Wednesday 2 March: The hope for Ukrainians in this war is that brave Russians put up resistance to Putin

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

654 thoughts on “Wednesday 2 March: The hope for Ukrainians in this war is that brave Russians put up resistance to Putin”

  1. Morning everyone. Just to be clear. I’m only watching about five minutes a day of TV News and gleaning most of my information off the internet and the threads on articles; though I note that even these have been penetrated by the PTB! Even on this limited acquaintance the amount of mis-disinformation is staggering. It is impossible to refute it all! One of the most distressing aspects of this is the demonification and persecution of individual Russians who bear no responsibility for the present situation. This will be remembered long after hostilities have ended! If Truth is the first Casualty of War this time it’s Dead on Arrival!

    1. Good morning Minty
      I do not think it’s possible to understand the whole situation at the moment because so many rumours and so much propaganda is flying around.
      The man in this film appears to sum it up – IF it was filmed in Kiev as claimed!
      He also says that the biggest problem is information and conflicting claims that they’re getting over the internet (to which they are still connected, he says).
      https://twitter.com/MikeBates321/status/1498662881436606465

    3. I noted Aunty’s reports saying the evil ones were targeting orphanages, old people’s homes, hospitals etc. Are we really asked to believe that the Russians would waste military effort on worthless targets. I understand there are times when actions may be aimed at undermining morale but I think there are more important objectives at the moment.

  5. The hope for Ukrainians in this war is that brave Russians put up resistance to Putin

    But do the Russians see what is happening with Western civilisation self destruction and think, no thank you very much, we are better off with Puti?

    1. Good morning Rik, thank you for sharing these.
      Someone did that second one on purpose!

      1. I’m still not totally convinced by the Iranian videos; too easy to manipulate.
        Although oddly enough the video in the DM doesn’t appear to get to that moment.

    1. Apparently the official line on that was that the board member who signed the letter is known for impulsive actions that turn out to be mistaken. I was told this by a German person who completely swallowed it.
      I think it is extremely unlikely that such a person would reach the board of a German health insurer.

      I posted yesterday, that Reitschuster reported that the German government dismissed the BKK’s findings as irrelevant, because the doctors’ letters could have come from people who felt tired and didn’t want to go to work, so went to the doctor to get a sick note, claiming vaccine damage.
      Of course, it goes without saying, that the only numbers people should trust are the numbers given out by the government, they are just a bit more subtle than Jacinda Ardern about saying it!

      1. Here’s the text from eugyppius:
        “Two weeks ago, BKK ProVita chairman Andreas Schöfbeck caused a small uproar by writing to Germany’s vaccine regulator, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, to inquire about the high rate of vaccine side-effects evident from BKK billing data. Schöfbeck has now been fired following an hours-long company meeting this morning, at which he was called upon to defend his letter. Representatives from the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, including its president, Klaus Cichutek, had agreed to meet with Schöfbeck and other BKK officials about their concerns this afternoon. Schöfbeck’s termination was obviously timed to prevent his participation at that meeting, which will now go forward without him.

        This is the behaviour of people who have deep confidence in the safety and effectiveness of our Corona vaccines.”

        BKK ProVita targets young people judging by their website, which is heavy on vegetarianism and other trendy alternative things. Schöfbeck does look like a fairly alternative sort of guy, however, nobody gets to the top of a German insurance company without being competent.
        But from the conversation I had a couple of days ago, his reputation had been well and truly trashed in Germany.

        Why can’t people see that they are being led by the nose?

  8. No real surprise here as the consultation was the government’s preferred avenue of retreat on this issue. Overwhelming replies backing revoking the mandate but managers in the system were less supportive. Skim reading the document (I’m not a masochist) it is clear that the government remains holding “vaccine” bias despite all the evidence that the “vaccines” are not only useless but dangerous. We have to keep a close eye on the buggers, now, and in the future.

    ‘https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1498736899816665088

    1. Before the internet, there was much greater control of the media for a short while after independents were eliminated. That reached its peak in the early Blair years, just before mass communication on the internet took off.

      One has to draw the conclusion that the freedom to speak on the internet is going to be a priority target. I think the only reason it hasn’t been up til now is because it’s been simultaneously so large and so fast-moving.

      1. The ‘Online Harm Bill’ is designed with only one purpose, censorship. Anything else is just window dressing. The legacy meeja have lost their monopoly on ‘truth’ and the mendacious politicians know their lies must be protected from inconvenient facts at all costs.

  10. What a picture of bin Laden reveals about free speech in schools. 2 March 2022.

    The government has had ample opportunity to provide guidance to schools on religious teaching materials. But in the wake of Batley it simply said that teachers had to ‘balance’ freedom of speech with the need to ‘promote respect and tolerance between people of different faiths and beliefs’. Is it any wonder, when faced with such vagaries, that another teacher has ended up in this position? Or that many others are likely choosing to self-censor rather than risk losing their jobs?

    Barring a Nuclear Exchange this is where the “West” will end. Not in the result of a struggle between White Christian Nations in Central Europe but here in our own backyards. Islam is impervious to Cultural Marxism; it is water off the duck’s back. When the inheritors of European Culture have finally destroyed themselves it will inherit the world!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-a-picture-of-bin-laden-says-about-free-speech-in-schools

    1. 351182+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Confirmed by Anne Marie Waters For Britain leader I would say. without doubt.

    2. Islam is willing to fight for its culture and its values, Christian nations are not. The war is already lost.

      1. Christian ‘leaders’ are too busy being apologists for intolerant, violent, ignorant, throw-back, misogynistic, backward is lam. Hand wringing ‘we must respect all other cults religions. The Christian ‘leaders’ and many of their holier-than-thou followers will not admit that is lam with its ‘rules’, beliefs and way of life are incompatible with any decent way of life in any civilised country.

    1. Yes, we are a cretinous species. No other lifeform has the potential, ability and power to create what we have and to throw it all away on moronic ideologues.

      Do you know – for example, I’ve loads – that the EU’s waste on corruption, fraud and theft could fund the entire Apollo missions twice over? That’s just the fraud.

      Now the CAP and CFP – which I think you’ve benefitted from – produced so much waste that if combined, the fungus the heat alone could power Africa for a generation.

      That’s just two examples from the EU – which has caused pretty much every European conflict of recent times. We could be out amongst the stars building orbital plates, space elevators, on the moon – but no. Big Left wing state wants to read our emails and determine what is ‘personal data’ – not for our privacy, mind, but to control what we can see and hear.

      Truth, justice and a bright future, all burned to suit the petty, imperialistic, spoiled, wasteful corruption, fraud and theft of nasty, greedy children who think themselves our masters.

        1. I note how, instead of disputing his points the argument, you ask a silly question.
          Is that because you have no argument, Geoffrey?

          3. Lewis Carroll’s words come to mind:

            “Speak roughly to your little boy
            ⁠And beat him when he sneezes:
            He only does it to annoy, ⁠
            Because he knows it teases.            “

          4. He has already told us that he just comes here to tease and provoke those with views different from his own. I think it is unlikely that he is quite as stupid as his stated opinions suggest he is!

    2. Good afternoon, Geoffrey

      Where do you stand in this line? Nearer the left or nearer the right?

  13. Morning all

    Share

    The hope for Ukrainians in this savage war is that brave Russians put up resistance to Putin

    SIR – Vladimir Putin’s veiled threat to use nuclear weapons is a deliberate and calculated attempt to discourage Western nations from interfering in his attempt to subjugate Ukraine.

    Even in his undoubtedly unstable mental state he must know that the use of nuclear weapons against any Nato country would unleash a response which could only end in the obliteration of Russia, most of the European continent and beyond. Is this really the legacy which he craves?

    Brave Russians protesting against the illegal war being waged in Ukraine (report, February 28) provide some hope of an internal backlash. Mr Putin can only be stopped by the Russian people themselves. Russians love their children too.

    David French

    Dému, Gers, France

    A girl catches snowflakes at Lviv station in western Ukraine, waiting for a train to Poland

    A girl catches snowflakes at Lviv station in western Ukraine, waiting for a train to Poland

    SIR – In the 1970s I was living and working in Portugal. The Portuguese army was fighting a losing battle in its remaining African colonies in the hope of hanging on to them. Losses were high and the motivation for continuing was draining away.

    Then on April 25 1974 a military coup was staged and the dictatorial leader was overthrown, almost bloodlessly. After a few wobbles, Portugal eventually turned into the democratic country we know today.

    Is it hoping against hope that the Russian military might do the same and turn on its deranged head of state?

    Stephen Kirby

    Charing, Kent

    SIR – History, even within living memory, yet again teaches us nothing.

    In 1945 the Russian army swept ruthlessly into East Prussia and surrounded the ancient and beautiful city of Königsberg, blasting it to rubble, its civilian population and that of the surrounding province driven from their homes of centuries into huge columns of refugees struggling for existence across frozen wastes.

    It was called the Vertreibung – “forced displacement”. Now we see similar Stalinist tactics meted out to the people of Ukraine.

    The result at Königsberg was the Kaliningrad Oblast, a strategic but isolated Russian enclave in Europe, now a Trojan horse in our midst.

    Martyn Webster

    Dover, Kent

    SIR – Britain must do the decent thing and be more generous in accepting Ukrainian refugees (“Patel opens asylum route but will not waive visas over safety fears”, report, March 1).

    As a history teacher, I am aware of the historical reluctance of our country to support those seeking sanctuary in times of dire need. My Year 9 students, currently studying the Holocaust, have read about the Evian conference of 1938, in which officials from 32 countries, including Britain, met to discuss ways to help German and Austrian Jews trying to leave their country. While all were critical of the Nazi regime and sympathetic to the Jewish plight, no country removed restrictions on how many Jews would be allowed into their country, apart from the Dominican Republic.

    The Ukrainian refugees have not faced the same horrors as European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, but what is the 21st century threshold for warranting a clear welcome to those whose lives have been up-ended?

    I want to be able to show my students the value of their history lessons: that we avoid repeating our mistakes because we have studied the past and thus grown as a nation.

    Vanessa Thomas

    Woking, Surrey

    SIR – Ukraine has asked for emergency entry into the EU only to be told that there is a queue. Rarely have money and mouth been further distanced from each other.

    Tom Williams

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    SIR – I have, like others, watched with sadness the rape of Ukraine. Again we hear the United Nations going blah, blah, blah. Again I see it as a toothless lion.

    Dr Trevor Masters

    Southend-on-Sea, Essex

    SIR – The Ukraine crisis must surely be a wake-up call for the Government to drop its quasi-religious obsession with net zero and bring our energy strategy back into the real world.

    The continued refusal by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business and Energy Secretary, to allow fracking (report, March 1) beggars belief. Exploiting our vast natural resource by fracking would contribute massively to our energy security and generate significant tax revenues.

    Neil Bailey

    Stockport, Cheshire

    1. The letter from Vanessa Thomas has not met with universal approval! The leading BTL comment delivers a withering broadside:

      Colin Thomasson
      3 HRS AGO
      For me to say that Vanessa Thomas is a professional falsifier, Marxist and an utter, utter fool is superfluous : she says so herself, in plain langue of New Normal Meaninglessness;
      This New Normal has two imperatives
      The firt concerns woke perversion and subversion of British democratic society ; identity politics , white priviledge, everything about the old order was bad, based upon racism, discrimination and nothing good.
      Rapid change is needed to build back better, in the image of Putinism, or multi-millionare bbc Emilys, which is exactly the same thing, in the end.
      The second concerns more bbc woke perversion and subversion : the rewriting of British history as shameful , characterised by discrimination, slavery and exploitation, and nothing else.
      Her letter is a perfect example of woke evil in action, every word is a lie, every truth of British history perverted and subverted, made shameful, meaningless and redifined as a mistake, not to be repeated.
      Something which can only be avoided by accepting that the British government is still evil, and acting to discriminate against Ukrainians, in spite of this being just as patently untrue as her claims about our History of shame and evil.
      Alas, she is herself a perfect specimen of the unEducation Establishment & bbc woke in action
      Expounding evil in utter denial of our true history, the facts of life and the innate decency courage honour and above all, the soul liberating achievements of the British civilisation sbe is so desperate to pervert usurp and overthrow.
      Why, on earth are these evil, rotten, misbegotten woke views the only ones our children are allowed by ‘history teachers’ such as Vanessa Thomas ?
      That is the real question she raises here.

    2. Ms Thomas, you are shockingly naive. The suggestion that we take an unlimited number of refugees under the aegis of learning from history is simply immature. If we had learned from history we wouldn’t be in this state at all. Grow up woman.

  14. Pointless Tube strikes

    SIR – Members of the RMT union working for Transport for London are striking because TfL is reviewing its pension structure – as any sensible corporation would do, especially when there is a possibility that its pension fund is overfunded.

    So far no proposal has been put forward by the pension fund’s board of trustees, on which the union is represented. Members of the Aslef union, who are also represented on the board of trustees, are not striking; but most either won’t cross the picket line or will be simply unable to work.

    At this stage there is no reasonable justification for the union’s actions. All the strikes achieve is to undermine London, its people, its economy and TfL. What is the point of the RMT?

    Tom Roberts

    London SW17

    1. How can a pension fund be overfunded? (genuine question)
      Wouldn’t that just mean higher pensions for the contributors? Where’s the problem here?

      1. As most DC schemes are invested in stocks and shares, next year it could be underfunded.

        1. The first claims that UK pensions were overfunded was made during Maggie’s time at No.10.
          However, she did not tax the surplus, she allowed for “Pension Holidays” to be taken where companies were allowed to reduce their contributions and thus reduce the apparent surplus.

    2. Over-funded pension schemes?
      I recall various chancellors, Brown worst of all, used that as an excuse to bleed them.
      The UK had one of the strongest private sector schemes anywhere, not now. Public sector is the place to work now.

      1. Yep, all destroyed by the useless oaf Brown’s tax raid. Of course, the moronic fool expected people to keep putting money in to a pot that he could keep robbing year after year. In reality, the obvious happened and the tax collapsed – so he made pensions mandatory.

