

      Are members of this group also becoming wary re the downside effect of the potions and the push for jabbing children? Clearing the decks in readiness for their defence, perchance?

    9. (Slow hand clap)
      Meanwhile, the rest of us realised that some 18 months ago. But then we’re not experts.

  45. It’s not fair….

    Why does Google always ask me to verify “I am not a robot”?

    I’m never asked to verify “I am a robot”?

    3. What difference would it make? Have you seen R2D2, Marvin or any other robot using the internet?

  46. Just been reading an article in the Telegraph . . .
    Apparently, in football, there is an organisation called the “Premier League Black Participations Advisory Group”
    Ah Well . . . . !!

      1. I presume Plod (the Police Farce, aka The Keystone Kops) don’t have the balls to found a “White Police Association.” They won’t be able to fight against it, as the precedent is already set.

    3. Why is there no similar group for Asian players? After all, according to the last census there are 3 times as many Asians as blacks here yet there are hardly any in the Premier League.

  47. It’s a while since I’ve seen anything on dentistry in the media. But, beware, look after your teeth or you’ll be in trouble.

    The NHS service has been bad here in Surrey since I moved here over 10 years ago. I couldn’t get an NHS dentist despite years of trying so had to go private. My wife was an NHS patient, moving here in the time before all the reforms started, but has just found out that her dentist took her off their list on the trumped up excuse that she hadn’t had a recent check up despite that NHS check ups have been stopped for 18 months.

    She has toothache so I rang round 111 and all the other dentists. 111 blanked us, no dentist is taking on new NHS patients, existing NHS patients are limited to drastic work (mere toothache doesn’t count, you can use painkillers), and the nearest private appointment I can get is mid-October, 2 months away.

    I can’t survive 2 months with a bad-tempered wife, as much as I love her. When I stop posting here you’ll know that I’ve shot myself.

    1. 2 months? Goodness, where are you? When I have toothache it usually means there’s an abscess but the last time that happened, about three months ago, it was all sorted with the root canal work done and a new crown fiited within a week of it becoming painful – though the problem had clearly been building for much longer.

      2. Root canal?? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
        Scariest concept I know – and very pricey here in Norway. Cheaper to fly to Hungary & holiday as part of the deal!

          2. I did tell her I’d sold them for £300 each – toys and baskets included… She didn’t believe me!

    5. If you shoot yourself she will have to cope with the aftermath and she’ll still have the toothache.
      Put her out of her misery, it’s the kinder option.

      Either that or loads of booze and a pair of pliers.

    6. I thought that dentists had carried on because they needed to see patients if they wanted to be paid. It is almost exclusively private practice in Canada, same day emergency treatments are available.

      Good luck finding a dentist. Maybe try a bottle of scotch to calm the nerves (hers or yours)before resorting to the gun that others have suggested.

    7. I’d say, hop across the Channel to north Germany or the Netherlands or Belgium for some private dentistry, but the barstewards have even made that difficult.

        1. standard smoke and mirrors. All 5 eyes countries pushing forward regardless. In an attempt to “show democracy / diversity” there will always be outlets giving alternative views. Ignoring the reality both sides of the coin have their snouts in the same trough

    2. 336625+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Surely if this be true in Australia and the police are
      assaulting peoples
      personal temples then retaliation in a forceable manner can be used, like for like.

    3. At the end of the day, the vaccines are helping but they are not a magic bullet and statistics on their effectiveness can be calculated, presented and twisted in so many ways that only an expert or dedicated layman can make sense of them all.

      1. On the beeb radio late last night.Dotun Adebayo – – he uses same tactics every time – pretends to be on the side of reason to start with . . . Woman calls in – I;m undecided she says about the vaccine – very dithery – he takes her side but miraculously within 5 minutes – – – she suddenly decides to have the jab.Clearly getting advice from a beeb radio presenter convinced some VERY bad pretence !!!

        1. Sounds like a planted caller to me. I used to listen to Five Live 20 years ago – I was convinced than that many calls that fitted the narrative of the day were from their own people.

        2. Sounds like a planted caller to me. I used to listen to Five Live 20 years ago – I was convinced than that many calls that fitted the narrative of the day were from their own people.

      2. How do you know the vaccines are helping when all the stats are dodgy and designed to make it look that the vaccines are helping?

      3. I think seasonality is the reason things are improving on earlier figures this year. However, there are more deaths this summer due to ‘covid’ with a ‘vaccine’ than last summer without a ‘vaccine’.

      4. They are NOT helping, Dale, they are a con by Big Pharma and the Totalitarians to control you, while making BIG profits.

        1. Do you mean this is not the hole truth?
          I shall have to refer to my learned counsel – Phil McCavity!

    5. Here is totalitarianism in effect. Resist Oz. Stand up and fight back – hard.

      Use your own phrase, “Harden the fuck up.”

  49. Good afternoon from Anglo Saxon Queen with blooded axe and pursed longbow.

    Teachers probably believe students need a little treat after being ” heroic ” during lockdown .

    About to have lunch in the garden. Pitta bread, hummus, Greek salad / extra Greek olives and Spanish ham with a little glass of chilled white wine. Doing so because it’s warm and sunny. Two days ago when it was cold we had beans on toast ( not in the garden ).

      1. Mr Viking ? 🙂
        You’ve lost your gargoyle 🙂 No potatoes, ah, no indeed but they’ve left the fridge .

        2. If climate change finishes off the planet before we all die that will be a world record! 🥇

    2. If one doesn’t get you, the other will – or so they say.

      We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters) must stand against it.

