Wednesday 14 December: Strikers undermine their cause by punishing the hard-pressed public

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

788 thoughts on “Wednesday 14 December: Strikers undermine their cause by punishing the hard-pressed public”

      1. It’s the easiest recipe in the world actually! Soak beans, boil up in water, add extra ingredients and simmer some more.
        If I cook the beans on the top of the woodstove it costs me nothing extra for energy, and I have estimated that the cost of the cooked product is about half what I would pay in the shops. Regular skinflint, that’s me.
        Just added organic pork sausages to the mixture which hikes the price up a bit though!

          1. Black pepper. I copied the ingredients list from the fantastically expensive organic beans in a glass jar that I bought, that tasted fabulous.

        2. Ignore my previous post which assumed you were using a can-opener, bb2. But glad to hear you have added pork sausages – a good substitute for bacon.

    3. Good morning, blackbox2. By “making” I assume you mean using the can-opener. If so, why not fry a few rashers of bacon. Bacon and beans can be a real heart-warmer in this cold weather.

  5. Nicked from FB

    One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you; I’m doing community service this week.’ The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a ‘thank you’ card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

    Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you; I’m doing community service this week.’ The cop was happy and left the shop. The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a ‘thank you’ card and a dozen doughnuts waiting for him at his door.

    Then Kier Starmer came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you. I’m doing community service this week.’ Starmer was very happy and left the shop. The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a two dozen Labour MPs lined up waiting for a free haircut.

    2. A very good one, Bob3, but – as regularly occurs with this new Disqus site, I am unable to join the 11 upvotes and make it 12. Aaargh!!!

  6. While the West suffers store thefts, the EU is shoplifting Russia . 14 December 2022.

    IN the US, the systematic plundering of shops by criminal gangs has reached catastrophic proportions and is known as ORC – Organised Retail Crime.

    As author Michael Snyder explains in this blog, the gigantic theft spree is now a multi-million-dollar crisis, forcing many businesses to ramp up prices or simply close down.

    He says: ‘The thin veneer of civilisation that we all depend on is rapidly disappearing, and if we stay on this path our society will soon be unrecognisable.’

    I didn’t know about the extent of this and since I’m an avid reader of the Digital News I assume that, like so much else, no one wanted me to know. One of the ironies of living in the midst of the most advanced communications system in Human History is that, unless you are online and contribute to Blogs like this, you will probably know less about what’s going on in the real world than a Daily Telegraph reader in the 1930s! They did after all report Kristallnacht!

    The real story of the Twenty First Century is censorship. This isn’t just the elimination of sensitive items (sensitive to the Elites that is) from public view, but the invention of entirely false narratives (Climate Change, Covid, Net Zero etc.) to mesmerise and distract the populations of the West. There is also the dissemination of propaganda through the advertising media; the oppression of those having different views and of course the creation of vast armies of politically controlled trolls who seek to undermine and distort the legitimate views of individuals on the internet.

    This is the Soviet Union without the gulags!

    So far!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/while-the-west-suffers-store-thefts-the-eu-is-shoplifting-russia/

  7. Good Moaning.
    Bucket of white wash time or a long over-due fight back?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/13/palace-race-row-accuser-ngozi-fulanis-charity-draws-watchdogs/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    “Palace race row accuser Ngozi Fulani’s charity draws watchdog’s attention after allegations

    Sistah Space, founded by guest who spoke out at Queen Consort’s event, has had its finances questioned at length on social media

    Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter13 December 2022 • 8:00pm

    The Charity Commission is examining a series of allegations over the running of Sistah Space, the organisation whose founder was at the centre of the Buckingham Palace race row.

    In a statement the watchdog said it was “assessing material” posted on social media questioning the charity’s finances and organisation.

    The Greater London Assembly’s finance chief has also been asked to ensure that grants to Sistah Space “have been used as intended”.

    The charity has come under public scrutiny after its founder, Ngozi Fulani, was repeatedly asked where she was “really” from at a palace event hosted by the Queen Consort. Her “interrogator” Lady Susan Hussey, 83, the late Queen Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting and a godmother to Prince William, was forced to step aside from all royal duties after years of public service.

    The backlash against Ms Fulani – including vitriolic abuse on social media – prompted the charity to announce last week it had temporarily ceased working over safety fears for its staff and clients.

    A lengthy analysis of Sistah Space’s operations, posted on Twitter by an anonymous user, has led to the charity watchdog beginning a preliminary examination.

    The social media posts – more than 200 in total – have been widely circulated in a sign that the Buckingham Palace race row, which was deeply embarrassing to the Royal household, continues to attract huge interest.

    In the posts, allegations are made concerning the running of Sistah Space, a domestic violence charity for black women and their families. The charity was formed in 2015, a year after the murder of a black woman and her daughter by an abusive ex-partner amid criticism of police for their “inaction” in response to earlier threats. The charity provides advice and advocacy to women and girls from the African and Afro-Caribbean communities.

    The charity’s latest yearly accounts to March 31 2021 show it received a little over £357,000 in grants, project funding and donations, an increase from £50,000 in 2018-19.

    Funding has come from a variety of sources including the Greater London Assembly (GLA), the Department for Culture, Media, Digital and Sport, and Comic Relief, which gave Sistah Space £60,000 to improve its website and online support. A Charity Commission spokesman said: “We are assessing material posted on social media about the charity Sistah Space to determine whether it raises matters that fall within the Charity Commission’s remit.”

    The watchdog stressed it had not opened any regulatory compliance case or statutory inquiry and declined to comment further.

    GLA officer asked to investigate charity’s grants

    The chairman of the Greater London Assembly’s audit panel has also requested that finance chiefs reexamine grants given to the charity in 2019 and 2020.

    Neil Garratt, a Conservative assembly member, said: “The allegations made about Sistah Space’s use of GLA grants remain unproven at this stage; however it is right that credible concerns be investigated to ensure public money is spent properly.

    “I have asked the chief finance officer to look into this issue and report back as soon as possible.”

    The first GLA grant was awarded in 2019, giving Sistah Space £12,000 to run a poll.

    Sistah Space, based in Hackney in east London, admits in its most recent accounts it has had “issues” in managing its growth since it was formally registered as a charity in 2018. Its most recent accounts were posted 69 days late.

    In its annual report, the charity said: “The sudden increase meant we had to develop a new way of working to ensure we were current with financial regulations and reporting… This financial year 2021 has proved to be our most challenging but equally our most successful year.”

    The charity said its accounts officer was “off for a very long time” with Covid and “it was difficult trying to find a replacement”. The replacement of the finance officer, said the charity, “caused a massive disruption in the organisation’s ability to record accounts in a timely manner”.

    In its accounts, the charity said: “We have now engaged an independent accounting firm and are confident that any issues are a thing of the past.”

    The Twitter post also highlighted a dispute between Sistah Space and Hackney Council, in which the local authority had tried to evict the charity from its temporary headquarters in a building owned by the local authority.

    In October 2020, the council and Sistah Space reached a mediated agreement in which the local authority agreed to cover Sistah Space’s “removal costs” and in return the charity agreed to vacate the premises in central Hackney by January 20221. The charity has since found a new headquarters.

    A spokesman for the charity said: “Sistah Space has not been approached by the Charity Commission. What we do know is they are assessing information posted on social media, part of their normal procedure, but haven’t opened an official investigation, however should they contact us we will of course cooperate fully.” “

    1. How is an openly racist organisation allowed under equality laws to carry on advertising its service (funded by public money) exclusively to people from one race?

        1. It shouldn’t!
          I have never met a genuine abuse victim who would refuse help to another abuse victim based on skin colour.

    2. ‘Moaning, Annie. I am delighted to see that the spotlight is now being focussed on Fullanus, and I look forward to the Charidee Commission finding sufficient to give her plenty of sleepless nights – just as she has for Lady Hussey. I trust that the biter is about to be bit!

      1. They won’t. Some years ago I was involved in uncovering a fraud case where trustees were colluding with two staff members to divert donated funds and the CC did nothing but a pro bond solicitor found plenty of evidence and eventually the funds were recovered. The staff and trustees were replaced.

    3. “Funding has come from a variety of sources including the Greater London
      Assembly (GLA), the Department for Culture, Media, Digital and Sport,
      and Comic Relief, which gave Sistah Space £60,000 to improve its website
      and online support      “

      1. I raised my eyebrow at that too. That’s a lot of money to improve a website. I’m not sure i’m happy with my tax dollars being spent on this or my GLA contributions either.

      2. As the long twitter thread pointed out, the ‘charity’s’ website is based on a commercial website creator and costs about £4000 to set up. The only other ‘improvement’ appears to be the purchase of a number of Apple Mac books.

        It will be interesting to hear if any receipts were kept by the ‘in-house’ accountants.

    4. This ‘report’ reads as a summation of the Twitter threads exposing the questionable financial accounting with a little twist of #ScumMedia speculation.

      Investigate reporters have been replaced with churnalists and hacktivists.

      Thank goodness we have the likes of this site to cut through the weeds.

  8. Good morning all. Temperature still in the region of -4°C with calm air. Too dark to see what the cloud cover is like, but the Met Office site suggests we’re due some sunshine!

      1. Here too! Saw several of the Geminids meteor shower! Lovely start to this blooming freezing day!

  9. Good morning all.
    In the supermarket fruit & veg section there was a very dark skinned young lady weighing all the fresh ginger root, and she sweetly apologised (with an educated accent) for taking so long. Seems that Africans love a bit of ginger.

      1. I go through a lot of it ar tgus time of year. Ginger tea by the gallon, and you’ve reminded me to oik out the frozen half of a delicious fish curry I made the other day! Thanks. 🙂

      1. Little bit of snow overnight, cold northerly wind, woodburner primed ready to light and heating on. Defrosting some bread for the birds

  11. Yo all.

    We have to go to the toothwright by 1000, involving a road trip of 15 miles or so.

    First though, I have to make the White car Blue

  13. Rishi Sunak vows to stop illegal migrants who ‘cheat’ to reach UK. 14 December 2022.

    Writing in The Telegraph, Rishi Sunak promised new laws early in the new year that will make it “unambiguously clear” that anyone who enters the UK illegally will have no right to remain here.

    The Prime Minister’s comments come after he unveiled a five-point plan to tackle the Channel migrant crisis, which included a new deal to fast-track deportations of Albanian migrants, a pledge to “abolish” a backlog of 92,601 asylum claims by the end of next year and a new small boats command to stem the surge.

    “Enough is enough, we must stop the boats. And we will,” Mr Sunak writes in the article.

    And if you believe any of this you need your head examining!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/12/13/rishi-sunak-vows-stop-illegal-migrants-who-cheat-reach-uk/

    3. Reading about the latest “tragedy in the channel”, I can’t help wondering if the people smugglers organise it deliberately in the hope that even more resources will be used to ensure safe crossings, because they know that the bleeding hearts will ensure an outcry in the Press and greater support for all those poor asylum seekers.

      1. Tragedy? The Navy ran out of ammunition sinking the boats and machine-gunning those swimming around the wreckage, you mean?

      2. It’s certainly strange that when the dinghy started deflating they managed to contact British lifeboats.

        Good that they were well prepared enough to have a mobile ‘phone with the correct number.

    4. Yet again I can’t increase your upvote from 7 to 8. So I’m telling you on this post that I agree.

      1. Morning Elsie. I see the problem. I’ve found a way around it by winding it up nearer the top of the page and then ticking the upper half of the lozenge

    5. I suspect that when Fishi says he will “abolish the backlog” he actually means grant an amnesty??

      1. Coincidentally you will have seen a letter today that says almost exactly the same. Did Matt have a sneak preview??

  15. SIR – On Monday, in the wilds of Tunbridge Wells, all bin collections were cancelled because of the bad weather
    (no sign of any council gritting lorries, either).