        Do people think that was to help folk? No. It was to rob companies and individuals of their pension savings via tax. The Labour terror was an abomination.

    3. The RMT exists to hold London hostage. It is a blame magnet for incompetent mayors and a source of frustration for commuters.

  15. Morning again

    The forces driving dentists to leave the NHS

    SIR – Your article (Health, February 28) concerning patients’ inability to access NHS dentistry blames the Government for preventing dental practices from operating during lockdown.

    This was only part of the problem, given that dentists follow the strictest cross-infection controls. The forces driving dentists from the NHS remain the same as when I left to go private in 1980. The NHS contract acts as a huge disincentive. The contract wasn’t fit for purpose then, and nothing has changed. I made a loss on many treatments I was obliged to supply.

    You state that private dentists can earn £140,000 per annum. This implies that they are salaried like GPs, which they are not.

    No government since 1948 has cared enough about the nation’s dental health. It is time that things changed.

    Martin Henry

    Good Easter, Essex

    SIR – Since moving to Devon 15 months ago I have been trying to find an NHS dentist, with no success.

    I regard the ability to eat as pretty fundamental. Likewise, I regard the ability to see what one’s eating as an advantage, yet eyecare has long since been privatised.

    It would be nice if the NHS paid a bit more attention to basic “quality of life” treatments.

    Justice Hawkins

    Great Torrington, Devon

    1. My dentist has given me some of the best dental advice I’ve ever had. I don’t like visiting because it’s being poked in the mouth by sharp objects.

      What would be better is a monthly system which is transparent in it’s costs and options that you can take to any dentist for care. OK, some costs would be part paid, but the shock of £1000 for a root canal would be much less if it were £250 up front and continuation of your premium.

      1. I had a considerable amount of dental work done in Turkey over fifteen years ago (3 extractions, 6 crowns, 3 bridges and a deep filling) which came to a total cost of about £1,000. All the work is still in place and I have never had any toothache since it was done.

    1. Stapleford at it again. The terror that man has is absurd.

      As regards the ‘tweet’ – perhaps this silly woman would benefit from realising that if she wants something, she should pay for it herself.

  18. ‘Morning again.

    SIR – The Ukraine crisis must surely be a wake-up call for the Government to drop its quasi-religious obsession with net zero and bring our energy strategy back into the real world.

    The continued refusal by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business and Energy Secretary, to allow fracking beggars belief. Exploiting our vast natural resources by fracking would contribute massively to our energy security and generate significant tax revenues.

    Neil Bailey
    Stockport, Cheshire

    A typical BTL comment:

    Trevor Anderson
    1 HR AGO
    Hear Hear Neil Bailey, well said! When are our politicians going to wake up from their “Woke” delusion with regard to Net Zero? The current state of affairs vis-a-vis Russia/Ukraine should be a wake up call to anyone with a modicum of sense – I regret to say there is a dearth of that quality in our parliament.
    There is a whole industry on this subject that has been generated across the world that is mired in contradiction – but is costing zillions. We in the UK have been warned that our energy bills will shortly increase by over 50%. This is the culmination of woke influence on our inability to utilise our own reserves and the development of nuclear energy technology. The plan to phase out the use of fossil fuel and introduce electrically powered vehicles is laughable. How are we going to produce enough electricity to power them when we are struggling to light and heat our homes? Let alone the problems of installing the infrastructure to enable this even if it were possible?
    An article written by three scientists a year ago is worth a read: “Climate concept of net zero is a dangerous trap.”

    1. They won’t. The Left are desperate for the Left wing tax scam that is green. They are using it as a way to force us back to the stone age to achieve their real goal, forced socialism.

    3. Kwasi Kwarteng it really sounds like something dreadful that has happened to your car in a bad accident. It will cost thousands to fix sir, you may as well buy another.

    4. Kwasi Kwarteng, it really sounds like something dreadful that has happened to your car in a bad accident. It’s totally Kwasi Kwertange’d sir. Will cost thousands to fix, you might as well buy another.

  19. ‘Our fates are united’: Syrians rally behind Ukraine after years of Russian torment. 2 March 2022.

    Syrian civilians, especially in the north-west, have rallied behind Ukraine, sending messages of solidarity and allying their cause to that of a people invaded by a powerful neighbour that seems to know no bounds.

    In Idlib, residents say a playbook created in Syria of rampant disinformation, indiscriminate bombing, cyberwarfare and devastating heavy weaponry is certain to be used again.

    Yes it all sounds wonderful. What the author fails to say is that this is the support of ISIS and the Jihadists and that without Russia’s help they would have taken over the whole country with catastrophic effects.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/our-fates-are-united-syrians-rally-behind-ukraine-after-years-of-russian-torment

    1. By power plant does he mean an energy generating system for public consumption? As windmills are not that. They’re inefficient, monstrously expensive, pointless (£50bn – per farm -when they don’t turn, which is most of the time) and never return the energy used to create them. Environmentally disasterous, wasteful of exxpensive rare metals…

      They are not more a ‘power plant’ then my pants.

          1. Indeed. (I am assuming that you are not inferring that wobbling eats his pants? But, rather…)

          2. It’s a moot point whether it is the container or the contained that does that generates the fuel.

  22. The enemy underground: how ‘Putin apologists’ brought London to a standstill

    As a Tube strike causes travel chaos across the capital, we ask: just how close is the RMT union to Putin’s Russia?

    By Gordon Rayner, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
    1 March 2022 • 6:40pm
    *
    *
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/af3f12c915e708c1c4bb5ffc097e697db18b8a4b/0_0_3500_2331/master/3500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=5ca822662b8065961c36414c756da651
    People wait for buses at Liverpool Street station during a strike by members of the RMT union*
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2022/03/01/TELEMMGLPICT000287200285_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqfp92onrxCPHoA1vgDHQjmUikPYR0xYwuEBLwP9UFqPg.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Eddie Dempsey of the RMT (left), met with pro-Russian separatist Alexander Mozgovoy, in 2015

    When Mozgovoy was killed two weeks later, Dempsey wrote a glowing obituary of the “charismatic” insurgent, which was originally published in the Morning Star.

    Mozgovoy, who was born in eastern Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, was determined that the pro-Russian breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region should become independent of Ukraine in order that they could eventually be re-absorbed by Moscow. After his death, his Ghost Brigade merged with the other Russian separatist forces in Donbas which are designated as terrorist groups by the Kyiv government.

    Mozgovoy believed in “people’s courts”, and on one occasion presided over a session that passed a death sentence based on a show of hands from the public gallery.
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/01/enemy-underground-putin-apologists-brought-london-standstill/

    1. Top photo is an indicator how low we have fallen. We used to queue for buses in an orderly, friendly manner. We did not all rush and jostle, push and shove, like savages from Africa or the Caribbean.

      1. An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.
        George Mikes

    2. Why would such a vast crowd need to travel outwards, away from the city?
      Was it taken at the evening rush hour?

  24. How astonishing that the “crying journalist”who confronted Boris Johnson is Daria Kaleniuk, a former World Economic Forum ‘Young Global Leader’, who appeared in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign which likely stole the election from Donald Trump. Kaleniuk is even financed by Soros.

    Even the Ukrainian President, Zelenskyy, is closely connected to Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum.

    As the globalists’ desires for a hot war with Russia would likely destroy the global economy at minimum resulting in Schwab’s ”Great Reset’, obviously the New World Order is not a conspiracy theory.

    1. What role did she have in the Biden campaign, did she work for it, do you know?
      It does stink, certainly.
      Before this Ukraine thing kicked off, I was pretty convinced that Russia was going along with the technocracy reset, as they seemed to be at the forefront of digital currency suggestions.
      Swab himself came out against Russia. As though he represents a country!

      1. Daria Kalenuik was central to one of Biden’s campaign videos….

        https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-activist-featured-biden-campaign-144203928.html?

        She’s a senior operative in a Ukrainian ”anti corruption” organization part financed by Soros of all people which is deeply ironic. I expect that’s to ensure nobody takes a look at Soros’ activities but concentrates on everyone else.

        It’s all so weird I even wonder sometimes if the whole thing is confected between Russia and Ukraine with a view to crashing the global economy?

        1. I wonder anyone amongst Johnson’s army of SpadULikes actually knew about her?

          1. Very likely. After all, the combined statements of Klaus Schwab and Matt Hancock confirm that the UK is in a ”continuous partnership” with the World Economic Forum.

            They’re all in it together, including Johnson’s gang.

            Daria Kalenuik is even on Soros’ payroll. He finances an anti corruption organization in Ukraine and she is a senior operative. Soros’ financing of the organization is probably to ensure nobody looks at him.

        2. I can’t figure out Russia’s part.
          On the one hand, it’s obvious that Ukraine is doing the WEF, Gates, Pfizer etc a huge service by knocking Covid out of the news while they silently push their agenda forward. Their favourite trick, and it always works.
          I checked on the website of the OSCE for 21st Feb, and it is true that the number of attacks from the Ukrainians into Donbass did increase enormously in the week before Putin made his move. So was that done in order to tempt Russia to go in?
          I suppose we will understand it better when we see whether Russia adopts the technocracy or not. Not that that will do us much good.

          1. I don’t like the look of Zelensky. I think the media’s portrayal of him is wrong and that the truth is the reverse of what we read. Schwab agent looks right, imho, deliberate baiting of Russia, all kinds of illicit activity I suspect.

          2. Absolutely, he is clearly up to his eyes in the corruption, and Ukraine is said to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world. But of course, the US top Dems are involved, so of course he is their blue-eyed boy.

  25. Good morning all.
    Late on parade, but, given the wet & miserable start up here, I don’t think I can be blamed for not wanting to get out of bed.
    It’s 2°C with a steady rain at the moment and likely to remain that way until this evening.

      1. Dolly is grounded too. I really should get her a treadmill. She can power my lights !

        1. Spartie had an interrupted night; the fox raided the supposedly fox proof food caddy and woke him up.
          He is so good; no barking, but bedding chucked all over the snug – a small room next to the kitchen which is his ‘bedroom’.
          He seems quite happy to forego a walk.

  26. Will, “Safe and effective,” now disappear from the pronouncements of our politicians and their fellow travellers? Nine pages of possible Adverse Events from “the vaccine” have been released as the war in Ukraine escalates. If the people who released this damning information think that everyone is switched off from the problems with the jabs then they are way off the target. However, convincing many of those who have had the jab that they were misinformed and led into endangering their health, will be difficult.

    https://twitter.com/addyb6312/status/1498722631784218635

    1. Good morning!

      When shot number 4 causes a stroke, “that means it’s working” and “it would have been so much worse if I hadn’t been fully vaccinated”.

      1. Quite. Apart from being paralysed down one side …. everything’s Hunkey Dory.
        Oh, and not being able to work, needing more heat to stay at home ….. minor details that only concern little people.

        1. The sooner the full truth about gene therapy comes out the better. But will the full truth ever emerge as many members of the PTB would be in prison for the rest of their lives if it did?

          1. Not, I suspect, in our lifetimes.
            TBF – I gather gene therapy has been used in cancer treatment for several years.

    2. Went to the hospital yesterday. They were still done up to the nines with their face sanitary napkins and what not. You would think that this nonsense would have been abandoned by now. Talked to the specialist and he was wearing a sanitary napkin AND a visor, for gods sake. I am somewhat hard of hearing due to damage in my left ear and this rubbish really annoys me as it does many who have a problem with their hearing. Talking to people with nappies over their faces means you can’t see their lips so you miss more than half of the conversation, and end up just hoping that you got it right. Few months ago one of the doctors whom I asked to please take his mask off wouldn’t do that and decided that shouting everything was the solution, the twerp!

      1. I have a real hospital appointment next week ….. leaflet sent with letter urges me to take a lateral flow ‘test’ before attending. Naturally, I will rush out to get one ……

        1. It’s all complete bull. I go and I refuse to wear anything over my mouth. I also refuse out of sheer stubbornness to do the ritual rubbing of hands with the crap they supply at the door.

          1. Depending on the setting, I either walk straight past or just pretend to use the muck. Since last summer, it’s noticeably watered down in most places anyway.

      2. MB has hearing problems and despite having hearing aids, has been surprised by how much he relied on lip reading and facial expressions. If I’m with him, I almost become an interpreter.

        1. I actually did not realize how much I depended on lip reading before the Covid nonsense in fact I didn’t realize at all, and then, suddenly, I found myself deaf!

      1. Very good to his nan…..
        Or he is a slammer or he has a massive chip on his shoulder because allegedly his 6x grandparents were slaves or has ‘mental health’ issues.

      2. Very good to his nan…..
        Or he is a slammer or he has a massive chip on his shoulder because allegedly his 6x grandparents were slaves or has ‘mental health’ issues.

      1. Toxteth… Where the riots were some years ago. A non white area though in Edwardian times, prime residential.

      2. Toxteth… Where the riots were some years ago. A non white area though in Edwardian times, prime residential.

    1. Bit ridiculous frankly. Is he asking the city to have a fit of conscience? After the Russians why not go after the Arabs? And what happened to due process in all these proposals to seize Russian property in London, seize their planes, freeze their assets, drive Russian children out of schools. Has the rule of law suddenly gone out the window? As I said two days ago. When are we amidst all this crude propaganda, going to start stoning Russian dog breed like we stoned dachshund’s in WWI? You would think that the propaganda would be a little more subtle now a days. That it isn’t really demonstrates that under the veneer of sophistication and progress, we are as primitive as ever.

      2. “we stoned dachshund’s in WWI?”
        Ah, I’ve often wondered how they got those short, bent legs.

        1. Sadly, we really did. Such was the irrational hatred of the Germans that the poor dogs suffered. We aren’t far from that, it appears to me, with this rabid anti-Russia phobia.

  29. Morning all! Beautifully gloomy day appropriate for this time of year and stops me from worrying if the weather is going to turn to merde this afternoon. We are already there, praise be!

    True Belle asked yesterday: “How is it that you know this ?” That is the Russian side of things in this war. I did say the information is to be found if one wants to look beyond the Western propaganda. Then, last night, I came across this from TFI global, an Indian channel. So, in posting it I want to point out that when you get away from the Western media, you get a story very similar to the one I’m relating. Put simply. There is a lot that is not being told in the West.

