Wednesday 20 April: Working from home must end if civil servants can’t do their jobs well

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.

521 thoughts on “Wednesday 20 April: Working from home must end if civil servants can’t do their jobs well”

  3. Russia and China threaten ‘tectonic shift’ in world economy, IMF warns. 19 april 2022

    The world is at risk of splitting into two economic blocks as a “tectonic shift” puts an end to decades of globalisation.

    The warning from the IMF came as its economists slashed growth forecasts in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Britain’s economy was downgraded but is still set to expand considerably more quickly this year than European rivals Germany, France and Italy.

    There are fears China and Russia could create a financial system to rival the West after tough sanctions were imposed on Moscow. The West has ejected Russian banks from the Swift global payments messaging system and China’s UnionPay has stepped in to help Moscow after Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in the country.

    One would think this an absolute certainty after the theft of Russia’s Foreign Holdings and its ejection from SWIFT. The real question is how many unaligned nations would join? Judging by the distinct lack of enthusiasm for the West’s Sanctions Regime pretty well everyone not already in the Club one imagines! The UK one suspects will suffer more from this than the US since it is the world’s largest money laundry (the Russian Oligarchs did not come to the UK for the climate) and have completely reneged on their obligations to them; stealing not only their cash but their property as well. Anyone of an already nervous and suspicious nature must be looking for an alternative and rumour suggests that the Gulf States are already suffering an embarrassment of deposits!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/19/world-economy-risks-fragmenting-wake-russia-ukraine-war-imf/

    1. “Fear” of a rival financial system?
      Given the CBDC foodstamps that the globalists have lined up for us to replace real money, I’d call it hopes.

      It is by no means a certainty Minty, as any nation that has tried it in the past has been crushed, the last one being Gaddafi, who was trying to launch a gold-backed pan African currency, with a LOT of support from other African nations.
      That is why they are so desperate to crush Russia.
      From a financial aspect, BRIC succeeding in their financial aims will be good for all of us.

  6. Leading letter today:

    SIR – I find the Civil Service “working from home” issue hard to comprehend.

    How does it take such an agglomeration of intellect so long to recognise the test should be: “Can you do your job as well from home?” If the answer is no, come to the office (once it is safe – which, by any reasonable yardstick, it has been for a long time).

    Otherwise it becomes a negotiation between employee and employer, like complimentary gym membership. Many office-based sectors have found productivity gains from remote or hybrid working patterns. Gardeners and hairdressers, not so much.

    The litany of continuing Civil Service departmental failures shamelessly dismissed as “because of Covid” or “due to remote working” answers the question very plainly.

    Jonnie Bradshaw
    Warborough, Oxfordshire

    DVLA and all the other skivers, please note.

    1. Morning Hugh. The Civil Service is now completely beyond the control of the Government! They do as they please!

      1. That is the truth, Minty. They are the current generation’s trade union problem. We need a Thatcher and a Tebbit, who are not corruptible by globalists.

      2. Which is why the MSM and the Civil Servants descended on Dominc Cummings when he ran from London with his family to get away from the intrusive attention of the door-stoppers. Carrie Johnson put the finishing touches on him by “ordering” her husband to get rid of him.

    2. The DVLA is an interesting case that’s easily solved. Pay by licence issued. It’s their unit of measurement, so average out the number sent out, average by the cost of the department, reduce by 30% and fpay that per licence.

      There are plenty of ways of making the state efficient, but government doesn’t want to be efficient, It has no need to be because the tax payer is picking up the bill.

  7. Leading letter today:

    SIR – I find the Civil Service “working from home” issue hard to comprehend.

    How does it take such an agglomeration of intellect so long to recognise the test should be: “Can you do your job as well from home?” If the answer is no, come to the office (once it is safe – which, by any reasonable yardstick, it has been for a long time).

    Otherwise it becomes a negotiation between employee and employer, like complimentary gym membership. Many office-based sectors have found productivity gains from remote or hybrid working patterns. Gardeners and hairdressers, not so much.

    The litany of continuing Civil Service departmental failures shamelessly dismissed as “because of Covid” or “due to remote working” answers the question very plainly.

    Jonnie Bradshaw
    Warborough, Oxfordshire

    DVLA and all the other skivers, please note.

  8. And here are the rest of the Letters on this subject:

    SIR – Has Jacob Rees-Mogg no sense of irony? He proclaims himself Minister for Government Efficiency and then tells thousands of civil servants to travel daily from location A to location B merely to perform tasks that they are already performing at location A.

    John Sheridan Smith
    Southampton

    But they are not, are they John Double-Barrelled? Are you by any chance a Snivel Serpent?

    SIR – It is a national disgrace that so many publicly funded civil servants are still working from home. It is clear from the abysmal performance of bodies like the DVLA and the Home Office that we are being short-changed.

    These employees have a contract of employment. Working from home was a temporary measure that should now cease. Anyone refusing to return to their desk should be sacked for breach of contract.

    John Chillington
    Wells, Somerset

    SIR – Are workplace salary rates amended when people are working from home? If not, why not?

    Michael C W Terry
    Walmer, Kent

    SIR – It is unacceptable that people paid for by taxes, with significant job security and generous pension fund arrangements, have to be cajoled into a return to efficient work practices.

    In the early 1980s, when I worked for a large blue-chip company, we were encouraged to read the book In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert H Waterman. Some of the time spent by civil servants on wokery, diversity, inclusivity and political posturing would be better spent reading books like this and focusing on their responsibilities to the best of their abilities.

    John Kellie
    Pyrford, Surrey

    SIR – As we are all paying for the civil servants to work from home, perhaps we could look to make savings by employing staff from a wider sphere, for example, eastern Europe or the Far East, where pay is much lower. This might sharpen appetite for office work.

    Eve Wilson
    Hill Head, Hampshire

    1. When things are perfect maybe you can work from home but no way now. Shows how weak Johnson is allowing it to go on. He should order them back to work, no show no pay .

      1. Why, though? These folk aren’t going to be any more efficient or effective in the office. They’ll still fill in the same forms, the same slow way. Still have more meetings than achievement, still be box ticking diversity and equalities obsessed wombles.

        1. How on earth can you control people working from home in these numbers. You have no idea what they are doing. have you ever managed hundreds of people . ? I have.

          1. While that may be true, Johnny, unfortunately, nobody in “management” seems to have a clue these days. They still wouldn’t know what the workers were doing or keep them up to the task, even if they were working in the office!

    3. Fundamentally where you work is irrelevant compared to what you accomplish. The public sector is desperately inefficient and expensive.

      I can name half a dozen scenarios off the top of my head that would improve efficiency to prevent having to hire another body, but the state finds it easier to hire than improve workflow. The problem is, that hire – the job – then becomes so necessary that it generates it’s own administrative cost and yet creates yet more bureaucratic drag.

    4. Management books are eye-opening as well as entertaining. Lots to learn, assimilate and practice.

  9. SIR – Millions worked from home during the pandemic, but Boris Johnson is different because up to 400 people work from his home.

    When I was an involved CEO, I often spent a few minutes, perhaps with a glass in my hand, saying a few words of thanks or encouragement when a staff member left for another job or retired. I did not regard this as a party but as my duty and part of my job. I suspect Mr Johnson thought the same.

    Of course, it is heartbreaking to be denied time with the people you love when they are dying. But it was not a heartless Government that thought up these rules: they were the considered guidance of the top medical advisers during a pandemic which has cost more than six million lives worldwide.

    Activity in Downing Street caused no deaths. The BBC’s decision to parade very sad people night after night proves that it no longer deserves to be the national news organisation.

    Sir Frank Davies
    Banbury, Oxfordshire

    “…no longer deserves to be the national news organisation” – Where have you been these past years, Sir FD? Besides, it is the lying and the many attempted cover-ups that have caused so much trouble, though I readily concede that the BBC has gone clean over the top in this golden opportunity for some extended, grade 1, top-level government-bashing.

    1. “top medical advisers”?????????? Come off it. Moreover is a pandemic a medical problem? I do not think so. It has a medical component, as starter. that’s all. The rest is management and logistics, and information. This is similar to a large wildfire, maybe. A wildfire is not a combustion problem…

  10. Good morning all. Another beautiful start with a cool 4°C in the yard.

    A bit more sleep last night, with a lot less coughing almost has be feeling back to normal!

  11. SIR – Congratulations to Police Scotland for so rapidly exonerating Nicola Sturgeon from breaking her own lockdown rules, and thus showing how much more efficient the rule of law is north of the border.

    Michael Staples
    Seaford, East Sussex

    Police Scotland knows better than to upset Queen Nicola!

    1. Bought and paid for, Hugh along with the judiciary and the msm!
      Good morning all!

  12. SIR – The UK and allies recently concluded an exercise in the Arctic highlighting the significance of the region and Nato’s ability to defend it.

    HMS Prince of Wales was the key component of the allied maritime force. But this won’t have fooled the Russians. The strength and fighting ability of a carrier, indeed its main armament, is its airwing. The Prince of Wales had no UK fixed-wing aircraft embarked. Without their airwings, carriers get sunk.

    Despite war in Europe and risks of it widening, the Government has shown no understanding of the need to invest rapidly in defence. It must accelerate the formation of a second carrier F35 squadron and speed up delivery of extra aircraft. The Germans have understood and are buying a large number of F35s.

    Admiral Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
    London SW1

    1. Good morning Hugh ,

      Why does Admiral Lord West of Spithead (Lab) always state his political preference .. I don’t think an other military Lord state their politics so strongly.

      1. ‘Morning, Belle. He remains eternally grateful to the party that appointed him and is never slow to show it.

    2. It’s a bit late now, mate. You stood by and watched it happen without saying a dicky bird.

  13. SIR – Have married couples adopting a double-barrelled surname given thought to difficulties for their descendants? The nobility faced problems when both parties to a marriage were multi-barrelled.

    We must be thankful there does not appear to be any likelihood of a union between (for example) the Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-McKenzies and the Stirling-Home-Drummond-Morays.

    Could it be that the decision by the last Duke of Buckingham, Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, to die without issue was influenced by a surfeit of surnames?

    Nicholas Young
    London W13

    Lol!

    SIR – I am grateful the practice was not in fashion when I married in 1972. My maiden name was Eaton, and I was marrying a Mr Moth.

    Jane Moth
    Stone, Staffordshire

  14. Now staring’s a sex crime – if you’re a man. 20 April 2022.

    MEN who stare at women on trains could be committing a ‘gateway’ sexual offence, according to the head of British Transport Police’s sexual offences team.

