Wednesday 16 August: A staggering failure to address the impact of lockdowns on children

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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578 thoughts on “Wednesday 16 August: A staggering failure to address the impact of lockdowns on children”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Follow The Scent
    A stuffy old lady is with one of her lunching friends in a ritzy restaurant. Suddenly, as the waiter is serving the main course, the stuffy old lady cuts a roaring, rotten-egg-smelling fart.
    Trying to shift the blame onto an innocent bystander, the stuffy old lady turns to the waiter and shouts: “Sir! I demand that you stop that, this instant!”
    “Certainly, madam,” replies the waiter as he looks around the room. “Which way did it go?”

    2. Morning, Tom.
      The morning joke starts the day on the right (correct) foot. Thanks!

  2. Good Morning Folks,

    Bright sunny start today.

    Thanks for the congratulations for baby grandson.

  3. A staggering failure to address the impact of lockdowns on children

    A staggering amount of hypocrisy emanating from the Left after Labours call for much longer and deeper lockdowns during the pandemic

  6. UK inflation drops to 6.8% could be better if the government cut spending by a massive ammount.

      1. The ditching of all the charidees, campaign groups and other assorted hangers on sucking at the taxpayer teat would be the next one.

  7. Good morning, chums. Today I will be fairly busy, so will read Sir Jasper’s joke and a few other posts before disappearing until this evening.

  8. ‘Russian spy ring’ lived at flat one mile from RAF base. 16 August 2023.

    Three members of a suspected Russian spy ring who were arrested by counter-terror police lived in a flat one mile from an RAF base used by ministers and the Royal family, The Telegraph can reveal.

    Bulgarian nationals Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, and his 31-year-old girlfriend, Katrin Ivanova, were detained during a series of intelligence-led raids across London and Norfolk.

    For around a decade, all three had links to a flat in west London, a short distance from the RAF Northolt military base. Members of the Royal family regularly use the base to fly abroad, and it is also used frequently by ministers and foreign heads of state.

    They are grasping at straws here. This has all the signs of a faked anti-Russian propaganda campaign. The weak “evidence”; the long and suspicious remand time. No comments. They are actually Bulgarians!

    It bears all the hallmarks of previous domestic operations against supposed far-Right groups. It’s even repeated under a reporters name. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they turned up a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/15/satellite-bulgarians-spying-russia-stoke-harrow-police-met/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/15/russia-northolt-spy-ring-arrested-raf-base/

  9. ‘Russian spy ring’ lived at flat one mile from RAF base. 16 August 2023.

    Three members of a suspected Russian spy ring who were arrested by counter-terror police lived in a flat one mile from an RAF base used by ministers and the Royal family, The Telegraph can reveal.

    Bulgarian nationals Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, and his 31-year-old girlfriend, Katrin Ivanova, were detained during a series of intelligence-led raids across London and Norfolk.

    For around a decade, all three had links to a flat in west London, a short distance from the RAF Northolt military base. Members of the Royal family regularly use the base to fly abroad, and it is also used frequently by ministers and foreign heads of state.

    They are grasping at straws here. This has all the signs of a faked anti-Russian propaganda campaign. The weak “evidence”; the long and suspicious remand time. No comments. They are actually Bulgarians!

    It bears all the hallmarks of previous domestic operations against supposed far-Right groups. It’s even repeated under a reporters name. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they turned up a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/15/satellite-bulgarians-spying-russia-stoke-harrow-police-met/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/15/russia-northolt-spy-ring-arrested-raf-base/

    1. A “few” miles, eh? The Isle of Dogs is only a “few” miles away, depending on the definition of “few”.
      Manufactured hysteria.

      1. Meanwhile the media is studiously ignoring the fishy fires in Hawaii. OK it’s the other side of the world, but the official version of events requires the same exercise in believing the unlikely as the 2020 election did.

        1. When I saw the news footage a couple of days ago. I couldn’t believe or even think of how so many homes and vehicles were destroyed by ‘wild fires’. When it was obvious that there had never been any trees, dense undergrowth or even signs of shrubbery anywhere near the properties or cars.
          Very suspicious indeed.

          2. Apparently the people in the homes have refused to listen, take notice or obey orders.

        2. Morning BB. I’ve become extremely suspicious about all these fires that are breaking out. Normally I would just write it off as speculation or the wilder shores of Conspiracy Theory but it is beginning to look more than that!

        3. In some quarters there is some speculation about the whereabouts of Ed Dowd, the ex-Blackrock manager and whistle-blower, who wrote ‘Cause Unknown’ about vaccine deaths, who lives on Maui and who seems to have ‘gone quiet’.

          I hope he’s alright.

    2. It’s hard to see what kind of information they could have sent to Moscow that couldn’t be gained from satellite observation anyway.
      I could just about believe that they acted as a conduit for information from others. But really it all sounds like something out of the 1930s.

      1. I liked the story about them struggling with a giant satellite aerial! Carry on Spying Komrad!

    3. Good morning Minty .

      Yep , but , and a big but , what are 3 so called spies compared to the thousands of terrorists , murderers, paedo religions . sex exploiters , wife beaters , human organ traffickers , and bush meat chompers who are casually floating across the English channel into security and ask no questions tell no lies Home Office head nodding .

    4. A non-story. Is RAF Northholt an important military base? No. Members of the Royal family regularly use the base to fly abroad, and it is also used frequently by ministers and foreign heads of state. That’s the only reason for its continued existence.

      1. It is also where unwary civil airline pilots, thinking they are approaching LHR, occasionally land in error – I am told!

  10. Good morning. I am utterly disgusted that the Telegraph, having been a cheerleader for the whole covid scam, to the point where they sacked their cartoonist whose child WAS suffering from the lockdowns, are now shedding crocodile tears for the victims of it!

  11. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny start.
    A staggering failure, that describes our government’s performance perfectly.
    What’s worrying is, quite a few of the ministers are still in the same office space.

      2. We roll, they never do.
        It always makes me laugh, what qualifications do they ever have for the positions they fill ?
        The civil service run every thing anyway.
        How can a politician be minister for
        housing and then transport the next day ?
        Yes Minister.
        Based entirely on the facts.

        1. In theory, Ready Eddy, the appointed minister quickly gets up to speed and works on his brief, using leadership skills to get the job done. The better he or she performs, the bigger the chance of promotion to a different (hopefully better) position because he or she has demonstrated ability.

  12. Morning, all Y’all.
    Sunny! Can’t believe it! I can take my cosy jumper off – at least, for the moment.
    Might even get the grass cut this evening, too, who knows? “Lawn” looking awfully shaggy…

        1. Better Ellie but BP still high.
          I have a phone number for cardiac nurses. It’s no good ringing the gp surgery it’ll be a three wait.
          Thanks for the nudge. 🙂
          But you have first hand experience.
          How’s your hubby doing ?

          1. He’s feeling better since he stopped the Amiodarone but heart rate still much too high. Still breathless when doing anything physical. His BP is on the low side but the monitor has now gone back to the cardiac nurse. She’s very good but she’s had to sign him off her course as he’s not fit enough.

          2. MB found his cardiac nurse a real help; and very capable and reliable.
            I have a lot of respect for nurse practitioners as they are usually middle aged people who do not indulge in the latest medical fad.

          3. I didn’t get round to today Anne, I wanted to see how the BP worked out. It reduced quite a lot.
            And I couldn’t find the number. I have it now so I’m better prepared.
            I’ve always found the frontine NHS superb. It’s when you get behind the scenes where the drama starts.

  14. ‘Morning, Peeps. Wall-to-wall sunshine promised today, with a healthy 23°C to accompany it.

    One or two have asked how the swimming went yesterday. The short answer is – it didn’t. Unfortunately the water level was insufficient. At least her new friend led the way and demonstrated how to get in! The only pond that might have worked has a small weir at one end, and the thought of her getting it wrong and disappearing down that was enough to call her out (the other Lab is 7 yo so knows not to go near it).

    When they were out and we returned to our friends place nearby, the older one decided to cement their new-found friendship with several bouts of dry humping! I’m relieved to report that ours shunned her lesbian advances. At least we know that she will give the next Pride fandango a very wide berth!

  15. This is a transcript of a broadcast by Tucker Carlson. He has a point, I feel.

    “Looking back, it’s obvious what happened. By 2016, no one could argue that liberal programs or many programs, the various fads and metaphorical wars we are waging on this or that bad thing, there was no evidence that any of it had done anything to improve American life. Liberals promised you they would make everything great, but they didn’t. In fact, every single liberal enthusiasm failed. From radical feminism to urban renewal, from outsourcing to the so-called sharing economy. All of them, each and every one, turned out to be a complete disaster.”

    “The reason 2016 was significant is that’s the year liberals could no longer deny this. They couldn’t say give us another 50 years and we’ll turn Baltimore into Geneva. They couldn’t say that because no one would believe it. Not even their own voters would believe that.”

    “So for liberals, 2016 was a profoundly humiliating moment and those can be good. Well-adjusted adults learn from humiliating moments, but that’s not what liberals did. They turned their rage outward and they focused that rage on the people they had failed. You always hate the ones you betray. So liberals decided they hated the American middle class.”

