Wednesday 13 January: Forced to give up on vaccination after hours of queuing in the cold

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/01/13/lettersforced-give-vaccination-hours-queuing-cold/

1,172 thoughts on “Wednesday 13 January: Forced to give up on vaccination after hours of queuing in the cold”

  1. US Capitol riots: Everything we know about what happened when Trump’s supporters stormed Washington. 13 January 2021.

    A mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, in a bid to overthrow November’s presidential election result.

    Dozens of protesters broke into the building and roamed the corridors as tens of thousands gathered outside in support of the president’s false claims of election fraud.

    Congressmen who had gathered to certify the election results were forced to flee under escort as law enforcement lost control of the situation.

    Five people have died and at least 60 people have been arrested.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e368c4a42ba5bd042840db1050f246bd68f23be7b52b776cde940ddbe31d193.png

    Morning everyone. The leaders of the “Mob” rioting. Five people have indeed died. Three of them from natural causes, one Police Officer from undetermined reasons and one demonstrator murdered by another policeman. It’s worth noting that the authors cannot make up their mind what they actually are and it is not for them to judge whether the President’s claims of election fraud are false!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/12/us-capitol-riot-protest-what-happened-who-died-trump-supporters/

    1. All went off when Trump was still addressing the rally, I’ve watched a lot of Trumps rallies during the election these don’t look like your average Trump supporter and why would they pose for a picture?

        1. Someone called it a narrative bomb yesterday, if I remember rightly and said the mainstream media does these all the time.

    2. Meanwhile, Pelosi and her flying monkeys are determined to impeach DJT for causing the ‘riot’. I didn’t know why it was worth the bother with little over a week of his Presidency to go. This ‘Double Indignity’ article on ‘Stilton’s Place’ lays it out.

      If only Pelosi and co were as diligent and fast-acting in other matters, such as Covid relief…the loons are going to miss him when he’s gone.

      http://stiltonsplace.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-right-to-remain-silenced.html

  2. Morning, all.
    Dark & (snow)stormy here. Bed seems rather inviting! Cooling off to -10C or so is forecast.

  6. Is Donald Trump an aberration or a symptom of a deeper US malady? Joseph Stiglitz. 13 January 2021.

    Finally, we must address the multiple dimensions of inequality. The striking difference between the treatment of the white insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol and the peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters this summer once again showed to those around the world the magnitude of America’s racial injustice.

    I had to put this up. Stiglitz is a Nobel Prizewinner and much vaunted Economist. It must be the paragraph of the week!

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/12/donald-trump-us-joe-biden

    1. There are some truly divisive evil people around and they are not coming from the base of Trump supporters

    1. Why? Because he can – and always gets away with it. No one challenges him, eh Mr Peston?

    2. As I understand these things ( and I’m ready to be corrected on this ) its a deficiency of vitamin. D , either through a bad diet or through ethnicity, that can make a person more susceptible to the Batflu, so you could argue that in a well nourished caucasian additional vit. D could well be said to have no impact.

      1. I pop a Vitamin D capsule every day on the days that the sun doesn’t shine warmly. That is, around 330 days of the year.

      2. My understanding is that most of us in the UK are deficient in Vitamin D throughout the winter months, whatever our skin colour. It’s the only supplement I take.

      3. Datz, you may very well be correct. The lie wasn’t about whether or not vitamin D is efficacious in combatting CV19 but that Hancock claimed he’d initiated a trial to show that claim was correct or not. In fact he didn’t initiate the trial.

  9. Frost – getting harder as it gets light.

    Kittens survived the night. I have removed the collar from Gus – who was very distressed. They are now having a restful morning by thundering round the house…

      2. Add to that seasonal flu: lockdowns are a wonder weapon, we must have more of them.😎

  11. Britain should lobby US to keep troops in Afghanistan, Lords’ say. 13 January 2021.

    Britain should lobby the US to keep troops in Afghanistan, a Lords’ committee says, warning threats still remain from terrorism, drugs and regional instability.

    A new report from the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee says Britain must make clear to the US the crucial role it plays in maintaining the Afghan government’s leverage in ongoing peace talks with the Taliban.

    The ongoing presence of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan is essential to the Afghan government’s military strength and negotiating position at the peace talks in Doha, the report says.

    This is almost certainly being floated to cover a reversal of Trumps Policy of getting out of Afghanistan as soon as Biden becomes President. Neither the UK or US add to the survival chances of the Kabul government who are western lackeys. The Taliban are in the ascendant and any change will simply prolong the inevitable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/13/britain-should-lobby-us-keep-troops-afghanistan-lords-say/

    1. Hi AS, “simply prolong the inevitable” and the cost will be paid by troop’s lives being ended or left blighted by their injuries. Trump opposed putting US armed forces in harm’s way, especially in pointless wars. His attitude was to strike hard using the technology available rather than “send in the troops”.
      All this will be erased from history by the Left, especially Trump’s success at negotiating peace treaties in the Middle East.

  13. Replacement Windows

    Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive, double-pane, energy-efficient kind.

    Today, I got a call from the contractor who installed them. He complained that the work had been completed a year ago and I still hadn’t paid for them.

    Hellloooo,…………just because I’m blonde doesn’t mean that I am automatically stupid.

    So, I told him just what his fast-talking sales guy told me last year…that these windows would pay for themselves in a year.

    Hellloooo? It’s been a year, so they’re paid for, I told him…

    There was only silence at the other end of the line, so I finally hung up. He never called back.

    I bet he felt like an idiot.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0c5d987814771ccaca241d64f1665cebf408a669d54d22c93cb480b0b99149b.gif

  14. Good moaning.
    A brilliant comment under Allison Pearson’s article:

    “Maisie Surrey

    13 Jan 2021 7:52AM

    So so sick to death of the Government blaming the people, for what I would ask?

    We have done, albeit reluctantly by those whose intelligence goes beyond being brainwashed by the BBC and the Government’s despicable scaremongering propaganda, everything they have asked of us.

    We have sacrificed our lives, our jobs our businesses, our health, both physically and mental, our children’s education, our rights and freedoms and our children’s futures. Why have we had to do this? Because successive Governments throughout the years have failed to get to grips with a failing health service because it has been weaponised by the left?

    What have the Government done in return for our sacrifices turn on us! I would go as far as to call it psychological terrorism, we have been bombarded with propaganda designed to install fear and divide people, making people feel so scared and vulnerable that they stupidly welcome these restrictions and denounce those who question the efficacy. Debate is closed down on the basis that if you dare question the policy and holy words of the BBC then you must be a Covid denier.

    The Government has failed us by closing itself off from any alternative view or ideas. It has failed to look at the facts and evidence, but instead has followed the holy grail of play dough computer modelling.

    Where are these infections being spread should have been the first , second and third priority? It is not the supermarket, the only place we all have to go in order not to die of hunger, if it was then the people who work there would all be ill or dead! It was not the pubs or restaurants when they were open in the summer infections were down! Masks were made mandatory when infections were at their lowest? All they appear to have done is help spread the virus because outside of a controlled sterile environment they are Petrie dishes festering with bacteria, another government fail! Workplaces, the only major outbreaks have been in cold food factories. It all points to care homes and hospitals. Infection control and shielding again should have been the priority. Oh and closing the borders in January when the news of the Chinese virus first appeared would have helped.

    Continuing with restrictions throughout the summer, instead of shielding the vulnerable is also probably the cause of the virus mutating. You take away its host and it has to find a way to infect the host more easily so it does not die out. Cases spread Out over the summer would also have helped ease the inevitable winter pressure on the NHS.

    The Government and ill prepared public services are to blame not us, so stop blaming us. Take a look the mirror.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/poor-bloody-public-have-had-enough-treated-like-naughty-children/

    3. Morning Anne

      Your response further down was pretty good as well.

      As I scrolled down , this one below also has a grain of truth .

      Lawrence Wood
      13 Jan 2021 7:14AM
      As most intelligent people realise vaccination is not the magic bullet out of this. The Left will continue to keep the public ‘locked down’ as long as possible (at least into 2022) as an excuse to collapse capitalism (watch BLM and ER rise this year in popularity). It is in the collective interests of the Big 5 tech companies and most governments to keep their populace under stricter controls ‘for their own safety’.

      Long ways to go yet before we emerge into the light. Trump needs to remain noisy beyond his POTUS days as no one else in power appears to be standing against the lockdown MSM message.

    4. 328431+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      Maisie, in my book they are all in it together
      governance’s is formed from party’s that in turn are supported & given succour by peoples.
      ” successive governments”selected from the same close shop lab/lib/con coalition party, with a well known pedigree of failure,
      & treachery.

      As in the last GE it is an indisputable fact
      that the close shop choice was guaranteed
      treacherous sh!te,sh!te, or SH!TE.

      Adhering to that voting pattern changes children’s future, to abuse of children awaiting.

      Maisie I realise your letter was penned with the best of intentions in mind. but sadly we are getting what many voted for, as in a party before Country mode,

  15. Morning all

    SIR – My 90-year-old aunt experienced total chaos on Monday morning when attending her appointment for a Covid-19 vaccination at the new Epsom Downs Racecourse vaccination hub.

    Her appointment was for 10.05am. On arrival, she joined a queue of cars, where she remained for four hours, waiting to be processed. She was then told she could leave the car and join a walking queue in the freezing cold, which snaked around the buildings.

    Five hours after arriving, my aunt gave up, along with many other elderly people in the queue, and returned home without being vaccinated.

    Before the NHS says valuable resources are being wasted due to non-attendance, and blames the public, it should look at the reasons why, and address its own failings.

    Jill Smith

    Brighton, East Sussex

    SIR – As an 83-year-old, I have received a letter inviting me to book an appointment for a vaccination. I went online to do so and the choices were: Ashton Gate Stadium, which is 16 miles away and would mean two buses to get there, or a vaccination centre in Guilford, Birmingham or Telford – all more thanover 90 miles away. I despair.

    Janet Rodger

    Wells, Somerset

    1. Good morning all.

      I had a discussion yesterday about this very same problem. Elderly people will be reluctant to take a bus journey to a vaccination centre miles away.

      Many villages have Care and Share car driving volunteers who are Covid tested , and even large taxis who will take groups of people, but that isn’t the point , is it, many people will feel uncomfortable mingling with others in the queue with others waiting for vaccination.

      What happened to health visitors and district nurses , they have been reduced in number , surgeries don’t seem to have enough staff to cover large areas . If only there was more investment in health staff in GP surgeries , apart from the nurses who have busy clinics .

      For the many people who are housebound , I am sure that an increase in the number of district nurses would take the pressure off the lists.

      1. The answer is for the responsibility to be given to GPs who are used to doing the flu jab every year. the mass vaccination centres are a PR stunt.

        1. Ah yes, GPs. Our GP practice has a monopoly. They have a local clinic only 3 miles away. They closed it 8 months ago because of Covid. Only the main clinic is “open” and even then only to those who can get there, and have commando training in order to actually enter the building, or are prepared to wait in the cold until they decide to admit you. The waiting room facility is closed. It is around 8 miles away and requires two buses.
          So, if you are elderly, or sick(!), hanging about in below zero temperatures in an East wind straight off the Urals in between around three hours at windswept bus stops and on cold buses it is not an easy choice. Die at home or die visiting the doctor – if you can past the refusenik gatekeeping “receptionist”

        2. Not sure that GPs can be trusted 100% either. I don’t often complain about my local practice as they are generally very good; but when I went in to ask about my flu jab I was told I wasn’t eligible. When I pointed out that it had been extended to all those over 50 I was told “oh no, that’s only in England”. In fact it applies to Wales too, but the practice hadn’t ordered any more for all the extra people who were eligible.

      2. It strikes me, Belle, that the most vulnerable to the coronavirus are generally the least mobile. It just seems another case of poor planning and execution.

  16. SIR – I received a government email last week instructing me to shield again. This week, I received a government letter inviting me to the mass vaccination hub at Bristol, Telford or Birmingham.

    I have a quandary – should I stay or should I go?

    Pauline Simonis

    Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

  17. SIR – We have completed Covid injections for all over-75s in our practice and are proceeding with the next cohort. We have set up our own vaccine centre and are employing new staff to manage the bookings. We can vaccinate 1,000 people in two days.

    We could have our whole practice population vaccinated in two to three weeks if the public could just hold off booking GP appointments for minor illnesses. This is not the time to speak to your doctor about a sore throat or knee. Let us get the vaccines done so that we can then all return to normal.

    Dr Chris Keast

    Reading, Berkshire

    2. Return to normal? Having been vaccinated then obliged to wear a mask, keep 6 ft apart, stay at home etc etc. Normal? What a joke.

    3. While every practice has its time wasters and liggers, how very dare anyone who can’t walk or might have incipient throat cancer, dare to bother Dr. Keast while his practice nurse is earning him an extra £12.85 per jab.

      2. I agree. I hate the regular stories exposing the handful of timewasters that NHS services experience because there are relatively few of these people. Seeing a GP, attending A&E or whatever is inconvenient, associated with long waits and not, quite frankly, how the overwhelming majority of people want to spend their time. Most people go to their GP when they are concerned about something, just because many concerns turn out to be something mild does not mean the patient was wrong to make the appointment.

        If Dr Keast were serious about freeing-up his time he could look at how many of the non-urgent routine appointments he could delegate to other clinicians e.g. nurses/ physicians assistants or physios, if only he were prepared to spend some of his practice’s funding on these roles.

      3. He is also deluded if he really thinks everything will “return to normal” after everyone (who wants it) is vaccinated.

    4. So you can vaccinate 500 people in a day, why say 1,000 people in two days – was it over the weekend?

  18. Unhelpful banking

    SIR – I have just received a letter from Lloyds bank informing me that my local branch will be closing in March (Letters, January 6).

    It includes their mission statement: “We’re here to help.” I don’t think so.

    John Baker

    Crayford, Kent

      1. Much the same as the delightful Dr. Keast below! Good morning Bill! I gather the kittens are back to normal?

        1. Indeed they are. I was worried that they were so distressed by the head collar things. Their whiskers were trapped and so they could not measure width when playing – or doing anything.

    2. I have about £100 worth of old notes to change for newer issues. I either brave the High Street and get clobbered by Plod, or try to find a branch office (there’s one on the outskirts of Colchester) that actually has the authority to do anything – between 10.0 and 2.00 on weekdays.

      1. We found some stashed old 50s in a relations cupboard when making a house clearance. You can send them by registered post to BoE and they will will pay into your account. Well I say that if was about ten years ago.

    3. These days in order to visit our ‘local bank’ (three times removed) it costs us more in parking charges for one visit than they pay in annual interest.

      1. We have a mobile bank twice a week, if you phone them they will stop outside your house too.

    4. I got a text to say that some Halifax branches were closing due to the Pandemic. I haven’t been into my local town yet to see if it is mine, but if they do close it, that’s going to make life VERY awkward indeed.

  19. Morning again

    SIR – In 1948, against the backdrop of the end of the Second World War, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    This was conceived to set out the basic rights that should be honoured to the greatest extent possible in all circumstances, irrespective of short-term convenience. These rights include (among others) the right to work, the right to move freely within each nation, the right to education, the right to free association with others, and the right to collective worship.

    People calling for ever stricter lockdowns and restrictions to stem the tide of Covid-19 no doubt have the best of intentions, but this is precisely the sort of situation against which the Universal Declaration warns. Hard-won rights may be easily surrendered for what seem like good reasons, but may then never be recovered.

    Governments should be slow to confine people, close schools, prohibit worship and dictate what we must wear, and people should be even slower to allow it.

    Dr Robin Wood

    Cambridge

    SIR – When considering tightening restrictions to insist that people exercise alone, ministers should think about the overall safety aspect.

    Many women (and probably men too) feel at risk when walking alone, so will cease exercising altogether, to the further detriment of their physical and mental well-being.

