Wednesday 14 October: How could Sage have contemplated a lockdown for millions in areas of low Covid risk?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/13/lettershow-could-sage-have-contemplated-lockdown-millions-areas/

526 thoughts on “Wednesday 14 October: How could Sage have contemplated a lockdown for millions in areas of low Covid risk?”

  3. 324589+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    How could Sage have contemplated a lockdown for millions in areas of low Covid risk?

    Depends on what their true agenda is.

  6. Cost of HS2 high-speed rail line rises by £800m. 13 October 2020.

    HS2’s costs have risen by another £800m, the government has admitted, barely a month after the official start of construction of the high-speed rail network.

    The reshaping of Euston station is likely to cost at least £400m more than planned, while the discovery of more asbestos than expected in demolitions along the line of the route has added around another £400m.

    Morning everyone. This thing will end up costing more than the US Space Program. I would like to lay a bet that it will eventually collapse owing Billions! This is what it’s like to live in a kleptocracy!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/13/cost-of-hs2-high-speed-rail-line-rises-by-800m

    3. No, Minty

      The Channel Tunnel collapsed financially because (a) it was never a financially viable concept, and (b) it was financed privately. The original lenders and investors were wiped out.

      An additional £800m for HS2 is nothing, less than a mere pinprick. There are oodles more cost overruns and time overruns coming down the line. You’re silly to bet on its collapse. The debt service will be rolled up as part of the National tab. It won’t collapse before HMG collapses.

  8. At the end of some shows on TV, there is a disclaimer “if any of you have been affected by issues on this show, please ring this number below for help”. I am rarely affected by issues on such shows that I would be willing to share with a snitch.

    There are some shows that do not carry such a warning that do upset me profoundly, and here there is no help. One that got me last night was ‘Scrap Kings’.

    What disturbs me more than anything else is the destruction of beauty by the crass and thug-like creatures I have to share a species with, and which seem to make up the overwhelming proportion of humanity. I would happy to see them exterminated, and I fear in so being, they are turning me into Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot.

    One of my favourite shows is ‘Repair Shop’ where they restore damaged but loved family heirlooms and out of what we thought had no hope, we have something beautiful to hand down the generations. I always feel warm and happy after this show.

    The opposite is ‘Scrap Kings’, Yesterday, I saw an old house in Blackpool that someone had inherited on good trust from a family friend. It was a “time capsule” and stuffed full of those very antiques that would appear on the ‘Repair Shop’ and some I recognise in my own home, such as the rush-seated ladder back chair that is so much finer than any Chinese-made tat we get today. The whole lot was smashed up by the demolition crew, so the new owner could make a contemporary designer statement on the site of the old home.

    It goes very deep, bringing back the comprehensive redevelopments of the 1960s and 1970s where sturdy Georgian and Victorian architectural landmarks were replaced by horrid glass and concrete that was designed to be in twenty years only fit to be torn down. And to the future, and that I have no grandchildren to leave things to. I know that as soon as I do the decent thing and make room on this world for others (and some feel that tomorrow is not soon enough), the louts will be in smashing up everything I ever was or loved and throwing it in a skip.

    What can be done, in this time of Covid, to temper my despair?

    1. What can be done, in this time of Covid, to temper my despair?

      You must suffer along with the rest of us Jeremy. Some firm friendships must have been born on the deck of the Titanic before it sank beneath the waves!

    2. Repair Shop is a lovely programme. It always amazes me that it is a Beeb production.
      We are rehoming the piano that belonged to my godparents.
      It belonged to my godfather’s mother and dates from 1908-1910. I can remember hammering away on it when I was a sprog.
      We are donating it to the Royal Hospital School; we are delighted they are accepting it because my godfather was in the Navy during WWII and then he retrained as a teacher afterwards. I think he would would be pleased with the piano’s next move.

      1. When I was going to buy a new organ years ago I offered my old one (worth around £500) to the school – they refused it

      2. A lovely idea to donate it to a school; I hope they treasure it. The only concert grand piano in Gaza (once given to them by the Japanese) was ruined during an Israeli bombing raid, but restored by a French artisan. It is now in Gaza’s School of Music.

        I have ancestors that ran the Munt Brothers piano factory in South London during Victorian times.

        It was no Steinway or Bechstein or Broadwood though – these were parlour pianos using cheap actions they got as a job lot from Germany. Few survive today, most succumbed to the craze for piano smashing in the 1960s, and the factory was put out of its misery during the Blitz. The archive was wiped out in the 1964 Chappells fire.

        There were two brothers, one made the pianos and the other sold them. Their wives fell out when each accused the brother-in-law of not pulling his weight. Eventually the son of the craftsman brother took over the company which kept going until the 1930s. It was two grandsons from either branch that eventually healed the rift. The salesman brother was my great-grandfather.

        1. My late former boss Sir William Whitfield owned a Broadwood piano. It was one of four made for Chopin. Whitfield’s piano was in a Walnut Burr.

          I imagine the piano will be flogged off along with his collection of books and antiques by his civil partner who has inherited everything. A lot of the contents sold for millions at Dreweatts earlier this year pre-lockdown.

        2. Our piano is a 19thC German one which was my mother’s, and her mother’s prior to that.
          We had it restored 25 years ago and it has a lovely tone.

          2. I learned to play on a Steinway grand. Going home to practise on the old Joanna was a bit of a comedown 🙂

        3. Our piano is a 19thC German one which was my mother’s, and her mother’s prior to that.
          We had it restored 25 years ago and it has a lovely tone.

        4. This piano is Görs and Kellerman, Berlin.
          It was bought from Gough and Davy, a music shop that is still in Hull. I did email them, but their records from that era no longer exist.
          My godfather’s family came from Immingham; as he was born in 1915, I wonder if the piano was something like a 21st. birthday or wedding present to his mother. I know he had a sister a few years older than him.

      3. I was amazed (and a bit shocked) when I went to the museum in Salford to find that that piano in the Victorian room in the basement was a dead ringer for mine!

    3. In the 60’s you could pick up antique furniture for a song.
      Then tastes changed due to TV antique shows….Arthur Negus anyone?
      Hopefully good taste may return but I won’t hold my breath….

      1. Good morning, Plum.

        All my furniture is antique
        [a bit like me really!] except for
        a traditionally styled sofa and
        the beds. I doubt any of it is
        now worth a fraction of what I
        paid for it, especially the inlaid
        card table!

        1. We bought a new bed a few years ago but the rest of our furniture is inherited stuff from our parents.

          1. Mine’s a mixture of stuff from my parents, MOH’s parents and ancient bits bought at auction. I can’t abide modern stuff, it’s so shoddily made.

        2. All my furniture comes from British Heart Foundation. I don’t like the modern stuff and certainly not Ikea tat.

        3. Lord Clark’s son, the politician and awful snob Alan Clark (renowned for seducing women and marrying a girl of about 16 who adored him in spite of his frequent infidelities) poured scorn on those who bought their own furniture.

    4. Listen to more music, especially Alma, and turn off the telly. You’re getting depressed, Jeremy. Go out for a walk.

  10. Put the News on early this morning, thought I’d try BBC
    Kicked off with a bit of Trumpopia, followed by long session of Pandemicopia I thought there wasn’t going to be time for the Climateopia, then just before the who has covid sport round up they kindly threw in an article about the shrinking Great Barrier Reef, that was all the boxes ticked.
    I wonder what they are going to do If Biden wins, how will the fill up the news slot?

    1. Just had a piece on financial abuse of women from an extraordinarily well-paid metropolitan woman adviser.

      No doubt complaining about that bloke with a dog on a string daring to threaten her bonus.

  12. SIR – It’s certainly not going well for Prince Harry and Meghan. My wife wants to send their commemorative wedding mug to our local charity shop.

    Mike Beale
    Maidenhead, Berkshire

    Who in their right mind would have bought a mug displaying the nuptials of Ginge and Whinge in the first place??

    1. Living in Maidenhead and reading the DT, the sort of idiot who would choose Theresa May as their MP.

      Morning HJ

      1. I believe that she was/is an excellent constituency MP.

        It is a great pity that she did not satisfy herself with the back benches.

  13. ‘Morning again.

    Is Boris challenging the scientific (and unaccountable) groupthink, or is it just weak leadership? Surely the replacement of his two main ‘experts’ is now overdue, given their challenges to his decisions. From the Tellygraff’s Analysis:

    First, he followed the science. Then he stood accused of being blinded by it.

    But in resisting a second lockdown (for now), Boris Johnson seems to be becoming more sage in his evaluation of the evidence provided by the Government’s chief scientific advisers.

    The growing divide between the Prime Minister and Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was impossible to hide at Monday’s joint press conference, when the epidemiologist warned the new ‘traffic light’ system did not go far enough.

    Which perhaps goes some way to explaining why Sir Keir Starmer has now swung in behind the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies’s (Sage) demand for a “circuit breaker”.

    If the scientists are now against the Government, who are Her Majesty’s Opposition to disagree?

    “I am not confident, and nor is anybody confident, that the tier three proposals for the highest rates, if we did the absolute base case, and nothing more, would be enough to get on top of it,” he said during the televised briefing.

    As if to hammer home the point, papers were unexpectedly released less than an hour later showing that Sage had argued for national measures such as stopping all household mixing, advice to work from home, and the closure of all pubs, restaurants and cafes.

    The minutes – dated September 20 and 21 – revealed that Mr Johnson had not only ignored their advice against introducing a 10pm curfew, but overruled them on a circuit breaker too.

    Thanks to the Labour leader’s last minute intervention, the Tories had suddenly become the anti-lockdown party.

    It followed three weeks of cabinet discussions which saw Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the majority of ‘hawkish’ ministers pitted against Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister arguing for a more cautious Sage-like approach.

    Yet, while Labour accused the Government of “trying to bury” the advice of its own boffins on Monday night, actually Downing Street was not only aware the minutes were going to be published but seemingly happy for them to be out in the open.

    For they perfectly illustrate the growing concern among ministers and Tory MPs that Sage has fallen victim to “group think” in its unanimously circumspect coronavirus response.

    It later emerged that Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, had pushed for Sage to show its workings, seemingly keen to substantiate his colleague’s claim that there isn’t “anybody” confident the top tier will flatten the curve.

    As one senior Conservative put it: “It’s actually quite convenient Sage has published these minutes because now we know how witless and unbalanced the experts have become.

    “Sage is now out of control, it’s group thinking itself into believing it actually is the Government.

    “Vallance, particularly, is completely off the reservation. We are in this position because its advice has barely been challenged from the very beginning.

    “Sage would be happy to have lockdown after lockdown until Covid-19 has been eradicated, despite the terrible consequences for our economy.

    “We’ve got to learn to live with the virus and it seems at last the PM is recognising that.”

    A pivotal moment in Mr Johnson’s previously provident pandemic thinking appears to have followed a briefing from a series of international experts, including Anders Tegnell, architect of Sweden’s no-lockdown policy at the end of last month.

    He also spoke to Oxford University’s Carl Henegan and Sunetra Gupta, both signatories to an open letter calling on the Prime Minister to rethink the Government’s Covid-19 strategy to “find a better balance”.

    According to one Cabinet minister: “It’s fair to say there’s a much greater realisation that there is a single scientific view as much as there’s a single economic view, and that one group of scientists will always say the other group is stupid in the same way economists do.

    “The problem with Sage is it’s singing quietly and inwardly from the same hymn sheet, seemingly without giving any consideration to the other effects of lockdown on mental health, non-Covid conditions, and the economy.