    “In 2016, Democrats stopped making arguments in favor of their own policies, whatever those might be, and instead reoriented the entire party around attacking the very people that historically they had represented. Again, America’s middle class. Now they hated them.”

    Democrats, as their own words reveal, have been so extreme for so long that they feel their only choice is to start arresting their political opponents.

    That’s because Americans no longer believe a single word they say.”

  16. 375398+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 16 August: A staggering failure to address the impact of lockdowns on children

    Truth be told children are not seen as children by the politico’s and the voting body alike because, if so, the lab/lib/con coalition would have been erased long ago as a political force.

    Wednesday 16 August: A staggering failure to address the impact of paedophilia importation on children.

    Once here the foreign paedophile has, as the Jay report revealed, the long term protection of the governing bodies employees, ie rotherham.

    Seemingly childhoods, as was are no longer with us, they run the gauntlet through their “childhood” years currently as manipulative units of both aggression and appeasement.

    On lock downs combined with paedophilia surely one could not think of a more odious double when creating mental health
    problems.

    Lest we forget, your vote is still needed for a continuation of more of the same.

    .

  17. Ukraine’s Powerful 82nd Brigade, Once Held In Reserve, Has Finally Joined The Counteroffensive. 16 August 2023.

    The Ukrainian air assault forces finally have deployed their most powerful unit. The 2,000-person 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which is stacked with Marder and Stryker fighting vehicles and Challenger 2 tanks, rolled into action around Robotyne, in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast, apparently in the last few days.
    The deployment is good and bad news for Kyiv’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, which kicked off with a series of coordinated assaults across southern and eastern Ukraine starting on June 4.

    The 82nd Brigade and its sister air-assault unit, the 46th Brigade, were some of the last major units that the Ukrainian general staff was holding in reserve. In finally sending those formations into battle, the Ukrainians could significantly boost their firepower along one of the main axes of the counteroffensive—the one stretching 50 miles from Russian-occupied Robotyne to occupied Melitopol, just north of the Black Sea coast.

    It is also possible to read this as the Ukies running out of people and equipment. These units could have been kept back ready to repulse a Russian attack and are now being thrown in as reinforcements for a failed assault. I don’t actually know of course but the Russians with their greater human resources must be able to withstand attack for longer. There might just be time before the end of the campaigning season for them to absorb these new forces and then counter-attack and finish the Ukies as a viable fighting force. We will have to wait and see!

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/08/15/ukraines-powerful-82nd-brigade-once-held-in-reserve-has-finally-joined-the-counteroffensive/?sh=4b020a7b452c

    1. There was a story yesterday of Uke males doing all they could to avoid being recruited for death on the front line. They’re running out of cannon fodder.

      1. Desperately awful situation to be in.
        All those dead young men – a catastrophe for the country. And their families, of course. Pity the Zelensky family isn’t grieving too.

    2. “some of the last major units that the Ukrainian general staff was holding in reserve” – so, they ran out of people to throw into the attack and are using the reserves as a last-gasp measure. That suggests the Ukie push is failing.
      In any case, how does an air assault Brigade deliver Challenger tanks? By parachute? That would be worth seeing – 60-odd tons under a brolly!

    4. When I glanced at that headline, saw the last word as “Conservatives”…. and wondered!

  18. Regarding the fishy fires in Maui
    The police blocked the escape route from the worst affected town.
    https://www.bitchute.com/video/PX3D3OTaNwzU/
    The local authority is now offering to buy the land from people whose houses have been destroyed – of course, 1000 people are missing.

    Locals say there wasn’t enough scrub around the town to allow a wildfire to spread.

    People are theorising that it is disaster capitalism and a land grab. It doesn’t help that Oprah Winfrey’s house was undamaged – she has bought several large parcels of land there recently and now owns several hundred acres.

    1. What struck me as I watched the News, and Eddy points this out below, is the lack of fuel to ignite such a blaze.

      1. Given the hurricane force winds and the very high temperature of the first house to catch fire I wouldn’t be at all surprised if subsequent houses combusted spontaneously. (i.e without the need for dry undergrowth fuel….)

        Morning Minty and all.

        1. The footage showed one firebreak a large mansion that hadn’t been singed. As in Slightly burnt.

        2. Morning Stephen. This is quite possible though one needs to know a great deal more. At one time of course we could have relied on the BBC to investigate and explain. Perhaps even an Horizon programme? No more. They have poisoned the well.

        3. Still a bit sus though. The fire was supposed to have started in scrub outside the town (what scrub? and did it spontaneously combust due to climate boiling?).

          I don’t think houses just combust spontaneously even if they are hot. There is no suggestion that it was record-breaking heat, just normal Hawaii summer.

          Apparently a lot of locals have been turning down offers for their waterfront properties though.

  19. Good morning all,

    A Sunny day has dawned over McPhee Towers, wind in the Nor’-East, 13℃ rising to 22℃ today. Don’t you just love this climate?

    James Delingpole has put up a terrific podcast with Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride on healthy food and nutrition. She talks knowledgably about our micro-bio, the importance of keeping it in balance and how to repair it if it has been damaged which it almost certainly will be if you eat only industrially-produced non-foods. You’re never too old. She explains how why we need to abandon the supermarkets and find friendly, local farmers which is why, of course, the war on farmers is underway world-wide. Here’s the 2 -minute taster from YouTube .

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSYwhguGF4o

    If you’d like the full hour-and-a half episode, and I thoroughly recommend it, it’s on Odysee at: https://odysee.com/@JamesDelingpoleChannel:0/2023-08-04-McBride:8

    When I asked SWMBO for a well-marbled 12oz rib-eye for breakfast she just gave me one of her old-fashioned looks. She doesn’t yet know it but she’ll be watching this tonight.

    1. I haven’t heard that one yet, but am looking forward to it. Also the latest one with Ivor Cummins.

      1. Yep. Just listened to that. It’s good but it’s just going over what we already know about the Rockefellers.

      2. Yep. Just listened to that. It’s good but it’s just going over what we already know about the Rockefellers.

        1. I’m just in the middle of Parallel Mike’s episode about the Corporation of London – also quite thought-provoking.

  20. SIR – Dr Roger Harrabin (Letters, August 14) sets out clearly the threats ascribed to climate change. The problem with the BBC’s coverage is that it appears to assume that if Britain simply got on with cutting emissions, these threats would diminish.

    The BBC needs to make it clear that it is the governments of China, America, India, Indonesia and Australia who need to act. Without significant action from these countries, which currently does not appear to be forthcoming, nothing will change.

    Britain’s involvement in addressing global warming is basically irrelevant, except as an influential leader in lobbying these other countries.

    Adair Anderson
    Selkirk

    Well said, AA. It needed saying. In particular Harrabin, that demented fool whose well-paid time at the BBC was insufferably smug – and wrong – must have riled many viewers. It is therefore most unfortunate his jeans-wearing successor is equally stupid in his unbridled pursuit of quack science.

    1. I posted in a Weegie newspaper at the weekend, where the correspondent was whining about Norway not cutting emissions enough, that a tiny wee cut in the tiny wee contribution Norway makes to climate gas emissions wouldn’t ever be noticed, and that the correspondent should address their thoughts to China, India and the US.
      Received a huge number of upthumbs! Good to see not everybody believes the crap spouted.

      1. They want us to believe in some mythical time before cars when the climate stayed the same all the time. It’s nonsense, that never existed.

        1. Just Stop Oil want us to.
          In any case, the conversion of oil to CO2 is done elsewhere, not in Norway.

  21. There’s a Web site on Facebook called. The people’s of Britain, what lies ahead.
    Two words will cover it.
    More Lies.

  22. SIR – In 2019 a study by King’s College London found that an hour’s journey on the London Underground was as harmful as standing on a street corner in the capital for a day. Mayor Sadiq Khan should focus on improving air pollution on his own transport network before his revenue-raising Ulez is extended (report, August 15).

    Roger Gentry
    Weavering, Kent

    If anyone else saw Farage yesterday evening they will know now that the devolution legislation clearly provides the means for the government to overrule Khant’s money-grabbing Ulez. Presumably the Tories are banking on the prospect of the jumped up little squirt digging Labour’s grave at the forthcoming mayoral election. If so then shame on them. Besides, there is now the very real prospect of such a strategy backfiring spectacularly.

    1. Not that I’m going to vote for any of the big three. I hope that repulsive little git gets locked up for what he’s been doing. I thought Ken Living- undera-stone was bad enough.
      I’m sure many human rights have been abused.

    2. It is quite extraordinary with both the Conservative and the Labour Parties being so completely incompetent that no new party has flourished.

      If the old political order is not destroyed now it never will be – remember that the team of David Owen, Woy Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers failed spectacularly to ‘break the mould’ with the SDP.

      Not all of us approve of Nigel Farage but he is certainly far better than Sunak, Starmer or Davey. Farage he seems to be the only person who could change this state of affairs as both Richard Tice and Laurence Fox are effectively useless but Farage no longer seems to want to be a party leader as he is more interested in sorting out the shameful banking scandals.