    Christine Morris

    Peterborough

    1. Oh, for Heaven’s Sake! Dr Wood. The Human Rights thing was thought up in a hotel room in New York on a dull and rainy Tuesday night. Half a dozen assorted drunken delegates were playing poker but got bored. One suggested that they try to devise the stupidest thing that might become a UN Article. They were certainly very drunk but they were all pretty intelligent. After a long night of discussion, laughter, drinking, scribbling, scoring out and rewriting they came up with the first draft of the daftest, most constricting Article they could imagine.
      They duly presented it (trying not to smirk), and to their astonishment it went straight to acceptance with no dissent. A few of the group lost their bets as a result.

    1. Why is everyone in an uproar about being banned on Twitter?

      I pre-empted the idiotic forum and banned Twitter myself years ago!

      1. Me too, Grizz. And my foray some years ago onto Faceache lasted less than a month. Whilst there is no excuse for abuse on soshal meeja, there is a very simple remedy. Besides, the mouse caught in a trap never wondered why the cheese was free.

      2. 328431+ up ticks,
        G,
        “Uproar” ? I see it as peoples pointing out clearly the hostile stance twitter has taken on truthsayers.

        1. “Peoples”? Is that a double plural?

          You’re not a commie letting your guard down are you?

          1. 328431+ up ticks,
            G,
            As with being like a lab/lib / con current member / voter, no way.
            Through & through patriotic Chatham boy, long term, now ex UKIP member.

            “Peoples” I use in a freedom of expression mode, is there a problem with that ?

          3. 328431+ up ticks,
            G,
            In proper England colloquial English with a bit of didicoy thrown in is the every day patter program.

            A distinction can be drawn between that and proper English encapsulating etiquette etc,etc,
            used and abused by, in the main, the lab/lib/con
            politico’s couching treachery in “proper English”
            phrases vows,promises,& pledges.

      3. Never used it. Facebook is getting as bad now, it use to be a friendly way of picking up bits of information about places you know and catching up with old friends.

      5. I went one step further and banned Twitter from my sight. If it has been posted on Twitter it is almost invariably untrue, or not worth reading.

  21. Interesting how the MSM is moving in lockstep against President Trump and all dissenting voices silenced…

    All part of Deep State’s drive to global domination !

    2. No wonder the ‘THEY’ wanted to remove all the fire arms from the public. But it’s all the people have left now, perhaps there will be another civil war.

  22. Yo All

    oodah believed it?

    Disgruntled of Heswall 13 Jan 2021 8:12AM@Philip Robinson

    Thanks for the link. A little further down, in the Law Society Gazette ReaderComments is this gem – something that needs to be spread a little more
    widely …

    “The corona virus is not as deadly as it is made out to be. At the time we were being told 50,000 deaths, an FOI request I
    made to Government disclosed just 4,476 deaths from coronavirus (rather than with it, which is ENTIRELY different). That alone justifies taking
    an entirely different view of the virus. “

      1. Did you lose your cufflinks ?
        I get the link’s.
        A couple of years ago in Spain we were out walking and i thought I could see a black labrador lying quietly in some undergrowth. I chucked a stick to disturb it and it turned out to be a black Iberian linx. 🙂

        1. I was picking potatoes at a farm in Lincolnshire and picked up one large potato which I threw into the heap and it ran off – the biggest rat I’d ever seen

          2. I set my rat trap yesterday one has been turning over one of our compost bins. They even try to chew the tops probably to try and get out.
            A ten minute dip in a water butt will do the trick. On the shed roof and the wonderful red kites will recycle. Job done until next time.
            I use to keep chickens at our allotment, brown rats burrowed in even attacked the chooks.
            Bad boys rats.

        2. I wanted to copy the comment and place an attribution to it but needed a link to do so.

      4. Did you see my post yesterday? You’ve missed out the golf course and the helicopter!

    2. From https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ and facilitated by my spreadsheet.
      Cumulative UK Corona deaths to 12-01-2021 (as listed on death certificate) were 82,864, being 0.12% of the total population, 2,6% of those registered as infected, and 26,3% of those in hospital as a result of the virus.

      1. Last July it was 35% of those hospitalised so treatment know-how has improved. But it’s still an enormous number of deaths. Even allowing that many had other conditions, people with asthma, diabetes etc can live long lives – it was the SARS-CoV-2 which put an end to them.

        A friend’s sister-in-law has just died of it in North Wales, only in her sixties.

  24. Mail to Mr Whatnot MP…

    “Votes matter, elections, democratic system”.. etc..

    It all sounds so high minded, desirable and wonderful!

    In practice of course it is not.

    Parliament routinely ignores the will of the people and certain senior politicians have for decades preferred the will of billionaires.

    Why do some politicians want a “strong relationship” with a billionaire such as Mr Soros or Mr Gates and do everything they desire, I wonder ?

    When will someone explain what has happened behind the scenes since the 1990s instead of perpetual cover ups ?

    Then high minded words might mean something instead of nothing at all

    “Strong relationships with politicians” !

    “Leverage policy and legislation” !

    Got to laugh !

    Why bother with elections just to get a politician who wants a “strong relationship” with a billionaire?

    So votes don’t matter, contrary to what you said.

    Irrespective of how the British vote, they will still get the same billionaires running their country and pouring in money to buy the policies and laws they want.

    Polly

    1. 328431+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      I’ll drink to that,
      Cannot be denied, semi political paupers to
      very well heeled political tw@ts as in,
      b liar the kinn0cks, mandy the wooly woofter, etc,etc,etc,etc.

      President Trump is OUT of step in regards to his paycheck, can’t have that.

      1. All political figures have their price.
        None of these creatures would bother if the expenses and ‘Bung incentives’ one day a year 50 k director ships were removed.

        1. 328431+ up ticks,
          Morning RE,
          Then what is the point of feeding same type political money gluttons decade on decade ? is the electorate trying to kill them with kindness ?

      1. It is only to be permitted as a seed dressing (which greatly reduces its impact) and only in places where the sugar beet beet virus has occurred in the previous years. As I understand it from industry info it will require a licence to use the dressed seed.

        British Sugar have a lot to answer for. They have persistently closed factories, making beet growing viable in only a very, very limited area, which reduces the options for rotation, in particular for longer rotation intervals. Beet being heavy and haulage expensive it is not viable to grow the crop beyond a certain distance from the factory.

    2. 328431+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      May one ask, do they self appoint to power
      whatever party from the coalition is next on the rota ?

      The voting pattern over decades is showing
      the peoples are content with successive
      governance party’s.

      Tis either that or Stockholm syndrome has been rife among the electorate for many a year.

    3. I don’t think that True Belle understands.

      The supermarket chains import all their honey, so there is no reason to preserve British bees for British beekeepers to compete with them.

      Politicians obviously wish to keep on very good terms with multimillion supermarket chains, so this appears to be a good decision– for politicians.

      1. The byproduct of bees is honey. The main product is pollination, and to lose that would be very serious.
        Personaø experience – Firstborn’s orchard produced bugger-all by way of apples, until he started keeping bees, then the blossoms were full of them and the cropping rose enormously.

        1. Yes, I quite agree Herr Oberst.

          I’m just pointing out the reason why politicians are so anxious to be friendly with powerful supermarket chains.

        2. Morning, Paul.

          Get a Snowberry bush (Symphoricarpos) for your garden. The large one I have is utterly hidden under clouds of honeybees all throughout its very long flowering period from spring until autumn.

          3. They tend to take over. I started with one, the birds ate the seeds, now I’m having to dig the intrusive pest up from under bushes throughout the garden.

      2. The byproduct of bees is honey. The main product is pollination, and to lose that would be very serious.
        Personaø experience – Firstborn’s orchard produced bugger-all by way of apples, until he started keeping bees, then the blossoms were full of them and the cropping rose enormously.

      3. Some supermarkets do sell UK honey, my local Co-op certainly does.

        On the other hand the British population is strongly averse to paying the cost of producing British honey – see the plethora of comments when Countryfile recently highlighted UK honey in a farm shop.

    4. Of course. Farmers commit suicide.
      I’ve thought for a long time that there should be a Minister for Bees. If it is good for bees it is good for agriculture and the country.

    5. Morning, Maggie.

      “Decimating”? Literally this means reducing by a tenth. Colloquially it means destroying a huge swathe.

      I’ve not seen any evidence, anywhere, that the UK population is being drastically reduced in number. The data available show it is still increasing.

          1. ‘Morning, George, as are both Stevenage and London. Just the usual shambolic, quickly cobbled together, visual lies, as all the other lies with that shower.

          2. ‘Morning, Tom. I’m guessing that the sheet with the names on has been overlaid on the map in a haphazard (i.e. BBC) fashion; putting Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol in Welsh Wales.

      2. And Barnet in Hertfordshire is now part of London. So are many other areas that were in Middlesex.
        I think my last breath will be a sigh of relief.

        2. The bite out of the apple is allegedly homage to Alan Turing who, again allegedly, died after taking a bite out of a poisoned apple. Apple deny it.

    2. I had a sort of Valentine’s Day advert – a stallion card with a bar of chocolate 🙂 (The breeding season starts on 14th February for thoroughbreds, who all have their birthday on January 1st. Nobody wants a December foal that will become a yearling when it’s less than a month old).

  30. The numerous news articles from the US get more ridiculous by the day.

    For example, Mr. Biden has announced the theme for his inauguration: “America United”. And a Dem whip (James Clyburn) has the answer: Replacing the National Anthem with the Black National Anthem.

    In the meantime, Hilary Clinton says that Trump supporters are domestic terrorists. She said earlier that “Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America”.

    A number of Republicans have joined the anti-Trump brigade. Could this be because they expect special favours when Biden takes power and the Dems control both Houses of Congress?

    But Trump said of Pelosi’s impeachment efforts, “Continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics”. I think he is right, especially given the censorship by social media and the one-sided reporting in the liberal MSM!

    The US and the whole world are going to pay dearly for this lurch towards far-left socialism, a concept that has never worked anywhere in the world where it has been tried. But if Biden doesn’t last his full term and Harris takes over, socialism will be replaced with Marxism.

    1. That’s rich coming from Hillary Clinton – “Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America”.

      Americans don’t do irony!

  31. The parliamentary inquiry into QinetiQ didn’t notice that Tony Blair apparently funnelled a hundred million to George Soros who was star client of private equity fund Carlyle Group via John Major..

    Though one witness said…

    “All their Christmases came at once”…

    Hilarious !

        1. BB themselves must know what’s going on…

          They are still publishing articles but nothing about the censorship. As I’m using disqus to reply to you it would seem that BB has been targetted or complicit in blocking the comments???

          1. A coup is in progress. Not the one in the news but one of the Globalists and their Allies seizing control. The President of the United States is already a casualty in that he has been prevented from communicating with the American Electorate online. Anyone (e.g. Parler) who provides support is likely to find themselves out of business. BB are being cautious and restricting their comments!

          2. Surely more likely that the article is legally contentious and so comments have to be prevented lest it lead to a law suit.

            However, that’s odd, as much like twitter they’re a platform, not a publisher – or perhaps the publishing element includes the comments section.

  32. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with Long Bow and Axe ( both in handbag )
    A cloudy and dull day.

  33. “A bad workman blames his tools”, a saying my father instilled into me from an early age. I think the hardcore of Trump supporters need to step back and consider this old saying.

      1. That’s the Left through and and through though. It’s never about what they’ve done because most of the time there’s no sound, just noise.

    3. Good morning Cochrane

      Can you explain how the Democrats have managed to get such complete control of the MSM that they can have removed or censored anything which does not conform to their message?

      Surely one does not have to be either a Democrat sympathiser or a Republican sympathiser to deplore this liberal-fascist attempt to suffocate and kill free speech?

      1. Good morning

        I’m completely against the banning of Trump and others from internet platforms such as Twitter in part because it’s a clear denial of the right to free speech and partly because it gives undue power to a handful of unelected individuals.

        Why do you assume I’d have another, if indeed you have made that assumption?

    5. Not at all.

      It’s obvious from the banning of President Trump and Trump supporters from social media, and the hysterical articles across the MSM, that there is a Deep State power grab in play.

      This of course allies with the election steal which is obvious to anyone who has researched the subject.

    6. I really don’t see how that applies. Trump – and other normal people the Left hate – has been banned from various Left wing websites.

      What this shows is that they are terrified of him to such an extent that they need to silence his voice to make sure only theirs is heard.

      Are you suggesting that the social media companies are the bad workmen?

      Think about it – what sort of person, given the opportunity prevents someone else from speaking their mind?

    1. Does that now make Fred twice as rich and twice as powerful?

      The Barclay brothers: complicit in the evermore Leftward leaning of the UK’s once premier broadsheet.

        1. The same joke appears in ‘Once a Catholic’.
          Sorreee …. faulty memory. It was a J.Arthur Rank.

          2. In OAC, it was definitely J. Arthur; the reference was rhyming slang for a film company as the lass couldn’t remember the phrase; given the context, I was still trying to link it with C20 Fox when her memory returned. And the theatre erupted with laughter.

          3. The wonderful book “Nathaniel’s Nutmeg” tells how Nathaniel armed only with a rifle held the Dutch off one of the spice Islands for a couple of years, leading to the Treaty (of Utrecht?) in which the British ceded the spice island and the Dutch ceded New Amsterdam /New York to the Brits.

  35. Ryan Bond tells us not to buy goods from China – what an idiot, nobody else makes anything and if they do it’s expensive

    1. Which is why our government are introducing Replacement Manufacturing Grants to encourage start-ups to make things that are currently imported from China.
      …and the I woke up.

      1. Agreed, George and Spikey, the remedy though is to resuscitate our own manufacturing industry but with an emphasis on quality output, i.e., fit for purpose..

        1. ‘Fit for purpose’ was a good old British concept until it was murdered off by the unions in the 1970s.

          The entrepreneurs of the Industrial Revolution made the UK the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Arthur Scargill and a bunch of suchlike commies killed it off.

          4. I must confess that, as a purchasing manager in the 1980’s I moved our PCB populating from a useless set-up in a Welsh Valley to a cheaper and better company in Singapore.

            But latterly -1998 -2016, I was an Industrial Systems Consultant, working all over the UK and Europe with an odd foray to both the US and Singapore and part of what I taught was Quality, defined as fit for purpose, coupled with Continuous Improvement.

            I met little resistance from Unions, probably because St Margaret had removed most of their power. The only downside of Maggie’s policies was to neglect manufacturing industry and a lot more followed my lead and fled abroad, more than a few into the arms of Red China and its slave labour economy.

    3. It’s hard to avoid Chinese products. When I bought a new phone last year I went for a Samsung, as it’s not Chinese – but the case I ordered to fit it was made in China – didn’t realise that when I ordered it.
      Still, I feel sorry for their ordinary people who have to work in those sweatshops. They don’t get to choose their government.

    4. That’s the problem though. Why is it expensive? Because our taxes are far too high. When we have two dozen or more taxes – and we’re paying another six months taxes in advance at the end of the month, simply because the state ‘wants it’ you really have to wonder why anyone would bother.

      Scrap those taxes. Scrap the abusive taxes around them. At the moment the war queen has some fancy law firm client using half a dozen shell companies to avoid a 50 squillion quid tax bill. Even if it costs them 10 to avoid it, they’ll do so. It’s immensely depressing. All those squealing that companies should pay more tax simply don’t seem to understand *why* companies go to such measures to avoid taxes.

      1. Reducing the tax burden appears to be another thing that Jennifer objects to. Perhaps she’s a socialist?

  36. Would Nurse Allan like to comment on this BTL comment?

    Alan Douglas
    13 Jan 2021 6:52AM
    The insideous creep of promotion of so-called “mental health”, all the attempts to write with the underlying assumptions that it has the same status as physical health, all wholly mistaken.

    “Mental health” is a wholly amateur exercise, steming quite largely from Nazi Germany’s enforcement of people to conform, with unbelievably brutal treatments like ECT and lobotomies, responsible for countless deaths, and in recent years the enforced closure of countless “clinics” and “hospitals”, not a moment too soon.