    “Sage wants a complete shut down so nothing bad happens and it’ll feel very clever. If it gives the toughest advice it can’t be blamed for any resurgence. But, when all these supposedly reasonable worst case scenarios (see chart below) never happen, then trust is eroded.

    “The Prime Minister has rightly been listening to other voices.”

    As well as losing faith in Sage after Sir Patrick’s doomsday prediction of 50,000 cases a day by October failed to materialise, ministers are also increasingly starting to question the scientists’ motivations.

    Some Conservative backbenchers are already convinced the group is motivated by left-wing Tory hatred amid a string of briefings against the Government.

    One minister was a little more reasoned, saying: “I don’t think its ideology is a problem as much as its way of life. These people will all receive their salaries regardless of any lockdown. There is no prospect of them losing their jobs. They are all middle aged.

    “They can live with lockdown quite comfortably. What they fail to realise is on the basis of their own advice, we can’t have another lockdown. They were the ones going on about 50,000 cases a day, and we aren’t anywhere near that, so why on earth should we need a circuit breaker?”

    Yet while cabinet colleagues are outwardly congratulating Mr Johnson in “listening to everyone” in the face of conflicting opinion, others remain concerned about the PM’s lack of decisiveness, citing the fact it took three weeks for the Government to announce the three-tier system after Sage had offered its contradictory advice.

    “I think there is sympathy for the Prime Minister being stuck between a rock and a hard place,” admitted one Tory veteran.

    “But what has been lacking throughout is a strong sense of leadership. Now Sage has completely lost the plot, it really is beholden on Boris to get a grip.”

    1. Presumably all Sage members get 100% pay whether they work or not; kerching …. thank you, mug taxpayer.
      If, finally, they are chucked out, they will get a golden handshake followed by an index linked humungous pension – courtesy of those very same taxpayers they are currently bankrupting.

      1. Whitty and Vallance are full-time boffins. Most of the rest of the SAGE members are employed, most of the time, in their own fields. Some in industry, some in academia, and a very small number in real medicine.

  14. Morning all

    SIR – Why is there no low-risk tier? In our part of Dorset, with 7,200 people, we have between zero and two cases – at worst, a rate of one in 3,600.

    I am prepared to wear a mask in public and keep my distance, but at these long odds it is preposterous that my mother, who recalls sheltering in her cellar as bombs rained down on Bath, cannot hug her grandchildren.

    Charlie Bladon

    Cattistock, Dorset

    SIR – In the Covid briefing on March 12, Sir Patrick Vallance said: “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time.”

    Advertisement

    He added: “Our aim is to try to reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity, so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it.” So, what happened?

    Mark Macauley

    Warminster, Wiltshire

    SIR – I watch with scepticism the Prime Minister pulling the levers of the state to enforce his latest anti-Covid regime.

    He will not eliminate the virus, but only slow its spread. The cost to our finances is extraordinary. Every aspect of national life is adversely affected by a demonstrably deeply flawed plan.

    Peter Richards

    Lytchett Matravers, Dorset

    SIR – Professor John Lee gives a nuanced approach to Covid-19 that is growing among the scientific community outside the bureaucratic certainties of Sage.

    The idea that rising numbers of Covid-positive cases require more stringent lockdown is like failed socialist governments claiming that their errors lay in not providing more socialism.

    Could the rising numbers not be presented beside the current rising death rates from endemic influenza and other respiratory diseases that occur every year in the winter months?

    Professor R A Risdon

    London SW13

    SIR – The widespread politicisation of the pandemic is a national tragedy.

    We now appear to have a mess of everyone’s making. All political leaders need to take a long hard look at what they are doing and why.

    David Ellison

    Mapledurwell, Hampshire

    SIR – The Prime Minister was asked on Monday when he thought a vaccine against Covid-19 would be available, but could only answer that there is still no vaccine against Sars, another coronavirus.

    He thus reveals a real possibility that Britain will practise degrees of lockdown for years, before accepting that herd immunity by natural spread of the disease is the only option.

    This would be the worst of all worlds. Yet it appears not to be an outcome contemplated by Sage or the Government. A reckless gamble.

    Tim Beechey-Newman

    Oxford

    SIR – Am I alone in noticing the strong correlation between local degrees of risk and the position of their football teams in the Premiership?

    Perhaps Sage should adopt this as its main criterion for deciding areas to lock down. It would clearly be better than the present inscrutable system.

    Professor R G Faulkner

      1. Of course the accidental frailties of rubber were exposed in Bobby Vee’s follow up song: “Take Good Care of My Baby”

  15. SIR – I am currently trying to renew my driving licence.

    I have been on medication for glaucoma for many years. It is under control and my eyesight is excellent. However, I sent my application early, as I knew I would need a visual fields test. I also sent my last eye-test report.

    Four weeks later, I received a letter confirming that my application had arrived. Three weeks after that, I was told I needed a visual fields test – but, because Specsavers was not carrying these out due to the pandemic, my licence could not be renewed. I was advised to withdraw my application, meaning I would not be able to drive.

    I contacted Specsavers and was told that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency had cancelled the visual fields appointments due to a lack of staff. I am due to drive to Spain in three weeks’ time, so have arranged an appointment at Specsavers myself.

    This situation is farcical.

    Anthony Drummond

    Hythe, Kent

  16. Morning again

    SIR – After trying all day to get through to my local surgery by telephone to book a flu injection (Letters, October 13), I finally succeeded at 4.40  pm – only to be told that it couldn’t be done and I should call back in a couple of days or go through the website.

    One failed attempt and one unhelpful email later, I returned to the website, which informed me that no facilities existed near my postcode.

    I can see the surgery from my study window.

    Gordon Brown

    Grassington, North Yorkshire

    SIR – I was appalled to read that Mr and Mrs Rees of Leigh-on-Sea (Letters, October 13) have not been offered flu vaccinations by their GP practice.

    Our village practice has been incredibly efficient in rolling out its annual vaccination programme in a safe and controlled way. I cannot praise it highly enough.

    Jane Archer

    Shrivenham, Oxfordshire

    SIR – The nurses at my GP surgery have been giving up their lunch breaks to visit those of us who are vulnerable and give us our flu jabs. I received mine on September 17. A big thank you to them.

    Leonard Kiss

    Downham Market, Norfolk

    SIR – M J Saxton (Letters, October 12) asks why the Greek healthcare system is so much better than our own.

    Might I be permitted to put in a good word for Spain, too? In my youth, I visited Torremolinos with the aim of achieving a powerful suntan. I also intended to keep fit and, while running along a road, stepped into a hole in the ground, gashing my knee.

    A Spanish doctor attended to me in the hotel, advising that he would administer a tetanus injection in my backside. He told me that his method was painless but unusual. I braced and bared myself – then he gave my posterior a karate chop, to my intense surprise. The subsequent injection was – as promised – painless.

    Does this come under alternative medicine?

    Gavin Littaur

    London NW4

  18. ‘People need protection against online harms now’, urges chairman of Parliament’s culture committee. 14 October 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/232b477f6730f1b5d419f88d099f0353bb17a8399959de756fc29efd38e7a2e9.jpg

    Julian Knight, the chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, criticised the timeline saying the coronavirus pandemic had highlighted that “people need protection against online harms now”.

    Mr Knight said: “The government has accepted the evidence this committee presented to it about the unstoppable spread of online misinformation during the pandemic and the harms involved.

    “However, instead of acting with urgency, we’re now being told we have to wait until next year to see the legislation to tackle online harms legislation being published.

    “People need that protection against online harms now and further delay is unjustifiable.

    Mr Knight being omniscient is going to protect us from ourselves because we are really too dim to understand what is and is not true. We should leave it to him and his friends at Westminster because they have such a marvellous record in these matters.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/14/people-need-protection-against-online-harms-now-urges-chairman/

    1. That’s quite a drop in one year! There was some kind of hoo haa wasn’t there? I wasn’t paying attention.

        1. I’m guessing they wanted to and the audience didn’t? Oh well, I guess that’s what happens when you pander to a marxist movement.

    2. This is a direct result of BLM and knees, is it?
      Don’t give a flying one for NBA, tbh.

  21. The MR and I watched Monday’s “Play for the Day” restrospective last evening. Reminded me why I stopped watching those far-left, extremist propaganda dramas. Talk about flagrant bias. And the progenitors – Hare, Trodd etc – are still banging on about how everything is biased against yer working class, yer blacks etc etc. They would have been delighted had Corbyn and his gang won the election.

    You can also see how the present day far-left “news and politics” beeboids were set on their track by the blatant antipathy shown by the drama department.

    It was a chilling programme.

      2. I seem to remember a girlfriend of mine dragged me to The Royal Court Theatre in the early ’70s too see a play called ‘Home’ by David Hare which had enthusiastic reviews in the Evening Standard:. the actors in the production were Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud but I still found it a thoroughly depressing evening out!

        1. Heck. An early boyfriend – when I was about 17 – did the same thing to see ‘Sgt. Musgrave’s Dance’.
          The relationship foundered after that evening.

        2. Can’t be as bad the the theatre trip from Chepstow AACol to see “Saved” at the Little Theatre in Bristol.
          One of the biggest loads of shonet I’ve ever had the misfortune to see performed on stage.

  22. SIR — Celia Walden remarks on French clichés (Features, October 13). In the buffet on every early-morning Eurostar to Paris, two English girls share a bottle of champagne. Are they actors?

    Tim Harmey
    Worthing, West Sussex

    No,Timmy, they are not. They may, however, be actresses.

      1. See the little old world cottage
        Where her aged parents live
        Drinking the Champagne she sends them,
        But they never can forgive.

        It’s the same the whole world over
        It’s the poor wot gets the blame
        It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure
        Aint it all a bleeding shame.

    1. Another one to add to that website where they list climate change predictions that haven’t happened!

    3. The last lot of journalists who went to cover that story got stuck in the ice and had to be rescued by an icebreaker.

  24. Morning all, sunny day here in Norf Zummerzet, I thought we would take a trip out somewhere before Boris introduces his 2 week/month/year lockdown.
    Some good news, Brexit must be done and dusted and is now just history, or at least that is what you could be led to believe if you read the Daily Fail online. Not one mention of Brexit anywhere that I can see, are they sulking or what.
    If anyone is interested, you can however read all about Noel Gallagher’s daughter Anais, 20, who poses in VERY risqué lingerie for a shoot she kept secret from her rocker father, our MSM at it best.
    Laters dear Nottlers.

  25. Huge chanting crowds flood Liverpool before pubs shut for tier 3 lockdown. 14 October 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5efc4e13cb28cc84bf8654cdacc309b91e9473176b76d813e3e6601978bc83f1.jpg

    The Prime Minister announced on Monday the Liverpool city region is now in the most serious ‘very high’ risk category, with pubs, bars, leisure centres, gyms, betting shops and casinos closing from today.

    But pubgoers enjoyed a last hurrah yesterday evening as they were seen cheering and chanting with a lack of social distancing in the streets.

    Despite the anodyne explanation for this behaviour the reality must be that these young people do not believe the Government Line and why should they? Their chances of succumbing to this infection along with around 90% of the population are almost nil!

    https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/14/huge-chanting-crowds-flood-liverpool-before-pubs-shut-for-tier-3-lockdown-13418367/

    1. The photo reminds me of the copper in Liverpool who saw this lass up an alleyway skirt round her waist, knickers round her ankles eating chips. He asked her what she was doing to which she replied “Oh, has he gone then?”