        2. Nevertheless, Bill, if we all refuse to be herded into the world of, “Papiere, bitte” (and I can only use German as an example) we perhaps have a way of ridiculing and disobeying their so-called, “Rule of Law.”

        1. Nah – two “contrite” cats sleeping (well they were up most of the night).

          And all the linen laundered and ready to go back on the bed..

          4. She is the spit of Gus – it is only his tail that distinguishes him from Pickles.

            I love it when they put their paw over their yes!

    1. These people have really gone into full blown insanity. It’s frightening that they actually have power over normal people.

      1. the issue is they have power of the office position they function in [as peoples’ rep]. But as you say, full blown insanity makes them believe they control everyone.

    2. I wouldn’t wish to talk to anyone as unappealing as that woman (if it IS a woman)…

      1. I believe it would be better to “talk at” [as in giving orders], it’s the only language such people understand before going to hang their emotions on the washlng line

      2. Indeed I can’t imagine the trauma of being stuck in the next seat to that at a dinner party! “One woman has died” seems to be enough to continue with appallingly stringent lockdowns

    3. Just another, stupid, brainwashed git, trying to brainwash others.

      Come on, Aussies, fair play, stand up and fight this totalitarianism – they can’t jail the whole population.

        1. For every Australian who has convict ancestry, there’s another whose ancestors were jailers.

    4. On the plus side, not interacting with strangers might reduce the chances of being stabbed…

    5. Blimey, we really have inflicted the plug uglies on our Antipodean cousins.
      Sorreeeeeee ……

    1. The Good Law Project is run by one Jolyon Maugham QC. Pro Labour and pro EU. Unless you can provide an independent source to back the allegations in this video I would take it with a grain of salt.

      2. aware of that background re Jolyon, similar intel surfaced in late June [independent source]. I’ve got other data linked to above stored on on hard drive. I’ll dig it out and upload

    1. All legal aid should be withdrawn immediately for deportation cases. If they want to take the cases on, fine. But they can also fit the bill.

    2. They hope their father is also pleased, though their mother doesn’t know who he is.

    6. I’m pleased for them and the rest of us.

      Next time some Bame tells you how awful and racist and disadvantaged they are in the UK, tell them that it’s possible to do well, you just have to apply yourself.

      1. Too right. David Lammy did exceptionally well. Studied at Harvard. Called to the Bar in 1994 and still a complete dipshit fuckhead.

        1. Is that the same Lammy who, during the BLM fire-setting and looting riots exclaimed, “I looked and looked but I couldn’t see any white persons!”

  59. According to the photographs in The Grimes today, only bame children got any A-Level passes.

    One does feel for all those white failures.

    2. As i posted last night. Spot the white man. Corrected by Stormie to white persons.

      Plenty of Chinks, Ningogs, Purple haired Lesbo rug munchers and other undescribables.

    5. Average IQ for Blacks is between 60 – 80 IQ points
      Average IQ for Whites is between 90 – 110 IQ points
      All A-Level passes for Blacks are therefore highly suspicious

      1. What a horrible remark, and I would like to downvote your remark but apparently that would mess up yr disqus profile.

        Of course if you were to remove the jewish element, the ‘white’ average would surely tumble!

        1. I think those IQ ratings were identified in the 1960s and caused a furore at the time.

        2. Hi tim5165 , there have been numerous reliable scientific studies into genetic & racial IQ, you can find lots of them on line . All point to the fact that Blacks as a racial group have lower IQ’s than other races. Its genetic & inheritable and intelligence & a higher IQ for Blacks as a group cannot be obtained simply by giving Blacks free university education and yes there are some very intelligent Blacks but the vast majority of them are of an average IQ many points lower than that of other races & in particular White Caucasians. Ashkenazi Jews such as myself are at the higher end of the IQ spectrum with an average of 117 IQ points but there are so few of us thanks to thousands of years of exile, persecution & mass extermination, that removing our combined IQ score from the overall White Caucasian IQ score would barely move the needle!

  62. Signing off for now – let’s spoil the menticide and not be part of it – ridicule, ridicule and more ridicule – plus more than a soupçon of civil disobedience.

  63. An email just received.
    People wonder why I think France is a better bet for health issues. Here is an example.

    Covid-19: the Dordogne Department deploys a Barnum of supervised self-tests in front of Lascaux for tourists

    Set up by the Government to fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, the health pass is mandatory to access cultural and sporting places, as well as everyday places such as restaurants, bars and cafes from Monday 9 August.

    Aware that this obligation could disrupt the stay of visitors in Dordogne-Périgord, the Dordogne Departmental Council wished to offer a solution allowing them to fully enjoy their holidays while respecting health constraints.

    This is the reason why, from Wednesday 11 August 9 a.m., the Department, supported by Semitour, the town hall of Montignac-Lascaux and the Community of municipalities of the Vallée de l’Homme, and in connection with the Agency Regional Health Authority (ARS), is deploying a “supervised self-testing Barnum” in front of the International Center for Parietal Art in Montignac-Lascaux.
    This provisional self-test center, which will be under the responsibility of healthcare staff, will be open every day, Monday to Friday, until the end of August, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. These times can be adjusted according to demand.

    Completely free, the “Barnum supervised self-test” device is intended for any asymptomatic person over 18 years of age who has not been vaccinated against Covid-19, non-case-contact and who wishes to carry out one or more subject activities. to the health pass.

    In concrete terms, each person attending the “Supervised Self-Test Barnum”, who will have to present their identity card, will be given a questionnaire to verify if they are eligible for the self-test. If this is the case, a self-test will be given to him with explanations on how to use it. The person should self-test under supervision and wait 15 to 20 minutes to read the tests.