    Does any normal person really think that an electric shock to the brain is a cure ? Or chopping pieces of the brain off ?

    That these barbarisms are still torerated in the 21st century, or the claim that “modern” treatment by drugs is any better ?

    No doubt there will be some who think I am in need of such “treatment”. I beg to differ.

    1. My husbands late aunt, his fathers sister, was put away in the middle of WW2 .. she was a teenager , she had several ghastly episodes which were violent apparently, and attribued to the stress of the bombing of Southampton where she lived . The family learned she was given a different diagnosis after the war , not shell shock

      She was confined for years , and when mental hospitals closed she was released in 1970 I think … over 25 years inside, she had been subjected to every cruel therapy short of having a lobotomy . When I met her she was a shell, and was unable to live by herself sadly, and nearly set fire to my mother in laws home by putting an electric kettle on an electric oven , toaster caught fire , modern equipment she had no experience of . and she smoked cigarettes by the dozen .

      The inlaws were not well people so she was placed in a council flat, the flat caught fire because she smoked like a chimney , a habit that had NOT been discouraged in hospital .. she was just not safe to be left on her own ..

      The Salvation army took her in to their care , in a residential home, and looked after her. She remained there untill her death in the late 1980s..

      1. My parents took in three people who had been released from Mental hospital. Not entirely altruistic as the payment from social services allowed them to retire early.

        The upside was these poor souls who had been institutionalised for most of their lives were treated as members of the family and were involved in all the usual family activities.

        They became like slightly weird Uncles and Aunts.

        Barbara was a bit of a card. Piles of sherry bottles under her bed along with the remnants of tubs of Quality Street.

        Gladys liked to chatter all the time which could be a bit wearing and Tommy liked to go poaching with a friend he had made locally.

        They were supervised when washing otherwise they didn’t know what to do. They were well fed at regular meal times and wore second hand but nice clothes of their own choosing.

        Twice a week they were packed off to town where you would see them enjoying coffee and cake.

        They were never any trouble.

        When my mother died my eldest sister took over.

        1. Morning Phizzee,

          What wonderful kind patient people your parents must have been , that is a lovely story to hear , and you created some wonderful mind pictures for me to visualise.

          Sadly not the case for Moh’s parents who lived in a tiny property , and they were not well people themselves .

          The poor aunt was not coversational and was almost robotic when I met her for the first time after I got married .. the year she spent with the parents in law was quite stressful , as she wandered here there and everywhere and she made the ceilings yellow with cigarette smoke .

          I believe her time spent in the care of the Salvation Army later on must have been the kindest and nicest time of her life .

          1. They would come on picnics with us on Southsea sea front. We taught them how to play rounders.

      2. Many of the long-term patients were women who had had illegitimate babies.
        One of the symptoms of Huntingdon’s Chorea in women is sexual promiscuity. We had a heartbreaking case of a young girl in her twenties with advanced HC. Before her diagnosis, she had produced 2 beautiful little girls. Family visits were distressing; you looked at those pretty little mites, who were being raised by their grandparents, and knew that at least one of them was fated to go down the same road as her mother.

      3. What a terrible waste of her life. I think quite a lot of unmarried mothers were shut away like that as well.

          1. My mother in law’s brother had a girlfriend who produced his child sometime in the 1930s. They didn’t marry and he married someone else. But many years later, when Nancy had been released, he acknowledged his daughter and they were friendly.

        2. Among the patients, we had a mother and son – the son was the result of a brother and sister relationship. By the 1970s, neither was young and in age they looked very similar; I suspect the mother was very young when she gave birth.
          They were both mentally defective, the product of an enclosed Essex village in the C20.
          Very touchingly, the mother would rush up and hug her boy whenever they met up in the hospital. He didn’t appear to recognise her.

          2. I imagine the family were the ‘odd’ one in the village.
            No mention was ever made of the brother.

      4. Is it possible that your husband’s aunt had what we would now recognise today as being Asperger’s syndrome and the bombing of So’ton distressed her in a completely different way from the distress of other inhabitants of the city, and from there things just went from bad to worse?

    2. Morning, BoB.
      As far as I’m aware, neither treatment still occurs in Blighty.
      My late mother-in-law had ECT; it relieved her depression for a while, mainly because she was too busy trying to remember what the treatment had removed from her memory. But the effects only lasted for a few weeks; and that is something that I also observed with inpatients. Thinking back, I suspect they were a last resort by psychiatrists desperate to do something to relieve pressure on patients, family and staff.
      Lobotomies were stopped years before I began training, though we did have chronic patients who had gone through the operation. By the stage we dealt with them, they were like any other burnt out psychotic patient. The only clue was the rather discombobulating experience of your fingers going into their skull while washing their hair.
      Until the 1950s, the only chemical treatment was dosing with Paraldehyde, so lobotomies, while brutal, were the only way to save both patients and staff from serious injury. Though, as we know, the vicious old crook Jo Kennedy had it inflicted on his daughter because she didn’t meet his standards of being a perfect child. I doubt if he was the only one going along with ‘medical opinion’.
      I’m not up to scratch on modern psychotropic drugs, but I will say that the 40 year fad for tipping patients out of mental hospitals and allowing them to make decisions about their treatment does not appear to be a rip roaring success. Unless there is someone present 24/7 to make sure patients adhere to their medication regime we get the results that we now see all around us on the streets.

    3. I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
      (I’ll fetch me straight jacket.)

      1. You need to iron that ‘straight jacket’. But you wouldn’t be able to if you were in a straitjacket. 😉

    4. No, ECT isn’t a proper treatment, nor is a lobotomy, but there is no doubt there are diseases of the brain which affect how healthy people’s minds are.

  37. 328431+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    ALL in the big plan and the beauty of it is one aspect will NOT harm our politically chosen favoured peoples from the East.

    Pubs total smoking ban, outside consequences can be pneumonia, pleurisy, ect,ect is on par with queuing outside awaiting a jab, and that can be seen as you doing your part in freeing up the accommodation lack of, issue.

    Forced to give up on vaccination after hours of queuing in the cold

    1. There will likely never be a vaccine passport. However you will be required to have evidence you have been for all sorts of things. As always they’ll do it back to front.

  40. 328431+ up ticks,
    He would say that wouldn’t he,

    Live Coronavirus latest news: Make face masks mandatory outdoors and close churches, says Sadiq Khan

    1. As the pubs are closed, all we need now are loudspeakers broadcasting the rules 5 times as day, oh hang on, supermarkets already do..

      1. 28431+ up ticks,
        Morning PM,
        I am in no doubt that if he put that to the current
        political den of iniquity as a bill ..it would pass.

        Sworn in on the resident instruction manual
        ( koran) then along to the parliamentary canteen for a slap up ( subsidised) halal menu lunch.

    4. What the hell has that got to do with the real world? That is, the whole of the planet outside the M25!

    5. London would be vastly improved if the Mayors office were isolated from the rest of the country. Physically and digitally.

      Then rented to private companies to set up shop there and the entire idiocy of mayors abandoned as a monumental waste of private money.

      1. 328431+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        Protected species,
        I think the mosque building program is nigh on completed courtesy of alternating governance party’s in prep……

  42. With apologies to those of faith:

    “As I edge ever nearer to my headstone that’ll read, ‘A Life Lived Unblemished By Any Achievement’, I often spend time pondering what my purpose in life was. What did our omnipresent God have in mind when he decided that I should experience life?

    And it is true. God knows all and does everything for a purpose. Whenever I stub my big toe, a terribly acute and debilitating pain, that normally results in me howling at the heavens, ‘fucking hell’, I know that God did it to me for a purpose. Whilst it may not make any sense to me, to him the creator of everything, it makes perfect sense.”

    BTL Comment:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20abbbade756e2b4f14209c361913ac6c694729108c9d8d36bec403cb5fd9b9e.png

    1. Why do people not capitalise properly? Why do they not use punctuation correctly? Are they lazy, uneducated or just stupid?

  43. Very eerie.
    The air raid sirens are going.
    I hope it’s the regular test, but it doesn’t half make the hairs on the back of the neck stand up! Loud, too, hooting over the valley.

        1. There’s a regulat test – every 6 months, I believe. Wednesday lunchtime.
          It’s only recently that the paragraph in the building laws was removed, covering provision of bomb shelters.
          WE looked at buying an apartment some years ago that had it’s own bombshelter in the basement, and the block we then lived in had shelters in the basement. Big steel blast doors, heavy concrete walls, water tanks and supplies cupboards.

          1. If they dropped nuclear would you want to actually come out to the destroyed world. Todays will be far far more pwerful than the ones dropped on Japan.

          2. I heard Kelvin McKenzie dribbling on yesterday about having a nuclear bunker in his home! The thought of him still being around, and starting a new race after a nuclear attack made me think I’d rather not survive!

      1. If yer Rooshians turn up in my village, I’ll be waiting for them!

        I’ll be standing in the street with a large pan of fresh Borscht with a sign saying, “BORSCHT! Get yer soup here, Ivan!”

    4. Hi Oberst, when I lived in Bossington, Somerset, they used to test the flood warning siren a few times a year. The first time I didn’t have a clue what it was – very eerie when you are alone walking the dog in the woods, miles from ‘civilisation’. My dog just sat still with her ears pricked up until it stopped. We then rushed back to the village to find out what on Earth it was.

    1. Not helped by the wall to wall bile from the BBC. Their fevered ‘Brexit is the reason Ireland now has a border’ – it’s never ‘The EU’s bad faith negotiations ensured Ireland would have an unnecessary border’, is it?

      1. Pls exqueeze me Mr Bill, i’m finding it difficult to pronounce BPAPM is it an anagram ?

    2. Where are they? Well, while WE are under threats to stay indoors – I firmly believe that the migrants families are being flown in and bussed around the country during the darkness to their new taxpayer funded homes and lives.

  46. And now the education department have vays und meanz of changing the whole long established set up.
    It sounds as if they are going to do away with exams and had out free meal vouchers there will be no m need to find a job and housing will be free for the rest of their subjects lives…………that rings a bell !

  47. Good morning, my friends

    DT Article by the excellent Kate Hoey:

    The Tories have betrayed Northern Ireland with their Brexit deal

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/13/tories-have-betrayed-northern-ireland-brexit-deal/

    A BTL comment

    Boris Johnson cheated us by not disclosing what was in the WA. This was quite deliberate – he refused to be questioned on it on TV by Andrew Neil before the general election.

    This deal shows that has now surrendered on two key points in achieving a ‘deal’ (and I have no doubt that more and more betrayals and surrenders will emerge) :

    i) The Fishing industry

    With the four years – nearly five – since the referendum and the current new “deal” allowing European fishing fleets to fish in our waters for a further five years the British fishing industry will have been betrayed for over 9 – more like 10 years.

    ii) The sovereignty of our borders

    In Northern Ireland British sovereignty has been completely violated. The EU still has control.

    How has this odious and despicable trickster, Johnson, managed to pull the wool over people’s eyes so completely?

    1. I couldn’t agree more Richard, there was no need for any of this, Boros would have already known by habit that Brussels mafia would set traps and stitch us up.
      There has been a series of programs on TV about Cornwall and it’s fishing industry. Its been quite an eyeopener as to how the mafia have been piling pressure on our hard working chaps forcing dumping of their catches while Europeans are allowed to scoop up what every they wish. Even to the extent scooping floating and recently discarded catches from UK boats. And still it’s been allowed to continue.

  48. As we hear and read of new mutations of Covid, I wonder whether the UK was particularly susceptible because of the huge numbers of different races/nationalities living cheek by jowl and their frequent trips to their homelands.

    I believe that the UK has one of, if not the world’s highest number of different nationalities living in one country.

      1. Yo Nd

        Also it’s an international hub for flights – to

        Flight : the action of fleeing.

      2. Yo Nd

        Also it’s an international hub for flights –

        Flight : the action of fleeing.

        The post flitted

    2. There are still a number of flights from Luton back and forth to Bacau and Bucharest, and even Tenerife.
      But as ever Sos when certain communities appear to be more vulnerable to the virus it’s always other specially invented circumstance that have caused it, and not of their own making.
      I heard the BBC news once this morning making up stories of how people are ‘So’ suffering from ‘So’ mental health issues now because of the circumstances they ‘So’ find themselves in. It just takes me back to the woes coped with by our parents and grandparents generations.

      1. Do you mean the trivial problem with living on a weekly ration equivalent to what an American would have for breakfast? Or that most of the population were involved in war work? Or that supersonic ballistic missiles were raining down on London with no warning? Or that nylons were in very short supply?

        1. Those poor people of the day had no choice but to suffer HP, but most of them came out of the other side at least smiling. Don’t forget that some rationing was still in effect until the early 50s. And nothing was wasted food wise. That became the norm for many years.

          1. I know. I was there. Orange juice in wee bottles. Dried milk. California Syrup of Figs. Peelings and scraps went into pail collected by the local pig farmer.

      2. My mother lived through the war of course, and I was a post-war baby. She was widowed when I was four and also her mother came to live with us until she died. I remember my Mum chain-smoking – I thought that was how everyone did it – but she was under a great deal of stress.

        She was stoical and never complained about the life she was dealt.

        1. My mother and her baby, my elder sister were sent to Driffield Yorkshire, my father was in north Africa and Sicily. I have his medals his blue service release book and his old wrist watch in the drawer next to me, to remind me of their plight, never knowing what was in the post or a possible telegram. I often hear him in my head saying “Son never trust and arab”.

          1. My father said they would cut your throat for sixpence ..

            It was our houseboy in Egypt in the 1956 Suez crisis , who put the sack over my father’s head .. mum, sister and I had been evacuated the day before , and all the British expats working out there were rounded up with the help of house staff and the Egyptian army then interned for 3 months .

            God only knows what happened to our dachshund and alsation that we had inherited from a British Army officer the year before .

          2. I remember very well visiting Cairo on our way through the Suez canal. We overstayed our time looking at the gold king Tut sarcophagus in the museum and couldn’t find the way out to re board the tour bus. I asked a worker to show us the way and he wanted money for it. Not sure if he understood, get stuffed. What a noisy busy dusty place it was. We did the pyramids as well. Next stop was Djibouti, what a tip.

          7. I had a friend whose husband was in the Far East with the Chindits.
            For 5 years she had no idea if he was alive or dead.
            When he did return, all she could think to say was “Your buttons smell of Brasso”.
            I think she felt guilty about her reaction, but after five years separation with all that uncertainty, what would you say?

          8. You might like to read Stranger In The House by Julie Summers. It deals with how the women coped with their menfolk returning from the war (action or prison camps). It’s a good read.

          10. We passed through Driffield just to take a look, on our way home from a long weekend that included Scarborough. I found two men of the same sir name on the war memorial in the middle of the town square. My paternal GF was from Scarborough.

          11. Ayup, lad. Na then! Tha’ never told tha’ was a Yorkie in t’blood, tha’ knows! 👍🏻😉

          12. And if I’d been any good at it, I could have played cricket for the wonderful place know as G O country.

  49. ‘Morning, all.

    Last night, I posted a condemnation of the spiteful, demented JenniferSP, for her constant downvoting while lurking in the backgound. My post was soon removed by the forum’s resident W⚓, richardl, whose mission in life seems to be providing defence for his favourite troll.

    I’ve had enough, so to all you NoTTLers, slàn leibh, mo charaidean, ‘s sealbh math dhuibh. It’s been a pleasure talking with all of you over the years – well, almost all of you, that is!

    To the plastic-Canadian dickhead and his bana-bhuidseach …… may the worst of your days be the best of your days”.

    .

    1. All forums need a spiteful commentator or two so as to avoid consensus bias. Stay with us.

        1. She is an extremely difficult woman to have a conversation with. If you disagree with her be prepared to be called an idiot and a fool.

          I think she has personal issues which stop her from having empathy….or manners.