    Ukrainian soldiers may have given the Russians a free passage
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8d8GL2l-Bg

    1. What is the West afraid of?
      They have banned RT and Sputnik from broadcasting (i can’t watch RT news on youtube any more)
      Do they not trust their own citizens to make an informed choice?

      2. No, they might start thinking and realize they are being conned. We can’t have that, can we?

      3. PS Harry. Get a VPN. I use Nord and it is very simple to use. I was watching RT last night because as far as the computer was concerned I was in Hong Kong. But a VPN is also useful for watching stations in other countries and watching movies. In fact a VPN is useful for a lot of things.

  30. Biden confuses Ukraine and IRAN during his State of the Union address – while Kamala is seen mouthing the correct word right behind him. 2 March 2022.

    President Joe Biden had a gaffe during his State of the Union speech amid the crisis in Ukraine, confusing the nation facing invasion with Iran.

    Biden, 79, the oldest man ever elected to the presidency in the United States, was speaking about the ongoing Russian invasion when he erred.

    ‘Putin may circle Kiev with tanks, but he’ll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people,’ Biden said.

    When you read these articles about Vlad losing it you have look at what we are lumbered with! There is literally no one worthy of Respect or Trust! They are all unspeakably vile!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10567679/Biden-confuses-Ukraine-Iran-State-Union-address.html

  32. Good morning Nottlers , very damp morning here , mild temps , and Moh playing golf again .

    I had a restless night , senior dog snored and coughed all night .. I didn’t get to sleep untill the early hours .

    My bird feeders have attracted a group of longtailed tits , they are so pretty but don’t stay around long enough to take a photo of them .

  33. The status of the conflict in Ukraine and its effect on the civilians in their streets facing armed Russian soldiers to whom they may well be related is not adequately potrayed by the BBC Breakfast this morning.

    I found that the social media platform

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4facf79630cf5a209059e41c5a65b2ad3f95813165efb84b31d101ac4744c6cf.jpg

    in its r/Thatsinsane subreddit has video clips that gives a more rea!istic view of life on the front line.

    The reality is disturbing and difficult to watch but here is a humorous clip of Volodymyr Zelensky in his comedy role as he gets a phone call from Angela Merkel:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/t4nhnr/in_2015_president_zelensky_starred_in_a_fictional/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

    1. You really must stop believing in anything you see on the BBC, or indeed ‘Reddit’.

      1. Amazing how the BBC use CGI to make it look as though Lyce Ducet and Clive Myrie are reporting from a rooftop in Kyiv!
        The explosion sounds are a bit pathetic however.

    2. Perhaps you can go over to RT and see what the people of Donbass have had to put up with due to 8 years of random shelling by the Azov Battalion, a group of real Nazi’s. The difference in what you will see is the devastation but not the crude appeal to emotion, they have more dignity than that, They don’t show the thousands of dead and injured. But you will hear them talking and crying about it, their friends and relatives blown to pieces.

  34. Good morning, my friends

    The bravery of the Ukrainians in trying to defend their land makes a sharp contrast with Boris Johnson who agreed to an arrangement in Northern Ireland which allows the EU, a foreign power, to impose its laws upon a part of Britain.

    Has the British government no shame and does it assess defending Britain’s own territorial integrity and the supremacy of its laws as unimportant?

          2. It was, Bob, until 2005 when it closed. I was never much of a fan of their produce. Rowntree’s and Fry’s were my favourites.

  36. Oh shiiiit!

    European natural gas prices spiked above $2,200 per 1,000 cubic meters on Wednesday for the first time in market history. The escalating crisis between Russia and Ukraine has raised fears of supply shortages.

    The April futures at the TTF hub in the Netherlands soared from around $1,500 to $2,226 per 1,000 cubic meters, or $213 per megawatt-hour in household terms by 09:30 GMT, hitting an all-time high, data from the London ICE exchange shows.

    The spike in prices follows sanctions placed on Russia by a number of Western states amid Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

    A huge increase in applications raises the price by the minute, Kaushal Ramesh, senior analyst at Rystad Energy told Vesti. He said that prices are also affected by fears of supply outages due to possible damage of infrastructure in Ukraine, through which the majority of Russian gas is delivered to Europe, and the possibility of supply restrictions on Russian oil and gas.

    1. Who were those idiots who claimed that countries should be self-sufficient in energy?

      But how long will will Johnson’s Net Zero survive in the real world? How long before we frack and take oil and gas from the North Sea again?

      2. Carrie Antoinette and her entitled chums have probably locked Johnners in Dilyn’s kennel.

    1. There lived a certain man in Russia long ago

      He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow

      Most people looked at him with terror and with fear

      But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear

      He could preach the Bible like a preacher

      Full of ecstasy and fire

      But he also was the kind of teacher

      Women would desire

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Lover of the Russian queen

      There was a cat that really was gone

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Russia’s greatest love machine

      It was a shame how he carried on

      He ruled the Russian land and never mind the Czar

      But the kazachok he danced really wunderbar

      In all affairs of state he was the man to please

      But he was real great when he had a girl to squeeze

      For the queen he was no wheeler dealer

      Though she’d heard the things he’d done

      She believed he was a holy healer

      Who would heal her son

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Lover of the Russian queen

      There was a cat that really was gone

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Russia’s greatest love machine

      It was a shame how he carried on

      But when his drinking and lusting

      And his hunger for power

      Became known to more and more people

      The demands to do something

      About this outrageous man

      Became louder and louder

      Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

      Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

      Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

      Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

      “This man’s just got to go”, declared his enemies

      But the ladies begged, “Don’t you try to do it, please”

      No doubt this Rasputin had lots of hidden charms

      Though he was a brute, they just fell into his arms

      Then one night some men of higher standing

      Set a trap, they’re not to blame

      “Come to visit us”, they kept demanding

      And he really came

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Lover of the Russian queen

      They put some poison into his wine

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Russia’s greatest love machine

      He drank it all and said, “I feel fine”

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Lover of the Russian queen

      They didn’t quit, they wanted his head

      Ra ra Rasputin

      Russia’s greatest love machine

      And so they shot him ’til he was dead

      Oh, those Russians

  39. ‘A sick April Fool’s joke’: Families are left ‘furious’ at MPs’ £2,200 pay rise due to come in next month on day household energy bills will rocket as cost of living crisis hits home
    MPs in line for a 2.7 per cent pay rise next month- taking their salaries to £84,144
    Ipsa said politicians’ workload dramatically increased during pandemic last year
    Ministers have urging restraint in the public sector despite soaring cost of living
    Labour MP Zarah Sultana says pay rise is ‘wrong’ and is donating hers to charity
    Many furious with MP pay rise as soaring cost of living causes agony for families

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10566019/Families-left-infuriated-MPs-2-7-cent-pay-rise-month.html

    1. I have a suggestion:
      Those who cannot afford to live because of Convid, Ukraine v Russia Match, ‘The NetT Zero’ Life etc costs

      Commit a non harmful imprisonable offence, having put your worldy belongings into a Family Trust
      (I you do not have one, contact Mr Rashid, give him your details and he will put it into mine hehe)
      That way you will become a cost free to you burden on the State.
      If they try to steal, your money al la Turdoo, there will be an uprising

    3. Throw in the Triple Lock being ignored and state pensions restricted to a 2.2% rise and the MPs are really taking the piss.

    4. “Donating hers to charity”, I may be being rather disingenuous but that come across as virtue signalling to my mind. I’d rather she took it and increased her productivity as an MP, though that is almost a contradiction in terms.

    5. ‘Labour MP Zarah Sultana says pay rise is ‘wrong’ and is donating hers to charity”
      Any particular charity mentioned?

  40. I had my price hike notice from British Gas (who took over from Zebra Power) for my mother’s flat;

    Gas:
    Standing Charge: 26.123p/day (Old Price) > 32.032 (New Price) or 27.220 (Direct Debit Price)
    Unit Price: 4.047p (Old Price) > 7.760 (New Price) or 7.367 (Direct Debit Price)

    Electricity:
    Standing Charge: 25.093p/day (Old Price) > 54.096 (New Price) or 48.127 (Direct Debit Price)
    Unit Price: 20.052p (Old Price) > 29.530 (New Price) or 27.865 (Direct Debit Price)

    First off, if we are all being urged to consume less energy during this crisis, why are they slapping it on the standing charge, rather than the unit price?

    I detest these algorithms, analysing individual usage and tailoring the individual tariff to maximise profit. It all smacks of American business methods, which I loathe. All I want is a fair price, and for us all to be treated equally, rather than rewarding those with the time and energy to haggle and quibble constantly.

    Second, British Gas goes out of its way to make itself unreachable by its customers. Its Indian help lines help nobody if you have the patience to hang on to hear how my call is important to them. Their website simply does not work, and there is no way of contacting them to do anything about it.

    On the light of this, why should I trust them to honour Direct Debit. the “Direct Debit Guarantee” is meaningless if it cannot and will not be enforced. It gives a company automatic access to my bank account, and I simply do not trust them to act with any sense of honour.

    I have history with British Gas, since their management policies actually drove a friend of mine to suicide in 2004. It came out at his funeral.

    Mike Parks (1983-2004) was a very accomplished C++ programmer, and actually offered advice free of charge to the international programming community. He was also a very talented musician, singing in two of the choirs I did as well as being a good and sensitive pianist. He was a devout churchgoer, and his generosity was his take on the Christian spirit.

    After he graduated, he knew that he had to earn a living, so got himself a nine month contract with British Gas, programming their software systems. Because of his conscientious nature, he finished the job in six months. British Gas rewarded him by terminating his contract early, and pocketing the money saved in order to give bonuses to the managers.

    Mike Parks did not want to live in that sort of world, where such behaviour was rewarded and the good penalised. His parents went away for a few days, and when they got back, they found him dead on the sofa, having taken an overdose.

    Now, the less charitable of us might suggest that no Christian should ever take his own life without being cast down into eternal damnation. The psalms alone are full of instances where good people have suffered at the hands of the wicked. However, I am not going to judge my friend for succumbing to despair, since I have been in the same state myself. I am only still here because I had too much of the whisky and thought I was further gone than I was.

    I consider British Gas to be utterly unethical, and do not wish to be associated with them any longer than I have to.

    The position with uSwitch is that there are no deals available now that improve on staying with an existing company on their capped variable tariff, and that there are no companies willing to take on new customers on their own capped variable tariff. Temporarily disconnecting the supply brings in huge reconnection charges, so one is stuck with whatever standing charge managers wish to impose.

    Ofgen are completely negligent in protecting the public from being fleeced. The cap is a blunt instrument and gives rise to manipulations that penalise those who cut down on consumption. It is utterly counterproductive, especially during the current emergency. Yet Government are unprepared to do anything about it, and the Opposition will not hold them to account. All I get from the other party is that they would not do anything different, and that I must put up with whatever profiteering is coming to me, and at whatever cost to the national interest. They don’t care, and nobody can make them care.

    I actually believe this huge hike in energy prices was completely and cynically artificial.

    There are the Big Six cartel operators, who are eager to eliminate troublesome competition and corner the market for themselves.

    However, the biggest mover has been Vladimir Putin, who is tailoring the tariff of Russian producers to those who show most co-operation with his current military adventure in Ukraine, and his aspirations for restoring the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in his image.

    It seems that our own institutions, so indoctrinated and enamoured by the myth of a global free market, are happy to let him get away with it, and do not have the finance resources to burn the fingers of anyone that tries to play that sort of trick.

    I need to make a decision by April Fools Day what to do about my mother’s gas and energy supply. I am still waiting for the Price Hike letter from British Gas as regards my own electricity.

    1. “First off, if we are all being urged to consume less energy during this crisis, why are they slapping it on the standing charge, rather than the unit price?”

      If nothing else it proves it has FA to do with ‘green issues’ If they really wanted to encourage us to use less they would be raising the unit charge far more, not the standing charge. Also rising daily standing charges completely negate the reason for having a smart meter ‘helping consumers manage their useage’ is thus proved a lie..

    3. They will say “war in Ukraine blah blah”
      But coincidentally, their profits will rise.

    4. I’ve written to both my MPs regarding the standing charge hike of 100% – how does the wholesale price of gas affect the standing charge? I got the usual standard crap reply which ignored the question

    5. The intention is to raise more tax, force down energy useage to pretend to have met net zero.

      The reality is this is economcially impossible, expensive, unnecessary and destructive. It just means yet more wealth transferred overseas and to the state, with lower output, employment and education. It’s just the latest attempt at forcing socialism on the country.

      There are no alternatives because big fat state has made sure there aren’t and that energy remains expensive.

  41. So now we know why Pfizer didn’t want to release those documents early: 42k people had adverse effects within the first 3 months of trials out of which 1,223 died. Wow.

    1. The usual pearls of wisdom from the master. It’s like Zen Koan’s, you know.

  44. O/T The lady will probably not see the posts because she can’t get back on Nottle….but…

    I am sure that you would all like to join me in wishing Garlands a very happy birthday 89 today ! :@)

    2. Good morning Phizzee

      Sorry – I couldn’t put up a greeting as she is not on my list. I have added her to it.

      ANY MORE NOTTLER$ BIRTHDAYS FOR THE LIST

      and please let us know if there are any other omissions, typos or errors

        1. Good morning, Plum

          I usually go to bed quite late and so I try to post Birthday Greetings at midnight to alert other Nottlers and then I repeat the greeting the following morning for those who have missed it and want to add their greetings.

      1. You think? I would be happy for it to go on for twice as long. All subjective I suppose.

      2. You certainly deserve to be in trouble. You say she claims to be 29; you say she is 89 – the average is 59 – which is the same age as my Caroline who will be having a ‘significant’ birthday later this month.

        1. If you give a postal address to Hertslass i would most happily send some seaweed. I think i’m in trouble again>>>>>runs and hides>>>>.

  48. ‘A Pound of Ukrainian People’? 10 Brain Freezes in Joe Biden’s State of the Union Delivery

    President Joe Biden stumbled through his State of the Union address on Tuesday, flubbing several lines from his prepared text and ad-libbing lines that did not make sense.