    Sexually motivated leering could lead to serious ‘unhealthy behaviours’, such as upskirting claims Detective Superintendent Sarah White who says officers receive dozens of complaints of unwanted and intrusive eye contact on the London Underground.

    Last month, 26-year-old Dominik Bullock was jailed for 22 weeks by Reading magistrates after staring at a female passenger on a train through Berkshire, found guilty of causing ‘harassment, alarm and distress’.

    The next thing will be six months for thinking lewd thoughts.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/is-criminalising-men-who-gaze-at-women-just-stark-staring-bonkers/

    1. Leisure
      by
      William Henry Davies.

      What is this life if, full of care,
      We have no time to stand and stare.

      No time to stand beneath the boughs
      And stare as long as sheep or cows.

      No time to see, in broad daylight,
      Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

      No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
      And watch her feet, how they can dance.

      No time to wait till her mouth can
      Enrich that smile her eyes began.

      A poor life this if, full of care,
      We have no time to stand and stare.

      1. True, Grizzly, although many men and women of our age prefer to sit and stare. When I go out into my garden to stare at the flowers and remove the weeds I always take my garden seat out with me. Lol.

          2. Only on days when I self-identify as a goat of the opposite sex, young Grizzly. Which is once a year on the 31st of November.

      2. I learnt this by heart when I was at prep school.

        We had an anthology which contained poetry by poets such as John Masefield, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Noyes and Sir Henry Newbolt.

        1. Vitaï Lampada
          by
          Sir Henry Newbolt

          There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night—
          Ten to make and the match to win—
          A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
          An hour to play and the last man in.
          And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
          Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,
          But his captain’s hand on his shoulder smote
          ‘Play up! play up! and play the game! ‘

          The sand of the desert is sodden red,—
          Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —
          The Gatling’s jammed and the Colonel dead,
          And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
          The river of death has brimmed his banks,
          And England’s far, and Honour a name,
          But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
          ‘Play up! play up! and play the game! ‘

          This is the word that year by year,
          While in her place the school is set,
          Every one of her sons must hear,
          And none that hears it dare forget.
          This they all with a joyful mind
          Bear through life like a torch in flame,
          And falling fling to the host behind—
          ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!

    2. Apropos DS Sarah White and her dipstick comments, I posted yesterday about this:

      What is it with all these wimmin in senior positions in the Cop Shop. Doubtless she has a Common Purpose Diploma.

      Get back to your sink woman and let’s find a man who will step up to the responsibilities and accountabilities of taking down the paedophile groomers without fear or favour.

    3. Being stared at can be unpleasant but as usual it fits in with the muslim theme. Men are not supposed to make eye contact with muslim women. This, i suspect is the real reason.
      Good morning.

      1. Good morning, hence why Sad Dick Khant was burbling on about this a couple of weeks ago and suggesting it was to make travel on TfL ‘safer’.

  15. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/78758b0d105184ee8e624aa166cf545084860ec77b451b0fc1cb7f064b8afa8a.png Even though the incremental rise in the daily stupidity levels of the human species still seems to be accelerating; the Daily Telegraph loves to overtly display the crass idiocy that matches the ever-declining standard of their reporting.

    I’m sure it will not just take one of NoTTLe’s former RAF contingent to recognise the paucity of brainpower of the clown who posted this in today’s newspaper, nor the imbecility of the editor who permitted its publication.

    2. Having enjoyed a measure of swooping from Valley myself, I can only imagine it must be the windmill on the front driving the jet engine, perpetual motion once you are airborne.

      2. Same idea as those fantastic wind turbines….starter motors to generate enough thrust to fire the jet engine….

        1. I watch with interest the Lillium project which has about 20 battery powered fans to provide lift and thrust to power a small aircraft. I was always taught to keep things simple.

        1. All potential Jet pilots start their training in prop aircraft, as do potential helicopter pilots.

          1. I think it’s the label attached to the photo that states ‘jet’ rather than turboprop!

          2. Could be, Sue, though the words should be transposed as a jet-training propeller aircraft.

          5. Perhaps all potential sub-editors should do a similar incremented learning curve.

        2. I should have thought that the big, whirling, fan-like thing at the front might have given them a clue, but as some idiots refer to “ejecting” from a Spitfire (!), I don’t think general knowledge is very general.

  16. SIR – Marina Fogle and Giles Brandreth reminisce about the freedom of their youth.

    In 1938 and 1939, aged 11 and 12, I travelled from east London to spend my summer holidays as a “howgee boy” on my cousin’s farm in Norfolk. This meant I was in charge of a Suffolk Punch, leading a hay cart while four men loaded it with stooks of wheat.

    Later, after threshing, I would stand atop a haystack with three no-nonsense pichfork-wielding farm workers helping to build it. Driving cows to and from the milking parlour was child’s play; driving the tractor even more so. Hitching the Suffolk Punch to a cart was a skill soon learnt. This was interspersed with watching the local lads tickle trout in the beck.

    For me it was all an extended holiday. I was thus employed when war came. On returning home I was introduced to real danger.

    Ron Hurrell
    Benfleet, Essex

    Confession time…when I were a yoof there was a large building site near where I lived.  I was always fascinated by machinery (the bigger the better) and a young-ish groundworker, who seemed to work well into the evenings on his own, allowed me to mess about on a dumper truck.  When he realised that I could be of use he let me drive it after he filled it with each load.  This arrangement continued for some weeks, when a passing police car stopped and the copper asked a few questions.  When he left we carried on as before.  I was 12 at the time.

    1. It might need a block of wood on the brake and clutch pedals IIRC, but any ten year old can drive a dump truck, small digger or tractor. And with cable ties or duct tape, that’s easy to arrange. At least, on private land.
      Edit: roll bars are sensible.

    2. We discovered – after wondering at how amazingly quick the boys were at learning to drive – that when they were about 8, they used to nip over the fence with their friends into an adjacent builders’ yard and drive the dumper trucks. Apparently the drivers used to leave the keys in overnight.
      Talk about the past being different country.

      1. Until more recent years a screwdriver was an adequate alternative to the ignition key we are used to today. In fact, I think I’m right in saying that most civil engineering machinery either had a standard ‘key’ that fitted everything or no key at all.

        1. One of my friends is a contractor. He said that the people using the cherry picker didn’t want to share it with him to let him do his part of the job, so they took the keys away. He held up a bunch of keys and smiled. He used the cherry picker!

  17. Prince Harry says he is making sure the Queen is ‘protected’ 20 April 2022.

    Speaking to NBC’s Today show about his meeting with the Queen, he said: “Being with her it was great, it was just so nice to see her, she’s on great form.

    “She’s always got a great sense of humour with me and I’m just making sure that she’s protected and got the right people around her.

    “Both Meghan and I had tea with her, so it was really nice to catch up with her.”

    Two-faced little toad! He’s just come to remind her not to cut him out of the Will!

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/prince-harry-interview-nbc-today-queen-protected-america-b995133.html

      1. Morning BB. I suspect that Her Maj is barely conscious of who visits her. I wouldn’t put it past either of these two to ask her if there have been any changes!

      2. Whose shares have just dropped like a stone following reduced subscriber numbers. Possibly they should drop the Harry and Markle show…

      3. Whose shares have just dropped like a stone following reduced subscriber numbers. Possibly they should drop the Harry and Markle show…

        1. I bet the RF recorded everything and had witnesses there too! I would have if I were them.

    2. If – IF – that quote is correct and is not a spot of cherry picking by the media (“There’s no such thing as society” anyone?) – then he is now totally off his chump.
      He would seem to be as mad as his mother.

  18. Oh dear, never mind. People waking up to the ‘performance’ of the jab? Sadly, I have it on good evidence that a small number of people of my acquaintance are very keen for their 4th jab. No questions as to why they require 4 jabs in a year; they just want to be safe.

    Emphasis is mine.

    Poland’s health minister on Tuesday said the EU member refuses to accept or pay for additional shipments of the coronavirus vaccine as the country still has millions of unused doses.
    Poland, where just half of the population of 38 million people is fully vaccinated, said its decision could lead to a tricky legal situation, as the future doses were ordered by the European Commission.

    “Late last week, we invoked the hardship clause and informed at once the European Commission and the main vaccine maker (Pfizer) that we refuse to receive the doses and also refuse to make payments,” Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told the news channel TVN24. “This situation will lead to a legal conflict — or, in fact, there already is one,” he said, adding that the deal had been signed by the Commission and the vaccine makers while Poland was not a direct party to the agreement. He said Poland still has 25 million unused doses, while the additional doses ordered number between 67 and 70 million.
    Only 51 percent of Poles are fully vaccinated, while 59 percent have received just a single dose, according to health ministry figures, which also show that the jab rate has seen a significant drop lately.

    Insiderpaper – Poland Refuses to Pay for Additional “Vaccines”

    1. Their health services were completely overwhelmed last winter because they were all unvaccinated, and half the population died!
      Oh, wait a moment, that didn’t happen!

    2. Does Poland look favourably on the migration of non-Polish speaking old farts who respect a bit of clear thinking?

  19. Good morning everyone .

    We put the C/H back on last night , it was so cold, and then it came back on at 7am this morning.

    We have had some rain , cloudy , no breeze . The blackbirds are busy pulling worms from the damp soil , sparrows are chattering , and a few fat Woodies are playing games with each other , courtship ritual and that sort of thing.

    Moh off to play golf .

    Boris irritates me when he blusters on , but … and a big but…The general public were sheltered from the very destructive side of the Covid 19 virus whilst Boris governed the country .
    What saddens me is the minute nitpicking and time wasting with regard to the birthday cake episode . They ate cake , they were not in the high risk contagion Covid bracket , or were they… no matter what , they were making sure the country was ticking over , they acted with false bravado.

    1. I respectfully beg to disagree. They acted in a way perfectly proportionate to the risk of the virus, but forced all of us to adhere to draconian and inhumane regulatuons. I do not care in the slightest that they ate cake; I am angry that they imposed misery on so many and wrecked the economy for nefarious ends while doing so.

      1. Good morning AshesTD

        Hindsight is a wonderful thing .

        Those who were vulnerable to Covid needed protecting .. especially the elderly. No one knew how much the NHS would be affected with regard to ethnic groups succumbing to the virus ..

        Blood group, age , health issues etc rang alarm bells . The first Covid 19 in the early months was particularily virulent .

        Most of Boris’s team were fairly fit youngsters , however , I am really annoyed by the arrogant boozy images that we all heard about.

        1. It was clear in the early days of the virus that most people would survive – as did the mainly elderly passengers on the Diamond Princess. It was never a threat to the young and healthy.