          1. So what you are saying is that it would be preferable to be locked in a small cage with a randy Honey Badger….?

          3. Sadly not the only one. The other one recently accused me of ‘electronic stalking’ because I’d bothered to read earlier comments from her before making a reply in calling out her comments.

          6. Anyone who doesn’t want their earlier comments read can make their profile private. Mine is – only because I was mercilessly trolled by someone a few years ago, wherever I went, and I saw no reason to undo that.

          7. Same here, mainly for similar reasons, especially as I don’t just use Disqus on politicial commentary forums. I originally joined Disqus when the Telegraph used it for reader comments…until they unwisely ditched it for their current proprietary system that most readers do not like.

            As regards the person here making accusations against me, all I was doing was responding to their replies to me and being dilligent to read what they’d previously said which didn’t show them as, IMHO, a trustworthy, credible source of information on the subject at hand.

            Unfortunately they took exception to me bringing that to everyone’s attention, was rather offesive back and presumably then complained to the mods to try and have my posts removed and the thread locked. Sadly, one obliged. That was disappointing to say the least. There’s a big difference between reasoned, but robust argument and trolling/harrassment/stalking.

      1. Don’t you even think of it PT 🤩
        Why doesn’t every one down vote her for all of her horrible comments.
        I have a few blocked, i just see replies that i can just shrug my shoulders at.

          2. Snap and if she replies to me I will read the first one, answer it and then ignore any others because I know she won’t accept a counter point, but will insist she has the last word (even if she has to introduce something only vaguely related to do so). It’s tiresome and not a real debate. I will miss Duncan and I hope he reconsiders.

    5. Come on Duncan just tell her to eff off she deserves no more non illegitimi carborundum…… i’ve been there and i came back, you are surrounded by mates here.

          1. Thank you m’dear.

            Combination of recalcitrant laptop, brother, and busyness generally. Lovely to be here again.

    6. Hang on a mo! I’ve only just signed up to Stage 1 Gaelic:

      “Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan.”

        1. No no, it’s ‘My name’s Geoff but I’ve just been to the dentist and the novocaine hasn’t worn off yet.

    7. Hang on a mo! I’ve only just signed up to Stage 1 Gaelic:

      “Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan.”

    10. Don’t let the boogers get you down. Ignore that which you dislike and enjoy the rest, much like life.

    13. Please don’t go Duncan! We need a VOB round here! Don’t let the b****rs get you down! 😘

          2. I can only point out the facts. He has written far, far more and far worse about me than I’ve ever written about him.

            I haven’t interacted with him at all for a long time – I blocked his filth weeks ago.

    14. Well, my first question is… what was said?

      Is JenniferSP doesn’t provide a useful response then her childish downvoting is just that. Much like blocking someone on the internet, all you do is tell them that you’re a coward who can’t accept the consequence of your actions.

      1. JSP has had some insults from Duncan but she did start it with calling him a vicious old bastard.

        The very reason i christened him V.O.B.

        To make a light of it.

        1. Doesn’t matter who started it. The language is unnecessary (and rude) – doesn’t warrant blocking or leaving though.

    16. I hope you will reconsider Duncan – your erudite posts will be much missed. Please pop in now and then………..or more often. Down voting is not my style but it exists and we can now see who does it – but it shouldn’t drive you away.

    18. Oh Duncan, please don’t go. I love your posts. Do not give her the satisfaction, it is what she wants, she will feel she has succeeded. Just ignore it all. That is what the narcissist hates and fears most of all – complete lack of recognition of their actions. Just float above it all, and the mod who removed it. Her offensive posts are never removed; there are mods who should be de-modded. JSP downvotes me – it just makes me laugh.

    20. Good afternoon Duncan,
      The dear lady admits to being a respectable 60 year old female of Glaswegian birth, and I assume works as a professional farm secretary (ie in agricultural administration). If you are a proper Highlander, that might explain some antipathy.
      This forum might be a substitute for a common or garden Pub conversation, but some of its members would clearly feel safer in the Saloon Bar, or even outside in the Car Park.

    21. Hello Duncan,

      I have been off NoTTL for a while for various reasons (family and IT), and am back – please don’t leave. The more people like you leave, the harder it is to stay a forum which is (mostly) a pleasure to read and (increasingly rarely) to contribute to. Remember the old adage: if there are 100 people in a room and 99 people like one, one will fixate upon the one who looks as if they are being awkward.

      Please remember the rest of us who enjoy your posts, and give the one the rejection it warrants.

    22. So do any of the other mods feel that this comment was appropriate and followed those guidelines about good natured debate?

      I see that spiteful, demented old bana-bhuidseach JenniferSP is lurking in the background and downvoting yet again

      1. It’s not especially pleasant, but I’ve said similar about the sewage Blair and scum Mandelson.

        A gente nudge to remove the offending might be a better response though?

        1. She certainly has replied in kind on many occasions.

          This comment was not part of any conversation, it wax just free standing.

      3. I’m not a Mod, but I’ve been reading and writing on Nottle almost since the site launched.

        That is a comparatively mild comment, I’ve certainly been called a lot worse and called others a lot worse in response.

        I get the impression that of all the Mods you are the most trigger happy.

        1. maybe three or four comments deleted since nttl started is hardly trigger happy.

          If posters would accept a gentle rebuke and calm the childish exchanges, it might be calmer.

          This deleted comment was just made in isolation, it was not part of a conversation.

          1. Perhaps it may be coincidence, but I’ve read a few times that you have deleted comments, perhaps I’ve seen every one you’ve done.

            Sometimes the discussions do get out of hand, but there are certain posters who seem to take a great delight in targetting others and posting comments that they know will wind them up. Some are quicker with a rude response to such tactics than others

            If the comment that appears to have caused Duncan to depart was stand-alone, then why delete it? JSP is a regular down-voter and looking at many of the comments down-voted it strikes me that they are done out of spite to an individual and have nothing to do with the content or context of what was written.

            It seems to me that we lose far more from good and agreeable posters leaving off the backs of certain individuals than ever we gain from those individuals’ contributions as a whole.

        1. Did I say that?

          I don’t know who made that downvote, it was probably Jennifer but did it really justify such a response from someone who claims that downvotes do not bother him.

          1. No, you didn’t. I was just stirring the pot because that bit of Duncan’s post was factual 🙂 As for the spiteful and demented Gaelic, I can’t really comment, but as she tends to target some commentators whatever they post, the spiteful bit could well be true. She does, in my opinion, have “issues”, but not dementia. Autism somewhere along the spectrum, maybe. She has, however, rubbed a lot of people (I declare an interest – I am one of them) up the wrong way, which is unusual among our community. To sum up, while there are many posters here I should be delighted to meet and socialise with, Jennifer is NOT one of them. I expect the feeling is mutual.

    23. Hi Duncan Mac, she was one of the reasons that I drifted away from. Her comments were often snide and she certainly can be spiteful. I still looked in occasionally and then Covid/work needed my full attention.
      A kind message from Damask_Rose reminded me of what I had been missing, commentators on here are largely supporting and many are very informative. I will try and keep popping in each day and post the odd comment. JSP will simply be ignored.
      Maybe take a short break but don’t “cut of your nose…….” and come back soon.

    2. This influx is easily solved as they’re not arriving here. The navy are bringing them here.

      It’s solved by finding the dinghy, dragging it to within sight of France, holing it so it can’t be used again and sailing off. If any of them try to get on board ‘dissuade them’.

  51. 328431+ up ticks,
    May one ask is this proving then that terrorist, paedophiles
    cat buglers, dog buglers, felons in general are exempt from policing on the grounds that precedence is given to
    coronavirus rulings.
    Would it be right in saying then that if a child dies via paedophile actions that child is seen as dying from coronavirus ?

    Is there some sort of sanity test for politico’s before unleashing them upon the peoples ?

    breitbart,
    Police Using Licence Plate-Reading Cameras to Monitor Drivers

    1. ‘Afternoon, Ogga, you seem to have gathered a whole band of cat and dog buglers. Must be a cacophony.

      1. 328431+ up ticks,
        Afternoon NtN,
        On par with working in a clock shop at high noon.
        AKA fagen of the animal kingdom.

  52. I watched Hard Talk last night. Stephen Sackur was laying into Professor Barry Schoub, a virologist and the chief advisor to the South African government in respect of Covid-18.
    At about 17 minutes in Sackur asks why South Africa had not bought the vaccine earlier. Prof Schoub replied that unlike the rich economies of the UK etc, South Africa could not pay out a non-refundable deposit of 24 billion rand to the vaccine companies, before they knew whether there would actually ever be a viable vaccine.

    Well, that strongly suggests that the UK will have paid at least the equivalent sum, £115 million, to the pharmaceutical companies as a non-refundable deposit, even before it was known if there would ever be an effective vaccine.

    Now, that being so, there are a number of possible outcomes:
    1. Big Pharma develops viable successful vaccine (at historically record-breaking speed). Hurrah! we are saved.
    2. Big Pharma failed to develop a successful vaccine. However, having promised us a vaccine, and having already paid for it the UK government goes ahead and rolls out a vaccination programme anyway.
    3. Big Pharma develops. something that might be a viable vaccine, or maybe not, as they just don’t know. However, having promised us a vaccine, and having already paid for it the UK government goes ahead and rolls out a vaccination programme anyway.

    As, the government and everyone else have been very cagey about what the vaccine actually does, how effective it is and for how long, and whether or not it works against the South African and Brazilian variants, I am inclined to think it is a fraud.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000r93b/hardtalk-professor-barry-schoub-chair-of-advisory-committee-on-covid19-vaccines-south-africa

    2. When sufficient people have had the vaccine, and the virus dies down naturally in the spring, as flu always does – they will then be able to announce that the lockdowns, restrictions and vaccines have worked – hurrah! and we can be free! Till next winter……and I bet the vaccine will be an annual thing like the flu ones.

      2. I’ve noticed earlier on the local radio daily announcements of the Coronavirus figures, a slight difference in their wording. It used to be Corona virus deaths. I took this as the deaths were PURELY down to the virus. Today I noticed that it was Corona virus – related – deaths. So I take this as anyone who has died, that was found to have the virus, but died mainly of something else. A slight step on the climbdown ladder?

        1. It will eventually come out in the wash when the excess death figures are known – and there will be many deaths of people who were not treated for curable cancers, heart attacks etc. Many more deaths are happening at home for these reasons.

          1. Agreed. They will no doubt come up with some explanation why people who were born and bred here, were refused treatment to stop them going blind and others had cancer treatment cancelled and now told “there is nothing we can do” – but are able to spend god knows what making sure the new arrivals have NHS staff and ambulances waiting to meet them at Dover.

          2. Indeed, I had a phone call from a friend this morning who said she’d been for a mammogram. The radiographer told her that they had shut down in the last lockdown, but were operating in this, although she didn’t know why because if people were diagnosed they weren’t going to be treated and they were just adding to the backlog! I thought that was cruel and unreasonable treatment. I can’t imagine how anyone would feel to be told they had breast cancer (in this case), but they weren’t going to be treated, so they would just have to wait to die.

          3. I was due for one in March. I didn’t go. It was a routine one, the final one from a 10 year follow-up programme. I was considering whether to go, in the autumn, but then came the next lockdown.
            I know what it’s like to be diagnosed, having had it twice, but at least I was treated.
            The radiographer was unprofessional to say that to her.

    3. It’s always 3. We pay, then we see if it works.

      But you’ll never get these questions on the 5 minute hate – or what the BBC call it, the Today programme.

  53. Spoke to my mum this morning, she had the covid vaccination yesterday, she is not sure which one though, I just wanted to see if she was okay, all is well she said, just finished doing the cryptic crossword in record time, oh, I said you must have had the Oxford vaccine then.

    1. If she turns reddish-orange, she will have had the Pfizer one.

      Oh, sorry. I’m getting mixed up with Tizer.

      1. Morning…

        Yep…check my profile and scroll through the pending comments from the past 24 hours.

        1. I guess they’ve been targeted by the spambots as we have – we’ve had to set the moderation to premod anything with links. But we don’t get so much traffic as BB. And their mods probably are all asleep still.

          1. Certain things happen just before something major happens…

            I’m waiting for parts of The Internet to go down ahead of something happening.

            Guess we’ll read about it when it kicks off but were unable to warn anybody before it happens.

          2. BB being pro-Trump I suppose it was inevitable – but they seem to be targeting small sites like this as well as other right-leaning ones.

          5. BB themselves must by now know there’s a problem with empty comment sections but are not telling their readers.

            Perhaps the head of the snake as well as they tail has been severed.

          6. Just three comments on the traffic camera piece. I didn’t look any further as I don’t often go to BB these days.

          7. I don’t think you’re wide of the mark there.

            When they turn the screw we’ll be all in the dark.

          8. The internet works by routing around failures. If the censorship continues then social media will simply become distributed so no one single point has control over the content.

            However, let’s say you’re hosting a tiny part of the web on your machine – what if someone is putting things on there that are blatantly illegal and amoral? Even if you can’t personally see it, access it or even view it, it’s still there.

          9. I was talking more in the way of the controllers of the world closing down the internet completely. Followed by TV, radio, newspapers …

          10. A long time ago I read somewhere that there were just seven(?) portals allowing access to the internet with (?) China & Russia engineering portals for their own webs….

          11. Speaking of turning the screw, I have just had a letter from our local water board (provider) saying that they are going to fit a water meter. I presume it’s like the smart meters for electricity etc.

            I don’t want one and assume that I can simply refuse…?

          12. Afternoon Hl – good to see you here again.
            Not sure if refusal makes any difference these days.

          14. Greetings, Lass, and Happy New Year. 😘 Hope you are OK.

            When I last lived in the UK, nearly ten years ago now, I asked for a meter to be installed on the outside wall of the cottage since I was never in when the meter reader called. It wasn’t connected electronically to the water board so I don’t really know the answer.

          15. Wotcher, Grizz,

            Happy New Year to you too! I think things have changed beyond recognition in the UK in ten years.

      2. Aren’t we all Refugees here, living in Asylum otherwise known as the dis-United Kingdom….?

        2. Yes, but we are the refugees in our own country, paying and bowing down to, the “refugees” arriving from anywhere else on the planet.

        1. I checked the US pages…

          More are getting through but perusing the comments shows they too are having problems.

    3. Good afternoon Honda. I remember you from the days of the DT disqus comments, and occasionally when I have lurked on Breitbart in the shadows. Welcome to the gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) pursuit of Nottling.

      1. Good afternoon…

        That was about 12 years ago when the Telegraph lost the argument and closed the comments (they now require payment to even view them) and I came over to Breitbart.

        Everything we said back then has come true which is why the left is after the BB Patriots now.

          1. I recently perused the comments and they were the same as those on BB…

            I don’t need to pay to see them now as I know they will mirror those that I saw before.

            I imagine very few readers will pay to read the articles so the commenters will simply be preaching to the already converted.

            In fact…I comment less these days and spend more time fishing as most things are out in the open now the stealth years are over.

          2. With tougher restrictions promised we will see a ban on click and collect. Only allowed out once a week for an hour. Probably under supervision of the armed forces. How long do you think they will allow fishing?

            Full curfews the following week.

            Since the beginning i have believed the increasing lockdowns and restrictions were like the drip drip of Chinese torture.

            We are approaching the end game…rapidly.

            BTW. Welcome to Nottl. For as long as it lasts.

          3. There are plenty of marks to fish where I never see another human being…

            Had some very fresh healthy wild mackerel for supper last night…full of omega3 and no fish farm additives like some of the weeks old stuff you buy in the supermarkets.

      1. Deliberately introduced immigrant wildlife species – look how well that has gone with people.

        1. I was thinking more of animals – but it never ends well. Invasive alien species simply do not belong here.

          2. And the ring-necked parakeets. Do you have them in Colchester? I’ve seen them in London but they haven’t reached these parts yet.