    Then, if the result is negative, the mediator will administratively record the result and issue a QR certifying the result of the test, valid for 72 hours. If the result is positive, the person will be asked to self-isolate and immediately perform a confirmatory PCR test in a medical laboratory.

    The “supervised self-test Barnum” will allow tourists and lovers of Périgord, positioned among the three destinations for the French last year, to enjoy all the activities, places to visit and gastronomy while respecting health measures. in force.

      1. The new Lascaux experience and museum are excellent. The caves and cave art are exact copies of the real site.

        Many years ago I was lucky enough to see the real thing.

    3. Good for them – but it MUST be motivated by the complete absence of tourists – upon which the area depends.

      In yer Blighty – too many people are having holidays in the country and blocking the roads.

      1. Just returned from a marché nocturne; judging from the numbers there are lots of tourists, it’s the restaurateurs who are thin on the ground, I suspect many have gone bust.

  74. POLL: Will you spend £10k on green energy, to help grandchildren survive climate change?
    A GROUNDBREAKING report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has announced that much of the damage done to the climate by humans is now irreversible. Express.co.uk wants to know whether you are happy to invest £10,000 into greener energy over the next 20 years, in order to give your grandchildren a better chance at climate survival.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1475522/Green-Britain-poll-climate-change-report-IPCC-irreversible-poll-gas-boilers-fast-fashion

    Vote now.

        1. Inheritances are mostly taken as a windfall and they party and piss it up anyway. I tend to barge to the front of the queue and they can whistle !….

    4. What will China, India & the USA be doing, with their approx. 50% contribution, as opposed to the UK, with it’s 1% contribution?

    7. I’ll oppose everything whilst China et al burn coal like there’s no tomorrow and the climate change industry faces the fact that everything is driven by the sun, not us.

      I saw an excerpt of Portillo in Australia looking at a port exporting more coal every day than we produced at the height of our production. Boris aims to cut our throats whilst the Chinese laugh and continue to take over the world.

    1. Only problem is that he was smuggled our of South America in the 60s, to Israel, where he was tried for war crimes and executed.

      Better look elsewhere for eine zugfürher

          2. That’s why it’s only plat. Mein schwegerin, wie from Hanover gekomt, sagt bei mir when ich hat sprecht mit, “Mein Gott, Tom due sprecht wie eine bauerlander.

            There you are, pick the bones out of that. I don’t care because most places in Germany understand me and that includes Bavaria.

      1. And when they were up they were up,
        And when they were down they were down,
        And when they were only halfway up
        They were neither up nor down.

        1. And when they were dicks they were thick
          And when they were thick they were dicks
          But either way, beings dicks that were thick
          They were focused on his prick…

  78. Just back from the hell that is King’s Lynn. Every sodding road in and out of the town is blocked. Took 2 hours t do a return trip which usually takes just over an hour.

    Anyway – the boss is back, the cats are ecstatic and I shall have a drink

    A demain

    2. Same with Matlock- some Einstein has decided to dig up the main road in peak holiday season with lots of people opting for a staycation – it’s pretty much gridlocked at times.

      1. In the local area to me we have just has the pavements ripped up and re-laid with fresh tarmac. They started end of May and the work took 5 weeks, 1 week longer than expected. At the start of this week some workmen appeared and started digging a trench in the pavement for some new cable to be laid. Words fail me, although pi$$ up and brewery springs to mind.

      1. On the basis that I showed it to HG and she clobbered me, I suspect not!

        To be fair, the roles should be reversed in our case.

  80. About eggs. I’ve always kept them in the fridge, some I know don’t.
    Mr Norfolk ( of this parish says its wrong) and you never see them in fridges whilst visiting farm shops or Waitrose. But why o why do the boxes always say ” refrigerate after purchase ”
    regardless of them not being refrigerated before purchase. I’m just thinking about eggs atm .

    2. To prolong their life i assume. Though all recipes i have encountered require fresh eggs at room temperature. Try making a souffle from two week old eggs from the fridge.

    3. 336625+ up ticks,
      Evening A,
      I believe one of our “guests” s preparing a business enterprise for the near future as in, frozen eggs, take a dozen frozen eggs to your local stoning, three strikes a guaranteed killing.

  81. Who will be the first to break rank?

    Woke activists will tell you otherwise – but taking the knee will always be a controversial gesture

    I would never boo England players for taking the knee – but I do understand why many fans find it offensive

    ANDREW LILICO

    Taking the knee is, alas, back in the news once again with the Premier League calling on fans to cheer loudly to drown out those booing the gesture.

    Fans boo a lot of things at football matches. During the Euros they were criticised for booing opposition national anthems. They boo the ref when decisions go against them. I was even once at an FA Cup tie where my team capitulated so weakly to lower league opposition that my team’s fans booed when we scored a consolation goal. But here’s why I think they boo taking the knee and why I think they shouldn’t.

    Taking the knee is inextricably linked with the Black Lives Matter movement and when it began the Premier League had “Black Lives Matter” as a slogan – emblazoned around grounds and showing in the corner of our TV screens (our only option for watching at that point). There are things to be said about distinctions between the wider Black Lives Matter movement and the actual BLM group, which was founded by two self-confessed “trained Marxists”. But they only tell half the story. Even the wider Black Lives Matter movement is deeply controversial.

    When someone says “Black lives matter” that comes with the subtext: “- And our society treats them as if they don’t and no-one has seriously tried to change that”. In the US, that was an attack on the police – an allegation that US police kill black people as if their lives didn’t count. In Britain it’s a broader claim – the claim that our whole society and culture is intrinsically and structurally racist. It is precisely because such claims come with subtexts that “All lives matter” is seen as offensive and even racist by some people.