      1. To run a political party demands an ability to cooperate with people.

        Farage has shown time and time again that he is incapable of doing that.

        1. And co-operation means sometimes burying the ego for the common good. None of them seem any good at that.

        1. I agree.

          His most serious ‘scuttle’ was when he withdrew his Brexit Party candidates from contesting seats held by sitting Conservative remainer MPs

          The BP only needed to win half a dozen seats and they would have been able to stop Boris Johnson and his party betraying Brexit.

  23. According to Aftenposten, the UK government has advised Brits to stay away from Sweden, as Al Quaida are about to unleash a terror action there as revenge for the Koran burnings and similar insults. Me – I like that someone put slices of bacon in the koran before burning it. That shows imagination!
    Keep your head (down), Grizz!

    1. Good for Sweden. I hope it wasn’t Danish bacon it could involve the whole of Scandinavia.
      But you see what’s happening. It around 300 years to chuck the Islamics out of Spain. And now they’ve moved in to the rest of Europe.
      But they haven’t advanced their medieval mindset at all. As recent and very sad events have shown.

  25. A family helped run a major fraud operation spanning more than a decade which deprived Royal Mail of around £70million, a court has heard.

    Parmjeet Sandhu, 56, and his nephew Balginder Sandhu, 46, were part of a scheme to under-declare mail posted through a network of logistics companies in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, pocketing millions of pounds, it is alleged.

    They worked under Parmjeet Sandhu’s brother, owner of Packpost International Ltd and ‘architect’ of the fraud, Narinder Sandhu, who has already pleaded guilty, prosecutors told a jury.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12409963/Family-helped-run-fraud-operation-deprived-Royal-Mail-70million-court-hears.html

    How do we know what goes on undetected by rotters in certain sections of the community , and of course government and local government and the NHS?

    3. There was a piccie in today’s Terriblegraph of Fishi in the NHS and I don’t think there was a single indigenous face.

  26. SIR – You report (August 15) the happy news that the Crooked House pub in Dudley may be rebuilt after a fire reduced it to rubble. There is a precedent.

    In April 2015 The Daily Telegraph publicised the illegal demolition of Charrington Brewery’s Carlton Tavern in west London. The coverage supported a local campaign to have it rebuilt brick by brick from archived photographs. Its reopening was celebrated in 2021.

    Perhaps the finest example of rebuilding lies in the Belgian city of Ypres. Utterly destroyed by the battles of the First World War and now meticulously rebuilt, many visitors to its ancient cloth market and cathedral are unaware that a stone or brick was ever out of place.

    Canon Alan Hughes
    Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

    Some years ago now I visited Ypres and saw for myself the breathtaking Cloth Hall, reconstructed over 30-ish years from 1933 using some of the artillery-damaged stone from the original medieval structure erected in the early 1300s. This stiil reveals evidence of its total destruction during WW1. It is a truly magnificent sight, and probably without equal.

    What was also touching was a modest plaque in the cafe opposite, telling of the sacrifice of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC), my father’s regiment.

  27. Right. Off outside to get the car washed before the Sun is round that side of the house.

      1. Drunk lady went to sleep on the synagogue steps and woke up covered by a heavy dew

        1. The was a guy in the Sunday morning golf ‘swindle’ named Dew. His nickname was Morning Precipitation.
          Another chap whose name was Richard, owner of a chocolate factory. …….Chocolate Dick.
          A senior banker…..The Lone Arranger.

  30. People Like Us!
    On third Wednesday of every month
    Local connections are crucial – though I have a sneaking feeling these will be more middle class idealists and fewer people who can fix toilets and raise beef…bet the conversation is good though
    https://libertariandrinks.com/#a_map

      2. 12 of us will be raising a toast to you, Bill. Three cheers for the old misanthrope, hip hip !

    2. Out to lunch today with old colleagues. Third Wednesday of the month is our regular get together.

  31. ‘Morning All

    I can’t apply for the job I haven’t a clue what this gobbledegook means I wonder what the total “team” cost is to our “overstretched” NHS??

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a66d3416d451cb21309c686199bf706e2b2f040de8a73e4e58a5acf9acdee11b.png

    Rest of the medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3b390e244aed1ca03a777b75030f5c52a726250a4e6e032d97ffe57189c372c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/09da269a4fcb98bf15a9c369b534eb07dcf6afc2d6a7bf46b7938203ba3028de.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2eb877f7723c6c35c31116d41f1b5d6c7fdd178f57353103a4ad2cf212ffb14b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/851f441157559e82cc377572ce9c05218d6468038484d9af04f150bb443b1329.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e49c25d96d7d5398e8a1be1752b62f7ec5fd4463947438cdc85dcd3e3f67746b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/049e69237d07ecb992f2852cbf39f2dac2d51d3a9215a32ab5a33857999acf04.jpg

        1. Which has been happening for many years. And despite having on the surface objections, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the government were and are stirring up the strikes.
          As a result more people are turning to private medical practice. Which fits in with the government adgenda.

          2. Tell me about it, I’ve lost three old friends over the past 3 years.
            Coincidently not very long after their covid jabs.

          6. Thanks for that, one of the main problems with private medical treatment is the hospitals don’t have the facilities for emergency treatment incase something goes wrong when for instance if you are have hip or knee surgery. Thats why they send you back to the NHS.
            And of course the average eldely person with known health issues would not be able to afford private medical insurance.

    2. Time was, not so long ago, that the gobbledegook merchants were handed a copy of Sir Ernest Gowers’ Plain Words and told to redraught their banal, witless and unintelligible dirge into something resembling Standard English.

    3. Spkied Online’s Laurie Wastell used this particular vacancy last December as an example of money wasted on woke jobs in the public sector.

      Why does the NHS need a ‘director of lived experience’?

      The British state has become a breeding ground for professional activists.

      LAURIE WASTELL
      20th December 2022

      An NHS trust in the Midlands is looking to recruit a ‘director of lived experience’, a role that commands a whopping salary of £110,000-115,000.

      ‘Lived experience’ is a classic example of woke jargon. You might think that all experience is ‘lived’. But to the identitarians, such experience only matters when it is lived as a member of a protected group (think racial minorities, women or trans people). In this case, the lived-experience director will need to ‘utilise personal lived experience’ of having a ‘life-altering health condition’.

      The job description sheds no light on why the role might be needed, or worth the vast salary. The lived-experience director’s primary responsibility is ‘to work towards a culture which aims to reduce power imbalances’. He or she should do so by ‘amplifying the voices of the people who use our services’ and ‘working inclusively with all intersections of our communities’. At a time when the NHS is dealing with record waiting lists and demoralised frontline staff, all of this seems utterly bizarre.

      The lived-experience job is just one example of the many plum roles in our ever-burgeoning woke bureaucracy. According to a report published last week by Tory backbench group Conservative Way Forward, the UK government spends £557million on ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’ (or EDI) roles. The average salary for these roles is £42,700 – well above the national median wage. During a cost-of-living crisis, it is especially galling to see middle-class activists vastly out-earning their blue-collar colleagues who are actually keeping the country going.

      The NHS is arguably the worst offender – spending £40million per year on 800 EDI officers. But the same problem exists across the public sector. Point to any major state institution and you will see it failing to perform its basic functions while spending an inordinate amount of time and money on EDI roles and identitarian causes.

      A head of ‘equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging’ at one of Britain’s prisons will take home a tidy £72,000 per year. The police are putting vast amounts of money and man hours into demonstrating their ‘commitment to trans inclusion’, increasing their ‘workplace representation’ and providing unconscious-bias training to officers. Meanwhile, crime has skyrocketed in recent years.

      Much of this spending is not just wasteful, but actively counterproductive, too. Earlier this year, in a bid to meet its ‘diversity targets’, the Royal Air Force paused job offers to white men. This prompted an RAF chief to resign – as she feared the air force could end up dangerously undermanned as a result of this new diversity drive. It seems that even the nation’s security takes a backseat to wokeness.

      Even more is spent by quangos. The Conservative Way Forward report calculates that UK quangos spend £5.5 billion per year on politically motivated activities. The civil service’s commitment to become the UK’s ‘most inclusive’ employer means that it not only spends money on its own in-house EDI managers, but also on things like training sessions on ‘unlearning whiteness’.

      All in all, the Conservative Way Forward report estimates the cost of the woke state to be an astonishing £7 billion per year. This is not just insanely expensive – it also actively undermines the state’s ability to provide decent and comprehensive public services. And it is pushing an elite, reactionary view of the world on a reluctant public. The government needs to sack the lived-experience directors and remember who it is there to serve.

      Laurie Wastell is an intern at spiked.

      https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/12/20/why-does-the-nhs-need-a-director-of-lived-experience/#:~:text=The%20lived%2Dexperience%20director's%20primary,all%20intersections%20of%20our%20communities‘.