          5. We had one recently. Horrid sounding bird.

            Is there anything that parakeets and magpies like eating that other of our little lovely birds don’t like? If so, I shall get a load in for the Spring…

          8. I have often sent emails to green even the bosses of organisations including Doug Parr chief scientist of Green peace, regarding the decimation of the English country side, massive increases in GH Gases whilst building and the subsequent occupancy of new homes on green belt and agricultural land. Highlighting the decimation of woodlands and wild life habitats in the processes. But i have come to the conclusion they DGAF about it, as long as the UK continues to build homes for migrants and their extended families. Oh how these once sceptre Isles, are now doomed. Same old story corporate greed and stupid insensitive politicians.

          17. It is illegal to trap and catch Signal crayfish without a license from the Environment Agency. Unfortunately, the native and American crayfish are extremely difficult to tell apart so where it is thought that native species are present, it is unlikely that a license will be granted for trapping.27 Jul 2017

            American signal crayfish – the law – Bristol Avon Rivers Trust

            Because Signal Crayfish eat everything there won’t be any native species for long. It is utter nonsense if not a down right lie to say it is difficult to tell the species apart.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ea75b90f03e4ac3ea7e7739267649454f037fa0a2ce1722f041f75e81349a64.jpg

          19. The clue is in the name.

            The native one is the bottom pic. The Red Signal is the monster at the top.

          20. We have Kräftor [pron: “kreff-tor”] (Crayfish) parties in August. We sit around a table wearing large napkins around our necks, breaking them up and sucking the juice from heads! Juices everywhere but delicious. Yanks call them ‘crawfish’.

          21. The Yanks also eat fresh boiled crab like that. Plastic apron. No table cloth or cutlery except for a hammer and off you go.

            Neanderthals !

    4. Very stupid.
      I remember one of the reporters on deeply Political Country File blaming domestic dogs for the attacks on sheep. Dopey (socially and politically correct) Tom hadn’t realised that in the Ross on Wye areas and Forest of Dean areas, there are now a number of introduced wild boar. Growing rapidly in numbers. But blaming local dogs for dead lambs was the easy way out.
      Something i use to do in the outback once a year was to drive a thousand miles to a sheep station near Narran lakes and with my dirt bike mates, shoot as many of the nasty non indigenous creatures as possible in a week. They smell ewes giving birth and home in for an easy meal on the newly born lambs.
      I wrote to Tom about this, but he didn’t acknowledge. Typical of a woke leftie.

        1. Golf 😁 it can be a bit messy. We lived in Gladstone OLD for six months. Tripping over them at night was not unusual.

          And one of the many daft things that the Ozzies have done to the country, cane toads.

    5. To answer your question: extremely stupid! There will be no natural predators to keep herds under control unless species such as wolves are re-introduced. Oh shoot, why did I say that as it will give these “wilders” more stupid ideas. Actually, I am prepared to think that re-introducing wolves to some very wild and remote parts of the UK might be useful to keep deer populations under control but that’s a far cry from wolves in one of the most heavily-populated (by humans) part of the UK.

          1. Lynx yes. Snow leopards* are endangered, as are Iranian leopards. However they would be quite happy in somewhere like Applecross, I feel sure. Deer are a nuisance so they would keep the levels down somewhat.

            * Microsoft recently advertised a program that would help to spot snow leopards in their wild habitat. A real boon for poachers looking to make fur coats.

      3. IIRC, the reintroduction of wolves to the UK was proposed a couple of years ago. Probably by the same people who freed mink from mink farms.

        2. So when a pack of wolves hunts down its prey, they are going to be prosecuted under the Hunting Act are they?

        1. When they do just remember, you’re only supposed to rid them into town………..punch line of an old joke

        2. Hi, Honda

          Welcome to Nottler

          Their riders have arrived here by the million , and have forgotten about their camels, instead they drive taxis and molest under age girls for recreational purposes!

      2. You have been to the USA. and look at the problems they have .. I mean, old Trump had a wall built.

        We also see and hear terrible stories about giant pythons , snakes that have eaten everything in the swamps including deer .

        Look at why our ladybirds have vanished thanks to the larger European version , and so it goes on .

        People really are very stupid , aren’t they.

        1. But…but…don’t they f**t a lot and destroy the ozone layer and cause global warming and stuff…

        3. No chance. If the bison reproduce beyond the ability of the estate to maintain them, they will be transferred to other re-wilding projects.

          No one will be permitted to eat meat, dairy or eggs – it’ll be vegan grub all round, and not very much of that either by the time they have finished turning all the most useful land into places that won’t bring in pots of money from “eco-tourists”. Probably because no one will have any money.

    9. Bison are edible. We will also be making teepees out of their skins when our homes are given to gimmegrants.

        1. The young Indian boy had spent most of his life in a quandry.

          .. He felt different yet.

          .. couldn’t figure why.

          .. he was just so depressed. He went to the Chief for answers.

          .. He asked the chief how his brother Red Deer Running had gotten his name.

          ..

          The chief answered in his typically poetic way.

          ..”When Red Deer Running was born, at the moment of his birth, the first
          thing his mother saw was a beautiful deer running off into the forest.

          .. and so Running Deer was named. It is the custom of our tribe to name
          the offspring according to the spirits in nature visiting upon the
          birth.”Then, the boy said to the Chief.

          .. And how did my sister “Thundering Bird” get her name? The chief
          described again, how at the moment of her birth Thundering Bird’s mother
          had heard a roar of thunder and looking up, saw a bird flying in the
          sky.

          ..

          The boy asked again, how his cousin “White Crouching Bear” had been given such a name.

          .. And the chief, looking down once more at the boy, explaining the traditions of their tribe.

          ..

          . White Bear’s mother had seen a rare white bear crouched over a stream at the moment her baby’s birth. Then he asked the boy.

          ..”Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?”

    10. Q: What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?

      A: You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo.

    1. I wonder if Marcus the bag-of-wind-kicker got all his multi-millionaire mates to chuck a few million in EACH to help? If not why not?

    2. From the reaction you would think Boris personally picked what went into each food parcel.

    3. I expect it depends on how many children Boris would need to split the food parcel between.

    4. Unfortunately PM is really a waste of time. It’s a glorified point scoring exercise. No serious question is given a serious answer. Yes, I know, I know, that’s expecting too much!

  57. Do you have any money lurking in an old bank or building society account you have forgotten about, or simply left for years and years to accumulate?
    Good News! The government is going to allow charities to take that money.

    https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/government-press-ahead-800m-expansion-dormant-assets-scheme/finance/article/1704127?bulletin=finance-bulletin&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=eNews%20Bulletin&utm_source=20210113&utm_content=Third%20Sector%20Finance%20Bulletin%20(22)::&email_hash=

      2. Well, why not? If we have money in a building society or a bank deposit account, we don’t need it .
        Funny thing is I thought that we had elected a nominally capitalist-supporting conservative government, not hard line communists?

          2. Just be careful as you get out of the bath Bill. They might be waiting just out of sight for you to bend over, and when they have a clear view of ther target for revenge, claws out and leap.

          3. My sister had a cat like that. Not sure what breed it was, monster i think.

            You would turn the corner and it would be sitting at the other end of the hall staring at you. If you turned around to go the other way and looked over your shoulder it was gone.

            If you peeked back round the corner it would be peeking right back at you.

            She put one of those electric collars on it so it didn’t leave the garden. I think that was why it was so vengeful.

            It did escape the garden one time and when my father went and picked it up it tore his right forearm to shreds.

            He was on Warfarin at that time and the blood was everywhere. Needed a hospital trip to stitch him up.

            Vile creature.

          1. Suzie was a polydactyl – she had thumbs. If you look closely you can just see them – she’s the one further from the camera. They were both beautiful and lovely characters.

  59. Bbc News again banging on about Donald being impeached, this time with the support of Republican Senators. Have the latter stopped to think they are likely damaging their own chances of being re-elected by Republican voters?

  61. I don’t wish to boast …. oh, all right, yes I do. When making a Cold Tea Cake the other day, I hadn’t enough mixed dried fruit, so I chopped ups a bag of dried fruit salad (prunes, apricots, apples and pears) to make up the weight.
    The result is absolutely scrumptious. Very moist and packed with flavour. Wonderful with cheese or on its own.

      1. I’ll have to get another one out of the freezer.
        I made 6 x 1lb loaves as the larger ones go on for too long – unless Sonny Boy turns ups and needs something to go with his coffee.

          1. Heck. Does that mean I’ll have to get thoroughly drunk and make a spectacle of myself at Carrow Road?
            And support BLM.

      1. Yes. The recipe it was based on is called Irish Brack.
        As ever, I adapted it to suit my purposes.

  62. The problems at the borders in respect of documentation and nit-picking officialdom have not gone away. They are not going away. (The ham sandwiches confiscated by the zealous Dutch customs may have been made from Dutch ham.).
    Had we left the EU without a trade deal the previous arrangements – no checks, few documents and no delays – would have continued for up to two years under WTO protocols.
    As it is, we have an expensive shambles. Exporters of fresh food such as lobsters are losing money hand over fist. Hauliers will not go to NI because they cannot get the backloads needed to make the trips financially viable. Up to half the UK lorries reaching the Channel ports are turned back because of paperwork deficiencies.

    Keep in mind that the exact terms of the “trade deal” were concluded six hours before they came into effect. Even the fastest performing businesses would struggle with that, especially as it was New Year’s Eve.

    The government response has been disgraceful, bland and supine.
    “A government spokesman acknowledged that there had been “some issues”, but said ministers had always been clear there would be some disruption at the end of the transition period.
    The Cabinet Office said in a statement that the volume of border crossings had been low so far this year, but that it expected crossings to steadily increase to normal levels.
    This brings the potential for “significant disruption if traders and hauliers have not taken the necessary steps to comply with the new rules,” the Cabinet Office said.
    Out of about 1,500 lorries per day trying to get from Great Britain to the EU in the new year, 700 have been turned away – mainly due to a lack of a negative Covid test for drivers, it said.
    “We have always been clear there would be changes now that we are out of the customs union and single market, so full compliance with the new rules is vital to avoid disruption,” said Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.”
    In the words of another prostitute, “he would say that wouldn’t he?”

    https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/food-and-drink/brexit-week-one-was-bad-week-two-will-be-worse-warns-food-industry-chief-amid-export-hold-ups
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55583244

    1. I bet we’re not doing the same to foreign lorries and if not they’ll never tell us.

  63. Apologies if this has been raised further down, but I see that one of the Barclay Bros, the owners of the DT, has died. The DT are running a puff piece obituary, without reader comments, which is no surprise.

    On an unrealted issue, lots of readers complaining on the COVID article about the vaccine passports (no longer a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory I note) – can as many here who are still DT subscribers please post comments on there that IMHO the DT won’t look into the civil liberties stuff because they are funded on ‘Global Health Security’ by the Gates Foundation to the tune of £3.4M.

  64. 8 stitches, a broken nose, dislocated shoulder but i’ll be fine

    I was sitting with my mobile phone and my wife watching her show on TV. i asked her for a beer and she said no. Then her mobile phone rang in the kitchen and sh quickly got to see what it was. My message said “Since you’re in the kitchen, bring me a beer”…. I don’t remember anything else.

    1. Reminds me of Fawlty Towers when Sybil kept chasing Basil to get the new picture hung in the foyer……………”I’m Doing it,…….. i’m doing it” !

  65. 328431+ up ticks,

    Health Sec Says ‘Impossible to Know’ When Restrictions Will Be Lifted,

    I personally believe that the restrictions will be lifted at latest
    the day after the heath sec & co are ousted from governance, as in the lab/lib/con coalition put in, via the polling booth, a very deep hole, backfilled, concrete capped.

    Left much longer for the electoral type ovis to acknowledge this and in the future we could very well be looking back on these days NOW as sheer luxury as things had gone downhill rapidly since then, and attending the mosque 5 times a day isn’t helping.

    1. See how bad the conservatives are so imagine if the lib/lab were involved. No we need Nigal & co not any of these.

      1. 328431+up ticks,
        Afternoon JN,
        They are IMO a coalition party & have been for years, The “nige”is singing b liars praises adding to his recent past treachery, and co if meaning the
        re-form group, well meant advice to them would be wear stab proof jackets.

      2. Oooerrr missus….. I was soaked by the time I returned home. Doggo went for a swim. Now wrapped up in her towels. The police turned up too late after the local lads had just climbed over the fence of the locked astroturf pitch. And run off. Perhaps they heard the siren.
        Feet up with a cuppa.

    1. And they say there was no evidence of fraud? Totally gobsmacked and I listened to the hearings and was utterly flabbergasted.

      1. Do you think that the hearings or evidence really matter? They vote along party lines, the hearings are just for effect.

    2. so why did none of this get presented by Giuliani at the appropriate time? The Republican governors in some of those states should have been shown those voting graphs and told to explain the anomalies back in November.

      If they don’t form a bipartisan committee that uses this as the basis for cleaning up the 2022 midterm elections, they only have themselves to blame.

      1. It was presented at special hearings. The courts refused to hear cases and made excuses, such as time, standing, etc. Not one court looked at all the facts.

        The fix was in. Too many judges and legislators are in the Deep State.

        1. The fix is really going overboard now, Trump is a dirty word and they are all scrambling to show that they are good establishment types.

          Trump was no friend of Canada but many of us really appreciated him telling Trudeau where to get off when they were at a G7(21?) conference in Quebec.

    1. You were right Horace! I’m still trying to get my BP down, having first heard Fatty Blackford on Talk Radio, then having to watch the Nikeliar in the cooncil chamber because my old man watches it! That wee woman couldn’t lie straight in bed! All the moaning and groaning about the fishermen. I just wish someone would ask her what would happen if Scotland rejoin the EU! Her moral indignation makes me spit!

      1. 328431+ up ticks,
        Afternoon SM,
        Really does beg the question how do these ALL close shop party governance types get in again,again,again again & once again ?

    2. The Hamza family apparently lived in Shepherds Bush. Thankfully I only found out after he’d been removed.

    1. No social distancing there.
      Where are the police going in mob-handed swinging truncheons and making wholesale arrests, throwing people headfirst into the back of vans…oh, wait, sorry, they don’t seem to be white… so it’s OK.

  71. Poitics is a murky business, isn’t it?

    ‘British diplomats are bracing for the United States to make grave allegations against China linked to “dangerous” coronavirus research in Wuhan.

    Donald Trump is thought to be intent on firing a final salvo against Beijing over the Covid-19 crisis as one of his final acts before he departs the Oval Office next week.

    UK sources believe Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, could make a public intervention as soon as today involving the declassification of American intelligence on the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    The US may allege that the People’s Liberation Army were running research projects that involved “cultivating dangerous coronaviruses” in a series of animal species at the laboratory, a UK source told The Telegraph.

    Such claims would prompt a raft of further questions about why the Chinese military would be involved in this kind of project, including any links to the development of potential bioweapons.’

        1. Say that only whilst touching wood and whistling.

          Pirbright managed to release Foot and Mouth as recently as 2007.

      2. It would be negligent of us not to. But I was thinking of the political aspects of this. Apparently Trump is about to lob this grenade at the Chinese, unless Congress manages to get him impeached first. With less than a week of his presidency left, Congress votes on his impeachment today.

        Pure coincidence, I’m sure.

    3. I know the BBC is completely 100% impartial. The radio presenter this morning said so. It also explains why virtually every caller spouts on about the jab being wonderful (and allowed to talk ) while other callers saying the opposite get cut off. Brexit voters were ridiculed and cut off daily coming up to the Referendum. And if you criticised the invasion flood – God help you. I wouldn’t want BBC cookies being installed on my comp.

    4. My lambasting:

      It’s failure to live up to its Reithian code of inform, educate, entertain; its complete takeover by ‘woke’ virtue-signalling presenters; its dogged refusal to be impartial; its insistence on only reporting matters that agree with its socialist and globalist agenda; and the current deplorable standards in its programme choice. I long for the return to its glory days of the 1950s to the 1970s before being hijacked by the Left. When newsreaders read the news with clarity, balance and impartiality; when its formidable and unbeatable sports reporting was the envy of the world; and when it could be trusted. It no longer is!