    Here is a list of his biggest mistakes:

    1. Biden mistakenly says “Iranian people” instead of “Ukrainian people.”
    “Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he will never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people,” he said in his speech.

    According to his prepared text, he was supposed to say “hearts and souls of the Ukrainian people.”

    2. Biden refers to “a pound of Ukrainian people”
    Biden referred to “a pound of Ukrainian people.” His prepared text said “proud.”

    Biden later tried to say Ukrainians were fighting “pound for pound” with “every inch of ‘earnagy’”

    3. Biden struggles over his demand to end the term “Rust Belt”
    Biden labored through what should have been an easy line promoting midwestern manufacturing, borrowing a phrase coined by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH):
    “It’s time to see the uh the uh what used to be called the Rust Belt become the uh uh um the home of uh significant resurgence in manufacturing.”

    4. Biden calls for “investigating” the police instead of “investing.”
    The president made a passionate case for “investigating” crime prevention and community police, but according to his prepared text, he was supposed to say “investing”

    “I know what works — investigating crime prevention, and community policing, cops who walk the beat,” he said.

    5. Biden stumbles over his claim you cannot build a wall to keep out coronavirus
    “You can’t build a wall high enough to keep out a-a-a-a a vaccine. The vaccine can stop the spread of these diseases,” he said.

    Biden typically talks about how no one can build a wall high enough to stop the coronavirus, but this line was not in his prepared text. He failed to make his point.

    6. Biden slurs his pronunciation of “health premiums”
    The president referred to “health progremiums.”

    7. Biden refers to the “Russian Roubelle”
    Biden stumbled over his pronunciation of the word “ruble,” a word repeatedly referred to during the Russian attack on Ukraine.

    8. Biden refers to the “infects” of climate change instead of “effects”
    “[W]e’ll do it to withstand the devastating infects of climate change and promote environmental justice,” he said.

    9. Biden struggles to talk about the number of corporations in America.
    “There are more corporations incorporated in America than every other state in America combined, and I still won 36 years in a row,” Biden said.

    Based on his past rhetoric, the president was likely referring to his home state of Delaware, but he never corrected himself. It was not in his prepared text.

    10. ‘Go git ‘im’
    Biden inexplicably concluded his speech with the phrase “Go git ‘im” although it was not in his prepared text and it was unclear who he wanted the Congress to “git.”

        1. Don’t be cruel to William. And I’m almost the same age. Wisdom comes with age.

          1. Hell’s Bells. Have Gus and Pickles taken possession of the Chez Thomas keyboard?

    2. I’m unsure of the exact date, but if Biden hangs on in there for a few more months there’s a good chance he’ll go just after Kamala Harris is eligible to stay as POTUS for the better part of two and a half terms.

    3. Talking of Diane Abbott and the daft things she says, , on a recent tour of Ireland, she was asked what she thought of County Down,
      She replied she enjoyed it, but was better when Carole Vorderman was in it…….

    4. “I’ve spoken to Archewell and I say to the American people, whose lives matter, that we’ll Nuke UK reign to establish sovereignty. “

      1. Exactly what I was going to say. Who was the female politician that broke the story of rape gangs and promptly disappeared from public view?

        1. That the truth should be silent I had almost forgot.

          [Enobarbus: Antony and Cleopatra]

          1. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi planned “the ethnocide of the peoples of Europe” through “the encouragement of mass non-white immigration

    3. Well said, Mrs. Hall.
      As she doesn’t have a shelf of golliwogs behind her, will she be safe from wokerati attack?

  50. Russia not ruling out severing diplomatic ties with UK – Moscow
    DETAILS TO FOLLOW

  51. Now China turns back on Putin – Russia hemorrhaging allies as President loses the plot
    VLADIMIR PUTIN’S madcap invasion of Ukraine has seen even long-term ally China turn its back on Russia.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1572042/china-Russia-Ukraine-war-latest-President-Xi-Jinping-Vladimir-Putin-allies

    China’s objective is to make Russia economically dependent on their support. Slowly over time, Russia will become a Chinese satellite state. The Bear has sat down with the Tiger, and the Tiger is wetting its appetite on the feast that awaits.

    1. Actually why China is doing this is twofold. One, by backing Russia, they make themselves even more vulnerable to criticism due to their occupation of Tibet and Chinese Turkistan, also Mongolia and Manchuria, which people have forgotten are occupied. They can’t criticise the Russians when they are much more guilty of the same thing. I say “same thing” but Russia has no intention of permanently occupying Ukraine.
      The second reason is that China claims a large portion of Russian territory and has ambitions there. Bit difficult to be friends with someone when you intend to steal there land. Here is an article:
      Extract: “Now China’s claims Russian territory. A video was posted by the Russian Embassy on the Chinese social media Weibo, to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok.”
      https://asianews.press/2020/07/04/lac-face-off-china-now-claims-russias-vladivostok-as-its-own-territory/

      AS I have said before. Our rejection of Russia is a fatal mistake in as much as we have weakened the West in what will be the real fight coming which will be with China. Russia would have been an essential ally in that fight. In fact it may well have curtailed Chinas boldness all together.

      1. Apologies for my wandering mind and not staying on topic but I wonder what caused the North American Indians to leave Siberia. Whether they crossed the Arctic or the Pacific, they can’t have known what they would find when they headed east but something prompted them to take the risk anyway.

        1. Interesting point.
          I think you can cross the Bering Strait when it’s iced up.
          But, as you say, why would you?

          2. Oh, their own origin stories state that they did migrate and modern research seems to confirm that – but why?

          3. Following plant food and game over many years: also (*sorry* but climate change! ) it opened ice corridors but also changed the availability of game. As I understand it, they had no choice.
            Britanica has some good links on those pages.

          1. Rather like man wandering back and forth across the now North Sea; possibly wondering towards the end of the Ice Age why their feet got wet.

          2. Very interesting article and shows the importance of mitochondrial DNA in understanding archaeological discoveries.
            You have sent me into another rabbit hole of following links that are interesting.
            As if I haven’t enough with The war of the Roses and Richard III 🙂
            My Lady sent me on that one by recommended books.

        5. I’m interested in the mindset of those who left Europe for the USA, knowing they never would return to their homeland and families. That was brave.

    2. Actually why China is doing this is twofold. One, by backing Russia, they make themselves even more vulnerable to criticism due to their occupation of Tibet and Chinese Turkistan, also Mongolia and Manchuria, which people have forgotten are occupied. They can’t criticise the Russians when they are much more guilty of the same thing. I say “same thing” but Russia has no intention of permanently occupying Ukraine.
      The second reason is that China claims a large portion of Russian territory and has ambitions there. Bit difficult to be friends with someone when you intend to steal there land. Here is an article:
      Extract: “Now China’s claims Russian territory. A video was posted by the Russian Embassy on the Chinese social media Weibo, to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok.”
      https://asianews.press/2020/07/04/lac-face-off-china-now-claims-russias-vladivostok-as-its-own-territory/

      AS I have said before. Our rejection of Russia is a fatal mistake in as much as we have weakened the West in what will be the real fight coming which will be with China. Russia would have been an essential ally in that fight. In fact it may well have curtailed Chinas boldness all together.

    3. Actually why China is doing this is twofold. One, by backing Russia, they make themselves even more vulnerable to criticism due to their occupation of Tibet and Chinese Turkistan, also Mongolia and Manchuria, which people have forgotten are occupied. They can’t criticise the Russians when they are much more guilty of the same thing. I say “same thing” but Russia has no intention of permanently occupying Ukraine.
      The second reason is that China claims a large portion of Russian territory and has ambitions there. Bit difficult to be friends with someone when you intend to steal there land. Here is an article:
      Extract: “Now China’s claims Russian territory. A video was posted by the Russian Embassy on the Chinese social media Weibo, to celebrate the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok.”
      https://asianews.press/2020/07/04/lac-face-off-china-now-claims-russias-vladivostok-as-its-own-territory/

      AS I have said before. Our rejection of Russia is a fatal mistake in as much as we have weakened the West in what will be the real fight coming which will be with China. Russia would have been an essential ally in that fight. In fact it may well have curtailed Chinas boldness all together.

    4. China will maintain normal trade relations with Russia despite international sanctions, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday during a regular press conference.

      “China and Russia will continue to carry out normal trade cooperation following the spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,” he said.

    1. My Welsh uncle was the boiler man at the Scots porage oats factory in Cupar, Fife…..in the sixties….

  55. Kate Mosse: ‘Brexit has made this a divided and ugly country’
    The multimillion selling author on her favourite place, Carcassonne, why caring is a feminist issue and inter-generational living
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/kate-mosse-brexit-has-made-divided-ugly-country/

    BTL comment from Altec Lansing

    I think a more pertinent description would be that the EU has made Europe a divided and ugly continent.

    I do not read The Guardian but does it publish as many pro-Brexit articles as the Telegraph publishes pro-Remain articles or does it always only present just one side of the argument?

    2. Kate Mosse: ‘The refusal of remainers to accept the referendum result on Brexit has made this a divided and ugly country’

      There – what she should have said.

          2. Do you ever? It seems to me that twatter is all one way. Tossers tweet (not, you, obviously!!)- the world upticks and comments – no one replies.

  56. Well, what a top day (not).
    Landline is kaput; vacuum cleaner is gasping its last.
    Good news:
    Zen internet have Openreach on the case.
    Hoover is a reconditioned job, so owes us nothing. At least we are supporting a local business when we buy a replacement.

        1. We have a Dyson. The MR and Mighty MO, our cleaner for 33 years, swear by it. I swear AT it, because I find it cumbersome.

          2. It amuses them to see their staff at work!

            They were alarmed at first – now sleep through. Mo has sometimes to hoover round them!!

    2. Ours is an industrial strength Sebo- we call it Fang because it’s so fierce.

  58. 351182+ up ticks,

    That old herd maintenance AKA milking the herd comes round pretty damn quick,

    British MPs Set for £2.2k Pay Rise as Brits Face Tax Hike

  59. Well, that got a bit damp, but never mind, the job is done!

    Noting that the rain had subsided to a light drizzle, I grabbed the chainsaw and quickly cut up the 8 or 9 longer lengths of ash, all around 5 to 6″ diameter, I picked up from the one that came down last week.
    That done, they were chopped, chucked over to beside the “garden” steps and stacked.

  61. A week old but mentioned only in passing on here. It could have been written by one of many.

    The world is sliding into a new Dark Age of poverty, irrationality and war

    Vladimir Putin’s expansionism is the latest reminder that human progress is far from inevitable

    ALLISTER HEATH • 23 February 2022 • 9:30pm

    Imperialism, war, irrationality, disease and economic dislocation: modernity is ending as it began. Vladimir Putin’s monstrous expansionism is the latest, terrifying reminder that human progress is far from inevitable, and that our wealth and technological advances rest on a set of extraordinarily fragile foundations.

    It is hard to be bullish about the next few years. As the 2020s progress, it will become obvious that our civilisation relied on a series of increasingly invalid assumptions: that genuine, destructive wars are unthinkable between major economies; that real incomes are on a permanent upwards trajectory, powered by globalisation; that technology necessarily empowers individuals; that deadly pandemics are a thing of the past, and biowarfare unimaginable; that our ever-more woke Western elites still believe in liberty, popular democracy and the rule of law.

    It is now clear that 1990 was the high watermark for the principle of national self-determination and liberal nationalism. Communism collapsed, allowing the independence of the former Soviet republics, Germany’s reunification and ushering in a short-lived Pax Americana. The same year, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a US-led international coalition was assembled under UN auspices, annihilating Saddam Hussein’s army from the air in an astonishing display of technological prowess.

    Some 32 years later, Putin’s despicable Ukraine land-grab marks the final end of that period. It will make it easier for China to annex Taiwan. It will embolden Iran’s own deranged ambitions, and its pursuit of nuclear weaponry, triggering another major war in the Middle East. For now at least, America continues to protect NATO’s occasionally ungrateful members, but Russia’s action ends the pretence that a more general system exists to safeguard the independence of sovereign states. The UN, like the League of Nations before it, is irrelevant.

    Russia’s Ukrainian adventure is thus of far greater significance than the annexation of Crimea, or the Kremlin’s interventions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin’s strategy this time around is much more extreme and ambitious, with echoes of Sudetenland.

    The Russian dictator’s rambling speech this week was profoundly anti-modern: he regrets the demise of the Soviet Union, and wants to rebuild an empire based on what he claims was “historically Russia”. The speech could have been delivered by any pre-1914 or pre-1939 despot. There was the fake history, the appeal to blood and soil, the blatant propaganda: it was as old-fashioned and anti-rational as it was chillingly clear. Putin is turning the clock back to the pre-nation state era.

    We are back in a world of competing, imperialistic great powers, where borders are redrawn in their areas of influence, ignoring international law. The sorts of sanctions the West is imposing on Russia will hurt, but not sufficiently: Putin has spent years building up foreign exchange reserves and detaching his country from the global financial system. In any case the West, led by Germany but also the rest of the EU, the UK and the US, are continuing to buy some $700 million a day worth of Russian energy and commodities, according to Bloomberg.

    For now, America still has the ability to inflict pain by cutting countries or institutions out of dollar trades, but in time its power will diminish. The world’s financial system will divide into at least two, with one or more anti-dollar zones based around the renminbi or some other reserve mechanism. Putin and Xi Jinping’s expansionary ambitions will make this a necessity, and they will be supported by other regimes. Imran Khan, the Pakistani prime minister, is on a tour of Russia even as tanks roll into Ukraine.

    The return of a Hobbesian approach to international relations will tragically be accompanied by a collapse in support for free trade and globalisation. How, some will ask, can we simultaneously penalise and trade with Russia? How can we tolerate Chinese technology that spies on us? How can virtue-obsessed companies continue to preach hypocritically at home while engaging with countries that persecute minorities? What will happen to our deep economic ties with China if it invades Taiwan – and how would we cope with the massive recession and 1930s-style financial collapse a trade war would cause?