          1. Morning J

            This is what broke my heart ..

            Established over 30 years ago by the Weekes family, Wordsworth House in Belle Vue Road in Durlston was badly hit by a coronavirus outbreak in January 2021.

            It was believed to have occurred after a resident returned from Poole Hospital and despite testing negative for Covid, later developed symptoms.

            By the end of January 2021, 34 out of its 40 residents tested positive for coronavirus, along with 30 members of staff. The residents were due to get their Covid jab the week after the outbreak was discovered.

            At the time, the operations manager and part-owner, Kellie Cooke appealed for help with staffing as the home struggled to cope. Sadly, 16 of the residents died due to Covid.

            https://www.swanage.news/swanage-care-home-closes-after-covid-crisis/

          4. I think most of the people who go into care homes these days are either afflicted with dementia or are very frail from other causes. Those are the people who used to die of influenza – the ‘old man’s friend’. A better way to go, I think than the current way of seeing off the very frail by withdrawing food and drink and using the chemical cosh.

          5. I am probably going to be viewed as very hard hearted; but ….. The majority of the frail and elderly who died were low hanging fruit.
            Since we’d had a couple of mild winters, they had already been gifted an extra twelve or more months of life. In all too many cases the word “life” is a misnomer.

        2. Thanks for answering, True Belle. By the time they partied, the risk stratification was pretty well known, even if never publicised in the MSM. They removed our autonomy without allowing humane exceptions which would have made no statistical difference, but evidently believed they could retain their own – that’s what makes me so angry.

      2. Proportionate or disproportionate? It seems to me that most of the decisions were wrong. There was no need for lockdown, as it prevented nothing. Masks were and are useless. Putting sick people into the closed communities of care homes was tantamount to murder. Statistics were manipulated and death certificates were forged – influenza disappeared.

        1. Oh yes – I meant only proportionate in the sense of their age, given that most of the risk for covid is for those well past retirement age.

      3. What I find unacceptable is the way that Big Pharma must have bribed the politicians in order to stop them looking into other more economic ways of treating the disease such as Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc and Ivermectin.

        Far too many fully jabbed people are dying than would be normal. Caroline plays the organ in church in our parish and the rate of death here has doubled since the gene therapy was introduced.

        What also is alarming is the way that social media has effectively censored any views that do not fit in with the government’s narrative.

    2. Morning all.
      We put the CH back on last night, only on tick over it did the job. We had a sudden heavy shower washing on the line soaked and poor old doggo was out lying on her bed but was able to get in the house, her bed was soaked. I had to find an old sleeping bag for her over night comfort. She’s okay now, out in the sunshine again.

      1. I’ve still got the Rayburn ticking over. I tried letting it out, but it got chilly in the evenings and early mornings, so I lit it again.

    4. ‘Morning, Belle. For me the Partygate episodes would have been relatively minor, but for two aspects: firstly they were unaware that they should lead by example, so breaking their own draconian rules was a definite no-no. Secondly, they lied and lied when found out about their flaunting of the rules.

      The Bliar maxim was always ‘draw a line and move on’, but there are occasions that this simply won’t work. And in my view Partygate is one of them.

  21. Sri Lanka’s descent into chaos. 19 april 2022.

    Since his election, Rajapaksa has faced accusations of economic mismanagement, embezzlement and corruption. His brother, Mahinda, is the country’s Prime Minister and another brother, Basil, was finance minister until he resigned last week along with the rest of the cabinet. Basil implemented a series of ill-advised tax cuts back in 2019; Sri Lanka was subsequently locked out of international debt markets and has had to burn through its foreign exchange reserves to service sovereign bond payments.

    The Rajapaksas were also behind a sudden decision to suddenly ban chemical fertilisers last May, without consulting farmers, which led to a disastrous drop in rice yields this year. They claimed that it would protect farmers from harmful chemicals which were causing kidney issues. Unable to afford food imports, Sri Lanka saw yields of domestically-grown rice fall by around 50 per cent.

    In order to deal with the surging levels of debt, Sri Lanka announced a blanket ban on non-essential imports last year. Now, everything from milk powder to spare car parts are unavailable. Even school exams have been cancelled because the government can’t afford the paper on which to print the tests.

    The Singhalese Boris Johnson? There are an inordinate number of countries on the edge of collapse at the moment and one suspects that lot more are going to go under in the next five years!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sri-lanka-s-descent-into-chaos

    3. The article goes on to mention that “Many Sri Lankans blame high-interest Chinese loans for the crisis. Already, Sri Lanka has been forced to lease a new mega port to China in lieu of repayments.”

  22. 352102+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    The only beneficial way to the United Kingdom deemed necessary to have the civil service at home is under house arrest.

    Wednesday 20 April: Working from home must end if civil servants can’t do their jobs well

    In reality the governing lab/lib/con coalition,
    civil service employees, etc,etc, are busy
    taking to the mattresses than governing a Country they tried hard to lose via the referendum.

  23. Not even the Queen’s Jubilee is safe from BBC preaching

    There are good writers all across the Commonwealth, but Auntie insists on telling us that it knows best

    CHARLES MOORE 19 April 2022 • 7:00am

    BBC Arts and The Reading Agency have produced “The Big Jubilee Read”. They have selected 70 works of British and Commonwealth fiction to honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, ten for each decade of her reign.

    Of the 70 authors featured, I find I have heard of exactly half of them. This does not, of course, reflect badly on the selectors, but on my ignorance of most Commonwealth literature. The Commonwealth dimension is a good one, not only because the Queen is Head of the Commonwealth, but also because it does represent a shared literary culture which is worldwide.

    Nevertheless, the list’s emphases are odd. Take the ten titles from 1952 to 1961. Seven of them deal with issues of slavery, racism, immigration and empire. All important themes for fiction, but a bit obsessive in such concentration. Only one of the ten, A House for Mr Biswas, by V.S.Naipaul, could be described as famous.

    Yet the decade in question was prodigious for British fiction. In those years – Ian Fleming’s James Bond burst upon the world in 1953 with Casino Royale and continued at the rate of one a year. Kingsley Amis’s debut, Lucky Jim, was the comic hit of the decade. Raymond Chandler (British, though living in the United States) produced The Long Goodbye. Graham Greene published Our Man in Havana.

    It was an era of great fictional projects too. Evelyn Waugh wrote his Sword of Honour trilogy, which many see as the greatest English fiction to have emerged from the Second World War. It was in the 1950s that Anthony Powell brought out the early volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time. Mary Renault got going on her novels of the ancient Greek world (including The King Must Die), which are nowadays recognised as classics of gay literature. It was a period of tremendous literary diversity. Sad to leave so much out.

    An even odder omission is The Lord of The Rings (1955). J.R.R.Tolkien’s construction of an entire mythical world has sold more than 150 million copies. Perhaps the selectors saw his trilogy as children’s books, which they exclude. If so, they were mistaken, although of course many children love Tolkien.

    Here, in no particular order, are some other outstanding Elizabethan authors who do not make the BBC cut: C.S. Lewis, Doris Lessing, William Golding, Penelope Fitzgerald, Martin Amis, Patrick O’Brian, Ian McEwan, C.S.Forester, Philip Pullman, Julian Barnes, A.S.Byatt, Alan Hollinghurst, William Trevor, Vikram Seth, Daphne du Maurier and Angela Carter.

    To which should be added writers whose gift for comedy, satire or the light touch form such an important part of our literary tradition – Michael Frayn, Sue Townsend, Helen Fielding, Alexander McCall Smith, George MacDonald Fraser and – though their best work was written before Elizabeth II ascended the throne – Nancy Mitford and P.G.Wodehouse.

    As so often in current culture, I fear that we, the reading or would-be reading public, are being preached to about what somebody thinks would be good for us rather than encouraged to read what we would actually enjoy.

    Anyway, there are two important things to bear in mind. The first is that the present Queen has presided over an era of immense literary achievement and variety in the English language in most parts of the globe. That is a fact to be celebrated. Writing in English has captured the world’s imagination more than ever (and that is true even without American English, which is excluded from the Jubilee list for obvious reasons).

    The second is that the Queen herself has probably not read – and will steadfastly not read – any of the 70 books offered up by the BBC and The Reading Public. Alan Bennett, another notable omission from The Big Jubilee Read, once wrote a novella, The Uncommon Reader, in which the Queen becomes a bookworm. I expect she hasn’t read that either. If so, that is sensible: reading provides too many subversive pleasures.

    Her Majesty has instead devoted all her energies and patience to reigning for longer than all but ten per cent of the population can remember. That is a feat stranger than fiction.

    * * *

    Come now Charles, did you really expect the BBC not to skew a reading list in favour of their woke agenda? The only surprise here is the absence of any reference to the ‘man made global warming’ scam about which they have never missed an opportunity to preach!

    1. His point is well made, but I don’t think George MacDonald Fraser wrote anything at all noteworthy before 1969.

      1. I have read none of his books save “The General Danced at Dawn” which was 1970. (Flashman was 1969.)

          1. Ah, yes. I’m guessing that you have never worn a kilt, and therefore have never worried about the buckle?

    2. Allison Pearson had a go at the “list” today as well – as usual she was spot on! Sadly I can’t post her article – no online access to the DT.

      1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/19/former-english-teacher-shocked-bbc-reading-list/

        “As a former English teacher I’m shocked at the BBC reading list

        What should have been a wonderful idea celebrating one of our greatest exports has been hijacked by mirthless, self-loathing drones

        Allison Pearson19 April 2022 • 6:00pm

        “Put that book down, you’ll ruin your eyes!” Or so my mother warned me every day of my childhood (at night, I used to read secretly in bed, the pages illuminated by the Lucozade glow of the streetlight), and how right she was. My eyesight is appalling, but my literary judgment is pretty good. That’s why I feel qualified to tell you that the BBC’s Big Jubilee Read – seven decades of “literary masterpieces”, one title to mark every year the Queen has been on the throne – is utterly appalling.

        I am flabbergasted. This has to be one of the feeblest, most politically correct, dismally unpatriotic excuses for a reading list of all time.

        The disgraceful, cowardly omission of JK Rowling, the writer who has done more to promote reading to our digital youth than any other, has rightly attracted furious condemnation. “There was a big discussion about JK Rowling,” explained Susheila Nasta, emeritus professor of modern literature at Queen Mary, University of London. “She was on the longlist with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. A space was cleared for someone equally as good but whose work was not as well known. There were some very tricky decisions.”