      1. It isn’t just the EDI nonsense; climate change soaks up a lot of taxpayers’ cash as well. Salop CC is nearly bankrupt, but they have a “climate change” department which sends out emails telling people like me (born into austerity just after the war) to switch lights off when I leave the room. I wonder just how much that little effort costs me in council tax.

  32. Rishi Sunak says ‘TikTok rioters’ will face full force of the law. 16 August 2023.

    Asked whether parents and police were still “in charge of our kids nowadays” or whether social media outlets should take a tougher line, Mr Sunak told GB News: “This obviously happened while I was abroad. I have got to say it is appalling.

    “I think criminal damage, criminal behaviour, is unacceptable, and I fully support the police in bringing those people to justice. I want anyone watching who is thinking about this, sees something like this, to know that they will be met with the full force of the law, because that type of behaviour is simply unacceptable in our society.”

    So they’ve nothing to worry about then?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/15/rishi-sunak-tiktok-rioters-looting-oxford-street-face-law/

    2. Apparently TikTok also got some teenagers to see who could spend the longest time in hospital;

      ‘Donna Jones, the chairman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there had been “incredibly worrying” scenes in Southampton as 15 to 17-year-olds “decided to challenge each other to overdose”. She said: “We can’t afford for that to happen, and I think parents need to get involved.”‘

      I think they will get what they deserve.

    3. ” ….. rioters’ will face full force of the law.”

      When I was little monster aged 5 or 6 a very dear but too kind aunt had to look after me while my parents were off gallivanting. At last my behaviour became so repulsive that she had to say:

      “Richard, if you go on doing that I shall have to give you a smacked bottom.”

      To which I replied: “Will you smack me as hard as Mummy or as hard as Daddy?”

      “As hard as Daddy!” said my aunt trying to sound firm.

      “That’s all right then. Go ahead.” I replied.

      Which serves to illustrate the fact that if a threat is not even remotely frightening it will achieve nothing.

  33. Good morning, all. Bright sunny morning here.

    Busy day in prospect, three pots of blackberry jam made, washing on and a start made on today’s main meal. Raspberry bed to weed and apply fertiliser, grass to cut and then…

    An American theme for the most part but much of it is applicable to here. Much of it gleaned from former senior IBM man, Bill Ellmore’s twitter feed.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/609b9512c497f93ecd0fb2daa8522de9aee35ac7d9af545c63ca98c928de98c6.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c8f53b3276396e68363dd36a79da9d18c0815aec380c55ece0f533cc4dbcd840.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30c6b3105090838aca045b201786e370e2071101232586c74e60aa01032016aa.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bdcc6511af793ab2733b06731984be0cd2db6496dfa2110cf92439cc56e10d2.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6022248cafdb44b03e96f8b5e2cc2fe72d760f06acc413c4abb99589a956c55.png

    1. I don’t think so but she probably took it. What about all the American pilots dying during flights and the Canadian doctors.

        2. We have had two very athletic and fit boys aged 17 and 18 on our courses who were fully jabbed and subsequently have had either myocarditis or pericarditis.

    2. I am becoming convinced that our politicians would prefer more people to die as a consequence of the Covid jabs than to come clean and tell the truth.

      1. If I am going from a to b in my car , I usually listen to R4. Either the lunchtime progs and the news , and the Archers .

        News from our foreign correspondent , Kate Adie etc , is another favourite .

        There are a few gems I enjoy.

        Travelling time to Weymouth or Dorchester is sometimes a half an hour trip or more .

          3. I load up podcasts and listen to those. You can also get stuff on the BBc app, Sounds. I have it loaded up for various music programmes (Sounds of the 70s etc) and Ed Reardon’s Week, and John Finnemore (there was an unexpected episode recently) and From out Own Correspondent, which is still Ok. There’s a while load of old stuff which is still good.

          4. Agree, I listen mainly to podcasts these days. Podcast space is getting very crowded now!
            I like books on DVD for the car.

        2. My car radio has always been tuned to R3. Sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes I don’t. But usually I hear something interesting.

    4. My reply:

      “Because the BBC habitually lies or omits salient facts. Not to be trusted, I rely upon GB News.”

    5. Because those who haven’t switched off have already checked out of this mortal coil.

    6. R4 audience shrinking – because it’s steam radio and consumes too much fosil fuel.

  36. SIR – It is recognised that disruption in education during Covid lockdowns has resulted in significant numbers of children now regularly missing school. We know that several children were killed by family members due to a lack of contact with social services. We will never know how many at-risk children escaped this final outcome but nevertheless suffered during this time at the hands of family members.

    For many adults, lockdown was an unpleasant experience that they never want to repeat. For some children it will have a permanent effect on the rest of their lives. For the Covid Inquiry not to prioritise the effects of the pandemic on this section of the population (report, August 15) is therefore quite staggering.

    I hope to see an immediate reconsideration of this decision.

    Carol A Forshaw
    Bolton, Lancashire

    Do closed immigrant communities who isolate themselves from indigenous neighbours etc , have social workers , district nurses , health visitors ?

    Does their isolation means that wickedness goes under the radar ?

      1. Yes; the evil shits were even filming his suffering.
        I cannot even begin to understand minds like that.

    2. Eva Vlaardingerbroek is good to look at as well as good to listen to!

      Why are right wing young women so very much more attractive both physically and mentally than young, leftish frumps?

    1. Have you read some of the inane replies? These people deserve what’s coming to them. I just hope it’s delayed till after I’m gone.

  38. Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose in the newly-released trailer for Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro has sparked online chatter, with some calling out the actor/director for playing to ‘Jewface’ stereotypes with the exaggerated facial feature and the casting of a non-Jewish actor in a Jewish role.

    The Philadelphia native, 48, plays the role of the legendary musical conductor in the film opposite Carey Mulligan, who portrays his wife Felicia Montealegre, with the movie examining their relationship.

    On social media, many users sounded off on the size of the prosthetic – which was visible as he filmed the movie in 2022 – with some using photos to show that Bernstein’s nose was not close to that size.

    ‘It seems completely unnecessary to have gone in that direction given the uncanny resemblance,’ one user said ‘the real Leonard Bernstein did not have the funny nose that Bradley Cooper is wearing in Maestro.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12410737/Bradley-Cooper-sparks-Jewface-controversy-unnecessary-prosthetic-nose-trailer-Leonard-Bernstein-biopic-Maestro-great-Jewish-actors-there.html

    That article caught my eye , and I mulled it over whether to comment or not .

    My husband and sons have prominent noses , is that just their masculinity , and should one be judged on the size of one’s nose ?

    1. “casting of a non-Jewish actor in a Jewish role.” – but it’s OK to cast a black in a non-black role.
      Goose, gander, good.

  40. The brutal folly of the war in Afghanistan. Spiked. 16 August 2023.

    Afghans deserve far better than Taliban rule. They deserve freedom and democracy, not hardship and repression. But as the occupation of Afghanistan made all too clear, these are not ideals that can be delivered by NGOs and tanks. They have to be desired and struggled for by the people themselves. That is the only way to really build a nation.

    No one can gift you these things but as the EU and the UK in particular demonstrate, they can be taken away!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/15/the-brutal-folly-of-the-war-in-afghanistan/

    1. Afghanistan is a Muslim country, if the truth be known it’s almost certainly what the majority of the population there want.

      If the resident Muslims thought they could turn the UK into an Islamic country, with Sharia law as the cost of a Taliban style government, I have little doubt that a majority of those Muslims would accept it.

        2. You can take out ‘probably’. It is the aim of Islam to conquer the entire world. If you don’t believe that, you’re not a Muslim.

    2. Actually, do the Afghans actually want freedom and democracy? Are they not tribal and longing for a strong ruler?

  41. And finally , before I concentrate on things I need to do whilst Moh is playing golf…

    The weather is pleasant have washing to put on the line , a bit of shopping later , and poor Jack spaniel has a green gunky nose , so visit to the vet later this afternoon . He is still doing as well as can be expected , but very congested lungs and drinking lots of water , he is still good and asks to go outside … we count the time it takes him to complete his wee. 30.. not sure whether that is seconds or what , but it is a very long piddle time .
    . Now 15 years 6 months , but I will ask the vet whether it is time to say goodbye

    https://twitter.com/Notwebct/status/1691740018237194259

    1. If he’s still happy give him a while longer. I think you’ll know when the time has come.

      1. Talk about seeing things through a glass darkly!

        Tony Benn book in mirror image.

  42. Well I’d better hang out the sheets and then have a clean up. OH has just settled down to watch the footie. Out for lunch later.

      1. He’s turned it off for half time. Couldn’t use the Vax in here but now it’s on the charger.

  44. I couldn’t get a picture but i just saw a hummingbird hawk moth. Only about a half inch big. Quite unusual to see.

        1. They are so special – I love seeing them!

          Once we slept in the car park at Dunkirk in the middle of summer, and the place was full of those moths – at least they looked like them.

    1. Now I don’t give a toss about wendyball – men’s game or ladies’ game.

      But would any newspaper print such a headline about MALE wendyballists?