    The expansion in trade and capitalism since the 1990s was one of the great boons of all time for humankind: it pulled billions out of extreme poverty, hugely improved quality of life and slashed infant mortality. Deglobalisation, triggered by authoritarian militarism, if and when it comes, will be a humanitarian calamity.

    But while the West has largely condemned Russia’s move on Ukraine, it too is racked with its own internal ideological rejection of the modern, liberal-conservative order. Communism never really stood a chance in Europe and America, and a capitalist and democratic West thus triumphed in the Cold War; but the woke ideology, best understood as an anti-capitalist, anti-Western secular religion, has already captured much of the intelligentsia in America, Canada, New Zealand and increasingly Britain.

    In its extreme form, it represents a rejection of the Enlightenment, of freedom and reason; Western history is reviled as uniquely bad, rather than as a remarkable experiment in self-improvement. Individualism is replaced by collectivism and neo-feudalism, and Martin Luther King’s ideal of a colour-blind society by balkanised identity politics. Free speech is dismissed as “oppressive”. Dissenters are cancelled, with cultural institutions, capital and corporations happy to help impose this new orthodoxy. The fear is that technology will be used to increase the power of this new ruling class, rather than to liberate the masses.

    The parallel rise of a related extreme environmentalism – another millenarianist movement, more concerned with self-flagellation than protecting nature – has already encouraged a series of catastrophic errors, not least the abandonment of nuclear and greater dependency on Russian gas.

    So what is the solution? How can we halt the return of authoritarian imperialism? How can we stop a collapse in free trade? How can we defeat the woke demagogues? I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear reader, but there are no easy answers to prevent the world from sliding into a new dark age, and perhaps even in some cases none at all.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/02/23/world-sliding-new-dark-age-poverty-irrationality-war/

    BTL:
    EM WO • 2 days ago
    Read the second to last paragraph above.
    I have said it before, The Green Party and their satellites should be viewed as economic terrorists intent on wrecking the economy and our way of life.
    Yet the eco-terrorists have infiltrated the BBC, the entire education system and politics with their end of the world global warming/climate change lies.

    1. He’s still resolutely ignoring the evidence that the decline of the west is being actively pushed by the WEF.
      I prefer the analysis of the same phenomenon by the Russian foreign minister in RT.

  62. A week old but mentioned only in passing on here. It could have been written by one of many.

    The world is sliding into a new Dark Age of poverty, irrationality and war

    Vladimir Putin’s expansionism is the latest reminder that human progress is far from inevitable

    ALLISTER HEATH • 23 February 2022 • 9:30pm

    Imperialism, war, irrationality, disease and economic dislocation: modernity is ending as it began. Vladimir Putin’s monstrous expansionism is the latest, terrifying reminder that human progress is far from inevitable, and that our wealth and technological advances rest on a set of extraordinarily fragile foundations.

    It is hard to be bullish about the next few years. As the 2020s progress, it will become obvious that our civilisation relied on a series of increasingly invalid assumptions: that genuine, destructive wars are unthinkable between major economies; that real incomes are on a permanent upwards trajectory, powered by globalisation; that technology necessarily empowers individuals; that deadly pandemics are a thing of the past, and biowarfare unimaginable; that our ever-more woke Western elites still believe in liberty, popular democracy and the rule of law.

    It is now clear that 1990 was the high watermark for the principle of national self-determination and liberal nationalism. Communism collapsed, allowing the independence of the former Soviet republics, Germany’s reunification and ushering in a short-lived Pax Americana. The same year, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a US-led international coalition was assembled under UN auspices, annihilating Saddam Hussein’s army from the air in an astonishing display of technological prowess.

    Some 32 years later, Putin’s despicable Ukraine land-grab marks the final end of that period. It will make it easier for China to annex Taiwan. It will embolden Iran’s own deranged ambitions, and its pursuit of nuclear weaponry, triggering another major war in the Middle East. For now at least, America continues to protect NATO’s occasionally ungrateful members, but Russia’s action ends the pretence that a more general system exists to safeguard the independence of sovereign states. The UN, like the League of Nations before it, is irrelevant.

    Russia’s Ukrainian adventure is thus of far greater significance than the annexation of Crimea, or the Kremlin’s interventions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin’s strategy this time around is much more extreme and ambitious, with echoes of Sudetenland.

    The Russian dictator’s rambling speech this week was profoundly anti-modern: he regrets the demise of the Soviet Union, and wants to rebuild an empire based on what he claims was “historically Russia”. The speech could have been delivered by any pre-1914 or pre-1939 despot. There was the fake history, the appeal to blood and soil, the blatant propaganda: it was as old-fashioned and anti-rational as it was chillingly clear. Putin is turning the clock back to the pre-nation state era.

    We are back in a world of competing, imperialistic great powers, where borders are redrawn in their areas of influence, ignoring international law. The sorts of sanctions the West is imposing on Russia will hurt, but not sufficiently: Putin has spent years building up foreign exchange reserves and detaching his country from the global financial system. In any case the West, led by Germany but also the rest of the EU, the UK and the US, are continuing to buy some $700 million a day worth of Russian energy and commodities, according to Bloomberg.

    For now, America still has the ability to inflict pain by cutting countries or institutions out of dollar trades, but in time its power will diminish. The world’s financial system will divide into at least two, with one or more anti-dollar zones based around the renminbi or some other reserve mechanism. Putin and Xi Jinping’s expansionary ambitions will make this a necessity, and they will be supported by other regimes. Imran Khan, the Pakistani prime minister, is on a tour of Russia even as tanks roll into Ukraine.

    The return of a Hobbesian approach to international relations will tragically be accompanied by a collapse in support for free trade and globalisation. How, some will ask, can we simultaneously penalise and trade with Russia? How can we tolerate Chinese technology that spies on us? How can virtue-obsessed companies continue to preach hypocritically at home while engaging with countries that persecute minorities? What will happen to our deep economic ties with China if it invades Taiwan – and how would we cope with the massive recession and 1930s-style financial collapse a trade war would cause?

    The expansion in trade and capitalism since the 1990s was one of the great boons of all time for humankind: it pulled billions out of extreme poverty, hugely improved quality of life and slashed infant mortality. Deglobalisation, triggered by authoritarian militarism, if and when it comes, will be a humanitarian calamity.

    But while the West has largely condemned Russia’s move on Ukraine, it too is racked with its own internal ideological rejection of the modern, liberal-conservative order. Communism never really stood a chance in Europe and America, and a capitalist and democratic West thus triumphed in the Cold War; but the woke ideology, best understood as an anti-capitalist, anti-Western secular religion, has already captured much of the intelligentsia in America, Canada, New Zealand and increasingly Britain.

    In its extreme form, it represents a rejection of the Enlightenment, of freedom and reason; Western history is reviled as uniquely bad, rather than as a remarkable experiment in self-improvement. Individualism is replaced by collectivism and neo-feudalism, and Martin Luther King’s ideal of a colour-blind society by balkanised identity politics. Free speech is dismissed as “oppressive”. Dissenters are cancelled, with cultural institutions, capital and corporations happy to help impose this new orthodoxy. The fear is that technology will be used to increase the power of this new ruling class, rather than to liberate the masses.

    The parallel rise of a related extreme environmentalism – another millenarianist movement, more concerned with self-flagellation than protecting nature – has already encouraged a series of catastrophic errors, not least the abandonment of nuclear and greater dependency on Russian gas.

    So what is the solution? How can we halt the return of authoritarian imperialism? How can we stop a collapse in free trade? How can we defeat the woke demagogues? I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear reader, but there are no easy answers to prevent the world from sliding into a new dark age, and perhaps even in some cases none at all.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/02/23/world-sliding-new-dark-age-poverty-irrationality-war/

    BTL:
    EM WO • 2 days ago
    Read the second to last paragraph above.
    I have said it before, The Green Party and their satellites should be viewed as economic terrorists intent on wrecking the economy and our way of life.
    Yet the eco-terrorists have infiltrated the BBC, the entire education system and politics with their end of the world global warming/climate change lies.

    1. Oh dear, I refreshed and the link above has now become “Video unavailable”. I wonder if it’ll happen to this one too. My favourite Russian tune, which I first heard as “The Carnival is Over”, sung by Judith Durham and The Seekers but here is the original Cossack song performed by the Red Army Choir.

      https://youtu.be/E3OLWr7r-k8

          1. Well i think Rob Brydon is very amusing. He always has a funny story to tell. Unlike you !
            So there !

    2. Failing that I’ll have Beijing Duck, Mumbai Duck or Beef Chennai, and I’ll eat them in the black hole of Kolkata.

        1. Which will be along the lines of, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and blow your house(s) down.”

          Easy enough, since they are all straw warriors.

          1. Regarding your comment about Citroen on today’s board, has his account been hacked?

          2. Could be, BoB, he certainly appears vitriolic today. His best bet might be to block the pro-Putin lobby on here but it won’t leave him much to read.

          3. Agreed, but understanding the reasons for Putin’s distrust of the West and knowing about the shelling of Donbass by a rogue paramilitary unit is not necessarily supporting him.

  68. I was hugely proud of our House of Commons today. Just before PMQs, Mr Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle made an announcement to the effect that the Ukrainian Ambassador, Mr Vadym Prystaiko, was in the public gallery. Almost as one, MPs from all sides rose, applauded and cheered. I have never seen anything like it before: it did good.

    2. Applause in the Commons is to be condemned.

      It started with that bastard Blair. It should be stopped forthwith. It is NOT the British way.

    3. Not exactly snow white…

      The media often attracts attention
      to the real estate of the diplomat’s wife. According to the journalists,
      all the apartments that Inna rents are located in Kyiv downtown, on
      Gogolevska street and Ivan Franko street. Since Inna often travels
      abroad, Vadym Prystaiko’s mother-in-law Anna Uglyarenko often comes for
      rental payments.

      In 2019, right after being appointed head of
      the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prystaiko received a state-owned real
      estate in Koncha-Zaspa, even though President Volodymyr Zelensky
      announced selling the property of the State Administration of Affairs.

      The
      journalists found out that the neighbors of the top official have more
      than once used the same scheme of withdrawing property from state
      property.

      The scheme is following: the building is declared a
      write-off, lawyers draw up the appropriate act, then a complete
      reconstruction takes place, and instead of an old summer house there is
      an elite villa standing on the site.

      In June 2019,
      Zelensky got involved in a scandal. After he met with Donald Tusk, the
      media published passages in the new president’s speech, however, they
      turned out to be the quotes from the speech of Petro Poroshenko at the
      European Solidarity party convention.

      The Presidential
      Administration of Ukraine conducted an investigation and declared about
      “sabotage by certain employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a
      deliberate provocation by the team of Petro Poroshenko.”

      ‘Prystaiko’s
      colleagues considered that he had violated corporate ethics at that
      time by not protecting the employees of the Ministry of Foreign
      Affairs,’ wrote Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

      profiles

      They
      cite another episode when “Prystaiko was not able to defend the
      position of the Foreign Ministry and make decisions.” After the PACE
      deputies decided to return the voting rights to the Russian delegation,
      Prystaiko left for Brussels on personal matters.

      In
      September 2019, Vadym Prystaiko made a scandalous statement about his
      intention to hold local elections all over the country, including the
      territories occupied by Russia.

      ‘We
      offer to hold the elections in the entire territory simultaneously,
      including the occupied parts. Let’s see if it works,’ he said.

      profiles

      Prystaiko
      was then accused of surrendering national interests. The diplomat
      clarified that elections in the occupied part of Donbas will become
      possible only after implementing certain security conditions and the
      withdrawing troops.

          2. At least Putin cleared out the asset stripping oligarchs in Russia. Plenty still in Ukraine.

        1. Because a great many of them have similar deals going on. Plus virtue signalling even if the price is nuclear war.

    4. Ludicrous! And thrice ludicrous! Tell me, oh tell me true that this is not a put up job? Tell me, hand on heart, that Mr Prystaiko was not invited by some daft MP? Tell me that he just turned up on spec to see democracy* in action?

      * Or what we have, masquerading as democracy.

        1. I don’t think it is really working with the majority of the public, obviously people do not support what Putin is doing, but it is the actions of our politicians that have left us in this weak position, if we make ourselves weak and energy dependent for the sake of mad climate policies then what else were people expecting to happen.

    6. That may be, but did Boris stand up and say ‘To prevent us from being reliant on Russian gas, and thus funding the Russian economy we’re going to get fracking, bin the green twaddle and reduce our debt to properly support beleaguered economies?”

    7. Just virtue signaling from mostly crooks. Happy to lock us all up without trial.

      1. Didn’t I read the they have all agreed to taking a pay rise of 2,200 pounds a piece ? They’ll all be upping their expenses claims to cover the cost of fuel fares and heating.

    8. We’ll be having torchlight parades soon, the way this is going.
      Maybe they can have someone like Helene Riefenstahl produce a film about it.

        1. Out of the turbulent clouds of war, into the sun of a glorious future.
          We may need to find a Junkers Ju 52 for the cloud shots though.

    9. I expect you’ll be standing on your front door step clapping their (habitual and pathological lying aside) latest achievements.

    10. Personally, I think they are a load of oxygen-thieving, virtue-signalling shits, the lot of them.
      Where were they when it came to holding the government to account over COVID restrictions on freedom? But a war in another country, and they are all clappy-clappy.
      I’d be happy if someone nuked the lot of them.

    11. This Ukrainian Ambassador, Mr Vadym Prystaiko? Suspected of asset stripping property owned by the Ukrainian Government?

      Vadym Prystaiko
      Politician, diplomat

      https://en.thepage.ua/dossier/prystaiko-vadym

      Scandals:-
      The media often attracts attention to the real estate of the diplomat’s wife. According to the journalists, all the apartments that Inna rents are located in Kyiv downtown, on Gogolevska street and Ivan Franko street. Since Inna often travels abroad, Vadym Prystaiko’s mother-in-law Anna Uglyarenko often comes for rental payments.

      In 2019, right after being appointed head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prystaiko received a state-owned real estate in Koncha-Zaspa, even though President Volodymyr Zelensky announced selling the property of the State Administration of Affairs.