        Equally as good? Which of the authors who made the final cut was a better candidate to represent her era than JK Rowling, Professor Nasta? I can assure you it wasn’t one female writer you chose, Keri Hulme, New Zealand author of The Bone People and the dullest ever winner of the Booker Prize (amid stiff competition). If you’re going to feature another Booker winner, why not choose Howard Jacobson, whose uproarious wit and wry wisdom could at least appeal to a wide audience? Because being born British Jewish – not, alas, Maori – Jacobson was clearly the wrong kind of multicultural identity for the librarians and academics who picked this sanctimonious selection.

        So, instead of Jacobson and master storyteller Graham Greene, instead of JRR Tolkien, the Penelopes Fitzgerald and Lively, Martin (and/or Kingsley) Amis, Susan Hill, Ian McEwan, Beryl Bainbridge, Julian Barnes, Patrick O’Brian, Jane Gardam or Sebastian Faulks and his beloved Birdsong, we get one Zee Edgell of Belize whose novel Beka Lamb “describes the colonial era in British Honduras”. Don’t all rush down the library at once!

        Given Her Majesty’s devotion to the Commonwealth, it was right to include some of the great authors from the 54 member countries. (No one could quibble with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, JM Coetzee or VS Naipaul.) But, of the 70 writers on the list, just 14 are from the UK, the well-spring of much of the finest fiction of the past, and every preceding, century. I consider myself fairly well-read and I could only recognise 27 of the titles. Not only that; second-division performers are admitted if they tick the right boxes while stars of the premier league are left on the bench.

        How else to explain the appearance of Jackie Kay’s first poetry collection, Adoption Papers, the story of a black girl’s adoption by a Scottish couple, among the Top 70 while Philip Larkin’s immortal work of genius, The Whitsun Weddings, is nowhere to be seen? Honestly, I despair.

        One of the few surefire masterpieces of Elizabeth II’s long and glorious reign is Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy, the best British work of fiction to come out of the Second World War. The Royals, apart from the Duchess of Cornwall, are not great novel readers, but, should she ever tear herself away from a Dick Francis gee-gee thriller (a cracking good read, by the way), the Queen would recognise and admire Waugh’s extraordinary portrait of her countrymen in their darkest, and finest, hour.

        To wilfully exclude such a mighty novel from the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee book list, and to omit JK Rowling who has redefined and exalted Britishness for half the globe because she is perceived to have sinned against some fashionable piety, is pure cultural vandalism. What should have been a wonderful idea celebrating one of our greatest exports, storytelling in the English language since 1952, has been hijacked by the mirthless, self-loathing, identity-politics drones.

        Her Majesty deserves better. How about we start an alternative Big Jubilee Read for people who prefer fantastic stories to lectures in post-colonial guilt? A list that’s fit for a queen.

        I’ll begin by nominating Jilly Cooper because QE2 does like an alpha male in jodhpurs. What are the books you love that define 70 years of the Platinum Jubilee? Let us know in the comments section below… “

    3. Unlike the official list, I have heard of all the authors you name, even if I haven’t read all of them in contrast to the official selection, most of whom I had never heard of, though I will admit to having read one of the books on the list.

  24. Good Moaning.
    Allison Pearson in the DT.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/20/judge-first-justin-welbybefore-preaching-rest-us/

    “Judge yourself first, Justin Welby, before preaching to the rest of us

    The Archbishop of Canterbury has denounced the plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, but he should look to Britain’s own problems first

    Allison Pearson20 April 2022 • 5:00am

    One of my vivid memories of lockdown is of homeless veterans, who normally slept rough, being given a place to stay in a hotel. Some marvellous volunteers emailed me to say that the men received a pitiful daily allowance. Nonetheless, they were tearfully grateful for the food they were given, and beyond thrilled to have hot water to shower in, and clean sheets. (Clean sheets may be one of the small pleasures that unite all mankind.)

    When I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury using his Easter sermon to denounce the plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda – “the principle must stand the judgment of God, and it cannot,” he warned – I wondered if that reliably clueless cleric was aware that our veterans were tipped back onto the streets once lockdown was over. Their hotel rooms were taken by thousands of men (the vast majority of the 37,000 asylum seekers in the UK are fit young males) who crossed the Channel after paying up to £7,000 each for their passage. Does Justin Welby know that around £5 million of taxpayers’ money is spent every day paying the bill for those 37,000, meaning hotel accommodation is in short supply? Like Mary and Joseph, the poorest Britons are informed there is no room at the (Holiday) Inn.

    Most people – Godless heathens, the lot of us! – would prefer that £1.8 billion be spent on housing veterans, people who served their country before falling into destitution, or helping struggling youngsters find an affordable place to live.

    What the archbishop can’t seem to get his head around is this: the British believe in queuing. We don’t approve of those who pay wicked people smugglers so they can jump the asylum queue while Christian families, persecuted in the Middle East for their faith, languish in sprawling refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey. Oh, and by the way, why is the Church of England less concerned for Christian women and children with nothing than it is for young Somalian males with smartphones?

    The latest poll reveals the huge disconnect between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the fast-dwindling congregation of the C of E. Some 47 per cent of people support Priti Patel’s Rwanda deal, with 26 per cent opposing. Even Labour voters narrowly support the Government’s plan. A majority of us think that those who enter the UK by illegal means should be unable to claim asylum “if they pass through a safe country, or have a connection to a safe country”. A resounding 64 per cent think it’s right to remove people who are deemed inadmissible as asylum seekers “into the asylum system of another safe country”.

    Unlike Justin Welby, I don’t believe these views indicate a lack of charity. On the contrary, they suggest that people really care about fairness and loving their neighbour. Sometimes, loving your neighbour means protecting borders so that overstretched public services don’t snap altogether.

    As a sometime Sunday school teacher, I wouldn’t dream of trading scriptural quotations with England’s leading prelate. So let me just observe that the archbishop who uses his pulpit to stage holier-than-thou political interventions and castigate Conservatives for being immoral is the same priest who closed the churches with indecent haste at the start of lockdown before taking a sabbatical at his house in France.

    I was, and I remain, deeply shocked that, at a time of incalculable national suffering, church doors were barred to the scared, the lonely and the grief-stricken. Would Jesus Christ have meekly acquiesced before a secular law that put the most sacred places of sanctuary and spiritual consolation out of bounds?

    The man who made that historic misjudgment has much to rebuke himself for. “The principle must stand the judgement of God, and it cannot.”

    1. Spot on and will be ignored by Welby as usual.
      I suspect most people who are still going to church are only doing so in the hope that things will improve once he’s gone.
      If we still have a Church after Welby’s finished his destruction.

      The woke are really gunning for the countryside now, with their plan to close churches and pay farmers to leave the business – to be replaced by die-versity, no doubt.

      1. I wonder how many Archbishops of Canterbury have been assassinated since 29th December 1170?

          1. Simon of Sudbury, 1381. I doubt any self-respecting church would want to harbour Welby’s head.
            Time the peasants became seriously revolting as the House of Windsor doesn’t seem to have passed on their early Plantagenet genes.

          4. And he put out his right hand to burn first as it had signed the document where he recanted his Protestant religion.

      2. I have no idea of the degree of autonomy of individual parish churches.
        Belonging to the CoE seems to involve ever increasing costs to support a remote, unsympathetic and expanding bureaucracy.
        Are they able to cede from the CoE and stand on their own feet?

        2. I don’t think so, and that is the problem. The CoE owns the assets. The law is very convoluted, and Welby is trying to push through new laws at the moment, to make it possible for the management to sell off churches without the parish having any say at all. Of course, fat profits from selling all that lovely development land won’t go back to the parishes, who might use it to build a new church. The problem is that land is now too expensive, which makes it very tempting.
          Save the Parish got a few people elected to the Synod to try and resist this calculated dismantling of the C of E grass roots.

          1. I thought all the old vicarages and glebelands were sold off years ago? They will be selling the churches next or turning them into mosques.

          2. Selling the churches is their next goal. Save the Parish is an organisation set up to try and stop it.

      1. All 12 of us thought it excellent, Bill, and gave it a “Thumbs Up” vote. Some people on the film website IMDb on the other hand had mixed feelings because they thought the vying for the affection of the young woman (Jean) by Ewen and Charles (main Army and Air Force leaders of the false information team) detracted from the main story. I personally thought that the personal interactions and back stories of these characters added to the interest of the film. The director, John Madden, incidentally, was the man who directed both of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films.

        1. Thank you. I might risk recording it when it comes on telly!

          There was none of the “vying” malarkey in Ewen Montagu’s book…!!

  27. Adverting to my comment yesterday about those who “wind up” slammers are always blamed for the murder, stabbing and bombing that the slammers carry out….

    An additional cause for depression is that not only are the winder-uppers castigated for being “provocative” – but slammers who parade in large numbers making blood-thirsty threats against ordinary people are allowed to “exercise their right to demonstrate”. Those bastards are NOT see as “provocative”.

    It is the one sidedness that gets me.

    Sorry to put a damper on the day.

        1. Good thing King bat man, that could be another aspect to ‘seeking asylum’. Shame we pulled them all down and built new houses on the land.

    2. Good morning all, and Mr Thomas.
      The eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases, or the ICD-11, contains a re-classification of some mental illnesses. It will gradually be adopted by members of the World Health Organisation.

  29. Judge yourself first, Justin Welby, before preaching to the rest of us
    The Archbishop of Canterbury has denounced the plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, but he should look to Britain’s own problems first

    Allison Pearson : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/20/judge-first-justin-welbybefore-preaching-rest-us/ and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/19/harry-meghan-must-not-allowed-overshadow-queens-jubilee/

    Allison is on good form today: bang on target on both the odious Prince Harry and the despicable Justin Welby.

    There was a discussion of Welby’s Easter address yesterday evening on GB News. A point that was made was that the appointment of the Archbishop was a political one (and I have no illusions that the atheist Cameron’s reasons for appointing Welby were to destroy the CofE from within) because of the Bishops sitting in the House of Lords and the fact that the Queen is the Head of the Church and for this reason Welby had every right to make political points.

    One might, at a pinch, just accept this argument that Welby should be able to express his political points of view in the House of Lords but not from the pulpit in Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian calendar when Christ resurrected from the dead and when the message should be one of joy and hope.

    About 2000 years ago a young man was asked whether one should pay taxes and homage to the Romans. This young man had infinitely more wisdom and Godliness than the deplorable Welby when he replied : “Render under Caesar the things that be Caesar’s and unto God the things that be God’s.”

    Chaucer described priests like Welby very succinctly : a “shitten” shepherd should not be leading a flock.