          1. If there’s something you want to share, don’t be shy! You can tell us. We won’t tell a soul.

          2. Cheeky!

            I don’t think that a paper would have used that headline even in connection with two gay blokes.

        2. There’s something very caveman about the obligatory long blonde ponytails. If you can’t be dragged along and hung out to dry via your ponytail dear, you can’t play.

          1. It also seems to me to be a very silly style as it encourages the opponents to yank said ponytails…

    1. Second class citizens. Get used to it. – it’s not going to change (until there os violence and probably not even then).

      1. I guarantee you that if you go round to any of those fuming citizens and suggest that they might vote for one of the R parties at the next election, they will look at you as though you had offered them a brand new laptop that had fallen off the back of a lorry!

  48. Worthy of Tom……….

    A bloke goes to the council to apply for a job in the office.
    The interviewer asks him,”Are you allergic to anything”?
    He replies, “Yes caffeine.”
    “Have you ever worked for the public service before.”
    “Yes I was in the army”he says,I was in Iraq for two tours.”
    The interviewer says, “That will give you 5 extra points toward employment.
    Then he asks,”Are you disabled in any way?”
    The
    guy says “Yes,a mine exploded next to me when I was there and I lost
    both my testicles.” The interviewer grimaces and then says,”O.K.
    You’ve got enough points for me to take you on right away.
    Our
    normal hours are from 8.00am to 4.00pm…….but you can start tomorrow
    at 10.00am-and carry on starting at 10.00am everyday.”
    The bloke is puzzled and asks.”If the work hours are from 8.00am to 4.00pm ,why don’t you want me here until 10.00am?
    I’m not looking for any special treatment y’know.”
    “What
    you have to understand is that this is a council job,”the interviewer
    says, “For the first two hours,we just stand around drinking coffee and
    scratching our balls.There’s no point coming in for that.”

  49. Just listened to Parallel Mike’s history of the Corporation of London – a couple of eye-openers in there that I wasn’t expecting.
    I did not know that the City of London was the only part of the country that wasn’t nationalised by William the Conqeror; that Oliver Cromwell brought back the bankers to Britain; Charles II removed the City of London’s special status and it was restored after the “Glorious” revolution by William and Mary.
    The Bank of England was founded in the 1690s of course.
    Puts a new light on the power struggles of the seventeenth century.

      1. It’s Parallel Mike, not the BBC! Slavery, climate change and LBGQWERTY are only mentioned when directly relevant to what he is talking about!

    2. Cromwell brought back the Jews. I guess that’s the same as bringing back the bankers, since the medieval church had pushed banking onto the Jews. The issue of course was usury, which is a sin in Christianity but not in Judaism and the problem was that the Jewish bankers [sic] turned out to be awfully good at it, thereby generating resentment and jealousy. They couldn’t win but hey, they’re getting their own back now.

    3. Cromwell brought back the Jews. I guess that’s the same as bringing back the bankers, since the medieval church had pushed banking onto the Jews. The issue of course was usury, which is a sin in Christianity but not in Judaism and the problem was that the Jewish bankers [sic] turned out to be awfully good at it, thereby generating resentment and jealousy. They couldn’t win but hey, they’re getting their own back now.

  50. Has anyone else noticed, when you go into some Sainsbury’s branches, they are openly showing a big screen with all the customers, and you can see yourself walking in, with a menacing square around your face?
    Just to make you aware that they have identified your face and matched it up to their database of photos scraped off the internet and sold to the highest bidders…
    I find it very unpleasant. I would wear a mask to thwart them, but that would make me look like a covidian fear-bunny.

        1. If more people started to shop at their local grocer/greengrocer/dairy/fishmonger/butcher/baker/candlestick-maker then their prices would come down (in order to keep your custom) and it would cause the ‘super’markets (WTF is ‘super’ about them?) to have a rethink.

          Obviously Tamworths, Gloucester Old Spots and Landraces would be in orbit well before that happens.

    2. Morrisons has recently installed mini-screens above its self-service checkouts. These are slightly disconcerting since they project a reverse image causing much hand juggling.

      1. If they can match your phizzog up to a named image that someone has scraped off the internet, then they know exactly what you’ve bought, even if you pay with cash.
        Nasty.
        I have never uploaded a photograph of myself, but I know that photos have been uploaded by others without my permission, so my face might be on one of these wretched databases. I don’t like giving away a constant stream of information about myself, to be analysed by AI software. I don’t like some database knowing more about me than my family does, or even than I do myself.

      2. They’re in our local Waitrose too. You can stand to one side as you scan items so they don’t get your facial features. Some can be canted upwards before your start so they don’t get your image or you could hang a hat or jacket over them. However I don’t use the self-check outs now and any staff member, sorry partner, who tries to direct me towards them gets chapter and verse on why I won’t use them – including it’s costing them jobs.

    4. Stop going to Sainsbury’s and any other supermarket which does anything similar. Watch the Delingpod with Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride to which I post a link to earleir. She strongly advocates abandoning supermarkets altogether for health reasons.

      1. I get washing powder, lactose-free milk products and a few other things from the supermarkets still. Can’t eliminate them entirely, but am buying far less than I used to from them.

    5. Our Tesco is currently doing a big revamp, seems it will take until November until they finish. They have already doubled the number of self service machines, all card only just a couple cash/card with a corresponding reduction in the normal checkouts. Maybe these new face ID cameras are on their list to do next. Being just a five minute walk away they really have got me as their captive audience.

      1. I’m getting a lot from farm shops – I have a good one near me that sells fresh local veg, and another one a bit further away from which I buy meat.

        Of course, one could just order things like cleaning materials directly from the manufacturer – but then one is trapped into digital purchase and deliveries again.

      2. I nipped into ASDA for the first time in several weeks.
        Only 4 proper tills; the rest ‘get on with it your bloody self’ checkouts.
        Stock was a muddle and some missing.
        I’ll not be bothering again.

        4. I have to go “abroad” (to Wales) to my nearest Asda. Guess which supermarket I don’t frequent.

    6. I almost never go into Sainsbury’s. Our small Morrisons doesn’t seem to have this yet.

    7. I almost never go into Sainsbury’s. Our small Morrisons doesn’t seem to have this yet.

    9. It;s worse than that. Go to the self-checkout, and you’re confronted with a screen, displaying a badly distorted version of your fizzog. Do you always pick up your reciept? In Farnborough, if you don’t, you won’t be allowed to leave the store. You have to scan a QR code to get past the exit barriers.

      1. I don’t mind the scan to leave, because that doesn’t impinge upon my privacy. They’ve put the gates in at my local supermarket, but they haven’t activated the scanning yet. I suppose the theft isn’t as bad as in other places!
        I shall follow someone’s excellent suggestion of draping a scarf over the screen if I come across that. But am seriously considering the paper masks – I REALLY don’t like this surveillance!

    1. I guess some on here are into the game but I hate football with a vengeance. Having to ‘play’ it at school put me off for life. Well done England but it means nothing to me and I will not be watching any of it – Sunday I gather.

      2. At school, I couldn’t set foot on a football pitch wthout immediately receiving a ball in my face. In the end, I stuck to music, which hasn’t let me down. I retain a soft spot for my home team, Carlisle Nil United. I’ve attended four matches in my entire life, and they never won. Logically, the best thing I can do to support them is to stay as far away as possible…

    1. I used to worry about how others saw me since we’re pertty much conditioned tp be that way almost from birth. Around the age of 50 I ceased to give a damn. I wish I’d got there sooner.

  54. Car washed and job removing moss and weeds from block driveway finished. The rest I can do this evening when it’s cooler.

      2. Cynical me wonders whether the prospect of migrant neighbours might reduce the prices a bit.
        Somehow this stinks of a fix. Developers talking to council buddies, oh, with the high interest rates we can’t shift our properties
        Council buddy: no problems, we have access to bottomless public funds…

        2. Anyone who can afford a £700,000 house is not going to buy a house on that estate. The council will end up buying the rest of them.

      3. Close to where we live the council have put in applications to build around 250 new homes all on agriculture land or green belt. With up to 5 sites involved in their disgusting plans most will be accessed through ancient hedgerows and basically destroying the wildlife of an ancient village.
        Right from the top down people in British politics are vile greedy pathetic useless gutless bar stewards.
        And like most applications of this sort, as usual Mr Bung (as in a Charles Dickens story) will be hovering in the background.

    1. I watched this, it is very interesting, but I don’t think I could stick to that diet. I tried a high protein diet several times, but found myself not feeling satisfied and craving carbohydrates after a day or two.
      Skipping dinner works better for me.

      1. You only crave carbohydrates if you still eat carbohydrates. Cut them out altogether and you will feel sated and not hungry. This is what I have done and I get no cravings whatsoever. This is how I can go every other day without food and my health and wellbeing are improving exponentially.

        1. That may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.
          I just got very nervous on the high protein diet, felt unsatisfied all the time, didn’t sleep well, never felt satisfied by my food and ended up not losing weight because I was eating so much in an attempt to feel full. I eat a lot of starch, and usually if I want to lose weight, I cut out protein.
          Yes, I know this goes against the high protein mantra, but it works for me.