      I used to delight in listening to Alan Weeks, Richard Baker, Bill McLaren, Kenneth Kendall, Peter O’Sullevan, Peter Woods, Eamonn Andrews, Moira Stewart, Richie Benaud, Patricia Driscoll, Kenneth Wolstenholme, Jennie Bond, Peter Dimmock, David Coleman, Sue Lawley, Harry Carpenter, Sally Magnusson, John Arlott, Mary Malcolm, Jim Laker, Jan Leeming, Raymond Baxter, Kate Adie, Barry Davies, Anna Ford, McDonald Hobley, Angela Rippon, Cliff Michelmore, Sylvia Peters and dozen upon dozens more. To a man/woman they have been replaced by a crew of clueless anodyne screechers who only serve to make one switch off!

        1. Shhh! Don’t tell him, but I was never a fan of The Light Programme! [aka “Radio 2”]. I’d never heard of him until I came on this forum. 🙄

          2. I liked the old Light Programme, especially the (I think) 6:30 slot when they used to broadcast some excellent radio drams, some of which were bloody terrifying for a 13yo lad!!

    6. Looking into my crystal ball.

      “The BBC is delighted to announce that its audience is satisfied overall with the quality and balance of its output.

      A few of our respondents gave us their robust opinions and constructive criticism which we will place before our diversity and inclusiveness committee for their consideration.”

    7. My response to my low score for the Beeb:

      1. Left wing bias and utter contempt for other political views;
      2. Encourages intersectionality, misandry, racism and job bias against people based on race – mainly white men.
      3. Promotes people based on what they are and the views (see above), not on how good they are at the job;
      4. Allows employees to promote their own political views on BBC output or using their job at the BBC as ‘cache’ when using social media.
      5. Politically-correct poor quality programming, especially Doctor WHO, which is now ruined forever.
      6. Wasting £Bns of licence fee payers money and yet STILL losing practically ALL live sport and good quality US TV to satellite/Cable/internet streaming services.
      7. Having to pay the licence fee even if you don’t consume any BBC services (and given those available at the moment, I would gladly give up those few I still watch).
      8. The BBC is only for a few woke mtropolitan individuals in London and not for everyone else.
      9. Your terrible, scaremongering, biased, poor coverage of the pandemic, Brexit, the US elections/president Trump and politics in general.
      Good day.

      1. Thank you! Copied and used as a basis for my broadside. Feel free to copy:-

        Box 1:-
        The BBC has an entrenched Left wing bias and it’s news & current affairs presenters shew utter contempt for other political views.

        In addition, your coverage of the pandemic has been little more than concentrated scaremongering, whilst that of Brexit, the US elections/president Trump and politics in general has been terrible, biased and of extremely poor quality with very little counter argument permitted.

        Boz 2:-
        The BBC encourages intersectionality, misandry, racism and job bias against people based on race – mainly against white men.
        It also strongly supports the delusions, lies and twisted “science” of the trans lobby.

        The BBC wastes £Bns of licence fee payers money, but STILL has managed to lose practically ALL live sport and good quality TV from the USA to satellite/Cable/internet streaming services.
        Having to pay the licence fee even if you don’t consume any BBC services rubs salt into the wound.

        The bulk of the BBC’s output is only for a few woke and Left Wing metropolitan individuals in London or academics in our universities and not for everyone else.

        Box 3
        The BBC allows employees to promote their own political views whilst presenting news & current affairs programmes and also allows them to use their BBC Status as ‘cache’ when using social media.
        In addition, there is too much politically-correct and poor quality programming. Not just Doctor WHO which is a prime example of a much loved programme, now ruined forever for many people, but the forthcoming so-called “historical” series with a Black Anne Boleyn.

  73. Douglas Murray in the Spekkie:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-questions-no-one-wants-to-ask-about-the-reading-terror-attack

    The questions no one wants to ask about the Reading terror attack | The Spectator

    There is an awful lot going on at the moment. So much, indeed, that stories that might once have detained us now rush past unobserved and all but un-commented upon. One such story is the conviction and sentencing of Khairi Saadallah for the murders of James Furlong, David Wails and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett on 20 June last year.

    Some readers may recall that I wrote about that attack here at the time. The UK had just been through its first lockdown, so it was understandable if people were somewhat preoccupied. Yet still it seemed significant that three men, all identified by the UK media as ‘members of the LGBTQ community’, should have been stabbed to death while enjoying the sun in a park in Reading one un-locked down evening.

    It seemed even more significant that the attacker should have been identified as a migrant from Libya who had been on the radar of the security services. And still more so that the attacker was reported to have been shouting something while carrying out his lethal attack. In general, when the media says that an assailant might have been shouting something but don’t tell you what it is, you can take a wild guess.

    Sure enough, at the trial it transpired that the words Saadallah had been shouting were not ‘unintelligible’ as was reported at any early stage, but were the words ‘Allahu Akbar’ or ‘Allah is greatest’. During the attack, Saadallah also shouted in Arabic ‘Allah accept my Jihad’, which it’s true might baffle your average passer-by. But the rest of the details of the attack that came out in the trial weren’t baffling at all.

    During his time in Libya, Saadallah had been involved in military training and in fighting, which is perhaps how he was able to dispatch his victims so efficiently on a warm summer night on another continent.

    There’s a fair amount to chew on — but, still, nobody seems to want to do the chewing

    In remarks to the police after the attack, Saadallah boasted about the ‘jihad’ that he had just done in Reading, described the victims as ‘wrong-uns who deserved it’, boasted that he would go to paradise for what he had done and further boasted of his killing of one of the men, ‘I stabbed him in the neck and it came out the back of his head’. Speaking to the police Saadallah said, ‘I did it to the right people.’

    Last June, I said that if Saadallah had any history of mental illness then it would doubtless be looked into. As it happens, experts at his trial testified that in fact Saadallah had learned how to ‘feign’ mental illness, but that he was not mentally ill during the attack and knew that his premeditated attack ‘was wrong’.

    I also wrote last year that I was confident that if there was any drug-use angle then that would be looked into. Sure enough, experts at Saadallah’s trial said that short-lived earlier problems in his life were to be attributable to drug use, but that this was not a factor in the 2020 killings.

    Finally, I stated with confidence that if the whole ‘Allahu Akbar’/asylum-seeker-from-Libya aspects of Saadallah were proved then they would not be looked into at all.

    In response to this, the legacy gay press (such as it is) did a ‘how very dare you’. The fact that only a couple of days after the Reading attack Pink News had little coverage of the Reading attacks but three great big stories about J.K. Rowling’s rampant ‘transphobia’ seemed typical. The silence from other usual loud organs was equally striking. But perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising. If the gay press finds the killing of gay men by a Libyan asylum seeker too awkward to write about it isn’t clear how keen the rest of the media is going to be to write up the story.

    1. I expect Douglas Murray will be cancelled soon. Can’t have that sort of thinking. It might stir up a mob who march or try to on Westminster.

    2. Even DM fails to get to the meat of the matter,the 16 odd previous convictions some violent,the failed asylum attempts,the frustrated deportation orders caused by the usual Libtard lawyers,,,,,,,,,,,,,
      The whole failed immigration/asylum system is drenched in these men’s blood !!

      1. Those whose deportation is blocked by lawyers should only be released into the welfare and responsibility of the lawyers who kept them here. I am sure those lawyers with young children can make use of the asylum seekers as LIVE-IN baby sitters.

    3. Yet this was the worst-ever example of “gay bashing” and the gay press don’t give a shit? Like feminists who reckon subservience to Islamists is OK.
      What’s wrong with these people? Are they all 5th columnists to the cause they pretend to serve?

      1. And vegetarians, vegans and animal rights’ activists are not prepared to protest about halal slaughter.

    5. Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, did part of his ‘Podcast of the Lotus Eaters’ today on that subject. I could not believe how this guy got through the system to be in a position to do what he did.

      https://youtu.be/mbImxFl6cpg

      2. He can buy the DT but leave him where he is, he one of the rare Canadian columnists who does not follow the Trudeau line.

        1. I don’t mind him staying where he is … as long as he invites me over for a stay, including high tea and a party with the luscious Barbara and himself.

    2. You gotta love Trump Jnr’s tweet further down 19hrs ago) about the Ugandan election and tw@tter’s response.

        2. That is a lovely comfortable image Bill.

          My bit of luxury is probably the way Richard makes his special scrambled egg with Burford brown eggs , plonked on homemade bread toasted , with the addition of a sweet tomato.. snuffling spaniels by my side where they will wait for a little corner each of buttered toast .

      2. Faggots and mash with onion gravy but i can’t find any hampers that do that for some weird reason.

        1. I would rather eat creamed trip and onions and mash, than faggots .. first time and last time I had them and ate them politely was when Moh’s mum served them up for lunch when I first visited before we were married .

          I felt like running a mile .. SHE was TESTING me !

          3. I once ordered tongue in the Daquise restaurant in South Kensington. This was a renowned Polish restaurant where the men were giant strong men from the circus and the women petite high wire trapeze artists.

            The tongue was a cow’s tongue with the skin still on it. I left it after eating the vegetables and stabilised my digestion with a bottle of Zywiecz beer and a sweet pastry.

          4. My dad‘s favourite meal was tripe and onions. My mum made it with milk. I would run away and climb the apple tree (where I had interwoven branches to form a seat) while that performance was going on.

          8. Would i be right in assuming that your husband does like them?

            I remember them as comfort nursery food. I still like them….better than that Scottish monstrosity Haggis.

            Too difficult to catch and they are always full of lead shot !

          10. Crikey. I remember Brains’ faggots. My mum bought them in Greigs in the centre of Bath from memory. We ate them with peas and boiled potatoes with Bisto gravy.

          11. I can’t eat either of those. Disgusting to me. My Swiss missus tried to get me to eat all sorts of nasty stuff in Geneva and at her parents in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

      3. That’s actually really difficult!
        Prosecco; limoncello; good pork pie; Branston pickle; fresh, ripe, raspberries & gooseberries; runner beans; good IPA (Nøgne Ø is the best I know); pizza from La Tavola Calda in Siracusa, Sicily; Sicilian espresso coffee; ripe pawpaw & lime; fresh dates & French coffee…

        Stand by for edits as new things occur.

          1. Even I’m not fat enough for that!
            But choosing is difficult. Unfortunately, the pizza man was sick & died, so that’s out. Most things aren’t particularly expensive, just stuff I’d delight in.

          1. Go by way of Sicily… just round the corner from Malta. Assuming flying is allowed, of course.

        1. I haven’t had bread and dripping for many years. Talk about bring back memories of long ago when I was a child.

          1. I save the dripping every time I roast some pork, just to spread on bread with a bit of salt. Glorious!

          2. When we lived in Bavaria, some of the local restaurants would bring a small tub of pork dripping with the bread, complete with crunchy bits! Lovely, but no good for the waistline!!

          4. Von Shoenburg editor of Bild has been positively gushing about us Brits recently. I could get to like the Germans too.

          6. The dripping will not affect your waistline: the body disposes of it very quickly. It is the bread that is the culprit. Its carbs are stored as fat in the liver!

        1. I thought you would have mentioned fish.

          We ate halibut a few years ago .. so memorable and delicious .. that was luxury . Fresh crab sandwich, potted shrimps, marinaded herring , sardines on toast , perfect , and bloater paste on toast , tasty .

          1. Unfortunately, I think bloater paste has gone by the board (along with anchovy paste), Belle. Sardines on homemade toast is wonderful. I shudder at marinaded herring though. I enjoy bass and haddock, but one of my favourites is a fillet of mackerel as quickly as you can get it off the hook and into a frying pan with melted butter.

        1. Nah. Standard sweet Lancashire Eccles Cake recipe with a filling of currants, butter and light brown sugar. Nothing else.

      3. I am seriously impressed after my culinary efforts that burned the cake. MOH said “why did you do it like that?” as if I’d done it on purpose!

  77. The Saxon Queen has just found out that someone she thought of as a very close friend
    as been treating her as a spot of amusement for over 2 years, she is really someone hurt
    but her fault for being so gullible. I’m sure i shall get over it in time but I shan’t forget.

      1. An online friend, maybe I should’ve known better, feel a little bit of a fool but I shall get over it ,
        My best friend ( in actual life ) always said never trust anyone unless you can see their face .
        Thank you.

      1. Ethel hasn’t said whether it’s a Nottler or not. Could be someone who has nothing to do with this site.

    4. I’m sorry, Æthel. There are some mean bastards about, taking advantage of good-natured folk.

    6. So sorry about that, Aethel. It rather dents your self-confidence and trust doesn’t it? Think of all the lovely friends you have (not just on here!) and your family, and rise above it!

  78. I’ve just had a conversation on the phone with a person in France from whom I have bought a little item. He cannot find any delivery service, postal service or courier, including La Poste the French government owned postal service, that will undertake to deliver to the UK.
    He lives in Lorraine and will pop over into Germany and send it from his uncle’s in Germany.
    Meanwhile our smug, uncomprehending politicians and viciously treacherous civil servants seem to be washing their hands of anything to do with Brexit.

    1. I believe that DHL will, but they are the only one that I’ve heard of that did.
      That was a few days ago.

      1. It was M. Albert Roux. R.I.P. Who said when he first came here he had to import almost everything as the food was such poor quality. Towards his end he said he only imported olive oil and one or two other items as we had come so far.

        We make great cheeses too. Google them.

    2. I bought a del when I was in Mongolia and wore it to the last evening’s celebration before we flew out (by Aeroflot to Moscow).

      1. I’ve sent it to a Lady who used to manage a cat rescue centre in London. She re-housed a couple of Sociopathic cats that couldn’t possibly be re-homed. One is ‘Luther” automatic. It doesn’t need a red laser dot or indeed any provocation before attacking anyone foolish enough to enter its abode….

  86. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfxvWFWU2w&list=WL&index=41

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ciBmAIttI&t=51s

    These are the deplorable ‘standards’ that now exist in the Derbyshire Constabulary, a once-proud force in which I was proud to serve giving “valued and meritorious service”.

    I wore a traditional black uniform with blue shirt. I was clean shaven and my boots were shiny. On my initial training course, at Pannal Ash police training centre near Harrogate, I was ordered to attend the barbers’ shop three times in the first week in order to get a regulation short-back-and-sides. Discipline was first and foremost.

    Compare that with the unshaven trainee lout in the first video. I have gardening clothes that are smarter than that excuse for a ‘uniform’. The two men featured at 2:10 in the video are: the Indian (Labour) police and crime commissioner for the county; and an assistant chief constable who also looks like he hails from the sub-continent.

    As for the graduate in the second video, who was selected to ‘lead’ and gain rapid promotion. If she had been around among the old-school, bobbies of my time, she would not have survived. The local toe-rags would have eaten her for breakfast.

    Watching these travesties makes me realise how lucky I was to serve when I did and how fortunate I am to be retired.

    2. That second one reminds me of the character Yaz from the awful current incarnation of Doctor WHO. Talk about the worst police officer.

  87. On this grey and miserable day I have had a rather pleasant thought, 49 years ago today to the day is when I first met a young girl who was destined to become Mrs VVOF.
    I had the opportunity to escort home the “to be” Mrs VVOF which I duly did, one of my better decisions.

      1. Thanks Obs, yes I am rather pleased I remembered that, now if I could only remember her name! 😂😂

    2. The first time I met MOH sticks in my mind too. Never mind, only 27 minutes to go to wine o’clock.

    3. I bought HG a pair of earrings and a 50th anniversary card and gave them to her on the 50th anniversary of the day we met.

      She couldn’t work out why I had given her a very expensive Christmas present a few days early and why it was such a strange Christmas card. (We met at a service of nine lessons and carols.)

      Needless to say she hasn’t lived it down!

      1. Just imagine if the roles were reversed, all those forgetful men jokes being trotted out.

  91. Where is the spiritual leadership that we once used to have in Britain , not one Protestant or RC leader has provided comforting solace to those who have lost family in the daily death toll that shocks the country everyday .