    2. They can’t be all that bad, Minty. Just look at how many of them aspire to join us in The Fish & Chips Club.

      :-))

    2. Cripes. Did they chuck out their old fridges, buy electric cars and smother the jungle with wind turbines?
      As they are fossils, obviously to no good effect.

  30. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea90b5736e16b5b708aa3e71a32a4e4f36a8ce123f7da4db70a37407f04b05db.png I notice that the DT has joined in with the hysteria started, yesterday, on the Guardian which claimed a report that a New Zealand charity had recorded a bar-tailed godwit flying, non-stop, 12,000km in 11 days.

    To make this claim more risible it showed a map of the supposed “flight path” of the godwit as being over thousands of miles of open ocean! This hysterical report is riddled with errors. Godwits are a land-based wading bird. As with the migrations of all land birds, they follow a coastal trajectory for safety.

    The previous ‘record-holder’ a similar bird labelled ‘E7’, reportedly flew 11,680km in 2007. What this report didn’t mention was the fact that E7 managed that distance in just eight days! Moreover, in common with all specimens of that species on that migration route, it stopped over for a short feeding rest near the Yellow Sea, which proves its coastal-hugging habit. The full tale of ‘E7’ is here in an article by The Audubon Society, which knows a lot more about bird migration than a New Zealand charity does.

    https://www.audubon.org/news/the-bar-tailed-godwits-annual-migration-utterly-astounding

    Hysterical and unprovable hyperbole seems to have supplanted factual reporting everywhere.

    1. Absolutely, Grizzly. These days I view every single thing I read with the greatest of suspicion.

    2. Grizz, I’ve just read the Audubon article as well as the DT one. It’s not straightforward, but here’s my understanding of it.
      When the BTGs leave NZ, in the northern spring, they fly to the Yellow Sea to fatten up before continuing to Alaska. In the northern autumn, the birds fly directly to NZ from Alaska. The bird E7’s flight was the flight north, stopping at the Yellow Sea, whereas this latest ‘record, was the southern, direct, route.
      “These godwits are epic migrants. We had a bird, E-7, that we had tagged, and she left New Zealand in the spring. She flies non-stop seven days, ten thousand kilometers, to the Yellow Sea. All of the Bar-tailed Godwits of Alaska, they stop at the Yellow Sea.”
      The highlighted sentence is where confusion is let in. It should read, “All of the Bar-tailed Godwits of Alaska on their northern journey, they stop at the Yellow Sea”

        1. You can’t wade in woollies Anne, think how soggy they would get.

          Traditionally Shetland sweaters were knitted with three-quarter sleeves for fishermen – because it was better to have bare wrists than wet wool chafing them.

          2. Being a little younger, and having grown up in a far flung area where swimming pools were scarce, I never had to encounter one of those. I’m very glad of it.

      2. I take your point, Moly, but that still doesn’t mitigate for the fact that land birds do not undertake long journeys over vast stretches of open ocean. Sea birds may (and can) do that with impunity since they are capable of sitting on the water to rest and feed. Land birds, such as waders, are incapable of doing this. That is why they hug coastlines in order to have facility for rest and food.

        All bird species that migrate follow migration patterns and routes and would not deviate from this when flying south as opposed to when they fly north.

        There is a difference, of course, when it comes to the number of migrant American songbirds that turn up in Europe each autumn. These migrant birds are programmed to fly north and south over the American continents; however, a large number of them get caught up in the jet stream and are blown over the Atlantic. Since these small birds do not have the capacity (or energy) to fly 3,000 miles non-stop, a massive percentage of them perish. It is only the fortunate few who are able to rest on ships and lighthouses en route that make it. Once here, though, they have no way of making their way back to their homeland.

          2. Doing a bit of digging into this endlessly fascinating subject throws up a lot of information, some proven, some hidden, but intriguing nontheless.

            http://peonyden.blogspot.com/2010/01/bar-tailed-godwit-from-alaska.html

            It seems that the tracked specimen (‘E7’) that made a direct-ish journey from Alaska to New Zealand, is not typical for the species. That individual passed over Hawaii and Fiji on its way south but there is no record of whether it stopped at either ‘staging post’ for any length of time. To fly that whole distance in one go (with no food breaks) would be a feat of stupendous endurance. It seems though, that there is little empirical evidence (yet) to suggest that many other individuals of that species follow that same migration route.

            I would suspect that E7’s safe landing in New Zealand was due, in the main, to good fortune. Countless individuals, of many species, perish during migration; especially the ones caught up in adverse weather events.

            Bird migration is a fascinating subject and modern methods of tracking are improving the science all the time. No doubt in a few decades’ time a bigger picture will be available on not just this species, but many other migratory birds.

          4. Is there land at the “dog leg” bend on the return journey? It’s hard to see on a map of that size.

        2. When my brother’s children were about 6 and 8 they were flying back to Canada after a visit to the UK. They were taken up to the galley to see a hummingbird in little glass tank which was being taken “home” – having landed on the deck of an eastbound ship quite near the Nova Scotia coast. The sailor, who picked up what he first thought to be a dead body, was astonished to find it was alive. So they fed it on sugar water all the way across and then found an aircrew who were prepared to give it a homeward passage. I suspect that the odds on such a tiny bird surviving even a short trip out to sea would be very small, but that one got lucky.

  31. Good morning to all NoTTLers! In today’s Telegraph Letters, one “Ruth Fisher of Norfolk” tells us in details how to prepare and how to eat quinces. Could “Ruth Fisher” perhaps be the real identity of our Peddy or our Grizzly? I am considering writing a letter to the Telegraph praising the delights of Fish and Chips, and suggesting the best way to enjoy them (served in old newspaper pages, with lots and lots of salt and vinegar).

    :-))

      1. So you’re saying, Herr Oberst, (© Cathy Newman) that “Ruth Fisher” is really Uncle Bill Thomas?

        1. Has it, perchance, occurred to you that Ruth Fisher might just be … Ruth Fisher? 😉

          I prefer a plate – modern ink doesn’t taste as good as the old-fashioned stuff they used to use in the days of printing presses – but I do like plenty of salt and lots of vinegar

    2. What sort of salt do F&C shops use? I always ask for lots of it because it tastes very different, and better, than adding table salt or sea salt at home.

    3. Buenos dias, Elsie.

      Not guilty on the Ruth Fisher score, but I am contemplating having fish & chips tomorrow.

      2. Don’t forget to wrap them in newspaper and sprinkle/pour lots of salt and vinegar all over them.

        :-))

        1. They will probably be delivered in one of those funny cardboard boxes, but I have plenty of newspaper at home to which I can transfer them.

          1. So you are saying, Ndovu, (© Cathy Newman) that you never eat pickled onions – only raw ones?

      1. I think I have struck a chord with my post today, Minty. At this rate we will have to re-name the NoTTLers’ site as “The Fish & Chips Club”.

          2. Just so. I used to value his views on films. Now I sometimes catch Mark Kermode, but I never see any films other than those on Freeview.

    5. What sort of salt do F&C shops use? I always ask for lots of it because it tastes very different, and better, than adding table salt or sea salt at home.

  32. On this day in 1066, a large number of people arrived on out south coast. How much better it would have been if we had made them welcome, rather than wasting time and blood in futile resistance!

    2. And still it goes on.
      From not keeping an eye on things, places like H arrow are now overflowing.

  34. I strongly suspect that this circuit breaker that is required by the “experts”, and that they are pressing for so heavily, is needed so that they can claim that any drop in trajectory is down to expeditious lockdown.

    The reality is that people locked down will not going out and about and presumably not being tested. Fewer tests will result in fewer cases.

    Et voilá they can claim that they were right to have a short lockdown and more importantly for their narrative they were right to crucify the economy through the first lockdown.

    1. I’d like to know how the elderly people who have been admitted to hospital in recent weeks caught the bug. Were they living the high life in garden centres or did they catch it from grandkids? It can’t be from their carers because all the ones I’ve seen are masked and gloved up.

      1. Interesting questions and presumably track and trace should be able to answer that for at least some of them.

        I am still highly sceptical that all the masking and plastic are actually as effective as we are being told they are.

  35. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Letters: The natives are exceedingly restless…

    Did anyone else spot the BBC line yesterday? ‘How dare the government overrule the experts’? Listen, you expensive clowns: advisors advise, ministers decide. Got it?

    SIR – What is surprising is not that the Government overruled the advice from Sage for an immediate national lockdown, but that supposed experts felt it right to ask for restrictions on millions in areas where daily cases are in single figures per 100,000.

    Sage members, it seems, do not need to consider the wider consequences of closing down the economy again. I am glad they are not making the decision.

    Julian Gall
    Godalming, Surrey

    SIR – Why is there no low-risk tier? In our part of Dorset, with 7,200 people, we have between zero and two cases – at worst, a rate of one in 3,600.

    I am prepared to wear a mask in public and keep my distance, but at these long odds it is preposterous that my mother, who recalls sheltering in her cellar as bombs rained down on Bath, cannot hug her grandchildren.

    Charlie Bladon
    Cattistock, Dorset

    SIR – In the Covid briefing on March 12, Sir Patrick Vallance said: “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time.”

    He added: “Our aim is to try to reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity, so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it.” So, what happened?

    Mark Macauley
    Warminster, Wiltshire

    SIR – I watch with scepticism the Prime Minister pulling the levers of the state to enforce his latest anti-Covid regime.

    He will not eliminate the virus, but only slow its spread. The cost to our finances is extraordinary. Every aspect of national life is adversely affected by a demonstrably deeply flawed plan.

    Peter Richards
    Lytchett Matravers, Dorset

    SIR – Professor John Lee gives a nuanced approach to Covid-19 that is growing among the scientific community outside the bureaucratic certainties of Sage.

    The idea that rising numbers of Covid-positive cases require more stringent lockdown is like failed socialist governments claiming that their errors lay in not providing more socialism.

    Could the rising numbers not be presented beside the current rising death rates from endemic influenza and other respiratory diseases that occur every year in the winter months?

    Professor R A Risdon
    London SW13

    SIR – The widespread politicisation of the pandemic is a national tragedy.

    We now appear to have a mess of everyone’s making. All political leaders need to take a long hard look at what they are doing and why.

    David Ellison
    Mapledurwell, Hampshire

    SIR – The Prime Minister was asked on Monday when he thought a vaccine against Covid-19 would be available, but could only answer that there is still no vaccine against Sars, another coronavirus.

    He thus reveals a real possibility that Britain will practise degrees of lockdown for years, before accepting that herd immunity by natural spread of the disease is the only option.

    This would be the worst of all worlds. Yet it appears not to be an outcome contemplated by Sage or the Government. A reckless gamble.

    Tim Beechey-Newman
    Oxford

    1. SAGE seems set on undermining the Government. BBC Radio 4 this morning reported that an unreviewed SAGE finding estimates that if a National Lockdown is adopted deaths from Covid will come down significantly. Boris is following the WHO health experts advice that Lockdowns do more harm than good and should only be used in extremis eg. at the start to allow the medics and politicians to develop plans. Starmer and SAGE seem to be ignoring the WHO advice.

      1. I believe that this whole fiasco has now become so politicised that all the experts and politicians and MSM are following their own political agenda rather than any genuine medical or economic/employment advice from those on the front line. Many pressure groups are seizing the opportunity to push/putsch forward their aims.

        Trust is lost.