    When footballers take the knee, they are making the gesture inextricably linked with the Black Lives Matter movement (if not specifically the Marxist group, then definitely the wider movement), having started doing it in conjunction with the Premier League adopting “Black Lives Matter” as a slogan. It is simply disingenuous for them to pretend anything else.

    And “Black Lives Matter” is a declaration to the fans that British society is racist. Some fans doubtless agree that that’s true. But to lots of fans, being told that they, their families and their whole society is racist is an attack and an insult. When you say “Black Lives Matter” you are saying that I, the politics I represent, the society I try to build, and the values I try to help spread around the world are a wicked failure.

    A classic woke tactic in these matters is to claim that their position “isn’t political” – and of course that is what many football commentators and pundits have claimed about taking the knee. What woke people mean by “My position isn’t political” is that “No decent person could disagree with me”. But the position that British society is intrinsically racist is very much politically controversial – indeed, so much so that the recent government report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities concluded precisely the opposite (whilst of course acknowledging that there was progress still left to make).

    Now maybe, nonetheless, you think it’s fine to tell me that my country is racist and my politics a failure – and to remind me that you believe that even when I attend a football match. But don’t be surprised if I don’t take it well. And don’t be surprised if I resent the fact that you have turned a football match – a space where people of very different politics can be united in their love of the game and their support for their team – into an occasion for political division. Indeed, it appears that the Premier League is planning to go further, and has created a short educational video to show fans ahead of each match. “Come for the dazzling wizardry and athleticism of the players, and get some woke indoctrination thrown in at no extra charge!”

    That’s why people boo. But I wouldn’t. I see being unintentionally insulted by politically naive footballers (who surely imagine they’re doing a good thing and don’t know any better) as a small add-on to the entrance fee for a match. I recommend fans ignore it. It’s wrong, but the players don’t mean any harm.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/11/woke-activists-will-tell-otherwise-taking-knee-will-always/

    1. “…who surely imagine they’re doing a good thing and don’t know any better…” – then they need corrected.
      Boo!

      1. They are footballers. Why would anyone think they can think? Naivety and cheating on their wives is normal behaviour. Especially when you can go somewhere sunny and fuck someone elses wife.

      2. …and for attending fans (many, many fewer one hopes) to turn their backs to the field.

    3. But their governing body should know better!

      If they want to tar all footie fans as intrinsically racist then they deserve to be booed.

    4. There are good reasons why sport should not mix with politics. It comes down to political gesturing for a cause and the sport field is not the correct place to demonstrate. What good movement will be next and why should all a huge crown agree with the cause. But it seems that the dark skin-toned are untouchable and allowed to get away with things that fly in the face of the law and convention. They claim that they are disadvantaged but today we have seen with the A level results that if any individual works hard they will be suitably rewarded, whatever their colour.

  82. Afghanistan. It will still be discussed long after we are all gone. It seems that nothing works against the power of islam backed by terror when tribal interests are at stake. Maybe we should leave the place alone and display it as an example of the true evolution of islam, a vile, backward and violent ideology. Continually our blind politicians prattle about the peaceful religion perverted by a few rebels, but its not a few who have defeated a national army. I suggest that Afghanistan should be held up as an example of the living and breathing islam in practice. I have great sadness for its people. But it makes me seeth that there seems to be wholesale sexual slavery taking place but I do not hear one muslim voice raised in outrage as to what is taking place. Or indeed any leading voice. Hurty words on Tw@tter, mis-pronouning or disparaging blacks, and the resultant media onslaught will get you cancelled and your livelyhood destroyed by the perpetually offended. Where is the gobby Jasmine AB, the Chacrabints who pop up like whack-a-moles, and Baroness Warsi of Al Halal-Ermine. – Worrying about long dead slave traders whilst averting their gaze behind their veils of modesty from the modern day atrocities committed against Afghan girls and young women. I await action from our empowered western feminists and articulate muslim commentators maybe in the form of a #metooasexslave movement. But it seems all we have is the money grubbing Virginia Roberts Guff trying to tittle our tattles.

    2. “I do not hear one muslim voice raised in outrage”
      Because they are not outraged.
      If any more notification were needed, this is it. But there are none so blind who will not see,

      1. So true, but Afghanistan has been a lost cause since beginning 20 century from what I can tell.

      1. The question is……………why are we importing this murderous cult and allowing them to take our cities?

        1. “We”. I think not. It is a succession of spineless government that in this case most definitely don’t represent us, “we” the people.

  83. Evening, all. It will be a case of ave atque vale, amici. Had a phone call from the care home this afternoon; at about 4pm MOH went to sleep and didn’t wake up. At least it was peaceful and swift. Lots to do and sort out now as, although it wasn’t exactly unexpected, it wasn’t expected so soon and I’m a bit on the back foot.

    2. Oh, hell, Con. Thoughts and prayers with you. If there’s realistically anything any of us can do, you know we’re here.

    3. My condolences, but at least it was swift.
      Take each day as it comes and remember, there is light at the end of even the longest tunnel.

    4. Oh Conway, what a shock! What to say.
      Let light perpetual shine upon her. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

    7. So sorry to hear that, Conway, you must be feeling very lost tonight. But there are two good things to hang on to – most important, it was swift and painless. The other, you won’t have to battle with an unthinking monolithic bureaucracy in order to protect your other half any longer, you can concentrate on yourself.
      Stay strong, look after yourself.