    Figures today .

    UK records 1,564 more deaths – the highest total since pandemic began – but cases drop AGAIN with 47,525 new infections and hospital admissions ease in London as Boris hails signs lockdown IS working but refuses to rule out tougher rules.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9141769/Matt-Hancock-warns-impossible-say-lockdown-end.html?ito=push-notification&ci=68098&si=7271111

    1. I think part of the answer is to be found on the Obits Page.

      The Very Reverend Christopher Campling, liberal-minded Dean of Ripon – obituary
      As chairman of the Open Synod Group he promoted the ordination of women to the priesthood and the remarriage in church of divorcees

      The Very Reverend Christopher Campling, who has died aged 95, was Dean of Ripon from 1984 to 1995 and before that spent eight years as Archdeacon of Dudley and Director of Religious Education in the diocese of Worcester.

      He was ideally suited to the leadership of one of the smaller cathedrals with strong local responsibilities, since he had also spent eight years as Vicar of Pershore Abbey and earlier, as a public school chaplain, had learned how to relate effectively to a demanding community.

      He belonged to the liberal wing of his church, was keen on ecumenism and strongly supported both the ordination of women to the priesthood and the re-marriage in church of divorcees.

      During the late 1980s he was chairman of the Open Synod Group, which sought to promote these and other liberal causes in the General Synod, but its influence was limited.

      Christopher Russell Campling was born in Australia on July 4 1925, his English father being the principal of an Anglican theological college in Brisbane. He was sent to England to be educated at Lancing College and the family soon followed, with his father becoming Rector of Charlton in South London.

      This coincided with the wartime bombing, and it was while young Christopher was on holiday from Lancing that the Rectory was hit. He always kept the sofa which had protected him from harm.

      He went straight from school into the Royal Navy, trained as a coder and, after a spell in Alexandria on a ship of the Royal Greek Navy, was commissioned as a cipher officer. He then served on the battleships Nelson and Howe in the Far East as the war was ending, and on demobilisation went to St Edmund’s Hall, Oxford to read Theology.

      Having completed his training for Holy Orders at Cuddesdon Theological College, Campling became a curate at Basingstoke in 1951. This was in the early days of the creation of what became a new town and towards the end of his time there he was responsible for a wooden church on one of the new estates.

      He then spent the years 1955-60 as chaplain, then as housemaster at King’s School, Ely, combining these posts with that of a Minor Canon of Ely Cathedral. Thus began a long involvement in religious education.

      In 1960 he returned to Lancing as chaplain, also to teach Divinity and some English, and it was while he was there that he wrote The Way, The Truth, and The Life, a four-volume Divinity course for use in schools.

      But all ended sadly in 1967 when a conflict arose between himself and a much older, longer-serving, conservative assistant chaplain, the Reverend Henry Thorold, over proposals to change the form of Sunday morning worship in the school chapel. The Headmaster solved the problem by asking both to leave.

      Campling then became Vicar of Pershore, Pinvin, Wick and Birlingham in Worcestershire. He much enjoyed the life of the Abbey, devised an extensive festival to celebrate its millennium in 1972 and initiated educational work among all ages in the four parishes. A small, little-used church in Pershore was turned into a parish centre. He became Rural Dean in 1970 and two years later an Honorary Canon of Worcester Cathedral.

      In 1976 he was appointed Archdeacon of Dudley and Director of Religious Education for Worcester diocese, as well as Vicar of Dodderhill in Droitwich. This was a heavy combination of tasks, since the uniting of parishes required much time and diplomacy and the church schools became involved in a controversial re-organisation.

      As the 1980s advanced Campling’s health began to show signs of stress, and when he was appointed Dean of Ripon in 1984 his previous responsibilities were divided. He served on the General Synod from its inauguration in 1970 until 1995 and was chairman of the Council for the Care of Churches from 1988 to 1994.

      Much of his time at Ripon was, of necessity, devoted to the cathedral building itself. Some years of neglect required the raising of £1.5 million for essential restoration work. Opportunity was taken to refurbish the library, install a treasury and a new, westward-facing altar, with appropriate choir stalls.

      Campling, himself a keen musician and a modest composer, ensured that the standard of music was raised to a high level, and the appointment of a full-time Chapter Clerk brought efficiency to the administration.

      Besides his religious education books, he compiled two volumes of readings to supplement the appointed Lessons at church services and wrote his memoirs, I was Glad (2005).

      He married, in 1953, Juliet Hughes, with whom he had two daughters and a son.

      The Very Reverend Christopher Campling, born July 4 1925, died December 9 2020
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/01/12/reverend-christopher-campling-liberal-minded-dean-ripon-obituary

      Robert Spowart
      13 Jan 2021 2:01PM
      A lovely person by all accounts, but sadly the arm of the Church of England he supported has alienated many of the rank & file churchgoers and is continuing to steer the Church towards oblivion.

      1. Oblivion is the right word , Bob.

        Do I remember that the Arch bish of Cantab is on sabbatical leave ?

        I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but I fear the soul of Britain has been damaged irrepairably.

        What are we to do .

        1. For a start ignore anything and everything the Archbishop Welby has to say. Sabbatical indeed.

          Find solace in good deeds if you can’t find a Church.

        2. I’m not religious, Belle, but there are still good people in the world, but I wouldn’t be looking to any religious leaders in these current politicised times if I was. Stay strong and try to look on the bright side. I know you barely drink alcohol, but a glass, or two, can help.

          1. I believe, but I am not ott. I need to believe , but now have may questions as I have got older .

            Thanks Mm, good words of advice . We have to stay strong , but we are all so helpless.

          2. Keep up a spiritual life by praying, T_B. It will give you strength (one of my favourite prayers – the Almighty must be sick of my asking for strength!).

        3. Given the current restrictions, what on Earth will he be doing with his time? Reminds me of that episode (I got the wntire box set for Christmas) of Yes, Prime Minister about them choosing the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Shows how long ago things had started to go downhill.

    3. I always wonder how many died OF COVID rather than WITH it, especially at this time of year.

          1. 15% I believe and that’s without adjusting for the first two months of 2020 when we had no Covvid deaths.

          2. No Covid deaths? Were the politicians and statisticians on holiday? Ah, you mean before they admitted it was here and people died from “‘flu”.

          3. There were no excess deaths in the first two months of the year and no evidence that any Covid deaths that did occur weren’t more than small numbers, hence my point that you shouldn’t include Jan and Feb 2020 in the comparison. The real impact will be seen when we reach end of Feb and then compare the last 12 months’ deaths to the 5-year average.

    4. Welby has shown no leadership at all. I don’t know about the others, or local clergy – I gave up going to church years ago.

    5. The country is no longer Christian in any sense. The BBC and other entertainment channels have no standards and no moral values. They only wish to avoid offending BAMEs. That is not a moral approach merely expediency and wokeness.
      Some long time ago I read one of the back page of the magazine articles written by guest writers, probably in a travel magazine. The writer was Richard Branson and he is an atheist. His view of life and his advice to others is to grab what you can when you can, as when you are dead it is all over.
      This view may be very prevalent amongst the chatterati and the politicos. It would certainly explain their desperate attempts to preserve a few human lives at the expense of everything, literally everything, worthwhile in our society.

  93. Hats off to ASDA.
    Granddaughter needed photos to apply for her provisional driving licence.
    Happy Snaps in High Street are closed. Ditto photo booths in most supermarkets. Main railway station has a booth, but the place is pretty dire and was very much a second choice. ASDA has a spanking new booth in the main shop next to the tills.
    Job done without freezing or hassle.

    1. Our large ASDA store has a pharmacy and will dispense pet prescriptions. Hector needs Gabapentin and coedine and as we get the scrip from our daughter we only pay the dispensing fee of about £6, saving us about £50 on on-line cost!

      1. It ‘as to be ASDA.

        Don’t worry. I’m sure the government will be putting a stop to it soon.

        1. Haha Phizz! Nikeliar doesn’t believe in the Scots paying for scrips! The English peasants have to cough up for us!

      2. Do they? I’ve just picked up a prescription for Spartie.
        I’ll check on their website and see how much they charge for Apoquel.

    2. Apparently we no longer need driving licences. Our original paper ones were sent 3 months ago (in an official DVLA addressed envelop) to comply with the law re our change of address. Vehicle reg documents with new address returned a month ago. No sign of our driving licences – I’m so glad I photocopied them before posting!

      1. They are sent to my friend Mr Rashid – who sells them to chaps in rubber boats arriving in Kent. His team is always on the beach there, giving Border Farce a hand.

      2. Three months? It’s over a year since I applied, but my licence had lapsed (I never had a renewal notice), and, as a diabetic on insulin, my licence has to be renewed every three years. There was a backlog long before Covid, but – as far as I’m aware – DVLA are not dealing with applications which involve paper health questionnaires. I’ll be submitting another shortly, since my address, GP, and consultants have all changed. I won’t hold my breath. Happily, I’m across the road from a station, Uber serves this area, and there’s even an occasional bus…

  94. Pointless has just put up a list of six German occupations for the contestants to choose,
    Strangely though Poland, France and Holland aren’t on the list

  97. Latest deaths reported today 1564 in the UK . While the majority of the latest fatalities reported took place during the past week some date back to the 8 May 2020. Ahead of the update to the UK-wide figures today NHS England confirmed that another 1012 people who tested positive for Covid-19 had died in hospital. Patients were aged between 39 and 102. and all except 46 [aged 39 to 98] had known underlying health conditions. The dates of death ranged from 8 May 2020 to 12 January with the majority being on or after 6 January.

      1. Certainly NOT 1564. Where’s the other 388 I wonder? Maybe clyde got mixed up with the figures per country.

      3. Thanks Cochrane – I’ve gone back to the drawing board and copied the Sky report verbatim. I will now put on the Dunce’s cap and stand in a corner.

  100. Saxon Queen with longbow and axe ( in handbag) as washed her face with cold water
    and shall start dinner soon . Its chicken in a wild mushroom cream tarragon sauce
    (assume cream is in the fridge ) served with mange tout and baby rosemary roasted new potatoes . Its very cold again today so she will have another hot chocolate before bedtime.

      1. Unless you have a particular dislike of saffron, (or probably none in the house), you are missing out. It makes a surprisingly big difference to the flavour.
        Black pudding excellent, real venison sausages or wild boar sausages, even better.

          1. It always fascinates me how people can and cannot taste things that one person finds strong and another can’t tell.
            I know many people who hate celery, one of the blandest of tastes for me, but they can taste it strongly in any dish where it features.

            I know a chef who is a “super-taster”. He can replicate any dish after just a few small samples to taste. Very impressive.

            Presumably, as a dentist, you have an explanation?

          3. It’s weird the way celery affects people who can taste it.

            Presumably similar to the smell of asparagus in urine for some people.

          4. Ah! Asparagus wee is something else! I really like asparagus but it was years before I realised what that odd smell was later!

          6. I won’t either. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told “you won’t taste it at all”, only to find that the whole dish tastes of nothing else. But it is very clear that it is hugely variable from one person to another.

            Forty-something years ago when we used a cyanide reagent in the lab we tried the smell test… about one-third of the class simply couldn’t detect the classic bitter-almond aroma.

            We had to have the anti-cyanide emetic in the lab, and very prominently labelled, before we were allowed to use it. And extra technicians on guard.

          7. I think if it’s something you really dislike, you can always tell it’s there. And if you are actually allergic, then that’s a good thing. I don’t think my son is allergic to celery but he has always had that dislike.

            My mother was allergic to mushrooms, so I didn’t taste one till I was a teenager.

          8. I’d be happy never to taste another. Does nothing for me at all, even though I’m not made ill by them.

          9. The only things to which I’m actually allergic (as far as I know) are scallops – which is sad because I’m very partial to most things fishy. But at least they are relatively easy to avoid.

            I can’t cope with slimy things like pearl barley and tapioca because of the texture. After a mouthful or two I simply start to heave and if bullied into continuing (it only happened once, in primary school) I will regurgitate. After that I was permitted to leave the barley in the bottom of the bowl when broth was served although even the liquid was a struggle.

            Celery is one of very few foods which I decline on the basis of dislike, but it’s a very strong dislike. I think you are probably right that flavours/aromas which we perceive as unpleasant stand out. Although there are other foods which I enjoy and also find very detectable.

          10. I like scallops, but my husband’s not fond of fishy things so we seldom have them.

            Tapioca and sago pudding were hated things from 1950s school lunches. I wouldn’t dream of cooking those now. Salad cream is nasty – mayonnaise is good.

            A school dinner lady tried to make me have salad cream, even though I’d taken a packed lunch – she put some on my biscuit. Funny how one can remember little things like that from a lifetime ago.

          11. I thought scallops were absolutely delicious… but they make me horribly ill so I just have to do without.

            I think you once mentioned that you were not fond of vinegar (that may be an error on my part) and I find salad cream rather too vinegary for my taste. I do like mayonnaise – though I’m afraid I’m not into making my own.

            I think we do tend to remember things, good or bad, which make an impact. Being forced to eat things which make you feel sick makes a lot of impact.

          13. I’m not a big fan of pickles either, though I do like a bit of vinegar on my chips, just to cut through the fattiness. Not that I eat chips more than half a dozen times a year – usually when a work day has ended up being ridiculously long and I’ve picked them up on the way home.

          14. I can’t remember the last time we had chips from the chip shop – might have been the time years ago when we had a power cut that lasted two or three days. Usually we have French fries done in the oven, or no chips at all.

          15. I haven’t cooked chips (by any method) for years. There are some baby roesti in my freezer, but no fries.

          20. No, I don’t. I don’t like celery, but I like celeriac, although they are fundamentally the same.

            Took me a while to detect the smell of pot, but once I had “registered” it, I could smell it everywhere.

          21. I am very fond of celeriac remoulade.

            We eat a lot of it during the summer.
            Celeriac is a very good addition to roasted winter root vegetables and the mix freezes exceptionally well.

            I am the same with “pot”. I hate the smell, but can smell it on people as they walk past.

      1. I’m not surprised.

        What did you expect, I’m ex 4th Queen’s Own Hussars, sang froid…

  102. That’s me for this dreary day – but with a dramatic end. An hour ago, Gus was sick. Then 30 minutes later, was sick again – and brought up the 8 inch long plastic label they put round his neck for identification before operating…..

    Rang vet – very concerned. Much advice and offers of help if anything else happens; assured us that it had NEVER happened before; she is arranging a SAGE meeting tomorrow with all staff etc etc….. (which being translated meant: “Please don’t sue us”….)

    Gus perfectly OK – I think. I couldn’t believe the size of the thing. It was all scrunched up and I thought at first it was a sweet paper…. Ah me – cats, eh?

    A demain

    2. I nearly cooked the paper and plastic bit that went into the black pot with tonight’s venison stew – spotted it just in time as it shrivelled up and I was able to fish it out.

      Glad Gus is ok now he’s brought it up.

    3. What a shock, and I expect the panic button flashed a bit ..

      8 inch long plastic label , that is huge , so did he eat that at home or when he was recovering ?

      Glad all is well now.

      1. It must have been while he was still at the vets. There was no sign of it when we picked them up.

        1. Hope the vet is suitably embarrassed.

          PS are you sure he’s a cat and not a miniature goat in disguise?

        2. You’d think they would have noticed that only one cat was labelled? Or did they only label one of them?

    1. Hey Polly,

      Your messages with links are getting caught by the spam filter that is active.

      You might need to follow up with a plea to have the message approved.

  104. Anyway, we’ve all been having a good laugh about the parliamentary report into the QinetiQ 31% sell off fiasco in 2002 where a witness testified…….

    ”Their Christmases all came together”……….

    The report had a whole range of conclusions, except the obvious one………….

    That Tony Blair, John Major and George Soros probably pulled off a $100,000,000 plus fraud !