        2. Trust died a death after the referendum. When people (yes, you, Cameron) put their lies into print and spend a fortune disseminating them, finding out that they were lies kills off trust.

    1. “Lord Frost will tell No10 a deal is still possible if both sides agree to work extremely hard in the coming weeks.”

      That only makes sense if the UK is about to tear up its fisheries and state aid red lines – or the EU makes concessions, which is highly unlikely.

    2. “Get Brexit done” – get Brexit done in, more like. It’s what I said on Election Night.

  38. 324589+ up ticks,
    Many mini circuit breaker lockdowns equate to one WHOLE lockdown on par with many mini mosques equate to one / two / three big super mosques
    which in a short space of time now it will be not down on one knee but both,
    five times a day.
    The writing of the true word / intent is on the parliamentary menu, fodder for thought.

  39. I’ve saved Bingo from the snip – but did I do the right thing? 14 October 2020.

    Anyway, we decided that the now-adolescent, bounding Bingo absolutely had to be neutered after a gamekeeper accused Himself of not having control of his dog. There was some truth in that, even though training over the past year has gone surprisingly well. Bingo has trained his owners to let him sleep on the bed, he has taught them to give him offcuts of ham from the farm shop, and to make toast every morning because he’s partial to a crust. Training of the dog is, er, coming on.

    So, he was booked in for the operation last Thursday and then, on Wednesday night, my son came home. “Why would you do that to him?” he demanded. “What if it changes his personality? He’s perfect as he is.”

    Well expressing a personal preference I would say yes. There are no good reasons apart from medical ones for spaying pets. It is the infliction of life changes for human convenience; hardly an ethical exchange! If their habits are repugnant to you, don’t have one!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/saved-bingo-snip-did-do-right-thing/

    1. Don’t agree, Minty. Animals are animals and will follow their animal instincts.

      Most sensible people who have pets do NOT want unexpected animal pregnancies. Only keep an animal whole if you intend to breed from it.

      Spayed animals do not know what they have lost and do not reproach you.

      1. Dolly has been ‘done’. She now thinks she is a boy dog. She cocks her leg to pee and bonks her duck toy. It’s funny when she does it at night and you hear squeak squeak squeek.

    2. As I do my daily exercise on my exercise bicycle I read a volume of P.G. Wodehouse stories to keep me cheerful..

      The one I read this morning was about Bingo Little of whom it was said that if you laid all the girls Bingo had fallen in love with end to end they would reach all the way from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly Circus as some of the girls were pretty tall.

      Bingo eventually met his soul mate in Rosie M. Banks, the author of excruciatingly maudlin novels. She kept him well under the thumb but did not go so far as having him castrated.

    3. There are good medical reasons for spaying a bitch. My next-door neighbour’s bitch had to have emergency surgery a couple of weeks ago because of a severe infection in its uterus. (I have used ‘its’ not because I don’t consider the bitch to have a sex, but because my neighbour also happens to be female!). Apparently, when a bitch is on heat the uterus becomes spongy and then is prone to infection, according to her owner. I had my terrierist gelded because he was so aggressive – alpha male and a terrier is a combination that doesn’t make for a peaceful life. Even for some time afterwards, he was prone to bonk anything in sight; so much so I was beginning to wonder if he was a rig. Thankfully, he has stopped that now.

  40. Has anyone else noticed that people who say ‘me’ when they should say ‘I’ also invariably say ‘I’ when they mean ‘me’?

    If they’ve been able to learn a rule (the wrong one) why can’t they learn the correct rule instead?

    2. I’m always making mistakes like that. I don’t care really. Communication is the most important thing.

      That’s why i find pedants terminally boring.

      Good morning, Storm. How was your visit to the clap clinic? 🙂

    3. There was a Geography teacher at a school at which I taught who always got it wrong. He would say things like : “Shirley and me are going to Lyme Regis this afternoon to buy more clipboards for our pupils’ geography projects.” or “Our friends at the Seaton Land Registry Office have lent Shirley and I their theodolite.”

      So rather than explaining the difference between subject and object pronouns we used the KILL SHIRLEY RULE. It was plain even to a child in the bottom set that if Shirley were removed it should be: “I am going to Lyme Regis” or They lent the theodolite to me.”

      I cannot believe that any Nottlers have trouble with these pronouns but if you do just remember to kill Shirley!

      2. …or ‘I’.

        One of our receptionists asked a work mate, “Mary, Anne, Lucy & myself are going shopping at lunch time. Do you want to come?”

        I turned to a colleague & winced, “What was that?” “St. Ivo English,” he replied.
        St. Ivo is the local 2ndary school.

    5. They’ve saved themselves the bother of learning the I/me rules by adopting ‘myself’.

  41. 324589+ up ticks,
    Yet another win for the ersatz tory party with the johnson’s latest, their supporter / voters must be truly proud.

  42. Good morning, all. A damp grey day in North Narfurk.

    Millions dead by next week, I gather. So best make the most of today.

      1. You have an advantage in France. Funerals are generally the next day. Unlike the UK where you have to wait for weeks.

        1. Indeed.

          We’ve done some investigation and found a suitable burnerer.

          They seem to be quite expensive, but I have no idea what one might cost in the UK.

          4. ‘Morning, Bill, that’s why I’ve donated mine to medical science, when the time comes, if only to give them a laugh!

          5. When the time comes, I’ve instructed my heirs to put my body in the wheelie bin.

            Let the council worry about it.

      1. 324589+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        In regards to politico’s you should drop the “for”
        that would make “for” better reading.

  43. Slightly off topic.

    My annual car insurance letter tells me that 3259 people died on French roads and I am also informed elsewhere that ~ 70% of those were in the age range 0-45. By a quirk of statistics that number is almost exactly the same as the number of deaths in that age range due to Covid.

    I put that information to SAGE (i didn’t really) and they have concluded that all those under 45 should be locked down and forbidden from using the roads at all and have advised, nay instructed, the Prime Minister to take action this day to save lives and prevent unnecessary deaths by so doing.

    1. But presumably 95% of those victims had one or more other vehicles that could have killed them in due course.

    2. But presumably 95% of those victims had one or more other vehicles that could have killed them in due course.

  44. All BBC Radio 4 programmes have now been designated ‘Woodpiles’ – because every one includes at least one níggér… usually half a dozen or so.

    1. I signed in to Patient Access tonight to re-order my medication (can’t go to the surgery any more). What did I see on the first page? A thick-lipped, dark-skinned woman with a piccaninny. It seems there are no white people anywhere in GB these days.

      1. My meds are delivered automatically to my door every month with a farcical 6- or 12-monthly review.

  45. Drug trials and the vaccine

    I suffered adverse reactions after taking prescribed drugs on different occasions for controlling blood pressure.
    My GP couldn’t understand the blood pressures I was presenting with and said that I couldn’t be taking the drugs.
    On both occasions I had to find out the true stories behind why these drugs, after extensive drug trials, had become mainstay treatments for blood pressure.

    The first drug, during trials, was the subject of unexplained cases of heart failure which were serious enough for American doctors to doubt the safety of the drug and start litigation against the pharmaceutical manufacturer. The drug influenced the ACE2 receptor behaviour in the same way as COVID-19.

    The second drug had evidence of lengthening a critical measure of electrical heart activity, the Qt time, which can lead to a fatal form of ventricular heart rhythym. It may be safe when used in monotherapy but can be fatal when used in combination with other drugs for people with long Qt syndrome.

    Conclusion: drugs can be beneficial for the majority of a population but there are bound to be people like me who just have the wrong DNA to cope with the disastrous consequences of the beneficial effects.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/12/johnson-johnson-pauses-covid-vaccine-trial-over-participants-unexplained-illness

    1. One of my cousins takes statins. He admits he aches and cannot get to sleep easily.
      MB and I did suggest he check this out with his GP, but he is one of those for whom ‘doctor knows best’.
      Carry On Suffering.
      Morning, Minty.

      3. ‘Morning, Anne, over the past 10 years, doctors in Spain, Australia, France and now the UK keep trying to get me to take statins despite my cholesterol level being normal or below. I have always refused since I initially took them and experienced a trickle of memory loss that started to become a stream but disappeared when I threw them in the bin. I’m convinced that doctors get a kick-back from big pharma for prescribing drugs like that.

        3. Fortunately, just because you are convinced of something, it is not necessarily so. Doctors don’t get kick-backs in that way – indeed they are explicitly forbidden as any decent doctor will tell you. Doctors do, on the other hand, tend to believe in the sort of sweeping meta-analysis which suggests that the best way to deal with some problems is simply to medicate the entire population – particularly once the population reaches a given age. It seems to vary between 55 and 70 for statins. I’ve also refused them on the grounds that I don’t have a problem, but I’m not foolish enough to think that a part-time doctor, an employee rather than a partner, benefits in any way at all by offering me the drug.

      4. I too take statins and to start with, started suffering leg pains. I mentioned this to the doc who changed my prescription to a different type. Problem sorted.

    2. Drugs that are good for what they are drugging against, and terrible for other things: Thalidomide.

      1. That is the case with a lot of drugs. Especially for pregnant women. The list of things which can’t be taken when pregnant is far longer than the list of things which are permitted. The tragedy was that Thalidomide was specifically aimed (originally) at that group. It’s still in use. It is very effective in some cancer treatments – just so long as the patient isn’t pregnant.

          1. I haven’t heard of its use in that context, but then I probably wouldn’t know about the cancer treatment if a friend hadn’t been given it.

  46. OT – modern life.

    In the last 24 hours four different courier/carrier firms have made deliveries. None of the drivers had to contact us to find the house. All were made on the due day.

    However, the MR is waiting for one delivery. Yesterday, she received a text saying that “we have attempted to deliver twice to your house but there was no reply” – followed by another saying, “We were unable to locate your house”. We have be in all the time – and, if the wazzock driver could text – he could bloody telephone. The company? Parcel Force….yes, the sodding “Royal” Mail. Whose postmen have no problems at all.

    1. I had that nonsense from yodel. I contacted their office and told them their delivery driver was telling porkies. I have date and time stamped cctv covering my property and the little shit was probably in the cafe up the road.

  48. Nicked from Lockdown sceptics;

    Excellent comment in the Telegraph:
    Lucilla Rowbury
    14 Oct 2020 8:34AM
    “I applaud any journalist with the integrity and courage to speak the truth. Thank you.
    This
    is about total decimation of the economy so that Klaus Schwab’s great
    reset or fourth industrial revolution can be implemented. There is
    mounting evidence of global corruption and crimes against humanity to
    ensure that this new world order is brought forward.
    Here in the UK,
    Johnson isn’t oblivious to the destruction, he’s not incompetent;
    Johnson is doing EXACTLY what he has been told to do.
    In the coming
    months Johnson and Hancock will herald in this new world order (Great
    Reset posters already up in parts of the UK) and the gullible amongst us
    will think how wonderful that something good has come out of this
    crisis. But the more informed amongst us will realise that the virus has
    been used as trojan horse to accelerate the plans of one of the most
    ethically repugnant psychopaths on this planet.
    The measures taken by our government (most governments) were never about health: it has always been about control.
    Say goodbye to life as you knew it.
    Say hello to totalitarianism, global government, digital currency, AI, endless vaccines, and, ultimately, depopulation.”
    It’s being so cheerful wot keeps me going…………………..

    2. Most of these people have been told that they are ushering in a New Liberal Golden Age with Freedom and Equality for all! Instead it will be a literal Hell on Earth. I have actually begun to think the Apocalypse might be preferable!