      The journalists found out that the neighbors of the top official have more than once used the same scheme of withdrawing property from state property.

      The scheme is following: the building is declared a write-off, lawyers draw up the appropriate act, then a complete reconstruction takes place, and instead of an old summer house there is an elite villa standing on the site.

      In June 2019, Zelensky got involved in a scandal. After he met with Donald Tusk, the media published passages in the new president’s speech, however, they
      turned out to be the quotes from the speech of Petro Poroshenko at the European Solidarity party convention.

      The Presidential Administration of Ukraine conducted an investigation and declared about “sabotage by certain employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a deliberate provocation by the team of Petro Poroshenko.”

      ‘Prystaiko’s colleagues considered that he had violated corporate ethics at that time by not protecting the employees of the Ministry of Foreign
      Affairs,’ wrote Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

      They cite another episode when “Prystaiko was not able to defend the position of the Foreign Ministry and make decisions.” After the PACE deputies decided to return the voting rights to the Russian delegation, Prystaiko left for Brussels on personal matters.

      In September 2019, Vadym Prystaiko made a scandalous statement about his intention to hold local elections all over the country, including the territories occupied by Russia.

      ‘We offer to hold the elections in the entire territory simultaneously, including the occupied parts. Let’s see if it works,’ he said.

      Prystaiko was then accused of surrendering national interests. The diplomat clarified that elections in the occupied part of Donbas will become possible only after implementing certain security conditions and the withdrawing troops.

  69. O/T Garlands said to tell you thank you all for your kind birthday wishes. She called me a horror and corrected me saying she is only 29.
    She also said thank you for the beautiful silk scarf you all gave her.

      1. I will but there is no need to apologise. It was Ped’s birthday this week too. Haven’t seen him post but he has upvoted some comments.

        I know you post your safari pics on facebook but most here do not have access and i’m sure Nottlers would be delighted to see them.

        1. I saw an upvote from Ped – he hasn’t posted for ages but his birthday only comes round every four years….. if you’re there Ped – happy birthday and come back and say something!

          I haven’t taken my photos off the camera yet – been concentrating on getting my washing done (yesterday) and catching up with other stuff I’d missed (today) but I will post something when I can.

          What would you like to see? Lions? elephants? leopards? birds? Other stuff? I don’t want to bombard you all with pics……… I posted just a few pics from my phone on Facebook but most are large files on my camera which need a bit of sorting.

          1. Any and all as much as you feel like posting. No one will mind if they appear in the afternoon.. Serious comments being mostly in the morning. Don’t forget the National Geographic type pics of the ladies with no tops on otherwise Bill Thomas will be disappointed. :@)

          2. Will have a sort through tomorrow probably as we’re out tonight…….. didn’t see many ladies – the two girls who were waitresses at Meru were fully clothed.

    1. Russia, it seems, has a lot of choirs that have oktavists who can sing a full octave (contra B flat and lower) below the range of a normal baritone singer.
      Wonderful sound.

    1. Wouldn’t want us finding out stuff.
      Watch. Now they’ll keep files on people trying to log in.

    2. To be fair since the war kicked off it hasn’t been that good, not much reporting from around the world.
      We will never know what the evil dictators like Trudeau and Ardern are up to now.

      1. Afternoon Bob. I’m on a strict “News” diet. I only checked on RT because I’ve been expecting it!

          2. Afternoon Bill. They are shutting down everything and everyone who might possibly disagree with them!

          5. MSN (news) is usually very left wing, so I was intrigued to notice a headline today saying “Justin Trudeau only recognises two types of Canadians; those who support him and Nazis.”
            It was the US home page, but still, I was surprised!

          1. Indeed – his son was at school with me. But, Snaggers was the Chief Announcer.

        2. Here in this area during the past few miserable days, there has been alot of activity on the Purbeck army ranges .

          The rattatat of machine guns , and tank firing exercises have been very evident .

          Moh came with me after golf to give the dogs a gallop on the heath , after it had stopped rainiing .

          Several tanks witth young trainee tankees were heading for the ranges and Moh commented on the 3 we saw , and said imagine 40 miles of the blinking things.

          Then he told me that the Russian tank convoy logistics could be pretty dreadful .. Soldiers usually carry food for about five days .. By now the chaps will be hungry , cold and tired and very fed up .

          Raining again , and alot colder here .

      3. Beginning? It may not be government censors using red pens to decide what can be published but trudeaus mob have a stranglehold over the media here.

        There again with a finance minister who had a Ukrainian father, what can you expect.

  74. ‘Russians attempting to use Apple Pay and Google Pay found that their access had been blocked, causing chaos in the Moscow Metro system’.

    1. Afternoon Stephen. I thought the possibility of all-out war was about fifty-fifty last week. Now about sixty-forty and narrowing!

        1. So when Putin finishes knocking the shit out of Ukraine and the rest of the world continue to sit back and moralise, what’s next?

          I don’t see the woke western leaders waking up and encouraging resource development, that would upset the Swedish doomgoblin (Greta not Grizzly) but can they just quietly reopen borders and carry on as before?

          2. Nothing that we need concern ourselves about, except for a few people in the military to patrol the new border with the west.

      1. Yes, and it would be too much to hope that all the little dum-dums who wave their phones in the general direction of some electronics in order to pay for things might wake up and realise that if Russians’ access can be blocked, so can theirs….

        1. Come an EMP flash, none of it will work anymore: maybe if there is a reset, that’s the one we need.

          2. I only with another Carrington Event would occur. Even livelier than the last one!

    3. Antagonising the Russian in the street – when we should be doing all we can to encourage them to rise against the tyrant – seems petty daft to me.

  75. DT comments are still not loading and I can’t find a way of contacting them…

        1. A reading of When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs would not be inappropriate or even On the Beach!

          4. Nevil Shute wrote rattling good stories, many based on actual events, like A Town Like Alice.

          5. There was one presaging Geoffrey Woollard, who founds a new religion transcending existing religions based on the merit of the EU.
            I believe it was called Round the Bend

          7. evil Shute’s ‘No Highway’ was a harbinger of the DH Comet disasters caused by ‘metal-fatigue’ ….

        2. As I live some six miles from HMSB Faslane and the Trident arsenal at Coulport, I have a much better chance of StarDoom than you, mola …

          5. We want our nuke, we”ll be offended if we don’t get at least one of our own. It would be doing Plymouth itself a favour as well.

          8. Exactly 10 years ago, I was working at Faslane commissioning systems on the new Astute jetty. I stayed in a holiday cottage at Shandon. Great job.

          1. Woodstock”
            By Joni Mitchell.
            And in MHO the best version is by CSN&Y. Déjà Vu album.

            Well I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road
            And I asked him tell me where are you going, this he told me:
            Said, I’m going down to Yasgur’s farm, going to join in a rock and roll band.
            Got to get back to the land, and set my soul free.
            We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
            And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
            Well, then can I walk beside you? I have come to lose the smog.
            And I feel myself a cog in something turning.
            And maybe it’s the time of the year, yes and maybe it’s the time of man.
            And I don’t know who I am but life is for learning.
            We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
            And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
            We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
            And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
            By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong,
            And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
            And I dreamed I saw the bomber jet planes riding shotgun in the sky,
            Turning into butterflies above our nation.
            We are stardust, we are golden, we are caught in the devil’s bargain,
            And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

          3. Apart from the Vietnam war and one or two middle east conflicts that past without public awareness, yes it was a good time.

          1. Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do.
            HAL 9000.

          2. Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do.
            HAL 9000.

    2. Aha, just trued Firefox on my Mac and it works. Ergo, it must be the security settings on Safari – or summat the DT has done to their site that only affects Safari.

      2. I went to the site on Chrome this morning and it worked – for about an hour! The only way I can load the comments is if I use the ‘dark’ side, but that messes up my log in!

    3. There are people on the DT comments contacting them. Its an Apple problem it seems.

    4. Inaccessible Telegraph BTL Comments

      A_A: I use several different computers/tablets/smartphones. On my iPhone (usually in bed very early) I use the 12ft Ladder app* to bypass any paywall, but it doesn’t even offer the expected green link to BTL comments.

      My favourite machine for accessing DTL and BTLs is my MacBook Air (so not necessarily an Apple problem). Here, after clicking on the Telegraph Letters prompt, pressing Esc[ape] key within 2 seconds gets me in past the paywall. Sometimes it takes a couple of goes.

      If I then scroll slowly down the Letters page, reading and occasionally clicking on things as I go, when I get to the green Comments prompt at the bottom, the mouse arrow doesn’t turn into a ‘clickable’ pointer and no amount of clicking will get a result.

      However, if I use the same ruse to get into DTL past the paywall and then simply scroll swiftly all the way down to the Comments prompt, it responds properly to being clicked.

      *Yes, I know it’s not an App. Just Google ‘12ft Ladder‘ (without the quotes) to get and prepend the paywall bypass facility. The Letters link will then be: https://12ft.io/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/l/la-le/Letters-to-the-Editor/ . N.B. as I said above, this bypass WON’T let you see BTLs.

      Works fine but it may not be around for very long. Good luck!

    1. They have abandoned the women and children but have brought religious baggage with them.

  79. Fiery clashes bring violent end to New Zealand Covid vaccine mandate protests

    Protesters set tents and chairs alight outside country’s parliament building as riot police move to break up three-week-long demonstration

    By Our Foreign Staff 2 March 2022 • 2:02pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2022/03/02/TELEMMGLPICT000287957884_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqyuLFFzXshuGqnr8zPdDWXhbQKbwj1ZsnNMhuR7O6ySI.jpeg?imwidth=680

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2022/03/02/TELEMMGLPICT000287944620_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2022/03/02/TELEMMGLPICT000287944618_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680

    1. The NZ riot police still do not look as sinister as the khaki clad troops that appeared to support Justin Trudeau.
      The latter looked far too highly trained to be normal police, plus they were all the same size and shape and their silence and remote body language was f’ing creepy.

  80. My Bob of Bonsall step into the limelight.

    The oak that is causing cracks in the garage has been felled. For the diameter people, a bit over 2 feet for the girth merchants nearly 7 feet; if height’s your bag, over 100 feet.

    Now it’s time for the chainsaw, felling axe, sledge hammer and wedges. I suspect there is enough wood there, with what I am already seasoning from previous efforts, to see us through to 2025.

    1. How far from Bonsall are you?
      BTW, you’ll be advised to cut up some wood from a different tree after you’ve cut up the oak because the tannic acid will rust your chain and cutterbar.
      Also, give it at least 2 years seasoning before burning.

      1. We’re probably 800+ miles south of you in the mixed forests of the Dordogne.
        We cut different wood all around the garden, from plane to willow, from different pines to ash and a fair amount of oak, we have three chainsaws on the go.
        Usually the minimum time from cut to stove is two years, with the exception of the kindling and what I call the “gash wood”, the branches that fall off the trees of their own accord and the trees that fall of old age.
        We have a huge advantage over you, in that the summers are long, hot and very dry, so I can probably get two years of your seasoning in a year.
        Once the wood is dry I cover the stacks in waterproof sheeting until the next summer when it all comes off for yet more drying.
        The wood burners save us a small fortune in oil.

  81. I know we are in the midst of a propaganda war – and that nothing one sees is likely to be true.

    However, I simply do NOT believe the “weeping Russian prisoners” who are supposed not to know that they were being sent to yer actual fighting. You don’t drive fully armed vehicles hundreds of miles into a foreign country and then fire artillery – and think it is a war game…..

    1. I don’t know if you can get them in the UK, but Lay’s bacon flavour bugles are vey good, used as a scoop for things like creamed cheese.

    2. Nachos used to scoop hot salsa.
      Stuffed green olives
      Cream cheese stuffed paprika (as long as it’s sweet sherry from the fridge)

    3. Pork scratchings, salted peanuts, Ritz® crackers spread with Primula® cheese and a pickled onion.

    4. That’s the sort of naughty indulgence I commit when the family can’t see me.

    5. Ritz biscuit with Philadelphia cheese, half a slice of tomato and sprinked with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.

  83. That’s me for today. A day of leisure at resort – following my strenuous efforts yesterday with bonfire AND stacking half a ton of logs.

    For those of you who like art – there is an excellent docu on SkyArts about Rembrandt. I recorded it the other day and we were half way though last night – when sleep took over! talking heads who actually KNOW what they are talking about (for a change).

    So I wish you all a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  84. A second round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Wednesday evening in Belarus, the Office of the President of Ukraine has confirmed. Kiev, however, warned that it would not accept any ultimatums from Moscow.

    Earlier, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced that Moscow’s “delegation will be ready to continue the conversation this evening.”

    When asked if President Putin’s aide, Vladimir Medinsky, would still be heading the Russian negotiating team, Peskov replied in the affirmative.

          1. I use to grow peas when we had our allotment only a hand full ever made it home………

        1. By the way- did you do as asked on Monday? That is having a pint and half for MH and moi? Anxiously awaits reply 😉

  85. Partygate and Covid restrictions are insignificant compared to war in Ukraine

    As Russia slowly advances, the frightening immediacy of the scenes on TV makes it impossible not to picture ourselves in Ukrainian shoes

    ALLISON PEARSON • Monday 1st March 2022 • 7:00pm

    Four hours from London. No wonder we can’t avoid being emotionally drawn into events in Ukraine. Scenes of refugees stampeding onto trains, of mothers carrying toddlers wide-eyed with alarm, of wrenching farewells and bodies in the street are familiar from history. But those scenes were in grainy black and white, safely filed away under the Past. The ones from this new war are in vivid colour.

    A modern European country, not so very different from our own, is being bombed in real time on TV, on social media, on laptops, on radio, on phones. Feeling helpless, moved and mesmerised, we watch and watch and go on watching, willing the valiant Ukrainians to defy the odds against the Russian aggressor.

    This is not some “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing”, as Neville Chamberlain said of Czechoslovakia in 1938. The prime minister of the day was crossing his fingers that Herr Hitler’s expansionist ambitions would be sated by occupying the Sudetenland. (That worked out well.)