    1. Isn’t it typical in this country that all those who consider themselves as the Hierarchy who will not be affected by the settlement of thousands of illegal migrants in the UK are supportive of them, but appear to hate especially ‘the indigenous’, any one who objects to the appropriation of green belt and other established areas of countryside that is slowly but surely being used to house them. But at the same time purport to be ‘green’ themselves.

    2. Messrs Welby, Cameron, Johnson & the Duke of Sussex all passed through the same educational establishment.

      1. As did very many thoroughly bad eggs.

        On the other hand so did Douglas Murray and my best friend during childhood who became the best man at my wedding. Joe is a thoroughly good egg – and was a naval officer and still is a gentleman.

    3. Messrs Welby, Cameron, Johnson & the Duke of Sussex all passed through the same educational establishment.

  30. Judge yourself first, Justin Welby, before preaching to the rest of us
    The Archbishop of Canterbury has denounced the plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, but he should look to Britain’s own problems first

    Allison Pearson : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/20/judge-first-justin-welbybefore-preaching-rest-us/ and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/19/harry-meghan-must-not-allowed-overshadow-queens-jubilee/

    Allison is on good form today: bang on target on both the odious Prince Harry and the despicable Justin Welby.

    There was a discussion of Welby’s Easter address yesterday evening on GB News. A point that was made was that the appointment of the Archbishop was a political one (and I have no illusions that the atheist Cameron’s reasons for appointing Welby were to destroy the CofE from within) because of the Bishops sitting in the House of Lords and the fact that the Queen is the Head of the Church and for this reason Welby had every right to make political points.

    One might accept this argument and Welby should be able to express his political points of view in the House of Lords but not from the pulpit in Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian calendar when Christ resurrected from the dead.

    About 2000 years ago a young man was asked whether one should pay taxes and homage to the Romans. This young man had infinitely more wisdom than the deplorable Welby when he replied : “Render under Caesar the things that be Caesar’s and unto God the things that be God’s.”

    Chaucer described priests like Welby very succinctly : a “shitten” shepherd should not be leading a flock.

  31. Judge yourself first, Justin Welby, before preaching to the rest of us
    The Archbishop of Canterbury has denounced the plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda, but he should look to Britain’s own problems first

    Allison Pearson : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/20/judge-first-justin-welbybefore-preaching-rest-us/ and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/04/19/harry-meghan-must-not-allowed-overshadow-queens-jubilee/

    Allison is on good form today: bang on target on both the odious Prince Harry and the despicable Justin Welby.

    There was a discussion of Welby’s Easter address yesterday evening on GB News. A point that was made was that the appointment of the Archbishop was a political one (and I have no illusions that the atheist Cameron’s reasons for appointing Welby were to destroy the CofE from within) because of the Bishops sitting in the House of Lords and the fact that the Queen is the Head of the Church and for this reason Welby had every right to make political points.

    One might accept this argument and Welby should be able to express his political points of view in the House of Lords but not from the pulpit in Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian calendar when Christ resurrected from the dead.

    About 2000 years ago a young man was asked whether one should pay taxes and homage to the Romans. This young man had infinitely more wisdom than the deplorable Welby when he replied : “Render under Caesar the things that be Caesar’s and unto God the things that be God’s.”

    Chaucer described priests like Welby very succinctly : a “shitten” shepherd should not be leading a flock.

    1. Virgin Media have been slowly but surely increasing our cost over the past twelve months i have spent hours trying to contact them and get a reasonable answer why but to no avail. IMHO they way the act is quite deliberately set up to cause as much frustration and annoyance as possible. Therefore as i eventually do, I give up. I’m going to type a letter and post it to Head office. I just hope there is some one working there who can actually read.

      1. Tell them if they don’t lower the cost to you you will go elsewhere. They normally do a deal. That’s providing you can get hold of them.

    2. Its easy to join Sky, I have their telly. But getting rid of them is the devil’s own job.

      1. Surely when the contract ends one can politely inform that the direct debit will be cancelled?

        1. I think the contract is a month’s notice, but I have often tied into a fixed term price/time contract, when that expires you go back to full price. You can not cancel online, their excuse being that they have to check its actually the account holder making changes. However, you then get the hi pressure sales team on the line. I actually like their offering but I hate having to bargin with them every 18 months or so to get a deal. I could just pay up of course but I recon 30 mins of my time is well spent if it nets £100 or so off the bill for the year.

    3. I have to wonder why I’m paying for that. It’s typically the wrong way around. Cut waste on what we don’t want, remove the subsidy and cut taxes. That way it becomes cheaper for everyone.

  33. Recommend…

    ‘War on the West’ by Douglas Murray – the most important book of the year.

    Serialised in the Daily Mail this week.

    1. And in brackets (by the west).
      Perhaps people like DA and others mentioned in that excellent piece in the Mail should carry a tin of white paint and touch up any images they are uncomfortable with don’t like, or even on very rare occasions might agree with. Remembering just because they choose to live here it certainly does not mean they are in any way obliged to stay in the UK. They could always emigrate seeing how attractive and easy it seems to be and easily able to do. Perhaps they might assist in putting other countries in order which there are plenty of and many desperately need their expert advice.

    1. If the cost of wind hasn’t increased in the past 6 months i don’t quite understand why electricity prices have also increased.

      1. You would have thought renewables would have at least moderated the price rises. Surely it can’t all be a scam..

        2. Nope, they’re fixed. Deliberately. No interest in reducing the ROC costs, the market rigging, or the taxes on nuclear, coal and gas.

          Folk say that gas energy is expensive compared to wind. Well, it is because the state adds a massive lump of tax to it and fixes the price of wind. Without this market rigging – which is what it is – gas would be peanuts and wind wouldn’t sell.

        1. One of my nephews lives in the north Pennines and has a wind generator along side his house. It cost around twenty thousand to purchase and install. He also supplies enough for his neighbour and his electricity supplier is supposed to reimburse him for excessive energy he produces. But of course the supplier tried to rip him off, so he took them to court and won.

          1. The costs of which instantly went on customer bills. I just find it egregious that this mess of subsidy and discount, payments and rebates is intentionally made so complicated so as to ensure it cannot be unravelled. It’s as if desperate to punish some and reward failure, big fat state does everything possible to ruin things.

    2. We still haven’t started on the Christmas puddings. At least they’ll be mature.

          1. Does it look like a helmet like the last time?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>runs away and hides.

    2. And those are taken at very specific times….

      and I’ve just looked up different ones and oh my skies it’s true!

      1. Nigella also likes the odd snort of Charlie. Good for keeping the weight off apparently.

  39. Old news , but currently being aired on GBnews.

    Greene King will rename its Linlithgow pub, currently called The Black Bitch to The Willow Tree after the owner felt the name was racially offensive.

    However, campaigners have reacted with fury to the change, saying that the original name made no reference to race, and have added that Greene King’s founder was involved in the slave trade.

    The pub’s original name derives from a local legend of a faithful black greyhound that swam across Linlithgow Loch to take food to her incarcerated owner – the canine’s efforts led to her being incorporated in the town’s coat of arms in 1673 and immortalised in the High Street sculpture, The Black Bitch of Linlithgow.

    It was suggested locally that new name options could consider the nearby statue of drover Katie Wearie and Katie Wearie’s willow tree, which was planted originally in 1832 to mark the Reform Act in Scotland.

    As a result, Greene King settled on the Willow Tree, which itself has brought criticism.

    Greene King CEO Nick Mackenzie said: “This is a difficult balance and throughout this we have continued to highlight our respect for the history of Linlithgow. Our decision is not meant to diminish or denigrate the heritage of the town but at the same time we recognise that language has changed and the name can be extremely offensive to people.

    “We’re pleased therefore to be instead changing it to The Willow Tree, which retains links to the town’s heritage, and look forward to this next chapter of the pub’s history.”

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/black-bitch-pub-name-changed-revealed-after-row-3552906

    But critics say that Green King’s founder, Benjamin Greene, was opposed to the Reform Act.

    1. Why oh why can’t people stop meddling and rewriting history? What next? The Black Death being renamed as a slightly nasty bug. Or would that be an insult to insects. The more people give in to this BS, the worse it’s going to get. I won’t pander to it.
      Now I will continue reading my book Slightly Dark Horse.
      Grrrr.

      1. Folk all to quickly forget that Winston Smith’s job was to re-write history to fit the party narrative. 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a guidebook.

        2. I made the point many years ago that one Blair wrote Nineteen Eighty Four as a warning and another Blair was using it as an instruction manual.

          Of course I read all Orwell’s novels and essays when I was a young man and I also read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. (The title of which was borrowed from Prospero’s daughter Miranda).

          When we were home-schooling our boys we made sure that both of them read these and we looked at a video production of The Tempest with the marvellous Michael Hordern in the principal role.

        3. I made the point many years ago that one Blair wrote Nineteen Eighty Four as a warning and another Blair was using it as an instruction manual.

          Of course I read all Orwell’s novels and essays when I was a young man and I also read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. (The title of which was borrowed from Prospero’s daughter Miranda).

          When we were home-schooling our boys we made sure that both of them read these and we looked at a video production of The Tempest with the marvellous Michael Hordern in the principal role.

    3. I know it well! It’s a great pub, and the locals are absolutely furious! Bleedin’ suverners!

      1. The locals will continue to call it The Black Bitch and the visitors will know no better.

    4. Greene King have been banging on about race and donating to black & ethnic communities for a couple of years. They had a couple of pubs called The Black Boy, supposedly named after Charles II who had black hair – these have also been renamed. I used to enjoy a pint of Abbot, but not these days.

  40. Why are we doing a free-trade deal with India’s Putin-loving prime minister? 20 April 2022.

    And yet all the UK Prime Minister’s spokesman can say ahead of the visit is “we do not think that pointing fingers or shouting from the sidelines are effective ways of engaging with a democratically elected country”.

    Really? Since the war in Ukraine broke out, India has substantially increased its imports of Russian oil, putting its own commercial interests above all else; contracts for March and April alone have already reached 14m barrels, according to data compiled by Kpler, or more than was imported from Russia for the whole of last year.

    India is buying what is even without sanctions the cheapest oil on the planet and will continue to be so. We and the rest of the West have decided to go for the second cheapest. Guess who’s going to come out of this better off?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/20/free-trade-deal-indias-putin-loving-prime-minister/

    1. India is trying to maintain good relations with both sides, so of course they’re “Putin-loving” if you’re standing on the extreme.

      Aside from Ukraine, I hope they stand together with Russia for financial sanity and not slavery.