        1. It may very well bring it on Horace because Liberalism being a Utopian Vision can never rest. It must always seek new fields to conquer and in that movement the Law of Unintended Consequences, as in Iraq and Libya, must arise and with it the possibility of the Apocalypse.

  51. It has been an eventful week so far. On Monday the coal man arrived. He told me that he did not have what I ordered. The boss did not want to phone me and say that they did not have any of the 25kg bags of smokeless. He had brought 50 kg open bags. I advised him that was not OK as I could not lift 50kg bags and we stacked the 25kg bags in the garage and moved them into the house one at a time when needed. He’ll be back tomorrow.
    An hour later the plumber arrived to sort the central heating, as some of the radiators were cold at the bottom. He flushed the system out a couple of times etc. He came back yesterday to check. It is still not perfectly right. He is coming again in a fortnight.
    We are off to Dumfries this morning to collect an item bought at auction. I phoned to check the opening time. The auction person wanted to know when we would be there, “for track and trace”. Difficult to predict because of the traffic snarled up on the A7 in Hawick.
    Meanwhile our fish order will arrive today, but without the kippers as they did not have any.
    Oh, and I received an email yesterday saying a former schoolmate had died. Must go now as I have a row to start in Dumfries.
    Yrs. M. Mouse

    1. Looks good, I’ve saved it.
      I like ravens. Some years ago we had a gathering across the valley of 40 or 50 ravens, an ‘unkindness’, that lasted about 3 days. Totally amazing to see so many of them soaring and performing aerobatics.

  53. 324589+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    Any mention of which November ?

    UK Drops Boris Johnson’s Thursday Brexit Deadline, Talks Will Continue into November: Report.

    The testicle still seeks the tentacle.

  54. Starmer’s second lockdown would do untold damage. Spiked 14 October 2020.

    Businesses will be put at risk, as will jobs. While middle-class professionals work from home, the working class will have to continue to go to work – if they have a job left at all. As epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff has pointed out, lockdown policies benefit the better-off while hammering the poor. So much for Labour being the party of the working class.

    And, depressingly, it will not even work. Lockdowns can only delay the spread of infection – a second lockdown would simply kick the can down the road. There would likely be another lockdown to follow when Covid cases inevitably rise again after the lifting of restrictions. On and on and on like this until we have a vaccine – and likely beyond.

    Yes all this is treading water until the good ship Vaccinatus arrives to pick us up! While this is happening the sharks are tearing chunks out of us and the weather is getting up. All that will be left is a blood cloud in the water!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/14/starmers-second-lockdown-would-do-untold-damage/

    1. Starmer isn’t necessarily against the poorest, he just hasn’t thought through his default opposition to the government.

      Where’s he’s really gone wrong is in – as usual – speaking only for his own clique – who are middle class, white collar, *public sector* workers. Of course he sees no problem with continuing the lockdown. None of his audience suffer from it’s consequences. He hasn’t thought beyond his statist world view.

      1. You could have fooled me that Labour wasn’t against the poorest; for years they have been busy creating and maintaining an underclass dependent on sucking at the taxpayer teat. Gone is the emphasis on “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” and “from each according to his ability”. The traditional, small C conservative, working class are an embarrassment to Labour.

    1. There is a difference. The Reichschancellor loved his people, and his people loved him. The BBC and other propagandists used the term “Nazis” to describe who we were fighting. But that was blatant propaganda to dehumanise the enemy. We were fighting the Germans. Just as the Germans were fighting the British, not the “Tories” and not the “Government of National Unity led persons”.
      Do we love Boris? Does Boris love us?

      2. No he didn’t and they didn’t. The first people to be chucked into concentration camps were Germans who opposed the Nazis, and very early on people were joking about wishing to be struck dumb so that they couldn’t say anything that would get them put into Dachau.

        1. Germans who opposed the Nazis

          Many of them being Germans who were the very special sort of Fellow Germans who were jolly keen on Germany replicating the wonderful Soviet experiment all through the 1920s and up until . . .1933.

          Still, not to worry, these brave dissidents and their fellow travellers won in due course and it all ended happily. So now we have the UN, EU, WHO, mass immigration, mass rape, tranny worship, gay marriage, Black Hysteria Month, globalism and all these other modern wonders.

          1. Sure there were communists among them. Also Christians and other people who opposed the abolition of political parties and the imprisoning of political opponents. The vast majority were stuck just as people are today, opposing what the government is doing, but scared of being punished for speaking out against it.

            It isn’t one or the other (communism or nazis). Freedom is something that every generation has to fight for. Democracy is an inherently unstable system. Our mistake is that we thought we had it, so we laid down the arms.

  56. 324589+ up ticks,
    Tell me, is it not a worrying sign that the populace of these Isles cannot get
    behind, support & vote for a pro United Kingdom political party ?

  57. As Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator I am in the unenviable position of being the link between the members of my scheme in my road and the police. Up until now the Suffolk Constabulary have stood back from taking any legal action against those breaking the COVID-19 regulations I think partly because no one really understood them.

    I welcome the new regional tier system because I can at last publish the Government regulations for Tier 1 (medium risk) in which my NHW scheme finds itself. Some of these regulations are now legally enforceable. So as to make them publicly available I shall be posting the link together with its Q Code on the street lamp posts bearing the NHW logo that surround my area.

    A copy of the Government link with Q code image for Tier 1 areas is attached which you are free to try out.
    (Note: Regulations for tiers higher than Tier 1 may be accessed from this web page by entering the local postcode )

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bf957b16602c84be0f966ba06af95e68c2d3e9317f9dd7bb5809ddc7cd224294.jpg

          1. Shocking thing to suggest!

            My comment, too, was supposed to be amusing.

            I’ll go and have a lie down.

    1. 324589+ up ticks,
      Morning PT,
      What surprises me is peoples still supporting / voting lab/lib/con a proven anti UK coalition party.
      Currently conspiracy theories are a defence, and are of a lesser evil content against factual happenings.

    2. That’ll be right enough, Plum.

      Since folk who do not use social media are less likely to learn of Covid conspiracy theories to believe in, more of them believe in them less – if you see what I mean!
      :¬)

    3. I am awaiting the results of a test from a friend of mine he sent me a message yesterday because his daughter who lives in London and daughter in Law who lives in Hertfordshire both tested positive. But both are feeling fine now. He was with them last Tuesday. I visited his house Friday morning to fix a broken toilet cistern and fix a soap and shampoo holder in a shower. He’s hopeless at DIY.
      Fingers crossed here.
      Plus i doubt if our political classes have the collective sagacity to be able to rig all this.

    4. I’m pretty sure there’s a conspiracy to keep us all under control and then force us to be vaccinated, when it eventually comes, even though 1) it won’t have been trialled long enough to prove its safety and 2) no vax has been produced for the common cold, although it’s from the same Coronavirus family, since time began.

      I don’t do social media.

    5. I don’t think the C19 itself was a conspiracy, but I do believe that the power hungry have seen it as a crisis that they shouldn’t let go to waste.

    1. It looks like an Eaton Commercial & Industrial Range – 10kA/15kA MCB but I can’t tell if you’ve got a type B, C, or D.
      Do you get particularly high inrush surges?

      1. Sorry – I was trying to be funny. Govt policy “circuit breaker”

        I’ll get me insulated screwdriver…..

        2. Caught on straight away, Bill but then I’m old-school armed services – we lived on puns and dirty jokes.

    2. Yes, I can just imagine the shrieks of horror from the heads up their backsides liberal snowflakes if someone tried performing this today!

  61. From a letter in today’s Telegraph –
    “Are the ethnic communities causing the problem, as huge swathes of our Northern cities and towns are populated by immigrants?
    I say this, as I have a friend in Birmingham, who said they just ignored the original lockdown.
    Just a thought”

    The trouble is that no-one dare look into the figures and publish the results –
    It is a well known fact that the BAME people are more affected and hence, by association, be carriers.
    Also, as the BLACK Lives Matter movement has morphed into the BLACKS Rule Movement, they seem to be a law unto themselves

    1. I saw a Youtube clip taken in the west midlands back around April this year, it showed around 25 muslim men leaving a terraced house putting their shoes on at exit and jumping into cars and driving off.
      This was after they had been told not to visit mosques.

    2. Morning all. This is another thing I don’t understand. If, and it’s a big if, the BAMEs are particularly vulnerable to this virus why haven’t they been dropping like flies ever since XR and BLM rioters have been around/ignoring the so called lockdowns? None of it makes any sense. But then neither does the “science”. The whole thing is a farce from start to finish and the economic/financial and social consequences are unimaginable – at the moment.

    3. They held a large rally in London over the weekend which not a single policeman attended!

  62. 324589+ up ticks,
    May one ask ? will their accommodation be satisfactory on arrival
    at the Dover entrance in accordance with the knee bending submissive pcism & appeasement rulings.
    The johnson chap has enough on his plate with rhetoric script on the 15/9/2020 to be worrying about if our daily quota of illegal guests are comfortable.

    At least 851 Illegal Migrants on French Terror Watchlist

    Ps
    What is the real function of the watch list ? is it to watch these illegal units
    are not upset in any manner ?

    1. How many Muslim terrorists, after the event, are tagged as being already on security services watch lists? It really beggars belief.

      1. Sadly, it doesn’t. We now accept that British governments and their employees are a collection of chocolate fireguards.

        1. 324589+ up ticks,
          Afternoon Anne,
          If so & I do not disagree is it not pointless / dangerous to keep putting them in place ?

    2. 🎼🎵🎶”Sit on my face and tell me that you love me!”🎵🎶

      Sung to the tune of How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria.

  65. Klaus Schwab (of WEF) is a megalomaniac nutter but it is very alarming how easily he has accrued power and clout.

    https://winteroakpress.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/ks-davos-old.jpg?w=306&h=203

    Schwab set out this agenda back in 1971, in his book Moderne Unternehmensführung im Maschinenbau (Modern Enterprise Management in Mechanical Engineering), where his use of the term “stakeholders” (die Interessenten) effectively redefined human beings not as citizens, free individuals or members of communities, but as secondary participants in a massive commercial enterprise.

    The aim of each and every person’s life was “to achieve long-term growth and prosperity” for this enterprise – in other words, to protect and increase the wealth of the capitalist elite.

    https://winteroakpress.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/ks-davos-protest6.jpg?w=768&h=415

    This all became even clearer in 1987, when Schwab renamed his European Management Forum the World Economic Forum.

    The WEF describes itself on its own website as “the global platform for public-private cooperation”, with admirers describing how it creates “partnerships between businessmen, politicians, intellectuals and other leaders of society to ‘define, discuss and advance key issues on the global agenda’.”

    The “partnerships” which the WEF creates are aimed at replacing democracy with a global leadership of hand-picked and unelected individuals whose duty is not to serve the public, but to impose the rule of the 1% on that public with as little interference from the rest of us as possible.

    In the books Schwab writes for public consumption, he expresses himself in the two-faced clichés of corporate spin and greenwashing.