    This time, we do know these people. Or, at least, we can easily picture ourselves, our parents, our husbands and wives, our distraught children, our displaced pets, in their perilous position. Such an expansion of human sympathy makes it hard to stand by and let events take their murderous course.

    A man in his 30s, who is staying behind to fight, presses his palm against the window of a departing train and his son, who is inside the carriage, raises his tiny hand to touch his father’s. The boy is smiling at his daddy; he doesn’t know that, in years to come, he will look back and see this might have been the last time they ever met.

    Women just like me and my friends, mums wearing jeans and big jumpers, form a production line, exactly as we did when making sandwiches for the school fete or cricket tea. Except those women in Kyiv are not passing buttered bread to the next person for the addition of cucumber slices; they are making Molotov cocktails, part of a vast national effort to disrupt the enemy. Their air of calm, purposeful determination is remarkable, but what good will beer bottles filled with petrol be against the monstrous, 40-mile armoured convoy as it prepares to breach their city?

    One mother, whose student son has volunteered for the Territorial Defence Force, admits that this lethal concoction – a cocktail, if ever there was one, for Unhappy Hour – may not do much, but at least it will tell the Russians they aren’t welcome. I can’t help but imagine my sweet, disorganised boy, the same age as hers, in uniform and shudder.

    That tremendous Ukrainian spirit, which we have seen all week, lifts your heart. It really does. What a fool Putin was to call them a “fake country”. It made people angry and, although fear may be strong, fury is stronger. President Volodymyr Zelensky must expect to be assassinated any day now, and yet the former comedian turned down a US offer of evacuation (“I need ammunition, not a ride!”) with a cheery, principled defiance that suddenly made him the statesman we all crave, led by heart and gut, not opinion poll.

    On Monday, stars of the Dynamo Kyiv team exchanged their football strip for military uniforms. Will the Ukrainian players enjoy a home advantage against Russia’s mighty opposition? We pray that they will.

    At the other extreme of civilian manpower, a message from the Ukraine Library Association regarding the cancellation of its forthcoming conference reads: “We will reschedule just as soon as we have finished vanquishing our invaders.”

    It’s funny to think of librarians up in arms, isn’t it? Until you really think about all that cultivated, bookish, bespectacled earnestness pitted against the barbarians and their cluster bombs.

    On a railway platform in Poland, a solitary, brown-haired refugee, sweet-faced as a doll, tells a reporter that her entire family is back in Ukraine. “They said, if you go then one of us will be still alive,” the girl explained. What would that sweet girl do if the Russian President were there now? “I would kill Putin with my bare hands,” she says, her doll-face impassive, “because you cannot be that bad in 2022.”

    Oh, but it turns out you really can be that bad in 2022, a fact that appears to have taken our complacent leaders by surprise. The West’s strategy has been to hope for the best while failing to prepare for the worst. What did they think the Russian President was up to with his vast $635 billion war-chest of foreign currency – saving to go on his holidays?

    Evidently, the Russians were delighted by the Europeans’ net-zero idiocy, investing $95 million in NGOs which campaigned successfully against shale gas and fracking, according to the Centre for European Studies. That meant many countries, but especially Germany, became hugely dependent on Russian gas, so their hands would be tied should Putin invade Ukraine.

    The UK has pursued the same reckless energy policy, but at least we can be proud of the immense, “game-changing” contribution we have made to Ukraine’s defences. While Italy was wailing about the loss of a market for its luxury handbags and other EU members were too frit to throw Russia out of the Swift global payments system (as a revivified Boris Johnson demanded), our country has been front and centre of the international assistance.

    Back in January, we sent Ukraine 2,000 NLAW anti-tank units. That’s £40 million in hardware for starters. Germany’s pitiful response was to send 5,000 helmets, but not to Ukraine itself. Good heavens, no, that might have upset the Gas Man! So embarrassingly bent backwards over a pipeline were the Germans they even refused to allow RAF planes, which were delivering weapons, to fly through their airspace to Ukraine until earlier this week when they suddenly discovered a spine.

    If Putin calculated the West was too decadent and too weak to do anything except appease him, he might, almost, have had a point. The outbreak of war has shone an unflattering light on our society, particularly on the fashionable obsession of institutions with what one philosopher called “luxury values”. How stupid and self-indulgent do “micro-aggressions” look when you hear the thunderous crump of macro-aggression? Watch issues like LGBT, net zero, Partygate, Black Lives Matter and farcical ‘Stay Safe’ Covid restrictions all fade into well-deserved insignificance now that war is back.

    Scottish students in Inverness who, this week, were given “a trigger warning” for Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea because it contains “graphic fishing scenes” would do well to think of the kind of actual triggers their contemporaries will have to pull in in Ukraine so they don’t personally feature in graphic scenes.

    The Ukrainians are stronger than us. With a much harder life, these practical people value tradition and are proud to say they love their homeland. Sentiments that would get you called far-Right and racist here are fuelling their phenomenal, patriotic resistance: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog that counts.” If that were true, then Ukraine would deliver the fairytale ending we all long for. Trouble is, the other dog has more artillery.

    Over the next few days, as the full, monstrous capability of that Russian weaponry is unleashed on Kyiv, and with the death toll rising dramatically, the Western powers will face an impossible question. As General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander Joint Forces Command, put it on Tuesday’s Newsnight: “How will the public react to men, women and children who look and act like us being slaughtered? Public opinion influenced what we did in Bosnia. The choice I think we’re going to have is watch the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, or find something more urgent than sanctions.”

    In their national anthem, the Ukrainian people sing: “We’ll not spare either our souls or bodies to get freedom.” God knows, they will need every ounce of body and soul to survive Putin’s terror. Our admiration for them is absolute – but what about our commitment to their freedom?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/03/01/committed-ukraines-freedom-like-believe/

    1. The Telegraph has really descended into fantasy land with that sort of ignorant article that doesn’t understand the situation that has built up over the past few years since Brussels decided to pretend to be a global power.

        1. That’s the problem. But the Woke will treat it as though it is. The government’s Nudge unit in action fronted in this case by Miss Pearson.

          2. I enjoyed the article .

            My nearly 75 year old heart hasn’t shrivelled into a walnut sized lump of hardened inhumanit yet .

            Misery is misery , no matter what side you are on . We are helpless onlookers .. and quite honestly fearful ourselves of things to come .

    2. “How will the public react to men, women and children who look and act like us being slaughtered?

      Where were you Alison when the men women and children of the Dombas were being slaughtered by Uke artillery fire,breaking ceasefires regularly??
      Oh wait “That’s different” I suppose………….

  86. Partygate and Covid restrictions are insignificant compared to war in Ukraine

    As Russia slowly advances, the frightening immediacy of the scenes on TV makes it impossible not to picture ourselves in Ukrainian shoes

    ALLISON PEARSON • Monday 1st March 2022 • 7:00pm

    Four hours from London. No wonder we can’t avoid being emotionally drawn into events in Ukraine. Scenes of refugees stampeding onto trains, of mothers carrying toddlers wide-eyed with alarm, of wrenching farewells and bodies in the street are familiar from history. But those scenes were in grainy black and white, safely filed away under the Past. The ones from this new war are in vivid colour.

    A modern European country, not so very different from our own, is being bombed in real time on TV, on social media, on laptops, on radio, on phones. Feeling helpless, moved and mesmerised, we watch and watch and go on watching, willing the valiant Ukrainians to defy the odds against the Russian aggressor.

    This is not some “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing”, as Neville Chamberlain said of Czechoslovakia in 1938. The prime minister of the day was crossing his fingers that Herr Hitler’s expansionist ambitions would be sated by occupying the Sudetenland. (That worked out well.)

    This time, we do know these people. Or, at least, we can easily picture ourselves, our parents, our husbands and wives, our distraught children, our displaced pets, in their perilous position. Such an expansion of human sympathy makes it hard to stand by and let events take their murderous course.

    A man in his 30s, who is staying behind to fight, presses his palm against the window of a departing train and his son, who is inside the carriage, raises his tiny hand to touch his father’s. The boy is smiling at his daddy; he doesn’t know that, in years to come, he will look back and see this might have been the last time they ever met.

    Women just like me and my friends, mums wearing jeans and big jumpers, form a production line, exactly as we did when making sandwiches for the school fete or cricket tea. Except those women in Kyiv are not passing buttered bread to the next person for the addition of cucumber slices; they are making Molotov cocktails, part of a vast national effort to disrupt the enemy. Their air of calm, purposeful determination is remarkable, but what good will beer bottles filled with petrol be against the monstrous, 40-mile armoured convoy as it prepares to breach their city?

    One mother, whose student son has volunteered for the Territorial Defence Force, admits that this lethal concoction – a cocktail, if ever there was one, for Unhappy Hour – may not do much, but at least it will tell the Russians they aren’t welcome. I can’t help but imagine my sweet, disorganised boy, the same age as hers, in uniform and shudder.

    That tremendous Ukrainian spirit, which we have seen all week, lifts your heart. It really does. What a fool Putin was to call them a “fake country”. It made people angry and, although fear may be strong, fury is stronger. President Volodymyr Zelensky must expect to be assassinated any day now, and yet the former comedian turned down a US offer of evacuation (“I need ammunition, not a ride!”) with a cheery, principled defiance that suddenly made him the statesman we all crave, led by heart and gut, not opinion poll.

    On Monday, stars of the Dynamo Kyiv team exchanged their football strip for military uniforms. Will the Ukrainian players enjoy a home advantage against Russia’s mighty opposition? We pray that they will.

    At the other extreme of civilian manpower, a message from the Ukraine Library Association regarding the cancellation of its forthcoming conference reads: “We will reschedule just as soon as we have finished vanquishing our invaders.”

    It’s funny to think of librarians up in arms, isn’t it? Until you really think about all that cultivated, bookish, bespectacled earnestness pitted against the barbarians and their cluster bombs.

    On a railway platform in Poland, a solitary, brown-haired refugee, sweet-faced as a doll, tells a reporter that her entire family is back in Ukraine. “They said, if you go then one of us will be still alive,” the girl explained. What would that sweet girl do if the Russian President were there now? “I would kill Putin with my bare hands,” she says, her doll-face impassive, “because you cannot be that bad in 2022.”

    Oh, but it turns out you really can be that bad in 2022, a fact that appears to have taken our complacent leaders by surprise. The West’s strategy has been to hope for the best while failing to prepare for the worst. What did they think the Russian President was up to with his vast $635 billion war-chest of foreign currency – saving to go on his holidays?

    Evidently, the Russians were delighted by the Europeans’ net-zero idiocy, investing $95 million in NGOs which campaigned successfully against shale gas and fracking, according to the Centre for European Studies. That meant many countries, but especially Germany, became hugely dependent on Russian gas, so their hands would be tied should Putin invade Ukraine.

    The UK has pursued the same reckless energy policy, but at least we can be proud of the immense, “game-changing” contribution we have made to Ukraine’s defences. While Italy was wailing about the loss of a market for its luxury handbags and other EU members were too frit to throw Russia out of the Swift global payments system (as a revivified Boris Johnson demanded), our country has been front and centre of the international assistance.

    Back in January, we sent Ukraine 2,000 NLAW anti-tank units. That’s £40 million in hardware for starters. Germany’s pitiful response was to send 5,000 helmets, but not to Ukraine itself. Good heavens, no, that might have upset the Gas Man! So embarrassingly bent backwards over a pipeline were the Germans they even refused to allow RAF planes, which were delivering weapons, to fly through their airspace to Ukraine until earlier this week when they suddenly discovered a spine.

    If Putin calculated the West was too decadent and too weak to do anything except appease him, he might, almost, have had a point. The outbreak of war has shone an unflattering light on our society, particularly on the fashionable obsession of institutions with what one philosopher called “luxury values”. How stupid and self-indulgent do “micro-aggressions” look when you hear the thunderous crump of macro-aggression? Watch issues like LGBT, net zero, Partygate, Black Lives Matter and farcical ‘Stay Safe’ Covid restrictions all fade into well-deserved insignificance now that war is back.

    Scottish students in Inverness who, this week, were given “a trigger warning” for Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea because it contains “graphic fishing scenes” would do well to think of the kind of actual triggers their contemporaries will have to pull in in Ukraine so they don’t personally feature in graphic scenes.

    The Ukrainians are stronger than us. With a much harder life, these practical people value tradition and are proud to say they love their homeland. Sentiments that would get you called far-Right and racist here are fuelling their phenomenal, patriotic resistance: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog that counts.” If that were true, then Ukraine would deliver the fairytale ending we all long for. Trouble is, the other dog has more artillery.

    Over the next few days, as the full, monstrous capability of that Russian weaponry is unleashed on Kyiv, and with the death toll rising dramatically, the Western powers will face an impossible question. As General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander Joint Forces Command, put it on Tuesday’s Newsnight: “How will the public react to men, women and children who look and act like us being slaughtered? Public opinion influenced what we did in Bosnia. The choice I think we’re going to have is watch the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, or find something more urgent than sanctions.”

    In their national anthem, the Ukrainian people sing: “We’ll not spare either our souls or bodies to get freedom.” God knows, they will need every ounce of body and soul to survive Putin’s terror. Our admiration for them is absolute – but what about our commitment to their freedom?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/03/01/committed-ukraines-freedom-like-believe/

  89. A cynic writes:
    Tell me, which politicians are personally up for re-election?
    Which politicians and their party’s are at mid-term?
    Which politicians need a red squirrel to distract attention?
    Which groups of disease specialists are being challenged by insurance companies?
    Which pharmaceutical companies are being challenged by regulators/insurance companies?
    Who needs a red squirrel to distract attention?
    I could provide many more “which groups” but I suspect you see where this is leading.
    BASTARDS the lot of them.

  90. I watched Johnson accusing Putin of War Crimes. This from a man whose Covid vaccination, lockdown and mandates are by any definition more precisely crimes against humanity.

    Instead of seeking an end to conflict and a proper negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia, devoid of EU, NATO and globalist interferences, the fat git hides behind events, hoping partygate will be forgotten and that his wicked and corrupt Covid policies will not be challenged in the international court.