          1. It is the ultra processed foods and carbs that increase your weight not meat, fish and chicken.

            A small amount of starch and carbs are necessary but these should come from things like carrots not cakes or pasta.

          2. I wasn’t losing any weight on the high protein diet, but I freely admit that was because I was eating too much in a vain attempt to feel satisfied.

          3. I see what you are saying; however, you say you eat a lot of starch. Starch is pure carbohydrate.

          5. But as I pointed out: starch is carbohydrate … carbohydrate is sugar (as is alcohol) … the worst sort of sugar is fructose … sugar (mainly fructose) causes inflammation, insulin resistance, liver disease and obesity … inflammation is the root of all diseases, ailments and early death … you see where this thread is heading …

          6. Misunderstanding. I didn’t say it wasn’t. Clearly I wasn’t eating any starches when I was trying the high protein diet.

            Fructose is something else altogether;far worse than starches. I reacted to it years ago, and have avoided it in all its fake forms ever since.

          9. I cut down on carbs but still eat muesli for breakfast with extra nuts. Not much bread at all, but a bit now and then. Plenty of meat and fish and eggs. I don’t feel hungry on this. I lost a bit of weight round ny waist but I don’t weigh myself. Size 14 trousers are now very loose.

          10. I moderate my carb intake. Breakfast (avert your eyes, Grizz) is 40g Mornflake Jumbo Oats, with 120 ml Graham’s (no relation) Smooth Gold milk. 5 mins in the nicrowave and it’s done. Porridge has a relatively low GI (glycemic index), so it doesn’t spike my blood glucose.

            Today, lunch was two thin slices of M&S artisan sourdough bread (I use a food slicer to slice my bread to 5mm (no commercially available sliced bread appears to be ‘thin’ any more), then freeze the slices. Added a sliced tomato, half a lump of Mozzarella and some Basil leaves from the growing pot on the Kitchen windowsill. OK – I confess, I had a 20g packet of crisps as well.

            Supper – it being a pleasantly warm day, I fired up the gas barbecue and did a sirloin steak from Waitrose, half a pack of piri-piri chicken from Ocado, just defrosted, a handful of prepared salad from M&S at Guildford Station (my ‘nearest. convenience store’, and a spoonful of coleslaw. I also barbecued a third of a large courgette (Sunday morning, the ‘lady of the manor’ was handing out home-grown courgettes and cucumbers from her garden). I’m usually ambivalent to courgettes, but – scored in a criss-cross manner, brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with coarse sea salt and barbecued – theyt could become of my favourite low-carb veggies…

          11. Sounds good Geoff! I think one just has to eat what one likes, and enjoys, and not worry too much about faddy restrictions.

            At lunch today with the ‘girls’ at a Beefeater pub, (Two courses for £11.95) I had gammon with an egg and chips. Don’t often have chips, but today I did. Followed by ice cream. Tonight I had half an avocado , a couple of home grown tomatoes, some grapes and a nectarine, followed by strawberries and raspberries & cream. I’d usually have the fruit at lunchtime when at home.

          1. That’s what the global corporations tell you, Philip. The fact is that they don’t. You get all the nourishment you need from fat and protein.

            We evolved as hunter/gatherers eating just meat and fish (the hunter). This diet was occasionally supplemented by nuts and berries (the gatherer). Animal husbandry only came about as a result of a need to feed a burgeoning population.
            This was followed by agriculture, whereby masses of food, most of it unnatural for the species, was grown and harvested to feed an ever-expanding population. This bounty of carbohydrates started an epidemic of heart disease (among other
            ailments), something practically unknown before the agricultural revolution. It was the start of an ever-increasing downward spiral. Just look up the many cases (a lot are documented on YouTube) of people with horrible conditions who have
            seen their illnesses and ailments either cured or mitigated by adopting a high-fat, high-protein, low-carb, no sugar diet.

            The majority of people cannot give up the eating of carbs and sugar because they are junkies. Sugar junkies. And you know what happens to junkies.

          2. Nuts and berries have carbohydrates just not in massive amounts. The brain needs carbs.

          4. I don’t think people lived long enough to succumb to heart disease before the agricultural revolution.

            I just eat normally – I have cut down on carbs but not completely cut them out. I eat less than I used to and don’t feel hungry. I went out to lunch today and don’t need any dinner, but later on I will have the half avocado that is in the fridge and some fruit. I eat very little sugar (apart from the fruit) and never add sugar to anything. I’m 75 and in good health – no medication and no pain.

          1. Carivore diet? Is that when you just eat carrion?
            I don’t read or listen to anything that Billy Goats — or any of his WEF co-conspirators — utters.

          2. Gates is detestable but do insects class as meat or is what Gates produces just a horrible sort of mush with God Knows what in it as well as bugs?

    2. Shirley ‘referee-ess’ (as in manageress, conductress, actress, etc …). The suffix -ette denotes a minor, not a female.

      A cigarette is a minor cigar, not a female one.

      [‘Usherette’ is a linguistic cop out, it ought to be usheress!]

    1. Formal objections during the first six months of the trial, ending on February 2, can be made via a ‘Have Your Say’ page on DCC’s website or in writing by calling the council to request an information pack. Further engagement events with the community will take place next month.

      After which the Council will ignore them. Did anyone actually vote for LTNs?

    3. Don’t need ex-Stasi to be snitches. Covid showed that there are plenty of the ordinary population just waiting to dob you in.

  61. Off fishing this evening so here’s my Wordle for those who do it. Just a par.
    Wordle 788 4/6

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

    1. Same here, though I’m not going fishing

      Wordle 788 4/6

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

    2. Fours for all today.

      Wordle 788 4/6

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

  62. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/28b0d51d9f0be11c37a5d4edd13c92d5b25fb93e7434fda4d8a06cbc4dbf5eff.png “The comment demonstrates he had been observing her physical appearance … and was highly inappropriate.”

    A clear and unambiguous proof that we also have Thought Judges as well as Thought Police.

    If that teacher had kept his gob shut and not let on that he had observed her physical appearance then that heinous, deplorable, appalling ‘fact’ would never have been proved. Personally, I would ask that judge this: If he had not looked at her, how on earth could he teach her to swim? While wearing a fucking blindfold?

    The sooner these dangerous officials are got rid of the better.

    1. A swimming coach could legitimately argue that he needs to assess and observe the physique of people in his charge.

    2. Par Four today.

      Wordle 788 4/6
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Posted earlier because of fishing, but par here too.
        Wordle 788 4/6

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

    3. How times have changed.

      I would have taken that as a compliment and if I had said it, it would have been meant as a compliment.

      He’s a coach for a physical sport for goodness sake.

    2. Miles Stones?? Not his real name then! These fires were obviously planned destruction of that native area for redevelopment. Shame they didn’t bother to evacuate the people first.

      1. ‘They’ didn’t want them around, did they, to lay claim to the land. This is seeming more and more like 9/11.

  65. @sainsburys
    #Wareham #Dorset .

    Please look after your staff and loyal elderly customers
    I was just about to enter the store with my trolley, by the ATM, when a chap legged it out of the store past me carrying two large legs of meat, lamb. Female staff couldn’t catch him . I wish i had extended my foot to trip him up.

    The incident took place at roughly 1pm today.
    . If an elderly person / or even a more able customer were collided with /or purse/wallet was stolen /and other items thieved, you will be to blame.

    You must sort your security out , to keep shoppers and staff safe .

      1. I was there , putting my coin in the trolley, and just about to enter the little store , and this chaps rushed past me with a leg of lamb in each hand , and sprinted away with staff in swift pursuit .

        He was so fast.. The staff said their management got rid of their security staff a couple of years ago .

        Some one could have been sent flying , loads of elderly people in cosy Wareham , as well as visitors of course . The larger Sainsbury stores are in Weymouth and Poole and B’mouth.

        1. Bloody hell! He could have knocked you down. We still have a sleepy security guy in our small Morrisons. He looks totally bored, staring at his screen.

    2. My mum has just told me her new neighbours had their motor home stolen on Sunday. She knows it was there at 7:40 pm and the neighbours came home at 8:10 pm. We all know who has stolen it – it’s well-known in the area – but due to “cultural sensitivities” Plod does nothing

  66. I came across this on Twitter.

    An Israeli doctor says: ” In Israel, medicine is so advanced that we cut off a man’s testicles, put them on another man, and in 6 weeks he is looking for work.” The German doctor says: “That’s nothing, in Germany we take part of a brain, put it in another man and in 4 weeks he is looking for work.” The Russian doctor says: ”Gentlemen, we take half of a heart from a man, put it in another’s chest, and in 2 weeks he is looking for work.” The Canadian doctor laughs: ”You are all behind us. Four years ago, we took a man with no heart, no brain and no balls, and made him a Prime Minister. Now, the whole country is looking for work”.

  67. Spent over half an hour at the Vets with Jack spaniel .

    Vet was happy with Jack’s quality of life , she thought he was alert , sparkly eyed and responsive . He followed her around and sniffed etc .