    8. So sorry to hear your news, just remember there are a lot of us here who are keeping you in our thoughts and prayers.

    9. My sincere condolences Conway. The kindness was that at least it was peaceful. Although that may be no comfort to you. You will get through it although you never get over the loss. Time now to take care of yourself and, I think you know, you can always say what you need to on here and people will respond to support and care for you.

    11. Oh, Conwy – I share your grief. Whenever it comes and however expected, death is always a terrible shock.

      All I can say is that you should share your misery and pain and anger with NoTTLers.

      For all their many and evident faults – they can be a tremendous support – and source of practical help and guidance.

    12. Oh, Conway, I’m so sorry. Such a shock whenever it happens. My condolences and sympathy.

    13. Conway please accept my sincere condolences, I am most sorry to hear of your sad loss, may your late wife rest in peace in the arms of the Lord. In the Jewish tradition I wish you & family long life and good health and may you and family know no more sorrow & grief, Amen.

    16. My condolences, but how wonderful for your beloved OH.
      For some reason, I thought of the prose poem Desiderata.

    17. Please accept my my condolences, Conners.

      Your beloved has been released from a wretched condition; you have done well to cope with extremely difficult circumstances.

    18. Oh, Conway, I am so sorry to hear that your dear OH has gone so quietly out of your life, and so suddenly.
      You will be in my thoughts and prayers, and I wish you peace and strength to move forward.
      Bless you, and we are here for you.

    19. Please accept my condolences.
      A shock for you, but if I’m honest it would be my choice of the last step.
      Remember, you have friends here you have never met.

    20. Please accept my condolences.
      A shock for you, but if I’m honest it would be my choice of the last step.
      Remember, you have friends here you have never met.

    21. Dear Conway

      You have really been through the mill recently , and have coped with strength and dignity

      Please know that you are in all our thoughts at this very sad time .

      Keep strong , and sleep well tonight .

    22. Conway, you have really had an unbelievably awful time.
      Thank goodness you found Oscar when you did so you are not on your own.
      Please look after yourself and let time heal.

    27. Terrible news Conway and just as you were getting your mind around your wife being in a home.

      Thinking of you.

      And Oscar.

    28. So sorry for you. Conway What a time this has been for you. At least you now know she won’t be suffering anymore. You will get through this, though it will obviously be upsetting. Please don’t try and rush anything. When you feel like taking your dog for a walk – do so. It will do you both good.

    30. Oh dear- what a sudden shock. I’m glad you had your time of respite and that she was safe and cared for – but it was very sudden. At least she was at peace and didn’t suffer. Was she under heavy sedation?. Good job you have Oscar for company. Take care and we’re all here if you need us.

    31. How dreadfully sad Conway. It has been a hard few months for you and Mrs C. I hope you can take comfort in knowing she is at peace.
      Oscar will take care of you in the weeks to come.

    32. So sad to hear, Conners, although it may not be much I, and others, wish you peace to overcome the grief and perhaps Oscar might fill just part of the void.

    34. Sorry to hear this news. I hope that you have a lot of memories of the good times that will in time overcome the last months, which have been so very hard for you.

    35. Sorry, Conway. As you say, expected but it knocks you back. Have a drink and cuddle Oscar.

  85. Alicante is flooded by ‘meteo-tsunami’ after severe changes in atmospheric pressure as Med faces severe heatwave
    Alicante resort Santa Pola was hit by a meteotsunami at 2:30am on Wednesday
    Freak weather incident was caused by severe changes in atmospheric pressure
    Comes as hot weather from the Sahara is expected to push temperatures to 47C

    An Alicante resort has been hit by a meteotsunami which flooded streets and beaches and damaged cars after severe changes in atmospheric pressure.

    Santa Pola was hit overnight on Wednesday by the freak weather incident, called a rissaga in Catalan Spanish.

    These are large, tsunami-like waves are triggered by severe changes in atmospheric pressure caused by fast-moving weather events, such as a heatwave.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9884233/Alicante-hit-meteotsunami-flooding-streets-beaches-damaging-cars.html

    1. With all due sympathy for the victims, I note the weasel phrase ‘up to’. No-one will know whether they have had one or two authentic jabs, so they have a choice of risking infection from Covid through being semi-inoculated, or risking some form of health damage if they overdose by accepting another vaccination.

    3. I wonder how she got hold of them, why were they there, were they placebos for local elites?

    4. This story is weird, and I am not sure I believe it happened quite as reported, especially in the light of the persistent rumours about some people getting saline shots in different areas.

  87. I spent my childhood in Libya. A spit throw from Southern Europe. The average temperature was 23c and one time it hit 58c. This was in the 1950s. Global warming, my foot, its pretty normal in the sense it has been going on for thousands of years.

    1. Worked a while in Libya, early 2000s. Great place, great people, really liked it. Desperately sad what it’s become as a result of UK/USA interference and buggering things up for people.

      1. I agree. Wonderful people and wonderful place indeed. It has so much potential and thanks to us it has been reduced to a shambles.

      2. My late brother in law worked in Libya in the 1970s, he really liked it . He had good and bad things to say , but he said what else could you expect in a Moslem country with a very strict leader .

        Gadaffi should never have been destabilised .

        Anyway brother in law brought home for me a very nice lump of fossilised wood and some other artefact .

        1. If you can imagine Belle, my playground with my brother was Leptis Magna. One of the most intact Roman cities in the world. We used to play Christians and Lions in the actual Arena where all that took place in the ancient of days. Often as no we were the only ones there. The amphitheatre is still acoustically perfect. British military bands frequently played there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rF7cwtGkCs I would love to go back. And This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmF4GT-S-Yw

          1. Really? How fantastic is that?
            Visited once, totally blown away. There’s so much of it… the bits I remember best were grooves cut in the exits to the extensive tunnels in the coliseum, where boards slid open to allow the lions into the arena, and the mounting holes on the sides of the blocks where the marble facings were fixed. That, and the dunnys with round holes. Difficult to take in on one visit. I hope very much it’s all OK, not bombed or anything. That would be a tragedy of the first water.