    The same empty terms are dished up time and time again. In Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Guide to Building a Better World Schwab talks of “the inclusion of stakeholders and the distribution of benefits” and of “sustainable and inclusive partnerships” which will lead us all to an “inclusive, sustainable and prosperous future”! (1)

    Behind this bluster, the real motivation driving his “stakeholder capitalism”, which he was still relentlessly promoting at the WEF’s 2020 Davos conference, is profit and exploitation.
    *
    *
    Thus blockchain technology will be fantastic and provoke “an explosion in tradable assets, as all kinds of value exchange can be hosted on the blockchain”. (22)

    The use of distributed ledger technology, adds Schwab, “could be the driving force behind massive flows of value in digital products and services, providing secure digital identities that can make new markets accessible to anyone connected to the internet”. (23)

    In general, the interest of the 4IR for the ruling business elite is that it will “create entirely new sources of value” (24) and “give rise to ecosystems of value creation that are impossible to imagine with a mindset stuck in the third Industrial Revolution”. (25)

    The technologies of the 4IR, rolled out via 5G, pose unprecedented threats to our freedom, as Schwab concedes: “The tools of the fourth industrial revolution enable new forms of surveillance and other means of control that run counter to healthy, open societies”. (26)

    KS shapingBut this does not stop him presenting them in a positive light, as when he declares that “public crime is likely to decrease due to the convergence of sensors, cameras, AI and facial recognition software”. (27)

    He describes with some relish how these technologies “can intrude into the hitherto private space of our minds, reading our thoughts and influencing our behavior”. (28)

    Schwab predicts: “As capabilities in this area improve, the temptation for law enforcement agencies and courts to use techniques to determine the likelihood of criminal activity, assess guilt or even possibly retrieve memories directly from people’s brains will increase. Even crossing a national border might one day involve a detailed brain scan to assess an individual’s security risk”. (29)

    There are times when the WEF chief gets carried away by his passion for a sci-fi future in which “long-distance human space travel and nuclear fusion are commonplace” (30) and in which “the next trending business model” might involve someone “trading access to his or her thoughts for the time-saving option of typing a social media post by thought alone”. (31)

    Talk of “space tourism” under the title “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the final frontier” (32) is almost funny, as is his suggestion that “a world full of drones offers a world full of possibilities”. (33)

    But the further the reader progresses into the world depicted in Schwab’s books, the less of a laughing matter it all seems.

    The truth is that this highly influential figure, at the centre of the new global order currently being established, is an out-and-out transhumanist who dreams of an end to natural healthy human life and community.

    ************************************************************

    https://winteroakpress.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/schwab-and-blair.jpg?w=362&h=271

    In his 2018 book, Schwab discusses the problem of pesky regulations and how best to “overcome these limits” in the context of data and privacy.

    He comes up with the suggestion of “public-private data-sharing agreements that ‘break glass in case of emergency’. These come into play only under pre-agreed emergency circumstances (such as a pandemic) and can help reduce delays and improve the coordination of first responders, temporarily allowing data sharing that would be illegal under normal circumstances”. (89)

    Funnily enough, two years later there was indeed a “pandemic” and these “pre-agreed emergency circumstances” became a reality.

    This shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise for Schwab, since his WEF had co-hosted the infamous Event 201 conference in October 2019, which modelled a fictional coronavirus pandemic.

    And he wasted little time in bringing out a new book, Covid-19: The Great Reset, co-authored with Thierry Malleret, who runs something called the Monthly Barometer, “a succinct predictive analysis provided to private investors, global CEOs and opinion- and decision-makers”. (90)

    Published in July 2020, the book sets out to advance “conjectures and ideas about what the post-pandemic world might, and perhaps should, look like”. (91)

    Schwab and Malleret admit that Covid-19 is “one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experienced over the last 2000 years”, adding that “the consequences of COVID-19 in terms of health and mortality will be mild compared to previous pandemics”. (92)

    They add: “It does not constitute an existential threat, or a shock that will leave its imprint on the world’s population for decades”. (93)

    Yet, incredibly, this “mild” illness is simultaneously presented as the excuse for unprecedented social change under the banner of “The Great Reset”!

    And although they explicitly declare that Covid-19 does not constitute a major “shock”, the authors repeatedly deploy the same term to describe the broader impact of the crisis.

    Schwab and Malleret place Covid-19 in a long tradition of events which have facilitated sudden and significant changes to our societies.

    They specifically invoke the Second World War: “World War II was the quintessential transformational war, triggering not only fundamental changes to the global order and the global economy, but also entailing radical shifts in social attitudes and beliefs that eventually paved the way for radically new policies and social contract provisions (like women joining the workforce before becoming voters). There are obviously fundamental dissimilarities between a pandemic and a war (that we will consider in some detail in the following pages), but the magnitude of their transformative power is comparable. Both have the potential to be a transformative crisis of previously unimaginable proportions”. (94)

    *********************************************************
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/885d65a3b4688f1f83b6742d554b92ff9f2fe9017be356f0921310bca855a906.jpg

    Coercive measures of one kind or another are also likely to be used to force people to take the Covid vaccines currently being lined up.

    Schwab is deeply connected to that world, being on a “first-name basis” with Bill Gates and having been hailed by Big Pharma mainstay Henry McKinnell, chairman and CEO of Pfizer Inc, as “a person truly dedicated to a truly noble cause”.

    So it is not surprising that he insists, with Malleret, that “a full return to ‘normal’ cannot be envisaged before a vaccine is available”. (136)

    He adds: “The next hurdle is the political challenge of vaccinating enough people worldwide (we are collectively as strong as the weakest link) with a high enough compliance rate despite the rise of anti-vaxxers”. (137)

    “Anti-vaxxers” thus join Schwab’s list of threats to his project, along with anti-globalization and anti-capitalist protesters, Gilets Jaunes and all those engaged in “class conflicts”, “societal resistance” and “political backlash”.

    The majority of the world’s population have already been excluded from decision-making processes by the lack of democracy which Schwab wants to accentuate through his stakeholderist corporate domination, his “agile governance”, his totalitarian “system management of human existence”.

    But how does he envisage dealing with the “sombre scenario” of people rising up against his great newnormalist reset and his transhumanist Fourth Industrial Revolution?

    What degree of “force” and “coercive measures” would he be prepared to accept in order to ensure the dawning of his technocratic new age?

    The question is a chilling one, but we should also bear in mind the historical example of the 20th century regime into which Schwab was born.

    Hitler’s new Nazi normal was meant to last for a thousand years, but came crashing down 988 years ahead of target.

    https://winteroak.org.uk/2020/10/05/klaus-schwab-and-his-great-fascist-reset/

    2. The really scary thing about this megalomaniac is that everybody who is anybody goes to his Davos meetings and sucks it all up. It’s all come to pass as he said it would – you have world leaders, Soros and Gates, and all the people with money and lo and behold – the Great Reset is here.

      1. Fortunately people are beginning to cotton onto this scam and perhaps now it’s out in the open more people will realise what it’s all about.

  69. Well, we had our trip out, down to Weymouth to view the cruise ships with coffee and cake to start. Lovely sunny day but I had to sneak up from behind later in the day to overcome the sun’s position glaring on the sea. I’m sure T_B is familiar with where I was. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e31b2bdee0a00b31c1846a314b4d41df85f60db1cf0362794bb527559b80e1b6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/af26cb3145526248092a293ea388627edd6fa6f1617bc28392191de39a1ddce8.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a4bcd32cba7328b6a218eebb5cd545550fc980753eb73e988d0f40e79c726d05.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7fdb1537bd26dd3ae5a688e54cf78a2ab6a5336e9ff8559874bb7cc87c87c892.jpg

    4. How lovely , so glad you enjoyed your day out . We were there the other day parked next to a very friendly couple from Yeovil, who left Somerset that morning in fog and clamped down weather to be greeted by sunshine at Bowlease Cove . They were enjoying a fish and chip lunch in the warmth of their car.

      We love the Look out cafe, they do a delicious crab sandwich which we sometimes treat ourselves to, in kinder weather.

      The ships are amazing aren’t they . Poor old cruise industry has been murdered, well and truly.

      1. It brought back some memories, a week in a caravan called “Why Worry” just along the road, Waterside Park or something similar some 60 odd years ago.
        Those ships are impressive and the Lookout is a good vantage point, I think there is even one in Portland Harbour.

      2. They certainly are amazing, Maggie. They make my jaw drop that anybody would even contemplate being shut up in one of them for any length of time.

    5. My parents took me on holiday to Weymouth when I was a child. All I can remember is that the beach was sandy and very shallow; you could go a long way out and only be up to your waist at most.

      1. I can remember being down there one very hot day when the tide came in over the warm sand, for once the water was not freezing!

  70. That’s me for the day. A lecture online from the British School at Rome coming up in a couple of minutes. Tomorrow, to market to market to buy a halal pig. Then chums for lunch – risking mingling…

    A demain.

  71. THE TRIUMPH OF SOCIALISM

    In a recent interview with the BBC World Service, a chicken farmer from Miranda, Venezuela, Sr. José Fulano, has described his incredible success story under the wise leadership of President Nicolás Maduro.

    “To me, el Presidente is a hero!”, he said. “Despite the sanctions which those filthy gringos in los Estados Unidos have placed upon my country, today in Venezuela, a chicken is worth 14,600,000 bolivares and I am now a multi-billionaire. What else but socialismo could have achieved this economic miracle?”

    Sr. Fulano added that he is expecting his invitation to the WEF at Davos to arrive soon…

    1. Ah, so when a loaf of bread costs 200,000 million marks, the baker is a millionaire – but the people are still starving?

    1. It was a squirm factor leftie inspired play. Bland and as tastless as the food on offer .

      Did you see the last one , which was based in a country house the day that Churchill lost his seat after WW2 ended.

      Lots of long gone actors and actresses, and some political messages to swallow!

    2. Right there…everything i hated about the 70’s. The wallpaper, the food, the clothing, the attitude. Vile.

        1. I’m not very sophisticated……..I still like ABBA and put them on when i’m down in the dumps. Always works for me. 🙂

        2. I liked a few albums-only bands, but all the drivel in the singles charts was execrable.

          Good evening, Maggie.

    1. Have you been watching Brave New World? It keeps very close to the book. I’m really enjoying it.

  75. World Economic Forum Outlines Its ‘Great Reset’ to End Traditional Capitalism. 14 October 2020.

    The coronavirus crisis presents an opportunity for a “new kind of capitalism” and “great reset” of global economies, politics, and societies, according to World Economic Forum (WEF) founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab.

    The world stands at the precipice of change and the WEF sees itself in the forefront of that rebuild of capitalism which it envisages means companies “contribute to social welfare and the common good” at the expense of shareholders and investors.

    And if you believe that I have a really cute little bridge with two towers that I would like to show you!

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/14/world-economic-forum-outlines-its-great-reset-to-end-traditional-capitalism/

    1. Urrgghh! “The common good”. You vill do as you are told, peasant! Ve know vot is good for you! Power, power, power.

    2. 324589+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      My belief is current lab/lib/con coalition party supporter / voters will go for it.

      1. They have no choice! There’s no mention of Elections or Democracy in Mr Schwab’s vision!

    3. Social welfare and the common good – what else are their taxes spent on?

      These people really don’t understand the simplest of things. For a group calling itself the world economic forum they are truly deluded regarding the basics of economics.

      1. Think Corbyn. He (and his gang) knew nothing about social welfare, economics, or the common good – they were simply after POWER.

    4. Why don’t the bloody jihadists do something really worthwhile and visit a WEF in Davos, en masse.

  78. Today’s neologism:

    The collective noun for a bunch of “c’s” and “a-holes” is officially designated:
    a SAGE.

    2. Not me Billy Boy but i get where you are coming from.

      I thought it was just emotionally unsound young people who killed themselves because they didn’t get any ‘Likes’.