    He has an infected nasal discharge, more antibiotics , the pain killer tablets, Pardale are discontinued because he was given this now instead .

    Studies have proven that Librela is effective in managing pain and inflammation in dogs with osteoarthritis, and it has been well-tolerated with few reported side effects. The use of Librela may also help prevent the progression of osteoarthritis in dogs by reducing inflammation and pain associated with the condition.

    He has been on Corvental for a couple of years now , must be effective because 15 years 6 months later he is still with us ( heart and lungs )

    Corvental D 200mg Capsules are used in the treatment of congestive heart failure in dogs, specifically in cases of bronchitis. The capsules are quickly absorbed on an empty stomach, dilating coronary arteries and relieving broncho-spasms.

    Vets are wonderful people , and are accurate and to the point .

    Sadly Jack is no longer insured , so we fork out quite a bit .

    We probably haven’t much longer with him , but who knows , he is such a strong dog with character https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f92ef37c2358150f5abbd0f5d538eab52c3d9aae6479b5ed95d2205a77b37feb.jpg

    1. It’s at times like these that I start to think that a vet is a better answer than the NHS.

      Bill Thomas and Phizzee can no doubt confirm…

      1. Veterinary surgeries and private Dentists don’t have to support a towering bureaucracy. That is why they give better, cheaper and faster care.

        1. And I believe that a vet can treat a human whereas a GP can’t treat an animal.

          OK I accept a GP can treat you two

          1. Mongo gets better healthcare than I do. Nor does he get told how difficult it is being a GP these days (because other companies have no pointless legislation to abide by, do they?)

      2. Much as I agree (not least because Dianne-the-ex’s daughter is a qualified and working vet), I suspect yer average back-street dodgy garage mechanic would be better than the NHS…

      3. Me, too. My surgery doesn’t do joined up thinking; today I received a letter telling me to make an appointment for a review in my “birth month” (September). On Monday I made an appointment for the 1st September (for something else). You’d have thought they might have mentioned the review as well while I was making the appointment and saved themselves a stamp. Next they’ll be saying they can’t offer certain treatments because they can’t afford it.

    2. So long as he is happy and alert, and his arthritis pain is managed, then he should live a bit longer.

    4. Enjoy him while you’ve got him and treat each day as if it were the last. Then every succeeding day is a bonus.

  68. LATAM pilot Ivan Andaur, 56, collapses and dies in the lavatory of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying from Miami to Chile as two co-pilots are forced to make an emergency landing: Nurse who tried to save him says she didn’t have the ‘necessary supplies’
    LATAM captain Iván Andaur died during a flight from Miami to Chile on Sunday
    The 56-year-old pilot fell ill in the lavatory before passengers tried to help him
    The flight was diverted to Panamá City where Andaur was declared dead

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12413383/LATAM-pilot-Ivan-Andaur-56-collapses-dies-lavatory-Boeing-787-Dreamliner-flying-Miami-Chile-two-pilots-forced-make-emergency-landing-Nurse-tried-save-says-didnt-necessary-supplies.html?ito=push-notification&ci=kvrrPhuXPT&cri=akhzF1cHF0&si=p3DSQ2YwOLik&ai=12413383

    2. Open in app or online

      PILOT
      Died in Flight – Aug.14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to
      Santiago, Chile – 2 hours into 8hr flight, captain collapsed and died in
      the lavatory – plane diverted to Panama City!Dr. William Makis MDAug 16
      ∙
      Preview

      Share

      August 14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to Santiago, Chile (source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4)

      LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) left Miami at 22:11 EDT

      56 year old captain pilot went into the washroom in the 2nd hour of the flight, saying he felt unwell.

      Noticing
      that the captain had fallen in the sink, the cabin crew intervened with
      first aid, but the captain could not be revived.

      There
      were 3 pilots on the plane, the remaining two diverted the plane and
      landed safely in Panama City, Panama, 28 minutes after pilot collapse,
      at 12:36AM EDT.

      The captain was pronounced dead upon arrival.

      The aircraft is still on the ground in Panama City about 12 hours after landing.

      Passengers
      reported they were dropped off in Panama City with no LATAM staff
      around and left without information (that the captain had di

  69. That’s me for today. Not much done – by me. The MR slaved in the garden and is now at her “keep-fit” class. My back is still giving me gyp – I am going to take a pain-killer (something I am always loath to do). It might help.

    Have a spiffing evening. “I Claudius” is on t’telly – the MR has recorded it. The series where the Roman columns sway in the studio!!

    Market tomorrow – then I’ll look in.

    A demain.

    2. The original one with John Hurt and Derek Jacobi? I watched that in the 70s and was spellbound by it.

      2. Thank goodness I ‘read below’! We’ve always called it that! Was it Janet Suzman?
        Edit no it wasn’t! It was Sian Phillips!

      1. I do that all day long. Apart from the toe touching – which has been impossible for years.

        1. It will help your back, if only to mobilise it. Put it another way – I didn’t stretch my adductors last night and woke in agony.

          Or my forelegs. hamstrings, back, hips, traps….

          1. But, but, but, you’re a heavyweight champion weight lifter with muscles in your spit.

            Serves you right for taking even a minute out of your training regime!

  70. New Covid variant branded the ‘real deal’ could already be in BRITAIN, experts claim amid calls for return of face masks to slow spread of virus
    The strain has yet to be officially named but has already been dubbed BA.6

    BA 6 eh,? must have come in from Sydney Australia, as revenge for kicking the Matildas…

        1. Mike Yeadon (and other real scientists) estimated 3 to 5 years for the injections to do their worst. These fairy tale scare stories are about priming the sheeple?

          2. We’ve had three years. two years from now, there won’t be a housing / migrant crisis.Only today, a 40-odd year old former female swimmer shuffled off with heart issues. We have a pandemic of ‘died unexpectedly’.

          3. We’ve had three years. two years from now, there won’t be a housing / migrant crisis.Only today, a 40-odd year old former female swimmer shuffled off with heart issues. We have a pandemic of ‘died unexpectedly’.

    3. I wonder if folk will fall for it. It’d be an interesting acid test – will folks, if given a new scare story fall for the same tired lies?

        1. Some in these parts are still wearing masks for their trips to the supermarket.

          It is odd that some will wear a mask to and from the gym but will happily exercise maskless.

          1. There was a chap wearing a mask in a shop this morning. You can’t imagine what goes through some people’s minds.

        2. I’ve sensed that mask-wearing has increased recently, both shoppers and shop workers.

    5. Is this the new deadly strain that has been doing the rounds since spring – the one that we haven’t noticed?

      They must have named it incorrectly, BA6 flies between London to Tokyo..

      1. Yes!

        If my memory serves, which it probably doesn’t; the BA 6, many years ago, was the London Tokyo Sydney connection. There was a direct flight off the back of 06 to Sydney and vice versa.
        That will be roughly 20 years ago.

    6. Comments in the Wail are, basically, telling the scientists and the DM itself, to go away and multiply.

  71. Hello people. Here I am again after 2 wonderful weeks in the hospital. I did quite well the few couple of days after his death and then went downhill fast..
    By the weekend all I was doing was sleeping and I decided help was needed., Mpnday I called an ambulance and the paras assessed me. I was taken to A&C was thorough checked. Admission was decided upon as I could not shaking, my legs had given out and I was freezing cold and shaking.
    I had an endoscopy among other tests.
    Sadly CT scan revealed that that the skin cancer has joined forces which means that my liver has developed cancer also and the prognosis is bleak.
    My sister in law came at the weekend and we had a good visit. She has also suggested to my son that he comes to see me which he is keen to – I can’t wait.
    What a week this been- year more like.
    Some funny tales about the hospital which I will relate when I feel better.

    1. Oh Milady, I’m sorry to hear that the cancer has moved. Did the hosp. suggest any treatments?

    2. My God, Ann. What to say?
      Glad that you are posting again, just wish it was a more cheerful subject.
      Hugs sent by express post (so they’ll likely end up in Ulan Bataar…)

    3. What a bummer Take each day and make the most of it. I do hope your son comes over soon.

      I’ll tell you something for nothing. NoTTLers really admire your spirit.

      PS – I know you’ll be pleased to read that I posted that AFTER I had signed off for the night!!

    5. I am so very sorry to read that.
      The good parts are great, but barring a miracle it doesn’t look good.
      Make the very most of whatever is left to you, and be happy that your OH is looking over you and preparing the way forward.
      God bless you and yours.

      1. The first night in the ward was 3 ring circus. 4 beds and one dear talked all the time- sheer gibberish- burbling on about Henry VIII being the Queen’s uncle etc
        Woman in opposite bed coughed all the time and sounded like a barking dog but the guy on the next bed shouted loudly and during the night often burst into hymns- at the top of his lungs.
        Then they moved me to an isolation ward to rule out any contagion and then, having been given the all-clear- and I was moved to another side ward.
        Now home and the hospital has just delivered a huge bag of chemicals which I will sort through tomorrow.
        God,I am weary.