          2. The Libyans from Homs, now called Al Khums, send militia to Leptis to patrol and protect it from ISIS and its sympathizers. Fortunately they never had to fire a shot because the fanatics never reached the place. I can imagine what horrors they would have perpetuated on the city, razed it to the ground, as they did in Palmyra, if they had got there.

          3. How fantastic , what a lovely memory and experience for you and your brother .

            I have strange memories of all sorts of places and things . When we were a little older , we used t cycle down to the River Nile and watch the Watermelon men wash their melons , some were transported by camel or lorry, the Sudanese water melon would shout over to us and say Hey Engleesie, here, and they would give us chunks of water melon to quench our thirst , they were very kind and amusing .

            I had a part time job just to earn some money helping out in the offices of the Sudan Cotton Exporting Association , as a gopher this and gopher that , my arm ached turning the Roneo machine handle and making sure the copying paper etc trays were full, and what an incredible sight it was to see the cotton merchants who were clad in their white robes and turbans sitting on carpets on the floor sipping glasses of tea , haggling over cotton prices .

            The Sudan was a wealthy country , and well balanced , what the hell happened ?

          4. What the hell happened. In both Libya and the Sudan, we left, that’s what happened. So everything went to pot. My brother in law was a white Kenyan, same thing there, we left and it fell to pieces. It seems to have been a pattern and nothing seems to have been able to put humpty together again. I know, in many places, older people who remember the days of the British, regret our passing and wish we were still there.

          5. Yep , and parents were in Nigeria just before Independence .. and after first tour of Khartoum , Dad took us to Egypt and the Suez crisis blew up .. and there is another story to be told .

            So we have had similar experiences , and no one would believe how things really were before all this turmoil.

            They liked us , and we liked them , and all this rubbish we are hearing about now, no one exploited anyone , we gave , and they gave , and it was harmonious .

          6. You are my old friend Jan (whose family left all these places just before they blew up) and I claim my £1 postal order!

          7. Except dear OB,

            I am alot older than you, a point I thought I would never reach . My father who decided to upsticks and settle in South Africa in 1967 , he thought SA would offer him Africa without the hassle he endured in Black Africa .

            My poor late father and all the other expats used to sit in the Old Wanderers club in SA, and cry about Rhodesia and all the other Protectorates , all those guys who were engineers , and specialists in many fields who had worked hard in difficult conditions , always used to say Africa will come around full circle and beg for European help again .. They would be shocked to know that the Chinese are well in , feet under the table , so to speak .

          8. We were in Libya when Suez let lose. My father, who was well known in town quelled a rebellion. The Arabs in high dudgeon rolled up to the gates of the military base which, needless to say were locked. My father walked out and faced the crowd and yelled. “Right, who’s first?” Upon seeing it was my father, purveyor of alcoholic beverages to the police chief and supplier of medications to those who needed them in the town, profuse apologies were in order and, having done their duty to the cause, they left. The next Sunday, the police chief rolled up with a huge feast he has prepared for my father and the family and friendly relations and good times were thus restored.

          9. @rastusc_tastey:disqus has interesting tales about his Father who was very senior in the Colonial Government in Sudan. I’ll let him tell the stories.

          10. I would have loved to see Leptis Magna. Given developments in that area, I doubt I ever will.

        2. Ghaddaffi visited the hotel where I was staying once.
          Edit: Al Mehari hotel. Now a Raddison Blu.
          Unusual amount of black cars and police milling about, went in, and got my key, started towards the lift to go to my room and get showered. Nearly bumped into a short guy in a shiny blue suit, and with greasy curly hair, wandering about on his own as if mazed. Realised it was The Man Himself, so made myself scarce and buggered off up the stairs.
          Claim to fame #3.

        3. Ghaddaffi visited the hotel where I was staying once.
          Unusual amount of black cars and police milling about, went in, and got my key, started towards the lift to go to my room and get showered. Nearly bumped into a short guy in a shiny blue suit, and with greasy curly hair, wandering about on his own as if mazed. Realised it was The Man Himself, so made myself scarce and buggered off up the stairs.
          Claim to fame #3.

    2. The Sudan, Khartoum , in the 1950s , when I was a little girl , the temperature was very high , 110-120F.. We used to sleep on beds on the flat roof of our house at night , then I caught pneumonia .. During the afternoons everything stopped , and we had siesta time with the house shut down and darkened apart from the fans revolving .

      The whole house had lovely cool floors and a few coir mats .. we used to find camel spiders and other varieties trapped on the mats, and the house boy used to kill them . Inside there were gheckos crawling up the walls , and we were told not to touch them … I did , and I was bitten on my finger , badly .

      We were also told by my parents to shake our shoes , dresses and whatever in case a scorpion had hidden … yeugh . We saw plenty of scorpions and snakes , and amazing beetles !

      It was very hot , and sometimes a small cloud used to linger high in the sky forever , no rain , and I cannot really remember a rainy season , thought both the River Niles were always in full flow .

      I was last there when I was 15yrs / 16 yrs .. and spoke some reasonable Arabic, all I can remember now are a few bossy orders and I can still count up to ten !