        1. Perhaps we should all go on Faceache, Instagrot and Twatter and upvote everything. Might save a few lives.

          On second thoughts….I can’t be arsed.

  80. My post below (or above) regarding our eventful week missed a couple of items. Last Sunday night there was quite a lot of banging and clattering outside in the street. I went outside and there were workmen putting up signs and bollards. I asked one of them what was happening, and told me the road was being closed overnight for the Water Board to do some work and it would all be gone by morning. And it was. However just before lunchtime on Monday a squad of different workmen arrived. They took down all the 30mph signs and put up 20mph signs. When we moved here 20 years ago there was no speed limit at all.

    Safely back from Dumfries by 1:30. The fish had been delivered of course. When we have been at home the fish delivery was never before 3:00pm.
    Isn’t there a “Law” that covers these things?

  81. Fun fact: Australia’s biggest export is boomerangs.
    It’s also their biggest import. 🤣

      1. I have a real, hunting, boomerang.

        It looks nothing remotely like the tourist ones.

        It is surprisingly heavy and I can easily see how it would kill quite a large bird in flight.

        It will return to roughly where it was thrown from, but only if it has been thrown with the correct technique, otherwise it is merely a stick, and just falls a long way away from the thrower.

          2. Nqong called Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—always hungry, dusty in the sunshine, and showed him Kangaroo. Nqong said, ‘Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ashpit? He wants to be popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make him SO!’

          4. It’s the only trained dingo I’ve ever heard about. It’s a book I still love, a go to book when I’m convalescing or very tired.

  82. Why investigating David Starkey is an absurd waste of police time

    Is following up his ‘public order offence’ really necessary, not to mention going after Darren Grimes, who conducted the interview?

    MICHAEL DEACON

    Dr David Starkey has long had a habit of expressing contentious opinions in interviews. There are any number of examples, on all manner of subjects. In 2009, for instance, he told BBC History magazine that, a lot of the time, Henry VIII was actually a pretty good husband.

    “Henry likes women,” said Starkey (speaking, as is often his way, about historical figures in the present tense). “Henry is only happy with women around him… When Catherine of Aragon is pregnant, he’s all solicitude… I would use the word ‘tender’. He is a tender husband.”

    Now, I wouldn’t dream for a moment of questioning Starkey’s expertise on this subject. After all, he’s one of the world’s foremost authorities on Tudor England. He’s written numerous books on Henry VIII, and presented several TV series about him. I, by contrast, have written and presented precisely none.

    Even so, to a layman like me, this particular claim did come as something of a surprise. It certainly didn’t chime with what little I knew of the subject.

    If only we could ask Henry’s wives what they think.

    “Oh yes, it’s perfectly true. Henry and I had a wonderful marriage. People nowadays don’t seem to realise what a great husband he was, which I think is a real shame, because with me he was always so kind, sensitive and considerate. Lots of little romantic gifts and gestures. Never forgot our anniversary. Always noticed when I’d had my hair cut. In fact, the two of us were really very happy together. If you don’t count that one time he had me executed in the Tower of London.

    “Apart from that, though, lovely guy. For a while, I was actually quite keen to get back together with him, but my friends talked me out of it. They said that once a Tudor monarch has had you executed in the Tower of London, you shouldn’t give him a second chance.”

    Despite Starkey’s longstanding renown in the field of Tudor history, however, his reputation has taken a serious and possibly irreparable hit. Back in June, he gave a video interview in which he argued that the slave trade wasn’t genocide – because if it had been, “there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks”.

    Uproar ensued. Among other things, those words swiftly cost Starkey a book deal, his honorary fellowship at a Cambridge college, and a medal for services to history that he’d been awarded 19 years earlier.

    Three months passed. The matter seemed to be closed. But apparently not.

    Now, Starkey is being investigated by the police over his comments. In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said it had been “passed an allegation from Durham Police of a public order offence relating to a social media video”, and that officers had begun an investigation. The man who conducted and published the interview, Darren Grimes, is also being investigated.

    Personally, I think this is ridiculous. Of course what Starkey said in his interview was crass, ugly and wrong. He himself has accepted that it was “a bad mistake” and has apologised repeatedly.

    For the police to get involved, however, is surely unnecessary. First of all, Starkey has already been punished. Look at all that he’s lost.

    And second: is this investigation really in the public interest? Naturally, the police are obliged to look into the complaints they receive. But do we seriously want the video’s publisher dragged in for questioning? Is there a huge and irresistible wave of demand for this? Are millions of people across this country really saying: “You know what’s at the forefront of my mind, in the midst of what threatens to be the worst pandemic in a century, with tens of thousands dead in Britain alone, and businesses going bust, millions in fear for their livelihoods, a second full lockdown looming, and no guarantee of an effective vaccine this year, next year or maybe even ever?

    “Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a clip from over three months ago of a TV historian being interviewed by some obscure little twerp on a social networking website most people don’t use. That’s what’s really worrying me and my family right now. And I for one will not rest easy until the matter has reached the highest court in the land.”

    Is that what the nation is saying? I could be wrong, but I’m not convinced. In fact, I’d go further. If, for example, I’d recently been burgled or mugged, and the police had made little headway in bringing the miscreant to justice, I’d probably be somewhat disappointed to learn that officers were otherwise occupied investigating a video of a minor celebrity trashing his own reputation on the internet.

    Then we come to another matter: freedom of the press. Grimes may well have demonstrated himself to be an interviewer of outstanding naivety, who at the time failed to challenge Starkey’s remarks. But, however offensive those remarks were, a publisher should surely be free to publish them. If an interviewee has said something appalling, the public has a right to know – and to see, hear or read it for itself.

    In the end, it’s hard to see what a police investigation will achieve – other than to turn Grimes into a martyr for free speech, and thereby giving an inadvertent boost to his career as an online culture warrior. His followers will defend him. His critics will sympathise with him. And as a result, his audience will grow.

    Grimes has deplored the investigation as “a contemptible way for the Metropolitan Police to abuse taxpayers’ money and the trust of citizens”. But it may, if anything, end up helping him.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/investigating-david-starkey-absurd-waste-police-time/

    1. This for nothing:

      Why don’t Muslim countries have huge populations of people with “black” or “white” ancestry from their slave trades, as the “West” has ?

      Because they castrated the male slaves and bashed the brains out of any children of the black and white females from the harems.

    2. It’s more about Darren Grimes. He beat the Electoral Commission when they tried to stick it to him over Vote Leave.
      The moment he won, he was a marked man. The government apparatchiks will hound him into eternity.

    3. The problem with Henry VIII was the injury he received in a jousting accident changed his personality. At the beginning (I’m reading “Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s Spanish Queen” at the moment) he was attentive and solicitous of her miscarriages.

        1. Tomorrow wil be very interesting, walk or talk.

          Will your avatar be the bright new horizon or the look over the shoulder to what might have been?

          2. I am expecting an apocalyptic spike in Covid cases, the announcement of yet new measures to control the virus (do they know nothing about the way viruses work?) and sunny Sunak to announce more billions we don’t have to keep people at home – oh, and by the by, tucked away in the small print on the back pages, we won’t have walked away, but signed up to be dominated by the EU for a further six months.

        2. No it isn’t. We have …

          … the Spanish Inquisition! Our weapon is
          suprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are
          fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our three weapons are
          fear, and surprise, and the ruthless efficiency…and an almost
          fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Amongst our weapons…are fear,
          surprise, ruth… Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear…

          I’ll come in again.

    2. As the venture capitalist would say he clearly has “skin in the game”. It’s clear he regards those three as only having fore…. .. … ….

  84. Evening all. Is it just me, or is anyone else struggling to see images on the site? Two routers, two laptops, three browsers, one smartphone, all show white space where the piccie should be.

      2. I did wonder. It seems that Vodafone doesn’t like Disqus. Which is a bit of a bugger, since I’ve just signed up with them for Broadband, as well as 4G

    2. Bloody typical of the ordinary day, Geoff, Most times t cures itself – sometimes it doesn’t. Drives you MAAAD

      1. Speaking of bloody typical, the new address gets approximately eight threatening letters a week from EDF, because the dead previous tenant (d. Feb 2020) flatly refuses to pay her estimated bills. They were informed of this in July, but have chosen to ignore it. Meanwhile, Guildford Borough Council have sent me a Council Tax Bill for the whole year, disregarding the single person discount, and the irritating fact that my move coincided with six months of the CT year…

        “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it no more…”

        1. Sympathies. Thames water have issued me with a stern warning that they can’t collect a direct debit because I’ve cancelled it and it may affect my credit rating.The fact that I informed TW months ago I was moving and they had to give me a rebate before they closed my account seems to have passed their accounts department by.

          Not content with maladministration at TW, British Gas have decided to get in on the act. Having been Peed off by one of their “customer” reps some years ago, I decided not to stay with BG in the new property. Yesterday I received two final bills one for electricity and t’other for gas for the month it’s taken me to change suppliers. Both demand payment by the 20th. The gas bill looked a tad excessive. It transpires they’d added the electricity bill amount to the gas bill !!!

          “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it no more…”

          1. Along wisth a few neighbours, when the Thursday night ‘clap’ was going on down in the prole bit of the village, we were poised to shout “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it no more…” at the top of our voices.

            Aksherly, I’m still mad as hell…

      2. Hi Bill. Discovered that Vodafone doesn’t like Disqus, among other sites.

        Eventually found a way of changing the router DNS to Google. Now it all works; I can even access pron, if I have the time and the inclination…

    1. Such technical knowledge is way beyond the reach of our government, with the possible exception of Therese Coffey, who has a science PhD.

  86. Further thoughts, sort of.

    In the last three weeks I have received:
    2 emails purporting to be from Amazon, asking for “confirmation”
    1 phone call seeking an Amazon Premium payment (I have never had Amazon premium, and won’t)
    1 email purporting to be from Paypal, seeking account detail confirmation,
    1 email from nameless source seeking payment of parking fine? (fictitious),
    1 email from a source attempting to blackmail me for accessing porn sites on certain dates, claiming to have used my computer camera to have filmed me doing certain things and seeking payment of over £1000 not to to tell everyone. (This was the most worrying as they not only had my email address but also an old password. I changed all related passwords). As it happens my computer camera has been permanently blanked off, and my response to blackmailers is similar to that of the Iron Duke.
    I passed all the details to the companies and the fine/blackmail things to a police site. However, nobody does anything at all about this kind of thing. Why do we have hundreds of police trawling the internet for “hate crime” when real crimes such as these, which encompass extortion, blackmail and fraud, go unheeded?

    1. Attempted blackmail?
      Who remembers the 1950’s film about the Merchant Navy crew on shore leave whilst the ship was docked for unloading?
      It’s the one where one of the officers (I think) had a fling with a dark haired lady who then produced photographs of them together in an attempt to blackmail him.
      His response was to write a cheque for a piddling amount and request reprints of several of the photos to shew his colleagues!

      1. Exactly my.., er… that would be … I mean, if it actually, er, happened to me…

    2. If you use Gmail – it filters out most of these to the spam folder, then you can just delete the whole lot.

      1. After checking them carefully.

        Files sent from accounting software (of almost any variety) have an alarming tendency to be classified automatically as junk. Nine times out of ten if I ask someone to send a copy invoice it lands in the junk folder. At least I’m used to this now and know where to go looking. My own files, when sent to accountants/consultants etc – often do the same thing. It seems that most systems just don’t recognise the suffixes used by these programmes, but it is a bit irritating.