    Our Resolute Refuse Disposal Team have just emptied our ‘Purple Bin’

    OAT ( Outside Air Temperature ) -3 degrees Centigrade

        1. Sounds jolly.
          The closest town to Firstborn has 4 different bins… paper/cardboard, tins/bottles, rubbish, food. All with different coloured lids. Very jolly, but my God, how much space they take! And the entire roadside seems to be taken up on whatever collection day it is.
          Had to buy Mother a new wheely bin a year or so ago, some bastard stole the old one. There’s a whole host of colours for body & lid that you can get – I would have liked to get a yellow one and paint it with black stripes (Mother’s nickname is Bee – she has a lot of bee-themed stuff).

    3. ‘Morning, Tryers. The final sentence of the letter reads:

      “I did receive my Amazon delivery, though.”

      That is surely the clincher? In my experience TWBC is no different from, say, East Sussex County Council just over the boundary, when they failed miserably yet again to grit the A26 that (usually) connects T Wells and Crowborough, as a result of which the ensuing chaos caused immense trouble. Public bodies who have the luxury of a guaranteed revenue are very good at finding ways of NOT doing things.

      1. You’ll be pleased to hear that Wealden Council are putting all their efforts into designing a new website.

        Gritting? Why bother.

  17. SIR – I have some sympathy with the public-sector workers and their pay demands. Both of my children work in this sector.

    However, no one appears to mention the fact that these workers enjoy very generous pensions, holidays, job security and sickness benefits. Most people in the private sector can only dream of similar perks. The exceptionally well-paid trade union bosses (in some cases earning more than the Prime Minister) should consider this. Of course, they won’t.

    Richard Swannack
    Gamston, Nottinghamshire

    Just one of mostly critical letters in today’s DT. I must say, it cheered me up no end to hear that commie slimeball Lynch losing it during interviews yesterday. Given the shrinking RMT majority in favour of rejection I trust that the end is nigh.

    2. My last post to upvote you from 8 to 9. Henceforth I will not do any more upvotes. I will make an exception for NoToNanny’s jokes (Disqus permitting.)

      1. Never mind, Elsie. Whilst I appreciate your support, I hope to survive without it. Besides, it’s the thought that counts! Have you thought of asking the question on Discuss Disqus?

  18. SIR – Tim Wright (Letters, December 13) describes the fox terrier’s bed-warming qualities. When I was little, very cold nights were referred to as “two-dog nights”. But be warned: a five-stone Labrador is fine until it turns over and takes the duvet with it.

    Jennifer Hammond
    Broadstairs, Kent

    I know it used to be said that some typical DT-reading Lab owners preferred to sleep with their dogs rather that their wives, but personally the thought of taking our previous Lab to bed and suffering bad breath and endless farting wouldn’t be much fun (for the dog, that is).

    1. As a teenager, I once let our lab up into my bedroom on a cild night when I was alone in the houae and there had been a spate of thefts nearby.

      Within minutes she had farted to the point where I marched her downstairs and opened the baxk door to her doghouse in the garage, stark naked and beyond caring about porential axe murderers.

      Amazing things, labrador farts!

      1. Years and years ago I was seeing this lady whose pet hate was farting. I was round her house one evening and after a meal settled on the settee with her. Her golden Labrador was lying on the rug in front of us. As a prolific wind generator I had to let one go – silently! Her nose twitched a bit and she said something about the dog. A few minutes later I had to ease another one out, nothing was said. a few minutes went by and I had to let another go, this time it was a choker. She suddenly leaped up grabbed the dog and threw it out into the garden where it sat with a question mark above its head. I was wetting myself laughing and got shouted at “It’s NOT funny” she said which made me worse. I never did admit to it

    2. This is ridiculous. Once again I can’t change your upvotes from 11 to 12. What’s the point of even having upvotes then, Disqus.

    3. Junior has Mongo sleep on him. The great brute sits under a blanket on the quilt with Junior under that. The Warqueen has Ozzie sleep beside her – he’s not allowed on the bed (Mongo is, but he doesn’t know that) . Even the ball of electrical razor wire that is Beast has started to sleep indoors and not kill people.

      1. When I first got Oscar I made it clear to him (despite his habit of biting if he was made to do things he didn’t agree with) that the bed was MY territory, so he compromised by lying next to it on the long stool I use to climb into bed (I sleep in a four-poster and it’s HIGH!). That made getting out of bed over him even more perilous, especially for my naked feet! I now use my tack box (it doubles as a mounting block) and he’s happy and settled enough to sleep in one of the dog beds – usually Kadi’s.

  19. ‘Morning All

    Modern Life

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3150e957d629628f3ab1a31bb68c8b64d383a4765ed13885f7fe886e15bf817e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/377868273f0f8568ef00e1bb75529286ffe23125ea1b374e5ab1a00527218935.png

    https://i.redd.it/lri07n9upj5a1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1206c616a9b49ee8c4b0d10e034c82fd501bbcac30db1ae5aa6b85fb97b2e79.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9313836752569148cec8ed4414a7d89e8b0f9d5eb36b30e8fe35af940eed520c.jpg

    Finally……….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4830243d7762ffb61552ad945910b0e88dea1036a40d151cf7c9d56466f4f16.jpg

      1. It’s keeping me awake. In fact, I know it’s a rant but I am genuinely worried about it. There is no hope. Nothing to look forward to. An unelected stooge PM imposed by globalists, dedicated to enforcing the decline of the nation. Crippling taxation. Soaring inflation (see previous). Debt soaring upward, the economy being pummelled by a lazy, wasteful, useless state.

        Goods 20% more expensive, simple stuff like loo roll that used to be 54 rolls for £25 is now 45 for £30. We get through a bog roll a day and then some. Food is horrifically expensive. Dentists bills soaring. And then we get the price of labour rigged, creating unemployment. Some people get given a 3 bedroom house and then I’m forced to pay for it, worse, if I want to move, I’m taxed to do so while they get it for free.

        Everything is back to front. So many things could be solved through political will but the utter scum destroying this country in Hunt and Sunak – neither elected – are dead set on forcing the country to ruin, then the IMF, then forcing us back in to the EU. That is their sole plan and goal.

        It’s wrong. Everything is wrong. Things are getting worse, and worse more rapidly. There’s no future except enforced poverty. This socialist spite infests everything and yet would be so easy to undo. In a big building round, some 20 + storey elegant Charles would approve building block some twonkish green haired waster demands it be carbon neutral – made out of cheese, I suppose. It made me angry enough to reply to her, saying that this would create thousands of real jobs. Her attitude destroyed them. All she did was get louder and louder, ever more shrill thinking volume would win her argument until I suggested she leave. Such creatures are everywhere ruining everything.

        If 2022 was bad, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Comically, in a truly funny way, the squealing Left on comment boards continue to blame ‘da torwees’, never realising this is the utopia they so desperately demand. It’s sickening.

        1. “the utter scum destroying this country in Hunt and Sunak”

          To be fair, they are just the latest in a long line of evil scum.

  20. My emphasis

    Royal Marines have taken part in ‘high-risk’ covert operations in Ukraine, general reveals for first time
    Lt. Gen. Robert Magowan said marines went to Ukraine before and after invasion
    He said they operated in a ‘hugely sensitive environment with high level of risk’
    Royal Navy spokesperson told MailOnline marines did not serve any combat function

    Prior to the Russian invasion on February 24, British defence minister Ben Wallace said that a small contingent of military personnel had been to Ukraine to deliver weapons and training as the threat of war increased.
    And it was later reported that British military personnel, including SAS operators, had been sent to deliver weapons systems training to Ukrainian servicemen once the war had begun.
    But the MoD at the time insisted no British servicemen were involved in combat operations, stating: ‘British military personnel have been deployed to support discussions around the significant training being offered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the UK.
    They serve no combat function.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11534165/Royal-Marines-taken-high-risk-covert-operations-Ukraine-general-reveals.html

    I may be splitting hairs here, but why isn’t weapons systems and other training not a combat operation?

    2. Quite so, Sos. In the circumstances I would be most surprised if we hadn’t sent some specialist troops out there before it all kicked off.

    3. When you call it something else, you don’t have the responsibility and consequences of the other.

      It is deceit, plain and simple.

    4. No British serviceman or woman should be in the Ukraine in any capacity. It’s pushing it for Ukrainian troops to be trained by British personnel outside Ukraine, but inside Ukraine it’s a complete no-no.

    5. RAF intelligence gathering aircraft have been operating for the Ukes since the start. Its quite clear that the UK is an active participant in the war. I believe that Vlad is being very constrained.

  21. SIR – With regard to the latest tax rises, energy price rises and general rises in the cost of living – not to mention the Government’s inability to do anything about them – is anyone sparing a thought for the fate of the small businesses that are the backbone of wealth creation in this country?

    I recently visited North Yorkshire to purchase handmade pieces from a family of potters in the heart of the Dales. This wonderful little shop, which normally has an abundance of choice, appeared to be far less well-stocked than usual.

    One of the owners apologised for the lack of choice. She said the pottery was full of items made and waiting to be fired, but that this process – which had previously cost about £30 – had risen to £160 per firing. She also told us that many of the area’s small businesses were having to close down because of the huge rise in running costs.

    This country is being slowly asphyxiated by sheer lack of insight, incompetence and ignorance about what makes it unique.

    Michele Burnley
    Wakefield, West Yorkshire

    We all feel for you, Ms Burnley, as hitherto successful small businesses will be driven to the wall as a result of our pitiful and hugely out of touch
    politicians. Considering that the Tories have been in office for 12 years it doesn’t bode well for their continued existence! And Sir Kneel’s rabble could be even worse for small businesses – if that’s possible.

    1. It’s deliberate. The FT ran an article a few weeks ago about how businesses are relocating to countries with cheaper energy, including the USA.
      Start a war, tell the dummies to stop buying cheap oil and gas, blow up a pipeline to convince the recalcitrant ones, get lots of businesses moving to your country. What a win, eh?

      1. US energy is very expensive – not as expensive as ours, but under BIdet is going that way. Canada is not far behind. Comically the best place is India or China.

        We’re compromising and consolidating what we have. The apprentice fellow has done a great job of moving 40 odd virtual machines into a more ‘bursty’ fashion to make better use of resources while one of our big boxes is decommissioned but think about it: that’s new parts not bought. New processors, new hardware, new disks.

        As a company we’re leaving, people relocating. Money is both not going into the country through sales and it is leaving it physically. This government is… I despair. It’s like a torturer trying to get ever more tax out of granite, convinced there’s more in there only to complain when the stone cracks apart but too damned stupid to realise the damage it is doing.

    2. No! No no no and no! Government’s inability my foot. They are *CAUSED* by the government.

      They did not need to hike taxes, they chose to.
      They did not need to make energy expensive, they want to – to force down use, CfDs were deployed to rig the market.
      Food production is scuppered by high taxes, endless regulation, idiotic decisions and green obsession.

      There is no weird force field preventing the state resolving the problems. It is the instigator, the source, the problem in and of itself!

  22. SIR – Port (Letters, December 12) is best drunk at 11am on a hunting morning. Not only does it warm the cockles, but it also – unlike the accompanying sausage roll – reduces the size of hedges.

    Charlie Bladonnt
    Cattistock, Dorset

    Lol!

    2. The Warqueen has her eye on a stallion – not the human sort, the horse type. Has visited the stables 4 times this month. This bloody thing should have horns and fangs. It bites, kicks and rears even when it’s supposedly calm.

      She’s going to take it out on the Boxing Day rag hunt. Either it will come back with a black eye, or she won’t come back.

      On the upside, she does look very very good in jodhpurs.

      3. Why does she want a stallion? Is she going to breed from her mare? Otherwise, stallions are best left at stud where they’ve got a job to do (yes, I know there have been excellent show-jumping stallions, but they were exceptional and exceptionally well-behaved). Time was you had to have a licence to own a stallion (and it had to be good quality).

    1. Morning, Delboy.
      Me neither. The typeface is too shouty and icons are massive – for the hard of understanding, I expect.