    There can be no sides in a dispute the flames of which have been fanned by globalists and their handmaidens, the feckless politicians who have polluted world politics.

      1. Khan needs a slap. Let’s confiscate his property first, the snivelling worm.

        1. Pakistan

          Yesterday, Pakistan became the first major nation to back Putin as it signed the first new trade deal with Russia since the invasion.

          Prime Minister and former cricketer Imran Khan said his country will import about 2million tons of wheat and supplies of natural gas after meeting the Russian President last Thursday – the day he sent troops into its sovereign neighbour.

          Despite Russia facing international isolation and a raft of sanctions crippling its economy, Khan has defended potentially pumping billions into the Kremlin’s coffers saying Pakistan’s economic interests ‘required it’.

          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10568563/Who-stands-against-Putin-Map-shows-nations-support-Ukraine-invasion.html

    3. Why on this earth do we have to put up with such useless little shits like him ? He’s done almost as much damage to London as Hitler did.

  93. Well I was just thinking that as we are no longer in the EU then at least we don’t have to fall into line and ban RT news

      1. How do you work that out? Cricket ‘boxes’ have been de rigueur equipment from the time the sport was invented. Helmets only came out in the 1980s (and Viv Richards refused to wear one: he claimed the only protection he needed was his bat!).

        1. I was thinking of caps, not helmets. After all, the first cricketers wore top hats.

          3. Well, I suppose the cups would have protected the helmet too. The origin of the term hat-trick (1858), so I hear, but 3 balls and not just 2.
            I think Flashman and W G Grace were party to it as well.

        2. Wasn’t it Rachel Heyhoe Flint who called the female ‘box’ her manhole cover? :-))

  95. So is the war Russia v Ukraine, or is it……

    Russia v The World Economic Forum using Ukraine as it’s proxy, or vice versa ?

    I think the evidence points increasingly to the latter.

    1. I think the evidence points increasingly to the defeat of the complacent, virtue-signalling, trade-sanctioning, asset-stripping WEF …

      Putin has them by the balls – massive gas reserves … and a preparedness to use nuclear weapons – much sooner than they think.

      Vlad has nothing to lose – other than his bearlike reputation …

  96. Just been swatting up on wars between next door neighbours and read this

    In 1812, the United States invaded Canada.
    In June 1812, the United States declared war on Britain, already locked in combat with Napoleon’s France. The resulting War of 1812 was fought
    largely on Canadian territory, especially along the Niagara frontier.The Americans were superior in numbers but badly organized.

    The idea was that US attacks on Canada would prevent Britain from using Canadian resources, ports, or airbases.

    A key move was a joint US Army-Navy attack to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting off the Canadians from their British allies.

    Do not believe all you read on ‘The Net”

          1. Has Citron’s account been hacked?
            His outbursts seem rather out of character.

          2. I doubt it, but I can well understand his annoyance.
            There are often posts which at first reading could be interpreted as approval of Putin’s actions.

            I doubt many on here approve of those actions, but they can see what may have driven him.

            If our politicians treat a country and its friends with absolute contempt it is hardly surprising if they react badly. Putin will have looked at what the West did and has attempted to do all over the ME and NA with respect to regime change and concluded that it wouldn’t take a lot for them to try to do the same to Russia.

      2. There is a myth that then First Lady Dolley Madison saved a portrait of George Washington from the White House. Not so, although widely believed. A memoir was written later by a slave aged 15 at the time, who stated that the portrait and other valuables were saved by the staff as the President was gone and then the First Lady fled also. The memoir was written by a Paul Jennings but; although doing social studies for some years in CT, I cannot recall the name of the person who saved the portrait.

        1. Wkipedia: “…In his memoir, Jennings wrote that a French cook and one other person did the physical work of taking down the painting.”

          1. Thanks- I am really trying to remember everything these days. If seriously in doubt- I will google but try otherwise.

    3. Airbases?

      Bollocks!

      The first Transatlantic flight was by Alcock and Brown’s Vickers Vimy in June 1919 …

    5. Someone is mixing their wars.

      The first section is the nineteenth century War (when we burnt down the white house), the second section about Halifax and airbases was a post WW1 idea (war plan red) the Americans developed when they were worried about a war with the Empire.

  98. Late Groaners

    Q: Why did the scarecrow get promoted?
    A: Because he was outstanding in his field.

    A teacher asks her class what their favorite letter is.
    One student puts up his hand and says ‘G’.
    The teacher walks over to him and says, “Why is that, Angus?”

    Two men broke into a drugstore and stole all the Viagra.
    The police put out an alert to be on the lookout for two hardened criminals.

    For a period, Houdini used a trap door in every single show he did
    I guess you could say it was a stage he was going through.

  99. Late Groaners

    Q: Why did the scarecrow get promoted?
    A: Because he was outstanding in his field.

    A teacher asks her class what their favorite letter is.
    One student puts up his hand and says ‘G’.
    The teacher walks over to him and says, “Why is that, Angus?”

    Two men broke into a drugstore and stole all the Viagra.
    The police put out an alert to be on the lookout for two hardened criminals.

    For a period, Houdini used a trap door in every single show he did
    I guess you could say it was a stage he was going through.

          1. It’s a lot posher and far more expensive than when we used to go there but there again that was about forty years ago.

          3. Ooh that’s an eon or two. We must have passed through Nantwich at about the same time but by watering ground was Macclesfield.

    3. I suppose that the tours of the Brentwood bunker have become more expensive in recent days. Either that or you can now move in to the bunker hotel.

    4. Hmm, better start getting the old DKP1s down from the loft.
      Block, bang, rub.

        1. DKP1 – part of a personal chemical decontamination kit (pads of Fuller’s Earth.)

    5. Hmm, better start getting the old DKP1s down from the loft.
      Block, bang, rub.

  101. Comparing Scotland to Ukraine is beyond ludicrous

    Nationalism, as well as being an entirely negative political philosophy, is also, at its heart, terminally narcissistic

    TOM HARRIS

    The nationalists of the SNP really don’t like to be called nationalists. “Nationalism” comes with all sorts of negative connotations relating to racism, xenophobia, imperialism and exceptionalism, and as we all know (or should know, since we’ve been told so often), the SNP represent a new, open, progressive form of nationalism: “civic nationalism,” dontcha know?

    And yet some of its leading members just can’t help letting that progressive mask slip at the most awkward of times. All it takes is one illegal invasion of another country’s sovereign territory, the attempted overthrow of that country’s democratically-elected government and the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians for nationalists to start drawing unlikely, offensive and historically ignorant parallels with their own situation.

    Because nationalism, as well as being an entirely negative political philosophy, is also, at its heart, terminally narcissistic. There is hardly a world event happening anywhere on the globe that a Scottish nationalist will not claim offers some previously ignored insight that has relevance to Scotland’s proud struggle for independence. “It’s all about us” would be an appropriate slogan to post on a placard the next time the SNP feel like demonstrating against Russia’s belligerence towards Ukraine.

    Responding to news that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky had applied for EU membership for his nation, the SNP MSP Michelle Thomson unwisely Tweeted: “Delighted for Ukraine. It just goes to show what political will can achieve. Remember this Scotland!”

    Remember what, Scotland? What possible relevance could Ukraine’s appalling situation have to Scotland, a country whose citizens have chosen of their own free will to remain in the United Kingdom? There are many of her fellow party members and activists who nurse all sorts of grievances against England, many of whom are ill-informed enough to believe that England colonised Scotland or that its military “occupies” us. I blame the schools.

    Thomson may have chosen to delete her Tweet (presumably because it risked revealing the SNP as less “civic nationalist” than just “nationalist”) but there are doubtless thousands of her comrades who nodded sagely at her peerless political analysis.

    Her party’s president, Mike Russell, was the next to fall into the Ukrainian trap, using a blog on the SNP website to argue that the past need not dictate the future, “whether that be rule from Moscow or the result of an eight-year-old referendum”.

    Shall we revisit, for Mr Russell’s and the SNP’s benefit, the history of that part of eastern Europe? Ukraine and the many other satellite states of the former Soviet Union were held in its orbit against their will, on pain of death and imprisonment for dissidents and with the threat (and often reality) of military takeover ever present. They were held hostage in a failing political and economic system that denied them not only basic human rights but also the standard of living that the rest of Europe took for granted. Thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia is reverting to Soviet-era type by trampling on its neighbours’ territory and identity.

    Meanwhile, in Scotland, we’ve had a free and fair referendum (albeit one that Putin’s regime tried to influence to its own ends), we have our own powerful devolved parliament and the same right as any other UK citizen to vote for a UK government, as well as a substantial Union dividend that subsidises our public services via the generosity of our English compatriots. But sure, draw a comparison with Ukraine and Russia.

    What is it with nationalists who are desperate to co-opt a foreign war in the cause of Scottish independence when, to any sane and objective observer, no comparison is appropriate? It’s a bit like those far Leftists who yearn for a serious fascist party to emerge just so they can re-enact the Battle of Cable Street, but have to settle instead for labelling everyone to the right of Richard Burgon as a neo-Nazi in order to establish their right-on credentials.

    We can see in these few “slip ups” by Thomson and Russell the mindset of the SNP: they genuinely see Scotland as a victim of oppression by a larger neighbour. They imagine that Scots are particularly sympathetic to the plight of Ukraine because of their own political circumstances, when the reality is that events in Ukraine have no more resonance with Scots than with any other part of the UK. We all share the horror of what Russia is inflicting on its latest victim because we can recognise injustice when we see it. And the crisis there says nothing about Scotland or its political leaders’ fight for independence.

    If the SNP had truly wanted to end its association with nationalism, it would have changed its name long before now. Its own version of the n-word may no longer be automatically associated with the darker nature of historical European nationalism, but it has a long way to go before it can rid itself of the exceptionalism and narcissism that is a standard attribute of that particular political philosophy.

    “It’s not all about you” has always been one of the hardest lessons for nationalists to learn. We know this because they obviously haven’t learned it yet.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/02/comparing-scotland-ukraine-beyond-ludicrous/

    Harris is too dismissive of nationalism in his byline but he’s right to raise the subject of good old ‘civic’ nationalism. I have had conversations with supporters of Scottish independence who decry the idea of English or British identity as the ‘wrong’ kind of nationalism. If they can’t bring themselves to use the ‘f’ word, they spit out ‘ethno-nationalism!’ instead, hoping that the obvious link with Germany can be made.

    Ask them on what historical and geographical basis Scotland’s ‘civic’ identity is founded and how it differs from any other nationality and they begin to gape like landed fish…

    1. I like the kid taking off his mask. Hope it gives him courage to stand up to nonsense in the future!

  105. By taking RT off the air, it might be deduced that Western governments are not happy for the message to be heard by the great unwashed. The obvious question springs to mind, what are they trying to hide. Its one of the worst, of many, appauling acts by our leaders in this brave new world where we are to be told what is right and wrong. Cancel culture on steroids one again.

    1. It’s the same as the last two years here- we are only to be allowed to read or hear what they wish us to know.
      As Neil Oliver said, Just How Stupid Does This Government Think We Are?
      Answers on a postage stamp….

      1. Let’s face it, we’ve given them plenty of evidence to believe that we are very stupid…

    2. Well, they could also take the Bbc off air in order to restore balance.

    3. RT are on Rumble but I can’t find any live feed.

      Put the TV on when I got home from church, shouted, “Bastards!” and set about searching online. Do they think I’ll just cave in and soak up their propaganda instead?

      https://rumble.com/c/RTNews

      1. RT has never been part of our basic TV coverage but rt.com is still available online so I can see two versions of what is happening.

        Nasty Ukrainians are apparently bombing their own cities, just to make putin look bad.

        2. Richard, I don’t see that article (watching via the US). Can you link it please?
          I’m curious to know if different countries are getting different versions of RT.

      3. Proton mail has a free VPN. You can choose from one of three countries. Internet access is a bit slower, and sometimes you have to switch countries to get access to a website, but you can get RT via another country.

    4. Unfortunately it’s a legacy of the Vietnam war: an informed demos cannot be trusted to follow their world view.

      ‘War is Peace
      Freedom is Slavery
      Ignorance is Strength’

  106. Have just put on Vivaldi’s violin concertos before I go to bed. Such joy.

  107. No RT on Freeview 234.
    Earlier RT was available on the internet at RT.com. Not now.
    Now there is an on screen message;
    “502 – Bad Gateway . That’s an error.
    Looks like we have got an invalid response from the upstream server. That’s all we know.”

    I tried again and got RT.com? Odd.

    1. On our TV listings- Freeview- simply says that the channel is no longer available. Was removed sometime today.

    2. I am connected via an American VPN, and I can still get the RT website on the internet.

  108. I’ve had a quick flick round the news channels on Freeview. We are now talking about WW3 and the use of nuclear weapons. It’s insane. Have they all been injected with something?

    1. I have been wondering that too, but this morning, a simpler explanation dawned on me. They know perfectly well that it’s not going to nuclear war (or perhaps only a small controlled one), but they want to scare the population enough to bring in digital ids and the digital currency.

  109. Am going to bed- maybe to sleep. Tough here right now with that. Plus I have an appt at the quack tomorrow. Also I am so tired.
    Sleep well, y’all.

    2. To sleep, perchance to dream.
      Do you listen to podcasts Lottie? I often listen to one at night called ‘Sleep with me’ which is just some bloke droning on about nothing in particular. It does the trick.

  111. “Sexist and outdated term ‘chairman’ doesn’t sit comfortably with us, say business leaders”

    I really think this can wait until we are not on the brink of a nuclear war, but when that time comes, I will support this. If ‘chair’ is considered an inadequate replacement term, perhaps companies could change to using chairwoman on all documents instead.

    1. I always remember when I first came to the US, seeing a letter addressed to “Gentle people” and that was 1980!

    2. I think “chair” is silly, because it is ambiguous. I don’t mind in the least being a Chairman.

      1. The next stupid question is what bloody gender is the chair.
        The stupidity is increasing more rapidly that I thought possible.

    3. One would have thought they had far more pressing problems to deal with. If not I wouldn’t invest in their companies.

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