      1. Worked in South Sudan some 12-10 years ago.
        Mostly during the dry season, but two trips during the rains. Unity State.
        From a beige dusty landscape, it became amazingly green, huge grasses and leaves on the trees everywhere, and the most amazingly beautiful flowers. The whole countryside was flooded, and although appearing flat, the water was running quite fast westwards. We’d usually be up for breakfast before dawn, then watch the sun rise. Lovely! Evenings, with what looked like a solid globe of mosquitoes around any light were less than attractive, and the buggers would bite you through your clothes.
        We’d stage through Khartoum – a very pleasant city. Got to enjoy Sudanese coffee, brewed by big Mommas under a tree by the side of the road – like turbo espresso, with a significant amount of ginger and sugar. Much better than any crap from a machine!
        Liked Sudan. Would like to return with the family. There’s a Danish lady runs a hotel a bit East of the airport, good place to stay.

        1. Sudan was very colonial in my early childhood days 1951.. 1955 , the statue of General Gordon is no longer there .. the All saints church and school no longer exists , and the last time parents lived there early 1960s, we met John Cats Eyes Cunningham at greet and meet do, because he had been test flying the Trident , or doing something with it .

          2. What’s cool is the comments here from Nottlers…..love hearing about strange sounding places that y’all have been too over the years!

          3. I’m delighted to find some others who have had a comparably weird childhood – normal folk don’t have an understanding, and usually aren’t interested since they don’t understand. Doesn’t make for good conversation.

          4. I had very normal childhood but my career was full of travel to exotic places.

            Even there you are right about people not understanding. You spent a month traveling round the world , how exciting to see so many places! No it wasn’t, I just wanted to get home.

      2. I remember the geckos very well. Used to hang out in the house climbing up the walls and making my mother shriek. Our house was an Italian villa, in the evening you could pull back the entire wall, facing the sea, it was basically a series of French Windows, high ceilings and very large amphora inj various places in the rooms, that would sweat water and evaporate cooling the air So no need to sleep on the roof. I also remember always banging your shoes to make sure that there weren’t any scorpions in them, mosquito nets as the bloody things would do their high pitched whine trying to get at you. Used to go to sleep with the Bedouin over the other side of a Wadi having a party with traditional music, singing and ululating women until the early hours. Don’t remember camel spiders, not sure if we had them? Never spoke Arabic, much to my regret, almost all Libyans were multi lingual, Arabic, Italian and English. Lovely times, best part of my life.

        1. I grew up in northern Nigeria, and apart from the ululations, would agree 100%.
          Look back on my childhood with great pleasure. I loved it there, and it taught me a lot, including patience and how to handle heat and a bit of hardship. Left in 1977 aged 16, and didn’t go back to Africa until 1993, when I had a job in Tunisia. Stepped off the plane in the Tunis evening into that hot humid atmosphere smelling of extravagant flowers and drains, and it was like coming home! So familiar!

          1. I know what you mean, to me Libya will always be home. When we returned, briefly, to England I became very depressed. Hated the climate and all the greenery. Give me the desert any time, uncluttered, sculptural and infinitely peaceful. When I moved to California I would spend every minute I could in the Mojave Desert. God lives in the desert. No coincidence that all the monotheistic religions arise from such environments , they induce a mystical attitude in one.

          2. I was surprised to find seashells in the Libyan desert sand. And, whilst it looks flat, it actually undulates so gently you don’t notice until you turn around to drive back to the plant that isn’t so far away, and you can’t see it – although it’s all flat and it can’t be more than a few km away…
            It’s old seabed, and salty sand. That means buried stuff, like pipelines, corrodes badly.
            I also regularly got rained on – although, to be fair, I do have my own personal Donald raincloud I take with me…

          3. The desert does indeed move and in the wind it speaks with a rustling sound. Here is a beautiful story about the desert and a stream:

            A stream, from its course in far-off mountains, passing through every kind and description of countryside, at last reached the sands of the desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, but found that as fast as it ran into the sand, its waters disappeared.

            It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered: “The wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream.”

            The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly, and this was why it could cross a desert.

            “By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over, to your destination.

            But how could this happen? “By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind.”

            This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to know that it could ever be regained?

            “The wind,” said the sand, “performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river.”

            “How can I know that this is true?” “It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years. And it certainly is not the same as a stream.”

            “But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?”

            “You cannot in either case remain so,” the whisper said. “Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one.”

            When it heard this, certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly it remembered a state in which it — or some part of it? — had been held in the arms of a wind. It also remembered — or did it? — that this was the real thing, not necessarily the obvious thing to do.

            And the stream raised its vapor into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upwards and along, letting it fall softly as soon as they reached the roof of a mountain, many, many miles away. And because it had its doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in its mind the details of the experience. It reflected, “Yes, now I have learned my true identity.”

          5. The flowers , were they the ones that came out at night called Moon flowers, with a heavenly scent .. We had those in our garden ..

            I went back to Nigeria with Moh who was working there in 1977 , Port Harcourt . the bungalow we lived in was lovely , but it had a few bullet holes in the walls , thanks to the Biafran war .. the scars were very evident .

        2. I am now sighing , and absolutely agree to times like that being the best part of my life as well, some traaumatic times , but still the best times , and as a fair hair child and later a teenage girl , I didn’t feel threatened .

          There were a few riots , and they were very heated and frightening , mobs with machetes , that sort of thing .

          1. In the Nigerian Civil War, the students on the university campus in the North where my parents worked were rioting, and the army was threatening to come on Campus and shoot hem. The Nigerian management fled. My Father, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, was left to sort it out, and he faced down the general who wanted to shoot the sudents, then told the students to grow up and go home.
            Both parties complied. There wa no bloodshed.
            He could be a tough bugger, my Father.
            But as a small blond child, I never felt threatened. You could go anywhere and do anything, and only the snakes, insects and wild dogs were dangerous. Oh, yes, and the baboons. Nasty buggers, them.