      1. I don’t like that the icons, posters’ names and all the little bits and pieces seem to be overshadowing the text now. It spoils the flow of conversation and puts too much emphasis on personalities.
        Not an improvement. User interfaces can be hard to get right.

        1. Another Schlimmbesserung – the improvement that makes things worse.
          There’s a lot of it about.

          1. Developers always feel a need to meddle, as if not doing something is bad. Same with everything. You make shoes. That shoe worked. Why did you change it?

      2. What’s that deary? You don’t like bicorns?

        I’ve reduced the zoom to 90% (I think). It makes it easier to read.

  24. SIR – As a diversity and inclusion consultant, I might be expected to concur fully with the decision by Civil Service managers to refer to Christmas parties as “festive celebrations” and to ban alcohol being served at them (report, December 10). In fact, the opposite is true.

    When employers start saying that you can’t call a Christmas party a Christmas party, it creates division. Christmas is an important and meaningful part of British culture, but we can still celebrate it in an inclusive way. Providing non-alcoholic options for people who do not wish to drink would be an example.

    Friends and associates who don’t celebrate Christmas can still enjoy a work party without worrying what it is called – or that they will be shunned because they won’t join in.

    It is sensible to think inclusively, but employers shouldn’t fear using the C-word or start introducing blanket bans. Instead, consider other ways to make your celebrations attractive, such as introducing better timings of events (for those who have caring responsibilities), choosing a safe location (so that colleagues don’t feel vulnerable walking home alone), introducing a variety of food and drink choices (so that everyone can enjoy them, regardless of diet) and choosing activities that don’t prohibit those with disabilities from joining in.

    Sometimes, by trying to cater to the needs of everybody, employers can trip themselves up and end up pleasing nobody. However, a few sensible and inclusive nudges can ensure that a good time is had by all.

    Toby Mildon
    Manchester

    Mr Mildon has convinced me that he and his ‘diversity’ colleagues should all be gone. Any decent management would consider his little list of suggestions in the normal course of events, surely?

    1. Where do you find a decent manager? That they want to ban the use of the word “Christmas” proves the point.

      1. One of our chaps – our legal person – is a Sikh. Last year he was Father Christmas for the local hospice. His little boy said ‘My Dad’s Santa!’ His teenage son, some 15 years of awkward, gangly spotty youth was positively on fire with embarrassment at the Ho ho hos bellowing from his over acting Dad.

        As always, it doesn’t matter what bloody colour you are or what religion you follow. It’s who the bleeping hell you are inside. That’s what matters. That’s what’s only *ever* mattered.

        1. Two Talksport presenters, Ian Abrahams and Andy Jacobs were eagerly discussing their Christmas dinner plans on radio. That’s proper integration.

      2. One of our chaps – our legal person – is a Sikh. Last year he was Father Christmas for the local hospice. His little boy said ‘My Dad’s Santa!’ His teenage son, some 15 years of awkward, gangly spotty youth was positively on fire with embarrassment at the Ho ho hos bellowing from his over acting Dad.

        As always, it doesn’t matter what bloody colour you are or what religion you follow. It’s who the bleeping hell you are inside. That’s what matters. That’s what’s only *ever* mattered.

    2. What he describes was formerly known as ‘good manners’.
      But that doesn’t earn £squillions.

    3. Mr Mildon, your very job title enforces division. Your sort created this schism. Your lot force this bitter, miserable, empty language on us. I don’t want an inclusive nudge one way or another. I want to be left a-sodding-lone by the likes of you trying to tell me how to think, feel and behave.

    4. You can bet your life they won’t find euphemisms for Eid or Ramadan in a bid to be inclusive

    5. You can bet your life they won’t find euphemisms for Eid or Ramadan in a bid to be inclusive

    2. A football fan who sent England manager Gareth Southgate a ‘disgraceful, unacceptable, racist rant’ has narrowly avoided being sent to prison.

      Are we really sending people to prison for what they say and believe?

      Of course we are!

    3. The language is appalling, the tone I agree with. It is not racist to disapprove of the egotism and arrogance displayed by the football team to another country over their anti homosexual laws. It is not racist to ask why the best person wasn’t selected (although, at that level, considering the size of a goal you’d really wonder how they missed). As for all lives matter or none do – spot on. The racism of the looting mob was evident from the outset.

      The police should have – in a rational world – said ‘Mr Southgate, the language is risqué, but you’re not a sodding choir boy. You can reply, accept it, or ignore it. Either way, we’re going to your canteen for a decent hot dinner on you.

    4. ‘Morning, Sos. I have just had the misfortune to hear Bilko on Toady suggesting that some football competition or other will bring about a new world order.

      Pillock.

    5. I see that the judge awarded the “unemployed maintenance contractor” 200 hours of unpaid work. Will the judge provide the work for this unemployed man and, if so, will he be able to work from home? Lol.

  26. SIR – Andrew Orlowski (“BBC acts as a gatekeeper to hold back British talent”, Business, December 11) misinterprets the director-general’s speech on the future of broadcasting – which has nothing to do with leaving critics behind, but everything to do with leaving no one behind.

    He says on-demand platforms produce some excellent British content – this is true – but it doesn’t show they can do the job of public service broadcasters, which are more than on-demand films and television. For example, SAS Rogue Heroes had an audience of 6.5 million in its first seven days, compared with three million for episode one of The Crown; 32.5 million people came to the BBC for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II; and in the first week of the war in Ukraine, an estimated 280 million people from the UK and around the world came to the BBC’s online news. Nearly 90 per cent of adults and 81 per cent of those between the ages of 16 and 34 come to the BBC every week. We support more than 50,000 jobs, work with 14,000 suppliers and invest millions in Britain’s creative industries. All this, as Mr Orlowski says, when we’ve had “a 30 per cent real-terms cut in income”.

    The BBC is not perfect. Nor are we complacent. We welcome the debate on future funding, but we must look at what kind of BBC we want at home and abroad. The director-general set out choices to consider.

    Clare Sumner
    Director, Policy, BBC
    London W1

    * * *

    I am happy to let this BTL poster respond to the letter:

    Don Coyote 7 HRS AGO

    The BBC is a seditious organisation, trying to destroy everything that was once great about Britain.

    They have effortlessly brought down two Prime Ministers and, for reasons that I still cannot attribute to anything other than gutlessness, our London political class drop any policy the BBC disagrees with.

    These people are more powerful than our government.

    They are hugely divisive, campaigning to break up our country, taking the sides of hard left nationalists in Northern Ireland and Scotland. They seek to atomise us into the smallest possible ethnic group so they can create grievance across the board, which pours from their airwaves every hour of every day.

    I firmly believe the decline of the United Kingdom is in part because of, and best exemplified by, the Britain-hating BBC.

    Shut it down. Defunding it is far too weak a response to the danger they present.

      2. This post to signify that I would upvote you from 8 to 9, but Disqus won’t allow me to.

        1. Thank you Elsie! I’m also having that problem. I think it’s the old Disqus problem when you used to land on someone’s profile while trying to upvote, but now it just does nothing.
          I think if you aim your upvote slightly under the voting icon, it can be successful. But mostly I just give up, which is a shame.

          1. I find, when that happens, that if I press reply and the press reply again it kinda resets and normal functions return

        2. I suspect the problem may be linked to your choice of browser? I had real problems posting images to disqus [it kept saying I needed to log in to do so, when I was already logged in] but swapping browsers solved it, and it also made upticks easier. Just a thought!!

        3. I suspect the problem may be linked to your choice of browser? I had real problems posting images to disqus [it kept saying I needed to log in to do so, when I was already logged in] but swapping browsers solved it, and it also made upticks easier. Just a thought!!

    2. Ms Sumner happily ignores that much of her ‘programming’ is repeats. Or the collapse of viewership of shows like Doctor Who – forced into a wokist dungeon of bitter Left wingery.

      People watched the rogue heroes thing because the BBC has never before talked about what our military do. It actively dislikes the very idea of the nation state.

      People do view your news, but you count folk like me, who are reading your tripe and finding the other side of the argument elsewhere.

      There must be folk at the BBC who despair at the deliberate Left wing bigotry, the obsession with green but much like someone calling out that we need energy to progress and buildings cannot be carbon sodding neutral, and if we didn’t build it, the whole world would collapse into mud huts they’re speaking into a hurricane of the insane.

    3. The number of viewers visiting the BBC merely reflects the BBC’s monopolistic position among broadcasters. As for the pernicious telly tax, I have not paid since 2005.

    1. Seems people are gullible. Most want to give their children a nice Christmas, but you can do that by telling them Santa doesn’t exist and that everything costs too much, so they can’t have whatever it was they wanted, but here’s a 2nd hand book.

      Hang on. That might not be quite right.

  28. OT. Cat people will identify with our local problem. Over Monday night, while out, Pickles damaged one of his feet. A pad was torn. Yesterday we treated it. He was a bit under the weather and stayed asleep virtually all day. We also kept him in over night (with his brother for company) – the first time for over a year. This morning he is desperate to go out. We have decided that another 24 hours with the paw being kept clean will ensure rapid recovery.

    Pickles is NOT a happy cat. Sits by the doors – bangs against my chair to remind me that he wants to go out.

    I just wish one could explain that it is all in his best interests…..

    2. ‘Morning, Bill. Let’s hope he doesn’t find the number for Catline…if so you are done for!

    3. Explain to him that if you let him out and then can’t find him, you would have to resort to Cat-calling, which would land you in jail for up to two years, which in turn would mean nothing to eat at meal-times. Lol.

  29. Good morning, everyone. Looking forward to Christmas Eve when the daylight hours will ever-so-slowly start to get longer once more. I feel like a hibernating bear who just wants to sleep for England!

      2. Morning K and all.

        Here in Bath the nights start drawing out tomorrow 15th December, albeit only by one second but it’s a start!!!

          1. Fair point – to clarify Sunset will be one second later tomorrow than today and a whole three seconds later on the 22nd!

          2. Yes, but you have to consider later sunrises as well when calculating the length of daylight hours.

          3. I was trying to look on the brightside …..(but it appears you beat me to it Elsie!!! ). :-))

      3. By a quirk of the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit, whilst the hours of daylight do begin to increase after the Solstice, the actual times of sunrise and sunset both get marginally later for several days afterwards before sunrise eventually starts to get earlier.

          4. Actually, just arranged to celebrate with friends in Glastonbury – so anything’s possible!! 🤣🤣😉

  30. Well, now it’s daylight, it’s a lovely sunny morning with a clear sky and the waning moon still high in the sky.

    1. Morning Bob – Light dusting of snow in North Yorkshire. Are your ex colleagues plying the British railways in a nice blue train which I see now rather than the old yellow one? Blue seems to be a favourite colour these days.

        1. Morning T-B – Blue is a favourite colour for some Scots like myself but I am a true Unionist.

  32. 368972+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 14 December: Strikers undermine their cause by punishing the hard-pressed public

    Wednesday 14 December: Strikers undermine their cause by punishing the hard-pressed public whilst
    strengthening the politico’ repress,replace, RESET campaign tenfold.

    I truly believe that a general strike was required but NOT at the time chosen by the political overseers as has happened, that in one foul swoop has alienated the peoples against……the peoples.

    There is a civil war of attrition been in place these past 30 plus years and we ( the herd ) are taking currently, serious hits.

    The ruling politico’s / pharmaceutical elites are covering this with death, injury / compensation.

    This will probably satisfy the “party first” brigade
    but for those with a full issue of grey matter a very in depth, deep down inquiry must be the order of the day.

  33. Thousands without electricity after Shetland power cut. 14 December 2022.

    Snow and ice warnings continue for Britons on Wednesday after thousands were left without power in freezing conditions.

    The Met Office has extended a yellow warning for snow and ice covering northern Scotland and north east England until noon on Friday.

    It comes as the Scottish Government declared a major incident for Shetland on Tuesday after thousands of homes were left without power amid plummeting temperatures.