  42. https://facts4eu.org/news/2022_apr_globalist_hypocrisy?fbclid=IwAR2DJk2Pc_lcGuGTWyQK8-k-JPSybnrXfDZxfs8a75j3r4WImMPFirLlkio#

    Hypocrisy of open border globalists knows no bounds

    As
    critics – including the UNHCR – attack Johnson and Patel for planning
    to use Rwanda to house illegal migrants, the hypocrisy of globalists
    just keeps growing. It transpires that the United Nations High
    Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has itself used Rwanda and Niger to
    house refugees.

  43. BREAKING NEWS: Wimbledon BAN Russian and Belarusian players from the Championships over the invasion of Ukraine… with men’s world No 2 Daniil Medvedev and Aryna Sabalenka among FIVE of the sport’s top 40 stars shut out
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10734475/Wimbledon-BAN-Russian-Belarusian-players-competing-year.html

    Am I alone in thinking (as the cliché goes!) that this is reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany when Jews were ostracised and then sent to the gas chambers for no other reason than that they were Jews?

      1. Maybe we need guidance from somebody with the wisdom and intellect of the Archbishop of Canterbury as to what is a cardinal sin and what is a venal sin.

        Being unjabbed, being Russian, being a white middle aged Conservative male are all cardinal and mortal sins but saying that women do not have penises is probably a venal sin because we can, with God’s guidance, come to accept that this is a misconception about what a woman is. Another venal sin is persisting in the misconception that men cannot conceive.

          1. The old joke was the pun involving the girl who said: “Why I am so popular I can’t conceive.”

            When I was sailing at UEA the Essex University sailing team named the boats in the dinghy fleet:

            Miss Take, Miss Apprehension, Miss Conception, Miss Demeanour, Miss Oginy and Miss Carriage.

          2. Someone I used to sail against had a series of boats with “myth” in the name – his towing trailer was called “mythcarriage”

    1. Went out yesterday and this morning. Beautiful (almost) full moon on first morning – no stars apparent. Hazy sky with planets and moon barely visible today. Might try again tomorrow – depends on what time I need the píssoir.

  46. A Taiwan news station issued alerts that the port at Taipei has been hit by Chinese guided missiles.
    Many ships hit and on fire.
    Except it didn’t happen.
    Headless chicken time.

  49. Anyone know what a trebuchet is?

    I know it’s a long shot.

    I’ll get me coat of armour…

    3. Not only does it come out, but it’s unimpeded by the mask that she insisted everyone else should wear at the time!

    1. Yet I don’t care. Politicians lie as easily as breathing. It’s in their nature. They lie because telling the truth would expose incompetence, failure, leading to losing their jobs because the media leap on any issue and blow it out of proportion. The public, because they don’t understand the bigger picture or the facts swallow what the press tell them.

      The bigger issues are inflation, caused by taxation, debt, caused by waste, fuel costs, caused by taxation, food costs, caused by taxation, the evaporating wealth and widening wealth gap, caused by, yes, taxation.

  54. Johnathon said he was having surgery today. Would anyone know if he had someone to look after Catticus, his cat? Hopefully all is OK and organised.

    1. Then I am ancient. After feeding our friend’s pets and having a roll for lunch I fell asleep. After that I attempted to get quotes for the kitchen and goggled at the eye watering sums.

      After that I tried to go back to work and just can’t concentrate. I’m also having a tooth extracted this evening, which means mother in law is looking after Mongo and Junior.

      The last time MIL ‘babysat’ , for the Easter ball, we found Junior abed (as I’d told him he was in charge and to scoot off at 10 – having a stay up if he wanted), Mongo not having any water and MIL drunk and asleep on the couch.

      1. It could have been worse – Mongo could have been drunk and asleep on the couch 🙂

  56. Banning Russian players from Wimbledon will backfire. 20 April 2022.

    Expelling Russians from international tournaments and western cultural institutions has swiftly become widespread. But this will be the first time Wimbledon has banned specific countries since the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. South African players were allowed to compete during Apartheid. Why are so many western institutions gripped today by the delusion that banning tennis players or footballers or pianists is what is needed to change the course of a war or topple a despotic regime? There is something absurd as well as mean-spirited about these boycotts.

    But they are worse than cruel and pointless. They burnish Putin’s narrative – that the West doesn’t so much support the Ukrainians as it loathes the Russians, and that the supposedly liberal West is hypocritical and full of it. If Wimbledon and the UK government were setting out to prove him right, then mission accomplished.

    Don’t forget stealing their money and private property. It’s quite clear that this is really a money-grabbing witch hunt! Unable to get at their prime object they are laying waste to the innocent bystanders. If the Russians ever had any doubts that the West is unremittingly hostile to both them and their country they’ve had ample evidence in the last six weeks to learn differently. This isn’t really about Ukraine. That’s just an excuse. What they wish to do is destroy the Russian Federation and what is called Putinism. They would quite happily see Ukraine destroyed if they could achieve that!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/banning-russian-players-from-wimbledon-will-backfire

      1. Football does – but when they meet they end up screaming in pain, clutching their extremities and cartwheeling all over the pitch.

  57. Banning Russian players from Wimbledon will backfire. 20 April 2022.

    Expelling Russians from international tournaments and western cultural institutions has swiftly become widespread. But this will be the first time Wimbledon has banned specific countries since the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. South African players were allowed to compete during Apartheid. Why are so many western institutions gripped today by the delusion that banning tennis players or footballers or pianists is what is needed to change the course of a war or topple a despotic regime? There is something absurd as well as mean-spirited about these boycotts.

    But they are worse than cruel and pointless. They burnish Putin’s narrative – that the West doesn’t so much support the Ukrainians as it loathes the Russians, and that the supposedly liberal West is hypocritical and full of it. If Wimbledon and the UK government were setting out to prove him right, then mission accomplished.

    Don’t forget stealing their money and private property. It’s quite clear that this is really a money-grabbing witch hunt! Unable to get at their prime object they are laying waste to the innocent bystanders. If the Russians ever had any doubts that the West is unremittingly hostile to both them and their country they’ve had ample evidence in the last six weeks to learn differently. This isn’t really about Ukraine. That’s just an excuse. What they wish to do is destroy the Russian Federation and what is called Putinism. They would quite happily see Ukraine destroyed if they could achieve that!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/banning-russian-players-from-wimbledon-will-backfire

  58. Little question for any legal experts around:

    Toilet paper has been so reduced in thickness and quality, disguised by embossing that pattern so that normal people wouldn’t notice, that even three sheets folded together do not do the job intended for them without coming apart in my fingers. When wetted, they reduce to the size of a hazelnut, they contain so little paper.

    How does one go about producing the evidence in court when embarking on an unfair trading claim?

    1. Hang on. Which is it? MPs trying to get rid of Boris or the blob assaulting the public?

      Arguably it’s both, but hey ho.

      2. 352102+ up ticks,
        Evening W,
        On this occasion I do believe that the johnson chap is fighting on two fronts
        the herd & the MPs.
        The herds attention span is about 20 minutes so he is safe there, anyway it is an internal struggle the peoples never enter the equation until just prior to a general election.

    1. Effing Five for me, sweetie … x

      Wordle 305 5/6

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

      2. Back on song today with a lucky three.
        Wordle 305 3/6

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

    3. Still floundering. 5 today.
      Wordle 305 5/6

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

    1. There is a confusion amongst Lefties that when an individual cancels their subscription that they are ‘cancelling’ Netflix.

      No, they’ve made a decision to not pay for it. They’re not trying to control Netflix, they’re taking responsibility and changing *themselves*, not demanding that Netflix changes to suit them. Lefties can’t seem to grasp the difference.

  62. We’re trapped in Tony Blair’s university nightmare
    The 50 per cent higher education target has been a disaster. Now the ex-PM wants it to be 70 per cent

    Madeline Grant : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/20/trapped-tony-blairs-university-nightmare/

    Blair’s aim is to wreck as many lives as he can by impoverishing people in order to please Klaus Schwab. The scheme proposed by this BTLiner might set some young people free if people with available liquid funds adopted it.

    BTL
    Our son’s fiancée is studying for a Ph.D and as you can imagine years of study have left her with a growing students’ loan debt because the system set up by the disgusting government is disgraceful and is nothing short of unmitigated theft.

    We are thinking of proposing a scheme to our lawyer to see if we can fix up a private personal loan for her on which we shall charge interest at 1½ % above the BoE base rate. This will give us a better rate of interest than a bank deposit account gives us and will allow her to pay back some of the balance and get herself out of debt more quickly.

    1. In the meantime we have a serious shortage of plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen. Not that government is only at fault on this, our trades have strict controls over apprentice to qualified worker ratios and that slows any attempt to increase the workforce.

      This degrees for everyone concept is foolish, the children of several acquaintances have all taken university courses and are now back at home enjoying well paying jobs where their degrees have absolutely no relevance – happy for now but I wonder about how they will feel in thirty years. The only exception is one young man who travelled for a few years and trained as a chef, he now runs his own restaurant.

    2. Student loans are unfair in that they accumulate. If we’re going to charge them, then the interest rate should be fixed and up front. You start paying it back at X% a year, can overpay, stop payments for unemployment and so forth.

      1. And students should be allowed to charge repayment of the outstanding capital balance against their income tax and employers should be allowed to repay their employees’ student loans as a charge against their company taxes.

        We need to get young people out of debt as quickly as possible and we need to give them as much help as we can. To keep young people imprisoned by unrepayable debt until they are in their 50s strikes me as nothing short of criminal.

        As I have argued before the NUS – (National Union of Students) – is useless. Instead of playing politics it should actually try and help students with financial matters and prevent politicians imposing the sort of loan scheme they have imposed.

  64. One must feel sadness for the family and their loss.
    This seems to be happening more and more.
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/girl-dies-putney-leisure-centre-cardiac-arrest-unexplained-metropolitan-police-b995087.html?itm_source=Internal&itm_channel=homepage_trending_article_component&itm_campaign=trending_section&itm_content=1

    And the scientists are claiming the mRNA vaccines have the potential to cure heart disease and cancer.
    Does this suggest that the fact it might be causing them that with small tweaks they can cure them.
    Well, lab rats, do you trust them?

    1. If only the men of “science” would have the guts to say – “We are uncertain. We thought it would be a miracle cure – but we now have doubts. On balance, it probably saved more lives than otherwise.”

      Personally, I would respect such a comment.

      Some hopes, of course……….

      2. They knew perfectly well before they ever gave out the vaccines how many people were likely to be injured or die, and that it wouldn’t be successful in preventing any viral infection. They had the test results, remember.
        But they have been researching gene therapy for so long now that they needed a return on their investment.