      1. I’m guessing that that is in relation to your post above mine.

        For some reason very few links are showing up on my screen today.

      1. I said to some people on another forum (not normally covering politics, but occasionally discussing political issues) wanting Trump’s head and celebrating Biden’s win: Be careful what you wish for – you may get it!

        I’m still amazed at how many people have had the wool pulled over their eyes on so many issues over the last 5 years by the MSM. We’ll be lucky to survive 2021 as a planet – not because of global warming, or COVID itself, but of the damage done by the COVID response, what it will likely lead to and the takeover by the Establishment/wealthy elites, especially in the US.

        I still think that China will try something really big (invasion of Taiwan, maybe more) within the next year or two. And the Biden, or more likely Harris-Pelosi administration will do nothing about it, at least until it’s too late to matter. Then God help us all.

        1. Your experience mirrors my own.

          Otherwise normal people we know are fixated on a supposedly wicked Trump and failing to recognise the electoral fraud and evil machinations of the Swamp. I just nod to them and walk away.

          A bit like on this site actually. There are severaI posters on this site whose comments I just note and I now decline to get involved with them.

          4. I hope Duncan does not leave. He is one of the most astute and educated men and towers over those who have conspired to unsettle him.

            I may have missed the threads and presumably the itchy fingered ‘Mod’ involved has deleted Duncan’s comments.

            If matters continue where folk such as Duncan (and me) are alienated by this abuse then others will leave too. A number of us are thinking of throwing in the towel.

          5. For a moment Cori I read that as throwing in the Trowel… something that would leave us well and truly grouted!

          11. It’s the name of a herd of Cows in Edenbridge Kent: Named for the instruction the farmer, who when as a lad, used to receive from his mother who wrote at the end of letters to him whilst he was at boarding school:” KYBO”

            Keep Your Bowels Open….

          24. If you had really upset him, he would not see this of yours, ‘coz he’d have blocked you.

          26. Sei nicht so albern. Das war ein Volltreffer 1en. Grades. Einige, mit denen ich Kontakt habe, stimmen zu.

          28. I did and thank you profusely for it.

            I made a list of several who expressed the wish to ban me having been egged on by the suspect ‘Mod’ who had been tagging me, looking for an argument, for some time. I now blank them without wishing to block them.

            I agree with Duncan Mac’s comment at the time that the chap should resign from being a Moderator. He is opinionated and biased against anyone expressing support for President Trump amongst manifest other faults.

          29. Thankyou – I meant you no malice.

            Many of us are suffering from stress and other problems and this forum provides a sounding post. There was a discussion later that day about depression and many of us had had times when we felt that kind of despair.

            Richard is obviously not a Trump fan – but he does make people’s hackles rise. But as mods we are all from time to time accused of being biased. I try not to let it bother me.

      1. And they said it would never happen. Greta must be perplexed (or should that be Multiplexed?)

          1. Do keep up.

            Macron Brandy.

            Sour with a bitter aftertaste.
            The only good bit is that the nose is Frexit.

      1. It’s just a bit of pathetic Swedish wet snow, Paul.

        It’s now covered the grarse and the parth; it made me larf so I’m now going to have a barth.

  110. Evening, all. Whoever wrote about being forced to give up on the jab probably had a lucky escape – unless s/he caught pneumonia from hanging around in the cold, of course. Forgive me if I’m grouchy this evening, I’ve been having problems with GORD and it was particularly troublesome last night, despite not having had any alcohol or spicy food. I’d just got off to sleep, only to be woken at 04.00 by MOH complaining that the TV wasn’t working. Who watches TV at four in the morning? There was absolutely no point in trying to ignore the problem and go back to sleep though. I spent nearly half an hour sorting a problem that could have been solved in five minutes had MOH let me switch the Humax off and on again 🙁 I get very crabby when my sleep is disturbed.

    1. Sorry Conway – could you translate for a hungry engineer who has yet to master internet acronymns yet: GORD? I’m guessing that MOH is my other half.

      Ironically, the swine flu jab from the pandemic that never was from 2010/11 gave a lot of NHS workers who got the jab narcalepsy.

      1. Sorry – Gastro-Oesophogeal-Reflux-Disease, which is a medical, rather than an Internet abbreviation. It’s usually kept under control by the tablets I take, but last night/early this morning, they didn’t seem to be working, probably because of stress. Yes, MOH = My Other Half. I know about the swine ‘flu jab debacle, hence I am very reluctant to be used as an experimental pin cushion.

        1. Reflux – my sympathies.
          Mine goes with stress. Hope you get some relaxation, Conners. A lousy night’s sleep doesn’t help anything.

          4. Thank you. I am like a bear with a sore head (sorry, Grizz!) if I have a broken night’s sleep. Usually, it’s the dog waking me up, but he only wants me to let him out and let him back in again – I can do that on autopilot and go straight back to sleep 🙂

          5. We fitted a cat cow flap. Now I’m only woken by it going bang every so often as a cat passes through.
            (BIG cats…)

          6. Trouble is, the dog would never find it in the dark – his eyesight is dimming due to age – and his sense of direction isn’t terribly good either. Sometimes, if he’s been slow in coming back to his bed and I’ve switched the light off, I have to switch it back on again because he’s blundering round the room like a herd of elephants, trying to find where his bed is.

          9. Ours wait for their staff to open the door, but eventually the poor service exasperates them enough to push through the flap themselves.

      2. About 6,000,000 people in the UK were given Pandemrix. Roughly 100 (mostly children) suffered narcolepsy as a result. That’s less than 0.002% or fewer than 2 in 100,000.

  111. BTW – I forgot to mention, and credit to ‘As any fule kno’ on the comments section of the DT Letters Page for first spotting, as I did this morning, the Groundhog Day letter from Dr Dominic Barker. The content seemed, well…very familiar to that published on the Letters Page just a few days ago.

    Hmmm. Could this be the DT being found out for compiling their own letters from staffers or pretending the entire readership are in the Orange Man Bad camp by recycling someone’s letter under another name? The comments from readers are certainly not. I will check tomorrow (my tablet being able to view the articles because, ironically, it is slow at loading, whereas my PC is very quick and the ESC method never works) to see if their ‘mistake’ has been ‘rectified’.

  112. Life can sometimes be a Bitch…

    A Bitcoin owner has revealed he only has two guesses left to unlock more than $220m in cryptocurrency after eight failed attempts to access his fortune.

    Stefan Thomas, a German-born computer programmer based in San Francisco, was given 7,002 Bitcoins more than ten years ago as a reward for recording a video explaining how the cryptocurrency works.

    At the time, the Bitcoins were worth between $2 to $6 each.

    With the price of Bitcoin rising rapidly during the coronavirus pandemic, those Bitcoins are now worth around $34,000 each, putting the value of the total fortune at more than $220 million.

    Unfortunately for Mr Thomas, he kept the password to accessing the digital wallet holding the Bitcoin on a piece of paper – which he lost years ago.

    The password is needed to unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds Mr Thomas’ Bitcoin fortune.

    The IronKey allows users 10 guesses before it encrypts its contents forever.

    Mr Thomas said he has already tried eight passwords he uses without success.

    4. If he would show me the eight passwords he uses, I will help him to clear out his bitcoins and everything else.

    5. Back in the real world, what he’s actually lost is a maximum of ~ $42,000 which is what he might have been able to get if they had paid him in real money at the time.

      Sorry, Mr Thomas, but I don’t have all that much sympathy.

      1. That’s why my passwords are triple backed up, not in The Cloud, in password protected files and written in my personal encryption system which is in my head.

        2. I work on the basis, probably wrong, but I hope not, that I’m not really worth a lot of time when there are richer people, like you, who are a better bet for a jackpot.

          };-O

  114. 12 February 2021 Chinese New Year

    The year of the Crow

    C Covid
    R Restrictions
    O Obsession
    W Wokeism

  115. On a different note. Many businesses have seen their customers vanish, for example, businesses that supply restaurants and cafes as these have been closed for months. Some of these businesses are fragile without big cash reserves to pay, rent, rates and utilities bills when there are no customers and no money coming in.
    One such supplier is Whitaker’s Chocolates. We came across them last year as Iceland were selling some their chocolate creams. We now buy direct. Their chocolate is wonderful. Much of their business has been in supplying chocolates to businesses such as hotels and restaurants – where they give you a couple of chocolates with the bill, or leave a chocolate on your pillow. That has all vanished. They are based in Yorkshire unlike say Terry’s (now based in Warsaw).
    Give them a try. whitakerschocolates.com You know you want to – and you will be supporting a UK business.

      2. Chocolate , I have been searching the house for chocolate… Why has everyone suddenly mentioned it .

        I just need a little chunk of tasty chocolate , plain or milk , anything .. I have looked and can’t find any in the usual hiding places. Perhaps I have eaten it!

          4. I usually make sure we have a couple of the Lindt ones or the Morrisons ‘best’ ones are nice, too.

          7. We were given some salted caramel chocolates as a Christmas present. MOH didn’t like them and I didn’t care for them much, either.

        3. Could this be called an emergency, can you nip down to the corner shop?

          Check his nibs golf bag, there could well be an emergency snack in there.

          1. We’ve still got a village shop, but it closes at 21:00. Most villages no longer have shops.

          2. Hey Jennifer,

            Could you back of on downvoting the complainers, they are really upset and causing many problems.

            They are not big enough to ignore downvotes, best if you ignore them.

            Please.

        4. I don’t eat chocolate for months and months, but when I need it I really do need it! And it is usually in the darkest days and evenings of January when I get the craving.

        5. Strange that, I don’t eat a lot of chocolate but I have just had a bar of ‘Milka’ fourré créme confiseur. Very nice.

          1. I haven’t touched chocolate for years Ped, but recently I have enjoyed a decent brand of chocolate , and have broken off a little sliver , and allowed it to melt on the roof of my mouth , just savouring it .

            I think it is the need for comfort food , and pleasant delights . Chilled fruit jelly is another delicious treat, and Hagen Das icecream !

          2. Comfort food – exactly. I am living in the back of beyond, not even any traffic here – unless they are lost – no one to talk to, all by myself (I do miss my choirs too) no one to walk with… you get the idea. A little treat goes a long way.

          4. I prefer the version from the musical. This fella looks like he has problems keeping his teeth in. Nice tune though.

            I have looked at several versions and can’t find the one I prefer. Not the film, not Fats Waller, not Eartha Kitt. Keep looking.

          7. I’d like to think we are your social circle, Ped, and help to break the monotony a little.

        6. We seldom run out of chocolate! – Here – have some of mine!

          I have to make sure we have some as my OH is a chocoholic. We usually have just one square of dark chocolate each.

    2. One of the family, James, played a couple of games of cricket for England and was England’s chairman of selectors from 2013 to 2018. The factory used to be in Skipton. Don’t know where it is now. The contact address is still in Skipton.

    3. I was at school with the daughter of Whittaker’s chocolates.
      Big, red-haired lass.
      I’m still in love with her.
      Excellent chocolates! Particularly the chocolate ginger.

      2. Which school was that? My mother worked for them for many years and so did I for a short while whilst waiting to join the army. Not in the chocolate factory though. Only one ‘t’ in Whitaker, by the way.

      1. They produce very delectable, but expensive, chocolate.

        The end of globalisation won’t be anywhere near until the people of this country can afford to buy the goods produced here.

        I note that all the usual suspects are still blaming the unions for the death of manufacturing… and completely ignoring the fact that most of it died of the severe mismanagement which was the direct cause of the union activity.

      2. You’re all (mostly) still voting for it.

        It was pigging obvious to anyone with more than 3 brain cells what would happen when you allow free trade with countries that have very low labour costs and mimic your own industry.

        It’s a global village now, there will only ever be further integration. It starts with federal superstates morphing out of free trade areas, global wage homogenisation, global living standards homogenisation then the superstates will morph into each other…..

        Thank god by then even my as yet unborn grandchildren will be dead.

          2. Venezuela is warmer. Trudeau is trying to take us down the same political path but is opposed to globally warm route.

      1. Woe betide any black dying for what ever reason in police custody in the UK, the whole country will go kaboosh if BLM and the other antiwhite groups have their way.

    1. Well, I am surprised! After all, they were advertising on TV for weeks saying X number of days until Brexit and urging people to be Brexit ready.

      1. Yes, but how do you get ready? The processes had not changed for thirty years. It was the government that made the rules and it was up to them to make them available and clear.
        As the “deal” was signed off with six hours do go, how do you train people in that time?

        1. The entire (stage-)management of Brexit was an utter disaster. MPs regularly voted against their constituents’ wishes. Our negotiating teams were pathetic. Parliament showed the EU that we wouldn’t just walk away putting us over a barrel. The level of competency amongst politicians and their advisers has reached an all-time low.

        2. ‘Government’ and ‘clear’ in the same sentence – chapeau! The whole sorry saga has been a long essay in mismanagement. It’s almost as though it’s designed not to work properly …

    2. I guess it means that those in charge in Scotland hadn’t checked everything all the way through but then they only had a year to do it – or DEMAND clarity from the Government.

      1. No, they had six hours to do it. It was all in the air until the “deal” was done. People need to be trained, and shown and nurse-maided. I’ve managed big changes to processes and a lot of training is required to give staff confidence in what they are doing, and to make sure that bye get it right.
        Have a look at what eBay is saying about VAT. It is confused and wrong. And they are not a small business like a fisherman with a boat.

      1. Shit. I am a night bird and still awake. Another large cognac should see me in bed though.

        As an Architect I became used to doing my best stuff at night. No phones ringing, no assistants demanding attention and no effing meetings to attend.

        2. I am having to make do with half a pint of Merlo topped up with some port to ’round it out’. Sleep well.

          1. Do you put port in the merlot to make it taste stronger or wash the merlot down with a glass of port?

          2. I put some port into the Merlo to give it a little more body. Highly recommended. There is nothing wrong with the Merlo but if you have a red wine that is a little ‘sour’ you can make it drinkable with a dash of port.

        4. Sorry to have left you in the lurch, corim. I, too, am a night bird, but I was rather short on sleep yesterday. It did me no good going to bed, anyway; I didn’t fall asleep until 04.00 and the dog woke me up at 05.00! I did get back to sleep afterwards, though.

  123. DT Story

    Fishing minister too ‘busy’ to read fisheries Brexit deal when it landed over Christmas
    Victoria Prentis was organising a nativity trail on Christmas Eve when the Brexit deal was agreed.

    Add to this the shambles with Northern Ireland!

    Well done Barnier, Merkel and Macron – I suppose you have to hand it to the EU – they outwitted and shafted Britain completely as they always planned to do.

    Boris Johnson outdoes all his predecessors as the most incompetent and naive prime minister ever to occupy Downing Street. Had he never noticed that the EU was out to screw him and to screw Britain? How could he have been so confused, gullible and weak?

    1. “Fishing minister, Victoria Prentis. too ‘busy’ to read fisheries Brexit deal when it landed over Christmas.

      That’s disgraceful; she’s unfit for purpose.

      2. Who the h*ll do these MPs think they are? If I had been “too busy” to do some important work when I was employed, I would have been (quite rightly) sacked. VP is paid a large amount to do her job. She should be recalled. Where are her constituents, what are they doing?

    2. 328431+up ticks,
      DW,
      Nice one, does not seem half as bad putting it down as confusion, gullibility
      and weakness, when it is in reality full blown treachery.
      Party before Country has never been shown so clearly.

    3. I don’t like what we’ve got. We have a fishing minister? I’m surprised. Let’s just thank our lucky stars Theresa May’s WA didn’t see the light of day.

      2. So why was he so shy of letting anyone see it what was in it? And why was he so terrified of being interviewed by Andrew Neil?

      3. About the only difference is the Irish backstop was replaced by a de facto customs border down the middle of the Irish Sea. 95% or more of the text of the Boris agreement is exactly the same as the May agreement.

    4. Ken Clarke didn’t read the Maastricht agreement before signing.
      I even bought a copy, so was better informed than the responsible minister.

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