    Ahhh! The wonders of Climate Change? But changing to what?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/14/shetland-power-cut-major-incident-declared-thousands-without/

    1. Returning to its usual randomness. Our little island is situated so that it catches all the random marginal turbulence that it can.
      Minned -4.6C here at 3.31 am.
      Loads more hoar frost and my lips are cracking…

  34. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, back to normal today:

    Not Cancer

    Dear Sir,
    The results from the laboratory confirm that the red ring around your penis was not cancerous. It was lipstick.

    We apologise for the amputation.

    Yours sincerely
    Dick Less, MB, FR CS.

    1. Good morning, Tom. Now I can make myself another cuppa without spewing it out all over the computer. Lol.

    2. When I was a schoolboy my brother-in-law, an enthusiast of the genre, gave me a book of obscene limericks which, because it was before the Lady Chatterley case, had to be published by the Olympia Press in Paris and smuggled past the Customs into the UK. (I still have my copy on my bookshelves though I know most of them by heart.)

      Here is one of the entries which I advise fellow Nottlers who are prudish or censorious not to look at:

      There was an old fellow from Poole
      Who discovered red spots on his tool
      The doctor, a cynic,
      Said: “Out of my clinic
      And wipe off the lipstick, you fool!”

    3. Thank you all for your up-votes but notice that your avatars (icons) are all misplaced in the list.

      How do we get to Disqus to complain?

    1. Well, it is clearly the British Government at fault here. Why can’t the Government put them on Euorostar with first class tickets to St Pancras and organise chauffeur driven limos to their four star hotels from there? It’s absolutely disgusting that these people are put at risk due to the Government’s less than adequate planning.

    2. Well, it is clearly the British Government at fault here. Why can’t the Government put them on Euorostar with first class tickets to St Pancras and organise chauffeur driven limos to their four star hotels from there? It’s absolutely disgusting that these people are put at risk due to the Government’s less than adequate planning.

    3. Phil Miller 🇬🇧
      @pjmuk_mk
      ·
      21m
      Replying to
      @ActivePatriotUK
      Boat full of foreign criminals gets into trouble.
      UK hospitals kick out UK citizens.

      I get the picture.

      1. The story about the poor little lad in Solihull yesterday brought tears to my eyes. This not at all. They were not forced into making the crossing.

    6. If the unfortunate drowned people were women and children then I suspect that they were put in a defective dinghy by their fathers, brothers or husbands and set adrift as it would be good PR for the MSM if that were the case when their bodies were found.

      1. I no longer care. It seems the sea is doing a better job of defending our borders than the government paid obscene amounts to do it.

        And yes, I realise that makes me a revolting human being. The state has forced a city the size of Oxford in criminals on us. It’s got to stop. If more die, fewer will make the trip. If more die, government might be forced to stop the tsunami. If more die, the damned french might do their damned job and obey the damned law and process these vermin.

        I don’t want paedophiles, rapists, drug dealers, thieves and criminals brought into this country and I want the ones here removed, immediately., so here’s to the sea. Good on you mate. Get the rest next time.

    7. Why have they been brought here? Push the rest into the water and let the french deal with it. It’s their problem for ignorinng international law.

    8. Sorry I am fresh out of compassion. I do have some sympathy for a family I know who have come on care visas, and are currently working long hours for low wages as care assistants. Not for those who paid thousands to criminals in order to come in and latch onto the benefits teat.

      1. Same here. I am ashamed to admit that my reaction was “Only three?”
        Thank you every British government since 1997 for turning me into someone I never thought I would become.

        1. I know the feeling, If a Lib Dem voting version of me from say 20 years ago could have seen the current version, I would have been appalled.

  36. I am surprised the MSM is not trumpeting this:

    Wind goes from 2% of power used to 14%!

    Clearly, this is an incredible thing as it means that only5% of the current need is being bought from other nations. The even better news is that King Coal is still there with a 3% contribution. Let’s hope that can be increased before too long when wind decides it’s going on strike to show solidarity with the lengthy list of those with axes to grind.

    1. Presumably that is 14% of electricity energy. Overall energy usage includes oil and gas. I think electricity is about a quarter of our overall energy usage. So wind is providing about 3.5%.
      No doubt someone can correct me if my figures are wrong.

      1. Does it also account for wind backup? You know, the diesel generators that have to be started when unreliables provide nothing?

    2. Coal only provides so little because the government has set about destroying coal power stations.

  37. Brussels Playbook: Qatargate. 13 December 2022.

    “European Democracy is under attack,” Parliament President Roberta Metsola told the plenary on Monday as she vowed to open an internal probe.

    The call for an investigation was echoed across the bloc. “Europe’s credibility is at stake,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

    Not with me. Lol. It doesn’t have any!

    https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/qatargate-getting-serious-on-hungary-russia-sanctions-latest/

    1. European democracy was fine until the EU set about removing it. The EU, however was designed from the outset to exclude the voter entirely. It wasn’t an accident. It was intentional. Eurocrats know this. They like it. It is power without oversight. That’s why the communists, Lefties and wasters flock to the EU.

    4. Hover your cursor above the ghastly thumbs up sign. When an oval shape appears, click near the thumb. If the oval turns blue, your vote has been registered.
      But it is very clunky compared with the old system.

  39. I have just received my copy of the Winter 2022/23 Lifeboat magazine as I am a Shoreline member and pay a regular annual sub.

    There is a very pleasant photo of our late queen on the cover and an article about her connection with the RNLI over the years. There are also articles about the new equipment the RNLI is using and stories of rescues and the heroic work many volunteers have done to save lives.

    However I can see no articles on – nor even any mention of – the sterling ferry work the RNLI is doing to bring illegal immigrants safely into Britain.

    1. Hence the reason why I never give money to the RNLI any more [and that goes for several other “charidees” too].

      1. I will follow yet the wounded chance of Antony the RNLI though my reason sits in the wind against me

        (To adapt from Enobarbus)

        Most people who have spent their lives sailing are supporters of the RNLI even though most of us are very happy that we have never had to use their services. There is a companionship amongst those that go down to the sea in small boats and we don’t want fellow sailors to drown: There but for fortune …..

        The use of the RNLI as an Illegal Immigration Facilitation Service has certainly persuaded very many people to withdraw their support but I suspect that many such as myself find themselves in a difficult dilemma.

        1. As someone who both sailed a lot, and spent most of his working life at sea, I can see your point and I regret that I no longer feel able to support the RNLI. However their stance on illegal migrants [and mug-gate] have convinced me that they are wasting my charity!

          1. Most sea rescue is now carried out by helicopter. Obviously, the RNLI crews are still brave as lions, just like the cavalry.

        2. “There is a companionship amongst those that go down to the sea…”

          I must go down to the sea again,
          Down to the sea and sky.
          I left my shoes and socks there,
          I wonder if they’re dry.

          Spike Milligna.

          The well-known typing error.

    2. Hah! So you are one of the moneymen responsible for transplanting the variety known as Wibbling’s Welcome to thrive in this green and once pleasant land.

    3. I defunded them. They are no longer in my Will. An email sent to them on the subject went unanswered.

    1. Oh dear. I bought myself what turns out to be a ‘peace lily’ last week when I couldn’t get the replacement fern I really wanted. Peace lily sounds very socialist. I shall put it outside the back door to die.

      1. I knew about lily of the valley (it’s poisonous to humans, too) and poinsettia as well as lilies.

    4. Animals have instincts for which plants are harmful and which may be eaten safely. Humans have long lost those instincts.

    1. It is truly astonishing that the state refuses to see the direct correlation with crime and massive uncontrolled gimmigration.

      Of course, it doesn’t care. It needs more statists to fill in more forms to pretend there’s no problem. It then sets the police to patrolling twitter and tries ever more to destroy the nuclear family in favour of socialist control.

      Its bloody obvious what the problems are, yet because it benefits big state, it sets about making the problem worse, not better.

  42. We have an illegal immigration problem and the USA has its own too; it’s just a matter of scale as far as the number of bodies is concerned. Believed to be orchestrated in the States and merely ignored here, but is the latter true? Here, nothing has been done to stop the invasion, despite all the talking and promises to the contrary. The situation appears to be beyond incompetence: can two (give Truss a pass) PMs and two Home Secretaries since 2019 really be so incompetent?
    Here is a discussion on the USA’s plight.

    War Room – Southern USA Border Invasion

    1. It’s deliberate. Sunak waffles on about new law. We do not need new law. We need abolition of the old ones that let the vermin stay here and are designed to hamstring us in removing the vermin.

      1. But Mr Wibbling they are not ‘vermin’, they are human beings looking for a better or at least an adequate life. Them German politicians in the 1930s-1940s used to refer to Gypsies and you-know-who as ‘vermin’ and it was a mistake.

        1. Then why didn’t they stop in France? Or Spain? Or Germany? Turkey? Why keep going until they get here?

          They are vermin. If they wanted a better life there are thousands of countries they could apply to legally. And bloody gypsies are just as bad. Littering, abusive, wasters.

          The fundamental problem is that if you’re a decent, law abiding sort, the state sets about to cripple you. If you’re a waster, a career welfarist, a ‘traveller’, an illegal gimmigrant then you’re given everything.

          Tell me that isn’t wrong? I’m tired of paying for everything and being ignored. Tired of dross coming first. Tired of my culture and laws being abused to support weirdos, foreigners, criminals and thieves. I’m sick of the injustice, the indecency. Stamp the boot on the travellers. Push the gimmigrants into shipping containers and deport them.

          If you want a fair, decent and just society then you have to protect it from assault, and the government forces this assault on us every single day – worse, it uses our money as ammunition against us. It has got to stop.

          1. Whilst Wibbling certainly hits the nail on the head, the latest Sky News shows things slightly differently.

            They show that the incident happened in French waters, yet they state that four English lifeboats were

            launched, but the French only provided an helicopter.

            They deny that the boat capsized, but claim that it partially deflated, so all the young and strong

            scrambled to the top. many did not appear to have lifejackets so they obviously planned to

            be “rescued” by the British.

            Was the deflation done deliberately?

          2. If it was in french water, why did we get out of bed?

            If the blasted french had obeyed international law and processed these individuals they wouldn’t be there to be coming here. The problem is because every damned government has ignored the issue and Left wing politicians have waved them through to make it someone else’s problem, it’s only bloody Britain that actually keeps to her duty and does the right thing.

        2. …and, Tim, how many are you sheltering in your own abode, and are they all decent, law-abiding, soon-to-be British citizens, who will be an advantage to this country?

          1. Sometimes you have to up-vote to see who has voted. I just did that with mine but, in the old system you could click the up-vote and yours would disappear. Doesn’t work like that now. Honest, I didn’t deliberately vote for myself.

          1. No, they didn’t. The extermination of a culture is wrong – that’s precisely what I’m ranting about! All that’s needed is the enforcement of justice and moral authority. Take the gimmigrants – you could apply legally, you chose not to, you will be deported.

            Travellers – you have no right to be here, your vehicles will be confiscated, destroyed and you removed – by force.

            The Joilers – you cannot block the road, get off it – or else.

            Welfarists – get a bloody job. You’ve no right to other people’s money.

            It seems every single thing is back to front. The state wants to remove encryption. Some folk are calling for it, yet ask them to post their home address and they say no. Why? Oh! Because they don’t understand the consequences.

            Why are such people allowed to make law when they are so ignorant? That whatsapp group you’re a member of? I’m going to read it, Mrs MP. ‘You can’t’ – oh, yes I can. Because they think it only applies to them, that they can do what they like they forget that they are morons and we’re better inn every way than they are.

        4. To be clear, at some level you’re right, Tim but I have had enough. Every day another violation is carried out against the decent, working majority and we’re just told to put up with it.

          1. We need to have our own Kristallnacht but with Islam as the target.

            If it’s left to rot, we will be a caliphate by the next election or two.

        5. Take your point, but; stupid, weak and treasonous politicians have brought us to the point where we even think like that.
          Next step will be demands for a ‘Man of Destiny’ to bring the whole farce under control.
          (‘Man of Steel’ is the alternative version.)
          If – IF – we are lucky, we will get another ‘Iron Lady’.