      3. We have created a society where it is no longer possible to admit that one made a mistake.
        You will be:
        Cancelled
        Sued
        Ostracised
        And all the things you did that were right will be forgotten

        2. Which is why I am wary talking about Trump, the 2020 US “election”, Joe Biden, Dominic Cummings, Covid-19, HS2, global warming, our world-beating NHS, the situation in Ukraine, Putin, etc. etc. I’m for an easy life these days, I am.

    1. Mental ishoos? Family can’t believe it? Always had a smile… Yawns – once again.

      1. I’m hoping one of them gets through with a bomb and destroys the houses of parliament. But that’s only because i am nice.
        I would slow roast them over coals for a month.

        Which reminds me. Shoulder of lamb Kleftico style tonight.

  66. HAPPY HOUR – NoTTlers …..Name that tune….(tunes).

    The power of music.
    Our Dementia Choir, with Vicky McClure, shortly to be shown on BBC1.

    A million people in the UK are expected to be living with dementia by 2025. While there is no cure, there’s growing evidence that music can help ameliorate symptoms such as depression and agitation.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48124591

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg

    Come up and see me… make me smile
    Oh, or do what you want, running wild
    Cockney Rebel

          2. Take a walk on the wild side.

            “She would never lose her head … even when she was giving head …”

    2. I went to see Carl Palmer (last remaining member of ELP!) last night, in Kinross. It’s the 50th anniversary tour of ELP (delayed by lockdown for 2 years!) and he and the band were fantastic! The music of my youth and I was at the recording of Pictures at an Exhibition at the City Hall, Newcastle in 1971! Gawd I felt old! But absolutely elated – and the years just fell away! He’s 72, and still plays drums like a madman! I loved it!!

    1. Happened to start today’s Wordle with one of Brenda’s dogs mentioned above and got it in two. Wot luck! Bet that won’t happen again.

  68. “The Duke of Sussex has claimed the Queen tells him things she “can’t talk about with anybody else”, as he vowed to protect her from unspecified harm ahead of her Platinum Jubilee. The Duke, billed as the “Queen’s closest confidant” in his latest American television interview, said he is “making sure” his grandmother is “protected” and has “got the right people around her” as she turns 96 this week.”

    Gosh – isn’t The Queen really lucky to have such a pal?

      1. Yes, dear, I know that…. That’s why she is so lucky to have Brash as her closest confidant….

          3. And she’s been opening her stupid mouth recently! Does nobody have any integrity nowadays?

        2. “With friends like that, who needs enemies.”

          “I can look after my enemies but God protect me from my friends”

          [attr. Al Capone]

      3. Indeed she does. I shall be flying the union flag. Then it’s St George’s Day on Sat, so I’ll be swapping it for the St George’s version.

    2. Just when you think this nasty, whingeing little twerp can’t possibly get shittier than he already is he proves you wrong and becomes even shittier.

      1. Given that the most likely candidate would be the Queen’s Duke asking about the colour of the baby given his sense of humour i don’t believe for a moment anything that emanates from Mr and Mrs Markle.

        1. I cannot see what is wrong with wondering what colour a baby will be when the parents have different backgrounds. Nothing racist in such speculation at all.

          Caroline and I both have blue eyes and we had fair hair when we were children so we wondered what our children would be like given the fact that she is Dutch and I am English and she is a Roman Catholic while I am an Anglican. We were not surprised when this was the result:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e19eba3dbf0f402c692dec19ee7f751c581a9016b785c5fc1717f57d38ecee22.jpg

          1. Genes can jump a generation or two as i am sure you are aware. Lovely family, Rastus. I do hope you are not still that fat ! :@)

          2. I owe my sweet temperament to the fact that I have a lovely wife who is an excellent cook and that the plumper members of my family seem to live longer lives than the skinnier ones.

            I am completely unlike Shakespeare’s Cassius and would have been a favourite of Julius Caesar who, if the bard is correct, preferred those with a fuller figure

          4. “Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”

            [Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene I]

          5. I’m more of the traitor’s mindset:
            “I had as lief not be as live to be
            In awe of such a thing as I myself”
            etc….
            Act 1 scene 2

          9. Our girls were pregnant at the same time, elder daughter with their second and younger one with twin boys. The elder ones husband, the farmer, would have liked a boy but they decided not to find out the sex. He suggested during a family get-together, that if they had another girl prhaps they could do a swap with one of the twins! Given that Simon is black, we thought someone might notice the difference! I expect we’d all be prosecuted for laughing about it! Hurty stuff and all?

          10. The Scottish ginger brillo pad gene runs strongly in MB’s family. We certainly speculated – with some trepidation.
            One ‘boy’ looks like Dad, the other bears a strong resemblance to my family – especially his uncle.

    3. Ensuring the right people around her! I thought that’s why he got only 15 minutes, he got turfed out..

    4. “The Duke of Sussex has claimed the Queen tells him things she “can’t talk about with anybody else”.

      Yeah, right.

          1. Less politely:
            “Ginger meets minger anagram of himself and lies happily ever after”?

    5. “Harry, if only your father had stayed in the Life Guards instead of dipping in the pool”

  69. That’s me for today. Nice and sunny but a very chilly edge to the strong easterly wind.

    Have a jolly evening doing something nice – like drinking.

    Market tomorrow.

    A demain.

    2. My GP said i should cut down on my drinking. Seeing as she hasn’t bothered to follow up on the multitude of procedures and tests…i ignored her advice and increased it. Cheers !

      1. To be honest, a few glasses of plonk is all that deadens the pain on my mush. So forget giving it up. I don’t smoke, I don’t over eat and I am, mainly, well behaved. So if some vino is my serious vice- long may it continue.

          1. Indeed! Although some are trying to cast doubt on my impeccable character;-))

        6. If it’s good enough for W.C!! 😉

          Churchill’s affinity for drinking dated back to when he was a 25-year-old correspondent covering the Boer War for the Morning Post in 1899. When he was sent out to the front line, he took 36 bottles of wine, 18 bottles of aged scotch, and six bottles of vintage brandy with him.
          He was 90 when he passed away.

          1. Yes, I know he was a dedicated drinker and why not. Honestly Andrew, until I get this thing removed it’s the only option. I don’t like pills or strong spirits. Just hope it ain’t too long.

          2. Hang in there, at least you know what it is and that eventually all will get sorted.
            I know it’s easy for me to say, as I’m not in your position, but keep the home fires burning.

          3. I shall- as the Plantagenet motto says : It is as it is.
            Anyway, by the time the little monsters go tomorrow we will both sleep like logs 🙂

    3. I am about to log off and watch a Judi Dench film (THE LAST OF THE BLONDE BEMBSHELLS). Tomorrow I am expecting delivery of IRIS (which I have never seen) and RED JOAN (which I saw with the Wrinklies a few years ago). So good night, everyone.

        1. I think it was you who recommended IRIS to me on the NoTTL site, wasn’t it M’Lady?

          1. Yes. Another good one is The Wedding Gift, I think, with Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent- again I think. Been a long time since I’ve seen it but it’s another poignant relationship story.

    1. The Tories aren’t exactly helping to keep Labour out of power, are they? Open borders to anyone except white Ukrainians, for example.

    2. Yes, we need to get shot of such people but she’s Labour/ They’re financially incompetent and utterly uninterested in reality. Comically they think that there will be no consequences for destroying the group that pays all the bills.

  72. Every day there are further announcements of arms, aircraft, spare parts, missiles, military vehicles and ammunition being sent to the Ukraine by the USA and the countries* of Europe.
    An impartial observer might think that we were de facto at war with Russia, and that we were not trying to bring the conflict to a mutually acceptable and speedy end. Such an observer might think we were not trying to bring about an end that did not destroy the economies of the West and did not reduce the peoples of the West to penury. This is madness.

    *Norway! Blooming’ Norway!
    https://www.thelocal.no/20220420/norway-sends-ukraine-100-anti-air-missiles/

    1. It is madness for the West to fuel the dispute between Russia and Zelensky. This simply pushes Putin even further towards China. That is the real danger to the West.

      Oddly enough the only British politician who has spoken sense on this dispute has been Jeremy Corbyn. This serves to show just how far we have fallen with the dolt Johnson in charge and supported by his cabal of useless halfwits.

      The sooner Zelensky is silenced and sensible negotiations between Putin and other more legitimate experienced Ukrainian politicians resume the better for all.

      1. I noticed Jeremy C was saying that NATO needed to be disbanded for peace. I’d prefer just for us to leave and let them get on with it.

        1. Being in mutual defence pacts has never done us any good. We are in just such a pact with Turkey. We should leave NATO now, and not stand on the order of our going, either.

  73. Evening all. Not at work today so it being nice and sunny, I went down to Brighton for the day. Just £23 return, as my Freedom Pass covers the 6 x London zones. Mind, the urban sprawl seems to be spreading ever further.

    Anyway, topped up my vitamin D and went to pay homage to Angelica Kauffman. The Museum & Art Gallery has three fine examples of her work. The Royal Pavilion is looking rather sad and sorry for itself but is apparently soon to be encased in scaffolding for some rescue work. It would be a shame to let the exterior deteriorate, though I do agree with Queen Victoria. The interior is hideous. One could almost believe Carrie Johnson had a hand in the decorating.

    On the train coming home, there was a woman in my carriage who is apparently standing as a Conservative candidate in the elections next month. She was relating to her companion her canvassing experiences. I gathered that she really does believe her party is conservative.

    2. Brighton ! I hope you went with someone of your preferred gender !
      The last time i was on Brighton beach i was photographed in full leathers. I kid you not.

      1. I’ve only ever been there once. I drove down from Chesterfield to collect a prisoner who was wanted by my force. I was in the town less than an hour before we were driving back home again.

        1. I was there for a Harley bike meet. If one looks hard enough one can find criminals everywhere.

    3. Much depends on what concept of conservative they use. Most don’t have a clue what it means.

    4. As with so much of the work of John Nash the Royal Pavilion was Jerry-built.

      In around 1982 I visited the Bath Stone quarry at Combe Down in Bath to select stone for the facade of Richmond House in Whitehall. Whilst there I visited some sheds set up on the site where skilled stonemasons were forming and carving hard Bath Stone facsimiles of the minarets of Brighton Pavilion.

      The original minarets were constructed using rendered brickwork with an iron bar up the middle. These were duly replaced with more durable solid stone won from the hard stone base bed.