        1. I just checked my spam folder and moved one to the inbox – there were 115 altogether since I last looked, and Gmail deletes those after a month anyway. I get a lot of spam from people trying to sell stuff to our very small charity. A lot get through anyway but these people seemed to have excelled themselves in the last couple of weeks. Then there are all those who use names of people I know who have been hacked as they used insecure emails. That’s just my main personal email address. Now to check the others!

          1. Only 33 in the other box – including a few “Asian girls” and one purporting to come from HMRC, offering a tax refund.

          2. I check every couple of days, because I’m so used to things I want landing there (amongst all the things I don’t want – there are always a few of those too) – Outlook deletes them after 10 days so I can’t wait too long.

            Please don’t mention tax refunds. I chose not to defer my VAT payment (for the quarter ended 30 April, which I could have deferred) but paid it as usual. HMRC sent me a cheque for the amount at the beginning of September (unsolicited) as they had “automatically deferred my account” then a letter reminding me that I had to pay them the deferred amount by 31/3/2021. Two phone calls were required to persuade them to cancel the cheque. Then another cheque, for the same amount, arrived in the post today! I’m hoping that one phone call will be enough this time. I don’t want to have the debt hanging over me, I’ll have completed 2 more returns by the time I get to next March.

          3. I don’t check so often as I rarely find anything important in there and they stay for 30 days.

            I had a genuine tax refund last year from HMRC – by the time I’d jumped the hoops to get to my “Personal Tax account” it was hardly worth the bother for £28. Husband, on the other hand had a substantial bill as he had exceeded the amount allowed in investment income. That won’t happen again as his fixed rate accounts matured and now pay next to nothing.

          4. I’ve had the occasional genuine tax refund too, and they are always welcome. But this is just a menace and the sooner the right hand and the left hand get back to co-ordinating properly the better.

          1. I wondered why I was no longer getting owners reports for my horses – then I looked in my junk folder and found them all! The system had suddenly decided that they were no longer okay and were spam!

    2. I just saw an excerpt from an interview with Buttigieg where he was defending the right of women to have late term abortions. He was not caught out by the questions and gave a quite believable articulate argument in favour of the practice being allowed to continue.

      Not everyones point of view admittedly and it will probably lose votes from the American religious zealots but oh boy did the dDems ever pick the wrong candidate.

      Do you get excerpts from Biden and Trump speeches on your news? Forget every word that is said, just look at the charisma, Trump energizes his zealots, Biden just drones on.

      1. I know a sales lady who once assisted Bill Clinton in a shop, in London, about 20 years ago; she said that he had oodles of charisma, & was charming.

        1. All that is needed in politics nowadays. Just add a pot full of cash to pay campaign expenses.

          1. Undoubtedly the late Stephen Hawking was better at maths than ex-President Clinton, but would you have voted for him? Bloke’s looks matter.

      2. Excerpts – I watch most of Trump’s rally speeches throughout in the early hours.

    1. A relative was acting as a steward at one funeral and one of the chosen pieces of music was: “Return to sender…”

    1. Thanks for that. This is a new one to me but, being a huge Steely Dan fan, I am grateful to learn of Donald Fagen’s solo output.

      1. Glad you enjoyed it! Recorded 38 years ago (I think) it remains exemplary, both for the music and for the quality of the recording. One of his later albums, Kamakiriad, is up there with it.

  93. Evening, all. The Connemara is making progress in accepting the contact and keeping it. Consistency has been getting better over the last couple of weeks. That’s the good news; now my local rag reports that the victim of a drive-by shooting in Telford was a drill-rapper (originally from London and who had been tried for murder of another rapper) killed in a revenge attack. Drill music, it seems, involves violent lyrics. Lucky us. We is SO enriched! Also the OECD is warning of a “double whammy” with a “circuit breaker” locksdown and (natch) the threat of a no deal Brexit hitting the economy hard. Well a lockdown would kill it, certainly, but a no deal Brexit (a proper Brexit) might just save it. And finally, arrivals from Italy, Sweden and Germany could face quarantine restrictions. If the situation is so bad that we all (regardless of where we live) have to be sanctioned, WHY are the effing borders still open?

    1. 324589+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      Because the effing lab/lib/con coalition demand it as they have been doing since b liar lifted the latch, and the wretch cameron / leg over clegg built on it.

    2. Depressing, isn’t it, but a good excuse for turning to drink. I’ve given up listening! Hic…

      1. I have made a list of a dozen or more bottles I’m going to get from the supermarket tomorrow. I intend to be prepared for lockdown this time! That said, I’ve had a much better day today, so I haven’t needed to hit the bottle tonight. I keep well away from the MSM and that helps.

        1. I think the 24 hr rolling news is not good for anyone’s health. I try and enjoy the many free gifts that nature provides to appreciate life away from man made turmoil (other genders are available).

          1. I made the most of the sunshine (think of all that Vitamin D) this morning when I walked my dog. In order not to be thought weirder than normal, I was only singing Verdi Prati in my head 🙂

    3. I notice Johnson has started his backsliding, remember that tomorrow for agreement or walk away was his deadline. This IMHO is just the first step in a journey that dilutes Brexit to be meaningless.
      Ogga is not wrong in his estimation that as far as the EU is concerned, the LibLabCon are all enthralled with continued membership, I just think his UKIP is not the answer, they have their NEC to thank for that.

      1. I have been saying for a while now that Bojo will back-pedal and we’ll end up with more extensions. When I campaigned in the last election I kept saying his slogan “get Brexit done” really meant get Brexit done in, but nobody listened.

  94. 324589+ up ticks,
    If you think it is bad now just wait until the dots are joined and reveal the full map of treachery laid out.

    In retrospect the toxic trio have never put a foot wrong in three decades on going forward with their destructive campaign, back footed on the 24/6/2016, regained their stride with the 9 month delay.

    First Hijab-Wearing Mayor in UK Quits Labour Party Alleging Islamophobia

    1. 324589+up ticks,
      Evening B3
      New kid on the block,take something to knock lab/lib/con from that position, they have been undermining the footings of the United Kingdom since the mid 70s.

  97. MOH and I were watching the BBC weather forecast this morning when Carol broadcast a warning about the dangers of a deer park during rutting season and said it was wise to keep at least 100 metres from a stag.

    MOH was alarmed enough to pass the message on to our granddaughter at the University of Nottingham halls of residence who as a recent result of the redefinition of a household is no longer confined to her room.

    I think, from her response, that she is more concerned about the proximity of rutting amongst the students on her floor (of the building) rather than the antics of the deer in the adjacent park that she is now free to visit.

    1. Is that true or did you hear it on the BBC?

      They can still make the cider. They can call it vintage covid. Wanquers !

  99. 324589+ up ticks,
    Puts a new slant on ” We’ll keep a welcome on the hillside, we’ll keep a welcome in the vales”Someone is going to get seriously
    hurt in crossing an internal border and heavens forbid that is what it is going to take before common sense returns.

    1. So we cannot cross an internal border of our (dis)United Kingdom but the world and its wife can fly into Heathrow and rock up on the shores of Dover and Folkestone.

      1. Yes, you can. There will be no road blocks because there are far too many tiny lanes etc. (On some of the farms where I work the border runs across the middle of a field.) But if you come from an area with a high rate of infection you can expect to be stopped and turned around. As can those who live in Wales but in lockdown areas if they try to travel outside their own counties (most of which have far lower rates of infection than the ones in England to whom this measure applies). If you are not permitted to visit your grandchildren (uncles, aunts, cousins etc) then you can stay away from Wales too. Whether there is any need for any of these rules is a separate argument, but at least the Welsh rules have the benefit of logic – unlike the rules in England.

        Most of those who fly into Heathrow have to go into quarantine. Those who arrive on the beaches are being taken away and, basically, interned.

      2. 324589+ up ticks,
        Evening PM,
        Correct, so if you are a shepherdess with a wayward sheep you will have to deal with a muslim go-between,a felon would be best,an untouchable.

  101. Clive has a book to promote.

    Britain’s dry stone walls make the case against rewilding

    Rather than leaving nature to reclaim their fields, the Government could pay farmers to maintain these often centuries-old boundaries

    CLIVE ASLET

    Think of Dartmoor or Wales, the Yorkshire Dales or the Peak District National Park – you couldn’t imagine them without their dry stone walls. They seem to tie a hillside down as securely as string around the Sunday joint. The National Farmers’ Union feels the joy, because it has asked the Government to pay its members to maintain the stone walls on their farms. I support them. I’m just surprised, given that the Agriculture Bill going through Parliament is all about reapportioning moneys from the late unlamented Common Agricultural Policy so that they pay for things the public actually likes, rather than subsidising farmers according to the amount of land they own, that the NFU has to make the case.

    Still, not everyone is quite so pro wall as I am. The rewilding lobby must hate this intrusion, imposed by humankind on the natural environment. They’d rather leave nature to reclaim the fields. But the argument is fallacious. There’s nowhere truly wild in these islands. Every part of them has been sweated for what it will produce for centuries, if not millennia. Some field walls in the Lake District were built in the 16th century or even earlier.

    Rewilding is only a façon de parler: at Knepp Castle in Sussex, principal flagwaver for the movement, they have a hands-off approach, leaving the vegetation to be shaped by hardy domestic animals, like long-horn cattle. The result is an interesting kind of park, different from other south-of-England estates and with more butterflies. But it isn’t wild. When animals get sick or starve, they’re removed. In a real wilderness, they’d be left to drop, and a host of crows would feed on their corpses. The public, though, wouldn’t want to see it.

    Personally, I’m happier with the stone walls of the Dales, preferably with a flock of sheep in view. My only worry is for the NFU. I remember the last time grants were made available for stone walls; a landowner from Lancashire complained that he could not get any further payment from that source because all his walls had been restored. There weren’t enough to go round. My heart bled.

    Rescuing hedgehogs

    We have a human-made countryside. Once, what we think of as idyllic landscapes like the Lake District were full of industry, some of it, like lead mining, pernicious. These days it has other uses, like tourism, and the subsidy regime will pay farmers to block up drains and re-wet their fields; boggy land soaks up carbon from the atmosphere and prevents rainwater discharging too quickly into rivers and causing floods. Let’s hope that a scheme can be devised to rescue the hedgehog, whose numbers have crashed in recent years. In the Seventies, they were frequently observed two-dimensionally, having been flattened by car tyres on country roads. You rarely see that now.

    An unlikely hedgehog fan is Brian May, who is campaigning against building works at a supermarket which he says will harm the hedgehog population. Paradoxically, he’s also famous as a champion of the badger. Brian, you can’t have both. Badgers compete for the same food as hedgehogs. They’re also able to unroll the curled-up hedgehog with their strong paws and tear its insides out – the noise is said to be tragic. As ever, it’s up to humans to decide what they want to see in the countryside. I love badgers, but it’s possible to have too many.

    Clive Aslet is author of ‘The Real Crown Jewels of England’ (Constable)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/14/britains-dry-stone-walls-make-case-against-rewilding/

    1. Hedeghogs and badgers have lived side by side for millennia. However, the balance has shifted and there are now more badgers and fewer hedgehogs. Their food has diminished, due to pesticide use among other causes. Still, with all the culling of badgers (a protected species) over th elast few years, their numbers will soon be as low as hedgehogs.

      1. There has been an explosion in the badger population because they are a protected species (as a result of the Wildlife Act 1972). As with most things, upset the balance and things go tits up (if you’ll pardon the expression).

      1. We must be able to find another to make it ‘Six Bells’ and displayed all over the country!

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