          2. Rastus, Tim makes a good point. Once we dehumanise groups then we can do whatever we like with them. However I already see that being done by the state, with oppressive, authoritarian taxes, regulation, the favour of damaging, anti social groups, the general continued enforced abuse of society.

            Heck, the blasted football team couldn’t even respect another country’s beliefs so desperate was it to virtue signal. What happened to those British characteristics of respect and tolerance? It got kicked out of decent people by an intolerant, abusive, disrespectful bunch of Left wing thugs determined to do us in.

        7. Then why aren’t they looking for a better life in France (or any of the other countries they’ve crossed to reach Treasure Island)?

    2. They want it to happen. That’s why they instruct the Border Farce to help, RNLI (spit) too.

  43. To Ndovu! Just to say thinking of you, as I think your dear husband is having his op today. Thoughts and blessings to you both. 💕💐

    3. Is he? That’s sooner than I expected – excellent!
      Fingers crossed for a good result. Hope the poor man is home soon.

      1. Paul – you know these things. Can Sue’s post be put at the top of the page for all to see on logging in?

    6. And also to roughcommon.

      If I read his post yesterday correctly, he is going through a very hard time caring for his wife.

  44. Seems the DT’s film critic didn’t like “Avatar: The Way of Water” – just 1 star and a review headed “Like being waterboarded for hours with turquoise cement”. The rest wasn’t much more complimentary either.

    1. I look on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to get a feel for a film. Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 82%.
      Interestingly, when the woke critics gush over a film it is normally crap.

      It is a rather long film.

    1. This person was clearly of the same mind set as Auberon Waugh who had no illusions about the scumminess of the EU politicians. He knew well that the EU was full of most repulsive, odious, corrupt and nasty people but he could not imagine that they were so repulsive, corrupt and nasty as the British politicians who were even more repulsive, more odious , corrupter and nastier than their EU counterparts.

      But nearly all our choices in politics have been reduced to choosing people not because they are decent but because they are less foul than their opponents.

      1. 368972+ up ticks,

        R,
        Hence you have a large contingent supporting / voting for the best of the worst.

        1. Or not voting at all.

          I think we agree that if NOTA (None Of The Above) votes were taken into account would be a start towards making the process more democratic.

          1. 368972+ up ticks,

            Afternoon R,

            Going forward with the same atrocious
            political players is I believe a very negative move, as with post referendum
            when total severance was needed and is again between peoples & guilty parties.

    2. Folk seem to have this vaunted view of the EU which allows them to ignore the fact that it is a midden of graft, corruption, fraud and theft populated by anti democratic, vicious, arrogant, thoroughly bent wasters – just like the UN.

  47. Just when you thought it can’t possibly get any more idiotic…..

    ‘The European Union’s path to decarbonisation might soon include a carbon dioxide emissions tariff on imported goods from countries considered climate abusers, which will attempt to upend global trade towards a ‘greener’ future.

    After all-night negotiations, EU governments and the European Parliament struck a deal on key parts of the “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism” (CBAM) that is set to be phased in by the second half of 2023. The new measure will be the first of its kind, imposing CO2 emissions taxes on imports such as cement, steel, aluminium fertilisers, electricity production, and hydrogen.

    CBAM intends to protect Europe’s domestic manufacturing industry from competitors in countries that have yet to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions and will attempt to force countries to set prices on carbon — either through a tax or by a cap-and-trade system.

    “CBAM will be a crucial pillar of European climate policies. It is one of the only mechanisms we have to incentivise our trading partners to decarbonise their manufacturing industry.” Mohammed Chahim, European Parliament’s lead negotiator on the law, said in a statement.

      1. Fashionable these days…..did you see the story of the lady from north Africa who was delivered of nine (9) babies (in one sitting) all doing fine!!

          1. No. I think she’s using Dr Spock’s book for advice:
            “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread; And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.”….

      1. The trouble is that most of the unforeseen consequences were very clearly seen in advance by anyone with half a brain.

      2. But is there any alternative? We’ll just have to pay a lot more for the same stuff. Welcome to hyperinflation.
        Isn’t CO2 wonderful! Not only does it make plants grow, but it also generates fantastic levels of taxation, and enpoors the population too! Triple whammy – what’s not to like?
        I said it would be trouble years ago when people were willing, nay, gagging, to pay more for stuff to save CO2 – as if nature takes cash.

    1. BBC is a parrot for Right-wing propaganda, says Mick Lynch

      ‘You never show any admiration for the fight that working people are putting up in this country’

      MICK LYNCH accused the BBC of “parroting” Right-wing propaganda in its coverage of the rail strikes during a heated morning media round.

      The RMT general secretary also clashed with Richard Madeley when he was interviewed on ITV’S Good Morning Britain.

      Strikes were called yesterday and today with a 48-hour walkout from Friday and further action planned over the Christmas period as part of a long-running row over jobs, pay and conditions.

      Network Rail had offered a 5 per cent pay rise for this year – backdated to January – with another 4 per cent at the start of 2023 and a guarantee of no compulsory job losses until January 2025.

      The RMT’S executive recommended rejecting the offer, saying it was linked to “significant” changes to working practices. Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, Mr Lynch accused presenter Mishal Husain of bias when he was pressed on the average amount of pay lost by union members through strike action.

      Asked to put a figure on the financial “sacrifice” he has said his workers had suffered, he said: “That depends on what shifts they were working, what rate of pay they earn and how many occasions they have to go out.”

      He added: “What I do find annoying though, Mishal, is that you put these lines that are directly taken from the propaganda of the other side.

      “You never show any admiration for the fight that working people are putting up in this country for the rebalancing of our society.

      “You always just seem to punt out anything you receive from the employers and from the Government, and that’s what I’m hearing directly through the filter of the BBC this morning.”

      My Lynch refused to answer the question, instead likening the BBC’S coverage to “an editorial line I could read in The Sun or the Daily Mail or any of the Right-wing press in this country”.

      He added: “I find this a shocking stance that the BBC will take – you’re just parroting the most Right-wing stuff you can get hold of on behalf of the establishment.”

      Elsewhere, Madeley put it to Mr Lynch that the strikes could put retailers out of business during a normally busy time of year. Mr Lynch accused him of “ranting” and suggested he should interview himself.

      This dangerous chump probably reads the Lefty idiot-sheet, The Guardian (mouthing each word as he reads); thinks that Owen Jones should be a Pulitzer Prize winner; and considers that Josef Stalin was an altruistic benefactor for the human species.

        1. Talking of publications that I thought were defunct – I saw a copy of the Radio Times in ASDA this morning.

      2. “…saying it was linked to “significant” changes to working practices.”

        Let’s hope those “significant” changes include driverless trains.

        1. I bet they’d find a new job for the drivers, pushing buttons on a computer in some signal box or wherever.

  49. Is it just that I am missing something – but this new OTT discurse OMIT any indication of a “moderator”?

      1. Oh good. I was getting worried that we were mod-free!!

        We have everything crossed for you both.

        1. Thankyou – I’m waiting for somebody to phone me later on to tell me if my husband has survived his op.

  50. Further cat news. For damaged pads, the book says, “Just bathe the injured part with a solution of Epsom Salts.” It’s the word “JUST” that gets me. I had to wrap Pickles in two towels and then hold him in a half Nelson while the MR got the cotton wool out. He still managed to grasp my neck with his front claws……

    He is now sleeping it off – it does sting. Gus heard the kerfuffle and disappeared to the furthest corner of the house….

      1. Indeed – many, many times.

        An earlier cat, Mousie – would give every indication that she had swallowed a pill – licking the nose is the normal sign – and then I’d find it under the damned washing machine….

      3. Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby.

        Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand.

        As cat opens mouth pop pill into mouth.

        Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

        Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa.

        Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

        Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

        Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding paws tightly with left hand.

        Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger.

        Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.

        Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe.

        Call spouse from garden.

        Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws.

        Ignore low growls emitted by cat.

        Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth.

        Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.

        Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap.

        Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains.

        Carefully sweep shattered Royal Doulton figures from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

        Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit.

        Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

        Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink glass of water to take taste away.

        Apply band-aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

        Retrieve cat from neighbour’s shed.

        Get another pill.

        Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing.

        Force mouth open with dessert spoon.

        Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

        Fetch screwdriver from garage and put door back on hinges.

        Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot.

        Throw Tee-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

        Call fire department to retrieve cat from tree across the road.

        Apologize to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat.

        Take last pill from foil-wrap.

        Tie cat’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table.

        Find heavy duty pruning gloves from shed.

        Force cat’s mouth open with small wrench.

        Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak.

        Hold head vertically and pour 1/2 pint water down throat to wash pill down.

        Get spouse to drive you to accident and emergency of the local hospital, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye.

        Stop at furniture shop on way home to order new table.

        Arrange for R.S.P.C.A. to collect cat and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

        1. You missed the best part, Anne:

          How To Give A Dog A Pill

          1. Wrap it in bacon.

          2. Toss it in the air.

          3. All done!

    2. Afternoon all. Haven’t seen your earlier cat news but son told us that their male cat, Pepé, had been run over and killed this morning. The driver behind the perpetrator took the poor thing to the vet and, as it was chipped, the vet was able to let our son know what had happened. Really upset.

      1. How awful. It is an event always at the back of my mind as the road is only 20 yards form the front door.

      2. Oh……… sad news. The perp, I suppose just drove on. At least he was taken to the vet and not just left.

      4. That happened when one of our Siamese escaped from the house (house cats who were quite happy going for walks on a lead) then six months later, the other did the same.
        A very sad house for weeks.

  51. Deep joy – not only is it perishing cold outside with the snow still lying everywhere since Sunday, but we had a power cut for most of the morning – it was off for nearly two hours – fortunately back on now or I wouldn’t be writing this. It got very cold indoors and I couldn’t even make a hot drink.

    1. As more power cuts are likely invest in a Primus stove. You can at least heat up canned food and make hot drinks.

      2. I’ve bought a single ring, gas-driven mini-stove on eBay for £35.95 for just that sort of emergency.

        I’ve yet to test it.

        1. We have a Calor gas heater, single ring camping stove, box of candles and big box of matches: it’s like being back in the 70’s.
          Ho, and a good supply of D cell batteries for torch.

          1. I have a liquid gas heater (not ‘Calor’ but similar); a single gas ring; and a double-burner gas barbeque. They all take the same gas bottle (but not at the same time!).

            I also have a charcoal BBQ and a large charcoal smoker. Cooking through a power cut is assured.

          2. When my wife was very young, she lived in Padley (an old water mill) Derbyshire. She insists on what she calls a ‘siege’ box full of tined foods.
            It seems she remembers being snowed in many times.

          3. The only “Padley” I know in Derbyshire is the beautiful Padley Gorge, situated near the South Yorkshire border between Surprise View (which runs down into Hathersage) and Grindleford at the western end of the Totley tunnel (at 3½ miles, once Britain’s longest railway tunnel).

          4. Thats it, and walking in the woods above the mill, one can still find partially completed mill grind stones.

          5. There are also a couple of massive blocks of concrete that the winding gear for the inclined plain going up to the millstone quarries were secured to.

          6. Those millstone grit grinding wheels were once used in the mills and then returned to ‘nature’ after being discarded. They are all over the place in that part of the Dark Peak.

            Dark Peak (Northern Peak District)= Millstone Grit.
            White Peak (Southern Peak District) = Limestone.

          7. The wheels were abandoned when a new design of flour mill using metal rollers removed the need for them and the quarries more or less closed overnight.
            Caudwell’s Mill at Rowsley is still water powered and uses the roller mills.

          8. It’s a long time since I was at Caudwell’s mill. I can remember having supper in the nearby Peacock inn and being told off for not wearing a tie! Have you ever visited The wonderful Druid Inn at Birchover (I presume it’s still open)? It was one of my favourite food haunts in the 1980s and 1990s when Brian Bunce owned it.