          2. In the Nigerian Civil War, the students on the university campus in the North where my parents worked were rioting, and the army was threatening to come on Campus and shoot hem. The Nigerian management fled. My Father, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, was left to sort it out, and he faced down the general who wanted to shoot the sudents, then told the students to grow up and go home.
            Both parties complied. There wa no bloodshed.
            He could be a tough bugger, my Father.
            But as a small blond child, I never felt threatened. You could go anywhere and do anything, and only the snakes, insects and wild dogs were dangerous. Oh, yes, and the baboons. Nasty buggers, them.

      3. I look forward to reading your childhood reminiscences, Maggie: My Childhood in Sudan; you’ve got the talent do do it!

        1. You are so kind and gentlemanly , Lacoste .

          I have to kick myself sometimes , when I start on my WHENI ramblings , my siblings are in SA , they have their own memories . I am the eldest .

          1. Ramble all you like. When it comes from the heart of experience it is always worth reading. IMO.

          2. How about you write your memories into a script for a TV series and call it As time goes by. Judi Dench is probably busy so you could take the lead role.
            Lacoste could have the role of Lionel although we have many grumpies that could qualify for the role.

          3. ‘Evening, Maggie, when I wrote my autobiography of my first 70 years, I first listed all the addresses I had lived at since I was born and then, for each, I wrote bullet points of what I remembered happening there.

            One than goes back and expands as many of those bullet points into little vignettes followed by finding photographs, polishing and connecting.

            With 42 addresses in many places around the world, it seems to have come together quite well.

            It’s up on Kindle as Not A Bad Life for a mere USD 5.00. I’ve now continued it for the past 7 years with a working title of Passing Three Score Years And Ten.

          4. Is that available on a torrent site so i can nick it for free and if not do Nottlers get a discount? *Asking for a friend. :@)

    3. As the late Christopher Booker pointed out more than once, some of the hottest years of the 20thC were in the 1930s. The USA and Canada were particularly badly affected.

  88. Right, that’s me for tonight.
    Bed calls, and maybe dreams of Africa.
    Take care, y’all, and especially Conway who could use a prayer or two tonight.

          1. I think it was expected in the not too far distant future, but not quite so soon. Thank goodness he has Oscar.

          3. I think it was being decided that she should stay, Conway had a meeting with a social worker yesterday who had not availed herself of all the facts, as govt agencies tend not to do so.

          5. Desiderata:

            “… And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”

        2. What? Good Lord. She only went into the home a couple of weeks back.
          Poor Conway.
          What a shock.

      2. There is a long thread below.
        Conway and his wife are now separated, but closer and better than they were.

  89. Good night all.

    A student’s luxury for supper: a pork chop browned in a pan then laid in an oven dish along with salt, fresh black pepper, fennel seeds, dried oregano, crushed garlic and a small can of chopped tomatoes. Sealed with foil & baked at 140C for 2 hours. Goes with rice or potato or pasta or just crusty bread. We used to make that once or twice a term when I was at Uni.

    2. Night Conners,just popped in and seen your news,please accept my condolences and prayers

    4. Conners i am a bit late catching up, i am so sorry to hear your terrible news, my sincere heartfelt condolences go out to you. I just can’t begin to imagine what you have been through recently. I hope you have any help you might need. It’s a shame none of us live closer.
      All the best to you Conners.

    1. Easy peasy. Young bluds need repek ya. Dey don get it dey den demand it. You no giv it we stab ya bro. Wanna buy some drugs? Wanna shag me ho? Buy my latest Rap song dude bastard.

  96. Mng to those up. Decent off Grauniad piece / comments : Planned Euthanasia Does Not Constitute Healthcare – No Matter How Hard You Clap For It https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/11/planned-euthanasia-does-not-constitute-healthcare-no-matter-how-hard-you-clap-for-it/ and use of Midazolam and Morphin – Jacqui Deevoy exposed it last year https://off-guardian.org/2021/06/22/illegal-dnrs-ventilators-and-involuntary-euthanasia/ and https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/richieallen/episodes/2021-07-15T11_28_42-07_00

    1. Well it wasn’t some “far-right” thug who strayed in off the street! Clearly to frighten a Bank the instructions must come from some official source otherwise they would have called in the cops!

    2. Well it wasn’t some “far-right” thug who strayed in off the street! Clearly to frighten a Bank the instructions must come from some official source otherwise they would have called in the cops!

    3. Well it wasn’t some “far-right” thug who strayed in off the street! Clearly to frighten a Bank the instructions must come from some official source otherwise they would have called in the cops!

    1. On the one hand, this article provides a lot of proof that governments are denying that the virus has been isolated.
      On the other hand, we have the testimony of Dr Martin that there are 73 patents on the spike protein.
      And the vaxx companies claim to have reproduced the spike protein, for the vaxxes, which they clearly could not do if they did not have detailed knowledge of the virus structure.
      The spike protein is even commercially available to researchers, because I have read a paper about injecting it into mice.

      People think the evidence in your linked article proves that the virus doesn’t exist, but isn’t the most logical conclusion to draw rather that the governments prefer to deny all knowledge because they don’t want to admit to the 73 patents?

      1. and back to again “Gain of Function”, Rockefeller’s Lockstep, the agenda is “booster” / ongoing jabs for life and use of spike protein. Agree fully 5 eyes Governments [INO] are trying to suppress re patents hence giving immunity for prosecution at inception to big pharma, when even CDC doc in link reaffirms “for emergeny use only”, and in UK “Coronavirus Act

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