      The quarry, the site of a previous mine but now opencast, used the efficient French method of extraction. They used long pillar-mounted machine saws to cut vertical grooves in the stone bed from above then inserted ‘Vetter Bags’ which were basically flat reinforced fabric pillows in the grooves. The ‘Vetter Bags’ were then inflated using
      compressed air and served to dislodge the stone block from its bed. The stone blocks were then lifted using traditional Lewis pins.

    5. I bet you that your ear-wigging gave you a good laugh on your journey home, Sue E.

    1. And let’s not forget that they all went into meltdown when Elon Musk was correctly referred to as an African American!

      1. How should I be described as a white Englishman born in Africa, educated in England and living in France?

        Several of my cousins, their children and their children’s children were born and have lived in Africa all their lives. Since we now call black Americans African Americans to avoid mentioning their colour should my white cousins be described as European Africans or British Africans?

  75. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ed7d497ffe4d5b8b7b66b11367f2c43d18fddadefc1625018238c082a3cd0c3.jpg Just finished giving a coat of Danish oil to my latest creation: a bookbinding press.

    I’m not really going to be doing any bookbinding per se, but I intend to resurrect an old hobby of linocut printing; however, I needed some kind of decent press. An old mangle I have wasn’t up to the task so I built this press out of some offcuts of Douglas Fir that I had lying around the workshop.

    The next job is to clean up the mountain of shavings and sawdust that building this item created.

        1. Blimey, Mr. Grizz! That’s an impressive piece of kit! Well done and look forward to seeing some linoprints!

          1. Thanks, Mrs Macfarlane. It’s a hefty item (I made the handle from a rolling pin) but I have lots more to do in the workshop before I will get around to doing any printing. I seem to work longer hours in retirement than I ever did in any of my employments.

          2. I’ve heard a lot of retirees? say they wonder how they ever had time to work!

          4. Blimey Conners, I have done more round the house today than I have for ages; grandmonsters and parents tomorrow. Incentive is a powerful thing. Actually it wasn’t too bad just odds and sods. Anyway, they are not coming to do a house inspection but to see us!
            Plus, I have two packets of Smarties for the monsters which will used as bribery ;-))

          5. Because of my arthritis, I have a cleaner in to do the housework; she’s my “Treasure”. I agree that incentive is a powerful thing. After I retired I took on the chairmanship of various organisations to which I belong and got involved in fund-raising. It soon became the case that I started to wonder how I ever found time to work 🙂

          6. I find that I now am very careful about taking on too much in my retirement days. I like to do things which give me pleasure and not volunteer to do “extra” when asked. And I worry less about what people think of me, too.

          7. I have slimmed down what I had taken on, particularly when my family duties became more onerous. I haven’t rushed to take them back up again, but I do retain one chairmanship, which is not hard work.

          8. Elsie- never in my life have I worried about what people think of me. Like me or not- I don’t care.

          9. You are lucky, Ann. For most of my life criticism – however mild – stung me and cut me to the quick so I quickly became depressed and convinced that I was a worthless human being, in fact more like me being a miserable piece of sh1t. So I am eternally grateful that those days are now well behind me.

          13. Our friend Simon Bor in the West Country (Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon) does Lino cut printing and has a press. His work is greatly admired in our household.

          16. Thanks. I love the way he has rendered the diffused light from the wall lamp on Petty Cury.

          17. Simon and his wife Sara are both accomplished artists. They trained in Cambridge with my wife Carol, an Arts foundation course prior to university.

            They ran a successful animations company, Honeycomb Animations, and made cartoons for TV such as Tube Mice and Beastly Behaviour and several more. They hate Disney.

          18. I would have loved a formal art education. Not having had one I’ve had to pick up what I have learned, bit by bit, from here and there. I’m still enjoying the process.

          19. You may have missed a bit but for what it is worth I am essentially self taught in that I learned from association with artists and craftsmen and from my various masters in Art and Architecture with whom I worked or otherwise chanced contact.

            I have now closed my architectural practice. I argued against CPD (prescribed courses in continual practice development), often conducted by Zoom, for the reason that in my own experience, five years at two universities taught me little and most of that I necessarily dispensed with. By contrast, 45 years in practice as an architect has taught me everything I know but through my own reading and practical experience.

            We are kindred spirits. I may have the academic qualifications but these count as nought when compared with the source of my acumen. That source is primarily through practice, away from academia and founded in the complexities of the real world.

    4. Seriously impressive. I am in awe of these skills. I do not have them…never had…never will. I can only admire.

      1. Thanks, HP. I still don’t consider that I am a skilled woodworker. I’ve always been more comfortable working with steel (I’m a time-served engineering plater). Wood is so unforgiving so I have to take my time and accept there will be many mishaps.

        2. Some wood is forgiving. Lime wood is the most forgiving. Grinling Gibbons’ carved work bears testament to this fact.

          The most unforgiving wood is Bog Oak, used for carving the bosses to vaulting in Cambridge Colleges. Rattee and Kett’s joinery carvers demonstrated this fact to me in Cambridge in the early eighties.

        3. Some wood is forgiving. Lime wood is the most forgiving. Grinling Gibbons’ carved work bears testament to this fact.

          The most unforgiving wood is Bog Oak, used for carving the bosses to vaulting in Cambridge Colleges. Rattee and Kett’s joinery carvers demonstrated this fact to me in Cambridge in the early eighties.

          1. Thanks, Corim. I’ll have to research the availability of various timbers in the timberyards around here. The Americans love basswood but that is not available to me. Western red cedar, the best for outdoor signs, is also hard to come by.

  76. Evening, all. Never mind working from home – if civil servants can’t do their jobs well, they need to be sacked and replaced with people who can! On a personal note, the Connemara excelled himself today. We have been working towards doing a half pass and at the end of today’s session he finally nailed it! Yay! We also did a dressage test and would probably (it wasn’t actually scored) have been given a 62%. He secretly likes being made to think.

  79. Is there nobody left who knows that there is an R in Ireland? Another word no-one can say is sixth. I cannot recall the last time I heard that said correctly.

  80. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-riots-quran-burning-again

    In a sense, it’s impressive to never once mention that this criminality is caused solely by Muslims, and that such riots never occured until the gimmigrants moved in and turned Sweden into a toilet. No mention that the entire issue is a direct response to the disruption, criminality, violence and sexual assaults Muslims have carried out in Sweden.

    They can’t start smashing the place up because someone is burning their special fiction book. That the bloke is burning the book is a response to how muslims have behaved. This is their own fault.

    However, it’s notable that they think they can behave as they please with no consequence. That’s the nature of the creature the Left so desperately want to import: a vicious, savage bunch who think they can behave as they want with impunity.

  81. In recent months I thought I detected a slight change of tone in the BBC’s reporting of news and events. Not so on the evidence of ‘World at One’ today. The subject was the French presidential debate and you don’t need me to tell you whose side they were on (or perhaps more a case of whom they were least critical).

    The well-tried BBC tactic is to give one party an enthusiastically presented report, with plenty of interviewees who come across as engaging and optimistic – and to put them on first. The opposing view is then given in a more questioning manner, with just a hint of uncertainty, even darkness. Here, the carefully considered answer is presented as evasive and therefore untrustworthy.

    Being more nationalistic and more critical of the EU than Macron makes Le Pen the enemy of France. Yes, that’s how Hugh Schofield’s report came across – a vote for Le Pen is a vote for Russia: “Une catastrophe pour la république!” Of course, he didn’t express this view personally but merely quoted others.

    Plus ça change and all that…

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61166601

      1. On the 30th April, it will be 17 years since my last TV licence expired. £2663.50 saved. Edited.

        1. I applaud your stance and if it was only me in the household I would do the same. But I’m wary of what might happen if someone else in the family answered the door to one of the goons. I did get a visit once, notified by a card thro the door, but I was away for 3 months and had let my license lapse. It must have been a long day waiting around hoping to catch me. It particularly irritates me that I have to pay Auntie to watch the Sky package that I subscribe to.

  83. Well, I got some logs split & stacked, then got the chainsaw out & cut more logs ready for splitting.

    Used up some leftovers this afternoon and then did a couple of mini-pizzas for when the DT & S@H got in from work.
    Just finished my enhanced Lemsip and feel a bit knackered now, so just off upstairs to slather some Vick onto my chest and go to bed.
    Goodnight all.

    1. Macron’s globalist backers will rig the vote. The same people managed to get the brain dead moron Biden ‘elected’ in the States. Expect coercion, bribery, dodgy vote counting, external interference and the infamous Dominion vote counting machines to come into play.

      1. This reminds me of Weinstein, the chap who fixed the World Series in The Great Gatsby.

        The globalist team of fixers has already been to France where the referendum vote in favour of the Maastricht Treaty was clearly unreliable.

        When they could not swing the vote in the referendum on the European Constitution Treaty they just ignored the vote against it and reintroduced it as the Lisbon Treaty and offered no referendum that time.

        And is anyone convinced that when Farage stood for Parliament the vote counting was above board?

  85. MH is watching yet another Lord of the Rings movie…. Billy Connolly has just appeared and says to the assembled armies- “Why don’t you all just sod off?”
    I wish he would come and say that to our and Scotland’s useless governments!!

  87. DAN WOOTTON: Prince Harry’s cheeky spark is vanishing faster than his hair. As he trashes Charles and William and trades off the Queen in another US TV tell-all, why I’m convinced the Duke of Woke is deeply unhappy with his new life.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10736537/DAN-WOOTTON-Im-convinced-Duke-Woke-deeply-unhappy-new-life.html#comments

    Dan Wootton writes in the Daily Mail that he thinks that Prince Harry has become deeply unhappy with his new life but cannot admit it even to himself.

    His unhappiness reminds me of the lyrics of Elvis Presley’s ”Heartbreak Hotel’ in that he has gone so deeply into Lonesome Street that he “Can never, can never get back.”

    But if Harry wants sympathy he has gone about it completely the wrong way and has only harvested contempt.

      1. Reminds me of another Elvis classic: Are You Lonesome Tonight in which Shakespeare’s Jacques is called to mind :

        You know someone said that the world is a stage and each must play his part.
        Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart
        Act I was when we met, I loved you at first glance
        You read your line so cleverly and never missed your cue
        Then came Act II, you seemed to change, you acted strange and why I’ll never know
        Honey, you lied when you said you loved me and I had no cause to doubt you
        But I’d -er – rather go on hearing your lies than to go on living without you
        Now the stage is bare and I’m standing there with emptiness all around
        And if you won’t come back to me then they can bring the curtain down

      1. She is a lot like my ex. They go through life creating havoc and constantly moving on to fresh victims, discarding people who are no longer useful to them.

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