          9. Only been in the Druid Inn once, late ’90s? and sadly was not impressed.
            Didn’t have a meal there, but the attitude of the bar staff was more than a bit “superior”.

          10. That’s a shame. I went frequently after it had first opened in the mid-1980s and it was always a very positive and happy experience. Excellent beer, top-notch food, and a friendly landlord.

        2. I have my generator which runs the CH, TV, all the lights and a kettle, oh and the freezer.
          Hob is propane with a camping stove as back up
          The woodburner is back up for heating, I also have close to a years worth of food

      3. We don’t have mains gas but our cooker runs on propane or butane. A gas cylinder containing 13 kg of gas lasts about 6 months.

        However, as French plumbing is pressurised and powered by electricity, when we have a power cut we lose our water as well as our electricity.

      4. Primus Inter Pares was the motto of my first Army unit in the 70s. First among equals. We read it as “One stove between two”.

  52. From Canada:
    As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the Nova Scotia back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn’t stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologised to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man. And as I played “Amazing Grace”, the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together.

    When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head was hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, “I never seen anything like that before, and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

      1. I have never managed to overcome my antipathy towards the drone noise that comes from bagpipes.

        1. I play the descant recorder, which is a bit like the bagpipes but without the bag and the drones.

          1. Never heard that one but you may not take Bagpipes into Spain, they are classed as ‘a weapon of war.’

        4. Maybe you’ll like this Richard. Firstly I recorded the drum pattern to a track, I recorded a drone track which was played throughout the song. I recorded one track of the bagpipes which I copied to 2 other tracks and detuned them one slightly up and one slightly down to give a breadth of voice. I then added other voices. Finally I duplicated the drum track and timed one slightly late for the last verse
          https://app.box.com/s/uygskdak6kmi2k4mjxkb

    2. In the good old days a septic tank required an inspection and test when it was installed. When the local sanitary inspector had departed, a magical iron wand would be inserted with a few rapid downward thrusts and then carefully it would be withdrawn.
      Some sort of ancient rural folkloric tradition.

    1. I was in Birmingham a couple of months ago. I felt like a foreigner. I have no desire to go back.

      2. I quite often travel via Birmingham New Street and am always amazed how many non-reflectives suddenly fill the carriage. At least they don’t sit on the roof as well: yet!

          1. I’m sure some stupid idiot will try: a bit like crossing the Channel on a rubber dinghy at night in winter.

          2. There was a video doing the rounds some years back of an Indian peasant strolling around on the roof of a carriage just under the catenary and reaching up to grab hold of it.
            Two flashes as the circuit breakers tripped out, reset and tripped out again, then his body dropped onto the roof with flames coming from it.

    4. I used to take the number 11 Outer circle bus to college from the Swan in Yardley to Bourneville. At 24 miles, it was the longest urban bus route in Europe.

  54. Good morning (just), it was 15°F (-9°C) as I scraped my car for the weekly shopping trip to Tesco Irvine. The windscreen wash never achieved a working temp, thankfully it was light traffic so very little spray. The mercury (on my phone app) has struggled up to 29°F. As I’m not a postie, I’ll leave my shorts in the wardrobe.

    2. I’ve sent that to my adult children on the family WhatsApp confident it would annoy my Leftie daughters.
      Instead my son has piped up that his wife-to-be wants one. He says to clean up the evidence, as she’s Sicilian.
      She agrees.
      I said, there is a proper woman.
      My daughters still haven’t responded.

    3. I’ve sent that to my adult children on the family WhatsApp confident it would annoy my Leftie daughters.
      Instead my son has piped up that his wife-to-be wants one. He says to clean up the evidence, as she’s Sicilian.
      She agrees.
      I said, there is a proper woman.
      My daughters still haven’t responded.

    4. I would like a battery powered, easily portable, broom type vacuum cleaner which works as well as one powered by the mains. We have a Henry hoover and although it sucks very well (provide your own simile) it behaves like an octopus determined to trip you up and weighs far too much.

      That’s what I would like but I think Caroline has spotted a nice pair of socks for me.

      1. Oh! My sister has a Dyson jobbie.I think it’s the V8. Now, caveat, I didn’t find it as a heft as my Miele, but for little bits like crumbs and hair it was really good.

      2. We’ve got an Edward, Henry’s big brother, which I bough 30y ago and is still going strong.

      3. Try Swan, a British company. We have a Eureka Rapidclean. It needs 6 Hours charging and has lots of attachments. Very light so not as robust as the heavier models.

  56. Good news and bad news…… the good news is that my OH is alive and well; the bad news is he was bumped off today’s list by a couple of emergencies. He was moved to a private room in the cardio-thoracic ward yesterday evening, and now has a telly and a radio in the room and a private shower and loo. He’s now on the list for tomorrow, so it’s as you were for later on.

      1. I’ve had better…… but it was good to hear him on the phone, I saw the number and thought it would be one of the staff. Now it’s all to do tomorrow.

          1. The main roads are ok I think, but getting out of our hillside enclave is lethal in some areas. I was persuaded yesterday morning that it wasn’t a good idea to get the car out.

          2. Make sure, that you have ‘anti-freeze screen wash’

            I know, teaching you to ‘suck eggs, but you have other fings on your mind!

      1. Thankyou – upticking gets a bit sticky. Sometimes works and sometimes not. Or that might just be my laptop.

      2. I’m findng with the new layout that it works best if the tick box thingy is right at the bottom of the screen. It then allows me to up tick. Mind, if I then close the screen (without loggint out) and come back in, some of my ticks will have disappeared but that’s been happening for a long time. If I re-tick it sometimes appears as a guest vote. I persevere, obstinately.

    7. Well, I prayed for the pair of you this morning (and Lotl), so I’m not sure whether it’s working or not now! If he gets his op tomorrow, we’ll say it has 🙂

      2. And while we’re at it can we have the full client list of the Epstein Maxwell Corporation?

    2. Doesn’t really make sense though.
      If he tells everything he knows, he’d bring down the government.
      Therefore, either he is shortly going to commit suicide/be murdered by a fellow inmate, probably in the Bahamas so that nobody can blame Americans, or else they own everything and can get off scot free while throwing him under the bus.

          1. Our cold “snap” will continue until Sunday when the temp will rise dramatically – and cause flooding. The “warm” period will last for three days – then back to the cold.

  61. True_Belle
    @True_Belle
    Very sad that people have lost their lives in the Channel this way, they were however, SAFE in France.
    @RNLI
    .
    @SuellaBraverman
    ,
    @ukhomeoffice

  62. Q1: What do I get from NoTTL?

    A1: The reassurance that there are others – unlike nearly all my relatives – who feel like me that the world is going crazy and the west moving towards hell in a hand-basket and, indeed, picking up speed

    Q2: Anything else?

    A2: Yes we’re all getting older and, for many of us, 12 months is a large %age of the time remaining. At the moment, it’s difficult to see great numbers of reinforcements gathering to the rear.

      2. I’m retired, but I’m busier than when I was working! I’ve just been asked to join the sidemen’s rota – sorry, sidesperson’s rota 🙂

  63. UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧 Latest Video News Updates!
    @Justice_forum
    Wed 14 Dec: Dover lifeboat returning a short time ago with casualties after a migrant dinghy capsizes in French waters this morning. Where were the French rescue services?

    Footage courtesy TW Media 💞
    Live feed 👇👇👇 https://youtu.be/ZrIoLV_HwiQ

    2. A very good question.

      What was a British lifeboat doing in French waters?

      If they had all drowned would the British or the French have been blamed?

      2. The British – the same as the last time a dinghy capsized in French waters. According to the little squit Macron it was all the UK’s fault.

    2. Bought one like that from Wilko’s for use on one of the recording trains a few years back.
      Ended up chucking the bloody thing out.
      Still claimed it on my expenses though.

  65. The EU is rotten to the core. Spiked. 14 December 2022.

    The European Union is engulfed in a serious corruption scandal. Several serving MEPs, ex-MEPs and their assistants stand accused of receiving cash from Qatar in exchange for promoting the interests of the gulf state in Brussels.

    Among those detained by the Belgian police is the now former European Parliament vice-president, Eva Kaili. According to the Belgian federal police, she is alleged to have committed ‘offences of criminal organisation, corruption and money laundering’.

    The Belgian daily, L’Echo, reports that police removed ‘several bags full of notes’ during a search of Kaili’s Brussels home. Her father was also reportedly arrested on a train with a suitcase stuffed with cash. The police claim to have found €600,000 in cash in total during their swoop on Kaili. One seasoned observer has called it the ‘most egregious’ corruption scandal to hit Brussels in years.

    Lol! Unfortunately this is not the worst aspect of the EU! Its real failings are political. It is anti-democratic and a Globalist glove puppet. It should never have been created in its present form. We were better off with the Common Market!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/12/13/the-eu-is-rotten-to-the-core/

    2. Are these people with bags full of cash the same globalists who want to inflict Chinese style CBDC credits on the demos?

      1. Yes – in one form or another. They want to – ha! – prevent tax evasion, fraud and corruption.

        But it’s really about taking money from you without your permission or consent. That’s why they’re deliberately avoiding blockchain.

    3. In the 1975 referendum when I was in my 20s I voted to stay in what that nice Mr Heath told me was an economic club with no adverse implications as far as politics and sovereignty were concerned.

      In retrospect that vote turned out to be a Damescene moment – I realised that even the British prime minister was happy to lie without batting an eyelid. So from being a credulous and affable cove I became a crusty old cynic who would not trust a politician further than I could throw him – or her – or it.

      I wonder what percentage of those who are still alive and voted as I did would say they would still favour being in the EU?

      1. I too voted to stay but I was influenced by seeing Germany’s recovery while serving in RAF Germany.

        I now know it was funded by us, via the Marshall Plan.

          1. Our re-payment of the American War Loan funded the Marshall Plan and the US demanded every penny plus interest.

            US wanted rid of the British Empire, so that they could take over.

            We paid the last pennies in 2015, I believe.

          6. Sorry – when I originally opened the link it was free to read. Basically WW II loans repaid in 2006. G Osborne redeemed earlier war loans in 2015…..

          10. That’s why the blicks are saying that we owe them reparations, isn’t it? Good grief, we bought them their freedom – in places like Haiti the French made the country pay France for their freedom.

          13. Arguably our biggest opponent in the second world war was the US, since they were the ones who actually coveted Britain’s status and empire…

          15. Well, I returned to this site half an hour ago and found that somehow I was able once again to up-vote posts. Now this facility has once again been denied me. So please read the current up-votes as 12 instead of 11. I won’t bother with upvotes for the rest of today.

          18. Yes, some friends the Yanks were/are to us. I have had to work together with Americans in the US, on the same side for the same client – and my experience of them is that they often waste time, are lazy and lie. And that’s to us – who were also supposed to be acting on the behalf of our mutual client in an international transaction.

            I refused to work with them again (well I couldn’t refuse but I got myself into a position where my work would not involve having to work with them again).

          19. Well done. Lass. It’s a bit like never trust an Arab and the same is true for Yanks.

            Just look at their judicial system. Ours is not much better but…

          20. I never had problems working with Americans in gas and oil or in the Army. Like you, I would never trust an Arab.

          21. Just reading over my previous, please don’t read it as casting any aspersions on the very many decent, honest, likeable Americans, many of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting socially.

            These were cut-throat lawyers in international transactions, who I simply wouldn’t want to work on the same side with (let alone opposite) again.

          22. I thought, Bill, that we did receive some Marshall Plan aid, but that the then Labour Government used it all to create the NHS, that world-renowned institution which cannot even organise a booze-up in a brewery.

      3. Snap. Had my doubts from the beginning, but by the time of the vote a couple of years later thought ‘we’re in, so let’s see how it goes’. Boy, did we find out.
        All trust in British governments evaporated very quickly.

      5. I was just a young mother with little interest in politics. I knew nothing of the lies till years later.

      6. For my sins, I believed Liar Heath. I worked to promote Leave in the recent sham exercise in democracy.

    1. Anyone who believes that amount of money is being sent by philanthropists to help plucky little Ukraine really needs to readjust their gullibility settings.