        1. My sympathy, Big Sis. I have experienced more than a few nutters on wards during the night. I’ve also overheard an elderly diabetic gentleman almost expiring due to hypoglycemia, and it was clear that the medics in attendance didn’t have a clue. One suggested that he needed insulin. Thankfully, they didn’t know where to get it…

        2. When I was admitted via A&E for a problem with my gall bladder the surgical ward I was on resounded with moans and retching. The Irish staff nurse told me I looked better now because I was grey when I was admitted. I was hooked up to morphine and paracetamol and was past caring!

    8. Ah darling! What a bugger! Lovely to see you back and fighting. Sending love and hugs to you. 💕😘

    9. Glad to see you back, everyone has been worried about you. You are forgiven .

      Good if your son can make the trip to see you, at least something to look forward to.

      Thinking of you.

    12. Oh Ann, it’s good to hear from you but such sad news. It will be nice to spend time with your son. Is the NHS offering any treatment or ongoing support?

    13. I’m much saddened by your bad news, Ann. Your son must visit you in short order. You need support at this most difficult time.

    14. I feel so sorry and sad for you Ann.
      Life can be terribly unfair. No body deserves what you have recently been through. My best wishes go out to you. Hugs. 🥰

    15. Good to see you back, but sorry about the news. Howver, sometimes treatment and, dare I say, mental attitude results in far better outcomes than the prognosis indicates.

    17. So sorry to hear that news.
      I hope your boy can soon fly over to Blighty and spend a long time with you.

    18. Just popped in and read your post, words fail me, it seems like everyone has said it all. Jack joins me in sending best wishes and hope you see your son for a good visit soon. Take care. xx

    19. So sorry to hear about the cancer. I was wondering how you are…….. thought you must be busy with funeral arrangements etc. Have they done anything about the cancer on your face? Glad you’ve seen your sister in law but I hope you can see your son soon. Chin up.

    22. Oh LotL, so sorry to hear this, it is all so much for you. Everyone is here for you when you want to unload. Take one day at a time and look forward to seeing your son. xx

    23. So sorry to hear this Ann after all you’ve gone through , my thoughts are with you

    24. 375459+ up ticks,

      Dearest lotl,
      So sorry to hear the news I have just received
      the latest blood test result for prostrate treatment in 2017 PSA is now 00,3, I tried to make depression a non option and I am pretty certain you have the ingredients to do the same.

      That there big gorilla.

  72. Morning all. We finally completed at half 4 in the afternoon. We wre almost last in the chain. Moving in was fraught. We’re still moving boxes from the storage unit, which we have until Saturday.

    We were lucky to get something from the sale so are looking at solar panels and a battery. Everyone is very tired. Our new bedroom is much smaller than our old one but we have more of them.

    Washing machine not yet plumbed in as I’m unsure of the waste pipe connection. Trouble is, we’re generating a lot of dirty clothes as we’re still moving and humping a ton of boxes is hard work.

    I’ve missed everyone, and will get back to ranting later on.

      2. I don’t think there is one! We should be fine as long as we don’t run out of clothes. Tricky in my case, impossible for the Warqueen.

    2. I’m amazed you can be bothered to get in touch! Well done to you, the Warqueen and the boy! I expect Mongo and his pal are being laid back? Good luck to you all!🥂🏠

      1. Mongo doesn’t have a clue what’s going on or where he is, but he has a proper garden to play in now rather than a borrowed field. Oscar won’t leave the Warqueen – wherever she goes, he goes.

        Junior is behind a fort of boxes. He and Mongo have been playing in there – whhich is funnier than it sounds as Mongo has a habit of taking the boxes with him. His leg continues to heal and he’s walking on it, just 2 miles rather than the longer walks.

        1. What an adventure for you all! I have a wonderful mental picture….🏰🐕‍🦺🐕👨‍👩‍👦

          1. A dog half in an open box, running about. He just looks daft but it’s helping him manage. On the upside, when he was spitting out his tablets we got him to recognise the tablet and his leg are linked. Junior gives them to him by holding his hand in a bowl of water with the tablet on it.

            Yes, the dog is spoiled.

          3. Oscar decided he wasn’t going to take his half a paracetamol in cheese as he had been doing for weeks, so for a few days he had it in chicken sliced thinly. He’s now back to taking it in cheese.

      2. She knows it wouldn’t work. Being pushy just has me dig my heels in. If she wants something done, she just asks and I tell her when I’ll do it and it is done. If she nags, it doesn’t.

        Case in point. My trousers were getting holes in them. Early in our relationship she hectored and badgered to get new ones. I didn’t. It took her about a second to realise it wouldn’t work and now she suggests and lets me choose. I respect her so much I will do what she suggests.

  73. Just a thought.
    If the RNLI, etc etc, gave all the gimmegrants a life jacket, took them all half a mile off shore of France, and chucked them all overboard would the French stop the lifeboats?
    Probably.

    1. They might turn up at chateau Sos.
      Then you’d be in trouble. 🚣‍♂️🏊‍♀️

  74. Apparently, 2023 is the 50th anniversary of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells!
    Staggered by that revelation…

    1. It’s truly frightening, Paul. Had it on cassette. Not so sure re CD – much of my CD collection was half-inched from my car at one stage. I can still, with some accuracy, ‘play’ it mentally. I’m doing so now. Thanks for the earworm 🙄

    3. Strange how things go around.
      Perhaps there was a piece on an online paper, but I was only thinking about that the other night.

      Or for real oldies the other knights in white satin…

      1. 50 years ago I was in the sixth form and mum and dad were still shouting at one another. I miss them.

    10. I left school that year, got the album for Christmas and played it full blast! When the ‘celestial choir’ come in my Mum was upstairs and thought she’d died and gone to heaven!!

    12. I owned the first version of that in Chesterfield. I’d read about its release in the NME, just the day before I visited London. I bought a copy in the HMV shop on Oxford Street then, when I returned home, discovered that our local record shop (Hudson’s, in Chesterfield Market Hall) had still not received any copies of it. It gave me bragging rights among my chums.

      1. I shared a flat with the Export Manager for Virgin Records in 1973. I believe Tubular Bells was the source of the early wealth accumulated by Branson. They held wild parties at the time, a Greek Director was involved.

        1. It was indeed the early source of wealth for Branson, who took on production of the record for his fledgling Virgin organisation when other recording giants had turned it down as ‘unmarketable’. Branson had always been in possession of a ‘spiv’ personality, a trait that nearly got him expelled from Stowe for his failed attempts to sell budgerigars and Christmas trees to fellow students.

  75. Evening, all. Been out most of the day visiting a friend who’s housebound due to having a double knee replacement. We were so busy chewing the fat I never noticed the time and was much longer than I intended. So much so that I couldn’t do the shopping I meant to do on the way home as the shop had closed!

    1. It happens. Last year I went to see a friend who has MND. I was told by others only to stay for about 20 minutes as he tires easily. An hour and a half later…

      1. When I realised the time, we both said simultaneously, “time flies when you’re having fun!” 🙂

  76. Evening, all. Been out most of the day visiting a friend who’s housebound due to having a double knee replacement. We were so busy chewing the fat I never noticed the time and was much longer than I intended. So much so that I couldn’t do the shopping I meant to do on the way home as the shop had closed!

  78. My lad’s footie team won the U18 Surrey Youth Football cup in April and they are meeting up on the Ted Lasso pub tonight for a last hurrah before tomorrow’s A level results. It’s lovely watching them – they played together for over 10 years.

    1. I’ve said this for a long time, Sue. Bugger the manifesto – it’s clear that each new PM will be summoned to an office somewhere, and the manifesto will be ripped apart by a shady, Schwab-like character. Who hands the new PM a list of instructions – failure to observe which will result in severe consequences. Or perhaps I’m just being fanciful…

      2. I’ve long suspected that if the ‘party line’ isn’t followed there will be co-ordinated pressure to trash the non-compliant country’s currency which in turn will totally wreck the economy and lead to domestic mayhem.
        ‘Now what were those instructions again….?’

  81. Another pilot dies suddenly……..

    Pilot dies on Delhi-Doha flight (click here)

    Story by Saurabh Sinha

    NEW DELHI: A senior pilot — who had operated SpiceJet’s inaugural flight in 2003 and was currently working with Qatar Airways — died
    while flying as a passenger from Delhi to Doha on Wednesday morning
    (Aug.16, 2023). The Qatar Airways flight, QR 579 (Airbus A350,
    Registration A7ALM), diverted to Dubai due to the medical emergency when
    the pilot, 51 years old, fell ill onboard. However, he could not be saved.

    “The
    pilot had worked with Alliance Air and spent 17 years in SpiceJet. He
    had operated SpiceJet’s first flight, Delhi-Ahmedabad, on May 23, 2005.
    Last year he had joined Qatar Airways where he was flying the Boeing
    777,” SpiceJet sources said.

    A long time colleague said, “He was very fit and his untimely demise has come as a big shock for everyone who knew him.”

  83. The end of a busy but productive day. Good night, chums. Sleep well, and I’ll see you all tomorrow.

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