    2. It took me ages to see that and even now I have to concentrate to see it rather than the nativity scene.

      Perhaps I’m holier than thou?

        2. I’m shocked….
          Especially when every hotel had a Gideons Bible that you could have perloined.

      1. Just what I was thinking! Your average ox or ass would have that manger over in a jiffy too! After they’d scratched their back on the flimsy poles!

    3. This is a mock up cock up – on stamps the queen’s head looked to the left but on coins she looked to the right.

      Check it out by looking at your stamps and your coins.

  69. This being self employed malarkey isn’t all it’s cracked up to be mind.
    I’m going to have to rethink my time machine rental business.

    People keep bringing them back a day before they rented them out

        2. I caused it to be done – I believe that all NoTTLers would be concerned to know what was happening.

  71. 368973+ up ticks,

    If I believe the rnli have entered french waters to pick up morally illegal immigrants in the past, with a french vessel at the scene surely this proves collusion.

    If that is the case then the french/british political overseers must share the blame equally with the smugglers and the use of unseaworthy boats.

    If this loss at sea has happened before then it shows the input from the political overseers / rnli
    to the dangers of the crossings stands at …. net zero,

  72. Global Warming update, Buszkowice Poland today: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a73178b657e1effa5a91bec3ef9611e90147f98229fab0cdd949d5f278b9eb7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa4e035007885e868318cdb00ff5c5576f03251088e00503aee1beb2096a4d96.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd3b912520020fd4f7001525fb7ef9288e1e9d4a6c64d577007b10081001ce0b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed01b527be147ea9a3c04838996df18ea7ff956e5a0d77c47d084c89d5252aea.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/756339204c5b481a4015e9266e44c0cbee8a65a0c3433cb2b5ea652348fd6638.jpg

    1. “Below the line”:
      Mr Turner
      16 HRS AGO
      I detect a slight lack of trust, judging by the comments so far.

    2. Funny or tragic as our negative comments blow away with the breeze. Telegraph are part of the same game. ‘Give them a mouthpiece then we can say we’ve taken note. No action needed’.

      1. Oh of course. Sunak won’t give a stuff. He certainly won’t read them. He will continue with his agenda uninterested in the opinions of ‘lessers’.

    4. I read the article yesterday and the comments from what could once be thought as loyal Tory voters. This is the DT not the Guardian after all.
      Contempt and distrust seems to be the theme running through the comments.
      I think they are a dead and due to be buried at the next GE, they deserve nothing less.

  74. Meghan: Palace planted negative stories about me in the press
    The trailer for the next installment of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s documentary is titled ‘coordinated campaign’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/12/14/harry-meghan-netflix-doc-trailer-palace-headlines/

    A BTL exchange

    Island Guy

    She really is a disgrace and embarrassment along with her whinging tube of a husband. No way back for them now. I hope the RF publish the outcome of the bullying investigation. Gloves off.

    Danbury Collins

    I hope they publish Harry’s DNA test and bring this whole issue to an end.

    Reply to Danbury Collins

    Rastafarian Gourmet

    But if this shows that Harry has no royal blood in him won’t Migraine claim that she was deliberately deceived by the royal family who presented him as a prince. Couldn’t she invoke the Trade Descriptions Act of 1972?

    1. Hmmm I don’t think there is any need to publish negative stories about her she’s got that fully covered herself

      1. The negative stories about Meghan were certainly amplified in the press though. The vitriol against her from Mail readers had to be seen to be believed.
        I don’t like her, but actually this has a ring of truth about it – the media often wheels out royal stories to hide other stuff. But she should show examples of where she thinks that happened if she wants us to believe it.

        1. She doesn’t care if we believe her or not. What matters to her is that she has said it. Truth is irrelevant as the lens of her ego is so vast nothing can penetrate. Truth simply doesn’t matter. She’s feeding on the attention. Negative or positive it just doesn’t matter. It all fuels her.

          Thus the more sensational her bile the more anger she generates the more she feeds. It just doesn’t matter to narcissists.

          2. I think narcissists do care – don’t they behave like that because they feel inadequate inside?
            She certainly behaved in a very silly, shallow and unfeeling way, and tried to manipulate the media herself (eg making her pregnancy announcement at a family wedding).
            But I’ve no doubt that the papers made stuff up about her too. There were a lot of stories in the Mail along the lines of “An insider told us that Meghan said…”

      2. Strange, Bob3, I clicked on your top line silhouette which had a plus (+) sign just to the right of the head and the plus turned to a red minus. A second click and it reverted to what it was. I then clicked on the “Thumbs Up” sign and it accepted my vote, turning the number of upvotes from 2 to 3. Any change of Disqus publishing an encyclopaedia explaining how their new “improved” system can be used. Not at all “improved” to my mind. (Except that I have no problem – unlike others – with the blue colour.

    3. The parentage is not in doubt. Every single person who has had access to something to provide Harry’s and Charles’s DNA, and there must be thousands, would have had the chance to prove if it was Hewitt and would have made a fortune by disclosing it.

  75. Trouble with up-ticks? Put the ‘thumb’ tip on the top line (right-hand side) of the ‘thumbs-up box. It works for me. Try it here and let me know if it doesn’t work.

    1. Ped: On my top line I have a – and a *** on the right, with – meaning “collapse” and *** meaning “Block user or Flag as inappropriate”. However, I clicked on the top LHS (to the right of your avatar) on your name and to the right of it appeared a head and shoulders symbol with a “tick” to the right of it. I then clicked on the “Thumbs Up” sign at the bottom of your post (which included a single uptick from Blackbox2) and – miraculously – my uptick was accepted. ?!?!?

      2. I was referring to the box surrounding the thumbs-up – not the top line of the comment. Sorry about that.

    2. Ped: On my top line I have a – and a *** on the right, with – meaning “collapse” and *** meaning “Block user or Flag as inappropriate”. However, I clicked on the top LHS (to the right of your avatar) on your name and to the right of it appeared a head and shoulders symbol with a “tick” to the right of it. I then clicked on the “Thumbs Up” sign at the bottom of your post (which included a single uptick from Blackbox2) and – miraculously – my uptick was accepted. ?!?!?

    3. Also works for down ticks and then an up removes the down, leaving the up and double clicking creates and removes either

    4. It still doesn’t work for me.

      It does now. I originally ticked on the hand and not on the rhs of the box surrounding the hand.

      1. Richard as you click on your mouse you have to say Boo! and then everything will be Clicketty Boo!

    1. Another case of confusion (deliberate) between correlation and causation, a now popular use of spastics to create a false justification.

  80. An Effin’ Bogey Five today!

    Wordle 543 5/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Thank goodness, Rusty. When I clicked on “View” I had a horrible feeling that I would see 200 separate boxes of grey, yellow and green squares. Lol.

    5. Par today.

      Wordle 543 4/6

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

  81. Watching the news I was struck by yet another montage of more starving children in the UK and yet another item on a murdering rapist being sentenced to years in prison.

    If the state executed all such felons there might well be more than enough money saved on prison places to feed those children.

    1. Agreed, Sos and, while I’ve long called for the return of the Death Penalty, I think it should include rape – it takes a woman’s life away from her.

      Public birching for under 25 yobbos, is another good idea – humiliate the little gits.

    2. The PTB let the killer out early. He had already done some bad things.

      No wish to ‘victim shame’, but London and much of the UK is not safe for women to walk alone, and certainly not at night.

      1. Quite.
        If all the members of the parole board that decide to release these foul creatures were automatically given the same sentence if the creature reoffends and is found guilty, they might be a little more circumspect about their bleeding heart releases.

      3. The PTB would say it’s all the women’s fault; they were asking for it by not wrapping up in bin bags.

    1. Cat scratches and bites are particularly prone to infection. If you get one (bite or scratch, that is, rather than a cat) make sure it’s disinfected and you get antiseptic on it straight away.

      1. Agreed.
        There was a thread on bites by humans the other evening.
        A bite from a human is extraordinarily dangerous to another human.

        1. One of my colleagues when I was working was a special constable. One of his PC colleagues, a dog handler, was bitten by his dog and had to have a couple of shots (probably tetanus and maybe rabies). Another PC colleague was bitten by a prisoner and he had about a dozen shots hepatitis, etc.

  83. What a day.
    Started off with our son phoning to say one of their two cats had been run over and killed. He’s distraught and will have to tell our grandson when he (gs) gets home from work. He will, no doubt, be inconsolable.
    We then had our friend from bowls around for tea and cake this afternoon. His wife of 55 years died 3 weeks ago and they have no children nor family. Very sad.
    Puts our lives into perspective.

  84. Did you know there’s a species of antelope that can jump higher than the average house?
    This is due to it’s powerful hind legs, coupled with that houses cannot jump.

  85. Everyone appreciates your honesty.
    Until you’re honest with them, then you’re an arsehole.

      1. Folks fill the page with little coloured squares, I fill it with appalling jokes.
        Same-same.

        1. I was out for a meal with my wife last night when a guy with a small pistol and a flag came and stood by our table.

          It was a bit odd as neither of us remembered ordering a starter.

        3. I shall add some limericks.

          One Saturday morning at three
          A cheese monger’s shop in Paree
          Collapsed to the ground
          With a thunderous sound
          Leaving only a pile of de-Brie.

          4. There was a pert lass from Madrass
            Who had a remarkable ass,
            Not rounded and pink
            As you probably think,
            It was grey, had ears and ate grass.

          5. There was a young man from Madras
            Whose balls were made of Brass.
            In Stormy weather
            They clanged together
            And sparks flew out of his ar5e.

          6. There was a young girl from Cape Cod
            Who prayed for a baby to God
            ‘Twas not the almighty
            Who crept up her nighty
            ‘But the vicar, the dirty old sod

          7. There was an old man from Leeds
            Who swallowed a packet of seeds,
            Great tufts of grass shot out of his a**e
            And his c**k was all covered in weeds.

          8. There was a young lady from Hitchin
            Who scratched at herself in the Kitchen
            Her mother said: “Rose
            VD I suppose”
            or is it your Tampax is itching?

        4. When you run out of your appalling jokes, try one of my appalling jokes,

          YOU DON’T KNOW JACK SCHITT?

          MANY PEOPLE ARE AT A LOSS FOR A RESPONSE WHEN SOMEONE SAY’S “YOU DON’T KNOW JACK SCHITT.”

          JACK IS THE ONLY SON OF AWE SCHITT AND O.SCHITT.

          AWE SCHITT, THE FERTILIZER MAGNET, MARRIED O.SCHITT, A PARTNER OF KNEEDEEP & SCHITT INC.

          IN TURN ,JACK SCHITT MARRIED NOE SCHITT , AND THE DEEPLY RELIGIOUS COUPLE PRODUCED 6 CHILDREN :HOLIE
          SCHITT ,FULLA SCHITT , GIVA SCHITT , BULL SCHITT , AND THE TWINS :DEEP SCHITT AND DIP SCHITT.

          AGAINST HER PARENTS’ WISHES ,DEEP SCHITT MARRIED DUMB SCHITT , A HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUT .AFTER BEING MARRIED FOR 15 YEARS , JACK AND NOE SCHITT DIVORCED.

          NOE SCHITT LATER MARRIED Mr . SHERLOCK , AND BECAUSE HER KIDS WERE LIVING WITH THEM SHE WANTED TO KEEP HER PREVIOUS NAME.
          SHE WAS KNOWN AS NOE SCHITT-SHERLOCK .

          DIP SCHITT MARRIED LODA SCHITT AND THEY PRODUCED A NERVOUS SON , CALLED CHICKEN SCHITT .

          FULLA SCHITT AND GIVA SCHITT WERE INSEPERABLE THROUGHT CHILDHOOD AND SUBSEQUENTLY MARRIED THE HAPPENS BROTHERS IN A DUAL CEREMONY. THE WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE NEWSPAPER ANNOUNCED THE SCHITT-HAPPENS WEDDING .

          THE SCHITT- HAPPENS CHILDREN WERE ; DAWG ,BYRD ,AND HOARSE . BULL SCHITT , THE PRODIGAL SON , LEFT HOME TO TOUR THE WORLD. HE RECENTLY RETURNED FROM ITALY WITH HIS NEW BRIDE , PIZA SCHITT .

          SO NOW IF SOMEONE SAYS ,“YOU DON’T KNOW JACK SCHITT” , YOU CAN CORRECT THEM . NOT ONLY DO YOU KNOW JACK , YOU KNOW HIS WHOLE FAMILY !.

          You are welcome.

        5. Take that!
          Wordle 543 4/6

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

  86. That’s me for today. Yet another cold one etc etc (yawns). Please God, if there is a God – make it go away.

    Just heard a brilliant lecture about developments in the excavation of Rome in transition from “Roman” to Christian. Spell-binding.
    Another triumph from the British School at Rome. I can’t commend this institution more highly.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain

      1. A lot less than the British did for the rest of the world, when it was our turn to be an Empire?

        1. Exactly. E.g. (but not exclusively) the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the BELGIANS in particular achieved very little that was positive for the countries in their empires. As for the Germans in their attempt the less said the better.

      2. A lot less than the British did for the rest of the world, when it was our turn to be an Empire?

    1. Another good reason to dissolve that Wee Pretendy Parliament and the Welsh and NI assemblies.

      All talking shops that just cost money and produce hot air.

    2. This is a desperate and ruthless attempt to preserve Sturgeon’s personal political ego.

      Her proudest achievement was to – personally – blow up Longannet, the last remaining coal-fired power plant in Scotland.

      Remember that when the lights go out

      She has presided over decline in health, education and industrial investment.

      Her absurd energy policy – rejecting Scottish oil, gas, fracking and nuclear power – condemns Scotland to a pre-industrial era of poor, ignorant crofters.

      She cares little for Scotland’s magnificent landscape – increasingly defiled by ugly windmills – it is not her territory.

      She is an English-hating, ill-educated, coal village lawyer of monstrous ambition – and low intelligence.

      She wants to bust the Union – at any cost.

      2. Even I, part Scottish as I am, find it difficult to sympathise with the people of Scotland who keep on voting the SNP back into power.

      3. She is an English-hating, ill-educated, coal village lawyer of monstrous ambition – and low intelligence.

        Well, youhave listed her good points….. and the bad ones??

          1. My late and dearly loved and missed uncle was half Scot and half Irish. He served in the RN and taught in the Glasgow school system. The only time I ever heard him say anything mean and critical was about that person.
            Even if I could remember his exact words they are not printable.
            He despised her.

      4. I wonder which taxpayers are going to be paying to bail them out of their predicament…no I don’t. It’s always us. Then if oil ever starts flowing from North of the border again one day that will of course be “Scottish oil” – ever heard of “English money” Krankie?

  88. Wendyball update

    The BLM kneelers will be delighted to note that on average, the French are a LOT blacker than their African opposition!

  89. 368972+ up ticks,

    Now there’s a thing, did YOU vote for this ?

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    9h
    I can’t verify these estimated figures but they sound entirely believable.

    The only hope for the Tories would be to give the vote to illegal immigrants & assure them permanent residence in luxury hotels with free room service for life.

    Then the Tories might stand a chance of avoiding wipe out.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    20h
    His Majesty’s Government is at war with Russia. I wonder if he knows?

    Royal Marines deployed on ‘high-risk covert operations’ in Ukraine – The Times and The Sunday Times,
    Royal Marines deployed on ‘high-risk covert operations’ in Ukraine — The Times and The Sunday T

    Royal Marines deployed on ‘high-risk covert operations’ in Ukraine — The Times and The Sunday T

    The Royal Marines have taken part in covert operations in Ukraine, a senior general has admitted for the first time. Lieutenant General Robert Magowan said the commandos supported “discreet operations” in a “hugely sensitive environment”. He said the…

    apple.news

    https://gettr.com/post/p21pbzq5fb6

    1. Could the “discreet operations “ be escorting the armoured bank vans to the (money) laundry?

  90. Sex is like a game of Bridge.
    If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.

  91. When Matthew Arnold was writing of Oxford’s dreaming spires, he was a keen observer of provincial England at the time of the great railway revolution in the middle of the 19th century. What he’d make of the shambles that is the city today would be worth reading. Notwork Rail have delayed their plans for the redevelopment of the railway station area. Reading between the lines, it appears that they think the local authorities are holding them back.

    The city council is still going ahead with its plans to strangle the streets.
    https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/delays-and-changes-to-botley-road-closure-dates/
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63917058

    1. I head into Oxford a couple of times a year, (Oxford comma, ho ho) and each time I visit the traffic is worse, the traffic discipline is worse, the aggression is worse. The buffoons in charge are going to kill the city.

      1. It sounds as though your troubles will soon be over, Sos, coz they’re going to introduce 15 minutes zones where you have to stay within your allocated zone and can only leave it a certain number of times per year (100 I think but not sure). You may not even be allowed in!

        1. I’m hoping that my elderly relative’s disabled sticker will allow me to drive him where he wishes to go.

  92. When Matthew Arnold’s was writing of Oxford’s dreaming spires, he was a keen observer of provincial England at the time of the great railway revolution in the middle of the 19th century. What he’d make of the shambles that is the city today would be worth reading. Notwork Rail have delayed their plans for the redevelopment of the railway station area. Reading between the lines, it appears that they think the local authorities are holding them back.

    The city council is still going ahead with its plans to strangle the streets.
    https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/delays-and-changes-to-botley-road-closure-dates/
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63917058

  93. Evening, all. It’s difficult to support people like the train drivers, who are well paid and get perks like free travel.

  95. As it appears to be Joke night,

    Questions that haunt me!
    If you have sex with a prostitute against her will, is it considered rape or shoplifting?
    Can you cry under water?
    How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
    Why do you have to “put your two pennorth in”… but it’s only a “penny for your thoughts”? Where’s that extra penny going to?
    Once you’re in Heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
    Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
    What disease did cured ham actually have?
    How is it that we put a man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
    Why is it that people say they “slept like a baby” when babies wake up like every two hours?
    If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
    Why are you in a movie, but you’re on tv?
    Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
    Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They’re going to see you naked anyway.
    Why is “bra” singular and “panties” plural?
    Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
    If Jimmy Cracked Corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?
    Can a hearse, carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?
    If the Professor on Gilligan’s island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can’t he fix a hole in a boat?
    Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!
    If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner?
    If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
    If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
    Do the Alphabet Song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
    Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
    Why do they call it an asteroid when it’s outside the hemisphere, but call it a haemorrhoid when it’s in your backside?
    Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out of the window?
    Did you notice that I haven’t corrected any obvious Americanisms? Some things are just untranslatable.

          1. It was as I feared it would be
            I sat next to Sos at tea,
            His rumblings abdominal
            Were simply phenomenal
            And everyone thought it was me!

          3. Pure plagiarism, as I’m sure Ann will acknowledge. The original runs:

            I sat next the duchess at tea.
            Her grace was most gracious to me,
            But her rumblings abdominal
            Were simply phenomenal…
            And everyone thought it was me!

          4. I know; it’s a wonderful rhyme as the words can be changed to suit the occasion or person.

          8. Yep, she was Australian, kept a nice house in North Norfolk and had a red squirrel who called every morning for a snack.

          9. That’s the 2nd verse.

            At tea with the Duchess McFee,
            She said, “Sir, do you fart when you pee?”
            I said, “No, not a bit!
            Do you belch when you shit?
            “Och! A capital answer,” said she!

            Best recited in a Morningside “Edinburgh actually” accent.

          12. A day I remember quite well
            It certainly was a foul smell
            Then everyone glared, and just pointed
            As they saw from my stare, so disjointed
            Brown stains on your chair were anointed.

    1. Not only do we lose our cities, we end up with dubious and non-British biased people in positions of power. Once the slammers have got one in, the rest is history. And they have…

        1. Aye, intermittently, thank you for asking. Still in bed though, feeling slightly less cold in my track suit, 2 pairs of socks, dressing gown and oodie than I was for the last few days, and still nauseous…waah I need to get up and hang the decs!

          I lobbed off an email of complaint to the CEO of Saga concerning the appalling service regarding our so-called emergency service contract regarding no hot water and no heating (two separate contractors did not come as they should have done, but just cancelled the job). It appears that my complaint was expedited and a contractor came round yesterday and fixed the boiler.
          I have also been given £150 recompense (and not as any “goodwill gesture” carp) which I did not ask for as such but have happily accepted.

          So I can buy a couple more candles and a bottle or two to keep warm over Christmas! I must say that having tested positive for covid, it wasn’t worse than ‘flu and although pretty unpleasant I’ve felt worse and for longer in the past. Maybe it’s not having had any jabs that has let me off relatively lightly…

          1. Glad you’re feeling better and have the heating fixed. That must have been one hell of a relief.

          2. Yes it was, thanks BoB! – I admit to having had rather a severe sense of humour failure. I hope to be OK to get up and potter around tomorrow (and hang decs.)

          11. P.S. It is worth writing the CEO on their private email., and only bcc-ing them on their official work email…

    1. Into a pan of boiling water? she asked hopefully. Oh you mean the team, not the government. Pity.

  100. Back from lunch and an emergency wine run as we are under an ice storm forecast overnight. Hopefully the roads were being treated with some chemical spray, (shush don’t tell the greenies) this afternoon so hopefully it won’t be too bad

    2. Back from lunch at 21:21?

      That was one hell of a long lunch – verging into dinner.

      I wish I had your stamina!

        2. All best wishes for tomorrow- not an easy thing to face, especially when you aren’t able to be there. Good luck to you and your husband.
          I will keep you close.

        3. Oh I’ve missed something – is your husband’s op. tomorrow?

          Sending warmest wishes and hoping it all goes as well as it possibly can. xx

  101. Got a start made on restacking the first of the woodpiles to be emptied today. Realised that it is just FAR too cold for wellies and put a pair of old lightweight walking boots on instead.

    -3°C when the sun dipped below the top of the valley at about 13:30 and it’s -7°C at the moment!

    Off to put the hot water bottles into the bed and have a bath.
    Good night all.

  102. 368972+ up ticks,

    Complete change of tune, a 180 quickstep from 2019.

    Nigel Farage Says Conservatives Need to Apologise for Failures to Regain Credibility

      1. None of them seem to have reflective insight. I suppose if you did, you wouldn’t put yourself forward for the job.

      2. In my opinion Farage should apologise for withdrawing Brexit Party candidates in seats held by remainer Conservatives in the 2019 election without getting any quid pro quo.

        Had he not made this craven surrender to Johnson Britain would not now be lumbered with the NI Protocol and EU fishing boats still plundering British fishing waters.

        Why can he not at least admit his mistake instead of boasting that it was he who got Brexit when the Brexit that was got was so very bad.

      3. Nigel Farage talks well, but look at his history.
        Stood down from UKIP Leadership FAR too early, admittedly for understandable reasons
        Stabs his former party in the back over Gerard Batten’s leadership
        Gives Boris a free pass in the 2019 election and get SFA in return

  103. That’s me for the day.

    Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk until the morn’s light and another story for you.

    1. Night night Tom. Sweet dreams.

      Me too off to the land of nod now. Have a restful sleep and sweet dreams, all.

  104. Goodnight, folks. Try to stay warm. I’m going to follow Bob’s example; a hot bath followed by bed with hot water bottles.

    1. All the best for tomorrow, Ndovu. So hard to psyche yourself up all over again, and prepare yourself emotionally. May all go well for your husband and yourself.

      Enjoy your hot chocolate, just the thing for a cold winter’s night, a hug in a mug. It’s -7C here already.

    2. Fingers tightly crossed for you and your OH today. The waiting will be the hard part Very best of luck xxx.

Comments are closed.